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“Give over with your teasing, Nell,” she said, “and listen to me. There’s good days coming, and shouldn’t we all share in them?”

“The King’s coming home,” said Rose.

“You two don’t remember the old days,” said Madam Gwyn, lapsing into one of the sentimental moods which often came to her after consuming a certain quantity of gin. Nell found them less tolerable than her other phases, preferring a fighter any day to a maudlin drunkard. But now her keen eyes saw that this mood was a passing one. Her mother was excited. “No, you don’t remember the good old days,” she went on. “You don’t remember the shops in the Royal Exchange, and all the merry girls selling their wares there. You don’t remember seeing the young cavaliers about the streets. There was a sight for you—in their silks and velvets and feathers and swords! There was a life for a girl. When I was your age there was good sport to be had in this old city. Many’s the time I’ve stood at a pillar in St. Paul’s and met a kind and generous gentleman.” She spat. “Kind and generous gentlemen—they went out with the King. They all followed him abroad. But things is different now—or going to be.”

“The King’s coming home!” cried Nell. She was on her feet, waving her arms and bowing. “Welcome, Your Majesty. And what difference are you going to make to two skinny girls and their gin-sodden bawd of a mother?”

“Be silent, Nell, be silent,” warned Rose. “This is not the time.”

“Anytime’s the time for the truth,” said Nell. She eyed her mother cautiously. Madam Gwyn returned her stare. Nell was too saucy by half, Madam Gwyn was thinking; but the girl was too spry to be caught and beaten, and in any case she wanted Nell as an ally now; she herself was the one who had to be careful.

And to think she’s but ten years old, pondered Nell’s mother. Her tongue’s twice that age for all her small body and her child’s face.

Madam Gwyn was filled with self-pity that she, a loving mother, always thinking of her girls, should be so treated by them; with cupidity, in assessing the value of these two girls in her proposed venture; and with admiration for herself because of the livelihood with which she was going to provide them.

“Nelly’s right,” she said placatingly. “It’s always best to have the truth.”

“When the King comes home,” said Rose, “London will change. It’ll be like the old London Ma knew as a girl. And if things change for London, they change for us. But it’s a long time since Noll Cromwell died, and the King is still not home. I can remember, when he died, everybody said, ‘Now the Black Boy will be home.’ But he didn’t come.”

“The Black Boy!” cried Nell. “How black is he? And is he such a boy?”

“It’s his swarthy skin and his way with women. He’s as dark as a blackamoor and always a boy where the girls are concerned,” said Madam Gwyn. She began to laugh. “And Kings set fashions,” she added significantly.

“Let’s wait till he’s here before we line the streets to welcome him,” said Rose.

“No,” said Nell. “Let’s welcome him now. Then if he does not come we’ve had the fun of welcome all the same.”

“Put a stop to those clacking tongues,” said Madam Gwyn, “and listen to me. I’m going to make this place into a nice house for gentlemen … There’s the cellar below, where we’ll put a few chairs and tables, and the gentlemen will come in to take their fill.”

“Their fill … of what?” said Nell sharply.

“Of pleasure,” said Madam Gwyn, “for which they’ll pay right well. I’ll let some of the girls hereabouts come in and help me build up a nice little house, and it’ll all be for the sake of my girls.”

“And a little extra gin,” murmured Nell.

Rose was silent and Nell, who knew her sister well, sensed the alarm in her. Even Nell fell silent. And after a while Madam Gwyn dozed, and Nell and Rose went to the old herring-woman on the corner to help sell some of her wares.

They lay side by side on their pallet. Close to them, on hers, lay their mother. She was fast asleep, but Rose could not sleep; she was afraid; and Nell sensed Rose’s fear.

Nell’s tongue was sharper than Rose’s and Nell was bright enough to know that there were some things about which Rose must be—on account of her two years’ seniority—better informed than herself.

Rose was alarmed at the prospect of the “house” which her mother was planning; and Nell knew that Rose was thinking of the part she would be called upon to play in it. This meant entertaining men. Nell knew something of this. She was so small that she appeared to be younger than she was, but that had not protected her from the attentions of certain men. Her pert face, framed by abundant curls, had not passed unnoticed. On more than one occasion she had been beckoned into quiet places and had gone, hoping to earn a groat or two, for Nell was often hungry and the smell of roasting flesh and hot pies which filled certain streets was at such times very tantalizing; but she had quickly retreated after inflicting kicks and a bite or two, and there had been a great terror within her which she had hidden by her indignant protestations.

“Rose,” she whispered consolingly, “mayhap it won’t come.”

Rose did not answer. She knew Nell’s way of not believing anything she thought might be unpleasant. Nell would play at the pageants and the excitement of the King’s return over and over again, but of these plans of her mother’s which might prove unpleasant she would declare—and believe—they would come to nothing.

Nell went on, for Nell found it difficult to hold her tongue: “Nay, Ma’s house will come to naught. ’Tis many years since there has been this talk of the King’s return. And is he here? Nay! Do you remember, Rose, the night of the storm? That was years and years ago. We lay here clinging one to the other in the very fear that the end of the world had come. Do you remember, Rosy? It had been a stifling hot day. Ugh! And the smell of the gutters! Then the darkness came and the thunder and the wind seemed as though it would tear down the houses. And all said: ‘This is a sign! God’s angry with England. God’s angry with the Puritans.’ Do you remember, Rosy?”

“Aye,” said Rose. “I remember.”

“And then just after that old Noll died and everybody said: ‘God is angry. He sent the storm and now He’s taken old Noll. The Black Boy will be home.’ But that was long, long ago, Rose, and he’s not here yet.”

“It was two years ago.”

“That’s a long time.”

“When you’re ten it’s a long time. When you’re as old as I am … it’s not so long.”

“You’re only two years older than I am, Rose.”

“It’s a great deal. A lot can happen to a girl in two years.”

Nell was silent for a while; then she said: “You remember when the General came riding to London?”

“That was General Monk,” said Rose.

“General Monk,” repeated Nell. “I remember it well. It was the day after my birthday. It was a cold day. There was ice on the cobbles. ‘A cold February,’ everyone was saying. ‘But a hard winter can mean a good summer, and this summer will surely bring the Black Boy home.’”

“And it looks as though it will,” said Rose.

“What excitement, Rosy, when the General rode through London! Do you remember how they roasted rumps of beef in the street? Oh, Rosy, don’t you love the smell of roasting rumps of beef? And there’s one thing I like better. The taste of it.” Nell began to laugh.

“Oh, what a time that was, Rosy,” she went on. “I remember the bonfires—a line of them from St. Paul’s to the Stocks Market. I thought London town was burning down, I did indeed. There were thirty-one at Strand Bridge. I counted them. But best of all were the butchers and the roasting rumps. That was a day, that was. I always thought, Rose, that it was for my birthday … coming so soon after it, you see. All those fires and good beef! I went with the crowd that marched to the house of Praise-God Bare-bone. I threw some of those stones that broke his windows, I did. And someone in the crowd said to a companion: ‘What’s it all about, do you know?’ and I answered up and said: ‘ ’Tis Nelly’s birthday, that’s what it is, though a bit late; but Nelly’s birthday all the same.’ And they laughed in my face and someone said: ‘Well, at least this child knows what it’s all about.’ And they laughed more and they jeered and were for picking me up and carrying me nearer to the bonfire. But I was scared, thinking they might take it into their heads to roast me in place of a rump … so I took to my heels and ran to the next bonfire.”