The Darling Strumpet Part 4

The sisters sat in silence for a few moments. The past was locked away, behind an impenetrable wall. Their mother was the only link to that distant time. But Nell found it impossible to think of her mother as other than she was now-bitter, blowsy, and hard. Was it possible that Eleanor Smith had once been young and happy, had brightened at the sound of her man's footsteps at the door, had had a tender smile for Rose and Nell or ever regarded them as other than a burden? If so, that woman was long dead. And Nell knew that Rose was her only ally in a harsh and unpredictable world.

THE CONVERSATIONS WITH CADE AND ROSE SEEMED TO HAVE OPENED a rift in Nell's mind, a doorway to a rolling mist of fear and sadness. She could not shake off the dark shadows, and for the rest of the day she was weighted with a profound sense of loss and terror.

That night, Nell tossed fitfully before finally slipping into a dream. She was alone in a dark and narrow pa.s.sageway. It might have been the lane outside her mother's home, or the alley where she had spent the night when she had run away, or perhaps it was a place dimly remembered from deeper in her memory. It was night, and a thick fog swirled, obliterating the moon and stars. The wintry wind bit into Nell's bare feet, penetrated the thin rags that covered her. Her teeth chattered in the cold, and she was so hungry that a pit seemed to gape at her very core. An aching loneliness seized her. She knew she would die if she did not find shelter and company.

The fog deepened. She crept forward, reaching out a hand to feel her way. Her fingers sc.r.a.ped along something clammy and hard, like the stone landing steps left bare when the river's tide receded, their surface greened over with the teeming life of the water. The slimy feel of the wall repulsed Nell, but a gust of air blew from the opposite side of the pa.s.sageway and it seemed that some cliff yawned there. She feared that she would fall into oblivion and hugged close to the cold stone.

A shaft of light shot through the darkness. A door had opened ahead, and Nell knew that if she could just get through it, she would be safe. She stumbled forward, clawing at spectral cobwebs that drooped from above. Each step was a battle, and she despaired of getting to the door. But it was close now, the warmth and light beyond it a beacon to her soul, and she could hear voices and laughter within.

She reached the threshold, fingers scrabbling on the cold damp stone. Behind her loomed darkness, the icy and fetid reek of a tomb, and nameless terrors. Another few inches and she would be safe.

The door slammed shut with a reverberating thud.

"No!" The night enveloped Nell's cry. Her hands blindly sought a way to open the door, but its surface was smooth and heavy iron, with no k.n.o.b, no keyhole, no way in. She beat against the door with her fists, but her hardest blows made no noise. Shrieking, begging, she pounded. But nothing happened and no one came.

In that moment of desperation and hopelessness Nell awoke and found herself alone in her bed. She was cold, and clutched the covers around her. She longed for someone to hold her and make all well. Her thoughts went to her mother, and she began to weep.

Erratic, frequently drunk, and occasionally violent though her mother might be, she was the only parent Nell had ever known, and she found that the loss of her mother terrified her even more than the unpredictability that living with her had meant.

She clung to her pillow and sobbed. All the bravery and cheer she had thought she had was hollow. She felt ashamed and an utter failure. In the endless watches of the night, with the world in cold blackness outside the window, she was only a frightened and wretched child.

She went from her room, pushed open the door of Rose's little chamber, and slipped to the side of the bed. Rose was alone, and Nell crept in beside her. She had shared a pallet bed with Rose for most of her life, until Rose had struck out on her own, and it was immeasurably comforting to feel the warmth of Rose's body and smell her scent. Rose stirred.

"What's amiss?"

"I was afeared. A dream."

"All's well. Come to sleep now." Rose drew Nell to her and draped a protective arm around her. Nell nestled closer. Safe in the snug coc.o.o.n of the shared bed, the demons receded and her s.h.i.+vering ceased, and soon she was asleep.

IN THE BRIGHTNESS OF THE MORNING SUN, NELL'S FEARS OF THE PREVIOUS night lost their overwhelming power. She would not go back to live under her mother's thumb. She would see her mother when she could stand proudly, and prove that she had done well for herself. What that might mean, Nell had no clear idea. But she had a new determination. She would be someone to be reckoned with.

THE SUMMER BROUGHT BRILLIANT BLUE SKIES, SUNLIT DAYS, AND balmy evenings. Although the long hours of daylight meant that the crowds at Madam Ross's stayed late, and the hours of sleep were fewer, Nell woke with the dawn. The house was quiet then and the glorious new mornings held the promise of adventure.

One sparkling August morning it occurred to her that she missed the river. She hadn't been near it since her daily sojourns to Billingsgate fish market to buy oysters, and she made her way toward London Bridge. She didn't mind the long walk into the City-she had made it often enough pus.h.i.+ng the oyster barrow, and it was unutterable freedom to dance along unenc.u.mbered.

Shopkeepers were just opening for business, folding down the bulkheads that served as counters by day and shuttered up their shops by night. Street vendors were out in great numbers, their wares fresh and their spirits not yet worn down.

"A bra.s.s pot or an iron pot to mend!" called a man with a bag of tools slung on his back, beating the b.u.t.t end of a hammer on the bottom of a pot.

"Knives or scissors to grind!"

"Delicate cowc.u.mbers to pickle!"

"Fine ripe strawberries!"

The cries of the hawkers rose and mingled in pleasant chaos. A man and a boy sang out in harmony, "Buy a white line! Or a jack line! Or a clothes line!" their words cascading in a catch.

"Buy a fine singing bird!" Nell stopped to admire the pretty little finches a small boy carried in a wicker cage. She was hungry and her attention was momentarily caught by a middle-aged woman balancing a great basket of green muskmelons atop her head, but instead she bought a dipper of milk from a milkmaid, whose buckets were suspended from a wooden yoke over her shoulders. Nell could imagine too well the weight and was grateful she had no buckets, baskets, or barrows weighing her down.

She made her way onto the bridge. She knew of a child-sized gap between two of the houses that crowded the bridge's span, and from this secret perch, she surveyed the scene. London stretched away to the west, its fringes fading into green countryside. The river surged beneath her, the high tide creating powerful eddies around the great starlings that supported the bridge. The boats traveling downstream glided easily, while the boatmen making their way upstream against the current pulled and strained mightily.

Nell watched the pa.s.sengers in the crafts with a mixture of curiosity and envy. She had never been in a boat. Quite apart from the cost, she had never had reason to go anywhere that her own feet could not take her.

She watched two gentlemen getting into a wherry upriver at Three Cranes Stairs. Several more watermen waited for pa.s.sengers, and Nell made up her mind that she would go down there, and perhaps even get into a boat.

As she made her way to the landing stairs, the scent of the river, fresh and alive, stirred her excitement. Three burly watermen were gathered on the stairs, their tethered boats bobbing in the current. A leaping fish broke the surface of the water and then disappeared once more into the greeny depths. The youngest of the men, his dark hair tied into a queue at the back of his head, squinted into the sunlight as he lounged on one of the steps. He c.o.c.ked his head to the side as Nell approached, and the two others broke out of their conversation and turned.

"How much does it cost? To go in a boat?" she asked.

"That depends!" laughed one of the fellows, his face a deep red-brown from years of working in the sun. "Where do you want to go?"

"I don't know," Nell said. "I've never been anywhere."

"It's sixpence for a pair of oars," he began.

"That's 'oars,' now, mind," put in another of the men, "not 'wh.o.r.es.' But perhaps you'd know better than I about the socket money for a brace of bobtails?" The others laughed, but the first waterman swatted the joker with his cap.

"'Ere, leave the girl alone, Pete." He turned back to Nell, his blue eyes startling against the mahogany of his skin. "Pay no mind to 'im, sweeting, 'e has the manners of a dog. It's a twelver to Whitehall, eighteen s.h.i.+llings to Chelsea, three bull's-eyes to Windsor. Half again as much if the tide's against you."

It seemed silly to spend money to get to the other side of the river or to the palace, and even if she had the five-s.h.i.+lling fare to Richmond, what would she do there?

"Another time," she smiled. "I'll take shank's mare today."

"Another time then, sweeting," the man grinned. "When someone else is paying."

CHAPTER FOUR.

IN OCTOBER THE EXECUTIONS OF THREE OF THE MEN WHO HAD instigated the execution of the king's father, King Charles I, were to take place at Charing Cross. The king had spared the lives of dozens, but the few who had been directly responsible for his father's murder would die the terrible death reserved for traitors. A blood thirst seized London, and Nell listened to some lads in the street describing what would happen.

"They'll hang them first," one said. "But not until they're dead-only insensible, like. Then they'll cut them down, still breathing, and carve out their guts and hearts. And then they'll hack their carca.s.ses into quarters, coat them in tar to make them keep, and post them on pikes at all the gates of the City."

THE DAY OF DEATH ARRIVED, AND NELL AND ROSE JOSTLED FOR standing s.p.a.ce around the scaffold. The crowds reminded Nell of the throngs that had welcomed the king only a few months earlier, but the mood was savage and sour. Packs of drunken lads roved, as they had on that spring day, but today they seemed like feral dogs.

Surrounded by tall strangers, Nell could not see anything but a patch of sky above, and suddenly she began to feel that she couldn't breathe. She clutched Rose's hand, fearful of losing her in the crush, and to her shame, she began to shake and cry.

"Let's go," she pleaded. They threaded their way out of the seething mob. Nell fought down a rising sense of panic, and by the time they reached the edge of the crowd, her breath was coming in ragged gulps and her heart was pounding.

She sank to the ground and hugged her knees to her chest, trying to stop her s.h.i.+vering. Rose squatted and peered at her.

"What is it?"

"I don't know," Nell gasped. "I don't want to see it. I'm afraid. Do you mind?"

"No," Rose shrugged. "I've no great desire to watch anyone being butchered."

There was a roar from the crowd. The condemned men must be arriving. It would begin soon. Nell struggled to her feet.

"Let's get away now."

MADAM ROSS'S ESTABLISHMENT WAS FULL TO BURSTING THAT EVENING, and Nell had her first taste of the phenomenon of men who have felt the brush of violent death wanting to deaden the resultant chill by immersing themselves in warm flesh. The men she took to her bed that night were sodden with drink and unusually somber, brutal, or even tearful. All wanted to erase the sights and sounds of the day and to remind themselves that they still lived and breathed.

Jimmy Cade and some of his officer friends came late in the evening, and after he had spent he lay with Nell, stroking her hair and face with unwonted tenderness.

"It had to be done," he said. "There must be severe punishment for a crime as foul as the murder of a king. But it's not a spectacle I'd want to see again. You can't help but feel the blade in your own gut as you watch it going into the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, imagine your own innards being wound out before your eyes, seeing your own blood sluicing over the scaffold."

"Horrible." Nell shuddered.

"And somehow it seemed to me that even worse than the pain was the loneliness."

"How do you mean?" she asked.

"Well, it was the look in Harrison's eyes." Cade paused, remembering. "In the middle of a crowd that stretched as far as you could see. But not a friendly face among them. Voices shouting for his death, the slower the better. And he knew what he was in for. It seemed he tried not to cry out, not to give them the satisfaction."

"But did he cry out?" Nell asked.

"Oh, yes," Cade said. "The fires of h.e.l.l would have been a mercy after that death."

Two more regicides were put to death a day or two later, and another ten within the next few days. The savagery of the executions seemed to have unleashed a wild mood in London.

"Death to all traitors," Nell heard Jack snarl to one of his cronies. "Too bad they didn't keep them another fortnight and do them on the Fifth of November." The other man cackled his agreement.

The next afternoon Nell sat with Ned the barman and Harry Killigrew. It was too early for much business, and though it was freezing cold outside, the taproom was cozy, the flames in the fireplace chasing away the shadows in the corners and reflecting in the dark panes of the windows.

"What's the Fifth of November?" Nell asked Ned.

"Why, it's Guy Fawkes Day," he said. "Sure you've heard of him? A Papist. Tried to blow up King James and all the lords in the House of Parliament, he did. When was it, Harry?"

"Sixteen hundred and five," Harry said. "But they discovered the plot. 'Fawkes at midnight, and by torchlight there was found,'" he quoted. " 'With long matches and devices, underground.' "

"So the king and all were saved," Ned continued, "and Fawkes and the others that had intrigued with him were put to death. It used to be kept as a great holiday, but then you're too young to remember that. In the old days, it was a right party. A great rout of people in the streets, fireworks everywhere. And of course we young 'uns would always build a Guy to burn."

"But not before we got our penny," Harry chimed in. Ned laughed at Nell's blank expression.

"The Guy was a dummy, do you see, meant to be like Guy Fawkes. We would parade it through the streets, crying out 'A penny for the Guy!' And then the Guy would be put into a bonfire. Fires all over London, there were, in them days."

"I'll warrant there'll be a Guy or two this year again," Harry said.

HARRY WAS RIGHT, AND ON THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER BONFIRES LIT the night sky and Guys of wood and straw and cloth blazed at the center of baying crowds. It was a busy night in Lewkenor's Lane, and Harry swaggered into the taproom in company with several other young men, whooping and in high spirits.

"We've done it!" he crowed to the room. "We put the final nail in old Nol Cromwell's coffin tonight!"

"Aye," laughed one of his mates. "We've just given a show at the old Red Bull, with the blessing of the king himself! The theater is back again, and no mistaking."

"You couldn't have chosen a better day for it than Bonfire Night!" Ned called from behind the bar. "Death to killjoys and traitors, and up with merriment!"

Cheers greeted this remark, and the lads were welcomed with slaps on the back and drink all around as they drew up stools and benches around a table. Their jubilation was contagious, and Nell worked her way through the admiring crowd that gathered around Harry and his crew. Rose and Jane had joined them, and Rose made room for Nell on the bench next to her.

"Here's to the King's Men!" Harry raised his tankard and all joined in the toast.

One of the company, a hulking man in his thirties with one squinted eye somewhat lower and larger than the other, who might have looked threatening were it not for the grin that split his face, banged his fist on the table for quiet.

"Here's to His Majesty, who brought us back. And may tonight be the first of many shows to come!" Voices joined in from all over the room. "To His Majesty!"

Ned fought his way through the crowd and set a great jug of ale on the table before the squint-eyed man.

"Walter Clun!" he cried. "I saw you play at the old Blackfriars when I was but a boy. I remember it still-I laughed 'til I came near to p.i.s.s myself."

"Aye, that's me," Clun chortled. "Not a dry seat in the house."

"Wat!" Harry called across the table to him. "Where are the others? I thought Charlie Hart was coming?"

Wat Clun threw up his hands and rolled his eyes heavenward.

"Now there you have me, lad. I told Charlie not to be such a stick-in-the-mud, and to shepherd the old men here on this our night of triumph. But will he now? That is the question!"

"And here's me all this time thinking the question was 'To be or not to be'!"

The voice boomed from the door, and Wat surged to his feet, roaring with laughter.

"Charlie! My own true heart! You've come after all!"

The dark-haired newcomer enveloped Wat in a bear hug and kissed him loudly on both cheeks.

"Aye, I've come, and the other old men with me!"

Hart was indeed accompanied by several men who were noticeably grayer than the lads at the table, but there was nothing old about him, Nell thought. He was about thirty, tall and well built, and the grace and energy with which he moved made her think of the rope dancer she had seen at Bartholomew Fair. His dark eyes shone with happiness as he returned cries of greeting from all sides.

"Who's that?" Nell whispered to Rose and Jane.

"Charles Hart," Rose answered. "He's Mr. Killigrew's leading actor. Mighty fine, isn't he?"

"Fine as a fivepence," Nell agreed.

Tables, stools, and benches were shuffled until all the actors were seated. Nell noticed that the younger men made way for the older, their deference tinged with admiration and affection. Wat Clun turned to Hart.

"Now then, Charlie, what do you say?"

"We've made a good start on it," Hart said. "And I raise my cup to each of you. To John Lacy and to Michael Mohun. Whose light shone through the long dark days. And without whom we'd not be here tonight." The men on either side of Hart acknowledged the murmurs of agreement from their fellows.

Big John Lacy, sitting to Hart's left, surveyed the faces around him. "Back onstage again. I didn't think I'd live to see the day. Here's to you, my old dear friend, and the lord of the dance, Charles Hart! And to His Majesty. G.o.d save the king!"

"G.o.d save the king!" The room echoed with the cry. Nell gazed at the solemn faces of the older actors around the table. For the first time she felt ashamed of her wh.o.r.edom, and she wanted desperately not to have to relate to the players as a wh.o.r.e. She felt sure that they embodied some mystery and wisdom, and she wanted only to be in their company and listen to them. She glanced around the room and was relieved that Madam Ross was nowhere to be seen and that Jack was engaged in a game of dice at a corner table and was paying her no mind.