Grisly Grisell

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> Grisly Grisell

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14

The boy was scarcely fifteen, but his political tone, as of one who
knew the world, made his father laugh and say, "Hark to the cockerel
crowing loud. Spurs forsooth!"

"The Lords Edward and Edmund are knighted," grunted Rob, "and there's
but few years betwixt us."

"But a good many earldoms and lands," said the Baron. "Hadst spoken
of being out of pagedom, 'twere another thing."

"You are coming, sir," cried Rob, willing to put by the subject.
"You are coming to see how I can win honours."

"Aye, aye," said his father. "When Nevil calls, then must Dacre
come, though his old bones might well be at rest now. Salisbury and
Warwick taking to flight like attainted traitors to please the
foreign woman, saidst thou? Then it is the time men were in the
saddle."

"Well I knew you would say so, and so I told my lord," exclaimed
Robert.

"Thou didst, quotha? Without doubt the Duke was greatly reassured by
thy testimony," said his father drily, while the mother, full of
pride and exultation in her goodly firstborn son, could not but
exclaim, "Daunt him not, my lord; he has done well thus to be sent
home in charge."

"_I_ daunt him?" returned Lord Whitburn, in his teasing mood. "By
his own showing not a troop of Somerset's best horsemen could do
that!"

Therewith more amicably, father and son fell to calculations of
resources, which they kept up all through supper-time, and all the
evening, till the names of Hobs, Wills, Dicks, and the like rang like
a repeating echo in Grisell's ears. All through those long days of
summer the father and son were out incessantly, riding from one
tenant or neighbour to another, trying to raise men-at-arms and means
to equip them if raised. All the dues on the herring-boats and the
two whalers, on which Grisell had reckoned for the winter needs, were
pledged to Sunderland merchants for armour and weapons; the colts
running wild on the moors were hastily caught, and reduced to a kind
of order by rough breaking in. The women of the castle and others
requisitioned from the village toiled under the superintendence of
the lady and Grisell at preparing such provision and equipments as
were portable, such as dried fish, salted meat, and barley cakes, as
well as linen, and there was a good deal of tailoring of a rough sort
at jerkins, buff coats, and sword belts, not by any means the gentle
work of embroidering pennons or scarves notable in romance.

"Besides," scoffed Robert, "who would wear Grisly Grisell's scarf!"

"I would," manfully shouted Bernard; "I would cram it down the throat
of that recreant Copeland."

"Oh! hush, hush, Bernard," exclaimed Grisell, who was toiling with
aching fingers at the repairs of her father's greasy old buff coat.
"Such things are, as Robin well says, for noble demoiselles with fair
faces and leisure times like the Lady Margaret. And oh, Robin, you
have never told me of the Lady Margaret, my dear mate at Amesbury."

"What should I know of your Lady Margarets and such gear," growled
Robin, whose chivalry had not reached the point of caring for ladies.

"The Lady Margaret Plantagenet, the young Lady Margaret of York,"
Grisell explained.

"Oh! That's what you mean is it? There's a whole troop of wenches
at the high table in hall. They came after us with the Duchess as
soon as we were settled in Trim Castle, but they are kept as demure
and mim as may be in my lady's bower; and there's a pretty sharp eye
kept on them. Some of the young squires who are fools enough to
hanker after a few maids or look at the fairer ones get their noses
wellnigh pinched off by Proud Cis's Mother of the Maids."

"Then it would not avail to send poor Grisell's greetings by you."

"I should like to see myself delivering them! Besides, we shall meet
my lord in camp, with no cumbrance of woman gear."

Lord Whitburn's own castle was somewhat of a perplexity to him, for
though his lady had once been quite sufficient captain for his scanty
garrison, she was in too uncertain health, and what was worse, too
much broken in spirit and courage, to be fit for the charge. He
therefore decided on leaving Cuthbert Ridley, who, in winter at
least, was scarcely as capable of roughing it as of old, to protect
the castle, with a few old or partly disabled men, who could man the
walls to some degree, therefore it was unlikely that there would be
any attack.

So on a May morning the old, weather-beaten Dacre pennon with its
three crusading scallop-shells, was uplifted in the court, and round
it mustered about thirty men, of whom eighteen had been raised by the
baron, some being his own vassals, and others hired at Sunderland.
The rest were volunteers--gentlemen, their younger sons, and their
attendants--placing themselves under his leadership, either from
goodwill to York and Nevil, or from love of enterprise and hope of
plunder.

CHAPTER XIII--A KNOT

I would mine heart had caught that wound
And slept beside him rather!
I think it were a better thing
Than murdered friend and marriage-ring
Forced on my life together.

E. B. BROWNING, The Romaunt of the Page.

Ladies were accustomed to live for weeks, months, nay, years, without
news of those whom they had sent to the wars, and to live their life
without them. The Lady of Whitburn did not expect to see her husband
or son again till the summer campaign was over, and she was not at
all uneasy about them, for the full armour of a gentleman had arrived
at such a pitch of perfection that it was exceedingly difficult to
kill him, and such was the weight, that his danger in being
overthrown was of never being able to get up, but lying there to be
smothered, made prisoner, or killed, by breaking into his armour.
The knights could not have moved at all under the weight if they had
not been trained from infancy, and had nearly reduced themselves to
the condition of great tortoises.

It was no small surprise when, very late on a July evening, when,
though twilight still prevailed, all save the warder were in bed, and
he was asleep on his post, a bugle-horn rang out the master's note,
at first in the usual tones, then more loudly and impatiently.
Hastening out of bed to her loophole window, Grisell saw a party
beneath the walls, her father's scallop-shells dimly seen above them,
and a little in the rear, one who was evidently a prisoner.

The blasts grew fiercer, the warder and the castle were beginning to
be astir, and when Grisell hurried into the outer room, she found her
mother afoot and hastily dressing.

"My lord! my lord! it is his note," she cried.

"Father come home!" shouted Bernard, just awake. "Grisly! Grisly!
help me don my clothes."

Lady Whitburn trembled and shook with haste, and Grisell could not
help her very rapidly in the dark, with Bernard howling rather than
calling for help all the time; and before she, still less Grisell,
was fit for the public, her father's heavy step was on the stairs,
and she heard fragments of his words.

"All abed! We must have supper--ridden from Ayton since last
baiting. Aye, got a prisoner--young Copeland--old one slain--great
victory--Northampton. King taken--Buckingham and Egremont killed--
Rob well--proud as a pyet. Ho, Grisell," as she appeared, "bestir
thyself. We be ready to eat a horse behind the saddle. Serve up as
fast as may be."

Grisell durst not stop to ask whether she had heard the word Copeland
aright, and ran downstairs with a throbbing heart, just crossing the
hall, where she thought she saw a figure bowed down, with hands over
his face and elbows on his knees, but she could not pause, and went
on to the kitchen, where the peat fire was never allowed to expire,
and it was easy to stir it into heat. Whatever was cold she handed
over to the servants to appease the hunger of the arrivals, while she
broiled steaks, and heated the great perennial cauldron of broth with
all the expedition in her power, with the help of Thora and the
grumbling cook, when he appeared, angry at being disturbed.

Morning light was beginning to break before her toils were over for
the dozen hungry men pounced so suddenly in on her, and when she
again crossed the hall, most of them were lying on the straw-bestrewn
floor fast asleep. One she specially noticed, his long limbs
stretched out as he lay on his side, his head on his arm, as if he
had fallen asleep from extreme fatigue in spite of himself.

His light brown hair was short and curly, his cheeks fair and ruddy,
and all reminded her of Leonard Copeland as he had been those long
years ago before her accident. Save for that, she would have been
long ago his wife, she with her marred face the mate of that nobly
fair countenance. How strange to remember. How she would have loved
him, frank and often kind as she remembered him, though rough and
impatient of restraint. What was that which his fingers had held
till sleep had unclasped them? An ivory chessrook! Such was a
favourite token of ladies to their true loves. What did it mean?
Might she pause to pray a prayer over him as once hers--that all
might be well with him, for she knew that in this unhappy war
important captives were not treated as Frenchmen would have been as
prisoners of war, but executed as traitors to their King.

She paused over him till a low sound and the bright eyes of one of
the dogs warned her that all might in another moment be awake, and
she fled up the stair to the solar, where her parents were both fast
asleep, and across to her own room, where she threw herself on her
bed, dressed as she was, but could not sleep for the multitude of
strange thoughts that crowded over her in the increasing daylight.

By and by there was a stir, some words passed in the outer room, and
then her mother came in.

"Wake, Grisly. Busk and bonne for thy wedding-morning instantly.
Copeland is to keep his troth to thee at once. The Earl of Warwick
hath granted his life to thy father on that condition only."

"Oh, mother, is he willing?" cried Grisell trembling.

"What skills that, child? His hand was pledged, and he must fulfil
his promise now that we have him."

"Was it troth? I cannot remember it," said Grisell.

"That matters not. Your father's plight is the same thing. His
father was slain in the battle, so 'tis between him and us. Put on
thy best clothes as fast as may be. Thou shalt have my wedding-veil
and miniver mantle. Speed, I say. My lord has to hasten away to
join the Earl on the way to London. He will see the knot tied beyond
loosing at once."

To dress herself was all poor Grisell could do in her bewilderment.
Remonstrance was vain. The actual marriage without choice was not so
repugnant to all her feelings as to a modern maiden; it was the
ordinary destiny of womanhood, and she had been used in her childhood
to look on Leonard Copeland as her property; but to be forced on the
poor youth instantly on his father's death, and as an alternative to
execution, set all her maidenly feelings in revolt. Bernard was
sitting up in bed, crying out that he could not lose his Grisly. Her
mother was running backwards and forwards, bringing portions of her
own bridal gear, and directing Thora, who was combing out her young
lady's hair, which was long, of a beautiful brown, and was to be worn
loose and flowing, in the bridal fashion. Grisell longed to kneel
and pray, but her mother hurried her. "My lord must not be kept
waiting, there would be time enough for prayer in the church." Then
Bernard, clamouring loudly, threw his arms round the thick old heavy
silken gown that had been put on her, and declared that he would not
part with his Grisly, and his mother tore him away by force,
declaring that he need not fear, Copeland would be in no hurry to
take her away, and again when she bent to kiss him he clung tight
round her neck almost strangling her, and rumpling her tresses.

Ridley had come up to say that my lord was calling for the young
lady, and it was he who took the boy off and held him in his arms, as
the mother, who seemed endued with new strength by the excitement,
threw a large white muffling veil over Grisell's head and shoulders,
and led or rather dragged her down to the hall.

The first sounds she there heard were, "Sir, I have given my faith to
the Lady Eleanor of Audley, whom I love."

"What is that to me? 'Twas a precontract to my daughter."

"Not made by me nor her."

"By your parents, with myself. You went near to being her death
outright, marred her face for life, so that none other will wed her.
What say you? Not hurt by your own will? Who said it was? What
matters that?"

"Sir," said Leonard, "it is true that by mishap, nay, if you will
have it so, by a child's inadvertence, I caused this evil chance to
befall your daughter, but I deny, and my father denies likewise, that
there was any troth plight between the maid and me. She will own the
same if you ask her. As I spake before, there was talk of the like
kind between you, sir, and my father, and it was the desire of the
good King that thus the families might be reconciled; but the
contract went no farther, as the holy King himself owned when I gave
my faith to the Lord Audley's daughter, and with it my heart."

"Aye, we know that the Frenchwoman can make the poor fool of a King
believe and avouch anything she choose! This is not the point. No
more words, young man. Here stands my daughter; there is the rope.
Choose--wed or hang."

Leonard stood one moment with a look of agonised perplexity over his
face. Then he said, "If I consent, am I at liberty, free at once to
depart?"

"Aye," said Whitburn. "So you fulfil your contract, the rest is
nought to me."

"I am then at liberty? Free to carry my sword to my Queen and King?"

"Free."

"You swear it, on the holy cross?"

Lord Whitburn held up the cross hilt of his sword before him, and
made oath on it that when once married to his daughter, Leonard
Copeland was no longer his prisoner.

Grisell through her veil read on the youthful face a look of grief
and renunciation; he was sacrificing his love to the needs of King
and country, and his words chimed in with her conviction.

"Sir, I am ready. If it were myself alone, I would die rather than
be false to my love, but my Queen needs good swords and faithful
hearts, and I may not fail her. I am ready!"

"It is well!" said Lord Whitburn. "Ho, you there! Bring the horses
to the door."

Grisell, in all the strange suspense of that decision, had been
thinking of Sir Gawaine, whose lines rang in her head, but that look
of grief roused other feelings. Sir Gawaine had no other love to
sacrifice.

"Sir! sir!" she cried, as her father turned to bid her mount the
pillion behind Ridley. "Can you not let him go free without? I
always looked to a cloister."

"That is for you and he to settle, girl. Obey me now, or it will be
the worse for him and you."

"One word I would say," added the mother. "How far hath this matter
with the Audley maid gone? There is no troth plight, I trow?"

"No, by all that is holy, no. Would the lad not have pleaded it if
there had been? No more dilly-dallying. Up on the horse, Grisly,
and have done with it. We will show the young recreant how promises
are kept in Durham County."

He dragged rather than led his daughter to the door, and lifted her
passively to the pillion seat behind Cuthbert Ridley. A fine horse,
Copeland's own, was waiting for him. He was allowed to ride freely,
but old Whitburn kept close beside him, so that escape would have
been impossible. He was in the armour in which he had fought, dimmed
and dust-stained, but still glancing in the morning sun, which
glittered on the sea, though a heavy western thunder-cloud, purple in
the sun, was rising in front of this strange bridal cavalcade.

It was overhead by the time the church was reached, and the heavy
rain that began to fall caused the priest to bid the whole party come
within for the part of the ceremony usually performed outside the
west door.

It was very dark within. The windows were small and old, and filled
with dusky glass, and the arches were low browed. Grisell's
mufflings were thrown aside, and she stood as became a maiden bride,
with all her hair flowing over her shoulders and long tresses over
her face, but even without this, her features would hardly have been
visible, as the dense cloud rolled overhead; and indeed so tall and
straight was her figure that no one would have supposed her other
than a fair young spouse. She trembled a good deal, but was too much
terrified and, as it were, stunned for tears, and she durst not raise
her drooping head even to look at her bridegroom, though such light
as came in shone upon his fair hair and was reflected on his armour,
and on one golden spur that still he wore, the other no doubt lost in
the fight.

All was done regularly. The Lord of Whitburn was determined that no
ceremony that could make the wedlock valid should be omitted. The
priest, a kind old man, but of peasant birth, and entirely
subservient to the Dacres, proceeded to ask each of the pair when
they had been assoiled, namely, absolved. Grisell, as he well knew,
had been shriven only last Friday; Leonard muttered, "Three days
since, when I was dubbed knight, ere the battle."

"That suffices," put in the Baron impatiently. "On with you, Sir
Lucas."

The thoroughly personal parts of the service were in English, and
Grisell could not but look up anxiously when the solemn charge was
given to mention whether there was any lawful "letting" to their
marriage. Her heart bounded as it were to her throat when Leonard
made no answer.

But then what lay before him if he pleaded his promise!

It went on--those betrothal vows, dictated while the two cold hands
were linked, his with a kind of limp passiveness, hers, quaking,
especially as, in the old use of York, he took her "for laither for
fairer"--laith being equivalent to loathly--"till death us do part."
And with failing heart, but still resolute heart, she faltered out
her vow to cleave to him "for better for worse, for richer for
poorer, in sickness or health, and to be bonner (debonair or
cheerful) and boughsome (obedient) till that final parting."

The troth was plighted, and the silver mark--poor Leonard's sole
available property at the moment--laid on the priest's book, as the
words were said, "with worldly cathel I thee endow," and the ring, an
old one of her mother's, was held on Grisell's finger. It was done,
though, alas! the bridegroom could hardly say with truth, "with my
body I thee worship."

Then followed the procession to the altar, the chilly hands barely
touching one another, and the mass was celebrated, when Latin did not
come home to the pair like English, though both fairly understood it.
Grisell's feeling was by this time concentrated in the one hope that
she should be dutiful to the poor, unwilling bridegroom, far more to
be pitied than herself, and that she should be guarded by God
whatever befell.

It was over. Signing of registers was not in those days, but there
was some delay, for the darkness was more dense than ever, the rush
of furious hail was heard without, a great blue flash of intense
light filled every corner of the church, the thunder pealed so
sharply and vehemently overhead that the small company looked at one
another and at the church, to ascertain that no stroke had fallen.
Then the Lord of Whitburn, first recovering himself, cried, "Come,
sir knight, kiss your bride. Ha! where is he? Sir Leonard--here.
Who hath seen him? Not vanished in yon flash! Eh?"

No, but the men without, cowering under the wall, deposed that Sir
Leonard Copeland had rushed out, shouted to them that he had
fulfilled the conditions and was a free man, taken his horse, and
galloped away through the storm.

CHAPTER XIV--THE LONELY BRIDE

Grace for the callant
If he marries our muckle-mouth Meg.

BROWNING.

"The recreant! Shall we follow him?" was the cry of Lord Whitburn's
younger squire, Harry Featherstone, with his hand on his horse's
neck, in spite of the torrents of rain and the fresh flash that set
the horses quivering.

"No! no!" roared the Baron. "I tell you no! He has fulfilled his
promise; I fulfil mine. He has his freedom. Let him go! For the
rest, we will find the way to make him good husband to you, my
wench," and as Harry murmured something, "There's work enow in hand
without spending our horses' breath and our own in chasing after a
runaway groom. A brief space we will wait till the storm be over."

Grisell shrank back to pray at a little side altar, telling her
beads, and repeating the Latin formula, but in her heart all the time
giving thanks that she was going back to Bernard and her mother,
whose needs had been pressing strongly on her, yet that she might do
right by this newly-espoused husband, whose downcast, dejected look
had filled her, not with indignation at the slight to her--she was
far past that--but with yearning compassion for one thus severed from
his true love.

When the storm had subsided enough for these hardy northlanders to
ride home, and Grisell was again perched behind old Cuthbert Ridley,
he asked, "Well, my Dame of Copeland, dost peak and pine for thy
runaway bridegroom?"

"Nay, I had far rather be going home to my little Bernard than be
away with yonder stranger I ken not whither."

"Thou art in the right, my wench. If the lad can break the marriage
by pleading precontract, you may lay your reckoning on it that so he
will."

When they came home to the attempt at a marriage-feast which Lady
Whitburn had improvised, they found that this was much her opinion.

"He will get the knot untied," she said. "So thick as the King and
his crew are with the Pope, it will cost him nothing, but we may, for
very shame, force a dowry out of his young knighthood to get the
wench into Whitby withal!"

"So he even proffered on his way," said the Baron. "He is a fair and
knightly youth. 'Tis pity of him that he holds with the Frenchwoman.
Ha, Bernard, 'tis for thy good."

For the boy was clinging tight to his sister, and declaring that his
Grisly should never leave him again, not for twenty vile runaway
husbands.

Grisell returned to all her old habits, and there was no difference
in her position, excepting that she was scrupulously called Dame
Grisell Copeland. Her father was soon called away by the summons to
Parliament, sent forth in the name of King Henry, who was then in the
hands of the Earl of Warwick in London. The Sheriff's messenger who
brought him the summons plainly said that all the friends of York,
Salisbury, and Warwick were needed for a great change that would dash
the hopes of the Frenchwoman and her son.

He went with all his train, leaving the defence of the castle to
Ridley and the ladies, and assuring Grisell that she need not be
downhearted. He would yet bring her fine husband, Sir Leonard, to
his marrow bones before her.

Grisell had not much time to think of Sir Leonard, for as the summer
waned, both her mother and Bernard sickened with low fever. In the
lady's case it was intermittent, and she spent only the third day in
her bed, the others in crouching over the fire or hanging over the
child's bed, where he lay constantly tossing and fevered all night,
sometimes craving to be on his sister's lap, but too restless long to
lie there. Both manifestly became weaker, in spite of all Grisell's
simple treatment, and at last she wrung from the lady permission to
send Ridley to Wearmouth to try if it was possible to bring out
Master Lambert Groot to give his advice, or if not, to obtain
medicaments and counsel from him.

The good little man actually came, riding a mule. "Ay, ay," quoth
Ridley, "I brought him, though he vowed at first it might never be,
but when he heard it concerned you, mistress--I mean Dame Grisell--he
was ready to come to your aid."

Good little man, standing trim and neat in his burgher's dress and
little frill-like ruff, he looked quite out of place in the dark old
hall.

Lady Whitburn seemed to think him a sort of magician, though inferior
enough to be under her orders. "Ha! Is that your Poticary?" she
demanded, when Grisell brought him up to the solar. "Look at my
bairn, Master Dutchman; see to healing him," she continued
imperiously.

Lambert was too well used to incivility from nobles to heed her
manner, though in point of fact a Flemish noble was far more
civilised than this North Country dame. He looked anxiously at
Bernard, who moaned a little and turned his head away. "Nay, now,
Bernard," entreated his sister; "look up at the good man, he that
sent you the sugar-balls. He is come to try to make you well."

Bernard let her coax him to give his poor little wasted hand to the
leech, and looked with wonder in his heavy eyes at the stranger, who
felt his pulse, and asked to have him lifted up for better
examination. There was at first a dismal little whine at being
touched and moved, but when a pleasantly acid drop was put into his
little parched mouth, he smiled with brief content. His mother
evidently expected that both he and she herself would be relieved on
the spot, but the Apothecary durst not be hopeful, though he gave the
child a draught which he called a febrifuge, and which put him to
sleep, and bade the lady take another of the like if she wished for a
good night's rest.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14