Love's Will

by Meredith Whitford

  “Yes,” said Anne, and once again the words were spoken between them. “Come, clap hands and a bargain.”

  Hands clasped, they began to move toward each other for a kiss, but: “Here are the children.”

  “You look hot, Mama,” said Susanna.

  “Do I? Well, it’s amazing how hot one can grow here in the Forest. And you, Hamnet, look cold. Been in the river, I see.”

  “Yes. Fell in.”

  “We were paddling,” Judith said anxiously, “that’s all. And Nol and Hamnet went in too deep.”

  “So I see. Well, never mind. But walk briskly home, get in the sun and warm yourself. You too, Nol.” For he was shivering quite violently in his wet clothes, and sneezing.

  “It’s all that washing,” he grumbled. “’Tain’t natural. I told you that.”

  “That boy Nol is ill,” Mrs Hathaway said that night after supper. “I think he’s taken a chill. God forbid it’s the sweating sickness. I’ve put him to bed with a mug of hot ale and my goose-grease liniment on his chest.”

  William looked up from reading to the twins. “I wanted him to ride on to Coventry, to tell the players I’ll not be joining them.”

  “Give him a night’s rest. I’ll see to him before I go to bed.” She settled down with her knitting. “Now read on, Will, I love to hear you read.”

  But when she looked in on Nol, Mrs Hathaway came back looking like her own ghost. “It is the sweating sickness. He’ll be dead by morning.”

  He was, but by the time he died the twins had it too.

  3.

  The sweating sickness. The sweat. Unknown in England until Henry Tudor’s ragbag army of French mercenaries and freed prisoners came to wrest the crown from King Richard. No one knew what caused it. There was no cure. If you lived a day with it, probably you would survive. Most people did not. Usually, children did not.

  Hamnet had it badly, worse than Judith. The fever burned the flesh from his body, and nothing could slake his thirst or ease the pain in his chest. Once Anne thought the fever was breaking when Hamnet’s skull-face broke into a weakly smile and he knew her and called her “Mama” and drank some watered wine. But it was only a moment’s respite, cruel for the fleeting hope it brought, and soon his sweat was soaking her gown again as she cradled him against her breast. He was so hot, so very hot, and screaming out with pain. Bartholomew’s wife Isobel tended to Judith, for she, like Anne, had survived the sweat as a child. They told each other as they worked over the children, “Two of us had it and lived. A good omen, and the twins had survived a day…”

  The light thickened towards the close of the second day. Sponging Hamnet over with cold water, for a moment Anne almost slept from sheer exhaustion and looked down terrified at Hamnet as some noise aroused her.

  Arms closed around her and her son.

  “Will.”

  “Aye. God help us, Anne. Is this my punishment?”

  He moved away. Desolate, her tears dripping onto her son’s ghastly face, Anne wondered why she had thought he could help.

  “My son is dying. I do not need talk of punishment.”

  She thought she had said the words aloud, throwing them at him like weapons, and realised she had spoken only inside her mind. Judith had been asleep after all, for like Anne she jerked awake and looked in terror at Hamnet, then saw her father. She neither spoke nor reached for him, but gravely she smiled then turned back to her twin.

  Anne heard William open and close the door. Heard him murmur to someone. Heard his boots hitting the floor, then the rustle of garments. His hand touched her brow, stroking the dirty, damp hair back from her face. “I can no longer leave this to you alone. You will go with Mother Hathaway to wash and eat a meal then lie down upon your bed. I will care for the twins. Isobel will tell me what to do. Go, my dear. It’s all I can do for you. All I can do to help.” Very gently he lifted their son away from her.

  She stood up, so unsteady she had to lean against him. For the first time she looked at him. He was tired, of course he was. He looked older. Exhaustion in his eyes, and fear. Pain in every lineament, pain and grief and hopeless love. A mark on his neck that could have been a love-bite from small, greedy teeth, but was only dirt. A new, pale line at the top of his brow. Her poor, vain, darling William was going bald at the front. He was thirty-two. Not one-and-twenty when their son was born. The son who would not live to see his twelfth birthday.

  “Oh, Will,” said Anne, and in his arms Hamnet stirred, tried to wet his lips, looked up at his father and knew him. “Give him the wine-and-water in that cup. I’ll bring some more.”

  “The maid can bring it.” William eased down on the tumbled bed so Hamnet lay against his shoulder. “You must rest and eat, Anne. Go, do as I bid.”

  He must have told her stepmother of his orders because a bowl of hot water awaited Anne in her bedchamber. With the heavy, slow movements of a swimmer about to drown, she stripped naked and washed herself all over. She broke a comb trying to drag it through her damp and tangled hair, so ran handfuls of water through it and brushed it out properly. In a clean smock and gown she went downstairs and surprised herself by being able to eat some bread and baked chicken. Bartholomew was there, similarly cramming down the cold food. She had thought he too had gone away with their brothers.

  “No,” he said, “I’ve had the sweating too, Mother told me. And you need your family with you. I’ve been doing what I can for Will.” His big hand fumbled out across the table and took Anne’s. “It’s worst for the mothers, perhaps, but dammit, it’s hard for us fathers too. Will’s breaking his heart. His only son.”

  Anne let him give her two cups of wine, drinking them with her head on her hand. This is needful, she told herself, I need the food, the wine, this little respite. Will is here, he is with our son. I will need my strength. Her stepmother came in and silently pushed the platter of meat and bread towards her again. She shook her head and Mrs Hathaway sat down in the chair beside the empty hearth. Bartholomew took her hand.

  After a moment Anne stepped out into the garden, gratefully breathing the clean night air. What time was it? She hadn’t seen a clock since morning. Then suddenly she turned, hitched up her skirts and ran back inside and up the stairs to the twins’ room.

  William nodded as if she came in answer to his call. She scrambled across the bed and slid her arms around her son. “Send for Susanna and your family. The Sadlers too.”

  William left the room in silence. He was soon back, and from downstairs Anne heard Bartholomew leading the horse from the stables.

  Hamnet’s breathing had changed, it was slow and sterterous. A fingernail of white showed under his eyelids. Oh my son, my little boy, my heart’s delight, my child. She kissed him, rocking him as she had done the first time he lay against her breast. Hamnet my dear, my boy, my love. William was holding Judith. The girl was alive and better, but still unconscious. How long passed? An hour? Two?

  They heard the noise of arrivals, and then the family were all in the room. Susanna leaned against her father, her hand on Hamnet’s. John Shakspere knelt at the foot of the bed, his rosary openly in his hand, his lips moving in prayer. If the Queen’s men burst in now, thought Anne, would an old man’s grief for his only grandson excuse this treason? There is but one God, and He is taking my only son from me. The Blessed Virgin to whom my father-in-law prays lost her only Son. Will no one take away this cup? Hamnet, my son, my dear, my clever boy, my loving boy. Sir Hamnet Shakspere. Lord Shakspere. The Earl of Stratford. Lord Chancellor. My little boy who talks with his mouth full and scuffs his shoes and watches his father’s plays with such delight, who tried to write a poem for my birthday and wept because it wouldn’t come out right, who wanted to go to university, who kisses me at bedtime. Never again. Never. Never. Never.

  The Sadlers came into the room, Hamnet’s godparents who had given their names to the twins. Judith Sadler was weeping softly, her husband clearing his throat and dashing at his eyes. Joan knelt by her father, Gilbert�
��s arm around her. Richard and Edmund stood against the wall, tears falling unheeded down their faces. Mrs Hathaway held Mary Shakspere, their eyes never leaving the dying child.

  The dead child. Suddenly, between one breath and another, Hamnet Shakspere had ceased to be. Anne felt it. She saw and felt him die and felt his soul depart. My son is dead. Dead. Never again. My son is dead.

  – Anne, my dear, come away now.

  – So young, not twelve, so young.

  – Susanna, love, I’m sorry, but it is over.

  – Lay him down, my dear.

  – He is with God.

  – My son, my darling dear.

  – William, take her away.

  – Someone take Will away.

  Anne heard a clear, calm voice – her own – saying, “Someone see to Judith. Lift her up, give her to me.” But she herself was being lifted, carried in warm and loving arms, and her husband’s tears were falling onto her face. “Judith,” she repeated and saw Bartholomew carrying the little girl from the room. So it’s both of them, she thought. Both gone.

  But her brother said, “I’ll take her to the next room. I think she is better. Go, Anne.”

  Then there was a soft bed and wine with a gritty, herbal taste, and the pain of my son is dead became a muted, distant knowledge. Susanna snuggled in her arms, and William beside them, crying silently into the drenched pillow, and my daughters are still alive, my darling girls, and an old man weeping, and more wine, then peace and oblivion.

  They went alone to Hamnet’s room. Their mothers had done what was needful. Their son lay silent, pale, on linen sheets, candles burning, white flowers clasped in his hands. Anne bent and kissed his cold brow.

  “Hell is empty,” William said, “and all the devils are here.” He knelt beside the bed, his fingers lightly touching Hamnet’s lips. “My son is dead.”

  “I’ve no comfort for you,” Anne said. “I cannot give you another son. I cannot share my grief, not even with you.”

  “I know it. I’ve no comfort for you. Not yet. Except that I shall tell Judith, when she’s well enough to know.”

  “Thank you. I could not bear to do it.” She turned away, no more able to bear the sight of William’s face than of her son’s. She was crying, and it was the first time, and she knew she must not let herself or her howls would bring the heavens down. “Bartholomew brought the flowers.”

  “I know. A little thing, a kind and loving thing. Anne,” he said in simple curiosity, “how do we bear it?”

  “I have no idea. We just go on.” Then she said, “Will, had things happened differently, had I stayed in London or you come home with us, Hamnet might still have died. Nol brought the sickness with him, but Hamnet could have taken it in London, had I stayed. Or caught it here. Stratford is no magic place where illness doesn’t strike. You were born in a plague year when half the townsfolk died.”

  He was silent for a long time before he said, “So you have comfort for me after all. I thought if I hadn’t stayed, if I hadn’t done what I did so that you had to leave... And I brought Nol and brought with him the disease that killed my son. My punishment.”

  “God takes the children of virtuous parents too. So many children die. It is not punishment. Or if it is, we share it. My son is to be buried tomorrow.” She kissed Hamnet’s lips and went away to tend her daughter.

  Two funerals. One for Nol, who must lie nameless, for no one knew his surname, under a cross saying only “Oliver”. Bearable, that one, almost. One for Hamnet Shakspere, aged eleven. Buried in Holy Trinity’s graveyard, Stratford-upon-Avon, on the eighth day of August 1596. A little grave.

  4.

  “Judith still never speaks.”

  “No. Leave her, let her work her grief out if that’s her way.”

  “But it is two months since Hamnet died.”

  “She will speak in time. I think it must be worse for a twin. Worst for a twin who shared the womb and the mother whose womb it was.” Lightly William touched Anne’s hair.

  “Or for a father, to lose his only son, his posterity and future? His name.” Something sparked in the back of Anne’s mind, a dim memory of someone saying “Your name will live forever”. Not now. There would be no descendants named Shakspere.

  William moved sharply away, turning back to the window. The autumn sun caught the chestnut in his hair and struck points of light from the angles of his face and the silver threads in his ruff. His son’s death had aged him in so many ways, and he had become punctilious about his clothes, no longer the untidy, ink-stained William of London and carefree times. Perhaps it helped him to honour his son with the perfection of his mourning clothes. Or perhaps this was just the Stratford Master Shakspere. But, come to that, Anne too was finely dressed, her gown and cap of black silk with a velvet trim. Rich people, the aristocracy, erected lavish tombs to their dead children, they commissioned music and poetry or endowed churches in their memory. People of the Shaksperes’ position could do naught but show their mourning in the expense of their clothes.

  Another point of light sparkled from the ring on William’s hand as he lifted a paper from the table and seemed to read it through. “This came today.”

  “I saw the messenger, but you said nothing so I didn't ask.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing private. Just meaningless, now.” He put the paper, opened, into Anne’s hand. “The College of Heralds has granted my coat of arms. I am Mister Shakspere, gentleman, now.”

  It was the first thing that had interested her since Hamnet’s death. “William Shakspere, gentleman!” She squinted at the French words under the drawing. “What is this motto here?”

  “Non Sans Droit. Not without right.” He watched her, the corner of his mouth twitching.

  “A very proper motto. Right – write. A pun, Will?”

  “Not on my part, though it occurred to me too. No, just a suitable motto. Remember that my father applied for a coat of arms some years ago? He was keen to do so again, the matter’s been in hand for some time. He – I – we thought it would be for Hamnet, that he would go to university and into his profession a gentleman’s son. These things matter.”

  “Yes. But it will matter to the girls, Will. A gentleman’s daughters can look for good marriages, they will have standing now. But Judith?”

  “Doesn’t speak. I know.” With a sign he sat down facing Anne. “Leave her be. She grieves in silence, I with words.” He made a long arm to take another paper from the table. “I still have to work. The Company send their condolences, their sympathy, their gifts and their love, but still they need a new play.”

  “Did you write nothing in London all spring and summer?”

  “I wrote. Poems. Sonnets. A play, yes, but another is needed soon.” He leaned forward, looking into Anne’s eyes. “I found that woman with Harry, as you knew I would. I know you and he planned it. Well, it worked. But still I went back to her. I shared her with Harry for a week or two. Then I sickened of her. I never saw her again, or not alone. I saw her twice, in the distance. She came to the playhouse, she applauded my plays. She is with Harry, now. Or was. She caught him as she did me. Held him in the same way.”

  “That hurt you?”

  “I suppose it did. Odd, isn’t it? I can hardly remember now. She, and all those things, are in the past. I frittered away my son’s life in that woman’s bed. I wasted time when I could have been with my son.”

  With a little shrug Anne said, “It’s past praying for. Hamnet loved you.”

  “And missed me? Wanted me here with him, when I was in London, with that woman?”

  “He missed you, yes, but all his life that was the pattern, that you were in London, acting and making plays. He would not have had it differently, my dear. He was proud of you. He liked to read your plays, he loved to see them acted, you were glorious to him.”

  “And I suppose that is something. Anne, see what I wrote, here. This is the new play about King John. A mother grieving for her son …”

  Anne took
the paper from him, held it up to the light.

  Grief fills the room up of my absent child,

  Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,

  Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,

  Remembers me of all his gracious parts,

  Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form:

  Then have I reason to be fond of grief…

  Her voice cracked. “Yes, Will. Yes, yes, yes! That is what it is like, yet I must not be fond of grief.” All at once the tears came, the storm of weeping she had longed for and denied herself. She wrenched forward, the paper caught between her knees and chest as she huddled herself, crying for her son.

  William closed his arms around her and together they slipped to the floor, clutching each other, weeping, talking through their tears of Hamnet, blaming themselves and each other, blaming God and chance, remembering the living child.

  After moments or hours they perched shoulder to shoulder on the floor, hugging their knees, sharing a handkerchief.

  “And what do we do now?” Anne asked at last,

  “We go on, my dear. We look to our daughters, I look to my playing company and my writing, which I think from now on will be only plays, I make money. Do you still want New Place?”

  She nodded. “More than ever. I don’t want to live again in a place where Hamnet lived. I don’t care if the house is falling down, I’d sooner move in with all its dirt.”

  “Then we shall.”

  “That poem you spoke to me that day in the Forest; did you truly write that for me?”

  “I truly did. Because I’d learnt by then what I had, and nearly lost. I do love you, Anne, and without you there’s no comfort in the world.”

  She looked assessingly at him for a while, then said with a brisk nod, “I know you love me. And I know I can never be everything to you. But I won’t take away what completes you. So we’ll go on as we did. Stratford is home, you’ll come when you can, and sometimes I will come to London, when our daughters want to come.”