The Book of Air and Shadows

by Michael Gruber

  My father was named Richard his family the Bracegirdles were from Titchfield in the Weald, & iron-makeres from an earlie tyme. My father being but a youngere sonne was sent prentice to his nuncle John Bracegirdle who wase iron-factor at Leadenhall. Haveinge done with his prenticeshippe he removed to Fish Streete hard by Fenchurch Street & set hymselfe to be a factor in ironworkes. He throve there oweing to his goode connexiones with the Tichfield Bracegirdles & no lesse I thinke for his haveing a goode head for trade. He wase a grave & sober man, of little learning but a ready witte. Aetat 22 he wase converted to the true Christian religion by Gods grace & the sermons of Dr. Abernathy of Water Street & thereafter lived a blamelesse lyfe. He was bye & large a generous Christian man & no wretch left his doore unfed if he would heare a little of the Word of God: although he could not stande a papiste. All though he traded in the ordinary pots, kettels firebacks, &c his chiefe werke was in bells & gonnes. He oft hath sayde that if a man disired to make a greate noyse in the worlde whether in peace or in warre he had best hie hym to Bracegirdles of Fish Street.

  My mother wase called Lucinda. Her family were Warwick-bred & of a higher estate than his, being gentry of the place & related to the Lord Arden: but distantly, distantly as my father all ways sayde. Her father Thomas Arden wase attainted traitor the 10th year of our late Quene Elizabeth & lost all: afterward, her mother dieing she, aetat eight yeares, wase taken in by Margaret Brandell an aunt of Cheapside. As a girl my mother was prettey enough yet wase not thought a match for any of worshippe in her native countie for not having a groate & the attainder besydes & wished verey much to leave the auntes home: a verey Godly woman so my mother sayde but kept a leane tabel & stanke. It chanced she bought a fyreback from my father on a day, and twelvemonth after were married in St. Giles Cheapside & lyked one another wel enow. She wase not at first of the trew reformed religion but later she came to it: for the man is the heade of the woman as is written in Scripture.

  Now after many fervente prayers I wase born on the fifte day of March in the year of Our Lord 1590 for they had by the unknowable judgement of Almightie God lost to fevers three children all infantes yet I wase a lustie babe hale as an ox soe I am told & survived to man’s estate through Gods grace. My mother hadde three more children one lived to six the others not past a yeare, leaving me alone to rise to manhoode. At four yeares I wase put to dame school on our street & learnt my letteres well enow & afterward my father sent me as a scholere to Mr Eddingstone in Deal St where he had hym a scole. It wase my fatheres fancie to breed me up a learned man mayhap a divine but such wase not to bee, for I wase I admit froward & would not learn my Latine far less Greeke: hic haec hoc wase all a muddel to me. Once I asked Mr Eddingstone why it wase, we having englished the Bible we had to learne the tongues of paganes after all but I wase whippt for it & not only that time: & at laste he told my father it would not doe, I wase borne a foole & would remaine so. Then quoth my father what shall we doe with you, why did God send me such a block-heade for a son, can we make a factor of you, pray God at leaste you have a cleare hande. So wase I put to copeying but my hande wase soe crabbed & I made soe many blotts that he wase in dispaire for me. A blacksmythe you shalbe then & earne your bread by the sweat of your browe he sayde a mere blacksmythe for your back is stronge I see and youre handes are all readie black as a smiths with your blottynges: at that my mothere weepeth. She wase ever kinde to me even beyonde the measoure of a woman to a childe, the moreso as my father wase displeazed with mee.

  A thinge then happened that changed all, how wondrous is Gods plan for us his creatoures all though we cannot fadom his wayes at the tyme. For we had then a lodger Mr Wenke: from Leiden came he being a nephew of a man that my father did trade with in ironworkes. We laboured chayre by chayre in my fatheres counting-house & one day I saw him doeing workynges with a little pensille & a scrap & I quized him what are you about sir. He sayde look & see. I looked but I could not mayke it out. I will saye now what it was: he was casting sums for our accountes in a fashioun I never saw before, but he kindley instructed me thus: look you we have solde seven & eighty smalle kettels this quarter for 8s. 6d. each & on each profiteth 1s. 2d. What have we gathered in all & what is our gaine? I sayde we must use comptoirs for that, shall I fetch the board? Nay quoth he I can doe it without anie comptoirs & do you watch me as I write & I shall expound upon my methode. Soe he did & I wase amazed so quick did his pensille fly & the grosse & profit all clare & exact. He sayde this is Multiplicatioun by Algorithme a word I never before this moment hearde & he sayde further it is but part of the art Arithmetick lately uzed in the bancks & compting-houses of Hollande & Italy: wold you learn it boy for it shalbe to your verie greate profit? I sayde yea with all my harte.

  3

  I’m back from a tour of the grounds, nothing visible from any of the windows, and I don’t really feel like wandering around out there again in that dark. It occurs to me that I am a perfect target sitting here at my laptop under a table lamp. I’m in the living room, I suppose you could call it, of this house. A lodge, really, built of actual logs in the traditional manner. There is this one large room on the first floor and three bedrooms on the upper floor, which one reaches by a stairway that leads to a kind of railed balcony above me. Then there’s a garret-type thing in the roof peak you get to via a drop ladder. The servants used to sleep there, when they had them. The walls are all pickled pine, and there are bookcases built in and a nice stereo system and a fieldstone fireplace that is literally large enough to roast an ox. A small ox. I have a fire going now, made from the good supply of oak, birch, and pine stored in the woodpile outside the kitchen door. Moose heads and racks of deer antlers decorate the base of the balcony, proof that, as Mickey has informed me, the Haas men were mighty hunters back in the day. There’s a full kitchen with stone floors and a full array of ’50s appliances on the first floor, and a couple of baths. Mickey installed a hot tub on the deck outside, although it’s drained now. I got the impression he doesn’t use the place much, although when he was a kid the family came up here every summer. It was a rich-family thing to do, apparently. I’ve been here many times before. When we were both young studs we used to bring girls for romantic weekends.

  To resume the story: Professor Bulstrode handed the package over, a thick envelope bound, as I say, in tape. I asked him what was in it, and he said that it was a manuscript dating from 1642. This is the Work? I asked. No, not at all. This was merely the evidence that the Work exists, the Bracegirdle screed. But not valuable in its own right? Not as such-of purely scholarly interest, he said, and here a note of even greater nervousness entered his voice as he pressed upon me the absolute necessity of keeping the information in this package entirely confidential. That was why he was securing it in this way. I assured him that it would be perfectly safe and free from any prying eyes. He appeared to relax at this assurance; I then buzzed for Ms. Maldonado and asked her for a standard representation letter and receipt for retainer.

  While this was being prepared, I attempted to engage Professor Bulstrode in casual conversation. It did not flow. He kept eyeing the taped manila envelope as if it were a bomb, and it seemed to me that he could hardly wait to put distance between him and its menace. Finally, I asked him if he’d made a copy of the document inside, and he said he had not, for reasons of security, after which he drew from me a solemn assurance that I would make none either. Here I began to lose patience and I told him that I was starting to get a little uncomfortable with this air of secrecy. The point of hiring a lawyer, I said, was that it gave you someone to speak to confidentially, and that it was obvious that he wasn’t comfortable doing that, and that this in turn made me uncomfortable representing him. In my experience, I added, people act that way with their counsel when they are trying to pull off something shady. Perhaps it would be best for all concerned if he took back his check, no hard feelings, etc.

  At this he broke out into fresh floods of sweat and his face became quite flushed. He assured me that he d
idn’t mean to make a mystery nor, of course, was there anything in the remotest sense illegal or shady about his situation. But in academic affairs involving unique items a certain reticence was usual. He begged my pardon if he’d offended. Here Ms. Maldonado popped in and dropped the agreement on my desk. I made no move to pick up the folder. She left. I said that perhaps we’d gotten off on the wrong foot. I wanted him to trust me. He said he did. I asked him to start again: who was Bracegirdle, what was in the envelope, and what was the Work it led to?

  So he told his story: He’d come across the manuscript in the course of some research into trends in Renaissance philosophy. The ms. consisted of some twenty-six folio sheets, closely written, dated 1642. Richard Bracegirdle was nobody special, a soldier who died soon after the battle of Edgehill in the English Civil War. Most of the writing was of no interest, but there were indications that Bracegirdle had been hired to move the property of a nobleman named Lord Dunbarton. Both Bracegirdle and Dunbarton were on the Parliamentary side in the war, and Dunbarton’s estate was in territory controlled, or about to be controlled, by the Royalists. He feared confiscation of his valuables and muniments and so had engaged Bracegirdle to move them, including the rarest items in the library, to his London house. What happened, however, was that the Royalist forces moved on London, blocking his path. So he buried the treasure and sent Dunbarton a letter informing him where he’d buried the swag.

  Buried treasure, said I, noncommittally, and I asked him what this had to do with intellectual property. The library, he said, the library.

  I asked him what was in the library, if he knew.

  He didn’t answer. Instead he asked me if I knew what the Leicester Codex was. As a matter of fact I did. One of the growing edges of the IP game is the digitization of books, manuscripts, and artworks, and the assignment and negotiation of the various rights thereto pertaining. Mr. William Gates, the software billionaire, is a major player in this field, and IP lawyers tend to keep themselves apprised of his many doings. I told Bulstrode that I knew that some ten years ago Gates had purchased the Leicester Codex, one of Leonardo’s notebooks, for thirty million dollars.

  At this, Bulstrode blurted out, Dunbarton had a Shakespeare manuscript. Can you imagine the value of such a thing? Now all reticence was gone, an odd little light shone in his mild eyes.

  Those eyes were starting to positively bulge here, so I nodded amiably and said I supposed it would be worth a great deal, and with these words there struck the first pangs of that leaden claustral feeling I always get in the presence of a maniac. It is sadly not an unfamiliar one, for we IP lawyers are all too well-acquainted with the mad. No showbiz hit, no world-conquering diet book, no moneymaking product of the human imagination ever appears unaccompanied by a gang of shabby pretenders clutching greasy folders stuffed with documentary proof that they thought of it first. And they don’t want to hear that no one can copyright an idea, a concept. They don’t want to hear that ideas are like water or air or carbon, free for the taking, and the only thing from which loot can be wrenched by copyright is a particular set of words, or musical notes, or chemicals. I admit I had not had the Secret Document type before, but here he now was. I recall hoping that the poor bastard’s check was good.

  So I waited for the florescence of the craziness: an outpouring of hectic enthusiasm about how important the lost manuscript was, what literary secrets it might reveal, its provenance, how close he was to cracking the secret code, but, somewhat to my surprise, he seemed to deflate after his revelation, and I thought that he was regretting having shared so much, and had already started to work me into his paranoia, yet another potential thief of his Precious.

  We signed the forms and he left. I had Ms. M. zip downstairs and deposit the check and place the package in our safe-deposit box; and then, although I was feeling the belly rumbles of my delayed lunch, I turned to my computer and googled Andrew Bulstrode, and found a good deal more on Dr. B. than one might have expected on a simple academic. Five years ago, it appeared, Bulstrode had been a professor of English lit at Oxford, an expert on Shakespearean editions, and he had fallen prey to a man who turned out to be one of the great forgers of modern times. Leonard Hastings Pascoe was a name that even I recognized. His specialty was early printing-incunabula-and manuscripts associated with significant authors, and he was very clever indeed. He claimed to have discovered a new bad quarto of Hamlet. A bad quarto is a sort of early literary piracy, in which printers would assemble a play from the memories of actors, and whatever actual scripts they could get hold of, and print it without the permission of the author.

  This was apparently a major find, for (according to the googled articles) the publishing history of Hamlet is extremely complex. There is a First Quarto (bad) and a Second Quarto (good, or authorized by the author) and the First Folio, which Shakespeare’s friends and theatrical-business partners, Heminge and Condell, had assembled after his death, which is essentially the play we now know. The supposed new bad quarto had in it many intriguing differences from the authorized play and suggested a view into Shakespeare’s writing process. It was dated 1602, right after Hamlet was registered and a year earlier than the First Quarto, raising interesting questions: were the differences mere transcription errors or did they mean that the author had changed his play after it was performed? It was the sort of thing that generates multiple orgasms among the learned. The British Museum was offered first crack by the patriotic Pascoe, and they snapped at it for the asking price, provided that the distinguished expert Andrew Bulstrode vetted it as genuine.

  Which he did. Pascoe had used genuine seventeenth-century paper and ox-gall-iron ink of the correct formulation and period (derived by chemical extraction from contemporary documents, to defeat any ink-aging tests) and his type fonts had been meticulously copied from one of the bad quartos in the Folger Library. The museum bought the thing for 850,000 pounds. Bulstrode had first dibs on it, of course, and within six months had produced a magisterial work, demonstrating that in his opinion the author had heavily rewritten the great play and that in fact the Pascoe Quarto, so called, was in actuality an important link among the various proto-Hamlets that Shakespeare had used as source texts. Sensation among the dons!

  And it might have become part of the critical canon had not L. H. Pascoe delighted in delicious young fellows with smoky eyes and pouting lips, and having such a taste, not promised one of these a trip to Cap d’Antibes, and a new wardrobe with it, and having so promised, not reneged, causing the young fellow, naturally enough, to drop a dime on his patron. The police raided a certain industrial estate in Ealing and found the handpress and the paper and the ink, with the fake Hamlet still set up in the forms. This occurred some eighteen months after the sale.

  The money from this had apparently been mostly spent on high living of a particularly lubricious kind. The tabloids ate it whole, reserving a special venom for the peccant expert, Bulstrode. Into this mess strode my old pal Mickey Haas, who defended his colleague in the public press as having made an error that any other expert in the world would have made, including Dr. Haas himself. He arranged for Bulstrode to occupy a visiting professorship at Columbia in the hope that England might cool down after an interval. And now it seemed someone else had unloaded a document on Bulstrode, which I thought odd, since he was the last person eligible to present any important manuscript to the world, and also the last person to want to. But I had long surrendered any notion that experience was an efficient teacher. I, for example, would still be happily married had I been able to learn from my mistakes.

  Or perhaps he had snapped under the strain. Professors go batty too, perhaps more often than other people, although owing to their profession their madness is less often remarked. As a reality check I looked up Lord Dunbarton and, somewhat to my surprise, found he was no figment. Henry Reith (1570-1655), second Baron Dunbarton, was a Puritan grandee. His dad, the first Lord Dunbarton, had won his spurs as one of Henry VIII’s ransacking minions, a “visitor�
� as they called them, kicking nuns and monks out of their cloisters and making sure that the Protestant Reformation reached every lootable ecclesiastic property in England. He was rewarded with a title and an estate in Warwickshire, Darden Hall. The son was introduced at court late in Elizabeth’s reign, won the favor of Lord Burghley, and got into what they then called the “intelligencer” business, working to catch Jesuits and expose their knavish plots against the queen’s and later King James’s peace. Under Charles I, he was a staunch Parliamentarian, having, like his father, a keen eye for the winning side, although he seemed also to be a sincere Puritan fanatic, energetically pursuing the recusants of Warwickshire. Darden Hall was occupied by Royalist troops during the brief campaign that ended at the battle of Edgehill. No mention of libraries, of Bracegirdles, of lost Shakespeariana. Now I thought that I should call Mickey Haas, to get the full story on the poor man, and I did, and was informed that Dr. Haas was at a conference in Austin and would not be back until the beginning of next week. So I went to lunch.

  Here I consult my diary. Ms. Maldonado keeps my appointments, of course, and every Monday I get a sheet of paper telling me what I have for the week, but I transfer these appointments to a little leather-bound diary with blue tissue pages that I keep in the breast pocket of my shirt. I am not really what one could call absentminded, but I do get involved in the library sometimes or on the telephone, and unless I glance at this every so often I find that I miss meetings. This is how I knew it was the eleventh of October that I met Dr. B., and as I now consult it again, I learn that on the day I met Bulstrode I left work early to pick up Imogen and Nicholas at their school and take them to dinner and a movie. Wednesday evening is my official midweek appointment with my children and I also see them on alternate weekends and for two weeks in the summer.