‘We come to mourn, not to hear an hour’s sermon.’
Seated in the church beside his employer, Nicholas Bracewell was more tolerant. Traditionally, the parson of St Leonard’s was always the archdeacon of London but the mundane round of baptisms, services of holy matrimony and funerals was left to the vicar. Advanced in age himself, the vicar had known Skeat for decades and took his congregation through an accumulation of pleasant memories. Firethorn grew weary of the address but his wife, Margery, seated on the other side of him, was moved to tears. Nicholas was held by the well-meaning benevolence of the vicar’s words.
They adjourned to the churchyard for the burial. A sad occasion was made more depressing by a steady drizzle. Skeat had only a few distant relatives to witness his descent into the good earth. The acting fraternity dominated and one or two of them used the occasion to attract undue attention. Barnaby Gill was the most blatant offender, attired in black and given to sudden fits of weeping over a man to whom he had never been more than polite in the past. Firethorn gave a snort of disapproval at the performance but was powerless to prevent it. In any case, he had to mollify his colleague rather than take him to task.
‘Stay, Barnaby,’ he said. ‘A word in your ear.’
‘My thoughts lie in the coffin with Ben Skeat.’
‘He is beyond our help now.’
‘You were not beside him when he died—I was.’
The funeral was over and the congregation dispersed. As no performance was scheduled for that afternoon, most of the company headed in the direction of Bishopsgate so that they could ease their sorrows at the Queen’s Head and exchange reminiscences of the dear departed. Lawrence Firethorn had another funeral to attend. He somehow had to bury the violent quarrel he had in his house with Barnaby Gill.
Since that moment of conflict, the two had hardly spoken a word to each other. Firethorn’s toothache had faded to a dull ache that allowed him to give an adequate—if rather muted—account of the title role in Vincentio’s Revenge on the previous afternoon. Gill had played opposite him with his customary brio but sulked in silence when he came offstage. The rift in the lute had to be mended.
Nicholas Bracewell undertook to begin the repairs.
‘We need your advice on a most pressing matter.’
‘Can I not be left to mourn in peace?’ said Gill.
‘You will not be detained long.’
‘Save it until the morrow.’
‘It may be too late, Master Gill.’
‘For what?’
‘The decision.’
‘Lawrence makes all the decisions. Talk to him.’
‘This one requires your approval, Barnaby,’ said Firethorn with an appeasing smile. ‘Return to my house with us and partake of some refreshment.’
‘You wish to feed me this time before you evict me?’
‘I mean to apologise to you.’
Gill thawed visibly at the mention of an apology and Nicholas stepped in again to secure an advantage. By alternately praising Gill’s work with the company and emphasizing the importance of his opinion, the book holder managed to escort him all the way to the house in Old Street before the actor really noticed. When he took stock of his surroundings again, Gill found himself in the very house from which he had been expelled so rudely on Saturday.
Margery Firethorn had been schooled in her part.
‘Welcome, Barnaby!’ she said with open arms. ‘It is a joy to have you beneath our humble roof once more. But I intrude here. Woman’s work is in the kitchen.’ She beamed at the three men. ‘I will leave you alone, sirs.’
She went out of the parlour and shut the latch door behind her. Before Gill could pass any comment, his host thrust a cup of Canary wine into his hand and passed another to Nicholas Bracewell. All three drank a toast to the memory of Ben Skeat, then settled down on upright chairs.
Barnaby Gill was still morose and defensive.
‘I was outraged on my last visit to this house.’
‘It will not happen again,’ Firethorn assured him.
‘Toothache sometimes has bad manners,’ said Nicholas.
‘Those, I accept,’ said Gill. ‘Violence, I abhor.’
Firethorn grasped the nettle. ‘I apologise, Barnaby.’
‘You admit you were in the wrong?’
‘There were faults on both sides.’
‘I was unjustly set upon!’
‘Through a misunderstanding,’ said Nicholas. ‘Let us put that aside and turn to the matter in hand. It is a cause for mild celebration though it is not without its qualms.’
Gill turned to Firethorn. ‘What is he talking about?’
‘Nick will tell you himself. It is his tale.’
‘I hope it be shorter than the vicar’s narrative.’
‘Hear him, Barnaby.’
Nicholas cleared his throat and gave a brief account of how The Roaring Boy had come into his hands. He found it exhilarating and gave it to Edmund Hoode. The playwright thought it inspiring and passed it on to Lawrence Firethorn. The actor-manager considered it immensely promising as it had a powerful role for him. All three were keen to give the work the accolade of a performance by Westfield’s Men.
Gill flew at once into a state of apostasy.
‘I refuse to countenance this folly!’
‘But you have not even seen the play,’ said Nicholas.
‘That is exactly why I object to it. Since when have I been forced to take my turn behind a book holder and a poet? I should have been the first to study any new work.’
‘After me, that is,’ reminded Firethorn.
‘Does it matter in what order it is read?’ reasoned Nicholas. ‘I gave it to Edmund Hoode because the play needs him to give it shape and direction. Without his help, we would not be able to proceed.’
‘Could not the author improve it himself?’ said Gill.
‘We do not know who he is.’
‘An anonymous play?’
‘The author has a reason for concealing his name.’
‘Is he then ashamed of his work?’
‘He has every right to be proud.’
‘It is a somewhat makeshift affair at the moment,’ said Firethorn, ‘but the faults lie only in construction. Those are soon mended. The piece has great spirit, Barnaby. If we can make it work, Westfield’s Men will take London by storm.’
Gill remained sceptical but he agreed to let Nicholas Bracewell outline the plot of The Roaring Boy. It was a domestic drama based on a murder case whose reverberations were still being felt in the capital. Thomas Brinklow was a highly successful mathematician and marine engineer from Greenwich. When he married a young wife, Cecily, he did not realise that she was still in love with the steward of her former household, Walter Dunne. Wife and lover conspired to have Brinklow murdered in order that they could be together and inherit his wealth.
Two villains, Maggs and Freshwell, were engaged to do the deed. When Thomas Brinklow was butchered to death, the plot was uncovered and three of the malefactors were arrested. Freshwell went to the gallows with Cecily Brinklow and Walter Dunne. The other killer, Maggs, eluded capture and was still at large. So brutal was the actual slaughter that it even shocked a city where murder was a daily event. London was still buzzing about the grotesque treatment accorded to Brinklow of Greenwich.
‘I remember the case well,’ said Gill airily. ‘Who does not? But there is no call to show this heinous crime upon a stage. The murder was solved and the guilty hanged.’
‘But they may not have been guilty,’ said Nicholas.
‘Aye,’ noted Firethorn. ‘There’s the rub.’
‘Not guilty!’ Gill laughed derisively. ‘Why, that scheming steward was actually taken in flagrante with the slippery wife. What more proof of guilt do you n
eed?’
‘That only confirms their adultery,’ said Nicholas. ‘They admitted that in court. Complicity in the murder was denied. They protested their innocence to the end.’
Gill was unconvinced. ‘Which murderer does not? The wretches tried to throw all the blame on to their two accomplices. Did not this Freshwell confess all? They paid him and his vile comrade to hack poor Brinklow to death.’
‘Supposing that they did not?’ said Firethorn.
‘Is that what the play suggests?’
‘Suggests and proves, in my estimation,’ said Nicholas. ‘The Roaring Boy is about a miscarriage of justice. If its argument be true—and we will take pains to verify that—then we have something which will do more than merely entertain our spectators. It will have a moral purpose.’
‘It will clear the name of innocent people,’ added Firethorn with an expansive gesture. ‘The whole city will flock to see us. Murder is always good business but we offer intrigue and wrongful arrest as well. Westfield’s Men do not just have a duty to stage the play. It must be our mission!’
Barnaby Gill threw up a dozen serious objections to the idea but Nicholas Bracewell had a plausible answer for each one. The book holder admitted that there were still a few obstacles to overcome—not least the corroboration of the facts that lay at the heart of the drama—but he was certain that The Roaring Boy was a play that answered all requirements. It would cause great controversy, redeem Edmund Hoode from his depression, enhance the reputation of Westfield’s Men, tell a cautionary tale and help to right a terrible injustice.
When he could find no more faults, Gill capitulated. High tragedy and rumbustious comedy were the hallmarks of Westfield’s Men and they had hitherto held aloof from the presentation of dramas based on such sensational material from the annals of crime. But The Roaring Boy was obviously a special case and it was perverse to miss an extraordinary opportunity. Similar plays had always had immense, if short-lived, popularity. There was an added bonus of topicality with The Roaring Boy. Its gory appeal was fresh in the public mind. Gill conceded all this. Only one question was now pertinent.
‘Does the play have a suitable part for me?’
***
Orlando Reeve spread his bulk on a cushioned bench in the upper gallery and gazed down into the yard of the Queen’s Head with an amalgam of envy and disdain. He was impressed by the size of the audience that was filling every available inch of space but contemptuous of their manifest lack of quality. The one-penny standees included students, discharged soldiers, tradesmen of the lower sort, apprentices who had sneaked away from their work and rough countrymen in search of entertainment. The yard was also salted with wives, women and punks, bold thieves and sly pickpockets, and every manner of rogue and trickster. Orlando Reeve wrinkled his nose in disgust at the stink that rose up at him and inhaled the aromatic herbs in the silver pomander which hung from a chain around his neck.
It was the day after Skeat’s funeral and Westfield’s Men were back in harness, but Reeve had not come to watch them in A New Way to Please a Woman. Its very title offended his sensibilities and its rustic humour could not even provoke the ghost of a smile from him. He was appalled at the ease with which the rest of spectators were amused. To his left was a tall silkweaver, who giggled inanely throughout: to his right, a merchant from Ulm released a series of long, low chuckles at all the wit and wordplay even though his grasp of English was so uncertain that he understood no more than one word in five. The gallants and their ladies loved A New Way to Please a Woman. Everyone seated in the galleries gave the piece their warmest approval. Attended by his usual fawning entourage, the company’s patron, Lord Westfield, was shaking with glee at the antics below him on the stage.
Orlando Reeve closed his eyes and relied solely on his ears. He was at least able to savour something. No play at the Queen’s Head was complete without vocal and instrumental music. While the players’ histrionics only bored Reeve, their songs delighted him throughout. Voices were clear and true. The consort was well-balanced and rehearsed to a high standard but Reeve had expected no less from its leader. Peter Digby, conductor and musician, was an old friend of his and still as expert on the bass viol as he had always been. Orlando Reeve wallowed in the glorious sound that Digby and his consort were producing from their instruments, then he writhed in horror when the music was submerged beneath braying laughter at the latest piece of vulgarity onstage.
When the play was over, and the yard cleared of what he regarded as its offal, Reeve made his way to the taproom of the Queen’s Head to renew his acquaintance with Peter Digby. The contrast between the two could not have been greater. Peter Digby was a thin, ascetic man whose grey hair was slowly migrating to the farthest reaches of his skull and whose forehead was striped by long years of anxiety. His shoulders were hunched, his legs bowed, his whole appearance suggesting decline and neglect.
Sleek, fat and oozing self-importance, Orlando Reeve looked fifteen years younger than a man who was virtually the same age as himself. Pink, flabby cheeks wobbled in a round face into which a pair of twinkling eyes had been set close together. There was enough material in his expensive white satin doublet to make three whole suits for Peter Digby and still leave a remnant behind. The latter was at once pleased but embarrassed to meet Orlando Reeve again.
‘Well-met, Peter!’
‘I did not think to see you here.’
‘Even Court musicians are permitted some leisure.’
‘You were never wont to spend it at a play.’
‘I came to listen to you,’ said Reeve. His voice was a study in affectation and almost eunuchoid in its high pitch. ‘You are still the complete master of your instrument.’
‘Praise indeed, coming from you!’
‘Your music made the play bearable.’
‘Did you not care for A New Way to Please a Woman?’
‘Its theme was tiresome.’ He exposed tiny, pointed teeth in a razor grin. ‘I have no time for women. Still less for strutting men. Music and musicians fill my world. Who needs anything more?’
‘On that argument, we may readily agree.’ He remembered something and clutched at his purse. ‘Let me offer you a cup of wine, Orlando. This chance meeting calls for celebration.’
‘Unhappily, I may not stay. We play this evening.’
‘At Whitehall?’
‘Yes. Her Majesty has returned from Greenwich. We have been there this past month, filling its corridors with song and gracing its banquets with dance. I received the personal commendation of no less than three visiting ambassadors.’
‘It was deserved,’ said Digby.
Orlando Reeve had his faults but nobody could question his musicianship. He was one of the finest keyboard-players in London, equally adept on virginals, clavichord and chamber organ. His recitals took place before royalty or in packed cathedrals. Peter Digby, once a colleague of his, performed in the humbler arena of the Queen’s Head, stationed in a part of the balcony above the stage that had been curtained off to give the consort some protection from the wind. Court musicians had countless prerogatives but, as he looked up into the beaming self-satisfaction of his friend, Digby was strangely relieved that he had chosen another path.
‘How much of the music did you compose?’ said Reeve.
‘All of it.’
‘Even the songs?’
‘We have to work for our wage in the theatre, Orlando.’
‘I am pleased to see you so busy.’
‘There is no rest for me when Westfield’s Men take to the stage.’ He gave a shrug. ‘And far too much rest when the plague drives them out of London. We perform on occasion at the Inns of Court and elsewhere, but the theatre is our lifeblood. Take that away and we wilt.’
‘So I see,’ said Reeve, running a censorious eye over him and observing the tear in his sleeve and the stain on
his ruff. ‘You are like to have a good season this year if the weather is kind to you. Have you any new plays to lift your company above its rivals?’
‘One or two.’
‘May I know what they are?’
‘I do not even have their names myself, Orlando.’
‘Come, come. You are part-author of everything that Westfield’s Men perform. Your music gives beauty to even the most beastly drama, and there has been a plentiful supply of that in this innyard, from what I hear.’
Digby became defensive. ‘We are still without compare.’
‘Only if the plays reach the standard of your music.’
‘Our repertoire is acclaimed.’
‘But old and musty. You must bake fresh bread.’
‘We do,’ said Digby. ‘We will please every palate.’
‘With what?’
‘Our next new offering.’
‘And that is?’ He raised his pomander to his nostrils and sniffed hard to ward off the dark odours of the taproom. ‘You may tell me, Peter,’ he continued as he released the chain again. ‘We are good friends, are we not? I will not betray you. The secret will be locked securely between the tongue and the lips. Nobody will ever know.’
‘I am bound by my loyalty to the company.’
‘Do I ask you to break it?’
‘Our rivals lurk on every side to bring us down.’
‘They will get no help from me.’ He put a podgy hand on Digby’s shoulder and massaged it. ‘Your new play?’
‘It is only a rumour.’
‘Tell me and it dies inside my ear.’
‘Master Firethorn warned me he would need many songs.’
‘In what, Peter?’
‘And music low and sombre, if we proceed with it.’
‘With what?’
Peter Digby weakened. He was feeling completely overawed by a companion who was prospering so well in the higher reaches of his calling. Orlando Reeve was a visible boast of success. Something was needed to match that boast and to elevate Digby’s drooping self-esteem.
‘The play could be the most popular we ever staged,’ he said. ‘I was given no details and can tell you little beyond the terms of the plot but that alone will fire the imagination.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘It is a play about a most lamentable murder.’
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