Love's Will by Meredith Whitford Read Free Book Online

took Anne’s hand and kissed her again, and she found the courage to say, “Did you take me there to play with the costumes in the hope of what we did?”
    “No. I never thought of it. But you looked so beautiful.”
    “Ha!”
    “You did.”
    “I’m not beautiful, not even pretty. I’m a farmer’s daughter. I’m brown from the sun, I’m skinny.”
    “You made a beautiful queen.”
    “In borrowed finery. Cheap stuff.”
    “You looked beautiful. Desirable. Whatever I say here will be wrong, won’t it.”
    “Probably.”
    “As a matter of fact I think you are pretty. You’ve glorious hair, and I like grey eyes with black brows and lashes. I’ve always thought you a pretty woman. That poem I wrote for you, shall I recite it?”
    “Yes please,” said Anne, who didn’t care, unless it was a declaration of undying love.
    He took a deep breath and began.
    “ Those lips that Love’s own hand did make,
    Breath’d forth the sound that said ‘I hate’,
    To me that languished for her sake:
    But when she saw my woeful state,
    Straight in her heart did mercy come;
    Chiding that tongue that ever sweet,
    Was used in giving gentle doom:
    And taught it thus anew to greet:
    ‘I hate’ she altered with an end,
    That followed it as gentle day,
    Doth follow night who like a fiend,
    From heaven to hell is flown away.
    ‘I hate’, from hate away she threw,
    And saved my life saying, ‘not you’ .”
    They walked on for a while.
    “You noted the pun on ‘Hathaway’, didn’t you? Hate away – Hathaway.”
    “Yes, I noted it.”
    They walked on for a while.
    “Don’t you like it?”
    “I like it,” said Anne, who thought that as a poet he made a good glover. “I’m not sure I understood it.”
    They walked on for a while.
    “Shall I say it to you again?”
    “Yes please.”
    He did so.
    They walked on for a while.
    “I like it very much,” said Anne. “But isn’t it a poem about a lover languishing because the woman he loves doesn’t love him?”
    “It’s just a poem. Playing with words. Following a style, a fashion.”
    They walked on for a while.
    “I’ve never had a poem written for me before. Doubt I ever shall again.”
    “You might. Shall I write you another?”
    “Yes please.”
    “Good.”
    They were at Temple Grafton. Anne’s cousin’s cottage was on this nearer side of the village. It was too late for the old lady still to be up. At the gate Anne turned to William. “I must go in now. Will you come again, as you used to?”
    “If I may,” he said stiffly.
    “My cousin likes your stories.”
    “I’m glad. Anne.”
    Startled, she looked up, and he kissed her. “I hope you liked your birthday. I certainly did.”
    “I did. I did, Will, I did.”
    “Then don’t be cold to me, don’t turn me away.”
    “I’m not, I won’t. But now I must go in and you must get home before it rains again. Goodnight, my dear.”
    “Goodnight, Anne.”
     

 
    5.
     
    William didn’t care for the glover’s trade, but he did like his father’s workshop. His earliest memories of beauty were, equally, of spring flowers and of the colours and textures piled high in the shop. Leather of all kinds, soft and subtle as a whisper, or tough and no-nonsense. The satins, silks, taffetas for linings in colours that improved on nature. Gold and silver wires and threads, pearls and beads and sequins. Herbs, sweet wood and spices to perfume the finished gloves. Even the knives and shears and needles, the patterns and stretchers, held their own fascination.
    At one time John Shakspere had employed another master cutter and six stitchers, and a clerk to write his letters and keep his accounts. In those days he had been a wool dealer and a money-lender, and those things absorbed his time and interest more than the glove shop. They had also been his downfall, those illegal and costly dealings. Now he did all the cutting and fine embroidery and had but two apprentices. William, and Gilbert when he wasn’t fast