The Silent Woman (4 page)

After close questioning of his witness, the coroner judged him to be a man of good reputation and sound character. Nicholas gave stern undertakings and signed a document that bound him to his stated purpose on the penalty of arrest. He then took charge of the horse and mounted it at once to ride straight back to the Queen’s Head. When he trotted into the yard, he questioned all the ostlers to see if any of them remembered having seen the roan before. They handled too many horses in the course of a day to be sure, but one of them vaguely recalled stabling the animal along with another around noon. A young man had dismounted from the roan. His companion had been much bigger, older and in the attire of a merchant.

Nicholas took this ambiguous description off to the cellar to see if Leonard could correct or add to it. The affable giant was in the process of lifting a barrel of ale onto his shoulder when his friend came down the stone steps, and he put it back down again in order to give a proper greeting. Leonard was only too eager to help but he could contribute no significant new details about the victim’s companion. What he was certain about was the fact that the older man had more or less forced the boy – as he still thought him – to finish his pint of ale.

‘And the tankard was emptied?’ said Nicholas.

‘I stood over him while he supped the last drops. Not that it gave him any pleasure.’ Leonard scratched his beard. ‘Lord knows why. It was our best ale yet he drank it down as slow as if it were hot pitch.’

‘In some sorts, it was.’

‘Why, master?’

‘I believe that tankard was poisoned.’

Nicholas explained and the massive visage before him first lit up with surprise – ‘A girl? Drinking in a tavern in the guise of a man?’ – then crumpled with sorrow and bewilderment. Aware of how important even the tiniest shred of evidence was, Leonard now began to cudgel his brain unmercifully but it could yield little more than had already been disclosed. Girl and travelling companion had been alone together, he could vouch for that. A third person might have tampered with the ale but the balance of probability pointed to the older man as the culprit. No other visitor to the Queen’s Head that day had been struck down by poison, so the fault could not be laid at Alexander Marwood’s door.

‘Who served them with their ale?’

‘One of the wenches.’

‘Find her out and bring her to me directly.’

‘Could you not go into the taproom yourself, master?’

‘I could,’ said Nicholas, ‘but I do not want to make the landlord any more choleric. Bridges must be mended before Master Marwood and I can speak cordially again. The less he sees of Westfield’s Men at the moment, the better. I would be most grateful if you could do my errand.’

‘I’ll about it straight.’

‘Thank you, Leonard.’

It was five minutes before he came back and the serving wench he brought with him was not at all willing to come. Fearing that she was being lured into the cellar for some nefarious purpose, she chided and protested at every step. The sight of Nicholas reassured her slightly and her smudged button of a face even smiled when he slipped a few coins into her hand. She brushed back her lank hair so that she could study him properly. Nicholas asked her about the two travellers who came in at noon and she was able to give a reasonable description of both but she had heard nothing that passed between them and saw nobody else joining them at their table. What she did notice was how ill at ease the younger patron had been in the tavern.

‘You’d have thought it his first visit to a taproom.’

‘First and last,’ muttered Nicholas to himself.

With nothing more to be gleaned at the inn, he thanked them for their help and collected his horse. He was soon making his way along the ever-populous Gracechurch Street until it became Bishopsgate Street. When he came to the gate itself and rode out beneath the heads of the traitors who had been set on spikes there, he was able to coax a steady canter out of the roan, and the journey to Shoreditch was over fairly quickly. Reaching his employer’s house, he tethered his mount and ducked under the eaves. Lawrence Firethorn answered the door himself and whisked his book holder straight into the parlour.

‘You come most promptly upon your hour!’

‘It is needful.’

‘We must have urgent conference, Nick.’

‘That is why I am here.’

‘Sit down, man, sit down,’ said Firethorn, ushering him
to a chair and pushing him into it. ‘Take your ease while you yet may for there is little hope of rest ahead of us.’

‘I must speak with you on that subject.’

‘Only when you have first listened.’

Firethorn punched his guest playfully on the shoulder and stood back to appraise him with a fond smile. A theatrical career was a precarious one at the best of times and few sustained it with any consistency over a long period of time. Lawrence Firethorn was one of those exceptions, a durable talent that never seemed to fade, an actor of infinite variety and bravado. Admirers spoke of his superb voice, gesture and movement while others were swept away by his commanding presence. Supreme when he was on stage, he knew full well how much he owed to the controlling figure of his book holder behind the arras. With Nicholas Bracewell at his back, he could lead his company to triumph after triumph.

‘Ah, Nick!’ he sighed. ‘What would I do without you!’

‘I fear that you may have to find out.’

‘Our theatre may burn down, our landlord may oust us and London may drive us on to the open road but I am not in the least troubled. As long as I have you, I have hope.’

‘With regard to the tour—’

‘It is all arranged,’ interrupted Firethorn, moving around the room. ‘Barnaby and I have laboured long and hard today to stitch it all together like tidy seamsters. Our esteemed patron, Lord Westfield, has shown his usual concern and offered money and guidance to send us on our way.’ He gave a ripe chuckle. ‘The money, alas, will never appear because our dear patron is more adept at borrowing than loaning, but the advice came in abundance. It has determined our
itinerary and given us promise of certain welcome along the way.’ He snatched up a sheet of parchment from the table and handed it to Nicholas. ‘This is our company. Small it may be in number but it is large enough in talent to present a wide repertoire of plays. See that each man is informed of our purpose. We will set forth tomorrow.’

‘You will do so without me, I fear, Master Firethorn.’

His host gulped. ‘What is that you say?’

‘I beg leave to be excused.’

‘Excused!’ repeated Firethorn. ‘Excused! Nick Bracewell being excused from Westfield’s Men! It is like excusing London Bridge from spanning the Thames. God’s death, man, you are our very foundation! Excuse you and we plummet straight down into a swamp of oblivion.’

‘The choice is forced upon me,’ explained Nicholas.

‘There
is
no choice. You are ours.’

‘My decision will hold.’

‘I override it. You leave with us on the morrow.’

‘It may not be.’

Firethorn extended his arms. ‘We
rely
on you, dear heart!’

‘I will rejoin the company as soon as I may. You have my word on that. Thus it stands with me …’

He recounted his story as succinctly as he could and Firethorn’s manner changed at once. Obsessed as he was with himself and with his company, the actor-manager could yet feel pangs of sympathy. The murder of a defenceless girl had laid a deep responsibility on Nicholas Bracewell and nothing would prevent him from discharging it. He was being forced to return to a home he left and a family he had renounced.

‘There is no other way,’ he said in conclusion. ‘Early tomorrow, I will set off for Barnstaple.’

A derisive snort. ‘Barnstaple?’

‘Barnstaple.’

Nicholas sat back and waited for the tempest to break. Few men dared to oppose the will of the actor-manager and fewer still survived with their self-esteem intact. When Firethorn was truly roused, his voice could blow with the force of a gale and his invective was scalding rain. As he looked into his employer’s eyes, Nicholas saw the hurricane begin with sudden fury and then evaporate harmlessly to be replaced by a merry twinkle. Instead of unleashing the whirlwind of his passion, Lawrence Firethorn actually smiled. The smile broadened into a grin, the grin enlisted the support of a chortle, the chortle soon developed into a full-throated laugh and then uncontrollable mirth sent his body into a series of convulsions. He had to sit down beside his friend to regain his breath.

‘Barnstaple?’ he asked again.

‘There is some jest here?’

‘No, Nick,’ said Firethorn, arm around his shoulders. ‘It is not the laughter of mockery but the happiness of relief. Barnstaple, indeed! Heaven provides better than we ourselves. You shall go. Your needs will be answered.’

‘Then why this celebration?’

‘Because you will serve us on the way.’

‘How?’

‘We will alter our itinerary,’ explained the other. ‘We had thought to go south and make Maidstone our first port of call. Then on to Canterbury and other towns in Kent, but they can wait. Canterbury has pilgrims enough.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper to put his proposition. ‘Westfield’s Men will bend a lot towards your purpose if you bend a little towards ours. Is this not a fair bargain?’

‘Tell me more that I may judge aright.’

‘Our patron’s brother lives in Bath.’

‘That is well in the direction of Barnstaple.’

‘Hear me out, Nick. This will be our route.’ He used a finger to draw a map in the air. ‘We make straight for Oxford and play before town and gown. From there we travel down to Marlborough, where they have always given us a cheerful welcome in their Guildhall. Then on to Bristol, where a bigger audience and a longer stay beckon.’

‘And Bath?’

‘A pretty enough little town but we will perform at the home of Sir Roger Hordley, younger brother of our patron. We need you to pilot us through Oxford, Marlborough and Bristol, but we can set up in the hall of Hordley Manor ourselves.’ He nudged his companion. ‘Have you caught my meaning?’

‘I make for Barnstaple by slower means.’

‘You combine our necessity with your mission.’

Nicholas pondered. ‘It puts days on my intent.’

‘We make a sacrifice, so must you.’

‘Bristol is a city that I love.’

‘Take us there and we will wish you God speed as we send you off to Barnstaple. Discharge your duties at home then you may catch up with Westfield’s Men at your leisure.’ Firethorn pulled him close. ‘Both of us are satisfied in this. Tell me now, does not this offer please you?’

‘It tempts me greatly.’

‘Then you will accept the commission?’

Nicholas gave an affirmative nod and Firethorn replied with a hug of gratitude. The actor-manager furnished him with all the necessary details then walked him back out to
his horse. The sight of the roan jolted them and brought the murder victim back to the forefront of their minds. A young woman had gone to extraordinary lengths to bring a message all the way from Barnstaple to London, and her fortitude had cost her a high price. Her murder was already having severe repercussions on the life of Nicholas Bracewell. As he recalled the image of her tormented body on the floor of his bedchamber, his determination to track down the killer was reinforced. The Devil had indeed ridden through London that day to seize his prey. A girl who had never been inside a tavern before would never do so again.

Like a true actor, Lawrence Firethorn drew the shroud of a quotation across the anonymous corpse.

A
harrowing afternoon shaded into a long evening then turned imperceptibly into a restive night. Anne Hendrik was sorely perplexed. The home that she prized so much, and within whose walls she felt so secure, had been invaded. A dying girl, who refused to divulge her message, had splintered the ordered calm of her life in Bankside and the assumptions on which it was based. Anne had been taught just how much she loved Nicholas Bracewell but just how little she knew of him. What she had always admired as restraint and discretion she now saw as secretiveness. He had been hiding something from her all this while and it had now emerged into the light of day like a long-buried mole to threaten the whole future of their friendship. Pleasant memories have no need of suppression. Only murkier secrets have to be concealed.

Anne paced anxiously up and down, at once longing for his return and praying that he would not come back. Her
heart wanted Nicholas to sweep into the house and smother all her hostile thoughts beneath a pillow of explanation, but her head knew that he could never do that. His behaviour had been an open admission of guilt. What dread secret had he tried to outrun when he left his home in Barnstaple? What fearful consignment was the girl carrying to him? Who had sent the grim message and why was it transported in such a strange manner? She speculated on the possibilities and found none that brought comfort. As the night wore on, her nerves became even more frayed, and she was thoroughly jangled by the time she heard him arrive back and stable the horse. Anne quickly took a seat and tried to muster her composure. When Nicholas let himself into the house, he moved with a wary fatigue. Clearly, he did not expect his usual hospitable welcome.

‘You are late,’ she said crisply.

‘There was much to do, Anne.’

‘It draws toward midnight.’

‘You should have retired to your bed.’

‘I feared that you might join me there.’

She blurted it out before she could stop herself and the force of the rebuff made him flinch. A mutual code of conduct was immediately ruptured. Whenever Nicholas and Anne had serious disagreements – and they arose often between two strong-willed personalities – they always resolved them as soon as possible in each other’s arms. That source of reconciliation had been summarily closed off to him.

‘We leave for Oxford in the morning.’

She stiffened. ‘I had thought you would ride post haste to Barnstaple,’ she said sharply. ‘Someone has sent for you. Do not let
me
detain you here.’

‘Anne—’

‘More important business calls you away.’

‘Do but hear me—’

‘I listened to that girl instead. Her silence was all too eloquent. It spoke of another Nicholas Bracewell, of a man with whom I have never been acquainted, of a hunted creature who has been using my house as a hiding place.’

‘That is not so!’ he insisted.

‘Then why have you lied to me?’

‘I have always told you the truth.’

‘No, Nick,’ she said, rising to confront him, ‘you have told me only enough to content me and held back the rest. The face that you wear in London is only a mask and I took it for the real man. It is a cruel deception. Who
are
you!’

‘I am yours, my love.’

He reached out for her but her eyes flashed so angrily that he retracted his arms at once. Her rejection of him was doubly painful. Westfield’s Men were due to leave London the next day on a lengthy tour. On the eve of previous departures, Nicholas invariably took a fond farewell in the comfort of her bed but this custom was also being breached.

‘You do me wrong,’ he said softly.

‘Then I repay you in kind, Nick.’

‘The situation is not as it may seem.’

‘Enlighten me.’

An awkward pause. ‘I may not do that.’

‘Because you do not care enough about me.’

‘I care too much, Anne, and would not wish to hurt.’

‘Is that your ruse, sir?’ she said tartly. ‘You beguile me freely until your past begins to overtake you, then you pretend it was all done in order to protect my feelings. I have been misled here. I have been abused. Why?’

‘I do not know the bottom of it myself.’

‘Go back to the beginning,’ she suggested. ‘Why did you flee from Devon?’

‘I have told you before, Anne,’ he argued. ‘I sought adventure. I did what thousands of young men do when they hear the call of the sea. Drake was leaving on his voyage around the world and it was too great a temptation for my questing spirit. I left Plymouth in the
Pelican
. When we sailed back into the same harbour three years later, our ship had been renamed
The Golden Hind.
’

‘That was not the only change you suffered,’ she said levelly. ‘It was Nicholas Bracewell, the son of a Barnstaple merchant, who set sail. He came back to be the book holder with a theatre company in London.’

He nodded soulfully. ‘You are right, Anne. The voyage wrought many alterations. I saw and endured things I do not care even to think upon now. Anybody would have been changed by such an experience.’

‘Why did you never go back home?’

‘I chose to remain here.’

‘Who is now sending for you from Barnstaple?’

‘I do not know.’

‘Is it a man or a woman?’ His hesitation was all the proof that she required. ‘Even so! It is a woman and one who still has much power over you that you race to obey, even though her call has brought murder in its wake.’ Anne was now glowing with indignation. ‘And this is the man I have allowed to share my house and – God pardon me! – my bed! Well, ride out of London tomorrow but do not expect to lay your head here when you return.’

‘Anne, wait!’ he implored as she turned on her heel.
‘We must not part like this. You judge me too harshly.’

‘Then where is your denial?’ she said, rounding on him once more. ‘Tell me all and put my mind at rest.’

‘That is beyond my power,’ he admitted sadly, ‘but I will not have you believe that all that has passed between us has been a pretence on my part. It is not so! Some of the happiest moments of my life have been with you. And if you wish to know the true reason I prefer to stay in London rather than return to Barnstaple, then it stands before me.’

His plea was so heartfelt and genuine that her anger cooled for a second and she saw once more the man to whom she had ineluctably been drawn. Nicholas Bracewell was indeed a loving friend to whom she had willingly yielded herself. He had many sterling qualities but contemplation of them only served to embitter her again. As a result of an undelivered message from Devon, she lost an honest man and gained a duplicitous one. While enjoying her favours, he always had an invisible lover lying beside him. Anne Hendrik had merely shared him.

Nicholas resumed softly. ‘What has happened between us under this roof has been very dear to me, Anne, and I treasure those memories. I did not dissemble. You saw me for the man I really was.’ He offered a tentative hand. ‘I would not be exiled from you for all the world.’

‘Then I will put you to the test,’ she said, ignoring the outstretched palm. ‘Remain here.’

‘How so?’

‘When the company leaves tomorrow, stay with me.’

‘But I am bound to Westfield’s Men.’

‘A second ago you were bound to me.’

‘I have given my word to Master Firethorn.’

‘You gave it just as easily to me even now.’

‘He and I came to composition.’

‘We have done that, too, often enough.’

‘I travel with the company as far as Bristol and then strike on alone to Barnstaple to … to …’

‘Go on, go on,’ she said. ‘State your true purpose.’

‘To settle my affairs.’

‘While I sit here like patient Griseld to await my lord’s return. Is that your hope?’

‘Anne,’ he soothed, ‘please hear me out. Imagination plays tricks on you. Be steadfast as before. Do but trust me until I return and I will—’

‘No!’ she snapped. ‘This house is barred to you from this day forth. I ask you to account for yourself and you cannot. I ask you to stay in London and you will not. There is only one thing for it.’ Her tone was icily dismissive. ‘Go to her, Nick.’

‘Who?’

‘That creature who lies with you in my bed.’

‘You talk in riddles.’

‘The silent woman. Run back to her.’

Nicholas felt a stab of pain that made him reel. At a time when he desperately needed Anne’s love and support, it was being withdrawn completely from him. He stood rooted to the floor as she mounted the stairs, and he suffered another spasm when he heard the door of her bedchamber slam behind her with an air of finality. It was minutes before he found the will to creep furtively up to his own room, to gather up his belongings, to take one last valedictory glance around and then to slip out into the black wilderness of a life without her.

Midnight approached rapidly and Edmund Hoode quivered with anticipatory joy. It was the appointed hour when he and his beloved would come together at last and drown the weeks of enforced separation in the turbulent water of passion. He felt truly elated for the first time in years. At this stage in most of his romantic attachments, he would be suffering the cumulative humiliations that afflict those who are perennially unlucky in love and who are singled out by fate as objects of scorn and mockery. Jane Diamond had redeemed his earlier miseries. In encouraging his advances, she had given him a confidence he would not have believed possible, and in succumbing to his desires – nay, replicating them with her own frank yearnings – she had lent a touch of arrogance to his manner. He was a new man.

Hoode deserved her. He had earned his good fortune by the sustained fervour of his devotions. Letters, verses and gifts had been showered upon his mistress. Every time she watched him perform at the Queen’s Head, he wrote additional lines for himself in a code that only she could comprehend. Every time they saw each other in public, she replied with secret gestures that were meaningless to anyone but him. Jane Diamond was not simply a vision of loveliness with a disposition to match. She was the finest creation of Edmund Hoode, poet and playwright, the character he had delineated for himself in his robuster fantasies, as near to perfection as a human being could be and with one quality that outshone all the others. She was his.

He lurked in a doorway opposite her house and listened for the midnight bell. Only one minute now kept them apart and he used it to reflect on his newly acquired strength of mind. That very afternoon, Lawrence Firethorn and Barnaby
Gill had launched a two-pronged attack on it, but his defences held. In the evening, it was the turn of Nicholas Bracewell to remind him of his commitments to Westfield’s Men, but not even his friend’s promptings could turn him aside. Hoode refused to struggle his way around the provinces. London could offer him a far more exciting tour for he sought no other stage on which to perform than the pillowed scaffold of Jane Diamond’s bed.

The bell chimed, the lighted candle appeared and Hoode went skipping across the dusty street to tap lightly on the door. It was inched open by a whispering maidservant.

‘Is that you, sir?’

‘It is.’

‘My mistress awaits you.’

‘You serve us well.’

He dropped two coins into her waiting palm then the door swung back to admit him before creaking back into position again. She turned a key in the lock. By the light of her taper, he could just make out the thick iron bolts. Before he could ask why she did not bolt the door, she led him off towards the stairs. Once the ascent began, all thought of security left him. He was inside her house and inside her heart. The sweetest penetration of all now awaited him. He would be able to drink his fill from the finest wine in the vintner’s cellar.

They reached the landing and made their way along the undulating oak boards of a corridor. Pausing at a door, the maidservant knocked then indicated that he should enter. She herself curtseyed and withdrew towards the stairs. Edmund Hoode took a deep breath. The door was the gate to heaven and he stroked it with reverence before pushing it gently open to reveal her bedchamber.

‘Come in, Edmund,’ she called.

‘I am here, my love.’

He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him then inhaled the bewitching perfume of her presence. He had painted this scene in his mind a hundred times but reality beggared his invention. She looked and sounded far lovelier than he had dared to imagine and the bedchamber was a most appropriate setting for her. In the subtle and calculating light of a dozen small candles, she reclined on the bed amid a flurry of white pillows. Her face was a flower, her hair a waterfall of brown silk. She wore a long satin nightgown with a drawstring at the neck, and the contours of her body were at once displayed and concealed. Jane Diamond was the answer to a much overused prayer, and she lay ready for him on the altar of Venus.

He took a faltering step towards her.

‘I have missed you cruelly, Jane.’

‘Come closer that you may tell me how much.’

‘I thought this moment would never come.’

‘Patience and constancy have their due reward.’

‘No man is more patient than I,’ he declared, moving nearer to her. ‘And as for constancy, the Tower of London will crumble sooner than my devotion to you.’

‘I know it well, Edmund.’

Now he had come into the circle of light, she was able to inspect him more closely and she was pleased with her examination. Edmund Hoode looked immaculate. He wore a blue velvet doublet with green satin sleeves, and embroidered paned hose scaled with yellow damask. The lawn ruff at his neck held up the big, white, willing plate of a face. When he saw her look up at his blue velvet hat with its trembling
ostrich feather, he doffed it at once and gave an apologetic bow. She crooked a finger to bring him to her, took his hat and put it aside, then raised her lips for him.

The first tremulous kiss dissolved all inhibition and he took her in his arms with unrestrained ardour. They had waited a long time for this supreme moment and both intended to savour it to the full. Jane was soon plucking at the fastenings on his doublet while he used his teeth to pull at the drawstring on her nightgown. This was no sordid act of adultery. The purity of their love lifted them on to a more ethereal plain. Their senses were immeasurably heightened. Their lips found a rich honey with each kiss, their hands found warmer flesh with each caress. The aroma of pleasure made them almost giddy and this was their undoing for they did not hear the knock of the real world on the door of their fantasy. Only when the maidservant burst into the room did they come down from their clouds of bliss.