‘When I saw the actors dance and frolic with such gaiety, I wanted to leap onstage and join them.’ Bernice twirled around a few times. ‘The Faithful Shepherd was a delight. I never thought we’d be allowed to meet the author.’
‘Master Hoode was a proper gentleman.’
‘And a handsome at that. Is it not so, Ursula?’
‘I did not notice.’
‘Come, even you must observe if a man is well or ill favoured.’
‘I admire Master Hoode for his intellect, not his appearance.’
‘I take pleasure in both. He looked so fine at the concert.’
‘The concert?’ said Ursula, glancing up. ‘I did not even know that he was here. I hope that he did not think it rude of me to ignore him.’
‘I paid him enough attention for both of us.’
‘As long as he did not feel neglected in our house.’
‘No, Ursula,’ said her sister, dreamily. ‘There was no danger of that. When I could not speak to him, I watched him every moment. Such a noble countenance, such a modest manner.’
‘True enough.’
‘Such a kind and thoughtful being.’
‘I liked him more than Master Firethorn.’
‘Oh, he was too fond of himself — not so Edmund.’
‘I liked him more than Owen Elias as well.’
‘I like him more than any man.’
‘Bernice!’
‘Why try to hide it from you?’ She gave a brittle laugh and hugged her sister. ‘Oh, Ursula, I think that I’m in love!’
And she pirouetted around the hall by way of celebration.
Basking once more in the love of his wife, Lawrence Firethorn was a portrait of contentment. Nobody would have guessed that his company was assailed from within by a demanding playwright and attacked from without by a mysterious enemy. As a result of the latest exigency, he was forced to participate in an act of collective repair. The Malevolent Comedy had to be forged anew. Firethorn sat in the middle of his parlour as if he did not have a care in the world, beaming at his friends and showing excessive courtesy to Matthew Lipton, their scrivener. Twenty minutes in Margery’s capacious arms had transformed him. Reading the telltale signs, the other members of Westfield’s Men were grateful to her.
‘Let’s move on to the second act,’ decided Firethorn.
‘But we haven’t mentioned my jig yet,’ said Barnaby Gill.
‘We can take that for granted.’
‘Indeed, you will not.’
‘Here the Clown dances — that’s all that it said in the play.’
‘Then let that be set down,’ said Gill, nodding to the scrivener. ‘The first act is not complete until I’ve brought it to a conclusion.’
Gill’s argumentative streak was slowing them up. Everyone else was resolved to bring the play back to life as quickly and painlessly as possible, but Gill’s pedantry hampered them. Not content with recalling his own lines, he was disputing the accuracy of those remembered by others. There were seven co-authors. Firethorn had invited Edmund Hoode, Frank Quilter, Owen Elias, Barnaby Gill, Richard Honeydew and the book holder to join him. While their host was nominally in charge, it was, in fact, Nicholas Bracewell who controlled the exercise. The actors knew their own lines and cues, but he was the only one who was familiar with the play in its totality and his prodigious memory came into its own.
‘What do I say next?’ asked Quilter, groping for his line.
‘Nothing,’ said Elias, ‘for the speech is mine.’
‘Mine, surely,’ contended Hoode, ‘for the priest must speak first.’
‘Wait your turn, Edmund.’
‘I could say the same to you.’
‘Nick,’ invited Firethorn with a smile, ‘give us instruction here.’
‘You are all wrong,’ said Nicholas, patiently. ‘The speech falls to Mistress Malevole.’
‘I thought so,’ agreed Richard Honeydew.
‘Why did you not say so?’ asked Gill, irritably.
‘I was not given the chance.’
Honeydew was the only one of the boy apprentices there but the other three were in the kitchen, being fed and mothered by Margery. From time to time, she brought drink and refreshment into the parlour, always pausing to give Nicholas a warm hug and her husband a kiss. The busiest person there was Matthew Lipton, a rangy individual of middle years with a habit of sucking his few remaining teeth. Copying out the words as they were dictated to him, he had difficulty in keeping up with Firethorn, who insisted on giving a performance rather than a simple, slow recitation.
What simplified the whole business and gave it a firm structure was the fact that Nicholas had brought the plot of the play. He had drawn it up as a guide to the cast, dividing each act up into its scenes and listing who and what was needed in them. In a comedy that relied on its pace, it was vital to have such a detailed record of entrances and exits. Changes of scenery were also marked as were the cues for the musicians. During a pause for refreshment, Nicholas studied the plot.
‘Our thief was a stranger to a tiring-house,’ he said, ‘or he would have taken the plot as well. Without that, our task would have been ten times more laborious.’
‘I find it laborious enough as it is,’ opined Quilter.
‘So do I,’ said Lipton, flexing his hand. ‘I begin to feel cramp.’
‘Fight it off,’ ordered Firethorn. ‘We need that neat calligraphy of yours until the bitter end.’ He turned to Nicholas. ‘So the villain we seek is not a man of the theatre.’
‘He may not be a man at all,’ replied Nicholas.
‘An eunuch, then? Or a half-man like Barnaby?’
‘I’m no half-man!’ protested Gill. ‘Nor an eunuch either.’
‘The thief may well have been a woman,’ said Nicholas. ‘A young and beautiful one at that, according to Leonard. She asked him about the work of the book holder.’
‘What does that lumbering oaf know about it?’ said Firethorn.
‘Enough to understand the importance of the prompt book.’
‘And you think this woman may have taken it?’
‘It’s a possibility.’
‘Would she have committed the other outrages?’
‘No,’ said Elias. ‘What woman would stoop to using poison?’
‘Margery, for one,’ replied Firethorn with a hearty cackle. ‘Had there been any in the house yesterday, she’d have poured it down my throat then danced on my dead body.’
‘So much for the joys of marriage!’ remarked Gill.
‘They’ll be forever beyond your reach, Barnaby. You’ll have to get your pleasure from being bitten on the bum by a rabid dog. Yes,’ he went on, looking at the scrivener. ‘Set that down as well. The Clown is bitten.’
‘Do not listen to him Matthew!’
‘And you may add — on the right buttock.’
‘No!’
‘Change that, Matthew. Barnaby prefers the left.’
‘To come back to the matter in hand,’ said Nicholas when Gill’s protests had died down, ‘I believe that the man we seek may have a confederate. He certainly bought the poison from the apothecary and paid that lad to set Rascal on us. But I fancy that this woman is part of the conspiracy,’ he went on, ‘and I wonder if the reason may not be right in front of us.’
‘How so?’ asked Hoode.
‘While we have been going over every single line of the play, I’ve seen things that did not strike me so much in performance. Look at the three women whom Lord Loveless sets up as rivals for his hand.’
‘Rosamund, Chloe and Eleanor.’
‘The characters are excellently well drawn.’
‘That’s so throughout the play, Nick.’
‘Not always,’ said Nicholas. ‘There’s real flesh and bone on all three ladies, and it brings them to life.’ He glanced at Honeydew. ‘The same goes for Mistress Malevole. There’s a depth and definition to her that several of the men lack.’
‘What do you read into that?’
‘I’m not sure, Edmund. But I do begin to wonder if Saul Hibbert’s women may be based on real people. They behave as if they do. And if that’s the case,’ Nicholas speculated, ‘none of them would be pleased to see the play for it pillories all four unmercifully.’