Love Disguised (20 page)

Will laughed. “I promise, dear Mistress Meg, for I long to see the play as much as you do.” He took her hand again, though the puddle in the road was behind them.

Dear Mistress Meg?
What words to savor! She let her hand rest in Will's. It would be rude to withdraw it. But if Violetta turned around and saw them she might fly into a jealous passion. Had Will purposely fallen behind and taken her hand? What nonsense her brain was capable of. And why must her face betray her by turning scarlet? She withdrew her hand.

“I hope the company is in need of another player,” Will
was saying. “I shall be content to perform any part, be it the hero's or the clown's, so long as I am in a
real
company.”

“Would you leave the Boar's Head?” Meg could not keep the disappointment from her voice. “And your play of Cleopatra undone?”

“No, I shall finish it and see it performed in a theater so full of people it will seem an entire world.” Will spread out his arms as if trying to embrace something vast that only he could see.

Meg had not realized the greatness of Will's ambition. It seemed to expand, filling the openness and heating the air between them like a flame. Meg relished the warmth. She loved the way Will's words made her feel as she held them in her mind. She did not want him to leave the Boar's Head.

The playhouse was easy to find. A colorful flag fluttered from a staff atop the thatched roof. The three-story timbered building, not quite square but not quite round either, was situated where the road and the paths through the fields converged. A painted signboard proclaimed it to be simply THE THEATRE.

“Keep your purses close,” warned Meg as she spotted a pickpocket. She intercepted his fleeting gaze, scowled, and squared her shoulders. He moved away. Meg reminded herself that she was not Mack, once a thief and lately Will's rowdy companion, nor was she Long Meg, keeper of order at the Boar's Head. She was just Meg going to a playhouse with her friends, and she must behave as such. She was not sure how to be simply herself.

With the others she paid her penny and entered the playhouse. The interior was a large yard strewn with sawdust
and open to the sky. A thatched roof covered the galleries and the stage, which was built at the level of a man's chest, enclosed beneath, and curtained at the back. It was a far cry from the stage at the Boar's Head that had been put up and taken down so many times it wobbled dangerously. A trio of musicians played the pipe, tabor, and drum. The firstcomers had already taken their places before the stage, planting their elbows on it as a mark of possession and beating time to the music.

The playgoers were as diverse a collection of humanity as Meg had ever seen in one place, including St. Paul's. There were housewives and gentlemen, shopkeepers, servants, apprentices, schoolboys, trulls and thieves, sturdy yeomen, merchants and men of fashion, and nobles in velvet and fur who made their way through the baser sort to the galleries above.

“Look, Meg,” said Will. “There is one of those foppish men I heard the preacher condemn. He called them ‘more fit for the playhouse than God's house.' ”

Meg followed his gaze to see a slender gallant with big-buckled boots. Lace cascaded from his doublet like a bush of full-blown roses, and a plume stirred in his cap like ripe grain in a field.

“He aims to outdo his mother, Dame Nature,” Meg said with a wry laugh.

“He?” said Will. “I think this hybrid creature is a woman who wishes herself a man. Are the features not soft and the shoulders slim?”

Meg was alarmed. Had Will ever stared at Mack with such suspicions?

“Does the chest show signs of a woman's twin wonders?” Will continued. “Which we men long to have, and that is why we constantly stare at women's bosoms.”

More amused than offended, Meg laughed. But she was eager to end this dangerous conversation. “It is certainly a young man, for the shadow over his lip is proof of a mustache,” she said, though she knew a smudge of ash could produce the same effect. She also wondered if this person was a woman, why she would dress to
attract
notice.

“Whether a man or woman, it is as eager to see a play as we are,” said Will. “Come, here is a good place to stand.”

The house was now almost full. Hawkers pressed their way through the crowd selling roasted nuts, fruits, and pomanders. These fragrances mingled with the earthier smells of sweat, wool, and dung trailed in from the streets. Meg was grateful to be so tall, for she could see over the heads of the other playgoers. Tiny Violetta, however, was at a disadvantage.

“I can't see anyone!” she wailed. “Even standing on my toes.” She seemed almost desperate. “Please, Master Overby, may we sit in the gallery?”

To Meg's surprise Overby dug in his purse again and paid a burly fellow for access to the gallery stairs. Moments later Meg found herself seated between Violetta and Will, overlooking the yard.

“I hope that was not Burbage,” said Will. “He did not look forgiving.”

Meg for her part was wondering about Violetta's strange behavior. She did not attempt to change seats with Meg so she could sit beside Will. And instead of being pleased with
her clear view of the stage, she commenced leaning forward and backward, craning her neck to see into the opposite galleries, even bending over the railing to peer among the groundlings.

“Do you have a burr in your bodice?” whispered Meg. “Something surely is pricking you.”

Violetta subsided onto the bench, but Meg could see her eyes still darting about as if she was looking for someone. Whom could she possibly know in all of London?

Will had bought an orange and as he peeled it, the scent reminded Meg of the night she had gone to the Boar's Head with Davy and Peter and a woman had offered her a bite of an orange. The same longing stirred in her again: the desire for a home, for sweetness on her tongue and laughter in her ears. She felt a nudge. Will held out a piece of the fruit. Meg could only stare at it and wonder how Will had known what she was dreaming of.

“Wake up. Take it,” he said, lifting her hand from her lap and placing the pungent fruit on her palm.

She brought the orange to her lips and bit it. Nothing had ever tasted so good. She licked her fingers and murmured with pleasure.

A fanfare sounded. Sweetness
and
joyful noise! A man came onstage and shouted what Meg guessed was the prologue. The audience quieted and the play began. It was about a goodwife named Gammer Gurton who lost her one and only needle while mending a pair of breeches for her servant Hodge. She drew the entire village into the trouble of finding it, and such slapping, tumbling, and rudeness ensued that the audience hooted with laughter.

“I cannot hear. What did he say?” Meg whispered to Will.

Will waved his hand. “No matter. The words are slight. The actions are what gives delight. I will have clowns in all my plays.”

But Meg could not laugh at the foolishness. It left her strangely saddened.

Will turned to her. “Don't you like Diccon the beggar?” he asked. “He is the cause of all the trouble, yet even he grins.”

Meg stared at the ragged player. “My father became a beggar,” she said softly. “And that was the beginning of all our troubles.” The words came to her lips and she made no attempt to hold them back. She didn't care if Will heard them.

In the next scene a drunken parson was mistaken for a thief and beaten bloody with a stick. The audience roared its approval and Will whistled through his fingers. Meg could not even smile.

“Come now,” Will said. “This is no tragedy.”

“Oh, but it is!” said Meg, blinking back tears. “Such a priest abused my mother. He was killed, as he deserved to be.” She could not admit that her mother was the killer. “And my father did not thrive by wickedness, like Diccon, but died despite his goodness.”

She closed her eyes. Sounds came to her as if from a great distance: Gammer Gurton's high, false voice, the stamping of feet in the galleries, Violetta giggling beside her. What had caused her to reveal her secret sorrow now—in the middle of a play—to Will Shakespeare of all people? Next would she throw off every stitch of clothing and confess to Will that she was her brother, Mack?

No. She would pretend she had said nothing. She opened her eyes again. “I like your plays much better, Will.”

He ignored the compliment. “Could you but laugh, would it heal the hurt?”

So he had heard every word! She felt herself redden, knowing his eyes were on her.

“I don't think so.”

“I bid you try it,” he said.

He looked so earnest and yet so lively, his face divided in halves, that Meg could not help smiling. It was not hard.

The servant was now running about the stage making farting sounds. Meg did not suppress a giggle.

“Eww!” said Violetta, grimacing.

“It's nothing but air!” Will said. “He has a bladder in his sleeve.”

Finally the lost needle was found in the very breeches Gammer Gurton had been sewing. When the constable slapped Hodge on his rump, driving the needle into his buttocks, and Hodge shot upward, cursing inventively, Meg truly laughed. She drew in her breath and released it into the air, where it dispersed like her secret, a brief story no more terrible than Gammer Gurton's lost needle.

She felt herself glowing with inner warmth. This was happiness. To be free of sorrow and secrets. To sit in a theater beside her friend Will Shakespeare, laughing together.

When the play ended Overby stood up and let out a loud, long fart. “Henceforth call me Hodge,” he said. Laughing, Will stumbled down the gallery stairs.

Violetta was not so amused or appreciative. “How will this teach me to play Cleopatra? There were no lovers and no one died.”

Will remembered the reason he had brought them and sighed. Indeed, what could such a light play, so lacking in poetry, teach them?

“It was almost a tragedy,” said Meg. “For the silly needle occasioned as much woe as a lost kingdom.”

“Almost a tragedy, yes,” said Will, gratefully seizing on her words. “A comedy is a tragedy averted by unexpected good fortune. That is our lesson.”

It was more complicated than that, Will knew. While watching Meg he had been surprised at how the simple matter of the play moved her. Was it possible that comedy as well as tragedy could touch the heart? That it could have a purpose beyond inducing laughter? Perhaps despite its exaggeration,
a comic tale could hit the truth like a hammer on the head of a nail. For this slight comedy had uncovered a part of Meg's soul, the sight of which affected Will also. A tender feeling mingled with his merriment, confusing him.

Overby was poking Will in the chest. “You must put a mad beggar and a farting clown in your Cleopatra play. Too much dying makes me melancholy.”

Will could barely hide his annoyance. “I will, and you shall play them both,” he said, though he had no intention of adding such ridiculous characters to his play. If he were around to finish it.

Mirth departed and dread settled over him. “I have some business and will return to the inn anon,” he said. “Come with me, Meg.”

Meg stepped to his side and Will felt a surge of confidence. There was no one—not even Mack—he would rather have with him for this meeting. Was it because she really was striking to behold?

“Sirrah!” he called to the burly fellow heading toward the stage. “Will you take me to Mr. Burbage?”

He nodded and Will and Meg followed him through a small door behind the stage. There the players were putting costumes and props into trunks. The boy who played Gammer Gurton doffed a nethergarment stuffed with bombast that gave him a woman's shape. Will wanted to linger and talk to him. More than that, he wanted to pull aside the curtain and stand on the stage and imagine what it would be like to perform there.

“Do you have business with me?” The peremptory voice startled Will. A man with a graying beard stood with one foot
on a bench, leaning on his knee. “I am James Burbage. I built this theater and manage this company.”

How like a god he looks! Creator of his own world
, thought Will.

“I commend the skill of your players and their pleasing performance,” he said, aware of sounding like a flatterer. “I am William Shakespeare, formerly of Stratford, now staging my own plays at the Boar's Head Inn.” This was an exaggeration, for Will knew that once he refused to put a madman and a clown in his new play he would be out of a job. “It is my ambition to be in a company such as yours.”

“You are the third fellow this week to ask me for work. The first one is sweeping garbage from the galleries and the other two I sent away.” Burbage brushed something from his knee.

“Tell him your true purpose before he is out of patience,” Meg whispered.

Will said that he was looking for William Burbage. He fully expected to be directed elsewhere when James replied, “He is my brother and a shareholder in this enterprise. William!”

Will fought the urge to run. Meg's hand on his arm restrained him.

A bald-pated man reeking of wine sauntered into the room. Will saw with relief that he was an ordinary sot, not the bugbear he had feared. Now was the moment to reason with him, to appeal for mercy and thereby avoid the dreaded sentencing. And yet he was loath to discuss his father's debt before James Burbage, the one man in London he wished to impress.

As soon as Will identified himself, William Burbage began to abuse the name of Shakespeare, calling Will's father a crooked cheater and a villainous varlet.

Will grew hot. His neck and forehead throbbed.

“He is as dangerous as a rabid dog,” Meg murmured, stiffening.

“Hold your peace, for this is not the Boar's Head,” Will whispered back.

“My father, like all men, has his faults,” said Will, striving to be conciliatory. He explained that his father had dispatched him with enough money to settle half the debt, but it had been stolen from him and he was unable to recover it. “Will you accept payment as I earn it?”