The Vizard Mask

by Diana Norman

  It was amazing how many weapons the Abbey held. Such prebendaries as weren't armed already were wrenching halberds from the fists of statuary warriors and throwing funerary vases. But the armoury was open to all; Rebecca Marshall was standing on the bent back of a street-walker and reaching up for a lance holding regimental colours. Dogberry had grabbed a candle-holder from the Chapel of St George and was wielding it like a pike.

  The noise went up a hundred feet to the vaulted roof, whipped across tombs to echo back off the gilded figures of saints. Grimacing faces ducked and shouted behind the calm of marble effigies.

  All masks were off. Penitence had expected the hatred of the Church, but what amazed her was the ferocity of her friends, as if Aphra was just a rallying point for a hundred years of condemnation. Some pent-up element was loose in the Abbey,- licence against censure, restriction against liberty, the acceptable against the possible, both sides were released in the pagan joy of hitting. The original cause of the fight was forgotten.

  The choir, escaped from the Master, had relapsed into boys who were joining in with yells in high trebles. One had butted Sam Bryskett's stomach and another was impartially biting a prebendary's leg. She jumped on to the coffin and heard her own voice ridiculously shouting: 'On, on, you noblest English. To Poets' Corner.'

  There was an answering roar and she was tipped off as beggars and Betterton, yelling more Shakespearean war-cries, swept Aphra towards the choir. But the forces of the Church rallied half-way up the nave and, with the gates of the Henry VII Chapel forming a backdrop, pressed the coffin back to the side door to the Cloisters.

  Penitence's head had hit a pillar and she'd lost interest for a moment, until she heard the rasp of a sword and saw the soberer prebendary advancing on her, glaring. 'On guard, whore.'

  The man's mad. But so was she. She crouched in the position John Downes had taught her with her left hand quirked out and Aphra's pen upraised. The soberer prebendary lunged and his sword-tip slashed her sleeve, scratching her arm as she parried with half a pen. 'God damn it,' she shouted, 'you're not supposed to do that.'

  No appreciation of theatre, this man, a killer. Oh my God, he is. The man's eyes gleamed. There was froth at his mouth. He wasn't going to stop when the curtain came down. She dodged behind a sarcophagus. After all she'd been through she was going to die in a farce. There was blood on her hand as she raised it to protect herself. He was about to lunge for her chest.

  Another figure stepped in front of her. 'That's not very nice' said a voice to her opponent. It had said the same thing to her other opponents.

  She collapsed on to the sarcophagus. The soberer prebendary didn't like the change but was out of control and didn't mind who he killed. 'Whoremonger,' he screamed.

  'Oh, really,' said the Marquis of Severn and Thames, crossly, 'I haven't got time for this.' He pressed the man back between the pillars of the triforium into the shadows. She heard a clang and they came out again, the Marquis clutching the soberer prebendary by the collar, pulling him towards Penitence. 'Mrs Mahomet, I presume?'

  Tears were falling down her face as her gratitude for the man streamed upwards in prayer. He'd come when, if his jealousy had been stronger than his care for her, he would have stayed away. His presence was an acknowledgement. He'd let himself off the hook.

  He looked down at her. 'Have you ever thought of taking up a quiet pursuit? The army? Gun-running? Something contemplative?'

  She shook her head and closed her eyes for a moment. 'I love you, Henry,' she said.

  'That's all very well, but every time I have to come and rescue you I offend some king or another. William was put out that I cut him short to come and get you out of trouble — yet again. We're running out of kings.'

  'Never mind,' she said. 'This time you get to keep me.'

  'Do I?'

  'Yes,' she said, 'you do.' She looked into his face. What had done it she didn't know but something in him had won a battle over something else; his love had overcome the whatever-it-was — jealousy, masculine pride — that had kept him from surrendering to it until now. He was amused but rueful. After all, if one thing wins another is defeated. She knew it was the better part of him that had gained the victory but he had yet to be persuaded. Well, she had the rest of her life in which to persuade him. It was a nice thought.

  He said, peering at her arm, then at the tomb, 'Do you know you're bleeding over Lady Jane Clifford?' He helped her to her feet and supported her as they went towards the noise that had transferred itself to beyond the Cloister door which stood open amid a litter of broken urns.

  As they made their way towards it, the Archdeacon staggered in from the western end holding his head. The wreckage of his abbey sobered him. 'Sacrilege!'

  Henry bowed and introduced himself without letting go of the prebendary's collar. 'This lady is entrusted with a letter from His Majesty, who has now sent me to express his disquiet at this business. Show him, Boots.' He regarded the paper Penitence produced from her sleeve. It was indecipherable with blood. 'Ah. Well. Perhaps you would permit me to tell you what it says.'

  He was rescuing her. It would have been impossible to succeed without male authority in this bastion of maleness. Still, if she could only get Aphra honoured as she should be honoured, the female sex would have won a victory. And you'd have liked Henry, Affie.

  What it says,' he was saying pointedly, 'is that the King expects the Chapter of Westminster Abbey to honour the promise of its Dean and bury Mistress Behn in the South Transept.'

  'Does it?' asked the Archdeacon.

  Did it? She hadn't read it, but she was damned sure it didn't.

  'It does,' said Henry. 'Perhaps you would inform the Chapter.'

  'Don't do it, Archdeacon,' yelled the soberer prebendary. 'The King can't dictate to us.'

  Penitence was sick of him. 'Yes he can.'

  Henry placed his sword-tip against the prebendary's spine and bowed to the Archdeacon. 'Lead the way.'

  The battle in the Cloisters was going badly for Aphra's side. The Church had brought in reinforcements in the shape of beadles and adult choristers. The street-walkers and beggars had wisely disappeared. The actresses were inflicting damage, though running out of ammunition; nearly all the men had been forced to surrender. Creech and Benedick still struggled with three Yeomen and John Downes, panting with age, was fencing beautifully with a beadle. Betterton's sword, however, lay at his feet as he displayed open palms to two muskets aimed at him and Dogberry. Payne had been wounded in the leg. Sam Bryskett's arms were being held behind his back by assorted prebendaries.

  The most interesting situation was Nat Lee's. His brown paper hat had unravelled and hung in folds round his head which was the only part of him to be seen, the rest being down the hole dug for Aphra, and he was flinging up stones and earth at anyone trying to get near him. He looked like an angry rabbit.

  'Pax,' shouted the Archdeacon. He didn't have the voice.

  Henry did. 'pax.'

  All bodies stilled, all heads turned. After one look, Nat Lee scrabbled on.

  The Marquis gestured to the Archdeacon. 'Your scene, Venerable Sir.'

  The Archdeacon rose to it: 'Bury the bloody woman,' he said, 'King's orders.'

  There were protests from the Church's army.

  And one from Aphra's. 'She's going in P-pp-poets' Corner.'

  But at this the enemy ranks raised their weapons again with a chorus of 'No'. The Archdeacon shook his head: 'Here or nowhere.' The soberer prebendary said: 'Over my dead body.'

  The Marquis rescued him just in time by standing between him and those from the theatre prepared to take the man up on his offer. 'Look around you, Boots,' he pleaded. 'If you go on somebody's going to get killed.'

  She looked around and saw that her years of accumulated fury at women's wrongs had sent her sufficiently insane to believe she could right them, reducing her and Aphra and Aphra's friends into fools. Colours which had illumined the last few minutes muted into the grey shadows of
a stone passageway where bruised and tattered misfits stood in the grip of eternal authority.

  I'm proud of them. They couldn't win. Would never win. It was only because they had spent their lives in illusion that they had even dared to try. Henry was right. The play was over; the audience hadn't appreciated it - to the point where it was prepared to kill them. Already she and Neville Payne were bleeding, nearly all the others hurt.

  'Boots,' said the Marquis, 'you've got her this far. Settle for it. Learn to compromise, for God's sake.'

  She looked at him. He was proffering medicine that he'd already had to take. Even now he wasn't reconciled to her past; he never would be. He had compromised with it to gain their future. In her turn she would have to overcome her resentment of his resentment. She would have to compromise, not just over Aphra, but over the rest of her life. Well, there were worst fates than a compromise. England itself had just made one. Extremists had held back from killing each other for the first time and instead had agreed to put on the throne that narrow-chested, coughing little Dutchman. William, the compromise king. If England could do it, she could. Actually, she was too tired to do anything else.

  She nodded.

  Eventually they found the coffin skewed under a pew in the Chapel of St Faith. Creech's shoulder was dislocated so they needed another pallbearer. Penitence wanted it to be the soberer prebendary but he'd been sick and gone home.

  The Marquis went into earnest consultation with the Archdeacon, receiving assurances, paying out moneys. The Abbey's chief organist was sent for and came gladly - Purcell had been fond of Aphra.

  Elizabeth Barry tore a piece off her already torn petticoat and bandaged Penitence's wound, then together they wandered into the South Transept to look at the memorials of Poets' Corner until everything was ready. 'Who's Thomas Triplet?' Barry asked.

  'I've no idea.'

  'I'm glad Affie's not going in with him.' Idly drawing a moustache on Abraham Cowley with a finger that had been dipped in Aphra's inkwell, she said: 'Chloe says Affie left you The Widow Ranter.'

  'Yes.'

  'It's a wonderful part.'

  You're too young. The girl was beautiful; she'd only been sixteen or so when she'd become Rochester's mistress. He'd taught her how to act and made a fine job of it according to Betterton who'd told Penitence: 'Next to you, she's the best Desdemona I've ever seen.'

  No. It's me who's too old. Penitence said: 'You can play her if you like.'

  Barry twirled round. 'Can I?'

  'Yes. This was my last performance. I'm getting married.'

  The funeral party had gathered itself and put Chloe's hat on straight. They lifted Nat Lee out of the grave so that Aphra could be put into it. He cried on Betterton's shoulder all the way through the interment.

  The wind of Purcell's Te Deum reached them even here, in this far, dark corner, and the choristers sang like angels. 'I heard a voice from heaven,' declaimed the Archdeacon, 'saying unto me, Write; Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord; from hencefourth: yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours.'

  They sprinkled the Abbey's dust on to the coffin and held Nat Lee back from following it. Since there were no gravediggers, Creech and Dogberry filled in the hole and when the earth was level there was a rush of prebendaries to help them tamp it down.

  The churchmen went first and one by one the mourners followed until only the Marquis and Benedick and Penitence were left. The son winked at his parents and ran to catch up with the retreating form of Elizabeth Barry.

  Penitence looked down at the earth. 'People will tread on her,' she said.

  Henry took her good arm and led her back into the nave where a prebendary was snuffing the candles. She turned towards the Henry VII Chapel. 'I ought to go and say goodbye to Rupert.'

  He tightened his grip. 'You've said goodbye to him.'

  She considered. 'I have, haven't I? I'm going to marry you.'

  'Wait until you're asked, woman.'Together they stood in the great doorway, looking at the green where Aphra's army was finishing the wine. They saw John Hoyle emerge from the direction of the Abbey Arms and rejoin it. 'He deserted.'

  Henry said: 'If the King hears I lied about his permission, I'm not likely to get my ambassadorship.'

  'Did you want it?'

  'Not really. I thought I'd settle down and spend the rest of my old age in Somerset.'

  She put her hand on his. 'I thought I would too. We've done enough. We'll leave the rest to William and Mary. Theirs should be a sensible reign.'

  As they crossed the road to join the revelling mourners, he said: 'But duller.'

  'Oh yes,' said Penitence. 'Thank God. Much, much duller.'