The Lady and the Poet (14 page)

Whatever the truth I resolved to think of him no more. I even came to wish that I had not asked Francis to procure me his verses, for there was that in them which brought a heat to the blood that even I recognized as ungodly. So I pushed such thoughts from my mind and made myself useful to my aunt, who had begun to soften towards me, played with the innocent little daughters of the younger Sir Thomas, and took as many walks as I could with my cousin, always an entertaining companion.

And it was with Francis, several weeks later, that I visited the Inns of Court. At my request we stopped to pray a moment in the Temple Church, with its mysterious and ancient shades all around us of the Knights Templar. Next we took ourselves to the library of Lincoln’s Inn, next to the ancient hall near Chancery Lane, where Francis sought some text he wished to consult for his studies.

Ever since a small girl, sitting quiet in my grandfather’s library, I have been happy in places such as this. I loved the very silence, which was not empty but broken by the gentle turning of pages or the rare contented sigh of enlightenment. In this place, with its latticed windows and scholarly calm, I felt comforted by the warm solidity of the furniture of English oak, the flicker of candlelight on yellowing parchment, the love of learning that brought men here to pursue their passions while they forgot the hour or the need for sustenance, just as my grandfather was apt to forget until I, at ten years old, shook his sleeve and pointed to the clock.

The memory made me smile.

‘Is it your vaunted love of learning that makes you look so content here, Mistress More? Surely one your age would be happier at the Royal Exchange amongst the haberdashers or the vendors of pretty gewgaws than hidden among the venerable scholars of this dusty Inn?’

I started at the interruption and noticed that the gentleman seated
opposite, his head hitherto buried in a great volume more than a foot high and almost as thick, was my uncle’s secretary, and that his words were indeed incurring disapproval from the venerable scholars around him.

He rose and came towards me just at the moment Francis appeared from behind a great wall of books.

‘John, well met. I am here to seek out a copy of Sir Thomas North, the new collection, for my studies and yet they tell me it is not here.’

‘The volume of two years since? It must be here, since he is a member of this very Inn.’

Francis and I watched as Master Donne, amidst many a twitching and clucking from elderly gentlemen at the disturbance, strode off, to return moments later with a slender calfbound volume. ‘I fancy the churl of an assistant was keeping it for himself. None brings the ancient world to life as North does.’

‘Thank you, John. And, since I have come upon you so happily, what of Homer? Whose translation would you recommend?’

‘Come, Francis,’ he shook his head, the look in his eyes belying his harsh words, ‘be not so slovenly. Surely you can read Homer untranslated? I am sure Mistress More does so.’

My eyes looked to his to see if he jested at my expense and found only the raising of an eyebrow to answer me, so that I knew not if he laughed at me or no.

Back out on the paved court of Lincoln’s Inn it had begun to rain and my mind turned to getting home without miring my skirts in London mud. ‘Why asked you Master Donne for his opinion on Homer?’ I leaned on my cousin as a carrier trotted past, splashing stinking water a foot high in our direction. ‘Surely my uncle would be a better judge?’

‘I value his opinion. Master Donne reads as others breathe. You must not judge him so narrowly, coz, because his verses shocked you. It was you who sought them out, remember. They were not intended for eyes such as yours.’ He looked at me closely. ‘Aye. I warrant they moved you, too, and now you cannot forgive him for it.’

I stood up straight and released my cousin’s arm, the danger being past.

‘What nonsense you do speak, Francis, for one who studies Morals and Philosophy.’

‘Yet Morals and Philosophy are not found just in books, sweet Ann. As I think perhaps you are discovering.’

I would never admit it, yet there was truth in his observation. I was indeed angry with Master Donne for the feelings his verse had stoked up in me, glimpses into that other hidden world of passion and arousal.

As we walked back I felt the chill of winter descending. It would not be long now until the Parliament was dissolved and the thoughts of all turned to Christmastide and the Twelfth Night celebrations, which all the country enjoyed, rich and poor. Merriment was needed to keep us going through the hard winter days.

Already I was glad of a brick to warm my feet at night, and pulled the fur cover over me to keep out the frozen wind that sometimes swept off the river. The last few winters had been truly bitter with even the Thames freezing over and people said that this year might be cold enough again for a Frost Fair, when the river froze so solid that men and horses could ride across its surface, and makeshift taverns were set up in the middle.

This night there was a full moon and I stood with Francis in the long gallery looking out at the white-rimed trees in York House gardens that stood out, bare and stark as blackened bones, against the pale beauty of the moonlight.

I was lost in contemplation of its majesty when I noticed that Mercy had appeared holding a parcel. ‘This is for you, mistress.’

‘From whom?’ I wondered if a messenger had come from my grandmother at Loseley or my dearest Bett at Camois Court.

‘I know not, mistress. The usher found it on the table near to the great front entrance with your name on the cover.’

I undid the cloth wrapper and inside found a sheaf of papers, on each of which was written a different psalm, loosely bound in a leather covering.

Francis, teasing me, reached into the wrapper and pulled out a note which he read aloud before I could stop him. ‘In token of my great contrition in exposing your bright soul to the profanity of my verse I offer you in recompense these lines translated by Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke, a woman whose learning and wit I admire most humbly, and which when completed will be offered to the Queen.’

Francis looked at me and laughed. ‘Well, Ann, here is some verse
you can have no objection to on moral grounds. A translation of the psalms of David—and by a woman! Master Donne seeks to raise your mind to holy things. Perhaps you have turned him into a reformed character—though for my own part, I hope you have not!’

I grabbed the paper from him.

Yet Francis would not desist. ‘And you are given them before Her Majesty! I hope you are sensible of the honour. I wonder what message John wishes to convey? That he can be godly also? Or that, despite appearances, he respects the wit and learning of a woman as well as her more earthly charms?’

I answered Francis not, for I, no more than he, was certain of Master Donne’s intention. And yet I was indeed flattered that he had sought to feed my mind and not offer some pretty trifle. I saw too that it was clever in him. Perhaps Master Donne was simply skilled in the subtle art of flattery and could not resist weaving his spells even on one as young and inexperienced as I. And then I recalled my feelings on reading those other poems, how stirred I had been and how angry at him for stirring me.

That night, alone, I opened the wrappings. The folder fell open at Psalm 52 and I began to read the Countess of Pembroke’s translation, directed towards that great seducer, Satan.

And yet, as I read I was shocked to find a smile creep over my features and a face other than Satan’s imprint itself upon my mind.

If Master Donne had intended, by sending me verses of such great virtue, to establish his own in my eyes, the scheme had gone sadly awry.

SOON AFTERWARDS THE
wife of the Lord Keeper’s son, Thomas, sickened with an ague and I was kept more than occupied in diverting their young daughters to think of either Master Donne’s soul or my own.

As I played with the little maids I listened to all the plans for revels and masques to be held at York House over Christmas, and although I had always praised the country over the city, it was with a sigh of sadness that the day came for me to leave London to spend the Yuletide at Loseley.

Mary chose to stay in Mile End with the Throckmortons and Margaret, with child again, meant to hole up cosily in the rural peace of Peckham, leaving only a small party to mark the Saviour’s birth in Surrey.

Yet the pleasure of seeing my beloved grandmother and grandfather was compensation enough. Soon I was busily occupied with giving out the seasonal dole to the poor of the parish, a thing more needy after the failure of the harvest these last years, and since the dissolution of the monasteries. I am sure the monks were as corrupt as all painted them, yet the poor people still mourned their passing in the deep days of winter, when alms and food might be all that saved them from starving in the ditches.

My grandmother, aided by the funds from her busy hens, had made me a mantle of berry red, edged with fox fur. Frances had painted me a likeness of Perkin, which made me laugh for it caught his look of blissful idleness. Grandfather had set aside a volume of his favourite poet, Chaucer, for me. And I much enjoyed the look of delight on their faces when they opened the gifts I had bought in London, purchased on my ventures into the city—a pretty birdcage with a live linnet for Frances; a gilded fan for my grandmother, which she made a great show of pretending to flirt behind; and for my grandfather some fine but strong leather gloves, perfumed with lavender.

‘They will protect you from evil also, I am assured.’ For his enjoyment I repeated the colourful tale told me by the glove maker who fashioned them. ‘It seems that Mother Mary laid the babe’s swaddling clothes upon a lavender bush to dry, and the bush gave up its scent as an offering, so that now, besides its perfume, all lavender offers the gift of holy protection.’

After that I had so little diversion at Loseley that it was a guilty relief when, as soon as the Twelve Days had passed, my aunt, who had been missing my good offices, summoned me back to York House again.

‘A dull time of it we had here without your lively presence,’ she greeted me with a warm embrace, my sin at declining the role at Court temporarily forgotten. ‘Lawyers, lawyers and lawyers. I was adrift in a dreary sea of black. So I have decided to cheer myself with a banquet to mark your father’s ennoblement. Think you that that would please him?’

I could think of few things that would please him more than a hundred people feasting in his honour—and all paid by another.

‘Indeed, Aunt, I am sure it would give him great pleasure—even though he might pretend otherwise, feeling the need for a show of modesty and humility.’

‘Modesty and humility? My brother? Come, Ann, wake up and throw those winter cobwebs from your mind.’

So we started to plan the banquet. My father’s ennoblement was to take place at Shrovetide, another of the great celebrations, when all made merry before Lent descended on us. I was happy indeed that my grandfather and grandmother, and my sisters Margaret and Mary and Frances would all be bidden to York House to celebrate.

All but my beloved Bett, for Bett, to my great joy and happiness, had been with child for many months now and would be too close to her confinement to venture this far.

And it was to tell me of Bett that my sister Mary arrived one clear bright morning.

I jumped upon her eager for all I could gather of how my sister’s condition progressed, yet there was that in Mary’s face that made me run to her before she had even removed her cloak, wrapped tight around her against the February chill. ‘Is all well with our sister? When does she gather her gossips around her for the birth?’

‘Sir John passed by our house in Mile End yesternight, on his way to hunt with the Duke of Suffolk.’

‘Did he bring news of Bett?’ I asked eagerly, imagining my sweet Bett singing as she sewed her tiny nightgowns and swaddling clothes. Motherhood would suit her soft humour so much better than mine. ‘How is she faring?’

Mary gave her cloak to a servant and took my hands in hers. ‘Ailing, it seems,’ she said gently. ‘She is asking to have us about her, you especially, Ann, to help with her confinement.’

‘But is it not for some weeks yet?’

‘Sir John says they think six. But she longs for your company as soon as you may go there.’

My picture of the singing Bett was replaced by one of Bett feeling motherless and alone, and I resolved that, no matter what distractions might tempt me here, I should go to her as soon as ever I was able.

Childbirth, of the many trials it was woman’s lot to undergo, was of all the most frightening. Our own mother had died giving birth to Frances, never having the joy of holding her babe in her arms, but speeding instead to meet her Maker. I wondered if Bett dwelt on that morbid thought in the cold dark reaches of the night when the mind refuses to be salved by warmth and peace and stalks instead by the cold shores of pain and death.

‘I will ask my aunt when I may go. Will you be coming also, Mary?’

‘I hope so, yet I know not.’ She sighed and looked away. ‘I have my own household to supervise.’ It was then I noticed how unlike herself she seemed, a fainter copy of Mary rather than the woman herself, like parchment that had faded in the sun, as if her lively mind were shut up somewhere far from here.

‘Is it fear for Bett that troubles you so sorely, sister?’

Mary looked at me as if she were not sure of whether to answer or no. ‘Can you keep a secret, Ann?’

I knew from the fear in her voice that this was something of great matter and I nodded gravely.

‘It is my husband. Or rather his debts. He play acts as if the sun shone down upon him daily and all were well. And yet I know he has gambled heavily and borrowed money and, in trying to cast off his debts, borrowed more money again.’ She took my hands and pressed
them so hard that the knuckles whitened. I had never seen my brave and fearless sister thus reduced. ‘I came upon these papers in his closet. Ann, he has so many debts.’ Her voice, so low and musical, was shrill with fear. ‘And, see here, all the notes are to one gentleman, a Master Matthew Freeman of Fairby in the county of Yorkshire. What can it mean?’