Grisly Grisell

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> Grisly Grisell

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Grisell would fain have heard more about this poor little brother,
but the ladies were entering the castle, and she had to follow them.
She saw no more of her father except from the far end of the table,
but orders were issued that she should be ready to accompany him on
his homeward way the next morning at six o'clock. Her brother Robert
had been sent in charge of some of the Duke of York's retainers, to
join his household as a page, though they had missed him on the
route, and the Lord of Whitburn was anxious to get home again, never
being quite sure what the Scots, or the Percies, or his kinsmen of
Gilsland, might attempt in his absence. "Though," as he said, "my
lady was as good as a dozen men-at-arms, but somehow she had not been
the same woman since little Bernard had fallen sick."

There was no one in the company with whom Grisell was very sorry to
part, for though Dame Gresford had been kind to her, it had been
merely the attending to the needs of a charge, not showing her any
affection, and she had shrunk from the eyes of so large a party.

When she came down early into the hall, her father's half-dozen
retainers were taking their morning meal at one end of a big board,
while a manchet of bread and a silver cup of ale was ready for each
of them at the other, and her father while swallowing his was in deep
conversation over northern politics with the courteous Earl, who had
come down to speed his guests. As she passed the retainers she
heard, "Here comes our Grisly Grisell," and a smothered laugh, and in
fact "Grisly Grisell" continued to be her name among the free-spoken
people of the north. The Earl broke off, bowed to her, and saw that
she was provided, breaking into his conversation with the Baron,
evidently much to the impatience of the latter; and again the polite
noble came down to the door with her, and placed her on her palfrey,
bidding her a kind farewell ere she rode away with her father. It
would be long before she met with such courtesy again. Her father
called to his side his old, rugged-looking esquire Cuthbert Ridley,
and began discussing with him what Lord Warwick had said, both wholly
absorbed in the subject, and paying no attention to the girl who rode
by the Baron's side, so that it was well that her old infantine
training in horsemanship had come back to her.

She remembered Cuthbert Ridley, who had carried her about and petted
her long ago, and, to her surprise, looked no older than he had done
in those days when he had seemed to her infinitely aged. Indeed it
was to him, far more than to her father, that she owed any attention
or care taken of her on the journey. Her father was not unkind, but
never seemed to recollect that she needed any more care than his
rough followers, and once or twice he and all his people rode off
headlong over the fell at sight of a stag roused by one of their
great deer-hounds. Then Cuthbert Ridley kept beside her, and when
the ground became too rough for a New Forest pony and a hand
unaccustomed to northern ground, he drew up. She would probably--if
not thrown and injured--have been left behind to feel herself lost on
the moors. She minded the less his somewhat rude ejaculation, "Ho!
Ho! South! South! Forgot how to back a horse on rough ground. Eh?
And what a poor soft-paced beast! Only fit to ride on my lady's
pilgrimage or in a State procession."

(He said Gang, but neither the Old English nor the northern dialect
could be understood by the writer or the reader, and must be taken
for granted.)

"They are all gone!" responded Grisell, rather frightened.

"Never guessed you were not among them," replied Ridley. "Why, my
lady would be among the foremost, in at the death belike, if she did
not cut the throat of the quarry."

Grisell could well believe it, but used to gentle nuns, she shuddered
a little as she asked what they were to do next.

"Turn back to the track, and go softly on till my lord comes up with
us," answered Ridley. "Or you might be fain to rest under a rock for
a while."

The rest was far from unwelcome, and Grisell sat down on a mossy
stone while Ridley gathered bracken for her shelter, and presently
even brought her a branch or two of whortle-berries. She felt that
she had a friend, and was pleased when he began to talk of how he
remembered her long ago.

"Ah! I mind you, a little fat ball of a thing, when you were fetched
home from Herring Dick's house, how you used to run after the dogs
like a kitten after her tail, and used to crave to be put up on old
Black Durham's back."

"I remember Black Durham! Had he not a white star on his forehead?"

"A white blaze sure enough."

"Is he at the tower still? I did not see him in the plump of
spears."

"No, no, poor beast. He broke his leg four years ago come Martinmas,
in a rabbit-hole on Berwick Law, last raid that we made, and I
tarried to cut his throat with my dagger--though it went to my heart,
for his good old eyes looked at me like Christians, and my lord told
me I was a fool for my pains, for the Elliots were hard upon us, but
I could not leave him to be a mark for them, and I was up with the
rest in time, though I had to cut down the foremost lad."

Certainly "home" would be very unlike the experience of Grisell's
education.

Ridley gave her a piece of advice. "Do not be daunted at my lady;
her bark is ever worse than her bite, and what she will not bear with
is the seeming cowed before her. She is all the sharper with her
tongue now that her heart is sore for Master Bernard."

"What ails my brother Bernard?" then asked Grisell anxiously.

"The saints may know, but no man does, unless it was that Crooked Nan
of Strait Glen overlooked the poor child," returned the esquire.
"Ever since he fell into the red beck he hath done nought but peak
and pine, and be twisted with cramps and aches, with sores breaking
out on him; though there's a honeycomb-stone from Roker over his bed.
My lord took out all the retainers to lay hold on Crooked Nan, but
she got scent of it no doubt, for Jack of Burhill took his oath that
he had seen a muckle hare run up the glen that morn, and when we got
there she was not to be seen or heard of. We have heard of her in
the Gilsland ground, where they would all the sooner see a the young
lad of Whitburn crippled and a mere misery to see or hear."

Grisell was quite as ready to believe in witchcraft as was the old
squire, and to tremble at their capacities for mischief. She asked
what nunneries were near, and was disappointed to find nothing within
easy reach. St. Cuthbert's diocese had not greatly favoured
womankind, and Whitby was far away.

By and by her father came back, the thundering tramp of the horses
being heard in time enough for her to spring up and be mounted again
before he came in sight, the yeomen carrying the antlers and best
portions of the deer.

"Left out, my wench," he shouted. "We must mount you better. Ho!
Cuthbert, thou a squire of dames? Ha! Ha!"

"The maid could not be left to lose herself on the fells," muttered
the squire, rather ashamed of his courtesy.

"She must get rid of nunnery breeding. We want no trim and dainty
lassies here," growled her father. "Look you, Ridley, that horse of
Hob's--" and the rest was lost in a discussion on horseflesh.

Long rides, which almost exhausted Grisell, and halts in exceedingly
uncomfortable hostels, where she could hardly obtain tolerable
seclusion, brought her at last within reach of home. There was a
tall church tower and some wretched hovels round it. The Lord of
Whitburn halted, and blew his bugle with the peculiar note that
signified his own return, then all rode down to the old peel, the
outline of which Grisell saw with a sense of remembrance, against the
gray sea-line, with the little breaking, glancing waves, which she
now knew herself to have unconsciously wanted and missed for years
past.

Whitburn Tower stood on the south side, on a steep cliff overlooking
the sea. The peel tower itself looked high and strong, but to
Grisell, accustomed to the widespread courts of the great castles and
abbeys of the south, the circuit of outbuildings seemed very narrow
and cramped, for truly there was need to have no more walls than
could be helped for the few defenders to guard.

All was open now, and under the arched gateway, with the portcullis
over her head, fitly framing her, stood the tall, gaunt figure of the
lady, grayer, thinner, more haggard than when Grisell had last seen
her, and beside her, leaning on a crutch, a white-faced boy, small
and stunted for six years old.

"Ha, dame! Ha, Bernard; how goes it?" shouted the Baron in his
gruff, hoarse voice.

"He willed to come down to greet you, though he cannot hold your
stirrup," said the mother. "You are soon returned. Is all well with
Rob?"

"O aye, I found Thorslan of Danby and a plump of spears on the way to
the Duke of York at Windsor. They say he will need all his following
if the Beauforts put it about that the King has recovered as much wit
as ever he had. So I e'en sent Rob on with him, and came back so as
to be ready in case there's a call for me. Soh! Berney; on thy feet
again? That's well, my lad; but we'll have thee up the steps."

He seemed quite to have forgotten the presence of Grisell, and it was
Cuthbert Ridley who helped her off her horse, but just then little
Bernard in his father's arms exclaimed

"Black nun woman!"

"By St. Cuthbert!" cried the Baron, "I mind me! Here, wench! I have
brought back the maid in her brother's stead."

And as Grisell, in obedience to his call, threw back her veil,
Bernard screamed, "Ugsome wench, send her away!" threw his arms round
his father's neck and hid his face with a babyish gesture.

"Saints have mercy!" cried the mother, "thou hast not mended much
since I saw thee last. They that marred thee had best have kept
thee. Whatever shall we do with the maid?"

"Send her away, the loathly thing," reiterated the boy, lifting up
his head from his father's shoulder for another glimpse, which
produced a puckering of the face in readiness for crying.

"Nay, nay, Bernard," said Ridley, feeling for the poor girl and
speaking up for her when no one else would. "She is your sister, and
you must be a fond brother to her, for an ill-nurtured lad spoilt her
poor face when it was as fair as your own. Kiss your sister like a
good lad, and -

"No! no!" shouted Bernard. "Take her away. I hate her." He began
to cry and kick.

"Get out of his sight as fast as may be," commanded the mother,
alarmed by her sickly darling's paroxysm of passion.

Grisell, scarce knowing where to go, could only allow herself to be
led away by Ridley, who, seeing her tears, tried to comfort her in
his rough way. "'Tis the petted bairn's way, you see, mistress--and
my lady has no thought save for him. He will get over it soon enough
when he learns your gentle convent-bred conditions."

Still the cry of "Grisly Grisell," picked up as if by instinct or by
some echo from the rear of the escort, rang in her ears in the angry
fretful voice of the poor little creature towards whom her heart was
yearning. Even the two women-servants there were, no more looked at
her askance, as they took her to a seat in the hall, and consulted
where my lady would have her bestowed. She was wiping away bitter
tears as she heard her only friend Cuthbert settle the matter. "The
chamber within the solar is the place for the noble damsels."

"That is full of old armour, and dried herrings, and stockfish."

"Move them then! A fair greeting to give to my lord's daughter."

There was some further muttering about a bed, and Grisell sprang up.
"Oh, hush! hush! I can sleep on a cloak; I have done so for many
nights. Only let me be no burthen. Show me where I can go to be an
anchoress, since they will not have me in a convent or anywhere," and
bitterly she wept.

"Peace, peace, lady," said the squire kindly. "I will deal with
these ill-tongued lasses. Shame on them! Go off, and make the
chamber ready, or I'll find a scourge for you. And as to my lady--
she is wrapped up in the sick bairn, but she has only to get used to
you to be friendly enough."

"O what a hope in a mother," thought poor Grisell. "O that I were at
Wilton or some nunnery, where my looks would be pardoned! Mother
Avice, dear mother, what wouldst thou say to me now!"

The peel tower had been the original building, and was still as it
were the citadel, but below had been built the very strong but narrow
castle court, containing the stables and the well, and likewise the
hall and kitchen--which were the dwelling and sleeping places of the
men of the household, excepting Cuthbert Ridley, who being of gentle
blood, would sit above the salt, and had his quarters with Rob when
at home in the tower. The solar was a room above the hall, where was
the great box-bed of the lord and lady, and a little bed for Bernard.

Entered through it, in a small turret, was a chamber designed for the
daughters and maids, and this was rightly appropriated by Ridley to
the Lady Grisell. The two women-servants--Bell and Madge--were wives
to the cook and the castle smith, so the place had been disused and
made a receptacle for drying fish, fruit, and the like. Thus the
sudden call for its use provoked a storm of murmurs in no gentle
voices, and Grisell shrank into a corner of the hall, only wishing
she could efface herself.

And as she looked out on the sea from her narrow window, it seemed to
her dismally gray, moaning, restless, and dreary.

CHAPTER X--COLD WELCOME

Seek not for others to love you,
But seek yourself to love them best,
And you shall find the secret true,
Of love and joy and rest.

I. WILLIAMS.

To lack beauty was a much more serious misfortune in the Middle Ages
than at present. Of course it was probable that there might be a
contract of marriage made entirely irrespective of attractiveness,
long before the development of either of the principal parties
concerned; but even then the rude, open-spoken husband would consider
himself absolved from any attention to an ill-favoured wife, and the
free tongues of her surroundings would not be slack to make her aware
of her defects. The cloister was the refuge of the unmarried woman,
if of gentle birth as a nun, if of a lower grade as a lay-sister; but
the fifteenth century was an age neither of religion nor of chivalry.
Dowers were more thought of than devotion in convents as elsewhere.
Whitby being one of the oldest and grandest foundations was sure to
be inaccessible to a high-born but unportioned girl, and Grisell in
her sense of loneliness saw nothing before her but to become an
anchoress, that is to say, a female hermit, such as generally lived
in strict seclusion under shelter of the Church.

"There at least," thought poor Grisell, "there would be none to sting
me to the heart with those jeering eyes of theirs. And I might feel
in time that God and His Saints loved me, and not long for my father
and mother, and oh! my poor little brother--yes, and Leonard
Copeland, and Sister Avice, and the rest. But would Sister Avice
call this devotion? Nay, would she not say that these cruel eyes and
words are a cross upon me, and I must bear them and love in spite--at
least till I be old enough to choose for myself?"

She was summoned to supper, and this increased the sense of
dreariness, for Bernard screamed that the grisly one should not come
near him, or he would not eat, and she had to take her meal of dried
fish and barley bread in the wide chimney corner, where there always
was a fire at every season of the year.

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. She felt too downhearted even to creep out and ask for a
pitcher of water. She took a long look over the gray, heaving sea,
and tired as she was, it was long before she could pray and cry
herself to sleep, and accustomed as she was to convent beds, this one
appeared to be stuffed with raw apples, and she awoke with aching
bones.

Her request for a pitcher or pail of water was treated as southland
finery, for those who washed at all used the horse trough, but
fortunately for her Cuthbert Ridley heard the request. He had been
enough in the south in attendance on his master to know how young
damsels lived, and what treatment they met with, and he was soon
rating the women in no measured terms for the disrespect they had
presumed to show to the Lady Grisell, encouraged by the neglect of
her parents

The Lord of Whitburn, appearing on the scene at the moment, backed up
his retainer, and made it plain that he intended his daughter to be
respected and obeyed, and the grumbling women had to submit. Nor did
he refuse to acknowledge, on Ridley's representation, that Grisell
ought to have an attendant of her own, and the lady of the castle,
coming down with Bernard clinging to her skirt with one hand, and
leaning on his crutch, consented. "If the maid was to be here, she
must be treated fitly, and Bell and Madge had enough to do without
convent-bred fancies."

So Cuthbert descended the steep path to the ravine where dwelt the
fisher folk, and came back with a girl barefooted, bareheaded, with
long, streaming, lint-white locks, and the scantiest of garments,
crying bitterly with fright, and almost struggling to go back. She
was the orphan remnant of a family drowned in the bay, and was a
burthen on her fisher kindred, who were rejoiced thus to dispose of
her.

She sobbed the more at sight of the grisly lady, and almost screamed
when Grisell smiled and tried to take her by the hand. Ridley fairly
drove her upstairs, step by step, and then shut her in with his young
lady, when she sank on the floor and hid her face under all her
bleached hair.

"Poor little thing," thought Grisell; "it is like having a fresh-
caught sea-gull. She is as forlorn as I am, and more afraid!"

So she began to speak gently and coaxingly, begging the girl to look
up, and assuring her that she would not be hurt. Grisell had a very
soft and persuasive voice. Her chief misfortune as regarded her
appearance was that the muscles of one cheek had been so drawn that
though she smiled sweetly with one side of her face, the other was
contracted and went awry, so that when the kind tones had made the
girl look up for a moment, the next she cried, "O don't--don't! Holy
Mary, forbid the spell!"

"I have no spells, my poor maid; indeed I am only a poor girl, a
stranger here in my own home. Come, and do not fear me."

"Madge said you had witches' marks on your face," sobbed the child.

"Only the marks of gunpowder," said Grisell. "Listen, I will tell
thee what befell me."

Gunpowder seemed to be quite beyond all experience of Whitburn
nature, but the history of the catastrophe gained attention, and the
girl's terror abated, so that Grisell could ask her name, which was
Thora, and learning, too, that she had led a hard life since her
granny died, and her uncle's wife beat her, and made her carry heavy
loads of seaweed when it froze her hands, besides a hundred other
troubles. As to knowing any kind of feminine art, she was as
ignorant as if the rough and extremely dirty woollen garment she
wore, belted round with a strip of leather, had grown upon her, and
though Grisell's own stock of garments was not extensive, she was
obliged, for very shame, to dress this strange attendant in what she
could best spare, as well as, in spite of sobs and screams, to wash
her face, hands, and feet, and it was wonderful how great a
difference this made in the wild creature by the time the clang of
the castle bell summoned all to the midday meal, when as before,
Bernard professed not to be able to look at his sister, but when she
had retreated he was seen spying at her through his fingers, with
great curiosity.

Afterwards she went up to her mother to beg for a few necessaries for
herself and for her maid, and to offer to do some spinning. She was
not very graciously answered; but she was allowed an old frayed
horse-cloth on which Thora might sleep, and for the rest she might
see what she could find under the stairs in the turret, or in the
chest in the hall window.

The broken, dilapidated fragments which seemed to Grisell mere
rubbish were treasures and wonders to Thora, and out of them she
picked enough to render her dreary chamber a very few degrees more
habitable. Thora would sleep there, and certainly their relations
were reversed, for carrying water was almost the only office she
performed at first, since Grisell had to dress her, and teach her to
keep herself in a tolerable state of neatness, and likewise how to
spin, luring her with the hope of spinning yarn for a new dress for
herself. As to prayers, her mind was a mere blank, though she said
something that sounded like a spell except that it began with
"Pater." She did not know who made her, and entirely believed in
Niord and Rana, the storm-gods of Norseland. Yet she had always been
to mass every Sunday morning. So went all the family at the castle
as a matter of course, but except when the sacring-bell hushed them,
the Baron freely discussed crops or fish with the tenants, and the
lady wrangled about dues of lambs, eggs, and fish. Grisell's
attention was a new thing, and the priest's pronunciation was so
defective to her ear that she could hardly follow.

That first week Grisell had plenty of occupation in settling her room
and training her uncouth maid, who proved a much more apt scholar
than she had expected, and became devoted to her like a little
faithful dog.

No one else took much notice of either, except that at times Cuthbert
Ridley showed himself to be willing to stand up for her. 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. She longed to make up for him
one of the many appetising possets well known at Wilton, but her
mother and Ralf the cook both scouted her first proposal. They
wanted no south-bred meddlers over their fire.

However, one evening when Bernard had been fretful and in pain, the
Baron had growled out that the child was cockered beyond all bearing,
and the mother had flown out at the unnatural father, and on his half
laughing at her doting ways, had actually rushed across with clenched
fist to box his ears; he had muttered that the pining brat and
shrewish dame made the house no place for him, and wandered out to
the society of his horses. Lady Whitburn, after exhaling her wrath
in abuse of him and all around, carried the child up to his bed.
There he was moaning, and she trying to soothe him, when, darkness
having put a stop to Grisell's spinning, she went to her chamber with
Thora. In passing, the moaning was still heard, and she even thought
her mother was crying. She ventured to approach and ask, "Fares he
no better? If I might rub that poor leg."

But Bernard peevishly hid his face and whined, "Go away, Grisly," and
her mother exclaimed, "Away with you, I have enough to vex me here
without you."

She could only retire as fast as possible, and her tears ran down her
face as in the long summer twilight she recited the evening offices,
the same in which Sister Avice was joining in Wilton chapel. Before
they were over she heard her father come up to bed, and in a harsh
and angered voice bid Bernard to be still. There was stillness for
some little time, but by and by the moaning and sobbing began again,
and there was a jangling between the gruff voice and the shrill one,
now thinner and weaker. Grisell felt that she must try again, and
crept out. "If I might rub him a little while, and you rest, Lady
Mother. He cannot see me now."

She prevailed, or rather the poor mother's utter weariness and
dejection did, together with the father's growl, "Let her bring us
peace if she can."

Lady Whitburn let her kneel down by the bed, and guided her hand to
the aching thigh.

"Soft! Soft! Good! Good!" muttered Bernard presently. "Go on!"

Grisell had acquired something of that strange almost magical touch
of Sister Avice, and Bernard lay still under her hand. Her mother,
who was quite worn out, moved to her own bed, and fell asleep, while
the snores of the Baron proclaimed him to have been long appeased.
The boy, too, presently was breathing softly, and Grisell's attitude
relaxed, as her prayers and her dreams mingled together, and by and
by, what she thought was the organ in Wilton chapel, and the light of
St. Edith's taper, proved to be the musical rush of the incoming
tide, and the golden sunrise over the sea, while all lay sound asleep
around her, and she ventured gently to withdraw into her own room.

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