Part 24 (1/2)

”Well, Avena, good morrow! Didst have half my message, or the whole?”

”I am here, Dame, to take your Grace's orders.”

”I see, it wanted the whole. 'To take my Grace's orders!' Soothly, thou art pleasant. Well, take them, then. My Grace would like a couch prepared on yonder lawn, and were I but well enough, a ride on horseback; but I mis...o...b.. rides be over for me. Go to: what is this I hear touching the child Amphillis?--as though thou wentest about to be rid of her.”

”Dame, I have thought thereupon.”

”What for? Now, Avena, I will know. Thou dost but lose thy pains to fence with me.”

In answer, Lady Foljambe told the story, with a good deal of angry comment. The Countess was much amused, a fact which did not help to calm the narrator.

”_Ha, jolife_!” said she, ”but I would fain have been in thy bower when the matter came forth! Howbeit, I lack further expounding thereanentis.

Whereof is Phyllis guilty?”

Lady Foljambe, whose wrath was not up at the white heat which it had touched in the morning, found this question a little difficult to answer. She could not reasonably find fault with Amphillis for being Ricarda's cousin, and this was the real cause of her annoyance. The only blame that could be laid to her was her silence for a few days as to the little she knew. Of this crime Lady Foljambe made the most.

”Now, Avena,” said the Countess, as peremptorily as her languor permitted, ”hearken me, and be no more of a fool than thou canst help.

If thou turn away a quiet, steady, decent maid, of good birth and conditions, for no more than a little lack of courage, or maybe of judgment--and thou art not a she-Solomon thyself, as I give thee to wit, but thou art a fearsome thing to a young maid when thou art angered; and unjust anger is alway harder, and sharper, and fierier than the just, as if it borrowed a bit of Satan, from whom it cometh--I say, if thou turn her away for this, thou shalt richly deserve what thou wilt very like get in exchange--to wit, a giddy-pate that shall blurt forth all thy privy matter (and I am a privy matter, as thou well wist), or one of some other ill conditions, that shall cost thee an heartbreak to rule.

Now beware, and be wise. And if it need more, then mind thou”--and the tone grew regal--”that Amphillis Neville is my servant, not thine, and that I choose not she be removed from me. I love the maid; she hath sense, and she is true to trust; and though that keeps me in prison, yet can I esteem it when known. 'Tis a rare gift. Now go, and think on what I have said to thee.”

Lady Foljambe found herself reluctantly constrained to do the Countess's bidding, so far, at least, as the meditation was concerned. And the calmer she grew, the more clearly she saw that the Countess was right.

She did not, however, show that she felt she had been in the wrong.

Amphillis was not informed that she was forgiven, nor that she was to retain her place, but matters were allowed to slide silently back into their old groove. So the winter came slowly on.

”The time drew near the birth of Christ,” that season of peace and good-will to men which casts its soft suns.h.i.+ne even over the world, bringing absent relatives together, and suggesting general family amnesties. Perrote determined to make one more effort with Sir G.o.dfrey.

About the middle of December, as that gentleman was mounting his staircase, he saw on the landing that ”bothering old woman,” standing, lamp in hand, evidently meaning to waylay some one who was going up to bed. Sir G.o.dfrey had little doubt that he was the destined victim, and he growled inwardly. However, it was of no use to turn back on some pretended errand; she was sure to wait till his return, as he knew. Sir G.o.dfrey growled again inaudibly, and went on to meet his fate in the form of Perrote.

”Sir, I would speak with you.”

Sir G.o.dfrey gave an irritable grunt.

”Sir, the day of our Lord's birth is very nigh, when men be wont to make up old quarrels in peace. Will you not yet once entreat of my Lord Duke, being in England, to pay one visit to his dying mother?”

”I wis not that she is dying. Folks commonly take less time over their dying than thus.”

Perrote, as it were, waved away the manner of the answer, and replied only to the matter.

”Sir, she is dying, albeit very slowly. My Lady may linger divers weeks yet. Will you not send to my Lord?”

”I did send to him,” snapped Sir G.o.dfrey.

”And he cometh?” said Perrote, eagerly for her.

”No.” Sir G.o.dfrey tried to pa.s.s her with that monosyllable, but Perrote was not to be thus baffled. She laid a detaining hand upon his arm.

”Sir, I pray you, for our Lord's love, to tell me what word came back from my Lord Duke?”