The Lady and the Poet (24 page)

I gasped. ‘Rein in your vanity, sir… Or, tell me, was it to quell such lascivious promptings that you sent me the psalms of David? That I might chastise myself with good works, and lo, even good works translated by a lady? Thought you then to set me a good example? Though it be not one that you choose yourself to follow?’

‘Mistress More, I am a man…’

‘Yet man is cast in the image of God, is he not? Has he not the gift of Godlike reason, that he might not be rendered passion’s slave?’ I knew that perhaps I went too far, yet I was incensed beyond resisting. ‘If what you write in your verse be true, you seem to creep like a thief from ladies’ chambers, stealing their virtue and taking much pleasure in the deception.’

I saw that I had struck a blow and might have regretted this high speech had he not quickly answered me.

‘Mistress More, the ladies I consort with do so willingly, I assure you. And it would be better if you had the humility to admit the danger, instead of disputing with me as to which of us is in the wrong.’

I fell silent for a moment at that, humbled. ‘Master Donne, does it indeed behove you to tell my aunt and uncle of this day’s work?’

The eyes that had glittered with anger softened a little. ‘I think not. I concede that some might say it was brave of you to take so outrageous a risk to save your sister.’

‘Or foolhardy,’ I admitted in a voice that was barely audible.

But Master Donne was contemplating an error of judgement of his own. ‘Since you eavesdropped upon my conversation with my mother you know that my own brother Henry also acted unwisely, or bravely according to his lights. He gave shelter to a fleeing priest and brought down upon himself the full weight of the law. When he was cast into Newgate, some whispered that I was not busy enough on his behalf, that I wished not to risk the implication of Popery for the sake of my own advancement.’

‘Perhaps you had more sense.’

He looked out across the darkened river and I had to bend to catch his words. ‘Or not enough courage. He died there of a sudden plague.’ He turned to me once more. ‘And even when he was dead, there were those who pointed out that I profited from his share of our inheritance.’

‘People are not kind.’

‘No. So I will not betray you to the Lord Keeper. Yet I lay down one condition.’

‘Which I may guess.’

‘There is a difference between men and women.’

‘Yes.’ There was the smallest smile in my voice as I replied. ‘This is a matter I have perceived.’

‘You must stop such japes as this and act the part of a modest young woman.’

‘Modest! Even if that word sentences me to a life of housewifery and endless stitchwork?’

He laughed at that. ‘And if the housewifery and stitchwork were for your own husband and household? Would that not be a task worth undertaking?’

‘That would depend on the husband.’

He raised my hood up over my head and for one instant I thought he might touch my lips with his. And wretch that I am I longed for the feel of his mouth on mine. Yet he did not do so. ‘Keep your cloak pulled up and slip in by the kitchen passageway. Go!’ He thrust me roughly and I all but stumbled as I crept along, hugging the wall, glad of the shadows and yet all the while chafing my anger to keep it warm. How dared he behave in so high-handed a manner?

I had almost regained the small door in the side of the wall leading to York House when I stopped short, winded, as if I had been hit by a lance to the stomach in the tiltyard. For coming towards me down the narrow alley was a young gentleman, finely clad, whistling an off-key tune as he walked.

It was Master Manners.

I tried to turn and run back towards the river, but it was too late.

‘Mistress Ann More, by God’s wounds!’ he shouted, dashing all my hopes that he might not have recognized me in a boy’s apparel. ‘By all the saints, what do you do abroad alone, and dressed in such clothing?’

Fear coursed through me that he had seen Master Donne or would guess the nature of my excursion. I prayed to the Mother of God to give me inspiration. And she, in her kindness and mercy, blessed me with an answer.

‘Master Manners, you startled me!’ The face I turned to him was all innocent surprise. ‘Can I let you into my secret? You will not betray me to my aunt or uncle?’

‘Mistress More, I can make no such promise…’ Master Manners began sternly.

‘I have been visiting the brother and sisters of our new servant boy, Wat. He came to me with a story of such sadness that they lacked a mother or father, and their sister Sarah prayed each day to the Almighty that He might grant them an education and give them a chance to rise from the low tide of their birth.’

Master Manners listened, disbelief printed upon his brow.

‘But why should that make you dress as a boy and travel alone into the city?’

‘To protect my maidenly innocence from comment and stares. I have travelled to Southwark to visit them.’

‘To Southwark? Alone?’

‘Master Manners we have a Queen upon the throne who has ruled us as well as a man for almost forty years. I think I am fit to travel across three miles of London without needing to call the Watch.’

‘You should not be the judge of that, Mistress More,’ was his angry response. ‘It is for your olders and betters to make such rulings. Or your husband if you had one.’

I put up my chin at that.

‘Not all would be as sympathetic to your venture as you might like. They might think you had been to visit a lover or engage in some hoydenish behaviour.’

‘Master Manners,’ I said, my voice as sugared as the lemon mead we drank two nights past, ‘could you think me guilty of hoydenish behaviour when I was about the Lord’s work? I have undertaken to teach these children their letters. What use is there for the plentiful education God has bestowed upon me, unless I can use it to better the path of others less fortunate than myself? Tell my aunt if you must, but I would rather do it in my own time and you would endear yourself greatly to me if you forbore.’

I did not wait for an answer. I could see him watching me, his face a picture of confused suspicion. I angered him in some manner he could not find the name for.

It was a dangerous game, for I could see in his face that it only made him want me in his power the more.

Back in my chamber, thankfully observed by no groom or tirewoman on my return, I stripped off my boy’s attire and hid it beneath my pillow.

Then, dressed only in my shift, I sank to my knees at the foot of the bed and wept in anger, in frustration and in fear.

‘
THERE YOU ARE
,
mistress!’ Mercy greeted me just as I fastened up the final hook on my woman’s apparel. ‘Your aunt sent me to find you betimes, and I searched high and low, yet not hide nor hair of you could I discover. And the mystery is, no gown seemed to have been taken from your press or coffer.’

‘I was wearing an old dress brought from the country. I am sorry, Mercy. I must have dawdled in the garden reading my prayer book.’

‘For five long hours?’ she enquired with the veriest trace of insolence. ‘Your soul must surely be saved after that, mistress.’

Without knowing it, I found myself smiling at the debate I would have had with Master Donne on this topic. Could prayer and good works help save a soul, as some believed, or were the chosen few truly elected by God before even they were born, and no amount of dipping into prayer books or good deeds could alter their predestined fate?

‘I need to speak with Wat about a pressing matter that concerns his family. Please bring him hither.’

Mercy trudged off with a grudging look to seek out Wat, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

For once Wat looked as meek as a lamb when he made his entrance to my chamber. He waited till Mercy had unwillingly left, for she wished to hear more of these strange happenings, before he spoke. His bright eyes, often times so full of mischief and of fun, and intelligent withal, were clouded by anxiety at my probable reaction. ‘I am
sorry, Mistress Ann, for so betraying you to Master Donne. I saw you making for a wherry, dressed in my clothes. I could not let you trespass on the wilder shores of Southwark alone and unprotected.’

‘As a matter of fact,’ I replied sternly, ‘I am well able to protect myself.’ His young face looked so rebuked that I added: ‘Yet thank you for your care of me.’

He bowed low and doffed his hat, for all the world like his master or a Court gallant, and despite my anger I could not but laugh to see him grown so noble.

‘You saved me from the tanner, mistress. See, look at my hands.’ He held out both palms for my inspection. They were pink and soft. ‘Joan gave me the wool grease from her cousin’s ewe to rub into them.’

I smiled at how fierce Joan had kept this kindness to herself. Wat’s merry soul seemed to bring out the gentleness in us all.

He was about to take his leave.

‘Wat, one thing. Your brother and sister.’

‘Yes, mistress.’

‘Is it true your sister Sarah can no longer care for them?’

The narrow face looked suddenly older, as if borne in on by cares he knew not how to manage. ‘She is sick, mistress, struck down with the sweats.’

I nodded. The sweats were a terrible affliction, often striking the young and strong and sometimes carrying them off within a day.

I reached for my purse with the few pennies I still had left. ‘Go to the apothecary and see if there is aught that can help her. Then let us see if we can find shelter for them here.’

Now I had only the small task of persuading my aunt to give her approval.

I remembered that the next day we were to go to Greenwich to hear my uncle’s chaplain preach a sermon. I would try and persuade my aunt then. I wondered if the Queen would attend, since sermons could be as popular as plays or masques when they were delivered by an eloquent and interesting thinker, though secretly the churchgoers enjoyed assessing each other’s finery as much as listening to the topic of the worthy discourse.

I found myself wondering, on the morrow, as I dressed myself carefully, if Master Donne had a mind to listen to preachers. I would bet
an angel coin he preferred to do the things preachers condemned, than to sit and hear the condemning. But we would see.

Before I had finished dressing my sister Mary burst into my chamber, her smile as wide as if one close to her had recovered after a long illness. ‘Ann, Ann, I am come here with the greatest speed. Master Freeman has returned Nick’s notes not an hour ago and will harry us no more! You can hardly picture with what relief I greeted the letter when it arrived at our house this morning. And Nick! He was so amazed he fell to his knees to thank the Almighty God there and then for our deliverance.’

I was filled with confusion at this revelation. Why should Master Freeman have changed his mind and freed my sister and her husband from their obligations so suddenly?

‘Sister, I am indeed glad for you! And now you must make the most of Nick’s repentance and ensure that he does not waste his money on gambling again.’

‘Indeed.’ She put her arm around me, and we both stood silent, overwhelmed by relief that we were safe and neither of us ruined, looking out over the bustling thoroughfare of the Thames, where small wherries wended their way through big cargo boats loaded with building materials for the city’s expansion, and the painted and canopied barges of the nobility.

‘And your letter is returned as well?’ I demanded of her.

She flushed at that, as if already she had tried to put it from her thoughts.

‘Mind that you take no such risk again. Know you what caused this sudden freak of mercifulness in Master Freeman?’

She shrugged as if she cared not a jot how it had come about, now that the burden had been lifted from her shoulders. ‘Francis has gone to make discreet enquiries. I had to let him into my confidence. He is our cousin after all.’

We took ourselves to the withdrawing chamber where my aunt sat sipping sugared wine, listening to sweet music sung by four pretty youths.

‘Ann! Keep away from the Lord Keeper! He is in such a choler! And all because he needed Master Donne by his side this morning for some business of the Privy Council’s and he was nowhere to be found.
He shouts of his secretary being a man of straw and even refused my chamomile infusion to soothe his temper!’

A sudden premonition assailed me, that made me flush with shame and guilt. From the corner of my eye I noticed my cousin slipping into the room, and indicating with a shake of the head that Mary and I should extricate ourselves and follow him.

‘Francis!’ His mother suddenly noticed him. ‘You also have been absent. Where have you been visiting this morning?’

Francis bowed deeply and kissed her hand. ‘Hawking, Mother, across the river in Peckham.’

He patted the elaborate headdress on the top of his mother’s head and followed us both from the chamber.

‘Well, Mary, you and Nick have Master Donne to thank for your relief. It seems he threatened this Freeman with the full apparatus of the Lord Keeper’s stately power to make him release Nick’s debts.’

‘Master Donne?’
my sister parroted in horrified tones. ‘What knows he of our private matters?’ She turned to me.