FORGET ME NOT
And added, of her wit,
A border fantasy of branch and flower,
And yellow-throated nestling in the nest.
TENNYSON, _Elaine_.
THE Duchess Isabel sent for Grisell as soon as the rules of etiquette
permitted, and her own mind was free, to attend to the suite of lace
hangings, with which much progress had been made in the interval. She
was in the palace now, greatly honoured, for her son loved her with
devoted affection, and Grisell had to pass through tapestry-hung halls
and chambers, one after another, with persons in mourning, all filled
with men-at-arms first, then servants still in black dresses. Next pages
and squires, knights of the lady, and lastly ladies in black velvet, who
sat at their work, with a chaplain reading to them. One of these, the
Countess of Poitiers, whom Grisell had known at the Grey Sisters’
convent, rose, graciously received her obeisance, and conducted her into
the great State bedroom, likewise very sombre, with black hangings worked
and edged, however, with white, and the window was permitted to let in
the light of day. The bed was raised on steps in an alcove, and was
splendidly draped and covered with black embroidered with white, but the
Duchess did not occupy it. A curtain was lifted, and she came forward in
her deepest robes of widowhood, leading her little granddaughter Mary, a
child of eight or nine years old. Grisell knelt to kiss the hands of
each, and the Duchess said—
“Good Griselda, it is long since I have seen you. Have you finished the
border?”
“Yes, your Highness; and I have begun the edging of the corporal.”
The Duchess looked at the work with admiration, and bade the little Mary,
the damsel of Burgundy, look on and see how the dainty web was woven,
while she signed the maker to seat herself on a step of the alcove.
When the child’s questions and interest were exhausted, and she began to
be somewhat perilously curious about the carved weights of the bobbins,
her grandmother sent her to play with the ladies in the ante-room,
desiring Grisell to continue the work. After a few kindly words the
Duchess said, “The poor child is to have a stepdame so soon as the year
of mourning is passed. May she be good to her! Hath the rumour thereof
reached you in the city, Maid Griselda, that my son is in treaty with
your English King, though he loves not the house of York? But princely
alliances must be looked for in marriage.”
“Madge!” exclaimed Grisell; then colouring, “I should say the Lady
Margaret of York.”
“You knew her?”
“Oh! I knew her. We loved each other well in the Lord of Salisbury’s
house! There never was a maid whom I knew or loved like her!”
“In the Count of Salisbury’s house,” repeated the Duchess. “Were you
there as the Lady Margaret’s fellow-pupil?” she said, as though
perceiving that her lace maker must be of higher quality than she had
supposed.
“It was while my father was alive, madame, and before her father had
fixed his eyes on the throne, your Highness.”
“And your father was, you said, the knight De—De—D’Acor.”
“So please you, madame,” said Grisell kneeling, “not to mention my poor
name to the lady.”
“We are a good way from speech of her,” said the Duchess smiling. “Our
year of doole must pass, and mayhap the treaty will not hold in the
meantime. The King of France would fain hinder it. But if the
Demoiselle loved you of old would she not give you preferment in her
train if she knew?”
“Oh! madame, I pray you name me not till she be here! There is much that
hangs on it, more than I can tell at present, without doing harm; but I
have a petition to prefer to her.”
“An affair of true love,” said the Duchess smiling.
“I know not. Oh! ask me not, madame!”
When Grisell was dismissed, she began designing a pattern, in which in
spray after spray of rich point, she displayed in the pure frostwork-like
web, the Daisy of Margaret, the Rose of York, and moreover, combined
therewith, the saltire of Nevil and the three scallops of Dacre, and each
connected with ramifications of the forget-me-not flower shaped like the
turquoises of her pouncet box, and with the letter G to be traced by
ingenious eyes, though the uninitiated might observe nothing.
She had plenty of time, though the treaty soon made it as much of a
certainty as royal betrothals ever were, but it was not till July came
round again that Bruges was in a crisis of the fever of preparation to
receive the bride. Sculptors, painters, carvers were desperately at work
at the Duke’s palace. Weavers, tapestry-workers, embroiderers,
sempstresses were toiling day and night, armourers and jewellers had no
rest, and the bright July sunshine lay glittering on the canals, graceful
skiffs, and gorgeous barges, and bringing out in full detail the glories
of the architecture above, the tapestry-hung windows in the midst, the
gaily-clad Vrows beneath, while the bells rang out their merriest
carillons from every steeple, whence fluttered the banners of the guilds.
The bride, escorted by Sir Antony Wydville, was to land at Sluys, and
Duchess Isabel, with little Mary, went to receive her.
“Will you go with me as one of my maids, or as a tirewoman perchance?”
asked the Duchess kindly.
Grisell fell on her knee and thanked her, but begged to be permitted to
remain where she was until the bride should have some leisure. And
indeed her doubts and suspense grew more overwhelming. As she freshly
trimmed and broidered Leonard’s surcoat and sword-belt, she heard one of
the many gossips who delighted to recount the members of the English
suite as picked up from the subordinates of the heralds and pursuivants
who had to marshal the procession and order the banquet. “Fair ladies
too,” he said, “from England. There is the Lord Audley’s daughter with
her father. They say she is the very pearl of beauties. We shall see
whether our fair dames do not surpass her.”
“The Lord Audley’s daughter did you say?” asked Grisell.
“His daughter, yea; but she is a widow, bearing in her lozenge, per pale
with Audley, gules three herrings haurient argent, for Heringham. She is
one of the Duchess Margaret’s dames-of-honour.”
To Grisell it sounded like her doom on one side, the crisis of her
self-sacrifice, and the opening of Leonard’s happiness on the other.