MISTRESS NELL

The Illustrations Shown in this Edition are Reproductions of Scenes from the Photo-Play of “Mistress Nell.” Produced and Copyrighted by the Famous Players Film Company, Adolf Zukor, President, to whom the Publishers Desire to Express Their Thanks and Appreciation for Permission to use the Pictures.

Nell Gwyn the King’s Favorite.

MISTRESS NELL

A MERRY TALE OF A MERRY TIME

(T’wixt Fact and Fancy)

BY

GEORGE C. HAZELTON, Jr.

Author of the Play

“Let not poor Nelly starve.”

ILLUSTRATED WITH SCENES FROM THE PHOTO-PLAY PRODUCED AND COPYRIGHTED BY THE FAMOUS PLAYERS FILM COMPANY, ADOLPH ZUKOR, PRESIDENT.

NEW YORK

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1901, by Charles Scribner’s Sons All rights reserved

A WORD

It is the vogue to dramatize successful novels. The author of the present Nell Gwyn story has pursued the contrary course. His “merry” play of the same name was written and produced before he undertook to compose this tale, suggested by the same historic sources.

A word of tribute is gratefully given to the comédienne, Miss Crosman, whose courage and exquisite art introduced the “Mistress Nell” of the play to the public.

CONTENTS

“And once Nell Gwyn, a frail young sprite, Looked kindly when I met her; I shook my head perhaps–but quite Forgot to quite forget her.”

It’s near your cue, Mistress Nell!

He took them from Castlemaine’s hand to throw to you.

Flowers and Music feed naught but Love.

It was never treason to steal a King’s kisses.

Softly on tiptoe; Here Nell doth lie.

Come down! Come up!

“And the man that is drunk is as great as a king.”

Three chickens!

Arrest him yourself!

In the field, men; at court, women!

Beau Adair is my name.

For the glory of England?

He loves me! He loves me!

I come, my love; I come.

Ods-pitikins, my own reflection!

The day will be so happy; for I’ve seen you at the dawn.

MISTRESS NELL

A MERRY TALE OF A MERRY TIME

1MISTRESS NELL

“And once Nell Gwyn, a frail young sprite, Look’d kindly when I met her; I shook my head perhaps–but quite Forgot to quite forget her.“

It was a merry time in merry old England; for King Charles II. was on the throne.

Not that the wines were better or the ladies fairer in his day, but the renaissance of carelessness and good-living had set in. True Roundheads again sought quiet abodes in which to worship in their gray and sombre way. Cromwell, their uncrowned king, was dead; and there was no place for his followers at court or in tavern. Even the austere and Catholic smile of brother James of York, one day to be the ruler of the land, could not cast a gloom over the assemblies at Whitehall. There were those to laugh merrily at the 2 King’s wit, and at the players’ wit. There were those in abundance to enjoy to-day–to-day only,–to drink to the glorious joys of to-day, with no care for the morrow.

It was, indeed, merry old England; for, when the King has no cares, and assumes no cares, the people likewise have no cares. The state may be rent, the court a nest of intrigue, King and Parliament at odds, the treasury bankrupt: but what care they; for the King cares not. Is not the day prosperous? Are not the taverns in remotest London filled with roistering spirits who drink and sing to their hearts’ content of their deeds in the wars just done? Can they not steal when hungry and demand when dry?

Aye, the worldly ones are cavaliers now–for a cavalier is King–e’en though the sword once followed Cromwell and the gay cloak and the big flying plume do not quite hide the not-yet-discarded cuirass of an Ironside.

Cockpits and theatres! It is the Restoration! The maypole is up again at Maypole3 Lane, and the milk-maids bedecked with garlands dance to the tunes of the fiddle. Boys no longer serve for heroines at the play, as was the misfortune in Shakespeare’s day. The air is full of hilarity and joy.

Let us too for a little hour forget responsibility and fall in with the spirit of the times; while we tipple and toast, and vainly boast: “The King! Long live the King!”

Old Drury Lane was alive as the sun was setting, on the day of our visit to London Town, with loungers and loafers; busy-bodies and hawkers; traffickers of sweets and other petty wares; swaggering soldiers, roistering by, stopping forsooth to throw kisses to inviting eyes at the windows above.

As we turn into Little Russell Street from the Lane, passing many chairs richly made, awaiting their fair occupants, we come upon the main entrance to the King’s House. Not an imposing or spacious structure to be sure, it nevertheless was suited to the managerial purposes of 4 the day, which were, as now, to spend as little and get as much as may be. The pit was barely protected from the weather by a glazed cupola; so that the audience could not always hear the sweetest song to a finish without a drenching, or dwell upon the shapeliness of the prettiest ankle, that revealed itself in the dance by means of candles set on cressets, which in those days sadly served the purposes of foot-lights.

It was Dryden’s night. His play was on–“The Conquest of Granada.” The best of London were there; for a first night then was as attractive as a first night now. In the balcony were draped boxes, in which lovely gowns were seen–lovely hair and lovely gems; but the fair faces were often masked.

The King sat listless in the royal box, watching the people and the play or passing pretty compliments with the fair favourites by his side, diverted, perchance, by the ill-begotten quarrel of some fellow with a saucy orange-wench over the cost of her golden wares. The true gallants preferred being robbed to haggling–for the shame of it.

5A knowing one in the crowd was heard to say: “‘Tis Castlemaine to the King’s left.”

“No, ’tis Madame Carwell; curse her,” snarled a more vulgar companion.

“Madame Querouaille, knave, Duchess of Portsmouth,” irritably exclaimed a handsome gallant, himself stumbling somewhat over the French name, though making a bold play for it, as he passed toward his box, pushing the fellow aside. He added a moment later, but so that no one heard: “Portsmouth is far from here.”

It was the Duke of Buckingham–the great Duke of Buckingham, in the pit of the King’s House! Truly, we see strange things in these strange times! Indeed, William Penn himself did not hesitate to gossip with the orange-wenches, unless Pepys lied–and Pepys never lied.

“What said he?” asked a stander-by, a butcher, who, with apron on and sleeves to elbow, had hastily left his stall at one of the afternoon and still stood with mouth agape and fingers widespread waiting for the play. Before, however, his sooty companion 6 could answer, they were jostled far apart.

The crowd struggled for places in eager expectation, amid banter none too virtuous, whistlings and jostlings. The time for the play had arrived. “Nell! Nell! Nell!” was on every lip.

And who was “Nell”?

From amidst the players, lords and coxcombs crowded on the stage stepped forth Nell Gwyn–the prettiest rogue in merry England.

A cheer went up from every throat; for the little vixen who stood before them had long reigned in the hearts of Drury Lane and the habitués of the King’s House.

Yea, all eyes were upon the pretty, witty Nell; the one-time orange-girl; now queen of the theatre, and the idol of the Lane. Her curls were flowing and her big eyes dancing beneath a huge hat–more, indeed, a canopy than a hat–so large that the audience screamed with delight at the incongruity of it and the pretty face beneath.

7This pace in foolery had been set at the Duke’s House, but Nell out-did them, with her broad-brimmed hat as large as a cart-wheel and her quaint waist-belt; for was not her hat larger by half than that at the rival house and her waist-belt quainter?

As she came forward to speak the prologue, her laugh too was merrier and more roguish:

“This jest was first of the other house’s making, And, five times tried, has never fail’d of taking;

.......

This is that hat, whose very sight did win ye To laugh and clap as though the devil were in ye,

.......

I’ll write a play, says one, for I have got A broad-brimm’d hat, and waist-belt, towards a plot. Says the other, I have one more large than that, Thus they out-write each other with a hat! The brims still grew with every play they writ; And grew so large, they cover’d all the wit. Hat was the play; ’t was language, wit, and tale: Like them that find meat, drink, and cloth in ale.“

8The King leaned well out over the box-rail, his dark eyes intent upon Nell’s face.

A fair hand, however, was placed impatiently upon his shoulder and drew him gently back. “Lest you fall, my liege.”

“Thanks, Castlemaine,” he replied, kindly but knowingly. “You are always thoughtful.”

The play went on. The actors came and went. Hart appeared in Oriental robes as Almanzor–a dress which mayhap had served its purposes for Othello, and mayhap had not; for cast-off court-dresses, without regard to fitness, were the players’ favourite costumes in those days, the richness more than the style mattering.

With mighty force, he read from the centre of the stage, with elocution true and syllable precise, Dryden’s ponderous lines. The King nodded approvingly to the poet. The poet glowed with pride at the patronage of the King. The old-time audience were enchanted. Dryden sat with a triumphant smile as he dwelt upon his poetic lines and heard the cherished syllables receive rounds of applause from the Londoners.

9Was it the thought, dear Dryden; or was it Nell’s pretty ways that bewitched the most of it? Nell’s laugh still echoes in the world; but where are your plays, dear Dryden?

10CHAPTER II

It’s near your cue, Mistress Nell!

The greenroom of the King’s House was scarcely a prepossessing place or inviting. A door led to the stage; another to the street. On the remaining doors might have been deciphered from the Old English of a scene-artist’s daub “Mistress Gwyn” and “Mr. Hart.” These doors led respectively to the tiring-room of the sweet sprite who had but now set the pit wild with a hat over a sparkling eye and to that of the actor-manager of the House. A rough table, a few chairs, a mirror which had evidently seen better days in some grand mansion and a large throne-chair which might equally well have satisfied the royalty of Macbeth or Christopher Sly–its royalty, forsooth, being in its size, for thus only could it lord-it over its mates–stood in the corner. Old armour hung upon the wall, grim in the 11 light of candles fixed in braziers. Rushes were strewn about the floor.

Ah! Pepys, Pepys, was it here that you recalled “specially kissing of Nell”? Mayhap; for we read in your book: “I kissed her, and so did my wife, and a mighty pretty soul she is.” Be that as it may, however, you must have found Nell’s lips very agreeable; for a great wit has suggested that it was well that Mrs. Pepys was present on the occasion.

On great play-nights, however, this most unroyal room assumed the proportions of royalty. Gallants and even lords sought entrance here and elbowed their way about; and none dared say them nay. They forced a way even upon the stage during the play, though not so commonly as before the Restoration, yet still too much; and the players played as best they could, and where best they could. Billets-doux passed, sweet words were said,–all in this dilapidated, unpretentious, candle-lighted room.

At the moment of which we speak, the greenroom was deserted save for a lad of 12 twelve or fourteen years, who stood before the mirror, posing to his personal satisfaction and occasionally delivering bits from “Hamlet.” He was none other than “Dick,” the call-boy of the King’s House.

The lad struck a final attitude, his brow clouded. He assumed what seemed to him the proper pose for the royal Dane. His meditations and his pose, however, were broken in upon by the sudden entrance of Manager Hart, flushed and in an unusual state of excitement.

“Where is my dagger, Dick?” he exclaimed, pacing the room.

The boy came to himself but slowly.

“What are you doing? Get my dagger, boy,” wildly reiterated the irate manager. “Don’t you see there will be a stage-wait?” He cast an anxious glance in the direction of the door which led to the stage.

“Where did you leave it, sir?” asked the lad, finally realizing that it would be wise not to trifle at such a time.

“Never mind where I left it. Get it, get it; do you hear! Nell’s on the stage 13 already.” Hart rushed to the door and looked off in an increasing state of excitement.

“Why, you’ve got your dagger on, sir,” hesitatingly suggested the lad, as he caught the gleam of a small scimiter among the folds of Almanzor’s tunic.

Hart’s face flushed.

“Devil take you, boy,” he exclaimed; “you are too stupid ever to make an actor!”

With this speech, the manager strode out of the greenroom toward the stage.

Poor Dick sank back in an attitude of resignation. “How long, O Rome, must I endure this bondage?” he said, sadly.

He again observed his boyish figure in the mirror, and the pretty face brightened as he realized that there might still be hope in life, despite Manager Hart’s assertion that he would never be able to act. His features slowly sank into a set expression of tremendous gloom, such as he thought should characterize his conception of himself as Hamlet when in days to come the mantles of Burbage and 14 of Betterton should be his and Manager Hart must bow to him. He stood transfixed before the glass in a day-dream, forgetful of his ills. His pretty lips moved, and one close by might have heard again, “To be or not to be” in well-modulated phrase.

“Ah, boy; here!”

Dick started.

It was a richly dressed gallant, in old-rose with royal orders, who had entered the room quietly but authoritatively from the street–the same lordly personage we observed in the pit. His manner was that of one accustomed to be obeyed and quickly too. The lad knew him and bowed low.

“Tell Mistress Nell, Buckingham would speak with her. Lively, lad; lively,” he said.

“She is on the stage, my lord,” replied Dick, respectfully.

“Gad, I thought otherwise and stepped about from my box. Here; put these flowers in her tiring-room.”

The boy took the beautiful bouquet 15 of white roses. “Yes, my lord,” he replied, and turned to do the bidding.

“Flowers strewn in ladies’ ways oft’ lead to princely favours,” muttered his lordship, thoughtfully, as he removed his gloves and vainly adjusted his hat and sword. “Portsmouth at Dover told me that.”

It was apparent from his face that much passed before his mind, in that little second, of days when, at Dover Castle not long since, he had been a part–and no small part–of the intrigue well planned by Louis of France, and well executed by the Duchess of Orléans assisted by the fair Louise, now Duchess of Portsmouth, in which his own purse and power had waxed mightily. Whatever his lordship thought, however, it was gone like the panorama before a drowning brain.

He stopped the lad as he was entering Nell’s tiring-room, with an exclamation. The boy returned.

“You gave Mistress Nell my note bidding her to supper?” he asked, questioningly.

16“I did, my lord,” answered Dick.

“’Sheart, a madrigal worthy of Bacchus! She smiled delightedly?” continued his lordship, in a jocular mood.

“No, my lord; quite serious.”

His lordship’s face changed slightly. “Read it eagerly?” he ventured, where he might have commanded, further to draw out the lad.

“Yes, my lord,” added Dick, respectfully, “after a time.” The boy’s lids dropped to avoid revealing his amused recollection of the incident; and his lordship’s quick eye noted it.

“Good!” he exclaimed, with an assumed triumphant air. “She folded it carefully and placed it in her bosom next her heart?”

“She threw it on the floor, my lord!” meekly answered Dick, hiding his face in the flowers to avoid revealing disrespect.

“My billet-doux upon the floor!” angrily exclaimed his lordship. “Plague on’t, she said something, made some answer, boy?” The diplomat was growing 17 earnest despite himself, as diplomats often do in the cause of women.

Dick trembled.

“She said your dinners made amends for your company, my lord,” he said, meekly.

Buckingham’s eyes snapped; but he was too clever to reveal his feelings further to a call-boy, whom he dismissed with a wave of the hand. He then swaggered to the table and complacently exclaimed: “The rogue! Nelly, Nelly, your lips shall pay tribute for that. Rosy impudence! Buckingham’s dinners make amends for his company? Minx!” He threw himself into a chair, filled with deep reflections of supper and wine, wit and beauty, rather than state-craft.

Thus lost in selfish reflection, he did not observe, or, if he did, cared not for, the frail figure and sweet face of one who cautiously tiptoed into the greenroom. It was Orange Moll, whose sad countenance and tattered garments betokened a sadder story. Her place was in the pit, with her back to the stage, vending her 18 oranges to artisans, girls with vizards or foolish gallants. She had no right behind the scenes.

“I am ’most afraid to enter here without Nell,” she thought, faint-heartedly, as she glanced about the room and her eyes fell upon the great Lord Buckingham.

“Oranges? Will you have my oranges? Only sixpence, my lord,” she ventured at length, then hesitatingly advanced and offered her wares; but his lordship’s thoughts were far away.

“What shall we have for supper?” was his sole concern. “I think Nelly would like spiced tongue.” Instantly his hands and eyes were raised in mock invocation of the intervention of the Powers that Be, and so suddenly that Moll drew back. “Ye Gods,” he exclaimed aloud, “she has enough of that already! Ah, the vintage of―”

It was more habit than courage which brought to Moll’s trembling lips the familiar orange-cry, which again interrupted him: “Oranges; only sixpence. Here is one picked for you, my lord.”

19Buckingham’s eyes flashed with anger; he was not wont to have his way, much less his pleasure, disturbed by the lowly. “Oh, hang you, you disturb me. I am thinking; don’t you perceive I am thinking? Begone!”

“Only sixpence, my lord; I have not sold one to-night,” pleaded the girl, sadly.

His lordship rose irritably. “I have no pauper’s pence,” he exclaimed. “Out of my way! Ragbag!” He pushed the girl roughly aside and crossed the room.

At the same instant, there was confusion at the stage-door, the climax of which was the re-entrance of Hart into the greenroom.

“How can a man play when he trembles for his life lest he step upon a lord?” cried the angry manager. “They should be horsewhipped off the stage, and”–his eyes falling upon Buckingham–“out of the greenroom.”

“Ah, Hart,” began his lordship, with a patronizing air, “why is Nelly so long? I desire to see her.”

Hart’s lips trembled, but he controlled 20 his passion. “Indeed? His Majesty and the good folk in front would doubtless gladly await your interview with Mistress Eleanor Gwyn. Shall I announce your will, my lord, unto his Majesty and stop the play?”

“You grow ironical, friend Hart,” replied his lordship.

“Not so,” said the actor, bowing low; “I am your lordship’s most obedient servant.”

Buckingham’s lip curled and his eyes revealed that he would have said more, but the room was meantime filling with players from the stage, some exchanging compliments, some strutting before the glass, and he would not so degrade his dignity before them. Dick, foil in hand even in the manager’s room, was testing the steel’s strength to his utmost, in boyish fashion.

This confusion lent Moll courage, and forth came again the cry: “Oranges? Will you have my oranges? Only sixpence, sir.”