An Honourable Murderer (11 page)

I was making my way back to the principal room where we were rehearsing. A man and a woman were standing just outside the door, deep in conversation. It looked to be one of those discussions at which a third party would not be welcome. I was about to cough to alert them to my presence, then paused. The woman was Lady Jane Blake. The man had his back to me but there was something familiar about him.

The light was dim in the passageway outside the practice room and there was a great tapestry hanging from the wall next to me. I've always had a hankering to eavesdrop from behind a tapestry or arras. (It's what Polonius does with fatal results to himself in WS's
Hamlet
.) I stepped into the shadow of the arras but without concealing myself properly behind it. I wasn't so much an eavesdropper as a passer-by. Then I listened. There was the rustle of paper.

“And the seat,” said the voice of Lady Blake. There was that suppressed laughter in her tone. “You are sure about the seat?”

“Absolutely, my lady,” said the other.

I recognized his voice. Had listened to him lately. Who was he?

“But will it hold up under the weight?”

“It will hold up. We wouldn't want anyone falling off the device accidentally, would we?” said the man.

The man and woman almost giggled in a manner that seemed to me, loitering in the folds of the arras, somehow improper. As if they were children sniggering over adult matters. I risked a peep around the edge of the hanging. Heads together, the couple were examining a sheet of paper. I recognized the man now.

“Then this will come down,” said Lady Jane, stabbing a plump forefinger at the sheet.

“Oh, it'll come down all right,” said Jonathan Snell. “It will all come down.”

Jonathan Snell, the engine-man who was designing machines and effects for Jonson's
Masque of Peace
. The gentleman who'd been invited to guess my weight in the courtyard. Now he was demonstrating something to Jane Blake, with the same confident style in which he'd shown off the diagram of the
deus ex machina
chair. He was surely talking about a device of his own making, but what was it?

My impression that there was an underhand aspect to this meeting was strengthened by the way in which the two of them – the noble lady and the engineer with the long thumb – responded when one of the household footmen glided by. Luckily this yellow-liveried gent came from a different direction to the place at which I was standing. The Blake footmen were very silent and this, combined with their glassy stares and golden costumes, gave them the indifferent quality of fish in a big pond. This particular fish was almost on Lady Blake and Master Snell before they spotted him. When they did, the couple seemed to spring apart and Snell hastily folded up the sheet of paper. The footman glided on, far too well-bred to observe the behaviour of his betters. If he noticed me while I was loitering he gave no sign of it. After a moment Lady Blake returned to the practice room, and shortly afterwards Snell followed her inside. I had the distinct impression that they didn't want to be seen entering together.

Putting on my best just-wandering-around air, I stepped out from the shelter of the arras and went back to the masque rehearsal. There wasn't much for me to do since I had my lines as Ignorance off pat – no great feat considering there were so few of them – and Ben Jonson's energies were largely directed at polishing the performances of the nonprofessional players. Lady Jane Blake disposed herself as Plenty, clutching a jug instead of a cornucopia to her ample chest. Sir Philip hummed and cleared his throat and just about got through his few verses as Truth, although he could not resist slipping in a ‘very good' from time to time. Maria More was a graceful handmaid to Plenty, while Bill Inman billowed about as the Ocean. Giles Cass was playing Suspicion – he had asked Jonson for the part, I gathered.

Jonathan Snell sat at a desk to one side of the room, sketching and scribbling on sheets of paper and from time to time coming across to consult Jonson. I guessed he was working out the final details of the masque machinery. He nodded towards me, acknowledging our meeting from a day or two before. He seemed a straightforward fellow but I was puzzled about why he and Lady Jane had been conversing so secretively outside the door and why they didn't appear to want to have anything to do with each other inside the room.

The light in the passageway had not been good but, from what I'd glimpsed, the sheet of paper was covered with lines and circles. It looked very similar to the one which Snell had shown to Jonson and me in the courtyard. The fact that the two had been talking of ‘seats' and ‘weights' tended to confirm that the engine-man was explaining to Lady Jane the device intended to lower her husband to the ground during the
Masque of Peace
. These chairs, on which gods and other elevated figures are brought down to earth, are standard features of modern stages. We've got the mechanism for one at the Globe. It is housed in a little hut or cabin on top of the ‘heavens'.

Perhaps, as a loving wife, Lady Jane was concerned for her husband's welfare as he sank to earth.
Then this will come down
, she'd said, and
Oh, it'll come down all right
, Snell replied. But the sniggering, conspiratorial tone of the dialogue somehow made a less . . . innocent . . . interpretation more plausible. And hadn't Shakespeare said that the relations between the Blakes were cold?

But what was I meant to put in my report to John Ratchett? That I'd heard two people talking secretively about a
deus ex machina
device? That William Inman had cracked an anti-Spanish joke? That Giles Cass played the part of Suspicion rather well?

I was not exactly happy in the role of intelligencer. More to the point, I was not exactly successful, having little to report. I decided that I would wait until the next practice, which was to take place at Somerset House, and hope that something more significant would occur to earn me my three pounds from the Council.

“A
h, Nicholaas, come 'ere. You look so fatigay,
mon chéri
,” said Blanche, the girl in the Mitre brothel. “So tired.”

“It's been a hard day,” I said.

“Come 'ere and be soozed by your Blanche,” she said, grasping me firmly by the arm.

I don't know how she could tell that I was tired, since she kept the light in her little chamber so dim, but I was more than ready to be soothed. Later, when my tiredness had disappeared after a vigorous soothing, I lay stroking her dark hair where it fanned out over the pillow and thinking of nothing.

“What's that?” I said.

“I 'ave found out sumzing about you, Nicholaas,” said Blanche.

“'ave you?”

“Now you make fun of ze way I speak. Zat is not fair.”

“And why is zat, Blanche?”

“Because it is you who teach me.”

“Me?”

“I learn from ze gen'lemen of England.”

This was a nice way of referring to her customers, so I said, “But I like the way you speak. Honestly, Blanche. Tell me what you have found out.”

“
Non
.”

The pout and the shrug which accompanied this were more expressive than her refusal.

“All right, don't tell me,” I said.

“Now I will tell you. You live wiz a – 'ow you say? –
une veuve
. . .”

“If that means widow, yes, I lodge with a widow.”

“I knew it!”

“How did you know?”

Pleased with herself, Blanche tapped the side of her nose.

“I 'ave a little bird, 'e tells me zings.”

“Well, your bird's got it right this time.”

“A young – widow –
elle est belle
?”

“I'm sure your bird could tell you that as well.”

“Perhaps she likes you,
la veuve
?”

“Jealous, Blanche? 'ow you say
that
in French?
Jaloux
, is it?”

For answer she looked across to the sand-glass which measured time in this place. Now my time was up. So I rose from the bed and settled up with Blanche, using part of the money given me by John Ratchett. There was a small pleasure in using Privy Council cash in a Southwark stew, but I don't imagine I was the first. Blanche's hand closed round the coins. She didn't bother to conceal the business aspect to our transactions or make any play about being surprised to get cash.

To be frank, I was happier keeping things on this business level with the Frenchwoman. Nevertheless I wondered how Blanche had found out where I lodged. Not too difficult, perhaps. Some other players frequented the Mitre. I knew that Laurence Savage did, for one. He must have been blabbing. Perhaps he too saw Blanche. The thought was unwelcome and I put it away.

Blanche had said that I looked so
fatigay
when I arrived. If I did, the reason was the dramatic day which I'd just spent at Somerset or Denmark House, where we had assembled for an on-the-spot rehearsal of the
Masque of Peace
.

We arranged to arrive as a playhouse group, Laurence Savage, Jack Wilson, Abel Glaze and I, uneasily aware that we were entering enemy territory when we passed through the gatehouse.

Inside, we expected a nest of Spaniards. What we discovered was a crowded establishment in which control was uneasily split between the natives and the newcomers. For when Queen Anne had withdrawn to Whitehall so as to give the Spanish embassy a place to stay in London, some of her household had remained to look after the guests. And, as we'd seen from their display on the river, the Spanish party had brought with them a considerable retinue of their own. So every corner of this palace seemed stuffed with exotic strangers, while pale-faced English officials flitted about.

Giles Cass greeted us and ushered us down passages and through waiting areas. He put on an air of being absolutely at home in Somerset House, nodding to individuals and even exchanging greetings in Spanish,
buenos diassing
(if I have it right) like mad. He seemed to have swallowed that resentment of the Spanish presence which he'd shown in the Mermaid tavern.

We overheard incomprehensible snippets of conversation emanating from huddled groups, we heard low throaty gabbles and a style of laughter that was definitely unEnglish. We fetched up in one of the audience rooms – not the place for an audience in the playhouse sense, but a chamber for the reception of important visitors. All five of us paused on the threshold for a moment. I didn't know what this great chamber usually looked like, but it was evidently in the process of transformation. It was as if a wooden house was being built within the walls of the room. There was scaffolding everywhere, both for the seating and to support the masque scenery and machines. The sounds of hammering and sawing filled the dusty air. Painters were at work on a great canvas sheet spread out on a vacant area of the floor. I spotted Bartholomew Ridd, our tire-man, pinning up an elaborate-looking costume on an elaborate-looking lady whose name was Sybil Fortune. She was playing the part of Hope, and her outfit was covered with hope's symbol, the anchor.

“So will the Queen be appearing today?” said Abel to Giles Cass.

“I believe not.”

“Oh, that's a pity,” said Laurence.

I think we all felt slightly relieved, however. There's something intimidating about attending a rehearsal with the Queen of England, even if we'd eventually be playing alongside her.

“She will be word-perfect, never fear,” said Cass.

“She's only got a single verse,” whispered Jack.

“Two verses at least, Master Wilson,” said Cass.

Jonathan Snell suddenly materialized in front of us.

“Well timed, gentlemen,” he said.

The long-thumbed engineer shook hands with each of us. He was wearing a mechanic's apron, grease-stained. There was sawdust in his hair and even in the lines on his face.

“I am looking for an assistant,” he said, casting his eyes along our little group. “How about you, Nicholas? You'd be about right.”

“What for?”

“You'll see.”

He reached out and took me by the shoulder, giving me little choice but to accompany him. I looked round and raised my eyebrows at the others.

“The thin fellow's too light,” said Snell. He had to speak up, over the din of hammering and sawing.

“Too light? Abel Glaze?” I said, starting to feel uneasy.

“If he's the thin one. While the others look a bit on the heavy side. But you, you do look about right.”

Distinctly uneasy now.

We skirted planks and ducked under swags of satin hanging from makeshift supports until we came to a shadowy area at the rear of the dais on which the masque would be staged. Master Snell gestured at a ladder which was propped against a trellis-like arrangement of scaffolding.

“You want me to go up there?”

“If you would be so good, Nicholas. We've enough time before the practice begins.”

I looked up, looked down again quickly. The ladder tapered into darkness, the topmost rungs invisible.

“What do I do when I get up there?”

“You come down again. In the chair.”

“You want me to be the
deus ex machina
?”

“I need to try it out but only for practice on weights and tensions,” said Snell. “The body in the chair is immaterial, so to speak. Sir Philip Blake will be doing it for the actual performance. He is Truth, you know.”

“While I am merely Ignorance, and so expendable.”

This was intended as a throwaway comment but I was nervous and it emerged as resentful instead.

“Oh, I see,” said the engine-man, sounding surprised. “You're worried that it's not safe. It's perfectly safe. I made it myself and I've ridden the chair myself several times. It would be an advantage to put you in it though.”