Mr. Shakespeare's Bastard (13 page)

“‘Yes, Miss Ward is from Oxfordshire.’

“‘From Oxfordshire? Well now. Not so far from your own little town. You must be talking of country matters.’ This made others laugh and I didn’t know why, though Will explained later that in the city the term meant lovemaking. ‘So,’ continued Greene, ‘you are no longer sleeping just with Ovid.’ More laughter.”

Whatever Will’s thoughts that night, Mam said, he took it all in good heart, expecting such raillery from so-called wits like Greene, though she hated the man on sight. A brute and a bully and already wasted in dissipation, though he couldn’t have been much older than she was at the time, she said.

Listening to Mam, I hated Robert Greene as well, and was much satisfied years later to learn that he died of debauchery and in debt some five years after the events described by Mam that night in the Four Swans. He was then thirty-five and, as I also discovered, had written something called
Greene’s Groats-Worth of Wit,
in which, out of spite and envy, he delivered an ugly rebuke to my father’s talent. Had I known his burial site when I went to London, I would have spit upon his grave. Many years
later while reading
Twelfth Night,
I wondered as I read about the drunken blunderings of Sir Toby Belch if my father had Greene in mind when he fashioned Belch’s character, though I dare say he met many like him in his lifetime.

“Before he left the tavern that night, Greene said, ‘And are you well pleased with this woman, Will?’ And your father said, ‘I am, Robert,’ and Greene affected an air of being insulted, splaying his fingers across his chest. ‘Oh, if you please, Will, it’s Master Greene to you. Should a ‘prentice player not know his place among poets?’ And then the fool placed a finger alongside his nose and farted. ‘And what a pretty and pleasing procession of the letter
p
the foregoing line provides. And the letter
p
stands too for piss, which I must needs take, and so adieu, all gentles. I’m for the laneway.’ Amid this mirth he staggered out, followed by the others, except for one, a man whose name Will told me later was Peele; he placed a hand on your father’s shoulder and told him to pay no mind, ‘for you know Greene’s humour when he’s in drink.’

“Afterwards your father said, ‘He’s well named, isn’t he, for he’s green with envy over Marlowe’s triumph.’ After finishing his ale, he muttered, ‘But then, alas, so am I. So are many in this city.’ He was staring across that noisy, smoky room as though he were looking for things that weren’t
there, and then he said, ‘How the devil did he do it? And only weeks older than I?’”

“And what did you say to that, Mam?” I asked. “Did you give my father heart?”

She laughed. “Why, of course I did, Aerlene. But then, what would any woman say to a man she likes who has ambitions? I took his hand and told him the lines foretold a future in which lay triumphs in the playhouses. I knew he put no store by palm reading, but it does no harm to hear such things when you feel beset by life. Yet I must confess that I did not believe it myself. I think I lacked the imagination to foresee your father’s success. To me he was then just a young man who loved words, and who wanted to write plays one day. But I could not see him writing anything to equal Marlowe’s play. Perhaps it was that I could not imagine myself being that close to a man who could ever accomplish such things. And so I valued your father’s gift too lightly—until last summer when I saw his name on that playbook in Oxford.”

T
HIS MONTH HAS BEEN
fair and fruitful and the estate occupied with haymaking. All the rain that so dismayed us weeks ago has proved a benefit, with an abundance of good hay now mostly gathered; and only one mishap this year, a boy of eleven years who broke an arm in a fall from one of the wagons. This morning we set out the trestle tables in the orchard for the haymakers’ supper, and by four in the afternoon, the benches were filled with the workers and their families enjoying Mrs. Sproule’s cold mutton and capons with peas. There was bread and later fruit pies, and plenty of ale.

It is now nearly ten o’clock, and I can still hear shouting from the bonfire, where the young men are leaping across the flames to win the hearts of girls with their daring. Most of the older folk will have left by now. No doubt Emily will still be at the fire, for she has been a fetching sight today in a new smock which nicely shows her bosom, much to the
consternation of Mrs. Sproule, who thought the girl too brave in dress. But I said it was only sensible to take your fruit to market when ripe.

“Where is the harm, Mrs. Sproule?” I said. “It’s the middle of June and love is in the air.”

She didn’t argue. Mrs. Sproule was pleased with herself. She worked hard all week roasting her mutton and shelling her peas and the supper was a great success, and I told her so. Charlotte and Mr. Thwaites walked among the tables greeting the workers and their families. The rector will have a full church tomorrow morning.

When Charlotte is with Simon Thwaites, you can see the colour rising from her throat into her face, a veritable glowing in his presence. Before the meal, Mr. Walter thanked the men and women, the boys and girls, for their labour, and Mr. Thwaites said grace, offering a prayer of thanksgiving for the bountiful hay. Then, amid great cheering, the two men raised their tankards of ale and drained them at once. Watching Charlotte as she looked up at Simon Thwaites, I wondered if I had ill prepared her for married life. She has been thinking lately of men and women and what transpires between them.

Yesterday, after we finished our work, she said, “Your mother was certainly attracted to men, was she not, Linny?”

“She was, Charlotte,” I said. “Without question, she was.”

Charlotte had got up to walk about the library and was flexing the fingers of her writing hand, a small frown appearing as she paced. What did she know of mating? I wondered. You can’t live on a large farm for twenty-four years without observing some copulation.

Charlotte said, “This Mary Pinder—what a life she must have led! All those men having their way with her. Last year, when Annabelle and I went to London for a week—do you remember?”

“I do, yes.”

“We went for a walk one evening in Drury Lane with her brother and his wife, and Annabelle whispered to me that many of the women on the arms of gentlemen were very likely prostitutes, and that we should not admonish them but pray for their redemption. They were only poor lost souls at the mercy of men. I didn’t know what to make of her remarks at the time, and so said nothing, but really I thought those women with their gaudy dresses and painted mouths looked rather hard. Why could they not get honest work as servants? I could not summon much pity for them. Selling themselves like that. Inviting vile diseases into their bodies.”

I decided to tease her. “Did Christ himself not counsel forgiveness for the fallen?” I asked. “What of Mary Magdalene, for instance?”

“What of her?”

“Why, it’s generally acknowledged that she was a prostitute, Charlotte. Yet Christ forgave her after she washed His feet with her tears and dried between his toes with her hair.” Now this wasn’t so. It was Mary of Bethany who dried Christ’s feet with her hair. But I couldn’t help myself.

“Mary Magdalene was a prostitute?”

“Yes, she was,” I said. And as far as I know, that at least was true.

Her pretty little face was perplexity itself. “I didn’t know that, Linny.” And then, since Charlotte never worries a thought for long, she said, “What shall I wear tomorrow, do you think? For the haymakers’ supper? Simon will be coming.”

In the presence of Simon Thwaites, Charlotte is radiant, even today on the thirteenth anniversary of Nicky’s death. For the first time, she has forgotten to mark the day. But I remember a rider bringing us the news two days after the battle, and then Nicky’s body returned the week following in a farm wagon, his passage home safely warranted by the Roundheads, for which I credit them. We buried him that evening in St. Cuthbert’s churchyard behind the iron railings of the Easton plot.

Yet I cannot blame Charlotte for allowing this day to pass unnoticed. Love promotes happiness, banishing old sorrows, and that is as it should be. Leave sorrowful memories to the old.

L
IKE
J
ULIET
I
WAS
born on Lammas Eve. That was in the year of the Great Armada, so by my reckoning I was conceived on or about All Saints’ Day in 1587, perhaps in that small room in Holywell Lane or perhaps on the grass of Finsbury Fields near the windmills. Within the month, Mam would have noticed her courses not running and other peculiarities that I remember Mrs. Easton relating to me with the onset of each of her four pregnancies: the flushing and tingling and peculiar cravings. She once whispered to me with a small, gay laugh that at such times she often craved her husband more. Listening to Mam, I wanted to know how my father took the news. Did he clasp her hand and cover it with kisses?

As always I overwhelmed the poor, sick woman with my questions, and by then it was winter and she was nearing the end and lacked the strength to protest in words.
She merely waved a languid hand, saving her breath for her story.

“I first told Mary,” she said. “It was perhaps the second or third week of December, and by then I was certain. I used to weep at my foolishness for believing that Wilkes’s stillborn child had rendered me barren. I had been fooled, you see, by all those times with Henry Chapman. When I was told years later that Henry had married a widow with children and was living near Chipping Norton, it occurred to me that the children must all have come from the first husband, for the woman who told me said she didn’t believe the widow had any from Henry. So perhaps it was his seed that was worthless. And all that time I thought I couldn’t bear a child.

“One Saturday afternoon in December, Mary and I were by St. Magnus Church and I went in and prayed, which surprised her. Afterwards, as we walked along Thames Street, I told her. She shook her head and squeezed my arm. I was filled with the wildest thoughts of Bridewell or the streets.

“And bless her, Mary said, ‘That won’t happen, Elizabeth. You’ll not go to Bridewell and you’ll certainly not be on the streets. So put such thoughts aside.’

“On we walked to St. Andrews Hill, and my mind was everywhere, Aerlene. A terrible day, as it was all coming true. It was going to happen, and I felt entirely undone.”

It is something to listen to your mother explain how the advent of your birth created such unhappiness for her, but it was my own fault for asking and I had to bear the unpleasant truth that I had not been wanted. Yet given the circumstances, I could understand that, so I felt no rancour towards Mam. Mary Pinder, she said, was a comfort.

“We will manage this if you like, Elizabeth,” said Mary. “I’ll look after you, but you must tell young Shakespeare of your state. I doubt he has much money, but he must have a little to spare. You will need attention and we’ll need money.”

Mam brightened and said, “Will has often expressed great affection and in the sweetest terms. You don’t suppose he might agree to marry? I could still work for a while and we could save. It could turn out well.”

Mam said they were then on Carter Lane near St. Paul’s. She could remember it like yesterday, a cold afternoon with people hurrying past muffled up against the weather. She recalled the chestnut vendors calling out for trade and Mary stopping to face her, taking her by the shoulders with her big hands.

“Elizabeth. Has he not told you? But then, why would he? How would telling you advantage him?”

“Tell me what, Mary?” asked Mam.

“Why, Will Shakespeare is already married, Elizabeth. He has a wife and three children back in Warwickshire. It’s known well enough among the playhouse people.”

“But how can that be?” asked Mam. “He’s so young. Only three and twenty, he told me.”

“Old enough to sire three and more than three,” said Mary. “But one thing’s certain. He won’t marry you because he
can’t
marry you. A man can’t have two wives in this country, Elizabeth.”

To which Mam said, “Can there possibly be another woman in London as simple-minded as me?”

“Yes,” said Mary, “and more than one, and they arrive each day by every gate. But there’s no dwelling on that. What’s done is done, and now what do we do about it? How far along are you?”

Mam guessed about four or five weeks.

“Well,” said Mary as they walked along Watling Street, “if you want to rid yourself of it, I know people. But there’s always peril in it, and I can’t bring myself to tell you of things that have happened to others I’ve known.”

Mam said she wouldn’t do it anyway, as she was too fearful. She could think only of the young woman who had visited Goody Figgs and later sickened and died. Could she expect any better in London from people Mary knew?

“What about your in-laws?” Mary asked. “Did you not tell me that the husband has treated you kindly? Is he not a decent man?”

“Decent enough,” Mam said, “but his wife won’t have me in her house when she finds out. Bad for business, and I
can’t be sure he wouldn’t agree with her. She’ll make a good case against me.”

“What about your brother, then? Surely he will take you back?”

“I have already injured him enough in name and reputation. This news will grey the hairs on his head.”

“Well, you will never lack a place to keep your child, Elizabeth. As I’ve said, you can stay with me.”

They turned northward to Cheapside, and Mam told me she was then walking the very route she had taken on her first afternoon in London months before, when the gentlemen had rescued her from that urchin. What had she learned in all that time? she asked herself. Here she was in trouble again. And why? Because it seemed she couldn’t keep her legs closed. And now if she had the child, she would be raising it in a room with a prostitute. Good-hearted or not, that’s what Mary Pinder was. And yet was she, Elizabeth Ward of Worsley, any better? It was hard to see how. What self-loathing Mam must have felt as she listened to Mary going on about not behaving rashly and how matters often look desperate at first but in time settle into something manageable. Words. Just idle words in the smoky, cold air of nightfall on Cheapside. Mary told her again that she should press the young man for money.