The Vizard Mask

by Diana Norman

  'Stupid colonial, she didn't know what the Privy Stair was,' crowed Anne Marshall, kicking her legs in the air at her amusement. 'She thought she was being given the freedom of the royal water closet next time she was in Whitehall.'

  Kynaston clapped his hands over his mouth.

  'What did you say?' breathed Hart.

  Penitence grimaced. 'I said, thank you, but I usually went before I left home.'

  Amid whoops of joy, the milkmaid shoved a tray holding seven beakers at Lacy. 'Tenpence ha'penny,' she said. 'And I ain't got change.'

  Wiping his eyes, Lacy counted out the coins. 'Whatever became of the Arcadian spirit?' he asked.

  'Never touch it,' said the milkmaid, and whacked the leader of her herd on its rump to discourage its interest in Knipp's flowered hat.

  'Will Old Rowley be cross?' asked Penitence. It worried her slightly. She was making a good story out of the incident, but she'd quickly realized who Chiffinch was that evening, and what he was asking. Appearing to misunderstand had seemed the best way of avoiding a situation she had no intention of getting into. She wanted to make a career from acting, not whoring.

  'Nah,' said Knipp. 'He's been turned down before. Frances Stewart insisted on keeping her cherry and turned him down in public.'

  'I don't know, Peg,' said Lacy, 'he's my king and I love him and-he-died-and-then-she-died, but odd things happen when he's insulted. Look at poor Coventry's nose.'

  A shudder ran round the group; mutilation of their looks was the players' nightmare. Coventry's had come about from a debate in the House of Commons when a member, trying to avert a tax on playhouses, had pointed out what pleasure the King derived from the theatre. 'From the actors? Or the actresses?' Sir John Coventry had asked. Next day, walking in the park, he'd been waylaid by ruffians and had his nose slit.

  'Come along, my little republican,' said Kynaston. Wiping off their milky moustaches, the King's servants strolled on, twitting Penitence for her lack of patriotism. 'Would you have gone up the Privy Stair?' she enquired of Becky Marshall.

  'I wasn't asked.'

  'But would you have?' She didn't regret turning down the King's offer — she'd have felt more of a whore in the King's bed than on the blankets of Newgate's condemned cell or even than she did on Killigrew's couch - but until Chiffinch had bowed and gone she hadn't realized the enormity of what she'd done and its possible consequences. And though the actors were teasing, she sensed surprise that she priced her tarnished virtue so high.

  'No,' said Marshall.'Why?' Penitence was comforted but curious. Unlike her sister, Becky had gravitas. While Anne took lovers, all of them rich and generous, the younger Marshall accepted gifts without giving more than her company at dinner in return and made it clear that only those prepared to make an honourable offer need apply.

  Marshall slowed her walk so that the two of them fell behind. 'Like you, 1 don't believe in absolute monarchy — in bed or out.' She dropped her voice. 'One doesn't bruit it about, but Stephen Marshall was our father's cousin.'

  'Presbyterian Stephen Marshall?' Penitence was impressed. In Massachusetts the Reverend Marshall's reputation for saintli- ness was high. Under the Commonwealth his bones had been interred with honour in Westminster Abbey. They'd been thrown out after Charles's restoration. It was strange to discover an actress related to such a Nonconformist divine.

  Stranger still, Becky said: 'My father followed him into the Presbyterian Church, but, of course, the Conventicles Act has stopped him preaching.' She smiled. 'He has no high regard for his daughters' honour, but he might be comforted to hear we both draw the line at sleeping with a Papist like Rowley.'

  'Is the King a Papist?' The word still vibrated with Puritan abhorrence.

  'Oh yes,' said Becky Marshall, calmly. She nodded to the others ahead. 'Though you wouldn't get our friends there to believe it.'

  They were walking along a narrow path edged by the canal on one side and pollarded willows on the other. A little way beyond the trees a coach had drawn up. As they passed it they saw its driver's seat was empty and its curtains drawn. Marshall was saying how dangerous it was to leave horses unattended when the coach door opened and two men jumped down. Penitence just had time to recognize Sir Hugh Middle- ton before both men grabbed her and began dragging her towards the coach where a third man was holding open the door. She screamed.

  Marshall was running after them, shouting for help. One of the captors had to release his hold to fend her off, and Penitence managed to get her arm round a tree trunk. Her face scraped against bark as they pulled her away, wrenching her arm, but the delay had given the players time to reach her. She had a confused impression of the actors, swords drawn, in approved fencing positions encircling her and Middleton, who was clutching the back of her dress, shouting: The slut's mine. I adore her.'

  'Let her go.'

  The other man released her and ran back to the coach. Penitence kicked backwards, connecting her brand-new high heel with Middleton's shin. His hand tore her dress as he let it go and began hopping, rubbing his leg. 'She's mine. I want her.'

  Lacy, recognizing farce when he saw it, sheathed his sword. 'Get back in the coach, Sir Hugh, there's a good lad.'

  Middleton's face crumpled and he dithered his hands, like a frustrated baby. 'But I want her.'

  'Not today.' Kynaston and Hart marched him back to his coach, watched it pull away, then bowed gracefully to a crowd that had hurried up to watch.

  It had turned into a performance and Penitence, shaking, responded to it by bewailing her torn dress and ruined hat as if they were her grievance. In a way they were; she still owed dressmaker and milliner £20. But the true shock was not so much the assault as the words Middleton had been hissing at her as he'd dragged her away, protesting his adoration with vituperation so violent it had been like the snarls of a predator with a rabbit in its jaws. Knipp had been right. We are prey.

  Knipp and Anne Marshall exclaimed over her grazed face. It was Becky who insisted that something be done. She was furious. 'What are we? Animals?' she raved. 'All we do is try to earn a living, and they think they can snatch us up like stray dogs. This isn't the first time. And what about that fop who nearly raped Knipp in the tiring-room the other night? Where's the King? I'm going to give him a piece of my mind.'

  'It's not his fault Middleton's a lunatic,' said Kynaston, reasonably.

  We're under his protection, he can damned well protect us. Where is he?'

  It was easy enough to find him; Charles II was the most accessible of kings. The first person they asked directed them to Pall Mall. A crowd hid him, but as they came up it emitted an admiring 'ooh' at a ball which curved into the air above its heads and through one of the loops hanging from the gibbetlike poles along the course that was out of the actors' view. Suddenly it scattered as a less well-directed ball went skywards. Determinedly, Marshall led her force into the gap.

  Penitence held back; reaction was making her feel sick. She could hear Marshall's voice expostulating and the news being passed around the spectators. Becky meant well, but she wished she wouldn't fuss. She didn't want to be drawn to the King's attention.

  A very tall shadow blocked out the sun. 'Mrs Hughes. Allow me.' A hand under her elbow led her to the shade of an oak tree. The figure beside her took off its coat, folded it neatly and put it on the ground. Gratefully, Penitence sank on to it.

  'You're hurt, ma'am. Allow me to fetch a doctor.'

  The voice was deep and prim. The face high above her was unmistakably a Stuart's, the same swarthiness, same jawline, cleft chin and dark eyes. Only the mouth was distinctive, being thinner and less sensuous than the King's and more intelligent than James's. Below the hairline of his periwig an old scar formed an ugly dent of puckered skin. This man was even taller than the royal brothers, about six foot four, had seen more years and, from the look of him, had liked them less, but at the moment he was registering an almost nervous concern. 'A restorative, ma'am. At least permit me to fetch a restorative.'r />
  'Thank you, sir. It's nothing.'

  'It was a foul assault so I have just heard. But give the word, ma'am, and I'll horsewhip the varlet into the next country.' It was said with an energy which sent a thrush in the branches above his head flying to a quieter perch.

  'You are kind, sir.' She smiled in real appreciation. 'But I think His Majesty is being asked to take action. I'm one of his players.'

  'Indeed. I had the privilege to see your Desdemona but last week.'

  That's who he was. It had been an occasion when the house was exceptionally well ordered and Hart had explained: 'Prince Rupert's in the audience. The stinkards daren't misbehave while Rupert's around.' The romance still attached to the name of Charles I's great cavalry general had sent twitters of expectation round the tiring-room, but the Prince had disappointed them by merely sending his compliments. Penitence, too, had been curious to see the commander who'd written the news of her father's death to her mother with such courtesy.

  Now here he was, an ageing, embittered-looking hawk of a man and, at the moment, ill-at-ease. There was a silence.

  'I prefer Shakespeare to the taradiddle they put on nowadays,' said Prince Rupert.

  'We're performing Hamlet next week,' she told him.

  'With yourself as Ophelia?'

  'Yes.'

  'I shall be in attendance.'

  There was another silence and they both studied a herd of deer grazing nearby. It was a relief when the crowd by the pell-mell course opened to let a group of courtiers, led by the King, walk in her direction.

  Prince Rupert assisted Penitence to her feet and bowed. 'I shall instruct the troopers to keep back the rabble. Farewell, ma'am.'

  'Thank you, Your Highness.'

  Sedley and Rochester had been among those pell-melling with the King and all three were in their waistcoats. Charles II expressed a lazy concern as Penitence raised herself from her curtsey. He cupped her under her chin: 'Oddsfish, did the villain scrape this peach? He shall die, what do you say, Rochester?' His eyes were amused and gently malicious.

  Did he set Middleton on? She dismissed the thought as unworthy. But he's not displeased that it happened.

  The Earl of Rochester said: 'Chop his head off, sire. We need a new pell ball.'

  'More than one,' said Sir Charles Sedley. 'Let's detach him from another part of his anatomy.'

  Poor Becky Marshall was still trying to instil some of her outrage into the royal ears but she had been wrong-footed and merely sounded shrill.

  There was a piercing whistle from the wall which marked the garden end of the houses flanking the pell-mell court and where, to the delight of the crowd, Nell Gwynn had climbed up from the far side of hers and was leaning over to find out what had happened.

  Some two hundred people now pressed against the restraining troopers to listen to their king explain the situation to his mistress.

  "You all right, Peg?'

  'Yes, thank you, Nelly.'

  'Now you listen to me, Charlie,' said Gwynn. Your Majesty, I mean. There's too much of it. We get it all the time, in the tiring-room, outside. You got to put a stop to it.'

  'Get what, Mrs Gwynn?' asked Rochester, slyly.

  'Too much of you. Treating us like we was common as hedges,' said Gwynn. She flirted as she scolded, playing the jester-mistress. The crowd was loving it.

  Charles staggered back in mock surrender. 'Pax, O fair one. It shall be done. Laws shall be passed. Edicts issued.'

  This game was obviously going to go on for some time. Penitence wondered if she could go home.

  The only one paying her attention was Sir Charles Sedley. She felt his shirt-sleeved arm slip under hers. 'I told you you'd need a protector,' he said.

  In the end nothing came of it. A sulky Sir Hugh was reprimanded by the Lord Chamberlain. The King ordered members of the audience banned from the actresses' tiring-room, but nobody took any notice.

  Neither did Prince Rupert attend the performance of Hamlet. On that same day, 10 June, the Dutch fleet appeared at the mouth of the Medway and bombarded the fort commanding it into surrender before sailing upriver, burning three of the biggest vessels in the Royal Navy and towing off its flagship as a prize.

  The news reached Whitehall the next morning.

  Charles and James reacted with the energy they had shown during the Great Fire and immediately took horse to supervise personally the sinking of ships in the Thames so that the enemy should be blocked from further advance. The militia was called out in every county and a large field army raised with commendable speed. But although they limited the harm, this time they got no praise. This time, the reverberation of cannon that travelled up the Thames to the ears of Londoners came only from enemy guns.

  The Royal Navy had been caught napping, and the greatest damage was political.

  Penitence heard the news in Dog Yard as she set out for the theatre. Even in the Rookery, usually unconcerned with anything happening outside a half-mile radius, angry knots of people gathered in Dog Yard to ask the pleasant June air what things were coming to. By Holborn the knots had become crowds. Drury Lane was almost impassable. She detected little panic, only rage. The country had suffered the worst humiliation in its naval history and the howl wasn't directed so much against the Dutch who'd committed the offence, as at those who should have prevented it. She struggled through crowds surrounding upturned tubs on which furious men ranted against the government, Lord Chancellor Clarendon, even against Charles II.

  On one tub a man with clerical tippets on his ragged collar was whipping up the anti-Catholicism that seethed just under the surface of any English Protestant crowd. 'Punish the Papists who wind their heresies around our king and make him weak. The Whore of Babylon is loose in the court.' One of his listeners took the opportunity to shout: 'She ain't the only one.'

  Further on another tub-thumper was calling up an equally powerful genie: 'And what I say is: Where's our taxes gone? Eh? What they doing with our money if they ain't spending it on our defence. Eh?' He was supplied with the answer he wanted. 'On the back of that Papist bitch, Castlemaine.' The jewels and palaces with which the King had loaded Barbara Villiers, now the Duchess of Cleveland, for keeping his bed warm were resented by the Drury Laners in a way that his conspicuous spending on the latest favourite, Nell Gwynn, was not. Nelly was one of their own and a good Protestant; Castlemaine was haughty and a Roman Catholic and a useful scapegoat.

  Passing the butchers' stalls, Penitence was called over to a Dogberry surrounded by fellow-traders, flies and hanging halves of beef. 'She'll know,' he said. 'Here, Pen, is it right last night while the Dutch was attacking, the King was careering around with his women hunting a bloody moth?'

  She was glad to dissociate herself from the doings of the court. 'I'm just a poor actress, William. I'm not in that circle.'

  'It's bad though, Pen. Iffen you see him, you tell him. We didn't survive the bloody Plague so's we could be murdered in our beds. It wouldn't have happened in good Queen Bess's time. Nor Cromwell's neither.'

  It was the first time since arriving in England she'd heard the late Lord Protector's name mentioned with approbation. It seemed that King Charles II's honeymoon with his common people was over.

  Her fellow-players were gloomily gathered on stage for rehearsal. She made her apologies for being late. 'Everybody's blaming the King more than the Dutch. They don't seem to be blaming the Dutch at all.'

  'Well, it shouldn't have happened, Peg,' said Lacy. 'The Medway fort was only half built, ran out of money. And they say the navy's sinking for lack of supplies.'

  'He'll have to treat with the Dutch now,' said Kynaston, 'The war's ruining us.'

  "We should never have fought them in the first place.' Becky Marshall was betraying her Presbyterian sympathies. 'I don't mind the Dutch. It's the French who worry me.'

  John Downes called Penitence to the wings. 'Letter for you.'

  She broke the seal and read neat, but hurried, writing.

  I go
to plant cannon at Woolwich and down the Medway. Pities be that 1 was not allowed to do so before, as I urged, and that I shall not have the pleasure in watching perform the lady whom I regard as England's noblest actress. May you be in God's keeping and excuse your devoted servant, Rupert.

  'Interesting?' asked John.

  'From Prince Rupert,' she told him, 'he's gone to war.'

  'God love him. He was on our wing at Edgehill, the mad sod. Pity there aren't more like him nowadays.'

  Hart's complaint reached them: 'No doubt our audience today, if we have one at all, will be meagre, but do you think it might just possibly notice if Ophelia isn't in it...?'