Exit the Actress (8 page)

“She
is
foreign,” said Theo, trying not to laugh and crack his face. Teddy gave him a stern look. “It’s not her fault. But she does seem to be adjusting. Still no ale but at least she has changed her dreadful hair.”

“Is it true?” asked Kitty, outlining the delicate veins on her bosom. “What he said when he saw her?” She turned to me. “Too much?”

“Maybe overdone just here,” I offered, wiping the harsh blue stripe off her throat—Kitty’s eyesight is not good. “What who said when he saw her?”

Teddy reached for a fresh pot. “Ugh, you don’t know? Bonnie Charlie. He said that instead of a beauty they had brought him a bat. Theo, honestly, if you don’t sit still, I will leave you to do this on your own, and then where will you be?”

“No! He didn’t! Because her hair…”

Theo, between clenched teeth, said, “Well, when she first arrived it did look like she might—”

“Take flight?” Teddy quipped, flapping his brushes in the air like great bat wings and getting powder on Lizzie.
“Someone
has had a word with her, thank goodness. She is wearing it
à la négligence
now—very chic.”

“Bravo, Braganza!” Theo cried without moving his lips.

“And now she will have a baby,” I said, handing Teddy Theo’s wig and taking up my basket. “She must be so relieved.”

Teddy licked his thumb and pasted the wig to Theo’s head. “Oh, I think it is more than relief. I think she’s in
love
.”

This morning, before the audience came in, Lacy was on the stage trying to teach Peg
La Duchesse,
the latest dance in London—French, of course. Lacy says it is
magnifique
! Peg says it is impossible. She has such trouble, being left-handed, and kept turning the wrong way at the top of the figure, but Lacy was patience itself. Teddy and Theo joined in. Teddy took the lady’s part (he prefers the ladies’ parts—more twirling) and then called me up to make up the set with Nick Burt. My pinned skirts felt patched and shabby next to their starchy silks, and my boots were too heavy for dancing, but I leapt onto the stage anyway. Meg and Lil thumped out the rhythm from the pit.
Da, dum, dum, da, dum, dum and demi jeté and change.

“Do it
barefoot,
Ellen!” Teddy called from stage right. “You cannot
pas de bourrée
in boots.”

Although I did not know the steps, I watched closely and caught on quickly, and in the end Lacy used Nick and me to demonstrate the proper form. We would have been
magnifique,
too, if we hadn’t collapsed into giggles.

Theatre has been in an uproar all the morning as they put together the new scenery for
Shepherdess
. Mr. Rider, the master builder, was in, directing the mayhem and showing the managers how to work the new machinery (very expensive and very noisy) to drop the flats from above. It is all very modern, and the flats are huge although not quite dry. I caught Mr. Fuller touching up the last of the fluffy sheep just before the doors opened.

Note
—The queen is not with child. She was mistaken. How sad.

Excitement in the house tonight: at the end of the first act of
Othello,
Lady Castlemaine in a watered crimson silk gown and tall Frances Stuart—she is a
giant
of a woman—slipped into the royal box. The ladies in the pit were pulling off their visors, the latest fashion, to get a better look at
la belle Stuart
. She is said to be the
most
beautiful woman in Europe. The king was not with them, but the audience still shouted for the play to start over. What a bore. That put us an hour behind.

Afterwards we went off to the Bear for supper. I tried to hide my excitement at the invitation. Usually Meg’s girls do not join the actors after the performance. The cast still do not know their lines as apparently they
haven’t done
Othello
for a year and a half. They ran the words all through the meal as is their custom but still managed to carry on a conversation as well—confusing. All the non-
Othello
talk was of Castlemaine and her young rival—
la belle Stuart
.

Theo (Iago) pulled off a piece of the crusted farm bread and said, “Apparently, they arrived in the new light
calèche
that the king has given Frances Stuart. Becka saw it pull up.”

Teddy, taking the jam and butter away from Theo (he is encouraging Theo to lose some weight), said, “Mmm, I saw it, dark green and ebony,
very chic
.”

Nick (Cassio), piling his plate with pasty, and chicken, and stew, and bread,
and
jam,
and
butter, said, “Clever Stuart kept the coach but refused the king!”

Peg (Emilia), drinking only coffee, offered thoughtfully, “That’s the way to do it, I reckon. Be the only one to say no. It’ll drive him mad. He will offer her
anything
.”

Teddy ordered a dish of roast carp, a fruit tart, and a mug of raspberry sack for me, and a huge slice of iced nutmeg cake for himself. He has a terrible sweet tooth.

“Eat,” he commanded. The company also think I am too thin, although my bodice size
has
increased since winter. Rose measures me at least once a week.

Half an inch! Rose has begun to sew me a new gown of pool-blue linen and is saving the stiff bodice for last—just in case my size should continue to
improve. Heigh-ho.

Drat. I missed the excitement. I took my half-day on Wednesday, and naturally on that day the king and his bosom friend, the known rakehell George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham, attended the early performance. Teddy reported that the king wore lavish lace cuffs, a long, narrow rhubarb-pink-striped waistcoat, high-heeled court shoes with
wired
grosgrain ribbon (
quel
glamour—Teddy swooned), and a knee-length embroidered surcoat, which he removed immediately and slung on the back of a chair. The king’s hose were true white, Teddy was careful to mention—Teddy is very particular about hose. The king’s thick black hair hung in long ropey curls, and he laughed loudly and freely. In the second act, Lady Castlemaine joined them in the royal box. Kitty reported that she wore an overly garish sunset-orange taffeta gown embroidered with gold thread, sat on the king’s knee, and twisted her fingers through said ropes of hair. Theo says that the performance lasted an additional two hours on account of the royal visitors. He also said that Castlemaine and Buckingham are cousins …
close
cousins. Does that
mean
…?

Improvement! Rose is letting out the new bodice a bit more—just in case. Tried some of Peg’s rice powder this evening—awful. I looked as if I had fallen face-down in a flour vat.

The excitement is over. The season is done. The king
and
queen
and
Castlemaine
and la belle Stuart, and
the rest of the court have deserted London for Tunbridge Wells. Elizabeth, ever discreet, says the queen is eager to take the restorative waters there to benefit her
health
. Becka, never discreet, says she is going there to cure her
difficulty.
In
Romeo and Juliet
rehearsals this morning—the fight scene:

Lacy, choreographing the fight, said breathlessly, “I’ll bet the king can cure her
difficulty
. What is he up to now? Five? Six bastards? How old is Jemmy Monmouth now? Thirteen? Oh, I need to sit a minute.” He thumped heavily onto Juliet’s prop bed—too heavily, as the lightly constructed bed creaked loudly.

Peg, forgetting her cue and letting her sword drop with a bang, said, “Well, it’s not her fault. The king has to actually spend time in her bed to cure
that
difficulty. Yes, yes, I know,
En garde!
”

Teddy lay on the stage and fanned himself with his script. “Perhaps she does not
quite
know what is supposed to happen? After all, in that prissy Catholic country, who would have told her? Lacy, I’m not sure you are meant to
recline
on that bed.”

Nick, who was practicing his footwork downstage, chipped in, “Castlemaine’s in a delicate way all the time; perhaps she could give her some pointers? Is it left, parry, left, or the other way round?”

“The other way round,” Lacy called without sitting up.

“Well, we certainly know that it is not the king who has a
difficulty,
” Teddy said, blowing out his cheeks and turning to watch the scene. “My God, this heat!
Left!
The
other
left, Peg!”