Exit the Actress (52 page)

Johnny’s wife, Elizabeth, gave birth to a daughter, Anne, at Adderbury yesterday. She is to be called Nan for short. He missed it. Rose and I sent a basket of new baby linens, a wooden rattle, and a soft woollen blanket. Charles sent a gold-and-pearl pendant and his love.

“It is awful, admit it. His worst yet,” Teddy said, banging the script down on the stage. Papers went flying; it was cheaply bound and came apart easily.

“It isn’t my favourite, but at least he’s turned out
something,
” I said, starting to pick up pages.

“
Tyrannick Love, or the Royal Martyr
—what sort of title is that? Dryden ought to know better,” Teddy continued, roughly taking off his soft rehearsal shoes and banging them down on the stage, too. It had taken nearly two months for his collarbone to completely heal but he was now back to performing, and was irritated that Dryden had not written him a part. “And Nell keeling over at the end—who wants to see that?”

“What?” I asked, alarmed.

“Honestly, Ellen!” Hart scowled at me. “The man writes the play for you, and you didn’t even bother to read it, did you?” Without waiting for my response, Hart stomped off to his tiring room.

He was right. I had not finished reading the script and had no idea how the play ended. I have been behind lately, spending all my time with the king. He is currently occupied with his secret negotiations with the French. Ostensibly, it is an alliance to end the Dutch war—still dragging on, who can believe it? His sister, the Madame, is acting as intermediary as this is a treaty of some delicacy—they are also, I was appalled to discover, considering a future secret contract that will bind Charles to enter the Catholic faith in exchange for Louis’s considerable financial aid—a contract that
does not specify
when
he must convert to Catholicism but gets the king out his current horrifying debt without resorting to Parliament. Dear God, let no one find out.

“If it solves my money problems, pays my navy, builds my hospitals, and helps me to better safeguard my people … won’t God understand?” Charles reasoned.

“
God
will, but your
people
won’t,” I replied quietly.

In any case, with all this going on, I had not had time to concentrate on Dryden’s new script. “I have to die,
again
? Onstage? We’re back to that?” I wailed.

“Not just die, my dear,” Nick said groggily. He had been awoken from his nap by the banging and was now helping me to reorder the script. “You stab yourself, right at the end—a heroic death, very tragic, very Juliet. A real Dryden special—you’ll love it.”

“Stop!” I said, swatting him with loose papers. “I can’t do it. Not again. I can’t do it properly. Everyone knows that. I look ridiculous. It is why I
never
play Juliet.”

“True,” Nick said bluntly.

“Oh, and to do it in front of—”

“Oh yes, what will your royal lover think to see you die pathetically, undone by a blemish on your shining virtue? Good God,” Nick said, beginning to giggle.

“Undone by bad writing, more likely,” Teddy grumbled. “But the name, the
name
is priceless,” he said, brightening. “Valeria—you sound like an ancient Roman pox.”

“Brilliant,” I said, snapping the pages together.

I was peacefully revising the list of plays for the shortened summer season when I heard his boots clacking furiously down the parquet floor, accompanied by the lighter tapping of his gang of spaniels.

“That woman! I will not have it!” Charles thundered, noisily throwing open the doors to his dressing room himself, without waiting for his
gentleman usher. He is incapable of opening a door gently. He roughly pulled off his wig and hurled it in the general direction of the sofa. I smiled encouragingly at Francis, his frazzled usher, who, after a nod from me, quickly left, pulling the double doors closed behind him.

“Will not have what?” I asked, retrieving his wig; it had fallen quite close to the fire, and it wouldn’t have been the first royal wig to go that way. Awful smell.

“She expects me to acknowledge this baby! This child who could not possibly be mine! Even Lucy did not try that, when Mary so clearly wasn’t mine. And Lucy genuinely
needed
the money.”

“Castlemaine?” I asked cautiously.

I cannot get used to calling her Cleveland, and she is not worth the effort, so I have given up trying. Whatever her name is, she is a touchy subject. Castlemaine recently gave birth to a daughter here in Whitehall—a child she expects the king to recognise as his own. We deliberately decamped to Newmarket for the event, and the queen and some friends went to Tunbridge Wells to take the waters. No one calls it a fertility treatment anymore; it seems to be understood that it is hopeless.

Lucy and Castlemaine’s situations were not terribly similar. Lucy Walter, Monmouth’s unfortunate mother, was, unlike Castlemaine, living in a separate city and had not seen the king in a year when she gave birth to Mary and so had no grounds to claim patrimony, but I did not point this out. Nor did I mention the six-hundred-pound allowance he still gives Mary each year, whether she is his daughter or not.

“Of course Castlemaine. Who else? She knows just when to cause a ruckus; with the new French ambassador arriving next week, this will look awful. Her sense of timing is flawless.”

“Could it…?”

“No. Definitely not. This baby is most likely that toad Jermyn’s, and he won’t ‘fess up. Swine.”

I looked quickly at Chiffinch, who had just slipped in the private door. He has a way of appearing when the king has need of him.

“Did you…?”

“Confront him? Of course not. I am not about to go trawling for this child’s father. Henry Jermyn can look after his own bastard or not as he
chooses. Of course it could be Hart’s child, or Wycherly’s, or that circus performer’s, or even my own grandchild! That woman.”

He sat down heavily on a pink embroidered chair, gathering his spaniel Dot into his lap.

“Your grand—” I began, but when I saw Chiffinch, behind the king’s chair, vigorously shake his head, I stopped.

“Let her speak, William,” the king said, without looking up. “We have no secrets between us.”

An overstatement at best, but I let it lie.

“Monmouth?” I breathed in disbelief. “She wouldn’t. Jemmy wouldn’t. It is unthinkable.”

“Oh, they would and do,
often
it seems, and I honestly do not care,” he said, closing his eyes and pressing his fingertips to his temples. “Barbara Castlemaine is a grasping, greedy whore, and Jemmy has not the sense to see it, nor the character or the respect for me to refrain.”

“But are you sure?” I saw Chiffinch shaking his head, warning me to stop, but I persisted. “Perhaps it is just rumour.”

“Not a rumour, Ellen: a certainty.” He paused, opening his eyes. “We crossed paths.”

I bridled at that. I had assumed he no longer visited Castlemaine’s rooms, but then I had never asked, and was not so frequently at Whitehall to see for myself. Charles more often visited my small house to escape the suffocating court and was now giving me a new house in town so I could be nearer. I smoothed the skirt of my gown—coffee-coloured silk. It had a mud stain on the hem. I must have Mrs. Lark look at it, I thought randomly.

“While I was visiting the
children,
Nell,” he stressed, guessing my thoughts.

He rose from his chair and crossed to me. I saw Chiffinch leave, soundlessly closing the door to the secret stairwell behind him. I did not respond.

“Be reasonable,” he coaxed. “Their nurseries are in her apartments, too, if you recall. You cannot expect me not to visit them,” he continued, tilting my face up to his. “You must not worry so. What you have, you will always have. I have, of late, been with no other women but you. Nor do I have any plans to.”

“I am always reasonable,” I countered spikily.

He kissed me gently, and I softened in his arms. It is impossible to stay angry with this man. His labyrinthine selfish logic is too endearing and too genuine. The evening moved on, the incident was forgotten, and we went on to discuss this and that: his daughter Charlotte’s aptitude for compass reading, King Louis’s affair with la Vallière, the construction of the hospital, Buckingham’s scandalous ménage, anything and everything but
her
.

What I have.
What is that exactly? The precious property that I have claimed in his heart will always be mine, but the rest is reserved for whatever comes next? Yes, I suppose so.

“The heart is an ever-expanding organ,” I could hear Grandfather saying. “Do not underestimate it.”

I must believe it.

Good God! Castlemaine has threatened to dash that baby’s skull on the stone floor if Charles does not recognise her. Dreadful woman. Charles is in a state and believes she might actually do it.

Note
—Awful reviews for
Tyrannick Love
. The news sheets hated it; the audience hated it; Dryden hated it; I hated it. All wrong.

A note arrived from Johnny in Paris asking Charles to stand godfather to Nan. Peace at last.

“I am sorry, my dear,” Dryden said, the ostrich plumes on his enormous hat quivering as he spoke. “I should have known it would not suit you, but
I wanted to write something more
serious,
more
lasting.
But in my self-service, I have done you a disservice,” he said forlornly.

“It is lovely play, an
important
play,” I said, taking his arm, knowing that was what he needed to hear. “It will be remembered long after my appalling performance is forgotten.”

“But what to do now?” he asked, wiping his eyes with his heavily embroidered handkerchief. Did every inch of this man require ornamentation? It was a typical Dryden ensemble: long velvet jacket in a garish yellow, frilly laced cuffs, gold breeches, pink shoes with huge pink satin bows, and a terrible yellow velvet hat with pink ribbons and ostrich feathers:
disaster
.

“Now,” I said firmly, tucking his awful hankie back into his awful coat, “you will write me a superb epilogue so that I may rise up as myself and apologise in person to my audience.”

“Oh, yes!” He brightened. “That is a wonderful idea! I can add something light and humorous without ruining the play—and
you
can still play Valeria.” I cringed at the hideous name.

“Yes. Now get to work. I’ll not have another performance like last night. The applause did not last long enough for me even to exit the stage. Very embarrassing.”

Note
—The epilogue did the trick. After my deplorable death scene—I cannot figure out how to fall gracefully and so make the most God-awful thud—I rose up as Nelly and sparkled anew. I am saved.