‘What arrangement, my Nell?’
‘I’m everybody’s Nell today, Nick. Your Nell, his Nell. .’
‘No evasions, Nell.’
‘Evasions? You must speak in plainer English if you want me to understand.’
‘The arrangement, Nell. The “arrangement” which your friend in there mentioned. What do you do for him?’
‘Look over there,’ she said suddenly. ‘See that fine piece of coney-catching.’
A few yards off, stood a young man — obviously fresh up from the country by his dress and his general air of wonderment at our capital city — gazing about him. He was being greeted by a friendly, open-faced fellow, greeted by name. Master Russet or Master Windfall, or some such. The name, needless to say, would be wrong. Then our open-faced friend would make a stab at getting the country-dweller’s county. Worcester, Gloucester? There too he was in error. Then he would essay a couple of the rustic’s fellow-countrymen. ‘Why, sir, do you not have Sir Tarton Barton as your neighbour?’ or ‘Doesn’t Farmer Harmer live yonder over Pillycock hill, three mile from your place?’ These names mean nothing to our fresh bumpkin, which is hardly surprising as the open-faced fellow has probably made them up on the spot. In exchange for these questions the rustic gives the following information: his name, his county and the names of a handful of his neighbours. He would have volunteered more, probably down to the name of his mother’s aunt’s cat, had not the friendly fellow apologised, thanked him and departed into the crush of people in Paul’s.
Nell and I knew that in about five minutes our innocent rustic, or coney, or rabbit, would be greeted by another affable man. This second friend would, of course, know the name of the stranger, together with his county — why he would even be familiar with the gentleman’s neighbours! ‘Goodman Windfall, have you forgotten me? I am such a man’s kinsman, your neighbour not far off.’ My, the bumpkin would think to himself — reflecting on how he had been warned before he started off for Lon’n town that the citizens were cold and aloof, how they cared nothing for their country cousins, how they were even prepared to trick simple countryfolk — my, this is a regular turnabout. Here am I in this great city, the world’s heart. And here I have been hailed twice in the space of five minutes by men who think they know me!
The sequel to this? The bumpkin’s new-found friend proposes stepping into some nearby tavern, and drinking a toast to their shared county and joint neighbours. Inside the alehouse, a game of cards happens to be in progress. After a jar or two, bumpkin and friend are invited to join in. Bumpkin’s pleasure at so speedily finding companions in Lon’n town is increased by the delightful way in which he seems to be winning more at the hands of cards than he is losing. But he is careful. He knows that luck has a habit of turning. Just as he is on the point of drinking up and leaving and finding somewhere secure to deposit his modest winnings, his friend, by now his fast and eternal friend, says ‘A fresh pint and then away. One more pint and another hand of cards. . a last hand for friendship’s sake. .’
The coney will return to his country burrow a sadder man, possibly a wiser one and certainly a poorer.
As Nell and I turned away from the scene we saw and heard another man come up to our country visitor, sure enough addressing him by name — ‘Goodman Martin!’ — and identifying him by county.
However often you have witnessed this operation in Paul’s, or in other parts of the town such as Holborn or Fleet Street, you do not tire of the smoothness, the ingenuity of it. Perhaps it is because Nell and I were originally from the country ourselves that we always took pleasure in seeing our country cousins duped and fooled, although there was a small measure of shame in it, too. All the same, we reflect that we would not be caught out like this because we are worldly-wise. And, I also reflected as we continued through the throng, is not jealousy a somewhat, well, rustic notion? It is hardly worldly to be jealous, especially over a whore. So I assured myself, and I tried to shake myself free from care over Nell’s secrets.
‘What were you saying, Nick?’
‘When?’
‘Before we saw how many friends Goodman Martin has in this fair city of ours.’
‘I was talking about evasions but it doesn’t matter. I do not wish to know about your “arrangement” with an apothecary. And don’t ask me what “evasions” mean, either.’
I returned to the hidden garden in the Eliot house after this excursion to Old Nick’s in Paul’s. Why to the garden, I don’t know. Perhaps, like old Sir William, I saw it as a place of refuge from the taint of the world. I was alone in the house and grounds, for once without Jacob dogging attendance on me. The afternoon performance at the Globe playhouse, a thing set in Milan, full of Machiavellian dukes and cardinals and their mistresses, had gone well. But what remained with me on this fine autumn evening wasn’t the recollected pleasure of how deftly I’d turned my villainous lines as Signor Tortuoso (the murderous creature of the Cardinal-Machiavel), or the compliment that Master Mink had paid me afterwards (‘To the life, Nick, to the life’), but the more recent scene in the desiccated apothecary’s shop. However wary of him I was, I knew he had not been play-acting when he snuffed up the secrets contained in Francis’s shirt. There was much that was wrong here, and I felt resentment, momentary but deep, of young William Eliot for pitching me into a situation where I was expected to uncover dangerous truths.
As I have said before, the door to the inner garden was no longer kept locked. I traced my way among the laden fruit trees — for it seemed to be a consequence of the old master’s death that none had been instructed to disburden the trees, and the area had returned, as will all things unregarded, to a state of nature, unweeded and now growing rank with fallen fruit — until I reached the place where Sir William had met his end. Once again, I surveyed the scene. A heavy, golden air hung about the garden. The rays of the declining sun struck across the wall and into my eyes. Blinded, I felt the grooves left in the trunk of the apple by the dead man’s hammock. What did I expect to discover? Unlike the bowed trees, this revisiting of a dead scene was fruitless. Yet before I knew it, I was at the foot of the guilty pear. I hoisted myself aloft and into the fork in the branches where my man had been. And yes, there in the leaf-shadowed bark were the initials, clear WS, not new but not so old neither.
I think, until that moment, I had been hoping that I was in error. I had surely, as it were, misread my tree. But no, I had not.
WS. The playwright, he had sat up the pear.
I settled myself more comfortably. It was a warm evening. I may have fallen asleep for an instant, tired from being a Machiavel’s creature, wearied by the encounter with Old Nick. Anyway, some very short period must have elapsed because I came to myself again with a start. Unthinkingly, I glanced down. At first I thought I was dreaming. I blinked, and blinked again. Then I permitted my scalp to crawl with horror.
There, in the long grass between the two apple trees, lay a dead man.
Now, I had never seen Sir William in the flesh, although I had studied his likeness in a picture in the Eliot household, but I could not doubt that here he was, in the very space (or, to be precise, just below) where his body had been discovered. Nor had I hitherto seen a ghost. Like most thinking men, I have sometimes questioned whether any of us can ever recross that boundary between the here and there. On the other hand, I have — also like most thinking men — felt differently on this question in the middle of the night. Yet this was the early evening, the light was good, and my sight was unimpeded. There lay Sir William outspread beneath the trees.
Then the ghost did something worse than merely lie there. It coughed and scratched at its beard. And all became clear. For this was, of course, no dead Sir William but a living Sir Thomas, come to lay himself down in the very spot where his brother had been taken off. A strange practice. How could I have confused two men who were not, perhaps, so alike after all? With the image of the dead man in my mind’s eye, I had imprinted it on the living one in the grass.