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interested in the Restoration playwrights. She has made it a subject for us to study. She says it will be good for me. I am glad she did.”
    “I daresay she is teaching herself as well as you.”
    “I am sure she is. We went to libraries and unearthed all sorts of information. You will understand how exciting it was. You have your Roman relics.”
    “I certainly do. And when you walk these streets you picture them as they were years ago.”
    “Yes … with the men in their magnificent wigs and feathered hats—and Nell Gwyn was, of course, at Drury Lane selling oranges and then becoming an actress and fascinating King Charles. It’s all so romantic.”
    “And you do not wish to go on the stage and share in the limelight with your mother?”
    “I have too much respect for her talents to imagine I share them. I can’t sing and my mother has a beautiful voice. She is also a wonderful dancer.”
    “And, unlike Matty, she does not sigh for the classical roles.”
    “Countess Maud and suchlike are good enough for her.”
    “And very good she is with them.”
    “I saw you at the play.”
    “Yes, I saw you.”
    “You didn’t stay. You must have hurried off.”
    “I was unsure. Better to take no action when you are wondering which is the right one.”
    “I suppose so. By the way, this is Vere Street. We discovered an interesting story about a theatre which was once here. It was opened by Killigrew and Davenant, who were two well-known theatrical men. They were so anxious to get the theatres started again that they opened one here only a few months after the Restoration. Matty said their enthusiasm must have been marvellous. They brought out a patent that women could play on the stage. Before that their parts were taken by boys. Can you imagine that! Women have been very badly treated through the ages. I think it is time we did something about it. Don’t you agree?”
    “I fear that if I don’t I shall lose any regard you have for me, so I will say at once that I do.”
    I laughed. “I should not want you to agree with me for that reason.”
    “Forget that I said it. It was a foolish remark to make in a serious conversation. Yes, I do agree, but I am sure that with people like you around that situation will soon be remedied.”
    “The story I was going to tell you was of a wronged woman.
    She was one of the first women to play on the stage. She was in the theatre which was in Vere Street and she was playing Roxana in The Siege of Rhodes. The Earl of Oxford, Aubrey de Vere, came to see the play and conceived a passion for her. A de Vere could not marry an actress, but she would not submit without marriage. The villain then produced a bogus clergyman who arranged a sham marriage, and she did not learn how she had been tricked until it was too late.”
    “Not the first, I believe, to have suffered in that way.”
    “Matty loves to collect stories about these people. She can tell you about the arrogance of Colley Cibber and the virtue of Anne Bracegirdle.”
    “Tell me about the virtuous one.”
    “She was an actress who died in the middle of the eighteenth century, which was a time when a lot of interesting people seem to have lived. She had very high moral standards, which was rare in an actress. She used to go round helping the poor. She reminds me of my mother. She has hundreds of begging letters. People are always waiting outside the theatre with some pitiable story.”
    “Your mother has a lovely face. There is a softness … a gentleness about her. She is beautiful, of course, but she has a sort of inner beauty. I believe that when people have faces like that they are really good.”
    “What a nice thing to say. I want to tell her that. She will be amused. She doesn’t think she’s good at all. She thinks she’s a sinner. But you’re right. She is good. I often think how lucky I am to be her daughter.”
    He pressed my arm and we were silent for a moment, then he said: “What happened to