Alms for Oblivion (15 page)

“Thank you, William,” I said again. “I don’t know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t arrived. It is not the first time you have saved me.”

“Don’t underestimate the apprentices, Nicholas.”

“I don’t . . . I didn’t stumble into this unthinkingly. I was trying to protect our foreign visitors.”

“Though it wouldn’t have been much use if you’d had to appear on stage with real injuries and not just those of Cupid’s dart – if you’d appeared at all, that
is. I meant, though, don’t underestimate the apprentices in a different way. They are young and given to riot but they’re also quick spectators. We should welcome them.”

“I thought you were merely . . . flattering them.”

“I was. But they are not fools. Some day some of them will climb the ladder. Why, one of those fellows we were talking to might become Lord Mayor in the future and receive foreign guests
with all ceremony and courtesy. If he remembers his rough-house days at all he will look back on them and laugh – or be ashamed of them. And he will be a very severe judge of the excesses of
the apprentices.”

I tried hard to visualize the red-headed carpenter or the playgoing cobbler rising to the heights of Lord Mayor and conversing gracefully with Dutchmen and Italians & cetera but
couldn’t do it. I suppose that’s the difference between someone with imagination, like WS, and a common player, like N. Revill.

“Did you want to note those bawdy jests down? You hadn’t really forgotten your notebook, had you?” I asked. I was eager, I must confess, that WS should know how I had been able
to retort upon the apprentices with the ‘Hole-land pun. I wanted to claim this original remark, made in the stress of the moment, for my own.

“I rather think I’ve used those jokes already – and will probably use them again,” he said. “And I wasn’t the first to make word-play with nethers and the
rest, either. The old jokes are the best ones.”

“Oh yes,” I said.

“You must go off to do your work, Nicholas, as a young lover in
Love’s Diversion
.”

I considered that I hardly needed reminding of this but WS had another purpose in making the remark and was only preparing the ground.

Shakespeare continued, “To do your work as a lover – to wit – ”

“To wit?” I said, baffled.

“To wit, to woo,” said WS, looking immensely pleased with himself. And then, in case I hadn’t got the joke, he flapped his arms and delivered it hootingly, “To wit, to
woo. To wit, to woo.”

“Very good,” I said, feeling as old as a grandfather in the presence of a small child.

“Well then,” said WS.

Sensing that our dialogue had come to an end – and where could it go after that? – I went off to change for my part in the play. When I was on stage during that cold, dank afternoon
I cast occasional glances down into the groundlings’ area to see whether any of the apprentice gang had taken up WS’s invitation to watch our play. I thought I spotted a rusty head
somewhere in the middle of the pit but couldn’t be sure. I marvelled at WS’s dexterity, even as I was astonished at the depths to which he’d sink in quest of a pun. Not only had
he rescued me outside the theatre from an almost certain beating, but he had won the interest, even the respect of the two young men – and he had probably swelled our audience by a few
too.

For a time I even forgot that a cloud of murderous suspicion was hanging over me.

T
he Chamberlain’s Company fought out the battle of Troy in the hall of Middle Temple – or a chunk of the battle anyway, since the real
thing lasted for ten years. During one dank and foggy night in the early part of November the students and benchers lapped up
The Famous History of Troilus and Cressida
. The dining tables
were piled to one side and our audience either perched on bum-numbing benches in the well of the hall or, in the case of the higher-ups, were seated more comfortably on the dais at the far end.

The great room glowed with its own lustre. The bank of varnished portraits, magnified versions of the worthies sitting beneath them on the dais, caught the rays thrown out by the clusters of
candles. The mighty roof, with its tiers of beams, disappeared into mysterious shadows. There was a dark sheen over everything, a sheen which bespoke quiet learning and modest wealth. Not that the
behaviour of the students was quiet or modest. If they were affected by the presence of the justices, coroners, benchers and serjeants-at-law on the dais or by the fair number of lady guests they
didn’t show it. For all the soberness of their dress, these fledgling lawyers were loud before we started and loud throughout. They sighed windily at Troilus’s love-sickness guffawed
coarsely at the bawdy of Pandarus, sniggered cynically at Thersites’ satires on the Greek commanders. They especially enjoyed the blood-letting at the end when we squeezed hidden sponges or
burst bladders concealed under our clothes to simulate the carnage outside Troy gates.

In other words, the law students weren’t so different from the other audiences we play to. But they did fall silent and pay particular attention in those places where a less educated
– or less arrogant – lot might have permitted their ears, eyes and minds to wander. That is, during the debates in the Greek and Trojan camps on warfare and honour, on time and memory.
As I’d grown more familiar with the play I saw how artfully WS had tailored the action to his watchers and listeners. For what most of these people, these Greeks and Trojans, do most of the
time is to sit, stand, talk and debate. And what is it that lawyers do but sit, stand & cetera? The cut-and-thrust of argument is the very air which these people breathe – even if it is a
somewhat refined air for the rest of us.

One part of my part as Troilus had a particular flavour for me, playing in this place. As I’ve said, I suspected one of the students, Michael Pye, of usurping my position in Nell’s
favours. Tell myself as I might that I had no right to feel this way, I couldn’t help seeing a very faint shadow of my situation in Troilus’s. His plight is infinitely worse, of course.
The Trojan prince has been betrayed by the woman to whom he has surrendered his whole heart and soul. Revill, on the other hand, was merely passed over by a whore even while he had been thinking of
rejecting her himself. Nevertheless I felt just a touch of Troilus’s agony as he spies on his rival, the Greek Diomedes, making overtures to Cressida. And worse, as he sees her give way
before his eyes.

I knew that Michael Pye was in the audience, having glimpsed him in the company of his friend Edmund Jute. As Pye watched me playing the heart-sick Troilus, I wondered whether he knew me for a
rival – if that was what he was. I resolved to see Nell for a final time and settle things one way or the other.

But it was not that moment in the play when I spy on my faithless Cressida which I had especial cause to remember. Rather, it was an earlier point in the action which haunted me for a long time
afterwards, and which had consequences too.

This is how it happened. When Cressida is claimed back by her father she must depart straightaway from Troy for the Greek camp. The parting lovers swear hurried vows of fidelity. As tokens of
their eternal faith, Troilus unfastens the sleeve of his doublet and gives it to his love while she hands him her glove. As far as Troilus is concerned, although of course he’s not to know it
at the time, this giving of a sleeve is what they call a ‘sleeveless errand’ or a useless gesture, since he gets no reward for his token of love except betrayal. I’d wondered
whether the presence of this joke – a kind of visual pun – had occurred to WS as he was writing the scene. Perhaps I should mention it to him.

(By the by, this habit of giving away one’s detachable sleeve is all very well for gentlemen in the moneyed and leisured classes who can afford to replace their doublets or get new sleeves
as often as they like. I can’t say that I’ve ever done it myself though. I can’t afford to. I only possess one doublet. What do those other fellows do with the remaining sleeve,
anyway? Give it to their second, secret mistress? You don’t see men going round with one-armed doublets. No, I’ve never had the resources to wear my heart on my sleeve. Or to receive a
glove in return.)

I was playing opposite Peter Pearce, a boy-player who was fast making a name for himself in our Company. Ever since we’d had to face the rivalry of the child actors in Paul’s or
Blackfriars, our seniors had paid a little more attention to the recruitment of our young players – that is, those who would take the women’s parts – recognizing that an audience
can be drawn by quality here as elsewhere.

We were saying our urgent goodbyes. Peter’s voice hadn’t yet broken, of course, but he delivered his lines with an adult tremor.

In his protestation of truth was a world of hope and fear. And I – or rather Troilus – reply,

. . .
as I unpick the sleeve of my doublet to present to Cressida as a token. And then something odd happened.

My doublet was made of brocade with figures of gold thread. It was a lavish garment appropriate to a prince. The light from the sconces and the hanging candles was concentrated around our
playing-area in front of the hall-screen. Now the lights all seemed to gather and glitter on the rich sleeve and my eyes were so taken up by the dazzle that I forgot what I had to say next. I
dried. At the same time I felt the hair on my nape bristle as if the sleeve were a dead thing. Mostly I was conscious of the golden sleeve dangling from my hand, but with one small quarter of my
mind I knew that Peter Pearce, as he thrust at me with a finely worked lady’s glove, was saying the lines which had been written for him.

Still he gestured with the glove.

Cressida’s question echoed in my head, and no answer came.

When we’re playing at the Globe our book-keeper, Master Allison, or one of his underlings acts as our prompt from one of the points in the tire-house where he has an eye-hole on to the
stage. But in the somewhat more awkward circumstances of the Middle Temple hall, not designed expressly for playing, the prompter was behind one of the entrance doors. It might not be immediately
apparent that I’d lost the thread, even though an experienced prompter can usually tell from a player’s tone or from that pause which lasts half a beat too long that things aren’t
going as they should.

This time no prompt came. The pause, which can only have lasted seconds, seemed to stretch to infinity. I was aware now of the shadowy vastness of the banqueting-hall, of the crowd of watching
dark-suited figures, and of a roaring in my ears. The world spun. I shivered slightly. Then, as abruptly as the fit had arrived, it departed. There was Peter Pearce standing before me, holding out
the glove and mouthing
When?
like a fish out of water. There was the audience hanging on my reply – and here were WS’s words come fresh into my head.

. . . and, so saying, I at last surrendered a golden sleeve in exchange for a delicate glove.

After the play was over, I was expecting a rebuke or at least a comment from my fellows. It’s natural to pick over the performance for its good and bad passages. Instead I received
compliments on my playing as Troilus and particularly for the scene when Cressida and I swapped love-tokens.

“That was a poignant moment, Nick, when you and Cressida parted,” said Michael Donegrace, the boy-player who’d graduated to men’s parts and who was still attentive to
those scenes in which he might, until recently, have been playing the female role. We were changing out of our costumes in a makeshift tire-room behind the hall-screen. “It was as if you
could glimpse into the future and knew that you would not be seeing your Cressida again, or not be seeing her in such a loving light. By your pausing and the little shake you gave you seemed to say
so.”

“Thank you, Michael.”

I shrugged off the compliment in a grateful way and marvelled at how my incompetence could be transformed to artistry. I think that Peter Pearce alone was aware of how I’d lost my lines
but he was too generous or too sensitive or too ambitious a young soul to give me away.

Troilus and Cressida
was done and not to be repeated, at least in Middle Temple. I wondered whether our seniors would transfer it to the Globe playhouse. Perhaps not. It might be caviar
to the general – too crabbed, too inward and talkative for the public taste. It may seem strange, almost spendthrift, to mount a play for one night only, but the Chamberlain’s was no
doubt being well remunerated for it. (I didn’t know. I simply and gratefully accepted my shilling a day.) We also had to bear in mind the calibre of our audience; men who were rich and
powerful or who would be those things one day. At this time of uncertainty, with a sick patron and a Queen who could not live much longer, it was useful to have friends with influence.

So the play was over, the costumes, props and scrolls packed away. But our revels were by no means ended. Perhaps it’s the intentness of their studies which makes these law students take
their pleasures so seriously – and noisily. The rafters rang. The air grew hotter and thicker with smoke from the pipes and guttering candles. There was drinking and singing and music and
dancing and more drinking, and much consorting with the players and guests.

A full tankard was thrust into my hand from somewhere and I drank copiously to cool myself down. But it had the opposite effect of heating me up. Never mind. Looking around, I was pleased to see
Richard Milford or, more particularly, Richard’s pretty young wife, Lucy. Not so pleased, however, to see that they were accompanied by his patrons, the Bumpkins, Lord Robert Venner and his
sister Lady Vinny. Brother and sister seemed already far gone in drink and clung to each other for support, like two squat, fleshy pillars. The porcine eyes of Lord Robert squinted warily round the
room. He seemed to be regarding me with particular suspicion. Once again the lady was showing a good deal of undesired flesh. It could be that she was hoping to attract some well-connected lawyer.
Even as I watched I saw Pye and Jute and a couple of other students ogling her, but in a mocking way. Eventually they came right up and peered down at her bosom. She didn’t seem to mind and
nor did her brother, but Richard Milford, more mindful of his patrons’ honour than they were of their own, shooed the young lawyers away with a few choice words.