Pleasing Mr. Pepys

by Deborah Swift

  In memory of my father, Clifton Edward Sidwell

  Pleasing Mr Pepys

  An Entertainment in Three Acts

  ‘Musique and woman I cannot but give way to, whatever my business is.’

  Samuel Pepys

  Life’s but a walking shadow; a poor player,

  That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

  And then is heard no more:

  William Shakespeare

  Dramatis Personae

  As recorded in the diary of Samuel Pepys:

  Samuel Pepys – Principal Administrator of the Navy

  Elisabeth Pepys – his wife

  Deborah Willet – Elisabeth’s lady’s maid

  Abigail Williams – an actress, mistress of Lord Bruncker

  Lord Bruncker – President of the Royal Society

  Jane – maid to the Pepys’ household

  Mary Mercer – Elisabeth’s friend

  Aunt Beth – Deborah Willet’s aunt

  Will Hewer – a clerk at the Navy Office

  From writs and records of the time:

  Jeremiah Wells – curate in training

  Hester Willet – sister to Deborah Willet

  Mr Constantine – owner of The Grecian coffee house

  And featuring the unrecorded lives of:

  Piet Groedecker, alias Mr Johnson – a Dutch spymaster

  Bartholomew Wells – a rebel, brother to Jeremiah

  Lizzie – a teacher at the Poor Whores School

  And sundry and divers citizens of London Town

  Act One

  1667

  Chapter One

  September

  A METALLIC RATTLE – THE key in the lock. Abigail Williams stiffened her spine as the draught from the downstairs door and the stink of the Fleet River blew round her ankles. Harrington closed the door and she heard him scratch the flint to light the wall sconces. Lighting-up time already. It had been daylight when she had broken into his house. With one hand, she held her skirts closer to her thighs; with the other, she gripped the flat-bladed knife – a small weapon, but the edge sharpened razor-thin. She pressed back against the wall behind the door as the light from the hall flickered across her kidskin shoes.

  Harrington’s footsteps lumbered up the stairs, his breathing laboured. She tightened her hold on the knife, preparing herself. These breaths would be his last. She found death harder to bear than she used to, now she had seen so much suffering – the plague years, the fire. Oddly, Harrington paused on the threshold of the room, as if he could sense her waiting presence. Through the crack of the open door she saw him standing motionless, his steeple hat a silhouette in the wavering light, his head cocked, listening.

  He was an old hand, like her. She repressed a flash of compassion, the foolish urge to call out, to warn him. But then his dark back came through the door and he stepped in front of her, and without even thinking she moved like quicksilver. The knife slid easily across the side of his neck. With the other hand she pushed as hard as she could. He tried to turn, but it was too late, he was already falling, clutching his collar, blood slippery over his hands, hat rolling away under the table.

  Experience told Abigail it had been enough. She ran, hoisting up her skirts, down the stairs, flinging the front door open, out into the cramped back alley. Nobody followed her; the passage to Fleet Street was empty. A brownish fog wreathed around her hem. When she finally slowed, she took a rag from inside her sleeve and wiped her blade, wrapped it, and stowed it in the pocket hanging next to her petticoats. She put a hand up to the bare skin at her chest, feeling the hot rise and fall of her breastbone.

  She emerged onto the main thoroughfare where the houses were lit with torches, and walked, heart thudding, down towards the King’s playhouse. Arriving at the theatre, she saw Lord Bruncker’s carriage was where he had left it, across the road. His coachman was leaning against the wall, a smoking pipe in his mouth, waiting. She didn’t want to go in the front way – someone might ask why she was late – so instead she made for the tiring house behind.

  The stage doorman knew her and nodded to her as she entered. The dressing room was empty, the actors ready to enter by the shutters for act two. From there, the audience sounded like the sea, the swell of all those voices. She checked her face and the satin of her dress for stains: a few dark spots on her sleeve, easily explained away.

  Only now did she begin to shake. It was always like this: afterwards the weakness, nausea and trembling would set in. The moment when she wished she could turn back the day, the moment when she remembered their eyes, hollow with their unspoken question. Why?

  Legs as unsteady as a newborn calf, she paused, leaned heavily on the trestle table, took out a phial of camphor from her pocket and inhaled. Better.

  She arranged her face into a smile. Her performance for Lord Bruncker was about to begin. Her petticoat rustled against the boards as she went along the corridor and up the stairs into the box. On the way she almost bumped into Mr Pepys hurrying up the same stairs with a supply of nuts and oranges.

  ‘For Elisabeth,’ he said, obviously feeling the need to apologise for the sheer number of squashed bags hugged to his chest.

  She nodded and stood aside, lowering her eyes to avoid his conversation. He could talk the baggage off a donkey. To her relief, he squeezed past and hurried into his own box further along the row.

  When she got to her own, the candelabra had been lit, and upon her arrival Lord Bruncker drew out the chair so that she could sit.

  ‘Ah, there you are,’ he whispered. ‘You’re late. You missed the first act.’

  She shook her head. ‘The traffic through town—’

  ‘Hush, they’re about to start again. Have a confit.’

  She reached out her hand and smiled, took a marchpane cherry, but dropped it under her seat as soon as Lord Bruncker turned back to look at the stage. She was glad his attention was diverted, so he did not notice her pallid face or that she could not swallow.

  The actor who had just entered rapped three times for silence, his face ghoulish from the footlights, which smoked in their holders. The hubbub fell to a hush. But Abigail’s thoughts would not lie quiet; she was thinking of Harrington, of how long it would be before they found him.

  He should have listened to Piet. Then his mouth wouldn’t have had to be shut the hard way. She’d liked him but, in her business, liking was a luxury she was ill able to afford.

  Chapter Two

  DEB WILLET HUGGED HER sister and turned to glance back through the dark doorway. She’d hated the house for so long, and with such intensity, that she was surprised to see how small it really was. Now she was leaving, it was as if its narrow half-timbered walls had shrunk to doll’s house proportions.

  Hester would manage without her. She was nearly twelve, after all. Deb tried to prise her sister’s fingers from her arm, but Hester clung on.

  ‘I’ll write, I promise,’ Deb said.

  ‘But I don’t know what I’ll do … I can’t finish my embroidery without you. The butterflies are too hard. Don’t go.’

  Deb squeezed Hester’s hand. ‘I have to. See, Aunt Beth’s waiting.’ She gestured to the carriage, a black berline, where her brass-bound trunk was already stacked behind. Their aunt, a solid black figure in a heavy travelling cloak and jagged hat, wrestled the door open against the wind.

  ‘But when will I see you again?’

  ‘I don’t know. Soon. It will depend on the Pepyses. When they let me have a few days off together, long enough to visit.’

  ‘Next week?’

  ‘I told you, chicken, I don’t know. Hush now, it’s not so bad.’

  Hester clung to a fistful of Deb’s sleeve, mouth quivering, eyes threatening tears. Deb was about
to comfort her again when she heard the bang of the carriage door. She pulled Hester into a protective embrace as Aunt Beth strode over, face pinched with intent.

  ‘That’s enough!’ Aunt Beth said, throwing up her hand ready to strike. ‘I never saw such nonsense in all my life. Making such a scene before the neighbours.’

  ‘It’s all right, Hester,’ Deb said, thrusting herself between her aunt and her sister. She took hold of Hester by the shoulders and bent to look into her face. ‘Listen. I’ll come back as soon as I can. Just do as Aunt Beth says.’

  ‘Will you look for Mama?’ Hester’s voice was a whisper, to prevent Aunt Beth hearing.

  ‘London’s a big place.’

  ‘If you find her you’ll come and fetch me?’

  Deb shook her head, unable to answer.

  ‘But you said we’d always be together. You promised.’ Hester wrenched herself away, took a deep sobbing breath. ‘You’re a liar and I hate you.’ She fled towards the house, dark hair flying, shoes splashing mud up her skirts.

  ‘Hester! Wait—’ Deb threw up her hands, then let them fall. Hester had slammed the front door behind her.

  ‘Hurry, we’ve wasted enough time,’ Aunt Beth said, ignoring the driver who tried to assist her, and heaving herself up the dainty steps into the carriage.

  Deb hesitated as Hester appeared at the upstairs window. Oh, why did it have to be so hard?

  ‘Deb! Into the carriage. Now.’

  The carriage was black as ink and drawn by a matching pair of black horses. The colour put Deb in mind of a hearse. And as it was one of the new two-seaters, Deb had no option but to hitch up her skirts and squash herself in next to Aunt Beth. When she craned her neck out of the open door to look back, Hester was blowing her nose into her handkerchief, the fabric flapping like a white moth caught behind the window.

  Deb lifted her hand to wave, but Aunt Beth pressed it firmly back. ‘Don’t pander to her,’ Aunt Beth said. ‘She’s far too spoilt. It will only make it worse. When I return, I’ll see to it there’s no more of her nonsense.’ She leaned over Deb’s lap to bang the carriage door shut and the horses lurched into motion.

  Deb kept her gaze on her knees, on the dark linsey wool of her cloak. The carriage was cramped and oppressive, with Aunt Beth’s bulk taking up most of the room. By the time she looked up through the open square of the front window, and past the driver, the houses of Bromley St Leonard were gone, and her heart pinched with sudden loneliness. The track stretched baldly ahead, and leaves, crumpled like burnt paper, blew across the track under the horses’ hooves.

  Aunt Beth ticked off instructions on her fingers as they went, but Deb was too preoccupied to take them in, until they creaked to a standstill at the imposing London wall. Their driver leant back to slow the horses. Ahead, a jumble of carts, barrows and horses competed to push through a narrow passage. A gap-toothed costermonger spat a mouthful of curses at a coal cart blocking his path, and the unfamiliar words and his angry gestures made Deb stare.

  ‘Close your ears,’ Aunt Beth said.

  But Deb was fascinated by the packed roads, the sheer volume of people hurrying down the damp streets, heads bent low against the drizzle. Only then did it sink in; she was really going to live here, in London. Her hands twisted over each other in apprehension and excitement.

  ‘Deborah! Did you hear what I said?’

  Deb dragged her awareness back to her aunt, whose lips had compressed into a seam of disapproval. ‘Pay attention. You must never walk abroad without your mistress’s permission, and never venture into back alleys alone,’ she said. ‘London is quite different from Bromley or Bow. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Aunt Beth.’ Aunt Beth knew London well, for she had a cousin on Jerwen Street.

  ‘And make sure to find a good laundress, one that scrubs the inside as well as the outside of the collars. A lady’s maid is not a common maidservant and Mrs Pepys will rely on you to maintain her high standards. Cleanliness is a virtue, as you—’

  Aunt Beth made a grab for the front of the leather seat as the horses strained to pull forward in their traces. The carriages began to flow again down Bishopsgate Street and the clatter of wooden wheels and tumult of voices from outside prevented further conversation. Aunt Beth lifted her kerchief back to her nose and kept it there, grimacing at the noise and smoke. Two dark patches already stained the linen where she had breathed in the smuts from the air.

  Deb inhaled the faint, sour smell of damp burnt timber. ‘Look!’ she said, unable to help herself. She pointed at a towering wooden scaffolding where a new building was half-erected, and a wiry man with a hod of bricks teetered like a monkey on the narrow platform.

  Aunt Beth did not deign to reply, but her eyes went over to where a gang of men were heaving up buckets on ropes and pulleys, chanting to a rhythmic heave ho, heave ho. Although the Great Fire had been more than a year ago, on Deb’s left, all that remained were blackened brick chimney stacks, poking heavenwards like accusing fingers. Deb imagined the roar of the flames, and the houses collapsing, expiring into the smoke.

  A sharp tap on her knee, and Deb pulled her head back inside, startled.

  ‘It’s folly to lean out like that,’ Aunt Beth said. ‘It’s raining. And your head could get knocked off.’ She leaned over Deb to snap down the blind, but it was stiff, and stuck halfway. ‘I hope you are listening. Maybe the Pepyses will hammer some sense into you. Lord knows, you need it. And don’t forget to watch your belongings, London’s full of thieves and conmen.’ She sniffed. ‘And mind your manners. Mr Pepys is very well connected, so don’t forget the Willets’ good-standing depends upon your behaviour. No followers or young men, no gossip with the servants. You must give them nothing to reproach you for. And in heaven’s name don’t mention your mother. Whatever is past, is past, do you understand? No matter what her reputation, you must rise above it.’

  Deb nodded, though the thought of her mother gave her a familiar squeeze of pain. Where was Mama now? Did she ever think of them? Agnes, their maid, had whispered that her mother had come to London, so perhaps she might catch a glimpse of her. But there had been other whispers about her mother too, ones that Deb did not like to hear.

  Would her mother even recognise her? Last time they’d seen one another, Deb had been Hester’s age, and now she was seventeen and grown so tall. Deb held up the leather blind to peer out, eyes smarting as she blinked away damp and masonry dust.

  Aunt Beth prodded her with a bony finger. ‘I don’t need to tell you, you’ve fallen on your feet. It cost me a good dinner and a lot of persuading. I had to press the Bateliers to put in a word for you and praise your accomplishments to Mr Pepys. That you have Latin and Greek, and can sing a little. So your education at Bow proved useful for something, at least. The Bateliers have given you a great opportunity, so for heaven’s sake don’t waste it.’

  Mr Batelier was a wine-merchant friend of Mr Pepys, who had also loaned his new carriage to fetch them to London.

  ‘Will Hester be able to go to school now, like I did?’ Deb asked. She knew any sort of schooling was unusual for a girl, but knew it had been a condition of her father’s; perhaps to make sure she would gain employment and he wouldn’t have to be responsible for her again.

  ‘Left! Left, I say!’ Her aunt shouted at the driver to turn off the main highway.

  ‘Aunt Beth, about Hester’s schooling—’

  ‘Your father and I are in two minds whether it’s worth paying to educate another girl.’

  ‘But you promised. You said that if she—’

  ‘We’ll have to see. I’ll write to your father. And, it’ll depend on how you fare at the Pepyses’, whether it is worth doing it again. If she’s to be schooled, you’ll have to contribute. Now you’re earning, I’ll expect two shillings a week. If you can manage that, then I’ll consider it. Lord knows it would be a mighty relief to me for Hester to learn a useful occupation and be out of my way – she’s getting far too lazy, hanging about my skir
ts.’

  Deb turned away and looked out of the window. Two shillings. How much of her wages was two shillings? It sounded like a large percentage. She sighed. But there was no point in arguing with Aunt Beth, even though Hester was the least lazy person she knew. The memory of Hester’s face made Deb’s stomach turn another tumble and her hands grip tighter to the seat. She imagined leaping down and running all the way back, but she knew this to be an impossible gesture. Aunt Beth was insistent Deb was old enough and educated enough to be off her hands, and once Aunt Beth had an opinion, she would beat it into you, rather than take no for an answer.

  ‘Nearly there. Tidy yourself up, Deborah. Put on your gloves.’ Aunt Beth hooked up the blind with her finger and peered out of the window to see over the wet rumps of the horses.

  Ahead of them the traffic had thinned.

  ‘Hart Street,’ Deb said, reading the sign aloud and admiring the painting of a white deer in a forest.

  ‘And St Olave’s, here on the corner.’ Aunt Beth pointed. ‘I expect you to see the inside of it as often as you can. Prayer will keep temptation away. Now, hurry up and straighten your cap.’

  Deb tried to tug it down over her thick brown hair, which kept escaping in tendrils from the front.

  ‘Not like that! It’s all askew.’ Aunt Beth reached over to jerk it down. ‘Remember,’ she whispered, ‘no need to tell the Pepyses anything of your background. As far as they are concerned, your mother died of the smallpox.’

  When it suited her, Aunt Beth was quite comfortable with the idea of lying, despite her dire warnings to Deb and Hester of the hell and damnation that awaited them for such a sin. But today Deb did not mind. The Pepyses were her chance, her ticket to a safe future, so she could pave the way for Hester.

  But how would her sister fare on her own? Aunt Beth was as cold as a stone wall, and just as immoveable; Hester, the opposite – volatile as tinder. She’d go back for her, Deb vowed. And when she did, she would have made her way in society and Hester would have someone to look up to, and a proper home to come to – one with comfort and laughter and a smiling face to greet her.