The Playmakers Read Online Free Page A

loosely clasped
in front of his chest. She looked back in confusion at the tall,
forbidding presence issuing the instructions, and turned to her
fiancé again.
    “William, William? What’s going on?” she
blurted, rushing to his side. “What on earth is this all
about?”
    William drew slightly back from her, wiping
his mouth with the back of his hand, staring at the floor.
    “Yes, William, what’s going on?” added his
mother.
    John Shakespeare had had enough, and turning
to the disconcerting interloper, put on his best bailiff’s eviction
voice.
    “Anne, cordial as the links between our two
families are, and acknowledging the fact that you and William are
friends, I still must ask you to leave. You are disrupting
William’s preparations for his marriage to Anne.”
    “Depends on which Anne you mean,” came the
flat reply.
    “Why, um, this … Anne … Anne Whateley, of
course,” said John, pointing in the general direction of the
perfect waist.
    “Oh,” said Anne Hathaway, dropping her shawl
to the floor, and patting her own obviously expanding
waistline.
    “Has he got her pregnant, too ..?”
    The five figures stayed frozen for a moment;
the major figures of Anne Hathaway boldly exposing her swelling
belly and William Shakespeare wanly peering upwards and sideways at
her.
    Then demons and spirits broke loose in a
manner that made the reign of Bloody Mary pale into
insignificance.
    Mary Shakespeare let out a wail of the
dimensions heard only at the stake as the flames consumed the flesh
of some poor non-believing wretch. It is said that the scream of
horror and sadness that came from the mouth of Anne Whateley could
be heard in the outer suburbs of London, a hundred miles to the
south-east.
    The bailiff in John Shakespeare emerging, he
angrily lunged at his son, grabbing him by the neck, bullying him
to the ground. “You stupid, stupid, wretch.”
    Anne Hathaway triumphantly folded her arms
over her stomach, and gave a haughty toss of her head as the other
two women dissolved into tears and the two men grappled and tore at
each other on the floor.
    Eventually, Mary Shakespeare pulled her
husband away from where he was dedicatedly strangling his son, and
some sort of sanity was restored.
    Anne Whateley stared forlornly at her now
ex-fiancé.
    “How could you do this?” she finally
whispered. There was no laughter this time, only hurt. She burst
into tears. “How could you? You told me you were visiting their
farm on business.” She grabbed her skirts and ran out, sobbing.
    “Anne, Anne, I’m sorry, I …” pleaded William
Shakespeare lamely as she disappeared out the door.
    There was silence.
    Ultimately, John Shakespeare turned to Anne
Hathaway and spoke. “Are you sure, um, that he is, the, um …”
    “Oh yes, he’s the father, all right, thank
you for asking. There’s no one else involved.”
    “But I don’t, I don’t want get married to
you!” Will blurted sullenly. “I want to marry Anne.”
    “You should have thought of that earlier,
William Shakespeare,” said Anne Hathaway, “when you were being so
amorous in my father’s haystack.”
    “I didn’t think it would lead to this.”
    “Ah, the innocence of youth! Have you not
heard that if you play with fire you will get burnt?”
    “But, Anne,” interrupted Mary Shakespeare.
“You’re a mature woman. Eight years older. William’s only a boy.
Surely we could sort something out.”
    “He may be a boy, but he’s going to be a
father now!”
    William winced at the thought.
    “Don’t put on the petulant face,” Anne
continued. “You will be marrying me, because if you don’t, I will
expose you to the deacons, who will, in duty bound, have you
consigned to the stocks and exposed to public ridicule. How does
that sound?”
    John Shakespeare shook his head. The family
had taken enough knocks lately, and such community humiliation
would be the killer blow.
    “Enough,” he said. “Enough.” And he pushed
the plate of scones