Charlotte M. Yonge

“ Her chamber, which Cuthbert Ridley’s exertions had compelled the women to prepare for her, was—as seen in the light of the long evening—a desolate place, within a turret, opening from the solar, or chamber of her parents and Bernard, the loophole window devoid of glass, though a shutter could be closed in bad weather, the walls circular and of rough, untouched, unconcealed stone, a pallet bed—the only attempt at furniture, except one chest—and Grisell’s own mails tumbled down anyhow, and all pervaded by an ancient and fishy smell. ”

“ And wherefore?” asked Grisell.
“Wherefore? but for fear my noble uncle of Salisbury should hold them to their contract. Sir William sat as surly as a bear just about to be baited, while thy mother rated and raved at him like a very sleuth-hound on the chase. And Leonard—what think’st thou he saith? “That he would as soon wed the loathly lady as thee,” the cruel Somerset villain as he is; and yet my brother Edmund is fain to love him. So off they are gone, like recreant curs as they are, lest my uncle should make them hear reason.”
“But Lady Madge, dear Lady Madge, am I so very loathly?” ”

“ Still less did I know that it was my own forsaken wife who saved my life, who tended my sickness, nay, as I verily believed, toiled for me and my bread through these long seven years, all in secret. Yea, and won my entire soul and deep devotion or ever I knew that it was to you alone that they were due. Grisell, Grisell,” as she could not speak for tears. “Oh forgive! Pardon me! Turn not away to be a Grey Sister. I cannot do without you! Take me! Let me strive throughout my life to merit a little better all that you have done and suffered for one so unworthy!” ”

“ Grisell gave a little gasp, and tried to say “Lady Mother, pardon—” but the Lady of Whitburn, at sight of the reddened half of the face which alone was as yet visible, gave a cry, “She will be a fright! You evil little baggage, thus to get yourself scarred and made hideous! Running where you ought not, I warrant!” and she put out her hand as if to shake the patient, but the Countess interposed, and her niece Margaret gave a little cry. “Grisell is still very weak and feeble! She cannot bear much; we have only just by Heaven’s grace brought her round.” ”

“ Sister Avice followed as Grisell walked away as fast as her weakness allowed, and found her sitting breathless at the third step on the stairs.
“Oh, no—go away—don’t bring her. Every one will hate me,” sobbed the poor child.
Avice could only gather her into her arms, though embraces were against the strict rule of Benedictine nuns, and soothe and coax her to believe that by one at least she was not hated.
“I had forgotten,” said Grisell. “I saw myself once at Amesbury! but my face was not well then. Let me see again, sister! Where’s a mirror?” ”

“ A sob cut her short, but she cried, “I will be at all the pains and all the cost, if only you will consent, dear Master Lambert, good Master Groot.”
“Ah, would I knew what is well for her!” said Lambert, turning to his wife, and making rapid signs with face and fingers in their mutual language, but Grisell burst in—
“Good for her,” cried she. “Can it be good for a wife to leave her husband to be slain by the cruel men of York and Warwick, him who strove to save the young Lord Edmund? Master, you will suffer no such foul wrong. ”

“ I would I knew how they fare; but mine uncle sends me no letters, though he does supply me.”
“Then you do not feel bound in honour to Lancaster?” said Grisell.
“Nay; I did not stir or strive to join the Queen when last she called up the Scots—the Scots indeed!—to aid her. I could not join them in a foray on England. I fear me she will move heaven and earth again when her son is of age to bear arms; but my spirit rises against allies among Scots or French, and I cannot think it well to bring back bloodshed and slaughter.” ”

“ Grisell hastened to help him, Clemence to fetch a cup of cooling Rhine wine. “There, thanks, mistress. We have ridden all day from Ghent, in the heat and dust, and after all the Count got before us.”
“To the Duke?”
“Ay! He was like one demented at tidings of his father’s sickness. Say what they will of hot words and fierce passages between them, that father and son have hearts loving one another truly.”
“It is well they should agree at the last,” said Grisell, “or the Count will carry with him the sorest of memories.” ”

“ They sat down at the table. Grisell between Ridley and Hardcastle, the servants and men-at-arms beyond. Porridge and broth and very small ale were the fare, and salted meat would be for supper, and as Grisell knew but too well already, her own retainers were grumbling at the voracious appetites of the men-at-arms as much as did their unwilling guests at the plainness and niggardliness of the supply.
Thora had begged for a further allowance of beer for them, or even to broach a cask of wine. “For,” said she, “they are none such fiends as we thought, if one knows how to take them courteously.” ”

“ So loud was the objurgation of the tirewoman that she did not hear the approach of her mistress, nor indeed the first words of the Countess, “Hush, Maudlin, the poor child is not to be thus rated! Silence!”
“See, my lady, what she has done to your ladyship’s Venice glass, which she never should have touched. She must have run to your chamber while you were at mass. All false her feigning to be so sick and feeble.”
“Ay,” replied Lady Whitburn, “she must up—don her clothes, and away with me.”
“Hush, I pray you, madam. How, how, Grisell, my poor child. Call Master Miles, Maudlin! ”

“ The Earl absolutely prohibited all conversation on affairs in debate during the supper which was spread in the hall, with quite as much state as, and even greater profusion and splendour, than was to be found at Windsor, Winchester, or Westminster. All the high born sat on the dais, raised on two steps with gorgeous tapestry behind, and a canopy overhead; the Earl and Countess on chairs in the centre of the long narrow table. ”

“ The absence of mirrors prevented it from ever being brought before her, and Sister Avice set herself to teach her how goodness, sweetness, and kindness could endear any countenance, and indeed Grisell saw for herself how much more loved was the old and very plain Mother Anne than the very beautiful young Sister Isabel, who had been forced into the convent by her tyrannical brother, and wore out her life in fretting and rudeness to all who came in her way. ”

“ There we strike at the great, not at the small. Ah well, with all our wars and troubles England was the better place to live in. Shall we ever see it more?”
There was something delightful to Grisell in that “we,” but she made answer, “So far as I hear, there has been quiet there for the last two years under King Edward.”
“Ay, and after all he has the right of blood,” said Leonard. “Our King Henry is a saint, and Queen Margaret a peerless dame of romance, but since I have come to years of understanding I have seen that they neither had true claim of inheritance nor power to rule a realm.” ”

“ I never saw one in my life.”
“But oh, for pity’s sake, tell me what like am I. Am I so loathly?”
“Nay, my dear maid, I love thee too well to think of aught save that thou art mine own little one, given back to us by the will of Heaven. Aye, and so will others think of thee, if thou art good and loving to them.”
“Nay, nay, none will ever love me! All will hate and flee from me, as from a basilisk or cockatrice, or the Loathly Worm of Spindlesheugh,” sobbed Grisell.
“Then, my maid, thou must win them back by thy sweet words and kind deeds. They are better than looks. ”

“ Grisell by the by was far taller than the plump little goodwoman Hall, but that was no matter, and the Prioress had barely space to get in a word of thanks before she went on: “I will keep her and tend her as the apple of mine eye. She shall pray with me at all the holy shrines for the good of her soul and mine. She shall be my bedfellow wherever we halt, and sit next me, and be cherished as though she were mine own daughter—ladybird as she is—till I can give her into the hands of the good Lady Countess. Oh yes—you may trust Joan Hall, dame reverend mother. She is no new traveller. ”

“ I verily believe he would,” exclaimed Grisell; “and no suspicion would light on him. How soon can I go to him, and how?”
“If it may be, this very night,” said Ridley. “I missed two of the rogues, and who knows whither they may have gone?”
“Will there be time?” said the poor girl, looking round in terror.
“Certes. The nearest witch-finder is at Shields, and they cannot get there and back under two days. Have you jewels, lady? And hark you, trust not to Thora. She is the worst traitor of all. Ask me no more, but be ready to come down when you hear a whistle.” ”

“ Her father was out a great deal, hunting or hawking or holding consultations with neighbouring knights or the men of Sunderland. Her mother, with the loudest and most peremptory of voices, ruled over the castle, ordered the men on their guards and at the stables, and the cook, scullions, and other servants, but without much good effect as household affairs were concerned, for the meals were as far removed from the delicate, dainty serving of the simplest fast-day meal at Wilton as from the sumptuous plenty and variety of Warwick house, and Bernard often cried and could not eat. ”

“ At one of these—not one of the largest or handsomest, but far superior to the old home at Sunderland—hung the large handsome painted and gilded sign of the same serpent which Grisell had learnt to know so well, and here the barge hove to, while two servants, the man in a brown belted jerkin, the old woman in a narrow, tight, white hood, came out on the steps with outstretched hands.
“Mein Herr, my dear Master Lambert. Oh, joy! Greet thee well. Thanks to our Lady that I have lived to see this day,” was the old woman’s cry. ”

“ Grisell could bear no more of this crushing of her hopes. She crept away murmuring something about the vesper bell at the convent chapel near, for it was there that she could best kneel, while thoughts and strength and resolution came to her.
The one thing clear to her was that Sir Leonard did not view her, or rather the creature at Whitburn Tower, as his wife, but as a hag, mayhap a sorceress from whom he desired to be released, and that his love to Eleanor Audley was as strong as ever.
Should she make herself known and set him free? Nay, but then what would become of him? ”

“ Speak out, thou coward loon.”
“Madam, Robert was cut down by the Lord Clifford beside the Earl of Rutland. ’Tis a lost field! I barely ’scaped with a dozen men. I came but to bear the tidings, and see whether you needed an arm to hold out the castle for young Bernard. Or I would be on my way to my own folk on the Border, for the Queen’s men will anon be everywhere, since the Duke is slain!”
“The Duke! The Duke of York!” was the cry, as if a tower were down.
“What would you. We were caught by Somerset like deer in a buck-stall. Here! Give me a cup of ale, I can scarce speak for chill.” ”

“ Hap what hap, King Harry may roam from Church to shrine, from Abbey to chantry, so long as he lists, but none of us will brook to be ruled or misruled by the foreign woman and the Beauforts in his name, nor reigned over by the French dame or the beggar’s brat, and the traitor coward Beaufort, but be under our own noble Duke and the White Rose, the only badge that makes the Frenchman flee. ”

“ The sad question and answer of “No change” passed, and then Ridley, his gruff voice unnecessarily hushed, said, “Featherstone would speak with you, lady. He would know whether it be your pleasure to keep him in your service to hold out the Tower, or whether he is free to depart.”
“Mine!” said Grisell bewildered.
“Yea!” exclaimed Ridley. “You are Lady of Whitburn!”
“Ah! It is true,” exclaimed Grisell, clasping her hands. “Woe is me that it should be so! And oh! Cuthbert! my husband, if he lives, is a Queen’s man! What can I do?” ”

“ It was all the safer for Grisell as long as she was not recognised, and of this there was little danger. She was scarcely known in Wearmouth, and could go to mass at the Abbey Church in a deep black hood and veil. Master Lambert sometimes received pilgrims from his own country on their way to English shrines, and she could easily pass for one of these if her presence were perceived, but except to mass in very early morning, she never went beyond the garden, where the spring beauty was enjoyment to her in the midst of her loneliness and entire doubt as to her future. ”

“ By the time the gentle but stately Countess had reached the place, all the grown-up persons of the establishment—knights, squires, grooms, scullions, and females of every degree—had thronged round them, but parted at her approach, though one of the knights said, “Nay, Lady Countess, ’tis no sight for you. The poor little maid is dead, or nigh upon it.”
“But who is it? What is it?” asked the Countess, still advancing.
A confused medley of voices replied, “The Lord of Whitburn’s little wench—Leonard Copeland—gunpowder.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ We must find some other way!”
“Sir Leonard would save me if he knew. Alas! the good Earl of Salisbury is dead.”
“’Tis true. If we could hide you till we be rid of these men. But where?” and he made a despairing gesture.
Grisell stood stunned and dazed as the horrible prospect rose before her of being seized by these lawless men, tortured by the savage hands of the witch-finder, subjected to a cruel death, by fire, or at best by water. She pressed her hands together, feeling utterly desolate, and prayed her prayer to the God of the fatherless to save her or brace her to endure. ”