Love's Will

by Meredith Whitford

  “Oh, love. How does one tell? She’s pretty.”

  “And have you made defeat of her maidenhead?”

  “What an elegant way of asking if I’ve bedded her. No. But she’d be willing. She loves me, I think. She’s got no money, of course.”

  “And marrying Oxford’s daughter would bring you money and a connection with one of the oldest noble families in the land. A good match, Harry. A wise match. If Lord Essex is right and Burghley fines you five thousand pounds…”

  “I’d rather pay his buggering fine than be forced into a marriage I don’t want.”

  “And what is it you want?”

  “Love. Companionship. Desire.”

  “Those things can come after marriage. I’m a case in point.”

  “But you were fond of Anne before you married her. Fond enough and kind enough not to run away. Do you love her truly, Will? Do you miss her when she is away?”

  “I miss the little accustomed domestic pleasures. I miss my children. Yes, I miss Anne. But since you and I are always honest with each other: I like the peace of solitude. I can write, alone, as I never can in the midst of my family. I keep my old lodgings, so I have somewhere that is entirely for writing. But it’s not the same. Marry Lady Elizabeth, Harry, or ruin your future.”

  “I will not. There now, you’ve said your piece, you’ve done your duty. Talk of something else. That dark lady who sang took your eye?”

  “What of that? At first I thought her nothing to look at, but she’s beautiful. Too dark, though.”

  “Splendid breasts. And ankles.”

  “Harry, was what you said to Essex true? That he heads the Queen’s intelligence service?”

  “Heads it? Perhaps not. Sir Francis Walsingham has that honour. But Essex has his finger in all those pies. If he loses the Queen’s favour – and he will, if he goes on thinking he can twine her round his finger – well, I wonder what will happen then. Whatever he may say in public, he is for James of Scotland as the Queen's successor, but of course he must dissemble. There’s talk of him leading a military expedition, and if he does, I want to go too.”

  “And why not?” William said comfortably.

  “Because if I don’t marry Burghley’s damned granddaughter, I’ll not be allowed to do anything I want.”

  “Then there’s your answer. Don’t ruin your future.”

  “I won’t marry Elizabeth de Vere. I’m sick of talking of it.” He lifted his head and put a kiss on William’s mouth. It was a tender kiss, without passion, but passion came, surprising them both. They were more demanding of each other than ever before, and William told himself, as he moved with Harry in the old dance, “If I think of black eyes and two plump breasts and a Scotch voice, at least I am with Harry, whom I love so dearly”.

  2.

  He couldn’t keep that singing woman from creeping into his thoughts; even into his dreams, sometimes. All the more reason to have nothing more to do with her.

  He lasted a week, then went to see her.

  It was a mean little house in a bad street. He waited a long time after he knocked before he heard someone trudging down the stairs, and the door creaked open.

  “Oh, it’s you.” She showed neither pleasure nor displeasure.

  “It is. Have I called at a bad time?”

  “No. Come in. You have to put your shoulder to the door, it sticks.”

  Half-lifting, half shoving it shut he said, “It needs planing or re-hanging.” She nodded indifferently. Following her up the stairs he noted other things that needed attention; chipped and grubby plaster on the walls, loose boards in the stairs and a sagging banister, the ground-in dirt of the floor. Anne would have seen to all those things almost before they occurred. By contrast, this woman looked cleaner and tidier than the other night. She wore a blue linen dress, and the high neck of a dazzlingly white smock hid those spectacular breasts. Her hair was braided tightly back and coiled on top of her head.

  The room she led him into was large, untidy and full of colour. She gestured him to a chair covered with a length of old and rather dirty brocade. “You’ll take wine?”

  “Thank you.” While she poured the drink he looked around. The room puzzled him. One wall was covered with a truly fine tapestry, while the others had cheap painted hangings. Great bunches of fresh summer flowers were stuffed without artistry into cracked earthenware jugs, but the bowl holding white roses was of exquisite crystal. Some of the cushions were covered in gold-tasselled velvet or beautifully embroidered silk, others were of shabby woollen. A handsome carver stood at the head of the table, with two matching chairs on one side, but on the other was only a common bench, cushioned and covered with another length of brocade. The wine she gave him was of average quality and served in ordinary pewter cups, but she poured it from the finest wine-jug he had ever seen, silver-gilt, swan-necked, with a crystal stopper.

  There was another, smaller table under the window, two shelves of books, a sideboard. The rest of the room was taken up by musical instruments; a virginals, two lutes, a gittern, a hautboy, two flutes.

  “Do you play all those?”

  “Only the virginals and the stringed instruments.” Absently she reached down to what he’d thought was a bundle of cast-aside knitting. It was a dog, very ancient and seedy-looking. It had paid him no attention, but under her touch it flapped the end of its tail. “Well, the flute, a very little and very badly. I really have a very small gift for music.”

  “But you set my song to music, and that Palestrina you played…” Eyeing him over the rim of her cup she said something about a strict music master, anyone could do that much. “No. You played with real sensitivity and taste.”

  “Thank you.”

  He didn’t quite like the mockery in her tone. “I know enough of music to know that. And I mean it. May I know your name, by the way?”

  “Did you come here not knowing it? Sometimes I call myself Mara or Maria, but I was christened Marian. Well, have you brought me some of your work?”

  He gave her the folio he had carried with him. Watching her slender, ringless fingers picking at the knot, he noted the way she sat, straight-backed and with her ankles together and to one side, and he realised something about her. “You’re a lady, aren’t you?”

  Her eyes flashed up to his. “Whatever do you mean?”

  “That you’re gently bred. Of high birth. Perhaps even of noble birth.”

  She had turned rather pale, and her brows had drawn down over eyes that held a sudden spark of – anger? No. fear.

  “Whatever makes you say such an odd thing? Do I seem to you to live like a lady?”

  “No, but it’s in the way you sit, and in the shape of your hands and the bones of your face. In the books on your shelves. And the quality of some of your things. In your voice, too, now that you’ve forgotten that Scotch accent.”

  She went on looking at him, frowning at him, her shield-shaped face taut. At last she said, on a caught breath, “You notice too much. I suppose you couldn’t write as you do if you didn’t. I’ve come down in the world, is that what you mean? That I’m on my way even further down? While you are on your way up in the world, my fine gentlemanly friend?”

  Stung, he said, “I wasn’t born a gentleman but I’m amending my position, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Oh, so I gather, and amending it right fast. You have no lands or title or coat of arms, and your father is of ordinary stock, but your mother was an Arden, and I know about that family. You’ll end your days rich, and a gentleman. And if you hadn’t that quality of breeding, that gentleman’s nature and your wit, your high-born friends wouldn’t do more than tolerate you, for all your cleverness.”

  “You’ve been asking about me?” He found the idea flattering.

  “A little.”

  “More than a little or you should hang for a witch. My father thought some years ago of applying for a coat of arms, but he lost money and put the thought away. Lately, he’s been talking of it aga
in.”

  “And what will your coat of arms be, Master William?”

  “What is yours, Mistress Marian?” he countered. “Are you really Scotch at all?”

  Slowly, sipping once more at her wine, she said, “Don’t call me Marian. If you can keep a secret, I was born and raised in Scotland. I speak and read Scots and some Gaelic. But my family has lived there less than a hundred years. My ancestors were as English as you. And had a certain English battle gone another way...”

  “What battle?”

  “Never mind. May I look at what you’ve brought me or will you take your boarded folio and scuttle back to Lord Southampton?” The coarse gesture that accompanied these words made it plain she had asked about him to some purpose.

  “I’ll show you some of my work.”

  Again she stared at him then suddenly smiled. It was the sweet, engaging smile which the other night had made him realise she was beautiful. Then, ducking her head, she opened the folio and began to glance through its contents. “These are beautiful,” she said at last. “Are they songs from your plays?”

  “One or two are. The others may go into plays one day. They’re ideas that came to me at different times. A poem or two, also.”

  “I’ve heard of your sonnets. Your friends admire them. What’s this? When that I was but a little tiny child. Hmm. Oh now, this is splendid. Fear no more the heat of the sun, nor the furious winter’s rages. Yes…” She drifted over to her virginals and began to play little disconnected snatches of music, changing key, changing tempo, humming to herself. “I could make beautiful music for this. How beautifully you write.” Idly he had followed her across the room. As she put down the lute they were very close together. For a moment their eyes met, and clung, then she leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth.

  All his senses jumped. Her lips seemed to tingle against his. It seemed he tasted honey. His hands rose to embrace her. He dropped them, and moved away.

  “I’m married.”

  “So am I, but you don’t see me bringing my troubles to you.”

  Somewhere in the back of his mind was the thought, I don’t even like her. But thought had nothing to do with it, it seemed.

  On the following Sunday William went to church. This was usually something he did only often enough to set the children a good example and avoid the fine for non-attendance. Today he went eagerly, and as he followed the service he thought with guilty longing of the Papist rite of confession. What comfort must there be in telling your sins, then Ego te absolvo and you went away cleansed. Go and sin no more.

  Sin no more. Aye, there’s the rub. He could promise himself or a listening priest that he would never again visit that woman’s house or be tempted into that bed, but promises are easy. After the first time, he had promised himself and God, or the gods, never again, only to return the next day, and the next, and to spend the nights reliving what they did in the rank sweat of that adulterous bed.

  She had kissed him. So. In his mind’s eye he saw himself paying her a sweet, teasing compliment and leaving her house on the instant. Taking horse to Stratford that same day, perhaps, back to Anne.

  Anne.

  Anne, his wife, his good wife, his loving companion. Sweet Anne with her narrow, seemly body and her sleek dark hair. Anne with the wit and spirit concealed under her wifely manner. Anne who satisfied him in bed and held him lovingly. Anne, who didn’t deserve this.

  Not that she would ever know. She must not know. Harry was one thing, but she had said, “Take another woman and I will kill you.” She had meant that her own jealousy would kill some of the love between them. She must never suspect this frantic, besotted need that turned him into a rutting dog with a bitch on heat. Conscienceless, careless, throwing everything to the winds for that supple little open-arse, going back time and again for the feral pleasures of her body.

  The things they’d done! Things he’d never before known he wanted. Had not wanted. Slaps and blows and biting, restraint and constraint, no gentleness once she’d shown him what she wanted, raping each other, taking satisfaction in every possible way. Spending and spending again till he swore he could no more, and had let himself be teased into more while she was still greased with his seed. Lapping at every crevice of her body, letting her lap at him. Probing and invading, hurting each other with the pain that brings exquisite pleasure.

  He’d tried to hold her after the first coupling, he had drawn her head onto his breast and held her hand and stroked her hair, calling her the sweet things of habit. And she’d drawn away, had mocked at him, had said, “This isn’t love.”

  No, not love. Lust in action. Self-despising lust. Spending and spending, scraping his body raw to hear her scream. Vowing never again as he staggered away from her house, ruined. And returning the next day, and the next.

  More than lust. Less than love. Not even liking. And yet, on the second day, she had taken her lute and played a perfect, lyrical setting for one of his poems, a musical beauty to call the heart out of your body. She had sung to him, and for the time he had loved her, liked her. But soon the husky voice which phrased his song so exquisitely had been demanding More and Harder and Do it like that, and goading him with tales of other men, and the fingers which were so nimble on the lute strings were drawing blood from his back. Physical satisfaction, oh yes, like nothing he had known before. Of sweetness, affection, mutuality – nothing.

  “O God,” he said aloud in the silent church, groaning the words, and won a look of approval from his neighbour in the pew.

  Was there anyone he could tell about this? Anyone he could ask for help? Kit Marlowe would have understood, William could have told him, but he was dead and turned to clay. A year dead. His fellow actors? But they were mostly married men, and if they strayed while they were on tour, well, that was nothing. This they would neither understand nor condone. Besides, most of them knew Anne, and would take her part. And in fact, there further down the church sat James Burbage with his wife and his sons, Cuthbert and Richard.

  Harry? Perhaps. They never spoke of other lovers. He was a boy who longed for love, and he could be fastidious. But he was a friend, he might listen. Though what would he say? “Go home to your wife,” (being practical). “Avoid the occasion of sin,” (his Catholic boyhood coming out). “Suffer,” (his odd streak of Puritanism speaking out). “Introduce me to this woman,” (Harry being Harry).

  Don’t sit here putting words in Harry’s mouth, William told himself. Follow your own advice. Go home. To Stratford, to Anne. Three months in the country and you’ll come back cured. And if this woman Mara-Maria, if you could believe even that much of what she said, is still in London, you’ll pass her by in the street without regret.

  “I preach today,” droned the vicar, “on the woman taken in adultery.”

  William lifted his head and stared at him incredulously.

  He was at her house again that night.

  And the next, and the one after.

  At the company meeting on Wednesday everyone commented that he looked tired, and the boy players snickered at the love-bite on his neck that his ruff couldn’t hide. James Burbage was distinctly cool to him.

  He stayed away from Mara-Maria-Marian that night and for the next two days. He wrote his play, scene after scene pouring from his pen as the magical world grew around him. It was good, he knew that. But on the Saturday he was stalled; his characters turned stale and trite, their speech wooden. The magic had gone. He wrote doggedly on, but what he wrote was soon scored out. A snatch of dialogue sprang to his mind, but it was from another play entirely. Still, he noted it down. Began a poem, scored that out. Re-wrote it. Ate a meal. Drank a lot of ale. Read. Tried again to write, and knew his heart wasn’t in it.

  At five o’clock he gave up, threw his papers together into the box, locked it, and before he could think better of it, went around to Mara’s house.

  The street door was unlocked. He went straight upstairs and knocked briskly. She came to the door yawning, wrapped i
n a sheet, her hair loose. “You again. I thought you’d sworn off me.”

  “So did I.”

  “Well, come in. I was asleep. An Italian habit, to sleep the afternoon away.” She drifted back to her bedroom and lay down on the tumbled bed. The window curtains were drawn against whatever late sun could penetrate this narrow street. The room smelt of wine and her heavy slumberous scent. It was one of her days for looking beautiful, her skin like clotted cream, raspberries, honey, the angle of her cheekbones and jaw delicately defined. As she lay back on the pillows, she flung off the sheet that had covered her, and all her body was displayed to him. Rounded, narrow-waisted, the lush breasts half-veiled in her hair. Beautiful. Desirable. His for the taking.

  He kissed her and her tongue was quick in his mouth, quick as her hands to undress him. He put his lips to her nipples, making her groan and twine her hands in his hair to hold him there for her pleasure. His fingers strayed over her waist and hips, under her bottom, up and around. His mouth followed his hands.

  He drew away, his flesh crawling. “Asleep? In bed, perhaps. You’ve been with another man. You stink of it, you bitch.”

  “I thought you weren’t coming back.”

  “And your bed’s hardly cool from him, whoever he was. You haven’t even washed him off you. Yet you’d take me too?” His fingers shook so that he could hardly fasten the buttons she’d undone.

  “Some men like it that way.”

  “Do they? I don’t. It disgusts me.”

  “And excites you.” Fast as a rabbit she lunged forward onto her knees to touch the proof of what she said.

  “No. No.”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “No.” But her hands closed over his, undoing all the buttons again, and he was helpless to resist, didn’t know if he wanted to resist, lay back with a moan and let her do her will with hands and mouth, and she greased him with another man’s cum, and he let her do it, and he stared up at her as she rode him, her tongue-tip caught in her teeth, her eyes hidden by the veined lids and furry lashes, her heavy pendent breasts pushing against his chest and his nails scoring her plump backside as she worked her pleasure out on him. His pleasure too, oh yes, like never before, and be damned to spirit and love and heart and mind.