“Do not say that, Astrea, I beg you. Am I nothing?”
Aphra smiled. “No, Damon, you are much more than nothing.”
“There then, I conjure you to put off this melancholy sickness and get well again.”
“I will not get well. I know it.”
“That I would hear even less than the other.”
Aphra brought his hand to her cheek and leaned into it. “You are my final comfort, dear heart. Success and reputation have left me, and with them friends, but still you stay.”
“Many friends have died,” Ravenscroft reminded her gently.
“Too true.” They were silent a moment, thinking alternately of Lord Rochester, or Nellie, or King Charles. “Perhaps this sickness is affecting my brain,” Aphra said. “I feel all is lost, all I have done is naught.”
“Did not Clarinda also say that in the centuries to come the critics would argue over your life?”
Aphra nodded. “That she did, and much else besides. She said only few would still know my name.”
“Mayhap even fewer mine. Clarinda told me nothing of what would be said of me in the future — perhaps because there is nothing to tell.”
“Jealous, Damon?”
Ravenscroft grinned. “A little. She did not make an idol of me as she did you.”
“How could she?” Aphra asked with some of her old spark, and Ravenscroft's rush of joy at her change in mood was almost painful. Seeing her like this was more than he could bear at times.
“At least she was yours for a while,” Aphra added. “You were a fool to let her escape you, Damon.”
Ravenscroft let his hand slide gently down Aphra's pale cheek. “I think not. The incomparable Astrea is much to be preferred over a mysterious American.” He cupped her chin with his hand and lifted her head. “You were in love with her a little yourself.”
Aphra laughed. “That I was. She was very easy to love, was she not?”
“What was it about her that was so fascinating?” Ravenscroft mused.
“The way she was more than merely man or woman,” Aphra said simply.
“But she was more comfortable in the role of the man,” Ravenscroft said with a short laugh inspired by unbidden memories.
“Yes, I think she was. And that was a large part of her charm for you.”
Ravenscroft shrugged. “Perhaps. I admit, I was fascinated with her, but you are the companion of my heart.”
Aphra smiled gratefully as he folded her in his arms.
Billie entered the big old church by the side door. On her left was the line of tourists for the part of Westminster Abbey that charged admission. But today she wasn't interested in the monuments to politicians and royalty, wasn't heading for the Poet's Corner, felt no need to visit the plaque in honor of Henry Purcell, even if he had written an opera based on Aphra's Abdelazer. Billie headed in the opposite direction from where many of her countrymen and -women were gathered, the place the guidebooks told them to visit. Passing the small stone for Ben Jonson, she was reminded of Thomas Culpepper's play on names — his foster sister as a second “Behn Johnson.” She did stop briefly in the middle of the church to admire the ceiling, the beauty of Gothic cathedrals never ceasing to amaze her. With these kinds of buildings in which to worship, it was no wonder the folks in the middle ages were so religious.
She opened the door on the opposite side of the church from Ben Jonson's memorial, entered the cloisters, and stopped. Sunlight flooded the courtyard, making her squint. There were more tourists here, examining the commemorative stones to soldiers and priests on the walls. Billie ignored them and headed for the corner with the actors and actresses; Aphra had ended with the players rather than the poets. Billie wondered briefly what she would have thought about that.
The nasal tones of a southern drawl grated her ears. “Here's Anne Bracegirdle, dear,” a chunky blonde informed her male companion. “What was she, a royal mistress?”
The man, loaded with camera equipment, leafed through the guidebook. “Only an actress, it says here.”
The woman turned away in disappointment, her camera-toting better-half trotting behind her. Billie wandered around looking at the plaques, waiting for them to leave. When the door closed behind them, she went back to a stone on the floor near Anne Bracegirdle's. She knelt down and traced the date with her fingers: April 16 1689. Over three hundred years ago now. Three hundred years, and not nearly as far away as they should have been.
The engraving on the stone was clear and legible, not like many others nearby. It appeared there were still people who remembered Aphra Behn.
She unzipped her pack and pulled out a copy of the paper she'd given with Aileen. “This is for you, Aphra,” she said, looking quickly both ways and laying the pages on the cold stone. She picked up a small rock and placed it on the sheets to keep them in place until someone kicked them aside, or a janitor threw them out.
“I may not be able to compete with Virginia Woolf in most things — neither could you, for that matter — but I still think it's better than flowers.”
Billie got up quickly, feeling much too close to tears for comfort. She shoved her fists into the pockets of the silver brocade jacket, and her left hand brushed a folded piece of paper. With a wry smile, she pulled the letter out of her pocket, bent over, and tucked it between the sheets of the manuscript.
The heavy door closed behind her with a thunk. A draft created by the movement joined forces with a breeze flitting through the churchyard, and teased the pages into motion, dislodging the pebble.
Freed, the sheets scattered leisurely across the flagstones.
* * *
END
Author's Note
I first came across mention of Aphra Behn when I was working on my MA in English Literature. I was immediately fascinated. In my dissertation on the use of the female perspective in the novel, I included a chapter on Behn's novel Oroonoko. If I had remained in academia, I'm sure I would have ended up writing many more articles on Aphra Behn. But I didn't, so instead I wrote a novel.
In the sections of the novel which take place in the seventeenth century, I stayed as close to the facts as they are known as possible, but I did diverge a bit in some cases. I moved the performance of several plays closer together in time, in order to give Billie a chance to experience more of the Restoration theater on her jaunts to the past. The “lost” play, The Sign of Roxanne, is also my invention. Much of Behn's life other than her plays, poems and prose, however, is open to interpretation. Because of the widespread use of pastoral pseudonyms, such as “Astrea” for Aphra Behn and “Amoret” for Elizabeth Barry, it cannot be said with 100% certainty to whom Aphra addressed her love poems and letters. But most biographers agree that she had a long-lasting and painful affair with John Hoyle.
Historians might object to the fact that I have Nell Gwyn return to the stage to play the part of Angellica Bianca in The Rover, but here too I was inspired by my research. The original cast list of the published play gives the actress who played the part as Mrs. Gwin. Most authorities interpret that as a misspelling of “Mrs. Quin” — Ann Quin, a member of the Duke's Company about whom little is known. In this case, I decided to opt for poetic license and make “Mrs. Gwin” Nell Gwyn. It is true that Nell Gwyn was intended for a role in Killigrew's play, Thomaso, or the Wanderer, but it was never actually staged, another liberty I have taken with history.
Little is known for sure about Aphra's life before she worked as an English spy in the Netherlands. The letter from William Byam (which I quote in the novel) referring to “Celladon who is fled after Astrea” is a tantalizing hint that Aphra really was in Surinam while it was still an English colony, but there is no actual record of her being there. For Aphra's life before she first started writing for the stage, my sources were primarily her (pseudo-autobiographical?) novel Oroonoko, as well as the biographies The Passionate Shepherdess by Maureen Duffy, Reconstructing Aphra by Angeline Goreau, and The Secret Life of Aphra Behn by Janet Todd.
The scenes of the novel which take place in the twenty-first century are completely fictional, aside from literary criticism of Aphra's works that are quoted. There is no college on the site where the Dorset Garden Theatre once stood — I made that up for the purpose of my time travel.
So many people have helped me during various incarnations of Chameleon in a Mirror that I'm afraid I won't be able to remember them all to list them here. I'm grateful to the Clarion West class of 1998 for feedback on an early version, especially Tamela Viglione and Karen Cupp, who went beyond the call of duty and read more than just the synopsis. Huge thanks to George R.R. Martin, who told me he thought the novel should be published, but was afraid it wouldn't be, given that it was more “political” than adventure-oriented (he was right). But his words helped me keep believing — and come back to the manuscript when things changed, and I could return to this novel of my heart and publish it myself. On the new incarnation, I received excellent feedback from my fellow writers at the Villa Diodati workshop 2012 in England: Aliette de Bodard, John Olsen, Stephen Gaskell, Nancy Fulda, Sylvia Spruck-Wrigley, and Floris Kleinje. I am also indebted to my beta readers of the most recent version, Beth Camp and Widdershins. Finally, I am very grateful for the editing and proofreading done by Victoria List and Danielle Fannin.
Special thanks go to my daughter, Britta Mack, who not only read a very early draft of the novel, she also helped with the cover. And, as always, I am grateful to my husband, Christian Schmidt, for all his help and support.
Thank you all very much. I couldn't have done it without you.
Also by Ruth Nestvold
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* * *
Check out some of Ruth's other books:
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Yseult: A Tale of Love in the Age of King Arthur
Shadow of Stone: The Pendragon Chronicles Book 2
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Never Ever After: Three Short Stories
Dragon Time and Other Stories
* * *
Looking Through Lace
Beyond the Waters of the World
The Future, Imperfect: Six Dystopian Short Stories
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About the Author
A former assistant professor of English in the picturesque town of Freiburg on the edge of the Black Forest, Ruth Nestvold has given up theory for imagination. She has since replaced her university career with a small translation business, and the Black Forest with the parrots of Bad Cannstatt, where she lives with her fantasy, her family, her books, and no cats in a house with a turret. Her fiction has appeared in numerous markets, including Asimov's, F&SF, Baen's Universe, Strange Horizons, Scifiction, and Gardner Dozois's Year's Best Science Fiction. Her work has been nominated for the Nebula, Tiptree, and Sturgeon Awards. In 2007, the Italian translation of her novella “Looking Through Lace” won the “Premio Italia” award for best international work. Her novel Yseult appeared in translation as Flamme und Harfe with the German imprint of Random House, Penhaligon, in 2009, and has since been translated into Dutch and Italian. Since 2012, she's been concentrating her efforts on self-publishing rather than traditional publishing, although she does still occasionally sell a story the old-fashioned way.
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Excerpt from Island of Glass
Do you enjoy tales of magic mixed with reality? Maybe you'll like the historical fantasy Island of Glass.
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Excerpt:
* * *
She sat down on a bench in the square, wondering what would happen now and what the birds could possibly do to help. It seemed hopeless. Pigeons were everywhere, but as soon as they noticed she had no breadcrumbs to toss on the cobblestones, they lost interest in her and went cooing in another direction. Those birds did not appear inclined to reveal anything to her.
Then she heard a raucous cawing. She glanced up to see a magpie, carrying a wide object that glinted in the afternoon sun. As she watched the bird, she heard another loud caw from a different direction, and she turned to see a second magpie dive for the loot. The first bird swerved away, heading straight for her head. Chiara ducked, protecting herself with her forearms. It was a good thing she had, because something hit her right arm and clattered to the ground.
Clattered. Not a bird. She lowered her arms and opened her eyes. On the cobblestones in front of her lay a shoe.
She bent down and picked it up. It was a man's jeweled evening slipper of blue satin with a red heel, laced up with brightly colored ribbons. A shoe fitting for a man of the highest fashion — or a prince.
The battling magpies landed on the opposite side of the Campo, still squabbling. Chiara rose and wandered across the square, shoe in hand. Signora Gutfe said the birds on the Campo would help her; perhaps what they were fighting about would be the key.
As she approached, the magpies flew away, squawking in protest. They left behind a small pile of pebbles, clear and shiny, except for the spots where they had been dirtied by the grime of the square.
Chiara crouched down, taking some pebbles in her free hand and rubbing them between her fingers. Clear crystal. They would be perfect for making glass.
She glanced between the smooth stones and the aristocratic slipper the magpies had nearly dropped on her head.
Bring the prince something he had never seen before, something only she could give him.
She smiled. Of course! She would bring the prince glass slippers, created by a maestra of her art.
End of excerpt.
Chameleon in a Mirror Page 35
