Book of Souls

Chapter 12

The housekeeper’s at church, Granddad’s deaf as a post, and I was in the shower, so you, I’m afraid, were left standing out in this wretched weather.”

The entrance hall was indeed dark, a two-story paneled vault with a staircase ascending to a gallery landing. Will felt that it was as inviting as a museum, and he started worrying he’d clumsily knock over a porcelain plate, a clock, or a vase. She flicked a switch, and a giant Waterford chandelier started glowing over their heads as if a bottle rocket had exploded.

She took his coat and hung it on a hatstand and parked his bag though he insisted on keeping his briefcase with him. “Let’s get you to the fire, shall we?”

The centerpiece of the dimly lit Tudor Great Hall was a massive hearth, large enough to roast a pig. The fireplace frame was as dark as ebony, ornately carved, and shiny with antiquity. It had a chunky mantel and a straight-lined, medieval appearance, but at some point in its history someone had been stricken with a Continental bug and overlain the hardwood fascia with a double row of blue-and-white Delft tiles. There was a modest fire, which seemed small and disproportionate to the size of the vault, going. The chimney wasn’t drawing well, and wisps of smoke were backing into the room and floating up to the high, walnut-beamed ceiling. Out of courtesy he tried not to clear his throat, but he couldn’t suppress it.

“Sorry about the smoke. Got to do something about that.” She pointed him to a soft, lumpy arm chair closest to the flames. When he sat on it, he detected a whiff of urine, astringent and acid. She bent over and placed another couple of logs on the fire and prodded the stack with a poker. “I’ll just put a pot of coffee on and make myself a bit more presentable. I promise I won’t be long.”

“Take your time, I’m fine, ma’am.”

“It’s Isabelle.”

He smiled at her. “Will.”

Through watery, irritated eyes, Will took in the room. It was windowless, densely packed with furniture and centuries of bric-a-brac. The zone near the hearth seemed the place that was most functional and lived-in. The sofas and chairs were twentieth-century, designed for cushioned comfort, a few high-intensity reading lights, tables littered with newspapers and magazines, tea and coffee mugs scattered about, careless white rings from wet glasses imprinting the wood. The middle and borders of the Great Hall were more museumlike, and if Henry VIII had just arrived from a hunt, he would have felt at ease with its Tudor airs and splendor. The coffered, walnut walls were covered to the beams in tapestries, taxidermy, and paintings, dozens of dour-faced and bearded Cantwells peering down from their sooty canvases in their frilly collars, robes, and doublets, a gallery of men’s high fashion throughout the ages. The mounted stags’ heads, locked in surprise at their moment of death, were a reminder how these men had spent their leisure.

A majority of the furnishings stood on or around a massive, Persian rug, worn at the edges but pristine at the center, protected by an oak trestle banqueting table ringed by high chairs covered in red cloth. Each cushion back was adorned with a single embroidered Tudor rose. Atop both ends of the table was a pair of silver candlesticks, large as baseball bats, with thick white candles half again as tall.

After a while, Will got up and took a tour of the dark recesses of the room. There was a layer of dust everywhere, blanketing all surfaces and objets d’art. It would take an army of feather dusters to make a dent. Through a doorway, he looked into another darkened room, the library. He was about to wander in when Isabelle returned with a tray of coffee and biscuits. Her hair was drier, pulled back into a ponytail, and she had hastily applied some makeup and lip gloss.

“I should put more lights on. It’s like a mausoleum in here. This room was built in the fifteenth century. They seemed to have no desire whatsoever to let any light in-I expect they thought it was healthier to seal themselves away.”

Over coffee, she inquired about his trip and told him how surprised and intrigued they had been to receive a call from the buyer of their book. She was keen to hear more, but she put Will off until her grandfather awoke from his nap. He was something of an insomniac, and it wasn’t unusual for him to fall asleep at dawn and awake at midday. They marked time by sharing their backgrounds, and each seemed intrigued by the other’s life.

Isabelle seemed fascinated she was conversing with a living, breathing ex-FBI agent, the kind of person who, to her, existed only in films and novels. She gazed into his magnetically blue eyes as he regaled her in his soft drawl with stories about old cases.

When the conversation turned to her life, Will found her charming and winsome, with a selfless, admirable streak, a young woman so devoted to her grandfather she took a year off from university to care for him in this remote, drafty old house and help him adjust to life without his wife of fifty years. She’d been slated to start her last year at Edinburgh, reading European history, when Lady Cantwell suffered a fatal stroke. Isabelle’s parents were in London and tried to get the old man to come down, but he vehemently objected. He was born at Cantwell Hall and, like a good Cantwell, would die there too. Eventually, something would have to give, but Isabelle volunteered a temporary solution.

She’d always loved the house and would reside there for a year, doing spadework for a future doctoral dissertation on the English Reformation and comforting the grieving old man. The Cantwells, she told Will, were a microcosm of the sixteenth-century Catholic-Protestant divide, and the house had born witness to some of that cataclysm. A fear of hers was when Lord Cantwell passed, the inheritance taxes would force the family to sell it to a developer, at worst, or the National Trust, at best. In either case, it would be the end of a family lineage that stretched back to the thirteenth century, when King John granted the first Cantwell, Robert of Wroxall, a baronial tract of land, upon which he built a square stone tower, on this very spot.

Finally, she opened up about the book. They were over the moon it had fetched an astronomical price at auction but she was desperately unhappy to see it pass out of family hands. Even as a girl, she’d been captivated by it, always finding it strange and mysterious, and she offered that its 1527 date had fueled her interest in that period of British history. She had hoped one day to discover what the book represented and how it came to rest at Cantwell Hall. Still, she admitted, the auction proceeds would keep the estate functioning for a while longer though it didn’t solve some very expensive and pressing structural issues. There was rising damp, rotting timbers, the roof had to be redone, the electricals were a disaster, the plumbing a bloody mess. She joked they’d probably have to sell off every piece inside the house to afford to fix the house itself.

Will was taking guilty pleasure in the conversation. This woman was his daughter’s age! Despite his spat with Nancy, he was a happily married man with a new son. His days as a rover and a cad were behind him, no? He almost wished that Isabelle weren’t quite so stimulating. Her long, sensual body and rapier-sharp mind were a twin-barreled shotgun aimed at the mass of his chest. He feared he was a double-trigger pull from being blown away. At least he was sober. That helped.

He was itching to get on with business and wondered when Lord Cantwell would make his grand appearance. Provocatively, he asked a question that caught her off guard. “How much would it take to fix the place up and clear out your future tax problems?”

“What an odd question.”

He pressed for an answer.

“Well, I’m not a builder or an accountant, but I’d imagine it’s in the millions!”

Will smiled impishly. “I may have something in my bag that’ll solve your problems.”

She arched her eyebrows, suspiciously, and said dryly, “Wouldn’t that be marvelous. Why don’t I see what’s keeping Granddad?”

Just as she rose to find him, the old man shuffled into the Great Hall, staring quizzically at Will.

“Who’s that?” he called out.

She answered at a volume he could hear. “It’s Mr. Piper from America.”

“Oh, right. Forgot about that. Long way to come. Don’t know why he didn’t just use the telephone.”

She ushered Lord Cantwell over for introductions.

He was well into his eighties, mostly bald except for an unruly fringe of silvery hair. His red, eczematous face was a weed garden of hairy tufts the razor missed. He was dressed for a Sunday afternoon, twill trousers, herringbone sports coat and an ancient university tie, shiny with wear. Will noticed his trousers were too large for him, and he was using a fresh belt hole. Recent weight loss, not a good sign in an older fellow. He was stiff with arthritis and had the gait of a man who hadn’t loosened up yet. When Will shook his hand, he got a stronger whiff of urine and concluded he’d been sitting on the fellow’s favorite chair.

Will ceded Cantwell his usual seat, a courtesy Isabelle approvingly noticed. She poured her grandfather a coffee, then improved the fire and offered Will her chair, pulling up a footstool for herself.

Cantwell was not given to subtlety. He took a loud slurp of coffee and boomed, “Why in hell did you want to spend 200,000 quid on my book? Obviously pleased you did, but for the life of me, I don’t see the value.”

Will spoke up to penetrate the man’s hearing impediment. “I’m not the buyer, sir. Mr. Spence called you. He’s the buyer. He’s very interested in the book.”

“Why?”

“He thinks it’s a valuable historical document. He has some theories, and he asked me to come over here and see if I could find out more about it.”

“Are you an historian like my Isabelle? You thought the book was worth something, didn’t you, Isabelle?”

She nodded and smiled proudly at her grandfather.

Will said, “I’m not an historian. More like an investigator.”

“Mr. Piper used to be with the American Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Isabelle offered.

“J. Edgar Hoover’s gang, eh? Never liked him.”

“He’s been gone for a while, sir.”

“Well, I don’t think I can help you. That book’s been in our family as long as I can remember. My father didn’t know its provenance, nor did my grandfather. Always considered it a one-off oddity, some sort of municipal registry, possibly Continental in origin.”

It was time to play his cards. “I have something to tell you,” Will said, looking each one of them in the eye, playing out a melodrama. “We found something hidden in the book, which may be of considerable value and might help answer questions about the book’s origins.”

“I went through every page!” Isabelle protested. “What was hidden? Where?”

“Under the back endpaper. There was a sheet of parchment.”

“Bugger!” Isabelle cried. “Bugger! Bugger!”

“Such language,” Cantwell scolded.

“It was a poem,” Will continued, amused by the girl’s florid exasperation. “There wasn’t time to vet it, but one of Mr. Spence’s colleagues thinks it’s about the book.” He was milking it now. “Guess who it’s written by?”

“Who?” Isabelle demanded impatiently.

“You’re not going to guess?”

“No!”

“How about William Shakespeare.”

The old man and the girl first looked to each other for reaction, then turned back to the certifiable American.

“You’re joking!” Cantwell huffed.

“I don’t believe it!” Isabelle exclaimed.

“I’m going to show it to you,” Will said, “and here’s the deal. If it’s authentic, one of my associates says it’s worth millions, maybe tens of millions. Apparently there isn’t a single confirmed document that exists in Shakespeare’s handwriting, and this puppy’s signed, at least partially-W. Sh. Mr. Spence is going to keep the book, but he’s willing to give the poem back to the Cantwell family if you’ll help us with something.”

“With what?” the girl asked suspiciously.

“The poem is a map. It refers to clues about the book, and the best guess is that they were hidden in Cantwell Hall. Maybe they’re still here, maybe they’re long gone. Help me with the Easter egg hunt, and, win or lose, the poem’s yours.”

“Why would this Spence give us back something he rightfully paid for?” Cantwell mused. “Don’t think I would.”

“Mr. Spence is already a wealthy man. And he’s dying. He’s willing to trade the poem for some answers, simple as that.”

“Can we see it?” Isabelle asked.

He pulled the parchment from his briefcase. It was protected by a clear, plastic sleeve, and, with a flourish, he handed it to her.

After a few moments of study, her lips began to tremble in excitement. “Can’t be well,” she whispered. She’d found it immediately.

“What was that?” the old man asked, irritably.

“There’s a reference to our family, Granddad. Let me read it to you.”

She recited the sonnet in a clear voice, fit for a recording, with nuances of playfulness and drama as if she had read it before and rehearsed its delivery.

Cantwell furrowed his brow. “Fifteen eighty-one, you say?”

“Yes, Granddad.”

He pressed down hard on the armrests and worked himself upright before Will or Isabelle could offer assistance, then started shuffling toward a dim corner of the room. They followed, as he muttered to himself. “Shakespeare’s grandfather, Richard was from the village. Wroxall’s Shakespeare country.” He was scanning the far wall. “Where is he? Where’s Edgar?”

“Which Edgar, Granddad? We’ve had several.”

“You know, the Reformer. Not our blackest sheep, but not far off. He would have been lord of the manor in 1581. There he is. Second from the left, halfway up the wall. You see? The fellow in the ridiculously high collar. Not one of the most handsome Cantwells-we’ve had some genetic variation over the centuries.”

Isabelle switched on a floor lamp, casting some light upon a portrait of a dour, pointy-chinned man with a reddish goatee standing in an arrogant, puffy-chested, three-quarter pose. He was dressed in a tight, black tunic with large gold buttons and had a conical Dutch-style hat with a saucer-shaped brim.

“Yes, that’s him,” Cantwell affirmed. “We had a chap in from the National Gallery a good while back who said it might have been painted by Robert Peake the Elder. Remind your father of that when I pop off, Isabelle. Could be worth a few quid if he needs to flog it.”

From across the room, a woman’s foghorn voice startled them. “Hallo! I’m back. Give me an hour, and I’ll have lunch ready.” The housekeeper, a short, sturdy woman, was still in her wet scarf, clutching her handbag, all business.

Isabelle called to her, “Our visitor is here, Louise.”

“I can see that. Did you find the clean towels I put out?”

“We haven’t been upstairs yet.”

“Well, don’t be rude!” she scolded. “Let the gentleman have a wash. He’s come a long way. And send your grandfather to the kitchen for his pills.”

“What’s she going on about?”

“Louise says, take your pills.”

Cantwell looked up at his ancestor and shrugged emphatically. “To be continued, Edgar. That woman strikes fear in my heart.”

The upstairs guest wing was cool and dark, a long, paneled hall with brass valances and dim-watted bulbs every few yards, rooms on either side, hotel-style, long, worn runners. Will’s room faced the rear. He gravitated toward the windows to watch the intensifying storm and absently brushed dead flies off the sills. There was a brick patio below and a wild expanse of garden beyond, fruit trees leaning in the stiff wind and sideways rain. In the foreground, off to his right, he could see the edge of what looked like a stables, and over its roof, the top of an outbuilding, some sort of spired structure, indistinct in the downpour.

After he splashed some water on his face he sat on the four-poster and stared at the single bar of service on his mobile phone, probably just enough for a call home. He imagined the awkward conversation. What would he say that wouldn’t just get him into more trouble? Better to get this over with and start to thaw out his marriage in person. He settled for a text message: Arrived safely. Home soon. Love U.

The bedroom was old-ladyish, lots of dried flowers and frilly pillows, gossamer, lace curtains. He kicked off his shoes, laid out his heavy body on top of the floral bedspread, and dutifully napped for an hour until Isabelle’s voice, chiming like a small bell, called him for lunch.

Will’s appetite took everything that Louise could throw at him and more. The Sunday roast dinner sat well with his meat-and-potatoes predilection. He ate a small mountain of roast beef, roast potatoes, peas, carrots, and gravy but stopped himself from drinking a third glass of Burgundy.

Isabelle asked her grandfather, “Is there any history of Shakespeare visiting Cantwell Hall?”

The old man answered through a mouthful of peas. “Never heard of anything like that, but why not? This would have been his stomping ground in his youth. We were a prominent family that largely maintained its Catholicism throughout that dreadful period, and the Shakespeares were probably closeted Catholics as well. And even back then, we had a splendid library that would have interested the fellow. It’s perfectly plausible.”

“Any theories why Edgar Cantwell would have gone to the trouble of having a poem written, hiding clues, then stashing the poem in the book?” Will asked.

Cantwell swallowed his peas, then drank the rest of his wine. “Sounds to me like they had the inkling the book was dangerous. Those were trying times, easy to get killed for your beliefs. I suppose they couldn’t bring themselves to destroy the book. Thought it better to hide its significance in a fanciful way. Probably a rubbish explanation, but that’s what I think, anyway.”

Isabelle was beaming. “I have visions of my dissertation taking a rather more interesting turn.”

“So what do you say?” Will asked. “Do we have a deal?”

Isabelle and Lord Cantwell nodded. They had discussed the matter while Will had napped.

“Yes, we do,” Isabelle answered. “Let’s begin our little adventure after lunch.”