Exit the Actress (56 page)

“Ivory taffeta, striped with palest cream, will be lovely for evening. And if we order a cream hat with matching veil from London today, Madame Sophie should be able to have them here by next week,” Rose said, looking at her diary. She takes her dress-making very seriously, and once she has promised, she is careful to deliver on the appointed day.

“Ivory?” I asked, looking at her design. “I’m not sure wheaty colours will do much for me. Perhaps a bolder shade…”

“Yes, but your skin is peachy from the sun—you’ve obviously not been wearing your bonnet—so ivory will suit for evening: very pretty by candlelight, and more stylish than a dark colour,” she overruled. “Do you still have the gold slippers with the embroidered butterflies?”

“No, I got them wet,” I said distractedly. I was looking for the right time to tell her my news—particularly as it would affect the dresses she was designing. This might not be the best season for
stripes
. I would look
like a circus tent, and we would certainly need more material for the winter gowns once I was showing.

“Rose…” This was proving more difficult than I thought.

“Ellen, the way you go through slippers! You used to be able to make one pair last for two years!”

“Well, they were made of sterner stuff. Rose…”

“What about the green slippers edged in silver lace for the pink gown? No, the green may be too dark. You need
something
to temper that dress—if only I had known it was going to be such a
bright
pink.”

“Yes, that sounds perfect. Rose…”

“And a grey feathered hat for your new black walking gown? Something fluffy and grey will offset that dress—otherwise it’s a bit severe.

“Rose…”

“But on rainy days only, you must be sure to wear it on rainy days—not the pastel gowns you are always dragging through the mud, Ellen. Grey is lovely in the rain.”

This wasn’t going to work.

“Rose! I had thought this would be welcome news—a bastard, of course, but welcome!”

“It is happy! I am happy!” Her brown eyes grew bright with tears.

“You don’t
look
happy.” I was watching her pace about the room—window to chaise, chaise to window.

“I just wish … Oh, Ellen.” She dropped heavily onto the tufted armchair and began picking at the fraying fabric—the dogs are destroying that chair. “I worry that I won’t ever, can’t ever…” Her words dissolved into sobs.

“Of course you can, Rose; it just takes time,” I said, sounding trite. I felt selfish; I’d had no idea she wanted a child so badly.

“You don’t understand, Ellen … the things we did to get rid of them. We couldn’t, we just
couldn’t
have them.”

I looked at her, horrified. “You mean you … on purpose? How?”

She took a deep steadying breath. “Lots of ways: herbs, emetics, purgatives, if you caught it early enough … and if you didn’t, then you just … well, you just
had
to. Everyone did it. So many times. And now, when I want one so much, I can’t.”

“Rose, you will,” I said, kneeling beside her and trying to sound confident. I brushed her loose curls off her face.

“No, I won’t. I can’t. And it is right. A punishment,” she said dully, blowing her nose.

“No, you can’t be punished for something you did when you were little more than a child yourself.” I was surprised at the conviction in my voice—inwardly, I grieved for her and was hurt that she had not
told
me.

“Yes, you can,” she said flatly. “You can always be punished.” There was no doubt in her voice, only regret.

Charles came for supper, and it was a forced, awkward affair. I did not bring it up. He did not bring it up. He returned to sleep in the castle. London tomorrow.

To Lord John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, Le Marais, Paris

From Mrs. Ellen Gwyn, Newman’s Row, London

Dearest Johnny,

Please do not take it amiss that I write so seldom. You are ever in my thoughts and are missed, by me, by the king, by everyone. Charles loves you—you must know that—but is saddened by your wildness. You are exiled out of exasperation and not anger. He does not understand the blackness at the bottom of you. Nor do I. All I can do is love you with all the light I possess. I hope you are well, my dearest. Your lovely wife has not been to town, but I have heard from Savile that she is well at Adderbury. I am glad of it. We are all waiting for you to come home.

Dearest, what do I do? The king bids me to leave the stage, and I do not know how. It is not that the stage is my heart, for he is my heart, but the stage is my courage. I do not know how to enter the world as myself without it. He loves me, and
I fear I am impossibly ordinary without the magic that happens in the dark of that great room. It will be my undoing, and he cannot and will not understand it.

I am ever and ever your,

Ellen

Ghosts are abroad tonight as the legends go. I feel I am becoming one of them. After a blazing row I have yielded to the king’s wishes and have accepted no roles this season—a truce, for now. I am writing this in the little curved window-seat in my bedroom. The fire has died down and the house is asleep, but I cannot stop running over and over tonight’s exchange with the king.

“I will not have it!” Charles roared, knocking a small blue vase off the mantel. It rolled on the carpet, scattering the spaniels, but did not break. He did not notice, and I did not move to pick it up. This was truly the first time I had ever seen him lose his temper. “I would sooner shut down the theatre, both theatres, all theatres!” He struggled for patience and took a long breath. When he spoke, his voice had a cool sharpness, like a winter blade. “I gave the theatre patents, and I can revoke them just as easily,” he menaced. I found his quiet malice more devastating than his hot rage.

I believed him and shuddered to think of my friends disbanded and Tom ruined. I shifted Ruby onto my lap in the yellow silk armchair. Think! Think! No. There was no recourse, and I must accept, but try as I might I could not make my lips form the words. No sound came, and so I closed my mouth like a goldfish.

“Ellen, don’t you see,” he said, kneeling in front of me on the thick carpet. “If anything happened to you … last time you survived, but this time, what if…”

“How did you know?” I asked, astonished. “How did you even know there was a last time?” Only a handful of people ever knew there was a baby. Teddy, Tom, Mother, Rose, Hugh, Cook…

“Barbara.”

“Barbara!” I had not expected that answer. I slowly puzzled it together:
Hart
must have told Barbara Castlemaine, and Barbara told the king—it was just the kind of juicy unfortunate sort of story she would be eager to pass on. But Hart … How could he? How could he discuss something so private and so painful with that horrible woman?

“She told me out of concern,” he said solicitously, guessing my thoughts.

I rolled my eyes. Barbara Castlemaine only concerned herself with one person. Why? Why would she tell him? She said it to keep him out of my bed! I turned quickly to face Charles, still kneeling on the rug. “Did
she
suggest we sleep apart until after the baby is born?”

“Well, no, yes … in a way, but not a suggestion, really, more of a caution. She has, after all, had five children.”

“And did you stay away from her bed during all those pregnancies?”

“No, naturally not, but then she was saying how delicate you are, and then she told me about your baby—your baby baptised Elizabeth.”

I drew my breath in sharply, stunned that Hart would share such a detail, and squeezed my eyes shut against the answering bright white pain. Charles took my hands gently, as if they were as fragile as robin’s eggs.

“Barbara told me that you nearly died when you lost that baby,” he said simply. “That was enough for me … nothing would make me risk you. It matters not at all what else she said.”

“Oh, Charles,” It was not our child he worried for—his concern was for
me
. I immediately softened towards him. “I wouldn’t do anything to endanger myself or the baby. It was a carriage accident. It could happen to anyone.”

“I couldn’t bear it, Ellen,” he whispered, holding me tightly. “Please, for me. I just couldn’t bear it.”

“I won’t,” I promised. “Not while I am carrying our child, I won’t.”

I lit a candle, as I do every year, for my dead: Father, Great-Aunt Margaret, Theo, lost baby Elizabeth…

I have become an unpleasant person. Tom and Teddy are disappointed, and I find I cannot discuss my distress with them. I roam reasonlessly about the theatre. I feel without anchor or purpose. I feel jealousy born of idleness and am snapping at everyone. I harbour undeserved and unbridled anger for Hart, who is currently enjoying a short country holiday.

All I have is Charles and our baby, who does not even exist yet. I am riddled with envy for his wife, his children, his ministers … He is to be my whole life, but I am only to be a small part of his. I rage at the unfairness. I feel diminished, less, as if I am dissolving a little more each day. “Go back,” my heart whispers. But I promised.

Barbara is gone; Moll is vanquished; I suppose I am now
maîtresse en titre,
but no one refers to me as such. As always, I remain Ellen. But I am less Ellen than I ever was before.

Charles went off to St. James’s Park for his morning constitutional, and I was left amongst the familiar debris: coffee cups, news sheets, dog bones, a forgotten tennis racquet, a book by Thucydides left face-down with the spine broken, papers and more papers, and half dismantled clocks. I must remember to tell Mrs. Lark not to disturb the pieces of this particular clock, or Charles will be cross—he has been working on it for two days.

I took myself downstairs so that the chambermaids could tidy up and roamed from room to room. The building work is nearly finished, and I could hear the carpenters, Mr. Lark, and Grandfather up on the second floor discussing plumbing for the new water closet. The broad books of fabric samples and paint colours and furniture designs were all lying out on the dining room table, where we left them last night. So far we have decided on periwinkle blue, pale gold, and creams for the formal drawing room—but
have yet to order the furniture—and luscious reds for Charles’s closet, for which we have ordered two deep armchairs, a bookshelf, a writing table, and a chaise longue. I am too superstitious to design the nursery yet, and Charles agrees.

I was too agitated to think about furniture and wandered out onto the front steps—yes, scandalous: a pregnant, unmarried actress and chief mistress of the King of England lounging about her front stoop in her dressing-gown. I squinted into the morning sunshine and saw Aphra come hurrying down the street. I raised my hand in greeting. She would not be shocked by such immodesty.

“You’ll freeze!” she scolded. “Inside, inside!” she said, herding me back into the house.

The dogs heard sounds of intruders and began to bark, setting off Molly, who is nearly full grown and makes a sort of nasally croaking squawk. I led Aphra though the noisy animals into my small downstairs sitting room (one of the few furnished rooms on the ground floor). I rang the bell for coffee and victuals, as Aphra shed her light coat and pulled off her stylish black hat.

“Like it? Madame Sophie. Lady Herbert sent it back, and so she sold it to me for half off.”

I giggled at my friend’s ever-unabashed economising.

“My dear, I hope I don’t offend, but you look dreadful. Sort of grey and unloved. Is something the matter?”

Trust Aphra to recognise a sickness of soul rather than body.

“Is it the king?”

I shook my head no.

“Your mother?”

My wild drunken mother perversely appealed to Aphra’s sense of female independence. Again, I shook my head. “I’m just not myself. I’ve been foul to everyone. I have agreed to give up the stage, and it grieves me in a way that I do not understand.”

“Why should you not understand it?” she said briskly. “Of course you are grieved. You carved out a shiny sliver of life for yourself—just you—and now you must give it up and become someone else.” She shrugged dismissively. “Your sparkle came from your secret, Ellen. When we are young, very young, if we are lucky, we believe that we are guaranteed a special place in
the world, all our own. It is only when we find out that there is no such place unless we scratch it out with our own hands that our lights begin to dim.”

“My secret?” I asked, not following.

“You were yourself by your own right. However much it may have looked like you were in someone’s possession. That was your great secret. That is why you sparkled beyond all others. You were free.”

After Aphra had gone I mulled over what she had said. It is a grief, I thought. A grief for having lost something I did not care to lose. He prefers me not to act … but must I give up my theatre altogether? The performance is but a small part. I quickly wrote a note to Tom.

“Wrap up, Ellen; it is chilly,” Grandfather said, standing at the door of the church. In fact, it was not cold but a balmy autumn day, warmed with remembered summer. Dutifully, I pulled my green muffler around me.

“You do realise that I have six months to go?” I teased affectionately. Grandfather is also terrified I will miscarry again and run into danger.