Love's Will

by Meredith Whitford

  When the candle had marked two hours’ passing he sat back, yawning and stretching. “That will have to do for now. Would you care to read it over when you have time? Try to picture it being acted out upon the stage.”

  “Very well. Though I really am no judge, Will.”

  “You’ve seen plays. It’s the audience’s opinion that counts. I wonder how much a London company would pay for a play. As much as a pound, do you think?”

  “Surely not a pound! Perhaps you could find out.”

  “Yes, perhaps. Anne, it’s late and I must go.”

  “Very well.” Much as she enjoyed his company, Anne was sleepy. Like most women, her day began at dawn and she would have to get up to her cousin at least once in the night. “When will you come again?”

  “Not sure. My parents are complaining I spend too much time away from home. My father is finding an extraordinary amount of business for me in the evenings.”

  “Oh.”

  “I think they suspect I have a girl somewhere.”

  “Oh,” said Anne, dying to ask if he had.

  “But I could come next Saturday. Or, no – I thought that on Saturday I might go and look over what costumes and stage things Mr Jones has.”

  “Saturday is my birthday,” Anne said.

  William smiled, but she could tell his mind was elsewhere. “Does your family make anything of birthdays?”

  “No.” But her father had. A little gift, a sweetmeat or a ribbon bought from a peddler, and something special to eat at dinner. Nothing much, but enough to note the day. Her stepmother disapproved of such frivolity. Of anything that cost money.

  “I wish I could give you something,” William said earnestly. “I cannot even ask you to dine with my family or anything like that. Well, I could, but it would be no pleasure for you.”

  Anne laughed, wondering what he would do if she said ‘give me another kiss’. “You needn’t. I don’t know why I even told you. Write me a poem for my birthday.”

  She was joking, but he nodded and said, “Very well. And I’ll come on Saturday.”

  “No no, you want to go and look at Davy’s stage things.”

  “I could do both. That’s if you’re interested. Come with me and look at the costumes.”

  About to say no, Anne realised that he was offering her something he considered a treat. “All right. I can get a village woman to sit with my cousin for an hour or two.”

  “Then I shall see you on Saturday.”

  4.

  Davy Jones had hopes of the Stratford council sponsoring his little group of mummers. They paid touring companies, he argued, so why not their own? So far the answer had been: because the touring companies are professionals who play in London and have their name-lord behind them. Local men, artisans and mechanicals might do their best, but it is hardly the same. People pay for a touch of London glamour, they pay to see actors who have played for the Queen and court, not to see John Smith from the next street in a wig. Besides, if the touring companies come here it means Stratford is an important town. Jones countered with: but the London companies come perhaps twice a year at most, are Stratford people meant to be content with that? Would, say, ten shillings break the council’s budget?

  The council hemmed and hawed, but Davy Jones pressed on. He had his little group, he would put on plays regardless, and he would play the political game and work on the men who would be elected to next year’s council. Meanwhile, he kept his small stock of costumes and properties in a tiny room at the back of the Guildhall and advertised his performances by word of mouth.

  “What’s that?” asked Anne, looking at a painted backcloth tacked roughly along the wall, and wishing she had brought a duster.

  “A hell’s-mouth,” said William. “Light a candle, would you please?” He was on his knees prying at the hasp of a trunk. The lock yielded and the lid flew up. He sighed in delight and began to lift the things out.

  Anne prowled the little room, touching the strings of a lute, rapping her knuckles on a cauldron, studying something that proved to be a hobbyhorse.

  “I’m a king,” said William, and she turned around and almost cried out.

  A long crimson velvet cloak swept from his shoulders to the floor, its ermine bands falling around him. On his head was a golden crown studded with jewels the size of a man’s thumb. He held a golden sceptre, and a jewelled gold chain spread across his breast; a sword hung at his side.

  He looked taller, older, altogether different. Magnificent. The illusion was complete. He had become a king, and Anne understood.

  “Now I see.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes.”

  He stared at her, his eyes darker in the candlelight. “Be a queen. Queen Anne.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “You could. You can.”

  He reached out and undid the strings of her cap, threw it aside. A swirl of colour, and a matching cloak fell around her. Gently, and as earnestly as if she were indeed a queen at her coronation, he put a crown on her head.

  “Let your hair down.”

  Even his voice had changed. As shocked as if he had told her to take off her clothes, and as unable to resist as if it were truly a king’s command, she pulled the pins and combs from her hair and ran her fingers through the plait as it tumbled down. She only ever trimmed the ends of her hair when they split and grew ragged. It fell past her waist, a shining dark-brown mass, clean and scented because she had taken a bath the day before.

  “A queen,” he said, and put the crown upon her head. “Jewels for a queen.” A rope of pearls for her neck, diamond and ruby rings for her fingers.

  It didn’t matter that the velvet of the cloaks was worn and rubbed, the ermine only dyed lambs’ wool, that the pearls were made of fish scales and glue, the jewels were glass. The crowns and sword were painted wood and tin. But the world of illusion was a double one where falseness was transmuted and seductive. The tiny looking-glass on the wall showed a king and queen, not a woman and a boy in makeshift costumes in a country town.

  “King William and Queen Anne.”

  “They never ruled together.”

  “Here they do.”

  In the glass she saw the king bend and kiss the queen. She saw the queen tip her head back so that her veil of hair echoed the fall of the crimson cloak, and accept the kiss as her due.

  It was play-acting, of course; playing at playing. A king kissed a queen on their coronation day.

  More than that. He kissed her again. She should reprove him, move away, tell him to go. Not just stand here clad in silly clothes, leaning against him, breathing in his warm male smell, letting him play with her hair. But when he closed his arms around her and kissed her again, and harder, she could only say, “Will.” And the protest was lost in his mouth. She was lost.

  Whether he meant anything more than a brotherly, friendly kiss she never knew, because when his mouth touched hers something happened that was quite outside her experience. Just a kiss, an everyday thing – but it was as if lightning leapt between them and set them both afire. Each saw the other’s eyes ablaze with swift desire, their bodies seemed to melt together. Helplessly Anne wound her arms around his neck and let his tongue meet hers, drenching her in sweetness. His hands slid up to frame her face, holding her still for his kiss, his lips moved to the corner of her mouth, her eyes, her brow, her throat.

  And now it was she who held his face and looked into his eyes and brought her mouth to his, she who held him, caressed him, and made no more resistance when he lifted her up his arms and kissed her in earnest. No bed but the velvet cloaks. Enough.

  So this was what all the ado was about. A boy’s lean body, a man’s hard prick, a poet’s tongue, all on a summer’s night. Hot breath, hot flesh, hands following mouths, soft endearments, then lovely completion.

  Afterwards, he held her sweetly against his heart, stroking her sweat-stuck hair. With her fingertips she traced the line of his lips and, daring, kissed his nipple.


  “Did I please you?” he whispered.

  “Yes. It was sweet, Will. Sweet William.”

  “And your first time.”

  “Yes.”

  “Mine too.” Astonished, she craned up to look at him. He smiled, his brows lifting. “Truly, it was. And I had no idea what a woman’s body would be like. So beautiful, Anne.”

  She had thought all men wanted women with breasts like udders, plump hips, golden hair. What could be beautiful about her narrow body with its small breasts? But she felt beautiful, she felt old and alone no longer. In the distance lightning cracked. Anne counted, waiting for the thunder.

  “Six miles away.”

  “Mmm.” He moved her closer to him, drawing her head down on his breast, stroking her hair. A moment later he was asleep, and while he slept Anne could hold him, touch him, love him as she would.

  Thunder growled again, closer. William murmured in his sleep, his arm clutching her closer. Lightning, again, and more thunder, and William woke.

  “The storm’s breaking. There will be rain in a moment.”

  “So if we go out we’ll get wet.”

  “Clever of you.”

  “I mean we had better stay here till the rain ends.”

  She would have moved back into his embrace, but he sat up and, naked, reached into the costume trunk again. A flurry of orange satin, then blue wool. Women’s dresses. A tin breastplate; for a Roman, William said. Another sword. Two doublets, a black lawyer’s gown. A long blonde wig. More pearls. Face paints, lead paste to whiten the skin, kohl for the eyes, rouge for cheeks and lips.

  “At Sir Thomas Hesketh’s house and once at the Earl of Derby’s, I played a girl. I made a very pretty girl.”

  “I prefer you as a man.”

  “I think I do too.” Putting down the armful of costumes he swivelled around on his knees and held out his arms. They kissed, he touched her in some remarkable ways, then he was inside her again, to the accompaniment of thunder to muffle the sounds they made together, lightning, at last the rain.

  It was only a brief summer storm, soon over.

  Soon over. Summer’s lease.

  The jewels were paste, the ermine lamb's wool, the silks and velvets tawdry and smelling of other people’s sweat.

  Anne braided and pinned up her hair again. Dressed. Tidied herself. Watched William doing the same.

  Her voice sounded harsh when she said, “Will the costumes do for Davy Jones’s mummers?”

  “Oh yes. As my patched-up play will do.”

  “Good enough for a country town.”

  “The costumes and the play are. You are infinitely better.”

  “I doubt it. Will, I must go.”

  “And so must I.”

  Well, what else had she expected?

  “Anne.”

  “What?”

  “Your poem.”

  “Poem? Oh.” She took the folded paper he held out to her. “Thank you.”

  “It’s a sonnet,” he said hopefully.

  “What’s that?”

  “Oh … eight lines, then six; proposition and answer. I hope you like it.”

  “I’m sure I shall. I must go.”

  “I’ll see you home.”

  “Thank you.”

  They put the costumes and properties neatly away and latched the door behind them. In silence they walked back towards Temple Grafton, then halfway there William took Anne’s hand and kissed her again, and she found the courage to say, “Did you take me there to play with the costumes in the hope of what we did?”

  “No. I never thought of it. But you looked so beautiful.”

  “Ha!”

  “You did.”

  “I’m not beautiful, not even pretty. I’m a farmer’s daughter. I’m brown from the sun, I’m skinny.”

  “You made a beautiful queen.”

  “In borrowed finery. Cheap stuff.”

  “You looked beautiful. Desirable. Whatever I say here will be wrong, won’t it.”

  “Probably.”

  “As a matter of fact I think you are pretty. You’ve glorious hair, and I like grey eyes with black brows and lashes. I’ve always thought you a pretty woman. That poem I wrote for you, shall I recite it?”

  “Yes please,” said Anne, who didn’t care, unless it was a declaration of undying love.

  He took a deep breath and began.

  “Those lips that Love’s own hand did make,

  Breath’d forth the sound that said ‘I hate’,

  To me that languished for her sake:

  But when she saw my woeful state,

  Straight in her heart did mercy come;

  Chiding that tongue that ever sweet,

  Was used in giving gentle doom:

  And taught it thus anew to greet:

  ‘I hate’ she altered with an end,

  That followed it as gentle day,

  Doth follow night who like a fiend,

  From heaven to hell is flown away.

  ‘I hate’, from hate away she threw,

  And saved my life saying, ‘not you’.”

  They walked on for a while.

  “You noted the pun on ‘Hathaway’, didn’t you? Hate away – Hathaway.”

  “Yes, I noted it.”

  They walked on for a while.

  “Don’t you like it?”

  “I like it,” said Anne, who thought that as a poet he made a good glover. “I’m not sure I understood it.”

  They walked on for a while.

  “Shall I say it to you again?”

  “Yes please.”

  He did so.

  They walked on for a while.

  “I like it very much,” said Anne. “But isn’t it a poem about a lover languishing because the woman he loves doesn’t love him?”

  “It’s just a poem. Playing with words. Following a style, a fashion.”

  They walked on for a while.

  “I’ve never had a poem written for me before. Doubt I ever shall again.”

  “You might. Shall I write you another?”

  “Yes please.”

  “Good.”

  They were at Temple Grafton. Anne’s cousin’s cottage was on this nearer side of the village. It was too late for the old lady still to be up. At the gate Anne turned to William. “I must go in now. Will you come again, as you used to?”

  “If I may,” he said stiffly.

  “My cousin likes your stories.”

  “I’m glad. Anne.”

  Startled, she looked up, and he kissed her. “I hope you liked your birthday. I certainly did.”

  “I did. I did, Will, I did.”

  “Then don’t be cold to me, don’t turn me away.”

  “I’m not, I won’t. But now I must go in and you must get home before it rains again. Goodnight, my dear.”

  “Goodnight, Anne.”

  5.

  William didn’t care for the glover’s trade, but he did like his father’s workshop. His earliest memories of beauty were, equally, of spring flowers and of the colours and textures piled high in the shop. Leather of all kinds, soft and subtle as a whisper, or tough and no-nonsense. The satins, silks, taffetas for linings in colours that improved on nature. Gold and silver wires and threads, pearls and beads and sequins. Herbs, sweet wood and spices to perfume the finished gloves. Even the knives and shears and needles, the patterns and stretchers, held their own fascination.

  At one time John Shakspere had employed another master cutter and six stitchers, and a clerk to write his letters and keep his accounts. In those days he had been a wool dealer and a money-lender, and those things absorbed his time and interest more than the glove shop. They had also been his downfall, those illegal and costly dealings. Now he did all the cutting and fine embroidery and had but two apprentices. William, and Gilbert when he wasn’t fast enough to escape, clerked for him. Richard did the unskilled work.

  One night they were working late, the older man doing the close work on a pair of gloves for a
special order, the younger trying to make sense of the accounts. John Shakspere had a habit of whistling under his breath as he concentrated. It annoyed William and grated on his nerves until he lost track of the numbers he was trying to tally and he turned and snapped at his father to stop it. Like most boys of his class he had been bred to treat his parents with courtesy and he was astonished when there was no rebuke. Instead his father had put down his work and asked if he wanted a drink.

  “Yes,” said William, puzzled.

  “I keep a bottle in here. No need to tell your mother.”

  “I shan’t, sir.”

  “Oh, sir, sir, sir. Let’s have a little less sirring and a bit more talk, as men. The cups are behind that roll of taffeta.”

  It was French brandy, and from the quality he was used to in the north William recognized it as rather fine. Expensive.

  “Talk of what?”

  “Anything. Chat. Tell a joke. Because, boy, I have enough of glum faces and cold silences and being reminded I’m a failure.” He tossed off his brandy and poured another.

  “Not a failure.”

  “But nothing worked out the way I planned it. Most of my money is gone and I spend my time hiding from my creditors. Your mother reproaches me, my friends make excuses for me and I do not like my life. So talk to me. With me.”

  “Well then… why did you give up being a farmer? Why move into Stratford and take up the glover’s trade, and all the rest?”

  “I thought I could better myself. And for a long time I did. Your mother was a pretty girl with a little money, my father’s landlord’s daughter, a little above me, and I wanted to give her everything. I liked making things. I liked doing something I am good at. I enjoyed the dealing and taking chances. Never gamble, son.”

  “I don’t. I think I’ve no taste for it.”

  “Just as well. Some people will bet on a game of cards or a football match, or two raindrops running down a window. Others, like me, enjoy the risk of investing money, going a little outside the law, playing both ends against the middle. And see where it gets you. Never gamble, and don’t lend money. If your debtors don’t get you, the law will. Another drink?”