The Vizard Mask

by Diana Norman

'Sir Anthony Torrington.'

  Anthony Torrington? She tried squeezing her memory of Henry King into the new name. It didn't fit. Neither did the 'Sir'. Too respectable, too reminiscent of the squirearchy. 'Are you sure?'

  'One wouldn't wager one's life, but it's not a face to forget.'

  'Where had you seen it before?'

  'In the chambers of Sir George Downing. Somewhat fleet- ingly, but I made enquiries ...' Aphra fluttered her eyelashes. '... to discover that he was the King's secret emissary to Prince William of Orange.'

  'When was this?'

  'When I was in the Netherlands. Sir George is officially our ambassador to Holland, less officially the King's Scoutmaster- General.'

  'A spymaster.'

  'Certainly Downing sees it as part of his duties to gather intelligence. There were those of us out there who knew that keys were removed from the pockets of the De Witt brothers while they were asleep, papers taken from their closet, left in Downing's hands for an hour, and returned without anyone knowing they'd gone.'

  'Ah, ladies, how beautiful the Heath is on a June evening.'

  'Indeed it is, Master Salter.'

  'One was of considerable assistance to Sir George,' continued Aphra as they strolled on, 'and warned him that the Dutch were impudent enough to consider invading my own dear Surinam and even had plans to sail up the Thames. He was good enough to congratulate me most handsomely, though without the financial reward one could have wished. "Madam," he said, "we'll pass it on, but our royal master knows better how to use what comes out of his arse than his agents." A forceful speaker, Sir George.'

  Penitence persisted. 'So this Torrington was a royal spy?'

  Aphra shrugged. 'How you do use the word. It was rumoured that Sir Anthony was received into every court in Europe and spoke the language of most.'

  'But if he was in the Netherlands when you were, he can't be the Henry King who was in the Rookery during the Plague.'

  'Ah,' said Aphra, 'but he could. He left shortly after I arrived. A little bird told me that the dear King and Sir Anthony had a falling-out. Something to do with the French. He was recalled in disgrace.'

  In a winter's alley in the Rookery a drunken voice had once suggested they sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings. 'And how you can't trust any of the buggers.'

  And she thought she'd known him.

  'One doesn't wish to pry,' said Aphra, delicately, 'but do I gather there was an understanding between you and this Henry King?'

  'No understanding at all.' And because Penitence was weary of people who pretended to be one thing while being another, she told Aphra her whole story. The butterflies retired to wherever butterflies retire to, Master Salter returned from Hampstead Heath, sounds of roistering grew from the tap room, a star appeared in the darkening square of sky, and strollers in Press Yard were encouraged back to their cells by turnkeys' shouts of 'All in, all in'.

  Excitedly, Aphra clasped Penitence's hands. 'What romance. My dear, my dear, such star-crossed drama. And all enacted from balconies while the Plague raged. The Muses couldn't do it justice.'

  'Don't tell 'em then.' Penitence was alarmed. She had expected some reaction, but not this rapturous twittering.

  'All in, I said.' The turnkey was becoming agitated. 'Didn't you bloody women hear me say All in?'

  'They heard you, fellow,' said Aphra, 'down in Cheapside. One will go when one's ready.' She took Penitence's arm to saunter to the steps to their room. 'What a play it would make.'

  The gush of her enthusiasm took hours to subside. 'Romeo and Juliet, Pyramus and Thisbe, King Cophetua and Zenelophon. In faith, my dear, if I had a lyre I'd sing the lay of Sir Anthony and Penitence.'

  'It wasn't like that,' said Penitence, wearily.

  'But it was, my dear. It is. He'll come back, don't you see? He'll find the truth of it and return to you, swim across the Hellespont, like Leander.'

  'I hope he drowns. I don't want him back.'

  'Of course you do.' Aphra brushed aside detail. 'The Torringtons are wealthy, or were. An old Cavalier family with

  acres and acres in Somerset. I believe Augustus, the father, was even sheriff at one time, but they lost everything under the Protectorate when they went into exile with the dear King. I think they have it back now.'

  'Cavaliers,' disapproved Penitence.

  'Of course Cavaliers,' said Aphra. 'Would you have your lover a damned Roundhead? Oh, forgive me, dear. One forgets your provenance.'

  'Henry King hadn't a penny to bless himself with.'

  Aphra pressed her fingertips against her forehead. 'There was a quarrel. Some disagreement over politics. I seem to remember his father disapproved of his ma— Oh dear.'

  'His marriage?'

  'Well, yes.' Aphra was crestfallen, then perked up. 'But it was a long time ago, and I seem to remember she died, or there was a scandal, something.'

  'This Sir Anthony seems unfortunate in his relations,' said Penitence. 'A quarrelsome fellow.'

  'High-spirited,' said Aphra, automatically. 'But think, should his father die he will come and claim you, and little Benedick will be heir to a fortune.'

  'Should his wife die, and his legitimate children die, and if 1 don't spit in his eye. Look at me, Aphra, I want you to p-p- promise that you will never, ever, repeat what I told you tonight.'

  Aphra sobered. 'Has it been so terrible?'

  'Yes, it has. Benedick and I will manage without him.'

  'But...'

  'If, if we get the Swaveley bill printed before the poor man's buried.'

  'As good as done,' said Aphra. 'It only remains to be written.'

  'Then write it.'

  Left alone, Penitence stayed at her window. The warmth of the June night managed to overlay the staleness of Press Yard with the scent of lilac. Aphra had taken Henry King away and replaced him with an unrecognizable person from a world for which Penitence had only contempt. The funny, gangling,

  attractive man had gone, had never existed. He'd worn a mask and been somebody else underneath it. Well and good. All the easier to dismiss him.

  She could almost smile at the romance Aphra had made out of their pitiful affair. If Aphra Behn had charge of the world it would be more entertaining than the squalid feculence it was. Tomorrow was the night George came for his rent. A week after that a young man would be lain on the cobbles below and crushed to death.

  And not a Leander to save either of us. Whoever he was.

  There hadn't been a pressing at Newgate since the execution of a Major Strangeways for the murder of his brother-in-law eleven years previously, so the prison went en fete for Swaveley's. All those with rooms overlooking Press Yard were turned out of them for the day to accommodate the Quality, who were paying high prices for a good view. A grandstand was erected in the Yard itself for judges, aldermen and other dignitaries. It was rumoured the King might attend, or at least send one of his mistresses.

  Quakers and hard-core criminals kept in the limbos were transferred to a deeper dungeon where their cries would not disturb the occasion.

  There was even an attempt to clean Newgate in the unlikely event that the authorities might wish to inspect it, but that petered out after the Yard had been scrubbed.

  'I wonder they don't put up bunting,' said Engraver Clarins, bitter at having to vacate his room on the men's side.

  Aphra's complaints at having to vacate her room included several references to the patriotism of the late Mr Behn and her own services to the King and secured her, Penitence, Mrs and Master Johnson a place in one of the attics high under the roof of the Keeper's own apartments, the servants whose room it was having been impressed to wait on visitors for the day.

  Aphra had attended the early morning service to which Swaveley was dragged for his last communion. 'Poor boy, he looks so pale and that poxy Ordinary continually dunning him to repent. As they took him out I managed to tell him where we'd be. One said we'd wave.'

  'That should keep his spirits
up,' said Penitence. There had to be executions - her grandfather had taken her to a few in Springfield in order to impress on her the fate which awaited sinners - but this air of holiday was getting on her nerves. The colours of the scarlet-robed judges, the gold chains of the aldermen, servants' liveries, the ladies' hats made the stand into a tapestry depicting knights and ladies watching a tourney.

  On a trestle gallery the small band of musicians had exhausted all the sacred music it knew and fallen back on the profane played slow.

  She noticed that everyone was carrying one of the Ordinary's bills. 'Complimentary copies,' said Aphra. 'That should cost the swine.'

  Their own had been on sale all over London for two days and, such was the interest, the Tippins were reporting a good response. At this moment Dorinda, MacGregor and other Dog Yarders were selling them to the large crowd at the prison gates. They were ready to run another reprint which would include Swaveley's last exclamations. The Ordinary hadn't bothered to wait to see what they were, and his carried Swaveley's supposed, suitably penitent, final words.

  Swaveley had done them proud, but Aphra had done them prouder, drawing a nice line between the racy and the improving. 'You can head others off following my example,' Swaveley had told her, and then smirked, 'always supposing they could.' She had put his seduction of his employer's wife while he was yet an apprentice into the first paragraph. For his woodcut Clarins had enquired of old turnkeys the procedure followed in a pressing and his picture of a prone man with a heavy weight being placed on his chest gave their bill a graphic drama lacking in the Ordinary's.

  Voices, two of which Penitence recognized, carried up to their attic from the Keeper's apartments below, complaining at the wait.

  'Where is the rogue?' asked a woman's voice. 'He's damned late.'

  'And him with a pressing engagement,' answered a male's. The court rakes had arrived, with female companions, and were employing their wit.

  'Rochester and Sedley,' said Aphra, 'and, if I'm not mistaken, the Duke of Buckingham.'

  The door to the cells opened. There was silence. Swaveley appeared, naked except for breeches, a turnkey on one side, the executioner in his mask on the other. The Ordinary followed, intoning.

  'He's so frightened,' said Penitence. The boy was having to be supported. That's enough. He's learned his lesson. Let's all go home.

  'Whoo hoo.' Mrs Johnson was leaning out of the window and had to be dragged back by her daughter. 'Mother!'

  The band began playing Blow's requiem as Swaveley was led to the middle of the Yard and laid down, and the irons on his legs and wrists attached to stakes.

  Executioner and turnkey stood back to attention while another turnkey came into the Yard pulling a low trolley containing a large piece of stone. They've rehearsed this.

  The executioner looked towards the stand, a judge stood up and nodded. There was a drum roll. The three men around the spreadeagled figure stooped and, with an effort, lifted the stone off the trolley and on to Swaveley's chest.

  Air left the boy's lungs in a whoomph heard all over Press Yard.

  The executioner regarded the stone critically, like a bricklayer, then straightened his back. 'Three hundred pounds,' he called. The Ordinary was on his knees, hands steepled in prayer.

  It's a stone specially made for this. What was the matter with the mind of man that it could put such care into cruelty?

  'I can't bear it,' she said quietly to Aphra, 'I'm going.'

  Aphra took her arm in a surprisingly strong grip. 'He's bearing it, and we're profiting from it,' she said. 'We stay.'

  She stayed. Master Johnson was bemoaning his lost bet. Below, other wagers were being laid: 'Three and twenty-five.' 'Three and fifty.'

  Aphra quoted:

  At Golgotha, they glut their insatiate eyes With scenes of blood, and human sacrifice.'

  'Who wrote that?' asked Penitence.

  'I did. In Surinam. There was a slave there, a negro they'd shipped from Africa. He became our friend. His name was Caesar.'

  Penitence stared at her. Aphra was astonishing; the memory of the slave was causing her pain. All artificiality had dropped away. 'What happened?'

  'They killed him. They took his wife from him. Sold her to another plantation. He set up a revolt with other slaves.' She shrugged. 'He was defeated, of course. They tied him to a stake and hacked him to pieces.' 'Oh.'

  'He was my friend,' said Aphra.

  Yawns issued from the window below where the rakes and their women were becoming bored. 'He's just lying there,' complained a female voice.

  'True, he's very flat.'

  Penitence had hoped for Swaveley that the stone would be dropped on him, killing him instantly; instead he was slowly being asphyxiated as it crushed his lungs. Head arched back, his mouth opened and shut like a fish's to snatch shallow, panting breaths.

  'Tell them to hasten the matter, my lord, I beg you,' said a voice, whether from humanity or impatience.

  Some signal passed from the Keeper's window to one of the judges on the stand, who nodded, and raised a hand to the executioner. The trolley was taken to fetch two smaller stones. 'Three hundred and twenty-five pounds,' announced the executioner.

  Swaveley's mouth opened wider. The judge signalled again.

  'Three hundred and fifty.'

  Stop it. Get it over with. Stop it.

  Swaveley's left hand struggled against its manacle. He was

  trying to speak. The Ordinary was alarmed and shaking his head, but the executioner bent down to Swaveley's mouth and looked to the judge. 'He wants to plead guilty, my lord.'

  The Ordinary was protesting; his Awful Warning was being spoiled. But the judge - after a glance at the Keeper's window - signalled that the stones be lifted. Swaveley's feet trailed on the ground as he was dragged away to face trial and hanging.

  On their way down the backstairs, the party from the attic encountered Sir Charles Sedley. 'Mistress Aphra, Mistress Penitence,' he said, 'one was hoping the occasion would ferret you out. We are downcast by its dullness and beg you to enliven us. Your friends too.' He bowed to Mrs Johnson.

  Penitence was surprised he had remembered their names, but was in no mood to make sport for the likes of him. 'Forgive me,' she said, and hurried on, hearing Aphra make introductions.

  Gaining her room, she shut the door. She wanted quiet.

  An hour later there was a tap on the door. 'Beg your indulgence, madam,' said Sir Charles Sedley.

  Since Penitence didn't ask him to sit down, he lounged against the dirty wall, the sun from the window shimmering on his silk coat and the gloss of his wig, intensifying the perfume he was wearing, glancing off his rings as he flapped his hands and commented on the heat and went through the procedure of taking snuff. If she hadn't been sure he had been sent as the result of some bet, Penitence would have thought him unsettled. He unsettled her; she wanted rid of him. 'What is your b-business, sir?'

  'My b-business, ma'am. My b-business is with your eyes. I wished to assure myself they were as astonishing as I remembered and, behold, they are.' As Penitence's lips tightened, he added: 'Though one has seen kinder over a duelling pistol.'

  His own, which watched her carefully, were bloodshot. He wasn't much older than herself and had excellent baby skin with a bloom on it. It oozed perspiration in tiny bubbles of the fat which would one day overwhelm him.

  'Since that's settled,' she said, 'I wish you good-day.'

  'Cruel charmer, would you banish me so soon?' He had a slow delivery; words drooped out of his mouth to make everything he said sound like a jeer. 'I await Rochester and Buckingham who are much taken with Mistress Behn. At this moment the three of them discuss the art of writing and the beginning of her play. It seems we have another Matchless Orinda on our hands.'

  Refusing him the satisfaction, Penitence didn't ask who the Matchless Orinda was.

  'But you, mistress, are more intriguing than she — of Puritan persuasion, I gather, with leanings towards the stage. One has on
e's own connections with the theatre, and it might be that one could assist the latter aspiration.' His eyelids drooped. 'Though certainly not the former.'

  damn Aphra. Must the woman blab everything? 'I have no aspiration, sir, except to be left alone.'

  'You should, you should. Those eyes could conquer an audience as they have conquered me. But give me a kiss and I shall wing to the errand.'

  The only winging he'd do would be back to his friends to tell them he'd seduced the poor slut in the cell. There was too much silk here, an overwhelming plumpness like an eiderdown filling the room; she wanted to claw her way out.

  The door opened. 'I say, Penitence, do you want a woodcut done of the hanging?' Clarins, lovely, unprepossessing and cloth-coated, had come to discuss important things in plain language.