The Slaying of the Shrew (Shakespeare & Smythe 2)

“I hate it when you call me Kate,” she replied, through gritted teeth. “My name is Catherine!”

“I should think I ought to know your name, girl, I bloody well gave it to you.”

“Father!”

“Be silent! God’s Wounds, I shall be eternally grateful when at last you have become your husband’s baggage and not mine. These seventeen long years I have put up with your sharp tongue and it has exhausted all my patience.”

“Really, Father, it cannot have been that long, surely. For the first three or four of those seventeen years, I could scarcely even speak.”

“You learned soon enough and well enough to suit me,” Middleton replied, dryly.

“I have always sought to please you, Father,” Catherine said. “ Tis a source of great discomfort to me that I have always failed to do so. Would that I had been a son and not a daughter, then doubtless I would have found it much less of a hardship to find favor in your eyes.”

“Would indeed that you had been a son and not a daughter,” said her father. “Then I would not have had to pay nearly a king’s ransom to get you married off.”

Gregory, the young apprentice, chuckled at that, but Catherine ignored him. The only evidence she gave that she had heard him was a tightening of her upper lip. Elizabeth thought it was insufferable that her father should speak to her that way in front of Strangers. She felt awkward being in the same room with them herself.

“And yet you are paying merely in coin and a vested interest in your business,” Catherine said, “while I am paying with my body and my soul and all my worldly goods. If the shoe were on the other foot, and ‘twas I who paid the dowry to have you married off, then which of us, I wonder, would you think was paying the greater price?”

“The greatest price, I fear, shall be paid by poor Sir Percival, who shall be marrying naught but trouble and strife,” said Middle-ton. “My conscience is clear, however, for none can

say that I made any misrepresentations at all in that regard. Indeed, I made a point of it to acquaint Sir Percival in full with the nature of your disputatious disposition, so that no claim could afterward be made that I was not forthright in all respects concerning this betrothal and this union, and so that no rancor ever could be borne.”

“And that is very well, for I would not wish you to bear Sir Percy’s rancor, Father,” Catherine said. “Better by far that a husband should bear rancor towards his bride than towards his father-in-law. ‘Tis well that you have so fully acquainted him with the nature of my disposition, as you say, for now at least one of us shall know something of the one with whom we are to say our vows.”

Her father harrumphed and frowned, looking as if he were about to make a sharp rejoinder, but instead chose to direct his comments towards the tailor. “Are you finished yet with all this bother? God’s Wounds, one would think that you were costuming the queen herself!”

“A moment more, milord,” the tailor said, fussing about and hovering around Catherine like some great predatory bird. He made a few final adjustments, stepped back to admire his handiwork, nodded to himself with satisfaction and then clapped his hands, signalling his apprentices to finish and pack everything away.

“At last!” said Catherine, with a heavy sigh. “I was beginning to feel like some bedraggled scarecrow in the field.”

“Would that your dress were no more expensive than a scarecrow’s,” said her father. “With what this fellow charges for his work, I could attire at least half the court.”

“Milord, I have attired at least half the court,” the tailor responded stiffly, “and upon occasion, even Her Majesty herself, as you must surely know, for you had inquired about my work before you ever came to me. If a gentleman wishes to have nothing but the very best, then he must be prepared to pay for nothing but the very best. I can assure you that once the work is done, and your daughter in her wedding dress would make the goddess Aphrodite blush for the meanness of her own apparel, I am confident that you will consider the money to have been well spent, indeed.”

“Spent is just how I shall feel when all of this is over,” Middleton replied. “No sooner shall I have recovered from the ordeal of marrying off” my eldest daughter than I shall have to contend with marrying off” my youngest, who already has suitors flocked about her like hounds baying at the moon. A day does not go by, it seems, when some young rascal does not come pleading for her hand.”

“Well, be of good cheer then, Father,” Catherine said, “for at least you have never been beleaguered so on my account.”

“Had you a sweeter and more amiable disposition, like your sister, you might have been married sooner, Kate,” her father replied.

“Never fear, dear Father,” Catherine said pleasantly, with only the barest trace of sarcasm in her voice, “I shall be married soon enough, and sweet and amiable Blanche will surely follow hard upon, for all the panting swains who trip over themselves to find her favor. Then, when you are at long last rid of both your daughters, doubtless you shall find the peace and carefree solace you have always longed for.”

“Indeed, the day cannot come soon enough for me,” he said, stepping aside to let the tailor and his apprentices out the door. He wrinkled his nose as they passed and raised a small pomander on a gold link chain to his nose. The little golden ball was perforated, so that the scent within could escape and help mask offending odors. “Good evening, Elizabeth.”

“Good evening, sir,” she said, lowering her head, though not so much out of respect as to conceal her smile and barely-suppressed giggle at Catherine’s face, which was perfectly mimicking her father’s expression of distaste behind his back.

“I could just scream,” said Catherine, after he had left and shut the door behind him. She rolled her eyes. “The way he goes on over this wedding, one would think he was out at the elbows.”

“ ‘Tis a most elaborate and costly affair, though, you must admit,” Elizabeth said. “Her Majesty’s own tailor makes your wedding gown, a grand, costumed progress on the Thames is being planned, to say nothing of the players and the fair being held to commemorate the occasion… indeed, your father spares no expense.”

“But do you think any of it is truly for me?” asked Catherine, as her tire woman helped her out of her large hooped, canvas and whalebone farthingale, which she had worn over a simple homespun long tunic for the fitting. “He does it all only for himself, so that all of London shall talk of nothing but the wedding of Godfrey Middleton’s daughter. Such a spectacle! So grand! So fabulous! And to think what it must have cost him! That, my dear Lizzie, is the true object of this entire exercise.”

“But everyone knows full well how rich your father is,” Elizabeth replied, with a slight frown. “How does he profit by reminding them?”

“ ‘Tis not everyone he wishes to remind,” said Catherine, as she removed her long tunic and was assisted into a simple kirtled skirt of marigold velvet accented with gold and silver embroidery. “Mind you, he wishes everyone to speak of this Olympian wedding festival for months on end, but only so that an important few may hear.”

“But why?” Elizabeth asked.