Exit the Actress

by Priya Parmar

  “Anyway, Winifred Gosnell stood in for Moll in Tempest. It was terrible; her voice is too squeaky.”

  “But then she is so much lighter on her feet than Moll,” Tom said mischievously. “Moll is not light on her feet.”

  “Where are we headed?” I asked, trying to force thoughts of Moll and her new baby from my head.

  “Wherever the day takes us,” Teddy sang out, enthusiastically bouncing Scandalous on his knee. Poor Scandalous. He did not look as if he was enjoying it.

  “I think we just passed the village of King’s Cross.” Tom had put on his spectacles and was peering out the window. “And this is the village of Bagnigge Wells. God, what a name.” He was struggling to make out the faded signpost. “Oh, I remember, I think there was talk of a spa here—good water apparently, but now that Epsom and Tunbridge have become so popular, I don’t know.”

  It was a pretty town, on the banks of the Fleet River, with a small, neat square and evenly cobbled streets (rare).

  “Shall we stop?” I knew Tom’s joints suffer after too long in a coach, and I was sure Ruby could use a trip to the great outdoors. “What did you say the name was?”

  “Bagnigge Wells. It’s a bit pokey.”

  “Terrible name,” Teddy muttered, lifting Ruby down from the coach. We set off to find refreshment and a warm fire.

  Later, comfortably seated in a clean if sparsely furnished inn on the north side of Wells Square, and revived by bowls of warm chocolate with foamy cream and a dish of buttery French macaroons, they arrived at their subject.

  “We love you, Ellen,” Tom opened, squeezing my hands, “and we cannot bear to see you suffer so…”

  “Publicly?” Teddy offered, reaching for another macaroon (his third).

  “Consistently,” Tom finished. “This affair with … him. What can it lead to? Other than material goods, which you do not seem to garner like his previous ladies, although I can’t think why not,” Tom puzzled, anxiously folding and refolding his serviette.

  “I do not ask for them, and when he hints, I do not jump for them.” It was impossible to explain, I thought, blowing out my cheeks in exasperation. “I do not want to grab and grasp and squirrel away all I can. It is what everyone expects of me, being—”

  “From your particular background,” Tom cut in smoothly.

  “And you mean to confound them?” Teddy asked. “Ellen, what exactly have you turned down?”

  “Everything! A house, a coach, a sedan chair, jewels, horses, hats, sculpture, painting, palace rooms, shoes, servants—” The looks on their faces made me stop. “I do allow him to buy me dresses, lots of dresses, and I am seriously considering shoes,” I offered lamely.

  “But why?” Tom exploded. He was forever worrying about my lack of a husband, lack of a coach, lack of a house. Lack of, lack of, lack of.

  “It suits me. I do not want what he can give me. I want him.”

  “But a house…” Tom shook his head.

  “And hats! My God, the hats,” Teddy mourned. Teddy loves hats.

  “And that is why it must end.” Tom looked me squarely in the eye. “You will never have him, not all of him.”

  “I think I can live without all,” I said carefully. “I just need … enough. Enough to feel … set apart. Special.”

  “And do you have that now?” Tom persisted.

  “I think I had more than I knew, was more special than I knew, but now … Still, whatever mistakes I have made, I know that my intentions were good. If he does not want to hear the truth from me, or from anyone, then we are better off apart.” I heard my own voice ring with conviction, sounding true and strong and not betraying the deep lonely regret that lurked beneath.

  “Reasonable,” said Tom, sitting back and regarding me critically. “As to the rest, then, we shall see.”

  As we were leaving, we passed a foursquare brick house with a circular drive just at the edge of the village. The tiny house had a large poplar tree in the front and a peeling green front door. There was a notice on the weathered gate, announcing that the property was for sale or long let.

  “Stop!” I cried out, louder than I had intended, surprising myself. Dutifully, the coachman brought the horses to a halt.

  January 28—Theatre Royal (Island Princesse)

  “But you haven’t even seen it!” Tom repeated, pacing the floor and running his fingers through his thinning hair—he removes his itchy wig in his private study. “As your friend, manager, and financial advisor, I can’t allow this. Hart, tell her,” he went on distractedly, returning to the papers on his desk.

  “I have found that it is impossible to tell her anything,” Hart said, winking at me and taking himself off to check the stage.

  We have Island Princesse on at the moment, and the third scene of Act II, when the town burns down, has everyone in a state of constant anxiety. We just burn sulphur and aqua vitae, but Tom is convinced we will burn the theatre down as well. The good news is that Peg has returned to play Panura, and Rupert comes to see her every night, boosting ticket sales enormously. Nick is wonderful as Soza but is not enough of a name to draw a crowd.

  Just then, Teddy came into the office without knocking; he never knocks, just assumes he is welcome everywhere.

  “Talk to her, Teddy,” Tom said, standing up to pace some more. “The foundations could be unstable. There could be damp or mould or mice or—”

  “Rats!” Teddy shuddered. “Oh, my dear, you can’t possibly, not if there are rats.”

  “And anyway, how could you possibly afford it?” Tom went on. “You would have to borrow a huge sum of money, even though the price is remarkably low. If it were a smarter village, it would be double. Oh, this is not the week to be talking about this!”

  “Fashionable villages are ruinously expensive. Just look at what happened to Epsom,” Teddy said absently, ignoring Tom’s agitation.

  “But this village is not fashionable. This house is not expensive. It is near enough to town. And it is perfect. I just know it.”

  “Ellen, I thought you could manage without a house, a coach, all the whatnot that goes with being an established lady? Didn’t you just tell us—”

  “I told you I did not want it from him. Not that I do not want it.” That was partly true. Mostly I did not want to be thought of like her—Moll, the graspy actress—making the most of it and salting away all she can. “It is perfect, Tom. Please, just trust me.” Just how I know this I am not sure: something to do with the optimistically green front door, or the arbour covered in sweet-brier and holly, or the giant curved poplar in the yard, or maybe even the melancholy name of the road: Grays Inn.

  I shook my head and listened again to Tom, who was now holding forth on my financial precariousness—meaning my unusual penniless royal mistress, yet unmarried, state. I was not currently able to follow the well-trodden path from the stage into the marriage bed of a rich man. I was taken and yet not settled, a state my friends found very un settling.

  Finally, they agreed. It was Teddy who came up with the solution. For some time I have been quietly helping Tom choose plays and design the season (much more so than the useless stage manager, Mr. Booth), and Teddy suggested that I receive a small part of the takings as my reward—unofficially, of course.

  “It is only fair, Tom,” Teddy reasoned. “She has an unerring gift for suggesting the right play at the right time. And she has been doing it for ages, to all our benefit, I might add. She has no share points, and she is the only one who can get Dryden to actually write instead of just ponce about.”

  “She is not allowed to have share points; she is a woman!”

  “But she is doing a man’s job.”

  “Hart would have a fit,” Tom pointed out quietly. I held my breath, knowing this was the real sticking point.

  “Why tell him? It is only half a percent anyway, not enough to notice. No one will know.”

  “But it is enough to buy me a house!”

  “Well, we will all be broke if the t
heatre burns down, points or no points,” Tom said gloomily.

  “Don’t say it! Bad luck! Go outside, close your eyes, turn around three times, and spit,” Teddy shrieked.

  Tom rolled his eyes.

  “Oh well, the audience loves a good fire onstage,” I said mischievously. “The bang last night when the sulphur went brought the house down.”

  “That’s what I am worried about,” grumbled Tom.

  Tom signed on as my guarantor, thank goodness. I move in three days.

  January 31, Bagnigge House! (Anniversary of the king’s murder)

  “It’s not much when you pile it all together, is it?” Rose said, looking at my meagre stack of belongings.

  The stack: my dress-boxes, my hat-boxes, my scripts, Grandfather’s books, cooking pots and crockery, a few worn rugs, coverlets, my guitar, an armchair, and Scandalous and Ruby’s bed. We had decided to leave our beds behind, as they virtually fell apart when we tried to lift them. I ordered new beds today—terribly expensive but essential. They will hopefully arrive next week.

  “The dress-boxes are impressive,” Rose’s husband, John, offered lamely. “Where is this house again?”

  “Grays Inn Road, Bagnigge Wells,” trilled Teddy, alighting from what could only be described as a wagon. “I know, terrible name, but soon to be a most fashionable address.”

  “Teddy! You came!” I was so pleased. “Where did you get—”

  “Wouldn’t miss it. Tom has the keys and is waiting for us at the house. Thank God, Princesse is over and he can relax. You are throwing your first party tonight, my love—a bit impromptu, but we’ll put something together.”

  “What?” I asked, alarmed. A party! I hadn’t even been inside yet.

  “You’ll love it. Nick, Johnny, Aphra, and Dryden will be arriving for supper this evening—must remember to pick up some supper for them. Do you have a cook yet? No? Thought not, never mind. I would think Aphra is quite deft in the kitchen—must be, she can do anything, spying, fencing, writing … Buckhurst and Sedley are coming, too, but I would really rather they didn’t. The drinking does get out of hand as soon as that pair arrive. Etheredge is down with a fever and cannot make it. We are to pack up and join Tom now. Shouldn’t take long, I think”—he giggled, eyeing my small heap—“although we may swoon with the fasting.”

  I grimaced. It was only half past ten, and I had already broken the fast (toast and coffee). Nothing more until sundown, I resolved, not even the apples I had stuffed into my travelling bag.

  “Johnny?” I suddenly realised. “But he was meant to be going down to Adderbury to see his wife. What is she now, six months along?”

  “Seven,” Teddy said grimly.

  “Oh, that’s awful, and her first baby, too. He always talks about going; why doesn’t he just get on with it?”

  “Oh, you know Johnny. He’s a puzzle.”

  We put everything into what turned out to be the theatre’s prop wagon in a matter of minutes. I turned to look at the little house of my childhood.

  I turned to Rose. “Sure you will be all right with, with—”

  “With Mother?” Rose voiced the unspoken.

  I had tried to convince Mother to move to Bagnigge House with me, but she staunchly refused to leave town—although she has agreed to give up her business (provided I supply an income for her—expensive but essential)—and so has moved in with Rose. Grandfather has chosen to spend the winter in Oxford and then will join me.

  “Oh, we’ll rub along. There will be no drinking in my house, so she may not stay long,” Rose said cheerfully.

  “We’re off!” said Teddy, handing me into the wagon. I held the squirming dogs on my lap and waved good-bye to Rose, John, and the little house I was leaving behind.

  Later

  I was right. It is as perfect as I suspected. The rooms are small—except for the disproportionately huge rectangular dining room—and need work, but possess charm: uneven floorboards, crumbly thick moulding, lumpy mullioned windows, and a creaky stairway. It is a perfect jewel box of a house, and it is mine.

  Supper was a picnicky sort of affair—blankets and cushions on the floor and a toasty fire. Teddy was right, Aphra can cook, and she brought along her young actor friend Tommy Otway, currently studying at Christ Church, Oxford, who makes delicious pastry and can’t be more than seventeen. God knows what she is doing with him; Aphra never ceases to surprise. After supper we all trooped over to the Pindar of Wakefield, the ancient pub on the far side of Wells Square, and drank warm fizzy beer out of thick country mugs.

  Monday, February 1, 1669

  This morning I hired Mr. Lark from the village as coachman (although I have yet to find a good coach to fit my budget and think I will have to buy Mrs. Eustace’s unreliable antique), gardener, and carpenter. He is really only a carpenter, but I can only afford one man. I also bought a dining table and chairs from Mrs. Eustace up the road—unfortunate fabric on the seats, but Rose should be able to re-cover them. Picnics are well and good but would get tiresome every night.

  Six chickens, two ducks, a cow, and a fuzzy grey gosling named Molly also came with the house. Mr. Lark says we can sell the milk and eggs in the village market, but what one does with a goose, I have no idea. “We could wait until she gets a bit older and then…” Mr. Lark hinted.

  “Don’t even think about it. I refuse to eat geese I know personally.” Ruby and Scandalous are suspicious of these ferocious creatures and refuse to leave the kitchen garden.

  February 2—Theatre Royal (my birthday)

  Spent the morning glazing sprigs of candied rosemary for the front hall, just one of the heavenly domestic tasks I delight in daily. I find all I want to do is nest in my cosy house. But alas, the wide world awaits, and so Lark drove me in for an afternoon of birthday shopping with Peg—dangerous—I must remember that I am on a restricted budget since I have my beautiful house to pay for.

  Now I am at the theatre waiting for Teddy to finish in The Heiress so we can go out for supper. Peg has gone off to fetch Rupert and the others: Tom, Dryden, Johnny, Etheredge (now recovered), and Aphra, without her young friend, will all meet us after the performance. The Wits are all in the house tonight, but I cannot have them all come to my dinner—it will get out of hand. We seven are hoping to slip away unnoticed. Teddy loosely impersonates Sedley in this performance, all in fun, but the rest of the Wits have turned out in a disapproving force—thank goodness Savile and Buckhurst are in the country, two fewer to worry about. Teddy is toning it down tonight to appease them.

  Later

  Johnny could not remember where he told his coachman to meet him (he was too drunk), and so he and Aphra came back to my house to sleep. We all rode home in my new—well, new to me, and very unsound—coach, and will return to town in the morning. Mr. Lark drove—his third time driving in town, but he drives boldly and does not err on the side of caution. Aphra thinks either I must learn to drive myself or both Mr. Lark and I will be dead by the end of the month. Everyone loved the house, but had a few questions.

  “But, my love, more furniture? Where do you sit? Or sleep or write or read?” Johnny asked, looking around perplexed. Rose’s husband, John, had come to collect the chairs so she can begin working on them.

  “Or put your boots?” Aphra asked, muddy boots in hand.

  “My dear, I know I’m soused, but is that a duck?”

  “Certainly not. It is a goose, not a duck; the ducks don’t come in at night. Johnny, Molly. Molly, Johnny,” I introduced them formally.

  “But inside?” Johnny sputtered. “Are we inviting the pigs in, too?”

  “No. No pigs,” I told him firmly. “Just her. She was so cold I asked her in to warm up by the fire, and, well, the dogs eventually got used to her, and so she just stayed. She is very well behaved, and at least now the dogs will go out into the yard. They all go marching out together; it is sweet.” They both stared at me in disbelief.

  The dogs got up from their bed without disturbing the sleepin
g goose, came over, and sniffed the intruders. Deeming them friendly, they went back to bed.

  “Oh, I see, your farmyard menagerie have beds, and we are to make do with the floor?” Johnny asked.

  “Beds are delivered next week, I promise,” I said, cheerfully handing out blankets.

  Wednesday—St. Joseph’s Hospital

  Pacing: eleven steps from the window to the bed. Eleven steps there and eleven steps back. Breathe, Ellen.

  Eleven a.m.

  Teddy was attacked. We don’t know by whom. No one saw it, and Teddy is still unconscious. A group of children found him lying in the dirt this morning in St. James’s Park, crumpled and bloody but breathing. Thankfully, they fetched a constable, and the constable, being a theatregoer, recognised him and fetched Tom. Tom accompanied the constable and sent Etheredge to fetch us. Nothing was stolen from him, not his money, not his precious worked-gold pocket glass, not even his frilly high-heeled boots. Tom, Rochester, and Aphra are here now. Hart, Nick, and Peg are on their way.

  “Teddy, wake up, please,” I pray over and over, watching his bruised, sleeping face.

  Two p.m.

  No change. Everyone is here now.

  Six p.m.

  A huge ruckus downstairs—shouting and stomping of feet. I stood up to see what was going on, but my legs, cramped from sitting for so long, buckled beneath me.

  “Sit, dear,” the nurse, named Elspeth, said, coming around the bed. “He knows you are here. It helps, I promise.”

  Teddy was still not conscious, but his breathing was regular, his ears had ceased to bleed, and his pulse was steady. “All good signs,” the nurse keeps telling me.