The Vizard Mask

by Diana Norman

  Well there is,' Betterton said in his best grand manner. 'Open the doors, my man.'

  'Once we've got her in the hole, they can't shift her,' Becky Marshall was explaining to Sam Bryskett. 'Penitence read the rules that she got from the Dean.'

  'They shifted Cromwell,' said Sam.

  They watched the Yeoman of the Guard unhook his keys from his belt. He was sorting through them. He was putting one in the enormous lock.

  And then a prebendary came round the comer from the entrance to the Cloisters and asked them what they thought they were doing. Within minutes the Yeoman of the Guard had his pike levelled at them, the tomb-guide had been sent running to fetch the rest of the Abbey guard and prebendaries were pouring through the Cloister door, having celebrated the ending of Chapter with a large meal at the house of the Archdeacon who'd partaken freely of his own port.

  Benedick put his hand over his mother's mouth and held her arms so that the argument could be left to Thomas Betterton: 'Why may she not, Venerable Sir? The Dean gave his permission.'

  'Dean's absent,' said the Archdeacon, flapping his hand in a direction which indicated that the Dean was in the Thames. 'Chapter's decision. No actresses in the Abbey.'

  'Mistress Behn was a playwright.'

  'Same thing,' said the Archdeacon. 'All whores and topers.'

  A soberer prebendary stepped in front of him. 'With respect, Archdeacon.' He turned to Betterton. 'My good sir, you must understand our position as keepers of this most holy place. Mistress Behn was an enterprising woman but hardly an ornament to her sex and it was felt she would lie more comfortably in some other resting place.'

  The Archdeacon wagged his finger. 'Won't have her in. Put her in St Bride's with other scribblers. Good enough for her.'

  'Such playwrights as we honour here,' went on the soberer prebendary, shaking his head at the Abbey's indulgence in giving any of them houseroom, 'wrote to the glory of God, in sacred language, Shakespeare and, um, Chaucer.'

  'Have you read the "Wife of Bath" lately?' shouted Becky Marshall.

  'Didn't have her in either,' shouted back the Archdeacon, sure of his ground.

  The Abbey guard was filing into the space between the funeral party and the West Door, most of them old soldiers who came cheap. Penitence's eyes pleaded with her son and he took his hand off her mouth. 'Keep everybody here,' she told him. 'I'll be back.' She gave him her purse. 'Buy them wine. And get some food for Nat Lee.'

  'Where are you going?'

  'To see the King.'

  She began to run. Apart from the ranks of agitated men round the Abbey door it was surprisingly quiet; over towards the river neither House of Parliament was sitting, and only a few lawyers and their clerks were pausing to stare on their way in and out of Westminster Hall; the whole place was resting after the efforts for the Coronation. It had stopped raining. It was getting dark and the carved, square gatehouse leading to the bridge over the Tyburn ditch had a wet sheen that reflected back the torches in their holders on either side of its passageway.

  Then she was out of the Middle Ages and running towards Whitehall. From the suffocation of the Church she ran into the suffocation of Government; she saw it rolling towards her like fog, ready to muffle her in its obfuscation as it had so many petitioners before her. Some sanity returned. They'll never let me near the King; it'll take days. She advanced through the murk towards the light of the Holbein Gate where a gentleman was wearily dismounting from a horse. As he turned he saw her and stopped in mid-stretch. It was the Viscount of Severn and Thames.

  After a moment she said: 'I want you to take me to the King.'

  And he said: 'They don't usually let you in with a weapon.'

  She looked down and saw she was holding Aphra's pen like a dagger. 'I'm burying Aphra in Poets' Corner, you see,' she said reasonably. 'They won't let me, and the King's got to make them.'

  He nodded. 'The Buttery first, I think.'

  'I want to see the King.'

  Carefully, he took the pen away from her. 'You shall have it back later,' he said as she snatched for it. 'And you shall see the King. But the Buttery first.'

  They served excellent ale in the Palace Buttery and he made her sit down at one of the tables and drink a frothing pint of it. In between gulps he fed her with morsels of equally excellent bread and cheese. 'When did you last eat?'

  She tried to think. 'What day is it?'

  'That's what I thought.'

  'I must see the King.'

  'Finish your ale. He's waiting for us; at least, he's waiting for me. For the Scottish report.'

  Some form of normality was returning as she ate, but with it came a lassitude. In a while she'd have to return to the fight and Aphra's unburied coffin and leave this man for the last time.

  With Aphra dead, Dorinda dead, her stage career over, her energy gone, there would be no occasion for her to visit London again; she would stay in her backwater, subsumed by its minutiae. One day, perhaps, she would hear that this man had married a young heiress and produced healthy tributaries for the viscountcy of Severn and Thames.

  I shall wither. The thought of hearing it withered her now. She hadn't fully realized the fortitude necessary to face life without him, the pressure every minute imposed because he wasn't sharing it with her.

  Do I love you that much? She did. Had. Would. They had known each other for, what, twenty-five years? A generation. Literally, a generation of love seeded into them both the moment they'd met. Given the greatest gift life had to offer, greater than talent, greater than pride, certainly greater than wealth, they had left it untended. And that — she saw it now — was true sin. She was a sinner not because she had whored to stay alive but because she hadn't pursued her lover — how beautiful that word was and how dirty they had made it — and not only forced him to see her as she was but open his eyes to the fact that he loved her as much as she loved him. Because you do.

  Such waste it had been.

  She felt a tear drip down the side of her nose and rubbed it, pretending it was an itch. 'How's MacGregor?' she asked.

  'He had to stay on. I think he's arranging to give you Scotland. Tell me about Aphra.'

  She told him and anger for Aphra re-energized her in the telling. 'Why shouldn't she be commemorated with all the other poets? They've got somebody called Casaubon in there and who was he, I ask you? Did he write for freedom from slavery like Affie did? And Michael Drayton who only wrote one line worth saying, and Thomas Triplet. Who the hell's ever heard of Thomas Triplet? I'll wager those p-p-pprebendar- ies don't know.'

  'Let me get this clear. You're trying to bury Aphra Behn in the Abbey's Poets' Corner?'

  'Yes. But the prebendaries are trying to stop me.'

  He leaned back, fingering his chin. 'Have you tried fucking 'em?'

  'Ah.' She shouldn't have lowered her guard. John Downes used to tell her time after time when she was learning to fence. She sighed and stood up. 'Not yet. But it's a thought. Shall we go?'

  He took off his cloak and wrapped it around her to protect her from the damp of the courtyards. She could feel desperation emanating out of his flesh into hers. I can't help you, my dear, dear man. Only he could transcend the rules men made for themselves and choose the greater maturity of love.

  You have to realize for yourself. It has to matter more than anything else.

  The Palace was still in disorder from James's flight; every Dutchman they saw was gloomy and every English servant resentful of the Dutch. The usher taking them to the Royal Apartments complained to Henry as to a fellow-sufferer. 'Won't have his hand kissed, if you believe it. Won't even let us kneel. Won't touch for the King's Evil, just wishes 'em better health and less superstition. And she's everywhere, taking gruel to the poor and checking the accounts. Checking the accounts.'

  The Grooms of the Bedchamber were hanging about in the vestibule outside and apologized in advance for the lack of ceremony. 'He says would you suffer him to receive you deshabille, Marquis. He has the cough.'r />
  One of them muttered: 'When ain't he?' They showed no interest in Penitence.

  Marquis. Oh well, good luck to him.

  King William III of England was crouched over the Bedchamber's fireplace, coughing. He was in his slippers with a shawl round his shoulders. Like the great bed, the red and gold room had been stripped of its hangings and faded marks on the walls showed where they'd been taken down. The windows were open.

  'Anthony.' He stretched out a hand but as Henry took it, said quickly: 'No need to kiss it. How was Scotland?'

  'Chaos, Your Majesty. But first, may I take the liberty of introducing Mrs Peg Hughes, an old acquaintance of mine? She asks a boon.'

  The King turned away from the fire and looked at Penitence. Then he crossed the floor and kissed her hand. 'An old acquaintance of mine as well,' he said slowly. 'I am deeply in her debt. You look well, Mrs Hughes.'

  'So do you, Your Majesty.' She hoped she was the only one to be lying. He looked ghastly; she hadn't remembered him as so small. How old was he? Thirty-eight?

  'Better than the last time we met.' They still understood each other. A second's worth of amusement touched the pinched, white face and went again. Holding her hand he took her to the window — 'I can't breathe in your London' — leaving the Marquis staring. He gasped some air into his concave little chest. 'Perhaps the Marquis would not understand that then it was also in a bedroom.'

  She whispered back. 'I don't think he would. He's not an understanding man.'

  Together they looked out on the Thames; the tide was in and to both of them the lap and smell of water brought longings for other waters; she for the streams and rhines of Somerset, he for his canals. 'I would give ten thousand pounds to be in Holland now.'

  'You were homesick then.'

  'I shall always be homesick. And now I cannot go home.' He'd got the stoop of a pedlar, as if England made a heavy pack.

  They stood nodding at each other before he had a fit of coughing and hurried her to the fire, indicating that the Marquis could join them. 'You once did me great service, Mrs Hughes,' he said formally. 'In what may I serve you?'

  She explained.

  'Aphra Behn?' He connected the name with something disgraceful. 'One of my good Uncle Charles's favourites?'

  'Not in that sense. He liked her plays.'

  'The woman playwright.' He'd remembered. 'I hear she was bawdy.'

  It will be her epitaph. Penitence was overcome by hopelessness. Well, if she couldn't get Aphra buried in the bloody Abbey on Aphra's merits, perhaps she could get her there through her own. 'I want her in Poets' Corner. That's the boon I beg.'

  'Poets' Corner?'

  'The South Transept. In Westminster Abbey.'

  'Ach, Westminster Abbey.' The King turned to the Marquis. 'You missed a comedy there, Anthony. The Coronation was virtually a Popish ceremony. In my shirt to the waist, kneeling I was. It was very draughty. And too much music.'

  'Sire,' said Penitence, sharply, 'my friend lies unburied outside the West Door. Give me permission to inter her in the South Transept.'

  'Ask me for something else.'

  'What?' She'd rescued this little Dutchman from ignominy. Damn it, she'd held his head while he was sick.

  'Ask me for anything else. Ask me for Devonshire. Ask me for a duchy. Ask me for jewels, for the hand of this Marquis in marriage. You shall have them all.'

  'But I don't want any of these things. I want the little bit of earth my friend has deserved.'

  'No, you don't.' He sat back down in his chair. His face had become impassive. 'Mrs Hughes, you are asking me to interfere with the Church of England. My uncle lost his throne for that and I will not follow him. I told you once that the overriding principle of my life is to oppose the advance of France, and that I cannot do if I am fighting the Church of my own realm. No.'

  'Thank you, Your Majesty.' She swept him her best theatre curtsey and turned to go, but the Marquis's hand reached out and gripped her arm.

  'Your Majesty,' he said, 'the Abbey is a Royal Peculiar.'

  William Ill's face remained expressionless. Penitence didn't like it any more. 'It is peculiar certainly. In what way Royal?'

  'It means that it is under the jurisdiction of no bishop nor archbishop, only the King's. It is the sovereign's free chapel and exempt from any ecclesiastical jurisdiction but the sovereign's.'

  'Therefore?'

  The Marquis turned to Penitence. The grave's dug?'

  'Yes.'

  'And you think that once the coffin's in they won't move it?'

  'Yes.'

  'Therefore, Your Majesty, you have the right to give permission for a subject ...' He raised an eyebrow at Penitence. '... fifty subjects to enter your own Abbey. What they do when they get there is something else again.'

  'It will cause trouble, Anthony.'

  William, you must get used to trouble. You're in England now.'

  Coughing, the King went to his table, scribbled some lines on a piece of paper, came back and gave it to Penitence. 'There.'

  She didn't say thank you. The paper wasn't that big.

  'Show Mrs Hughes out, if you would be so good, Marquis. Then return. We have to deal with Scotland.'

  She went out frontwards and without a word. In the vestibule the Marquis handed her Aphra's pen from where he'd put it on a table.

  She was numbed by the ingratitude of kings. 'I should have left him without his breeches.'

  'Good God, not him as well!'

  'Oh, Henry,' she said. 'When are you going to let yourself off the hook?' and left him staring after her.

  Penitence had a stitch in her side by the time she reached Westminster and paused to catch her breath. Across the square the coffin lay surrounded by flares on the green in front of the Abbey. Nat Lee was sitting on it; beside him was a hogshead of wine from which he was refilling beakers with a ladle. With their capacity for enjoying any occasion, the players had turned the cortege into a party. The funeral cart and horses had gone, but the drummer had stayed and been joined by a fiddler and some of the mourners were dancing, Benedick with one of the actresses — it looked like Elizabeth Barry — Dogberry with Becky Marshall, Payne with Chloe. Passers-by, mostly beggars and street-walkers, had come up to sample Nat's generosity.

  Further off the prebendaries had gathered by the entrance to the Cloisters in a watchful, disapproving group, though Penitence glimpsed a leather bottle doing the rounds there as well. The Archdeacon, who was showing a tendency to lie down, had been propped against a mounting block.

  The only people who weren't enjoying themselves were the string of Abbey Yeomen disconsolately guarding the West Door.

  Penitence was relieved; no soldiers or constables had been called in; the City of Westminster was administered by the Abbey and the Dean and Chapter were careful to guard its rights without outside help.

  In that moment the scene resembled a beach, the invader's camp lit by flickering lights, the defenders standing with their backs against the towering cliff of the West Front covered with the barnacles and roots of its elaborate carving. The battle-lines were drawn, old enemies, the Arts versus the Church.

  Such solid ranks against her, so untroubled by doubt or amusement, so certain of others' sin.

  Such a rag-tag army, her side. Tipsy entertainers, beggars, writers, a gibbering escapee from Bedlam, publicans, whores.

  Aphra would have approved.

  So, now she came to think of it, had Jesus.

  It went out of control, like wars do - unexpectedly. A ghostly line of small white surplices issued from round the comer on invisible feet, snaking towards the West Door. It was time for Evening Service. Automatically, one of the Yeomen of the Guard unlocked the door and opened it to allow the choir entrance, showing the candle-illuminated interior of the nave.

  Penitence began to cross the road.

  Nat Lee stood up on Aphra's coffin, shrieking and pointing at the light. Somebody's trained voice shouted 'Decus et Dolor!' and Aphra's army
went into the attack.

  By the time Penitence had got to the green, the coffin had gone, borne up like a battering ram on many shoulders; she thought she saw her son's among them.

  'Decus et Dolor!' Elizabeth Barry was beating back a Yeoman trying to bar its way with her heavily loaded pocket, two more actresses and Chloe, Aphra's cap over one ear, had jumped on another and were clinging round his neck.

  Penitence ran to join the battle. So did the prebendaries, two of them trying to restrain Nat Lee who was hammering a third of the group with its own bottle.

  The coffin's rush had got it through the door, but the pallbearers had been forced to put it down and Betterton, Creech and Payne had their backs to it, swords out, defending its position against a contingent of guards.