The Lady and the Poet

by Maeve Haran

  ‘So,’ Master Manners came to ride alongside me, ‘what think you of your sister’s betrothed?’

  ‘He seems a kind man. I think they will be content together—unless he lets Frances get the better of him.’

  ‘And you, Mistress Ann, what do you look for in a husband?’

  The question threw me into confusion. Master Manners’s eyes were upon me, questioning and assessing, yet teasingly so.

  ‘Kindness. Respect. A sense perhaps of adventure.’

  ‘You ask much. And what would you give him. Obedience? Deferring to him in all things?’ He laughed at that, but gently. ‘I think the man for you must be one who relishes the chase.’

  Before I had the time or wit to answer he jumped a wall and galloped off, hallooing the while. And what must I do, being one that acts before they think, but jump the wall after him and race up the hill until we halted on the summit and looked down upon the others.

  And then his mount was alongside mine, so close that I could smell its sweat. ‘There are other adventures in life besides upon a horse,’ he said softly and spurred his horse on to join the others.

  A few miles outside the village of Nunwell we spied Sir John’s ancestral home, a pleasant brick house of three storeys built round a central buttress with a wing stretching out each side. Its long windows had a grace and elegance I warmed to immediately. Indeed, much though I loved Loseley for its stern grey beauty, Nunwell had a welcoming look to it as if it might stretch out its wings and embrace you. It was of a manageable size also.

  For a fleeting moment I envied my little sister her amiable husband and her cosy house, and even more the straightforwardness of her situation when my own was so difficult and byzantine.

  While Sir John showed the others proudly round his grounds, I felt the need of air again to calm my alarm, and stepped beyond the garden from where there was a fair view across the Solent.

  ‘My father’s house is thrice the size of this,’ murmured a voice at my elbow and I found Master Manners had followed me out. ‘He is a great age already and will not long grace this earth.’

  ‘Master Manners,’ I chided gently, ‘you would not wish your father dead before his time?’

  ‘And there is a great park around it, not piddling gardens such as these.’

  ‘I like the gardens here. They are on a human scale, and could be tended without too much care and effort.’

  ‘If you wish for piddling gardens, Mistress More,’ Master Manners bowed extravagantly, ‘then piddling gardens you shall have.’

  ‘You are very persuasive, sir.’

  ‘Am I?’ He raised my hand suddenly to his lips. ‘Indeed I hope so.’

  Voices interrupted us. It was our host and his betrothed approaching together with my father, who smiled upon them both as if in appreciation of a bargain well struck. ‘I intend to give you twenty pounds a year, my dear, for your apparel and all your necessaries,’ Sir John explained to my entranced sister. ‘I am not a rich man, and yet I keep a better table than any other on the island. You shall have salmon and musk-melon and any other things that delight your heart.’ He turned to Master Manners. ‘Like you London, sir? For myself I hate it. Nothing but dice and whores—pardoning your presence, mistresses—and they have brought many a man to beggary.’

  ‘Have they indeed?’ Master Manners answered with pretended seriousness. ‘I try to spend my time on learning and religion.’

  ‘Do you, sir? Then God has smiled on you. If they are ever to go to London, young men need a vocation, some modest calling, think you not? Or they reckon themselves too gentle and high for honest work.’

  ‘I cannot say that honest work has much appealed to me.’

  ‘That is because you are a gentleman, sir. My point entirely.’

  ‘Do you not want our sons to be gentlemen?’ Frances enquired, scandalized.

  ‘Certainly. Yet gentlemen who have a profession.’

  ‘Is that not a contradiction in terms?’ asked Master Manners.

  ‘I agree with Sir John,’ seconded my father. ‘Too many young men spend their inheritance trying to win favour with friends.’

  ‘Ten pounds will do more for you than most men’s love, I always say,’ Sir John pronounced just as supper was announced.

  ‘I think your father, Sir George, has met a man after his own stamp,’ confided Master Manners as he led me to the parlour chamber.

  The meal we were served was an excellent one of pigeon followed by swine’s flesh and roast mutton, finished with a cheese from Sir John’s own cows. He then took us on a tour inside his house, pointing out to my great amusement the very bed they would sleep in—not to mention the excellency of its feather mattress—and assuring my sister she would have her own gentlewoman to meet her every need. Yet I liked him much.

  ‘You are fortunate indeed, Frances,’ I whispered to her later. ‘Sir John is a good man, I believe.’

  ‘I know,’ Frances replied, glowing with glee. ‘I am going to be a happy woman.’ She smiled at me angelically. ‘Above all in that feather bed!’

  ‘Frances!’

  ‘Well, it is my betrothal we celebrate. I do know what happens in the marriage bed, sister. Remember Bett and her Sir John?’

  We both held each other a moment at that, remembering how soon it was afterwards that Bett had left this world. ‘Though I think my Sir John will prove a better bargain than hers did. You know, Ann…’ she put her arm round my waist, ‘you could have as happy a home and hearth as I will.’

  ‘With Master Manners, you mean?’

  ‘Who else could give you what he offers, and make your family happy? Ponder on it, Ann.’

  ‘Have you been enlisted by our father in this cause?’

  ‘No, sister,’ she replied, all seriousness and concern, ‘it is because I wish you to share the happy prospects I look forward to. Besides, you cannot truly consider going against our father’s will. Such a thing is not possible. Even bold and fearless Mary did not do so.’

  We were called outside at that. Sir John wished to show Frances his henhouse before inviting us to sit down to a game of Glecko.

  By the time we left three days later I could picture the years of great content unfolding for Sir John and my lady Frances and the many children who would no doubt fill up this happy home. She would be the best housewife a husband could dream of, and he an amiable, loving husband, who would chide her continually to make small economies, then spoil it all by purchasing some great gift for her of jewels or silver whenever he had to go away.

  I sighed as I packed up my bag, and gave Sir John a great kiss that took him by surprise as we stood outside in the chill of the morning waiting to leave.

  ‘I hate this damned weather,’ complained my father. ‘Already I have the flux and fear I shall suffer it worse on our way back to Loseley.’

  Despite the cold and wet the return crossing was far pleasanter, the sea being as calm and grey as a stagnant pond. Even so I greeted the sight of dry land with relief.

  Portsmouth town was even fuller with soldiers than when we passed through on our way out. ‘The townspeople complain roundly about being billeted with them,’ my father admitted. ‘And in time of war it is far worse.’

  I thought suddenly of the expeditions to Cadiz and the Islands, when Master Donne had been a soldier, and how he had written so vividly in his verse of all the smart young gentlemen, dressed in their gold lace and feathers, signing up as voluntaries to protect their Queen and make their fortunes, only to find that war was nasty and brutal before returning, shocked and impoverished, their lace torn, their feathers drooping and deep in debt.

  ‘What find you in all this uncouth soldiery to make you smile?’ asked Master Manners.

  ‘I had not known that I did so.’

  He raised his brows, a look of suspicion clouding his handsome features. ‘Come, I have promised your father we will visit the apothecary to find him some relief from the flux he suffers. I spied an apothecary’s sign behind the t
own near to St Mary’s Chapel.’

  ‘That is kind of you. Yet surely I should be the one to find it.’

  ‘If you think so. I will wait outside. You ought to take a care with all this soldiery abroad.’

  The apothecary listened to my request politely and reached behind him towards the shelves lined with jars and urns. To my surprise, instead of opening any of these he broke off a lump of charcoal and selected one of the mortars sitting on his counter. With a brass pestle he ground the charcoal into powder. ‘He must take this infusion twice a day. It may taste like the Devil’s own concoction but it will answer the problem better than chamomile or peppermint. Even better than chewing ginger, though all these remedies will answer in their way.’

  I thanked him.

  At the inn my father had taken to his bed and was glad of the charcoal, though suspicious of its newness. Frances, still beaming at her good luck in the marriage prospects, had elected to stay and sit with him, ministering to any needs.

  I stowed my cloak in my chamber to find that Master Manners had ordered supper and awaited me in our own private dining room. The food and wine were all laid out invitingly.

  ‘I told the innkeeper we would need no boy to serve us since it seems they are short-handed.’

  ‘That is kind of you,’ and yet I wondered why he felt the need to point it out.

  Silence fell between us. I refused the wine he proffered yet Master Manners drank it steadily, rarely letting his goblet touch the table, until the ewer emptied and there came a dangerous glitter in his eyes.

  Growing concerned at his wild look, I got to my feet and began to bid him good night, saying that I was tired and needed to sleep.

  ‘Aye,’ he slurred. ‘To lie in bed and think of Master Donne.’ Uttering the name seemed like lighting the fuse on a barrel of gunpowder. ‘Master Donne again! Always Master Donne!’ And suddenly he was upon me as if the barrel had exploded. ‘All the time in London you avoided my company,’ harshly he forced me back against the wainscoting, ‘yet you seemed ready enough for the company of Master Donne!’

  I felt his leg pushing between mine and one hand roughly fondle my breast and I wanted to scream out, but his other hand covered my mouth. ‘Yet despite all the rumours you claim still to have your maidenhead.’ He held me fast, with his hand under my chin pressing roughly against my neck so that I could hardly breathe. ‘If that be so, the pleasure of your deflowering belongs to me. For only then can we see if you tell God’s honest truth or lie like a Deptford whore.’

  As I struggled for my life and honour I felt his breath coming fast, and saw his eyes glazing in cruel anticipation and that he meant to have me there and then, standing up like some cheap doxy. In my fear and panic I looked for some implement to ward him off, but there was none.

  I tried to scratch his face yet this made him smile the more as if my very resistance increased his enjoyment in the taking of me. At last I managed to cry out for help.

  ‘What mischief takes place in here?’ The innkeeper’s voice rang out and I thanked the Almighty as Master Manners slackened his hold.

  ‘We are well, thank you, landlord,’ he sneered, beginning to whistle as if he had been simply surprised in a lovers’ tryst.

  The innkeeper looked suspiciously from Master Manners to myself. ‘Need you any assistance, mistress?’

  ‘I would welcome your company to walk with me upstairs to find my father.’

  ‘Indeed. And does the Watch need summoning, think you?’

  If I summoned the Watch I knew my father would never forgive me. I knew he cared for me, yet he cared for our family’s reputation more. ‘No, no, I will find my father. He is but a few steps hence.’

  ‘Too far to come when you might need him,’ shrugged the innkeeper. ‘You’d best come now and I can take you myself.’

  As I made ready to follow him, Master Manners grabbed my arm. ‘Time enough yet,’ he whispered thickly. ‘There will not always be strangers to interrupt us.’ He flicked my cheek with his finger as if all that passed between us had been mere playful joshing. ‘Especially when we are wed.’

  And my blood froze the while.

  My sullied reputation might make some men turn away from me; yet with Master Manners it seemed to stoke up his desire for mastery over me the more.

  ‘Ann! Ann!’ called out my father querulously. ‘Where have you been all these minutes? Come sit with me. Frances falls asleep or fidgets.’

  ‘Father,’ I requested urgently, ‘can we not ride to Loseley tonight?’

  ‘Foolish girl, we would break our necks in the dark. Besides I have the flux and am weak as a kitten.’

  ‘Then I will sit up in your chair, Father, and make sure you have all that you need for your affliction. Frances can seek her bed.’

  Frances shrugged and picked up her Irish stitchwork. ‘I would be glad.’

  If my father thought it strange to have me wish to stay in his room he said naught about it.

  As I sat next to the bed, the cheerful sounds of the inn retreated and the silence of night wrapped me in its cold embrace and I longed with my soul and my blood and my heart for Master Donne and for London.

  Chapter 18

  THROUGH THE LONG night I asked myself what I must do. Should I tell my father of Richard Manners’s treatment of me?

  I had thought he would object to my sitting in a chair in his chamber yet he did not. Perhaps there were moments even in his life when he drew comfort from the presence of another.

  By dawn I had decided.

  Already the nights were growing short so that the darkness came earlier and lasted longer in the morning. Yuletide would soon be upon us again.

  I stoked up the fire and pulled my shawl tighter round my shoulders, waiting for him to waken.

  It was after nine of the clock when he did so, and time we were on the road. I was grateful that the next night we stayed with friends and not at another inn.

  I shook him gently. ‘Father, wake up. I have laid your clothes out to warm by the fire.’ I sat down on his great bed, hesitating. He seemed even smaller than usual, half hidden in its downy embrace. ‘There is something I must say to you, which I have thought about all the long night. After we were left alone last night Master Manners tried to dishonour me.’

  ‘Now, Ann,’ my father sat up impatiently, ‘what nonsense is this? How could he have done so when you were in a busy inn with so many coming and going?’

  I paused at that, knowing what an unlikely tale it sounded. ‘I know. I thought myself safe in his company here for the same reason.’

  ‘Why, had you cause to doubt him?’

  ‘There have been moments when he looked strangely at me, and tried to press his attentions on me before.’

  ‘Enough!’ His voice was cold and as sharp as a chisel. ‘What is this farrago? You are fortunate, Ann, that Master Manners ignores this gossip of you and Master Donne and considers you at all.’

  ‘In exchange for demanding a greater portion!’

  ‘Be silent! If his father agrees to the settlement you will marry Master Manners as immediately as it can be arranged. And for my part tomorrow would not be too soon. You have caused me a great deal of trouble, Ann, with your pert manner and your extravagant ideas of your due. First you will not even take your place at Court. Then you entangle yourself with a man of no fortune and bad reputation. And now you accuse Master Manners of dishonouring you. You have dishonoured yourself. And I will not allow you to bring down the rest of our family. I wish to hear no more of this matter. Go now and ready yourself for the journey. We leave within the hour. Go!’

  I turned and ran towards my chamber. In my deepest soul I had known this was how my father would respond.

  I listened out for Master Manners’s voice before descending and greeting the news with the greatest relief that he had gone ahead on horseback.

  We left Frances to chatter for us all on the journey back to Loseley, a challenge she rose to with no encouragement. Sir John was
the perfect pattern of a man, not even Adam could come near him, Nunwell House was lovelier than all the Queen’s palaces rolled into one, the view from the knot garden rivalled any she had heard of in Italy, and even Sir John’s hens outcrowed Chanticleer.

  Her chatter filled the great divide between my father and myself. He stared out of the window, avoiding my eye, while I wrapped up in the fur of my cloak, and pushed up ever deeper into the furthest corner of the coach. Even when we were thrown together by the infernal jolting he treated me as if I were some distant stranger, and I used every ounce of my strength to keep back the tears which I would choke on rather than show him.

  As the familiar grey outline of Loseley came into view, my sister leaned towards me one last time. ‘Tell me, Ann, are you not, in even the smallest portion, jealous?’

  ‘Yes, Frances, indeed I am.’

  It was not the answer she had expected, and her smile widened with delight.

  Yet I did not add the reason, that she was lucky to want what was within her grasp. An amiable man who loved his land and his animals, and would love her also.

  There might be no clashing of cymbals as true souls met, such as I had heard for one brief moment before they were silenced forever. Yet perhaps such things were no more than a painful chimera, a will-o’-the-wisp that leads travellers to their death on fog-filled moors.

  Yes, Frances was fortunate indeed.

  My admission of envy seemed to cause her inordinate delight.

  I had one consolation at least. Mary was coming to stay and would be bringing with her the babe. She might oppose my feelings but at least she knew of their existence, which gave me a comfort of sorts.

  Mary’s babe, a fine boy, had eyes the colour of tar and a head of black hair as thick as his father’s. ‘A relief that he has the stamp of the Throckmortons so deep upon him,’ I could not resist whispering to Mary, who in return kicked me so hard it bruised my shin.

  Margaret had come also and both were bursting with London gossip which they exchanged with me as we laughed together in my bedchamber. How the Lord Keeper’s new wife Alice, Countess of Derby, was causing yet more havoc with her wilful ways and had even married her daughter to John, the Lord Keeper’s remaining son, apparently without her husband’s consent.