Love Disguised (19 page)

The usual dreams that filled Will's sleep—of meeting a rich lord who would pay him to act and publish his plays—did not come that night. Instead he dreamed of want, pain, and penury, of his mother and sisters huddled in darkness like the little girl Mack had rescued. He awoke with the firm resolution of finishing the lawyer's part for Mack immediately after the rehearsal. While Overby summoned his employees, Will shoved aside the tables in the public room, ignoring
Mistress Overby's complaints that he was turning everything topsy-turvy again.

“Violetta, sit over there and study your lines,” he said.

“
Let us play one scene of excellent pretending and make it look like perfect art
.” She smiled. “I have got that line at last.”

“Like perfect
honor
,” said Will, correcting her. “But that is not the scene for today.” He took the sheet from her and turned it over. “Here are your cues. Now to assign roles.” He clapped his hands for attention. “Job, you shall be the crocodile.”

“I'll not pretend to be any such devil,” Job said, indignant.

“It requires no pretending,” murmured Will. “Let me see you crawl and snap your jaws.”

“I will be the crocodile!” said Dab eagerly. He cried out in pain as Job grabbed his ear and twisted it.

“No Dab, you must be Iras, the queen's attendant,” said Will.

“Is that a girl? I will not wear a skirt and false hair again. If I can't be the crocodile I will be a soldier. See, I have hair on my lip already.”

Will sighed. He needed Dab in his company. “What if I make Iras a young man and let him carry a sword?”

Dab clapped his hands in delight. “Then let Long Meg play the crocodile! She can frighten anyone. But I'll kill her with my sword.”

“Hush, you bug. I'll squash you with my thumb,” said Meg.

Will noticed she stood with her arms crossed over her chest. Why was she sulking? What distressed her? Perhaps she wanted a role too. But she was too tall even for the crocodile. The beast must not be longer than the hero.

“Meg, will you speak the prologue? It describes the argument of the play, in which the triumvir, Mark Antony, loses his share of the Roman Empire for love of the Egyptian queen.”

“I'll do it. It befits me as the host,” said Overby.

Will ignored him and watched Meg hopefully. “You may speak in your own voice. It will be no use to put you in a man's garb, for the audience will still know you.”

Meg regarded him with an expression he could not fathom. She seemed to be hiding something from him. No, she looked apprehensive. Women were such mysterious creatures.

“You have a fine, strong voice,” he said to encourage her and held out a page. “Will you also read the parts that have no players yet?”

Meg pressed her lips together. She looked almost angry. Was she unhappy that Violetta and not she was playing the queen? What had he done to offend her but ask her to read …?

Will smacked his forehead. That was it! Like Mack, she had never learned to read. He turned away to spare them both further embarrassment and plunged into his hero's speech.

Duty, duty, drew me, Antony, to Rome
,

While love did call me to my other home
,

Egypt, whose queen I made my heart's

sovereign
.

Will bit hard on the words “duty” and “Antony.” He
was
Antony. His duty was to pay his father's debt. Stratford was his Rome and London his Egypt, where he would pursue his true
love. A woman? No, a mistress who would not betray him: Poesy. To bring more feeling to his utterance, he thought of the Hathaway sisters and his own mistaken passion.

I made these wars for Cleopatra's sake
,

Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine
.

But she false-play'd my glory, betrayed me

Unto an enemy's triumph
.

Will motioned to Violetta and Overby and said in his own voice, “Now, Cleopatra, betray me. Turn to Caesar and exchange the document for the stone, which will be painted to signify a great jewel.”

“Why is Caesar the enemy?” demanded Overby.

“He becomes Antony's enemy but triumphs over him in battle. Therefore be content until the end.”

“What are my lines when I give her the jewel?”

“It is a dumb show. Therefore you do not speak, though you shall in another scene, I promise.” Will tried to be patient, knowing the entire production depended on Overby's goodwill.

Now came the scene of Antony's death. “Meg, you must play Eros, Antony's friend. I beg you to slay me, for I have been shamed by my defeat and by Cleopatra's betrayal. But you are unable to kill Antony because of the love you bear him. You say, ‘
Turn then from me your noble countenance
' and when I do, you stab yourself instead. Thus.”

Will demonstrated by falling to the floor and Meg did the same. Will turned toward her, knelt, and lifted her by the shoulders. To his surprise she was soft and yielded in his
grasp. Her hair brushed his face. He had to remind himself that she was a soldier.

“
Eros! You are nobler than myself, and with your sword teach me how to die
.” He was aware of Meg's startling blue eyes on him as he drew his sword. He fell on it and rolled to the side.

All the company gasped. Meg sat up and reached out a tentative hand.

“Lie down!” ordered Will. “
How not dead? I live? Guard, dispatch me!”
he shouted into the corner of the room.

“Enter now, Violetta. This line is your cue.” Will fell back, supporting himself on his elbow.
“See me, I am dying, Egypt, dying. Give me some wine and let me speak.”

Violetta rushed to him with a high-pitched cry.

“Not so!” Will rebuked her. “Cleopatra enters in a stately manner and only her face betrays her pain.”

Violetta twisted her features. She looked as if she were being tortured. Will sighed and bade her go on with her speech.

“Noblest of men, would you die?—”

Will interrupted her. “You are not asking me to die, you are begging me
not
to. Go on.”

“Have you no care of me? Shall I
…” She faltered.

“Abide in this dull world
,” Meg supplied, still lying down.

“I was getting there!” snapped Violetta.

Will groaned, then whispered, “The sound signifies that I, Antony, am now dead.”

“Right,” said Violetta and began to recite, “
O the crown of the earth does melt, and there is nothing left remarkable beneath the visiting moon.”

Will banged his head on the floor.

“What? Antony lives?” said Violetta.

“No, that was me, Will.” He sat up. “Violetta, you are a queen who has just seen her lover die a noble death. You should be overcome with awe and grief.”

“Does Caesar win the queen now that Antony is dead?” asked Overby.

Will ignored him and continued speaking to Violetta. “Remember with what passion Thisbe loved Pyramus? Cleopatra worships Antony a thousand times more.”

Job, who had been observing from a distance, jumped to his feet. “Fie! Here is Satan's dissembling stage! Such lewdness will damn you all,” he shouted. No one heeded him.

Violetta's mouth quivered. At last she was summoning the passion Will wanted to see.

“But I do not know if
I
do,” she said. “Love Antony, that is.”

Will felt like pulling his hair out. “That is not the point! You
feign
passion, as I do. We are players.” What had gotten into Violetta? She had been such an eager Thisbe, Will had almost believed her love was real.

“She's no Cleopatra, I'll warrant,” said Overby, shaking his head. “The audience will mock her and make me a laughingstock too. And then they'll go to Burbage's new playhouse instead.”

Burbage's playhouse
? Will pricked up his ears like a fox scenting an elusive prey. “Master Overby, did you say ‘Burbage'?”

Overby scowled. “I did. James Burbage. I don't know the fellow, but he owns a public playhouse in Shoreditch.”

His words were like twin lambs frolicking before that hungry, lucky fox.

“Burbage owns a playhouse?” Will repeated in amazement. Questions rushed into his mind:
What does it look like? Who
are the players? Might James Burbage lead him to William Burbage?
If so, there was yet hope, for Will was confident he could persuade Burbage to settle his father's debt and avoid the judge's sentence.

“Then we shall go there anon and see how a play ought to be performed!” he said, silently thanking Fortune for unexpectedly uniting his duty and his desire.

The name that so surprised Will also dispelled Meg's uncertain mood. She knew that Burbage was the one to whom the Shakespeares owed money. She welcomed the opportunity to visit the playhouse, for it was a diversion with larger purpose. She had not been so excited since she was a child and her parents took her to St. Bartholomew Fair to see the morris dancers with bells on their feet. She had never been to a proper play. Overby had explained that noblemen went to the queen's palace or Blackfriars, where the actors were boys and the Master of Revels decided what could be performed. But the idea of a playhouse that would admit anyone, rich or poor, was new. Two such places stood in Shoreditch, which was beyond the reach of the London authorities. Petty criminals abounded there and Meg felt it her duty to safeguard her companions, Overby, Violetta, and Will. Job would as soon go to hell as to a playhouse, and he made Dab stay at the inn with him.

Meg knew she would have to watch herself, measure her every movement. As Meg she hardly knew how to behave
outside the walls of the Boar's Head. She must not slip into Mack's voice and manner and thereby betray herself to Will. During the rehearsal she had been certain he was playing cat-and-mouse with her. Saying it would be no use to put her in man's clothing because the audience would still recognize her. Giving her a page to read and pretending to be disconcerted that she could not do so. She must give him no cause for suspicion on this outing. She would watch Violetta to learn how a lady should conduct herself.

Meg peered in the glass as she tried to plait her hair and weave in a green ribbon. Her face was flushed with the effort.

“Why, you look uncommonly pretty, Meg,” said Gwin. “If I didn't know better I'd swear you are sweet on that madman Shakespeare.”

Meg rolled her eyes. “It is Violetta who loves Will,” she said. “Therefore tease her.”

But she had a doubt about the ribbon. Was it a good idea to encourage Will to look closely at her?

“I dare not, for she will start leaking tears like a cracked pot,” murmured Gwin.

For the moment Violetta looked happy enough. She was wearing the blue damask skirt and the fine cloak, long since cleaned, in which she had arrived at the Boar's Head. She had gone nowhere since then for fear of being seen by her father or Thomas Valentine. Why was she now so eager to go to the playhouse? And why in their rehearsal had she spoken Cleopatra's lines like a wooden fencepost? Meg wondered how a man could tolerate any creature so inconstant and inscrutable as Violetta, however beautiful she was.

On the other hand everyone knew what to expect of her,
Long Meg. She was not changeable since she had stopped growing. But did she not spend some days masquerading as a man, changing her clothing and her manner and deceiving everyone about her? The more she persisted in her disguise, the more perilous it became and the more complicated was her life. How long could she keep it up?

And—she dared to ask herself—why must she?

But now was not the time for questions. She tossed a cloak borrowed from Gwin over her shoulders, fastened it with a brass brooch, and declared herself ready to go to the playhouse.

From Whitechapel the foursome passed by St. Botolph's outside Aldgate and the gun foundry. They followed the lane where a row of narrow houses faced the foul-smelling Houndsditch. Eager Will was in the lead; Meg and Violetta hurried after; and Overby lagged behind. Outside Bishopsgate they turned north toward Shoreditch. They passed Bethlehem Hospital, where the poor and those distracted from their wits lived. Houses grew more scattered, and between them Meg glimpsed fields crisscrossed by paths where walkers hastened, their heads bent against the wind.

Will paused to lift Violetta over a large puddle in the road. He took Meg's hand and she jumped across, feeling an energy from his grip the way lightning sometimes caused her skin to tingle. She thought he held her hand a moment longer than necessary.

“I wish your brother were along,” said Will.

“Am I such unpleasant company?” Meg realized her reply sounded coy. She was never coy. It must be the hair ribbon and the brooch that made her feel so different.

“I only meant that if I should encounter William Burbage, I need my lawyer to help me deal with him.”

“That may be unwise, if you mean ‘deal with him' the way my brother dealt with Roger Ruffneck—” Meg caught herself, remembering that Will had not seen her get the best of Roger in the cloisters. She contrived a small lie. “Jane told me that Mack robbed her lying husband and his lawyer and gave her all their money and jewels.”

“Zounds, what a hero your brother is! Did he spare me twenty-five crowns of it? That would solve all my troubles.”

“For shame, Will Shakespeare,” said Meg. “That was all Jane's fortune and none of your deserving.” She added, for she wanted to tell of Mack's triumph to someone, “Ask my brother to tell you the story when you see him again.”

“Aye, and in turn he shall hear how I almost shot a carter with that loose pistol he lent me! We were lucky to keep our souls in our bodies.”

Meg sighed. “Promise me you won't assault Burbage until later, for I do not wish to be run out of the house at the point of a sword before I have even seen the play.”