The Silent Woman by Edward Marston Page B

almost giddy and this was their undoing for they did not hear the knock of the real world on the door of their fantasy. Only when the maidservant burst into the room did they come down from their clouds of bliss.
    ‘Make haste, mistress!’ cried the intruder. ‘The master has returned.’
    ‘That cannot be!’ cried Jane in alarm.
    ‘He’s here below. I wonder you did not hear him open the door, it creaks so loud.’ The maidservant hissed at Edmund Hoode. ‘Fly, sir! He will surely kill you if he finds you in his bed.’
    The maidservant rushed out again and the lovers leapt up. Jane pulled down her nightgown and sped on tiptoe into the corridor in time to hear the heavy tread of boots upon the stairs. She waited long enough to see her husband’s hat and cloak come out of the gloom then she darted back into the bedchamber and closed the door. Two bolts were slid into place and she flung her back against it for extra fortification.
    ‘Run, Edmund!’ she advised ‘Run!’
    ‘I try!’ wailed the stricken wooer, attempting to gather up his clothing from the floor. Valour flickered. ‘Should I not stay to defend you, my love?’
    ‘He will murder us both if he sees you. Go!’
    A thunderous banging on the door convinced Hoode that a speedy exit was his only hope of salvation. Opening the window, he hurled his clothing out then dived madly after it without any concessions to self-respect. A forgotten ruff trailed down disconsolately after him then the window was closed tight. The interrupted swain grabbed his apparel and sprinted off through the streets as if a pack of hounds were on his tail. Jane Diamond might have turned London into an enchanted garden but her husband had just made a tour with Westfield’s Men seem infinitely more appealing. He did not stop running until he reached the comparative safety of his lodging and even there he barricaded himself in.
    The lady herself was covered in distress but spared the ultimate horror of being interrogated by her husband. In response to his pounding, she told him that she was already in bed and that he was disturbing her slumbers. Accepting her word, he mumbled an apology and trudged off to spend the night in another chamber. Jane Diamond was so relieved by her narrow escape that she flung herself down and buried her head among the pillows. She was still rehearsing the excuse she would use next morning when she eventually fell asleep.
    The real beneficiary of the night’s work was the maidservant. In addition to gratitude from her mistress and money from Edmund Hoode, she was given a much more generous payment by Lawrence Firethorn. In the cloak and hat provided by the maidservant, any man could have lookedlike a returning husband who is only glimpsed once on a dark staircase, but the portrayal had been given real authenticity by a master of his craft. The absent spouse had cause to be eternally thankful to Lawrence Firethorn. Not only had the finest actor of the day deigned to impersonate him, he had also saved him by a hair’s breadth from certain cuckoldry.
    Firethorn collected his horse and rode off towards Shoreditch in a mood of self-congratulation. Once he had found out the address of Hoode’s inamorata, he had won over the maidservant with a combination of charm and bribery, and been informed of the tryst. It had been simple to set up his performance and to achieve the desired response. A much-needed member of the company had been forcibly returned to its bosom and a wandering wife had been frightened into fidelity for at least a fortnight. Firethorn could now play the returning husband at home and while away his last night there in connubial delights. His wife, Margery, was made of sterner stuff than Jane Diamond. When she took her man into her bed, nothing and nobody would be allowed to interrupt her until she had wrung the last ounce of pleasure out of him. Firethorn’s heels jabbed the horse into a gallop.
     
    Catastrophe had been averted at the