Act 1, Scene 1.
Rochester’s Apartment in Whitehall (royal) Palace. Aphra Behn and Elizabeth Barry arrive.
BAPTISTE: Please come in ladies. His lordship will join you shortly.
Sounds from adjacent room of retching followed by a groan. Behn and Barry look at each other with concerned expressions. Rochester enters patting mouth with cloth.
ROCHESTER (cheerily): Good day, ladies.
BEHN/BARRY: Good day. BEHN: You are unwell?
ROCHESTER: What? No. Just a passing case of French revenge. I lost the battle with a filthy claret last night. Baptiste, be sure to complain to the vintner and let him know we’ll take our business elsewhere if he persists in poisoning us.
BAPTISTE: Yes, sir.
ROCHESTER: So Aphra, you bring copies of your latest play The Rover. I’m eager to see it. The tattle is that I inspired the character of its hero, Willmore, a dashing cavalier.
BEHN: True. Dear, mad Willmore …
ROCHESTER: Courtesy requires that I declare myself much honoured, but caution suggests that I defer that declaration until I’ve read the play.
BEHN: You put caution over courtesy now? Hmm. An unwelcome reversal. Willmore is a brisk young lover. No caution there.
ROCHESTER: I regret that brisk is no longer part of my repertoire, ma’am.
BEHN: Well no matter. I’d be obliged if you would read Willmore’s lines anyway so we can rehearse Mrs Barry in hers. She’s cast as Hellena, a young maiden of a yearning disposition. It will be like old times for you both, the master and the pupil.
BARRY (giddily): Yes, he once had me read a part fifty times. By the time he declared himself satisfied, I’d quite forgotten who I was.
ROCHESTER (aside): Thereby removing an annoying distraction.
BARRY: I have some questions about the play, Aphra.
BEHN: Yes, Elizabeth?
BARRY: It’s set at the time of the civil war between the cavaliers and the roundheads, is it not?
BEHN: Approximately.
BARRY: Then why does the action take place in Naples? If Willmore is such a brave cavalier, why isn’t he in England battling the roundheads?
BEHN: He’s depressed about having to forfeit his estate.
BARRY: Why isn’t he fighting to get it back?
ROCHESTER (patronizingly): If I may, Elizabeth, I believe Aphra is exercising what those of her craft call dramatic licence.
BEHN: That is indeed the case. Erotic passions bubble and boil over under the blazing Mediterranean sun. The imagined sound of Mount Vesuvius throbbing away in the background enhances the effect. The tension between the carnal temptations and the savage retributions of Neapolitan society lends extreme danger to the lovers’ liaisons. The play would not have the same feeling to it if the mise-en-scene were, say, Worcestershire.
Will Fanshawe arrives
FANSHAWE: Did I hear the words Ewotic Passions?
BEHN: Indeed you did, Will. They appear to excite you – which is curious. Because the love darts Eros throws at your command would scarcely prick a plum pudding, let alone arouse passion in the objects of your fickle desire.
FANSHAWE: You are too cwuel ma’am.
BEHN: Better the cruelty of a friend than the world’s indifference, Will. But I confess I have you at a disadvantage. It’s scarcely passed mid-day, far too early for you to appear in society. You’re violating your usual daytime routine, which, I’m told on reliable authority, consists of writing billets-doux, composing madrigals, adjusting your cravat, and rehearsing the languid motion of foppery. And yet/
ROCHESTER (interrupting, as Elizabeth looks agitated): The play Aphra, let us not forget the play!
BEHN: Ah yes, the play. Will, I beg you remove yourself. You distract me. Shall we begin? (hands scripts to Barry and Rochester). Please start with the passage I have marked.
Exit Fanshawe muttering
ROCHESTER [WILLMORE]: Very well. (clears throat): I have a world of Love in store – Wou’d you be so good natur’d, and take some of it off my hands.
BARRY [HELLENA]: Why – I could be inclin’d that way – but for a foolish vow I am going to make – to die a maid.
WILLMORE: Then thou art damn’d without redemption; and as I am a good Christian, I ought in charity to divert so wicked a design – therefore prithee dear Creature, let me know quickly when and where I shall begin to set a helping hand to so good a work.
BAPTISTE (enters, interrupts): This large sack of soot has just been delivered, sir.
ROCHESTER: Send it to the laboratory, Baptise. Sorry. Pray continue Hellena.
HELLENA (swooningly): If you should prevail with my tender heart (as I begin to fear you will, for you have horrible loving eyes) there will be difficulty in it that you’ll hardly undergo for my sake.
BEHN (sighing, aside): Much work to be done, I fear.
WILLMORE: Faith, child, I have been bred in dangers, and wear a sword that has been employ’d in a worse cause, than for a handsome kind woman – name the danger – let it be any thing but a long siege, and I’ll undertake.
BAPTISTE (enters): This two-gallon jug of dog piss has just arrived.
ROCHESTER (irritated): Yes, yes. Send it to the laboratory, too. My profound apologies, ladies. Hellena, go on please.
HELLENA: Can you storm?
WILLMORE: Oh, most furiously.
HELLENA: What think you of a nunnery wall? For he who wins me, must gain that first.
WILLMORE: A nun! Oh how I love thee for’t. there’s no sinner like a young saint – nay, now there’s no denying me: the old law had no curse (to a woman) like dying a maid; witness Jeptha’s daughter.
HELLANA: A very good text this, if well handled; and I perceive Father Captain you would impose no severe penance on her who was inclined to console herself before she took Holy Orders.
WILLMORE: If she be young and handsome.
BAPTISTE (carrying a gaudy gown and a vizard): Are these the items, you’re planning to wear, sir?
ROCHESTER: Yes, yes. Leave them here. And my dear Baptiste, if you persist in interrupting, we’ll be obliged to give you a role in Mrs Behn’s play.
BAPTISTE: Mon dieu. Include me out, please. With your lordship’s permission, I shall disappear for the rest of the day.
ROCHESTER: We would be most grateful.
BARRY (coyly): Bye, Baptiste.
Exit Baptiste
BEHN: Why the gaudy robe, John?
ROCHESTER: Oh, just a newly fashionable item of after supper wear. A mere frippery.
BEHN (picking up the vizard and briefly putting it over her face): And you plan to sport the vizard after supper too? It seems the costumes of the masque ball have now invaded the household. This remarkable turn in domestic fashion had entirely eluded me.
ROCHESTER (laughing nervously): Fashions change so fast, don’t they? The absurdity
of it all. You are fortunate, Aphra. Fashion makes no burdensome demands on you. You happily occupy that liberated space that stands apart from convention. And from that vantage point you can spy freely on the follies of the world.
BEHN: That sounds dangerously like a compliment. But after all our years of friendship, I still don’t know when you’re being serious or not.
ROCHESTER: I speak candidly. (sighs) It’s the burden of the satirist to be always suspected of irony. (holds forehead).
BEHN: You’re tired; your eyes are heavy-lidded…
ROCHESTER: No doubt the effect of reading your powerful script, ma’am. You have a remarkable gift for the torrid.
BEHN: Ah, hah. The candour it seems was short lived. Your irony is a like a demon, always lurking, ready to invade plain speech. But let’s err on the side of caution. Given what seems to be your fragile state of health, it would not be prudent to continue with the reading. We’ll do that another day when you’re feeling sufficiently robust to withstand the torrid. Farewell, dear Willmore. Come, Hellena… (to no-one in particular) Since when did “torrid” become a noun anyway? My lord Rochester has a gift for using language cleverly, while abusing it shamelessly.
Exeunt Behn and Barry. Rochester clasps his head again.
