London - Edward Rutherfurd [345]
Nobody took any particular notice of the men who trudged up the lane to Shoreditch as dusk was falling on that icy December day. Some were carrying hammers, others had saws and chisels. Had anyone troubled to observe them, however, they would have seen a surprising thing. Arriving one by one, they all disappeared into Fleming’s narrow house. Darkness fell. Two more muffled figures arrived and entered. These were the Burbage brothers. Soon afterwards a slimmer figure, walking with a light step, also went in. The darkness grew deeper.
Cuthbert Carpenter’s face was shining. They had fed him meat pies and hot toddy. As he sat on the bench, jammed between a fellow carpenter and a pile of sweaty costumes from Twelfth Night, he could hardly stop grinning. This was the most exciting thing he had ever done in his life.
It was all thanks to Meredith, of course. It was Edmund, six weeks ago, who had both found him a new master and just three days ago, given him the courage to do something even more daring: to walk out on his grandmother. But even this was only a minor crime compared to the extraordinary enterprise he was now engaged in. After this night’s work, he would surely go to hell. And yet – most amazing and wonderful of all – he didn’t care.
An hour passed. By the faint glimmer of the moonlight that crept through the clouds, the shuttered houses of Shoreditch stared out with blank faces, like wardrobes closed up for the night. Not a soul stirred.
At ten o’clock the door of Fleming’s house at last opened. The men filed out one by one, some carrying hooded lamps. Silently they made their way across to the looming form of the Theatre and began to move round it. The Burbages reached the doorway.
How strange it looked in the darkness, Cuthbert Carpenter thought. The great empty cylinder of the playhouse seemed suddenly mysterious, even threatening. What if, he wondered, it was a huge trap, and the aldermen of London themselves were waiting in there to arrest them? For a moment, his imagination even conjured up a worse idea: that once inside, the floor of the building would suddenly open to reveal a glowing tunnel down to the pit of hell itself. He put the foolish thought from him, and made his way round the high wall.
There was a muffled crack. The Burbages had broken open the door. Moments later all the men had vanished within the Theatre.
Except for one. Back in the little house, Edmund knew he was not needed yet. He lay on a bench, covered by a red cloak recently worn by an actor playing John of Gaunt. His eyes were half closed, a smile on his face; and at his side was Jane.
She had almost forgotten about Dogget recently, so close had she and Meredith grown. For if she had been uncertain of Edmund in the summer, the events of autumn had changed that. Indeed, it really seemed to her that she had discovered in Edmund a new man entirely. It was not just that he was a cheerful tower of strength, there was a quiet determination, a thoroughness she had not seen before. For three whole weeks, he had retired to the Staple Inn and studied legal precedent and leases until, at last, he had presented the Burbages with a legal case for tonight’s action that, according to the experienced lawyer who reviewed it, could not have been bettered. He was acting now as an unpaid lawyer to the company, saving them a fortune in fees. “And he’s not doing it just for his own sake, but for other people too,” she remarked to her parents.
The cool daring of the whole business appealed to her, which was no doubt why she leaned forward, kissed him fully on the lips and laughingly remarked: “You look like a pirate.”
Tap. Tap. At first the sounds had been carefully muffled. For the carpenters had gone cleverly about their work. Joints scraped free of plaster and loosened, boards prised gently apart, all round the inside of the playhouse, they had worked as silently as possible in the lamplight. Already the stage was reduced to a skeleton. Now, an hour before dawn, it was