The Diary of William Shakespeare, Gentleman (19 page)

Today my lawyer came again, to ensure that Quiney shall not sneak a penny that is mine, and to make arrangement for my stubborn and deluded daughter.

Judith will receive a hundred pounds to discharge her marriage portion, and fifty more if the Chapel Lane cottage is given up; and, if she or her children be alive three years from my death, the rest of a hundred pounds, but not the principal. I further stated that if my son-in-law should have use of any of that sum, it be on condition that he make a gift of land or property worth the same sum to my daughter.

It is the best bargain I can weave. Judith will be given my broad silver belt, to show my affection for her; but for the rest, she must rely on the wisdom of her sister and good Dr Hall.

My estate shall go entirely to Susanna, including this house in which I write, then to her male heirs; or, if she has none, to Elizabeth, and her male heirs; and only if there be none in either family, to Judith's male heirs. Anne will have her wife's rights, to live within this house and be supported by my estate. This way Quiney will not have a farthing from me, and my daughter's share will
be safe no matter what the conduct of her husband. For if I leave aught to my wife direct, she may give it to her daughter the first time she weeps of ‘love' and ‘poor, poor Thomas'. But with Dr Hall my fortune shall be safe.

Quiney may have my daughter. My ducats he shall not touch.

Dinner: carp, stewed, with leek sauce; worts, fried; peas, cooked in the pod; rice pudding with honey and spices; a shellfish pie; baked apples.

Bowels: once again uneasy.

Today Thomas Quiney was sentenced by the Bawdy Court for whoredom and uncleanliness, for lying with Mary Wheeler and fathering her child. He must pay a five-shilling fine and appear at church in a white sheet for three Sundays.

A slight penance indeed for a lost girl and bastard child, but the sentence was given in kindness to our house, that he does not shame us further.

My daughter stays in the Chapel Lane cottage, so as not to tempt the gossips' eager tongues.

‘You must go to her,' my wife said to me at dinner.

I looked at her surprised; both at the suggestion — I would as soon visit the pigs in mud as Thomas Quiney — and that she should tell her husband so. This was not like my wife.

‘If my daughter would speak with me, she must come here.'

‘She says she cannot if you condemn her husband so.'

‘Condemn him! Do not all righteous men condemn him? Am I to have a fornicator, a man who marries my daughter while another is his bastard child's mother, visit my house!'

‘Judith swears that he is innocent. The babe must be another's.'

Ay, as she swore that she was innocent, pretended duty as a daughter. ‘It was the mother's dying testimony.' I heard my voice grate, like an old man's. ‘A dying oath cannot be forsworn.'

‘And yet your daughter says the girl lied. Her husband has done no ill.'

‘This man who is excommunicated, and brings my daughter to that too! This man who lay with her in sin, so that she must marry him.'

My wife's hands sat in her lap. ‘Indeed,' she said softly, ‘once you thought that worth the doing, and for love.'

I had no words to give her; or rather, not ones that were wise. I came up to my book so I may write them here. For my wife has the right of it. My own sin — done for good intent and at my father's will — has come to haunt me.

I told myself it was no sin, and hurt no one but myself. But sin it was: deception, calumny, fornication. For that sin, Judyth died, though I did not own it then; for had she been my wife, she would have been at my side in London or where else we might have been.

For that sin, I have no heir that bears my name. When I am dust, the name Shakespeare must crumble into earth beside my bones.

When sin has been put loose into the world, there is no net strong enough to haul it back. And now I meet that sin again, it having sped across the world on Ariel's wings then back to me, and see it settle upon my daughter. Poor, foolish girl, taken in by such a rogue; a rogue such as her father was.

But I cannot go to her. For if I do, I give countenance to Thomas Quiney, and by doing that lose our family's good name.

Dinner: a turbot, boiled, with currant sauce; macaroni pudding with almond milk; a dish of turnips; pottage of peas and greens; but none of this house had much appetite.

Bowels: unsteady still.

The wind does smell of new buds and sunlight, but in this house the air hangs heavy. It is near two months since any invited us to dine. I, who was so easy declining invitations, do miss them. For there is no envy of our fine estate in Stratford now; only laughter that a tradesman and a yeoman's daughter have set themselves up as gentlefolk, but their daughter has shown the world their true estate.

My wife instructed Jem that rolls in the French manner be ordered and fetched early from the baker for our breakfast, for she knows that I delight in such. But that could not ease what I must tell her.

‘Wife, you must not visit Chapel Lane again. Not until both our daughter and Thomas Quiney are again communicated and agree to be legally married by the church.'

My wife stared across the table. ‘But, husband, she is with child!'

‘Is she indeed? And why was I not told of it? When will the babe be born? Nine months from that illegal marriage, or eight or seven?'

My wife flushed, but met my eyes. ‘That is not for you nor I to question,' she said quietly.

It was the first time she had ever rebuked me, and not for leaving her for London the first or many other times, nor for leaving her to suffer for our Hamnet's death alone, and for those forty long days after.

‘Nor is it for a wife to question her husband,' I said.

‘Thy daughter needs her mother. Troubles can cause a woman to lose her child!'

‘You shall not visit her.'

‘Husband, yes, I shall.'

‘Then you defy me?'

‘In this, and nothing else,' she said softly. ‘For as a wife owes a duty to her husband, she does also care for all her children, as I have done, for all their lives.'

‘And Susanna?'

‘She visits her sister too, and with her husband's blessing, though he will not have Thomas Quiney to dine or visit them. Judith must have her family now.'

Even if I forbid it? The words hung like drifts of mist upon the air, ghosts of words unspoken.

I left the table then, with its silver that my care had brought her, its chairs with cushions, the tapestries that clad the walls of this good house, the second largest in all Stratford. All given to my family by my own hand.

I sat again to write in this book; my only friend, it seems, in Stratford. Susanna, once again impulsive. Even Dr Hall is not the man I thought him, to allow his wife to add to our shame like this.

William Shakespeare, gentleman. I was so proud of our family's fine estate, all brought about by my hand. But pride too is a sin, like fornication, and must be added to my list.

What have I bought, beyond the title ‘gentleman'? A house and fortune for my family so they must not fear the almshouse. But for my Judith, a prating fornicator for a
husband; for Susanna, the envy of neighbours who will once more tangle gossip to try to bring her down.

And for myself? Why, nothing. The role of gentleman sits ill upon my shoulders; I, who have played so many roles — ghost, king, Caesar, Prince of Verona, judge. I bore them all and well, and found applause and fame and fortune. But this role I have no wish to play again: dining with fools, sitting through sermons told by fools, exchanging the thoughts of the day with those who have no thoughts beyond this town and the state of corn or turnips.

Is there one in this blighted turnip town who can envisage the vasty fields of France; let their minds travel with King Henry as he triumphed at Agincourt; stand with Antony as he pleaded for Caesar? None in this house, nor family, nor town.

Better that I should have died a year ago, still William Shakespeare, gentleman, and not a fornicator's father-in-law, a fool's father, and foolish in his fathering, to be laughed at as I pass. ‘Thought he was so fine, and look: his daughter cast from the church, her babe most like a bastard, her husband Even a happy death is denied me now.

If my father's ghost should speak to me, like Hamlet's, what would he say?

But then, in life, my father was not wise; nor Hamlet's father either.

What shall I do?

I had no sooner writ those words than others came to me, floating through the years and through the casement: ‘William, my William, you are greater than this small town. This tragedy has been sent, perhaps, to make you leave it, so you may rise, uncramped and unconfined.'

Words said before I became a player, playwright or gentleman. Words spoken with love. Judyth's words — not my daughter's, but my lover's. And even now, I thought, she speaks to me, watches over me perhaps.

And she is right. I do no good here. A wife who will defy me, while my daughters will not heed my strongest word. Best that I am not here to see it.

I will to London, to my house at Blackfriars. The scandal will not follow there. What matters it to London if a Stratford wretch is guilty of fornication and excommunicated?

I have been cramped and confined in this sheep-market town too long. I will to London for a month, and in my absence matters may settle, the gossiping crows will find else to caw about, Thomas Quiney will pay his penance and be received at church again. And perhaps I might even find that, with a month's respite, I can put on that shirt again, that too-tight-fitting cloth of a gentleman.

I will send a message to my agent to meet me, to tell him to hire men to arrange the lower fields' drainage, but not to more expenditure till I return, nor to advance money to my household unless he see my seal.

Dinner: a carp, stuffed; a pottage of lentils; stockfish cakes, fried; peas in their pods; asparagus, forced, from the garden; cauliflower in almond and orange sauce; raisins of the sun; figs, dried; apricot jelly.

Bowels: irregular.

I returned from London this morning, as intended, to find the house empty of our servants. No groom to take my horse. No smoke sifting from our chimneys.

‘Jem,' I called. ‘Jem?'

No answer. Nor was Limping Mark working the garden.

I must unsaddle Black Knight myself. I rubbed him down and gave him oats. My bones ached from the ride and I wished I had taken a carriage, even though the inn where I stayed the night before is but a few hours distant.

Thence to the hall. No servants there to open the door for their returning master, to take my hat and cloak, to bid me welcome. No fire lit, although the house was chill despite the sun outside.

I blew the whistle for the servants. Silence. I blew again.

What meant this? Was there plague in the town? And yet the streets had been full as usual, the women with their market baskets, the men at work, no crosses on the doors, no chant of tolling bells and calls of ‘bring out your dead'. Outside, I could hear the hammer of the smith in concert with his apprentices' and journeyman's, and far off the cries of ‘Apples! Baked apples!' and
‘Oysters! Buy my oysters!' from the pedlars. I have heard the quiet of a plague town before, made of fresh bones and ancient fears. This silence was of my own house, not the town.

‘Anne?' I called. ‘Wife?'

A lark trilled in the garden. But in my house, no one sang at their sewing.

I ventured down the corridor to the kitchen. No fire there, no kitchen boy turning the roast on the spit for my dinner on my return. No cakes baking at the hearth, no day's bread from the baker under its starched cloth to keep it warm.

I creaked upstairs, intending to change from my travel leathers and walk to Susanna's, to see if she might have an answer to this mystery. Had some cloud-borne wizard enchanted our whole household in my absence? Had Anne been taken ill? But even if she had, this house would run smooth as oiled silk without her. My dinner would still have awaited me, the fires would have been lit.

I opened the door of my chamber and there was Anne, on the seat where I do write this now, at the desk next to the window. At least a fire burnt here, a small one, almost smokeless. Anne was embroidering a baby's vest. She glanced up as I came in, then bent again to her sewing.

‘Wife, what means all this? Or rather, lack of this? No one to take my horse. No fires, no dinner ready . . .'

She kept her eyes upon her cloth. ‘There is dinner if you wish it. Cheese in the dairy, only needing you to fetch it. Bread to buy at the baker's.'

Had scandal made her mad? I said gently, in case she was indeed crazed, ‘Wife, where are the servants?'

‘I gave them leave to stay with their families for the week.'

It is the custom to give servants leave when the master is away. ‘But I was most clear that I would return today, by dinner time.'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘You were most clear.'

I began to get angry. ‘Then what means this?'

She looked at me then. No pleasant face. No face I had seen upon my wife before. She said, ‘I read thy book.'

‘My book? My sonnets?' And then, ‘But, wife, you cannot read.'

‘I could not read when I first met you. But that was more than thirty years ago. You think a wife whose husband is renowned for his plays and verse would not say, I must learn to read his work?'

‘Indeed, you have always been most dutiful.'

‘I am glad you think me dutiful.'

‘So,' I said warily, ‘you have read the sonnets? Anne, I told you when they were published, they were written at my Lord's request and for his use. His was the dark lady to be wooed, no love of mine.'

‘Indeed, you told me that.'

‘Then what is it that ails you now?'

She met my eyes. ‘We were turning out the house, for your return. New rushes on the floor, the whole house swept and cleaned. The old privy filled, a new one dug, the stables swept and washed, so you should not be bothered by the smell.' She paused and added, ‘We aired the mattresses in the sun, to freshen up the feathers.'

My legs suddenly would not hold me. I sat upon the bed.

‘Jem hoisted your mattress on the line and saw a lump. “Look out,” he yelled, “for it may be a rat!” And, yes, it was a rat indeed.'

‘Do . . . do the servants know what was written there?' I asked quietly.

‘How should they? Why should not a gentleman hide his book within his mattress? “Words can be a thing of value,” I told them. For the whole of Stratford knows how your words have brought us to this good estate. The servants do not know the words you left behind you, nor do your daughters. But I have read them.'

‘Anne . . . Wife . . .'

‘One score years and ten, and every one you lied to me. From the first moment that we met, until this day.'

She waited for me to answer. But I had no words to say.

‘One score years and ten I have given you my body, borne your children, tended them in life and death, cherished your parents as tenderly as if they were my own. I have kept your house, made your cheese, ordered your pickles and your ale —'

‘You have been all a man could want in any wife. A fine housekeeper, a loving daughter to my parents, mother to my children —'

‘To your boring daughters, and their boring husbands? I am sorry that we, your family, have not kept you entertained. I did not know that fell within our bond. All your absences I bore with. He is sacrificing himself for us, I told myself. And even when I heard the gossip of your drinking, of frolics with other women, I thought, he is a man, away from home. Let him have his pleasures. I am his wife, the one he loves.'

I still said nothing.

‘You told me, time and time again, how much you loved me. And each time, it seems, it was false coin, no more the truth than any you played to the crowds who watched you in your theatre.'

I would have given her words then. But she was right. What words of comfort did I have that were not as false as any I had given her before?

‘How many women have you loved?' she asked me slowly. ‘When not one of them was me?'

Why had I never known my wife till now? This wife who read, who thought? This wife with whom perhaps I might have talked, as I have talked with other women. Why had I thought she was still the simple farmer's daughter, this woman whom I saw now?

‘I do not know,' I said slowly.

She stood. ‘I am sorry that you find Stratford so small a stage.'

‘Anne, please . . .' I stopped. I did not know what I would say. That we might begin our marriage new?

But as I stared at her, I knew that I was, at heart, still the lad she had met: Will Shakespeare, poet, crafter of universes within one small crock of words. I had merely played the role of husband and gentleman, and left it off whenever it suited me. And she was Anne Hathaway, farmer's daughter, keeper of my household, but never once had she come to London at my side, as my wife. Nor was it likely that we should change.

‘What now?' I asked quietly.

‘I will live with Susanna.'

She did not say who should keep my house for me. It seemed she did not care.

I stared at her. ‘That will be a scandal. One more to add to all we have endured this year. Even in London they would hear of it. Wife, I beg you —'

‘Beg me not. I will not hear your pleas.' She shrugged. ‘I bore scandal at the start of our marriage. I can bear it at the end.'

‘Have you told Susanna this?'

‘I have told her nothing. Nor anyone, nor will I ever.' Anne looked me fully in the face. ‘You think I will share this shame? Not that I had a husband who strayed, nor that I had one that loved another. But that I was fool enough not to guess for a score of years and ten what an empty pot my husband and my marriage were.'

The breeze blew the curtains at her face. She pushed them away, unseeing.

But the breeze still came to me. A summer wind, smelling not of Avon floods but of the sea. Summer, when ships sailed to Denmark, the Low Countries, to Venice.

The wind sang too: ‘Live your life, William. For my sake, live.'

And with the words, a plan.

I spoke quickly. ‘Anne, for Susanna's reputation and for your own, I owe you this. Give me one week to make this right.'

‘Nothing can make this right.'

‘Perhaps. I do not know. I must go to London again — I will go tomorrow. And if in one week I have not made this proper in your eyes, then go to Susanna's with my blessing, and I will ensure that you have all that is needful for your estate and comfort.'

She hesitated. I grasped that hesitation with both hands. ‘One week is all? One week?'

‘One week,' I promised.

It was a contract now. Our second contract. Our first had been to love, comfort and to obey. What was that? Less than the sweepings in the dustpan. I had done this; and she did not deserve it. She had sinned but once, and that by my temptation and at my urging. All other years, Anne had lived for duty and for care. I owed her much now.

‘Anne, if we do not speak privily again' — for how could we be private in Susanna's house? — ‘hear me but this once. You have been a loyal and good wife, nor could any man have better. I did not deserve you then, nor do I deserve you now. But please believe that I know, with every fibre of my being —'

‘Words,' she said.

I blinked. ‘I beg your pardon?'

‘Words. That is what you gave me all those years ago, those pretty words. I pretended that I liked them, because I liked your face. I do not have to pretend and take them now.'

I stared. ‘You never liked my words?'

Anne glanced out the window, as if the sparrow's dance held more interest than I. ‘What woman wants fine words when she could have a man's strong arms? I am not your wife now, William. I do not have to listen to your speeches.'

She took the sewing with her as she went out.

I placed more wood upon the fire in the bedroom after she left. I cared for my own room for many years as an actor; I can tend a fire. Can visit a dairy too and find a cheese, and hard biscuits in the larder and a cask of ale. I took them to my bedroom, seeing Anne had already lit the candles in the second-best room along the hall.

I ate. I thought. I left the window open and I dreamt.

I am no gentleman, nor was I meant to be. I am the muse of fire's son. I can dream a world, and write of it, and travel in my mind's eye to it. But I can travel in my person too. I will be cramped and confined no longer by the prison of a family in this smirking town of wool and turnips.

Let there be no mistake: I love my family well. But I have provided for them well too, not just in estate now, but with income yet to come, for generations yet unborn. I have provided for them with what good name they care to keep as well. I love them according to their bond, no more, no less. I owe them according to their bond too. I do not owe them more.

I have written of Venice, but have never been there. My Lord Southampton did, and told me of it. I put his eyes' sights into my plays. Its gaily painted women, like peacocks in bright dresses; its palaces; its many lords who take painters, ay, and poets, to add glory to their households. Would one not take in William Shakespeare? Not for his reputation — mine had not travelled across the world — but for my words that I could make for them. New words.

Sun pours lecherously, sipped by languid marble;

Warmth caresses aged bones.

I am not old,

For yet I feel the fire, untouched by sun,

That draws men to tales still untold,

And lips waiting for kisses. Did my ancestor who shook his spear

Die one death only? His name lives.

I too have lived, full many lives;

And with the kiss of sun-fed shore

I have full heat for more.

If Venice suits me not, why, the whole world could be a stage and I an actor who can walk on it.

My friends will help me — Jonson and Richard. A simple plan. I have hatched far harder upon a stage, where there was an audience breathing on our hands as
we wrought them. Even when they could see the harness that made Ariel fly, the motley saw only the magic and not how it was made.

Will Shakespeare may have burnt his books, but he still knows how to forge a scene.

I will ride to London, taking my ruby rings, my brooches, all my jewels and my finest clothes, all that is fitting for a gentleman who may watch a masque perhaps with the King's court. And that first night, when London sleeps, I will visit the goldsmiths who keep my coin, the fortune neither my family nor my agent know I have. A Christian may not commit usury; but the goldsmiths are not Christian and keep my money where investments pay me interest on it. And so I may go to them and ask them for ready coin and a letter to their kin in other ports, to give me my coin there as well. It will be enough for me to live in sunlight, even if I find no patron.

But I seem to see already a Venetian palace, rich patterns on the marble, frescos full of light, lit with the sun that gleams upon the water as it never does upon the Avon or the Thames. I see a prince, a count, call upon his poet; and his poet, dressed in coloured silks, recites and bows as all the honoured guests applaud, the men and all the women with their gold hairnets and white bosoms. And outside, the sun will warm the honeyed air and words will sing to me again. I may once more be poet, the man I always was, and will be. But the name will not be William Shakespeare then.

I will call on Richard. We will make a plan as careful as any set upon the stage. We will spend the day and night drinking with Ben Jonson, who is so much favoured that anything that may happen in his sight must seem to
be true. Ben loves me much, and has found such favour that he will not begrudge me this.

Come morning, William Shakespeare will catch a fever. The next evening, he will die. And Richard will bear his coffin back to Stratford. It will contain a beggar's bones, or stones; it matters not.