Exit the Actress (33 page)

Oh, Rose.

Note
—She has decided not to open her own atelier but will continue to assist Madame Leonine and take in sewing herself.

The Earl of Shrewsbury was a pompous hypocrite who often came behind the curtain to leer at the actresses but could not bear to see his wife take the same pleasure—but one cannot say such things of one who has passed. I
can
say that his wife flaunted her affair before all of London, taking every opportunity to humiliate her husband. She is a dreadful woman and their marriage could not have been happy, but what a sad end. It is Buckingham I cannot believe. To stand up and kill a man, when you know that it is you who have done wrong, and then to go about your day?

“But it is the perfect solution for the wicked couple,” Teddy said, laying down his news sheet and recrossing his slender ankles. “She is now a very rich widow, all the better to help Buckingham out of his current financial embarrassment. My God, can that man spend money—and now they no longer have to concern themselves with her irritating husband.
C’est parfait!
And so simple—one has only to be as ruthless as Buckingham to follow such a course.”

“But that is just it. How could he?”

“Oh, my dear, I am sure this incident did not even disrupt his breakfast, let alone his conscience. He is a very good swordsman—remember, he is a war hero—and would have been sure of the outcome. The bumbling, nervous earl was hardly a match for him.”

“Poor man,” I said, fidgeting with my script but not really reading it.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Teddy said, unfolding his long limbs and yawning. “Now at least he no longer has to live with that horrid woman. If she were my wife, it is probably what I would choose, too.”

After he left, I cleared away the coffee things and thought about marriage. So much risked on such a chancy thing—like poor Mary Fairfax, Buckingham’s irrelevant little duchess. She was so useful to him when he needed to ingratiate himself with her Cromwellian general father—and so useless to him now that he is the king’s man. She is unwanted and unnecessary and dull to boot. How grim.

Rose and John have moved into a small house in Cockspur Lane near Whitehall. Rose—Mrs. Cassels, now—keeps it shiningly clean and has taken several orders for gowns. She is loath to call herself “Madame Rose,” as is customary for dress-makers, as she has had too many madames in her life. She is so happy to stay at home—so happy to have a home—so happy to have left Madam Ross’s—so happy to love just one man. I hope her marriage
is
happy, and I am envious of her peace, I admit.

Gossip:

Prince Rupert of the Rhine has been sending for Peg! I keep catching her daydreaming during rehearsal.

“Well, is it true?” demanded Teddy, before Peg could even sit down (she did not have much time as she is on this afternoon in
The Storme
).

“Yes, it’s true. Ohh, is that lemon-seed cake?” Peg shrugged off her winter wool cloak.

“That is
all
?” Teddy shrilled. “You are
visiting,
” he said, vigorously wiggling his eyebrows, “the dashing Prince Rupert, and all you say is ‘yes, it’s true’?” I giggled at Teddy’s impatience. Peg smiled a smile full of mischief and would not say any more.

Finely wrapped boxes arrive each evening before the second performance. The Marshall sisters are choked by envy, marking carefully Peg’s accumulating treasures: a spotted yellow
moiré
gown, a soft pink quilted petticoat, a striped green travelling suit, a white rabbit muff and matching mittens, boxes of creamy underclothes trimmed with lace, sapphire ear-drops, a small gold timepiece. Peg and I open the parcels with glee, furiously ripping through the tissue wrappings. I, too, am filled with envy, but it is her
happiness
I crave. She is alight with happiness. The beautiful blue
calèche
arrives promptly at curtain fall to whisk Peg away. Dashing Prince Rupert (thicker around the middle and slightly balding, but light-footed and beautifully turned out, nonetheless) opens the door for her himself. Nightly, we watch from the stairwell windows. We see him sweep her a courtly bow. We sigh.

The king (yesterday in a wine-red velvet coat—beautiful!) has been attending the theatre with Prince Rupert lately. He (always surrounded by his circus of courtiers) wanders through the tiring rooms, easy in our company, stopping to chat here and there, and sometimes even helping an actress to
unlace her gown. Castlemaine, who often accompanies him and stays very close, works hard to seem unbothered by these brief intimacies. Although when no one is watching her, she occasionally slips and her face takes on the pointy, pinched dimensions of a sniffing fox. I stand back as the raucous royal parade winds through our house. So far the king has never stopped to speak to me. I cannot think what I would say if he did. So why do I find myself hoping and holding my breath until I hear his carriage pull away? What am I hoping for?

Tom brought an old friend to the tiring rooms after the show this evening. He introduced her as “Mrs. Aphra Behn, a woman of travels and letters.” What an extraordinary way to introduce a woman. We are all off to supper. Must finish changing, as I am late!

Goodness. She has had a gloriously exciting life. Mrs. Behn was raised in Surinam and was friendly with the exotic princes in that country. One in particular, Prince Oroonoko (no idea how to spell it), is to be the subject of the great heroic tragedy she is planning to write—he was a prince then a slave then a prince again. She plans to write—for
money,
in her
own
name.
Quel
glamour, as Teddy would say.

Beyond her wild childhood, she has already been a
spy
for the government, of all things, and has been
spying
in Holland, of all places—during a
war
. Agent 160. How official. How frightening. Upon making her return voyage, she was shipwrecked off the south coast of England and was only saved by a passing fishing boat. She looks nothing like how I would imagine: far too frail for a dashing spy and far too sturdy for a shipwrecked maiden.