The Silent Woman

by Edward Marston

  A less agreeable surprise awaited him. Though busy hammers still banged away and busy ostlers brought horses in and out of the stables, the yard was curiously quiet. There was no crowd of spectators jostling each other, no packed galleries setting up a further buzz, no servingmen calling out for customers as they carried trays of beer amid the throng. Above all there were no players strutting about the stage, flinging their speeches and leaving them embedded like so many spears in the minds of the audience. There was no Lawrence Firethorn to hurl his verbal thunderbolts, no Barnaby Gill to make the boards echo with his jig, no Owen Elias to put the rage of a whole nation into his voice. And there was no applause. Alexander Marwood missed them. It made him feel sick.

  ‘Good morning, sir.’

  ‘You have work to do, Leonard.’

  ‘I’ll about it straight when I have done my duty.’

  ‘What duty, man?’

  ‘Give me time, sir, give me time.’

  Leonard wiped the back of a massive hand across his mouth then motioned two figures across. Anne Hendrik had been shopping at the market in Gracechurch Street and brought Preben van Loew with her so that they could move on to the cloth market and buy fresh supplies of material. Since they were so close to the Queen’s Head, they slipped in to see how the repairs were progressing. Anne had another reason for the visit. Primed by Margery Firethorn, she was ready to lend her weight to the campaign to bring Westfield’s Men back to the inn. Though still unsure about one member of the company, she wanted the others to regain a home.

  Marwood viewed the pair with cautious respect. Anne was patently a lady but the sober garb and austere manner of Preben van Loew suggested that he had never been inside a taproom. Leonard had no social graces but he managed a few clumsy introductions. As he moved off to work, he threw in a last tactless piece of information.

  ‘Mistress Hendrik is a friend of Master Bracewell.’

  Marwood glowered. ‘He burnt my yard down.’

  ‘That is not what I hear,’ said Anne, coming to the defence of the book holder. ‘Report has it that he saved your inn from total destruction.’

  ‘He starts a fire, he puts it out. That is to say, he gives me a disease then helps to cure it. But I had rather the disease did not come in the first place.’

  ‘The carpenters work well,’ noted Preben van Loew.

  ‘When I keep them to their task.’

  ‘Your galleries will be stouter than ever,’ said the Dutchman, peering around. ‘I was here once before to see a play and I noticed the rot in some of your beams. It was worst in the corner where the fire struck which is why the flames got a hold so quickly. Rotten wood burns best. Had you replaced those old timbers yourself, they might have withstood the blaze much better.’

  ‘Do not lecture me on my inn, sir,’ said Marwood.

  ‘I make one simple point. You now have sound timbers where you had rotten. Such neglect was dangerous. Those pillars would have snapped under the weight in time.’

  ‘Preben is right,’ said Anne. ‘In a strange way, the fire may have done you a favour.’

  ‘It did, mistress. It showed me my folly.’

  ‘About not replacing bad timber?’ said the Dutchman.

  ‘About suffering the deadwood of a theatre company.’

  ‘Westfield’s Men gave you a name,’ said Anne.

  ‘It is one I disown entirely.’

  ‘That is a poor reward for their patron,’ she observed. ‘Lord Westfield has brought half the Court to the Queen’s Head. Was that not an honour?’

  ‘Indeed, it was.’

  ‘Then why discard it?’

  ‘Wisdom comes with age.’

  ‘Then you must be immensely wise,’ said Preben van Loew with a wry grin. ‘Please excuse me.’

  He went off to view the renovations at close quarters. Anne Hendrik was left with the daunting task of improving the status of Westfield’s Men in the eyes of the innkeeper.

  ‘They are feted wherever they go,’ she said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Westfield’s Men.’

  ‘God keep them far away!’

  ‘They prosper in the provinces.’

  ‘Let that prosperity hold them there.’

  ‘They will return in triumph to their new home.’

  Marwood was interested at last. ‘You know where it is?’

  ‘In Southwark or in Shoreditch.’

  ‘Which? The two are separated by the Thames.’

  ‘What does it matter, sir?’ she asked. ‘You have thrown them out of here. They may go wherever they wish.’

  ‘On what terms, though?’ he wondered.

  ‘Better than they enjoyed here.’

  ‘That cannot be.’

  ‘I speak only what I have been told on good authority.’ Anne did not mention that the good authority was Margery Firethorn. Having gained his ear, she now pretended to walk away from it. ‘I grow tedious, sir. I will go.’

  ‘Wait, wait.’

  ‘Westfield’s Men are dead here. This is a tomb now. I will have to send them somewhere else.’

  ‘Send who?’

  ‘I tax your patience here.’

  ‘No, no. You talked of custom.’

  ‘In a small way, Master Marwood,’ she said. ‘My name is Dutch but I am English, as you see. I speak both languages and that makes me useful in our community.’

  ‘We have a lot of Dutchmen here.’

  ‘And most of them resented like any other foreigner. But a man like you turns nobody away. That is why your inn will always flourish.’

  ‘I do not serve many Hollanders,’ he said, glancing across at Preben van Loew. ‘They are not ale-drinkers.’

  ‘They are if they are taught to be. And playgoers, too. That is my argument.’ She indicated her employee. ‘Preben works for me and frowns on all pleasure. Yet when I brought him to a play in this yard, he enjoyed it so much he sent a dozen of his friends back. Each one of that dozen sent a handful more and so on. You stay with me here?’

  ‘Why, yes,’ said Marwood thoughtfully.

  Anne was into her stride. ‘Visitors come from Holland all the time. When they seek entertainment, I send them here because Westfield’s Men never disappoint. All this trade will be lost if the company goes.’

  ‘It has to go. They burnt my premises down.’

  ‘They are helping to build it up again.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Take a closer look at these workmen,’ she suggested. ‘That man on the ladder is Nathan Curtis, master-carpenter with Westfield’s Men. I know him as a neighbour of mine in Bankside. With him is his assistant, David Leeke. When they sent their fellows away on tour, they stayed to rebuild the company’s home.’

  ‘At my expense! These repairs are costly!’

  ‘Defray the amount, Master Marwood.’

  ‘If only I knew how!’

  ‘It is not for me to say, sir,’ she remarked. ‘I am in business myself but employ only a handful of men. Preben there is one. This I do know, however. If I ran this inn, I would seek to spread the cost of restoration.’

  ‘I have tried, I have tried.’

  ‘Everywhere but the easiest place.’

  ‘And where is that?’

  ‘Westfield’s Men.’

  ‘They are almost penniless.’

  ‘Not when they fill your yard every afternoon. Think on this. Suppose they agreed to pay half of all the bills that you incur from the fire. Would that not cut your grief in two?’

  ‘How could they afford it?’

  ‘You levy a surcharge on each performance.’

  ‘Explain, I pray.’

  Anne was persuasive. ‘Westfield’s Men pay a rent for the use of your yard, do they not? Add a fire tax to that rent. Some small amount, it may be, and spread over a whole year. At the end of that time, you would have earned back the half of all you spent.’ She saw a smile almost peeping out at her. ‘And that will be on top of all the extra revenue the company will bring in.
London has missed them sorely. When they return, this yard will fill in minutes.’

  Alexander Marwood could hear the sense in her argument but he still had grave reservations. Anne Hendrik left him with one more idea over which he could mull.

  ‘Their first performance would be the best of all.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because all its proceeds would go to you.’

  ‘They will play for nothing!’

  ‘As a gesture of faith,’ she said, ‘they will donate the takings of an afternoon to the repair fund. If that is not generosity, then I do not know what is.’ She waved to Preben van Loew to indicate an imminent departure. ‘We must leave you now, sir, but I tell you this in private. I would not have Westfield’s Men go to this other inn to play.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It has a most villainous innkeeper. Farewell.’

  It was dark when Nicholas Bracewell left the house in Crock Street and there was no question of his riding out to visit his father that night. The confrontation, in any case, needed a degree of forethought. What he had done after his talk with Mary Whetcombe was to walk back to the quay and take a proper look at a place which had meant so much to him at one time. It was empty now but still redolent with activity. He could almost smell the cargoes being unloaded and hear the deals being struck by astute merchants. When his father had first taken him there, Nicholas had loved the cheery commotion of Barnstaple quay. A few small ships floated at their moorings but it was the vessel which lay at anchor in the middle of the river which had captured his interest. The Mary was a fine craft, still riding on its reputation as a privateer. Even in the moonlight, he could judge its character. To own such a ship was to own the town. No wonder Gideon Livermore was ready to kill for it.

  When the curfew bell sounded, he had gone back in through West Gate and headed for the Dolphin Inn. Sleep came with merciful swiftness. Rain tapped on the window to wake him in the morning but it had cleared by the time he went down to the taproom for his breakfast. Over toast and ale, he read the letter which Barnard Sweete had left for him with the innkeeper. Nicholas was invited to visit the lawyer in his chambers. The subject of discussion was not stated but he could guess at it. Mary had told him enough about Sweete to alert him to the man’s cleverness and Nicholas already had a clear impression of the sort of man the lawyer might be. Before taking him on, however, he needed more evidence and that could only come from his father. It was ironic. The man who had torn him away from Mary Parr might now be in a position to offer a kind of restitution.

  Nicholas hired a horse and rode northwards out of the town in the direction of Pilton. Two men followed him this time but at a comfortable distance. They were there to watch and not to attack. Nicholas smiled when he came to an old signpost that pointed his way. The village of Marwood was one of three listed and he knew it from his boyhood. Its namesake at the Queen’s Head had none of its rural charm and still less of its abiding warmth.

  The cottage was not far from Pilton and his first sight of it shocked him. It was a small, low, half-timbered building with a thatched roof. Standing in a couple of acres, it had a neglected and world-weary air. When he got closer, he saw that birds were nesting under the eaves. One of the trees in the garden had been blown over in a gale and was now propped up with a length of timber. Panes of glass were missing from an upper window. The garden gate was broken. A goat chewed unconcernedly outside the front door.

  He felt curiously offended. When Nicholas was a boy, his father had been a successful merchant with a wife, two sons and three daughters, all of whom lived in a large town-house in Boutport Street. They had respectability and position. Robert Bracewell had no social standing now. He was a virtual outcast from Barnstaple. A man who had once rubbed shoulders with Matthew Whetcombe and the other leading merchants was now banished to the oblivion of a country cottage. It was a poor reflection on the family name but Robert Bracewell deserved no sympathy. Nicholas reminded himself of that as his knees nudged his horse forward.

  Dismounting at the gate, he tethered the animal and went up the path to the front door. The goat did not even look up from its meal of grass and nettles. Nicholas did not need to knock. The door swung open and the suspicious face of an old woman emerged. She was short, stout and wearing a plain dress. Grey hair poked out from beneath her mob-cap. Her hands were a network of dark blue veins. After staring at him for a moment, she seemed to half-recognise him and it made her shrink back. She called to someone inside the cottage then disappeared from view. Nicholas waited. A small dog came scampering out and barked amiably at him. The goat aimed a kick at it then resumed its browsing.

  The front door opened wider and an old man in a faded suit glared out at him. Nicholas at first took him for a servant, like the woman, but it slowly dawned on him that this was his father. The years had eaten right into the man. The tall figure had shrunk and the powerful frame had gone. Hair and beard were grey and the face was etched with lines. It shook his son. Robert Bracewell was a wreck of the man he had once been. He seemed too small and insignificant to bear the weight of all that hatred of him that his son carried.

  A touch of his old belligerence still clung to him.

  ‘What do you want?’ he growled.

  ‘I’ve come to see you.’

  ‘We want no visitors. Who are you?’

  ‘Nicholas.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your son.’

  Robert Bracewell glared at him with more intensity then waved his hand. ‘I have no son called Nicholas,’ he said. ‘He sailed with Drake and was lost at sea. Nicholas is dead. Do not mock me, sir. Go your way and leave me alone.’

  He stepped back and tried to close the door but his son was too quick for him. Nicholas got a shoulder to the timber and held it open. Their faces were now only inches away. The belligerence turned to an almost childlike curiosity.

  ‘Nicholas? Is it really you?’

  ‘We must speak, Father.’

  Robert Bracewell became suddenly embarrassed and began to apologise for his humble circumstances. He led Nicholas into the long, dank room which occupied almost the whole of the ground floor of the house. The old woman lurked at the far end. When she saw them coming, she sneaked off into the scullery and shut the door after her. The furniture was better than such a dwelling could have expected and Nicholas recognised several pieces from the old house in Boutport Street. A cane-backed chair kindled special memories. His mother had nursed him in it. Robert Bracewell now dropped into it with the heaviness of a man who did not mean to stir from it for a very long time. Nicholas had already caught the aroma of drink. He now saw that his father’s hands had a permanent shake to them.

  ‘Sit down, sit down, Nick,’ said his father.

  ‘Thank you.’ He found an upright chair.

  ‘Why have you come to Barnstaple?’

  ‘I was sent for, Father.’

  ‘Mary Whetcombe?’

  ‘I called on her yesterday.’

  Robert Bracewell nodded and appraised his elder son with mingled pride and fear. They had parted in anger. There was still a sharp enmity hanging between them.

  ‘Where do you live now?’

  ‘London.’

  ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I work for a theatre company.’

  ‘Theatre?’ His nose wrinkled in disgust. ‘You belong to one of those troupes of strolling players? Like those we used to see in Barnstaple in the summer?’

  ‘Westfield’s Men are a licensed company.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It would take too long to explain,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Actors? No. That’s no fit way for a man to live.’

  ‘Nor is this, father.’

  The rejoinder slipped out before Nicholas could stop it and it clearly hurt Robert Bracewell. He drew himself up in his chair and his jaw tightened. He waved a trembling hand.

  ‘This is my home, lad,’ he warned. ‘Do not insult it.’

  �
��I am sorry.’

  ‘Had you stayed, I might not now be in this state.’

  ‘You drove me away.’

  ‘That’s a lie, Nick!’

  ‘You drove Peter away as well.’

  ‘Your brother was different.’

  ‘We were ashamed of you.’

  ‘Stop!’

  Robert Bracewell slapped the flat of both hands down on the arms of the chair. Anger brought him to life. His back straightened and his head was held erect. The resemblance to his son was suddenly quite strong and it disturbed Nicholas to be reminded of it. The old man’s yell made the door to the scullery open for the woman to peer in before withdrawing again with a hurt expression. His father was shaking with quiet fury now and that would not further Nicholas’s purpose. He tried to placate the old man with a softer tone.

  ‘We need your help,’ he said.

  ‘We?’

  ‘Mary Whetcombe and I.’

  A note of disbelief. ‘You came back for her?’

  ‘A messenger summoned me from London.’

  ‘Mary would never even look at you now.’

  ‘Yes, she would.’

  ‘After the way you let her down …’

  ‘We talked for a long while at her house.’

  ‘She despises you!’

  Robert Bracewell had always been forthright and it was a habit that made him few real friends. Nicholas and his brother had an abrasive upbringing. Their father loved them after his own fashion, but he was blunt about what he considered to be their faults. Nicholas wondered how his mother had put up with her husband for so long. Robert Bracewell had not spared his wife. She had suffered the worst of his cruel candour. She had also endured his other vices until their combined weight had crushed the life out of her. Nicholas thought about her lying in the churchyard and resolved to get through the business of his visit before riding away from his father for ever.

  ‘What brought you, Nick?’

  ‘Matthew Whetcombe’s will.’

  ‘That is no concern of yours.’

  ‘I have made it so.’