‘Mistress Joan Medley?’
‘The same, young man,’ panted the governante, her voice wheezy from her exertions. ‘What, young man, what, you speak as though you doubted! By’r lady, you should know her, it seems, better than she knows you. Come, whatever thy petition, speed with it, for she hath but a little time to spare thee.’
‘Trudy!’ murmured the young lady, in a tone of coquettish remonstrance.
Was she young? There was no telling. There are those—the fortunate ones, perhaps—who, looking like wizened age in youth, in age come to look youthful. What Brion saw before him was a little undersized creature, with a sharp unhealthy face and ferrety eyelashes. She was all hung and sown with gems, after the fashion of a royal model. Her head-dress was as monstrous as was her farthingale, over which a jewelled stomacher came down so deep as to give to her already short lower limbs an aspect of quite grotesque stubbiness. The red heels to her shoes were four inches in height; the vulgarity of tasteless wealth marked her all over; as a figurine in a gallanty show she might have passed, but as nothing akin to nature in all the world. She glanced up from under her pale lashes, wreathing and unwreathing her fingers, and so down again.
‘You wished to see me, Sir,’ she said, her shoulders always in a state of convulsion. ‘I am willing to hear what you have to say. Such a persuasive friend as you sent—O, dear, o’my conscience!’
Brion opened his mouth to speak; but not a word would come of it. He felt as if trapped—fairly confounded in a snare of his own setting. The old lady broke in impatiently:—
‘Hey-day! a backward gallant on my word. What, to press a suit quotha! Here’s not enough of “night and secrecy” for him mayhap. Well, there’s a form of eloquence with some grows bolder as the lights go out. Hark ye, shy lover—there’s privacy enow down here to suit an Abbot. Go to! I’ll leave ye to your billings, pretty things, and shut the door, and hope to find your manners mended when I ope again.’
With a leer, and a little shake of her stick, she turned to put her threat into execution. Desperate with terror, Brion came to his wits, and took a quick step towards her.
‘Stay, I prithee,’ said he. ‘There—there is a mistake.’
At the sound of the word the old woman stopped, and the younger one, her countenance changed, started and turned rigid.