“Will the audience know it?”
“Of course. We will give you a tall hat. There will be no mistaking your sex.”
MARY HAD SPLENDID VISIONS of this play. When Charles had asked her to prompt and direct his colleagues, she had been delighted. Over the last few weeks she had sensed a superfluity of energy within herself, a barely repressed excitement, and she wished to divert it. So she seized eagerly upon this short comedy, concerning the mechanicals, within the larger comedy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She had helped Charles to connect the separate scenes, and had even furnished some additional dialogue and stage business for the purposes of continuity. She had said nothing to William Ireland, however, about the enterprise. She was sure that he would have felt excluded. She was also sure that he would have arrived at the wrong conclusions. It was one of those complicated human situations that Shakespeare was able to explain so clearly. William Ireland would have deemed himself rejected because he was a shopkeeper. The fact that he had literary aspirations would only have compounded the insult. He was a parvenu, not fit to mix with gentlemen. In fact his trade had nothing whatever to do with it.
“Shall we invite Mr. Ireland to act with us?” Charles had asked his sister.
“William? Oh no,” she answered quickly. “He is too—” The word “sensitive” had occurred to her. “Too serious.”
“I know what you mean. He would not appreciate our little diversion.”
“Shakespeare has become a holy cause with him.”
“He would know our intentions are good.”
“Of course. But William is devoting so much time and attention to the papers—”
“He cannot see the light side of it.”
“Not yet. Not now. Reserve that for your friends.”
Charles Lamb already suspected that his sister was more attentive to William Ireland than she cared to admit. Her solicitousness, her tremulous regard for what she perceived to be his feelings, confirmed her interest. He had the sudden image of a stricken deer; whether it was William, or Mary, he could not say.
HAVE YOU THE LION ’S part ready?’” Tom Coates was reading the part of Snug. “‘Pray you, if it be, give it me; for I am slow of study.’”
“And that’s true, too.”
“Mr. Jowett, please not to interpose. Go on to your line, Mr. Milton.”
“‘You may do it extempore, Snug, for it is nothing but roaring.’”
“Do you think, Mr. Milton, that you could sound a little more common?” Mary was intent upon the text, and did not look up. “Could you be coarsely spoken?”
“That will be extremely difficult, Miss Lamb.”
“Do, please. He cannot be a clerk. He must be a carpenter.”
Charles had noticed with some surprise how intently and eagerly his sister had guided their proceedings. It seemed to him now that she did everything to the extreme. In recent weeks also she had been nervous and ill at ease. She had been peremptory, in particular, with her mother.
THREE DAYS BEFORE , Mrs. Lamb had scolded Tizzy for bringing in burnt toast. “Whatever is the matter with you?” she asked the old servant. “Mr. Lamb cannot abide a hard crust.”
Mary flung a teaspoonful of sugar, which she had been holding above her cup, on to the table-cloth. “This is not a house of correction, Mother. We are not your prisoners.”
Mr. Lamb looked at her, half tenderly and half admiringly, and whispered, “Left at the landing. Last door.”
Mrs. Lamb said nothing, but looked in astonishment as Mary rose from her place and left the room. Charles was buttering the toast with all the signs of thoughtfulness. “I do not understand that girl,” she said. “She is so changeable. What is your opinion, Mr. Lamb?”
“North by north-east,” he murmured, to the apparent satisfaction of his wife.
Charles was inclined to ascribe Mary’s erratic behaviour to her friendship with William Ireland; the young man was making her restless. He did not blame him particularly for this; so far as he could tell, his conduct was exemplary. But Mary had never before entered any relationship of trust with a comparative stranger. It was as simple, and as serious, as that.
COS IT AIN ’T nuffink but roarin’.’” Benjamin Milton was now playing the part of Quince with a broad Cockney accent.
“Well done, Mr. Milton. But do you think a rustic dialect might be more suitable?”
“Something rural, Miss Lamb? Do you have any model in mind?”
“Have you heard the lectures of Professor Porson on classical antiquity?”
“Of course. In the Masonic Hall.”
“Can you conform your voice to his, do you think?”
Tizzy came into the garden, announcing that “the young man” was asking for Miss Mary at the front door.
“The young man?” Benjamin asked, very jovially. Charles curbed him with a glance as Mary, in some confusion, followed Tizzy across the garden through the light summer rain.
SHE RESISTED THE DESIRE to glance at herself in the mirror as she entered the house. “You have not left him in the street, Tizzy?”
“Where else can I leave him? Your mother is in the parlour and the hall is full of boots.”
So Mary went to the door and greeted William, who was standing, hat in hand, on the top step. “I am so sorry,
Mr. Ireland. Forgive me, I—”
“I can’t stay, Mary. I was intending to visit Southwark on Wednesday morning.” He hesitated. “You wished to come with me, if you recall.”
“Of course I remember. I would be very grateful.” This was not the appropriate phrase, and she looked away for a moment. “I would be delighted. Wednesday morning?” He nodded. “I will mark it in my diary. Would you care to come in?”
There is a silent communication beneath all words, and William knew that she did not want him to enter the house. He could in any case see Mrs. Lamb peering by the curtain, like some castle guard prepared to repulse an attack. “It is kind of you, but no. I must not. Time is pressing.” He held out his hand, and she took it. “I will call for you,” he said. “About nine in the morning?” He left her, hat still in hand, and she watched him as he walked down Laystall Street towards the women congregated around the pump.
She turned back into the house with a sigh, and heard her mother moving quickly to the fireplace. She had no intention of speaking to her, but Mrs. Lamb called out in a plaintive voice she knew very well.
“Mary, may I beg a moment?”
“Yes, Ma, what is it?”
“That young man—”
“Mr. Ireland.”
“Certainly so. That young man must have beaten a path to this door. He calls continually.”
“What of it, Ma?”
“Nothing. I was merely observing.” Mary remained silent. “Is it altogether proper, Mary, to play a drama on a Sunday morning?”
“We are not playing. We are reading out some lines.”
“It agitates your father. Just look at him.” He was lying on the divan, watching the movements of a house-fly. Ever since Mary’s anger at the tea-table Mrs. Lamb had been more circumspect with her daughter; she allowed herself only general remarks and “observations,” or referred to Mr. Lamb’s feelings on a particular matter. “He has always kept the Sabbath holy.”
“Then why are you not in chapel?”
“Mr. Lamb’s feet. They may be mended in time for the evening service.”
Mary was no longer listening. She had sensed a strange dizziness, or lightness, in her head that prompted her to grasp the arm of an easy-chair. It was as if someone had drilled a hole in her skull, and had blown in warm air.
“He never mentions it, but I see him hobbling like a brewer’s horse. Don’t I, Mr. Lamb?” Mary was aware of sound around her, and brushed her face impatiently. “But he will not complain. Whatever is the matter, Mary?”
Mary knelt down upon the carpet and put her head against the side of the chair.
Her father looked at her, beaming with delight. “The Lor
d takes away,” he said.
“Have you dropped something?”
“Yes.” Mary was beginning to recover. She stared at the carpet without seeing it. “In a minute,” she muttered. “A pin.”
“I wish I was young enough to bend. Talk of the devil. Charles, help your sister to find her pin. She has mislaid it.”
Charles was surprised to be greeted as the devil as he entered from the garden. “Where did you leave it, dear?”
Mary shook her head. “Nowhere.” She clutched her brother’s hand, and he helped her to her feet. “I was mistaken. Nothing is wrong at all.”
“Mr. Ireland has just called,” Mrs. Lamb said to her son in what she considered to be a significant manner.
“Indeed? Did he not stay?”
“Mary spoke to him at the door.”
“He had other business, Ma.” Mary was leaning on her brother’s arm.
“He seems,” Charles said, “to be a very busy young man.”
IN FACT CHARLES was beginning to envy William Ireland. The editor of Westminster Words had already published two of Ireland’s essays within a month: “The Humour of King Lear” and “The Word Play of Shakespeare”; he had also invited him to write a series of sketches on “Shakespearian Characters.” Charles’s own essay on chimney sweeps had yet to be published, but Matthew Law had asked him to compose a companion piece on the beggars of the metropolis. The editor had asked him to concentrate upon the more colourful or eccentric of the beggars, rather than the most needy or the most depraved, but Charles had encountered only two or three. There was a dwarf who begged upon the corner of Gray’s Inn Lane and Theobald’s Road, and who would on occasions dart among the horses in order to scare them. There was a bald-headed woman of St. Giles who tumbled in the street for halfpence. But he was not sure that they encouraged any profound reflections upon vagrant life in the city.
Could he consider himself, in any case, to be a writer at all? He was in no sense a professional author; his position at the East India House rendered that impossible. He had no vision to sweep him past all the difficulties and disappointments of the literary life. He contrasted his situation with that of William Ireland, who had found a great theme in his discovery of the Shakespearian papers. Ireland might even write a book.
DO YOU WISH to continue?” Mary asked him.
“I beg your pardon, dear?”
“In the garden. Have we finished rehearsing?”
“I think so. Yes.” He was governed by Mary’s own unspoken desire. She seemed to crave solitude.
“We must all meet again one evening. This week.” She took her hand from Charles’s arm, and moved towards the door. “Ask them to prepare the next scene.”
ON THE FOLLOWING Wednesday morning Mary Lamb and William Ireland were walking down the steps of Bridewell Wharf towards the water. It had been raining and the wood was worn smooth by continual use. So William took her arm and supported her to the river’s edge. She apologised for her slowness. “This is not very graceful, I’m afraid.”
“It is not ungraceful, Mary. Necessity has its own grace.”
“You say the most surprising things.”
“Do I?” He seemed genuinely curious. “Ah. Here they are.”
Three or four watermen were standing about the wharf, their boats moored beside them. When William asked to be rowed across they deferred to one Giggs, who had arrived first but who seemed reluctant to leave their convivial conversation. He wore the gilt badge of his trade in his knitted cap, and in an habitual gesture he rubbed it with his sleeve. “Cost you a tanner,” he said.
“I thought it was threepence.”
“It’s the rain. Very bad for the boat.”
“We could have gone across the bridge,” he muttered to Mary as they walked over to the mooring.
“The bridge is so dull, William. This is exhilarating. This is the real thing.”
So they clambered on to the little boat, William taking Mary’s hand and guiding her to the wooden seat at the stern. With the ritual cry of “All right!” Giggs untied the rope and pushed out the boat.
“Will you row us to Paris Stairs?” William called to him.
“That’s where I’m going.”
Mary had not been taken across the Thames before, and she lost all sense of herself in these unfamiliar surroundings. “I feel so small upon the water,” she said.
“It is not its size. It is its past.” The wind seemed stronger upon the river.
“But that does not explain the air, William. It is refreshing. Invigorating.”
“This was the journey he made. When he lived in Shoreditch, he crossed here to the Globe. In just such a boat, too. It has not changed.”
A sloop passed them, going downstream with a cargo of ashes, and the turbulent waters broke against their bows. Mary seemed to enjoy the sensation of being tossed to and fro upon the river. “I can smell the sea,” she said. “If only we could turn now and sail towards it!”
Giggs could not hear what she was saying but, observing the delight and excitement on her face, he began to sing one of the water-songs that he had known since childhood.
“My sweetheart came from the south
From the coast of Barbary-a
And there she met with brave gallants of war,
By one, by two, by three-a.”
He sang a catch to it, concerning the lowering of a sail, that had some obscene puns on “cut” and “slit” and “hole.” William looked at him in dismay, not daring to admonish him, but Mary could scarcely hide her laughter; she seemed to revel in it, and trailed her hand in the water. “Here we are in Paris!” Giggs called out before they reached the shore, but they could already savour the powerful scent of caulking tar mingled with fishing-pots and rotten wood. For Mary it was a rare moment of discovery. As they approached the south bank she could see all the life of the river spilling out into the narrow streets behind the sheds and boat-huts along the Thames. They came up to the moorage at Paris Stairs, and Giggs called out “Oy! Oy! Oy!” to no one in particular. He threw his rope around an iron post, and drew them towards a small wooden landing on to which Mary stepped eagerly. By the time William had paid his sixpence she had already walked into a cobbled lane where the mud flowed freely. “The bear pit was over there,” he said. “The audience at the Globe could hear it clearly. It was known as the bear-chant.”
“It is still very noisy here.”
“The people of the river are known for it. It is in their blood.”
“I suppose the water flows in their veins.”
“Very like.”
They walked towards Star Shoe Alley, and he could sense her high spirits. “More than water,” she said. “I can smell hops.”
A wind from the south-east had brought the heady aroma of the Anchor Brewery towards them. “The south is full of smells, Mary. But it has also been a place of pleasure. What greater pleasure is there than beer?”
“Charles would agree with you, I’m afraid.”
“Afraid? There is nothing to be afraid of.” She suddenly noticed that he could barely suppress his excitement. “There is something I must tell you,” he said.
“What is it?”
“You must repeat it to no one as yet.” He hesitated for a moment. “I have found it. I have found a new play. It was supposed long lost, but now it has been found.”
“I believe I know what you are saying—”
“Among the papers I have discovered a play by Shakespeare. An entire play. Complete.” They crossed Star Shoe Alley, and passed two women leaning against the doorway of a house with red shutters. William paid no attention to them, but Mary looked back at them in wonder. “It is Vortigern.”
“Was he not a king?”
“A king of ancient Britain. But do you not see it, Mary? This is a new play by Shakespeare. The first in two hundred years. It is a great event. An overwhelming event.”
She stopped suddenly in the street. “I cannot see around it as yet. I cannot see it
properly. Forgive me.”
“It is nothing inferior to Lear or to Macbeth.” He had stopped beside her. “Or so I believe. Come. We are attracting attention.” Some ragged children, barefoot upon the cobbles, were advancing towards them with their hands outstretched.
Mary and William walked towards George Terrace, a small row of cottages in an advanced state of dissolution. Some planks had been nailed up in place of windows, and the odour of sewage pervaded the terrace itself.
“I would like you to see it first, Mary. Before anyone else. Even Father does not know of it.”
“I would be frightened of touching it, William, lest—”
“Lest it fell apart in your hands? No need to concern yourself. I have transcribed it.”
“Of course I will read it. But you will not keep it secret for very long?”
“Oh no. It must be published to the world. It must be performed.” William looked in the direction of the river. “My father is acquainted with Mr. Sheridan, so I have hopes of Drury Lane.”
“You have never mentioned Sheridan before.”
“Have I not?” He laughed. “I assumed that my father had discussed him at length with you. It is his favourite subject. Now here we are.” They stopped just beyond the row of cottages. “If Mr. Malone’s calculations are correct, the original Globe stood just at this point. It formed a polygon. Here was the stage.”
He walked over to a wooden shed that contained white sacks of flour or sugar piled against each other; a boy, with a clay pipe in his mouth, was lounging outside. “What’s it to you?” he asked as William approached him.
“Nothing. I am admiring the area.”
The boy took the pipe out of his mouth, and looked at him suspiciously. “If I whistle, my pa’ll come.”
“No need. No need.” He walked back to Mary. “This was the yard. The pit where the people stood. Did you know that is the origin of ‘understanding’? The understanders were here. They under-stood the action.”
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