The Lady and the Poet (30 page)

Loseley, a little dull before Frances’ great announcement, became such a place of purgatory that after several days I was forced to apply to my father and ask if I might return once more to York House. ‘Now that young Sir Thomas has gone to war in Ireland, I could be of great assistance to his wife with their three young daughters,’ I importuned him, remembering that Master Donne had told me of his departure. ‘And to my aunt, your sister, also.’

My father, all attired to go out hunting the hart with my brother Robert, looked at me narrowly. ‘No, Ann, you will not go back to York
House. And how knew you of Sir Thomas’s departure? He went but three days ago and in some secrecy.’

Mary’s eyes were on me also, as my cheeks fired guiltily and I fiddled with my girdle trying to find an answer that would satisfy his blade-sharp mind. A Herculean task since, though we had comings and goings of tradesmen and petitioners here, and guests who turned up unbidden if the inns were full, none who had such information had passed through Loseley in the last few days.

‘Well?’ I could see why my father was effective in the countless committees he sat on in the house of Parliament, dangling his fish on the hook till it gasped for breath.

Mary, seeing my difficulty, came at last to my rescue. ‘I told her, Father. Nick had it from his brother-in-law Sir Walter, who has estates in Ireland. Indeed why could not Ann come and stay with us? Now that I am with child I would welcome her presence to soothe my brow and brew that tisane of herbs she has learned to make from our grandmother. She could help me with your two lively grandsons.’

‘Have you not nursemaids to do such things for you?’

‘None who can read stories and tell tales like Ann. They would love nothing more than a visit from their aunt. She could ride with me when I return to town and stay a day with Margaret on the way, since Margaret is with child also.’

‘And I provide the horse, I venture?’

‘I am sure my grandfather could spare a horse for a day.’

Finally it was agreed, to my great delight, that I might return with Mary. Frances was in a pet that she should lose the person she was triumphing over, but forgave me at last when, with the greatest strength of will I could muster, I gave her my hearty congratulations on her betrothal.

‘Worry not, Ann,’ was the reply which made me wish to hit her with the horsehair brush we used to beat the laundry, ‘it will be your turn soon.’

As I packed up the clothes in my chamber, Mary came to help. She held up my green necklet in the glass, admiring herself, and how it matched her eyes, when an unwelcome thought occurred to her.

‘If I told you not about young Sir Thomas going to Ireland, how did you know?’

I gathered my chemises from the coffer and folded them briskly.

‘Master Donne informed me.’

‘Master Donne! And when saw you Master Donne?’

‘He paid me a visit.’ I moved her from her perch to find my best wool stockings. ‘Look not so. He was on his way to Pyrford on some business of our aunt’s at her estate there and broke his journey here.’

‘If he travels to Pyrford by way of Loseley, I would not like to be his fellow traveller. And did my grandparents welcome him here?’

‘He had not the time for such niceties. His business at Pyrford was pressing.’

‘And so you entertained him alone?’

‘I entertained him not at all. We exchanged words in the meadow, that is all.’

‘Ann, Ann,’ her voice was harsher now, ‘this is not some lyric verse where nymphs and shepherds laze in bosky groves. This is a dangerous game you play. What does Master Donne here, wooing you, and in secret, when I have seen him in the company of my lady Straven and no doubt others besides?’

Anger burned through me at that, hot and searing, yet I would not show it to my sister. ‘I wonder how he finds the time, since you say he works for my uncle from dawn to midnight.’

‘Ann, jest not. If it were known, your good name would be lost entirely.’

‘And my plan to visit a bawdy house to deal with your Master Freeman,’ I asked, much angered at her hypocrisy, ‘was that not a risk to my good name also?’

Mary’s face paled as if her morning sickness had come upon her. ‘God’s blood, Ann, do I not know it? It was wicked in me to enmesh you in our difficulties, for which I am heartily sorry.’

‘Then say no more about this. I came to no harm in the end.’

‘Unless Master Donne has spread the rumour of your interview. We will find out soon enough when we go home to London. Our house is far enough from my uncle and aunt’s at least. Yet, Ann,’ a thought struck her which should have been mine, ‘what about the brats? We cannot take them with us; my husband’s generosity, though wide enough, would not stretch so far.’

Guilt overtook me that I could so easily forget about these souls
whom I had transported here and I went straight away to seek them out and see what would be best for all. Hope was in the scullery with Prudence, to whom she seemed attached by an invisible string, following the maid round in all her tasks. Yet Hope, with her sunny smile so like her brother’s, had befriended all in the house. Stephen was a different matter. Like a pilgrim on a Lenten fast, he seemed afflicted with a permanent hunger, and greatly annoyed the clerk of the kitchen by filching sippets left soaking for a marrow pudding.

‘Have you seen the boy Stephen?’ I asked the clerk.

‘Your grandfather gave him a job, mistress. Sorting out his books in his library.’

I went to look for Stephen and indeed found him in the library dusting books while my grandfather sat at the table working at his papers.

All seemed to be progressing well enough, yet at my sudden entrance Stephen took fright and dropped one of my grandfather’s precious tomes.

‘God’s nails, boy, take care!’ my grandfather shouted. ‘Ann, why you would wish these clumsy unlettered children upon us, I know not!’

Stephen who had seemed to be enjoying his task, looked stricken and stood with his hands hanging by his sides, the book face down upon the floor untouched.

I picked the volume up and led him to a place next to the great fire where I sat him down out of harm’s way. There was a piece of old parchment on the floor and I picked him out a small piece of half-burned charcoal and handed it to him. ‘Draw a picture while I talk to my grandfather and we will venture abroad in the park after.’

I forgot about the boy and went back to discuss my plans for London with my grandfather, who sat in his favourite chair, the skull from the portrait by Lucas de Heere sitting on his desk as if it were a paperweight.

When, five minutes later, I made to go I saw that Stephen had used his time to sketch my grandfather.

I took the parchment from him, and studied it. Rough and untutored though it was, it had captured something of my grandfather in its strokes, the melding of stern and soft, the forked white beard and
most of all the clear alertness of the eyes that seemed to belong to a much younger man.

‘Grandfather,’ I said softly, not wishing to disturb his writing again, ‘Mary says she cannot give board to the children…’ I breathed in deeply before asking him this favour.

‘You wish to leave them here like parcels to be passed around in a game?’

‘Well, I…’ God gave me inspiration.

‘See, Grandfather,’ I held out the rough sketch to him, ‘mark the likeness Stephen has drawn of you. He has caught your soul and put it down on the page.’

‘Now, Ann, utter not blasphemy in my house.’

‘No blasphemy, it is the truth.’ I turned to the scared-looking boy. ‘Would you sell it to me, Stephen? To take to London as a reminder of my grandfather?’

Before he had the chance to answer we were both startled by the guffaw of laughter from the sketch’s subject.

‘He has caught me indeed.’ He held the sketch up against the picture on the wall. ‘Take it not with you, Ann, we will put it next to my portrait by Master de Heere.’

I watched, astounded, as my grandfather tucked the parchment in behind his likeness captured by one of the greatest Court painters of the day. Though indeed, Stephen’s was merely a rough childish sketch next to the work of a great master. My grandfather surveyed them both and began to laugh again. ‘That fellow made me hold the pose for hours on end and this child studied me for but a moment. Stephen, I like your drawing the better of the two!’ He turned to me. ‘You may leave the children here, at least for the moment.’

Next day we journeyed back to London, breaking our travels at my sister Margaret’s house at Peckham, a quiet hamlet in the parish of Camberwell, a few miles from the Queen’s palace at Greenwich.

My sister Margaret never ceased to sing the praises of her cherished Peckham, its deep groves, its green lanes and flowery meadows—and all but five miles from the stews of London! To most, Peckham was known just as the last stopping place for Kentish drovers bringing their beasts into market, and the site of the famous fair, declared by King John after killing a stag on its southern slopes. My brother-in-law
Thomas also cited the fame of its tavern, the Rosemary Bush, where the landlord rang a bell whenever a new cask of ale was tapped, that all the good people in the vicinity might come and sup it.

Margaret’s house, which Thomas’s parents had built, was of good solid brick. It was not large, as Mary ever liked to point out, but it stood, square and firm, between the twin manors of Camberwell Friern and Camberwell Buckingham.

Margaret’s husband liked his English oak, and each room throughout all the house, save the dining hall, was wainscoted, and decorated with painted coats of arms. Mary whispered that Thomas put himself forward with these, since his family was but one remove from the yeomanry, yet I listened not. The dining hall itself boasted a fine long table made of polished ship’s timbers, with open cupboard shelves loaded with pewter platters, yet the eye was drawn at once to the end wall, the whole of which was adorned with a great tapestry illustrating Susannah and the Elders.

We sat patiently in the hall waiting for Margaret’s children to be brought down by their nurse, a scheme Mary thought scandalous, since her own brood stayed firmly by her side, when Margaret and Thomas were called momentarily away. Of a sudden Mary pointed to the wall and began to giggle. ‘How like is one of those lustful elders to our good brother-in-law Thomas?’

I glanced at the tapestry and started to laugh also, for Mary was right. One of the ancients illustrated there—indeed the one with particularly bulged eyes and lecherous expression, did exactly resemble Margaret’s husband.

‘Mayhap he quarrelled with the embroiderers over payment and this was their way of settling the score!’ suggested Mary, still smiling when Margaret and her husband came back into the hall.

‘What laugh you at, sisters?’ demanded Margaret and, when she got no answer, shrugged and asked us were not her babes the most beautiful, the most talented, the sweetest babes in all of Christendom?

After that Thomas went about his business leaving my two sisters to talk of being with child, Mary saying she hoped the time would fly and she would not grow as big as a cow on our grandfather’s farm. Margaret, that happy lady, vowed she would stay with child forever if she could, and made me touch the hardness of her stomach.

‘Feel! Is it not like to the swelling of a hazelnut in autumn?’

‘Margaret says she loves to be with child,’ Mary teased, ‘yet tells us not the truth of why that is.’

‘And what is the truth, pray?’ Margaret asked with a peevish shrug.

‘That when you are breeding your husband keeps to his chamber and troubles you not for three-quarters of a year and, if you are lucky, another quarter until you are churched afterwards!’

‘Yet he does not,’ Margaret simpered, taking us by surprise. ‘Indeed he comes to my chamber almost up until the day of the birthing.’

I have rarely seen my worldly sister Mary so full of shock.

At that we all fell to laughing and Mary, to Margaret’s raised eyebrows, asked if it were not too early to call for some ale.

After two merry days we journeyed onwards again to Mary’s house in Mile End, but a few miles away as the crow flies, yet as different from Peckham as fine manchet bread is to a coarse country loaf.

Mile End is on the north bank of the river. Although it is sited beyond the walls of the city of London, yet it is near enough to share the bustle and sense the beating of that great city’s ceaseless heart.

All along the north of the Thames we pass docks and shipyards and when I breathe deeply I can smell the scent of spice newly brought from the East Indies and stored in riverside warehouses.

And once we arrive, I see the two houses are as different as two houses could be. Where Margaret’s rule demanded peace and order, Mary’s was a realm of colour and of chaos.

Mary’s husband being brother-in-law to Sir Walter Ralegh, Mary had benefited from a small part of that gentleman’s exotic spoils. Their wedding gift had been bales of vermilion and cerise silks, divers jewelled candlesticks, and cushions embroidered with elephants and peacocks. Everywhere there were flowers, not growing but dried, in shades of blue or purple, and the scent! In every room of the house Mary had placed a bowl of petals and spices like unto the smell of a pomander, which regularly she dosed with oil. And, most strange and wondrous of all, were her Turkey carpets, woven in hues of brick red and cobalt blue. Where others would hang these precious items on the wall or lay them over a table for some great occasion, Mary placed them on the floor where all could walk on them!

The life here also was like none other I had known. Mary rose late
and so did all her servants. I wondered if the freshest goods had been already bought by the time her cook sauntered down to the market. And Mary’s guests! There seemed a stream of them longer than the river Thames. From noon till nightfall the bell would ring and some arrived without ringing, appearing like a gilded mist, all dressed as grandly as if for Court, yet draped themselves about her furniture calling for spiced wine and pomegranates.

And in the midst her children played, while their nursemaids snored or, for aught I knew, drank the spiced wine along with the guests.