Daniel only grunted and drew on his drink. “You’ve changed since I last saw you. The Suzanne I once knew would have announced the situation loud and clear, and devil take the hindmost.”
“I had to change, otherwise I would die. And certainly so would my son.” There was a long pause, then she said, “Your son.”
He looked over at her, then away. The lines in his face seemed to deepen, but he said nothing.
Finally she asked, “Why did you invite me here today?”
“I wanted to see you again.” He said it with a warm smile, as if she should be pleased he’d favored her with his attention.
“Why?” Attention was well and good, but money would be better, if some were in the offing.
“Why did I want to see you again? I’ve always wanted it. Since I left for York with Charles, and especially during the time we were on the Continent. I’ve missed you.”
The sentiment touched her, and she felt the old feeling rise, but she tamped it down as useless to her. “I’ve certainly missed you, as well. I could hardly breathe for eighteen years of having no support and no father for Piers.”
“I couldn’t help that.”
“Your helplessness didn’t change our need.” She took a deep draught of her ale and said, “Is your wife still living?”
He nodded.
Suzanne’s heart sank, and only then did she realize she’d harbored a tiny hope he would be a widower ready to marry her. She tucked that dead wish away, never to entertain it again. “Children?”
He shook his head. “None came before I left London, and I haven’t been back since. So…no children.” Then he said, “You ask to know whether I would support you and Piers.”
“You owe us. You owe him.”
“I’ve no money. Since the death of her father, my wife has lived comfortably these years with her brother, and it’s only by force of law she’s returned to me.” Suzanne mentally cursed the law that chained Daniel to that woman. “While following the elder Charles during the war, then his son in exile, I’ve had no income other than what could be begged from those on the Continent who hate Puritans. The very clothes we wore on our entrance to London were provided by Parliament so we wouldn’t appear to the commons as beggars unfit to rule.” Suzanne then noticed the outfit he wore today was the same as he’d worn yesterday, but with the gold braid removed from the green cloak. He seemed to be telling the truth, and had more than likely sold the braid for cash.
“So you say no, you cannot support us.”
“That is so. As I said, there is no money even to support myself.”
“I cannot go back to the brothel. Even if it were still there, my days of selling myself are over. Certainly I would starve on what I could get for my aging body. Anymore, I can no longer attract even a Puritan rotted with lust and hypocrisy, one too ashamed of himself to be seen with me in public.”
Daniel grinned, and suddenly reminded her of the youth he had once been. “Nonsense. You’re still quite attractive.”
Suzanne surprised herself by blushing, though she noted the word “still” had the same mitigating power as “handsome.”
“What of Piers? He should be old enough to provide an adequate living.”
“Adequate is different things to different people. And besides, Piers hasn’t yet found employment, so there’s no question that the living he currently provides is inadequate by any standard.”
Daniel considered for a moment, then said, “I’ll make some enquiries, though there will be a great number of more worthy men seeking positions, and finding a place for a young man with no connections and little experience will be difficult.”
“He’s you for a connection.”
“Not so much as one might think. Nobody knows I have a son.”
Were she still able to blush with shame, she would have. “They don’t? Nobody?” His wife might have been kept in the dark, but it shocked Suzanne that Daniel had never told anyone at all.
“I would prefer it didn’t get out, and therefore possibly back to my wife. My position with Anne, and her brother who is now duke, is precarious enough, I’m afraid. He spent the past decade garnering power in Parliament, and that hasn’t changed since the restoration of the monarchy. And he hates me in the bargain, even without knowing about Piers.”
“You won’t be dependent on the brother for long. Surely the king will restore your lands to you.”
“If he can.”
“He’s the king.”
“And he has just slightly less power than Parliament and astonishingly less money. There are hundreds of loyal royalists climbing all over each other, seeking restoration of their lands taken from them by Cromwell. And equal hundreds of Parliamentarians who have been in possession of those lands for nearly two decades. I’m just one of many petitioners, most of whom are of better rank than myself, and it remains to be seen whether I will have my own income soon or whether I will remain dependent on my brother-in-law.”
“But you sacrificed everything for loyalty to Charles and his father.”
“It’s true. Charles is a kind and reasonable king, and he appreciates those who are loyal to him. I may come out well. As I said, it remains to be seen.”
Suzanne sighed and sipped on her ale. A gloomy frown darkened her face.
“Don’t look so defeated, Suzanne. You’ve always appeared so sad all the time, even when you were young, and you’re so much prettier when you smile.”
“Those who complain about my sadness would do well to give me something to smile about.” She offered her tankard with the comment as a toast, then drank and tried not to feel disappointed that Daniel’s only interest in her anymore was curiosity.
Chapter Six
When they parted, Suzanne watched Daniel walk away from the Goat and Boar until he disappeared into the traffic on Bank Side, then she stood alone for a moment and looked around, trying to decide what to do next. She wasn’t in the mood to return home right away and didn’t care to go back inside the public house for another ale, so she went for a walk. Her vizard was gone, having been tossed irretrievably into the Thames, and she felt exposed in public without it but not so much that she wanted to return home for another. There was nothing for it but to press on without the mask. She strolled off down the alley toward Maid Lane, took some random turns that weren’t really so random, and accidentally- on-purpose found herself once again in front of the Globe Theatre, the very venue the great bard Shakespeare had built decades before.
She loved this place. It had stood empty since Cromwell had outlawed theatre performances, but she’d attended several plays here as a young girl. Now it was boarded up, poorly, with only two boards crossed over the door frame. She shoved the tall, heavy door, which swung inward, heedless of the boards on the outside. Then she stepped over the lower one and ducked under the higher.
Loose dirt gritted under her pattens, which tottered on the littered floor, and she held her skirts up to keep from dragging them through the dust and cobwebs. The building had not worn well during recent years, for most of it was open to the weather above even without the gaps in the roof over the galleries. Birds nesting in the rafters sang and flitted from perch to perch, annoyed at her intrusion, and a small animal made a shuffling noise under some debris nearby in an attempt to flee the invading human. Probably a mouse, perhaps a cat chasing a mouse.
The chairs that had once filled the upper levels were all gone except for some broken ones that lay scattered across the lower level. The pit had a mud puddle, left from a rainstorm the week before. Some birds bathed in it, aflutter with feathers and water drops and chirping away at each other in the spring sunshine. The stage, which protruded into the pit from the far side of the circled galleries, appeared intact, though Suzanne thought the rotted wood must be a danger to any actor treading it. The entire place smelled of rot. Twenty years of neglect had taken its toll.
She loved this place. Ever since her two years with Horatio’s acting troupe she’d been f
ascinated with it, drawn to it as if it knew her and knew she belonged to it. She’d imagined what it might be like to act on a real stage, to play to the galleries, to an audience of thousands. She imagined how magnificent it would be to have the proper amount of room to really perform what Shakespeare had intended, in the theatre he’d built.
Shakespeare himself had worked here. He’d trod those very boards near the end of his life. In rehearsal he’d observed his actors from this very pit, and in performance had waited in the ’tiring area for the pleasing sound of applause or the annoying chatter and catcalls that signaled a bored audience.
Now Suzanne looked over the array of galleries, arranged in a circle and towering three stories high. The heavens covering the upstage area still betrayed a hint of blue and white cloud, though the paint was quite faded, dirty, and molded in spots. Moss grew on the roof, and great, rounded ridges of gray fungus were devouring some of the rain gutters along the heavens.
An enormous sigh took her. She wished to have been born in a different time, when theatre had been not merely allowed, but nurtured. When Shakespeare was still alive and working his magic on the stage. If wishes were horses…
One more sigh, and she ducked back out to continue on her walk. Far enough away from the Globe Theatre, she consoled herself with knowing that even had she lived during Shakespeare’s time, she would never have been allowed onstage.
DANIEL didn’t contact Suzanne again, for a chat or anything else. During the days a wistful daydream distracted her, of what it might be like to have a tumble with him once more, for he was the only one she’d ever really wanted in that way. She reminisced of the days when lying with a man was something other than a chore, and with him it had been a soaring joy. But his silence told her he didn’t remember her in the same way she did him, that the curiosity he’d shown on his return to England had been nothing more, and mild at that. Her daydream stayed a fantasy. Proof enough that her days as a kept mistress were over, she supposed, and it was probably just as well.
Piers contacted the coal merchant friend of Farthingworth, but waited and heard nothing. Suzanne wasn’t sure whether it was better to not hear and hope, or to hear and have a rejection. To not hear at all could mean Piers was being ignored, and that was the worst. The days passed into summer, and still no word. Gradually hope faded.
Now that William was gone and forgotten, Suzanne was free to frequent the Goat and Boar as she pleased, just as she had when living in the brothel. On one hand it was a return to bad times, when she had never known if she would eat that day or whether she might be arrested for one thing or another. On the other hand, it was a return to the world and friends she’d seen infrequently in recent years. Being a mistress hidden away by a guilt-ridden hypocrite, in an England that at the time had been in paroxysms of pretending mistresses didn’t exist, had been a lonely existence. Nowadays it was a pleasure to socialize with people she understood. A circle of old friends convened there of an evening once the sun was down and street traffic had waned. She was pleased to spend her time listening to their woes in order to ignore her own. She would nurse a cup of ale to laugh or gripe as the moment demanded, and her fears went away for a time.
One night she was sharing a jug of wine with some of them when she looked up to see Daniel at the door. He looked across the room, searching, and when his eyes caught hers, he smiled. His doublet of fine brocade and well-cut breeches suggested he was doing well, and that piqued her curiosity. Suzanne wondered whether his father’s lands had been restored to him, and her heart lifted in hope they had. He settled into his habitual insouciant hipshot stance, and her heart skipped as warm, throbbing memories rushed in. She sat up, suddenly self-conscious. She checked her hair to be sure it had not fallen out of its pins, and tucked back a hank that had.
He claimed a small table near the door and tilted his head to suggest she join him. It didn’t take more than that to convince her to do so. Without a word to her companions she left her cup and the jug, and went to sit with Daniel. Nobody said anything, for nobody would blame her for wanting to spend time with the earl rather than their motley bunch. They understood the economics of people in their station.
“Hello. How have you been?” Daniel’s mood was especially warm tonight, and Suzanne had already consumed enough wine to be especially happy to see him. A bright spot opened up in her, and hope filled it. Daniel gestured for service, and Young Dent hopped to it.
“We’ve been well enough, I suppose.” She knew better than to complain about her life to someone who plainly was looking for a good time. Daniel surely had not come to the Goat and Boar to listen to her problems. “Piers has been looking for work, but there’s no hurry.” True enough, in the sense that they wouldn’t go hungry this year if he didn’t find it right away. Next year would be another matter entirely.
Daniel’s smile faded some. “Yes. Piers.” Young Dent waited to hear his order, and Daniel requested a bottle of French wine and two clean glasses. He would pay more for them, but it was worth it to not have someone else’s ale or milk in his expensive wine. Dent nodded and disappeared to the back. “What about yourself? How is Suzanne Thornton today?”
She had to think about that, but in the end replied what she thought he wanted to hear. “I’m well, thank you.”
“Are you certain?” He lowered his chin and peered closely at her, doubting she was well.
She laughed, and hoped it was a convincing laugh. “Of course I am.”
“You don’t sound terribly sincere.”
She gave him a well-practiced coy smile. “A woman must maintain a certain amount of mystery, don’t you think?”
Daniel shook his head. “I can certainly do without it. I rather enjoy a woman who comes straight out to say what she means. I’ve grown to dislike the game of hide-and-seek most women play. What I always liked about you was that one always knew where one stood. I wonder why you’ve changed.”
“Many men have told me that, you know. You all love to know where you stand, and you insist you prefer honesty. But over the years I’ve found that men only want to hear the truth when it happens to be what they wish to hear. One must conclude that a man’s wish to know where he stands is more a desire to know early on whether he is going to get what he wants, in order to not waste time or money in pursuing it. I’ve never known any man to prefer unvarnished truth of any kind.”
Daniel appeared to not know what to say to that, then finally said, “Well…I suppose you’ve just made your point.”
Suzanne sighed and graced him with a rueful smile.
The wine came, and when Daniel poured it, she took a deep draught. It warmed her and numbed all her sore spots. She didn’t want to think about where she stood with Daniel, because for tonight at least it felt like old times. She took another long drink, then smiled at him.
They engaged in small talk for a while, then moved to weightier subjects. He complained that his father’s lands had been given by Cromwell to someone Charles wished to keep as an ally, and so the king would not be able to restore those lands. It was a huge disappointment and something of a slap in the face for the king to prefer a Roundhead over one who had always been loyal to him and his father. But that was the way of politics, and Daniel understood his place in the current regime just as the king understood his own precarious perch in the scheme of things.
On the other hand, there was good news in that Daniel had been provided with other lands outside of London, and a patent involving the manufacture and sale of certain types of metal bits and harness pieces for horses, oxen, and donkeys. There were other patents in the offing, and these things promised a living more or less appropriate for his station. Before long he would be wealthy enough to no longer depend on his brother-in-law to keep up appearances.
She avoided speaking of her own financial situation. One truth she’d learned men never liked to face was that women required upkeep. As a prostitute she’d always been insistent about being paid, and as a mistress she never hel
d back in asking for money, but she never mentioned money to anyone who was not a client. Every time Daniel asked a question about her, she deflected with an answer that focused on Piers.
“How have you kept yourself entertained of late?” he asked.
She glanced around the room. “I come here. Or I stay at home and read. Piers has recently bought for me a number of the classics, and I enjoy them immensely.”
“In the original Greek?”
Her cheeks warmed. He knew better, and was teasing. He should know she hated that, and her spotty education was a terribly sore subject. It annoyed her even more that he didn’t seem to know or care she was embarrassed. “No. My father felt education for girls was a waste of money. Mother taught me and my sisters to read, but languages other than English were beyond her.” Then, to steer off the subject she said, “Piers is terribly attentive, you know. I don’t know how I got along without him for those seven years he was in Newcastle. We can spend the evening in conversation and never know where the time has gone. Or he reads to me while I simply sit back and listen. I especially enjoy that. He’s the most entertaining delivery when he reads. All that time spent on the stage when he was small, I suppose.”
“Are you happy and safe?”
“As much as anyone can be without an income, as I’m sure you’re aware.” She hurried to cover the slip into money talk. “But Piers will alleviate that soon, I’m certain. He’s hard at work finding a position, and before long will be supporting us both adequately. I have complete faith.” She didn’t like the look of doubt in his eyes, and went on. “Piers did well in his apprenticeship, I’m told.” She was told no such thing, but Daniel didn’t need to know that. As far as she knew, Piers had done well and there was no complaint from Farthingworth. “He’s smart as a whip, and terribly strong. Farthingworth taught him swordsmanship, you should know, to have him as a sparring partner, and Piers tells me he became a formidable opponent.” That much was true. Piers liked to tell her about the times he’d bested Farthingworth in a contest, and she was proud of him for it. Gentlemen carried swords, and it pleased her that Piers had learned swordsmanship and manners from his master.
The Opening Night Murder Page 7