Mistress Margery

Mistress Margery, by Emily
Sarah Holt

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Title: Mistress Margery
Author: Emily Sarah Holt
Release Date: October 25, 2007 [EBook #23187]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISTRESS
MARGERY ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

Mistress Margery
A Tale of the Lollards
by Emily Sarah Holt.

CHAPTER ONE.
A REGULAR OF OXENFORDE.
"Give me the book, and let me read; My soul is strangely stirred-- They
are such words of love and truth As ne'er before I heard!"
Mary Howitt.
The sun was shining brightly on the battlements and casements of
Lovell Tower. The season was spring, and the year 1395. Within the
house, though it was barely seven o'clock in the morning, all was bustle
and confusion, for Dame Lovell was superintending her handmaidens
in the preparation of dinner. A buxom woman was Dame Lovell,
neither tall nor short, but decidedly stout, with a round, good-natured
face, which just then glowed and burned under the influence of the fire
roaring on the large grateless hearth. She wore a black dress, heavily
trimmed at the bottom with fur, and she carried on her head one of
those remarkable elevations generally known as the Syrian or conical
head-dress, made of black stiffened gauze, and spangled with golden
stars. Her assistants, mostly girls of from sixteen to twenty-five years
of age, were occupied in various parts of the kitchen; while Mistress
Katherine, a staid-looking woman of middle age, who filled a post
somewhat similar to the modern one of housekeeper, was employed at
a side table in mixing some particularly elaborate compound. Among
this busy throng moved Dame Lovell, now giving a stir to a pot, and
now peeping into a pan, boxing the ears of any maiden who appeared
remiss in her duty, and generally keeping up a strict and active
supervision.
"Nan, thy leeks be not hewn small enough. Cicely, look to the pottage,
that it boil not over. Al'ce, thou idle jade!"--with a sound box on the
ear,--"thou hast left out the onions in thy blanch-porre! Margery!
Madge! Why, Madge, I say! Where is Mistress Margery, maidens?
Joan, lass, hie thee up, and see whether Mistress Margery be not in the
chamber."
Joan, a diminutive girl of sixteen, quitted the parsley she was chopping,

and ran lithely out of the room, to which she soon returned, and,
dropping a courtesy, announced that "Mistress Margery was in her
chamber, and was coming presently,"--which latter word, in the year
1395, meant not "by and by," as it now does, but "at present." Mistress
Margery verified the assertion of Joan by following her into the kitchen
almost immediately. And since Mistress Margery is to play the
important part of heroine, it may be well to devote a few words to her
person and costume. She is the only child of Sir Geoffrey Lovell,
Knight, and Dame Agnes Lovell, and is now seventeen years of age;
rather under the middle height, slenderly formed, with an appearance of
great fragility and delicacy; her complexion is very fair, of that extreme
fairness which often betokens disease, and her face almost colourless.
Her features are regular, and classical in their contour; her eyes are a
clear grey-- honest, truthful eyes, that look straight at you; and her hair,
which is almost long enough, when let down, to touch her feet, is of
that pale golden colour so much celebrated in the Middle Ages, and so
very rarely to be seen now. Mistress Margery's attire comprises a black
dress, so stiff, partly from its own richness of material, and partly with
whalebone, that it is quite capable of standing upright without any
assistance from Mistress Margery's person. Its trimming consists of a
border of gris, or marten's fur; and over this black petticoat the young
lady wears a cote-hardie, or close-fitting jacket, also edged with gris.
Her head is not encumbered by the steeplecap which disfigures her
mother; instead of it she wears the beautiful "dove-cote," a net of
golden tissue, ornamented with pearls, within which her hair is
confined.
It may also be as well to notice here, that Mistress Margery is highly
accomplished. Of course she can play the lute, and sing, and work
elaborate and delicate embroidery, and compound savoury dishes; and
equally of course does she know any nobleman or gentleman by a
glance at his shield, and can tell you in a moment to whom belong the
three