“This is Mrs. Davenant’s home,” Arden said quietly, trying to keep the quaver from her voice. She could not, however, prevent herself from taking a step backwards, putting that much more distance between herself and her stepfather. “If you and I did not need to settle some matters,” she continued, “I would insist she throw you out for your incivility.”
“There is naught to be settled but that you get your things. I’m taking you back to your mother, rebellious creature though you be.”
“Even if I have already sold my honor?” Arden asked. She could feel the heat in her cheeks as the idea occurred, and she hoped to be a good enough liar to convince Treadwell. She also hoped he wouldn’t notice the deepening shock on her new friends’ faces as she spoke.
He peered at her, scrutiny in every aspect of his face. “If you’ve walked the London stage already, you might have done anything,” Treadwell stated.
“You saw me?” asked Arden, temporarily distracted from her deceitful purpose. “You went to the theater?”
“Yes. I trust my immortal soul is not in peril―surely the Lord understands the lengths I must go to look after you,” Treadwell said accusingly. He moved closer to her and continued, softening his tone: “Arden, child, you have already strayed so far! But I sense from looking at you that all is not lost. You have not sold yourself beyond redemption. Go get your things, and let us leave this evil place.”
“No.”
Whatever softness Treadwell had summoned temporarily now departed. “Get your things now, or I will drag you out of here without them,” he menaced.
“N-n-no.” Arden’s voice finally broke, but she stood firm, arms across her chest.
“You defy me, slut?” Treadwell’s claw-like fingers en-circled her forearm. Pulling on her with the rest of his hand, his forefinger moved up to brush against her breast. Arden shuddered and jerked away from him, but her limb remained imprisoned. She did not know if Mrs. Davenant saw every-thing Treadwell had done, but her landlady signaled to Brian and Nan. The fledgling writer and the maidservant needed little urging. They fell upon Treadwell bodily and dragged him off her. Her stepfather screamed his rage, calling the pair “bloody Papists,” but to his credit no further epithets unbe-coming to his Puritan faith tarnished his outcry. Judging from the sound, Nan and Brian continued through the house until they reached the door leading back to the street. Before the slam of the door, Arden heard her stepfather call out to her: “They may have kept me from you this time, but I’ll bring assistance when next I come to call. I’ll bring you home, no matter what!”
Arden did not stay to thank Brian and Nan, but excused herself to Madame. She raced up the stairs to her room as fast as her trembling legs would carry her, and locked her door. As if it would do any good! He doesn’t believe me! she wailed inwardly. Acting on stage isn’t enough for him to consider me ruined! He still wants to bring me back! And he’s going to get help, or he’ll fall upon me when I’m alone, and there’s no one who can protect me. Not Sir William, not Lord Robert, maybe not even King Charles himself! Arden cast herself upon her bed, steeling herself against shudders that threatened her bodily control. I can’t let him take me back, I can’t. I can’t let him touch me again. I’ll die first.
To die. The thought did not please. The Church of England taught that suicides burned in Hell. Besides, life grew more interesting daily. King Charles had finally ascended to his rightful throne, and Arden had just performed before him as an actress in London. She had known the kiss of a handsome, passionate man for the first time―so much better than the embraces of an old lecher bent upon incest while quoting Scripture. True, Arden could not continue under the tutelage of Lord Robert, but the thought of Lord Robert didn’t frighten her. And if she let Treadwell take her home, he would ruin her anyway.
The more she thought, the more Arden realized where her only salvation lay. If Treadwell would not leave her alone until she was truly ruined, then ruined she should be. And in such a public manner that he could not fail to believe her. If she became Lord Robert’s mistress openly, kept by him in apartments, would that place her far enough beyond redemption? Would that make Treadwell give up?
True, Arden did not want to belong to Courtenay. She wanted to live solely by her own acting talent. But by God, if her fate included being ruined, she could not fault herself for making sure she chose her own ravisher.
Arden heard a soft knock on the door. Could Treadwell have gotten help so quickly, before she’d even had a chance to go to Lord Robert?
“Arden, it’s Brian. Are you all right?”
Brian wouldn’t take money from Treadwell to fool her. How could she think it? Treadwell didn’t part with money that easily. Hence his appearance in London came as even more of a shock. Arden unlocked the door for Brian. He bore a tray with two steaming mugs of chocolate. He set the tray carefully down on the ample wash basin already upon the credenza, presented her with a cup, and took one for himself. Since only one chair came with the room, he sat on the floor.
“I thought you might need a friend,” Brian said.
“Indeed I do,” said Arden, her composure returning. “But, please, Brian, take the chair and I shall sit on the bed. I’m afraid my story will be long and difficult. At least for me, and possibly for you, too. I may speak frankly, even though I have known you but a short time?”
“I hope so,” returned Brian. “I’ll try to make it easier for you. Why―besides the stage, and his generally distasteful faith―do you not want to go home with your stepfather?”
“Aren’t those two things more than enough?”
“To stay,” admitted Brian, “but not to make your face blanch the moment you hear his voice, and go even whiter when he actually enters the room.”
“Well, as seems to be your talent, you have got right to the heart of the matter, Brian,” conceded Arden. “My step-father is a lecher. Ever since my mother married him, he has found every excuse to touch my person, often as intimately as he can manage. I know not where it shall end.”
She felt the heat of shame in her face, and expected her innocent friend to look deeply shocked. Instead, his eye-brows, already so close together, knit in seriousness. “But he seems like such a strict Puritan. If it is a sin merely to watch staged entertainment, what is it to assault his own stepdaughter?” Brian asked.
“Oh, he’s a strict Puritan, all right,” Arden told him. “He couches all of this in moral lessons. With every sickening caress, he tells me this is how evil men use sinful women. That his actions and worse will befall me if I don’t mind him and mend my ways.” Arden found it difficult at first to talk about such things, especially with a man, but it turned out to be such a relief, finally, to have someone hear her. She had never told another soul about Treadwell, and now that the secret flowed out, the gender of her listener did not matter in the least.
“I see,” replied Brian, his frown deepening. “What's to be done? I will do whatever I can to protect you,” he pledged.
“Oh, Brian, you are so kind! But I cannot presume so much of you, nor Madame, nor anyone else. Even if I could, it wouldn’t work,” Arden added. “If you glued yourself to my side every time I went out of this house, I’m sure he could gather enough of his Fanatick friends to overpower you. I would not cause your harm at the hands of such. No, Brian, the only thing I can figure is to make him stop wanting me.”
Here is the difficult part, Arden thought, as she looked at Brian’s rapt, expectant face. After his words the day they’d met about not believing in “bothering” without love, this would sound horrible. Yet she had never seen him be anything but friendly with any of the actresses, even the ones with the most scandalous reputations. Now that she thought about it, Brian had offered this belief shyly. As though, because of the difference in his opinion from that of the company he kept, he felt himself the one in danger of judg-ment. No, her new friend would not condemn her. Maybe he would even help.
“I thought becoming an actress would be enou
gh,” Arden began. “I thought he would be too ashamed to bring me home to live among his upright friends.”
Brian appeared lost in thought for a moment, but then he returned his attention to her, hazel eyes bright. “You know, I remember hearing something like this once. When the Company first started, we were all sitting around with ale before rehearsal. The actors and actresses gossiped about the high folk they had known. Seems one of the actresses—well, she lived in a brothel before we started up. And she said there had been a customer, a certain Duke who only wanted virgins. Of course, in brothels they are in shockingly short supply. So each time he’d visit, they’d outfit a different girl with a bladder full of chicken’s blood. To simulate a hymen, you know,” added Brian, apparently seeing Arden's puzzlement writ large on her face. My, what things I am learning already, she thought wryly. Chicken’s blood! And I am shortly to join the ranks of the ruined myself.
“Anyway,” Malley continued, “the girls in this establishment compared encounters with this Duke, and it seems he had rather small parts and not much stamina. So they deduced that men who are so hot for maidenheads only are so because they fear an experienced woman. A woman who would know how clumsy and ill-equipped they truly are for the art of bothering.”
Arden tried hard not to smile. First, because Brian called the same act both “bothering” and “art” simultaneously. Second, because at the moment he was merely a young man relating an interesting theory―with no realization that he advocated just the course of action Arden had already decided to pursue. “I’ll bet that is exactly the case with Treadwell,” she finally said aloud. She briefly wondered how he got by with her mother, then realized she did not want to think about it a moment longer. Then again, she had no half-brother or sister, did she?
Awareness dawned on Brian’s face, turning it a deep shade of red. “Of course,” he said quickly, “I didn’t say you should―no, Treadwell may be nothing like that.”
“Even so,” said Arden, “surely he would not bring back a ruined girl, someone who had openly become someone’s mistress, back to his respectable neighbors?”
“Arden, what are you contemplating?” demanded Brian.
“You know Lord Robert made me an offer,” she stated.
“But, Arden!” he protested. “You aren’t like that! I haven’t known you for very long, but long enough for me to learn you’re not the type to casually sell your favors!”
“I’d hardly call it casual,” she rebutted. “I know, I know! It’s not what I wanted, but Brian, what choice do I have? I’m ruined either way. At least with Lord Robert it won’t be so bloody horrid!” She could not add for Brian, “perhaps not horrid at all.” She wanted him to retain some idea of her as virtuous. “And with Lord Robert, I can stay here, and stay an actress, which is what I want most of all. Will you help me?”
“Help you? What can I do? You’ve made it clear my assistance is not enough to keep you safe. What else is there?” asked Brian. Fortunately, his tone held not accusation or scandal, merely bewilderment.
He sees, at least, thought Arden, that I do not take this action lightly. “I want you to carry a message to Lord Robert,” she said, her eyes lowered. “Not just that I have reconsidered his proposition. I want you to talk with him, and explain my situation. I want—I want him to know what has forced me to this, but I don’t think I can bear to discuss it with him myself. I want you to go to his lodgings tomorrow morning, and tell him I shall be there after that day’s performance. Will you do it for me, Brian?
*****
Malley accepted Arden’s commission. After that, however, there seemed to be little to talk about. He retired to his own room―where he lay awake most of the night. Brian knew one way to save his new friend from ruination, but was he ready to do it? True, he already liked Arden better than anyone he had ever known, but he had known her so short a time! Marriage was much too serious a step to take with someone who had only walked in his world for a matter of days. Of course, people who had never laid eyes on each other before wed all the time. But that was usually arranged by their parents, who would presumably have their children’s best interests at heart, and have some notions of their mutual suitability. Besides, that sort of thing―an arranged marriage between strangers, however suitable―did not appeal to Brian Malley. If he did not even believe in “bothering” without love, he certainly did not approve of matrimony without it. Oh, yes, he liked Arden amazingly. He could even grow incredibly heated at the thought of touching just the skin of her sweet face―it looked like the finest white silk. Did it feel so as well? And to explore the ripe promise he had seen rising over the fronts of the gowns she tried during their shopping expedition? If he continued thinking of that, he’d soil the sheets. But was that love? Malley had no idea. Even if he did love her, even if he could be sure of his own heart, what of Arden’s? Perhaps she, though at core virtuous, preferred Lord Robert and would rather have him in sin than Brian in the honorable estate. Or, though Arden did not strike him as a fortune hunter, maybe she felt it better to be a future Lord’s mistress than a mere scribbler’s wife.
But maybe she didn’t. Maybe she would give anything to have an honorable way out. Maybe the gratitude she would feel towards him for providing her one would make the love grow between them. Maybe, by letting Arden go to Courtenay tomorrow, Brian would lose the woman a benevolent God had put in his path to become the love of his life. But there had been no particular spark in her eyes when she asked for his help, no reluctance at her own plan other than proper modesty. Surely, if Arden preferred him to Lord Robert, she would have cried, or something. Shown a specialness to her pleas for assistance that she simply had not.
“And if I keep chasing my own tail like this,” Brian concluded, “I’ll never sleep tonight.” He kept trying to force his mind to be still, and finally fell into a fretful doze. The first rays of the sun flinging themselves against the window of his chamber easily woke him a mere hour later.
Chapter Seven
Arden, oddly, slept better than she had since childhood. My, how jaded I have already become, she thought wryly, after Madame rang the bell summoning the boarders to breakfast. She examined her conscience as she prepared herself for the day. She would not get to the kitchen in time for more than cooled bread and jam, but she had to be decent before going down to get those. Plenty of time to ponder while she dressed. Arden did not think she had grown so casual that deciding to become Robert Courtenay’s kept woman did not affect her sleep. Rather, for the first time since her mother had brought Treadwell into her life, Arden had rid herself of the constant, creeping fear that had come with him. She had found the solution to what a certain part of her mind called “the Treadwell problem”―a name that enabled her to shelve the issue and keep it somewhat at bay. Simply being able to talk with Brian had been an enormous relief in itself. Even had she not reached an answer, just having unburdened herself to someone who sympathized had assured her blissful slumber.
Now she had awakened, however, Arden could not help interrupting her toilette several times to pace the room and look through the window. Brian had probably bolted his breakfast already, and probably even now made his way to Lord Robert’s house on the Strand. Nervous or no, she couldn’t call him back now if she wished. But she didn’t wish. By this evening, she would be safe. Ruined, but safe.
Unless—what if Lord Robert didn’t want her any more after Brian told him her story? What if Treadwell’s attentions had soiled her in his eyes? Though she still remained a virgin, what if her history somehow made her too sordid to meet even the minimum standards of wholesomeness for a nobleman's mistress? Lord Robert did strike Arden as a man fastidious in his amorous tastes.
He also struck Arden as discreet. Perhaps too discreet. What if he did still want her, what if he did make her his mistress, but so quietly that Treadwell never found out and managed to abduct her anyway? Oh, she could probably prove her ruination, but that would be an unpleasantness best avoided.
&nbs
p; She needed to participate more vigorously in her own infamy. If the entire theater company already buzzed with her prospective ravishment, it might prove too embarrassing for Lord Robert to back out. Of course, he still could, and turn the shame back upon her twofold by revealing the taint of Treadwell. Lord Robert did not seem, however, like a man who would abuse a woman in such a manner.
Arden rang for Nan. She had stopped her toilette altogether, and now regretted managing to get into her dress. Formally, the house servant worked for the Davenants, but occasionally actresses with a few extra coins to tip her asked her help with their attire or in dressing their hair. Arden supposed she’d have enough money for her own tiring woman soon, but assistance with her preparation only served as cover for her purpose with Nan.
When Nan arrived in her chamber, Arden said hesitantly, “Nan, I’d like a bath.” Some guilt came with her request, because this involved the serving girl’s dragging Madame’s large wooden tub to her room and fetching several bucketfuls of water upstairs.
Nan’s mouth dropped, then she tried to recover herself. “Yes, Mistress West, whatever you like,” she murmured. She started to leave, then turned her face back to the actress.
“Yes?”
“Beggin' your pardon, miss, but—what on earth for? It’s still winter! You’ll catch your death! Oh, Madame has a bath once in a while even though it’s still cold, but those French women have odd ways. What’s a good honest English girl like yourself need with a bath in February?”
Arden smothered a nervous laugh. “I suppose I do like baths more than most people find healthy,” she confessed. Indeed, she suffered for one, not having bathed since she left for London. She realized another advantage to being kept by Lord Robert―she could have a bath every day if she liked, prepared by her own servants, instead of feeling like a burden to a girl not really in her employ. Not that she would have sold her virtue for the luxury of unlimited cleanliness, but she might as well make the best of the inevitable. “But Nan, I must confess this is a special occasion, and I will give you something for your extra trouble.”
Arden's Act Page 5