Philip Gooden - Sleep of Death

‘Perhaps one of the other servants in your room has taken it.’

‘I have asked Alfred and Will and Peter and they have said no and besides they are bigger men than me so why should they take my clothes when they would not fit?’

His brow creased like rumpled washing.

It seemed as though the unfortunate Francis expected me to do something about his missing shirt, even that he held me partly responsible for its disappearance, perhaps because we had previously discussed the item of clothing. It was curious, I thought, that the garment he was wearing when he found Sir William — and the sleeve of which he had employed to wipe away a silvery mark from the dead man’s cheek — should apparently have vanished. Or it was not curious at all, and I was imagining all sorts of oddness where all was straight and even.

‘I’m sorry to hear this, Francis, but I, er, expect your shirt will turn up again,’ I said, sounding to my own ears like some harried mother reassuring a small child. ‘It is a small thing, after all.’

‘A man like me may measure his worth in the world by his shirts, and one or two further items,’ said Francis with dignity. Having got this off his chest, he withdrew.

It must not be thought that, even while I was busy in the house of Sir Thomas and Lady Alice trying to discover something about the death of her first husband and growing more and more certain that there was nothing to discover, I was undutiful in my playing. Quite apart from Master Burbage’s warning of the sanctions that waited on those who missed rehearsals, I had something stronger to urge me across the river every morning. My love of the profession, my hopes for advancement in it, both ensured that I was prompt in attendance. However small my parts, whether I was playing a respectable citizen or a boorish rustic, a Roman poet or a courtly poisoner, I was careful to have my lines off pat and not to trespass beyond the bounds of what I was set there to say and do. A licensed clown can carry out much of his own business, as I had indicated to Sir Thomas and Lady Alice, while the leaders of our company such as Master Burbage and Master Phillips have their own style which the crowd loves. But the newcomer does best when he holds quiet to his place while looking all about him. Besides all this, there was an air of intentness and responsibility which shaped everything that the Chamberlain’s did, in contrast to my time with the Admiral’s Men. It was as if we knew that we were engaged in a serious enterprise — why, we were holding the mirror up to nature.

True, the reason why many of our audience came to see us in pieces such as A Somerset Tragedy was because the plays were full of what Master Mink called fighting and fucking and fury. Burbage amp; co could not have afforded to turn their back on this gaudy stuff even if they’d wanted to. Nor do I believe that they would have wished it. To be a player, however elevated and respectable, is always to have the smell of the crowd in your nostrils, and that is a stench which you grow to love. Sometimes from the boards I would look out across the press, the sea of bobbing heads, bare and bonneted, the clouds of smoke wreathing upwards from dozens of pipes, the gallants who took their seats on the sides of the stage, the shadowy ranks of the galleries where well-to-do folk like the Eliots paid for their privacy and (perhaps) pleasures unconnected with the play. Underneath the lines being declaimed, I heard that continuous susurration which accompanies a crowd and which falls away altogether only when a prince dies or a courtesan gets her come-uppance. Out there in the press, bargains soft and hard were being negotiated, favours exacted, gossip exchanged, pockets plundered, ale gulped, pippins picked at by dainty teeth. Yet for all that, the press or congregation was with us and we with them. The Globe was like some mighty ship, and its glowing white walls were her sails, spread to take us into uncharted territory, while the utterance of speakers on stage and off, sacred and profane, was the breath that filled those sails.

And, no, even in the midst of these elevated thoughts, I did not forget my lines.

Two days after Francis had come to see me, anxious for his missing shirt, he was found face down on the muddy foreshore which lay between the wall of the Eliots’ garden and the river. He had evidently slipped and struck his head on a large stone embedded in the ooze. The tide might have lifted him up overnight and carted the body off altogether so that he was never seen again, but he had fetched up against a rotten pile that protruded from water like a diseased finger. As the tide receded he had dropped into the mud again. He was discovered by a boatman who recognised his crinkled features and wiry frame as those of one of the Eliots’ servants.

This was too easy.

I arranged to meet him using Adrian as a go-between. Adrian is serviceable and malicious, and believes that he has a touch of the demonic about him. Hence the black apparel and saturnine gaze. He pulls his hat upon his brows, and looks and looks. He sees himself as a plotter, a cunning politician. Certainly he spent his time in my lady Alice’s household lining his own pockets. It was only William’s blindness to what was going on under his nose that enabled Adrian to remain so long in his position as steward — and it was only a matter of time before he was caught out and exposed. Our player had a hand in that business, and by his piece of legerdemain exposed the steward as a common thief. I am amused that Adrian considers himself to be an innocent in all this and blames the player for dishonesty. I remind him that he really did intend to steal my lady’s necklace. He reminds me that it was I who suborned him to steal it. Nevertheless, Adrian hates our player (so do I) and is waiting for a chance to make him atone. This fact may be useful.

In the meantime, Adrian is down on his luck despite all that pocket-lining, and for a consideration will carry out any small task, provided it be devious. I told him to accost Francis in private, and arrange a meeting between us. I did not want to see Francis face to face myself. He would have wondered. He might have taken fright and refused me an interview. Adrian had to provide some vague talk about a shirt, and the offer of a little money if he would see me alone for a moment. Not too much money, mind, because nothing rouses a man’s suspicions so quickly as an over-large reward for a small business. Without saying who was behind this, Adrian was to tell Francis that someone had important matters to communicate to him — to do with the shirt. With so little a thing may a man be ensnared. I almost wish that the shirt had been something slighter, perhaps a handkerchief. Why, a man’s life might be laid down for a handkerchief.

The little servant came out of the side gate of the main garden. It was late in an autumn evening and a thin, insinuating mist had started to rise from the river. He did not like being out at this hour, no doubt believing, like many simple souls, that he would be blasted by the night air. If it hadn’t been for the promise of money, and more importantly, the mention of his shirt I don’t suppose he would have appeared at all. And oh the shirt! You would have thought from his anxiety that it had been woven of the finest holland rather than the coarse cheap thing it actually was — dowlas, filthy dowlas. I would not have have worn it on my back for ten pounds. Francis saw me standing in the shadows — or rather he saw my shape.

‘Master-’

I could hear the apprehension in his voice. He was shifting around like an animal about to be slaughtered. I was afraid he was going to bolt back through the door, so I put on my calmest, most reassuring manner.