Love's Will (24 page)

“What
will you do?”

“I
don’t know.”

“Pay
him back in his own coin. Settle for revenge. Take a lover.”

Anne
stared at him incredulously. “Oh, a fine sensible idea, exactly what I’d expect of a man. Who in the wide world would want me? No, I have a better idea. Harry, my lord, seduce that woman.”

4
.

The door was latched but unbolted. It was the usual arrangement. In went William, smelling his mistress’s perfume in the air. He heard her voice in the bedroom and was pulling off his clothes as he went to her. She was sitting up in bed, naked, her back to him. She didn’t turn to greet him. She often didn’t. Talk was for later, in the act of love, for the lewd demands and praise of lust. He dropped his doublet and breeches on the floor and slid up behind her, admiring the lovely lines of her back, sliding his hands around to clasp her breasts.

And
saw the man under her.

A
man whose auburn-gold hair spread across the mattress, unpillowed, for the pillows were underneath his hips. A man whose long, slender fingers clasped the woman’s hips, moving her upon his shaft. William had seen that hair spread like this so many times, had felt those elegant fingers clasping his body.

“Harry!”
Standing like a fool in his shirt, his engorged prick wilting, his heart breaking.

And
Marian-Maria-Mara turned her head and smiled at him and said, “There is room enough for three, Will.”

“No.”
But he had never seen other people coupling, and he began to rise again.

“Yes,”
she said and reached for him. This was the nadir of lust, the expense of spirit in a waste of shame, moving onto that bed, knowing he wanted to and sliding down beside them, touching them where he could, kissing where and whom he could and taking his mistress where and how he could, and taking Harry, being taken, all in a tangle of limbs and hands and mouths. Hating it all but powerless to resist.

Afterwards
he was the first to leave the bed. He dressed in silence. The woman was sleeping. Anyone else would have pretended to be, out of shame, but he knew she had simply fallen asleep like a child after play. Harry lay there, watching him.

“Was
this the first time, Harry?”

“No.”
With something close to pity he said, “I had only to ask, Will.”

“I’m
sure. I loved you, Harry.”

“I
know it. And I love you. It’s not in the past, for me. When all’s said and done, she’s only a woman. A jade for common hire.” He stretched out his hand, and to his own surprise William took it, desperate for the warm, familiar clasp.

“I
love you still,” he said uncertainly and kissed the boy’s lips. “But for now this is farewell.”

“Make
it au revoir. For we do love each other, my dear.”

“I
know. Just now I wish it were otherwise,” said William, and left.

He
went home. There was nowhere else to go. Home. To his wife. To Anne. To his children. To Anne. He resolved to tell her everything and beg her for forgiveness. Anne would understand. She always did.

But
at home he found Edmund sitting alone in the parlour, eating bread and cheese. Seeing his brother, he stood up and strode angrily across the room.

“If
you’re looking for your wife, William, she is not here.”

“What?”

“You dare ask ‘what’ in that mincing tone!” Edmund gripped him by the collar of his shirt. He was shaking with rage, and William noted, bemused, that the boy was now as tall as he. “You rutting swine. And you with a wife like Anne!”

“Where
is she?”

Edmund
hit him very hard across the face and dropped him contemptuously into a chair. “She’s gone home. And who can blame her? She’s found out, William. She knows what half London’s been trying to keep from her. About your mistress.”

“Oh
Christ. Oh Christ.” William sank his head in his hands, trying not to cry.

“She
left a letter,” Edmund said. “Which is more than I would have done in her place. You piece of shit, Will. She was crying – or no, she was trying not to cry. So as not to upset the children. Your children.”

“Where’s
this letter?”

“In
your room, I believe. I’m going out now. I only waited in to have the pleasure of telling you. I’ve nowhere else to live yet, but I daresay I can lodge with one of the other players. I think I prefer not to stay under your roof. Convenient, eh? You can bring your tart here whenever you like now. Fuck her in Anne’s bed, why don’t you?”

“No.
No. Edmund, don’t go. Come back.” But he was speaking to a closed door and an empty room.

He
sat there for a long time then wearily climbed the stairs, throwing off his clothes as he went. In the bedroom he poured cold water into the basin and washed. Then, naked, he went slowly across the room to the table under the window. Anne’s letter lay there, folded twice and with his name written across it. Beside it were all the poems from his lock-box. Anne had laid them out in order, from the first he had ever written Harry, to the latest, the one written two days ago when he’d thought he knew was misery and self-hatred were.

At
last he unfolded Anne’s letter. She spelt by guess, but her message was admirably clear. She knew of his affair with that dark woman and could no longer bear to live with him. She had gone home to Stratford, taking the children, who knew and must know nothing of why she went. She would prefer not to see him while he was in thrall to that woman. Divorce was impossible, but they could live apart. She trusted him to send money for the children. If he wished to come home it must be on her terms now.

She
had signed it,
Anne Shakspere
.

Part
Seven

1596

1
.

Anne had gambled, and as spring became summer she knew she had lost. She never heard from William. He sent a gift for Susanna’s thirteenth birthday in May, and money, but no letter, not even a verbal message. Night after night Anne lay awake, knowing she should have gone about things differently. William loved her as best he could, and she should have been content with that. She should have turned a blind eye to his affair with that woman. She should have stayed and waited for it to end. After all, she had swallowed his affair with Harry, so why should she choke on his loving a woman? But that was exactly the point. His love for Harry might have had its element of desire but it was outside the realm of man-woman dealings. That woman was a rival, as Harry was not. She had made Will into a stranger. All I have, Anne told herself, is my dignity and our children. But the better part of dignity might have been to ignore the whole matter. I didn’t have to make enquiries about her. I didn’t have to force the issue. And if it comes down to mere adultery, well, there are worse sins. Yet it seemed important to draw a line and say, “This I will not take.”

And
in clinging to her dignity – or was it only hurt? – she had lost her husband. Probably he was with that woman all the time now. Perhaps they shared a house as well as a bed. Perhaps he and Harry shared her. Perhaps he and Harry laughed together as Harry revealed their little plot. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

She
had no one to confide in. Her friends were William’s friends too. And she had not quite realised until now how much she had changed in these last few years. Stratford was home, and she loved it, but it was a little, provincial country town and few of its inhabitants had ever been more than five miles away. Or wanted to. Here in Stratford, the people Anne had met and known in London were merely names, unreal people held in awe for their position and wealth. Government and politics were mystifying things that went on far away, affecting ordinary people only if a monarch died or there was war. Here, people rose at dawn and went to bed at nightfall, and if that was the life Anne had once accepted without question, now it was different. She was different. She was a woman of the world now.

Oh,
there was fornication, adultery, drunkenness, feuding, in Stratford. London held no patents on sin. Country men raped their daughters or sisters and, in one notorious local case, their sheep. They sodomised each other. Women beat and hurt their children. But after London, even these vices lacked a certain spice. Yet spice was something Anne felt she could do without. She had surfeited on spice, and look where it had got her. Back where she started, but with the aftertaste of wilder things on her tongue. And with no husband.

People
gossiped about that. Walking to market, going to visit friends, Anne saw people murmuring behind their hands, looking slyly. Thought she was so grand, going off to London, and don’t tell me she’s back only because her husband’s busy with the players. I always knew, I always said. Gives herself airs now she’s got money, but what’s a married woman doing home without a husband. No smoke without fire, you know. Yet these same people deferred to her because she had money and her husband was famous in London and had even met the Queen.

Yet
when all was said and done Stratford was home. Probably she’d never go to London again, or anywhere else. Probably William would never come back. So, then, she had better start making something of life in Stratford.

She
spoke to Hamnet’s schoolmasters and, although they were unused to dealing with a woman, they knew enough of her husband’s connections to go warily with her. Yes, they agreed, Hamnet was a clever boy who must go to university. He was eleven now, time to start making such plans. Money was not a difficulty? Just so. Oxford, then, in four years’ time and, meanwhile, he must press on with his Greek.

The
girls? Well, they might not make grand marriages here in Stratford, but dreams of their marrying above their class were just that, dreams. So long as they married good men. Preferably not actors. Judith was happier at home, she had her grandparents and cousins, her uncles and aunts and the farm, and as long as she had Hamnet she was content. That meant problems ahead, perhaps, when Hamnet went away to university, but Anne would cross that bridge when she came to it. Susanna pined for her father but she seemed not to miss London.

And
as for me, Anne thought, I have my friends, I have my family. And now I will have a house.

She
was careful not to ask around too openly on her own behalf. Women ran households and farms and businesses – a woman ran the country – but a woman doing business of this kind, no. So, discreetly, she asked a few questions, she kept her ears and eyes open. And one evening, when she’d been home two months, Joan knocked on her bedroom door and came in with a sparkle in her eyes.

“News!
Maybe only gossip, but you should ask around. Anne, they say New Place is to be sold.”

Anne
sat up and put her book aside. “What have you heard?”

“Only
that, that it’s a chance. People were talking in the market today. You always liked New Place, didn’t you.” Perching on the bed, she sat on Anne’s book. “Sorry,” she said vaguely, turning it over and losing Anne’s place. Then looking at in curiosity, she said, “This is Will’s?” She could read a little, enough for everyday life, but the idea of sitting down and reading a book bewildered her. “The Rape of... of...”

“Of
Lucrece. A classical tale. Yes, Will wrote it.”

“Oh.
I thought it was Venus he wrote of.”

“That
was his first long poem, the one that made his name. This one came the next year and many people think it the finer.”

“Do
you?”

“I’m
not sure. I don’t even know why I was reading it, Joan. New Place? Yes, I always liked it.” Anne clasped her hands around her knees, thinking. The largest house in Stratford. The grandest house. But, “I’d heard it’s in a bad way?”

“Aye,
so they say. It’s been neglected. But perhaps that means Will would get it cheap?”

“Perhaps.
But if it needs a great deal of work it’d be a poor bargain. And there have been murders there. Still…” She had always shared the management of their money. It was her thrift and careful budgeting, as much as William’s determination never to go the way of his father, that saw them with money in hand. She had a hundred pounds free and clear of coming expenses. William was making money hand over fist these days and, together or apart, he would never see his wife and children need for anything. And she deserved a house. Yes. The best house possible. William, too, had talked longingly of New Place.

“Do
you think we could go and see it? New Place. Let’s not tell anyone just yet, but we could look.”

“Let’s.”
Joan gave her a companionable grin. “After all, there’s nothing says we can’t look. And Anne.” Her smile faded into a look of mild discomfort. “I wondered… say no, of course, be frank with me… but I wondered… if you and Will had a house of your own, could I live with you?”

Afraid
of a blunt rejection, afraid she’d gone too far, she wouldn’t meet Anne’s eyes. But Anne was thinking, Why not? She loved Joan. They were friends. The children adored her. And, the only girl in that family of boys, Joan had never had much of a life. She’d known little interest or affection from her mother, who frankly preferred her sons.

“Of
course,” she said roundly. “I’d like it if you did. It would please me to have another woman in the house, a companion.”

“You
wouldn’t mind? You wouldn’t find me dull?”

“Never.”
Anne took Joan’s hand. “I’ve never found you dull, how can you say it?”

“Well,
you’re different now. You’re... you’re...”

“Lonely,”
Anne said, the word bursting out before she realised.

“Ah.
I have wondered. Things aren’t right between you and Will, are they?”

“No.
That is, I’m not sure.” She would have given anything to spill out the whole story, but Joan was William’s sister, and too innocent to hear this story.

“I’ve
seen Will’s plays performed,” Joan said tentatively. “And sometimes I’ve wondered how much is made up out of his head and how much is, well, experience.”

“Oh,
some of each, Joan, some of each.”

Blushing,
Joan stretched her own imagination to the limits. “He’s had another woman? Sorry, that is not something I should ask, is it. I know things are different in London, but…”

“I
really can’t tell you about it, Joan. Let’s say you’re not far off the mark. I think he fell in love.”

“Men
do that, I suppose. Even when they’re married.” Joan fiddled with the ends of her hair. “No wonder you’re unhappy. Is that why you left London this time?”

“It
is. Perhaps I’m making too much of what happened. Perhaps it was nothing but a passing temptation.”

“Perhaps,”
Joan agreed, clearly relieved. “He loves you, Anne, I know that.”

“Yes
he does, in his way. And why did you say that just now, ‘Men do that, even when they’re married’? Why did you say it like that? Joan?” For her sister-in-law had bent her face down against her knees, her shoulders shaking. “Joan? Is there a man? Someone’s hurt you? Let you down? Ah, come here, love, tell me.” She pulled the younger woman against her shoulder, stroking her hair and wiping away the miserable tears.

“Yes,”
Joan said. “There’s a man.”

“Oh
God, he’s not married, is he?”

“No.
No, he’s… You won’t tell Mother?”

“Of
course not,” said Anne, by now really worried. “Joan, are you pregnant? Is there real trouble?”

“Nothing
like that. We’ve never... I would not. It’s just that I love him and he’s gone away.”

“Forever?
He doesn’t care for you?”

“I
don’t know. No, not forever. Probably not forever. I don’t know if he cares for me. But I love him, Anne.”

“Who
is he?”

“William.”
She stopped to blow her nose. Anne stared at her. William? Well, the world was full of Williams. Too full.

“You
don’t mean my brother?” She nearly added “Or yours?” but stopped herself in time. Things like that went on in the country, but they decidedly did not happen to people like the Shaksperes.

“Willie
Hart.” Joan blew her nose again then seemed to see Anne’s complete incomprehension. “I forgot you hadn’t met him. He was here last year. He was here through the winter. He’s a hatter.”

“And?”

“And he has fair hair and blue eyes and he’s the handsomest man I ever saw.”

Shying
away from the thought of handsome men with blue eyes and fair hair, Anne asked for more information. Through Joan’s alternating tears and rhapsodies she gathered that Master Hart had drifted to Stratford a year or so ago looking for work, had found it, lost it, drifted off again. Leaving Joan broken-hearted behind him. No, they’d never talked of marriage – of anything to the point, so far as Anne could discover – but there had been something. He had said he would come back. He was off to London to look for work. (London again, thought Anne.) But he would rather live in the country. He had said he would come back. He sounded a good-natured, likeable, useless fellow, and Anne looked down an uncomfortably clear vista of years of supporting Joan and this handsome drifter, and the no doubt enormous horde of children they would have.

“I
can see why you love him,” she lied. “But you can make a good marriage, Joan. You’re a handsome girl, your parents have position, Will has money and he’s well-known. Is this passing hatter suitable for you?”

“I’m
twenty-seven this year and no one’s ever offered to marry me. And I love Willie Hart. Though Mother and Father would say what you said. They’d say he’s not good enough for me. But he’s the only man I’ve ever wanted to marry. Oh, Anne, what am I to do?”

“Wait
and see if he comes back. If he does, well, we’ll see. If he doesn’t, then face it, Joan, he doesn’t care for you.”

“I
suppose so,” Joan said sadly. “But he said he’d come back at the end of summer or write to me. Mother met him, you know, and she was spiteful about him. Called him a wastrel. He’s not, Anne, she only said that because she knew I want him. So I thought if I told you… I thought, when Will comes home next, if I told him…”

Oh
yes, thought Anne, he’s going to be enchanted at the thought of his pretty, carefully reared sister throwing herself away on some itinerant hatter with, no doubt, not a penny to his name. And at the thought of finding a dowry for Joan to marry this fellow. But, tactfully, she told Joan that talking to William about it was certainly the thing to do, but to put it carefully. “Not that I know when he’ll next come home,” she couldn’t keep from adding.

“Anne,
I’m sorry, I’d forgotten, talking of myself. Anne, is it really that bad? He might not come back?”