The start of joy. Speak thus to welcome death.
“Light my way to heaven with burning torch
And take me from this hell of durance vile.”
The Provost was not merely recovering words from beyond the grave, he was giving the rest of the company invaluable time to consider how to proceed. In the version of The Corrupt Bargain that they had rehearsed that morning, Duke Alonso went on to overthrow his brother, restore good government, pluck Emilio from the block itself and marry the grateful Bianca. Such a resolution was now impossible. A cruel tyrant could not be ousted by a dead friar.
Frantic rewriting was needed and Nicholas Bracewell rose to the occasion with customary speed. Since he held the only complete copy of the play, he knew the piece almost as well as its author and saw the advantage of having Edmund Hoode in a role where he might help to pilot them all home. Sudden decisions were made with an instinctive skill.
‘Take note,’ said Nicholas to the remainder of the cast. ‘The Provost will banish the usurper, Don Pedro. The new Duke will be Count Emilio. We lose Alonso but his place in the action will be taken by the Jester. Bianca will marry the Provost.’
The firmness of his voice instilled confidence into his fellows and most of them were content to obey. There was one notable exception.
‘This is lunacy, Nicholas,’ complained Barnaby Gill.
‘It is our only hope of salvation.’
‘Then we are doomed. I am a court jester not a friar.’
‘Could you not be both?’ argued Nicholas. ‘To aid the company in its hour of need, could you not be two or twenty characters if it preserve our good standing?’
‘I have my own reputation to consider.’
It is difficult to stand on one’s dignity while wearing a cap and bells. When Barnaby Gill folded his arms and lifted a defiant chin, he simply appeared ridiculous. He was Petulance incarnate. His bells jingled in mockery.
‘Think of Ben Skeat,’ urged Nicholas.
Gill was unmoved. ‘Did he think of me when he went to his Maker in the middle of my performance?’
‘We have a duty to our audience.’
‘That duty is to give them The Corrupt Bargain, not some mauled and tattered version of it.’
‘Our patron is here today.’
‘Then we must not abuse him with this profanity.’
‘Would you rather send him away with two acts of the piece yet unplayed?’ said Nicholas. ‘Lord Westfield would be affronted, his companions would be disappointed and the rest of the spectators will demand their money back. Is that your wish?’ His final point was his most persuasive. ‘Master Firethorn would never forgive you.’
‘What care I?’ retorted Gill. ‘It is because of him that we are in this parlous state!’
But his resistance was now only token. The name of Lawrence Firethorn had brought him to heel. Firethorn was the company’s actor-manager and acknowledged star, the man for whom the role of Duke Alonso had been specifically written. Ben Skeat had only been elevated to the part because Lawrence Firethorn was indisposed. Their absent leader would pour molten contempt upon them if they dared to abandon a play in mid-performance, and the chief target of his attack would be the reluctant court jester. Barnaby Gill was Firethorn’s greatest rival, a brilliant clown who felt that his own art was vastly superior to that of any other player and that he himself was chiefly responsible for the continued success of Westfield’s Men. He could not permit himself to be seen as the architect of their downfall.
There was a more tempting consideration. With Lawrence Firethorn off the stage, Gill’s ascendancy would go unchallenged. He could rule the roost like a Chanticleer. Improvising scenes in order to cover the untimely death of Duke Alonso would place an immense burden on him but it was one he would cheerfully bear in view of the potential reward. Instead of merely stealing the occasional scene as the court jester, he could now pillage the whole play.
‘Take your positions,’ said Nicholas.
Act Three was coming to a close as the Provost offered a final crumb of comfort to Count Emilio. Both men were due to leave the prison cell in the company of the exiled Duke but the latter was clearly in no position to join them. Ben Skeat’s removal from the action was the main priority and Nicholas Bracewell took the matter into his own hands.
‘Dick Honeydew,’ he called.
‘Yes?’ said the boy apprentice.
‘We will have your lament now.’
‘But I do not sing it for two more scenes.’
‘It is needed presently.’
‘As you wish.’
‘Sing loud and clear, Dick.’
‘I will do my best.’
The boy apprentice cleared his throat and tried to stop his hands from trembling. In a dark wig and a brocade gown heavily ornamented with jewels, Richard Honeydew was a most winsome Bianca. Nicholas sent word up to the balcony overhead where Peter Digby and his consort of musicians waited to introduce the next scene with a fanfare. On the instructions of the book holder, the trumpets were replaced by the strains of a lute. Bianca stepped gracefully on to the stage with Nicholas himself in attendance. He crossed to the inert figure of Duke Alonso and gave an indulgent smile.
Our holy friar sleeps softly like a child.
I’ll straight convey him to a proper bed.
Ben Skeat was lifted bodily and taken swiftly away. His exit was covered by a tearful Bianca, who wept bitterly into a handkerchief before singing a lament to the accompaniment of the lute. Caught up in the emotion of the moment, the audience soon forgot the strange behaviour of the friar but it continued to exercise his fellows behind the scenes.
Nicholas lay the corpse down in the tiring-house.
‘Whatever has happened to him?’ wailed Edmund Hoode.
‘He is gone,’ said Owen Elias sadly. ‘I saw his eyes flicker, then it was all over. Poor Ben!’
Hoode shuddered. ‘Dead? What a comment on my play!’
‘It may yet be saved, Edmund,’ said Nicholas.
He acquainted the newcomers with the changes he had made in the action of the piece, drawing a groan of protest from the author. Owen Elias took a more practical view. If the afternoon were not to end in chaos, then the amended version of The Corrupt Bargain had to be played to the hilt. Duke Alonso had evidently gone into permanent exile.
Nicholas ordered the participants in the next scene to stand by, then signalled their entrance as Bianca swept off to sympathetic applause. The villainous Don Pedro was now onstage for five minutes or more with his cohorts. Temporary relief was offered. As in most of his plays, Hoode rested the central character in Act Four so that his protagonist could burst back into the action-restored and refreshed-in the final act. Nicholas Bracewell took advantage of the lull.
He carried Ben Skeat to a quiet corner and laid him gently on the floor. As he pushed back the hood, he saw the unmistakable signs of death. The mouth was slack, the skin white, the eyes stared sightlessly. No breath stirred, no pulse could be felt. An old man had passed peacefully away among his fellows at the very height of his career.
It grieved Nicholas that he was unable to treat the corpse with all due reverence but the play had prior claims. Raising the body up a few inches, he carefully divested it of the friar’s habit so that the disguise could be used by the court jester. He then covered Skeat with a cloak and looked up at the sorrowful faces all around him.
‘Play on, sirs. It is what Ben would have wanted.’
‘We owe it to him,’ agreed Owen Elias.
‘But my work is being mangled!’ hissed Edmund Hoode.
‘Would you rather call a halt to the proceedings?’
Nicholas threw down a challenge that he knew would be ignored. Unlike Barnaby Gill, the playwright would never put selfish concerns before the good of the company. Survival was the order of the day and Hoode recognised that. It was time to unite with his fellows to bring The Corrupt Bargain safely into port, even if the harbour was not the one that the author had originally intended.