“I invited Miss Sedley’s opinion, and she granted it,” the duchess said. “She need admit nothing beyond that.”
“Oh, but forgive me, ma’am, but she does, she does.” To my dismay he’d pushed his way past the other ladies and had squeezed close to my side. “If she would but hear my prologue, ma’am, then she would see that—”
“I have read it, Sir Carr,” I said, which was true; Father and I had skewered it royally between us last evening as a mighty poor effort. If Sir Carr wished to engage me in a conversation such as this, then I hoped he was well prepared. “I have read it, and in my opinion, you have dishonored Her Highness greatly by it.”
“I have? How? How?” Sir Carr managed to look both stricken and peeved. “Where could I have erred, with Her Highness to inspire me?”
I smiled, perfectly aware of how everyone within hearing was waiting for my response. Tomorrow the Court might speak of what the other ladies wore, but they’d repeat whatever I said next to Sir Carr.
“With Her Highness to inspire you, you should have at least attempted the poet’s art,” I said, affecting the wry bemusement that I’d learned from Father. “Her Highness does not deserve to have ‘scum’ and ‘home’ forced to rhyme in her honor, as you have writ in your blessed prologue.”
“Miss Sedley, I—”
“Nor ‘face’ and ‘glass,’” I said, recalling another ill-sounded pairing that had made Father howl. “Most awkward.”
“Not if spoken well!”
“But true poetry must be read as well as craftily spoken,” I said, waving my fan gently before my face. “While the ear may discover no fault, the eye will spy it at once. As I recall, you employed both ‘Giddy Fools’ and ‘Wanton Fool’ within a dozen lines of one another. Surely such an excess of foolishness connotes a lack of creative genius, or simple idle laziness. Or perhaps I misspeak, and the conceit is meant as a tribute to the Poet Fool?”
Beside me the duchess smothered her laughter behind her fan, and the other ladies around her likewise laughed at the baronet’s expense, and beyond them I could see more than a few gentlemen leaning in their seats to hear as well.
Sir Carr’s scowl deepened, his face turning a murderous plum as he waggled his hideous features before me. “Stay your sword, Miss Sedley. I’d not have you poison my audience ere they’ve heard my offering.”
“I warn them, Sir Carr, that is all.” I smiled pleasantly, for this was all sport to me. “What manner of friend would I be to stand aside and say nothing, and let them be felled by the poisonous tedium of your so-called wit?”
“You are villainous, Miss Sedley, an ill-favored, villainous creature,” he sputtered, his composure entirely undone. “It would seem that even a great poet such as Sir Charles can sire a low, base critic, just as the finest bred stallion might still father a mule.”
“Sir Carr.” Her Highness’s voice bore enough frost to freeze the Thames. “We do not wish to hear more from you at present.”
At that he’d no choice but to scuttle away, glaring fiercely at me as if I were to blame for his being dismissed. I was certain the thing wasn’t done between us, and that he’d try to best me again. I cared not. I knew my gifts, and they would always outdo his.
But as he left us, the fiddlers finished their overture, the conversations in the audience fell silent, and as one we all turned expectantly toward the stage. It was indeed painful to suffer through Sir Carr’s prologue, but it was soon done, and the play proper began, with Mr. Betterton (the very best actor of the Duke’s Company) as Dorimant, the sparkish hero of the piece. He’d scarce begun before I saw how closely Betterton followed Lord Rochester for inspiration in every languid gesture and drawl, just as Mr. Etherege had copied the exact amusing pattern of his speech as Dorimant grumbled about the start of his day. All of us from the Court saw and heard it, too, and roared our appreciation, led by the king himself.
“Oh, Mr. Betterton is very like Lord Rochester, isn’t he?” the duchess whispered with delight. “How deliciously clever!”
But as clever a character as Dorimant might be, I gasped aloud as his friend appeared next, come to call on him with the freshest news of the day. This friend was called Mr. Medley, only the slightest distance from my father’s name, and why not? Truly, I felt as if I were watching Father transformed upon the stage before me; Mr. Medley was that close to Sir Charles Sedley in every aspect of his speech and drollery, even to the perfect description of his becoming “rhetorically drunk.” I understood now why Father had kept the script such a secret from me, to heighten the surprise and pleasure I had in seeing it now performed, and from the reaction of Father and his friends in the pit, the play was every bit as enjoyable to them as it was to the rest of the house.
To be sure, there were certain dramatic strictures that were obeyed by the play that were not quite true to life. Dorimant might have been tamed by the wily Harriet, but Lord Rochester himself had as yet never come close to that degree of affectionate subservience to any lady, least of all his wife. But the play as a whole was such a delight that the king led all of us from the royal box to call upon the players in the tiring room and congratulate them and Mr. Etherege on the performance.
For me the tiring room behind the stage was as friendly and familiar a place as could be, with many kisses and embraces to be shared with those I’d known since I was a child. Of course, Nell was there to celebrate the opening of the new play. With Dorimant’s extravagant plumed hat on her head, she held Court like the boisterous small queen that she was in that particular backstage kingdom, and lifted her petticoats high to show the king her newest pair of jeweled slippers (only proper, considering he’d paid for them) and a good deal of her legs besides.
“Come with me, Little Kid,” Lord Rochester said, finding me in amongst the revelry. He took me by the arm and bent to speak directly into my ear. “I need a word or two with you.”
“With me, my lord?” I asked, my voice raised above the din of laughter and racketing flirtation. “Why would you wish to leave with me, when you are the very center of all attention?”
“Not I, Katherine, but Dorimant,” he said shrewdly, wagging his finger at me. “Pray do not confuse the two, however similar we may appear. But he is useful; I’ll not deny that. You can come converse with me, and we’ll leave Dorimant behind in my stead.”
I laughed, and willingly let him lead me from the tiring room and down the close-packed hall. Again I thought of the old times, to be in his company like this again; he had always been my favorite of Father’s acquaintances. But if I’d grown from a child to a woman, he’d changed, too, and not for the better. He was not yet thirty, but the pox, debauchery, and an excess of drink had left their unfortunate mark on him. His once-handsome face was bloated and ashen, his eyes shadowed, and the ugly sore at the corner of his mouth was like an ominous veil over every smile.
Throughout, his wit had remained, yet ever-sharper and more bitter as his body faltered. I was thankful to be considered among his friends, and so be spared his bite. Which was not to say I didn’t enjoy seeing it directed toward others, for he could toss and tumble his words in the air with the agility of the most skilled juggler at Southwalk Fair.
Now His Lordship took me to a quieter corner in the playhouse, where the cheerful confusion of the celebration was not so loud but that we could converse. He pretended to assume a stern face fit for the pulpit, folding his arms over the breast of his plum brocade coat.
“I will bid you tell me the truth, Katherine,” he said, so severe I had to struggle not to giggle. “As true as if you were one of my own daughters. Whatever did you do to Sir Carr Scroope to reduce him to the condition of a blithering, impotent turnip?”
“Oh, my lord!” I laughed aloud, unable not to. “Were you watching?”
“Most of the house was watching,” he said. “Though we couldn’t make out your words from our bench, we could see the results. Middlesex believed Scroope would suffer an apoplexy there where he stood, and to
pple into the pit.”
“It wasn’t as bad as that,” I protested, laughing still. “I swear to you, it wasn’t.”
“Then you have made a conquest of the vile baronet?”
“Faith, no!” I exclaimed solemnly. “I would not dare make such a claim, not when Sir Carr has eyes only for Mistress Frazier.”
Now the earl laughed with me. Sir Carr was widely known to be penniless, and had proclaimed to all the Court his need for a rich heiress. If I’d shown him any kindness, he doubtless would have pounced on me; but because I hadn’t—oh, preserve me!—he’d set his heart on Mrs. Carey Frazier, the most beautiful (and ambitiously wanton) of Her Majesty’s maids of honor. She had been raised at Court, her father being the king’s chief physician and much favored for curing the pox and ending unwanted pregnancies. Now everyone knew that Miss Frazier had briefly embraced Sir Carr, and found him so sadly wanting as a lover that she refused to suffer any more of his addresses. But that had not stopped Sir Carr from writing mooncalf songs in verse to her that he proudly passed around Whitehall.
As if reading my thoughts, Lord Rochester heaved a sigh so deep it seemed drawn from the soles of his feet, and with his hand pressed over his heart, he began to recite one of these songs in perfect imitation of Sir Carr:
I cannot change as others do
Though you unjustly scorn
Since that poor Swayne that sighs for you
For you alone is born.
No Phyllis, no, your heart to move,
A surer way I’ll try
And to revenge my slighted love
Will still love on, will still love on, and die.
“Stop, my lord, stop, I beg you!” I cried, laughing so hard I was forced to hold my aching sides.
“Then tell me what you said to him before Her Highness.”
“Oh, my lord, it was nothing,” I said, taking out my handkerchief to wipe the tears from my eyes. “I chided him for the ill-formed rhymes in his prologue, and he damned me for a villainous creature.”
“That’s wicked cruel of him,” Lord Rochester said with mock outrage. “He’s already vexed me sorely by his outlandish pretensions, and I’d let it pass. But my grace is done. He can’t be permitted to abuse dear Miss Sedley in this ungallant fashion.”
I shrugged. “Her Highness dismissed him for his rudeness, which was likely punishment enough considering how he was so convinced of earning her favor. Besides, he’d suffered by my hand.”
“No, no, it’s not to be borne, little miss,” he declared, and from the gleam in his eye I suspected he was already planning to be my champion. “Such insult cannot be allowed to pass unavenged.”
“Oh, it won’t pass, my lord, not for long,” I said. “I’m certain Sir Carr believes himself to be the one who was insulted. What of it? It’s not as if he can challenge me to defend his honor with swords drawn at dawn on some misty field.”
“Hah, how I’d like to see that!” he said, laughing at the ridiculousness of the image. “But we can’t let the rascal escape entirely, not after defaming you. I’ll pink him lightly on your behalf, Katherine, just enough to make him bleed a bit so others take notice, and send him off to rage again. He did make a fine purple-faced turnip, didn’t he?”
“Rochester, there you are!”
At once the earl’s conspiratorial laughter vanished, his expression instantly composed into genteel diffidence. I turned swiftly to see who the newcomer might be who’d followed us here, and nearly bumped into His Highness the duke.
“Your Highness,” I murmured, mortified, and sank into a deep curtsy.
Despite how often I was in the duchess’s apartments and in her company, I seldom saw the duke, who was much occupied with his own troubles with Parliament. When I did, I was always among so many other ladies that I doubt he took any notice of me at all. It was a strange irony that while Father had feared I’d been invited to Court only because His Highness had formed a lascivious interest in me, in truth when I’d arrived practically beneath his nose, I’d become invisible. At first I’d been dismayed—what lady wishes to be ignored?—but then I’d met James Grahme, who’d made me forget my disappointment at being overlooked by James Stuart.
“So what’s it like to see yourself trotted out on the stage, Rochester?” the duke said. “I vowed I’d seen your twin, that Dorimant was so like you.”
With a glass of wine from the tiring room in his hand, he looked far more at his ease than when I’d seen him at Whitehall, but then, there was no one here at the playhouse to hector him about his religion, either. I always forgot how tall he was, and how much presence he had. In the murky light of this wandering hallway, two things about him still shone brightly: the glinting gold threads of the Garter-star embroidered on the chest of his coat, the constant emblem of his royalty, and the intense blue of his eyes.
Lord Rochester, of course, was likely thinking no such dizzying thoughts. “I should think the world a much improved place, Your Highness,” he said blithely. “How could it not be, with two of me in it?”
The duke laughed. “Indeed, it is,” he said. “There aren’t many men I’d like to see doubled, but you, sir, are one.”
“Perhaps Mr. Etherege can be persuaded to work his spell in reverse, sir,” Lord Rochester said easily. “If he can double me, then surely he can take those odious rascals and halve them into nothingness.”
The duke laughed again. Though he’d not given me leave, I finally dared to rise from my curtsy, and daring further, glanced up at him.
He wasn’t looking at Lord Rochester. He was looking at me.
“Miss Sedley,” he said, smiling warmly. “You amused us today, too.”
“I, Your Highness?” I asked, so startled by his interest that my cheeks burned hot.
“Yes, you,” he said. “Her Highness told me of how you defended her against Scroope’s sour rhymes. It was most cleverly done.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said, and finally smiled. “I’m grateful that Her Highness in turn defended me against Sir Carr.”
“Don’t be modest, Miss Sedley,” he said, teasing. “From what my wife told me, you defended yourself well enough without her help. I like a clever lady, you know.”
“Oh, our Katherine’s clever as can be,” Lord Rochester said, happily playing the pander in a way that would have made Father furious. “She’s certainly the cleverest lady at Court, maybe in all London. She can’t help it, you know. ’Tis in her very blood.”
“True, true,” the duke said. He was studying me closely, as if he’d never seen me before. I knew enough of gentlemen by now to tell when they were pleased or not, and to me it was clear enough that the duke was indeed very pleased with me. “I can’t recall the last time I heard a clever word spoken by a lady in my brother’s Court.”
I knew that wasn’t true, for the king liked his ladies to be quick-witted and amusing. No one could tell a lewd story as well as the Duchess of Cleveland, and as sweet-faced as Nell Gwyn might be, it was her wit that had made her the king’s jester as well as his mistress. But if the duke wished to single me out as a rarity, then I’d hardly argue.
Suddenly his face lit with recognition. “I recall you now,” he said. “Long ago you stumbled before my horse, and when I came to see if you were unharmed, you gave me an apple, bold as Eve in the Garden.”
“Yes, sir, that was me.” I grinned wickedly from beneath my lashes. “It must have been the serpent that frightened your horse.”
“I don’t doubt that it was.” He chuckled, his eyes wandering freely over my person, and I guessed he was remembering how much of my legs he’d glimpsed when I’d fallen, too. It was rare for me to garner the interest of so grand a gentleman as His Highness for the sake of my person, and I fair glowed beneath his attention.
“I trust we’ll see more of you, Miss Sedley,” he said. “I like apples.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “I’ll take care to remember that.”
“I’m sure you will.” He lingered another
moment, then nodded to Lord Rochester, and left to return to his brother and the others. I watched him walk away, his tall figure silhouetted by the brighter light of the tiring room, and thought of what a handsome, fine-made man he was.
“There’s a fine afternoon’s work for you, Katherine,” Lord Rochester said dryly. “You’ve wounded Sir Carr and slain the duke.”
“I haven’t slain him at all,” I scoffed, then grinned. “Leastways, not yet.”
He laughed. “Take care with that dragon, my dear. He breathes fire readily enough where ladies are concerned.” He raised a thoughtful brow. “I doubt your father will be pleased if you go traipsing into that particular cave.”
“No,” I said, and with real regret, too. “Not at all. Please, you won’t—”
“What, come between you and Little Sid?” He rolled his eyes, then smiled at me with such a genuine kindness as to astonish those who knew him only by his libertine reputation. “Be easy, sweet Katherine. He’ll hear none of it from me.”
I smiled my thanks, and meant it, too, for the indulgence he was granting was important to me. I loved my father dearly, as he loved me. I knew exactly what he’d say if he’d witnessed this little scene with the duke, because he’d said it many times over: “That’s not what I wished for you.” In a way, he’d been even more crushed than I over my disappointment with James Grahme.
I could understand Father’s concern, too, now that I’d seen more closely the trials that a royal mistress faced, and how perilous their situation could be. As the best-loved mistress to His Majesty, the Duchess of Portsmouth was regarded as the most powerful lady at Court. Just the same, she’d recently been infected with the pox by the king himself. She’d been banished from Court for months while she took the cure, forbidden the solace and company of the king and even of their son. Her position, her wealth, and most especially the place she held in the king’s affections had all been in jeopardy, with scores of enemies gathered like jackals to rip everything away. It had taken her considerable skills at politics and seduction, as well as considerable luck, to regain them when she’d returned. I wasn’t sure I’d wish such a life for myself, no matter how great the rewards or how charming the royal brothers might be.
The Countess and the King: A Novel of the Countess of Dorchester and King James II Page 18