Gillian Bagwell - The Darling Strumpet

THE COURT’S SPRINGTIME RETREAT TO NEWMARKET IN 1683 WAS not a restful one for Nell. Word came in March that Tom Killigrew had died. She fretted about whether to return to London for the funeral, but the path was made clear when Charles’s Newmarket house caught fire three days later. No one was killed or seriously injured, but the house was severely damaged.

“Let’s just creep quietly back to London,” Charles said. “We’ll go to Killigrew’s funeral. I’m tired anyway. The house will be repaired by the fall, and we’ll have a better time then.” He looked worn out, and Nell worried about him, but was glad of the chance to honor Killigrew and see old friends from the playhouse once more.

It was only when they had been back in London for a day or two that they learned that the early departure from Newmarket had likely saved Charles’s life and that of the Duke of York.

“The plotters knew when the court would leave,” Buckingham told Nell. “They were lying in wait at Rye House, which stands at a narrow point on the Newmarket Road, and planned to assassinate the king and duke as they made their way to London.”

“Who is it now? Not more Papists hiding in the closets?”

“No,” said Buckingham. “It’s worse this time. It looks as if the Duke of Monmouth may have been involved.”

“GOD’S BLOOD, WHY CAN THE BLOCKHEAD NEVER LEARN?” CHARLES roared. “He will not be king! I have told him so flat-out-to think of it no more-and now this!” He slumped into a chair, his anger depleted, and Nell saw that he was near tears. She knelt in front of him and took his hands in hers.

“Jemmy is a fool. But he loves you. I’m quite sure he would have nothing to do with a plot to kill you.”

“Then where is he? If he’s innocent, why has he fled when the conspiracy is discovered?”

“He’s afraid,” Nell said. And so was she. There was nothing ambiguous in the plot that had been uncovered to kill the king and the Duke of York and put Monmouth on the throne. It was true that Monmouth loved Charles. But for the first time, she wondered if it was possible that his ambitions had been whipped to such a frenzy that they would eclipse his loyalty to his father.

THE MOOD IN LONDON WAS UGLY. FEAR AND ANGER FUELED THE swiftness with which the conspirators were convicted, and even the preparations for the wedding of the Duke of York’s daughter Anne to Prince George of Denmark and the gathering of Europe’s royalty for the occasion did not slow the dispensing of brutal justice. The executions took place the day after the wedding, and Charles fled to Windsor, once more seeking to find peace there from thoughts of blood and danger.

Nell’s anguish over Charles’s pain and her fear of where Monmouth’s folly would lead him added to her sense that the world had slipped sideways somehow and would not soon right itself.

BY AUGUST, MONMOUTH HAD SWORN HIS LOYALTY TO CHARLES AND begged forgiveness, and this day, as Nell rode with Charles to view the new palace being built at Winchester, he was in better spirits than she had seen him in months. The midday sunlight slanted across the red bricks marking out the foundations. Sir Christopher Wren reined up beside Charles, smiling at the king’s evident satisfaction.

“The hunting house will be finished by next autumn, Your Majesty, in time for you to enjoy some sport before winter.”

“What do you think, Nelly?” Charles asked, turning to her.

“I think that anything that will make you take your ease is a very good thing,” she said, trying to keep her horse from dancing in circles. “You work too hard, and are too much among people you dislike.”

“That’s the idea of this place,” Charles laughed, “isn’t it, Wren? Far enough from London that I can escape, and room enough only for those I want with me. Perhaps we can spend next Christmas here, everyone’s getting along so well. You and Louise, the queen, as many of the children as will come. Perhaps I can even persuade Monmouth to join us.” Nell saw the hope behind his eyes, the shadow pass over his face at the thought of his eldest son.

“I’m sure he’ll come,” she said.

THE DAY AFTER NELL RETURNED TO WINDSOR FROM WINCHESTER, Sam Pepys called at Burford House.

“Mistress Nell,” he said, bowing over her hand as he entered. “Such a pleasure to see you, as always. Allow me to offer you my condolences on the loss of your friend.”

“My friend?” Nell’s mind ran over the losses of the previous year, none so recent that they were news. Pepys’s face sagged with pain and alarm.

“I-I thought you would have heard or I should have spoken more carefully. I am so sorry to tell you. Charles Hart died this morning.”

EVERY ACTOR IN LONDON WAS AT HART’S FUNERAL AND NELL thought first how gratified he would be, and then in her mind’s eye saw him turning up the corner of his mouth in a wry smile and shaking his head. “I’d be a sight more gratified to be standing up to greet them than to meet them lying down,” he’d have said.

Mick Mohun, old Will Cartwright, Theo Bird, Kate Corey, and Anne and Beck Marshall were there from the old King’s Company, and the whole glittering complement from the Duke’s Company-Thomas and Mary Betterton, Elizabeth Barry, Henry Harris, along with the surviving Killigrews and Davenants. It felt almost like being at home to be with theater folk again, Nell thought, and she considered for one wild moment what it would be like to return to the stage. But no. Her world was gone, and she would not fit into the new one.

HART’S DEATH UNDID SOMETHING INSIDE NELL. SHE THOUGHT SHE had been bearing up well, but now, a few days after the funeral, she was again suffering from blinding headaches and nausea, and even rolling over in bed made her miserable. She could not stop weeping for Hart, for her youth, for the past. For Jemmy and Rochester and Lacy, for Killigrew and her mother, for the future and what further losses it would bring.

Rose sat with her in her darkened bedroom, stroking her forehead.

“I just want to die,” Nell whispered.

“No, no,” Rose murmured. “What would I do without you? And little Charlie, and the king? We need you, honey.”

“But it hurts so much,” Nell cried, her eyes filling with tears again. “More than I can stand.”

“You’ve been through a lot, sweetheart.” Rose dipped a cloth in cool water, wrung it out, and placed it on Nell’s forehead. “More than your share, I’d say.”

“And it will only continue,” Nell said. “How did you stand Johnny’s death? Senseless. Needless.”

“I don’t know, truly,” Rose said. “I suppose I believe that somehow things will get better, that there is a purpose to it all, though I can’t see it.”

“I wish I felt that. How did you come to think so?”

“I don’t know,” Rose answered. “I only know that despite it all, I have hope.”

“Hope,” said Nell, wondering if she could ever feel it again.

“Yes,” said Rose. “Hope cleaveth to the bottom of the box, and is not easily shaken out.”

NELL’S ILLNESS CONTINUED FOR WEEKS. SHE DID NOT HAVE THE strength of body or spirit to go out of the house. She feared perhaps she was dying, and then almost hoped she was dying, to be put out of her misery. She could not recall when she had felt well, and life abroad in public seemed like a distant dream.

Rose was with her constantly. Charles visited every day. Young Charlie frequently had his supper with her in her room. Buckingham and Dorset brought amusing stories of events at court and in town, and Aphra brought her news from the theater.

“I hate for you to see me like this,” Nell said, taking Aphra’s hand.

“Don’t be silly, Nell. We’re far too old friends for you to worry about putting on a brave face.” She sat in the chair at Nell’s bedside. “I’ve brought some books. I thought perhaps you would like me to read to you.”