The King's Favorite

by Susan Holloway Scott

  Finally, however, not even Killigrew’s will was enough. At the end of June, the court packed themselves and their belongings into their carriages and a score of baggage wagons and fled from the plague to Oxford. On the same day but one, the royal order came to close the playhouse for the good of the people, and remain shut until the plague was gone from the City.

  It took only a morning’s hasty work for me to pack my few belongings and collect my mother and my sister. Then, in the company of Charles, John Lacy, the Marshall sisters, and several others from the company, we joined the somber, ragtag exodus from the City. I felt as if we were part of one great mourning party, there was so much weeping for those who’d been lost by those who’d survived. Our very foot-steps seemed timed to the incessant doleful church bells, lamenting yet another death. And if any of us felt any hesitation, any reluctance to leave, we’d only to glance by the side of the road, where the bodies of the dead and dying lay in the tall grass and the hot sun.

  My poor, sad, suffering London! I would not return for more than a year, not until the playhouses were once again permitted to open. By that time, a fifth of London’s people would be dead of the plague, and a third of her buildings would have been destroyed by the Great Fire, while I—I would be ready to claim what rose from the ashes as my own.

  Sixteen months later, on a pale October morning in 1666, the leading players of the King’s Company were gathered together on the stage by Master Killigrew. Though this was the time usually reserved for rehearsal, we were being spared the dry tedium of repeating our lines and learning our places, and instead were expected to give our opinion of a new play by Mr. Dryden. Some of us sat on chairs, and others lay more comfortably on pillows and bolsters taken from the properties. We were cozy enough, with a small brazier in the center of the stage to provide the heat that failed to come from the watery autumn sun overhead. All of us held steaming cups of tea or chocolate to help keep warm, and keep awake to listen attentively.

  Since we’d been permitted to reopen our doors last month, we’d offered only one new play and a slew of revivals, and comfortable familiarity didn’t seem to be working. Our old audiences had been scattered and disturbed, even killed by war, plague, and fire. The ones that remained needed a spectacular lure to leave behind their own lairs and homes for the playhouse. They needed to be won afresh, just as the players had done when the king had first returned from France six years earlier. We needed a new play, a new beginning, an entertainment that would have half of London chattering and the other half clamoring for admission to discover what the chatter was about. Leastways, that was how Master Killigrew had explained it, charging Mr. Dryden with the challenge of creating such a marvel.

  “There. That’s how it ends.” Finished with his reading, Mr. Dryden tucked the last page of his manuscript behind the rest with tidy precision, and smiled with tight anxiety. “Finis, as they say in Paris.”

  “ ‘As they say in Paris’?” repeated Charles, his voice booming over my head as I lay sprawled across his lap. “ ‘Brilliant’ is what they’ll say in London, and that’s all I give a fig for. It’s brilliant, my friend, a work of truest genius and fantastical pleasure.”

  “Indeed!” Mr. Lacy nodded, his chins jigging with excitement. “I predict a run of at least a fortnight, and revivals, too. There’s a rare sweet freshness to the characters that will draw them in like flies to treacle. What was the play’s name again?”

  Mr. Dryden flushed with pleasure, and glanced back down at his pages, as if needing to read the title once again. “Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen. Of course, we can change that title if you wish it.”

  “Why should we wish anything of the sort?” asked Master Killigrew, stepping forward to embrace the playwright. “It has everything audiences want. A monarch who must put aside the intrigues of her heart for the sake of her people will bring their tears, but the lower couple will only make them laugh.”

  “We’ll not give offense to His Majesty, will we?” asked Mr. Mohun, full of doubtful caution. “He won’t think we’re judging him? ”

  “What, that we’re asking him to give up his whores for England?” Killigrew laughed, widening his eyes at such a preposterous suggestion. “Trust me, my friend, the king won’t see himself in our little play. He never does. Which is not to say that others won’t, and relish the irony. Dryden has outdone himself. This play has wit, it has pathos, it has—”

  “It has Nell,” Mr. Dryden interrupted with rare boldness, “or it will, if she’ll have it.”

  He smiled at me, and almost as one, everyone else turned my way to watch my response. This was new to me. During the time the playhouses had been closed, a small group of us had traveled about the countryside as a kind of casual troupe, plying the only trade we knew. We gave our plays in the country houses of our wealthier friends from London, and when that failed, we gave them in the public rooms of inns. We earned enough to cover our needs and wants, aye, and enjoyed ourselves more than was perhaps right, considering the suffering we’d fled in the city.

  But for me, our travels had been much more than that. Just as a scholar will return to university to take more study, so I used this time to learn more parts by rote and perfect my skills before an audience. With no gallants or other friends to distract me, I’d given my full attention to what Charles and Mr. Lacy could teach me, and by the time we’d returned, I was, at sixteen, as polished an actress as the company could boast.

  Mr. Killigrew could see the change, and rewarded me with a leading role in the first new play we produced on our reopening. I was cast as the rich widow Lady Wealthy in Mr. Howard’s The English Monsieur , with Charles as my lover Wellbred, and Mr. Lacy as Frenchlove. It was a fine, amusing play, with much opportunity for me to demonstrate all I’d learned, and before the run was done, I’d become the audience’s darling, and brought us all a profitable take.

  The trick, of course, would now be to do it again.

  I leaned forward, away from Charles’s chest, and wrapped my woolen shawl more tightly around my hands as I considered. “My part would be Florimell, wouldn’t it? Not the Queen o’ Sicily?”

  “Oh, yes, Florimell, the maid of honor,” Mr. Dryden said quickly. “Mrs. Marshall will play the queen, as is proper for an actress of her stature, but Florimell is the role more ripe with comic possibilities. I wrote it specifically with you in mind, Nell.”

  I smiled wryly. “I’d say you wrote it with me and with Mr. Hart together in mind.”

  “I did,” he admitted, blushing like a girl. “But when I saw how you two can please an audience, why, it would be wasteful not to repeat such magic.”

  I nodded, understanding the rest of what he was leaving unsaid. The part had been written for me, true, for me to display my strengths to best advantage: a gift beyond price, and if ever I wished to see myself the subject of celebrity and the true darling of the court and the king, then this daring role would be my entrée.

  Florimell was drawn as a wild, mad girl of my own age, and as impulsive and forthright as I was myself. There was even a scene where I’d pretend to be a gallant, and put on gentleman’s clothes to show off my legs in breeches and hose; I was already planning how many of Rochester’s little mannerisms I’d pilfer as my own. The role for Charles was equally fine, a droll courtier named Celadon who was my character’s lover.

  But in writing for us, Mr. Dryden had also written about us, as anyone who knew our situation would clearly see. The way that Florimell danced around the supposedly more clever Celadon, charming him and letting him love her without ever giving her heart in return. Even the ending—especially the ending!—wherein Florimell and Celedon are compelled to wed, yet vow to be free always to love otherwise, struck perilously close to our situation.

  In truth, whilst we’d been a-wandering about the country, Charles had offered to share not only his lot with me, but his fortunes, as well, and split his income with me as neatly as if we were man and wife. I’d been touched and honored by this kind
ness, but as gently as I could, I’d refused him, not wanting to be so bound. Of course, I’d not told anyone else of his offer, for the sake of Charles’s pride and manhood (I never was carelessly cruel with men in this regard), yet still my conscience prickled me to know how much would now be shown on the stage, for all London to see.

  And upon that fragile little twig, really, would balance the success or failure of the entire production, and perhaps of the company’s future as well.

  “You’re righteous quiet, Nell,” Master Killigrew said mildly. He’d every right to order me to like what I’d heard, of course, but it would be more agreeable for all if I could find the play praiseworthy. “I cannot believe you’d fault the piece, nor your part in it.”

  “How could I? ” I asked, striving to sound more light of heart than I felt. “If I should fault this mad girl Florimell, then you should set me to playing an ass instead, as more fitting.”

  I cupped my fingers together and held my forearms up alongside my head, waggling the tips like ass’s ears, making my teeth buck, too, for extra measure. The others laughed, as I knew they would, but all the while I kept turning my dilemma over and over in my head. This was what I wanted, I knew. If ever I was destined to play a part that would raise me high, then this Florimell was it.

  Yet because of all Charles had done for me, I balked. As we sat together on the tumbled pillows, I could feel his thigh against my hip and his hand resting light upon my knee, trusting and familiar.

  “That last bit, the false contract between Florimell and Celadon,” Charles was saying to Mr. Dryden. “I do believe I like that the best, and so, I vow, will our audiences. The drollery about never being jealous—”

  “They’re Celadon’s lines,” Mr. Dryden said quickly, as pleased as any author to have his words recalled. “ ‘Husbands and Wives keep their wills far enough asunder for ever meeting: one thing let us be sure to agree on, that is, never to be jealous.’ Then Florimell speaks: ‘No; but e’en love one another as long as we can; and confess the truth when we can love no longer.’ ”

  “That’s the bit,” Charles said, satisfied. He raised my hand and kissed the back. “Consider the sport we can make of that, Nelly! The women will nod and sigh with agreement, and the men will ogle you in breeches, and back they’ll trot, to see it again and again. Your Florimell will own London, sweet.”

  “You are right as always, Hart,” Master Killigrew said. “This play is as good as gold in our pockets.”

  I twisted about to face Charles. “ ‘Love one another as long as we can’?”

  He put his hand on his breast, over his beating heart, in the famous pose that made all the vizards in the pit fair weep with longing. “ ‘And confess the truth when we can love no longer.’ ”

  To the others it was just more of our usual banter, an extension of the roles Charles and I played so often on the stage. Only I saw the trust combined with a certain resignation. Had my restlessness been that obvious, or had my youthful exuberance finally grown wearisome to him? No matter; he’d as much as given me leave to play this part, and whatever else might come with it. I felt as giddy and joyful as a canary who’d just been given the key to her own cage, with my wings spread to fly for the first time toward the sun.

  I kissed Charles lightly, quickly, with gratitude and for remembrance’s sake, and turned back to Master Killigrew. “When shall we begin rehearsals? ”

  “Where are my garters?” I demanded, fumbling among the boxes and baskets beneath my dressing table. “Damn the wretched things for having legs and wandering off from me at this inconvenient hour! I vow I cannot stand before the king with stockings puddled around my ankles.”

  “Hush, Nell, he’d prefer it more if he caught you with your petticoats and shift missing, too,” Ann Marshall said to her looking-glass, too occupied with freshening the crimson of her lips to turn toward me, and likely too jealous, as well. “It’s not as if he hasn’t seen your legs before.”

  “Not in breeches and hose, he hasn’t,” I said breathlessly, crawling out from beneath the dressing table with my errant garters. I set my leg up on the bench, hurriedly smoothed the stocking up over my legs, and tied the garters—very bright blue silk fringed with silver—above my knee. “And I know the king does like a pretty leg.”

  Ann sniffed derisively. Although she’d been cast in the title role of The Maiden Queen, during our first performance today she’d garnered only a fraction of the applause that I’d earned as Florimell, and Ann’s envy was as green as new grass. Not that I cared. The porter had just warned us that the king and his party were on their way backstage to compliment the company, and I meant to be the actress he spied first.

  “Yes, yes, Miss Nell,” Ann retorted, “and it’s only because you’re such a loyal subject that you begged to wear men’s clothing. No one made you do it, nor did anyone make you shift your costumes now. You could have just as well kept on what your wore in the last act, same as everyone else.”

  “Oh, pish, Ann!” Beside me, Ann’s sister (and my friend) Beck laughed. “Aren’t you the sour one? You don’t play breeches roles because you’ve legs like hogsheads, and Killigrew would rather put his granddam in breeches than send your ugly pins out on the stage.”

  “I should box your ears for that, sister, indeed I should.” Ann glowered, but Beck only laughed the harder. “Besides, Beck, your legs are same as mine. Mind that fact, if you please, before you choose sides with an ignorant little tomrig like Nell.”

  I clapped my gentleman’s hat atop my head, fluffed my hair loose and curling like any prime fop, and swaggered before Beck. The entire man’s dress, from the shirt to the doublet to the breeches and hose, had all been cut and fitted to my small size. I’d added special small touches rummaged from the playhouse’s stock—a pinchbeck death’s-head ring on my little finger, a ribbon-tied lovelock beside my cheek, a lace-trimmed handkerchief in the French style and as oversized as a field of winter corn—to make myself even more of a coxcomb than Charles’s Celadon.

  “Where is this tomrig Nell Gwyn, hussy? ” I said in the same voice I used to play one of Celadon’s fellow courtiers. “ ’Sdeath, but I do love a good slatternly tomrig. Here, kit, kit, come lick your favorite cream!”

  “Faith, Nell, don’t, I beg you!” Beck cried, quaking so with laughter that tears slid down her cheeks. “I cannot bear it when you go on like that!”

  “Ladies, ladies, silence,” the porter shouted from the doorway. “His Majesty the king!”

  At once we ladies forgot what other tasks or quarrels we were about, and turned toward the doorway to drop into respectful curtseys.

  We all did, that is, save me. Instead, with my forefinger and thumb, I plucked the oversized lace-trimmed handkerchief from my pocket and fluttered it daintily over my back as I bowed extravagantly low over my outstretched leg, a lovely, courtly flourish I’d stolen direct from Rochester. I focused on the bow on my shoe, as gaudy as a French butterfly, until I was certain both that the king was in the room and that he’d noticed me. Mind you, there were few so skilled as I at seizing and holding another’s gaze as if it were my due—which in next to nearly every case, including this one, it was.

  “Mrs. Gwyn,” the king said, smiling down at me. “I cannot begin to tell you how much your performance today pleased both me and the queen.”

  Perhaps I should have simply murmured my thanks for the royal appreciation, as was proper. But it seemed I was still possessed by the mad character I’d played that day, and instead of curtseying, I glanced over my shoulder, peering about as if to hunt for another.

  “Mrs. Gwyn, Your Majesty?” I said, mystified. “I know not this Mrs. Gwyn, unless she is the impudent young baggage that Mrs. Marshall says was here earlier.”

  “I do believe she was.” The king tipped his head to show he’d ride with the jest, his dark eyes bright as jet as the others laughed and guffawed around us. “A sly, saucy jade, this Mrs. Gwyn, quick with her wit, and blessed with as fine a pair of legs as ev
er I’ve seen.”

  “ ’Sdeath!” I exclaimed. “If she’s as ripe as that, sir, then a pox on me for not having plucked her myself.”

  The others hooted and roared, and the king held his hands up for silence.

  “That is all well and good,” he said, managing to be both solemn and teasing at once, “but I do believe you are both a rogue and an imposter of the basest sort. Is Lord Rochester in attendance? ”

  “Here, Your Majesty.” My friend Rochester pushed his way through the crowd of courtiers. He’d finally won and wed his heiress, and she came forward with him, a shy, plump-faced girl in costly clothes. Rochester stood square before me, more than a head taller than I. For a long moment, I feared my mimicry had angered him, then saw that he, too, like the king, had seen I’d meant no harm, but play. As if he faced a looking-glass, I mirrored his posture and stance in miniature.

  “You, sir, dishonor me by this foolishness,” he said, drawling the words into an insult of his own. “If you were not the lowest offal beneath my feet, I should demand my satisfaction at once.”

  “Likewise, my lord, I should be honored to defend my honor for besmirching my honor.” I frowned, and searched through my pockets. “That is, I should, if I could but find it here upon my person.”

  He drew back his shoulders to a more bellicose stance, and folded his arms over his chest. “You, sir, are a mite, a midge, a bane, a blight, beneath my notice and my contempt.”

  The king rubbed his hand across his mouth, striving to swallow back his laughter. “I should rather say a sprite and a scamp, and an imp and a jade.”

  “A jade? ” I clasped my hands over my breast with the most woeful groan, as if I’d been mortally struck. “Ohhh, dear sir, how grievously you unman me!”

  Now Rochester was laughing, too. “How can you unman what wasn’t first made man to undo? Come, come, there’s one sure way to prove your manhood to us all. Show us, sir, what measure of a man you may be.”