‘I’ll beat the name out of you!’ she threatened.
‘You’re hurting me!’
‘This is only the start, you ungrateful girl!’
‘I will never tell you who he is.’
‘Why?’ challenged her mother, releasing her. ‘Are you so afraid to admit his name. Are you so ashamed of him that you pretend to forget all about him?’
A curious serenity seemed to fall on Rose. She smiled.
‘I will never forget him,’ she vowed dreamily, ‘and I am certainly not ashamed of him. This baby was unlooked for, mother, I swear it, but I will tell you this. It was conceived in love with a man I worship. I will be proud to bear his child.’
‘Not if I have anything to do with it!’
Rose was checked. ‘What do you mean?’
‘This child has no business making its way into the world. I was not able to prevent it from being conceived,’ she said with asperity, ‘but there may be a way to stop it from being born!’
Chapter Four
The performance of Mirth and Madness that afternoon bordered on disaster. While not sinking to the depths they plumbed during the rehearsal, Westfield’s Men waged a losing battle against fatigue, indifference and lack of concentration. A hilarious comedy produced scant hilarity. What mirth there was arose largely from the errors with which the performance was littered. Nobody entirely avoided them. Actors collided, cues were missed, lines were forgotten, weapons were mislaid, tankards were dropped and the wrong music was played at the wrong time on three glaringly obvious occasions. Even Barnaby Gill disappointed, stubbing his toe during one of his celebrated comic jigs and hopping off the stage on one foot to blame everyone in sight for his mishap.
Madness, too, was in short supply. The audience saw almost none that was called for in the play. It was reserved for the tiring-house where Lawrence Firethorn, guilty at his own merely adequate performance and frothing at his company’s untypical incompetence, ran mad and scolded his colleagues in the most florid language. Nicholas Bracewell did his best to restore an element of calm but his was a lone voice. Mirth and Madness was a doomed ship which sailed on to certain calamity with its crew clinging to its bulwarks with an air of resignation.
It was left to George Dart to provoke the most mirth. The smallest and least talented member of the company, he was its natural scapegoat. He was a willing assistant stagekeeper who could work well behind the scenes under supervision but, as soon as he stepped out onto a stage, Dart was always prone to misadventure. His duties in Act Four were relatively simple. Dressed as a forester, he had to carry on the five miniature trees which Nathan Curtis, the carpenter, had made and painted to indicate a woodland setting. The trees were crude but vital properties since they allowed characters to hide behind them and eavesdrop in what was felt to be the funniest scene in the play. George Dart rewrote it in his own unique way.
When he placed the last tree in position, his coat became entwined in its branches and he sought to disentangle it, only managing to get himself more caught up than ever. In an effort to get free, he pulled so hard that he sent the tree hurtling into its neighbour which, in turn, buffeted its own neighbour and so on. All five trees went crashing to the ground like a set of skittles, exposing the young lovers who had been hiding behind them to instant ridicule. In a blind panic, Dart tried to flee but his coat was still snared and it was torn noisily in two by the urgent movement. In the space of a few seconds, he had felled the entire wood, deprived the lovers of their hiding place, ruined his coat and utterly destroyed the scene. When Dart came charging in terror into the tiring-house, Firethorn had to be held back from trying to strangle him.
Yet, oddly, it had a beneficial effect. The woodland scene was their nadir and sheer embarrassment made the company wish to atone for it. Though the last act was still strewn with mistakes, it was a vast improvement on what went before it and partially helped to redeem Westfield’s Men. Firethorn led the revival and George Dart was banned from setting any further foot on the stage. Tepid applause greeted them when they came out to take their undeserved bow. Their poor performance severely disappointed their devotees and won them no new admirers. It was an afternoon of sustained blunders.
A grim silence fell on the tiring-house. Players were usually exhilarated by a performance, tumbling off the stage in a mood of excitement which carried them all the way to the taproom. Regret and remorse now prevailed. They were all to blame and they knew it. Lawrence Firethorn, the first to upbraid them for any falling off from their high standards, was too depressed to even address the company. When most of them had changed out of their costumes and drifted away, he confided in Nicholas Bracewell.
‘That was atrocious, Nick!’
‘I have seen better performances of the play.’
‘A worse one is hardly conceivable. We left the piece in absolute tatters. Everyone — and I include myself — was quite disgraceful. Why? What came over us?’
‘We do not feel secure,’ said Nicholas. ‘Yesterday, on the verge of signing a new contract, the company was at its best. Today, with the threat of eviction hanging over us, our fellows lost heart and walked through a play that demanded a fast pace and concerted action.’
‘Yes!’ moaned Firethorn. ‘The only concerted action the audience saw was when that pea-brained George Dart knocked down five trees simultaneously. Had a rope been to hand, I’d have hanged the idiot from the upper gallery.’
‘Do not single George out. All were at fault.’
‘Too true, Nick.’
‘We must put this afternoon behind us.’
‘If we can,’ said Firethorn. ‘I begin to wonder if the landlord has put a curse on us. Nothing went right.’
‘Lack of spirit was to blame. It is a trusty old play but their hearts were not in it. Tomorrow, it will be different.’
‘Will it?’
‘Westfield’s Men will be on their mettle.’
‘I hope so, Nick,’ said the other gloomily. ‘Or we are done for. Marwood will not need to drive us out. We will lose our audience and be deprived of an occupation.’
‘There is no chance of that,’ said Nicholas confidently. ‘We have suffered far more serious reverses than this and always come through them. Today was a minor blemish on our reputation. It will soon be erased and Westfield’s Men will resume its position as the leading troupe of the day.’
Firethorn was reassured. ‘Yes,’ he said, gritting his teeth and thrusting out his jaw. ‘We will fight back hard and win through to glory once more. What is one bad performance in a long catalogue of triumph? We are invincible. That is what we must always remember. Nothing can halt the majestic progress of Westfield’s Men.’
At that moment, a stranger came into the tiring-house. They recognised his distinctive livery at once. The servant came over to them and gave a slight bow.
‘Master Lawrence Firethorn?’ he enquired politely.
‘I am he,’ confirmed Firethorn.
‘I was asked to deliver this to you, sir.’
Firethorn took the letter from him and quailed inwardly.
While one theatre company suffered, another was at the height of its powers. Banbury’s Men were the resident company at The Curtain. It was one of the two playhouses built in Shoreditch outside City jurisdiction and therefore free from the petty legislation which hampered work at the inn yard theatres such as the Queen’s Head. The Curtain also provided its actors with a far more imposing stage than the makeshift arrangement on barrels which was used by Westfield’s Men and enabled them to use a whole range of technical effects denied their inn yard competitors. Giles Randolph was the acknowledged star of Banbury’s Men, a tall, slim and slightly sinister individual who shone in roles which allowed him to hatch evil plots and to ooze villainy. The Spanish Contract was tailored perfectly to his skills and he led his company superbly that afternoon, earning such a thunderous ovation that it was five minutes before he was allowed to quit the stage at the end of the performance. Randolph bowed long and low, tossing out smiles of gratitude and drinking in the applause.