They reached the landing and made their way along the undulating oak boards of a corridor. Pausing at a door, the maidservant knocked then indicated that he should enter. She herself curtseyed and withdrew towards the stairs. Edmund Hoode took a deep breath. The door was the gate to heaven and he stroked it with reverence before pushing it gently open to reveal her bedchamber.
‘Come in, Edmund,’ she called.
‘I am here, my love.’
He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him then inhaled the bewitching perfume of her presence. He had painted this scene in his mind a hundred times but reality beggared his invention. She looked and sounded far lovelier than he had dared to imagine and the bedchamber was a most appropriate setting for her. In the subtle and calculating light of a dozen small candles, she reclined on the bed amid a flurry of white pillows. Her face was a flower, her hair a waterfall of brown silk. She wore a long satin nightgown with a drawstring at the neck, and the contours of her body were at once displayed and concealed. Jane Diamond was the answer to a much overused prayer, and she lay ready for him on the altar of Venus.
He took a faltering step towards her.
‘I have missed you cruelly, Jane.’
‘Come closer that you may tell me how much.’
‘I thought this moment would never come.’
‘Patience and constancy have their due reward.’
‘No man is more patient than I,’ he declared, moving nearer to her. ‘And as for constancy, the Tower of London will crumble sooner than my devotion to you.’
‘I know it well, Edmund.’
Now he had come into the circle of light, she was able to inspect him more closely and she was pleased with her examination. Edmund Hoode looked immaculate. He wore a blue velvet doublet with green satin sleeves, and embroidered paned hose scaled with yellow damask. The lawn ruff at his neck held up the big, white, willing plate of a face. When he saw her look up at his blue velvet hat with its trembling ostrich feather, he doffed it at once and gave an apologetic bow. She crooked a finger to bring him to her, took his hat and put it aside, then raised her lips for him.
The first tremulous kiss dissolved all inhibition and he took her in his arms with unrestrained ardour. They had waited a long time for this supreme moment and both intended to savour it to the full. Jane was soon plucking at the fastenings on his doublet while he used his teeth to pull at the drawstring on her nightgown. This was no sordid act of adultery. The purity of their love lifted them on to a more ethereal plain. Their senses were immeasurably heightened. Their lips found a rich honey with each kiss, their hands found warmer flesh with each caress. The aroma of pleasure made them almost giddy and this was their undoing for they did not hear the knock of the real world on the door of their fantasy. Only when the maidservant burst into the room did they come down from their clouds of bliss.
‘Make haste, mistress!’ cried the intruder. ‘The master has returned.’
‘That cannot be!’ cried Jane in alarm.
‘He’s here below. I wonder you did not hear him open the door, it creaks so loud.’ The maidservant hissed at Edmund Hoode. ‘Fly, sir! He will surely kill you if he finds you in his bed.’
The maidservant rushed out again and the lovers leapt up. Jane pulled down her nightgown and sped on tiptoe into the corridor in time to hear the heavy tread of boots upon the stairs. She waited long enough to see her husband’s hat and cloak come out of the gloom then she darted back into the bedchamber and closed the door. Two bolts were slid into place and she flung her back against it for extra fortification.
‘Run, Edmund!’ she advised ‘Run!’
‘I try!’ wailed the stricken wooer, attempting to gather up his clothing from the floor. Valour flickered. ‘Should I not stay to defend you, my love?’
‘He will murder us both if he sees you. Go!’
A thunderous banging on the door convinced Hoode that a speedy exit was his only hope of salvation. Opening the window, he hurled his clothing out then dived madly after it without any concessions to self-respect. A forgotten ruff trailed down disconsolately after him then the window was closed tight. The interrupted swain grabbed his apparel and sprinted off through the streets as if a pack of hounds were on his tail. Jane Diamond might have turned London into an enchanted garden but her husband had just made a tour with Westfield’s Men seem infinitely more appealing. He did not stop running until he reached the comparative safety of his lodging and even there he barricaded himself in.
The lady herself was covered in distress but spared the ultimate horror of being interrogated by her husband. In response to his pounding, she told him that she was already in bed and that he was disturbing her slumbers. Accepting her word, he mumbled an apology and trudged off to spend the night in another chamber. Jane Diamond was so relieved by her narrow escape that she flung herself down and buried her head among the pillows. She was still rehearsing the excuse she would use next morning when she eventually fell asleep.
The real beneficiary of the night’s work was the maidservant. In addition to gratitude from her mistress and money from Edmund Hoode, she was given a much more generous payment by Lawrence Firethorn. In the cloak and hat provided by the maidservant, any man could have looked like a returning husband who is only glimpsed once on a dark staircase, but the portrayal had been given real authenticity by a master of his craft. The absent spouse had cause to be eternally thankful to Lawrence Firethorn. Not only had the finest actor of the day deigned to impersonate him, he had also saved him by a hair’s breadth from certain cuckoldry.
Firethorn collected his horse and rode off towards Shoreditch in a mood of self-congratulation. Once he had found out the address of Hoode’s inamorata, he had won over the maidservant with a combination of charm and bribery, and been informed of the tryst. It had been simple to set up his performance and to achieve the desired response. A much-needed member of the company had been forcibly returned to its bosom and a wandering wife had been frightened into fidelity for at least a fortnight. Firethorn could now play the returning husband at home and while away his last night there in connubial delights. His wife, Margery, was made of sterner stuff than Jane Diamond. When she took her man into her bed, nothing and nobody would be allowed to interrupt her until she had wrung the last ounce of pleasure out of him. Firethorn’s heels jabbed the horse into a gallop.
Catastrophe had been averted at the Queen’s Head but the fire there had still been sufficiently destructive to merit a ballad on the subject. It was being sung in the taproom by a dishevelled old pedlar with a once-melodious voice that was thickened by drink and cracked by age. Leonard was among the crowd who listened to the ballad.
Five verses were allotted to a description of how Nicholas Bracewell had helped to prevent the fire from spreading across the roof. The pedlar had not witnessed the event but he had picked up enough details from those who had to be able to compose his ballad with confidence. Using the licence of his trade, he embellished the facts wildly but nobody complained except Alexander Marwood. The landlord sang a woeful descant until he was cowed into silence by the reproach of the final verse.