In other words, the law students weren’t so different from the other audiences we play to. But they did fall silent and pay particular attention in those places where a less educated – or less arrogant – lot might have permitted their ears, eyes and minds to wander. That is, during the debates in the Greek and Trojan camps on warfare and honour, on time and memory. As I’d grown more familiar with the play I saw how artfully WS had tailored the action to his watchers and listeners. For what most of these people, these Greeks and Trojans, do most of the time is to sit, stand, talk and debate. And what is it that lawyers do but sit, stand & cetera? The cut-and-thrust of argument is the very air which these people breathe – even if it is a somewhat refined air for the rest of us.
One part of my part as Troilus had a particular flavour for me, playing in this place. As I’ve said, I suspected one of the students, Michael Pye, of usurping my position in Nell’s favours. Tell myself as I might that I had no right to feel this way, I couldn’t help seeing a very faint shadow of my situation in Troilus’s. His plight is infinitely worse, of course. The Trojan prince has been betrayed by the woman to whom he has surrendered his whole heart and soul. Revill, on the other hand, was merely passed over by a whore even while he had been thinking of rejecting her himself. Nevertheless I felt just a touch of Troilus’s agony as he spies on his rival, the Greek Diomedes, making overtures to Cressida. And worse, as he sees her give way before his eyes.
I knew that Michael Pye was in the audience, having glimpsed him in the company of his friend Edmund Jute. As Pye watched me playing the heart-sick Troilus, I wondered whether he knew me for a rival – if that was what he was. I resolved to see Nell for a final time and settle things one way or the other.
But it was not that moment in the play when I spy on my faithless Cressida which I had especial cause to remember. Rather, it was an earlier point in the action which haunted me for a long time afterwards, and which had consequences too.
This is how it happened. When Cressida is claimed back by her father she must depart straightaway from Troy for the Greek camp. The parting lovers swear hurried vows of fidelity. As tokens of their eternal faith, Troilus unfastens the sleeve of his doublet and gives it to his love while she hands him her glove. As far as Troilus is concerned, although of course he’s not to know it at the time, this giving of a sleeve is what they call a ‘sleeveless errand’ or a useless gesture, since he gets no reward for his token of love except betrayal. I’d wondered whether the presence of this joke – a kind of visual pun – had occurred to WS as he was writing the scene. Perhaps I should mention it to him.
(By the by, this habit of giving away one’s detachable sleeve is all very well for gentlemen in the moneyed and leisured classes who can afford to replace their doublets or get new sleeves as often as they like. I can’t say that I’ve ever done it myself though. I can’t afford to. I only possess one doublet. What do those other fellows do with the remaining sleeve, anyway? Give it to their second, secret mistress? You don’t see men going round with one-armed doublets. No, I’ve never had the resources to wear my heart on my sleeve. Or to receive a glove in return.)
I was playing opposite Peter Pearce, a boy-player who was fast making a name for himself in our Company. Ever since we’d had to face the rivalry of the child actors in Paul’s or Blackfriars, our seniors had paid a little more attention to the recruitment of our young players – that is, those who would take the women’s parts – recognizing that an audience can be drawn by quality here as elsewhere.
We were saying our urgent goodbyes. Peter’s voice hadn’t yet broken, of course, but he delivered his lines with an adult tremor.
O, you shall be exposed, my lord, to dangers
As infinite as imminent! But I’ll be true.
In his protestation of truth was a world of hope and fear. And I – or rather Troilus – reply,
And I’ll grow friend with danger. Wear this sleeve . . .
. . . as I unpick the sleeve of my doublet to present to Cressida as a token. And then something odd happened.
My doublet was made of brocade with figures of gold thread. It was a lavish garment appropriate to a prince. The light from the sconces and the hanging candles was concentrated around our playing-area in front of the hall-screen. Now the lights all seemed to gather and glitter on the rich sleeve and my eyes were so taken up by the dazzle that I forgot what I had to say next. I dried. At the same time I felt the hair on my nape bristle as if the sleeve were a dead thing. Mostly I was conscious of the golden sleeve dangling from my hand, but with one small quarter of my mind I knew that Peter Pearce, as he thrust at me with a finely worked lady’s glove, was saying the lines which had been written for him.
And you this glove. When shall I see you?
Still he gestured with the glove.
When shall I see you?
Cressida’s question echoed in my head, and no answer came.
When we’re playing at the Globe our book-keeper, Master Allison, or one of his underlings acts as our prompt from one of the points in the tire-house where he has an eye-hole on to the stage. But in the somewhat more awkward circumstances of the Middle Temple hall, not designed expressly for playing, the prompter was behind one of the entrance doors. It might not be immediately apparent that I’d lost the thread, even though an experienced prompter can usually tell from a player’s tone or from that pause which lasts half a beat too long that things aren’t going as they should.
This time no prompt came. The pause, which can only have lasted seconds, seemed to stretch to infinity. I was aware now of the shadowy vastness of the banqueting-hall, of the crowd of watching dark-suited figures, and of a roaring in my ears. The world spun. I shivered slightly. Then, as abruptly as the fit had arrived, it departed. There was Peter Pearce standing before me, holding out the glove and mouthing When? like a fish out of water. There was the audience hanging on my reply – and here were WS’s words come fresh into my head.
I will corrupt the Grecian sentinels,
To give thee nightly visitation.
But yet, be true.
. . . and, so saying, I at last surrendered a golden sleeve in exchange for a delicate glove.
After the play was over, I was expecting a rebuke or at least a comment from my fellows. It’s natural to pick over the performance for its good and bad passages. Instead I received compliments on my playing as Troilus and particularly for the scene when Cressida and I swapped love-tokens.
“That was a poignant moment, Nick, when you and Cressida parted,” said Michael Donegrace, the boy-player who’d graduated to men’s parts and who was still attentive to those scenes in which he might, until recently, have been playing the female role. We were changing out of our costumes in a makeshift tire-room behind the hall-screen. “It was as if you could glimpse into the future and knew that you would not be seeing your Cressida again, or not be seeing her in such a loving light. By your pausing and the little shake you gave you seemed to say so.”
“Thank you, Michael.”
I shrugged off the compliment in a grateful way and marvelled at how my incompetence could be transformed to artistry. I think that Peter Pearce alone was aware of how I’d lost my lines but he was too generous or too sensitive or too ambitious a young soul to give me away.
Troilus and Cressida was done and not to be repeated, at least in Middle Temple. I wondered whether our seniors would transfer it to the Globe playhouse. Perhaps not. It might be caviar to the general – too crabbed, too inward and talkative for the public taste. It may seem strange, almost spendthrift, to mount a play for one night only, but the Chamberlain’s was no doubt being well remunerated for it. (I didn’t know. I simply and gratefully accepted my shilling a day.) We also had to bear in mind the calibre of our audience; men who were rich and powerful or who would be those things one day. At this time of uncertainty, with a sick patron and a Queen who could not live much longer, it was useful to have friends with influence.
So the play
was over, the costumes, props and scrolls packed away. But our revels were by no means ended. Perhaps it’s the intentness of their studies which makes these law students take their pleasures so seriously – and noisily. The rafters rang. The air grew hotter and thicker with smoke from the pipes and guttering candles. There was drinking and singing and music and dancing and more drinking, and much consorting with the players and guests.
A full tankard was thrust into my hand from somewhere and I drank copiously to cool myself down. But it had the opposite effect of heating me up. Never mind. Looking around, I was pleased to see Richard Milford or, more particularly, Richard’s pretty young wife, Lucy. Not so pleased, however, to see that they were accompanied by his patrons, the Bumpkins, Lord Robert Venner and his sister Lady Vinny. Brother and sister seemed already far gone in drink and clung to each other for support, like two squat, fleshy pillars. The porcine eyes of Lord Robert squinted warily round the room. He seemed to be regarding me with particular suspicion. Once again the lady was showing a good deal of undesired flesh. It could be that she was hoping to attract some well-connected lawyer. Even as I watched I saw Pye and Jute and a couple of other students ogling her, but in a mocking way. Eventually they came right up and peered down at her bosom. She didn’t seem to mind and nor did her brother, but Richard Milford, more mindful of his patrons’ honour than they were of their own, shooed the young lawyers away with a few choice words.
I wondered whether this delightful couple had yet read Richard’s play of The World’s Diseas’d, that tale of incest and Italian double-dealing. Of course the brother lordling didn’t read because he had more important things to do. But his sister might spell her way through the text, finger underlining each word, tongue protruding from the fat purse of her mouth. She might actually read The World’s Diseas’d if she thought it offered the chance of a bit of dirt.
I really should advise Milford to change the name of his female heroine, just in case Robert and Vinny saw themselves in the lurid mirror of his characters. He wouldn’t listen but it would salve my conscience. It wasn’t too late to change a detail, even though the text was at the printer’s. (The book trade is used to dealing with the last-minute whims of authors.) I looked in Richard’s direction and he caught my eye. His gaze seemed to convey a mixture of defensiveness and hostility – or maybe I was imputing these feelings to him. I was certain now that the naming and the crude characterization of the incestuous brother and sister in The World’s Diseas’d were quite deliberate. From what Richard had said about taking money with one hand and paying back with the other, as well as the references to hidden ‘messages’, he secretly resented the necessity for patronage. Therefore he conveyed his real feelings about the absurd brother and sister in this oblique fashion, never imagining he’d be detected because his patrons were so stupid, so thick-skinned. If this was his opinion he was likely to be wrong. The insensitive may be blind to the world around them but they’re often very sensitive and watchful over everything connected to themselves.
Anyway, in the matter of this play, I thought I’d leave well alone. What business was it of mine?
While Richard was having to listen to the drunken mean-derings of his rustic patron, I took the opportunity to accost Lucy Milford. She was standing near her husband but also separate from him, if you see what I mean. She half glanced at me – through those long lashes!
“Did you enjoy the play, Mrs Milford?”
Even in the hazy dimness of the hall I could see the blush that crept into her cheeks. She inclined her head slightly and said, “I did.”
Her voice was gentle.
“You do not find the taste of the lawyers too coarse and cynical?”
Still looking down she said, “No.”
“I rather thought – it seemed to me – ”
I had been intending to turn a compliment here, contrasting the roughness of the play or the witty crudity of its humour, with her delicacy and refinement. It’s safe enough to pay compliments to a married woman, they enjoy them. But Lucy’s near silence, her downcast gaze, made me stumble.
“ – it might be too much for you,” I ended feebly.
“Oh no.”
“Oh well,” I said.
I wondered how Richard Milford had courted her. Had his stream of words – for he was a voluble, self-explaining fellow (not unlike me) – met the dam of her silence? How had he prevailed?
Seeing I would get no further here, I made to turn away. Then I felt a firm hand on my arm and was surprised to see that it was Lucy’s.
“Master Revill . . .?”
“Yes?”
“There was a man murdered.”
I bent my head towards her. I couldn’t be sure that I’d heard what I’d heard, her voice was so soft.
“A man – ? You mean, Peter Agate.”
Her grip tightened on my arm.
“No, not your friend.”
“Who then?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Ah madam,” I said, moving to detach myself. I felt sweat breaking out on my face. The heat of the room, the drink I’d already taken.
“Look how he dies! Look how his eye turns pale!” she said. Her voice did not vary from its low pitch but she shuddered.
My skin crawled. The hair prickled on my nape. She seemed to be looking over my shoulder. I was afraid to turn round in case I saw what she was seeing.
“Look how his wounds do bleed at many vents!”
And then I recognized the lines. They are the words of the mad prophetess Cassandra in Troy, as she foresees the death of her brother Hector on the battlefield outside the city. Well, I suppose there are different kinds of prophetesses, the raving ones and the quiet ones. Obviously Lucy Milford had been more deeply affected, not to say afflicted, by Troilus and Cressida than she’d let on at first. If she was a Cassandra then she was a whispering one rather than of the breast-beating variety.
“It was only a play, Mrs Milford, only a play,” I said, my tone almost matching hers for softness. I glanced sideways to where her husband was in close conversation with Robert and Vinny Venner, their red countenances framing his paler face. He was oblivious to his wife’s strange mood. “Those are words from the play you have just seen.”
“Stop him,” she said.
“Stop who? Stop Hector? But he will go out to battle and be killed. He has already gone. The warrior’s fate. It is written.”
“No, not him,” she said for the second time. She moved closer. “You know.”
“I don’t know.”
“But you have it too.”
Before I could ask what she meant or what it was that I was supposed to have too – if she knew it herself – we were interrupted by Jack Wilson.
“A fine performance, Nick.”
“What? Oh, thank you, Jack. And you as Hector.”
I gestured at my friend, as if to say to Lucy Milford, look here is the player who impersonated Hector, alive and well.
But whatever strange mood had seized her seemed to have passed. She inclined her head and said, with only a faint blush, “You make a fine warrior, Jack.”
“Though I am not a martial man by nature,” he said.
I felt a twinge of – yes, admit it – a twinge of jealousy that she should be complimenting my friend on his acting as well as the fact that she called him by his first name. Yet it was not surprising. Jack was liked by all for his easy openness.
At this point I was swept off by a gaggle of law students, among whom I identified Michael Pye and Edmund Jute. It was that stage in the evening when I had to stop a moment and identify people. To be honest, I wasn’t altogether unwilling to be drawn away from Lucy Milford’s company, especially now that Jack had turned up. There was an unsettling quality about Mistress Milford. Perhaps that was part of her attraction.
My tankard was refilled by someone or other. I hadn’t been aware of finishing it. Normally I drink sparingly, in sips like a green girl. Not tonight though.
“Well, was our Helen made of hot enough stuff for you gentlemen?” I said to the young lawyers. “Worth fighting a war over, was she? Or going to law for?”
“We hear that the law has rather come to you, Master Revill,” said Michael Pye.
Was there anyone in London who didn’t know my circumstances? Was I walking round with a dark cloud of suspicion over my head? Next I’d find myself the subject of a broadsheet ballad!
“Let Master Revill alone,” said Edmund Jute. “He has just wrung our hearts as Troilus. What he does in his spare time is no concern of ours. In law a man is innocent until proven . . . otherwise.”
This was a two-edged compliment, like being told by Tom Gally that his employer Henslowe did not regard me as a murderer. But it was more acceptable because Jute had coupled it with praise of my playing. But then, what did the opinion of these law-chicks matter? They had such good judgement that they thought it a good use of their time to ogle Vinnie Venner’s tits.
“My question was about matchless Helen, gentlemen,” I said, trying not to slur my speech. “Whether she was worth it.”
“I grant she had a ready tongue,” said Edmund Jute, “though the face that surrounded it was not one that would ever launch a thousand ships, in my opinion.”
Alms for Oblivion Page 12
