The Lady and the Poet (51 page)

On the third day my heart flew to my mouth when I saw a black-clad figure ride up the road and turn his horse through the wooden gate that separated the front court of Loseley from the parkland beyond.

Yet it was not he! I saw, with sinking spirits, that it was indeed a not-too-distant neighbour of ours, no less a personage than the Earl of Northumberland, whom some called the Wizard Earl on account of his outlandish interests in alchemy and astronomy. And yet why came he thus alone, without retinue?

And then I gasped, seeing at once the truth of why so great a man might come alone and unannounced, to see my father. He was also a close acquaintance of my husband. Had John, knowing my father’s reverence for those above him, bidden this man to intercede to him on our behalf?

And I saw also in the same instant what a terrible error this would prove.

The truth was, my father hated to defer to any, and here came one who was higher than he in status to announce, before he officially knew himself, that his own daughter had wed herself in secret to a man that he despised!

I watched his grace of Northumberland go in through the great front door and waited, my body taut, listening for a shout or the crash of breaking glass when my father heard the dread news.

Yet there was nothing save an unaccustomed silence. Perhaps it was my fear or fancy yet the great house seemed to me as still as the grave, as if all the bustling servants held their breath and ceased their daily duties. Even the horses in the stables and the partridges in their coveys were stilled.

Waiting.

And then my sister Frances burst through my door, tears coursing down her pious features. ‘Ann! Say it is not so!’

Waiting for no answer she turned away, eager perhaps to spread the forbidden news to other ears, shouting as she sped that our father bid me come down to the hall at once.

I threw back my head, breathed deeply, and straightened my shoulders as one might who was going into battle.

My moment had come and I would not use it lightly.

It was chill in the Great Hall, save for the warmth of the logs in the great stone fireplace. My father stood in front of it, as still as an effigy, his ancestors massing on the walls above him, as angry and affronted as he was. Ranged at either side were my three sisters.

He held a letter sealed in red wax with a sheaf of snakes, written in that familiar neat and sloping hand.

His face was as grey as rancid whey. ‘So it is true, then, you have married him and lied to me, time and time again?’

I could play the effigy also, and so I stood before him, proud and silent.

‘Since you were first at York House, this matter has had foundation, so your…
husband
writes to me.’ He spat out the word ‘husband’ as if it were a deadly insult he would not keep within his mouth. ‘That it was there you promised yourselves to each other.’

I nodded.

‘How old were you at that time, remind me?’

‘Fourteen years.’

‘And this man, your
husband
, thought nothing of taking advantage of one so tender in years and innocent as you were then?’

My eyes met my father’s, warm brown locked onto chilling grey.
‘He took no advantage of me. From our first interview I was lost and wanted none other than he, though I did not at first perceive it. Indeed it was often I who did the persuading.’

At that he could contain his fury no more. Silently he approached me and hit me hard across the cheek, with all the strength he could muster, so that I reeled and almost fell.

Behind me I saw Mary start forward.

‘Want you that I should strike you also? Go home to your spendthrift husband and be lucky this is not you who transgresses for I will not take you in. Nor you,’ he turned to the unfortunate Frances who cowered back. ‘Nor you either!’ he lashed at Margaret. It would have been almost a jest, the thought of Margaret sinning against her Thomas, but for the terrifying anger in my father’s eyes, as he stood here as pitiless as the Archangel Michael casting out Lucifer and his band from Heaven into the fires beneath.

“‘At her lying in town this last Parliament,’” he read, waving the letter at me, ‘“I found means to see her twice or thrice; we both knew the obligations that lay upon us and we adventured equally…” What about the obligations to your father or your family?’ He turned towards the Earl, including him in his all-encompassing fury. ‘How could a libertine and an innocent maid adventure equally? He tries but to cover himself against the accusations he knows will surely follow.’

‘He does not, Father,’ I spoke at last. ‘We did indeed adventure equally. We are two souls joined into one by love.’

‘Hah, this is the kind of versifying nonsense he has bewitched you with, two souls in one. Two dowries in one, perhaps, for it is more like your inheritance that he covets than your eternal soul. That he will leave to God.’

He turned back to the letter. ‘Yet I must be grateful to him, for here he assures me the reason he did not tell me of this outrageous marriage was because he stood not well in my opinion. Indeed, sirrah! I wonder why it should be that I think not well of a debt-ridden Papist, a scurrilous poet and a deceiver of gentlewomen who wishes to advance his own prospects by marrying into my family?’

‘Father,’ Mary intervened, ‘that is not just!’

‘What hand had you in this, Mary? More than you are saying, I’d
wager. Your own husband is thick enough with Papists himself. Did Ann paddle in this felon’s palm when she stayed under your roof? Perhaps you brought them spiced ale and plumped their pillows?’

Wisely Mary said naught, but this incensed my father yet further. ‘Go! Back to your weak-willed husband. Leave!’

‘I will not abandon Ann with you, defenceless, when you are in such a disposition!’

‘Indeed, yes,’ his voice rose shrill again in fury, ‘her husband shares the same concern, that she should not feel the sudden terror of my anger.’ I recoiled in fear he would strike me again. ‘Worry not, daughter, for she comes to London with me. I would have her tell her uncle the Lord Keeper face to face how she crept between the sheets with his secretary when his own wife was dying of the smallpox…’

‘Father, do not say so…’ I cried in anguish at so cruel an accusation.

‘Do you deny it?’

‘I do absolutely, Father. I loved her like my lost mother. When she was so cruelly taken I sought solace with Master Donne yet there was no impropriety between us. Indeed he would not have it so…’

‘Yet you would have lifted your skirts willingly?’

He did not wait for me to defend myself. ‘See, there is one final insult in this choice letter from Master Donne. He wishes I should not incense his master, the Lord Keeper, for that would destroy both him and you—as if seducing his master’s niece in his own house were not enough to do it! Well, I have a plan.’

Of a sudden my father smiled, and yet his smile was more chilling than his anger. ‘If he fears losing his position so much—then I will do all I can to deprive him of it. I will have him dismissed from his employment.’ He looked narrowly at me, showing no pity. ‘And fear not, Ann, I will get this marriage decreed null and void. You may be Mistress Ann Donne today, but you will not be so for much longer!’

He thrust the letter into my shaking hands. ‘Here, read it, see the letter your husband sends me—too much the coward to come in person, he dares only to write!’

I ran back to my chamber, tears blinding my eyes, attempting to read the words even as I stumbled up the stairs. I knew at once that my clever, witty husband had erred in conveying such news by letter.
In person he might have charmed or reasoned or shown the true sincerity of his intentions. The letter sounded bold and defiant, as if the act were all complete and naught my father could do to help it. Could my father indeed overturn our marriage as he threatened?

I gathered up an armful of clothing and thrust it into a pannier, not caring what I chose, for what did it matter since, married though I might be, I was not to be allowed to join my husband?

We could have gained London at much greater speed on horseback, yet my father had ordered his coach, and summoned liveried grooms to accompany us. It occurred to me that London might be gossiping about me, the spiteful Court ladies enjoying the spectacle of my public ruin. I cared not a jot, for I hated the life they led, pampered and yet tied like servants in their service to the ageing Queen. Yet my father cared greatly. And so we would approach the city with all the pomp and ceremony befitting Sir George More of Loseley, Knight, Sheriff of Surrey and Sussex, and Chamberlain of Receipt in the Exchequer.

The journey was a silent one. The servants had not come out to see us off, and the grooms accompanying us looked deliberately away from me, lest their gaze locked onto the red weal across my cheek.

I could have worn my vizor but chose not to. Let my father and others also see the glorious effects of his paternal hand.

Mary waved to me, silent for once. I knew she feared for my safety and the future of my marriage yet I felt naught but a cold, hard anger. I would not let my father break me.

At last we were at York House, and alighting here was almost my undoing for all the memories of our courtship overwhelmed me, the amorous doves, our stolen hours together, and at last the deep love which led us to that secret assignation before Christmas, and made us man and wife. And yet for how long?

We were greeted, with some surprise, by my uncle’s groom of the stranger’s horse. And while he saw to the team, my father insisted on seeing his master the Lord Keeper with no delay.

York House rang with the shouts of merry laughter, the sweet sound of lute songs from the musicians in the minstrels’ gallery, and the buzz of chatter from the Countess, her daughters and all their great entourage as they sat, dazzling in their expensive finery, around the supper table.

My uncle, usually the most serene of men, looked like one who has been on his feet all day and sees no sign in his own home of a peaceful fireside.

‘What is this urgent matter, brother-in-law, which takes me from my supper table? I must tell you, you have not chosen the most auspicious day to bring me your difficulty. My wife entertains her newest acquaintances from Court with roast swan painted with gold when I have often bid her ban such gross extravagance.’

‘I think you will grant me your precious time when you hear the import. For the matter is one that touches your honour also.’

The Lord Keeper sighed and rubbed his tired brow. ‘Tell me, then.’

‘It concerns my daughter, Ann, and your own secretary.’

‘Not Gregory Downhall?’ A small smile played about the Lord Keeper’s lean face, which had grown leaner and more lined with care since his marriage. ‘I would have thought him too old and studious to make a young girl’s heart race.’

‘No.’ My father’s voice rose shrilly, so that one or two of the revellers glanced in our direction. ‘Not Gregory Downhall. Master John Donne. And he has not just made her heart race, but wooed her and bedded her under your very nose while my sister, your wife, lay in her bed, her face covered in pustules, gasping for her dying breath!’

At this Sir Thomas’s face paled and grew waxen, so that he had to hold onto a chair for support.

‘And worse still than that…’

‘What could be worse than such betrayal?’ the Lord Keeper demanded, his eyes stricken. ‘Worse than so cruel an abuse of my sweet wife’s trust and generosity? She is not with child?’

My father cast me a look of venom. ‘That at least we have been spared. Yet he has secretly married her three weeks since in the liberty of the Savoy Chapel, against all the canon laws and in breach of every rule of honour and decency.’

He thrust the letter confessing it into the Lord Keeper’s hand.

The blood rushed from my head and thundered in my ears until I thought I must faint away. Yet I must be strong. And so I willed myself to speak.

‘My lord uncle, it was not thus! We did not betray your beloved
wife so! We two fell in love almost since ever we first met, some three years since. And yet we acted not upon our strong desires, but waited patiently to see if this was a flower that would bloom or wither on the stem. And despite all, respect for you, difficulty of meeting, the difference between our ages and our estates, our love grew stronger and more blessed and so at last we sanctified it but a short time ago.’

‘Never say sanctified,’ cut in my father. ‘This union is not blessed but cursed! An aberration!’ He grabbed the Lord Keeper’s embroidered sleeve. ‘Master Donne must pay. He abused your sacred trust. You must deprive him of his office! Indeed, he should be flung into the Fleet and the key be lost forever.’

‘Calm yourself, Sir George, you were ever too passionate.’ Sadly he turned to me. ‘And yet, Ann, if he is indeed in breach of my confidence and the law there is no choice in the matter: Master Donne must indeed face a sojourn in the Fleet.’

I WAS NOT
present when they took him to the Fleet Prison.

Thanks to the good offices of the Lord Keeper he was not escorted in front of the crowds at Chancery, but quietly from his chamber.