Voices from the Past Part 105

Henley Street

June 5, 1615

At Christmas skirling bagpipers, piping a waulking song, greeted us at Dunira. Ellen's room, in a squat tower, faced a narrow lake with ragged sh.o.r.e pines and a small island, wild geese and ducks resting on the water, cold, cold, moss blue water.

Sun crossed the bear rugs and tiles of her floor.

Her bed was canopied with green velvet embroidered with golden shields and crossed spears, seen on her coat-of- arms.

She called my attention to the pulls on the heavy drapes, each pull a carved ivory ball enclosing a ball inside another.

Hand in mine, she showed me her collection of silver, gold, and ivory fans, fans from Egypt, Greece and India, arranged on her walls, some open, some in cases, flabellum with bone handles, Venetian lace fans, tomb fans with gold-encrusted ribs, a Greek fan like an acanthus leaf. I can see the movement of her lips as she described them; I can see her hand, pointing.

We often walked around the lake and through the pollarded garden, its cypresses like stone columns: we walked the moors until Christmas cold sent us shivering to the big fireplaces where we talked and ate and sang and drank.

Someone kept the fire blazing in her fireplace and we would sink down on her bed or lie on the bear rug and make love, the firelight skirling her ivory, her fans and the canopy's yellow silk lining.

Hugh opened our door one morning very early, while we were busy making love, and with a boisterous laugh he said:

"I just finished with my woman; when you're done, we'll go hunting. The horses are saddled. Better lock your door next time!"

Hugh-his huge body on a huge hunter-led us hunting along a loch, where the ocean, squeezed as in a gla.s.s case, shuddered, as though resentful of its trap, as though it considered everyone as intruder. I was awed by the water's dark and the chasms menacing it. Deer eluded us and while we followed the loch, I lost interest in the hunt for the quarry of sea and earth, spirit and well- being.

Hunting, walking, eating, drinking, love-making, this was the happiest time of my life. Her brother's acceptance amounted to adoption; he often came to my room and talked at length, sharing intimacies; the only misadventure during my stay was an attack of hungry peasants who swarmed the castle court, shrilly demanding food, some in kilts with silent bagpipes.

Ellen and I visited the ruins of a sprawling Cistercian abbey on her Dunira property; there, under the vaulted archway, where roses climbed, I felt inspired, and, staying on I wrote Cymbeline, scenes and words coming easily, happiness a constant companion: the sweetness of her personality seemed altogether mine. Words and flesh- they were mine, in that sun and cloud world of Dunira.

The weather settled into a steady spell, my room overlooking garden, lake and bluecap forest. London might have been at the bottom of the sea: I could not have cared less. Its dirt and beauty-I never missed them.

Visiting the abbey frequently, we met several of the monks who resided in a section of the refectory; their geniality contented us and we lingered with them, in their herb garden, by a fountain-pigeons about. A marvelously tiny man, spry though old, gave us a parchment book, one he had rubricated, pleased to see us in love.

Hugh accompanied us occasionally to bring food for the brothers, making the short trip with donkeys carrying loaded panniers. He, too, would linger, sharing our mood.

Abbey garden, fountains, vegetables and herbs in rows:

a collection of rare fans on a wall:

Hugh and Shakespeare drink at a refectory table:

a peasant enters and Hugh beats the man

who is asking for alms:

skirl of bagpipes.

O

n the Scottish coast the sunset prowled the lowtide combers, rolling cloud into cloud, wave into wave. The clouds absorbed orange with yellow and the yellow took on red, the red brooming low, sweeping sh.o.r.eward, reaching the sand at our feet.

Is it true that we saw the sunset together, her arms around me, the rocks beyond us red, the sunset extending for miles? The moon rose out of a rust-colored sky?

Stratford-on-Avon

June 11, 1615

"Darling, ours is a supreme happiness and we must cherish it," she wrote me long ago.