The Diary of William Shakespeare, Gentleman by Jackie French Read Free Book Online

you know how much I love thee, William?’
    I must have looked as startled as the fox that thinks it steals upon a plump chicken and instead finds the farmer’s boy waiting with his bow. ‘Of course, sir.’
    â€˜How do you know, William?’
    I considered. ‘By your care for us, sir.’
    â€˜Indeed. I work not just at my trade but at trading too, so you shall be a gentleman one day, your brothers settled, your sister dowried well. It is the duty of a father to care for his family so. The servants too are in our care, for they cannot refuse what we might order them to do.’
    I flushed. I had not ordered the maid to kiss me. But nor could she have slapped my face and told me, ‘Leave off, Master William.’
    â€˜I see, sir,’ I said.
    My father smiled at me. He was not one for beating a willing donkey with a stick. He ruffled my hair and said, ‘I see that you do.’
    He held out the glove he was working on. ‘Now, see this tongue of leather here? That protects the falconer’s arm from the bird’s claws . . .’
    I kissed no more servants in our household after that. The kitchen maid left us on Mop Day for another house, and we did not take another young servant. But there was the red-haired girl I kissed after the May Day dance, whose lips tasted of May wine; and another at the Harvest Feast, when we both had cider breath and cider tongues and cider-loosened laughter; and the young widow when I was sixteen. When I brought her new mourning gloves, she gave me not just the coins she owed me but much more. Bright kisses for the memory; kisses for pleasure, not for love.
    But I do remember the first kiss of love too. Its heat burns my lips still.
    Dinner: Merchant Habbicombe and his wife and daughters came to dine with us, bringing a gift of honey that is not as fine as ours here at New Place, although I did not tell them so, and a brace of herons.
    First course: a turkey, roasted; a young kid, seethed; leek pottage; mutton tongues in a pie; apple fritters; salletting from our own garden; cheese cakes. Second course: a butt of beef, spiced; pigeons, roasted, with a black liver sauce; a mess of chicken; whipped syllabub; small savouries of sweet Canada potatoes that some call artichokes of Jerusalem, crafted in shapes, at which all exclaimed so that my wife smiled, being careful not to show the new gap between her teeth; a marmalade of quinces; olives; almonds; medlars; apples; raisins of the sun and sugared plums.
    All good with bowels and waters, and when I gazed into the hand mirror this morning, my beard and hair do show only a silvering of grey.

Friday, 16th October 1615
    A squawking from the goose yard as if all fowldom dances to the drum of war — my wife has ordered the mattresses and quilts refeathered for the winter. Small feathers dance like snow about the garden. I spent the morning with my agent. As I thought, this summer’s mildewed wheat has made me richer, for if men cannot buy wheat flour they must make do with barley from my stores, and the price has doubled in the month, and will double once more, at least, by the year’s end. I am richer by half as much again as I were last year. I order him to purchase me a share in the church tithes, for its price will be low in this year of poor harvests, but will reap great profit when the sun deigns to return.
    I also ordered three fat geese and a pot of preserved apricots sent as a gift to Thomas Thomas, Esquire, a wool merchant. Merchant Habbicombe told me last night that Harold Thomas, the eldest son, is still unmarried. The family is a good one, though not so high in status as I would have chosen for my daughter. But as Judith grows older her chances are less, and our family at least would not lose dignity with the alliance.
    Indeed, my father hoped to be a wool merchant the year that I left school. As a glove-maker, he had always a store of wool as well as leather, and, as he said, if one