Читать книгу Nell Gwyn - A Decoration - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 11

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Surely neither the Duke's nor the King's Play house could have offered a prettier spectacle for any man's diversion than this that was offered to this poor audience in this poor place.

Mrs. Nelly danced on the slate floor, by the rush light, to the music of her own singing, as fleetly as any maid on the sedgy banks where Pan pursued Syrinx into the shape of the sad green reeds.

Well she knew the steps of the new French dances and well adapted them to her own mischievous grace.

It was more than little Nelly Gwyn dancing to three wretched denizens of the Lane, it was Youth and Gaiety and Loveliness, sweetly, with a soft compassion, soothing the pains of Age and Sorrow and Want.

And who was Mrs. Nelly?

Her world was one that asked no such questions; to the Lane she was Mrs. Nelly, still half a child, who was always ragged, often hungry, but always kind and always gay, the daughter of a woman who washed the dishes in a tavern, and of Heaven knew what obscure man, who at any rate was dead now and troubled no one.

And Nelly had been born in the Coal Yard and grown up in the Lane and sold oranges in the pit of the Play house since she was fourteen.

And what of Nelly's audience?

They, too, were driftage of the Lane, driftage of London, Mrs. Gwyn with her shrewd, haggard face, down at heel, sharp tongued, jolly Dickon with a patch over his eye and given to queer sicknesses contracted in foreign seas, who had once helped fight the Dutch in great battles over the North Seas where the proud, beautiful ships battered each other over the tumbling waves, and Tom, who had been in Tangiers with Colonel Kirke and been cast off with a wooden leg which he now stumped cheerfully in time to the gigue danced by little Nelly.

Tom could remember Worcester where he had beaten the drums for the King, but he was not as old as his grey hairs, fallen face and shaking limbs proclaimed; hardship, illness and hunger had wrought this havoc on the poor soldier more fiercely than the years.

They sat round the little fire and the little pot and drank their small beer with relish, and nodded and smiled at the dancing and thought of other days of bravery, of flags and cannonading, of high seas and the fights on the red slippery decks when the grappling irons gripped foe to foe.

The quivering rush light cast their hunched monstrous shadows behind them, leaping darker on the dark wall, and the rollicking shade of the dancing girl leaped all over the wretched room.

She stopped suddenly, a little out of breath, and seized on a manchet of bread.

"It is no more than that the King applauds every night," she said with her mouth full, "and danced no better."

"Nor by a prettier wench, I'll swear," said Dickon loyally. "Why will you not try to be a player, Nelly?

"She's impudence enough," grinned Mrs. Gwyn, scraping the pot, "and a light enough pair of heels—"

"And a saucy enough tongue," chuckled Tom, "and a bright enough pair of eyes—"

Nelly kissed her hand in turn to all of them.

"An' if I had a pair of shoes to go in I might go and beg for a part," she answered merrily.

"And as it is," put in her mother, "you'd best be getting back to the Play house and see if you can sell any more fruit to-night instead of idling here."

Mrs. Nelly pulled a wry face.

"I dare not go."

"Dare not?" Mrs. Gwyn stood with the spoon suspended half-way to her lips. "Well, well, I did not know that you were afeared of anything."

"I'm afeared of old Moll's clouts o' the ear," confessed Nelly. "She will have it that I'm too sluttish for the Pit and then just now I was brawling—"

"In a good cause, Nell, in a good cause, no doubt," said Tom stubbornly.

"In a fools' cause," smiled Nelly. "There were two fools, rather, and I must needs help them from being put to a confusion, and in the middle who should come up, God help us, but His Majesty!

"His Majesty!" cried all three.

"And not the first time I have seen him," nodded Nell, "but the first time that he has seen me, dear soul, and what should he do but ask what this brawling mean? And what should I do, poor wretch, but offer him an orange and get sixpence for it!"

"And no check or threat for being in the road and brawling?" asked Mrs. Gwyn anxiously.

Nelly slowly shook her head.

"He looked at me—he looked back at me. But he was not angry."

"Then back to the Play house," said Mrs. Gwyn briskly, "and sell him some more oranges."

"I'm afeared."

"Of the King?"

"No—of Orange Moll—"

"I'll come with you," said Dickon quickly. "I'll put the beldame in her place."

Mrs. Nelly had found an old rag and was vigorously rubbing her face.

"Stay by the fire, poor Dick," she replied, "I'll creep back and see if the Play be over—"

"'Tis early yet," put in Mrs. Gwyn.

"Well, I can wait in the portico a little and maybe I'll sell a few oranges when the quality come out, despite Orange Moll—"

She ran her little fingers like a comb through her curls, picked up her basket, pulled on her broken shoes and ran out; she was indeed so much a child of the streets that she cared not to remain long between any four walls nor in any one place.

And, as well, she was a very moth to the lights of the Play house, and loved to be near there and jostle in the crowd about the doors or in the pit.

The last silver golden light of the day was nearly quenched; the loose clouds had gathered more closely over the town and the light wind that had been driving them inland had ceased.

Nelly, running as quickly as she dared through the dark and the dirt and the rough ways, held out her hand and felt a spot of rain.

And at that she hastened the more, for the Play house was a roofless affair and a heavy shower of rain would send actors and audience packing in a hurry.

Nelly was heartily sorry for this threat of rain, for if a storm came there would be an end to any hope of selling more oranges.

She was rather breathless as she again reached the porticoes of Drury Lane Play house which now showed brightly through the purple twilight with smoky splendour of trailing torch light and the steady yellow refulgence of the inner lamps.

Here on the alert Nelly looked cautiously round, ready to hold her own with hard words and even buffets if need be; her fingers closed round one of her favourite missiles, an orange, ready to cast it at her former assailants should they be lurking in the shadows.

But there was no one there; it was no earthly foe that sent Nelly scampering to shelter, but a sudden mighty fall of rain, a violent drench from the heavy heavens.

Nelly cowered under the portico, for the pearly spears of the rain driven between the pillars slashed bitterly at her ill-clad limbs.

There was a rush from the theatre, a shouting for chairs, a scramble of link men, a giggling of link boys, then the way was cleared a little and the King came out, walking slowly and looking about him through the rain-slashed light.