The Roaring Boy Read online

‘He is the last person I want at this hour.’

  ‘Leave him to me. He shall not pass.’

  Margery closed the door behind her and confronted the newcomer on the narrow landing. She was a big, bosomy woman with an iron determination. When fully roused, she was more than a match for her husband, so Firethorn was confident that she would soon send the visitor on his way. A dozen armed soldiers would not be able to force their way past his wife. He lay back on his pillow and gently closed his eyelids. A tap on the door made him open them with a suddenness he instantly regretted. His swollen jaw ached vengefully.

  Easing the door ajar, Margery put her head around it.

  ‘Barnaby brings sad tidings,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll none of that leering clown today!’

  ‘They concern Westfield’s Men.’

  ‘Send the rogue on his way without further ado.’

  ‘His news will brook no delay. Please hear him.’

  Before he could protest, she stood aside to let Barnaby Gill strut into the bedchamber. Wedded to ostentation, he wore a high-necked bombasted doublet in the Spanish fashion with its collar edged at the top with pickadils. The doublet was slashed, pinked and embroidered with a centre fastening of buttons from top to bottom. Its startling lime green hue was thrown into relief by hat, gloves and hose of a darker green. Short, squat but undeniably elegant, Gill doffed his hat in greeting, then gazed down at his stricken colleague with a mixture of sympathy and cold satisfaction.

  ‘What ails you, Lawrence?’ he asked with token dismay.

  ‘You do, sir!’

  ‘But I have saved all our lives this afternoon.’

  ‘Mine is far beyond recall.’

  ‘Listen to Barnaby,’ prompted Margery. ‘It is needful.’

  Firethorn turned a bloodshot eye on his visitor.

  ‘Well?’

  Gill sighed. ‘Ben Skeat is no longer with us.’

  ‘He has no choice in the matter. His contract binds him to Westfield’s Men in perpetuity.’

  ‘You do not understand, Lawrence. The poor man is dead.’

  ‘If he feels the way I do, I am not surprised. I expect to pass out of this world myself at any moment.’ Firethorn gulped as he heard what he had just been told. ‘Dead? That dear old workhorse, Ben Skeat? Deceased? Can this be so?’

  ‘Sadly, it can.’

  ‘When did this tragedy befall us?’

  ‘In the middle of Act Three.’

  Firethorn sat up. ‘Ben Skeat died onstage?’

  ‘In full view of the audience.’

  ‘What happened?’ asked Margery. ‘Did you bring the play to an end? Did you send all the spectators home?’

  ‘Did you return their money?’ said Firethorn in alarm.

  ‘No,’ said Gill with studied nonchalance. ‘I stepped into the breach and rescued us from a gruesome fate. Had I not led Westfield’s Men with such spirit and authority, there would not be any of them left to lead.’

  ‘Nick Bracewell took control, surely?’ said Firethorn.

  ‘Yes,’ added Margery with brisk affection. ‘Nicholas steered you through, I’ll wager.’

  ‘Not this time, alas!’ lied Gill. ‘I was the saviour.’

  They listened with rapt attention as the visitor told a story that he had rehearsed very carefully on the journey from the Queen’s Head to Shoreditch. According to Barnaby Gill, the book holder and the rest of the company had been ready to abandon the play as soon as Ben Skeat’s death became apparent. It was left to the court jester to berate them for their faint-heartedness and to insist that they press on with the performance, albeit in an amended form. The new version of The Corrupt Bargain—Gill emphasized this—was his brainchild. As actor and as author, he had led from the front and dragged an unwilling company behind him.

  Lawrence Firethorn knew him well enough to be able to separate fact from fantasy. He was so closely acquainted with Nicholas Bracewell’s handiwork that it could not be passed off as someone else’s. Margery, too, sensed that the unassuming book holder had been the real hero in this crisis as in so many previous ones. One consolation remained. The performance had continued in such a way as to disguise the true nature of the emergency from the audience. No money had been returned but a high price had still been paid.

  ‘Ben Skeat dead?’ Firethorn was shocked. ‘May the Lord have mercy on his soul! He will be greatly missed.’

  ‘As were you, Lawrence,’ said Gill pointedly.

  ‘Not from choice, I assure you,’ said Firethorn.

  ‘Indeed not,’ agreed Margery. ‘He was laid low.’

  Gill raised a derisive eyebrow. ‘By a mere toothache? It would take more than that to keep me from the practice of my art. The plague itself would not detain me from my place upon the boards. Thank heaven I was there this afternoon! Ben Skeat dying on us. Nicholas Bracewell failing us. Lawrence Firethorn deserting us.’

  ‘I did not desert you!’ howled the other man as the pain flared up once more. ‘I was unfit for service. Felled by some malign devil.’ He waved a dismissive hand. ‘Leave we my condition until another time. Ben Skeat must now be our prime concern. What was the cause of his death? Who has examined the body? Where is it now? Have his relatives yet been informed? How stands it, Barnaby?’

  ‘I left all that to Nicholas Bracewell,’ said Gill with evident boredom. ‘Cleaning up a mess is the one thing at which he has some moderate skill. My task was to ride post-haste to Shoreditch to put you in possession of the full facts. We have lost one of our sharers, Lawrence.’

  ‘The best and sweetest of men.’

  ‘I’ll say “Amen” to that,’ said Margery soulfully.

  ‘When I was a raw beginner,’ continued Firethorn in nostalgic vein, ‘it was Ben Skeat who helped me, advised me and taught me all I know about the craft of acting. He let me feed on his long experience. There was not an ounce of selfishness in that dear creature. Ben was a rock on which we all built our performances.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gill with heavy sarcasm. ‘Ben was a rock. But this afternoon—like a rock—he could neither move nor speak. If it had not been for my sterling courage in the face of mortal danger…’

  But his hosts were not listening. Margery Firethorn was too busy recalling a thousand and one pleasant memories of an actor who had served Westfield’s Men with honour since the inception of the company, and who had always been a most welcome visitor to the house in Old Street. Her husband was concentrating on practicalities. Ben Skeat was a sharer, one of the ranked players who were named in the patent for Westfield’s Men and who were thus entitled to a portion of such profits as it might make. Sharers also took all the major roles in any play. They had real status and a qualified security. To become a sharer with one of the London companies was to join an exclusive brotherhood. Ben Skeat had just resigned from that charmed circle.

  Lawrence Firethorn weighed all the implications.

  ‘Ben must be mourned,’ he decreed, ‘then replaced.’

  ‘You are too hasty,’ said Gill. ‘One less sharer and the rest of us have a slightly larger slice of the pie.’

  ‘Fresh blood is needed in the company.’

  ‘I beg to differ, Lawrence.’

  ‘When do you do otherwise?’

  Gill tensed. ‘I am entitled to my opinion.’

  ‘No question but that you are, Barnaby,’ said the actor-manager with light irony. ‘I value that opinion. I shall, of course, ignore it as usual but I can still respect it. The matter is decided. As one Ben Skeat leaves us, another must be found to take his place.’

  ‘The issue has not even been discussed.’

  ‘We just discussed it—did we not, Margery?’

  ‘What more debate is needed?’ she said.

  ‘Much more,’ argued Gill, irritated
that she should be brought into their deliberations. ‘Edmund has a voice here. When he hears reason, he will side with me.’

  ‘Reason will incline him to my persuasion.’

  Lawrence Firethorn had no doubt on that score. He could invariably win the resident playwright around to his point of view. All the sharers had a nominal voice in company policy but it was effectively decided by its three leading personalities. Of these, Barnaby Gill and Edmund Hoode were allowed only the illusion of control. It was Firethorn whose guiding hand was really on the tiller.

  ‘Think back, Barnaby,’ he counselled. ‘When Old Cuthbert retired from the company, what did we do? We promoted from within. Owen Elias rose from the hired men to become our new sharer and he has been a credit to us ever since.’

  ‘You bitterly opposed his selection,’ reminded Gill.

  ‘That is all in the past.’

  ‘You hated Owen because he joined our sworn enemies.’

  ‘We have put the incident behind us.’

  ‘It was the one time when you were overruled.’

  Firethorn breathed in deeply through his nose and tried to remain calm. Owen Elias’s elevation from hired man to sharer had taken place in exceptional circumstances and was largely the work of Nicholas Bracewell. The book holder’s astute stage management of the situation had overcome Firethorn’s serious qualms about the Welshman. Although Owen Elias was now an established player of the first rank in Westfield’s Men, the recollection of his promotion was not untinged with bitterness for Firethorn.

  ‘We will look outside the company,’ he said firmly.

  ‘Why look at all?’ countered Gill.

  ‘A new sharer would invest money in Westfield’s Men.’

  ‘Owen Elias did not.’

  ‘Forget Owen. He has no place in this argument.’

  ‘I believe that he does.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Margery.

  The men stared at her. Ordinarily, she would have no right to be present—let alone involved—in the dispute. Acting was a male prerogative. No woman was permitted to take part in a play, still less to assist in the running of one of the companies, but Margery Firethorn had a habit of breaking rules that hindered her. Gill was patently annoyed by an intrusion he had no power to stop, while a weakened Firethorn was unable to assert himself over his wife. Margery stated her case with blunt clarity.

  ‘Choose the best possible man,’ she said.

  ‘Why, so we will,’ consented her husband.

  ‘Then turn to Owen Elias.’

  ‘We cannot make him a sharer for the second time.’

  ‘Take him as your example, Lawrence,’ she said. ‘You looked with Westfield’s Men and the right choice came.’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘Do the self-same thing again.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Nominate the only person fit for the honour.’

  ‘And who might that be, my dove?’ he wondered.

  ‘Who else but Nicholas Bracewell?’

  ‘Anyone else!’ exclaimed Gill. ‘I forbid it!’

  Firethorn pondered. ‘Margery guides us along the path of logic,’ he said. ‘Nick Bracewell is the obvious choice.’

  ‘Where would you be without him?’ she said.

  ‘Consigned to oblivion.’

  ‘No!’ said Gill with outrage. ‘This is madness. He is just one more hired man. You cannot turn a mere book holder into a sharer. Who is to be next in line? Hugh Wegges, the tireman? Nathan Curtis, the carpenter? George Dart, that shivering idiot of an assistant stagekeeper? You make a mockery of our standing.’

  Margery’s eye kindled dangerously. ‘Nick Bracewell is as good a man as any in the company.’ She shot a meaningful glance at Gill. ‘Far better than some I could name, who stand much lower in my esteem. I’ll not hear a carping word against Nick. It is high time that his worth was fully appreciated.’

  Gill curled a lip in scorn. ‘Oh, it is, it is. We took his measure this afternoon.’

  ‘What say you?’ asked Firethorn.

  ‘Your precious Nicholas Bracewell was at last revealed in his true light. He is not the paragon of virtue you take him for, Lawrence.’ Gill was working himself up into a mild rage. ‘He not only let us down in our hour of need, he committed the most foul assault on my person.’

  ‘With good reason, I dare swear.’

  ‘He attacked me, Lawrence!’

  ‘I have often thought of doing so myself.’

  ‘Violent hands were laid upon me.’

  ‘How I envy him!’

  ‘Our book holder became a vicious animal.’

  ‘Never!’ said Margery. ‘Nick is as gentle as a lamb.’

  ‘Your opinion was not sought,’ snapped Gill.

  ‘I offered it gratis.’

  ‘Please keep out of this discussion.’

  ‘Do not bandy words with my wife, sir!’ said Firethorn.

  ‘Then ask her to withdraw from our conference.’

  ‘Will you be assaulted again!’ she threatened.

  ‘Desist, woman! You are not a sharer in the company.’

  ‘I am,’ said Firethorn, leaping off the bed, ‘and that gives me the right to box your ears first. Nobody speaks to Margery with so uncivil a tongue and escapes rebuke. Though she is not one of Westfield’s Men, she is a sharer in a house and home whose hospitality you dare to abuse.’ Still in his nightshirt, he took a step towards the now quaking Gill. ‘You have denounced Nick Bracewell, insulted my dear wife and presumed to call in question my role as the manager of the company. Whipping would be too soft a punishment for these transgressions. Mutilation would be too kind. You deserve to be dragged through the streets on a hurdle, then set in the stocks for a fortnight.’ He towered over Gill and vented his spleen. ‘Get out of my house, you prancing ninny! Take your fine apparel and your false reports away from Shoreditch. Or by the affection that now guides me most, I’ll tear you limb from limb and feed your rotten carcass to the pigs. Avaunt! Begone! Away, you seagreen sickness!’

  He lunged at his visitor but Barnaby Gill was too quick for him, electing to take to his heels rather than to try to reason with a homicidal maniac. With a cry of fear, he raced down the stairs, flung open the front door and hurtled out into Old Street as if pursued by the Devil himself.

  Up in his bedchamber, Lawrence Firethorn roared like an enraged bull and pawed the ground with one foot. Margery surveyed her husband with lascivious admiration.

  ‘That was heroic! My big, strong, wonderful hero!’

  Hands on hips, he inflated his chest and basked in the unstinting adoration of his wife. Theirs was a turbulent marriage but it was grounded in deep love and understanding. This enabled them to enjoy to the full the glorious lulls between the recurring marital storms. Firethorn knew that such a lull was now upon them. Then he realised something else and his misshapen face beamed with joy.

  ‘It is gone, Margery. My toothache has abated.’

  ‘You frightened it away, my love!’

  ‘By Jove! I feel as if I am a new man.’

  ‘I see it well. Every muscle about you ripples.’

  ‘I have risen from my bed of pain!’ he said with a laugh of sheer relief. ‘Let me return to it as to a palace of pleasure. Anger is indeed the surest medicine. It has made my blood boil. Come, Margery. I have been set free. I have come back to you as a doting husband. Is this not a just cause for celebration?’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ she said, flinging herself down on the bed with weighty abandon and kicking her legs in the air. ‘Yes, yes, yes!’

  ‘You are the best cure for any toothache, my angel.’

  ‘Let my body be your physick.’

  ‘I am whole once more.’

  ‘Take me, Lawrence! Take me!
’

  The bed creaked happily for half an hour.

  ***

  Nicholas Bracewell had even more to do than usual in the wake of that afternoon’s performance. He had to convey the body of Ben Skeat to a private room at the inn, send for a surgeon, placate the landlord, Alexander Marwood, who was almost demented at the thought of someone actually dying in such a public fashion on his premises, supervise the dismantling of the stage, ensure that all costumes, properties and scenic devices were safely locked away and advise the company when they would next be needed. There was marginal relief in the fact that there would be no performance on the following day because it was the Sabbath. Westfield’s Men used a venue within the precincts of the city and were thus debarred from playing on a Sunday. No such regulation hampered their rivals at The Theatre and The Curtain in Shoreditch, or at The Rose in Bankside.

  The surgeon confirmed what Nicholas had suspected. Ben Skeat had died by natural means. He suffered a heart attack of such severity that it killed him almost instantly. It was the surgeon’s opinion that Skeat may well have had earlier warnings of his failing health but he had evidently kept them to himself. Nicholas believed that he knew why.

  ‘Does he have a family?’ asked the surgeon.

  ‘None,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘No wife to mourn him?’

  ‘She herself died six months ago. He and Alice had been married for nearly thirty years. That is unusual in this profession. Actors are poor husbands. Few enjoy such a happy marriage as Ben Skeat.’ He gave a wistful sigh on his own account, then read the next question in the surgeon’s face. ‘Three children in all but they were not destined for this harsh world. None of them lived to see a first birthday. It drew Ben and Alice even closer. Two such well-matched souls it would have been hard to find.’

  ‘He must have been cut adrift without her.’

  ‘Half his life was stolen away from him.’

  ‘Did he pine?’

  ‘Ben kept his grief hidden but it was there.’

  As Nicholas talked with the surgeon, he recalled other small signs of the strain the actor had been under. Skeat had started to eat larger meals and drink far more ale. He had become more withdrawn from his fellow-actors and brooded in dark corners. Hitherto an almost vain man, he took less care with his attire and appearance. The book holder had offered what solace he could to his old friend but something of the latter’s spirit had gone into the grave with his wife. In recommending him for the part of Duke Alonso in the play, Nicholas Bracewell thought to help him out of his despondency. Instead, the additional pressures of such a taxing role may have helped to put an end to his life. It made the book holder feel obscurely responsible.