I smiled, a little anxiously. “Aye—Esperance.” This was Hotspur's saying: the motto of the Percy family, meaning “Hope.” She used it to wish us well, and that was a wish well taken.
No matter how much the Company likes a new play, performing it for the first time is like meeting in the flesh a person one has known only by hearsay. However carefully planned and wrought, no work acquires the spirit of life until the public breathes into it. Would that motley crowd of canons and clerks, housemaids and horseboys, tradesmen and trollops breathe good or ill?
We need not have feared. Henry IV not only came to life, but leapt up and danced, with Sir John Oldcastle in the lead. From the moment a well-padded Thomas Pope waddled onto the boards, the audience began to fall under his spell. Their affection grew and grew, bursting into full-blossomed love when Oldcastle and his fellow rogues accosted the Canterbury pilgrims and then were surprised and routed themselves.
Howls of laughter followed Pope, Kempe, and Cowley off the stage, the three of them chortling like schoolboys as they brushed past Will Sly and me. “They have set us a hard scene to follow,” Sly remarked, then squared his shoulders and strode onto the stage with a letter in his hand. I feared that Oldcastle and his crew had claimed all the good will of the audience for themselves, but they soon were cheering Hotspur as well, as he debated with his letter in lively terms. When I entered as his wife, I caught their high spirits.
Lady Percy wants to know why her husband is so preoccupied. Midway into my long speech, I made a snatch at the letter, a move we had not rehearsed. He held it behind him, and over his head, and out to one side, with a teasing affection that Will Sly the player had never shown for me. We were the picture of a playfully loving couple at cross-purposes: I determined to know his business and he just as bent on hiding it, even when I seized his little finger and threatened to break it. “Do you not love me?” I teased. “Do you not, indeed?”
“Oooooooh!” This came from the ground and galleries both, a response of all the husbands who had heard this ploy from their wives.
Fleetingly, I wondered if my mother had ever said it, a thought that sobered me a little. Sly followed my mood, ending with a promise that I would know all soon enough: “Will this content you?”
Once off the stage, he cuffed my shoulder lightly. “Well played, boy. I'd have sworn I did love you.” He strolled off for a chat with Shakespeare and Heminges, leaving me in a glow—through which I caught sight of Kit's stricken face as he went on stage for the Boar's Head Tavern scene.
Whatever happy disease our Company had caught passed him by. He was playing Ned Poins as though the young man felt his mother looking over his shoulder, even while carousing with Prince Hal in the tavern. The audience didn't ridicule Kit; in fact they barely noticed him, especially after Oldcastle appeared. The prince demanded to know what happened to the stolen money, and Sir John obliged him with an outlandish tale of how he was set upon by four, seven, and eleven men in buckram suits—the number grows as he tells it. Finally, when the prince revealed himself and Poins as the “men in buck- ram,” Sir John was dismayed only for a moment. After a pause of exactly the right length, Master Pope exclaimed, “By the Lord—I knew ye as well as he that made ye!” A roar from the crowd greeted this monumental gall, as he went on to explain how he couldn't bring himself to kill the heir to England's throne: “Thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules, but beware instinct. The lion will not touch the true prince. Instinct is a great matter—I was a coward on instinct.” Behind the stage, Masters Heminges and Condell nodded to each other and smiled.
Even Robin gave himself to the role of Mistress Quickly with a relish I had not noticed in rehearsal, and the tavern scene ended in triumph. Several of the players made their exit together, cheerfully commending each other, but without a word to Kit. I was standing nearby, ready to go on, my buoyant spirits a contrast to his drawn and anxious face.
“I'll tell you what,” I ventured, “you seem to be trying too hard. If you would let down your guard and feel your way into this part, you might—”
“Let down and feel yourself,” he snapped, just before stalking away. On reflection I could understand how galling it might be to a veteran to have a green lad tell him his business—like a schoolboy pointing out to a university man that one plus one always equals two. But strange as it may seem, I may have learned something that he had leapt over to reach his exalted position. Well, thought I, if he's so set on the hard way—let him take it.
For the concluding scenes, all available players were impressed into the army, marching back and forth across the stage as King Henry prepared to fight the rebels at Shrewsbury. After the opening clash, I escaped to the gallery in time to see Prince Hal meet Hotspur, an engagement long awaited by both. “If I mistake not, thou art Harry Monmouth,” challenged Hotspur.
“Thou speak'st as if I would deny my name,” replied Hal— aware that his rival regarded him as little more than a tavern brawler. They fell to with swords. As they were swinging at each other, Oldcastle appeared. He had been avoiding battle all along, but suddenly it caught up to him in the person of Douglas, the wild Scot, who rushed on to attack him without so much as a challenge. After a brief exchange of blows Sir John fell (to cries of shock and dismay from the audience). The boards had scarcely stopped rattling when Hotspur stumbled and Hal ran him through.
“Oh, Harry!” Hotspur cried in agony. “Thou hast robbed me of my youth!”
It was a gripping moment. Even though I knew that Will Sly had died a thousand deaths upon the stage, and the catch in his throat sounded very nearly the same each time, and that in a matter of minutes he would spring to his feet again—even though I knew all that, I was still seeing brave Hotspur die. He continued: “O, I could prophesy, but that the earthy and cold hand of death lies on my tongue. No, Percy, thou art dust, and food for—”
He choked on the last word and gave up the ghost. From where I stood, at the back of the gallery, I could see white handkerchiefs pulled out of sleeves, and not just ladies' sleeves, either.
“—for worms, brave Percy.” Augustine Phillips, as the prince, wearily sheathed his sword. “Fare thee well, great heart….”
After speaking a tribute to Hotspur, he turned and discovered Oldcastle's body, as the audience had been waiting for him to do. He staggered, stepped closer, peered down upon his fallen friend. “What! Old acquaintance, could not all this flesh keep in a little life?” When he left the stage to find his father, a moment of silence followed him, punctuated by loud sniffles throughout the theater.
Then Thomas Pope twitched, sat up, and rubbed the back of his neck. The people gasped. Then they cheered—a roar such as I had seldom heard.
“I don't like the ending,” I said late that night.
It had taken me all evening to decide this, after a long celebration at the Mermaid Tavern and distribution of bonuses to everyone. Now I was in bed, and Robin sprawled on top of the covers, too tired to undress. And perhaps too dizzy as well, given the amount of ale he'd drunk.
“I like it well; it earned me another half-shilling. If the public is happy, so am I.”
“But what's there to rejoice about?” I persisted. “Here's this cowardly lump of flesh who feigns death in order to escape it. Then the true hero dies, and after he's well and truly dead, Oldcastle stabs his honorable body and claims he was the one to kill Hotspur. And the prince, though he knows better, not only fails to challenge him, but rewards him instead! What sort of lesson is that?”
Robin yawned, as he began pulling off his netherstocks. “'Tis only a story. I've never known a body to fret over plays the way you do. How would you like it to end?”
A fair question, and of course I had no ready reply. “Well … Some way more uplifting.”
“But Part Two is yet to come. Perhaps Master Will will send good Sir John to hell, and you may lead all the Puritans in a rousing cheer.” I sighed; he was becoming tetchy of late, with the tender skin of a hermit crab changing s
hells. He sat up to take his breeches off, then said in a more somber tone, “What did you think of Kit today?”
“His performance, you mean? Ah … I've seen better.”
“Something's happened to him. He's come to a river he can't cross.”
“Better whistle for a boat, then.”
Robin made no response to my wit, but continued to slump, his back to me. “He's leapt across all obstacles so far. He was singing in St. Paul's Chapel when he was seven, have I told you that?”
“You've told me.” Many times, in fact.
“And he was acting in their Company at eight, and playing lead roles by ten, and the Lord Chamberlain's Men started borrowing him when he was eleven. He's mastered everything, everything. But not this.”
Robin's voice trembled on the last word, and I guessed why he was so shaken. Through the years he had watched Kit like a disciple, following every footstep as though to say, Where this boy goes, so go I. But now the footsteps had come to an awkward hesitation.
I tried to reassure him. “Perhaps he's queened it so long he can't come off his lofty perch. He'll have to humble himself a bit to play low-lifes.”
“Perhaps.” With a long sigh, Robin sank down upon the straw mattress (which smelled a little moldy this time of year) and held still for so long I thought he'd gone to sleep. Then he spoke again. “Do you remember Captain Penny, from the prison court? The corrupter of youth?”
“Who could forget him?”
“He was in the theater today. Came up to the stage after the jig, bellowing at Kit—something like, ‘Ho, imp of fame!
Playing the man becomes thee!' His nose still blazes like a beacon. They talked for a while, and the talk seemed to cheer him. Kit, I mean.”
So the captain was sprung from his cage. I opened my mouth to say that Kit could choose more worthwhile companions, but was struck at that moment with the thing that troubled me about the character of Sir John Oldcastle: it was his resemblance to Peregrine Penny.
When a new play meets with success, the Company could expect to stuff the house with it many times over; thus our second performance of Henry IV took place only two days after the first, on Saturday. The Company expected a packed house, but received more than they bargained for. We arrived that morning to find the stage keepers dusting off the gilded chairs in the “gentlemen's rooms” that flanked the stage. With a nervous twitch to one side of his mouth, Gregory informed us that our play was to be honored with the presence of nobility.
Robin scoffed, “What of that? I've almost tumbled into an earl's or baron's lap many a time. They're a nuisance.” He spoke as if gentlemen were on a level with dead rats to be swept off a doorstep.
“But that's not all,” Gregory said. “Rumors are flying as thick as bats. They say Essex will attend. And that he—or somebody—has a complaint about the play. The men are keeping very close about it.”
And so they were; on an occasion when they should have been strutting about congratulating each other, Masters Burbage, Heminges, and Shakespeare wore the faces of clerks whose accounts have failed to add up. Their concern had nothing to do with receipts; long before performance time the penny takers began turning play-goers away at the door. Just before the third trumpet, we heard cheers in the audience, sparked by cries of “Essex! Essex!” Apparently that gentleman, as beloved by the people as by the Queen, had taken his seat with a handful of friends.
His presence in itself was no matter for concern—Essex had been a friend to the Company for years, with a well- known preference for Shakespeare. But from the other side of the theater came opposing noises that sounded like jeers and catcalls—a terrible sound to a player. Behind the stage we looked at each other warily. “Well, God guide the issue,” remarked John Heminges as he straightened his crown and marched out with a dignity to match any earl's, followed by the members of his court. A hush fell on the theater as he began: “So shaken as we are, so wan with care …”
The performance began quietly, but I could feel, as players sometimes do, a certain anticipation building up in our audience. When Sir John Oldcastle appeared, calling, “Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?” the anticipation burst loose like a long-held breath. Clearly the fat knight's reputation preceded him; everyone seemed to hold high expectations that were not disappointed.
To those of us behind the stage it sounded like a triumph, but Augustine Phillips came off at the end of the scene complaining bitterly. Prince Hal is supposed to have the stage to himself as he makes a speech revealing of his character—“But they kept interrupting me. Not speaking to me, mind, but to each other. No, I don't know what about. 'Twas all I could do to keep hold on my part.”
Thomas Pope returned from the back of the tiring room, where he'd poured what looked like a gallon of water down his stuffed doublet—the day had turned warm, and he was already sweating. “We are caught in a most elegant crossfire.” Master Pope moved in higher circles than most of us and knew faces we did not. A bit pompously, he explained that we were playing host to two opposing court factions. Sitting opposite Essex and his party were men who were known to loathe him. And one of the loathers was the son of the Lord Chamberlain: Henry Brooke. “So dodge the fire as you may,” Master Pope concluded. He intended to make the best of the situation and was the sort of player who could—a lovely thribbler, he.
But Augustine Phillips saw misery before him. “O for a wad of cotton, to stuff their mouths! Their insults are downright poetical—didn't you think?” He asked this of Kit, who had shared part of the scene with him. But Kit only shook his head. He was sweating, too—from effort. As though to make up for his stiffness of two days before, he threw himself into the part with wild abandon, fluttering his hands and goggling his eyes. His lithe body, which had always seemed under control, now threatened to run away with him.
Fortunately the gentlemen sitting too close to the stage became engrossed in the play and reserved their insults to the pauses between scenes—with one glaring exception that occurred near the end. Sir John Oldcastle was alone on the stage, giving his discourse on the subject of honor: “Can honor set a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honor hath no skill in surgery, then? No. What is honor? A word …” And so on, until the cowardly knight convinces himself that the thing is not worth seeking: “Honor is a mere scutcheon! And so ends my catechism.” The laughter following his speech was especially rowdy from the Essex side, and a clear voice rang out, “Spoken like a true Oldcastle— water from the family Brooke!”
A reply came from the other side—the words garbled but the tone very plain. It put me in mind of a snarling dog. Then a disturbance of some sort: a rustling, a chorus of shouts, a delighted gasp from the audience. Questions began flying behind the stage: “Here now! What's amiss?” Richard Burbage cracked the stage door with one hand while holding back curious players with the other, but Gregory, Robin, and I rushed to the musicians' gallery and crowded amongst the musicians, all craning their necks over the rail.
A young gentleman of the Essex faction had leapt upon the stage, sword drawn. A wide-brimmed hat hid his face, but I could guess his age by the way he stood and bounced on his heels. Through the hubbub I could make out his words only with difficulty, but it seemed to be a challenge, delivered in a voice shrill with passion. “I defy all your highblown terms! Come on the boards yourself and insult me again, Brooke! Say it to my face!”
A voice replied, “Crawl back into your mustard pot, Master Philip!”
The youth bolted toward his enemies while two of his friends jumped the railing onto the stage. A brawl seemed likely, but in situations like this Thomas Pope was worth gold. He had been making his exit when the disturbance occurred, but now he rushed back with his own sword out and made a comical show of searching for the voice. “Who calls? Was't a mouse? I'll play your cat, sir; my steel is out and honor pricks me on!” He bent low, pretending to peer under bushes. The young man took his cue and used his weapon to poke him on the behind. S
till in character, Master Pope sprang up, treated the audience to a portrait gallery of outlandish faces, and ran off the stage as they roared. The challenger took off his hat and made a low, courtly bow to the crowd before returning to his seat in the gentlemen's box. “Was that Henry Brooke he called out?” Gregory asked me. “The Lord Chamberlain's son?”
At that moment I was too startled to answer. The young man had turned and replaced his hat, and I recognized the same fellow who had caused the disturbance outside Buckingham Tavern: Lord “Mustard,” still leaping, waving his sword, and taking offense. Who was he? Gregory didn't know, nor did any of the musicians. Master Pope merely shrugged when I asked him. “Some new lad out to make his mark, I reckon. They all latch on to Essex—hope his glitter will rub off on them.”
Money overflowed the coffers that day and spilled into the pockets of the lowliest apprentice. That should have put the Company in a cheerful mood, but all was not well. More than one player remarked that the Brooke side of our court party did not seem to enjoy the play as much as the Essex side. On the way back across the river Master Condell refused to discuss it, but instead spent our time in the boat giving Robin an example of how to shrill his voice like an Eastcheap tavern hostess (earning some odd looks from nearby passengers and boatmen). As we walked up St. Andrew's Hill, Robin raised a whole new crop of worries, wondering aloud why Henry Brooke, who had never before honored us with his presence, chose this day to attend.
A pair of roving minstrels had set up near Ludgate, accompanied by a wild-looking girl selling ballads. She dressed like an Egyptian, in a striped skirt and bright scarves, with dark coils of hair springing loose from a band about her head. “News!” she sang to passersby, beating a hand drum. “Hear our song of the gentleman bandit, the latter-day Robin Hood!”
The True Prince Page 8
