The Lady and the Poet

by Maeve Haran

  ‘I will do so. You are my destiny, Ann.’

  ‘As you are mine.’

  I kissed his forehead. ‘Hold me there in your mind. And in your heart. It will not be so far a time until I am in your bed also.’

  At that he drew me into his arms and I felt his mouth on mine. ‘For me it cannot be soon enough.’

  I could see the pain of loss went as deep with him as it did with me. ‘Let me come with you now,’ he suddenly demanded. ‘We will find your father and tell him the truth, that we made a contract when first we met and have honourably kept to it, as well as any man and wife.’

  ‘He will not see it as honouring a contract but that you took advantage of my youth and innocence. I need to show him that it was not so. Let me find the moment and speak first.’

  ‘In that case, farewell, my love, and God speed the time we may be together.’

  ‘Wait until the day after tomorrow, then send Wat. I will have a letter ready to tell you how the wind blows. Farewell, my John.’

  I turned away from the candlelight, not wanting him to see the tears that glinted in my eyes. He was friend, counsellor, lover, poet. He stirred my mind, my soul and my body as none had ever done before. Beneath the witty ambitious courtier, in him I had seen a sadness and a solitariness that echoed with my own. Both had lost a beloved parent at a tender age, and by great good fortune had staunched each other’s long-felt pain.

  To leave him now, when we had just joined our hearts forever, was like a mother having her child ripped untimely from her arms, when most she needs it.

  And yet I must. And I must be strong also for, married though we might be in the eyes of God, we were not so in the eyes of my father.

  Chapter 24

  I HAD JUST regained the street and begun to run, holding my skirts up from the mud and the mire, when a voice, full of laughing venom, stopped me. ‘Mistress More, what do you do abroad alone and unaccompanied?’

  It was the Countess of Straven, on horseback, with several retainers carrying her parcels.

  ‘I have been visiting my sister.’

  ‘Ah. The useful Mary. I hear she has been doing a little visiting of her own. You seem very strangely dressed for a sisterly visit.’ She studied me carefully.

  My hand flew up to my head and I knew the cause of her amusement. How had I forgot I wore my bridal flowers still? Hastily, under cover of my cloak, I pulled off my wedding band, though it pained me sorely so to do.

  My mind ranged desperately for an answer. ‘My sister plans a Twelfth Night masque and has cast me as Persephone bringing spring back to the winter world.’

  ‘Indeed? Yet, if you are Persephone, who then is your dark lord Hades? Or can I guess?’

  I ignored the cruel laughter in her voice. ‘Goodbye, my lady. I must get home before my father worries.’

  ‘He has much to worry about, from what I hear.’

  I turned my back on her and ran, conscious that she watched me still.

  She was an uncomfortable enemy. And would be the worse when she saw that I had got what she so wanted.

  I was entirely out of breath by the time I reached my father’s house.

  ‘Ann, where have you been all these hours? I have looked for you since dinner and that stupid girl who waits on you knew nothing. And are those leaves in your hair?’

  His voice bristled with annoyance that I would somehow have to pacify. I had thought he would be caught up with his business not watching out for me all afternoon long.

  ‘I am sorry, Father, the time passed so quick.’ The answer I had given the Countess was as good as any I could devise. ‘Mary is planning a Twelfth Night masque. That is why I am wearing the green dress with the ivy for she wishes me to play Persephone.’

  ‘Ah.’ He seemed to accept my story, and replied with his usual concern for naught but his own self, ‘You will have to tell her you cannot. We will be at Loseley for Twelfth Night. That is why I am waiting for you. I wish us to leave tomorrow. The new picture gallery is ready and I must supervise the hanging. Now, go and pack up your belongings.’

  I knew we were bound for Loseley, and yet it was a blow that our departure was so imminent. How long would I be absent from my husband? And was I deluded by some mad dream that the manner of my father’s discovering my marriage would alter his acceptance of it?

  With a troubled heart I packed my belongings into trunks and baskets and went to tell my father they were ready.

  He watched me as I put a match to the tapers in the withdrawing room, a faint smile lighting up his features. ‘The green becomes you, Ann. You could indeed be Persephone coming back to light up the world with the freshness of a new year.’

  And then to my surprise he did a generous thing. ‘Do you greatly wish to act in this masque of your sister Mary’s? Perhaps we might spare you somehow if you do.’

  ‘No, no, Father,’ I answered quickly, seeing a trap opening up before me since this masque was a figment of my own fantasy. I wished to be near him, the good daughter waiting for the right moment to break my news. ‘I am happy to come with you to Loseley.’

  ‘We will have a happy Christmastide, then.’

  I wondered then if I should make the most of his softened humour to break my news to him. After all, the deed was done, I was wed, and surely he would have no choice but accept it?

  Yet I had no chance, for in walked an usher to announce the arrival of the Lord Keeper. ‘God’s blood, George, do you know whom I have just seen, bold as brass upon the public street? Mistress Barnes, who married young Aston in secret to get her hands on his fortune. She was with another young lad, stroking his downy chin and kissing him. And she just released from a year in the Fleet prison for her pains and looking for all the world like an old woman!’

  I blenched at his words, feeling suddenly faint. If this young woman had paid for her secret marriage with a year in the Fleet, would the same happen to me when it was discovered that we had wed in secret and without my father’s consent?

  The Lord Keeper noted my sudden paleness. ‘Are you ill, Ann? You look as if a ghost had walked across your grave.’

  ‘No, no. A little light-headed with hunger, no more. I left early to rehearse for a masque.’

  ‘Her sister would have her play Persephone,’ explained my father with a touch of pride.

  ‘I loved to play in masques when I was younger. Though Hercules was more my line than some Greek goddess.’

  While my father and the Lord Keeper conferred on some matter for Parliament, I wrote a note to my sister explaining the reason she was now preparing an unexpected Twelfth Night celebration.

  The next day I would have all the coach journey with my father and perhaps then an opportune moment would arise.

  Yet the morning dawned cold and wet, with a chill east wind that brought on his cough and put him a vile temper. ‘Now I shall have this throat to tease me all over Yuletide,’ he complained.

  Even my offers of herb tisanes or making him a vest lined with goose grease met with a barked reply that it would be bolting the stable door after the horse had flown, so I kept my peace and waited.

  The one unexpected joy was that Mary and Nick sent word they would also come to Loseley for the Christmas feast. I had known that Margaret and her husband came often, for Peckham was not so far away, and this year Sir John Oglander, betrothed to my sister Frances, was also bidden. Mary also had chosen us over her grand Throckmorton relatives.

  I had to pass a whole week yet before Mary arrived with all her children, and a coachload of luggage. I had wondered if Nick might stay in town, not wishing to kick his heels in the country away from all his usual pleasures, but instead he came with Mary and the children and in great good humour too.

  ‘Has not little Nick grown apace since you last saw him, Ann?’ he asked me, proud as a peacock with his little son. Mary had the goodness at least to flush, for I had seen him not long ago, when his mother took him on an assignation, as cover to meet her lover.

  ‘
Look not so superior,’ Mary chided me sulkily, when she and I slipped away from the others, claiming we must hunt for ivy swags, and holly berries to decorate the hall. ‘For my sin is a drop in the great wide ocean compared to yours. Since all is passing calm at Loseley I assume you have not yet informed our father that you are a wedded woman?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Aye, I guessed as much. Then wait till after the feast is over for the sake of all the rest of us. Nick and I are reconciled and I would welcome a day of calm before another storm.’

  I had thought that they seemed content in each other’s company. ‘What happened? You did not confess nor he discover?’

  She shook her head and smiled her slanting smile. ‘Neither one. And I have no intention of telling him. Especially now that he has had the nod he will inherit from his uncle Francis, who owns the manor of Beddington and great estates to boot. All he must do is change his name to Carew and lead an honest life and he will be a rich man!’

  ‘And you a rich woman?’

  Mary shrugged. ‘I will not be a rich woman since all will belong to Nick. I will be a woman married to a rich man.’ Her wicked laugh shook the air. ‘Still, it is better than a poor woman married to a poor man, with a rich father who refuses to help her.’

  ‘Mary,’ I meant what I said, ‘I am truly happy for you.’

  ‘As long as he keeps it. A fool and his money, as they say.’

  ‘Yes, but Nick is no fool. This may be the making of him.’

  I could see the clear blue sky reflected in my sister’s eye and was glad for her.

  ‘He says he is turning over a new leaf and this time I credit it. He has not been to the bear baiting or the bowling alley for a month. He even chooses to stay at home rather than gamble at cards, so I have had no time or chance to meet the other gentleman.’

  Although she admitted it not, I could see that Mary was happy to have her husband back and that her dalliance had been in part to distract herself from their many worries.

  We took our booty of ivy and berries back to the house and offered them to Constance, who told us to give them to the groom since she had already completed her decorations.

  And, indeed Constance, for her part, had decorated in a manner which led one to wonder if the Queen were coming on an unexpected visit. Her berries, not good enough in nature’s red, were painted with gold leaf and fixed behind every picture in the new gallery. The vast fireplace in the Great Hall was draped in red taffeta and cloth of gold, billowing together, and the same festooned over beams and banisters throughout the house until the effect was one of Christmas in the cat-house. At any moment I expected ladies of dubious virtue to appear, like those from the Castle upon Hope Inn, to drape themselves half-clad all down the stairwell.

  Yet though my family was about me, I could not enjoy myself, but sat staring out of the great windows at the path from the turnpike, in case any message came from London.

  It was almost Christmas when Wat rode up to the front door. I was on my feet in a flash and ran out to meet him, laughing, yet stopped when I saw how doleful was his face.

  I took him round to the kitchen door and found him food and sustenance. ‘How does your master, Wat? Is he in good form?’

  Wat shook his head. ‘He languishes. Between your absence and the war between the Lord Keeper and the Countess, the joy is all drained out of him. He has been to Court once or twice and still works hard for his master, yet never smiles. I wish you could be with him, mistress.’

  I glanced behind at that, hoping none overheard us.

  ‘I will, Wat, as soon as ever I can.’ The sharp longing for him made my heart ache. ‘Tell him that my father is all good humour and I but wait for the moment. He should be at the ready to come.’

  ‘I will tell him.’

  ‘Give him this.’ I kissed Wat on the cheek so that he reddened to the colour of the westering sun as it sank over the river.

  ‘I hope he would not mistake me, mistress, if I gave him such a token.’ Wat grinned.

  ‘Wat,’ I laughed heartily at that, my mood lightening from the heavy burden of its worry. ‘There are scarce few certainties in this life of ours but my John loving men is not amongst them.’

  Finding a chance when my father’s mood was light and he was without company turned out to be like opening a thousand oysters and finding not a single pearl. If he was alone he was ill-tempered, and, in company, unapproachable. And over the twelve days of Christmas there was more company at Loseley than I had ever witnessed. It was as if, now the house was finally his, he would show all its finery to every person in the county above the rank of yeoman, and even a few of those. The clerk of the kitchen was forever slaughtering more sheep and oxen till I wondered if anything that could low or baa was left in all Surrey.

  He asked me what had befallen my sister’s masque and startled me by declaring we should have it here. In the end when Twelfth Night had come and gone and I had not yet spoken, I vowed to screw up my courage at last, no matter what the portents for his mood. The house had been quieter for the last days and I had hopes that my father planned no more entertaining.

  Today he had seemed in a passing good mood. He had praised Frances’ stitchery and said that Sir John Oglander was a lucky man, then complimented his wife on the variety of her table, and even offered Mary’s husband a game of backgammon, which my father won, though whether Nick allowed him this distinction I know not.

  This, then, should be the night. I would wait until he was mellow after supper, with wine taken, and his admiring family all around him, then request a private word. However much he hated my disclosure he would have the night to sleep on it and I my sisters’ help to protect me from his ire.

  I dressed with extra care, wearing all the jewels my mother had willed me, both to give me courage and to remind him of her whom he had lost, trusting he would not want to lose me also by his final banishment.

  The gown I chose was the one he had told me I looked well in, and so that I might also solicit the support of our Saviour, I added the small gold cross which my grandmother had given me.

  As I walked slowly down the great staircase, willing myself to have all the courage I could muster, I met with William, my father’s yeoman of the buttery. ‘William,’ I smiled at this ancient gentleman, ‘I have a matter of some moment which I intend to tell my father of this night. Could you make sure his glass is never empty, for I have a favour to ask of him and am sure he will be the more accepting with the help of Bacchus.’

  ‘Do you, Mistress Ann? Then I will do all I can to assist you. Yet your father is no great drinker, much though he fills up the glasses of others.’

  ‘Do your best!’

  ‘Yes, mistress, I will that.’ He winked broadly at me. ‘And good luck with your favour.’

  The one enlivener of my gloom was the arrival of Sir John Oglander, who had come only this evening after staying with his brother in London.

  He had dressed for dinner in the unusual ensemble of an Indian prince, complete with yellow silken turban, sent him by a trader friend. ‘Know you, Mistress More, the natives who wear them in that great continent never cut their hair and it grows nigh on six feet long. Imagine.’ He pointed to his own thinning locks. ‘To think I have trouble hanging on to six inches.’

  ‘Depends where you put them, John,’ remarked my brother-in-law, Nick, with a cackle.

  Sir John glanced at him wonderingly, not understanding a word, simply looking puzzled and a little wounded for he knew he was the butt of Nick’s joke yet knew not why.

  And kind Sir John went on to compound his sin still further by informing all that his brother was a tradesman. ‘Aye, Martin is a mercer, at the sign of the Hen and Chicken in Cheapside, and a good one too. You must go to him if you need aught in that line, Mistress Ann.’

  He did not notice the sniggers that were spreading amidst the other guests. ‘Do you not think it sensible, Mistress Ann, that even a gentleman should have trade to prevent him bec
oming too high?’

  I looked down the long table at the well-fed faces that had eaten more at this one feast than many had in a month, and how they laughed at the idea of working for their living. And I thought also of my secret husband, whose father had been an ironmonger, be it a great one, and how they would wrinkle their brows in distaste at such a low profession.

  ‘An honest day’s work would do you no harm, Nick.’ My brother-in-law stayed his goblet halfway to his mouth and looked at me in surprise.

  ‘Now Ann becomes a moralist also.’

  ‘She is right, husband,’ Mary seconded, though her voice was teasing. ‘A week in a mercer’s shop, so you had to keep to the clock and not go cocking or to the Globe would hurt you not at all.’

  ‘God’s blood, Mary!’ Nick banged his goblet onto the table spilling his wine.

  In the midst of all the sound and fury Sir John leaned closer to me. ‘And were you in town yourself not long ago, Mistress Ann?’

  ‘I was, Sir John. My father and I were staying in his lodgings at Charing Cross.’

  ‘Then it was indeed you I glimpsed! I thought as much! I saw you one day coming out of the chapel hard by the Savoy Hospital when we walked homewards from the Convent garden. I said, “Martin, look, there is Mistress More, Sir George’s daughter, sister to my betrothed.” I meant to come and greet you but you were talking to some great lady astride her horse.’

  At his words I felt drops of sweat gather in my palms and my throat closed over so I dared not trust my voice to answer.

  And before I could think of how to pass the question off, my father answered for me. ‘Indeed, you interest me very much, Sir John.’ I felt a sharp breath of fear at his words, as if a crypt had been opened and the foul air released. ‘For I cannot recall, Ann, any reason why you would need to go to such a scandalous place as the Savoy Chapel.’ I felt his eyes upon me flaying away the skin until my innermost being was exposed. ‘Unless it were to contract a secret marriage which had been expressly forbidden by your father.’