Read Online The Silent Woman by Edward Marston - Free Book Online Page B

known as the Bell on the Hoop, and the names had made common cause to give the property a clear title. Long before the first custom-built theatre in London was opened in 1576, the Bel Savage had been staging plays in its courtyard, and it was in this evocativearena that Westfield’s Men now met. Countless prizefights, fencing displays and other entertainments had been held there as well, but the actors saw it solely as part of their heritage. When they gazed up at the three levels of galleries that jutted out at them on every side, they saw cheering spectators and heard the ghost of some dear departed speech. It was only when they glanced across at their leader that they realised the ghost had come back to life because Lawrence Firethorn was declaiming one of the soliloquies he had spoken when he played Hector at that same venue in his younger days.
    Nicholas Bracewell had chosen the meeting place as the closest alternative to the Queen’s Head, but he might have been less ready to nominate it if he had known that it overlooked the very spot where the messenger from Devon had first been marked out by her killer. The yard continued to fill and servingmen brought out ale to whet the appetite of the travellers. All but one of the company had now appeared, and Nicholas was touched to see how many of its discarded members had also made the effort to get there in order to wave off their fellows. Thomas Skillen stood nearby, alternately chiding and hugging George Dart, the smallest and youngest of his assistant stagekeepers, clipping his ear as he warned him to discharge his duties correctly and enfolding him in his old arms lest it be the last time they might ever meet. It was a moving sight and it epitomised the true spirit of theatre. Tradition was handing over the torch to innovation.
    George Dart would have quailed to hear that such a construction was being placed on his separation from a loved but feared mentor. The hired man occupied the most menial station in the company and it obliged him to be the butt and scapegoat with depressing regularity, yet at least he was stillemployed. A tour would double the already heavy workload that was thrust upon him and condemn him to play a string of minor parts in the plays, but even these guarantees of additional pain and humiliation were preferable to being cast out with Thomas Skillen and the others.
    It was the scurrying legs of George Dart that Nicholas Bracewell used on the previous evening to notify the chosen company of the time and place of departure. The tiny stagekeeper had been given good news to spread while Nicholas reserved for himself the more onerous and saddening task of telling the rest of his fellows that they had been set aside. Knowing their haunts and their habits, he had spent long hours in tracking them down to pass on the bad tidings as gently as he could. It now struck him as a harsh irony that a man enjoined to oust so many others had then himself been ejected from a cherished home.
    Emotions were running high in the yard and sobbing was breaking out among the women. When Nicholas saw husbands reassure their wives and lovers embrace their mistresses, his sense of desolation grew. The only person he wanted to see at that moment in time was not there. At the start of any previous tour, Anne Hendrik had always sent him on his way with love and best wishes, but there would be no farewell kiss this time. It emphasised the anomaly of his position. Nicholas was in limbo. He was making a journey between past lives, between a woman who had turned him out and a family he had disowned. It was a dispiriting itinerary because it left him without a final destination.
    Someone else took note of his condition and intervened.
    ‘Come here, Nicholas!’
    ‘Gladly, mistress.’
    ‘Where is your good lady?’
    ‘Detained elsewhere, I fear.’
    ‘Then I shall give you her due of kisses as well.’
    Margery Firethorn fell on him with unashamed affection and planted her lips