Love Disguised Page 3

As long as she could see the river, Meg was not lost.

  On her right hand loomed the Tower, a fortress where the worst criminals in all of England were kept. Meg imagined their moans and the clanking of chains. How close she had come to being caught! She knew that Peter and Davy would not rescue her. No, they had betrayed her. She never wanted to see them again.

  Misery enveloped Meg like black water, and with a stab of sorrow she thought of her drowned mother. She turned her back on the river and huddled in the lee of an old stable, wrapped in growing darkness and knowing there was not a soul alive who cared for her, not even the woman at the Boar’s Head Inn who had called her a sweet boy. She longed for another bite of that orange. But she was penniless again and lacked even the warmth of her cloak.

  Perhaps Meg slept. When she stirred again it was long past curfew. The houses were all dark and the only light came from the pale moon. She sensed someone approaching and all her muscles braced for flight. The figure clung to the shadows, but Meg slowly made out the thin man carrying a long hook and creeping from house to house, looking up at the windows.

  At once Meg knew how to save herself. She would have to commit another crime, but she promised herself it would be her last one. As stealing food had been necessary to keep from starving, so was this new misdeed necessary if she wanted to live an honest life.

  Chapter 4

  The man with the hook, a curber by profession, did not see Meg. She had the advantage of surprise. With a pounding heart she waited until he was upon her, then she leaped up and threw an arm around his neck, cutting off his breath. This was a move she learned while wrestling with Davy and Peter.

  “Unhand me!” he cried, choking and dropping his hook as he tried to pull Meg’s arm away.

  “Do as I say,” said Meg in a low-pitched voice, “or I’ll raise the hue and cry and your profitable night strolling will end.”

  The curber tried to nod. Meg released him, satisfied to see that he trembled. “What’s your name?” she demanded.

  “Nick Grabwill,” he said, rubbing his neck with a wrinkled hand. With a start, Meg realized she had assaulted an old man.

  “Pick up your hook, Nick, and filch me a bodice and skirt,” she said in a courteous tone. “Nothing cheap.”

  Grabwill sighed but proceeded through the silent streets, shadowed by Meg. He lifted a pillow from one open window, a man’s shirt from another. The hook disappeared a third time, whereupon Meg heard sharp, high-pitched crying.

  “Go to! Have you snatched a babe from its cradle?” she whispered.

  Grabwill hurriedly withdrew his hook and they ducked into an alley. The babe’s cries ceased. Meg’s throat was dry.

  “Give me the hook,” she said. At the next open window, she guided the hook to where she imagined a bedpost with clothing hanging from it might be. Something—a lantern or metal cup—clattered to the floor inside.

  “Who goes there!” came a man’s voice at the window.

  Meg ran, dragging the curber behind her. On a street by the wharf they paused before a three-storied house with its upper windows flung open to the fishy air.

  Grabwill smiled. “Here’s many a skirt to be picked up with ease. Let’s try our fortunes within.”

  “What do you mean?” said Meg.

  “Why, here is the best bawdy house this side of the Thames,” he said, reaching for the knocker.

  Meg struck his hand away. “I am not given to such lewdness!”

  “What sort of boy are you?” said Grabwill, peering at her more closely than she liked.

  “One who does not answer questions. Try your luck with the hook. Now!” She pointed to the windows but the curber stood still. He was losing his fear of her, so Meg reached out and cuffed his ear. She hated to hurt him but she had to have the clothing.

  Angrily Grabwill fished in the window, his hook loudly striking the window jamb as it emerged at last with the necessary garments.

  Meg heard cursing. A half-naked woman leaned from the window.

  “Is that you, villain Nick? A pox on you, hedgehog.” She threw a bucket of night soil after them. Meg darted away in time but Grabwill was not so fortunate.

  “Now my clothes are fouled and you owe me for the pains I’ve taken,” he said once they had left the brothel behind. He was surly and Meg was eager to be quit of him.

  “Take off your clothes,” she said, seizing the hook from him.

  Seeing his tool brandished against him Grabwill undressed, tripping as he removed his pants. With the hook Meg deposited his clothes in an open window. While he stood there helpless, Meg took off her jerkin and slipped on the bodice over the man’s shirt she wore. She did this in haste, trusting Grabwill not to look at her closely. She put on the skirt, removed her hose underneath, and tossed the jerkin and hose to the curber.

  “These are worth more than the rags you wore, and thus you are paid for your pains.” In a softer tone she added, “I thank you, for now I am a reformed thief.”

  “The hat too,” Grabwill demanded, pointing to her velvet cap.

  Meg pulled off the cap and handed it to him. Even in the dark she could see his astonishment as her gold curls tumbled about her ears. He clapped Meg’s discarded clothes to the front of his body.

  “What are you, a doxy from yonder brothel or a devil from hell?”

  Meg could not help smiling. “I am as honest a man as you are,” she said. And then to spare him further shame she turned and ran away.

  After an hour of searching Meg found her way back to the Boar’s Head. The gate to the innyard was locked and quiet reigned. She curled up against the smaller postern door and thought of sweet oranges and laughter and strutting players. But when she fell asleep her dreams were not so pleasant. A vengeful Nick Grabwill pursued her with his hook, but she couldn’t run because her feet were weighted with iron. Peter and Davy laughed soundlessly at her plight, the latter’s maw full of black teeth.

  When the door creaked open, Meg tumbled into the yard and awoke to see a woman with a broom looming over her. It was the hostess, her mouth a wide O of surprise.

  “What sort of creature have we here?”

  Meg got stiffly to her feet. By the morning light she saw that her bodice was of red taffeta and gaped in the front. Her skirt of yellow sarcenet ended a long way from the ground, showing her man’s shoes and stockings. Even to herself she looked ridiculous. At least she no longer resembled Peter and Davy’s companion from the night before.

  “A poor but honest maid in need of shelter,” Meg said humbly.

  The hostess cocked her head. “How old are you, child?”

  “I was twelve at my last birthday but I might be thirteen now.”

  “Where are your mother and father?”

  Meg did not know where her father’s body was buried or where her mother’s drowned body had come to rest. “Dead,” she said simply.

  The hostess uttered a mew of pity. “How came you here?”

  “By these two feet of mine.” Meg looked at her shoes. “I ran from some wicked men.”

  The hostess stepped into the street with her broom raised and looked both ways. “You haven’t led them here? I’ll have naught to do with any villains. Did they harm you?”

  “No, mistress.” There was nothing more to say without unfolding her entire doubtful history.

  The woman had her own suspicions. “Are you a strumpet? Your clothes look like they were taken from a bawdy house.”

  Meg gulped. How quickly the woman had hit on the truth—at least part of it.

  “By this hand I am an honest girl,” she protested. Tears sprang to her eyes. So much depended on this woman’s mercy.

  At that moment her stomach rumbled loudly.

  “Bless me, you’re starving!” the hostess exclaimed, dropping her broom. “Come with me anon.”

  Meg was glad to obey and followed her into the kitchen. She stared amazed at the hearth, which was wide enough to lie down in. It was fitted with pot hooks on swivels, spits for roast
ing meat, kettles, and stirring spoons. The hostess filled a trencher with porridge, bacon, and milk, which Meg devoured.

  “Have you any kin?” the woman asked, regarding Meg with warm brown eyes.

  Meg, her mouth full, shook her head.

  “In all the world there is no one to care for you?” Her voice rose as if she might cry. She heaped more porridge onto Meg’s plate and dribbled honey over it.

  “No one,” Meg echoed. The porridge tasted heavenly. She wanted so badly to stay.

  “You have not run away from the Christ’s Hospital?” The hostess stood with her hands on her wide hips. She was as round as a kettle.

  “No, I lived alone until our house burned down.” One lie could hardly hurt.

  The hostess shook her head sadly. “What brought you to me?” she said more to herself than to Meg.

  Meg chewed her food to avoid having to reply. She could hardly confess that she had first come to the Boar’s Head with the intention of stealing from the patrons.

  “Don’t answer, for I already know.” The hostess looked upward. “Providence brought you here, child, for just yesterday I said to Master Overby, ‘I must hire a servant.’ If you will work for your bed and board, then you may stay.”

  Meg leaped to her feet, threw her arms around the wide hostess, and—to her own very great surprise—lifted her right off the floor.

  The woman’s little feet scrabbled in midair. She let out a cry of protest, but when Meg set her down again she looked almost pleased. Her large teeth showed in a grin.

  “You may call me Mistress Gwin or Mistress Overby, I care not which,” she said, red-faced. “But I won’t have you pick me up again unless I have fallen down.”

  “Yes, mistress!”

  “What name did your parents, God rest their souls, give you?”

  “Mack—Meg.” She quickly corrected herself but Gwin seemed not to notice the slip. Then she hesitated. Her surname, Macdougall, was a reminder of her parents’ shame and failure, which she preferred to forget. And yet her father had been a good man, not a thief like herself.

  “I am Meg de Galle,” she said at last. For this was to be a fresh start in her life and she needed a new, unsullied name.

  Chapter 5

  Stratford 1582

  The smell of the urine tubs stung Will’s nose and made him gag. In the two years of his forced apprenticeship he had learned how to prepare the hides of deer, sheep, horses, and even goats. After scraping the skins and softening them with salt and alum, he soaked them in the urine tubs, then laid them out to dry. It always surprised Will that the resulting leather was smooth and soft, with no trace of foulness. But he would never get used to the awful smell. It stood for everything he hated about his father’s trade.

  After the first year it became Gilbert’s job to tend the smelly tubs, and Will progressed to cutting the leather using special knives, patterns, and a glover’s compass. He liked the precision of this work and laid out the patterns so as to waste none of the leather. But he hated stitching the pieces into belts, purses, saddles, and gloves. The needles pricked his clumsy fingers, the seams were always uneven, and his father berated his every effort.

  Will’s sister Joan worked the finer pieces such as women’s gloves. Sometimes she lined them with velvet or flannel. The best ones were finished with gold braid, embroidery, and lace. John Shakespeare paid two sisters from Shottery, Anne and Catherine Hathaway, a penny for each glove they trimmed. Ever since spring, when he had held her nimble fingers in his and danced around the Maypole until he was breathless, Will had been in love with Catherine.

  Will had known the sisters all his life. His father had purchased sheepskins and wool from their father, Richard Hathaway, who owned Hewlands Farm in nearby Shottery. But Hathaway had died, leaving his second wife to care for their five children. Anne and Catherine were her stepdaughters, but she treated them like servants. Everyone in the village pitied them for it.

  Anne was twenty-six, eight years older than Will, with a mane of thick brown hair and freckles across her nose that gave her a look of sunny, robust health. When Will felt the first stirrings of manhood, he stole glances at Anne’s round and shapely body just to feel his blood grow warm. But he could not forget how she used to carry him on her hip when he was a little boy and play with him like a puppy. Around her he always felt like a little boy tongue-tied with admiration.

  Then he began to notice Catherine. What ho, Ovid! Almost overnight she had changed, and she now resembled Anne in height and shape so closely, they might have been twins. Will compared what he could see of their bosoms and found himself not more pleased with one set than the other. Even Catherine’s hair was the same color as her sister’s though sleeker, like the fur of a wet otter. She had green eyes and skin like fresh cream. She was shy, favoring Will with smiles but few words. And she was exactly his age.

  On a sunny morning in mid-May Will followed the path from Stratford toward Shottery, crossing the brook and the meadows full of cowslips and honey-stalks without even seeing them. He cut across the hayfield belonging to Fulke Sandells, trampling the new wheat. Catherine’s pale beauty was the only thought in his mind. And when he knocked at the door of Hewlands Cottage with its frame of hedge roses, it was his good fortune that she was the one to open it.

  “Will!” His name was a breath issuing from her lips. A pink flush rose to her cheeks. She glanced over her shoulder and said in reply to a sharp voice that Will guessed was her stepmother’s, “’Tis only John Shakespeare’s boy.”

  She turned back to Will and giggled. Her movements stirred up the scent of roses. He forgot what he had intended to say, content merely to look upon her.

  The sharp voice sounded again. “Catherine, you lazy wench, you left the lid off the churn and there are flies in the butter!”

  Catherine sighed. “I will think on you while I work,” she said and withdrew into the house.

  Will closed his eyes. The idea of Catherine with the churn held between her knees made him dizzy with desire.

  A female voice said, “ ‘Only the Shakespeare boy.’ I am glad it is not Fulke Sandells.”

  Will opened his eyes, surprised to see Anne where her sister had stood moments before. She smiled at him, her head tilted to the side, and waited for him to speak.

  All Will could think of to say was, “Does your neighbor dislike my walking through his field?”

  “Sandells’s dislikes are no matter of mine,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Why did you come here? I told your father I would deliver the finished gloves tomorrow.”

  Anne was never afraid to speak her mind. Perhaps that was why she was still unmarried. There had been gossip involving a betrothal and some misfortune, but Will had paid no attention to it. Now he wondered what the truth was.

  “’Tis a fair day for a ramble through the fields,” he replied, satisfied that the answer made him seem aimless and free.

  “Are you inviting me thither?”

  “You and … and your fair sister,” stammered Will.

  “Catherine is not done with her chores,” Anne said, stepping over the threshold and taking Will’s arm. He had no choice but to walk with her. At the gate she plucked a sprig of lilac and tucked it behind her ear. The fragrance drew Will toward her. She reached up and touched his chin, saying she liked his new beard. Will was proud of this change in his features. He blushed and wondered if she was serious.

  Laughing, Anne led him along a path toward the woods Will’s ancestors had once owned. Before they reached its shaded precincts, a cloudburst drove them back to the cottage, where they took shelter under the eaves.

  “So Nature keeps us from our pleasant purposes,” said Will, leaning against the cottage wall and thinking of Catherine.

  “I think I know your purpose, Will Shakespeare. Was it only the piecework you came for or something more?”

  Her teasing tone confused him. Did she suspect he loved her sister? Without thinking, he said, “You are the piece of work I
sought, Nature’s own best creation.”

  It was the very phrase he had been saving for Catherine. But Anne was before him, buxom and redolent of lilac, her hair in damp tendrils around her face.

  “Though it is a lesser work—the gloves—I must be content with,” he added.

  “You are a witty one,” said Anne, slapping his arm lightly. “I’ll fetch them for you.”

  Will hoped Catherine would come out so he could see her again, but Anne returned quickly, handing him the bundle of gloves. With no further reason to dally and nothing else witty to say, Will tucked the gloves inside his jerkin and said good-bye. At the end of the lane he glanced back and thought he saw Catherine’s pale face at the window, watching him through the curtain of rain.

  However Will contrived to speak to Catherine, it was always Anne who came to Henley Street on business or met Will in the marketplace and bade him walk her back to Shottery. He complied, for he always hoped to see her sister. When Anne took his arm, Will was afraid anyone who saw them would think he was courting her. At the same time he wondered what her body looked like without clothes. He wished that she were younger or he older. He felt guilty for dreaming about Anne when it was her sister he loved. But Catherine remained out of reach, a bud deep within a thorny rosebush.

  Therefore Will conceived a plan to kiss Catherine during the Pentecost festival in June, when three days of games, dances, and mumming culminated in the crowning of the Summer King and Queen. But he required the aid of the pageant’s organizer, David Jones, who happened to be one of his father’s loyal customers.

  When Jones came by the shop Will saw his chance.

  “For you, Davy, this belt is only five shillings, not eight,” he said, then skillfully brought the conversation around to the festival.

  Jones admitted the pageant had become a burden to organize, with merchants, craftsmen, and aldermen all vying to create the best wagons and obtain places of honor in the procession.

  Will hummed in sympathy. “I was thinking more of the play itself,” he said. “Those ancient rhymes so twist the tongue and strain the sense that the audience groans to hear them. ’Tis no fault of yours,” he added hastily.