Love Disguised (16 page)

“You cannot read!” repeated Will in perplexity.

It was hardly something to be ashamed of. Meg knew very few people besides Will who could read or write. “Am I no longer worthy of your companionship?” she asked, striving to keep her voice from trembling.

“Of course not. I mean—yes, you are. Fie upon my tongue.” Will rubbed his mouth. “Not a word?”

Meg decided the best strategy was to be bold, not shamefaced. “I could no more read that lawyer's book than I could swim to France with my hands tied together.”

“You could swim to France with those well-turned legs alone,” said Will with an admiring glance below.

Meg felt herself blush. There was no way to hide the shape of her legs while wearing close-fitting hose. “Believe me, I would do it if it would help you in this case.”

“Would you do something easier and less dangerous?”

“If it were in my power, yes,” said Meg warily.

“Would you pretend to be someone you are not in order to help a friend in need?”

Meg's heart pounded against her ribs. Had Will uncovered her secret?

“Speak plainly,” she demanded.

“If I read the lawyer's part to you, could you memorize it for the judge?”

Meg let out her breath slowly.
Of course I can
, she thought. She was already performing a role. Not once had she slipped and forgotten to speak and behave as Mack. But could she doubly disguise herself to play Mack and a lawyer at the same time? Meg scratched her head through her cap.
How shall I know my cue?
She opened her mouth to ask, then remembered Mack knew nothing about acting.

Instead she said, “What if the judge asks me a question I cannot answer? I shall be exposed as an imposter.”

“All the world is a stage on which we wear costumes to flatter ourselves and deceive one another,” said Will.

“Do you accuse me of false intentions?” asked Meg, feigning offense as Mack yet wondering if Will
had
discovered her to be Meg and was baiting her.

“What I meant was that no clothing could improve what Nature made perfect in you, dear friend.”

“Are you suggesting I go about naked?” she said roughly, hoping her red face would be construed as irritation.

A laugh exploded from Will. “Wear whatever you will as long as you agree to learn the lawyer's part.” He was on his knees now. “Dear friend, do it for my sake.”

Will was in such earnest that inwardly Meg melted. She
had to remind herself that he was appealing to Mack. Yet how could she deny the pleasure it gave her to have a fair young man kneel before her? How could she refuse him? It might end their friendship and thus her adventures as Mack. And it would mean Will's defeat in court. If he were fined or imprisoned she could do nothing to help him.

“You look like a besotted lover. Get up before someone notices you,” said Meg, pretending disgust. “I hardly know you, Will Shakespeare, and yet I trust you. We will meet again in two days.” She turned to leave, then said over her shoulder, “Do not make the lawyer's part too difficult!”

As usual Meg returned to the Boar's Head by a different route and quickly became Long Meg again. When Will came in she asked, “Did you find the lawyer?” and pretended to be shocked when he showed her the book he had stolen. When Will said he had persuaded her brother to play the lawyer, Meg put on a doubtful look.

“He will need several days to study the role,” she said. “His memory is not so quick as mine.”

“First I must write it,” said Will and commenced working as if a fire had been lit under him. He paged through the stolen handbook, jumped up from his table and gave a speech to the air, then fell to his stool and scratched furiously with his pen. Meg watched in amazed silence.

“My head aches, Long Meg. Fetch me some ale and listen to what I have written.”

Meg brought him a cup and peered at the mysterious scribbles. How she wished she could read it for herself!

Will recited his new words for her. “Are these not fine
phrases? I have mingled the Latin with the English to sound more learned.”

Meg tried to hide her panic. She was afraid to say anything.

“Why do you look so distressed?” asked Will. “Do you not like it?”

“Like it? I can make no sense of it! How shall my brother learn it? What if he makes a mistake before the judge?”

Will touched her hand to calm her. “I have confidence in him. He is as brave as you are and almost as witty.”

Meg's hand tingled. She did not draw it away. “And what if he is arrested for impersonating a lawyer?”

Will waved his hand as if brushing away a fly. “Many an
ignoramus
passes as a lawyer because he can curse in Latin. Under my tutelage your brother will seem as wise and logical as Aristotle.”

Already Will was using foreign words. Meg feared he might lose his purpose while studying this lawyer's book.

“Tell me, Will, can a painter work from a description in words or must he see the subject with his own eyes?”

“Is this a riddle?” he asked eagerly.

Meg plucked the book from Will's hand and placed it on the table. “Have you ever been to court or heard a lawyer speak to a judge?”

Will kept his gaze on the book. “I see your point,” he said. “But I say a man may play a king without living in a castle. Surely he can play a lawyer without being in a courtroom.”

Perhaps he was right. But Meg was afraid of the unknown realm of the judge. She had seen the outcome of their decisions: a man in the pillory bleeding from his ears, a prostitute in a white sheet standing before the church. Once she had
witnessed a hanging on Tower Hill during which Peter had filched several purses from unwary bystanders. But foremost in her memory was the Wood Street jail, the dark, miserable hole where her father suffered without any cause and died without recourse to justice.

“A court of law is not a mere stage, Will Shakespeare,” said Meg, striving to check her strong feelings. “Feign what you will but remember that a judge in fact sends men to prison. He takes away their freedom—and sometimes their lives.”

She swept up the empty cups and turned away so Will would not see the tears in her eyes, threatening to fall.

Hewlands Farm, Shottery

At the dawn of an October day the village of Shottery presented a peaceful aspect. Crofters with their sickles and carts headed to the fields, wearing cloaks they would throw off when the sun had gained strength. Haycocks dusted with frost dotted the fields like pieces in a game of nine-men's morris. The sheep grazed in the still-green meadows, growing their winter pelts, while cows lowed in the lee of stone fences where falling leaves also gathered. Sleepy housewives swept the dirt from their doorsteps and gazed over their gardens going to seed.

Anne Hathaway was blind to the day's glory. With a yoke across her shoulders she picked her way carefully over the rutted ground. Leaves cascaded around her and fell into her milk buckets. The rising sun cast a long shadow behind her that shifted with her every step. At the kitchen door she eased the yoke from her shoulders and sat picking the red and gold leaves from the creamy surface. She was so tired lately. Her whole body ached. Especially her heart.

She heard Catherine giggling. The sound irritated her like
a burr trapped in her stocking. She tiptoed down the garden path and peered through a tangle of briars and wilted roses to see her sister head to head with a young man. So early in the morning! Anne worried about Catherine's virtue, but what could she say after spending the night with Will herself?

The fellow turned and Anne saw that it was Gilbert Shakespeare, who had been keeping company with Catherine since Will left for London. He possessed little wit and even less charm, in Anne's view. And Catherine? She was like a child who forgets a toy as soon as it is out of sight.

Anne knew why Catherine could so easily shift her affections from Will to his brother. She had not lain with Will. Had not heard him whisper,
Let us kiss, and love each other still
. These words Anne could not forget. She knew that it was
her
body Will had loved,
her
ears he had spoken into,
her
lips he had kissed. Not Catherine's.

She crept back to the kitchen door, leaned against it, and closed her eyes. She asked herself for the hundredth time,
Was Will deceived? Or did he recognize me and willingly lie with me?
It made a difference to her. It made all the difference in the world.

Once Anne had seen a biblical play in Coventry about two brothers, smooth-skinned Jacob and hairy Esau, and their father, Isaac, who was old and blind. Jacob covered his body in furs, pretending to be his brother Esau, and tricked their father into giving him the blessing that was due Esau. She thought about that play often and wondered if Isaac was truly deceived. Could he not tell his sons apart by touch or by their voices? Perhaps Isaac knew Jacob was the more
deserving brother. As Anne was more deserving than Catherine, who, as her current behavior proved, never really loved Will.

Anne insisted to herself that she did not regret sleeping with Will. Did not regret the cloak that, like Jacob's furs, led Will to think she was Catherine. But she did rue the breach with her sister. Catherine had said hateful things to Anne, accused her of being jealous, deceitful, and a thief.

You do not deserve Will
, was Anne's defense.
I know what love is, and you do not
.

Marry an old man instead. Someone your age
. Catherine's contempt was like a dagger.

Alas, marriage to Will was now out of the question despite their vows, for he had fled to London and no one had heard of his whereabouts since.

A cat, her belly sagging with unborn kittens, rubbed against Anne's leg. She sat down and stroked it. “I am so unhappy. Nine people live under this roof. Father's wife treats me like a servant and expects me to take care of her children,” she murmured to the cat. “I am twenty-six years old. I want my own household. And my own children.”

Her life was not supposed to be this bleak. Six years ago she had fallen in love with the neighbor's son, David Burman, a frail fellow with gray-green eyes and brown hair. They first kissed in a meadow beside the River Avon and a year later plighted their troth before their fathers. Anne waited two years for David to save enough so they could be married and set up their own household. They never consummated their love, though David often begged her and she was sorely tempted. But she feared that once she lay with
him he might leave her. By denying him she thought she could hold on to him.

David did leave her. He contracted a fever in the spring and within a week was dead.

Anne still remembered the sensation of grief. It sucked all life and light into its blackness, like a bog. She had stood on Clopton Bridge trying to summon the strength to jump into the swollen Avon flowing beneath her. If only she had lain with David! If only she had a babe with gray-green eyes to remember him by. If only.

And so five years of her life were lost, three to unsatisfied desire and two to grief. Then Fulke Sandells, her father's friend, asked her to marry him but she declined. He was forty, almost an old man. She did not want his or anyone's pity.

Then one day she noticed Will Shakespeare. She had known him from childhood. In the interval of her own love and loss he had changed from a schoolboy to a man. He had apparently never heard of her misfortune. In his presence a heavy weight lifted from her shoulders, leaving her heart lighter. She felt herself flourish again and become the young woman who had fallen in love with David Burman. She contrived opportunities to see Will and permitted hope and desire to burgeon within her.

Yes, she had stolen Will's love from her sister as Jacob stole Isaac's blessing from his brother. But she regretted neither the deceit nor the deed. The memory of delight was something she could hold fast to. That and the possibility that she did love Will even if he hated her.

On one point only was Anne tempted to regret. She hoped she was mistaken in her calculation. All of September and
seven days of October had passed, yet she had not bled since August. With sad dismay she asked herself,
Have I gambled everything for love and lost again?

She opened her eyes. She was still sitting by the kitchen door. The household now stirred with footsteps, childish voices, the clang of pots. Sunlight fell across her lap. The cat licked the milk-dipped leaves on the ground.

Will had apparently considered Meg's worries, for when he met with Mack again, he suggested they observe a session of court. “It was your sister's advice, which I am glad to heed because she is a very wise and comely wench.”

“Did we not discuss the perils of flattery but two days ago?” Meg said. “I cannot be moved by praise of my sister.”