The Lady and the Poet

by Maeve Haran

  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.

  ‘I told him. He apprehended me trying to cross the river to try and beard Master Freeman myself.’

  ‘Ann! You would not!’

  Master Donne’s words of criticism rang in my ears. How I had not thought of those whose honour and livelihood I implicated in my scheme. And now it seemed he had taken that risk upon himself.

  ‘Indeed,’ mused Francis, ‘it was a generous act.’

  ‘Yet Nick and I are barely acquainted with Master Donne,’ Mary protested. ‘Why should he risk so much to help us?’

  Francis shrugged, his eyes on mine. ‘You are slow for an educated wench, Mary. It was not you and Nick he risked his good name for…’

  My breath quickened as if I had run all the way from York House to the river bank. Had he acted simply out of generosity or was there indeed, as Francis implied, another motive altogether in his mind? To take such a risk as this implied a depth of soul I had not expected in him. And now I found an answering emotion in my breast.

  ‘I must return to my mother,’ Francis bowed his farewell. ‘Already she wonders what takes place between we three.’

  Slowly Mary turned to me. ‘Yet beware, Ann, remember his reputation.’

  ‘Is this the act of a dangerous libertine?’ I demanded, fired up at her ingratitude. ‘He has risked his rank and livelihood for us. If the man chose to dispute his authority he would have been ruined as much as you or Nick!’

  ‘Master Donne!’ Mary repeated, dropping her arm from mine. ‘So now he too knows about our shameful situation! Ann, I could wish you had not involved him in our affairs when he is nothing to us.’

  ‘Without Master Donne’s intervention your affairs would be in a sorrier state by far,’ I answered, tart as vinegar. ‘It is not Master Donne who should be called to account but your own dear Nick! Was it not somewhat late for him to fall to his knees? Should he not have considered the shame and risk to your credit and his family’s fortunes before this?’

  Mary looked away. ‘Master Donne has turned your head with his poetry and his dark gaze. Oh yes, I joked not when I said you had two admirers. I have seen the looks he casts at you when none observe him. If he were nobler or richer, and knew our father would not send him off with a flea in his ear, he would be seeking a betrothal himself!’

  ‘Mary, desist,’ I answered hotly, astonished and confused by her suggestion and my own reaction to it. ‘I will listen no more to this! Master Donne acted from nothing save generosity. I happen to know he loves a woman whose estate is far higher than my own.’

  ‘Then he is an arrant fool, unless he means simply to bed her. And if you talk of Isabella Straven, then her husband would find no complaint, for it seems the Earl wishes not to bed her himself or he would keep her on a closer rein!’

  She left me alone at that, my thoughts swirling, and the beauty of the day and my sense of relief at Master Freeman’s forgoing their debts overshadowed by her disturbing accusations.

  I stopped, leaning out over the wide waters of the river, my hands gripping the stone balustrade. Surely she was mistaken that Master Donne had cast me longing looks?

  I glanced back to where I had first espied him, watching the lovelorn pigeons and, remembering his lips on mine, felt a sudden spurt of flame deep within me. And yet, even if I did come to question my old condemnation of him, no love between us would ever be permitted. The sooner I accepted it the better. And yet, whether I denied it or not, this generosity towards my sister had moved me deeply. And like a bird that flies to its nest, I knew where my own heart would wing its way if ever it were released unfettered into the bright blue day.

  BEFORE WE SET off for Greenwich I sought out my aunt in her closet where Mercy said she had withdrawn to do some spiritual reading. Yet the haste with which she hid the book when I entered made me wonder if it were so spiritual after all. She caught my enquiring glance and revealed, tucked into her missal among the psalms, a copy of The Faerie Queene. ‘You have caught me out, niece, for I should be saying my prayers.’ Yet her face was smiling the while. ‘You have enlivened my quiet life with your presence, Ann.’

  I laughed at this since my aunt’s life is as quiet as the life of the captain of some great ship or the commander of a vast army.

  ‘I never had a daughter and only since you came to visit have I known what I missed.’

  ‘I will happily be your daughter. Yet whether you will want me as such, I know not, when you hear my request. Though it is indeed God’s work I sincerely do believe.’

  ‘Why does my heart sink like a wise woman on a ducking stool at those words from you, my Ann?’

  I could not help but smile. ‘Perhaps because I am forever teasing you with some new outlandish scheme.’

  ‘And what is your newest, pray?’

  ‘To give shelter to Wat’s young brother and sister and perhaps find them some worthier employment.’

  To my surprise my aunt did not pour scorn upon my supplication, but rather considered it. ‘Your uncle’s chaplain urges me to do more good works and, truth to tell, I do not have the taste for it, going amongst the poor and scabrous, washing the feet of beggars.’

  I tried not to smile at the idea of my aunt, always so richly and elegantly robed, her hair carefully knotted round a jewelled headdress, who hated even to get mud on her velvet shoes, getting within a league of a beggar.

  ‘Ask Joan if she can find them some tasks to fulfil around the household. Yet keep them away from the Lord Keeper. He has enough to concern him.
The Queen cannot decide whom to send in command of the Irish war and she is angry with all around her. Your uncle tries to advise and gets the sharp edge of the blade for his troubles.’

  I did as I was bid, yet the troublesome question of Ireland soon overtook us all. At York House the talk was of nothing but the Irish rebellion and the scandalous tale that the Earl of Essex, angry with the Queen at not being given command, had drawn his sword on his sovereign then stamped off, angry as a stuck pig, to his estate in Wanstead.

  My uncle much admired the Earl and sought to persuade him to return and take his place in the Council. But my lord Essex was too proud to do it. Instead he scandalized the Court by writing back asking my uncle the treasonous question: Could not princes err? And subjects be wronged?

  There was so much fear in the air that I forgot, when next I saw Master Donne, the circumstances of our last meeting. We had foregathered in the Great Hall before the evening meal and both Master Donne and, to my surprise, Richard Manners were amongst our number.

  ‘Will there be war, then, with Ireland?’ I asked Master Donne, knowing how close he was to my uncle and the great affairs of State and that his friend Henry Wotton, standing beside him, was secretary to my lord Essex.

  ‘I fear there will,’ Master Wotton replied. ‘We are having too many reports of the estates of English settlers burned and ravaged.’

  ‘And will you be going, Master Donne,’ Master Manners asked, I suspected hopefully, ‘since you have so distinguished a record in Cadiz and the Islands?’

  ‘My soldiering days are past,’ Master Donne replied. ‘I will leave it to the younger men,’ he gestured towards the Lord Keeper’s handsome son Thomas, who sat next to his wife and three small daughters, the smallest of whom came hardly up to his knee.

  Thomas picked her up and pretended to ride her up and down, making the clicking sound of a pony. ‘Shall Papa be a soldier, Dorothy?’ he asked her. ‘And ride a fine horse into battle, to fight for the Queen?’

  The child nodded, not understanding what she was consenting to, poor mite.

  ‘The battlefields of Ireland are no place for fine horses,’ commented his father grimly. ‘They would disappear into the bogs and you with them. It is a curse that we must fight the Irish rebels, yet so it must be or O’Neill will think himself higher than his sovereign. And you, Master Manners, will you be offering yourself as a voluntary for Queen and country?’

  ‘I am no fighting man,’ murmured Master Manners. ‘I have my Leicestershire estate to manage. My father is old and frail and cannot manage alone.’

  ‘Then why have you left him there so long, poor gentleman?’ asked Master Donne, all cool disdain. Their eyes locked, dislike hanging between them like steam rising from an open sewer.

  ‘Come, gentlemen,’ my uncle said with impatience, ‘we should fight the Irish, not one another. We are having enough trouble from my lord Essex and need none other to add to it.’

  Master Donne bowed. ‘You are right, my Lord Keeper, with your usual sense and foresight. Master Manners, I apologize.’ And with that he bowed, doffing his black hat, and left us.

  Master Manners smiled as if he had achieved some hard-won victory. ‘I am glad the secretary climbs down from his high horse. Why the son of an ironmonger accounts himself so great, I know not, and a Papist to boot, by his background.’

  ‘For his proper talents, perhaps.’ My uncle’s usually mild tone was as sharp as an onion that has been pickled. ‘If you are a guest in my house, Master Manners, you might remember that I myself come from humble origins, at least on my mother’s side. And like Master Donne I too was once a Papist. It is not what a man was that makes him worthy of note but what he is now.’

  Master Manners left at that, his face like thunder.

  ‘I know your father thinks much of that young man, but from my own part I have my doubts. See, Master Donne has left his parchment there on the table. This is what comes to pass when two young cocks strut like Chanticleer to impress the ladies of the henhouse.’

  ‘I will find his boy, Wat,’ I offered eagerly, ‘and see that it is returned to him.’

  ‘Thank you, Ann, you are a good girl.’ He sniffed the air. ‘Ah, a tart of spinach for supper, I guess, and afterwards capon in a lemon sauce.’ He sniffed again, his face intent like a staghound picking up a scent, which made me laugh. ‘Ah, and to follow a pudding of dates, currants and raisins of the sun.’

  As I listened, amazed that he could detect the cook’s delights with so finely developed a nostril, he produced a bill of fare for this night’s supper, beautifully written in a fine hand, and tapped me on the shoulder with it.

  I smiled all down the passageway by the Great Hall, and out into the gardens to hunt out Wat and hand him his master’s parchment. I fought with myself about the justice of opening it out. Mayhap it was another verse—perhaps praising the burnished hair, extravagant beauty and envied wit of Isabella, Countess of Straven. Yet to my great relief it proved to be naught but legal notes.

  The sun was fast descending in the west, casting a ruby glow over London and all her busy citizens as I walked through the gardens. Soon the link boys would be out with their torches and lanterns to guide home London’s gentry through the maze of dark and dangerous streets.

  I saw no sign of Wat and made for the broad oak stairs to look for him. At the top I spied Henry Wotton speaking with Francis. I was about to ask if they had seen Master Donne when I heard words that stopped me in my tracks and made me hide on the landing beneath, listening.

  ‘Does our friend John truly sigh for my cousin Ann?’

  ‘I fear so, Francis. Yet I tried to warn him of the risks that would follow such a course. “Virtuous and learned though she is,” I told him, “she is green fruit, John, too under-ripe a maiden for such as you, even if your estates were nearer and her father not so rich and high.” And know you what he answered me?’

  I held my breath.

  ‘That she has an old soul and shows greater wisdom than many thrice her age. She is not caught up with trifling things, it seems, but sees the blackness within and is not daunted. She makes him a better man and poet.’

  ‘Yet he has loved often before.’

  ‘Indeed. We must hope he cures himself of this dangerous malady.’

  They nodded their heads like two old gentlemen, hoping for the outcome, I now began to see, correct and sensible though it might be, that might also break my heart.

  I waited for them to retire to their quarters before I ran swiftly along the passageway and found myself outside the door of the chamber where Master Donne took his rest.

  Glancing quickly behind me, I pushed it open. I had never crossed its threshold before and knew that if my aunt discovered I had done so, I would be in deep disgrace.

  The chamber gave little away. It was no den of wickedness as I might have pictured it, with sweat-soaked linen tossed and tangled from nightly battles. Indeed, it was extreme neat in its appearance, with its pillows piled uniformly, its coverlets smoothed, and, standing in one corner, his boots all ranged in descending order, which it made me smile to see. I wondered where he wrote his verse since there were neither quills nor parchment to hand, and no commonplace book open and waiting for inspiration. Perhaps he carried his verses within him. Indeed there was little sign of the man in the chamber at all, save to the left side of the bed, on the wall a little higher than my head.

  It was a portrait of Master Donne, dark and shadowy, his grey eyes looking to one side, his lips full and red as a woman’s. I stared at it, trying to decipher the measure of the man. Was he one who could love a woman truly, with tender passion? Or would he, like the amorous bird he watched at our first meeting, ever be hopping to the next branch in search of newer nests?

  I studied the picture closer and saw that there was a rabbit’s foot tucked into his sleeve for a good-luck charm, and that the picture was inscribed with the words ‘Illumina Tenebras Nostras Domina.’ Lighten our darkness, Lady. I knew from my pra
yer book the words echoed the third collect of evening, yet surely here they were addressed not to the mother of God but to some gentlewoman he supposed he loved to distraction. Had he given the portrait to her and she returned it when their passion died?

  And then, a sound made me turn, my breath so fast I thought that I might faint.

  Chapter 12

  NOT TWO PACES behind me, a sardonic smile lighting up his eyes, stood the original of the painting.

  ‘Master Donne, I…’ For the first occasion in my life I stumbled for words. ‘… I came to thank you for your great kindness shown to my sister and my brother-in-law…’

  ‘It was not your sister or your brother-in-law I sought to help,’ was his simple reply.

  ‘You took a great risk. Not one I ought to have asked of you. Thank you.’

  ‘Perhaps now you will steer your brother-in-law clear of his pernicious habits. You seem to me to be a straightforward young woman,’ he smiled faintly, ‘perhaps too straightforward for your own good, who has no difficulty speaking her own mind. There is a clearness of purpose in you that he is bound to respect, for even I am humbled by it. Tell him straight what risks he leads others into.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Besides I have reasons of my own to be grateful to you.’

  My breath quickened to hear that. Was he about to admit I had rescued him from the lures of depravity?

  ‘Wat.’

  ‘Wat?’ I was so startled I repeated his name.

  ‘My servant. A boy of thirteen. Dark hair. Blue eyes. Somewhat given to cheek.’

  ‘I know who Wat is.’

  ‘I feared he might be a burden and have found him instead an object of delight. He has greatly increased my standing among my peers. Indeed some have tried to lure him to their service, others content themselves with copying his dress and manners.’