Voices from the Past Part 126

(Vapid lines out of the Spanish Tragedy seemed foolish there backstage and could not matter less as Ellen and I drove to her apartment-in her red carriage, swaying through the rain.

Her fireplace was stacked with flame. Her servants withdrew and she leaned against her marble mantel, breast leaning forward, her dress low, shoulders and neck bare, such ivory.

Her cousin had accompanied us in the carriage; now we could talk:

"I hadn't expected you in London tonight," I said.

"I came from Dover, yesterday, late yesterday" she said.

"From your brother's place at St. Cloud?"

"Yes. A hard trip across the channel and hard to be away so long from you... My dear, this play's better than the last. How you make those Venetians live! They're like so many I've known... You must have known them too..."

"Darling, I like your hair this way. French? Your hairdresser really knows..."

"Will, tell me that you love me. I love you."

"Should I?"

"Your letters tell me but now, you tell me."

"With hands and mouth..."

It was like that-her gown letting me-but it was also fear, remembering that Ben had warned us that we had been followed by another carriage as we left the theatre...twice now.

Ellen and I hoped our purse of hope would lose all counterfeit coins...foreign exchange no...no cheating, no n.i.g.g.ardly luck...could I foresee with gypsy insight?

Our goblets touched.)

But I prolonged Ben's New Year visit: we sat on chairs in the oriel, and talked and talked, and the talking of him brought out the talking in me, and there was no bothersome time: I suppose we ate by candlelight; I suppose we went to bed, but our talking was not bedded, and I hear it now in the sound of his retreating horses: I hear hope retreating, hoof on cobble, hoof on brain: for he will not come again. Or should I ask him, being thought-sick?

Twelfth Day

In the fall I went across the fields to the poplar trees under which Ann and I used to make love; I sat in the sun and let it drench me. The trees were n.o.bler though limbs had fallen off; one tree was rotted at the top; another...but no matter.

I sat and remembered how it was before our twins were born, sat with elbows on my knees, gaping. I tried to see that pair of lovers loving on the gra.s.s. That love had never happened. No. The thing that was real was my gaping loneliness...

I walked home and took up a packet of her letters; this one was lying on top:

Dear Red,

I am glad that people like your play, that Romeo and Juliet play. That was the one we saw at the Globe, I think. The Capulets frightened me much. What is the name of your new play that you are writing at? I can't remember. Is it the Merchant play?

You should write a play about your papa and his glove-making. The twins are sick again.

Hamnet is the worst, sick at night, and all that. Judith has a flushed face and she coughs and coughs, and I keep her in bed.

Write soon.

Love,

Ann

I try to forget the casualness and say it belongs to a buried past and then I say to myself, if this is dead then all life is equally dead, including myself.

I opened another letter and a dried flower fell out of the yellowed paper. I had to hold the sheet to the window before I could read it, meantime trying to harden myself, half remembering. My wits are diseased, I thought.

Dear Red,

So you have made twenty-two pounds at the theatre from all the good attendance. That will help take care of the clothes we need, and winter right against us. What is this play they are playing at the Globe, the Oth.e.l.la thing? I have heard Mama talk about a woman like that-some foreign woman. Is Oth.e.l.la your leading person? Is she pretty?

Is it true you fought a duel? That will not help you get ahead in London. You said that people talk.

You should see Hamnet. How well he does with his school work, better than anyone at school, I hear. He takes after you, his master tells me.

Our bedroom window was broken in the storm last week, but Tom has put in new gla.s.s, and leaded and puttied it nicely. It was the window by the good chair.

Love,

Ann

Like roses, red roses on a stalk, or was it, coral is far more red than her lips' red...love is my sin...my love is longing still!