Harvard Yard (2 page)

“’Tis a beautiful
summer’s
day,” said Shakespeare.

“Aye.”

“Were I in your place, I’d say to her, ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’”

“A summer’s day, Will. Yes . . . ’Tis warm . . .
and
soft.”

“Indeed. ‘Thou art more lovely and more . . . more—’”

“Temperate?” Robert Harvard offered a word that sounded eloquent.

“Temperate”—Shakespeare counted the syllables on his fingers—“‘Thou art more lovely and more tem-per-ate.’ Not a word to describe the passion of love, but as a word for Katherine Rogers, I suppose ’tis aptly chosen,
and
it fits the meter.”

And on he went, composing a sonnet to the fleeting beauty of summer and the solid nature of Robert Harvard’s love.

“‘So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, / So long lives this’—the sonnet, I mean—‘so long lives this, and this . . . this gives life to thee.’” With a flip of his hand and a little bow, Will was done. “Soft words for Katherine Rogers.”

Too many words, thought Robert Harvard, and too many metaphors . . . or were they similes? But who was he to question a man whose poetry had earned him that handsome house and beautiful garden?

“Many thanks, Will. Courtship never come easy, even to a man of thirty-five.”

“She’s an angel, Rob . . . reed slender, to be sure, but still an angel.”

“And I be a mere mortal, widowed once and wantin’ a new wife.”

“You’ve been an angel to many a hungry actor.”

“’Twas only what a Christian should do.”

“There were Christians aplenty who denied victuals to this glover’s son. But you gave him to eat. So”—Will gripped Robert’s shoulders—“screw your courage to the sticking place, as we say. Speak to her father, then go to Katherine and tell her of a love as warm as a summer’s day.”

“Would that you’d stand aside me, Will, and whisper these words in me ear.”

“’Tis for you to do yourself, Rob. And you’d not want me whispering in your ear on a day when malevolence whispers in mine.”

“Malevolence?”

“By the name Iago, servant to the blackamoor Othello. He has deranged Othello with his lies.” The excitement danced on Will’s face, and malevolence crept into his voice. “Othello is about to strangle his flaxen-haired wife in a fit of jealous rage. He wraps his hands round her neck and—” Will calmed himself, as if his imagination were a pitcher full to the brim, from which he could afford to spill only a little. “So, then . . . you to your muse, and I to mine.”

“‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’” Robert Harvard repeated the words as he walked from New Place to the Rogers home in High Street.

A
temperate
summer’s day. On such a day, how could a man see deranged Moors strangling flaxen-haired women? Playwrights were foreign creatures altogether, he thought, that they could imagine such things and not themselves be deranged. He tried to banish these dark visions, but he feared to lose the better images Will had put into his head, as when we seek to banish the thorn, we lose also the petal. So he turned his mind to the bouquet of roses he had cut in Will’s garden and to the thorn pricking his finger.

The house of Thomas Rogers was one of the finest in Stratford, rising in three half-timbered stories, with great windows flung open on every floor. Rich man’s windows they were, overlooking a street wider and more welcoming than any in London. And there was no man in London or Stratford more welcoming than Thomas Rogers, alderman and cattle broker.

Next to cattle, good cheer was his stock-in-trade, but what man would lack for good cheer who profited from Warwickshire beef and ate it, too? His good cheer grew even greater when he learned the purpose of Harvard’s visit, for Rogers had seven daughters, and the girl in question had reached the ripe old age of twenty-one without a husband.

It did not surprise Robert, then, that they settled on a dowry more quickly than ever they had settled on a price for cattle. It did surprise him, however, that Rogers would honor the bargain only if the girl went willingly to marriage.

“Willingly . . . aye,” said Robert, “or not at all.”

He found Katherine in the garden, in a shaft of golden sunlight, and the shimmer of her flaxen hair caused him to forget all the words Will Shakespeare had given him. He nearly forgot his own name.

“Why, Master Harvard,” she said, “’tis pleasure to see you.”

Rob reached for Will’s words, but the first image he found was of a deranged Moor, fingers twined round the neck of his flaxen-haired wife, an image to be banished yet again. And just as he feared, Will’s soft words went with it, so that he could only stammer, “I . . . I . . .”

“Roses?” said Katherine. “Roses are a joy.”

“Yes.” And now he found a few of Will’s words, hiding in his memory . . . old words, but good ones, and soft, spoken by the character of Romeo. “Roses they are, miss, but . . . that which we call a rose, by any other name would . . . would . . .”

“Smell as sweet?”

“Yes . . . though not so sweet as you, miss.” And that, he thought, was well said.

In taking the roses, she noticed the blood on his fingertip. “Why, good sir, you bleed for me? How noble.” And gently she touched him.

His hand trembled at her touch, and yet did her touch itself tremble, which he found strangely calming, for it meant that she was as nervous as he . . . and perhaps as willing. And a small measure of his wit returned. He said, “I bleed for love, miss.”

And she said, “I yearn for it.”

And Rob found a few of Will’s softer words to speak. “I bleed willingly for love, on a . . . a summer’s day.”

“’Tis a fine summer’s day that Robert Harvard brings me roses.”

“A
temperate
summer’s day.” And then did his wit return in full. “I promise many more, even when the cold December of our lives has been lived to the solstice, even then shall I find a final summer’s day with thee, miss, should you say yes to marriage.”

And her smile spoke more eloquently than all the words that Will Shakespeare had ever written.

Two years later, if one were to ask Robert Harvard the season, he would say “summer,” no matter the angle of the sun, for no northern blast could cool the summer he knew in the bed of Katherine Harvard, a rose even sweeter now that she bore his name.

And no day was more June-glorious to him than the damp November afternoon when he and Katherine brought their firstborn son to St. Saviour’s in Southwark. Robert Harvard would never know with greater certainty of God’s love or his own immortality than at the moment when the tiny head was held over the font and the spirit-cleansing water poured down. Nor would he ever know better that the love of his fellow man reflected God’s love than on that night, when friends and neighbors went to the Queen’s Head Inn to celebrate the birth of the baby named John.

As Robert Harvard was a part owner of the inn, the presence of the babe brought no scandal to the taproom. In truth, there was little that happened on that side of the Thames that could cause Southwark to appear more scandalous than it already was.

City fathers reigned on the north bank, but their power did not cross the twenty-arch bridge. So here would be found prostitutes in their stews, selling favors to pay rents to the corrupt bishop of Winchester. Here cutpurses thrived in alleys, and convicts served in Clink. Here animal baiters brought beasts to fight in the pits, and when the beasts were killed, the baiters learned new skills from convicts and cutpurses, too. And here, performing by day in the theaters, carousing by night in the taprooms, were the actors.

But here also the bell tower of St. Saviour’s rose like a father confessor above his sinners. And here men like Robert Harvard, men of business and sometimes of property, saw sin for what it was and rose above it, too, though Robert believed in the Lord’s admonition that “what you do for the least of my brethren, you do for me.” So on that night of celebration, he opened the tap for all and asked payment of none.

Most brought good wishes. A few brought gifts of silver coin. Others brought no more than their thirst. But one, who came in from the cold wearing a cape trimmed in rabbit fur, brought a gift of paper and leather that would prove more valuable than gold.

Will Shakespeare elbowed through the crowd, neither expecting nor offering ceremony to those who greeted him with shouts and handshakes and resounding slaps upon the back.

Rob called for Will’s tankard to be taken from the shelf and filled.

Katherine, no longer reed-slender, but a young mother in all the fullness of life, proclaimed, “Master Shakespeare, you do the Harvards a great honor.”

“I honor the child, ma’am.” Shakespeare bowed. “And his beautiful mother.”

“Many thanks, Will,” said Robert.

“Many thanks for all your favors,” added Katherine. “My husband has oft spake of your help one
temperate
summer’s day. Do you know what now he calls our son?”

“Aye,” said Will with a laugh. “‘Love’s Labours Won.’ ’Tis a description to flatter a playwright. But the babe surely tells of love’s victory.”

“Aye!” cried Robert a little drunkenly. “To my own Love’s Labours Won!”

And the crowd roared.

Then Shakespeare reached under his cape and withdrew a volume of quarto size, bound in red leather, held with a blue ribbon. “The very play,
Love’s Labours Won
. In a prompt book, transcribed by my own hand from my foul papers.”

“’Tis a thing of beauty, good sir.” Katherine held the book in front of her child. “Look you, John, see what Master Shakespeare gives you.”

The babe was more interested in the taste of his own thumb, but Robert Harvard received the book with all the awe he might muster had the rector of St. Saviour’s given him a relic of the true cross. He caressed the leather binding, thumbed the pages, and asked, “But, Will, would you not stage this play again?”

Shakespeare waved a hand. “The King’s Men have another prompt book, though the play be all out of date, and a trifle as ’tis.”

“Would you not print it, at the very least?”

“Once a play sees print, any man may stage it, which be money from my pocket,” said Shakespeare. “’Tis the reason I seldom give such gifts as this. But for the Harvards,
Love’s Labours Won
be a talisman of good fortune. Should you sell this to a printer—”

“Oh, never, Will.”

“—’twill fetch ten pounds. As companion to
Love’s Labours Lost
, which they say sold well, perhaps more. A good start for the child’s future.”

“I’ll never sell, Will. This takes a place of honor with me Bible, a reminder of this night and that summer’s day in Stratford.”

“Good.” Shakespeare touched the child’s head. “Let its title remind him that a happy man enjoys his summer days and knows the miracle of love’s labors.”

At that, Rob raised his mug again, “To Love’s Labours Won!”

ii

God gave the Harvards eighteen summers more to labor in their love, and they produced a family of seven children. Then God sent the coldest of winds.

It was in the third week of August, anno Domini 1625, that the first blast struck their son Willie, who went stumbling to his bed, chilled and feverish. Within an hour, he was vomiting. He brought up the gruel he had eaten in the morning, then remnants of stew from the night before, then streams of bile so green and viscous, it seemed that his very insides were shredding.

Then young Robbie came home freezing despite the damp heat that lay like a quilt upon London. He threw an extra log onto the great-room fire, wrapped himself in a blanket, and began to sweat and shiver all at once.

Then Kate, a gentle child of thirteen, looked up from her knitting, cried out in shock as her bowels suddenly let go, and collapsed into a puddle of her own stool.

That was when Katherine Harvard shouted up the stairs to John that he put by his books and hurry to fetch his father.

John was sitting in his favorite spot, by a window on the top floor, oblivious in the sunlight to all save his study of a Latin text on the epistles of Paul. But from the sound of terror in his mother’s voice, he knew what was upon them. Stumbling down to the great room, he was struck first by the stench, then by the heat of a roaring fire in August, then by the sight of his brothers and sister.

“Hurry, John,” cried his mother. “Hurry and tell Father. He’ll know what to do. Hurry . . . but don’t forget your rosemary.”

John plucked a few leaves from the sprigs hanging by the door, rolled them, and stuffed them into his nostrils and ears for protection. Then he went out.

He ran down an alley to the galleried courtyard of the Queen’s Head Inn, which was much like the courtyards of the George or the Boar’s Head or a hundred other London inns where a man could find food and lodging. But curtains of fear hung from every railed balcony, and the drain that carried chamber wastes to Borough High Street was all but empty, for the Queen’s Head itself was all but empty, for the bubonic plague had descended, not only on the Harvard house but on all of Southwark.

John took another alley that led to the street. He moved quickly, being the long-legged and lanky sort, heir to his mother’s slender height and ready smile. People called him too bookish by half and said that he had inherited little from his father but a square jaw and a good heart. In John’s mind, that was gift enough, for he had no interest in his father’s trade. Let other men cut meat. John Harvard would study God’s word and nourish souls.

A young man of such faith should not have feared the sight of the death carts and their corpses, for it meant that souls were now rising to their reward. But the cry of “Bring out the dead,” followed by the clanging of the gravedigger’s bell, caused him to stop a moment in the shadows. Even one as strong in spirit as John Harvard needed the strengthening of a small prayer before he could step into the street in that season of death.

And the sight that greeted him was more fearful than any death cart. It was his father, staggering toward him, eyes wide and glassy, body hunched in pain.

“John!” cried Robert Harvard. “Help me. Help me. I burn.”