To be sure, I wasn’t being particularly original. They’d spoken of nothing else but unfortunate ends for cruel critics since Father had announced he meant to try his hand at writing a new play.
But then, a play was a considerable undertaking for a gentleman, and for many weeks he’d huffed and labored in his library to produce the work we’d come to see fair launched. The play was called The Mulberry-Garden , after the section of St. James’s Park given over to midnight foolery and illicit trysts. That was also a fair description of the play’s content, and from what I’d seen myself of the rehearsals, it was a merry romp indeed, sure to find as much favor with audiences as it had with me.
But Father would not be soothed, still looking anxiously at the empty royal box. There had been a great crush to enter when the doors had been opened at noon, with finer folk paying poor men to hold their seats whilst they dined elsewhere. Now that it was after three, the true audience was in their places, restless and impatient for the royal party to appear and the play to start.
“We shall see, pet, we shall see,” Father murmured, dabbing his lace-bordered handkerchief to the gathering sweat on his forehead. Suddenly he smiled, sunny with relief. “Look, Katherine. Huzzah! Reinforcements at last!”
I turned to see three of his closest acquaintances coming to join us: Lord Rochester, Lord Buckhurst, and His Grace the Duke of Buckingham. These three noble rogues sauntered down the center aisle to our bench, as fine as strutting peacocks in their laced coats and silk cloaks, heeled boots, curled periwigs, and swords slung from shoulder belts, and aware, too, of the fuss so much male splendor caused. As self-styled wits, the poems and satires they penned about others could be just as sharp as the swords they wore, and far more amusing to all but their targets. They were not only Father’s friends, but friends to His Majesty as well, under his special protection. They’d often found need of it, too, when their infamous amusements went too far and caused injury to others.
Ignoring me, Lord Buckingham pushed past to embrace Father, whispering something into his ear that made Father laugh uproariously. I was wary of His Grace. He was older than the other gentlemen in Father’s circle, with a cunning fox’s face I found impossible to trust. I could scarce imagine how he’d become both a politician and a diplomat in the king’s service. He’d a quick temper over nothing, and I’d seen him draw his sword in a tavern over a chicken not cooked to his liking. All these gentlemen had a taste for dueling, no matter that it was against the law, but Lord Buckingham was the one who’d killed several opponents on the field of honor, including the husband of his current mistress. Yet the king had permitted him to escape justice, and still favored him like another brother.
“Good day, Katherine,” Lord Rochester said solemnly, bending down for me to kiss his cheek, as was now my custom with him. His handsome eyes were red-rimmed, and he smelled of wine, a scent I’d come to recognize with ease. “You’ve seen enough of Sid’s play to judge it. Will it find favor with this rabble?”
“It will,” I declared, and repeated my wish for Father. “A full house, a long run, and the devil take the critics.”
“That, and make the king laugh,” Lord Rochester agreed. “His Majesty will send your poor father to the Tower if he doesn’t laugh aloud at least three times.”
Innocently I believed him and gasped with dismay, until the others laughed, excepting Lord Buckhurst.
“Oh, the king will laugh,” he said sourly, his suety face more unpleasant than usual. “He’ll laugh at any rubbish so long as it has a part for Nell to show her legs, the little whore.”
Rochester tipped his head to one side with sly disdain. “Our dear king has seen so many whores’ legs and so much of what lies between them, that I doubt even Nelly would make him laugh if he didn’t wish to. If he laughs, it’s because he’s amused, and if he’s amused, it will be because of the words of Sid and the talents—the stage talents—of Nell.”
“She fills the benches, Buckhurst,” Father said. His black eyes were bright as jet, a sure sign of mischief to come at Lord Buckhurst’s expense. “London loves her. Why, the world loves her! Why shouldn’t the king as well?”
“To hell with the fat asses on the benches, Sedley.” Lord Buckhurst’s expression grew even more dour. “Rather it’s the king who fills her, with love or without.”
Lord Buckingham smirked, and shoved his gloved fist into Lord Buckhurst’s shoulder in mocking play.
“Give dear Nelly her due, Buckhurst,” he said. “The lass can scarce be faulted for showing the good taste to shed you for the king, like any respectable whore would. We all know you’d only bought her for that one summer.”
“Five hundred for nothing,” Lord Buckhurst muttered bitterly. “For nothing but to be humiliated.”
“But that’s not true,” I piped up, determined to defend my friend. “Nelly gave you everything you wanted, fair as can be, and a pox upon your lies for saying she didn’t.”
The gentlemen swung about toward me, as if they’d forgotten I stood on the bench in their midst. For an instant I feared I’d overstepped and spoken more boldly than was wise, no matter my good intentions. But Father grinned, and clapped his hands with bemused approval.
“Act as our judge, Katherine,” he said. “You’ll be fair, I know, for you’ve nothing to gain from being otherwise. Where should Nelly by rights cast her favors? To Lord Buckhurst or to His Majesty?”
“His Majesty,” I said without hesitation.
Lord Buckhurst groaned with exasperation, and cast his gaze upward to appeal to the heavens. “What the devil did you expect her to say? The king is the king!”
“No, Your Lordship,” I answered. I’d not forgotten how he’d been the first to liken me to a baby goat, and had called me plain as well. “I said that because the king is more agreeable as a man.”
That made Lord Rochester and Lord Buckingham roar with laughter as did many others around us besides. Father caught me in his arms and swung me, shrieking happily, from the bench, my petticoats flying about my ankles.
“There, did I not say she’d speak only the truth?” Father demanded proudly. “A veritable Oracle of Delphi in our midst!’
“The devil take your truth, Sedley,” Lord Buckhurst said, the stormiest clouds of discontent gathered on his brow. “You said she was to act as judge, not for spouting nonsense like that.”
“She spoke the truth, Buckhurst, and the rest is of no account,” Father said, and kissed me again. “You’ve earned syllabub for supper, dearest, if that is your desire.”
But my desires were soon forgotten, for His Majesty arrived, and at once we all rose and curtsied or bowed in respect until the royal party had settled. Immediately after, the play at last began. I curled close beside Father, and listened as the first player stepped forward to speak the prologue. Like Father, I also listened for laughter and other signs of a happy audience. While he did not need the play to prosper for the sake of his bread, as did the true playwrights like Mr. Dryden, I knew Father’s pride was bound up in his work so that much was at stake this night.
Yet soon I forgot the others and lost myself in the witty words. I’d attended rehearsals with Father, and without trying I had learned the parts so well myself that unconsciously I whispered them along with the players, beginning with the first speech by Sir John Everyoung:
Let’s every one
Govern his own Family as he has a mind to’t;
I never vex my self that your Daughters
Live shut up as if they were in Spain or Italy;
Nor pray don’t you trouble your self that mine
See Plays, Balls, and take their innocent Diversion,
As the Custom of the Country, and their Age requires. . . .
I think those Women who have been least
Us’d to Liberty, most apt to abuse it, when
They come to it.
How that made me smile with delight, and wonder whether the others realized what I did: that Sir Everyoung spouted Fa
ther’s own beliefs, and that the daughters in the play were encouraged to take their “innocent diversions” much as was I. When I watched Nell prance merrily as the youngest daughter, Olivia, I imagined myself as Olivia, with the charming rogue Jack Wildish as my own sweetheart. Most of all, I glowed with happy pride, content that my Father could love me so much that he’d show it for the world to see in this play, and thought myself the most fortunate of young ladies to be blessed with such a parent.
Now I am sure that others (like my grandmother Rivers) were appalled by this selfsame freedom. Since Mama had left us, I’d given myself entirely to Father’s tutelage. From him and his circle I’d learned such skills as playing cards for stakes, singing bawdy songs with full knowledge of their meanings, and instructing the drawers at taverns like the Dog and Partridge exactly how much sweet wine to whip into my syllabub. I seldom found my bed before midnight and thereafter did not leave it until noon the following day. I’d been given free reign of the books in Father’s library, and my reading now consisted entirely of plays and romances that I consumed with a breathless fervor. For all that we professed to be Anglicans, we seldom rose on Sunday morn in time for service, nor was there a single volume of sermons or other thoughtful religious guidance to be found beneath our roof.
To have me stand on a bench in the pit of the King’s House, as I just had, and judge between a lord and a whore was exactly the sort of antic amusement that delighted Father most. He often treated me more like a clever small pet than a daughter, and I was in no position to understand the difference, nor worry about the consequences that might arise for me later. How could I at so tender an age? On that afternoon, all that mattered was the orange in my hand, the humorous play before me, and Father’s arm around my shoulder; I wanted nothing more.
At last Olivia and Wildish were wed and every other conflict well resolved, the epilogue spoken, and the final dance danced. The players took their bows, and Father rose from the bench, his arms raised to acknowledge the applause around him. To me the play seemed a roaring success, and I hopped up and down with excitement beside him. But Father seemed to me to be more relieved than joyful, and as he led me through the well-wishers to join the players backstage, he paused outside the tiring room to confide his newest concern to me.
“I failed, my own little Kattypillar,” he said mournfully over the jostling din around us. “The king did not laugh.”
“Faith, he must have!” I exclaimed with disbelief. “You couldn’t have watched him every moment, unless your head could twist about like an owl’s.”
“I didn’t need to look, sweet,” he said, his round face gloomy with disappointment. “I would have known if he had. I cannot fault him if he didn’t. It was a poor enough performance. Not even the players knew their lines.”
“Just one forgot his line in the second act,” I said, “and no one noticed.”
“Killigrew should have rehearsed them further, so that they might have wrung more wit from my sorry words. Merciful God, why ever did I aspire to be a poet?”
“You are a poet, Father,” I insisted. “And everyone did so laugh, just as they should have.”
Dolefully he shook his head. “I do not know, pet, I do not—”
“Sir Charles!”
The woman seemed to burst through the narrow passage, past two other gentlemen crowding there for admission. She was small and plump, with glossy golden hair and dimpled pink shoulders shamelessly displayed with much of her bosom. She wore only her stays and a petticoat over her smock, having already shed her costume from the play. But her face still wore the gaudy paint of her craft, her eyes lined round with lampblack and her cheeks patched with bright pink. As she threw her arms around Father to kiss him, the white powder on her bare arms and chest dusted his velvet coat like a baker’s apron with flour.
“It’s a triumph, Sir Charles, a complete triumph,” she crooned, kissing him wantonly. “You are a triumph!”
“Stay awhile, you pretty hussy, and tell me more,” Father said, willingly sacrificing his waistcoat for her embrace. “A triumph, eh?”
“Oh, in every, every way,” she cooed, and he pushed her against the wall and grabbed a fistful of her skirts.
I watched impatiently. She was Mrs. Mary Knapp, a close friend of Nelly’s, and another actress in the King’s Company, though neither as talented nor as popular as Nell. She’d also a husband somewhere, a jockey. Father didn’t care, and neither did she. I’d long ago realized that she kept company with my father in the same way that Nell had done last summer with Lord Buckhurst. I should not have been surprised, I suppose, for Father was still a youngish man, not yet thirty.
To be sure, Mrs. Knapp never dared appear in Great Queen Street, but I didn’t doubt that Father experienced her favors elsewhere. In his circle, every gentleman kept at least one mistress, and I knew visiting brothels to dandle with whores was an accepted sport. His Majesty himself led this merry pack of hounds, with the Countess of Castlemaine living in Whitehall Palace for his convenience, Nelly here at the playhouse, and numerous others scattered about London.
Father was only following the fashion with Mrs. Knapp. It had distressed me when I’d first become aware of his attachment to her, and further when I found she was far from the first actress to attract his attentions. I’d thought unhappily of Mama and the sad things Father had hinted at concerning their marriage, but in time that had faded, as had many of my memories of Mama. Besides, I liked Mrs. Knapp just as I liked Nelly. She jested boisterously with me and gave me honey biscuits and bid me sit at her looking glass while she dressed my hair, having once aspired to be a lady’s maid before she’d gone on the stage.
But because Mrs. Knapp possessed far more gifts for coaxing Father from his black mood than I, I soon tired of their cooing and cuddling, and decided to look for Nelly on my own. She was easy enough to find. Still in Olivia’s costume, she stood on a tall stool in the center of the crowded tiring room, a tankard in her hand. She spotted me at once, waving to me over so many taller heads.
“Here, Katherine, here!” she called. “Let the little lady pass, if you please!”
Like the Red Sea for Moses, the crowd of well-wishers parted for me to join her, and I eagerly skipped across the room. But I’d only taken a few steps before I realized the king himself stood on the other side of Nelly’s stool, and I came to a skidding halt to sink to my curtsy before him.
“Rise, my dear,” the king said, his voice rumbling deep with amusement. If a monarch should be instantly recognized by his subjects, then Charles II was meant to be king. He was swarthy-complected with heavy-lidded eyes and an air of melancholy at odds with a near-constant half smile, and it was clear that from his great height—he was by far the tallest gentleman in the room—he missed nothing. Though the gentlemen closest to him preened in bright silks, his own dress was dark and plain, almost somber, though of the finest quality, and the wide brim of his black hat was uncocked and unadorned save for a single curling white plume. Yet he was not a monarch who kept himself aloof on his throne. He went freely about London and among his people, and finding him here, laughing and jesting among the players, was proof enough of his informality.
Even so I was awed to stand before him, and more than a little afraid. It did not matter that Father played tennis with him, nor that Nelly warmed his bed, nor that beside him stood his bastard son, Lord Monmouth, who was not so very much older than I (though, sadly, far prettier). He was still the King of England, and I only a ten-year-old girl, albeit one who’d been encouraged to speak freely.
“Tell me, little Katherine,” he said, smiling as he bent toward me from his lofty height. “What did you make of your father’s play?”
I raised my chin and prayed I did not tremble or shake. “I thought it most fine, Your Majesty.”
His smile widened. “That’s a fine, loyal sentiment for a daughter.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said. “But I spoke from truth as well as loyalty.”
He chu
ckled, and those around him did as well, the way it always is with kings. “Is it also true that you find me more agreeable than Buckhurst?”
I flushed, and wished the floor would open and swallow me up. Belatedly I noticed the Duke of Buckingham at his side, his smile smug and sly, and knew at once who’d borne the tale of my “judgment” so swiftly to the royal ears. It taught me a worthy lesson, too: that tattle concerning kings flies ten times as fast as the ordinary kind.
And loudest of all among those finding amusement at my discomfiture was the duke himself.
“Do not expect an immediate reply, sir,” Lord Buckingham said to the king. “The truth is a difficult notion for the female mind to conceive. It goes against a lady’s very nature.”
“Forgive me, sir, but that’s not so,” I said, once again speaking in haste rather than with caution. “Rather if I hesitate, it’s because I’m too young to be a courtier, and have yet to learn how to bend the truth to suit my needs.”
The king might not have laughed at Father’s play, but he laughed aloud now at my impertinence.
“Well said, little one, well said,” he said, doting upon me. “Though I don’t wonder Sid keeps you from Whitehall.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said, feeling more brave. “And I do believe you’re more agreeable than Lord Buckhurst. Nelly does, too.”
“Oh, aye, Nelly does!” cried Nell herself, laughing heartily. “Where’s your rascally father, Katherine? He should be with us to hear your pretty speeches.”
“I am here, Nell, so you needn’t chide me,” Father said behind me, all jovial good humor now after Mrs. Knapp’s cheering. “I heard every pretty word Katherine said, and proud I am of her, too.”
With grateful relief, I started to turn to join him, only to recall that I must wait upon the king’s pleasure before I could retreat. I turned back, so plaintively beseeching in my posture, if not my words, that His Majesty laughed again.
The Countess and the King: A Novel of the Countess of Dorchester and King James II Page 5
