The Lady and the Poet

by Maeve Haran

  ‘I have the healing power. I have had it since I was a girl, though I kept uncommon quiet about it.’ She smiled bitterly. ‘Such things are not often understood and the owner can end up on the ducking stool or with her heels singed at the stake if she vaunts it too much abroad, the more when she is a crone as I am. I’ve seen it time and time again. People take the benefit then turn on the giver. Now, granddaughter, open your eyes and look at me.’

  Despite the lowness of her voice there was that in her tone that would have made sovereigns do her bidding. She stood up close to me, her eyes on a level with mine. Then she placed her hands upon my shoulders and there was such lightness yet firmness in her touch that an involuntary sigh of comfort escaped me.

  ‘Ann More, young though you be, you are a rare woman. Sharp. Strong. Full of light. I have seen many ladies in my time, yet few of your stamp. With your grandfather’s death your light went out. Dark ness flooded through you, your soul felt in chains. I will strike those chains.’ She hit my wrist with the side of her hand and I could swear I heard the sound of metal clanging. I looked at her, bone-cold panic freezing me to the spot.

  ‘Ann,’ she spoke even softer now, so that I had to lean forward to catch her words. ‘The chains. They were not made of iron, but of fear. There is no need for that fear. You think your father has treated you cruelly, yet he did what he thought right. I have persuaded him that this was not so. He goes back to London to sit at the Parliament next week. He will take you with him and you may assist him as you did before. You will never wed Richard Manners. Now shrug off this darkness and embrace the light.’

  I shut my eyes and behind my closed lids felt the room fill with blinding rays. And I knew that she was right, the light had been there all the while yet I had but lost it from my sight.

  ‘Thank you, Grandmother.’ I held her to me, feeling the hard starch of her ruff cut into my cheek as I embraced her, yet I cared not a jot.

  ‘What you do with your freedom is none of my concern,’ I remembered then how she had secretly sent Prudence when she thought me so ill, ‘but I will tell you this much: your father will never agree to a marriage he considers beneath him. There will come a time, Ann, when you will have to take your future into your own hands.’ She turned me to look at her, at that unsmiling face with its great hawk nose and stern jawline, its dark brown eyes that bored into mine. ‘Yet, remember, if you make the choice you long for, you may be choosing a life of hardship, exclusion, perhaps of poverty…’

  ‘And contentment.’

  ‘Hardship and contentment are not usual bedfellows.’

  ‘Then I will make them so.’

  ‘You are a strange girl, Ann.’

  I took her hands in mine. ‘Thank you for giving me a chance.’

  ‘How could any of us stop you? I doubted not that you would starve yourself even unto death. Now, dress yourself and thank your Redeemer for letting you live.’

  ‘I will.’ I raised her hands and kissed her roughened fingers—my grandmother had never acted the fine lady. ‘And you also.’

  And then I dressed, choosing a gown of yellow under an orange kirtle, for I felt the sudden desire for the warm colours of the sun, and I combed my hair and pinched my cheeks and went downstairs for the first time in many, many days to find my grandmother and Frances in the withdrawing room, commanding the servants in the task of packing up goods, for my father was planning soon to claim his inheritance, while my grandmother moved to a dower house not far away.

  ‘When comes my father to take occupation?’

  ‘He and Constance come today. I am moving to the old manor. Frances stays.’

  I took a long walk round the beloved house knowing it would never be as I remembered it. I loved it, in all its solid simplicity; it was a part of old England, the best part too. The portraits on the walls stared down at me: my grandfather, now restored to his proper place, my grandmother, the boy king Edward VI, the ill-fated Anne Boleyn.

  Frances said my father planned a picture gallery to put them in, and a riding school also and a new chapel so God would not feel left out of all this magnificence.

  By afternoon all was abustle with the arrival of my father and his wife, Constance, any moment expected.

  The servants had all gathered anxiously to greet him, from the steward down to the humblest groom. There was a sense of tension in the air, for none knew what the future would hold, never mind they had worked here all their lives in my grandfather’s devoted service.

  And they were right in their anxiety. No sooner had I arrived in the Great Hall than I heard Constance’s voice ring petulantly out. ‘We have fifty liveried servants of our own at Baynard’s, so I know not what work we will have for all of these. And our own steward to boot.’

  Along with Frances and our grandmother, I curtsied dutifully as my stepmother took possession of our childhood home, though the feeling in my heart was as black as night.

  Constance was a plump woman who had become so stout I doubted she could climb on a horse. And if ever she mounted my father she must surely smother him.

  She accepted our curtsies as if she were Queen Elizabeth herself. A kinder lady would have told my lady grandmother, who was nearing eighty, that standing in line to greet her was unnecessary in one of her advanced years, yet she did not. And when we stood up again she whispered loudly to my father, ‘I had forgot. At least Frances is a credit to you.’

  Frances smiled proudly, until I kicked her.

  Even before the servants had been dismissed I could see Constance look around the room, planning how she would improve it. How this must have seemed to our grandmother, who had lived at Loseley all her married days and filled it with her treasures, I know not for she bore it with great dignity. Yet, as Constance swept from the room to tour the house, quill and parchment in hand, I heard a small sigh escape her.

  ‘You will soon be safe in your jointure house,’ I murmured.

  ‘Ann, be not so ungenerous,’ corrected Frances. ‘Our stepmother has many worthy qualities.’

  My grandmother and I smiled. When Frances left on some errand my grandmother leaned into my ear. ‘You are fortunate to be going to London. There will be changes enough here.’

  At last the moment came of my release. We would leave for London within the hour.

  As I packed up my baskets and trunk I decided to speak to Constance about Stephen and Hope, and how I would answer for their treatment if aught befell them.

  ‘How can you answer for them when five minutes since you ran about half-mad like some demented creature from Bedlam?’ Constance demanded, laughing scornfully. ‘How can even you take care of yourself? And who will wed you now that you have refused Master Manners? Not your scandalous poet. We have seen the last of him.’

  I turned on my heel that she would not see the pain in my eyes.

  Frances tried to follow, eager to tell me aught, yet Constance called her back.

  Yet despite all, my spirits could not be kept down for long. I was going to London, not York House it was true, now that the new Countess was its mistress, but a stone’s throw away at the lodgings my father had taken in Charing Cross.

  And but ten minutes on foot from Master Donne’s lodging.

  My grandfather’s groom broke into my thoughts with the news that our coach was ready and waiting outside and my father installed in it.

  ‘We will miss your lively presence, mistress,’ the man said and though he smiled I could see the fear shining through about his future here.

  ‘Not so lively lately.’

  ‘Aye, it has been a sad time.’

  He took my basket and carried it from the dark back entrance out into the sunlight where the coach stood waiting.

  I took one last glance round my family home, no longer a place of peace and protection, and prepared to follow him.

  ‘Goodbye, child!’ My grandmother had followed me out. ‘Go to London, and good luck to you!’ I clung to her, conscious that the future awaiting me was unce
rtain and difficult. And yet for the first time in many weeks I felt an unfamiliar emotion.

  Hope.

  Chapter 21

  YET I HAD to keep this feeling hidden from my father. The journey to London passed in bitter silence on his part, as if he no longer had a daughter.

  His humour I found to be matched by a city that was quieter and surlier also. More taxes were being squeezed from the populace for the Irish war, and a new commander chosen, yet the war dragged on apace. The Earl of Essex, so long the Queen’s delight, had met a sombre end on Tower Hill as my sister’s husband had predicted, so far gone in vanity and treason that even the Queen could not save him. I wondered what the lady Mary Howard thought of that.

  The lodgings my father had bidden in Charing Cross were surprisingly spacious given my father’s closed fist. They comprised ten rooms, with several bedchambers, dining chamber, withdrawing room and space for cook and servants and a small garden. The views were of naught but other buildings, so near across the alley that I could reach out and shake the hand of my opposite neighbour. Each chamber was large and clean enough, yet had gloomy walls adorned with tapestries that had seen better days, each having acquired a faint greenish hue that cast a depressing light on all the occupants, as if viewed through a murky pond, and this did little to raise our sombre mood.

  My father had brought baskets of petitions and submissions sent to him as member of Parliament, commissioner and justice and I began to try and make myself as useful to him here as I had at Loseley.

  This was not easy as he was as cold and forbidding as a mountain crag in wintertime. Even, on one occasion, he withdrew his arm from the chair where it leaned lest I touch it as I bent to pick a paper from the floor.

  All the same I worked steadily through, summing up each petition for his greater ease, using up four good swan’s quills, until my eyes ached and the fingers of my hand cried out from writing, and all the while I wondered how soon I might get word of my arrival to Master Donne.

  I sat in the withdrawing chamber, a good ashwood fire burning next to me, for the weather had turned cold, contemplating the great pile I had just perused—I had read enough of disputed leases and boundary arguments than ever I wished to know in my whole life—when my father’s groom announced the arrival of both my sisters.

  ‘Ann,’ demanded Mary, her eyes aglow and her fresh complexion making her more lovely than I had seen her for many months, ‘why hide you away here with these dusty documents? It is a fine afternoon abroad, too good for sitting here in the gloom like the bent-up clerk to some fusty apothecary.’

  ‘I wonder what brings this new sparkle to your eye,’ I replied. ‘Mayhap it is your child, overwhelming you with motherly love?’

  ‘Hah!’ was all the answer Mary would give.

  ‘I try to win over our father’s good opinion. He agreed only to my coming for the sake of my grandmother’s persuasion and speaks to me as if I were some distant stranger. I fear he forgives me not one jot for the routing of Master Manners.’

  ‘We have news that will pique your interest, sweet sister,’ Mary revealed, enjoying being the possessor of new gossip.

  ‘And what is that?’ I stoked up the fire and called to my father’s groom to bring us spiced ale and the cook’s small cakes made with almonds and raisins of the sun. Even in my saddened state the scent of warmed ale, so redolent of cloves and cinnamon, could not fail to cheer me.

  ‘Your Master Donne is made member of Parliament for Brackley in the county of Northamptonshire.’

  ‘But how is this?’ A member of Parliament was a role of some standing and I had heard no rumour that such a thing were likely for one in Master Donne’s position.

  ‘It seems that Frances, daughter to the Countess of Derby, the Lord Keeper’s new wife, brought the manor of Brackley as part of her inheritance,’ my sister Margaret explained. ‘And the Lord Keeper, deeming it useful to have a man sitting in the Parliament, has chosen your Master Donne to fill the post.’

  A flame of joy rose in me. Perhaps this honour would make my father see in how much esteem Master Donne was held by his employer and cause a crack, no matter how small, in the granite of his great opposition.

  ‘Mary’s husband, Nick, is sitting also.’ Margaret, undoing the laces of her stomacher for greater comfort as she attacked the cakes, changed the subject swiftly from Master Donne. ‘And my Thomas also.’

  ‘And our cousin Francis comes to represent the borough of Pyrford.’

  I laughed at the idea of Francis forgoing hunting with his pack of staghounds, or indeed my brother-in-law Nick sacrificing his plays and cocking for the cause of sitting in Parliament, yet I was glad all the same. For these others were all gentlemen of rank if not—in Nick’s case at least—of current fortune.

  Now I had sufficient cause to send a message congratulating Master Donne and none could cavil at its propriety.

  The sound of horses whinnying below alerted us to the arrival in our narrow street of a grand coach.

  ‘I wonder who that might be? Perhaps a visitor for our father.’

  Yet it was my sister Mary who jumped up first, a complicit look in her fine brown eyes, and even before the groom arrived to announce an arrival she was on her feet down the stairs, leaving Margaret and me to stare after her.

  Startled at such behaviour, we ran to the window and there, down in the cobbled street below, we saw a gentleman, attired in pale blue silk and a profusion of gold lace, hold the door to his coach open for our sister to climb inside.

  Margaret gasped and bit her lip. For the gentleman was fine indeed. Yet he in no way resembled Mary’s lawfully wedded husband.

  ‘What in the name of the Redeemer is the matter with this family of ours?’ Margaret demanded. ‘Three generations of knights, yet Mary risks her marriage with I know not what conduct, and you, the apple of our grandfather’s eye, make yourself the object of tavern gossip for every tradesman to bandy about over their tankard of ale!’

  Though the room was hot my heart chilled and my palms felt as cold as ice at her words. Had she, as well as Master Manners, heard ill rumours about me?

  ‘I have done nothing to merit such talk, Margaret! What is this rumour you have heard?’

  Margaret shook her plump shoulders impatiently. ‘Oh, naught yet. But I am sure it is but a matter of time before the name of More is bandied abroad. And not to praise it! I leave now, back to my hearth and home, from which I have no desire nor need to wander!’

  My father returned soon after, a little warmer towards me for the argument I had written for him had won praise from several members he respected. ‘It seems I have an unrivalled grasp of the matter of multiple benefices,’ he told me without even a word of recognition that the words he uttered had been not his but my own.

  And yet, I cared not. At least he spoke to me again.

  ‘Daughter, had you time to consider the matter of the committees I speak at tomorrow?’ he enquired. My father, already one of the most vociferous members in the Parliament, seemed to speak yet more often since he had my assistance to inform him.

  ‘Indeed, Father, here are some words I have prepared.’ I handed over several close-written pages on such diverse questions as wandering vagrants, the operation of the Poor Law and the state of the Queen’s highway in the three counties of Sussex, Surrey and Kent.

  I did not mention that with a singing yet fearful heart I had also drafted a letter of congratulation to one John Donne Esquire, a title he could newly claim as member of Parliament, which I intended, when my father was busy with his many committees, to deliver on the morrow myself.

  In my excitement and trepidation I slept hardly at all that night yet rose in time to bid farewell to my father before he took himself to his parliamentary business. To my delight he even offered me an excuse.

  ‘I wonder, Ann, since there is no sitting tomorrow at the House, if you might deliver these plums sent by your grandmother from Loseley to your sister Mary? I would send them with a groom b
ut my mother ever wishes for news of how the babe fares and I am never able to supply the details she craves.’

  Neither, from what I had seen of her manner towards her babe, would Mary.

  ‘Indeed, Father, it would be a pleasure.’

  All the more since I might return, now that my father had given me the opportunity, by way of Master Donne’s lodgings near the old Savoy Hospital.

  My father placed his hat on his head, preparing to leave. ‘And Ann…’

  ‘Yes, Father?’

  ‘I am grateful for the trouble you take with my parliamentary business.’

  A wave of emotion, unlooked for and powerful, swept through me. It was rare in my father ever to acknowledge gratitude.

  ‘I am glad to be of service to you in the Queen’s business, Father.’

  He nodded.

  He had not mentioned Master Manners nor my disgrace for several days now. Perhaps my father had seen that, even unwed, I had my uses.

  The sight of the plums gave me a sudden leap of joy at all things beautiful. Green and yellow, some speckled and carmine red, others dusky purple, and all clouded with a gentle mist as if breathed on by Pomona, goddess of all growing things, they nestled invitingly in their basket.

  Were such thoughts of goddesses heresy, I wondered, smiling at the reminder of he who would share my appreciation of the question. As I went to pick the basket up I spied one plum less beauteous than the rest, with a dark line of imperfection running through, and went to throw it out, then stayed my hand. Why should all things be without stain, and did not this one blemished plum taste as ripe and delicious as the rest?

  My father’s groom accompanied me on the wherry to Mile End. He was a quiet man and I was able to enjoy the bustle and excitement of the most crowded waterway in Christendom, knowing that later I might see one whom I had missed for too long. Smiling to myself I held up the hem of my gown that it would not be wet by the river water and listened to the constant ringing of churchbells, the clang of hammers from the countless workshops and the cries of the wherrymen from the thousands of tiny craft who kept the city moving. And I saw that I had come to love these sounds as much as the calm of the country for they reminded me of one to whom the London air smelled sweeter than any hedge of dog rose and wild woodruff.