by Angus Donald
‘Ah-ha! Your famous Parisian pack – I trust you have not lost a great fortune at the tables recently!’
‘I do not have a great fortune to lose, Jack.’
‘I know. I was joking.’
‘Oh. I see. Well, in truth, I have not played cards with anyone since I came here.’
‘Truly? Then we must have a game or two while we wait here.’
Jack Churchill picked up the cards and shuffled them expertly. Holcroft felt a twinge of disquiet at an alien hand touching his beloved deck but he managed, with some difficulty, to quell it and when Jack had dealt, they fell to playing a simple two-handed game in a companionable silence.
Jack was rather surprised to discover after only a couple of hands that Holcroft had an extraordinary ability to remember which cards had been played in what exact order. It seemed as if he could anticipate the exact card that would come next before it was dealt. It was almost uncanny. He tested Holcroft – it was only a friendly game after all – asking him to predict which card would be played and, nine times out of ten, Holcroft was able to say correctly what his opponent would throw down next. For the first time in their acquaintance, Jack found himself genuinely impressed with his friend.
‘Tell me, Hol, have you ever played cards for money?’
Holcroft shook his head.
‘Hmm. Then I wonder if you might like to meet some friends of mine at Christmastide. We could have a light supper, perhaps play a hand or two afterwards. Would you enjoy that?’
Holcroft thought that sounded marvellous. He had received no social invitations of any kind in the weeks he had been in White Hall – not that he had received any at Cock Lane either – but he was aware that the people here often gathered with their friends and colleagues and ate and drank and amused themselves, and he could scarcely contain his delight at the thought of a convivial evening with Jack Churchill and a party of his intimates.
‘Yes. I would have to ask my master the duke but I’m sure . . .’
Their conversation was interrupted just then by the loud banging of a pair of heavy oak doors and the arrival of the Duke of Buckingham, who was muttering, ‘That bloody idiot . . . that thick-skinned, stubborn, damned incompetent spendthrift . . .’ under his breath but quite loud enough for both Holcroft and Jack to hear, which allowed them to exchange a quick smile.
Then Holcroft was bundling up the pack of cards and his master’s papers, nodding farewell to Jack and half-running to keep up with the duke as the great man swept away up the Stone Gallery without another word.
*
‘Was that young Jack Churchill I saw you with earlier today,’ said the duke an hour or two later. ‘Playing at cards with you in the Stone Gallery?’ Buckingham had finished his dinner and was sitting back in his chair in his private study in the Cockpit, his face glowing with good food and wine.
Holcroft, who had been crouched down attending to the smouldering coal fire, stood up straight and admitted that it was.
‘He’s a friend of yours then, is he?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Buckingham beamed at him.
‘You know also, don’t you, that Jack Churchill is the lover of that grasping bitch Barbara Villiers – my cousin, the Duchess of Cleveland?’
Holcroft said, ‘She is his cousin, too.’
‘Only distantly. Which is a shame – a charge of incest would have been a delightful bonus.’
Holcroft said nothing.
‘Tell me, Mister Blood, do you enjoy serving me? Do you like the Cockpit? Are you happy in your employment as my confidential clerk?’
He nodded.
‘And do you consider yourself a loyal fellow? Are you loyal to me?’
‘Yes, indeed, Your Grace.’
‘I should damn well hope so. When your father begged me to, I gave you a position as a page in my service, out of the kindness of my heart. Then I raised you up to be my confidential clerk. I have been good to you, no?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Holcroft, uncertainly. He had no idea where this conversation was leading but he knew he did not like its tone.
‘Well then, sir, I shall give you a chance to show me your loyalty, and repay some of the boundless kindness I have shown you.’
Holcroft frowned and then, a little too late, said: ‘Thank you, sir.’
‘You do wish to repay some of the kindness I have shown, don’t you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good. Now, listen closely. This is what you will do for me. You will continue your friendship with Jack Churchill, deepen it; play cards with him as often as you like, get closer to him, become his intimate – and you will befriend the Duchess of Cleveland, too, if you can. These are my orders, Mister Blood. You will become the greatest of friends with Mister Churchill and his whore Barbara Villiers. You will insinuate yourself. Am I making myself clear?’
‘Sir.’
‘You will hear things, naturally, about their relationship from time to time, Holcroft. Private things. You will gain their confidence. You will ask them about their motions – discreetly, of course. And next time you hear that they have made a rendezvous, an assignation – the next time you know for certain that they will be together, you will come to me. Do you understand?’
Holcroft felt as if he had been kicked in the stomach.
‘You wish me to betray the confidences of my friend Jack?’
‘I wish you, Mister Blood, to demonstrate your faithfulness and loyalty to me. I seek the downfall of Barbara Villiers. Purely for his own good, the King must be made to see that she is making a fool of him. You will help me achieve this goal. You will worm your way into the good graces of Jack Churchill and Barbara Villiers; it may take a few weeks, but do not let that concern you – what is most important is that you come directly to me and tell me when you know that they will be together. There will be a hundred pounds in gold for you if you will do it. Think of that, boy – a hundred pounds! All for you. On the other hand, and you must surely know this already: I can have no place in my service, no place in my household, for one who is not completely loyal to me. Am I quite clear?’
Until this moment, Holcroft’s feelings for the duke had been entirely of respect, even admiration. He was a great man and Holcroft had been proud to serve him. At a stroke all that was wiped away. Holcroft looked at his master’s face with growing horror as the man’s explicit orders sank in. He understood perfectly what the duke wanted – nothing less than that he spy on his only friend in White Hall, the only man, apart from the duke, who had shown him any kindness in this strange new place. And not only that, not only was he to play the informer, to ‘peach’, as his brother Tom would have it, on his new friend and his friend’s lover, but he was also expected to be directly responsible for the couple’s exposure and downfall.
Holcroft had never heard anything so repugnant in his life. And yet what could he do? If he refused his master’s orders he would be expelled from the Cockpit and have to return to – what? His mother was gone, off to the north. Where would he live? How would he live? What would his father say? He could picture the old man’s disappointment – what had he said repeatedly to him in the parlour at Cock Street: ‘Serve him well. Serve the duke well or you will feel my belt . . .’
Holcroft did not truly fear a beating from his father – he had suffered many in his childhood and would not allow himself to be swayed by the threat of temporary pain – but he did not want to disappoint the old man. He could not disappoint him. He did not want to fail at the task he had been given: to serve the duke well. He did not want to spoil the plum that his father had arranged for him. And at the back of his mind, in a dark place that Holcroft did not like to even acknowledge, he heard the soft clink of gold coins and the whispered words: ‘A hundred pounds! All for you.’
‘So you understand me, boy?’ the duke said, an ugly tone twisting his voice. ‘You understand what you must do?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Holcroft said quietly.
F
riday 23 December, 1670
King Charles smothered a yawn. He knew this was a good play, everybody said so, and on the advice of his groom of the close stool he had attended this performance of it by the Duke’s Company in their theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. But if it was such a good play, why was it so damned tedious? Sir John Grenville, who was now sitting beside him in the royal box, was leaning forward, hands gripping the rail, rapt by the performance of England’s leading actor Thomas Betterton as the soldier Alcippus telling his friend that he feared his love Erminia has been unfaithful to him. Charles felt like shouting: ‘Of course she has been unfaithful to you, you idiot! They all are!’ but he knew this would make him look ridiculous.
Nevertheless, the play was failing to grip. It was billed as a tragicomedy but the King found it neither comic nor particularly tragic. It had all the usual shenanigans of star-crossed lovers, darling Nell Gywn looking adorable in a dangerously low-cut gown, and a rather clever parody of Lord Arlington as a dishonest spymaster, which the King knew would enrage the man most satisfactorily. The message of the play was that royal authority should be respected, which was all well and good, but still he found his mind wandering: he had hoped it would be a touch more risqué, a little broader in its humour; a few more bare-breasted dancing girls waving giant dildos. A dwarf or two. Something funny. Was that too much to ask?
Charles looked down at the pit where the common run of humanity sat on their benches and saw that about half the audience was absorbed by the play and half talking with friends or munching oranges and sweetmeats. It was full, anyway. Not a bad turnout, he thought, for a play by an unknown woman playwright. He looked around the half-circle of boxes kept by the richest theatre-goers. He saw that Lord Arlington had already left the theatre – typical of the bloody man, such a prig, couldn’t take a joke – leaving the candles still burning in the sconces but taking with him his ally, indeed his chief toady, Sir Thomas Clifford. In the next box along, the Duke of Buckingham was deep in conversation with his hatchet-man Sir Thomas Osborne. Why did everyone christen their children Thomas these days? After Doubting Thomas? Was this an age of religious doubt? Of course it was. He had more than a few doubts himself.
A tall servant stood behind the duke’s chair, a handsome lad with an unruly mop of brown hair, who was frowning at the stage as if perplexed by the theatrical goings-on. The Duke of Buckingham saw the King looking over at him and made an elaborate gesture with his hand and a bob of the head, indicating that he would have bowed had he not been comfortably sitting down. The King nodded back. He’s scheming again, he thought, I can tell by the eager look on his face. But who is he plotting against this time?
The next box belonged to the King’s younger brother, James. The Duke of York looked just as bored as the King felt and when he sensed the royal gaze, he smiled back at Charles and raised an ironic eyebrow. On a chair to his left was that good-looking young guards officer that all the ladies twittered and sighed about, James’s protégé Jack Churchill. His father, Sir Winston Churchill, had been a staunch man during the wars and the son seemed a loyal chap, too, although too girlishly pretty for the King’s taste.
The Earl of Lauderdale’s box was dark and empty, as expected. Lauderdale rarely came to London these days: as secretary of state for Scotland his powerbase was north of the border and he resided there and ruled that kingdom very much like a viceroy; not that Charles minded too much, Lauderdale was loyal to the Stuart line and while the man debauched himself and lined his pockets as much as any of the others, the King trusted him not to go too far and, more importantly, he knew that Buckingham had several spies in his household who kept a constant eye on him.
He expected the last box in the row to be empty. It belonged to the Duke of Ormonde who, after the shocking attack on his person in the street outside his home a couple of weeks ago, was known to be recovering in Clarendon House, a bruised recluse behind barred gates and surrounded by a score of burly footmen. The House of Lords committee that the King convened to investigate the attack had discovered nothing except that there had been an attack by four persons unknown and that Ormonde had been the victim. Ormonde had testified that one of the men who attacked him had been called Tom – as if that narrowed the field at all!
The Ormonde box was, however, far from empty. A sconce of candles fixed to the side illuminated the sharp face of Thomas Butler – another Thomas! – the Earl of Ossory, the Duke of Ormonde’s eldest son. He was not paying the slightest attention to the play. He was glaring with malice at the back of Buckingham’s head three boxes along.
The King well knew that there was bad blood between the two families: Buckingham and Ormonde had been locking horns for years, struggling for mastery as the second man in the land after the King. But while the two older men seemed to recognize that this was a contest with certain rules and codes of conduct, Lord Ossory seemed to take each move in the struggle for power as a personal slight, a slur on his father’s honour. The King had been obliged, at different times, to send both Buckingham and Ossory to the Tower of London to cool them off, and he wondered that night whether he had been foolish to release either man. Perhaps he ought to banish one of them. Or both. But he could not face the disruption to the peace and order of the kingdoms that would unleash: the petitions, the grovelling requests for more titles and posts, the jostling of new men for influence. It had been bad enough after Clarendon had been brought down and sent packing three years ago. Maybe it was a case of better the Devil you know. Maybe. But what a parcel of grasping, small-minded, self-important rogues they were: all of them. These are the greatest men in the land, the King thought, my closest advisors. God save us all.
*
The applause at the close of the final scene was no more than politely enthusiastic. But the King himself rose from his seat in the royal box, his wig brushing the ceiling, and made a point of clapping loudly and calling, ‘Bravo, my dear!’ to the diminutive creature in the lemon gown on the stage. As Nell Gywn made her curtsey to the King, she winked at him and cheekily pulled down the top of her dress to allow him – and the rest of the audience – a swift glimpse of her perfect globular breasts and their pink rosebud nipples. The audience roared in appreciation and Nell, her charms now safely tucked away again, blew kisses to all and danced off the stage.
Holcroft was stunned. It was not the first time he had seen a woman show off her bosoms – but he had never seen a woman do it who was not a drunken street whore offering her saggy wares to passers-by.
‘See that woman there,’ said a voice below him, ‘blonde, curly hair, short, clasping her hands, wearing those dreary widow’s weeds.’
Holcroft looked where the Duke of Buckingham was pointing and saw a smiling woman with sad brown eyes under a high pale forehead standing by the curtain just off stage. She reminded him strongly of someone, a relative or family friend, perhaps, but he could not quite think of who it was.
‘Her name is Mistress Behn and she wrote this nonsense. Take her these flowers and this note. Then come and find me in the dining hall: the King has ordered a light supper for all the players and his friends.’
Holcroft took the flowers from Buckingham’s hand, a bunch of tired white hellebores, and a note of thick yellow paper sealed with the duke’s wax insignia. He walked out of the box and began to make his way along the corridor behind towards the stairs. He became lost for a few moments in the darkness behind the stage, bumping into half-dressed men and women, who stank of cheap scent, face powder and old sweat and called out to each other with extraordinarily lavish endearments and a feverish excitement.
He followed the light coming from the stage and found Mistress Behn in the same spot the duke had indicated, looking out at the wide arena where a dozen actors and their courtly admirers were mingling, talking, laughing and eyeing each other lasciviously.
‘Yes?’ she said, catching sight of Holcroft standing awkwardly a yard behind her in the half darkness. ‘Are those for me?’ She took the flowers fro
m the boy’s hands and eyed them critically. Holcroft could see that it was a rather miserly gift, a gesture and not a grand one. He handed over the note.
‘The Duke of Buckingham’s compliments, ma’am.’
‘He is casting me off,’ she said, still looking at the limp flowers; the note unopened in her hand. ‘He has no more use for me.’ She said the words with no self-pity, merely as a statement of fact. Then she looked at Holcroft. ‘Tell him I still need the money. All of it. Tell him – what is your name?’
‘Holcroft Blood, ma’am.’
‘Tell him, Holcroft Blood, he must make good on the money. Tell him I will not go back to debtors’ prison.’ Her voice was calm despite her words.
‘I will tell him, Mistress Behn,’ said Holcroft. He turned to go.
‘Wait a moment!’ She stopped him and cracked open the seal on the letter. She read it quickly, bobbed her head and said: ‘As I thought.’
Then she paused before looking up and saying: ‘So, Mister Blood, tell me now, did you enjoy the play?’
‘No.’
She looked at little surprised. ‘You know that I wrote it?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you did not find it the slightest bit amusing?’
‘No, not at all.’
She laughed then, a cheerful, natural bubbling up, entirely and truthfully mirthful. He studied her closely. He could not tell if she was upset by what he had said about the play or by the message that he had brought her. But his reason told him that if the duke was truly casting her off, she might well be exhibiting some sort of strong emotion. If she was, he could not detect it at all in her face. She merely seemed to be slightly amused.
‘I thought as much. The King did not care for it either, and Lord Arlington left after the second act. And I saw you up there, standing grim as the reaper behind his lordship’s chair and you did not smile or laugh once. What was it about my poor little play that you disliked so intensely?’