The Darling Strumpet (44 page)
Read The Darling Strumpet Online
Authors: Gillian Bagwell
Tags: #Fiction, #Historical, #Romance, #General
“Speaking of storms,” Rochester said, “have you heard that no sooner did Barbara arrive in Paris but she began a bit of jockumcloy with Ralph Montagu?”
“Well, he is the ambassador,” Buckingham put in. “Perhaps he considers it no more than his duty to welcome a newly arrived English lady with all the warmth at his disposal.”
“And further to the matter of royal buttock,” Rochester said, when the laughter had died down, “I have a new little piece I’m rather proud of. I’ll give you only a taste:
“That pattern of virtue her Grace of Cleveland
Has swallowed more pricks than the ocean has sand,
But by rubbing and scrubbing so large it does grow
It is fit for just nothing but Signor Dildo.
“Good, isn’t it? I’m going to send it to the king.”
“God’s arsehole, Johnny,” Nell cried, “he’s only just forgiven you for destroying his favorite sundial. Are you longing for a stay in the Tower?”
“What possessed you to do that, anyway, Johnny?” Dorset asked. “Beat down the sundial, I mean?”
“I could not abide to see it there,” Rochester said, drinking. “Standing there like some great stone prick, fucking the sky, fucking time. It had to be laid low.”
“You were drunk, I suppose?” Nell asked.
“Drunk?” Rochester blinked at her. “I’ve been drunk for five years.”
“And see where it’s got you! Why do you do it?” she demanded.
“If all be true that I do think,” Rochester declaimed,
“There are five reasons we should drink:
Good beer, a friend, or being dry,
Or lest we should be, by and by,
Or any other reason why.”
“Excellent!” cried Dorset. “Yours?”
“No, Aldrich.” Rochester waved his hand. “But the sentiments are much my own. Do you know, George, of the three businesses of this age—women, politics, and drinking—the last is the only exercise at which you and I have not proved ourselves arrant fumblers.”
“Speaking of women,” Dorset said. “Are the rumors of your impending fatherhood true, Johnny?”
“Yes.” Rochester looked glumly into the fireplace.
“A son and heir?” Buckingham grinned.
“Alas, no,” Rochester said. “It’s not my wife but Betty Barry who’s shortly to be brought to bed. You’ll have noticed she’s been absent from the stage of late?”
“I hope you intend to provide well for her and the child?” Nell demanded. “Because if you have any thought of playing her a dog trick, you’ll answer to me.”
“Good girl,” Dorset applauded.
“And upon that score,” Nell continued, “I had to dismiss Fleetwood Sheppard. He got one of the maids with child, you know.”
“Really?” said Rochester. “How very ambitious of him.”
“Don’t make light of it, Johnny,” Nell chided. “It’s a poor example for the boys, and now I’m at a loss to know what to do.”
“Well, why not give Thomas Otway a try if you’re in the market for another tutor?” Rochester said. “You’re little Charlie’s trustee, Charlie, what do you say?”
“Yes, good thought,” Dorset agreed. “He’s not finding much of a market for his plays at the moment and would probably be glad of a position.”
“GUY HAS ASKED ME TO MARRY HIM.” ROSE’S EYES SPARKLED AND HER cheeks were flushed, and Nell was relieved to see her looking so happy.
“That’s wonderful, Rose. He’s a good man, and you deserve much joy, after all the hardship you have suffered. It would give me pleasure if you would let me give you the wedding here at the house.”
Rose hugged Nell. “Nothing would make me happier. You are the dearest sister I could imagine having, sweetheart.”
The wedding took place at Christmas, and Nell reflected that the year had ended on a good note. Rose was happy, the children were healthy, and Eleanor was behaving as well as could be expected. Charles had forgiven Buckingham, and Buckingham was once more contentedly waging war against his enemies in Charles’s cabinet and in Parliament. The Duke of York’s fifteen-year-old daughter Mary had been married with great ceremony to the reassuringly Protestant William of Orange, which seemed to have mollified even the most rabidly anti-Papist intriguers. Charles had been able to use the excuse of the threat of war to increase the size of the standing army, and because he breathed easier, all around him did as well.
But the new year of 1678 began badly. Nell returned home from a visit to her mother to find the house in an uproar because of a burglary. Dozens of pieces of her prized silver table service were gone, and advertising for their return produced no results.
Sick at heart, Nell was struck down by blinding headaches and nausea and lay for days in her darkened bedroom, unable to eat or to sleep comfortably. She was grateful that Rose spent much time sitting with her and keeping company with the children, but was frightened at how ill she felt and how long the malady continued. No sooner would the headaches dissipate and she would begin to believe she was well again, than they would return with greater vengeance.
Little Jemmy took to crawling into bed with her in the afternoons, lying still and quiet so he would not disturb her, and she was comforted by feeling the small warm body against her, and smelling the sweet scent of his hair. When her headaches were not too bad, Charlie read to her from his lessons, and she praised him, full of unfeigned admiration for his learning.
BY AUGUST, NELL WAS FEELING MUCH BETTER AND ACCOMPANIED Charles first to Windsor and then to Newmarket for a week of relaxation and entertainments. The air of the country and getting away from London refreshed her spirits. Charles was in good humor, putting on his oldest coat and taking Jemmy and Charlie with him for an early morning visit to the stables to see his horses that would race that day and to watch the training gallops, and they returned for breakfast ravenous and full of prattle.
“Father’s going to ride Flat-Foot himself today!” Jemmy cried, his eyes bright with wonder.
“I know, poppet, he’s a man of rare talents, your da is!” Nell laughed, pushing back the mop of dark curls from his forehead.
“The trainers let me sit astride Rowley,” Charlie bragged. “They said he usually stands still for no one but Father, but he stood gentle as a little pony for me!”
“That’s my brave boy,” Nell smiled. “You’ll be old enough to ride in the races soon yourself.” Charlie beamed at her praise, and she laughed to see his resemblance to Charles as he drew himself up straighter in his chair and thrust out a little booted leg in a posture of exaggerated masculine repose.
In the afternoon, Charles rode Flat-Foot to victory, beating a field that included the best horses put forth by the dukes of York, Monmouth, and Buckingham. The boys, beside themselves with excitement, screamed themselves hoarse as Charles thundered to the finish line, and rushed to greet him. He laughingly pulled them up into the saddle with him and let them hold the great silver flagon he had won, and looked as proud of them as they were of him.
“I hope I shall have your company at night, shall I?” Nell called to him happily.
“Assuredly, Nelly. And if you can contrive to serve me some pigeon pie for supper, my day will be complete!”
THE DUKES OF YORK, MONMOUTH, AND BUCKINGHAM JOINED Charles and Nell for supper at the Newmarket house Charles had taken for Nell. The children had at last gone to bed, exhausted by the excitements of the afternoon, and the grown-ups lingered around the table over wine. It had been a perfect evening to end a perfect day, and no one wanted to stir and break up the gathering.
The pounding at the door was unexpected and insistent, and Nell’s porter, Joe, came into the dining room followed by a young messenger who brought a cloud of dust and sweat-scented air with him.
“The council summons you back to London, Your Majesty,” he said, handing Charles a sealed letter as he rose from his bow. Charles scanned the paper and twitched it onto the table in irritation.
“I thought this was handled long since?” he demanded. “Surely it can wait?”
“What is it, Charles?” Nell asked before the stammering messenger could answer.
“The lot of old grandams that form my council are in a fuddle because of some groundless story of a plot to kill me. I know I told you.”
“I know you didn’t,” Nell retorted, on her feet now, as were the others.
“This matter of Christopher Kirby?” asked Buckingham, looking grim.
“Yes,” said Charles.
“Charles, tell me!” Nell cried, feeling her blood running cold at the look on the men’s faces.
“Just before we came to Windsor,” Charles said. “This Kirby came to me in the park, said there was a plan afoot to assassinate me. Then and there it might happen, he said. I took my walk as usual, and no harm came to me, of course, and I told Danby to look into it. Now he writes of some new witness, with wild tales of a vast conspiracy of Papists, and declares nothing will do but I must haste me back and hear the man myself.”
“You should have a greater care for your life, Charles.” The Duke of York had that prim look on his face that Nell knew Charles found so annoying, and sure enough, he threw a withering glance at his brother.
“I am sure, James,” he said, “that no man in England will take away my life to make you king.” The Duke of York looked as though he had been slapped, and the others looked away in embarrassment.
“And who is it, this new witness?” Buckingham asked. Charles took up the letter again and thrust it at him.
“Someone by the name of Titus Oates. It will come to nothing, you will see. A storm in a cream bowl.”
BUT THE STORM SWIRLING IN LONDON COULD NOT BE CONTAINED in a cream bowl. When Nell returned to her house in Pall Mall the next day, the servants were in a panic.
“It’s a great plot by Jesuits, madam.” Meg’s hoarse voice was urgent. “My sister heard it from the baker’s boy, who had it from his uncle, madam. Priests—ten at least, all in black and abroad at midnight, with knives as long as your arm, right there in Cheapside and making for the palace!”
“I heard the same and more from the butcher’s man this morning,” Bridget agreed. “He heard it from Mrs. Knight’s cook, who heard it from the porter. And the French are behind it, too. We’ll all be murdered in our beds.”
“Nonsense,” Nell declared.
But when Sir Edmund Godfrey Bury, who had taken Titus Oates’s deposition, was found murdered on Primrose Hill in October, even people who were not usually credulous began to listen uneasily to the rumors that swept from one house to another.
“My Lady Clifford says she’ll not stir out of the house without she carries a pistol in her muff,” Sam Pepys told Nell, biting with appreciation into an almond cake. “Sir Christopher Wren is searching the House of Parliament, looking for gunpowder and another Guy Fawkes. And the Duke of York’s own secretary has been taken up for questioning. And that’s just the start.”
“Is it all true?” Nell demanded of Charles, no sooner was he in the door that night. “Should you not leave town again?” He shook his head wearily.
“Lord Arundell of Wardour is arrested, along with his wife,” he said, “and four other Papist peers, all of them aged and surely harmless. I cannot think it true that they would plot against my life, but they must be questioned. Poor old man, Arundell. I recall him at the palace when I was a boy, a good friend to my father. And now this.”
The climate in the streets was uneasy, and Nell found herself wanting to remain shut in at home with her family gathered around her. Jemmy was sick again, and worried as she was about him, caring for him distracted her from the troubles bubbling around her. Rose was happily pregnant, but as Guy was spending more time on duty and she was nervous to be home alone, she spent many of her days and nights at Nell’s house, and the household became a little island of determined calm.
Guy Fawkes Night arrived with special vengeance. As Nell’s chair carried her to Whitehall, Pall Mall was thronged with crowds howling around a burning effigy of the Pope. The flames curled around the grotesque white face and rouged lips and tore through the straw wig that dressed the figure of the prelate as the Whore of Babylon. An ungodly shriek rent the night, curdling Nell’s blood. She cried out and Tom, her chair man, looked back at her in alarm as she leaned out the window.
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