The Wanton Angel (9 page)

Lawrence Firethorn stood in the middle of the room as if he were at the centre of the stage at the Queen’s Head. He ran his eye over the visitors.

‘You all know why we are here,’ he said solemnly. ‘The Privy Council is poised to strike us down. We must decide how best to protect ourselves from its blow.’

‘There is no protection,’ moaned Edmund Hoode. ‘How can we resist an edict of the Privy Council? It is the supreme power in the land. We are defeated.’

‘No, Edmund,’ said Owen Elias truculently. ‘Never talk of defeat while there is breath in our bodies to fight.’

‘Against whom?’ said Barnaby Gill. ‘The Privy Council? I side with Edmund here. We are minnows against a giant whale. We will be gobbled up at the first bite.’

‘You might be, Barnaby,’ said Firethorn, ‘but I’ll not. Nor will Westfield’s Men. Should they try to gobble us up, we’ll cause such havoc in their mouth that they will be forced to spit us out again.’

‘How do we do that?’ challenged Gill.

‘That is what we are met to decide.’

‘The decision has already been made for us, Lawrence.’

‘That is not quite true,’ Nicholas Bracewell reminded them. ‘All that we have been given by Lord Westfield is a timely warning. No decree has yet been issued by the Privy Council and our patron has sworn to use what influence he has to prevent that decree from ever seeing the light of day. Whether or not he will succeed, we do not know, but he may at the very least put in an eloquent plea for Westfield’s Men.’

‘The most eloquent plea comes from our audience,’ said Sylvester Pryde, looking around the room. ‘I am new to this company, gentleman, and feel a natural diffidence in speaking out on its behalf but I do have one advantage. Until recently,
I was a complete outsider, able to observe and enjoy every theatre company in London before choosing to tie my future to this one. None of your rivals has such a large and faithful following as Westfield’s Men. Popularity must surely be a touchstone here. The Privy Council would not dare to put to death the most loved and respected troupe in London.’

Hoode rolled his eyes. ‘They would and they will.’

‘Why?’

‘That, Sylvester,’ said Nicholas, ‘is what Lord Westfield is endeavouring to find out for us. If we learn the motives behind this edict, we will have a clearer idea of where we stand and how we may best respond.’

‘We stand in the shadow of the gallows,’ sighed Hoode.

‘There is nothing new in that,’ said Firethorn. ‘We have inhabited that shadow for a long time and always managed to cheat the headsman in the past.’

‘How can we do so again?’ asked Elias.

The lively debate was tempered with a general sadness. Hoode and Gill were already resigned to their fate and James Ingram, one of the younger sharers, shared their pessimism. Firethorn tried to inject some hope, Elias lent his usual jovial belligerence and Pryde supported their readiness to struggle by any means at their disposal to rescue Westfield’s Men from the threat of the axe, but their arguments did not carry real conviction. Behind their bold assertions lay a recognition of cold reality. If the edict were passed, their chances of survival were perilously slim. An air of melancholy hung over the whole room. There was a long, painful silence during which they all reflected on their doom.

It was Nicholas Bracewell who finally spoke up.

‘There
is
a solution,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘It is no guarantee of our survival but it would enhance our position greatly. We are fettered here. Havelock’s Men and Banbury’s Men hold the whip hand over us because they have playhouses where we have an inn yard.’

‘Owned by a lunatic landlord!’ snorted Firethorn.

‘And soon to be closed to us,’ noted Hoode.

‘Let’s hear Nick,’ said Pryde, his interest aroused. ‘I know that look on his face. I believe that he has a plan.’

‘A burial service would be more appropriate,’ said Gill.

‘Speak up, Nick,’ urged Firethorn. ‘Tell us what to do.’

‘It is only a suggestion,’ said Nicholas, ‘and I know that it is fraught with all kinds of difficulties but it would at least put us on an equal footing with our rivals. In my opinion, there is only one way to compete with Havelock’s Men and Banbury’s Men.’

‘Aye,’ said Elias. ‘Murder the whole pack of them!’

‘No, Owen. We meet them on their own terms.’

‘And how do we do that, Nick?’

Nicholas gazed around his drooping companions.

‘We build a playhouse of our own,’ he said quietly.

‘If only we could!’ said Firethorn.

Gill was dismissive. ‘A preposterous notion!’

‘Is it?’ rejoined Nicholas. ‘Consider it well.’

‘We have, Nick,’ said Hoode wearily. ‘Many times.’

‘Always without success,’ said Elias.

‘Nothing would please me more than to have our own playhouse,’ announced Firethorn dramatically. ‘And
it would gladden the heart of our patron as well. But we might as well wish for a palace of pure gold. We have no site, Nick. We have no builder. We have no money.’

Nicholas was undeterred. ‘A site can be found,’ he argued, ‘and a builder engaged. And there must be ways to raise the money that would be needed.’

‘Do you know how much the enterprise would cost?’ asked Firethorn sadly. ‘Far more than we could ever muster.’

‘I still believe that we can do it,’ said Nicholas. ‘With a playhouse of our own, we could mount a challenge against any company in London and compel the Privy Council to grant us a reprieve. I know full well what cost would be entailed and how much the company would be able to put towards it from the profits. The rest can be sought from elsewhere. We simply need to secure a loan.’

‘Out of the question, Nick,’ said Firethorn with a shrug. ‘Who on earth would lend an impecunious theatre company that amount of money?’

Sylvester Pryde rose to his feet and shared a warm smile among them. He spoke in a tone of ringing confidence.

‘Tell me how much you need and I will find it for you.’

Alexander Marwood was a soul in torment. Clad in his night attire but fearing that he would never again know the joys of slumber, he paced relentlessly up and down, his face so animated by nervous twitches that it changed its shape and expression with every second. His wife, Sybil, was propped up in bed in a state of ruminative anger, her features set in stone but her eyes gently smouldering. Marwood travelled aimlessly on. A bedchamber which had long been an instrument of torture to him now inflicted further refinements of pain. The agony reached the point where it burst out of him in a piercing yell.

‘Arghhhhh!’

‘What ails you, sir?’ asked Sybil.

‘Everything,’ he moaned. ‘My debts, my troubles, my misery. The whole of my life ails me! I am in Purgatory.’

‘No,’ she scolded. ‘You are in a bedchamber with your wife. Do you think that is Purgatory?’

Marwood bit back an affirmative retort.

‘Look at my situation,’ he wailed. ‘A daughter who has brought shame and ignominy down on me. An actor who was responsible for her condition yet whom I am powerless to evict. And now this latest threat to my sanity. A rumoured decision of the Privy Council to close all inn yard theatres.’

‘I would have thought you would welcome that decision.’

‘Welcome it, Sybil!’

‘It achieves what you and that costly lawyer, Ezekiel Stonnard, have failed to do. It throws Westfield’s Men out of the Queen’s Head and rids us of the father of Rose’s child.’

‘Yes, my love, and I would give it my blessing if it did not also deprive us of such a large part of our income. I long to sever my contract with Westfield’s Men but only in order to replace them with another company, much more trustworthy and amenable.’

‘You have always hated players.’

‘I hate beer but I have no qualms about selling it.’

‘You are perverse, Alexander.’

‘I have to look to the future,’ he said. ‘As you have so often pointed out to me, a theatre company brings custom here in abundance. To lose that source of money would be ruinous.’

‘What do you intend to do about it?’

‘Register my complaint in the strongest language.’

‘To whom?’

‘The Privy Council.’

‘Ha! What notice would they take of a mere innkeeper?’

‘I am wounded by this decision, Sybil.’

‘We both are, sir,’ she said sharply, ‘but not so deep a wound as the one inflicted on us by our own daughter. That is what vexes me night and day.’

‘And me. And me.’

‘Then why have you not found the name of the father?’

‘I might ask the same of you.’

‘Rose is headstrong. She will not tell me.’

‘Press her more closely.’

‘Do you dare to instruct me?’ she said warningly.

He backed off at once. ‘No, no, Sybil. You know best how to handle the girl. You always have. But it is a wonder to me that you have not prised the name out of her.’

‘It is protected by a lover’s vow.’

‘This lover’s vow is more like a leper’s handshake.’

‘Rose is young and vulnerable,’ said his wife with a grim nostalgia, ‘as I once was. Vows exchanged in the heat of passion can bind for life. I found that out to my cost.’

Marwood did not dare to probe her meaning. When he thought of his daughter, he remembered that the last time his wife had given him the delights due to a husband was on the night when Rose was conceived. The girl was a living symbol of his years of deprivation. The fact that she herself, unmarried and not even betrothed, had savoured the pleasures of carnal love came as a huge shock to him. His lip curled vengefully.

‘We must find the villain!’

‘That was your office, Alexander.’

‘I taxed Master Firethorn by the hour.’

‘What has he done?’

‘Asked his book holder to look into the matter.’

‘Did Nicholas Bracewell not track down the villain?’ she said in surprise. ‘Then the man is more cunning than we thought. If he can elude someone as sharp-eyed as Master Bracewell, what hope do
we
have of finding him?’

‘Rose.’

‘Her lips will not speak his name.’

‘Nor will those of the players,’ said Marwood, ‘though some of them must surely know who the rogue is. Such men always boast of their conquests. Half the company have probably heard the story of how he seduced Rose Marwood.’ He came to a sudden halt and stamped both feet in turn. ‘This is unbearable. I am in Hell itself!’

‘Keep your voice down, Alexander.’

‘I will expire from a broken heart.’

‘You will do nothing of the kind, sir. You will stay on the trail of this man until you run him down. It is only a question of time. Rose admitted that he was an actor so we know that he is a member of Westfield’s Men.’

‘Or was, Sybil.’

‘Was?’

‘That was Nicholas Bracewell’s thought. Haply, the man is no longer with them. The company changes all the time. In the course of a season, they take on and release a number of hired men. Rose’s lover could have been one of them.’ He plucked recklessly at his few remaining tufts of hair. ‘He may not even be in London any more. He may be sowing his vile seed a hundred miles away.’

She became indignant. ‘Spare me such foul language, sir.’

‘I am sorry. Despair got the better of me, Sybil.’

‘Then take your despair elsewhere if it makes your tongue run with such filth. I expect purity in my bedchamber.’

Marwood did not have the courage to mention his own blighted expectations with regard to the marital couch. They had withered on the vine many years ago. When he looked at Sybil now, a lump of human granite in billowing white linen, he marvelled at the fact that they had somehow, somewhere, in the distant recesses of time and by a grotesque error, actually had a semblance of affection for each other which had enabled them to produce a child. Marwood gurgled. Every second of illusory pleasure which he experienced that night had cost him hour upon hour of excruciating pain.

Sybil had closed her eyes and fallen so eerily silent that he supposed her to be asleep. After another frantic stroll up and down the room, he went to the bed and climbed carefully in beside her. His wife let out a deep murmur.

‘Master Pryde!’

‘Who?’

‘Sylvester Pryde,’ she said firmly. ‘I have come to believe that he was Rose’s downfall.’

‘Which one is he, Sybil?’

‘The handsome man with airs and graces. He wears fine apparel and has a quality most of his fellows lack. His beard is always well-trimmed. He is more liberal with his purse than the others, more courteous, too. Rose noticed him.’

Envy stirred. ‘It seems that she was not the only one!’

‘I was only displaying a mother’s vigilance.’

‘I know, I know,’ said Marwood with a mollifying touch on her arm. ‘What astounds me is how he managed to evade your vigilance. It has kept Rose safe from harm for so long. The man we seek is clearly Deception itself.’

‘Sylvester Pryde may fit that description.’

‘But he was questioned along with the others and found innocent of the charge. Nicholas Bracewell would have put serious questions to him.’

‘I would like to do that myself,’ said Sybil darkly. ‘This Sylvester Pryde is altogether too plausible. I have a strong sense that he is involved here. When I mentioned his name to Rose, she blushed crimson.’

‘Let me at him!’ said her husband, flaring into life again. ‘I’ll take a pair of shears and geld the knave.’ He made such a violent gesture with his hands that the bedside candle was blown out by the displaced air. ‘I’ll insist that Master Firethorn expels the miscreant at once.’

‘We have first to be certain of his guilt, Alexander. And that can only be done by wresting a confession from Rose. I’ll work more craftily on her.’

‘Do so, Sybil. Practice on her. Wear her down. You are well-versed in that black art.’

‘What black art?’ she asked.

‘I spoke in jest,’ he said, regretting his momentary lapse into honesty about his wife. ‘What I was praising was your gifts of persuasion.’

‘I hope so, sir. I am in no mood for censure.’

‘I have complete confidence in you,’ he assured her – then an image of his daughter came suddenly into his mind. He gave an involuntary shiver. ‘When is the unbidden child due?’

‘Forget the child.’

‘How can I forget it when she carries it before her?’

‘We may soon rid ourselves of that burden.’

‘How? That devilish grandchild will be around our necks for the rest of our days. With the whole parish pointing their fingers and laughing at us. We will have to feed, clothe and bring up a bastard child, Sybil.’

‘I’ll not endure that.’

‘You will have to, my love. There is no cure.’

She turned to face him and opened a bulging eye.

‘There is.’

Nicholas Bracewell returned to Bankside that night at a far later hour than he had intended. Having nobly waited up for him, Anne Hendrik, tired and slightly tetchy, was about to scold him for breaking his promise to get back earlier when she saw the deep concern etched in his face. Tiredness fled, tetchiness disappeared and a surge of sympathy ensued. After giving him a welcoming kiss, she led him to the parlour and sat beside him.

‘Something terrible has happened,’ she guessed.

‘It
may
happen, Anne.’

‘What may?’

‘Extinction.’

When he explained the situation to her, she cursed
herself inwardly for imagining for one moment that he had been delayed by some roistering with his fellows in the taproom. Anne knew that she should have had more faith in her lodger. Only a serious crisis would have made Nicholas default on his promise and nothing could be more serious than threat of dissolution.

‘What does Lawrence Firethorn say?’ she asked.

‘I would not care to repeat his words in front of you.’

‘And the others?’

‘Most are resigned to their doom.’

‘Without even fighting for survival?’ she said with spirit. ‘That does not sound like Westfield’s Men. You have overcome plague, puritan attacks, disapproval by the City authorities, a fire at the Queen’s Head, even the imprisonment of Edmund Hoode for seditious libel. Your inn yard playhouse has been closed down before but it has always opened again.’

‘Not this time, Anne.’

‘Only two theatres to remain? It is a scandal.’

Nicholas pursed his lips and nodded. ‘There are those in the Privy Council who believe that theatre itself is a scandal,’ he said philosophically, ‘and they have strong support from the Church. We are up against the great and the good, Anne. They have the power to muzzle us completely.’

‘Is there no way out of this predicament?’

‘Only one and even that might not save us. But at least it would give us a fair chance against our rivals. They would think twice about ending the career of Westfield’s Men so abruptly if we had our own playhouse.’

Anne was incredulous. ‘Your own playhouse?’

‘Yes,’ he said with a wan smile, ‘I know it may sound like a wild dream but it is not outside the bounds of possibility. First, we need a site. Next, we must hire a builder. And then there is the small problem of paying for them both and buying the materials for construction.’

‘Can this be done, Nick?’

‘If we want it enough, it can.’

‘But where would your playhouse be?’

‘Here in Bankside, Anne.’

‘When we already have The Rose?’

‘But that is all you have,’ he said. ‘Shoreditch has two theatres close by each other. If we build a third there, we have to compete with both of the others.’

‘In Bankside you would be up against Havelock’s Men.’

‘True.’

‘And you told me even now that they had some influence with the Privy Council.’

‘Viscount Havelocks’ uncle is a member of it.’

‘Then your cause is lamed from the start.’

‘No, Anne,’ he reasoned. ‘One man does not make the final decision about which two companies survive. The whole Privy Council will sit in judgement and they will take the advice of the Master of the Revels. Sir Edmund Tilney admires our work greatly but deplores our inn yard. In their own playhouse, Westfield’s Men would shine like a jewel in a proper setting.’

‘You would certainly outshine Havelock’s Men.’

‘That is why we must come here.’

‘How was this idea received?’ she asked.

Nicholas grinned. ‘With utter disbelief at first,’ he admitted. ‘Edmund Hoode thought I had taken leave of my senses. Even Owen Elias was sceptical. Most of the others thought the project hopelessly beyond us until I listed some of the advantages with which we start.’

‘Advantages?’

‘We have a company of able-bodied men, Anne. With Nathan Curtis to teach us, we could all turn carpenter and help to build the structure ourselves. That would save us a great deal of money.’

‘You would still need to find a considerable sum.’

‘Sylvester Pryde came to our rescue there.’

‘Sylvester? He has that kind of wealth?’

‘No,’ said Nicholas, ‘but he is acquainted with many people who have. He swore to us that he could raise the bulk of the money for us. I believe him.’

‘Sylvester is the best advantage of all.’

‘Not quite.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We have another good friend on whom we may call.’

‘Who is that?’

‘Anne Hendrik.’

She was startled. ‘Me!’

‘Yes,’ he explained, ‘the labour is vital and the money imperative but something comes before both.’

‘Choosing the site.’

‘That will be your contribution.’

‘But I know nothing about the building of a playhouse.’

‘You know Bankside better than any of us, Anne. Your trade brings you into contact with people all over Southwark. You have an instinct for business and an eye for a bargain. I’d willingly put my trust in you.’

‘I would not know where to start, Nick.’

‘Here and now,’ he said, kissing her lightly on the lips. ‘I will tell you what features a site must have and you will be well-prepared to begin your search tomorrow. Speed is of the essence here, Anne. A project like this must quickly gather its own momentum or it is lost.’