Читать книгу Nell Gwyn - A Decoration - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 10

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Mrs. Nelly, standing among the fallen oranges, flushed with her wordy warfare, dishevelled too, all asparkle as it were, in her rags, hesitated, like a surprised bird, not knowing where to fly, and a little delayed by impudent curiosity, by a rather gallant impertinence.

And the glittering train of gentlemen, brought to a standstill by this tumult, surveyed the cause of it with ironic smiles.

The foremost of these gentlemen was the King himself.

Mrs. Nelly knew him at once, and felt a certain pleasure in gazing at him thus full.

Many a peep she had had at him from pit or portico or from the obscure corner where Orange Moll had driven this most ragged of her handmaidens, but never so face to face.

Now she could gaze at him to the full, for he remained motionless, gazing at her with a quizzical look, and the faint laughter of the nobles behind him was stilled by his silence.

Mrs. Nelly suddenly stooped, picked up one of the fallen oranges, wiped it on her skirt, and offered it to His Majesty; it would be difficult to say how pretty she was, mighty pretty, roguish pretty, with her uptilted nose and her wide mouth and her riot of yellow curls and her humble look of frightened mischief.

"What is this medley?" asked the King in a harsh voice that sounded weary, "a riot before the Play house?"

"Will Your Majesty buy an orange?" murmured Mrs. Nelly.

"One that has been in the gutter, eh?"

"Sir, it is none the less sweet for that"—she ventured a smile—"and I would be glad of the sixpence." Her mouth drooped. "I have lost all my wares in the battle."

"Give her sixpence, Jack," said the King gravely to the gentleman behind him; he took the orange as he spoke and walked on to the Play house.

Mrs. Nelly found her basket and picked up the oranges to fill it, the while, however, looking over her shoulder at His Majesty who walked so slowly and so gravely away.

A very personable man was His Majesty and in every way remarkable in any company and any place.

Not only was he tall, above the heads of any companions, but well made, and of a most stately carriage and of a most curious Italianate swarthiness with harsh features, and eyes as dark as night, fine melancholy eyes, double fringed by black lashes.

To-day he wore stiff brocades of purple and silver, the rich blue ribbon of the Garter, and carried a cane from which hung golden ribbons; as he reached the pillars of the Play house portico, he turned slowly and looked again, unsmiling, at Mrs. Nelly, and Mrs. Nelly, unsmiling, looked up at him, from the mud where she was picking up her fruit.

When he had gone into the theatre the orange girl gave a sigh of relief, and then catching Orange Moll's severe and angry eye on her, slipped into the crowd with her solitary sixpence.

She would rather relinquish the hope of further gain than provoke the beldame by the sight of her mud and tatters, and with her peculiar lightness that no rags or broken shoes could impede, she darted off into the mazy alleys of the Lane which were to her so familiar.

Down one of the vilest of these courts called the Coal Yard, Mrs. Nelly ran, and pushing open a battered door, found herself in a dark and dirty room where an old woman was setting a rush light on the table.

Squalid and shamelessly poor as the wretched room was, it did not lack some homely comfort; a scant but sturdy fire of sea coal burnt on the open hearth, a pot hung above, a settle was drawn close; on a shelf and in the window place were a few cracked dishes and bright jugs of slip and blue spot ware. A rag protected this same window from both curiosity and the draught, and a curtain of no better appearance screened two truckle beds in an alcove.

The smile of Mrs. Nelly lit this poor place with a more cheerful light than the beams of the poor rush light, as she put her basket of golden fruit on the table.

"Back so soon?" commented the old woman in a tone of good-natured surprise and rebuke. "And all your oranges unsold, my dear?"

"I've sixpence," replied the girl gaily, "a Royal sixpence, but I've been in a brawl and they'll never see me into the pit with so much dirt on me—"

Mrs. Gwyn did not trouble to inquire into the nature of this brawl.

"No need to go back to the Play house to-night, Nelly," she replied. "I've a good supper—they gave me a fine platter of broken meats at 'The White Horse' to-day."

Mrs. Nelly went over to the pot and snuffed the odour that came hence with approval; her mother helped in the kitchen of a humble tavern for her food and a few white pieces, and it was a lucky day when she was given the additional largesse of sufficient scraps to make a savoury mess.

"Lord," said Nelly, forgetting the mud splashes on her face and indeed all the evening adventure, "it has a goodly smell—there is real meat there, Mother—indeed the smells from the doors of 'The Peacock' are no better."

Mrs. Gwyn listened with pride to this praise of her cooking, adjusted the rush in the oil (for, though the fair radiance of the spring evening held without, it was dark enough in the Coal Yard) and brought down some of her chipped crockery.

"I should like to have supper at 'The Peacock,'" she remarked, "they say that 'tis fit for the King—"

"And it is as likely that you would sup with the King as at 'The Peacock,'" grinned Nelly. "All the brave gentle folk go there, ruffling and swaggering—Lord!" she suddenly looked down at her feet, "I had better be bare foot than in there!"

"Put your sixpence to your savings," said Mrs. Gwyn, ladling out the stew. "Surely you've nearly enough to buy shoes now."

The girl patted the worn and greasy wallet that hung at her waist.

"Ah, but I'll have a pair of fine shoes, Mother, and a pair of good hose, warm and neat—and I'll never touch the money till I've enough to buy 'em, never fear."

"Your fine feet," replied Mrs. Gwyn, "will go ill with your ragged skirts—now who is that at the door? Did you ever know me cook a toothsome supper but that it didn't attract some of the neighbours?"

The door was pushed quietly ajar and two lean and pallid faces looked into the room.

"'Tis Dickon and Tom!" cried Mrs. Nelly heartily. "And both hungry, I'll warrant you!"

"Come in," added Mrs. Gwyn, "and share the pot—there's a drop of ale in the cask yet, and two lights after that's burnt through—"

The two old men, shamefaced and yet pleased, hurried in, eager for the fire and the food; the twilight April air was sharp for those so ill clad, and neither had earned any money to-night at putting planks across the puddles, calling chairs, hailing watermen or any of the other miserable expedients by which they contrived their wretched existence.

Mrs. Gwyn welcomed them warmly, with real delight in being able to offer hospitality and give pleasure, and Nelly between mouthfuls of the savoury stew promised them a gigue.

"Gigues are all the fashion," said she. "Every night in the Play house you may see one—they say that a good gigue will save a bad play, and Lord, there be plenty that want saving!"

She kicked off her tattered shoes and danced a gigue on the slate floor, by the light of the rush to the audience of the two old men.