The Lady and the Poet (36 page)

‘Pretty words indeed,’ snorted my sister, gathering her skirts over her arm, ‘but I wonder how many others he has desired and got, and if he loves them still. And whether my lady Straven is amongst their gathering?’

Yet I doubted him no longer, for I knew that the verse rang as true as the purest bells tolling out over London. The words held within them a happy optimism, a fresh sense of hope and mutual cherishing that I had never before detected in his verses. These were words written and dedicated to someone who was truly and deeply loved.

And the thought I valued most of all was that amidst the world we both inhabited of Court manners, cheapened ways and false declarations, he had likened we two unto ‘true plain hearts’ just as I had done.

I thought of my grandparents, whose true plain hearts had beat together for so long, and I knew that there would be safe land ahead for he and I, no matter what wild dangerous waters stood between us now.

‘Ann, Ann,’ Mary pressed me, ‘think you that all this talk of love will soften the heart of our father? He who married Constance for her inheritance and has even now betrothed our sister Frances, who is but twelve years old, to a man she has never met?’

I stopped my ears at that, for I would not let her spoil my newfound contentment. ‘Master Donne has not cast me aside, as you suggest, for the advancement of his career, nor is he amusing himself with my lady Straven, but working all the hours God gives to further his reputation and make himself the worthier in the eyes of our uncle, that he may yet win my father’s consent to our eventual union.’

‘You dream, my sister, for it is only in the world of dreams that you will find such an outcome. Our father dislikes your lover for a fist of reasons—his lack of present fortune, his religion, his reputation—and if these were not obstacle enough, he finds Master Donne uneasy company, for your beloved poet is too clever by half for the tastes of a country gentleman.’

‘And was not your Nick clever also?’

‘Aye, but he was rich, or so my father thought, and of extreme good family. Besides, my father is disappointed in Nick, and would rather he had the staunch virtues of Thomas, Margaret’s worthy husband, or poor Sir John Mill, Bett’s dullard squire, who knows not his Chaucer from his chamberpot. And one thing yet which you seem to understand not.’

‘What is that?’

‘Our father’s pride. He sees it as his right to choose your husband for himself, for such is a father’s power to do.’

I tucked the verses into my gown, where I could keep them fast. No matter that Mary cavilled and cautioned me, my true plain heart was singing like a bird.

Not many days after my mind was distracted from Master Donne, not from lack of faith but by my concern for Mary. Until this moment she had been well and busy yet now her peach-like bloom faded and she took sick and feverish.

With Bett’s loss brought fresh to my mind by grief for my aunt, I put Mary tenderly to bed or made her rest by the fireside. After two careful weeks of guarding her like the most tender flower she began to rally and I could breathe once more.

One benefit was that, with worries of her own, Mary’s eagle eye was no longer upon me and I took good advantage of it to call Wat and send a message through him to Master Donne.

I marvelled, watching Wat in all his finery walk up Mary’s path; he seemed so graceful and self-assured, a gentleman in miniature, that it was hard to imagine his life at the tanner’s.

‘Have you heard, mistress?’ he greeted me. ‘About the uproar at York House? I am glad my master and I live there no longer.’

‘Why, Wat, is something there amiss?’

‘It is the Lord Keeper, mistress. He is preparing to marry again, to
the Countess of Derby, widow of some great earl. And all the servants fear for their positions, for Lady Alice brings forty of her own.’

I shook my head in disbelief, a great pain clouding my head at such a dreadful revelation. ‘Wat, your news cannot be true! It is but a few months since my beloved aunt was laid to rest! And the Lord Keeper’s grief was deeper than a bottomless well.’

Wat shrugged sadly. ‘Aye. Well he has managed to fill it up again. They are to be wed quietly at York House come November next, yet the lady seems already to be in command of the household.’

I was so angered with my uncle that I yearned to share it with one who would understand. My sister Mary would shrug in that worldly way of hers, tell me not to play the country innocent, and how it proved, if aught did, that marriage was a practical arrangement.

‘Wat,’ I whispered, looking behind me that none could overhear. ‘Tell your master I would speak with him. I will come tomorrow, to his new lodgings. Near to the Savoy Hospital said you?’

Wat looked dubious. He might have been a street boy but he had learned fast that well-born ladies did not visit single gentlemen alone in their lodgings.

‘Yet, mistress, think you…?’

‘The direction, Wat,’ I pressed him.

‘He lodges with a Master Haines.’

‘I will be there at five of the clock.’

Wat took himself unhappily away.

After he had left I stared out over Mary’s garden with its statues of nymphs, their arms outstretched towards some hidden lover, and I envied them. Yet their Arcadia had never existed beyond the minds of the sculptors who created them. To visit Master Donne was to risk much, perhaps all. I might care naught for the world’s opinion, yet my family of necessity cared greatly. To them my reputation was everything. And yet, I had risked it for my sister, perhaps unwisely; surely I deserved to take the risk when my own happiness might be lost at the turn of fortune’s dice?

Dared I go? What if I were seen? And yet this loneliness I felt, this sense of wandering sadly in the desert overwhelmed me. There was but one other I had met in my short life who understood it, to whose soul I felt my own joined by an invisible thread.

On the morrow I dressed discreetly, covering my face with a vizor, and told Mary’s groom that I went to find a soothing herbal remedy that would hasten his mistress’s recovery. The man seemed relieved that this time he had not to accompany me. In any other house than that my sojourning out alone would be remarked on, yet Mary’s household was as lax as she was.

By my bad luck there were no empty wherries to be found and I needs must share with a stranger, and still pay double since we rowed against the tide.

Yet at least he was not a talkative stranger and made no mention of the curious sight of a gentlewoman alone, and even harrumphed at each new line of talk the wherryman attempted to beguile us with.

I found the lodging easily enough and tapped gently on his door. Before even I had time to push it open, his arms enfolded me, and I melted into them, my heart locked against his.

‘Ann, my Ann, how I have yearned for your sweet presence all these days.’

‘And I yours. Yet I came to find if it is indeed true that the Lord Keeper consoles himself with thoughts of a new wife. I cannot believe that he plans to wed again?’

At that he smiled sadly. ‘It is true enough. And yet the lady, though beauteous and noble, is most headstrong and wilful, used entirely to her own way, so that I fear for his future peace.’

‘Then may it serve him right!’ I could not gainsay the strength of my passion. ‘Indeed I would my aunt’s soul should come and haunt him for I am much mistaken in my uncle’s character! I saw how deep seemed his grief, and now he fills his bed once more.’

‘More like his table than his bed. Men like their comforts and great men most of all.’

‘Are men indeed so fickle? I thought that was woman’s fault? Did you not swear in your verse that “Nowhere lives a woman true and fair”?’

He laughed at that. ‘That was before I met you.’

He took my hand, serious again. ‘I see that you are truly hurt by this news of the Lord Keeper’s.’

‘He loved my aunt true, I am sure of it, and nursed her in her extremity. Yet it seems as if that counted for naught. He has buried her and will wed again but a short time later.’

‘It is the way of the world.’

‘Just as it is the way of the world that I must wed the man my father chooses for me whether I would or not?’

He flinched as if I had struck him, for he knew the truth of my words.

‘Say not that, Ann.’

A knock on the door silenced us. It was Master Haines, his landlord, delivering a message.

‘I must leave,’ he sighed. ‘I am bidden to attend my lord at the Privy Council, late though it is.’

I stood up and readied myself for my return.

‘You have an air of mystery with your vizor on,’ he teased me. ‘Like some great courtesan on an assignation.’

I placed my finger on his lips. ‘Enough. I must also be gone. Wait you here awhile, until I am at the street’s end.’

‘Such mystery and subterfuge,’ he smiled.

‘I wish they were not needful.’

And saying that, I took myself quietly from his chambers and out into the darkened street. From the shadow a link boy, no more than eight years old, offered me a light to guide me and I accepted. He led me down the dark and winding alleys from the old hospital of the Savoy, now rented out as accommodation to the gentry, past the bright doorways of taverns and alehouses, and the dingy rat-infested tenements of the poor, towards the lights of the thoroughfare beyond. Once in the Strand, I felt my pounding heart slow down with the familiar sight of shops and buildings.

‘Where to now, mistress?’ asked the link boy, holding up his lantern to my face.

‘The river, if you please.’

‘Ann?’ a voice, stiff with anger and shock enquired behind me. ‘Is that truly you, Ann?’

My whole being froze as if I had heard the judgement of God Almighty on all my sins.

It was my father, Sir George More, standing not two feet beyond the light of the link boy’s lantern.

MY FIRST THOUGHT
,
since a vizor covered my face, was to wonder if I could dissemble and pretend he had mistook me for some other lady?

Yet this was my father, my own flesh and blood, and he would be bound to know me. So obvious a lie might serve to turn a misdemeanour into a hanging case.

Instead I assayed a smaller dishonesty. ‘Father, what do you do here?’

‘How dare you question me thus?’ His face was white with fury. ‘Why in God’s name are you abroad and with not even a groom to escort you? Have you lost your senses entirely?’

I searched desperately for what lie to tell him. ‘There were no grooms to spare nor any servingmen. I would never have ventured out alone were it not so needful. Knew you that Mary has been taken bad?’ This was true yet guilt assailed me in making more of it than was truly justified. ‘I have hunted high and low this day for the remedy that might help her and the babe.’ I prayed Mary would forgive me for a lie that could too easily become a truth.

‘Two miles from her home, by cover of darkness?’ If he had travelled here by coach I think he would have hit me and bundled me into it. ‘God’s thorns, is there no apothecary in Mile End that could serve?’ His small eyes fixed on mine like unto the beam of a lighthouse, yet far more threatening. ‘And what of Mary’s husband? Why could he not find this remedy? Gaming again? Or busy at some playhouse?’

Behind us a man began to step out of the shadows and I prayed with all my being it would not be he.

As my father turned to look at him, the figure disappeared into the night, the boy’s lantern catching only a froth of lace and the shape of a black hat, common enough garb in London.

Yet I knew his identity at once and quaked in fear. For I guessed how deep would be my father’s fury had he recognized the stranger.

My father stood a moment, looking after him, while I held my breath. Had he, after all, known the man for Master Donne?

At last he spoke. ‘My own groom will accompany you back to Mile End while I consider a fitting punishment for this behaviour.’

In my relief I curtsied. He had not guessed my secret.

‘Thank you, Father. Indeed I will not venture abroad again unaccompanied.’

He nodded curtly as I began to hasten away, eager for the London night with all its sinners and vagabonds, since I was but another, to swallow me up.

‘Daughter?’

‘Yes, Father?’

The blow fell like the thud of the axe.

‘You are grown too wilful and careless of your maiden state and your sister is too lax to guard you. Tomorrow you go home to Loseley. I will send a message to my father tonight.’

‘But Mary? The babe? Her confinement is but three weeks off…’

‘Then she will suffer it without you.’ I had rarely heard such bitter harshness in his words before.

‘Father, I beg. Remember Bett…’

‘Mary has her sister Margaret not five miles hence. If needs be your grandmother can ride up to aid her.’

I knew I should say no more, that of all things my father hated to be brooked in his instructions, and yet I needed to know with my whole soul what he had seen.

‘Why, Father? Why do you banish me to Loseley?’

His slight body stiffened. ‘It is not seemly for you to wander the streets of London like some common drab who struts her wares.’