THE MIRROR
“Of all the maids, the foulest maid
From Teviot unto Dee.
Ah!” sighing said that lady then,
“Can ne’er young Harden’s be.”
SCOTT, _The Reiver’s Wedding_.
“THEY are gone,” said Margaret of York, standing half dressed at the
deep-set window of the chamber where Grisell lay in state in her big bed.
“Who are gone?” asked Grisell, turning as well as she could under the
great heraldically-embroidered covering.
“Leonard Copeland and his father. Did’st not hear the horses’ tramp in
the court?”
“I thought it was only my lord’s horses going to the water.”
“It was the Copelands going off without breaking their fast or taking a
stirrup cup, like discourteous rogues as they be,” said Margaret, in no
measured language.
“And are they gone? 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?” asked poor
Grisell.
“Mine aunt of Salisbury bade that none should tell thee,” responded
Margaret, in some confusion.
“Ah me! I must know sooner or later! My mother, she shrieked at sight
of me!”
“I would not have your mother,” said the outspoken daughter of “proud
Cis.” “My Lady Duchess mother is stern enough if we do not bridle our
heads, and if we make ourselves too friendly with the meiné, but she
never frets nor rates us, and does not heed so long as we do not demean
ourselves unlike our royal blood. She is no termagant like yours.”
It was not polite, but Grisell had not seen enough of her mother to be
very sensitive on her account. In fact, she was chiefly occupied with
what she had heard about her own appearance—a matter which had not
occurred to her before in all her suffering. She returned again to
entreat Margaret to tell her whether she was so foully ill-favoured that
no one could look at her, and the damsel of York, adhering to the letter
rather young than the spirit of the cautions which she had received,
pursed up her lips and reiterated that she had been commanded not to
mention the subject.
“Then,” entreated Grisell, “do—do, dear Madge—only bring me the little
hand mirror out of my Lady Countess’s chamber.”
“I know not that I can or may.”
“Only for the space of one Ave,” reiterated Grisell.
“My lady aunt would never—”
“There—hark—there’s the bell for mass. Thou canst run into her chamber
when she and the tirewomen are gone down.”
“But I must be there.”
“Thou canst catch them up after. They will only think thee a slug-a-bed.
Madge, dear Madge, prithee, I cannot rest without. Weeping will be worse
for me.”
She was crying, and caressing Margaret so vehemently that she gained her
point. Indeed the other girl was afraid of her sobs being heard, and
inquired into, and therefore promised to make the attempt, keeping a
watch out of sight till she had seen the Lady of Salisbury in her padded
head-gear of gold net, and long purple train, sweep down the stair,
followed by her tirewomen and maidens of every degree. Then darting into
the chamber, she bore away from a stage where lay the articles of the
toilette, a little silver-backed and handled Venetian mirror, with
beautiful tracery in silvered glass diminishing the very small oval left
for personal reflection and inspection. That, however, was quite enough
and too much for poor Grisell when Lady Margaret had thrown it to her on
her bed, and rushed down the stair so as to come in the rear of the
household just in time.
A glance at the mirror disclosed, not the fair rosy face, set in light
yellow curls, that Grisell had now and then peeped at in a bucket of
water or a polished breast-plate, but a piteous sight. One half, as she
expected, was hidden by bandages, but the other was fiery red, except
that from the corner of the eye to the ear there was a purple scar; the
upper lip was distorted, the hair, eyebrows, and lashes were all gone!
The poor child was found in an agony of sobbing when, after the service,
the old woman who acted as her nurse came stumping up in her wooden clogs
to set the chamber and bed in order for Lady Whitburn’s visit.
The dame was in hot haste to get home. Rumours were rife as to Scottish
invasions, and her tower was not too far south not to need to be on its
guard. Her plan was to pack Grisell on a small litter slung to a sumpter
mule, and she snorted a kind of defiant contempt when the Countess,
backed by the household barber-surgeon, declared the proceeding barbarous
and impossible. Indeed she had probably forgotten that Grisell was far
too tall to be made up into the bundle she intended; but she then
declared that the wench might ride pillion behind old Diccon, and she
would not be convinced till she was taken up to the sick chamber. There
the first sound that greeted them was a choking agony of sobs and moans,
while the tirewoman stood over the bed, exclaiming, “Aye, no wonder; it
serves thee right, thou evil wench, filching my Lady Countess’s mirror
from her very chamber, when it might have been broken for all thanks to
thee. The Venice glass that the merchant gave her! Thou art not so fair
a sight, I trow, as to be in haste to see thyself. At the bottom of all
the scathe in the Castle! We shall be well rid of thee.”
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! Give me that water.” The Countess was raising the poor
child in her arms, and against her bosom, for the shock of that glance in
the mirror, followed by the maid’s harsh reproaches, and fright at the
arrival of the two ladies, had brought on a choking, hysterical sort of
convulsive fit, and the poor girl writhed and gasped on Lady Salisbury’s
breast, while her mother exclaimed, “Heed her not, Lady; it is all put on
to hinder me from taking her home. If she could go stealing to your
room—”
“No, no,” broke out a weeping, frightened voice. “It was I, Lady Aunt.
You bade me never tell her how her poor face looked, and when she begged
and prayed me, I did not say, but I fetched the mirror. Oh! oh! It has
not been the death of her.”
“Nay, nay, by God’s blessing! Take away the glass, Margaret. Go and
tell thy beads, child; thou hast done much scathe unwittingly! Ah,
Master Miles, come to the poor maid’s aid. Canst do aught for her?”
“These humours must be drawn off, my lady,” said the barber-surgeon, who
advanced to the bed, and felt the pulse of the poor little patient. “I
must let her blood.”
Maudlin, whose charge she was, came to his help, and Countess Alice still
held her up, while, after the practice of those days, he bled the already
almost unconscious child, till she fainted and was laid down again on her
pillows, under the keeping of Maudlin, while the clanging of the great
bell called the family down to the meal which broke fast, whether to be
called breakfast or dinner.
It was plain that Grisell was in no state to be taken on a journey, and
her mother went grumbling down the stair at the unchancy bairn always
doing scathe.
Lord Salisbury, beside whom she sat, courteously, though perhaps hardly
willingly, invited her to remain till her daughter was ready to move.
“Nay, my Lord, I am beholden to you, but I may scarce do that. I be
sorely needed at Whitburn Tower. The knaves go all agee when both my
lord and myself have our backs turned, and my lad bairns—worth a dozen of
yon whining maid—should no longer be left to old Cuthbert Ridley and
Nurse. Now the Queen and Somerset have their way ’tis all misrule, and
who knows what the Scots may do?”
“There are Nevils and Dacres enough between Whitburn and the Border,”
observed the Earl gravely. However, the visitor was not such an
agreeable one as to make him anxious to press her stay beyond what
hospitality demanded, and his wife could not bear to think of giving over
her poor little patient to such usage as she would have met with on the
journey.
Lady Whitburn was overheard saying that those who had mauled the maid
might mend her, if they could; and accordingly she acquiesced, not too
graciously, when the Countess promised to tend the child like her own,
and send her by and by to Whitburn under a safe escort; and as Middleham
Castle lay on the way to Whitburn, it was likely that means would be
found of bringing or sending her.
This settled, Lady Whitburn was restless to depart, so as to reach a
hostel before night.
She donned her camlet cloak and hood, and looked once more in upon
Grisell, who after her loss of blood, had, on reviving, been made to
swallow a draught of which an infusion of poppy heads formed a great
part, so that she lay, breathing heavily, in a deep sleep, moaning now
and then. Her mother did not scruple to try to rouse her with calls of
“Grizzy! Look up, wench!” but could elicit nothing but a half turn on
the pillow, and a little louder moan, and Master Miles, who was still
watching, absolutely refused to let his patient be touched or shaken.
“Well a day!” said Lady Whitburn, softened for a moment, “what the Saints
will must be, I trow; but it is hard, and I shall let St. Cuthbert of
Durham know it, that after all the candles I have given him, he should
have let my poor maid be so mauled and marred, and then forsaken by the
rascal who did it, so that she will never be aught but a dead weight on
my two fair sons! The least he can do for me now is to give me my
revenge upon that lurdane runaway knight and his son. But he hath no
care for lassies. Mayhap St. Hilda may serve me better.”
Wherewith the Lady of Whitburn tramped down stairs. It may be feared
that in the ignorance in which northern valleys were left she was very
little more enlightened in her ideas of what would please the Saints, or
what they could do for her, than were the old heathen of some unknown
antiquity who used to worship in the mysterious circles of stones which
lay on the downs of Amesbury.