A Rather Remarkable Homecoming

by C. A. Belmond

  “Eggs!” I cried. Someone had thrown a couple of them, Splat! right on the glass. The broken yolks, cracked shell fragments and gooey white had formed one drippy, hideous pattern of hostility.

  While we stood there stunned, I noticed that the Mosley brothers had come out to the porch, and one of them strolled down the front path to light up a cigarette. As he flashed his lighter, I momentarily saw his pale eyes shining in the dark night, with a look of chilly amusement that I did not like.

  Toby Taylor had come out, too, saying goodbye to another group of finely dressed men accompanied by slender ladies wearing gold jewelry that flashed at their throats and hands. But when Toby saw the look on our faces, he quickly realized what we were staring at, and then broke away from his other guests with an expression of genuine sympathy.

  “I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Laidley,” he said quietly. “The local vandals sometimes get a bit out of hand on the weekend. Egged on by their elders, no pun intended. Some people can’t stand progress. Don’t worry, I’ll have one of the valets clean it up for you in the morning. But for now, let’s get it off the street. It will be safe in our garage.”

  Jeremy wordlessly handed his car key to the valet. I simply wanted to get away from the stares of the other guests, who were probably wondering why we’d been singled out for this abuse. After all, Jeremy’s Dragonetta was a beautiful car, yet there were many other cars parked all around us on the street that were far more expensive and showy.

  We went into our hotel next door, where the front parlor was quiet and consoling, with its low lighting from pretty lamps, and invitingly upholstered chairs. I saw that a white-haired elderly couple sat on a sofa, happily doing the crossword puzzle together.

  We climbed the wide, old-fashioned staircase, and I absently ran my hand over the smoothly polished banister. Then Jeremy unlocked the door to our room, and tossed the key on top of the chest of drawers. I switched on the lamp nearby and stole a look at him to see if he was still scowling, but he only smiled ruefully at me.

  “Who the hell are these so-called vandals everyone blames everything on?” I demanded.

  “Local kids with too much time on their hands, I imagine,” he replied.

  “I don’t believe it,” I said stoutly. “It had to be the Mosleys, I just know it.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. These villagers do resent newcomers who roar into town with fancy cars,” Jeremy answered ruefully.

  “And why name them after the Vandals?” I mused. “Why not the Visigoths?”

  “Vandals is easier to say,” Jeremy offered.

  “You’re winging it,” I scoffed. After a moment I said, “Why would anyone attack us? We haven’t done anything yet.”

  “We’re here,” Jeremy said. “That may be enough.” He smiled at me. “Don’t worry. We’ll soon figure out who our friends and foes are,” he said calmly as he took off his jacket and deposited his wallet on the bed-stand. I could see that tonight’s events had only strengthened Jeremy’s determination to fight back.

  Struck by the quiet strength of his attitude, I interrupted his appealingly male routine of undressing by flinging my arms around him, and I planted a particularly loving kiss on his warm lips.

  “You’re a good egg,” I said daringly. “That’s why I married you.”

  He put his arm around my waist and pulled me closer with mock ferocity, then helped me unbutton my dress while kissing the back of my neck. “You,” he said, “make me feel happy to be alive.”

  Chapter Nine

  The next morning was a Sunday, and I awoke to the dolorous sound of church bells clanging in the cool morning air. They had a very measured, solid tone, as if they had been tolling for flocks of villagers all down the centuries on mornings just like this one.

  Jeremy and I walked over to get our breakfast at the farmers’ market, which was set up in the big parking lot near the harbor. Each vendor had his own small white tent and metal tables heaped with fruits, flowers or vegetables that had just been picked. One farmer had a goat for kids to pet; and a beekeeper displayed a buzzy, busy hive inside a glass bell. The baker’s table, with its fragrant, fresh-baked bread and muffins was especially popular, as was the booth with locally made cheeses and sausages. And the fishermen had their own prominent section with piles of newly caught fish on ice.

  Because the day was fine, we spent the rest of the morning watching the fishing boats coming in and out of the harbor. In the afternoon, we hurried back to the Homecoming Inn to pick up the car, so that we’d be on time to meet Trevor Branwhistle. Jeremy gave the valet our room number. The valet, a local Cornish lad of about seventeen, bolted off with alacrity, and a second later Jeremy’s Dragonetta came roaring around the corner at breakneck speed. The kid pulled right up to us, and jumped out with a smile of pure pleasure as he stepped aside for Jeremy.

  “Great wheels, dude,” the valet could not help saying with undisguised admiration.

  I noted that the windshield sparkled in the sunlight, and the car looked as if it had never been sullied. Jeremy gave the kid a tip, and we drove off.

  We headed away from the harbor with its fishing boats bobbing on the sparkling sea and the sound of the waves lashing the sandy, rocky shoreline. Today we were climbing a bit higher inland, where the houses perched near dewy meadows.

  “Trevor Branwhistle, here we come,” I said.

  Now, when you’re out in the country, the English play fast and loose with the word “cottage”. I suppose it’s all relative to the main building and the original reason that the first owner had for scattering other houses on his estate, as if they were little plastic pieces from a Monopoly board game.

  So sometimes a “cottage” truly is a cute little abode like the ones that hermits inhabit in fairy tales. On the other hand, an English cottage can be a house that most normal folk would consider rather grand—from awesome castle-like residences that were once an abbey or rectory; to stone “farmhouses” that look more like winery châteaux, to an elegantly built mansion.

  Trevor Branwhistle’s “cottage” fell into this more imposing category. It was a white Edwardian structure that sat very proudly in a clearing on the flat top of a high hill, overlooking a meadow with fluffy grey sheep grazing placidly. Several acres separated the property from Grandmother Beryl’s house. Although he had a view of the sea in the back of his property, Trevor’s house was higher up, and did not have direct access to a cove or shoreline as Grandmother’s did.

  “Wow, I didn’t know working for the BBC paid so well,” I said, duly impressed.

  “No, dear. Houses like this are inherited. I imagine the BBC pension merely helps pay for the expenses. Where’s the front door to this ruddy place?” Jeremy muttered, steering the car around a gravel drive that surrounded the house, and parking beside another car in an area edged with a white fence.

  “Over there. See the big door with the balcony above it?” I told him, pointing at the main entrance.

  The front door was opened by a plump, middle-aged housekeeper in a grey dress and white apron. She had a pleasant smile as if she were expecting us, and she led us through a cool, dark reception hall, directly into a study that overlooked the meadow.

  I liked this room immediately. The wall opposite the entrance had four tall windows and a French door that was opened wide onto a terrace with balustrades. The other three walls were covered with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, which housed an extensive collection of tall, leather-bound volumes. Peering closer at the spines, I saw from their gold-lettered titles that many of them were collections of famous plays. Others were actually BBC sound recordings of Trevor doing Shakespeare or being interviewed about the English theatre.

  Jeremy was wandering around examining four busts mounted on white pedestals reigning over each corner of the room. “They’re all playwrights,” he noted. “Here’s Shakespeare himself.”

  “Isn’t he wonderful?” I whispered, stepping across the square red-and-green wool rug in the center of the room. “To be o
r not to be . . .” I intoned, poised before the marble bust.

  “This one’s Ibsen . . . this is Shaw . . .” Jeremy said, staring at the other noble faces. Then he paused, searching for the identity of the last one. I drifted to his side, studying the bust of a man whose hair was worn in long curly ringlets, and whose face had heavy-lidded eyes, an elegant nose, a well-shaped wide moustache, an intelligent brow, and a mouth that indicated a trace of humor.

  “Not sure who that is,” Jeremy murmured.

  “I am Molière, sir!”

  The booming voice seemed to come right out of the statue itself. We both jumped back and stared at the stone face, as if awaiting its next word, which came soon.

  “We die only once, and for such a long time!”

  It really did seem as if the statue had spoken—in a French accent, no less. This time I whirled around, searching for a human presence. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a figure on the terrace just stepping out of the shadows, and coming into the study.

  Trevor Branwhistle had a lion’s mane of silver-and-black hair with a matching, very pointy beard and moustache, which made him look as if he belonged to the seventeenth century rather than our present one. He wore brown tweed pants, a corduroy olive-green jacket with mustard-yellow patches on the elbows, and an olive-green knitted vest. His face was not so much wrinkled as leathery, and I judged him to be about sixty.

  “You are fortunate, young lady,” he said to me with a mocksevere look, in a normal voice which was Oxford-educated. “Monsieur Molière rarely converses with visitors before he’s had a proper introduction.”

  “I’m Penny Nichols, and this is my husband, Jeremy Laidley,” I said, delighted to play along with his whimsy. He took my hand and kissed it with the kind of theatrical gesture that only an actor can get away with in such ordinary circumstances.

  “You’re a very good ventriloquist,” Jeremy observed.

  “An actor must have many tricks up his sleeve,” Trevor said, reaching out to shake hands with Jeremy, but at the last moment he flicked his hand instead, and appeared to pluck out a card from Jeremy’s sleeve. It was the King of Hearts. “However I am less a magician and more a Jack-of-all-Trades,” he added, flicking the same card again, so that it seemed to have now become the Jack of Clubs. With a flourish, he handed it to me as if it were his calling card.

  “Would you care for a glass of port?” he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he went over to a tall table in the corner and poured the ruby-colored port from a decanter into three narrow glasses. He handed the first to me, then another to Jeremy. We all clinked.

  “To your grandmother Beryl,” Trevor said in a more respectful, less jocular tone. “She is sorely missed.”

  “You knew her, then?” I asked, as eager to hear the answer as I was to continue listening to that deep, resonant voice that was as silky as the port.

  Trevor gestured for us to sit upon the green velvet upholstered sofa. “Certainly. After all, she was my neighbor, and a true patron of our local theatre. Beryl had her own special box seats, and she was a devoted fund-raiser,” he said, sipping his port. “More conventional than her sister Penelope, mind you, but a real brick when it came to defending the village. Beryl was content to remain backstage, if you know what I mean; whereas her sister Penelope adored the spotlight and even once trod the boards right here on our stage, performing as a song-and-dance gal.”

  “When was this?” Jeremy asked, amused.

  “For a benefit, back in the 1970s!” Trevor boomed, sitting in a brown leather chair opposite us. “She brought her old partner down from London, what was his name?”

  “Simon Thorne,” I said, delighted.

  “Yes, yes. They did a Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence music-hall-style number,” Trevor recalled. “Quite a hilarious routine, called Red Peppers, where they played sailors who’d stayed ashore too long and missed their boat,” he said, and hummed the song Has Anybody Seen Our Ship?

  Well, after that, it wasn’t hard to get Trevor to tell us all about himself and his own career. He was a genuine ham who enjoyed attention so openly that I couldn’t help giving him the bright smile he craved. “What made you decide to do radio?” I asked.

  “Money!” he intoned, stretching out his long legs and gazing off in the distant land of memory. Then, resuming his normal voice, he added, “I taught acting in London for awhile, and when the BBC radio heard about my classes, they engaged me to do an on-air adaptation of some of my lectures. But after that, I tired of London—vastly overcrowded these days—and now I’ve ‘swallowed the anchor’, so to speak.”

  At my blank look, he translated, “That’s seamen’s talk for ‘retired’. So here I be, in Port St. Francis, and at the end of a good day, you can find me wherever there’s a decent game of darts and a pint of home-brewed ale. Not a bad finale, I assure you.” He fell silent.

  “Mr. Branwhistle,” I said eagerly, “I suppose you know why we are here.”

  “To rescue your grandmother’s house!” Trevor declaimed, looking amused at us. “They say you are a pair of newlywed sleuths who dare to delve into history where angels might fear to tread. I believe you look promising. So, where shall we begin?”

  “Shakespeare,” Jeremy said.

  Chapter Ten

  Realizing what a wild detour a guy like Trevor might take with such a huge topic as the Bard, I added hurriedly, “Harriet says you’ve discovered some connection to Shakespeare and my grandmother’s house?”

  “Why, only that he lived there!” Trevor announced, gazing at us watchfully for our reaction. “And possibly left a fragment of a long-lost play of his in your grandmother’s attic.”

  I gasped, but Jeremy said with equanimity, “Are you saying you’ve actually seen this document?”

  “I have, sir,” Trevor said with exaggerated dignity. “I sent it on to a colleague of mine at Cambridge University. He is an expert in this field. However, I did retain a copy.”

  I sat transfixed as Trevor rose from his seat and walked over to one of the bookshelves, which had a row of thin drawers beneath the bottom shelf. From this he extracted a document, and he carried it over to the table near me, where he dropped it lightly, but with a flourish.

  “We know that in 1613, a London actors’ group called the King’s Men performed a play by Shakespeare entitled Cardenio,” Trevor said in a more serious tone. “Many believe that Cardenio was about an episode in the life of Don Quixote, since Cardenio is a character in the Cervantes novel. But some scholars think Cardenio might have been a children’s play about King Arthur.”

  Trevor gestured at the document on the table. “If this fragment is authentic, it may prove firstly, that Cardenio was indeed about King Arthur, and secondly, that Shakespeare worked on the play much sooner than we thought. The man who wrote it was a lodger in your grandmother’s house in the summer of 1592. This was during a period of history that just happens to be a tantalizing gap in time when Shakespeare vanished from sight. In other words, there is no known record of where he was and what happened to him. Until perhaps, now.”

  Jeremy and I abandoned any reserve and pounced on the document. It had only about five lines on it, because the top part had been torn off. And I must say that the handwriting was so terrible that I could scarcely make out a letter, let alone a word.

  “But I can’t tell what it says!” I exclaimed.

  Trevor smiled. “That is because in the Bard’s day, English grammar and punctuation were less standardized than in our time. But let me translate for you.”

  He paused, then read aloud:“Because the lady fair loved tales of knights,

  My songs of valor set her heart alight.

  A hazard of new fortunes I did make,

  And in the dawn her virtue I would take.”

  “Is this his signature?” Jeremy asked, pointing to a messy scrawl at the bottom of the page.

  I saw that the first name said Willim, spelled without the usual “a” in “William”. But it wa
s hard to tell what the last name was; to me it looked like 3hurByjre.

  “It is indeed a signature,” Trevor said. He copied it onto another piece of paper for me and it looked like this: Shakspere, which was still missing the additional “e” and “a” of our modern-day spelling of the name. When I pointed this out, Trevor said that back then, they often used more than one spelling for a word.

  Jeremy asked cautiously, “What was Shakespeare doing way out here? His home and family were in Stratford-on-Avon.”

  Trevor puffed his chest dramatically and intoned, “Sir! You obviously are not aware of the many theories of the Lost Years of William Shakespeare. The theatrical and academic world are rife with speculation as to where our Will disappeared during this gap. Many theories are based on the notion that he got into trouble of some kind. Some say he fled Stratford to avoid being prosecuted as a deer-poacher. Others say to escape religious persecution. Still others believe that he needed money and therefore worked as a schoolmaster in the country shires. But, because his plays have so many allusions to the sea, some believe that he went off as a sailor—perhaps even voyaging with Sir Francis Drake himself!”

  I tried to imagine Shakespeare working as a deck-hand on the infamous pirate ship.

  “However, many believe that Shakespeare was travelling in Italy,” Trevor continued, “because afterwards he wrote so many plays set in Italy—The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet. I also once believed this myself—but, no more!”

  His raised his arm, with his index finger in the air as a dramatic flourish. “I am not a naïve man, nor am I given to ephemeral fantasies. Yet I have become convinced that the crucial link to Shakespeare lies in the history of your grandmother’s house.”

  Here he paused for effect, until I said, “Please go on.”

  “Back in the late sixteenth century, Beryl’s house, like mine, was part of the earl’s estate. Well, after all, the earl pretty much owned everything, and therefore everybody, in Port St. Francis!” he exclaimed. “The villagers either labored in his copper and tin mines or else lived as his tenant farmers. Sometimes an outbuilding was used as a lodging house or a coaching inn.”