The Diary of William Shakespeare, Gentleman Read Online Free

him not. It was a presumption for him to speak to us.’
    â€˜Many do wish to claim your acquaintance, husband.’ My wife spoke with the pleasure of a woman who did the work of cook and housemaid when she was young and so enjoys her gentlewoman’s estate the more.
    Judith glanced back. ‘And yet his face is handsome.’
    â€˜Hush. No more, girl!’ I muttered, hoping no one of consequence had heard.
    â€˜But, Father, why is a tavern-keeper less respectable than a wool merchant? One sells drink, the other wool.’
    I clenched my teeth and kept my smile. This crowd would not see me rebuke my daughter in public. ‘Because that is how the world is made. Kings at the top, and tavern-keepers below farmers and merchants.’
    â€˜Are they also below glove-makers?’
    I would have boxed her ears if we had been at home. I had once been my father’s glove-maker’s apprentice, and my daughter knew it, as did the whole of Stratford. It had been her grandfather’s deepest desire to raise his family to a gentleman’s estate, and years of work to make me one. And now this girl would tarnish the crown of all our labours.
    â€˜Enough!’ I muttered.
    Judith cast one look back at the tavern-keeper, who still stared at us, but thankfully said no more.
    At last, we found a maid who did not displease my wife by being too old to work, nor whose maiden beauties outshone an unmarried daughter or might tempt a husband, and whose fingernails were clean even if her face was poxed. I pressed a penny into the girl’s hand as a symbol of her hire.
    Judith would have stayed to eat the fair’s roast ox, but my wife’s teeth pained her in the cold air, and I had no wish to eat and dance with the motley, nor have my daughter do so. We walked home, my wife to hot compresses and bed, and Judith and I to dine alone.
    I wished I had sent a note for her sister and her husband to join us, for Susanna has the wit her sister lacks, and the good doctor the best conversation to be had in Stratford. That is to say, it would not earn a halfpenny in London, where the wise and witty gather to share bread and tales and women, but Dr Hall is a good man, and sensible.
    I left the table at the second course, and had John bring my wine here, well warmed, and apples, cheese and wafers with it. Now I sit with sharpened quills and fresh ink — my wife must have seen I write and so supplied them — and a good fire, and memories so sharp that they might cut the ox heart that we dined upon.
    That day my father told me I would see a play! Despite the threat of our family’s disgrace, I could have swooped into the air and danced a quatrain with clouds.
    It was as if my unruly heart already guessed that plays would ride on Cupid’s arrow to my breast, though I had never seen one. Players had come to Stratford before, performing at the guildhall. My father had judged me too young to see them. Today’s performance would be at the Green Man Inn. Today, because the house of Shakespeare must be seen to hold its head high as Caesar’s horse, I would see it too.
    There’d be noble clothes and sword fights and perchance a dancing bear. Ned’s uncle’s cousin the carter had seen a play in London. He said an actor died in front of them, there on the tavern floor, all daubed in gore, yet stood again full of life at the play’s end to make his bow. Would Ned be at the play too? He hadn’t been at school the past week. My doubts fled like autumn swallows as I scrambled to find my least darned stockings. Life was apples and May butter. A play!
    My mother dressed in her green silk and embroidered sleeves, and Father in his brown velvet cloak with bear-fur trim. Father had sent old Tom who worked the garden for us to place stools in the front row outside the tavern. We joined the crowd, Mother returning the curtseys of each woman there. No one glanced at us and whispered. Father’s