Grisly Grisell; Or, The Laidly Lady of Whitburn: A Tale of the Wars of the Roses by - (best adventure books to read .TXT) 📖

to lead her forward, and directed her to kneel twice on her way to the Duchess.  She obeyed, and in that indescribable manner which betrayed something of her breeding, so that after her second obeisance, the manner of the lady altered visibly from what it had been at first as to a burgher maiden.  The wealth and luxury of the citizen world of the Low Countries caused the proud and jealous nobility to treat them with the greater distance of manner.  And, as Grisell afterwards learnt, this was Isabel de Souza, Countess of Poitiers, a Portuguese lady who had come over with her Infanta; and whose daughter produced Les Honneurs de la Cour, the most wonderful of all descriptions of the formalities of the Court.

Grisell remained kneeling on the steps of the dais, while the Duchess addressed her in much more imperfect Flemish than she could by this time speak herself.

“You are the lace weaver, maiden.  Can you speak French?”

“Oui, si madame, son Altese le veut,” replied Grisell, for her tongue had likewise become accustomed to French in this city of many tongues.

“This is English make,” said the Duchess, not with a very good French accent either, looking at the specimens handed by her lady.  “Are you English?”

“So please your Highness, I am.”

“An exile?” the Princess added kindly.

“Yes, madame.  All my family perished in our wars, and I owe shelter to the good Apothecary, Master Lambert.”

“Purveyor of drugs to the sisters.  Yes, I have heard of him;” and she then proceeded with her orders, desiring to see the first piece Grisell should produce in the pattern she wished, which was to be of roses in honour of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, whom the Peninsular Isabels reckoned as their namesake and patroness.

It was a pattern which would require fresh pricking out, and much skill; but Grisell thought she could accomplish it, and took her leave, kissing the Duchess’s hand—a great favour to be granted to her—curtseying three times, and walking backwards, after the old training that seemed to come back to her with the atmosphere.

Master Lambert was overjoyed when he heard all.  “Now you will find your way back to your proper station and rank,” he said.

“It may do more than that,” said Grisell.  “If I could plead his cause.”

Lambert only sighed.  “I would fain your way was not won by a base, mechanical art,” he said.

“Out on you, my master.  The needle and the bobbin are unworthy of none; and as to the honour of the matter, what did Sir Leonard tell us but that the Countess of Oxford, as now she is, was maintaining her husband by her needle?” and Grisell ended with a sigh at thought of the happy woman whose husband knew of, and was grateful for, her toils.

The pattern needed much care, and Lambert induced Hans Memling himself, who drew it so that it could be pricked out for the cushion.  In after times it might have been held a greater honour to work from his pattern than for the Duchess, who sent to inquire after it more than once, and finally desired that Mistress Grisell should bring her cushion and show her progress.

She was received with all the same ceremonies as before, and even the small fragment that was finished delighted the Princess, who begged to see her at work.  As it could not well be done kneeling, a footstool, covered in tapestry with the many Burgundian quarterings, was brought, and here Grisell was seated, the Duchess bending over her, and asking questions as her fingers flew, at first about the work, but afterwards, “Where did you learn this art, maiden?”

“At Wilton, so please your Highness.  The nunnery of St. Edith, near to Salisbury.”

“St. Edith!  I think my mother, whom the Saints rest, spoke of her; but I have not heard of her in Portugal nor here.  Where did she suffer?”

“She was not martyred, madame, but she has a fair legend.”

And on encouragement Grisell related the legend of St. Edith and the christening.

“You speak well, maiden,” said the Duchess.  “It is easy to perceive that you are convent trained.  Have the wars in England hindered your being professed?”

“Nay, madame; it was the Proctor of the Italian Abbess.”

Therewith the inquiries of the Duchess elicited all Grisell’s early story, with the exception of her name and whose was the iron that caused the explosion, and likewise of her marriage, and the accusation of sorcery.  That male heirs of the opposite party should have expelled the orphan heiress was only too natural an occurrence.  Nor did Grisell conceal her home; but Whitburn was an impossible word to Portuguese lips, and Dacre they pronounced after its crusading derivation De Acor.

p. 260CHAPTER XXVI
THE DUKE’S DEATH

Wither one Rose, and let the other flourish;
If you contend, a thousand lives must wither.

Shakespeare, King Henry VI., Part III.

So time went on, and the rule of the House of York in England seemed established, while the exiles had settled down in Burgundy, Grisell to her lace pillow, Leonard to the suite of the Count de Charolais.  Indeed there was reason to think that he had come to acquiesce in the change of dynasty, or at any rate to think it unwise and cruel to bring on another desperate civil war.  In fact, many of the Red Rose party were making their peace with Edward IV.  Meanwhile the Duchess Isabel became extremely fond of Grisell, and often summoned her to come and work by her side, and talk to her; and thus came on the summer of 1467, when Duke Philip returned from the sack of unhappy Dinant in a weakened state, and soon after was taken fatally ill.  All the city of Bruges watched in anxiety for tidings, for the kindly Duke was really loved where his hand did not press.  One evening during the suspense when Master Lambert was gone out to gather tidings, there was the step with clank of spurs which had grown familiar, and Leonard Copeland strode in hot and dusty, greeting Vrow Clemence as usual with a touch of the hand and inclination of the head, and Grisell with hand and courteous voice, as he threw himself on the settle, heated and weary, and began with tired fingers to unfasten his heavy steel cap.

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.”

And indeed Charles the Bold was on his knees beside the bed of his speechless father in an agony of grief.

Presently all the bells in Bruges began to clash out their warning that a soul was passing to the unseen land, and Grisell made signs to Clemence, while Leonard lifted himself upright, and all breathed the same for the mighty Prince as for the poorest beggar, the intercession for the dying.  Then the solemn note became a knell, and their prayer changed to the De Profundis, “Out of the depths.”

Presently Lambert Groot came in, grave and saddened, with the intelligence that Philip the Good had departed in peace, with his wife and son on either side of him, and his little granddaughter kneeling beside the Duchess.

There was bitter weeping all over Bruges, and soon all over Flanders and the other domains united under the Dukedom of Burgundy, for though Philip had often deeply erred, he had been a fair ruler, balancing discordant interests justly, and maintaining peace, while all that was splendid or luxurious prospered and throve under him.  There was a certain dread of the future under his successor.

“A better man at heart,” said Leonard, who had learnt to love the Count de Charolais.  “He loathes the vices and revelry that have stained the Court.”

“That is true,” said Lambert.  “Yet he is a man of violence, and with none of the skill and dexterity with which Duke Philip steered his course.”

“A plague on such skill,” muttered Leonard.  “Caring solely for his own gain, not for the right!”

“Yet your Count has a heavy hand,” said Lambert.  “Witness Dinant! unhappy Dinant.”

“The rogues insulted his mother,” said Leonard.  “He offered them terms which they would not have in their stubborn pride!  But speak not of that!  I never saw the like in England.  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.”

“Then would you make your peace with the White Rose?”

“The rose en soleil that wrought us so much evil at Mortimer’s Cross?  Methinks I would.  I never swore allegiance to King Henry.  My father was still living when last I saw that sweet and gracious countenance which I must defend for love and reverence’ sake.”

“And he knighted you,” said Grisell.

“True,” with a sharp glance, as if he wondered how she was aware of the fact; “but only as my father’s heir.  My poor old house and tenants!  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.”

“I shall pray for peace,” said Grisell.  All this was happiness to her, as she felt that he was treating her with confidence.  Would she ever be nearer to him?

He was a graver, more thoughtful man at seven and twenty than he had been at the time of his hurried marriage, and had conversed with men of real understanding of the welfare of their country.  Such talks as these made Grisell feel that she could look up to him as most truly her lord and guide.  But how was it with the fair Eleanor, and whither did his heart incline?  An English merchant, who came for spices, had said that the Lord Audley had changed sides, and it was thus probable that the damsel was bestowed in marriage to a Yorkist; but there was no knowing, nor did Grisell dare to feel her way to discovering whether Leonard knew, or felt himself still bound to constancy, outwardly and in heart.

Every one was taken up with the funeral solemnities of Duke Philip; he was to be finally interred with his father and grandfather in the grand tombs at Dijon, but for the present the body was to be placed in the Church of St. Donatus at Bruges, at night.

Sir Leonard rode at a foot’s pace in the troop of men-at-arms, all in full armour, which glanced in the light of the sixteen hundred torches which were borne before, behind, and in the midst of the procession, which escorted the bier.  Outside the coffin, arrayed in ducal coronet and robes, with the Golden Fleece collar round the neck, lay the exact likeness of the aged Duke, and on shields around the pall, as well as on banners borne waving aloft, were the armorial bearings of all his honours, his four dukedoms, seven counties, lordships innumerable, besides the banners of all the guilds carried to do him honour.

More than twenty prelates were present, and shared in the mass, which began in the morning hour, and in the requiem.  The heralds of all the domains broke their white staves and threw them on the bier, proclaiming that Philip, lord of all these lands, was deceased.  Then, as in the case of royalty, Charles his son was proclaimed; and the organ led an acclamation of jubilee from all the assembly which filled the church, and a shout as of thunder arose, “Vivat Carolus.”

Charles knelt meanwhile with hands clasped over his brow, silent, immovable.  Was he crushed at thought of the whirlwinds of passion that had raged between him and the father whom he had loved all the time? or was there on him the weight of a foreboding that he, though