At the Sign of the Star (10 page)

Christmas was almost upon us. My father grumbled much because every tradesman had his box set out and expected a little something for the season, so he spent an extra penny when he had his shoes repaired and tuppence when he brought a goose home from the cookshop. “I will have nothing left for presents,” he said, but we did not believe him.

I had little money to spend this year, for Susannah now had charge of the household accounts. But I had saved the change a few times when Cook sent me out for a flounder or some turnips, so I bought oranges and tobacco for my father, and for my stepmother I made violet cakes, just as she had taught me.

On Christmas Eve, Susannah and I spent long hours in the kitchen making mince pies with Cook, Jane, and Joan. I was so tired Christmas morning that I could barely rouse myself, but did, and we all went off to St. Botolph's to hear Reverend Little make even the Incarnation dull. However, we were surprised, for Dr. Rolph preached instead, and I caught from him the excitement of Christmas, and wondered if Dr. Rolph had written his sermons up for any of the booksellers.

Then home, where we made ready for the Gosse family. Though our house was not so grand as theirs, it was indeed beautiful that day, for it was filled with fragrant green boughs and red berries, and the smells of good things roasting. Dozens of bright candle flames were reflected in the looking glasses, and all seemed magic.

The Gosse family arrived in two hackney coaches, for they would not all fit in one. They tumbled through the door laughing and teasing one another, filled with such good humor that the house seemed to grow warmer at once. Anne was friendly and outspoken, as always. She was so very immodest in her speech that Dr. Allestree, who wrote
The Ladies' Calling,
would surely have called her brazen. “I have heard the most scandalous story!” she declared as we sat down upon stools in the parlor. “About Mistress Barry and Betty Boutel, the actresses. Have you seen them? One has stabbed the other with a sword, onstage, whilst all watched! I do not remember which was stabbed, but they say she is not badly hurt. I wish I had been there!”

Whereupon I confessed that I had never seen a play.

“Have you not? It is great fun! Surely your father will allow it, he is such a literary man. I know Reverend Little says it is a vice, but he means it is a vice to go every day, or twice a day, and spend all one's time there, seeing the same plays over and over and talking through them with your friends. So many people do that! It is indeed a monstrous waste of time and money. But really, there are some very good morals put upon the boards, and”—she colored as she spoke, and her eyes grew bright—“there are some very funny things which are less moral, I confess.”

“Those are the best, I vow,” her brother Henry said.

I was startled to find him behind me, and drew my skirts to me as though he were a pickpocket. He grinned to see me alarmed.

“Meg has never been to the playhouse,” Anne said.

“What, never? It's great fun. Why, I've seen Dryden and Wycherley and Shakespeare and Etheredge and ever so many others.”

“I have read them,” I said, to excuse myself.

“What, read them all!”

“A great many.”

“If that's how you choose to spend your time,” he scoffed, and went to find his brother.

I did not care what he said, but all the same I felt stupid for never having seen a play, and vowed I would make my stepmother take me to one as soon as Christmastide was over.

Susannah had worried herself much over dinner, but everyone enjoyed it greatly. As well as the mince pies, we had turkey stuffed with cloves, much plum porridge, pickled lime-buds, and oysters stewed in white wine. Afterward Anne and I took care of the children while our parents made merry at cards. And when that was done we all walked awhile upon the leads, that is, over the flat parts of the rooftops. Joan stayed at home to help the nurse with the children who were too little to go with us. But Anne, and her brothers, and I, too, went with our elders, and looked down at the sign of the Star swinging in the wind.

Anne and I walked with our cloaks wrapped tight around us, for the air was chill and sharp. We trailed behind the grown women, pausing now and then to look down into the street and exclaim upon a coach going by, or an idle apprentice who leaned against a shop wall.

“How do you fare, Meg? I suppose Mrs. Moore has forced you to labor over the mince pies when you wished you had been reading?” Anne asked.

I knew that she was laughing at me but it did not prickle, for her smile was warm and merry. “I do not mind helping with mince pies at Christmas time!” I replied. “Somebody must make them.”

“And they were perfectly done, so you may be proud.”

“My stepmother may be proud. I but did her bidding. I know you are more skilled than I at such matters. How do you fare yourself? It is a busy season, I know.”

“Very busy, and my father's business is good. Everyone in London wants extra wine at Christmastide. He does his business chiefly away from home, so we have seen little of him of late. But I have had much fun with the children.”

I looked sideways at her. Her eyes were bright and her dark brown ringlets danced in the wind as we walked. “Then you are happy?” I asked.

She hesitated. “I am happy on those days when my fear of the future does not steal away my joy. I will be sixteen soon. And you?”

“I will be thirteen on the Feast of St. Valentine.”

“But, are you happy?”

“I am like you, happy when I do not fear the future.” I did not add that those days were very few.

“Most days I am happy indeed,” Anne continued. “But then, I am so lucky.”

I turned so quickly to look at her that I stumbled over the shingles, and she gripped my arm tightly and bade me be more careful. “Lucky?” I repeated. For I did not see how she could say so. With her small dowry and her pitted face she was placed even more unfortunately than I was.

“Yes, of course. I am so fortunate that both my parents live, and that I have so many brothers and sisters, and that the wine business thrives and we have all we need.”

“Yes, you have had good fortune there,” I said, thinking of my own mother's death.

“I am so sorry, Meg,” she said, and I could see she knew my thoughts. “But now you have a mother again, and perhaps soon a brother or sister, and you will be lucky, too!” And she squeezed my arm.

I could not answer her, but she did not notice. I liked Anne Gosse, but I marvelled that she understood so little of my situation, or of her own. I suppose that is the good of expecting so little of life; it is easy to be contented when little comes.

But I do not expect little of life.

After supper the fiddlers came, and played late into the night while we all danced. The neighbors came, too, and several of our authors, and I did not think about whether or not I was lucky, but danced and laughed and felt bright and glad as though all my cares had gone.

2

It was a merry time. Children came round singing carols every night, bearing a wassail bowl with them. Dr. Rolph was at St. Botolph's all week, and we heard a fine sermon from him on St. John's Day, and another on New Year's Day, when bells rang all through London Town with a joyous sound. On Twelfth Night we had a pot of chocolate at breakfast, and in the evening went to the home of Colonel Woods. There we had fiddling and dancing and cakes and ale, and a King and Queen were chosen. Everyone was foolish and full of laughter. I stayed awake very late, much later than Hester would have let me do, and had great fun.

But the next morning all the merriment was over. We began to have gray, drizzling days, and long, long nights. I thought of what Anne had said about seeing a play, and wanted to ask Susannah if I might go with her some time, but I hardly dared to speak of it, for she seemed always cross these days. If I tried to read by firelight she scolded me and said I would ruin my eyes, and if I tried to read by candlelight she said I wasted the wick. I wondered what ailed her, and my father wondered, too.

We were in the shop, all three of us, when he asked her outright. There were no customers near, but Robert was there, and she had just scolded him for putting some old almanacs into a box, which my father himself had told Robert to do. “Nothing pleases you of late,” he said to her. “What ails you?”

“Nothing, I am only bored. Every day is the same.”

This was so untrue that I looked at her with open mouth, and then at my father. But he did not seem surprised.

“Why do you not have some friends to play cards with you?” he suggested.

“Or go to the playhouse,” I said suddenly.

They both turned to stare at me.

“And take me with you,” I said. “I have never been.”

“It is bad enough to have my wife waste her time so, without my daughter wasting hers as well,” my father said, but I saw that he did not mean it. He only wanted to rouse Susannah, for he liked her argument more than her boredom.

“Let us hope John Dryden does not hear you say so,” Susannah answered sharply, and he laughed.

“Will you take her to see something of Dryden's, then?” he asked.

In my eagerness I burst out without thinking. “Please, Mother … may I see what Aphra Behn does next?” I asked.

Again they stared at me.

“What do you know of Mrs. Behn?” Susannah asked with disapproval.

My father made a scoffing noise. “In this family, how could she not know of Mrs. Behn? She knows of everything, Meg does. She is practically one of the Town wits.”

He was bragging about me. It had been a long while since I had heard him brag about me, and it made me so happy that I kept quiet, and it was well I did.

“That woman has no modesty,” Susannah said. “She writes every bit as bawdy as a man.”

“Well, you need not ask her to a card party,” my father said. “It will do Meg no more harm to see a bawdy play writ by a woman than one writ by a man, I suppose.”

“You cannot mean that you want me to take her to a bawdy play.”

“She reads them, does she not? Tell the truth, Margaret, have you read bawdy plays? Have you read Wycherley's plays?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Well, you must stop such reading right now. I will find you something more wholesome,” my stepmother said.

“You cannot stop a clever child from reading. My father could not stop me, and he used a rod. Let her read what she likes, and see what she likes, too,” he said.

“But, Miles—”

“She is my child,” he said, almost angrily, and she closed her mouth with a snap, as though she were a turtle.

You would not think that arguing with my father would make her mood happy but somehow it seemed to do so. For the next few days Susannah was more like herself, brisk and well-occupied and contented. Then my father came into the shop and said to me, “Mrs. Behn has written a new play. It will open next week at Dorset Gardens.”

For a moment I could not answer, only look at him with hope. At last I ventured, “Does my mother care to see it?”

He smiled slyly. “I have made her care.”

From that day I grew so excited I could barely read. Susannah was not happy about going to see one of Mrs. Behn's plays, but when she saw my excitement she softened a little.

“What must I wear?” I asked Susannah, and then she softened more, for I seldom asked for her advice, or cared what I wore.

“You shall wear what you did for our wedding,” she replied. “Your very best.” Then she spoke of the fine ladies I would see there, and the bright dresses they would wear, and the patches of moons and suns and stars they would have on their faces. Of course I had seen fine ladies before, but in truth, I had never looked at them overmuch. Now, for the first time, I felt an interest.

“And will you wear patches?” I asked Susannah, for I had never seen her do so.

She laughed. “Nay, I am a simple woman,” she said.

3

We saw
Sir Patient Fancy
on January 17. It was a dark day and the air was damp all morning, and by the time we sat down to our pigeon pie it was beginning to rain.

My father took a long look out the window, then sat down at last. “You had better go another day,” he said. “Your finery will be ruined.”

“But if the play closes?” I cried out.

“Then see another play. London is full of plays, my girl.”

“Father, please!”

“Don't vex me, child. What think you, Susannah?”

“That Godfrey and Jane have gone already to the playhouse to hold our seats,” she said, and broke into her pie with a spoon.

After dinner Joan helped us to dress. She had put my hair in curl papers, and it took forever to arrange my ringlets. Then she tried the sleeves of my chemise three different ways before she was satisfied. To tell the truth, I didn't mind it. When she was done I saw myself in the looking glass and nearly blushed.

At last we issued forth into the watery sunlight in our best things. I wore my red velvet dress with the green underskirt, and Susannah wore a silk dress in two colors of blue and a chemise with pleated sleeves. Joan wore yellow, but her dress was very old.

We took a hackney coach to the theater at Dorset Gardens. It stood on the riverfront, in the gardens of a grand mansion which had burnt in the Great Fire. I had admired the playhouse from without many times, for it was built by Sir Christopher Wren and was very fine. But I had never seen it from within until that day, and I had had no notion of how splendid it would be. Though the afternoon light came but faintly through the windows, the great room was hot and bright with the light of hundreds of wax candles. Some were in sconces, but most hung in rings or chandeliers. The stage came out into the room, and we who were in the audience surrounded it on three sides. Those in the pit sat on benches, and there was much jostling among them, but we were in the eighteen-penny seats and quite comfortable. The Duke of York's coat of arms hung over everything, and his box was just opposite, but he did not come that day. There was a gallery for the musicians, and on either side of that were statues of the Greek muses in glistening stone. When I first entered I drew a quick breath and clasped my fan in my hands, looking all around me. Susannah smiled at my awe, and led us to our seats.