The Darling Strumpet

by Gillian Bagwell

  IN THE DAYS FOLLOWING THE FIRE, EVERYONE WAS HUNGRY FOR news, and stories and rumors flew.

  “The king is calling for proposals for a new plan for the City,” Killigrew said. “And to rebuild the churches. Eighty and more we lost.”

  “Buildings can be replaced,” Hart said. “I mourn for poor old James Shirley and his wife. It was his play The Cardinal that gave me my first great role. And now the pair of them are dead of fright and exposure for that their house burned and they had nowhere to go. It breaks my heart. Why did they not come to the playhouse?”

  “There’s to be a monument to those who died,” said Richard Baxter. “And it will be graven in stone what all do know-it was the Papists that started it.”

  “No one knows that,” Lacy said. “And they say that by a miracle fewer than a dozen were killed. But the City…” Nell felt an overwhelming need to see for herself.

  “Come with me, Hart,” she begged. “I want to know that something is still left.”

  THE AIR HUNG HAZY AND OPPRESSIVE, DAMPENING THE SOUNDS AND the spirits of the City. The bloodred sun cowered behind curtains of gray, and black flecks of ash rose in listless eddies, as a sudden gust of dry wind drew them up and then spat them out, so that they drifted into and became part of the wash of grit and mud that fouled the streets even as far west as the Strand. Nell felt the foul air choking her and held a handkerchief over her nose and mouth.

  As they made their way eastward, she felt a sense of dread and sadness, as if she were approaching a home in which there had been a death. As Fleet Street rose to Ludgate Hill, she clutched Hart’s elbow and gasped. It was not so much what she saw as what she did not see that produced that sensation of a blow to the stomach, for the towering front of St. Paul’s, as much a part of the landscape as the sky and the clouds, was gone. Its absence was palpable; the emptiness of where it should have stood was shocking in its blankness.

  To the north, familiar streets and houses remained. But down to the river and eastward as far as Nell could see lay a rubble of stone and charred wood. What had been the bustling streets of the City were unrecognizable, buried in debris and impassable except by foot.

  Nell and Hart skirted the desolate skeleton of St. Paul’s. Its ancient walls, which had seemed eternal, had fallen; its very stones had cracked and shattered in the heat. The lead of its roof had melted in the inferno and run into pools, now hardened into freakish frozen puddles. Curls of smoke rose and met the gray mist that hung over all-even now, fire still smoldered in the depths of the vast ruin.

  They picked their way through what had been St. Paul’s Churchyard, where London’s booksellers had stood, and here and there Nell could discern the remains of books, their leather bindings charred black, the creamy purity of their pages sodden and smeared. An orange cat streaked by, yowling, its eyes wild, its fur blackened.

  In Cheapside, parties of men with kerchiefs over their faces against the foul air were already at work at the unfathomable task of clearing the wreckage, heaping stones into piles, and loading into wagons what was beyond hope. Here and there others picked through the rubble or simply stood and stared at the emptiness that surrounded them.

  Nell felt lost as she looked around her. She turned in desperation, striving to find some identifying marker that would provide connection between the streets of her memory and what lay before her.

  “Oh!” She stopped short and pointed, realizing that the shambles of stone on their right was what remained of St. Mary-le-Bow, and that most of the higher outcroppings that dotted the landscape were the remnants of churches, their stones having survived the fire better than the timber, plaster, and thatching of the surrounding houses.

  Terror welled within Nell. Her heart raced and her palms sweated. So much of what she had known was gone, and the realization seemed to open a deep chasm that yawned before her. If so much that had seemed eternal could vanish overnight, what safety or certainty could there be in anything? The faces of Nick and the boys in the flickering firelight before the palace and in the shafts of moonlight in the park flashed into her mind like a nightmare. She felt once more Jack’s rough hands seizing her, his rank smell smothering her as he pressed her to the bed.

  Wild panic seized her and she began to run blindly toward the river. Hart called to her to wait, to stop, that she would harm herself in the treacherous ruin through which she plunged. But she could not, and she came to a halt only when she stood in the middle of what had been Thames Street. She had not known until that moment what it was she sought, but as she looked to the east, she knew. London Bridge and the Tower. Both still stood. She realized that if she had found that they, too, had been swept away, it would have been more than she could bear.

  Her strength left her and, gasping, she sank to her knees. Hart caught up to her as she burst into tears of loss, of rage, of loneliness, of fear, and of relief. He knelt and held her close, stroking her hair, murmuring softly to her as she clung to him and wept. When her sobs subsided she drew away from him a little to wipe her eyes and nose on her sleeve. She tried to find the words for what she felt, but none came. She wept again and Hart pulled her to him.

  “I understand,” he said. “The loss of so much. Like a friend you do not pay enough mind to, and then is gone, without warning.”

  “Aye,” Nell said. “Something like that. Let’s go to the bridge. I need to feel it beneath me.”

  They made their way arm in arm to the bridge and stood at the center of its span, the sweep of London before them. A brutal swathe had been cut through it, from east to west along the river for more than two miles, and northward as far as the old City walls in places. This had been the ancient heart of London-the first tracks trampled into the riverside meadows by the Romans, and those same streets trodden every day in the centuries since. And now it was gone.

  The wind whipped their clothes and hair. It smelled of the sea, and blew away the acrid reek of burning. Nell felt her heart beat within her, and the warmth of Hart next to her. And knew that she would go on, that he would go on, and that London, somehow, would go on.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  AUDIENCES FLOCKED TO THE PLAYHOUSES ONCE THEY WERE finally in business again, and Nell was giddily busy, performing Lady Wealthy opposite Hart’s Mr. Wellbred in The English Monsieur, Celia in The Humorous Lieutenant, and Cydaria in The Indian Emperor. She watched the company’s shows when she was not in them, and a new girl was now selling oranges alongside Rose. She had even won the grudging approval of her mother for her advancement at the playhouse. And she had moved with Hart into lodgings in Bridges Street, just across from the playhouse.

  The happiness of her life was beyond what she could have dreamed, Nell thought, as she and Betsy Knepp climbed the stairs to the women’s tiring room. Betsy had taken Nell to her favorite frippery, where fashionable secondhand clothes could be found, and Nell clutched to her the precious package containing a bodice richly embroidered with flowers. She wore her newly purchased velvet cloak, and a black rabbit-fur muff hung from a ribbon around her neck.

  “Why, there you are, Betsy!” a voice cried from the top of the steps. “I was about to give you up as lost.”

  “Good afternoon, Sam,” Betsy said. “We’ve been shopping and we’re behind our time. Nell, this is Mr. Pepys.”

  “Your servant, Mrs. Nelly,” said Pepys, grinning. “Delighted to make your acquaintance. I enjoyed you most heartily as Lady Wealthy. Your scenes with Hart are beyond compare. I won’t detain you now, but perhaps you’ll both join me for supper after the show?”

  In the tiring room, Beck Marshall was already putting on her makeup. “Sam found you, did he?” she asked. “Good. He’s been following me around like a tantony pig, ’til I was near to lose my patience. Oh, what tackle have you there?”

  Nell and Betsy unwrapped their purchases for Beck’s admiration.

  “There were the most cunning shoes,” Nell said. “Black with a red heel. And I truly have need of a good petticoat or two. But I was too short
of gingerbread to buy more than this.”

  “Get you a gent who’s flush in the pocket,” Beck advised.

  “Like that Sam Pepys, now,” laughed Betsy. “He runs the Navy Office and has dealings with the king and the Duke of York all the time, and always seems to be rhinocerical. You need a few like him, Nell, to smooth the way a bit.”

  “I’d never. I’m happy with Hart.”

  “Happy only goes so far,” said Beck. “Hart’s a duck, but give me a man with plenty of chink.”

  OFFICIALLY, NO BACKSTAGE VISITORS WERE PERMITTED, BUT THE women’s tiring room was crowded each day with gentlemen on the prowl. Nell watched Anne Marshall, surrounded by a knot of admirers, and thought of the lines from a recent play: “’Tis as hard a matter for a pretty woman to keep herself honest in a theater as ’tis for an apothecary to keep his treacle from the flies in hot weather, for every libertine in the audience will be buzzing about her honeypot.”

  A newcomer entered the room and though he joined the knot of men near Anne, Nell saw him glance at her and immediately look away, and she sensed that he was watching her from the corner of his eye. Making a show of powdering her face and arranging her hair, she studied his reflection in the mirror. She knew she had not seen him before. The elegant cut and fine cloth of his coat, the delicate lace at his throat and cuffs, the gloss of the curling wig that cascaded over his shoulders, the arrogance and assurance of his carriage all proclaimed that here was a man who knew without doubt that he rested at the pinnacle of society and that what he wanted he would have.

  The stranger glanced her way again for a fleeting moment and though his eyes had not met hers, she sensed that he was as keenly aware of her as a hound of its prey, his nostrils trembling with the scent of her. She found that her belly was surging with excitement.

  “Nelly!” Sir Charles Sedley called to her from where he stood near Anne. “Come out with us? Johnny, do you know Nell?”

  The stranger shook his head.

  “Mistress Nell Gwynn,” Sedley said, as they moved to join her. “John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester.”

  “Your humble servant, madam.” Rochester’s eyes did not leave her as he bowed. He was tall, standing head and shoulders above her, and the intensity of his gaze made her catch her breath. There was a leonine glint in the golden brown eyes that raked her from head to toe. She could almost feel the quickening of his heartbeat as he looked down at her and felt her own pulse throbbing in her temple as she returned his bow.

  And then she saw Hart at the door of the tiring room, and the expression of fear on his face hit her like cold water.

  “Not tonight, I thank you, Sir Charles,” she faltered. “I’m already engaged.”

  “I’M SURE I’VE NOT SEEN HIM BEFORE,” NELL SAID TO BETSY LATER.

  “No, he’s been in Adderbury with his wife.”

  “His wife?” Nell found herself unreasonably disappointed to learn that Rochester was married.

  “Oh, aye,” said Betsy. “I’m surprised you’ve not heard the story. Quite the roaring boy he is, and her family objected to his wooing, but he’ll buckle to no man, so he kidnapped her.”

  “Go shoe the goose!” Nell was incredulous, and yet it fit entirely with her first impression of him.

  “Truly,” Betsy said. “Waylaid her carriage at Charing Cross with a coach and a gang of armed men and bundled her away. By the time the family tracked them down it was too late-they were married.”

  “I’ll warrant all the fat was in the fire then,” Nell said.

  “Well and truly,” Betsy agreed. “The king was in a rage. It was only because Rochester’s father had been one of his bosom friends that Rochester didn’t end up in the Tower. But apparently all is forgiven now. He’s taken his seat in the House of Lords and moreover he’s a groom of the bedchamber to the king.”

  NELL WAS EAGER TO BEGIN REHEARSALS FOR SECRET LOVE, THE NEW play Dryden had written for her and Hart, and could scarce wait to learn her lines.

  “This is priceless,” Hart laughed, flourishing the script. “Dryden’s got you to perfection. Listen, this is how Celadon describes Florimel. ‘A turned up nose, that gives an air to your face… a full nether lip, an out-mouth, that makes mine water at it; the bottom of your cheeks a little blub, and two dimples when you smile.’ And let me read you the last scene, where we agree upon how we shall live as man and wife. Oh, this part will be the making of you, Nell.”

  NELL LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF PLAYING FLORIMEL, ESPECIALLY THE scenes when she disguised herself as a young man in order to follow the lover whose fidelity she doubted. She always got an enormous laugh when she strode onto the stage in the character of an arrogant young spark, and the audience, well aware of her liaison with Hart, roared with laughter as Celadon and Florimel negotiated the terms of their marriage.

  “ ‘As for the first year,’ ” Hart led off, “ ‘According to the laudable custom of new-married people, we shall follow one another up into chambers, and down into gardens, and think we shall never have enough of one another.’ ”

  “ ‘But after that, when we begin to live like husband and wife, and never come near one another-what then, sir?’” Nell asked.

  “ ‘Why, then, our only happiness must be to have one mind, and one will, Florimel. One thing let us be sure to agree on, that is, never to be jealous.’ ”

  “ ‘No; but e’en love one another as long as we can; and confess the truth when we can love no longer.’ ”

  “ ‘When I have been at play, you shall never ask me what money I have lost.’ ”

  “ ‘When I have been abroad, you shall never enquire who treated me.’ ”

  “ ‘Item, I will have the liberty to sleep all night, without your interrupting my repose for any evil design whatsoever.’ ”

  “ ‘Item, then you shall bid me goodnight before you sleep.’ ”

  “ ‘Provided always, that whatever liberties we take with other people, we continue very honest to one another.’ ”

  “ ‘As far as will consist with a pleasant life.’ ”

  Nell was giddy with the resounding cheers and whistles that greeted her at the end of the play. The applause went on and on, drawing her back for curtain call after curtain call, and Secret Love ran for days.

  It seemed that all of London flocked to see the show. When Nell looked out at the house as she delivered her lines, she always saw faces she knew from her days as an orange seller, from Lewkenor’s Lane, from the Golden Fleece. At Rose’s insistence, even her mother came.

  ONE AFTERNOON AFTER AN ESPECIALLY RIOTOUS PERFORMANCE, Killigrew intercepted Nell as she was headed to the tiring room.

  “The Duke of Buckingham was in the house today. He has particularly asked me to present his compliments, and asks if you would be good enough to allow him to wait upon you in a few moments.”

  Killigrew’s normally expressive face was impassive. Nell had seen Buckingham at the playhouse, when he’d read his adaptation of The Chances to the assembled cast at its first rehearsal, but had never passed a word with him. Why had he chosen to send a formal request, instead of simply turning up in the tiring room like everyone else? And why was the manager of the King’s Company acting as his messenger? Nell was mystified. But Buckingham, close friend and adviser to the king, was one of the most powerful men in England. And reputed to be the richest, Nell remembered.

  “Of course,” she said. She turned away, then realized that she did not want to have this meeting, whatever it was, before the other members of the company.

  “Mr. Killigrew,” she called. “Would you ask His Grace to give me a few minutes? So that I may make myself presentable?”

  NELL PICKED UP HER ALREADY-DAMP HANDKERCHIEF AND BLOTTED IT across her forehead and chest, then dusted powder across her face, hoping that it would dull the sheen of sweat without caking. She glanced in the mirror. Her hair was as good as it was like to get, the ringlets and curls pagan-wild in the damp heat of the tiring room.

  Well. He had asked to see her, no
t she him. He had just had as good a view of her as anyone could desire, and she had been at her best today, she knew, carrying the house to wave after wave of laughter. So she had nothing to fear.

  Lords were nothing new to her now, she reflected. And yet-the Duke of Buckingham. A duke was only one step below a prince, and some said this duke was less than that step, having been raised almost as brother to the king when his own father died. What was it Hart had said once? “Like one of the royal pups.”

  To counter her nervousness, she leaned back in her chair and breathed deeply of the familiar mixture of smells-sawdust, paint, tallow candles, gunpowder, dirt, and sweat, overlaid with the sweetness of face powder and perfume. Motes of dust drifted in the rays of summer evening sunlight that came through the high window.

  She heard a footstep in the hall and half rose, then forced herself to sit again. She’d meet him like a lady. Or as close to that as she could manage. She turned as she heard the rap of his stick against the door, and then found herself rising, unable to keep her seat in his overwhelming presence.

  He was very big, this duke-tall and broad, and his height and breadth emphasized by the fullness of his wig and the feathered broad-brimmed hat that topped his finery. The richness of the burgundy fabric of his coat and breeches, the fall of soft lace at his throat and wrists, the gold buttons, and the gloss of the fine leather of his high boots overshadowed any show of wealth the gawdy costumes of the theater had to offer.

  His eyes met Nell’s and she felt her stomach lurch. With fear? Desire? For what? Surely not a carnal craving, but a coursing flame of longing to possess that assurance, that unquestioning belonging in the world. Though she’d bed him right enough, Nell thought, and think it no drudgery.

  “Mistress Nelly.” His voice was deep, the accent not striking in any particular way except that it was somehow free of the cramped quarters of London.