London - Edward Rutherfurd [337]
Amid all this gloom, the person who kept their spirits up was not a member of the company at all.
Edmund Meredith was a tower of strength. “This is only done to frighten us,” he told them. “The Privy Council has been mocked and it is teaching us a lesson.” And when Fleming remarked dolefully that some of the council were as puritan as Ducket, he only laughed. “The court must still be amused,” he cried. “Do you suppose the queen means to spoil her Christmas entertainment for the Puritans?” And because he was a gentleman, whose father had been at court, they mostly supposed he must know something that they did not.
Jane loved him all the more when she watched him gaily put heart into the little group of spare actors and small fry who gathered at the Fleming house. She thought what it meant to him, when his hopes were pinned entirely on his own play. There was a nobility in his bravado. Some days later, when the troupe set off in their wagons, and he kissed her goodbye with the promise “We shall come through this together”, she had never felt so close to him.
The summer months were very difficult for Edmund Meredith. He had been proud of his performance in front of the Flemings. He knew he had cut a good figure. But did he really feel confident about the future? Three days after the announcement, things were even more difficult when his anxious cousin Bull came to his lodgings at the Staple Inn to ask about his fifty pounds.
“Keep calm,” he had counselled. “This will pass.” But after Bull had departed, shaking his head, Edmund experienced a profound gloom. What was to become of his play? And what indeed am I, he thought, without it? What was to be his fortune in men’s eyes?
At the end of summer, while the players were still on tour, he encountered Lady Redlynch.
He was introduced to her by his friends Rose and Sterne. Her husband, Sir John, had died the previous year and at the age of thirty, alone and without children, she had nothing much to do. Despite his own depressed state, he felt a little sorry for her.
He need not have worried. Lady Redlynch, having been born a West Country merchant’s daughter, knew perfectly well how to take care of herself. Thanks to Sir John, she already had a handsome house in Blackfriars, and she promised to take a personal interest in the business of the new theatre. She had fair hair, wide blue eyes, inviting breasts and, rather charmingly, a voice like a little girl, which vanished entirely when she was in a hurry. Meredith amused her. She liked witty men. She decided to take him as a temporary lover at once.
By late October the situation was still unchanged. The theatres stood empty and silent; the costumes lay unused in the wardrobe. The Burbages had been to the Privy Council again. It was said that Will Shakespeare had been hatching something with his patrons at court, but nothing definite was heard. Each day, actors came to Fleming’s house for news and asked: “Is it all over then? Shall we go?” Not yet, they were told. Not yet.
Edmund came by each day. He was admirable. Always light-hearted, yet always calm. He had frequently gone to inspect the Blackfriars theatre, he told her. Everything was ready for performances to begin.
“Just be patient,” he urged. “The audience is waiting for the theatre to be restored. They will not be denied for ever.”
There was no doubt, Jane thought, that he cut a fine figure. How proud of him she was. There was something else about him too: a new confidence, a sense of potency. She found it strangely fascinating and it sometimes exercised her imagination during those dull days.
It was one of the actors who finally told her that Edmund was sleeping with Lady Redlynch.
In early November Edmund Meredith sent the letter. It was a daring move, but he could not stand the tension any longer.
The affair with Lady Redlynch had been a success. Though they were discreet, the fact that a few men gossiped was enough to make him look a fine fellow in the eyes of the fashionable world. But at times,