Mr. Shakespeare's Bastard (17 page)

Still, I tried. At least looking back from this distance I believe I tried.

Within a fortnight, however, this concern for my manners was left behind in the wake of a letter that briefly transformed Aunt Sarah into a state of excitement bordering by times on agreeableness. The letter was from her sister in London asking if she and her daughter might visit us for a few weeks in the summer to refresh themselves in the countryside. Aunt Sarah, who hadn’t seen Eliza since her wedding seventeen years before, was only too delighted to have them, and was soon occupied with planning for the visit, reminding me that her sister would expect proper accommodation. She had married well; her husband was a Frenchman, but a God-fearing man nonetheless with a prosperous milliner’s shop in Cheapside. I knew Philip Boyer’s shop was not in Cheapside but on Threadneedle Street, though I didn’t let on. From Mam’s story I knew a great deal more about the Boyers than did my aunt, and I liked having this knowledge and not sharing it with anyone, not even Uncle Jack.

There was much to do and my aunt soon learned that I could work well on my own, and so I settled into cleaning the house from bedroom to pantry: washing and airing bedclothes, polishing pewter and glassware, dusting tables and chairs and chests. In those final days before their arrival, I scrubbed the flagstones and spread fresh rushes across the floors so that the house smelled as clean and sweet as ever it had. My aunt favoured me with a muted “Well done, Aerlene,” adding that my labour spoke well for itself and a future life in service. She was already looking for a position on my behalf. Service was not an ambition I was eager for, but I supposed I deserved no better and would be living in someone else’s house by the end of the summer. Meanwhile I was curious and excited too about having these visitors from London.

On the June morning of their arrival, I was weeding the garden when I heard voices and the neighing of a horse. When I went around to the front, Eliza Boyer had dismounted and the two sisters were weeping into each other’s arms. A maidservant stood by a pony and held the reins of a packhorse laden with saddlebags. Where was Uncle Jack all this time? It must have been a weekday and he was at the shop. The visitors had spent the night at an inn in Oxford after two long days on the road and Eliza Boyer was complaining of the coarse language of the carriers, the many beggars underfoot and the heat and dust. All this while my eyes
were fixed on her daughter, who was still on her horse. I was disappointed at how pretty she was, with her fair skin protected from the sun by a broad hat, which she had removed to shake out her long reddish blonde hair.

She too was regarding me, for both of us had our stories about the other. This young beauty was once the squalling brat who could be appeased by no one but her father; this girl had once pinched and pulled Mam’s cheeks and nose at will. I was the base-born offspring of the woman who had once lived with them.

Small wonder, then, that with these inquiring looks exchanged, we decided on the instant to dislike each other.

M
Y SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY, AND
this evening a small gathering with gifts: a fine, bone-handled enlarging glass from Mr. Thwaites to increase my ease in reading; from Charlotte, a new book, which she handed to me, whispering, “The first has scarcely a dozen pages left unfilled”; a handsomely engraved pewter mug for my ale from Mr. Walter; from Mrs. Sproule, a woollen shawl knitted by her granddaughter; and from Emily, a brooch that likely will not last a wearing, for it is poorly made, bought no doubt from a peddler at her mother’s door. Still, it is the thought that matters, and besides, the girl has little money. I was grateful to them all.

There was cake and wine and ale, and everything might have been well had I not been suffering all day with the stone; a fiendish pain had me pacing my room from first light until late afternoon, when it abated somewhat,
allowing me to pass water. I kept this to myself as best I could and mostly listened to the talk at the table, which was on the harvest that will begin this week. Mr. Walter is hopeful of a good return and said with a laugh that this hot, dry weather is a benefit but will greatly deplete his store of ale, because the workers in this heat soon grow a thirst. Listening to him I thought of how the seasons swiftly pass, folding into one another with barely our noticing. Another harvest, and then the planting of winter wheat and the apples and medlars brought into the cellar. Soon Advent will be upon us, and then Christmas and another winter. And surely I am close to having used up my share of seasons. What then? Heaven? Hell? Nothing?

Mr. Thwaites was in Oxford this week and heard talk of how Cromwell is quite ill and Parliament worried with no successor named and Prince Charlie waiting in France with an army. That made me wonder if our Great Protector was also considering his share of seasons here on earth. I have heard that for all the blood on his hands, he is a pious fellow and so must be readying himself for what’s next.

This led me to reflect as I have from time to time on how my father faced his end. When he died, I was twenty-seven, and I knew nothing of his passing until five or six years later, when in Oxford at a performance of
King Lear
—at a courtyard inn in Cornmarket Street—I overheard two gentlemen speaking well of my father and
lamenting his death years before up in Stratford. In the last years of his life, my father had lived only forty miles away, and travelling from London he must have passed through our village on his way northward. Yet oddly enough, not once had I thought of him doing so; always I pictured him in London.

In the play I saw that Saturday afternoon, the old King laments the final separation from his beloved daughter with the terrible words

And what of the Prince, who leaves this world with only four plain words?
The rest is silence.

Was this what my father believed? Or were these only words spoken by characters—words that did not express at all what he thought of what comes after?

As he was leaving this evening, Mr. Thwaites took my hand and said what a great thing it was to reach the biblical three score years and ten, adding, “And you may reach further yet in years, Miss Ward.”

“Perhaps,” I said, “but does the psalmist not end that particular verse with the words ‘and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength, labour and
sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.’ But exactly where we fly, the psalmist doesn’t say.”

The rector laughed. “Why to God, of course, Miss Ward. Fear not, for in good time you shall go to your Heavenly Father who awaits you.”

Still, I wonder.

I
N MY BEDROOM ON
that first day, Marion Boyer pointed to the girl and said, “Her name is Margaret Brown and she is my maidservant.” The poor creature was as plain as her name. “If you wish,” said Marion, “I can instruct her to do your bidding as well, and if you find her work unsuitable you may beat her, but you must first ask my permission.”

“Why would I beat her?” I asked.

“Because,” said Marion, “she is a dull, forgetful girl who wants beating a good deal of the time.”

I looked at Margaret Brown, who was placing clothes in a chest which I had opened for her, and I told Marion that I didn’t think I would need a servant. I was used to looking after myself.

She smiled. “I thought as much. I am going down to see Mother now.”

After she left, I asked the girl how long she had been
working for the Boyer family. She looked at me as if she wasn’t sure how to answer. “Some time, Miss,” she said finally, but I could scarcely hear her. She was as timid as a spring hare and wouldn’t meet my eyes.

I asked her how she came to be employed.

“Please, Miss,” she said. “My mam brought me to the family when I was fourteen.”

I was surprised, for she looked no more than twelve. “And how old are you now?” I asked.

“I am sixteen, Miss,” she said.

I was not used to sharing a bed, and for the first week Marion and I said little to each other. Margaret Brown slept in the truckle bed where I used to lie during Mam’s illness. Near the end of that first week, however, Marion and her mother had an argument. I heard them in the downstairs hall and that night Marion lay beside me rigid with anger. Margaret Brown had gone to sleep and I could hear her shallow breathing in the summer night.

Suddenly Marion said aloud, “I hate my mother, but I love my father and I wish I were with him in London. He has a mistress there, but I don’t care. He never sleeps with my mother now. He is going to take me to Milan one day with him. He has promised. I hate it here and I wish I were home so I could go to dancing school with my friends. Our teacher is from Paris and is a friend of my father’s.”

All this was announced in the darkness as if she were
reciting the words to an unseen audience. I didn’t know what to say and so turned on my side and went to sleep.

The next day Marion asked me who lived in the great house at the edge of the village and whether we might walk by it together. She was afraid to go alone because of the dogs. That afternoon we walked by Easton House and, standing near the gate, looked down the avenue of elms, which then were so much smaller than they are today. Marion asked if anyone her age lived in the big grey house and I said no, only the squire, who was to be married soon. Marion was excited by this and asked if the bride-to-be was pretty, and I said she was, because I had seen her carriage many times passing through the village. This was true, for Mr. Walter’s mother was a beautiful young woman.

Marion decided she could tolerate me, though in her peevish humours she could be cruel and was given to outbursts of quarrelsome rage, while I in turn treated her with a cold reserve, which vexed and puzzled her. I would not rise to an argument, though sometimes in conversation I would use words she didn’t understand. “Augment,” I would say. “It means to make greater, Marion. To increase.” I was happy enough to see that this provoked her wonderfully, the colour rising in her pretty throat.

One rainy afternoon I suggested that we read a play together. This was rash, even dangerous, for if she told her mother, Aunt Sarah would soon find out and demand to
know about the playbooks. But I had a good hiding place for them in the rafters of the house and no torture yet devised would force me to reveal its whereabouts. Though it might prove troublesome, I could not resist the urge to show how well I read to this pampered girl from London with her maidservant and her dancing lessons. I guessed that reading was unlikely to be one of her strengths and I was right.

I chose
Romeo and Juliet
and, without revealing how the story ended, outlined the plot and assigned the roles, giving myself Romeo, Mercutio, the Nurse and the Friar. I told Marion she could be Juliet, who was the most desirable girl in Verona. Marion liked the idea of being a beautiful girl in Italy, where her father bought his hats. I expected all this to go badly and it did; Marion could scarcely get through a line without fumbling a word or marring its thought.

“If they do see me, they will murder me.”

“No, no, Marion. She is thinking of her lover, not herself. She fears that danger will befall Romeo if he is seen at her balcony, and so says,
If they do see thee they will murder thee.”

“My beauty is as boundless as the sea.”

“No, the word is
bounty. My bounty is as boundless as the sea.”

“Bondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud, / Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies, / And make her hairy tongue more hoarse than mine.”

“Airy
tongue, Marion. The word is
airy,
for Echo’s voice resounds throughout the air as any schoolchild knows. Do not speak of hairy tongues, for it is foolishness itself.”

“This,” she cried angrily, “is the silliest stuff that ever I’ve read.”

“Hardly read, I should say.
Misread
is the truer word.”

“It’s a silly pastime anyway, reading plays. Mother says only fools and whores attend playhouses.”

“But gentlemen from the Inns of Court as well,” I said. “And courtiers from Whitehall who favour velvet caps for themselves and laces and ribbons for their ladies.”

Marion looked at me closely. “How would you know?”

“My mother once told me. She worked in your father’s shop. She often heard the customers talking of the playhouses.”

Marion could not disguise her smirk. “Your mother told you, did she? I thought she was my nursemaid.”

“She was for a time, and said you were insufferable. Mewling and wailing over nothing. But she also worked in your father’s shop.”

“When she wasn’t at the playhouse, I suppose,” said Marion.

Flushed with triumph I had overspent my purse, and so between us that afternoon I called it but a draw. Yet I had other matters on my mind that summer: my fourteenth
birthday was fast approaching and I knew my aunt was eager to be rid of me.

One July evening, perhaps a fortnight before Lammastide, I was summoned to the parlour, where she and my uncle were waiting. Uncle Jack looked grave and worried and Aunt Sarah was forcing a smile, and I knew I would hear something adverse. My aunt told me she had been speaking to a Mr. Trethwick, who was looking for a servant girl. He lived in a farmhouse some three miles beyond Woodstock on the Hensington Road with his elderly sister, who was feeble-minded. He had spoken to Aunt Sarah after church about me, wondering if I were yet of age for service. When told that I soon would be, Mr. Trethwick said that though I was small, I looked a good strong girl who could help in the household, since his sister was growing difficult to manage with age. I had seen them in church on Sunday mornings, the sister nodding and smiling as she held on to her brother’s arm. John Trethwick was in his late middle years, a severe-looking man with a squint.