The Lady and the Poet (31 page)

And then, just as they had come, they would go again, all in a crowd, to the playhouse, or the bear baiting, or to bowl skittles. Once they even took themselves to hear a sermon, another fashionable pursuit, and smiled and whispered all through it. And if ever Mary, being with child, was too tired, they would still beg Nick to come with them, so that he cast sorrowful eyes at his wife until she, weak with him though she could be as strong as steel with others, said, ‘Go, go!’

And thus the weeks passed, pleasurable at first, yet I soon bored of all this indolence and worried—though Mary did not—about who would pay for it.

Yet I was not to be bored for long for Mary announced, her eyes gleaming with sudden delight, that we were bidden by my cousin Francis to a costumed feast, and that the feast was to take place at York House.

I turned away, knowing that at my aunt and uncle’s house I would encounter Master Donne, and, remembering the Countess of Straven’s accusation, felt naught but confusion at how I would feel when I did.

MY SISTER MARY
roused herself from her indolence and spent the next days laughing and chattering like a parakeet, as she planned her costume for the feast. Always daring, she chose Venus, goddess of love. I trusted this boded not badly for Nick, Venus being not famed for her fidelity. Margaret, who had come to stay since Peckham was judged too far to return to after the festivity, was ever practical and wished not to spend kind Thomas’s money on wasteful fripperies. She was to make her costume with her own needle. No doubt had Frances been amongst us she would have opted for the garb of a long-dead saint, and forged her own manacles.

‘What character are you intending, sister?’ Margaret asked me as she sewed leaves onto a sash of gold silk.

I shook my head. I had had an idea yet it meant borrowing the attire from another and I wished to make sure she would lend it to me.

Next day I sent a message for Wat, who had told me that his sister Sarah was blessedly recovered from the sweats, and asked if she might visit me, which she did that very day.

‘Mistress More!’ Sarah’s eyes shone with gratitude at what she saw as my kindness to her brother and sister. I felt ashamed at that since, to tell the truth, my generosity to the younger two had been grudging at first, and I had wished not to undertake their care.

‘And are you truly recovered yourself?’ I asked.

‘I am.’

She readily agreed to my suggestion and indeed laughed and promised to lend me all that I needed.

The day of the feast I was ready before my sisters and waited for them outside which they found passing strange until at last they saw the reason. I was dressed in a milkmaid’s costume, borrowed from Sarah, with a bonnet tied all up with ribbon, and across my shoulders a yoke and all draped in summer greenery, and two pails. I even had a little churn of milk adorned with flowers to fill my buckets when we reached our destination.

‘How lovely you look, Ann!’ Margaret shook her head. ‘You even have roses in your cheeks like a true country maiden.’

The roses came from the discreet use of madder root but I accepted the compliment.

We travelled to York House by water, passing the busy docks on the north bank and the green orchards of Bermondsey House on the south side, once an abbey, now the home, Mary said, of the Earl of Sussex.

We were greeted by my genial cousin, dressed as Pan in beard and goat legs and holding a reed pipe, as we disembarked and climbed the York House stairs. Francis had loved feasts ever since we were children together.

‘Cousins, ho! What three beauties! Mary, you would dim the stars in the sky with your loveliness, and dressed as Venus! No man will be safe from your darts today!’ He turned to Margaret, ignoring the obvious swell of her increasing stomach. ‘And what vision of nature’s bounties you offer, cousin Margaret.’ Finally his laughing eyes alighted upon me. ‘A milkmaid! The perfect costume to display your sweet country innocence! A quality not much encountered in these naughty times.’

‘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 size 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.