Shakespeare's Spy

by Gary Blackwood

  “Oh? When is ’t to be, then?”

  “Now.”

  When Ned and I entered the long gallery, everyone else was there, with the exception of Sal Pavy. Mr. Heminges wasted no time in telling us the reason for the gathering. “The qu-queen has t-taken a turn for the worse. Ac-c-cording to her physician, she m-may have but a few more d-days. The Privy C-Council has asked that, out of r-respect for Her M-Majesty, all p-public performances be suspended for the t-time being.”

  “Asked?” said Ned. “Ordered, you mean.”

  “C-call it what you w-will; the r-result is the same.”

  “And what does ‘for the time being’ mean?”

  “It means,” said Mr. Shakespeare, “that we don’t know. Her Majesty still has not named her successor, but I think we can assume it will be James. What that will mean, we can only guess.”

  “In the m-meantime,” said Mr. Heminges, “we have d-decided to go on as always, re-rehearsing and l-learning lines, and so on, with one d-difference—you w-will all have your evenings free.”

  Though Sam was more subdued than usual, he was still Sam. “Speaking of free,” he said, “will we still get our wages?”

  Mr. Heminges smiled, a bit wanly. “F-for the time being.”

  When the meeting ended, I caught Mr. Armin and asked after Sal Pavy. “He’s at home—his parents’ home, I mean—in bed. He’s come down with a bad case of the coughs and sniffles—brought on by his swim in the river yesterday, no doubt.”

  “Oh, gis. Will ’a be all right, do you wis?”

  “Most likely. He’s being well cared for by his mother.”

  I shook my head. “I should never ha’ let him cross on th’ ice.”

  “Don’t go feeling responsible now. After all, you were the one who saved him.”

  “Aye, I helped a bit. But ‘a would not ha’ needed saving had I not been so stupid as to accept his challenge i’ the first place.”

  Mr. Armin shrugged. “You didn’t wish to seem a coward; that’s natural.”

  “Perhaps,” I said. “And perhaps I would ha’ shown more courage by refusing.”

  24

  The prospect of the queen’s death sobered us all. Though we went about our duties as usual, and even traded a bit of good-natured banter from time to time, we seemed less like comrades bound together by a common goal than like shipmates aboard a sinking vessel.

  That evening, with several more hours than usual at my disposal, I brought my play to an end. I had performed in enough tragedies to know that the hero is expected to die. Mr. Shakespeare had jotted down three alternative fates for Timon: “Killed by thieves?” “Angry senators slay him?” and “Takes his own life?” As Timon was so disgusted with the world and everything in it, the last possibility seemed the most fitting. After giving him one last malediction to utter—”What is amiss, let plague and infection mend! Graves only be men’s works, and death their gain!”—I had him hang himself from a tree—off the stage, of course. Though the audience would no doubt have perferred to actually see him dangling, I feared that the actor playing the part might object.

  I had supposed that when I set down the final line, I would experience a great sense of satisfaction, of accomplishment. Instead I felt rather the way I did when awaking from a particularly vivid dream—a bit dismayed by the dreariness and the demands of the real world, and half longing to slip back into the world of my imagining.

  I had another reason as well to regret having completed the script. Now I would have to show it to someone—at least if I hoped to make any money with it. Unless I wished to hire a hall and a troupe of players and present the play myself, I must submit it to one of the city’s existing theatre companies. And the logical place to begin was with the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. The notion should not have bothered me, I suppose. After all, I had grown accustomed to being criticized by them—for my acting, for my singing, for my dancing, for my scriming. But those were all external things, mere skills to be mastered. The play was personal, a product not of my muscles or my vocal cords but of my mind. If they found flaws in it, the flaws were mine; if they judged it foolish, I would be the fool.

  Thoughts and events that seem plausible enough, or even profound, within the context of a dream often seem, upon waking, like so much nonsense. It was the same with my play. While I was caught up in composing it, the story had been sensible, the characters clear, the lines lyrical. But when I looked it over in the light of day, it seemed to have undergone a hideous transformation. The situations were now contrived, the characters shallow, the dialogue lame: “Now breathless wrong shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease, and pursy insolence shall break his wind with fear, and horrid flight”? Had I really written such a hopeless line? I must have been not only dreaming, but delirious.

  It was fortunate that I did not have a lighted candle at hand; I was so overcome with loathing for my creation that I would surely have sentenced it to the fiery death it deserved. Instead, I folded it haphazardly and crammed it into my wallet, to get it out of my sight. I must indeed have been dreaming or delirious to imagine that I, a paltry prentice player and offspring of an outlaw, might produce something remotely worth praising, or paying for.

  As I was in no mood for conversation, I set out for the Cross Keys without waiting for Sam. The day was bright, almost balmy. Spring seemed to have remembered its cue at last. But I was in no mood for it, either. To my surprise, I found Ned Shakespeare, who ordinarily arrived half an hour later than everyone else, waiting outside the office. “What brings you here so early?” I asked.

  “I wanted a word with you.”

  “Wi’ me?” I dug out my key and turned it in the lock. “What about?”

  He glanced this way and that, then pulled me abruptly inside the room. “Do you have the sides for Sejanus yet?”

  Puzzled by his furtive behavior, I pulled my sleeve from his grasp. “Nay; as I told you, I’ll get to them today.”

  “Oh, yes. Well, I was wondering whether you might copy out my part first.”

  “I suppose. But why?”

  He looked uncomfortable. “I wouldn’t want this to get Out, but the truth is … I’m having difficulty remembering my lines.”

  “That’s not exactly a secret.”

  “No, and I ‘m sure you all think it’s because I put off learning them. But it isn’t.” He thumped his forehead with his knuckles. “I just seem to have trouble getting them to stick in my head, no matter how many times I go over them. I thought perhaps if I got started on them before anyone else, it might help.”

  “All right. I can ha’ your side for you afore the morning rehearsal.”

  “Excellent. Thank you. I’ll let you get to work, then.” He slipped out the door and pulled it softly shut behind him.

  As I wrote out Ned’s speeches and the cues that led into them, it struck me again how lifeless the lines were. I began to wonder whether I had been too critical of my own efforts. I took the crumpled script from my wallet, smoothed it out on Mr. Shakespeare’s desk, and tried my best to examine it with an objective, unbiased eye. It was impossible, like trying to see my own face the way others saw it, or to hear my own voice as it sounded to someone else.

  As a person may be aware that his nose is too long or his chin too short, I was aware that there were awkward spots in the play. But it seemed to me there were also some passages that Mr. Shakespeare himself would not have been ashamed to admit to—though he might not wish to boast about them, either.

  So absorbed was I in studying the script that I did not hear the inner door of the office open. It wasn’t until Mr. Heminges cleared his throat loudly that I noticed him standing over me. “G-God you good morning, Widge. Hard at w-work already, I see.”

  “Aye,” I said, feeling a bit guilty for being occupied with my own script and not Mr. Jonson’s.

  “Well, I’ll tr-try not to disturb you. I m-must go over the b-books and see how long we m-may hope to survive w-with no income.” He sat at his d
esk and opened the ledger in which he kept track of the company’s finances. “Oh, b-by the by, has Will t-told you that we m-may have hit upon a way of helping J-Julia?”

  “Nay! Truly?”

  “Mountjoy, his landlord, is a f-former Frenchman who does a g-good deal of business with c-companies in Paris. He c-can arrange for one of them to loan Julia the m-money she needs for her p-passage. A b-bill of exchange, I believe it’s c-called.”

  “Gog’s nowns! That’s good news! You ken where she may be reached, then?”

  He turned to me with an anxious frown. “N-no. I th-thought you did.”

  “I ha’ th’ address of her old lodgings, but she’s no longer there, remember?”

  “Sh-shrew me! I hadn’t th-thought of that. W-was there an address on the l-letter her f-father showed us?”

  “I didn’t notice.”

  “N-nor did I. There m-must have been, though, otherwise C-Cogan would have had n-no notion where to send the m-money—pr-presuming he m-meant to send it at all, wh-which I doubt. D-do you know where he m-may be found?”

  “Somewhere in Alsatia, I expect. I’ve been meaning to seek him out. I thought that … I thought that you and Mr. Shakespeare were not willing to help Julia, so I planned to raise the money meself.”

  He gave me a look that was half reproachful, half astonished. “D-did you truly imagine that we w-would leave her stranded over there?”

  “I … I didn’t ken.”

  “Well, you sh-should have,” he said sternly. Then, in a gentler tone, he added, “And how, m-may I ask, did you propose to c-come up with three p-pounds?”

  I hung my head, embarrassed. “By selling me play,” I murmured.

  “What p-play is that?”

  I patted the script. “This one.”

  “M-may I see it?” He scanned the first several pages. “This is the script W-Will gave up on, is it not?”

  “Aye. ‘A said I might do wi’ it as I wished.”

  “And so you c-completed it?”

  “Aye.”

  “Th-that’s quite an accomplishment. Does it have a n-name?”

  “Not yet. I’ve been thinking, though, that it should ha’ something to do wi’ revenge or retaliation—An Eye for an Eye, or Like for Like, or perhaps Measure for Measure.”

  “M-Measure for Measure, eh? That has a r-ring to it. T-tell me, to whom d-did you expect to sell this?”

  I shrugged. “Whoever was interested.”

  “Have you sh-shown it to Will?”

  “Nay. I was afeared ’a would think it … well, putrid. Besides, I’ve been—” I broke off.

  “You’ve b-been angry with him,” Mr. Heminges finished.

  “Aye.”

  “For s-sending Judith home, I expect.”

  “Aye.”

  “Well, it is a p-pity it had to c-come to that, but she br-brought it upon herself.”

  “I ken that. But ‘a might ha’ been kinder to her while she was here. ‘A might ha’ spent more time wi’ her.”

  “That’s so.” Mr. Heminges leaned toward me and said softly, “B-but just between the t-two of us, I believe he was af-f-fraid to.”

  “Afeared? Why?”

  “He t-told me that he never kn-knows what to say to her.”

  I laughed. “Sorry. It’s just that it’s hard to imagine the likes of Mr. Shakespeare being at a loss for words. I thought it was only me.”

  “N-no, I suspect that p-particular problem is a universal one. In f-fact, I’m convinced that m-men and women actually speak t-two separate languages, in which the w-words happen to s-sound alike but have t-totally different meanings.”

  “I never had any trouble talking to Julia.”

  “Ah, but you see, that was b-because she was pr-pretending to be a boy.” He glanced at the script in his hand. “If you don’t m-mind, I’ll r-read through this, and then p-pass it on to the other sh-sharers.”

  “Including Mr. Shakespeare?” I asked apprehensively.

  “Of c-course. He w-won’t scoff at it, if that’s what w-worries you. R-remember, he was once a n-novice playwright himself.” Mr. Heminges leaned toward me confidentially again. “Well, you’ve d-done Two Gentlemen, so you kn-know well enough that his w-words are not always g-golden, and his structure s-sometimes creaks a bit, eh?”

  I sighed. “Aye, all right, show it to him, then.”

  “G-good lad. And d-don’t worry about Julia, either. We’ll tr-track her father down somehow.”

  25

  Despite Mr. Heminges’s assurances, I could not help fretting about Julia’s fate. In her letter, she had said that her funds were fading fast; by now she might well be wandering the streets of Paris, starving. Nor could I help wondering how my first faltering efforts at playwriting would be received by men who had been performing plays half their lives.

  With these matters occupying my mind, I had little to spare for Mr. jonson’s script. I did manage to copy all of Ned Shakespeare’s lines before rehearsal, as I had promised, but not much else. As we assembled downstairs for dinner, I spotted my script changing hands, from Mr. Armin’s to Mr. Shakespeare’s. I cornered Mr. Heminges and asked anxiously, “Has Mr. Armin read it, do you wis?”

  “Ap-p-parently so,” said Mr. Heminges.

  “And you? You’ve read it as well?”

  He smiled at my expectant, insistent manner. “I have.”

  “Well?” I prompted him. “What did you think?”

  “I th-think that you show a g-good deal of promise. Well t-talk about it this evening, after the others have had a ch-chance to look at it, eh?”

  I nodded without enthusiasm. I didn’t like the sound of that word, promise. It was the very term that had been applied to me by various members of the company, back when I first began acting with them in insignificant roles. Now that I was more experienced, I realized that it had been a euphemism, a kind way of saying that I was hopelessly incompetent, but might have a faint hope of someday becoming adequate.

  Though I had never considered myself a glutton for punishment, I went begging for it that afternoon at scriming practice by asking Mr. Armin his opinion of my play. He clapped a hand on my shoulder, as he sometimes did after I had shown unusual skill with the sword. “Very promising,” he said.

  As I had given such short shrift to Sejanus that morning, I did my penance by returning to the office to copy another side or two before I headed home. The door that opened into the office from the hallway was locked. I drew my purse from within my doublet and dug into it. My fingers encountered nothing but the few coins—mostly pennies and farthings—that made up my enire fortune.

  Puzzled, I turned the purse upside down, shook its contents into my hand, and examined them incredulously. Perhaps someone had replaced my purse with one of those trick purses used by sleight-of-hand artists, for the key had unaccountably disappeared. I searched my wallet and found only my table-book, my plumbago pencil, and a petrified sweetmeat that Mr. Pope’s boys had somehow missed.

  I extended the search to my brain. When had I last seen the key? Earlier that morning, I was sure, when I let myself and Ned in through the outer door. Ned had distracted me by asking for his side; perhaps without thinking I had tossed the key onto the desk. Or had Heft it in the lock? Surely I had not been that much of a harecop.

  Well, there was but one way to find out. I descended to the dark parlor, meaning to go into the courtyard and up the outside steps to the balcony. As I headed for the door, I heard my name called. I turned to see four of the company’s sharers sharing a booth and a round of ale.

  Mr. Armin beckoned to me. “We were wondering what had become of you.”

  “I was about to copy some more of Sejanus.” I carefully avoided any mention of the missing key.

  “Well, come and sit with us a moment, first.” While I pulled a chair up to the end of the table, Mr. Armin summoned the tapster and ordered an ale for me.

  “We’ve j-just been discussing M-Measure for Measure,” said Mr. Heminges.
>
  I stared at him, momentarily baffled. “What’s that, then?”

  “Your play?”

  “Oh? Oh, aye! I’ve considered so many titles, I’d forgotten that one.”

  “It’s a good title,” said Mr. Phillips.

  “Yes,” said Mr. Shakespeare. “I wish I’d thought of it.”

  “Well, you may ha’ ’t, an you like. I can easily call mine something else. I’ve no shortage of titles.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “It’s naught.” I glanced nervously about at the four of them in turn. “So … is that all you liked about it, then? The title?”

  “No, no,” said Mr. Shakespeare. “In fact, it has quite a number of good qualities.”

  I waited for him to go on, to cite some of its good qualities. When he did not, I swallowed hard and said, “But it’s not good enough, is it?”

  Mr. Shakespeare cast a beseeching glance at Mr. Heminges, as though asking for help from a more tactful quarter. “N-not as it stands,” said Mr. Heminges gently. “P-perhaps if you were to w-work on it a b-bit more, and then sh-show it to us again.”

  Unaccountably, I found myself fighting back tears. I felt nearly as forlorn as I had when Judith left, or when I learned that my father had died. Though none of the sharers had said, or even suggested, that my work was worthless, it was what I heard—or at least what that part of me that was governed by emotion heard. Yet, at the same time, some more reasonable part acknowledged that they were right, of course, that I could not possibly expect to turn out a well-made play on the first try, any more than a scrimer could expect to defeat the first opponent he ever faced. It was just that I had worked so hard on it, and hoped for so much from it.

  “You mustn’t be discouraged, Widge,” said Mr. Shakespeare. “We’re all agreed, I think, that the play shows—”

  “Aye, I ken. It shows promise.”

  “I was about to say that it shows considerable skill, and a good ear for dialogue. There were several speeches in there that I would have sworn I wrote myself.”

  “You d-did,” Mr. Heminges reminded him.