“Of all the maids, the foulest maid From Teviot unto Dee. Ah!” sighing said that lady then, “Can ne’er young Harden’s be.”
“THEY are gone,” said Margaret of York, standing half dressed at the deep-set window of the chamber where Grisell lay in state in her big bed.
“Who are gone?” asked Grisell, turning as well as she could under the great heraldically-embroidered covering.
“Leonard Copeland and his father. Did’st not hear the horses’ tramp in the court?”
“I thought it was only my lord’s horses going to the water.”
“It was the Copelands going off without breaking their fast or taking a stirrup cup, like discourteous rogues as they be,” said Margaret, in no measured language.
“And are they gone? And wherefore?” asked Grisell.
“Wherefore? but for fear my noble uncle of Salisbury should hold them to their contract. Sir William sat as surly as a bear just about to be baited, while thy mother rated and raved at him like a very sleuth-hound on the chase. And Leonard—what think’st thou he saith? “That he would as soon wed the loathly lady as thee,” the cruel Somerset villain as he is; and yet my brother Edmund is fain to love him. So off they are gone, like recreant curs as they are, lest my uncle should make them hear reason.”
“But Lady Madge, dear Lady Madge, am I so very loathly?” asked poor Grisell.
“Mine aunt of Salisbury bade that none should tell thee,” responded Margaret, in some confusion.
“Ah me! I must know sooner or later! My mother, she shrieked at sight of me!”
“I would not have your mother,” said the outspoken daughter of “proud Cis.” “My Lady Duchess mother is stern enough if we do not bridle our heads, and if we make ourselves too friendly with the meiné, but she never frets nor rates us, and does not heed so long as we do not demean ourselves unlike our royal blood. She is no termagant like yours.”
It was not polite, but Grisell had not seen enough of her mother to be very sensitive on her account. In fact, she was chiefly occupied with what she had heard about her own appearance—a matter which had not occurred to her before in all her suffering. She returned again to entreat Margaret to tell her whether she was so foully ill-favoured that no one could look at her, and the damsel of York, adhering to the letter rather young than the spirit of the cautions which she had received, pursed up her lips and reiterated that she had been commanded not to mention the subject.