Mary’s wan face had gained color; Ester watched her cast about for a witty answer. “I prefer to faint closer to the ground,” she said after a moment.
“Aha! Beauty and wisdom.” The man extended his arm. Flushing, Mary took it, and he strolled a few paces off with her as though they were on a promenade, rather than in a pit. “And you fainted, I take it, due to the power of our disquisition.” He enunciated as though still on stage.
“She fainted,” Ester offered, “from the shock of the crowd.”
“Or it might have been due to the dazzling wit of the actors,” he said archly to Mary. “Only you, being the proprietor of the faint, are in a position to know.”
Already a flirtatious pout was forming on Mary’s lips.
“Shall we go now?” Ester said. It felt urgent to dispel this stranger’s charm before it took further hold.
Mary shot Ester a sour look. At this, the man turned on Ester a bright, magnanimous smile—as though she were speaking out of envy. “You can join us as well if you like. Unless my acting so offended you?”
Ester countered with an overseriousness even she could hear. “It’s not any insult to your acting to say you recite the lines of a middling play by a middling playwright.”
His laugh filled the hall. “Yet it’s not any compliment either. I shan’t ask your opinion of my acting, dear lady, for I fear it. Perhaps your other admirers enjoy barbs. But I like a lady sweet.” He looked only at Ester as he spoke, but she watched his words have their intended effect on Mary, who smiled a soft, blushing smile.
Behind Mary and her companion, other players began to drift across the stage. A woman with pale frothed hair and tired eyes approached from the proscenium—hardly recognizable as the brazen actress who had just walked the stage in breeches and, with a foolish pretty speech, cracked the sky over Ester’s head.
The woman, jumping down neatly from the stage, murmured, “See you tomorrow, Thomas my love,” and—paying no notice to Mary on his arm—kissed him carelessly on the lips and hurried off. Mary stood agape, her expression of resentment giving way gradually to a sparking, curling curiosity.
On the stage, two men who’d emerged behind the woman lingered, clearly awaiting Thomas. One, a tall, bearded, Spanish-looking man, scowled impatiently at Thomas. The other, a slim, short-haired Englishman in modest but tidy attire, had a light cap of hair and no beard. His expression was alert, his gray eyes quiet, and he observed Thomas with a thoughtful detachment that made Ester wonder if he were a student of the ministry.
“Thomas, man, what might you possibly want with two Jewesses?” the darker man said. His voice was low and amused, but as he spoke his lips curled in a half smile that seemed to Ester more dangerous than mirthful. He’d a narrow face, pale, unblinking eyes, a thick, cropped beard.
Thomas let out a shocked laugh. “Jewesses?” he echoed. Turning, he searched their faces. “But this one wears a cross.”
“So do all their people who wish to hide what they are,” said the darker man.
“Is it so?” said Thomas, peering into Mary’s face with eager fascination. But for once Mary looked away.
Alarm rose in Ester. “It is,” she answered bluntly.
Thomas whistled. “A Jewess. And hens make holy water. Who thought I’d find myself a Jewess?”
The slimmer man, who stood slightly behind the others, spoke up quietly. “An honor to make your acquaintance,” he said. “I’m John Tilman. You’ve met Thomas Farrow. And this is Esteban Bescós.”
But Thomas, still laughing, was uninterested in niceties. “Heaven strike me.” With his free hand he thumped the proscenium stage as though celebrating his good fortune. “A cross-wearing Jewess, and her dour keeper.” He gestured vaguely at Ester—then stepped back a pace from Mary, though still holding her arm, to examine her. In confusion, Mary shrank from him—but Thomas waved to show himself harmless. As Mary straightened herself self-consciously, Ester saw Thomas’s gaze fall on Mary’s jeweled ring and the pearl-set bracelet draping one of her wrists.
“She’s recovered now, thank you.” Ester took Mary’s free arm and made to depart.
Holding Mary by one arm while Ester led her by the other, Thomas kept pace with them on their way to the door. The other two men followed at a distance. “But you still have no praise for the players and all our philosophy?” he charged Ester, though his words were all for Mary. “’Tis a deep philosophy,” he added, with another glance at Mary’s ornate jewelry, “that lurks beneath all our wit.”
“No praise,” said Ester, and she pulled the heavy door open with her free hand.
“None?” he cried, and this time his indignation seemed real. “Your ignorance insults!”
“None.” She banged her elbow as she tried to hold the door wide without letting go her grip on Mary. “Though if you must shout such nonsense and call it philosophy, this theater is a fine ringing shell for it.” She pulled on Mary’s arm.
Stopping beside Mary on the threshold, Thomas replied airily. “It’s fortunate for the play it wasn’t subjected to your foreigner’s English,” he said. “Else we’d have witnessed for the first time in history an English play hanged, drawn, and quartered.”
Bescós snorted his appreciation.
“In my English,” said Ester, her words tight, “your play would have enough weight to make impress in the minds of the listeners, not puff them full of a meal of spun sugar, so they leave with their bellies seeming full, only to feel their hunger a few minutes thence.” She’d never spoken thus in English, nor had she dared so accost an Englishman. But in her impatience to return home, shyness no longer gated her speech, and the English that had grown in her these years easily breached its confines. “Once your audience realizes the play’s failure,” she went on, her face hot, “they’re no longer in purse to purchase any true meal for the soul or the body, while you retreat with their shillings to purchase drink sufficient to float an armada. A comedy is a fine treat, so long as you serve it with no pretension. Call it entertainment, sir, but not philosophy.”
Bescós was laughing loud. “This is something like!” He cuffed Thomas’s shoulder. “She understands the principles of your trade.”
Thomas made a show of dusting himself off, then replied with a mute punch to Bescós’s arm.
Ester tugged Mary one final step into the clouded light of the street outside the theater. There Mary broke away from Ester with a look of fury. “Her rudeness,” Mary said to Thomas, “is considered a burden among our community. I alone agree to go about the city with her; the other girls won’t.” At Thomas’s laughter a still deeper flush rose on Mary’s cheeks. With defiant formality—as though she spoke not only before Ester but before the whole congregation—she extended her hand and announced, “Mary da Costa Mendes.” For an instant she faltered, then—with a furtive glance at Ester—added, “And Ester Velasquez.”
“Mary!”
But Thomas was laughing. “My pleasure to learn your name, Mary. I see from your friend’s anger it’s a forbidden pleasure, which makes me like it the more. In a name lies truth. And,” he added, “I’m eager to know the truth of you.”
From behind Thomas, Bescós gave a bark of laughter. “You must not begrudge our actor friend his pronouncements about truth and philosophy. He reminds all at least once a fortnight that he was sent by his too-hopeful father to study at Oxford during the battles. But his principal work there, I’m afraid, was to publish pamphlets saying the Parliamentarians enjoyed relations with their horses.”
At this John, until now silent at the back of the gathering, spoke up. “These are ladies, Bescós!” he said.
“Yes, Bescós, he’s right.” Thomas made an obsequious bow to Mary, ignoring Ester. “Please forgive us, the theater makes us forget ourselves.”