The Player's Boy is Dead

by Leonard Tourney

  "Let us too," she said, "keep this conversation privily between us. There is no need to cause my husband concern, who is already tormented that I should suffer humiliation from a servant's lies. I have tried to convince him, perhaps not with great success, that I discount such mendacity and would not have him discover that I have had to be so bold in enlisting your support of us."

  Again she extended her hand and he bent low to kiss it. Then she smiled softly and went into the house through the great hall.

  Varnell went directly to his chamber. He flung off his boots, threw himself on his bed, and began to reflect with growing delight on the day's events. She had believed his account after all, even providing him a justification and forgiveness for his own complicity in the murder, a thing she would hardly have done, he reasoned, did she not feel genuine affection for him. How empty are these fears and omens to which fond men give credence, he thought; how quickly fortune spins her wheel and turns catastrophe to triumph. He almost laughed for joy, but then he began to regret the two hours he had spent beside the dying hostler and determined to find the handkerchief with which he had mopped the man's feverish brow and burn it forthwith.

  At dawn they breakfasted on eggs and cheese, bid Big Tod and Gwen Godspeed on their journey to London, and Joan turned her thoughts to the day's business in the shop while her husband called to Philip to saddle the horse, for he would ride to the Hall, the road being too muddy to endure by foot or trust to the cart.

  He had slept fitfully, awakening once from a dream of vague but disturbing shapes to mutter a prayer and crawl closer to Joan, breathing softly next to him. He felt tired, as though he had not slept at all.

  "What will you say to him?" she had asked when they were alone, not bothering to explain to whom she had referred.

  "I will say the truth, that I am permitted by law to free at my own discretion those charged with breaking of the peace and that in this instance I took advantage of the privilege."

  "I fear he will take it badly.''

  "Aye, he may, but in any case I have done what I have done."

  To that she said nothing, but went about her duties, calling Alice and Betty to the cleaning above and the apprentice boy to open the shop to early custom.

  Matthew rode slowly, once mounted, for the street would not bear a gallop, this being market day and the town full of countryfolk loaded with wares. Besides he was in no hurry, for as he contemplated another interview with the magistrate he found his new knowledge of the man's private life more a burden than a help. He felt tainted by his knowledge, his innocence lost. Joan had been right all along.

  At the Hall he was admitted at once, an efficiency that only added to his apprehension. He had not decided just how he was to explain himself to Saltmarsh. It was within his power, he knew, to let the actor and the maid go free, but he feared his freeing of them injudicious. He had tried to read the old servingman's face, to find in the man's eyes or set of lips some forewarning of the wrath to come, but he might have been the curate making the parish rounds for all Daniel's face revealed of his master's state of mind.

  "You are up early; that's good," Saltmarsh said, advancing to meet him. "You have brought my wife's girl and the player?"

  "I released them this morning, satisfied that they would cause no disturbance, and they are by now five miles for London."

  He had told the truth outright, not stopping once he had begun but letting it all out so that the full measure of the magistrate's response might be obtained with equal promptness. He did not wish to prolong the unpleasantness of the scene.

  Saltmarsh scowled with displeasure. "I see," he said. "You took it upon yourself to do this?"

  "Sir, I saw it within my charge. My cellar is but small. Twill hold few malefactors, and this being market day, I thought it better to let them be who had done no more than occasion a quarrel. There was no harm done."

  Saltmarsh walked to the window to gaze on some distant object. "Did not my secretary inform you that the girl was a runaway from my service and that it was for this reason I wished her returned forthwith?"

  "He did, sir, and charged her as bound to you. Yet he provided no proof, and such would be required in a court of law before the girl might be held."

  Saltmarsh turned abruptly. "Was not my secretary's word proof enough. Need I have come myself? And if I had done, would you have been so bold as to call me a liar.''

  Matthew began a reply, but the magistrate's next outburst prevented it. "You may take your leave, Master Stock, both of this house and of your office. I will keep no servant I cannot rule, nor constable either. You have stood between me and my will. I will not tolerate it."

  Saltmarsh was screaming with rage; his eyes blazed and saliva formed little bubbles in the corners of his mouth. Matthew stepped backward in alarm, ready if needful to ward off a blow. He had been prepared for anger, but anger of the sort he was accustomed to in persons of authority— cold, calculated, and restrained. There was something patently absurd in the magistrate's raving, and yet Matthew felt the firm grip of fear. The man was mad, really mad.

  "I beg your forgiveness if I have offended—"

  "If you have offended? If you have offended?"

  "Sir, I—"

  "Get out! Be off!"

  Matthew turned on his heels, not waiting for the servingman to show him the way out.

  Saltmarsh cursed God, long and vilely. He hated to be crossed, and he had been so served by everyone within his house—the Welsh girl, his wife, and now the constable. He felt as though he must thrash out at something; he would have destroyed some of the chamber's furnishings had he not remembered the cost. But it had no sooner come upon him that his fit began to subside. His head ceased to pound, his chest to heave; he paced the floor nervously contemplating his next move. He remembered the priest—a fool but one who could be of use. Fear would make him pliant enough, and if not fear then the man's lust would put the priest in his pocket. Saltmarsh felt better at the thought; he felt the master again.

  When the priest entered several hours later, Saltmarsh sat composed and dignified, but he immediately observed in the man's manner a strange confidence of step and expression. He bid Saltmarsh good day as though the two had just met upon the road, accepted without hesitation a comfortable chair, and sat, his legs crossed, his eyes clear and guileless. Saltmarsh decided to remain standing, if only to have the advantage in height and bulk. So the man had found his backbone. That would make the game all the more to his liking, and the victory to his credit, he reflected.

  Saltmarsh began: "I have determined, to my regret, that I may have been overhasty in accepting my wife's account of the incident. Women often misconstrue a word, a glance of the eye. A man may fall into sin and be up to his neck .before he knows it."

  Saltmarsh watched surprise betrayed on the priest's features with dumb amusement. It was an ill mariner who could not catch the wind from some direction. He continued: "You are a priest, though in your violation of my wife you have acted wrongly, for which I pray God forgive you. Yet you have some knowledge from your calling of the nature of women?"

  "Some knowledge, perhaps," the priest replied uncertainly.

  "Well, then you must know that although 'tis the nature of women to submit to their husbands, there be some who are so reluctant to do so that canon law disjoins them."

  "You speak of conjugal relations?"

  "I do."

  The priest's voice had been steady at first; now a quivering betrayed his puzzlement. "But," he said, "I do not see how this pertains, for if you will pardon my recalling it, your wife seems a proper woman in all respects."

  "Aye, and so she may be with some men, but unfortunately she is not with her lawful husband."

  "I see," the priest said, obviously puzzled still.

  "Ah," Saltmarsh said wistfully, "I wonder if you do." He clasped his hands behind his back and walked toward the window, where he stood staring for some time while the priest sat in silence, feeding, Saltmarsh
felt sure, on his curiosity. When he believed sufficient time to have passed, he proceeded, but if anything, with even more circumspection.

  "We are both men of understanding, of experience. Although 'tis my shame to admit it, my wife does not follow natural courses, but prefers her pleasure from strange men. You are not the first in whose arms I have found her, and perhaps that is why I am now so ready to forgive you. You see I have had practice—in forgiving.'Tis a godly thing to do, is it not?"

  "Most assuredly, sir."

  "Well, then, you see that I do have my virtues, do I not?"

  "Most certainly."

  "Then I must tell you that I too have my foibles, one of which being that although I detest my wife's unnatural affection I suffer it, for her sake, for I love her-more than my life and would sooner give her pleasure, though indirectly, than see her want."

  Saltmarsh turned suddenly to note the effect of this on the priest and was pleased to find him off guard still, for he sat in his chair as a schoolboy browbeaten by a stem master.

  "You are indeed a most tolerant husband," the priest said with genuine amazement.

  "Let us say 'forgiving.' The word is more apt, is it not?"

  The priest agreed, then said, "But I understand not yet how I might rectify my abuse of you, sir. For indeed you were my host, and I did sin against you as well as God."

  Saltmarsh paused, reflecting on the question as though it were at that very moment that the precise way to the priest's redemption was to be determined. "You may," he proceeded, "do two things. First, resolve me in my mind whether my forgiveness in such a case be allowable before God."

  "Sir, although I be before the bench myself in this affair, I can honestly say that no man would blame you were your sword to find its home in my breast, but also that the angels will praise you with the saints were you to be forgiving."

  Saltmarsh smiled and approached him genially. "Then might you resolve me also in this, as to whether my forgiveness of my wife's fault might lawfully be extended to facilitate it, to the end that her natural wants be not denied."

  The priest paused, then said, " 'Tis a difficult question, out of my ken who am not versed in the thornier issues of casuistry. And yet I should think that were one to be sanctioned, the allowance of the other would follow hard upon."

  "Good," Saltmarsh replied goodheartedly. "Then might the satisfaction of my wife be the work of a sound man, or to put it in another way, would the lover's act be sanctioned in such a case?"

  The priest hesitated again, avoiding Saltmarsh's eyes. " 'Twould be adultery, plain and simple," he replied haltingly.

  "And yet is there not a higher law, one that in such an extraordinary case as this might—"

  "I think not, Sir Henry. Adultery 'twould be."

  "But consider this, man," Saltmarsh began earnestly. "Does it not follow that if an act be to a good end, then the act itself be good and the actor justified?''

  The priest let this settle, prying his eyes from the floor to meet those of the man before him. "You have matched me in logic, sir. I grant you that the doer of a good act is justified in any case."

  "Then," Saltmarsh concluded triumphantly, "would it run against your profession to continue to serve my wife and me in mis? For I know you now to be no common lecher but a gentleman bred, fallen from grace not by your own will but by the power of my wife's beauty."

  "Do you intend me for your wife's lover, then?" the priest asked, with astonishment.

  "I do, for I tell you that I have no greater desire in this life than that every desire of hers be fulfilled. If she has chosen you among others, then I shall choose you as well and give you my hand upon it."

  Saltmarsh extended his hand to the priest, who sat still yet, as though he had awakened from a deep sleep to find himself at court without his boots. After a moment or two he rose and allowed himself to be led to the door. As they passed into the great hall, Saltmarsh whispered, "Master Hayforth, there is one thing yet that I would ask of you concerning your new duties in the house.'Tis a special favor that might make you feel . . . awkward ... at first, but you will get accustomed to it and it will give me no little satisfaction."

  As he left Saltmarsh's chamber, the priest felt emotionally depleted and confused. He had expected another angry confrontation with an outraged husband, more threats of violence and imprisonment, and a hailstorm of curses. In their place he had found a most willing cuckold, a hypocritical villain, and a logic chopper who was quicker to rectify an infamous appetite than a dozen fanatical Puritans their gluttony. And like a kindly old uncle, the man had led him from his private chamber with the most outrageous invitation yet. The priest thought himself well traveled in the realms of lust, but he had never seen the like.

  Though bizarre, the arrangement would have piqued his interest had his amorous encounter with Cecilia Saltmarsh not left such a bad taste in his mouth. If only the woman he had thought her to be had graced his sheets rather than the cold and calculating whore who, if her husband's tale was to be credited, was more wonderful in her appetite than in her frigidity.

  Well, he concluded, Cecilia Saltmarsh should howl for a week before he would do her service, in bed or otherwise. At that he went quickly to his chamber and secured the door from within. For a long time he sat on his bed thinking. Then he quickly gathered his few things and made his way as quietly from the house as he could, using the escape route Cecilia Saltmarsh had shown him on the day of his arrival.

  There was no time to secure another mount in town. He walked toward the lodge and then to the highway where he hoped to hail the London coach, although he had no idea of its schedule. The road was empty of traffic and nearly dry except in those places where wagons and coaches had left ruts. These he avoided carefully, keeping his eyes fixed to the road, occasionally turning to look behind him, half fearing to see Saltmarsh or one of his toadies in pursuit. But the Hall sat as forlorn as Babylon. Only a thin curl of smoke making its way heavenward from one of the chimneys betrayed the life within. Then he reached the brow of the hill and the great house disappeared from sight.

  He had no sooner become conscious of the stillness, the unnerving desolation of the fields and woods, but it was broken by the distant rhythm of horses' feet. To his view the road to the north remained empty still. Then from over the hill he saw the top of a coach, and then the coach itself bearing down upon him. He halted in his way, stepping to the side of the roadway and lifting an arm for a signal. When the driver made no effort to slow the team, the priest stepped to the center of the road and began to wave both hands, thinking perhaps the driver thought him but a gawking country man. But the coach came on, if anything increasing its speed, and by the time the priest recognized the driver as the ill-faced groom from the Hall it was too late to leap from danger. He did not have time to cry out in terror before he was caught between the first pair of horses and dragged beneath the coach.

  At the same moment that the priest met his death on the London road, Matthew entered his shop pleased to find his wife and assistant Thomas beyond the counter seeing to the needs of a half dozen prosperous-looking customers. Joan gave him a quick glance and a smile, then proceeded with the business at hand. Well, he thought, his news might wait, being mixed of good and ill. He removed his hat and cloak, hung both on the rack by the door, and rolled up his sleeves ready to resume his familiar trade. But after a few minutes about his business, he realized that it was simply not the same. He would not for the world have remained constable still, but the unresolved murder of the players' boy remained a piece of unfinished business that he was Hard put to givote, private citizen or no.

  Toward late afternoon the shop became empty as customers milled in the streets, feeding upon market-day dainties and the entertainment of minstrels attracted by the crowd.

  "Well, that's that," Joan said philosophically when he had told her of his dismissal. "I hope it hasn't put you out of sorts."

  "I am at once relieved and vexed,'' he replied thoughtfully. "
And yet I know that had I never been elected constable in the first place I would never have missed the honor. Now that I think the better on it, maybe it is not the office but the particular commission. This whole week I have given to the resolution of a crime. Now that I am done with it I feel as though I had been deprived of a right."

  She brought him porridge and a short pot of ale. "Well," she said after a few moments of thought, "the town know Saltmarsh and they know you, and if from that they take you as nought else but abused, I'll miss my guess."

  "Ah, Joan," he said affectionately, "did honors depend upon your word, I would be knight."

  She laughed and removed the few simple utensils. Of the porridge he had eaten little. "You may be knight yet, and not upon my word but on that of those hereabouts who know you for the good man you are."

  He reached out to embrace her, but she danced away girlishly. "Will you flirt with me?" he said, laughing.

  "Aye, I will," she replied coyly. " 'Tis a woman's way."

  "In that case, let Thomas see to the afternoon's business, while you and I recall our youth."

  She snorted with mock outrage. "Youth? Hardly need I recall what I've never lost, man. I know not about you."

  "So you will play married to an old man, will you? Then I'll show you a thing." He bounded after her, just missing her apron strings as she darted behind a counter. Plump and well girded with stays and petticoats, she was nonetheless fleet of foot, and Matthew soon found himself breathless.

  "You see how a simple woman can put you to work," she said, grinning slyly. "Agree to that in principle, and you shall have me as you will."

  "A good man of business will never pass up such an offer. Besides I fear for our reputations should we be suddenly interrupted by someone thinking that this be a place of business and not of courting as we have now made it."

  She led the way up to their chamber and he watched while she undressed, as unashamed as though she were alone; and yet at the same time her face bore both the confidence of love and the expectation of its pleasures. When she was in bed, lying in the afternoon sunlight streaming through the great bay window of their chamber, he removed his own clothing. Her eyes were shut but he knew she was not asleep.