Smythe felt guilty, apprehensive and confused as he slowly descended the stairs to the first floor. What had happened, or nearly happened, with Blanche Middleton had quite unnerved him. Unlike Shakespeare, who already had a family of his own, he had no experience with women. When he was younger, there had been a few girls in his village who had cast coy glances in his direction a time or two, but he had always been too shy to do much else than avert his eyes and blush. Then he would hear their girlish laughter and that would only make it seem much worse the next time that it happened.
Since he came to London and started working at the theatre, there had been opportunities for him to gain a little more experience-and very likely more than a little, especially at The Toad and Badger, after their performances-but what had kept him from pursuing those opportunities were the feelings that he had for Elizabeth. On more than one occasion, Shakespeare had admonished him for his restraint, telling him that it was pointless and even ludicrous for him to remain faithful to a girl that he could never have, but that still had not changed his feelings or his constancy. He was in love with Elizabeth, and when one was in love, one remained true and faithful to that love. That was only as it should be.
What now should he make of his response to Blanche? Knowing full well that she was a wanton, he had nevertheless felt such a strong desire for her that it had made his head swim. What did that say about his character, and even more important, what did it say about his feelings towards Elizabeth?
If he had truly loved Elizabeth, he thought, then he should not have responded to Blanche the way he had. Certainly, there had been other times when he had not felt tempted by the saucy glances and the bawdy speech of the wenches at The Toad and Badger, but this had been completely different. It seemed to have taken every ounce of strength he had possessed to walk out of that room. And much to his chagrin, he realized that there was still a part of him-he knew only too well which part-that wanted very much to turn around and go back up the stairs, knock upon her door, and tell her that he had changed his mind. She had, quite simply, taken his breath away, and he had still not fully recovered.
What sort of man am I, he thought, who could profess love for one woman and yet be so basely tempted by another? Even now, after he had turned her down, having mustered all his strength of will to do so, he still wanted her, in spite of everything. If I am so weak, he thought, then truly, I must not be deserving of a good woman’s love.
He stepped off the stairs into the deserted great hall of the manor. If Elizabeth had seen him leaving Blanche’s room, then he was sure that nothing he could say would make the slightest bit of difference. For that matter, how could he protest his innocence when, in his heart, he knew that he was guilty, in thought if not in deed?
So preoccupied was he with his own thoughts that he almost failed to respond to the sound he heard behind him, but in the silence of the empty hall, he could not fail to hear the footsteps coming down the stairs that he had just descended.
He froze, thinking that it could only be Elizabeth. Just as he had feared, it had, indeed, been she who had shut the door upstairs in the hall after seeing him coming out of Blanche’s room, and now she had decided to come down and confront him. How would he ever convince her that he had not done anything? And then another possibility occurred to him. What if it were Blanche, coming after him to try to make him change his mind? Just the thought of it made his heart beat a little faster, and he felt ashamed for it. He took a deep breath and turned to face whoever it would be.
“So,” said Godfrey Middleton, standing behind him at the foot of the stairs, “thought you could get away with it, did you?” He held a sword in his right hand. He raised it and held the blade pointed towards Smythe’s chest as he advanced. “You saucy bastard. You thought you could dishonor my daughter and then boast about it to your friends, did you?”
Understanding dawned as Smythe realized that it had been Blanche’s father who had seen him coming out of her room! Aghast, he hastened to explain himself.
“Sir, I assure you, there was nothing-” Smythe began, but Middleton would not let him finish.
“A pox on your assurances, you villain! Do you take me for a fool? I saw you coming out of my daughter’s bedroom! How dare you! And in my own home! Under my very nose!”
“Sir, please,” said Smythe, backing away as the blade came uncomfortably near his throat. The man was much too close. If he tried to draw steel to defend himself, Middleton would run him through on the instant. “Sir, please listen, you do not understand what truly-”
“I understand only too well!” Middleton said, his voice like a whipcrack. Smythe saw that he was breathing hard and his eyes were blazing with a fury akin to madness. And then Smythe suddenly noticed that the blade Middleton held was wet with blood. “I understand that I have taken serpents to my breast! Serpents! Harlots! Sluts! After all that I have done for them, after all those years of toil, this is how they have repayed me! By fornicating with common stable boys and players!”
Smythe was alarmed by the man’s vehemence and filled with horror by the sight of the blood upon his blade, for he now realized what it had to mean. There was a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach and his mouth suddenly felt dry. “Sir, I beg you to hear me out,” he said. “ ‘Tis not at all what you think, I swear it in God’s name!”
“You dare deny the truth to me when I have seen with mine own eyes, you scoundrel?” said Middleton, advancing on him. Smythe began to back away, still vainly trying to get a word in edgewise, but Middleton kept after him, the bloody blade hovering just inches from his throat. “Do you suppose that I shall suffer myself to be made a fool of in front of all these people? Do you think I shall allow myself to be dishonored and disgraced after all of the work that I have done? I shall see you in Hell first, along with both of those ungrateful bitches I have raised! Wanton sluts, just like their mother, may God curse her scarlet, strumpet soul! I sent that damned harlot to the Devil for her wickedness, hoping to spare my daughters from her evil influence, but I see now that they were poisoned within her very womb, for they both grew up just like her! Sluts! Serpents! And there is only one thing to be done with serpents!”
“My God,” said Smythe, as the realization struck him like a thunderbolt. “ ‘Twas you! You killed Catherine!”
“The ungrateful little witch left me no choice! I wept for her, thinking she was dead! I had such high hopes for her! She could have been a real lady, the culmination of everything that I had striven for my whole life long! Do you have any idea what it took to find a suitable husband for her, a nobleman who would consent to marry a common woman with a reputation as a shrew? And yet, at long last, I found a nobleman who would have her and on her very wedding day, to my profound chagrin, she dies! I went back to the tomb to grieve for her and all that might have been, and I stood there, weeping, and asked her why she had to ruin everything and lo! She rose again before my very eyes! In fear, I fell onto my knees, thinking that she was a demon sent from Hell, or else a punishment from God, and I cowered before her and confessed her mother’s murder and begged for her forgiveness! And then she screamed, and railed at me and struck me, and called me vile, unspeakable things, and told me how she had planned to fool me with the potion and run off with that stable boy! A stable boy! I realized then I had been made a fool of and so I struck the treacherous wench and said that I would kill her before I allowed her to disgrace me! ‘Twas then that she produced the dagger, which that cursed stable boy had hidden by her mother’s bier… And so I had no choice, you see. No choice at all. She made me do it, just like her mother, and now her sinful sister…”