PARFLETE was put to bed at once, and late as was the hour a chirurgeon was sent for. He dressed the wound, and inclined to the opinion that the limb might be saved. But the injury was so severe that weeks must pass before the young actor could hope to appear again in the theater.
Now this accident and its consequences had filled Shakespeare with consternation. On the Thursday following, but six days hence, the new comedy was to be given by the Queen’s command in Richmond Park. The chief female character, that of Rosalind, had been written and designed for this rising young actor. It was impossible at such short notice to fill his place. There was no other member of the company who came near Parflete in fitness for the part. The author felt that much depended on a graceful, slender and attractive Rosalind. It was with such a personage ever in his mind that the play had been composed for the delectation of an exacting critic.
The next morning, when the full extent of the calamity was known, Shakespeare bitterly lamented the lack of judgment which had allowed Parflete to bear a part in the perilous transactions of the night before. It was vain to repine, but the playwright would now have given much to be able to undo this grievous accident.
There was also another aspect of the case that filled him with concern. Gervase Heriot had been recognized by his uncle’s steward. The aid of the law must already have been invoked. If the young man remained at the Crown, it was doubtful whether his present disguise would be a sufficient concealment, and if taken he would certainly be charged with the murder of his uncle. Not that that mattered particularly to one already under sentence of death. But it might matter very much to those who had associated themselves with the young man in the harebrained enterprise which had ended so disastrously.
Truly the reflections of William Shakespeare were not of roseate hue this morning. Looking back on the night’s adventure, it seemed to be as grimly fantastic as a scene out of one of his own plays. When he had planned the weird scene that had been enacted to the very letter of his invention, he had had a very special object in view, yet he had not looked to the matter to be pushed to that extremity. It was hardly in human nature to mourn the occurrence, for the world was undoubtedly well rid of a bad man. Moreover, the object of the playwright’s audacious stratagem had been achieved. He held in his hands a paper, which even if obtained by means so irregular, was enough to clear Gervase Heriot, always provided that the Queen could be brought to reconsider his case. But the feeling now uppermost in the mind of the dramatist was one of distress. He feared that he had drawn his companions into one of those sinister transactions in which no man in that age could afford to be involved.
Two things must be done, and they must be done speedily. It was imperative for the Lord Chamberlain’s players to leave Oxford at once. And an efficient substitute for Parflete must be found immediately if the comedy was to be given in its integrity before the Queen on the Thursday following.
In the stress of these urgent matters, the playwright took counsel of Richard Burbage. That worthy was in the middle of a substantial if belated breakfast.
“In the first matter, I agree with you,” he said, upon hearing what his colleague had to say. “There will be security for none of us until we are out of Oxford, and perhaps not even then. As to who is to play Rosalind now that Parflete is sick, heaven help us but I know not.”
“Tarbert might play the part,” said the author of the comedy. “He has a light womanish voice, but then his legs do not match and he has no more grace than a soused mackerel. As I see my sweet Rosalind, she should be all grace and limberness, all delicacy, tenderness and fantasy.”
“Yes, I grant you it would be asking too much of Tarbert,” said the tragedian, addressing himself very seriously to a quart of ale. “It would be asking too much of any of us except Parflete. I am afraid, William Shakespeare, this is going to be a sad detriment to your play.”
The playwright agreed.
“With a good Rosalind,” he said, “the play might pass. But without a good Rosalind, it is like to be a plaguy poor thing. I confess I had Parflete in my mind from the first. The lad has not yet had scope for his talent. He is a youth of most excellent refined wit and very neat and comely besides. I am sure if Gloriana could but have seen him as Rosalind to young Warburton’s Celia, she would have been very well pleased with him.”
“Yes, and with the play, too,” said Burbage. “’Tis a thousand pities. For between ourselves, my William, if Rosalind fails us, there is mighty little substance in our new comedy to set before such an appetite as Gloriana’s.”
“That’s true enough,” said the playwright, gloomily. “And a writer is a fool who leans too heavily on a single character. Yet I love that sweet saucy quean, but God help us all if Tarbert plays her.”
“Would it offend Gloriana if you put on one of your older pieces?”
“Yes, accursedly—you know that, Dick, well enough. It is her whim to have something entirely new as a midsummer masque, and if she is fobbed off with an old thing, we shall none of us ever be forgiven.”
“‘Measure for Measure’ she has not seen.”
The playwright shook his head.
“It moves too slow for Gloriana,” he said. “It is too much the work of the apprentice. And she’d smell out its weakness before we were half through the first act, for that crabbed old woman—whom God protect!—has got the keenest nose in the realm in matters dramatical. The old harridan is wonderful in some ways.” The tone of the playwright was more reverent than the words it expressed.
“Well, it is a plaguy ill business, William Shakespeare,” said the tragedian, again having serious recourse to his tankard. “A plaguy ill business altogether, what with this affair of last night, which is very like to land us all in the Jug, and young Parflete’s hurt, and now this offence to Gloriana. However, it is a poor heart that repines. ’Tis all in the great comedy, my William, ’tis all in the great comedy. Sit ye down, man, and cut yourself a piece of this most excellent pasty, and I’ll call the drawer, who shall comfort you with an honest quart of this right excellent ale.”
Mr. William Shakespeare, however, had little use just now for this robust philosophy. Mutton pasties and tankards of ale did not appeal to him this morning. Far more serious matters were afoot.
At this moment, Anne Feversham chanced to enter the inn parlor. And it was almost as if that sweetly forlorn figure had been conjured up by the instancy of the poet’s thoughts. She was still in her boy’s dress. Here was the natural grace, the delicacy of limb and feature, the perfect harmony of mind and mansion of the true Rosalind.
Indeed, that shy and slender grace was the ideal of the poet’s fancy. He knew now that it was the sight of her in hawking dress in the tailor’s shop that had set his mind upon the Forest of Arden. And now her presence in that room kindled once again the eager mind. An idea sprang into it; an idea audacious, impulsive, extravagant, yet not wholly outside the region of the possible.
If only this creature, all charm and grace, could be taught to play the part at so short a notice!
There was no need for the poet to put into words that which had flashed through his brain. Nay, hardly did he need to look at Richard Burbage for his friend to read that which was published already in a face so expressive that it declared his lightest thought.
“Yes, why not?” said the playwright suddenly, without context.
Burbage shook his head. He had a clear perception of the idea that had kindled the mind of his friend, but it was hardly to be taken seriously.
“Why not, I ask you?” said the playwright. “I am sure there is a ready wit in that face, and if she has a quick apprehension, there is no reason why she should not learn the part in a week. Besides,”—the poet began to pace the room in the stress of the excitement the idea was generating in his brain—“it would be a means of bringing her to the Queen’s notice.”
Richard Burbage, however, lent no countenance to this fantastic idea. He knew Anne’s tragic story. But he had a sufficient awe of the Queen’s displeasure to have a grave regard for the peril of such a course.
“No, no,” he said, “I pray you dismiss so wild a thought. No one knows better than you the temper of the Queen. And if she took this matter amiss, it would bode as ill for us at it would for Mistress Feversham.”
But already the idea had sunk deep. The playwright was alive also to its possibilities from another point of view. It might prove a means of gaining the Queen’s sympathies for Gervase Heriot.
“Dick,” he said, “do not forget that now we hold a proof of Mr. Heriot’s innocence. And should we adduce it in the right season, as I have good hope of doing, there is every reason to suppose that Gloriana, who at heart is a just woman, will view the matter tenderly.”
“I beg leave to differ from you there, William Shakespeare,” said Burbage. “As far as I can see, there is precious little reason to believe anything of the kind. No one has yet fathomed the Queen’s caprices. And it ill behooves us of all men, who exist by favor of the public, to be mixed up in treasonable matters. Besides, after what happened last night I for one have no longer a stomach for them.”
The poet, however, was not to be deterred by these counsels of prudence. His sympathies were too deeply engaged. He had taken this ill-starred pair to his heart. Assured that Gervase Heriot was the victim of a callous conspiracy, he was fully determined not to rest now until his wrong had been redressed.
Like Burbage, however, he was fully alive to the peril of mixing in matters that could so readily be construed as treason. And none realized more clearly than he the danger that lurked in any affront to the Queen. Poet as he was, and a dreamer of dreams, he owed his position among his fellows primarily to the fact that he was a remarkably able man of affairs. His was the vision that could see, the wit that could mold, the tenacious power of will that could compass the design.
Thus in spite of his friend’s caution, the playwright went presently in search of Anne. Ultimately, he found her in the inn garden sitting by the side of Gervase Heriot, within the shade of its single yew tree. Taken by surprise, she had barely time to disengage her arms from about the young man’s neck, let alone to check the tears that were flowing down her cheeks.
Gervase, it seemed, was bent on going to London that day. Now that he had learned Sir John Feversham’s peril, he felt it impossible to stay longer in hiding. To do so would surely cause the Constable’s life to be forfeit.
The player did his best to reassure the young man. Sir John’s peril was undoubtedly great, but hardly so immediate as all that. As he had not yet been brought to his trial, there was hardly reason to suppose that he would have lost his head six days hence, when the player would have the ear of the Queen.
At the same time, Shakespeare agreed that after the unlucky business of the previous night, Oxford was no place for any one of them. The sooner they quitted it the better, since at any moment a hue and cry was likely to be upon them. A play had to be given at two o’clock that afternoon by the Lord Chamberlain’s servants. But Shakespeare had already come to the conclusion that as soon as it was at an end, the Company would do well to lose no time in setting out for London.
The player now proposed that Gervase should keep his present disguise and return that evening with the others. Particularly anxious not to lose sight of the young man, and hoping also to prevent his doing anything unwise, Shakespeare entreated him to stay with the Company and accept the hospitality of his lodging on the Bankside until such time as his case could be brought to the Queen’s notice.
Much persuasion was necessary before Gervase could be brought to accede to this course. But when Shakespeare gave a solemn promise that he would return to London that evening, and that he would take care to keep well informed of all that related to the position of Sir John Feversham, the young man gave a reluctant consent. He would lie in hiding in the player’s lodging in Southwark, until a favorable moment came to present his case to the Queen.
Shakespeare was glad to have obtained this promise from Gervase Heriot. And he then unfolded the design that was in his mind. Having referred to Parflete’s accident and its disastrous effect upon the new comedy which depended so much on the part that young actor had to play, the author made so bold as to suggest to Anne that she should undertake the chief female character in her boy’s dress. Nature, he said, had equipped her perfectly for the part of Rosalind, if only she could learn to play it at so short a notice. Moreover, it would be a golden opportunity to bring her to the favorable consideration of the Queen. Would Mistress Feversham venture upon a task so delicate and so difficult?
“Yes,” said Anne, “I will, indeed, if you think my doing so may help to save the life of Gervase.”
She spoke with a candor, a simplicity, a decision which told the playwright that here was a firm will and a high courage. And such evidence removed at least half of the risk he was about to run. One who could take such a resolve with such a clear determination was not likely to fail in the critical hour.
“Mistress,” said Shakespeare, “you shall receive instruction at once. And if you can make yourself reasonably perfect in the part by next Thursday, you shall play before the Queen.”
Gervase, however, was strongly averse from the scheme. Still, the event of the previous night had furnished signal proof of the player’s wisdom. Such a design might appear far sought, yet surely not more so than the one which a few hours ago had been brought to such a terrible issue.
Gervase, therefore, was bound to heed the proposal. And, after all, the most grievous of his many misgivings were those concerning the fate of Anne herself. In the event of his own sentence being carried out, she was determined to die, too. Even if now he went to London to give himself up, her whole mind was set on accompanying him. All that dissuasion could do had failed to move her from that clear design. Wherever he went she would go with him, even into eternity itself.
In the end, it was perhaps the resolved attitude of Anne that enabled Shakespeare to get his way. And, after all, if she had the courage to embrace a plan so desperate, it was hardly for Gervase to dissent.
And she, it seemed, with a strange faith discerned some slender hope in it. Such a faith could only spring out of the depths of her despair. But with the dauntless courage that had carried her through everything, she began at once to bring the whole force of her will to bear on the matter in hand.
Little as she knew of the man who had made this singular proposal, she could not remain insensible to his personality. It appealed to her in a subtle way. This man, with his gentle voice and face of sad expressiveness, had masked depths of power that few men and fewer women were able to resist.
Thus it was that the luckless fugitives came to yield themselves to the player’s care. Their pass was desperate, indeed. Whatever happened now could not make it worse. God knew, the expedient offered was forlorn enough, but for the sake of the slender hope it bore, they would submit themselves entirely to this man’s hands.