Free A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley

cedar, reading a letter. A couple of hounds lay with their noses between their paws, half asleep, and a small spaniel danced round her flowing skirts.
    I stopped to stare at the lady in her fine dress sprinkled with little embroidered flowers on the kirtle and the stiff white ruff upstanding round her neck. Then I whistled softly to the dogs.
    â€œGood boy! Here!” I called and the lady lifted her head and stared at me in amazement just as if I had no business to be there.
    â€œHush, wench!” cried Tabitha. “Have ye no sense? You mustn’t call when Mistress Babington is here. Where are your manners? Haven’t you been taught none in Chelsey? And whistling! Don’t you know the adage: ‘A whistling woman and a crowing hen deserves to have their heads cut off’?”
    Tabitha reproved me with angry voice. The dogs came bounding across the lawn, but when they came near me they gave little whimpers of fear and retreated with their tails between their legs. I cared nothing for Tabitha and held out my hand trying to coax them, but they ran back to the lady, growling and trembling.
    â€œTabitha,” she commanded in a clear, young voice, proud and haughty. “Tabitha. Bring that boy to me, and don’t talk of heads being cut off. There are too many heads lost in these days to joke about it.”
    â€œShe’s no boy, Mistress. She’s Penelope, niece to Dame Cicely, come from Chelsey to help her aunt. She’s dressed up in some clothes from the playacting chest, or from that press where the poor folks’ weeds are kept for Mistress Foljambe’s charities, Madam.”
    â€œCome here, girl,” said Mistress Babington, and I opened the gate and went close to her. I looked up into her pale face, at her deep blue eyes in which there was unhappiness, and the crimson bow of lips unsmiling and stern. Her hair was brown with little curls on her forehead, half hidden under a white winged cap of delicate lace standing stiffly out like petals of a rose.
    â€œYou are the girl who looked into my chamber. I remember you,” said she slowly, staring at me as if puzzled.
    â€œCurtsy to Mistress Babington,” whispered Tabitha fiercely, and I obeyed.
    â€œWhat is your name?” asked Mistress Babington.
    â€œIf it please you, my lady, it’s Penelope Taberner from Chelsey, London,” answered Tabitha speaking for me eagerly.
    I opened my mouth to interrupt but Tabitha went on in her cheerful way as if wishful to change the lady’s thoughts from London. “We’re going to gather herbs for your possets, Madam, and for Mistress Foljambe, and that’s why we came this road.”
    â€œAway with you then, Penelope, and see you obey your aunt, for she is the mainstay of this house of ours, and if you grow up like her it will be well. But don’t go hunting in the play-acting chest, nor must you ape the men and whistle.”
    She gave a sad little smile which made me like her, she flicked her long white fingers to dismiss me and turned away.
    All the time we had talked the dogs were whimpering, but when I went through the narrow wicket in the yew hedge they returned and played round the lady’s violet silk dress. She sat under the cedar-tree looking after me, and I glanced over my shoulder and saw the sunlight fall through the flat boughs and fleck her dress and cap with bands of brightness.
    â€œWho is that lady?” I asked Tabitha as we hurried along the unevenly paved path. “Who is she and why did I have to curtsy?”
    â€œShe’s Mistress Babington, Master Anthony’s young wife, as is mistress here. Leastways she is mistress part of the time, but when Mistress Foljambe, Master Anthony’s mother, comes from Darby then we have two to obey. But they get on well together, and we love them both. You curtsy because it is the custom. Don’t you curtsy to your betters in London, or are you freer in your manners there?