Our Little Lady Part 9

dresses, but gentlemen's, and all kinds of curtains and hangings, were very largely ornamented with the needle. Mrs De la Laund kept eighteen apprentices, and they worked in a long, narrow room with windows at each end--not gla.s.s windows, but just square openings, where light, wind, and rain or snow, came in together. It was about half an hour before it would be time to stop work. There was no clock in the room, and there were only three in all Lincoln. Clocks such as we have were then unknown. They had but two measures of time--the clepsydra, or water-clock, and the sun-dial. When a man had neither of these, he employed all kinds of ingenious expedients for guessing what time it was, if the day were cloudy and the sun not to be seen. King Alfred had invented the plan, long before, of having candles to burn a certain time; the monks knew how long it took to repeat certain psalms. Mrs De la Laund stopped work when the cathedral bell tolled for vespers--that is, at four o'clock.

"You look tired, Antigone," said Emma to her nearest neighbour, a pale girl of eighteen.

"Tired? Of course I'm tired," was the unpromising answer. "Where's the good? One must go on."

"She does not like the work," said the girl on the other side of her.

"Do you?" responded Antigone, turning to her.

The girl gave a little laugh. "I don't think whether I like it or not,"

she said. "I like being taught what will get me a living some day."

"I hate it!" answered Antigone. "Why should I have to work for my living, when Lady Margaret, up at the Castle, never needs to put a needle in or out unless she pleases?"

"Nay, you're wrong there. My sister Justina is scullion-maid at the Castle, and I am sure, from what she tells me, you wouldn't like to change with Lady Margaret."

"My word, but I would!"

"Why not, Sarah?" asked Emma.

"Well," replied Sarah with a smile, "Antigone likes what she calls a bit of fun when the day's work is over; and she would not get nearly so much as she does, if she were in Lady Margaret's place. She dwells in three chambers in her mother's tower, and never comes down except to hall,"

(namely, to meals,) "with now and then a decorous dance under the eyes of the Lady Countess. No running races on the green, nor chattering away to everybody, nor games--except upstairs in her own room with a few other young damsels. Antigone would think she was in prison, to be used like that. And learning!--why, she has to learn Latin, and surgery, and heraldry, and all sorts of needlework--not embroidery only; and cooking, and music, and I do not know what else. How would you like it, Antigone?"

"Well, at any rate, she has a change!" said Antigone, with some acerbity.

"Not quite the same thing as no work at all, for which I thought you were longing. And no liberty, remember."

"But her gowns, Sarah, her gowns!--and her hoods, and cloaks, and everything else! Did you see her last Saint Michael? I'd have given a bit of liberty for that orange samite and those lovely blue slippers!"

Sarah laughed and gave a little shake of her head.

"I know who is fond of Hunt the Slipper," said she. "A pretty figure an orange samite gown would cut after an evening of it! I think, too, I would rather be free to go about on my feet than even to wear lovely blue slippers. Nay, Antigone, you may depend upon it, there are less pleasant things in Lady Margaret's life than orange gowns and blue slippers. We can have a say about our weddings, remember: but she will be handed over to somebody she never saw, as like as not. I'd rather be as I am. Mother says folks' lots are more even than they like to think.

Poor folks fancy that rich ones have nothing to trouble them worth mention; and a sick man thinks, if he were only well, he would not mind being poor; and a man in prison says that if he could but be free, he could bear both illness and poverty. The truth is, everybody thinks his own trouble the worst; and yet, if we had our neighbours' instead, nine times out of ten we should be glad to get back to our own. We know the worst of them, and often we don't of the others. So that is why I say, I'd rather be as I am."

"But people look down on you!" said Antigone.

"Well, let them. _That_ won't hurt me," answered Sarah.

"Sarah, I do believe you've not a bit of spirit!"

"I'd rather keep my spirit for what it is good for--to help me over hard places and along weary bits of road. All women have those at times.

Mother says--"

"Where's the good of quoting old women? They have outlived their youth."

"Well, at any rate they lived through it, and some of them picked up a bit of wisdom by the way."

"You may keep your musty wisdom to yourself! I want none of it!" said Antigone, scornfully.

"I want all I can get," quietly responded Sarah. "Mother says (if you don't care for it, Emma may) that discontent is the worst companion a girl can have for making everything look miserable. You'll be a deal happier, she says, with a dry crust and a good will to it, than with a roast ox and a complaining temper."

"Ay, that's true!" said Emma, with a sigh.

"Poor Emma!" laughed Antigone. "You get enough of it, don't you, at the smithy?"

"I would rather not talk over my mother and sisters, if you please,"

returned Emma.

"Oh, you don't need to take airs, my lady. I know!"

"Come, let Emma be," said Sarah. "Let's keep our tempers, if we haven't much else. There's the vesper bell!"

Antigone's work was not likely to be improved by the hasty huddled-up style in which it was folded, while Sarah and Emma shook theirs straight and carefully avoided creases. They had then to give it in to the mistress, who stood at one end of the room, putting all away in a large coffer. When the last girl had given in her work, Mrs De la Laund called for silence.

"On Thursday next," said she, "I shall give you a holiday after dinner.

The Queen comes to Lincoln on that day, and I wish to give as many as are good girls the chance of seeing her enter. But I shall expect to have no creased work like Antigone's; nor split and frayed like Geneveva's; nor dirtied like Femiana's. Now you may go."

They had odd names for girls in those days. Among the n.o.bles and gentry, most were like ours; young ladies of rank were Alice, Cicely, Margaret, Joan, Isabel, Emma, or Agnes: a strange name being the exception. But among working women the odd names were then the rule: they were Yngeleis, Sabelina, Orenge, Pimma, Cinelote, Argentella, and very many more of the same high-sounding kind.

When the apprentices left the work-room, they were free to do as they liked till seven o'clock, when they must all re-a.s.semble there, answer to their names called over, repeat some prayers after Mrs de la Laund, and go to bed in a large loft at the top of the house. Characters came out on these occasions. The majority showed themselves thoughtless and giddy: they went to run races on the green, and to play games--the better disposed only among themselves: but the wild, adventurous spirits soon joined a lot of idle youths as unsteady as themselves, with whom they spent the evening in rough play, loud laughter, and not altogether decorous joking. The little group of sensible girls kept away from such scenes. Most of them went to see their friends, if within reasonable distance; those who had none at hand sat or walked quietly together.

Emma and Sarah were among these.

Any person entering Lincoln on the following Wednesday would plainly have seen that the town was preparing for some great event. Every house draped itself in some kind of hanging--the rich in coa.r.s.e silk, the poorer in bunting or whatever they could get. The iron hoops here and there built into the walls for that purpose, held long pine-sticks, to be lighted as torches after dark; and they would need careful watching, for a great deal of the city was built of wood, and if a spark lighted on the walls, a serious fire might be the result. In the numerous balconies which projected from the better cla.s.s of houses sat ladies dressed in their handsomest garments on the Thursday morning, and below in the street stood men and women packed tightly into a crowd, waiting for the Queen to arrive. There was not much room in a mediaeval street, and the sheriffs did not find it easy to keep a clear pa.s.sage for the royal train. As to keeping any pa.s.sage for the traffic, that would have been considered quite unnecessary. There was not much to keep it for; and what there was could go round by back streets, just as well as not.

Few people set any value on time in the Middle Ages.

Queen Alianora was expected to arrive about twelve o'clock. She was not the Queen Eleanor of whom we read at the beginning of the story (for Alianora is only one of the old ways of spelling Eleanor), but her daughter-in-law, the Lady Alianora who had been a friend to the dumb Princess. She was a Spanish lady, and was one of the best and loveliest Queens who ever reigned in England. Goodness and beauty are not always found in company--perhaps I might say, not often; but they went together with her. She was a Spanish blonde--which means that her hair was a bright shade of golden--neither flaxen nor red; and that her eyes were a deep, deep blue--the blue of a southern sky, such as we rarely if ever see in an English one. Her complexion was fair and rosy, her features regular and beautiful, her figure extremely elegant and well-proportioned. The crowd, though good-humoured, was beginning to get tired, when she came at last.

The Queen, who was not quite thirty years of age, rode on a white horse, whose scarlet saddle-cloth was embroidered with golden lions and roses, and which was led by Garcia, her Spanish Master of the Horse. She was dressed in green samite, trimmed with ermine. On her left hand rode the Earl of Lincoln, on her right, her eldest surviving son, the little Prince Alphonso, who was only seven years old. He died at the age of eleven. After the Queen rode her two damsels, Aubrey de Caumpeden and Ermetrude; and after them and the officers of the household came a number of lesser people, the mob of sight-seers closing in and following them up the street. [See Note 1.] Her Majesty rode up Steephill to the Castle, where the Countess of Lincoln and her daughter Lady Margaret--a girl of about fifteen--received her just inside the gate. Then the mob cheered, the Queen looked back with a smile and a bow, the Almoner flung a handful of silver pennies among them, the portcullis was hauled down, and the sight was over.

As Emma turned back from the Castle gate, she met her father and her sister Eleanor, who, like her, had been sight-seeing.

"Well!" said Dan, "did thou see her?"

"Oh yes, beautifully!" answered Emma. "Isn't she handsome, Father?"

"'Handsome is as handsome does,'" philosophically returned Dan. "Some folks looks mighty handsome as doesn't do even to it. _She_ was just like a pictur' when I wed her. Ay, she was, so!--Where art thou going, Emma?"

"I thought of looking in on Aunt Avice, Father. Are you and Eleanor coming, too?"

"I'm not," said Eleanor. "I'm going to see Laurentia atte Gate. So I'll wish you good even."

She kept straight on, while Dan and Emma turned off for Avice's house.

It was not surprising that they found n.o.body at home but the turnspit dog, who was sufficiently familiar with both to wag a welcome; but somebody sat in the chimney-corner who was not at home, but was a visitor like themselves. When the door was unlatched, Father Thomas closed the book he had been reading and looked up.

"Good even, Father," said Dan to the priest. "I reckon you've come o'

th' same errand as us."

"What is that, my son?"