Mr. Shakespeare's Bastard (30 page)

“And are you working now on something else?” I asked.

Perhaps it was the wine, but he looked genuinely amused by me now. “You
are
interested in my work, are you not?”

“I am, sir, yes.”

“And appear to study it.”

“I do.”

“I am writing about a Moor.”

“A Moor, sir?”

“Yes,” he said, staring away again at the fire. “I am halfway finished, or thereabouts.”

“What will the play be called, sir?” I asked.

“I don’t yet know.”

“I’m sure it will be a triumph.”

Turning his face from the fire, he looked at me intently. “Perhaps, perhaps not. I must be getting back now.”

“Of course, and thank you for the meal.”

“You are leaving the city this week?”

“I am, sir,” I said. “My uncle is arranging transport for me.”

When the boy opened the door again, my father asked for the reckoning and then said to me, “It’s as well you go before more rain makes the roads too mucky. This northerly wind will bring fair weather for a few days, but you should dress warmly, as it will be cold on the highway this time of year.”

After counting out the coins for dinner, he stood up and fastened his cloak with a handsome pin. “There has been plague all summer in the Low Countries,” he said. “I was told a Dutch ship was stayed by the authorities at Gravesend in August, and already there have been plague deaths in Yarmouth. It’s coming this way and in all likelihood we’ll see it by spring. It’s one reason I moved up here. It’s crowded in Southwark and the pestilence readily thrives there. But I’ll leave the city too when times demand it. They’ll close the playhouses, and anyway, London is no place to abide the plague. You are well to be off to the countryside. Now, let us do battle with that stubborn northerly, and mind it doesn’t blow you down the street. You’re not very big.”

“I’ll be fine, sir. I’m stronger than I appear.”

“I well believe it,” he said, “and it seems you have a good mind too.”

On the street the signs over shops and taverns were creaking in the turbulent air, but the bursts of sunlight between the clouds were pleasing and I felt excited and
joyful at having met and talked to my father at last, each syllable of his compliment resounding in my ears.

Standing in front of the Mitre he said, “Your mother was a woman of sweet temperament, and I am sorry she was taken from you so early in your life. I lost my son six years ago this August past, and I mourn him yet.”

He put on the tall hat again and held it firmly in place with one hand. Looking fully at me one more time he said, “It appears you are well tended by your relatives. I wish you a good and long life, child, and I am glad we met.”

Turning then, he walked away and I called after him, “And long life to you, sir, as well. I hope your play about the Moor is well attended.” But already he was hurrying up Milk Street holding his hat, the black cloak flapping in the wind.

Looking back across all the years, I wonder now if I was as joyful as I have described, for not once had he acknowledged our kinship. Not once had he called me his daughter, though I could tell he knew I was, and perhaps that is enough.

I went by St. Paul’s yard one last time. I didn’t expect to see Scarfe there and he wasn’t. Gideon Parrot was busy carrying armfuls of books from the tables into the shop. There were few customers about and when he returned I asked him how matters stood, and what of Scarfe and his father? Were they all still in Whitechapel? I told him that if
he thought I was prying, it would be the last time, because I was leaving the city in a day or two.

Parrot looked tired and worried and told me he hadn’t seen Robin in over a fortnight. “He has no sense at all,” whispered Parrot. “He owes to many and has so freely stolen here and in Paternoster too that he dare not show his face. He is either in hiding or in the river. When I return to that horrid place in the evenings, his father is sitting there wringing his bad hand and weeping. I do what I can for him, and my master is trying to find a place for the old man in one of the almshouses for the winter. It’s not good for him in that room all day. He can’t make a fire and we’ve been visited too by rough people. One took me by the throat the other night and might have put an end to me had the other not restrained him. They want to know of Robin’s whereabouts, but I said I could tell them nothing in God’s truth, and they went away. But they will return, I have no doubt. I may tell you, girl, that I fear every day for my life.” He looked back towards the shop. “You’d best be going now. I have work to do and I can’t afford to lose my position.”

Walking back to Threadneedle Street I thought of how people enter our lives and then vanish to leave us wondering: I thought of Margaret Brown and the hunted look of her as she stood by the blacksmith’s wife that day in August before fleeing into the night and that storm. Where was she now? Or was she anywhere but in a grave?
And what of Scarfe? Now wandering or hiding in the great muddle of humanity around me that was London. Perhaps as she left the city Mam too wondered what would become of her friend Mary Pinder, lying ill in a trugging-house in Shoreditch. These were all unfinished stories in our lives.

A day or two later, I left London riding in the company of a half-dozen carriers with their packhorses. So miserable had been my first experience that I had thought never to ride a horse again, but I had no choice and this time the journey proved uneventful. The weather stayed fair but cold, and my new cloak kept me warm. I also wore one of Boyer’s school caps, and some men in the company thought me a boy, which I didn’t bother to dispute. I shared a room with three of them at an inn at Wycombe, sleeping in my cloak, which fell below my skirt and apron. Their snoring and farting kept me awake most of the night, but lying there I didn’t mind; it was only one night in my life, and I had met my father and would soon see my uncle.

After reaching Oxford in the afternoon of the second day, I walked the eight miles to Woodstock, arriving at my uncle’s shop as darkness was falling and he was closing for the day. He was as overjoyed to see me as I was him, and as in former days, we walked together down the hill towards Worsley and our new house, now roofed and habitable though not entirely finished within. My aunt Sarah received me civilly enough, but she looked unwell, and Uncle Jack told me she wasn’t yet in full
spirits; the destruction of her home had mortified her will. She was, he said, in many ways easier to live with, but not the woman she was, and he missed that part of her.

My interview with Miss Nash was successful and the week following I was in her employ as maidservant and companion. She was old and frail, the only daughter of an Oxford clergyman, quiet and moderately tempered. She ate the same meal twice a day, at seven o’clock in the morning and at seven o’clock in the evening, a bowl of wheaten porridge boiled in goat’s milk to which I added a cup of Malmsey. Each Saturday evening I bathed her, for she wished to be clean-smelling at Sunday service.

Miss Nash was a tiny creature with soft, wrinkled skin, and as winter came on with its dampness and cold, she asked me to share her bed for warmth. We lay together, youth and age, listening to the wind, feeling the house cool as we waited for sleep; sometimes she talked of her life in Oxford fifty years before, during the reign of Queen Mary, the Papist. Her father had witnessed the burning of the Protestant martyrs Ridley and Latimer, and Miss Nash recalled how shaken he was upon returning home that day to tell her about it. I had read about their deaths in Foxe’s book as a child, and found it passing strange to be listening to someone whose father had been there to witness it.

Each Saturday at noon Miss Nash gave me two shillings for my week’s work and out of that I had to buy my food. On
Sunday afternoons, I was free to visit my aunt and uncle, who always provided me with an extra loaf, a plate of cold meat, a pudding, or a few apples to supplement my meals. It was, I suppose, a tolerable life, though I can’t say that I thought much about whether it was or not; it was just life as I imagined I was supposed to live it. It ended one February morning when I heard a thump and, coming from the pantry saw Miss Nash on the floor where she had toppled from her stool chair. There was still breath rattling in her, and I ran at once to my uncle’s shop, and he returned with me, but the old woman was dead.

For several weeks, I stayed in the new house in Worsley and then one evening in March, Uncle Jack came home to say he had been talking with Mrs. Easton about me. She was expecting her first-born by lambing time, and so was in need of a nursemaid. Already she was conducting interviews with local girls. My uncle said he had spoken to her about my service with Miss Nash, but more importantly about my reading, which greatly interested Mrs. Easton, since reading was uncommon among servants.

I came to Easton House for my interview on Lady Day, 25 March 1603. The day before, the old Queen had died and all churches throughout the land, it was said, were tolling knells. As my uncle and I walked down the avenue of elm trees that spring morning, we could hear the solemn note of St. Cuthbert’s bell. It was raining, and I worried about my hair being tousled, but if it was, Mrs. Easton took little
notice, putting me at ease at once by asking gently about my experience with Miss Nash and my duties in her house. I told her what I had done, confessing to no skill whatsoever in needlework, which made her laugh in praise of my forthrightness. She asked if I had any experience in the care of children and would I enjoy looking after them. She told me she wanted her children to be surrounded by books at an early age. She would have much to do running the household and needed a reliable guide to help with their education. Did I understand that? I said I did and told her I had yet little experience with children, but I would learn their humours and inclinations and prove a good nursemaid to them. I loved reading stories aloud, and when the children got older I would teach them their letters and tell them stories to nourish their imaginations. I liked Mrs. Easton so much and wanted so badly to work for her that when she chose a passage from the Bible for me to read, I began but haltingly; yet as I read, the words themselves appeared to calm me and soon I was reading with such a confident air that Mrs. Easton laughed and raised a palm.

“That will do nicely, Aerlene. Thank you,” she said.

I waited then outside the hall while she conferred with my uncle, and when he opened the door, I saw from his smile that my life at Easton House was about to begin.

T
HIS MORNING WHEN
I finished and Charlotte had written the last words, she came to my chair and embraced me. As she knelt, I breathed in her fresh, clean smell, but I can no longer mark her features; like everything else now, they float before me in this watery grey light. But I could detect a sadness in her. I know she has been worrying about me this week past, for I have been dropsical and feverish, my legs now badly swollen. Emily helps me up the stairs and undresses me as she would a child. Charlotte holds my hand at bedtime.

Last evening I fell asleep early and have now awakened from a dream of Nicky. We were in the light carriage, returning from the auction at Harrington Hall. My copy of the Folio was covered in cloth and safely in my lap. A summer evening and Nicholas was only
eighteen. As his switch deftly touched the little mare, she quickened her pace and we moved briskly along the road. I was telling Nicky a story and he was laughing at its foolery and we

Among the many estimable biographies of Shakespeare available, I found Stephen Greenblatt’s
Will in the World
[USA, 1004] and Michael Wood’s
Shakespeare [
USA, 1003] not only refreshingly concise, but also engaging and informative. To help navigate the streets of old London, I referred to John Stow’s magisterial
A Survey of London Written in the Year 1598
[UK, 1005]. For a guide to how life might have been lived on those streets, Lisa Picard’s
Elizabeth’s London
[UK, 1004] was both helpful and entertaining.
The Diary of Ralph Josselin, 1616-1683,
edited by Alan Macfarlane [UK, 1976], provided interesting glimpses into rural life in seventeenth-century England.