The Lambs of London (11 page)

“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 Lord 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.”

I
N 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.

D
O 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.”

O
N 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.”

“You have invented that.”

“I have not. It is the truth. And the galleries would have risen all around us. There would have been nuts, and thrushes on spits, and bottled beer. The trumpets sounded three times, to announce the first scene, and then the Prologue entered in black.” He pointed to the boy with the pipe. “He would have been here. And so would I. We might have watched
Vortigern
together.” His eyes were very bright. “This whole neighbourhood is charmed beyond reason. Reason cannot explain it, Mary. Do you not see it? The Globe is still here. It still fills this space.”

She looked across the expanse of waste ground, where there were two or three smoke-houses for the preservation and smoking of fish as well as the remains of a dust-heap that had been abandoned by the rag-pickers and the tosh-hunters. “I am afraid,” she said, “that the south bank is no longer very glorious. I do not possess your imagination, William.”

“It is not glorious, perhaps—”

“But,” she added quickly, “it is deeply interesting.”

“As interesting as life, Mary. Is that what you mean?”

“Nothing so grand, I’m afraid. But I like its dust. I like its savour. Nothing here is for the sake of appearance.”

He looked at her quickly. “Shall we turn back towards the river? You seem tired.”

“Is there nothing else to explore?”

“There is always more to explore. This is London.”

And so they walked east towards Bermondsey, passing the vinegar works and the lying-in hospital on their slow journey through the riverine streets. They turned back at the bridge, after William had warned her that it was not safe to venture further, and took a different route through the cluster of side-streets that had been built over the marshes of Southwark. William suddenly came to a halt. “Think of it, Mary. A new Shakespeare play! It will change everything.”

“Will it change you?”

“Oh no. I am beyond redemption.”

There was open land beyond, striated with pits and ditches, and they stopped to survey it. Mary turned and looked back at the river. “What is that in the distance?”

“A water-wheel. It pumps the Thames water through narrow wooden quills. Vortigern is tremendous, Mary. He obtains the throne by murder and by treachery. He murders his mother.”

“He must have been a very wicked man.”

“And then he murders his brother.”

“Somewhat like Macbeth?”

“In essence. But Macbeth never murdered his own family. May I quote a little?”