The Laughing Hangman nb-8

by Edward Marston

  Jonas Applegarth was still in a bellicose mood.

  ‘I am entitled to my opinion,’ he asserted.

  ‘Not when it offends your fellows so,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Can they not cope with honesty?’

  ‘Honesty, yes, but this was random cruelty.’

  ‘I will not praise where praise is not due, Nick.’

  ‘Then hold your tongue,’ counselled Elias, ‘or you’ll lose every friend you have made in Westfield’s Men. Insult Master Firethorn again and your career with us is ended.’

  ‘This play was lame stuff.’

  ‘Why, then, did you force yourself to watch it?’ said Nicholas. ‘If Vincentio’s Revenge is not to your taste, avoid it. That way, you will not have to suffer its shortcomings and your fellows will not have to bear your gibes. How can you expect actors to give of their best in your play when you mock their performances in every other piece?’

  ‘Stop biting the hand that feeds you,’ said Elias. ‘You have spat out enough fingers already. Respect our work and we might grow to respect yours.’

  ‘My art demands reverence!’ said Applegarth, slapping the table with a peremptory hand. ‘The Misfortunes of Marriage is an absolute masterpiece.’

  ‘Only when it is played,’ reminded Nicholas.

  ‘Why, so it will be. At The Rose next week.’

  ‘Not if you talk it off the stage.’

  ‘Westfield’s Men are contracted to perform it.’

  ‘We were contracted to perform The Faithful Shepherd by Edmund Hoode until you came along. If one play can be ousted thus easily from The Rose, so can another.’ Nicholas did not mince his words. ‘And if Westfield’s Men do not perform your work, it will remain as no more than words on a page. I gave you fair warning at the start, Jonas. You will be out of the company and we will cheer your departure.’

  Applegarth was momentarily checked. ‘But you saw my play, Nick. It blazed across the stage like a meteor. Owen will vouch for its quality. He tasted its true worth from the inside. Would any company be so prodigal as to cast aside a work of art?’

  ‘Our doubts are not about The Misfortunes of Marriage,’ said Nicholas. ‘It is a rare phenomenon. We all agree on that. But the playwright obstructs our view of the play. In plain terms, you are making us regret the misfortunes of marriage between Westfield’s Men and Jonas Applegarth. Divorce grows daily nearer.’

  ‘Then let it come!’ shouted the other.

  ‘Listen to Nick,’ said Elias. ‘You need us.’

  ‘Not if I must be bound and gagged. Fie on thee!’

  ‘Sleep on what I have said,’ suggested Nicholas. ‘We would be friends. Why rush to make us mortal enemies?’

  ‘God’s blood!’ exclaimed Applegarth. ‘I’ll not stand it!’

  He rose to his feet and swayed over them. The smell of strong ale was on his breath. Applegarth had been drinking heavily before, during and after the performance. It made him even more pugnacious and fearless of consequence.

  ‘A turd in your teeth!’ he bawled. ‘Oust me? I spurn you all like the knaves you are! There is a world elsewhere!’

  Kicking the bench aside, he lurched towards the door. Owen Elias was outraged by his behaviour but his affection for the playwright won through.

  ‘Wild words spoken in haste,’ he said.

  ‘That tongue of his will talk him out of employment.’

  ‘I’ll after him and see the rogue safe home.’

  ‘Counsel moderation, Owen.’

  ‘What I counsel is a bucket of cold water over his foolish head before I deign to speak to him. If Jonas will not see sense, he loses my esteem. I’ll not sew another patch on the torn sleeve of our fellowship.’

  As soon as the Welshman left, Nicholas was joined by James Ingram, still in a state of agitation.

  ‘Applegarth is a menace to us all, Nick!’

  ‘But chiefly to himself.’

  ‘Do not ask me to show him sympathy.’

  ‘Jonas has supped too much ale.’

  ‘Sober, he is merely obnoxious; drunk, he is beyond excuse. He poured contempt on the whole company.’

  ‘I heard him, James.’

  ‘He is one big barrel of arrogance.’

  ‘His time with us may be very short indeed.’

  ‘It will be,’ said Ingram with feeling. ‘If he takes the cudgel to us, we will fight back. I tell you, Nick, I’d willingly strike the first blow.’

  Nicholas was surprised. James Ingram was not given to fits of anger. With the exception of Edmund Hoode, he was the most mild-mannered person in the company. Yet he was now curling his lip in a sneer of animosity. It was several minutes before Nicholas could calm him down. When he finally did so, he slipped his hand inside his buff jerkin to take out the sketch which Caleb Hay had drawn for him.

  ‘I have something to show you, James.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Blackfriars. Given to me by a friend.’

  Ingram examined the sketch with great interest and traced the outline of the theatre with his finger. There was a hint of nostalgia in his voice.

  ‘It is very accurate.’

  ‘The artist is a keen historian of the city.’

  ‘Then here, in this small drawing, is history writ large. Castle and tower are turned into a monastery. Monastery becomes a theatre. And this very week, theatre becomes a place of execution. Master Fulbeck’s death is one more violent change in Blackfriars. God rest his soul!’

  ‘Amen.’

  ‘When will you go back there, Nick?’

  ‘This evening.’

  ‘Take me with you.’

  ‘Gladly.’

  ‘I am ready,’ said Ingram, handing the sketch back to him. ‘Why do we tarry here?’

  ‘Because I have to pay my respects first.’

  ‘To whom?’

  Nicholas glanced towards a door on the far side of the room and Ingram gave a smile of understanding. The book holder needed to exchange a greeting with Margery Firethorn.

  ‘I’ll be with you anon,’ said Nicholas.

  He crossed to the door and tapped lightly on it.

  ‘Enter!’ boomed the actor.

  Husband and wife were seated at a table when he went in. Both rose to their feet instantly, Margery coming across to embrace the visitor and Firethorn seeing an opportunity to elude her matrimonial vigilance for a few minutes.

  ‘Is that insolent braggart still here, Nick?’

  ‘Jonas Applegarth has gone back home.’

  ‘He is like to stay there if he rail against me. I was Vincentio to the life this afternoon. Was I not, my dove?’

  ‘Beyond compare,’ cooed Margery.

  ‘Yet that wrangling malcontent denied my genius. I’ll fetch him such a box on the ears, he’ll not wake until Doomsday! Let me see that he has quit the premises or I’ll not rest.’

  Firethorn slipped out of the room and closed the door behind him. Margery was clearly delighted to be left alone with Nicholas. Taking him by the hand, she led him across to a small bench and they sat down together. She spoke in a conspiratorial whisper.

  ‘Thank heaven that you came to me, Nick.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’d else have missed the glad tidings.’

  ‘Tidings?’

  ‘She was here.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Who else, man?’

  ‘Anne? Here at the performance?’

  ‘Sitting as close to me as you are now. She loved the play as much as I did and wept almost as many tears. Anne sent a private message to you.’

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘I am to give you her warmest regards,’ said Margery. ‘What she really meant me to convey was her undying love but she could not put that into words.’

  Nicholas was pleased that Anne had made contact through an intermediary, though disappointed that she had not delivered her message in person.

  ‘Did Anne come to the Queen’s Head alone?’ he said.

 
; ‘No,’ replied Margery with a teasing grin. ‘She was on the arm of the most striking young man I have seen for a long time. Were I not a contented wife, I would have fought her tooth and nail for the privilege of being escorted by so dashing a partner. An exquisite fellow.’

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘Preben van Loew.’

  Nicholas laughed with relief. There was no point in trying to hide his love for Anne Hendrik from her. Margery had seen them together in earlier days and never ceased to tax him over their parting. Unwilling and unable to talk about Anne with anyone else, he was now with the one person who had some insight into the relationship.

  ‘Go to her, Nick,’ she advised.

  ‘It is not the answer, I fear.’

  ‘She wastes away without you.’

  ‘That is not my impression.’

  ‘I can tell when a woman is grieving.’

  ‘It is not for me,’ he said with a sigh. ‘When I called on her yesterday, I only managed to upset her. We have lost the way of speaking to each other.’

  ‘Use deeds instead of words. Embrace her with love.’

  He shook his head. ‘My suit is unwelcome.’

  ‘Press it with more diligence.’

  ‘I am too late. There is another man in her life.’

  ‘Ambrose Robinson.’

  He blinked in astonishment. ‘She spoke of him?’

  ‘Not a word.’

  ‘Then how did you learn of his existence?’

  ‘From her handsome escort.’

  ‘Preben van Loew?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said airily. ‘Anne would not talk of her personal affairs and so I bided my time until I could speak with the Dutchman alone. For some reason, the poor fellow is afraid of me. I cannot think why. I am Mildness itself. Is any woman in London less frightening than me?’

  ‘I think not,’ said Nicholas tactfully.

  ‘As we were leaving the gallery, Anne met a neighbour and exchanged a few words with her. I seized my opportunity. Preben was most forthcoming.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He does not like this Ambrose Robinson, I know that.’

  ‘No more do I.’

  ‘Anne does, it seems. And with some reason.’

  ‘What might it be?’

  ‘Money,’ she said. ‘The Dutchman was too loyal to betray the full details, but he gave me hints and nudges enough for me to piece together the story. Earlier in the year, her business was in grave difficulty.’

  ‘Anne told me that it was faring well.’

  ‘Only because of the butcher. Thieves broke into the shop three times. Hats were destroyed, patterns stolen. They were unable to meet their orders and lost business. To make matters worse, the shop was damaged by fire and much of their material went up in smoke.’

  ‘Why did not Anne turn to me?’ Nick asked anxiously.

  ‘Because you had drifted out of her life. What she needed was money to rebuild and restock her premises. That is when Ambrose Robinson came on the scene.’

  ‘Now I understand her sense of obligation.’

  ‘Understand something else, Nick. She came to see you.’

  ‘But I was hidden from sight.’

  ‘You were here, that was enough. Anne wanted to be close.’

  ‘Is that what she told you?’

  ‘She did not need to.’

  Nicholas was touched. Margery had been active on his behalf, and for all her outspokenness, he knew that she could be discreet. What she had found out explained much that had been puzzling him. Though she did not feel able to speak with him directly, Anne Hendrik had taken a definite step towards him. It was something on which to build.

  ***

  Edmund Hoode waited for well over an hour before disillusion set in. Standing alone in the empty innyard, he began to feel decidedly conspicuous. He had been like a mettlesome horse at first, prancing on his toes and quivering with pent-up energy. His high expectation slowly trickled away and he was now as forlorn and motionless as a parish pump in a rainstorm.

  Her message had been explicit. Tomorrow. Surely that was a firm promise? He was at the same spot, in the same yard at more or less the same time. Why did she not send word? A sleepless night in a fever of hope had been followed by a morning rehearsal. Knowing that she would be watching, he dedicated his performance in Vincentio’s Revenge to her and invested it with every ounce of skill and commitment.

  After changing out of his costume in the tiring-house and waiting for the yard to clear of spectators, he began his vigil with a light heart. It was now a huge boulder which weighed him down and which threatened to burst out of the inadequate lodging of his chest. Could any woman be capable of such wanton cruelty? A rose. A promise. Betrayal. Hoode was devastated.

  There was no hint of Rose Marwood this time, no sign of a well-groomed servant with a secret missive. All he could see were a couple of ostlers, sniggering at him from the shadow of the stables and wondering why a man in his best doublet and hose should be standing in the middle of a filthy innyard. Hoode gave up. With weary footsteps, he trudged towards the archway which led to Gracechurch Street.

  When the horse and rider trotted into the yard, he stood swiftly to one side to let them pass, never suspecting that they had come in search of him. The young man in the saddle brought his mount in a tight circle and its flank brushed Hoode as it went past. About to protest, the playwright suddenly realised that he was holding something in his hand. Another missive had been delivered.

  Spirits soaring once more, he tore the seal off and unrolled the sheet. Hoping for a letter, he was at first dumbfounded to find no words at all on the page. In their place was what appeared to be the head of a horse with a spike protruding from between its eyes. Was it a message or a piece of mockery? It was only when his brain cleared that he was able to read its import.

  ‘The Unicorn!’

  A rose. A promise. A tryst. Love was, after all, moving in ascending steps. She was waiting for him at the Unicorn. It was an inn no more than a hundred yards away. His first impulse was to run there as fast as his trembling legs could carry him, but a more sensible course of action recommended itself. Since she had kept him on tenterhooks, he would make her wait as well. It would only serve to heighten the pleasure of their encounter.

  Adjusting his attire and straightening his hat, he left the Queen’s Head and strolled along Gracechurch Street with dignity. He was no love-lorn rustic, rushing to answer the call of a capricious mistress. He was a conqueror about to enjoy the spoils of war. That illusion carried him all the way to the Unicorn and in through its main door. It was shattered the moment he was confronted by a smiling young woman with a fawnlike grace and beauty. His jaw dropped.

  She gave him a curtsey, then indicated the stairs.

  ‘My mistress awaits you, sir. Follow me.’

  With uncertain steps, Edmund Hoode climbed towards Elysium.

  Chapter Eight

  When he reached the landing, he made an effort to compose his features and to straighten his back. It was as a man of the theatre that his admirer had first seen Edmund Hoode. She would lose all respect for him if he were to slink apologetically into her company and behave like a callow youth in a fumbling courtship. A dramatic entrance was called for and he did his best to supply it.

  The maidservant tapped on a door, opened it in answer to a summons from within and then stepped back to admit the visitor. Pretending that he was about to face an audience in the innyard, Hoode went into the chamber with a confident stride and doffed his hat to bow low. The door closed soundlessly behind him. When he raised his eyes to take a first long look at the mysterious lady in his life, he was quite bedazzled.

  She was beautiful. Fair-skinned and neat-boned, she had an alabaster neck which supported an oval face of quiet loveliness. She wore a dark blue velvet dress but no jewellery of any kind. Well-groomed blond hair was brushed back under a blue cap. Gloved hands were folded in her lap as she sat on a chair, framed by the
window.

  Hoode was struck by her poise and elegance. Her voice was low and accompanied by a sweet smile of welcome.

  ‘It is a pleasure to see you, Master Hoode,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you,’ he replied politely, ‘but I fear that you have the advantage over me.’

  ‘My name is Cecily Gilbourne.’

  A second bow. ‘At your service, Mistress Gilbourne.’

  ‘Pray take a seat, sir.’

  She motioned him to a chair opposite her and he lowered himself gingerly onto it, his gaze never leaving her. Cecily Gilbourne was a trifle older than he had expected-in her late twenties, perhaps even thirty-but her maturity was to him a form of supreme ripeness. He would not have changed her age by a year or her appearance by the tiniest emendation. It was reassuring to learn that she was no impressionable child, no giggling girl, no shallow creature infatuated with the theatre, but a woman of experience with an intelligence that positively shone out of her.

  ‘The Merchant of Calais,’ she announced.

  ‘A workmanlike piece,’ he said modestly.

  ‘I thought it brilliant. It was the first of your plays that I saw and it made me yearn to meet the author.’

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘Such an understanding of the true price of love.’

  ‘Your praise overwhelms me.’

  ‘Not as much as your work overwhelms me,’ she said with a sigh of admiration. ‘You are a true poet of the soul. The Corrupt Bargain.’

  ‘Another apple plucked from the orchard of my brain.’

  ‘Delicious in the mouth. Love’s Sacrifice. We have all made that in our time, alas. Your play on that theme was so profound.’

  ‘Drawn from life.’

  ‘That is what I guessed. Only those who have suffered the pangs of a broken heart can understand the nature of that suffering. Love’s Sacrifice gave me untold pleasure and helped me to keep sorrow at bay during a most troubling time in my life. Your plays, Master Hoode-may I call you Edmund?’

  ‘Please, please!’ he encouraged.

  ‘Your plays, Edmund, are a source of joy to me.’