Most Secret (10 page)

“But how does Mistress Landis concern our purpose?”

“Because she’s Pem Harker’s wench, or so they say. She is Pem Harker’s woman, and he holds her fast.”

It was as though, into that spacious room with the tapestries and the French carpet, there thrust through at him an image, lip upcurled under nose, of Pembroke Harker’s face. My esteemed grandfather swore loudly.

“Captain Harker, eh?” he said “Our bold, clever, all-conquering dragoon officer …”

“Ay! Don’t mistake it, lad: he is a clever fellow, and a man of parts too.”

“Even so! Allowing all vagaries of fancy to the sex, is it possible any woman save a mother could be fond of an object like Harker?”

“Fond of him, ecod?” Bygones echoed. “D’ye truly think Dolly Landis is
fond
of him?”

“Then how does he hold her fast?”

“How does he gain most of his ends?” returned the other. “Think on that, lad! I’ll not pursue further a matter where I only suspect and don’t know. But think on it; think well. This afternoon, good fortune attending us, we’ll try to prove whether old Bygones is quite so much a fool as he must oft-times appear. And there is another question too.”

“What question now?”

“The question,” said Bygones Abraham, “to which we must find an answer before we visit the playhouse at all.”

And he would say no more.

At Whitehall Stairs they took a wherry downriver. They sat in the stern sheets, the boatman at the oars facing them with his back to the prow. Though the river itself was odorous, few smuts and smudges from chimneys blew so far out. Amid a multitude of small craft, some with little white or reddish sails, they were carried down half a mile to the Temple Stairs.

It was not much past noon. Bygones, strutting ahead at a good pace, led Kinsmere up through the Temple gardens, underneath the arch of Middle Temple Gate, and across a crowded road to the Devil—properly speaking, the Devil and St. Dunstan—tavern just opposite on the north side of Fleet Street.

Two floors and an attic of black beams and smoke-darkened plaster, with many-paned windows opening out like little doors, upreared to the west of St. Dunstan’s Church, not far from the turning of Chancery Lane. The inn sign that swung above, once bright-painted in red and black and gilt, showed St. Dunstan seizing the Foul Fiend by the nose with a pair of red-hot pincers.

“Heigh-ho!” says Bygones Abraham.

Noise and heat smote out at them from this famous haunt, three generations before so loved by rare Ben Jonson that Ben, to be near it, took lodgings above a comb-maker’s hard by. John Wadloe, the present proprietor, kept an ordinary or eating-house as well as a tavern; the atmosphere was pretty thick from meat roasting on spits in the underground kitchens. Since you might smoke tobacco in any room you pleased, not merely in some poky hole above a dish of coffee, the atmosphere had grown thicker still. And there were many of these rooms, each named for some pagan god or goddess.

“Well … now!” says Rowdy Kinsmere.

Bygones plunged first into the Apollo Room, to the right of the passage leading from the front door. Tables, stools, oak settles were well filled. The tapsters or skinkers—waiters, we should say nowadays—slid past with armloads of flagons and drinking jacks. Through the blatter of talk ran a
click-click
of snuffbox lids and an incessant tinkling from little bells hung over the leathern beer jacks called gingleboys. In a niche over the chimneypiece stood the bust of Apollo which Ben Jonson had caused to be put there, with Ben’s verses painted large on the wall above:

Welcome, all who lead or follow,

To the Oracle of Apollo …

All his Answers are Divine,

Truth itself doth flow in Wine.

“Hang up all the poor Hop Drinkers!”

Cries Old Sim,
*
the King of Skinkers.

He the half of Life abuses

That sits watering with the Muses.

Those dull Girls no good can mean us,

Wine, it is the Milk of Venus …

Though at Bygones’s insistence they put down a good deal of drink, mainly sack out of pint pots, no mention was yet made of food. My grandfather, whose head buzzed a little, had begun to despair of getting any.

And one aspect really troubled him. In Somerset he had been accustomed to playing host everywhere, and much enjoyed this; but Bygones would not permit it here. It was always, “Nay, I’ll pay our shot!” or, “
This
reckoning’s mine, hark’ee!” as they made a tour of the downstairs rooms.

“Oh, ecod, it won’t do! I, who know everybody, see not one man I’m acquainted with. And yet the question must be answered … there’s no escaping it …”

“Damne, man, what
is
this question so insistent to be answered?”

“The King’s Company play today, whatever the piece they’ve chosen. But does Dolly Landis appear with ’em? There’s a sight o’ pretty young actresses at the King’s House, all eager for their chance. There’s Peg Hughes, there’s Mary Knepp, there’s Ann and Beck Marshall. If Dolly don’t act, if the play’s not right for her, we lose our labour and what’s to be done? Besides! He ought to be here; he should be here; he’s always here; where is he?”

“Who ought to be here?”

“Tom Killigrew, the master and manager of the company! A saucy fellow, a deep fellow, suffered much indulgence by His Majesty’s self. Therefore I ask myself … Stay, though!”

They had returned to the Apollo Room, each carrying a sixth tankard. Bygones Abraham stopped short.

“Oh, body o’ Pilate! He
is
here; he hath been here the whole time; veritably my eyes abuse me. D’ye mark it, lad?”

“Where?”

“Alone? By the chimneypiece, under Apollo’s bust?—A good day to ye, Mr. Killigrew! A most happy and prosperous good day!”

At a table before the empty fireplace, trying hard to look inscrutable, sat a wiry little man with a pointed chin and monkey-bright eyes. He was older than his youthful clothes and bearing would have indicated, being in his late fifties. He rose to his feet and ducked a brief bow, not very cordial.

“Mr.—Mr. Bygones Abraham, I think?”

“The same. And this is most auspiciously met! Sir, will you dine?”

“With much thanks, I have already dined. A bumper of brandy,” and Mr. Killigrew lifted his heavy goblet of dark-green glass, “a bumper of brandy, judiciously swallowed, does some little to offset the ill humours of cooks.”

“Your health, then!”

“As you please.” He drank and sat down, adjusting his laced pantaloons. “Now, sir, how can I serve you?”

“If I may crave the indulgence of a great favour …?”

“If you must, I suppose you must. But be short, pray; I am much vexed and harassed. What’s the favour?”

“I would present a young friend of mine. Mr. Kinsmere, may I make you known to Mr. Thomas Killigrew, Most Worshipful Master of the King’s Company of Players, true wit and true judge of skills? My young friend, sir, would desire—”

“Would he indeed?” The little man’s monkey-bright eyes lifted to survey my grandfather. “Well, Mr. Kinesear,” he said, “and what will you read for me?”

“Read?”

“You are a brisk and hearty-seeming young man, not ill to look upon. It will be no fopling’s role you would essay, I’ll warrant, nor yet a comic one. Shall it be Celadon in
The Maiden Queen
? Almanzor in
The Conquest of Granada
? Or some harsher and cruder part, Hamlet or the Moor of Venice, from the old plays that begin to disgust our refined age?”

Against a rattle of voices in the background, the tinkling of little bells on several gingleboys rose loudly and then died away.

“
Tapster
,” bellowed a distant voice.

“
Sir?
”

“
Tapster! Did you not hear those bells stop? The jacks are empty, God damme, Tapster!
”

“
Anon, sir! By and by, sir!
”

“Mr. Killigrew, Mr. Killigrew,” Bygones Abraham exclaimed with horror, “already we are neck-deep in misunderstanding. My young friend is of the Cavalier landed gentry. He gives his patronage to the stage. But he is not an actor.”

“Zounds, zounds, much thanks for
that
.” Tom Killigrew sighed. Drawing a gold comb from the pocket of a green velvet coat, he fell to combing the curls of his dark-brown peruke. “Could you guess how much my time is wasted by dolts and jack-puddings, you would pity me from the bottom of your heart. Well, well! Mr. Kinsear is no dolt or jack-pudding. But did he desire only the favour of being presented to me?”

Bygones, standing against the table, lowered his head above his tankard as though he prayed.

“If we might have,” he rumbled, “perhaps a trifle of information?”

“Say on, then! But be short; I am much vexed and harassed.”

“My friend did this day request me to accompany him to the King’s House. Will the performance repay our trouble?”

Mr. Killigrew stopped combing and suppressed a yawn.

“The play is but
Julius Caesar
, one of the old stock pieces we share with the Duke’s Company. And yet! To guide and govern these wilful stage folk, I do assure you, is no light or simple task. Behold! Look upon this!”

From another pocket he took a crumpled note, and spread it out on the table.

“Look upon this, I say! Saw you ever the like?”

Thos. Killigrew, Esq.,

Sir:

Beg leave to inform you the whole Roman Senate are getting drunk at the “Rose,” and swear, Damn their eyes if they’ll play today.

Yrs. respectfully,

J. Meaney

“Now what a thing,” cried Mr. Killigrew, “is the temper of the artist! Even my stage hands are afflicted with it. Unless you be strict with ’em, as like as not they’ll dash on and interrupt somebody’s dying words by fetching away the bed. And, if aught more than another galls the artist’s mind or exacerbates his spirit, it’s to have his dying words cut off before he has thoroughly expired. However! You will do well to give ’em your countenance this day. The king and the court are to attend,”

“You are sure o’ that, sir?”

“I had it from His Majesty’s self this morning, while he was being shaved. I acquainted him with our difficulties. (Zounds, zounds, was ever a man so vexed or harassed?) ‘We must make shift as best we can, sire,’ I said, ‘since it’s your pleasure to find new words and postures for so many of our actresses.’ Yes! King and court will be there: you may depend on’t. My Lady Castlemaine, I fancy, would demonstrate she has lost nothing of … Come, no matter! And I think, gentlemen, I can promise you the piece will be well acted. With Mr. Hart as Brutus and Mr. Mohun as Cassius …”

“But the women’s parts, good sir! What o’ the women’s parts?”

“In
Julius Caesar
—faugh!—the women’s parts are nothing. Yet there may be some small heat in Fop’s corner,” said Mr. Killigrew, and went on combing his wig, “when Mary Knepp appears as Calpurnia and Doll Landis disports herself as Portia. That’s to say, if Mistress Landis is indeed with us when ’tis time to go on.”

“Ay, but … body o’ Pilate, Mr. Killigrew,” roared Bygones, “what’s all this? If arrangement has been made for Mistress Landis to enact Portia, why shouldn’t the lass play?”

“Perhaps no reason. Yet you have heard, beyond doubt, of her attachment to a certain well-born if truculent young captain of dragoons. And also, as I speak to you, she is here.”

“HERE?”

“At this moment,” replied Mr. Killigrew, putting away his comb, “she is abovestairs, in a private room, at dinner with Captain Harker. I don’t meddle in that quarter, thank’ee. I have no wish to lose more of my company, but I don’t meddle. The man who crosses Pembroke Harker is guilty of a great act of folly. Take warning, gentlemen! The man who dares even ruffle the feelings of Pembroke Harker—”

Bygones Abraham set down his tankard with a thump.

*
Simon Wadloe, proprietor of the Devil in the very early seventeenth century.

“E
AT?” SAID THE WOMAN’S
voice. “But I can’t eat, Pem! I vow I have no hunger at all.”

It was only two minutes since Kinsmere and Bygones Abraham, after receiving directions from a tapster, had crept quietly up the rear stairs at the Devil. Here they found themselves in a darkish cross passage, with a line of closed doors, which ran left and right along the back of the house.

Following the direction of Bygones’s stabbing finger, they turned left into this passage. They moved on tiptoe over creaky boards, holding up their sword belts against clinking, with more doors now on their right. There was no other noise except a muffled clatter of activity from below.

“Sh-h!” hissed Bygones, making a hideous face in near-darkness.

“Very well; I’ll sh-h. Where are we?”

“The back windows of these rooms,” and Bygones gestured, “look out on an alley that runs in east from Chancery Lane. Beyond that alley is the back garden o’ Serjeants’ Inn. Sh-h!”

“As you like; I’m whispering. What do we do now?”

“You heard what the tapster said?”

“Yes, but …”

“Harker and his Dulcinea, so called, are in the Cupid Room. That’s the last room down the passage. Next door is Hebe, which has been vacant all morning, and that’s our vantage point. What do we do, hey?”

“Yes?”

“We spy on ’em, that’s what! Private rooms were created by God to be spied upon, else they’d not
be
private rooms, which is the first rule of diplomacy. Ontry noo, there’s devilish few of ’em without a knothole in the wall. Oh, ecod! Is anything amiss with you?”

“Friend Bygones, ought we to do this? If those two are only disporting themselves …”

“Disporting ’emselves?” jeered the other, all but strangling with the violence of his own whisper. “At midday, d’ye think? At midday, or not an hour past it, and in a tavern given over to men at meat and drink and carouse?

“No, no, no! There’s other times and places if they’d a mind to dalliance. It’s in
my
mind, right or wrong, they’re here for discourse sake; and to hear that discourse may be very much to our purpose. Stop! Sh-h! Here’s the Hebe Room. Be silent; walk warily; pray for luck!”

Gently he lifted the latch and pushed open the door.