The Greatest Lover in All England Read online

  “My friend Polonius fears Prince Hamlet is mad for love of you, and he wants me to eavesdrop with him while you meet him.” Secure in his role as the evil King Claudius, Dickie Justin McBride spoke to Rosie as if she were, in fact, Ophelia. “But the next scene will be a revelation for everyone.”

  In the next scene, Hamlet passionately rejected Ophelia and ordered her to a nunnery. It was the first scene in which Rosie and Dickie were onstage together, and within the fragile partnership of acting, Dickie could destroy her. He would enjoy that, for Dickie had always loathed Rosie, and he seemed to think that she’d taken special pleasure in duping him. Not even for Sir Danny would he subdue his hatred.

  But as the play had proceeded smoothly, the other actors had lost their earlier wariness and made their support of her, and her mission, clear. He couldn’t harm her without harming the performance, and she warned, “Dickie, if you try to ruin me, I swear…”

  “Me?” Dickie flashed a toothy white grin. “I would do no such thing. Not out of love for you, but because the Chamberlain’s Men would banish me from the boards. Nay, I’ll not trip you up.”

  She didn’t trust him. She didn’t trust the way his eyes danced, and the way he leaned closer to whisper, “Did you see her?”

  “Who?”

  “Why, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth.”

  Rosie had deliberately shut out any thought of the queen. Oh, she knew Queen Elizabeth was out there. That was the whole purpose of her performance. But the presence of a royal spectator added weight to Rosie’s already overloaded mind.

  “Her Majesty sits right in the front row.” Dickie peeked through the curtain. “In the middle.”

  “I expected…” She’d expected the queen to be seated above them in a box of noble proportions.

  Maliciously, he dropped the rest of his poison in Rosie’s ear. “She hasn’t taken her eyes off of you yet. When you are onstage, she sees no one but you.”

  “You jest.”

  “Nay, I do not. Look when you go out. It’s dark out there, but you can see her. You can see the glitter of her eyes as she follows your every move.”

  Uncle Will, Alleyn Brewer, and the actors who played Rosencrantz and Guildenstern gathered around them, preparing to walk out together, and Rosie realized how cleverly Dickie had planned this. Nay, he had to do nothing to demolish her resolve; with one simple phrase he’d planted in her the seeds of her destruction. All she could think about was the queen’s presence. The others moved forward on their cue, but her feet stuck fast to the boards until Dickie jerked her forward by her wrist.

  Aye, he knew well what he had done.

  She had no lines at first, and her eyes adjusted to the light. She didn’t want to look, but her gaze turned unwillingly to the front row.

  Dear God, it was the queen.

  Dickie hadn’t lied. Queen Elizabeth sat in a tall, canopied chair on a dais in the center of the first aisle, surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting. She did not move, and as Dickie had promised, the queen’s eyes glittered. She never took her gaze off of Rosie.

  All the dizziness, all the nervousness, all the stage sickness returned with a rush. Rosie couldn’t hear, couldn’t see.

  When Gertrude spoke, everyone waited, staring at Rosie until she remembered she had a line.

  What line?

  At last, in an undertone, Uncle Will prompted her, and she repeated, “‘Madam, I wish it may.’”

  That was all she had to say for a long time, but people were leaving her. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had already gone. Gertrude exited on her line. Polonius spoke to her and gave her a book, then Claudius spoke, then, oh God, she was alone.

  She was supposed to hold the book before her face and pretend to read, but her hands shook too much. She was supposed to retire to the back of the stage; that she did with haste. Hamlet—Richard Burbage—entered and began his soliloquy. Unobtrusively, Rosie wiped her damp palms on her gown, and offered up a prayer to St. Genesius, the patron saint of actors. It was a prayer not for herself, but for Sir Danny.

  She had to remember her lines. She had to display Ophelia’s emotion. She couldn’t fail, for if she did, Sir Danny would die.

  As he had taught her, she took deep breaths.

  So the queen was out there. So she watched Ophelia. She was no different than any other person in the audience. She wanted to be entertained, she wanted to be sucked into the drama on the stage. Rosie owed her a good performance. She owed everyone here a good performance, and she could almost hear Sir Danny telling her, “They are an audience like any other.”

  Except they weren’t. This was the queen’s own court, and they didn’t scratch, or call out insults to the characters, or whistle their appreciation of a witty line. The eerie silence was not in spite of them. It emanated from them, and nothing, not even the appearance of the ghost, had drawn a sigh.

  “An audience like any other,” Sir Danny’s voice insisted, and the memory of him gave her strength and pleasure.

  Sir Danny had given her Tony. He’d shamelessly schemed and manipulated to unite them. If she was going to lose Sir Danny, it wouldn’t be because of that worm Dickie and his evil stratagem. If she was going to lose Tony, it wasn’t going to be because she failed to be what Sir Danny had taught her to be.

  There had been many good times with Sir Danny, and many bad times, and she’d survived them all. That was what he’d taught her; to survive, to take the best of life and laugh at the worst.

  On cue, she stepped forward and spoke her lines. The vast room echoed when she lifted her voice, intensifying every quaver and crack, and Richard Burbage’s quick nod surprised her.

  Did that mean he liked her delivery?

  Quickly she reviewed the scene in her mind. Aye, Ophelia might be afraid here. She was returning Hamlet’s tokens of affection, while he descended into what appeared to be madness.

  Aye, by accident, she’d played the scene right, and warmth coursed through her veins. Neither Dickie’s mischief nor the queen’s steadfast observation could distract her. She might be performing the part of Ophelia, feeling her emotions, but Rosie wasn’t torn between her lover and her father. Rosie would do her damnedest to have them both.

  “Her Majesty is watching a play.”

  “A play?” Tony glared at Sir Robert Cecil as if he were personally responsible for such nonsense. “Why is she watching a play?”

  “It was planned for today, and it seemed a right good thing to take Her Majesty’s mind off of the Essex situation.”

  Running his hand through his hair, trying to loosen some of the dirt that caked it, Tony nodded. “Of course. How did Her Majesty fare during this difficulty?”

  “She displayed no more concern than she would have with a report of an affray in Fleet Street. She knew London would stand by her.” Cecil might have his quarrels with Queen Elizabeth, but right now his devotion and admiration triumphed. “Yet at the same time she disregarded the food that came to the table, eating nothing but manchet bread and succory pottage all day. If she hadn’t had that posturing actor to entertain her, I doubt she would have eaten that.”

  “Her jester, do you mean?”

  Cecil tucked his lips tight with annoyance, and his eyes shifted away from Tony’s as if he’d just revealed a state secret. “In a manner of speaking.”

  “Should I wait until after the play to give my report?”

  “Her Majesty left instructions that you should be shown into her presence at once upon your return.” Futilely, Cecil brushed at the soil and gunpowder that stained Tony’s clothing, then shoved him toward the dining hall. “You’ll have to go as you are.”

  Tony stepped inside, then closed the door quickly when the noble audience cursed him in annoyance. He stood uncertainly in the aisle and blinked, trying to see his way. The stage blazed with light, but any latecomers to the audience had to stumble around and find a seat—or in his case, find Queen Elizabeth.

  He crept forward, but every time he stepped in front of som
eone they hissed at him, so involved were they in the play. Occasionally he heard a sob, and rolled his eyes.

  A tragedy. The actors were performing a tragedy. How fitting. How he wished he’d arrived later, or earlier, or any time but now when women wept and men snuffled.

  Damn fools. They should have been with him, and they’d understand real tragedy. Glancing at the stage, he saw one man dressed as a warrior, one man dressed as a man and—he looked more closely than he ever had before—a man dressed as a woman. King and queen, he surmised, since both wore crowns.

  The warrior was questioning the king and queen about the death of his father, and his elaborate gestures made it clear he was ready to take his revenge. The king promised he should have it…and a hand smacked Tony on the rump. “Move on, you big lout!”

  Tony moved.

  Seeing an elaborate, canopied chair towering over the front row, Tony worked his way along the jagged rows to reach the queen, stepping on toes and jostling arms. “Your pardon, m’lady. Pardon, m’lord. I beg you, let—”

  “‘They bore him barefaced on the bier.’” A high sweet voice from the stage stopped him in midstep, and he jerked his gaze around to the stage.

  Rosie!

  Had he shouted it out loud? But nay, for none of the courtiers turned to hush him. No one did more than push him at him as they craned their necks to see around him.

  Rosie—his Rosie—stood on the stage. White flowers draped her unkempt brown hair and fluttered from her fingers, her gown was soiled, the weight of sorrow broke the regularity of her features.

  She was the sister of the warrior. It was her father who had earlier died on that stage, and the irony of it smote Tony a crushing blow.

  How could she act such a part when she’d lost one father and would likely lose another?

  Or was she acting?

  She sang, but her voice quavered with each note. “‘And in his grave rain’d many a tear—Fare you well, my dove.’” Her voice broke on the last, and a tear glistened on her cheek.

  The warrior who played her brother looked horrified as only an actor who fears another’s breakdown can look. He boomed out his line, no doubt hoping to shake Rosie from her anguish.

  She replied, apparently as she should, for he calmed a little, but then she handed him some of her flowers and looked deep into his eyes. “‘There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance—pray you, love, remember: and there’s pansies, that’s for thoughts.’”

  And the warrior who played her brother seemed suddenly struck by the same blight that so aggrieved her. His hands shook and when he answered, his voice quavered, laden with tears.

  The king seemed more furious than anguished when she gave him flowers, but the queen sobbed—a loud, manly, hiccuping sob—when Rosie said, “‘I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died.’”

  Someone shoved Tony hard and knocked him through the first row onto his knees. There he knelt, absorbing the sight and sound of his woman as she sang, “‘His beard as white as snow, All flaxen was his poll. He is gone, he is gone.’”

  She opened her hands and tossed the remaining flowers away, and simply watched as they fluttered to the ground. The audience waited, breathless, pitying. Behind him, Tony could hear an occasional muffled sob. Within him, he experienced once more the agony of losing the woman he thought of as his mother. He experienced the grief of losing his father. Her performance resurrected the anguish he’d thought long dissipated, and the tears slipped down his cheeks unheeded.

  And still Rosie stood there, quiescent as one whose life has been sucked from her by the death of another.

  When she finally finished the song—“‘God ha’ mercy on his soul’”—and walked to the curtain, a blast of weeping sounded through the chamber. She drew the curtain back and faced the audience again. With the faith and grace of a martyr about to burn, she said, “‘And of all Christian souls I pray God. God be wi’ you.’”

  Rosie drew the curtain closed behind her and collapsed onto her knees. She’d done it. She’d moved an audience to tears, but at what price to herself? Her heart thrummed with mourning for the father whose ghost had haunted her for so many years.

  Tugging at the chain around her neck, she freed the signet ring. Wiping the tears from her eyes, she looked at the entwined “Es” impressed in the gold. Aye, she mourned him at last, just as she should, and with that he was laid to rest. But mixed with that mourning was her need for Sir Danny. She wanted to hug him. She wanted him to stand as her father at her wedding and dandle her babe on her knee. She wanted to know he was onstage, doing what he loved.

  She wanted to know he was alive.

  “Rosie.” Uncle Will clasped her shoulder. “The other actors will step on you when they come offstage.”

  Wearily, she rose. No wonder she’d never given herself to a role as Sir Danny demanded. Instinctively she realized that it would tear her soul apart and open the dark places for the world to see. She tried to rub the tears off her cheeks, but Uncle Will caught her hands. “Leave be. You’ll truly look like a corpse on the bier.”

  Rosie laughed, a chuckle that cracked in the middle. “Trust you, Uncle, to always think of the play.”

  He swallowed as if tears clogged his throat. “You made me proud.” He led her to the bier in the corner and helped her lie down. “You made Sir Danny proud.”

  “I wish he knew.” Her tears flowed again as she arranged her gown and hands. “I wish somehow he could have seen this.”

  Onstage the action went on. Gertrude announced that Ophelia had drowned. Hamlet came to a fresh-dug grave and spoke with the gravedigger. Then Claudius, Gertrude, Laertes, Cedric as the priest, and every spare actor gathered around Rosie as part of Ophelia’s funeral procession.

  “We’re going out now, Rosie,” Cedric whispered. They lifted the bier, and her prostrate form swayed with their stately steps as they entered the stage.

  As the corpse of Ophelia, Rosie had only to lie perfectly still with her eyes closed while Laertes and Hamlet fought over the right to be chief mourner at her funeral. She listened as the priest spoke, then Laertes. Off to the side, Hamlet spoke not at all, although he was supposed to come closer and speak.

  But no one said a word. The silence loomed loud, then Rosie felt it—a ripple of interest flowing through the audience like a draft of fresh air. Footsteps echoed across the boards, coming closer. Rosie couldn’t understand the anticipation that flowed from the cast, nor the feeling of suspense which prickled along her skin.

  Someone stood over her. She tried to peek through the tiniest slit in her eyelids, but shadow concealed his face. Then he spoke Hamlet’s line in familiar, beloved tones. “‘What, the fair Ophelia!’”

  Emotions—amazement, jubilation, exultation—burst forth inside her. She sat up on the bier and reached out. “Dada!”

  Sir Danny fell to his knees and clutched her as if she were the most precious thing in the world. They hugged and kissed, father and daughter united again, laughing and crying, rocking together.

  Onstage, Uncle Will blew his nose on a big kerchief. Alleyn knocked his wig and crown off wiping the tears off his face. The others nudged each other and sniffled, and Dickie…Rosie didn’t care about Dickie.

  Grabbing Sir Danny by the hair, she looked for bruises on his face, then picked up his hands and examined them. He looked thin, but healthy, and she demanded, “How?”

  “Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.” He nodded toward the canopied throne. “She arranged it.”

  “You’re here? You’re free?”

  “With her good grace.”

  Rosie looked toward the row of chairs and half rose in thankfulness, then realized—the play! But no one seemed to care. The audience was crying, laughing, and clapping, involved in the story unfolding before their eyes and forgetting the fiction that had earlier absorbed them. All sense of tragedy had vanished, and nothing would restore it now.

  With a smile, Rosie chided Sir Danny. “You disrupte
d my performance, Dada.”

  “And a stellar job you were doing, too.” He beamed proudly, then added softly, “I always knew you had grand emotions welling inside you, begging for release. You’ve proved yourself the equal of every actor here.”

  “And proved you were right.”

  “There is that.”

  He tossed his hair back, and Rosie thanked God that prison hadn’t killed the vanity in him.

  Footmen flung open the doors and lit candles on the wall, and the glow extended throughout the room. Sir Danny assisted Rosie off the stage and toward the canopied chair where Her Majesty sat, a smile curving her thin lips. Jean, Ann, and Lady Honora surrounded her. With gestures and smiles, Jean and Ann tried to indicate what Rosie should do, but Rosie didn’t need to be instructed. She fell to her knees before the queen and bowed her head in total reverence. “Your Majesty, my deepest thanks for releasing Sir Danny from that prison.”

  “Thank Sir Danny.” Queen Elizabeth’s voice surprised Rosie. Rosie had expected depth and majesty, and instead she heard a thin, old woman quaver. “He bought his life with his honesty, and his liberty with his medical skill.”

  Rosie slanted a look at Sir Danny, beside her on his knees. Adoration, confusion, and conceit warred on his countenance. Whatever Sir Danny had done, he’d done well, and Rosie’s heart swelled with pride for him. He’d always believed in his own magnificent destiny, and he’d proved himself at last.

  “But I let him watch the play and sent him onstage to surprise you.” Queen Elizabeth sounded smug. “For that you may thank me.”

  She extended one long, slender hand, and Rosie pressed a fervent kiss on the knuckles. “My gratitude shall never fail, and I will serve you to the end of my days.”

  Queen Elizabeth tilted Rosie’s face up. The famous, heavy-lidded eyes examined Rosie thoroughly. “You are Lady Rosalyn Bellot.”

  Taken aback, Rosie didn’t know what to say. Perhaps rumor had told Queen Elizabeth of the return of the Bellot heir, but who had pointed the finger at Rosie? Was it Sir Danny? But nay, he stared in astonishment at the queen, then glanced at Lady Honora.