The Diary of William Shakespeare, Gentleman (7 page)

Susanna came to visit this morning. She and her sister talk of a visit to Shottery to see my wife's brother's family as if it were a visit to snow-clad Elsinore, or Venice with its sun-kissed canals and gondolas. Cramped, damped, confined we squat in our small Stratford world. And trapped, like a bee in the honey pot, and I a gentleman within it.

But I still have my memories.

I did not tell my father what Judyth had proposed. Her way would mean I could live and eat and marry, and maybe one day come to fine prosperity. But my tutor's wage would save me, yet leave my family beggars.

She thought I had a choice. But I had none.

I lay awake that night and no words came to give her. The next morn I heard the church bell toll out twelve. My heart longed to run to the beech tree. My feet were bound by duty. I sat by the window in our hall and stretched at the leather for a glove that no one had yet ordered. I could not go to her, kiss her, talk of love to her, if I could not honourably ask her to be my wife. Judyth Marchmant was no kitchen maid, no farrier's widow, to be kissed and left. Yet my very bones and every thought ached for her.

Another night, and then another.

My dreams shipwrecked my sleep. I saw myself declaiming verse while all around me a crowd watched, as if we were all trapped in amber awe. I saw a portrait of an older, balder self with beard and the fine clothes that said ‘gentleman', and before him a small crowd and a voice that said, ‘Here is the portrait of Shakespeare, poet.'

I woke and thought, that could be me, if I have the courage to follow Judyth's words. Perhaps if I had a tutor's position I might take a loan to pay the quarter's owing on our house; or whoever my father had borrowed from might extend the loan to me if I had the means coming to pay it off. In the meantime, my mother had earrings my father could sell . . .

On the first stroke of twelve I ran to our beech tree, and lifted up its curtain. She was not there. Had she been there the last two days, waiting, waiting, and I did not come?

And then I saw a ribbon, tucked into the first fork of the tree. I reached for it and found it tied a parchment. I rolled it out.

I had thought perhaps to have a declaration of her love again; a promise she would wait; a reproach that I had abandoned her . . . I do not know exactly what I thought I'd find. I had not expected this.

Small writing, each loop furled as evenly as the sail of a great ship blown by the most kind of winds. Even my old schoolmaster could not write like this.

And then I read the words:

Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends if ever to remove.

Love never dies, as frail flesh proves.

O no, it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the heaven's star, the tree's firm bark,

Once love is given, it cannot be taken.

I sat upon the ground, and wondered. Then I cried.

Dinner: minced collops, for my wife has the toothache again and can eat nothing but pap; chicken blancmange; mashed turnips and green pottage; stewed rhubarb with Spanish cream.

‘We will fast in Advent soon enough! A man in his prime must have proper meat, wife,' I told her, when the servants had left the room. ‘Except on fast days when I choose not to pay the meat fine, it is meet that I have meat!'

She did not see the joke.

Bowels: improved.

Grey rain, a grey day, clouds like an old man's beard covering the sky. If angels weep, it would be thus.

Pah! I do not write for lords and princes now, nor for commoners who like to think they can follow lordly wit, but for no eyes but mine. If angels wept, their tears would not fall in our earthly sphere; nor would they rain as miserably as this. No tempest, no growling winds, just rain, and rain again.

The squire's son looks as miserable as his horse. (Their noses have some similarity as well.) But he comes most dutifully to see how his father's new gates grow. I could have told my Romeo it is no use trying to meet Juliet today, for no maid will even go to the baker's. The bread would be sodden before they could fetch it home.

He mounted his horse again, both wetter than when they came, and I sit here by my good fire, and gaze at the greyness out the window, my words which once flashed faster than a torrent now hesitant from my pen. I must write of Anne now. And yet it worries me a little to do discourtesy to her, who has been a most dutiful and pleasant wife for over one score years and ten. Ay, there's the rub. Anne has been most pleasant. But naught more.

I did not know if I wished my father's plan to be possible, or to prove so Herculean a task as to leave me, at the quarter's end, forced to do anyway what Judyth had suggested: seek employment as a tutor, so my wages might give my family a roof and bread, even if that roof was but a humble hut.

Stratford was not overly endowed with heiresses, and surely none for a young man with a mortgaged home and still apprenticed at eighteen. There were but two: Rosamund, daughter of the squire, and far above my touch; and aunt of the young lout I see sighing for young Bess. The other . . .

‘Mistress Anne Hathaway,' said my father, staring at the fire.

‘Bartholomew's older sister, that lives near Shottery?'

‘Ay. That's the one.'

‘But she must be thirty at least, Father.'

‘Twenty-six,' said my father shortly.

An heiress? How could that be? I had known Bartholomew at school, though but slightly, for he was five years ahead of me and stayed for two more years at school. He was married now, with two young sons. His father had died the year before. His stepmother still lived with them. It was a good farm, nearly one hundred acres and prosperous. But it was Bartholomew's, and not his sister's.

‘What fortune does she have?' I asked my father.

‘Six pounds, thirteen shillings and fourpence, the value of two fields under her father's will, to be paid on her marriage,' he said calmly. ‘But her two godfathers will give forty pounds between them to guarantee there be no impediment to her marriage, those forty pounds to come to her husband when she has been wed. The girl cared for them during their illnesses and did them kindnesses.
Neither has children of his own, nor is likely to, and both wish her to be established.'

Only last year I gave three hundred pounds to each of my daughters' estates, beyond their other interest in my fortune when I shuffle off this mortal coil; but for me then, forty-six pounds was — almost — a fortune.

‘Is forty-six pounds enough?' I asked.

‘It will serve.' My father looked at the fire again, as if he hoped the flames
might show him the future. ‘If the next harvest is good, and people buy gloves once
more, and if the winter storms do not take the
Silver Hind
, then our fortunes
will be quite restored.'

I thought: you sell my life, as you sold my mother's fields then mortgaged our
house, to invest in the cargo of this
Silver Hind
, upon an ‘if'. But this man
was my father. I was sure he loved me.

Had Farmer Forrest loved Ned too?

Father met my eyes. He said gently, ‘Anne is a pleasant girl, one most suited to be your wife. She has kept house since her mother's death, a comfort to her father, and stayed unmarried out of duty to care for him until his death. Mistress Marchmant is used to servants waiting upon her, and a housekeeper to make all right. With Anne, we need keep no maid; a saving not just in wages but in food and drink. Her cheese is the best in all Shottery, her ale sweet. It says much for her godfathers' esteem that they will give so much to see her settled, now her father is not with us in this world.'

A pleasant wife, good tempered, who made fine cheese. A year ago I might have been content, even with one so many years older than myself.

I wanted to ask, ‘How much exactly do you owe?' But I would get no plain dealing; nor perhaps was there
plainness to be had if my father's borrowings were many. But forty-six pounds, thirteen shillings and fourpence would pay our mortgage, it seemed. It was my father's price for me, and for the bond I owed to him.

Dinner: pigeons, the Italian way, which I do favour; a savoury veal pie; green sauce with wheat leaves; a pupton of apples; half-dried peas with butter; mutton steaks seethed with a wine sauce; parsnip fritters; a dish of turnips, mashed; cheese cake and pippin jelly pie; to drink, warmed claret wine with cinnamon and sugar. A roast of beef at supper, my wife following my request for meat.

Bowels: comfortable. My very life is comfortable, like a lark's within a lady's cage.

More rain. Feet and fingers still chilly from our time in church. Another poor sermon or, ought I say, one that began poor. For the rest, I dozed, rising only to sing the hymn; and right badly it was sung too, half the parishioners being hard of hearing and the rest with voices spoilt from calling to the pigs or sheep or cows.

Talking with the parson after church, Thomas Quiney did come up to us and bowed as I asked the parson if he would dine with us.

Straightaway, Judith said to Quiney, ‘Why, sir, will you dine as well?' and he said, ‘Yes,' before I, her father, could say a word. And how could I then say nay; nor box her ears in front of all?

Susanna and her husband, Dr Hall, came to dine with us as well. Fine conversation with Dr Hall spoilt, for Master Thomas would talk only about his dogs and hunting hare. He even asked me to ask his Lordship if he may hunt deer on his estates, as if he were fine enough to put his foot upon my Lord's estate. I told him it is for his Lordship to offer a day's hunting, not for me to ask.

I remembered then how I once asked the old Queen if I might kiss her ring. She slapped my face with her
white fingers lightly for my presumption, and gave her smile: ‘You may kiss my hand, Master Shakespeare, and you may keep my ring.' And so I did. Her hand was soft, except where it was calloused from holding the reins, for even in her last years she still rode. Her skin smelt sweet, of roses and orris root.

One does not sell a queen's ring; not if the Queen may hear of it. But after her death, I did give the ring to Mistress Davenport the day she was delivered of my godson, William, though both she and I believe that William be my natural son as well. A good lad, and if I may not own him, I have still settled a hundred pounds to his mother and stepfather (or true father, as he is generally known), saying it was thanks for their hospitality, he being the innkeeper where I stay between Stratford and London town. And as for William, the ring will be his to sell or keep. I have not lain with his mother since. One may cuckold a husband once, but twice and he is likely to grow suspicious.

I did not tell Quiney this, and not because my wife and daughters would hear it too. The lout pulled the salt from Dr Hall's place to his, and dipped his meat in it, and when the ewers came to wash between the courses he dipped his spoon in, thinking it be soup. An ass would have more manners, for an ass would know his place.

After dinner, we did dance while Susanna played. It did my bowels no good to see my daughter dance with Quiney, her hand in his, and him as free upon my hearth as if I had asked him here. Later we played at cards, but the sky was heavy as if with early snow and our guests departed before supper. I was glad to see Thomas Quiney's back go down the path towards his tavern sty.

‘I will not have him here again,' I warned my daughter. ‘Did you not see how he piled his trencher, as if he feared our serving men would snatch the dishes from the table ere our guests had had their fill?'

‘Perhaps the poor man has not eaten such a good meal before,' she answered quietly. She twined her curls, and smiled at me. ‘For surely our table is the best in the whole shire, sir, due to your good care, and Mother's.'

I was not used to such good sense and courtesy from her. I merely said, ‘I will not have you speak to him again.'

She answered, ‘Yes, Father,' which was not what I had expected either. So I chucked her under the chin and said she was a good girl and I would bring her a bolt of satin back from London, and who knows but that one of our Christmas guests might win her heart? Although I doubt it, for they be friends of wit and judgement, both of which my daughter sadly lacks.

She smiled at me, then went to join her mother sewing by candlelight; and I to this room, with the fire flickering, new candles waiting to be lit, sand to soak up blotches on the page, and fresh ink in the pot. It seems my wife has noticed that I write much now, and has told the maids to ensure that what I may need is to hand. But the sand I do not need, for any blots I am content to leave upon the page. (A habit of my younger years, when I must write each draft so fast there was no time for blotting. Audiences demand a new play every day, and kings command a dozen. Nor do actors care if their parts are smudged, as long as they are fat ones that will tickle the purses of the crowd and so give their contents to us.)

But I have written enough of today now.

Three days from that hour when my father chopped my hopes as neatly as any French executioner with his
axe, he held up a new pair of lambswool gloves he had been embroidering with small French beads and said, ‘These are for Mistress Hathaway, Bartholomew's wife. I offered them to her at a good price last market day, less than a tenth their worth. If you would deliver them to the farm tomorrow, you should find Mistress Anne at home.'

This time I watched the flames, not my father's face. Father has been long planning this, I thought. He has set the trap with gloves. Now it is my turn to be the bait.

I had seen Mistress Anne of course, but not for near ten years, for her family attended the church at Temple Grafton. I had been but eight years old when I had last seen her, and she already a woman. A face a little like a friendly cow, I remembered, as her brother resembled a Hereford bull.

The breeze whispered autumn as I walked to Shottery. Larks called, but no bird sang within my heart as I walked along carrying a bunch of late roses picked by my mother and a tart of crab-apple jelly, the gloves wrapped in parchment in my satchel. The gifts made me no mere delivery boy, but the son of the man who had been high bailiff of Stratford and so should be asked to dine.

The Hathaway farm sits outside the village — a goodly house with three chimneys, all with steady smoke, the thatch well tended, the garden filled with flowers at the front instead of a cottager's turnips, as befitted a yeoman farmer with his own land. I almost fled between the flowers. Once that door was opened, I would see her with whom I must languish my life till death us do part.

But then the smell of hearth cakes met me, and roasting chickens. These normal comforts gave me strength to knock on the door.

A middle-aged servant answered, thin-faced, in white apron and cap.

I smiled. ‘Is your mistress in — Mistress Hathaway, or Mistress Anne Hathaway?'

‘I am Mistress Anne Hathaway,' she answered. Her voice was gentle, pleasant and quiet.

This seeming servant was the sister of the house? I glanced at her again. She was younger than I had first thought, her face unwrinkled in the shadows, merely worn and pale. But I had no time to stare. I bowed, my hat almost touching the ground, and tried to recover from my error.

‘I beg forgiveness, Mistress Anne. The scents of your good dinner made me think of kitchen matters.' I smiled and held out my flowers. ‘I am Master William Shakespeare. My mother gave me these to give to your sister-in-law. But sweets must go to sweet, and flowers to the fair. Pray, you take them.'

She flushed and hesitated, as if she'd never had a compliment before.

I examined her behind my smile. Her hands were red and rough as a servant's; the apron clean, the dress beneath it faded. Her hair was bound up beneath her cap. Her teeth were good.

I remembered my other errand. ‘I have Mistress Hathaway's gloves. Is she at home that I may see that they fit her?'

‘Indeed, Master Shakespeare.'

She stood back to let me in, then led the way to the hall. A fire at one end, with two chickens roasting on the spit. The smell of hearth cakes was stronger.

A woman of perhaps twenty years sat feeding a baby, while a small boy crawled about the floor. She quickly closed her dress as I came in.

‘Anne, how thoughtless. Pray you, good sir, forgive our disarray. My husband's sister has little wit at times.'

I dared not look back at Mistress Anne.

‘Mistress Hathaway, I am William Shakespeare, sent by my father to deliver your gloves, and to see they cover your fair hands as befits their beauty. My father was most insistent upon the beauty of your hands, and I see 'tis true.' I held out the tart. ‘And this is a gift from my good mother.'

Behind me I was aware of Anne arranging flowers in a jug. No doubt Mistress Hathaway believed they were for her too. Her face brightened.

‘Please, Master Shakespeare, do sit.' I sat at the table where she directed me, on her right hand. ‘Anne, fetch ale. Tell your brother we have a guest for dinner.'

Mistress Hathaway reached for the package.

‘Please, let me,' I said. ‘Only a master glover should set gloves upon these fair hands.'

She simpered. I had never seen simpering before, but this was it.

I drew the gloves carefully over her fingers, the right first, and then the left. The gloves were of the finest skin, from an unborn lamb, dyed blue and embroidered with cornflowers and French beads at the wrist. Had she but known it, these gloves were worth all in this small hall. But there had been no call for such fine skin or embroidery in these hard years.

Mistress Hathaway stared at them in delight. ‘See, Anne, are they not beautiful?' She frowned. ‘Anne, young James is in the woodpile again. Have you no eyes, girl?'

She looked at me, expecting agreement. I looked at the gloves instead, straightening a finger seam to distract her.

Anne pulled young James onto her hip, fetched a jug of ale, then two tankards.

Her sister-in-law hissed, ‘The glasses, girl!'

Venetian glassware! Ladies' dresses in blue silk danced around the glasses' rims. I wondered at a farmer having such luxuries. Indeed, I was being treated as the ex-bailiff's son that the district knew, not as the near bankrupt my father truly was.

‘They were part of my dower,' Mistress Hathaway informed me as I admired them, as I was clearly meant to do.

Anne put a dish of hearth cakes on the table. I bit into one. Hot steam, a breath of honey and more cinnamon. This house lived well. And yet they had no maid, it seemed.

‘You will stay to dine, Master Shakespeare?'

‘How could I not, with such fair company?' I spoke to Mistress Hathaway, but caught Anne's eye. She flushed, but looked more confused than flattered, as if she could not believe that this courtesy was meant for her.

Still with the child on her hip, Anne lifted pots, laid a cloth upon the table and fetched plates, while her sister-in-law prated of her visit to London with her father afore she was wed. I listened with good heart to the tale of the dancing bear, and of Her Royal Majesty riding a black horse, a plume in her hat, her hair still as red as flame.

‘It is wondrous indeed to see the Queen,' I said, ‘but here in Shottery we have beauty too.'

I looked again at Anne as I said it, but both she and her sister-in-law took it to mean the younger woman sitting with her baby and her ale, not the one in the long apron tending the fire. I wondered where her stepmother was. Later I learnt she had the dropsy, and kept to her room upstairs, Anne caring for her needs as well.

At last Bartholomew came in. He had grown more bull-like since our years at school together, but he greeted me heartily, repeated that I must dine with them, and sat
himself at the end of the table. He carved the chickens while Anne laid more dishes on the board: a dish of mashed turnips, cheese cakes, more hearth cakes, sweet with honey as well as plain, a dish of baked apples and another jug of ale.

‘You must excuse the lack of bread, Master Shakespeare,' said Mistress Hathaway. ‘Anne has not found time this last week, it seems, to go to the baker's to bring us loaves.'

‘I will go tomorrow, if you can spare me.' Anne's voice was quiet, still pleasant.

‘At six of the clock and no lingering!' Mistress Hathaway said it with a laugh, but there was steel beneath.

Bartholomew said grace. We ate.

I took my spoon and knife out of my pouch — the best our household had, come with my mother's dower — and waited for Anne to join us, but instead she took James upon her knee on the stool by the fire and fed him with a spoon, and cleaned up the good half that he spat out. She set him on the floor away from the fire with blocks of wood to play with, and took the baby so Mistress Hathaway could eat with full attention, of which she did right heartily. Not much was said beyond, ‘This chicken is dry, Anne. You left it on the spit too long.'

At last, one whole bird and most of the cheese cakes in his belly, Bartholomew told me of the sad drainage of his lower paddock; the surprisingly fast growth of his best bull; his hopes for next year's harvest.

Anne cleared the dishes, and placed an apple pie upon the table, a dish of pickled mushrooms and a dish of spiced codlins, a second course as befitted a dinner for company. She must have freshly made the pie for it was
fried upon both sides, not baked as in a baker's oven. Her brother smiled at her for the first time as he cut a good wedge of pie, though he did not offer thanks.

I wondered when she ate. After the family perhaps, on what they had left of dinner. Was it she who scrubbed the hearth so white, and the front doorstep? I could not ask, ‘Do you keep no other servant but your sister?'

At last the meal was over. In other company, I would have relished it greatly. I wiped my spoon and knife, and put them back into my pouch, hoping that Anne's brother had noted the spoon was silver. Bartholomew left again, to converse no doubt with his surprisingly well-grown bull with which he had so much in common. Mistress Hathaway again took up her babe, who was crying now for his own dinner. I stood, to give her the privacy she needed.

‘Good day to you, Master Shakespeare,' said Mistress Hathaway, as I bowed over her hand, bare of its glove now, as they were safe again within their parchment. ‘I hope we may see you soon again.'

Was she hoping for an invitation to dine with the family of the ex-bailiff? If so, it must come from my father.

‘I hope so too,' I said.