Nicholas Bracewell stood in a passageway between the shop and the parlour. He could smell leather. A flight of stairs led up to the first floor, and the maidservant had gone up them. He waited patiently until he heard a creak above his head. Looking up the stairs, he expected to see the maidservant return but he was instead confronted by a sight that made his heart thump and his brain mist. Watching him carefully with large, questioning eyes was a young girl in a black dress. Her face was so like her mother’s that this had to be her child. Nicholas was transported back twenty years to a time when Mary Parr and he had played together in the streets and chased each other through the churchyard of St Peter’s. He was looking at his childhood sweetheart. Other memories joined the first to turn it sour.
The girl was studying him with intense curiosity. She detected a friend. When Nicholas smiled up at her, she even gave him a small wave of the hand. She was not Mary Parr any longer. She was the deaf-mute daughter of Mary Whetcombe. Though she had something of her mother’s beauty, she had hair that was much lighter and a cast of feature that was subtly different. The girl liked him. In that brief moment while he waited at the bottom of the stairs, an affinity existed between them. Nicholas was still wondering what that affinity might be when the maidservant’s shoes clattered on the oak treads. The girl vanished and the flat-faced woman returned.
‘She will not see you today, sir,’ she said.
‘Did you give my name?’ he asked in hurt tones.
‘My mistress is indisposed, sir.’
‘She will surely receive me.’
‘I have given you her reply.’ The maidservant tried to motion him towards the door. ‘This is a house of mourning.’
‘Tell her I have important news for her.’
‘Call again tomorrow.’
‘I know what happened to Susan Deakin.’
The maidservant’s manner changed at once and she threw up her hands to clutch at her puffy cheeks. Nicholas had rightly guessed that the dead girl belonged to a prosperous household. She had been in the employ of the late Matthew Whetcombe.
‘Where is Susan?’ said the maidservant anxiously.
‘I will tell your mistress.’
‘Have you seen her? Is she well?’
‘You will hear all in time,’ said Nicholas discreetly. ‘Susan was servant of the house, I believe.’
‘Bless you, sir, yes. Like her mother before her. Susan followed in Joan Deakin’s footsteps.’
‘Is her mother still alive?’
The maidservant shook her head. ‘Dead, sir. Years ago.’
‘And was Susan a reliable girl?’
‘None more so,’ she said. ‘Susan worked as hard as anyone in the house and took care of Miss Lucy. We were so surprised when she ran away from the house.’
‘Ran away?’
But the maidservant had said enough and retreated into a watchful silence. The stranger would not be received. She had given her message and must show him out. Nicholas Bracewell was a name she had heard often but it was evidently not welcome there. The arrival of the visitor had had such a powerful effect on Mary Whetcombe that she had needed time to recover, and Barnard Sweete had been equally discomfited. The maidservant judged the newcomer to be the son of Robert Bracewell, and the father was no longer allowed into the house. A man who could cause upset simply by calling there must be shown the door.
‘You must go, sir,’ she insisted.
‘Commend me to your mistress,’ he said. ‘Tell her that I will lodge at the Dolphin in the High Street. It is but a small step from here and I can easily be reached.’
‘Good day, sir.’
‘Remember the name. Nicholas Bracewell.’
The maidservant remembered it only too well as a cause of mild panic in the hall upstairs. She was anxious to hear about Susan Deakin but feared the tidings were not good. Nicholas was ushered to the door and out into the street. As he walked slowly away, he was conscious of being watched, and he turned around to gaze up at the house. Faces moved away from the windows of the hall but one remained at the window in the upper storey. Lucy Whetcombe waved to him again and held something up to him, but he could not see what it was. From that distance, the tiny wooden object was just a vague blob in her little hand. It never even crossed his mind that her doll might be Nicholas Bracewell.
Ellen was propelled by a mixture of envy and daring. Though she had enjoyed all she had seen of the work of Westfield’s Men, the role of the apprentices troubled her. Young boys could never be true women. Wigs and dresses only took the impersonation so far. It stopped short of completion. She had watched Lawrence Firethorn play a tender love scene with Richard Honeydew in one play then seduce the lad with equal skill in another, but on neither occasion had they kissed properly. Words took the place of embraces. Passion was distilled into blank verse. If she were on the stage, she believed, the feeling between the lovers would strike a deeper resonance, and it pained her that she would never be given the chance to prove it.
What she could not do in public, however, could perhaps be accomplished in private, and it was here that envy made way for daring. She had simpered and smiled as Judith Grace to lure him to her bedchamber, but a very different net was needed to land her catch this time. Firethorn would be on his guard. If her performance faltered in any degree, he would unmask her. Ellen’s daring, however, had another level to it and it was one she kept even from her husband. Firethorn was a dupe, but he was also a handsome, virulent man who gave off a shower of sparks whenever he stepped onstage. She would not have to dissemble on one score. His attraction for her was real. Ellen was confident of her ability to draw him to her bedchamber but she was less certain about what she would do then. Her task was to distract him while her husband was searching Firethorn’s room at the Jolly Sailor. There was one sure way to distract any red-blooded man.
There was a respectful tap on the door.
‘Are you ready?’ asked a voice.
‘Come on in and judge for yourself.’
The door opened and a coachman lumbered in. Israel Gunby was transformed by his hat and long coat. He gaped in astonishment when he saw his wife. Ellen had undergone a metamorphosis. The winsome daughter who was such an effective shield behind whom to hide had now become a lady of aristocratic mien. She wore a dress of dark blue satin that was padded and quilted at the shoulders, stiffened with whalebone, lavishly embroidered with a paler blue and slashed to reveal an even richer lining of pure silk. The shoes, which peeped between the low hem, were silvered. The wig, which swept her whole face upwards, was auburn. Make-up had turned an attractive young woman into a stunning one. Israel Gunby would not have recognised her at first glance.
‘He will throw himself at your feet, my love,’ he said.
‘I will expect no less.’
‘This is our greatest triumph, Ellen.’
‘Then let it begin.’
They sallied forth and made the short journey to the Jolly Sailor. An assignation had already been set up that afternoon. During the performance of Love and Fortune, she had established such a rapport with Lawrence Firethorn from her carefully chosen seat that it needed only a note to fix the time and place. Though they possessed no coach, her coachman nevertheless conducted her into a private room at the Jolly Sailor then bowed his way out. Firethorn was enraptured. For several seconds, he could do nothing more than gaze in wonderment at her and inhale the bewitching fragrance. He wore doublet and breeches of black velvet. Both were embroidered and slashed to show a blood-red satin lining. He removed his hat and gave a low bow then held her hand to bestow the softest kiss on it.