Arden's Act

by Elizabeth Thomas

  But while her lover rested blissfully undisturbed, Arden woke at least once every night to be visited by Brian’s apparition. Each time, she tried quietly to get him to speak, to explain to her why he appeared.

  “Not that I’m not glad to see you,” Arden might say. “And I don’t think so, because you smile, and look loving, but are you jealous of Robert? Does our passion hurt you? Are you trying to tell me something?”

  He did not reply to her when he appeared, not until the end of the week. He still smiled, but he indicated the bureau drawer in which Arden kept his script. Still untouched, she realized guiltily.

  “Oh, Brian, I’m sorry! Of course! I’ve been so negli-gent!” Considering how lax she had been in fulfilling the last promise she had made him, Arden couldn’t believe how kind and patient he’d been in his night visitations.

  As if responding to her thought, Brian clasped his hands together upon his chest. His look, while still loving, became solemn. With his gesture, Arden interpreted him as asking, “How could you even suspect me capable of meanness towards you when I have always loved you so?”

  “I’ll begin right away,” she assured him in a whisper, and he smiled again before he faded.

  Lord Robert was still asleep early the next morning when Arden was awakened once more by a soft knock at her door. Pulling on a forest green dressing gown she had allowed Robert to buy her, she opened it a crack.

  “Margaret!” Arden whispered. “How good it is to see you.” She opened the door completely, and motioned the Quaker into her sitting room. The pale girl embraced her gently before sitting in one of the chairs.

  “I apologize for disturbing thy rest,” Margaret said. She followed Arden’s lead in speaking quietly, though to Arden’s knowledge, she had never been what one could call “loud.” A little shyly, Arden hoped her friend was only trying not to disturb Bonnie and Helena, and did not realize she “entertained a gentleman.” She also hoped Margaret would not wake Robert, and thus be shocked by his presence.

  “No, no,” protested Arden. “You are always welcome. All is well with you, and with your aunt's household?”

  “Yes, I thank thee,” replied Margaret.

  After a brief silence, the Quaker began again. “I do not wish to offend thee, Arden—”

  “Oh, my,” said Arden softly. “A speech that begins like that! Well, I'm sure we shall both be fine. Go on.”

  “Even Quakers hear gossip―even if we don't listen for it,” said Margaret. “I—I know you are keeping company again with Robert Courtenay.” The girl blushed furiously. “He is here now, is he not?”

  Arden nodded, blushing a little herself.

  “Now,” said Margaret. “I do not judge thee. I just—”

  “Yes?” Arden invited.

  “I just believe in giving thee some control over the situation. And I have the means and the knowledge to give thee that control.”

  Arden couldn't help smiling at the earnestness on Margaret’s face.

  “Now, thou art still nursing Helena, yes?”

  “Yes, but I plan to wean her soon.”

  “Then it is doubly good that I have come now,” Margaret stated.

  “Very well,” agreed Arden, trying to conceal her increasing puzzlement.

  “Even nursing a child is not certain protection,” explained Margaret. “Though it does, of course, increase the odds that thou will not conceive while thy milk still flows.”

  “Ah,” said Arden.

  Margaret drew a rather large pouch from underneath her cape, and passed it to Arden. By touch, Arden guessed it to be filled with some kind of dried vegetation.

  “Drink a good strong infusion of this every morning,” commanded the Quaker, “and thou art far less likely to conceive than thou art without it. Start it while Helena is still feeding. It won't harm her in thy milk. And continue steadily when you stop nursing.”

  Arden had not really thought about the possibility of pregnancy. She felt rather stupid―not to mention blinded by lust―to realize her omission. Helena was a good part of the world to her, but—given the choice, she would prefer not to have another child out of wedlock. Especially now that Brian was not alive to rescue her from the prospect. “Thank you,” she told Margaret sincerely. Then she excused herself, and put the bag away in her small pantry.

  “Would you care for some chocolate, or something?” she asked, when she returned to the sitting room.

  Arden would never know what Margaret would have said, because just then Courtenay called from the bedroom, drowsily but quite audibly: “Arden? Arden, where are you? Come back to bed, love!”

  “Do you wish to meet him?” Arden whispered to her guest.

  “No!” Margaret actually looked frightened. “Not today, I thank thee,” she added, moving towards the door. Arden escorted her out, then quickly answered Lord Robert's summons.

  *****

  When she went to the theater later that day, Arden took Brian's old folio with her. She reviewed his work once more as Millie dressed her and fussed with her hair. A strange idea for the play's completion had come to Arden by the time she had readied herself for her entrance. By now the cast was performing a revival of Davenant's own The Siege of Rhodes. Arden starred as Ianthe, the heroic wife who travels from Sicily to be with her besieged husband. The speeches of the opposing combatants were not, in her humble opinion, great theater. Some of the lines her character traded with the husband who now suspected her of cuckolding him with the Sultan snapped and dazzled, though, lending credence to the old tales that Davenant might be the bastard of the Bard himself. The characters of Rhodes had the grandeur of tragedy, but the play―originally produced in 1656 as an opera to escape the Regicide's prohibition against plays―ended with the lovers reconciled. Perhaps it would be all right if Brian's play were a mixture of humours, like life itself.

  After her character kissed and made up, she asked Sir William what he thought. “Well, nobody's ever done tragedy featuring contemporary characters,” he hesitated. He pondered a moment, then said: “If anyone ever wanted to, however, it would be best to start out with a story that combined comedy and tragedy for such characters. All right, Arden. If that's the way it turns out, that's the way we'll do it.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Later, after the rest of her household had fallen asleep, and after Robert had made love to her in ways both skillful and heartfelt, Arden left the bed. She pulled on her dressing gown, and pulled Brian's folio, no longer dusty, from the drawer. She lit a few more of the candles on the bureau. She wondered briefly if seating herself in the rocker would put her recent nighttime visitor off, or whether he'd ever come again at all, now that she'd begun to do his bidding. No matter. She doubted he'd dare show up with Robert still awake.

  “Whatever are you doing?” he mumbled sleepily. Arden dragged a small cherry wood end table, with ink and quill, in front of the rocker.

  “Working on Brian's play,” she replied, dipping her quill into the bottle.

  “Whatever for?” He rose from the bed and stepped in front of her, naked.

  Arden caught her breath. So bold, standing before me in this much light. So confident, and justifiably so.

  “May I distract you, my dear?” He knelt at her bare feet, and reached a warm hand down behind one of her calves, cupping it gently. He worked his way up her leg with that hand, caressing her skin, lightly kneading her muscles. He grabbed Brian's folio with the other hand. Arden resisted him at first, then allowed him to take it. She didn't know whether his touch or the view of his broad, muscular chest persuaded her. She looked up at his face in time to see him conquer the urge to throw the folio across the room. Instead, he set it on the floor beside Arden's rocking chair. She smiled, acknowledging his effort. He rose before her, lifted her from the chair, and carried her back to the bed. Though he did not hurt her laying her down, he did it hastily, and she bounced a little. He opened the front of her dressing gown, massaging her breasts roughly, awakening a need she tho
ught had already been quenched for the night. He kissed her hard and deeply, taking her mouth as he thrust into her, pinioning her pelvis to the down mattress he had insisted on providing. As forcefully as he entered her, she welcomed him eagerly, straining against him in response to his passion. As he drove into her again and again, he looked down at her, drawing her gaze and locking it with his own. His dark eyes burned with an intensity Arden had never seen.

  “I—will—force—him—from—your—mind!”

  “Who?” gasped Arden, laughing at her own jest. Another gasp cut the laughter off, and she had to fight to stifle her expressions of pleasure enough to let Bonnie and Helena remain asleep. She muffled her cries against the warm skin of his neck as wave after wave of exquisite feeling flooded her body. He kept pounding into her, murmuring triumph at her peaks. Yet the more she achieved beneath him, the more his intense and unceasing sensual stimulation made of her spirit a melted, liquid thing that threatened to flow from her body, the more Arden yearned for some indescribable thing, some rush of Robert's soul to meet her own. She thought she might feel it when he finally found his release―if he ever did. Never one to give her short shrift, his prowess had been enhanced by their having made love once already this evening. His finally joining her in ecstasy was the last thing Arden felt before losing consciousness.

  She awoke with one of his strong arms under her neck, cradling her head.

  “Le petit mort.” He brushed a strand of hair from her moist cheek. “The little death.”

  “I know enough French for that.”

  “Apparently so.” His tone held wonder, as if witnessing a phenomenon for the first time.

  “You amaze me,” each said at the same time. Then, of course, they both laughed. Slowly Arden sat up, but the dizziness still lingered. She waited until it grew mild enough to ignore, then she left the bed. She pulled on the dressing gown, picked up Brian's folio, and reclaimed the rocker. Before she could take the quill as well, Robert shook his head, muttered words she could not distinguish, and rose once more. This time he moved behind her chair, reaching around to fondle her breasts through the silk of her gown.

  “What do you eat that gives you such stamina?” asked Arden. “Seriously, Robert, I know what you're trying to do. It won't work.” She pushed his hands away with a sigh.

  “Are you so very certain?” His breath warmed her neck.

  “As many times as you can distract me, I can get up afterwards and resume writing. And more.”

  “Wouldn't that be a fascinating wager?” The merriment of his tone sounded forced, and Arden knew gaining his acceptance would not be easy.

  “I need to work on this.” She paused. “I promised Brian.”

  “Brian's dead.” He moved around the chair to face her.

  “Of course he is, but it was the very last thing he asked of me.”

  “And I'm sure your agreement made his last few moments easier. But I assure you, he doesn't give a hang now.” Hands on hips, even fully naked, he retained an air of command seemingly not to be brooked.

  “Even if that were true―which it isn't―why should you care? I can't believe you really want to make love to me again that badly. Why don't you get some sleep?”

  “What do you mean, ‘it isn't?’” Courtenay demanded. His sharp tone slapped Arden with the realization that whatever the outcome, she'd finish this argument with a sizable portion of herself torn out. Heart or soul? she asked herself before he could continue.

  “Either he's a soul in bliss, up in Heaven, and no longer has such earthly concerns, or—”

  “You can't possibly believe he's in Hell, just because you wish him there!” She wanted to stand up to him, but fear and anger so close upon such extreme ecstasy left Arden physically weaker than she had realized. Folio still in her lap, she gripped the arms of the rocker to hide her trembling.

  “Do you want to know what I truly believe?” He scooped his clothes from the floor and began putting them on. Merely from his stinging tone, Arden knew she did not want to hear what he believed. But he continued before she could object. “I believe he's rotting in the ground, entrails turned to slime and worms eating at his face!”

  Arden reacted with a guttural, wordless cry of anguish. She did not know which part of her disbelief to express first. That he had said something so cruel and hideous to her, or that he would use heresy (Papist or Church of England!) just to vent his jealous humours. By the time she had managed to utter, “His body is not his soul,” Courtenay had finished dressing and sat on the bed to pull his boots on.

  “Ah, but the body is all we can see, all we know about for sure,” he replied. “He rots.”

  “No―the essential part of him lives on,” Arden pro-tested. “I know. I've seen him.” She had blurted the last out before she realized what he could do with it.

  “If you're not deluded, then he must be a lost soul, utterly damned!” he snarled. While she gasped her hurt and shock, he sighed, and it seemed to Arden that the hatefulness rushed out of him like air from a bellows. “No, Arden,” he continued. “The truth is far worse. The truth is you miss him so much that you want to see him, and the strength of your wish makes you think you do.”

  “No―I'm not mad! I really saw his spirit!” Arden almost said, “Ask Father Fernaut if you don't believe me!” She remembered, however, she owed the priest the secrecy of the confessional almost as much as he owed it to her.

  “Don't you see, Arden? I cannot stay, I cannot love you when you still love a dead man!”

  “What makes you think I want you to stay? When you don't believe me, and when you don't even understand my need to keep my promises?” Though she had no more been able to stop herself from saying these words than she was able to stop her heart from beating, she feared his heeding them. Surely some compromise could save them?

  “Very well, then.” He bowed stiffly, turned, and left the room. Arden heard Bonnie's startled “Oh!” as he passed―obviously their shouting had awakened her, and she had stood ready in case Arden called for her aid. She heard his boots on the floor as he left, and as he slammed the door Helena cried out once and went back to silent sleep. Arden rose, still gripping Brian's folio, and went to her window. She moved the shutter just enough to see. Wanting, not wanting, Robert to notice and look back to her. He did not. He had been accustomed to have Sam come by with the coach in the morning. Dawn still waited a few hours off, so he walked swiftly out of Arden's field of vision towards the Strand. Arden clutched the folio to her chest, and as Bonnie rushed in to embrace her, she let the sobs come.

  “I believe you, I believe you,” Bonnie repeated, stroking Arden's hair. As soon as she regained composure, Arden moved to a table in the sitting room and wrote until dawn.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Arden kept writing, kept acting, and kept caring for Helena. After the first night of writing, however, she got adequate rest, because Lord Robert had ceased his visits. Arden tried not to look for him in the theater, either in his box or in anyone else's. Even when she let her eyes follow her questing heart, she did not see him.

  Early on in this new era, Bonnie came to Arden blushing, and asked her if she minded if she continued to keep company with Sam.

  “Continue?” asked Arden. “When did you...?”

  “Well, it's a very new thing,” explained Bonnie. “Since just after the time we all had that picnic at St. James's.”

  “Not at all,” Arden replied, wanting to think she put Bonnie's happiness above her own hurt. She realized, however, that Bonnie and Sam's burgeoning relationship would make it easier for information to flow between herself and Robert. Indeed, as soon as Bonnie came back from her first dinner at Sam's favorite tavern, she reported to Arden without even being asked.

  “Sam says he sleeps a lot and is very bad-tempered. He's drinking more port than was previously his custom.”

  “Good. Maybe he'll get puffy,” said Arden, continuing to scribble at Brian's folio.

  Soon afterwards
, Bonnie reported Courtenay had come to stroll in the park at the same time she'd taken Helena for air.

  “Do you want me to use a different park?” Bonnie asked.

  “Does he treat you respectfully?” Arden returned. “Does he ever seem as if he wants to take Helena?”

  “Well, he takes her into his arms, and gently kisses her little face,” considered Bonnie. “She giggles,” she added. “But he gives her back to me readily enough, and speaks to me very politely.”

  “Then you may keep going to the same park,” said Arden. “She is his child, after all.”

  Sometimes as Arden worked on the play, and as she would be thinking of scribbling a line or two that would take the action in a peculiar direction, Brian would appear beside her. He'd either shake his head or nod his approval, depending.

  “I'm glad you're not confined to the rocking chair,” said Arden, the first time he came while she wrote. His muteness frustrated her, but she tried her best to understand the gestures he made and translate the action and dialogue as he directed.

  Even with all this help, it took Arden a long time to fulfill her promise. April came, and with it Castlemaine's new son, ostentatiously named Charles. Like any other resident of London, Arden had heard that this innocent babe had provided the finishing blow to the Count's patience with his wife. He'd defiantly had the boy baptized Catholic before abandoning the child and its mother for France. Unperturbed, the Countess made a great show of little Charlie's return to the Church of England at St. Margaret’s.

  May brought a long-awaited Queen to England's shores. Catharine, the Infanta of Portugal, stepped off a ship at Portsmouth into a domestic situation she could not believe, even though she had been discreetly warned. When she had married the King and settled in at Whitehall, Charles threw a large celebration to welcome her. He invited Arden. She could not refuse the honor, nor ignore her curiosity about her new Queen―about the woman who would have to make the best of a marriage to a dashing, powerful man who saw adultery as a sovereign right. Yet Arden assumed the King had invited Lord Robert as well. She wanted to see him, yet feared it. She did not feel inclined to forgive him, and felt even less inclined to stop her work on Brian's play. She swallowed some of the herbal potion Margaret had brought her anyway, just in case. Instead of hoping it was a needless precaution, she found herself hoping the liquid still retained its potency.