Alms for Oblivion (29 page)

Once again I was able to buy some provisions from a housewife. She invited me to come in – her man was away across the fields, she told me several times, and he would be away all day
– and then she made me sit at her table and take some porridge. She would have provided more than simple sustenance, I think, particularly when she glimpsed the contents of my purse. But
there was a baby swaddled up in a corner and another one on the way, to judge by her belly, and an older child crawling around in the dirt and she had a wall-eye as well as a notable absence of
teeth and I had better things to do with my money. Besides I was not in the mood. At the moment I didn’t think I’d ever be in the mood for it again. So I warded off her questions,
complimented her on her porridge (which was indeed very filling), exchanged some of her bread for cash and set off once more.

It was a wearisome journey and it would be wearisome to recount it all in detail. Day succeeded night succeeded day. Eventually I reached the great plain north of Salisbury across which
I’d walked with the Chamberlain’s Men in the summer of the previous year, on the way to Instede House.
⁴
I couldn’t help thinking of how
different things had been then, of how blithely I’d kept company with my fellows, despite all the adventures which had overtaken us. In the summer the skies were open, the larks sang and the
path curled dustily across the plain. Now clouds tumbled low overhead and the chalky track was sogged and rutted. There were very few travellers. It was the afternoon and I wondered whether the
players would be performing at the Globe and, if so, what play they were presenting. What pieces had Jack told me were in prospect when he visited me in the Counter?
Fortune’s Eyes
and
The Law’s Delay
, weren’t they? I’d been due to appear in both. Well, my space would have been filled – rather as when a soldier falls in battle another one steps up
to take his place and no man spares a thought for the fallen, at least in the heat of battle. Now, I noted, I was inclined to think of the Chamberlain’s Company as ‘they’ rather
than ‘we’, and this was not the least of my losses.

After three or four nights on the road, sleeping in whatever shelter I could find and buying food by the wayside or in the villages, I decided to risk staying in an inn well beyond the western
edge of the plain. The Green Dragon was warm and welcoming. I snugged down in front of the fire with a glass of ale and ate the largest meal I’d had for several days. Giving the name of
William Topcourt – after all I’d already taken his coat (but, please God, wouldn’t be responsible for taking his life as well, a little voice whispered) – I spun a tale to
the landlord and to an inquisitive chambermaid of how I was returning home because my father had died. Bereavement is a good way of encouraging sympathy without provoking too many further
questions. My haste to get back would account for my travel-stained, distracted manner. I slept well, sharing the bed with only one other traveller, to whom I told the same tale of mourning, and set
off the next dawn, well breakfasted and renewed.

And the next night I did the same, lodging at an inn on the Bath road, at a place whose name I forget. Ate well, slept sound, started fresh. My store of money had carried me a long way –
but then it was not being extorted by a pack of turnkeys but was gladly surrendered to hospitable landlords and good-hearted housewives. By now I had fallen into a rhythm of walking. My legs seemed
to move of their own accord and, even though I was blistered and footsore, I was sure that they would take me, slowly but steadily, to the other side of the earth if they had to.

As I got nearer my destination, however, I felt less sure of what I was doing. When we were standing in the Southwark street, Lucy Milford had told me that I knew where I should go and the
realization of what she’d meant had struck home a few moments later. Literally struck home. But now I was by no means confident of the reception I’d get or – assuming that I was
at all gladly received – what I would do afterwards.

Even so it was a pleasure to be entering my own country now. No doubt my eyes and nose were partial but the Somerset air smelled fresher and sweeter, the pastures looked better tended, the
sheep-cots were neater and the sheep themselves less bedraggled, despite the wind and the rain. I could smell the sea or imagined I could smell it from the higher places I walked across. And it was
a pleasure to hear familiar accents in the hamlets I passed through.

I was not so far from my home village of Miching when an odd thing happened. For some time I’d been watching a figure making his way towards me on the road. By now I’d passed a good
few travellers both on foot and on horseback and we usually contented ourselves with a greeting, although some averted their eyes as if they had as much reason to be secretive about their journey
as I did. But when this individual drew closer he suddenly tumbled down in the roadway. Once on the ground he jerked about like a fallen puppet being tugged upright by its strings. Then he seemed
to give up the struggle and to lie still on his back, giving an occasional twitch.

I observed all this as I walked towards this man. I didn’t walk any quicker but neither did I slow my pace, although I did turn round to ascertain that there was no one else behind me. We
were in open country, with a few windswept trees. As I approached the figure I heard a subdued groaning and noticed that he was moving his head from side to side. There was something strange about
the lower part of his face and, as I drew nearer still, I saw that he was frothing at the mouth. When I’d got within a couple of yards of him I stopped, folded my arms and watched.

This gentleman was slightly built, with a tapering nose and a high forehead across which were smears of dried blood. It was difficult to tell his age, he was perhaps about my own years or a
little older, but his face was all brown and weatherworn indicating the outdoor life. He was bubbling at the mouth and uttering sounds that were without meaning. Most disconcertingly, his eyes were
open but the pupils had almost rolled up into his head and nothing except a yellowy white was visible.

I would have stepped around the figure and moved on down the road but something about him made me hesitate. So, without going any closer, I stood and waited. The wind whipped at my hair and I
shrugged myself further in Top-court’s coat. The man on the ground writhed a little more before going calm and quiet. His eyes closed and the foaming ceased. I coughed to let him know that I
was still there and, sure enough, after a minute or so, he opened his eyes, normal now, and looked around with a vacant expression.

I clapped a few leisurely claps, in that mocking fashion of which we are all master, like an unimpressed spectator in the theatre. His gaze flickered towards me and apparently took me in for the
first time. He seemed to consider. Then, with sudden agility, he sprung to his feet. He wiped at his sudsy mouth.

“I knew it wasn’t going to work,” he said.

“Why?” I said, genuinely curious.

“I can tell in moments if it’s going to. If the cony comes close and leans over or gets down on one knee, then it’ll work.”

“Gets down on one knee so that he can be beaten over the head?” I said.

A pained expression crossed the man’s mobile face.

“Gets down in order to help a fellow human being.”

“Who’s about to rob him.”

“Not rob him.”

“What then?”

To be honest, I didn’t know why I was engaging this gentleman in conversation. Perhaps I’d been so starved of dialogue on the road that I was happy with any company, even that of a
cony-catcher – or to be more specific a counterfeit crank. These gentlemen travel about our kingdom and when they see a likely prospect in their way they tumble down all in a heap, frothing
at the mouth and making moan. After a period they come to themselves again, all ignorant of their surroundings but grateful to the kind lady or gentleman who has stopped to assist them. They claim
to be victims of a falling-sickness which may strike them down at any moment, and they present a most piteous spectacle, with their faces all bloody and muddy from where they have fallen in
previous fits. But the real victim or cony in this situation is the innocent passer-by who delves into his purse to relieve the unfortunate.

“What is it then if it’s not robbery?” I said.

“I give good Christian men and good Christian women the chance to show charity and offer alms,” said this impudent fellow.

“By trickery.”

“No one suffers. They go on their way with their hearts warmer.”

“And their pockets lighter.”

“A small price to pay for a good deed.”

“I am pleased to meet a philosopher on the road,” I said.

The man gave an ironic little bow. He saw me looking curiously at his mouth, still whitened and sticky-looking.

“Soap. When I see someone in the distance I slip a small piece into my mouth and suck – suck judiciously.”

“And what about that?” I said, indicating the bloody smears on his forehead.

“Paint.”

“You should try sheep’s blood instead.”

“You speak like an expert, Master – ?”

“Topcourt. I should do, because I’m a player. A tragedian.”

Saying these words gave me a curious sense of relief. Even though they contained a minor untruth – a false name – they contained a larger and truthful fact. I
was
a player. I
was still a player.

“Where do you play?”

“Oh, in London, with the Chamberlain’s Company, the finest company in the land,” I said, then added in case he was wondering what I was doing so far away from such a fine
group, “I am out of the city because – because my father has recently died and I am on my way home.”

“I should have known better than to try and trick a Londoner,” he said.

“You weren’t to know it,” I said, almost as if it was I who had tried to trick him.

“My name is Abel Glaze,” said this man. I wondered whether it was his real name. He almost stretched out his hand to grasp mine but restrained himself at the last moment. Perhaps he
considered that both of us were in the same line of business, playing parts, deceiving people.

“How much can you expect to make?” I said.

“I once earned fourteen and threepence halfpenny
in a day
.”

He spoke proudly. I wasn’t surprised. It was more than I earned at the Globe in a couple of weeks.

“That was up near Reading way,” said the counterfeit crank called Abel Glaze. “Folk are more generous in those parts than they are down here.”

“More gullible, you mean.”

He shrugged. I grinned – grinned for the first time in many days. Who was I to look down on this individual, I who was on the run from the law for much more serious offences than feigning
sickness?

“Like you, Master Topcourt, I play more than one part,” said Glaze.

“I suppose you couldn’t spend your whole life falling down. It would be tedious.”

“You should see my old soldier,” he said, unburdening himself. “With the wounds I received in the Low Countries. Unslaked lime and a dab of iron rust excite the pity of the
ladies and the admiration of the men. I have a limp that I can call upon and many tales of the battle of Zutphen.”

“You are a resourceful fellow,” I said, not altogether mockingly.

“No lie, I was there at the battle when I was no more than a boy,” said Glaze, “but I came off unscathed through the shot and smoke. Not a scratch. And now the wars provide me
with a living in peace, the wars and the falling-sickness.”

There was something engaging about Abel Glaze. I was reluctant to part company with him while, for his part, he seemed eager to spill out the secrets of his trade. Perhaps he too was hungry for
company. The wind blew in our faces. His eyes widened. I looked behind me and saw two figures travelling down the route I’d come on, and the sight prompted me to get going again. But first I
rummaged in my purse and found a twopence piece. Glaze’s sharp nose quivered but he made a don’t-trouble-yourself gesture – after all, weren’t we fellow players? And he was
certainly more prosperous than me. Nevertheless, grateful for the diversion he’d provided, I tossed the coin to him and he caught the glinting silver, threw it up in the air and caught it
once more overhand. Then giving another little bow, not so ironic this time, he said, “I shall remember you kindly, Master Topcourt,” and set off in the direction of the two advancing
figures, a man and a woman.

I wondered whether he would try his tricks on them. I didn’t stop to see but put on speed to leave the scene.

Within a couple of hours I was within sight of my old village. I came over the brow of the hill and – heart beating fast, and not just from the uphill climb – glanced down almost
fearfully. When I’d last seen Miching on a fine spring morning my vision had been clouded by terror and pity. The doors to the houses were daubed with red crosses and pleas for God’s
mercy. Some of my father’s parishioners were being forked into a burial pit. Of my father and mother there was no sign (of course they were dead). The chief thing I remember is the absolute
silence of the place, as if a great hand had pressed down on the village and stifled all the life out of it. I think that, unknowingly, I’d been expecting everything to be unchanged from my
last terrible visit – that is, I expected the same absence of sound, the same deathly stillness.

But, on this gusty afternoon in late autumn, there were signs of renewed life. Smoke was being hustled away from cottage chimneys by the wind. A dog barked down below. Screwing up my eyes, I
could make out an individual coming through the lych-gate of the church. The activity surprised me. But the surprise was misplaced. It was now several years since the plague had struck Miching and,
although most of the villagers had died, a few survived. Peter Agate had told me as much. Houses and other places can be fumigated and made fit for human habitation once more. Eventually the
disease seems to grow tired and run its course. All is not lost. Why, in the years that I’d been absent in London, a little troop of children had probably been born to replenish some of the
old stock. For some reason, I felt my eyes prickling and dabbed at them. I stood a long time gazing at the scene which lay spread out down below.