Alms for Oblivion (3 page)

Burbage looked slightly put out and I could see him debating inwardly whether to tear me off a strip or whether to pay me back in kind. Fortunately he chose the latter.

“Beware, Nicholas, otherwise it will be a
fine
morning for you despite the fog – or the mist.”

By his half-smiling he seemed to say that, on this occasion at least, he wouldn’t be levying the shilling which was often imposed for lateness at rehearsal. This fine, this tax on
tardiness, was not fine; it was a whole day’s pay, whose loss one could resent. Nevertheless you had to respect Dick Burbage’s public display of good humour. He and the other
shareholders in the Chamberlain’s, and the rest of us, had reason to feel apprehensive at the moment.

“Now,” said Burbage briskly. “To work. Your cue from the Prologue, Nicholas, is:

So I began, assuming the appearance and pose of love-sickness:

Et cetera.

Afterwards Burbage told me I looked liverish rather than love-sick. But I think that it was his way of having the final word.

When we’d finished our chamber practice Dick Burbage gave the time for our afternoon rehearsal, which was to be on the other side over the water. He coupled this with a
warning about lateness (directed at N. Revill, I felt). Then he left us to our own devices for a couple of hours. So I hastened to meet my old friend, sure that he would inform me of his reasons
for coming to London. Peter Agate had done as I’d suggested and searched out the Goat & Monkey ale-house to drink away the remaining hours of that fog-bound morning. In between nervous
gulps of ale, he told me why he had left home and come to London. He intended to find his fortune on the stage. Why this disturbed me I don’t know, but it did.

“You want to be a player!”

“Is there anything so surprising in that?”

“Well, no.”

“After all, Nick, I have only to look at
you
.”

“Don’t take me as an example.”

“Why not?”

If my tone was dubious, Peter’s showed an uncharacteristic sharpness. He was normally gentle and conciliatory. Either the drink was getting to him or this project of becoming a player was
very close to his heart. I picked my next words carefully.

“First of all . . . ”

“Yes?”

“You realize how . . . difficult it is to turn player?”

“For a country dweller?”

“For anyone, it doesn’t matter where they’re from.”

“So, difficult for everyone – except you, perhaps.”

I was divided between the desire to suggest how smooth my progress had been since coming to London (although it hadn’t all been smooth) and the contrary wish to play up difficulties and
obstacles (although it hadn’t been
that
difficult either). In the end I split the difference and made do with a shrug.

“All right,” I said, “let’s suppose that you eventually do join a company of players . . . ”

“Yes, let us suppose that,” said Peter. “Eventually.”

“But the story’s not over. Even when you are secure as a member of a company, you’re still at the mercy of that company’s fortunes. You may be the finest troupe in the
world but that doesn’t exempt you from a run of bad luck – and bad luck’s bound to come sooner or later, when your seniors choose the wrong plays, when the plague comes calling,
when the Council decides to close you down, when you lose your patron . . . ”

This was an oblique reference to our current situation in the Chamberlain’s but I didn’t want to say too much to Peter and checked myself. However, the comment seemed to go over his
head.

“If and when, if and when,” said Peter. “These are just the chances of life, Nick. You’re sounding like a worried old man. If you’re talking chances now, look at
us. We’ve both survived the plague while those around us have fallen.”

I shifted uncomfortably on the bench in the Goat & Monkey. The place was almost empty, apart from four boatmen playing primero at a distant table and a couple of men talking earnestly
together in a corner. One of them had a lined, chalky-white countenance. The other I recognized. It was Thomas Gally, Philip Henslowe’s agent, though largely self-appointed to that position.
Gally had taken to hanging about on the fringes of gatherings of the Chamberlain’s Company at taverns and elsewhere. He was playing the part either of a spy or a tempter, we supposed. (This
was the reason I’d jumped to the conclusion that my unknown visitor that morning had come with an offer.) There was rivalry of a friendly sort between us and the Admiral’s but it was
rivalry on a knife’s edge and might turn hostile at any moment. In Tom Gally’s case, this sense of threat was enhanced by a strange mannerism he had of holding his index finger close to
his right eye and squinting down it from time to time in the direction of the person he was talking to, as if taking aim with a pistol. At the moment his finger-gun was pointing at the white-faced
old man opposite him.

I looked back at Peter Agate’s eager, almost pleading face and realized with alarm that he wanted my approval for his plans to become an actor. It wasn’t enough that I didn’t
object; he wanted my active agreement. While he was waiting for it he clutched at his tankard. Perhaps it was Martin Bly’s ale that was fuelling this itch to play.

“Our cases are not the same, I think,” I said, struggling to find words to put my reasons into. “I had neither mother nor father remaining in our village, and no brothers or
sisters in the first place, nor anyone I truly cared about – apart from you, Peter. There was nothing and nobody left for me there. You have a mother and a father and a gaggle of
sisters.”

“My mother died last year.”

“I am sorry to hear it.”

This was no mere form of words. I was sorry. I remembered Margaret Agate, not least because she’d often bestowed more kind words and smiles on me in a day than my mother provided in a
twelvemonth.

“Your father though?” I said.

“Is still living.”

“That’s well.”

“Is it? To tell the truth, my father and I had a bad falling out over precisely this, my intention to become a player.”

“I fell out with mine too. But I still say our cases are different, Peter. I had nothing . . . to look forward to. You have that . . . gaggle of sisters only.”

“What you mean to say is that there are no males in my family apart from me and so it’s in my own interest to stay put in Somerset and wait for my father’s property to fall
into my hands. That’s what you mean to say.”

“I would not put it so nakedly but, yes, I suppose so. You have no need to trouble about the future. You have property and land stored up for you.”

“And that should be enough?”

I suddenly saw how feeble a position I was trying to argue him into. Was I suggesting that my boyhood friend ought to remain rusting in the village of his birth for the rest of his life? That no
dream or ambition was required of him except to step into his father’s shoes at the moment of God’s choosing? I asked myself how I would have reacted to such advice. The answer was,
badly.

“I’m sorry, Peter. You’re seeking advice from the last person who should be trying to persuade you against something you’ve set your heart on. I spoke from honest
friendship when what I should have done is wished you luck. I hope it’s not too late to do that.”

For the first time since I’d joined him on the ale-house bench Peter’s expression relaxed. He placed his tankard on the table and put a reassuring hand on my arm. I noticed that both
the men in the corner, Tom Gally and the chalky-faced one, had stopped their conversation and were now looking attentively in our direction.

“That is what I hoped you’d say.”

“It’s not exactly strong encouragement.”

“It’s not strong discouragement either, like my father’s.”

“He disapproved, eh?”

“When I said we’d had a falling-out, I was understating things. You remember my father?”

“Both your mother and father I have affectionate memories of.”

Though I didn’t remember him as clearly or fondly as I did his wife, Anthony Agate had always appeared to my young eyes as an easy-going fellow, the sort who’d fall in with a
son’s plans – or at least not oppose them too vehemently.

“Something happened after my mother’s death,” said Peter. “Until then my father had been tolerant enough. His good temper even survived the pestilence. He could not thank
God often enough for preserving our household. But when my mother died it was as if his old self went underground with her. He was like a gloomy, raging ghost in the house. My young sisters were
afraid to be in his presence and visibly shook if he spoke to them. Not that he wanted anything to do with them. Me, he threatened with words and even struck on occasion if I went counter to his
wishes.”

“As when you said you wished to be a player?”

“Only to hint of that caused a storm. He said players were scum and the devil’s droppings and worse. I saw that I could never win him round, any more than I could uproot an oak. And
there were other things besides which were wrong in our house. So I decided that there was no other path except . . . evasion, escape.”

“What about your sisters? I can remember them although they were all quite small when . . . Anne and young Margaret and . . . ”

“And Katherine. Katie. Believe me, Nicholas, I often think of them.”

Peter bit his underlip. He picked up his tankard and put it down again uncertainly.

“You think I should have stayed behind to care for them?”

I said nothing because I could think of nothing to say. I suppose I did think that Peter Agate ought to have stayed in Miching and protected his young sisters against an overbearing father.
Having no sisters myself I perhaps had a rather overdeveloped, even knightly sense of what was due to them. But what right had I to say anything to Peter concerning a situation which I’d never
been in? I’d already done enough damage to our friendship. So I changed the subject, or part changed it.

“Why should you want to become a player now anyway?”

“
Vita brevis
,” said Peter.

“Eh?”

“
Vita brevis, ars longa
, Nick, you know.”

“Life is short while art is long.”

“Yes, well, it’s more the
vita brevis
bit I’m thinking of. What we want to do we ought to do when we can, because who knows . . . ”

Peter had no chance to say any more because the chalky-faced individual who’d been sitting in the corner suddenly sprang towards our bench. He left Gally sitting at their table.

“Do not, sir, do not! Oh, preserve yourself!”

He had an earnest, resonant voice. Crumpled ears stuck out from under his cap. Close to, he looked older, more lined.

“Are you addressing us?” I said.

“Not you, master. You are already lost. No, this is the gentleman I would warn.”

He looked at Peter, who in turn looked even more uncomfortable. Now, you run across madmen in the streets of London and occasionally in indoor places like taverns too. They’re not usually
dangerous but you can never be sure.

“Warn? Me?” said Peter. “Warn me?”

If my old friend was going to spend time in London he’d soon learn that the best way to deal with these unfortunates was not to respond.

“Beware the playhouse, young man,” intoned this pale old person. “Do not join them, master. I was once as you are but I saw the light.”

The moment he started in on the playhouse I recognized him, or rather his type, one that you might find out on the streets more often than in the tavern. Abstinence and playhouse-hating usually
go together. Perhaps he was merely pretending to drink and waiting for the chance to rant at unwary players. The Goat & Monkey was well known as a theatrical haunt. The only puzzle was why he
was keeping company with Tom Gally, Henslowe’s agent.

By now the little crew of boatmen were sufficiently interested in the scene to lay down their cards and turn towards us. Gally meantime regarded the scene with detachment, squinting down his
finger towards us.

“Tell me,” said the pale person, shifting in my direction and fixing me with his protuberant eyes, “what is the playhouse? What is its character?”

Pretending to think, I said eventually, “It is a den of delight.”

“You are wrong!” he said. “A playhouse is like the sink in a town for all the filth and folly to flow into.”

“It is a place where pleasure and instruction go hand in hand,” I said.

“It is like a great boil on the body that draws all the bad vapours and humours into it.”

“I can see we’re never going to agree,” I said.

“
You
are already sunk into the perilous pit, master, you are damned. I can tell by your clothing and your manner that you are one of that unclean generation.”

I bowed my head slightly in acknowledgement. Of course he was able to identify me as a player. Perhaps Tom Gally had pointed me out as one. My first instinct, on sensing where this lunatic was
heading with his questions (to which he already had all the answers), had been to make a rapid exit from the Goat & Monkey. But something held me back. Peter Agate wished to become a player,
didn’t he? Well then, let him see that not everyone approved of the trade, that not everyone would applaud his choice. In his inexperience he probably believed that his father’s
hostility was unusual. It wasn’t. Plenty of people hated the theatre and here was one of them.

“This is the gentleman I wish to save.” Chalk-face’s bulging gaze shifted back towards my companion. “He is not yet part of your foul fraternity. He is not yet
lost.”

I left it to Peter to reply to this, if he chose to. When he did reply I was impressed by the steadiness of his tone.

“Sir, you were not invited to join us from your corner. This is not polite. You were not privy to our conversation. It can only be that your ears are like tennis rackets, ready to snaffle
other men’s balls.”