Alms for Oblivion

by Philip Gooden

  My hands clenched tight. Now I held the Venners to account as villains-in-chief. They had killed two friends of mine, they had made one or more attempts on my life, they had fired a bookshop.

  I must have disliked them very much to have thought so ill of them. I did dislike them very much. I wanted them to be guilty.

  This was my plot then, the one conceived in the shelter of Duke Humphrey’s tomb. It was that Lord and Lady Bumpkin had done all of these terrible things in order to protect their good names.

  I might not have been altogether convinced by my own story but it would do to be going on with.

  I quit Duke Humphrey’s tomb, leaving it to its shadows and vagrants. But it may be that the gloomy air of that corner of Paul’s infected me because I felt very low in spirits as I made my way through the Walk and out into the open air. Not even the sight of the gallants in the aisle, either flashing their new satins or covering up the holes in their old ones as they vied for each other’s attention, gave me as much amusement as it usually did. The fire in the bookshop was thoroughly extinguished and a handful of people were picking through the charred remains. If my notions were correct then that conflagration could be laid at the door of Vinnie Venner, even as her brother had launched a loaded cart at me. It is a lowering experience to believe that someone is in pursuit of your life. Doubly so, when guilt is added to this, because I held myself responsible in some way for Peter Agate’s death. I was still impelled by the desire to expose his killer or killers, and not only to save myself from a capital charge.

  But every man must have rest from his conscience, relief from his woes.

  And so my thoughts now turned towards Nell, the fair lady of Holland’s Leaguer. I remembered that I had earlier determined to see her once more, perhaps for the last time. To see a friendly face. At this moment, as my other friends were being brutally snatched away from me, Nell stood out in my mind as my original London associate. However much our paths had diverged since, we had started out at the same point in this city as ignorant, unfledged country creatures.

  From Paul’s Yard I decided to make a last pilgrimage to Holland’s Leaguer. If Nell was occupied then so be it. I’d wait until she was finished, or finished with. You may judge how eager, even desperate, I was to glimpse a friendly face when I say that I checked my purse to see whether I had sufficient to pay her. Four half-crowns was more than enough for the more exorbitant charges of Holland’s Leaguer. I had all this money in my purse because I’d been intending to settle part of my debt with Nicholson. Now it might go to a whore instead. I’d never paid (her) before, and had vowed I never would. But if that was the price of seeing her again – and even though it represented a fortnight’s pay to me – so be it. I could of course present it to her as a gift rather than as a fee. That way, both our faces would be saved and our other parts satisfied.

  It was about mid-afternoon on this fateful day when I came within misty sight of Holland’s Leaguer. This great building had originally been a manor house and, in the general view, it had come down in the world by permitting itself to be turned into a house of ill-fame. Whatever indoor trade it served, though, the place was outwardly much more respectable than many of its Southwark neighbours. It had the appearance of a pretty urban fort, with diminutive battlements and a moat hardly wider than a gutter. On either side of the wide doors lounged a couple of women in red silk gowns, like painted posts giving notice of the delights within. (A truer sign would have been a board depicting a man with a decayed nose and a bald pate, advertising the delights of the pox.) The gate-women didn’t seem to feel the afternoon chill despite the quantity of flesh on display. I couldn’t help being reminded of Vinnie Venner although these women were much more fetching.

  This Holland’s Leaguer is a world unto itself or, less grandly, a little village, with many small groups and dependencies. Nell used to tell me how some of its occupants stayed inside the mansion for weeks on end. Whores were not the half of it. Like an army laid up in camp, the whores had to be adequately supplied. They had to be watered and pro-vendered, and this required a baggage-train of sutlers and sumpters. The girls also had to be protected from customers who were disagreeable or wouldn’t pay or who otherwise failed to keep to their side of the bargain, and this required a whole band of bullies and creepers, the captain of which was a one-eyed gentleman known as the Cyclops. He wore a red silken patch that enhanced his fearsomeness, and I’d heard it said that he wore the patch simply for effect and could see perfectly well with the concealed eye. No one dared to check, however.

  Every army has its generals and for Holland’s Leaguer there was an entire benchful of madams presided over by a madam-in-chief. Her name was Bess Barton. She was reputed to have been a great beauty in her youth and well worth the charge. But she had grown old, stout and ferocious and was now much more alarming than any male inhabitant of the place, the Cyclops included.

  And, just as there would be in any village, there were odd folk hanging about Holland’s Leaguer whose origins or presence couldn’t be altogether accounted for. There was the simple-minded old woman who was supposed to be the offspring of one of old Lord Hunsdon’s mistresses. Of no use now for trade, if she ever had been, she was maintained out of charity. Then there was a strange young man – actually called Orpheus, I believe – who had no gift in poetry or singing and no interest in the whores qua whores but who possessed an infallible nose for what the weather was going to do the next day or the next week. The brothel-business isn’t as dependent as playhouse or bear-pit on the vagaries of the weather but trade is still affected by it, so Orpheus was indulged as forecaster-of-the-closet by the girls. There were other oddities and dependants about the place but not one of them is material to this story. I describe all this only to give you some picture of the brothel where I had spent some of my more pleasant hours in London . . . and to delay arriving at that part of the story which, now, can be delayed no longer.

  I passed between the half-naked doorposts, who recognized me as Nell’s paramour and did not trouble themselves with any extra nods and winks. There was an ugly male doorkeeper seated beyond this pair, and just out of sight from the public highway, but he too let me pass unquestioned. There was no objection to the occupants of the house having their own friends as long as it didn’t interfere with trade. Indeed, no regulation was really necessary in this respect since the girls themselves were aware, to the last halfpenny, of the value of their time and of their wares. They had to pass over half of their earnings to the bench of madams. Therefore they had to be very much in love with – or besotted by – their paramours to give up their hours or their wares without getting anything in return.

  I walked along the first-floor passage that led to Nell’s crib. From the closed doors on either side came sounds expressive of delight, real or feigned. Or those were the sounds that probably came from behind doors. Absorbed in my thoughts I was only half conscious of my surroundings. So well-trodden was this path to pleasure that I could have found my way there blindfold. Likewise its sounds and smells I took for granted. When a figure banged into me before blundering off down the passage, I hardly registered it although some mild admonition may have escaped my lips.

  I paused outside the door of Nell’s crib and listened for sounds of activity, or rather of that one specific activity. Not a whisper, not a moan or a groan. Good. She could not complain that I was interfering with business. And now I observed that the door was not completely closed. I pushed at it slightly and it swung open. I had some cheerful remark to hand but it wasn’t required because the room was empty. I strode in and took possession, as I had done so often. She would have a surprise, an agreeable one I hoped, when she returned from gossiping with Jenny or from her visit to the jakes.

  It took some moments before my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom. Nell kept her curtains drawn whatever the hour of day or night – not so much to hide her activities from the eye of God or man but to reassure her customers that all was safe and private
for them. Only one little candle burned, neglected, in a corner. By its indifferent light I saw what I hadn’t noticed at first, that Nell was here after all. She was snugged up in bed with her taffeta quilt drawn over her. Strands of her hair were straggling above the cover. I made to pull back the quilt, to expose (perhaps) her nakedness, but thought better of it and instead cleared my throat. No response. I coughed more loudly then said her name. There was still no reaction from the sleeping figure.

  Suddenly fearing the worst, I pulled back the covers. Nell was indeed lying there, on her back and naked. Her face was contorted and suffused and her tongue was stuck out at me. Her hands were raised so as to secure a sash or piece of thick ribbon round her neck. Why does she want to hold the ribbon in place like that? I thought. See how it is buried in the soft flesh of her neck. It would be better for her health if it was loosened. And, knowing in one part of my mind that this was useless, I tried to loosen her hold on the ribbon. But she refused to give it up to me even though I said her name several times over and pleaded with her to give it up. Eventually I prised her fingers from the sash or ribbon and, gently lifting up her head (how heavy it seemed!), I unwound the rich material from round her neck.

  Then, clasping the ribbon, I sank on my knees to the floor.

  That was how, many minutes afterwards, the two of them found me – Nell’s friend Jenny and the Cyclops, the leader of the bully boys who kept order in the brothel – found me kneeling on the floor, holding the ribbon which had taken away my Nell’s life and breath at one stroke and for ever.

  Mea Culpa

  “Did you kill her?”

  “I did not.”

  “Do you know who did?”

  “No.”

  “All you know is that you did not kill her.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you want to kill her?”

  “She was my friend.”

  And then Master Talbot said . . .

  And then I said . . .

  I was reminded of a play rehearsal, the same lines repeated but delivered with a slightly different intonation or emphasis. Or I was reminded of a nightmare in which events are helplessly duplicated but can’t be avoided on that account. In other circumstances I might have laughed or cried. But I couldn’t bring myself to laugh or, strangely, to cry.

  This was truly dangerous, I told myself without conviction. I was as good as done for and yet I felt less troubled by this occasion than when I’d previously sat in this chair facing this inquisitor. I was once again in Coroner Alan Talbot’s chambers in Long Southwark near the Bridge but this time I had not stepped in, albeit summoned, from the street but had been escorted from my prison cell to face questions about the murder of Nell. My gaolers stood outside the door but within earshot, in case I should suddenly turn desperate. I was not so much desperate, however, as despairing.

  These questions were surely a formality. At any moment Talbot would organize an arraignment and trial. I could already feel the noose about my neck. In my present state of mind, the noose would not have been entirely unwelcome. At least I could share with Nell the manner of her death, a slow squeezing out of life and breath. In this fatalistic mood, I could barely rouse myself to listen to Coroner Talbot’s questions let alone answer them. My main motive in dragging out this interview was to delay a return to the gaol and its stench. I never knew that ordinary streets, ordinary chambers could smell so, well, ordinary. I also wanted to delay that shameful walk back through the common streets between two hulking gaolers, a walk in which I imagined I could feel every passer-by’s eyes boring into me like an auger. My giant escorts might as well have hung a sign about my neck reading ‘Revill, the parson’s son and player – and murderer’. The only consolation was that the gaolers were so large that people were more likely to look at them rather than the unfortunate wrong-doer in between.

  “What?” I said.

  “Part of your story again, Nicholas. The details concerning this sleeve.”

  “I have told you once already, Master Talbot.”

  “No, you have said nothing except to link the sleeve to your play at Middle Temple.”

  “I’m tired, Master Talbot.”

  “Your life is at stake.”

  “I hardly care.”

  “So we may as well hang you straightaway.”

  I grinned at him. A grin of gloom and despair, but a doomed man may still surprise himself. For some reason Talbot’s remark seemed jocular rather than threatening.

  “Well, it’s what’s going to happen, isn’t it?” I said.

  “That is not yet determined. All that is determined is that justice will be done. But there are some preliminaries to be got through first. That is my task. So tell me about your Troilus.”

  I noted that Talbot’s manner was less severe than when he’d questioned me about Peter Agate’s death. His gaze was still hard and cold and he had the habit of pressing his palms flat on the table to affirm a point, but he called me Nicholas in an almost paternal way and was altogether less peremptory in his demands. I took this for a bad sign. To him, I was already dead.

  “In my character as Troilus I have a sleeve which I detach from my doublet,” I said mechanically. “This I pass over to my Cressida as a love-token. She, or rather he, gives me a token in return. But it was my token which vanished after the performance.”

  “And which was later used for a quite different purpose.”

  “Yes.”

  I could hardly look Master Talbot in the eye, as if I was indeed guilty of the crime with which I was charged.

  For it was the sleeve – that token of love – which had been wrapped around Nell’s young neck and then pulled tight until the life was choked out of her. In my distraction at finding her in her crib I had mistaken the sleeve for a sash or even a gaudy ribbon, and not recognized that piece of costume which I’d been wearing only a few days earlier. It was evident that the murderer had stolen it after the production of Troilus and Cressida, had filched it presumably from behind the scenes at Middle Temple. If it was the murderer who’d taken it . . . perhaps he (since I never doubted that the murderer was a he) had obtained it through someone else’s good offices. It was the kind of thing that might happen in a play rather than at a play. If so, who – and why? In case the sleeve came in handy as a means of murder? Not an obvious choice to snuff someone’s life out with. As a bitter joke, the badge of affection being turned into a fatal cord? In order to implicate Revill?

  “What’s that, Nicholas?”

  “What?”

  “You were saying something under your breath.”

  “Thinking aloud.”

  “So you never saw the sleeve again after you’d passed it over to – what is the name of your boy-player?”

  “Peter Pearce.”

  There was no reason to give Master Talbot a false name, unlike with that boy-loving law student called Miller.

  “You gave the sleeve to Peter Pearce,” repeated Talbot, “who gave you a glove in exchange. What did you do with that glove by the way?”

  Something about the question troubled me but I couldn’t put my finger on it – or, seeing as we were talking about a glove, couldn’t put my finger in it.

  “Well,” Talbot said. “What did you do with it?”

  “I can’t remember but it must have been returned to the tire-man in the usual way. If it hadn’t been, either Peter or I would have heard about it from Master Ridd. He is a demon for clothes.”

  A sudden thought occurred to me.

  “You could ask Ridd the tire-man about the sleeve which belonged to the Troilus costume. He knows I didn’t have it because he threatened to tell Burbage and get the cost of the thing deducted from my salary. He taxed me about it on the morning of the day of – of – ”

  “The murder of your friend.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, Nicholas,” said Talbot, “you told this man Ridd that you didn’t have the sleeve. That you’d lost it.”

  “I had lost it.”<
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  “But what would you have said to him if you had retained it in your possession, and were intending to use it for . . . some nefarious purpose?”

  “Just the same. That I didn’t know what had become of it,” I said, crestfallen.

  “Let us move back to the question of your friend, the harlot Nell of Holland’s Leaguer.”

  “If we must.”

  “I regret that we must. You said that you hadn’t seen this woman for many weeks before you visited her on the day of her death. Why had you kept away from her?”

  “I was not one of her regular customers.”

  “Nevertheless you saw her often?”

  “What I meant was that I never paid her. We were friends.”

  “But you hadn’t seen her for a long time?”

  “If what you’re trying to establish, Master Talbot, is that we had a falling-out, then I’ll save you the trouble. Yes, we had a disagreement of sorts.”

  “Over your other friend Peter Agate, your dead friend?”

  “No, not him.”

  “Someone else?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Last time we met, Nicholas, you said that being jealous over a whore was like being resentful of the wind for brushing your enemy’s face as well as your own.”

  In other circumstances I might have been flattered that Master Talbot had remembered my words so clearly. Now it gave me no pleasure.

  “A speech which you called poetical,” I said. “I am embarrassed to recall it.”