Sleep of Death (22 page)

‘You are not from our city, are you, Nell? I can hear it in your voice.’

‘From our country, Will.’

‘Have you shut up shop for the day? Are your customers all gone?’ I said, in a none-too-subtle effort to inform William that he was dealing with a common whore and in case he had not been alerted to this fact by her dress or manner.

‘You keep a shop, Nell?’

She was all eyes for him, and he for her, and I was away on the edge of their vision and out of their minds. She was throwing back the tankard of ale and, in between gulps, no doubt casting up her eyes at him from under their lids.

‘In a manner of speaking, Will.’

‘And what do you trade in?’

‘Dainties . . . and sweetmeats . . . and suchlike.’

‘I expect you are well patronised.’

‘I always have room for another customer.’

‘No, you are never full, are you Nell?’ I said. ‘No matter how many crowd your parlour.’

‘Even so, I dare say that your stock goes fast,’ said William, ignoring my interjection.

‘So fast that it must soon be exhausted,’ I tried again.

‘It is always fresh, every day it is fresh,’ said Nell, also ignoring me and draining her pot to the last drop.

‘Another?’ said William Eliot. ‘And Nick, you as well?’

‘Thank you, I have not finished,’ I said, with what I hope was a bad grace. It seemed my fate to be accompanied by quick drinkers. I remembered the other evening in the Ram with Master Robert Mink and his love-lorn lyrics.

‘And whereabouts is your shop situated, mistress Nell? Where does a country girl set out her stall? I ask in case I should wish to inspect your wares.’

‘You should ask directions at the place which was my Lord Hunsdon’s mansion.’ (This was, by the by, a piece of coy indirection on the part of Nell, for the house she referred to was the place now known as Holland’s Leaguer.) ‘They will be able to tell you where I am to be found.’

‘I thought so,’ said William. ‘I have seen other vendors in that street, but none, I think, that may match you.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

By this time, Nell had almost finished her second pot, and I felt myself growing sick at heart.

‘Excuse me,’ said William. He went out into the yard, no doubt for a piss.

Nell turned to me. I was staring into the bottom of my tankard to avoid meeting her gaze.

‘Come, come, Nick,’ she said softly, laying her hand upon my knee. ‘It is all business.’

‘No pleasure, all trade,’ I said angrily.

‘Which would you prefer it to be? My trade is their pleasure. But it is my business, as yours is to tread the boards. We are all beholden to men from over the river.’

‘My trade is rather more respectable than yours, I think.’

‘You have not said so before.’

‘I have often thought it,’

‘I shall make it up to you,’ she said. ‘I shall restore you to good humour. Who can restore you as I can?’ she said softly but urgently, with ale-freighted breath, as she saw William Eliot returning.

I said nothing, but was a little mollified at her whispered words. It was true, who could restore me as she could? And considering all this afterwards, I had to concede that my Nell had some right on her side and that I had little excuse to interfere in her business. It was more that I did not care for it to be conducted under my nose. Nor could I be angry with William. He was only acting as I would have acted. There is also, I have observed, a little core of sweetness at the heart of jealousy. For, I think too, that I was for the first time fearful of losing her, I who had always taken the girl’s heart for granted whatever she might do with her body.

William joined us again but did not resume his position on the bench. He announced his intention to cross the river to return to his mother’s house and suggested that we share a ferry. I was relieved, for it meant that he did not intend a rendezvous with Nell at that moment, even were she willing. It meant too that, had I chosen, I could have returned with her to the place that she had described as Lord Hunsdon’s mansion. There she could make it up to me. By her little movements against my flank, that was what she seemed to have in mind. Meantime, William stood somewhat impatiently over us waiting for my answer.

‘Thank you, William,’ I said. ‘I am tired after a day’s play and I have parts to scan. I will go with you.’

I could sense my Nell’s disappointment, and was glad, and then wondered if I shouldn’t after all have accompanied her so that she might do her worst with me.

I have just now talked with the doorkeeper of the Eliot house, and I must this instant write down what he said. It is the only way to order my mind and to set things in their proper sequence. This fellow’s name is Tom Bullock and he fits it, being thick across the forehead, the shoulders, the chest, etc. Unlike in my interview with the unfortunate Francis I do not have to straighten out and tidy up his words. What Bullock had to say he said, and no more besides. And, when I had heard him, I almost wished the questions had remained unasked. I was seeking to discover whether anybody unknown or unexpected had visited the house on the afternoon of Sir William’s death. The doorkeeper has a small cubby-hole by the main entrance and anybody wishing to enter the house – or leave it, for that matter – must pass him. Perhaps Bullock sees himself as a man of a somewhat philosophical turn of mind and thinks that the greatest wisdom shows itself best in the fewest words.

Nick Revill: You remember the day of Sir William’s death?

Tom Bullock: Of course.

NR: You were on duty here?

TB: Where else would I be?

NR: When were you aware that something had happened?

TB: Something?

NR: I will be more precise. When did you first become aware that the master of the house was dead?

TB: Let me ask you a question, Master Revill.

NR: I am at your service, Master Bullock.

TB: Why are you asking me these questions?

NR: You have probably heard that I am a player.

TB: I have heard.

NR: From your tone I can see you have no very high opinion of our profession.

TB: Everyone must have a living.

NR: I am with the Lord Chamberlain’s Company. We play at the Globe on the other side of the river. Indeed, I was privileged to meet the master and mistress of this house at one of our performances.

TB: It was there also that you met Adrian the steward, I am told.

NR: Yes.

TB: And discovered him for a thief.

NR [
thinking that I had glimpsed the reason for the doorkeeper’s hostility
]: It is true that I had a hand in that business. I did not dismiss him, that was your master. I merely helped to expose him.

TB: I am no friend to Adrian. He got what he deserved. He is a dishonest and high-handed man.

NR: Well, we are in agreement.

TB: If you think so. But you have left my question by the wayside.

NR: Your question?

TB: Why do you wish to know about the old master’s death?

NR [
forced to pluck some explanation out of the air
]: I have it in mind to compose a tragedy, a deep respectful tragedy of the domestic sort, like . . . like
Arden of Faversham.

TB: Is he an author?

NR: It is the name of a play, a famous play, about – about a death in a household.

TB: I do not attend the playhouse.

NR: I thought not. But I am interested in the tragic events which happened in this house because—

TB: – because you wish to put them on stage?

NR [
seeing that I am venturing into deeper and deeper water
]: No, no. I am interested because – because ‘Humani nihil alienum’.

TB: I don’t understand your words, Master Revill. Plain English is good enough for me. Nevertheless, if you must ask some questions for private reasons of your own, do it and be done with it.

NR: Thank you. When did you first become aware that Sir William had died?

TB: I heard the cries and wailing from the other side of the house after they had brought his body in from the garden. One of the servants, Janet I think, went running around the house in tears and, all those that did not know, she told willy-nilly.

NR: In the afternoon of that day you were at your post here?

TB: I have already said so.

NR: Were there any visitors that afternoon?

TB: Most likely.

NR: Can you call any of them to mind?

TB: One was of your kind.

NR: My kind?

TB: A player.

NR: A player?

TB: Or a – whatd’youcallit? – author, I forget which.

NR: How do you know?

TB: He told me. Just as you told me a minute ago that you were with such-and-such a company at such-and-such a playhouse, he told me that he was an author or a player. Perhaps there is something about the gentlemen in your profession, you cannot hold your tongues but must be telling all the world your business.

NR: Did you admit him to the house?

TB: No.

NR: You turned him away?

TB: No.

NR: I don’t understand.

TB: It is simple enough. Listen. I was sat here as I am with you now, and this ‘gentleman’ knocked and announced himself as a player or an author I forget which – as if he expected I would fall down backwards in amazement at his greatness. But before I was able to say anything to him there was a great commotion in the street beyond the gate and so I went to see what was happening.

NR: The commotion was to do with the gentleman?

TB: Nothing at all to do with him. It was some apprentices who had uncovered two lurking foreigners and were scoffing and laughing at them. The boys made a ring about them and were mocking the foreigners’ hats or the foreigners’ manners or their foreign words.

NR: You knew they were foreign?

TB: I heard their words and I did not understand. I only know plain English, Master Revill.

NR: What did you do when you saw these apprentices and these tormented foreigners, Master Bullock?

TB: Do? It was no business of mine. Let them that be a-cold blow the coals.

NR: Of course. What happened?

TB: The foreigners received a blow or two and a hatful of curses before they managed to run away. They got off lightly – but I think the boys meant no harm.

NR: So you stood outside the gate.

TB: I guarded the house. If they had run in my direction I would have shut the gate against them.

NR: The apprentice boys?

TB: The foreigners.

NR: Then you returned to your post in here?

TB: Just so.

NR: And the visitor, the, ah, gentleman?

TB: Gone.

NR: Where? Into the house? Back into the street?

TB: Into the street.

NR: You’re sure? You saw him?

TB: No. But he would not have dared to enter the house, so he must have returned to the street.

NR: While you were watching the apprentice boys and the foreigners.

TB: While I was doing my duty, guarding this house.

NR: You’ve never seen him since that day, the afternoon of Sir William’s death?

TB: Many people visit this house. The Eliot family is a great family and they are accustomed to receiving important visitors. Those are the ones I remember.

NR: So you know nothing about this caller except that he was a player or an author—

TB: Oh he gave his name, Master Revill.

NR: Which you cannot call to mind, no doubt.

TB: Yes. But not perfect. Like a muddy reflection I cannot get it whole.

NR: Part will do.

TB: Let me see. What was it? Shagspark, Shakespurt, Shackspeer, something like that.

Once again I was playing Jack Southwold in
A City Pleasure,
the play about the country brother and sister who come to London and who are, it is revealed at the end, not really siblings and so may marry in safety. The play was a hit, a palpable hit, despite my predictions about it to Nell. It was during this piece that I had encountered the Eliot family for the first time and, as Thomas Bullock had reminded me, helped to expose the false steward Adrian. All this only a few days earlier, but it seemed like another life. And that had led to the invitation from young William Eliot to lodge in his mother’s and uncle’s house to see if, by keeping my eyes and ears open, I might detect anything out of the way about the death of his father.

Well, I had found out things, unwelcome things. Like a foolish mariner that sets out on a bright morning across smooth glittering water, I started full of spirit and expectation. And before I knew it I was sailing beyond the confines of the harbour and out into the open seas and had no charts to help me while, overhead, the skies looked dark. For what I was groping my way towards was that the mysterious man who had called at the house on the afternoon of Sir William’s death, the man who had eluded the distracted doorkeeper, slipped into the main garden and then somehow penetrated the inner garden, the man who had hidden himself up in the pear tree and carved his initials into the bark as he waited to drop on his victim like a thunderbolt, this man was none other than Master William Shakepeare, the principal author, joint shareholder and occasional player in the Chamberlain’s Men. The carved initials had been given flesh, as it were, by Thomas Bullock’s words, which could not but support the idea that Master Shakespeare had indeed haunted this house.

I had earlier conceived of Master WS as a murderer and a cheat and a rogue – just as I had seen him as a bishop, a prince and a king. He was all these things and more besides, because these were the things which he had made in the quick forge of his imagination. But now I began to wonder whether he might not be in reality what he had so successfully presented on stage in the persons of King Claudius or Richard III, a secret and a sly murderer.

The part of the crookbacked king brought to my mind a tale, a piece of gossip, which was given to me by Robert Mink. As well as his own lyrics, he evidently loves a naughty story. He wheezed with laughter as he told me backstage how, one day when
Richard III
was to be performed, Master WS noticed a young woman delivering a message to Dick Burbage so cautiously that he knew something must be up. ‘Or soon would be up,’ snorted Mink. The message from the girl was that her master was gone out of town that morning, and her mistress would be glad of Burbage’s company after the play; and the tail of the message was to know what signal he would give so that he might be admitted. Burbage replied, ‘Three taps at the door I will give, and and then I will say, “It is I, Richard the Third”.’ Richard was one of Burbage’s biggest parts, according to Mink. ‘Women were drawn to his crookedness.’