Voices from the Past Part 108

It was not the constant conspiracy of Ann and Judith that drove the final nail; it was Judith's resemblance, same color and texture of hair, same blue eyes, same half smile, same propensity to giggles, same way of rubbing her hands on her clothes. I had always favored Hamnet because he and I had shared more. Now, now that Judith lived, I could not accept his death. Of course I never wanted her to die. As long as the twins lived there was accord. If death must steal one of them...but I couldn't, wouldn't choose. Yet, in ugliest anger, I had shouted my preference. And she knew I often saw Hamnet when I looked at her: I've seen her run when I stared at her: I've heard her cry: "Mama, he's looking at me that way!"

"These are my twins," I used to say, showing them to people. Twins-for how long!

I bought her a goonhilly pony, an excellent pacer, and taught her to ride. I got her a lamb and a puppy, I brought her gifts from London. I brought her things from France and Italy. There was little chance to get through to her because of Ann. If I won Judith for a while, I lost her when at work in London. She never wrote to me...or Ann destroyed those letters. During my years in the theatre, in London and touring the provinces, all those years, I received no note. She never expressed a desire to see one of my plays, seemed disinterested in my life in the city-unless it was to suggest I bring something when I came home.

Home?

July 1, 1615

I am that wanderer of night, full many a morning have I seen flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye...

There's memory, that's for remembrance; pray, you, love, remember...and there is pansies; that's for thought...there's fennel for you, and columbine; there's rue...you must wear your rue with a difference.

Through the years they mangled those lines! How cold to hear them backstage! How cold to hear them now, here, in my room, echoing from varnished beams, off-stage in my oriel of yesterday.

But I should not have gotten sick: I should have stayed in London to the end, fought the Puritans, fought the King, the tax collectors, the players of the shrew's men!

Pain shut me out: the body must have its moments of solace-the mind its soothsayer!

I would give you violets...but they are planted around a gravestone.

I was a young man when I wrote those lines; like Ophelia I ride on bawdy repet.i.tions, error on error.

The table of my memory is dusted with crumbs.

Off-stage, the wind gushes; on-stage, there's a frenzied pitch of "no!"

Chorus, players!

This love, this royalty by jackanapes brought to earth, the stage to my back: what can a man affirm in such a position: flight? I speak to her and she puts her fingers on my lips and holds her beauty like a whip over me. The curtain came down quickly: fie, the curtain often comes down swiftly, manipulated by fury, a last sound snapped out, m.u.f.fling resolution, covering courage...

There is a curtain for love and one for hate: there is a curtain for youth and another for age. And when we finally realize these things we are dotards, and our realization laughs.

The executioner's curtain is no doubt the swiftest. The jig maker's safest. The priest's dullest. The mariner's loneliest. The lover's saddest.

Henley Street

July 8, '15

These pages are so unlike my plays and sonnets and yet I have to struggle to get anything down! Here is my mock dukedom; since I can not write any longer I look back across time from the shelf of my memory, longing to improve my existence: I am certain that the old word- chattels gladly deserted me, looking for a young man, no doubt, an upstart from Snitterfield, enroute to London, riding a brood mare, humming...hey, non nonny...

...Heaven mend all!

Henley Street

July 9, 1615

Elsinore has a tongue of land that licks at time, a place that ends with defeat, its castle and its people falling into apparitions.

Usurping night, Elsinore made me face the northern ocean, irresolution. There was no illusion to being there: rain cusped out of sky: the snow fell: it was a bitter time to see the place, a blastment. I had shaken off that incessant pain that stabbed the roof of my skull each time I leaned over, that writhed through my eyes: I would rub my eyes and feel something click in my brain as if it had fallen into place again. But I was still weak from this ailment and tired from long journeys and longer thoughts. I was filled with new dreads, especially here, under the rain. Irresolution: it is wrong to deny it for there is no denying its power.

There is something like death, being alone in a foreign land. With determination grappling, the loneliness and death-sense grip harder. So I felt that I was borrowing from everything around me.

It is a custom for some of us to think and yet I turn against that custom. It is better to live, simply as simple people live. I wanted to live without the paper- world, to shun its distortions, escape its death head, the charnel house of yesterday.

As I stood on that tongue of land, I heard the s...o...b..r of the sea: I heard old men whisper: I heard old pa.s.sions. My blood was young and yet I could not get away. The porches of my ears wanted friends.h.i.+p, I, the kind hand, the kinder mouth.

"If you were here there would be reason enough. Without you, there is no more than walls and sky and food. To be sure, I eat. To be sure, I move about. You understand what I mean. I find that there is so much in life that never gets said. When I am with you I am unable to say it...old plaint. I try to convey with my presence-that is help. You, too, have this desire, and have expressed it.

When we were in bed, mating, there was a beauty in that union that sufficed...until tomorrow. Then, caught up in time, I sensed the old longing, to share the unshareable, to reach the unreachable. Here, in this cold room, I am trying to make life a little more livable, for you, for me."

So I wrote her.

Stratford

YEARS AGO

At Oxford, it is pleasant to recall, I stopped at Duvenant's inn frequently, the rooms and meals much to my taste. Madame Duvenant, dressing like someone from an Inigo Jones' masque, her rosy s.e.x refres.h.i.+ng, greeted me with a favorable eye. Veal, shoulder of mutton, rabbit, green fish...gingerbread...strawberries...claret: she knew my favorites, sharing my meals and bed. When I arrived, tired by travel, she had someone look after me, prepare my meal; then, we enjoyed each other's company in the dining room she kept for private use. A Londoner and play-goer, she fixed her l.u.s.ty eyes on me, hand on my arm, and made me feel I had never been away. She asked no promises, required no letter-writing, no payment. "It's late. Will, shall we go up to bed?" Why are there so few generous women?

Henley Street

July 13, 1615

I'd like one more ferry trip across the Thames, in the morning, the water dark, Sly at the oars, telling me about the latest girl, of the girls he has ferried, girls he wanted to love but could never love, old, old Sly.