Sleep of Death

by Philip Gooden

  N: What were you told to do?

  F: Lady Alice said something like, ‘Francis, I’m rather troubled about Sir William. He will get cold if he’s sleeping in there. I think he should be woken up before it grows any later.’ But I knew that she was not just thinking of his sleep.

  N: How did you know?

  F: I have seen my lady Alice in many moods. I have seen her angry and soft, and gentle and uppish, and . . .

  N: Yes?

  F: I mean no disrespect to her, sir, but there is a saltiness in her looks sometimes – you understand what I say?

  N: Yes.

  F [here the good honest servant starts to gulp his words]: I mean even towards me, or so I have thought, sir. I am sure she does not know she is doing it but there is something salt in her, and it is leftover in her expression sometimes like the lees is left in a glass of wine, and her voice falls away all low even if she is giving me a command only, and I have to bend forward to catch her words, and I am uncomfortable, and I hope you can understand me if I have misspoken, sir.

  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.

  N: How was he lying?

  F: On his back but with his head to the left side, so, and one arm outflung. I could not see his expression but when they brought him into the house we saw a horrible grin on his face as if he laughed at all of us. The key fell from his person and onto the floor inside. It made a clatter.

  N: What key?

  F: The key to the door to the garden.

  N: Let us go back to when you first found him. What did you think at that moment? About how he’d died for instance?

  F: I didn’t think anything, Master Revill. I was frightened, then I was excited, if you’ll forgive me for saying so. It had fallen to me, you see, to make a discovery which would make a difference to everyone in our household. Later I was sorry, because Sir William was a good master. We shall not see his like again.

  N: And then?

  F: I shouted out something. I cannot recall what it was. I went back to the door. The others were still on the far side. I was very calm and also lively. I could hear them breathing over the wall. I said that I had found Sir William and that torches should be brought, and they knew what I meant, and then they broke down the door and came inside, and everyone went and stood about the body wringing their hands, and Janet ran all over the house beside herself, and my lady Alice and us servants, we were grief-stricken.

  N: And Master William?

  F: Him most of all.

  N: And that was it? You saw nothing further? You did nothing else? You didn’t touch the body, or rearrange anything before the others came into the garden?

  F [hesitating]: No, sir.

  N: And one more thing, Francis, if you would be so good.

  F: Sir?

  N: Sir Thomas Eliot, where was he all this while?

  F: Sir Thomas?

  N: Your old master’s brother and now your new master.

  F: He was about his business.

  N: Where? Here in the house?

  F: Oh no, I do not think so. He was away, in Dover, I think.

  N: So when did he find out about the death of his brother?

  F: The next day it must have been, sir. When he returned from Dover. My lady went to tell him as he came into the hall, but in truth he must have been able to tell something was wrong. Tom Bullock would have said as he arrived.

  N: Tom Bullock?

  F: He is the doorman. He says little, but even he could not keep his mouth closed around this.

  N: Was Sir Thomas often here?

  F: He dwells in Richmond. No longer of course. Now he dwells here with my lady.

  N: But, before your old master died, he was often here?

  F: I dare say so, Master Revill.

  N: Out of love for his brother and sister?

  F: It is said—

  N: Yes?

  F: – that he was near to bankrupt before this marriage.

  N: Thank you, Francis. And still one thing more. Can I ask you again about the moment when you saw Sir William?

  F: Again, sir?

  N [sensing that even this simple man’s patience is about to be exhausted]: For my own private satisfaction. You touched nothing about Sir William’s person in the garden?

  F: I – no . . .

  N: Well, I thank you, Francis.

  [Nick Revill makes to turn away, knowing that Francis has more to say on this topic and that a pretended dismissal, and an active conscience, will work best on this good servant.]

  F: Wait a moment, sir. You set me thinking now. I went close to the body and, like I said, I knew that he was dead straightaway, even before I put my fingertips out. His head was on one side and . . .

  N: Yes?

  F: It’s a tiny thing, sir. But on the side of his face turned towards me there was a mark that ran aslant his cheek.

  N: How did you see this? It must have been dark by this stage.

  F: Like I said, my eyes had grown used to the dark, and there was a strong moon nearly at the full. The moonlight caught this . . . trail . . . as it will pick out the trail of a boat on the river. It was like a snail’s trail, a silver track that stretched from his ear and down across the cheek before it disappeared in his beard. I . . . I wiped at the mark with my sleeve, sir, because I did not like to think that something had crawled across the face of my dead master. I had almost forgot it until this instant. Did I do wrong?

  N: No, Francis. You showed respect towards your master. The sleeve you used to wipe Sir William’s cheek, would that happen to be the one on the shirt you’re wearing?

  F: I keep it in my trunk beneath my bed. I have two shirts, and I have not worn that one since the night of the discovery. And if you were to ask me why, sir, I could not tell you.

  We’d landed on the south bank by now. I paid off the boatman, adding a small tip, and was rewarded with a surly nod. Can you ever satisfy a boatman? Will Charon, who is to ferry us all across Lethe one day, be as bad-tempered as a London waterman? Impossible!

  As I made my way up the landing steps and into Hopton Street on the way to the playhouse, I considered again what I had discovered. I must confess that the feeling that there was indeed something to find out – the feeling that this wasn’t all a matter of a son’s grieving imagination – had grown strongly upon me. William Eliot was convinced of something odd, even suspicious about his father’s death. Now I was starting to believe the same thing. Even so quickly may one catch the plague! After talking with Francis and summarising our exchange in my little black book, I had noted (in my Greekified style) the following points for further reflection:

  firstly: Why were the family, Lady Alice and William, so sure that Sir William was in the garden, that he hadn’t, for example, slipped away from the house? One of the servants, Janet, had witnessed him entering the garden, to be sure, and no one had seen him leave – and his outdoor clothes were in place – but it seemed an absolute certainty with them that he was on the premises. Did this suggest that somebody knew he was there?

  secondly: What did Lady Alice mean when she called out to Francis, “Have you found him?” Why had she made that choice of words? Why not “Is he there, Francis?” or “Can you see him?” Lady Alice’s query is what we call out to one who is searching for some thing or object – or for one who is no longer able to answer for himself.

  thirdly: What caused the silvery streak which Francis had observed running slantwise across the cheek of the dead man? A snail or some other tiny creature? It was possible. I could understand why he had wiped it off his master’s face. I could understand too why the servant had been reluctant to wear that same shirt again – although this, as well as the way he had described his action at the very end of our meeting, suggested that, rather than merely forgetting the incident as he had claimed, Francis had deliberately thrown earth over it in his mind. Why? Had he, by instinct or unawares, been frightened of something in that sticky track scrawled across the dead man’s face?

  fourthly: Had Sir Thomas really been away from the house when his brother died? Had he saddled up and ridden off a day or two earlier, claiming urgent business in Dover, only to return rather before the morning which followed the discovery of the body? Perhaps he had remained all the time in London. What did it mean that he was ‘near bankrout’? If this was true, then presumably he had been saved by an advantageous marriage.

  What counted chiefly with me was not, however, the various pointers that I had picked up in conversation with Francis. What convinced me that there was som
ething wrong was a visit to the hidden garden, made in company with the dog-like Jacob.

  The door was no longer locked since the old master’s passing. It had secured his private orchard, and now he was dead there seemed no reason to keep it closed. On my second morning in the house I asked Jacob to show me where Sir William had been found. We traversed the larger garden and approached a wall that was pierced in the centre by the half-open oak door. An autumn wind was beginning to strip the trees. The grasses around the garden paths lay lank and untended. The door creaked when I pushed at it, with Jacob at my shoulder. Inside was a thick plantation of fruit trees. A few apples and pears lay mushed underfoot. A vine scaled the inner, south-facing wall behind us. The watermen’s cries, the creak of the nearer boats and the slop of water against the bank floated over the riverside wall.

  ‘Where did it happen, Jacob? Where was Sir William found?’

  Jacob gestured, and lead the way towards the middle of the little orchard, ducking and weaving with suprising agility to avoid the low branches. Beaten-down areas of grass marked old routes among the trees. We came to a small open area where two apple trees faced each other. On the far side were a scattering of plums. Jacob stopped and pointed to the apple trees. They were old and gnarled. Their upper branches ran riot with each other but the lower ones had been pruned or altogether cut away. This was where Sir William’s body had hung suspended in his hammock. Although the hammock had gone, probably taken away with the body, I could see, at about five feet above the ground on each tree, rings around the bark which were discoloured or abraded. I crouched slightly to avoid the dangling leaves and the apples. I ran my fingers round the indentations made by the hammock ropes; as one would expect, they were deeper on the sides facing away from the clearing, where the pull of a man’s weight on the hammock supports would be greatest. As I was leaning forward something tapped me on the shoulder. I thought it was Jacob and looked around, only to see him grinning. Another windfall apple thumped on my outstretched arm. I retrieved it from the wet grass and bit into it. It was, if I am not mistaken, a Peasegood Nonesuch. I straightened up and stood flanked by the pair of trees, slowly chewing the fruit of one tree and pondering the fate of the man who had died suspended between two of them. Jacob, meanwhile, remained gazing at me with the patience and good nature of a dog which halts when his master halts but is ready to spring up the instant that he shows signs of moving.