Wish, abjure vain protest, set modesty
Aside, cast off these holy garments now,
Lie in thy bed and submit me to my
Grisly fate. But conscience rebels against
This foul, disgusting and debasing act.
I have a higher duty to myself
And God, who made me and who guides me here
In this fell hour. No royal lecher will
Defile me, betray my most sacred vows
And take my virgin purity away.
I am a bride of Christ and will not serve
The carnal lust of man, whate’er his rank.
Away, thou hideous beast that preys on
Innocence! Sooner than live to give thee
Satisfaction, I die upon this bed,
Pure and unsullied to the end as now
I join my God and my salvation.’
Before Cosimo, Duke of Parma could stop her, Emilia put a tiny flask of poison to her lips and drained it in one gulp. The effect was startling. After convulsing with sudden pain, she fell across the bed and swiftly expired. The Duke suspected a ruse and shook her angrily to revive her but the girl was now beyond his reach. In a fit of pique, he flung her down on the bed only to be disturbed by his steward with the news that, under torture, the Cardinal had admitted that Emilia was the Duke’s own illegitimate child, a secret he had gleaned in the confessional box from the mother who had begged him to keep it from Emilia herself.
Cosimo was distraught. He had, in effect, murdered his own daughter. Remorse finally entered his heart and he knelt beside the corpse in an attitude of grief, weeping real tears as he blamed himself for the tragedy and repented his wickedness. Lawrence Firethorn was superb. He achieved the impossible. Having outraged the spectators only minutes before with his merciless treatment of Emilia, he now contrived to win their sympathy for his plight. When he announced that he was not fit to live among decent, Christian people, he pulled out his dagger and plunged it deep into his heart before falling at the feet of the daughter whom he had tried to ravish.
The steward summoned servants and both bodies were carried from the stage with great dignity. A stunned silence followed the end of the play and it was only when the actor-manager led his troupe out again to take their bow that the spectators were released from their state of shock. Thunderous applause greeted the company. Lawrence Firethorn beamed, Barnaby Gill glowed, Owen Elias grinned broadly, James Ingram felt his blood pulsing and even George Dart, the tiny assistant stagekeeper, a reluctant actor who was required to play no less than six different supporting roles, all of them beyond his competence, managed a smirk of satisfaction.
Nicholas Bracewell was delighted with the warm reception accorded to The Insatiate Duke and he threw a glance up to the gallery where a proud Lucius Kindell, overcome with emotion, was clapping as hard as anyone. The afternoon had been a great personal triumph for him but he was the first to concede that someone else deserved even more praise. Edmund Hoode had been heroic. Not only had he turned a serviceable play into a memorable theatrical experience, he had given a performance that blazed into the minds of the onlookers. Firethorn, Gill and the others might strut and preen and blow elaborate kisses of gratitude but the man who was enjoying the ovation the most was Cardinal Boccherini.
Poised and impassive, a very monument of Christian virtue, he gave no hint of the laughter which bubbled away inside him. Edmund Hoode’s happiness slipped into delirium.
The Insatiate Duke was good for business. Spectators who had been alternately excited and harrowed by the play now poured into the taproom of the Queen’s Head to slake their thirst, to discuss the wondrous tragedy they had witnessed or to calm their shattered nerves with strong drink. The inn was packed to capacity and its drawers and servingmen were stretched to meet the needs of the seething mass of customers.
Any other landlord would have been thrilled by the sight of so much ale and wine being sold but not Alexander Marwood. Seasoned in misery, wedded to pessimism and lacking the merest spectre of light in the darkness of his existence, he found even the infrequent moments of good fortune occasions for complaint rather than celebration.
‘Look at them!’ he moaned. ‘They will drink us dry. They will eat us out of house and home. They will consume us!’
‘We will make a tidy profit,’ said his wife.
‘But at what cost, Sybil?’
‘None to you, sir. You simply have to look on.’
‘Aye,’ said Marwood with a morose leer. ‘Look on and suffer. With so large and unruly a crowd as this, I fear for my benches, I worry about my tables, I am desperately concerned for the safety of my furniture. Damage will soon come, mark my words. An affray will soon start. I do not simply look on, dear wife. I quail, I pine, I suffer!’
Sybil Marwood inflated her chest, folded her arms beneath her surging bosom and drew herself up to her full height.
‘There will be no trouble while I am here, Alexander.’
The landlord nodded in agreement at the grim boast. Big-boned and brawny, his wife had a basilisk stare which could quell the wildest of revellers and a tongue which could lash with the force of a whip. As one who had suffered both her stare and her stinging rebuke on a regular basis, Marwood could appreciate why she held such sway over their patrons. Even in such a rowdy assembly as the one before them, Sybil loomed large. While she remained, the merriment would always stay good-humoured and never spill over into violence.
‘There is one consolation,’ sighed Marwood.
‘What is that, husband?’
‘Rose is not here to get caught up in all this.’
‘She should be,’ said his wife, irritably. ‘To serve this many mouths, we need every pair of hands we can get. Where is the girl? Rose’s place is here.’
‘Be grateful that she is elsewhere, Sybil.’
‘Why?’
‘Because of the relief it yields.’
‘What relief? You talk in riddles.’
‘I would hate any daughter of mine to be pitched into this sea of iniquity,’ he said with a shiver. ‘Drunken men are dangerous. Let a woman pass through a crowd like this and she would be groped and kissed unmercifully. Rose is spared that.’
‘Nonsense!’ snorted the other. ‘I have pushed my way into the heart of this throng and not a single finger was laid upon my person, womanly though it is. There is no danger.’
‘To you, perhaps not. But Rose’s case is different. This taproom would be a place of dire peril to her. The girl is still young and innocent, Sybil. She lacks your experience and strength of mind. You are a mature woman. Our daughter has none of your … of your … of your …’
His voice trailed away as the wifely stare transfixed him to the spot and deprived him of coherent speech. Marwood felt the familiar icicles forming once more on his spine.
‘Go on,’ she urged through gritted teeth. ‘My what?’
Marwood mouthed words that refused to be translated into sound. Sweat moistened his brow. He essayed an appeasing smile but it looked more like a bold sneer. A violent twitch broke out on his lower lip, another on his right ear and a third on his left eyebrow. He slapped at his face wildly as if trying to swat a series of troublesome flies but he only succeeded in dispersing the twitches to new locations. Additional activity was soon set off until his whole visage was in a state of frenzied animation. Unprepossessing at the best of times, Marwood was now positively grotesque.
Sybil did not let him off the hook of her displeasure.