The Merry Devils

Ralph Willoughby had watched it all.

Margery Firethorn ran her household on firm Christian principles. As a variant on her scolding, she sometimes chastised her servants or her children by making them attend an impromptu prayer meeting. In the rolling cadences of the Book of Common Prayer she found both a fund of reassurance and a useful weapon. For most of the occupants of the house in Shoreditch, the regular visit to the Parish Church of St Leonard's was imposition enough. To have the Church brought into the house was a nightmare.

'Let us pray.'

'That includes you, Martin Yeo.'

'Let us pray.'

'Lower your head, John Tallis.'

'Let us pray.'

'Close your mouth, Stephen Judd.'

'Let us all pray!'

The day began with a profound shock. It was Lawrence Firethorn who instigated and led the prayers. Inclined to be lax in his religious observances--especially where the sixth commandment was concerned--he astonished everyone by reaching for the prayer book before breakfast. Margery reverted to the scolding while her husband handled the service. Around the table were their two children, the four apprentices, Caleb Smythe, who had spent the night there, and the two assistant stagekeepers, George Dart and Roger Blundell, who had been summoned from their lodgings to partake in a ceremony that might have a special bearing on their safety and their souls.

They listened in silence as Firethorn intoned the prayers. Even on such a solemn occasion, he had to give a performance. When he reached the end of an interminable recitation, he signalled their release.

'Amen.'

'Amen' came the collective sigh of relief.

'That should stand us in good stead,' said Firethorn breezily.

'I feel better for that, master,' confessed George Dart.

'It gives me new heart, said Roger Blundell.

'I like not prayers,' muttered Caleb Smythe.

'They were most beautifully read,' said Firethorn pointedly.

'It was not the reading that I mind, sir,' said the other. 'It is the weight they place upon my heart. When I hear prayers, I am undone. They make me think so of death.'

'Oh, heavens!' wailed Dart. 'Death, he cries!'

'What a word to mention on a day like this!' said Blundell.

An argument started but Margery quelled it by serving breakfast. She believed in providing a hearty meal at the start of the day and the others fell ravenously upon it. Eleven heads were soon bent over the table in contentment.

When the meal was over, Firethorn retired to the bedchamber for a few minutes. His wife followed him and accosted him.

'What lies behind this, Lawrence?'

'Behind what, dearest?'

'These unexpected prayers.'

'I was moved by the spirit, Margery.' It has never shifted you one inch before, sir.'

'You wrong me, sweeting,' he said in aggrieved tones. 'I heard a voice from above.'

'It sounded like Nicholas Bracewell to me.'

'Ah...'

'Why did he call here so early this morning?' she pressed. 'It is not like him to come all the way from Bankside on a whim. Did he bring bad tidings?'

'Nothing to trouble your pretty little head about, angel.'

'My head is neither pretty nor little. It contains a brain as big as yours and I would have it treated with respect. Speak out, sir. Do not protect me from the truth.'

He was aghast. 'When have I held back the truth from you?'

'It has been your daily habit these fifteen years.'

'Margery!'

'Honesty has never been your strong suit.'

'I am the most veracious fellow in London.'

'Another lie,' she said levelly. 'Come, sir, and tell me what I need to know. Why did Master Bracewell come here today?'

'On a personal matter, my love.'

'There is another woman involved?'

'That is a most ignoble thought, Margery.'

'You put it into my pretty little head.' She folded her arms and came to a decision. 'The tidings concerned the play. I will come to The Rose myself this afternoon.'

'No, no!' he protested. 'That will not do at all!'

'Why do you keep me away, Lawrence?'

'I do not, my pigeon.'

'Is it because of this other woman?'

'What other woman?'

'You tell me, sir. Their names change so often.'

Firethorn knew that he would never shake her off when she was in that mood and so he compromised. He gave her a highly edited version of what Nicholas Bracewell had told him and since the book holder's report had itself been softened--no mention of Willoughby--she got only a diluted account. When she heard about the devils shooting up from trap-doors, she crossed herself in fear.

'They may not be real fiends, Margery.'

'They sound so to me.'

'Nicholas believes otherwise and he is a shrewd judge.'

'What of you, Lawrence?'

He shrugged. 'I only half-believe they came from Hell.'

'Half a devil is by one half too much. I'll not have my husband acting with an apparition. Cancel the performance.'

'There can be no question of that.'

'I mean it, sir.'

'Lord Westfield overrules you.'

'How much warning do you need? Fiends were at The Rose.'

'No, my treasure. Silly pranksters out to give us fright.'

'Then why did you read those prayers?'

'I have been something slack in my devotions of late.'

'You feared for the lives of those lads.'

'The merry devils are sad,' he said. 'I sought to ease their misery with a taste of religion.'

'Your prayers were meant to save them!'

Firethorn conceded there was an element of truth in it. If real devils were going to appear, he wanted God to be at his side. He urged her to say nothing to the others. He and Nicholas had agreed to suppress all mention of the incident at The Rose. It would disrupt an already uneasy company. Their task was to present a play to the public.

'You'll keep them ignorant of their danger?' she said.

'I'll see they come to no harm.'

*

The day was warm and muggy with a hint of thunder in the bloated clouds. A tawny sun played hide and seek all morning. Isaac Pollard was up early to visit church, breakfast with his wife and children, then sally forth to meet his brethren. Four other members of the Puritan faction consented to go with him. His descriptions of The Merry Devils had roused their ire against the piece and they decided to view it in order to know its full horror. They fondly imagined that their fivefold presence at The Rose would spread some much-needed guilt around the galleries and scatter some piety into the pit.

Since they met in St Paul's Churchyard, their easiest route to Bankside lay in making straight for the river to cross in a boat. Isaac Pollard ruled against this. Thames watermen were justly famed for their vulgarity and two or more of them engaged in argument could turn the air blue with their language. The last time that Pollard was rowed across in a wherry, he tried to reprove his boatman for this fault of nature and met with such a volcanic eruption of profanity that he had to close his ears to it and so missed the concluding threat of baptism in the river. Accordingly, he now led his colleagues towards the single bridge that spanned the Thames with its magnificence.