Lenore stood, rooted as they grappled there.
No one had to tell her who this wild beauty was. She was looking at the celebrated Barbara Villiers—Lady Castlemaine.
The King’s eyes were alight as he subdued his enraged lady, whose breasts heaved with effort and fury. She writhed in his arms, and now the deep intensity, of his gaze, all his absorbed concentration was focused—as she had meant it to be—upon his fiery mistress, Lady Castlemaine. He wrested the whip from her and let her go free. In the struggle her plumed hat had fallen off and skittered across the polished floor, and now she swung away from him with a billow of green satin skirts and ruffled silk petticoats, paused with her dainty boots planted wide apart, and considered Lenore vengefully. Up and down two pairs of bold feminine eyes raked each other, while the King watched in amused silence. “Who is this wench?” Barbara demanded icily.
King Charles gave her a wary look. Lady Castlemaine was a spirited mistress and not given to taking second place—not even to royalty.
“She is the Angel of Worcester, my dear,” he said wryly. Barbara looked startled. Then she shrugged. “She looks like a serving wench,” she observed, her sweet voice dripping insult. “Faith, they get homelier every day!”
Lenore paled with anger, and her fists clenched. This richly garbed woman might call herself “Lady Castlemaine” because the King had bestowed an earldom upon her husband to get him gone from their sight, but in what other way were they different? Both of them—mistresses!
“Your ladyship would do well to hold her tongue,” Lenore advised her with an insolent smile. “For a trollop on her way up meets the same faces on her way down.”
The King laughed hugely, but Barbara’s beautiful face whitened in fury. Her gloved hands were clenched at her sides, and Lenore guessed they itched for the whip. “Get you gone, wench!” she cried hoarsely. “From my sight!”
“As His Majesty commands,” said Lenore in a brittle voice, making no move to go. “He will decide which of us leaves this room.”
Barbara made a swooping dive for the whip, which the King had pitched aside, but he caught her easily. She trembled with fury in his grasp. “Are you going to let this street girl insult me?” she panted.
The King shrugged. Everyone knew how he felt about his dashing mistress—he would give her anything. Suddenly, before Barbara knew what he was about, he stripped a ruby ring from her finger and flung it to Lenore over Barbara’s shriek of anger. “Take this to Killigrew of the King’s Company—you’ll find him at Gibbons’s Tennis Court in Vere Street; they’ve moved from the Red Bull since yesterday. Killigrew will recognize the ring. Tell him I said you were to be given a breeches part, Mistress Lenore.”
Lenore caught the ring in midair, this small token of a King’s passing favor, and as their eyes met, a small smile crossed her face. Kings were like other men, she realized suddenly. Afraid of their wives, afraid of their mistresses. Whoever wrested Charles from the dashing Barbara would fight a hard battle.
“I thank Your Majesty.” Her legs still burning from the whiplash, Lenore swept into her lowest curtsy, her bright hair almost touching the floor.
When she rose they were walking away from her, the King a tall elegant figure in black velvet with his vast black periwig of shining curls—and swaggering a bit; Lady Castlemaine with her haughty head in the air, her green satin skirts billowing. That was the last Lenore saw of them—the sight of their backs as they moved through the tall double doors and into a long handsome corridor, a pair of thoroughbreds indeed.
After they had gone she stared down at the ruby ring he had tossed to her. Just one of many, doubtless, that he had bestowed on his favorite, Lady Castlemaine. She looked after that tall figure thoughtfully, just disappearing down the corridor. If she had followed through and not wavered, she might have had him in spite of vivacious Barbara—for she had seen the quick interest burn in his dark eyes. If she had made her move at the right time . . . but she had thrown away her chance. Deliberately.
Why? Why? Why? She passed a weary hand over her face. Had Geoffrey so marked her that she would never find happiness in any other arms but his? Or . .. was it her stupid, stiff-necked pride that insisted she must want her mate, indeed must choose him? Was she unable to give herself for mere ambition?
Perhaps that was so. ... If it was, she told herself, she had come to a sad pass indeed, for romance as she had known it with Geoffrey was not apt to come to her in lascivious Restoration London, which men now called the wickedest city in the world.
CHAPTER 26
The King had promised Lenore a royal pardon, and though she was slow in getting it, it came at last. Her job in the theatre came much quicker. She had left Whitehall and hastened over to Vere Street to speak to Thomas Killigrew, holder of one of the two Royal Patents given by the King in the theatre monopoly. She had found him very busy, almost inundated by young ladies who filled his outer chamber and overflowed into the hall. He was a bit testy with her. When she explained she was from the King, he muttered, “Another one!” And when she added that the King wished her placed in a “breeches part,” he exclaimed that half the young ladies in the other room were from the King or the Duke of York or some other highly placed personage—all of whom wanted some special favor! Lenore who had thought them all candidates for acting careers from schools of singing and dancing, opened her violet eyes wider.
She explained—in a burst of honesty with this harassed gentleman—about the royal pardon she was to receive.
Killigrew stared at her, his brows drawn together.
"Pardon? Bah! You do not need a royal pardon to be an actress in London, mistress!”
Lenore gave him a startled look.
“There is a theatrical monopoly here now,” he told her. "Two companies patented by the King—mine and William Davenant’s. ’Tis but a revival of the old days. But no player in either company can be arrested or sued without the Lord Chamberlain’s permission. Think you this will be given?” He gave a short laugh. “All apprentice players must work their first three months without compensation. Agreed, mistress?”
Lenore bit her lip. How would she live those three months?
“I see you are puzzled. Perchance you are not so well off as some of the young ladies outside?” Lenore had indeed noted many rich garments adorning the chattering females in the adjoining chamber. Killigrew sighed. “There are many gallants available to a winsome smile—such a smile as I see you have. And . . . you said you were sent by the King.” A significant pause.
Color stained Lenore’s cheeks. “I am not his doxie!” she flared. “ ’Tis because he felt I had aided his cause at Worcester that he sends me to you!”
A skeptical glance greeted this. She was too beautiful to be believed. A face such as hers? Kings would vie for her, Killigrew thought with a wry smile. He doubted his new apprentice player would starve before she could reach the boards.
“Should you become disorderly or join others in riotous behavior,” he warned her sternly, “a King’s Messenger will arrest you. You could be whipped or imprisoned in the Gatehouse at Whitehall. Remember that you are here on sufferance and can be discharged at will. Then you would need a royal pardon for any crimes you may have committed!” He gave her a fierce look to emphasize his words.
Lenore nodded. She got up to leave with a rustle of ember silk skirts, but at the door she turned, suddenly serious. “Why did you decide to hire actresses? I thought young boys usually played the female parts.”
Killigrew gave her a sharp look.“There were no trained young boys available for the work. Acting suffered a decline during the King’s exile and as you’ll observe, most of our actors are in their thirties and forties. Also the King and his court enjoyed the actresses of France and Italy.” Lenore noted that he did not say “enjoyed their performances” but “enjoyed the actresses.” She frowned. Killigrew saw her rebellious expression and added waspishly, “These young women onstage have proved a difficult lot to handle. To contr
ol them we now swear them in as royal ‘comedians.’ You also must be sworn in, mistress!”
Lenore nodded again, made her escape into the next room, and forced her way through a tittering crowd of young women. She gave them a harder look this time, seeing among them many obvious prostitutes as well as arch ripe young things schooled in music and the dance.
Someone touched her arm. “Please, is he—is he very fearsome?” whispered an angelic-looking young girl with rich brown hair and large blue eyes.
Lenore paused and turned to look at the speaker. Barely fifteen, if she was a judge, with skin like Devon cream, and a dress that marked her as fresh from the country. “He’ll eat you for supper,” she grinned. And then, because the girl’s lips trembled she added more kindly, “Killigrew is a busy man. He’s brusque—at least, he was brusque with me, but he might be more gentle with you.”
The girl swallowed; she looked about to turn and run.
“Have you acted on stage before?” asked Lenore. She knew what the answer would be, but it seemed a safe subject.
“Nay.” The girl shook her brown curls vigorously. “But I daresay nobody else here has, either—I heard one say so.”
“But all do wish to act . . .” murmured Lenore humorously, turning to survey the glittering group of females who milled about chattering glibly to each other.
“Oh, I am sure they do,” agreed that eager young voice. “But I think all were sent here by various nobles, to hear them talk—all but myself.”
“And what brought you here?” asked Lenore, whose heart was light, in spite of the obstacles she faced. She had found employment that would support her—after the first three months were lived through. She was going to be a London actress!
The girl’s answer surprised her. “Oh, I do not not really wish to act,” she quavered. “On the stage—before so many people!”
“Then why”— Lenore looked with amazement into those wide, innocent blue eyes—“would you apply for a position as an apprentice player?” she wondered.
The girl clasped her hands; she might almost have been praying. “ Tis because I do so wish for a noble protector,” she breathed. “I came to London thinking to better myself, but in the butcher shop where I work, all the men have greasy hands. But the theatre will be filled with great cavaliers and—and one of them might fancy me!”
Indeed they might, thought Lenore, eyeing that dainty waist, that silken skin, that ingenuous expression. More than one might fancy this pastry from the country! So the girl wished for a noble protector....
“What is your name?” asked Lenore.
“Emma. Emma Lyddle.”
Lenore’s witching smile played over young Emma. When you speak to Thomas Killigrew,” she counseled, "hold up your head. Your eyes are good, so stare at him directly. And”—she reached out a hand and gave the girl’s bodice a tug—“see if you cannot pull your neckline down a little lower. Tell him you are seventeen. He’ll not believe you, but ’twill ease his conscience nonetheless. Tell him—tell him you have watched performances given illegally in barns near your native village and that your great ambition is to excel in comedy. Blink your eyelashes—so—as you say it.” Here Lenore batted her lashes fetchingly and gave Emma a demure look upward through their thick dark fringe.
Emma tried it. The effect was heartrending.
“Yes, that’s the way,” Lenore encouraged her, “I think Thomas Killigrew will be enchanted!”
“I saw you go into his private chamber,” breathed Emma. “But you spent such a short time with him—how did you learn so much about what he would like?” Her childish face was very appealing.
Lenore burst into laughter. “I was born a flirt—for me the part needs no rehearsing!” She was still laughing as she left and Emma Lyddle’s breathless voice followed her. “Oh, thank you, mistress...”
“Frankford,” called Lenore lightly over her shoulder as she breezed out. “Lenore Frankford.” She was not afraid to use her own name again, and the sound of it was good to her ears. So many last names she had used, but now she was come into her own again—as soon as she received the King’s pardon!
Mistress Potts, who had missed Lenore’s company whilst she worked long hours at the bakeshop, and later while she was immersed in the mercer’s affairs, insisted she move in with her for the months of her apprenticeship. Gratefully, Lenore accepted this kindly offer and moved back into the George, where men who had formerly regarded her as a circumspect young woman now made bawdy remarks within her hearing—for word had got out through Mistress Potts’s ill-timed loud whispers that Lenore was now an apprentice actress. Had she been an apprentice strumpet, she could not have received more undesirable attention.
Lenore was able to ignore it, for she found her work in the theatre hard but exciting. It would be some time before she actually appeared in a play, but sometimes when an actress fell ill or for other reasons failed to appear at rehearsal, she was allowed to rehearse the part as an “understudy.” These rehearsals were noisy affairs, and sometimes the players had to shout their lines to be heard above the noise of singers learning new songs, dancers stamping and whirling about, men practicing fight scenes —either fisticuffs or dueling. Under these crowded conditions, wherever they could find room, the tirewomen patched and mended and altered the costumes—which were mostly cast-off finery from the Court.
Lenore was first put in the charge of a raffish young actor named Blakelock, who wore tremendous unkempt wigs, and had melting eyes. He considered himself a divine gift to women and assumed outrageous postures that they might better admire him. Lenore detested Blakelock on sight, and when, in teaching her stage business, he casually ran a hand up under her skirts and gave her bare bottom a playful pinch, she turned and struck him such a blow as caused him to lose his balance and pitch backward upon the boards, to the delight of several older actors who had witnessed the incident.
Lenore left him there, lifted her head, turned on her heel, and went over to watch some players practicing a jig. Behind her she could hear Blakelock swearing testily that he’d have no part in teaching “that awkward piece” how to move about gracefully onstage! Lenore turned back angrily and was about to confront Blakelock again when Ralph Ainsley, a long-faced Shakespearean actor in his mid-forties, seized her arm.
“Mistress, we owe ye a debt,” he declared merrily, still chuckling over Blakelock’s discomfiture. “ ’Tis good to see Blakelock cuffed by so dainty a hand!”
“Yes,” sighed Lenore, “but now I have lost my teacher.”
“I will be your teacher,” he declared gallantly. “I was reading parts before Blakelock was born! Come, mistress, we will see if you can make a graceful entrance!”
Lenore liked Ainsley. Perhaps because of his deep-sunk eyes and melancholy face, he was mainly used in tragedies, where he played victims or villains with equal aplomb. But beneath his long face was a lively wit, and he spent long hours instructing his new protégée in swooning, gamboling, and good stage manners.
“Ye need no instruction in making ‘doux yeux,’ ” he observed.
Lenore turned, puzzled, and asked, “Do what?”
“Languishing eyes,” he grinned. “The last aspiring actress put in my charge had to be taught to coquet, to nourish a fan gracefully—even how to walk across a stage without lumbering. You, mistress”—he swept her a graceful bow—“are already beyond my teaching in these things.”
“But I am not a very good actress,” Lenore gravely acknowledged.
“Perhaps not,” he shrugged. “But in a ‘breeches part,’ none are likely to notice your acting—they will be too busy admiring your silken legs! Tell me, hast found a protector yet?”
“I am not looking for a protector.”
“Be of good heart,” he said lightly. “You’ll find one yet.”
Lenore laughed ruefully, for Ainsley had but expressed the general feeling that actresses were promiscuous creatures, they were all looking for wealthy admirers. Occasionally one was so
fortunate as to make a good marriage—most of them, Lenore suspected, would wind up in brothels such as “Mother” Moseley’s or “Lady” Bennett’s. Both were famous madams, and “Lady” Bennett had noticed Lenore when she visited the rehearsal one morning and had even asked her if she would care for an evening of well-paid frivolity. Lenore had politely declined this offer, and several of the young rakehell actors listening in delight nearby broke into chuckles.
“Mistress Chastity will have none of you, ‘Lady’ Bennett,” sighed one of them—and Lenore recognized the voice as Blakelock’s. “Mistress Chastity seeks to clasp a King to her bosom!”
“Mistress Chastity? Indeed, is that what they call you?” “Lady” Bennett turned an astonished face under her plumed hat to Lenore. “But you surely cannot be the one Blakelock calls The Iron Virgin?” Her laughter pealed.
Lenore glowered at Blakelock, who had so christened her in retribution for her well-timed blow. He grinned back at her and swaggered away. “Lady” Bennett, still laughing, followed him, and Lenore swept away angrily.
But the name stuck. Lenore had become “Mistress Chastity,” the Iron Virgin of the London stage.
Not long after that, during a pause in one of the endless rehearsals, Lenore saw Emma Lyddle again. She had almost forgotten her encounter with starry-eyed young Emma, assuming since she had not seen her at the theatre that Killigrew must have turned her down. On this particular morning, during the rehearsal of an energetic scene in which she struggled with the villain, one of Lenore’s garters had burst and she had hurried up to the tiring-room to see if one of the tirewomen could mend it quickly. There in the large room, its walls hung with green baize, she saw a short young woman standing before one of the big looking glasses the room afforded. She was pulling a voluminous dress of blue taffety over her head, and as Lenore approached, passing almost all the twenty chairs and stools provided for the use of the female comedians, she saw that the flushed young woman who had just struggled into a costume several sizes too big for her was Emma.
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