Love's Will

by Meredith Whitford

  “Tell Sarfampton to keep ’is ’and on ’is purse.” The boy scampered away. Reminded, Will and Anne closed in on the Earl. Kit Marlowe, shuffling moodily along behind, filled and lit his tobacco pipe and, in a cloud of smoke, they finished the short journey to William’s lodgings.

  Anne had seen Southampton House up on High Holborn; no doubt its smallest chamber was bigger than her entire home. She wondered what the Earl had expected. But the rooms were, if plain, clean and tidy and they had the grace notes of a Turkey carpet, some silver plate, brocade and velvet cushions. And books. Last winter William had paid the theatre carpenter to nail up shelves for him wherever there was room, and the books had been busily breeding ever since. After one interested glance about, Southampton doffed his hat and cloak and began to inspect the books. Once or twice his brows rose in surprise; occasionally he took down a favourite.

  “You have wide interests, Master Shakspere.”

  “Here in my home, my lord, call me Will, everyone does. I’ve a magpie’s tastes, I read anything and everything. London’s booksellers all know me and they keep books for me. Wine, your lordship?”

  “Harry. If you are Will, then I am Harry.” As he took the glass from William he gave him such a sweet and piercing smile that Anne felt as if the world had for a moment spun in reverse.

  She was glad when Southampton moved on to look down at the papers to William’s writing table. “Have you a new work in preparation? Could I hear some of it?”

  “That’s an appeal that never fails,” Anne said drily. She could have added, “Nor does flattery, to a writer”. Aloud, she said, “Read him your Lover’s Complaint, Will.”

  “It’s not finished.”

  “But it’s good,” Kit said. “You’re fast overtaking me, Will my friend. Read it.”

  Three hours later the boy Nol was asleep on cushions in the corner, the room was hot from the fire and clouded with Kit’s tobacco smoke. Most of the wine had been drunk, and all of the ale; crusts and bones on platters showed that they must have eaten, though none of them could remember doing so. The men were all in their shirtsleeves. Anne sat with her head on William’s shoulder and his arm around her; Harry sat literally at William’s feet, curled up on a cushion before the fire. They had heard The Lover’s Complaint, Kit’s half-written Hero and Leander, sonnets, parts of William’s and Kit’s new plays. None of them was drunk, except on words, but an intimacy had sprung up among them that had something of drink’s enchantment to it.

  “They want me to marry,” Southampton said reflectively into the silence. “They nag, they cozen, they beguile, they order me. You must marry and beget an heir, is all I hear. My mother, Lord Burghley, my friends. Burghley wants me to wed his granddaughter.”

  “Then why not do it?”

  “I’m only nineteen.”

  “I was married at eighteen,” William said, “and a father at nineteen.”

  “But you married for love. Didn’t you? People like you can, you see. And you’re happy in your marriage, I can see that.”

  “Yes,” said William, and stroked Anne’s cheek. “Yes I married for love, and we are happy.”

  Now why, wondered Anne, does he say that as if it’s a prayer, an invocation, rather than a statement of fact? Yet it’s the first time he has said it.

  “Then there’s your answer!” cried the Earl. “I will not marry where I do not love. I will not be sold into marriage to make Burghley’s granddaughter a countess. And I’ve no reason to think well of marriage.”

  “Yet rank has its obligations,” William said gently. “And when you hold your newborn child in your arms, everything, anything, is worthwhile, for then you know the meaning of love.”

  “Even a child begotten in dislike? For cold duty?”

  “Now there I can’t answer you from personal experience. But yes, I suspect so.”

  Southampton swivelled around to look at Marlowe. “And you? What do you say in this debate?”

  “I? I’m not qualified to speak. Marriage is not for me.” At Southampton’s uncertain glance towards Anne he said, “Oh, our lovely Anne knows what I am. A ganymede; a sodomite; a practitioner of the Greek vice.”

  “Sweet Hellene, make me immortal with a kiss,” murmured William, and Southampton laughed until he cried.

  “So marriage is not for me,” Kit went on, “but I agree that a man of your standing and rank will have to wed, and soon; also, Burghley will have his way. He is the most powerful man in England. Have a care for those around you who may be… vulnerable.”

  “Yes, yes. But I will not be sold.” As if in comment, outside a clock struck nine. Reluctantly Harry Southampton rose to his feet. “I must go. I am expected at home, where I have never enjoyed myself so much as here. This has been the best of times. Thank you. Mrs Shakspere – Anne – I trust we will meet again.” To her pleasure he kissed her hand. “It has been a delight to meet you. Will, Kit, I bid you goodnight.”

  “But you can’t go alone through London,” William exclaimed. “Not after dark. I’ll come with you. Kit, you will bear Anne company for half an hour?”

  “With pleasure.”

  “Then it’s settled. Where’s my cloak?” William gave Anne a hasty kiss and ushered Southampton out.

  Anne opened a window, not that London’s night air was the perfumed exhalation of the gods, and stirred up the fire. When she went to check on the sleeping children their tabby cat rushed in to the warmth, paraded around the hearthrug then tucked itself up, purring.

  “Kit,” said Anne, “you know all the London gossip. What do you know of Lord Southampton?”

  “I’ve met him a time or two. I like him. A sweet-tempered boy, although spoilt. Clever, learned, educated.”

  “I could surmise so much for myself. What else do you know? Why did he say he’s no reason to think well of marriage?”

  “Ah. His parents married young. Not a successful marriage. By the time Harry was, oh, four, his parents were at odds. His father accused his mother of adultery, she accused him of being under the thumb of one of his servants; perhaps under a little more than that. They parted, Harry was sent to live with his father, and both he and his sister, Lady Mary, were forbidden to see their mother. I heard that in his will Harry’s father left ludicrous signs of favour to his servant and stated that his daughter was not so much as to be in the same house as her mother.”

  “A hard man, then. Unforgiving. Spiteful, even.”

  “Perhaps. He died when Harry was eight. Left enormous debts, I believe. Lands, of course, because the Wriothesleys own half England, and castles, houses. But the old earl had lived past his income. Harry’s wardship was sold to one of the Howards, I believe, then Burghley snapped it up. Let’s be fair; Burghley’s keen for money and to marry his jumped-up family into the nobility, but he’s a good man, and he takes good care of his wards. Harry had the best education, first at Burghley’s own school then St John’s at Cambridge and Gray’s Inn. Probably he had a happy home life with the Burghleys. But when you’ve spent the first eight years of your life as a pawn in your parents’ quarrels, never seeing your mother and being taught to think her an adulterous shrew, no, you would not think well of marriage.”

  “I daresay not,” Anne agreed. “Poor boy.”

  “Yes. My family’s nothing. My father’s a shoemaker, there’s no money, there were all the usual troubles and quarrels, but I had a happy enough childhood. My parents are proud of me, so far as they can understand.” He stroked the cat with his foot, and it looked up at him, its eyes half-closed. There was something cat-like about Kit himself, Anne mused. His face was triangular or heart-shaped, wide across the eyes and slanting down to a small chin. His hair was black and very silky, like a cat’s fur, and his eyes a feline green. He could claw on occasions, too, and purr.

  “For all that,” Kit went on, “Harry Wriothesley is a beautiful boy who one day should be rich, he’s been an earl since he was eight and he’s been petted and flattered all his life.”


  “Spoilt.”

  “It’s to his credit that he’s not, or not more than tolerably so. I daresay he’s vain, but who wouldn’t be if they’ve been compared all their life to Adonis, Apollo, Narcissus, called beautiful, been courted for their influence and favour? The nobility of England, Anne, are a law unto themselves. They are, or would like to be, soldiers and statesmen, advisers to the Queen. They are, or would like to be, poets and word-spinners. They go to plays, they discuss books, they are familiar with the classics and the new sciences, they toss recondite allusions about and cap one another’s quotations. They like to have a pet poet or playwright.”

  “Like you. Or Will.”

  “Yes, indeed. We too are courted and petted and flattered. We reflect glory on our friends and patrons.”

  “So Will may find in Southampton the patron he wants?”

  “Yes he may. Anne, does Will’s father still practice the old religion?”

  He had slid that question very deftly into the sleepy, slow companionship. Startled, as he no doubt intended, Anne kept her wits about her.

  “Still? I didn’t know he ever had. I live in his house, Kit, and I have never seen anything but the observances of the established Church. Why do you do it, Kit?”

  “Do what?”

  “Don’t fence with me. Why do you spy for Walsingham? Why do you persecute Catholics? The man who said ‘I count religion but a childish toy and hold there is no sin but ignorance’, the man who proudly proclaims his atheism and love of tobacco and boys and upholds freedom of thought is surely not the man to believe in religious persecution.”

  “But Catholics are traitors. They plot against our lawful monarch Queen Elizabeth.”

  “I daresay some do, but a government man whose life and reputation depends on discovering Catholic plots is bound to discover them, isn’t he? Or to manufacture them.”

  “Dangerous talk, Anne. What if I went straight to Walsingham with that remark?”

  “I’d be in the Tower, being tortured. But you won’t carry tales to Walsingham, will you? Not of me, or Will?”

  “Are there tales to carry?”

  “No, as you know well. We’re no Papists. Nor are we traitors, although a jesting remark such as I made just now can be twisted into a case against an innocent person. Why do you do it, Kit? Do you like the danger? Are you playing both sides against each other? An atheistical sodomite is flirting with danger by his mere existence. Why add to it? Or do you protect yourself by working for Walsingham?”

  “Perhaps. And you, Anne Shakspere, are not supposed to know I work for Walsingham. Did Will tell you?”

  “The entire country knows it,” she said scornfully. “Well, all of London, at least. And I wonder why you, a brilliant man, our friend, a good man in so many ways, spy and help harass people who are innocent of treason and want nothing but to worship as they believe. Didn’t the Queen herself once say that she has no window to see into people’s hearts and if they are loyal to her, she cares not how they worship?”

  “Will talks too much.”

  “After ten years of marriage I often agree, but not in the way you mean.” With growing anger she went on, “You, Christopher Marlowe, you who never venture outside London or Cambridge unless it’s to go overseas on these spying missions, you don’t know what ordinary people think and feel and believe. Ordinary people – the Marlowes in Canterbury, the Shaksperes in Stratford, the cordwainers and glovers, the labourers, the burghers, the merchants and shopkeepers, the women, the shepherds – these people love the Queen, they admire her, they think of her with almost religious awe; at worst they believe she’s a good monarch and they are loyal to her, even if they follow the old religion.”

  “Yet Catholics,” Kit flashed back at her, “take their orders from the Pope and from the Catholic monarchs of Catholic countries. If the Pope says, as he does, that our Queen is a bastard and a usurper and that to disobey her laws or work to overthrow her is no crime, then that is what they believe. What they do.”

  “Not all of them.”

  “So you say. But enough of them. We spoke of Harry Southampton – his father was rabidly Catholic, his mother’s the same. His father was involved in plots against the Queen. He was arrested for taking counsel from a Catholic priest who told him he need not obey the Queen. That’s why his family’s so eager to keep in favour with Burghley by marrying the boy off to his granddaughter. And that is just the sort of person Spain, to take but one example, uses. Wouldn’t Spain love to overthrow – by which of course I mean assassinate – our Queen and install a Catholic monarch on her throne? A puppet monarch, of course. Lord Strange, say, or another of the Plantagenet pretenders if one can be found; or Mary of Scotland.”

  “Who’s been dead five years. And her son is Protestant.”

  “There are always candidates. Would you see England Catholic again?”

  “Bloody Mary’s long dead too, Kit, and England will have no more of her kind, no more martyrdoms or burnings. Queen Elizabeth has been our Queen for thirty-four years because she is tolerant and wants her people’s love. And I don’t think you believe a word of what you’re saying.”

  Kit threw back his head and laughed. “Whether I do or don’t is not for you to know, Anne. Perhaps, though, I like the danger. The intellectual challenge.”

  “Playing with people’s lives? When a man, or even a woman, goes to the torture chambers because of you? How can you do it?”

  “Perhaps,” Kit spoke very softly, “I have no choice.”

  “Ah. And your conscience is your own?”

  “Precisely. But be warned, Anne, Will’s father is listed as a recusant. He does not attend church, he is known to be in sympathy, at the least, with the Papist cause. Where does all his money go, Anne? For years he’s been running into debt, selling off land, trying to raise mortgages. Yet he should be a rich man. Is he keeping a priest?”

  “No. And I would know, Kit.”

  “Sending money to priests in hiding? Sending money overseas to Catholic supporters?”

  “No. I think he’s simply not very good at handling money. Or… well, you probably know more of this than I do: he supported his wife’s family, the great and glorious Ardens – not that his wife is very closely connected to them – in their quarrels with some important people, the late Lord Leicester for one. And those important people ruined him financially. The little illegalities that are winked at in others with more influence, like wool and malt dealing and usury, were used to ruin him.” She leaned forward, holding Kit’s green eyes with her own. “Go tell your spymaster and his nephew who gossip says is your lover, that John Shakspere is no Papist. Nor is William Shakspere, nor his wife or children. Remind the Walsinghams and whoever else must be told that John Shakspere’s ancestor fought for Henry Tudor at Bosworth Field under Lord Derby.”

  “I shall. And in return, you tell your father-in-law that he is under suspicion and to mind what he does.”

  “I’ll pass the message on, though he does nothing to earn suspicion. Have you ever tried to recruit Will into your unpleasant little gang?”

  “Dropped a hint, once,” Kit admitted. “He laughed in my face. And I’ve never quite managed to find out what he believes.”

  “He believes in England, in our queen, in love, in loyalty, in charity.”

  “Yes,” agreed Kit. “Depressing, isn’t it, in such a clever man.”

  Anne laughed, and through her laughter heard the sound of feet on the stairs. “Here comes the clever man. Will, my dear, come to the fire, you look cold.”

  “I am. A horrible night.” He threw down his cloak and came to hold his hands out to the fire.

  “And, judging from the shiny, dreamy smile,” said Kit, “you’ve found your patron?”

  “Yes. I have. I’ve promised him a poem, dedicated to him as my patron.”

  “You’ll be trampled to death in the crowd,” warned Kit. “That boy’s already had more works dedicated to him than you can shake a stick at. All by peo
ple wanting him for their patron. He is, after all, the Earl of Southampton.”

  “But the difference is, “said Will, “that I am William Shakspere.”

  “All the same,” he said to Anne later that night, in bed, “I’m going to be busy, aren’t I. Harry has invited me to Titchfield in the summer when they have a party of guests. His mother would like the company to do a new play, a comedy. A comedy for Lady Southampton, a poem for Harry, and Burbage is nagging me for a new play to go into repertoire as soon as can be done, acting six days a week…”

  “Will he pay you?” Harry, she thought, as if that boy were just anyone.

  “Reluctantly.”

  “Not Burbage; Lord Southampton, I mean. For this poem singing his praises.”

  William rolled over and gave her a reproachful look. “The poem doesn’t have to sing his praises. No. The dedication, the fact that I write it for him, in his honour, does that. I like him, Anne.”

  “So do I. But will he do what he promises? Might he not lose interest? People like that are fickle.”

  “Oh, not Harry, I think. He admires me. And yes, he’ll pay me. Perhaps even enough to buy a share in the playing company. A hired player no longer, Anne, nor a jobbing playwright – a stakeholder in a playing company, part-owner of a theatre, that company’s permanent writer. It’s the start I’ve wanted, love. It’s what we waited and planned and worked for all those dreary Stratford years. I’m becoming famous for my plays, but this new chance means money. And reputation. It means being established, no longer living hand-to-mouth. We can buy our own house in a year or two.”

  “In London?” It crossed her mind that they would have had much more money had she not insisted on living here. London was expensive and, at home, they lived free. But at home the children would have seen their father for perhaps four weeks a year. Also, somehow, she had never quite thought of London as home.