The White Lady of Hazelwood Part 4

"I do not know much, I dare say."

"_Gut_! Now, listen. In de morning, you are ready before your lady calls; you keep not her awaiting. Maybe you sleep in de truckle-bed in her chamber; if so, you dress more quieter as mouse, you wake not her up. She wakes, she calls--you hand her garments, you dress her hair.

If she be wedded lady, you not to her chamber go ere her lord be away.

Mind you be neat in your dress, and lace you well, and keep your hair tidy, wash your face, and your hands and feet, and cut short your nails.

Every morning you shall your teeth clean. Take care, take much care what you do. You walk gravely, modestly; you talk low, quiet; you carry you sad [Note 1] and becomingly. Mix water plenty with your wine at dinner: you take not much wine, dat should shocking be! You carve de dishes, but you press not n.o.body to eat--dat is not good manners. You wash hands after your lady, and you look see there be two seats betwixt her and you--no nearer you go [Note 2]. You be quiet, quiet! sad, sober always--no chatter fast, no scamper, no loud laugh. You see?"

"I see, and I thank you," said Amphillis. "I hope I am not a giglot."

"You are not--no, no! Dere be dat are. Not you. Only mind you not so become. Young maids can be too careful never, never! You lose your good name in one hour, but in one year you win it not back."

And Regina's plump round face went very sad, as if she remembered some such instance of one who was dear to her.

"_Ach so_!--Well! den if your lady have daughters young, she may dem set in your care. You shall den have good care dey learn courtesy [Note 3], and gaze not too much from de window, and keep very quiet in de bower [Note 4]. And mind you keep dem--and yourself too--from de mans. Mans is bad!"

Amphillis was able to say, with a clear conscience, that she had no hankering after the society of those perilous creatures.

"See you," resumed Regina, with some warmth, "dere is one good man in one hundert mans. No more! De man you see, shall he be de hundert man, or one von de nine and ninety? What you tink?"

"I think he were more like to be of the ninety and nine," said Amphillis with a little laugh. "But how for the women, Mistress Regina? Be they all good?"

Regina shook her head in a very solemn manner.

"Dere is bad mans," answered she, "and dey is bad: and dere is bad womans, and dey is badder; and dere is bad angels, and dey is baddest of all. Look you, you make de sharpest vinegar von de sweetest wine.

Amphillis, you are good maid, I tink; keep you good! And dat will say, keep you to yourself, and run not after no mans, nor no womans neider.

You keep your lady's counsel true and well, but you keep no secrets from her. When any say to you, 'Amphillis, you tell not your lady,' you say to yourself, 'I want noting to do wid you; I keep to myself, and I have no secrets from my lady.' Dat is _gut_!"

"Mistress Regina, wot you who is the lady I am to serve?"

"I know noting, no more dan you--no, not de name of de lady you dis evening saw. She came from de Savoy--so much know I, no more."

Amphillis knew that goldsmiths were very often the bankers of their customers, and that their houses were a frequent rendezvous for business interviews. It was, therefore, not strange at all that Regina should not be further in the confidence of the lady in question.

"Now you shall not tarry no later," said Regina, kissing her. "You serve well your lady, you pray to G.o.d, and you keep from de mans.

Good-night!"

"Your pardon granted, Mistress Regina, but you have not yet told me what I need carry withal."

"_Ach so_! My head gather de wool, as you here say. Why, you take with you raiment enough to begin--dat is all. Your lady find you gowns after, and a saddle to ride, and all dat you need. Only de raiment to begin, and de brains in de head--she shall not find you dat. Take wid you as much of dem as you can get. Now run--de dark is _gekommen_."

It relieved Amphillis to find that she needed to carry nothing with, her except clothes, brains, and prudence. The first she knew that her uncle would supply; for the second, she could only take all she had; and as to the last, she must do her best to cultivate it.

Mr Altham, on hearing the report, charged his daughters to see that their cousin had every need supplied; and to do those young ladies justice, they took fairly about half their share of the work, until the day of the tournament, when they declared that nothing on earth should make them touch a needle. Instead of which, they dressed themselves in their best, and, escorted by Mr Clement Winkfield, were favoured by permission to slip in at the garden door, and to squeeze into a corner among the Duke's maids and grooms.

A very grand sight it was. In the royal stand sat the King, old Edward the Third, scarcely yet touched by that pitiful imbecility which troubled his closing days; and on his right hand sat the queen of the jousts, the young Countess of Cambridge, bride of Prince Edmund, with the Duke of Lancaster on her other hand, the d.u.c.h.ess being on the left of the King. All the invited ladies were robed uniformly in green and white, the prize-giver herself excepted. The knights were attired as Clement had described them. I am not about to describe the tournament, which, after all, was only a glorified prize-fight, and, therefore, suited to days when few gentlemen could read, and no forks were used for meals. We call ourselves civilised now, yet some who consider themselves such, seem to entertain a desire to return to barbarism.

Human nature, in truth, is the same in all ages, and what is called culture is only a thin veneer. Nothing but to be made partaker of the Divine nature will implant the heavenly taste.

The knights who were acclaimed victors, or at least the best jousters on the field, were led up to the royal stand, and knelt before the queen of the jousts, who placed a gold chaplet on the head of the first, and tied a silken scarf round the shoulders of the second and third. Happily, no one was killed or even seriously injured--not a very unusual state of things. At a tournament eighteen years later, the Duke of Lancaster's son-in-law, the last of the Earls of Pembroke, was left dead upon the field.

Alexandra and Ricarda came back very tired, and not in exceptionally good tempers, as Amphillis soon found out, since she was invariably a sufferer on these occasions. They declared themselves, the next morning, far too weary to put in a single st.i.tch; and occupied themselves chiefly in looking out of the window and exchanging airy nothings with customers. But when Clement came in the afternoon with an invitation to a dance at his mother's house, their exhausted energies rallied surprisingly, and they were quite able to go, though the same farce was played over again on the ensuing morning.

By dint of working early and late, Amphillis was just ready on the day appointed--small thanks to her cousins, who not only shirked her work, but were continually summoning her from it to do theirs. Mr Altham gave his niece some good advice, along with a handsome silver brooch, a net of gold tissue for her hair, commonly called a crespine or dovecote, and a girdle of black leather, set with bosses of silver-gilt. These were the most valuable articles that had ever yet been in her possession, and Amphillis felt herself very rich, though she could have dispensed with Ricarda's envious admiration of her treasures, and Alexandra's acetous remarks about some people who were always grabbing as much as they could get. In their father's presence these observations were omitted, and Mr Altham had but a faint idea of what his orphan niece endured at the hands--or rather the tongues--of his daughters, who never forgave her for being more gently born than themselves.

Lammas Day dawned warm and bright, and after early ma.s.s in the Church of Saint Mary at Strand--which n.o.body in those days would have dreamed of missing on a saint's day--Amphillis placed herself at an upstairs window to watch for her escort. She had not many minutes to wait, before two horses came up the narrow lane from the Savoy Palace, and trotting down the Strand, stopped at the patty-maker's door. After them came a baggage-mule, whose back was fitted with a framework intended to sustain luggage.

One horse carried a man attired in white linen, and the other bore a saddle and pillion, the latter being then the usual means of conveyance for a woman. On the saddle before it sat a middle-aged man in the royal livery, which was then white and red. The man in linen alighted, and after a few minutes spent in conversation with Mr Altham, he carried out Amphillis's luggage, in two leather trunks, which were strapped one on each side of the mule. As soon as she saw her trunks disappearing, Amphillis ran down and took leave of her uncle and cousins.

"Well, my maid, G.o.d go with thee!" said Mr Altham. "Forget not thine old uncle and these maids; and if thou be ill-usen, or any trouble hap thee, pray the priest of thy parish to write me a line thereanent, and I will see what can be done."

"Fare thee well, Phyllis!" said Alexandra, and Ricarda echoed the words.

Mr Altham helped his niece to mount the pillion, seated on which, she had to put her arms round the waist of the man in front, and clasp her hands together; for without this precaution, she would have been unseated in ten minutes. There was nothing to keep her on, as she sat with her left side to the horse's head, and roads in those days were rough to an extent of which we, accustomed to macadamised ways, can scarcely form an idea now.

And so, pursued for "luck" by an old shoe from Ricarda's hand, Amphillis Neville took her leave of London, and rode forth into the wide world to seek her fortune.

Pa.s.sing along the Strand as far as the row of houses ran, at the Strand Cross they turned to the left, and threading their way in and out among the detached houses and little gardens, they came at last into Holborn, and over Holborn Bridge into Smithfield. Under Holborn Bridge ran the Fleet river, pure and limpid, on its way to the silvery Thames; and as they emerged from c.o.c.k Lane, the stately Priory of Saint Bartholomew fronted them a little to the right. Crossing Smithfield, they turned up Long Lane, and thence into Aldersgate Street, and in a few minutes more the last houses of London were left behind them. As they came out into the open country, Amphillis was greeted, to her surprise, by a voice she knew.

"G.o.d be wi' ye, Mistress Amphillis!" said Clement Winkfield, coming up and walking for a moment alongside, as the horse mounted the slight rising ground. "Maybe you would take a little farewell token of mine hand, just for to mind you when you look on it, that you have friends in London that shall think of you by nows and thens."

And Clement held up to Amphillis a little silver box, with a ring attached, through which a chain or ribbon could be pa.s.sed to wear it round the neck. A small red stone was set on one side.

"'Tis a good charm," said he. "There is therein writ a Scripture, that shall bear you safe through all perils of journeying, and an hair of a she-bear, that is good against witchcraft; and the carnelian stone appeaseth anger. Trust me, it shall do you no harm to bear it anigh you."

Amphillis, though a sensible girl for her time, was not before her time, and therefore had full faith in the wonderful virtues of amulets. She accepted the silver box with the entire conviction that she had gained a treasure of no small value. Simple, good-natured Clement lifted his cap, and turned back down Aldersgate Street, while Amphillis and her escort went on towards Saint Albans.

A few miles they rode in silence, broken now and then by a pa.s.sing remark from the man in linen, chiefly on the deep subject of the hot weather, and by the sumpterman's frequent requests that his mule would "gee-up," which the perverse quadruped in question showed little inclination to do. At length, as the horse checked its speed to walk up a hill, the man in front of Amphillis said--

"Know you where you be journeying, my mistress?"

"Into Derbyshire," she answered. "Have there all I know."

"But you wot, surely, whom you go to serve?"

"Truly, I wot nothing," she replied, "only that I go to be bower-woman to some lady. The lady that saw me, and bound me thereto, said that I might look to learn on the road."

"Dear heart! and is that all they told you?"

"All, my master."

"Words must be costly in those parts," said the man in linen.

"Well," answered the other, drawing out the word in a tone which might mean a good deal. "Words do cost much at times, Master Saint Oly. They have cost men their lives ere now."

"Ay, better men than you or me," replied the other. "Howbeit, my mistress, there is no harm you should know--is there, Master Dugan?-- that you be bounden for the manor of Hazelwood, some six miles to the north of Derby, where dwell Sir G.o.dfrey Foljambe and his dame."

"No harm; so you tarry there at this present," said Master Dugan.

"Ay, I've reached my hostel," was the response.

"Then my Lady Foljambe is she that I must serve?"