The Merchant of Calais was a new play on old themes. It dealt with love and marriage as financial transactions. A lone English merchant was pitted against the encroaching French might in Calais. The piece questioned the importance of wealth and celebrated the ideal of self-sacrifice. At the end, the merchant of Calais gave up everything to be with the woman he loved even though it entailed huge personal losses. A forbidden love achieved a happiness that was impossible in the arranged marriages of the mercantile class.
A sprightly comedy shot through with darker tones, it was played with attack by the company. Lawrence Firethorn boomed as the merchant, Barnaby Gill danced and Owen Elias sang. Edmund Hoode turned in a wry cameo performance as an old French shepherd with an Oxfordshire accent. Richard Honeydew was a winsome heroine. George Dart made four bungled appearances as a foolish constable and was thought by an indulgent audience to be a natural comedian. The afternoon was an unadulterated triumph.
Nicholas Bracewell watched from behind the scenes. The play had a relevance for him that went far beyond its intrinsic worth as a drama. Elements of his own experience were up there on the stage and they caused him to ponder. Lawrence Firethorn might not look like Robert Bracewell but he sounded uncannily like him at times. In the final speech, the merchant renounced wealth and position with fierce sincerity.
The ovation was thunderous as the company came out to take its bow. Lawrence Firethorn was at his most flamboyant and drank in the applause as if it were the finest wine. He had just declared his love to Richard Honeydew for the twentieth time in a month but the real and lasting object of his passion was clapping her hands in the upper gallery. Margery Firethorn had laboured hard and shrewdly to bring the travellers home, and she was learning the joys of mending a long absence. Seated beside her was Anne Hendrik, lifted as always by a performance from Westfield’s Men and finding deeper meanings in the play than other spectators. She knew how much of Barnstaple had been transposed to Calais. The company’s own St Nicholas was indeed the patron saint of merchants.
Nicholas Bracewell himself had seen his hometown set poignantly upon the stage, but he had viewed it from behind. To the audience, it was fresh, immediate and directly in front of them: to him, it was old, detached and receding into the past. He could hear his father without real pain. He could watch events from his own life without undue discomfort. The visit to Barnstaple had helped him to understand and to grow through many of the problems he encountered there.
When he peeped around the edge of the curtain, he saw Anne Hendrik among the sea of faces. She was wearing a distinctive hat that had been made by one of her employees. He felt no bitterness over their parting. Anne had turned down his proposal but her decision had to be respected. He was coming to see that it held advantages for both of them. She regained the independence on which she set such value, and he was joyously reunited with Westfield’s Men. Their separate worlds might touch — as they were doing now — but they could never fully coalesce. In marrying Anne Hendrik, he would have been committing bigamy. Nicholas was already wedded to his profession.
As the pandemonium faded, Firethorn brought his company gambolling offstage and the tiring-house became a mass of excited bodies. The players changed quickly out of their costumes and adjourned to the taproom. Good-natured banter enlivened the air for hours and Marwood’s ale was consumed in vast quantities. Edmund Hoode was among the last to leave the inn. As he walked away from the Queen’s Head, he looped an arm around the shoulders of Nicholas Bracewell.
‘We are safely back in port now, Nick.’
‘And glad to be so.’
‘Those whom we left behind are now back in the company. Westfield’s Men are whole again. London has been left in no doubt about that.’
Hoode waited until they were well clear of the inn then he nudged his friend. He wanted a mystery to be at last unravelled.
‘What was it really that took you away from us?’
‘It is too long and twisting a tale, Edmund.’
‘I have all night to listen.’ He gave a quiet chuckle. ‘Come, Nick, you can tell me. We have no secrets from each other. You talked of your father and he sounded a merchant to his toes. But he was not the reason that you went to Barnstaple, was he?’
‘No, he was not. You read the signs aright.’
‘I smell romance here.’
‘It cannot be denied.’
‘You had a silent woman down in Devon.’
‘I blush to own it but you speak the truth.’
‘Who was she, man? Tell me but her name.’
Nicholas Bracewell smiled wryly. There had been a number of silent women involved. Susan Deakin had been a mute messenger who set him off on his journey. Lucy Whetcombe was speechless by nature. Mary Whetcombe was a silent woman who spoke out of his past, as did Margaret Hurrell. While he was away from her, Anne Hendrik had been a silent woman as well, and he had foolishly taken her silence to be a form of consent. Silence of another kind had helped to still the deafening ambition of Gideon Livermore, who had drowned himself in the River Taw, a name that meant ‘silent one’. Nicholas Bracewell had been surrounded by silence.
There was one more soundless female to add to the list.
‘Well, Nick,’ said Hoode. ‘Give me her name.’
‘Mary.’
‘A pretty name. Where did the lady reside?’
‘Upon the river.’
Hoode was puzzled. ‘You have a floating mistress?’
‘She lies at anchor.’
‘Did you board her then?’
‘Only to break another long-kept silence.’
‘What strange lady is this Mary?’
‘A ship,’ said Nicholas. ‘She was the real cause of my visit to Barnstaple. A merchant vessel of a hundred tons. I tell you, Edmund, she could drive a man insane with lust. My duty was to protect her honour. The Mary was my silent woman.’