The Vizard Mask (45 page)

She loved the new Exchange. The grandeur of its piazza was made friendly by the arcades of shops around it. It was like standing at the ancient crossroad of the world watching the caravans go by to see the foreign merchants, Russians in furs, robed Arabs, Jews in their gaberdines, bargaining over sables, tea, coffee, tobacco, spices in this international Babel.

She posed herself in the great doorway and waited for attention, knowing she was worthy of it. Unable to afford the fashionable dressmakers, she employed one of the Huguenot women who'd settled in exile in the Rookery as seamstress. Her costume today was designed to wrong-foot the fripperiness that was getting out of hand. It was plain, dark blue broadcloth cut close-fitting to the waist and flowing out into a divided skirt, relieved only by white lawn collar and cuffs. Her hat, of the same dark blue, was like a cavalier's curled round by a white ostrich feather. The severity of the outfit would, she hoped, make a virtue of her lack of jewellery. Judging by the admiration she was attracting, it did.

She saw Rochester and Sedley start to cross the floor, then veer away as the six foot, four inches of Prince Rupert cut them off: 'Well met, Mrs Hughes. Will you take chocolate with me? One of my ships has brought in some particularly fine beans.'

Thank you, sir. Unfortunately, I am committed elsewhere.' She curtseyed. 'I hope you are pleased with the use I've made of the feather you gave me.'

He regarded her hat gravely. 'Even the ostrich would approve.' For Rupert that was a joke. She smiled as they stood together in one of their silences.

Abruptly he said: 'Will you do me the goodness of dining with me next Saturday? The invitation, of course, extends to your chaperone.'

Bless him. Only Rupert could think that modern society demanded chaperones. 'Thank you, sir, I shall be honoured.' The King had teased her: 'Take care that my besotted cousin doesn't storm your citadel as he stormed Lichfield, Mrs Hughes. He wasn't known as Hot Rupert for nothing.' But she'd be as safe with him as she was with MacGregor. His letters to her were a combination of studied, old-fashioned compliments and military communiques. She hoped very much that they could be friends, and nothing more.

The rakes came up, mocking, when he left her. 'What, Mrs Hughes?' asked Sedley, adopting a deep voice and a limp. 'You've never been drowned? You haven't lived. Do me the goodness to sail with me in my yacht. Coxswain, wheel to the right.'

Rochester limped on her left. 'Why you young whippersnapper, you should have been with us when we ate all Cromwell's babies in '42. That'd have made a man of you.'

'You're jealous,' said Penitence. They were even nastier about Rupert than about their female conquests once they'd slept with them, and with the same touch of self-disgust. It ate at them that they had never tempered their courage in war like Rupert and were reduced to showing it in idiotic duels. They were destroying themselves with debauchery because they couldn't die gloriously in battle.

'And you're late' said Sedley, proffering his arm. 'We're meeting the King and Nelly for dinner at the Bear later. His Majesty is pleased to be coming in disguise.'

'Which means everybody will recognize him,' said Rochester, 'but the bill will be presented to us. Shops?'

'Shops,' said Penitence.

'It's like watching an apothecary attempting to keep the flies off his treacle,' said Sir Charles, as she agonized over the price of ribbon.

'What is?'

Watching a pretty actress trying to keep her independence.'

'I'm going to, Charles,' she said, warningly. She was keeping him at arm's length, refusing his blandishments and his elaborate presents; he persisted with the assurance of one who knew she'd given in eventually. He alarmed her; she was frightened he might be right.

'Of course you are, of course you are. But pray permit me to buy the ribbon. It's nearly the blue of your eyes.'

"No, thank you.'

'My dear, this particular fly doesn't think a few shillings is the admission price to your honey pot. It merely gives him consequence to wear such a pretty creature on his arm.'

Rochester nuzzled her neck. 'Don't listen to him. He's a flesh-loving insect. He'll lay such a maggot in your cunt as all the medicine in the kingdom won't keep your reputation from stinking.'

She jerked away from him. Every so often the game they played turned into verbal violence. When they saw they'd perturbed her they'd woo her back with a line of verse that sang. She was being tenderized, bashed like a piece of meat to make her fit for their palate. They used their sophistication like a weapon. Already they'd beaten her into being more afraid of looking 'virtuous' - they made it a dirty word - than of protesting. She coped with them by appearing lazily un- shockable. 'Be easy, my lord,' she said, 'my price comes higher than a few yards of ribbon.'

But Sedley bought them anyway. And later on in the morning, as they turned into Will's Coffee-House, he tucked them into the front of her costume and, because the dress she was planning to wear at the races really needed ribbon, she pretended not to notice and left them there.

Dryden was in his usual place by the fire, celebrating his new status as Poet Laureate with his fellow-writers, and was put out by losing the attention of his audience to Penitence.

'Mrs Hughes, Mrs Hughes, have you read my play?'

'Mrs Hughes, I've a part for you will make your mouth water.'

'Mrs Hughes,' said Dryden, 'like the percipient artist she is, will concern herself only with plays that adhere to the unities.'

But Penitence had spotted an outlandishly dressed figure across the room and was running to it. 'Aphra. What are you doing here?'

They hugged. Though they lived in the same house, Penitence's hours and Aphra Behn's no longer coincided. It had been weeks since they'd had time to do more than greet each other on the stairs.

Aphra tipped her barbarously coloured cap to the back of her head. 'One has done it. I heard today.'

'Heard what?'

'Davenant's taking my play.'

'Oh, Aphra.' It was impossible. It was joyous. She had to blink back tears. 'I'm so glad. Which one?'

They dragged two stools to the back of the room and sat down to chat. 'The Forced Marriage.' Aphra's mouth gave a moue of pretended disapproval. 'Not one's best, but it's a start.'

'It'll run for a week. I'm so proud of you.'

'How ironic it will be at Duke's. I so wanted you for the lead.'

'My dear girl,' Penitence jerked her head towards the fireplace where Dryden still pontificated, 'unless it preserved the unities I couldn't possibly. What are the unities?'

'Lunacies,' said Aphra promptly. 'As if one could write to rule. But, my dear' — she took Penitence's hand - 'should it be a success, well, my brother has found us a little house . ..'

'You're not leaving the Cock and Pie?'

'We cannot batten on you for ever.'

'You haven't battened, you haven't.' Penitence's alarm lifted her voice so that Sedley, always aware of her, turned round to look. 'Don't go, Aphra.' It would be a relief to see the back of Mrs Johnson, but Aphra had brought poetry and intellectual enquiry into the Cock and Pie. 'What will Benedick do without you?' MacGregor had taught her son to read, but it was Aphra who'd taught him to love reading.

'He will visit his honorary aunt every day. As will you. But we are the new women, my dear, and must try for independence.'

Penitence shook her head. 'It's hard. You'll find it so hard.'

Sedley's scent enveloped them as he leaned over, rolling his eyes. 'Whose is hard? Don't quarrel over it, ladies. I can be hard enough for both of you.'

'Oh, shut up,' said Penitence wearily.

Immediately he became vitriolic, turning on Aphra. 'I hear you've been brought to bed of a play, mistress. Surely the infant is not all your own. Who is the father?'

God protect her. Penitence blew a kiss to Aphra and ushered him out, frightened for her friend. Spying for the King and a debtors' prison had been ease and comfort compared with what faced a woman who was preparing to compete in a world in which every wit and half-wit fancied himself a playwright. God, protect her.

Chapter 6

The trip to the races had been planned as part of a relaxation for the King's nephew, Prince William of Orange, towards the end of the young Dutch prince's state visit to England to cement the new alliance between the two countries. After all the formality, Charles thought William would be glad of entertainment, and knew that he would, so actresses had been included in the invitation.'And if one of you ladies should relieve the lad of his virginity while you're about it, the King will not be displeased' the Earl of Rochester told the tiring-room, two nights before they were due to go.

Anne Marshall pulled her dress over her head. 'How old is he?'

'Nineteen, twenty.'

'And still a ballocking virgin?' Dorinda paused in the act of untying her basque strings.

'My dear Roxolana,' said Sedley, trying to balance his staff on his nose, 'the Dutch court does things differently. For one thing - damn it, I'll never get the trick of it — it's not a court at all. The Netherlands are a republic, poor flatlanders that they are. Our William may be a prince of the blood, but in that benighted country he's only a councillor or stadtholder, or whatever dreary titles they give themselves, of one little state. There, I've done it. Look at me.'

'He's more than that,' said Becky Marshall, quietly.

Rochester shot her a glance. 'Sometimes, my dear Becky, I wonder where you get your political knowledge. Anyway, our royal young lumpkin's been a prisoner of the De Witts for years, locked up on a diet of cheese and sermons. Soured his disposition.'

Penitence rolled down her stage stockings carefully, sequinned cast-offs from Gwynn. 'He must have some importance. Old Rowley's making a rare fuss of him. I suppose it's all to celebrate the new alliance.' She smoothed on her own stockings, slapping Sir George Etherege's hand as he tried to snap her garter. 'Stop that.'

'He's put your lover's nose out of joint, I'm afraid,' said Sedley. 'The revered royal Rupert was so offended at the state dinner the other night to find his nephew given precedence over him at the table that he stalked out. Positively stalked, my dear. He looked like an offended walking-stick.' He adjusted the lace of his cuffs. 'And talking of offence, my dears, I hear that Kynaston gave the epilogue yesterday dressed up as me.'

The actresses busied themselves in finishing their toilet. 'Only a bit of fun, Sedley dear,' said Anne Marshall.

'Of course it was. Of course it was. Did the audience enjoy

'Oh, he died and then she died,' said Dorinda, vaguely. She turned the conversation back to the Prince of Orange. 'Well, I ain't fucking the young squib,' she said, 'I got other fish to fry.'

'Would that be the noble fish of Oxford, Roxolana my dear?' asked Rochester, slyly. 'Twentieth fish of that ilk?' Dorinda was being strongly courted by Aubrey de Vere, Earl of Oxford.

'It would. And his intentions is honourable, and he's coming with us to Newmarket. Somebody else can swive the Dutcher.'

'Orange-girl turns down Prince of Orange,' sighed Rochester. 'But think on't. You may be rejecting the future King of England.'

Dorinda stared at him. 'How'd you make that out?'

'Well, our own dear Queen, poor Portuguese bat, seems to be the one woman in England whom the King can't impregnate, and brother James has only daughters, the elder of whom may be given to our little Dutchman - I don't say she will, but she may.' He shuddered. 'So, in the natural course of things, we might end up with that constipated young Hollander on the throne, God save us all.'

'And he died and then she died,' said Dorinda, again. 'I'm bored of politics. Let's go out to dinner.'

'We had our differences, ma'am,' said Prince Rupert of the Earl of Clarendon. 'Hyde was never my friend, but he was an honest enemy, and a faithful servant of the King. I regret his scapegoating for the mismanagement of the war. No, ma'am, I regret his exile.'

Penitence nodded sagely. 'But at least we have peace once more.' Keep the conversation neutral. She had expected there to be a large party, that he'd invited her as part of a quota of pretty women to flaunt at his table, like other courtiers did. But they were ominously alone, facing each other from opposite ends of a long, polished table. She wondered if he would mention his offended departure from the state dinner over the precedence given to the young Prince of Orange, but he didn't.

The Triple Alliance? Long may it last. I fought the Dutch fleet more from duty than conviction. Another honest enemy, Mrs Hughes, and glad I am to have them as ally. The true enemy of England, ma'am, is France.. Louis and his Popery. Popery above all. Did I ever recount to you my imprisonment at the hands of Ferdinand III when I was offered my freedom if I would but convert to Rome?'

This was better. She was ignorant of so much of the European past, and Rupert, who had figured in a great deal of it, linked up history for her. She listened warily as she ate, the slight and occasional Bohemian accent giving his pedantic English a trace of the Oriental. Perhaps he only wants someone to talk to. It would be upsetting to find that he was like all the others and she ended the evening fending off a sexual attack. I should have brought a chaperone after all. He might interpret her lack of one as an invitation. But who could I bring? Dorinda? Mistress Palmer?

The apartments were dark, tucked away in a corner of Whitehall's vastness overlooking a private garden, and smelled of hounds. A half dozen of them had greeted her entrance and he'd watched her reaction before he commanded them away. 'You are not frightened, Mrs Hughes,' he said. 'That's good. That's good.'

He seemed to imagine her the epitome of delicate womanhood. She spared him the knowledge that if you could stand up to an Indian dog pack, you could stand up to anything.

It was the most masculine room she'd ever been in; the space on the walls above the looming furniture was hung with spears, swords and armour. Books were everywhere else. The table was set with exquisite napery, silver and crystal. The food, however, was cold. He apologized. 'I make them run with it from the kitchens, but they never run fast enough.'