Most Secret

by John Dickson Carr

  George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham: Master of the Horse, minister without portfolio, but a very powerful minister indeed. Complacent, vain, witty, persuasive, monstrously energetic: a large-nosed and light-footed conqueror, whose brain boils with a hundred interests at once. He thinks himself a great soldier, though of scant military experience, and a great statesman, though he is nicknamed Alderman George. One day he will be working with chemistry, swearing he has discovered a means of fixing mercury; the next he will sit down and write a play to ridicule Mr. Dryden, or a set of derisive verses against the king, whom he holds in some contempt.

  In his youth this Bucks was a slender daredevil, adroit at disguise and at tweaking Puritan noses. Though brought up in the household of Charles the First, he had small liking for poverty and exile with the old king’s son. In ’57, still with a price on his head, he returned to England under Oliver’s Protectorate. To regain his confiscated estates, at least in part, he won and married the daughter of Black Tom Fairfax, that eminent Commonwealth general. Despite his father-in-law’s favour, after more escapades they clapped him into the Tower and would have executed him (he said) if Oliver had not died. But Parliament released him; and he had afterwards, or so he also declared, no small share in promoting the Restoration.

  You see him now at forty-two, surveying the King’s House as he might have surveyed the king’s domain, and turning to joke with Sir Robert Howard. You see him padded with good living: the heavy reddish face, the double chin, the magnetic eye half shut under a great brown periwig. He wears claret-coloured silk with much lace, and he gesticulates. Who overthrew Clarendon? In whose bands is Parliament as wax? Who, as unofficial chief minister, in effect rules England and directs its policies? All the cheering from the top gallery—he is popular with the mob, and knows it—all this waving of handkerchiefs by masked ladies, might to his mind give answer in one mighty shout: “You!”

  And why not? If there were any such fantastical vessel as a ship of state, then George Villiers might be pictured as captain with spyglass and master gunner too. It is the sort of double role he would enjoy. Though he hates Popery, and would allow liberty of conscience only to Protestant dissenters, he has vast admiration for the French king. He will be off to France soon. In his honour Versailles will bloom with fetes, and masques, and lighted fountains; he will be made the gift of a jewelled sword valued at twenty thousand crowns; even his mistress, Lady Shrewsbury, whom he won by killing her husband in the famous and scandalous duel at Barn Elms, will be awarded a pension of ten thousand livres a year by His Most Christian Majesty Louis the Fourteenth.

  Thus Buckingham, whom the gods love. He glances once more round the house, and with a gusty laugh sits down to await the play. My Lord Rochester has called him the sort of man who, when he goes out of a room, always leaves the door open so that he can come back in again.

  Young Rochester? He will be there, close behind in a noisy group, though at this hour he is customarily so drunk that he will be quite unable to remember it afterwards.

  “I am at no pains or trouble, gentlemen,” says John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, “to arrive at a given place. But ’tis awkward to recall whence I have just come.” And at first you may not see him amid the other wits and sparks thronging round.

  There’s Etherege, for one: affable Mr. (not yet Sir George) Etherege, the playwright, who wrote Love in a Tub and will be an ambassador one day. In far future he is to have the glory of dying for gallantry. One night in Paris, aged fifty-six, he will be lighting a lady out of his bedchamber; walking backwards and holding up the taper, he will fall downstairs and break his neck. Which is a tolerably severe punishment for devotion to good form. But he also wrote The Man of Mode, and should have been satisfied.

  There’s Charles Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, who was Nelly Gwyn’s first protector. There’s the smallish and dark-faced Sir Charles Sedley, “Little Sid.” And who’s the woman, the masked woman in the hooded cape, beside Little Sid? Is it “Chloris,” to whom he wrote the graceful song in the third act of The Mulberry Garden? Or is it “Celia,” whatever her real name may be, to whose amatory skill he has paid still higher tribute?

  Then why should I seek further store

  And still make love anew?

  When change itself can give no more,

  ’Tis easy to be true.

  Would that we could all so ingeniously salute our own Celia or Chloe!

  The Earl of Rochester is visible now, a lanky youth in a fair periwig, staggering into his box behind Lord George Orrory, and refreshing himself with a pull at a stone bottle. He stops; he stares out …

  One of the gallants in the pit has bought half a dozen oranges from Flip Jenny. This gallant tosses them to everybody within reach, and then draws the orange girl down into his lap. At such a strategic move, the cheering in the top gallery becomes a frenzy. There are yells of advice (not very practicable under the circumstances), intimations of doubt, and critical suggestions cut through by one staunch cry:

  “‘Follow your quarry, and upon this charge—’”

  “Sh-h! God damme! Sh-h!”

  Tom Killigrew grits his teeth. The hiss of “Sh-h!” increases in volume. Along the rear benches ripples a rapid whisper, in which the word “king” is vaguely audible. The head of the Chief Fiddler appears above the stage, like an apparition out of a witch’s cauldron, and peers anxiously round. After an irreverent greeting from the spectators, it disappears again.

  The music stops abruptly. Another call for quiet is followed by a hush as the roar dies away. This pause is broken by a rustling, breathing, scraping noise of people pushing back chairs or benches and rising to their feet.

  Silence.

  Then three sharp taps for attention. Horns and fiddles, as ecstatic as though they sang the words, burst out together.

  Here’s a health unto His Majesty,

  With a tow-row-row and a tow-row-row—

  Confusion to his enemies,

  With a tow-row-row and a tow-row-row …

  In the side boxes they draw back and bow. At first you will observe only a dim company moving chairs. Then a figure walks within the edge of candlelight and stands motionless, hand on box rail over against the stage.

  He has not quite reached his fortieth birthday, but the cropped hair under the periwig is already grey. He is six feet tall, of athletic frame, and grows more lean as others grow paunchy; for at his “wonted large pace” he walks where others ride, and gets up at five in the morning to play at tennis or pêle-mêle. Leaning now on the box rail, he moves his shoulders under an old black cloak lined with red, and wears a flat-plumed black hat also lined with red.

  His face is long and swarthy, with sharp furrows drawn from nostrils to the corners of the mouth, and a thin black line of moustache. Blinking out into the candlelight, he surveys these people of his with what seems uncritical indolence. He looks up at the top gallery, across at Buckingham, down at the spaniels stumbling round his heels. The newcomer’s eyes are his one good feature: an odd shade of red-brown, deep and perhaps satirical. What goes on in this man’s brain, he alone could say. Who is he and what he is, anybody in the house will tell you. Dabbler with yachts, chemistry, music, clocks, dogs, and mistresses. Called King of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, dubiously by the grace of God. Called old Rowley, his own designation, after a favourite stallion. Called “a merry monarch, scandalous and poor,” the second Charles of England.

  And he that will not drink his health,

  I wish him neither life nor wealth,

  Nor yet a rope to hang himself—

  With a tow-row-row, and a tow-row!

  The soaring note breaks and falls against a profound hush. The fiddles sweep on into a plaintive melody, “To All You Ladies Now on Land,” written at the time of the First Dutch War. The king steps back urbanely to set out a chair for Queen Catherine. And other members of the royal party become visible.

  You see, beyond the king’s shoulder, the ta
ll and strong-jawed man in the brown wig, his face slightly pitted by smallpox scars, with the ugly woman beside him? He is James, Duke of York; the woman is his wife, Clarendon’s daughter, Ann Hyde. A tight-lipped fellow, the Duke of York, with flaring nostrils and an uncertain eye. Not the genial companion of his younger days. Not even the captain in half-armour of five years ago who came back, hearty and burned red by the sun, from the battle off Lowestoft in the North Sea.

  It is not certain that he has yet been converted to the Church of Rome, but assuredly he is about to be; and most men know it. Buckingham hates him, my Lord Ashley hates him; if you listen well, you can hear much whispered to his discredit by Sedate Citizen in the middle gallery. And some might consider this unfortunate. He has sincere affection for his brother; he will fight Charles’s battles when he has scarce strength to fight his own. He is invaluable to the navy, knowing more of ships than any man in the nation. He can be an unswerving friend, if a relentless enemy. James Stuart is merely overdetermined and not very intelligent, with a genius for adopting ill-chosen courses.

  In the royal box, standing behind his wife, he taps his fingers on the back of her chair; she taps her fan against a stout brocaded bosom; occasionally both of them try to talk to the dark-faced little queen, who is a Catholic and an ally. But the queen speaks no great number of words. Often she glances at the king, and smiles apologetically while he sits playing with the spaniels. Once or twice she tries to get a look into the box overhead, which is impossible; so she only settles back again with a ghostly grimace round protruding teeth, murmuring into her throat whatever may be the Portuguese for “Deliver us from our sins.” My Lady Castlemaine has been at court for ten years, longer than has the queen, but Catherine of Braganza is not quite reconciled even yet.

  And Barbara Villiers, Lady Castlemaine—that goddess in the box above—herself frowns and mutters. She will look like fire if the king notices another woman in public. You see her up there, splendid in an orchid-coloured gown, her face ornamented by patches cut to the shape of hearts and diamonds. She is marking and noting everything, though not seeming to do so. She knows how much she is admired by Fop, Sedate Citizen, and Jack-Pudding alike, by a discreet buzz rippling from pit to gallery. And yet—

  “Oh, I am so monstrous vexed!”

  Barbara, once the wife of plain Roger Palmer but soon to be created Barbara, Duchess of Cleveland, straightens her shoulders. She calls for her pomander ball, to keep the odour of the crowd from her nostrils. By some freak of memory recalling Roger Palmer, she remembers a duty to another man of the same Christian name. She turns that imperious stare, and at length nods coolly to Roger Stainley, the banker, in the middle gallery; it will make Old Sobersides happy for the day. She has overdrawn the large sums placed to her account by King Charles; she is head over ears in debt.

  Bankers, being troublesome people, are not subdued so easily as kings: by raging tempers, or a threat to knock out the brains of one’s child against the wall. Still, since she owns a fortune in jewels, it is other fears which sometimes haunt her. Of the flesh growing flabby, of wrinkles round eyes and neck: the sharp little fear which is not always repressed by day, and which always returns in a sleepless night. It is unfair and untrue! It is not to be borne. It is someone’s malicious talk …

  Now the rain, threatening for some time, begins to fall. It drums on the glass roof of the cupola; its noise thickens to a roar, fades a little, and steadies to a steady downpour which goes all but unheard. Whistlings and stampings from the top gallery call for a beginning of the play. Cross draughts have blown out a number of candles; the stage is no brighter than it should be.

  My Lady Castlemaine looks across and down at the lower stage box opposite the king’s, where His Grace of Bucks sits at ease. But her glance does not linger, Buckingham being her cousin and her enemy. In the box above him, included in that sweeping look, are two gentlemen without attendants.

  Both these gentlemen are leading spirits of the Cabal. The Cabal, however, is only a name; they are also, like Bucks himself, members of the official Privy Council. Political grandees, no doubt meditating!—although, since they have so many opposed views, it is a little surprising to see them together.

  The one on the right, that stoutish elderly man with the too-sombre manner and the lozenge of black plaster across his nose to hide an old scar, is Henry Bennet, Lord Arlington. He has a Dutch wife but Popish sympathies; he is rich, and would be still richer. Though they mock much at his bearing, like that of an astrologer prophesying doom, those who mock at Lord Arlington find themselves usually on the short end of a bargain.

  “My lord, it seems to me—”

  “And I, my lord, can only suggest—”

  The grandee at the left, of merry face and pointed chin under a flaxen periwig, is Oliver’s “little man with three names,” Anthony Ashley Cooper, Lord Ashley. He has suffered much from an abscess in his side. But his tongue is as well hung as ever, his mind and behaviour as slippery. He has turned his coat many times; he will turn it again, remaining consistent only in his hatred for France and Popery.

  What are they saying? You can’t hear, even if you would. Ashley rises, as though to take his leave; with much ceremony he backs away.

  Another candle puffs out: Ashley disappears. The fiddles strike up a last flourish before leaving off. And the play at last commences.

  Julius Caesar. Act 1, Scene 1. Rome—A Street.

  Most of the audience, already familiar with the text, are able to picture the street as well as though they saw columns or colonnades. Enter Flavius, Marullus, and—rather precipitately, as though pushed—a number of Commoners. All Commoners wear the full imperial toga, with the exception of one sturdy old Roman who has got on the costume generally used for King Henry the Eighth. This does not trouble the dictators of pit or top gallery. But they sit coldly silent while Flavius and Marullus exchange words with the punning cobbler. Pit and top gallery would get on to business.

  It is not until the second scene that things grow more lively. Enter, in procession with music, Caesar; Antony, for the course; Portia, Decius, Cicero, Brutus, Cassius, and Casca: which should be enough celebrities for anybody.

  It is certainly so for this house. At mere mention of Caesar’s name, such a roar of applause goes up that Caesar (Mr. John Lacy) comes downstage and bows until hauled back into place by a somewhat glowering Mark Antony (Mr. Edward Kynaston). Afterwards the audience is heart and soul with the play. This may be accounted as fortunate; the Large Crowd of the stage directions carries itself awkwardly. Cicero, in fact, seems a good deal the worse for drink. Luckily he is not required to address the Roman Senate, though a critical observer would suspect the members of that august body as being in a condition little more sober than himself.

  Once the clutter of supernumeraries has been cleared off, the weight of the play is carried by Charles Hart as Brutus and Michael Mohun as Cassius. Mary Knepp as Calpurnia is well received. And there is a fine display of thunder and lightning: the first produced by metal well shaken, the second by a lavish use of firework powder which (this time, at least) does not set the whole place ablaze.

  A great cloud of smoke has been accumulating, through which the players stalk and declaim. The loudest applause, as a rule, will be drawn by any speech of patriotic fervour. When Cassius lifts one arm towards heaven, and soars into earnest rhetoric concerning his love of country, the top gallery responds with cheers. This reaches its height as Brutus, looking mournfully at the plant-in-a-tub which serves as his Orchard, strikes his breast and says:

  “Every drop of blood that every Roman bears, and nobly bears, is guilty of a several bastardy if he do break the smallest particle of any promise that hath passed from him!”

  They all love that. Though the side boxes give only token applause, too much enthusiasm being below the court’s dignity, King Charles the Second may be seen listening with as close and respectful attention as any.

  But pit and top gallery are waiting for th
eir favourite. They will not be satisfied until Dolly Landis has come on. A while ago there has been a whisper in Fops’ Corner on the stage—nobody knows how it started—that something is wrong with Dolly, despite her brief appearance in the crowd during the second scene: that she is not well, that she plays some other drama of her own: a dozen conjectures which rustle among the chairs, and down along the benches in the pit.

  When she does come on, in the second act, this feeling at first is intensified. The scene is still Brutus’s Orchard by night. In appearance Dolly is much the same as ever, playing the Roman matron in a blue-and-orange gown.

  But a curiously sensitive place is the theatre. At her first words of, “Brutus, my lord—!” there is an instant hint of something beneath the surface. It is not the slight trembling in her voice, as though it sought to find the right level. This is not illness, perhaps, or even drunkenness. And yet—something. Certain people in the pit, groping underneath benches for nosegays or bouquets they have kept to throw at her when she shall make her exit, find themselves much puzzled.

  Dolly plays most of her parts with a certain hoydenish innocence. Usually there is a touch of burlesque, a suggestion of mouth twisting or a wink, at the end of some florid speech. But she is speaking every word as though she meant it: a surprising, rapid, heart-felt performance, which strikes the house quiet within thirty seconds.

  With this fervour she begs Brutus to tell what is wrong with him: why he is gloomy, and what dangers there are. She crosses towards the royal box, within a few feet of where the king is sitting; then she turns, and hurries back. “I entreat,” she says to Brutus, that he tell her

  … what men to-night

  Have had resort to you; for there have been

  Some six or seven, who did hide their faces

  Even from darkness.

  It is quickly finished, no very long scene she has to play. She has started across the stage before the knocking of the conspirator. Pit and top gallery wake up with a roar of applause. Dolly hesitates, almost as though expecting this, and comes down to the front of the stage.