Free Alms for Oblivion by Philip Gooden

was barely a tiny harbour. He wasn’t charming and beautiful and dashing like Southampton. Venner was highly undistinguished in
appearance, squat and straw-haired. At most a lordling or a lordlet. He was an occasional attender at the Globe playhouse and I’d met him once, very briefly. I thought that Richard Milford
ought to have spent longer looking for a patron. I didn’t imagine that Venner had too many poets clamouring for his patronage. Still, it was none of my business.
    All of this – Richard Milford’s new play, titled
The World’s Diseas’d
, and his connections with his patron – came together for me in an unfortunate
conjunction on the following day, the day after Peter Agate’s arrival in my lodgings.
    I left Peter asleep in my room in Dead Man’s Place. It was nine o’clock but he was still flat on his back, a combination of last night’s drinking in the Devil and, no doubt,
general excitement at finding himself consorting with real players in the big city. I assumed he’d find something to do to while away the day. I wondered whether he’d pay a return visit
to Holland’s Leaguer and Nell. I hoped not.
    The fog was still creeping around Southwark like a disgraced guest. The sound of church bells came muffled through the gloom. Passengers passed like wraiths in the streets.
    In the Globe playhouse it was business as usual today. We played less frequently at this time of year – on the previous day, for example, we’d only had our
Troilus and
Cressida
rehearsal at Middle Temple – but we did continue to perform for the public. Our audiences were loyal.
    In the morning we rehearsed in the tire-house for some play or other – I’ve forgotten what it was now – and in the afternoon there was the revival of a drama called
Love’s Diversion
by William Hordle. This was a companion piece to his earlier
Love’s Disdain
, which had also done well for us. Not a bad house for a revival, all things
considered, more than half full. The penny-payers in the pit stamped their feet and huddled together near the stage while their plumy breaths and the smoke from their pipes added to the dank fug of
the yard. The twopenny- and threepenny-payers in the galleries were tightly swaddled up on their seats. All their attention was held, I think, by William Hordle’s drama of love rewarded. And
not a severed head or limb in sight.
    A small part of our audience was secured quite tight against the weather, however. The Globe offered a few boxes in the upper reaches of its galleries. These boxes made up in comfort and privacy
what they lacked in a near view of the stage. Indeed, they were furnished with curtains that could be pulled to shut out the sun or the rain or the more tedious parts of a play. You could even
enjoy your own private fire in your own private box. (Not a good idea in this humble player’s opinion. If I’d been a shareholder I would have worried that the wooden Globe might one day
be reduced to a mountain of ash.)
    After
Love’s Diversion
was done I headed for a box in the uppermost gallery. Before the performance began Richard Milford had invited me to join him in a box which his patron had
hired, to join him for a glass to drink and for some close conversation. Little Lord Robert was holding court up there. From the stage I’d glimpsed two or three figures aloft in that box. At
least the curtains hadn’t been drawn, so presumably these people had been attending to the play.
    I don’t know why I accepted his invitation. Amusement and curiosity perhaps. Still wearing my costume, I tapped at the door to the box and went straight in.
    “Ah, Nicholas,” said Richard Milford. “May I present you to Lord Robert. My patron, you know.”
    Oh, didn’t I know.
    It was late afternoon. Standing in the rapidly dimming daylight in the middle of the box was Richard’s stubby patron, his Southampton-substitute. A sea-coal fire threw a flickering glow on
the whitewashed walls and kept out