The Silent Woman (7 page)

Nicholas, meanwhile, aided by George Dart and the other hired men, cleared tables and chairs to create an acting area at the far end of the taproom. Candles and lanterns were set with strategic care to shed light on the arena, and the guests adjusted their seating accordingly. Samuel Grace and his daughter occupied a prime position in the front row. The other sponsor of the entertainment – a rather stout, florid man in his twenties – placed his chair so that he could both view the stage and feast his gaze on the maiden modesty of Judith Grace. He licked his lips in a manner that suggested he had really parted with his money in order to be able to view her reactions to the performance. Judith Grace was to be his night’s entertainment.

The stage was set, there was a fanfare of trumpets and Owen Elias entered in a black cloak to declaim a Prologue. He cut such a dashing figure and attacked the lines with such vigour that he drew a burst of applause. Lawrence Firethorn then swept in as Charlemagne, leading four armed soldiers and yet somehow managing to convince the onlookers that he led a mighty host. He addressed his troops before battle to instil a sense of mission into them then he led the army off with a cry of such piercing volume that it shattered a bottle of Venetian glass that stood on a table for ornament. Martial prowess was followed by rustic comedy as Barnaby Gill took over to play a scene with Edmund Hoode from
Cupid’s Folly
. The whole room was soon awash with laughter, and Gill compounded their glee by concluding with one of the hilarious jigs that were his hallmark.

It was left to Richard Honeydew to restore order and raise the tone. Dressed as a French princess, he sat on a stool, stroking his long auburn hair and singing plaintive
love songs to the accompaniment of the lute. He was the youngest and most talented of the four apprentices and his piping treble had a most affecting timbre. The audience was enchanted and Judith Grace was so struck with it all that she almost swooned. Her father steadied her with his arm.

‘It is only a boy who sings, Judith, no real princess.’

‘I will never believe that is a boy.’

‘She is a lad, I tell you. Cunning in his skills.’

‘It is a girl, father. As I am a girl – so is she.’

Her ogling admirer leant across to make contact.

‘Your father speaks true,’ he said in an oily whisper. ‘Our princess is a mere apprentice with a pretty voice. Girls are not allowed to appear upon the stage. Boys must take their parts and they do it with rare skill.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Judith, then she joined in the clapping as Richard Honeydew ended his contribution and curtseyed. ‘This boy is a girlish miracle.’

Watching from the side, Nicholas Bracewell had also been touched by the apprentice’s solo performance but for another reason. Edmund Hoode had written the lyrics of the songs but they had been set to music by Peter Digby, the brilliant if erratic leader of their consort, yet another to be discarded through the exigencies of the tour. Digby had been replaced by a hired man who, as an actor-musician, could offer double value, indeed, would have a range of functions that his former director could never fulfil. The substitute was now leaving the stage with his lute but the next day would find him harnessing the dray horses, loading the waggon, setting up a stage when they got to Oxford, sweeping and strewing it with fresh rushes, then conning his lines so that he could play half a dozen different roles in a play he had never
seen before. An actor’s life was a rehearsal for the madhouse.

As Richard Honeydew and his accompanist left, Nicholas whisked all furniture from the stage so that the six dancers who now entered could cavort at will. Moving with formal grace, they went through a whole range of courtly dances, and the flagstones of the Fighting Cocks became a marble floor at a royal palace. Farce now surged gloriously onto the stage as Barnaby Gill, Owen Elias and Edmund Hoode played three gullible bumpkins who, rousing themselves from a drunken stupor, mistake an old friar for Saint Peter and imagine that they have died and been sent to heaven. In the robes of his order, Lawrence Firethorn was a jolly churchman who took advantage of the men’s stupidity to catechise them about their sins and see if they were fit to be admitted through the gates of what was, in fact, the very ale house where they had first become hopelessly inebriated.

Firethorn was so well versed in the part that he was able to touch off explosions of mirth and give himself the pleasure of gazing upon Judith Grace until the uproar began to fade. He noted that the portly man near the front of the audience had made her the object of his attention as well, but her father was too busy leading the laughter to observe this. Firethorn’s rising lust had the excuse it needed. He would not be pursuing the girl for his own gratification but in order to rescue her from the clutches of a leering stranger. His holy friar vibrated with irreligious intent.

The audience was now treated to music in a lighter vein as two other apprentices – Martin Yeo and John Tallis – sang duets with a fuller musical accompaniment. Wigs, gowns and make-up transformed them into winsome young ladies, though the lantern jaw of John Tallis had an unfeminine solidity to it.
When they left the stage, the climax of the entertainment was reached in an extract from
Vincentio’s Revenge
, a full-blooded tragedy that was synonymous with the name of Westfield’s Men. Lawrence Firethorn, supreme as ever in the title role, had chosen to play the scene in which Vincentio declared his love for the beauteous Cariola, unaware that she was already dying from poison that had been administered in her wine. Richard Honeydew was a superb foil for him as the ill-starred heroine. Here were the two ends of the acting profession – veteran and apprentice – meeting in the middle to produce ten minutes of memorable theatre.

The audience was enthralled, but Firethorn’s interest lay in one particular spectator. His wooing of Cariola was an elaborate courtship of Judith Grace, and the girl eventually seemed to realise this. Surprise gave way to alarm but he soon turned that into burning curiosity. He could feel her gaze following him like a beam of light and when he finally allowed himself to meet her eyes over the fallen body of Cariola, he saw that the conquest had been made. Firethorn and Richard Honeydew took several bows before they were allowed to leave then they returned with the full company to take a final toll of applause.

Samuel Grace was positively hopping with joy. He pressed the five pounds into Firethorn’s hand and thanked him for bringing the magic of theatre into his daughter’s life. The
actor-manager
was given the opportunity to kiss her hand and inhale her fragrance. It was enough. The caress that she gave his fingers and the secret glance that she shot him were sureties of mutual pleasure and he vowed to bring even more magic into her life in the privacy of her bedchamber. Firethorn had a competitor. The plump man first paid up his share of the cost then tried to engage her in conversation, but Judith Grace turned away
with head downcast and hands in her lap. Other guests came up to make smaller contributions for the entertainment and ten pounds in all went into the communal purse of Westfield’s Men.

As the guests dispersed to their beds, Firethorn treated the company to a last drink. One by one, they, too, began to slip away, conscious that they would be off again soon after dawn and hoping to snatch some sleep before first light scratched at the shutters. Lawrence Firethorn produced a monster yawn and pretended to drag himself up the staircase in order to fall upon his bed. The performance did not fool Edmund Hoode for a second.

‘The old cat is mousing again!’ he said bitterly. ‘How does he do it, Nick?
Why
does he do it?’

‘Because he is Lawrence Firethorn.’

‘Well, let him go his way! I do not envy him. I forswear all women. They will never ensnare me again.’

‘How so?’

They were among the last to linger in the taproom and sat companionably at a table. Nicholas Bracewell was in no mood to hear about a fractured romance, because the scene from
Vincentio’s Revenge
had reminded him irresistibly of his own loss. As the poisoned Cariola died in twitching agony, he saw the murdered girl from Devon stretched out on the floor of his chamber in Bankside. It was not only the young messenger who was beyond his reach. Anne Hendrik was gone as well. The killer had poisoned their friendship. Notwithstanding the twinges that it might bring him, however, Nicholas agreed to listen to Edmund Hoode’s tale of woe for two reasons. It was his duty as a friend to offer sympathy and it would advantage the whole company if he could help to dig their playwright out of his pit of despair and restore him to his rightful position. The chest that held his other plays also housed his foul papers
of
The Merchant of Calais
, last of the three new dramas he was commissioned to write that year. If Hoode were allowed to rid his mind of its latest torment, he might find the impetus to reach once more for his pen.

With this hope in mind, Nicholas turned to him.

‘Who is she, Edmund?’ he asked. ‘Tell me all …’

When Lawrence Firethorn adjourned to his bedchamber, he put the money into his capcase then turned his thoughts to Mistress Judith Grace. Young and untutored, she was desirous of experience and ready to place her education in the hands of a master. Her brief taste of theatre had opened up both mind and heart in a most bewitching way. It would be churlish of Firethorn to deny her the crowning act of pleasure. In the nakedness of their embrace, he would also be her knight in shining armour, jousting with the unwanted attentions of his adversary and knocking the rude fellow from his saddle. Altruism would be truly served.

Twopence in the palm of one of the chamberlains had bought him the location of her bedchamber, and he gave her plenty of time to detach herself from her father and make her preparations. Meanwhile, he addressed himself to his moustache and beard, peering by candlelight into his mirror in order to twist the one and curl the other to the required degree of excellence. When fingers and comb had done their work, he left the room, locked the door then crept along the dark corridor with the noiseless tread of a seasoned lecher. Lawrence Firethorn was equally sure-footed, whether performing at the centre of the stage or going about some backstairs work.

He felt his way to her chamber, tapped lightly on the door and waited. There was no answer. He knocked more loudly but
still elicited no reply. Trying the latch, he was pleased to find the door unbolted and was inside the room at once. A lone candle was flickering beside the bed like a gentle invitation. Judith Grace had covered her modesty with white linen and was a timid protuberance between the sheets. He simply had to take his place beside her and wear down her token resistance. Before he could bolt the door behind him, there was another tap, accompanied by a hoarse whisper and the raising of the latch. Lawrence Firethorn leapt back into the shadows as a hefty profile came into view. The newcomer shut the door behind him then gazed at the bed.

‘Judith!’ he called softly. ‘I have come.’

‘Then you may depart again,’ growled Firethorn, stepping out to confront the man who had tried to force himself upon the girl earlier. ‘Away, you rogue!’

‘I say the same to you, sir!’

‘Will you quarrel with
me
?’

‘I’ll quarrel with anyone who stands between me and my prize. You intrude, Master Firethorn. I am here by right.’

‘You are a walking insult to womanhood!’

‘I was chosen.’

‘A blind hag with a withered arm would not choose you.’

‘Nor you, sir!’

‘She swooned at my feet.’

‘She preferred my wooing.’

‘She squeezed my palm.’

‘She gave me her handkerchief.’

‘Stay further, and I’ll strike you!’ hissed Firethorn then he blinked as he actually heard what the man had just told him. ‘Handkerchief?’

‘What clearer signal could be given?’

‘
Handkerchief
!’

‘I have it here.’

Even in the gloom, Firethorn could see that it was hers and catch her perfume upon it. This fat and unprepossessing creature did actually have a reason for being in her bedchamber. The actor spun round to accuse Judith Grace but he was talking to some large pillows. Each man had thought himself a favoured lover when both of them were mere gulls. It was Firethorn who reacted most quickly to the situation.

‘We are abused, sir,’ he said.

‘But why?’

‘Return to your chamber.’

‘My chamber?’

‘They mean to rob us.’

‘Heaven forfend!’

They went out, groping their way in opposite directions to their rooms. Firethorn found his unlocked and ran across to his capcase. The night’s takings had vanished along with the rest of the money he carried. While he had been sliding off to deflower a virgin, she and her accomplice had robbed him and his company of over fifteen pounds. Vengeance sent molten lava coursing through his veins and he reached for his rapier. The clatter of hooves on the cobbles below took him quickly to the window where moonlight gave him a glimpse of two figures riding out of the yard before they merged conspiratorially with the darkness. Firethorn slashed the air wildly with his sword in a futile display of rage. What hurt him most was not that the thieves had escaped with his money, that of his supposed rival and, presumably, with additional valuables lifted from other unsuspecting guests. Real mortification came from the affront to his professional pride.

Lawrence Firethorn had been out-acted.

‘Women are all devils, Nick,’ said Edmund Hoode with glazed horror. ‘They flaunt their beauty to drag us down to hell.’

‘That is not the case here,’ observed Nicholas.

‘It is. She held me in thrall.’

‘The fault may lie with you rather than her, Edmund.’

‘Indeed, it does! I confess it. That is the hideous truth of it. I put my head willingly upon the block of disgrace. I am mine own executioner.’

Nicholas disagreed but he was too tactful to explain why. From what he had heard, he was fairly certain that the axe had been held by a familiar headsman. The unexpected return of an irate husband had the ring of stage-management to him, and he guessed at once who had usurped his role. To tell Edmund Hoode that he had been duped by a colleague as well as being deprived of his carnal rewards would be to sew perpetual enmity between playwright and actor-manager. Nicholas was forced to conceal what he would never condone.