by Sarah Burton
I was a little disappointed, for I had heard a good deal about Mr Killigrew’s repartee. As Janey shut the door behind us I said, “I thought Mr Killigrew was a great wit.”
“Great shit, more like,” said Janey.
“I heard that!” came a roar from behind the door, and Janey giggled and put her arm through mine and we ran downstairs.
Then Janey took me into the tiring room where I met Mistress Gwyn who was mighty pretty, just as when I had first seen her in Thomaso, and also very witty and warm.
“How much is the old skinflint paying you, darling?” she asked.
“Ten shillings,” I answered.
“Well, you can make a lot more besides, if you’ve a mind; neat little piece like you,” she said and winked at me, which I was surprised to find made me blush – something I hadn’t done for a very long time – as I was feeling this was almost a respectable job and had almost forgot my true calling. “Don’t blush, sweetheart,” she said, “there ain’t no crime but poverty.” And then she gave me some fruit and a gentleman took her away.
Janey told me Mistress Gwyn had not been back in the playhouse long, a lord, no less, having taken her off the stage and given her one hundred pounds a year, but this had all cooled and Mistress Gwyn had come back to work, at which all of London rejoiced as she was such a favourite, and men being what they are the lord now spoke scurrilously of her, and said she had had all she could get of him. It is pretty to observe how many a man willingly gives a woman money only to despise her for taking it.
40
I did not relish my coming interview with Mother as I guessed she might not approve this scheme and as I went home I debated not telling her at all, as I could be out several hours a day with no questions asked, as long as I brought a respectable amount of coin home with me, but decided too much risk was attached to that course. I would have to face it out.
Bessie told me Mother was in her chamber and though I knocked on the door, she was somewhat deaf and didn’t answer me, so I opened the door. She had her back to me and was locking a large cupboard set in the wall I had never noticed before, and immediately realised that this was because a picture usually hung in front of it – this picture, of a child playing with some ill-proportioned dogs, now stood on the floor, leaning against the wall. I quietly withdrew from the room at once. The girls had often wondered where Mother kept her fortune, and now I knew. The devious old bird often made a point of saying that she kept no large sums in the house, presumably to deter house-thieves – or us. I knew instinctively I had better not let on I had discovered her at her treasure, as if anything ever went missing I should be suspected. She once lost a locket and made no bones about turning all our rooms upside down and there was a mighty unpleasing feeling in the house until she recalled she had sent it to have the clasp mended.
I knocked again, louder, and called and this time she answered, “One minute!” and when she came out, slipping the great key into her bodice, through the open door I saw the picture was back in its place. She listened to my proposal carefully and asked several pertinent questions.
“Tell me why I should agree to this, Doll,” she said finally. “I already have Janey in the playhouse and do not require another agent. Why am I to lose you for half the day? What, in fine, is in it for me?” She smiled sweetly, disarmingly.
“I will give you a quarter of my wages,” I said.
“Half,” she said.
“Or I could move out,” I continued. “I could keep myself on my playhouse money and trade on my own account.”
We both knew this was my trump card. Mother sucked her lips thoughtfully.
“I should be sorry to lose as good and honest a girl as you, Doll,” she said.
“I should be sorry to go,” I said.
We both allowed a little time to elapse while we pretended to consider our positions.
“Yet there’s many a poor young whore would be glad of a place in a respectable house such as this,” she sighed.
“Not all of them good and honest girls, I fear, Mother,” I said.
More moments of feigned deliberation passed.
“Very well,” she said eventually. “Due to the high regard I have for you, Doll, you may assist the player women and I will accept a third of your playhouse wages, but on two conditions.”
“Yes, Mother?”
“As far as the girls are concerned, you’re paying me half.”
“Of course, Mother.”
“And if the playhouse takes up more of your time than I think is warranted, these terms is void.”
“Agreed,” I said, and we both went about our respective business, each warm in the knowledge that she had never had any intention of allowing me to leave, and I had never had any intention of going.
No one was more delighted with the arrangement than dear Janey who went round the house hollering the news to our sisters, for Janey was beginning to want to get out of Clerkenwell as much as I, and now we both had a foothold in the playhouse, she talked of us setting up home together independently of Mother Cresswell, and maybe one day getting out of the game altogether. (She, like me, had her little hopeful box of savings.) The thought of turning honest greatly appealed to me, but I knew it would be a hard life for we would never earn enough legitimately as single women to live comfortably, and both Janey and I had seen all we wanted of hardship. Also, as Janey herself had observed, every whore talks of turning respectable, but few enough succeed.
My days spent at the King’s Playhouse were to be some of the happiest of my life, and not merely because Janey and I saw more of each other. Apart from the presence of Fricker, who always seemed to be in a corner somewhere conducting some dark business, and never failed to save a sneer for me whenever our paths crossed, the playhouse people were all very familiar with each other and with me, and Mistress Gwyn and I were soon Nellie and Dollie. It was easy to forget that we were of an age, both now about seventeen, as Nell had had a hard early life which had given her wisdom well beyond her years, and though she now had a measure of security and fame, she always had an eye to the main thing – I mean the money – for none dread poverty so much as those who have known it. She used often to tell me that I must look to myself and my own good before anything else, for no one else would, and I must not account this selfishness, but self-preservation, and that she had raised her own stock in the world by never undervaluing herself.
We were playing Secret Love at that time (the play Mr Killigrew had had me read from) which was a very funny play but there was something in it that made me indefinably sad, because it took as read that marriage could never really be happy, and the solution the couple in the story hit on could never really happen, nor would be tolerated in society. It was like a kind of dream of how marriage could be, as if our wishing for something could be a balm against the reality. Indeed Nell said that was what theatre – or comedy anyway – was for: that it let us imagine that there were solutions to life’s problems. “Everybody loves a happy ending,” she would say, “for it may be only a made-up story, but the happiness it makes us feel is real enough.” The more I saw of plays and playing, the more I came to see that the theatre is indeed a house of hopes and fears, where people come to dream.
She told me a hundred other interesting things when I was dressing her, or when she was painting, and we often laughed too for she was very quick and full of quips, having begun her career in the playhouse as an orange-woman, and they were famous for their brisk repartee – their only defence against the importunate sparks in the pit who sought riper fruits. I soon learnt that my responsibilities included controlling who went into the tiring rooms, as many gentlemen seemed to believe the price of a seat in the playhouse included a sight of the actresses in their deshabille. Janey put me right on this score: I was to accept no less than half a crown for granting this privilege, and while I split this revenue with the player women, this money, along with other fees I was given for carrying messages, tokens and gifts to the actress
half the men of the town were in love with, all added to my growing stock of capital. I did not declare them to Mother Cresswell nor to anyone else.
41
Sometimes life seems to be merely a series of shocks and surprises: the next disconcerting revelation was that Janey proved an exceptionally fine actress. One day, having finished my work and thinking to pick up a little trade, I donned my mask and ventured into the pit and watched the play, and I may truly say that when Janey did her soliloquy she had the house in her hand, as I found I almost believed she was who she pretended to be, and was in the predicament that character found herself in. There were very few actresses who could cry real tears when called upon to play some tragic scene, but Janey did something better, for she acted attempting not to cry: you could hear the strain in her voice, and see her lip quiver, and her eyes shone with tears unshed. It was sadder than unchecked emotion, it was sorrow controlled and suppressed, and this seemed somehow infinitely more upsetting. I looked about me and saw that the whole house was silent, watching, almost not breathing, and then when she had finished, erupting into applause. But much as I admired Janey’s performance, it made me uneasy on another score. If I trusted anyone in this world, it was Janey. I now realised that she could lie more convincingly than anyone I had ever known. I should have to be careful.
As she turned to leave the stage I observed that Janey was, as Mother Cresswell would have said, “sick of a two-legged tympani”, that is to say, she was expecting a child. I wondered that I had not noticed before, but I suppose I generally saw Janey close to, but here, as I saw her from a distance in profile, more objectively, as it were, I saw her swollen bust, and her belly just beginning to show; the signs were unmistakeable to one who knew her shape as well as I. I wondered that she had not told me, and then unconsciously looked about the pit for William, but could not see him, and realised I had not seen him about for some little while. However, another gentleman had caught my eye, so I lacked the opportunity to speak to her until we were both back at Clerkenwell that evening.
When we had dispatched our various customers, Janey and I found ourselves alone in Mother Cresswell’s saloon. She busied herself mending her stockings and I had a book in my hand, but was reading and re-reading the same passage over and over, and wishing she would confide in me.
“Your performance today was the most convincing I ever saw,” I said eventually.
“Pffff!” said Janey. “I love the sad parts. It’s all I’m good at. You should see me in comedy! Now that’s a bleeding tragedy!”
“I heard Mr Killigrew say you had great promise,” I said, which was true.
“We’ll see,” sighed Janey.
“But your performance these last few weeks has been just as convincing.” I could not help saying it, and realised with a pang that her secrecy had hurt me.
“I don’t know to what you’re referring, I’m sure,” she said, her voice recovering its penetrating timbre.
“Oh leave off, Janey,” I cried. “You know you are in a condition! Why did you not tell me? How long did you think you could keep up this pretence?”
Janey looked at me, and seemed to consider keeping up the charade, but gave up and her face crumpled into tears.
“Oh Doll, I don’t know what to do! It’s William’s and he don’t want to know!”
I leapt up and comforted her.
“There, there, Janey. How can you possibly know it’s William’s?”
“I just know it is,” she sobbed. “I want it to be, anyway.” She reached into her bodice, as I thought, for a handkerchief, but withdrew a crumpled piece of paper. “He sent me this.”
“Well, what does it say?” I asked.
“I don’t bloody know, do I?” shouted Janey. “I was too ashamed to ask you to read it, and I couldn’t ask anyone else, could I?”
“Come on,” I said, and took the letter and read it to her, which was very hard indeed.
My dear Janey,
I have been called into the country by my family and may be sent abroad on business so shall not be in town for a – oh, sweet Janey, I cannot lie to you: I am to be married. It is not of my choosing, but I am to obey my father or be turned into the world without a penny. I trust you will manage your unhappy situation as you see fit. I can never see you again. I have been a fool.
Please do not hate me, your ever-loving William.
“Oh Janey,” I said – she was now in floods of tears.
“Why can he not marry her and keep me?” she wailed.
“He can,” I said. “He chooses not to. He’s not worth it, Janey. Come, now.”
But Janey was not to be appeased.
“But he said he loved me! He promised he would look after me! I gave him everything! He took everything! Oh, God help me!”
“What did you give him, Janey?” I asked, dread creeping through me. But she was now incoherent with grief.
I ran to her room and pulled out her money box. It was completely empty. She had given that unworthy boy every last penny of her life savings.
I comforted Janey for the rest of the evening.
“Them bleeding herbs!” she wailed.
This was a reference to her efforts to avoid falling pregnant. The wenches at Mother Cresswell’s had many means of preventing becoming mothers which of course was a hazard they ran as much as any married woman, and though I did not need to be concerned about this, I took an interest as it was a subject of some debate about which was best. I early on learnt that Frenchie put little hats on her gentlemen (made of the intestine of some animal, I believe), which were knotted at one end and tied on the root of his tarse with a ribbon at the other. She maintained these inhibited inception and the pox, which made both her and her cullies the easier and indeed she never did breed nor get a clap all the time I knew her, and I also resorted to them to keep clear of the dreaded disease, and whether it was these or luck I know not but I also never was ill. The drawback was that they were quite dear but you cannot put a price on your health can you, and besides I never had time off work as other girls did because I never was sick, so I looked upon them as an investment. To avoid getting with child the others used washes and salves and pessaries and potions of varying efficacy. Some used these concoctions every day, while others made use of them only if they feared they were a-breeding. Bessie swore by the juice of the herb savin – which from my childhood in the country I knew as covershame, and never knew why it was so-called till this time – and Kat used a wash of camphor, castor oil and rue, while Janey herself used a mixture of marjoram, thyme, parsley, lavender and fern. Though she always smelt lovely and sweet like a herb garden she had been got with child just the same.
When Janey had calmed down I gave her a lecture about in future thinking only of herself, and never ever letting her feelings get the better of her judgement, and she said she knew she had been a fool and I was to look after her money from now on as she feared if she but saw her dear rascally boy again she should give him even the clothes off her back if he asked for them, so I could see there was no real reasoning with her, not yet, and assured her that time would heal all, and put her to bed, and read to her until she went to sleep.
I lay awake thinking how much of a step backwards this was for Janey. She would lose her place in the playhouse, that was certain, and before long would not be able to work for Mother Cresswell, so would fall into debt to her, which would take her a while to work her way out of after the baby came before she could begin to think of starting to build up her little hoard again. I decided I would take her at her word, and look after her money in the future; that was one thing I could control for her as she had no mastery over herself. But our little hopeful dream of leaving and setting up home together receded even further with the loss of her money.
42
Over the months that followed I heard nothing from Godfrey. Although I had no claim on him save our friendship, I did believe it was a special friendship and felt a little peeved that he had made no effort to se
e me since just after the fire. Of course he could not come to me at the playhouse, for fear Fricker should see us together and guess our complicity in kidnapping Joe; neither could I go to him at his house, and risk recognition by the Potters or Aunt Madge herself. However he could have come to Clerkenwell and I wondered why he did not. When these thoughts entered my head I pushed them away by reasoning that Aunt Madge very probably kept him busy, although a less happy explanation lay in the possibility that he meant rather more to me than I did to him. In any case I was pleased when Mother Cresswell sent for him as Mr Smith had sent word he and Mrs Smith desired our company again.
I was as vexed as Mother when he sent the message back that he regretted he could not come on the day appointed, nor any day soon. She voiced the opinion that though she had hoped he was of a different stamp to most thespians, it was well known that player folk were fickle and flighty characters and she shouldn’t be surprised if this were “not au revoir but bon voyage”. I was mightily out of order, and angry with myself for being so, and after much debating I decided to write to him, pretending to myself that I did so merely to enquire how Aunt Madge did. His reply came the same evening.
My dearest H (for so I must now call you),
I am so sorry I have not sent word before but there has been much to do in order to make my lady comfortable. You may rest assured that she is in good spirits and in tolerable health, and not so confused as she was.
Also, as the weeks have turned into months since we last met it seemed a harder thing to write, although I made many beginnings. Anyway, here I am, alive and well, and often thinking of you, my dear girl, if not writing to you.
We have had a visitor! Your cousin (for you will see that I now know all your history) Frederick came as soon as your aunt (as my suspicion is now confirmed she is) sent him word of her new address and I may say I find him a most capital fellow and a most loving son. His presence has been a great comfort to your aunt and he plans to remain until he has her affairs tolerably in order. There have been many difficulties about the property in Cheapside, and the rights to rebuild on the site, all further complicated by the fact that the deeds burned with the house and at one moment it seemed your aunt might lose the land, but Frederick has taken it all in hand most wonderfully and though I do not pretend to understand it all he seems to be making fine progress at last. He has decided to suspend his studies and remain with your aunt as her advocate and adviser until all these matters are satisfactorily resolved.