Katharine could not settle on the reason for Will’s behavior, but he had discarded her, in truth dispatched her, with his unbridled focus on Ned and his disappearance at the dance. Will and Ned were both dazzling—and perhaps, in that instant of introduction, when eyes met, emerald to amethyst, beauty to beauty, Will and Ned had fallen in love. Perhaps Will’s inclination for men was the same as Ned’s, and Katharine had never known it. Perhaps that was why he had never bedded her. Perhaps right at this very minute, while she lay with a blanket of wretchedness wrapped round her, Will had returned and was laughing and talking with Ned, her Ned. Perhaps her Ned had become his Ned. She tried to push back the images of their nakedness entwined, but Ovid’s words of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus flared up, “the bodies of twaine were mixt . . . the members of them mingled,” the wrestling and the struggling to and fro, the hugging and the grasping of the other.
Was this what Will did in front of his wife? With maids and lads? Was this why, as the young woman from Hoghton Tower had said, his wife, Anne, tossed him out of their house?
It was a whole new vision of Will: that Anne made him leave. Perhaps Anne realized if he were to stay, all of her attention, focus, mothering, nurturing would go to him: to flattery to make him feel that he was the only one, the special one, the brilliant one, the one with the ideas, and to vigilance—that she was a sentry of sorts—to make sure he was not in a meadow or a bower kissing another. Perhaps Anne understood that if Will stayed, he would suck the lifeblood out of her, that her bond would be with him and him only because that was what he required, and their three sweet children would go unmothered because her minding would go to her husband, and unfathered because all Will’s minding would go to himself. So now, in Katharine’s eyes, Anne was intelligent, heroic even, in that she chose her children over Will.
Katharine’s belief in men, good men, came from Sir Edward and from Ned. Was Will a good man or a bad man? At first she’d thought him good, a gem, but now it seemed the cut and carat came with a steep price. Katharine was helping Will navigate the human heart in his verse: love, yearning, passion, desire and loss. He clearly understood these feelings. But did he embody them? Or had he shut the door on them? If he had, when? Why? Maybe he was born that way. Maybe God, in creating Will, had gotten something wrong; the humors were off. It was a mystery—the curious, brilliant alchemy of his mind. And if she hadn’t fallen in love with him, she would have been able to admire his mind for all its strange gaps and incongruities.
Perhaps this imbalance could be blamed on his craft, the theater, portraying one character while living his true self beneath. She recalled once when he demonstrated every manner of talk the islands of Britain had to offer: from Ireland to Scotland to Wales to the whole compass of England, the strange swallowed sounds of the south to the almost perverse lilt of the nobles at court, a lisp that seemed false and only for effect. He had shown her how he could cry at will. And he had an amazing memory—he could repeat verbatim poems, pages of plays, passages from poets living and dead.
But with this hall of mirrors, with the mimicry and the memory, there was the gnawing question of what Will in truth was feeling. Reflections were only surface. No one could hold a looking glass to the soul. And it wasn’t, Katharine decided finally, that his skill as a player was to blame. She had met other players over the years: one who had tried to drown himself in the river because of a broken heart, another who had proclaimed he was in love with Katharine and sang under her window one night. They were passionate, a bit silly perhaps, but without the words of others on their tongues, they were who they were, regular folk. Yet Will oft seemed he was playing a role, even when he was not. He seemed to control his image at every breath. Katharine wondered if he mapped out their meetings before they met, as if they were both characters in a play, with their speeches, their actions, their entrances, their exits already writ.
She sat in front of the fire. Reading was impossible. Dressing was impossible. She stared into the blaze. How had she let herself be seduced by this glover’s son from Stratford? How had she, Katharine de L’Isle, who’d believed she’d gained some wisdom after one and thirty years and come to some understanding of life, let a man mine her emotions and then extract what he needed like ore?
Molly came with a letter from Will. He had returned to Lufanwal. So he was on the grounds—in his chamber, in the schoolroom, riding in the hills, laughing with Ned perhaps. Katharine took the letter and threw it into the fire unread. An hour later Molly came with another letter, and Katharine threw that in the fire, too. Why had he not tried to find her at the dance? She had been wearing the gloves he had given her—he would have recognized her. Her mind was a wheel now, running round in circles. Perhaps he’d thought she was Alice. Perhaps Alice was wearing gloves he had given her also.
After Katharine tossed the third note from Will into the fire, she grabbed a quill and, dipping it deep into the dark ink, started to write through her wrath. She felt as worn as a pebble on the shore. She had no idea what was in his heart, or even if he had a heart at all. She wrote and wrote and then threw each page into the fire and watched the flames consume her fury.
She pulled a new sheet of paper in front of her and without intention found herself writing verse. She wrote and rewrote long into the night, going over each line, changing words for rhyme and rhythm. Perhaps it was all these months of working with Will that made the poetry flow from her veins. She warmed her hands by the coals and went back to her words, and by dawn the following morning, without an hour of sleep, she had finished a sonnet:
O call not me to justify the wrong
That thy unkindness lays upon my heart:
Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue,
Use power with power, and slay me not by art.
Tell me thou lov’st elsewhere; but in my sight,
Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside.
What need’st thou wound with cunning when thy might
Is more than my o’erpressed defence can bide?
Let me excuse thee: “Ah, my love knows
His pretty looks have been mine enemies,
And therefore from my face he turns my foes,
That they elsewhere might dart their injuries.”
Yet do not so, but since I am near slain,
Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain.
With the hills still cloaked in shades of blue and purple and the light just rising from the east, Katharine told Molly to deliver the sonnet to Will and tell him she would meet with him today. Face-to-face, not paper-to-paper, Katharine would tell Will that she would not sit with him again, not read his lines, not pore over his words. Was he more a trickster than an honest man, who used his trickery for people’s hearts, not their gold?
Even without tragedy, the dark days of January were always a descent after the heightened pitch of Christmas. The hall resounded with the recent deaths and jailings. Katharine tried to pray and not to dwell on Will staring at Ned, but to no avail. She imagined that Will might take the opportunity of her shutting him out to welcome and to cultivate Ned—though in truth Ned had other business to attend to, for he now spent days traveling to the grand houses of Lancashire and York to rekindle, amidst secrecy and danger, the flame of their religion.
Katharine dressed with care—she could not help it—and donned her black and white bodice with the scallops of black and white lace. Why, she asked herself, as she patted cinnamon powder on her cheeks, could she not free herself from the desire to pull Will in, even after that vile Twelfth Night? And why did she send him her sonnet? She had never written a sonnet before. Did she think that pretty attire and witty verse would make Will love her? He was as coy and tempting as his Adonis, and now she, Katharine, was as entrenched with lust as his Venus. And what of all Will had promised her? The move to London? Thy unkindness lays upon my heart, she herself had writ, but here she was, hair done u
p in pearls and scallops of lace framing her breasts.
She was at the door of her chamber, Will’s pages posted during Yuletide in her hand, when Molly came to her. She supposed Molly had another letter from Will.
“He is waiting for you in the great chamber,” said Molly.
“I thought he was in the schoolroom,” said Katharine.
“Mr. Smythson, my lady,” said Molly. “He begs a word with you.”
“Oh, Molly, ’tis of Master Shakespeare I thought you were speaking . . .”
“And Master Shakespeare has changed the place of meeting to his lodging.”
“Pray, what can Mr. Smythson want?” Katharine asked. In sooth, she was thinking: Pray, what can Master Shakespeare want? His lodging? She was surprised by Will’s boldness.
When Katharine found Mr. Smythson, he was standing in front of the fire. He looked up when she entered, then bowed. Will would have said something flattering about her apparel or her eyes, but Mr. Smythson seemed not to focus on her details. He smiled at her.
“Good day, my lady,” he said.
“I saw you at Lathom House,” said Katharine, “but missed you after the play. I have wanted to say how much I enjoyed the poetry you gave to me. I have no recollection of a woman putting quill to paper in such a manner. It inspires.”
“She has much skill.” He paused, as though he were trying to gather his thoughts. “I left before the dancing. I had spent much of the week walking through Lathom House. They want to alter the house and have asked for my services. My son and I were eager to return to our cottage on the sea west of here, so I left before the festivities ended.”
“I thought you hailed now from Nottinghamshire?”
“My wife’s family is from land near Poulton. The house passed to my son. We spend time there when we are not in Wollaton.”
“Must be bitter cold at the cottage this time of year, with the winds off the sea.”
“’Tis raw, but the house is in truth not large, and we keep the fires going and a family lives there year-round to help. The snow is less there than here on account of the shore. ’Tis beautiful any time of year, for you can see the water from many windows and the waves even in a tempest sound like music. Perchance you will see it someday.”
His last sentence hung in the air, and she was silent, then she began.
“Mr. Smythson, I am not young . . .”
“You are younger than I.”
They were in front of the fire facing each other.
“I feel much past the years when I might wed . . .”
“Our own queen has many years on you, and they still try to marry her.”
“She is our queen,” said Katharine.
“You are scarce past thirty. I have built houses for the Countess of Shrewsbury, who married for a fourth time when she was seven and forty years of age. But I have not asked you to marry me.”
“No,” she said. “I crave your pardon . . . I . . .”
“But you are not wrong in your interpretation of my attentions,” he said, running his hand through his curls.
“Prithee sit, Mr. Smythson,” Katharine said.
“You were going out,” he said, noticing her cloak.
“I will stay a moment,” she said.
When he sat down in one of the chairs in front of the fire, his shoulders immediately went slack—how different from Will, who was so conscious of his bearing, an actor upon a stage.
“Mr. Smythson . . .” Katharine sat down opposite him. She still had Will’s pages in her hand.
“Prithee, call me Robert.”
“And you may call me Katharine. Robert, I do not know you well, but from the scant time we have spent together I feel I can speak to you honestly.”
Mr. Smythson was not looking at Katharine but at the large rough hands clasped in front of him. “Do,” he said.
“At eighteen, I was married to a man thrice my age. When I was twenty he died.”
Mr. Smythson looked up at her. His profile was sharp, and yet his face was not unpleasant, for there was something lovely and open about his large brown eyes. He waited for her to continue.
“After the death of my husband, I moved back to Lufanwal and have been here ever since. Over the years, suitors came and suitors went, and I . . . I . . .”
“Never found the right fit.”
Katharine thought of when Will pulled her to him, how it felt like a glove, but she continued, “I was a boulder that would not budge. You work with stone. You must have certain stones that do not conform to a wall, whether it be outside a house or in the very house itself.”
Mr. Smythson leaned his large frame toward her. “Miss Katharine, I am a stonemason. I cut stones, shape them to fit, that is my trade. Most stones do not conform to the contour of a wall or a stairwell or a floor naturally but need the hands of men to help them. But I would never presume to shape you—you are not stone but flesh and blood. I do not know you well but find I think of you often, perhaps too often, and that I wish to see you. I have kept myself back many a time, not let myself jump on my horse with some excuse to come to a house where I am not even at this time working. I am a busy man with a business that is, thank heavens, flourishing. I have a son with whom I spend as much time as is possible—while we are deep in the building of a house and also when we finish work for the day.
“But I know this: I know that I am in love with you. I do not know how it came to pass or why, but it is the simple truth. ’Tis no secret your people are from a much higher breed than mine. I come from generations of men who worked with their hands, first with iron, then stone. I expect my low birth bothers you and I understand that, and I do not expect you to love me or to think of me when I am out of the room, but I wanted you to know that if you ever need me or it comes to pass that you might want to spend time with me, I am here . . . or rather there . . . or wherever I am, and I can come to you. The tragedies this house has endured are profound and very sad, and perhaps ’twas improper for me to come to you at this time with such words, but I felt I must.”
He stood. She remained sitting.
“Mr. Smythson . . .”
“Robert.”
“Robert, I thank you for your honest words. I wish I could return the sentiment but I cannot.”
“I did not expect you could. I only wanted to offer my support if ever you might need it.”
She rose and walked to the fire. “This has nothing to do with your standing,” Katharine said. She felt a rush of tears and she knew not why.
“I crave your pardon. I have upset you,” he said.
“No,” she said, wiping her eyes with the edge of her cloak. “It is just that . . .” She did not finish, but what had caught her and upset her was that no man had ever said in all her years the words, “I am in love with you,” and now Mr. Smythson had.
He pulled a cloth from his pocket and handed it to Katharine, and she again wiped her eyes. She was ashamed her dam had broken. Will had never said he was in love with her. He had said, “And we will love each other and continue on,” which she now understood as: You will love me and we will continue on, with you loving me.
Katharine grabbed Mr. Smythson’s strong hands and held them in her small ones. “Gramercy, for all you have said. You are a brave man.”
He smiled and gently pulled his hands from hers; then he put his hand on her head and let it rest on her hair for a moment. “I must be off,” he said, lifting his hand and looking down at her. “Fare thee well.”
“Fare thee well,” she said.
He bowed, took his worn leather satchel from the floor, pulled it over his shoulder and walked out the door. Katharine did not follow him. Will was waiting, but she sat down in front of the fire again. Her throat was tight. She felt choked and weepy. She could barely swallow. Mr. Smythson had been so kind just when she needed kindness, and he
had been so warm just when she needed warmth, and he had been so loving just when she needed love. Mr. Smythson had left the door ajar, and now she studied the doorway, half hoping he would turn around and walk back through it, but he was walking away. She listened to the sound of his footsteps receding.
—
Will had proposed his quarters. At first she thought it mad, and improper, for the house was already a gossip bowl, and the sight of her ducking in and out of Will’s lair would surely make it spill over with talk. But, nevertheless, layered in wools and covered with a hood, she walked through the January chill to Will’s door. She would make this their final meeting. She would sever their strange rope. She would let him go. She thought of Mr. Smythson’s kind words and of the artless manner with which he placed his warm hand on the top of her head.
Will’s lodgings were near the old chapel in what had been the priest’s quarters until the hunts began. Katharine sat on an oak chair next to the fire, her cloak wrapped around her. Will sat on a joint stool. He wore no doublet. His cambric shirt was open at the neck. His beard was neatly trimmed. His belongings were tidy: books in stacks, shoes and boots in a row, papers in a pile, black quills lined like soldiers on the table; his clothes, she assumed, were neatly folded in the trunk. It was as if he had invited her into his home in Stratford, when his wife and children were out, and had brought her into his bedchamber. She did not know where to look. There was something inappropriate but utterly compelling about finding herself sitting in this small space with him.
“How fares my dear Kate?” he asked.
The way he said her name made her heart go soft. She wanted to fling herself in his arms, bury her head in his shoulder. She now wondered what he had written in the letters she had thrown into the fire.
The Tutor: A Novel Page 27