A player’s share, a full player’s share (they need me, do they not?), it would be a beginning.
LET me take breath, let me take a swig, for, my heart, she is coming. She is about to make her entrance. It was while he was walking off Bishopsgate — Houndsditch, Camomile Street, St Helen’s Place, St Helen’s Church — that he saw her. She stepped from her own coach outside a house near St Helen’s, veiled, escorted by her unveiled maid. But, in the fresh fall wind, her veil lifted an instant; he saw. He saw a face the sun had blessed to gold. Another autumn, that autumn in Bristol, returned to him in a gust of shame. Beaten out of a black croshabell’s brothel for want of a little tinkling silver. It was different now. But this woman was, he thought, no tib, no purveyor of holy mutton. The coach was new-painted, the two roans well-groomed. The coachman creaked down in fat dignity. The door was opened to disclose a wink of richness — a gilt-framed portrait on the hall-wall, a table with a silver candlestick. And then it closed on this vision or fable from his own past. Had he imagined it? They were rehearsing Romeo at the Theatre when, in a break or brief ale-intermission, he asked old James Burbage. He knew of her; he knew all that went on in Shoreditch and environs. He said, in his quick breathy way:
‘There be many tales touching her origins. Her own story is (or they say so) that she was brought back as an infant from the East Indies by Sir Francis Drake himself, in the Golden Hind that lies at Deptford now. It is said that both her father and mother were a sort of noble Moors of those parts and were killed by Drake’s men in a fight they had there, then she was left all alone and weeping and so, in pity, was brought to England to be in a manner adopted. It is said also that money from the Privy Purse was given to a Bristol gentleman for her upbringing, so that she might be made into an English lady. Well, English she cannot be made, not by no manner of a miracle. As for lady——’
‘Bristol? You say Bristol?’
‘They say Bristol, but what can any man believe? It is certain that she lodged awhile in Clerkenwell, at the Swan in Turnbull Street, and that she has been friendly enough with some of the gentlemen from Gray’s Inn. Now, she has money of her own, that too is certain, but how she came by it may be conjectured. The story from herself seems to be that the Bristol gentleman that was her adoptive father died and left her somewhat. Now this you may perhaps believe if you know aught of these Bristol slave-men. The adoption and the leaving of money might well be in the way of a what-you-call, a penance——’
‘And what is her name?’
‘Oh, she has some foreign or paynim name, a Mahometan one, but she goes under some Christian nickname here. I fancy I have heard her called Mistress Lucy. She has been to the Theatre here once only, with mask and pomander and all, curtained off like any Christian lady. She would be, as I guess, some twenty-two-or-three years old.’
It was not right that a past dream should waken for WS when he was so bent on securing the future. He could not, in his curiosity, prevent his feet from pointing her way when he went walking, teasing out in the morning autumn air some immediate problem of his craft. St Helen’s bell rang reminders that she lived, a paynim or Mahometan, in the church’s shadow. What was he being bidden, by some arcane and all-hid suburb of his brain, to do? What did this mean, the dark woman in the fair house? Perhaps his boyhood’s timid lust for the wealth of endragoned seas and spice-islands. And youth, his own youth that he could only now live in plays and poems, obsessed him since his friendship with Harry — a youth purged of poverty and a struggling trade, an over-hasty marriage to a shrew. He saw himself in fantasy some ten years younger, sword flashing in passionate sunlight in a square where a fountain plashed, a handsome noble extravagantly in love. But the mirror in his lodgings showed a tired face, eyes most weary, and the hair fast riding back from the forehead. White paper flattered more than blue glass. He wrote his last scenes, the sheer lyric outpouring (ah, love, youth, love) clogging the limbs of the action. Well, that had been Greene’s way, and Marlowe’s, more the poet’s way than the hack’s, the mere play-botcher’s. Did he want too much — to be poet and gentleman? A man could never, in this uncertain world, ask for too much.
He saw her again, this time unveiled, one early November day that was like autumn acting spring. He walked by her house and, looking up, caught her face gazing out on the milk gold of the morning in a kind of wonder, the upper casement open, her elbows on the sill. Her bare arms were thin but shapely; her shoulders were covered against the brisk air by a shawl of white wool; the point of division of her breasts showed sharp and agonising above the low-cut bodice. For her face, there was the delicately splayed nose he had seen on that other one, the lips thick. Her black eyes were alert and merry but, WS thought, could melt swiftly to tears. She spoke to one who was behind her, unseen from the street, perhaps her maid. Her words could not be heard, but she smiled in a sort of malice. She was desirable, there was no doubt of her desirability. He stood, looking up glumly. Her eyes, that had been ranging over the few sights of the street (a couple of urchins playing, a fat man like a Turk on a white gelding, a chair-mender), met his; he tried to hold the gaze; she seemed confused, she laughed, she turned her look away from him; she shut the casement.
And then he did not see her again, not till Christmas was come and gone, but there was enough to distract his mind from thoughts of dalliance (still, passing her house in his warm cloak, he asked himself where she could be. Was she ill? Had she left for ever? Was it but a visit back to the West?): Romeo ravished the Inns, as he had known it would; Gray’s had asked that The Comedy of Errors be given during their Christmas revels; the Theatre was commonly spoken of, in the extravagance of the talk of the exquisites, as the Temple of Sweet Master Shakespeare’s Muse. And on January 4th (he had begun to keep a combined journal and commonplace book about this time, so he noted the date) he was visited in his lodgings by Harry.
‘Oh,’ said Harry, walking about the dim chamber, looking for the wine-jug, ‘some sort of amity is restored between us. Dear Lady Liza is to marry my lord of Derby, God bless the two of them, they are well-matched for stupidity, so my burly guardian says less of five thousand pounds than he did. It is a good thing I was slow in finding it.’
The ears of WS pricked at this. Could he—— Might he——
‘He was high-flown last night at Gray’s, the aged sinner. All were high-flown. There was this nastiness between Gray’s and the Inner Temple, as you will have heard, for was not your own play wrecked on that Night of Errors, as they now term it?’
‘I heard something. I was not myself present.’
‘They had this mockery of a royal state with a Prince of Purpool at Gray’s, and there was invited a sort of Ambassador from Templaria — so they called the kingdom of the Inner Temple. But too many came and this sort of Ambassador was crushed and beaten. But last night there was a masque in which Graius and Templarius were friends again, very silly stuff. The Prince of Purpool gave many commands to the nobles of his kingdom, saying that they must all go to the Theatre to improve their brains with a course of instruction from sweet Master Shakespeare.’ Harry laughed. ‘Oh, there was drinking enough. I vomited, I could not keep their sweet wine down.’
‘You look well, as ever.’
‘Aye, but I would be better with my old dad to give me grave counsel.’
WS grinned. ‘I am always here. Here, or in my workshop. You are busy at court these days, with little time for poor players.’
‘There is, I will confess, one at court—— But it is no matter. They are all false.’ He poured himself some of WS’s wine, tasted it, then said: ‘This is harsh stuff. I must send you some Canary. It is not too sweet a Canary.’ He drank, made a sour face, and said: ‘Who is this Abbess of Clerkenwell they talk of?’
‘Abbess?’
‘Oh, there was something in the Revels at Gray’s about an abbess who holds the nunnery at Clerkenwell. It was all foolishness. She was to find a choir of nuns to chant Placebo or some such nonsense to the Privy Chamb
er, that is of the Prince of Purpool on his coronation. Her name was given as Lucy Negro or some such silliness.’
WS did not like the sound of this. ‘Negro? There is a lady, a girl almost, who lives by St Helen’s. She is called——’ He stopped himself. ‘I know little about her. Black women there are, though, at Clerkenwell. Very old and dirty and poxy and not to be recommended. So I hear. I have not seen them.’
‘You see nobody these days. You are working hard to make money.’
‘We are both busy, each in his own playhouse.’ He gulped. He said: ‘There is this matter of my buying a player’s share, as we call it. I thought once of coming to you for friendly help.’
‘I know nothing of player’s shares, whatever they are.’
‘It is an interest in the whole venture of the playhouse, so that the investor or purchaser draws his proportionable share of the profits. The Theatre is doing well and will do better.’
Harry drained his wine. ‘I am glad,’ he said carelessly. ‘I hope you will ever prosper. I must not forget to send you this Canary.’
WS spilled it out. ‘It takes more money than I had thought. I did not know whither to go for the money. I need a thousand pound.’
Harry whistled. ‘Well, playhouse business is no longer mere play. A thousand pound is a fair sum to look for on a winter’s morning.’
‘To whom can I turn save to you?’
‘Ah,’ grinned Harry, ‘I remember talk of your making your own way and that sometime ragged nobles would seek an alliance with playhouse-keeping families.’
‘I never said quite that.’
‘Your new rich were not, I understood, to become so by begging from the old rich.’
‘There has to be capital. Where can capital come from but the land? Who owns the land of this realm?’
‘We own it that have it.’
‘The land was in the beginning for all men. The Conqueror came to steal it and to parcel it out. That injustice cannot obtain for ever.’
‘You talk of injustice?’
WS blushed. ‘So some speak. I accept degree and place and all else. All I do now is to ask humbly for help from a friend.’
‘A thousand pound. Would that be a loan?’
WS spoke carefully. ‘One does not willingly take a loan from a friend.’
Harry smiled and said, ‘I would charge but very light interest — say, ten per centum.’
WS smiled back. ‘With a bond made out for the security of a pound of flesh. And your lordship quite straight-nosed. Go to, I had thought your lordship a good son of the usury-hating True Church.’
‘I doubt thou’dst have a pound of flesh there. Thou’rt grown thin out of my service.’ He made a sudden thrust at WS with his jewelled hand, a young man who had revelled all night but was still full of sport in the morning. They tussled in their old manner; wine was spilt on the bare polished boards of the floor.
VI
JANUARY 4TH
MADNESS MADNESS ALL MADNESS. After H departed there comes Dick Burbage all hotfoot and sweating spite of the bitter cold with loud news that the Men are commanded to play at the wedding of the Earl of Derby and H’s cast-off Lady Liza. Things so coincidentally chiming ring like matter of a comedy, yet life is so, often grossly so, so that a playmaker feels himself to be a better contriver than God or Fate or who runs the mad world. The madness is in the brevity of the time. At the Court of Greenwich but three weeks from now. Well, let us lie back on the bed unmade for more to coincide, for H knocked books from my shelf and one was Chaucer that opened at the duc that highte Theseus and weddede the Queene Ypolita, and the other was this fire-new marriage-song of Edm. Spenser with his
Ne let the Pouke, nor other evill sprightes,
Ne let mischievous witches with their charmes,
Ne let hob Goblins, names whose sence we see not,
Fray us with things that be not
And so I lay on my back a space and watched the fire sink to all glowing caverns and it was like a dance of fieries, I would say fairies. And then came the name Bottom, which will do for a take-off of Ned Alleyn, so that I laughed. Snow falling as I sat to work (I cannot have Plautus twins for most will have seen C of E but I can have the Pouke or Puck confound poor lovers) and the bellman stamped his feet and cursed, blowing on his fingers. Yet with my fire made up I sweated as midsummer, and lo I got my title.
JANUARY 6TH
WALKING OVER CRISP SNOW to my ordinary I saw her. She is either newly back or newly up from a sickness. To such as her our cold must be all agony. She was all mobled up at the window, her tawniness flat and dull in this snowlight, and I felt pity. I cannot believe that she is more than mocked at by the Inn men for her colour, I cannot believe that she is of that Clerkenwell tribe. She is brown not negro. Boldly I waved my hand passing, but she did not see or she ignored. And so back to rhyming away at the lovers’ scenes, wooden wooden wooden but there is no time for re-working. Well, I put the bad harvest in Oberon’s speech and then thought for a fancy I would give my dark one in the window a womb rich with Titania’s young squire. I do but beg a little changeling boy to be my henchman.
JANUARY 9TH
AT THE THEATRE IN THE MORNINGS they are rehearsing already in their several groups, for that is the one way to deal with short notice, to write a play soft-jointed and separable out. And it was without the walls that I had the good chance to see her and, my heart beating unwontedly, even to address a word. I was leaving for my lodging and her coach was coming by. Then a gentleman appears from Spitalfields way and his horse slipped and slithered in all the foul slushy snowbroth so that her own two took fright and the offside reared and whinnied. It was I that nimbly darted, though panting much after, and seized his head, saying calming words. Her coachman got down and first her maid put out her face from the coach and then she on the other side, drawing aside her veil to see what was the matter. And so I went up and doffed my hat and bowed.
—All is right now. That horse slipped, see. He has ridden on and all is well again.
—I am beholden. I thank. Wait, I will give …
—Ah, madam, no. I am a gentleman. I am Master Shakespeare of the Theatre there.
—You are there? You are of Master Burbage’s company?
How knows she of him? Her voice is prettily foreign. She cannot say th or w. I tank. Bwait, I bwill geef … I drank in her goldenness.
—You have seen Master Burbage act then, madam?
—Him I did see in Rish Hard de Turd.
And so I smiled, saying:
—The play of which I myself am the author. You are welcome any time at the Theatre. I will be most happy to offer you what hospitality the house affords.
But she smiled queenlily, saying:
—I tank you. Now must we on.
So saying, she bade her coachman continue on their way and left me there standing in the dirty snow. And I was aware that H has said no more of the £1000 and I remain the writing hack whom they will welcome as a whole shareholder can I but find the money.
JANUARY 13TH
SO COLD AND KIBEY A DAY that I laugh in scorn of our trade that we represent midsummer, all leafy and flowery. She has kept indoors, her house all muffled up with shutters as it too feels the cold. I am sick of these sugar rhymes. I dream after dinner (a drowsy one of fat pork and a pudding) that I am ass-headed Bottom in the bower of a tiny golden Titania. Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful. The mirror shows bad teeth and beard fast greying, a wormy skin. Old dad.
JANUARY 20TH
TODAY I PIERCED THAT FASTNESS. The bit-and-piecing of the play goes on in rehearsal but, hearing the set speech I have given Theseus on the lunatic the lover and the poet I, standing hand-rubbing oldly as Philostrate, was of a sudden filled with lunaticloverpoet’s pride. I marched bold as a soldier to her house in the afternoon, there being no performance, and knocked and said to the maid, a long-nosed girl, that Master Shakespeare was come to deliver somewhat to her mistress. Her mistress, says she, is occupied
and cannot be seen, mayhap she herself can take. I say no, I am here on the Lord Chamberlain’s behoof and will not bandy with servants. And she she she comes into the hallway to ask who is here. She sees me and says: Well, come in and let us know what is your business. So I leftright leftright to a fair panelled room and we sit. The somewhat I have for her is but a cordial summons to tomorrow’s Romeo. Is Master Burbage in it, she would know, and I say aye. Ah, she is sorry then but she is promised abroad. You have then, madam, a large acquaintance in London? Oh, I am invited much. For mine own part, madam, I find a poet’s life a surfeit of clawers and rubbers. I was but saying a week gone to my near friend Harry Wriothesly, the Earl of Southampton that is … He is a friend, you say? The Earl of Southampton is your friend? Oh, I have earls and dukes enow as friends; I was saying but this morning to Duke Theseus …
Nothing Like the Sun - Anthony Burgess Page 14