N: Perfectly, thank you. What you are saying is that she is a lady of many — how shall I put it? — moods. But you were mentioning her appearance by the garden door. .?
F: I’ve never seen her look as she looked then. It was getting dark but I could observe her face and features sort of moving around, and she was troubled as she said, pacing about and twisting about.
N: Why do you think she was certain her husband was in there, in the hidden garden?
F: Where else would he be?
N: In the house?
F: I believe they had looked for him, sir. All about the place and around.
N: Outside the house then. In the town? Why should he not be anywhere from Westminster to Shoreditch?
F: But he wasn’t, was he, sir? He was in the garden, and he was dead, and it was I who found him.
N: No one disputes that, Francis, but you miss my point. What I mean is, before you found out for certain that Sir William was in the garden, why was everyone else so sure that he must be there?
F: Janet saw him go across the outer garden and open the door into his orchard, as was his custom. She saw him in the afternoon.
N: I see. But mightn’t he have left the orchard again without anybody noticing it? Didn’t he occasionally go out — on business or pleasure? He hardly had to obtain your permission to leave his own house.
F: Hardly, sir.
N: Well then?
F: This is a large household, Master Revill, there are plenty of people here, and it would be very difficult for Sir William to slip out without being noticed. And Sir William never slipped anywhere. He made proper exits and entrances, just like you players do.
N: But it’s possible that he did ‘slip’ out?
F: Almost anything is possible if you want to put it like that, sir. But none of his city clothes, not his cloaks or his boots, not a thing was taken, and that seemed proof enough to us simple folk that he hadn’t wandered beyond these doors.
N: Very well. As you say, the garden is where he was found anyway. Now tell me what you did next.
F: I placed the ladder carefully against the wall. Then I climbed up it hand over hand, so.
N: What did you see from the top?
F: Nothing. I thought to call for a light from those down below-
N: They had torches?
F: I think not. When they first went into the garden it hadn’t grown dark. And now it was dusk. The secret garden is bounded by high walls and shadowed by trees, and I was unable to see anything but shapes from my post at the top of the outer wall. So I straddled the wall, and Lady Alice, she says ‘Well?’ and I say to her what I’ve just said to you, which is that I can see nothing. And then she says ‘Go on, go and look for him, Francis, please.’
N: Was there anything — did you notice anything — about the way she said that?
F: A strange voice, you mean?
N: Yes.
F: No. I did as she bade me. I turned about so that I might grip the top of the wall with my hands and I hung there for an instant before I fell off into the dark. Then I dropped to the ground on the far side and groped my way about the orchard. I felt that something was wrong. Lady Alice and Master William on the other side of the wall, they felt something was wrong too. One of the master’s bitches had set up a great howling that afternoon, you see, sir.
N: Yes. Proceed.
F: You’re very curious, sir, if you’ll forgive me for saying so.
N: I’m a player, Francis.
F: I know, Master Revill.
N: We players are curious about everything. Human behaviour is, as you might term it, our lifeblood. Humani nihil alienum.
F: If you say so, sir.
N: Not I say so but the Latin author Terence. Go on with your story if you please.
F: Where was I?
N: In the garden, the inner garden.
F: I move slowly about with my hands stretched in front of me, and the branches and leaves, they brush at my face and clothes. [Francis suits his actions to his words.]
N: You should have been a player, Francis.
F: Is it a respectable trade, sir?
N: We are crawling slowly towards respectability. Please continue with your account.
F: Something rustles close to my foot and I stand stock still with my skin prickling and, though it is only a night animal, I wish that Lady Alice had not requested that I climb the ladder and jump down on the other side. The dusk is dangerous, sir. It confuses. In the dark of the night, at least you know where you are — even if you don’t know where you are, if you see what I mean.
N: Ha, very good, yes.
F: I felt too that I was. . not alone in the garden.
N: And in a sense you were not, Francis, for Sir William was there also.
F: I don’t mean that. I felt someone was looking over my shoulder. I jerked my head round sharp, so, and I did it quick to catch them at it before I could grow afraid. But I saw nothing save the heads of the trees. Still my shoulder turned cold. This person. . his eyes were up.
N: Up? Who? Whose eyes? What do you mean?
F: I don’t know, sir. But Sir William, he was not up, not up anywhere. He was lying down.
N: What did you do?
F: At first I am afraid to make a noise but after a while I begin to whisper, ‘Sir William, Sir William’, like this, soft as can be. In a while too I am able to see better, for it is not so dark as I thought. I can make out the apple trees and the pear trees although there are dark pools of shadow lying underneath them. I had been crouching a little as if I was going to meet an enemy and wrestle with him, but now I stand upright. I say ‘Sir William, Sir William’ in a stronger voice. Then after a time I hear Lady Alice’s words come vaulting over the wall. She says something like, ‘Have you found him, Francis?’
N: Were those her very words? ‘Have you found him, Francis?’ Are you certain?
F: Yes, Master Revill.
N: You’re very sure.
F: I was there. I turned my head and shouted back over the wall, ‘No, I ha-’ when suddenly I saw him and broke off speech. So that instant there in the garden is, as it were, branded in my memory.
N: Describe the scene, if you would.
F: My eyes were now much sharper and I could see almost as well as by day. Above me was a moon, new-risen and near full, and the evening star was balanced on a wall top. Between two trees was a hammock, and in the hammock was my master. He was only a shape, but who else could it be?
N: You realised he was dead?
F: Death and sleep are brothers — that’s what they say, isn’t it, sir? But to my mind you cannot confuse those two, however much they be kin. I knew that he was dead the moment I saw him there between the apple trees. He had not answered for all of our calling. And his poor body had heaviness and no heaviness, if you understand me.
N: I think so. What did you do next?
F: I was silent. The hammock swayed and creaked in some of the air that came creeping up and across the wall from the river, and for a moment I thought that Sir William was going to stretch and rise up from his resting place and greet me by name as he did sometimes, and the hair stood up on the back of my neck. I waited to see. But he did not rise. He had gone from us for good. Lady Alice, she cried out ‘Francis!’ in a way that brought me back to myself. I crept closer, not frightened now but respectful, like. I touched him gently on his forehead with the tips of my fingers, like so [Francis extends surprisingly delicate fingertips], and he was scarcely warm.