Lady Foljambe’s lips took a stern set. She was apparently not pleased with the freedom of the question.
“She was a very troublesome person,” said she. “Nothing could stay her; she was ever restless and interfering. But these be matters too high for a young maid such as thou. Thou wert best keep to thy broidery and such-like duties.”
Harvest Home—the sixteenth of August—arrived when Amphillis had been a week at Hazelwood. She had not by any means concluded that process which is known as “settling down.” On the contrary, she had never felt so unsettled, and the feeling grew rather than diminished. Even Alexandra and Ricarda had tried her less than her present companions, in one sense; for they puzzled her less, though they teased her more. She was beginning to understand her mistress, whose mood was usually one of weary lack of interest and energy, occasionally broken either by seasons of acute sorrow, or by sudden flashes of fiery anger: and the last were less trying than the first—indeed, it seemed sometimes to Amphillis that they served as a vent and a relief; that for a time after them the weariness was a shade less dreary, and the languor scarcely quite so overpowering.
Late in the evening, on the night before Harvest Home, Sir Godfrey returned home, attended by his squire, Master Norman Hylton. The impression received by Amphillis concerning the master of the house was that he was a fitting pendant to his wife—tall, square, and stern. She did not know that Sir Godfrey had been rather wild in his youth, and, as some such men do, had become correspondingly severe and precise in his old age. Not that his heart had changed; it was simply that the sins of youth had been driven out by the sins of maturer life. And Satan is always willing to let his slaves replace one sin by another, for it makes them none the less surely his. Sir Godfrey suffered under no sense of inconsistency in sternly rebuking, when exhibited by Agatha or Matthew, slight tendencies to evil of the same types as he had once been addicted to himself. Had he not sown his wild oats, and become a reformed character? The outside of the cup and platter were now so beautifully clean, that it never so much as occurred to him to question the condition of the inside. Yet within were some very foul things—alienation from God, and hardness of heart, and love of gold, that grew upon him year by year. And he thought himself a most excellent man, though he was only a whitewashed sepulchre. He lifted his head high, as he stood in the court of the temple, and effusively thanked God that he was not as other men. An excellent man! said everybody who knew him—perhaps a little too particular, and rather severe on the peccadilloes of young people. But when the time came that another Voice pronounced final sentence on that whitewashed life, the verdict was scarcely “Well done!”
Norman Hylton sat opposite to Amphillis at the supper-table, in the only manner in which people could sit opposite to each other at a mediaeval table—namely, when it was in the form of a squared horseshoe. The table, which was always one or more boards laid across trestles, was very narrow, the inside of the horseshoe being reserved for the servants to hand the dishes. There were therefore some yards of distance between opposite neighbours. Amphillis studied her neighbour, so far as an occasional glance in his direction allowed her to do so, and she came to the conclusion that there was nothing remarkable about him except the expression of his face. He was neither tall nor short, neither handsome nor ugly, neither lively nor morose. He talked a little with his next neighbour, Matthew Foljambe, but there was nothing in the manner of either to provoke curiosity as to the subject of their conversation. But his expression puzzled Amphillis. He had dark eyes—like the Countess’s, she thought; but the weary and sometimes fiery aspect of hers was replaced in these by a look of perfect contentment and peace. Yet it was utterly different from the self-satisfied expression which beamed out of Sir Godfrey’s eyes.
“What manner of man is Master Hylton?” she asked of Agatha, who always sat next her. Precedence at table was regulated by strict rules.
“The youngest of six brethren; prithee, trouble not thine head over him,” was that young lady’s answer.
“But that doth me not to wit what manner of man he is,” responded Amphillis, turning to the sewer or waiter, who was offering her some rissoles of lamb.
