An Honourable Murderer (7 page)

“Jonathan is constructing the chair which will bring Sir Philip Blake down from the heavens like a
deus ex machina
. Sir Philip will be the god who comes down to earth to solve human problems. This is Master Snell's plan of the device.”

“I remember now, Sir Philip is playing the part of Truth in our masque,” I said.

“Truth must come down in state, though,” said the little man. “It wouldn't do if he plunged to earth, wouldn't do at all. You must take account of the sitter's weight in these calculations and I have already assessed Sir Philip's at a glance.”

“As long as he has the time to deliver a least a couple of verses while he's descending,” said Jonson. “It'll be the best he can do. He's no actor.”

“I'll be at the controls myself, Master Jonson,” said Snell. “I'll lower him good and steady.”

He mimed turning a wheel.

Masques, even relatively straightforward ones like
Peace
, can't be staged in a day and I realized, after hearing Jonson and Snell talk about their device, that this one had been in preparation for some time.

“How is the building going?” said the playwright, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Somerset House. I noticed that, consciously or not, he used his right, unbranded hand for the gesture.

“It's going well. We'll be ready inside two days. All ready.”

“Good, good. Nothing too elaborate is necessary.”

“Nothing that'll overshadow your valuable words, you mean, Master Ben,” said Snell.

I glanced at Jonathan Snell with new respect. I didn't know how long he'd been acquainted with Ben Jonson but he had got the measure of the man and his sensitivity, and showed that he wasn't daunted by it. Jonson didn't take offence at the slight irony in the words either (as he might have done with me, for example).

“I must go and check on the waves,” said Snell. “One of the cranks has a tendency to stick. Goodbye, Masters Benjamin and Nicholas. What part are you playing by the way?”

“I am Ignorance,” I said.

Snell might have made a cheap crack at that point but he simply nodded a further farewell to Jonson and me and walked off towards the gatehouse. He crossed paths with Abel Glaze, Laurence Savage and Jack Wilson who were just entering the courtyard. After we had exchanged greetings, all five of us headed for the house, with Ben Jonson in the lead.

This was a large establishment and, once inside, we were ushered through various chambers by various footmen, all in yellow livery. There was something fish-like about the way they glided from room to room with glassy expressions, being actively uninterested in us. Eventually we ended up in a great chamber overlooking the river. We spent some time examining the view, examining the furniture, examining the tapestries. It was very quiet. The only sounds which penetrated from outside were the cries of gulls or watermen, and they were muted as if out of respect. Our voices dropped almost to a whisper, although not Jonson's. At long last, four people came into the room. I recognized Sir Philip Blake and Lady Blake from the previous day on the south bank of the river. The other two, a man and a woman, I didn't know.

Since all four are going to play quite a part in this story I'll pause here to introduce them, bringing forward what I found out later.

Sir Philip Blake was a courtier, top to toe. He'd been entrusted with a minor part in the current ‘negotiations' with Spain, although he had formerly been an opponent of such a treaty, like many Englishmen. Blake was a relatively slight man with quite prominent ears. There was a sharpness to his pointed beard and a touch of severity in his features which was appropriate for the role of Truth in the
Masque of Peace
.

Where her husband was thin and ascetic-looking, Lady Jane Black was plump and amiable. She looked like a tavernkeeper's wife, pleased to see old friends and newcomers equally. (I later discovered that she came from lowly circumstances, being an apothecary's daughter.) In fact, if I hadn't known who she was I would have taken her for the attendant or personal servant to the much more elegant lady who was standing by her side. In reality it was this one who was the servant while the plump lady was the mistress. The tall and graceful woman was called Maria More. As she came into the room she arched her eyebrows and gazed around with a kind of disdain, as if to say ‘Oh, so these are the players, are they?'

The final member of this foursome stood a little behind Sir Philip. His name was William Inman. He had something of Ben Jonson about him, a similar air of bustling good humour though with a much redder face. I suspected instinctively that, as with Jonson, the good humour would disappear if he was crossed. Just as I'd seen Cecil whisper in Blake's ear yesterday while both stood near the Queen's carriage, so I now saw Blake turn and whisper into the ear of Inman.

Inman smiled slightly and nodded vigorously at whatever his master had said. This red-faced man stood in the same relation to Blake as the elegant lady did to his wife, somewhere between an assistant and a secretary. And, after a first glance at the four of them, you would've said that the noble lady and gent were closer to their personal attendants than they were to each other. More civil, more responsive.

Ben Jonson strode forward to greet Blake and to incline his head towards the ladies. He trod a nice line between deference and familiarity. This son of a bricklayer always said that he never esteemed anyone just because they had a noble name, and I think it was true. Then, with a sweep of his hand about the chamber, Ben made some remark about great wealth and taste being contracted into a single room. He said this in English before adding some appropriate Latin quotation. The first comment certainly pleased his patrons and broke the ice.

At this point Giles Cass, the go-between, and Martin Barton, the satirical playwright, were ushered into the chamber. Our practice party was complete for the time being, although not all the players were present. Cass was known to the Blakes, of course, and Barton swiftly got familiar with them. For someone who affected to despise the court and all its works, Barton was surprisingly good at getting familiar.

Then it was the moment to begin.

Rehearsing a masque is quite different from rehearsing a play. The action is much shorter, there aren't many lines to learn and no one expects great feats of performance anyway. Despite the engine-man's comment about Jonson's ‘valuable words', it is the music, costumes and effects which are more important than the drama. The music and the rest are produced by professionals, which is just as well. Since many of the principal roles are taken by important people like the Queen of England, and since such important people always have much less time at their disposal than we ordinary persons, any rehearsal time is necessarily limited.

Ben Jonson produced a sheaf of papers and distributed them among the company. Each of us in the room had a part in the
Masque of Peace
. I was accustomed to the fat scrolls of the playhouse, especially since I'd started taking bigger parts, and so the couple of sheets which I now held felt like short commons. None of us had many words to say. I wondered about this until Abel pointed out that we'd be playing in front of an audience of whom half would be Spanish. What would be the point, he said, of Ben's penning reams of lines if they were destined to pass over the heads of many of his listeners?

“It hasn't stopped him before,” I said.

But Abel was surely correct. Why write a great deal if you're not going to be understood?

Ben had assigned the parts quite artfully – or cynically, if you prefer. On the whole the more attractive roles, such as Peace and Plenty, were given to the part-time actors who just happened to be full-time nobles while the less enticing ones like Ignorance and Rumour were doled out to the proper players.

I didn't have much to do in the part of Ignorance except to look useless (yes, all right, spare the comments). I'd never played a simple, unqualified Noun before, and was quite looking forward to doing it as a change from playing human beings. Looking forward also to wearing my costume, which had been conceived by the Globe tire-man Bartholomew Ridd and which, like all masque outfits, was a kind of walking riddle.

Altogether, this masque should be a holiday from ordinary work. Not much application or effort required.

(Little did I know. I was truly ignorant. Ignorance personified.)

For a flavour of my lines, which cannot have detained Ben Jonson very long in the composition, try the opening:

I know not where I am
,

I know not whence I came
,

Darkness is my dwelling-place
,

Ignorance is my name.

The function of Ignorance was to tremble at the prospect of the arrival of the Spaniards. Along the same pattern, Suspicion was meant to bristle and the figure of Fright was supposed to adopt a threatening posture, while Rumour went running from one ear to another. These ‘bad' qualities were intended to be absurd, laughable. But the joke was that this was actually how most of the English felt about the Spanish, and were content to feel. It was probably how the Spanish felt about us too: ignorant, prejudiced, suspicious, hostile.

While we were examining our roles, Sir Philip Blake made a tour of the room, enquiring who we were playing. I told him that I was Ignorance and therefore a kind of opposite to his Truth.

“Truth will prevail,” he said, clearing his throat.

“It must prevail. It is written,” I said, since I can be just as sententious as anybody else.

“Who are you really, though, behind the mask of Ignorance?”

“Nicholas Revill, sir, a player.”

“Revill? Not one of the Revills of Norfolk?”

“No, from Somerset.”

“I don't think I've heard of them. Are you connected?”

“If we are, then it's like the connection of one twig to another on the opposite side of the tree.”

There was a pause while Sir Philip absorbed this information, at the same time making frequent throat-clearing sounds. Or perhaps he was wondering what I was talking about. I was wondering myself.

“Very good,” he said finally, moving on.

The Revills of Norfolk
? I made a mental note to ask my friend Jack Wilson, whose family came from Norwich, whether he knew of any Norfolk Revills. Perhaps we were connected. Perhaps they were cousins; perhaps they were rich.

“Nicholas!”

“What is it? Oh, sorry.”

It was Ben Jonson, calling me to order. As well as being the author of the
Masque of Peace
he was what's called the ‘guider' of the production.

“I wish you to play ignorant now,” he said. “Put on an appropriate face. No, not like that. There's a difference between ignorance and idiocy, Revill. You'll be drooling down your front next. Now, my lady, if you would be so good as to take up your position over there. And to cradle the cornucopia in your hands. An imaginary horn of plenty at the moment, I'm afraid. On the night it will be crammed with fruit and flowers.”

“I hope it won't be too heavy to carry, Benjamin,” said Lady Blake. She had a pleasant voice, with a scarcely suppressed laughter bubbling in it. “I'm not sure how much plenty I can bear.”

“The contents will be made of wire and cloth and paper, my lady. Light as air.”

If deliberate, it was sly of Ben to have cast Lady Jane Blake in the part of Plenty (one of the blessings of Peace) since she certainly didn't look as though she denied herself very much. I noticed that Ben controlled the members of the Blake household with a looser rein than he did the professional players. With the former it was ‘please . . .' and ‘perhaps . . .' He still got his way, though.

During the morning Ben took us through our lines and postures and movements. It was all quite simple after the complicated world of the stage play. A lot of masque-work involves no more than standing up, or sitting down, or lying flat. Also during the morning I made the acquaintance of Maria More, who was playing a handmaid to Plenty. (And where else should More be, but attending on Plenty?) Though she looked more of the lady than her mistress, I'd been mistaken in my belief that she was aloof. Rather she was combative. Combative, tall and graceful.

During a break in the rehearsal, while Jonson was consulting his patrons and the rest of us had split up into chattering groups, Mistress More told me that she'd visited the Globe playhouse on two or three occasions. Then she asked a strange question.

“We're permitted to take part in these masques but we are not allowed to play on your stage. Why?”

“We? You mean, ah, well-born people like the ones here?”

“I mean women.”

“Oh,
women
. Women on stage. That wouldn't be proper.”

“But some people claim that it's even less proper for boys to dress up as females.”

“Such people are general enemies to the playhouse. They object to everything we do. Besides, er . . . I have heard it said that boys make better women than women.”

“That is your opinion?”

“Not necessarily my opinion. But I have heard it said.”

“Are you always so cautious?”

“I don't want to offend.”

“Of course, I forget that it's also a woman's part to be easily offended,” she said. “But you still have not answered the question.
Why
should it be improper for us to play our own sex on stage?”

“It is a difficult subject,” I said, searching around in my head for reasons and failing to find them. When you came down to it, why shouldn't women act on the public stage? It would not seem right if they did, that's all. Maria More looked at me with a gaze that was half amused, half challenging.

“Difficult indeed,” she said after a pause.

I was saved from anything else by the appearance of William Inman, the jolly-faced man who was assistant to Sir Philip Blake.