Mr. Shakespeare's Bastard

by Richard B. Wright

  “Aerlene, if you read your uncle’s letter carefully, you will see that the position is not yours until you talk to this Miss Nash and see if she finds you acceptable. There may well be others applying, so it is important that I get you back to Woodstock as quickly as possible. It is all in your best interests. I shall take you to the Castle Inn myself and see you safely on your way.”

  “My mother told me that you put her up at the Castle Inn when she left London fifteen years ago,” I said, “so I am following in her footsteps, am I not?”

  “I do not think the circumstances are quite the same,” he said. “At least I hope I am correct in thinking that.”

  “Well, Uncle,” I said, “you are correct.”

  “You don’t seem altogether pleased by this news.”

  “I am fine with it, Uncle.”

  “We can only hope this rain lets up. They like a dry road, these fellows.”

  But I could only hope I would see my father the next day, and much of that night I lay awake willing the bad weather to continue.

  It was still raining lightly on Sunday when I knocked on the door of the house on Silver Street dressed as a girl might for church in my best skirt and smock and my new cloak. A maidservant, not much older than I was, opened the door, and when I asked if Mr. Shakespeare lodged in the house, I sensed her appraising me and my country accent.

  “He does,” she said.

  “I wonder if he might be at home?”

  “You might wonder,” she said, “but I can tell you he is not.”

  The pertness of her reply may have unstrung me a little, and I said I was from Mr. Shakespeare’s part of the country, newly arrived in London and looking to pass on good wishes to him. I immediately regretted the lie, but didn’t really know what else to say.

  “Mr. Shakespeare went out some time ago,” the girl said. “But I shall tell him you called when he returns. What name shall I give?”

  “Ward,” I said. “Aerlene Ward. What might be the best time to find him in?”

  “Difficult to say,” she said. “He is often at the playhouse across the river, though he has been working in his rooms of late. When he is here, he goes out to his dinner at one o’clock. You might try tomorrow at that time. I shall tell him you called.”

  “I’ll come by tomorrow, then,” I said.

  I had said it without thinking because the next day would be Monday. Yet as I walked away, I decided that Aunt Eliza and her curfew could go to the devil. If the rain held, the carriers would not set out, and I would try again to meet my father.

  As it happened, the rain did stop that Monday, but not until late morning, when a strong northerly wind scattered clouds across the sky, the sun emerging to cast the streets into vivid light, then just as quickly darkening them as the sun went into hiding. The wind met me full in the face as I walked towards Cripplegate. When I turned in to Silver Street, the St. Olave’s bell pealed a single chime. I was halfway down the street when I saw a man in a dark cloak leave the house at the corner and begin to walk towards me holding a hat to his head in the gusty, bright air. He stopped and, taking off the hat, looked down as if inspecting it for something. Loosening threads? A rent, perhaps? It was only a few moments, but time enough for me to observe the wide brow and balding head. Then he settled the hat again and, with a hand upon it against the wind, began to walk towards me, looking downward as if his mind were occupied elsewhere.

  As he approached, however, he glanced up at me, and I said, “Excuse me, sir, but are you Mr. Shakespeare?”

  Stopping, he regarded me severely with hazel eyes that were very like my own. “I am,” he said, “and you would be the girl who asked after me yesterday.”

  “I am, sir, yes.”

  “I saw you from my window on Saturday in the churchyard. What is it you wish of me?”

  I remember how disappointed I felt at his guarded air, the note of mild exasperation in his voice.

  “You told the maidservant you were from Warwickshire,” he said, “but your accent is most certainly not Warwickshire. Where is your birthplace?”

  “Oxfordshire, sir,” I said. “Worsley under Woodstock.”

  “I know it,” he said abruptly. “Your name is Ward?”

  “Yes, sir. Aerlene Ward.”

  “So what brings you to my door, Miss Ward? And why that lurking in the churchyard?”

  The buffeting wind kept his hand on the big hat, and my hair was now loose and disordered and I could have wept at the circumstances of our meeting: the unruly air, my father’s curtness, my own labouring to explain my presence before him. I spoke quickly, imagining my words flying through the wind unheard.

  “I believe you knew my mother, sir,” I said.

  “Did I?” he asked. “And when was that?”

  “It would have been some fifteen years ago, sir. When you first came to London and lived in Shoreditch. My mother told me you were an apprentice player at the time. One Sunday she said you went walking together in Finsbury Fields and you were nearly struck by an arrow. People had been out all night revelling and one young man was showing a girl how to use a bow, and her shot misfired and the arrow passed carelessly by you and my mother. You remarked then on how easily chance can overtake us in this life. She never forgot that.”

  He looked away and I wondered if he remembered that morning in Finsbury Fields.

  “It’s a poor day to be standing in the street,” he said. “It’s cold when that sun goes behind the clouds, and I’m tired of holding this hat on my head. Let us walk along. I’m going for my dinner. Have you eaten?”

  “I have not, sir,” I said.

  “Well, come along. I’m going to the Mitre. It’s not far.”

  We walked and he asked what had brought me to London, and I told him of the fire that destroyed our house and how I came to live with my aunt and uncle, who was a milliner in Threadneedle Street. I hastened also to tell him that I was soon returning to Oxfordshire since I had just learned by letter there might be work for me in service at Woodstock. He nodded as though this news was agreeable, inferring perhaps that at least I was not there to pester him and would soon be gone. And truthfully, I wanted him to have that impression.

  “And how did you find me?” he asked. “I have only moved within the month.”

  “A friend told me, sir. He works in a bookshop at St. Paul’s and knows your plays well. He made inquiries of friends in the trade.”

  He smiled. “Well, this city is rich enough in wagging tongues.”

  From the weary amusement in his voice, I sensed he now felt better disposed towards me.

  The Mitre was spacious and noisy, the taproom filled and a fire blazing in the enormous hearth. My father nodded to several while the landlord escorted us past the benches and tables to a small room at the back with its own fire. As my father busied himself ordering our meal, I wondered what I could next say to him. He was hungry, he said, and the meal was bountiful with oysters and cutlets, a dressed rabbit and a minced pie. Stewed apples. It may not have been precisely that, but something very like it. He enjoyed his food, my father, and I could see from the tightness of his doublet that he was growing a little stout in his middle years. He urged me to eat, though I had no appetite. He said he no longer had much stomach for ale and now drank only wine. As we ate, we listened to the voices and laughter from the taproom; he was studying my features and I think he knew I was his daughter. Yet I found him circumspect by nature. Not a man to welcome complication into his life. I thought of how my mother had seen him as a prudent and watchful young man fifteen years before, and now I too saw those qualities in his disposition.

  “So,” he asked finally, “you are now about fourteen?”

  “I am, sir,” I said. “I was fourteen on Lammas Eve. The same age as Juliet.”

  He smiled wryly. “Did I mention her birth date in that play?”

  “You did, sir. Early on the nurse reminds Lady Capulet, On Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen.”

 
“You have seen the play enacted? Where? In Oxford?”

  “I have seen none of your plays performed, sir, but I have read them many times.”

  “You can read?” He looked both surprised and pleased, and I could not help myself and told him of all the plays that I had read.

  Finishing his glass of wine, he stared at the pitcher for a long moment before pouring another. “And your mother,” he asked, “did she perish in the fire?”

  “No, sir. My mother died of a lingering illness a year ago last January. She never married and I was raised by my uncle and aunt, who were not in the house when it burned.”

  “So,” he said, “the aunt and uncle in Threadneedle Street are looking after you in the meantime.”

  “Yes, but now my uncle in Worsley has written of this position in Woodstock, so I shall likely return this week coming. We got his letter only two days ago.”

  “Your mother’s dying was prolonged?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And painful?”

  “Yes. Over those last months I read A Midsummer-Night’s Dream to her. It was her favourite, and she was happy that you have done so well with your writing. I read the Dream to her six times in that last year, though she died before the end of the last reading. It was our secret, Mam’s and mine, for my aunt in Worsley is a Puritan and thinks that plays are fit only for the wicked. I hid all your playbooks beneath the rafters in my bedroom, but all were lost in the fire and now I am trying to replenish them.”

  A boy came into the room and we watched him clear away the plates and cutlery and put more coal on the fire. After he left, my father said, “And you are called Aerlene?”

  “Yes, sir. Mam got the name from an old book of Saxon tales. She said that when I was born I looked like an elf, and Aerlene means ‘elf’ in the Saxon tongue.”

  Smiling he said, “I remember your mother. Her name was Elizabeth.”

  “It was, sir.”

  “A gentle-natured soul. She was new to London, and she missed the countryside and so did I. We often talked of the woods and streams and meadows of our childhoods.” He finished his wine. “I remember that day by the archery butts in Finsbury.” He stared at me for another long moment before saying, “What do you want of me? Do you know I have a family in Stratford?”

  “I have been told so, yes.”

  “My younger daughter is only three years older than you and our first-born, Susanna, is now a woman of nineteen. It’s hardly believable to me at times.”

  “I want nothing from you, sir,” I said. “I wanted only to meet you. To tell you how happy my mother was at your doing so well. She lived her life as she found it without regretting anything, raising me with help from her brother, my uncle Jack, who is a good, honest draper in Woodstock. I have met you now, and you were good enough to see me and have me to dinner. That is enough.”

  Silence fell between us again as we listened to the clamour of the taproom beyond the door. I asked him if he would be going home for the Christmas season to see his family.

  “No,” he said, “our company has been summoned to perform before the Queen at Whitehall on St. Stephen’s Day night.”

  “What will you present to her?”

  He looked at the fire. “They want a comedy. Something to lighten her spirit, as she is in poor health. We shall probably enact What You Will. She may be amused by the Puritan steward in his yellow stockings.”

  “I have been told that your Hamlet was well received, sir. My friend accounts it your best work yet.”

  He was silent for several moments. “Perhaps, but my last play was not so well regarded. An old and honest acquaintance told me it was too bleak. ‘Bitter as gall,’ he said. ‘As full of bile as an egg is full of meat. Who wants to lay out pennies to hear such stuff?’” He told me this with another of his wry smiles. “As I say, an old and honest acquaintance and ever forthcoming in opinion.”

  “And are you working now on something else?” I asked.

  Perhaps it was the wine, but he looked genuinely amused by me now. “You are interested in my work, are you not?”

  “I am, sir, yes.”

  “And appear to study it.”

  “I do.”

  “I am writing about a Moor.”

  “A Moor, sir?”

  “Yes,” he said, staring away again at the fire. “I am halfway finished, or thereabouts.”

  “What will the play be called, sir?” I asked.

  “I don’t yet know.”

  “I’m sure it will be a triumph.”

  Turning his face from the fire, he looked at me intently. “Perhaps, perhaps not. I must be getting back now.”

  “Of course, and thank you for the meal.”

  “You are leaving the city this week?”

  “I am, sir,” I said. “My uncle is arranging transport for me.”

  When the boy opened the door again, my father asked for the reckoning and then said to me, “It’s as well you go before more rain makes the roads too mucky. This northerly wind will bring fair weather for a few days, but you should dress warmly, as it will be cold on the highway this time of year.”

  After counting out the coins for dinner, he stood up and fastened his cloak with a handsome pin. “There has been plague all summer in the Low Countries,” he said. “I was told a Dutch ship was stayed by the authorities at Gravesend in August, and already there have been plague deaths in Yarmouth. It’s coming this way and in all likelihood we’ll see it by spring. It’s one reason I moved up here. It’s crowded in Southwark and the pestilence readily thrives there. But I’ll leave the city too when times demand it. They’ll close the playhouses, and anyway, London is no place to abide the plague. You are well to be off to the countryside. Now, let us do battle with that stubborn northerly, and mind it doesn’t blow you down the street. You’re not very big.”

  “I’ll be fine, sir. I’m stronger than I appear.”

  “I well believe it,” he said, “and it seems you have a good mind too.”

  On the street the signs over shops and taverns were creaking in the turbulent air, but the bursts of sunlight between the clouds were pleasing and I felt excited and joyful at having met and talked to my father at last, each syllable of his compliment resounding in my ears.

  Standing in front of the Mitre he said, “Your mother was a woman of sweet temperament, and I am sorry she was taken from you so early in your life. I lost my son six years ago this August past, and I mourn him yet.”

  He put on the tall hat again and held it firmly in place with one hand. Looking fully at me one more time he said, “It appears you are well tended by your relatives. I wish you a good and long life, child, and I am glad we met.”

  Turning then, he walked away and I called after him, “And long life to you, sir, as well. I hope your play about the Moor is well attended.” But already he was hurrying up Milk Street holding his hat, the black cloak flapping in the wind.

  Looking back across all the years, I wonder now if I was as joyful as I have described, for not once had he acknowledged our kinship. Not once had he called me his daughter, though I could tell he knew I was, and perhaps that is enough.

  I went by St. Paul’s yard one last time. I didn’t expect to see Scarfe there and he wasn’t. Gideon Parrot was busy carrying armfuls of books from the tables into the shop. There were few customers about and when he returned I asked him how matters stood, and what of Scarfe and his father? Were they all still in Whitechapel? I told him that if he thought I was prying, it would be the last time, because I was leaving the city in a day or two.

  Parrot looked tired and worried and told me he hadn’t seen Robin in over a fortnight. “He has no sense at all,” whispered Parrot. “He owes to many and has so freely stolen here and in Paternoster too that he dare not show his face. He is either in hiding or in the river. When I return to that horrid place in the evenings, his father is sitting there wringing his bad hand and weeping. I do what I can for him, and my master is trying to find a pl
ace for the old man in one of the almshouses for the winter. It’s not good for him in that room all day. He can’t make a fire and we’ve been visited too by rough people. One took me by the throat the other night and might have put an end to me had the other not restrained him. They want to know of Robin’s whereabouts, but I said I could tell them nothing in God’s truth, and they went away. But they will return, I have no doubt. I may tell you, girl, that I fear every day for my life.” He looked back towards the shop. “You’d best be going now. I have work to do and I can’t afford to lose my position.”

  Walking back to Threadneedle Street I thought of how people enter our lives and then vanish to leave us wondering: I thought of Margaret Brown and the hunted look of her as she stood by the blacksmith’s wife that day in August before fleeing into the night and that storm. Where was she now? Or was she anywhere but in a grave? And what of Scarfe? Now wandering or hiding in the great muddle of humanity around me that was London. Perhaps as she left the city Mam too wondered what would become of her friend Mary Pinder, lying ill in a trugging-house in Shoreditch. These were all unfinished stories in our lives.

  A day or two later, I left London riding in the company of a half-dozen carriers with their packhorses. So miserable had been my first experience that I had thought never to ride a horse again, but I had no choice and this time the journey proved uneventful. The weather stayed fair but cold, and my new cloak kept me warm. I also wore one of Boyer’s school caps, and some men in the company thought me a boy, which I didn’t bother to dispute. I shared a room with three of them at an inn at Wycombe, sleeping in my cloak, which fell below my skirt and apron. Their snoring and farting kept me awake most of the night, but lying there I didn’t mind; it was only one night in my life, and I had met my father and would soon see my uncle.

  After reaching Oxford in the afternoon of the second day, I walked the eight miles to Woodstock, arriving at my uncle’s shop as darkness was falling and he was closing for the day. He was as overjoyed to see me as I was him, and as in former days, we walked together down the hill towards Worsley and our new house, now roofed and habitable though not entirely finished within. My aunt Sarah received me civilly enough, but she looked unwell, and Uncle Jack told me she wasn’t yet in full spirits; the destruction of her home had mortified her will. She was, he said, in many ways easier to live with, but not the woman she was, and he missed that part of her.