The Lambs of London (12 page)

“May I take your arm for a moment?”

“Of course. Are you faint?”

“Fatigued by the day. You have some lines by heart?”

He supported her arm, and with his free hand gestured into the air as they walked.

“O that I could mellow this iron tongue,

And fashion it to music of soft love!

But this was my school; thus was I taught,

And if such tales can please thy tender ear

Rough and unpolished as most true they are

Behold the man will sit the live-long day

Of lingering sieges, marchings, battles, tell

Where thirsty Mars so glut hath been with blood

That sick’ning appetite yearn’d out ‘no more!’”

“It is very striking,” she said. She seemed strangely subdued.

“It has the proper Shakespearian note.”

They had come up to a group of houses just by Paris Stairs. There was the sound of a fierce argument, as between a mother and a daughter, followed by screaming and repeated blows. Mary fled towards the river, and William rushed after her to the water’s edge. “I am sorry you heard that. It is not unexpected here.” He noticed that she was trembling violently. Then she made a movement—it was as if she was falling sideways. And she slipped, or toppled, from the bank into the river below. As she plunged beneath the surface of the water her red dress billowed around her, like a flower suddenly opening into full bloom. William jumped in after her. The Thames was at low tide, and the water by the Southwark side was neither deep nor treacherous. She had gone down some four or five feet before struggling to the surface. William was able to take her in his arms, and steer her towards the wooden landing. His feet had touched bottom, and he propelled her forward with her head above the water. Two watermen, and a fish-wife, put out their arms when they reached the shore and hauled them on to the dry bank. They were both gasping for breath, and Mary vomited water on to the mud and shingle beside the boats. The fish-wife stood behind her and pounded her on the back. “Get it out, young woman. That’s right. The river never yet did good to those who swaller it.”

William was standing upright, but he was surprised by his own weakness. He steadied himself against a mooring post, and stared at the watermen without seeing them very clearly: he still saw, brighter than anything around him, the red dress billowing outward in the shape of a flower. It seemed to him to be the flower of death.

The fish-wife took Mary into a hut, used by the fishermen as storage for their tackle, and William followed. The old woman fired a brazier of charcoal that filled the hut with smoke, but Mary did not cough or choke; she sat with her head bowed, gazing on to the ground.

“You must have slipped upon the wood,” William told her gently. “It was very treacherous.”

“I’m sorry.”

“There is nothing to apologise for. It could have happened to anyone. To me.”

“No. It was my fault. I should have stopped.”

William did not know what she meant.

“Fine linen dries easy,” the fish-wife said, attempting to comfort her. “Cotton is hard.” Mary was shivering, and the woman took off her shawl to place around her shoulders. “You weren’t in the river long enough to get sodden. Not like the bodies are.” Then she sat down on a wooden crate, opposite William, and began to tell him about the suicides who jumped from the bridge at Blackfriars; a current from the Fleet River, issuing from the opposite bank, in stormy weather sent the bodies tumbling against the wharves at Paris Stairs. “The eyes, sir, are the worst thing.”

“They will be forced open by the water,” Mary said. “And the flesh will have acted like a sponge.”

“I know that, Miss.”

William had been drying his jacket against the charcoal fire, but he was still shivering in his wet linen. “However can they bring themselves to do it?”

“Hardship,” the fish-wife replied.

“You probably think that they are out of their wits,” Mary said to him. “But the laws of the conventional life do not apply.”

“They are just ordinary mortals, God bless them.” The fish-wife leaned over and touched the edge of Mary’s dress. “They are ill-favoured. But who is not, in this wicked world? The heat is not reaching it, Miss. Go back now before you take any harm. Harry Sanderson will row you.”

Mary stood up and returned the shawl to her. “I am perfectly well, you see. No fever.”

“Don’t speak of fever, Miss. Many have dropped from it here.”

“Shall we take the boat, William?”

They went out to the bank, and the fish-wife called for Harry.

On their return across the river to Bridewell Wharf, Mary began to talk very rapidly. “Have you by any chance read the novels of Fanny Burney, William? I think not. They would be too low for you. Too feminine. I am surprised you have time for us females at all.”

“I am ashamed to say that I have never read her work.” William was puzzled by her sudden interest in the subject. “
Cecilia
is highly recommended.”

“Oh no. Read
Evelina
. The heroine is never understood. Never properly seen. How could such a young woman come to terms with the world?”

He was at a loss. “I will find a copy.”

“I will give you mine! Charles calls it a silly book, but who cares for his opinions?” She looked across the water to Lambeth. “What a deal of bother these little boats make on the water! Do you see them crossing each other’s paths? The world is such a busy place. But it is all unfathomable, don’t you think?”

S
HE ARRIVED WITH WILLIAM
at Laystall Street in a chaise; she was shaking with cold and exhaustion. Tizzy opened the door and, startled, stepped back. “What in heavens has happened to you, Miss?”

“Don’t faint, Tizzy. I am quite well.”

“She slipped,” William said. “You must unclothe her at once and put her to bed. Bring her some broth.”

Mrs. Lamb appeared in the doorway, in her mob-cap, and put her hand up to her mouth.

“Restrain yourself, Mother. I am not hurt.”

“Was it the pond?”

“No, Ma, it was the river.” Mary walked into the house, staggered and fell against the hat-stand.

There was great commotion as Tizzy and Mrs. Lamb then alternately carried and dragged her upstairs to her bedroom. While William remained nervously in the hall, they undressed her and laid her beneath the sheets. Tizzy rushed down the stairs and, without glancing at him, went out into the street. Mr. Lamb had caught some sense of the turmoil, because he crept out of the drawing-room and approached William.

“A straw in the wind, is it?”

“Mary is indisposed, sir.”

“Precisely.”

Mrs. Lamb now appeared at the top of the stairs. “Tizzy has gone for the doctor. I must have a few words with you, Mr. Ireland. Would you be so good as to heat the kettle?”

“Of course.” He went across to the fireplace in the drawing-room where, even in these days of summer, the kettle could be placed on a metal stand above the coals. He was watching it boil when she hurried into the room.

“Hot gin and peppermint, I think. Otherwise she will contract a fever. How ever did it happen, Mr. Ireland?”

“Mary slipped and fell. We were by the Thames at the time.”

“Whatever were you doing by that river?”

“Exploring Southwark.”

“Exploring Southwark?” It might have been located on the Russian steppes.

“In search of Shakespeare.”

“Shakespeare will be the death of her, Mr. Ireland. You should not encourage it. Mr. Lamb, you should prohibit his books in this house.”

“It was simply an accident—”

“Accident or not, it should never have happened. Where did I put that oil of peppermint?”

She prepared the cordial in a large earthenware bowl, and carried it in stately fashion out of the drawing-room. William turned to see Mr. Lamb swigging from the bottle of peppermint. “Hot,” he said. “Hot as ice.”

chapter nine

M
ARY HAD RECOVERED
from her fever, having been confined to her bed for two weeks after her immersion in the Thames. In that period she had burned and shivered, calling out for drink and cool air. She had sweated profusely, leading Tizzy to exclaim (much to Mrs. Lamb’s disapproval) that she didn’t know anyone could have so much grease in her, and she had muttered strange words and phrases in her sleep.

William Ireland had visited the house during her illness, but had been told that she was not to be excited or disturbed in any way; the doctor had prescribed sleep and rest. At the end of the second week, however, William had been allowed to talk to her as she sat wrapped in a shawl by the drawing-room window. “You are better now, I hope?” was his first question.

“It was nothing. A chill. What could I expect?”

“I have brought you something.”

“Is it the play?” He nodded. “I was half inclined to think it a dream. That day was so strange to me, William. It seems a far-off thing now, and all seems unreal—”

“Yet here it is.” He handed her a bound maroon folder. “It is real enough.”

She placed it on her lap, and stared out of the window. “I am almost afraid to touch it. It is a holy thing, isn’t it?” He smiled and said nothing. “It will help me to live.”

“It has been accepted as genuine by Mr. Malone. And my father has approached Drury Lane.”

“It will be performed?”

“That is my hope.”

“And yet you know, William, I would have somehow preferred it to remain a secret.”

“Our secret? Oh no. That could not—”

Mrs. Lamb came into the room. “You must rest, Mary. You are not to be excited in any way.”

“I am not excited, Ma.” She looked at William. “I am exalted.”

“Whatever it is, it is quite enough. We will wish you good morning, Mr. Ireland.”

M
ARY READ THE PLAY
all that afternoon. It was filled with high words and aspiring sentiments, of wonderful cadences and strange magical conjunctions of sound and sense. It was a play of jealousy and mad violence, invoking the ancient British god of vengeance “whose power turns green Neptune into purple” and who runs “swifter than wind upon a field of corn.” She believed it to be one of Shakespeare’s earliest plays; she compared it to
Titus Andronicus
and the first part of
Henry the Sixth
. Then she read it again, and wondered at the young Shakespeare’s ingenuity. Who else would conjure up the image of a swallow ascending a scene of battle, escaping “havoc in vast fields below”? Her overwhelming impression was one of gratitude that she was able to read it at all. She was happy to ignore the occasional blemish or ambiguity. She was one of the few who had seen it in these last two hundred years.

She gave the play to Charles that evening, without making any comment. She did not tell him the story of its discovery, in the expectation that he would form his own judgement on its authorship. Charles took it to his room with him after supper, and did not appear again. Just before retiring for the night, she knocked softly on his door.

“Come in, dear.” Charles was at his writing desk, scribbling a letter. “Is that what you want?” He gestured towards the play, lying upon his bed.

“Have you finished it?”

“Of course. It is not unduly long.”

“And your impressions?”

“Who wrote it? It merely has a title.”

“Could you guess?”

“I refrain from guessing in such matters. It is very like Kyd, but it might be one of the university dramatists. Except that it is not in Latin.”

“No one else?”

“That is a very wide question, dear.”

“It is Shakespeare.”

“No.”

“I can assure you, Charles.”

“It is the most unlike thing to Shakespeare I have ever read.”

“How can you say that? It is quite obvious to me.”

“How so?”

“The majesty.”

“Majesty can be feigned.”

“The periods. The cadences. The diction. Everything.”

He tried to calm her, since she seemed to become anxious. “It is only a play, Mary.”

“Only? It is the life of the mind!” She stopped a moment, and regained her composure. “Do you recall Vortigern’s words to his wife?
‘The glass is running now that cannot finish, till one of us expire.’
Are they not fine?”

“Fine enough, I grant you.” He got up from the desk and embraced her. “Dear Mary, this is one of Mr. Ireland’s discoveries. I knew that at once. But think for a moment. Surely he may be mistaken?”

“Not in so important a subject.”

“How can you be sure? How can
he
be sure?”

“Charles, you are being wilfully blind. Every line breathes of Shakespeare. I could feel him close beside me as I read it.”

“And not someone else?”

“You mean William.”

“You would like to be close to him, too, after all.”

He regretted this as soon as he uttered it. The colour left her face.

“That is unspeakable!” She stepped back from him. “How dare you!” Then she left the room.

A
FEW DAYS AFTER
this conversation between brother and sister, William Ireland was standing before an audience in the Mercers’ Hall in Milk Street. He had been invited by the City Shakespearian Society to lecture upon “The Sources of Shakespeare’s Tragedies.” Its president and founder, Matthew Touchstone, had read two of Ireland’s essays in
Westminster Words
and had been impressed by his understanding of Elizabethan idiom. It had been Ireland who had informed him, for example, that “shadow” was also a term for “actor.”

William had seemed nervous as he had begun; he had difficulty in enunciating his words, and had taken out a handkerchief to wipe his forehead. He had looked at Mary Lamb, and he had smiled; she was sitting next to her father, who nodded vigorously in his direction and raised both hands in the air with immense satisfaction. “There are other most suggestive sources,” William was saying. “The celebrated editor and scholar, Mr. Malone”—Edmond Malone was also in the audience, having been brought by Samuel Ireland—“has discovered in the Ancient Indictment Office of Stratford Corporation a most significant document. It is the report of an inquest, held in Stratford-upon-Avon on 11 February 1580. This is the period when the bard is believed to have worked in the office of a Stratford lawyer. Yes, as a young man, he was obliged to earn his living like most others.” He had expected a gentle ripple of laughter but the audience was silent, except for some coughs and the occasional squeaking of boots. “The document concerns the death of a young woman by the name of Katherine Hamnet or Hamlet.” He had caught their attention, as he knew that he would. “A death by drowning.” He paused. “She was unmarried. She had gone down to the River Avon, in which she was later found. It was said by her family that she had walked down to the river in order to fill a pail of water. This is what the inquest concluded.” He glanced quickly at Mary, but her head was bowed. Edmond Malone was sitting in the row behind her, smiling broadly. “This is how the coroner put it: ‘
The aforesaid Katherine, standing on the bank of the said river, suddenly and by accident slipped and fell into the same
river and there, in the water of that river, was drowned, and not otherwise nor in other fashion came by her death.
’” He put down the paper from which he had been reading. “It is a very emphatic wording, and is clearly designed to forestall the charge of suicide. If Katherine had killed herself, her body would have been denied burial in the churchyard and would have been consigned to unhallowed ground.” Samuel Ireland whispered something to Edmond Malone. “But there would have been reports of suicide in the small country town. The young Shakespeare, working in the lawyer’s office, must have heard them. So there we have it, ladies and gentlemen. A young woman floats upon the river. Her name is Hamlet. Could this be the origin of Ophelia?” William had quite lost his embarrassment, and the anxiety he had felt on beginning this lecture. “Katherine may have floated down the Avon into immortality.”

Many members of the audience were acquainted with early death; in the conditions of London it was not an unexpected event. In London, too, suicide by water was not uncommon. So they listened quietly, some of them summoning up images of a lost child or relative.

A
MONG THE AUDIENCE
was a young man, Thomas de Quincey, who had travelled from Manchester to London a year before. He was thinking of Anne. He only ever knew her as Anne. When he had first come to the city he had known no one; with little money of his own he had appealed to a distant relation, a cousin once or twice removed from his immediate family. This kinsman owned several properties in London, one of them a deserted and broken-down house in Berners Street; he gave de Quincey the keys, and told him that he might live under its roof until he found lodgings of his own. He accepted the offer gladly, and went at once to Berners Street. He settled himself, with his few possessions, on the ground floor of the house; there was a small piece of rug there, and an old sofa-cover, on which he could sleep. He had a half-guinea remaining for food, and he believed it would suffice until he found employment as a penman or as an office-boy.

On that first night, however, he discovered that he had a companion. The house had one other inmate, a girl of no more than twelve or thirteen years, who had crept there out of the elements. “I didn’t like the wind and the rain,” she told him. “They are harsh in these streets.” He asked her how she found the house, but she misunderstood his question. “I don’t mind the rats,” she replied. “But I mind the ghosts.”

She explained how she had come to this situation. It was a familiar London history of want, neglect and hardship that made her seem older than she truly was. They became friends or, rather, allies against the cold and the darkness. They would often walk through the streets together. They went along Berners Street into Oxford Street, stopping at the corner by the goldsmith’s, before crossing the road; then they passed the carriage-maker into Wardour Street before turning into Dean Street. Here they always paused at the pastry-merchant. De Quincey had money only for the barest necessities of life, and they stared into the gilt-edged window where an array of pastries, buns and cakes were laid out for sale.

Then de Quincey fell ill with some ague or fever; he managed only what he called “dog sleep” and spent his days and nights shivering beneath whatever coverings Anne could find for him. By some miracle of determination, or quick-wittedness, she managed to obtain bowls of hot gruel that she ministered to him. She crept close to him—to “draw the vapours” from him, as she put it—and dried his forehead with a muslin cloth. After a week of sickness he recovered, and vowed to repay the girl in any way he could.

He was then called away by his cousin, to conduct a small matter of business; de Quincey accepted the commission eagerly, since it would provide him with funds. It obliged him to travel to Winchester, but he promised Anne that he would return within four days. He arrived back in Berners Street five days later, however, and found the house to be empty. He stayed there that night, and for most of the next day, but he remained alone. On the following evening he set out along the familiar streets where as partners in wretchedness they had walked together, but he came back to Berners Street disappointed and disheartened.

He never saw Anne again. She disappeared from the face of London as suddenly and as completely as if she had sunk beneath an ocean. But he mourned for her. He had no notion of what might have happened to her. She was lost. The world itself seemed to breathe misery.

Now he thought once more of her, as William Ireland invoked the spirit of Katherine Hamlet.

W
ILLIAM LOOKED UP
from his notes, and sensed a change in the mood of the audience. He realised, then, what it must have been for Shakespeare to wield power over his auditors. “I have one other topic of interest to all of us here. An immense topic, if I may put it that way. It concerns the discovery of a new play. Found after two hundred years of oblivion.” He noticed the particular quality of the silence and expectation. Mary raised her head and smiled at him. “It is entitled
Vortigern,
and dramatises the career of this treacherous and bloody king of Britain. We are reminded of Lear and of Macbeth. It is purely Shakespeare’s. The renowned scholar to whom I have already alluded, Mr. Malone, has vouched for its authenticity. May I quote his words on this unexpected discovery, of such magnitude to all of us? In Mr. Malone’s communication to me he states that ‘this wonderful document is of surpassing interest to all lovers of Shakespeare. Its genuineness is beyond any doubt.’” The silence of the audience was then interrupted by sudden and prolonged applause. After a few ritual expressions of thanks, William concluded his lecture.

His father approached him as he left the small writing-desk, behind which he had been standing. “It was magnificent,” he said. “I could not have given a finer performance myself. You have the magic of the Irelands.”

Malone came up beside them. “Very fine, Mr. Ireland. You have not mistaken eloquence for loquacity, sir.”

Mary was being pushed forward by Mr. Lamb. “Father insists—” she began to say.

“Cabbage and more cabbage!” Mr. Lamb shook everyone’s hand, including that of his daughter.

“I am delighted to meet you, sir.” Samuel Ireland looked at him with a certain wariness. “Your daughter is a favourite with us.”

“Have much joy of the worm.”

“Very sage, sir.”

“And gorge at Christmas.”

“I really—”

“We must go, Pa.” Mary took his arm. “We cannot detain these gentlemen.”

“Ship ahoy!” He beamed at Samuel Ireland but, when he turned to his daughter, he suddenly seemed confused and broken-down.

“This way, Pa. Mind the edge of the carpet.”