The Lady and the Poet

by Maeve Haran

  Perhaps to punish me, God did not answer my prayer for the Countess was indeed both educated and beautiful to boot.

  I joined my aunt and uncle and their assembled guests in the long gallery overlooking the busy thoroughfare of London’s river.

  ‘Good eve, Mistress Ann.’ Joseph, my uncle’s yeoman of the ewery, bowed and handed me a cup of lemon mead. ‘Just brewed this week, and still warm, for your pleasure.’

  I sniffed the pale golden liquid, fragrant with honey and ginger. The strong scent of lemons and rosemary transported me on the instant back to our hothouse at Loseley in early evening time when the scents are strongest.

  ‘Thank you, yeoman,’ said a clear, ringing voice which, though soft, would carry through a crowd of costermongers, ‘I will try your mead. At home we make it with our own honey, but here in the city you must be forced to purchase yours. I must send my lady Egerton some of our combs as a thank-you token.’

  I turned slowly, not wishing her to know that I had heard this gracious offer, and beheld one of the loveliest women it had been my misfortune ever to encounter. Taller than I, yet with the narrowness and straightness of a young tree, her pale skin glowing like the polished pearls on my mother’s necklace, her hair the colour of a newly minted brass coin. And such eyes, how I hated those eyes, so bright and brimming with knowledge and assurance, and the satisfaction that none could rival the wit and comeliness of Isabella, Countess of Straven.

  One small item gave me satisfaction: with hair the colour of brass I would not have worn a gown of scarlet red with an underskirt of pale white plush. It put me in mind of the childish game I used to play with red and white counters.

  But the gentlemen seemed to have missed this minor slip in judgement. The group stood all agog, watching the newcomer’s arrival as dazzled as if the sun had appeared in the midst of night to outshine the subtle silver beauty of the moon.

  And the most dazzled of all was Master John Donne.

  The Countess bestowed her warmest smile in his direction.

  ‘Master Donne,’ gone was the meddling voice of the housewife beekeeper, and in its stead the creamy charm of the courtesan, ‘it is too long since last I saw you. You are still writing your verses, I trust, for there is none to touch you. Not Master Jonson, nor Kit Marlowe, nor even Master Shakespeare.’

  I waited for him to deny such outrageousness or at least smile at the extravagance of her assertion. But I underestimated the power of flattery when it came from the lips of a subtle and beautiful woman.

  I drank down my mead angrily and awaited his reply.

  Joseph appeared at my elbow with the jug of mead and began to refill my goblet. ‘Young mistress,’ he whispered into my ear as he poured the golden liquid, ‘beware of the treachery that hides beneath the sweetness. It is stronger than it seems.’

  I laughed and drank it back. The treachery beneath the sweetness seemed an apt description of more than mead this night.

  When we sat down, counting all the busy household together with the visitor and her train, there were almost thirty around the great wooden dining table.

  The Countess was seated in the place of honour near to my aunt and uncle. Two places down, sat Master Donne.

  I found myself a few feet away, amidst my uncle’s dull advisors, near enough to overhear snatches of their discourse but too distant to follow every word.

  All down the long table the best candles threw a warm glow onto the assembled faces. My aunt had used double the usual quantity in their guest’s honour, I noticed.

  ‘And your husband, my lady, the good Earl, how fares he?’ enquired my uncle.

  ‘Burying himself in the country.’ I could tell from her tone she, like Master Donne, had no affection for rural pursuits. ‘Hunting deer and writing me dull letters of how he manages the estate and how fares each and every yeoman and peasant, which I answer extremely shortly.’

  At that, all laughed heartily. ‘Yet you write verse yourself, do you not, your ladyship?’ prompted Henry Wotton, Master Donne’s good friend.

  The Countess smiled with gentle modesty, which made me hate her the more. Any moment and she would simperingly agree to read us some.

  ‘A few tinkering words. But nothing to match the marvels of Master Donne. “The Flea” was a small miracle, so clever and so full of wit.’ She turned towards him. ‘Yet tell me, Master Donne, where came so much distrust of my own sex? Why believe you so that women are fickle creatures who can never feel the fires of passion or the strength of love as men can?’

  I listened intently at this, though pretending to study my plate, yet it was his friend who replied.

  ‘It is not the fault of women that they cannot love as men do, my lady,’ smiled Henry Wotton, all admiration of her great intellect ringing in his voice. ‘For women must choose hearth and home over the dictates of the heart.’

  ‘Yet surely, sir, women have loved as greatly as men?’ the Countess challenged. ‘What of Cleopatra, or Helen, or the lady Heloise? Did she not love Abelard, her teacher then her lover, even after her family had deprived him of his manhood?’

  My aunt looked across at me, shocked at such unsuitable discourse in front of one as young as I. Yet I knew the tale of Abelard and Heloise as well as they since I had often read it in my grandfather’s library.

  ‘Come, Ann.’ My aunt hustled me to my feet, fearing more unsuitable conversation, and led me quickly off towards the seclusion of the long gallery, casting a look of severe disapproval at the Countess of Straven as we passed her.

  I thought of trying to resist, yet knew such a reaction would be viewed by all as unmaidenly. And if I stayed in that room longer I would betray my anger that he, who one day could show himself a man of moral depth, could just as soon play lapdog to a brazen beauty who used him to proclaim her wit and belittle her husband.

  ‘I must apologize for that young woman’s conduct,’ my aunt murmured, closing the door of the gallery behind us. ‘Her father is an old friend of the Lord Keeper or we would not ask her hither.’

  I longed to say that in my opinion the story of Abelard and the lady Heloise was not scandalous but one of true tenderness and enduring passion, but choler tied my tongue.

  ‘I must return to the table. I shall speak to that young woman later.’

  A rustle of silks told us we were no longer alone.

  We turned to find the Countess herself standing but a few feet behind us, and, holding open the door to the gallery, none other than Master Donne. ‘My lady, there is no need. I have come to beg pardon for my stupid indiscretion.’ The Countess curtsied before us with all the apparent modesty of a maid at her first communion. ‘Innocence must always be protected.’ She looked slyly up at her companion. ‘Is that not so, Master Donne?’

  ‘I am glad you have remembered that at last,’ my aunt said tartly. ‘And now I must return to my other guests.’

  ‘Fear not, Mistress More,’ the Countess said softly once my aunt had gone. ‘You are safe with us. We will not corrupt you further, will we, Master Donne?’

  There was so much of complicity and of seduction in her tone that my eyes darted swiftly to his, and found that he looked not at me, but, like the fly caught in a silken spider’s web, his attention was all fixed upon his companion.

  ‘You wished to answer back, did you not, Mistress More, when your aunt removed you from my scurrilous presence?’

  I kept my peace, refusing to play her games.

  ‘Just as well your father will find you a husband soon who will help you hold your tongue. Women who speak out—apart from the Queen—are not encouraged in our society, are they, Master Donne?’

  Again that look passed between them of dangerous complicity. I hated him then: that this very night I had risked so much by talking of his mother, and he had seemed grateful of my understanding, yet now, but hours later, made himself a lapdog to the lady Isabella, who thought herself so learned and so lovely.

  I knew that I should remain silent, but the sight of
that painted face, so confident of its own power, infuriated me beyond endurance.

  ‘Indeed, my lady, when I have a husband of my own,’ I kept my expression meek and my eyes downcast as I turned to leave them in the gallery, ‘I trust he will be as generous and accommodating as your own.’

  Chapter 10

  THE SUN WAS higher than usual when I awoke next morning, and I lay for a moment longer watching the beams steal through my curtains and thinking of my rudeness to the Countess of Straven. Was it simply her overweening confidence that fired me so with anger, or Master Donne behaving like some pet dog that longed to be petted by those slim white fingers? Despite his reputation as a libertine, my own encounters with him had begun to make me see him as a man of wit and discrimination, and yet, in front of my lady’s charms, all tumbled like the walls of Jericho at Joshua’s trumpet.

  I had no more time to dwell upon the fragrant charms of my lady Straven, due to the unexpected arrival of my sister Mary.

  I had not yet arisen from my bed when Mary appeared in my chamber, pale as a wraith, urging me to sit up and talk to her. Mary was usually the neatest of dressers, not willing even to venture abroad if her shoe is scuffed, or her dress has a mark on it the size of a flea bite. I have seen her shout at her tire-woman if her ruff is not freshly poked and pinned to her curtain every morning of the week, even Sundays. Yet today her hair was lose and unkempt and I could see the sign of last night’s meat upon her collar.

  ‘Ann, Ann, wake up. I have need of your counsel.’

  I sat up abruptly, shaking the hair from my face and rubbing the sleep out of the corner of my eyes. ‘Mary! What is it? Not Father?’

  ‘No, no. Father is at his lodgings in Charing Cross, no doubt eating a hearty breakfast, ready as ever to bore all in the Parliament with the regulation of watermen or the outrageous cost of kerseymere.’

  I smiled but the stricken look in Mary’s eyes stopped me and I climbed from my bed.

  ‘Mary, sister, what is it that brings you?’ I pulled a gown from my press and hastily began to dress, not bothering to call Joan or Mercy to help me.

  ‘Our debts are worse.’ She sank down onto the edge of the bed and hid her face in her hands.

  ‘And can you truly apply to none for help? Could you not make suit to Nick’s brother-in-law, Sir Walter Ralegh? His adventurings must surely have made him one of the richest men in the kingdom? He could surely assist you in your current difficulties?’

  My sister shook her head. ‘I am sad to say he is out of favour. He pines to be on the Council yet is ever excluded. And he has spent all he made on foreign expeditions and his house in the country.’

  ‘And your necklace? The one our mother left to you?’

  Mary bit her lip so hard that, to my shock, I saw a pinprick of blood appear. She turned her face away. ‘Sold already.’

  ‘Oh, Mary. And what of this gentleman to whom you are so sorely encumbered?’

  ‘I have had communication from him again.’ She threw a letter down onto the bed beside me. The paper was thick and costly and the heavy red seal, adorned with rampant lions and castles, spoke of wealth and luxury. ‘Matthew Freeman, Esquire,’ she spat the title as if no man deserved it less, ‘says he saw me once and has not forgotten my grace and beauty. If I wished to meet with him alone he would consider ways to absolve us of our embarrassment and my small indiscretion.’

  ‘You cannot mean…?’

  Mary looked at me, her eyes narrowing and her voice as hard as the clang of the hammer on the anvil. ‘There is only one currency I know of where such debts can be settled in private and without money.’

  ‘When does he bid you meet him?’

  ‘Tomorrow afternoon. At an establishment called the Castle upon Hope Inn.’ She smiled bitterly. ‘I would wager an angel it will not be a royal castle.’

  ‘But I know it! Our aunt’s woman, Joan, showed it to me when we were walking in Southwark. Mary,’ I tried to take her hand but she pulled it from me, ‘according to Joan it is a bawdy house.’

  ‘I did not imagine it was a place of religious devotion.’

  ‘Your husband, Nick, surely he would never countenance such a transaction?’

  Mary grabbed my hands and held them so tight she almost crumbled my bones. ‘Nick must never know aught of this. He would either die or kill me if he had the merest suspicion of any such action.’

  ‘Mary, I beg you not to follow this rash course. There must be other ways of avoiding disaster.’

  ‘There are. I have examined them all. This is my last resort.’

  ‘You are the kindest of women,’ I forced her to look me in the eye, ‘and the bravest. Yet surely it cannot be worth this?’

  ‘No, Ann,’ Mary replied as if her determination had been sharpened like a knife on the whetstone. ‘I am neither kind nor brave. But I refuse to lose all that I have and forfeit my children’s inheritance because of my husband’s fondness for gambling and a stupid letter I should never have written.’

  ‘So you are going to meet this man tomorrow?’

  ‘I am. I came today for two reasons.’ Her clear green eyes seemed strangely calm now that her mind was made up. ‘First, that once I had made the announcement to you, I would have to go on the morrow. Second, I may jump fences at the gallop and never think twice of my safety but I thought one close to me should know of my venturing alone into Southwark to see him.’

  I saw that beneath her calm Mary was frightened indeed. ‘I am glad you trusted me. But I beg you, do not follow this road. Surely it would be better to importune Father? He is a rich man after all.’

  ‘And let him see the weakness of the man I have chosen? Never!’ She held me briefly against her heart. ‘Men risk blood and death in battle. Lying on a feather bed, no matter with what distasteful company, can hardly compare with that. I will not lose an eye or a limb in this combat.’

  ‘You might lose a soul,’ I wanted to say, but kept my peace. Besides, I had not yet conceded that it must come to this. I needed to think if any other way were open to us.

  After Mary left I slipped quietly down the back staircase to the gardens beneath. I needed a moment alone to think before my aunt called me to my tasks.

  All around the weather mocked my unhappiness with its perfect beauty. Every bird in London seemed to be singing his heart out under warm May skies of heavenly blue. Without noticing where my steps led me, I followed a path towards the river.

  Whom could I apply to, I asked myself, for wisdom and wise counsel? My aunt had been so kind to me, I wondered if she could be trusted? The bitter truth struck me of a sudden that it was to Mary herself, certain, brave Mary, that in times of trial I would most often turn, and now she was applying to me, and I had not been able to save her.

  Bett, too, was lost to me; could I bear disaster to befall another of my sisters?

  ‘Mistress More…?’ A quiet voice broke into my thoughts.

  I turned to find Master Donne standing but a few feet away. I put up my chin, waiting for him to make some jest about the rudeness last night to my lady Straven.

  Instead his voice held only gentle concern. ‘Is aught distressing you? Forgive me for intruding but it seemed to me you stared towards the river like one seeking its watery embrace.’

  The kindness in his voice took me aback and again I felt a temptation to explain the whole to him, and seek his advice. Yet the display last night with the Countess had rocked my judgement in him. Perhaps his soul was not the shining beacon I had begun to think it. ‘Not I. I was listening to the birds sing and thinking of Loseley where I grew up. The birdsong there is louder than anywhere I have ever heard it.’

  ‘Louder even than the cooing of amorous London doves?’

  I blushed at this reference to our first meeting and changed the subject lest he see me blush further.

  ‘Tell me, Master Donne, how is Wat faring?’

  Master Donne’s answer was a laugh. ‘He is a fast learner, I grant you. Already he knows at what ti
me I want my morning beer, the way my clothes are to be hung or folded, and he has found his way round the palace of Whitehall faster than a dog hunts out a juicy bone.’ His eyes sought my face. ‘Do you enjoy the country so much better than the Court, then, Mistress More, that you pine so for its birdsong?’

  ‘I do. And you? Do country pleasures appeal to you, Master Donne?’

  ‘Alas, no. I am a Londoner born and bred. To me the cry of the costermonger is far lovelier than the call of the cuckoo.’

  Despite my worries I laughed at that.

  ‘That is better. Yet your merry brown eyes still seem clouded. Are you sure there is nothing for which I could offer my humble services?’

  This time the temptation to unburden myself was too strong and I would certainly have confided in him had not from the far end of the garden a vision appeared in palest cream satin, worked with golden threads, her long hair loose about her shoulders like some Grecian goddess.

  The Countess of Straven had come to claim her due.

  And already my companion’s tender concern was fixing itself elsewhere.

  ‘Master Donne,’ her voice, so steely in command, now tinkled like the brook in the mead at Loseley, ‘I am glad to find you here. I seek a classical allusion for the poem I am engaged in writing. It tells the story of two maids vying with each other in love.’ To my surprise, she looked at me slyly. ‘One is far nobler than the other, and loves with a pure bright fire. The other, knowing she is not worthy, stoops to tactics that are ignoble and underhand to trick him into loving her. What think you of the notion of Atalanta’s balls?’

  I had meant to say farewell and leave them to their versifying, but there was that in the Countess’s manner that brought out the sinful Eve in me.

  ‘Why not the Judgement of Paris?’ I suggested, my voice as cloying as sugared almonds in a sweet bag. ‘For I have often found that even good men are blinded by beauty into choices they later discover to be mistaken.’

  I took my leave before the Countess thought up a rejoinder or had time to conclude to whom I might be alluding.