The King's Daughters Part 1

The King's Daughters.

by Emily Sarah Holt.

CHAPTER ONE.

CHOOSING A NEW GOWN.

"Give you good den, Master Clere!" said a rosy-faced countrywoman with a basket on her arm, as she came into one of the largest clothier's shops in Colchester. It was an odd way of saying "Good Evening," but this was the way in which they said it in 1556. The rosy-faced woman set down her basket on the counter, and looked round the shop in the leisurely way of somebody who was in no particular hurry. They did not dash and rush and scurry through their lives in those days, as we do in these.

She was looking to see if any acquaintance of hers was there. As she found n.o.body she went to business. "Could you let a body see a piece of kersey, think you? I'd fain have a brown or a good dark murrey 'd serve me--somewhat that should not show dirt, and may be trusted to wear well.--Good den, Mistress Clere!--Have you e'er a piece o' kersey like that?"

Master Nicholas Clere, who stood behind the counter, did not move a finger. He was a tall, big man, and he rested both hands on his counter, and looked his customer in the face. He was not a man whom people liked much, for he was rather queer-tempered, and as Mistress Clere was wont to remark, "a bit easier put out than in." A man of few words, but those were often pungent, was Nicholas Clere.

"What price?" said he.

"Well! you mustn't ask me five s.h.i.+llings a yard," said the rosy-faced woman, with a little laugh. That was the price of the very best and finest kersey.

"Shouldn't think o' doing," answered the clothier.

"Come, you know the sort as 'ill serve me. s.h.i.+lling a yard at best. If you've any at eightpence--"

"Haven't."

"Well, then I reckon I must go a bit higher."

"We've as good a kersey at elevenpence," broke in Mrs Clere, "as you'd wish to see, Alice Mount, of a summer day. A good brown, belike, and not one as 'll fade--and a fine thread--for the price, you know. You don't look for kersey at elevenpence to be even with that at half-a-crown, now, do you? but you'll never repent buying this, I promise you."

Mrs Clere was not by any means a woman of few words. While she was talking her husband had taken down the kersey, and opened it out upon the counter.

"There!" said he gruffly: "take it or leave it."

There were two other women in the shop, to whom Mrs Clere was showing some coa.r.s.e black stockings: they looked like mother and daughter.

While Alice Mount was looking at the kersey, the younger of these two said to the other--

"Isn't that Alice Mount of Bentley?--she that was had to London last August by the Sheriffs for heresy, with a main lot more?"

"Ay, 'tis she," answered the mother in an undertone.

"Twenty-three of them, weren't there?"

"Thereabouts. They stood to it awhile, if you mind, and then they made some fas.h.i.+on of submission, and got let off."

"So they did, but I mind Master Maynard said it was but a sorry sort.

He wouldn't have taken it, quoth he."

The other woman laughed slightly. "Truly, I believe that, if he had a chance to lay hold on 'em else. He loves bringing folk to book, and prison too."

"There's Margaret Thurston coming across," said the younger woman, after a moment's pause. "I rather guess she means to turn in here."

When people say "I guess" now, we set them down at once as Americans; but in 1556 everybody in England said it. Our American cousins have kept many an old word and expression which we have lost. See Note Two.

In another minute a woman came in who was a strong contrast to Alice Mount. Instead of being small, round, and rosy, she was tall and spare, and very pale, as if she might have been ill not long before. She too carried a basket, but though it was only about half as large as Alice's, it seemed to try her strength much more.

"Good den, neighbour!" said Alice, with a pleasant smile.

"Good den, Alice. I looked not to find you here. What come you after?"

"A piece of kersey for my bettermost gown this summer. What seek you?"

"Well, I want some linsey for mine. Go you on, and when you've made an end I'll ask good Master Clere to show me some, without Mistress Clere's at liberty sooner."

Alice Mount was soon satisfied. She bought ten yards of the brown kersey, with some black buckram to line it, and then, as those will who have time to spare, and not much to occupy their thoughts, she turned her attention to helping Margaret Thurston to choose her gown. But it was soon seen that Margaret was not an easy woman to satisfy. She would have striped linsey; no, she wouldn't, she would have a self colour; no, she wouldn't, she would have a little pattern; lastly, she did not know which to have! What did Master Clere think? or what would Alice recommend her?

Master Clere calmly declined to think anything about it.

"Take it or leave it," said he. "You'll have to do one or t'other.

Might as well do it first as last."

Margaret turned from one piece to another with a hopelessly perplexed face. There were three lying before her; a plain brown, a very dark green with a pretty little pattern, and a delicate grey, striped with a darker shade of the same colour.

"Brown's usefullest, maybe," said she in an uncertain tone. "Green's none so bad, though. And that grey's proper pretty--it is a gentlewoman's gown. I'd like that grey."

The grey was undoubtedly ladylike, but it was only fit for a lady, not for a working man's wife who had cooking and cleaning to do. A week of such work would ruin it past repair.

"You have the brown, neighbour," said Alice. "It's not the prettiest, maybe, but it 'll look the best when it's been used a while. That grey 'll never stand nought; and the green, though it's better, 'll not wear even to the brown. You have the brown now."

Still Margaret was undecided. She appealed to Mrs Clere.

"Why, look you," responded that talkative lady, "if you have yonder green gown, you can don it of an even when your master comes home from work, and he'll be main pleased to see you a-sitting in the cottage door with your bit o' needlework, in a pretty green gown."

"Ay, so he will!" said Margaret, suddenly making up as much mind as she had. "I thank you Mistress Clere. I'll have the green, Master Clere, an' it please you."

Now, Alice Mount had offered a reason for choosing the brown dress, and Mrs Clere had only drawn a picture; but Margaret was the sort of woman to be influenced by a picture much more than by a solid reason. So the green linsey was cut off and rolled up--not in paper: that was much too precious to be wasted on parcels of common things. It was only tied with string, and each woman taking her own package, the two friends were about to leave the shop, when it occurred to Mrs Mount to ask a question.

"So you've got Bessy Foulkes at last, Mistress Clere?"

"Ay, we have, Alice," was the answer. "And you might have said, 'at long last,' trow. Never saw a maid so hard to come by. I could have got twenty as good maids as she to hire themselves, while Bess was thinking on it."

"She should be worth somewhat, now you have her, if she took such work to come by," observed Margaret Thurston.

"Oh, well, she'll do middling. She's a stirring maid over her work: but she's mortal quiet, she is. Not a word can you get out of her without 'tis needed. And for a young maid of nineteen, you know, that's strange fas.h.i.+ons."

"Humph!" said Master Nicholas, rolling up some woollen handkerchiefs.

"The world 'd do with another or twain of that fas.h.i.+on."

"Now, Nicholas, you can't say you get too much talk!" exclaimed his wife turning round. "Why Amy and me, we're as quiet as a couple of mice from morning till night. Aren't we now?"

"Can't I?" said Nicholas, depositing the handkerchiefs on a shelf.