The Tutor (45 page)

In the month since her marriage, she had not missed Lufanwal. She had asked Matilda for a hundred books from Sir Edward’s library for her dowry. The books were now safely in shelves Robert had built at the house in Wollaton. Her wedding had been small and quiet and a month after Isabel’s. Sir Christopher de Ashton had offered his stunning new house for the occasion. In his will, Sir Edward had kindly provided a sum for Katharine with no stipulation that she must marry. She’d taken
her virginals and her unicorn coverlet from Lufanwal when she left. And she’d taken Molly.

There was a knocking. Molly was off to town. Robert and John were at work in Derbyshire. Katharine rose from her chair to see who’d come, but it was only the breeze, pushing the door against the large white stone that held it open. She shifted the stone with her foot to stop the rattle.

Will had gone to London with Lord Strange’s Men before Isabel’s wedding. He’d not come to Katharine before he left. He’d stayed away. Though he was too lowborn to be a courtier, he could play one and would figure how to get on in London, for certainly it was a place that favored such cunning, such desires, such brilliance. Katharine still thought of the poem every day. She had learned many of the lines by heart and recited them—sometimes to herself, other times out loud. She wondered if the poem would ever be published, if she’d see it in a bookstall, open the leather cover, see his name, read the words.

Across the bay stretched an island with beaches, fields and forests of ancient pedigree that had been given to Robert’s first wife’s family generations ago by the lord of the manor for some deed well done. There the island sat, untouched. For Katharine it was a beacon; she checked it daily. She would, she knew, never make it to the Continent, but next summer she would ask Robert to take her to that island, and eventually, maybe, they would build a house there.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Katharine and the De L’Isle family at Lufanwal Hall in Lancashire are from my imagination, though my great-grandfather Wallace Torrey Chapin built a Norman-like castle on the Hudson River in New York State at the beginning of the last century and named it Lufanwal. I have, throughout my novel, interwoven historical figures with fictional characters and would like to provide some context for the two main real-life characters here.

It is not known when William Shakespeare arrived in London, but it is assumed that the “upstart crow” whom Robert Greene chastised in print in 1592 was the actor-turned-playwright from Stratford. Several of Shakespeare’s early plays had already been staged, but not published—plays rarely appeared in print at that time. Records show that
Henry VI, Part I
was performed at the Rose Theatre by Lord Strange’s acting company in the spring of 1592. That September the city council ordered the closing of all the theaters in London because of a severe outbreak of the plague. Nine months later, in June 1593, Shakespeare’s narrative poem
Venus and Adonis
was published in an elegantly printed volume, dedicated to his wealthy and influential patron, the nineteen-year-old Henry
Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton and Baron of Titchfield. The book was an immediate and enormous success; it went through at least ten editions in Shakespeare’s lifetime. His second narrative poem,
The Rape of Lucrece
, followed within a year and was even more popular.

Shakespeare had, by age thirty, achieved every Elizabethan poet’s dream: acceptance into the rarefied sphere of the university-educated poets, praise by critics, a respectable and dedicated publisher, multiple printings of his books, and a wealthy patron whose deep pockets guaranteed a lifestyle far more glamorous than the rough-and-tumble world of the theater and the scant pounds a playwright earned when he sold a play. Shakespeare’s two narrative poems had brought him far more literary fame at this point than his dabbling in texts for the theater. He was launched, on his way to the cushioned life of a court poet.

But he never wrote another long narrative poem, and he never offered his well-established publisher another manuscript. He let his prized relationship with the Earl of Southampton run fallow. He published the short poem “The Phoenix and Turtle,” in a collection titled
Love’s Martyr
in 1601. He is thought to have continued working on his sonnets but did not seem particularly interested in publishing them, and indeed, they were not printed for the public until 1609.

When the London theaters reopened in the spring of 1594, Shakespeare dove back into the very collaborative art of writing plays and acting in them—apparently shutting the door on the social and literary aspirations that must have so fiercely driven him when he started
Venus and Adonis
. It was unique, if not unheard of, for a young poet of his standing to abandon what had brought him great success and to dedicate his life to the theater—yet that’s just what Shakespeare did. It was as a playwright that he learned to make his fellow actors the mediums through which he reached the emotions of the audience, and it was as a playwright that he developed his genius for creating rich and varied characters who defied the bounds of time.

The master mason Robert Smythson is considered one of the first architects in England; in the Elizabethan era, the concept of an architect, though known in France and Italy, was new. Smythson was an innovator who developed an English Renaissance style by fusing elements of Flemish and Italian architecture with English gothic design. The buildings designed and built by Smythson, his son, John, and later his grandson, Huntington—with their dramatic display of symmetry, their elegant façades and huge grids of windows—were the most remarkable and romantic structures of their time. While some examples of these magnificent houses have survived, such as the splendid Hardwick Hall, others have been demolished or unwisely renovated or have deteriorated beyond
repair.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am deeply grateful to all who helped bring
The Tutor
to publication. I want to thank my stellar agent, Leigh Feldman, for her immediate and unswerving belief in this novel. Her conviction was a gift and gave me courage. I feel extremely fortunate that Megan Lynch at Riverhead Books was my editor; her complete understanding of my story and my characters made working with her a thrilling experience, and her brilliant editing pushed the book to a new level. I wish to thank my terrific UK editor, Venetia Butterfield at Viking, for her helpful and important edits. And I would like to express my appreciation for my new Riverhead editor, Sarah Stein, who did an excellent job of ushering this book into print.

Many thanks to Michael Frank, Jean Garnett, Mark Hage and Mercedes Ruehl, whose frankness and close readings made this a better book. Michael, an incredible reader and friend, sometimes said things I didn’t want to hear, but in the end I did listen. And Mercedes’ ability to translate her talents from the stage to thoughtful criticism was a blessing. I wish to thank Elizabeth Gaffney for her editorial insights, advice and lovely friendship during our parallel journeys on perpendicular
streets. Huge appreciation goes to Maren Kugelberg, my Enthusiastic Reader, for reading every draft I wrote, for listening to me read countless sections out loud, for demanding to know if I was working on my novel and, if I wasn’t, for herding me back to it.

James Shapiro’s wonderful book
A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599
first gave me the idea of writing a fictional account of one of Shakespeare’s “lost years.” I am extremely grateful to Professor Shapiro for his enthusiasm and generosity; his suggestions for sources were immensely helpful, as was his reading and commenting on my manuscript. My profound gratitude goes to Sir Bernard de Hoghton, the fourteenth Baronet of Hoghton Tower, for meeting with me and recounting the fascinating stories of his ancestors and for sharing his boundless knowledge of Lancashire and Catholics during the Elizabethan era. And thanks to Jack Herney, who many years ago taught me to love history and research.

Special thanks to the early readers whose insights and comments were very important: Anne Cattaneo, Alexis Chapin-Downs, Jennifer Cobb, Julie Novacek Godsoe, Patty McCormick, Mark Millhone, Dr. Carmela Perri, Sally Wofford-Girand. And special appreciation to Marisa Bartolucci, Kate Crane, John Eastman, Louise Eastman, Anne Edelstein, Rachel Foster, Tom Hahn, Betsy Israel, May Katz, Jennifer McCarthy and the late Eileen Roaman for their help and encouragement. Much appreciation goes to Michael Keller and Jim Vandernoth. At Riverhead Books, thanks to Dave Cole for great catches and excellent queries and to Alexandra Cardia for cheerful assistance. I’m thankful also to The Writers Room in New York City, where I started working on this book, and to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., for its fine collections and exhibits.

I am eternally grateful to my family—David, Brandon and Carden. I could not have written this novel without their belief in me. I am thankful for their love and for their continuing with daily life while I sat all day and often much of the night with my laptop open and my head in a
trance.

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