"Cannot! always at cannot! Hold thine idle tongue. Of course it can be done if I will have it so."
"Doubtless, Madam, if it please your Grace to pay more tailors."
"I will pay nobody. Ye will clean ruin me amongst you. "'Twas but yesterday I paid four thousand marks to a Lombard for jewelling. Ye would leave me never a cross[#] in my purse."
[#] Penny, divided by a cross that it might be easily broken into fourthings=farthings.
"Then, an' it please your Grace, what is to be done?" demanded the practical Jane, who was one of the four chamberers of the Duchess.
"Gramercy, maid, burden not me withal!" testily exclaimed her royal mistress. "Go and ask at Dame Elizabeth Darcy, an' thou wist not what to do. I tell thee, the motley must be made ready for to-morrow, and the murrey by Sunday next: and how it shall be is no business of mine, so it cost not money. It shall be. See to it."
Poor Jane, who felt herself ordered to do the impossible, made one more faint struggle with destiny.
"It should not like your Grace to bear that gown to-morrow?"
"This?" returned the Duchess contemptuously, glancing down at her dress, which was of dark blue satin, heavily trimmed with minever. "'Tis not fit to be seen. Hast lost thy wit? I tell thee, I must have a decent gown to put on. That idle Valentine hath left me never a one in my wardrobe. He is the laziest tyke that ever set needle."
"Please it your Grace, there is the broched[#] cloth of silver"——