Wicked Company (66 page)

“I accept with the greatest pleasure this honor you have done me and shall do all in my power to prove my veneration of Shakespeare and my great regard for all of you.”

As he finished speaking, the cannons on the riverbanks boomed once again and the town bells rang clamorously. By half past ten everyone—peer and commoner alike—poured out into the road and paraded down Chapel Street, thence down Old Town Lane and into the gray stone church, the Gothic spire of which jutted toward the glowering clouds swirling above. As she entered the nave, Sophie offered a blasphemous prayer to the rain gods to hold off the downpour that was threatening to drench Shakespeare’s devotees.

Inside Trinity Church, adjacent to the playwright’s grave, while the oratorio “Judith” was in its final chorus, an extraordinary figure emerged from the gloom near the nave where Sophie stood. The man was covered in mud and dirt, his matted hair straggling about his ears. His suit was of black cloth, damp and horribly stained.

The apparition walked toward Sophie and whispered hoarsely, “Sophie?”

“Yes?” she replied, squinting in the gloom to try to make out who exactly this creature could be.
“Bozzy?”
Sophie exclaimed, and then clamped her hands over her mouth.

“Shhh!”
he hissed. “I am
incognito!
Where is Garrick?”

“Over there,” she replied, suppressing the desire to laugh hysterically. Certainly the Shakespeare scholars would never recognize him.

The oratorio had just concluded to warm applause, and members of the audience were beginning to dribble out the door into the misty churchyard. “Is Hunter here?” Boswell inquired cautiously.

“He just sang in the oratorio,” she replied stiffly, pointing in the direction of a group of singers milling about the nave. Then she stared once more at Boswell’s outrageous attire. “Pray,
why
are your clothes in such a state, Jamie?”

“I’ve been riding all night… ’tis raining buckets to the east… ah, there’s Garrick,” and without another word, the Man of Letters strode straight toward the Man of the Hour who, after a startled greeting, gallantly welcomed him.

Sophie soon was swept along with complete strangers in yet another procession—without any sense of rank or precedence—that marched up Old Town Lane to Henley Street where public homage was paid to Shakespeare’s birthplace located next to the White Lion Inn.

By four o’clock, hundreds of people were crammed into the Rotunda where dinner was served from the temporary kitchens nearby. Sophie grew alarmed at the undercurrent of grumbling she heard around her when John Payton, the owner of the White Lion, tacked on another ten shillings six pence for the meal itself, even for Jubilee ticket holders. Fortunately, the danger passed when the hungry crowd tucked into their meal.

Following supper, a concert of popular songs written in honor of Shakespeare and the Jubilee itself was presented for the crowd’s amusement. Sophie found it painful both to watch Hunter bewitch an entire throng with a roundelay about the Bard’s mulberry tree and to hear the rich full sound of his baritone rolling over the heads of his rapt audience.

…Bend to thee,

Blessed Mulberry,

Matchless was he

Who planted Thee,

And thou like him immortal be!

Hunter’s familiar, teasing smile, which he bestowed liberally on his audience, eventually came to rest on Sophie, only serving to make her more miserable. His warm, friendly gaze was part of his performance, a fact that wounded her all the more. Anxious to escape the sound of Hunter’s voice resonating in her ears, she swiftly left the Rotunda.

Golden beams of light from the candles glowing inside the amphitheater cast a bright path across the swirling waters of the Avon. Piles of firewood that had been heaped high in the surrounding meadow were being set alight, and soon the entire riverbank was awash in a saffron glow.

By the time she reached Meer Pool Lane, dusk had descended on the village. On each street corner a bonfire blazed, highlighting the bright flags and bunting that hung everywhere. Most thoroughfares sported at least one window draped with an illuminated silk painting depicting a Shakespeare play. Brightly burning lamps positioned behind the thin fabric cast purple, crimson, and blue shades into the night.

Inside Fulk Weale’s printing shop, Sophie handed the proprietor her list of the following day’s events and watched while he set the program in type.

“Please instruct the lads to slip the programs
under
the door sills… I think we shall have rain tonight,” Sophie predicted.

“Aye, mistress,” he nodded obediently as she took her leave.

Sophie returned directly to Henley Street, exhausted from the sheer tension of the opening day’s festivities and most especially from Hunter’s presence in Stratford. She crawled into bed and eventually drifted off to sleep using a pillow over her ears to blot out the lilting sound of minuets being played in endless succession at the Opening Day Ball held in the Rotunda a few blocks away.

***

Sophie awoke to the clanging of church bells, the explosion of the ubiquitous cannons, and the steady sound of rain streaming down in torrential sheets.

“Oh, no!” she wailed, leaping out of bed. “The Pageant!” The program Fulk Weale had printed the previous night foretold a gala, costumed procession of Shakespeare’s characters through Stratford’s streets, ending at Latimore’s Rotunda. There Garrick would recite his
Ode to Shakespeare,
accompanied by a full orchestra.

The timbers under Sophie’s bare feet felt dank and clammy, and a dark expanding circle of moisture tinged the walls surrounding the small window that looked out over the stable yard. Rain-swollen clouds slicked the thatch roofs with sheets of water that emptied noisily into the gutters and trenches along the roads, pooling into mammoth puddles everywhere.

“Jesu!”
she groaned aloud. “’Tis raining
bloody buckets!”

She scrambled into her clothes and donned her cloak, draping most of it over her head to prevent her hair from getting drenched on her way to the college, an old monastic building serving as the staging area for the Parade of Shakespeare Characters. By the time she arrived within its great stone walls across from Trinity Church, some two hundred actors, along with local volunteers, huddled in the damp in various stages of undress. Costumes lay about in heaps, and dozens of children ran around the great hall in a frenzy of excitement at being asked to participate in the great parade.

“I can’t find my witch’s wig!” bleated a hawk-faced Stratford matron to Sophie. “Where are the
wigs?
I must have one, you know!”

“’Scuse me, miss, but George Garrick said you’d know where the swords are kept,” demanded a gentleman in a Roman toga. He pointed at his belted paunch. “I’m one of the senators who’s supposed to stab Caesar. Without a sword, I can’t do the foul deed!”

Sophie’s heart sank when she spied George Garrick himself scurrying around the room from one disorganized group to another, hopelessly attempting to reestablish order.

“Quite chaotic, isn’t it?” an amused voice remarked behind Sophie. She whirled around and found herself staring up at an elegantly dressed Prospero, Duke of Milan, from Shakespeare’s
The Tempest.
“Will I see you at the masquerade ball this evening?” Hunter inquired calmly.

“The ball?” Sophie echoed blankly, her nerves raw from the disaster that seemed ready to befall the Jubilee and its planners.

But before Sophie could respond, David Garrick strode into the vast hall, accompanied by his wife and his Drury Lane partner, James Lacy.

“I beg your leave,” Sophie replied to Hunter hastily, grateful for an interruption that would spare her the embarrassment of trying to make small talk. “I must attend Mr. Garrick.”

She rushed to her employer’s side, only to be met by a horrifying sight. The celebrated face of Drury Lane’s actor-manager was severely nicked in several places and Mrs. Garrick was fluttering around her husband, attempting to staunch the blood with her lace handkerchief.

Acknowledging Sophie’s shocked expression, Garrick explained, “That blasted barber was still in his cups from last night’s celebration when he shaved me this morning.” Sophie could see that he was tired and his voice sounded hoarse.

“Now, now, Davy,” Mrs. Garrick consoled him. “I’ll just find the kitchen and brew you a cup of tea… ’twill sooth your sore throat.”

Suddenly James Boswell pushed through the throng, brandishing some verses he had written during the night on the subject of his recent book about the plight of Corsica. He apparently intended to distribute his poem among the patrons of the fancy dress ball.

“Ah… David… just the man I need to see,” Boswell declared. “I’d like to read you these rhymes about the tyranny afflicting my beloved adopted land—Corsica.”

“Oh, Bozzy! Good heavens!” Sophie remonstrated crossly. “The man has a day filled with responsibilities ahead of him, including reciting his
own
verses!”

James Lacy, utterly ignoring Boswell and Sophie, complained loudly, “God’s wounds, Davy! These costumes will be
ruined
if you expose ’em to such wretched weather! They’re tatty enough as it is!” he added, pointing to a cloak whose threadbare velvet and worn fur would do little to create theatrical magic if exposed in the light of day. “I’ve said from the very first, this was a moronic idea, planned for the wrong time of the year, set in a ridiculous country town… I say we quit! Abandon this folly!”

“No!”
roared David Garrick in the first show of violent temper Sophie had ever seen from him.

Lacy blinked, startled by his partner’s vehement reaction.

“Be reasonable, Davy,” he said in a more conciliatory fashion. “Who the devil would hold the procession in this weather? All the ostrich feathers will be spoiled and our property damage will come to easily five thousand pounds! ’Tis folly, I tell you!”

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Garrick boomed over the noisy, milling throng made up of legitimate and would-be thespians. “Your attention please!”

Sophie worried that Garrick’s badly strained voice would soon give out completely and admonished people near her to be quiet.

“The Shakespeare Procession will be postponed until tomorrow, for obvious reasons,” he bellowed, amid groans from the half-dressed participants. “Please remove your costumes carefully and return to the amphitheater forthwith. Chorus and orchestra members… report immediately to the Rotunda. The
Ode to Shakespeare
will commence in a half hour’s time!”

Mass confusion descended on the entire proceedings. Sophie lost sight of Hunter as she broke into a run in an effort to catch up to David Garrick. Within the hour he would be risking his entire reputation—as an actor and as the impresario of the Jubilee itself—before an audience of drenched, disgruntled Shakespeare lovers.

Twenty-Six

The rain continued to pour down in torrential sheets as Sophie sloshed through the muck behind Garrick. The meadow in which the wooden Rotunda stood had become a muddy quagmire, and the river Avon was now lapping perilously close to the corner of the amphitheater. Sodden crowds were filing gloomily into the auditorium—many cold and hungry.

Inside Sophie immediately spotted Hunter among the hundred members of the chorus and orchestra arrayed around the statue of Shakespeare, the one commissioned and paid for by David Garrick. The conductor, Dr. Arne, took his place, baton raised, preparing to conduct the overture he had composed for the occasion. In the center of the front row of singers was a large gilt armchair with a high back. At this point, it seemed less like a throne for the finest Shakespearean actor the world had ever known, and more like an execution block.

Suddenly, the phalanx of cannons positioned along the river unleashed another tremendous volley. Garrick walked purposefully to the front of the orchestra and sat on the gilded seat.

Sophie found herself clutching the edges of her soggy cloak in anguished apprehension. Could Garrick, nursing a sore throat, still summon his wondrous voice? Could he possibly tame this drenched and angry crowd?

Dr. Arne lowered his baton and the orchestra plunged into the booming overture. As the last musical notes faded, Garrick rose, bowed, and began to recite his
Ode to Shakespeare
in an atmosphere that was suddenly charged with palpable excitement.

To what blest genius of the isle

Shall Gratitude her tribute pay…?

A swelling chorus of singers blended behind Garrick’s words, their voices conjuring up the poignancy and wit—the sheer brilliance—of the greatest writer in the English language Garrick’s ode was a compilation of lines from both the poetry and plays, allowing the actor freedom to interpret a dozen aspects of Shakespeare’s art—along with his own.