Love's Will
Authors: Meredith Whitford
Love’s Will
Meredith Whitford
© Meredith Whitford 2013
Meredith Whitford has asserted h
er rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published 2010 by BeWrite Books, as Shakespeare’s Will.
This edition published 2013 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
For
my family, especially Patrick and Anji, and in memory of my birth mother
Portia:
“… Am I yourself
But,
as it were, in sort or limitation,
To
keep with you at meals, comfort your bed,
And
talk to you sometimes? Dwell I but in the suburbs
Of
your good pleasure? If it be no more,
Portia
is Brutus’ harlot, not his wife.”
Julius Caesar
, Act 2, Scene 1.
Table of Contents
Part
One
1582
1.
The
clock’s gilded hand jerked forward. Another minute gone. Another thirty and the bell would ring for end of market, eleven o’clock and home for dinner. The crowds were thinning; most people shopped earlier in the day, when it was cooler. Other stalls were closing up, packing away their goods. He dared not follow suit, for his father was strict and every penny counted, dare not miss a sale. But under the counter, propped open, Ovid took him far from Stratford’s Thursday market, took him, as he stroked the leather binding, back to Lancashire and earnings to buy books, then as he sank into the words, into the world he wanted to be his.
But
into that world came duty, trade, a woman saying, “…in fact selling gloves?”
He
looked up, the vendor’s patter ready on his tongue. Saw grey eyes, dark hair under a straw hat, an amused smile. A familiar face.
“Anne.
Mistress Hathaway.”
“I
wondered if you would remember me.”
“Of
course, why should I not? I’ve not been away that long. Two years.”
“I
had heard you were back. You should have come to call on us.”
“My
father keeps me busy. As you see.”
“Yet
somehow I forced my way through the eager crowds.”
“You’re
right, trade is poor today. But just the same…”
“Well,
cheer up, it’s about to improve a little, for although I am glad to see you again, I really do need to buy gloves.”
“Mistress,
you shall have gloves; the finest in all England, the finest in the known world. Cheveril? Deerskin? Pigskin? Your size, madam, and the colour you prefer? For everyday or something finer?”
“Brisk
and business-like; that’s the way. The finest in Stratford will do. I don’t know my size, and I want the gloves for best. When did you return?”
“Last week.”
“And
bored already?”
“And
bored already. Give me your hand.”
She
had already taken off her own gloves. He took her hand, stroking her fingers straight, the finger and thumb of his right hand encircling her wrist. When they were children he had often clasped her hand to gain her attention for his chatter or to keep up with her as they walked. This, now, was a different touch. She was a farmer’s daughter, a country woman, but hers was no housewife’s hand, red and scarred and rough from work. Of course, the Hathaways were well-to-do. Their daughters didn’t labour in the fields and Anne could afford the rosewater he smelt on her skin. He liked the trusting way her small, sun-browned hand lay in his.
She
was looking at him oddly, the beginning of a frown pulling her dark brows together. Quickly he smoothed a glove onto her hand.
“See
how sweetly it fits, how smoothly, how…”
“Fittingly?”
That made him laugh. “You are very poetic for a glover.”
“But
‘glover’ is very close to ‘lover’, and must a lover not be poetic, Mistress?”
“You
may well be a lover, sir, but to me you are a glover.”
“I
would be both, lady.”
“Maybe,
but I am in the market for gloves, not love.”
“Give
me first refusal when you do shop for love, Mistress.”
“But
I do not look to purchase love.”
“Nay,
I give it freely.”
“So
if ‘love’ is close to ‘glove’, you must give me the gloves freely – which is just as well, for I do not require crimson gloves, and nor can I afford them.”
“But
the crimson becomes you. With your hair, your eyes. Yes, crimson. Try the other glove, if you will not try my love.”
Resistless,
laughing, she tried the other glove. Cheveril was the most expensive leather, and crimson gloves… “Your father knows his business when he leaves you in charge. I will take them. But I must have some plainer ones as well. Yes, those.”
“Will
you have them sent? May I bear them like a gift to you?”
“No,
I will bear them: or at least I’ll wear them. Best wrap up the crimson ones.” As he did so and she thrust them deep into her basket, she said, “Where is it you’ve been, William? In the north, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.
Lancashire.”
“Beautiful?”
“If you like moss. No – it has its own kind of beauty, much wilder than here. Fewer people.”
“At least you’ve travelled. I’ve been no more than five miles from Stratford all my life.”
“And
would you like to?”
“Very
much. Doubt I ever will, though; ordinary women like me don’t. I would like to see London.”
“Tell
you a secret – and it really is a secret – I was supposed to come straight home from Lancashire but I told some lies, fudged the time I was to leave, and I went to London. I had a whole week there.”
“Oh,”
she sighed, “and is it marvellous? Beautiful?”
“Full
of marvels, and beautiful in lots of ways. Also crowded, dirty, noisy. And I loved it.”
As
if by way of punctuation the bell rang for the close of market. And, prompt as conscience, came the voice of Anne’s stepmother at her shoulder.
“So
there you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you, we’ll be late home. Have you bought the cascara for Tom’s constipation?”
“Yes,
Mother.”
“And
the flannel?”
“Yes,
Mother.”
“Then
come along.”
“I
must pay for my gloves. I’ll catch you up.” Putting the money on the counter she said quickly, softly to William, “Will you come to visit us? You’re always welcome. Please do.”
“I
would like that. I haven’t forgotten the way.”
“Good.”
Mrs Hathaway was waiting, staring back at her. “I must go.”
“Yes.
Goodbye.”
They
were barely out of earshot when Anne’s stepmother said, “You’ll get yourself a name as a trollop, flirting and giggling with shopkeepers’ apprentices like that.”
“I
wasn’t flirting, I was buying gloves. Though I may have laughed once or twice. And he’s no apprentice, he’s Mr Shakspere’s eldest son.”
“Oh!”
You could tell Joan Hathaway’s mood by the way she walked. Now she twitched her bum like a cross cat. “And of course you and the Shaksperes are on such close terms.”
“Father
was friendly with Mr Shakspere, as you know. He came to Father’s funeral.”
“But
wouldn’t stay for so much as the usual drink.”
Anne
said nothing. The fact was that in marrying Anne’s father, Joan Hathaway had risen a little above her station in life. Her father had been a hired man on one of the Earl of Warwick’s estates, so a prosperous widower of some standing, whose family had for many years farmed ninety leasehold acres, was quite a catch for her. Of course her own people were respectable, but they had no position, no roots going generations-deep into the life and management of Warwickshire’s community.
These
things counted in the country, and people like the Shaksperes, the mercantile class that ran the towns and inherited their land, were courteous to her as Mrs Richard Hathaway, but no more. Even after thirteen years she didn’t quite speak the language, as it were, she didn’t know her way through the web of relationships and feuds and alliances. Anne’s own mother had called Mrs Shakspere ‘Mary’ and talked of childhood days at Wilmcote and traced connections through third cousins who had married second cousins’ in-laws; Joan Hathaway curtseyed when they met and called her Mrs Shakspere.
After
a few more steps: “Not that the Shaksperes are so grand these days.” Twitch, twitch. “They say he’s losing money hand over fist… Still… Large family, isn’t it?”
“Five
children.”
“How
old?”
“William
would be eighteen now, Gilbert sixteen or so. Joan’s about thirteen, Richard a few years younger. Then there is the little boy, Edmund; he’s two.” Well used to her stepmother’s mental processes, such as they were, Anne knew she was matching these ages with those of her own four children. John Shakspere might be having money troubles now, but things could change, and he had been an alderman and Bailiff of Stratford, he owned that big house on Henley Street besides other land, he had a finger in many pies, and his wife had been an Arden. A Shakspere son of ten, a Hathaway daughter of eight. Come to that, a Shakspere son of two, a Hathaway daughter of six… It was never too soon to plan.
“Didn’t
they have to send that William boy away?”
“Someone
found him work in the country, tutoring a gentleman’s sons.”
“Hmm.
Well, if he’s only eighteen there’s no use your flirting with him. Not at your age.”
“No,
Mother.” What had happened to change this woman from a kind stepmother, a friend, into this carping, sour-tempered nag? Well, grief, of course, the uncertain future as a widow… and yet… That night last year when Anne’s father had drawn his last breath, and they’d known it for the last, Anne and her stepmother had turned instinctively into each other’s arms for comfort, united as if they were truly mother and daughter. They’d wept together, and could begin the business of death only because they had each other.
Then,
next day, it was as if they were barely acquainted. Anne suspected, and disliked herself for the suspicion, that this first storm of emotion had been only shock, that her stepmother had felt no more than a workaday fondness for her husband, and resented others’ real grief, or took it as a reproach.
Whatever
the cause, within three months Anne’s brother Bartholomew had married and moved twenty miles away, her sister Catherine had married the first man who asked her, and Anne was trapped with a woman who valued her only as child-minder, maid, housekeeper. A woman who seemed to dislike her. A woman who was inclining more and more to Puritanism. And no doubt that was Anne’s present offence: that she’d laughed and enjoyed herself with the glover’s son. Remembering their silly banter, she almost laughed aloud; just in time she turned it into a cough and a murmur about the dusty road.
And
if the glover’s son remembers, Anne thought, and if he comes to visit Grafton, I might have someone I can talk to.
By the time William closed up the market stall, returned the goods to the shop and put the meagre takings into his father’s strongbox, it was midday. He was hungry; breakfast, at five had been only the heel of a loaf and some argumentative cheese. As he went from the grubby, dusty hall to the empty dining parlour, then to the kitchen, he allowed himself a memory of this house before he’d gone away. Then, he would have come home to the smells of cleanliness and good food cooking, to the cheerful sounds of a family gathering for dinner. The table would have been laid, the silver and pewter would have gleamed, there would have been flowers in every room. His mother would have come to meet him with a smile and a glad but casual kiss.
Now,
nothing. No one about. In the kitchen there were no signs of dinner, or not unless you counted a bowl of apple slices in water and a dubious piece of cooked beef on the table. He looked at this, and realised it was crawling with maggots. Feeling sick, he took it on the tip of his knife and went to the back yard to throw it to the dog.
“Oh,
William, you’re back.”
Comfortable
in the sunshine, where rosebushes surrounded a tended patch of grass, his mother sat sprawled in a cushioned chair, suckling the two-year-old Edmund. The dreaming adoration with which she watched the child faded to indifference as she glanced up at her eldest son.
“Yes,
I’m –”
“Good
takings today?”
“Not
bad.”
Edmund
was trying to wriggle away from his mother. A sweet-natured child for all his mother’s spoiling, Edmund had been enchanted, not alarmed, to have an unknown brother come into his life. Perhaps it was only the charm of novelty, but William was his favourite person. “Will. See Will.”
“No,
my pet…”
“See
Will!” He battered at his mother’s clutching hands.
“He’s
growing spoilt, Mother,” said William, wishing she would fasten her dress.
“You
are jealous.”
“No.”
As flatly as she had spoken, he repudiated the statement. Two when his brother Gilbert was born, William could not remember the halcyon time when he had been the only child and longed-for son, all the more precious because two earlier children had died. After Gilbert, baby had followed baby at a steady pace, and only when Anne, the short-lived Anne, was born had William noticed that with each birth the present children ceased to matter to their mother. Perhaps he had been jealous of Gilbert; of the others, no, because he loved his siblings and even a toddler knew that babies must take up a lot of time. But after Richard, born when William was eight, there had been no more babies, and once he was breeched the four children had basked equally in their parents’ attention.