Exit the Actress (51 page)

“Teddy, wake up, please,” I pray over and over, watching his bruised, sleeping face.

No change. Everyone is here now.

A huge ruckus downstairs—shouting and stomping of feet. I stood up to see what was going on, but my legs, cramped from sitting for so long, buckled beneath me.

“Sit, dear,” the nurse, named Elspeth, said, coming around the bed. “He knows you are here. It helps, I promise.”

Teddy was still not conscious, but his breathing was regular, his ears had ceased to bleed, and his pulse was steady. “All good signs,” the nurse keeps telling me.

Just then the double doors swung open and the king marched in, looking ferocious, pushing Lord Sedley roughly before him, with Chiffinch trailing behind. Johnny reached out his hand, alarmed, and then checked and bowed instead.

“Do it,” the king said, his voice tight with rage. He seemed to notice no one else in the room. He shook Sedley violently by the neck like a lion. “Do it now.”

Sedley cringed. “I—”

“On your knees,” commanded the king.

Sedley gasped when he saw Teddy’s broken form and knelt on the stone floor at my feet. I could see that his fine amber coat was torn at the collar, and he had an angry purple bruise on his left cheek.

“Nelly, I am so sorry. I … I ordered the attack on Kynaston. I was drunk and annoyed by his mockery, and it is no excuse. I know better. Please forgive me. He is my friend, as you are, and I so truly regret it.”

I looked at him, stunned. I looked at my lover, whom I had not seen in two months. I looked away. I found I had no thoughts for anyone but the man lying in the bed. I tried to speak, but no sound came. Johnny took my hand in his, and I felt warmed with love and faith.

I looked at Sedley and, surprised by my steady voice, said, “It is not from me you should be asking forgiveness. It is from Teddy, and it is from God.” With that, I turned away from him.

“Take him,” said the king. Guards I had not noticed before stepped forward and pulled Sedley roughly to his feet.

“The Tower?” he asked with a shadowy smile.

“Newgate,” replied the king grimly. “Now.”

Sedley, ashen, was led from the room. I looked back at Teddy, lying motionless on the bed.

“Ellen, I—” began the king.

I looked around. Rochester, Nurse Elspeth, and Aphra had quietly gone.

I had not heard them leave. Chiffinch still stood, unobtrusive as always, behind the king.

“I know,” I said wearily. It was unimportant, this drama of reconciliation. “It is all right. I understand, and I am glad it is over.”

He knelt beside me, pressed me close, and kissed me tenderly: my eyes, my throat, my lips. I remained listless in his embrace, too distracted to respond.

“I have missed you,” he said into my hair. “I have missed you so much.”

“You knew where I was. You should have come to find me,” I heard myself say flatly. I saw Chiffinch blanch. This was not how it was supposed to go, not how I had rehearsed it. “And now, I would like it if you left me alone. I will come to you soon enough, just like everyone else.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

I turned back to Teddy and heard the king’s boots on the floor and then the door softly shut behind him.

“I must say,” Teddy spoke from the bed, without opening his eyes, “that was very well done, old girl.”

“Yes,” said Chiffinch quietly. “Very well done.”

Good God, when will these boys stop punching each other? Last night at the king’s private dinner for the Dutch ambassador (excellent manners, very white teeth), Johnny began to tease Tom Killigrew, who usually begs off and does not come to these things, as his wilder days are long over, but the king had asked for him personally. I think he thought Tom’s presence would ease my nerves—it did. It was an informal dinner, but I am unaccustomed to dining with foreign dignitaries.

The king himself helped me dress, choosing a square-necked, deep raspberry satin dress (I wasn’t sure with my red hair, but he insisted) and slender black slippers. Once I was dressed, coiffed—
à la négligence
—and scented, the king returned and presented me with a beautiful necklace of enormous, evenly matched pearls. I threw my arms around his neck, and Monsieur Bertrand, my hairdresser, cried out in alarm as his delicate work was crushed. Charles was delighted with my reaction and proceeded to spend twenty minutes explaining the mechanics of the newly fashioned spring clasp. We were very nearly late for supper.

In any event, the dinner went smoothly, and we were all enjoying some music—the beautiful and famous Arabella Hunt played the lute and sang in her haunting soprano, and James York played some lovely compositions of his own, I had no idea he was so musical—and fine claret afterwards, when Johnny, drunk and looking for trouble, began to antagonise Tom: asking him why it is that the King’s playhouse is so much less imaginative than the Duke’s? Was he short of good writers? Obviously, he must be if he
employs Dryden, he reasoned in a menacing voice. Does he lack the money to pay good writers—and, if so, would he care for a loan? Does he want for good actors who can enact good plays? And on and on and
on
. Tom sat thunderstruck. Johnny is his friend, and while he is always teasing about the writing, Dryden’s writing mostly, and the re-used sets and the patched costumes, it is unlike him to be outright cruel. Tom flushed furious pink and began to counter the assault when the king and the duke (the respective patrons of the two theatres) broke in, good-naturedly calling for an end to the unpleasantness. Just then, while the king was still speaking, Johnny leaned over and boxed Tom’s ears. Without another word, Charles stood and, gripping him by the elbow, marched him from the room. They did not return.

“You forgave him? Already?” I asked Charles, bewildered. Dot and her new litter (six pups!) settled down beside me. “You do not require him to publicly apologise to the ambassador, or to your brother, or just to Tom, at least?” Or me? I thought but did not say.

I was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching Charles take off his periwig and slippers and hand them to Buckingham, who was acting as Groom of the Bedchamber—he really is lazy, not bothering to turn down the bed and leaving the door to the King’s Closet ajar, meanwhile drinking most of the wine—but Charles invites such familiarity and chooses not to curb him. Buckingham was weaving about the room, royal slippers in one hand and a wine-glass in the other.

“In the wardrobe,” I directed curtly. “Dot will chew them up by morning otherwise.”

“Of course he forgave him,” Buckingham answered for the king, putting the slippers away. “What is he to do? Punish him for a silly prank? That would make Charles look ridiculous. It was harmless, Nell,” Buckingham said easily. “Johnny had a bit to drink and was just roughhousing. Tom knows that.”

He banged the wardrobe shut, startling the sleeping spaniels. Privately,
I thought Tom knew nothing of the sort and was shocked and hurt by Johnny’s behaviour.

“Roughhousing in front of the Dutch ambassador, the king, and the Duke of York?”

“Why not?” Buckingham shrugged. With that, he swept an elegant bow and swaggered out, without waiting to be dismissed.

“You can’t think that? Surely, he must be shaken out of this and not indulged?” I asked Charles once we were alone. He had been strangely quiet. “Johnny has been drunk before, but this was different. He was so angry, and his behaviour, well, it was just not acceptable.”

“Yes,” Charles said soberly as he climbed into bed. “Yes, he is angry. And I forgave him.”

“Angry with
whom
?”

“Everyone: you, me, James, Dryden, the queen … everyone who is content in their life, as he can find so little contentment in his own. Ellen, he is … ill.”

I had heard vague rumours of Johnny’s illness. The French pox. “I thought it wasn’t confirmed by a physician,” I said weakly.

“I have sent for Dr. Denis from Paris—he will make a final diagnosis—but it is not hopeful, sweetheart. And Johnny knows it.”

I turned into his chest and closed my eyes to the deranged, disfiguring horror of his words.

“But I know Johnny will remember himself,” Charles said softly. “He will regret his behaviour in the morning and apologise, without my asking. He loves me too much not to.”

I hope so, I thought. I very much hope so.

No apology—instead, disaster. This morning Johnny, still drunk, dismantled Charles’s great sundial. Without reason or explanation, he left it in gleaming golden chunks on the lawn. Charles is furious.

Dr. Denis arrives tomorrow. I cannot find it in myself to be angry with Johnny.

Diagnosis: as predicted. Prognosis: terrible. Dr. Denis prescribed a course of mercury baths and returned to France.

I was sitting in my tiny drawing room reading a new comedy for the spring season when I heard a single carriage thunder into the drive. I looked up, hoping it was a furniture wagon bringing the new feather mattresses. The bedsteads have arrived but no mattresses yet—uncomfortable.

“I’ve decided,” the king said, stamping his boots to shake off the snow. “I’m sending him away. This morning was the last straw.”

Johnny. I knew from his tone that it must be Johnny, and from the taut lines of Charles’s face that it must be serious. I rang the silver bell for Mrs. Lark to bring the coffee and cakes. As Mr. Lark was spending so much time here, I had decided to hire Mrs. Lark to do the cooking and washing and to take care of the animals, the growing number of animals—Grandfather has come to join me and brought his bad-tempered goat Jezebel; sadly, Jeffrey passed soon after Great-Aunt Margaret. The Larks have happily moved into the small apartment above the stables and are quickly whipping this house into shape. Grandfather and Mr. Lark have finished repairing the moulding in the huge rectangular dining room and have moved onto refitting the draughty bedroom windows. Grandfather loves a project. Mrs. Lark has scrubbed down the entire house, top to bottom, unearthing very pretty woodwork buried beneath years of dust and dirt. And this is just my tiny country home. God knows how many people I will need to hire when I move to the new London house that I finally accepted from Charles.

“Away?” I asked, turning back to Charles, who was settling himself onto the rug, spreading cushions by the fire. Even though I now have furniture, very fine furniture that Charles helped me to order (and pay for), he seems to prefer the floor. Molly immediately came waddling over and, shaking out
her feathers, settled down beside him, pushing her long beak into his coat pockets. Ruby and Scandalous were busy cavorting with his pack of spaniels under the dining table and did not notice the treats for the taking.

“Away where?”

“France, soon. I’ll pack him off with letters for my sister. Let him try this kind of nonsense in Louis’s court. I won’t have him here.” Molly found the crackers meant for her in his left pocket and began to crunch them with gusto.

“What happened this morning?” I asked, fearing the answer.

Mrs. Lark brought in the coffee tray. She always keeps a pot brewing in case the king unexpectedly visits, which he does—
often.

“He was baiting the Duke of Richmond, Frances’s husband, who is not bright but harmless, and it was resolving into a duel. Frances was hysterical and came to fetch me. I broke it up, calmed the dullard duke, and sent Johnny away. He will leave in a few weeks, once the correspondence is arranged. At least he can do something useful. Until then, he is to stay at Adderbury.” Charles leaned his head back onto a cushion, his mouth set in a resolute line.

“Will you see him before he goes?”

“No. Not unless he is sober. And I do not think he has been sober for some time.”

Johnny sailed this morning, and as promised, Charles did not see him. I sent him a brief note, wishing him a good journey and a peaceful stay. I did not wish him joy. It would have felt false.

Cards tonight with Savile and Charles. Savile told a story I had never heard. When Johnny was in the navy, his ship came under heavy enemy fire. Standing on the deck in great danger, Johnny and two other sailors
made a solemn pact. If any of the three were shot and killed, the dead man must appear to the other two and reassure them of the sweetness of God’s grace in heaven. Both of the other sailors were killed that day, but neither returned to Johnny.