The Lady and the Poet (42 page)

Seeing the parallels to our own situation—though my fortune was but a fraction of Walter Aston’s—I listened closely to the conversation. And then wished that I had not.

‘So what was the outcome for the foolhardy pair?’ enquired my father.

‘Mistress Barnes was despatched to the Fleet Prison for a twelvemonth,’ announced my grandfather with the earnest tones of rectitude satisfied. ‘And all the witnesses sent to the Clink. The marriage itself was laid aside as void and invalid.’

‘Just as it should be.’ My father noticed my presence. ‘Well, Ann, why are you lurking in the shadows? What want you?’

‘You make it sound as if there were never any question the marriage should be laid aside, Father. What if this Mistress Barnes was no fortune hunter but loved her Walter Aston with her whole heart and longed with her whole soul to be his wife and cared not a single groat for his inheritance?’

They both laughed at my innocence before my father answered me testily, ‘It would make no odds. His marriage was the concern of his family, not her. Ann, I weary of this matter for I know well the direction of your thought.’

I ought to have contained myself, I knew, and if I were not careful would undo the good work of the last weeks, yet my anger was such that I could silence myself no longer. ‘So for the good of the Mores you would marry me to a man of bad character who has tried to violate my innocence, yet all is well if it benefits my family and your dynasty?’

At that, my father struck me with his hand across my face.

‘Silence! It is you who are the violated one, whose sullied reputation cost me dear in this negotiation. And not by him but another! Aye! And maybe others yet. For as Master Manners said, where one has broke the ice…’

‘George, enough…’ my grandfather interrupted, holding down my father’s arm against him striking again, though he could hurt me no more with violence than with his words. ‘She is but two days recovered from the chicken pox.’

‘Lucky for her it were not the French pox, for it seems as if she has done enough to deserve it!’ The colour in his face was livid red as if he might any moment fall down with a choleric palsy. ‘This disobedience has gone on long enough! You will go now to your chamber, and there you will stay without food or sustenance until you cease all this unseemly talk and obey my will.’

My fury at his injustice knew no bounds. For had I not protested
my innocence and he chosen not to credit it? ‘Why not hide me away on a high mountain?’ My voice was as cold and hard as his now, for I would not play a woman’s tricks and weep and throw myself upon his fatherly mercy. If he had such. ‘Or enclose me in a metal belt to protect me against my own incontinence?’

At that I strode from the room, leaving my grandfather to watch with sadness the strangers my father and I had become over this marriage negotiation.

For my part I was more frightened than I had disclosed. My father was a proud man, proud enough to make me truly suffer. In centuries before he might have walled me up in some small airless coffin-cell, ignoring the sound of my last desperate scratching pleas. Those barbaric times might be past, yet he had power to wound me still.

If I allowed him it.

In the days that followed I found out how good a jailer my father would have made, allowing me naught but sippets of stale bread and small beer.

None were allowed to visit me, neither my grandmother, nor my sister Frances, who was no longer able to share my bed during my rebellion and now slept on a pallet in my grandmother’s chamber. Not even Prudence. I was permitted no books and my father informed all the servants to watch out for letters and messages. When I demanded how I should then spend my time, he answered, ‘Think about your position. And pray.’

A whole week passed and then another. I began to know how it would be as a prisoner in the Tower, though none yet used the rack upon me.

In the parkland outside I could see the sun shining on the green meadows, hear a lark piping high in the sky, and smell the scents of blossoms and wild roses in the hedgerows. All seemed sent to torture me.

This was, I knew only too well, a battle of wills between us and my father had no doubt as to who would win.

The only way I could see, powerless as I was, to win my release was to show myself stronger than he was. And the only manner in which I could do this was to take no more food.

Yet to do such an act was a terrible sin both of pride and of disobedience,
and, carried to its extreme, even of self-murder. Strong though I might be, I quaked at so great a risk of my soul’s damnation. And did I, even if I could quiet my conscience, have the courage to carry it through? Did God indeed expect me to behave like Master Chaucer’s story of Patient Griselda and take any blows my destined husband chose to inflict? For having had one dread glimpse of his hungry eyes I knew after our marriage I could expect no mercy from Richard Manners.

Even though God may have tested Job to the limit, I could not believe He would ordain such cruel profanity and declare it sanctified by marriage.

In the end I drew strength in seeing my denial of food not as sin but as a manner of sacrament. I would offer up my suffering to God our Father in the hope He would have true mercy upon me.

And so, the very next day, after I had prayed, I ceased to eat even the sippets of bread my father had allowed me.

I knew what his response would be, and indeed it was. ‘She will soon come round when hunger gripes her belly.’

Yet love feeds a woman better than bread or water, and although I was frightened and the pains in my belly were indeed sharp as knives, I kept to my path.

My father caused the servants to bake almond cakes and leave them outside my door so that the smell haunted my every waking moment and drove me near to distraction. Yet I kept the faith even as I became daily weaker.

I did not want to die. And yet there was a delight in denial, and in the pure white light of moral certainty, for I knew that I was right, that I should not have to wed such a one as Master Manners in the name of our familial ambitions.

And then my sisters visited, each turning the great key in the lock, and sent to try and turn my rebellious mind also. First Frances bearing texts from the Bible. And Margaret, her belly greater than ever, bearing sweetmeats. Last of all, came Mary.

She gasped at my drawn-in cheeks and the dullness of my once-bright eyes. ‘Ann, you must stop this crazed action now. Even marriage to a man you love not would be preferable to death!’

I pulled myself up in the chair where I had been resting, though
each bodily action was growing daily more difficult and my bones ached constantly. ‘No, Mary. I will not do it. I would rather perish else. I have had time here to think and that is my decision.’

She wrapped me in a fur cloak, for I was cold all the time, even though the sun shone outside, and every day the flowers bloomed, just as I faded. Indeed, I took a strange satisfaction at my life ebbing just as nature’s blazed in glory.

The day came when I wondered if it would be my last.

Already I felt the lure of the Almighty’s outstretched arms, waiting to fold me into His, for I would listen to none who told me I would surely face damnation.

Suddenly there was a great ruction below, with voices raised and doors opening and banging, as if an army had swept through the house.

With the small steps of an old woman I shuffled across the rush mats and opened my chamber door, now left unlocked.

Below, in the great passageway, my father stood, eyes blazing, his small frame as tense as if he stood up in the teeth of some great storm.

And that storm was my grandfather.

‘This is my house,’ my grandfather was shouting, ‘and I will see no more of this madness! Already she has lost her beauty and the bloom of young womanhood. Would you see the child dead and buried in her grave before you relent?’ His voice rose even further in his fury. ‘Must we dress her in a shroud instead of a bridal gown?’

Yet my father remained unmoved, his voice as cold as frozen rock. ‘She flouts my authority. And that of God Almighty who ordains in His commandments that a child must obey her father and mother. In this defiant act she challenges the very order of things, can you not see that, Father?’

‘I see that I have put up with your pride and your unbending stubbornness these fifty years,’ my grandfather accused, ‘yet I will put up with them no longer. She shall not marry the man if she would rather die than do so!’

‘Then you would let her win! And put a daughter’s wish over her father’s proper direction?’

‘Ann is no flibbertigibbet. Young though she is in years, yet she is a wise and learned woman who I myself have raised and nurtured!’

‘Wise enough to throw her good name to the wind and consort with a libertine who trumpets their liaison all round town! Long may you be proud of your teaching!’

‘George, she is near to death. Is this the end you wish for your beloved daughter?’

My father’s small body seemed suddenly a husk in the wind of my grandfather’s disapproval. ‘Then I wash my hands of her. I will release Master Manners from any negotiations. Do with her as you will.’

Upstairs, holding on to the door of my chamber, I felt like a condemned man freed from the scaffold and suddenly I fainted away.

When I came back to consciousness it was to see the stern face of my grandmother leaning over me. ‘Ann, child. We thought that Jesus was to be your bridegroom. Praise to Him that you have come back to us.’ She gestured to Prudence who stood behind us bearing a bowl of broth and some thin pieces of manchet bread. ‘Your father has gone back to Baynard’s. He leaves you now into our care and releases you from the marriage negotiations.’

I raised a feeble smile at that. ‘I heard. He washes his hands of me.’ I sipped my broth carefully, each mouthful paining me to swallow and yet the relief was such that each tasted like ambrosia.

‘Will he then let me marry whom I wish?’

‘He leaves all now to your grandfather.’

I closed my eyes, overcome with blessed relief.

Tomorrow I would begin to plan my future, the first step being to persuade my grandfather of the virtues of one Master John Donne.

Despite my weakened state that night I slept as does a babe in arms, fed with tenderness and cradled by a mother’s love.

The sun shone brighter on the morrow than I had ever seen it. The gardens were new-minted as on the earth’s first morning, every flower sparkling with drops of dew, each bird singing with full-throated happiness. I sat on a bench in the knot garden, the generous rays shining down upon me, and wrote my missive to Master Donne.

He must, as soon as the Lord Keeper could spare him, put on his finest clothes, polish his most eloquent phrases, and make his way to Loseley, where I would soften the path for him to speak to my grandfather.

Gradually over the next days, my strength came back to me. My face was gaunt and angular, still marked by the shadows of pain, yet it would soon return to health with the help of my new contentment.

And for the first time happiness seemed a true possibility. My grandfather was no easy touch, yet he knew of my good sense, and had seen the strength of my determination. That night I knelt and prayed to our Heavenly Father. ‘Dear Lord God of all things visible and invisible, grant my prayer. That I will spend my life in your service and devotion and in the company of the man whom I love. Amen.’

On the morrow Wat appeared with a note from his master. He would arrive after the court of Chancery had finished its business, by early evening at the latest.

I dressed with as much speed as I could, and ran downstairs to find my grandfather.

My grandmother was busy in the henhouse, and the servants stowing away the remains of the morning bread and beer when I looked for him in the hall.

He was outside, the steward informed me, taking in the sunshine before the crowds of claimants and petitioners streamed in to seek his judgements.

I filled a tankard of small beer to carry to him, just as I had done so often as a child, and bore it carefully out into the gardens.

At first I found him not, then at last espied him as he sat in an old wooden chair under the apple tree, his head nodded down on his chest, his face hidden by his black hat. As I walked towards him I felt such love, that he, who knew me best of all, had had faith in my discernment. Faith I would repay by a life spent in love and devotion, and in blessing and thanking my Maker, who might finally grant me the desire of my heart.

I began to shake him gently, then, putting down the tankard, with more insistence and then at last with mounting panic. It took me many a long moment before I realized the dreadful truth.

He would not be meeting and negotiating my marriage with Master Donne.

For my beloved grandfather was dead.

WITH MY GRANDFATHER’S
death, I collapsed into darkness.

My grandfather had been my protector and my teacher and the figure I loved more than my own father. Now that he was taken from me all the strength, the determination, the willpower that had driven me through the days of my father’s opposition abandoned me and I felt overwhelmed by despair.