A Forgotten Hero Part 2

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 t.i.ttering, 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 compa.s.sed; 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 a.s.sured 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 and kneeling were alike impossible.

Clarice felt intuitively, as she looked into Heliet's face, that here was a girl entirely different from the rest. She seemed as if Nature had intended her to be tall, but had stopped and stunted her when only half grown. Her shoulders were unnaturally high, and one leg was considerably shorter than the other. Her face was not in any way beautiful, yet there was a certain mysterious attraction about it.

Something looked out of her eyes which Clarice studied without being able to define, but which disposed her to keep on looking. They were dark, pathetic eyes, of the kind with which Clarice had gifted her very imaginary Countess; but there was something beyond the pathos.

"It looks," thought Clarice, "as if she had gone through the pathos and the suffering, and had come out on the other side--on the sh.o.r.e of the Golden Land, where they see what everything meant, and are satisfied."

There was very little time for conversation before the supper-bell rang.

Queen Blanche made kind inquiries concerning Heliet's lameness and general health, but had not reached any other subject when the sound of the bell thrilled through the room. The four girls rapidly folded up their work, as though the summons were welcome. Queen Blanche rose and departed, with a kindly nod to all, and Heliet, turning to Clarice, said, "Wilt thou come down with me? I cannot go fast, as thou mayest see; but thou wilt sit next to me, and I can tell thee anything thou mayest wish to know."

Clarice thankfully a.s.sented, and they went down the spiral staircase together into the great hall, where three tables were spread. At the highest and smallest, on the dais, were already seated the Queen and the Countess, two gentlemen, and two priests. At the head of the second stood Mistress Underdone, next to whom was Diana, and Heliet led up Clarice to her side. They faced the dais, so that Clarice could watch its distinguished occupants at her pleasure. Tables for meals, at that date, were simply boards placed on trestles, and removed when the repast was over. On the table at the dais was silver plate, then a rare luxury, restricted to the highest cla.s.ses, the articles being spoons, knives, plates, and goblets. There were no forks, for only one fork had ever then been heard of as a thing to eat with, and this had been the invention of the wife of a Doge of Venice, about two hundred years previous, for which piece of refinement the public rewarded the lady by considering her as proud as Lucifer. Forks existed, both in the form of spice-forks and fire-forks, but no one ever thought of eating with them in England until they were introduced from Italy in the reign of James the First, and for some time after that the use of them marked either a traveller, or a luxurious, effeminate man. Moreover, there were no knives nor spoons provided for helping one's self from the dishes. Each person had a knife and spoon for himself, with which he helped himself at his convenience. People who were very delicate and particular wiped their knives on a piece of bread before doing so, and licked their spoons all over. When these were the practices of fastidious people, the proceedings of those who were not such may be discreetly left to imagination. The second table was served in a much more ordinary manner. In this instance the knife was iron and the spoon pewter, the plate a wooden trencher (never changed), and the drinking-cup of horn.

In the midst of the table stood a pewter salt-cellar, formed like a castle, and _very_ much larger than we use them now.

This salt-cellar acted as a barometer, not for weather, but for rank.

Every one of n.o.ble blood, or filling certain offices, sat above the salt.

With respect to cooking our fathers had some peculiarities. They ate many things that we never touch, such as porpoises and herons, and they used all manner of green things as vegetables. They liked their bread hot from the oven (to give cold bread, even for dinner, was a shabby proceeding), and their meat much underdone, for they thought that overdone meat stirred up anger. They mixed most incongruous things together; they loved very strong tastes, delighting in garlic and verjuice; they never appear to have paid the slightest regard to their digestion, and they were, in the most emphatic sense, not teetotallers.

The dining-hall, but not the table, was decorated with flowers, and singers, often placed in a gallery at one end, were employed the whole time. A gentleman usher acted as butler, and a yeoman was always at hand to keep out strange dogs, snuff candles, and light to bed the guests, who were not always in a condition to find their way upstairs without his help. The hours at this time were nine or ten o'clock for dinner (except on fast-days, when it was at noon), and three or four for supper. Two meals a day were thought sufficient for all men who were not invalids. The sick and women sometimes had a "rear-supper" at six o'clock or later. As to breakfast, it was a meal taken only by some persons, and then served in the bedchamber or private boudoir at convenience. Wine, with bread sopped in it, was a favourite breakfast, especially for the old. Very delicate or exceptionally temperate people took milk for breakfast; but though the Middle Ages present us with examples of both vegetarians and total abstainers, yet of both there were very few indeed, and they were mainly to be found among the religious orders.

In watching the ill.u.s.trious persons on the dais one thing struck Clarice as extremely odd, which would never be thought strange in the nineteenth century. It was the custom in her day for husband and wife to sit together at a meal, and, the highest ranks excepted, to eat from the same plate. But the Earl and Countess of Cornwall were on opposite sides of the table, with one of the priests between them. Clarice thought they must have quarrelled, and softly demanded of Heliet if that were the case.

"No, indeed," was Heliet's rather sorrowful answer. "At least, not more than usual. The Lady of Cornwall will never sit beside her baron, and, as thou shalt shortly see, she will not even speak to him."

"Not speak to him!" exclaimed Clarice.

"I never heard her do so yet," said Heliet.

"Does he entreat her very harshly?"