The Darling Strumpet

The taproom was busy that night, and the patrons were more drunk and disorderly than usual. Jack broke up a fight, cudgelling the instigator into bloody insensibility before throwing him into the street. The tables were packed with drinkers and the girls didn’t even bother to leave their rooms when they had done with one man, but took the next from the lines outside their doors.

It was well into the wee hours when the last man left Nell’s room and no other appeared. She was exhausted, but put her head out the door of her room to be sure that no one was waiting. Jack was coming down the hallway, steady on his feet despite the half-empty bottle in his hand. His face was flushed and his eyes glinted dangerously as he bore down on Nell.

She ducked backwards but he blocked the door as she tried to close it. She retreated as he entered the room, kicking the door shut behind him. He reached her in two strides and pulled her by her hair onto her knees in front of him as he sat on the edge of the bed. He took a long pull from his bottle, set it on the floor, unbuttoned his breeches, and shoved himself into her mouth.

He smelled of piss and sweat and brandy, and Nell gagged as his flesh hit the back of her throat. She struggled against him, but he yanked her head up and down, his cock choking her. She pushed at him, desperate to draw a breath, but his iron grip would not release. She felt that she would faint or die unless she could free herself. Without thinking, she clamped her teeth down.

Jack gave a roar of rage and pain and let go of her. She scrabbled away from him, but he lifted her by her hair and smashed her across the face so hard she went sprawling face-first onto the bed, and he was on her before she could move, kneeing her legs apart. Nell heard him spit, and screamed as he forced himself into her arse. A filthy hand smelling of brandy was clamped over her mouth, stifling her cries. Another hand clutched her throat, fingers digging into her flesh.

It seemed to go on forever. Nell had never felt such searing pain. She sobbed into Jack’s hand, her tears running down to mingle with snot as he slammed into her. At last he spent, giving a final deep thrust that Nell thought would split her. He left without a word, and Nell lay shivering and whimpering. After a time she crept into Rose’s room, and Rose started awake at the sound of Nell’s sobbing.

“Lord, what’s happened?”

“Jack,” Nell whispered. “He came for me and I didn’t mean to, but I bit him. So he hurt me.”

“He hit you?” Rose pulled Nell into her arms.

“More than that. He—” Nell couldn’t make herself say the words, but Rose understood her gesture.

“Let me see, honey.” Rose gently examined Nell. “You’re not bleeding, that’s a mercy. Here, this will help.” Tears streaked Rose’s face as she applied salve to Nell’s battered flesh.

“Oh, Nell,” she whispered, “truly I don’t know what to do. It will do you no good to speak to the missus. And if you try to say him nay, it will only make him more determined to have what he wants. Let me see can I think of something.”

THE NEXT DAY WHEN NELL WENT INTO THE TAPROOM, JACK RAKED her with a look of triumph that made her sick to her stomach. She was powerless to stop him, and he knew it. That night he again forced his way into her room and brutalised her, enjoying her fear and pain.

Over the next weeks Nell avoided being on her own and tried not to cross Jack’s path, but there were times when he appeared seemingly from thin air, and she had nowhere to run.

WITH THE CELEBRATIONS OF THE KING’S BIRTHDAY ON THE TWENTY-NINTH of May, Nell was amazed to realise that it had been two years since she had run away and embarked on her new life. She had gained freedom from her mother, as she had set out to do. She was better fed and clothed and she had several regulars whose money she could count on. But she did not like having to submit herself to the use of strangers, and Jack’s visits were now almost nightly. She was always frightened, and despaired of finding a way out of the hell her days and nights had become.

As it happened, an escape presented itself that Nell could not have anticipated. Robbie Duncan noticed the bruises on her arms and throat and the livid blue-yellow patches on the insides of her thighs.

“What happened there?” he asked, his face darkening. “Come, tell me,” he said gently when she didn’t answer.

“It’s Jack,” she whispered, clutching the sheet around her. “Madam’s man. He—he comes to me sometimes, and …” She could not finish the sentence, and could not bring herself to look at him. He squatted on his haunches before her.

“He hurts you? He means to hurt you?”

She nodded.

“He cannot do this to you. I will not allow it,” Robbie exclaimed, springing to his feet, but Nell knew that his slender frame was no match for Jack’s sinewy muscularity.

She shrugged. “But he can. There is nought I can do to stop him.”

Robbie paced and seethed, and finally stood before Nell.

“Come and live with me. He cannot come to you there. I will take care of you.”

Nell was astonished at the proposal, but Robbie was likeable enough and, given the choice, she would rather bed one man than many.

So, with a payment from Robbie to Madam Ross for the loss of one of her stable, Nell became his. She packed her few belongings in a sack and moved to Robbie’s room at the Cock and Pie Tavern, at the top of Maypole Alley, only a few streets from the only homes she had known.

CHAPTER SIX

LIVING WITH ROBBIE, NELL FELT AS IF SHE WERE PLAYING AT BEING a wife. While he was at work at his father’s business in the City during the day, she tidied their room and fetched food from a cookhouse so that she had supper ready for him when he came home, and Robbie told her of his day and any news.

“The king is to have bearbaiting at Hampton Court for Whitsuntide, as he did last year. Savagery. That’s one old custom that would have been better left in the past. The playhouses are bad enough. Oh, and Lady Castlemaine is brought to bed of a boy. He’s to be called Charles Palmer and Lord Limerick, as though he were the son of her husband, but no one believes that.”

“Barbara Palmer’s husband had her son christened in the Popish church,” Robbie told Nell a week later over dinner. “But today the king took the child and had him rechristened in the Church of England. He’ll not have his son raised a Papist, bastard or no.”

“And how did Palmer take that?” Nell wondered.

“Not well,” said Robbie, chewing on a beef bone. “He’s broken from his wife at last and gone to France.”

That night, to Nell’s surprise, Robbie went to sleep without touching her. She scarcely knew what to think and lay worrying. Was he tiring of her? Would he cast her out? But in the morning he seemed as usual, and she grew used to the novel idea that a man might not always want to couple.

Being free from Jack’s attentions and serving the needs of many men was a welcome change. Nell’s body healed, and Robbie was gentle with her in bed. But before long, she found that the sameness of her days grew tedious. She missed the companionship of Rose and the other girls, but because she wanted to keep out of Jack’s way and because Robbie did not like her going there, she stayed away from Lewkenor’s Lane.

Rose joined her sometimes for little outings, to watch the river traffic from the bridge, or to walk as far abroad as the countryside of Moorfields or Islington. There was usually something of interest to be seen at Covent Garden—rope dancers, jugglers, or occasionally a display of prize fighting.

One brilliant summer day Nell and Rose set out on a pilgrimage to St. James’s Park, near the palace.

“I hope we’ll see the king,” Nell said.

“Perhaps we will,” Rose said. “Harry says the king has laid out a mint of money making the park fine again and walks out most days.” Harry Killigrew had recently become groom of the bedchamber to the Duke of York.

The park, with its blooming flowers and trees, seemed a paradise to Nell, and a world away from the dark land of nightmare where she had last been with Nick and the other boys on the night of the king’s return.

“Look!” cried Rose, clutching Nell’s arm.

Not fifty paces from where they stood, King Charles strode along in earnest conversation with some puffing minister who struggled to match his pace, the royal retinue straggling along behind. Nell watched, entranced.

“He’s even more handsome than I remembered him.”

“He is that,” Rose agreed. A bevy of ladies strolled in the king’s wake, decked in summer finery. The breeze caught their gowns and made Nell think of ships in full sail.

“Look, it’s Lady Castlemaine!” cried Nell. “I wonder where’s her baby?”

“Why, ladies like that don’t care for their own kinchins, but leave them to nurses. That’s why she can look so fine so soon after birthing.”

“Look at that blue gown,” Nell sighed. “Why, now it appears gold!”

“Changeable silk,” Rose said. “You’d have to lay out a month’s earnings to pay for that. But look at the patches now—those are cunning and would be easy enough to fashion.” Many of the ladies’ faces were adorned with small black patches in the shapes of stars, moons, suns, and animals.

“That’s the high kick, that is,” Rose said.

“I think it looks silly,” said Nell. “Besides, they’re like to itch most fearsome. I’d scratch them off in a minute.” She looked with longing at the pretty gloves, though, in a rainbow of shades of soft leather, and at the ladies’ full-brimmed hats with ribbons rippling from them.

The weather was so fine and Nell’s spirits so high, she didn’t want the rare day of pleasure to end.