The Lady and the Poet (35 page)

‘Shame on you, Ann, to look so at our aunt’s departure from this life. Master Donne must have been weaving spells indeed to make you act so unbecomingly.’

‘I know not what you mean,’ was my reply.

‘Ann, I know that look, I have seen it before on ladies who have put passion before reason. If this goes on it will bring you nothing but shame and ruin. You must think at least of your family, of our father’s position.’

‘You wrong me, sister.’ I raised my chin proudly. ‘Naught but common human sympathy has passed between myself and Master Donne.’

My sister shrugged. ‘From the look in both your eyes, human sympathy must be a dangerous commodity indeed.’

The small party waiting to go to the burial stood outside. My father, wrapped in furs against the cold, my cousin Francis, his eyes red-rimmed with grief at the loss of his mother, and next to him his betrothed, named Mary also. Margaret stood a pace apart with her solemn-faced husband, Thomas, and of course the Lord Keeper.

And behind all stood Master Manners, his face turned towards us as if listening intently to our murmured discourse.

We made our way sadly to the graveside, the minister reminding us to thank God that my aunt was now delivered from the miseries of this sinful world.

‘Earth to earth,’ he intoned, throwing a handful of soil into the gaping hole where my aunt’s coffin had been lowered, ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection into eternal life to come.’

The snow began to fall as we stood mourning, adding its soft tears to my own, numbing my flesh until it felt as dead as my soul. Why did all I loved have to die untimely?

By the time the prayers ended hardly an hour had passed and yet the snow had settled thick upon the ground, leaving all of London muffled and quiet, its noisy engine stilled, as if out of respect for my aunt’s sad passing. Beneath its covering of snowfall the city hid its
dirty clothes and glowed and dazzled with such whiteness it seemed almost a miracle.

My father laid his hand on the Lord Keeper’s shoulder. ‘It is a sign that her departed soul is received into Heaven.’

Then he embraced his nephew. ‘Pyrford is yours now, Francis, and I hope we will see you there.’

The shock he delivered to me was one I should have looked for, but had not. ‘And what of you, Ann?’ my father asked. ‘You must go home to Loseley since there is no more need for you to bother the Lord Keeper with an extra mouth to feed now that your aunt has gone.’

These words sounded as a scaffold being built, each nail going straight into my heart.

For my father spoke the unwelcome truth. With my aunt’s passing there was no rhyme or reason for me to stay on living at York House, or even in London.

Save one.

‘She can come again to Mile End,’ Mary offered. And giving me a speaking look, added, ‘I will guard her like a jailer.’

‘Why should you need to guard her at all, Mistress Throckmorton?’ We turned to find the shrewd and measuring gaze of Master Manners upon us once more.

Mary, who can jump side-saddle over six-foot fences without flinching, faltered at this. ‘My sister Ann,’ she answered him, regaining confidence, ‘is prone to rash and impetuous conduct—the acquisition of small boys, of whole families indeed, berating cruel masters, dressing in boy’s clothing…’

‘Indeed,’ he regarded me narrowly, ‘these sound more the actions of a hoyden or a playactor than a high-born lady.’

‘Ann is prone to forget, in the heat of the moment, that she
is
a high-born lady.’

‘Then she needs someone to remind her.’

Though his face was smiling and handsome there was that in his voice that made me shiver, and not from the snow that fell steadily upon my shoulders either.

‘I would be happy for you to visit my father’s house in Leicestershire,’ he announced, ‘so that you might see for yourself my birthright.’

‘It has forty rooms,’ whispered Mary.

‘And a dining pavilion besides,’ added Margaret. I could see that my sisters had been gossiping together and planned some new campaign.

I kissed my father and returned to my chamber, my soul as heavy as the lead coffin it had taken six strong men to carry to her graveside.

That night I passed a note to Wat, bidding him ask his master to visit me as soon as ever he could.

My whole being leapt like a hart on a spring morning when I heard his knock on my chamber door.

‘I must say goodbye. I am to go back again to Mile End with my sister.’

Despite my sorrow he seemed relieved. ‘Better than banishment to Loseley. Mile End is not so far. You may still visit us at York House from there.’

‘Yet we will have no time to read and talk together as we have done this last week. There will be no more meeting of true plain hearts.’

‘And what of bodies, Ann?’ he burst out suddenly, as if he could no longer contain himself. ‘Are we never to express our love through the flesh also?’

Remembering how I had tried to take him to bed, and he had out of conscience refused me, the words of another of his poems came to me. ‘“Or else a great prince in prison lies”?’

He shook his head. ‘Know you that verse of mine also?’

I laughed and quoted further: “‘Love’s mysteries in souls do grow, But yet the body is his book.’”

At that he pulled me against him and held me there, the tautness of his body pressed against mine, and the fire inside me flamed bright enough to burn down all York House and both our futures with it.

When at last he let me go, all I cared for was that we found a way to cast our futures in the same mould.

‘I am not yet betrothed to Master Manners. No legal contract exists between us. Why do we not go together to my father and beseech him, in the name of love, to let us wed? He has a fiery temper but he is not a cruel man.’

Even as I spoke I knew my words to be like mist over the Tyburn
gibbet, dissolving in the morning sunshine to show the brutal truth beneath.

‘Ann, my Ann, the love we feel is seen by such as he as a sickness, a danger, a very threat to all that he believes in. He will accept me only if he sees that I am fit for you. If we go now he will accuse me of taking advantage of your innocence. Though I would wish it else with my last breath, it is best that we stand blameless of his charges.’

‘Yet if we go not to plead our case to my father,’ I protested, ‘he may wed me to Master Manners whether I agree or no.’

‘Then I must haste and prove to the Lord Keeper that I am worthy of advancement. That should he but rear me up and set me out, I shall indeed be worthy of your father’s trust and your love.’

‘Amen to that.’

And so we knelt by the side of the great bed which had been our secret garden and our golden refuge and joined our hands together. Had there been a crucifix as there would once have been above each bed before the great changes, I would have looked to it. Instead I bowed my head. ‘We will be together, you and I, if it be God’s will, and so I swear.’

‘You are nearer to God than I,’ he answered, his eyes still cloudy with desire. ‘For I would have us be together were it God’s will or not, even if it cost me my immortal soul.’

My eyes held his, soft with my new-found love. ‘Then let us hope the price will be cheaper than that.’

AS THE WORLD
of York House came back to life after its week-long sleep of grief, I sadly embraced my uncle, my cousin Francis and his betrothed, and went to live again with my sister Mary, whose great belly was growing vaster by the moment.

From there my sister made it her greatest project that I should be too busy or too bone-tired to clap eyes on Master Donne. She ever wanted this book or that medicine, or a cordial from this apothecary or a tonic from that herbalist, and all the while sent her servants along under strict instruction to keep me in their sight and him from it. I felt almost a prisoner in my sister’s home. And yet, slowly as if each minute were an hour, the weeks and months began to pass.

The sole saviour of my sanity was Wat, whose existence they all forgot. And Wat loved me with so great a devotion for saving both himself and his siblings, that he would do aught that I asked him or even lie that I had said nothing.

And it was he who told me with what industry Master Donne was keeping his word to raise himself in the Lord Keeper’s eyes. No more frequenting plays, or visiting ladies, or writing verses, as his master was wont to do. Now, said Wat, Master Donne did naught but harry the six clerks who between them administered all the cases at the court of Chancery; question the Examiners who demanded money from petitioners to take their statements and make sure they did not overcharge; and haggle endlessly with the Clerks of the Sub-poena Office and the Clerks of the Petty Bag, all in the cause of the Lord Keeper’s reforms. On one occasion, Wat recounted, he even took issue with the Royal Chafewax for demanding extra payment to heat the wax to have a document sealed!

I could see this was a dangerous business, for those who lost out on their bribes and overcharging would not take it happily.

My uncle, it seemed, was burying his grief by redoubling his efforts to root out petty corruption, and Master Donne was proving an able accomplice.

Yet though I applauded my love’s good intentions, I sorrowed in the fact that it seemed he was now too occupied to write or visit me. My only consolation was that, as he intended, his endeavours would advance him with my uncle and, in that way, lead to more chance of acceptance by my father. Yet his absence pained me sorely. And my sister did her best to turn the knife in my wound.

‘Perhaps it is not all work and no play with Master Donne, as you so generously imagine,’ my sister told me slyly one afternoon as she lay upon her daybed, her belly so great it brought to mind a seethed egg perched upon a sippet of bread. ‘For I hear Isabella Straven is up to her tricks once more. The Earl, her husband, has fallen from his horse and instead of tending him as a wife should, my lady has come to London to seek her diversion.’

I had to feel that Mary told me for my protection yet she did not need to relish the revelation so.

And still this silence.

My confidence, at first as bright as the evening star, began daily to wane. While my sister whispered that I was but another conquest of a corrupted soul, I refused to listen to her.

One day I caught my reflection in Mary’s costly new looking glass, so much prized and eagerly sought by the fashionable, and saw the saddened look that was in my eyes, not long since so merry and overflowing with my love.

And yet I would not believe such. I had seen the tenderness reflected in his eyes, had felt the gentle touch of love upon my skin as well as the raging fires of passion that we had been forced to damp down with the needs of present practicality.

I would keep my faith.

And keep it I needed to, as the days passed, for I was sorely tried by so long a silence.

‘The truth is,’ my sister told me baldly, as she came upon me staring sadly down the street in the direction of the city, ‘he has thought better of your arrangement. He knows he could have you at the flick of the dice and now he thinks of his own advancement, how it would be dangerous indeed in him to break his master’s trust, and go creeping through corridors to slake his lust upon the great man’s innocent niece. Indeed he wonders how he could ever have been so foolish and is no doubt grateful that all has ended without discovery.’ She looked narrowly at me, holding on to my shoulders, gripping them so hard there would be a bruise tomorrow, while my heart shrivelled like an oyster doused in lemon. ‘Wake up, sister, from this dream! Our father will never consent to such a union.’ She scanned my face intently. ‘There has been no unwanted legacy? You have had your flowers this month as usual?’

‘Mary, stop!’ I felt my face flame up at her scrutiny. ‘I have no cause to look to my flowers. Hard though you may find it to believe, we committed no sin of the flesh.’

‘In
deed
perhaps, but in thought you did.’

‘Aye… well, in thought. But in deed…’ I smiled suddenly, remembering his verse, ‘his prince remained in prison.’

Mary threw back her head and laughed so loud her belly wobbled like an apple jelly. ‘The best place for it. Tell him to keep it there.’

Would that I had the chance. But his silence was breeding the beginnings of doubt in me.

As we stood, Mary and I, regarding each other suspiciously, there was a knock upon the door. I knew I should wait for her steward or groom but I wished to get away from her condemning looks. So I opened the door myself to find Wat standing there upon the doorstep, smiling as if it were the final day of Lent.

‘Mistress Ann, I have a letter from my master.’ I could see that he shared my relief.

‘Hah!’ said Mary, who had waddled down the stairs behind me. ‘No doubt it will be as I said. How he is sorry not to have honoured your worthy trust in him, yet sees he must extricate himself from a relation that must in the end dishonour you.’ She glanced at Wat, seeing that she had been indiscreet in front of him. ‘You, boy, get you hence. We want none of you nor your sly master neither!’

Yet the parchment I cradled in my hands said none of this. I leaned against the door, shutting out the chill early spring air, in which, despite the heavy months of winter, new life was starting again to bud and blossom, like my heart.

Both from relief and the desire to show my sister she was wrong, I held it up and began to read aloud the lines he had written me. ’Shush, sister. It is a verse entitled “The Good Morrow”.