Chapter 25

THE OLD DUCHESS

Temples that rear their stately heads on high, Canals that intersect the fertile plain, Wide streets and squares, with many a court and hall, Spacious and undefined, but ancient all.

SOUTHEY, _Pilgrimage to Waterloo_.

THE kind couple of Groots were exceedingly solicitous about Grisell’s appearance before the Duchess, and much concerned that she could not be induced to wear the head-gear a foot or more in height, with veils depending from the peak, which was the fashion of the Netherlands. Her black robe and hood, permitted but not enjoined in the external or third Order of St. Francis, were, as usual, her dress, and under it might be seen a face, with something peculiar on one side, but still full of sweetness and intelligence; and the years of comfort and quiet had, in spite of anxiety, done much to obliterate the likeness to a cankered oak gall. Lambert wanted to drench her with perfumes, but she only submitted to have a little essence in the pouncet box given her long ago by Lady Margaret at their parting at Amesbury. Master Groot himself chose to conduct her on this first great occasion, and they made their way to the old gateway, sculptured above with figures that still remain, into the great cloistered court, with its chapel, chapter-house, and splendid great airy hall, in which the Hospital Sisters received their patients.

They were seen flitting about, giving a general effect of gray, whence they were known as Sœurs Grises, though, in fact, their dress was white, with a black hood and mantle. The Duchess, however, lived in a set of chambers on one side of the court, which she had built and fitted for herself.

A lay sister became Grisell’s guide, and just then, coming down from the Duchess’s apartments, with a board with a chalk sketch in his hand, appeared a young man, whom Groot greeted as Master Hans Memling, and who had been receiving orders, and showing designs to the Duchess for the ornamentation of the convent, which in later years he so splendidly carried out. With him Lambert remained.

There was a broad stone stair, leading to a large apartment hung with stamped Spanish leather, representing the history of King David, and with a window, glazed as usual below with circles and lozenges, but the upper part glowing with coloured glass. At the farther end was a dais with a sort of throne, like the tester and canopy of a four-post bed, with curtains looped up at each side. Here the Duchess sat, surrounded by her ladies, all in the sober dress suitable with monastic life.

Grisell knew her duty too well not to kneel down when admitted. A dark-complexioned lady came to lead her forward, and directed her to kneel twice on her way to the Duchess. She obeyed, and in that indescribable manner which betrayed something of her breeding, so that after her second obeisance, the manner of the lady altered visibly from what it had been at first as to a burgher maiden. The wealth and luxury of the citizen world of the Low Countries caused the proud and jealous nobility to treat them with the greater distance of manner. And, as Grisell afterwards learnt, this was Isabel de Souza, Countess of Poitiers, a Portuguese lady who had come over with her Infanta; and whose daughter produced _Les Honneurs de la Cour_, the most wonderful of all descriptions of the formalities of the Court.

Grisell remained kneeling on the steps of the dais, while the Duchess addressed her in much more imperfect Flemish than she could by this time speak herself.

“You are the lace weaver, maiden. Can you speak French?”

“_Oui_, _si madame_, _son Altese le veut_,” replied Grisell, for her tongue had likewise become accustomed to French in this city of many tongues.

“This is English make,” said the Duchess, not with a very good French accent either, looking at the specimens handed by her lady. “Are you English?”

“So please your Highness, I am.”

“An exile?” the Princess added kindly.

“Yes, madame. All my family perished in our wars, and I owe shelter to the good Apothecary, Master Lambert.”

“Purveyor of drugs to the sisters. Yes, I have heard of him;” and she then proceeded with her orders, desiring to see the first piece Grisell should produce in the pattern she wished, which was to be of roses in honour of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, whom the Peninsular Isabels reckoned as their namesake and patroness.

It was a pattern which would require fresh pricking out, and much skill; but Grisell thought she could accomplish it, and took her leave, kissing the Duchess’s hand—a great favour to be granted to her—curtseying three times, and walking backwards, after the old training that seemed to come back to her with the atmosphere.

Master Lambert was overjoyed when he heard all. “Now you will find your way back to your proper station and rank,” he said.

“It may do more than that,” said Grisell. “If I could plead his cause.”

Lambert only sighed. “I would fain your way was not won by a base, mechanical art,” he said.

“Out on you, my master. The needle and the bobbin are unworthy of none; and as to the honour of the matter, what did Sir Leonard tell us but that the Countess of Oxford, as now she is, was maintaining her husband by her needle?” and Grisell ended with a sigh at thought of the happy woman whose husband knew of, and was grateful for, her toils.

The pattern needed much care, and Lambert induced Hans Memling himself, who drew it so that it could be pricked out for the cushion. In after times it might have been held a greater honour to work from his pattern than for the Duchess, who sent to inquire after it more than once, and finally desired that Mistress Grisell should bring her cushion and show her progress.

She was received with all the same ceremonies as before, and even the small fragment that was finished delighted the Princess, who begged to see her at work. As it could not well be done kneeling, a footstool, covered in tapestry with the many Burgundian quarterings, was brought, and here Grisell was seated, the Duchess bending over her, and asking questions as her fingers flew, at first about the work, but afterwards, “Where did you learn this art, maiden?”

“At Wilton, so please your Highness. The nunnery of St. Edith, near to Salisbury.”

“St. Edith! I think my mother, whom the Saints rest, spoke of her; but I have not heard of her in Portugal nor here. Where did she suffer?”

“She was not martyred, madame, but she has a fair legend.”

And on encouragement Grisell related the legend of St. Edith and the christening.

“You speak well, maiden,” said the Duchess. “It is easy to perceive that you are convent trained. Have the wars in England hindered your being professed?”

“Nay, madame; it was the Proctor of the Italian Abbess.”

Therewith the inquiries of the Duchess elicited all Grisell’s early story, with the exception of her name and whose was the iron that caused the explosion, and likewise of her marriage, and the accusation of sorcery. That male heirs of the opposite party should have expelled the orphan heiress was only too natural an occurrence. Nor did Grisell conceal her home; but Whitburn was an impossible word to Portuguese lips, and Dacre they pronounced after its crusading derivation De Acor.