Anxious not to disappoint, she moved back into the entry hall, stopping before a full-length portrait of a cavalier. “Since it’s Shakespeare you’re interested in, you’ll also be interested in the fourth earl. One of the Incomparable Brethren of the First Folio.” The earl had light shoulder-length hair and a sardonic expression. His tawny satin tailoring was a masterpiece of restrained luxury, though he did betray a certain fondness for lace. “The younger of the two,” said Mrs. Quigley. “Philip Herbert. First earl of Montgomery, he was, when this was painted. He married one of the earl of Oxford’s daughters.”
Vero nihil verius, I thought. Nothing truer than truth.
“Later, he inherited the senior earldom of Pembroke, too, when his older brother died childless, which made him simultaneously the fourth earl of Pembroke and first earl of Montgomery. The two earldoms have remained together ever since.”
She chattered on, but I turned back to the statue. Neither the earl nor the Shakespeare house mattered. Shakespeare points to the truth, Ophelia had written. So the truth was presumably right in front of me.
Four of the words on the scroll were carved all in capital letters: Life’s, Shadow, Player, Stage. Was that significant? Shakespeare’s finger rested lightly on shadow…why was that any better than temples?
Life’s, Shadow, Player, Stage.
I frowned at the words chiseled into the scroll. Then I stepped closer. The L in Life’s bore faint traces of gold. “Was this statue once painted?” I asked sharply.
Mrs. Quigley fluttered over. “No, dear, not the statue,” she said. “At least, not the whole of it. A poor treatment of white Carrera marble, that would be. But the words were once painted. A restorer looked quite closely at them just a few years back. I have a computer reconstruction of what he thought it might look like lying about here somewhere.” Crossing to a desk in a corner opposite, she fished about in a drawer. “Aha.”
We crowded around her. In the Photoshopped picture, most of the letters were blue. The capitalized words, though, had red letters—except that each red word—LIFE’S, SHADOW, PLAYER, and STAGE—had one letter picked out in gold.
“L-A-R-E,” I said, spelling out the gilded word.
“Which becomes E-A-R-L,” beamed Mrs. Quigley. “For the earl, of course. The family have always loved anagrams and puzzles. The earl who had the statue installed as the centerpiece of this room, in particular. Unfortunately, that wasn’t all that he loved.” She shook her head as she might over the conduct of a naughty five-year-old. “He conceived a son in blankets he oughtn’t to have visited. When his countess refused to allow him to christen the child with any of the family names, he jumbled the letters of Pembroke and hung the surname ‘Reebkomp’ round the poor boy’s neck. Gave him the middle name ‘Retnuh,’ on top of that—the mother’s family name of Hunter, spelled backward. At least the child’s first name was a real one—though ‘Augustus,’ if you ask me, is a tall order for a child to grow into.”
Her expression darkened. “Some of the guides maintain that it also spells R-E-A-L—‘royal,’ in French. But the earls have never put forward claims to the throne. And they don’t put on royal airs either—at least, not by the standards of their—”
“Lear,” I blurted out. “It also spells ‘Lear.’”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Quigley. Her silence hit the room with a small pop. “So it does. L-E-A-R. As in King Lear. I’d never thought of that.”
Sir Henry rounded on the poor lady. “Does the earl possess a First Folio?”
A pained look crossed her face. “I can’t discuss that, I’m afraid. Recent events and whatnot. The archivist will be glad to help, though, if you phone up during the week.”
“Isn’t there—” began Sir Henry.
“He points to shadow,” Ben said quietly in my ear.
Looking at Shakespeare, I saw what he meant. That didn’t make much sense with a book. But it made sense with art. It made sense with sculpture.
“Are there paintings of Lear in the house?” I asked. “Or statues? Any images from Shakespeare’s plays?”
Mrs. Quigley shook her head. “I don’t think so…beyond this one, of course. Let me see…No. There are lots of myths—Dedalus and Icarus, of course, and Leda and the Swan. But the only literary paintings I can think of illustrate Sir Philip Sidney’s work, not Shakespeare’s.”
My eyes widened. “Which of Sidney’s works?”
“The Arcadia. A book he wrote for his sister while staying here. The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia is its full title, you know.”
“The Arcadia was a source for Lear,” I said, turning from Ben to Sir Henry. “The story of the old blind man ruined by his evil bastard son and then rescued by his good—and legitimate—son.”
“The Gloucester plot,” whispered Sir Henry.
Mrs. Quigley looked back and forth in bewilderment.
“Where are these paintings?” asked Ben.
“There’s a whole set of them in the Single Cube Room—one of the Palladian rooms designed by Inigo Jones. They don’t quite reach back to Shakespeare’s time, but almost. They were commissioned, come to think of it, by Philip, the fourth earl.”
One of the Incomparables.
“Lead on, good Quigley,” said Sir Henry majestically. “Lead on.”
We followed her into the cloistered corridor and around the inner side of the courtyard, past emperors, gods, and earls in classical marble, to the opposite side of the house. As she led us into a small room crowded with small, precious paintings, a distant braying of brass pressed through the glimmering windows, followed by tiny trembling runs across an orchestra’s string section. Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Speeding through progressively grander rooms, we came at last to one vast and splendid enough to surpass kings and satisfy emperors. In the thickening light, its pale walls seemed to stagger beneath swags, bouquets, medallions, and four-foot beckoning nymphs all in gilt—enough gold to empty the fabled mines of Ophir. Portraits of the Pembrokes and their peers clustered around us. Van Dyck had covered almost the entire far wall with painted glory and strutting pride in silver and crimson silk, tawny velvet, and the long, luxurious hair of cavaliers. “The fourth earl and his progeny,” said Mrs. Quigley.
Applause clattered up from the lawn below. I glanced out the window to see a half-shell stage facing away from us. Beyond it, a crowd stared up through the dusk toward the house. The clapping died away to silence.
Crossing the room, Mrs. Quigley opened a tall set of double doors and ushered us into a smaller room beyond. In the center stood a table set for dinner with Georgian silver. The gold in this room seemed to be in flight: Stylized feathers stretched across the white walls, eagles screamed over doorways, and cherubs peeped from the plump wings of angel-children. Mrs. Quigley pointed upward, and even as I looked up to see Icarus hurtling forever downward from the heavens, his father Dedalus staring on in horror, the brass agony of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet screamed through the windows.
The music dipped back into gentleness. “Here,” said Mrs. Quigley, pointing beneath the window. “I’ve never looked at the Arcadia paintings too closely, but they start here.” Overwhelmed by the agony overhead and the luxury at eye level, I hadn’t even noticed them: small rectangular paintings set knee-high into the paneling all around the room. “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to look at them with a torch,” she said apologetically, holding out a flashlight. “And to keep the beam from shining out the window. The house is the backdrop for the concert, you see, and has been lit up just so.”
Ben took the flashlight, switching it on as I sank to my knees and bent close. In the foreground two shepherds dragged a young man from the sea; in the background, a burning ship sank. I looked closer. The ship’s mast had tilted. Astride it was another young man, his sword held aloft as if he rode a horse plunging into battle. It was The Arcadia’s opening scene.
Beyond, more paintings marched on down the wall, all around the room. In his
decorative zeal, the painter had even painted around corners.
With a deft combination of curiosity and flattery, Sir Henry drew Mrs. Quigley back into the previous room, closing the doors behind them. As dusk thickened into night, I crawled around the room on my knees, inspecting women swooning in voluptuous gold silk, while men in silver armor lunged and clashed, looking fierce, or amazed, or both. Through it all, Prokofiev swelled over the windowsills and spilled down across me. From time to time, I caught the murmur of Sir Henry and Mrs. Quigley talking in the next room.
I reached the end of the first wall, and then the second, but I saw nothing that resembled the Lear story. Maybe it hadn’t been painted—it was a subplot, after all. I rounded the corner and started across the third wall.
Just before the marble fireplace, I crawled under a table and stopped. In a dark canvas, an old man stood on a stormy heath, an angelic young man by his side. Off to the side, another young man with a cruel mouth and savage eyes watched from the shadow of a tree.
“I think I’ve found it,” I said.
But what was I to do with it?
Shakespeare points to the truth. In the Front Hall, Shakespeare pointed at shadow.
Gingerly, I touched the shadow with one finger, feeling delicately along its contours, but I sensed nothing underneath.
“There’s a similar painting on the other side of the fireplace,” said Ben.
It showed the same figures, but the expressions on their faces had stretched almost into caricatures. A garish streak of lightning split the night, and the shadow of the tree was deeper.
Again, I touched the shadow with one finger, and again I felt nothing. I pressed on it anyway. Nothing happened. I pressed harder.
With a small clank, a gold rosette above the painting popped forward like a handle. I took hold of it and pulled, and the entire painting tipped forward, revealing a dark gap between the stone wall behind and the panelling that fronted it.
On a small shelf inside, covered with the dust of centuries, lay a packet tied up in brittle and faded ribbon.
32
I DREW OUT the package and unwrapped it. The covering seemed to be made of leather. Inside were two folded pieces of paper. Carefully I smoothed out the first; it was still surprisingly supple. It was a letter, dated November 1603 and addressed on the outside “To my son, the Hon. Sir Philip Herbert, with the Kinges Majestie at Salisbury.”
Deare Son,
I pray yow perswade the king to come to us at Wilton, and that with all haste that yow may. We have the man Shakespeare with us, and the promise of a trifle intitled As You Like It. The king beinge pleased with the comedie, twill serve as happie houre in whiche to petition him on Sr W Raleigh’s behalf, as I am verry desyrous to doo. I praie God kepe thee well and send us soone a joyfull meetinge.
YOUR LOVING MOTHER,
M. Pembroke
Excuse the brevity of this littel paper, its writter being in haste.
We have the man Shakespeare with us. “The lost letter of Wilton,” I said in a small voice. From Mary Sidney Herbert, countess of Pembroke, to her son Philip, in the early months of King James’s reign, when the plague had kept both court and actors out of London. This letter had long been rumored to exist, but no scholar had ever seen it. Its effects were known, though. Poor Sir Walter had stayed in prison, but the king had come to Wilton, and the players had played As You Like It, and later Twelfth Night.
Outside, Prokofiev’s music twisted into a great cry of pain and fury. With shaking hands, I slid the next page in front. It was another letter, undated, and written in a different hand. I read aloud:
To the Sweeteste Swan that ever Sailed upon Avon
Ben Jonson had first used the phrase Sweet Swan of Avon in the First Folio. I was holding a letter written to Shakespeare.
The music died away.
“Go on,” said Ben.
Drifting longe on a tide of doubt and disquiet, I have att last washed ashore to—
In the next room, a crash of furniture split the quiet. We froze. Footsteps pattered across a floor, receding into the distance.
“Come with me,” said Ben, moving swiftly to the doors through which we’d entered. Drawing his gun, he motioned me to the wall beside him. He listened for a moment. As applause clattered up from below, he reached across and opened one of the doors, covering the dim room beyond with his gun.
“Sir Henry?”
No one answered. Ben swept the flashlight around the room.
Sir Henry lay in a heap in the center of the room, dark blood glistening on his face. As the light streaked across him, he groaned. He was still alive.
We reached him in a split second. He was already trying to push himself up. Helping him to a seat, I pulled the beautiful handkerchief from his pocket and held it to the cut slashed across his cheek.
Ben crept to the far door but found nothing. Coming back, he spoke tersely to Sir Henry. “Did you see who jumped you?”
He shook his head.
“Where’s Mrs. Quigley?”
Sir Henry coughed. “I walked her to the Front Hall,” he gasped. “Was just returning when—”
“Back to the Arcadia room,” said Ben, jerking his head in that direction. I went, folding the letters as Ben followed, helping Sir Henry. Through the window came the dark opening skirl of music from Branagh’s film of Henry V.
“You found something?” asked Sir Henry hoarsely, taking the handkerchief from me and wiping the blood from his face.
“Letters—”
“Give them to me,” said Ben, “and close the trapdoor.”
I did a double take. “We can’t—”
“You think it’s safe to leave them here?”
“I won’t steal—”
He plucked the papers from my hands. “Fine,” he said tartly. “I will. Now, close the damn door and let’s go.”
I looked at Sir Henry. “He’s right,” he rasped. I pushed the rosette back into place and the painted panel shut with a click, leaving no gap showing that an opening might be there.
To the right was a tall door that led back in the direction of the cloisters. Quietly, Ben eased it open. The long wall of windows along the cloisters glittered like ice in the light spilling over the house from the concert, but the corridor lay in the grip of deep shadows. The whole interior of the house was dark—even the Front Hall across the open space of the courtyard. Where was Mrs. Quigley?
“Stay out of sight,” murmured Ben, so quietly that I barely heard him. Keeping to the dark inner walls, we sped silently around the corridor, Ben helping Sir Henry.
As we neared the Front Hall, a knocking at the great front doors startled us into stillness. They had been open when we arrived; I couldn’t recall Mrs. Quigley closing them. In front of them, in the faint light that seeped through the windows, Shakespeare looked as if he had hunched over in pain.
No one appeared to answer the door. Ben switched on the flashlight, sweeping the beam across the hall, and I saw why Shakespeare looked hunched. Mrs. Quigley was kneeling before the statue. Then I saw the scarf wrapped around Shakespeare’s arm, running taut down to her neck. Her head tilted oddly to one side, her lips blue, and her eyes bulging.
Shoving the flashlight into my hands, Ben ran forward to release her. Slowly, holding the light on them, I stepped closer.
The knocking thundered once more at the door, louder and more insistent.
Holding the woman up with one arm, with his free hand Ben yanked at the scarf, but it wouldn’t come loose. Handing the light to Sir Henry, I worked at the knot, and she slid down into Ben’s arms. Small white feathers drifted about her; around her neck someone had hung a small mirror on a chain.
“My poor fool is hanged,” said Sir Henry softly. The light trembled on the grotesque pietà before me. We were staring at King Lear—the moment when the old king discovers Cordelia and tries desperately to find breath enough to mist a mirror or stir the down of a feather. But none would come: No, no, no life.
br /> The knocking started again, but this time it stopped abruptly, and then we heard the scrape of a key in the lock.
Laying Mrs. Quigley on the floor, Ben sprang to his feet. “Move,” he said tightly. Taking Sir Henry’s arm around his shoulders, he propelled us back through the cloisters as the doors behind us opened.
I vaguely remembered seeing stairs as we trailed through the house behind Mrs. Quigley, but Ben had paid closer attention. He shepherded us into the stairwell just as lights flooded on behind us, and a woman began to scream.
As footsteps pounded along the cloisters above us, we hurried down one flight of stairs, around, and down again. Upstairs, the screaming rose into a high wail and abruptly cut off.
We scuttled onto the ground floor, into the vaulted hall that had once been the main entryway into the courtyard. One glass-paned door led into the courtyard; another, even larger, led out to dark lawns. A pale ribbon of gravel led away eastward, a ghost of the road that had once brought Shakespeare and his company here.
Signaling for us to stay back, Ben slipped quietly toward the outer door. He jerked back against the wall, and I froze. Men in uniform streamed past, jogging for the front of the house. Two stopped at the door. Ben raised his pistol, and my breath stopped in my throat.
The door was locked. One of the cops pulled out his billy club to break the glass; Ben leveled his gun.
“Jesus, mate,” said the other cop. “This is a ruddy earl’s house. No breakage. Not yet.” They hurried away, and I slowly exhaled.
When their footsteps had receded, Ben reached over and unlocked the door, motioning us out. “Don’t run,” he said tersely as we slipped under his arm and into the night.
He did not mean dawdle. We headed south along the house in the direction from which the police had come. The path we were on led straight down across a wide lawn to a small river. As we reached the corner of the house, we saw the stage off to the right, curving away from us, and beyond that were the crowds, some at tables, some scattered on blankets, all gazing up at the house. “Make for the crowd,” said Ben.