Edward Marston - The Laughing Hangman

‘Let’s do it my way,’ he said jovially. ‘Otherwise, you must crawl back to your lodging on all fours.’

‘You are a true friend, Owen.’

‘I know that you would do the same for me.’

‘Indeed, indeed,’ mumbled the other.

It was an unlikely eventuality. Hoode was frequently overcome by alcohol, grief or unrequited love, and sometimes by a lethal combination of all three. Elias, by contrast, could carouse endlessly without lapsing into anything more than merriment or music, rarely gave way to sorrow, and led a career of cheerful lechery among the womenfolk of London. Half-carrying the drooping poet, he came out into the night and headed slowly towards Cripplegate Ward.

‘What is her name, Edmund?’ he asked.

‘Name?’

‘Your heart is heavy, my friend. I can feel the full weight pressing down on me. It is an all too familiar burden. Who is she this time?’

‘I do not know, Owen.’

‘A lady without a name?’

‘Without a name, a face or substance of any kind.’

‘An invisible creature?’

‘To all intents.’

‘Explain.’

To provide anything as logical as an explanation placed an enormous strain on Hoode’s shattered senses, but he did his best. As he ambled along, supported by his friend, he tried to piece together the events of a day which had both destroyed and resurrected him. No sooner had his new play been evicted than an anonymous tenant moved into his heart. He pulled out the flower which he had slipped under his doublet. Crushed and forlorn, it yet retained the fragrance of its message. Elias noted the irony of the situation.

‘You have lost one Rose and gained another,’ he observed. ‘Two, if we count the landlord’s comely daughter. Rose Marwood is a rose in full bloom. It is a source of great regret to me that even my skilful hands have not been able to pluck her from the stem. Her parents are entwined around the girl like prickly thorns. They have drawn blood from my lustful fingers on more than one occasion.’

‘Leave we Rose Marwood to her own devices,’ said Hoode. ‘She was only the messenger here, and my concern is with the message itself. Or rather, with the lady who sent it.’

‘Your inamorata.’

‘If such she be, Owen.’

‘No question of that. You hold the certain testimony of her love in your grasp.’

‘I hold a rose, it is true,’ said Hoode gloomily. ‘But was it sent by a female hand?’

Elias guffawed. ‘A male admirer! Have you awakened some dark passion in a love-struck youth? Do not tell Barnaby of this conquest or he will roast on a spit of envy.’

‘You misunderstand.’

‘Then speak more clearly.’

‘I fear me that this is some trick.’

‘On whose behalf?’

‘Some fellow in the company who means to buy a laugh or two at my expense. Luck has never attended my loving, Owen. Cupid has used my heart for some cruel archery practice over the years. Why should fortune favour me now?’

‘Because you deserve it, Edmund.’

‘Fate has never used me according to my desserts before,’ said Hoode. ‘No, this is some jest. The love-token was sent to torment me. Someone in the company means to raise my hopes in order to dash them down upon the rocks of his derision.’ He looked down at the rose. ‘I would do well to cast it away and tread it under foot.’

‘Stay!’ said Elias, grabbing his wrist. ‘Can you not see a rich prize when it stands before you? This is no jest, my friend. Westfield’s Men love you too much to practise such villainy upon you. This message could not be more precise. You have made a conquest, Edmund. Take her.’

Hoode stopped in his tracks. ‘Can this be true?’

‘Incontestably.’

‘I have at last won the heart of a lady?’

‘Heart, mind and body.’

‘Wonder of wonders,’ Hoode said, sniffing the rose before concealing it in his doublet once more. ‘I almost begin to believe it. It is such an unexpected bounty.’

‘They are the choicest kind.’

‘If this be love, indeed, it must be requited.’

‘Enjoy her!’

‘I will, Owen.’

‘Go to your bed so that you may dream dreams of joy.’

‘Press on.’

Still supported by the Welshman, Hoode lurched along the street with a new sense of purpose. Someone cared for him. He luxuriated in the thought for a whole glorious minute. A cold frost then attacked the petals of his happiness. The other Rose delivered a message of a different order.

‘My occupation is gone,’ he moaned.

‘That is not so, Edmund.’

‘I am pushed aside to make way for the ample girth of this Applegarth. There is not room enough in Westfield’s Men for him and for me.’

‘Indeed there is. Most companies lack one genius to fashion their plays. We have two. Our rivals are consumed with jealousy at our good fortune.’

‘My talents have been eclipsed.’

‘Never!’

‘They have, Owen. The Misfortunes of Marriage is work of a higher order than I can produce. It ousts me from the Rose Theatre, and rightly so.’

‘Your new piece will have its turn anon.’

‘How will it fare in the shadow of Jonas’s play? The Faithful Shepherd is a pigmy beside a giant. Why stage it and invite disgrace? I have suffered enough pain already.’

‘You do yourself wrong,’ said Elias earnestly. ‘Jonas has one kind of talent, you have quite another. Both can dazzle an audience in equal measure. Jonas may invest more raw power in his verse, but you have a grace and subtlety that he can never match.’

‘He is better.’

‘Different, that is all.’

‘Different in kind, superior in quality.’

‘That is a matter of opinion.’

‘It is Lawrence’s view,’ sighed Hoode, ‘and his is the opinion that holds sway in Westfield’s Men. He commissioned my new play for The Rose and could not have been more delighted with it. Until, that is, he espied this new star in the firmament. The Faithful Shepherd is then shunned like a leper and I become an outcast poet.’

‘No more of this self-imposed melancholy!’

‘I am finished, Owen. Dispatched into obscurity.’

‘Enough!’ howled the other, thrusting him against the wall of a house and holding him there with one hand. ‘Jonas Applegarth will never displace Edmund Hoode. You have given us an endless stream of fine plays, he has provided us with one. You are part of the fabric of the company, he is merely a colourful patch which has been sewn on.’

‘His play is the talk of London.’

‘How long will that last?’

‘Until he produces a new one to shame me even more.’

‘No!’ yelled Elias.

‘He has robbed me of my future.’

‘Look to the past instead.’

‘Why?’

‘Because there you will read the true story of Jonas Applegarth,’ said the Welshman persuasively. ‘A huge talent fills those huge breeches of his, it is true, but Westfield’s Men are not the first to perceive this. Jonas has been taken up and thrown back by every other troupe in London. He was too choleric for their taste.’

‘What are you telling me, Owen?’

‘He will not stay with us for long. His blaze of glory will be no more than that. A mere blaze that light up the heavens before fading away entire. We must profit from his brilliance while we may. Jonas will not survive.’ Owen patted his friend of the cheek. ‘You will, Edmund.’

***

Nicholas Bracewell was almost invariably the first member of the company to arrive at the Queen’s Head at the start of the day. On the next morning, however, the thud of a hammer told him that one of his colleagues had risen even earlier than he. Nathan Curtis, the master carpenter, was repairing a table for use in the performance that afternoon. Busy at his trade, he did not see the book holder striding across the innyard towards him.