Read Online The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jeanette Winterson
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tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard. Enter a Shipmaster and a Boatswain
.
MASTER : Boatswain!
BOATSWAIN : Here, master. What cheer?
Alice’s mind moved in and out of the play. She remembered Shakespeare coming to her house – but he had had long hair, an earring, a beautiful beard. She had not recognised him this time.
As the play was performed, she seemed to hear Elizabeth’s voice again – and they were together in the house on Bankside, upstairs in their secret private rooms that looked over the River Thames and across London, the great city.
‘Did you sell your Soul, Lizzy?’
‘The Dark Gentleman will take a Soul. It need not be my own.’
‘I doubt another will go to Hell to pay for your pleasure.’
‘You do not believe in Hell or Souls, do you, Alice?’
‘I believe that you are changed.’
Alice looked up, startled from her dreaming by the stronger dreaming of the play.
ARIEL :
Full fathom five thy father lies,
Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Alice fainted.
When she came to, she was in a small room away from the main hall. She could hear that the play was continuing. Her servant stood over her. William Shakespeare took the water from him and gave it to her. He said he was flattered that his little play had had such an effect on her.
She had got lost in time, she said. Time, he said, yes, yes, time was the kind of place where you could get lost.
Then she said to him, and she did not know why she said it, ‘Do you believe in magick?’
‘Why are you asking me, an actor and an old penman, when you worked with John Dee and Edward Kelley?’
‘You knew them?’
‘I knew anyone interesting to know. Tell me, do you think a stone statue can come to life? I have used that device in a play I am still revising called
The Winter’s Tale
. The end cannot succeed unless you believe, just for a moment, that a statue could perhaps step down and embrace you. Return what you had lost.’
‘John Dee made a metal beetle that flew like a living thing. He was arrested for it as sorcery.’
‘You can get arrested for anything these days. But I don’t think I can end my play with a metal beetle – however lifelike.’
‘You haven’t answered me,’ said Alice.
Shakespeare shook his head and sunk his chin into his ruff, making him look more owl-like than ever. ‘I have written about other worlds often enough. I have said what I can say. There are many kinds of reality. This is but one kind.’ He stretched out his hands to indicate the walls, carpets, tapestries and stuffs around him. ‘But, Mistress, do not be seen to stray too far from the real that is clear to others, or you may stand accused of the real that is clear to you.’
The door opened and Roger Nowell entered, with some of the party. Everyone was praising Shakespeare, except for Potts who was skulking in a corner. To Nowell he said, ‘You do know, don’t you, that this playwright, as he calls himself, this Shakespeare, was well known to Catesby, chief among the Gunpowder plotters?’
Roger Nowell nodded, irritated.
Potts continued: ‘There were two buzzing hives of Catholics in England. A hive at Stratford-upon-Avon. A hive in Lancashire. All of the conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot met to make their plans at the Mermaid Inn in Stratford. Stratford, sir! Shakespeare sir! When the plot failed and they were routed, they fled , all of them, to Lancashire, hiding here at Hoghton Tower, or with the Southworths at Salmesbury Hall.’
‘I know that,’ said Roger Nowell.
‘It astonishes me what you know and yet refuse to know. You fly near the edge, sir, near the edge.’
Alice, a little way off, stood up to leave the room. Potts regarded her. ‘That lady is a mystery, sir, a mystery. If she were my mystery I would look deeper into it.’
‘I am not as idle as you
.
MASTER : Boatswain!
BOATSWAIN : Here, master. What cheer?
Alice’s mind moved in and out of the play. She remembered Shakespeare coming to her house – but he had had long hair, an earring, a beautiful beard. She had not recognised him this time.
As the play was performed, she seemed to hear Elizabeth’s voice again – and they were together in the house on Bankside, upstairs in their secret private rooms that looked over the River Thames and across London, the great city.
‘Did you sell your Soul, Lizzy?’
‘The Dark Gentleman will take a Soul. It need not be my own.’
‘I doubt another will go to Hell to pay for your pleasure.’
‘You do not believe in Hell or Souls, do you, Alice?’
‘I believe that you are changed.’
Alice looked up, startled from her dreaming by the stronger dreaming of the play.
ARIEL :
Full fathom five thy father lies,
Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Alice fainted.
When she came to, she was in a small room away from the main hall. She could hear that the play was continuing. Her servant stood over her. William Shakespeare took the water from him and gave it to her. He said he was flattered that his little play had had such an effect on her.
She had got lost in time, she said. Time, he said, yes, yes, time was the kind of place where you could get lost.
Then she said to him, and she did not know why she said it, ‘Do you believe in magick?’
‘Why are you asking me, an actor and an old penman, when you worked with John Dee and Edward Kelley?’
‘You knew them?’
‘I knew anyone interesting to know. Tell me, do you think a stone statue can come to life? I have used that device in a play I am still revising called
The Winter’s Tale
. The end cannot succeed unless you believe, just for a moment, that a statue could perhaps step down and embrace you. Return what you had lost.’
‘John Dee made a metal beetle that flew like a living thing. He was arrested for it as sorcery.’
‘You can get arrested for anything these days. But I don’t think I can end my play with a metal beetle – however lifelike.’
‘You haven’t answered me,’ said Alice.
Shakespeare shook his head and sunk his chin into his ruff, making him look more owl-like than ever. ‘I have written about other worlds often enough. I have said what I can say. There are many kinds of reality. This is but one kind.’ He stretched out his hands to indicate the walls, carpets, tapestries and stuffs around him. ‘But, Mistress, do not be seen to stray too far from the real that is clear to others, or you may stand accused of the real that is clear to you.’
The door opened and Roger Nowell entered, with some of the party. Everyone was praising Shakespeare, except for Potts who was skulking in a corner. To Nowell he said, ‘You do know, don’t you, that this playwright, as he calls himself, this Shakespeare, was well known to Catesby, chief among the Gunpowder plotters?’
Roger Nowell nodded, irritated.
Potts continued: ‘There were two buzzing hives of Catholics in England. A hive at Stratford-upon-Avon. A hive in Lancashire. All of the conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot met to make their plans at the Mermaid Inn in Stratford. Stratford, sir! Shakespeare sir! When the plot failed and they were routed, they fled , all of them, to Lancashire, hiding here at Hoghton Tower, or with the Southworths at Salmesbury Hall.’
‘I know that,’ said Roger Nowell.
‘It astonishes me what you know and yet refuse to know. You fly near the edge, sir, near the edge.’
Alice, a little way off, stood up to leave the room. Potts regarded her. ‘That lady is a mystery, sir, a mystery. If she were my mystery I would look deeper into it.’
‘I am not as idle as you
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