Grisly Grisell Or The Laidly Lady of Whitburn Part 19

On one point this decided Grisell. She looked up at Lambert, and when he used her t.i.tle of "Lady," in begging her to leave old Mother Abra in charge and to come down to supper, she made a gesture of silence, and as she came down the broad stair - a refinement scarce known in England - she entreated him to let her be Grisell still.

"Unless he accept me as his wife I will never bear his name," she said.

"Nay, madame, you are Lady of Whitburn by right."

"By right, may be, but not in fact, nor could I be known as mine own self without c.u.mbering him with my claims. No, let me alone to be Grisell as ever before, an English orphan, bower-woman to Vrow Clemence if she will have me."

Clemence would not consent to treat her as bower-woman, and it was agreed that she should remain as one of the many orphans made by the civil war in England, without precise definition of her rank, and be only called by her Christian name. She was astonished at the status of Master Groot, the size and furniture of the house, and the servants who awaited him; all so unlike his little English establishment, for the refinements and even luxuries were not only far beyond those of Whitburn, but almost beyond all that she had seen even in the households of the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick. He had indeed been bred to all this, for the burghers of Bruges were some of the most prosperous of all the rich citizens of Flanders in the golden days of the Dukes of Burgundy; and he had left it all for the sake of his Clemence, but without forfeiting his place in his Guild, or his right to his inheritance.

He was, however, far from being a rich man, on a level with the great merchants, though he had succeeded to a modest, not unprosperous trade in spices, drugs, condiments and other delicacies.

He fetched a skilful Jewish physician to visit Sir Leonard Copeland, but there was no great difference in the young man's condition for many days. Grisell nursed him indefatigably, sitting by him so as to hear the sweet bells chime again and again, and the storks clatter on the roofs at sunrise.

Still, whenever her hand brought him some relief, or she held drink to his lips, his words and thanks were for Eleanor, and more and more did the sense sink down upon her like lead that she must give him up to Eleanor.

Yes, it was like lead, for, as she watched his face on the pillow her love went out to him. It might have done so even had he been disfigured like herself; but his was a beautiful countenance of n.o.ble outlines, and she felt a certain pride in it as hers, while she longed to see it light up with reason, and glow once more with health. Then she thought she could rejoice, even if there were no look of love for her.

The eyes did turn towards her again with the mind looking out of them, and he knew her for the nurse on whom he depended for comfort and relief. He thanked her courteously, so that she felt a thrill of pleasure every time. He even learnt her name of Grisell, and once he asked whether she were not English, to which she replied simply that she was, and on a further question she said that she had been at Sunderland with Master Groot, and that she had lost her home in the course of the wars.

There for some time it rested - rested at least with the knight. But with the lady there was far from rest, for every hour she was watching for some favourable token which might draw them nearer, and give opportunity for making herself known. Nearer they certainly drew, for he often smiled at her. He liked her to wait on him, and to beguile the weariness of his recovery by singing to him, telling some of her store of tales, or reading to him, for books were more plentiful at Bruges than at Sunderland, and there were even whispers of a wonderful mode of multiplying them far more quickly than by the scrivener's hand.

How her heart beat every time she thus ministered to him, or heard his voice call to her, but it was all, as she could plainly see, just as he would have spoken to Clemence, if she could have heard him, and he evidently thought her likewise of burgher quality, and much of the same age as the Vrow Groot. Indeed, the long toil and wear of the past months had made her thin and haggard, and the traces of her disaster were all the more apparent, so that no one would have guessed her years to be eighteen.

She had taken her wedding-ring from her finger, and wore it on a chain, within her kirtle, so as to excite no inquiry. But many a night, ere she lay down, she looked at it, and even kissed it, as she asked herself whether her knight would ever bid her wear it. Until he did so her finger should never again be encircled by it.

Meantime she scarcely ever went beyond the nearest church and the garden, which amply compensated Clemence for that which she had left at Sunderland. Indeed, that had been as close an imitation of this one as Lambert could contrive in a colder climate with smaller means. Here was a fountain trellised over by a framework rich in roses and our lady's bower; here were pinks, gilly-flowers, pansies, lavender, and the new s...o...b..ll shrub recently produced at Gueldres, and a little bush shown with great pride by Anton, the snow-white rose grown in King Rene's garden of Provence.

These served as borders to the green walks dividing the beds of useful vegetables and fruits and aromatic herbs which the Groots had long been in the habit of collecting from all parts and experimenting on. Much did Lambert rejoice to find himself among the familiar plants he had often needed and could not procure in England, and for some of which he had a real individual love. The big improved distillery and all the jars and bottles of his youth were a joy to him, almost as much as the old friends who accepted him again after a long "wander year."

Clemence had her place too, but she shrank from the society she could not share, and while most of the burghers' wives spent the summer evening sitting spinning or knitting on the steps of the stoop, conversing with their gossips, she preferred to take her distaff or needle among the roses, sometimes tending them, sometimes beguiling Grisell to come and take the air in company with her, for they understood one another's mute language; and when Lambert Groot was with his old friends they sufficed for one another - so far as Grisell's anxious heart could find solace, and perhaps in none so much as the gentle matron who could caress but could not talk.

CHAPTER XXIII - THE CANKERED OAK GALL

That Walter was no fool, though that him list To change his wif, for it was for the best; For she is fairer, so they demen all, Than his Griselde, and more tendre of age.

CHAUCER, The Clerke's Tale.

It was on an early autumn evening when the belfry stood out beautiful against the sunset sky, and the storks with their young fledglings were wheeling homewards to their nest on the roof, that Leonard was lying on the deep oriel window of the guest-chamber, and Grisell sat opposite to him with a lace pillow on her lap, weaving after the pattern of Wilton for a Church vestment.

"The storks fly home," he said. "I marvel whether we have still a home in England, or ever shall have one!"

"I heard tell that the new King of France is friendly to the Queen and her son," said Grisell.

"He is near of kin to them, but he must keep terms with this old Duke who sheltered him so long. Still, when he is firm fixed on his throne he may yet bring home our brave young Prince and set the blessed King on his throne once more."

"Ah! You love the King."

"I revere him as a saint, and feel as though I drew my sword in a holy cause when I fight for him," said Leonard, raising himself with glittering eyes.

"And the Queen?"

"Queen Margaret! Ah! by my troth she is a dame who makes swords fly out of their scabbards by her brave stirring words and her n.o.ble mien. Her bright eyes and undaunted courage fire each man's heart in her cause till there is nothing he would not do or dare, ay, or give up for her, and those she loves better than herself, her husband, and her son."

"You have done so," faltered Grisell.

"Ah! have I not? Mistress, I would that you bore any other name. You mind me of the bane and grief of my life."

"Verily?" uttered Grisell with some difficulty.

"Yea! Tell me, mistress, have I ever, when my brains were astray, uttered any name?"

"By times, even so!" she confessed.

"I thought so! I deemed at times that she was here! I have never told you of the deed that marred my life."

"Nay," she said, letting her bobbins fall though she drooped her head, not daring to look him in the face.

"I was a mere lad, a page in the Earl of Salisbury's house. A good man was he, but the jealousies and hatreds of the n.o.bles had begun long ago, and the good King hoped, as he ever hoped, to compose them. So he brought about a compact between my father and the Dacre of Whitburn for a marriage between their children, and caused us both to be bred up in the Lady of Salisbury's household, meaning, I trow, that we should enter into solemn contract when we were of less tender age; but there never was betrothal; and before any fit time for it had come, I had the mishap to have the maid close to me - she was ever besetting and running after me - when by some prank, unhappily of mine, a barrel of gunpowder blew up and wellnigh tore her to pieces. My father came, and her mother, an unnurtured, uncouth woman, who would have forced me to wed her on the spot, but my father would not hear of it, more especially as there were then two male heirs, so that I should not have gained her grim old Tower and bare moorlands. All held that I was not bound to her; the Queen herself owned it, and that whatever the damsel might be, the mother was a mere northern she-bear, whose child none would wish to wed, and of the White Rose besides. So the King had me to his school at Eton, and then I was a squire of my Lord of Somerset, and there I saw my fairest Eleanor Audley. The Queen and the Duke of Somerset - rest his soul - would have had us wedded. On the love day, when all walked together to St. Paul's, and the King hoped all was peace, we spoke our vows to one another in the garden of Westminster. She gave me this rook, I gave her the jewel of my cap; I read her true love in her eyes, like our limpid northern brooks. Oh! she was fair, fairer than yonder star in the sunset, but her father, the Lord Audley, was absent, and we could go no farther; and therewith came the Queen's summons to her liegemen to come and arrest Salisbury at Bloreheath. There never was rest again, as you know. My father was slain at Northampton, I yielded me to young Falconberg; but I found the Yorkists had set headsmen to work as though we had been traitors, and I was begging for a priest to hear my shrift, when who should come into the foul, wretched barn where we lay awaiting the rope, but old Dacre of Whitburn. He had craved me from the Duke of York, it seems, and gained my life on what condition he did not tell me, but he bound my feet beneath my horse, and thus bore me out of the camp for all the first day. Then, I own he let me ride as became a knight, on my word of honour not to escape; but much did I marvel whether it were revenge or ransom that he wanted; and as to ransom, all our gold had all been riding on horseback with my poor father. What he had devised I knew not nor guessed till late at night we were at his rat-hole of a Tower, where I looked for a taste of the dungeons; but no such thing. The choice that the old robber - "

Grisell could not repress a dissentient murmur of indignation.

"Ah, well, you are from Sunderland, and may know better of him. But any way the choice he left me was the halter that dangled from the roof and his grisly daughter!"

"Did you see her?" Grisell contrived to ask.

"I thank the Saints, no. To hear of her was enow. They say she has a face like a cankered oak gall or a rotten apple lying cracked on the ground among the wasps. Mayhap though you have seen her."

Grisell could truly say, in a half-choked voice, "Never since she was a child," for no mirror had come in her way since she was at Warwick House. She was upborne by the thought that it would be a relief to him not to see anything like a rotten apple. He went on -

"My first answer and first thought was rather death - and of my word to my Eleanor. Ah! you marvel to see me here now. I felt as though nothing would make me a recreant to her. Her sweet smile and shining eyes rose up before me, and half the night I dreamt of them, and knew that I would rather die than be given to another and be false to them. Ah! but you will deem me a recreant. With the waking hours I thought of my King and Queen. My elder brother died with Lord Shrewsbury in Gascony, and after me the next heir is a devoted Yorkist who would turn my castle, the key of Cleveland, against the Queen. I knew the defeat would make faithful swords more than ever needful to her, and that it was my bounden duty, if it were possible, to save my life, my sword, and my lands for her. Mistress, you are a good woman. Did I act as a coward?"

"You offered up yourself," said Grisell, looking up.

"So it was! I gave my consent, on condition that I should be free at once. We were wedded in the gloom - ere sunrise - a thunderstorm coming up, which so darkened the church that if she had been a peerless beauty, fair as Cressid herself, I could not have seen her, and even had she been beauty itself, nought can to me be such as my Eleanor. So I was free to gallop off through the storm for Wearmouth when the rite was over, and none pursued me, for old Whitburn was a man of his word. Mine uncle held the marriage as nought, but next I made for the Queen at Durham, and, if aught could comfort my spirit, it was her thanks, and a.s.surances that it would cost nothing but the dispensation of the Pope to set me free. So said Dr. Morton, her chaplain, one of the most learned men in England. I told him all, and he declared that no wedlock was valid without the heartfelt consent of each party."

"Said he so?" Poor Grisell could not repress the inquiry.

"Yea, and that though no actual troth had pa.s.sed between me and Lord Audley's daughter, yet that the vows we had of our own free will exchanged would be quite enough to annul my forced marriage."

"You think it evil in me, the more that it was I who had defaced that countenance. I thought of that! I would have endowed her with all I had if she would set me free. I trusted yet so to do, when, for my misfortune as well as hers, the day of Wakefield cut off her father and brother, and a groom was taken who was on his way to Sendal with tidings of the other brother's death. Then, what do the Queen and Sir Pierre de Breze but command me to ride off instantly to claim Whitburn Tower! In vain did I refuse; in vain did I plead that if I were about to renounce the lady it were unknightly to seize on her inheritance. They would not hear me. They said it would serve as a door to England, and that it must be secured for the King, or the Dacres would hold it for York. They bade me on my allegiance, and commanded me to take it in King Henry's name, as though it were a mere stranger's castle, and gave me a crew of hired men-at-arms, as I verily believe to watch over what I did. But ere I started I made a vow in Dr. Morton's hands, to take it only for the King, and so soon as the troubles be ended to restore it to the lady, when our marriage is dissolved. As it fell out, I never saw the lady. Her mother lay a-dying, and there was no summoning her. I bade them show her all due honour, hoisted my pennon, rode on to my uncle at Wearmouth, and thence to mine own lands, whence I joined the Queen on her way to London. As you well know, all was over with our cause at Towton Moor; and it was on my way northward after the deadly fight that half a dozen of the men-at-arms brought me tidings, not only that the Gilsland Dacres had, as had been feared, claimed the castle, but that this same so-called lady of mine had been shown to deal in sorcery and magic. They sent for a wise man from Shields, but she found by her arts what they were doing, fled, and was slain by an arquebuss in the form of a hare!

"Do you believe it was herself in sooth?" asked Grisell.

"Ah! you are bred by Master Lambert, who, like his kind, hath little faith in sorcery, but verily, old women do change into hares. All have known them."