The Lady and the Poet Read Online Free PDF Page A

should be subjected to so undignified a charade. Practices as bawdy as this, after all, had been abandoned by the more elevated of the gentry. I could hardly see London lords and ladies subjecting themselves to mummers’ rites. Yet my grandfather liked to respect old ways and country habits and, marvellous to account, my sister seemed quite happy with all the antics and even smiled when the stocking was thrown to mark the wedding night.
    At the door of the chamber, beaming like a Cornish pixie, and not much taller either, stood my father.
    ‘Come, everyone. There are more victuals to enjoy downstairs. We need not stay here waiting to inspect the sheets as they did in my grandfather’s day. May God grant their union prosper.’ He turned to me as we all began to troop downstairs towards the hall and its great warming fire. ‘You next, Ann, or as you see, your sister Frances will overtake you in the marriage stakes.’
    ‘Frances is but ten years old, Father,’ I reminded him.
    ‘All the better. Old enough to be betrothed and young enough not to cavil at my choice.’ He looked at me levelly. ‘Unlike some young women.’
    ‘Yes, Ann,’ murmured Mary archly, ‘you wouldn’t wish to find yourself an old maid, would you?’
    ‘If otherwise I must have such a husband as yours, who buries you in worry and debt, then I would rather stay unwed!’ the Devil prompted me to reply. Yet I resisted as I knew Mary fretted about her husband’s extravagant ways. ‘Of course I want a husband. I am not so strange and freakish as to turn entirely from the joys of hearth and home. But can I have no say in what manner of man he is? Must he be chosen simply for the advancement of the More family?’
    That night as I knelt, alone, to say my prayers, I tried not to let my mind roam to what was unfolding in Bett’s bridal chamber.
    ‘O Lord, dear Lord and Saviour,’ I whispered into the empty darkness, ‘if I must have a husband let him neither dolt nor debtor be, nor dullard either. For it seems to me, Lord, that these are the fates of my dear sisters.’

Chapter 2

    THE NEXT DAY dawned warm and glorious and yet the thought of Bett’s departure dulled the golden light of morning more than the blackest of clouds. No longer would I wake each day with my beloved sister.
    From this day on I would have to share a bed with Frances, who could not stay still one moment, except when she knelt in prayer for longer than a martyred saint. Even now with the sun hardly up she had risen from our bed and stood gazing at a picture I had always hated. It was the painted figure of a woman holding a finger to her lips, denoting modesty and silence, a set of keys at her waist to signify household efficiency, standing of all things on a tethered tortoise, which—my grandmother once explained to me—meant that, like the tortoise, she would never roam. This was the supposed portrait of an ideal wife.
    ‘I long to be married,’ sighed Frances. ‘To have a husband and a household of my own to look after. Do not you, Ann?’
    I had lain in bed last night thinking of these things also. And had concluded that the husband for me was one who allowed me a soul to feel and a brain to think with. And sometimes I wondered where on this earth I might ever find him.
    I admired my sister Mary for her easy acceptance of the married state, even though she is married to a spendthrift. She has such natural ease, a way of handling all things—household, husband, dogs, servants, that I could not but envy. All do exactly as she bids them. Sheeven seems to relish the ambition and scheming of the Throckmortons and is dazzled by their nearness to Court life.
    And Margaret is simply Margaret, not so very much older than I in years but like a settled goodwife, relishing the rocklike safety her Thomas affords her and the peace of living in Peckham, near enough to London but also far enough away, unshakeable in her contentment.
    ‘It would serve you right,’ Frances