Philip Gooden - Sleep of Death

‘Which I should go to but which I shouldn’t watch.’

‘You are often at the playhouse but not for the action on stage, I think.’

‘True,’ she said. ‘But you want me to watch a watcher, not catch him for profit.’

‘Watch a watcher and give me your opinion.’

‘A whore’s opinion. What did you say to me the other day, “My trade is rather more respectable than yours, I think”?’

I saw now that it was not always to my advantage that Nell recalled my words. I felt priggish, particularly as she uttered this in a fluting voice which suggested the puritan. That wasn’t how I’d sounded, surely?

‘I would value your opinion,’ I said, as Robert Mink had said to me in the matter of his verses.

She did not reply.

‘Please,’ I said. ‘I am sorry for my thoughtless words to you as you were going about your business. In the Goat amp; Monkey.’

‘Those I have forgotten. Very well. I will do this for you — but you must promise me one thing, Nick. Not to try and reform me.’

‘I wasn’t trying,’ I said. ‘I merely asked if you ever wanted to leave London.’

‘It comes to the same. Do not become like the Puritans and the moralisers who believe that women like me must have sin beaten out of them by the beadle. Or, with you, it would be the softer kind — the ones who believe we must all be unhappy at our work and will leap at the chance to turn honest. .’

‘I never. .’

‘. . as if we could earn a quarter as much in any other trade. If you men would have us reform you must stop visiting us first — yes, and paying for the pleasure too.’

‘I’m sorry I ever mentioned it,’ I said. And I was too.

‘Now tell me what you want of me this afternoon,’ she said.

So I did.

The next step was easier than I’d expected. From Nell’s I crossed the river to the Eliots’ house. William was curious as to where I’d been the previous night and even more curious about my battered state. I palmed him off with some story about an argument, a fight, typical behaviour among the raffish players, didn’t he know.

‘I will be leaving soon,’ I said. ‘My contract with the Globe is coming to an end because Jack Wilson is returning.’

This, by the by, was more than I knew, although I did know that my days must be numbered. They certainly would be by the end of the afternoon.

‘I will be leaving London too,’ I said.

I was surprised to hear myself saying this.

‘I am sorry for that,’ said William. ‘I have enjoyed your company.’

‘Thank you. And I yours.’

‘You have learned nothing in my uncle’s house?’

‘I’m not sure. Perhaps I can tell you later, after this afternoon’s performance. You will be at the Globe?’

‘I could not miss the Prince of Denmark,’ said William, ‘though I must have seen him live and die a half dozen times.’

‘And my Lady Alice?’

‘My mother doesn’t like the play, as you know. Too many words and too many memories stirred up. Probably the very reasons that I like it.’

‘Could you persuade her to attend? It will most likely be my last performance. And I have other reasons. .’

‘I will try.’

‘Sir Thomas?’

‘My uncle is away on business.’

‘Is he in Dover?’

‘He has business there, yes, I believe.’

So all was arranged.

And now I stood waiting to make my entrance in the dumb-show.

‘How are you, Nicholas?’

I turned round and there was Master Robert Mink, looking as affable as ever.

‘My, I wouldn’t like to have been your opponent,’ he said casting his eyes over my visage.

Despite my best efforts at face-painting it was, I suppose, still obvious from close to that I had disgraced myself in some apprentice-style brawl. In a way this suited the villainous role which I had to play, but I still grinned sheepishly at Master Mink.

‘No questions,’ he said. ‘You young men! Sudden and quick in quarrel, as our friend says.’ He nodded in the general direction of the stage, meaning Master WS.

He was costumed as the Player King, a part that was well fitted both to his bodily size and his good-natured authority. In the dumb-show, and then in the play-within-the-play, he must suggest a weary wisdom. When his Queen announces that she will never marry after his death, he knows that she protests too much. She will do what she says she will not. A royal widow does not sit long with an empty throne for company. Thinking of which, I cast my eyes in the direction of the box occupied by Lady Alice Eliot and William. I could not see them and had to hope that they were visible from the vantage point on the other side where I had secured a seat for Nell.

‘Well,’ said Master Mink, ‘and you are enjoying your time with the Chamberlain’s Men?’

‘I fear that my time is almost over.’

‘Jack Wilson is coming back?’

‘He is sure to be, soon. His mother must either be dead or have decided to live a little longer.’

‘I am glad that he is to return. He is a good player, although I am not sure that you don’t have — ah — darker looks than Jack and so are more apt for darker parts.’

‘Master Shakespeare was kind enough to say something of the same sort when we first met,’ I said.

‘Did he now? Well, he is the best judge of these things, I suppose. Anyway we shall be sorry to lose you.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, reflecting that this was a fine day for compliments.

‘Before you leave you must visit my lodgings. You have not yet heard my Lover’s Triumph.’

‘No, I have not.’

‘My lodgings would be better than the Beast with Two Backs. We would not have to depend on the stumbling service of Gilbert the potboy. I have a fine red wine that I’d like your opinion of.’

‘I would be honoured.’

‘And now I must take a few moments to myself. I always do this before I go on stage.’

He removed himself into a corner. Meantime I fumbled in the sleeve of my costume for a speech I’d penned earlier. This is the very same device which Hamlet uses, a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines planted in the play to expose Claudius. Well, I did not pretend to be Master WS and would not dare to hold up my poor candle to his blazing sun, but I congratulated myself that I’d managed to add a few lines in the style of what Lucianus delivers when he is about to pour poison into the ear of the Player-King (Master Robert Mink). These lines would hint at the real-life mystery and murder of Sir Thomas Eliot.

My plan, as should be evident, was to confront those whom I considered might be responsible for this foul deed.

To wit: Lady Alice Eliot, spied on by Nell in the audience.

To wit: Master WS, spied on by myself from the stage.

(It was a pity that Sir Thomas was absent in ‘Dover’ but I believed that, if he were guilty, he shared that guilt with his wife, and that therefore, if she were exposed, so too would he be.)

All this might seem to strain belief. Why should a man or woman spill their secrets because they see them played out on a stage? But I had authority for what I was doing, the authority of the Prince of Denmark himself, for:

Adding lines to plays is common enough. The broader clowns in the other companies did it all the time, even if the professionalism of the Chamberlain’s Men kept Robert Armin, our company clown, within bounds. Nevertheless, what might be tolerated in an older player would not be allowed in a snipper-snapper like myself. Even if nothing untoward occurred as a result of my own little lines-within-a-play-within-a-play, I would be cast out of the Chamberlain’s for impudence, for incompetence. I would never work with such a company again. Most likely, I would never act again.