by Maeve Haran
Francis, teasing me, reached into the wrapper and pulled out a note which he read aloud before I could stop him. ‘In token of my great contrition in exposing your bright soul to the profanity of my verse I offer you in recompense these lines translated by Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke, a woman whose learning and wit I admire most humbly, and which when completed will be offered to the Queen.’
Francis looked at me and laughed. ‘Well, Ann, here is some verse you can have no objection to on moral grounds. A translation of the psalms of David—and by a woman! Master Donne seeks to raise your mind to holy things. Perhaps you have turned him into a reformed character—though for my own part, I hope you have not!’
I grabbed the paper from him.
Yet Francis would not desist. ‘And you are given them before Her Majesty! I hope you are sensible of the honour. I wonder what message John wishes to convey? That he can be godly also? Or that, despite appearances, he respects the wit and learning of a woman as well as her more earthly charms?’
I answered Francis not, for I, no more than he, was certain of Master Donne’s intention. And yet I was indeed flattered that he had sought to feed my mind and not offer some pretty trifle. I saw too that it was clever in him. Perhaps Master Donne was simply skilled in the subtle art of flattery and could not resist weaving his spells even on one as young and inexperienced as I. And then I recalled my feelings on reading those other poems, how stirred I had been and how angry at him for stirring me.
That night, alone, I opened the wrappings. The folder fell open at Psalm 52 and I began to read the Countess of Pembroke’s translation, directed towards that great seducer, Satan.
Tyrant, why swell’st thou thus,
Of mischief vaunting?
Since help from God to us
Is never wanting.
Lewd lies thy tongue contrives,
Loud lies it soundeth;
Sharper than sharpest knives
With lies it woundeth.
Falsehood thy wit approves,
All truth rejected:
Thy will all vices loves,
Virtue neglected.
And yet, as I read I was shocked to find a smile creep over my features and a face other than Satan’s imprint itself upon my mind.
If Master Donne had intended, by sending me verses of such great virtue, to establish his own in my eyes, the scheme had gone sadly awry.
SOON AFTERWARDS THE wife of the Lord Keeper’s son, Thomas, sickened with an ague and I was kept more than occupied in diverting their young daughters to think of either Master Donne’s soul or my own.
As I played with the little maids I listened to all the plans for revels and masques to be held at York House over Christmas, and although I had always praised the country over the city, it was with a sigh of sadness that the day came for me to leave London to spend the Yuletide at Loseley.
Mary chose to stay in Mile End with the Throckmortons and Margaret, with child again, meant to hole up cosily in the rural peace of Peckham, leaving only a small party to mark the Saviour’s birth in Surrey.
Yet the pleasure of seeing my beloved grandmother and grandfather was compensation enough. Soon I was busily occupied with giving out the seasonal dole to the poor of the parish, a thing more needy after the failure of the harvest these last years, and since the dissolution of the monasteries. I am sure the monks were as corrupt as all painted them, yet the poor people still mourned their passing in the deep days of winter, when alms and food might be all that saved them from starving in the ditches.
My grandmother, aided by the funds from her busy hens, had made me a mantle of berry red, edged with fox fur. Frances had painted me a likeness of Perkin, which made me laugh for it caught his look of blissful idleness. Grandfather had set aside a volume of his favourite poet, Chaucer, for me. And I much enjoyed the look of delight on their faces when they opened the gifts I had bought in London, purchased on my ventures into the city—a pretty birdcage with a live linnet for Frances; a gilded fan for my grandmother, which she made a great show of pretending to flirt behind; and for my grandfather some fine but strong leather gloves, perfumed with lavender.
‘They will protect you from evil also, I am assured.’ For his enjoyment I repeated the colourful tale told me by the glove maker who fashioned them. ‘It seems that Mother Mary laid the babe’s swaddling clothes upon a lavender bush to dry, and the bush gave up its scent as an offering, so that now, besides its perfume, all lavender offers the gift of holy protection.’
After that I had so little diversion at Loseley that it was a guilty relief when, as soon as the Twelve Days had passed, my aunt, who had been missing my good offices, summoned me back to York House again.
‘A dull time of it we had here without your lively presence,’ she greeted me with a warm embrace, my sin at declining the role at Court temporarily forgotten. ‘Lawyers, lawyers and lawyers. I was adrift in a dreary sea of black. So I have decided to cheer myself with a banquet to mark your father’s ennoblement. Think you that that would please him?’
I could think of few things that would please him more than a hundred people feasting in his honour—and all paid by another.
‘Indeed, Aunt, I am sure it would give him great pleasure—even though he might pretend otherwise, feeling the need for a show of modesty and humility.’
‘Modesty and humility? My brother? Come, Ann, wake up and throw those winter cobwebs from your mind.’
So we started to plan the banquet. My father’s ennoblement was to take place at Shrovetide, another of the great celebrations, when all made merry before Lent descended on us. I was happy indeed that my grandfather and grandmother, and my sisters Margaret and Mary and Frances would all be bidden to York House to celebrate.
All but my beloved Bett, for Bett, to my great joy and happiness, had been with child for many months now and would be too close to her confinement to venture this far.
And it was to tell me of Bett that my sister Mary arrived one clear bright morning.
I jumped upon her eager for all I could gather of how my sister’s condition progressed, yet there was that in Mary’s face that made me run to her before she had even removed her cloak, wrapped tight around her against the February chill. ‘Is all well with our sister? When does she gather her gossips around her for the birth?’
‘Sir John passed by our house in Mile End yesternight, on his way to hunt with the Duke of Suffolk.’
‘Did he bring news of Bett?’ I asked eagerly, imagining my sweet Bett singing as she sewed her tiny nightgowns and swaddling clothes. Motherhood would suit her soft humour so much better than mine. ‘How is she faring?’
Mary gave her cloak to a servant and took my hands in hers. ‘Ailing, it seems,’ she said gently. ‘She is asking to have us about her, you especially, Ann, to help with her confinement.’
‘But is it not for some weeks yet?’
‘Sir John says they think six. But she longs for your company as soon as you may go there.’
My picture of the singing Bett was replaced by one of Bett feeling motherless and alone, and I resolved that, no matter what distractions might tempt me here, I should go to her as soon as ever I was able.
Childbirth, of the many trials it was woman’s lot to undergo, was of all the most frightening. Our own mother had died giving birth to Frances, never having the joy of holding her babe in her arms, but speeding instead to meet her Maker. I wondered if Bett dwelt on that morbid thought in the cold dark reaches of the night when the mind refuses to be salved by warmth and peace and stalks instead by the cold shores of pain and death.
‘I will ask my aunt when I may go. Will you be coming also, Mary?’
‘I hope so, yet I know not.’ She sighed and looked away. ‘I have my own household to supervise.’ It was then I noticed how unlike herself she seemed, a fainter copy of Mary rather than the woman herself, like parchment that had faded in the sun, as if her lively mind were shut up somewhere far from here.
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��Is it fear for Bett that troubles you so sorely, sister?’
Mary looked at me as if she were not sure of whether to answer or no. ‘Can you keep a secret, Ann?’
I knew from the fear in her voice that this was something of great matter and I nodded gravely.
‘It is my husband. Or rather his debts. He play acts as if the sun shone down upon him daily and all were well. And yet I know he has gambled heavily and borrowed money and, in trying to cast off his debts, borrowed more money again.’ She took my hands and pressed them so hard that the knuckles whitened. I had never seen my brave and fearless sister thus reduced. ‘I came upon these papers in his closet. Ann, he has so many debts.’ Her voice, so low and musical, was shrill with fear. ‘And, see here, all the notes are to one gentleman, a Master Matthew Freeman of Fairby in the county of Yorkshire. What can it mean?’
‘And you know not this Master Freeman?’
Mary shook her head.
‘And what has Nick to say?’
‘He will not talk of money. If I raise it he shouts and stamps and when I next look round he has gone.’
‘Perhaps this man could be a moneylender, think you?’
At that Mary began, very softly, to weep. A sight so shocking because I had never witnessed it before, not even when our mother died. Mary had simply straightened her young back, taken Frances in her arms and proved a tower of strength, far stronger than our father, who blamed all—the Heavens, his doctor, even the infant Frances—for his terrible agonizing loss, and withdrew to his chamber. Mary, but a maid of twelve, as slender as a reed and hardly five feet tall, took charge of all. With the help of my grandmother she summoned the priest, my aunt from the Court (from where the Queen was loath to lose her) and comforted my father as best she could.
‘The sum is two hundred pounds!’
I gasped at that. It was a fortune.
‘And he seeks immediate payment. Ann, this gentleman from the north has written to me to ask if I would meet with him and discuss how we can meet my husband’s obligations.’
‘You? Why is he not applying to Nick direct?’
Her only answer was to sob.
‘He has a letter. To a gentleman of my acquaintance. The servant who delivered it must have betrayed me to him.’
‘Who is this gentleman?’
‘One I turned to when my worries over Nick were too great to bear alone.’
‘And what said you in this letter?’
‘Things I should not have said to one who is not my husband. Now he threatens to expose me.’
‘But surely Nick is the one at fault here?’
‘He will turn it round so that I am the one who has sinned more greatly. I know the cast of his mind. I must retrieve the letter from this Master Freeman. And yet—oh Ann—what if Nick discovers my weakness?’
I was so truly alarmed to see Mary, strong, brave Mary, thus reduced that I made a misguided offer of my own. ‘This gentleman,’ I ventured, desperate to ease her burden when she had so bravely eased ours, ‘would it answer if I, who have no connection to the matter, tried to seek him out?’
‘It has not come to that. I still have my necklace of amethysts and emeralds. I will sell that first.’
‘Oh, Mary, the necklet that belonged to our mother, Anne?’
Mary looked away but the bright sunlight caught the tear that ran down her face and made it sparkle. But not with joy.
‘Better than disgrace or penury.’
‘Have you nowhere else to apply to? What about our father?’
‘He might help, but Constance will turn him against me. And remember, it was I who persuaded Father to let me marry Nick, I who wore him down with tales of Nick’s connections and his expectations. Oh, Ann, I cannot admit that we have fallen to such a low as this, with the debtors’ prison holding out desirous arms to us. I must find some other resolution.’
I did not argue with the truth of this. I wished only I had something I could give her to help. And then I remembered the little there was left from Grandmother’s eggs. I found my hidden purse and held it out to her.
Mary’s answer was to weep some more. ‘Ann, I cannot take your pennies.’
‘Please, Sister. They will be of more help to you, I want for nothing here.’
Mary smiled sadly and pushed the purse back to me. ‘The truth is, my little Ann, they would be a raindrop washed away into the ocean.’ She dried her eyes and looked at me askance. ‘By the way, Sister, I hear from our cousin Francis that you have won a heart.’
I stopped short at that, more flustered than I wished her to see. ‘If you speak of whom I think, his heart is well protected. It was more his vanity that made him notice me, I’d venture. He suspects me a blank page on which to imprint his thoughts.’
‘Then he will be surprised at how many pages are writ there already. You are full of complexity and contradiction, Ann.’
We descended to the Great Chamber to find my father parading in his Court costume for the approval of his sister. For so small a man he did look fine indeed. And yet if only the cost of that fine suit could have been given to Mary, it seemed to me, all her hardship would be over.
But this prospect was as likely as a ship laden with Spanish treasure mooring at York House steps.
‘What think you, ladies, of my new suit of clothes?’ My father turned for us to both admire him.
I could not tell the truth, that in my present state he brought to mind a nobleman’s pet monkey dressed in borrowed finery.
‘Father,’ I began, ‘here is Mary, come to me with a message from Bett. She fears her confinement comes upon her sooner than she expected and Sir John has left her alone to go hunting. She begs for me to go to Camois as soon as ever I can to assist her.’
I dared not mention my fears for her safety in childbed after what had happened to my mother, since my father was one for hiding his hurts away under lock and key and liked not the person who tried to release them.
Today he had the look of a sulky child. ‘Bett’s confinement is not for some weeks yet. Besides, she will have other gossips around her than you. Sir John’s mother and his sisters will already be with her. They have no need of you.’ His voice took on a querulous, stubborn tone which often it did when he wished to get his own way against heavy opposition. ‘There are plenty of churchmen who hold that this ritual of confinement goes on far too long. Indeed the Reverend Able quoted more than fifty relatives attending one childbed, and consuming enough sweet wine and hot spiced caudle to inebriate an army. I cannot hold with it. So many women gathered together in so small a chamber must surely bring with them a far greater chance of infection than if they stayed away!’
‘I am sure you are right, Father,’ I soothed. ‘But Bett is all alone, Mary says, and becoming fearful, which cannot be good for the expected child, can it?’
‘Giving birth is part of nature,’ intoned my father, making me wish to throw a goblet of ale at him, ‘accomplished every day by the beasts of the field and the commonest country wench. Bett fears too much.’ I watched him, startled. Could those locks be so tightly shut that he truly did not remember the loss of his dear wife?
‘I would like to go, Father, as soon as my aunt can spare me.’
‘I cannot spare you, and there’s an end to it. I wish you to come to Court for my dubbing.’ His tone softened. He put his arm about my shoulders. ‘And I wish you to have a new gown, so that you may shine even brighter than the other ladies. My sister will take you to buy it, will you not, Elizabeth?’
My eyes widened at the thought of a new gown but my conscience would not let me off so easily. If I held to my position, what would he do? Lock me in my chamber? Confine me to York House?
‘But, Father, what if Bett really is ill?’
I could see my father was at the end of his patience with me. ‘Daughter, dispute no more. You will come with your grandmother and grandfather to the Court for my ennoblement. Our family honour requires it. After that you may go to your sister.’
I almost argued further but good sense and the thought of the cinnamon-coloured satin I had seen in a shop in the new Royal Exchange stopped my mouth. What difference could a few days make?
‘And afterwards, can I go to Bett the very next morn?’
‘You have the persistence of a fly on a dung heap, Ann. I pity your poor husband.’ He looked at me tetchily. ‘If ever you have one.’
My sorrow at my father’s stubbornness was assuaged by two things: the cinnamon satin and the arrival of my grandparents.
My aunt had requested they stay in my chamber and that I move while they were present to a smaller room, which I was happy to do.
The day appointed for my grandparents’ arrival I waited for them by the river steps all morning in the cold February air, and almost leapt into the water with joy when at last I saw the barge the Lord Keeper had sent to meet them approaching from Southwark, carrying both my grandparents, my sister Frances, and my grandmother’s gentlewoman, Prudence.
Prudence alighted first to help my grandmother climb down, whispering to me smugly as she did so, ‘Stephen, the usher of the bedchamber was as mad as a speared boar that I was bidden to come instead of he, but my lady has ever had a low opinion of serving men, so here I am in London Town.’
Next came Sir William, my grandfather, and the thought struck me that though I had seen him but recently, he had suddenly grown old. When we were private I would ask my grandmother how he was faring.
‘Well, Ann, let me look at you,’ my grandmother instructed. She, I was grateful to see, was as brisk and as bustling and as bad-tempered as ever before.
For the occasion she had added to her usual severe black gown a double chain of silver links, fastened in the centre under her chin. This, though no doubt designed to compete with the moneyed merchants and landed aristocrats she would encounter here, had instead the effect of making her resemble the Lord Mayor of London.
‘Such a tiresome journey,’ she complained. ‘The mud was so bad between Loseley and Guildford that we had to dismount and walk like a string of pilgrims.’ I tried not to smile. My grandmother rarely if ever found anything away from Loseley to her satisfaction. I suspected that to do so would quite spoil her pleasure in life.