Philip Gooden - Sleep of Death

By the time we arrived in the tiring-house the bloodbath was done. Hamlet had finished his duel with Laertes and both had been mortally wounded. The Prince had witnessed his mother take a fatal sip from the poisoned chalice prepared for him. King Claudius had seen all his schemes unravel in front of his face, as his Queen died and his nephew compelled him to drain the remains of his own poison draught.

Now Hamlet is left alive for a few moments, long enough to request loyal Horatio to report to a wonderstruck court the truth behind these strange and terrifying events. Now the poison from the venom-tipped sword has the upper hand of Prince Hamlet; now that fell sergeant Death strides in to make his last arrest.

All is done.

Almost.

There is the little matter of the late arrival of the ambassador from England with the news of yet more deaths. Minor characters, ones whom Hamlet has brushed from his conscience.

I tottered on stage, a weary English ambassador, exhausted no doubt from my urgent passage across the North Sea, my breakneck gallop across the Danish plains, my rapid entry through the portals of Elsinore. Perhaps my appearance, battered, rainswept, sweat-sodden, surprised beyond surprise, made up for a somewhat wooden delivery.

Then I remained, grinning inappropriately like an ape, as Horatio talked of casual slaughters and Prince Fortinbras of Norway talked of his rights of memory in the Kingdom of Denmark. Then the soldiers were bidden go shoot their pieces in honour of the late Prince.

Then we faced the applause, and we had our music from the gallery and our little jig, and after that I knew no more.

The final accounting. Two brief scenes.

Lady Alice summoned me to see her in her closet. She was writing at a desk, or pretending to, a piece of stage business. A fire of sea-coal burnt in the small grate. All the warmth of our previous encounter together, when we had exchanged lines from “Venus and Adonis”, all that warmth, I say, seemed to have migrated from her and lodged itself in her little fire. Certainly, there was none left in her manner towards me. A nipping autumn had established itself; the last shreds of summer had been scattered in storm and thunder.

‘Master Revill, I hear you are leaving us.’

‘Yes, my lady. I have found lodgings on the other side of the river again — among my own kind.’

‘I suppose that is best.’

‘Now I am staying on with the Chamberlain’s Company,’ I said, to lead her on, to be questioned and complimented.

But Lady Alice was unconcerned at my changing fortunes. That was not why I had been called to see her.

‘Robert Mink was of your company, was he not?’

The news of Mink’s death, or more precisely disappearance, in a river accident, was widely known. He had had a following among women of a certain kind, as I had discovered at the requiem mass sung for him, women not quite respectable, though not unrespectable neither. If Lady Alice had been among their number, however, she would certainly have stood out by reason of her rank.

‘I believe that you know that Master Mink was one of us,’ I said. ‘You must have seen him — on stage.’

‘You have heard that Sir William, my first husband, could not abide plays and players. Yet even so, I did occasionally attend the playhouse, with William or my brother-in-law. So I must have seen him there, but never in this house. Sir William would not have borne that.’

I, by the by, had never hinted that Lady Alice had seen Robert Mink anywhere, let alone in her husband’s house. Master WS’s lines about the lady protesting too much came into my mind. I did not reply.

‘They say that women are like wax. Quick to take any form imposed on them, true or false. But there are some men like that too. A hint or a word is enough for them to build up a castle in Spain.’

‘Sometimes a key will do,’ I said, and Lady Alice pretended not to understand, but went back to attend to her writing.

Without waiting to be dismissed, I made to go. I no longer needed the patronage of the Eliot family, in fact I wanted to rid myself of all of them.

‘Anything else you may have heard-’

‘Yes?’

‘ — is false, and slanderous.’

‘Of course, my lady.’

‘Nicholas,’ she said, trying a different, gentler tack. ‘I came to see you when you were lodging here one evening.’ She spoke as if her visit belonged to another age rather than little more than a week earlier. ‘I may have thought that you were here for a purpose, but I realise now that I was mistaken. You were here simply because of my son’s generosity.’

‘As you say.’

‘It is easy to misconstrue others’ motives.’

I saw that we might go round in circles all day, so I said farewell and asked after Sir Thomas.

‘Sir Thomas?’

‘Your husband.’

‘He is in Dover, I believe,’ she said, ‘about his business.’

As I walked from the closet I heard behind me the sound of her pen furiously scratching at paper.

‘You’re staying?’

‘For the time being.’

I felt sheepish.

‘So all those words about wanting to leave London, and go back to the country and live a simple life away from the fleshpots and wanting me to give up my trade and cover myself in sackcloth and ashes. .’

We were in bed, as you might have guessed. Where else would you have us at the end of the story?

‘Nick, your country is here. Feel.’

‘I was sick, I didn’t know what I was saying.’

‘These little fits of sorrow, I know them well.’

‘I suppose your customers have regular attacks.’

‘Only afterwards, never before.’

‘And you, Nell?’

‘Oh, even I am not proof against them. But I harden my heart and sit them out.’

‘Women are good at that.’

‘So tell me, Nick, did she know?’

‘Who?’

‘Lady Alice Eliot.’

‘You saw her in the Globe. How did she respond?’

‘I couldn’t see her well. It was getting overcast. The rain was starting to fall. And those boxes, it’s not easy to see clear inside.’

So that part of my plan had been hopeless from the beginning. Even if Lady Alice Eliot had been shaken enough by what she saw on stage to give herself away by a change of expression, by an altered complexion, by an abrupt gesture, it wouldn’t have been seen by Nell anyway. And as for my belief that WS lay behind the crimes. . I blushed and grew hot in memory. Fortunately, he suspected nothing of my suspicions, or if he did he was tactful and generous enough not to mention it.

(Indeed he and Dick Burbage had been masters of grace and courtesy when they asked me if I wanted to extend my contract with the Chamberlain’s. That was what they’d wanted to talk about after the ill-fated performance of Hamlet. It took me the best part of a week to recover from that and from my adventures in the forest and on the river, but when I returned, expecting a dismissal, I received an invitation instead. ‘What about Jack Wilson?’ I said. ‘For I am only filling his shoes until he returns from attending on his mother.’ ‘We are prepared to find another pair of shoes for you, Nick,’ said Burbage. ‘I was much struck by the way you returned to the theatre to give your last lines. That is the first and last requirement of the player, that he should appear on cue — even if he is dead or dying.’

‘Besides,’ said WS, ‘we have a space now with the sudden departure of Robert Mink.’