The Darling Strumpet

by Gillian Bagwell

  “He was going to teach me,” Nell said to Hart, watching over his shoulder in the mirror as he wiped the makeup from his face.

  John Lacy was nearby, brushing the lint from his coat. “If Wat was going to teach you, then we shall have to do it instead, eh, Charlie?”

  “Certainly,” said Hart. “And if you work hard, I’ll put you on in Thomaso. It’s a comedy of Killigrew’s, in two parts. There’s just the role for you, a saucy young doxy. Just a few scenes, so you can get your feet wet.”

  “I cannot read,” Nell blurted, ashamed.

  “No more did I think you could,” Hart said. “I’ll read your words to you, and you can learn them by repeating them back until you have them down. And for the rest”-he waved his arm to indicate all else that his twenty years upon the stage had taught him-“Lacy and I can teach you.”

  “ ‘’ TIS THE HUMOR OF MOST MEN, THEY LOVE DIFFICULTY AND RICHES. Slight them, they are yours forever,’ ” Nell recited.

  “Again,” said Hart. “From the gut, and think of your voice bouncing off the back wall of the theater. Remember what a racket you’re fighting against onstage. Just use your orange-selling voice.” That helped, and Nell was proud to get Hart’s smile of approval when she repeated the line.

  She ran through her whole first speech again, trying to remember everything at once-to address her lines to the actors onstage and yet keep her face forward so the audience could see her well; to keep her feet planted firm and stand straight; to speak her words clearly and loudly without shouting.

  “Good,” said Hart. “Good. You would have done Wat proud.”

  NELL WAS NERVOUS ON THE MORNING OF THE FIRST REHEARSAL FOR Thomaso. The stage door keeper, Eddie Gibbs, greeted her as usual, but today she felt different. Today she was entering the playhouse as an actress. She paused a moment outside the greenroom door, her heart pumping in her throat. Much of the cast had already assembled around the big table, and Nell felt curious and appraising glances as she entered. Killigrew was using the play as an opportunity to try the talents of several new girls, and among the established members of the company were the newcomers Elizabeth Weaver, Betty Hall, Betsy Knepp, and the sisters Frances and Elizabeth Davenport, eyeing each other and Anne Marshall, who was playing the lead.

  Nell smiled at the group, wondering if the new girls all knew that Hart was her lover, and whether they were predisposed to resent her for it, or whether they perhaps regarded her as safely out of the running for the bigger fish they might be angling for. Hester Davenport, formerly of the Duke’s Company, had just given birth to a son by the Earl of Oxford, with whom she was living in luxury as a wife in all but name.

  Nell was grateful to see Kate Corey and slipped into the empty seat next to her.

  “You’ll be fine,” Kate whispered to her. “And just you stick with me if any of these cats start to hiss.”

  Nell looked at the actresses and thought of the girls at Madam Ross’s jealously guarding their regulars. She was glad that Hart had drilled her in her part so well, and that she had repeated the words to herself in bed each night before she fell asleep so that they now came to her without thinking. When it came to rehearsals, she would not have to worry about her lines and would only have to learn her movements.

  Killigrew had written Thomaso during the long closure of the theaters, and it had not yet been performed, so everyone was new to their parts. Killigrew read the script aloud to the assembled cast. He took on each of the characters as he read the play, to Nell’s delight, and she remembered that he had been an actor himself in the old days. Hart had told her that the boy Killigrew had gotten his start in the theater by going on as a little devil at the Red Bull so that he could see the other plays free. As he read the lines of the mountebank Lopus, she thought she could picture him as a mischievous round-faced lad dressed up with tail and horns. The company laughed heartily at his performance, and Nell yearned to begin rehearsals in earnest.

  When Killigrew had done reading, the prompter handed around the sides-each actor’s lines and cues, copied from the precious fair copy that would be kept at the theater and turned into a promptbook. Killigrew appointed rehearsal times for the rest of the week, and the work for the day was over.

  Nell was to be at the rehearsal the next morning, and she was so elated at being finally counted among the company’s actresses that she didn’t even mind selling oranges during the afternoon’s performance of The General, a tragedy that she found dull. Dorset and Sedley were there, apparently enjoying the play more by making sport of it than by watching it, and she bantered happily with them during the interval.

  “What a bacon-faced fool that general is,” Sedley said. “ ‘My rival do but possess her,’ says he. Why, pox, what is there more to be had of a woman than the possessing her?” Though Nell’s interest in Dorset had dimmed to no more than a slight flicker since Hart had become her lover, Sedley’s remark reminded her that she had promised herself not to put herself too much in Dorset’s company, so she gave a fullthroated cry of “Oranges! Fine oranges!” and turned her back on the laughing duo.

  WHEN THE DAY OF THE FIRST PERFORMANCE OF THOMASO CAME, IT seemed very strange to Nell to listen to the buzz and laughter of the audience from the women’s tiring room instead of being in the thick of things with her basket of oranges. But it was a feeling she could happily get used to, she thought. She thanked the tire-woman, Rachel Brown, for lacing her bodice, and checked her reflection in the mirror. She loved the gold-colored dress that she wore as Paulina, and turned this way and that to admire it. Its skirt fell in heavy folds, and she felt like she stood in the center of some great blooming flower.

  “Here, a little more red to your cheeks,” Kate Corey said, helping her. “Just so. Now don’t forget to piss afore you go on. That was the mistake I made the first day I went onstage. Oliver’s skull is right back there.”

  “Oliver’s skull?”

  Kate indicated the chamber pot tucked behind a screen, and Nell giggled in delight at the thought that Cromwell’s hated name had come to mean a lowly pisspot.

  Nell’s first scene was the second scene of the play, and when she and Betty Hall made their entrance as the courtesans Paulina and Saretta, in their wildly colorful gowns and accoutrements, she was electrified by the feeling of all eyes turned upon her.

  “ ‘Would the army were drawn into garrison,’” Betty lamented. “ ‘I long for some fresh lovers to dress our house.’ ”

  Their wry bantering commentary on the foibles of men was well calculated to get the crowd in a laughing mood at the start of the play, and by a few lines into the scene, describing ladies whose beauty was made up of cosmetics and accessories, Nell could feel that the audience was primed and with her.

  “ ‘Death,’ ” she trilled. “ ‘They’ll make love to petticoats! One that never goes to bed all, nor sleeps in a whole skin, one whose teeth, eyes, and hair rest all night in a box, and her chamber lies strewed with her loose members, high shoes, false back and breasts, while he hugs a dismembered carcass!’ ” The audience howled, and Nell felt the scene was over entirely too soon.

  She thrilled as she took her bow before the packed house and to the applause that continued to resound as she left the stage. Lacy swept her into a bear hug and kissed her on both cheeks.

  “Look at her glow,” he laughed, turning to Hart and Mick Mohun. “Ready for more already, she is.”

  “And so she should be,” Mohun agreed. “Well done, Nell.”

  She blushed happily at the praise as Hart swept her off her feet.

  “You were the best of the new girls,” he said, kissing her before setting her down. “No question. You’ve got true presence and a great gift for comedy. And Killigrew’s agreed-we’ll put you on in The Siege of Urbin next. You’ll have four or five quite nice little comic scenes that will let you stretch your wings a bit.”

  “I’M REALLY TO WEAR THESE, AM I?” NELL ASKED HART, HOLDING UP the breeches that were part of her costume as Malina, a g
irl who disguises herself as a boy.

  “You are. And I don’t know whether I’ll be more proud that those sleek little legs of yours are mine to touch, or ready to kill anyone for looking at them.”

  Nell loved playing in The Siege of Urbin even more than she liked Thomaso. She had the second-largest female role, after Anne Marshall as Celestina, and their first scene opened the play. Later, disguised as a young man, she flirted outrageously with Betty Davenport as Clara, and her terrified reaction when Hart as the Duke drew his sword against her always got shouts of laughter.

  Nell also relished the opportunity to work with Michael Mohun and Nicholas Burt, always learning as she watched and played with them, and grateful for their compliments and words of advice.

  Looking over at Hart at supper one evening after the play, she laughed to remember how she had been jealous of him and Anne Marshall. She adored him with her soul, and he had never given her a moment’s reason to think that he did not feel the same.

  THE END OF THE YEAR WAS ALMOST COME, AND SOON IT WOULD BE 1665. Nell and Hart had stayed up late and come to Tower Hill to get a good view of the comet that had illuminated the sky for several nights. They stood together in the dark, looking heavenward. There was a chill wind biting, and clouds scudded across the icy face of the moon, waxing toward fullness.

  “There!” Hart cried.

  “Oh!” Nell sighed. “Magnificent.”

  The comet shone bright, trailing a sparkle of stars in its wake. It must be a harbinger of glorious things to come, Nell thought. This year had been one of supreme happiness, and the coming year promised more joy, with Hart at her side and her first leading role.

  “When will the comet come again?” she whispered.

  “Not until you and I are long gone from this earth, sweeting,” Hart said into her ear, holding her close. “So look well upon it, that we may always hold this moment in our hearts.”

  NELL WAS SO CAUGHT UP IN THE EXCITEMENT OF THE PLAYHOUSE that she cared little for what was happening in the world beyond. But it was becoming impossible to ignore the talk of war with the Dutch that was looming on the horizon. Many of the scenekeepers at the playhouse were sailors, like Dicky One-Shank, and Nell found a knot of them gathered in angry discussion outside the stage door one morning.

  “What’s happened?” she asked Dicky.

  “The press-gangs are out,” he said, “and they’ve taken up Bill Edwards and John Gilbert.”

  “Press-gangs?” Nell asked, looking in confusion at the agitated faces around her “What’s that?” A babble of voices broke out in explanation.

  “The king is readying for war, and needs sailors to build up the navy,” said Matt Kempton, a young red-headed giant. “And if he cannot get enough sailors who are willing, he gets them any way he can. The press-gangs pluck men off the street and press them into service, whether they will or no.”

  “But that’s terrible!” Nell said. “Is there nothing to be done?”

  “Nothing, once they’ve been taken off by force,” Dicky said. “The only thing is to avoid capture in the first place.”

  JOHN DRYDEN’S NEW PLAY, THE INDIAN EMPEROR, WAS A GRAND TRAGEDY in verse. The part of Cydaria, a noble lady, was far more challenging than Nell’s first two roles, and she needed much training before she would be ready. Lacy was undertaking her lessons in carriage and movement.

  “Slow down,” he exhorted her. “Cydaria has no need to hurry and bustle like that. And don’t fidget and shift when you’re not speaking. Stand straight and proud. Stillness draws more eyes and lends more regal grace than any movement.”

  And though she would not dance in this play, Lacy was looking further ahead.

  “You’ll need the dancing soon enough. And when you do, you’ll not want to have it all to learn on top of your words and everything else.”

  So he worked with her daily, teaching her court dances, from the stately pavane to the lively galliard and coranto. Nell was surprised at the delicacy and liveliness with which he moved.

  “You have to think yourself light,” he explained. “Picture yourself like a puppet, your head suspended by a thread dropping down from heaven. That’s it. You’ve got it now.”

  Nell had far more lines than she’d had in her previous parts. Hart read them to her and she repeated them back until she had them pat. He was astonished at how quickly she learned the words. She heeded his advice and repeated them over to herself whenever she could.

  “You’ll need that discipline,” Hart said. “You may need to keep a score of parts in your head so that you can perform with not much more than a run-through.”

  “A score of parts?” Nell asked, horrified.

  “Easily, if you do well. I know forty or more.”

  REMEMBERING THE WORDS WAS ONE THING. UNDERSTANDING THEM was quite another. With a frequency she found embarrassing, Nell had to ask Hart to explain the meaning of a word or a whole string of words-each of which she understood on its own, but which when put together seemed incomprehensible.

  “What does it mean, ‘My feeble hopes in her deserts are lost?’”

  “It means Cydaria fears Cortez can never love her. She thinks he loves Almeria, you see.”

  “Oh,” said Nell. “Well, why don’t she say that, then?”

  “Try it again,” said Hart. “And remember the verse. If you’re speaking it right you can feel the meter, and it will help you both to remember the lines and to speak them so they will be understood.” Nell tried to think of the verse, and spoke again.

  “My feeble hopes in her deserts are lost: I neither can such power nor beauty boast: I have no tie upon you to be true, But that which loosened yours, my love to you.”

  As soon as Nell thought she had mastered the verse in a speech, Hart would make her do it over.

  “Good. Now again. And this time you must make it seem as if you are thinking and speaking the words for the first time. Listen:

  “Make me not doubt, fair soul, your constancy,

  You would have died for love, and so would I.

  “Do you see?”

  Nell was amazed, as always, by how Hart spoke the words as though they were his own. Listening to him, she was struck by the thought that her own speech placed her upbringing squarely and undeniably in the maze of filthy streets and alleys around Covent Garden.

  “You’ve no need to make big changes,” Hart assured her. “Your voice is pleasing and strong. Pronounce a few words differently and you’ll be fine. In this speech, for instance, remember there’s an ‘h’ sound at the beginning of ‘heaving,’ ‘heart,’ and ‘here,’ but not of ‘injuries.’”

  Each day Hart and Lacy worked Nell rigorously, prompting, correcting, and praising. Each day she felt that she knew a world more than she had known the previous day, and yet became more keenly aware of how much more there was to know about the business of acting. Her head was full of the lines she was learning. Her body ached from the unaccustomed dancing. She found that she was hungry all the time and ate ravenously. She could not easily get to sleep at night, though once asleep she slept like the dead.

  AT LAST CAME THE DAY OF THE FIRST PERFORMANCE OF THE INDIAN Emperor. Nell’s stomach had been churning with nervous excitement since she had woken, and now, pacing backstage as she waited to go on, she was terrified. Why, oh, why had she ever wanted to be an actress?

  Her cue came. She launched herself onto the stage, conscious of the hundreds of eyes upon her. Her throat tightened, and she could barely speak her first line, an aside. Then she looked to Hart, found safety in his eyes, and to her surprise, her voice came out clear and strong.

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

  All signs of some unwonted change appear…”

  The symptoms required no acting-her heart felt as if it would leap from her chest. She struggled to control her breathing as Hart had taught her, inhaling deeply but silently at the end of the line so that she could give her next two lines on one breath.

  �
��I find myself unwilling to depart,

  And yet I know not why I would be here.”

  Hart moved closer to Nell, taking her hands in his. She looked up into his eyes. He smiled, and she felt her body relax in the warmth of his presence as she continued with the speech.

  “Stranger, you raise such torments in my breast,

  That when I go, (if I must go again)

  I’ll tell my father you have robbed my rest,

  And to him of your injuries complain.”

  “You raise such torments in my breast.” The words put her feelings for Hart so perfectly that she felt as if she were truly speaking to him, and her fear melted away.

  LATER, NELL SAT NEXT TO HART AS THE COMPANY SUPPED, HER HEAD pleasurably abuzz from wine. In the flickering candlelight, she looked at the faces around her, laughing at some jest of Lacy’s. It was dark and cold outside, but here all was warm and snug, and she was among friends. She heard once more in her head the opening lines of the play, and thought how apt they seemed.

  On what new happy climate are we thrown,

  So long kept secret, and so lately known?

  The day after the first performance, Nell went to the stage to check her props and found Dicky and several of the other scenekeepers gathered in the wings, some with tears on their weather-roughened faces. Matt Kempton turned as she approached.

  “It’s the London,” he said. “The ship that Bill and John were pressed to. It’s blown up, with great loss of life.”

  “They were my shipmates,” Dicky said, wiping his ruddy cheeks. “And my captain, Robert Lawson. We all served in the Fairfax at Goodwin Sands. Where I lost my leg.”