The rival queens, p.8
The Rival Queens, page 8
Her debt now had already gone up ten shillings. For the lodging, the gaol fee, the bed fee, the overnight fee, the food fee. It was never ending.
She stood up and took a few steps round the room. Lord, but these chains weighed a ton. Rattle, rattle, clink, clink, every time she scratched an eyebrow. She was glad there wasn’t a glass in the room. She dreaded to think what she must look like. There were more chunks of make-up perched in her cleavage and sprinkled round the floor than there could possibly be left on her face.
She wondered what Alpiew was doing. The thought of that pert little miss as a player! She imagined Alpiew would be rather good. The Countess remembered that player friend of Charles’s, Nell Gwyn. She was a pert little miss, too. The woman might have been a perfect ignoramus, but no one could deny she was a fine player, and had the figure for it.
Downstairs she heard a door bang. Then footsteps. Perhaps she had a visitor. Or maybe it was another prisoner, come to break the monotony. She applied her ear to the door and listened.
‘I spoke to the Justice,’ said a gruff male voice. It was not the bailiff, the Countess was sure. ‘About the Anne Lucas business…’ The Countess tried to hold her breath to hear better.
‘And?’ That was her gaoler, the bailiff’s wife.
‘I was worried at first. There’s no creature so obstinate as a godly man.’
‘You didn’t take it to Justice Moore?’
‘Justice Moore!’ The man laughed. ‘What kind of fopdoodle do you take me for? I went to Ingram.’
‘And you reminded him of his…interests?’
‘He understood your problem. He could see that having a crime like that committed upon your very doorstep—for to tell true, ’tis only a spit away from here—would be a worry to you.’
So the bailiff’s wife was worried by the proximity of the killing!
‘So what’s he going to do?’
‘He said he would look into it.’
‘Look into it!’ spat the bailiff’s wife. ‘Phough, what good is that? ’Twould only make matters worse. Too many other people will get hurt.’
‘Calm yourself.’ The gruff man pitched his voice even lower. ‘He will get the matter wrapped up, finished, closed.’
‘That sounds easier than it is.’ The bailiff’s wife now took to whispering: ‘…Too many interested parties. Where will he lay the blame?’
‘There are many choices,’ said the man. ‘Another player, perhaps, a vagrant…anyone.’
‘Best find some itinerant.’ The woman seemed calmed. ‘No one would care if they saw one of those swindling fellows dancing on the end of a rope. Jack and I can get that sorted. The watch pick them up by the hour.’ She started to walk downstairs again, the man following. ‘Tell one of your fellows to get me a weapon to lay upon the fellow, to prove his guilt for all the world to see.’
Then the front door slammed, and the Countess could hear the bailiff’s wife start singing to herself as she flicked a duster round the house.
When Alpiew and Rebecca arrived at the theatre quite a few people were gathered, but the rehearsal had not begun. Rebecca went to the tiring room to prepare herself.
Mr Rich was sitting in a box smoking a pipe. Alpiew approached him.
‘Mr Rich, sir?’
Rich peered at her. ‘Yes?’
Alpiew lowered her voice: ‘I wondered whether you could give me an advance against the puffs?’
Rich let out a snort. ‘You jest, I presume?’
‘Nine guineas?’ Alpiew looked eagerly at him. ‘Or a loan, perhaps, which I could also set against the puffs?’
‘No.’ He slammed his fist down on the ledge and growled. ‘You deliver—then I pay, and not a penny more than our agreement. Understood?’ He shouted the last word.
On stage a boy balanced on a rickety step-ladder was slowly lighting the candles on two huge wooden chandeliers over the stage. He let out a squeal as the ladder toppled precariously. Alpiew ran to steady it, glad to have an easy exit from the awful Mr Rich. Once the boy was stable again, Alpiew looked down from the stage into the pit.
Mr Cibber, already in his costume and make-up, was sitting on a bench preening himself, silently mouthing his words. Alpiew jumped down and slid along the bench beside him.
‘Mr Cibber,’ she began.
‘Mrs Alpiew’—he smiled his famous smile, and flicked at his lace cuffs—‘what can I do to assist you?’
‘It’s a difficult matter, Mr Cibber.’
‘I know.’ He nodded sympathetically. ‘Nerves are bad enough when you are a trained professional…’
‘No, it’s not nerves.’ Alpiew got in quickly before he started a lecture on how he’d spent so many months preparing himself for his role. ‘I will only be holding Mrs Montagu’s train. But you are a very successful actor, and a writer too…’
‘Modesty,’ Cibber beamed, ‘prevents me from denying it.’
‘I hear that your last benefit brought in a tidy sum…’
‘Oh yes. The house was packed. Must have got eighty guineas.’
‘So could you oblige me, sir, by lending me nine guineas? I can repay you within a month.’
‘When I admitted to being successful…’ He fiddled with his cravat. ‘I don’t mean I have any ready money…Overheads, you know. I have a wife to support, and children.’
‘I don’t ask for a gift, Mr Cibber, merely a loan. Might we say against the puffs…?’
‘Oh, look at the time!’ He pulled out his pocket watch. ‘I must learn these lines.’ His face was still fixed in his professional smile as he sidled out of the auditorium.
‘How did you do that?’ Rebecca was staring down at her from the stage. She was in thick stage make-up, sardonic expression drawn upon her visage. ‘He never leaves the pit during rehearsal.’
‘I don’t know.’ Alpiew shrugged. ‘I only asked him for a loan.’
‘A loan from that hunks!’ Rebecca exploded with laughter. ‘He is as tight as a nun’s fundament, my dear. Wouldn’t lend you the rag he’d wiped his arse with.’ She sat down, swinging her legs from the side of the forestage. ‘How much do you need?’
‘My mistress has overlooked the Poor Rate for a few years…’ Alpiew gulped. ‘Nine guineas.’
‘Oh. Now I understand. The visit!’ Rebecca put her hand into her pocket. ‘I take it the bailiffs have got her?’
Alpiew nodded.
‘Then run along. Get her out and both of you come back here as quickly as you can. Which lock-up?’
‘A sponging house at Charing Cross.’
‘Free her and be back here within an hour.’ She handed Alpiew the cash and climbed back up on to the stage. Alpiew gazed with awe at the money in her hand. Rebecca had given her ten pounds. The actress clearly understood the rising predicament of a debtor.
‘Hurry along.’ Rebecca was standing again, flouncing out her skirts for maximum effect. ‘I want you back here without delay.’
‘To rehearse carrying your dress?’
‘I’m sure you will be able to manage that without much practice. But this afternoon rehearsals are to be cut short.’ Rebecca stooped and spoke in a low voice. ‘Mrs Lucas is being buried this evening at St Giles in the Fields. I know you wouldn’t want to miss the funeral.’
After Alpiew had paid off the debt and garnishes as well as the fee and the Countess was released from her chains, she started to talk at once.
‘So Rebecca told me…’
The Countess shook her head and rolled her eyes.
The bailiff’s wife was in the corner of the room writing out a release note.
Alpiew started again. ‘I am going to go on but not in a speaking role…’
The Countess had a wild coughing fit, still shaking her head, her eyes glaring wildly.
‘What’s the matter, madam? Are you unwell?’
‘Ah, Alpiew, I cannot wait to get out in the open air. To go to my dear home and lay my head down peacefully, away from all talk…’
‘Ah,’ said Alpiew. ‘That will be impossible, for a few hours at least, because Mrs Lucas is –’
The Countess lurched across the room and almost knocked Alpiew to the floor. ‘Oh, poor Alpiew, have you stumbled? Dear me. Let me help you to your feet.’ She started talking in a weirdly deliberate fashion. ‘Then—you—and—I—can—go—home—quietly—together.’ The Countess flicked her eyes in the direction of the bailiff’s wife.
Alpiew put her finger to her lips, finally understanding. ‘Yes—madam—you—are—right.’
‘Here you are –’ the bailiff’s wife turned to face them. She held the vital piece of paper aloft, waving it in the air to help the ink dry. ‘You are free to go, Countess.’
By the time they arrived at the theatre, the rehearsal had come to an end. Rich stood on the stage in the midst of the actors, their make-up gleaming with sweat in the heat of the many candles illuminating the stage.
‘You wish to go on doing these long-winded plays.’ Rich clapped his hands together. ‘But I tell you the public don’t want it. We won’t make a profit with this bombast.’
‘It keeps them going well enough at the other house…’ George was raising his voice, slurred with the leery tone of a couple of brimmers of sherry already downed.
The Countess, delighted to be free, slid along a baize-covered bench at the back of the pit with Alpiew. On the walk from the sponging house they had told each other all developments, and were now separately lost in thought, while the actors had some sort of policy discussion with their manager.
‘I only tell you,’ said Rich, in the kind of voice normally saved for addressing children, ‘that the addition of a rope-dance between the scenes and a short dance by a troupe of performing dogs in the last act will better attract the crowds.’
‘You cannot seriously’—Cibber was looking tight-lipped—‘put a dancing dog into the last act of Nat Lee’s famous verse tragedy.’
‘Why, pray? It would stand in place of the dance by Indians.’
The players stood gaping in disbelief.
‘Why such astonishment?’ Rich flicked a stray thread from the front of his jacket. ‘William Shakespeare employed just such tricks and diversions in all his plays.’
‘Precisely why no one does them any more,’ said Cibber, ‘and why I am having to rewrite Richard III to suit more modern tastes.’
‘I tell you, Mr Rich, if a dancing dog makes an appearance either before or after my great speech’—Rebecca stepped forward, a black scowl on her face—‘I will walk from the stage and home to my lodgings, and will never appear here more.’
‘Maybe that would be for the best.’ Rich picked at a fingernail. ‘I seem to remember that Mrs Lucas once made such a threat—and look what became of her.’
The assembled company fell silent for a moment, then Rebecca lurched forward and fell upon Rich, battering his chest with both fists. ‘Vile villain! Foul, filthy, murdering toad.’
‘Mrs Montagu –’ Rich threw her to the floor. ‘Might I remind you that women players are two a penny. Look how little time it took me to fill Lucas’s role.’ He pointed to an artless blonde standing simpering near Cibber. ‘Women of a certain type want to get on the stage. Some of them would gladly pay me for the opportunity. They see it as a shop-window for their…shall we say, their “charms”.’
Cibber took a step away from the buxom wench.
‘You yourself, Mrs Montagu, have made a tidy profit advertising yourself on these boards…’ Rich pouted and imitated Rebecca’s famous stamp.
‘How can you talk like this?’ Rebecca started battering him again. ‘You are talking about a woman who has only a few days past been robbed of her life, and to whose funeral we will shortly repair.’
‘Rebecca is right,’ said Cibber. ‘I think you should make an apology.’
George entered the fray. ‘Calm yourself, madam.’ He pulled Rebecca from Rich. ‘Ladies should not kill but with their eyes.’
‘Stand off, you drivelling drunkard,’ snarled Rebecca. ‘Or I’ll scratch your eyes out.’
Cibber had drifted upstage, off the playing apron and past the proscenium arch. He wandered in and out of the painted scenery flats. ‘Let us continue with the business at hand, Mr Rich.’ Standing at the far end of a long faux perspective of a castle hall, he looked like a giant. ‘Might I suggest that, since you have already removed yards from the front of the stage so as to cram more of the paying public in the pit, you will certainly make more of a profit without the deployment of the prancing canine comedians.’
‘This once, perhaps.’ Rich continued to brush down his expensive velvet jacket. ‘No doubt the tragic loss of Mrs Lucas will drag the curious to our theatre anyhow.’ He smirked, then turned and looked down at the Countess and Alpiew. ‘Whenever our two friends from the Trumpet get around to mentioning it in their column, the public will be queuing round the block.’
Alpiew flushed. Nothing inclined her less to puff than this hideous display of avarice and self-interest.
‘Perhaps, Mr Rich, you should put it in your playbills, and plaster it over every post in Town.’ The Countess rose and surveyed the assembly. ‘“Drury Lane Theatre—hotbed of greed, corruption and murder!” Listen. The bells are ringing six. Alpiew and I intend to attend Anne Lucas’s funeral, and to be there on time. I expect neither the priest nor the upholders will wait for you. So if you wish to pay your respects to a poor dead woman who was only yesterday your friend and colleague, I suggest you leave with us now.’
The entire company turned and looked down at the Countess. ‘I might note that not one of you seems the least upset. Where are the tears that brim so artfully at each tragedy’s denouement? Where are the breast-thumpings and the heart-rending cries you are so famed for? None of you cares a damn. Poor little Anne Lucas has been brutally murdered and still you squabble over trifles.’ She grabbed Alpiew’s hand. ‘Or are you saving up your emotions for public display in the graveyard?’
Rich jumped down into the pit. ‘Not so fast, ladies.’ He leapt over the green benches and stood blocking their exit. ‘You have an agreement with me…’
‘Hold your clack, you maw-wallop,’ said Alpiew, taking the Countess’s elbow and marching onwards. ‘We have no agreement with anybody. Prithee let us pass, or we will call a constable and have you charged with false imprisonment.’
Rich did not move.
‘You heard her, you uncivil toad. Make way.’ The Countess shoved him aside.
Alpiew tugged the door open.
A muscle was twitching in Rich’s cheek as he took a sideways step and allowed them through the door.
Rebecca swung out behind them. ‘I will share a hackney coach with you, ladies, if I may?’ She smiled, and pointed down the road. ‘The nearest stand is that way. Walk on. I will catch you.’
As Alpiew and the Countess descended the steps to the street, Rebecca turned and faced the other actors now emerging behind her.
‘She wants to get rid of us for the moment, I think,’ said the Countess, glancing back over her shoulder. ‘What’s happening now?’ The Countess faced the other way, and whispered, ‘Watch and note everything. I will pretend not to see while I look for a hackney cab.’
Alpiew also feigned looking up the street while whispering a commentary. ‘Rebecca whispers to Rich. Rich shakes his head in reply. Rebecca gestures exasperation and moves on to Cibber, who gives a shrug and pulls his pockets inside out. Ouch! Rebecca has slapped him roundly across the chops.’ She turned back to face the Countess. ‘Lord, milady, she seems to wallop anyone who comes in her sphere.’ She slyly sneaked another look back. ‘Rebecca moves on to George, who holds out his hand to her. She takes something, then, inspecting it, laughs and throws…some coins to the floor. He seems to be giving her money…’
‘Perhaps she can’t afford a hackney coach any more than we can.’ The Countess chortled. ‘Madam Hoity-Toit.’
‘Oops!’ Alpiew grabbed the Countess by the arm and steered her briskly down Drury Lane. ‘She’s heading our way.’
‘There’s one,’ Rebecca called in her throaty voice, hailing a hackney and holding a hand out for the driver to stop. She held the carriage door open for the Countess then moved to speak to the driver. ‘St Giles, please, by way of Little Hart Street.’
‘I have forgot my mourning ring,’ she explained, climbing in, then the horse trotted off into Covent Garden. ‘I cannot be seen at Anne Lucas’s funeral without a mourning ring.’
The Countess pressed Alpiew’s foot with her own.
Outside her home, Rebecca jumped out and slapped the side of the coach. Before the Countess and Alpiew knew it, the cab moved off, without waiting. Alpiew stuck her head out of the window and screamed up at the coachman to halt.
‘She said not to wait,’ he yelled back.
‘Oh lord, Alpiew!’ The Countess clutched her pocket. ‘Have we money enough?’
The driver turned round and peered into the cab. ‘That’s that actress, ain’t it? Tell you who I drove once…What’s his name? The Italian singer with no nuts…’
‘Signior Fideli?’ suggested the Countess, referring to a celebrated castrati who had recently taken the town by storm.
‘That’s the fellah. Nice chap. Big tipper.’
‘Really!’ The Countess watched Alpiew count out the pence on her lap.
When they arrived at the church the Countess peered out. Despite the drizzle the public were already pressing round the lych gate. Alpiew clambered out and looked up at the driver. ‘How much?’
‘Nah,’ he smirked. ‘Roxana already paid me.’
‘Who?’
‘Rebecca Montagu—she that plays Roxana so famously.’
Trying not to look surprised, the two women walked towards the churchyard as the hackney rattled away towards Seven Dials. ‘What’s she after?’ hissed Alpiew.
‘Don’t ask me,’ said the Countess as they pushed through the crowd, heading for the gate. ‘It seems to me that everyone even vaguely related to this business has something to hide.’
