Conceit Read online

  But this poem was different.

  When I felt me die,

  I bid me send my heart, when I was gone,

  But I alas could there find none,

  When I had ripped me, and searched where hearts did lie.

  This was a shard of glass plunged into a vein—sharp, cutting, clean, and bloody. This poem could not be ignored. In it, John Donne sent me his petitioning heart, fresh-beating from his chest, and would accept nothing less in return to fill the gaping hollow left behind.

  Lovers might indeed die when driven apart, since I could hardly keep my meals down. I was plagued with sleeplessness, for the spectre of my father loomed the moment I snuffed out the candle. The only part of John Donne I had held for days was that paper shoved beneath the door. After eight days and eight nights of raw longing, I learned from Bess that he had offered himself to Sir Thomas as an envoy on some urgent business. By ship to Venice, Bess said, as she stirred up a warm drink, crumbling in hearts-ease to help me sleep.

  He might as well have been going overland to China. If I was to taste love, it would not be by means of my maid’s possets. No earl in England could make me feel as he had done. When Bess fell asleep, I wrote a letter in halting Spanish to Mr John Donne, offering myself as a page to accompany him as far as the antipodes, willing to die at his side. I had no fear of discovery if my message was intercepted. My penning of that language was so execrable that only a former tutor could decipher it.

  A fortnight later, I was dancing with Edward in the great hall when a little girl swirled between the dancers, then skidded across the floor until she bumped against the lute-player’s leg, causing him to drop a measure. Whose child she was I did not know. I cared only for adults this night, which ones had arrived and which had not.

  As I mirrored the steps Edward was teaching me, I felt his cheek graze mine. I had seen nothing of John Donne for three weeks, but my appetite had improved when I learned that he had been sitting in Parliament for Brackley and not travelling on a ship bound to the Orient.

  Now I felt the rush of silk against buffed nails, the new shoes tight across my toes. I had barely mastered the first part of the dance when the member for Brackley strode in, his breeches clinging like the taint of Papism. He stood apart from the knot of men, his eyes scouring the room. His gaze passed over Lady Egerton and lingered on her daughter Agnes, who smiled too agreeably at him.

  All at once, Edward broke away and I found myself with another partner, one less inclined to pleasure. His palm rested on me heavily, his sleeve giving off a blue-black sheen. Sir Thomas’s secretary had bought himself a cloak of surliness since I had last been with him.

  “Have you come only to be displeasing?” I asked.

  “I am not a dancer.”

  Edward was indeed the better partner, but John Donne knew exactly where to place his hands and there was an anger in them that I did not care for. “Agnes would gladly teach you,” I suggested.

  “I would rather dance poorly with you than well with any woman.”

  He kept to the shadows, like the stink of privet behind roses, his feet tangling wilfully with mine. When it was our turn to circle, displaying our paired steps to the room, he pulled me against his chest, so that anyone could see how unsuitably I was partnered. He had put off his courtier’s ruff for a collar that exposed his throat, Italian lace that must have cost £5. I was near enough to see the threads. Less showy now than when he had arrived at York House, his clothes were better made.

  “Sir Thomas must pay you well.”

  “A coarse man may wear fine clothes.”

  “I did not mean-” His phrasing had been too careful, meant to injure. “You came too close in the pairs,” I said. “Next time you must hold me at arm’s length.”

  “That I shall never do.” He pulled me out of the dancers. “We will stand and watch instead.”

  Even his standing had a swagger to it, like a cock pheasant among hens. Edward was spinning Agnes, whose feathered mask flew out from her waist, commanding John Donne’s eyes. I saw no sign that he was languishing from being apart from me. What had become of my offer to go to the antipodes as his page? A woman could make no bigger sacrifice. Surely it deserved an answer.

  “You did not go away,” I pointed out.

  “You might yet drive me off.”

  Again, that stabbing wit. Would I always lag behind, his jest and slave? “I hear you sit in Parliament.” Only the music and the couples’ laughter. Would this tedious dance not end? “How does the Queen look?”

  “Just as she should. An old woman sickening for affection. She has pined for Essex these nine months, and well she might. It took three strokes of the axe to sever his head from his body.”

  His eyes fell heavily upon my neck, as if weighing the chain of Loseley gold that ringed it. Perhaps he thought I was displaying my dowry to other men. I was stricken, and wished I had sent the gold back with my father.

  “I have not seen you for three weeks,” I hinted.

  “Time is not a friend to lovers.” Then, brushing irritably at his sleeve, “I found five grey hairs this morning.”

  I hoped he would now press Horace’s argument that we should make much of time, but he did not seize the chance. He had not even acknowledged the letter I had written him in rudimentary Spanish. “Aging has made you less mannerly,” I said. “Your correspondence has fallen behind of late.”

  Five long steps and we were in the passage, where he pinned me against the wall like a country girl. My gilt bodice strained across my chest, making it difficult to breathe.

  He dug around in his doublet and thrust a much-tortured sheet of paper at me. “This has cost me a fortnight of my life. Read it if you wish to know my mind.”

  I scanned the poem that quivered in my hand.

  By our first strange and fatal interview,

  By all desires which thereof did ensue,

  By our long starving hopes, by that remorse

  Which my words’ masculine persuasive force

  Begot in thee, and by the memory

  Of hurts, which spies and rivals threatened me,

  I calmly beg: but by thy father’s wrath,

  By all pains, which want and divorcement hath,

  I conjure thee, and all the oaths which I

  And thou have sworn to seal joint constancy,

  Here I unswear, and overswear them thus,

  Thou shalt not love by ways so dangerous.

  Temper, O fair love, love’s impetuous rage,

  Be my true mistress still, not my feigned page.

  “What spies were these?” I asked. “You cannot mean my maid, who is too simple to discover any of my secrets. And my father has no dislike of you, at least none that he has spoken of If we starved for love, it was your fault for not replying to my letter. As for rivals—”

  “It is not fact, madam,” he said in exasperation. “Why is poetry so foreign to a woman’s thinking?”

  Before I could read more, it was snatched from me and pushed back inside his doublet. Perhaps he did not care for me at all, but only wanted to get poems from me. “By this rudeness,” I said, “I see it is your only copy.”

  “Do not mock me, Ann.” He captured my wrist and twisted it sideways. “You prick my patience. As if you could pass as a man’s servant! It is heartless to offer yourself to a man to tease him.”

  This was said like a schoolmaster, but it was not a schoolmaster’s leg between mine, making four layers of skirts feel papery thin. He was as near as my own flesh, and hotter than my blood. My wrist was cruelly tethered and the panelling was jabbing into my spine. I was mortified that he had so easily seen through me. I had only hoped to convince him that, though we could not marry, we might still be lovers here in England.

  “Your fingers are hard,” I complained.

  “From the pen.” He flipped back his lace cuff to show his ink-stained hands. “Words coarsen a man.”

  It was true that when he touched me I sometimes imagined
a tradesman’s coarseness, although his fingers were long and delicate. “You wanted a poem and now you have one,” I said bitterly. I counted three measures from a muffled lute before he reached for me more gently.

  “A wandering rage of passion is not love, Ann. Do you want me or do you not? For there is only one way to have me.”

  When I did not answer, he pulled me down some steps. Even there it was not wholly dark, for I saw a vein pulse at his neck. Was this a man’s skin, then? The hairs curled moistly in the hollow of his throat, a place most gentlemen kept covered. There was a heaviness in the air, the heat of noon, although it was December. A shuffling came from further along the passage—a couple, their faces hidden, their arms a tracery of wanton light.

  “We must go back another way,” I said.

  “We must act, Ann. Those two take their pleasure while they can. When your father left for Surrey, I heard him tell Sir Thomas that he is determined to see his daughter married.”

  “That is not a crime in fathers.”

  “But yours means not to wait. I believe he thinks of Edward. You know it, Ann. Do not counterfeit.”

  My breath came faster. “What did my father say?”

  “He spoke admiringly of Edward, then vowed you should have a generous dowry.”

  “My father’s conversation often takes strange turns.”

  “He spoke in metaphor, to be sure-”

  “My father does not talk obliquely. What were his words?”

  “Something about refurbishing a coach with plush,” he admitted.

  “There.” I was greatly relieved. “My father is no poet. He was talking of his carriage.”

  “Do you deny that he seeks a husband for you and carries your miniature to show to men?” At my silence, he threw up his hands. “Do you want Edward? If you say nothing, I will believe it of you.”

  Any answer now would be a step into a snare. “And if I said I did?”

  “You prick at a man’s heart with a pin, and mine has bled enough. Give way to my love or deny me to my face. How much longer will you tease? Do you want Edward?”

  The next breath went straight into my heart. “No,” I said fiercely.

  “Now”—he was triumphant—“do not pretend I am nothing to you.” His fingers hooked beneath my busk and pulled me close, but still his lips only tempted, did not kiss. “Unless we act at once, you will find your head on a pillow with a man your father loves.”

  The spectre of my father rose again. “The difference between us is too great. My father-”

  “Is gone.” He spoke deliberately. “The only difference between a man and a woman is difference of sex, and that,” he pressed his groin against me, “cries out for union.”

  His lips took mine, forestalling any protest, and I tasted him, as sweet as cinnamon, inside my mouth. His hands were bolder now than any tradesman’s. My breath sped up and down my ribs, feeding and nurturing a most dishonest urge. When he released me, I hid my face against his shoulder, ashamed of my immodest thoughts. Where did such ripe imaginings come from—such rousing, aching feelings that more became a man?

  “Will you take me as your servant after all?” My blushes betrayed my poorly hidden meaning.

  “You shall never play so lowly a role as page, nor travel as far as Venice.” He lifted up my chin to join my eyes to his. “But since you are eager to play a part with me, I will find you a far, far better one.”

  On St Lucy’s eve, John Donne opened my door, then pushed it closed behind him, holding me hard against his chest for a full minute. Everything had been prepared against this night. Only a quarter-hour before, I had sent Bess on a fool’s errand too tempting to refuse because it offered large portions of French foodstuffs.

  “We must go at once,” he said, pinning my cloak around my shoulders.

  We went down narrow stairs I had never seen before. I wondered, then, how often he was forced to use that route. In that house, even poets were a kind of servant. When we emerged, he tied a mask snugly behind my head. We went quietly through the courtyard, then crossed the garden, stepping quickly by the light of a wind-blown candle. A boat was waiting by the river-stairs. Dark, oily waters swirled round the bow and a dead animal floated past, legs trailing in the murk. After it came the stench.

  I drew back from the river’s edge. “Where is my cousin Francis?”

  “He has gone ahead to make things ready.” He gripped my arm somewhat too firmly. “No harm shall come to you while I am near.”

  “And Mary?” I had not expected to be so alone.

  “She will stay with Lady Egerton this night to allay suspicion, but wishes us good sport. Why these hesitations, Ann—has your heart changed since we last spoke?”

  It was rumoured that when Essex was held captive in York House, the Queen landed at these steps one night. She visited him in the Lord Keeper’s bedchamber—perhaps John Donne escorted her up the servants’ stairs?—and what was said between them no man knew, for Essex had since gone to the block. If the Queen had the courage to meet her lover thus, then so did I.

  I shook my head and John Donne’s hands circled my waist, lifting me over the gunwale. As I stepped in, the bilge washed up and soaked my hem. Then his gilt spurs were in the bilgewater too, and his arms steadied me as I sat on the muddy bench.

  When we landed at Temple stairs, we were met by a mob of noisy students. A donkey cart banged round a corner and hurtled down Temple lane towards us, almost pitching straight into the river. Seated unsteadily on the excited donkey, Francis hardly seemed to know me. He led the minstrels in a bawdy song, nearly falling off the poor beast as he thrashed his arms to keep his choristers in time. As soon as John Donne was out of the boat, a jug was thrust into his hands. When he did not drink at once, but looked towards me in embarrassment, the jug was tipped up for him and the ale spurted down his shirt.

  Shame and love pulled me in two directions, backwards by river to York House or forward to my waiting lover. I was shrinking back into the miserable boat when John Donne, being led uphill by merrymakers, blew me a kiss. Taking the boatman’s filthy hand, for no cleaner one was offered, I stepped onto the wharf The law students converged, decking me in rosemary and bay, mistletoe and ribbons, then boosted me into the hay-filled cart. Smacking the donkey’s rump, they drove it braying up the hill, with Francis clinging drunkenly to its back. I gripped the sides of the cart and stared at my cousin’s head to calm my heaving stomach as we jolted through Temple gate and up Chancery lane.

  At Lincoln’s Inn we were met by John Donne’s party, as full of ale as my own muscular band. I was heaved aloft by two stout men and carried into the chapel. Decorated with torches and winter boughs, it thronged with masquers and stonefaced youths dressed up as barristers in robes and horsehair wigs. For a moment, in the flickering light, they took on the grisly shape of judges and my courage faltered. What was I doing in such a place and with such drunken men?

  Wearing a long bedshirt and laurel wreath, Francis raised his hands to start the gaudy night, proclaiming it the longest night of the year, an ideal time for nuptials. This year, our Poet told us, John Donne had begged the coveted role of groom and Francis would take Donne’s usual place as Master of the Revels, reading the wedding-poem that Donne had written for the annual rites.

  Francis began the Epithalamion with gusto. As he read out the first lewd stanza, I was carried down the crowded nave into the chancel, where I was put down and given a shove towards the vulgarly dressed groom. When I stumbled at the sight of his comic phallus, the mob surged forward, but John Donne reached me first and raised me to my feet. Although my clothing was wet and streaked with tidal mud, John Donne was wetter and smelt like a granary of fermenting wheat.

  When Francis reached the stanza’s end, the students shouted the refrain—“Today put on perfection, and a woman’s name”—then thrust their fists into the air, splashing more ale upon themselves. Francis could scarcely make his next stanza heard and I retreated, betraying my faltering resolu
tion.

  “Will you turn back now,” John Donne asked softly, “and deny our love before God and this company of men?”

  The mob was pressing closer. “Are you sure God is here?” I asked.

  “God is always in a chapel, even when he is being mocked.”

  I hesitated on the altar steps. The mock-chaplain looked no more than a boy in his mummery of a hat, his robes too large, as if he had picked them off a peg on his way through the vestry. The drunken students were crowding in, calling out ribald encouragements to the groom. No doubt this was the audience for which Jack Donne had written his licentious poems, and I was sure it had relished every one.

  “Close your ears,” my bridegroom said, “and look into my eyes. Will you go up into our night of love or down to safety? A man is waiting with the cart to take you back to York House if you choose. The kitchenmaid can play the part of wench as she did last year. She has braided her hair with flowers in a most becoming way.” He smiled, knowing how to touch me. “If you swear you do not love me, I will let you go.”

  As his thigh jostled mine, my courage rekindled. Here was no threat, only a promise, a promise no kitchenmaid was going to enjoy in my stead. I stepped towards the altar as the Poet recited the next verse. The students knew it better than he, contributing rude sounds and gestures to accompany each line.

  After we had exchanged our solemn vows as bride and groom, the great bell from Cadiz was struck and hoots and jeers rang out. More jugs of ale appeared and baskets of pies soon offered nothing more than crumbs. Dancers filled the nave, and minstrels attacked a battery of pots and pans. When we had been so toasted and so made merry that we were damp with ale, both inside and out, my two stout scholars heaved me up and followed Francis, who was reciting another stanza of the wedding song. A noisy band came after, illustrating by uplifted fists—as if the groom needed repeated instruction—the vulgar act he would soon be called upon to perform.

  The wedding bower was decked out with vanities from all the chambers of the Inns of Court. Every student had contributed some frippery, from tattered garters to farthingales of yellowed bone. John Donne carried me the last few yards, like plunder from a captive merchant ship. My dowry gold shone round my neck, a bridal ransom, too showy to be thought real by anyone except my lover. Looking a little wistful, the kitchenmaid with her love-plaits turned down the bed in readiness. We were showered with grain and made to kiss, the first time since we had been declared mock man and wife. Surely, I hoped, the worst would soon be over and they would leave us quietly to ourselves.