Free Alms for Oblivion by Philip Gooden Page A

the damps. A small woman was sitting at the edge of the little room overlooking the stage. I could see her only in outline. For a moment I hoped that it was
Richard Milford’s fresh young wife, Lucy. I inclined my head, very slightly.
    “Nicholas Revill, my lord,” said Milford. “You have met, I believe.”
    “We have met, I believe,” parroted Lord Robert.
    “A promising young player, you know,” added my friend Milford.
    Now, this was the kind of remark sure to gall my kibe. You know you’re getting on in experience, if not in years, when you no longer like being called ‘promising’.
    “Not so young any more, Master Milford,” I said neutrally, “but about your age.”
    “Nor so promising neither, Master Revill? Haw haw.”
    This was Lord Robert speaking. I found it very difficult to think of him as Lord Anything. Lord Bumpkin perhaps. He had a twangy, rusticky sort of voice, with burrs and thistles clinging to
it.
    “That is not for me to judge, my lord, how ‘promising’ I am. You have just seen me perform, after all.”
    I indicated my costume. In
Love’s Diversion
I played a lover – a satisfied lover, unlike Shakespeare’s Troilus – and was wearing something smart but unshowy.
    Lord Bumpkin came forward and felt the material of my doublet. He had little pig-like eyes, hair like a hay-rick and powerful, meaty hands. He stood back and sized up the overall effect of my
costume, as if he might be about to buy it. Then he turned towards the woman sitting by the outer rail. Now I saw that she wasn’t Lucy Milford and was disappointed. This woman was much
stouter, much thicker. She was also dressed in a style which gave much away, whether you wanted what she was giving or not.
    “Whaddya say, Vinny? Do you like the cut of his cloth?”
    “I am not a tailor, dear.”
    “I mean, is Master Revill’s performance
promising
– or has he shot his bolt? Haw.”
    “It depends on what he’s promising, don’t it, dear?”
    Her voice was as ugly and countrified as her husband’s.
    “Or what he’s performing, haw haw,” said Lord Bumpkin.
    I said nothing, not feeling up to these rallies of wit.
    Richard Milford, as if he saw that his aristocratic friends were not making a favourable impression, busied himself at a little table and handed me a glass of something spiced with ginger.
    “Well,
I
thought you did well this afternoon, Nicholas,” he said.
    Well, thank you, Richard, I thought.
    “It is a thin play, this
Love’s Diversion
, you know,” he added. “It wants a bit of blood and sinew.”
    “William Hordle is a good craftsman,” I said. “Master Shakespeare thinks highly of him.”
    “Oh, Shakespeare,” he said.
    “Tell me, Master Revill, you’re a player . . . ”
    “I am, my lord.”
    Bumpkin Venner seemed to be having difficulty in ordering his thoughts.
    “As a player . . . you are able to say . . . regarding these Shakespeares and these Hordles now . . . they don’t match up to our playwright, do they?”
    “
Our
playwright – I am not sure who – ”
    “This gent here. They just don’t match up, do they?”
    Squat Lord Bumpkin slammed a meaty paw into Richard’s back, causing him to spill some of the contents of his glass. Even in the dim light of the box, Richard had the grace to look
uncomfortable.
    “Oh, Richard is without equal,” I said.
    O Nicholas, master of the diplomatic equivocation.
    “And he is not merely our playwright. He is our poet as well. Look.”
    And from out of a pocket Lord Bumpkin produced a slim volume which I recognized as Richard Milford’s
A Garland
. He opened the poetry book near the frontispiece and jabbed a stubby
finger at a paragraph. I couldn’t make out much in the half-light of the box but Bumpkin saved me the trouble by reading the words aloud, after a bout of throat-clearing to get rid of the
burrs and thistles.
    “‘TO R.V. THE ONLY BEGETTER.’”
    These first words were boldly uttered, fitting the capital letters