After the Fire Read Free Page B

for she and her fellow actors had benefited from the sweeping away of the old buildings. In the intervening years, Mr Christopher Wren himself had designed the Duke of York’s fine new theatre by the Thames, in the gardens of burned-out Dorset House. The Dorset Gardens Theatre, as most called it, was best approached from the river, where its white portico and pillars loomed over the better-off theatregoers who arrived by boat. But that was not Betsy’s route: like most of the actors, she took her chances in the noisy, muddy streets, threading her way to her home on the edge of the ruins, in what was now known as Fire’s Reach Court.
    ‘Harlots! Foul painted jades! The Lord will strike ye down dead, as he has your dark-skinned friend!’
    Neither Betsy nor Jane had noticed the wild-eyed man who stood in the street, raising his fist to the cloudy autumn sky. In the other hand he clutched a tattered bible. The fellow wore threadbare clothes of twenty years back: black doublet and breeches, grey worsted stockings and an old crowned hat. As both women turned, he pointed a trembling finger at them.
    ‘The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed by the fire! For the wicked are not plucked away: reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord has rejected them!’
    ‘Mr Palmer,’ Betsy smiled, ‘have you been here all afternoon? It looks like rain again.’
    Praise-God Palmer glared. ‘Let it pour, woman – I’ll not flinch from the Lord’s work! Repent while ye may, and forsake this house of wickedness!’
    But Jane Rowe drew her bertha about her shoulders and glared back; she had no time for Palmer or his rantings. ‘Take yourself off, you dirty black crow,’ she retorted. ‘We’re two honest women who earn our bread as well as any—’
    ‘Honest women?’ the man echoed. ‘Ye who show yourselves in undress like the harlots of the town? Shame on ye! The Fire was God’s judgement. Did He not burn this warren to the ground? Yet ye flaunt His will by building a new theatre upon it, a house of bawdy and devilment!’
    ‘It’s the Duke of York’s theatre, Mr Palmer,’ Betsy answered, as Jane tugged her sleeve. ‘Perhaps you should direct your anger towards Whitehall….’
    ‘You mock me!’ The ranter took a step forward, but Betsy did not move; she knew the fellow’s wrath never went beyond verbal assault. In her years on the stage she had grown used to his presence outside one or other of the two Royal theatres, the King’s Playhouse or the Duke’s. Whatever the season, Palmer would assail those who went in or out, deriding them for their sins, taking their jibes and threats without flinching. More than once he had been set upon by drunken rakes, and once by a couple of bad-tempered actors who blamed him for the poor house. Yet next day he was back, bruised but undeterred, shouting his scriptures with renewed energy.
    ‘Come on, Betsy dear.’ Jane was walking off towards Fleet Street. Beyond the rebuilt St Bride’s, carts clattered over the Fleet Bridge. Betsy was about to follow when a thought struck her.
    ‘You’re mighty quick with the news, Mr Palmer,’ she said. ‘Who told you Long Ned was dead?’
    Palmer stared at her, then broke into a smile that was more like a grimace. ‘Black crow, am I? Then mayhap I soared above Covent Garden and spied his miserable end for myself!’
    ‘Miserable end?’ Betsy echoed. ‘Why do you say such?’
    But Palmer’s thoughts ran their own course, which few could have fathomed. He drew back, raising his bible as if to ward her off. ‘Question me not, woman, for ye have strayed from the path, and your mind is as a dark fog! Get ye into yon church, fall upon your knees and beg forgiveness – only then can ye hope to find salvation!’ He paused, then: ‘As for the wretch ye called Long Ned, he has paid for his sins. The Lord has struck him down like a wand. Let others take heed of it!’
    ‘Betsy!’ Jane called from the end of the lane. Betsy