Mask of Night Read online

  The oldest son in the Sadler household is a student called William. Among the Constants there is a daughter called Sarah. They hadn’t seen each other for many years, William Sadler and Sarah Constant, not since they played together as children during one of the truces between the two families. Well, when the oldest son and the oldest daughter met for the first time since childhood on neutral ground, the almost inevitable happened. Whatever the coolness between their elders, William and Sarah had been drawn to one another; had apparently continued to meet as often as they could although in secret, knowing that their parents might be displeased; had liked, loved, & cetera; had determined to marry; had even thought of elopement; but had finally confessed their mutual feelings to their mothers and fathers.

  Now, this story of old feuding families and young lovers, one from each side, may sound familiar to you. It’s probably happened often enough in history, and William Shakespeare used it in his tragical story of Romeo and Juliet, one of the Chamberlain’s Company’s most successful pieces. Our audiences can’t get enough of attractive youth just as they can’t get enough of doom and destruction. When you put both together you’re guaranteed a crowd-pleaser. But they say that life imitates art, and it was in the attempt to avert a real tragedy, if only in potential, that we were preparing to don our costumes and put on a private performance of the tale of the young lovers.

  I heard all of this – the story of the Constants and Sadlers – from an authoritative source. It was told to me by William Shakespeare himself soon after the Chamberlain’s Company had arrived in Oxford.

  We junior and middling players had installed ourselves in the Golden Cross Inn, where we were to perform and where we were also being accommodated at half-rates for the duration. Our lodgings were nothing special, being a couple of large chambers at the rear of the inn, set aside for groups. But the welcome was warm. The landlord, a man called Owen Meredith, had greeted us in person. Some of the more senior members of the Company had made their own arrangements, having friends in the town and even in the colleges.

  It was early evening. Dusk was thickening. I had wandered out into the town for a brief look around this great centre of scholarship, this famous Athens of England – without, to be honest, seeing any marks of higher intelligence or nobler thought in the faces of people than I was used to seeing in London (that is, not much) – when I ran across Master Shakespeare, looking all trim in a silk doublet. He had not accompanied us from London to Oxford but had travelled down instead from Stratford-on-Avon where he lives, or rather where his family does.

  WS invited me to join him for a drink as night fell. So now we, William Shakespeare and Nicholas Revill, were sitting and drinking together in a tavern, not the Golden Cross Inn but another one on the same side of the wide street known as Cornmarket, in fact bang next door to the Golden Cross. Shakespeare told me he was lodging in this place, which was called simply the Tavern, as if the man who’d baptized it had simply run out of invention. The Tavern, a solid house on two floors with twin gables, wasn’t so different from other similar establishments on Cornmarket and seemed to me to have nothing much to recommend it over the Golden Cross (where we might at least have got cheaper drinks). I wasn’t sure why Shakespeare had chosen to drink here, let alone to sleep in one of their beds. However, when your company is requested by a man who is both your employer and a senior shareholder in your work-place, you usually fall in with his wishes.

  While we sipped at our pint pots – WS being as deliberate, as careful a drinker as yours truly – he told me about the Constant and Sadler families, and about the young lovers, Sarah and William. Since his tone implied personal knowledge, I asked how he had come across them.

  “We have a friend in common, Hugh Fern, who is a physician in this town. He was brought up in Warwick but he moved to Oxford about the same time as I quit Stratford for London. Once he wanted to act but he turned doctor instead. It was in his house that William Sadler and Sarah Constant first met, that is met for the first time since they were children. You could say that Doctor Fern brought them together.”

  “Did he mean to bring them together?” I said, slightly surprised that WS had chosen to impart all this information, not just about the feuding families and the physician called Hugh Fern but also, in a glancing way, about himself. I don’t think I’d ever heard him say anything about his personal circumstances before.

  “Mean to bring them together? Well, I suppose Hugh is a little like Cupid,” said Shakespeare.

  “He had Venus for a mother?”

  “His mother was rather plain, God rest her,” said Shakespeare. “No, Hugh is like Cupid in looks. I don’t think he’d be offended if I said that, no. He has plump enough cheeks, and a mischievous glance sometimes, and he used to hunt with bow and arrow when he was young. We used to hunt together. Shooting harts with horns rather than hearts with an ‘e’ . . . ”

  He paused to see whether I’d got the joke but, being familiar with his style of humour, I just made a grimace, so he carried on, “Of course we were not permitted to shoot harts or anything else.”

  He paused to see how I was taking this admission that he’d once poached deer. I was a little surprised but struggled not to show it (and so most likely did show it).

  “Anyway,” continued the poacher turned playwright, “when it comes to people in love or those who might be, only a fool would attempt to bring them together, and Hugh Fern’s no fool. He has Sarah Constant’s best interests at heart too for he is Sarah’s sponsor, her godfather.”

  I waited for WS to enlighten me as to why it was foolish to make matches for would-be lovers – since I was always ready to gather up the crumbs of wisdom dropped from his table, even if I could have left his puns to grow cold up there – but we were interrupted by the appearance of a doleful man, who stood looking down at us.

  “Master Shakespeare,” said this person. His voice matched his appearance, subdued and gloomy. “What are you doing here?”

  “I am a guest of yours, staying in one of your rooms,” said WS. “And if you mean what are we doing now, then we are innocently drinking, John Davenant. How are you?”

  “Could be worse.”

  But his look seemed to say, not much worse.

  “Business is good,” said WS.

  The tavern called the Tavern was full, and there were plenty of clamouring customers and much coming-and-going by the drawers and pot-boys, but this gentleman shrugged his shoulders.

  “Could be better,” he said.

  “Landlords are like farmers,” said WS to me. “They would find fault with a summer in paradise.”

  “I heard your company of players was in town, my wife told me,” said Davenant, who I assumed was the owner of this place. “My beds are no worse than my beer. If you’re staying here why doesn’t the rest of your Company stay here?”

  “Oh, your beds are more than good enough for me, Jack. But when it comes to the whole Company, it’s because we are playing next to here,” said Shakespeare, jerking his thumb in the direction of the Golden Cross further up Cornmarket. “We stay where we play, if it’s possible.”

  “You’ll draw all my trade,” said this dolorous host.

  “Nonsense, Jack. You know perfectly well that for every citizen who loves plays there’s another one who can’t stand them.”

  “So?” said Davenant.

  “So,” said Shakespeare, “all the regulars who normally go to the Cross and can’t abide plays will come a few yards down the road to you. And they’ll drink your beer and wine, and drink it all the faster because they won’t be distracted by somebody spouting verse.”

  “Miserable sods,” said Davenant. I wasn’t sure whether he was describing those citizens who didn’t like plays and would therefore come flocking to his inn or the Chamberlain’s players who had chosen not to lodge with him. In fact the description best fitted himself.

  “I promise you, Jack, that when we come back to Oxford, we’ll put up with you.”

&nbs
p; “Put up with me, that is good of you,” said Davenant, but he seemed slightly mollified by the promise.

  “This is Nicholas Revill,” said WS, perhaps to divert the conversation into a different channel. “Nicholas, this is John Davenant, whose fame is spread far and wide throughout Oxfordshire.”

  I muttered something about his being famous for being a tavern host, no doubt, but WS was quick to correct me.

  “No, he is famous for his wife. She is the nonpareil of beauty.”

  I couldn’t tell from WS’s tone whether he was being mocking or not (though I rather think he was serious), nor could I tell from the expression on the landlord’s face whether he was pleased to have his wife referred to like this. Probably not as, if anything, Davenant’s expression grew longer.

  “Take care you make your pieces boring and long-winded,” he said to Shakespeare.

  “Come and see for yourself.”

  “Perhaps I will. But I would still have your audiences desert you half-way through and come down to me for liquid refreshment.”

  “We’ll do our worst,” said WS.

  And seemingly content with this, the landlord turned round and made his way to another corner of the tavern, probably to abuse more of his customers.

  WS, however, didn’t seem offended by Davenant’s comments. Instead, he said, “He is a good fellow although a dry one. You get used to him in time.”

  “And his wife?” I said, greatly daring.

  “No, you wouldn’t get used to her, not in a lifetime,” said WS. “Not Jane Davenant.”

  This was more than interesting and I waited for details. But nothing was forthcoming. Since WS seemed about to get up and move away, and being reluctant to lose his company, I ordered another drink for each of us and turned the talk back to the subject of the Constants, the Sadlers, and the ancient feud between the two families. From what the playwright had said, it seemed as though there was no violent objection to the marriage of Sarah and William from either side.

  “So what’s the difficulty then?” I said.

  “Oh, there should be no difficulty,” said WS, “but our play will serve as a kind of warning, a gentle warning.”

  “Shouldn’t they have a comedy at a wedding? I realize that Romeo and Juliet is about two families at war and two young people who want to marry. But it’s a tragedy.”

  Even as I said these words I thought that it was foolish to be defining Shakespeare’s own work to himself, but if the playwright was annoyed – or amused – at my presumption he didn’t show it.

  “I don’t usually believe that we can learn anything at all from plays,” said WS, “but, in the case of the Constants and the Sadlers, Hugh Fern considers that it might be . . . instructive . . . for the two sides to watch a piece in which things go wrong . . . ”

  “So that they can avoid any actions which might lead to a similar conclusion?” I suggested.

  “Yes,” said WS. “Tragedy can be averted sometimes.”

  “Otherwise it would not be tragedy, but fate,” I put in.

  “Perhaps . . . ” he said, apparently unwilling to discuss my interesting insight. “Besides we are being well paid for this. My old friend Hugh Fern has prospered since he came to this town. He is doing better than if he had become a player, much better. Being a good friend also to the Constants and Sadlers he is ready to subscribe to a private performance of my piece in the hopes of providing the two families with some diversion – and a very gentle warning. And the Chamberlain’s with some cash.”

  I was always a little taken aback by the nakedness with which Shakespeare and the other shareholders referred to money. They made no bones about it. As if he could read my thoughts WS now said, “You know what our motto is in the Chamberlain’s?”

  “Our motto?”

  “It is ‘You pay, we’ll play’.”

  “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “That’s because I just invented it, Nick. You ought to be a bit more wary of what you’re told.”

  I must have looked a little crestfallen because WS put his hand on my arm and hastened to reassure me, “But it ought to be our motto. I’ll have a word with Dick Burbage. Perhaps we could get up a coat of arms. Money-bags on an argent field.”

  “And are you playing in this story of the Montagues and the Capulets?” I said quickly.

  “I’ve played Friar Laurence more than once. I may do so again on this occasion. We’ll see.”

  It may seem odd that Shakespeare didn’t know whether he’d be playing or not, but life on tour was more improvised than the scheduled playing at the Globe. The seniors had a rough idea of what we would be doing – and evidently the private production of Romeo and Juliet had been settled on before we left London – but we lesser mortals were kept in the dark.

  “Have the other parts been allotted yet?”

  “What are you going to do, you mean?”

  “Yes, that’s what I mean.”

  Ever since finding out a few minutes earlier that we were to perform Romeo and Juliet, a hope had been jumping around in my breast. Not so long ago I’d played the betrayed lover Troilus in Shakespeare’s bitter tragedy of the Trojan war, and before that one of the youthful lovers in Midsummer Night’s Dream. Could I now expect to take the part of Romeo the lover?

  Apparently not, from what WS said next.

  “Dick Burbage will play Romeo Montague – although I can see by your look that you think he’s too old.”

  “I wouldn’t be so presumptuous. Never entered my head.”

  “That’s only because it’s already on its way out the other side,” said WS. “What we have in mind for you, Revill, is Mercutio, kinsman to the Prince and friend to Romeo.”

  “Who dies in a sword-fight? Half-way through the action.”

  “But not before uttering a deal of words. He is a witty, brave man. Somewhat fanciful. The pivot of the action in the first half in some ways.”

  “Well, that’s good,” I said, not knowing what else to say since I figured that Shakespeare was delivering a compliment here.

  By this time the evening had worn on a bit and WS announced that he should return to the Golden Cross Inn for a conference with Burbage and Pope and some of the other shareholders, no doubt to make the final preparations for our presentations in the inn yard and wherever it was that we were scheduled to play Romeo and Juliet.

  I wandered out into Cornmarket, not having any conference to go to myself, not wanting to retire to bed just yet and not wanting to search through numerous Oxford taverns before I stumbled across Abel Glaze or Jack Wilson or some other of my fellows to drink with. Instead, I’d walk the streets in this busy, relatively well-lit area.

  Mercutio . . . hmm. Kinsman to the Prince and friend to Romeo Montague. I struggled to remember the production of Romeo and Juliet which I’d seen not long after arriving in London several years before. At the time I’d thought that my ambition to join the players might be furthered by hanging around playhouses and seeing as many dramas as possible. I smiled to remember my greenness then. And wondered whether I appeared much more experienced now. But I must do surely . . . to be offered a part like Mercutio. He is a whimsical fellow, given to flights of fancy. He is a pivot, in some ways. He is teasing and changeable. Half-way through he dies in a sword-fight. I couldn’t recall the details exactly but the fight begins somewhere between joke and earnest. All the same, Mercutio dies. Well, I would give them a good death.

  And hot on the heels of this thought came another one, quite a different one. I’d been intrigued back at the Tavern when Shakespeare mentioned his boyhood friendship with Hugh Fern, and of how they’d both started out from the Warwickshire country to make their fortunes at the same time. And then there’d been that reference to poaching deer, to shooting the hart . . .

  Now, I had little doubt that William Shakespeare was a great man, whose work and reputation would outlive his mere earthly existence by many years. I wondered whether anyone had yet thought to amass biographical scra
ps, the materials for a life of WS, for the edification and entertainment of future ages. I wondered whether N. Revill was the man to undertake this task (and in the process of memorializing a great man win a little reflected glory for himself).

  In the middle of these thoughts, these dreams of mortal glory, I realized that I hadn’t been paying attention to where I was going. Dazzled by Mercutio and then by the notion of writing about WS, I’d taken three or four turns and was now lost.

  Wherever I found myself it was well away from the busy thoroughfare called the Cornmarket, away from noise and light and people. Instead I was in a dark and silent place, between high walls. Under my feet was close-packed earth, not the cobbles of a street. Overhead was a swath of night sky, glimmering with fitful stars. A breeze crept down this walkway and made me shiver. As my eyes grew more used to the dark, I saw that the walls were pierced by a few remote, high windows. I reached out for the nearest wall. The lower part was covered with a creeper that felt dead to the touch, last year’s growth. I supposed that I was standing outside one of the colleges, or rather between two of them. The walls were more like those of a castle or a palace than a place of learning. I wondered what it would be like to be on the other side. I imagined scholars in lofty towers, surrounded by books and manuscripts, piercing the secrets of the heavens or turning their gaze inward on themselves.

  These high-minded imaginings were interrupted by a strange shuffling sound from behind my back. I strained my ears. The sound resolved itself into that of feet, several pairs of feet moving uncertainly over the ground, together with an intermittent whispering. I shivered again although there was no draught of air this time. The shuffling feet were moving towards me, in the direction I’d just come from.