The Lady and the Poet (17 page)

In my head I heard my grandmother warn me, as she used to on our walks together at Loseley, that this was spurge, alike to purslane—yet venomous. I broke the stem and watched the milky sap ooze out. It was spurge indeed.

I was in the act of gently disentangling the healing purslane from its traitorous friend when I heard sounds of whispered talking no more than a few feet away. Intent on my job, I decided it was like to be one of my uncle’s servants come to gossip privately. If I took two steps closer I would hear them, whispered words though they were.

Tucking my precious purslane into my sleeve I tried to return to the house yet found myself trapped as the arguing pair were between myself and my destination. The only way out of the knot garden was through a narrow opening and it was from just beyond this opening that the pair were speaking. With a start I realized that, to compound my difficult situation, one of the voices belonged to Master Donne and the other to a gentlewoman of about fifty years.

‘Take care, Mother.’ I had never heard such cold hard anger in his voice before. ‘Remember where we are. Accuse me not of betraying my religion for the sake of my ambition! And in this place too! I have studied the works of Cardinal Bellarmine and know where I stand on the greatest of truths.’

‘Then why live you amongst these people, John?’ the woman’s voice replied, low but clear. ‘They are our persecutors. They would see all Catholics hounded and outlawed, crushed beneath their heels like cockroaches. The very Lord Keeper himself!’

Realizing the import of their conversation, I wished myself anywhere but here, yet I was trapped.

I could hear his temper rising, though his voice was so low. ‘I am no betrayer. I have made my peace with God and my country so that no longer must I live in a world of watchfulness and secrets, of disguises and whispered conversations such as this! And fear. Did you know how much fear, Mother, when you bade me when I was but twelve years old come with you to the Tower to see my uncle the priest, that my presence might make your disguise the more convincing? How I shrank at the iron fastenings on the door, and the stink, and the sound of moans and despair within and only felt the light of day when we left those loathsome walls?’

The quiet voice that answered him was the most distinctive I had ever heard. Low and musical, yet so deep it almost had the quality of a bell sounding the faithful to worship. And indeed I began to understand this was what it sought to do. Master Donne’s mother sought to summon him back into the fold of the Romish church despite the dangers that might befall him on the rack or scaffold, and I wondered if this was what she called a mother’s love.

‘John, silence! It was not you who paid the final price, but your brother.’ I flinched, hearing the certainty in that commanding tone. In a man that voice was heard on the brink of battlefields, leading charges. In a woman it exhorted bravery and sacrifice and hinted at cowardice and dishonour if it were not heeded. It made me think of Volumnia, whom I had read about in my grandfather’s library, proud to lose her son in battle if it meant the greater glory of Rome.

‘I will not be silent!’ The passion in Master Donne’s voice hissed into the cold evening air. ‘Do you think I have not struggled, bled, lain awake at night on the cross over this? But I have come to my accommodation.’

‘Your betrayal. Let us not mince words, John. This is down to your cursed ambition. You could not live quietly like so many, but sought public office and must renounce your God.’

I peered through a small hole in the ivy-covered wicket gate. John Donne’s mother, a tall, handsome woman with the same dark lustrous eyes as he, stood wrapped in a heavy black cloak.

‘You ever valued Henry more than I.’ I could hear in the man the anguish of a child that feels itself not loved as it wished to be. ‘He was your youngest, your tender plant, nourished with all your care, the only one of us all who followed the faith as you do, to the letter.’

‘He was the bravest of you all. Tomorrow I return to Antwerp. I should never have been here, it is too dangerous. I bid you farewell. I doubt we will ever speak again.’

‘No! No!’ I wished to cry. A mother should never renounce her son. I knew what it was to lose a mother, the pain and the longing, the lack of tender affection that can never be replaced through life’s long journey.

But Master Donne’s mother had passed through the gate. I stayed where I stood, as still as the frozen tree I leaned against, and heard her
skirts swish as she walked fast down towards the river. Despite my doubts about him, I found myself wanting to offer comfort. Yet to do so would reveal my presence, that I had silently witnessed this most dangerous of conversations. If it were suspected that Master Donne for one moment embraced the Papist cause he would lose all—livelihood, honour, acceptance in Elizabeth’s society. So I kept my peace and waited as he stood, staring after her. I imagined his eyes all dark with pain.

In a few moments he took one last glance over the river in the direction she had left, exasperated, angry and yet withall faintly despairing, and strode off back towards the house so that I could at last make my escape.

Sorry for him as I might feel, it could not smother the excitement I felt at the prospect of visiting Bett tomorrow. So I ran to find my grandmother and gave her the purslane which she carried to the still room.

On the morrow, as soon as all were risen, I was to leave on my journey with my uncle’s groom.

The day dawned pale, frosty and clear, good weather for riding to Camois Court, with just one stop at an inn. My grandmother had generously offered Prudence as my companion, since my sister Mary, despite her worries at what to do about Master Freeman, had gone ahead with Margaret.

Yet Prudence’s sadness at having to leave London the moment when she had just arrived, and her twittering response to each sight we passed on the road, no matter how trivial, from the marvel of paving stones, to the fascination of every shop, tavern or bear pit, and the exclamation every two minutes at how polite the Lord Keeper’s servants had been when I am sure these august gentlemen took her for a humble rustic, made me wish she had stayed behind.

I tried to take my mind from her chatter by thinking of Bett. As was the custom Bett had taken to her chamber some six weeks before the babe was expected. The best hangings in the house would already surround her and her favourite possessions be gathered about her. The windows would be closed fast against fresh air, universally acknowledged to be harmful at such a time as this. Instead the fires would be banked up and the chamber kept as hot as hellfire, be it sun or cold outside.

Like many a husband Sir John had made himself scarce, summoning
instead the gossips Bett had requested to attend her lying-in. Some husbands harrumphed at the cost of the wines and sweetmeats, the comfits and the carraways, the marmalade and the marchpane that such occasions demanded and quite likely Sir John was among them.

Yet others were happy to pay since it meant their presence was not required. Lying-ins were the most female of rituals. I wondered who would be at Bett’s side already. Sir John’s mother and sisters and any other female relative who considered she had an interest. The midwife and wet nurse. My own two sisters Mary and Margaret. Frances was deemed too young to attend such occasions, a fact that made her mad with resentment.

The pleasure at the thought of seeing my beloved sister again, and hearing her hopes and dreams for the future of this babe, diverted me from the dullness of the journey.

As did Prudence.

‘Look, Mistress Ann,’ she cried as we passed the great pond at the edge of London. ‘Swans! Is it true they belong to the Queen and only she can eat them? And that at great banquets they serve a capon stuffed with a pheasant and also a quail, as if each had swallowed the last?’

I tried to recall the few banquets I had attended but could recall no such curious extravagance as this.

‘The Lord Keeper’s steward says things are much improved in his lordship’s house since he married your lady aunt. The last lady Egerton was somewhat lax in her housekeeping but my lady Elizabeth, your aunt, is a true manager of a great house.’

‘I am sure she would be relieved to hear so.’ I tried not to smile as I replied. I knew I should tell her not to listen to such tittle-tattle but this glimpse into the hidden world of servants was enticing. ‘So, what else do they have to say at the steward’s table, Prudence?’

She looked at me slyly, pretending to shorten the length of her reins. ‘That tis time you married, Mistress Ann, and that your father should spend less time in the chamber of Parliament and more on finding you a husband who would tame your fire. The Lord Keeper’s almoner saw you running across the lawn with your skirts around your ankles, and you have been marked several times walking abroad without even a gentlewoman to accompany you.’

‘God’s blood!’ I knew not whether to laugh or be angered at such scrutiny. ‘I hope that is all the gossip they enjoy at my expense.’

Prudence hesitated, blushing a fiery red.

‘Not quite, mistress. They do also say your father must be a blind man, and your uncle too, to have an innocent lamb like you in the same stable as the wolf that would tear it apart.’

I sped up my horse, glancing to see if my uncle’s groom was following the discourse, but, to my relief, he seemed as unmoved as a stone.

I overtook both Prudence and the groom and galloped across the greensward ahead of us, needing to feel the cool of the wind against my face. To be the object of such gossip angered me beyond enduring. My father already knew of the wolf in the stable and—innocent lamb though I might be—I was neither so weak nor so foolish as to allow myself to be torn apart by anyone, wolf or no.

As we rode southwards I spoke as little as possible, to encourage no further idle gossip. The bright day slowly died in the sky, leaving first a red glow and then blackness, broken only by the bright light of the stars. I had always loved the vastness of the night sky and missed it while in London where the presence of two hundred thousand souls, all jumbled on top of each other like bottles layered in my grandfather’s storeroom, meant that it seemed neither day nor night in the way it had at Loseley.

I was tired now, my back aching from riding side-saddle so long. Yet the stars still moved me. Was there truly a fiery girdle round the earth where angels could pass unscathed, dipping their swords as they passed until they flamed brightly? And are we truly affected, as the astrologers believe, not just by the sun and the moon but by every planet shining down on those born within its ambit?

I also felt keenly the excitement at seeing Bett tomorrow and of staying at an inn tonight with only the groom and Prudence for company. This seemed a wild, outrageous thing to do for I had never been alone under such conditions of freedom before. A pity, then, to be so out of sorts with Prudence for her great gabby mouth that I took brief sustenance and went early to bed. The stiffness made me sleep at once until Prudence, so merry and tipsy after two hours downstairs with the company, knocked over the chamberpot.

With bad grace I rolled over to one side of the bed, leaving room
for Prudence but offering no covers, then relented and gave her half the blankets so that in a moment she snored like one of my grandmother’s Old Spot sows.

The next day on the road we saw several passers-by with black marks on their foreheads they tried to hide. It was Ash Wednesday, I remembered. Under the old religion all would be marked with a cross on the forehead while the priest reminded them ‘You are dust and unto dust you shall return,’ yet such Popish practices are dangerous now. I thought of Master Donne’s stern mother and marvelled again that she could risk his future so by visiting York House. Had he known she would visit him there at such mortal risk? This time I shivered at this reminder of our own mortality and flicked my mare with the switch to get to my sister the sooner.

At last we were in sight of Camois Court. The house was solid and large, its brick and timbers welcoming us with the thought of warm beds and hot water and the sight of my beloved Bett. As I jumped down from my horse my heart soared within me.

Only to be dashed by the sight of my sister Margaret, all great with child, who had heard the hoofbeats and was standing alone by the great front door awaiting my arrival.

‘Ann! Ann! Come quickly. Bett is calling for you!’

Inside, the house was dark and strangely quiet. There was no sense, as I had expected, of warm fires, glowing candles and the warming scent of spiced possets, of crowded chambers and female chatter and happy anticipation as at the usual lying-in. I followed Margaret up the great staircase, beneath the stern looks of generations of Mills ancestors, and halfway up I heard a single sudden cry and clutched my sister’s hand.

‘What ails her? The babe’s not due for four weeks yet.’

Margaret looked back at me with anguished eyes. ‘Maybe tis early or Bett mistook herself in her calculations. In all events, the babe is coming now.’

We ran pell-mell into Bett’s chamber. In the deep gloom and the sweltering heat I could hardly see even the shadow of my sister. Instead I could make out a vast log fire, and all around the room burning pastilles which made the very air thick and hard to breathe, even for one in rude health such as I was. I began to cough.

‘Is that you, Ann? Oh, thank God you are come. The midwife thinks my son can wait no longer in his eagerness to be born!’

I saw her then. Childlike and pale, her hair hanging wetly down hollowed cheeks, so different from the Bett who had left so many months before.

She began to scream again, and writhe as if her belly were full of gnawing serpents, not one small babe.

‘Be still, my lady.’ The midwife tried to soothe her, stroking Bett’s forehead with a hand that seemed to me less than clean. Yet Bett kept screaming.

‘The babe is eager to join the world.’ The midwife attempted a tone that was light and gay, but I could hear the worry beneath. ‘And yet he is not lying in the right position.’

‘Then get a doctor!’ I looked round for Margaret. ‘And where is Sir John?’