Good Colet was always accessible to the meanest, but he had been very ill, and the porter had some doubts about troubling him respecting the substantial young matron whose trim cap and bodice, and full petticoats, showed no tokens of distress. However, when she begged him to take in her message, that she prayed the Dean to listen to her touching the child of the old man who was slain on May Eve, he consented; and she was at once admitted to an inner chamber, where Colet, wrapped in a gown lined with lambskin, sat by the fire, looking so wan and feeble that it went to the good woman's heart, and she began by an apology for troubling him.
'Heed not that, good dame,' said the Dean, courteously, 'but sit thee down and let me hear of the poor child.'
'Ah, reverend sir, would that she were still a child-' and Perronel proceeded to tell her difficulties, adding, that if the Dean could of his goodness promise one of the dowries which were yearly given to poor maidens of good character, she would inquire among her gossips for some one to marry the girl. She secretly hoped he would take the hint and immediately portion Aldonza himself perhaps likewise find the husband. And she was disappointed that he only promised to consider the matter and let her hear from him. She went back and told Tibble that his device was nought, an old scholar with one foot in the grave knew less of women than even he did!
However it was only four days later, that, as Mrs Randall was hanging out her collars to dry, there came up to her from the Temple stairs a figure whom for a moment she hardly knew, so different was the long, black garb, and short gown of the lawyer's clerk from the shabby old green suit that all her endeavours had not been able to save from many a stain of printer's ink. It was only as he exclaimed, 'Good aunt, I am fain to see thee here!' that she answered, 'What, thou, Ambrose! What a fine fellow thou art! Truly I knew not thou wast of such good mien! Thou thrivest at Chelsea!'
'Who would not thrive there?' said Ambrose. 'Nay, aunt, tarry a little, I have a message for thee that I would fain give before we go in to Aldonza.'
'From his reverence the Dean? Hath he bethought himself of her?'
'Ay, that hath he done,' said Ambrose. 'He is not the man to halt when good may be done. What doth he do, since it seems thou hadst speech of him, but send for Sir Thomas More, then sitting at Westminster, to come and see him as soon as the Court brake up, and I attended my master. They held council together, and by and by they sent for me to ask me of what conditions and breeding the maid was, and what I knew of her father?'
'Will they wed her to thee? That were rarely good, so they gave thee some good office!' cried his aunt.
'Nay, nay,' said Ambrose. 'I have much to learn and understand ere I think of a wife-if ever. Nay! But when they had heard all I could tell them, they looked at one another, and the Dean said, `The maid is no doubt of high blood in her own land-scarce a mate for a London butcher or currier.''
'`It were matching an Arab mare with a costard monger's colt,' said my master, `or Angelica with Ralph Roister-Doister.''
'I'd like to know what were better for the poor outlandish maid than to give her to some honest man,' put in Perronel.
'The end of it was,' said Ambrose, 'that Sir Thomas said he was to be at the palace the next day, and he would strive to move the Queen to take her countrywoman into her service. Yea, and so he did, but though Queen Katharine was moved by hearing of a fatherless maid of Spain, and at first spake of taking her to wait on herself, yet when she heard the maid's name, and that she was of Moorish blood, she would none of her. She said that heresy lurked in them all, and though Sir Thomas offered that the Dean or the Queen's own chaplain should question her on the faith, it was all lost labour. I heard him tell the Dean as much, and thus it is that they bade me come for thee, and for the maid, take boat, and bring you down to Chelsea, where Sir Thomas will let her be bred up to wait on his little daughters till he can see what best may be done for her. I trow his spirit was moved by the Queen's hardness! I heard the Dean mutter, `_Et venient ab Oriente et Occidente.''
Perronel looked alarmed. 'The Queen deemed her heretic in grain! Ah! She is a good wench, and of kind conditions. I would have no ill befall her, but I am glad to be rid of her. Sir Thomas-he is a wise man, ay, and a married man, with maidens of his own, and he may have more wit in the business than the rest of his kind. Be the matter instant?'
'Methinks Sir Thomas would have it so, since this being a holy day, the courts be not sitting, and he is himself at home, so that he can present the maid to his lady. And that makes no small odds.'
'Yea, but what the lady is makes the greater odds to the maid, I trow,' said Perronel anxiously.
'Fear not on that score. Dame Alice More is of kindly conditions, and will be good to any whom her lord commends to her; and as to the young ladies, never saw I any so sweet or so wise as the two elder ones, specially Mistress Margaret.'
'Well-a-day! What must be must!' philosophically observed Perronel. 'Now I have my wish, I could mourn over it. I am loth to part with the wench; and my man, when he comes home, will make an outcry for his pretty Ally; but 'tis best so. Come, Alice, girl, bestir thyself. Here's preferment for thee.'
Aldonza raised her great soft eyes in slow wonder, and when she had heard what was to befall her, declared that she wanted no advancement, and wished only to remain with mother Perronel. Nay, she clung to the kind woman, beseeching that she might not be sent away from the only motherly tenderness she had ever known, and declaring that she would work all day and all night rather than leave her; but the more reluctance she showed, the more determined was Perronel, and she could not but submit to her fate, only adding one more entreaty that she might take her jackdaw, which was now a spruce grey-headed bird. Perronel said it would be presumption in a waiting-woman, but Ambrose declared that at Chelsea there were all manner of beasts and birds, beloved by the children and by their father himself, and that he believed the daw would be welcome. At any rate, if the lady of the house objected to it, it could return with Mistress Randall.
Perronel hurried the few preparations, being afraid that Giles might take advantage of the holiday to appear on the scene, and presently Aldonza was seated in the boat, making no more lamentations after she found that her fate was inevitable, but sitting silent, with downcast head, now and then brushing away a stray tear as it stole down under her long eyelashes.
Meantime Ambrose, hoping to raise her spirits, talked to his aunt of the friendly ease and kindliness of the new home, where he was evidently as thoroughly happy as it was in his nature to be. He was much, in the position of a barrister's clerk, superior to that of the mere servants, but inferior to the young gentlemen of larger means, though not perhaps of better birth, who had studied law regularly, and aspired to offices or to legal practice.
But though Ambrose was ranked with the three or four other clerks, his functions had more relation to Sir Thomas's literary and diplomatic avocations than his legal ones. From Lucas Hansen he had learnt Dutch and French, and he was thus available for copying and translating foreign correspondence. His knowledge of Latin and smattering of Greek enabled him to be employed in copying into a book some of the inestimable letters of Erasmus which arrived from time to time, and Sir Thomas promoted his desire to improve himself, and had requested Mr Clements, the tutor of the children of the house, to give him weekly lessons in Latin and Greek.
Sir Thomas had himself pointed out to him books calculated to settle his mind on the truth and catholicity of the Church, and had warned him against meddling with the fiery controversial tracts which, smuggled in often through Lucas's means, had set his mind in commotion. And for the present at least beneath the shadow of the great man's intelligent devotion, Ambrose's restless spirit was tranquil.
Of course, he did not explain his state of mind to his aunt, but she gathered enough to be well content, and tried to encourage Aldonza, when at length they landed near Chelsea Church, and Ambrose led the way to an extensive pleasaunce or park, full of elms and oaks, whose yellow leaves were floating like golden rain in the sunshine.
Presently children's voices guided them to a large chestnut tree. 'Lo you now, I hear Mistress Meg's voice, and where she is, his honour will ever be,' said Ambrose.
And sure enough, among a group of five girls and one boy, all between fourteen and nine years old, was the great lawyer, knocking down the chestnuts with a long pole, while the young ones flew about picking up the burrs from the grass, exclaiming joyously when they found a full one.
Ambrose explained that of the young ladies, one was Mistress Middleton, Lady More's daughter by a former marriage, another a kinswoman. Perronel was for passing by unnoticed; but Ambrose knew better; and Sir Thomas, leaning on the pole, called out, 'Ha, my Birkenholt, a forester born, knowst thou any mode of bringing down yonder chestnuts, which being the least within reach, seem in course the meetest of all.'
'I would I were my brother, your honour,' said Ambrose, 'then would I climb the tree.'
'Thou shouldst bring him one of these days,' said Sir Thomas. 'But thou hast instead brought us a fair maid.
