OLD PLAYFELLOWS
Alone thou goest forth,
Thy face unto the north,
Moor and pleasance all around thee and beneath thee.
E. BARRETT BROWNING, _A Valediction_.
ONE great pleasure fell to Grisell’s share, but only too brief. The
family of the Duke of York on their way to Baynard’s Castle halted at
Warwick House, and the Duchess Cecily, tall, fair, and stately, sailed
into the hall, followed by three fair daughters, while Warwick, her
nephew, though nearly of the same age, advanced with his wife to meet and
receive her.
In the midst of the exchange of affectionate but formal greetings a cry
of joy was heard, “My Grisell! yes, it is my Grisell!” and springing from
the midst of her mother’s suite, Margaret Plantagenet, a tall, lovely,
dark-haired girl, threw her arms round the thin slight maiden with the
scarred face, which excited the scorn and surprise of her two sisters.
“Margaret! What means this?” demanded the Duchess severely.
“It is my Grisell Dacre, fair mother, my dear companion at my aunt of
Salisbury’s manor,” said Margaret, trying to lead forward her shrinking
friend. “She who was so cruelly scathed.”
Grisell curtsied low, but still hung back, and Lord Warwick briefly
explained. “Daughter to Will Dacre of Whitburn, a staunch baron of the
north. My mother bestowed her at Wilton, whence the creature of the
Pope’s intruding Abbess has taken upon him to expel her. So I am about
to take her to Middleham, where my mother may see to her further
bestowal.”
“We have even now come from Middleham,” said the Duchess. “My Lord Duke
sent for me, but he looks to you, my lord, to compose the strife between
your father and the insolent Percies.”
The Duke was at Windsor with the poor insane King, and the Earl and the
Duchess plunged into a discussion of the latest news of the northern
counties and of the Court. The elder daughters were languidly
entertained by the Countess, but no one disturbed the interview of
Margaret and Grisell, who, hand in hand, had withdrawn into the embrasure
of a window, and there fondled each other, and exchanged tidings of their
young lives, and Margaret told of friends in the Nevil household.
All too soon the interview came to an end. The Duchess, after partaking
of a manchet, was ready to proceed to Baynard’s Castle, and the Lady
Margaret was called for. Again, in spite of surprised, not to say
displeased looks, she embraced her dear old playfellow. “Don’t go into a
convent, Grisell,” she entreated. “When I am wedded to some great earl,
you must come and be my lady, mine own, own dear friend. Promise me!
Your pledge, Grisell.”
There was no time for the pledge. Margaret was peremptorily summoned.
They would not meet again. The Duchess’s intelligence had quickened
Warwick’s departure, and the next day the first start northwards was to
be made.
It was a mighty cavalcade. The black guard, namely, the kitchen ménage,
with all their pots and pans, kettles and spits, were sent on a day’s
march beforehand, then came the yeomen, the knights and squires, followed
by the more immediate attendants of the Earl and Countess and their
court. She travelled in a whirlicote, and there were others provided for
her elder ladies, the rest riding singly or on pillions according to age
or taste. Grisell did not like to part with her pony, and Dame Gresford
preferred a pillion to the bumps and jolts of the waggon-like conveyances
called chariots, so Grisell rode by her side, the fresh spring breezes
bringing back the sense of being really a northern maid, and she threw
back her veil whenever she was alone with the attendants, who were used
to her, though she drew it closely round when she encountered town or
village. There were resting-places on the way. In great monasteries all
were accommodated, being used to close quarters; in castles there was
room for the “Gentles,” who, if they fared well, heeded little how they
slept, and their attendants found lairs in the kitchens or stables. In
towns there was generally harbour for the noble portion; indeed in some,
Warwick had dwellings of his own, or his father’s, but these, at first,
were at long distances apart, such as would be ridden by horsemen alone,
not encumbered with ladies, and there were intermediate stages, where
some of the party had to be dispersed in hostels.
It was in one of these, at Dunstable, that Dame Gresford had taken
Grisell, and there were also sundry of the gentlemen of the escort. A
minstrel was esconced under the wide spread of the chimney, and began to
sound his harp and sing long ballads in recitative to the company.
Whether he did it in all innocence and ignorance, or one of the young
squires had mischievously prompted him, there was no knowing; Dame
Gresford suspected the latter, when he began the ballad of “Sir Gawaine’s
Wedding.” She would have silenced it, but feared to draw more attention
on her charge, who had never heard the song, and did not know what was
coming, but listened with increasing eagerness as she heard of King
Arthur, and of the giant, and the secret that the King could not guess,
till as he rode—
He came to the green forest,
Underneath a green hollen tree,
There sat that lady in red scarlet
That unseemly was to see.
Some eyes were discourteously turned on the maiden, but she hardly saw
them, and at any rate her nose was not crooked, nor had her eyes and
mouth changed places, as in the case of the “Loathly Lady.” She heard of
the condition on which the lady revealed the secret, and how King Arthur
bound himself to bring a fair young knight to wed the hideous being.
Then when he revealed to his assembled knights—
Then some took up their hawks,
And some took up their hounds,
And some sware they would not marry her
For cities nor for towns.
Glances again went towards the scarred visage, but Grisell was heedless
of them, only listening how Sir Gawaine, Arthur’s nephew, felt that his
uncle’s oath must be kept, and offered himself as the bridegroom.
Then after the marriage, when he looked on the lady, instead of the
loathly hag he beheld a fair damsel! And he was told by her that he
might choose whether she should be foul at night and fair by day, or fair
each evening and frightful in the daylight hours. His choice at first
was that her beauty should be for him alone, in his home, but when she
objected that this would be hard on her, since she could thus never show
her face when other dames ride with their lords—
Then buke him gentle Gawayne,
Said, “Lady, that’s but a shill;
Because thou art mine own lady
Thou shalt have all thy will.”
And his courtesy broke the spell of the stepdame, as the lady related—
“She witched me, being a fair young lady,
To the green forest to dwell,
And there must I walk in woman’s likeness,
Most like a fiend in hell.”
Thenceforth the enchantment was broken, and Sir Gawaine’s bride was fair
to see.
Grisell had listened intently, absorbed in the narrative, so losing
personal thought and feeling that it was startling to her to perceive
that Dame Gresford was trying to hush a rude laugh, and one of the young
squires was saying, “Hush, hush! for very shame.”
Then she saw that they were applying the story to her, and the blood
rushed into her face, but the more courteous youth was trying to turn
away attention by calling on the harper for “The Beggar of Bethnal
Green,” or “Lord Thomas and Fair Annet,” or any merry ballad. So it was
borne in on Grisell that to these young gentlemen she was the lady
unseemly to see. Yet though a few hot tears flowed, indignant and
sorrowful, the sanguine spirit of youth revived. “Sister Avice had told
her how to be not loathly in the sight of those whom she could teach to
love her.”
There was one bound by a pledge! Ah, he would never fulfil it. If he
should, Grisell felt a resolute purpose within her that though she could
not be transformed, he should not see her loathly in his sight, and in
that hope she slept.