‘How did you learn of it?’ Betsy asked.
‘Mister Prout and Mister Hill were at the bagnio when it happened,’ Louise answered. ‘They’ve just come in. They say Ned dropped right to the floor, without warning. Within minutes he could neither move nor speak – then he was dead!’
There were more reactions, but most of them were muted. James Prout, the Company’s dancing-master, was a regular customer at the bathhouse. Julius Hill was an actor who had recently joined the Duke’s Company, taking small roles. Since he was playing the Doctor in Macbeth he was not needed until late in the play, so would have passed the early part of the afternoon at his leisure. Neither man was given to spreading empty rumours, and hence the report must be true.
‘Well, Long Ned will certainly be a loss to the bagnio – and an even greater one to some of our sex!’ a young actress observed in a shrill voice. There were one or two sniggers, but Jane Rowe frowned at the woman.
‘That he will, mistress,’ she said. ‘But some of us valued him as a friend. He had his failings, what man doesn’t? Yet he was kind and gentle, which are rare enough qualities in Covent Garden!’
The young actress pouted and turned away. But other heads were nodding. Jane moved off to finish her dressing, while Louise Hawker took a pincushion and set to work on Lady MacDuff’s gown. Gradually, normal hubbub resumed. The news of Long Ned’s death, Betsy thought, would provide entertainment about Covent Garden and the western suburbs for a day or two, then fade as quickly as the memories of her performance as First Witch. Such was the nature of the world she inhabited. And though she loved acting, there were times when she wondered whether there might be some less fickle activity that would suit her. She sighed, and thought upon her opening lines for the next scene.
Meanwhile from the stage, Macbeth’s voice floated up: They say blood will have blood….
An hour later, the Duke’s Company took their bows to enthusiastic applause and left the stage. At once the scene-room was filled with a milling crowd of actors, hirelings, and the hangers-on who always gathered at this time. Outside in the pit, the orchestra played a cheerful finale. Betterton, Mistress Hale and the other leading players received the praise of their fellows with good grace, then went to their rooms. Now the gossip flowed, and it was soon apparent which topic was on people’s lips: the demise of Long Ned at the bathhouse. And as witnesses to the event, James Prout, the gangling dancing-master, and the supporting player Julius Hill, were soon the centre of a small circle of listeners, including Betsy.
‘I swear, the fellow dropped like a stone!’ Prout said, savouring his role as purveyor of fresh gossip. ‘I was barely a dozen feet away from him, in the tepidarium. I saw him pass by with a pail, heading for the steamroom – fit as a fiddle he looked, as always – then, voilà! The poor man drops to his knees, shaking like a leaf. Hardly uttered a sound, I swear! See now…’ the dancing-master turned to Hill. ‘Julius will tell you, for he was closer than I. Is it not so, my friend?’
Hill was still in his costume, and looked uncomfortable. An unassuming man, with few of the airs and graces affected by other players of limited ability, he merely nodded. Then seeing some elaboration was expected, he cleared his throat.
‘Whatever befell the man – some strange condition or sickness, perhaps – it was indeed sudden,’ he said. Then seeing one or two anxious faces, for the dreadful Plague of 1665 was yet a recent memory, he added: ‘Yet none that we need fear, I’m sure. By good fortune there was a physician nearby who examined the man, and found no token.’ He shrugged. ‘I can only think that Ned had some weakness of the heart … perhaps he had overexerted himself of late.’
That brought one or two smiles. And clearly disliking the role of narrator, Hill looked pointedly at James Prout. ‘Very likely,’ the dancing-master agreed. ‘Whatever befell poor Ned must remain a mystery.’ He shook his head. ‘Such a sweet fellow … always so obliging.’
He glanced round, but there were fewer listeners now. The company was beginning to disperse, as people drifted away to change. William Daggett the stage manager appeared, fearsome with his bristling moustache, and scene-men went off to their tasks. The orchestra had finished, and musicians were clambering up the stairs, talking loudly.
Betsy stood watching the noisy, colourful pageant, the happy release of tension that always followed a successful performance. The death of a former hired man, even a popular one like Ned, would not dampen the Company’s spirits. She was on the point of following Jane, who had already gone up to the Women’s Shift, when her eye fell upon a man standing by a side door. One of the scene-men, a burly, taciturn fellow named Thomas Cleeve, was staring at the retreating back of James Prout … and her eyes narrowed. It may have been merely the poor light of the backstage area, but to her mind Cleeve looked not merely affected by the news: he looked frightened. His face was pale, and as Betsy watched he put a hand to his forehead and rubbed it. Then, sensing someone was watching him, he met Betsy’s eye, and at once hurried out.
Betsy turned, only to see Samuel Tripp, who had appeared from nowhere and was smiling at her. Throwing the playmaker a withering look, she began to climb the steps again.
*
Betsy and Jane Rowe left the theatre together, by the lane that led through the ruins of Salisbury Court towards Fleet Street. The rebuilding of London was proceeding apace, and many new houses had already risen from the ashes of the Great Fire. But here outside the Walls, the picture was somewhat different. During those terrible few days, not so long ago, the flames had leaped the city’s west wall and consumed the old precinct of Whitefriars, as far as the Temple. And yet, Betsy mused, fortune was an odd jade: for she and her fellow actors had benefited from the sweeping away of the old buildings. In the intervening years, Mr Christopher Wren himself had designed the Duke of York’s fine new theatre by the Thames, in the gardens of burned-out Dorset House. The Dorset Gardens Theatre, as most called it, was best approached from the river, where its white portico and pillars loomed over the better-off theatregoers who arrived by boat. But that was not Betsy’s route: like most of the actors, she took her chances in the noisy, muddy streets, threading her way to her home on the edge of the ruins, in what was now known as Fire’s Reach Court.
‘Harlots! Foul painted jades! The Lord will strike ye down dead, as he has your dark-skinned friend!’
Neither Betsy nor Jane had noticed the wild-eyed man who stood in the street, raising his fist to the cloudy autumn sky. In the other hand he clutched a tattered bible. The fellow wore threadbare clothes of twenty years back: black doublet and breeches, grey worsted stockings and an old crowned hat. As both women turned, he pointed a trembling finger at them.
‘The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed by the fire! For the wicked are not plucked away: reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord has rejected them!’
‘Mr Palmer,’ Betsy smiled, ‘have you been here all afternoon? It looks like rain again.’
Praise-God Palmer glared. ‘Let it pour, woman – I’ll not flinch from the Lord’s work! Repent while ye may, and forsake this house of wickedness!’
But Jane Rowe drew her bertha about her shoulders and glared back; she had no time for Palmer or his rantings. ‘Take yourself off, you dirty black crow,’ she retorted. ‘We’re two honest women who earn our bread as well as any—’
‘Honest women?’ the man echoed. ‘Ye who show yourselves in undress like the harlots of the town? Shame on ye! The Fire was God’s judgement. Did He not burn this warren to the ground? Yet ye flaunt His will by building a new theatre upon it, a house of bawdy and devilment!’
‘It’s the Duke of York’s theatre, Mr Palmer,’ Betsy answered, as Jane tugged her sleeve. ‘Perhaps you should direct your anger towards Whitehall….’
‘You mock me!’ The ranter took a step forward, but Betsy did not move; she knew the fellow’s wrath never went beyond verbal assault. In her years on the stage she had grown used to his presence outside one or other of t
he two Royal theatres, the King’s Playhouse or the Duke’s. Whatever the season, Palmer would assail those who went in or out, deriding them for their sins, taking their jibes and threats without flinching. More than once he had been set upon by drunken rakes, and once by a couple of bad-tempered actors who blamed him for the poor house. Yet next day he was back, bruised but undeterred, shouting his scriptures with renewed energy.
‘Come on, Betsy dear.’ Jane was walking off towards Fleet Street. Beyond the rebuilt St Bride’s, carts clattered over the Fleet Bridge. Betsy was about to follow when a thought struck her.
‘You’re mighty quick with the news, Mr Palmer,’ she said. ‘Who told you Long Ned was dead?’
Palmer stared at her, then broke into a smile that was more like a grimace. ‘Black crow, am I? Then mayhap I soared above Covent Garden and spied his miserable end for myself!’
‘Miserable end?’ Betsy echoed. ‘Why do you say such?’
But Palmer’s thoughts ran their own course, which few could have fathomed. He drew back, raising his bible as if to ward her off. ‘Question me not, woman, for ye have strayed from the path, and your mind is as a dark fog! Get ye into yon church, fall upon your knees and beg forgiveness – only then can ye hope to find salvation!’ He paused, then: ‘As for the wretch ye called Long Ned, he has paid for his sins. The Lord has struck him down like a wand. Let others take heed of it!’
‘Betsy!’ Jane called from the end of the lane. Betsy raised a hand to her then looked round, but Praise-God Palmer was striding off. She watched him until he rounded the corner of the theatre and disappeared.
Something in what he had said nagged at her; but try as she might, she could not think what it was.
CHAPTER TWO
The two women parted company in Fleet Street. Jane would cross the bridge and go into the city by Ludgate, to her father’s house near the Butchers’ Hall. Betsy turned westwards, picking her way through the press of folk on foot and on horseback, who threatened to splash her with mud. She crossed the street, avoiding a hackney coach which rolled by, and reached the corner of Fetter Lane. The spire of St Dunstan’s-in-the-west loomed overhead, one of the few churches that had escaped destruction. Next door, the Fire Court sat every day at Clifford’s Inn, settling the myriad disputes which had arisen over property, boundaries and the like. In a short time, London had passed through the terrors of fire and pestilence; was it any wonder that men like Praise-God Palmer saw the hand of a vengeful God in it?
She turned into Fetter Lane, then walked to the corner of Fire’s Reach Court. Here was the limit of the Fire, where the old timber-framed houses stood crowded together, a remnant of the suburbs of Tudor London, and a time before the present King Charles’s grandfather, James Stuart, had ridden down from Scotland to claim his throne. Not so far back after all, Betsy mused: the Duke’s Company still performed the plays of that age … which set her thinking about Macbeth. By now she had reached the door of her own lodgings, and lifted the latch.
It was evening, and the sight of a scuffed leather bag in the hallway told her that Doctor Thomas Catlin was home. Her expression softened as she looked down at it: the most precious thing her landlord owned. Indeed, apart from this tumbledown old house, it was almost the only thing he owned.
Then, Tom Catlin was a rare man: a physician who had stayed in London during the plague, and not fled like most of them. He had paid a cruel price for his courage: his young wife had died of the infection. His response had been to move out of the city and to work even harder, often for little payment. And though the plague was but a memory now he still drove himself in the same manner, and as a consequence was permanently short of money. When the actress daughter of his old friend William Brand had approached him seeking lodgings close to the Duke’s Theatre, he had obliged her by fitting up the best upstairs chamber. As for Betsy, she had found in her landlord a true and firm ally; and when the Duke’s Company moved away from Lincoln’s Inn Fields, she had kept her lodgings at Catlin’s. What she had not expected was that her feelings for Tom would grow from friendship to something stronger – though she had never admitted it to him. That, she was certain, would be the ruin of a good relationship.
She opened the parlour door and went in. A good fire burned in the grate, and Tom, in his shirt sleeves and russet waistcoat, was at his desk. As she entered he looked up and raised his eyebrows.
‘I see there’s no need to ask how Macbeth was received. A good house?’
‘You need not fear, Doctor,’ Betsy answered with a smile. ‘I’ll be able to pay this month’s rent!’
Catlin nodded sagely. ‘That’s well,’ he muttered, picking up a fistful of papers. ‘Do you mark these bills? I may decide to flee one of these nights and take to the Bermudas, before my creditors lose all patience!’
Betsy kept a straight face. ‘You mean the Bermudas off the Strand?’ she asked, naming the lawless little community about Maiden Lane, which claimed old rights of sanctuary. ‘You’d not be the first gentleman to seek refuge there. But if you mean the Bermudas across the seas …’ She struck a ridiculous pose, and made her voice crack with grief. ‘… Heaven forbid, for I would never see you again! What then would I do?’
Stifling a smile, Catlin grunted and tossed the papers across his cluttered desk. ‘You’d be in clover, that’s what,’ he answered. ‘Fill the house with actors, who’d wreck the place and drink what’s left of my cellar dry.’ He picked up a mug from the desk, and frowned into it. ‘Talking of which…’
At that moment the door flew open and a tall, scarecrow-like woman lurched in. Catlin ignored the interruption, but Betsy raised her brows.
‘Peg – whatever’s the matter?’
Peg Brazier, Catlin’s twenty-year-old cook, servant and maid-of-all-work, threw her a scathing look. Her red hair stuck out from the edges of her cap, while her eyes fixed upon her employer. ‘There’s a butcher’s man been at the door wanting his account settled,’ she snapped. ‘What was I to tell him? Answer that!’
Tom tilted his mug and peered at the emptiness within. ‘What did you tell him?’ he asked.
‘I lied, what d’you think?’ Peg retorted. ‘But he’ll be back, and unless you’ve a hoard of guineas I don’t know about under the floor, next time he’ll bring a beadle with him!’
Betsy held up a hand. ‘Fear not,’ she said. ‘For I owe a month’s rent – and I can pay it.’
‘But how long will your few shillings last, mistress?’ Peg asked, with a toss of her head. ‘Until you’re out of work again?’
‘We’ll have supper,’ Tom Catlin said, turning to Peg and putting on his voice of authority. ‘If my memory serves, there’s a pair of roasted pigeons—’
‘There’s boiled leg of mutton and a bowl of anchovies,’ Peg told him. ‘After that, the larder’s bare!’
‘Then be so good as to serve them up, Miss Brazier,’ Tom growled. The title generally applied to a whore or a kept woman, one of many insults the two of them had honed in their years of barbed discourse. But Peg, magnificently indignant in her workaday frock with sleeves rolled, rose above it.
‘Would Master care for a jug of Navarre to go with it?’ she demanded, as if the new French wine were within the reach of Catlin’s pocket. But before he could reply, Betsy spoke up.
‘My purse can’t stretch to Navarre, Peg, but if you’d care to send out for a pint of Malmsey….’
Peg blinked and caught Catlin’s eye, looking less like a servant now, and more like his daughter. Tom Catlin and his wife had not been blessed with children. Instead, they had taken Peg off the streets at the age of ten, before she could be sold into prostitution. And though she seldom had a kind word for the doctor, her loyalty to him was set in stone.
‘Lord – what’s the occasion? Has someone proposed marriage?’ Peg asked. Then she reddened. ‘Your pardon,’ she muttered, suddenly flustered. ‘I’ve gone too far again.’ And with that she turned and fled.
Betsy and Catlin’s eyes met, and both
burst out laughing.
Later that evening, having dined on boiled mutton and anchovies, Betsy and her landlord talked for longer than usual. The reason for that emerged during supper, when Betsy learned that not only did Tom know of the death of Long Ned, but he was the physician who had been called to attend him.
‘I was across Russell Street, at Will’s,’ he told her. ‘A boy from the bagnio came running, said someone was poorly. But by the time I got there, there was naught I could do. Some sort of paralysis had set in, which in the end seemed to stop the fellow’s lungs from working. He died of asphyxia.’ Tom wiped his mouth on a napkin, and leaned back in his chair. ‘An odd business,’ he said. ‘A fit, healthy young fellow expiring like that … very odd indeed.’
‘You think there’s more to it than the onset of some fever?’ Betsy asked, with growing interest.
‘There was no fever. Nor did the man complain of any ache or pain, in fact he barely uttered a sound. Just stiffened from head to foot, staring at nothing.’ Tom’s frown deepened. ‘It occurred to me he might have been poisoned, except that I know of no toxin that would have such an effect. And when I made enquiry of the proprietor, he said Ned hadn’t taken anything since breakfast save a little ale, and others had drunk from the same jug.’
Suddenly, Betsy recalled the words of Praise-God Palmer, who seemed to have learned of the death so quickly, despite the fact that he never went near the bathhouse. He naturally regarded such a place, which was frequented not only by whores but also by young men for similar hire, as another on his list of houses of sin and devilment. She told Catlin of the exchange outside the theatre, which prompted a shrug.
‘News travels fast from Covent Garden, does it not?’ he murmured. He lifted his cup of Malmsey and drained it. ‘I confess I’m uneasy about this death.’ He met Betsy’s eye. ‘You knew the man, didn’t you? Would you say he was the sort who made enemies?’
After the Fire Page 2