The Silent Woman (20 page)

Edmund Hoode put a compassionate hand into his purse.

‘Poor fellow!’ he said. ‘Let’s give him comfort.’

‘No,’ counselled Gill. ‘Give to him and you will have to give to every beggar we pass. There is not enough money in the whole kingdom to relieve all these scabs.’

‘Show some pity, Barnaby.’

‘Ignore the fellow and ride past.’

‘Leave him to me,’ said Firethorn.

He raised a hand and the company came to a halt. They looked down at the old man with frank disgust. He was in a most deplorable state and did not even have strength or sense to drag himself into the shade. There was a further cause for revulsion. The beggar seemed to have only one leg.

The bowl was shaken up at them.

‘Alms, good people!’ cried a quavering voice. ‘Alms!’

‘Why?’ said Firethorn coldly.

‘For the love of God!’

‘Beggars are no more than highway robbers.’

‘I seek charity, sir.’

‘For what reason?’

‘To live.’

‘Men who wish to live must work.’

‘I am too old and too weak, sir.’

‘Are you so?’

‘I lost a leg in the service of my country.’

‘You were a soldier, then?’ mocked Firethorn.

‘A sailor, sir. I was young and lusty once. But a man without a leg grows old so quickly. Give me a penny, sir, to buy some bread. Give me twopence and you’ll have my blessing hereafter. Please, good people! Help me!’

Edmund Hoode was about to throw a coin into the
bowl but it was kicked from the man’s hand by Lawrence Firethorn. Dismounting at once, the actor-manager drew his sword and held it at the man’s neck. The whole company gasped at what they saw as an act of wanton cruelty.

‘This is no beggar!’ said Firethorn angrily. ‘This is the same vile rascal who fleeced us in High Wycombe. The same mangy old shepherd who played with us on the road from Oxford. The same slanderous villain who wrote letters to blacken my reputation.’ He flashed his rapier through the air and the beggar retreated into a bundle of fear. ‘Here is no honest wretch, gentleman. A sailor, does he say! This dunghill has never served his country in his life. He does not fool Lawrence Firethorn. He will not hide his leg from
me
and swear he lost it in a battle on the waves. I will not be beguiled again!’ He grabbed the man by his hair to hoist him up. ‘Behold, sirs! This is Israel Gunby!’

There was a groan of horror. As the beggar was lifted from the ground, his deformity became all too apparent. The hideous stump made the company turn away. The man was not Israel Gunby in a new role designed to taunt them. He was a decaying remnant of the young sailor he had once been.

Lawrence Firethorn was overwhelmed with guilt. He put the man gently to the ground and set him against the tree once more. Grabbing the bowl, he dropped some coins into it before taking it around the entire company. Instead of being killed by the actor-manager, the beggar now had enough money to feed himself for a fortnight. He croaked his thanks. Westfield’s Men rode away in a cloud of shame and remorse.

It took him an hour to find the inn. Nicholas Bracewell had reasoned correctly. Convinced that the man would have taken lodging for the night in Marlborough, he went around
every hostelry in the town. The portrait that Anne Hendrik had sent him was shown to a dozen or more innkeepers before he found one who vaguely recognised it.

‘It could be him,’ said the man uncertainly.

‘When did he arrive?’ asked Nicholas.

‘Yesterday morning before noon.’

‘Did he stay the night?’

‘He paid for a bed, sir. But when the chamberlain went up this morning, it had not been slept in. Nor was the man’s horse in our stables. He must have stolen away.’

Nicholas pondered. The man who was trailing him must have intended to bide his time and stay the night before he attacked again. During the performance at the Guildhall, he had killed Israel Gunby’s accomplice and been forced to quit the town at speed. Nicholas had no doubt which direction the man had taken. He was somewhere on the road ahead. His task was to stop the book holder from reaching Barnstaple and he would stick to it with tenacity.

‘Nan may help you, sir,’ said the landlord.

‘Nan?’

‘One of my serving wenches. She was taken with the man, which is no great thing, sir, for Nan has a soft spot for any upright gentleman.’ He gave a sigh. ‘I’ve warned her that it will be the ruin of her one day but the girl will not listen and she is popular with travellers.’

‘May I speak with her?’

‘I’ll call her presently.’

The landlord went out of the taproom and reappeared a few minutes later with the girl. She wore the plain garb and apron of her calling but had teased down the shoulders of her dress to expose her neck and cleavage. When a man sent for her, she
always came with a ready smile, and it broadened when she saw the tall, sturdy figure of Nicholas Bracewell. He showed her the drawing and she identified it at once. She was certain that the man had lodged there on the previous day and spoke with some asperity about him. The only false detail in the sketch was the earring. He had not worn it when he stayed there.

‘Did he give a name?’ said Nicholas.

‘Yes, sir,’ said the landlord, ‘but I have forgot it. We have so many travellers through here each day that I cannot remember more than a handful of their names. But if it is important, I can ask my wife.’

‘Please do.’

‘Her memory is sounder than mine.’

‘She would earn my deepest gratitude.’

Nicholas asked for permission to see the bedchamber where the man had stayed. While the landlord went off to find his wife, the girl conducted Nicholas up two flights of creaking stairs to a low passageway. She moved along it with the easy familiarity of someone who could – and had done so on many occasions – find her way along it in the dark. She came to a door and unlocked it.

‘Here it is, sir,’ she said.

‘Thank you.’

‘It is just as he left it.’

‘Has the linen been changed?’

‘There was no need. It was not slept in.’

Nicholas looked around the room. Nothing had been left behind, but there was the possibility that the visitor had lain down to rest. He may not have slept in the bed, but his head may have rested on its flat pillow. Anne Hendrik’s letter had contained a verbal description of the man to support the rough portrait. Leonard had talked about the man’s ‘smell’, though
he could be no more specific than that. Nicholas bent over the bed and sniffed. He inhaled the faintest whisper of a fragrance.

‘He did smell sweet,’ said the girl. ‘That’s what I liked about him. Most travellers have foul breath and stink of sweat but not this one. It was a pretty smell and I would like some for myself. What was it, sir?’

Nicholas inhaled again. ‘Oil of bergamot.’

In his two encounters with the man, he had not had time to notice any fragrance. The musty atmosphere in the stable at the Fighting Cocks would subdue any sweeter odour and the scuffle at the Dog and Bear was over in seconds. What Nicholas had missed, both Leonard and the serving wench had remarked. He thanked the girl and slipped her a few pence. She stole a giggling kiss as further reward then took him back downstairs. The landlord had still not returned and Nicholas stepped out into the yard while he was waiting. Fresh air hit him like a slap across the face and forced realisation upon him.

He was alone. Westfield’s Men were miles ahead of him and he was unprotected. It brought him no fear. Instead, it gave him a sudden sense of freedom. He was somewhere near the middle of his journey between London and Barnstaple. Behind him lay the ruins of a love that had sustained him for some years now: ahead of him was nothing but danger and uncertainty. If he turned back, he might yet recover what he had lost in Bankside. Anne Hendrik still cared. She sent word to him that might help to save his life, but that life would not be threatened if he abandoned his purpose. What could he hope to achieve in Barnstaple? The town was a branding iron that had burnt so many white-hot messages into his mind. Why suffer that hissing pain once more?

It was not just a decision between a new home and an
old one. Nicholas was standing at a spiritual crossroads. If he went back, he would be renouncing a way of life as well. Westfield’s Men were his closest friends, but it was a highly unstable friendship. The loss of the Queen’s Head had not just expelled them from Gracechurch Street, it might keep them out of London for ever and condemn them to an almost permanent tour of the provinces. Lawrence Firethorn would never tolerate that and neither would Barnaby Gill. Other theatre companies would woo them back to the capital and Westfield’s Men would collapse. Nicholas did not wish to be there when that happened. A clean break now would rescue him from a slow professional death with an ailing troupe.

Even if the company found a new base in London, he was not sure whether he wanted to share it with them. Theatre was still a flight from reality. Owen Elias had reminded him of that. Nicholas was hiding. If he stayed in London and forged a new love with Anne Hendrik, he would be able to leave his refuge and live a normal life: if he pressed on to Devon, he would be calling up the very ghosts that had sent him away. Lawrence Firethorn and the others put enormous reliance on him, but it was not reflected in his status. Nicholas was still only a hired man with the company, one of the floating population of theatre people who were taken on and dismissed according to the whims of the sharers. The book holder might have created a fairly constant position in the company but it gave him only a very fragile security. In essence, Nicholas Bracewell was no better off than the disillusioned George Dart.

Going forward meant certain anguish while going back offered possible release. He would be insane to drive himself on. A settled life with a woman he loved was the best that any man could hope for. Nicholas wanted to start out for
home at once and begin afresh with Anne Hendrik. She was the decisive factor in his life and it was time to acknowledge it. His love was guiding him back to her. Visions of quiet contentment came before him but they soon evaporated in the chill air of truth. Anne Hendrik was no longer alone. She had another lodger at her house, a dead girl who had made the long journey from Barnstaple in search of Nicholas. Her shadow would lay across that bedchamber for ever unless she was avenged. Returning to London meant considering only himself. When he remembered the girl and thought of the man who had poisoned her, he needed no signpost to point his way. He simply had to go on to the end of the journey.

Nicholas untethered his horse from the post and leapt into the saddle. He was ready to gallop after his fellows and reaffirm his kinship with them before going on to more personal commitments in Devon. Only after that would he have any chance of a reconciliation with Anne Hendrik.

‘Stay, sir!’ called the landlord.

‘What?’

‘I have spoken with my wife.’

‘I had quite forgot.’

‘Then your memory is like mine, sir,’ said the man. ‘I knew that I could count on her. Names stick in her mind like dried leaves to a hedgehog. She recalls his name.’

‘The man with the black beard?’

‘Even he, sir.’

‘What was it?’

‘A fine, mouth-filling name, sir. He told it to her.’

‘So what did the fellow call himself?’

‘Nicholas Bracewell.’

B
ankside was not a part of the city that Margery Firethorn often visited. Her only reason in the past for coming to Southwark was to watch Westfield’s Men perform at The Rose, one of only three custom-built theatres in London. Since the other two – The Theatre and The Curtain – were both in Shoreditch, she could walk to them from her home. With a servant for company and protection, she crossed the Thames by boat and made her way to the house of Anne Hendrik. The latter was surprised and slightly alarmed to see her. She took Margery into her parlour.

‘Have you heard any tidings?’ she asked.

‘The courier returned to London this very afternoon.’

‘Did he deliver my letter?’

‘In person,’ said Margery. ‘Nick is alive and well.’

‘Thank God!’ Anne waved her visitor to a chair and sat opposite her. ‘Where did the message reach him?’

‘In Marlborough.’

‘And he is well, you say?’

‘Excellent well, and delighted to hear from you.’

‘Haply, our fears were in vain,’ said Anne. ‘We send a warning that he does not need. The man in my drawing may not be stalking him, after all.’

‘He is, Anne.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘The courier told me,’ said Margery. ‘He drank with the players before he set off on the return journey. They were anxious to learn all the latest news from London but they had some of their own.’

‘What was it?’

‘Someone is indeed following the company.’

‘They have seen him?’

‘Worse still, Anne. They have tasted his venom.’

‘He has attacked?’

‘Nick has twice been his target.’

‘Heaven protect him!’

‘It already has,’ said Margery. ‘The courier spoke with Owen Elias. Our noisy Welshman, it seems, saved Nick from a dagger in the back on the second occasion. He paid for his bravery, too. Owen’s arm was sliced open from top to bottom.’ She gave a chuckle. ‘But it did not stop him from playing in Marlborough. Owen Elias is another Lawrence. Nothing short of death would prevent him from going onstage.’

‘This villain will not easily be stopped.’

‘Nick has good friends around him.’

‘But he’ll go on to Barnstaple alone.’

‘Trust him, Anne. He is a shrewd fighter.’

‘Yet still in danger.’ Anne fought to control a rising concern. ‘Was there … any reply to my letter?’

‘He sends thanks and good wishes.’

‘No more than that?’

‘Nick is judicious,’ said Margery. ‘He wanted to send his love but he was not sure how it would be received. You pushed him on his way and there was nothing in your letter that called him back.’ She watched the other woman closely. ‘Do you wish for his return?’

‘I do not want him murdered.’

‘And if he should escape – would you have him back?’

‘To lodge in my house?’

‘In your house and in your heart.’

Anne Hendrik shrugged her confusion. She was still in two minds about Nicholas Bracewell. Days and nights of brooding about him had yielded no firm decision. She feared for his life and, since he was so far away, that fear was greatly intensified. If he had still been in London, she could see and help him, but Nicholas was completely out of her reach now. It meant that the news from Marlborough was old news. He might have been alive the previous morning when the courier located him but he could now be lying in a ditch somewhere with his throat cut. The poisoner might even have resorted to poison again. Anne shuddered at the notion of such an agonising death for Nicholas.

Concern for his safety, however, was not the same as an urge to see him again. She still felt hurt by the cause and the nature of their estrangement. Given the choice, Nicholas rejected her and went off to Devon, and he did so without giving any real justification for his action. Years of love and trust between them had been vitiated. She respected his right not to talk about his past life, but Anne had certain rights herself. When events from that past came bursting in
to disturb the peace of her home and the happiness of her existence, she deserved to be told the truth. Why was it so shameful for him to confess?

Margery saw her wrestling with the contradictions. Fond of Nicholas – and in his debt for a hundred favours – she tried her hand at stage-management on his behalf.

‘I called at the Queen’s Head,’ she said.

‘Did you speak with the innkeeper’s wife?’

‘Sybil Marwood and I are of one mind where husbands are concerned. They need to be rescued from their mistakes.’ She grinned broadly. ‘I worked so craftily on her that she now looks more favourably on Westfield’s Men and thinks that her squirming beetle of a husband has been too hasty to expel them from the inn. She will need more persuasion and I’ll do it privily. Convince her and we convince him. Here is no Alexander the Great. This Alexander is great only in stupidity and fear of his wife.’

‘Westfield’s Men may yet return to the Queen’s Head?’

‘That “may” gives us long difficulties for a short word but I’ll strive to master them. We have hopes, Anne, let us aim no higher. All is not yet lost.’

‘That is good news.’

‘It would bring Nick back to London.’

‘If he still lives …’

‘He lives and breathes,’ said Margery confidently, ‘and he’ll want to come back to Bankside. Will you see him?’

Anne was candid. ‘I do not know.’

‘Will you not at least hear the man out?’

‘He had his chance to speak,’ she snapped.

‘Do I hear harshness?’

‘I asked him to stay here with me, Margery.’

‘Was that a fair demand?’

‘I
needed
him.’

‘I needed Lawrence but he still rode off with them. What pleasure is there for me with my husband away and his creditors banging on my door?’ She gave a resigned smile. ‘They love us, Anne, but they love the theatre even more. Each play is a separate mistress who can charm them into her bed. Accept that and you will learn to understand Nick. If you think you can tear him away from the theatre, then you are chasing moonbeams.’

‘Westfield’s Men are not my complaint.’

‘Then who is?’

‘The person who calls him to Barnstaple.’

‘What person is that?’

‘He will not say and that is the root of my anger.’

‘Nick will give a full account when he returns.’

‘I may not wish to listen.’

‘Why?’

‘Because the insult cannot be borne.’

‘What insult?’

‘The worst kind, Margery. He turned his back on me. When I most needed his reassurance, he walked away. He preferred someone else.’ Bitterness tightened her mouth. ‘That is why I do not want him back. He put
her
first.’

‘Her?’

‘The one who sent for him.’

‘Who is that?’

‘The silent woman.’

Lucy Whetcombe had the heightened awareness of a child who is deficient in other senses. Her eyes saw much more than
those of other people, her hands could read everything they touched, her nose could catch the merest scent of any kindness or wickedness. Her silent world had its own peculiar sounds. The girl lived a simple and uncomplicated life, inhabiting the very fringe of parental love and keeping well away from the communal turmoil of Barnstaple. Self-conscious about her disability, Lucy Whetcombe spurned, and was spurned by, other children. Since loneliness was forced upon her, she made a virtue of it. Her father had been a man of great substance who was respected by all in the town. Visitors were always calling or dining at the house in Crock Street, but Lucy kept out of their way. She resented adults for pitying and patronising her. She resented her mother for other reasons. Susan was her only real friend, and Susan had now vanished. Each day deepened Lucy’s distress. The girl sensed a terrible and irreplaceable loss.

‘We have still heard nothing, Lucy,’ said her mother.

Deft fingers translated the words for her daughter.

‘They will keep searching until they find her.’

A dozen questions hung unasked on the girl’s lips.

‘Susan loves you. She would not go away for good and leave you alone. Susan will come back one day.’ Mary wanted to get rid of her. ‘Go and play with your dolls. They will remind you of Susan.’

Though she could not hear her mother’s voice, Lucy could feel its lack of conviction. The hands, too, gave signals that had more hope than authority. Her mother did not know the whereabouts of her young servant and she was too preoccupied to care. Mary Whetcombe had always had a strange attitude to Susan, at once liking and resenting her, showing her favour only to withdraw it again, using the
servant to look after Lucy and keep her daughter out of her way. Lucy despised her mother for the way she treated the girl’s one true friend. Mary Whetcombe had finally stirred out of the fore-chamber and brought herself down to the hall, but the physical move was not accompanied by any emotional change. She was still bound up in a grief that her daughter could not understand. All that Lucy knew was that it excluded both her and Susan.

There was a tap on the door and a maidservant conducted Arthur Calmady into the hall. He looked disappointed that he was no longer to be received in the fore-chamber but soon recovered his composure. Calmady had been through his daily litany of questions before he even noticed the child.

‘How are you today, Lucy?’ he enquired.

Pretending not to understand, she shook her head.

‘You look very pretty.’

She stared at him with concentrated distrust.

‘Your mother and I are going to read the Bible,’ said Calmady. ‘Though you have no ears to hear, the sound of Holy Writ will echo in your heart.’

His clumsy gestures got nowhere near a translation.

When he picked up the Bible, the girl took her cue to leave. Dropping a curtsey, she ran to the door and let herself out. She then went into her father’s counting-house and edged slowly forward until she could peep out.

The two of them were still there. One stood in Crock Street itself while the other lounged against a wall around the corner. The men kept the house under casual but constant surveillance. They could see everyone who came and went. Lucy did not know why they were standing there, but it gave her an uneasy feeling. She was imprisoned in the house.
Susan would know what to do in this situation but Susan was not there to guide her and to be her voice. The servant had disappeared one night and taken the fastest horse in the stables. Where had she gone and why did she not take Lucy with her? They had talked before of running away together. Lucy had found the way to talk to her friend.

Leaving the counting-house, she ran along the covered gallery, which connected the hall with the rooms over the kitchen block. It was here that Susan slept. Lucy used a key to let herself into the cramped, airless chamber, which caught all the pungent smells of cooking from below. It was a bare and featureless room, but she had spent some of the happiest moments of her life there. Susan had learnt to laugh in silence like her. Lucy locked the door behind her, got down on her knees and lifted the truckle bed with one hand. The other reached in to pull out something that was bound up tightly in an old piece of cloth. Lucy placed the cloth on the scuffed floorboards and slowly unrolled it.

The dolls were all jumbled together, clinging to one another with their tiny arms and turning their faces away from the sudden light. Lucy lifted them up one by one and laid them gently apart. They were all there. Her mother, her father, Lucy herself, Susan and the other members of the household. Fashioned out of old pegs or twigs, they were no more than a few inches high with miniature suits and dresses made out of scraps of material. Lucy picked up the vicar and sniggered at the sombre face that Susan had painted on him. Lucy had done the sewing and given the most colourful attire to Gideon Livermore. The lawyer’s garb had been much easier to make. Susan’s brush had dotted in the neat little beard of Barnard Sweete.

Lucy surveyed the collection with pride and affection. It had taken them a long time to make all the dolls. Her whole world now lay before her in microcosm but it contained two errors. Matthew Whetcombe was no longer part of it. His severe face with its disapproval of his only child could be wrapped away in the cloth. When they first began to make the dolls, Lucy kept them in her own bedchamber so that she could play with them there, but her father had discovered the unflattering likenesses of himself and his wife and broken them to pieces. Lucy and Susan had both been punished and forbidden to indulge in any more mockery of their elders. Matthew Whetcombe was enraged by their lack of respect and gratitude. He ignored both girls for weeks afterwards. They made the new dolls in secret and hid them from him.

With her father now in his winding sheet, Lucy used softer fingers to pick up Susan. She had fallen out of the collection as well. The girl kissed the strands of cat fur that served for her friend’s hair, then pulled Susan to her breast. She used her free hand to arrange all the other dolls in a circle then stood in the middle of it. She was surrounded by enemies. One of them had died but the others were still constricting her freedom. A surge of rebellion made her want to escape, and she lifted Susan up to her ear to listen to her advice. The crude doll with its plain and grubby dress broke through a silence that nobody else could penetrate. Lucy heard the words and trembled with joy.

She now knew how to get out of the house.

Bristol gave them such a cordial welcome that they felt like prodigal sons returning home to the fatted calf. Westfield’s Men had spent a restful night at Chippenham before rising
early to continue their journey. By pressing their horses hard, they reached Bristol in the afternoon and were given instant proof of its bounty. Nicholas Bracewell went off to seek official permission for the company to stage their work in the city and came back with thirty shillings and the promise of at least three performances. As in Barnstaple, the government of the town was almost entirely in the hands of merchants, and they rejoiced at the thought of bringing their wives and friends to watch a London theatre company at work. The first performance – attended by the mayor and the entire corporation – was due to take place in the Guildhall in Broad Street on the following afternoon, and the thirty shillings that the treasurer had already paid would be enlarged by admission money charged at the doors.