Alms for Oblivion

by Philip Gooden

  This gentleman was slightly built, with a tapering nose and a high forehead across which were smears of dried blood. It was difficult to tell his age, he was perhaps about my own years or a little older, but his face was all brown and weatherworn indicating the outdoor life. He was bubbling at the mouth and uttering sounds that were without meaning. Most disconcertingly, his eyes were open but the pupils had almost rolled up into his head and nothing except a yellowy white was visible.

  I would have stepped around the figure and moved on down the road but something about him made me hesitate. So, without going any closer, I stood and waited. The wind whipped at my hair and I shrugged myself further in Top-court’s coat. The man on the ground writhed a little more before going calm and quiet. His eyes closed and the foaming ceased. I coughed to let him know that I was still there and, sure enough, after a minute or so, he opened his eyes, normal now, and looked around with a vacant expression.

  I clapped a few leisurely claps, in that mocking fashion of which we are all master, like an unimpressed spectator in the theatre. His gaze flickered towards me and apparently took me in for the first time. He seemed to consider. Then, with sudden agility, he sprung to his feet. He wiped at his sudsy mouth.

  “I knew it wasn’t going to work,” he said.

  “Why?” I said, genuinely curious.

  “I can tell in moments if it’s going to. If the cony comes close and leans over or gets down on one knee, then it’ll work.”

  “Gets down on one knee so that he can be beaten over the head?” I said.

  A pained expression crossed the man’s mobile face.

  “Gets down in order to help a fellow human being.”

  “Who’s about to rob him.”

  “Not rob him.”

  “What then?”

  To be honest, I didn’t know why I was engaging this gentleman in conversation. Perhaps I’d been so starved of dialogue on the road that I was happy with any company, even that of a cony-catcher – or to be more specific a counterfeit crank. These gentlemen travel about our kingdom and when they see a likely prospect in their way they tumble down all in a heap, frothing at the mouth and making moan. After a period they come to themselves again, all ignorant of their surroundings but grateful to the kind lady or gentleman who has stopped to assist them. They claim to be victims of a falling-sickness which may strike them down at any moment, and they present a most piteous spectacle, with their faces all bloody and muddy from where they have fallen in previous fits. But the real victim or cony in this situation is the innocent passer-by who delves into his purse to relieve the unfortunate.

  “What is it then if it’s not robbery?” I said.

  “I give good Christian men and good Christian women the chance to show charity and offer alms,” said this impudent fellow.

  “By trickery.”

  “No one suffers. They go on their way with their hearts warmer.”

  “And their pockets lighter.”

  “A small price to pay for a good deed.”

  “I am pleased to meet a philosopher on the road,” I said.

  The man gave an ironic little bow. He saw me looking curiously at his mouth, still whitened and sticky-looking.

  “Soap. When I see someone in the distance I slip a small piece into my mouth and suck – suck judiciously.”

  “And what about that?” I said, indicating the bloody smears on his forehead.

  “Paint.”

  “You should try sheep’s blood instead.”

  “You speak like an expert, Master – ?”

  “Topcourt. I should do, because I’m a player. A tragedian.”

  Saying these words gave me a curious sense of relief. Even though they contained a minor untruth – a false name – they contained a larger and truthful fact. I was a player. I was still a player.

  “Where do you play?”

  “Oh, in London, with the Chamberlain’s Company, the finest company in the land,” I said, then added in case he was wondering what I was doing so far away from such a fine group, “I am out of the city because – because my father has recently died and I am on my way home.”

  “I should have known better than to try and trick a Londoner,” he said.

  “You weren’t to know it,” I said, almost as if it was I who had tried to trick him.

  “My name is Abel Glaze,” said this man. I wondered whether it was his real name. He almost stretched out his hand to grasp mine but restrained himself at the last moment. Perhaps he considered that both of us were in the same line of business, playing parts, deceiving people.

  “How much can you expect to make?” I said.

  “I once earned fourteen and threepence halfpenny in a day.”

  He spoke proudly. I wasn’t surprised. It was more than I earned at the Globe in a couple of weeks.

  “That was up near Reading way,” said the counterfeit crank called Abel Glaze. “Folk are more generous in those parts than they are down here.”

  “More gullible, you mean.”

  He shrugged. I grinned – grinned for the first time in many days. Who was I to look down on this individual, I who was on the run from the law for much more serious offences than feigning sickness?

  “Like you, Master Topcourt, I play more than one part,” said Glaze.

  “I suppose you couldn’t spend your whole life falling down. It would be tedious.”

  “You should see my old soldier,” he said, unburdening himself. “With the wounds I received in the Low Countries. Unslaked lime and a dab of iron rust excite the pity of the ladies and the admiration of the men. I have a limp that I can call upon and many tales of the battle of Zutphen.”

  “You are a resourceful fellow,” I said, not altogether mockingly.

  “No lie, I was there at the battle when I was no more than a boy,” said Glaze, “but I came off unscathed through the shot and smoke. Not a scratch. And now the wars provide me with a living in peace, the wars and the falling-sickness.”

  There was something engaging about Abel Glaze. I was reluctant to part company with him while, for his part, he seemed eager to spill out the secrets of his trade. Perhaps he too was hungry for company. The wind blew in our faces. His eyes widened. I looked behind me and saw two figures travelling down the route I’d come on, and the sight prompted me to get going again. But first I rummaged in my purse and found a twopence piece. Glaze’s sharp nose quivered but he made a don’t-trouble-yourself gesture – after all, weren’t we fellow players? And he was certainly more prosperous than me. Nevertheless, grateful for the diversion he’d provided, I tossed the coin to him and he caught the glinting silver, threw it up in the air and caught it once more overhand. Then giving another little bow, not so ironic this time, he said, “I shall remember you kindly, Master Topcourt,” and set off in the direction of the two advancing figures, a man and a woman.

  I wondered whether he would try his tricks on them. I didn’t stop to see but put on speed to leave the scene.

  Within a couple of hours I was within sight of my old village. I came over the brow of the hill and – heart beating fast, and not just from the uphill climb – glanced down almost fearfully. When I’d last seen Miching on a fine spring morning my vision had been clouded by terror and pity. The doors to the houses were daubed with red crosses and pleas for God’s mercy. Some of my father’s parishioners were being forked into a burial pit. Of my father and mother there was no sign (of course they were dead). The chief thing I remember is the absolute silence of the place, as if a great hand had pressed down on the village and stifled all the life out of it. I think that, unknowingly, I’d been expecting everything to be unchanged from my last terrible visit – that is, I expected the same absence of sound, the same deathly stillness.

  But, on this gusty afternoon in late autumn, there were signs of renewed life. Smoke was being hustled away from cottage chimneys by the wind. A dog barked down below. Screwing up my eyes, I could make out an individual coming through the lych-gate of t
he church. The activity surprised me. But the surprise was misplaced. It was now several years since the plague had struck Miching and, although most of the villagers had died, a few survived. Peter Agate had told me as much. Houses and other places can be fumigated and made fit for human habitation once more. Eventually the disease seems to grow tired and run its course. All is not lost. Why, in the years that I’d been absent in London, a little troop of children had probably been born to replenish some of the old stock. For some reason, I felt my eyes prickling and dabbed at them. I stood a long time gazing at the scene which lay spread out down below.

  Then I neatened my clothing, tugging Topcourt’s coat about me. I hoped I didn’t look as though I’d passed the best part of a week on the road. Fortunately the couple of nights which I’d spent in the inns had enabled me to get rid of some of the smudge of travel.

  I set off at a downhill march, not to the heart of the village but towards the great house which lay at a little distance, a life-preserving distance, from it. This was Quint House, the residence of the Agates. I walked steadily, afraid that if I checked my steps now my resolution might falter. For what had seemed a good idea as I fled from Southwark – that I should return to the place of my birth and seek shelter with the family of my old childhood friend, while I took stock of my predicament – now looked a less certain thing with every step I made towards their front door.

  What claim did I have on them? I was Peter’s friend, but Peter was dead. I’d written to the family a heartfelt letter, explaining something of the brutal circumstances of his death but without suggesting that I myself had fallen under suspicion for it. I’d supposed, in a careless kind of way, that the Agates might be glad to hear more details of his death from the friend Peter had sought out in London - or, if not his death, then of his last days, and quite happy days they had been too.

  If Mistress Margaret, Peter’s mother, had been alive, I know she would have welcomed me with open arms. But she was dead. In her place was Gertrude, the harpy-like stepmother whose claws and flapping dugs Peter told me he’d run away from. As for father Agate, old Anthony, the one who had bitterly opposed his son’s plans to go on stage, what would he say when he clapped eyes on a member of the disgraced tribe of players on his doorstep? Even though I’d been unaware of Peter’s intentions before he’d arrived, wouldn’t I somehow be blamed for luring Peter to London and so bringing about his death? That was assuming Anthony Agate even remembered me. Then there were Peter’s sisters . . . but what was I to them? Only one, Anne, had been there for Peter and me to shoo away and trip over. The others had been little children, inconsequential and out of sight. And Anne I’d most likely tweaked and teased horridly. If she remembered me at all it would probably be with indifference or distaste.

  So, all in all, my plan seemed not just ill thought out but futile.

  Half a dozen crazed notions ran through my head as I covered the final furlongs to the Agate mansion.

  Why should I stop here in my old village? Almost everyone I knew was dead. I could just keep going, letting my legs carry me where they would. Why not simply plunge on into the wilds of the West Country and there make do with what I could grab and grub? After all, Abel Glaze made a good living out of tumbling down in the public highway or exhibiting his fake wounds to interested viewers. I was no less of an actor than him.

  Or I might head for a seaport, to Bristol or Plymouth, and there take ship to . . . to a new life in another land. But I was no great lover of boats. The widest strip of water I knew was the Bristol Channel. And the only foreign country I’d ever had a glimpse of was the wild mountains of Wales, and they were quite enough to be going on with.

  So I continued in my progress towards Quint House and entered by the front gate, passing between pillars surmounted by great stone balls. As a child I’d thought they looked as big as the globe. The house, built of a stone that even on this overcast day looked warm to the touch, stood four-square and solid before me. To one side was the small chapel which had been erected by old Peter Agate, the pious grandfather of the family. I traversed familiar gardens and walked up the flagged path. A gardener was raking the fallen leaves. He looked up incuriously.

  I contemplated going round to one of the side entrances but, in the event, knocked at the main door. When no answer came, I rapped more loudly. I heard footsteps inside. My mouth was dry. I had no idea what I was going to say.

  A pale-faced woman opened the door. She was wearing mourning but wasn’t dressed like a servant. She looked too young to be the new lady of the house, Peter’s stepmother, Gertrude. Too young and too attractive for a harpy. There were shadows under her eyes. She regarded me almost in bafflement and didn’t seem inclined to speak.

  “Is the master of the house at home?”

  “The master?” she echoed.

  “The mistress then?”

  “She is with Ralph Verney of Miching.”

  “Ah,” I said, not recognizing the name.

  “They are talking of monuments.”

  “Monuments, of course,” I said. Then, realizing that I needed to make matters clear, if only for my own sake, I started again.

  “I – I am an old friend of the Agate family. Or, to be more precise, an old friend of Peter Agate.”

  As if the name was a cue on stage, the face of the woman in front of me suddenly crumpled like a screwed-up cloth. She clung to the doorpost for support and looked down at the floor of the porch.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, beginning to have an inkling of what this might be about. “Are you – you are Anne, yes, you must be Anne Agate.”

  As I said the words I saw that this was indeed Peter’s oldest sister. When I’d left Miching – when I’d run away from the village – she’d been a girl. Now she was a young woman.

  “Who are you?” she said, between choked-back tears.

  For an instant I considered calling myself Topcourt – my incognito, the name that I’d doled out occasionally on my journey – but what would be the point of that? If I couldn’t play myself in my own village there was no hope left for me.

  “Revill, Nicholas Revill.”

  “Is it?” she said, glancing up with brimming eyes, and as if doubting my own identity.

  “Yes.”

  “He that was the parson’s son from Miching?”

  I nodded.

  “I remember you now. You are changed, a little.”

  “You are greatly changed . . . Anne.”

  “You wrote a letter to us from London.”

  “With bad news in it. I am very sorry I had to write it.”

  She brushed at her eyes and, through the tears, came a watery half-smile.

  “You said kind things. In among the – the horrors you said kind things.”

  “Peter was a good friend.”

  “You were a good friend to my brother.”

  “Not good enough.”

  “You saw him at the end.”

  “Almost,” I said, not wanting to enlarge on that final scene in Dead Man’s Place.

  “Now you have come from London to see us?”

  “I have been on the road these many days.”

  “Then you are welcome,” she said, standing to one side.

  As I entered through the front door of Quint House, Anne Agate almost fell against me and we embraced without thought, in shared grief for her brother. My own eyes were full by now. We were standing in the lobby, which opened into a large panelled hall such as you often find in these old-fashioned country houses. Abruptly Anne pulled away from me. Standing in a doorway on the far side of the great hall were a man and a woman, watching us.

  I was able to identify the woman straightaway from Peter’s description. She was dressed in showy black and her cheeks were a hectic red. This must be Gertrude Agate. The man standing in the shadows behind her was a serious-looking fellow, not Anthony Agate but seemingly many years younger. Presumably this was Ralph Verney, whoever he might be.

  “Who is your friend, Anne
?” said the woman. “Tell me now please.”

  “Not mine but a friend of Peter’s,” said the girl.

  “Nicholas Revill, madam,” I said, making a little dip with my head. “I used to live in this village. I am a player from London.”

  “Revill?” said Mrs Agate, squinting towards me. She came closer, inspecting. Looked me up and down. “It was you that wrote us about my stepson.”

  “I profoundly regret that I had to be the one to convey the news,” I said.

  I felt awkward.

  “What are you doing here?” she said.

  “I have come to pay my condolences in person. I am only passing through.”

  Not altogether true, but not altogether untrue either. Mrs Gertrude Agate, however, didn’t look impressed or pleased and, after another glance up and down, she stepped back.

  Fortunately, the man in the doorway chose this moment to come forward. He was also wearing black, set off by a small white ruff. It was then that I put two or three things together – this gentleman’s grave demeanour and sober dress, his presence in this house of mourning, the talk of a monument (presumably a church monument for Peter). I realized that I was looking at my father’s replacement. Life had indeed returned to Miching: smoke rose from its chimneys, dogs barked in its streets, and there was a priest back in the pulpit. It was probably he who I’d seen coming through the lych-gate of the church.

  “I believe I am the son of your – your predecessor,” I said, moving forward with my hand extended.

  “I hope that you know who you are, sir,” said this clerical gentleman.

  His innocent joke was a little too near the truth, but he meant nothing by it. Ralph Verney introduced himself. We shook hands. He had an open, candid gaze. Anne Agate watched with approval. Close to, Verney looked youthful enough, even though I don’t suppose he was more than a year or two older than I was. But when I thought of the minister of Miching, of course I thought of my father, earnest, reverend, a little frightening. Essentially an old man – to a boy or a young man’s eyes. So anybody else would be a mere youth in comparison.