The Lady and the Poet by Maeve Haran

Author:Maeve Haran [Haran, Maeve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-312-55415-6
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2009-10-14T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

AS THE FAMILIAR grey stone of my family home appeared I knew that I had never returned to it with greater confusion. It had always been my haven and yet now I left London with a wrench. I had not visited it since the death of my sister and once again I felt her loss keenly. And this time I had other great concerns of my own. Was I giving my heart to one who would not treasure it but break it? Did becoming a woman always bring such pain?

‘Is this the place, mistress?’ whispered Hope, who had slept for most of the journey as if the coach were not the jolting, cold and uncomfortable conveyance it seemed to me, but the height of comfort and convenience, which to her perhaps it was.

I asked myself if the welcome I received, bringing two urchin children, would be as warm as I hoped. My grandfather, though not as narrow and settled in his ways as my father, was a busy man who yet valued his peace and quiet. And my grandmother might be as brave as Boadicea in her appearance yet she always did as my grandfather bid her in the end.

Thus it was that I told the children to be silent and sit quietly hidden in the coach while I laid the ground for their arrival.

‘Ann! Beloved grandchild!’ My grandfather William was the first to spy the coach and come out into the wide, sweeping pathway to greet it. I quickly opened the door, before the coachman had the chance to do it for me, thus revealing its occupants. ‘Without your presence, this place hath been quiet as the tomb.’ He clasped me fondly. ‘Your grandmother does nothing but carp—the food is too salty, the servants slothful, her leg pains her. And your sister Frances! That child is so often on her knees it astounds me the pew has not worn quite through. And her good works! She is up at dawn and on with her pattens even before the household rises, and out to the henhouse to fetch eggs for the poor which your grandmother has ever collected for herself. Lately she has begun to take the servants to task for not showing enough diligence in joining her. Your grandmother is at her wits’ end.’

‘Poor Frances, she will make some gentleman the ideal wife!’

‘Aye. And her servants’ life a misery! Let me look at you, child.’ He stared intently into my face. ‘Grieve you still for your sister?’

I hung my head. ‘It is like the soldier’s tale of losing a limb—how it hurts the more though it is there no longer. I cannot believe the world goes on, the seasons change, the sun comes up, when she is not here to see them.’

‘My own sweet Ann, I miss her also.’ He folded me into his embrace. Since I was a maid it had been the safest place in all the world, to be within his arms.

And then he started

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