Elizabeth I (119 page)

He arrived on a May day, one of those so fine that we would not want to be anywhere else. Let Rome and Sicily have their wildflowers and warm, sweet evenings; we had May in England.

“Will,” I said, taking his hat. “I appreciate your coming.”

He stepped in. “I have wanted to ever since ... You understand.”

“Yes. You had to be careful.” I looked at him. He had aged little, and he had a contentment about him that I noticed. “Shall we go out in the garden?” Let me add another pleasant memory to it.

I guided him outside, and he exclaimed over the profusion of gillyflowers, hollyhocks, and climbing roses and the neatly trimmed maze. It was odd, but I did not feel awkward around him. It was as if he were from another life, another version of myself. The Lettice who now stood before him owed nothing, had nothing to apologize for. The stroke of the ax on Tower Green had severed my past from my future.

“Will you sit?” I indicated a bench, wreathed all around with climbing vines twining overhead in a protective canopy. He nodded and did so. I sat beside him.

“I was sorrowed by what happened,” he said.

“Thank you,” I replied. “I still have difficulty believing it. I wake up expecting Robert or Christopher to be there. Then I remember.” I smiled. “But there is less and less time between the expectation and the remembrance.”

“The gap will always be there,” he said.

“Will the realization always be painful?” I asked him.

“As long as you live,” he said.

“You give no balm,” I said. “Should not a friend do so?”

“A friend must not lie,” he said.

“Ah, Will. You were always difficult.”

“I was always honest.”

“Always?”

“As far as I could be.”

I did not desire him any longer, yet I loved him. This confused me. Far from losing him forever, as I had once thought, I knew now he would be a part of me forever.

“Tell me of your life. Mine you know already. I am sorry you were caught up in the rebellion.”

“All that was an accident. I wish I had never written that play! But as for my life now, I have been buying property in Stratford. I find my thoughts turning more and more to my old home.”

As I had retreated to Wanstead. The past pulled us back with urgent hands.

“My father recently died,” he said. “Only a few months after your son.”

“His life was not cut short.”

“No, he was almost seventy.”

“The same age as the Queen.”

“Yes. But ...”

It must go unsaid. “Is your mother still living?”

“Yes. And they had been married forty-four years.”

“And you?”

He looked uneasy, embarrassed. “I've been married since I was eighteen,” he said. “I am now almost forty.”

And I almost sixty. I had forgotten how much younger than I he was. When we were together, he had seemed the elder.

“And how is your wife?” I asked primly.

“The same.” He suppressed a smile.

“Shall we not speak of her?”

“That is agreeable to me.”

“Why do you return to Stratford, if not to see her?”

“My mother, my children ... It is odd. When I was a child, I wished nothing more than to escape it. Now I find that if I wish to leave any sort of legacy, it will exist only in Stratford. London swallows me up. I will not survive there. In a generation, I will vanish. The country has longer memories.”

“But your plays ...”

“For the moment only,” he said. “They amuse the crowds. But plays are not the stuff that endures. My company owns the scripts. And we dare not publish them, else others would enact them and rob us of our rightful earnings.”

I looked hard at him, trying to memorize his features, his fine nose and penetrating eyes. I wondered what women had loved him, and where they were now.

“My younger brother is here now,” he suddenly said. “Edmund. He, like me, was afire for the theater. He has played bit parts, but nothing that would make his name. I should write something for him. But I cannot construct a play around such a need. I can only write a character that calls me. Edmund cannot play the ones that are clamoring for me to give them birth. They are too old for him. A Scottish noble who is drawn to murder to fulfill a prophecy, an old king who realizes too late that he cannot give away his office and retain its privileges, a Moor who is undone with jealousy—no, a young man from Stratford cannot play any of these.” He broke off suddenly. “But all this is talk. Laetitia, how are you? My heart wants to know.” He grasped my hands so I could not pull away.

How could I answer? I was empty; I was a changed creature. “I survive,” I said, aware of his hands, their warmth, their hold.

“Can you forgive me?” he said.

“For what? For warning me what to expect from you, and then following through?”

He smiled, a slight smile. “I was a coward.”

“It was better for us that you were. You were wiser than I. You could see what must ultimately come of it. And you did not want it.”

“I could not endure it. I can write about it, but I cannot live it.”

“Better, then, for others. You can leave them something.”

“I told you, Laetitia. I leave nothing behind for anyone. My works will not survive me. They are played to crowds at the Globe, then forgotten. I can behold tumultuous emotions, record them—but not fall victim to them. My weakness.”

“Never mind, Will. You are here now. Few have come. You have given me a precious gift. Now kiss me. In friendship.” I leaned over to him, closed my eyes.

I
looked up at the threatening sky; black and blue clouds were racing past, and the wind had picked up. I steadied my hat to keep it from blowing off and turned in the saddle.

“Ladies, we are like to have a wet welcome!” I called to my companions.

“How far are we from Harefield?” asked Catherine.

“Five or six miles, at least,” said my horse master. “Perhaps it will hold off that long.”

A blast of wind tore at my skirts, and I clutched the reins. The horse's mane was flapping. “Let us gallop, then,” I ordered, spurring him on. He leaped under me and it was all I could do to keep my seat.

We were on an abbreviated summer Progress. Originally I had intended to go west, leaving London and stopping first at Elvetham House, then on to Bath and Bristol. But the journey was too ambitious and I had to curtail it, substituting an eastern Progress. We had stopped first at Chiswick and now were heading for the house of Thomas Egerton and his new wife, the dowager Countess of Derby. Two years ago he had begged to be released from supervising Essex at York House, because his wife was dying. Now both his prisoner and his wife were gone, and he had taken a new one, a lady with literary tastes—or pretensions. Well, he deserved his happiness. Good for him.

I took less with me on this Progress, and fewer people. People grumbled about the inconveniences, so I had jokingly said, “Let the old stay behind and the young and able come with me!” That had given the ailing ones an excuse to stay home.

There were a number of “young and able” along. I had, as I wished, invited Eurwen back to court, and she rode now in company with some of the younger maids of honor, and there were handsome young men, like Richard de Burgh, the Earl of Clanricarde, one of the “good” Irish. I found myself disliking him, though, and it took me a while to realize it was because he resembled Essex. That was not fair to the man, but the other ladies made much of him, so he was not lacking. There was also the saturnine John Donne, Egerton's secretary and lately a member of Parliament, who skulked in the back and did not seem eager to reach his master's home. He had been jolly enough at Chiswick, but every mile closer to Harefield drew his already long face even longer.

The ride here had immersed us in the glory of a high English summer. Rich midsummer flowers had replaced the delicate hues of spring in the meadows, and fledglings were practicing their flying, swooping skillfully from their nests. Cottage doors stood open, and housewives were spreading linens out on hedgerows to dry. Boys practiced archery in the open fields. Summer was the time of village festivals, and we passed several on our way. It was also the time of weddings, and from a distance I saw a bridal party making its way through the fields to a little stone church. The fields stood high, and this harvest promised to end the run of poor ones.

My realm was faring well. It grew and prospered under the sun.

Now the weather had turned. We dashed to the shelter of Harefield Place, just beating the rain. Our horses were whisked away to the stables, and Sir Thomas and his new wife, Alice, welcomed us into the house. Just as Alice was making her curtsy, the skies opened up and rain pelted the courtyard.

“Even the skies hold back their anger for you,” said Sir Thomas.

“Or release it on cue, as they did for the Armada,” said Admiral Charles.

“It was an English wind,” agreed Raleigh.

The rain having blown itself out to sea, the next day was fair. Sir Thomas had planned an outdoor fete, so it was hurriedly arranged, lest the weather prove fickle. The country theme continued, with long tables set up in the adjoining meadow and servers dressed as shepherds and dairymaids pouring local ale and syllabub from crockery pitchers and presenting bowls of possets, curds, and clotted cream for fresh-picked strawberries. An enormous warden-pear pie was carried out, its pastry emitting steam, and hastily carved up. Afterward there would be dancing for the young people under the trees and games for the higher ranking. The central amusement was a huge cut-glass tub brought in by a man costumed as a mariner, who announced, “In order to fish, one needs calm waters. These our gracious Queen has provided for us—security, quiet, and bounty.” He placed the tub on the table and withdrew. Twenty or so red ribbons trailed over the side, and the ladies were to take a ribbon and pull their prize “fish” from the depths of the tub. Each prize had a verse that miraculously addressed the concerns of its mistress.

Eurwen, being the youngest, was most excited about the prize, while the novelty of the stunt had worn thin with more experienced women. She extracted a jeweled hair comb and a verse that proclaimed her fortune did not lie with a dark-eyed man.

“How dark do you think his eyes should be to exclude him?” she asked anxiously.

“At least as dark as coal,” I assured her. “They should be so black you cannot see the pupils.” That left in most of the men she was likely to encounter.

Catherine, Helena, and the rest pulled their prizes out and dutifully examined them. I extracted a pair of delicate rose-colored gloves that fit me perfectly. The verse attached to them merely proclaimed that I was prudent and had many admirers.

“A whole world full of them!” said Sir Thomas, peering over my shoulder.

“Indeed, Your Majesty has become a sort of eighth wonder,” said Raleigh. “Forget the pyramids and the hanging gardens.”

“Are you saying I am as old as those things?”

“No, but you are as mighty as they. Besides, they have all vanished but the pyramids. Where lives the man who can stroll through the hanging gardens? Can a sailor still be guided by the lighthouse of Alexandria? No. But you will survive longer than they have.”

Perhaps in memory. Long ago I had stated that my only desire was “to do some act that would make my fame spread abroad in my lifetime, and, after, occasion memorial forever.” It had been one of those offhand comments that, later, I realized was more revealing than I had meant it to be.

“I shall choke on my clotted cream if these flatteries continue,” I said.

“I have another gift for Your Majesty.” I turned to see John Donne standing behind my chair. “It addresses this subject.” He looked around furtively and withdrew a paper from his doublet.

“Thank you, John.” Just then I saw Sir Thomas glowering at him, and before I could open the paper, John scurried away.

It was entitled “The Autumnal,” and it began, “No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace, / as I have seen in one autumnal face.”

I jerked my head up. He had dared to say it, dared to say what everyone pretended was not true. But the phrase “one autumnal face” ... What a harmonious sound. And was it really so frightening? Did we not celebrate autumn? My eyes darted down the page. “Here, where still evening is; not noon, nor night” ... “If we love ... transitory things, which soon decay, age must be loveliest at the latest day. / But name not winter faces, whose skin's slack, lank, as an unthrift's purse ...” He had not called me a winter face but an autumnal one. He differentiated between them—one desirable, the other pitiable.