The Loves of Charles II (112 page)

The King was furious with his players. It was unlike the King to lose his temper; he was, it was said by many, the sweetest tempered man at Court. But there was a great deal to make him melancholy at this time.

A terrible disaster had overtaken the country. The Dutch fleet had sailed up the Medway as far as Chatham. They had taken temporary possession of Sheerness; they had burned the
Great James
, the
Royal Oak
, and the
Loyal London
(that ship which London had so recently had built to ennoble the Navy). They had sent up in smoke a magazine of stores worth £40,000 and, afraid lest they should reach London Bridge and inflict further damage, the English had sunk four ships at Blackwall and thirteen at Woolwich.

The sight of the triumphant and arrogant Dutchmen sailing up the Medway, towing the
Royal Charles
, was, many sober Englishmen declared, the greatest humiliation the English had ever suffered.

So the King, who loved his ships and had done more than any to promote the power of his Navy, was melancholy indeed; this melancholy was aggravated by those who went about the country declaring that this was God’s vengeance on England because of the vices of the Court. There came to him news that a Quaker, naked except for a loincloth, had run through Westminster Hall carrying burning coals in a dish on his head and calling on the people of the Court to repent of their lascivious ways which had clearly found disfavor in the eyes of the Lord.

Charles, the cynic and astute statesman, said to those about him that the disfavor of the Lord might have been averted by cash to repair his ships and make them ready to face the Dutchmen. But he was grieved. He could not see that the fire and the plague which had preceded it—and which in the crippling effects they had had on the country’s trade were the reasons for this humiliating defeat—had any connection with the merry lives he and his followers led. In his opinion God would not wish to deny a gentleman his pleasure.

The plague came on average twice a year to London, and had done so for many years; he knew this was due to the crowded hovels and the filthy conditions of the streets, rather than to his licentiousness; the fire had been so disastrous because those same houses were built of wood and huddled so close together that there was no means—except by making gaps in the buildings—of stopping the fire once it had started on such a gusty night.

But he knew it was useless to tell a superstitious people these things, for they counted it Divine vengeance when aught went wrong and Divine approval when things went right.

But even a man of the sweetest nature could feel exasperated at times and, when he heard that in the
Change of Crowns
which was being done at his own playhouse John Lacy was pouring further ridicule on the Court, Charles was really angry. At any other time he would have laughed and shrugged his shoulders; he had never been a man to turn from the truth; but now, with London prostrate from the effects of plague and fire, with the Dutch inflicting the most humiliating defeat in the country’s history and rebelion hanging in the air as patently as that miasma of haze and stench which came from the breweries, soap-boilers and tanneries ranged about the city, this ridicule of Lacy’s was more than indiscreet; it was criminal.

The King decided that Lacy should suffer a stern reprimand and the playhouse be closed down for a while. It was incongruous, to say the least, that the mummers should be acting at such a time; and the very existence of the playhouse gave those who were condemning the idle life of the Court more sticks with which to beat it.

So, during those hot months, Lacy went to prison and the King’s Theater was closed.

Once more Nell was an actress without a theater to act in.

Afterwards she wondered how she could have behaved as she did.

Was it the desperation which was in the London air at that time? Was it the long faces of all she met which made her turn to the merry rake who was importuning her?

She who loved to laugh felt in those weeks of inactivity that she must escape from a London grown so gloomy that she was reminded of the weeks of plague, when she had lived that wretched life in a deserted city.

Charles Sackville was at her elbow. “Come, Nelly. Come and make merry,” he said. “I have a pleasant house in Epsom Spa. Come with me and enjoy life. What can you do here? Cry ‘Fresh herrings, ten a groat’? Come with me and I’ll give you not only a handsome lover but a hundred pounds a year.”

In her mood of recklessness, Nell threw aside her principles. “I will come,” she said.

So they made merry, she and Charles Sackville, in the house at Epsom.

There they were in pleasant country, but not too quiet and not so far from London that their friends could not visit them.

Charles Sedley joined them. He was witty and amusing, this Little Sid; and highly amused to see that Nell had succumbed at last. He insisted on staying with them at Epsom. He hoped, he said, to have a share in pretty, witty Nell. He would disclaim at length on the greater virtues of Little Sid as compared with those of Charles Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, and he was so amusing that neither Nell nor Buckhurst wished him to go.

They were wildly merry; and all the good people at Epsom talked of these newcomers in their midst. Little groups hung about outside the house hoping to catch a glimpse of the Court wits and the famous actress; and it seemed that a spirit of devilment came to all three of them, so that they acted with more wildness than came naturally even to them; and the people of Epsom were enchanted and shocked by turns.

Other members of the Court came down to see Lord Buckhurst and his newest mistress. Buckhurst was proud of his triumph. So many had laid siege to Nell without success. There was Sir Carr Scrope, squint-eyed and conceited, who made them all laugh by assuring Nell that he was irresistible to all women and, if she wished to be considered a woman of taste, she must immediately desert Buckhurst for him.

Rochester came; he read his latest satires. He told Nell that he set his footmen to wait each night at the doors of those whom he suspected of conducting intrigues, that he might be the first to compile a poem on their activities and circulate it throughout the taverns and coffeehouses. She believed him; there was no exploit which would be too fantastic for my lord Rochester.

Buckingham came; he was at this time full of plans. He swore that ere long they would see Clarendon out of office. He was working with all his mind and heart and he could tell them that his cousin, Barbara Castlemaine, was with him in this. Clarendon must go.

And so passed the weeks at Epsom—six of them—mad, feckless weeks, which Nell was often to remember with shame.

It was Sir George Etherege—Gentle George—who came riding to Epsom with news from London.

Lacy was released; the King had pardoned him; he could not remain long in anger against his players; moreover he knew the hardship this
brought to those who worked in his theater. The ban was lifted. The King’s Servants were playing once more.

Nell looked at her player’s livery then—a cloak of bastard scarlet cloth with a black velvet collar. In the magnificence of the apartment which Buckhurst had given her, she put it on; and she felt that the girl she had now become was unworthy to wear that cloak.

She had done that which she had told herself she would never do. She had loved Charles Hart in her way, and if her feeling for him had not proved a lasting affection, at least she had thought it was at the time.

She accepted the morals of the age; but she had determined that her relationship with men must be based on love.

And then, because of a mood of recklessness, because she had been weak and careless and afraid of poverty, she had become involved in a sordid relationship with a man whom she did not love.

Buckhurst came to her and saw her in the cloak.

“God’s Body!” he cried. “What have we here?”

“My player’s livery,” she said.

He laughed at it and, taking it from her, threw it about his own shoulders. He began to mince about the apartment, waiting for her applause and laughter.

“You find me a bore?” he asked petulantly.

“Yes, Charles,” she said.

“Then the devil take you!”

“He did that when I came to you.”

“What means this?” he cried indignantly. “Are you not satisfied with what I give you?”

“I am not satisfied with what there is between us.”

“What! Nelly grown virtuous, sighing to be a maid once more?”

“Nay. Sighing to be myself.”

“Now the wench grows cryptic. Who is this woman who has been my mistress these last weeks, if not Nelly?”

“’Twas Nelly, sure enough, and for that I pity Nelly.”

“You feel I have neglected you of late?”

“Nay, I feel you have not neglected me enough.”

“Come, you want a present, eh?”

“Nay. I am going back to the playhouse.”

“What, for a miserable pittance?”

“Not so miserable. With it I get back my self-respect.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “Ah, now we have become high and mighty. Nelly the whore would become Nelly the nun. ’Tis a sad complaint but no unusual one. There are many who would be virtuous after
they have lost their virtue, forgetting that those who have it are forever sighing to lose it.”

“I am leaving at once for London.”

“Leave me, and you’ll never come back!”

“I see that you and I are of an opinion. Good day to you, sir.”

“You’re a fool, Nelly,” he said.

“I am myself, and if that be a fool … then Nelly is a fool and must needs act like one.”

He caught her wrist and cried: “Who is it? Rochester?”

Her answer was to kick his shins.

He cried out with pain and released her. She picked up her player’s cloak, wrapped it about her, and walked out of the house.

Charles Hart was cool when she returned to the theater. He was not sure, he told her, whether she could have back any of her old parts.

Nell replied that she must then perforce play others.

The actresses were disdainful. They had been jealous of her quick rise to fame; and even more jealous of her liaison with Lord Buckhurst and the income which they had heard he had fixed upon her. They were delighted to see her back—humbled, as they thought.

This was humiliation for Nell, but she refused to be subdued. She went on the stage and played the smaller parts which were allotted to her, and very soon the pit was calling for more of Mrs. Nelly.

“It seems,” said Beck Marshall, after a particularly noisy demonstration, “that the people come here not to see the play but my lord Buckhurst’s whore.”

Nell rose in her fury and, facing Beck Marshall, cried in ringing tones as though she were playing a dramatic part: “I was but one man’s whore, though I was brought up in a bawdy-house to fill strong waters to the guests; and you are a whore to three or four, though a Presbyter’s praying daughter.”

This set the green room in fits of laughter, for it was true that Beck Marshall and her sister Ann did give themselves airs and were fond of reminding the rest that they did not come from the slums of London but from a respectable family.

Beck had no word to say to that; she had forgotten that it was folly to pit her wits against those of Nell.

The dainty little creature was more full of fire than any, and had the weapon of her wit with which to defend herself.

They all began to realize then that they were glad to have Nell back. Even Charles Hart—who, though in the toils of my lady Castlemaine, had regretted seeing Nell go to Buckhurst—found himself relenting. Moreover
he had the business of the playhouse to consider, and audiences were poor, as they always were in times of disaster. Anything that could be done to bring people into the theater must be done; and Nell was a draw.

So, very soon after her brief retirement with Lord Buckhurst, she was back in all her old parts; and there were many who declared that, if there was one thing which could make them forget the unhappy state of the country’s affairs, it was pretty, witty Nell at the King’s playhouse.