The Merchant of Vengeance (14 page)

His friendship with Elizabeth — for it was truly little more than that—was a source of both joy and misery to him. He was hopelessly in love with her, and had been ever since the day he met her at the Burbage Theatre, where he and Will had gained employment as ostlers upon first coming to London. From the very beginning, there had seemed to be a spark between them, but she had arrived in a fine black coach to meet a gentleman to whom she was betrothed. And, he had thought at the time, even if she were not already spoken for, she was still too far above him for him to entertain any serious thoughts of courtship.

She was the beautiful daughter of a wealthy merchant who was also a partner in the Burbage Theatre, while he was a lowly working-class ostler whose greatest hope in life was to become a player. With such a daughter, a wealthy man like Henry Darcie could easily arrange a marriage that would advance his family both socially and financially. Shakespeare, who had quickly realised his friend was smitten, had vainly pointed out to him that someone like himself had about as much chance of courting Elisabeth Darcie as a player had of being knighted. And it might have ended there had fate not brought Elizabeth to seek his help in freeing herself from a betrothal to a man who turned out in the end to have been an impostor, a murderer, and a spy.

The situation had served to bring them closer, and a grateful Henry Darcie, as a way of acknowledging his debt, had allowed their friendship to continue. He could still not countenance any sort of formal relationship or courtship, but because he owed a debt to Smythe and trusted both him and his daughter to behave honourably, he could at least, somewhat grudgingly, look the other way. And in that Smythe found both relief and frustration.

He enjoyed his meetings with Elizabeth immensely and looked forward to them, but at the same time he often found them agonising. He could not simply come out and tell her how he felt about her. He had no right to do so, nor did she encourage him —at least, not in any direct way —either because she could not or would not. He was never really certain which. Maybe it was both.

They had long conversations every time they met, but there was often another sort of conversation that took place between them, one that went unspoken. He was convinced, despite Shakespeare's repeated assertions that he was only deluding himself, that Elizabeth cared for him more than merely as a friend. And a number of times, she had come close to saying it outright.

She was at an age when many young women of her class would have already been married. Yet she had obstinately resisted every attempt by her father to arrange a suitable match for her, insisting that she would not marry for any reason save for love, an attitude her father found maddeningly unreasonable. To his way of thinking, she had at most another five years of opportunity to find a suitable husband, one that would advance Henry Darcie's own position as well as hers. Much past the age of twenty-five or-six and she would be considered a spinster.

Given her beauty, there had certainly been no shortage of suitors. However, her fiery and assertive nature had given her the reputation of a shrew, a term that she wryly defined as "a woman who does not do all that a man wishes." At times, that same strong sense of independence led to arguments between them, but no argument, however passionate, was ever enough to break the bond they had. Quite the opposite, in fact.

They met most frequently in Paul's Walk, a crowded place where people of all classes mingled, where, if necessary, the convenient fiction of a chance encounter could explain their being together. Yet, in Antonia's case, that had not been quite enough. She had seemed suspicious of them from the start, although Smythe had the feeling that she suspected a great deal more than she had reason to suspect. It was in the way that she had looked at him, with a sort of smug and knowing glance. It had irritated him and at the same time, curiously, made him feel guilty, like a small boy caught doing something wrong.

He soon spotted Elizabeth’s familiar long, dark green velvet cloak and hastened toward her. As usual, she was at the bookstalls, perusing the titles. It was not merely for the sake of appearances, however. She was a great reader, although their tastes were not the same. He liked to read pamphlets about London's criminal underworld and about the adventures of sailors and soldiers and such, while Elizabeth was much more interested in poetry. Nevertheless, their love of reading was something that they had in common.

"Elizabeth, I received your message and came as soon as I could," he said.

She turned toward him and, once again, as every time, he was so struck by her beauty that he was rendered speechless for a moment. Like most unmarried women, she did not wear a coif and her blond hair fell out in a thick braid from beneath the hood of her cloak and hung down the side of her chest to her waist, which was naturally narrow even without the aid of a boned, stiff-pointed bodice and stomacher. Much co her mother's chagrin, since turning twenty, she had obstinately refused to wear the latest fashions, claiming that they were too confining and would not let her breathe. She preferred much simpler clothing, such as gowns cut in the kirtle style, similar to those worn by working-class women. However, so as not to utterly scandalize her parents, she had hers made from silks and three-piled velvets, the better, very costly kind that was cut into three heights and imported from Italy or France. And, unlike most women of the upper and middle classes, she did not dye her hair or paint her face, because she claimed that it was too much trouble and made her face feel as if it were caked with grease.

This was her rebellion against having been dressed in fashionable, adult clothing from an early age and dragged around her father's ever widening social circles, "paraded before the gentry and the aristocrats like a Judas goat staked out for bait," as she described it. For, having realized early on that he had a daughter of surpassing beauty, with soft, flaxen hair, deep blue eyes, high cheekbones, and creamy, nearly translucent skin, Henry Darcie had seen an opportunity that might otherwise have been denied him, regardless of how hard he worked and how successful he became.

He knew that an alliance through marriage to a family of rank and longstanding position might allow him to overcome the handicap of his common birth and become a gentleman. Unfortunately for Henry Darcie, his own pride and overreaching ambition had ultimately kept him from achieving his goal. He could easily have married off Elizabeth a dozen times over when she was younger and more tractable, but none of her suitors had ever seemed quite good enough. He had always believed he could do better. Why settle for a gentleman when he might net himself a knight? And then why settle for a knight when his daughter's charms might snare a nobleman?

Yet as Elizabeth grew older and her intelligent, wilful personality became more and more assertive, she became more and more difficult to handle. Potential suitors whom her father now found quite suitable enough were often quickly discouraged by her independent disposition and by her refusal to subordinate her will or her intelligence to theirs.

Quite impractically, she had announced that she would marry only if she were in love, an idea her father blamed upon a tutor who had instructed her in poetry and who had been summarily dismissed for putting such foolish notions into her head. Sadly for Henry Darcie, once that notion had taken root, it was not so easily dislodged. He believed the day would come when Elizabeth would finally come to her senses and realize that her own future, as well as that of her family, depended upon making a good marriage. However, since his last attempt at arranging a marriage for her had nearly ended in disaster, he had, at least for the present, given up trying to make a match for her. Perhaps, he thought, having tried everything else, if he left Elizabeth alone for a time and allowed her at least some of the freedom that she seemed to crave so much, she might eventually become more settled in her disposition and more amenable to practical decisions.

Meanwhile, so long as her attention seemed to be occupied by books, her women friends, and a rather loutish but honourable and good-hearted young player, she would probably keep out of trouble. She had enough sense that she could not possibly consider anything more than friendship with him, and he, in turn, had proven himself trustworthy, even if he was insufferably working class. Remove the reasons for her rebellion, Henry Darcie thought, and her rebellious spirit might dissipate in time. At least, this was his fondest hope.

Smythe both knew and understood this. What Elizabeth had not explained to him, he could easily surmise from his acquaintance with her father, who was, for all his pomposity and ambition, basically a good and decent man. He trusted them both to behave properly, something Smythe found flattering and frustrating at the same time. There were men, he knew, who would not hesitate to take advantage of such a situation, but he could not. And he did not think Elizabeth could… or would. Therein lay the exquisite agony of their relationship.

'You look as if you have been running, Tuck," Elizabeth said to him. "You are all flushed and out of breath. Are you unwell?"

"Nay… well, perhaps only a little. I fear I drank too much last night and overslept, and when I awoke, my head was fit to burst."

She raised her eyebrows. "You were drunk? 'Tis not very like you, Tuck. Is your friend Shakespeare becoming a bad influence upon your Or is it that something causes you distress?"

"The latter, I confess, although 'tis still a poor excuse for such behaviour, and I have learned my lesson painfully," Smythe replied, rubbing his still-aching head. "My father came to visit me last night at the Toad and Badger. Our conversation was exceedingly unpleasant, but 'tis a matter of no consequence at present. I am more concerned to learn that the sheriff’s men came to your house this morning. What happened?"

"Methinks that you already know," she replied. "They wanted to know about poor Thomas."

"Leffingwell told them that you were at the shop, no doubt," said Smythe with a grimace. "I was afraid he would. I had hoped to keep you out of it."

"How are you involved in this?" she asked with a frown.

He sighed. "'Twas all my fault, I fear." Her eyes went wide. "What?"

"Oh, I do not mean his murder," Smythe quickly replied. "I

had naught to do with that, but I fear 'twas I who had set events in motion that must have led to the foul deed. And now I feel myself responsible for the tragedy that came to pass."

"But how?" Elizabeth asked, as they proceeded together slowly down the crowded Walk. “I did not know you even knew him."

"Until yesterday morning, I did not," said Smythe, and he quickly told her what had happened since the time that he and Will went to see Ben Dickens at his shop. He did not tell her the full scope of his conversation with Thomas Locke, for that was a bolt that struck a bit too close to home, but he did convey the essential substance of it. "So, you see," he concluded, "'twas all my fault that Thomas had decided to elope with Portia Mayhew, for had I never mentioned it, the idea might never even have occurred to him."

"I see," Elizabeth replied. She took a deep breath and exhaled heavily before continuing. "Well, in that event, perhaps you might feel somewhat relieved of your guilt in this sad matter if you knew that the idea would surely have occurred to him whether you had suggested it or not, for I had also suggested it to Portia."

"What?" said Smythe, staring at her with astonishment. "You mean to say that you told Portia that she should elope with him? But… when did this occur?"

"From what you have just told me, I would surmise it must have been at nearly the same time that you spoke with Thomas at Ben's shop," Elizabeth replied. "So 'twould seem not to be possible, in truth, to determine for a certainty which of us was first to offer our counsel."

"Odd's blood!" said Smythe, thinking Shakespeare had been right. "So that was why you went to Leffingwell's tailor shop? You were looking for Thomas so that Portia could tell him that she was willing to run off with him?"

"Quite so," Elizabeth replied. "But she never had the chance to speak with him, poor girl. And now she has been driven nearly insensible with grief over what has happened."

"When did she learn of it?" asked Smythe.

"When I did, this morning," Elizabeth replied. "She was staying at my father's house with me."

"But why was she at your house?"

"Because she was angry at her father for refusing to let her marry Thomas," she replied. "And now she refuses to go home, because she is convinced that her father had poor Thomas killed."

"He may well have done so," Smythe said. "He would seem a likely suspect, especially if he knew the two of them planned to elope. But then, I do not see how he could have known. There would not seem to have been enough time or opportunity for him to have made such a discovery."

"Unless he met with Thomas and Thomas told him outright what he planned," Elizabeth replied.

"But why would he do that?" asked Smythe. "'Twould seem very foolish to forewarn him."

"Mayhap Thomas did it out of spite, to defy Portia's father and flaunt in his face that there was nothing he could do to stop them," Elizabeth replied.

"Would he have done such a thing?" asked Smythe with a frown. "Was Thomas that much of a hotspur?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "In truth, I do not know," she said.

"I did not know him. We had never even met."

"What, never?"

She shook her head. "Not even once. I never did lay eyes upon him."

"But I thought Portia was your friend?"

"She was, and is, my friend," Elizabeth replied. "But there was never an occasion for me to meet Thomas. They had only but lately become formally betrothed, and I had not seen very much of her of late. I had heard her speak of him before, but you would know him much better than I, for all the brief time that you spent with him. Did he strike you as a man who was possessed of a bold and fiery disposition?"

Smythe considered for a moment. "Nay, I would say that he did not. He seemed quite driven to distraction by what had happened, but I would say his disposition was more one of desolation and dismay than of scorn or anger. He did not strike me as some roaring boy. Quite the contrary, he seemed more. well, if you had met him, I do not think that you would have taken him for anything but what he was, a tailor."