HOW THE POPPET OF JOAN, THE DAUGHTER OF THE CAPMAKER, WENT TO COURT AND
KEPT A SECRET
Joan, the little daughter of the hurer, sat on a three-legged stool in
the corner of her father's shop, nursing her baby. It was not much of
a baby, being only a piece of wood with a knob on the end. But the shop
was not much of a shop. Gilles the hurer was a cripple, and it was all
that he could do to give Joan and her mother a roof over their heads.
They had sometimes two meals a day; oftener one; occasionally none at
all.
If he could have made hats and caps like those which he used to make
when he was a tradesman in Milan, every sort of fine goods would have
come into the shop. In processions and pageants, at banquets, weddings,
betrothals, christenings, funerals, on every occasion in life, the
people wore headgear which helped to make the picture. The fashion of
a man's hat suited his position in life. Details and decorations varied
more or less, but the styles very seldom did. Velvet and fur were
allowed only to persons of a certain dignity; hats were made to show
embroidery, which might be of gold thread and jeweled. Merchants wore
a sort of hood with a long loose crown which could be used as a pocket.
This protected the neck and ears on a journey, and had a lining of
wool, fur, or lambskin. Court ladies wore hoods of velvet, silk or
fine cloth for traveling. At any formal social affair a lady wore some
ornamental head-dress with a veil which she could draw over her face.
The wimple, usually worn by elderly women, was a scarf of fine linen
thrown over the head, brought closely around the throat and chin, and
held by a fillet. In later and more luxurious and splendid times, the
cone-shaped and crescent-shaped head-dresses came in.
Hats were not common in the twelfth century. The hair fell in carefully
arranged curls, long braids or loose tresses on the shoulders; the face
was framed in delicate veils of silk or sendal, kept in place by a
chaplet of flowers or a coronet of gold. Every maiden learned to weave
garlands in set patterns, and could make a wreath in any one of several
given styles, for her own hair or for decorating a building. Red, green
and blue were the colors most often used in dress, and on any festival
day the company presented a very gay appearance.
Gilles, however, was obliged to confine himself to the making of hures
or rough woolen caps for common men. He had no apprentices, although his
wife and daughter sometimes helped him. His shop was a corner of a very
old building most of which had been burned in a great London fire. It
was the oldest house in the street and was roofed with stone, which
probably saved it. The ends of the beams in the wall fitted into sockets
in other beams, and were set straight, crooked or diagonally without any
apparent plan. Two or three hundred years before, when the house was
built, the space between the timbers had been filled in with interlaced
branches, over which mud was plastered on in thick coats. This made the
kind of wall known as "wattle and daub." It was not very scientific in
appearance, but it was weather-proof. As there was no fireplace or
hearth, the family kept warm--when it could--by means of an iron brazier
filled with coals. Cooking--when they had anything to cook--was done
over the brazier in a chafing-dish, or in a tiny stone fireplace outside
the rear wall, made of scattered stones by Joan's mother.
Gilles was a Norman, but he had been born in Sicily, which had been
conquered by the Norman adventurer Guiscard long before. He had gone to
Milan when a youth, and there he had met Joan's mother--and stayed. The
luxury of Lombard cities made any man who could manufacture handsome
clothing sure of a living. "Milaner and Mantua-Maker" on a sign above
a shop centuries later meant a shop where one could find the latest
fashions. Gilles was prosperous and happy, and his little girl was just
learning to walk, when the siege of Milan put an end to everything. He
came to London crippled from a wound and palsied from fever and set
about finding work.
They might have starved if it had not been for a Florentine artist,
Matteo, who was also a stranger in London, but had all that he could do.
He lodged for a year in the solar chamber, as the room above the shop
was called. Poor as their shelter was, it had this room to spare. Matteo
paid his way in more than money; he improved the house. He understood
plaster work, and covered the inner walls with a smooth creamy mixture
which made a beautiful surface for pictures. On this fair and spotless
plaster he made studies of what he saw day by day, drawing, painting,
painting out and making new studies as he certainly could not have done
had he been lodged in a palace. All along two sides of the shop was a
procession of dignitaries in the most gorgeous of holiday robes. In
the chamber above were portraits of the King and Queen, the Bishop of
London, Prior Hagno preaching to a crowd at Bartlemy Fair, some of the
chief men of the government, and animals wild and tame. He told Joan
stories about the paintings, and these walls were the only picture-books
that she had.
Then they sheltered a smooth-spoken Italian called Giuseppe, who nearly
got them into terrible trouble. He not only never paid a penny, but
barely escaped the officers of the law, who asked a great many questions
about him and how they came to harbor him. After that they made it a
rule not to take any one in unless he was recommended by some one they
knew. It was worse to go to prison than to be hungry.
One day, when Gilles had just been paid for some work done for Master
Nicholas Gay, the rich merchant, a slender, dark-eyed youth with a
workman's pack on his shoulder came and asked for a room. Hardly had
Joan called her mother when the stranger reeled and fell unconscious on
the floor of the shop. He did not know where he was or who he was for
days. They remembered Giuseppe and were dubious, but they kept him and
tended him until he was able to talk. His tools and his hands showed
him to be a wood-carver, and his dress was foreign. His illness was
something like what used to be called ship-fever, due to the hard
conditions of long voyages, in wooden ships not too clean.
When their guest was able to talk he told them that he was Quentin, a
wood-carver of Peronne. He had met Matteo in Messina and thus heard of
this lodging. He had come to London to work at the oaken stalls of the
Bishop of Ely's private chapel in Holborn. These stalls, or choir-seats,
in a Gothic church were designed to suit the stately high-arched
building. Their straight tall backs were carved in wood, and the
arm-rests ended in an ornament called a finial. Often no two stalls
were alike, and yet the different designs were shaped to fit the
general style, so that the effect was uniform. The carving of one pair
of arms might be couchant lions; on the next, leopards; on the next,
hounds, and so on. The seats were usually hinged and could be raised
when not in use. The under side of the seat, which then formed part of
all this elaborate show of decoration, was most often carved with
grotesque little squat figures of any sort that occurred to the artist.
Here Noah stuck his head out of a nutshell Ark; there a woman belabored
her husband for breaking a jug; on the next stall might be three solemn
monkeys making butter in a churn. Quentin's fancy was apt to run to
little wood-goblins, mermaids, crowned lizards, fauns, and flying
ships. He came from a country where the forests are full of fairy-tales.
Joan would be very sorry to have Quentin go away. She was thinking of
this as she sat in the twilight nursing her wooden poppet. When he came
in at last he had his tools with him, and a piece of fine hard wood
about two feet long. Seating himself on a bench he lit the betty lamp on
the wall, and laying out his knives and gouges he began to carve a face
on the wood.
Joan could not imagine what he was making, and she watched intently. The
face grew into that of a charming little lady, with eyes crinkled as if
they laughed, and a dimple in her firm chin. The hair waved over the
round head; the neck was as softly curved as a pigeon's. The gown met in
a V shape at the throat, with a bead necklace carved above. There was a
close-fitting bodice, with sleeves that came down over the wrists and
wrinkled into folds, and a loose over-sleeve that came to the elbow. The
skirt fell in straight folds and there was a little ornamental border in
a daisy pattern around the hem. When the statuette was finished and set
up, it was like a court lady made small by enchantment.
"There is a poppet for thee, small one," Quentin said smiling.
Joan's hands clasped tight and her eyes grew big and dark. "For me?"
she cried.
"It is a poor return for the kindness that I have had in this house,"
answered Quentin brushing the chips into the brazier.
The poppet seemed to bring luck to the hurer's household. Through
Gilles, Master Gay had heard of Quentin's work, and he ordered a coffret
for his wife, and a settle. The arms of the settle were to be carved
with little lady-figures like Joan's, and Master Gay asked if they
could not all be portraits of Princesses. Joan's own poppet was named
Marguerite for the daughter of the French King, who had married the
eldest son of Henry II. Quentin had copied the face from Matteo's sketch
upon the wall, and in one room or the other were all the other members
of the royal family. But as it would not be suitable to show Queens
and Princesses upholding the arms of a chair in the house of a London
merchant, Quentin suggested that they change the design, and use the
leopards of Anjou for the arms, while the statuettes of the Princesses
were ranged along the top of the high back. There could be five
open-work arches with a figure in each, and plain linen-fold paneling
below. Where the carving needed a flower or so he would put alternately
the lilies of France and the sprig of broom which was the badge of the
Plantagenets. Thus the piece of carving would commemorate the fact that
the family of the King of England was related to nearly every royal
house in Europe through marriage. It would be a picture-chronicle.
In the middle arch was Marguerite, who would be Queen of England some
day if her husband lived. At her right hand was Constance of Brittany,
wife of Geoffrey, who through her would inherit that province. The other
figures were Eleanor, who was married to Alfonso, King of Castile;
Matilda, who was the wife of Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, the most
powerful vassal of the German Emperor; and Joan, the youngest, betrothed
to William, called the Good, King of Sicily.
"There will be two more princesses some day," said Joan, cuddling
Marguerite in her arms as she watched Quentin's deft strokes. "Prince
Richard is not married yet, and neither is Prince John."
"The work cannot wait for that, little one," Quentin answered laughing.
"Richard is only sixteen, and John still younger. Yet they do say that
the King is planning an alliance with Princess Alois of France for
Richard, and is in treaty with Hubert the Duke of Maurienne for his
daughter to wed with John. I think, myself, that Richard will choose
his own bride."
Joan said nothing, but in her own mind she thought it would be most
unpleasant to be married off like that, by arrangements made years
before.
"The marriage with Hubert's daughter," Quentin added half to himself,
"would keep open the way into Italy if it were needed. It is a bad thing
to have an enemy blocking your gate."
Although her poppet was carved so that the small out-held hands and arms
were clear of the body, and dresses could be fitted over them, Joan
found that there were but few points or edges that were likely to be
chipped off. The wood was well seasoned, and the carving followed the
grain most cunningly. Neither dampness nor wood-boring insects could
easily get into the channels where sap once ran. This was part of the
wisdom of wood-carving.
When Joan grew too old to play with her poppet she sometimes carried
her to some fine house to show a new fashion, or style of embroidery.
Marguerite had a finer wardrobe than any modern doll, for the little
hats, hoods and head-dresses had each a costume to go with it, and all
were kept in a chest Quentin had made for her, with the arms of Milan
on the lid. No exiled Milanese ever quite gave up the hope that some day
the city would be rebuilt in all its splendor, and the foreign governors
driven from Lombardy. Joan used to hear her father talking of it with
their next lodger, Giovanni Bergamotto, who was a peddler at fairs.
Gilles had had steady work for a long time, and was making not only the
rough caps he used to make, now turned out by an apprentice, but fine
hats and caps for the wealthy. A carved and gilded hat swung before the
door, and Joan learned embroidery of every kind. She saw Quentin now and
then, and one day he sent word to her, by the wool-merchant Robert
Edrupt, that Queen Eleanor wished to see the newest court fashions, and
that Joan might journey with Edrupt and his wife to the abbey where she
was living. It was one of the best known houses in England, and the
Abbess was of royal blood. It was not at all unusual for its guest-rooms
to be occupied by Queens and Princesses.
Quentin had been sent there to do some work for the Abbey, and in that
way the Queen, through Philippa, her maid of honor, had heard of Joan.
"I suppose it is a natural desire in a woman," Master Edrupt said when
they talked of the matter, "but somehow I would stake my head it is not
the fashions she is after."
Barbara his wife smiled but said nothing. She agreed.
When Joan had modestly shown her wares, and the little wooden court lady
had smiled demurely through it all, the Queen dandled Marguerite on her
knee and thoughtfully looked her over.
"The face is surely like the Princess of France," she said. And Joan
felt more than ever certain that there was a reason for this interest
in poppets.
Later in the day she found out what it was. Quentin was carving other
little lady-figures like those he had made years ago for Master Gay. He
had also made the figures of a Bishop, a King, a Monk, and a Merchant;
with a grotesque hump-backed hook-nosed Dwarf for the Jester. It looked
as if a giant were about to play chess. Padraig, an Irish scribe who had
made some designs for the Queen's tapestry-workers, was using his best
penmanship to copy certain letters on fine parchment. Giovanni, who
had sprung up from somewhere, was making a harness-like contrivance of
hempen cords, iron hooks and rods, and wooden pulleys. When finished it
went into a small bag of tow-cloth; if stretched out it filled the end
of a rough wooden frame. Joan began to suspect that the figures were
for a puppet-show.
"It is time to explain," Quentin said to the others. "We can trust Joan.
She is as true as steel."
Joan's heart leaped with pride. If Milan had only honor left, her
children would keep that.
"It is this, Joan," Quentin went on kindly. "In time of war any
messenger may be searched, and we do not know when war will come.
King Henry desires above all things the peace of his realm. He will
not openly take the side of the Lombard cities against Frederick
Barbarossa--yet. But he will throw all his influence into the scale if
he can. The Queen has hit upon a way by which letters can be sent safely
to the courts of Brittany, France, Castile, Sicily, and even to Saxony,
which is in Barbarossa's own domains. Giovanni will travel as a peddler,
with the weaver-boy Cimarron as his servant or companion, as may
seem best. He will have a pack full of such pretty toys as maidens
love,--broidered veils, pomanders, perfumed gloves, girdles--nothing
costly enough to tempt robbers--and these wooden poppets of ours. We
cannot trust the tiring-women in times like these, but he may be able
to give the letters into the hands of the Queens themselves. No one,
surely, will suspect a poppet. These gowns and wimples will display the
fashions, and I had another reason for telling you to bring them all.
If he cannot get his chance as a peddler he can hang about the court
with a puppet-show. Now, look here."
Quentin took the softly smiling poppet and began to twist her neck. When
he had unscrewed the dainty little head a deep hole appeared in the
middle of the figure. Into this Padraig fitted a roll of parchment, and
over it a wooden peg.
"May she keep it?" Quentin asked gently. "There is need for haste, and
I have not time to make another figure."
Joan swallowed hard. Marguerite had heard many secrets that no one else
knew. "Aye," she said, "I will let her go."
Then each little figure in turn received its secret to keep, and Joan,
Lady Philippa, and the other maids sewed furiously for a day and a half.
Each Princess was gowned in robes woven with the arms of her kingdom.
The other figures were suitably dressed. The weights which made the
jester turn a somersault were gold inside a lead casing--Giovanni might
need that. There were jewels hidden safely in his dagger-hilt and
Cimarron's, but to all appearance they were two common chapmen.
They were gone for a long time, but Marguerite--the only poppet to
return--came back safely, and inside her discreet bosom were letters
for the King. Cimarron brought her to the door of Gilles the hurer, and
told Joan that Giovanni, after selling the puppet-show, had stayed in
Alexandria to fight for Milan.