The Merchant of Vengeance by Simon Hawke Page B

upset young man.
    "Forgive me, Ben," said Thomas. "I see now that you have customers."
    "Will and Tuck are good friends of mine who came to visit." Dickens replied.
    "Perhaps we should depart, Ben," Smythe said.
    "Pray do not leave on my account, although I would not wish to burden you with my woeful tale of misfortune," said Thomas. He stared at Smythe a moment. "Say, I know you, do I not?"
    "Methinks you do," said Smythe, finally placing him. "You ride a bay mare with a white blaze across her nose and white upon her forelegs."
    "The Rose!" said Thomas. "I remember now, you work at the Rose Theatre! That is how I know you, you are an ostler there."
    "Among other things," said Smythe.
    "And I have seen you there, as well," Thomas said, looking at Shakespeare. "You are a player, are you not?"
    "I am," Shakespeare replied. "Will Shakespeare is my name.
    And this is my good friend and fellow thespian Tuck Smythe."
    "Well met, my friends," said Thomas. "Or mayhap poorly met, for I am in a sad state, indeed."
    "This is my good friend Thomas Locke," said Dickens, introducing him. "I know him of old, when we both were young apprentices, before I went off to the wars. He is a tailor, and a right good credit to his craft."
    "Forgive me, good sirs," Thomas said. "I am bereft of courtesy today. My manners have all left me. I can scarcely think. what my own name is, much less give it to others. Besides, I know now 'tis not worth giving, for it becomes a plague upon the ears of those who hear it."
    "What speech is this?" asked Dickens with a frown. "What terrible misfortune has befallen you that you should so defame yourself?"
    "Only this morning I awoke the happiest and most fortunate man in all of London," Thomas said. "Now I am the most miserable and unfortunate man in all the world! Oh, call back yesterday! Bid time return! I was to wed a sweet and gentle lady whose every glance and smile had bestowed a lightness on my heart, but now Portia's father has forbidden her to marry me and I am not allowed to see or speak with her again!"
    "'Why, what had you done?" asked Shakespeare.
    "I was born!" said Thomas miserably, as he kept pacing back and forth. "Such is my guilty crime! My father is a Christian and my mother is a Jewess, which in the eyes of Jews and Christians all alike thus makes me born a Jew. And for naught but that accident of birth, Portia's father has withdrawn consent for us to marry, saying that he will not have his family defiled by a Jew!"
    "Here is a sad coincidence," said Shakespeare softly in an aside to Smythe, who nodded.
    "I am sorry, Thomas," Dickens said. "Here, sit down and have a drink." He poured a goblet from the bottle the apprentice brought, then poured goblets for Tuck and Smythe as well and handed them around.
    As Thomas tossed back half the goblet in one gulp, Smythe asked, "Who is the girl's father?"
    "Henry Mayhew," Dickens replied, "a prosperous haberdasher, and an insufferable stuffed shin. He is a widower with a beautiful young daughter possessed of grace and a most amiable disposition. Until now, he had found in Thomas nothing lacking, and had deemed him eminently suitable to take his daughter's hand in marriage. His consent had already been given, and the marriage was to take place within a fortnight."
    "Now he has called it off and withdrawn his consent," said Thomas bitterly. "And Portia is forbidden ever to see or speak. with me again."
    "But you have not lived as a Jew, Thomas," Dickens said. "I have often seen you in church, and always known you to live life as a Christian."
    "Indeed, 'tis so," Thomas replied. "I was not raised in my mother's faith, but in my father's, not that he is the most Christian of all men, by any means, but he does go to church each Sunday. So I have always done, as well."
    "And what of your mother?" Shakespeare asked. "Had she become a Christian?"
    Thomas shook his head. "She always went with my father to the church, but she was never truly converted to the faith.