Will

by Christopher Rush

  It didn’t take much either to bring her father to his dying days. A man withdrawing slowly, day by day. When I knew she’d marry Quiney in spite of me, that’s when I called on you, old friend, and we drafted out the January document. You wanted a signature at the time, remember? And I said no.

  ‘You never said why.’

  I was waiting… And I was right. There were muddied murmurings of a pregnancy. But it wasn’t Judith’s. Dr Hall thought I suffered a little stroke when the Margaret Wheelar affair broke open and let out the stink of Quiney’s whoredom. A mild stroke, he said. Wrong, John, I said. I was cut to the brains. Beyond the power of my one good son-in-law to heal or succour. Hearing and sentence tomorrow, then. A foregone conclusion. This is Lady Day. Tomorrow everybody in Stratford will be saying that Judith Shakespeare is no lady – but Quiney’s other whore.

  70

  Oh, my poor Judith.

  ‘Quite serious. Let me just check through what we’ve done – for windows.’

  There are none. Yet it kills my heart to punish her like this for an unwise marriage – the marriage will be its own punishment, God knows. But there’s no other way if I’m to keep Quiney out of it.

  ‘And he’s out, by Jesus – not even named in the deed. Such husband as she shall be married to. Now I understand you, Will.’

  And that’s as close as I come to acknowledging his existence – with the hint, if they care to take it, that in three years’ time she may be married to someone else. Or with even better luck the waster will be dead. He hasn’t even come up with the hundred pounds in land that was to have been his share of the marriage settlement. So whatever that squalid little gold-digger hoped for by marrying into the Shakespeares has been rendered null and void. He gets not a penny.

  ‘And out goes the word son-in-law from your January draft.’

  God, yes, I can’t even bear to refer to him in such terms, he’s no son of mine and I’ve made that clear. And the rest is clear, Francis?

  ‘As day. A hundred and fifty directly to Judith, the hundred for her dowry and the fifty only if she surrenders all claim to the Chapel Lane cottage.’

  It hardly leaves her badly off. She’ll get another hundred and fifty if Quiney settles the same sum on her, otherwise she’ll get the interest and if they have children they’ll inherit the capital when she dies.

  ‘And that’s Quiney well and truly shut out in the cold.’

  It’s as far as I can go without actually paupering my own flesh and blood. And the plate I left her in the January draft? Remind me, Francis?

  ‘All that now goes to little Elizabeth and all Judith gets is the broad silver gilt bowl. And that’s it.’

  Dreadful, dreadful. But she married against my wishes and mar-ried a wretch. What more can I say? They’ve struck me to the heart.

  What else now? There’s one other matter. Brother-in-law Hart’s dying, did you know, Francis? Hatter Hart. He fathered three sons – and a daughter dead before him. But in spite of the sons he’s a failure. No matter. Joan’s twelve pence a year will let her live in Henley Street until she dies. And also twenty pounds and all the clothes to Joan, did I say so already? And the money to the boys. William and Michael and – I still can’t remember how they call him, the third one. I’m losing my grip. And the ten pounds to the poor.

  ‘Two would have sufficed. Five would have been generous.’

  Never mind that now. It speaks of a life well lived – and I was poor once too.

  ‘It’s always a last satisfaction to become poor in the end – back to nakedness, and giving your all away.’

  To the right people, yes. Well, what have we still to see to, Francis? Forgive me my dull brain – it clouds over, though I’m still strong enough on dates. Did we do the rings for the fellows?

  ‘All done.’

  Add in there Will Reynolds, a good Catholic, and Anthony Nash, he farms my tithe-land, and to John Nash too, twenty-six shillings and eightpence each, and the same to Hamlet Sadler, – Hamlet, Hamnet, how many times did I write that word, speak that name! – and to my godson, William Walker – no, make that twenty shillings to him. And five pounds to Thomas Russell –

  ‘Hold on.’

  And not forgetting your good self, Francis.

  ‘Now that won’t be necessary –’

  Quite apart from your fee, of course. For friendship, Francis, for friendship.

  ‘Well–’

  No, take it down, go on. And to Francis Collins, of the borough of Warwick –

  ‘Which I hope to reach before dawn.’

  In the county of Warwick, gent. – as you are, Francis–

  ‘Yes?’

  Thirteen pounds six shillings and eightpence –

  ‘That’s more than generous, old man.’

  To be paid within one year after my decease. You can hurry it along if you like.

  ‘No hurry, Will. And none for your decease either, I trust.’

  And Susanna’s safe – for certain?

  ‘Will, she bears the palm away. This house and all the household goods, the two houses on Henley Street, the Gatehouse in Blackfriars, the lands outside Stratford and all your other lands and tenements, these to be entailed on her eldest son if she ever produces one, which pray God she will, down to the seventh, just as you said, and in default of her offspring surviving, on the heirs of Judith, unless she dies barren. We’ve seen to that, Will. You’ve done it all.’

  Yes, the estate’s intact, seven times over.

  ‘Beyond even that, to her daughter’s sons, your great-grandsons, and Judith’s sons.’

  Always assuming them to be lawful issue. These are the two things, remember, Francis, they should be lawful and they should be male. A true son must inherit.

  ‘You won’t let that boy go, will you?’

  He won’t let me go. There must be a son somewhere along the line, there must, there must.

  ‘You’ve done all you can, Will.’

  Have I? What have I done? What do we all do in our wills? We try to alter the past, to influence the future. We want to restore losses and end sorrows, and to store up riches in a world that’s no longer ours. We should acknowledge and accept, of course, that the future does not concern the dead, that tomorrow does not belong to us. And the deathbed, above all places, ought to be the school in which we learn this final lesson. But we don’t, do we? What is a will, after all? It’s a dead man’s hand rising from the grave and pointing the way. It’s a last attempt to cheat death, to carry on living by affecting the lives of those we most love. Or don’t. Down to the fact that nothing goes to the church that shamed my daughter, and that no Hathaway gets a penny.

  Even, I suppose, down to the bed.

  ‘What do you mean – the bed?’

  Ah, I did forget. Take this down, Francis. Item, I give unto my wife my second best bed with the furniture.

  ‘That’s it?’

  That’s it.

  ‘But what’s the point?’

  Well, what does it say to you?

  ‘What will it say to anyone? What will it say to Anne? Beds don’t talk.’

  But this one will. It’s a speaking bed. Does it speak of conjugal affection? of matrimonial bliss recalled? What would you think now, Francis?

  ‘Well, I’ve known some men unwilling to leave beds to widows, thinking it unseemly to say the least to contemplate that she and some new man perhaps might make love in the same bed in which she’d loved the first.’

  A second time I kill my husband dead when second husband kisses me in bed.

  ‘But Anne is on the heels of sixty.’

  Yes, and what would I really care? No, the bed meant little to me and means nothing much to her, I suppose, the bed in which we finally lay again together like two stilled fish. Take it as an apology, then, of sorts, for never having shared it with her for much of our marital time. An ironic kiss for the years of her widowhood. A hand extended to the long-suffering partner of a long-absent spouse. A nod to the three and a
half decades of coldness and decline. Or take it as a dead man’s hint that I found a better bed than hers elsewhere, a better woman, a deeper trust, a greater closeness, a purer love. If only I had, Francis. But maybe it will stop her short of wanting to share my final bed, my bed of dust. This isn’t Jack Donne lying here, this is old me. And there’ll be no bracelet of bright hair about the bone. It was her own bed in any case, the double bed she brought from Shottery. I’m giving her back her own, leaving her her own property – but also her widow’s dower and her dowager’s place in the house, with Susanna in absolute charge of these affairs. She will be well looked after by the Halls, needs nothing and will want for nothing. You needn’t think me cruel.

  ‘Not cruel’

  Only cold. Is that what you’re thinking?

  ‘It’s not a question of coldness, it’s a question of law. You’ve said she’ll be looked after by the Halls. That’s human matter. But on a point of law it could be construed that by specifying a single item – this bed – you the testator are in fact wishing to wipe out the widow’s usual one third life interest, in a word to disinherit her. Now I have to ask you directly, is that your intention? Is that what lies behind your bequest?’

  I never said so, Francis. And it’s not what I asked you. I asked you if you thought me cold.

  ‘Well, I’ve had some practice of this business, and I’ve heard other men speak from the grave in their wills of their wish to be buried beside their well-beloved wives – my dear Rebecca, my devoted Margaret, you know the sort of thing, my faithful and loving what’s-her-name. What is her name, Will? You don’t even mention it, do you, not once? You didn’t even refer to her in the January draft. And this is your Testament. She’s like Quiney, kept anonymous. Don’t you want to rectify this? – the absence of emotion, the lack of warmth, not a memento, not the smallest keepsake, a ring, a loving word, nothing.’

  But look, Francis, there’s no feeling for anyone expressed here, at least not in words. The words are verbal signs, doing their legal business. This is my will, it’s not King Lear. It doesn’t mean there’s no feeling behind it. On the contrary, Francis, there’s plenty of sentiment there, tucked away between the lines, behind the scenes, the characters. We’ve spent a day and a night at it. There’s emotion in every item, only I don’t show it, not personally. You know me, Francis. A ring to Burbage, a bowl to a daughter, a bed to a wife, a widow – there’s anger and joy and disappointment and fellowship and guilt – it’s shot through with it, this document. You think it concedes little to flesh and blood – but no, Francis, it gives away much, just as much as I have given away. Which is everything.

  ‘Well, it doesn’t show it, that’s all. You said something at the start about a will being unequivocal, didn’t you? None of that rich ambiguity you get in plays. It seems to me you’ve pulled the same trick again, in spite of what you said.’

  Maybe you’re right, Francis, maybe there is a little drama in this document after all. Not what I’ve written but what I haven’t written that speaks eloquently enough – about the hell of enforced wedlock. Plenty of that in the plays, if you look for it, missing wives, wives neglected, wives shut out, lovers mismatched, married in haste, married too young, virgin knots untied too soon –

  ‘You’re getting off the point, and intentionally too. I know you, Will. As to the bed –’

  As to the bed, if I’d left her the free fields of Shottery to walk in once more – but no, that would have spoken of a time when young Will Shakespeare was madly in love and Anne Hathaway his all in all. But we lived out most of our marriage apart, and we have renewed our acquaintance briefly and bleakly before death does us part, as he intends to do shortly. It’s written on the walls. It’s all around me. Thy days are numbered. I’m in the best bed now. Alone. With nothing left to add except my name.

  ‘In witness whereof I have hereunto put my hand and seal. We’ll have to strike out seal and leave in hand, as you’ve lost your ring. And the day and year first above written, 25th March, year of our Lord 1616.’

  Oh! And my sword, I forgot my sword – one of the Combes left me money. Thomas Combe shall have my sword. It should have gone to Hamnet. My lovely boy. I had a son, Francis. And the shadows took him…

  ‘You need to rest now.’

  Afterwards. Hand me the deed, friend. Three sheets, is it? Each requiring to be validated. Very well. Two feeble efforts, forgive me, the last to be prefixed, by me William Shakespeare. There. There’s a good William, as my mother used to say, written firm and fair. I’ve used all my strength – oh, now it fails me, and the name crumples into this wavering spidery scrawl.

  71

  No, I can’t be dead, not yet. That’s you Francis over there, for sure, the cup ever to your lips.

  ‘That’s right, old friend. One last cup – and one for the horse.’

  How about one for me?

  ‘Are you sure? You were falling asleep.’

  I need reviving. There’s one last thing I want you to do for me.

  ‘Anything, old friend, but I hope it won’t be the last.’

  Last piece of writing, certainly.

  ‘The will’s sewn up, lad – signed if not sealed, had you forgotten?’

  It’s not the will, it’s a little verse I made up just now, while I was asleep.

  ‘That’s a nice way to do it. Wish I could work like that.’

  The mind works like a miner – does your dirty dangerous work for you, while you take your ease. Sometimes.

  ‘Right then, what’s this little verse about?’

  Take it down, will you, Francis? I’m incapable of a pen.

  ‘Pause a moment. Right, poised again.’

  You thought my will rather dry, didn’t you?

  ‘Rather.’

  But it wasn’t quite my last will, Francis. This is.

  ‘Now wait a minute –’

  Don’t worry, it’s very short – it’s a quatrain. The last one I’ll write.

  ‘What are you up to?’

  Prepare to scribe.

  ‘I’m ready.’

  Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear

  To dig the dust enclosed here:

  Blest be the man that spares these stones,

  And curst be he that moves my bones.

  ‘Well – it’s your epitaph.’

  Obviously.

  ‘And what do you want me to do with it?’

  Oh, for God’s sake, Francis, what do you normally do with an epitaph! Cut it on my gravestone, of course.

  ‘You could have wanted it published.’

  I do. In stone. For all to see. Especially the sexton.

  ‘Oh, you’re back to him, are you?’

  I was never away. And that’s a little message for him, specially from me, something for him to think about. Not bad, is it, for doggerel?

  ‘Sounds a bit like Ralegh, if you ask me.’

  Or Hamlet penning verses to Ophelia. Or Prospero getting down to prayer. But ’tis mine own – just a word from Will to the local gravedigger, that farting old bastard.

  ‘He’s long dead.’

  His line is still there. That’s a line that never dies out. I want him to be kinder to me than his predecessor was to the occupants of the bone-house when I was a boy.

  ‘And curst be he that moves my bones. It’s a bit of a frightener, isn’t it?’

  He frightened me badly enough, now it’s my turn. It’s my final plea, my last will. For Jesus’ sake. And for mine. I told you, Francis, as tithe-holder and lay rector I have the right to escape the earth and I’m choosing to exercise that right. I want to be buried at the east end of Holy Trinity and I don’t want to be disturbed. It’s not pride, it’s fear, I don’t mind admitting it, it’s the old childhood terrors again, never far away, and always closer when the grave is near, the bones that frighten Juliet and horrify Hamlet, and that crude old Stratford spadesman, they all come crowding into the room, don’t you see, to people my last hours, and they bring so many others along
with them, all my creations…

  ‘Sounds to me like you need a priest, my boy.’

  Why Francis, you are my priest.

  ‘I told you already, I’m not your priest, I’m your lawyer, pure and simple. Are you losing touch, old lad?’

  Never more with you, I assure you. Why do you think you’ve been fed like a prize boar all day long? We could have scratched out that will in under an hour. You’ve been listening to my confession, old friend. Do you really think I’d confess to a priest? Or that if I did, I’d tell a priest everything I’ve told you? The problem is, Francis, this is the real thing at last, the ultimate thing, called death. You’re standing on the verge of eternity, you mustn’t dissimulate, you’d have to say in the first place what sort of a priest you wanted, and in so doing you’d be saying what you really believed, what you’d believed all your life. And so, Francis, if I were to name a priest for you to call, you’d know what I really thought, wouldn’t you? And why should you – when I may not even know for sure myself? And if I did, that’s between me and God – if there is one, and if he listens. I asked you at the start – would you have me die a papist? Or a Protestant? No, my friend, I’ll tell you what, I’ll die undiscovered, having confessed to fat Father Francis, a lawyer in disguise. Ultimately I’ll die with an open mind – and that’s my best advice to you – if I may advise my lawyer – or to anyone. Anyway Francis, I wanted somebody to talk to. There’s nobody around here to talk to any more. John’s very busy – he didn’t even come up tonight. And Anne? You can see how it is. And Judith – well, well, well, no more of that.