Love Disguised Page 7

  “Maypole, we’ll go about you in a circle and tie you up, beshrew me if I lie,” said Davy, getting to his feet.

  Will blinked rapidly. Were his new friends now threatening this Long Meg? She did not seem daunted by them.

  “Hear me, sirrah,” she said to Will. “If you count these churls your friends, though you have a full purse you are a poor man.”

  “This tall woman has a tall wit, does she not?” Will said. Peter and Davy only scowled.

  “You still don’t know me, do you?” Meg said to them. “Your memories are as short as your mettle, cowards. You can’t run from me again.”

  Davy and Peter started to bolt. The little maid shoved the bench into the backs of their knees, throwing them off balance. Before Will could react, Long Meg had seized Davy by his hair and Peter by his collar and haled them through the public room. Will watched his new friends shout and flail their arms, crash into tables, and upset alepots and platters of food. Cheers rose up from the other guests, men and women alike. “Huzzah! Huzzah for Long Meg!” Fists pounded on tables and heels drummed on the floor. What a jolly tumult! thought Will. It was almost better than a play.

  When Long Meg returned, Will saw that she was flushed and her sleeves were torn. The uproar continued. Someone began a tune that everyone took up like a hymn.

  Here’s to our hero, Long Meg.

  She of the mile-long leg.

  Sing high, sing low, heigh-ho!

  To the Boar’s Head we go.

  “More ale!” they demanded. The little wench whirled from table to table like a hurricane. Cups, bottles, and tankards were lifted to Long Meg. The host and his wife looked pleased at the happy riot she had caused, while the celebrated maid went about her work as if nothing had happened.

  What exactly had happened? A giantess had dropped her pitcher, called his companions cowards and cheats, and thrown them out with her bare hands. But why? Will wanted to go after Davy and Peter and question them, but he wanted even more to see the play. So he picked himself up, went into the yard, and found a seat at the end of a crowded bench.

  Will knew the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe from his favorite Latin book, Metamorphoses. It was a lamentable tragedy, but this play was more like a comedy. The actor playing Thisbe lost his false hair and with it, all pretense of being a woman. Fat Pyramus, his face aflame with whelks, was more suited to be a devil than a lover. When he stabbed himself and died the audience only laughed. Will joined in the hooting and hissing. He had seen better plays in Stratford.

  When the play was concluded, Will looked up to find Long Meg standing over him.

  “You owe four shillings and two pence for all that you and those rogues ate and drank,” she said.

  Will counted out the coins. He was sober and quite vexed. “I protest being forced to pay their reckoning, when you caused the commotion for no reason but to sell more drink.”

  She looked offended. “Sirrah, those two coney-catchers would have had all your money ere long. Shall I tell you how you were snared?” Without waiting for a reply she sat down. “A stranger accosted you on the street and claimed to know you.”

  “Yes,” admitted Will, surprised. “But he went away again.”

  Long Meg nodded. “He is the barnacle, in thieves’ cant. He relays the information he has gleaned to his confederates. A short time later the setter moves in. That was Davy Dapper. He compounds the barnacle’s bit of knowledge with flattery and general truths, thereby drawing you into his acquaintance.”

  This was exactly what occurred, Will realized. First Treadwell, then Davy had by artful means persuaded him to disclose his town, his name, and his business. “What, are you a demigoddess, all-knowing?” Will said, suspicious. “Or are you in their fellowship?”

  Long Meg’s wide blue eyes narrowed into a frown. “You flatter me and then you insult me. Rather, you should thank me.”

  Will knew he had been careless but was loath to credit Meg for rescuing him. “I thank myself that they could not trick me out of my money. I kept a few coins in my purse and hid my real wealth close about me—”

  “Stop! If you reveal that, you are a greater fool than they took you for.”

  But Will’s hand was already creeping down his leg to the top of his boot. He wanted to be sure. His fingers probed inside, touched his right ankle. The purse with the twenty-five crowns was not there! Because it was in the other boot. He thrust his hand down his left boot. Nothing. A wild pounding started behind his ribs, reached to his head, and made his hands shake. Peter and Davy had been sitting on either side of him on the bench. Their knees and feet had jostled his beneath the table. Peter had helped him stand …

  Will tugged off his boots, held them upside down, shook them, and threw them aside. He pulled off his stockings and stared at his bare, pale feet.

  “Oh, fie upon the devil and his fiddlesticks!” he cried. “I have been robbed!”

  Chapter 11

  Meg was surprised that neither Peter nor Davy had recognized her. Then again, she was no longer disguised as a boy, and in the two years since she consorted with them she had grown almost twelve inches, judging by the chalk marks on her door. She watched Will Shake-his-beard as he watched the play. She wanted to tell him that she had also been innocent, desirous of companionship, and easily betrayed by those same false friends. This awareness of what they shared drew her to him. Moreover she sensed in him a generous spirit. In his amazement at the sight of her he had not, like most men, teased or mocked her. Instead he had called her a mortal goddess, which made her stand up straighter, proud of her height.

  When Will discovered he had been robbed after all, Meg did not doubt that Davy and Peter were the culprits. And it was her fault they had escaped.

  “I wish I’d shaken them down before driving them off,” she lamented.

  “Let’s go after those devil’s minions, Long Meg,” Will said, pulling on his boots again. “We’ll catch them and get my money back. Rather, my father’s money. It was to settle a debt.”

  Meg could not believe her ears. Will was enlisting her aid as if her sex were no disadvantage at all.

  “I would gladly bash their brainpans,” she said. “But they are long gone.”

  He gave her a searching look. “Why are you so willing to avenge my loss?”

  “It was you who asked for my help,” she said. But she knew that a host could be held liable if his guests were robbed. Master Overby, being weak-limbed, had assigned to Meg the task of keeping riffraff away from the inn.

  Will was scratching his head. “Why did they run from you? Should they know you?”

  Meg was taken aback. “They are afraid of me because …” She tried to think quickly. “They once betrayed my twin brother, Mack, as they did you.” A brother? Where had this idea come from?

  “A twin! How propitious!” exclaimed Will. “He must be a god in strength as you are a goddess.”

  Again he called her a goddess. She couldn’t help but blush. “Your praise is undeserved,” she murmured. After all, she had let Davy and Peter escape with his money.

  “I must meet your brother,” Will was saying. “And the three of us will overcome those paltry villains!”

  “It would be unseemly for me to accompany you, for I am not a man,” said Meg, beginning to regret her hasty invention of a brother.

  “And I am no man but a giant fool if I do nothing. I hereby vow to retrieve my fortune and be avenged on those who stole it.”

  “I’ll witness your vow and do what I can to aid you,” said Meg, though she had no idea how to help Will.

  News of Will’s loss had reached Master Overby, who declared that he must stay at the inn at no charge. Meg knew her master was afraid Will would go away and declare to everyone he met how he had been robbed at the Boar’s Head, which would give the inn a bad reputation.

  Will replied to Overby’s offer by producing a pair of gloves, which he offered in payment of the night’s reckoning.

  Meg saw the gloves were made
from a pale, buttery leather ornamented with gold braid. She longed to touch them, though she could see they would never fit her own large hands.

  “What use have I for such gloves?” said Master Overby.

  “None, I hope. You may give them to your wife,” answered Will.

  “Gwin? Have you seen the size of her hand? I think not.”

  Hearing her name, Mistress Overby elbowed her husband aside and tried in vain to insert her round fingers into the delicate glove. “Are you a peddler of gloves, young man?” she asked.

  Will seemed offended. His mouth formed a thin line. He looked around the nearly empty innyard. Job Nockney and his son were already taking down the stage. Meg followed Will’s gaze, which came to rest on the fat, whelk-faced player who was splayed out on a bench and drinking from a large tankard.

  “No, I am a player,” Will said. “And I would make a far better Pyramus than that ape!”

  Besides the dauntless Long Meg and the toothy Mistress Overbyte, the Boar’s Head could now boast a young tragedian: Will Shake-his-beard, from Straight Forward Uneven, in Workshire. Will delighted in Violetta’s mispronunciation of “Stratford-upon-Avon” and “Warwickshire,” though Meg informed him that he did have a peculiar manner of speaking. He added false hair to his own beard so that it shook when he was in the throes of his stage passion.

  The young tragedian promised to deliver a play that would please one whom he called his “great master, the poet Ovid.” He needed three players: Thisbe, the beloved of Pyramus; a lion to threaten her; and a father to oppose her love for Pyramus. Overby agreed to play the father if the character was made a king, and Will persuaded Job Nockney to play the lion.

  “But I want to play the lion,” said Dab.

  “You are too small and cannot roar loud enough to frighten the ladies,” said Will. “You shall play the very famous Thisbe!”

  “I must play the girl?” Dab’s voice rose in protest.

  “Yes, for you have the perfect voice for the lovelorn Thisbe.”

  Because she was tall and strong, Meg was the wall that separated Pyramus and Thisbe. She stood inside a painted prop and held it upright. It proved more difficult than she imagined to keep the wall still.

  It soon became apparent that Dab was a poor Thisbe. He spoke every line with resentment and looked so sour when Pyramus tried to kiss him through the wall that even Meg laughed. The wall shook. Will was furious.

  “Meg, there is no earthquake when Pyramus and Thisbe meet. I would there were. Dab, you must pretend to love me—to love Pyramus. His breath smells like roses to you, not dead rats. Job, wear gloves to keep the splinters out of your paws, for you must roar only upon cue. And try to lurk more; you should be a cat, not a dog.”

  Through the gaps in the wall Meg watched the play, immersed in its every action and word. Soon she knew every line of the play by heart. She marveled at how Will held the stage like a captain commanding a ship. His voice set the very planks of the stage throbbing. His expression was so true, Meg blushed when she saw him pretending to kiss Thisbe and almost cried when he cradled her lifeless body. She was thankful to be hidden within the wall.

  Through the wall Meg could also see Violetta serving the playgoers. Whenever Pyramus declared his love for Thisbe, she paused and stared at the stage with her lips parted. Her yearning for Will Shakespeare was as evident as the sun at midday.

  The play opened the same day as the Southwark Fair. Travelers filled the Boar’s Head. Master Overby was happy; he didn’t care that none of the actors but Will had any skill. Will on the other hand was in great earnest, demanding so much of his players that Dab sat down in the middle of a performance with his arms crossed over his chest and refused to utter another word. His father leaped across the stage and threatened to tear him limb from limb, but the boy paid no heed. Will was forced to extemporize, lamenting that Thisbe had been struck dumb with fear. The play ended without the lovers’ deaths, which blunted the force of the tragedy.

  When the confused playgoers had left, Will exploded. “I’ll not stand onstage again until I have a Thisbe who can speak of love without mocking Pyramus.”

  Overby faced Will. “As the king, I decree we will have this play for the purpose of luring the fairgoers hither.” Since taking on his new role, he spoke in a more elevated manner than usual.

  “Then, O King, mighty King, bring me someone who can play Thisbe,” said Will mockingly. “O Wall, upstanding Wall, know you of a proper Thisbe?”

  Meg, who was not at the moment inside the wall, could not suppress her laughter.

  “Here she is. Here am I. Let me be Thisbe.” It was Violetta, wiping her hands on her apron. Her wide brown eyes glistened. “I can love Pyramus well.”

  “I cannot allow that!” spluttered Overby. “For a woman to appear on a stage is an offense against the law and Nature herself.”

  “But Meg is on the stage,” Violetta protested. “Is she not a woman?”

  “That is not the same,” said Master Overby. “Within the wall she is invisible. She might as well be a man.”

  “I might as well be a wall,” said Meg, her hands on her hips, “the way you talk about me.”

  “Why force Dab to play Thisbe?” Violetta went on. “Not knowing a woman’s heart, how can he even feign to be in love?” Her voice faltered at the end.

  Will stroked his beard and considered Violetta. “Can you feign being a boy pretending to be a woman?”

  Violetta frowned as if she were doing a difficult sum in her head. “I can,” she said. “Give me scissors and a comb.”

  Stunned, Meg watched as Violetta held her abundant dark hair away from her head and proceeded to cut it off. What remained fell raggedly to her chin. She was still so pretty she would never be mistaken for a boy.

  “Why have you done this?” said Meg.

  As soon as she saw the look of delight Will bestowed on Violetta, she knew why.

  The desire for profit persuaded Overby to allow Violetta on the stage. Finally Pyramus had a fitting Thisbe, and if the audience suspected that the curvy player was not a boy, that only seemed to increase their enjoyment. Pyramus courted his new Thisbe with renewed ardor. He railed against the wall for standing between him and his love. Meg felt it as a personal rebuke.

  Cruel wall, think you to keep us parted?

  I, Pyramus, and my love, true-hearted

  Thisbe?

  Violetta thrust her hand through a chink in the wall and Will kissed it with a smack loud enough for the audience to hear. Violetta’s eyes rolled upward and she panted her words.

  O Pyramus, I would thee wed

  And take unto my maiden bed;

  But cruel fathers oppose our love—

  Violetta fell silent. She often forgot her lines. Pyramus waited.

  “Though ’tis blessed by gods above,” Meg whispered from within the wall.

  Violetta repeated the line and no one was the wiser. She feigned tears and the audience gasped when Thisbe discovered the dead Pyramus.

  Asleep, my love?

  What … dead, my dove?

  O Pyramus, arise,

  Ope’ once … thy lovely eyes.

  Again Meg whispered the words Violetta could not remember, and Thisbe’s hesitation seemed the natural expression of grief. No one could see Meg’s tears and for this she was glad.

  When Pyramus did not awaken, Thisbe pretended to stab herself. She fell upon him and lay there until the applause roused them to take their bow. Meg knew she should be scandalized. Instead she envied Violetta and Will. How did they wring such emotion from an audience? Meg often murmured whole scenes to herself, enamored both of the words and of the mind that produced them—Will’s mind.

  At night in the room they shared, Violetta prattled of Will until Meg wanted to scream.

  “O Meg, when I ran away from father and Thomas Valentine, I wanted to be in love and now I am! Don’t you think Will handsome? When I am so near to him and his eyes are on me, I can’t remember Thisbe’s lin
es.” Violetta sighed like a bellows, fanning the flame of her own love. “Truly I cannot say if he is handsomer than Thomas—nor can you, alas, not knowing Thomas—for I have heard love is blind and cannot see to judge itself. Therefore you must assure me. Is this not love?”

  “How should I know what love is?” said Meg irritably.

  Heedless, Violetta chattered on. “I dare believe Will regards me as I do him. I feel it. Do you see love in his eyes when he is Pyramus and I am Thisbe?”

  Meg lay on her bed as unmoving as the wall that Pyramus cursed, as unloved, and as tall to boot. But filled with the kind of nameless longing a wall could never feel.

  “Indeed,” said Meg, sighing. “Pyramus loves his Thisbe eternally.”

  Chapter 12

  Will’s play drew so many spectators to the Boar’s Head that Master Overby agreed to pay him a few shillings out of the profits from each performance. The fairgoers were an obstreperous crowd, however, and with Meg on the stage there was no one to keep order among them. One night they began to throw bread crusts and bones on the stage to make the lion roar. When Job flung them back, the audience was provoked to throw more garbage. Someone even tossed Piebald; Meg heard the cat yowling and felt his body thump against her wall. When someone jumped on the stage and stole Overby’s tin crown, the irate king cried, “I do not condone rebellion!” and declared all further performances of Pyramus cancelled.

  Now Will sat disconsolate, pondering ideas for a new play. Scraps of paper were spread out on the table before him. He groaned to see Violetta approaching. She seemed to relish distracting him.

  “Sad Thisbe greets proud Pyramus this moonlit morn,” she said, planting herself at his elbow. “Are you writing another play? Shall I be in it?”

  “Not if you insist upon being Thisbe still,” said Will without looking up. Violetta’s nearness confused him. There was an ardor to her touch that reminded him of Anne and a coyness that recalled Catherine. Had he not left Stratford to forget those sisters? He moved his elbow away from Violetta.

  “Can I be a queen? Like Esther from the Bible?”