Philip Gooden - Sleep of Death

‘Did he intend you for a schoolmaster?’

‘Possibly. That or the church.’

‘So you became a player.’

‘I did not set out to contradict his wishes.’

‘Then you must have been a very unusual son.’

‘My father — and my mother — are dead, but I like to think that he would not wholly condemn the place that I now find myself in, I mean with the Chamberlain’s Men.’

‘Ah yes. We heard at supper just how highly you esteem the stage and your company.’

I was slightly embarrassed by this reminder of my effusions at table, brought on in part by drink. I simply nodded in reply. I was aware too that, although I defined myself as a Chamberlain’s man, I was only one for as long as Jack Wilson was away at his dying mother’s. I resolved to be a little more sparing in future in giving the world my opinions on plays and players.

Lady Alice put down my little black book and leaned back on my trunk as if she were quite at ease.

‘I was interested to hear what you had to say about Master Shakespeare. I have been curious about him ever since I read his “Venus and Adonis”. You know that story?’

Is there anyone the length and breadth of this land who can read, and does not know Master WS’s “Venus and Adonis”? That tale of male reluctance and a ripe woman’s urging, whose theme is the chase — the hunting of the beautiful boy whose real wish is to hunt the boar. The book has been out in the world for a good few years now and kept our book-makers and our booksellers busy, for it has yet to slip into those Lethean waters which await all printed matter. How many young men have panted to its verses, as I have, and wished themselves smothered by the attentions of an older woman? How many unrequited lovers, boy and girl, have pored and sighed over its pages, seeing in the indifference of the chase-mad young man to Venus’s overtures an image of their own rejection?

As she repeated these words from Venus’s attempted seduction of Adonis, Lady Alice leaned towards where I sat opposite and a little below her. Either of us could have touched the other one without quite straightening our arms.

‘If I remember it correctly,’ she said.

Again I caught the layered sweetness of her breath, but with a hint of something gross and yet stirring below. In the uncertain light of the candle her white front swelled out like a soft siege-machine, designed to tear away at the firmest bulwark. My eyes swam and I felt as if the earth had grown suddenly unsteady beneath the bed I sat on.

‘ “I know not love,” quoth he, “nor will not know it,

Unless it be a boar, and then I chase it. .” ’

Quoth I — but my voice was not altogether steady as I drew the lines up from the well of memory. But she was able to give as good as she got.

‘At this Adonis smiles as in disdain,

That in each cheek appears a pretty dimple.’

I only just prevented myself from reaching up to feel for the dimples (which I do not have). The smile, disdainful or not, was already fastened on my face. It occurred to me that this was the second time in twenty-four hours that I had listened to someone reciting verses of unrequited passion. The difference between Master Mink and Lady Alice, however, was as great as the difference between the latter’s poetry and Master WS’s. Rather than continuing with the exchange of lines from Master WS’s V amp; A, I said, ‘You should have been a player.’

‘Boys make better women than we do. It is easier to believe they are what they pretend to be. A woman on stage would be a distraction.’

I was surprised at the earnest reply. It was as if she had actually given thought to the preposterous idea that a woman could play a woman’s part.

‘One day perhaps. .’ She allowed her voice to trail away. ‘Now tell me, Master Revill, or Adonis, for you have something fresh-faced about you, something countrified, and besides a woman who is old enough to be your mother can be so familiar — tell me what is the boar that you’re hunting here?’

‘I’m not sure I understand, my lady.’

‘You do, but I will say it more plainly. Your presence in this house. Were you sent for? Is it of your own free will?’

‘Lady Alice. . your son heard that I was embarrassed for lodgings and kindly offered to put me up here. . for a short while. In fact I was considering just now that I ought to return.’

‘Return?’

‘To Southwark. When I have to leave the Chamberlain’s Men I am more likely to find further employment south of the river than on this side of it. There are more playhouses there.’

‘Why do you have to leave the Chamberlain’s?’

I felt myself reddening. Fortunately, the room was dim. Her face, with its firm, decided features, was suffused with colour too.

‘Because I am standing in the shoes of a player who is absent for a week or two only.’

‘I see. I thought from the way you were talking at supper that you were one of the pillars of the company.’

I blushed more furiously. To cover myself, I gabbled, ‘Jack Wilson’s mother is sick. She is dying, I believe. In Norfolk. In Norwich.’

‘Perhaps he will not come back.’

This was, of course, the hope that had passed through my mind, and more than once.

‘No, no,’ I said.

‘Yes, yes, you mean.’

‘Am I so transparent, my lady?’

‘Not transparent enough, Master Revill, I think.’

‘I do not understand you.’

‘Have you found what you’re looking for?’

‘I don’t know what I am looking for,’ I said, truthfully.

‘That is as good as admitting that you are looking for something. Remember what happened to Adonis in the chase after the boar,’ she said. She reached across — we were still less than an arm’s-length from one another — and cupped her hand above my crotch.

‘And nuzzling in his flank, the loving swine

Sheathed unaware the tusk in his soft groin.’

I was too surprised to respond for myself, although my member began to show a mind of its own under her near-touch. Lady Alice seemed pleased and also amused.

‘What Adonis would not do for the woman who wanted him was, alas, done to him. Thus was Adonis slain.’

She removed her hand, and so I was half relieved, half regretful.

‘Not a word, Master Revill.’

I wasn’t certain whether this was an injunction or a question. Before I might have asked Lady Alice what she meant she had slipped away from my room.

This wasn’t my last visitor of the evening, however. Moments later there came another tap, and my heart stirred for I thought it might be my lady returning to continue our discourse of “Venus and Adonis”. Yet the tap was less confident. I went to the door, candle in hand, and saw the creased features of Francis, the wiry little servant who had been the first to discover the body of Sir William Eliot in the garden. He looked troubled and began to gesture before he started to speak.

‘Oh excuse me, sir.’

‘That’s all right, Francis.’

‘You remember that you was asking me questions about Sir William and how I found him?’

‘You were very informative.’

‘Thank you, sir. And now it’s gone.’

‘I don’t absolutely follow you, Francis.’

‘My shirt.’

Here he drew out in the air a T-shape which I took to be the garment in question.

‘Your shirt has gone? Ah, your shirt. The one you were wearing when you found your late master.’

‘Sir William, yes. It has gone from the trunk which lies under my bed.’