‘Send who?’
‘I tax your patience here.’
‘No, no. You talked of custom.’
‘In a small way, Master Marwood,’ she said. ‘My name is Dutch but I am English, as you see. I speak both languages and that makes me useful in our community.’
‘We have a lot of Dutchmen here.’
‘And most of them resented like any other foreigner. But a man like you turns nobody away. That is why your inn will always flourish.’
‘I do not serve many Hollanders,’ he said, glancing across at Preben van Loew. ‘They are not ale-drinkers.’
‘They are if they are taught to be. And playgoers, too. That is my argument.’ She indicated her employee. ‘Preben works for me and frowns on all pleasure. Yet when I brought him to a play in this yard, he enjoyed it so much he sent a dozen of his friends back. Each one of that dozen sent a handful more and so on. You stay with me here?’
‘Why, yes,’ said Marwood thoughtfully.
Anne was into her stride. ‘Visitors come from Holland all the time. When they seek entertainment, I send them here because Westfield’s Men never disappoint. All this trade will be lost if the company goes.’
‘It has to go. They burnt my premises down.’
‘They are helping to build it up again.’
‘How so?’
‘Take a closer look at these workmen,’ she suggested. ‘That man on the ladder is Nathan Curtis, master-carpenter with Westfield’s Men. I know him as a neighbour of mine in Bankside. With him is his assistant, David Leeke. When they sent their fellows away on tour, they stayed to rebuild the company’s home.’
‘At my expense! These repairs are costly!’
‘Defray the amount, Master Marwood.’
‘If only I knew how!’
‘It is not for me to say, sir,’ she remarked. ‘I am in business myself but employ only a handful of men. Preben there is one. This I do know, however. If I ran this inn, I would seek to spread the cost of restoration.’
‘I have tried, I have tried.’
‘Everywhere but the easiest place.’
‘And where is that?’
‘Westfield’s Men.’
‘They are almost penniless.’
‘Not when they fill your yard every afternoon. Think on this. Suppose they agreed to pay half of all the bills that you incur from the fire. Would that not cut your grief in two?’
‘How could they afford it?’
‘You levy a surcharge on each performance.’
‘Explain, I pray.’
Anne was persuasive. ‘Westfield’s Men pay a rent for the use of your yard, do they not? Add a fire tax to that rent. Some small amount, it may be, and spread over a whole year. At the end of that time, you would have earned back the half of all you spent.’ She saw a smile almost peeping out at her. ‘And that will be on top of all the extra revenue the company will bring in. London has missed them sorely. When they return, this yard will fill in minutes.’
Alexander Marwood could hear the sense in her argument but he still had grave reservations. Anne Hendrik left him with one more idea over which he could mull.
‘Their first performance would be the best of all.’
‘Why?’
‘Because all its proceeds would go to you.’
‘They will play for nothing!’
‘As a gesture of faith,’ she said, ‘they will donate the takings of an afternoon to the repair fund. If that is not generosity, then I do not know what is.’ She waved to Preben van Loew to indicate an imminent departure. ‘We must leave you now, sir, but I tell you this in private. I would not have Westfield’s Men go to this other inn to play.’
‘Why not?’
‘It has a most villainous innkeeper. Farewell.’
It was dark when Nicholas Bracewell left the house in Crock Street and there was no question of his riding out to visit his father that night. The confrontation, in any case, needed a degree of forethought. What he had done after his talk with Mary Whetcombe was to walk back to the quay and take a proper look at a place which had meant so much to him at one time. It was empty now but still redolent with activity. He could almost smell the cargoes being unloaded and hear the deals being struck by astute merchants. When his father had first taken him there, Nicholas had loved the cheery commotion of Barnstaple quay. A few small ships floated at their moorings but it was the vessel which lay at anchor in the middle of the river which had captured his interest. The Mary was a fine craft, still riding on its reputation as a privateer. Even in the moonlight, he could judge its character. To own such a ship was to own the town. No wonder Gideon Livermore was ready to kill for it.
When the curfew bell sounded, he had gone back in through West Gate and headed for the Dolphin Inn. Sleep came with merciful swiftness. Rain tapped on the window to wake him in the morning but it had cleared by the time he went down to the taproom for his breakfast. Over toast and ale, he read the letter which Barnard Sweete had left for him with the innkeeper. Nicholas was invited to visit the lawyer in his chambers. The subject of discussion was not stated but he could guess at it. Mary had told him enough about Sweete to alert him to the man’s cleverness and Nicholas already had a clear impression of the sort of man the lawyer might be. Before taking him on, however, he needed more evidence and that could only come from his father. It was ironic. The man who had torn him away from Mary Parr might now be in a position to offer a kind of restitution.
Nicholas hired a horse and rode northwards out of the town in the direction of Pilton. Two men followed him this time but at a comfortable distance. They were there to watch and not to attack. Nicholas smiled when he came to an old signpost that pointed his way. The village of Marwood was one of three listed and he knew it from his boyhood. Its namesake at the Queen’s Head had none of its rural charm and still less of its abiding warmth.
The cottage was not far from Pilton and his first sight of it shocked him. It was a small, low, half-timbered building with a thatched roof. Standing in a couple of acres, it had a neglected and world-weary air. When he got closer, he saw that birds were nesting under the eaves. One of the trees in the garden had been blown over in a gale and was now propped up with a length of timber. Panes of glass were missing from an upper window. The garden gate was broken. A goat chewed unconcernedly outside the front door.
He felt curiously offended. When Nicholas was a boy, his father had been a successful merchant with a wife, two sons and three daughters, all of whom lived in a large town-house in Boutport Street. They had respectability and position. Robert Bracewell had no social standing now. He was a virtual outcast from Barnstaple. A man who had once rubbed shoulders with Matthew Whetcombe and the other leading merchants was now banished to the oblivion of a country cottage. It was a poor reflection on the family name but Robert Bracewell deserved no sympathy. Nicholas reminded himself of that as his knees nudged his horse forward.
Dismounting at the gate, he tethered the animal and went up the path to the front door. The goat did not even look up from its meal of grass and nettles. Nicholas did not need to knock. The door swung open and the suspicious face of an old woman emerged. She was short, stout and wearing a plain dress. Grey hair poked out from beneath her mob-cap. Her hands were a network of dark blue veins. After staring at him for a moment, she seemed to half-recognise him and it made her shrink back. She called to someone inside the cottage then disappeared from view. Nicholas waited. A small dog came scampering out and barked amiably at him. The goat aimed a kick at it then resumed its browsing.
The front door opened wider and an old man in a faded suit glared out at him. Nicholas at first took him for a servant, like the woman, but it slowly dawned on him that this was his father. The years had eaten right into the man. The tall figure had shrunk and the powerful frame had gone. Hair and beard were grey and the face was etched with lines. It shook his son. Robert Bracewell was a wreck of the man he had once been. He seemed too small and insignificant to bear the weight of all that hatred of him that his son carried.