Gillian Bagwell - The Darling Strumpet

“No,” he said gently. “But you will. And many a day more. And when you see the sun, the glorious sun, remember me, and this morning we had together. And then I will not be sorry to go.”

“You will be with me with every rising and setting of the sun,” Nell promised. “And with every rainfall and summer breeze. And every time I look into the face of our beloved son.”

“And he is another miracle,” said Charles.

He turned again to the window. The sun was full above the horizon now, the sky turning a clear blue. He faltered, and she clutched him harder, supporting him.

“Help me back to bed now.”

The steps back to the bed were a struggle, and Nell was relieved to get Charles back under the covers. He shivered there, even in the heat of the fire, and she drew the bedclothes up close under his chin.

“You must go now,” Charles said, watching her, and she thought how much he looked like young Charlie and little Jemmy when she had tucked them up in bed of a night. They had always been comforted when she put them to sleep with a kiss and the assurance that she would be near.

“Good night, my love,” she said softly, bending to kiss Charles on the forehead. “I love you with all my heart. And I’ll be by. Always. Sweet dreams, sweet boy.”

Charles’s chest rose and fell in shallow breaths. His eyes were closed again, and the effort of getting to the window had exhausted the last strength he had, but his face looked at peace, and a soft smile lingered on his lips.

With one last look, Nell turned and left the room.

THE LEAD COFFIN OF KING CHARLES STOOD ON TRESTLES IN THE Henry VII Chapel in Westminster Abbey, the small space crowded by mourners. By tradition, his nearest relative, King James, was not present. His nephew-in-law, Prince George of Denmark, stood as chief mourner, with the dukes of Somerset and Beaufort, assisted by sixteen earls.

Charles’s mistresses were not among those welcome at the burial. So Nell stood in a shadowed corner, cloaked and hooded, pulling the heavy wool close against herself, trying to dispel the chill in her bones and in her heart. She shivered, and wiggled her toes in an effort to regain some feeling in her feet. If she had been crying, the tears would have frozen as they coursed down her face. But her sense of loss was so profound that it had shocked her into a state of numbness.

She had cried, at home alone, as she had cried for Jemmy. No, not the same. Each loss, she discovered, had a flavor of its own, a unique grief that took hold of her in some new way. Hart. Lacy. Rochester. She told over those deaths and how each had cast her into a new abyss, one which should have been familiar, should have offered some path, some road to peace and hope. But no, each of them had shaken her anew. Hart, who had seemed as eternal as the sky. Lacy. How was it possible that such an electric presence and booming voice could simply cease to exist? And Rochester. What a bitter loss that had been. A waste of so much promise, so much brilliance, so much-what? So much of whatever it was that quickened the flesh in which we all walk, making the difference between life and so many pounds of cold meat.

Nell could not see the coffin, or the Archbishop of Canterbury, but she could hear his voice ringing in the cold. The flames of the candles guttered and winced at the drafts that swirled among the stones. Nell had not been in the abbey since the funeral for Buckingham’s poor baby, now sleeping beneath the floor of this same chapel. How the gray stones had echoed and mocked Anna Maria’s sobs, showing how few there were to mourn that tiny bundle. If voices cried today their sound was lost, deadened by the bodies standing shoulder to shoulder around the coffin, still in the winter darkness.

At long last it was over. Nell faded behind a tall candelabra, melting into the shadows there. For she had one last good-bye to take.

Finally the abbey was empty, with only a solitary guard beside the coffin. Nell knew him-Prather, his name was, a man who had served the king for many years, first in the wars and then in the household guards. He looked up at the sound as Nell moved from behind the candelabra, hand going to the hilt of his sword. When she dropped her hood he saw who she was and nodded-not quite a bow.

In silence Nell went forward to the coffin. Was it possible that this dull box could really contain all that had been Charles? She put her hand on the coffin, as if hoping to feel warmth, a breath, some sign. There was a scuttling sound in a distant corner, a rat, no doubt, and she was glad that Prather stood guard, his lamp casting a circle of golden light around the coffin as the candles in the abbey burned low and the realm of shadows advanced.

She drew from within her cloak the flowers she had gone to such lengths to find-snowdrops, the first blooms to break the winter ground. She laid them on the coffin, and their waxy white brought unbidden to her mind the face of her mother as she had lain still and pale. But the flowers’ scent rose sweet, the scent of life and hope amidst the panoply of death.

Nell bent to kiss the coffin. “Good-bye, my love,” she whispered. “I think I’ll join you soon.”

NELL’S SEDAN CHAIR HALTED BEFORE THE PALACE DOORS. THE guards were the same, the great rambling pile of stone that was Whitehall was the same, the same birds landed on the same bare branches. Yet all had changed in the space of a few days, and Nell felt that the light had gone out in the world as she made her way to the privy chamber.

The Duke of York, now King James, sat at his desk, heaps of paper before him, a pen in his hand. His eyes were tired as he looked up at Nell, as though he had not slept since Charles’s death. Heavy lies the head that wears the crown , she thought. She dropped into a low curtsy, and he gave her his hand and guided her to a chair.

“With almost his last breath, Charles spoke of you,” he said, a sad smile wreathing his lips. “ ‘Let not poor Nelly starve,’ he said. He knew you truly cared for him. And so do I.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Nell said. “For knowing that to be true.”

“It will take me some time to sort through all that must be dealt with,” he said, waving a vague hand at the cluttered desk, the scrolls that tumbled onto the floor. “But,” he said, and the word was freighted with portent, “you know that things cannot be as they have been.”

Nell’s heart raced and her stomach dropped. Here it was, the moment she had run from all her life. Abandoned, bereft, alone in a cold world. James saw the fear in her eyes and raised his hands, as though to tamp down her terror.

“I would not see you in hardship. I will send you five hundred pounds directly, to keep the wolf from the door. But I pray you spend it with care until I see what else may be done.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty. I thank you with all my heart.”

CHARLES HAD BEEN DEAD FOR THREE MONTHS. SPRING WAS ALMOST come, and the days were growing longer. Nell sat with Groundes in his little office, forcing herself to listen to the numbers he recited. But all she knew was that he was telling her she needed money, money she did not have. She could sell some of her remaining silver plate. But the money would only go so far.

She thought of her pearls. They had cost Charles four thousand pounds. That amount of money would keep her household for months, yet her heart ached at parting from them. She could see his smile as he had given them to her, his pleasure at her cry of joy, the touch of his fingers as he fastened them around her neck. She stifled a sob before it erupted.