Alms for Oblivion (9 page)

“What? Oh yes. I do know it. I have been privileged to receive the foul papers.”

“Foul papers? Is it horrid?” said the lady. “Is it dirty?”

Richard hurried to explain this piece of theatrical jargon, before someone could make some fresh comment about privy walls.

“You’ve seen it,” said the lord in surprise.

“Not only seen it, I’ve read it,” I said.

“It is a great work, though, is it not?” said Lord Bumpkin to me. “Fit to rival Master Shakespeare’s.”

“Never thought much of
him
meself,” said his lady.

“
The World’s Diseas’d
has blood and sinew, certainly,” I said.

(And the odd severed limb and head.)

“I look forward to reading it – fair or foul – guts and all,” said the woman called Vinny.

“I don’t have time to read, not even to read the works of our poet,” said Lord Bumpkin, “I am too busy with more important things. I rely on Vinny to read for me. She is
a lady of discrimination.”

She was so obviously the opposite that I waited for the heavens to fall or at least for Richard Milford to intervene with a soothing platitude, but he had apparently given up, even on his
coughing.

“I am sure that is the case, my lord. Her appearance alone is a warrant of her good taste,” I said, bowing slightly in her direction. Lady Venner twinkled in return, showing a good
amount of bad tooth and heaving booby. I couldn’t endure another instant in this box. Luckily I had an excuse to hand.

“Now I must return these clothes or I’ll be in trouble with the tire-man.”

“I’ll come with you, Nicholas,” said Richard. “I also have some business with the tire-man. If you’ll forgive me, my lord and lady. Please stay as long as you
like.”

“It’s our box, we’ve paid for it, we shall stay,” said Bumpkin.

We made our adieus to the elevated couple in their rented box. As we left Richard interjected an oddly domestic note when he asked the Bumpkins to ensure that the small fire was doused before
they departed. Perhaps, in the midst of more important considerations, he too had remembered that the Globe playhouse was built of wood.

“How should I do that, extinguish a fire?” said Bumpkin, evidently considering this a servant’s task. “What instrument should I use?”

“Piss on it, Robbie,” said his noble lady. “You have an instrument to hand.”

“Haw haw,” said Bumpkin.

I didn’t wait to see whether he was going to act on her suggestion. I was rather afraid that he might. I clattered down the stairs to the ground floor, aware that Richard Milford was at my
heels and aware too that he wanted to
explain
things to me. Visiting the tire-man was just an excuse.

He caught my arm as we were in the passageway outside the tire-house. He raised his eyebrows as if to signify, ‘Yes I
know
.’

I said nothing.

“Poets and playwrights need patrons,” he said. “We can’t all have Southamptons at our beck and call. Young men in possession of all the graces are hard to come by, those
with wealth
and
connections
and
refinement.”

“But Lord Robert Venner does have
one
of the graces, surely? Let me guess which one it is. I have it – he must be rich.”

“You know, Nicholas, you should play the prig more often. You do it so naturally. But to answer your question, yes, he is rich – rich in expectation.”

“Then he lives on the air, promise-crammed. And I assume others will live on
his
promises.”

“Don’t assume. He’s not like some of your more high and mighty patrons. Lord Robert has done more than ply me with promises. That gentleman you have such a low opinion of, he
is paying to have some copies of my play circulated privately.
The World’s Diseas’d
, you know.”

“Printed, you mean?”

I was as surprised as I must have sounded. The only plays which were honoured with publication were the established successes, and then not invariably. Yet Richard’s hadn’t even been
performed yet.

“Yes, printed and bound by Master Nicholson over in Paul’s.”

“Immortality guaranteed?”

“A little fame, local fame. Immortality is another thing, you know.”

“I’m sure you’ll live to see it,” I said. “This next book will have an appropriate dedication?”

“You have heard of a
quid pro quo
, Nicholas, you with all your learning. You may also have heard the saying in the marketplace that you can’t lure a hawk with an empty hand. In
fact, to show you how . . . unabashed I am by all of this . . . I will tell you that I am dedicating
The World
to
both
of my patrons. It was that, I believe, which encouraged them to
have the play printed. ”

“You have a generous patron – sorry, patrons.”

“And there’s another thing,” said Richard. “We writers have many weapons in our armoury, many arrows in our quiver.”

“As many as you have metaphors,” I said.

“It is possible to take the money with one hand – to put it crudely – and yet to pay back with the other.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We may love our patrons in our prefaces and dedications, yet convey a truer message elsewhere. A hidden message.”

“That’s subtle,” I said.

“So tell me truly what you think of them,” said Richard, jerking his head in an upwards direction. I wondered if Lord Bumpkin had pissed out the sea-coal fire yet.

“A delightful couple, if somewhat earthy.”

“I do not think you really think so, Nicholas. You are being ironical. Though I would sooner you were ironical than priggish.”

“Inform me of one thing, though, before I return this costume,” I said, beginning to undo my points and making for the tire-house. “Those verses in your
Garland
book,
they are not really about that woman in the box, are they? She’s not exactly the nonpareil of beauty.”

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” explained the poet. “I am happy if she thinks that the verses are about her. And if she thinks that they are, they are. But whatever you
do, don’t say a word to my wife.”

At once I became interested.

“Lucy? Why not?”

“Because, you simpleton, I have told her that the lines are hers, some of them at any rate. It’s easy to see that you’ve never written a love-poem.”

“Can’t she share the lines with Venner’s wife?”

“Wife?”

“The lady in the box.”

“She is his sister.”

“I assumed that she was his wife.”

“Assuming again, Nicholas,” said Milford, turning on his heel.

As I exchanged the play clothes for my street garb in the tire-house – half-listening to the grumble of the tire-man Bartholomew Ridd that I was the last one from
Love’s
Diversion
to bring my costume in – I ran over what I’d discovered from Richard.

That the playwright had a generous patron, there was no denying. Whatever Lord Bumpkin’s reasons for wanting
The World’s Diseas’d
published, the fact remained that
Richard’s little book would actually be launched on the world, watertight and ship-shape, and with a much better chance of survival than it would have had as a pile of paper languishing in
some corner of the playhouse.

I couldn’t make out Lord Bumpkin and his sister though. Why had I taken them for man and wife? They looked a bit alike, hay-rickish and toothy. They had the same expensive but slightly
coarse clothing and very coarse manners, while claiming refinement. On the other hand they hadn’t seemed particularly intimate (sign of one kind of marriage) or distant (sign of another
kind). But, since I’d only seen them together for a few minutes, what did I know about Robbie and Vinnie Vennor of Clod Hall, Loamshire?

Robbie and Vinnie. I smelled the nursery here. The clutching at slippery syllables, the lisping of names. I thought that Vinnie was most likely a diminutive – an affectionate, babbling
child’s diminutive – for Virginia. A brother’s blubbery attempt to get his fat baby lips around ‘Virginia’, and then a fond name which had stuck between them
since.

Next I thought of Richard Milford’s latest play,
The World’s Diseas’d
, and of the brother and sister in that drama. The passionate and earthy brother and sister, Vindice
and Virginia. Well, what’s in a name? A rose would smell as sweet & cetera. Nevertheless it was perhaps a little . . .
tactless
. . . of Richard to name one of his characters after
the sister of his only begetter. And then to plunge that character into the toils of an incestuous love affair. Perhaps the playwright considered that he was paying them a tribute? No, Richard was
obtuse sometimes but not that obtuse. Perhaps he was simply oblivious to the coincidence of names? I didn’t think that was likely either. No, I considered that Richard was probably doing what
he’d boastfully hinted at to me just now. That is, he was getting back at his patrons, whose coarseness and stupidity he was well aware of, getting back at them in the only way he could
– through the power of his pen. I’d called it ‘subtle’ but really I thought it was foolish.

I hoped that the real-life brother and sister, if they found out, would not take amiss this ‘accident’ of naming, especially since they were paying to have the work printed and
circulated. Maybe neither Lord nor Lady Bumpkin would get beyond the title-page. There are advantages sometimes to having stupid and unbookish patrons.

I’d more or less forgotten about my friend up from the country, Peter Agate. When I returned to Dead Man’s Place, however, I found him eager to tell me of his latest
London adventures. Not with Nell of Holland’s Leaguer, as it turned out. Rather he’d spent part of the day in friendly conversation with the zealous, chalk-faced individual who’d
been ejected from the Goat & Monkey by the boatmen. This conversation was surprising, given that Peter had previously rebuked Chalk-face, cast aspersions on his ears and generally acted as
though he had neither time nor patience for the man’s anti-drama zealotry.

“It wasn’t an argument this time, Nick. He was once as we are.”

“Sane, you mean?”

“He was a player. With Lord Strange.”

Why wasn’t I surprised that the old man should have been on stage? Converted sinners make the best preachers.

“His name is Chesser,” Peter continued. “He was a player, I say, but then he saw the light.”

“Listen to him long enough and you will see it too.”

“He was trying to get me to see it, yes. That was also why he was talking to that man from Philip Henslowe’s company. Seeing he was getting nowhere in that quarter, and having an ear
out for our conversation, Master Chesser could not help trying to convert me to his cause instead.”

“I didn’t know you wanted to be converted from playing.”

“But today he was talking about the old days instead,” said Peter, avoiding my question. “I was interested.”

“Plenty of people in the Chamberlain’s could provide you with tales about the old days, if that’s what you want,” I said. “You were speaking to one or two of them
last night in the Devil.”

“Master Chesser has a tale about the devil too, not the tavern one either.”

“He probably does. Most of us can talk of the devil.”

“It’s not only that, Nick.”

Once again I sensed that Peter had something to tell me. I waited.

“I have been reviewing my behaviour. My London behaviour, I now call it. I was discourteous yesterday in the tavern, the first tavern, the Goat & Monkey not the Devil. At first I
thought it must be the fault of the drink. No . . . my own fault rather. I think I’ve been drinking ever since I arrived in this town. I can remember only a little of what I’ve said and
done. One thing I did remember though was that I had been discourteous to Master Chesser. I recalled my words to him in the Goat & Monkey – and I rued them.”

“Rued your rudeness.”

“I wanted to atone,” said Peter, ignoring my little joke. “So when I saw Chesser – or rather when he loomed out of the fog today and grabbed me by the arm, and when
I’d recovered from the surprise and recognized him – I thought that the least I could do was to give him a hearing. To atone for my jibes of yesterday.”

“Well, you have paid for your jibe about his ears by now – by giving him yours for several hours.”

“But I have been rewarded, Nick. He has much to say that is worth listening to. His time with Lord Strange’s men. The great days of playing in the ’80s.”

“Well then, I am glad,” I said. “That’s that.”

I respected the penitential mood in Peter Agate but didn’t necessarily want to hear any more of it. So, to change the subject, I reminded him that he was due to take part in another
rehearsal of
Troilus and Cressida
at Middle Temple the next day, since Thomas Pope still hadn’t returned from his visit to Lord Hunsdon’s house. But Peter wasn’t finished
yet.

“I am wondering whether this is the life for me after all, this playing life.”

“But you came to London expressly to be a player.”

“A man may change his mind.”

“After two or three days?”

“Better now than later.”

“Is this the result of meeting old whatisname? Chesser?”

“No, or not much. It’s more that I am not sure I like my London behaviour.”

“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned it. There’s obviously something in the air here, some contagion.”

“You speak in jest – ”

“Look, you got drunk, you visited a whorehouse. You can do these things anywhere, although it’s easier in London. And the goods are better here even if they’re more
expensive.”

“Too easy. I say nothing of the expense, at least in terms of money.”

Oh dear. Peter was having a little attack of conscience. I wondered whether to tell him what a friend (Nell in fact) had once told me: that the best way to survive such an attack was to harden
your heart and sit it out. The trouble was that I suspected Peter enjoyed being conscience-struck. You can indulge your conscience just like anything else. A thought occurred to me: that maybe this
was Peter’s grandfather (another Peter) peeping out, the one who had presented the living of Miching to my father and who had reputedly been a pious and severe man. Perhaps these traits had
been inherited by his grandson, who was now fierce in condemnation of himself. But it would not have been tactful to raise these ideas with the young Peter. So I changed direction again.