Grisly Grisell; Or, The Laidly Lady of Whitburn: A Tale of the Wars of the Roses by - (summer reads .TXT) 📕

garment she wore, belted round with a strip of leather, had grown upon her, and though Grisell’s own stock of garments was not extensive, she was obliged, for very shame, to dress this strange attendant in what she could best spare, as well as, in spite of sobs and screams, to wash her face, hands, and feet, and it was wonderful how great a difference this made in the wild creature by the time the clang of the castle bell summoned all to the midday meal, when as before, Bernard professed not to be able to look at his sister, but when she had retreated he was seen spying at her through his fingers, with great curiosity.

Afterwards she went up to her mother to beg for a few necessaries for herself and for her maid, and to offer to do some spinning.  She was not very graciously answered; but she was allowed an old frayed horse-cloth on which Thora might sleep, and for the rest she might see what she could find under the stairs in the turret, or in the chest in the hall window.

The broken, dilapidated fragments which seemed to Grisell mere rubbish were treasures and wonders to Thora, and out of them she picked enough to render her dreary chamber a very few degrees more habitable.  Thora would sleep there, and certainly their relations were reversed, for carrying water was almost the only office she performed at first, since Grisell had to dress her, and teach her to keep herself in a tolerable state of neatness, and likewise how to spin, luring her with the hope of spinning yarn for a new dress for herself.  As to prayers, her mind was a mere blank, though she said something that sounded like a spell except that it began with “Pater.”  She did not know who made her, and entirely believed in Niord and Rana, the storm-gods of Norseland.  Yet she had always been to mass every Sunday morning.  So went all the family at the castle as a matter of course, but except when the sacring-bell hushed them, the Baron freely discussed crops or fish with the tenants, and the lady wrangled about dues of lambs, eggs, and fish.  Grisell’s attention was a new thing, and the priest’s pronunciation was so defective to her ear that she could hardly follow.

That first week Grisell had plenty of occupation in settling her room and training her uncouth maid, who proved a much more apt scholar than she had expected, and became devoted to her like a little faithful dog.

No one else took much notice of either, except that at times Cuthbert Ridley showed himself to be willing to stand up for her.  Her father was out a great deal, hunting or hawking or holding consultations with neighbouring knights or the men of Sunderland.  Her mother, with the loudest and most peremptory of voices, ruled over the castle, ordered the men on their guards and at the stables, and the cook, scullions, and other servants, but without much good effect as household affairs were concerned, for the meals were as far removed from the delicate, dainty serving of the simplest fast-day meal at Wilton as from the sumptuous plenty and variety of Warwick house, and Bernard often cried and could not eat.  She longed to make up for him one of the many appetising possets well known at Wilton, but her mother and Ralf the cook both scouted her first proposal.  They wanted no south-bred meddlers over their fire.

However, one evening when Bernard had been fretful and in pain, the Baron had growled out that the child was cockered beyond all bearing, and the mother had flown out at the unnatural father, and on his half laughing at her doting ways, had actually rushed across with clenched fist to box his ears; he had muttered that the pining brat and shrewish dame made the house no place for him, and wandered out to the society of his horses.  Lady Whitburn, after exhaling her wrath in abuse of him and all around, carried the child up to his bed.  There he was moaning, and she trying to soothe him, when, darkness having put a stop to Grisell’s spinning, she went to her chamber with Thora.  In passing, the moaning was still heard, and she even thought her mother was crying.  She ventured to approach and ask, “Fares he no better?  If I might rub that poor leg.”

But Bernard peevishly hid his face and whined, “Go away, Grisly,” and her mother exclaimed, “Away with you, I have enough to vex me here without you.”

She could only retire as fast as possible, and her tears ran down her face as in the long summer twilight she recited the evening offices, the same in which Sister Avice was joining in Wilton chapel.  Before they were over she heard her father come up to bed, and in a harsh and angered voice bid Bernard to be still.  There was stillness for some little time, but by and by the moaning and sobbing began again, and there was a jangling between the gruff voice and the shrill one, now thinner and weaker.  Grisell felt that she must try again, and crept out.  “If I might rub him a little while, and you rest, Lady Mother.  He cannot see me now.”

She prevailed, or rather the poor mother’s utter weariness and dejection did, together with the father’s growl, “Let her bring us peace if she can.”

Lady Whitburn let her kneel down by the bed, and guided her hand to the aching thigh.

“Soft!  Soft!  Good!  Good!” muttered Bernard presently.  “Go on!”

Grisell had acquired something of that strange almost magical touch of Sister Avice, and Bernard lay still under her hand.  Her mother, who was quite worn out, moved to her own bed, and fell asleep, while the snores of the Baron proclaimed him to have been long appeased.  The boy, too, presently was breathing softly, and Grisell’s attitude relaxed, as her prayers and her dreams mingled together, and by and by, what she thought was the organ in Wilton chapel, and the light of St. Edith’s taper, proved to be the musical rush of the incoming tide, and the golden sunrise over the sea, while all lay sound asleep around her, and she ventured gently to withdraw into her own room.

That night was Grisell’s victory, though Bernard still held aloof from her all the ensuing day, when he was really the better and fresher for his long sleep, but at bed-time, when as usual the pain came on, he wailed for her to rub him, and as it was still daylight, and her father had gone out in one of the boats to fish, she ventured on singing to him, as she rubbed, to his great delight and still greater boon to her yearning heart.  Even by day, as she sat at work, the little fellow limped up to her, and said, “Grisly, sing that again,” staring hard in her face as she did so.

p. 112CHAPTER XI
BERNARD

I do remember an apothecary,—
And hereabouts he dwells.

Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet.

Bernard’s affection was as strong as his aversion had been.  Poor little boy, no one had been accustomed enough to sickly children, or indeed to children at all, to know how to make him happy or even comfortable, and his life had been sad and suffering ever since the blight that had fallen on him, through either the evil eye of Nan the witch, or through his fall into a freezing stream.  His brother, a great strong lad, had teased and bullied him; his father, though not actually unkind except when wearied by his fretfulness, held him as a miserable failure, scarcely worth rearing; his mother, though her pride was in her elder son, and the only softness in her heart for the little one, had been so rugged and violent a woman all the years of her life, and had so despised all gentler habits of civilisation, that she really did not know how to be tender to the child who was really her darling.  Her infants had been nursed in the cottages, and not returned to the castle till they were old enough to rough it—indeed they were soon sent off to be bred up elsewhere.  Some failure in health, too, made it harder for her to be patient with an ailing child, and her love was apt to take the form of anger with his petulance or even with his suffering, or else of fierce battles with her husband in his defence.

The comfort would have been in burning Crooked Nan, but that beldame had disposed of herself out of reach, though Lady Whitburn still cherished the hope of forcing the Gilsland Dacres or the Percies to yield the woman up.  Failing this, the boy had been shown to a travelling friar, who had promised cure through the relics he carried about; but Bernard had only screamed at him, and had been none the better.

And now the little fellow had got over the first shock, he found that “Grisly,” as he still called her, but only as an affectionate abbreviation, was the only person who could relieve his pain, or amuse him, in the whole castle; and he was incessantly hanging on her.  She must put him to bed and sing lullabies to him, she must rub his limbs when they ached with rheumatic pains; hers was the only hand which might touch the sores that continually broke out, and he would sit for long spaces on her lap, sometimes stroking down the scar and pitying it with “Poor Grisly; when I am a man, I will throw down my glove, and fight with that lad, and kill him.”

“O nay, nay, Bernard; he never meant to do me evil.  He is a fair, brave, good boy.”

“He scorned and ran away from you.  He is mansworn and recreant,” persisted Bernard.  “Rob and I will make him say that you are the fairest of ladies.”

“O nay, nay.  That he could not.”

“But you are, you are—on this side—mine own Grisly,” cried Bernard, whose experiences of fair ladies had not been extensive, and who curled himself on her lap, giving unspeakable rest and joy to her weary, yearning spirit, as she pressed him to her breast.  “Now, a story, a story,” he entreated, and she was rich in tales from Scripture history and legends of the Saints, or she would sing her sweet monastic hymns and chants, as he nestled in her lap.

The mother had fits of jealousy at the exclusive preference, and now and then would rail at Grisell for cosseting the bairn and keeping him a helpless baby; or at Bernard for leaving his mother for this ill-favoured, useless sister, and would even snatch away the boy, and declare that she wanted no one to deal with him save herself; but Bernard had a will of his own, and screamed for his Grisly, throwing himself about in such a manner that Lady Whitburn was forced to submit, and quite to the alarm of her daughter, on one of these occasions she actually burst into a flood of tears, sobbing loud and without restraint.  Indeed, though she hotly declared that she ailed nothing, there was a lassitude about her that made it a relief to have the care of Bernard taken off her hands; and the Baron’s grumbling at disturbed nights made the removal of Bernard’s bed to his sister’s room generally acceptable.

Once, when Grisell was found to have taught both him and Thora the English version of the Lord’s Prayer and Creed, and moreover to be telling him the story of the Gospel, there came, no one knew from where, an accusation which made her father tramp up and say, “Mark you, wench, I’ll have no Lollards here.”

“Lollards, sir; I never saw a Lollard!” said Grisell trembling.

“Where, then, didst learn all this, making holy things common?”

“We all learnt it at Wilton, sir, from the reverend mothers and the holy father.”

The Baron was fairly satisfied, and muttered that if the bairn was fit only for a shaveling, it might be all right.

Poor child, would he ever be fit for that or any occupation of manhood?  However, Grisell had won permission to compound broths, cakes, and possets for him, over the hall fire, for the cook and his wife would not endure her approach to their domain, and with great reluctance allowed her the materials.  Bernard watched her operations with intense delight and amusement, and tasted with a sense of triumph and appetite, calling on his mother to taste likewise; and she, on whose palate semi-raw or over-roasted joints had begun to pall, allowed that the nuns had taught Grisell something.

And thus as time went on Grisell led no unhappy life.  Every one around was used to her scars, and took no notice of them, and there was nothing to bring the thought before her, except now and then when a fishwife’s baby, brought to her for cure, would scream at her.  She never went beyond