A Gentleman Player; His Adventures on a Secret Mission for Queen Elizabeth. Robert Neilson Stephens
first glance was for the lady. Alas, the face was in eclipse, the black velvet mask had been replaced!
Returning to the tiring-room, he had now to don the beard of an elderly lord, in which part he was to help fill the stage in the play scene. As he marched on in the king's train, for this scene, to the blare of trumpet and the music of instruments in a box aloft—violins, shawms, sackbuts, and dulcimers—he saw that the lady was still masked. His presence on the stage this time gave him no opportunity to watch her; he had to direct his eyes, now at the king and queen on their chairs at one side of the stage, and now at the platform of the mimic players.
When he made his exit with the royal party, he saw on every face a kind of elation. "They are hit, and no question," said Master Taylor. "Ay," quoth Master Condell, "that shout of the groundlings, when the king fled, could have been heard as far as the bear-garden." "But the stillness of both lords and groundlings before that," said Master Heminge—"never was such stillness when Tom Kyd's Hamlet was played." "We shall see how they take the rest of it," said Shakespeare, softly—though he could not quite conceal a kind of serene satisfaction that had stolen upon his face.
Hal Marryott doffed his beard, and resumed his Laertes cloak, resolved to have some part in the general success. His next scene, that in which Laertes calls the king to account for his father's death, and beholds his sister's madness, held the opportunity of doing so—of justifying Shakespeare's selection for the part, of winning the young lady's applause, of hastening his own advancement to that fortune which would put him in proper state to approach a wealthy gentlewoman. Perhaps she was one of those who were privileged to attend the Christmas court performances. Could he first win her admiration in some fine part at Whitehall, the next time the chamberlain's men should play there; then—by getting as much wealth as Mr. Alleyn and other players had acquired—leave the stage, and strut in the jewels and velvet suitable to his birth, to what woman might he not aspire? He had all planned in a minute, with the happy facility of youth in such matters.
So he stood in a remote corner of the tiring-room, getting into the feeling of his next scene, repeating the lines to himself, assuming a Burbage-like self-absorption to repel those of his fellow players who, otherwise, would now and then have engaged him in talk. Much conversation was going on in undertone among the groups standing about, or sitting on the tables, chairs, stools, and chests that awaited their time of service on the stage—for, although scenery was merely suggested by word or symbol, furniture and properties, like costume and makeup, were then used in the theatres. In due time, Hal placed himself at the entrance, working up his mood to a fine heat for the occasion; heard the cue, "The doors are broke;" and rushed on, crying "Where is this king?" with a fury that made the groundlings gape, and even startled the lolling lords into attention.
Having ordered back his Danes, and turned again to the king, he cast one swift glance toward the lady's box, to see how she had taken his fiery entrance; and perceived—no one. The box was empty.
He felt as if something had given way beneath him. In a twinkling his manner toward the king fell into the most perfunctory monotone. So he played the scene out, looking again and again to ascertain if his eyes had not deceived him; but neither was she there, nor the other lady, nor the gentleman, nor the Page_in green who had stood before the box. The theatre was dark and dull without her; though as much light came in as ever, through the gallery windows and the open top of the playhouse.
With a most blank and insipid feeling did Hal finish this scene, and the longer and less interesting one that came almost immediately after. He carried this feeling back to the dressing-room, and dropped upon a stool in utter listlessness.
"Hath life then lost all taste and motive?" It was the voice of Shakespeare, who had read Hal's mood. The question came with an expression half amused, half sympathetic. At this, in place of which he had deserved a chiding, Hal was freshly stricken, and more deeply than before, with a sense of the injury he did his benefactor by his lifeless acting. So his answer was strangely wide from the question.
"Forgive me," he said. "I swear I'll make amends in the rest of the play."
And he rose, resolved to do so. Perhaps, after all, the lady and her companions had but gone to another box, or would return to the theatre before the play was over. And, moreover, what a fool should he be, to throw away this chance of advancement that might equip him for some possible future meeting with her! And what malicious triumph was glowing darkly on the countenance of Gilbert Crowe! There remained to Hal two opportunities to retrieve himself.
The first was the encounter with Hamlet in the graveyard. Choosing to believe that his enchantress was indeed looking on from some to-him-unknown part of the house, he put into this short scene so excellent a frenzy that, on coming off the stage, he was greeted with a quiet "Sir, that was well played," from Burbage himself, who had made exit a moment earlier. "Bravely ranted," said the Corambis; and the Ophelia, now out of his woman's clothes and half into a plain doublet, observed, with a jerk of his head toward Master Crowe:
"Thou'st turned Gil's face sour of a sudden."
But Master Marryott, disdaining to take gratification in Gil's discomfiture, found it instead in a single approbative look from Shakespeare; and then, choosing his foil, began making passes at the empty air, in practice for the fencing match.
It was partly for his skill with the foils that Hal had got Shakespeare's vote for the character of Laertes. Being a gentleman by birth, though now alone in the world and of fallen fortunes, he had early taken kindly to that gentleman among weapons, the rapier, that had come to drive those common swaggerers, the sword and buckler, out of general service. At home in Oxfordshire, in the lifetime of his parents, and before the memorable lawsuit with the Berkshire branch of the family had taken the ancestral roof from over his head, and driven him to London to seek what he might find, he had practised daily with the blade, under whatever tuition came his way. In London he had picked up what was to be learned from exiled Frenchmen, soldiers who had fought in Flanders and Spain, and other students of the steel, who abounded in the taverns. With his favorite weapon he was as skilful as if he had taken at least a provost's degree in the art of fence. The bout in "Hamlet" was, of course, prearranged in every thrust and parry, but, even so, there was need of a trained fencer's grace and precision in it. Good fencing was in itself a show worth seeing, in a time when every man knew how to wield one weapon or another.6
The audience was wrought up to that pitch of interest which every fifth act ought to witness, when the final scene came on. Each man—especially among the apprentices, the soldiers, and the lords—constituted himself an umpire of the contest, and favored the fighters with comments and suggestions. The sympathy, of course, was with Hamlet, but no one could be blind to the facile play of the Laertes, who indeed had the skill to cover up his antagonist's deficiency with the weapon, and to make him appear really the victor. The courteous manner in which Hal confessed himself hit put the spectators into suitable mind for the better perceiving of his merit. There could be little doubt as to the outcome, had the fight been real, for Burbage was puffing in a way that made the queen's observation, "He's fat and scant of breath," most apt. During the sword-work, the lords and soldiers aired Italian fencing terms then current, in praising the good defence that "the mad girl's brother" made; and when he seemed to wound Hamlet, there burst out a burly voice from the midst of the yard, with:
"I knew that thrust was coming, Master Marryott! Tis I—Kit Bottle!"
When Laertes confessed his treachery and begged Hamlet's forgiveness, so well had Hal fenced and so well acted, he won such esteem of the audience as to die in the best odor. And when, at last, the rushes covering the stage boards were in turn covered with dead bodies, when the curtains closed, and the audience could be heard bustling noisily out of the theatre, Hal partook of the general jubilant relief, and hoped the beautiful young lady had indeed seen the last act from somewhere in the house. The actors arose from the dead, looked as if they had jointly and severally thrown off a great burden, and hastened to substitute their plainer clothes for their rich costumes.
"Come with us to the Falcon for a cup or two, and then to the Mermaid to supper," said Shakespeare to Hal, as the latter was emerging from the theatre a few minutes later, dressed now in somewhat worn brown silk and velvet. With