THE KING-MAKER
O where is faith? O where is loyalty?
SHAKESPEARE, _Henry VI._, _Part II_.
GRISELL was disappointed in her hopes of seeing her Countess of Salisbury
again, for as she rode into the Castle of York she heard the Earl’s
hearty voice of greeting. “Ha, stout Will of Whitburn, well met! What,
from the north?”
The Earl stood talking with a tall brawny man, lean and strong, brown and
weather-beaten, in a frayed suit of buff leather stained to all sorts of
colours, in which rust predominated, and a face all brown and red except
for the grizzled eyebrows, hair, and stubbly beard. She had not seen her
father since she was five years old, and she would not have known him.
“I am from the south now, my lord,” she heard his gruff voice say. “I
have been taking my lad to be bred up in the Duke of York’s house, for
better nurture than can be had in my sea-side tower.”
“Quite right. Well done in you,” responded Warwick. “The Duke of York
is the man to hold by. We have an exchange for you, a daughter for a
son,” and he was leading the way towards Grisell, who had just dismounted
from her pony, and stood by it, trembling a little, and bending for her
father’s blessing. It was not more than a crossing of her, and he was
talking all the time.
“Ha! how now! Methought my Lady of Salisbury had bestowed her in the
Abbey—how call you it?”
“Aye,” returned Warwick; “but since we have not had King or Parliament
with spirit to stand up to the Pope, he thrusts his claw in everywhere,
puts a strange Abbess into Wilton, and what must she do but send down her
Proctor to treat the poor nunnery as it were a sponge, and spite of all
my Lady Mother’s bounties to the place, what lists he do but turn out the
poor maid for lack of a dowry, not so much as giving time for a notice to
be sent.”
“If we had such a rogue in the North Country we should know how to serve
him,” observed Sir William, and Warwick laughed as befitted a
Westmoreland Nevil, albeit he was used to more civilised ways.
“Scurvy usage,” he said, “but the Prioress had no choice save to put her
in such keeping as she could, and send her away to my Lady Mother, or
failing her to her home.”
“Soh! She must e’en jog off with me, though how it is to be with her my
lady may tell, not I, since every groat those villain yeomen and fisher
folk would raise, went to fit out young Rob, and there has not been so
much as a Border raid these four years and more. There are the nuns at
Gateshead, as hard as nails, will not hear of a maid without a dower, and
yonder mansworn fellow Copeland casts her off like an old glove! Let us
look at you, wench! Ha! Face is unsightly enough, but thou wilt not be
a badly-made woman. Take heart, what’s thy name—Grisell? May be there’s
luck for thee still, though it be hard of coming to Whitburn,” he added,
turning to Warwick. “There’s this wench scorched to a cinder, enough to
fright one, and my other lad racked from head to foot with pain and
sores, so as it is a misery to hear the poor child cry out, and even if
he be reared, he will be good for nought save a convent.”
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.