‘I have never been.’
Elisabeth’s mouth fell open. She threw up her hands. ‘Never been? Oh la! Then we shall have to remedy that. It is our chief entertainment! Three times a week we go, sometimes. I’ll talk to Sam and we’ll arrange it.’
True to his word, the next afternoon Mr Pepys collected Deb and her mistress from the draper’s at the temporary Exchange in a hired carriage, and they set off for the King’s playhouse. Brydges Street was so full of carriages all come for the play that they had to get out and walk down the darkening narrow passages and into the theatre. Mr Pepys stepped off to one side to converse with a large, broad-shouldered gentleman.
‘That’s Lord Bruncker,’ Elisabeth said. ‘He works with Mr Pepys at the Navy Office.’
Deb stared. Lord Bruncker was about Mr Pepys’ age but must have been impressively handsome once. He was tall, dark and lugubrious, unlike Mr Pepys, who was broader and somewhat short in stature, but bristled with a kind of restless energy. The woman who was with Lord Bruncker smiled at Deb with catlike eyes over her fan.
‘Is that his wife?’ Deb asked.
‘No. Nobody important.’ Elisabeth shook her head and tightened her lips in a manner that suggested she would like to say more but would not.
Lord Bruncker and Mr Pepys were in animated conversation, so they had to wait for Mr Pepys to catch them up. Deb could not help looking at the woman again, at her mass of sculpted jet-coloured curls, at her pale, almost bloodless skin. She was dressed in a dark-blue silk that shimmered despite the dull day, and a wrap trimmed with white fox fur. She certainly did not need to fish for stares. Despite the stir she was causing, she held her head like an aristocrat. Deb had never seen a more arresting-looking woman; it gave her a pinch of something like envy.
The woman saw her looking and approached Elisabeth, who folded her arms over her chest as if to keep her away. ‘Good afternoon, Elisabeth,’ the woman said with an amused smile. ‘Here again? I’ve heard the play is very good.’
‘Yes, though Mr Pepys has seen it already and says it is the saddest thing he ever saw.’
‘Then I wonder that he wants to suffer it again.’ The woman raised an arched eyebrow at Deb.
‘Oh, this is Deb Willet, my companion,’ Elisabeth said. ‘Deb, this is Mistress Williams. She used to be one of the players, but now she’s …’ Elisabeth was lost for words. She took a deep breath. ‘Can you believe it? This girl has never been to the theatre. We thought it might be amusing to bring her.’
‘Quite right.’ Mistress Williams turned the full force of her attention to Deb, who realised that, close-up, Mistress Williams was older than she appeared, and the hand on her fan was bony and wrinkled.
‘Have you been in London long?’ Mistress Williams asked.
‘Just a few days.’ Deb was shy under this imposing lady’s intense scrutiny.
‘You’ll soon get used to it. And my Lord B is one of your neighbours at the Navy Chambers; he and Mr Pepys see a lot of each other.’
‘Miss Willet was educated at Bow,’ Elisabeth said, grandly. ‘It is always good to converse with someone who knows the classics.’
‘Then perhaps she will have something to teach you, Elisabeth.’
Deb reddened; sensed the air thicken between the two women.
‘Ah, here come the gentlemen.’ Elisabeth glared at Mistress Williams and grasped hold of Deb’s arm to propel her forward.
Lord Bruncker and Mr Pepys arrived. ‘I was just about to offer your girl a tour of the Duke’s,’ said Mistress Williams.
‘Oh, what a good idea,’ Lord Bruncker said. ‘Nobody knows the Duke’s Playhouse like Abigail.’
‘Splendid,’ Mr Pepys said.
‘Then let her come as soon as the play’s ended,’ Mistress Williams said. ‘That will be the most suitable time. I can show her the new machinery and take her for a turn on stage.’
‘Don’t give our girl ideas, though,’ Mr Pepys said. ‘We’d like to keep her a little longer before she turns player!’
Everyone laughed politely, and Elisabeth dragged Deb away until they were out of earshot, then turned to her husband and hissed, ‘That woman! Madam Williams! She gets worse by the minute. I don’t know why Lord Bruncker insists on keeping her.’
‘Because he’s pressed for coin, that’s why. She has an income from somewhere, and he needs it. I’ve heard he has another mistress in Covent Garden, but he’s always favoured Abigail.’
‘She sticks to him like a leech, that’s why.’
‘Tush, she’ll hear us.’
Deb turned to look over her shoulder, and Mistress Williams, still watching, waved. Her gloved hand sparkled with rings.
‘I can’t bear the idea of her appropriating our Deb like that,’ Elisabeth continued. ‘You should have said no.’
‘I could hardly refuse, could I? Not with his Lordship right there?’
Deb tried not to listen, but the two carried on bickering about it until they were right inside the playhouse. From the narrow corridor, the theatre suddenly opened out into a broad auditorium with green baize-covered benches in semicircular rows. Deb looked about in amazement as the seats filled. She counted the heads and multiplied them by the number of rows. Five hundred and seventy-five, plus the boxes. And everyone so gaudy with their buttons and bows and swathes of embroidery. They jostled in amongst the rustle of satin and silk, and the reek of pomade and stale tobacco.
Lord Bruncker and Madam Williams took their places in a box where the late afternoon light picked them out in a golden glow. Deb thought her mistress, Elisabeth Pepys, was pretty enough and buxom, but Madam Williams had an intense dramatic beauty that kept drawing Deb’s eye. She was laughing, regaling Lord Bruncker with a tale that made him guffaw and look in their direction. Deb had the distinct impression they were jesting at Mr and Mrs Pepys’ expense.
A rap of a cane three times, and the audience strained to listen. From under the stage the viols began. Deb was totally transported from the moment the first note sounded. How clear the players’ voices were! The play was The Traitor by Mr Shirley, a tragedy. Deb drank in every word, her hands clutched damply to her skirts; it was as if she had a magic spyhole straight into the evils of the Medici court.
Aunt Beth had given her the impression that the Pepys household would be one of rigid restraint, but within two shakes, here she was in a playhouse, watching a play of scandalous adultery. Never in a month of Sabbaths would her aunt have condoned this.
During the final sword fight between Lorenzo and Sciarrha, Deb had to cover her face. Their bloody deaths wrung gasps from the audience. When it was all over Deb wiped her eyes and clapped her hands together until they were red. She looked to Mr Pepys and found him studying her with a puzzled and tender expression. His eyes met hers, and she lowered them, suddenly wishing he had not been watching her display of emotion. It seemed too intimate to show him her feelings that way.
‘Did you like it, my little Deb?’ he leant in to ask. His breath was damp on her cheek.
‘I did not know a play could be so … so real. So much like life.’
His eyes misted over. ‘Isn’t it the saddest thing you ever saw? But perhaps you are too young to know much about such ways of the world.’
Her legs felt shaky. She did not understand why her heart was hammering so hard. But a sense of loss threatened to overwhelm her. The grieving, keening women on the stage brought back to her the day her mother left them, the day everything changed. Her father’s closed face, telling her never to speak of her mother again.
‘She’s gone,’ Father had said, ‘and she’s never coming back.’
She had not believed him. How could it be true? She’d refused to believe it. Until she pulled open the closet door to reveal a row of empty metal hooks, and it emptied her lungs, like a blow to the ribs.
Mr Pepys interrupted her runaway thoughts with a hand on her arm. She started, looked into his troubled face, this stranger whom she barely recognised.
; ‘Never fear,’ he said softly, ‘I will bring you again. Next time perhaps we will find a comedy, something with fine music and dancing.’
She blinked. She had been about to cry.
‘Oh dear, I told you it was sad,’ Mr Pepys said. He took a kerchief from his pocket and pressed it into her hand.
‘I’m thirsty, Sam.’ Elisabeth’s sulky voice broke in on their conversation. She had been talking to an acquaintance and now seemed in a hurry to leave.
‘Then we’ll walk past The Cock on the way home. Come along, my lovely girls.’ And he took them both by the arm, one on each side. His fingers squeezed her hand a little too tightly. Probably being kind, given he’d seen she was moved to tears by the play. Nevertheless, instinctively, she inched further away.
Chapter Five
THE NEXT DAY, ELISABETH was ill in bed with a headache, and she asked Deb if she would take Fancy, her dog, out for a walk. Privately, Deb was relieved not to have to keep Elisabeth company and was looking forward to exploring the city.
Deb had always longed for a dog of her own, and Fancy was an adorable-looking Scottish terrier, with stubby, furry legs. But when Deb approached her holding the collar, Fancy growled and bared her teeth, and Deb had to whip her hand out of the way for fear of losing her fingers. Worse, once on the lead, Fancy gave her a baleful look and sat down stubbornly in the dirt. It took nearly a half-hour just to coax her up Thames Street. Perhaps she had not been walked very often, Deb thought.
Once on the embankment, Deb paused to look at the view, but a volley of hoarse barks in the distance made her turn. A woman with two children pulled them hastily out of the way as a big dog bore down on them in a blur of white. It came with frightening speed, back bristling, teeth bared.
‘No!’ Deb shouted, as Fancy leapt forward, yapping, tugging at the lead. Deb called Fancy back, but she was too late; the white dog’s eyes were fixed on the smaller dog. It opened its jaws wide.
‘Get away!’ shouted Deb, kicking out with her boot.
The dog clamped its teeth onto her toe as Fancy scuttled behind her skirts. She gave a jerk to free her boot from the slobbering mouth, and the dog dived after Fancy, hackles up. With horror, she saw it set its grip into Fancy’s shoulder. Fancy let out a piercing howl, then snapped back. The dog let go.
Deb put herself between them, shielding Fancy as best she could. ‘Home!’ she shouted, as her boot met the ribs of the big white dog.
‘Hey!’ There was the sound of running feet, and a man leapt in, grasped the white beast by the collar, and heaved it away.
‘I’ve got him,’ the auburn-haired young man said breathlessly. It was only then that Deb was able to properly see the bigger dog, a flabby-jowled bulldog with heaving hindquarters and a short stubby tail.
She crouched down to see if Fancy was hurt but had to snatch her hand away as Fancy, thoroughly excited, snapped and growled at her. Deb was mortified to see her shoulder had lost tufts of fur, and several tooth-marks oozed blood. Deb rounded on the young man. ‘Look what he’s done! Can’t you keep your blasted dog under control?’
She stood just in time to hear the white dog’s warning growl as it made to attack again. The collar slipped from the young man’s scrabbling hands before Fancy shot backwards out of reach, jerking Deb’s shoulder. Deb flailed, tried to keep her balance, but it was no use, and she toppled backwards onto the road, landing with a thud on her backside. ‘Of all the stupid—’
The white dog leapt. Deb gave a screech of warning. But the stranger was quick: he grasped the brute’s collar with both hands and dug in his heels, as the muzzle was inches from Deb’s nose.
‘For God’s sake! Get him on a lead, can’t you?’ Deb cried.
‘Are you all right?’ The young man was struggling to hang on as the dog still strained to get free.
‘Your dog’s an outright danger,’ she shouted, crawling to upright, trying to recover some dignity over the growls. ‘He just went for Fancy, for no reason at all! Dogs like that shouldn’t be allowed. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was rabid—’
‘Here! Chester!’
A skeletally thin man in a long black greasy coat and three-cornered hat was hurrying towards them.
The white dog immediately dropped down onto the pavement, head between paws in submission.
‘Thanks, mister,’ the man in the black coat said, slipping the looped lead through the collar. ‘Here, Ches.’ In a moment the dog was following, stubby tail curled between its legs.
Fancy barked at it in a frenzy, ears flapping, full of bravado now the teeth were facing in the other direction.
Deb brushed horse dung from her skirt, keeping a tight hold of Fancy’s lead.
The young man retrieved his hat from where it had fallen and pummelled it to get rid of the dirt. Now Deb had a chance to take him in. Tall, rangy, a bit older than her. Pale hands more used to books than labour.
He rubbed his palms together and then smoothed his unruly curly hair. ‘Not my dog.’ He shrugged. His tawny eyes met hers for a moment before he made her a small bow, replaced his hat on his head and strode away.
Not his dog? Then why had he …? Deb watched him go, chest full of anger. Why didn’t he tell her earlier it wasn’t his dog? But then, there’d hardly been time. The anger deflated. He’d stopped to help, she realised. She felt two inches tall.
She called after him, ‘Wait!’ but he was already about to round the corner. ‘Thank you,’ she called after him. He turned and grinned over his shoulder.
When they got home, Fancy shot inside and promptly pissed on the wainscot.
Elisabeth was in the hall in a moment, wafting her hands at the mess and the smell, and calling, ‘Poor Fancy, what’s the girl done to you? Come on out to Maman, now, good dog!’
But Fancy stayed behind the hall cupboard and wouldn’t be coaxed.
Deb felt obliged to get out the pail and scrubbing brush and rub rosemary oil over the floorboards to make them sweet, a task that was certainly on Aunt Beth’s ‘forbidden’ list. But aware of her precarious position as the ‘new lady’s maid’, she knew she must make amends.
All the time she sloshed and scrubbed, she was thinking of the young man. Not many men would have stepped in to tackle a dangerous dog like that. He had a pleasant face, not handsome, and one you might easily forget. Except for his lovely curling hair and nice broad smile.
Still, there was little point thinking of him. She was not going to do anything so foolish as to fall for the first man who crossed her path. Look what it had done to Mama. It had turned her from a rational, sensible woman into someone who couldn’t be trusted.
***
Meanwhile, next door at Lord Bruncker’s house, Abigail Williams took a note from the messenger boy. She was about to put it aside, expecting it to be a letter for Lord Bruncker, but to her surprise, it was her own name there on the envelope. Despite her worsening eyesight, she recognised the hand: the thick, hurried strokes of the spymaster, Piet Groedecker. So he was here again, in England. The plague and the fire had driven the vermin from the city, but now it seemed they were all coming back.
‘Wait,’ she said sharply to the messenger boy.
She cracked the seal and unfolded the letter. It was just two lines:
“South side, by St Paul’s square, dusk.
Mr Johnson”
‘Where does he live?’ she asked. ‘The man who gave you this?’
‘Don’t know, mistress,’ the boy said. ‘He stopped me in the street, gave me two farthing to bring it.’
‘Where?’ She grabbed the boy by the arm.
‘Ow! By the Exchange.’
‘Was he alone?’
‘Yes, mistress. I haven’t done anything, only brought the letter like he said to.’
She dismissed the boy. Poole, the maid, appeared just afterwards, her sleeves wet to the elbows.
‘Pardon, mistress, I was washing, I didn’t hear the door. Is there anything I can do?’
‘No. Nothing.’<
br />
Poole gave her a sympathetic look, then dipped her head and slipped away. She knew not to ask any questions. Abigail had made it quite clear that her employment depended on her discretion.
Abigail paced the floor. She did not want to meet Piet. Since the letter had come to dispatch Harrington, she had put Piet out of her mind, as if pretending the Dutch did not exist would make them go away. She sat down and put her head in her hands, rubbed her eyes. She was bone-tired. When night came all she wanted to do was to rest her head on Lord B’s shoulder, listen to the comfort of his snores and fall into oblivious sleep. She did not want to deceive him by creeping from his bed and searching his papers. Lately, with no Dutch presence in the city, she had become lax, and, unable to prick herself to stay awake, she had left his correspondence alone.
But now this. She had known, really, that it could not go on. Not while she was collecting her monthly payments from the Dutch. She needed the money for Joan’s mercury medicine, if her daughter would even take it, which she doubted. She set aside the thought of Joan. It was too painful and brought too much disturbance in its wake.
Piet’s message had to be obeyed, and more trouble would come if she did not go; though she hoped it was not to be another assignment like Harrington. She could not stomach another so soon.
Abigail put on a broad-brimmed hat and tied a muslin over her nose and mouth to keep out the dust. She slipped pattens over her shoes and set off on foot, with Poole following like a limp shadow a few paces behind. On the ground, getting around the city was difficult. There was so much rubble from the fire, and from rebuilding, that travelling by carriage through the centre of town was well-nigh impossible.
She had left Lord Bruncker a note to say she was auditioning for a new play. He would be disappointed when he got home to an empty house. He was getting difficult to deceive, more concerned for her welfare. On a whim, she stopped at the hosier’s and ordered new stockings for the winter. She asked for the tops to be embroidered with little bees, a tribute to a private joke between her and Lord Bruncker, whom she always called Lord B, and he in turn jokingly called her his Queen Bee. She imagined his amusement to find the bees next time he lifted her skirts. She liked to surprise him in little ways. You had to work hard, she thought, to keep a man happy.
Pleasing Mr. Pepys Page 3