Chapter Three
Abel Strudwick passed a troubled night in restless contemplation of the incident. Not even the sonorous snoring of the wife who lay beside him could lull him into slumber and this was unusual. As a rule, the waterman enjoyed his sleep to the full, wearied by the physical strains of his working day and by the consumption of ample quantities of bottle ale. He would be dead to the world within minutes and spend a restorative night in dreams of being plucked from the toil of his occupation to become a revered poet. A corpse in the Thames had changed all that. Strudwick had hauled bodies out of the water before now but none had been so gruesome as this one and even his strong stomach had rebelled. Memory turned night into one long, lacerating ordeal.
The next day found him tired and fractious, more ready than ever to burn the ears off his customers with a positive inferno of vituperation. Unlike most watermen, Strudwick plied his trade on his own. The bulk of his fellows took their passengers across the river in six-or eight-oared wherries that enabled them to cope with large parties. Strudwick had only a small rowing boat. He and his son had operated very successfully in it until the latter was press-ganged during the panic that preceded the news of the approach of the Spanish Armada. The loss of their apprentices to the navy was a source of great pain in the watermen’s community but their protests went unheard and unregarded. It was not surprising that they therefore resorted to all kinds of stratagems to protect their young men from such a dire fate.
Strudwick paid a young lad to help him from time to time and to sleep in the boat at night to prevent it from being stolen, but the aspiring poet mostly worked alone. The others mocked him cruelly for his ambitions but none dared do so to his face. In contests of verbal abuse and in wharfside brawls, he was a fearsome opponent who could see off the best. Abel Strudwick’s black tongue and bulging biceps created the space in which his verse could thrive unhampered. Drink lubricated his creative powers and it was in a tavern that most of his inspiration came.
So it was that afternoon as he sat in the corner of the taproom at the Jolly Sailor and gave his fertile mind free rein. The verse came haltingly at first, then more fluently and, finally, in a torrent that had him leaping up from his stool. Keen to oblige a regular customer, the landlord had pen and ink at the ready for the waterman and Strudwick pulled out the scrap of parchment that he always carried with him for such precious moments. He scratched away happily for half an hour before he felt it was time to return to work. The Bankside theatres would be emptying soon and there would be passengers for every boatman who was moored on the Surrey side of the river.
As Abel Strudwick came tumbling out of the inn, it was another playhouse that caught his attention. Stuck to a post nearby was something which he felt had been put there by the hand of God. It was a playbill advertising the performance of Double Deceit by Westfield’s Men on the following day and it crystallised a plan which had been forming in his mind for several months. His days as a fumbling amateur in the world of words were numbered. He wanted to see and hear how a professional pen could write verse in a dramatic vein and get the encouragement to fulfil his vaulting ambition. Nicholas Bracewell was a good friend who had never let him down in the past.
It was time to put that friendship to the test.
Margery Firethorn was kept as busy as ever. In addition to her normal household complement of souls, she had to cater for the three actors who were staying with them in Shoreditch and whom she had packed into the attic room to keep them out of the way of the other inhabitants. She ran a tight ship and nobody was allowed to flout her captaincy. When one of the actors dared to ogle a servant girl, Margery gave him a fierce sermon on self-restraint and warned him that his voice would rise by two octaves if ever she caught him fraternising again. Since she was carrying the kitchen knife at the time, he understood her meaning all too well and withdrew hastily to the attic to acquaint his fellows with what had passed. All females in the house were treated with excessive respect from that time on and even the she-cats earned more consideration.
Caught up as she was in feeding and caring for her extended family, Margery yet found time to keep an alert eye on her husband. Lawrence Firethorn had swept her off her feet with one of the most sublime performances of his career then borne her off down the aisle before she could even begin to resist. It had been a magical experience that could still flicker in the memory on rare occasions but it was dulled beneath the accumulated debris that a marriage inevitably builds up. One thing she had learnt at an early stage: her husband had the defects of his virtues. His overwhelming talent as an actor had indeed seduced her but she was realistic enough to see that it had a powerful effect on other women as well. Temptation was ever-present and Firethorn was not always able to resist it. Without her vigilance, he would be led astray by every red lip and arched eyebrow. She sensed that he was beginning to look elsewhere and decided to fire a warning shot across his bows.
‘Good morning to you, sir!’
‘Good morning, my dove,’ he said expansively. ‘The sun is streaming down from the heavens to gild the marital couch.’
‘You may well say that from where you lie,’ she observed tartly, ‘but I have been up these two hours to make all ready downstairs. Besides,’ she added, ‘if our marital couch is so special to you, why did you return to it so late last night?’
‘Work and worry kept me away.’
‘Does she have a name?’
‘Margery! How can you even suggest such a thing?’
He sat up in the four-poster with rumpled dignity and scratched at his beard. His wife stood over him with folded arms and snarled her next question.
‘Do you love me, sir?’
‘I dote on you, my treasure.’
‘But do you dote on me enough?’
‘My devotion is without human limit.’
‘That is my complaint, Lawrence,’ she said. ‘I would that your devotion was limited to me but it flies away like a bird on the wing.’
‘Only to return with joy. I am your homing pigeon.’
‘You are an eagle, sir, who searches out new prey.’
‘These suspicions are unfair and unfounded.’
‘Prove it!’
He struck a pose. ‘My conscience is clear.’
‘You do not possess such a thing.’
‘Sweetness,’ he said. ‘What means this discord so early in the day? What crime have I committed?’
‘It still lies festering in your brain.’
‘That brain is occupied with fond thoughts of you.’
‘Only when I stand before you.’
‘And lie beneath me, my little pomegranate.’
He spoke with such tender lechery that even her resolve weakened. A big, buxom, bustling woman in a simple working dress, she let herself be flattered by his words and by the admiring glances he now directed at her. With all its faults, the marriage had never lacked excitement or pleasure. Another episode now beckoned.
‘You left my side too soon,’ he cooed.
‘There was much to be done below.’
‘Come back to me for a moment of wild madness.’
‘It would be madness indeed at this hour.’
‘Let me show you how much I love you, Margery.’
Her doubts were temporarily wiped away and she moved in close to be gathered into whirling embrace. She was lifted bodily into the bed and let out a girlish laugh as he rolled on top of her but their joy was short-lived. Before he could plant the first whiskery kiss on her eager lips, pandemonium broke out. A pan boiled over in the kitchen and set off an argument between the two servant girls. The children began a noisy fight and the four apprentices went thundering down the stairs for their breakfast. Worst of all, there was a loud knock on the door of the bedchamber and one of the actors put a decisive end to the snatched happiness.