“Saundrina’s been at Father to put her forth,” added Ricarda, “if he could but hear of some service in the country, where little plenishing were asked. There’s no good laying no money out on the like of her.”
A soft little sound at the door made them look round. A girl was standing there, of about Clement’s age—a pale, quiet-looking girl, who seemed nervously afraid of making her presence known, apparently lest she should be blamed for being there or anywhere. Alexandra spoke sharply.
“Come within and shut the door, Amphillis, and stare not thus like a goose! What wouldst?”
Amphillis neither came in nor shut the door. She held it in her hand, while she said in a shy way, “The patties are ready to come forth, if one of you will come,” and then she disappeared, as if frightened of staying a minute longer than she could help.
“‘Ready to come forth!’” echoed Ricarda. “Cannot the stupid thing take them forth by herself?”
“I bade her not do so,” explained her sister, “but call one of us—she is so unhandy. Go thou, Ricarda, or she’ll be setting every one wrong side up.”
Ricarda, with a martyr-like expression—which usually means an expression very unlike a martyr’s—rose and followed Amphillis. Alexandra, thus left alone with Clement, became so extra amiable as to set that not over-wise youth on a pinnacle of ecstasy, until she heard her father’s step, when she dismissed him hastily.
She did not need to have been in a hurry, for the patty-maker was stopped before he reached the threshold, by a rather pompous individual in white and blue livery. Liveries were then worn far more commonly than now—not by servants only, but by officials of all kinds, and by gentlemen retainers of the nobles—sometimes even by nobles themselves. To wear a friend’s livery was one of the highest compliments that could be paid. Mr Altham knew by a glance at his costume that the man who had stopped him bore some office in the household of the Duke of Lancaster, since he not only wore that Prince’s livery, but bore his badge, the ostrich feather ermine, affixed to his left sleeve.
“Master Altham the patty-maker, I take it?”
“He, good my master, and your servant.”