London - Edward Rutherfurd [333]
For wasn’t she in the right? Cuthbert Carpenter knew that those who had impure thoughts risked hellfire. “Those who touch the whore or attend the playhouse will suffer on Judgment Day,” she had promised, and he believed her. He had never touched a whore. But the playhouse . . .
He was a good carpenter. Even his stern master agreed. A good worker. But whenever he could, he would sneak off to a playhouse. He had seen Romeo and Juliet ten times, and afterwards he felt fear and shame. Yet he kept sinning, and he had even taken to lying about it.
“I have not been to a play,” he now replied. Strictly true, but of course misleading. She muttered something, but seemed satisfied – which only made him feel worse.
As night fell, Cuthbert Carpenter vowed: “I will never, ever, go to the playhouse again.”
It was already dark when John Dogget led Edmund into the boathouse. They had crossed the river to Southwark some hours before, then stayed drinking at the George; and it was a testimony to their new friendship that the cheerful fellow should have taken the fine young gentleman into his confidence enough to show him the treasure. Not many people knew about it.
The boathouse lay downstream from London Bridge in a group of similar wooden buildings round a little inlet; and by the light of Dogget’s lamp, Edmund could see that this was a workshop for the making and chiefly the repairing of boats.
“My grandfather started the business,” Dogget explained. Back in King Henry’s days, Dan Dogget’s youngest son, less of a giant than his waterman brothers and having worked with his uncle Carpenter, had gone into boat repair, where his own son, the present head of the thriving establishment, had followed him, and would one day turn it all over to young John. And John Dogget was contented with his lot. With his flash of white hair and his merry face, he could be seen any day working beside his rubicund father in an atmosphere smelling most agreeably of woodshavings and riverweed. Both men’s hands were slightly webbed, but they never found this a problem with their work; and often they would look up and wave as they saw one of their burly waterman cousins go by.
John was popular with both men and women. “If you can make a woman laugh, you’ll be all right,” his father had told him; and already there were a number of women in Southwark who had been made to laugh by young Dogget. As for settling down: “I’ll bide my time,” he would grin. Recently, however, one possibility had occurred to him: the Fleming girl at the playhouse. He liked her looks and she seemed to have spirit. “She’s got a bit of money coming to her too,” he told his father. Although she seemed to have eyes only for Meredith, the young boat-builder was not downhearted. There were plenty of other girls. It was also possible, in any case, that Meredith himself was not really interested in Jane. So he decided to find out more about the handsome gallant and struck up a friendship with him.
“I shall need your help,” he said. Leading the way to the back of the workshop, he indicated several piles of planks.
For several minutes, Meredith helped him remove the planks. As he did so, he became aware that, running right across the rear of the building, and carefully hidden under covers, were some large, strange shapes. At last, motioning him to step back, Dogget put the lamp behind a barrel and stepped alone into the shadows. Meredith could not see, but could hear him moving as he pulled the covers off. When he was done,