A Mystery of Errors (5 page)

"Aaaaaahhhh! You pox-ridden, misbegotten son of a sheep tup-perl"
Shakespeare cried out.

Smythe winced as he extricated himself from the thorn bushes and then helped the poet out.

"God's bollocks!
I'll be picking thorns out of my arse for the next two weeks!"

"Oh, stop it, you will not," said Smythe. "A few scratches, a thorny splinter here and there… you will survive."

"No thanks to that miserable cur! What in God's name was he thinking, careering down the road at such a pace? The fool will shake that fancy coach of his to pieces!"

"That was our friend from the inn last night, unless I miss my guess," said Smythe. "The one who took the last few rooms."

"What, the grand, well-spoken gentleman with his retinue of servants?" Shakespeare asked.

"The same, I think. He rose much later than we did, but makes much better time. He seems in quite a hurry."

"Well, I hope he puts that shiny new coach of his into a ditch and breaks his gentlemanly neck, the blackguard!"

"If he keeps up like that, he might well do that," said Smythe. "Although the road here is much wider and more level, he still goes at an unsafe pace."

"Blast!
Look at this! I am pricked with stickers like a pincushion!"

"Here, let me see."

"Have a care now…
ouch!"

"Oh, come on, now. I'll not pull these out if you go squirming like a wench upon a haystack. Screw your courage to the sticking place and stop your twitching."

" 'Tis the infernal stickers that are screwed in, not my courage."

"Will you hold still?"

"Aaah-owww!"

"Such bravery! Such mettle!" Smythe laughed. "Look at you. A thorn or two and you are all undone."

"Oh, sod off!
Yowwwww!
Have a care, Tuck, curse you!"

"Oh, don't be such a mewling infant. It is not so bad. Only a few more."

"Ouch! Ow!
Damn it! I shall take
my
turn next and then we shall see who is more the mewling infant!"

"I'll not cry over a few thorns. But I
shall
remember that gentleman from last night. That's twice now he's inconvenienced me."

"Oh, indeed? And just what do you intend to do about it, your lordship? The man is not someone you can address on equal standing, you know. Or did you fail to note the arms blazoned on the side of his coach?"

"No. Why? Did you recognize them?"

"Nay, I caught but a glimpse of sable and some fleury crosses. I would not know those arms from any other scutcheon save that they mark him for a gentleman of rank. Not exactly someone you can give one of your country thumpings to, young blacksmith."

"Perhaps not, but I will remember that gentleman just the same."

The poet snorted. "You would do better to remember your place, my friend, if you do not wish to get clapped into the Mar-shalsea."

Smythe was tempted to point out to the poet that he could claim an escutcheon of his own, thanks to his father's efforts, but he decided at the last moment not to bring it up. It meant nothing to him, really, and he liked Will Shakespeare and did not wish him to think that he might in any way hold himself above him. Aside from which, his father might now be a gentleman, but he was in debt up to his ears, for all the good it did him.

"Well, I suppose you're right," he said. "But it still rankles, just the same."

"So then send an oath or two his way, as I do, and have done with it. There is little to be served in dwelling upon matters that one cannot resolve. Now bend over and I'll pull your stickers for you."

"Why, Will, I bet you say that to all the sweet young boys."

"Look, you want me to pull those thorns from out your bum or put my muddy boot into it?"

Smythe laughed. "Very well. You may dethorn me, but be gentle."

"I'll give every one at least three twists for your impertinence!"

"Well, best be quick about it then, or we shall not reach London until nightfall."

"Just as well," said Shakespeare, with a scowl, "for I shall very likely be much too sore to sit down until then."

Chapter 3

BUT Father, I don't
want
to marry him!" Elizabeth Darcie stamped her foot in exasperation, gritting her teeth with anger and frustration. She turned away to hide the tears that suddenly welled up in her eyes.

"Want?
Want?
Good God, girl, who in blazes asked you what you
want?
" Her father stared at her with open-mouthed astonishment. "What does what you
want
have to do with anything? You shall do as you are told!"

"I shall
not!
" In her exasperation, Elizabeth spoke before she thought and she caught her breath as soon as the words were out. She had never spoken back to her father in such a manner before, and was shocked at her own boldness.

Her father was no less astonished. "You bloody well shall, girl, or I shall take my crop to you, so help me!"

"But Father, please! I do not
love
him! I do not even
know
him!"

"Love?
Who the devil spoke of love? We were speaking of
marriage!
" He turned with indignation to his wife. "This is what comes of your silly notions about education! 'She ought to
read,'
you said. 'She ought to know how to keep household accounts! She ought to have a tutor!' A tutor! God's wounds! That silly, mincing fop just filled her head with foolishness, if you ask me! Love poems and sonnets and romances… what does any of that have to do with the practical matters of life? A tutor, indeed! What a monstrous waste of money!"

"A proper lady should be well accomplished, Henry…" Edwina Darcie began tentatively, but her husband was in no mood to listen and simply went on as if she hadn't spoken.

"Music, yes, I can see music, I suppose," Darcie went on, working himself up into a fine state of pontifical righteousness. "A woman ought to know how to play upon the lute or the harp or the virginals, so that she can properly entertain her husband and his guests. And embroidery, aye, that is a useful craft, and dancing, I suppose, has much to recommend it as a skill, but…
reading?
'Tis a thing for idlers. The only reading that is useful and fitting for anyone is the
Book of Common Prayer.
What value is to be found in your foreign Greeks and Romans, your windbag philosophers, or your absurd ballads and your penny broadsheets for the lower classes to while away their time with instead of doing something more productive? What waste! What utter nonsense! You see the sort of thing that comes of it! I tell you, giving an education to a woman makes about as much sense as giving an education to a horse!"

"The queen is a woman," Elizabeth said, hesitantly, invoking her royal namesake as the color came rising to her cheeks. She knew that she was being impertinent past all bearing, but she could not help herself. "And she is well educated and speaks several tongues.
And
reads and writes in Latin, too. Would you compare
her
to a horse, Father?"

Henry Darcie's eyes grew wide with outrage. "Silence! What monumental impudence! The queen is different. She is not an ordinary woman. She is the queen. She has, by virtue of her birth and divine right, given herself in marriage to the realm and thereof she has always done her duty. As you, young woman, are going to do yours and there's the end of it! 'Tis done! The matter is settled! I shall say no more!"

He stabbed his forefinger in the air to emphasize his point, then quickly turned and left the room, effectively bringing an end to the discussion. Not that it had been much of a discussion in the first place, Elizabeth thought. He wasn't the least bit interested in what she felt or had to say.

" 'Tis not fair," she said to her mother, fighting back the tears.

" 'Tis how things are done, my dear," her mother replied, in a tone of resigned sympathy. "I, too, was betrothed to your father before I ever really knew him. But I came to love him… in time."

"Yes, and I see how well he loves
you,
Mother," Elizabeth said, sadly. "He does not listen to you any more than he listens to me."

"That is not so, Bess!" her mother responded defensively. "Your father listens. In his own way."

"Which is to say, only when he so chooses," Elizabeth said, bitterly. "Where is the fault in me that he should treat me so? What have I done that was so wrong? Where have I failed to please him? How have I offended? Why does he wish to punish me?"

"Bess, you must try to understand," her mother replied, patiently. "This marriage is not meant as punishment for you at all. That was never your father's intention. The arrangement was made to benefit both families, to unite the two estates so as to make both stronger. 'Tis the way these things are done. 'Twas ever so."

"And what of love, Mother? What of a woman's feelings? What of a woman's heart?" Elizabeth asked, blinking back tears. "Or is that considered of no import?"

Her mother sighed. "Bess, 'tis not only women who have their marriages arranged for them, you know. 'Tis common practice among the gentry and men of the nobility, much for the same reasons. 'Tis only the poor, lowly, working-class folk who marry for love, for all the good it does them, the poor souls. Does it improve their lot in life? Does it secure a better future for their children? Does it allow their parents to be cared for in their dotage, and in turn, for them to be cared for in their own advancing years? Nay, such things require more practical considerations, such as estates with income, land and holdings, things in which love plays no part at all, unless it be the sort of love a husband and a wife grow into with the fullness of time. And such a love is a contented,
settled
love, mature in its composition and refinement. The sort of love of which the romantic poets write is truly a mere thing of fancy, naught but a brief fluttering of the heart, a momentary aching in the loins, a transitory desire which, if one gives into it, can only lead to sin and degradation. For a woman, more often than not, it leads to a belly swollen with an unwanted, bastard child and a bleak future of utter ruin and hopeless deprivation. Your father and I did not wish that for you."

Elizabeth shut her eyes tightly. She wanted to scream. Not so much with anger as with desperation, because she saw that there was nowhere left to turn. It was as if the walls of her own home were closing in on her and sealing her inside a box from which there would be no escape. She felt as if she were suffocating. She felt a pressure in her chest that did not come from the constricting whalebone stiffeners in her embroidered bodice or the tight, hard stomacher that extended down below her hips, squeezing her body into the idealized figure of the fashionable woman, the adult clothing in which her parents had started dressing her when she was still a child of five or six, as if to create a grown woman in miniature, like the tiny portraits of well-known lords and ladies sold in the artist's stalls down by St. Paul's, an advertisement for the marketable goods she would become. See? Look, you can see already how well this flower will bloom, how plump the fruit shall be! But not too plump, for we must look wide only in some places and properly narrow in the others, padded here and stiffened there just so, according to the dictates of the latest fashions.

The so-called "lowly working-class folk" whom her mother so disparaged and despised seemed as unrestricted in their mode of dress as they were in their mode of marriage. And though it was their lot to curtsy or else bow and tug their forelocks when confronted with a lady or a gentleman, by contrast, at least in some respects, they seemed so much more free than she was. A common serving wench employed in some tavern would work long hours and labor hard at tasks that I would never have to do, Elizabeth thought, morosely, but at the same time, she could wear simple clothing that would not restrict her movements and would let her breathe without feeling faint on a hot and muggy summer's day. And if she fell in love with some poor cook or tavernkeeper or apprentice, why then, no one would tell her that her love had naught to do with marriage and that her deepest feelings were but a momentary fancy brought on by too much indulgence in romances, and that she should take as husband someone who had been selected for her by those who knew much better, someone whom she had never even seen.

"If my belly were to be swollen with a child, even if it
were
a bastard, then I would sooner it were put there by a man I chose to love, rather than by one who had been chosen for me," she said.

"Elizabeth! Really! You forget yourself!" Her mother stiffened and the color rose to her cheeks. "I cannot imagine where you get such outrageous notions! I can scarcely believe that tutor was responsible for putting such ideas in your head, but if he was at fault, then he should be whipped! Honestly! If you were to speak so in your father's presence, I shudder to think what he would do!"

"What would he do, then? Whip me? Disown me? Turn me out? How could that be any worse than what he already proposes to do?"

"Oh, Bess, I simply do not know what has gotten into you! This is sheer folly! You needn't act as if 'twere such an awful thing! Anthony Gresham is, by all accounts, an excellent young gentleman! He comes of a good family and there has been talk of a peerage for his father, for his service to the Crown, which would certainly assure your future and the future of your children! I simply do not know why you bridle so at such an excellent prospect. Why, most girls your age would gladly trade places with you in an instant and consider themselves fortune's darlings!"

So there it was again, Elizabeth thought, bleakly, as her mother huffed out of the room in indignation. The Parthian shot. The same old, tired refrain. Most girls
her age.
Nineteen years old and still unwed. Soon twenty and a spinster. Unwanted, a burden to her parents. A girl
her age
could not afford to put on airs or be so choosy. A girl
her age
would be fortunate to find any sort of match at all, much less one that was so eminently suitable. A girl
her age
should be grateful that anyone would have her, when she was past her prime and there were plenty of fresh, young, wellborn girls for eligible suitors to choose from. She had heard every possible variation on the theme. Just the words "your age" were enough to set her teeth on edge.