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.