Chameleon in a Mirror

by Ruth Nestvold

  Aphra laughed. “Faith, anything can be reason to cry down a play.”

  “'Tis not only his heroics,” Ravenscroft admitted. “Dryden has seen fit to make fun of my Mamamouchi more than once. I ignored the last; 'twas not much, perhaps two lines. But one cannot stand idly by when one is abused in near a whole prologue!”

  “Dryden feels threatened by the younger poets,” Aphra added. “And for some reason he has chosen Damon as his particular enemy.”

  “You're enjoying it,” Billie accused him.

  Ravenscroft grinned. “Certainly! 'Tis all professional envy.”

  Aphra nodded. “The King's Company is in sorry straits. Since Nell Gwyn left the stage for the royal bed, the audiences flock to us rather than them. As if that were not enough, their theater burnt down last year.”

  “But 'tis no reason for Dryden to imply that the creator of Mamamouchi is a fool.” A glint entered Ravenscroft's golden-brown eyes, making the gold more pronounced.

  “Come, Damon,” Aphra admonished him, “Your Citizen was an extraordinary success. If we were not friends, even I would be inclined to envy. Nine days with a full house — your takings for one play were three days! And the sixth was as full as I've ever seen.”

  “But we can hardly ruin Dryden's takings,” Ravenscroft pointed out. “He is shareholder in the King's Company as well as playwright.”

  “Which is not doing well,” Aphra added.

  “All the better for us at the Duke's Company,” Ravenscroft said. “Two of a trade can seldom agree.”

  “You may have started the feud yourself, Damon, when you made fun of 'plays of rhyme and noise with wondrous show.'“ Aphra shook his arm lightly as if to jog his memory.

  “Ah, but these extravagant heroes! I swear they are sillier than my fools and fops.”

  “Dryden is fond of the excessive,” Aphra agreed.

  Ravenscroft laughed. “So am I, dear Astrea! Still, our temperaments are totally opposite: I am for an excess of the ridiculous any day.”

  “There is a brilliance to good farce, underrated as it is,” Billie said. “I'm quite fond of the ridiculous myself.” She thought of The Blues Brothers and smiled. Ravenscroft would probably love that movie — if he could understand it, that is.

  He pressed her arm to his side, effectively trapping her hand next to his ribs, and looked at her with an appreciative smile. “You are a woman after my own heart!”

  They turned a corner, and Billie was distracted from the look in Ravenscroft's eyes by a crowd gathering ahead, spilling out onto the street and blocking traffic. “What's that?” she asked.

  “A hanging, most like,” Ravenscroft said.

  Billie stopped in her tracks. “A hanging? But there are no gallows here!”

  Aphra too had stopped, her face pale. “Prithee, Damon, let us take another way.”

  Ravenscroft dropped Billie's arm and patted Aphra's hand. Billie stared in sick fascination at the man being pushed to stand on a makeshift scaffold in front of one of the houses in the lane. As if in a dream, she felt Ravenscroft's hand on her elbow again, pulling her in another direction.

  “I must beg your pardon,” Ravenscroft said, guiding them to another street. “I quite forgot White's hanging today.”

  “But why here?” Billie asked. Her stomach was churning.

  “The hanging of a felon is often done close by the lodgings of the criminal.”

  “Oh.” She clenched her hands together, wondering if Tyburn were a later invention or if they only hung non-felons there.

  She could only be grateful her companions were not fans of hangings. What if they had grasped at the opportunity and dragged her along?

  When they finally arrived at the King's Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, she and Aphra were outwardly composed again. But Billie had one more grudge against this era.

  Ravenscroft couldn't believe he'd been guilty of such a gaffe. The two women in his charge were still pale, and he wanted to kick himself that he'd almost taken them straight to a hanging — especially when he knew how sensitive Aphra could be about such things. Luckily, no real harm had been done, but it was not like him to be forgetful in such matters.

  Despite the unfortunate incident, he found himself smiling in anticipation as they neared the theater. Lincoln's Inn Fields was a long, thin building of pure, straight lines and tall windows, much less opulent and grand than the Dorset Garden Theatre. The only ornamentation was in the varying hues of stone, creating a pleasing pattern of brown and beige.

  “The building was originally a tennis court before William Davenant turned it into a theater,” Aphra was explaining to Clarinda as they neared the building. “We were here until Dorset Garden was completed.”

  Clarinda nodded mutely.

  As they entered the former tennis court, heads turned and people stared and whispered. Ravenscroft wondered if word had gotten out that he was to be ridiculed in the prologue.

  He also wondered how many of those staring were trying to catch a closer glimpse of his taller companion. Aphra's strategy was working like a charm; news had spread quickly of her male and female houseguests who never appeared anywhere at the same time. In the coffee houses, bets were already being taken whether the American was male, female, or both. Clarinda seemed unaware that the attention could in any way be attributed to her; she was beautiful and self-assured, yet apparently unconcerned about the effect her looks had on others. Dressed as she was now, he found it even more imperative to think of the black-haired beauty as “her.”

  Ravenscroft patted her hand, and the tall beauty, her light, bright eyes almost level with his, turned to him, finally smiling again. He found himself staring at her stupidly, and she turned away.

  He made a mental note to himself to dispense with stupid staring. He wondered if he would keep it in mind when necessary.

  Billie wished Ravenscroft wouldn't fix his gaze on her like that; it only made her even more confused than she already was. She had to get away from the seventeenth century. She had no strategies for dealing with hangings in the streets and Restoration lady-killers.

  Not to mention that she had no idea what would happen to her if she ended up in the basement of a museum — or whether the trick would even still work once the mirror was returned to the Victoria and Albert. Which would be the day after tomorrow, back in the future.

  She had to get to the Dorset Garden Theatre today.

  But first there was a play to watch and friends to support. They took their places in the pit, and Billie glanced around, curiosity helping her repress existential angst. From a psychological point-of-view, it was interesting how often she'd found herself in such a contradictory state of mind in the last few days — desperate but curious. Since desperation was such a wearing emotion, she fell back on curiosity. Did that mean she was superficial? Or was it just some kind of survival instinct kicking in?

  No matter — until she could find an opportunity to slip away, she might as well enjoy the scenery. The audience crowding into the pit was decked out in satin and silk and lace, even though these were the cheap seats at five shillings a piece. Many of the women wore masks like those Billie had seen in the park; too many for all of them to be prostitutes. In some of the early novels she'd read, women of quality wore masks to hide their identity when they sought adventure — up to and including an assignation. But even that didn't seem to justify the numbers. Perhaps it was more like a fashion accessory?

  “Vizard masks ruin more women's virtue than all the bawds in town,” Ravenscroft murmured in her ear, apparently noticing Billie's inspection of the ladies holding masks in front of their faces.

  “Why do you say that, Mr. Ravenscroft?” Billie asked.

  “Because under them the sin's concealed,” Ravenscroft said, shrugging.

  “Hardly concealed,” Billie replied, gazing at all the skin on display. Now that she'd been in this century a while, it no longer surprised her that she'd so easily been taken for a boy; forcing her slim figure into a
semblance of buxom, seventeenth century womanhood was much more difficult than donning pants and jacket.

  Ravenscroft's gaze followed hers. “Ah, but the wife's undiscovered to her husband, the daughter to her relations, and the maid to her mistress. The sin may be visible but the sinner is not.”

  “Do they all sin?”

  “Why else the mask? The mask attracts the gallants, the raillery tickles the ladies' ears, and soon the fortress is taken.”

  “You speak from experience, I take it?”

  Ravenscroft grinned. “Get a woman's ear and you soon have her virtue.”

  “Ah, then I may no longer talk with you for fear of becoming more to you than I care to be.” Billie deliberately turned her attention to Aphra, who had been listening to the conversation with an amused smile.

  “Well done, my dear,” Aphra whispered, and then tilted her chin in the direction of one of the boxes. “Look, there's the infamous Barbara Castlemaine with William Wycherley,” she said in a more normal tone of voice.

  Billie's eyes went wide and she glanced in the direction Aphra indicated. “The Castlemaine” had been the King's mistress, but Billie was unaware that a Restoration playwright had followed Charles II in her favors. “Are they an item?”

  “An item?”

  “Are they having an affair?” Billie corrected herself.

  Aphra nodded. “She has traded monarch for wit — somewhat against her will, I take it. But the Duchess invariably makes the best of a bad situation. Perhaps Wycherley should be a model to us all for the power of the pen. Don't you agree, Damon?”

  Ravenscroft smiled and shrugged. Billie gazed at the red-headed beauty and wondered if she was really as much of a bitch as history had painted her. She found herself shaking her head; her historical inquisitiveness was once again banishing anxiety from her mind.

  And good thing it was, too.

  The noise level of the waiting crowd grew, and Billie could feel the anticipation growing.

  “'Tis the King!” Aphra murmured, a flutter of excitement in her voice and her color high. Billie's gaze followed that of the rest of the audience, toward what must be the royal box, to see Charles II approach the railing. It was amazing how agitated everyone was getting over a king — even more than her twenty-first century British contemporaries got excited about their monarch. But what a king he was! In his suit of black and red velvet, a heavy chain of gold around his neck, and a profusion of rings on his fingers, he was much more impressive than the royalty of her own time. A sigh went up from the crowd when he waved and smiled — a paragon of a monarch to inspire his people to love and loyalty.

  “He has our dear colleague Nell with him,” Ravenscroft observed. Billie craned her neck to get a glimpse of one of the most famous whores of English history. Nell Gwyn struck her as cute rather than beautiful; she had plump cheeks, a small mouth with full lips, and those heavy-lidded eyes that everyone in this century seemed to have.

  Maybe no one got enough sleep.

  Then an actor came out to speak the prologue. The audience quieted down some, but not much, and there was no dimming of lights. In this era without electricity, theater was an afternoon affair. Candles were expensive, daylight less so. Under the conditions, Billie found it hard to make the transition from her surroundings to the fictional world of the stage.

  “That's Haynes, the famous comedian,” Aphra said.

  Billie had never heard of the “famous comedian” before, but she nodded obediently.

  As the actor began to recite the prologue, Ravenscroft remained silent; Billie assumed he was waiting for a cue. She was surprised when the first mention of Mamamouchi came, and still he said nothing. To judge by all the people dividing their attention between stage and pit, watching their little party as much as the actors, Billie wasn't the only one expecting something entertaining from Ravenscroft.

  “He'll fill your Pit and Boxes to the brim,” Haynes recited, “Where, Ram'd in Crowds, you see your selves in him. Sure there's some spell our Poet never knew....”

  “No, surely not,” Ravenscroft exclaimed, drowning out Haynes's next words. “Your Poet must resort to the inducement of his mistress's legs to attract a crowd.” The audience laughed. “Old Mr. Dryden can no longer please the customers unless he creates a pants role for Mrs. Reeves.” Some male members of the audience clapped and nodded and whistled.

  “Oh how we love the Mamamouchi!” Haynes proclaimed.

  “Thank you, thank you,” Ravenscroft said, standing and bowing to the spectators who were cheering him on. “I must admit, I think it was a very amusing play myself, even if the critics did abhor it.”

  “Write another, Ravenscroft!” a gentleman near them cried out.

  “I fully intend to, my man. I have already promised the younger players of the Duke's Company a Lenten play. And as we all know, the Duke's Company has no need to resort to women in tights to fill the house.” The audience roared, drowning out the rest of Haynes's prologue.

  “But surely there will be at least one!” a young spark called out.

  “Mayhap I can work that in,” Ravenscroft said with an elegant shrug. “There's nothing to be said against the sight of a woman's legs, except when they serve as a crutch for an old man.”

  “But they make a pleasant bed, eh Ravenscroft?” another spectator shouted, and the audience roared. Given Ravenscroft's self-satisfied expression, Billie suspected he'd been hoping for just such a response.

  She shook her head — she couldn't believe the uproar in the house. The crowd had come to be entertained, and they didn't care how the entertainment was provided. If anyone behaved like Ravenscroft in a twenty-first century theater, he'd be thrown out on the spot.

  When Anne Reeves finally entered the stage in her boy's clothes, she was red with embarrassment. Billie felt sorry for her, but she couldn't help being amused. The actress playing the page was a patent gimmick; Mrs. Reeves's figure was not that of a boy, and her costume was designed more to arouse than convince. The audience was obviously meant to be aware of the ruse.

  Billie's “audience” was meant to be aware of the ruse as well — but they weren't to know what was act and what was truth. Here in the seventeenth century, Billie wasn't so sure she knew herself.

  Anne Reeves stuttered over her lines, and the spectators went from whistling to hooting. Ravenscroft smiled faintly, quiet; perhaps he saw his work as finished and was content to leave the rest to the crowd.

  The acting struck Billie as artificial, and she wondered if it was the Restoration mode or just the embarrassment of the actors. The stage itself was much more interesting. The wings, like those she'd examined at Dorset Garden, were used to great effect, creating a sense of perspective. At one point, two of the actresses were behind one wing representing a grate, while the buxom actress in drag and a male actor were on the other side. Two more wings framing the stage represented trees and a street. It wasn't the least bit like a Shakespearian stage, where everything was left to the imagination of the viewer.

  “Has the play taken your fancy?” Ravenscroft murmured to Billie. She thought she detected a tinge of jealousy in his voice.

  “Actually, it's the stage,” Billie said. “I've never seen these kinds of sets before. The play is mediocre. You were right — Dryden is not above farce.” The actor who'd recited the prologue was playing a conceited fool in the midst of a horde of romantic lovers. The play didn't seem to know what it wanted to be, a romantic comedy or a travesty.

  Haynes recited a couple of lines in Italian, galvanizing Ravenscroft into action again. “What! Is English not good enough for ye, Mr. Dryden?” he called out, and the crowd, which had quieted down some, began to hoot.

  “Italian doggerel from Mr. Dryden's pen is better than English doggerel from yours, Mr. Ravenscroft!” someone called out from one of the boxes. Author of the comment was a young man with an enormous wig, dressed in purple silk.

  “And a fop on a stage is better than a fop in a box!” Ravenscroft res
ponded, and the audience roared.

  “Sir George will regret that unfortunate comment,” he murmured so that only Aphra and Billie could hear. Judging by the way Ravenscroft was relishing his little feud with Dryden, Billie could well imagine he would get even with the fop in the box too.

  “How could you be so brutal to a fellow playwright?” she asked him when the play was over and they were leaving the theater.

  “Devils of wit are not very dangerous,” Ravenscroft replied, his smile wide with victory. “We will surely all sleep with whole skins tonight.”

  “And Mr. Dryden with Mrs. Reeves and the comfort of her legs,” Aphra added with a wry grin.

  After the play, Aphra retired for a late afternoon nap — probably more exhausted from the hanging they'd nearly witnessed than from Ravenscroft's success at crying down Dryden's play. It was Billie's chance.

  She changed into her male garb and slipped out of the house. It was still winter, and dusk was already falling, but the Dorset Garden Theatre was only a few blocks away. Billie would never go even this short distance alone dressed as a woman in Restoration London, but as a man she felt safe enough.

  The hanging had been the last straw — Billie needed to get back to the twenty-first century. Besides, there was the fear she didn't want to examine too closely: today might be her last chance to get safely back to her own time. The Behn symposium was ending, which meant the mirror was going back to the Victoria and Albert. She had no idea how museum cellars were organized. If they were locked from the outside, which she suspected, who knew when she might be discovered. She could starve in the basement of the Victoria and Albert.

  On the other hand, she had a pretty strong pair of singer's lungs. If she screamed long and hard enough, someone would surely find her. Right? A museum cellar wasn't sound-proofed, was it?

  When it came right down to it, Billie didn't want to find out.

  She let herself into the theater with a key she'd filched and made her way to the tiring room. After lighting a candle with a tinderbox, she looked around. Little had changed since she'd shown up here just days ago. The dress draped across the back of a chair was burgundy red rather than bronze, but there was a similar assortment of feathers and fans and masks on the table in front of the mirror, and the mirror itself was still just as garish and disorienting as it had been in the classroom where it hung in her own time.