‘No, Edmund. It would be a sign of weakness in me and a sign of humanity in Barnaby. Forget the wretch,’ he ordered, walking to the centre of the stage. ‘We’ll continue the rehearsal without him.’
‘Act Two, Scene Three?’ asked Dart, flicking the pages.
‘No, George. Act Three, Scene Two. Since we lack our Doctor Putrid, we’ll move on to the Lord Malady’s confrontation with Longshaft and Shortshrift.’
‘I can’t seem to find it.’
‘Well, look more carefully, you dolt!’
‘Is it the scene with the witch?’
‘See for yourself, you lunatic!’
When Dart eventually found the correct page, he sat on a stool at the front of the stage to watch the action and prompt accordingly. He was soon employed. Hoode and Elias had mastered their roles as the two lawyers but Richard Honeydew had only an approximate recollection of his lines as Lord Malady’s wife. He tripped over them so often that Dart ended up reading out the majority of his part. Firethorn was enraged. Storming onstage to upbraid the apprentice, he was so incensed that he did not see a wooden chest that had been incorrectly set for the scene. Instead of laying hands on the gibbering Honeydew, he fell headlong over the chest, knocked Hoode on to his haunches in the process, lost his wig, dropped his walking stick and broke wind uncontrollably.
Egidius Pye chose that inopportune moment to enter the hall by the main door.
‘I could stay away no longer,’ he said breathlessly. ‘How does my play fare?’
Nicholas Bracewell could hear the argument clearly. As he tethered his horse to a yew tree in the churchyard, the voices came ringing through the open door. He had no difficulty in identifying the rasping tones of Reginald Orr.
‘Do you intend to go there or don’t you?’ he demanded.
‘That’s a matter between me and my conscience, Reginald.’
‘Attend a play and you have no conscience.’
‘Sir Michael has invited me,’ explained the vicar. ‘It’s a courtesy to accept.’
‘And if he invited you to jump off the top of your church or drown in the lake at Silvermere, would you still show him the courtesy of accepting?’ Orr was roused to a pitch of anger. ‘Are you a priest or a mere sycophant? Do you do everything your precious Sir Michael tells you? Or do you have the courage to take a moral stand?’
‘I’m taking one against you at this moment, Reginald.’
Nicholas removed his hat and entered the church. ‘Am I interrupting?’ he enquired, sensing that the vicar needed to be rescued. ‘Ah, Master Orr,’ he went on, smiling politely at the Puritan. ‘We meet again though I never thought to encounter you in such a place as this.’
‘Ordinarily, you would not,’ grunted the other. ‘It’s a Popish temple. But you’re a heathen, sir. I wouldn’t have expected you to venture onto consecrated ground.’
‘St Christopher is the patron saint of travellers.’
‘Not when they travel in the name of Satan.’
‘Lord Westfield is the banner under which we ride.’
‘Then he, too, is a child of hell.’
‘I’m so pleased to see you, Master Bracewell,’ said Anthony Dyment, coming down the nave to greet him, ‘albeit sad to see you in such a condition. Look at your poor face! Sir Michael has told me of your bravery. You’re to be congratulated. Thanks to you, a dangerous man is in custody.’
‘Isaac Upchard is innocent,’ asserted Orr.
‘He tried to burn down the stables at Silvermere,’ said Nicholas.
‘You’re mistaken, sir. I’ll depose that Isaac was with me at the time when this outrage is supposed to have taken place. He slept at my house.’
‘I should imagine that he needed to after the punishment he took. We had a fight in the dark. I twisted his ankle and cut his wrist with my sword. Isaac Upchard still has the limp and the wound that I inflicted.’
‘In the dark. When you could not be sure that it was him.’
‘There’s evidence enough.’
‘Not to my way of thinking.’
‘Nothing is to your way of thinking, Reginald,’ said the vicar, bolstered by the presence of Nicholas. ‘So I’ll thank you to stop causing an affray in the house of God and go about your business.’
‘Keeping you on the straight and narrow path is my business.’
‘The vicar is entitled to watch a play, if he chooses,’ said Nicholas.
‘Not when it sets such an appalling example to the rest of the parish. I don’t expect you to understand,’ sneered Orr. ‘You’re one of them, steeped in sin and wallowing in corruption. But some of us have the zeal to fight you.’
‘Is that what Isaac Upchard was showing the other night? Zeal?’
‘Isaac is a man with spiritual values.’
‘So am I!’ insisted Dyment.
‘Then why surrender them for a seat at a playhouse? You’re a Judas, sir!’
‘That’s slanderous talk.’
‘It’s also unbecoming language to hear inside a church,’ said Nicholas, moving to the door. ‘Perhaps we should take this argument outside, Master Orr.’
‘I’ll not argue with you,’ said the other, brushing past him. ‘You’ve sold your soul to the Devil and I’ll not have you near me for a second longer.’
He went out of the door like a gust of wind and a restorative silence followed. The vicar was patently harassed. After first closing the door to ensure privacy, he turned wearily to his visitor.
‘I’m very grateful to you, Master Bracewell,’ he said. ‘You saved me from being harangued though that’s not the only reason he came here this morning.’
‘Why else? Surely not to take Communion?’
Dyment gave a hollow laugh. ‘Hardly. You’re far more likely to find Mother Pigbone ringing the church bell than to see Reginald Orr kneeling before me. No, his real purpose in coming was to engage me to speak up on behalf of Isaac Upchard in court. The two of them treat their vicar with utter contempt but they’re not above using my good opinion if they can secure it.’
‘Can they?’
‘No, Master Bracewell.’
‘Did you refuse to vouch for Isaac Upchard?’
‘I simply said that it was not my place to do so. That’s when he began to shout.’
‘I heard him from churchyard.’
‘Puritanism has powerful lungs.’
‘Oh, we’ve discovered that, sir.’
‘I’m sure, I’m sure. Still,’ said the vicar obligingly. ‘How may I help you? I take it you’ve come for advice of some sort?’
‘I have,’ replied Nicholas. ‘Our new apprentice, Davy Stratton, has run away.’
‘Saints preserve us!’
‘We believe that he’s still in the locality.’
‘Sir Michael made no mention of this when I saw him earlier.’
‘We’ve deliberately kept him unaware of the situation and will continue to do so. It’s our problem and not Sir Michael’s. Please say nothing to him.’
‘As you wish,’ said Dyment uneasily. ‘What of Jerome Stratton?’
‘He, too, is ignorant of the boy’s flight.’
‘But he’s Davy’s father. He must be told.’
‘The lad belongs to Westfield’s Men now. We’re in loco parentis. Our aim is to find Davy quickly so that nobody is any the wiser about his disappearance.’
When he explained his reasons for believing that the apprentice was still in the neighbourhood, Nicholas drew a nod of agreement from the vicar. The latter was duly impressed at the number of places he had visited.
‘You’ve been very thorough,’ he said admiringly.
‘I was in the saddle at dawn.’
‘Riding in one big circle around Silvermere, by the sound of it.’
‘I wanted to know if there’s anywhere that I missed,’ said Nicholas. ‘I wasn’t able to follow every path I came across.’
‘You seem to have explored most.’ Dyment pondered. ‘But I didn’t hear any word of Oakwood House in that list you gave me?’
‘Oakwood House?’
‘Yes, it’s on the other side of the forest and well hidden by trees. You could ride within a hundred yards and not even know that it was there.’
‘Who lives there?’ wondered Nicholas.