Leon Garfield's Shakespeare Stories

by Leon Garfield

  “Lady Beatrice,” offered Don Pedro, “I will get you one.”

  “I would rather have one of your father’s getting,” said she, with a smile.

  “Will you have me, lady?” proposed Don Pedro, gallantly.

  “No, my lord, unless I might have another for working-days. Your Grace is too costly to wear every day.”

  Don Pedro laughed. “You were born in a merry hour!” he declared.

  “No, sure, my lord, my mother cried,” returned Beatrice gravely, “but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born.” She turned to Claudio and Hero, and, with a cheerful, “Cousins, God give you joy!” she departed.

  Don Pedro gazed after her. “By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady,” he observed with some admiration. Then he smiled, and murmured softly, “She were an excellent wife for Benedick.”

  Stark amazement greeted his proposal; but Don Pedro was not to be put off. Having made one match by means of false appearances, he was determined to try his hand at another. “I will,” said he, “undertake one of Hercules’ labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection th’ one with th’ other.”

  Eagerly he begged the others to assist him, and, when they agreed, he beckoned them close, and explained his plan . . .

  Even as Don Pedro and his friends plotted to bring two haters into love by means of false appearances, Don John and his confederate, Borachio, were plotting to bring two lovers into hate; and by the same means. “Go you to the Prince, your brother,” Borachio advised his scowling master, “tell him that he has wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero.”

  “What proof shall I make of that?” asked Don John, wondering how so innocent a lady might be satisfactorily maligned.

  “Proof enough to misuse the Prince,” promised Borachio, “to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue?”

  At the prospect of such widespread misery, Don John’s gloomy face brightened into a smile, and he listened keenly as his companion continued.

  It turned out that Borachio, that practised slipper into shadows and corners, had slipped his slithery way into the affections of Margaret, the Lady Hero’s waiting gentlewoman. “I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night,” he murmured, with a knowing look, “appoint her to look out at her lady’s chamber-window.”

  “What life is in that, to be the death of this marriage?” demanded Don John, mightily puzzled.

  “Go then,” Borachio bade his master, “draw Don Pedro and Claudio alone. Tell them that Hero loves me. They will scarcely believe this without trial. Offer them instances, to see me at her chamber-window, hear me call Margaret Hero; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding—for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent—and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero’s disloyalty that jealousy shall be called assurance, and all the preparation overthrown.”

  As he listened, Don John’s smile grew broader and broader. His cup was full to overflowing as he foresaw the ruin of his enemies’ happiness.

  The day was warm and sunny, but Benedick’s mood was overcast as he walked in Leonato’s garden, brooding on the fall of that fine soldier Claudio into the unmanly folly of love. Suddenly he spied his sadly altered friend, all quilted and flounced like a lady’s cushion, approaching with Don Pedro and Leonato, his future father-in-law. Doubtless their talk was all of weddings. With a mutter of disgust, Benedick vanished inside a leafy arbour, and prayed to God he’d not been seen.

  “See you where Benedick hath hid himself?” whispered Don Pedro.

  “O, very well, my lord,” came the soft reply; and the three friends halted.

  “Leonato,” said Don Pedro loudly, “what was it you told me of today, that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick?”

  In the arbour, a twig cracked, convulsively; then silence.

  “I did never think that lady would have loved any man,” said Claudio.

  “Maybe she doth but counterfeit?” suggested Don Pedro.

  “O God! Counterfeit?” exclaimed Leonato. “There was never counterfeit of passion, came so near the life of passion as she discovers it!”

  All marvelled at this secret love for so strange an object. “You amaze me,” declared Don Pedro, with his back to the arbour, “I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick?”

  “No,” sighed Leonato, “and swears she never will. That’s her torment.”

  “ ’Tis true indeed,” confirmed Claudio, “so your daughter says. ‘Shall I,’ says she, ‘that have so oft encountered him with scorn, write to him that I love him?’ ”

  “She’ll be up twenty times a night,” said Leonato, his white beard wagging vigorously, “and there will she sit in her smock till she hath writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us all.”

  “Then down upon her knees she falls,” cried Claudio, taking up the tale and, with broad strokes, enriching it most wonderfully, “weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses: ‘O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!’ ”

  The three sighed together, as if overcome by the pitiable picture that Claudio had painted. Said Don Pedro, gravely, “It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it.”

  “To what end?” said Claudio sadly. “He would make but a sport of it, and torment the poor lady worse.”

  The three gentlemen sighed again. It seemed a hopeless case. The poor lady dared not reveal her love, for fear of its being spurned; and so must always wear her mask of cold disdain to hide her aching heart.

  Don Pedro made a last effort. “Shall we go seek Benedick,” he pleaded, “and tell him of her love?”

  Claudio shook his head. “Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good counsel.”

  “Nay, that’s impossible,” said Leonato, “she may wear her heart out first,” and the three gentlemen, with faces as long as sermons, went in to dinner.

  The arbour trembled, and out came Benedick; but a very different Benedick from the one who’d gone in. “This can be no trick,” he whispered, gazing after the three whose words had struck him to the very heart. “They have the truth of this from Hero.” Gently, he plucked off a beetle that had been holidaying on his neck and set it tenderly upon its way to join, on uncounted hurrying feet, its lady in the green.

  As if by a thunderbolt, all his notions had been overthrown, and he was consumed with love and tenderness for the pining Beatrice, and shame for himself. “I have railed so long against marriage,” he remembered uncomfortably, “but doth not the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.”

  As he stood, conversing with his newly-awakened heart, the lady herself came out of the mansion and approached him briskly. “I do spy some marks of love in her,” he whispered, seeing her, for the first time, with a lover’s eye, which was unsupported by any evidence.

  “Against my will,” said she, coldly, “I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.”

  “Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains,” said he, gazing at her with warmth enough to melt a stone.

  But Beatrice was not stone, and was not melted. “I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me,” said she disdainfully. “If it had been painful, I would not have come,” and away she went.

  Benedick gazed after her, frowningly. Then his brow cleared. “Ha!” he cried, in a sudden flash of understanding. “ ‘Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner’—there’s a double meaning in that. ‘I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me’—that’s as much as to say, ‘Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks’. If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain!”


  He smiled happily, as his lover’s wit, like his lover’s eye, divined meanings unsupported by the evidence.

  Beatrice was in the devil of a hurry. She had heard from Margaret, Hero’s gentlewoman, that Hero and Ursula, another of her women, were in the garden, talking about her; and such was the nature of their talk that Margaret had felt it to be her womanly duty to tell Beatrice of it.

  Scornfully, Beatrice had declared that she was not interested in idle gossip; but no sooner had Margaret gone, than she’d rushed out into the garden, fearful of losing a single word. Bending low, she sped behind hedge and bush, until, with a flurry of taffeta and a flash of eager eyes, she vanished inside the very arbour that was still warm from Benedick. And only just in time. Even as she hid herself in leafy obscurity, Hero and Ursula approached, deep in conversation.

  At first they were murmuring, almost whispering, and she could hear nothing; then, as if by Providence, their idle feet led them close enough to the arbour for every word to be plainly overheard. And what words they were! As she crouched in breathless silence, with every insect in creation making her its park, she heard the impossible, the unbelievable, the undreamed-of-truth! Benedick loved her!

  “But are you sure?” asked Ursula; and Hero, whose innocent heart would never have entertained a lie, nodded her head. “So says the Prince and my new-trothed lord.”

  “And did they bid you tell her of it, madam?” asked Ursula.

  They did indeed, but Hero, that interfering minx, had advised against it.

  “Why did you so? Doth not the gentleman deserve as full as fortunate a bed as ever Beatrice shall couch upon?”

  There was a certain measure of truth in this, which Hero readily conceded; it was Beatrice herself who was to blame. “Nature never framed a woman’s heart,” said the wretched girl, “of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice. She cannot love, she is so self-endeared.”

  “Sure I think so,” said Ursula, feebly agreeing with her mistress.

  It seemed that the idle, gossiping pair of mischief-makers were acting only to spare Benedick the pain of mockery and scorn. “Therefore let Benedick, like covered fire, consume away in sighs, waste inwardly. It were a better death than die with mocks,” said Hero solemnly, and added, with horrible aptness as Beatrice suffered under the delicate legs of an inquisitive spider, “which is as bad as die with tickling!” It were best that she went to Benedick and told him some harmless lies about her cousin. “One doth not know,” said she, “how much an ill word may empoison liking.”

  “O, do not do your cousin such a wrong,” pleaded Ursula. “She cannot be so much without true judgement as to refuse so rare a gentleman as Signior Benedick!”

  “He is the only man of Italy,” admitted Hero, then showed her own lack of judgement by adding, “always excepted my dear Claudio.”

  But Ursula had the better eye. “Signior Benedick,” said she, “for shape, for bearing, argument and valour, goes foremost in report through Italy!”

  Beatrice, in her concealment, agreed with all her heart; and when the talkers had wandered away, she came out of the arbour in a leafy, crumpled dream. “What fire is in mine ears?” she marvelled. “Can this be true? Stand I condemned for pride and scorn so much? Contempt, farewell, and maiden pride, adieu! Benedick, love on, I will requite thee!”

  As Beatrice stood, dazed with the sudden onslaught of love, Hero and Ursula cautiously observed her from afar. “We have caught her, madam,” whispered Ursula.

  “If it prove so,” whispered back Hero, “then loving goes by haps: some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps!”

  It was the day before the wedding of Claudio and Hero, and all was cheerfulness in Leonato’s house. There was a strong smell of perfume in the air. It was coming from Benedick. He was a changed man. Gone was his warlike leather: the lilies of the field were not arrayed with half his glory. Gone was his beard, and it was as if an angel, not a ram, had been caught in that thicket, as a smooth young face gazed out with all a lover’s melancholy.

  “Gallants,” he sighed to his friends, “I am not as I have been.”

  “Methinks you are sadder,” agreed Leonato; and Claudio said, “I hope he be in love.” But Don Pedro shook his head. “If he be sad,” said he, “he wants money.”

  “I have the toothache,” said Benedick, casting a bitter look at his unfeeling companions. He approached Leonato. “Old signior, walk aside with me,” he murmured, “I have studied eight or nine wise words to speak to you, which these hobby-horses must not hear.” And with a lofty glance at the others, he drew Leonato into another room.

  “For my life,” declared Don Pedro, “to break with him about Beatrice!” The Prince had accomplished his labour of Hercules; he had indeed brought Beatrice and Benedick into a mountain of affection, the one with the other.

  As Don Pedro and Claudio were congratulating themselves on the success of their stratagem, a dark and gloomy presence entered the room. It was Don John.

  “My lord and brother,” said he, “I would speak with you.”

  Don Pedro frowned. “In private?”

  “If it please you, yet Count Claudio may hear, for what I would speak of concerns him.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  For answer, Don John turned his grim face to Claudio. “Means your lordship to be married tomorrow?”

  “You know he does,” said Don Pedro impatiently.

  “If there be any impediment,” said Claudio, “I pray you discover it.”

  “I came hither to tell you,” said Don John, as if what he was about to reveal was causing him great distress, “the lady is disloyal.”

  Claudio stared. “Who, Hero?” he said incredulously, and was prepared to laugh. The notion was preposterous.

  “Even she—Leonato’s Hero, your Hero, every man’s Hero,” said Don John, his distress increasing.

  Claudio grew pale. Don John was not the man for jesting. He was not a man who talked idly. “Disloyal?” whispered Claudio, his new-found happiness trembling.

  “The word is too good to paint out her wickedness,” said Don John, harshly. “Go but with me tonight, you shall see her chamber-window entered, even the night before her wedding day.”

  Claudio turned to Don Pedro. “May this be so?” he pleaded.

  “I will not think it,” said Don Pedro; but the voice lacked its old assurance.

  “If you will follow me,” murmured Don John, “I will show you enough.”

  With that, he left the room. Claudio and Don Pedro stared at one another. They were suddenly filled with uncertainty. Don Pedro’s plots had ended; Don John’s was just beginning.

  While Messina slept, the lives, the property and good name of its citizens reposed, for safe keeping, in the capable hands of its sagacious constable, Dogberry. A fine man, a large man, portly and solemn, who, when he gazed in his mirror, perceived a man of importance, a man to be admired. He had a companion in office, one Verges, a worthy enough fellow, but alas! a little past his prime. In a word, he was old; but in matters of intellect, he was a mere child beside Dogberry.

  “Are you good men and true?” demanded Dogberry, peering severely at the line of watchmen, whose eyes, ears, and very noses were weeping in the drizzling dark.

  They were indeed, so Constable Dogberry gave them their instructions for guarding the peace of Messina’s night. They were to go about their business quietly, to wake no one, and to meddle with no vileness, such as thieves . . .

  “If we know him to be a thief,” asked one, timidly, “shall we not lay hands on him?”

  This was a hard one; and Verges saw Dogberry’s noble brow furrowed in thought. Then it cleared. “Truly by your office you may,” he pronounced, “but I think they that touch pitch will be defiled. The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is to let him show himself what he is, and steal out of your company.”

  There was no putting Dogberry down. “One word more, honest neighbours,” said he, most earnestly. “I pray you watch a
bout Signior Leonato’s door, for the wedding being there tomorrow, there is a great coil tonight.” Then, bestowing the lantern on the worthiest of the men before him, warned, “Be vigitant, I beseech you!” Vigitant! He was a rare one with words, was Dogberry. Had the world been kinder to him, he might have been a lawyer, or a politician . . .

  “Well, masters,” said the lantern-bearer to his comrades when the two constables had departed, “we hear our charge. Let us go sit here upon the church-bench till two, and then all to bed.”

  Accordingly, they seated themselves upon the long bench that was protected from the teeming rain by the church porch. There, with but a single lantern that served to illuminate no more than their own solemn faces, they watched over the pitchy night. In obedience to their instructions, they were as quiet as mice . . .

  “What, Conrade?” called out Borachio.

  “Here, man, I am at thy elbow,” answered Conrade, wearily. It was a foul night, a night to be warm and dry indoors, and not following the drunken Borachio as he blundered about in the streaming dark.

  Borachio had been celebrating. It seemed that their master, Don John, had bestowed a small fortune on him; and most of the money was still jingling in his pockets. Conrade was mighty curious to discover the reason why. A dozen times, Borachio had begun to explain; but each time, his drunken tongue, like his drunken feet, had wandered away. “Now forward with thy tale,” pleaded Conrade, for he was determined to get at the truth.

  “Stand thee close then under this penthouse, for it drizzles rain,” hiccuped Borachio, clutching at a post and embracing it like a lover, “and I will, like a true drunkard, utter all to thee.”

  Thankfully, Conrade sheltered under a low roof that projected from the side of a church, while Borachio, with heavy winks and foolish laughter, went forward with his tale.

  “I have tonight wooed Margaret, the Lady Hero’s gentlewoman, by the name of Hero,” he explained; and then, jerking his elbow familiarly into Conrade’s ribs, confided, “She leans me out at her mistress’s chamber-window, bids me a thousand times good night—” He stopped, shook his head. He had forgotten something. “I tell this tale vilely, I should first tell thee how the Prince, Claudio, and my master, saw afar off in the orchard this amiable encounter.”