Randolph made his offer with a persuasive smile.
‘We have need of you, Owen.’
‘Of me, sir?’
‘Of you, my fine friend.’
‘How so?’
‘Join a company where your true mettle is appreciated.’
‘Banbury’s Men?’
‘We have a part that only Owen Elias may play.’
‘This is no jest?’
‘Come with me, sir, and I will prove it.’
The Welshman needed no time at all to think it over.
They left together.
Chapter Seven
Margery Firethorn was deeply bored with Cambridge. She found the town far too provincial for her taste, the university far too exclusive and the prevailing atmosphere of Puritanism far too oppressive. Most important of all, she found the company of her brother-in-law far too depressing and she was soon asking herself yet again why her sister had married such an inferior creature. Jonathan Jarrold was a studious man with the deficiencies of such a life writ large upon him. Small in stature and sparse of hair, he was anxious and preoccupied, his busy eyes imprisoned behind spectacles and his shoulders already rounded into a scholarly hunch. He spent as much time reading books as selling them and had no conversation that did not touch on the literary world. Jonathan Jarrold rightly feared his sister-in-law for her temper and her termagant bluntness. In Agnes, he had certainly married a more suitable and sweet companion for his academic ways. She was a dutiful wife with a pale beauty that was not entirely muffled by the dullness of her apparel. Agnes Jarrold loved her husband with a kind of defensive resignation.
‘He is a good man, Margery,’ she said plaintively.
‘His goodness is not in doubt,’ said her sister. ‘It is his manhood that I question. Can such a fool really perform the office of fatherhood?’
‘You do him wrong!’
‘Only because he has done you a graver injustice.’
‘He is a fine husband.’
‘Jonathan Jarrold is married to his books.’
‘We have been happy here in Cambridge.’
‘That shambling skeleton would not make me happy!’
‘Margery!’
‘I expect real passion in my bed!’
‘Silence! He may hear you.’
Agnes Jarrold quivered with apprehension. They were sitting in the garden of her little house in Trinity Street and she was finding her sister’s presence a mixed blessing. While Margery undoubtedly gave her unstinting affection and reassurance about the trial that lay ahead, she also brought an abrasive note into a gentle household. The quiet and ineffectual Jonathan Jarrold somehow enraged his sister-in-law who loathed him for his very inoffensiveness. There were still two weeks to go before the baby came to term and Agnes was praying that domestic calm could be sustained until the moment when motherhood would unite them all.
Her husband was prepared to make a supreme effort. As he came out into the garden, he manufactured a smile that had particles of real sincerity and pleasure in it.
‘Are you ready for me, Margery?’ he said politely.
‘No, sir,’ she grunted.
‘The entertainment will soon begin.’
‘Do not miss it on my account.’
‘But I hope you will accompany me.’
‘My wits are turned enough already.’
Agnes interceded. ‘Go with him, sister. You have sat with me long enough. Jonathan offers you a diversion.’
‘Yes,’ he added. ‘It is not only London that can delight with its theatrical presentation. We have drama of our own here in Cambridge.’
‘It may ease the tedium,’ said his wife.
Or make that tedium even more unbearable, thought Margery. Nevertheless, she allowed herself to be talked into witnessing the performance. Agnes herself was in no condition to attend a public event and she was pathetically grateful to her sister for taking her place. As soon as she set off with her brother-in-law, however, Margery regretted her decision. In his usual sober attire, he shuffled beside her through the narrow streets and washed his blue-veined hands in the air. Jonathan Jarrold sought desperately to please.
‘It is a tragedy about Richard the Third,’ he said.
‘I have seen four such plays in London.’
‘Students bring a freshness to the drama.’
‘I am married to a Titan of the stage.’
‘We’ll win you over yet, Margery.’
‘Do not build on that vain hope, sir.’
The beauty of Queen’s College took some of the jaundice from her eye and she actually smiled when she saw the sun glancing off the River Cam and turning the flotilla of swans into a picture of feathered radiance. In the cloistered tranquillity of an academic foundation, Margery did find some objects of interest and her attentive companion was lulled into the belief that Cambridge might yet surprise her with its talent. The performance of plays, revels and scenici ludi in the college halls and chapels was a vital part of university life and Jonathan Jarrold shared joyfully in it. That joy was kept from Margery Firethorn. When she took her seat in the hall at Queen’s College, she discovered that the play about Richard the Third was called Richardus Tertius because it was written entirely in Latin.
‘I will not understand a word of it!’ she complained.
‘The acting will explain all,’ said Jarrold.
‘Wake me if I snore.’
It was a prophetic utterance. The play began and she sank beneath the weight of its dreariness. Richardus Tertius was an earnest work that drew a sort of blundering eagerness out of its undergraduate cast. They entered with spirit then stood with wooden awfulness while they tried to declaim the tortuous Latin. Those who attempted gesture and movement made so many errors that they quickly abandoned the experiment and resorted to tableau acting. Classical scholars found much to admire and there was a deal of nodding throughout but there was nothing to hold a simple playgoer. Margery’s head only nodded forward onto her ample bosom. Caught up in the severe brilliance of the verse, her brother-in-law was well into Act Three before he heard the unladylike snoring beside him.
Before he could wake her, real drama intervened.
‘Come, sir. Come quickly, sir.’
‘What is it, Nan?’
‘Your wife has need of you, sir. Come at once.’
The old servant plucked at her master’s sleeve and earned a broadside of protests from the audience all around her. Jonathan Jarrold was annoyed at the interruption but immediately aware of its implications. His third child was about to make its entry into the world. A sharp nudge brought Margery back to life and an urgent whisper made her leap to her feet. Her voice rang out through the hall and brought the play to a halt.
‘Take me to my sister!’ she yelled imperiously. ‘Her ordeal can be no worse than this one — and at least she will not have the baby in Latin!’
Lawrence Firethorn missed his wife dreadfully and was quite unable to take advantage of the fact. It rankled. Days of licence had yielded nothing more than disappointment. Nights of freedom had yet to be marked by a conquest. He writhed in torment. His life as an actor had always been one of peaks and troughs but the two had never been simultaneous before. As he scaled the very heights of his profession, he was cast down into the abyss of misery. Beatrice Capaldi had turned him down. The letter which Nicholas Bracewell delivered was an invitation to dine with him that evening but she rejected it with a disdainful shake of her head. Two hours of King Gondar had left him in a state of blissful delirium but a spectator in the lower gallery destroyed it instantly. Nor was there compensation to be found. Firethorn had summoned an old acquaintance to warm his bed but she had failed him badly. While his head lusted for her, his heart remained true to Beatrice Capaldi and his naked body voted with the latter party. For the first time in his life, a beautiful woman left his chamber unsatisfied.