The Darling Strumpet

by Gillian Bagwell

  The very air in Windsor still seemed to hold Charles’s presence, and she felt at peace there. She walked alone under the green canopy of the great oaks, Tutty racing ahead and then dashing back to hurry Nell along, his little laughing face looking up before he darted off again. The church bells rang noon. Buckingham would arrive soon. She must remember to have a fire lit in his room. No matter the warmth of the weather, he had always a chill in his bones.

  Nell heard voices and looked back toward the house. It was Buckingham, wig awry, waving off a servant and making his way toward her. He moved heavily and his face was not lit in greeting but dark with worry. Not more bad news, Nell thought. Who else is there to go?

  “It’s Monmouth,” he panted, as he reached her. Monmouth was in France. France, as Jemmy had been…

  “Dead?” she cried.

  “No, worse.” He ran a hand over his brow as though he could wipe away the lines there. “He landed with an army, headed for London to kill the king and take the throne.”

  “Dear God, no.”

  “The king’s forces met him at Sedgemoor. Of course he was defeated, and taken, and now sits in the Tower. He begged the king for mercy, swore he would become a Papist, but the king’s hands are tied. He cannot pardon such treason. It will mean Monmouth’s death.”

  “The poor pretty fool.” Tears ran down Nell’s cheeks. “Why, why, why?”

  “Because,” Buckingham sighed, “he has lived ever as if the world were made only for him.”

  THE DAY OF EXECUTION CAME SWIFTLY. THE BALLAD SELLERS HAWKED new-minted broadsheets, Monmouth’s likeness in blocky black wood-cuts printed at the head of mournful verses. Nell thought back to that first awful day of executions after Charles’s return, the jostling crowds around the scaffold, their noses keen for the scent of blood. Though Monmouth had been convicted of treason, King James in his mercy had ordered that he should be spared the horrors of a common traitor’s death, and instead would lose his head at the stroke of an axe. But it would be on Tower Hill, where a crowd could gather to see him die.

  Dr. Tenison had gone to see Monmouth at the Tower that morning and would attend him on the scaffold. Nell could imagine his deep calm voice, giving what comfort he could. If Monmouth believed in a God and forgiveness, surely he would die in as much peace as he could, with Dr. Tenison at his side.

  A bell tolled in the distance, and Nell knew that the hour of death had come. She tried to pray for Monmouth, but nothing came. No words that could convey her thoughts, no sense of a God who was listening. She sat and waited, each moment an eternity, and finally heard Dr. Tenison’s voice at the door and then his footsteps on the stair.

  Nell stood in shock at the sight of him as he entered the room. His white stockings were splashed with bright blood, his eyes stark with horror. Nell stared. She had never seen him less than self-possessed.

  “Forgive me, the state I’m in-the-the blood. I wanted to come before anyone else should bear the news.” He came to her silently and knelt before her, taking her hand in his, and Nell stared at him, uncomprehending.

  “The news? Is he not dead, then?”

  “Yes, he is dead.” Dr. Tenison bowed his head, and Nell saw that he was shaking with sobs. “The headsman did not know his business, or I know not what.” He faltered, and Nell’s stomach turned over.

  “What? I pray you, tell me, what?”

  “Oh, Nell. It took five strokes of the axe, and still he was not-the work was not complete. The headsman finished him with a knife. God help us all, what butchery was there.”

  Nell thought of Monmouth’s beautiful face, his bright curls matted in blood, his soft mouth contorted in a wordless shriek, and she found it was her own voice that was screaming as she fainted.

  LONDON WAS LONELY. CHARLES HAD BEEN GONE FOR TWO YEARS, and every street and park, every room in Nell’s house echoed with the voices of those no longer living, taunted her with memories of happy times now gone. The April sky was bleak, holding out little promise yet of spring. Rain beat upon the windows and wind rattled the shutters. So empty, Nell thought, looking from her bedchamber window out over the barren branches of the trees below. And so cold. Will I never feel warm again? She longed suddenly for company. How few of her loved ones remained. Charlie was in Belgrade, newly installed as colonel in a regiment of horse in the Imperial Army of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold. Buckingham was off hunting somewhere in the Yorkshire countryside, and she had thought he would have been back by now, but had heard no news. Maybe Rose would come, she thought, and then felt pathetic and foolish. She could not always run to Rose when she was feeling alone. She shook herself. What could she do to pass the evening? Invite some other friends for cards or supper? But who? Somehow the thought of dressing herself for company, of putting on makeup and fixing her hair, seemed more than she could face. She longed for old and comfortable friends, with whom she didn’t have to pretend or make an effort.

  A knock and voices at the door below. A twinge of hope. Perhaps someone had come to visit, maybe Rose or Aphra.

  But it was Buckingham’s page who appeared with Groundes, with that look of fear and loss that Nell knew too well, had seen too many times.

  “George.” His name caught in her throat. “He’s…” She could say no more.

  “Dead, Mrs. Nelly. My master’s dead. Caught cold hunting and was out of his head with fever by the night.”

  “Where? Who was with him?”

  “In an inn in Helmsley, a mean place not fit for his lordship. They was kind, did what they could. But-I’m sorry, madam.”

  “George.” The word was a whisper this time. Nell found herself reaching out her hands, grasping for support, grasping for someone or something that wasn’t there, falling, falling, as grayness flooded her mind.

  NELL OPENED HER EYES. SHE WAS IN HER BED, BUT DID NOT RECALL how she had come to be there. It was dark. Dr. Lower stood over her, and Rose and Bridget were behind him. Nell tried to sit up and found that she could not. Something felt amiss, in a way she could not quite discern.

  “Don’t try to stir, pet.” Rose was at her side then, her hand cool on Nell’s forehead.

  “Whaah? Whuh?” Nell tried to form words but they came out wrong.

  “You’ve had an apoplexy, Mrs. Nell.” Dr. Lower’s voice was steady and calm.

  “Baah.” Nell tried again. What an odd sensation. The words seemed to be right there in her head but somehow her tongue could not find them.

  “Best just to rest for now,” Rose said.

  Rest. Nell shut her eyes. Yes. That was all she could manage, anyway.

  Over the next days, Nell drifted in and out of a haze. So tired. She was so tired. Her face and body felt heavy, and movement seemed impossible. Whenever she opened her eyes someone sat nearby-Rose or Bridget or Meg. Dr. Lower came and went, and then Dr. Lister and Dr. Harrell and Dr. Lefebure. The entire court staff of physicians, Nell thought. The flock who had attended on Charles over his last days. All that effort, all that pain he had suffered at their hands, and to what effect? He had gone just the same.

  Finally, the fog seemed to clear from Nell’s head. Rose helped her to sit, propping her against a bank of pillow, pulling the covers up to her chest, adjusting the woolen nightcap that swaddled her head. The sky outside the window was streaked with pink. It was evening, it seemed. Or perhaps it was dawn. Hard to tell. But it didn’t seem to matter. Nell struggled to speak and somehow the words came, slurred but clear enough for Rose to understand.

  “What’s amiss with me?”

  “The pox, most like.” Rose looked down at Nell’s hand, which she held in hers and stroked. “It’s a long while coming on sometimes, you know. But eventually… and then the shock over poor Buckingham.”

  DR. LOWER CAME TO NELL EVERY DAY. SHE BEGGED HIM NOT TO BLEED her, not to torment her with plasters and clysters and poultices and cupping.

  “If that’s the price of recovering, I’d rather not,” she said, managing a smile.

  “Very well.
” He shook his head. “You shall have your way for now. But if we see no improvement in you…”

  “Why, I’m better already.” Nell smiled at him. “You see how I can sit and speak? Here, sit with me, and I’ll tell you a story about the Weeping Willow and how she grew.” Dr. Lower laughed despite himself and sat beside the bed.

  SUMMER CAME. NELL FELT JUST STRONG ENOUGH TO VENTURE TO HER bedroom window. Her garden was in bloom, the trees spreading their green canopies, and in St. James’s Park beyond, she could see courtiers, the breeze catching their gaily colored silks so that they seemed like sails.

  “What a glorious day,” she said, turning to Rose. “I’m so glad to be alive.” And suddenly something was wrong, and blackness filled her head.

  WHEN NELL AWOKE, THE SUN HAD GONE. SHE TRIED TO SIT AND found herself squirming helplessly like a caterpillar. Something was horribly amiss. Rose was at her side instantly, and Nell could see the truth in her face.

  “I’m dying?”

  Rose hesitated.

  “Yes?” Nell prompted.

  “Yes.”

  The world seemed to have contracted to this room, the small space between the walls. Nothing lay beyond it, or nothing of substance.

  “Don’t leave me?”

  “Never,” said Rose. “Never.”

  “I HAVE LIVED A WICKED LIFE. AND FOR THIS, GOD HAS PUNISHED me. He took my little Jemmy, made him suffer for my sins, and now he has stricken me down.” Nell heard her words hang in the air. The speaking of them had been hard, but once they were out, she felt a weight lifted from her, the weight of the secret fear that had been crushing her heart. She lifted her eyes and met the soft slate gray of Dr. Tenison’s gaze.

  “How have you been wicked?” His voice was gentle, almost curious.

  “Why, I have been whore to the king and born him two bastards. And whore to many men before that.”

  “Yes.”

  Outside the bedroom window, Nell could hear the rumble of a wagon’s wheels in the street and the driver shouting at some obstruction in his way.

  “Tell me,” Dr. Tenison asked, “would you have married the king had you been able?”

  “Of course,” Nell said.

  “And were you true to him?”

  “I was.”

  “And did you bear him malice in your heart?”

  “I would like to have killed him on a few occasions,” Nell admitted, and was relieved to see Dr. Tenison’s smile.

  “I think I should have trouble finding a wife who could not say the same of her husband.”

  “And he had a wife,” Nell said. “The queen.”

  “That is true. And your relations with him were grievous sin. But you have shown that you have a Christian heart, by many deeds in the time that I have known you. And I have no doubt that there were many more in your life before that. You have shown charity for the poor, the sick, those who could not of their own accord make their lives better or more comfortable. And I know that you have done it out of concern for them, admonishing me frequently that no one should know the source of their help.”

  “I felt embarrassed,” Nell said. “Lest any should think I was playing the grand lady.”

  “But it shows that your actions were pure of pride and vainglory. You have been a true and loving friend. To Monmouth, to the poor Earl of Rochester, to many others. You have loved your boys with an unstinting heart.”

  “But Jemmy…” The tears came hot now in Nell’s eyes and ran down her cheeks. Tutty came snuffling up to her, his wet nose nudging her hand, his limpid eyes gazing up at her in concern, and she stroked his head, pulling the silky ears gently.

  “Jemmy’s death was not because of anything you did. I am sure of that,” Dr. Tenison said. “I know you would gladly have laid down your life if it would have spared his.”

  “But how could God have let such a thing happen?” Nell said. “My poor little boy, gentle and good, and dying alone so far from home, when I had sent him off like that.”

  “I don’t know. We cannot know. We can only seek to find some good in whatever may befall.”

  “What good could there be in the death of a blameless child?” Nell demanded, sobs shaking her. “Tell me that.”

  “It has brought you to think about your life, and the life to come,” Dr. Tenison said. “That you may repent your sins, and be forgiven, and find peace through God’s infinite goodness and mercy.”

  “And how am I to repent?” Nell thought he might as well have bade her walk upon the moon.

  “If you allow me, I will help you find your way.”

  Nell wanted peace, ached for relief. But it seemed impossible. She shook her head, doubt and shame taking hold of her once more.

  “I fear God will shut his ears to me.”

  “Speak to Him even if you doubt, and He will listen.”

  CHARLIE CAME HOME FROM BELGRADE. HE COULD NOT STAY LONG, Nell knew, but it was enough to see him again, to hold him to her. She was amazed at the sight of him as he came into her bedroom. He was seventeen now, and in his absence he had suddenly become a man. Her heart ached with joy and pride and sadness all at once to see how much he looked like Charles. He leaned down to kiss her and pulled a chair close to the side of her bed. She ran a hand through his dark curls, stroked the fair cheeks, fresh-shaven smooth.

  “My joy.” She took his hand in hers. “If I have done one thing right in all of my life, it was to bear you. And if there is one thing that has made my stay upon this earth worth the living, it is to see you now, handsome and strong and smart and good, and with a fine life before you.”

  “Mother.” His eyes were swimming with tears. “You’ll get better, I know.”

  Nell smiled and shook her head. “I fear I won’t, my love. But I don’t mourn it. Of all those that have been dear to me, there are precious few left. The world’s a different place now, without them, and with you gone so far away.”

  “I’ll stay if you like, you know.”

  “No,” she said. “You must go and live your life. I know you’ll be thinking of me.”

  “Every day.”

  DR. TENISON’S VISITS WERE DAILY NOW, AND NELL LOOKED FORWARD to his presence as she had to no one’s since Charles’s death. She smiled at him over her cup of chocolate.

  “I have been praying each day, as you told me,” she said. “I felt at first as though I were speaking to empty air. I wondered why I bothered. My mind would not cease its jangling. And as Claudius said, ‘Words without thoughts never to heaven go.’ Then it came to me that I have been battling to understand. And perhaps I can never understand. But I can believe anyway. That’s what you’ve been telling me, isn’t it?”

  Dr. Tenison nodded.

  “And now,” Nell continued, “all of a sudden, I feel that someone is listening.”

  “Tell me.”

  “It is the oddest thing, but yesterday when I closed my eyes and bent my head and began to try, there was the smallest breath of air, a tiny breeze that came in at the window. As if a presence had entered the room.”

  “Not odd at all.”

  “And I had a sudden sense of peace, that I was safe and loved and whole.”

  “And so you are,” he said.

  “And that I have no reason to fear, no matter what comes.”

  “Yes,” said Dr. Tenison. “He will be with you, and keep you safe. Even in the valley of the shadow of death.”

  NELL HAD MADE HER WILL IN JULY, BUT AS THE DAYS SHORTENED INTO autumn, she called her secretary James Booth to her to make a codicil.

  “I want to leave money in Dr. Tenison’s hands, that he might give it to the poor of the parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. To those who have need of warm clothes to see them through the winter. And to free those who linger in prison for debt. And tell him that as he has shown me the path of such kindness and mercy, he should see that some of it goes to poor Papists of the parish.”

  Booth’s pen scratched across the paper, and he looked up as he finished.

/>   “Aught else, madam?”

  “Yes.” Nell hesitated. Her hope was great, but so was her fear. “When I am gone, ask my son to inquire of Dr. Tenison if he would stoop to give my funeral service. Tell him I know I have not deserved it, and will understand-none should blame him if he would not. But my soul should rest easier if he would do me that last kindness.”

  NELL COULD FEEL ROSE’S HAND HOLDING HERS, AND THE SMOOTHNESS of Rose’s palm against her skin, the gentle grasp of the fingers, made her feel safe. She gave her sister’s hand a squeeze. Rose moved her chair closer to Nell’s bedside. She stroked Nell’s forehead, and Nell opened her eyes to look into her sister’s face.

  Rose. She had been there always, as long as Nell could remember. Strong, warm, protective, loving. Eternal as the sun and moon.

  Rose smiled, but her eyes were full of tears, and Nell wished that her passing would not cause such pain.

  “You are always such a comfort to me,” she whispered. “When I was small. When I ran away and you took me in and sheltered me. When I was afraid of losing Charles. You have always been there, and you have always made things better. I wish I could have done the same.”

  “But, Nell, you have,” Rose protested softly. “You have always taken care for me. Always helped me. Never forgot your sister. Not many would have done that.”

  “I wish I could do more,” Nell said. “Not leave you alone.”

  “You do not leave me alone,” Rose said. “You are always in my heart. You will be always in my heart. Every day you will be with me.”

  She brought Nell’s hand to her lips and kissed it. Nell closed her eyes. She was so tired. The draft that Dr. Harrell had given her had eased the pain, and she felt somehow as if she had no body, as if her mind floated above the bed, and only her hand in Rose’s anchored her to the world. She could hear her own breath, was aware that it was ragged and slowing. But it caused her no distress. All was well. Rose was there, and now she felt little Jemmy’s hand slip into hers. Could that be? He’d been gone so long. He spoke. What a joy to hear his sweet voice. She could not quite make out what he was saying, but she could feel the warmth of his love and his welcome. Charles was there beside him now, and his voice, too, was drawing her to him. And she knew the others were there behind him-Charles Hart, Buckingham, Rochester, Monmouth, John Lacy, Wat Clun, Michael Mohun, old Tom Killigrew, her mother and her father, and so many others. They had not gone after all. Nell smiled and sighed.