Emilia felt her heart thud, but she kept a calm demeanor, her hands pressed together. “Madam, I believe I have met Master Daniel.”
A tall, broad-shouldered man with thick, fair hair came along the garden path. He bowed to them and looked at Emilia with his fair eyebrows raised in a question.
“Mistress Lanyer, this is Anne’s tutor, Master Daniel,” said Lady Cumberland.
“How good to see you again, Mistress Lanyer,” said Samuel Daniel with a smile.
“Master Daniel, I am indeed glad to see you.” Emilia smiled and inclined her head. I pray he will say nothing about Place House.
“Master Daniel is a fine poet,” said Lady Cumberland. “How fortunate we will be at Cookham to have two poets with us!”
So on a bright morning in June, Emilia found herself jouncing along a rutted road in a coach with Lady Cumberland, Anne, and Mistress Taylor to Cookham Dean. She leaned out the coach window, drinking in the fresh air and feeling the breeze rush against her face. The coach rattled along, and six wagons loaded with trunks and household necessities followed. Lady Cumberland’s retainers rode on horseback ahead and in the rear. Mistress Taylor sat beside Emilia, holding bundles on her lap and wincing at every jolt and lurch. Lady Cumberland and Anne sat opposite, facing front. Master Daniel rode on horseback alongside them. The fields glistened in the morning light, and trees and hedges cast long shadows across the knee-high grain. A lark burst up from a hedge, its song rippling off like a ribbon into the blue sky. The road led over fields and through forests, around hills and under cliffs.
They stayed at an inn near Maidenhead, where Lady Cumberland took the best bed in the house for herself and Anne and the second-best for Emilia and Mistress Taylor. They were brought water for washing and were served supper and breakfast. Emilia could hardly sleep for worrying about her lutes and recorders, packed in a wagon that rattled along behind the coach. She had brought music books, including Morley’s new collection, The English Dancing Master. Lady Cumberland assured her that the house had a clavichord, kept carefully in tune.
The crown manor of Cookham Dean stood on the highest point for miles around, approached by a road that wound through a wooded grove. Emilia and Mistress Taylor were shown to a spacious bedchamber with leaded windows that, swinging open, looked out over a wooded slope. Emilia asked to see the clavichord. It had indeed been tuned.
At dinner, Lucy, Countess of Bedford, greeted them. She was only twenty, but her manner proclaimed that she was a great lady and had been one for most of her life. Slim and quick-moving, with a clever, pointed face, she tilted her head at Emilia like a bird observing a worm. “You are a musician, Mistress Lanyer?”
“Yes, my lady.”
Lady Bedford picked up a folio. “Here is a book of songs by Master Dowland. Do you know them?”
Emilia took the book. “Yes, Madam.”
“He dedicated it to me,” said Lady Bedford, pointing to the verse on the front page. Without waiting for a reply, she asked, “Do you know Master Ben Jonson?”
“I have met him, my lady.” Large, blustering Jonson, with his reputation for fighting and spouting Latin, had been brusque with her until Will insisted he treat her with respect. Will had helped Jonson get his first play performed.
Lady Bedford continued, “My aunt tells me you are a poet. Will you read to us?”
Emilia’s commonplace book had come with her. “Certainly, my lady.”
“We shall have poetry and music each evening!” declared Lady Bedford.
“So as to burnish the gifts God has given,” said Lady Cumberland.
“Oh, Aunt Margaret, must you always be saying something godly?”
Lady Cumberland smiled. “Lucy, you have a lightsome tongue but a good heart.”
“Oh, pish,” said Lady Bedford.
Emilia would always remember that June as an enchanted time with long days, fragrant flowerbeds, cool breezes, and tall trees soughing above her head as she walked along garden paths with the Countesses, Master Daniel, and Lady Anne. Lady Cumberland would stop to point out a particular plant as they passed, either poisonous or healing. “For some medicines, taken in great quantities, can do great harm, but taken in small quantities can do great good,” she said. Emilia thought of Doctor Forman’s potion.
When not waiting on Lady Cumberland or teaching Anne, Emilia sat at the window in her chamber or under a tree with her notebook, writing, crossing out, and writing again. She helped Lady Cumberland and Mistress Taylor distill essences from flowers, leaves, and barks. Once the Countess held a clear liquid up to the light, her dark, nearsighted eyes scrutinizing it. She brought it to her nostrils, sniffing. “This is not what I expected.” She frowned. A smell like rotten eggs rose from the vial.
“I said Mother was an alchemist,” said Lady Anne, wrinkling her nose. “At least she is not a witch.”
Lady Cumberland shook her head. “Many a village wise woman has been called a witch for doing only as I have done, seeking to find cures from simples and herbs that grow all around us.” She handed the vial to Mistress Taylor, who took it gingerly and went away.
Lady Bedford shrugged. “Witch or not, dear Aunt, you had better be careful that the Scots don’t get wind of your cauldrons and potion-stirring.” She raised an eyebrow.
Lady Cumberland shook her head and raised a finger to her lips.
Lady Bedford looked away, humming a Scottish air. “Have you seen the play about witches in Scotland, Aunt?”
“I care not to see such,” was Lady Cumberland’s tight-lipped reply.
Emilia thought she might like to see the Scottish play, even though it had been written by Will. Supposedly it told of King James’s ancestors. Maybe it would be playing when they returned to London.
One night they were looking through a telescope Lady Bedford had acquired from a scientific acquaintance, Master Harriott, who believed the new theory by Galileo that the earth moved around the sun. The telescope had been set up on a wall edging a steep promontory that sloped abruptly down into a wooded chasm. Next to the wall loomed a great oak.
“In daylight,” declared Anne, “you can see thirteen shires from here!”
“Can you really, my dear?” inquired her mother.
“Well, on a very clear day.”
Since it was ten at night, Emilia could see only the dark tops of trees. But above them in the night sky arched a brilliant array of constellations. Looking through the telescope, she drew in her breath. “The stars look so close!”
“They are not really close,” said Lady Cumberland. “It takes tens of thousands of years for their light to reach us.”
Emilia continued to gaze in wonder. “I cannot comprehend that, my lady.”
“Neither can we comprehend the mind of God.”
“You’re doing it again, Aunt Margaret,” murmured Lady Bedford.
“Shall I not give God the glory that is His due?”
“But He knows already that He created everything. We don’t have to constantly remind Him.”
“We need to remind ourselves,” said Lady Cumberland.
Lady Bedford patted Lady Cumberland’s arm. “You always get the last word, don’t you, dear Aunt?”
Emilia relinquished the telescope to Lady Cumberland. “My lady, do you believe that the stars control our destinies?”
“They shed their influence,” answered Lady Cumberland, closing one eye and peering through the lens. “But they compel nothing, as Doctor Dee says.”
“Do you believe we can alter our fate?”
“We can pray and live in a godly manner,” said Lady Cumberland, her pale face barely visible. “But consulting fortunetellers, casting spells, making charms, or calling spirits is wicked and damnable.”
“I hear tell,” said Lady Bedford, “of an astrologer whose knowledge rivals Doctor Dee’s. A Doctor Forman. Some say he practices the black arts. Do you know him, Mistress Lanyer?”
Emilia felt cold despite the warm night. “I have heard of him, my
lady.”
Lady Cumberland shook her head. “It is a bad business. Those who deal in such things imperil their souls.”
“We will come here again in daylight, Mistress Lanyer,” said Anne, “and I will show you the thirteen shires.”
The next afternoon after dinner, they retired to the garden. Sunlight dappled the clipped grass, shrubs, and gravel paths. Lady Cumberland sat under an arbor on a bench beside Lady Bedford. Anne, her long hair in a braid, sat on the grass at her mother’s feet, reading aloud from Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess. Master Daniel sat beside her. Mistress Taylor deftly threaded her needle and embroidered a pattern of leaves and flowers.
Emilia sat away from the others, writing in her commonplace book. The book of John Dowland’s songs and a lute lay beside her, for they had all been singing earlier. She raised her eyes from the page and looked around, drawing a deep breath of pure air. She let her gaze rest on the dark, massed trees and blue hills in the distance. If I could but keep this peace. She had written every day at Cookham, and she finally felt her poem was ready to share.
That evening, she read the part about Eve to the assembled group: Lady Cumberland, squinting hard; Anne, smooth-faced; Lady Bedford, foot jiggling slightly; Master Daniel, sitting forward, hands clasped, attentive; Mistress Taylor, sewing as usual. When Emilia finished, she looked up in mingled hope and dread.
“What a poem, Mistress Lanyer!” said Lady Bedford. “You have made a powerful argument against men’s treatment of women. Don’t you think so, Master Daniel?”
Samuel Daniel said, “Indeed I do, my lady. Mistress Lanyer, you are right. I think, however, that you are somewhat hard on men.”
“Nonsense,” said Lady Bedford. “In my opinion, she is not hard enough.”
“But,” said Lady Cumberland, “she holds out the hope of forgiveness, for the Lord Jesus forgives all with no respecting of persons. Male and female are equal in his sight. Isn’t that true, Mistress Lanyer?”
“Yes, my lady. I want my readers to see how unjust it is to blame women. I want them to question authors who unfairly malign us.” She felt joy rise up in her. They liked it; they understood what she said.
“Authors have said many hard things about our sex,” said Lady Cumberland, “but most of them wrote when few could read. Now we can all—women and men alike—read and decide for ourselves about woman’s place—and everything else.”
After sunset, while it was still light, Emilia walked along the garden path to the great oak. She stood in the tree’s shadow and laid her hand on its bark, feeling the cool evening air. A light footstep sounded on the path, and she turned to see Lady Cumberland.
The Countess’s face above her dark dress glimmered pale in the dusk. “I hoped I would find you here. It is such a lovely spot.”
“Aye, my lady.”
“It is too bad we must leave,” said Lady Cumberland. The trees seemed to stop rustling as she spoke, and the birds grew quiet. She paused. “Mistress Lanyer, you are pensive. I had hoped you were recovered from your malaise, but you still seem troubled. You may tell me or not, as you wish. I would not pry.”
“Oh, Madam, it is not that,” said Emilia. “I—I just feel sometimes that life is empty. Like a garment I would put off.” At the Countess’s look of concern, Emilia hastened to reassure her. “I have no thought of self-harm, my lady. But if death came, I would welcome it.”
Lady Cumberland led her to a bench by the path. The dusk was gathering thick about them as they sat side by side.
“My dear,” said the Countess, “death will come for us all. Of that we have no doubt.” She looked off into the shadows, a half-smile on her face. “Many times I too have thought it might be a blessing, especially after the deaths of my children.”
“Forgive me, my lady,” said Emilia. “I know you have had loss greater than mine.”
Lady Cumberland shook her head. “Can one weigh one life against many, or one child against more than one? All are precious, and the loss of one is beyond terrible.”
They sat in silence.
“When I have troubles and afflictions,” Lady Cumberland said, “I bring them in prayer to the Lord Jesus. I believe that He will bear our burdens if we but trust in Him. His love surrounds us. When I read His Word, it brings me peace as nothing else can.”
Emilia thought of the Duchess of Suffolk. “I have tried to pray, my lady, but peace will not come. I fear God has abandoned me.”
The Countess seized her hand. “Oh, my dear Emilia, never think that.” Her dark eyes looked worried. “Faith is hard. But doubt is a dark passage through which we must pass. Believe that the Lord Jesus is with you even when you do not feel His presence.”
“But . . .” Emilia struggled for words. “How can I be sure? What if I am not one of His elect?”
“I too struggled with that thought,” said Lady Cumberland. “But I came to know that my very doubt was proof of His grace.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That you think and ponder, wonder and care, is proof of grace working within you. You are not cold and indifferent; your heart is open. It is through your open heart that the Lord Jesus speaks.”
“My lady, I wish I had your faith.”
“My dear,” said Lady Cumberland, “you have a loving heart, and faith will come. Be patient and know that love surrounds you.”
Love, thought Emilia. Not desire, someone wanting me, wanting my body, my heart, my will. Only love, given freely, asking nothing in return. She felt tears stinging her eyelids. “My lady, if you knew my faults, you would not speak so kindly to me.”
Lady Cumberland shook her head with a gentle smile. “He forgives all faults.”
What if she knew that I had been kept by one man as his mistress while deceiving him with another? That I deceived my husband? That I tried to know the future by a sorcerer’s black arts? That I allowed that same sorcerer to ensnare me with potions and take liberties with my body? That I thought to harm a man through spells? That my family are secret Jews? That I know not what I believe and have no assurance of God’s grace?
“Oh, my lady, forgive me.”
“I do not need to forgive you, dear Emilia,” said Lady Cumberland. “God already has.”
Tears filled Emilia’s eyes and ran down her face. Lady Cumberland waited. Then she took her own handkerchief and wiped Emilia’s cheeks.
Emilia felt the night drape around them like a cloak. She could barely see Lady Cumberland’s pale face in the darkness. She felt a tremulous calm within. Oh, Lord, is this Your presence I feel? “Madam,” she said, “I am not worthy of God’s grace.”
“Oh, my dear, no one is. Everything we have is a gift. We must use our gifts to show our thankfulness, not hide them away.” She patted Emilia’s hand. “You are a poet. You write with grace, wit, and feeling. Everyone should hear your defense of women.”
“Some might call it ungodly, my lady.”
“Nonsense!” said Lady Cumberland. “It is not ungodly. It is the truth. And it’s a fine poem.”
“Madam, your words mean the world to me.”
Lady Cumberland laughed softly. “Now I have a request. When we return home, take the memory of this place with you and write a poem about it so that I can see Cookham in my mind’s eye each time I read it.” Her dim outline looked a little darker than the darkness of the tree behind her. A breeze rustled its leaves high above. All at once, a nightingale began to sing, and a wave of cicada song rose up from the ravine below.
“Write it, my dear,” the Countess repeated. “Write it for me.”
“Yes, my lady,” said Emilia. “I will.”
The day they left Cookham, Emilia and Anne walked to the great oak. The girl’s skirts swung as she rushed along the path, dappled light and shade falling on her dark head and on her lace collar. She moved lightly and gracefully, her thick, long brown hair rippling down her back.
When they reached the tree, Anne put her hand against the rough bark and stepped up onto the
rock wall. Emilia wondered whether she should hold on to her skirts. Even sure-footed, highborn girls like Anne could fall. She moved closer and covertly closed her hands on the back of Anne’s petticoat, bunching up the cloth. The girl seemed not to notice.
“Mistress Lanyer,” said Anne, “I will be a great lady someday, and I should inherit all my father’s lands. But my father has put in his will that my uncle shall inherit the lands that go with his title. My mother argues with him about it, saying the lands should come to me.”
She hopped down from the wall and leaned against the tree. Emilia let go of her skirt and sighed with relief.
“Mistress Lanyer,” said Anne, her dark, intelligent eyes pensive, “my father and mother both love me. But they do not much care for one another.”
“I am sorry, my lady.”
“I must think soon about marriage,” said the girl. “I will probably marry Richard Sackville. He and I are of an age, and we get on well.” She wrinkled her forehead. “But this I do not understand. My mother says I must submit to my father now and to my husband when I am married, for they hold authority over me. But she also tells me I must fight for my lands, even if I must oppose my father or my husband, and that I must never let anyone take from me what is rightfully mine.”
Emilia paused. “Your mother is right, my lady.”
“But how can I do both?” asked Anne. “Be a good daughter and wife and still fight for what is rightfully mine?” She set her small, strong chin, a deep line between her dark brows.
Such a proud young spirit, thought Emilia. She drew a deep breath. “My lady, your mother is right. You should fight for what is rightfully yours. The Lord has given women minds and spirits no less than men.”
Anne was looking at her, eyes drinking in her words as though she yearned to believe.
“But no matter how hard you fight, you may lose. And then all you will have left is yourself. And that is what you draw on. That well of your own strength within you, the strength of who you are.”
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