He lunged at his visitor but Barnaby Gill was too quick for him, electing to take to his heels rather than to try to reason with a homicidal maniac. With a cry of fear, he raced down the stairs, flung open the front door and hurtled out into Old Street as if pursued by the Devil himself.
Up in his bedchamber, Lawrence Firethorn roared like an enraged bull and pawed the ground with one foot. Margery surveyed her husband with lascivious admiration.
‘That was heroic! My big, strong, wonderful hero!’
Hands on hips, he inflated his chest and basked in the unstinting adoration of his wife. Theirs was a turbulent marriage but it was grounded in deep love and understanding. This enabled them to enjoy to the full the glorious lulls between the recurring marital storms. Firethorn knew that such a lull was now upon them. Then he realised something else and his misshapen face beamed with joy.
‘It is gone, Margery. My toothache has abated.’
‘You frightened it away, my love!’
‘By Jove! I feel as if I am a new man.’
‘I see it well. Every muscle about you ripples.’
‘I have risen from my bed of pain!’ he said with a laugh of sheer relief. ‘Let me return to it as to a palace of pleasure. Anger is indeed the surest medicine. It has made my blood boil. Come, Margery. I have been set free. I have come back to you as a doting husband. Is this not a just cause for celebration?’
‘Oh, yes!’ she said, flinging herself down on the bed with weighty abandon and kicking her legs in the air. ‘Yes, yes, yes!’
‘You are the best cure for any toothache, my angel.’
‘Let my body be your physick.’
‘I am whole once more.’
‘Take me, Lawrence! Take me!’
The bed creaked happily for half an hour.
***
Nicholas Bracewell had even more to do than usual in the wake of that afternoon’s performance. He had to convey the body of Ben Skeat to a private room at the inn, send for a surgeon, placate the landlord, Alexander Marwood, who was almost demented at the thought of someone actually dying in such a public fashion on his premises, supervise the dismantling of the stage, ensure that all costumes, properties and scenic devices were safely locked away and advise the company when they would next be needed. There was marginal relief in the fact that there would be no performance on the following day because it was the Sabbath. Westfield’s Men used a venue within the precincts of the city and were thus debarred from playing on a Sunday. No such regulation hampered their rivals at The Theatre and The Curtain in Shoreditch, or at The Rose in Bankside.
The surgeon confirmed what Nicholas had suspected. Ben Skeat had died by natural means. He suffered a heart attack of such severity that it killed him almost instantly. It was the surgeon’s opinion that Skeat may well have had earlier warnings of his failing health but he had evidently kept them to himself. Nicholas believed that he knew why.
‘Does he have a family?’ asked the surgeon.
‘None,’ said Nicholas.
‘No wife to mourn him?’
‘She herself died six months ago. He and Alice had been married for nearly thirty years. That is unusual in this profession. Actors are poor husbands. Few enjoy such a happy marriage as Ben Skeat.’ He gave a wistful sigh on his own account, then read the next question in the surgeon’s face. ‘Three children in all but they were not destined for this harsh world. None of them lived to see a first birthday. It drew Ben and Alice even closer. Two such well-matched souls it would have been hard to find.’
‘He must have been cut adrift without her.’
‘Half his life was stolen away from him.’
‘Did he pine?’
‘Ben kept his grief hidden but it was there.’
As Nicholas talked with the surgeon, he recalled other small signs of the strain the actor had been under. Skeat had started to eat larger meals and drink far more ale. He had become more withdrawn from his fellow-actors and brooded in dark corners. Hitherto an almost vain man, he took less care with his attire and appearance. The book holder had offered what solace he could to his old friend but something of the latter’s spirit had gone into the grave with his wife. In recommending him for the part of Duke Alonso in the play, Nicholas Bracewell thought to help him out of his despondency. Instead, the additional pressures of such a taxing role may have helped to put an end to his life. It made the book holder feel obscurely responsible.
A sense of guilt stayed with him as he arranged the removal of the body to the morgue before returning to his other duties at the inn. Would his friend have survived longer if he had not had the leading role thrust upon him? Or was he already dwindling quietly towards his coffin? Had Ben Skeat, in a sense, willed his own death so that he could quit his profession as he scaled its highest peak? Was an element of choice involved? Speculation on these and on other issues left Nicholas both sad and perplexed.
He was glad when his chores were finally over and he could repair to the taproom to join his fellows. He felt the need of a drink and a respite before going to Shoreditch to report to Lawrence Firethorn. The taproom was busy when he entered. Good-humoured banter could be heard on all sides. Nicholas simply wanted to drop on to a stool and call for some ale but he saw that one more chore awaited him. Edmund Hoode was seated at a table, crouched over his tankard in an attitude of despair and oblivious to the reassurance that Owen Elias was trying to pour into his ear.
The Welshman looked up as Nicholas joined them.
‘Thank God you’ve come, Nick. He is deaf to my voice.’
‘How much ale has he taken?’
‘Far too much. Sorrow is a thirsty comrade.’
‘What has Edmund said?’
‘Nothing. That is the worry of it. He is struck dumb by circumstance.’ He gave Hoode a gentle nudge. ‘Nick is here. Will you join us both in a fresh pot of ale?’ The playwright remained silent and Elias gave an elaborate shrug. ‘It is like talking to a post.’
‘The mood will pass,’ said Nicholas.
‘Have you ever seen the fellow in such a state?’
‘Not from this cause, Owen.’
Elias chuckled. ‘Ah, well, I take your meaning. If there was a woman in the case, all would be explained. Edmund is a martyr to the fairer sex. Another doomed love affair might plunge him into this misery but that is not so here.’ He spoke into Hoode’s ear. ‘Come back to us, Edmund. We are your friends. Let us help.’
The hurt silence continued. Nicholas ordered ale for himself and Owen Elias, then talked with the latter as if a third person were not present. They discussed the demise of Ben Skeat and the exigencies it forced upon them. Both had high praise for Barnaby Gill’s invention onstage and more caustic comment for his behaviour off it. They wondered if a new sharer would be brought into the company and how such an actor would be recruited. Owen Elias was voluble on this topic. Having laboured for so long in the humbler regions of the hired man, he relished the privilege of being accepted as a sharer.
The Welshman eventually came back to the play itself.
‘Let us be honest, Nick,’ he said, lowering his voice to a whisper. ‘The Corrupt Bargain was not his best play.’
‘It was serviceable enough.’
‘Too much matter, too little poetry.’
‘You are a stern critic, Owen. I liked it.’
‘Why, so did I. But less than his other plays.’
‘It merely needed more work on it,’ said Nicholas.
‘New title, new characters, new plot.’ Elias grinned. ‘Its defects would soon be mended then. It lacked vigour.’
Edmund Hoode murmured his way into the conversation.
‘It lacked everything that bears the name of drama.’
‘Welcome back to the land of the living,’ said Elias. ‘Nick and I were just passing judgement on-’
‘I heard,’ interrupted Hoode. ‘Heard and suffered every word that passed between you.’