Emily Sarah Holt
A Forgotten Hero
Not for Him
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066162214
Table of Contents
Chapter Two.
The mists clear away.
“Nec tecum possum vivere, nec sine te.”
Martial.
One at least of the ladies who had disturbed Elaine’s hilarity did not look a person of whom it was necessary to be afraid. She was a matronly woman of middle age, bearing the remains of extreme beauty. She had a good-natured expression, and she rather shrank back, as if she were there on sufferance only. But the other, who came forward into the room, was tall, spare, upright, and angular, with a face which struck Clarice as looking very like verjuice.
“Agatha!” called the latter, sharply; and, laying her hand, not gently, on Elaine’s shoulder, she gave her a shake which rapidly reduced her to gravity.
“Ye weary, wretched giglots, what do ye thus laughing and tittering, when I have distinctly forbidden the same?—Agatha!—Know ye not that all ye be miserable sinners, and this lower world a vale of tears?—Agatha!”
“Truly, Cousin Meg,” observed the other lady, now coming forward, “methinks you go far to make it such.”
“Agatha might have more sense,” returned her acetous companion. “I have bidden her forty times o’er to have these maids well ordered, and mine house as like to an holy convent as might be compassed; and here is she none knows whither—taking her pleasure, I reckon—and these caitiff hildings making the very walls for to ring with their wicked foolish laughter!—Agatha! bring me hither the rod. I will see if a good whipping bring not down your ill-beseen spirits, mistress!”
Elaine turned pale, and cast a beseeching glance at the pleasanter of the ladies.
“Nay, now, Cousin Meg,” interposed she, “I pray you, let not this my first visit to Oakham be linked with trouble to these young maids. I am well assured you know grey heads cannot be well set on green shoulders.”
“Lady, I am right unwilling to deny any bidding of yours. But I do desire of you to tell me if it be not enough to provoke a saint to swear?”
“What! to hear a young maid laugh, cousin? Nay, soothly, I would not think so.”
Mistress Underdone had entered the room, and, after dropping a courtesy to each of the ladies, stood waiting the pleasure of her mistress. Clarice was slowly coming to the conclusion, with dire dismay, that the sharp-featured, sharp-tongued woman before her was no other than the Lady Margaret of Cornwall, her lovely lady with the pathetic eyes.
“Give me the rod, Agatha,” said the Countess, sternly.
“Nay, Cousin Meg, I pray you, let Agatha give it to me.”
“You’ll not lay on!” said the Countess, with a contortion of her lips which appeared to do duty for a smile.
“Trust me, I will do the right thing,” replied Queen Blanche, taking the rod which Mistress Underdone presented to her on the knee. “Now. Elaine, stand out here.”
Elaine, very pale and preternaturally grave, placed herself in the required position.
“Say after me. ‘I entreat pardon of my Lady for being so unhappy as to offend her.’ ”
Elaine faltered out the dictated words.
“Kiss the rod,” said the Queen.
She was immediately obeyed.
“Now, Cousin Meg, for my sake, I pray you, let that suffice.”
“Well, Lady, for your sake,” responded the Countess, with apparent reluctance, looking rather like a kite from whose talons the Queen had extracted a sparrow intended for its dinner.
“Sit you in this chamber, Cousin Meg?” asked the Queen, taking a curule chair as she spoke—the only one in the room.
“Nay, Lady. ’Tis mine hour for repeating the seven penitential psalms. I have no time to waste with these giglots.”
“Then, I pray you, give me leave to abide here myself for a season.”
“You will do your pleasure, Lady. I only pray of you to keep them from laughing and such like wickedness.”
“Nay, for I will not promise that for myself,” said Queen Blanche, with a good-tempered smile. “Go your ways, Meg; we will work no evil.”
The Countess turned and stalked out of the door again. And Clarice’s first castle in the air fell into pieces behind her.
“Now, Agatha, I pray thee shut the door,” said the Queen, “that we offend not my Cousin Margaret’s ears in her psalms. Fare ye all well, my maids? Thy face is strange to me, child.”
Clarice courtesied very low. “If it please the Lady Queen, I am but just come hither.”
She had to tell her name and sundry biographical particulars, and then, suddenly looking round, the Queen said, “And where is Heliet?”
“Please it the Lady Queen, in my chamber,” said Mistress Underdone.
“Bid her hither, good Agatha—if she can come.”
“That can she, Lady.”
Mistress Underdone left the room, and in another minute the regular tap of approaching crutches was audible. Clarice imagined their wearer to be some old woman—perhaps the mother of Mistress Underdone. But as soon as the door was opened again, she was surprised and touched to perceive that the sufferer who used them was a girl little older than herself. She came up to Queen Blanche, who welcomed her with a smile, and held her hand to the girl’s lips to be kissed. This was her only way of paying homage, for to her courtesying