Gillian Bagwell - The Darling Strumpet

“Well,” said Marmaduke Watson one night in early December, “Sir William Davenant has been training his women players, we hear, though they’ll not be fit to send onstage for some time.”

“No,” Harry agreed. “We’ll beat him in that race, for we’re putting a woman on the stage in a few days’ time.”

“Who?” Nell asked. “What will she play?”

“Anne Marshall,” Harry said. “She’s to play Desdemona in Othello .”

“And after that,” Ned Kynaston said glumly, “who knows? Two weeks ago I played Arthiope in The Bloody Brother . But old Killigrew has told me that when we put it on again in a fortnight, I’m to play Otto instead, and Charlie Hart’ll have a woman to his lover.”

A few days later Nell besieged the actors with questions about how the first performance by a woman had succeeded.

“Well, they didn’t riot,” young Theo Bird said.

“Hardly,” Marmaduke put in. “They ate it up.”

“I’d have been better,” said Kynaston. “And prettier, too.” The lads laughed, but Marmaduke shook his head and winked at Nell.

“Can you not keep playing women’s roles, too?” she asked. Kynaston stared into his tankard and didn’t answer.

“No,” said Harry. “Neddie’s good, but when you put him next to the real thing, they’re as different as chalk and cheese. Actresses. That’s the future.”

Another question was on Nell’s lips, but the words froze unspoken. Madam Ross’s man Jack was making his way toward the table, scowling, his eyes fixed on her. She couldn’t stand the thought of him bullying her before the actors, and she mumbled something to them as she scrambled off the bench and toward another table of men. Jack’s big hand closed hard on her upper arm, and he yanked her to face him.

“You’re not paid to take your ease,” he growled.

“I was just talking,” she answered, her throat constricted by fear and shame, knowing that the actors were surely watching.

“Less talking, and more time on your back or your knees.” Jack’s fingers tightened around her arm. Obviously enjoying her discomfort, he reached his other hand under her skirt, and shoved his fingers hard inside her.

“That’s your worth,” he said, his breath hot on her face, thrusting deeper into her. “That and only that. Don’t get above yourself, or I’ll teach you a lesson you’ll not forget.”

He gave a last vicious twist of his hand before letting Nell go, and she ran from the room, too mortified to face Harry and the other lads and too terrified to remain in Jack’s presence.

AFTER THAT, NELL NO LONGER SAT WITH THE ACTORS UNLESS JACK was absent. When he was present, she kept quiet and out of his way, anxious not to give him any excuse to shame her further. She thought with longing of the theater and begged Jane to tell her any news of the actors, but Jane had little interest in what the players did when they were not at Madam Ross’s.

In late December, Jack disappeared without explanation. Madam Ross made herself scarce as well, disappearing into her rooms on the top floor of the house, and the girls whispered their conjectures about what had happened. On the second day of Jack’s absence, Nell dared to hope that he had gone for good. The establishment was a much happier place with only Ned there to mind the shop.

Nell was overjoyed when Harry Killigrew came into the taproom one quiet afternoon a few days before Christmas. He ambled over to the table where Ned sat with Rose, and Nell joined them, happy at her unaccustomed freedom and the holiday mood that prevailed. Christmas under Cromwell had been kept as a day of fasting and atonement, but this year was different. Harry had been at court, where preparations for the festivities had been going on for days.

“You should see the palace,” Harry said. “Holly and ivy everywhere, and a great Yule log. The king’s mother and two sisters are visiting, and the king will keep the twelve days of Christmas as in old times, with masques, mummers, and banquets every day. We gave a show at the Cockpit last night, and the wine was flowing like water.”

Nell thought of what she had been doing the previous night. It had been a particularly unpleasant evening. The fat and revolting Mr. Cooper had fumbled with his limp prick, and struck her when even her sucking failed to rouse him. And then there had been a party of soldiers who were drunk and brutal. She had cried herself to sleep, despairing at the thought that she had no way out.

“Tell me more about the king and the court,” she begged.

“It’s like a fairy land,” Harry said. “There’s music and dancing every night. The king has a consort of twenty-four violins, and musicians of every other kind as well. He outdances all the court and sings when he can dance no more.”

In her room alone that night, Nell wondered what the music of twenty-four violins would sound like, and tried to picture the king and his courtiers dancing, their finery sparkling in the gleam of a thousand candles. She thought of the king’s mistress Barbara Palmer, radiant at his side. She drew herself up straight, trying to feel the weight of a gown heavy with jewels, and danced, imagining herself partnered by the king, and watched by a host of onlookers at a great Christmas feast.

But on Christmas Eve, Nell heard that the king’s sister Mary had died of the smallpox, and instead of revelry, Whitehall was somber and still, the court dressed in purple mourning clothes instead of jeweled finery. Nell felt herself in mourning, too, as Jack returned to Lewkenor’s Lane and resumed his rule.

The New Year of 1661 dawned cold and icy. The Thames froze, and Nell and Rose delighted in the frost fair that sprang up, with booths selling food and drink, and entertainments presented to joyous crowds. They ran and slid on the snow-covered ice, enjoying the novel view of London from the middle of the frozen river, then warmed themselves with hot wassail.

In February, coins bearing the king’s face were minted and began to replace the old currency. The king’s likeness was noted elsewhere, too, as Barbara Palmer bore a daughter that was rumored to be Charles’s child.

On St. George’s Day, the twenty-third of April, the king’s coronation brought celebratory throngs to the streets once more. The royal barge sailed down the river from Whitehall to the Tower, followed by a flotilla of craft bearing dignitaries, and then a flood of sightseers crammed onto any vessel that would float. The night sky blazed with fireworks, and London reveled until dawn.

ONE EVENING IN EARLY JULY NELL ENTERED THE TAPROOM TO FIND Harry, Marmaduke, and young Theo Bird slumped around a corner table, uncharacteristically subdued and glum.

“What’s amiss?” she asked.

“We’ve been playing to scant houses all the week, and each day it gets worse,” Theo said. “Davenant has opened his new playhouse, and everyone and his wife is going to see his opera.”

“Even the king has been,” added Marmaduke.

“But why?” Nell asked.

“Because he’s built a much grander theater,” Marmaduke said. “It’s got painted scenery that moves, and machines-angels and gods coming down from the heavens and so on. Pageantry. Singing.”

“Don’t forget Hester Davenport,” Theo said.

“Who’s she?” Nell asked.

“One of Davenant’s actresses,” Harry said. “Toothsome. Bonnie and buxom. She’s taken the fancy of everyone from the tom turd men to the Earl of Oxford.”

“And there are two parts to the poxed thing,” Marmaduke lamented. “So everyone has to go twice.”

“ The Siege of Rhodes ,” Harry snorted. “More like the siege of Lincoln’s Inn Fields.”

“But things are bound to get better,” said Nell. “People tire of a new thing soon enough, is what Rose always says.”