The Diary of William Shakespeare, Gentleman by Jackie French Page A

gloves, nor has a hall in which to make them.’
    She looked into my eyes and took my hand. I feared mine was trembling, but hers did not. ‘You will make your own way, William. As a blacksmith forges iron, you will forge greatness with the fire of your will.’
    â€˜How? What can such a wretch as I do?’
    For I had no other trade; nor could I enter one without the price to pay to be apprenticed, or the higher price still to join a merchant’s guild.
    â€˜Truly, your brilliance dims the sun! To write the words you do . . .’
    â€˜Would your brother take me as a secretary?’ I tried to smile. ‘You know I write a fair hand.’
    She bit her lip, suddenly prosaic. ‘Arnold has a man to do that work, nor do I think he would employ thee, even for love of me.’
    â€˜Then what must I do? We cannot live on air, as the birds do.’
    She said simply, ‘You can be a schoolmaster.’
    Why had I never thought of that? Admittedly, I had little Latin and less Greek, but I knew my classics, could figure and write dancing couplets. The books I had borrowed from my schoolmaster in the last six years had taught me well. A school usher could not support a wife like Judyth, much less help my family, but a schoolmaster in a good school or household might.
    â€˜How does one become a schoolmaster?’
    I was embarrassed to ask her. But she had seen more of the world in her three years away than ever I had, aswell as hearing the merchants’ tales at her father’s and brother’s tables.
    â€˜Why, advertise as tutor to a family, and then in two years, or even three, apply to a school that will make you an usher, and then, seeing your quality, will make you master with your own house, where you will need a wife.’
    â€˜You would marry a schoolmaster?’
    She nodded. ‘I would gladly be a teacher’s wife, if that teacher was you.’ She stepped back, though her fingers were still laced with mine. ‘I will wait for you,’ she said softly, ‘for as many years as you need to carve your place in the world. I would wait till a single drop of water carved your name upon a rock, and then my name, in a heart to bind us both. You will be a poet, William, not just a schoolmaster. You are greater than this small town. This tragedy has been sent, perhaps, to make you leave it, so you may rise, uncramped and unconfined. Men yet unborn will read your words. And they will read my name and say, “She was his wife.”’ She kissed me gently then. That one soft kiss moved me more than when our tongues had clashed like cymbals.
    I did not move. If I had moved, I would have clasped her to me until the Avon had washed the last tear of rain from this land.
    She slipped away, beyond the leaves, and still I stood, feeling her touch upon my fingers. Even now, I feel her fingers on this gnarled hand with which I write.
    For she was right, this quiet girl. I, Will Shakespeare, could forge a future for himself, as had my ancestor who had given us our name, shaking his spear for some great lord. I might even make my name and fortune as a poet. But not by quarter-day.
    By next quarter-day I could be in the employ of a merchant’s household, tutoring his sons who needed no more Latin than I, a glover’s son, had to impart. But this I knew too: that wage would not keep my family from starvation, much less keep my father’s house and dignity, nor would I be paid it till I had worked a full year’s quarter.
    What choices do wretches such as I have, crawling between earth and heaven? My Judyth, or my family? My love, or duty?
    I knew, even then, which I had to choose.
    Dinner: a loin of pork with apple sauce; quail, roasted, with egg sauce; a coney pie; oxtail with mustard; cheese cakes; rhubarb fool; butter; biscuits with our crest; and raisins of the sun.
    Bowels and waters: steady, like my life, were it not that I have bitter memory by day and dreams