"I stretched mine empty hands for bread,
And see, they have given me stones instead!"
"B.M."
Before anything more could be said, the door opened, and Lady Foljambe
came in. She addressed herself at once to Perrote.
"Did I not bid you alway to lock the door when you should enter? Lo,
here it is unlocked. Wherefore have you a key apart from mine, but that
you should so do?"
"I cry you mercy, Dame," said Perrote, meekly. "Did you ever this
before?"
"I mind not well, Dame."
"Well, of a surety! Call you this guarding a prisoner? Mind you not
that which happed at Tickhill, when she 'scaped forth by aid of that
knight--his name I forget--and had nigh reached the border of the
liberties ere it was discovered? Is this your allegiance and duty?
Dame, I bid you good morrow."
"Better late than never, Avena," said the Countess, a little
satirically. "Thou fond thing, there, lie over twenty years betwixt yon
night at Tickhill and this morrow. And if the night were back, where is
the knight? Nay, Avena Foljambe, I have nought to escape for, now."
"Dame, I must needs say you be rare unbuxom and unthankful."
"Ay, so said the fox to the stork, when he 'plained to be served with
thin broth."
"Pray you, look but around. You be lodged fit for any queen, be she the
greatest in Christendom; you need but speak a wish, and you shall have
it fulfilled--"
"Namely, thou shalt not put me off with red silk to my broidery when I
would have blue."
"You eat of the best, and lie of the softest, and speak with whom you
would--"
"Hold there!" The fire had come back to the sunken eyes. "I would
speak with some that come never anigh me, mine own children, that have
cast me off, or be kept away from me; they never so much as ask the old
mother how she doth. And I slaved and wrought and risked my life for
them, times out of mind! And here you keep me, shut up in four walls,--
never a change from year end to year end; never a voice to say `Mother!'
or `I love thee;' never a hope to look forward to till death take me!
No going forth of my cage; even the very air of heaven has to come in to
me. And I may choose, may I, whether my bed shall be hung with green or
blue? I may speak my pleasure if I would have to my four-hours
macaroons or gingerbread? and be duly thankful that this liberty and
these delicates are granted me! Avena Foljambe, all your folly lieth
not in your legs."
Lady Foljambe evidently did not appreciate this pun upon her surname.
"Dame!" she said, severely.
"Well? I can fare forth, if you have not had enough. What right hath
your King thus to use me? I never was his vassal. I entreated his aid,
truly, as prince to prince; and had he kept his bond and word, he had
been the truer man. I never brake mine, and I had far more need than
he. Wherefore played he at see-saw, now aiding me, and now Charles,
until none of his knights well knew which way he was bent? I brought
Charles de Blois to him a prisoner, and he let him go for a heap of
yellow stuff, and fiddled with him, off and on, till Charles brake his
pledged word, and lost his life, as he deserved, at Auray. I desire to
know what right King Edward had, when I came to visit him after I had
captured mine enemy, to make _me_ a prisoner, and keep me so, now and
then suffering me, like a cat with a mouse, to escape just far enough to
keep within his reach when he list to catch me again. But not now, for
eight long years--eight long years!"
"Dame, I cannot remain here to list such language of my sovereign."
"Then don't. I never asked you. My tongue is free, at any rate. You
can go."
And the Countess turned back to the black satin on which she was
embroidering a wreath of red and white roses.
"Follow me, Amphillis," said Lady Foljambe, with as much dignity as the
Countess's onslaught had left her.
She led the way into the opposite chamber, the one shared by Perrote and
Amphillis.
"It were best, as this hath happed, that you should know quickly who
this lady is that wotteth not how to govern her tongue. She is the
Duchess of Brittany. Heard you ever her story?"
"Something, Dame, an' it please you; yet not fully told. I heard, as I
think, of some quarrel betwixt her and a cousin touching the succession
to the duchy, and that our King had holpen her, and gave his daughter in
wedlock to the young Duke her son."
"So did he, in very deed; and yet is she thus unbuxom. Listen, and you
shall hear the inwards thereof. In the year of our Lord 1341 died Duke
John of Brittany, that was called the Good, and left no child. Two
brothers had he--Sir Guy, that was his brother both of father and
mother, and Sir John, of the father only, that was called Count de
Montfort. Sir Guy was then dead, but had left behind him a daughter,
the Lady Joan, that man called Joan the Halting, by reason she was lame
of one leg. Between her and her uncle of Montfort was the war of
succession--she as daughter of the brother by father and mother, he as
nearer akin to Duke John, being brother himself. [Note 1.] Our King
took part with the Count de Montfort, and the King of France espoused
the cause of the Lady Joan."
Lady Foljambe did not think it necessary to add that King Edward's
policy had been of the most halting character in this matter--at one
time fighting for Jeanne, and at another for Montfort, until his nobles
might well have been pardoned, if they found it difficult to remember at
any given moment on which side their master was.
"Well, the King of France took the Count, and led him away captive to
Paris his city. Whereupon this lady, that is now here in ward, what did
she but took in her arms her young son, that was then a babe of some few
months old, and into the Council at Rennes she went--which city is the
chief town of Brittany--and quoth she unto the nobles there assembled,
`Fair Sirs, be not cast down by the loss of my lord; he was but one man.
See here his young son, who shall 'present him for you; and trust me,
we will keep the stranger out of our city as well without him as with
him.' Truly, there was not a man to come up to her. She handled sword
as well as any marshal of the King's host; no assault could surprise
her, no disappointment could crush her, nor could any man, however wily,
take her off her guard. When she had gone forward to Hennebon--for
Rennes surrendered ere help could come from our King--man said she rade
all up and down the town, clad in armour, encouraging the townsmen, and
moving the women to go up to the ramparts and thence to hurl down on the
besiegers the stones that they tare up from the paved streets. Never
man fought like her!"
"If it please you, Dame, was her lord never set free?" asked Amphillis,
considerably interested.
"Ay and no," said Lady Foljambe. "Set free was he never, but he escaped
out of Louvre [Note 2] in disguise of a pedlar, and so came to England
to entreat the King's aid; but his Grace was then so busied with foreign
warfare that little could he do, and the poor Count laid it so to heart
that he died. He did but return home to die in his wife's arms."
"Oh, poor lady!" said Amphillis.
"Three years later," said Lady Foljambe, "this lady took prisoner Sir
Charles de Blois, the husband of the Lady Joan, and brought him to the
King; also bringing her young son, that was then a lad of six years, and
was betrothed to the King's daughter, the Lady Mary. The King ordered
her residence in the Castle of Tickhill, where she dwelt many years,
until a matter of two years back, when she was brought hither."
Amphillis felt this account exceedingly unsatisfactory.
"Dame," said she, "if I may have leave to ask at you, wherefore is this
lady a prisoner? What hath she done?"
Lady Foljambe's lips took a stern set. She was apparently not pleased
with the freedom of the question.
"She was a very troublesome person," said she. "Nothing could stay her;
she was ever restless and interfering. But these be matters too high
for a young maid such as thou. Thou wert best keep to thy broidery and
such-like duties."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harvest Home--the sixteenth of August--arrived when Amphillis had been a
week at Hazelwood. She had not by any means concluded that process
which is known as "settling down." On the contrary, she had never felt
so unsettled, and the feeling grew rather than diminished. Even
Alexandra and Ricarda had tried her less than her present companions, in
one sense; for they puzzled her less, though they teased her more. She
was beginning to understand her mistress, whose mood was usually one of
weary lack of interest and energy, occasionally broken either by seasons
of acute sorrow, or by sudden flashes of fiery anger: and the last were
less trying than the first--indeed, it seemed sometimes to Amphillis
that they served as a vent and a relief; that for a time after them the
weariness was a shade less dreary, and the languor scarcely quite so
overpowering.
Late in the evening, on the night before Harvest Home, Sir Godfrey
returned home, attended by his squire, Master Norman Hylton. The
impression received by Amphillis concerning the master of the house was
that he was a fitting pendant to his wife--tall, square, and stern. She
did not know that Sir Godfrey had been rather wild in his youth, and, as
some such men do, had become correspondingly severe and precise in his
old age. Not that his heart had changed; it was simply that the sins of
youth had been driven out by the sins of maturer life. And Satan is
always willing to let his slaves replace one sin by another, for it
makes them none the less surely his. Sir Godfrey suffered under no
sense of inconsistency in sternly rebuking, when exhibited by Agatha or
Matthew, slight tendencies to evil of the same types as he had once been
addicted to himself. Had he not sown his wild oats, and become a
reformed character? The outside of the cup and platter were now so
beautifully clean, that it never so much as occurred to him to question
the condition of the inside. Yet within were some very foul things--
alienation from God, and hardness of heart, and love of gold, that grew
upon him year by year. And he thought himself a most excellent man,
though he was only a whitewashed sepulchre. He lifted his head high, as
he stood in the court of the temple, and effusively thanked God that he
was not as other men. An excellent man! said everybody who knew him--
perhaps a little too particular, and rather severe on the peccadilloes
of young people. But when the time came that another Voice pronounced
final sentence on that whitewashed life, the verdict was scarcely "Well
done!"
Norman Hylton sat opposite to Amphillis at the supper-table, in the only
manner in which people could sit opposite to each other at a mediaeval
table--namely, when it was in the form of a squared horseshoe. The
table, which was always one or more boards laid across trestles, was
very narrow, the inside of the horseshoe being reserved for the servants
to hand the dishes. There were therefore some yards of distance between
opposite neighbours. Amphillis studied her neighbour, so far as an
occasional glance in his direction allowed her to do so, and she came to
the conclusion that there was nothing remarkable about him except the
expression of his face. He was neither tall nor short, neither handsome
nor ugly, neither lively nor morose. He talked a little with his next
neighbour, Matthew Foljambe, but there was nothing in the manner of
either to provoke curiosity as to the subject of their conversation.
But his expression puzzled Amphillis. He had dark eyes--like the
Countess's, she thought; but the weary and sometimes fiery aspect of
hers was replaced in these by a look of perfect contentment and peace.
Yet it was utterly different from the self-satisfied expression which
beamed out of Sir Godfrey's eyes.
"What manner of man is Master Hylton?" she asked of Agatha, who always
sat next her. Precedence at table was regulated by strict rules.
"The youngest of six brethren; prithee, trouble not thine head over
him," was that young lady's answer.
"But that doth me not to wit what manner of man he is," responded
Amphillis, turning to the sewer or waiter, who was offering her some
rissoles of lamb.
Agatha indulged in a little explosion of laughter under cover of her
handkerchief.
"Oh, Amphillis, where hast thou dwelt all thy life? Thou art the full
seliest [simplest, most unconventional] maid ever I did see."
Amphillis replied literally. "Why, in Hertfordshire was I born, but I
dwelt in London town a while ere I came hither."
"A jolly townswoman must thou have made! Canst not conceive what I
mean? Why, the youngest of six brethren hath all his fortune to make,
and cannot be no catch at all for a maid, without he be full high of
rank, and she have gold enough to serve her turn without."
"But I don't want to catch him," said Amphillis, innocently.
Agatha burst out laughing, and Lady Foljambe, from the middle of the
horseshoe table, looked daggers at her. Unrestrained laughter at table,
especially in a girl, was a serious breach of etiquette.
"I say, you shouldn't be so funny!" remonstrated Agatha. "How shall man
help to laugh if you say so comical words?"
"I wist not I was thus comical," said Amphillis. "But truly I conceive
you not. Wherefore should I catch Master Hylton, and wherewith, and to
what end?"
"Amphillis, you shall be the death of me! My Lady shall snap off my
head at after supper, and the maid is not born that could help to laugh
at you. To what end? Why, for an husband, child! As to wherewith,
that I leave to thee." And Agatha concluded with another stifled
giggle.
"Agatha!" was all that the indignant Amphillis could say in answer. She
could hardly have told whether she felt more vexed or astonished. The
bare idea of such a thing, evidently quite familiar to Agatha, was
utterly new to her. "You never, surely, signify that any decent maid
could set herself to seek a man for an husband, like an angler with
fish?"
"They must be uncommon queer folks in Hertfordshire if thou art a sample
thereof," was the reply. "Why, for sure, I so signified. Thou must
have been bred up in a convent, Phyllis, or else tied to thy
grandmother's apron-string all thy life. Shall a maid ne'er have a bit
of fun, quotha?"
Amphillis made no answer, but finished her rissoles in silence, and
helped herself to a small pound-cake.
"Verily, some folks be born as old as their grandmothers," said Agatha,
accepting a fieldfare from the sewer, and squeezing a lemon over it. "I
would fain enjoy my youth, though I'm little like to do it whilst here I
am. Howbeit, it were sheer waste of stuff for any maid to set her heart
on Master Norman; he wist not how to discourse with maids. He should
have been a monk, in very sooth, for he is fit for nought no better.
There isn't a sparkle about him."
"He looks satisfied," said Amphillis, rather wistfully. She was wishing
that she felt so.
Agatha's answer was a puzzled stare, first at Amphillis, and then at Mr
Hylton.
"`Satisfied!'" she repeated, as if she wondered what the word could
mean. "Aren't we all satisfied?"
"Maybe you are," replied Amphillis, "though I reckon I have heard you
say what looked otherwise. You would fain have more life and jollity,
if I err not."
"Truly, therein you err not in no wise," answered Agatha, laughing
again, though in a more subdued manner than before. "I never loved to
dwell in a nunnery, and this house is little better. `Satisfied!'" she
said again, as though the word perplexed her. "I never thought of no
such a thing. Doth Master Norman look satisfied? What hath satisfied
him, trow?"
"That is it I would fain know," said Amphillis.
"In good sooth, I see not how it may be," resumed Agatha. "He has never
a penny to his patrimony. I heard him to say once to Master Godfrey
that all he had of his father was horse, and arms, and raiment. Nor
hath he any childless old uncle, or such, that might take to him, and
make his fortune. He lives of his wits, belike. Now, I am an only
daughter, and have never a brother to come betwixt me and the
inheritance; I shall have a pretty penny when my father dies. So I have
some right to be jolly. Ay, and jolly I'll be when I am mine own
mistress, I warrant you! I've no mother, so there is none to oversee
me, and rule me, and pluck me by the sleeve when I would go hither and
thither, so soon as I can be quit of my Lady yonder. Oh, there's a
jolly life afore _me_."
It was Amphillis's turn to be astonished.
"Dear heart!" she said. "Why, I have no kindred nearer than uncle and
cousins, but I have ever reckoned it a sore trouble to lose my mother,
and no blessing."
"Very like it was to you!" said Agatha. "You'd make no bones if you
were ruled like an antiphonarium [music-book for anthems and chants],
I'll be bound, I'm none so fond of being driven in harness. I love my
own way, and I'll have it, too, one of these days."
"But then you have none to love you! That is one of the worst sorrows
in the world, I take it."
"Love! bless you, I shall have lovers enough! I've three hundred a year
to my fortune."
Three hundred pounds in 1372 was equal to nearly five thousand now.
"But what good should it do you that people wanted your money?" asked
Amphillis. "That isn't loving _you_."
"Amphillis, I do believe you were born a hundred years old! or else in
some other world, where their notions are quite diverse from this," said
Agatha, taking a candied orange from the sewer. "I never heard such
things as you say."
"But lovers who only want your money seem to me very unsatisfying
folks," replied Amphillis. "Will they smooth your pillows when you are
sick? or comfort you when your heart is woeful?"
"I don't mean my heart to be woeful, and as to pillows, there be
thousands will smooth them for wages."
"They are smoother when 'tis done for love," was the answer.
Agatha devoted herself to her orange, and in a few minutes Lady Foljambe
gave the signal to rise from table. The young ladies followed her to
her private sitting-room, where Agatha received a stern reprimand for
the crime of laughing too loud, and was told she was no better than a
silly giglot, who would probably bring herself some day to dire
disgrace. Lady Foljambe then motioned her to the spindle, and desired
her not to leave it till the bell rang for evening prayers in the
chapel, just before bed-time. Agatha pulled a face behind Lady
Foljambe's back, but she did not dare to disobey.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. It seems very strange to us that the Count de Montfort should
have imagined himself to have a better claim to the crown than his
niece; but the principle under which he claimed was the law of
non-representation, which forbade the child of a deceased son or brother
to inherit; and this, little as it is now allowed or even understood,
was not only the custom of some Continental states, but was the law of
succession in England, itself until 1377. The struggle between Stephen
and the Empress Maud, and that between King John and his nephew Arthur,
were fought upon this principle.
Note 2. The Louvre, then considered _near_ Paris, was usually mentioned
without the article.