Love Disguised (8 page)

Meg glanced at Violetta and wondered if she was as innocent as she seemed.

“Pishery-pashery!” said Gwin. “There cannot be a wicked bone in her body if she is cousin to Meg. I'm already fond of her.”

“You've always been soft,” grumbled Overby.

“And you're hard as a stone,” said Gwin with a low growl.

Meg heard the sounds of wet kissing. Blushing, she quickly steered Violetta outside.

“Speaking of stones,” Violetta said, “why do you have them in your pocket?”

Meg was caught off guard. Had Violetta reached into her skirt while they were in the kitchen? Was she a thief after all?

“Don't ask questions and you won't be told lies,” she said, glowering. It was the line she used on overly curious patrons of the Boar's Head. “Away with you.”

Violetta looked stricken as she turned and ran inside.

The stones pulled Meg's shift tight over her shoulders, tugged at her waist, and weighed her down. Her legs ached with bruises. How foolish she was for thinking she could keep herself from growing taller! She wondered if her mother had put stones in her pocket before she disappeared into the Thames. Had she changed her mind at the last moment and struggled to be free of the muddy depths? Meg shuddered. She reached under her skirt, tore the pockets from her shift, and dropped the stones among the cobbles.

With a lightness in her step she went indoors, found the thrush's nest, and tucked it under the eaves outside her window, hoping the bird would return and lay her eggs there.

Violetta had to share Meg's room, for Master Overby would not spare a chamber for which he might earn two shillings a night. She was so small she took up very little space. Gwin sewed her a simple worsted dress and a coif to cover her hair.

“Neither my father nor Thomas would recognize me now,” Violetta announced to Meg, pleased with her disguise. She made Meg promise to tell no one—not even Gwin—the real reason she was at the Boar's Head.

Violetta behaved less like a servant and more like a lady feigning humble circumstances. “What a variety of folk I shall meet living at an inn!” she exclaimed. “Scholars and pilgrims, simple men and great ones. Everyone comes to London, do they not? And they must sleep and eat somewhere.”

Meg scoffed at her innocence. “You will see great men at the Boar's Head only when poor players pretend to be kings for our entertainment.”

Violetta's eyes widened. “Father says players are wicked men. I fear to meet one.”

“I think you would fear to meet a dragonfly,” said Meg,
though she considered Violetta rather courageous to leave her father and come to London alone.

In practical matters Violetta was completely unskilled, having done no work more demanding than embroidery. The first time Meg told her to sweep the floor she said, “How shall I? For the chairs and tables are on it!”

“If you wish to discourage your suitor, let him see you trying to keep house,” said Meg. “He would go choose a wife who knows how to use a broom.”

She showed Violetta how to sweep around chairs and tables and gather the dirt into a pile. This took far longer than if Meg had done the work herself. Thoroughly vexed, she led Violetta to the innyard and gave her a bucket of water and a brush. She gestured to the expanse of dusty cobbles and said, “Tomorrow there is to be a play, so you must scour every stone.”

Violetta knelt down, brush in hand. She was so meek, Meg felt a bit guilty. But she went back inside and from time to time peered out a window to note her progress. Violetta was slow at the task but diligent.

“God's pittikins, what are you doing?” The high-pitched voice belonged to Gwin. “Get up, you silly, simple girl. Meg, come anon!”

Meg had never seen her mistress so red-faced or felt the sting of her words.

“You ramping cat! A beastly thing it is to play tricks on my poor Violetta.”

“I never thought she would do it,” said Meg, pinching her lips to hide a smile. A small area of the dusty innyard gleamed. Violetta stood by, wet, begrimed, and expressionless.

Gwin snapped a wet cloth at Meg. “Begone, rumpscuttle,” she said almost gently.

“Surely you knew it was a jest,” Meg said as she passed Violetta. “Only a fool would try to scrub a yard full of stones. Why didn't you refuse?”

Violetta looked at her and said, “You may be strong and clever, but you do not know the art of making friends.” She spoke calmly and with no rancor.

Abashed, Meg could only stammer. “I … I've never had a friend. One of my own sex, anyway.” Peter and Davy hardly counted as friends.

“Now you do,” said Violetta. She grasped Meg's hand.

Meg could not speak for fear she would cry.

Violetta nodded toward the circle of shining cobblestones. “If you had only helped me, we could have had the entire yard clean by nightfall.”

Past the lump in Meg's throat, mirth tumbled out. She began to giggle and Violetta joined in with her own silvery laugh.

Although she was clumsy with a broom, Violetta had a knack for knowing victuals and drink. She could distinguish varieties of ale by their taste and knew malmsey from canary wine simply by the smell. She remembered what dish every guest had ordered. Moreover, she was small enough to slip between the crowded tables. Meg understood how Thomas Valentine had fallen in love with her. She smiled so agreeably that every man with eyes to see was smitten by her. But her judgment of wine was better than her judgment of men.

One day soon after Violetta's arrival, Meg found her in the lap of a frequent visitor to the Boar's Head, a lout wearing an oversized ruff around his neck. Meg marched up and leaned on his table with both hands.

“I don't like your familiar manner with my friend,” she said.

“Go to, Long Meg! I favor this wench and she favors me.” His wet mouth leered.

Meg's muscles tensed with the desire to strike him. “Unhand her, Roger, or I'll knock your soused head right off that dinnerplate you're wearing.” She was referring to the large ruff around his neck.

In reply Roger squeezed Violetta's arm, making her cry.

Meg's hand shot out and grabbed his ruff. Her other hand seized his doublet, which startled him so that he released Violetta and let Meg pull him to his feet. His chair crashed to the floor.

“Don't tear my ruff,” he pleaded. “It cost me six shillings.”

Meg hauled him outside, dimly aware of the laughter and the wide-eyed stares that followed her. Roger's drunkenness was to her advantage. She easily tore the ruff from his neck and ground it underfoot. He drew his sword and she raised her long leg, strong as a stave, and kicked it from his hand, whereupon he stumbled away cursing.

When she returned carrying his sword, the patrons cheered and pounded the tables, crying, “There's a wench! You stowed him, Long Meg!”

Meg found Violetta sitting in their room with her arms wrapped around her knees.

“Why did you do that?” she said, frowning.

“To start a riot, of course,” said Meg irritably.

“You embarrassed me.”

“No, I saved you from shame.” She set the sword upright in a corner. “And justly repaid a villain's rude mockery.”

“
You
wronged
him
,” insisted Violetta. “He only asked me to lean closer and speak directly in his ear. And by some mischance I fell into his lap. I was about to get up again.”

Meg sighed. “Why is it that beauty and common sense seldom keep company in the same person?”

Violetta thrust out her chin. “I think you are jealous that the gentleman favored me.”

Meg snorted. “Gentleman? If he is a gentleman I am Elizabeth, Queen of all England! No, that was Roger Ruffneck, a notorious villain. He has a wife and babe at home. And, 'tis reported, more than one bastard child.” She was satisfied to see Violetta quake. “I advise you to be in less haste to find a husband.”

Chastened, Violetta rubbed her arm where Roger Ruffneck's fingers had left a darkening bruise.

Violetta remained irrepressible, like grass that springs upright after being flattened by rain. Only days after Meg threw Roger Ruffneck from the Boar's Head, Violetta bounded up to her. “O Meg, yonder sits the fairest young man ever! He hails from the town of Straight Forward Uneven.”

Meg topped off one pitcher of ale and started another. “He lies. I have never heard of such a place. Didn't I warn you, you'll find no fit husband here?”

“This one is not married, of that I am certain. I heard him swear to his companions, ‘By my name, Will Shake-his-beard,
I love no woman.' I dislike that surname. But he does have a beard, though it is not long enough to shake even when he speaks.” Violetta tugged Meg's hand. “Come and see. I'll be sworn he is not a rogue.”

Meg looked askance at her. “Nay, he sounds more like a clown. Does he have a bauble topped by a bell that rings when he says something foolish?”

Not wanting her friend to fall into bad company again, Meg took a pitcher of ale and went to judge the newcomer for herself. She found a country-bred fellow holding forth, a goodly youth with wavy dark hair, a high forehead, and a trim beard. He was flanked by two companions, dandies bedecked with ruffs, rings, and feathers.

Meg felt her grip weaken and the pitcher start to slip.

One of the dandies had a crooked nose and his busy fingers tapped the table. The other held out his cup and smiled at her, showing a black cavity where his front teeth used to be.

Meg's pitcher crashed to the floor.

Will had hired a horse and left Stratford as fast as the spavined creature permitted him. Twenty-five crowns were tucked safely in his boot, and he carried the Burbage contracts, the court summons, and three pairs of gloves to barter for favors. The two-day journey took him eastward to Warwick then to Daventry. In Towcester a pair of gloves bought him supper amidst a lively company, a quantity of ale, and a bed that spun beneath him all night. In the morning he had a pounding head and a confused memory of having kissed more than one wench. With so many pretty girls in England, it would not be hard to forget the Hathaway sisters. He rode through Brick Hill, Dunstable, and Barnet on a thoroughfare crowded with horses, carts, and foot traffic bound for the city of his dreams.

Will was feeling older than his eighteen years, a man of the world, until he climbed the last hill before London and saw the city for the first time. A veritable forest of close-set rooftops, pierced at intervals by church towers, stretched from east to west for a considerable distance. A wall with towers and crenelations bound the city on three sides, and
the watery Thames made a fourth boundary. Like a vine sending out shoots, the city unfurled beyond the walls and over the rolling land. Thoroughfares lined with buildings reached out from the city in all directions, and smaller roads crisscrossed one another and meandered over fields. How in a place so vast, Will wondered, would he ever find employment? Where would he begin to look for William Burbage and Thomas Greene, the lawyer?

These misgivings almost made him turn homeward until he considered the troubles he was fleeing. He left the old horse with a dealer and pocketed the few shillings that were returned to him. At the statue of a griffin he paid his toll and passed through Aldersgate. He was in London! At once he was jostled from all sides and was glad he had taken precautions against pickpockets. With no fear of being robbed, he let the crowd carry him along into the widest street he had ever seen. He asked what it was called and was told “Cheapside.” Indeed it was a thoroughfare given over to the buying and selling of everything imaginable. As far as Will's eye could see were stalls and carts heaped with fragrant bread, onions, apples, butter and cheese, and caged chickens and piglets whose bleating and squawking mingled with the cries of “Roasted ribs!” “Buy my hot pies!” “Three for a penny!” His rumbling stomach urged him to buy a pie, which he washed down with a cup of Rhenish wine. He wandered by stalls stuffed with bolts of woolen cloth, turkey carpets, pewter, ironware, candles, and shoes enough for every pair of feet in Stratford. So many diverse folk he had not seen in all his life: not only common housewives, tradespeople, and tattered beggars, but also proud merchants, noblemen in silks and
velvet, and foreigners in outlandish clothes. The buildings on either side of him rose three, four, even five stories. Not even the guildhall in Stratford was built so fine and tall. He had paused before the shop of a goldsmith and was gaping at the carved cherubs tinted with gold when he realized someone was addressing him.

“Good day, fellow traveler. Did we not dine together at the inn at Chipping Norton?” The speaker was a man dressed in a plain cloak with the dust of the road on his shoes.

“No, we have never met, sir,” said Will.

“You were not too soused to remember me.” The fellow sounded hurt but he smiled. “Tom Treadwell is my name; I have forgot yours.”