Death in Vineyard Waters by Philip Craig

Author:Philip Craig
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner

11

When I got home I phoned Northern Indiana University. The librarian put me through to Dr. Archbold, who remembered me from the conversation we’d had before. I asked her to send me copies of the two dissertations as quickly as possible.

“I take it that you’ve developed an interest in the seventeenth-century British drama, Mr. Jackson.”

“Yes, more or less.”

“Are you also a teacher?”

“No.”

“Ah. In theater, then?”

“In bluefish and clams, actually.”

“Eh?”

“I’m a fisherman.”

“Oh.” There was a pause, then an unexpected chuckle. “Yours is what my father used to call honest work, I believe. Well, you’ll get your dissertations as soon as I can have them copied and mailed. Good luck in your reading, Mr. Jackson.”

After I rang off, I sought out my encyclopedia to look up court masques. I had no idea what they were.

Court masques, it turned out, were masques performed at or for the court. What else? I should have guessed, I guessed. Dumb me. They’d started out as dances performed by masked lords and ladies dressed as shepherds or classical gods and goddesses and the like, and had progressed to include revels, pageants, and, eventually, entertainments by professional performers, many of them allegorical, complex, and increasingly expensive. Inigo Jones had devised scenery. Ben Jonson had written masques, as had almost every other playwright of note except Shakespeare. Why not Shakespeare? My book did not explain. My sense was that the masques, as Renaissance equivalents to modern movie special effects, had finally become so spectacular that they detracted from the drama and comedy they were initially intended to enhance.

So I now knew something about Marjorie Summerharp’s doctoral thesis. Through my window the next morning I could see the wild white sea banging in from the northeast as the storm moved slowly off toward Nova Scotia. As I stood and looked through the rain-dashed windows, I thought about Marjorie. She had been fascinated by masks and deceptions all of her life. It was the core of her professional reputation.

I got into my oilskins and drove downtown. Edgartown was even more crowded than usual. All of the normal shoppers and strollers were there and all of the beachers were there, too. I finally got to Collins Beach, where I parked. From the Reading Room parking area I could see the Mattie. She was doing fine, rising and falling slowly in the lee of the Yacht Club. She had a self-bailing cockpit and showed no sign of taking on water. Her lines were still snug on the stake. I left the Landcruiser on the beach and walked down South Water Street to Main. The rain was heavy and the wind was high, and I leaned into both as I walked.

The narrow streets of Edgartown were filled with rain-soaked cars groping slowly ahead in search of nonexistent parking places, and the sidewalks were crowded with vacationers wearing bright rain gear and carrying brilliant umbrellas. There was a festive air about the town as the doors of the shops opened and closed and people ducked in and out of the rain.

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