by Lisa Klein
“Being a woman does not constrain you now,” Will said.
Meg grew aware of a creaking cart, a dog barking, people passing by. Did they mistake her and Will for quarreling lovers? If only an embrace were sufficient to cut through the misunderstanding between them!
“I have grown accustomed to the freedom of these limbs to move and these lips to speak as I please. But now I am only Meg again, which is almost more difficult than to be both Mack and Meg.” She felt herself on the verge of tears.
“You played Mack’s part ably,” Will said grudgingly.
Meg managed a dejected smile. “No, for Jane and Violetta saw me fail, and James Burbage knew Mack for a woman the first time he saw me.”
“Did he really?” said Will.
Meg peered at him closely. “When I declared at the trial that I was not Mack de Galle, you did not seem surprised.”
“I played the lawyer’s part well, did I not?”
“Aye, but that is not my point. How did you know? And when?”
“Old Nick Grabwill came to me the night before your trial and told me a strange story,” said Will. “It was then that I knew.”
“Did you not suspect earlier? Why did you never ask to see Mack’s lodgings or insist on meeting him at the Boar’s Head? Did you ever wonder how Meg could have a twin brother identical in all features? Either you believed we were two, or you knew we were one and the same.”
“Ask me no more, for I cannot tell you.” Will’s tone was plaintive.
“You can but you will not! I think it was you who played me for a fool.” This possibility sent a wave of shame over Meg. She turned away and started across the road only to find herself surrounded by sheep. She shoved her way through their midst, shouting back at Will, “You wanted to see how far I would go just to be in your company. All the while you were deceiving me into thinking that I was deceiving you!”
“O what a tangled web you are weaving,” cried Will. “Like a spider trying to trap me.”
Will plowed through the sheep, scattering them. He reached Meg and took her by the shoulders.
“You wrong me with such accusations, Meg. I did wonder why Mack was so like you. I watched you at the inn and admired your strength, your bold manner, and your wit. But I did not know the truth for certain.” He paused a moment. “And what if I did? You loved every moment you were in disguise. To be truthful, so did I.”
So Will had known. It no longer mattered when; Meg was mortified all the same.
“Knowing that I was a woman, you let me debase myself with brawling and drinking?” she said, unable to meet his eyes. “How you must have laughed at my pretense of being a man.”
Will put his hand solemnly to his breast. “No, I never did. You made a better man than most of my sex. But you did laugh at me, when I came back with Davy’s boots.”
Meg smiled at the thought of Will with his paltry, ruined trophies. “Didn’t you long to tell me of yours and Mack’s adventures?”
Will raised his eyebrows. “There was no need, for you took part in them.”
Meg buried her face in her hands. “O I am repaid for my deceit and fairly beaten at my own game.” She felt Will’s hands on hers and let him uncover her face.
“It was a game that required two players,” he said and joined his palms to hers. Meg felt her heart pulsing all the way to her fingertips.
“Are we reconciled now? Friends again, despite my being a woman?”
“If you were both Mack and Meg, strength and fairness united in one person,” said Will, looking up into her eyes, “then you would be this man’s perfect mate.”
“Will, I am both Mack and Meg. And I don’t mean to seem coy, but methinks you are trying to woo me.”
“Excellent creature, I am,” he said, seizing her eyes with his own and holding her gaze.
Meg’s legs turned to jelly. She wobbled, leaning against the fencerow to keep herself standing. Will leaned with her. Was he about to kiss her? Did she not want him to? His hand was touching the front of her neck where her pulse beat. It was almost more than she could bear.
“This is as dangerous as breathing the air during a plague,” said Meg, winking to break Will’s gaze.
“What do you mean? Is my breath so foul?” said Will.
“I mean you might infect me with longing,” she said softly, knowing that she must walk no farther with him lest she be drawn, like a moon, helpless into his orbit. She thought of Violetta’s wrist encircled by Valentine’s hand. Of the Hathaway sisters Will had left to pursue his ambitions. To be held or to be released; both could cause hurt.
She slipped sideways and turned to face the city.
“Were you not on your way to Shoreditch also?” said Will.
“I was. But I am done with disguising.” Meg’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Tell Burbage I cannot join his company.”
Will looked stricken. “But I have counted on this! If you do not go, then neither will I.”
“You must, Will Shakespeare. For what else would you do?”
“I can study law. A lawyer feigns like an actor and lies as well as any poet.”
“Foh! I know your ambitions. You would a hundred times rather be a lowly player than a lawyer of the Queen’s Bench. Go on without me.”
Will stood his ground. Were they about to have another argument? “And I know you would rather command the stage—as you did the streets and the law court—than wait upon drunkards at the Boar’s Head Inn. Come, show the strength of your wit as well as your arm. Don’t be afraid.”
Does Will know me so well? Better than I know myself?
“Your will and your heart are one in this,” he said with gentle urgency.
Meg was not used to heeding her heart, which hitherto had demanded so little of her. Was she strong enough to resist its sudden urges?
“You go, Will. Burbage has an idea for a play you must write. I will come and see it performed.” How dull and faint that sounded.
“But it is you he wants in his company. Without you he won’t hire me.”
“Is that the reason I must accompany you?” Meg said. “Do you mean to use me for your own benefit?”
Will drew back with a hurt look. “Does a poet exploit his muse? Nay, rather he needs her. Meg, do not divide yourself in two; be one true friend of Will Shakespeare.”
Meg felt her heart turning like a flower toward the sun. Her longing to be Will’s friend and his muse was powerful. But could Will accept her as she was?
“Henceforth the one I must be is Meg the woman,” she said firmly.
“And so you shall be. Do I not remain Will though I play Pyramus or Antony? So you can play a man’s role and be no less a woman. You can feign Cleopatra or Caesar and still be yourself, Meg de Galle.”
“What if Burbage will not let me be Meg? A player who is known to be a woman might bring trouble to his company.”
“You said he knew your sex when he offered you employment,” Will countered. “He saw what a good player you will make. I’ll warrant you’ll cause no more trouble than you can easily handle.” He winked at her.
The sun had climbed to its apex, dispelling the frost into vapor. Will’s words melted Meg’s cold fear, making her warm and malleable like soft metal. Who would she become with Will at her side offering true friendship—and perhaps more?
It was time to act while she was filled with praise and confidence. Now, before I lose my Will!
She turned around in the road and with a sweeping motion of her arm said, “Let’s dally no more in this common way, but hasten to Shoreditch without delay.”
Will almost had to run to match his stride to hers.
Chapter 39
Meg’s fears were unfounded. Both she and Will were welcomed into Burbage’s company. His best player had suffered a concussion in a brawl and could not even remember his own name, so Will was needed to act as well as write plays. Burbage agreed to Meg’s stipulation; thus all the players knew her for a woman and were as cou
rteous to her as their rough natures allowed. Meg liked her fellows, especially Bumpass, the clown with the remarkable ability to produce a hundred different sounds by farting, and Wagstaff, a handsome youth who played all the women’s roles. The boy was especially glad of Meg’s presence, for he was getting a beard and thought himself ready for a man’s role. Little Richard Burbage was his father’s factotum. He took quickly to Meg, bringing her sweets and offering to do whatever she asked him. Around him Meg felt like a queen. The only fly in the ointment was Rankin Hightower, whose stage name belied his base origins as the son of a butcher. He fancied himself more talented than anyone, especially Will.
James Burbage kept Meg and Will close to him and daily maligned the proprietors of the Curtain, a rival playhouse. “He is afraid of them luring us away,” said Will to Meg. “That’s how much he regards us.”
“We must prove ourselves worthy of that regard,” said Meg. She hesitated to believe their good fortune, which was compounded by the absence of William Burbage from the playhouse. Meg asked Bumpass where he had gone.
“Just before you fell in with our company, it befell that William and the master had a falling out,” explained Bumpass, miming the act of stumbling.
Meg took up residence in a tiny cottage in Shoreditch while Will shared a room with one of Burbage’s employees, a carpenter named Tom Makeshift. By night Will wrote new scenes and by day the actors rehearsed them, vying for the best lines and the most important parts. Only Meg made no demands, for she saw how tense Will was, how desperate to succeed. She memorized all the players’ lines, her brain soaking up Will’s words as a sponge soaks up water. She knew by listening when a line did not sound just right, but she never said anything to Will. Invariably he would change it.
Three weeks quickly passed and on the seventh day of November, heralded by trumpet and with flags waving atop the amphitheater, Will’s Tragedy of Cleopatra saw its first performance. The galleries were filled and the groundlings stood shoulder to shoulder. Peering from behind the curtain Meg saw Burbage’s wealthy patron, the Earl of Leicester, seated on a gilded chair on the stage. Beside him on stools sat Master Overby and Gwin, looking as proud as royalty. Will had insisted they be thus honored and admitted free of charge because Overby had been deprived of the income from Will’s play. There were several patrons of the Boar’s Head in the audience. Violetta—for Meg still thought of her by that name—and Thomas Valentine waved from the second gallery. Among the groundlings stood Jane Ruffneck. Ned, Dab, and Grabwill Junior rested their chins on the stage. Meg longed to please them all, though her heart was jumping like a frog and she feared she might throw up.
When she stepped onstage as Cleopatra, wearing a wig of black hair, she heard the chanting start up: “Long Meg! Long Meg!” She held her queenly attitude for a long moment before speaking. Will entered, armed as Antony, and the Boar’s Head crowd shouted: “Will! Will! Shake your spear!” Meg struggled to keep from smiling. Behind the curtain Burbage would be dancing a jig, for his new players were causing a sensation and the noble Leicester was a witness to it.
It was the final act. Antony fell on his sword. Bumpass and three centurions hoisted Will to their shoulders, carefully avoiding the sheep’s blood he squeezed from a bladder onto the stage.
“I am dying, Egypt, dying,” Will said, moaning as they laid him on the platform where Cleopatra knelt. “Give me some wine and let me speak a little.”
Meg put a cup to Will’s lips, and the red liquid spilled out again. She touched her lips to Will’s forehead, then to his cheek. She could hear the audience snuffling wetly as if an ague had seized them all.
“O quicken again with kissing! Had my lips that power, I would wear them out,” Meg said and kissed Will, closing her eyes and thinking of anything but his lips lest she forget her next lines.
Will was borne away and Rankin strode onstage as the conquering Caesar. Loud booing greeted him. “Caesar’s a merchant that makes a prize of you,” he said to Cleopatra with contempt. Meg knew he was supposed to say “Caesar’s no merchant, to make a prize of you.” She heard Will behind the curtain, fuming that he was debasing the noble Caesar. But she knew that for all Rankin’s strutting, Cleopatra’s would be the final victory.
“Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have immortal longings in me,” she said.
Wagstaff as Iras minced up the stairs to the platform aloft, carrying a basket. Meg stooped as he put the crown on her head. From the basket she drew out the effigy of a snake. Hidden beneath the stage, Bumpass shook a gourd full of dried peas to moke the hissing sound that filled the amphitheater.
“O thou speak’st and calls great Caesar an ass, outdone in craftiness!” Meg said, imitating the serpent’s hiss. She twisted the effigy in her hand to make it writhe. She saw Gwin’s mouth open, a wide, dark O, and heard a hundred gasps as she brought the snake to the hollow of her throat.
“Peace, peace,” she purred, as if imploring the audience. “But see the baby at my breast, that sucks the nurse asleep. As sweet as balm its bite, as soft as air—” With all eyes in the theater raised to her, she sank to the platform with her arms dangling over the stage below.
The rumor that a woman was performing at the Theatre proved a boon to business. The Puritans descended to decry bawdiness, gay apparel, and all forms of deceit, but their preaching and pamphlets only stirred up more interest in the play. The London authorities were powerless to enforce their prohibitions, for the playhouse was beyond the city limits. Nor did the queen show much rigor, for she was said to enjoy plays as much as anyone. Nevertheless a cautious Burbage posted his son at the door to warn him if someone from the Revels Office arrived. He might be a friend wanting to commission a performance or a foe bent on censorship. If the latter, Burbage would replace Meg with one of the other players, and the censor would depart scratching his head.
Between performances and rehearsals, Will and Meg were often in each other’s company trying out their new friendship. Gradually their conversation grew easier. Meg told Will about her parents’ misfortunes, her exploits with Davy and Peter, and her long-held secret, which had lost its power when she learned the crime was Roger’s, not her mother’s. Will talked about his family and described Stratford so vividly, Meg felt she knew the town. Once he spoke of the Hathaway sisters and when Meg grew silent, fighting jealousy, he changed the subject.
“Why don’t I teach you to write and read?” he offered. “You can be my scribe.”
“I would have to write very fast to pin down your quick words,” said Meg, smiling. But she was delighted to let Will instruct her and enjoyed the hours they spent in the tiring room after everyone had left the Theatre. They bowed their heads together, sharing the candlelight, their ink-stained fingers sometimes touching as Will guided her hand.
Will was amazed. “How quickly you learn! I was right to prize your wit.”
“I can’t deceive you, Will! I’ve been copying letters on my own and teaching myself,” she confessed. “I memorize the parts by listening and later match them to your written pages.”
He drew back in surprise. “You don’t need me then.”
“O but I do, because I don’t know when I make a mistake.”
“And I need you for the same reason,” he said, sighing.
Meg would put down her pen and listen while ideas sprouted like grass from Will’s fertile brain. She watered the good ideas and plucked the weedy ones. This was what it meant to be a muse.
One day while Meg was doing an inventory of costumes, Will looked up from his writing and said out of the blue, “I miss my old friend Mack.” He twirled a man’s cap on the tip of his finger. “Do you?”
Meg was a little hurt. Why should Will miss Mack when he had her?
“No. It was confusing being Mack. I am more useful to you now, aren’t I?” Not liking to beg for praise, she quickly added, “Give me that cap. It needs new feathers.”
Will held up two buff jerkins and helmets trimmed with metal.
“Come, let’s don this soldier’s garb and seek out an adventure to feed my poet’s fancy.”
Meg saw the light of mischief in his eyes. She countered by tossing a wig and skirt in his direction. “You wear the disguise this time. I’ll take you where you shall overhear enough privy news to pen a dozen scenes with Mistress Bicker and Goodwife Tattle.”
Will threw the costume back at Meg. “I’ve heard women gossipping all my life in Stratford. I kept a stall in the marketplace.”
“That does not mean you know what it is to be a woman.” Meg pressed the skirt against Will’s chest. “I am your muse. I know what is good for you.” She was good-natured but serious. “We’ll stroll through Southwark as two doxies, and you shall witness firsthand how women endure men’s fleering and abuse.”
“But … but …,” Will stammered.
“Do you disdain to play the part of a woman?” she asked.
“I do not see the purpose in it,” he blurted.
Would he never learn? “You lately told me I was as good as any man you knew,” she said. “It was being Mack that made me a stronger Meg.”
Will seemed confused. “Therefore I should become a woman to make me a softer Will?”
How could she explain the need? The sexes were not equal. For Meg to behave as a man was brave; Will had admired her for it. But the idea of Will as a woman was simply comical, even to Meg. Still, the reversal was only fair.
“Yes you should,” she said firmly. “There’s no harm in it.”
Will only smiled. “Wherefore do I have you, Meg, if not to teach me what women want from us?” he said with such a gentle manner that Meg could not be angry with him.
At every performance of The Tragedy of Cleopatra the Theatre was filled. Barely a week after it opened a stroke of good fortune befell Burbage’s company, sending Will and Meg to the Boar’s Head to celebrate with their old companions. Any ill feeling over their departure seemed already forgotten. Gwin doted on Ned and Grabwill Junior as she once did Meg and Violetta. Meg cornered young Grabwill and made him understand that if he stole so much as a pie from the oven she would make him regret it. Jane reported that Roger Ruffneck had confessed to killing the priest, and Davy and Peter were still in prison. But Will was past caring about revenge, eager instead to describe the scene of his new triumph.