The Lady and the Poet Read Online Free PDF Page B

and all his family, who were preparing to journey to his manor at Camois Court.
    The sadness at losing her overcame my excitement at going to London.
    ‘Bett, beloved Bett,’ I wrapped her in my strongest embrace, ‘I can hardly bear to say goodbye.’
    ‘Dearest Ann. It is not as if I leave for a new-found land. I go to Sussex not America! I will write to you weekly. You have my word on it.’
    ‘Time will pass in a trice,’ interrupts my grandmother. ‘In the wink of an eye Bett will be calling upon you to her childbed, to hold pillows to her head and soothe her brow with chamomile.’
    Bett blushed prettily.
    ‘Indeed I am sure she has already made a start!’ My grandmother pinched Bett’s cheek. ‘A fine son to inherit from Sir John.’
    Always sons.
    Six queens had been married to King Henry and only one son born between them, and he had lived but a few years while our Queen Elizabeth, a mere woman, had reigned over us for forty and brought both peace and stability. And now it started over again, since she had no male heir and everywhere, though it was treason to do so, her people whispered about who would take the crown when she died.
    ‘Farewell, my Ann.’ Bett held me fast. ‘You will soon forget me in the lures of London. I will be but a country mouse of no interest to a fine Court lady such as you will be.’
    I watched outside the great front door, the More coat of arms emblazoned in stone above it to announce our family’s stature, until Bett’s coach was out of sight. Then I went to look for my grandfather, for it was he, rather than my father, who had studied me closest and most nearly understood my heart.
    I found him in his library, my favourite room. Panelled in finest English oak, whose wooden glory had been so carefully crafted by London carpenters to his detailed design, the library was covered on all four sides by shelves, and with small heads of Grandfather’s favourite writers peering out as if to say ‘Read me!’ My grandfather was passing proud of his collection since few individuals possessed libraries, and none so splendid and well stocked as his. From my first years he had encouraged me to read whatever I chose.
    Since many books were in Latin or Greek it took me some years of study before I accepted his offer, but once I had acquired some learningin these I would sit in one corner where there was a long low window seat and lose myself in stories of the heroic tales of Ulysses or Hector. Now and then I would stop to look out at the unfolding landscape when the mist lay over the valley or some lone pheasant had strayed out across the lawn, his silly croaking cry belying the finery of his gold and red feathers.
    Above the mantelpiece the arms and initials of Queen Elizabeth were carved, to commemorate her various visits to Loseley and to remind us of our important place in the scheme of things.
    My grandfather sat in his favourite chair, dozing underneath his portrait painted by one Lucas de Heere, whose work he had admired in Flanders. My sisters shuddered at this image since, alongside the depiction of Grandfather, all clad in black as he ever was, it also contained a grinning skull, resembling Grandfather in every feature, staring back fit to terrify the onlooker.
    Yet it was Grandfather who had taken me on his knee, not long after my mother died when I was so young a maid, and smiled at me tenderly. ‘In life, death is always with us, Ann, which is why I like this picture. Yet your mother will never leave you. One day you will marry a noble man and have fine children of your own. And you will remember your mother, whom you were named after, and she will smile down upon your children from Heaven where she resides with our eternal Father.’
    Ever after, I loved the portrait that scared my sisters so, for it linked me to the love of my grandfather and my lost mother also.
    Although he was busy with his work as sheriff of Surrey and Sussex and subsidy commissioner on behalf of Her