See, Meg, yonder is the poor young girl who lost her father on Ill May day. Lead her on and make her good cheer, while I speak to this good dame.'
Margaret More, a slender, dark-eyed girl of thirteen, went forward with a peculiar gentle grace to the stranger, saying, 'Welcome, sweet maid! I hope we shall make thee happy,' and seeing the mournful countenance, she not only took Aldonza's hand, but kissed her cheek.
Sir Thomas had exchanged a word or two with Perronel, when there was a cry from the younger children, who had detected the wicker cage which Perronel was trying to keep in the background.
'A daw! a daw!' was the cry. 'Is't for us?'
'Oh, mistress,' faltered Aldonza, ''tis mine-there was one who tamed it for me, and I promised ever to keep it, but if the good knight and lady forbid it, we will send it back.'
'Nay now, John, Cicely,' was Margaret saying, ''tis her own bird! Wot ye not our father will let us take nought of them that come to him? Yea, Al-don-za-is not that thy name?-I am sure my father will have thee keep it.'
She led up Aldonza, making the request for her. Sir Thomas smiled.
'Keep thy bird? Nay, that thou shalt. Look at him, Meg, is he not in fit livery for a lawyer's house? Mark his trim legs, sable doublet and hose, and grey hood-and see, he hath the very eye of a councillor seeking for suits, as he looketh at the chestnuts John holdeth to him. I warrant he hath a tongue likewise. Canst plead for thy dinner, bird?'
'I love Giles!' uttered the black beak, to the confusion and indignation of Perronel.
The perverse bird had heard Giles often dictate this avowal, but had entirely refused to repeat it, till, stimulated by the new surroundings, it had for the first time uttered it.
'Ah! thou foolish daw! Crow that thou art! Had I known thou hadst such a word in thy beak, I'd have wrung thy neck sooner than have brought thee,' muttered Perronel. 'I had best take thee home without more ado.'
It was too late, however, the children were delighted, and perfectly willing that Aldonza should own the bird, so they might hear it speak, and thus the introduction was over. Aldonza and her daw were conveyed to Dame Alice More, a stout, good-tempered woman, who had too many dependents about her house to concern herself greatly about the introduction of another.
And thus Aldonza was installed in the long, low, two-storied red house which was to be her place of home-like service.
CHAPTER TWENTY. CLOTH OF GOLD ON THE SEAMY SIDE.
'Then you lost
The view of earthly glory men might say
Till this time pomp was single; but now married
To one above itself.'
Shakespeare.
If Giles Headley murmured at Aldonza's removal, it was only to Perronel, and that discreet woman kept it to herself.
In the summer of 1519 he was out of his apprenticeship, and though Dennet was only fifteen, it was not uncommon for brides to be even younger. However, the autumn of that year was signalised by a fresh outbreak of the sweating sickness, apparently a sort of influenza, and no festivities could be thought of. The King and Queen kept at a safe distance from London, and escaped, so did the inmates of the pleasant house at Chelsea; but the Cardinal, who, as Lord Chancellor, could not entirely absent himself from Westminster, was four times attacked by it, and Dean Colet, a far less robust man, had it three times, and sank at last under it. Sir Thomas More went to see his beloved old friend, and knowing Ambrose's devotion, let the young man be his attendant. Nor could those who saw the good man ever forget his peaceful farewells, grieving only for the old mother who had lived with him in the Deanery, and in the ninetieth year of her age, thus was bereaved of the last of her twenty-one children. For himself, he was thankful to be taken away from the evil times he already beheld threatening his beloved Saint Paul's, as well as the entire Church both in England and abroad; looking back with a sad, sweet smile to the happy Oxford days, when he, with More and Erasmus:
'Strained the watchful eye
If chance the golden hours were nigh
By youthful hope seen gleaming round her walls.'
'But,' said he, as he laid his hand in blessing for the last time on Ambrose's head, 'let men say what they will, do thou cling fast to the Church, nor let thyself be swept away. There are sure promises to her, and grace is with her to purify herself, even though it be obscured for a time. Be not of little faith, but believe that Christ is with us in the ship, though He seem to be asleep.'
He spoke as much to his friend as to the youth, and there can be no doubt that this consideration was the restraining force with many who have been stigmatised as half-hearted Reformers, because though they loved truth, they feared to lose unity.
He was a great loss at that especial time, as a restraining power, trusted by the innovators, and a personal friend both of King and Cardinal, and his preaching and catechising were sorely missed at Saint Paul's.
Tibble Steelman, though thinking he did not go far enough, deplored him deeply; but Tibble himself was laid by for many days. The epidemic went through the Dragon court, though some had it lightly, and only two young children actually died of it. It laid a heavy hand on Tibble, and as his distaste for women rendered his den almost inaccessible to Bet Smallbones, who looked after most of the patients, Stephen Birkenholt, whose nursing capacities had been developed in Newgate, spent his spare hours in attending him, sat with him in the evenings, slept on a pallet by his side, carried him his meals and often administered them, and finally pulled him through the illness and its effects, which left him much broken and never likely to be the same man again.
Old Mistress Headley, who was already failing, did not have the actual disease severely, but she never again left her bed, and died just after Christmas, sinking slowly away with little pain, and her memory having failed from the first.
Household affairs had thus slipped so gradually into Dennet's hands that no change of government was perceptible, except that the keys hung at the maiden's girdle. She had grown out of the child during this winter of trouble, and was here, there, and everywhere, the busy nurse and housewife, seldom pausing to laugh or play except with her father, and now and then to chat with her old friend and playfellow, Kit Smallbones. Her childish freedom of manner had given way to grave discretion, not to say primness, in her behaviour to her father's guests, and even the apprentices. It was, of course, the unconscious reaction of the maidenly spirit, aware that she had nothing but her own modesty to protect her. She was on a small scale, with no pretensions to beauty, but with a fresh, honest, sensible young face, a clear skin, and dark eyes that could be very merry when she would let them, and her whole air and dress were trimness itself, with an inclination to the choicest materials permitted to an alderman's daughter.
Things were going on so smoothly that the alderman was taken by surprise when all the good wives around began to press on him that it was incumbent on him to lose no time in marrying his daughter to her cousin, if not before Lent, yet certainly in the Easter holidays.
Dennet looked very grave thereon. Was it not over soon after the loss of the good grandmother? And when her father said, as the gossips had told him, that she and Giles need only walk quietly down some morning to Saint Faith's and plight their troth, she broke out into her girlish wilful manner, 'Would she be married at all without a merry wedding? No, indeed! She would not have the thing done in a corner! What was the use of her being wedded, and having to consort with the tedious old wives instead of the merry wenches? Could she not guide the house, and rule the maids, and get in the stores, and hinder waste, and make the pasties, and brew the possets? Had her father found the crust hard, or missed his roasted crab, or had any one blamed her for want of discretion? Nay, as to that, she was like to be more discreet as she was, with only her good old father to please, than with a husband to plague her.'
On the other hand, Giles's demeanour was rather that of one prepared for the inevitable than that of an eager bridegroom; and when orders began to pour in for accoutrements of unrivalled magnificence for the King and the gentlemen who were to accompany him to Ardres, there to meet the young King of France just after Whitsuntide, Dennet was the first to assure her father that there would be no time to think of weddings till all this was over, especially as some of the establishment would have to be in attendance to repair casualties at the jousts.
