The Darling Strumpet

by Gillian Bagwell

  “Yes, I know, His Grace, the Duke of York, says I must be kept out.”

  “Not just you, madam, but all his-” He stopped, embarrassed.

  “All his whores? Is that what your orders were?” The guard looked down. Nell felt the sobs rising in her throat and turned to go, not wanting to shame herself before him. She gathered her skirts and swept out the door, but before she had gone ten yards she stopped. Charles. He might be dying, this minute. She had to try again.

  She ran back into the privy chamber. The door to the king’s bedchamber was open, doctors coming out, doctors going in. She darted for the door. It slammed shut, and the guard watched in dismay as she sank to the floor, then knelt to help her. She threw him off, beat on the door, her blows resounding in deep thuds. She had heard those thuds in her dreams so many times over the years. And here she was, in life. Was this life? Was she waking, or was this a return to nightmare? She cried out, screaming, sobbing, feeling as if the very air was being cut off from her lungs. She could not breathe, she could not live. Without him.

  THAT NIGHT NELL TOSSED IN HER BED. THIS WAS SO LIKE THAT OTHER time, she thought. When had it been? Oh, yes, when Jemmy had died, when the sun had been blotted out, when her world had come to a shuddering stop. And now it was happening again. Charles was dying. All of England knew it now, and held its breath, praying for a miracle, or failing that, that he should go quickly and without pain. The doctors were doing all they knew how, with purges and bleeding and plasters and mixtures that made up for their lack of effect by their noxiousness. The queen had sat by his bed without sleep, distraught and unwilling to leave his side until she had been removed almost by force so that she should get some rest. The Duke of York paced and hovered, the kingship that had loomed on the horizon for so long now almost come upon him. Charlie and Charles’s other sons had been called to their father’s bedside. And Nell curled alone in her bed, paralyzed by fear and grief. She wanted only to cease to feel and drained off the tincture that Dr. Lower had prepared for her, hoping for release into oblivion.

  NELL POUNDED ON THE DOOR, GRAPPLED FOR SOME HOLD ON ITS smooth surface, but it would not yield. She cried out, and woke herself with the crying. This time she knew the nightmare had been only that, but it was worse, having lived its embodiment earlier in the day. Had all the times the dream had reoccurred since her childhood been leading to this night, when the door would be shut in her face with such finality?

  Charles. She knew he would want to see her. And she must see him, must tell him once more she loved him, all that he meant to her.

  THE STREETS WERE BLACK IN THE WINTER DARKNESS, BUT LIGHT shone from many windows in the palace. A sharp and bitter wind came off the river, and Nell’s teeth chattered with fear and cold. The way through the warren of gardens and passages at the palace seemed endless.

  At last she reached the outer rooms of the king’s chambers. By a miracle no crowd was gathered there. Only Will Chiffinch, the keeper of the king’s privy closet, stood outside with the guards, and just as she arrived, the door to Charles’s bedchamber opened, and the Duke of York came out with the earls of Bath and Feversham and a Papist priest who she recognized as Father John Huddleston, who had helped Charles during his escape after the Battle of Worcester.

  Nell knew that she must look wild and frantic, and that word of her earlier appearance had surely spread. With an effort she slowed her footsteps and restrained herself from crying out as she approached the Duke of York.

  “Your Grace,” she began, but her voice caught in her throat and she stopped, desperate to suppress the sobs that filled her chest. “Your Grace-” But again she could get no further. She bowed her head helplessly to hide her loss of control, then sank to her knees.

  “I beg of you. Do but let me see him for a few minutes. I cannot lose him.” She grasped his hand and clung to him. She knew even as she cried that she might be hurting her case, that the last thing he and the doctors wanted was hysteria in Charles’s presence. And yet she could not stop. The pain of the impending loss was too great.

  She raised her streaming eyes to the duke and saw that there were tears in his gray eyes. The pain and sympathy she saw in his face gave her encouragement and allowed her to speak more calmly.

  “I will not distress him, I give you my word. I would not for the world cause him any pain. I love him. More than-more than…”

  The duke nodded, and stooped to her.

  “I know you do. As do I. You may see him. But not for long. Hush your crying now.” He pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and blotted her tears away, then helped her to her feet. At a gesture from him, the guards opened the door into the king’s bedchamber.

  The fire roared high in the fireplace and the heat in the room was stifling. Only a few candles burned and the bed stood in deep shadows, dimly lit by the orange flickering of the candle flames and the hearth.

  Nell approached the bed. Charles’s eyes were closed, and his breathing was shallow and ragged. She could see the irregular pulse beat in the vein at the side of his neck. To see the familiar face once more, each detail of which she had looked at she did not know how many times, was both everything she had longed for and more than she could bear.

  “Charles.” She spoke his name softly, and touched the hand that lay limply on the bed coverings. He exhaled slightly, and his eyes flickered open. Nell clasped his hand to her mouth and kissed it.

  “Nell.” His voice rasped weakly, but there was a faint smile on his ravaged face.

  “I’ll be outside,” the Duke of York said, and she heard the door close quietly behind him. She sank into the chair beside the bed and gazed at Charles, taking in every precious detail of the well-loved face.

  “Oh, Charles,” Nell said, and stroked his cheek.

  “I’m afeard I will die owing you a birthday present,” Charles said, squeezing her hand in his. “Can you forgive me?”

  “I would forgive you anything, had you ever done anything to wrong me,” Nell said. “But you have not.”

  Charles’s mouth twitched in a wry smile, his eyes closed again.

  “Then you are surely the only person in the wide world who bears me no grudge.”

  “Oh, no,” Nell breathed. “Do you not know how well you are loved?”

  “Am I?” Charles asked, and was seized by a fit of coughing that shook his body. Nell watched in alarm.

  “Shall I call the doctor?”

  “For the love of God, no,” Charles grimaced. “They have done all they can to help me on my way. I would rather die now with none but you here than let that pack of ravens try more of their futile tortures.”

  “Can you not live?” Nell pleaded, holding his hand to her cheek.

  Eyes still closed, Charles shook his head. “No, sweetheart. I hear the beating of the wings of the angel of death, and I am aweary of the fight.”

  Nell wept softly, and Charles turned his head on the pillow to look at her.

  “I would I could go with you,” she cried. “What shall I do without you?”

  “All will be well, my love,” Charles said, reaching to stroke her cheek. “Never fear. All is as it is meant to be, and all will be well.”

  They sat in silence for some moments, the crackling of the fire and Nell’s sniffling the only sounds.

  “What is the hour?” Charles asked.

  Nell peered at one of the many clocks in the room. “Just gone seven,” she said.

  “The sun will be up soon,” Charles said. “I would like to see it one more time. Help me, Nell. Take me to the window.”

  Nell pulled the covers from Charles and helped him to sit. He rested for a moment, then, struggling, swung his feet to the side of the bed. Nell leaned down so that she could get a shoulder under his arm and, using her other arm to steady him, helped him to his feet. He panted with the effort, and swayed, but took a step toward the eastward-facing window, and Nell guided him to it.

  The starry sky rose black and endless above them. But straight ahead, the
re was an almost imperceptible lightening. It grew, moment by moment, so that soon there was a glimmer of pale light in the east, and the dark and undulating river shone silver before them.

  After but a few minutes more, a sudden sharp sliver of gold appeared on the horizon, growing steadily. Now pink rays emanated from the glowing ball, coloring the slate of the clouds to flaming glory.

  “A miracle,” said Charles softly into Nell’s ear. “A new day upon the earth. But I will not see its close.”

  “You will!” Nell cried. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face against his chest, as if holding onto him would keep him from going.

  “No,” he said gently. “But you will. And many a day more. And when you see the sun, the glorious sun, remember me, and this morning we had together. And then I will not be sorry to go.”

  “You will be with me with every rising and setting of the sun,” Nell promised. “And with every rainfall and summer breeze. And every time I look into the face of our beloved son.”

  “And he is another miracle,” said Charles.

  He turned again to the window. The sun was full above the horizon now, the sky turning a clear blue. He faltered, and she clutched him harder, supporting him.

  “Help me back to bed now.”

  The steps back to the bed were a struggle, and Nell was relieved to get Charles back under the covers. He shivered there, even in the heat of the fire, and she drew the bedclothes up close under his chin.

  “You must go now,” Charles said, watching her, and she thought how much he looked like young Charlie and little Jemmy when she had tucked them up in bed of a night. They had always been comforted when she put them to sleep with a kiss and the assurance that she would be near.

  “Good night, my love,” she said softly, bending to kiss Charles on the forehead. “I love you with all my heart. And I’ll be by. Always. Sweet dreams, sweet boy.”

  Charles’s chest rose and fell in shallow breaths. His eyes were closed again, and the effort of getting to the window had exhausted the last strength he had, but his face looked at peace, and a soft smile lingered on his lips.

  With one last look, Nell turned and left the room.

  THE LEAD COFFIN OF KING CHARLES STOOD ON TRESTLES IN THE Henry VII Chapel in Westminster Abbey, the small space crowded by mourners. By tradition, his nearest relative, King James, was not present. His nephew-in-law, Prince George of Denmark, stood as chief mourner, with the dukes of Somerset and Beaufort, assisted by sixteen earls.

  Charles’s mistresses were not among those welcome at the burial. So Nell stood in a shadowed corner, cloaked and hooded, pulling the heavy wool close against herself, trying to dispel the chill in her bones and in her heart. She shivered, and wiggled her toes in an effort to regain some feeling in her feet. If she had been crying, the tears would have frozen as they coursed down her face. But her sense of loss was so profound that it had shocked her into a state of numbness.

  She had cried, at home alone, as she had cried for Jemmy. No, not the same. Each loss, she discovered, had a flavor of its own, a unique grief that took hold of her in some new way. Hart. Lacy. Rochester. She told over those deaths and how each had cast her into a new abyss, one which should have been familiar, should have offered some path, some road to peace and hope. But no, each of them had shaken her anew. Hart, who had seemed as eternal as the sky. Lacy. How was it possible that such an electric presence and booming voice could simply cease to exist? And Rochester. What a bitter loss that had been. A waste of so much promise, so much brilliance, so much-what? So much of whatever it was that quickened the flesh in which we all walk, making the difference between life and so many pounds of cold meat.

  Nell could not see the coffin, or the Archbishop of Canterbury, but she could hear his voice ringing in the cold. The flames of the candles guttered and winced at the drafts that swirled among the stones. Nell had not been in the abbey since the funeral for Buckingham’s poor baby, now sleeping beneath the floor of this same chapel. How the gray stones had echoed and mocked Anna Maria’s sobs, showing how few there were to mourn that tiny bundle. If voices cried today their sound was lost, deadened by the bodies standing shoulder to shoulder around the coffin, still in the winter darkness.

  At long last it was over. Nell faded behind a tall candelabra, melting into the shadows there. For she had one last good-bye to take.

  Finally the abbey was empty, with only a solitary guard beside the coffin. Nell knew him-Prather, his name was, a man who had served the king for many years, first in the wars and then in the household guards. He looked up at the sound as Nell moved from behind the candelabra, hand going to the hilt of his sword. When she dropped her hood he saw who she was and nodded-not quite a bow.

  In silence Nell went forward to the coffin. Was it possible that this dull box could really contain all that had been Charles? She put her hand on the coffin, as if hoping to feel warmth, a breath, some sign. There was a scuttling sound in a distant corner, a rat, no doubt, and she was glad that Prather stood guard, his lamp casting a circle of golden light around the coffin as the candles in the abbey burned low and the realm of shadows advanced.

  She drew from within her cloak the flowers she had gone to such lengths to find-snowdrops, the first blooms to break the winter ground. She laid them on the coffin, and their waxy white brought unbidden to her mind the face of her mother as she had lain still and pale. But the flowers’ scent rose sweet, the scent of life and hope amidst the panoply of death.

  Nell bent to kiss the coffin. “Good-bye, my love,” she whispered. “I think I’ll join you soon.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  NELL’S SEDAN CHAIR HALTED BEFORE THE PALACE DOORS. THE guards were the same, the great rambling pile of stone that was Whitehall was the same, the same birds landed on the same bare branches. Yet all had changed in the space of a few days, and Nell felt that the light had gone out in the world as she made her way to the privy chamber.

  The Duke of York, now King James, sat at his desk, heaps of paper before him, a pen in his hand. His eyes were tired as he looked up at Nell, as though he had not slept since Charles’s death. Heavy lies the head that wears the crown, she thought. She dropped into a low curtsy, and he gave her his hand and guided her to a chair.

  “With almost his last breath, Charles spoke of you,” he said, a sad smile wreathing his lips. “ ‘Let not poor Nelly starve,’ he said. He knew you truly cared for him. And so do I.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty,” Nell said. “For knowing that to be true.”

  “It will take me some time to sort through all that must be dealt with,” he said, waving a vague hand at the cluttered desk, the scrolls that tumbled onto the floor. “But,” he said, and the word was freighted with portent, “you know that things cannot be as they have been.”

  Nell’s heart raced and her stomach dropped. Here it was, the moment she had run from all her life. Abandoned, bereft, alone in a cold world. James saw the fear in her eyes and raised his hands, as though to tamp down her terror.

  “I would not see you in hardship. I will send you five hundred pounds directly, to keep the wolf from the door. But I pray you spend it with care until I see what else may be done.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty. I thank you with all my heart.”

  CHARLES HAD BEEN DEAD FOR THREE MONTHS. SPRING WAS ALMOST come, and the days were growing longer. Nell sat with Groundes in his little office, forcing herself to listen to the numbers he recited. But all she knew was that he was telling her she needed money, money she did not have. She could sell some of her remaining silver plate. But the money would only go so far.

  She thought of her pearls. They had cost Charles four thousand pounds. That amount of money would keep her household for months, yet her heart ached at parting from them. She could see his smile as he had given them to her, his pleasure at her cry of joy, the touch of his fingers as he fastened them around her neck. She stifled a sob before it erupted.

  “I’ll sell
my pearls.”

  Groundes silently noted the pain.

  “What of the other houses, madam? Are they yours to sell? To mortgage?”

  “I don’t know. Dorset and Buckingham and others have acted as my factors, and I don’t know the true state of things.”

  “Something must be done, madam,” Groundes said gently. “Perhaps it’s time we found out where we stand? To write to the king and seek to find our feet at the bottom of the mire.”

  “READ THE LETTER OVER TO ME,” NELL SAID, TWISTING HER HANDKERCHIEF in her hands. Groundes shuffled the pages, cleared his throat, and read.

  “ ‘Sir, the honor Your Majesty has done me has given me great comfort, not by the present you sent me to relieve me out of the last extremity, but by the kind expressions from you of your kindness to me, which is above all things in this world, having, God knows, never loved your brother or yourself because you have it in your power to do me good, but as to your persons.

  “ ‘Had he lived, he told me before he died that the world should see by what he did for me that he had both love and value for me. He was my friend, and allowed me to tell him all my griefs, and did like a friend advise me, and told me who was my friend and who was not.

  “ ‘I beseech you not to do anything to the settling of my business til I speak with you. God make you as happy as my soul prays you may be,

  “ ‘Yours, Eleanor Gwynn.’ ”

  THE TREES IN THE ROYAL PARK IN WINDSOR WERE IN FULL LEAF, BUTTERFLIES and birds fluttering in the greenery under the summer sun. Nell was tired, as she always seemed to be these days, but the core of ice at her center had finally thawed, and she felt once more that she was among the living.

  King James had affirmed that the Pall Mall house and Burford House were hers, should not be taken from her, and would pass to Charlie after she had gone. He had paid the mortgage on Bestwood Park and her other debts and settled on her an annual allowance of fifteen hundred pounds, to be paid to her for life. She would not starve. She would not live as grandly as she had, but in truth she had no wish to. Her pleasure came in quiet company-Rose and Guy and Lily, Charlie, Buckingham, Aphra.