Mask of Night

by Philip Gooden

  If the man on the cart had confined himself to general condemnations and threats, then all would have been well. But he needed to find something or someone to blame the plague on. Possibly this had been the only motive for his harangue because when he moved on to the next stage in his denunciation, his voice became even harsher and his gesturing more emphatic.

  He pointed with his left arm down Cornmarket in the direction of the Golden Cross, where I’d just come from. Throughout what followed he kept his outstretched arm as stiff as the post of a gibbet, or curled it up and brandished his fist in the same direction. It quickly became obvious that players and playhouses were his target.

  I won’t weary you with everything he said. I’ve heard it before. So have you, probably. Playing on the public stage was immoral. Men demeaned themselves by dressing up as women so that other men should pay court to them. Playhouses were sinks of iniquity, & cetera. This man managed a new twist when he said that playing out of plague-time drew down God’s wrath and so provoked the plague while playing in plague-time made a bad business even worse. This was an ingenious argument since it linked the plague inextricably with playing, and made both the object of horror and loathing.

  I hovered unhappily on the edge of the crowd, almost afraid that I’d be singled out. Heads turned towards where the speaker’s accusing arm was pointing. He named the Golden Cross Inn. Repeated it as if he was naming one of the suburbs of hell. He referred to the Chamberlain’s Company as a bunch of out-of-towners, a gaggle from foul London come to pollute this fair city, through the laxity of its own citizens. Hadn’t God shown his anger at the citizens of Oxford by destroying the life of one of the most prominent of them in the very yard of the Golden Cross? This was Doctor Fern’s just punishment for participating in a play. (No one objected to this slander.) The players had brought the infection with them. They should return to London forthwith. They should be returned if that was the only way.

  Returned by force.

  There was a shifting among the hearers at this, an uncertain movement a few yards up Cornmarket and back again. The light was fading. Dusk brought with it the promise of action and these people were ready for it. They were like wine slopped about in a drunk’s glass. It wouldn’t take much, just a flick of the wrist, a tremor of the arm, for the contents to spill over.

  I contemplated running back to the Golden Cross and warning my fellows. They’d just about have time to make themselves scarce or shut themselves in their rooms. We hadn’t long finished our afternoon performance. I’m pretty certain that some of those who were lapping up the speaker’s words had attended that day’s play (it was the comedy called Love’s Loss). Play or riot, what did it matter? It was all performance, show, distraction. The crowd would be quite capable of applauding us one minute and tearing down our stage the next. Or even of assaulting the same individuals who’d given them pleasure half an hour before. Audiences are human, as WS had said, for better and worse.

  I was about to sprint back to the inn when another man suddenly clambered on to the cart. The speaker – I found out later that his name was Tom Long – had actually managed to keep his mouth shut for a few moments while he surveyed the effects of his rabble-rousing. Now he looked round in evident surprise as the cart shook under the weight of the other man. His outstretched arm faltered and he twisted to face the newcomer. His mouth opened but he did not have the chance to speak again. The second man, the one who’d climbed up with considerable agility, now acted with even greater speed. Using both hands he shoved the stocky speaker hard in the chest, so hard that the man stumbled backwards. His feet caught on the side of the cart and he fell over it, his arms flailing in the air. He disappeared into the press of people standing closest to the cart and did not emerge straightaway.

  The success of this action was in its suddenness. The second man hadn’t said anything or given the speaker time to argue or respond. He’d simply pushed him off his perch. And now this individual stood, arms akimbo, legs braced against any attempt to dispossess him. He stared out over the now silent crowd. It was hard to be certain in the half-light but I thought that I detected in his expression an almost taunting quality.

  He stayed silent though. He stared the crowd down, with his jowly face and bullock’s eye.

  He was lucky in that he’d caught them just as they were beginning to smoulder. He’d put his foot down and doused the fire. Another few moments, or another few words from the ranter, and they’d have been streaming down Cornmarket and into the Golden Cross yard, there to smash up whatever caught their eye.

  But it was not just luck. There was courage as well as a kind of contempt involved in his response. Courage to face down many dozens of excitable townspeople, and contempt for the ease with which they had been stirred up.

  It was likely that some of them recognized him too. Like Hugh Fern, Ralph Bodkin was a prominent citizen. Not only a physician but an alderman, he had authority in this town. Once again I realized that authority is not entirely a matter of robes and titles.

  The plays-and-plague speaker had now found his feet once more. By the manner in which he was clutching his head, he seemed to have been injured although not badly. He looked up at the man who had pushed him off the cart but said nothing.

  Doctor Bodkin spoke for the first time.

  “Get yourself to bed, Master Long, and let your hurt be looked to.”

  Again, there was an odd mixture in his response, this time of solicitude and dismissal.

  Obediently, Long stumbled off into the dusk, supported by some of the bystanders. The rest of the crowd was dribbling away. Last time there’d been trouble in this spot it had taken two armed escorts and a battery of scholars and councilmen to bring peace. On this occasion one man had been enough.

  Ralph Bodkin stayed on the cart, moving his head ponderously about (I was still reminded of the bullock) and keeping his hands perched on his hips. He would allow nothing so vulgar as triumph to creep into his posture.

  Eventually only a handful of us were left at the crossroads. Bodkin relaxed his stance, bent down, grasped the side-board of the cart and vaulted over it, landing lightly on the cobblestones. For a man in middle age, perhaps of any age, he was fit and supple. He set off round the corner of St Martin’s tower and down in the direction of St Ebbe’s. I dithered for several instants then started in pursuit of him.

  “Sir! Doctor Bodkin!”

  He paused and turned round, with deliberate slowness. Behind him the sky was a dying mixture of red and yellow. I ran until I drew level with him. I was still hobbling slightly from my ankle injury.

  “Yes? What is it?”

  I don’t know whether he thought I was one of the crowd, perhaps a friend or supporter of Long, come to remonstrate with him or worse. If so, he gave no sign of alarm. But then this man had stared down an entire crowd!

  “Thank you,” I said.

  I was slightly breathless, and not only from running.

  “What are you thanking me for?”

  “I’m with the Chamberlain’s Company.”

  He peered at me more closely.

  “You were in Sadler’s room the other night, weren’t you?”

  “Yes. I am Nicholas Revill, a player.”

  “I remember. Well, Master Revill ..?”

  “If you hadn’t intervened and stopped that man, then the people would have . . . ”

  “Yes?”

  “Tried to harm the Chamberlain’s. Torn us apart probably.”

  “They would not have been so particular. If they hadn’t found you, then anybody would have done.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I am familiar with the London crowds, the apprentices and veterans, and the damage they can do.”

  “Even so, Master Revill, you should take this as a warning, I mean your Company should. Get out. Tom Long is the first of many who will find a ready audience in this town.”

  “I think our seniors are planning our departure from Oxford. We have only one more commission to car
ry out, and it’s a private one.”

  “They are wise then. Public performances will not be permitted for much longer.”

  Ralph Bodkin made to turn away. The faint red and yellow tints had almost disappeared from the sky. Beyond us was the thick thumb of the Castle tower and the great earth-mound where executions were carried out. There was something I wanted to say, yet was reluctant to ask.

  “It’s all nonsense, isn’t it?” I said.

  “What is nonsense?”

  “Plays do not cause the plague.”

  “Do you believe that they do?”

  “I – I cannot believe that God would punish something so nearly innocent with something so terrible.”

  “Even though a small voice tells you that he might?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “It is superstition,” said Doctor Bodkin with finality. “Good night, Master Revill.”

  I returned to the Golden Cross. The ostler Kit Kite was standing in the yard in the posture of a sentry, armed with a pitchfork. I felt like a messenger, hot-foot from the battlefield.

  “We heard there was trouble, Nicholas,” he said, identifying me in his aggravating manner. “Meredith asked me to keep watch here.”

  The ostler was a perky, familiar fellow, referring to his employer by his last name and calling his guests by their first ones. I took care not to call him Kit, not to call him anything in fact.

  “There might have been trouble but it was averted. One man started it and another man stopped it.”

  “I heard that old Tom Long was out there, waving and roaring.”

  “He was,” I said. “But Ralph Bodkin simply stood still and said nothing, and he had the greater effect on the crowd.”

  “Oh, that was Doctor Bodkin stepped in, was it?” said Kit Kite. “If there’s anybody who could’ve seen them off . . . ”

  A different note entered his voice. He sounded almost respectful. He referred to the Doctor by his title for one thing. I was curious about Bodkin.

  “You know him?”

  “He’s a devil,” said Kite promptly.

  “Whatever he is normally, he was on the side of the angels this evening. He saved us Chamberlain’s from a thrashing or worse. And he protected this inn from damage.”

  “He’s still a right devil,” said Kite, but there was admiration in his voice.

  “You can stand down now, the danger is past,” I said. “You can go back to your horses.”

  I left the ostler to get on with his business. If anyone could claim the name of devil, at least outwardly, it would be this perky familiar fellow, clutching at his pitchfork.

  Naughty Man’s Cherries

  Once again you are near the old woman’s house. Old mother Morrison. She is dead of course. You were the cause of that. She came after the dog and before John Hoby and Hugh Fern. Each death is a step further along, a step further up. But though the old woman may be no more there are others in the cottage to be . . . harvested.

  Once again you make your way towards the house, the comfortable dwelling. It is only a few weeks since your first visit but it seems more like months or years, so much ground have you traversed since then. Now the costume that you put on so tentatively in the chamber that first day fits like a glove and you do not give it a second thought. You have even grown used to the strange, distancing effect of the eyepieces. You wield your wand with authority, like the magician that you are. You stride with assurance now.

  As you approach the door you see that it is marked. The cross is painted in red and prominently displayed. You are pleased that your instructions have been so carefully carried out. The cross is more effective than a lock and bars, much more effective, since it not only keeps people out but drives them away. Who would think of entering or even coming close to an afflicted household? Not as long as they wanted to live . . .

  You open the door and listen to the silence within. Once more the blood rustles in your ears and, beyond that, you hear again those little tapping and sighing sounds which every place makes. The house is empty now, and yet not empty. There is an odour which reaches into your nostrils despite the mask, despite the mixture of clove and cinnamon which is contained in the end of the beak. Nevertheless you will quickly get accustomed to the smell of the household.

  You reach for your notebook and pencil. You enter the first of the rooms on the ground floor. Nothing of much value in the furnishings, although you mark down a green tapestry carpet that is draped over a table and a pewter jug which sits squarely in the middle. In one corner of the room is a chest but it contains nothing apart from linen, somewhat threadbare. In the opposite corner of the room is the body of a young man sitting up in the corner. His face is contorted. You do not touch him but note his presence also, not in your book but mentally.

  Before you leave the room you pick up the pewter jug and, opening the casement window, tip out the dregs on to the ground outside. Leave all fair.

  The process of inspection with occasional note-making is the same for the other two rooms on the ground floor and the three rooms upstairs. You account for the entire household right down to the old servant. They are all dead, all seven of them. Two of the bodies might be of use, the young man downstairs and an older woman who lies in one of the upper rooms, not the one where you last encountered old mother Morrison. She is resting on a feather-bed, this one, looking more at ease than the others. She is almost smirking. The feather-bed surprises you. Time was when a country household would have contained nothing better than straw pallets with a log for a pillow. Like the tapestry carpet, the feather-bed shows that there is a little wealth here.

  Eventually you find it. Inside another chest in the room where the smirking woman lies you unearth a perfuming-pan and a pair of candlesticks, all of silver. You wrap them up in a blanket and place them by the front door, to be collected later.

  You pass out of the house, pulling the door to behind you. It is late in the day. You might compare yourself to the angel of death, passing over these remote dwellings. Wherever you go, whatever you touch, is marked for destruction or for use.

  The final commission which I’d mentioned to Doctor Ralph Bodkin was, as you’ve probably guessed, our private performance of Romeo and Juliet at the house of Doctor and Mrs Fern. Soon after this we were due to quit Oxford, the local authorities having been as good as Doctor Bodkin’s word and prohibited further playing in the Golden Cross yard or anywhere else in a public place. By doing this they had anticipated the seniors’ decision to leave. Where we were going next I had no idea. Perhaps the shareholders didn’t either. Our departure from Oxford – or our dismissal – was expected since the plague deaths showed no signs of abating. Most of us were relieved, given the likely hostility of the townspeople if the Carfax demonstration was anything to go by. And yet these were some of the very citizens who’d been so loud and appreciative in their welcome only a fortnight earlier!

  Surprisingly, the performance at the Ferns’ wasn’t a subdued affair. Mrs Fern, the Doctor’s widow, might not have been merry in her black weeds but nor was she obviously grieving. There was a proper air of decorum but no exaggerated solemnity about the house. The funeral and the feast which followed had taken place a few days previously. Some of the pictures were draped with black but there was no other mark of mourning apart from the bands worn by the servants, including Andrew Pearman. The last I’d seen of him he had been pacing distractedly round the inn yard. He still looked sombre, understandably given that his position as the Doctor’s assistant no longer existed. I wondered what would happen to all the gear contained in Fern’s consulting room, all the bowls and flasks, the surgical probes and gauges.

  We were to play Romeo and Juliet on the flat, that is, at floor level, while the (smallish) audience would sit on three or four tiers of raised seating. It was an evening performance and the massed candles glowed in the wall-sconces, their light reflected in the linen-fold panelling. There was a fire in the great fireplace. I foresaw that we’d all get
very heated in our costumes.

  The two families for whose benefit this play was being staged were milling around together, drinking and talking with some additional guests. They maintained a kind of reserve with each other, but not much. The parents on each side could have been cast in one of our plays, so neatly did they seem to fit their moulds. The fathers were grave and grey-bearded, the mothers matronly. There were a handful of brothers and sisters, younger Sadlers, smaller Constants, and I recalled now that Sarah had a sister called Emilia among others.

  I found it hard to credit that there really was a feud between the Constants and the Sadlers, however muted. What was it supposed to have been about originally? I struggled to remember. A patch of useless land somewhere out in Cowley Marsh? Surely these two households were much too civilized and comfortable now to fall out over a bog? I also recalled that William Sadler had said that Hugh Fern could not resist seeing drama where there was none.

  Those love-birds Sarah Constant and William Sadler seemed quite restrained with each other but perhaps that was natural. The couple were on public display, as it were. I didn’t consider there was any great passion between them, at least on his side, although Sarah cast frequent fond glances in his direction. She was still pale but less tense-looking.

  I’d been thinking about the poisoning story and whether Susan Constant still expected me to use those skills of detection which she had misguidedly attributed to me. Was I meant to try to uncover some hidden poisoner even at this late stage?

  Fortunately, I was not. It was Susan herself who relieved me of that task before the play began.

  “Nicholas, can I speak with you?”