The Amorous Nightingale

    'Have you ever seen a coat better cut? Scrutinise him well, brother. Admire the sheer artistry. Jasper Hartwell wears nothing but the best and that means keeping a score of Parisian tailors at his command. The periwig is a triumph - Chedreux at his finest.'

    Henry continued to pour out the flattery in large doses and Jasper Hartwell lapped it up greedily. Christopher smiled obediently when he really wanted to laugh with derision. Jasper Hartwell's apparel was, to his eye, frankly ludicrous. The man himself was short, plump and ill-favoured, features that were exposed rather than offset by his attire. He wore a scarlet coat that was slightly waisted with a short flared skirt, made of a garish purple material, falling just below his hips. The coat was collarless and fastened from neck to hem by gold buttons, as were the back slit and the low horizontal pockets. Close- fitting to the elbow, the sleeves had deep turned-back cuffs fastened and decorated with a plethora of buttons.

    Around the neck was a linen cravat with a lace border. Across the body was a wide baldrick, supporting the sword, while the waist was entwined in a silk sash, fringed at both ends. Instead of giving him the military appearance at which he aimed, the outfit emphasised his complete unsuitability for any physical activity. The square-toed shoes were objects of scorn in themselves, fastened over the long tongues with straps, large square buckles and limp ribbon loops with an orange hue. It was as if the tailors of Paris had conspired to wreak their revenge on the perceived lack of taste of the English.

    If his clothing invited ridicule, Jasper Hartwell's wig provoked open-mouthed wonder. It was enormous. Made of ginger hair, it rose up in a series of massive curls until it added almost a foot to his height. The wig fell down on to both shoulders, ending in two long corkscrew locks that could be tied at the back. Perched on top of this hirsute mountain was a large, low- crowned hat, festooned with coloured feather plumes. Out of it all, gleaming with pleasure, loomed the podgy face of Jasper Hartwell, powdered to an almost deathly whiteness and looking less like the visage of a human being than that of an amiable pig thrust headlong through a ginger bush.

    Christopher's hopes were dashed. Expecting to court a potential employer, he was instead meeting a man of such overweening vanity that he made Henry Redmayne seem self- effacing. If the commission were forthcoming, what sort of house would Jasper Hartwell instruct his architect to build? In all probability, it would be an expression of the owner himself, gaudy, fatuous, over-elaborate and inimical to every precept of style and symmetry. Christopher was crestfallen. It would violate his principles to design such a house for such a client.

    Yet in one sentence, his prospects were suddenly resurrected. Leaning forward until his hat wobbled precariously atop its eminence, Hartwell gave him a confiding smile and a first whiff of his bad breath.

    'Henry has shown me your drawings, Mr Redmayne,' he said with a note of respect, 'and I declare, I think them the best I ever beheld.'

    Christopher was dumbfounded. His brother winked at him.

    'First, however,' added Hartwell, 'let us see the play.'

    'And then?' pressed Henry. 'We will come to composition?'

    'Of course.'

    It was over as simply as that.

    Formerly a riding school, The Theatre Royal occupied a site in Bridges Street off Drury Lane. The conversion of the old building was a signal success, the only complaint being that the corridors to the pit and the boxes were too narrow. None of the patrons criticised the interior. It was circular in shape, the walls lined with boxes that were divided from each other to ensure privacy and equipped with rows of seats. As befitted a theatre that was known as The King's House, the prime position was taken by the royal box, overlooking the stage from the ideal angle and offering greater luxury to those who reclined there. The pit, the large central space on the ground floor, was the domain of those unable to afford a box or too late to find one still available.

    It was Christopher Redmayne's first visit to the theatre and its architecture intrigued him. Nobody would ever have guessed that horses were once schooled around its circumference. Jasper Hartwell led the way to a box where he was welcomed loudly by half-a-dozen cronies at various stages of drunkenness. Henry knew them all but Christopher hardly caught their names above the hubbub. Sitting between his brother and his client, he let his gaze rove around the interior.

    'The builders have done a fine job,' he remarked.

    'At a cost,' noted Henry.

    'Oh?'

    'I had it from Tom Killigrew himself. The projected cost was fifteen hundred pounds but it had risen to almost two and a half thousand by the time the renovations were complete. Tom was most unhappy about that. He keeps a tight hand on his purse.'

    'The money was well spent,' said Christopher, looking upward. 'I do like that glazed cupola. It lends distinction and adds light.'

    Henry grimaced. 'It also lets in the rain. Be grateful that we came on a fine day. A very fine day, Christopher. Our fish is landed before we even set sail. We can feed off Jasper Hartwell until we burst.'

    'We, Henry? I thought that I was to be his architect.'

    'Yes, yes, but you must allow me some reflected glory.'

    'Feeding suggests more than glory.'

    'Stop haggling over a damnable verb!'

    Henry accepted the glass of wine that was handed to him and joined in the badinage with the others. When some new guests came lurching into the box to take up their seats, the level of jollity reached a new pitch of intensity. Jasper Hartwell was at the centre of it, basking in the flattery of his friends and dispensing banalities as if scattering words of wisdom. Christopher was left to take stock of his surroundings. His eye took in every detail. The stage was high and framed by a proscenium arch, guaranteeing the play's visibility to everyone in the theatre. What Christopher was less certain about was audibility. Would the actors' voices reach all parts of the audience? More to the point, would those same spectators abandon tumult for a degree of silence so that the play could be heard?

    The noise was deafening. As more patrons crowded into the boxes or elbowed their way into the pit, the cacophony steadily worsened. Laughter and ribaldry predominated, male guffaws counterpointed by the brittle shrieks of females, many of whom wore masks to hide their blushes or to conceal the pitiful condition of their complexions. Wives, mistresses and courtesans were dotted indiscriminately around a house that seemed to consist largely of braying aristocrats or indolent gallants. Prostitutes cruised for business among those in the pit while pert orange girls swung their hips and baskets with studied provocation.

    Christopher noticed one orange-seller who was being used as an emissary, taking a note from a pop-eyed man in a monstrous hat to a vizarded lady who sat in the front seat of a box. Other flirtations were taking place on all sides. The Theatre Royal was a giant mirror in which the assembled throng either preened themselves, got riotously drunk or made blatant assignations. A brawl erupted in the pit. An unseen woman screamed in distress. The wife of a visiting ambassador swung round to spit incautiously over her shoulder, unaware of the fact that someone had just taken the seat directly behind her and, providentially, unable to comprehend the language in which he began to abuse her. Swords were drawn in another box. An old man collapsed in a stupor.

    It was at this point that the play began. Christopher had never seen The Maid's Tragedy before and he was not about to see it properly now for, though the pandemonium lost some of its rage when the actors appeared, it still bubbled mutinously, drowning out most of what was being said in the opening exchanges. Before the play was a minute old, the tall, stately figure of the King himself slipped into the royal box to take his place among his friends and to cause a ripple among the audience. His timing was impeccable. No sooner had he settled down than Harriet Gow, the object of his affections, came on to the stage in the role of Aspatia, the betrayed maiden.

    A hush fell instantly on the whole auditorium. This is what they had come to see, a frail, delicate, impossibly beautiful creature who moved with natural grace and whose voice plucked at the heart-strings.

'My hard fortunes

Deserve not scorn; for I was never proud

When they were good.'