The Bookman's Tale (10 page)

Late in the summer, but not so late that the thought of the end of that idyll had yet crept into his dreams, Peter discovered a book that certainly belonged in the Devereaux Room. It was a slim pamphlet of sonnets by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. If Peter had not sought out these poems, later known as
The Sonnets from the Portuguese
, in their purported first edition of 1850 only a few days earlier, he might not have realized the significance of the year 1847 on the title page. Here was a private edition of some of the most famous poems of the last two centuries, printed a full three years before they made their public appearance. It was a candidate for promotion to the Devereaux Room that Francis would not be able to refuse.

“It’s a Wise book,” said Francis, when Peter showed him the pamphlet.

“I beg your pardon?” said Peter.

“Thomas Wise was one of the most distinguished bookmen of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He was a bookseller and bibliographer and he had a spectacular collection of nineteenth-century pamphlets by George Eliot, Charles Dickens, John Ruskin, and just about every other prominent Victorian writer.”

“Sounds impressive,” said Peter.

“It was,” said Francis, “until nineteen thirty-four, when two young booksellers named John Carter and Graham Pollard proved that these supposedly rare pamphlets were forgeries and that Wise was the forger. This book”—Francis tapped his forefinger on the
Sonnets
laying on the table—“was one of them.”

“How did they prove it?” asked Peter.

“Two ways. First they looked at what they called negative evidence. What was lacking in terms of provenance, contemporary mentions, contemporary inscriptions, anything that, had it been there, might indicate that the pamphlets really did date from the period that was claimed for them. Then they turned to positive evidence, and they really pioneered the use of scientific analysis in this field. They had the content of the paper analyzed, they compared the typeface to foundry catalogs to see when it had been cast. It was a remarkable job.”

“It sounds like Wise fooled a lot of people,” said Peter.

“He did. He was smart enough to let the pamphlets out on the market one or two at a time, so it wouldn’t be obvious they were all from the same source. Unfortunately, he seemed especially fond of preying on American collectors.”

“Like Amanda Devereaux.”

“Exactly. She was collecting at the height of Wise’s deception. The result is that we have one of the best collections of Wise forgeries outside the British Library.”

Peter picked up the now maligned copy of the
Sonnets
. “So I guess this belongs in the back rooms,” he said.

“I don’t think so,” said Francis. “When I first shelved the collection, it had only been about twenty years since Wise had been exposed. People still thought of his pamphlets first and foremost as fakes for which they had paid too much. But now Wise is considered among the great forgers of all time, and ironically his pamphlets are as rare as he claimed them to be. I’d say you’re quite right. It’s time we devoted a little shelf space in the Devereaux Room to Mr. Wise.”

P
eter had seen a copy of Robert Greene’s
Pandosto,
on which
A Winter’s Tale
was based, before, but not the first edition. He had read the 1607 edition at Ridgefield when researching a paper for his sophomore Shakespeare class. The copy that lay before him now on the broad library table of Evenlode Manor was dated 1588. As soon as he saw the date he recalled a sentence in a footnote of his Shakespeare anthology. “The original 1588 edition of
Pandosto
is known only in a single, incomplete copy in the British Library.”

Discovering the first complete copy of the first edition of a book upon which Shakespeare based one of his plays would have been enough for Peter to feel he had fulfilled his dream of changing the course of literary history. If this copy proved genuine, and not a clever forgery, he could probably sell it with one phone call to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington for at least six figures. But the printing history of the unique book in front of Peter was perhaps the least interesting, and certainly the least valuable, thing about it. As he slowly turned the pages and examined the book, Peter heard the voice of Dr. Yoshi Kashimoto, the great Japanese champion of Edward de Vere: “If anyone could show me a single contemporary document linking the plays published under the name Shakespeare with William Shakspere of Stratford, I would recant my position and bow at the feet of the Stratfordians.” It was a sentiment that had been repeated in various forms for over a century and a half by those who claimed a variety of authors for Shakespeare’s plays. “Show us a single document,” the cries had rung out, “and we will proclaim the greatest literary mystery of all time solved.” In his trembling hands, Peter held that document.

The only previously known surviving handwriting of William Shakespeare consisted of six signatures and, possibly, a three-page manuscript passage of the play
Sir Thomas More
, written in collaboration with several other playwrights. Peter had examined the originals of all the examples of Shakespeare’s hand in person. The brown ink in the
Thomas More
fragment seemed to dance across the page in its profusion of loops and oddly angled lines, and the text sloped up as it approached the right side of the page.

Filling the margins of every page of the
Pandosto
he now held was that same brown ink, those same loops and lines, that same sloping text. And both the handwriting and the content of the marginalia gave every indication, under Peter’s admittedly cursory examination, that it had come from the pen of William Shakespeare. Most astounding of all was what was written on the front endpaper. Third on a list of names that Peter assumed to be owners of the book, written in the same hand as the marginalia, were the words, “W. Shakspere, Stratford.” Peter pictured Dr. Kashimoto standing before a crowd of international Shakespeare scholars and recanting his position.
Mr. Peter Byerly has provided all the proof we need that William Shakspere of Stratford was the true author of the plays
. Peter only wished that Amanda were waiting for him back at the cottage so he could share with her this astounding discovery.

The thought of Amanda, of how she was not waiting for him and would not share in his exaltation, brought Peter back to reality. True, the book in front of him might be among the most important artifacts in English literature, but the world would want proof of its authenticity. There were too many stories of successful forgers for such a significant artifact to be immediately taken at face value. And with this thought came the echo of another voice—the mousy woman in the drab gray dress. “Give you a week,” she had said. If Peter couldn’t prove the authenticity of the
Pandosto
in seven days, Alderson would call in another bookseller and that person would make the greatest literary discovery of the past century.

Peter couldn’t imagine getting much sleep in the next week. He would need to do textual analysis of the marginalia, trace the provenance of the book, and find a lab that could test the paper and ink. He probably couldn’t prove its authenticity absolutely in so short a time, but he might be able to accomplish enough that he could make the discovery public and be sure that he was the intermediary between the Aldersons and the rest of the world.

Among the most important of his tasks would be to find out where this book had come from—how had such an important artifact escaped notice for over four hundred years? Peter looked back at the list of names on the front endpaper. They were all written in different hands. If these were, in fact, the owners of the book, then tracing the provenance might not be too hard. As he read over the list his breathing faltered at the fourth entry, and stopped altogether at the last. The fourth entry read, “R. Cotton, Augustus B IV.” Peter understood the abbreviations perfectly. At some point this book had sat on the second shelf of the Augustus case in the library of the great Robert Cotton. The final entry on the list was in pencil, not ink, and was considerably more cryptic, but, to Peter, equally intriguing: “B.B. / E.H.” The handwriting was unmistakably that of the artist who had signed Peter’s stolen watercolor with the same initials, B.B.

Peter closed the book for a moment to allow himself to breathe. He could not hold still and he got up and paced the room, stopping to mindlessly adjust books on a shelf every few seconds. Now that he had some distance, even if it was only a few feet, on the
Pandosto
, the excitement and curiosity he felt were tempered with a slow surge of fear. For whatever reason, he had been entrusted with a priceless artifact. What if he lost it, or spilled tea on it? What if he was wrong and made a fool of himself? What if he was right and people expected him to make speeches and appear on television? Every vision of the future seemed fraught with peril.

In an attempt to calm himself, Peter began putting the documents back into their box. It was not until he got to a commission signed by Lord Nelson that he happened to glance at the upper-right corner of one of these documents. Barely visible, in the lightest pencil, were two of the same initials he had read in the
Pandosto
, “E.H.” Here they were written in interlocking cursive—the sort of monogram one sometimes found in Victorian books. Peter began to sift through the other documents, and found that every one had the same lightly penciled monogram in the same corner. He hadn’t seen it on any of the other books he had examined that morning—those that did have ownership markings said simply “Alderson.” Who was E.H.? How had his collection of autographed material come to the Aldersons’ library? And what relationship did he have to the elusive B.B.? Peter looked up from the E.H. monogram and saw the empty shelf in the case in front of him. He felt the first pieces of the puzzle click together, like the tumblers of a successfully picked lock.

He had seen this monogram before, in the book from which he had stolen the watercolor—a book about forging Shakespeare materials. And if you had such a book in your library, signed by the same hand that inscribed your priceless Shakespeare artifact, it might not look good. He remembered the mousy girl’s surreptitious glance toward the empty shelf. She had known about the box and possibly about the
Pandosto
. Had she removed Malone’s book on Shakespeare forgery from the library? Was she setting him up? Did she know the
Pandosto
was a fake, but want her brother to be able to sell it without suspicion to some patsy of an American? Or did she know it was real, and simply want to avoid distracting Peter with unnecessary concerns? And what did John Alderson know about all this? Two things seemed certain to Peter—the mousy woman should not be trusted, and her deadline could not be ignored. She obviously knew something about the book world—maybe enough to go to Hay to sell the forgery book and perhaps whatever else had been on that shelf. He had an odd feeling that she was more in charge of this library than her brother, and that Alderson would listen to her if she said the American was cheating them and needed to be replaced.

Peter glanced at his watch. It was past four, and Alderson would be returning soon. Peter needed the brother to trust him, and in his experience there was nothing like a nice fat check to earn people’s trust. He folded the
Pandosto
back into its elaborate case and quickly put the rest of the documents back in their box and returned it to the cabinet. He locked the cabinet door and replaced the key in the desk drawer. From the case to the right of the fireplace he pulled three volumes at random and stacked them on top of the
Pandosto
. Then he returned to some pretense of examining books until he heard footsteps approaching through the drawing room.

“Getting on well, I hope,” said John Alderson, striding into the room.

“Yes, quite well,” said Peter. “There are some very nice things here.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear it.”

“In fact,” said Peter, “there’s one item I’m quite eager to purchase. A friend of mine has been looking for it for years. It’s your Johnson’s
Dictionary
.”

“But it’s not even a first edition,” said Alderson. “I shouldn’t think it would be worth much.” Peter thought it interesting that John Alderson, who had pretended to know very little about books, knew the edition of his
Dictionary
.

“I can give you two thousand pounds for it,” said Peter. It was a strong retail price, but Peter could easily afford it. He would be delighted to present the book to Ridgefield, and John Alderson, whom Peter suspected knew exactly what the book was worth, would now believe that the local American bookseller had more money than sense—a belief that could be very helpful if the sister started agitating for his removal.

“Two thousand?” said Alderson, clearly taken aback.

“There will be a lot more that I’ll want to buy,” said Peter, “but I have an especially eager customer for that particular book.”

“Well, then, two thousand it is,” said Alderson, with a chuckle.

“I’m afraid I might not be able to get back for several days,” said Peter, as he pulled out his checkbook and began writing out a draft. “I hope that won’t be a problem.” He tore the check out and held it out to Alderson. Peter could see a flash of greed in his eyes that he had seen before in those who thought they had just been paid more than their old books were worth.

“No,” said Alderson, “that’s not a problem at all.” He took the check from Peter and tucked it into his shirt pocket.

“And I wonder,” said Peter, “if I might be able to take a few items with me.” He picked up the
Pandosto
and the three books on top of it. “My reference materials are back at my cottage, and I’d like to do a little further research on these.” It was a delicate moment. Alderson hesitated more than Peter would have liked, enough that each man, perhaps, sensed that the other was not entirely what he seemed.

Alderson’s eyes darted to the locked cabinet that held the box of documents and then he smiled at Peter. “Of course,” he said, with what Peter felt certain was false jollity. “Take whatever you need. Now, can you stay for tea?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Peter. “I’m expecting a call from America at five, so I need to be getting home. Shall I ring you in a few days?”

“Lovely,” said Alderson. “I’ll show you out.” Peter was halfway down the front steps, descending into the early evening gloom, when he heard Alderson’s voice behind him. For the first time since Peter met him, his voice quavered almost imperceptibly. “I don’t suppose you met my sister, Julia.”

“No,” said Peter steadily. “I haven’t had the pleasure.”

“Well, then,” said Alderson, brightening. “We shall have to introduce you the next time.”

—

L
oath as he was to return to the scene of his crime, Peter felt he had to examine whatever books Julia Alderson had removed from her family library. A quick call to the shop in Hay-on-Wye confirmed that though the next day was Sunday, the shopkeeper would be in most of the afternoon. Peter also confirmed that his refrigerator was nearly empty, so he pulled on his coat and stepped into the darkness for a walk up to the village shop. He found walking to the shop once or twice a day to buy food as needed a comforting routine.

Peter selected a frozen dinner of chicken tikka masala, and then did his usual trick of pretending to read the cooking instructions while he stood in the short queue at the cash register so he wouldn’t accidentally make eye contact with anyone. He had cooked enough of these dinners that he could have recited the instructions from memory, but they had successfully protected him from making conversation with his fellow shoppers for months. Thus it took him a moment to realize he was being addressed by the Irish brogue behind him, which said, “It’s Mr. Byerly, isn’t it?”

“I beg your pardon?” said Peter, for whom this phrase was an instinctive reaction to any form of public address. It bought him time, if nothing else.

“You’re Mr. Byerly,” said the woman, who now stepped beside Peter.

“Yes,” said Peter, glancing up just long enough to recognize the housekeeper from Evenlode Manor before turning to study the display of crisps.