Edward Marston - The Laughing Hangman

‘This is shameful!’ he snarled. ‘I would not dare to put such a miserable account of the play before a crew of drunken sailors, let alone in front of a paying audience. Where is your art, sirs? Where is your self-respect? Where is your pride in our work? We laboured hard to make the Children of the Chapel Royal a company of distinction. Will you betray all that we have struggled to create?’

The cast stood there with heads bowed while the manager harangued them. Some shook with trepidation, others shed tears, all were plunged into the deepest melancholy. Parsons came striding down the hall to bang on the edge of the stage with his fist.

‘Why are you doing this to me!’ he demanded.

The youngest member of the company was its spokesman.

‘We are grieving, sir,’ said Philip Robinson meekly.

‘That performance was enough to make anyone grieve!’

‘Master Fulbeck is ever in our minds.’

Nods of agreement came from several of the cast and more eyes moistened. Philip Robinson’s own face was glistening with tears. Short, slim and pale, he wore the costume of Mariana as if it were a set of chains. Features which had a feminine prettiness when animated were now dull and plain. His body sagged. His voice was a pathetic bleat.

‘We are too full of sadness, sir,’ he said.

The manager’s first impulse was to supplant the sadness with naked fear. It would not be the first time that he had instilled terror into his company in order to raise the level of their performance. Instinct held him back. These were unique circumstances, calling for a different approach. Instead of excoriating his juvenile players, therefore, he opted for a show of compassion.

Clambering upon the stage, he beckoned them closer.

‘We all mourn him,’ he said softly. ‘And rightly so. The cruel manner of his death makes it an intolerable loss. Master Fulbeck was the only true begetter of this theatre. Though the Chapel Royal was his first love, he came to take an equal delight in your work here at Blackfriars. Hold to that thought. We do not play Mariana’s Revels for our own benefit or even for the entertainment of our spectators. We stage it in remembrance of Cyril Fulbeck, late Master of the Chapel. Will you honour his name with a jaded performance?’

‘No, Master Parsons,’ said Philip boldly.

‘Shall we close the theatre and turn people away? Is that what he would have wanted? Or shall we continue the noble work which he first started here? Cyril Fulbeck died in and for this theatre. The place to celebrate his memory is here on this very stage with a play which he held dear.’

‘Yes!’ called a voice at the back.

‘We must play on!’ added another.

‘Under your instruction,’ said Philip Robinson.

‘So it will be,’ decided Parsons, watching their spirits revive. ‘But let us do it with no show of sadness or despair. Mariana’s Revels is a joyful play. Speak its lines with passion. Dance its measures with vigour. Sing its songs with elation. Tell us why, Philip.’

‘They were written by Master Fulbeck himself.’

‘Even so. Most of them fall to Mariana to sing. Give them full voice, my boy. Treat them like hymns of praise!’

‘Yes, sir!’

The rehearsal started again with a new gusto. For all his youth and inexperience, Philip Robinson led the Chapel Children like a boy on a mission, taking his first solo and offering it up to Heaven in the certainty that it would be heard and applauded by the man who had composed it for him.

***

Marriage to an actor as brilliant and virile as Lawrence Firethorn brought many pains but they were swamped beneath the compensating pleasures. Foremost among these for his redoubtable wife, Margery, was the never-ending delight of watching him ply his trade, strutting the stage with an imperious authority and carving an unforgettable performance in the minds of the onlookers. His talent and his sheer vitality were bound to make countless female hearts flutter and Firethorn revelled in the adulation. When Margery visited the Queen’s Head, she could not only share in the magic of his art, she could also keep his eye from roving and his eager body from straying outside the legitimate confines of the marital couch.

Vincentio’s Revenge was a darker play in the repertoire of Westfield’s Men, but one that gave its actor-manager a superb role as the eponymous hero. It never failed to wring her emotions and move Margery to tears. Since it was being played again that afternoon, she abandoned her household duties, dressed herself in her finery and made her way to Gracechurch Street with an almost girlish excitement. Good weather and high hopes brought a large audience converging on the Queen’s Head. Pleased to see the throng, Margery was even more thrilled to identify two of its members.

‘Anne!’ she cried. ‘This is blessed encounter.’

‘You come to watch Vincentio’s Revenge ?’

‘Watch it, wonder at it and wallow in it.’

‘May we then sit together?’ suggested Anne Hendrik.

‘Indeed we may, though I must warn you that I will use all the womanly wiles at my command to steal that handsome gallant away from your side.’

Preben van Loew blushed deeply and made a gesture of self-deprecation. Margery’s blunt speech and habit of teasing always unnerved him. When the three of them paid their entrance fee to the lower gallery, the old Dutchman made sure that Anne sat between him and the over-exuberant Margery. It allowed the two women to converse freely.

‘I have not seen you this long while,’ said Margery.

‘My visits to the Queen’s Head are less frequent.’

‘You are bored with Westfield’s Men?’

‘Far from it,’ said Anne. ‘It is work that keeps me away and not boredom. I love the theatre as much as ever.’

‘Does Nicholas know that you are here?’

‘No, he does not.’

‘Then it were a kindness to tell him. It would lift his spirits to know that you were in the audience.’

‘I am not so sure.’

‘He dotes on you, woman,’ said Margery with a nudge. ‘Are you blind? Are you insensible? If a man as fine and upright as Nick Bracewell loved me, I would never leave his side for a second. He misses you, Anne.’

‘I miss him,’ she said involuntarily.

‘Then why keep him ignorant of your presence?’

‘It is needful.’

‘For whom? You or him?’

‘I simply came to watch a play, Margery.’

‘Then why not visit The Rose, which is closer to your home and far more commodious? Why not go to Shoreditch to choose between The Curtain and The Theatre? Deceive yourself, but do not try to deceive me. You came here for a purpose.’

‘To see Vincentio’s Revenge ,’ insisted Anne.

‘I will not press the matter.’

‘What happened between Nick and myself is…all past.’

‘Not in his mind. Still less in his heart.’

Anne grew pensive. Margery’s companionship gave her joy and discomfort in equal measure. Anne’s feelings were so confused that she was not quite sure why she had decided to find the time to attend the play, and to release Preben van Loew from his work in order to chaperone her. She had responded to an urge which had yet to identify itself properly.

‘Forgive me,’ said Margery, squeezing her wrist in apology. ‘My fondness for Nick makes me speak out of turn. You and he need no Cupid. I’ll hold my peace.’

‘A friend’s advice is always welcome.’

‘You know what mine would be. I say no more.’

Anne nodded soulfully and a surge of regret ran through her. It soon passed. Vincentio’s Revenge began and the forthright woman beside her turned into a sobbing spectator. Anne herself was caught up in the emotion of the piece and whisked along for two harrowing but glorious hours by its poetry and its poignancy. It was only when the performance was over that she realised why she had come to it.