"The future is all dark,
And the past a troubled sea,
And Memory sits in the heart,
Wailing where Hope should be."
Supper was ready in the hall at four o'clock, and Amphillis found
herself seated next below Agatha, the younger of Lady Foljambe's
damsels. It was a feast-day, so that meat was served--a boar's head,
stewed beef, minced mutton, squirrel, and hedgehog. The last dainty is
now restricted to gypsies, and no one eats our little russet friend of
the bushy tail; but our forefathers indulged in both. There were also
roast capons, a heron, and chickens dressed in various ways. Near
Amphillis stood a dish of beef jelly, a chowet or liver-pie, a flampoynt
or pork-pie, and a dish of sops in fennel. The sweets were Barlee and
Mon Amy, of which the first was rice cream, and the second a preparation
of curds and cream.
Amphillis looked with considerable interest along the table, and at her
opposite neighbours. Lady Foljambe she recognised at once; and beside
her sat a younger lady whom she had not seen before. She applied to her
neighbour for information.
"She?" said Agatha. "Oh, she's Mistress Margaret, my Lady's
daughter-in-law; wife to Master Godfrey, that sits o' t' other side of
his mother; and that's Master Matthew, o' this side. The priest's
Father Jordan--a fat old noodle as ever droned a psalm through his nose.
Love you mirth and jollity?"
"I scarce know," said Amphillis, hesitatingly. "I have had so little."
Agatha's face was a sight to see.
"Good lack, but I never reckoned you should be a spoil-sport!" said she,
licking her spoon as in duty bound before she plunged it in the jelly--a
piece of etiquette in which young ladies at that date were carefully
instructed. The idea of setting a separate spoon to help a dish had not
dawned upon the mediaeval mind.
"I shall hate you, I can tell you, if you so are. Things here be like
going to a funeral all day long--never a bit of music nor dancing, nor
aught that is jolly. Mistress Margaret might be eighty, so sad and
sober is she; and as for my Lady and Mistress Perrote, they are just a
pair of old jog-trots fit to run together in a quirle [the open car then
used by ladies, something like a waggonette]. Master Godfrey's all for
arms and fighting, so he's no better. Master Matthew's best of the lot,
but bad's the best when you've a-done. And he hasn't much chance
neither, for if he's seen laughing a bit with one of us, my Lady's
a-down on him as if he'd broke all the Ten Commandments, and whisks him
off ere you can say Jack Robinson; and if she whip you not, you may
thank the saints or your stars, which you have a mind. Oh, 'tis a jolly
house you've come to, that I can tell you! I hoped you'd a bit more fun
in you than Clarice--she wasn't a scrap of good. But I'm afraid you're
no better."
"I don't know, really," said Amphillis, feeling rather bewildered by
Agatha's reckless rattle, and remembering the injunction not to make a
friend of her. "I suppose I have come here to do my duty; but I know
not yet what it shall be."
"I detest doing my duty!" said Agatha, energetically.
"That's a pity, isn't it?" was the reply.
Agatha laughed.
"Come, you can give a quip-word," said she. "Clarice was just a lump of
wood, that you could batter nought into,--might as well sit next a post.
Marabel has some brains, but they're so far in, there's no fetching 'em
forth. I declare I shall do somewhat one o' these days that shall shock
all the neighbourhood, only to make a diversion."
"I don't think I would," responded Amphillis. "You might find it ran
the wrong way."
"You'll do," said Agatha, laughing. "You are not jolly, but you're next
best to it."
"Whose is that empty place on the form?" asked Amphillis, looking
across.
"Oh, that's Master Norman's--Sir Godfrey's squire--he's away with him."
And Agatha, without any apparent reason, became suddenly silent.
When supper was over, the girls were called to spin, which they did in
the large hall, sitting round the fire with the two ladies and Perrote.
Amphillis, as a newcomer, was excused for that evening; and she sat
studying her neighbours and surroundings till Mistress Perrote
pronounced it bed-time. Then each girl rose and put by her spindle;
courtesied to the ladies, and wished them each "Good-even," receiving a
similar greeting; and the three filed out of the inner door after
Perrote, each possessing herself of a lighted candle as she passed a
window where they stood. At the solar landing they parted, Perrote and
Amphillis turning aside to their own tower, Marabel and Agatha going on
to the upper floor. [The solar was an intermediate storey, resembling
the French _entresol_.] Amphillis found, as she expected, that she was
to share the large blue bed and the yellow griffins with Perrote. The
latter proved a very silent bedfellow. Beyond showing Amphillis where
she was to place her various possessions, she said nothing at all; and
as soon as she had done this, she left the room, and did not reappear
for an hour or more. As Amphillis lay on her pillow, she heard an
indistinct sound of voices in an adjoining room, and once or twice, as
she fancied, a key turned in the lock. At length the voices grew
fainter, the hoot of the white owl as he flew past the turret window
scarcely roused her, and Amphillis was asleep--so sound asleep, that
when Perrote lay down by her side, she never made the discovery.
The next morning dawned on a beautiful summer day. Perrote roused her
young companion about four o'clock, with a reminder that if she were
late it would produce a bad impression upon Lady Foljambe. When they
were dressed, Perrote repeated the Rosary, Amphillis making the
responses, and they went down to the hall.
Breakfast was at this time a luxury not indulged in by every one, and it
was not served before seven o'clock. Lady Foljambe patronised it. At
that hour it was accordingly spread in the hall, and consisted of
powdered beef, boiled beef, brawn, a jug of ale, another of wine, and a
third of milk. The milk was a condescension to a personal weakness of
Perrote; everybody else drank wine or ale.
Amphillis was wondering very much, in the private recesses of her mind,
how it was that no lady appeared whom she could suppose to be her own
particular mistress; and had she not received such strict charges on the
subject, she would certainly have asked the question. As it was, she
kept silence; but she was gratified when, after breakfast, having been
bidden to follow Perrote, that worthy woman paused to say, as they
followed the passage which led to their own turret--
"Now, Amphillis Neville, you shall see your Lady."
She stopped before the locked and barred door opposite to their own,
unfastened it, and led Amphillis into the carefully-guarded chamber.
The barred room proved to be an exceedingly pleasant one, except that it
was darker than the other, for it looked into the inner garden, and
therefore much less sun ever entered it. A heavy curtain of black
worsted, whereon were depicted golden vines and recumbent lions,
stretched across the room, shutting off that end which formed the
bedchamber. Within its shelter stood a bed of green silk wrought with
golden serpents and roses; a small walnut-wood cabinet against the wall;
two large chests; a chair of carved walnut-wood, upholstered in yellow
satin; a mirror set in silver; and two very unusual pieces of furniture,
which in those days they termed folding-chairs, but which we should call
a shut-up washstand and dressing-table. The former held an ewer and
basin of silver-gilt, much grander articles than Amphillis had ever
seen, except in the goldsmith's shop. In front of the curtain was a
bench with green silk cushions, and two small tables, on one of which
lay some needlework; and by it, in another yellow satin chair, sat the
solitary inhabitant of the chamber, a lady who appeared to be about
sixty years of age. She was dressed in widow's mourning, and in 1372
that meant pure snowy white, with chin and forehead so covered by barb
and wimple that only the eyes, nose, and mouth were left visible. This
lady's face was almost as white as her robes. Even her lips seemed
colourless; and the fixed, weary, hopeless expression was only broken by
two dark, brilliant, sunken eyes, in which lay a whole volume of unread
history--eyes that looked as if they could flash with fury, or moisten
with pity, or grow soft and tender with love; eyes that had done all
these, long, long ago! so long ago, that they had forgotten how to do
it. Sad, tired, sorrowful eyes--eyes out of which all expectation had
departed; which had nothing left to fear, only because they had nothing
left to hope. They were turned now upon Amphillis.
"Your Grace's new chamber-dame," said Mistress Perrote, "in the room of
Clarice. Her name is Amphillis Neville."
The faintest shadow of interest passed over the sorrowful eyes.
"Go near," said Perrote to Amphillis, "and kiss her Grace's hand."
Amphillis did as she was told. The lady, after offering her hand for
the kiss, turned it and gently lifted the girl's face.
"Dost thou serve God?" she said, in a voice which matched her eyes.
"I hope so, Dame," replied Amphillis.
"I hope nothing," said the mysterious lady. "It is eight years since I
knew what hope was. I have hoped in my time as much as ever woman did.
But God took away from me one boon after another, till now He hath left
me desolate. Be thankful, maid, that thou canst yet hope."
She dropped her hand, and went back to her work with a weary sigh.
"Dame," said Perrote, "your Grace wot that her Ladyship desires not that
you talk in such strain to the damsels."
The white face changed as Amphillis had thought it could not change, and
the sunken eyes shot forth fire.
"Her Ladyship!" said the widow. "Who is Avena Foljambe, that she
looketh to queen it over Marguerite of Flanders? They took my lord, and
I lived through it. They took my daughter, and I bare it. They took my
son, my firstborn, and I was silent, though it brake my heart. But by
my troth and faith, they shall not still my soul, nor lay bonds upon my
tongue when I choose to speak. Avena Foljambe! the kinswoman of a
wretched traitor, that met the fate he deserved--why, hath she ten drops
of good blood in her veins? And she looks to lord it over a daughter of
Charlemagne, that hath borne sceptre ere she carried spindle!"
Mistress Perrote's calm even voice checked the flow of angry words.
"Dame, your Grace speaks very sooth [truth]. Yet I beseech you remember
that my Lady doth present [represent] an higher than herself--the King's
Grace and no lesser."
The lady in white rose to her feet.
"What mean you, woman? King Edward of Windsor may be your master and
hers, but he is not mine! I owe him no allegiance, nor I never sware
any."
"Your son hath sworn it, Dame."
The eyes blazed out again.
"My son is a hound!--a craven cur, that licks the hand that lashed
him!--a poor court fool that thinks it joy enough to carry his bauble,
and marvel at his motley coat and his silvered buttons! That he should
be my son,--and _his_!"
The voice changed so suddenly, that Amphillis could scarcely believe it
to be the same. All the passionate fury died out of it, and instead
came a low soft tone of unutterable pain, loneliness, and regret. The
speaker dropped down into her chair, and laying her arm upon the little
table, hid her face upon it.
"My poor Lady!" said Perrote in tender accents--more tender than
Amphillis had imagined she could use.
The lady in white lifted her head.
"I was not so weak once," she said. "There was a time when man said I
had the courage of a man and the heart of a lion. Maiden, never man sat
an horse better than I, and no warrior ever fought that could more ably
handle sword. I have mustered armies to the battle ere now; I have
personally conducted sieges, I have headed sallies on the camp of the
King of France. Am I meek pigeon to be kept in a dovecote? Look around
thee! This is my cage. Ha! the perches are fine wood, sayest thou? the
seed is good, and the water is clean! I deny it not. I say only, it is
a cage, and I am a royal eagle, that was never made to sit on a perch
and coo! The blood of an hundred kings is thrilling all along my veins,
and must I be silent? The blood of the sovereigns of France, the
kingdom of kingdoms,--of the sea-kings of Denmark, of the ancient kings
of Burgundy, and of the Lombards of the Iron Crown--it is with this mine
heart is throbbing, and man saith, `Be still!' How can I be still,
unless I were still in death? And man reckoneth I shall be a-paid for
my lost sword with a needle, and for my broken sceptre he offereth me a
bodkin!"
With a sudden gesture she brushed all the implements for needlework from
the little table to the floor.
"There! gather them up, which of you list. I lack no such babe's gear.
If I were but now on my Feraunt, with my visor down, clad in armour, as
I was when I rode forth of Hennebon while the French were busied with
the assault on the further side of the town,--forth I came with my three
hundred horse, and we fired the enemy's camp--ah, but we made a goodly
blaze that day! I reckon the villages saw it for ten miles around or
more."
"But your Grace remembereth, we won not back into the town at after,"
quietly suggested Perrote.
"Well, what so? Went we not to Brest, and there gathered six hundred
men, and when we appeared again before Hennebon, the trumpets sounded,
and the gates were flung open, and we entered in triumph? Thy memory
waxeth weak, old woman! I must refresh it from mine own."
"Please it, your good Grace, I am nigh ten years younger than yourself."
"Then shouldest thou be the more 'shamed to have so much worser a
memory. Why, hast forgot all those weeks at Hennebon, that we awaited
the coming of the English fleet? Dost not remember how I went down to
the Council with thyself at mine heels, and the child in mine arms, to
pray the captains not to yield up the town to the French, and the lither
loons would not hear me a word? And then at the last minute, when the
gates were opened, and the French marching up to take possession,
mindest thou not how I ran to yon window that giveth toward the sea, and
there at last, at last! the English fleet was seen, making straight sail
for us. Then flung I open the contrary casement toward the street, and
myself shouted to the people to shut the gates, and man the ramparts,
and cry, `No surrender!' Ah, it was a day, that! Had there been but
time, I'd never have shouted--I'd have been down myself, and slammed
that gate on the King of France's nose! The pity of it that I had no
wings! And did I not meet the English Lords and kiss them every one
[Note 1], and hang their chambers with the richest arras in my coffers?
And the very next day, Sir Walter Mauny made a sally, and destroyed the
French battering-ram, and away fled the French King with ours in
pursuit. Ha, that was a jolly sight to see! Old Perrote, hast thou
forgot it all?"
We are accustomed in the present day to speak of the deliverer of
Hennebon as Sir Walter Manny. That his name ought really to be spelt
and sounded Mauny, is evidenced by a contemporary entry which speaks of
his daughter as the Lady of Maweny.
Old Perrote had listened quietly, while her mistress poured forth these
reminiscences in rapid words. When the long waiting for the English
fleet was mentioned, a kind of shudder passed over her, as if her
recollection of that time were painful and distinct enough; but
otherwise she stood motionless until the concluding question. Then she
answered--
"Ay, Dame--no, I would say: I mind it well."
"Thou shouldest! Then quote not Avena Foljambe to me. I care not a
brass nail for Avena Foljambe. Hand me yonder weary gear. It is better
than counting one's fingers, maybe."
Amphillis stooped and gathered up the scattered broidery, glancing at
Perrote to see if she were doing right. As she approached her mistress
to offer them, Perrote whispered, hurriedly, "On the knee, child! on the
knee!" and Amphillis, blushing for her mistake, dropped on one knee.
She was hoping that the lady would not be angry--that she could be
severely so, there could be no doubt--and she was much relieved to see
her laugh.
"Thou foolish old woman!" she said to Perrote, as she took her work
back. Then addressing Amphillis, she added,--"Seest thou, my maid, man
hath poured away the sparkling wine out of reach of my thirsty lips; and
this silly old Perrote reckons it of mighty moment that the empty cup be
left to shine on the buffet. What matters it if the caged eagle have
his perch gilded or no? He would a thousand times liefer sit of a bare
rock in the sun than of a perch made of gold, and set with emeralds. So
man granteth me the gilded perch, to serve me on the knee like a queen,
and he setteth it with emeralds, to call me Duchess in lieu of Countess,
and he reckoneth that shall a-pay the caged eagle for her lost liberty,
and her quenched sunlight, and the grand bare rock on the mountain tops.
It were good enough for the dove to sit on the pigeon-house, and preen
her feathers, and coo, and take decorous little flights between the
dovecote and the ground whereon her corn lieth. She cares for no more.
The bare rock would frighten her, and the sun would dazzle her eyes. So
man bindeth the eagle by a bond long enough for the dove, and quoth he,
`Be patient!' I am not patient. I am not a silly dove, that I should
be so. Chide me not, old woman, to tug at my bond. I am an eagle."
"Ah, well, Dame!" said Perrote, with a sigh. "The will of God must
needs be done."
"I marvel if man's will be alway God's, in sooth. Folks say, whatever
happeth, `God's will be done.' Is everything His will?--the evil things
no less than the good? Is it God's will when man speaketh a lie, or
slayeth his fellow, or robbeth a benighted traveller of all his having?
Crack me that nut, Perrote."
"Truly, Dame, I am no priest, to solve such matters."
"Then leave thou to chatter glibly anentis God's will. What wist any
man thereabout?"
Perrote was silent.
"Open the window!" said the Countess, suddenly. "I am dying for lack of
fresh air."
Lifting her hand to her head, she hastily tore off the barb and wimple,
with little respect to the pins which fastened them, and with the result
of a long rent in the former.
"That's for one of you to amend," she said, with a short laugh. "Ye
should be thankful to have somewhat to do provided for you. Ay me!"
The words were uttered in a low long moan.
Perrote made no reply to the petulant words and action. An expression
of tender pity crossed her face, as she stooped and lifted the torn
barb, and examined the rent, with as much apparent calmness as if it had
been damaged in the washing. There was evidently more in her than she
suffered to come forth.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. This action, in the estimation of the time, was merely
equivalent to a cordial shaking of hands between the Countess and her
deliverers.