A Mystery of Errors (24 page)

Smythe stared daggers at his back.

"Tuck," said Shakespeare, coming up to the edge of the stage and gazing up at him. "What the devil is wrong with you? Are you unwell?"

"No, no, nothing of the sort," said Smythe, sitting down on the edge of the stage. He sighed. "I just keep thinking about Elizabeth."

"What you
need
to be thinking about is the
play
," said Shakespeare, irritably. "The way you have been acting—or perhaps I should say
not
acting—you have already convinced Will Kemp that you have no ability as a player whatsoever. The rest of the company is disposed to be somewhat more lenient, since this is only your first time upon the stage, but if you keep this up, their patience will wear thin, as well."

"I know, I know."

"After all," said Shakespeare, " 'tis just one line! How difficult can it be to remember just
one
entrance cue and just
one
line? You come in on your cue… you walk to center stage… you say your line… and then you leave the stage. I do not see how I could possibly have made it any simpler for you!"

"You are quite right, Will. 'Tis really very simple. Just that I cannot seem to get it right. I do not know why. My head is all muddled."

"See here, Elizabeth will be fine," said Shakespeare, placatingly. "Her troubles, for the most part, are now over. All the portents were quite favorable. What you need to do now is get her out of your mind completely. Move on. She is much too far above your station. So stop mooning over the wench. 'Twill only drive you to drink."

"You speak from experience, do you?"

"Oh, sod off! Just learn your one damned line, come on at the right time, and say it right; 'tis all I ask."

"I know. And I am grateful, Will. I truly am. I greatly appreciate this chance."

"Then stop cocking it up, for God's sake!"

"I shall, Will. That is, I shall get it right, I promise."

"You had damn well better, or you will be back to holding horses at the gate."

"Well, I shall have to do that anyway, both before and after I complete my scene."

"Oh,
your
scene, is it? One line, and now 'tis an entire scene. Tell you what, I shall settle for
one line,
and then we shall see about a scene, all right?"

"You needn't be so peevish about it!"

"No,
Kemp
is peevish. I, on the other hand, am exasperated! I am trying my best to help you, Tuck. I am trying to help
us.
We have a chance here, both of us. We must not muck it up. All you need to do is walk onstage and say, 'Milord, the post horses have arrived.' And Kemp shall say his line and then you shall walk off with him. And that is really all you need to do! Is it not simple?"

Smythe exhaled heavily and nodded his head. "I know. 'Tis very simple, truly. I do not know why I cannot get it right."

"Because you have got your mind fixed upon that damned girl! Forget about her, will you please? She is not for you and never shall be. The odds are you shall not even be seeing her again."

"I say, Smythe," said Fleming, from the entrance to the tiring room, "is that not your lady from last night?"

They both looked in the direction he was indicating and, sure enough, there was Elizabeth Darcie, standing at the entrance to the playhouse, together with Dick Burbage and his father, James, along with another older gentleman and a younger, well-dressed man who looked vaguely familiar. Smythe frowned. And suddenly, it came to him.

"Good God!
Gresham!"

"What, the man Elizabeth said was murdered?" Shakespeare said.

"Aye!"

"Are you quite certain?"

"Aye, we both saw him at the inn the night we met, remember?"

"In truth, I remember very little of that night," said Shakespeare. "I do seem to recall a gentleman arriving, but I do not believe I'd know him if I laid eyes on him again. And you are saying this is he?"

Smythe nodded, dumbstruck.

"How curious," said Shakespeare, turning back to look at the group. "I have heard it said that ghosts walk at the witching hour, but I have never heard of one who went abroad in daylight."

Smythe jumped down off the stage to the ground. "I do not understand this. Elizabeth said she saw him killed last night!"

Shakespeare shrugged. "Well, he seems to have recovered nicely."

Elizabeth spotted them and glanced in their direction. She did not say anything, nor did she gesture, but Smythe saw a look of desperate panic on her face. Gresham appeared hale and hearty, but she was the one who looked white as a ghost.

"I shall soon get to the bottom of this!" Smythe said.

Shakespeare grabbed him by the arm. "Hold off a moment," he said, in a level tone, "before you go making a complete fool of yourself."

At the same time, Dick Burbage saw them and quickly detached himself from the group and hurried toward them, gesturing to Smythe to stay where he was.

"What the hell is going on here?" Smythe muttered.

"1 suspect we are about to find that out," Shakespeare replied.

Chapter 12

YOU ARE, 'TWOULD SEEM, AS surprised by this turn of events as I was," Burbage said, as he approached them. He shook his head and beckoned to one of the hired men, who came running up to the edge of the stage. "Miles, tell the others that we are sticking to our story about last night. And to betray no surprise, whatever they may hear. I shall explain all in due course."

As Miles ran to pass the word, Smythe turned to Burbage and said, in a low voice, "Dick, what the devil is going on? That man with Elizabeth is Anthony Gresham, is he not?"

"Indeed, he is," said Burbage, with a wry expression. "And you may well imagine my surprise when my father introduced me to him. Fortunately, my training as a player stood me in good stead. I think I managed to conceal my astonishment, for the most part. I clearly saw yours written on your face when we came in."

"But… how does he come to be alive?" Smythe asked, utterly perplexed.

"By the simple expedient of not having died yet," Shakespeare said, dryly. He put his hand on Smythe's shoulder. " 'Tis painfully self-evident, my friend. The wench has lied to you."

Smythe shook his head. "No. No, I cannot believe it. She was in earnest. You were there, you heard!"

"The proof stands yonder," Burbage said. "Together with her father, who has brought Mr. Gresham here to meet with my own father about investing in the playhouse. Mr. Gresham, 'twould seem, is most interested in the arts. In plays, especially."

"But… but I simply cannot believe she lied to me!" said Smythe, shaking his head as he stared at the group talking by the entrance to the playhouse. He saw Elizabeth looking toward him, desperately trying to catch his eye without seeming too obvious about it. Their gazes met and she shook her head, very slightly, but emphatically.

"Tuck, my friend, you would not be the first man lied to by a woman," Shakespeare said, gently.

"You do her an injustice, Will," said Smythe. "Look at her. She looks absolutely terrified."

"Aye, she had much the same look when she saw me," said Burbage. "The look of a surprised deer. She is afraid, all right. Afraid that we shall give her game away."

"What game?" asked Smythe, frowning.

"Her lie about the supposed murder of her intended, who now stands before us. Aye, she played us for a bunch of fools. She had her fun sporting with you and then we kindly provided her with the perfect alibi to avoid any suspicion of wrongdoing or impropriety." He snorted with derision. "All she had to do was ask our help and we would have done it anyway. Lord, the last thing Henry Darcie needs to know is that one of our players bedded his daughter. His
very much betrothed
daughter."

"But I did not…" Smythe broke off in exasperation and took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. The other players would never believe he had not bedded the girl and all his protestations would only serve to make them more convinced. "Look, how was I to have any way of knowing who her father was?" he asked. "I had never even heard of Henry Darcie."

"Nevertheless, you still should have known well enough to realize that she was well beyond your station," Burbage said, in a tone of reproof. "And therefore, liable to be trouble. If Gresham ever found out about you, he could easily have you killed, you know. The whole thing is a bad business all around. If you ask me, the woman's touched, and I do not envy Gresham if he marries her. But then again, Henry Darcie has a lot of money, and money can buy no small amount of solace. Do yourself and all the rest of us a favor, Tuck, and keep well away from her. She will only bring you trouble. And that may bring
us
trouble, and I would prefer to avoid trouble, if at all possible. Now, Will, would you do me the courtesy of coming to see Sir Anthony? He would very much like to meet you."

Shakespeare frowned. "Why on earth would he want to meet me?"

"As I said, he is interested in plays," Burbage replied. "And I have told him that we have found a bright young poet who is just about to make his mark as one of England's greatest playwrights. A bit of an exaggeration, perhaps, but when dealing with investors, it never hurts to oversell."

"I'd like to make my mark, all right," said Shakespeare, in a surly tone. "Right on his damned jaw. I still remember all those thorns in my bum from when his coach ran us off the road that day!"

"Now don't
you
be giving me any trouble," Burbage said, sharply. "The man has come with money to invest. And we could
all
benefit from that. Aside from that, if you play your cards right, you never know, you might even get yourself a wealthy patron. 'Twould be well worth taking a few stickers up the arse, I should think. Now come on, put on your best fawning, servile manner and make a decent leg. This is business, my friend, business."

Smythe stood there and watched them head off toward the others. Dick waved to them and his father gave a jaunty wave back. Henry Darcie stood there with his arms folded, looking pompous, as if he owned the place—which, to some degree, he did—and Sir Anthony had his hands upon his hips and stood looking about like the cock of the walk. Elizabeth, however, looked on the verge of tears. She looked at Smythe and once again shook her head slightly, in jerky little motions, back and forth, like a tremor going through her.

No, thought Smythe, something here was decidedly not right. All the evidence of his senses pointed toward the explanation that Dick Burbage gave as being the only logical answer, but in his gut, Smythe could not accept it.

He did not delude himself that Elizabeth Darcie loved him or that they could ever have any sort of future together. That wasn't how he thought of her in any case, and he knew it certainly wasn't how she thought of him. But he recalled how terrified she had been and could not believe it was a lie, as both Shakespeare and Burbage thought.

Clearly, she had
not
seen Gresham killed, for here he was, in the too, too solid flesh, not even remotely ghostlike and very much alive. So then, if he was to assume she had not lied, what
had
she seen? She was not a girl given to the vapors. She had been apprehensive last night at Granny Meg's, even frightened at first, and yet, she had gone through with it, with neither fainting nor faint-heartedness. And when she came to him and told him what she'd seen, she had seemed very much in earnest. Not even the great Ned Alleyn, he thought, could act a part so well. Therefore, assuming that she had been telling him the truth, she must have seen what she had only
thought
was Gresham being murdered.

Could she have been mistaken? He thought back to her words. They had been most definite. She had said that Gresham fell against her, so heavily that he had dragged her down with him, as if he were dead weight. Dead weight, indeed. With a dagger plunged to the hilt between his shoulder blades. Which meant it had been thrown with considerable force, and by someone who knew what he was doing. She had left him then, a corpse upon the ground. Except here he was, alive. So if Elizabeth had told the truth, then it must have been a trick, an elaborate deception. And if that was the case, then Gresham must have been behind it.

But why?

What could be his motive? Elizabeth had said that Gresham had already been toying with her, making her out to be a liar and a shrew, the better to seem undesirable for wedlock, even in her parents' eyes. With the arrangement already made, a daughter who suddenly began to act erratically, to the point of lying or having flights of fancy she could not control, could certainly induce a wealthy father to increase the dowry, thereby making the prospective husband more eager for the marriage and perhaps more likely to overlook the daughter's faults.

According to Elizabeth, Gresham had even gone to the extent of using his servant, Drummond, to lie for him. Smythe remembered Drummond from that night back at the inn, and again the day that he had met Elizabeth for the first time, outside the Theatre. An officious, unpleasant, arrogantly boorish man. Smythe had disliked him from the start. And according to Elizabeth, Drummond had denied that he had even been there.

Elizabeth had said that Drummond had been driving the carriage when she had met Gresham on the street, and that Gresham had sent him on ahead, supposedly because by following them slowly in the carriage, he had blocked the way. A convenient ruse, perhaps? If he had slowed the carriage to the pace of two people walking, he would have blocked the street, of course. There were more and more carriages and coaches on the streets of London every day, so much so that they were causing blockages all over. So Gresham could have had Drummond follow until someone came up behind him and started to cause a commotion about it, then Gresham would wave him on ahead… Meet me at the Darcie residence. And Drummond drives on, out of sight, then has ample time to leave the carriage somewhere and double back on foot… so that the two of them could stage a little drama of their own?

As if he could feel Smythe's gaze upon him, Gresham turned and glanced toward him. For a moment, their eyes met. Smythe did not look away. Gresham arched an eyebrow, frowned faintly, and then turned back to the others in the group. "No," Smythe said softly, to himself, "by God, Elizabeth is not the liar here."