More than twenty prelates were present, and shared in the mass, which began in the morning hour, and in the requiem. The heralds of all the domains broke their white staves and threw them on the bier, proclaiming that Philip, lord of all these lands, was deceased. Then, as in the case of royalty, Charles his son was proclaimed; and the organ led an acclamation of jubilee from all the assembly which filled the church, and a shout as of thunder arose, "Vivat Carolus."
Charles knelt meanwhile with hands clasped over his brow, silent, immovable. Was he crushed at thought of the whirlwinds of passion that had raged between him and the father whom he had loved all the time? or was there on him the weight of a foreboding that he, though free from the grosser faults of his father, would never win and keep hearts in the same manner, and that a sad, tumultuous, troubled career and piteous, untimely end lay before him?
His mother, Grisell's Duchess, according to the rule of the Court, lay in bed for six weeks-at least she was bound to lie there whenever she was not in entire privacy. The room and bed were hung with black, but a white covering was over her, and she was fully dressed in the black and white weeds of royal widowhood. The light of day was excluded, and hosts of wax candles burnt around.
Grisell did not see her during this first period of stately mourning, but she heard that the good lady had spent her time in weeping and praying for her husband, all the more earnestly that she had little cause personally to mourn him.
CHAPTER XXVII-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."