The Twelfth Night Murder (18 page)

“Too deathly.”

She stopped to examine his face. He didn’t seem any more sanguine about this than she was. “Death is everywhere. It can’t be avoided.
Media vita in morte sumus.
In the midst of life we are in death.”

“But this was in your chart, and I cannae blame you for not liking it.”

She made a humming noise of agreement, then continued on her way.

O
n returning to the Globe, Suzanne found the mummers onstage, rehearsing a short commedia dell’arte bit that included some tumbling. She gathered it would be to complement the next production, though she couldn’t remember which was next up after
Twelfth Night
.

Inside the ’tiring house she found small clusters of actors occupying assorted spaces, rehearsing. Suzanne was too tired from too little sleep to care what play it was, but on her way to her quarters in the basement she paused in the stairwell when she heard the voices of Liza and Wally going over some dialogue from
Twelfth Night
. Since that play was well into its run and should not need rehearsal, Suzanne was curious what they were up to, hidden away down here like this. Unseen, she sat on a step to listen. It was Wally’s voice speaking, as Olivia.

“. . .
I heard you were saucy at my gates, and allowed your approach rather to wonder at you than to hear you. If you be not mad, be gone; if you have reason
—”

“Wait.”

“What now?”

“It’s all wrong.”

“Don’t start again.”

Suzanne started to rise, to separate the two and prevent a shouting match, but Liza’s next words made her pause.

“I’m not. I swear it. This is the part I was talking about. You’re playing this as if you were a man pretending to be a woman.”

“I am a man pretending to be a woman.”

“But you don’t want the audience to think that. You’ve asked me to help you pass undetected.”

Suzanne sat again to listen some more. She began to see she might not want to interrupt this.

“How would you do it, then?”

Suzanne’s eyebrows went up. This was new.

Liza replied, “Not so much hip. After all, you can’t flaunt what you don’t have, and your farthingale is no substitute.”

“Well, I’ve no bosom, either.”

“But you have padding, and the lack doesn’t affect the way you move. The way we walk, it’s all because of our hips. If you don’t have them, you can’t help but walk like a man. You either look like a man walking, or you look like a man trying to look like a woman walking. So you must bring attention to your bosom.”

“Which I don’t have.”

“Show us your padding, then.” There was a moment’s pause, then she said. “That’s it. Shoulders back.”

“They are back.”

“Stop trying to hide your lack.”

“I don’t want to show the edges of the padding.”

“Nobody is looking there. They’re looking at your neckline. The edge of your costume is in the front, not the sides, and you’ve marvelous padding. I wish my bosom was as well dressed.”

That brought a chuckle from Wally, and Suzanne stifled one as well.

“So,” continued Liza, “let us hear that line again.”

“
It is the more like to be feigned; I pray you, keep it in. I heard you were saucy at my gates, and allowed your approach rather to wonder at you than to hear you. If you be not mad, be gone; if you have reason, be brief: ’tis not that time of moon with me to make one in so skipping a dialogue.
”

“Excellent. I would never know you were a man.”

“If only there were something I could do about this face of mine. I so wish my face were soft and oval, like Kynaston’s.”

“He’s no woman. I am, and I have a square jaw like you.”

“You’ve nothing to overcome.”

“Nonsense. I would be far prettier with an oval face, but it wouldn’t make me look any more like a girl.”

“I would like to be pretty, truth be told. I think it would be a sweet life to be a beautiful woman and have men shower me with gifts and want to take me to bed.”

“And put their hands up your dress, and tell you what to do and what not to do, and then beat you when you disobey.”

“There is that, I suppose.” His voice turned bright for a change of subject. “So, what was that other spot you wanted to work out?”

“Act II, Scene II.
I left no ring with her.
It feels exceedingly strange to be talking to Malvolio one moment as a boy, then the next to myself as a woman. How do I make that transition?”

“Simple enough. One moment you’re putting up the façade, and then Malvolio leaves and you drop it.”

“But how do I do that?”

“Here . . . stand like this.”

Suzanne continued to listen as the two worked out their differences and began to cooperate. It did her heart good, and though it was a bit late for
Twelfth Night
, she thought it boded well for future productions of other plays.

*   *   *

E
VENTUALLY
the two finished their private rehearsal, and quickly Suzanne rose from her seat to make footstep noises as if she were just then descending from the floor above. Then she came down the steps to meet Liza and Wally on their way up, nodded good morning to them, then let herself into her rooms to undress and crawl into bed. Sounds of the mummers thumping against the stage boards outside her window lulled her to sleep.

Exhausted, Suzanne spent a large portion of the day sleeping. Though she would have liked to have pressed her investigation without wasting time on rest, her thoughts had all collapsed in on themselves until they were a worthless jumble. She had no choice but to lie down for a while.

But not a long while. During that afternoon’s performance of
Twelfth Night
she went into the audience, sitting as she usually did in the third gallery over the entrance doors. She knew the role of Viola so well, her lips sometimes moved along with Liza’s voice. Some muscles twitched with the memory of past performance, as if by her effort she might guide Liza in her movements on the stage. Suzanne would never play the role again, for she had grown too old for it, and she missed it. She watched Liza play a woman pretending to be a man, opposite a man playing a woman in love with her, thinking she was a man. And that actor was a sodomite in the bargain. It was a mishmash of gender confusion that might even have boggled the very author of that play.

As she laughed at the dialogue, she saw that, while Wally as Olivia was very polished and Liza as Viola was not, there was a subtle undercurrent between them that added an extra layer of insanity to this lively, sophisticated comedy. The joke of the play, of course, was that Olivia was in love with a woman who could never return that affection. As played by Wally, Olivia presented as terribly silly and not entirely sane. In Wally’s skilled hands, the role was that of a manic, out-of-control girl. Liza, less skilled but more genuine, presented as down-to-earth and entirely ordinary. Sensible, and earnestly in love with Olivia’s brother. Suzanne would not have thought it possible, but the differences in style and in the actual genders of the actors gave the play a giddiness and the characters a tension of contrast even more than what Shakespeare could have achieved with two actors who were both men. The audience could tell who was real and who was not, and they responded to those subtleties with laughter.

About the time the scenes moved on to an exchange between the clownish servants Fabian, Feste, and Maria, played by two men and a boy, the bench next to her was filled by a new arrival. She looked up to find Piers had joined the audience. He said, “I haven’t seen you here much lately.”

She returned her attention to the stage below. She knew the scene by heart, and laughed appropriately at all the funny spots, though her focus wasn’t truly in it anymore. “I’ve been busy.”

“I thought you’d been asked to lay aside the job you were doing for Constable Pepper.” Piers also gave the appearance of watching the actors. It wouldn’t do to let anyone see he wasn’t interested in the performance, though Suzanne knew he was not. It was a rare play that caught his attention. Though he’d acted as a child, it had never been his calling.

“My business is my own.”

“The constable’s business, you mean.”

“I do what I like, and Pepper has no sway over me.”

“Mother, I wish you would never mind these investigations that have you all caught up. You’ve no business doing Pepper’s work for him. There are many other things you should be doing that are far more appropriate for a woman your age.”

Surprised, she turned to look him in the face. “A woman my age? More
appropriate
? And how is it that you know so much about what I should do or not do?”

“I am your guardian.”

“My legal guardian, and a figurehead without any real significance.”

He sat up straighter to make himself taller and as imposing as he could. “I beg your pardon, but—”

“Very well, I mean only that I’m an adult, I’m not senile, and I am competent enough to have taken care of you by myself for nearly twenty years without the slightest help from your father, my father, or any other man. I believe I’ve proven myself and earned some autonomy.”

“My only concern is for your safety.”

A sigh of exasperation escaped her, and she rolled her eyes. “So many, so concerned for my safety! I wonder where you all were when you and I were starving and on the streets. I find that men are ever more concerned about women when money and the control of it are involved. When I was penniless there was nobody to have a care whether I lived or died.”

“I cared. I would have done anything for you.” It was his injured little boy tone, and suddenly she felt terrible for what she’d said.

“I apologize, Piers. But you know those were very difficult times. I rather think I deserve to maintain my independence, at least where the small things are concerned. Where I go and to whom I speak should be my own choices, especially considering how well you have benefitted from those choices in the past. More than likely you wouldn’t be here talking to me, had I not stepped outside the bounds of propriety from time to time when you were a boy.”

He gave a small nod of agreement. He said, “You should know Ramsay asked me to talk to you.”

She chuckled. “Dear Diarmid. Not Daniel, then?”

Piers seemed puzzled she should even bring him up. “Of course not. Old Throckmorton only ever cares what happens to you when Ramsay is involved. It’s as if he can smell it, and he appears out of nowhere only to thwart your suitor.”

The word “suitor” gave her a chuckle, for she felt herself so beyond such proprieties it was similar to calling her a “lady” or referring to a mule as a thoroughbred. “I haven’t seen Daniel in days, though Ramsay has accompanied me everywhere.”

“And that is why I think you should desist in your investigation.”

“Because I’m spending too much time with Diarmid?”

“Because the activity is dangerous. Ramsay accompanies you everywhere for fear you will be harmed.”

“And it is terribly sweet of him. The fact that I allow him to do it should speak to my sensibility concerning my own safety. I’m not so foolish that I would keep him from protecting me. Truth be told, I rather enjoy having a fuss made over me. ’Tis such a rare thing for me, ’tis something of a novelty. He amuses me, and I have to smile every time I see him waiting for me when I leave the theatre. I have to wonder why he doesn’t have anything better to do.”

“He does. A great many things, and his income is suffering for not being able to attend to his usual business.”

“He’s not in any of our plays at the moment.”

“But you know he has business concerns, importing from and exporting to Scotland.”

“Smuggling.”

“He’s no patents, and no right to do business of any sort, so in order to make a living that doesn’t require being cast in one of our plays, which you know is not dependable money, he must occasionally slip beneath notice of the crown. We all do it when necessary, don’t we?”

Suzanne realized in the past she’d broken the law enough times in various ways that she could have no argument against that. And so she said nothing.

After a long silence, Piers said, “Very well, then. If I may have your promise to never take any unnecessary risks, I’ll permit you to continue with this investigation.”

She turned to give him a long, stern stare, until he corrected himself. “That is, I’ll stop annoying you about it if I can be certain you’re safe.”

“I can promise you I won’t be any more careless with my life than I have to be.”

Piers uttered a grunt of dry amusement, then thanked her and excused himself to leave the gallery. Suzanne’s thoughts returned to the investigation, Lord Paul, and the Goat and Boar. She needed to organize in her mind the known facts.

She tried to remember exactly how she’d known the boy was not a girl. As she remembered it, he had been physically wrong. His hands were the large-knuckled ones of an adolescent boy, not the small, delicate fingers of a girl so gently brought up as he’d seemed to be. As he actually had been, it turned out. Though all tarts were forward, for it was how they were defined and how they made their living, he had seemed more relaxed in it than a real girl should have been. A girl—even an extraordinarily forward one—would have been taught some restraint that a boy would not. Again, Lord Paul had been more like a highly polished gentleman than a truly female street whore.

So far, she knew that Paul’s family thought him a liability. Any family that produced a known sodomite would suffer in reputation, and it was plain the Duke of Cawthorne had established for himself a highly moral reputation particularly difficult to sustain. In Suzanne’s experience, the more pristine the moral standing, the more likely the downfall in a world where social standing was maintained by vigilant self-interest. Only the poorest priest living at a distance from any seat of power and temptation could claim true purity of spirit. Only a man living outside of any society could avoid the appearance of impropriety in all things. Cawthorne, a duke living among peers who had questionable motivation in most things, had perched himself on an exceptionally high pedestal no man could hope to maintain.