To my Elizabeth,

for her loyalty, love and genius

Henley Street

January 28, 1615

T

o invent can become an aberration, a mystery, at times a querulous searching to remedy an irremediable loss. Shall we say there is a larger purpose? Must there always be a purpose and justification? I can not believe that. Then, there can be stumbling, burial, burial violets around a grave, an absence. These thoughts must be weighed, re- a.s.sessed, subtracted from physical ailment and sickness of mind. Surely the stage was not intended for a single player.

Stratford

February 2nd, Candlemas 1615

On Christmas last I sang carols with Ellen and her friends, in her London apartment, candlelight on her frosted windows where trees, like menhirs, listened. Some of her friends were drunk and raucous parasites; some were manikins; some were overly friendly; some, Countess Bardolph, Lord Fenton, Lady Page, were perfumed bores; the Irishmen were troublemakers...

The Captain of the Guard requested a dance, and musicians appeared on a small wreathed stage, a candlelit tree at one side. Sprigs of ribboned mistletoe decorated the window drapes and the frames of all Ellen's paintings; she wore a sprig and her Scot mouth met mine under the portrait of a highlander. Caroling and wine went on and on:

Joseph and Mary walked

Through an orchard green,

Where were cherries and berries

As thick as might be seen...

Mummers paid Ellen a call, accompanied by a dancing jester wearing furs. By now it was snowing and the storm sprinkled the jester and the costumes of the torchlit merrymakers with him, as they trailed about, singing. A gla.s.s of wine with Ellen... Egypt, it seemed an easy dive to the bottom of the deep, to pluck drowned honor, but there was Ann, pinch-faced, wanting to scourge, and sting with pismires.

Joseph and Mary walked through their orchard bewitched, and Ellen's thick tree burned with its candles; the Yule log burned and cat-spat; thick-eyed musing came with scalding wa.s.sail; then more dancing and then sleep at their side... Later, I'll tell her about my play, my plans, secrets of the stage, boyhood delights... I'll reveal the wildness of the world, and beyond this, the tranquility of poetry itself.

She'll share her Edinburgh, her theatre, her books, her home by the lake, her work for the priory library.

She told me:

"Life is to hold warmly in our hands. It is to be made better for our pa.s.sing."

Her intense face considered mine: the fine lines of her mouth, those eyes, lochs, and then there were her dark, dark hair, her perfume, the pressing of her fingers into my s.e.x...necessities and no better...

Carols continued while snow stuck to her window panes and the pine boughs put resin on the air...a day and then another, her hair on her pillow like a fern...and nothing else was needed.