Mist Over Pendle Read Free Page B

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