The wind does smell of new buds and sunlight, but in this house the air hangs heavy. It is near two months since any invited us to dine. I, who was so easy declining invitations, do miss them. For there is no envy of our fine estate in Stratford now; only laughter that a tradesman and a yeoman’s daughter have set themselves up as gentlefolk, but their daughter has shown the world their true estate.
My wife instructed Jem that rolls in the French manner be ordered and fetched early from the baker for our breakfast, for she knows that I delight in such. But that could not ease what I must tell her.
‘Wife, you must not visit Chapel Lane again. Not until both our daughter and Thomas Quiney are again communicated and agree to be legally married by the church.’
My wife stared across the table. ‘But, husband, she is with child!’
‘Is she indeed? And why was I not told of it? When will the babe be born? Nine months from that illegal marriage, or eight or seven?’
My wife flushed, but met my eyes. ‘That is not for you nor I to question,’ she said quietly.
It was the first time she had ever rebuked me, and not for leaving her for London the first or many other times, nor for leaving her to suffer for our Hamnet’s death alone, and for those forty long days after.
‘Nor is it for a wife to question her husband,’ I said.
‘Thy daughter needs her mother. Troubles can cause a woman to lose her child!’
‘You shall not visit her.’
‘Husband, yes, I shall.’
‘Then you defy me?’
‘In this, and nothing else,’ she said softly. ‘For as a wife owes a duty to her husband, she does also care for all her children, as I have done, for all their lives.’
‘And Susanna?’
‘She visits her sister too, and with her husband’s blessing, though he will not have Thomas Quiney to dine or visit them. Judith must have her family now.’
Even if I forbid it? The words hung like drifts of mist upon the air, ghosts of words unspoken.
I left the table then, with its silver that my care had brought her, its chairs with cushions, the tapestries that clad the walls of this good house, the second largest in all Stratford. All given to my family by my own hand.
I sat again to write in this book; my only friend, it seems, in Stratford. Susanna, once again impulsive. Even Dr Hall is not the man I thought him, to allow his wife to add to our shame like this.
William Shakespeare, gentleman. I was so proud of our family’s fine estate, all brought about by my hand. But pride too is a sin, like fornication, and must be added to my list.
What have I bought, beyond the title ‘gentleman’? A house and fortune for my family so they must not fear the almshouse. But for my Judith, a prating fornicator for a husband; for Susanna, the envy of neighbours who will once more tangle gossip to try to bring her down.
And for myself? Why, nothing. The role of gentleman sits ill upon my shoulders; I, who have played so many roles — ghost, king, Caesar, Prince of Verona, judge. I bore them all and well, and found applause and fame and fortune. But this role I have no wish to play again: dining with fools, sitting through sermons told by fools, exchanging the thoughts of the day with those who have no thoughts beyond this town and the state of corn or turnips.
Is there one in this blighted turnip town who can envisage the vasty fields of France; let their minds travel with King Henry as he triumphed at Agincourt; stand with Antony as he pleaded for Caesar? None in this house, nor family, nor town.
Better that I should have died a year ago, still William Shakespeare, gentleman, and not a fornicator’s father-in-law, a fool’s father, and foolish in his fathering, to be laughed at as I pass. ‘Thought he was so fine, and look: his daughter cast from the church, her babe most like a bastard, her husband Even a happy death is denied me now.
If my father’s ghost should speak to me, like Hamlet’s, what would he say?
But then, in life, my father was not wise; nor Hamlet’s father either.
What shall I do?
I had no sooner writ those words than others came to me, floating through the years and through the casement: ‘William, my William, you are greater than this small town. This tragedy has been sent, perhaps, to make you leave it, so you may rise, uncramped and unconfined.’
Words said before I became a player, playwright or gentleman. Words spoken with love. Judyth’s words — not my daughter’s, but my lover’s. And even now, I thought, she speaks to me, watches over me perhaps.
And she is right. I do no good here. A wife who will defy me, while my daughters will not heed my strongest word. Best that I am not here to see it.
I will to London, to my house at Blackfriars. The scandal will not follow there. What matters it to London if a Stratford wretch is guilty of fornication and excommunicated?
I have been cramped and confined in this sheep-market town too long. I will to London for a month, and in my absence matters may settle, the gossiping crows will find else to caw about, Thomas Quiney will pay his penance and be received at church again. And perhaps I might even find that, with a month’s respite, I can put on that shirt again, that too-tight-fitting cloth of a gentleman.
I will send a message to my agent to meet me, to tell him to hire men to arrange the lower fields’ drainage, but not to more expenditure till I return, nor to advance money to my household unless he see my seal.
Dinner: a carp, stuffed; a pottage of lentils; stockfish cakes, fried; peas in their pods; asparagus, forced, from the garden; cauliflower in almond and orange sauce; raisins of the sun; figs, dried; apricot jelly.
Bowels: irregular.