Edward Marston - The Devil's Apprentice

‘The decision has already been taken.’

‘By whom?’

‘Edmund and me.’

‘But you can’t just change things to suit yourselves.’

‘It suits the play, Barnaby,’ said Firethorn irritably, ‘and not us. Believe me, if I wanted to suit myself, the only dance you’d execute would be at the end of a rope as you were hanged from that gallery.’

‘That’s a monstrous suggestion!’ howled Gill over an outburst of laughter.

‘Then stop pestering me, man.’

‘I demand to have my jig restored.’

‘We’ll cut it out altogether if you keep holding up the rehearsal.’

‘This is impossible!’ said Gill, stalking towards the door. ‘I’ll talk with my feet.’

‘They can’t say their lines any worse than you, Barnaby.’

‘A pox on this play!’

As Gill flounced out, there was more sadness than amusement among the company. Fierce rows between the two men were normal events but they rarely occurred with such venom and both parties were quickly reconciled by the tactful intercession of Nicholas Bracewell. Dart was no peacemaker. Whoever else took on ambassadorial duties, it would not be the assistant stagekeeper, too terrified of both men to approach either in the spirit of harmony. In the event, it was Hoode who volunteered to take on the difficult assignment. He sauntered across to Firethorn.

‘You’ll have to go after him and apologise, Lawrence,’ he said.

‘Never!’

‘How can we rehearse without Barnaby?’

‘We can’t rehearse with him when he’s in this mood.’

‘You were the one who made him choleric.’

‘He was born choleric, Edmund,’ snarled Firethorn. ‘God’s blood! Why on earth did we give the part of Doctor Putrid to him?’

‘Because it fits him like a glove.’

‘Putrid by name and putrid by nature.’ He waved a peremptory hand. ‘I’ll not say sorry to that freakish homunculus.’

‘Then at least let me convey your apologies to him, Lawrence.’

‘It’s Barnaby’s apologies that need to be conveyed to me.’

‘Do neither of you have the grace to give way?’

‘No, Edmund. It would be a sign of weakness in me and a sign of humanity in Barnaby. Forget the wretch,’ he ordered, walking to the centre of the stage. ‘We’ll continue the rehearsal without him.’

‘Act Two, Scene Three?’ asked Dart, flicking the pages.

‘No, George. Act Three, Scene Two. Since we lack our Doctor Putrid, we’ll move on to the Lord Malady’s confrontation with Longshaft and Shortshrift.’

‘I can’t seem to find it.’

‘Well, look more carefully, you dolt!’

‘Is it the scene with the witch?’

‘See for yourself, you lunatic!’

When Dart eventually found the correct page, he sat on a stool at the front of the stage to watch the action and prompt accordingly. He was soon employed. Hoode and Elias had mastered their roles as the two lawyers but Richard Honeydew had only an approximate recollection of his lines as Lord Malady’s wife. He tripped over them so often that Dart ended up reading out the majority of his part. Firethorn was enraged. Storming onstage to upbraid the apprentice, he was so incensed that he did not see a wooden chest that had been incorrectly set for the scene. Instead of laying hands on the gibbering Honeydew, he fell headlong over the chest, knocked Hoode on to his haunches in the process, lost his wig, dropped his walking stick and broke wind uncontrollably.

Egidius Pye chose that inopportune moment to enter the hall by the main door.

‘I could stay away no longer,’ he said breathlessly. ‘How does my play fare?’

Nicholas Bracewell could hear the argument clearly. As he tethered his horse to a yew tree in the churchyard, the voices came ringing through the open door. He had no difficulty in identifying the rasping tones of Reginald Orr.

‘Do you intend to go there or don’t you?’ he demanded.

‘That’s a matter between me and my conscience, Reginald.’

‘Attend a play and you have no conscience.’

‘Sir Michael has invited me,’ explained the vicar. ‘It’s a courtesy to accept.’

‘And if he invited you to jump off the top of your church or drown in the lake at Silvermere, would you still show him the courtesy of accepting?’ Orr was roused to a pitch of anger. ‘Are you a priest or a mere sycophant? Do you do everything your precious Sir Michael tells you? Or do you have the courage to take a moral stand?’

‘I’m taking one against you at this moment, Reginald.’

Nicholas removed his hat and entered the church. ‘Am I interrupting?’ he enquired, sensing that the vicar needed to be rescued. ‘Ah, Master Orr,’ he went on, smiling politely at the Puritan. ‘We meet again though I never thought to encounter you in such a place as this.’

‘Ordinarily, you would not,’ grunted the other. ‘It’s a Popish temple. But you’re a heathen, sir. I wouldn’t have expected you to venture onto consecrated ground.’

‘St Christopher is the patron saint of travellers.’

‘Not when they travel in the name of Satan.’

‘Lord Westfield is the banner under which we ride.’

‘Then he, too, is a child of hell.’

‘I’m so pleased to see you, Master Bracewell,’ said Anthony Dyment, coming down the nave to greet him, ‘albeit sad to see you in such a condition. Look at your poor face! Sir Michael has told me of your bravery. You’re to be congratulated. Thanks to you, a dangerous man is in custody.’

‘Isaac Upchard is innocent,’ asserted Orr.

‘He tried to burn down the stables at Silvermere,’ said Nicholas.

‘You’re mistaken, sir. I’ll depose that Isaac was with me at the time when this outrage is supposed to have taken place. He slept at my house.’

‘I should imagine that he needed to after the punishment he took. We had a fight in the dark. I twisted his ankle and cut his wrist with my sword. Isaac Upchard still has the limp and the wound that I inflicted.’

‘In the dark. When you could not be sure that it was him.’

‘There’s evidence enough.’

‘Not to my way of thinking.’

‘Nothing is to your way of thinking, Reginald,’ said the vicar, bolstered by the presence of Nicholas. ‘So I’ll thank you to stop causing an affray in the house of God and go about your business.’

‘Keeping you on the straight and narrow path is my business.’

‘The vicar is entitled to watch a play, if he chooses,’ said Nicholas.

‘Not when it sets such an appalling example to the rest of the parish. I don’t expect you to understand,’ sneered Orr. ‘You’re one of them, steeped in sin and wallowing in corruption. But some of us have the zeal to fight you.’

‘Is that what Isaac Upchard was showing the other night? Zeal?’

‘Isaac is a man with spiritual values.’

‘So am I!’ insisted Dyment.

‘Then why surrender them for a seat at a playhouse? You’re a Judas, sir!’

‘That’s slanderous talk.’

‘It’s also unbecoming language to hear inside a church,’ said Nicholas, moving to the door. ‘Perhaps we should take this argument outside, Master Orr.’

‘I’ll not argue with you,’ said the other, brushing past him. ‘You’ve sold your soul to the Devil and I’ll not have you near me for a second longer.’

He went out of the door like a gust of wind and a restorative silence followed. The vicar was patently harassed. After first closing the door to ensure privacy, he turned wearily to his visitor.

‘I’m very grateful to you, Master Bracewell,’ he said. ‘You saved me from being harangued though that’s not the only reason he came here this morning.’

‘Why else? Surely not to take Communion?’