Crimson Rose (4 page)

‘Master Shakespeare,’ she said, coming into the room and standing coquettishly in front of him, ‘I could hear you pacing to and fro as I made my bed in the room below this one and I wondered if all was well.’

‘Well enough, Mistress Merchant,’ the actor said with a small smile. ‘I am trying to remember my lines.’

She cocked her head at him, one eyebrow arched in query.

‘For the play. You remember? I am to play King Theridamas of Argier in the new play at the Rose tomorrow and I need to remember my lines.’

She flapped a hand at him. Did she remember? Had he not bored the family into stupor about his play these last weeks? But she was a woman with a mission to fulfil and so she must stay pleasant. ‘Oh, of course, Master Shakespeare. Well, as long as nothing is wrong.’ She half turned in the doorway. ‘Do you have a moment, though, to help me with a task? Since Master Merchant passed away …’ She wiped the corner of her eye automatically with her apron; she had shed no tears when the miserly old fool had breathed his last and she wouldn’t cry now. He was only good for one thing (but oh, how good he had been!) and she could get that again with a little effort. As a provider he had been worse than useless. She felt that Master Shakespeare could probably fill his shoes and more with not too much persuasion. ‘Since Master Merchant passed away, there are just a few things I need help with.’ She went out of the door and halfway down the stairs.

Shakespeare stood still where she had left him, feeling rather confused. He heard her pattens clatter back up the steps.

‘It’s downstairs,’ she said, poking her head back round the door. ‘I need help with turning my mattress. It has gone flat.’ She looked at him and tossed her curls. ‘Just on the one side, you understand.’

Shakespeare jumped to attention and crossed the room to her. ‘I am so sorry, Mistress Merchant. Of course I can help you. It will probably do me good to have a rest from my labours.’

‘It will,’ she assured him. ‘A change is indeed as good as a rest. It’s in here.’ She led the way into her bedroom, which was at least three times the size of Shakespeare’s own room under the eaves and also much bigger than the room he shared with his wife back in Warwickshire. The room, though large, was dominated by the bed, a huge affair with carvings and swagged curtains, looking rather sorry for itself with the goose feather mattress half on the floor and no sheets or coverlet.

‘You see,’ she said, ‘it needs a good shake and then putting square back on the stringing. I had it tightened last season.’ She bounced on the bare strings to demonstrate. ‘But without the mattress is shaken out, I hardly get a wink of sleep.’

Shakespeare was a man who had always done his share in the house and he was an expert at shaking out a mattress so it was like sleeping on a cloud. He went to the far side and grabbed two corners and waited expectantly.

‘I like to see a man who knows what’s needed in the bedroom,’ she simpered at him, then ducked her head. ‘What will you think of me, Master Shakespeare, speaking so boldly?’

Shakespeare had been running his cues through his head and hadn’t heard a word. ‘Of course you are not bold, Mistress Merchant,’ he said politely. ‘Are you ready to shake this bed?’ He braced himself.

Master Merchant had been dead a while now and whilst his widow had enjoyed a short tumble with her next-door neighbour but one and the boy who brought the laundry, she was no longer in the mood for small talk. Before Shakespeare could react, she had reached across the bed and dragged him into the middle of the tumbled goose down mattress. Her voice had dropped to a growl. ‘I’m ready to shake this bed, Master Shakespeare,’ she agreed, fumbling down to where his codpiece was laced. ‘Let’s see what actors are made of, shall we?’

Shakespeare always considered himself more of a scholar than a man of action, so his back somersault took him somewhat by surprise. He shook himself down and tossed back his hair. ‘I think you have misunderstood me, Mistress Merchant,’ he said, catching his breath. ‘I am a married man.’

She narrowed her eyes at him and knelt up on the bed. ‘A man married to a woman over a hundred miles away is not that married, Master Shakespeare, if you don’t mind my mentioning it,’ she said frostily.

‘But I am married, nonetheless,’ Shakespeare said, edging round the bed making sure to keep her in his sights. The woman could move as fast as a striking adder. He felt surreptitiously down to his codpiece to make sure the laces were still secure. As he looked up to judge his path to the door and his chances of making it in one piece, he met the startled eyes of his landlady’s sister, Constance, who was standing in the doorway, looking aghast.

‘Eleanor,’ she cried at last. ‘What is this man doing to you?’

Shakespeare held his breath. An accusation of rape now would not only save Mistress Merchant’s face but would also end his life. He could only hope that she was inclined to be generous. He looked at her over his shoulder and she looked back, her head thrown back. Then she came to a decision.

‘When will you learn, Constance,’ she said, climbing down off the bed, ‘that not everything that happens in a bedroom is a matter of the man doing things to a woman? Mother really should have told you a few bits and pieces before she died. Master Shakespeare and I were just changing the bed, weren’t we, Master Shakespeare?’

‘Indeed we were, Mistress Constance,’ Shakespeare was quick to agree.

‘And while we were changing the bed,’ the landlady added, almost as an afterthought, ‘Master Shakespeare kindly agreed to double his rent, now that he is an actor and everything.’ She smiled brightly at the King of Argier. ‘Wasn’t that kind of him?’

Constance clapped her hands and ran into the room, to hug the actor and then her sister. ‘Very kind,’ she said. ‘I can have my new cloak, now, sister, can I not?’

Eleanor Merchant sighed and hugged the girl. As lovely as the day but essentially she didn’t have a brain in her head. ‘Of course you can.’ She smiled. ‘But only after next rent day.’ She smiled over the girl’s ebony head at Shakespeare. ‘Unless Master Shakespeare can give us an advance?’ She winked at him. ‘No? Then you’ll have to wait, lovely. Now –’ she let the girl go – ‘help me with this bed. Master Shakespeare has to learn his lines.’

In the relative quiet of the London night, with the river lapping gently against the jetty, the tap on the door sounded at first like a branch against a window. Then it came again and the woman stirred, turned over in bed and nudged the man at her side with a sharp elbow.

‘Door,’ she muttered. ‘Somebody at the door.’

Without speaking, he swung his legs out from under the coverlet and shrugged into his breeches, tucking his shirt in as he made towards the landing.

The woman snuggled down under the covers and pulled them right up over her ears. These taps in the night were getting more frequent, but she preferred to know no more about them than that they disturbed her sleep. Ignorance, if not exactly bliss, was preferable to knowledge. Soon, she was snoring again.

In the hall, the soft tapping was louder and more insistent. Easing the door open just a finger’s width, he could see an anxious face, white in the moonlight, which ducked into shadow whenever anyone walked past. The occasional itinerant knocking on doors was not uncommon in this street of well-to-do houses and you couldn’t be too careful. But no beggar ever dressed like this. Even so, better safe than sorry. The man put his lips to the crack and whispered, ‘Yes?’

‘I am here to see Master—’

‘Ssshh,’ the man said. ‘Not so loud. You’ll wake the house. What is it about?’

‘I …’ The man outside was stuck for an answer. Embarrassment had stilled his tongue. He dropped his voice lower and brought his mouth up to the crack. ‘I need to borrow some money.’

The door flew open and a hand shot out, closed around his arm and pulled him in. The door closed behind him, hurriedly but with scarcely a sound. He had been dragged in too fast to see that the jamb and the door’s edge were both lined with flannel.

‘Then you’ve come to the right place,’ he was assured in a whisper. ‘Come, let’s go into my study, where we can speak more clearly.’

He led the way across the hall and through a small door in the corner. With the ease of long practice, he lit a candle, but kept it well away from his face, so the visitor could only see shadows above a crumpled linen shirt.

‘Do you have an amount in mind, Master …?’

‘Do you
have
to know my name?’

The anonymous man shrugged. ‘Not necessarily. Do you
have
to borrow money?’

There was a pause. ‘I see. Yes, yes I do. I am Sir Avery Ambrose. I have estates in Kent and a few interests in the City.’

‘Yes, Sir Avery, I have heard of you. With estates in Kent and interests in the City, why do you have need of me?’

The man slumped down on a hard chair near the window and buried his head in his hands. For a moment he couldn’t speak, then, with an effort, he raised his head. ‘I … er … I lent some money to a friend,’ he said.

‘Ah.’ The man with the candle put it down on the desk and moved away into the shadows. ‘And he can’t pay you back? Perhaps I can help you … persuade him.’

‘No, sadly, no one can. He is dead.’

‘Ah. In that case, I can’t help you in that way. But … how much is it that you need?’

‘Forty pounds.’

‘Forty pounds? That is a rather larger sum than I usually advance, Sir Avery. Very much larger. I don’t have such a sum in the house.’

‘I need at least twenty pounds, but if I had forty …’

‘Ah, we all need that little bit extra, Sir Avery, don’t we?’ The man leaned forward a little, so that just a cheek and a gimlet eye glowed in the shadow. ‘But, as I said, forty pounds … Wait, though. I may have the answer.’ The cheek bunched as the man smiled. ‘It would mean your coming back tomorrow, though.’

‘No, please!’ Sir Avery sprang to his feet. ‘I need the money tonight. I have a mortgage due on the Home Farm tomorrow. If I can’t pay … I have my son’s inheritance to think of. He can’t be left the estate with the Home Farm in strangers’ hands …’

‘Hmm … well, if it is that important. Let me explain. I don’t have the money in the house – too dangerous, as I am sure you agree – but I do have some items of value, one in particular, which I could sell you for a promissory note. In the case of one item, a silver jug, I know someone who wants it for their collection and who has often made me an offer for it. If we were to take it to them tonight … well, they may have that kind of money to hand.’ There was a tiny chuckle from above the candlelight. ‘Not everyone is as prudent as we are, eh, Sir Avery?’

‘If you could arrange it, Master …?’ Sir Avery waited but there was no reply. ‘If you could arrange it, that would be wonderful. And the promissory note?’

‘Will come due in one hundred days. Time enough for you to get some rents in, that kind of thing.’

The Knight of the Shire closed his eyes and appeared to be adding on his fingers. His host sighed; with arithmetical prowess at this low level, no wonder he was knocking on dubious doors at midnight and past.

‘Well?’ How long could a simple calculation take?

‘That is acceptable,’ the man said, with a sigh. ‘That takes us past the next quarter day and I will be able to repay you then. I am so grateful to you, Master …?’ But again, there was silence. ‘I will write the note right now. Oh, before I do, may I see the merchandise that is worth forty pounds?’

‘Well, thirty-five pounds, shall we say. A man must live, Sir Avery. I will fetch it while you write the note,’ the man said. ‘Oh, don’t worry. You needn’t sign until you have seen it.’ He indicated parchment and ink on the desk. ‘You know the wording, I expect.’ He pre-empted the next question. ‘And just leave a space for my name. I will fill it in later.’ Leaving the candle behind, he left the room.

Left on his own, Sir Avery dipped the quill in the ink and began to write: ‘
I, Sir Avery Ambrose, promise to pay
–’ he left a long space, not knowing what name might have to fit in it – ‘
the sum of forty pounds, not more than one hundred days from the date below
.’ He waited for the merchandise to be brought in before signing. He may be profligate, but he wasn’t born yesterday.

His host returned on silent feet, carrying a silver jug, with gargoyle heads at each corner and some rather unsettling engravings on its sides. He looked for long enough to establish its quality, then said, ‘It’s an ugly great thing, isn’t it? Who would want to buy it for forty pounds?’

‘Er … thirty-five, but I see your point. But fortunately for you, one man’s ugly old jug is another man’s prized possession. Have you signed?’ Sir Avery shook his head. ‘Do so, I beg of you. Or it will be too late. Even I baulk at knocking people up at gone one in the morning. London is crawling with footpads, you know.’

The man signed, dated and added his address to the note, which the moneylender snatched as soon as he lifted the quill and locked away in a drawer of the desk. In his absence to fetch the jug he had added stockings, shoes and a doublet to the shirt and breeches and now he reached down a cloak from behind the door, pulling the hood well down before he turned again to the beleaguered borrower. He tucked the jug under his arm.

‘Shall we?’ he said, ushering the man out with a flourish. ‘It isn’t far.’

On the brisk walk through streets which still saw the occasional passerby, both men kept to the shadows, one through prudence, one through shame. There was no conversation; what was there to say? After a few twists and turns which Sir Avery could have never reproduced, they arrived at a house in a row, all of which had seen better days. The moneylender rapped on the door, in what seemed like a random pattern but which was in fact a complex code. After a pause, the door creaked open just a hairsbreadth.

‘Yes?’

It was hard to identify, but to Sir Avery it sounded like a woman. Surely, this transaction would be a man’s work. His companion put his mouth to the crack and whispered something. The word ‘jug’ could just be made out, but nothing more. The door opened enough for them both to squeeze through and they found themselves in a hall, shadowy and cavernous in the light of a small taper burning in a chamber stick, held in the hand of a woman in bedgown and a shawl. Her face was shaded by the frill of her nightcap, but not for subterfuge, just the vagaries of fashion.