Amphillis looked for enlightenment.
“Why, she is full hand in glove with Ricarda. The one can do nought that the other knows not of. I dare be bound she is helping her to draw poor Master Norman into her net—for Agatha will have none of him; she’s after Master Matthew.”
“Lack-a-day! I never thought nobody was after anybody!” said innocent Amphillis.
“Keep thy seliness (simplicity), child!” said Perrote, smiling on her. “Nor, in truth, should I say ‘poor Master Norman,’ for I think he is little like to be tangled either in Ricarda’s web or Agatha’s meshes. If I know him, his eyes be in another quarter—wherein, I would say, he should have better content. Ah me, the folly of men! and women belike—I leave not them out; they be oft the more foolish of the twain. The good God assoil (forgive) us all! Alack, my poor Lady! It doth seem as if the Lord shut all doors in my face. I thought I was about to win Sir Godfrey over—and hard work it had been—and then cometh this Abbot of Darley, and slams the door afore I may go through. Well, the Lord can open others, an’ He will. ‘He openeth, and none shutteth; He shutteth, and none openeth;’ and blessed be His holy Name, He is easilier come at a deal than men. If I must tarry, it is to tarry His leisure; and He knows both the hearts of men, and the coming future; and He is secure not to be too late. He loves our poor Lady better than I love her, and I love her well-nigh as mine own soul. Lord, help me to wait Thy time, and help mine unbelief!”
The ordeal of telling Lady Foljambe had to be gone through the next morning. She was even more angry than Perrote had anticipated, and much more than Amphillis expected. Ricarda was a good-for-nought, a hussy, a wicked wretch, and a near relative of Satan, while Amphillis was only a shade lighter in the blackness of her guilt. In vain poor Amphillis pleaded that she had never guessed Lady Foljambe’s intention of sending for her cousin, and had never heard of it until she saw her. Then, said Lady Foljambe, unreasonable in her anger, she ought to have guessed it. But it was all nonsense! Of course she knew, and had plotted it all with her cousins.
“Nay, Dame,” said Perrote; “I myself heard you to say, the even afore Ricarda came, that it should give Phyllis a surprise to see her.”
If anything could have made Lady Foljambe more angry than she was, it was having it shown to her that she was in the wrong. She now turned her artillery upon Perrote, whom she scolded in the intervals of heaping unsavoury epithets upon Amphillis and Ricarda, until Amphillis thought that everything poor Perrote had ever done in her life to Lady Foljambe’s annoyance, rightly or wrongly, must have been dragged out of an inexhaustible memory to lay before her. At last it came to an end. Ricarda was dismissed in dire disgrace; all that Lady Foljambe would grant her was her expenses home, and the escort of one mounted servant to take her there. Even this was given only at the earnest pleading of Perrote and Amphillis, who knew, as indeed did Lady Foljambe herself, that to turn a girl out of doors in this summary manner was to expose her to frightful dangers in the fourteenth century. Poor Ricarda was quite broken down, and so far forgot her threats as to come to Amphillis for help and comfort. Amphillis gave her every farthing in her purse, and desired the servant who was to act as escort to convey a conciliatory message to her uncle, begging forgiveness for Ricarda for her sake. She sent also an affectionate and respectful message to her new aunt, entreating her to intercede with her husband for his daughter.
“Indeed, Rica, I would not have told if I could have helped it and bidden true to my trust!” was the farewell of Amphillis.
“O Phyllis, I wish I’d been as true as you, and then I should never have fallen in this trouble!” sobbed the humbled Ricarda. “I shouldn’t have thought of it but for Saundrina. But there, I’ve been bad enough! I’ll not lay blame to other folks. God be wi’ thee! if I may take God’s name into my lips; but, peradventure, He’ll be as angry as my Lady.”
“I suppose He is alway angered at sin,” said Amphillis. “But, Rica, the worst sinner that ever lived may take God’s name into his lips to say, ‘God, forgive me!’ And we must all alike say that. And Mistress Perrote saith, if we hide our stained souls behind the white robes of our Lord Christ, God the Father is never angered with Him. All that anger was spent, every drop of it, upon the cross on Calvary; so there is none left now, never a whit, for any sinner that taketh refuge in Him. Yea, it was spent on Him for this cause, that all souls taking shelter under His wing unto all time might find there only love, and rest, and peace.”