The Vizard Mask

by Diana Norman

  He collapsed back in the chair. 'But they are not blockheads. The Dutch are my people. It is difficult to think I heard him say that.'

  1 expect he did. Charles was clever and in many ways amiable, but he horrified her. She couldn't rid herself of the sense that under the elaborate, many-layered complexities of his soul there yawned a vacuum. Empty, still, cold, nothing. There could be no understanding between this young man and the gilded King. That William might cherish above himself his religion, his people and the flat lands they lived on, was outside his uncle's comprehension.

  'He thinks I am a prig,' said the Prince of Orange.

  'You are,' she said. 'And so, I find, am I.'

  They shook hands.

  They heard the bang of a door, then another, hammering, protests from sleepy throats, more banging. The noise got closer and under it was a deep note, a growling, as if a she- bear was lurching up the corridor, searching for its cub. 'Bentinck,' said William.

  Penitence unlocked the door, noticing for the first time that it was full morning. The figure just barging out of a room it had been investigating was as ursine as Homo sapiens could be, huge-shouldered, outheld menacing arms, squat-legged — and very angry. She gestured it into the room and shrank back as it lumbered furiously past her.

  The Prince smiled at it. 'Mrs Hughes, may I present my faithful friend, Hans William Bentinck. Bentinck, your breeches.'

  There was a grunt of surprise, but the young man's enormous hands went immediately to the ties at his waist. Thoughtfully, Penitence turned her back. When she faced them again, William wore a pair of breeches he had to hold up, and the bear was in a petticoat.

  The Prince of Orange bowed. 'You are for ever my good friend, Mrs Hughes.'

  Penitence curtseyed. 'Always yours to command, Your Highness.'

  And both of them meant it.

  'He'll be furious,' said Becky. 'There's three more days of royal relaxation still to go. You'll have to get his dispensation to leave. You're one of his servants, after all.'

  'It's me who's furious,' Penitence pointed out. 'As you once said, if we're under his protection, why doesn't he protect us? Anyway, I found the house major-domo or whatever he is, and told him I need a coach to go home at once because I'm ill.' She held her head. 'And it's true. What did they put in that orange-water?'

  Becky's face cleared. 'If you're ill, then you can't go back by yourself. You're not leaving me here alone.'

  A passing maid helped them downstairs with their luggage and hat-boxes. But as they tiptoed across the hall, they were glimpsed through the open door of the card room.

  The two women faced the men who came crowding out, Buckingham, Sedley, Rochester, Harry Jermyn, Lord Chesterfield, and the others, some unshaven, most of them pale from lack of sleep, and all vindictive from a night's drinking and gossip. Sedley looked triumphant.

  'Going, ladies?' asked Buckingham. 'But surely, my dears, not after last night. Was it not the occasion when the great Sedley prick finally conquered the shy Hughes clitoris?'

  She'd known. And she'd prepared. She opened her eyes wide. 'Did it?' she asked. 'I beg you next time, Sir Charles, to make it greater. I fear I didn't notice.'

  She saw Sedley's face change before she swept on and the guffaws started.

  As she settled in the carriage, she said: 'I'm not an actress for nothing.'

  Becky was still gasping. 'Let's hope you can go on being one.'

  *

  'How is he?'

  The light from a candle played on her face while Kynaston's landlady examined Penitence with suspicion. 'Better than his enemies'd have him,' she said, 'but bad enough.' She led the way up a creaking cupboard-staircase and unlatched a door. 'In here.'

  Kynaston's apartment belied the appearance of both its entrance and its landlady. A fire in the grate threw reflections on the beeswax shine of the spare, fine pieces of furniture, his portrait had pride of place on one wall and a nice Oriental rug on the other. The bed-hangings were fresh, sprigged cotton. Yet the figure on the bed, bandaged and hideously bruised, altered it into a battle-ground. Knipp, sitting beside it, put a finger to her lips.

  Tiptoeing, Penitence whispered again: 'How is he?'

  'They broke both his arms. They were trying for his face, but he managed to cover it for the most part. He saved his teeth at least.'

  'Did he say who they were?'

  Knipp shrugged and avoided her eyes. 'Two men with cudgels, he said; he'd never seen them before.'

  What does the doctor say?'

  'He's splinted the arms and given him a medicine. He should mend. But he's very feverish.'

  Penitence sat down on the other side of the bed and, so as not to feel helpless, put out her hand to smooth Kynaston's wet hair, then drew back for fear of hurting him more; there was nowhere on the forehead that wasn't bruised. The message telling her Kynaston had been attacked had arrived at the Cock and Pie that morning while she was still trying to recover from her late arrival back from Newmarket. She looked across at Knipp who was radiating a proprietorial hostility. 'I came as soon as I could,' she said, 'but I was on stage this afternoon.'

  'I'm sure you're mighty busy.'

  Penitence ignored the tone. 'What did they take?'

  Who?'

  The robbers.'

  'Nothing. They weren't after his purse.'

  She didn't understand. 'What then?'

  Knipp shrugged. 'Perhaps you'll sit with him a while. I've got to get home. My husband'll never believe I'm not cavorting.' She blew a kiss on to her fingers and very gently touched one of the splinted arms. 'Poor Kynaston, it'll be a long time before he cavorts again.' As she got up, she said: 'How was the King? How was Newmarket?' But as Penitence started to tell her she interrupted with instructions. 'And this is his posset. He's to drink it as soon as he wakes. The gozunda is in the usual place, he'll need your help to piss in it.' At the door she turned. 'If you're not too grand, that is.'

  Penitence tidied the medicine table, tucked the bedclothes more neatly around the twitching patient, and sat down for her vigil.

  Knipp's attitude hurt her. She supposed it was a natural enough jealousy, Knipp's career being on the decline and her own in full flower, but the little comedienne hadn't shown such resentment before. Perhaps it hadn't helped that when the attack on Kynaston had taken place, she and the others had been apparently enjoying themselves with the court.

  Enjoying ourselves. Knipp, if you only knew.

  It was very quiet. She got out her script for the Tyrannick Love they were doing in three weeks' time, and began rereading her part. Through the half-open casement came the alarm call of a thrush as it flew from whatever had disturbed its rest outside. She went to the window, hoping to see an owl. She liked owls.

  The house was one of a terrace overlooking a square just off Hatton Garden. It was a damp still night, but one of the branches of an oak tree opposite was shaking from something more weighty than an owl. A cat? Weightier than a cat.

  Squinting into the shadow of the branches she thought she discerned a human shape. She blinked, and it became a distortion of the tree trunk. Nevertheless, she barred Kynaston's door. Perhaps the disgruntled husband, the creditor, or whoever it was who'd beaten him, was out for more blood than had been shed already. She'd tell the Watch to keep a guard on him.

  A pretty clock, a gift from one of Kynaston's admirers, chimed once and woke the patient up. She helped him to the pot, then held the posset glass while he drank. 'How do you feel, poor lamb?'

  He groaned. 'I want the truth, Peg. Don't spare me. Am I marked for life?'

  Bless him. A true actor. 'You'll mend as good as new.' But he wouldn't content himself until she fetched a looking-glass.

  'Oh, my God. Banquo after the murder.' He fell back on his pillow, and if he'd been able to lift his hand he'd have draped it over his eyes.

  'Who was it? What were they after?'

  He looked painfully towards her, then away. 'Don't you know?'

  Sud
denly she did. 'Not Sedley?'

  Win a pair of gloves. I heard one of them say it would teach me to ape my betters.' A spasm of pain caught him as he shifted. 'And it will. Believe me, Peg, it will. I'm sorry. I know he's a friend of yours. But you can't offend the court and get away with it.'

  'No friend of mine,' she said. She should have guessed. Sir John Coventry had sneered at the King's morals and had his nose slit. Kynaston had made fun of Sedley's pretentious dress. Retaliation on both had been swift and horrible. She heard the Prince of Orange's question: 'What sort of people do this?' People with whom, until two days ago, she had been pleased to consort. No wonder Knipp had shown her disdain.

  'No friend of mine,' she said again, but the actor was asleep.

  What sort of people? Men who had lost touch with the ordinary and the decent. Self-styled gods who sent thunderbolts against mortals that dared challenge them.

  Oddly, it wasn't Sedley she blamed but the man who led him and others in their wild tarantella, thickening the poison in their blood rather than dislodging it, a king who saw his sailors starving from lack of pay and gave his mistress £25,000 to gamble away in one night. He invited them into his dance, the clever, beautiful men and women whose talent, under a better monarch, could have been directed towards something more useful than debauchery. He had infected them all, Sedley, Rochester, Castlemaine, Gwynn, with his contempt for decency. He nearly infected me. For she, too, had felt the centrifugal pull of the whirling circle, and let go just in time.

  But you can't offend the court and get away with it.

  Disturbed, she went to the window again. There was nothing there. Yes, there was. Dragging footsteps were coming down the road.

  She ran down to the front door and opened it. 'Dorry, what's happened?' She helped the girl up the stairs and sat her by the fire to get her warm.

  Dorinda looked towards the bed. 'How is he?'

  'Bad, but he'll survive. Tell me. Was the Earl married already?'

  'No,' said Dorinda lightly. 'He wasn't married. Lovely ceremony it was. You ought to've been there. Bought me a beautiful dress, he did. Priest all prinked in black, coronet of flowers, stocking thrown, friends there to catch it, kisses, champagne for afters, bed sprinkled with holy water. Lovely, it was. Proper Haymarket.'

  Penitence stroked her hands and waited.

  Dorinda took in a breath. 'Only thing was, the priest turns up again next morning along of the rest. But he wasn't in black. Wasn't a priest at all, just another friend of his. I'd been goose-capped, doodled, coneyed. Gawd, how they laughed.'

  Penitence rested her head on her friend's shoulder.

  'Thing is. Prinks,' Dorinda's tone was remorselessly unconcerned, '1 don't know why he done it. We'd been to bed. He knew I wasn't no lily-white holding out for a ring. Thing is' - for the first time her voice shook — 'I loved the ballocker. I thought I did. So why all the flash?'

  Because it amused him. 'What did you do?'

  'Come home. Nothing else to do.' Her shoes were soaking and in tatters. She must have walked miles. Penitence took them off and rubbed the poor feet. 'Ma Palmer told me about Kynaston, so I come on here.' She got up and went to the bed. 'Who done it? Sedley?'

  'Two of his bullies.'

  Dorinda shook her head, almost admiringly. Them courtiers,' she said. 'Done us both in.'

  'You'll bounce back, the two of you.'

  She looked down at the body on the bed. 'He might. I won't.'

  'You will.'

  Dorinda looked up. 'Oh yes,' she said, 'I'll be a ballocking sensation, won't I? Our Sedley'll write a play about it. Roxolana, or the Fooled Bride. The stinkards'll laugh me off the stage, and I can't blame 'em. No, I'm finished.'

  Even as she protested, Penitence knew it was probably true. She felt a surge of hatred at the pitilessness of men. 'I'll go and get you a hot drink,' she said. 'Becky's to take over at dawn. Then I'll take you home.'

  But Dorinda wanted to be alone. 'You go. You done your turn. Get back to Benedick, he ain't seen much of you lately. I want to think a bit. I'll see Kynny's all right.' She tried to smile. 'I'm good at men in bed.'

  Nothing would move her. 'For fuck's sake, leave me alone.'

  Reluctantly, Penitence left her.

  Outside she stood in the doorway to accustom her eyes to the darkness. The trees and hedges of the square were still. High clouds moved at their own volition, suffusing the air with a mist of rain and allowing glimpses of a moon that put a soft shine on leaves and roofs. Her footsteps repeated a rhythm on the damp surface of the road: What sort of people? What sort of people?

  What sort of man went to expense and trouble to humiliate a woman who'd done him no harm?

  As she reconstructed the image of the Earl of Oxford in her mind, fat, laughing, at ease, she set him in the context of a court which — she saw it now — devoted itself to the humiliation of women. Castlemaine and Gwynn and all the other mistresses, parading their clothes and their tempers in their ceaseless battle to outdo each other, were pet monkeys kept for tricks, goaded by their masters to perform more and more outlandish antics. The poor little woman with the dark-haired top lip, the Queen of England, was forced not only to accept the attendance of her husband's bed-fellows, but to seem to enjoy it.

  What sort of people? What sort of men?

  No sort at all? Perhaps, just men? It worried her. Suppose there was a civil war in progress of which one side, women, was in ignorance, but which the other, the male army, knew about and waged. I'm getting fanciful.

  Her imagination had released monsters into the sleeping streets; they were padding behind her. She looked round but saw nothing.

  She was right, then, to have stood up to them. She grinned as her jeer at his potency wiped the victory off Sedley's remembered face. A strike for our side.

  The grin faded. She was being followed. Somewhere in the darkness to her rear there'd been a splash as a foot went into a puddle. Reluctance to look round again froze her neck and shoulders. She was half-way up Holborn and on both sides the shuttered shopfronts with tall, gable-ended storeys above them contained empty road straight ahead for as far as she could see. She had grown careless with carriages, or chairs, or link-boys to bring her home and forgotten that gangs padded the streets at night.

  But it was, what, four in the morning? The whole world was asleep. What gang would hang around when there was nobody to prey on?

  She quickened her pace. If she could reach the High, she knew a dozen back alleys through to the Rookery and safety. They wouldn't be able to follow her there.

  Ridiculous. It was someone going home as innocently as herself. She forced herself to turn around, but the buildings threw impenetrable shadows on to both sides of the road, leaving a paler path between them.

  There was somebody there, though. Instinct bred in the forest was panicking her breath and legs to escape danger. She began to trot. Knock on a door and ask for shelter? But nobody here lived on the ground floor; if she could waken an occupant it would be minutes before they let her in, if they let her in at all. Too long.

  A soft drumming out of synchronization with the falls of her own feet confirmed her into picking up her skirts and running. The drumming quickened. Where's my knife? Why didn't I wear my knife? Oh, Matoonas, I've gone soft.

  The Vine, she'd turn off north at the Vine. If she got into Kingsgate and turned left she'd be bound to strike a cut- through to the Rookery.

  Somebody ahead. Thank God, thank God. A large male shape. Another soul.

  As she raced towards it, she recognized something wrong. The man faced her not with enquiry but expectation. She saw the white of teeth. He was smiling. The link between him and her pursuer flashed over her like a whip. They've been sent.

  There was an opening on her right between her and the man ahead. Blindly, she ran into it, slipped in a puddle, got up and ran on into deeper darkness. She heard the call of greeting between the two behind and the squelch of their boots.

  Scream? But screams
meant nothing around here. It would make horror official, encourage the tiger to hear the bleat of the goat.

  Left. Go left. The Rookery would gather her in, resort of coiners, whores and thieves, outcasts, her true home. She didn't know this alley, she was terrified it would end in a wall. Leprous wood, overhanging washing, silence except for her own running.

  What would they do? Rape her? Disfigure her? Whatever it was, they'd won. She was broken. A rat squeaking with panic. Who were they? Sedley's men? Sir Hugh Middleton's? The King's? It didn't matter. You can't offend the court and get away with it. Fool. What a fool. Behind her was the executive of the world's power come to punish her puny defiance. I'm sorry. I'll join. I can't take you on. There's no independence for us. Let me join. Don't hurt me.