The Murder Dance, page 19
I said, slowly, ‘A reminder of that kind is good. Yes, keep your notes, Master Kempe.’
‘Thank you. And,’ he said, ‘living in Norwich, I shan’t be so very far away from Reivers. I’d like to think I could take the road back here from time to time. A few times in the year, we could say. So I might feel I was part of a family now and again.’
He looked at me, his eyebrows raised, and I said, ‘There’ll always be a bed and a welcome for you.’
‘And,’ said Bee, ‘if Slye and I manage to find our tavern and open it up, we’ll expect to see you there, as well. There’s a house in Reivers’ centre that we’ve got our eye on at the moment, in fact—’
‘I daresay it’s a tumbledown place, for you’ve no eye for a property, Harry Bee,’ said Kempe. He frowned, and for a brief instant I had the impression of a man making calculations. Then he said, ‘How would it be if I took a look at it for you? And then it wouldn’t hurt for us to have a talk about the idea.’
We buried Ralph at the far end of the gardens, near to the old wall. Reverend Marplot was with us. He has been a good friend. Greenberry says the man has stretched his vows to snapping point for this family more than once, and of course he is right. But it meant Ralph has had a proper burial service pronounced over him, and although I daresay this would not matter to a great many people – that some would say he deserved to be sent to his Maker without the blessing of the Church – it matters to me, and it has given me a degree of peace.
I think I shall close this journal now, although there may be a day in the future when I may want to look at these pages again – perhaps with Greenberry. He is at my side so often, and it’s a joy and a solace.
Earlier today, a package arrived, carefully wrapped and with my name written on it in a generous, sprawling hand.
Inside was a small slim book, with a title on the cover saying, ‘Kempe’s Nine Days’ Wonder: Performed in a daunce from London to Norwich’.
There’s a dedication inside, ‘To my dear good friends, RR and G. Many things merry, nothing hurtful.’
It’s a good way to remember him. Many things merry, nothing hurtful.
It’s a good motto to adopt for what lies ahead in my life.
SEVENTEEN
‘Are you going after Walter again?’ asked Arabella as they went back into the library after their lunch.
‘Yes. Walter intrigues me,’ said Phin. ‘Those battles with planners and parish councils to stop them buying any land … But then he created almshouses which would surely have opened up the place to all-comers. Only he surrounded them with so many restrictions it doesn’t sound as if anyone would ever have got a place in them. He’s becoming a bit of an enigma.’
‘Would there be more details about the almshouses in parish records?’ asked Arabella.
‘There might. We’ll track down the local vicar tomorrow and see if we can get access,’ said Phin. ‘But any secret Walter might have had can’t be connected to anything that might have happened in 1602. If anything actually did happen in 1602.’
‘Unless,’ said Arabella, ‘we want to get into Glamis monster territory – the secret room with the centuries-old creature born into the noble family. Or the undead Count lying in the dungeons of the castle, creeping out after dark to ravage the population … Would Walter have got money for the almshouse thing?’
‘He might,’ said Phin, considering. ‘But if he needed money, surely he’d have sold that strip of land to the council. I can’t fathom Walter at all. But I’ll start with newspapers in 1921 and see if there are any more reports about his activities.’
‘I’ll go back to Jasper Rivers,’ said Arabella. ‘I’m getting quite fond of him. I’d like to find that he had a gorgeous wife and twelve lively children. Good luck with Walter.’
‘I think I’ll need it. Always assuming I can find him in the first place, because there’s no knowing how far back the archives go.’
But the newspapers did, in fact, go farther back than 1921. Phin skimmed reports about the Great War and the heartbreaking lists of casualties of the young men who had died while fighting, but his attention was caught by a series of articles called Theatre Notes and News which a local newspaper appeared to have run for several years, apparently with the idea of rallying Norfolk’s spirits during the conflict by reporting on various theatre shows and concert parties, with a conscientiously patriotic sprinkling of recruitment shows along the way.
It was not very likely that Walter or, indeed, the Reivers Dance, would feature in these particular columns, but it was an interesting sideline. Phin called up as many of these articles as he could, and then saw that the newspaper in question was called Norwich Tidings. He reached at once for the print-outs he had made in London about Will Kempe. Hadn’t the newssheet that had published an obituary been called something like that? Yes, it was here. Tydings. It might not be the same set-up at all, but there was the Norfolk connection, so it was not impossible.
He worked his way through accounts of Theatres Royal, Pavilions, Piers, Corn Exchanges, and an assortment of playhouses dedicated to various members of royalty. It began to seem that Norwich Tidings’ theatre section had reported on just about every player who had stepped into a beam of limelight within a twenty-mile radius of Norwich. Phin was inclined to think the editor – or, more likely, the paper’s owner – had been severely stagestruck.
It was a pity that printing techniques in the early years of the twentieth century had not allowed for actual photographs. Phin thought most illustrations of that time had been some sort of woodblock process – but that it had been such a lengthy process that newspapers had been quite sparing about using it.
The Norwich Tidings had ventured on a few illustrations, although they did not contribute anything to the search for Walter. Or did they …? Because halfway down one of the Theatre Notes and News reports – in an edition dated 1918 – was a grainy illustration of a gentleman striking a grandiloquent pose, one hand placed gracefully on a chair back, the other appearing to caress a luxuriant moustache. He was gazing into the middle distance, and he looked like a cross between Svengali and photographs of the old Victorian actor-managers.
Nineteen eighteen might be a bit early for Walter’s era, but it was only a few years before his almshouse exploit. With a jolt, Phin saw that the caption beneath the photo said: ‘Sir Peregrine Pond, following his recent appearance at The Victoriana, interviewed by this newspaper while he was staying in a well-known manor house in the village of Reivers.’
Reivers, thought Phin. And a well-known manor house. He zoomed up the article and began to read. It was admiring to the point of sycophancy, but the content was very interesting indeed.
‘It was a pleasure and a privilege to visit the beautiful old manor house of The Tabor,’ it began, and even though Phin had been prepared for The Tabor after the caption’s line about a well-known manor house in Reivers, it was still startling to see it set down in print.
Sir Peregrine Pond talked openly and entertainingly about his career – which has included key roles in Richard III and in the acclaimed dramatization of Alexandre Dumas’ book, The Three Musketeers.
However, it was while appearing at The Thespis – sadly no longer standing – that Sir Peregrine’s remarkable encounter with the past occurred. Several Shakespearean extracts were being performed – the praiseworthy aim had been the raising of funds to provide comfort for the troops in France, and Sir Peregrine had been part of the staging arrangements.
He described how he had been recovering from that evening’s performance – ‘Enjoying a dram or two of whisky at the local hostelry,’ was how he put it – when shouts of ‘Fire!’ had gone up, and cries that the theatre was ablaze.
He had raced back to the theatre at once and had set about helping to douse the blaze.
‘The fire brigade were already out in force,’ he told me. ‘A splendid body of men they are, too, but I was able to help with organizing a chain of buckets to pass water back and forth. A small service, but one I was glad to perform.’
It was as Sir Peregrine and other members of The Thespis company were thus engaged that a request was made for help with rescuing any items of value from inside the theatre. The fire was doused, and a way had been cleared into part of the building.
Sir Peregrine had stepped up at once.
‘It was not without risk,’ he said, solemnly. ‘But there was no knowing what might have been in there. The Thespis had a fine history, and there was a small library in the Green Room, which might have held all manner of memorabilia. First folios – handwritten director’s notes from Garrick to Ellen Terry, for instance—’
Phin read this last sentence twice, and wondered how Sir Peregrine had thought that David Garrick, who had died around 1780, could have written stage directions to Ellen Terry, who he did not think had not taken to the stage until the mid-1850s. He began to enjoy Peregrine Pond – had that really been his name?
‘It was no longer a raging inferno in The Thespis, but here and there were little tongues of flame licking at floorboards, and there was smouldering rubble in corners – and, of course, smoke everywhere.
‘I made for the Green Room behind the stage, and for the alcove that housed the playscripts and old programmes and playbills, and I began sweeping things into a stage sheet which I knotted at the corners. I had gathered as much as I could, and I was on my way back outside, when a small tragedy struck – a tragedy for which I shall never cease to blame myself.’
He sighed, and you may be sure, readers, that I waited with bated breath for what came next.
‘On the stage we had what in theatre parlance is called a cauldron trap,’ said Sir Peregrine. ‘There are many such structures that can be employed on a stage – usually with a platform beneath that can be lowered and raised as needed. In Hamlet there will be a grave trap, which is rectangular. And there are star traps in pantomime, so that demon kings and genii can be catapulted on to a stage. Although I have not,’ he explained, carefully, ‘ever been associated with pantomime myself, being a player of the classical mould. However, I have heard of such things. But in The Thespis there was a cauldron trap – a square opening towards the back of the stage, used for the witches’ scene in the play we superstitious men and women of the theatre prefer to refer to only as the Scottish play.’
I suggested, tentatively, that the play was believed to bring bad luck, at which Sir Peregrine said, sombrely, that this was very true indeed.
‘But we had performed several scenes from it as part of our Shakespearean season,’ he said, ‘and we had included the witches’ scene.’
Here, he broke off his narrative to me, and launched forthwith into the famous witches’ chant, about ‘Double double, toil and trouble,’ and very inspiring it was, and perfectly excusable that his memory should trouble him over the lines calling for eye of newt and toe of frog. It’s a very long speech. He brushed the stumble aside magnificently, and went on with his story.
‘The smoke was clouding my vision, but through it I heard someone calling for help, so of course I ran towards the cries. Well, I almost tumbled straight down into the open cauldron trap, which was gaping wide, some careless fool having neglected to shut it after curtain fall.
‘And there – yelling to be got out – was a young man, lying on the ground, one of his legs clearly badly injured. I set about helping him at once – a coil of rope was to hand, used, I believe, for lifting some of the scenery, and eventually, with many a cry of pain from the young man, but with encouragement and determination from myself, he was brought out.
‘As for the artefacts I had scooped up so hastily and almost randomly – ah, that was when I found the playbill.’
Sir Peregrine here paused impressively, then said, ‘I have cherished it ever since, that playbill, for it has come down from one of William Shakespeare’s men who was in Norfolk at the end of his life.’
He pulled out a thick envelope, wrapped in linen and silk, and displayed the playbill. And it is with his permission and approval that the Tidings is proud to reproduce it for its readers on Page 4.
Phin stared at the screen. This was the moment all researchers worked towards – and all too rarely reached. This unexpected but hoped-for discovery of some nugget of information that smacked into every one of your senses, and that was the vital piece of the jigsaw you were trying to assemble about the past. This was why he had spent most of his adult life chasing chimerae and phantoms and pinning down fragments and cobwebs of the past.
He stared at the screen for so long it flickered into sleep mode, which pulled him out of his abstraction, and he reached for his phone to text Arabella.
‘Please come and hold my hand while I see if I can open a document that might have been left by Will Kempe.’
‘Something rescued from a burning building,’ said Arabella, having pulled a chair into place, and reading the notes Phin had made.
‘Yes.’
‘I hate to say this, and I know you want to go haring off in pursuit, but do remember—’
‘That crumbling documents brought out of burning buildings usually turn out to be elaborate fakes?’ said Phin. ‘I know. It’s the starting block for any number of tales about priceless objects being discovered – lost family wills and scandalous letters—’
‘First folio Shakespearean manuscripts and never-published Beethoven symphonies at the bottom of old tea chests,’ said Arabella, promptly. ‘This could be an early twentieth-century scam. It’s a well-hidden one if so, though, I will say that. And also—’
‘And also we do know, reasonably surely, that Will Kempe was in Reivers,’ said Phin. ‘This playbill might link everything up. Walter Rivers and The Tabor and Will Kempe and the Murder Dance. All brought together.’
‘By an actor who couldn’t remember the Macbeth witches’ speech,’ said Arabella, thoughtfully. ‘How far can he be believed, d’you think, this Peregrine Pond? And what about this theatre – The Thespis? How far does that go back?’
‘No idea. We’ll google it when we get back. For the moment there’s this playbill. If I can bring myself to see if it’s reachable.’ He stared back at the computer monitor. ‘Because whoever scanned all this in could have missed Page 4. Or not bothered with it because it was lunchtime or five p.m. on a Friday. Or found it was too tattered to scan anyway.’
‘Ever the optimist.’ Arabella reached determinedly for the keyboard.
‘It won’t be there,’ said Phin. ‘It might once have been, but it’s probably vanished into the netherworld of error messages and sites “no longer available”—’
‘No, it hasn’t,’ said Arabella. ‘Look there.’
The playbill was incomplete, but the title of the piece was readable.
‘A Knack to Know a Knave,’ said Phin, frowning and narrowing his eyes to read it. ‘“A Most Pleasant and Merrie Comedie”.’
‘Is that Will Kempe’s name at the foot – it looks as if it’s been torn away, but it could be.’
‘It could, but I wouldn’t bet the ranch on it,’ said Phin. ‘And infuriatingly there’s no date anywhere. But we’ll look up that play title as well, to see if Kempe was ever linked to it—’
‘What is it?’ said Arabella, leaning forward to see the small newsprint better.
‘There’s a caption. It’s very small print indeed, but if I can zoom it up … Damn, it’s blurred it too much. No, that’s better. It says – “A facsimile of a playbill found by the distinguished actor, Sir Peregrine Pond, and his cherished possession”. And on the last line—’
‘Oh!’ said Arabella, with a half-gasp. And then, ‘I’ll get a print-out before the library closes – it’s almost six o’clock already.’
The last line of the caption said, ‘The playbill bears handwritten notes on its reverse, which have been interpreted by Sir Peregrine as dance notation’.
‘What now?’ said Phin, as they stood on the pavement outside the library.
‘Back to Reivers? Dinner at The Daunsen?’
Phin said, carefully, ‘The trouble is that Quentin and Zillah would want to know how we’ve got on today – what we’ve found out, and—’
‘And you don’t want to share this yet.’
‘It probably wasn’t anything to do with Kempe or the Murder Dance,’ said Phin, slowly. ‘And I shouldn’t think there’s any way we can get our hands on the original playbill and see those handwritten notes.’ He looked at her. ‘How would you feel about getting something to eat here in Norwich, and not going back to The Daunsen until it’s too late to talk to those two?’
‘Let’s do that,’ said Arabella. ‘I’ll phone Toby – or text him, saying we won’t be back until late. He’ll be imagining us smashed up on a motorway otherwise.’
‘True. And tomorrow morning we can have an early breakfast and head off to find the vicar.’
Arabella looked at him in surprise, then said, ‘Oh, parish records. Walter and the almshouses.’
‘You make it sound like a punk rock group. But yes, parish records.’ He smiled at her and put an arm round her waist. ‘For now let’s find somewhere nice to eat.’
Over bowls of pasta and warm Italian bread, Arabella said, ‘It isn’t a definite link to Will Kempe, is it? That playbill?’
‘No, but there’s the title, which might tell us something—’ Phin reached into a pocket for his phone, and tapped in a search request.
‘Anything?’ said Arabella, after a moment.
Phin said, ‘Listen to this.
‘A Knack to Know a Knave is a comic piece dating from the late 1500s, and is associated with the celebrated clown actor William Kempe. Kempe’s applauded “merrimentes of the mad men of Goteham (in some sources, Gotham)” was considered a highlight of the play.’
He frowned at the screen, then said, ‘There’s a fair bit more which doesn’t look especially relevant – dates of performances, and how the author is unknown, but how there was speculation as to whether Shakespeare might have dabbled in the writing.’ He passed the phone over for Arabella to see, and after a moment, he said, softly, ‘I think this is the proof – the confirmation that Kempe was here. The fact that dance notation was written on the reverse alone— And I don’t think the playbill was a scam of any kind. Peregrine Pond doesn’t sound as if he could have worked out the details. Someone who didn’t know there was a good sixty or seventy years between David Garrick and Ellen Terry isn’t likely to have fudged up a fake playbill for a three-hundred-year-old comedy.’
