The Diary of William Shakespeare, Gentleman by Jackie French Page B

‘Wife, you should have taken the surgeon’s art when it was offered,’ but removed myself instead to the guest bedroom for sleep and quiet.
    My tenant, old John Kneebone, has also come this day to ask that his farm be divided between his daughters and his sons-in-law; he to live half the year with each, in comfort and with their gratitude.
    Ah, old King Lear, I thought. Your sons-in-law will not be so respectful when your worldly goods are theirs. But I said none of this, and signed the transfer papers.
    My wife and Judith brought new ale from the kitchens and almond cakes, and we toasted his new fortune, to do him courtesy and to show the Stratford gossips that we are not so high in our new estate that we will no longer drink with tenant farmers.
    Judith wore new ribbons in her hair, a present from her friend Catherine, she says. We must send Catherine’s family a gift of honey when Jem closes the hives for winter.
    The parson did call, hoping, I think, to be asked to stay to dine, but my memory gives me better conversation than I get from him. I gave him a basket of soul cakes for the poor of this parish. We received soul cakes in our turn from servants knocking at the door all morning: a fine one made by Susanna; and one from my Lord Sheriff, filled with preserved orange peel and very fine; and another from the squire, with ginger and dried plums.
    My wife now dosed with poppy and hot flannel, I return to my book and tinder sparks of memory.
    Judyth. That night I burnt for her, sleeping on the feather mattress with my younger brother snoring at my side. At last, I crept to the coals in the fireplace, lit a candle and began to write. The words flowed so fast I did not even have to blot the paper.
    To the fairest, most celestial Judyth:
    The fire’s sparks that issue from your eyes,
    My trembling heart has no defence,
    From anything man can e’er devise
    Your eyes are sunbeams of such vehemence
    To daze my sight in their green presence.
    And I am dazed, in such a guise
    Of one stricken to such love, by such green eyes.
    At last I slept, but with so many dreams of her it seemed I dreamt again when I saw her the next day, floating down our garden path as if blown by a muse’s wings and not by slippers underneath her skirts.
    Was she a vision, come to taunt me? But surely no vision would come with a companion such as this: her sister-in-law, older than her by a dozen years and with a moustache already, but said to have brought a grand dowry of twenty fields to her husband, Arnold, my vision’s brother.
    Mistress Marchmant, it seemed, had come to order gloves and had brought her young sister-in-law, Judyth, with her. My father greeted them, and, as was proper to their estate, my mother brought spiced ale and cakes.
    My Judyth sat demure, her eyes downcast, while her sister-in-law’s moustache rustled with delight at silk linings and unborn lamb’s leather for her gloves.
    When the measuring was over, the ale drunk, I said to the moustached lady, ‘Such fair hands must not venture alone. May I escort you home?’
    My father smiled, thinking only that I was flattering a new and wealthy customer. I slipped upstairs and took my poem from beneath the mattress, found a thimbleful of ink still in the pot, and scratched: Can you meet the one who loves you after the church clock strikes noon tomorrow? And when her sister-in-law’s back was turned, I slipped it into Judyth’s hand and saw her slide it up her sleeve.
    I wrote another poem that night, the first that ever pleased me from my pen; the first, indeed, I knew that a brain matched with mine would understand. Each line was mine, yet each were her words too. My words had wandered, homeless, till I met her. Now they were arrows, knowing where to strike.
    Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
    Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
    Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
    And summer’s lease hath all too short