“No, she… To tell the truth, Jenny, she is one of the reasons your stepmother disapproves of the theatre. You don’t need to know about her. Come backstage instead! There is a great deal to see!”
Aunt Aphra leads me through more corridors, showing me offices, storerooms, props and then to a large room where a number of women are applying cosmetics and having their hair dressed. There’s a crowd of people around them, laughing and talking to them. I can see grand costumes hanging up, ready to be put on for the performance.
“Who are all these other people?” I ask. “Will they all be in the play too?”
“No, my dear. These are favoured guests, invited in to watch the actresses prepare themselves for the stage. It’s a sociable place, the theatre.”
We pause and watch one actress being laced into her gown. She looks very fine indeed.
The men’s changing room is much less crowded. To my amazement, the men, in their breeches and loose shirts, are painting their faces just as the ladies were. I blush to intrude upon them, but they all greet my godmother with great friendliness. “Have you come to make sure we are dressed on time, Mrs Behn?” asks one older gentleman. “Or to check we haven’t forgotten the fine lines you’ve written for us?” He smiles but I’m a little frightened of him. The make-up he wears on his face looks grotesque up close – thick and bright.
“To reassure myself that you are all prepared and in good cheer,” replies Aunt Aphra with a smile. We pause to exchange a few words here and there, one of the men blows Aunt Aphra a kiss, calls her lovely lady, and we move on.
We’ve barely emerged from the men’s changing rooms (to my relief – I’ve a strong feeling my stepmother definitely wouldn’t approve of that visit) when a man comes rushing up to my godmother.
“Mrs Behn,” he cries. “Thank heavens you are here! We have an emergency.”
There’s a hurried, whispered conference between them while I politely try to look as though I’m not listening.
“Oh dear,” says Aunt Aphra at last, turning to me. “I’m afraid I need to go and sort a few things out, Jenny. Now, what should you…” She frowns, but just then a boy about my own age passes down the corridor and my godmother’s face brightens. “Peter!” she says. “You’ll look after my goddaughter for me for a short time, won’t you?”
The boy’s cheerful face falls. “But I’m just about to light lamps and check the scenes,” he protests.
“Oh, can I not stay with you, Aunt Aphra?” I beg.
She laughs her merry laugh. “No, Jenny, you cannot. This is a delicate matter. And, Peter, Jennifer can help you.”
She disappears in a swirl of petticoats. Peter and I look at each other awkwardly in the narrow corridor. “Well then, we’d better make the best of this,” says Peter and I’m relieved to see his freckled face turn cheerful once more. “I’m Peter,” he says, thrusting out a grubby hand.
“I’m Jenny,” I respond, shaking his hand gingerly.
I follow him to a storeroom, where he fetches a couple of tapers. He lights them at a lamp, then we go out on to the actual stage. I’m very aware of being on view before a half-full theatre, but most people are too busy talking to pay us any attention. A man called Alfred lowers the chandeliers over the stage, one at a time, so that we can light them. We use both tapers, lighting the candles between us as quickly as we can so that they can be hoisted into place again.
“Do you work here all the time?” I ask Peter curiously.
“I do. I live here too,” he says proudly. “My ma was an actress but she died when I were just a lad, so they took me in here.”
“Oh my mama is dead too,” I tell him sympathetically. “I miss her very much.”
“Ah, but you’ll have a pa still. And Mrs Behn is your godmama. She’s a fine lady. Always has a kind word.”
“Yes, indeed, I love them both very much. Is your papa dead too?”
Peter shrugged. “Might be for all I know,” he says. “Come on, we’re done here. Let’s go and check the scenes.”
The theatre is bustling now; the pit is thronged with gentlemen in colourful clothes talking and walking about. A sprinkling of finely dressed ladies have joined them. The boxes too, are filling up with people drinking tea or sipping wine and talking. Fruit sellers walk around, loudly shouting out their wares.
I follow Peter behind the curtain, which is drawn before the great arch above the stage, and I’m amazed at the sight of the complex machinery that moves the different backdrops of scenery and screens around.
“See here,” Peter points out a screen that is set in a groove in the floor. “I pull this rope here to pull this screen to one side, just at the right moment, and then – hey presto! A new scene is revealed behind!”
“I’m so envious of you working here!” I say with a happy sigh, duly admiring the wonderful mechanism. “Do you love it?”
“It’s the best work there is, I reckon,” Peter says with a grin. “And the best people and all.”
“When I’m older,” I say resolutely, “I will ask Aunt Aphra to find me work in the theatre! Whatever my stepmother has to say about it.”
“Bet you won’t,” says Peter. He darts away, beckoning me. I climb some stairs after him and then follow him up a steep ladder. “Are we allowed to be here?” I ask breathlessly as we reach the top. We’re very high, right up in the roof space above the stage. From here we can see the whole stage laid out below and the front of the pit too.
Peter points to the pit. “You’ll marry one of those fine gentlemen there, I reckon,” he says. “And won’t never come near the theatre except maybe to see the play now and then.”
I look down soberly. “I don’t care about marrying,” I say. “I would far rather work in the theatre!”
Peter shows me the way back to my godmother’s box just before the performance begins and says goodbye. Aunt Aphra is bowing to all her acquaintances around the theatre, but goes quite still when suddenly the door of the royal box on the opposite side of the theatre opens and King Charles himself walks in. Aunt Aphra drops at once into a deep curtsey and pulls me down into a less elegant one beside her.
“Your deepest curtsey for royalty, Jenny,” she says under her breath. “Head down too, don’t stare.”
I obey her, but whisper back: “Mama always told me you were angry with the king, Aunt Aphra?”
“When I was his spy and he failed to pay me, and I was thrown into a debtor’s prison,” admits my godmother, rising slowly from her curtsey as the king sits down. “But when he honours the first night of my new play with his presence, I could kiss his feet. I’m the most loyal subject in his kingdom.”
“A spy!” I say with a sigh. “How romantic! Not being thrown into prison, of course! But it must have been such an adventure! Wasn’t that even more exciting than working in the theatre?”
“Oh, yes,” my godmother agrees. “But there is nothing like being paid for the work you do!”
The king notices Aunt Aphra and gives her a small bow. The king – the king of England! – has come to see my godmother’s play! I’m so proud of her, I could burst.
But now someone is on the stage, ready to speak. I hurriedly scramble into my seat and settle down to watch. The orange seller stops her endless cries and the man on stage begins to deliver the prologue. I hold my breath with excitement. My first play!
But not everyone is as excited as me, it seems. Many of them don’t even bother to stop speaking, and there are three young men on the stage, actually sitting right on the stage, booing the speaker off and calling for the dancing girls and the actresses.
I look at my godmother to see how she takes this, but apart from some mild irritation she seems quite calm.
When the prologue has been spoken, the curtain rises and in just a few moments, I’m deeply engrossed in the story. The spectacle of actors and actresses on the stage, the singing and the dancing all dazzle me. I understand now why they were so heavily painted. From a distance their faces look
just right.
The only problem is the chatter, laughter, flirting and quarrelling going on in the pit, which makes the beautiful speeches so difficult to hear. “Are they never quiet?” I ask my aunt in the interval.
“Never!” she says with a sigh. “The king greatly dislikes the disorder in the theatre. He objects to the bucks on stage ogling the dancing girls too. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has them moved before the next act.”
At that moment, my godmother is summoned to speak to the king. She beckons me to follow her. “Oh no, I would so much rather stay here,” I protest, but she shakes her head, takes my hand and leads me after her.
I’m so overwhelmed to be in the presence of the king that I can barely breathe while he speaks to my aunt. “Another fine play, Mrs Behn,” he says. “Congratulations! I look forward to the next two acts. And who is this young lady?”
“Your Majesty, may I introduce my goddaughter, Miss Richards?”
I curtsey deeply again. I’m shaking as I straighten up.
“How do you like the theatre, Miss Richards?” the king asks me.
“Oh! I love it. Um… Your Majesty!” I say, flustered.
The king laughs. “So do we. So do we. But we must have those men off the stage. See to it,” he orders one of his attendants.
Our audience with the king over, we return to our box. I’m flushed with excitement and sit in a daze as the actors return to the stage and resume the tale.
The second half of the play is as enthralling as the first and without members of the audience on the stage, it is easier to concentrate. The second half is interrupted, however, by a fight breaking out in the pit. Two gentlemen quarrel, get their swords out and fight, while the other visitors scream and try to get away from the lethal blades.
“Oh, Aunt Aphra!” I exclaim fearfully, clinging to her hand. “Will someone be killed?”
“I hope not, Jenny,” she says, wincing at a particularly wicked thrust. But the king’s men break the fight up swiftly and the play resumes. I’m so happy when Helena marries the rover at the end that I cry.
The epilogue is spoken. People stand to clap and stamp their feet, cheering and shouting while the actors take their bows. The king claps too and looks approving.
I sit quite still in my seat as the curtain finally falls, not wanting to move and break the enchantment. “Congratulations, Aunt Aphra,” I whisper at last, as the applause dies and people begin to talk and move about again. “Is it very wonderful to see the words you have written performed?”
“Always, Jenny,” she says, cheeks aglow and eyes sparkling. “And I think we can safely say it was a success!”
At that moment, there is a knock at the door of our box. It’s Peter. “Note for you, Mrs Behn,” he says. “It come from your lodging just now and they said it was urgent.”
Aunt Aphra opens the crackling sheet and reads it swiftly, looking up with a smile. “Why, Jenny,” she said. “Wonderful news! We must congratulate you too: you have a baby brother!”
I experience a jolt of shock and then a rush of excitement. A real baby – a brother!
“I suggest you stay with me tonight as we agreed,” says my godmother. “You can return home in the morning. Now we should celebrate the success of the play and the birth of your brother, shouldn’t we?”
“Oh, yes please, Aunt Aphra!” I tell my godmother eagerly. “This has been the best night of my life! I want to work in the theatre like you one day!”
Aphra Behn smiles. “If that’s what you want to do, I hope you will, Jenny,” she says. “There will be those who oppose your wishes. But remember: only you can decide how you will spend your life. Make your own decisions and if I can help you, I will.”
Why I Chose Aphra Behn
I chose to write about Aphra Behn because she did so much to blaze the writing trail for the many women who followed her. She lived in Africa for a spell, was a spy for King Charles II, and became the first woman known to have made a living writing in the English language. She started writing originally to get herself out of a debtor’s prison. I love her plays, particularly The Rover, which continued to be performed for 100 years. She also wrote an early novel, Oroonoko. She was a woman ahead of her time.
I invented Jenny and her family to show how Aphra Behn inspired many other women to lead independent lives and to write for the theatre as she did.
MARIE-LOUISE JENSEN
Aphra Behn Facts
Aphra Behn was born Aphra Johnson, probably in Canterbury, in 1640. She is thought to have lived in Surinam, West Africa from 1663–64 and to have married a Mr Behn shortly after returning to England. He supposedly died the following year but no records of such a person have survived. It’s possible she invented the marriage to give herself a respectable social status as a widow. Aphra was a spy for King Charles II from 1666–67, under the code name Astrea, but he didn’t pay her and she was thrown into a debtor’s prison. She wrote poems and stories to get herself out of debt. She also wrote many plays, of which The Rover was the most successful.
Aphra Behn died in 1689 and is buried in Westminster Abbey. The twentieth-century writer Virginia Woolf said of her in A Room of One’s Own:
‘All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, […] for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.’
An
Unimportant Woman
A story about Mary Wollstonecraft
(1759–1797)
BY PENNY DOLAN
NEAR TONSBERG, NORWAY, 1795
I WALKED THROUGH THE SILENT ROOMS, remembering my father, until my aunt Solveig came to claim me.
“Time to go, Anna. The new pastor’s carriage is arriving soon.” She patted my arm. “All is arranged. You will come with me to the count’s mansion at Jarlsberg.”
My aunt was the count’s housekeeper and a good and respectable woman. I told myself I should be grateful. Besides, where else could I go?
One week before, the day after my fourteenth birthday, the old pastor – my father – was buried. I took three roses to the churchyard. One was for Father, one for my mother, gone two years before, and one for my brother’s grave. Never had I felt so alone.
After the funeral, I was called before the clerk of the parish. He set aside his stack of papers and explained how things stood.
“Prepare yourself, child. It seems that your father – God rest his soul – did not understand much about money.”
I asked, I did. “Father spoke of an inheritance from my grandfather?”
The clerk was not pleased. “Spent already, on your brother’s education.”
And, I thought, on paying off my brother’s debts, and on the horse that broke my brother’s handsome neck.
The clerk bent his head to pray. Could he hear the thoughts shouting in my head?
Oh, Father, did you not bother about me for one minute? Is a daughter nothing at all? How, in heaven’s name, am I to live? On good folk’s charity?
Apart from a Bible and a few trinkets, there was almost nothing left.
The clerk muttered about God’s will but all I felt was anger. My father, the good pastor, had left me homeless, helpless and penniless. I think the English have a saying: ‘as poor as a church mouse’. That poor mouse was me. So it was that Aunt Solveig brought me to live with her at the count’s fine house.
The manor had forty large windows. They stared across the count’s lawns, right down to the sea’s edge. They watched the great ships sailing north to Christiana, east to Sweden or south to our king in Denmark. Some were on course for the war-troubled English Channel and beyond.
The count never saw his view. Our king sent him to be the royal ambassador at the court of King George in London. Such an important gentleman was too busy to visit his manor house, especially when he had grander homes elsewhere.
So why were my aunt and all the others there? They were there to watch and wait, to keep the manor ready, in case the count ever decided to visit.
/> My aunt, the aged butler and the house servants looked after the manor inside. The count’s agent and his men looked after the outside, the wide grounds and the small harbour beyond.
My aunt’s room was not fine. It was tucked away at the back of the house. There was just enough room for my small wooden trunk and I had to share Aunt Solveig’s feather bed. Each night, when her snoring woke me, I lay there in the dark, wondering what would become of me.
My aunt made one thing clear.
“Anna,” she told me, “a pastor’s daughter cannot be a servant or maid. You would shame your father’s name. And mine. I will tell you what you can and cannot do.”
So I lived in the shadow of my aunt. I tried to hide my discontent but I stabbed my needle when I reworked old embroideries. I stamped down the empty stone passages when I delivered messages. I scowled to myself when I filled the flower vases.
I was kept busy but what was I? Companion? Secretary? What was my purpose?
If the count ever visits, I decided, perhaps he will be able to tell me.
But he wasn’t the one who helped me. It was the unimportant woman – for that is what my aunt called her – and she came as a summer visitor. Visits happened like this: gentlefolk wrote, asking to see the count’s house and his treasures. Often, they hoped he would be in residence.
As each request arrived, Aunt Solveig noted the day in the diary. Then she would hand the envelope to me. My task, as her helper, was to copy out a neat reply, adding the correct names and dates, of course.
“You have such beautiful handwriting, child,” she would tell me, rubbing her swollen fingers. “Your mother taught you well.”
Visitors meant more work. Before anyone arrived, the house servants had to remove the sheets from the best statues and dust the picture frames. They would roll back the covers on the expensive carpets, so the patterns could be seen. Then my aunt would send me from room to room strewing scented herbs to sweeten the air and drive away any fleas.