Death in Vineyard Waters (25 page)

“Good food,” said John, scarfing up the last of his pie.

I concurred with vigor, and after John and I had another piece of pie apiece, we carried the dishes into the kitchen, loaded up the dishwasher, wiped off the counters and table, thanked the twins again, and went into the library. John produced Cognac and two Cuban cigars from a box left as a gift by Ian McGregor, and we settled down to read the dissertations.

Tough going for me, but I plowed ahead, reading Ian McGregor's commentary on the increasing dependency of English drama upon the court in the first half of the seventeenth century. Allusions and footnotes abounded. I recognized names I'd encountered in my review of Marjorie Summerharp's notes and could follow the argument, but had no idea whether it was strong or weak, valid or nonsense. Strong and valid, apparently, since his review committee had given him his Ph.D. Beyond me, though. References to people and publications, playwrights and princes, players and plays I'd never heard of. Small details upon which large notions seemed to turn; accumulations of evidence, some apparently well known, other more obscure. Everything documented, everything just a bit ponderous, a bit heavy. Humor was not allowed in academic writing, apparently. At least not in dissertations upon the seventeenth century. Comedy was discussed, since it was part of the theater of that time, but the discussion was solemn.

I wore out before I finished the manuscript.

“I'm out of here,” I said, getting up. “I'll have at it again tomorrow and come over tomorrow night after supper to trade books.”

“I'm made of sterner stuff,” said John. “I read this sort of thing all the time, so I'm used to it. I'll hang on a little longer before I quit. See you tomorrow night.”

I left him with his face in Marjorie Summerharp's dissertation, leaned into the telly room, said good night to Mattie and the twins, and left, feeling slightly cross-eyed.

I was up early and down at the opening at dawn. Only a couple of trucks in front of me, since it was a weekday and most of the regulars were working men who didn't have time to fish before going to their jobs. The fishermen before me were retired guys and a couple of summer people who had been coming to the island as long as I could remember. A man and his son, both excellent fishermen. Side by side we stood in the rising sunlight and cast for the wily bluefish,
sending silver lures arching out into the waves where incoming surf and outflowing tide met in a roil of white water.

No action for a time. We cast, reeled fast, reeled slow, changed lures, cast some more. Then a rod bent at the end of the line. A hit. We cast some more and suddenly the fish were there for all of us.

The sun rose and it got warm. We peeled down to undershirts and kept fishing. We were happy. I thought about how much Zee would have loved being here and how I would razz her for missing the show.

Then we began making casts and not catching fish every time. Then we were not catching many at all. Then they were gone. I put a four-ounce Hopkins on and threw it as far as I could but did not catch the very last fish right at the very end of my cast as the school moved off. I cranked the Hopkins in empty and felt good anyway.

“Bonanza,” said the guy next to me as we loaded our hauls into our trucks. “It doesn't get much better than that.”

True.

After I got rid of my fish in town, I went home and washed up and took Ian McGregor's thesis out onto the porch with a cup of coffee and picked up reading where I'd left off last night. By midafternoon I had finished and had flipped through the pages of documentation. I was exhausted and had seen nothing that meant anything to me. The only thing I had learned was that I wasn't going to try to get a Ph.D. It was not my sort of work.

After supper, I drove to John's farm. Jill or Jen was coming up from the barn.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi,” she said.

“You know I really do favor you over your sister, don't you?”

“Oh, yeah. It makes a girl feel good to know an elderly man likes her best.”

“You can trust old J. W.”

Her sister came out of the house. “Hi,” she said.

“J. W. here was just telling me how much he preferred me to you,” said Jill or Jen.

“You can trust old J. W.,” I said. “I never said any such thing. It's you I prefer. Everybody knows that. I like a girl who likes ice cream on her cheese, not the other way around.”

“See, I told you he likes me best,” said Jill or Jen. “You won't even eat cheese.”

“I will, too. I just don't eat it on ice cream.”

I went in through the kitchen, kissed Mattie, and went on down to the library.

“Well,” said John, “did you finish? Good. So did I. Did you find anything? No? Neither did I. Let's trade, then. Maybe we'll have better luck this time.”

Marjorie Summerharp's argument concerning the court masque was more arcane than Ian's, if that was possible. The pages were thickly footnoted, the references many, the argument serpentine, the documentation massive, the subject occasionally interesting anyway.

I learned that the masque had developed from a simple sort of masked entertainment for aristocrats, which allowed for amorous goings-on in disguise, or at least official disguise, into a highly sophisticated entertainment mixing professional and amateur participants in complex and convoluted symbolic theater. I read of
The Masque of the Queens, Proteus and The Adamantine Rock
(which sounded to me like an excellent name for a hard rock band),
Of Blackness,
and of other masques of the era, which ended with the overthrow of the monarchy and the rise of Oliver Cromwell, of whom I had heard no good word, but toward whom Marjorie Summerharp directed no criticism, apparently being of the opinion that Charles I deserved to be removed from the throne.

It was very late when we put the dissertations aside, lit final cigars, sipped final Cognacs, and looked at one another questioningly.

“Well?” John lifted a professorial eyebrow.

“Well, indeed. I can't make head or tail of any of it.”

“I did see that Ian quoted Marjorie's thesis when she wrote of
Salmancida Spolia
”

“That sounds like a disease.”

“It was William D'Avenant's last masque, 1640. King Charles and his queen were both participants. Then the civil war broke out and that was the end of court masques.”

I had no recollection of the name. I was very tired. “What about it?”

“Nothing. Just that it was the only thing I saw that tied the two theses together. Ian referred to Marjorie's argument when he was making his own, that's all. He used her as a reference, which was pretty smart, since by the time he was writing his thesis she was a world-famous authority. I imagine he got points for being enterprising enough to dig out her thesis and to quote from it. Who could find fault with that?”

“Not me.”

“Nor me.” We puffed and sipped. There's no doubt but that the Cubans make the best cigars and the French the best brandy in the world. “Shall we scream for help?” he asked.

“From Helen Barstone and Bill Hooperman? Why not? They can't tell us less than we know already.”

“Let me call them. And while they're poring over these papers, you see if Zee would like to go sailing tomorrow. Mattie and the twins and I were thinking of going down harbor, out the new opening, then around Chappy into Cape Pogue Pond for a picnic. We'd like to have you two along.”

“Fine. I can use a break from all this.”

He leaned over and touched a weather cube on his desk. We listened to the weather in Boston, north of Cape Cod, and finally south of Cape Cod. Sunny and mild with light southwest winds. Nothing could be finer. John punched off the cube. “Bring bathing suits,” he said, smiling. “I don't want you shocking my daughters.”

It was sunny that next morning, but later clouded over a
bit and breezed up. We had the tide with us going down harbor and out the new opening. The
Mattie
slid slowly along, barely listing as we close-hauled across Katama Bay and rode the new river into the sea off South Beach. There were fishermen there and they were enjoying themselves, although they seemed to be having little luck. As the outflowing tide met the incoming waves, the
Mattie
pitched and rolled and spray flew. But she was a shallow-drafted, beamy old boat made for such turbulence, and she banged her way on out into smoother water.

“Wouldn't want to try that in a high wind at half tide,” said John, looking appreciatively back at the wild water we'd just come through. He patted
Mattie
approvingly, slacked off his sheet, and headed east toward Wasque Point.

The south shore of Chappaquiddick was covered with walkers who had parked their cars on top of the bluff inside the sands and had walked the quarter mile to the water. Past them on the point were a few four-by-fours and some fishermen who had come over on the Chappy ferry from Edgartown to try their luck. It was a warm day, and soon most of us had shed all but bathing suits. The twins arranged themselves on the deck and painted their noses with lotion. John and I admired Mattie and Zee as they stretched out on
Mattie
's seats.

“Browning the meat,” said John. “An excellent ritual. Women do it best.”

We jibed around Wasque and sailed a broad reach north along East Beach to Cape Pogue. All along the beach were four-by-fours surrounded by small packs of people preparing for picnics, playing with Frisbees, fishing for fish who were not interested in being caught. At Cape Pogue we came around onto a close haul and tacked against a rising wind down along the elbow to the gut, where, blanketed by the cliffs, we eased inside the pond against the dying tide. The sky was beginning to show some clouds.

At the south end of Cape Pogue Pond we were in the lee
of the island and mostly in the sun. Thinking ahead, I'd brought my quahog rake and basket, and once we were squared away at anchor just off the beach, I went overboard with my gear.

“Giant quahogs,” I explained.

So while the others swam or walked the empty white beach, I waded out chest deep amid an underwater forest of waving grasses and began raking for the big chowder clams. They were few but humongous, each one too big to fit in the rake, each feeling more like a fair-sized rock than a quahog. When I felt them, I'd dig at them with the rake until I could get it under them, then I'd turn it and bring the quahog up and drop him in the basket. Quahogging is the world's best job if you need time to think about something else while you're working. I thought about how fine Zee looked, walking with Jill or Jen along the beach, looking for shells. No matter how long you live near a beach, you never stop looking for shells. The other Jill or Jen was walking the other way with her mother and John. Also looking for shells.

When I hooked my thirtieth quahog into my basket, it sank, settling slowly toward the bottom, overloaded. I pulled it up again and towed it to shore. Chowder makings galore.

We picnicked on the beach, and afterward we snoozed and loafed and watched the Jeeps drive to and from Cape Pogue on the east side of the pond. And we watched the clouds slowly thicken overhead until the sky was pale white instead of blue. Then we got back onto the
Mattie,
put up the great, gaff-rigged sail and headed back for Edgartown. I found Zee's camera and took shots of her at the helm. Captain Madieras bringing her home. Very stylish.
Cruising World
would love it.

At home, as Zee and I were chopping up quahogs for chowder, the phone rang. It was Tristan Cooper. “I've been trying to get in touch with you,” he said, “but haven't had much luck. Have you asked your young friend if she'd like to see my monuments? I'd like to have both of you come up.”

“Ask her yourself. She's right here.” I handed the phone to Zee and listened to her listen to him.

“We'd love it,” she said after a bit. “Tomorrow evening, then. Thanks. See you there.” She hung up the phone. “Cocktails and the grand tour. Tomorrow at five. Sounds like fun.”

“The Vineyard is a fun place,” I said. “You can ask anybody. All of us fun people have fun here all the time.” I reached for her.

She dodged. “Keep your clammy hands to yourself or I'll put tomatoes in your chowder. You won't think that's so funny.”

“Some things even we fun people don't joke about, lady. Tomatoes in clam chowder is one of them. Only weirdos from New York put tomatoes in clam chowder. True Americans gag at the thought.”

We were finishing off bowls of fresh chowder made the true American way and washed down with cold Chablis when the phone rang again. I was suddenly a very popular fellow. It was John Skye. “The jury is in,” he said. “Bill and Helen have strutted their stuff. They've just arrived and they're drinking my booze. You want to come over?”

I looked at the mess in the kitchen. “We're on our way,” I said. “The mystery of the missing dissertations has been solved,” I said to Zee. “Do you want to join the cast in John's library while All Is Revealed?”

“You bet.”

We shoved the leftovers into the fridge and the dishes into the slave and left.

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