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The boy glares into the looking glass as he applies another layer of powder.
It is a trick, he tells himself. The little side room where he prepares himself to work his magic is dimly lit on cloudy days, and his mum has ordered him to be frugal with his candles. So it is merely naughty shadows casting the illusion of darkness along his jaw. It is not the far more ominous promise of hair, making itself known.
Nor is it the shadow of the future, creeping ever closer, sending ahead its herald to remind the boy of its inevitable coming.
Has his mother began rationing his light because she senses an upcoming reduction in their spare coins? Nay, he shouldn't think it. To think it could invite upon them, and that is something that he simply will not do.
There. The darkness that is not truly there has been concealed, blended away into nothingness. Over the newly creamy complexion, he adds rouge, painting on Olivia's temptingly flushed cheeks. A dash of colour around the eyes makes them look brighter and deeper, and bestows on them the ability to be both coy and heartbreaking.
The boy wonders sometimes: if the colour is false but the heartbreak is real, has there truly been a deception? Can a lie that produces an honest feeling really remain classed as a lie?
Master Shakespeare would laugh if he heard the boy voice such thoughts out loud. And he would swat at him playfully and remind him that his role is not to spin poetry. His job is to be wanted and wooed, to make a leading man attempt impossible feats to win his womanly heart, and to make an audience cheer for him. And long for him. And ache for him.
The boy loves his work.
He truly does, and in that he is one of the lucky ones. He knows other young thespians who grow tired of putting on a corset and skirt every day. These are confident boys who are convinced the audience's infatuation will propel them from heroine to hero, and that soon enough they will be winning mock swordfights and staged battles to rapturous applause. Or they are embarrassed of their time spent swooning and fainting in women's weeds, and are eager to prove their manliness by joining the strolling pimps and cardsharps who make their living from fleecing the groundlings in the pit. The ones he feels most sorry for are the poor boy actors who allow themselves to believe the notes sent on scented paper from the noblemen's seats. These are the ones who beam when a beautiful carriage with velvet seats pulls up at the stage door and who smile around a mouthful of excellent wine while dabbing plaster onto their necks to cover the red bite marks there. They are the fools who retire early from an often thrilling occupation, expecting their besotted patrons to continue in their devotion even once they have hair under their arms and their voices have broken and they are no longer brave and breathtaking damsels but simply ordinary young men of the sort that can be had in any shipyard for less than the cost of a bowl of broth.
None of these temptations can touch the boy though. He longs for no greater glory than his own life.
He cannot even imagine any greater glory.
The boy frowns at his reflection and furrows his forehead. Have his eyebrows grown too thick? Are they growing darker and heavier these days, in general?
He will not contemplate the second question. No good can come from pondering that.
He could pluck out the stray hairs but that may cause his eyes to run and then he would have to redo them. He tilts his head to the side. No, he decides. They will do for the day. Tomorrow, he can see to them. Despite his youth, he is already a seasoned professional in such things. He knows what he can get away with on the stage.
And that is no wonder, for he has been doing this for years. After a handful of roles as a serving wench or lady in waiting, he debuted as the fresh and coy Bianca in The Taming of the Shrew, and since then the work has been plentiful. He died for love as Juliet and fought for it as Hermia. His Beatrice won her love with eloquent wordplay; oh, that one had been a joy! And now, he would pursue the valient Cesario, who was , of course, truly Viola in disguise.
He frowns again, more deeply this time. He has tried not to wonder why he was not chosen to play Viola; it is, by far, the meatier role. And despite his experience it went to young Richard Lamb, the new lad with the heart- shaped face and pretty bow of a mouth, the one all the orange-sellers coo over. Little Richard and his panpipe of a voice have the lead here, and the boy must stand to the side of the stage, and convince everyone that he is awed by his coltish beauty.
He bites his lip to stop the tears from coming. He must remember the state of his eyes. He will not think of it now, the way he has been shifted aside for a younger boy. Nor will he think of all the years to come, in which he will play bearded nurses, galloping about the stage and waving his padded rump for laughs. Or when he will carry spears or jugs of water, feverishly rehearsing his two lines in order to convince himself that it is really not so bad that he can no longer be an ingénue. After all, he still has speaking roles.
This must be his fate, for he cannot leave the theatre. Never. It is all he knows. All he loves.
He nearly gags on his grief.
To distract himself, he reaches for his wig. Wigs have always had a magical power for him. Once he puts them on, he is fully transformed, to a shy blonde, a saucy redhead, a witty brunette. It does not matter that the bodice of his gown is stuffed with scraps of linen. With that hair streaming down his back, he is a beauty.
He pins the cap in place with his eyes shut, and fluffs the curls around his shoulders. He fumbles for the one scant candle, and brings it closer, so that his metamorphosis will be reasonably well-lit. This will cheer him; it always does.
He opens his eyes. The image is sheer perfection. The frustrated boy actor has vanished, as if he had never existed. The ravishing Olivia has taken his place, with her golden waves of hair and winsome eyes,and the world is much improved by the substitution. The boy laughs and tosses his head, striking a pose both haughty and enticing. With a hint of a smile playing on his reddened lips, he gives the mirror a come-hither glance and speaks.
"Why, then, methinks 'tis time to smile again.
O, world, how apt the poor are to be proud!.."
His voice breaks on the last word. It cracks, and then deepens, turning the poetry into parody. And a red haze descends before the boy's eyes.
He screams, knocking over the precious candle and snuffing it out, as he sweeps his cosmetics to the floor. The table and chair he overturns, the latter snapping like a cheap matchstick construction under the force of his rage. Lastly, he smashes the looking glass,gathering up handfuls of the shards in order to fling them against the wall again. But that only exacerbates his torment. For each time the mirror shatters, it only creates another surface in which to see his reflection. And he loathes what he sees.
He is not a magnificent countess, to be desired and courted by a lovestruck duke. He is not a strong and striking woman whom a stranger would eagerly wed at first sight. Nor is he a beauty that can hold an audience in his thrall. He is a boy on the very cusp of manhood, ludicrously painted and attired. And he is weeping like an abandoned babe.
The memory and the decision come to him together. He runs to the upended table and opens the bottom drawer; he rubs the dust from the little bottle as he holds it up.
The apothecary had promised that the elixer could stop the aging process, freezing anyone who took it in a moment of perfect youth. The boy actors usually ignored him as he stood outside the stage door, hawking his wares. After all, they are usually so confident - at least publicly - that their days of beauty will be long-lasting and it is a far greater joy to spend their wages on cider and sweets and roasted meats than on some strange concoction. But the day Richard Lamb's triumph was announced, the boy had experienced a moment of weakness, and, for a couple of shillings, had gained a little bottle to slide into his coat.
Master Shakespeare had been furious when he found out. Even as he pulled at the stopper, the boy could still hear his angry reprimands.
'Tis poison, is what it is! It stops the hands of time as sure as a blade in your heart, but what purpose is there to being beautiful worm food? A year or two - that's all it takes. Perhaps three, if fortune smiles on you. But if I see you with it, you'll have no need for it, since I'd be far happier to see you leave the thespian's life alive and angry than to know your pretty corpse is festering in the ground.
The boy had listened. After all, a child is inclined to obey a man he respects so greatly.
But the boy is a child no longer.
The liquid is bitter, and he fights the urge to spit it out. Once he manages to swallow, it makes his stomach heave. But he battles to keep it down, and in the end he wins.
His heart pounds at the monumental nature of his decision. And yet there is a thrill to it as well, a small spark of pride. He has made a dangerous choice, to be sure, but it is his choice to make. Perhaps it is the first one of his adult life.
Then and there, he makes another. He will buy more bottles tonight.
He studies his image in a shard of mirror. The damage to his careful application of cosmetics is bad, but not fatal. Perhaps it is even better this way. After all, in her first scene Olivia is in mourning.
The boy straightens his wig and smoothes his gown. He shudders, just once, and then makes his way to the stage.
It is time to meet his destiny.