A Mystery Of Errors Page 15

  “Of course not,” Shakespeare replied. “Look, Tuck, I am not trying to disparage the lady or upset you. But you are my friend, and I feel it is my duty to play the Devil’s advocate and point out some things you may have failed to consider. To wit, what do you suppose would happen if Gresham were to learn what just transpired upstairs?”

  Smythe stifled his initial response, which was to protest once again that nothing happened. He had been alone with her in a room that had a bed in it, and he had kissed her. To a man like Gresham, that would have been enough. “Well, I should think he would surely call the marriage off. At the very least. I suppose that he might also choose to engage me in a duel.”

  “Oh, nonsense,” Shakespeare said, with a dismissive wave. “One can only duel with equals and a gentleman would not duel with an ostler. ‘Tis much more likely that Gresham would simply have you killed. You have placed yourself in a precarious position by promising to help her.”

  “What would you have me do, turn her away?” asked Smythe.

  “ ‘Twould be a practical consideration,” Shakespeare said, “but then if we were practical, we would not have joined a company of players.” He took a drink, pondered for a moment, and then nodded. “I am inclined to take the lady at her word, I think, and accept what passed between you as a brief and innocent romantic interlude with no ulterior motives on her part, except perhaps a reaching out to form a bond and gain some sympathy. ‘Tis even possible that, upon reflection, she now regrets what she has done. Either way, you seem to have become involved now. If she no longer wants your help, why then, she will doubtless say so.”

  “But until she does, I am inclined to help her, if I can,” said Smythe.

  “Which brings us back to Gresham once again,” said Shakespeare.

  Smythe nodded. “What motive could he have for lying?”

  “Difficult to say. If, as the lady claims, he truly did tell her that he does not desire the marriage any more than she does, then his actions seem a mystery.”

  “She believes his purpose in dissembling with her mother was to make it seem as if she had lied about their meeting at the Theatre, made up the whole story in an effort to get out of the marriage.”

  “That seems rather foolish,” Shakespeare said. “I mean, ‘twould seem a foolish thing for her to do. If one is going to tell a lie, then it behooves one to tell it in a manner that prevents one from being easily found out. And in this case, ‘twould have been a very simple matter for her to have been found out. All her parents would have had to do was ask Gresham if they had ever met.”

  “Which was precisely what he had denied.”

  “Except that we know that she was here,” said Shakespeare. “We both saw her.”

  “But we both could have been paid to bear false witness in her favor, and that is what Gresham will doubtless claim,” said Smythe. “No one would take the word of a couple of ostlers over that of a gentleman.”

  “Quite so. An excellent point. In all likelihood, our testimony would not resolve the problem, especially if her parents are predisposed to disbelieve her because they want the marriage to take place. But the important thing is that we know that she is telling the truth, at least insofar as having met Gresham at the Theatre goes. I suppose ‘tis possible he might not have told her that he does not want the marriage, but then, if that were so, then why not simply deny that? Why deny meeting her at all?”

  Smythe nodded. “I think the more we look at it, the more it becomes self-evident that Mr. Gresham is a liar.”

  “And I do not like him, anyway,” said Shakespeare. “I can still remember having my arse turned into a pincushion from diving into those thorn bushes when he nearly ran us down.” He winced. “I am still sore from that, damn his eyes. Arrogant bastard.”

  “Fine. We are agreed then that he is a liar and a worthless bastard,” Smythe said. “The question is, what do we do about it?”

  “Well, we try to find a way to prove he is a liar,” Shakespeare said. “Or, failing that, ‘twould serve your lady’s purposes as well if we could devise some way to thwart the marriage.”

  “Agreed. But we have yet to determine what his motives may be. If we knew that, it might help us to devise a plan of action.”

  “Perhaps. You say the lady’s parents are well off?”

  “Her father is a wealthy merchant who desires to advance himself socially.”

  “Hmmm. A lot of that going around these days. ‘Tis all rubbish if you ask me. If you have a lot of money, society eventually comes to you. There is no need to go fawning upon them.”

  “That is what Sir William said, though not in so many words,” Smythe agreed. “In the old days, he said, a man won his spurs upon the battlefield. Nowadays, he simply buys them.”

  “Which is what Elizabeth Darcie’s father hopes to do,” said Shakespeare. “She is the bait with which he hopes to snare a gentleman of rank. And, of course, the bait is made more tempting with a dowry, which as a wealthy merchant, he can easily afford. But suppose our Mr. Gresham happens to be particularly greedy?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We were talking earlier about how Miss Darcie seemed distressed, but not unbalanced,” Shakespeare said. “But what if she did seem to be unbalanced?”

  “She certainly did not strike me that way.”

  “No, no, of course not. But suppose she was. Not completely out of her mind, you know, but nevertheless, a little touched.” The poet tapped his temple with his forefinger. “Or if she were one of those shrewish women who tend to lie and shout and throw tantrums whenever they are not given their way. ‘Twould make her far less desirable as a wife, I should think. Especially if she had a reputation for such behavior.”

  “I see!” said Smythe, realizing where the poet was going. “And if her father were a very wealthy man, then he might well be moved to increase the size of her dowry considerably, as an incentive for a prospective husband to take her off his hands!”

  “You get my drift,” said Shakespeare.

  “I do, indeed. Gresham makes her out to be touched in the head, or else failing that, a shrewish maid who would be nothing but a trial to her husband. He plays at following through with the arrangement, but at the last moment, seems to hesitate, as if having second thoughts as a result of Elizabeth ’s behavior. And her father, desperate to see them married so that he can make use of Gresham’s social stature, offers him more money to recompense him for the inconvenience he shall experience in trying to tame this shrew. The result: Gresham gets himself a pretty wife and a pretty windfall!”

  “Perhaps even a piece of Darcie’s business, if he plays his cards right,” said Shakespeare. “You know, in a perverse sort of way, there is a kind of symmetry to all this. Darcie wants to marry off his daughter to a gentleman so that he can take advantage of the connection to advance himself, and Gresham wants to marry money. Each gets what he wants.”

  “Except Elizabeth,” said Smythe, “who only gets used by both.”

  “True, true,” said Shakespeare, nodding. “It really is too bad that you are not a gentleman. You think you could get Sir William to adopt you? If you could manage that, then you might just displace Gresham and the two of you could live happily ever after, even with her father’s blessing.”

  “Were you planning on drinking that pot of ale or wearing it?” asked Smythe.

  “Now you see how you are?” Shakespeare replied. “I do my utmost to help you with your lady’s problem, and arrange for your debut as a player, too, and you threaten to upend a pot of ale over my head. There’s gratitude for you.”

  “I am grateful, Will,” said Smythe. “Truly. But… wait. What did you say just now? My debut as a player?”

  “Well, ‘tis a walk-on, really, and only one line, but everyone has to start somewhere,” Shakespeare said.

  “You got me a part in a play?” Smythe said, with disbelief.

  “A very small part,” Shakespeare said, holding his thumb and forefinger about an inch ap
art.

  “Will! An actual part in a play? However did you do it?”

  “No need to get carried away now,” Shakespeare said. “They were very pleased with the job I did for them, as you just saw. And I wrote in a small part for you and asked if you could play it. They were dubious until I said that ‘twas only a small part in the second act, and they would not need to add another hired man. You could perform your duties as an ostler before the play begins, have plenty of time to come inside and change, come onstage, do your part, and then go back outside and help with the horses at the close. They were quite amenable, especially when they saw that you are a great, hulking, handsome chap who will doubtless make the ladies in the audience go all aflutter. And not only ladies. There is always a place in the theatre for tall, strapping fellows. With Alleyn gone, they need someone for the audience to gawk at, and while young Burbage is a decent looking sort, he is not the manly brute that you are.”

  “I never know if you are serious or if you are teasing me,” said Smythe, with a grimace.

  “I do both,” said Shakespeare, with a smile. He lifted his pot of ale. “Here’s to your debut.”

  10

  ELIZABETH DID NOT KNOW FROM whence came this sudden, exhilarating boldness, and it both alarmed and pleased her at the same time. As she made her way home, she thought about what she had done and it seemed difficult to believe that she had really done it. She wondered what her father would do if he discovered that she had been at an inn, alone with a man, and a lowly ostler, no less. She could just imagine his reaction.

  If he called her a slut, beat her bloody, and drove her out of the house, no one would question his right to do so. By any decent person’s standards of morality, she had disgraced herself and she had disgraced her family. But she did not feel disgraceful and she did not feel like a slut. She felt like a woman who had suddenly seized control of her own destiny and made her own choice about something. For far too long, all her choices had been made for her. For once, she had chosen for herself. And whether it had been a wise choice or not, it made her feel marvelously free.

  She did not feel very close to either of her parents. Like many other children, she had been sent to live with another family when she was very young and did not return until she was nearly thirteen. This was considered a sound practice, for it kept parents from forming too close a bond with their children and thereby suffering from too much grief in the event those children should not thrive. And a great many children did not survive the first few years of infancy. Even adulthood was not without its risks, as the Plague demonstrated all too grimly every summer, so emotional attachments within families were best kept within reasonable bounds.

  Still, though she had grown to know and understand all this, when she finally came home again, Elizabeth felt as if she had come home to strangers. She had seen the family resemblance, particularly with her mother, but the similarities between them seemed to go no further. And as Elizabeth grew older, she and her mother had continued to grow even farther apart. When she considered her mother now, she saw a vapid, vain, and foolish creature, a woman with whom she felt no real kinship, who cared much more about appearances than the way things truly were. And when her mother looked at her, Elizabeth knew she saw a daughter she could not even begin to understand.

  Elizabeth wondered if there had ever been a time when her mother had felt the same way about things as she did. Had there ever been a time when she was young? There must have been, but it seemed difficult to credit. Sometimes, when she was looking at her mother, Elizabeth tried to imagine what she must have been like when she was young. She must have been a great deal like me, Elizabeth often thought, at least in her outer aspect. But inside, Elizabeth could not believe that they were anything alike. If she were to accept that her mother could have ever been anything like her, then it would have also meant accepting that something must have happened to change her into the woman she had now become. And that was a disturbing, even a frightening thought, because it implied that she might wind up the same way.

  Elizabeth could not imagine being married to a man like her father. Although her father had never mistreated her in any way, and had provided a good home for her and seen to all of her material needs, neither had he shown her any affection. He seemed to care more for his sports, his fighting dogs, than he did for either her or for her mother. He was hardly ever home, tending to business during most of each day, and at night he went out socializing, ostensibly also to increase his business and make new contacts and connections with people who might help him advance himself. On those nights when he came home at a reasonable hour, all he did was issue orders to her mother and herself. And he was always finding fault and never seemed to have any shortage of complaints.

  Elizabeth had never heard him exchange a tender word with her mother. She had never seen any sign of physical affection pass between them. She had never seen them kiss, or caress, or hold hands, or even hug. And yet, for all that, her mother seemed to consider it a good marriage. Well, Elizabeth thought, if theirs was a good marriage, she would hate to see a bad one! Whatever became of love? Beyond romantic poetry, it seemed to have no currency. From what Elizabeth could see, a good marriage was really nothing more than a sound business transaction. And Elizabeth was not interested in going into business.

  As she walked through the cobbled London streets, all around her, she saw people whose lives were a constant, desperate struggle merely to survive. These were the honest, working class people of London, skinners and saddlers, cutlers and tanners, ropemakers and weavers, coopers and costermongers, and cobblers and simple unskilled laborers mingling with beggars and trollops and cut-purses and alleymen… all of whom people like her father and Anthony Gresham never even deigned to notice as they drove through the city streets in their fancy, curtained coaches. These people were the lifeblood of the city, and yet, they did not impinge upon the world of her father and of the upper classes, which gave them no more thought than a carter would give his dray horse. And even there, she thought, the dray horse would fare better, because the carter knew his livelihood depended on the animal and thus he cared for it, whilst the prosperous middle and upper classes cared nothing for the lowly worker, save for how they could use him most profitably, and with the least amount of inconvenience to themselves.

  Her tutor had been right, she thought. We have forgotten how to feel. The poets were the only ones who knew the true depth of the human soul. There was no honor in the upper classes, but only avarice and selfishness and sloth. The true beauty of the human struggle was to be found within the breast of the working man, those tireless toilers all around her who would wither and grow old before their time, assuming they survived the next Plague season. Elizabeth sighed. Her father had discovered what sort of things her tutor had been teaching her-doubtless, one of the servants had been directed to report to him-and the man had been dismissed. She missed him. He was the only one who had ever truly understood her.

  “ Elizabeth!”

  She glanced up at the sound of her name and saw the open carriage that had just passed her stopped in the middle of the street. And standing up in it was Anthony Gresham!

  “ Elizabeth? It is you! What are you doing there, walking through the streets unescorted?”

  “And pray tell what business would that be of yours?” she asked, as she approached the carriage.

  “Well, quite aside from looking out for a lady’s welfare, as any gentleman should do, I could say that as your intended, it is very much my business, since it would appear that I am still your intended. And this despite the agreement we had made.”

  “ ‘Twas not I who did not honor my agreement,” Elizabeth replied, tersely. She resumed walking, holding her head high.

  “Indeed? Well, ‘twas certainly not I.” He stepped down from the coach and caught up to her. “As it happens, I was just on my way to see you to demand an explanation.”

  “Demand’?” She could feel the color rushing to her face. She want
ed to throw herself upon him and pummel him to the ground for the insufferable way that he had treated her, but she was not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her lose her temper and act like the very shrew that he was trying to make her out to be. “Demand an explanation? You dare, sir, to take such a tone with me after the dishonorable way that you have acted?”

  “My dear lady, if anyone has acted dishonorably in this matter, then ‘twas certainly not I!”

  “Oh, indeed? Are you implying then that I am the one who has acted dishonorably?” She simply could not believe the sheer gall of the man! She was so angry, it was all that she could do to hold herself in check.

  “Well, what do you call it when someone makes an agreement with you and you break it?”

  “I? ‘Twas I who broke the agreement?” She stared at him with disbelief. “You astonish me, sir. You truly do. Your arrogant effrontery seems to know no bounds!”

  The carriage, driven by the despicable Drummond, followed them slowly down the street. Within moments, however, a carter and a coach had come up behind them, both drivers shouting angrily at being blocked. Drummond immediately started shouting back at them and a furious argument ensued.

  “Drive on, Andrew!” Gresham waved Drummond on before a fight could erupt. “I shall escort Miss Darcie home and meet you there!”

  “I may not wish to be escorted by the likes of you, sir!”

  “Be that as it may, I shall escort you nonetheless,” Gresham replied, taking her by the arm as Drummond used his whip and the carriage passed them, pursued by the oaths of the following drivers. “ ‘Tis neither safe nor proper for a young woman to be abroad all by herself.”

  “Please let go of me, Mr. Gresham,” she said, twisting her arm out of his grasp. “You are entirely too familiar for a man who impugns my integrity.”

  “As you wish,” he said, holding up his hands as if in a gesture of surrender. “However, if my familiarity offends you so, I must admit to being somewhat puzzled as to why you would wish to marry me.”