CHAPTER LIII
“Nay, Richart,” said Catherine at last, “for Heaven's sake let not this one sorry wench set us all by the ears: hath she not made ill blood enough already?”
“In very deed she hath. Fear me not, good mother. Let her come and read the letter of the poor boy she hath by devilish arts bewitched and then let her go. Give me your words to show her no countenance beyond decent and constrained civility: less we may not, being in our own house; and I will say no more.” On this understanding they waited the foe. She, for her part, prepared for the interview in a spirit little less hostile. When Denys brought word they would not come to her, but would receive her, her lip curled, and she bade him observe how in them every feeling, however small, was larger than the love for Gerard. “Well,” said she, “I have not that excuse; so why mimic the pretty burgher's pride, the pride of all unlettered folk? I will go to them for Gerard's sake. Oh, how I loathe them!”
Thus poor good-natured Denys was bringing into one house the materials of an explosion.
Margaret made her toilet in the same spirit that a knight of her day dressed for battle—he to parry blows, and she to parry glances—glances of contempt at her poverty, or of irony at her extravagance. Her kirtle was of English cloth, dark blue, and her farthingale and hose of the same material, but a glossy roan, or claret colour. Not an inch of pretentious fur about her, but plain snowy linen wristbands, and curiously plaited linen from the bosom of the kirtle up to the commencement of the throat; it did not encircle her throat, but framed it, being square, not round. Her front hair still peeped in two waves much after the fashion which Mary Queen of Scots revived a century later; but instead of the silver net, which would have ill become her present condition, the rest of her head was covered with a very small tight-fitting hood of dark blue cloth, hemmed with silver. Her shoes were red; but the roan petticoat and hose prepared the spectator's mind for the shock, and they set off the arched instep and shapely foot.
Beauty knew its business then as now.
And with all this she kept her enemies waiting, though it was three by the dial.
At last she started, attended by her he-comrade. And when they were halfway, she stopped and said thoughtfully, “Denys!”
“Well, she-general?”