The Slaying Of The Shrew

by Simon Hawke

  Elizabeth smiled and placed her hand upon his as he held her arm. “I would not call you a bad son,” she said, softy. “I think you are a far better one than he deserves.”

  “Well, that is neither here nor there,” said Smythe, a bit uncomfortably, though it felt wonderful to hear that from her. “The point is, whatever I am to make of myself, I must do it by myself.”

  “I understand how you must feel,” she said, after a moment’s pause, “but I do not think I can agree.”

  “Indeed? And why is that?”

  “Because I can see no particular virtue in refusing help when it is offered, or in refusing to take advantage of social connections. We live, after all, in a society where such connections are pursued with vigor and people are often rewarded not for merit, but for the relationships that they have cultivated. Why, even the queen bestows rewards upon her favorites, who vie with one another for position. I have seen my father thrive in such a fashion, which is how he has built his business and his fortune.”

  “And I have seen my father bring himself to ruin doing just the same,” said Smythe.

  “Because he did not do it wisely,” said Elizabeth. “You said yourself that he had tried to buy his way into a knighthood. I was not trying to suggest that you should attempt to purchase favor, as he did, merely that you should not scorn the favor you have already earned. Consider your friend, Will.”

  “What has Will to do with any of this?”

  “He serves well to illustrate my point. The part he played in helping me resulted from his desire to help you, because you are his friend. In turn, by assisting you in helping me, he has also helped Sir William, though that merely came about by happenstance. And despite the fact that Will Shakespeare did not set out specifically to help Sir William, Sir William was nevertheless appreciative, and he, in turn, has helped Will Shakespeare by mentioning his name at court and praising him as a poet, which has already begun to bring him some commissions and earn him something of a reputation. Sir William would be no less willing to help you, for your help to him was even greater than your friend Will Shakespeare’s. There is no dishonor in any of this, Tuck, no injury to pride. No one has tried to purchase favor, and no bribes have been offered or accepted. Tis merely a matter of people helping one another. Just as you helped me when I came to you because I had nowhere else to turn.”

  “Well, to be completely honest,” Smythe said, “I cannot claim that I was moved to help you entirely out of the goodness of my heart. ‘Twould be base of me if I were to deny that, at least in part, I did have somewhat baser motives.”

  She smiled. “And what makes you think that I did not, as well?” She chuckled at the surprised expression on his face. “You look as if I have just sprouted horns. Why do men always presume that only they can think and feel such things?”

  “I am not sure that we do presume so,” he replied, recovering. “It is just that we are unaccustomed to hear women speak of them. Especially with such frankness.”

  “And why should a woman not speak as frankly as a man?”

  “Well, because ‘tis not very womanly, I suppose,” he replied, with a smile.

  “Now you sound just like my father,” she said, with a grimace. “The queen speaks frankly, from everything I hear, and yet no one thinks her any less womanly for it.”

  “Well, that is different; she is the queen,” Smythe said.

  Elizabeth looked up at the cathedral ceiling as if seeking deliverance and shook her head in exasperation. “Again, that is just what my father would have said. ‘Tis a most unsatisfactory and unreasonable reply. It does not even address the question. You say ‘tis unwomanly for a woman to speak frankly. I tell you that the queen speaks frankly and yet she is a woman, and you respond by saying that it is different because she is the queen. Where is the sense in that? How is it different?”

  “I should think the sense in my reply should be self evident,” Smythe said. “The queen is not like ordinary women.”

  “Indeed. Does being the queen make her any less a woman?”

  “Certainly not. Quite the contrary, I should say.”

  “So then if being the queen makes her more of a woman, then does speaking frankly make her any less the queen?”

  They made the turn on the Walk and started heading back arm-in-arm the way they came. Smythe could not help but notice how men turned to stare openly at Elizabeth as they went by. “Of course not,” Smythe replied, feeling distracted and somewhat irritated. “As queen, ‘tis her royal perogative to speak in whatever manner she should choose.”

  “Why then would she choose to speak in a manner that makes a woman seem less womanly, rather than more?”

  Smythe frowned. “Because she is the queen, and cannot be judged by the same standards as ordinary people like ourselves. Indeed, ‘tis not for us to judge her in any way at all, for she rules by the divine grace of God.”

  “And yet, strange as it may seem, God made her a woman,” Elizabeth replied.

  “Do you presume to question God?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

  “Why is it that whenever a woman presumes to question men, they act as if she has presumed to question God?” Elizabeth replied. “ ‘Tis most vexing and exasperating. I truly thought you would be different, Tuck, but I see now that my friend Catherine was right.”

  “Catherine?” Smythe said, frowning. He could not understand why their conversation had taken this peculiar turn, or how it had turned into an argument, but it seemed as if Catherine Middleton was somehow behind it all. Until the previous day, when he had learned that the Queen’s Men would be playing at her wedding, he had never even heard of her. Now, suddenly, she was Elizabeth ’s “very good friend.” He could not recall Elizabeth ever even mentioning her name.

  “She said that men are all alike in that aspect,” Elizabeth continued.

  “And what aspect is that?” he asked, confused.

  “That if a man spoke frankly and asserted himself, then he would be regarded as bold, intelligent, and forthright. Yet if a woman were to do the very same, she would be branded a truculent scold and a shrew. And to think I disagreed with her and insisted you were different! Oh, you should have heard her laugh!” “She laughed at me?”

  “No, at me! Why must you think ‘tis always about you) ‘Twas my innocence that so amused her. She told me that at my age, one would think I would know better!”

  “And what is Catherine’s age, if one may be so boorish as to ask?”

  “She is seventeen years old.”

  “Two years younger?” Smythe said, mildly surprised. “Why, from the way she spoke to you, I would have thought she was much older.”

  “She makes me feel as if she is,” Elizabeth replied. “For all that she is younger, she is much more clever and spirited than I.”

  “She sounds rather arrogant to me,” said Smythe. “And rather graceless and ill-mannered, too.”

  “You see)’” Elizabeth said, breaking away from him. “You have just given the very proof of her perception!”

  “I see nothing of the sort,” he replied, angrily, feeling the color rising to his face. “What I see is that this girl has been filling your head with all sorts of arrant nonsense. I have never met Catherine Middleton, nor has she even laid eyes upon me, and yet despite this, she apparently deems herself fit to sit in judgement over my character, and not only mine, which is presumptuous enough, but all men in general. Would that I had such wisdom at the age of seventeen! Odd’s blood! With such sagacity, by now I could have been not only a gentleman in my own right, but a privy counselor and doubtless a peer of the realm! Indeed, perhaps we should recommend your friend Catherine to Sir William, so that he, in turn, can recommend her to the queen, for ‘tis clear that she should be advising her along with Walsingham and Cecil as one of her chief ministers.”

  “Oh, now who is spouting arrant nonsense?” Elizabeth retorted. “You are speaking like a simple, addle-pated fool!”

  “Well, you might recall
that ‘twas this ‘simple, addle-pated fool’ to whom you turned for help when you were in your desperate hour,” Smythe replied, stung by her words. “And when all else seemed convinced that you were taking leave of your senses and would soon be bound for Bedlam, ‘twas this ‘simple, addle-pated fool’ alone who listened to you and believed in you and helped you. Well, fool I may be, milady, but I shall tell you who is the greater fool, and that would be the man whose supreme folly shall be to say ‘I do’ to Catherine Middleton, for in his ‘do-ing’ shall come his undoing, mark my words.”

  “He shall be marrying a shrew, is that your meaning, then?” asked Elizabeth, archly.

  “ ‘Twas you who said it and not I!”

  She shook her head. “You sorely disappoint me, Tuck. I expected rather more from you. But then ‘tis I who am to blame for having expectations. Women who have expectations of men are often doomed to disappointment.”

  “And did your clever friend Catherine say that, too?” asked Smythe.

  “As a matter of fact, she did,” Elizabeth replied. “I disagreed with her in that, as well, and told her that you lived up to all my expectations. ‘You will see,’ was all she said. And so I have. Would that I had not. Good day to you, sir.”

  She abruptly turned and walked away with a firm, purposeful stride.

  Smythe was so taken aback, he simply stood there motionless, staring after her, caught in the grip of indecision and conflicting emotions. A part of him wanted to go after her, but he was not sure if it was to apologize or else continue the argument until he could make her see his side of it. Yet another part stubbornly resisted, telling him to let her go and let the devil take her. He felt very angry, but at the same time, he was filled with regret and self-reproach. And he did not understand what had just happened.

  They had never argued like this before. Elizabeth had never behaved like that before. It was a side of her that he had never before seen. Granted, she was willful and possessed of strong opinions, but he had never known her to be so utterly unreasonable, so stubbornly obstinate, so… shrewish.

  The corners of his mouth turned down in distaste as he thought of Catherine Middleton, a young woman whom he did not even know, but whom he already disliked intensely. She appeared to be trying to poison Elizabeth ’s mind against him. And apparently, she was succeeding.

  “Oh, you were so right, Catherine!” Elizabeth said. “He behaved just as you predicted!”

  “Well, that is because men are so utterly predictable,” Catherine Middleton said dryly, as the tailor and his apprentices busied themselves with the fitting of her wedding gown. “Ow! Have a care, you clumsy oaf. You stuck me again!”

  “Forgive me, mistress,” said the young apprentice, around a mouthful of pins, as he draped cloth over her farthingale. “I shall try to be more careful.”

  “That is what you said the last two times,” replied Catherine, noting that he did not sound especially contrite. “I am not here to be your pin cushion, you fumble-fingered rogue.” She turned to the tailor. “If you cannot find any male apprentices who are less ham-handed, then perhaps you should seek to employ women, so they can perform the job properly!” The cloth slipped from the farthingale as she turned, causing the apprentice to step back, throw up his hands and roll his eyes at his master in exasperation.

  “The seamstresses who work for me do the job very properly, indeed, milady,” said the tailor, in a haughty tone, as he stood back with his arms folded, surveying the scene with a critical eye. “However, the fitting must perforce be done properly for them to do their job the way they should. And that requires a certain degree of cooperation from the wearer of the dress, you see.”

  “The wearer of the dress shall not survive to wear it if she is bled to death by your incompetent apprentices,” Catherine replied, dryly. “Ow! Now you did that on purpose, you miserable cur!” She shoved the offending apprentice away and he lost his balance, falling hard on his rump, venom in his angry gaze.

  “I must insist that you desist from abusing my apprentices, milady,” the tailor said.

  “Then kindly instruct them to keep their oafish hands to themselves!” Catherine replied, jerking away from another young apprentice as he fumbled at her extremely low-cut bodice. “You think I do not know what they are about, the knaves?”

  “Here, here, what’s all this row?” demanded Godfrey Middleton sternly as he entered the room. “Catherine, I could hear you railing clearly all the way from the bottom of the stairs!”

  “Well then, Father, I am pleased that you shall hear more clearly still now that you are here,” Catherine replied.

  Elizabeth had to bite down on her knuckle to keep from chuckling. She knew her own father thought that she was spoiled and willful, but she would never have had the courage to speak to him as Catherine did to her father. Not that Catherine was truly rude or disrespectful. She managed somehow to be defiant without openly appearing to defy. It was, however, a fine line that she walked, and Catherine sometimes seemed balanced quite precariously.

  “I have heard clearly enough already,” Middleton said, with a sniff. “There is no excuse for this cantankerous behavior, Catherine. These men are merely trying to do their job.”

  “Trying is truly what they are,” said Catherine. “They are trying my patience sorely with their pricking pins and groping fingers. I find this entire process vexing and outrageous beyond measure.”

  “Milord, upon my oath, I can assure you that my apprentices and I have exercised the utmost care and taken absolutely no untoward liberties,” the tailor said, in a gravely offended tone. “Indeed, if any injury has been sustained here, it has been to young Gregory, yonder, who was just assaulted in a most unseemly manner by your daughter.”

  “Aye, ‘twas most unseemly,” echoed Gregory, looking like a little dog that had been kicked.

  “I’ll give you unseemly, you lying little guttersnipe!” said Catherine, raising her hand at him. Gregory cowered, as if in fear for his very life.

  “That will be quite enough, Kate!” her father said.

  “I hate it when you call me Kate,” she replied, through gritted teeth. “My name is Catherine!”

  “I should think I ought to know your name, girl, I bloody well gave it to you.”

  “Father!”

  “Be silent! God’s Wounds, I shall be eternally grateful when at last you have become your husband’s baggage and not mine. These seventeen long years I have put up with your sharp tongue and it has exhausted all my patience.”

  “Really, Father, it cannot have been that long, surely. For the first three or four of those seventeen years, I could scarcely even speak.”

  “You learned soon enough and well enough to suit me,” Middleton replied, dryly.

  “I have always sought to please you, Father,” Catherine said. “ Tis a source of great discomfort to me that I have always failed to do so. Would that I had been a son and not a daughter, then doubtless I would have found it much less of a hardship to find favor in your eyes.”

  “Would indeed that you had been a son and not a daughter,” said her father. “Then I would not have had to pay nearly a king’s ransom to get you married off.”

  Gregory, the young apprentice, chuckled at that, but Catherine ignored him. The only evidence she gave that she had heard him was a tightening of her upper lip. Elizabeth thought it was insufferable that her father should speak to her that way in front of Strangers. She felt awkward being in the same room with them herself.

  “And yet you are paying merely in coin and a vested interest in your business,” Catherine said, “while I am paying with my body and my soul and all my worldly goods. If the shoe were on the other foot, and ‘twas I who paid the dowry to have you married off, then which of us, I wonder, would you think was paying the greater price?”

  “The greatest price, I fear, shall be paid by poor Sir Percival, who shall be marrying naught but trouble and strife,” said Middle-ton. “My conscience is clear, however, for none can
say that I made any misrepresentations at all in that regard. Indeed, I made a point of it to acquaint Sir Percival in full with the nature of your disputatious disposition, so that no claim could afterward be made that I was not forthright in all respects concerning this betrothal and this union, and so that no rancor ever could be borne.”

  “And that is very well, for I would not wish you to bear Sir Percy’s rancor, Father,” Catherine said. “Better by far that a husband should bear rancor towards his bride than towards his father-in-law. ‘Tis well that you have so fully acquainted him with the nature of my disposition, as you say, for now at least one of us shall know something of the one with whom we are to say our vows.”

  Her father harrumphed and frowned, looking as if he were about to make a sharp rejoinder, but instead chose to direct his comments towards the tailor. “Are you finished yet with all this bother? God’s Wounds, one would think that you were costuming the queen herself!”

  “A moment more, milord,” the tailor said, fussing about and hovering around Catherine like some great predatory bird. He made a few final adjustments, stepped back to admire his handiwork, nodded to himself with satisfaction and then clapped his hands, signalling his apprentices to finish and pack everything away.

  “At last!” said Catherine, with a heavy sigh. “I was beginning to feel like some bedraggled scarecrow in the field.”

  “Would that your dress were no more expensive than a scarecrow’s,” said her father. “With what this fellow charges for his work, I could attire at least half the court.”

  “Milord, I have attired at least half the court,” the tailor responded stiffly, “and upon occasion, even Her Majesty herself, as you must surely know, for you had inquired about my work before you ever came to me. If a gentleman wishes to have nothing but the very best, then he must be prepared to pay for nothing but the very best. I can assure you that once the work is done, and your daughter in her wedding dress would make the goddess Aphrodite blush for the meanness of her own apparel, I am confident that you will consider the money to have been well spent, indeed.”