STRANGE GUESTS
The needle, having nought to do,
Was pleased to let the magnet wheedle,
Till closer still the tempter drew,
And off at length eloped the needle.
T. MOORE.
THE nine days of mourning were spent in entire seclusion by Grisell, who
went through every round of devotions prescribed or recommended by the
Church, and felt relief and rest in them. She shrank when Ridley on the
tenth day begged her no longer to seclude herself in the solar, but to
come down to the hall and take her place as Lady of the Castle, otherwise
he said he could not answer for the conduct of Copeland’s men.
“Master Hardcastle desires it too,” he said. “He is a good lad enough,
but I doubt me whether his hand is strong enough over those fellows! You
need not look for aught save courtesy from him! Come down, lady, or you
will never have your rights.”
“Ah, Cuthbert, what are my rights?”
“To be mistress of your own castle,” returned Ridley, “and that you will
never be unless you take the upper hand. Here are all our household
eating with these rogues of Copeland’s, and who is to keep rule if the
lady comes not?”
“Alack, and how am I to do so?”
However, the consideration brought her to appear at the very early
dinner, the first meal of the day, which followed on the return from
mass. Pierce Hardcastle met her shyly. He was a tall slender stripling,
looking weak and ill, and he bowed very low as he said, “Greet you well,
lady,” and looked up for a moment as if in fear of what he might
encounter. Grisell indeed was worn down with long watching and grief,
and looked haggard and drawn so as to enhance all her scars and
distortion of feature into more uncomeliness than her wont. She saw him
shudder a little, but his lame arm and wan looks interested her kind
heart. “I fear me you are still feeling your wound, sir,” she said, in
the sweet voice which was evidently a surprise to him.
“It is my plea for having been a slug-a-bed this morning,” he answered.
They sat down at the table. Grisell between Ridley and Hardcastle, the
servants and men-at-arms beyond. Porridge and broth and very small ale
were the fare, and salted meat would be for supper, and as Grisell knew
but too well already, her own retainers were grumbling at the voracious
appetites of the men-at-arms as much as did their unwilling guests at the
plainness and niggardliness of the supply.
Thora had begged for a further allowance of beer for them, or even to
broach a cask of wine. “For,” said she, “they are none such fiends as we
thought, if one knows how to take them courteously.”
“There is no need that you should have any dealings with them, Thora,”
said her lady, with some displeasure; “Master Ridley sees to their
provision.”
Thora tossed up her head a little and muttered something about not being
mewed out of sight and speech of all men. And when she attended her lady
to the hall there certainly were glances between her and a slim young
archer.
The lady’s presence was certainly a restraint on the rude men-at-arms,
though two or three of them seemed to her rough, reckless-looking men.
After the meal all her kindly instincts were aroused to ask what she
could do for the young squire, and he willingly put himself into her
hands, for his hurt had become much more painful within the last day or
two, as indeed it proved to be festering, and in great need of treatment.
Before the day was over the two had made friends, and Grisell had found
him to be a gentle, scholarly youth, whom the defence of the Queen had
snatched from his studies into the battlefield. He told her a great deal
about the good King, and his encouragement of his beloved scholars at
Eton, and he spoke of Queen Margaret with an enthusiasm new to Grisell,
who had only heard her reviled as the Frenchwoman. Pierce could speak
with the greatest admiration, too, of his own knight, Sir Leonard, whom
he viewed as the pink of chivalry, assuring Lady Copeland, as he called
her, that she need never doubt for a moment of his true honour and
courtesy. Grisell longed to know, but modest pride forbade her to ask,
whether he knew how matters stood with her rival, Lady Eleanor Audley.
Ridley, however, had no such feeling, and he reported to Grisell what he
had discovered.
Young Hardcastle had only once seen the lady, and had thought her very
beautiful, as she looked from a balcony when King Henry was riding to his
Parliament. Leonard Copeland, then a squire, was standing beside her,
and it had been currently reported that he was to be her bridegroom.
He had returned from his captivity after the battle of Northampton
exceedingly downcast, but striving vehemently in the cause of Lancaster,
and Hardcastle had heard that the question had been discussed whether the
forced marriage had been valid, or could be dissolved; but since the
bodies of Lord Whitburn and his son had been found on the ground at
Wakefield, this had ceased, and it was believed that Queen Margaret had
commanded Sir Leonard, on his allegiance, to go and take possession of
Whitburn and its vassals in her cause.
But Pierce Hardcastle had come to Ridley’s opinion, that did his knight
but shut his eyes, the Lady Grisell was as good a mate as man could wish
both in word and deed.
“I would fain,” said he, “have the Lady Eleanor to look at, but this lady
to dress my hurts, ay, and talk with me. Never met I woman who was so
good company! She might almost be a scholar at Oxford for her wit.”
However much solace the lady might find in the courtesy of Master
Hardcastle, she was not pleased to find that her hand-maiden Thora
exchanged glances with the young men-at-arms; and in a few days Ridley
spoke to Grisell, and assured her that mischief would ensue if the silly
wench were not checked in her habit of loitering and chattering whenever
she could escape from her lady’s presence in the solar, which Grisell
used as her bower, only descending to the hall at meal-times.
Grisell accordingly rebuked her the next time she delayed unreasonably
over a message, but the girl pouted and muttered something about young
Ralph Hart helping her with the heavy pitcher up the stair.
“It is unseemly for a maiden to linger and get help from strange
soldiers,” said Grisell.
“No more unseemly than for the dame to be ever holding converse with
their captain,” retorted the North Country hand-maiden, free of speech
and with a toss of the head.
“Whist, Thora! or you must take a buffet,” said Grisell, clenching a fist
unused to striking, and trying to regard chastisement as a duty. “You
know full well that my only speech with Master Hardcastle is as his
hostess.”
Thora laughed. “Ay, lady; I ken well what the men say. How that poor
youth is spell-bound, and that you are casting your glamour over him as
of old over my poor old lady and little Master Bernard.”
“For shame, Thora, to bring me such tales!” and Grisell’s hand actually
descended on her maiden’s face, but so slight was the force that it only
caused a contemptuous laugh, which so angered the young mistress as to
give her energy to strike again with all her might.
“And you’d beat me,” observed her victim, roused to anger. “You are so
ill favoured yourself that you cannot bear a man to look on a fair maid!”
“What insolence is this?” cried Grisell, utterly amazed. “Go into the
turret room, spin out this hank, and stay there till I call you to
supper. Say your Ave, and recollect what beseems a modest maiden.”
She spoke with authority, which Thora durst not resist, and withdrew
still pouting and grumbling.
Grisell was indeed young herself and inexperienced, and knew not that her
wrath with the girl might be perilous to herself, while sympathy might
have evoked wholesome confidence.
For the maiden, just developing into northern comeliness, was attractive
enough to win the admiration of soldiers in garrison with nothing to do,
and on her side their notice, their rough compliments, and even their
jests, were delightful compared with the dulness of her mistress’s
mourning chamber, and court enough was paid to her completely to turn her
head. If there were love and gratitude lurking in the bottom of her
heart towards the lady who had made a fair and skilful maiden out of the
wild fisher girl, all was smothered in the first strong impulse of love
for this young Ralph Hart, the first to awaken the woman out of the
child.
The obstacles which Grisell, like other prudent mistresses in all times,
placed in the course of this true love, did but serve to alienate the
girl and place her in opposition. The creature had grown up as wild and
untamed as one of the seals on the shore, and though she had had a little
training and teaching of late years, it was entirely powerless when once
the passion was evoked in her by the new intercourse and rough
compliments of the young archer, and she was for the time at his beck and
call, regarding her lady as her tyrant and enemy. It was the old story
of many a household.