Exit the Actress (37 page)

I cannot shake the unreality from my mind. I feel fogged up with fairy-tales of love and dancing and castles, and a tall, lithe man who walks too quickly for me to ever keep up.

Just as I was settling down to bed, a man in Buckingham’s livery rapped on the door. He handed me a note and a heavy bag of coins. George has given me a budget for new gowns and a list of what I will need for a summer at court! I am to buy what I like and just return the receipts to him. Anything beyond the budget allowed I am to put on his account. I keep re-reading his note. We are really going through with this? Teddy, Rose, Rochester, and I will shop tomorrow!

Five hats, eight pairs of gloves (three white, one green, two brown, two black), deep green velvet and ruby velvet (for coats), black
moiré
(for evening, Teddy insisted), creamy lutestring, minty-green brushed satin, soft white linen, rosy-pink taffeta (I worry, with my hair, but Rochester insisted), reams of pale Venice lace, silk hose, four pairs of high-heeled shoes (two buckled and two laced), and a new Chinese fan (I insisted).

“This will do for a start,” Buckingham and Rochester agreed. A
start
? I am going to wind up as a greedy spendthrift if I start thinking like them.

“What’s so wrong with that?” Teddy asked nonchalantly. “If anyone could make greed
très charmant,
it would be you, my dear.”

Rose has taken everything to Madame Leonine—so expensive, I dread to think. She promised that everything could be delivered to Hampton Court next week.

“Until then, stay out of sight,” advised Teddy.

“Stay home,” says Rose. This new world frightens her, I know. I sympathise—it frightens me, too.

I will not be alone. Johnny Rochester is coming with me! Relief.

Evening Love
flopped. The audience, the critics, the actors all hated it. Secretly, I am glad: a flop will end the run, and I am anxious to be off. Dryden is not crushed as he himself proclaimed it a second-rate effort—beating them to it, I thought.

“That will mean Hart will be going soon, too,” Teddy warned this evening.

“Going?” I repeated. “To the palace?”

“Wherever Castlemaine goes…” he said in his sing-song voice.

This palace looks lovely from this cosy half-timbered inn where I am lodged but have yet to leave. The red-brick palace is enormous, laid on a grand and elegant scale—a palace fit for a king and stolen by one, apparently: the great Cardinal Wolsey’s masterpiece, filched by King Henry VIII. I think of the ghosts that roam here—Henry, his ill-fated queens, and the more recently departed King Charles I. How strange to live in a house with a history of such unhappiness. Does the king think of it, I wonder?

I receive daily instruction in court etiquette from Buckingham and Rochester, who both have good rooms in the palace. We practice the latest dancing—the French
gigues
and
courantes
are all the rage—and then walking and talking and sitting and eating. This morning we spent a whole hour on entrances and curtseys. Buckingham does a lovely curtsey. They encourage me not to lose my Oxfordshire lilt, country accents being so fashionable now, but I am not sure I could if I tried, so
heigh-ho
. We have also been practicing the newest card games (ombre, hazard, and whist) and have been gambling huge sums of imaginary money. I am nervous about what lies beyond these doors.

Teddy brought my new clothes himself! I am so happy to see him. Tom has spared him through the summer. Now we are a foursome—laughing and dancing and dicing and gambling. Tomorrow is my debut!
“Courage, chérie,
you will be
fantastique!”
Teddy cheers in a phoney French accent and an unconvincing leer. His enthusiasm heartens me, although I cannot believe I am doing this.

Bit of a failed debut, as I did not even see the king; although my entrance was lovely, Rochester insisted. Buckingham says I need to practice sitting still. I have a tendency to fidget when I’m nervous, and I will be far more nervous when the king actually shows up. Tonight His Majesty had a private dinner with Castlemaine and did not return. For all I hear of her fading light, they do spend an awful lot of time together.

Still, I was introduced to a number of genial people. I particularly liked Lady Jemimah Sandwich and her husband—she sings wonderfully, and he plays a ferocious game of basset. I also liked a very young gentleman introduced to me as Jemmy—only later did I find out that this is James, Duke of Monmouth, the king’s eldest bastard son. I should have guessed: he looks
like a softer-featured version of the king. Despite his youth, he is a determined and experienced flirt. Buckingham interceded, steering me away and onto safe ground. Despite my many
faux pas
—using the wrong fork for the roast dishes and forgetting to throw my napkins behind my chair: I kept mine for the whole of the dinner, awful—I enjoyed myself tremendously.

Sedley joined the court tonight, arriving just after the grand and terrifying supper, making for a merry time. Jemmy Monmouth and I both beat him in ombre, and then he sang his newest songs, some surprisingly poignant. Afterwards, Rochester, drunk but elegant as usual, encouraged me to do impressions—dicey stuff in this company, but (after several glasses of wine and lots of encouragement) I did a few, keeping only to well-known theatre folk—safer that way. Couldn’t resist a waddling imitation of Moll Davis. The Howard boys had collaborated to write a terrible little rhyme, and I performed it while mimicking her lumpy little dance. They roared with laughter. So cruel of me.

Buckhurst has joined us. I am actually quite pleased to see him. He is attentive —but not in his obsessive way—and sweet, and I have the feeling that like all the Merry Gang he is keeping an eye on me. Nearly all the Wits are here now. Georgie Etheredge, the playwright, and John Sheffield, the young and thorny Earl of Mulgrave, arrive tomorrow to make our merry party merrier still. Still no sign of the king.

Note
—I learned tonight that Hart is here. I caught sight of Hugh outside the inn tonight. How long has Hart been here? And does he know that I am here?

Terrible news from London:

Will Davenant, manager of the Duke’s House, died today. The king
wore black ribbons in his hair in memoriam, so Buckingham tells me. Rochester—a great friend of Will’s—has been drunk all day. It has already been announced that Tom Betterton and Henry Harris are to co-manage in his stead. “Filthy dogs,” Rochester snorted, despising their haste. Relief: Hart has apparently returned to London.

Spent the morning happily browsing the brisk tidy market and came home with armfuls of fresh flowers, a volume of poetry, and new bread. Buckingham was waiting in my rooms when I returned—not downstairs but
in
my rooms.
Heigh-ho,
there seems to be no formality in my life. Buckingham paced up and down the noisy floorboards while I put away my purchases. He clearly had something to say and wanted my full attention. Perversely, I took my time and would not give it—very childish of me.

“Ellen, sit!” he finally exploded, commanding me like one of his spaniels. I sat, daintily spreading out my skirts on the rough chair. I knew what was upsetting him—my disheartening lack of progress with the king. I was finding the whole endeavour awkward and trying. All I could do was be myself—a better-mannered, better-dressed, better-educated version of myself, but at the root the same—but this king looks at the roots. Not that the king has looked at me at
all
.

I took a deep breath. “You want me to be bolder? Wittier? Prettier? Sexier?”

“I would settle for visible. He doesn’t even know you are here!” he railed. “Do
something
!”

Accustomed to the excited, impassioned critique of the rehearsal room, I was unfazed by Buckingham’s words. He is right. I am treating this as a game of make believe that need never come true. In my deepest heart I think the entire enterprise is absurd and
could
never come true. Last year I was an orange girl … how could I ever hope to interest the king? But my friends seem to believe it is possible. Do I do this for them? No. I do
this for myself. It is a daydream that will not fade. My fascination with this man has a thrumming pulse of its own, and in truth, I cannot pass up this chance, however slim, however unlikely—my glass-slipper heart will not allow it. And so, I am resolved. I will make him notice me. For better or worse I will play one hand.

The man is surrounded! Besieged! If it isn’t Castlemaine, it is Moll, the most irritatingly vapid girl I have ever heard, who seems to want to do nothing but take the waters (good for fertility) and play silly flirtatious lawn games such as hot cockle, and then make play houses out of cards! She sets my teeth on edge with her lack of substance. “Soap bubbles,” I told Teddy tonight as I un-pinned my hair. “She reminds me, exactly, of a big shiny empty soap bubble.”

“Yes, but bubbles are so fragile and elusive,” he said, pulling the brush through my hair in long, soothing strokes. “That is their magic. When you try to grab one, they vanish. Smart trick,” he said ruefully.

“Moll is a bit heftier than a bubble,” I said cruelly.

If it isn’t Moll, it would be one of a dozen other ladies here for exactly the same purpose. I understand the inclination—he is like a heat, a strength, a safety we all want to be near. He is dazzling.

The boys all have strong opinions about my clothes and toilette, and my rooms have become an entirely inefficient democracy. They cannot agree on anything, from shoes to hats, and so I spend a great deal of time wandering about in my lovely new underclothes whilst they bicker; as I am accustomed to the crowded tiring rooms, this lack of privacy does not faze me. Buckingham always goes for whichever gown is the most
décolleté
(obviously), and Buckhurst will reliably choose the most expensive. Teddy and Rochester (bless them) are interested in whichever makes me
feel
most comfortable. To create the effect of
ease,
and grace, Rochester explains dramatically. It is sweet to see these brilliant boys, all famous for their scathing wit, playing amongst the silks and lace. It makes them seem so young and free. This morning (after lengthy debate) I wore my new white muslin gown (Rochester’s choice) with the cream
pointe,
blue sash, and my delicate little silver mules—lovely! (Teddy’s choice). But nothing! No response. The king does not seem to notice me at all. Grumble.

Note
—They
all
favour hair
à la négligence
—heavens, it is difficult to make hair look artfully undone.
What
a lot of work.

This evening after a glorious supper served out of doors under the yew trees—roasted meats, stewed meats, fresh vegetables from the garden (unfashionable, but the queen favours them, as do I), fresh bread, country cheese, artful little cakes glazed in frosted marzipan, and then coffee at long last (goodness, these people do eat)—I noticed the little queen had taken herself off to the gardens alone. She is often alone, a reserved dove amidst the bright noisy larks of the court, all of them angling for her husband’s affections. I felt ashamed. I, too, was trying to bed this good, pious woman’s husband. And she knew it. Overcome by remorse, I followed her outside the bright circle of torches into the silent, box-hedged garden. I hesitated. How does one approach the queen? She is rigorous about conduct. I lurked by a stone cupid under a flowering peach tree.