by Maeve Haran
‘And you, Francis,’ Mary teased. ‘I had not known you had such hairy legs!’
He threw back his head and laughed. ‘I smell like a goat also. John Egerton has ejected the contents of his dinner upon me after too much wine!’
We sisters exchanged glances at that. It was going to be a lively occasion, it seemed.
‘There is to be a masque, I hear,’ Mary announced, looking at me. ‘The Countess of Straven plans to surprise us all.’
‘Indeed,’ I replied, refusing to catch Mary’s eye. ‘Let us hope it is not Salome with the seven veils. Francis, take my sisters in. I must fill my pails from this churn first.’
‘Real milk? I knew not you had this taste for the theatrical, Ann. Perhaps you will be the one who surprises us.’
While the others entered, I filled my pails, my hands shaking with sudden weakness at how Master Donne would greet me.
At last, my pails filled, I raised my chin and followed the guests into the Great Hall, passing my uncle dressed as Julius Caesar in conversation with my father, in the costume of King Cnut. How like my father to think himself a man wishing to hold back the tides of time!
Once inside I dipped a cup into my milk and called out, ‘Lords and ladies, try my milk! Fresh from the cow this very morn!’
My cry was met with silence followed by shouts of humorous appreciation as the guests milled forward to sample my wares.
But none amongst them was Master Donne.
And then I spied him.
For the occasion he had chosen the attire of a privateer from the Indies, with scarf tied round his black hair and short sword tucked in his belt.
And yet I had to smile. For he looked neither fierce nor barbaric. The brutal attire served but to bring out his gentleness. The whiteness of his skin, the tender wisps of his moustache, and the long slender fingers that rested on his belt spoke not of privateering but of the scholar dressed in pirate’s clothing.
I had thought to venture forth and offer him my milk when the ranks of guests suddenly parted and a vision appeared, robed in Grecian attire, cut so low that her full breasts were plainly visible, her hair hidden by a long fair wig, and bare arms decked with golden armlets.
Isabella, Countess of Straven, had come modestly to the feast attired as Helen of Troy. And then her hand was suddenly upon his arm, and her bewitching smile would indeed have launched a thousand ships. Her eyes, as they rested on him, caressed as clearly as if the two lay down upon a couch together.
And I, who had never known the fires of love, nor the prick of lovers’ jealousy, longed to throw my pail and drench them in the milk of my outraged innocence.
I was saved from any such unseemly act by Master Manners, who had noted me amongst the crowd and now came towards me, dressed in pastoral attire, with a wooden crook in his hand.
‘Master Manners,’ I said, a little too loudly, my face still flushed with anger, not thinking what I spoke but that I must remove myself. ‘Are you indeed a shepherd?’ I held out my hand for him to shake. ‘Corydon perhaps?’
At that he laughed and the couple I wished to avoid turned towards us. ‘Not Corydon, mistress. I know you are both fair and learned yet you have not read your Eclogues diligently. As I remember Corydon loved a boy but it is no boy, I assure you, who is the object of this shepherd’s affections.’
At this witty rejoinder all about us laughed. Master Donne threw me a look which might have been sympathy or pity, yet the gleam in the Countess’s eye at my ignorance being thus exposed was obvious to all.
‘Come, mistress,’ Master Manners took my hand, ‘let us go to dine. A shepherd and his milkmaid, who could desire a more fitting couple than that?’
And indeed, to my even greater embarrassment, the other guests near about us began to clap as he took my hand in his and led me eagerly away.
Though my heart seethed with hurt and indignation there was much to divert me here, for this was the grandest occasion I had ever witnessed outside the Court. All the long table in the hall was decked with boughs of ivy, on which real jewels had been laid, and silken knots of ribbon. In the centre a vast cascade of dark liquid poured from tier to tier like a true waterfall. To my amazement it was made not of water but of wine! Indeed I was surprised at such magnificence in my uncle’s house and wondered how Francis had persuaded him.
I looked down the table to see where Master Donne and his Helen were seated, yet there seemed no sign of them.
In each room musicians played and youths sang madrigals about shepherds and their dear loves. Listening to their words, Master Manners bade me dance with him. Next to us my sister Mary made sheep’s eyes at her Nick, as if he were the only gentleman in all this wide world, and I smiled at them, hoping that long might it last.
‘You are a pretty pair, Ann,’ Mary whispered as we turned in the dance, ‘just as God would have ordained.’ I knew at once what she intended by this inference, that Master Manners was my equal, nearer in age and in rank than any jumped-up ironmonger’s son.
I pretended not to catch her meaning.
When we returned to the table the food had been spread out, and many forgot they were dressed as gods and goddesses as they fell to tearing it apart.
Afterwards, while the sweetmeats were being laid, there was a sudden clap and on a dais at the end of the table a curtain parted, revealing a rocky mountain made of sharp and dangerous peaks.
In the centre of the mountain the assembly gasped to see the Countess of Straven, now dressed as a virgin, her long hair about her shoulders, her hands crossed in prayer. Beneath her, pawing at the mountain, were two ravening beasts, one bearing the legend Lust, the other Licentiousness, and above the tableau a painted sign read ‘Purity Triumphing Over Trial and Temptation’.
‘It must fain be the first time,’ I heard one guest murmur to his neighbour and I slipped quietly away, not wanting to feed the Countess’s vanity with my applause.
‘Mistress More!’
At the far end of the hall, a passage led towards the pantry and beyond that the kitchens. He stood, half in shadow, the candlelight catching the silver of his sword, beckoning me towards the entrance.
I followed, anger burning up in me.
I had thought him a deep well and yet he had proved both shallow and faithless.
‘Well, Master Donne, will not my lady Straven’s nose be quite put of joint that you are not there to applaud her triumph?’
He took my wrist and pulled me further into the shadows.
‘That is not worthy of you who is so generous of spirit.’
‘Even generous spirits may be wounded to see those whom they admire behave ignobly. The lovely Isabella has a husband after all.’
‘Who cares only for her wealth, and naught for her happiness.’
‘I see. So she must console herself elsewhere.’
‘As it happens I have counselled her many times to return to him.’
‘Generous to a fault. Then you would have the chance—how was it you put it in your verse?—“to kiss and play in his house”.’
He still held my wrist and now twisted it so hard it pained me. ‘You have indeed a poor judgement of me. I would never do so.’
‘Honour amongst adulterers? I am touched.’
His eyes scanned mine. ‘I am not proud of the life I have lived before I met you. I have known many women, it is true, and may pay the price with eternal damnation. Yet there is one sin I would not commit: I would not abuse the honour of the innocent.’
‘Forgive me if I do not commiserate with you.’ At last I wrested my wrist from his grasp. It had blue marks which tomorrow I would have to hide. ‘For the evidence seems to me to be otherwise!’
My cheeks flamed as I made my way back through the crowded hall, overwhelmed by a tide of anger and confusion. It seemed that I might wish and pray to feel nothing for Master Donne, yet despite all he had the power as no other man on earth did to move me.
WITH THE NEW babe in her belly Mary began to grow in s
ize before my eyes.
Much of the cause for this was her sudden taste for sweetmeats. Mary, lean as a whippet and used to chiding our weighty sister Margaret, was now forever sending me to bother the cook with requests for butter fritters, creamapple pie and feberry fool. Once, when the cook barked back that my lady had eaten her out of almonds, I was sent out myself to find her dumplings from a cookshop.
And yet so much consumption seemed never to diminish her prodigious energy. She called all the time for friends to come and play at cards, read her poetry, and even to perform playlets to distract her from the great boredom and dislike she professed at being in whelp.
Sometimes I was shocked at the behaviour of their circle. They seemed a shallow crowd, prone to gossip and to garrulousness, lying around sipping Mary’s sack from the moment she had risen from her bed, ever criticizing others for their idleness yet never seeming to do any useful thing themselves.
Once, back from an excursion to find candied fruits, Mary’s fad for this week, I came across a pair fumbling at each other’s clothing in the dry food pantry. And when I entered all they did was laugh and show not a shred of shame.
And then came the terrible news that carefree young Sir Thomas, elder son of the Lord Keeper and father of the three small girls it had been my role sometimes to care for, had died of wounds sustained fighting the Irish.
Knowing the terrible blow this would be to my uncle I went with all speed to York House to offer him my sympathy. As I alighted at the river stairs I wondered if I might see Master Donne, whose friend Sir Thomas had been. I wished, if I saw him, to offer him also my sympathy, all thoughts of the encounter the other night forgotten now that Death had laid his icy fingers upon us.
I found my uncle pale and sorrowing, yet busying himself still with the business of State.
‘My dear son Thomas is to be buried tomorrow with all honours at Chester Cathedral.’ His honest eyes held mine a brief moment and I saw in them the depths of his pain. ‘I wish to go and sorrow for him, yet Her Majesty says she is loath to lose me even for so short a time.’
I nodded, wondering at the price Queen Elizabeth exacted from her true and loyal servants.
‘His brother John has gone to Chester and Master Donne and others are representing me.’
‘I am sure they will serve your honour well,’ I replied sadly and embraced his young wife, who, it seemed shockingly, was not to go to his funeral either, it not being thought a womanly thing.
As I left that sad house for the frivolous cheer of my sister’s, I saw a new guest arriving. The Countess of Straven.
‘You waste your time,’ I almost said. ‘He is already gone.’ Instead I lifted my head and smiled and asked how her husband did and that I heard he had come to London at last.
At that she looked at me narrowly. ‘You are out of date, Mistress More. He has returned to the country, not finding London to his taste. Yet here you are again, and still without a husband.’
‘Yet when I do find one, I intend to love and honour him and not spend my life a hundred miles apart.’
‘Such innocence, Mistress More. A hundred miles is an excellent distance between husband and wife, as I am sure you will yet discover.’
With all her lovely face, and imagined experience, I believed her not. If I was allowed to have the husband of my choice, I would not spend my life a hundred miles apart but hold him fast within the circle of my arms.
When I regained my sister’s house at Mile End she was in a pettish mood, moving from chair to couch, now staring out of the window, then pacing like a caged bear.
Her husband was at his wits’ end with her.
‘Here,’ he thrust a parchment into her hands, ‘perhaps this will amuse you. A saucy verse penned by your uncle’s secretary. It is doing the rounds of the Inns of Court. Not for ladies’ eyes, so I knew you would wish to see it.’
He chucked her chin affectionately, to cut the edge of his words.
Mary opened the paper. ‘It is called “The Flea”. Not the fittest of subjects for poetry.’ Clearing her throat she read the verse aloud.
‘Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deny’st me is;
It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea, our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead,
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pampered swells with one blood made of two,
And this, alas, is more than we would do.
Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, nay, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, we’are met,
And cloistered in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to this, self murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?
In what could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?
Yet thou triumph’st, and say’st that thou
Find’st not thyself, nor me the weaker now;
’Tis true, then learn how false fears be;
Just so much honour, when thou yield’st to me,
Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.’
As she finished reading my sister started to laugh so much she had to drink a sip of ale to quiet herself. ‘I must admit, he is a witty fellow your Master Donne. I wonder if he wrote it to woo the lovely Isabella.’
I twitched the paper from her. ‘He is not my Master Donne. And the lovely Isabella has no maidenhead to protect. Unless her husband is even more incompetent than he seems.’
Yet the truth was, I was stirred more than I chose to admit by the lines I had heard, witty and polished on the surface yet with the veiled hint of mastery beneath.
For there was that in me which might, despite the strictures of God and family, be tempted to surrender my own maidenhead to a laughing, dark-eyed suitor.
Yet I covered such thoughts by pretending scorn and anger so that I stamped from the room, imagining the smiles on the faces of my sister and her husband as I ran to my chamber and threw the parchment on the floor, my face flushed with anger mixed with unmaidenly desires.
AFTER THE DEATH of young Sir Thomas we had some calm days until the news that shook us all. The Earl of Essex, returning suddenly from the wars in Ireland, which were going very ill, had burst into the Queen’s bedchamber at Nonsuch Palace. She, without wig or make-up and wearing only her nightgown and with none of the lengthy preparations that readied Her Majesty to face the world, might have had him killed for less. The Court held its breath. Yet the Queen was surprisingly tender and sent him kindly away.
Yet when he returned she was much changed and so angry that he had without her permission concluded a treaty, that she declared he must be imprisoned at her pleasure. And to my uncle’s great discomfort York House was selected as the Earl’s place of his detainment.
And so, and at his own expense, my uncle the Lord Keeper had an unexpected and unwelcome guest. Rumour even held it that Master Donne and others must give up their lodgings to make room for the Earl and all his train.
In the weeks that succeeded I saw no more of Master Donne, yet we heard much of life at my aunt and uncle’s house. The Earl of Essex, hitherto a good friend to the Lord Keeper, was now driving him to desperation by his melancholic fits. For the good of the country my uncle wished him to make his peace with the Queen, yet the Earl seemed to be declining faster than the sun upon St Lucy’s Day, the shortest of all the year.
Indeed, the Earl’s decline was so violent and extreme that one night it was thought that the fever he had taken would cause his
untimely end. The Queen was told and, by cover of darkness, she came secretly to visit York House in the royal barge, to bid her last farewell.
After that he rallied. And as his melancholy lessened yet a sorrier rumour came to us in Mile End that my aunt herself was stricken by illness.
‘Tis likely to be naught,’ my sister counselled, ‘perhaps my lord Essex’s appropriation of her house has brought her spirits lower still.’
I resolved that the next day, while my sister lay abed as she often did after the midday meal, I would seek more news of my aunt’s ailment.
It was a cold afternoon, the balmy days of October, with their golden glory, had now vanished and we were well through the month of November. Last week had been the Queen’s Accession Day feast, one of the greatest in all the year, with tilting and masques and all manner of celebration. I wondered if the Queen missed her Earl and whether this time his sin was too great to forgive, being about not the peccadilloes of love but the defence of her realm. Was life at her Court, now functioning smooth again, too quiet without her gentle knight who, though so many years her junior, made her ache with pain as often as thrill with pleasure? Perhaps at well past sixty years any feeling was better than none? Or yet again, she might be bored of such tiring games as his, forever dallying with her ladies, or sulking at slights to his honour.
When I arrived by water at York House it was quieter than I had ever known it, despite the presence of the Earl of Essex. My uncle had been called to an urgent meeting of the Privy Council and had taken many of his advisors and secretaries with him. The Earl of Essex himself seemed wrapped in melancholy and glid around like a wraith outside in the gardens all day long, clad in old clothes.
When I asked the groom of the Great Chamber to see my aunt I found it was Joan, her tire-woman, who came to greet me.
‘Joan, good day to you,’ I wished her, remembering the outings she and I had shared around this fair city. Indeed I had to hide a smile at the memory of her tutoring in the art of bedmaking, and how it ended in so strange and fatal an encounter.