Here Lies Our Sovereign Lord Read online

  “An orange-girl not long ago,” whispered Peg Hughes. “Now, fa la, she is given the best parts. She’ll be putting Mrs. Marshall’s nose out of joint ere long, I’ll warrant.”

  “You know the way to success on the stage surely,” said Mary Knepp. “No matter whether you be actress or orange-girl—the way’s the same. You go to bed with one who can give you what you want, and in the dead of night you ask for it.”

  Nell overheard that. “I thank you for telling me, Mrs. Knepp,” she cried. “For the life of me I could not understand how you ever came to get a part.”

  “Am I a player’s whore?” demanded Mrs. Knepp.

  “Ask me not,” said Nell. “Though I have seen you acting in such a manner with Master Pepys from the Navy Office as to lead me to believe you may be his.”

  Ann Marshall said: “Stop shouting, Nelly. You’re not an orange-girl now. Keep your voice for your part. You’ll need it.”

  Nell for once was glad to subside. She was sure that she would acquit herself well in her part, but she was experiencing a strange fluttering within her stomach which she had rarely known before.

  She turned from Mrs. Knepp and whispered her lines to herself:

  “Thick breath, quick pulse and beating of my heart,

  All sign of some unwonted change appear;

  I find myself unwilling to depart,

  And yet I know not why I should be here.

  Stranger, you raise such torments in my breast …”

  These were her words on her first meeting with Cortes when she falls in love with him at first sight. She thought then of the first time she had seen Charles Hart. Had she felt thus then? Indeed she had not. She did not believe she would ever feel as Cydaria felt; Cydaria is beside herself with passion; wretched and unhappy in her love for the handsome stranger, fearing her love will not be returned, jealous of those whom he has loved before. There was no jealousy in Nell; love for her was a joyous thing.

  She could wish for a merry part, one in which she could strut about the stage in breeches, make saucy quips to the audience, dance and sing.

  But she must go onto the stage and play Cydaria.

  The audience was dazzling that day. The King was present, and with him the most brilliant of his courtiers.

  Nell came on the stage in her Court dress, and there was a gasp of admiration as she did so. She glimpsed her companions with whom she had once sold oranges, and saw the envy in their faces.

  She knew that Mary Knepp and the rest of them would be waiting, eagerly hoping that she would be laughed off the stage. They would, backstage, be aware of the silence which had fallen on the audience as she entered. There was one thing they had forgotten; orange-girl she may have been a short while ago, but now she was the prettiest creature who ever graced a stage, and in her Court dress she could vie with any of the ladies who sat in the boxes.

  She went through her lines, giving them her own inimitable flavor which robbed them of their tragedy and made a more comic part of the Princess than was intended; but it was no less acceptable for all that.

  She enjoyed the scenes with Charles Hart. He looked handsome indeed as the Spanish adventurer, and she spoke her lines with fervor. When he sought to seduce her and she resisted him, she did so with a charming regret which was not in the part. It called forth one or two ribald comments in the pit from those of the audience who followed the course of actors’ and actresses’ lives with zest.

  “Nay, Nelly,” called one bright fellow. “Don’t refuse him now. You did not last night, so why this afternoon?”

  Nell’s impulse was to go the front of the stage and retort that it was no wish of hers to refuse such a handsome fellow and she would never have thought of doing it. The fellow in the pit must blame Master Dryden for that.

  But Cortes’ stern eyes were on her. My dearest Cortes-Charles, thought Nell; he lives in the play; it is this story of Princes that is real to him, not the playhouse.

  “‘Our greatest honor is in loving well,’” he was saying. And she smiled at him and came back with:

  “Strange ways you practice there to win a heart

  Here love is nature, but with you, ’tis art.”

  No one had taken any notice of the interruption. There was nothing unusual in such comments on the actors and their private lives, and the play went on until that last scene when Almeria (Ann Marshall) brought out her dagger and, for love of Cortes, prepares to stab Cydaria.

  There were cries of horror from the pit, cries of warning: “Nelly, take care! That whore is going to stab thee.”

  Nell reeled, placed the sponge filled with blood which she had concealed in her hand on her bosom, and squeezed it; she was about to fall to the floor when Cortes rescued her. There was a sigh of relief throughout the house, which told Nell all she wished to know; she had succeeded in her first big part.

  When Almeria stabbed herself, and Charles Hart and Nell Gwyn left the stage arm-in-arm, the applause broke out.

  Now the actors and actresses must come back and make their bows.

  “Nelly!” cried the pit. “Come, Nelly! Take a bow, Nelly!”

  And so she came to the apron stage, flushed in her triumph; and if her acting was not equal to that of Mrs. Ann Marshall, her dainty beauty found an immediate response.

  Nell lifted her eyes and met those which belonged to a man who leaned forward in his box. His dark luxuriant curls had fallen forward slightly. It was impossible to read the look in the sardonic eyes.

  But for those few moments this man and Nell looked at each other appraisingly. Then she smiled her impudent orange-girl smile. There was the faintest pause before the sensuous lips curled. Others in the theater noticed. They said: “The King liked Nelly in her new part.”

  Now Nell was well known throughout London. When people came to the King’s Theater they expected to see Mrs. Nelly, and, if she did not appear, were apt to ask the reason why. They liked to see her dance and show her pretty legs; they liked to listen to her repartee when someone in the pit attacked her acting or her private life. They declared that to hear Mrs. Nelly giving a member of the audience a rating was as good as any play; for Nell’s wit was sparkling and never malicious except in self-defense.

  There were many who believed she was well on the way to becoming the leading actress at the King’s Theater.

  Often she thought of the King and the smile he had given her. She listened avidly to all news of him. It was a great thing, she told herself, to perform before the King.

  Elizabeth Weaver, one of the actresses, had a tale to tell of the King. Elizabeth held herself aloof, living in a state of expectancy, for once the King had sent for her. Nell had heard her tell the tale many times, for it was a tale Elizabeth Weaver loved to tell. Nell had scarcely listened before; now she wished to hear it in detail.

  “I shall never forget the day as long as I live,” Elizabeth told her. “My part was a good one, and a beautiful dress I wore. You reminded me of myself when you played Cydaria. Such a dress I had….”

  “Yes, yes,” said Nell. “Have done with the dress. It’s what happened to the wearer that interests me.”

  “The dress was important. Mayhap if I had another dress like that he would send for me again. I’d played my part; I’d taken my applause; and then one of the footmen came backstage and said to me: ‘The King sends for you.’”

  “‘The King sends for you.’ Just like that.”

  “Just like that. ‘For what?’ I said. ‘For what should the King send for poor Elizabeth Weaver?’ ‘He would have you entertain him at the Palace of Whitehall,’ I was told. So I put on a cloak—a velvet one, one of the company’s cloaks; but Mr. Hart said to use it since it was to Whitehall I was to go.”

  “Have done with the cloak,” said Nell. “I’ll warrant you weren’t sent for to show a cloak!”

  “Indeed not. I was taken to a grand apartment where there were many great ladies and gentlemen. My lord Buckingham himself was there, and I’ll swear ’twas m
y lady Shrewsbury with him and …”

  “And His Majesty the King?” said Nell.

  “He was kind to me … kinder than the others. He is kind, Nell. His great dark eyes were telling me all the time not to be afraid of them and the things they might say to me. He said nothing that was not kind. He bade me dance and sing, and he bade the others applaud me. And after a while the others went away and I was alone with His Majesty. Then I was no longer afraid.”

  Elizabeth Weaver’s eyes grew misty. She was looking back, not to the glories of Whitehall, not to the honor of being selected by the King, but to that night when she was alone with him and he was just a man like any other.

  “Just a man like any other,” she murmured. “And yet unlike any that I have ever known. He gave me a jewel,” she went on. “I could sell it for much, I doubt not. But I never shall. I shall always keep it.”

  Nell was unusually quiet.

  She is waiting, she thought, waiting and hoping that the King will send for her again. He never will. Poor Bessie Weaver, she is no longer as pretty as she must have once been. And what has she ever had but her youthful prettiness? There are many youthful pretty women to surround His Majesty. So poor Elizabeth Weaver will go on waiting all her life to be sent for by the King.

  “A sorry fate,” said Nell to herself. “Give me a merry one.”

  But she often found her thoughts going back and back again to the King who had smiled at her; and in spite of herself she caught her breath when she asked herself: “Will there ever come a day when the King will send for Nelly?”

  In the days following her success as Cydaria, Nell reveled in her fame. She would wander through the streets smiling and calling a witty greeting to those who spoke to her; she liked to stand at the door of her lodgings, watching the passersby; she would stroll in St. James’ Park and watch the King and his courtiers at the game of pelmel, in which none threw as the King did; she would watch him sauntering with his courtiers, feeding the ducks in the ponds, his spaniels at his heels. He did not see her. If he had would he have remembered the actress he had seen at his playhouse? There were many to watch the King as he walked in his park or rode through his Capital. Why, Nell asked herself, should he notice one young actress?

  But each day she hoped that he would come to see her perform.

  Fate was against Nell then. She was ready to rise to the top of her profession, and suddenly the happy life was no more.

  During the weeks which followed the production of The Indian Emperor there were rumors in the streets. The Dutch were challenging England’s power on the high seas. That seemed far away, but it proved capable of altering the course of a rising young actress’s life. When Nell saw a Dutchman whipped through the streets for declaring that the Dutch had destroyed the English factories on the coast of Guinea, she was sorry for him. Poor fellow, it seemed harsh punishment for repeating a tale which proved to be false. But a few days later England declared war on the Dutch, and then she began to realize how these matters could affect her life. The theaters were half empty. So many of the gallants who had sat in the pit and the boxes had gone to fight the Dutch on the high seas; the King came rarely to the theater, having matters of state with which to deal; and since the King did not come, neither did all the fine ladies and gentlemen. Thomas Killigrew, Michael Mohun, and Charles Hart, who had shares in the theatrical venture, began to look worried. Charles Hart recalled the days of the Commonwealth when it had been an offense to act, and actors had been deprived of their livelihood. Those were grim days, and even Nell’s naturally high spirits were quelled by acting to half-empty houses and by a lover turned melancholy. Yet, ever ebullient, she prophesied a quick defeat of the Dutch and a return to prosperity. But that April there occurred an even more disastrous event than the Dutch war. Like the Dutch war it had broken gradually upon the people of London, for even towards the end of the year 1664 there had been rumors of deaths in the Capital which were suspected of being caused by the dreaded plague. With the coming of the warm spring and summer this fearful scourge broke out afresh. The gutters choked with filth, the stench of decay which filled the air and hung like a cloud over the city, were the best possible breeding conditions for the terror; it increased rapidly, and soon all the business of the town was brought to a standstill. A short while ago Nell and her companions had played to half-filled houses; now they had no audiences at all. None would dare enter a public place for fear that someone present might be infected. The theaters were the first places to close and Nell was deprived of her livelihood. Charles Hart was plunged into melancholy, more at the prospect of being unable to act than because of the danger of disease. He declared that they must leave London and go farther afield. In the sweeter country air it might be possible to escape infection.

  “There are my mother and sister,” said Nell. “We must take them with us.”

  Charles Hart had seen her mother; he shuddered at the prospect of even five minutes spent in her company.

  “’Tis quite impossible,” he said.

  “Then what will become of her?”

  “Doubtless she will drown her sorrow at losing you, in the gin bottle.”

  “What if she takes the plague?”

  “Then, my little Nell, she will take the plague.”

  “Who would care for her?”

  “Your sister doubtless.”

  “What if she also took the plague?”

  “You waste precious time. I wish to leave at once. Every unnecessary minute spent in this polluted place is courting danger.”

  Nell planted her small feet on the floor and, placing her hands on her hips, struck what he called her fish-wife attitude, since it was doubtless picked up when she sold fresh herrings at ten a groat.

  “When I go,” she said, “my family goes with me.”

  “So you choose your family instead of me?” said Hart. “Very well, Madam. You have made your choice.”

  Then he left her, and when he had gone she was sad, because she loved him well enough, and she knew that being unable to act he was a melancholy man. And she was a fool. What, she asked herself, did she owe to the gin-sodden old woman who had beaten and bullied her when she was able, and whined to her when she was not?

  She went to Cole-yard; and as she passed into that alley Nell’s heart was merry no longer, for on many of the doors were painted large red crosses beneath which were written the words “Lord have mercy upon us.”

  Nell stayed in the cellar, with Rose and her mother, for several days and nights. Occasionally either Nell or her sister went out into the streets to see if they could find food. There was scarcely anyone about now, and grass was growing between the cobbles. Sometimes in their wanderings they would see sufferers by the roadside, struck down as they walked through the streets, displaying the fatal signs of shivering, nausea, delirium. Once Nell approached an old woman, because she felt she could not pass her by without offering help, but the woman had opened her eyes and stared at Nell, shouting: “You’re Mrs. Nelly. Stay away from me.” Then she tore open her bodice and showed the terrible macula on her breast.

  Nell hurried away, feeling sick and afraid, aware that she could do nothing to help the old woman.

  They lived this cellar existence for some weeks, occasionally venturing out and returning, feeling desolate and melancholy to see a great city so stricken. During the night they heard the gloomy notes of the bell which told them that the pest-cart was passing that way. They heard the sepulchral cry echoing through the deserted streets: “Bring out your dead.” Nell had seen the naked bodies passed out of windows and tumbled into the cart just as they were, body upon body since there was no time to provide coffins; there were no mourners to follow the dead to their graves; the cart went its dismal way to the burial ground on the outskirts of the city where the bodies were thrown into a pit.

  Then one day Nell cried: “We can no longer stay here. If we do we shall die of melancholy if not of the plague.”

  “Let us to Oxford,” said
her mother. “Your father has relations there. Mayhap they would take us in till this scourge be gone.”

  And so they made their way out of the stricken city. That night they slept in the shelter of a hedge; and Nell felt her spirits lifted in the sweet country air.

  TWO

  It was nearly two years later when Nell came back to London. Life was not easy in Oxford. She had gone back to selling fruit and fish when she could lay her hands on it. Rose worked with her, and the two girls from London, so sprightly and so pretty, were able to keep themselves and their mother alive during those two years.

  News came from London—terrible news which set them all wondering whether they would ever return there. Travellers brought it to Oxford during the month of September, a year after Nell and her family had arrived there. Nell, eager for news of what was happening in Drury Lane and whether the players were back, heard instead of the disastrous fire which had broken out at a baker’s shop in Pudding Lane and quickly spread until half the city was ablaze. The wild rumors reaching Oxford were numerous. Many declared that this was the end of London, and that not a house was left standing; that the King and all his Court had been burned to death.

  Nell for once was speechless. She stood still, thinking of Drury Lane and that squalid alley where she had spent most of her life, the old Cole-yard; she thought of Covent Garden, the Hop Garden and St. Martin’s Lane. She thought of the playhouse—that which she thought of as her own—and that rival house, both furiously burning.

  “’Tis the judgment of God on a wicked city,” some people declared.

  Rose cast down her eyes, but Nell was shrilly indignant. London had not been wicked, she cried; it was merry and full of pleasure, and she for one refused to believe that it was a sin to laugh and enjoy life.

  But she was too wretched to retort with her wonted spirit.