London - Edward Rutherfurd [341]
She would, he fancied, understand the message.
But what of poor Jane Fleming? It was two days after the letter that, still in a very melancholy mood, he went up to the house at Shoreditch. He realized he had hardly spoken to her since the encounter with the queen. But on his arrival at the Fleming house, while she was entirely friendly, he found her strangely different. As she went about her tasks, she seemed to take no special notice of him. He asked her if she would like to walk with him. Not now, she said. But later, then. Perhaps some other time.
“Is there a reason for this coldness?” he asked, thinking of Lady Redlynch.
“Why no, sir.” She smiled and seemed surprised. “I am not cold.”
“Yet you will not walk with me?”
“As you see,” she gestured to the heaps of costumes that would now be needed, “I have much to do.” Again she went about her work, quite cool, but almost ignoring him. Unwilling to risk rejection yet again, he picked up his hat and left.
1598
The early months of the year had been bleak for Edmund. His literary efforts had gone nowhere. He had taken his play to the Admiral’s men, but they had regretfully refused it. “This is too good for us, too fine,” they had said politely. And after that nothing. A month had passed. His gloom had deepened. Then another. The solemn season of Lent had come. Then, the transformation.
At first his friends could hardly believe it. True, he could still be carefree and full of wit, but as for the rest . . . Gone were his fine clothes: his tunic was simple and usually brown; his hat was smaller and held only a modest feather; he even grew a rough little beard. He looked positively workmanlike. When Rose and Sterne protested, he called them popinjays. But most astonishing of all was his announcement: “I’m going to write a play. Not for the court at all, but for the common folk. I shall write it for the Curtain.”
After all, it was the only playhouse he had left. Nor would he be put off. Where before he was confident, now he was determined. The Burbages were doubtful that he could do such a thing, but he coolly reminded them that they owed him fifty-five pounds. And when, reluctantly, they agreed he was due a favour and asked him what sort of play he had in mind, he told them. “A history play, with plenty of fighting in it.” He had seen such dramas, of course; but now he decided it was time to read and analyse the texts.
Here he encountered a problem. There were almost no texts to be had, for when a play had been written it suffered a curious fate. It was cut up and rearranged into parts, each part being the lines of a particular actor so that he could learn them. The stage instructions went to the keeper of the tiring house so that he could provide props and costumes. Only the author or theatre manager, like as not, retained an entire text which was carefully guarded. Sometimes these texts were printed after a while, but much more often they were not. And the more successful the play, the less chance there was that the author would print it.
There were no laws of copyright. If another company obtained a copy of the play and put on a pirated version without paying the author, there was nothing he could do about it. Texts were valuable property therefore: and if Shakespeare did not have his printed – which indeed he never did in his lifetime – he was not careless of their worth. He was merely protecting his income.
Edmund could, of course, have asked the Burbages for copies of a dozen plays; but, afraid it might betray his lack of confidence, he was reluctant to do so. Another thought did occur to him: when done with, the actors’ parts were often kept in the tiring house in case of repeat performances. Fleming could surely put some plays together. So at Easter, Edmund returned to Jane and asked her to find him some scripts.
He found her very busy. The first months at the Curtain had not been easy. Though similar in size to the Theatre, it was far less convenient. The tiring-house