The Nicholas Bracewell Collection

by Edward Marston

  Ralph Willoughby was no credulous fool who could be tricked by a flash of gunpowder and a flame-red costume. Watching intently from the gallery, he was convinced that he had seen a real devil materialise upon the stage. Nicholas still had vestigial doubts.

  ‘The cord was cut, the trap was up.’

  ‘A devil could have done that.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘To spread more confusion, Nick. To mislead us afresh.’

  ‘My instinct takes me to another explanation.’

  ‘It was a devil,’ insisted Willoughby. ‘I was the one who called him and I was the one who was punished. Master Firethorn is right to put the blame on me. I raised up this spirit.’

  Further dispute with him was useless. He would never be shifted from his belief and Nicholas was forced to admit that his friend did actually witness the supernatural event. So did the four actors on stage at the time and they were of the same mind as Ralph Willoughby. Panic scattered the entire company with the honourable exceptions of Lawrence Firethorn and Edmund Hoode. It was the latter who now excited curiosity.

  ‘Why was Edmund not unnerved?’ said Willoughby.

  ‘He is a brave man in his own way.’

  ‘His performance went beyond bravery, Nick.’

  ‘He was driven forward.’

  ‘It was Youngthrust to the life.’

  ‘That was his fervent hope.’

  ‘In his place, I would have been trembling with fear.’

  ‘Edmund was armoured against it. There is something that is even stronger than fear, Ralph.’

  ‘Is there?’

  ‘Love.’

  ‘That is the cause?’

  ‘Why do you think he chose to play Youngthrust?’ asked Nicholas with a kind smile. ‘Edmund Hoode is in love.’

  Grace Napier was not an overwhelming vision of loveliness. Men beholding her for the first time would notice her pleasant features and her trim figure, her seemly attire and her modest demeanour. They were impressed but never smitten. Hers was a stealthy beauty that crept up on its prey and pounced when least expected. She could reveal a vivacity that was usually banked down, a hidden radiance that came through to suffuse her whole personality. Those who stayed long enough to become fully acquainted with Grace Napier found that she was a remarkable young woman. Behind her many accomplishments lay a strong will and a questing intelligence, neither of which involved the slightest sacrifice of her femininity.

  ‘You deserve congratulation, Master Hoode,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you, thank you!’

  ‘Your portrayal was sublime.’

  ‘I dedicate it to you, mistress.’

  ‘It is the finest I have seen of your performances.’

  ‘The role was created with my humble talents in mind.’

  ‘There is nothing humble about your talent, sir,’ she said firmly. ‘As a poet and as a player, you are supremely gifted.’

  ‘Your praise redeems everything.’

  Edmund Hoode was in a private room at the Queen’s Head, enjoying a rare meeting with Grace Napier. The presence of her companion, the pert Isobel Drewry, imposed a restraint as well as a propriety on the occasion but Hoode was not deterred by it. In the few short weeks that he had known her, he had fallen deeply in love with Grace Napier and would have shared the room with a hundred female companions if it gave him the opportunity to speak with his beloved.

  Isobel Drewry giggled as she offered her critique.

  ‘It was such a happy comedy,’ she said, tapping the ends of her fingers together. ‘I laughed so much at Droopwell and Justice Wildboare. And as for Doctor …’ Another giggle surfaced. ‘There! I cannot bring myself to say his name but he gave us much mirth.’

  ‘Barnaby Gill is one of our most experienced players,’ said Hoode. ‘No matter what lines are written for him, he will find the humour in them. He has no equal as a comedian.’

  ‘Unless it be that third merry devil,’ observed Grace.

  ‘Indeed, sir,’ agreed Isobel. ‘He gave us all a wondrous shock.’

  ‘That was our intent,’ said Hoode dismissively, anxious to keep off the topic of the uninvited devil. ‘Tell me, Mistress Napier, for which of his several good parts did you admire Youngthrust the most?’

  Isobel suppressed a giggle but Grace gave a serious answer.

  ‘I was touched by his sighing,’ she said.

  ‘Were you?’ he sighed.

  ‘He suffered so much from the pangs of love.’

  ‘Oh, he did, he did!’

  Hoode was thrilled by this new evidence of her sensitivity. With so many other things to choose from, Grace Napier singled out the quality he had tried above all else to project. The sighing and suffering that was provoked by Lucy Hembrow in the play was really aimed at Grace herself and she seemed almost to acknowledge the fact. In every conceivable way, she was a rare creature. Unlike most young ladies, Grace came to the playhouse to see rather than to be seen, and her knowledge of drama was wide. She watched most of the London companies, but her favourite – Hoode gave silent thanks for it – was Westfield’s Men.

  Isobel Drewry might be thought by some to be the more attractive of the two. Her features were prettier, her eye bolder, her lips fuller and her manner less guarded. Again, Isobel’s dress was more arresting in its cut and colours. Her combination of worldliness and innocence was very appealing but Hoode did not even notice it. All his attention was devoted to Grace Napier. This was the first time she had come to the Queen’s Head without bringing her brother as a chaperone and Hoode saw this as an important sign. She consented to a brief meeting with him after the play and she confessed that she had been touched by the pathos of his performance. That was progress enough for one afternoon.

  ‘We must bid you adieu, sir,’ she said.

  ‘A thousand thanks for your indulgence!’

  ‘It was a pleasure, Master Hoode.’

  ‘You do me a great honour.’

  ‘I would see you play again,’ said Isobel brightly. ‘When will Westfield’s Men take the stage again?’

  ‘On Friday next at The Curtain.’

  ‘Let’s attend, Grace. We’ll watch the company in another piece.’

  ‘I am as eager as you, Isobel. We’ll visit The Curtain.’

  ‘That might not be altogether wise,’ said Hoode quickly. ‘If it is comedy that delights your senses, pray avoid us on Friday at all costs. We play Vincentio’s Revenge, as dark and bloody a tragedy as any in our repertoire. I fear it may give offence.’

  ‘Darkness and blood will not offend us, sir,’ said Isobel easily. ‘Tragedy can work potently on the mind. I like the sound of this play, Grace, and I would fain see it.’

  ‘So would I,’ returned her friend.

  ‘Consider well, ladies,’ he said. ‘It may not be to your taste.’

  Grace smiled. ‘How can we judge until we have seen it?’

  ‘Be ruled by me.’

  But they declined. No matter how hard he tried to persuade them against it, they stood by their decision to watch Vincentio’s Revenge. Hoode was unsettled. He wanted Grace Napier to see him at his best and the tragedy gave him no opportunity to shine. He was cast as a lecherous old duke who was impaled on the hero’s sword in the second act. There was no way that he could speak to his beloved through the character of the Black Duke. She would despise him as the degenerate he played.

  Grace read his mind and tried to soothe it.

  ‘We do not expect a Youngthrust in every play, sir,’ she said.

  ‘I am not well-favoured in Friday’s offering,’ he admitted.

  ‘We will make allowances for that. I’ll not condemn you because you appear as a villain. I hope I’ve learned to separate the player from the play.’ She touched his arm lightly. ‘My brother and I saw you as the Archbishop of Canterbury in The History of King John, but I did not then imagine Edmund Hoode to be weighed down with holiness. Whatever you play, I take pleasure from your performance.’

 
‘This kindness robs me of all speech,’ he murmured.

  Grace Napier crossed to the door and Isobel followed her. Hoode moved swiftly to lift the latch for them. Isobel bestowed a broad smile of gratitude on him but he was not even aware of her presence. Grace leaned in closer for a final word.

  ‘I would see Youngthrust on the stage again,’ she confided.

  ‘The Merry Devils?’

  ‘Your part in your play. A double triumph.’

  ‘I am overcome.’

  ‘But next time, sir, let him sigh and suffer even more.’

  ‘Youngthrust?’

  ‘He should not have his love requited too soon,’ she said. ‘The longer an ardent wooer waits, the more he comes to prize his fair maid. It can only increase their happiness in the end.’

  She touched his arm again then went out with Isobel, their dresses swishing down the corridor and their heels clacking on the paving slabs. Edmund Hoode was tingling with joy. He had clear direction from her at last. Grace Napier welcomed his love and urged him to be steadfast. In time, when he had endured the pangs of loneliness and the twinges of despair, she might one day be his. She had transformed his life in a few sentences.

  From the depths of Hell, he now ascended to the highest Heaven.

  Chapter Three

  St Paul’s Cathedral was the true heart of the city. It dominated the skyline with its sheer bulk and Gothic magnificence. Within its walls could be found the teeming life of London in microcosm. Paul’s Walk, the middle aisle with its soaring pillars and vaulted roof, was a major thoroughfare where gallants strutted in their finery, soldiers escorted their ladies, friends met to exchange gossip, masters hired servants, jobless men searched the advertisements on display, lawyers gave advice, usurers loaned money, country people gaped, and where all the beggars and rogues of the neighbourhood congregated in the hope of rich pickings.

  Crime flourished in a place of divine worship and yet the sacred glow was somehow preserved. St Paul’s was not simply an imposing structure of stone and high moral purpose, it was a daily experience of everything that was best and worst in the nation’s capital.

  The cathedral stood at the western end of Cheapside. Its churchyard covered twelve and a half acres with houses and shops crowding around the precinct walls. At the centre of the churchyard was Paul’s Cross, a wooden, lead-covered pulpit from which political orations were made on occasion and from which sermons were regularly preached.

  ‘There indeed a man may behold hideous devils run raging over the stage with squibs in their mouths, while the drummer makes thunder in the tiring-house and the hirelings make lightning in the Heavens.’

  The sermon which was being delivered there on that sun-dappled morning was fiery enough to draw a large audience and to capture the interest of those who were browsing in the bookshops or loitering by the tobacco stalls. Standing in the pulpit, high above contradiction, was a big brawny man with a powerful voice and a powerful message. He waved a bunched fist to emphasise his point.

  ‘Look but upon the common plays of London and see the multitude that flocks to them and follows them. View the sumptuous playhouses, a continual monument to the city’s prodigality and folly. Do not these vile places maintain bawdry, insinuate knavery and renew the remembrance of heathen idolatry? They are dens of iniquity!’

  There was a ground swell of agreement among the listening throng. Isaac Pollard developed his argument with righteous zeal.

  ‘Nay!’ he said. ‘Are not these playhouses the devourers of maidenly virginity and chastity? For proof whereof, mark the running to The Theatre and The Curtain and other like houses of sin, to see plays and interludes, where such wanton gestures, such foul speeches, such laughing and leering, such winking and glancing of wanton eyes is used, as is shameful to behold. The playhouse is a threat to Virtue and a celebration of Vice!’

  Pollard was really into his stride now, his single eyebrow rising and falling like a creature in torment. He pointed to the heavens, he pummelled the pulpit, he smashed one fist into the palm of his other hand. In launching his attack on the theatre, he was not averse to using a few theatrical tricks.

  ‘But yesterday,’ he continued, ‘but yesterday, good sirs, I went to view this profanity for myself. Not up in Shoreditch, I say, not yet down in Bankside, but within our own city boundaries, at the sign of the Queen’s Head in Gracechurch Street. There I beheld such idleness, such wickedness and such blasphemy that I might have been a visitor to Babylon. Men and women buy this depravity for the price of one penny and our city authorities do nought to stop them. Yet upon that stage – I call it a scaffold of Hell, rather – I saw the visible apparition of devils as they capered for amusement. That is no playhouse, sirs, it is the high road to perpetual damnation!’

  The more vociferous elements gave him a rousing cheer.

  ‘The theatres of London,’ said Pollard with booming certainty, ‘are the disgrace and downfall of the city. Among their many sinful acts, there be three chief abominations. First, plays are a special cause of corrupting our youth, containing nothing but unchaste matters, lascivious devices, shifts of cozenage and other ungodly practices.’

  Support was even more audible now. A woman in the crowd clutched her two children to her bosom, as if fearing that they would go straight off to the nearest playhouse to lose their innocence.

  ‘Second, theatres are the ordinary places for vagrant persons, thieves, beggars, horse-stealers, whoremongers, coney-catchers and other dangerous fellows to meet together and make their matches to the great displeasure of God Almighty.’

  Pollard drew himself up to his full height and his shadow fell across those who listened down below. Both arms were outstretched for effect as he came to his final indictment.

  ‘Third, plays draw apprentices and other servants from their work, they pluck all sorts of people from resort unto sermons and Christian practices, and they bind them to the worship of the Devil. Playhouses mock our religion. Destroy this canker in our midst, say I. Perish all plays and players!’

  There was a deathly hush as his imprecations hung upon the wind, then a derisive laugh was heard from the rear of the congregation. Isaac Pollard turned eyes of hatred upon a personable figure in doublet, hose and feathered hat. The man had the look of a gallant but the air of a scholar.

  It was Ralph Willoughby.

  The house in Shoreditch was not large and yet it served Lawrence Firethorn and his wife, their children, their servants, the four young apprentices with Westfield’s Men and sundry other members of the company who needed shelter from time to time. It fell to Margery Firethorn to make sure that people did not keep bumping into each other in the limited space and she presided over her duties with a ruthless vigilance. A handsome woman of ample proportions, she had an independent mind and an aggressive charm. Firethorn could be fearsome when roused, but he had married his match in her. Pound for pound, Margery was redder meat and she was the only person alive who could rout him in argument. He might be the captain of the domestic ship but it was his wife’s hot breath which filled the sails.

  ‘The room is ready, Lawrence,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you, my dove.’

  ‘Refreshment has been set out.’

  ‘Good. We deal with weighty matters.’

  ‘Nobody will dare to interrupt!’

  Her raised voice was a threat which could be heard in every comer of the house. She glided off to the kitchen and Firethorn was left to conduct his two visitors into the main room. Barnaby Gill puffed at his pipe and took a seat at the table while Edmund Hoode curled up on the settle in a corner. Firethorn remained on his feet so that he could the more easily assert his ascendancy.

  It was a business meeting. All three of them were sharers with Westfield’s Men, ranked players whose names were listed in the royal patent for the company. They took the leading parts in the plays and had a share in any profits that were made. There were four other sharers but most of the decisions were made by Firethorn, Gill
and Hoode, a trio who combined wisdom with experience and who represented a balance of opinion. That, at least, was the theory. In practice, their discussions often degenerated into acrimonious bickering.

  Barnaby Gill elected to strike the first blow this time.

  ‘I oppose the notion with every sinew of my being!’

  ‘No less was expected of you,’ said Firethorn.

  ‘The idea beggars belief.’

  ‘Remember who suggested it, Barnaby.’

  ‘Tell Lord Westfield that it is out of the question.’

  ‘I have told him that we accede to his request.’

  ‘You might, Lawrence,’ said the other testily, ‘but I will never do so, and I speak for the whole company.’

  Barnaby Gill was a short, plump, round-faced man who tried to hold middle age at bay by the judicious use of cosmetics. Disaffected and irascible offstage, he became the soul of wit the moment he stepped upon it and his comic routines were legendary. Tobacco and boys were his only sources of private pleasure and he usually required both before he would shed his surliness.

  Lawrence Firethorn grasped the nettle of resistance.

  ‘What is the nature of your objection, Barnaby?’

  ‘Fear, sir. Naked, unashamed fear.’

  ‘Of another apparition?’

  ‘Of what else! I am an actor, not a sorcerer. I’ll not meddle with the supernatural again. It puts me quite out of countenance.’

  ‘But we survived,’ said Firethorn reasonably. ‘The devil came and went but we live to boast of our ordeal.’

  ‘It might not be so again, Lawrence.’

  ‘Indeed not. The creature might decline to visit us next time.’

  ‘He’ll get no invitation from me, that I vow!’

  Firethorn reached for the flagon on the table and poured three cups of ale, handing one each to the two men. He quaffed his own drink ruminatively then turned to Edmund Hoode.

  ‘You have heard both sides, sir. Which do you choose?’

  ‘Something of each, Lawrence,’ said the playwright.