Love's Will

by Meredith Whitford

  “Dearly. Dearly. You make me happy, Will.” Harry had to move only a hand’s span closer to kiss him. Their lips met, lightly, sweetly, with a power that shook them both. No more than that, just a kiss. Just love.

  “You make me happy too.” He kissed Harry’s eyes, the corner of his mouth. Harry laid his head back down, over William’s heart. He sighed. William stroked his hair and the soft white skin under it.

  “What think’st thou?” Harry’s tone made it a caress, or a promise.

  “That I am happy. That thou art my heart’s desire. And that for the first time since I came here I have my poem clear in my mind.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Not yet.” William was silent so long that Harry leaned up on his elbow to look at him.

  “I thought you’d gone to sleep. Tell me the poem, Will. Talk to me. Or kiss me again.”

  “No. And don’t be peevish. There, a kiss.” His lips lingered for a moment, then he put his hand on Harry’s cheek and drew away to sit up. “It’s time for me to work, Harry. Time to begin.”

  Harry lay there, leaning on his elbow, frowning up at him. “You would end this day?”

  “God, or Apollo Phoebus, will. It is near day’s end, Harry, and I must write. Come, love, nothing will end our love, but I must write.” And Harry saw it, saw the withdrawal into a world he knew nothing of, the passion and need that were not for him. Accepting it, and maturing with the acceptance, he laughed and stood up, brushing the grass from his clothes.

  “Then come home, Will, and write.”

  But he had pictured a cosy scene, William pausing every second moment to read his work, to ask Harry’s opinion, to intersperse his work with kisses. Alas. He was in the same room as William, but another world. He doubted William even knew he was there. The servants came, enquiring about supper. Would his lordship come to the dining salon? Should they serve the meal here? William paid them no attention. “Here,” Harry said, and saw that William didn’t even smell the food. Dismissing the servants, Harry himself put food on a plate, put it beside his friend. He got a grunt of vague acknowledgement and had eaten his entire meal before he saw William’s left hand move our, absently, to take the first morsel.

  “Eat, Will. Take a moment. Eat your supper.”

  “What?”

  “The food is growing cold. Is cold. Take a moment, leave your work and eat.”

  “Ah.” And, moments later, “What? Food? You should have told me. What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing, Will. Nothing, my dear. Shall I send for more food? That’s quite cold now.”

  “No, it will serve.” William stood up, stretching to ease his back, shaking out his cramped hand. He came to the table and began to eat rapidly. He looked up once, smiling at Harry. “Have you been here all the time?”

  “Yes. I gave you,” he said pointedly, “three cups of wine, which you drank without knowing where they came from. Would you rather I went away? Do you rather work alone?”

  “Oh no, you don’t bother me. This pie’s excellent.”

  “I’ll tell the cook.”

  “Now what’s the matter?” William asked, cramming in more food. “I said you don’t bother me. That’s a compliment, Harry. There are few people I can bear in the room while I work.”

  “Is your wife one of them?”

  “Oh yes, Anne understands. At least you can be quiet, my dear, unlike most people. You share that with Anne. You understand.”

  About to say he’d spoken many times, that he could have danced naked around the room while the Queen’s minstrels played and William would not have noticed, Harry took the compliment and nodded gravely.

  “I like to have you here,” William said, sounding surprised. “But don’t look for company from me. Not when I am writing. I can’t explain it.”

  “You needn’t. I’ve seen. It’s quite late, Will. You’ve worked three hours.”

  “But I’ll work on a little.” He stretched again, groaning as stiffened muscles pulled. Again he shook his right hand. “Cramped.”

  “Let me ease it.” Instantly William held out his hand, leaning back with a sigh of pleasure as Harry began to rub it. “Oh, that’s good. Harder.”

  “You’ve knotted muscles, calluses too. I can feel where you hold your pen, the raised skin. Is it better?”

  “Better.” William’s eyes strayed back to his writing table and the pile of finished pages there. Resigned to the inevitable, Harry kissed the palm of his hand and gave it back to him. With a vague murmur of thanks William wandered back to his work. Harry knew better than to ask to see what he’d done.

  Doggedly Harry sat on, determined to do what he could to be a Muse. At ten the servants brought more wine and food, at eleven fresh candles. At midnight William asked for more paper. At one he went to the privy. At two he needed ink and drank a cup of wine, not knowing it was his fifth. At three he scratched his head, damned his pen, looked for another and found none.

  “You’ve used them all,” said Harry.

  “Then sharpen me some more.”

  And Harry, an earl, who had never sharpened his own pens or done a service for another person, meekly cut new quills. At four he gave in, put down his book and said he was going to bed. “Will? Won’t you finish for now? You’ve worked all the night.”

  “Have I?”

  “Ah, you heard me. Will, you’re exhausted. How can you work like this?”

  “I always do while it’s hot in me. Only another writer can understand. But you’re right. I’m too tired.” He glanced over the last page and, with an exclamation, threw it on the fire. “Far too tired, that’s plain. I’m writing rubbish and wasting paper.”

  “Never.”

  “Oh yes. Very well, then, bed.”

  He was reeling with exhaustion, nearly asleep on his feet. Harry gripped his arm and guided him through the connecting door and sat him on the bed.

  “No, my room. Lock my papers away. Always do. Can’t sleep ’less they’re safe.” But his eyes were closing as he spoke.

  “I’ll put them safely away, look, here in my cupboard with my private papers. No one will touch them. Will, lift your feet, let me take your boots off. There.” Awkwardly Harry undid buttons and laces, William obeying like a child, then swung him around, still in shirt and under-linen, and tucked him under the covers. “Go to sleep, Will, my love.”

  “To sleep. To dream. Perchance to dream. My hand aches. My eyes ache.”

  “I’ll rub your hand. Sleep, Will.” Harry tossed off his own clothes, extinguished the candles and climbed into bed. He took William in his arms, drawing him close, laying his head on his shoulder. William gave a long sleepy sigh of pleasure. It made Harry feel protective, responsible as he’d never been for another human creature. William was not the first man who had shared his bed, but he was the first to lie defenceless in Harry’s arms, wanting nothing but comfort and sleep. Gently he took William’s right hand and began to massage it. William purred. Harry stroked the hair back from his brow and kissed him. Love filled him. William said, “My love,” then something that sounded like “Windsor”. Then he snored.

  9.

  That first all-night white heat of creation was not repeated, but after that William worked every day on his poem. Much of what he’d written that first night went on the fire, but much was kept, revised, rewritten. Harry became used to it – the slow drifting into silent thought, then the hours of writing in which he ceased, with the rest of the world, to exist, except as provider of paper, pencils, sharpened pens and food. Anne Shakspere must know this exclusion, he reflected; she’d had ten years of it. Did William make love to her sometimes, when he fell into bed in the satisfied glow of creation? Did he give her more than kisses and words of love? Or less than that? Did William talk to her as he did to Harry? Could one talk to a woman of emotions and things of the mind, of books and poetry and ideas? If one could find a woman like that, instead of a man…

  “What about the poems for Burghley?” he asked one
day. “He’ll want to know, Will; he expects value for his money.” They were at the shore, looking across to the Isle of Wight. Their horses cropped peacefully above them. Sea birds mewed overhead. A brisk breeze ruffled the water, splashing their bare feet. William tipped his head back to follow a bird’s flight before saying, “I’ve not seen the colour of his money yet. But the poems are being written.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. Harry:

  From fairest creature we desire increase,

  That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,

  But as the riper should by time decease,

  His tender heir might bear his memory;

  But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,

  Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,

  Making a famine where abundance lies,

  Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

  That thou art now the world’s fresh ornament

  And only herald to the gaudy spring,

  Within thine own bud buriest thy content,

  And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding.

  Pity the world, or else this glutton be,

  To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.”

  After quite a time Harry said, “It’s Narcissus again. ‘Contracted to thine own bright eyes.’ And ‘self-substantial fuel.’ Still, Burghley will like it.”

  “You don’t?”

  “It’s a good sonnet.”

  “Don’t sulk.”

  “I am not sulking.”

  “No? Oh well. What about: Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest/ Now is the time that face should form another… The next lines I’m not sure of, but… For where is she so fair whose unear’d womb/ Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?”

  “An agricultural metaphor,” said Harry coldly. “Vulgar. It needs work. Do you think I’m so vain? Conceited?”

  “No more than you should be.”

  “Your meaning?”

  “That you are beautiful, and know it.”

  “And vain. And spoilt.”

  “Your words, not mine.”

  “Well, no one can say you’re not earning your pay from Burghley. Show me that woman so fair, and it would be a different matter.”

  “Have you,” William enquired, “never lain with a woman?”

  “No. And don’t use that voice, like a kindly older brother or an uncle. Next you’ll say I don’t know what I’m missing.”

  “Perhaps you don’t.”

  “I do.” They were sitting so close together that Harry had only to turn to take William in his arms and kiss him. This was no light, gentle kiss of purest love, but a kiss of passion, deep, demanding, longing. “I do know,” Harry said against William’s mouth. “I do know what I am missing. You. All of you.”

  “Harry...”

  “You liked my kisses. You responded.”

  “Who could not? But Harry, listen:

  A woman’s face, with Nature’s own hand painted,

  Hast thou, the Master-Mistress of my passion;

  A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted

  With shifting change, as is false woman’s fashion;

  An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,

  Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;

  A man in hue all hues in his controlling,

  Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth.”

  Harry smiled, enchanted. William took the boy’s face in his hands and continued,

  “And for a woman wert thou first created;

  Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,

  And by addition me of thee defeated

  By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.

  But since she prick’d thee out for women’s pleasure,

  Mine be thy love, and thy love’s use their treasure.”

  There was a long silence. “I see,” Harry said at last. “That one thing is no-thing to your purpose: a double meaning. But I love you and I’ll have you.”

  “Oh, be content, boy!” William cried, and stood up. “Love lasts; passion doesn’t. Lust doesn’t.”

  “You know that, do you? From your wealth of age’s experience?”

  “Yes.”

  Harry scrambled to his feet. He stood facing William, still close enough to touch or kiss. “But cannot one have both? Love and passion? And if the passion dies, the love will last?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Then why should it not for us? And in that sonnet you’re not too complimentary to women, William. What did you say? Woman’s shifting heart? False woman’s fashion? You cannot have it both ways, dear Will. You cannot urge me to a woman, yet point out that women are inconstant, fickle, false.”

  “It’s only a poem,” William said feebly.

  “And perhaps you are not so eager as you make out to urge me into the nearest woman’s bed?” William looked away. Angrily Harry seized his chin and forced him to look back. Blue eyes stared into hazel ones, and Harry’s anger fled. “William, you love me.”

  “You know I do. But I am married.”

  “Yet you write of women’s falsity. Is your Anne false?”

  “No. And I will not hurt her by...”

  “By giving me your love? But haven’t you done that already? Haven’t you hurt her by loving me? By bedding all those women – and, by repute, not only women – in London?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s honesty at last. Let’s have some more. Can you deny you want me in every way, as I want you?”

  “Leave be, Harry.”

  “No. You’ve broken your marriage vows by taking other women. Surely it is less of an offence to take me, your own kind and one who loves you?”

  “I don’t know,” William said helplessly. “I love you. I long for you. Yet you have been trusted to me. I can’t. Harry, leave be. Let me be. Please, if you love me.”

  Again silence fell and held between them. Again Harry was the first to speak. “I do love you. Very well. See? You’ve taught me I can’t have everything I want.”

  “Conscience doth make cowards of us all.”

  “A fine line. You’ll use it one day. Come, Will, let’s go home.”

  Neither spoke on the ride back. Things had changed, perhaps been spoiled. Neither of them knew. And, for the first time, they were fully conscious that winter was nearly upon them; the wind blew chill and breathed of rain, the sky was dark with thunderclouds.

  “The good weather is over,” William said dully.

  “Of course it is. It’s December, Will. It has rained every night the last fortnight.”

  “Has it? I didn’t notice.”

  “No, you were writing. Soon it will snow.”

  “Yes. December. I must go home for Christmas.”

  “Yes of course,” Harry agreed a little too readily. “But will you come back? The theatres are closed, you’ve no occupation in London. Come back after Christmas. The players, your company, are coming in February. We look for your new play then, Will. There will be others here then. Essex, I think, and Kit Marlowe speaks of coming; also Thomas Nashe.”

  The mention of rival poets stung William. “With Marlowe and Nashe, what need have you of Shakspere?”

  “I have need of the best. Come back. Please. After all, you haven’t finished my poem.”

  “Nor I have,” said William. “Very well. After Christmas, I’ll come back.”

  10.

  William was not expected home so soon. He walked into the house in Henley Street to find the family at supper, and in the middle of some argument. The dining parlour was decked with holly and ivy for Christmas, there was mistletoe over the door. Susanna was the first to see him, shocking her grandmother by spilling her plate as she leapt up and ran for the door.

  “But it’s Daddy. He’s home!” She flung herself on her father, squirreling her arms and legs around him. She was really too old to be so boisterous and let her skirts fly up like that, but
no one had the heart to reprimand her. The twins came more slowly, looking shyly up at their father. One arm still around Susanna, he crouched and drew all three children into his embrace. My beautiful children, he thought, feeling tears prickling his eyes. My darlings, my life.

  “You’ve grown, you’ve all grown. Hamnet, darling boy, give me a kiss. Judith, my precious, you too. My sweethearts, I’ve missed you so.”

  John Shakspere kissed his son as best he could and lifted Susanna away from William. “A delightful surprise, son. Welcome home. Come, sit down. Mother, wine, our best wine. Children, make a place for your father.”

  “Father, God’s day to you. You’re well? Mother, how good to see you. And Anne,” said William. “My dear, I’ve missed you. Come kiss me.” She did so, thinking how brown and young he looked. And happy.

  “You look well. You’ve enjoyed yourself?”

  “Very much. But I missed you and the children. I wrote a good deal.”

  The rest of the family had waited their turn, but now came the kisses and handclasps, the barrage of questions. Are you well, did you have much snow on the journey, what news, how long can you stay, did you bring us presents, have you heard, what have you written? Tell us about the Earl.

  A twin on either side, Susanna staring enraptured, chin on hands, from the other side of the table, William did his best to talk, drink wine and eat his supper all at once. Anne ate her meal in silence and let him answer all the questions, retail the news.

  “I’m home for Christmas, then I join my fellow-players at Titchfield.” Usually they were in London for the Christmas season, the Queen held court in her capital and wanted entertainment. “No one knows when the theatres will open again. And what news here?”

  They told him, all speaking at once, and Anne watched his eyes narrow with interest. He’d come from the company of earls and poets, but he was enchanted with all these small Stratford doings; a fire, a marriage, a quarrel, an adultery, the state of trade.

  “But it’s late,” he said at last, “and I’ve been on the road a long time. Time for bed.”

  His mother exclaimed to find it was past eight o’clock and the children still up. The three of them sat tight, identical mulish expressions on their faces.