Ladies in Waiting (21 page)

As the show progressed she began to gain a measure of confidence. He’d never recognize her, and if he did, why, she was such a deft hand at cozening the fond old fool, she’d just spin him some fabulous story and he’d accept it. What could she say, now? Something near the truth—that she was here on the queen’s orders. He’d certainly ask the queen about it himself, and the queen was not adept at lying, but if Eliza could get to her first and give her a little coaching, she’d certainly confirm that she and the ladies in waiting had taken an interest in saving an unfortunate girl from the degradation of the streets. Yes, that had a pious ring to it. Almost assured now, she settled against Nelly and tried to enjoy the show.

I’m as free as ever,
she thought.
Even though my father sits before me, I still manage to do exactly as I please, and the devil take any who stand in my way!

The first act featured a man who played the viol with his feet, which struck Eliza as unnecessary because he had a perfectly good set of hands. His music was atrocious, so perhaps he found people more forgiving of his instrument’s caterwauls when they were produced with the wrong appendages. Then came a man with a pair of marionettes, and he was likely very good, but he spoke in Italian and she couldn’t follow the plot the jigging dolls acted out. Then a man swallowed swords, a woman ate fire, and a dwarf did nothing at all save be diminutive.

Last would come the main act, the Pious Philadelphia.

In front of her, Eliza’s father spoke in querulous tones to his companion, a man whose face Eliza could not see.

“This isn’t at all what I expected, Lord Ayelsworth. The handbill led me to believe this was to be a performance of hymns and devotions, yet all I see are tricks fit for a heathen and freaks of nature.”

The young man pulled at his collar and said, “Believe me, sir, I had no idea. I am as flummoxed as your good self.”

Ayelsworth . . . she knew that name from somewhere. It rushed back to her: the insincere compliments, the blob of ink on his multihued petticoat breeches, the look of terror when she obliquely threatened his cods. It was her most recent suitor!

She hardly recalled him as a distinct entity. So many men had courted her, or tried to, for a day or two at most until she drove them away. He was like every other—vain, egoistic, dandified, a parrot of popular wit without an original thought in his head. What on earth was her father doing with him?

“Ah well, it makes me appreciate a quiet country life . . . and yet it makes me yearn all the more to have a hand in state affairs, so that perhaps in years to come, London and all of England can learn to find pleasure in more decorous pastimes. Why, damnation aside, can you imagine the cost of keeping London alight at all hours of the night? A nation that goes to bed with the sun would save money enough to feed the destitute and fund an army!” Her father shook his head, gray wisps of hair a trembling nimbus in the candle and rushlight. “How long, d’you think, before I can make a difference? You say once you are wed you can get me a position close to His Majesty?”

“In a heartbeat, sir.”

“And I won’t have to do anything . . . degrading?”

“You won’t have to do anything at all. Particularly if all you care for is a job title and access to the king. A sinecure without a salary is as easy to come by as a bawd in a brothel. Er . . . ahem . . . as a novice in a nunnery. Once I marry your daughter you’ll have a real connection to the throne. I’m thirty-third in line, you know. Ah, no, thirty-fourth, because my great-uncle’s new bride has whelped a boy, but you know how precarious childhood is.”

Eliza’s face became ghastly, and she didn’t hear the rest. Marry that poxy Ayelsworth? Was her father mad? Senile?

She almost leaped to her feet on the spot. It had been an easy matter to dismiss him once. Surely she could do it again. Then she remembered her clothes, the hour, and the fact that she was in the company of a woman who, while not exactly a whore, would certainly be taken for one.

It would be a weak position for attack, to say the least.

She took a deep breath, glad she wasn’t wearing boning and busk that would have prevented it. It was vexing, certainly, but she could talk her way out of it as soon as she saw her father under more appropriate circumstances. If necessary, she could even hint that she was on the verge of arranging an even more splendid alliance for herself, or that the queen valued her service too much to let her go for at least another year. Failing that, she could threaten Ayelsworth’s cods again. That did the trick to a nicety almost a year ago. He just needed a reminder.

Somewhat calmer, she settled down to enjoy a round of juggling before Philadelphia came onstage. After all, he couldn’t force her to marry. She had to sign the paper and speak the words, and no manner of threats or cajolement could induce her to say “I do” to simpering, mealy Lord Ayelsworth.

“Are you certain she will marry me, sir?” Ayelsworth asked. “She seemed . . . reluctant before.”

“She was but a child. By now she’s likely struck with the green sickness herself, and eager to be wed. But if not, no matter. I’ve put up with her objections long enough. No one was good enough for her. At that rate I’d never have grandchildren—and proper heirs! What use is a girl, after all, except to get boys?” Eliza’s fists clenched. “Get a few sons on her and she’ll forget she ever objected to you. By then I’ll have the king’s attention and finally put my fortune to some use for this poor benighted nation of ours. For England’s sake, I must have access to the court, and the only way I can do it is by allying Eliza to a nobleman close to His Majesty. You wait, Lord Ayelsworth. In a year or two you’ll see some changes here. No more debauchery and license. Why, I heard the queen was once seen in trousers! Pah! They say she’s barren, too. Perhaps I can convince him to do as Henry did and get himself a good, honest, fruitful English girl for his bed and bride. They say there’s a Frances Stewart . . .”

But supplanting a royal, even an unpopular queen, was treason, and Ayelsworth steered the conversation back to his reluctant wife-to-be. “What if she protests, or pleads her case with the king?”

Eliza heard her good, honest, loving Puritan father laugh and say, “A draft of datura, two strong men to bind and carry her, a fast carriage, and you can have her wedded and bedded before she knows what she’s about. There’s no annulment then. Keep her drugged and you can even get my first grandson for me before she can naysay you. I’ve waited long enough for her to make up her mind. She’s been so carefully raised, almost cloistered, that she fears consummation like the devil. But virginity does no woman any good for long. What’s a treasure that’s never spent, eh? Won’t have my girl be a medlar, rotten before she’s ripe!”

Ayelsworth chuckled and Pious Philadelphia stepped onstage, prim and saintly, as assistants assembled a sort of box around her lower half.

Eliza didn’t know what to do. She wanted to crack their two heads together. She wanted to dissolve into tears. She wanted to flee and she wanted to leap on the stage and denounce her father for a hypocrite who preached goodness but planned to have his daughter drugged, kidnapped, and raped.

But she did nothing, because she realized what she should have known all along: she was powerless.

She might don masculine guise and strut through the night. She might write as well as any male playwright, with her work to be put on by the King’s Company that very autumn. She might have the mind, and the courage, to do anything her heart desired . . . and yet because she was a woman, she could be raped into marriage and, once bound, not be able to do a thing about it.
Why, even the king would take my father’s side,
she thought bitterly.
He needs my father’s money. He’ll forget that I’ve cared for his wife, that he’s danced with me and exchanged pleasantries.

What her father had proposed was not strictly speaking legal, but it was a common enough occurrence. Young girls with fortunes were cajoled, coerced, and yes, even abducted into giving themselves and their fortunes. And most of the time, at least one parent was complicit. Marriages were arranged, and though in theory consent was necessary, in practice a proposal was less a case of
Will you?
than
You will.

“The Pious Philadelphia will now recite from the Bible, beginning with the forty-fifth Psalm,” said the announcer. “She is so holy, so devout, so pure and saintlike in her nature that nothing will distract her from her devotions. As the Christians in Rome prayed with the light of heaven in their eyes even as lions rent their bones, so does Philadelphia ignore mere flesh and keep her mind on higher things.”

“This is more like what I came to see,” Eliza’s father said, and settled back with a saintly air.

“Now we but need three volunteers from the audience, to test her faith. You sir, and you, and yes, you lad, if you can free your hand from your miss’s pocket. Do whatever you wish, gentlemen. I vow she won’t know or care.”

“They’re plants, you can be sure,” Nelly whispered.

The three men crouched and disappeared behind the box that obscured Philadelphia from the waist down. In thrilling, heavenly tones the top half recited:

“
With myrrh, aloes, and cassia your robes are fragrant.

From ivory-paneled palaces stringed instruments bring you joy.
”

From below, hidden, came stirring and sound that indicated something quite worldly was occurring behind the box. Philadelphia kept reciting the psalm, but her breath began to come quickly and her eyes rolled in an extravagant mummery of conflicted pleasure. The audience cheered and loosed loud catcalls, but true to her advertisement, Philadelphia never stopped reciting.

“
Listen, my daughter, and understand; pay me careful heed.

Forget your people and your father’s house . . .
”

A woman was supposed to leave her father with tears and cleave unto her husband and his family, in biblical times as now,
Eliza thought.
Well, I’ve done the first, at least.
She stared hard at the grizzled patriarchal head, hating him, hating herself because she could not hate him as a man hates his enemy, his equal, but only as a slave hates his master, the cur hates the spit boy who puts coals to his paws. Because hating him was the only thing she could do. He had might and money and, for all practical purposes, the law behind him.

Philadelphia’s phrases, rising, gasping, reached her piecemeal through her misery:

“
Then the richest of the people will seek your favor with gifts
. . .

They are led in with glad and joyous acclaim
. . .

I will make your name renowned through all generations; Thus nations shall praise you forever.
”

No, I’m not a slave, not a cur! Woman I may be, but I am man enough to best a worm who would have his own daughter raped to further his designs. I swear on my life, I will never marry that befouled Ayelsworth, or any other man my father may choose. That is not my destiny. Fame! Renown! The praise of the nation! I will be a playwright. I will live my own life, as I choose to live it, Father, in skirts or breeches, in a palace or a gutter, with the money you give me or with the money I earn.

Because I can write damned fine plays, Father,
she thought fiercely to the gray head.
And I warrant I can act in them too.

Furious (and yet still desperately afraid), she posed for herself one final test of her resolution.

“Good lord!” her father said when, belatedly, he realized the mock-holy burlesque Pious Philadelphia was enacting. “What cloaca of vice have we stumbled upon!” His voice drowned out the next biblical piece, the Song of Solomon. “Blasphemy!” he cried as the crowd hissed him down. “Sinners, hellfire awaits you!” He stood and frowned at the audience, which had nothing but contempt for old bugbear Puritans.

“I had no idea, sir!” Ayelsworth said, terrified lest his prize slip away. “Od’s fish, a man can’t even trust the Holy Book these days, I vow!” He tried to steer Eliza’s father away before the man could become any more incensed.

“You’ve disturbed my lady once, sir!” growled a low voice from behind him. “Pray leave this place now, before she has cause for further complaint and you have need of a chirurgeon.”

Eliza stood squarely with her hand on her sword. Her father, without looking up, started to shuffle away, looking suddenly old and diminished.

“Are you a man, sir?” Eliza said. “Do me the honor of looking me in the eye as I chastise your bad manners.”

He looked at her without recognition and tremblingly doffed his high-crowned hat. “I beg your pardon, sir. I’ll be going.”

She stared at him a long moment, then sat down and composed herself as her father and Ayelsworth took their leave.

I can best him,
she thought.
Whatever was I afraid of?

Through the commotion Philadelphia never stopped her throaty recitation as the concealed men kept up their subterranean endeavors below her skirts.

“
The joints of thy thighs are like jewels,

the work of the hands of a cunning workman.

Thy navel is like an round goblet, which wanteth not liquor;

thy belly is like a heap of wheat set about with lilies.

Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins.
”

Eliza looked at pretty, witty Nell and whispered aloud, “I will never marry a man.”

Nell shrugged in agreement. “Why bother?” she said, looking up at her friend. “You have all you need already.”

“Do you mind us leaving now, Nelly? There’s something I need to talk to you about.”