by Robert Neill
“It’s worth trying.” said Prudence firmly, and even Alexander could hardly deny that. But he would by no means consent to Richard’s writing the letter. That, he said, belonged to him as the eldest. He would write directly. And since these were days of vacation, when he need not be in Cambridge, he would continue as Richard’s guest until an answer should be received.
Prudence sighed wearily.
Chapter 2: THE COUNTRY GENTLEMAN
So promptly did Alexander write his letter, and so speedy were the carriers, that an answer came back from Roger Nowell in no more than a month; and it was not a happy month for Margery.
She did indeed get some walks abroad, and once she got as far as Whitehall, where there were some very fine gentlemen sauntering in the sunshine and dallying with their ladies. But for the most part she was kept fast to the house and made to work. Prudence declared that her young sister was in much need of discipline. Already, said Prudence, the girl’s head was stuffed with dreams; dreams of airs and graces, of clothes and horses and fine young gentlemen; dreams, in short, of every vapid vanity. What the girl needed was work, and now was the time to see she got it. So Margery was haled into the kitchen and set to seethe and bake; when that was done she was set to iron the linen or scrub the floor; and if she had an idle hour she was sent to the parlour and set to needlework. Prudence was ruthless about it, and Margery submitted because she had to; she knew well enough where authority lay. But under it she was mutinous, for this was by no means her notion of a proper life. She knew all about that crinkling smile and the glint of red in her hair; she knew she had quicker wits and a cooler head than most; and the thought was steady in her that if she were once set among proper men she might put those talents to a proper use. And here she was, grunting in a kitchen that she might learn to cook more succulently for some podgy brother-chosen brute! She was almost in tears when she thought about it. Nor was she much happier in her cooler moments, for then she brooded anxiously on the letter that had been sent to Roger Nowell. If he refused her a portion, it seemed that she must stay here and sport with apprentices--when she could evade Prudence. If he found her a portion she might expect to be quickly married, and she had no illusions about the sort of husband she would have to take and the sort of life she would have to lead. There would be no place then for high hopes and a crinkling smile.
Then came the answer from Roger Nowell, and it was not the answer that Alexander had expected. His voice was swelling with indignation as he read it to them:
“Send the girl straightway to me that I may view her and use her by her deserts. If her blood be red of Nowell she may stay by me and have fair provision. If it be whey she shall return whence she came, and at my charges. These for her journey.
Roger Nowell.”
And ‘these’ were silver crowns, twenty of them, done in a silken bag; it was tied and sealed, and the seal had the arms of Nowell, three cups sable on a field of argent.
It was a letter that pleased them not at all. Alexander grew heated at its brevity, Richard grumbled at its arrogance, and Prudence declared that it would puff the girl’s vanity even further, but if it was short it was also plain, and its very shortness suggested that Roger Nowell was not a man to be argued with, not a man from whom anything might be had unless he were given his own way. They talked it round through the heat of a July afternoon, and their talk ended as might have been foreseen. Margery was summoned before Alexander and curtly bidden to prepare herself for a journey to the North Parts.
It did not occur to Alexander to ask what Margery’s thoughts might be on this, and Margery, as usual, kept them to herself. She stayed impassive and inscrutable, but behind it she was excited; and if she was a little frightened she was at least not displeased. Nor was she indignant; if Roger Nowell wanted to look at her, Margery could see nothing against that; she had a growing belief that she was worth looking at, and she was disposed to think well of a man who wanted to look at her. Her quick mind had already seen the possibilities. At the best, ‘stay by me and have fair provision’ might mean a dream come true. At the worst there would be some exciting travels, and also, if Roger Nowell’s crowns were well expended, some new clothes; and of these Margery thought she stood in much need. So she stayed grave and placid, and she even assented dutifully when she was told that Prudence would take her shopping the next week.
She did her best to be dutiful when they came to it, though this she found difficult. She and Prudence had markedly different ideas as to what was to be done. To Prudence it was obvious that Margery must be equipped with such grave and sober clothing as would befit a daughter of their house, whereas Margery’s tastes did not run at all to the grave and sober. They came to argument at once. Margery said that since she was going into the country she must have a riding-habit, and she pressed for it earnestly. But Prudence would have none of such fripperies, and since she had the authority, Margery had to submit; yet Prudence, within the limits of her tastes, was both shrewd and determined, and even Margery had to admit that she did the work well. She took the twenty crowns that had been sent, she extracted another twenty from her brothers, and she saw to it that Margery was soundly and decently furnished. There was a fine new kirtle of twilled woollen saye, all in black except for a white lace collar that spread widely about the shoulders; and there was a little ruff of starched linen that could be worn instead of the collar on a great occasion. There were two gowns, a day-gown of flowered sarcenet, loose in the sleeves and open at the front for wearing over the kirtle; and a night-gown of puke, dyed in the wool to dark mulberry and made warm and full for wear by the fireside of an evening. There were the three petticoats that would give fullness to the kirtle, two of saye and the third of silk sarcenet because it was meant to be displayed when the kirtle was lifted in walking. There were smocks of white Holland, to be worn under the kirtle by day and as sleeping-wear in bed. There were two pairs of pumps to wear in the house, one of fine leather and one of tufted taffeta; and a pair of cork-soled pantofles to wear over the pumps when out of doors. And as a grudging concession to a new fashion there were some little squares of white cambric meant to be carried in the hand to give an air of daintiness; these were called hand kerchiefs.
They all but quarrelled when they came to the buying of hats and it was the unseen Roger Nowell who rescued Margery from that Prudence had a taste in hats that made Margery shudder, she took it for granted that any woman indoors would wear the small laced hood called a coif, and out of doors the small black rimless cap that every merchant’s wife wore. Margery, who had no wish at all to look like a merchant’s wife, wanted a copintank, the tall round-brimmed hat with the steeple-crown that every gentleman wore; it was, she said, now the fashion for ladies to wear them too, and she wanted one. Prudence sniffed audibly, and Margery had to submit to the buying of coifs she did not intend to wear and hats which she contemptuously called porringers--which, since Prudence was at that moment wearing one, did not put them on happier terms. They were both red and angry as they walked home in the afternoon heat, Margery sullen to the point of mutiny and Prudence saying bitter things about ungrateful girls. Margery thought nervously about her brother’s hazel stick and went cautiously with tight-pressed lips. And then, suddenly everything changed. For on the doorstep they met an apprentice bearing a small canvas packet which his master, a goldsmith had just received from the merchant who was his agent in Preston - it was directed to Mistress Margery Whitaker, and the seal had the arms of Nowell.
Margery had it in her hand before Prudence could so much as speak, and then she took the stair at a ran. Once in her bedchamber she ripped it open and found a single sheet of paper and a silken bag tied and sealed as before; it dropped to the table and chinked. Then, with her fingers trembling with excitement, she opened the paper and read the bold and level script:
Being come to Preston, take a lodging at the Angel in the Friar-gate, telling the host thereof you seek me, your kinsman. I will take order for all else. These for your own
self, to do with as you will none overseeing you.
Roger Nowell.
And the contents of the silken bag were silver crowns, twenty of them as before.
That was enough for Margery. She went for supper with a bright cheek and a sparkling eye, and all thoughts of quarrels were forgotten. She had only one thing in her thoughts now, and that was the riding-habit she had been pining for since her journey had first been mooted. It was within her grasp now, and she could have hugged Roger Nowell. True, she would have to be careful; twenty crowns made only a hundred shillings, and she would have to spread them thinly; it would have to be mockado instead of velvet, and the hat would have to be felt instead of beaver fur, but the thing was within her grasp and she would seek it as she had been told to do--none overseeing her.
She slipped away in the morning as soon as breakfast was done, and with the persistence of a nosing dog she went from mercer to mercer, asking prices and feeling mockados with a fine disregard of everything but her own needs; and at the ninth shop, where she stayed as usual until her welcome had grown thin, she was offered a riding-habit that had been made for a lady who in the end had not taken it. Margery took one look at it and then fell to haggling like a Lombard money-changer. There was a doublet cut like a man’s, and of orange-tawny mockado pinked with silver tinsel; it was cut in the new style, buttoning in the front and needing no stomacher, and the sleeves were of the new style too, plainly shaped and tight-fitting. There was the long and extravagantly pleated riding-skirt called a safeguard, also of the orange-tawny, and lined, like the doublet, with orange sarcenet; and to complete it there was a riding-cloak, long and full, from a warm russet frieze of the fine Penistone weave.
She got all that for thirteen crowns, and the afternoon saw her out again, apparently impervious to dust and heat. She began with an hour spent trying hats, and she enjoyed that more than the milliner did. In the end she picked on a good black felt, pinked like the doublet with silver tinsel; she could trim it for herself, and at least it was a proper copintank and not a porringer. For another fifteen shillings she had a pair of long boots in a good Spanish leather, soft and unpolished. Then she had a pair of gloves in brown doeskin, with silver lace at the cuffs of the gauntlets; she bought orange feathers for the crown of the hat, and orange ribbons for its brim; and then, with only two shillings left, she spent them on a pound of the famous yellow starch which Mistress Turner had made so fashionable for ruffs.
She came home penniless and triumphant, and laid all the things gleefully on her bed; and Prudence, coming to see what foolishness those silver crowns had led her young sister into, gazed icily at the array and sniffed again; they were, she said, fit only for a Whitehall fly-by-night, which Margery seemed in a fair way to becoming. She went out with a bang of the door, and Margery put her tongue out at it; it was not for sisterly approval that she had chosen the orange-tawny.
Nothing could disturb her calm in the week that remained. She even kept her composure and spoke polite thanks when Richard produced a book which brother Alexander had sent from Cambridge as his parting gift to her; it was Alexander Nowell’s Homily On The Justice Of God, and Margery looked at it gravely and as gravely said that she would be sure to make good use of it. Then all was ready, and when August was a week old they took her to St. Paul s Cross, where a wagon waited; it had come from Kendal with a load of Westmorland wool, and the wagoner having no load to carry back had been glad to agree for four passengers at a modest charge; and as the other three were a divine and his wife and daughter, it could not be doubted that Margery was travelling within the proprieties
Farewells were said, and Margery climbed into the wagon She was wearing her oldest and shabbiest kirtle, for this was not to be travel in luxury; if the wagoner’s charges had been modest the comfort he provided was modest too; all he had been able to do for his passengers was to spread some straw within the wagon, and it was insufficient provision, as Margery realized as soon as the thick-set horses began their steady walk. The springless wagon banged and jolted, and the passengers suffered with what fortitude they could summon. The stout wooden floor, besides being as hard as granite, was dark and oily from numberless loads of wool and from the same source it had acquired a scent that would never leave it; to add to these discomforts, there were countless wool-combmgs mixed with the straw, and if anything more was needed to teach Margery what travelling meant, she found it in a growing suspicion which was amply confirmed before the day was out: there were fleas in the wool.
The wagoner was a cheerful fellow--too cheerful, they thought when they complained of the fleas and he roared with laughter-there were always fleas in wool, he said. But he swept the wagon that night, and then he swilled it clean before putting in fresh straw; and the next day, if they were a little damp, they were at least unbitten. But nothing the wagoner could do could make them comfortable. The boards and the jolts, the smells of oil and wool, the choking dust and the scorching sun: these remained.
But if the rutted roads were hot and dusty, at least they were not muddy, The heavy wheels banged and bounced, but they turned; there was never any danger of being bogged, and so swiftly was the journey accomplished that it lasted scarcely three weeks. On the second day of September, in the heat of a shining afternoon, they came down a gentle grassy slope and saw at its foot the river Ribble, placid in its bordering meadows. Beyond it, clean and grey in the summer light, was the little town of Preston, and in less than an hour they had crossed the stream and entered the town. They found it busy, for this was a market-day and the streets were a press of men, townsmen in gowns and doublets, and yeomen in homespuns and riding-boots; and here where the press was thickest, in the street called the Friargate, Margery alighted and sought the Angel.
The clear cool light of the next morning found her sitting on the low linen-covered seat that ran under the window of her chamber in the Angel; she had set the lattice wide, and she was savouring the clean freshness of the air as she watched the wakening bustle in the Friargate below. From time to time she leaned out to see more clearly, and such passers-by as then chanced to look up had a glimpse of a fresh young face set against orange-tawny; and some of them, she noted, showed a disposition to look again. That was as it should be, and Margery nodded with satisfaction; she was beginning to like this County of Lancaster.
So indeed she might, for the Angel had given her of its best. The first mention of her cousin’s name had worked wonders with the landlord; porters had gone scurrying to fetch her baggage while his wife conducted her to her chamber above stair, and he himself had instantly despatched a lad to Read with word of her coming. She had supped well, and slept well, and while she breakfasted the landlord had been with her again to say that the lad was back from Read. Master Nowell sent his felicitations; he would ride when he had breakfasted, and he might be expected in Preston before eleven. All was therefore very well, and but for one gnawing thought Margery would have had perfect content.
The gnawing thought, of course, was of Roger Nowell. Margery was far too clear-sighted not to know that she might need all her wits, and more, in the weeks to come. She thought she might fairly judge from his letters that Roger Nowell was peremptory, perceptive, and not ungenerous; but what else he might be, those short letters could not show. He might be a gloomy bigot or a genial roisterer, a kindly scholar or a swaggering rake; there was nothing to show. But whatever he was, he might enforce himself on her with what harshness he chose, and there would be none to say him nay; that, at least, was certain, and she would have no more protection than her own wits could furnish
She shivered, a little at her thoughts, and withdrew her eyes from the street. But the cheer of the sunlit room and the glow of the orange-tawny heartened her, and she ran across to peer into the little steel mirror that hung on the opposite wall. That heartened her further. In any event, she told herself it was too late now for such broodings. All was set, and the issue hung on the one thing she could not yet know--on the manner of man it was who
was riding in from Read.
She seated herself by the window once more, and again she glanced thoughtfully round the room, asking herself anxiously whether all was as it should be in readiness for his coming. She nodded approval of what she saw. All was very tidy and decent; the canvas travelling-bags, packed and tied, waited by the door: near them, on the side-table, were hat and gloves and the russet cloak placed carelessly to display exactly the right amount of its orange lining. And, some six feet from where she sat, a wisp of thread lay on the floor, white against the dark boards. This was not an accident.
It had to do with that streak of redness in her hair. Margery had a strong suspicion that this lurking redness was a potent charm, and she had every intention of making the most of it in the encounter she now awaited. But she also knew, having looked into the matter with some care, that this redness needed full sunlight to bring it out fully. Herein lay the difficulty. For the window was low, and the shaft of incoming sunlight was therefore low also; and she had discovered by careful trial that the sun-light would be below her hair when she stood to greet her cousin. Wherefore, something must be contrived, and Margery had contrived it with a fine simplicity. Since she could not bring the sunlight up to her hair, she must bring her hair down to the sunlight and a formal curtsey would do this admirably. It was moreover a thing very proper to the occasion, and she knew that she could perform it with a most becoming grace. All that was needed therefore, was to ensure that when she made her curtsey her hair should sink exactly into that narrow shaft of sunlight Hence that wisp of thread. It marked the exact spot where she must point her toe to begin the curtsey. She had placed it precisely after some careful trials. ‘
She looked out into the Friargate again, marking the growing bustle and the occasional upward glance of burgher or apprentice But the sun was rising higher, and more and more her eyes turned to that distant end of the street whence, very soon now, she might see a horseman ride. She wanted some warning of his coming, and more and more her eyes sought in the press for the rider who should seek the Angel.
