Part 20 (1/2)
”Is it soothly thus?” replied Amphillis, her surprise scarcely lessened by hearing of such unusual conduct on the part of the precise Lady Foljambe. ”Verily, but--And how do my good master mine uncle, and my good cousin Alexandra?”
”Saundrina's wed, and so is my father. And Saundrina leads Clement a life, and Mistress Altham leads my father another. I was none so sorry to come away, I can tell thee. I hate to be ruled like a ledger and notched like a tally!”
”Thou shalt find things be well ruled in this house, Rica,” said Amphillis, thinking to herself that Ricarda and Agatha would make a pair, and might give their mistress some trouble. ”But whom hath mine uncle wed, that is thus unbuxom [disobedient] to him?”
”Why, Mistress Regina, the goldsmith's daughter, that counts herself worth us all, and would fain be a queen in the patty-shop, and cut us all out according to her will.”
”But, Ricarda, I reckoned Mistress Regina a full good and wise woman.”
”'Good and wise!' She may soon be so. I hate goodness and wisdom.
There's never a bit of jollity for her. 'Tis all 'thou shalt not.' She might as well be the Ten Commandments and done with it.”
”Wouldst thou fain not keep the Ten Commandments, Rica?”
”I'd fain have my own way, and be jolly. Oh, she keeps the house well enough. Father saith he's tenfold more comfortable sithence her coming.”
”I thought thou saidst she led him an ill, diseaseful [Note 1] life?”
”Well, so did I. Father didn't.”
”Oh!” said Amphillis, in an enlightened tone.
”And she's a rare hand at the cooking, that will I say. She might have made patties all her life. She catches up everything afore you can say 'Jack Robinson.' She says it's by reason she's a Dutchwoman [Note 2].
Rubbis.h.!.+ as if a lot of nasty foreigners could do aught better, or half as well, as English folks!”
”Be all foreigners nasty?” asked Amphillis, thinking of her mistress.
”Of course they be! Phyllis, what's come o'er thee?”
”I knew not anything had.”
”Lack-a-day! thou art tenfold as covenable and deliver [Note 3] as thou wert wont to be. Derbys.h.i.+re hath brightened up thy wits.”
Amphillis smiled. Privately, she thought that if her wits were brightened, it was mainly by being let alone and allowed to develop free of perpetual repression.
”I have done nought to bring the same about, Ricarda. But must I conceive that Master Winkfield's diseaseful life, then, is in thine eyes, or in his own?”
”He reckons himself the blissfullest man under the sun,” said Ricarda, as they rose from the table: ”and he dare not say his soul is his own; not for no price man should pay him.”
Amphillis privately thought the bliss of a curious kind.
”Phyllis!” said her cousin, suddenly, ”hast learned to hold thy tongue?”
”I count I am metely well learned therein, Rica.”
”Well, mind thou, not for nothing of no sort to let on to my Lady that Father is a patty-maker. I were put forth of the door with no more ado, should it come to her ear that I am not of gentle blood like thee.”
”Ricarda! Is my Lady, then, deceived thereon?”