THE morning of the great day broke mistily, with a promise of summer glory. Poor unhappy Anne, lodged in a cool and clean chamber overlooking the river, was awake at the first peep of dawn. Her few hours of sleep had been terribly disturbed. She awoke with a start and sprang out of bed as soon as the light touched her eyelids. Only too well did she know that further sleep would not be for her.
Yes, the dread day was come. It might be the last she would know of liberty. Nay, it was most likely. And it was the day on which the fate of Gervase would be irrevocably sealed.
She dare not give her mind to the grim matter, which, asleep or awake, encompassed it. Dressing in a fever of haste, as if she feared to be overtaken by the thoughts she dare not face, she went out of doors into the keen morning air. She walked up and down by the banks of the mist-enveloped river, and in the hope of composing her over-wrought mind, she began to repeat the lines of her part.
Suddenly she was aware that a figure was emerging dimly from the mists ahead. It was that of a man. A moment afterwards she had recognized the author of “As You Like It.”
The playwright came toward her. He too had slept but little. And in that somber and wonderful face was a haggard weariness that made the soul of the girl recoil. It was the face of a man besieged and tormented by a thousand devils; of a man who had never known a moment of peace in this life, and who hardly looked to know it in the life to come.
Not so much as a word of greeting passed between them. But as the player saw the face of young and delicate fairness, seared already by the anguish of the soul, he placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder with a gentleness of pity that meant very much more than speech.
“Be of good courage, mistress,” that gesture seemed to say.
Without speaking a word, the player passed on like a wraith into the mists that hung as a pall upon the river.
Gervase also was early abroad. He too had slept little. Seated at the window of his room, brooding with a sick heart on the chances of his fate, he had seen Anne go forth, so that presently he followed her.
For long enough they walked together, and for the last time as they believed. A few hours hence all would be decided. And in their hearts their hope of life and perhaps their desire of it was very slender.
Their sufferings of the past few weeks had been bitter. This morning they were overborne. Whatever fate held in store for them now they felt they had reached the nadir of the soul.
Soon after nine o’clock that morning the Lord Chamberlain’s servants embarked in two of the royal barges that had been placed at their disposal. The progress was slow but comfortable, and by noon of a glorious July day they had come to the palace at Richmond. All the players, with one exception, from the most important to the humblest member of the Company, betrayed evidences of anxiety and nervousness. William Shakespeare alone was so cool and collected that the occasion might have been of the most ordinary kind.
Those few among the players who shared the dark secret which was to make this day so memorable in the life of the author of the new comedy, were astonished by a calmness that was to them unnatural. And they could not help marveling how a man whose very life depended on the whim of a harsh-tempered and capricious woman should be able to mask his thoughts and to control his feelings in a manner so remarkable.
The terraces of the palace which overlooked the beautiful park in which it stood were thronging already with a mob of gallants and court ladies. Their wonderful clothes gave a very second-rate air to the tawdry finery affected by most of the players. Even the cloak of Shakespeare himself erred a little, but that was on the side of modesty.
One young fop was quick to turn this fact to account. Having a reputation for wit, and being surrounded by those in whose eyes he had an ambition to shine, he gravely accosted the actor. He removed his plumed hat with a sweeping gesture and made a low bow.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, in a loud voice which attracted general notice. “Pray excuse the liberty I take in addressing you, but I admire the style of your cloak so much that I would fain ask the name of your tailor.”
In spite of the audible tittering of fine ladies and the delighted guffaws of gallant gentlemen, the playwright showed the perfect unconcern of one who has his own private standard of men and things. He did not reply, but quietly looked the impertinent coxcomb up and down as if he were a new species of animal with whom he was not yet acquainted.
The fop was nettled by this nonchalance.
“Well, sir?” he said impudently. “Give me your tailor’s name I pray you, in order that I may have the great felicity of taking the air in a cloak exactly its fellow.”
The playwright shook his head with an air of polite deprecation.
“I have too kindly a feeling toward an honest craftsman,” he said.
“God’s death, sir! what do you mean?”
“I mean, sir,” said the player, “that I would not like so good a fellow to run the double risk of a bad debt and an even worse advertisement.”
A roar of laughter followed from those who had gathered at the pleasant prospect of a little player-baiting by an accredited wag. Many there were about the Court who were by no means well-disposed toward players in general. These actors were claiming far too much attention from those in high places. Their continually growing favor was beginning to be a matter of concern to those whose own existence depended so largely on the indulgence of the great.
But the fop was completely taken aback by the player’s rejoinder. For the moment he did not know how to reply. He had not expected to be held up to ridicule in that place of all others by an humble individual who had not the least pretensions to fashion. But the laugh had gone against him heavily. And being in reality a dull and commonplace fellow enough, in the end he took refuge in round abuse of “those common jays who would peacock it among their betters.”
“Pray, my lord, on what ground do you hold yourself to be the superior of this gentleman?” suddenly interposed a harsh and imperious voice.
It was the voice of the Queen. The group of gallants and fine ladies had been too much occupied with the sport that was afoot to notice who it was who had come into their midst.
My lord’s confusion was great. And it was not made less by the look of sour disdain which animated the features of his sovereign.
This old raddled woman in farcical clothes and an auburn wig was by no means a fool. She had lived too long in the world and had mingled too freely with the very best the age had to give not to be an uncommonly shrewd judge of things and men. She had the rough commonsense which is a far better equipment than subtlety when it comes to dealings with human nature.
“Well, my lord, on what grounds I ask you?”
“On the ground of birth, your grace,” said the fop, who by now had time to collect himself a little.
The Queen’s lip curled contemptuously.
“A man who takes refuge in that,” she said, “can have little merit of his own, my lord. And to my mind a man is twice a fool who, being born to opportunity, can turn it to no better advantage. How say you, Master Shakespeare?”
“There are those who hold, your grace,” said the player in his deep and musical voice, “that it is better to be a fool of pedigree than to be a sage without gules or quarterings.”
The Queen laughed. But the ready independence of the player’s answer pleased her as much as it surprised her courtiers. There was not one among them who would have ventured it. There was not one among them who was not unduly eager to acquiesce in any opinion that might be expressed by this august lady.
It was not the Queen’s habit to unbend easily. She held the exaggerated Tudor view of the status of the sovereign. Her court was expected to approach her on bended knee and there were many supple backs in consequence. But there was not a trace of the sycophant about this man who conversed with her as modestly, as readily and as easily as he would have done with a lounger in a tavern. And while the gallants and fine ladies were not a little shocked by the unaffectedness of the man’s bearing and marveled not a little that one so august should bestow so much notice upon a common play-actor, the Queen, on the other hand, seemed almost to forget for the moment the dizzy eminence to which it had pleased Providence to call her.
The truth was she dearly loved what she called “a man.” And this was a scarce commodity in the exotic atmosphere which surrounded Elizabeth Tudor. Few there were who dared to hold opinions of their own, let alone to advance them with the unstudied assurance of this man of lowly calling, who was yet not wholly unmindful of the fact that he was absolute monarch of an empire more imperial than Gloriana’s own.
To be sure, none of those present realized that fact. Nor was it realized by the Queen herself. Her mind was strong and shrewd rather than deep and subtle. It was the player’s independence of judgment and the clear yet perfectly modest and simple manner by which he gave it expression which made such an appeal to her.
It was a sad sight for many an astonished and resentful eye to observe the Queen and the man “Shakescene”—it is a foible of the great to affect a becoming uncertainty in regard to the names of humbler mortals—walking quite apart from all the rest, up one alley and down another, talking and laughing heartily upon terms which perilously approached equality. What the Queen’s majesty had in common with the merry-andrew in the barred cloak passed the comprehension of all. But the harsh and strident laugh of the royal lady, not unworthy of a raven with a sore throat, could be heard continually. Many a diligent courtier who had spent the flower of his years in waiting humbly upon the Queen’s pleasure without having anything very substantial in the way of preferment to show for it, was cut to the soul.
And it was not here that the scandal ended. A little later when the Queen dined a place was set for the man Shakescene at her own table. And many a lisping, lily-white gentleman narrowly observed the demeanor of this upstart whose homely style and unaffected air offered so wide a target for their criticism.