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festivities. It was the first time I’d actually been inside such a place and I looked around, wide-eyed, as we stepped inside the high, red-brick walls, welcoming but imposing too. When we mentioned the players, the porter nodded us through, albeit grudgingly.
    ‘Straight through the court and over to the right,’ he said. ‘Don’t go bothering the gentry!’
    They were just ending a rehearsal when we got there, and I left Mrs Allen muttering with pleasure as she pawed through a heap of finery, lifting a scarlet doublet that hadn’t worn too badly. I went in search of old Ben, and found him carefully wiping paint from his face – a face more lined than it used to be. Another, younger, actor stood nearby. I almost said, young actor, but the truth is I found it hard to tell an actor’s age then, and I still do today. All I know is that he was slim, and brown, and pleasant looking and that Ben, who seemed preoccupied, eyed him from time to time almost hungrily.
    ‘Martin Slaughter’ – he made an actor’s gesture, introducing the younger man to me. ‘Take our young guest to see something of the place, why don’t you? It’ll get you out of my way.’
    The slim man made me a light, almost mocking, bow. ‘Shall we?’ As we passed out into court again I asked a shade anxiously if Ben was all right, and before replying he paused slightly.
    ‘More or less all right. All right for this season, anyway. But an actor’s life isn’t easy as you start to age. The best parts are mostly for men in their prime, and the pretending gets harder every day.’ He turned the conversation, gracefully. ‘But, here, I’m being a poor host – even if my ownership is distinctly temporary. It’s too cold outside – let’s take a turn in the long gallery.’
    ‘Are we allowed?’ I was anxious here. It was all strange to me. The room was not so much, compared to some I’ve seen since, but at the time the floor seemed an ocean of polished oak, the walls a glowing forest of oil paint and tapestry.
    ‘Oh, yes. Of course, we bow low and turn tail if her ladyship appears, or any of the family.’
    ‘Who owns this house?’
    ‘Lady Howard, no less – the queen’s own cousin, or at least her father was – and her husband, naturally. You’ll have heard of him – Lord Charles, the Lord Admiral, one of the ones who saved all our bacon in Armada days. Off to save it again, when the spring comes, if it’s true what they say about the Spaniards eyeing the French ports, and another Armada on the way.’ I was dumb. Though I had more cause than most to fear the Spanish, the politics of it all still meant little to me. Martin Slaughter must have seen it.
    ‘Look, here’s a portrait of Lord Howard –’ And we began to walk the length of the painted images in the great gallery.
    As we walked, we talked – or Martin did. It was only later that I wondered, a little, that he hadn’t asked anything about me. At the time, I just accepted it gratefully. He told me how he’d wanted to be an actor, since being taken up to the local great house once as a boy.
    ‘It was her ladyship’s father’s place – old Lord Hunsdon, he is, the Lord Chamberlain, it’s him whose mother was the queen’s aunt – and he’s always been a real patron of the players, licensed his own troupe. They put on a performance, because the queen was come to stay. And my father, he worked in the estate office, wangled us in to watch from the back, and that was it, a few dramatic speeches, and all I wanted to do was join an actors’ company. In the end my poor old father had to ask whether the Lord Chamberlain’s Men could find a use for me. I was with them until my voice began to break, playing the ladies, and then they tried to put me to work with an ironmonger, but I wouldn’t stay. I picked up work where I could find it, but for a while, with the plague, it was a bad time for the play. We all had to find another way to feed ourselves.’ Briefly, his eyes