Now the actors and actresses must come back and make their bows.
“Nelly!” cried the pit. “Come, Nelly! Take a bow, Nelly!”
And so she came to the apron stage, flushed in her triumph; and if her acting was not equal to that of Mrs. Ann Marshall, her dainty beauty found an immediate response.
Nell lifted her eyes and met those which belonged to a man who leaned forward in his box. His dark luxuriant curls had fallen forward slightly. It was impossible to read the look in the sardonic eyes.
But for those few moments this man and Nell looked at each other appraisingly. Then she smiled her impudent orange-girl smile. There was the faintest pause before the sensuous lips curled. Others in the theater noticed. They said: “The King liked Nelly in her new part.”
Now Nell was well known throughout London. When people came to the King’s Theater they expected to see Mrs. Nelly, and, if she did not appear, were apt to ask the reason why. They liked to see her dance and show her pretty legs; they liked to listen to her repartee when someone in the pit attacked her acting or her private life. They declared that to hear Mrs. Nelly giving a member of the audience a rating was as good as any play; for Nell’s wit was sparkling and never malicious except in self-defense.
There were many who believed she was well on the way to becoming the leading actress at the King’s Theater.
Often she thought of the King and the smile he had given her. She listened avidly to all news of him. It was a great thing, she told herself, to perform before the King.
Elizabeth Weaver, one of the actresses, had a tale to tell of the King. Elizabeth held herself aloof, living in a state of expectancy, for once the King had sent for her. Nell had heard her tell the tale many times, for it was a tale Elizabeth Weaver loved to tell. Nell had scarcely listened before; now she wished to hear it in detail.
“I shall never forget the day as long as I live,” Elizabeth told her. “My part was a good one, and a beautiful dress I wore. You reminded me of myself when you played Cydaria. Such a dress I had….”
“Yes, yes,” said Nell. “Have done with the dress. It’s what happened to the wearer that interests me.”
“The dress was important. Mayhap if I had another dress like that he would send for me again. I’d played my part; I’d taken my applause; and then one of the footmen came backstage and said to me: ‘The King sends for you.’”
“‘The King sends for you.’ Just like that.”
“Just like that. ‘For what?’ I said. ‘For what should the King send for poor Elizabeth Weaver?’ ‘He would have you entertain him at the Palace of Whitehall,’ I was told. So I put on a cloak—a velvet one, one of the company’s cloaks; but Mr. Hart said to use it since it was to Whitehall I was to go.”
“Have done with the cloak,” said Nell. “I’ll warrant you weren’t sent for to show a cloak!”
“Indeed not. I was taken to a grand apartment where there were many great ladies and gentlemen. My lord Buckingham himself was there, and I’ll swear ’twas my lady Shrewsbury with him and …”
“And His Majesty the King?” said Nell.
“He was kind to me … kinder than the others. He is kind, Nell. His great dark eyes were telling me all the time not to be afraid of them and the things they might say to me. He said nothing that was not kind. He bade me dance and sing, and he bade the others applaud me. And after a while the others went away and I was alone with His Majesty. Then I was no longer afraid.”
Elizabeth Weaver’s eyes grew misty. She was looking back, not to the glories of Whitehall, not to the honor of being selected by the King, but to that night when she was alone with him and he was just a man like any other.
“Just a man like any other,” she murmured. “And yet unlike any that I have ever known. He gave me a jewel,” she went on. “I could sell it for much, I doubt not. But I never shall. I shall always keep it.”
Nell was unusually quiet.
She is waiting, she thought, waiting and hoping that the King will send for her again. He never will. Poor Bessie Weaver, she is no longer as pretty as she must have once been. And what has she ever had but her youthful prettiness? There are many youthful pretty women to surround His Majesty. So poor Elizabeth Weaver will go on waiting all her life to be sent for by the King.
“A sorry fate,” said Nell to herself. “Give me a merry one.”
But she often found her thoughts going back and back again to the King who had smiled at her; and in spite of herself she caught her breath when she asked herself: “Will there ever come a day when the King will send for Nelly?”
In the days following her success as Cydaria, Nell reveled in her fame. She would wander through the streets smiling and calling a witty greeting to those who spoke to her; she liked to stand at the door of her lodgings, watching the passersby; she would stroll in St. James’ Park and watch the King and his courtiers at the game of pelmel, in which none threw as the King did; she would watch him sauntering with his courtiers, feeding the ducks in the ponds, his spaniels at his heels. He did not see her. If he had would he have remembered the actress he had seen at his playhouse? There were many to watch the King as he walked in his park or rode through his Capital. Why, Nell asked herself, should he notice one young actress?
But each day she hoped that he would come to see her perform.
Fate was against Nell then. She was ready to rise to the top of her profession, and suddenly the happy life was no more.
During the weeks which followed the production of The Indian Emperor there were rumors in the streets. The Dutch were challenging England’s power on the high seas. That seemed far away, but it proved capable of altering the course of a rising young actress’s life. When Nell saw a Dutchman whipped through the streets for declaring that the Dutch had destroyed the English factories on the coast of Guinea, she was sorry for him. Poor fellow, it seemed harsh punishment for repeating a tale which proved to be false. But a few days later England declared war on the Dutch, and then she began to realize how these matters could affect her life. The theaters were half empty. So many of the gallants who had sat in the pit and the boxes had gone to fight the Dutch on the high seas; the King came rarely to the theater, having matters of state with which to deal; and since the King did not come, neither did all the fine ladies and gentlemen. Thomas Killigrew, Michael Mohun, and Charles Hart, who had shares in the theatrical venture, began to look worried. Charles Hart recalled the days of the Commonwealth when it had been an offense to act, and actors had been deprived of their livelihood. Those were grim days, and even Nell’s naturally high spirits were quelled by acting to half-empty houses and by a lover turned melancholy. Yet, ever ebullient, she prophesied a quick defeat of the Dutch and a return to prosperity. But that April there occurred an even more disastrous event than the Dutch war. Like the Dutch war it had broken gradually upon the people of London, for even towards the end of the year 1664 there had been rumors of deaths in the Capital which were suspected of being caused by the dreaded plague. With the coming of the warm spring and summer this fearful scourge broke out afresh. The gutters choked with filth, the stench of decay which filled the air and hung like a cloud over the city, were the best possible breeding conditions for the terror; it increased rapidly, and soon all the business of the town was brought to a standstill. A short while ago Nell and her companions had played to half-filled houses; now they had no audiences at all. None would dare enter a public place for fear that someone present might be infected. The theaters were the first places to close and Nell was deprived of her livelihood. Charles Hart was plunged into melancholy, more at the prospect of being unable to act than because of the danger of disease. He declared that they must leave London and go farther afield. In the sweeter country air it might be possible to escape infection.