Chameleon in a Mirror Read online

  Katherine interpreted the gesture as a signal for her to go and made to hand the treasures she held back to Billie. “Would you really trust me with all of this, Mistress?”

  “Please, call me Clarinda,” Billie said uncomfortably, waving the trifles away. “And yes, certainly I trust you. I'm Aphra's guest, and I know you wouldn't betray her.”

  Katherine laughed at that. “Then I will see what I can do,” she replied. “I'm known to drive a hard bargain.”

  Katherine dumped the coins onto the bedspread, and Billie watched the stream of silver and gold with awe.

  “You got all this just for the stuff I gave you?” Billie asked.

  “Stuff?” Katherine asked. “You gave me no stuff. If you had, it would not have brought nearly as much,” she added with a smile.

  Billie recalled herself to the past. Stuff was a lot of things in the seventeenth century, but not nearly as many as in the twenty-first. In this day and age, the most common usage was for a type of fabric. “'Tis a saying we have in Portland. It means things of all sorts.” Billie picked up a gold coin, imprinted with the image of an elephant, and turned it over in her hand wonderingly.

  “You look as if you had never seen a guinea before,” Katherine said, smiling and shaking her head.

  “We do not always use the same coins in the Americas,” Billie said quickly. “We may be English, but traders come from everywhere. What is its value?”

  “A guinea is worth a little more than a pound. Twenty-one shillings, I'd say.”

  “But what can I buy with it?” Billie asked, holding the coin flat in the palm of her hand and considering what it might buy in her own era. A gal could make a fortune with this time-travel business. If only it didn't make her so sick.

  Katherine laughed out loud at Billie's question.

  “I never had to deal with money much myself, you see,” Billie explained. “I know the names, but not the value here in England. Would you be so kind as to instruct me? How much do I need for a new dress and a new suit of clothes?”

  Billie took the packaging off the ream of paper, tied the sheets together with a scrap of ribbon Katherine had given her, and went down to Aphra's sitting room. Strange that Aphra felt no need for a room to herself to do her writing; she wrote in the same room where she received guests and took hot chocolate in the morning.

  “I have something for you.”

  Aphra turned from her writing table with a smile.

  Billie handed her the modest present. “I remembered how you complained about the price of paper, and I wanted to make sure you had enough for quite a few plays to come.”

  A look of wonder lit up Aphra's features. “There must be hundreds of sheets here! And so fine! Where on earth did you come by it?”

  “There is an extensive paper industry where I am from,” Billie replied. True enough. “It can hardly repay what I owe you, but I thought you would need at least this much just to record your own adventures.”

  “Record my own adventures? Whatever makes you think I want to do that?”

  “You may not want to, but it would make a very good story, would it not? You've certainly had more adventures than the average woman.”

  “Not as many as you, I wager.”

  Billie shrugged. “But I'm not a famous playwright.”

  “And who would want to read about the life of a playwright, can you tell me that? People want to read about princes and kings and criminals, not women who write for bread.”

  “They also want to read tales of foreign lands and new places.”

  “Surely you could write that far better than I,” Aphra said.

  “I do not want to write about myself.”

  Aphra smiled. “Nor do I, Clarinda.”

  “But you have posterity to think of,” Billie insisted. “You've done things people will remember you for. Don't you want to make sure they remember you the way you were, and not in some distorted fashion?”

  Aphra laughed. “I don't know if I want them to remember me the way I was, but perhaps the way I would prefer. I will think on it, Clarinda, but now I have a play to write.”

  It wasn't the result Billie had hoped for, but for the time being, she didn't think she could push her agenda much more.

  Two days later, Billie, was sitting on the settee with her lute in her lap, trying out a succession of chords, when Elizabeth Barry swept into the room. Aphra rose from the writing table she'd rarely left since Billie's return to the Restoration — it seemed the success of Abdelazer had inspired her.

  “I have received an advertisement for a doctor in Tower Street,” Elizabeth Barry announced with a secretive smile. “He appears to be a very talented gentleman for one so young.”

  “For what do you need a doctor, my dear Amoret?” Aphra asked, taking her friend's hands. Billie had not heard that form of address for Elizabeth yet; apparently actresses as well as authors had pastoral nicknames.

  “That depends.” Elizabeth's smile went from secretive to sly. “This particular doctor has much to offer. Besides cures for all sorts of women's sicknesses, he can also tell the future from stars and dreams.”

  Aphra shook her head. “There is more than predictions here. The quack at Charing Cross practices astrology and you do not go to him.”

  “Ah, but this Alexander Bendo learned his trade in foreign lands! Listen: 'The knowledge of these secrets I gathered in my travels abroad (where I have spent my time ever since I was fifteen years old, to this my nine and twentieth year) in France and Italy.'“

  Aphra gave her friend a sharp look. “How did you come by this advertisement?”

  “A boy brought it me directly.”

  “That devil!” Aphra said, and broke out in ringing laugh.

  Billie looked from one to the other questioningly. Finally Aphra recovered from her mirth and took pity on her guest. “You shall understand presently. I think we will soon be making a visit to Tower Street.”

  Billie climbed out of the barge and offered her hand to Elizabeth Barry while John Hoyle assisted Aphra. Ravenscroft had to play the odd man out. Billie still had not obtained any suitable female clothes; with only the old things she had left behind, Clarinda would be rather dowdy. She preferred her male masquerade whenever Ravenscroft was one of the party anyway — he didn't flirt with her that way, and Billie was much too susceptible to the witty repartee of the poet.

  They climbed the stairs from the river, the Tower of London looming before them. Billie stopped and stared, and Elizabeth was forced to stop with her.

  “Quite an imposing old pile of stone, is it not?” she said.

  Billie nodded. She felt slightly out of breath, and it wasn't the heat or the stairs that had done it. The Tower was just so much the same. It looked a bit more desolate, grayer, practically older than it did in the twenty-first century, strangely enough, and there weren't any tourists crowding around it taking pictures — but other than that it was the same building Billie had visited almost ten years ago on her first trip to Europe. She was still in the same city. Emotionally, she'd been viewing seventeenth century London as a different place than twenty-first century London, equating her travel through time with travel across space. But here was a landmark that suddenly caused her two Londons to coincide, challenging the fictions she'd created for herself.

  Of course, she'd known all along that this too was London, but it felt like another place, even on Pall Mall and in St. James Park, despite buildings or landmarks she recognized. The street scenes as a whole offered a completely different picture than she was used to. To get here, they'd taken a river ferry at Whitefriars Stairs, and on the way, they had passed under London Bridge, cramped with houses on both sides. All around them, other boats full of passengers had also been using the river as means of transportation to avoid the congested streets. A number of the buildings they passed had stairs down to the waterfront, more like Venice than the London she knew. In her time, the river was empty by comparison, plied mostly by sightseeing boats.
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  Elizabeth was looking at her curiously, and Billie gave a short shake of her head. “Take us to your quack, Mistress Barry. Perhaps I have need of one.” Elizabeth laughed and they made their way up the hill. This at least was very different from what Billie knew: the Tower was practically on the edge of London, and beyond were empty fields. To get to Tower Street, they had to pass through an open area with a demolished wall on one side. A gate to the Tower led to the menagerie, the biggest attraction the Tower offered in the seventeenth century. There were no guides in Beefeater costumes standing around.

  They easily found Master Bendo's lodgings next door to the sign of the Black Swan at the goldsmith's house. Elizabeth Barry led the way in with Aphra, while Billie hung back with the men.

  “What sort of a cure will you be seeking, Mr. Ravenscroft?” she asked.

  Ravenscroft slanted Billie a long look out of his tawny eyes. “I need no cure, but I am curious as to what the good doctor sees for my future.”

  “Surely that is easy enough to predict, Ravenscroft,” Hoyle said. “A series of farces.”

  Ravenscroft gave a boisterous laugh. “And for you, Mr. Hoyle, I see a series of lost cases.”

  As they entered the shop, Ravenscroft took Billie's elbow and drew her aside. “I own it has been several years, but I would you'd call me Damon again,” he said softly.

  Before Billie could answer, a tall man in spectacles and a drab brown outfit approached them, bowing profusely, his wide breeches stuffed into tall boots just below his knee. He was wigless, and his shoulder-length brown hair, streaked with gray, was tied in a short pony tail at his neck. As he straightened, his eyes met Billie's, and it was all she could do to keep from gasping out loud. The eyes behind the glasses were the laughing, heavy-lidded, slightly bloodshot eyes of the Earl of Rochester. She looked at Ravenscroft and Hoyle, expecting them to discover the masquerade just as she had, but they made no sign they noticed anything unusual.

  The Earl shook all their hands, bowing constantly, and motioned them into chairs along the wall. “What brings Your Excellencies to my humble lodgings today?” Lord Rochester asked with a slight Italian accent, rubbing his hands together. If nothing else, those hands, with their long, thin, aristocratic fingers should have given him away, but Ravenscroft and Hoyle were not looking at the doctor, they were looking through him. They saw the costume and equated it with the man. It seemed the clothes made the man even more in the seventeenth century than in the twenty-first. Perhaps that was a reason it was so easy for Billie to get away with her masquerade?

  Aphra and Elizabeth were silent, and Hoyle naturally took control of the situation. “We heard you had an uncommon talent for fortune-telling and would discover what the future holds for us.”

  “Would you be first, my lord?” the Earl of Rochester asked Mr. John Hoyle of Gray's Inn, and Billie had to look out the window so no one would see her smile.

  Hoyle accepted the address as lord as if he were born to it. “Perhaps we should let the ladies go first.”

  “As you wish.” Rochester turned to Elizabeth Barry with a smile, taking her hand in both of his, palm up to inspect the lines. His long fingers traced the heart line lingeringly. “You have a passionate nature but tend to inconstancy.” He turned her hand sideways to inspect the lines below her little finger. “I see no marriages for you, madam. Surely if that is the case it will be of your own choice.” He graced her with a charming smile, and Elizabeth inclined her head slightly in acknowledgment of the compliment. Otherwise her face was inscrutable. “But what is this?” the sham doctor continued. “A child I do see. Perhaps I was wrong about the marriage.”

  The Earl began to turn her palm in his as if to inspect the marriage lines again, but Elizabeth pulled her hand out of his. “That will be quite enough, thank you.”

  Billie glanced at her two male companions. Hoyle had adopted his bored libertine look, but she thought she detected a slight furrow between Ravenscroft's brows as he stared at the place where Elizabeth Barry's hand had been.

  Lord Rochester turned to Aphra next, taking the hand with its broad palm and delicate fingers in his own. “You have a very strong headline, madam, dipping low toward the mount of Luna, which indicates imagination but also emotional instability. But your palm is wide, showing a strong streak of practicality in your nature. It will probably spare you the melancholia of another with such a line.” Aphra followed Rochester's interpretations closely, even though Billie knew now that she'd guessed his identity even before they started their expedition. Rochester obviously had some knowledge of the art of palmistry, but he was choosing the details to match what he knew about the individual.

  As she watched the way Aphra's eyes followed Rochester's finger, Billie was hit by inspiration. Her first attempt at persuading Aphra to write her memoirs had not been particularly successful — but what if Aphra believed Billie had some occult knowledge? It was a superstitious age, after all, and Billie knew the future.

  “Would the young gentleman also like his fortune told?” the sham doctor asked. Billie held out her palm. “You have a very pronounced line of fate, which brings either fame or notoriety. Strange — your life line is doubled. See where the life line ends here, but above, another begins which continues as strongly as the first. There will be a major disruption in your life, a new beginning, perhaps a sort of double life for a while.”

  “It means that I will start over in a new country or on a new continent,” Billie said. “I knew that long ago — I did not need you to tell me. And what does your hand hold, Doctor?” Billie took the earl's hand and turned his palm up. She had been into all kinds of weird stuff in high school, including palmistry, and what she saw scared her. But she had little biographical information to go on, since her only real interest in Restoration literature was Aphra. She would have to wing it. “Your life line is deep but short. You will live intensely, but not long.” A pinched look came into Rochester's eyes, and Billie heard a woman draw in her breath behind her, presumably Elizabeth Barry. Billie let her eyes drift up slightly from Rochester's palm and gave her voice the nearly monotonous tone she knew from séance scenes in bad movies. “You will feel happiness, but it will not satisfy you. When you have what you want, you will want more. You will have fame, but it will not last. You show flashes of brilliance, but no inclination to sustain them.” Billie shook herself as if she were coming out of a trance and looked around at her companions. Aphra and Elizabeth were staring at her, their eyes wide and their mouths slightly open.

  “I believe you have more than one gift, sir,” Rochester said.

  “You are not the only one with a talent for prophecy, Doctor,” Billie replied.

  “And you are not the only one with a talent for disguise, Mr. Armstrong,” Lord Rochester murmured so low that only Billie could hear.

  17

  ... if my chains, as you scornfully say, are so easy to be broken, why have you not done it twenty times before? Either they are more powerful than your malice will allow, or you are a very weak man, Don Diego!

  Edward Ravenscroft, The Wrangling Lovers

  Billie had decided to attend the opening of Ravenscroft's new play as a woman. During her first weeks back in the Restoration, she'd spent most of her time as a man, but in the long run, that wouldn't do. Not only were bets on her true sexual identity running again, there was Aphra's reputation to think of, even ruined as it might already be.

  She entered the Dorset Garden Theatre on the playwright's left arm, while Aphra graced his right. The attention they drew was more gratifying than she wanted to admit; she was such a ham. But then, so were her companions.

  Ravenscroft's gaze drifted to the boxes where the wealthy and titled sat. “I do hope the respectable women of the court do not intend to cry down my play as they did Wycherley's Plain Dealer.”

  “Or my The Sign of Roxanne,” Aphra said with a grimace.

  Ravenscroft laughed, but Billie was all ears; she'd never even heard of such a play from Aphra
's pen before. During the three years Aphra Behn was ostensibly absent from the stage, two plays came out that had since been attributed to her — but The Sign of Roxanne was not one of them.

  “And what did you expect, my fair Astrea?” he asked. “That they applaud a play about a whore gone honest?”

  “I know many whores who have.”

  “As do I. But that does not make it material for the stage. Audiences do not care to see shady characters triumph.”

  “Unless they are male,” Aphra said with a hint of bitterness.

  Ravenscroft nodded. “Precisely, my dear.”

  “The Sign of Roxanne,” Billie cut in. “I've never heard of that play before.”

  “'Tis hardly surprising,” Aphra said. “Not only was it anonymous, it was such a failure, 'twas no need to publish it.”

  “Astrea,” Ravenscroft interrupted, his gaze fixed on the boxes. “Can you perhaps influence your cousin in favor of your friends?”

  “Cousin?” Billie asked. “What cousin?” First an unknown, lost play, and now a cousin! The afternoon was shaping up to be very interesting, with or without The Wrangling Lovers.

  Aphra gave a short shake of her head. “Mary Twysden is not really related to me. She and I were raised together with the Culpeppers, but we were never close. As the daughter of Lord Willoughby, she was too much my superior. She didn't marry as well as her older sister Diana, but she flaunts the Winchilsea connection nonetheless.”

  Ravenscroft pulled Billie's arm tighter against his side, grinning. “And now you, my dear Astrea, are one of the darlings of the court, and she is a gray mouse, basking in the glory of the dead countess.”