Читать книгу Red and White: A Tale of the Wars of the Roses онлайн | страница 16

"Madam, it shall be meet for your Ladyship's wearing to-morrow."

"Well, see thou fail me not, for I would have it for our Lady Day in harvest.—Well, Avice Hilton, what wouldst?"

Avice Hilton, who was a young lady of about eighteen years, had been waiting the pleasure of her mistress for some minutes.

"An't like you, Madam, your new chamberer that shall be, is now come."

"The Lord Marnell his daughter?"

"She, Madam."

"Hath she eaten aught?"

"Aye, Madam, in the hall."

"Good. Bring her hither."

Frideswide Marston was not a timid or nervous girl by any means, but her heart beat somewhat faster as Avice Hilton introduced her to the presence of the Countess of Warwick, the woman who had more of the reality of queenship than either of those ladies whom the partisans of the rival Roses termed the Queen.

She saw a pleasant upper chamber, about twenty feet square, whose windows looked over the beautiful vale of Wensleydale. It was hung with tapestry on which scenes from the Quest of the Sangraal were delineated. At the lower end three young ladies were busily at work of various kinds: on the daïs, or raised step at the further end, nearest the windows, stood the tailor with his roll of satin over his arm, and two ladies were seated, the elder in a chair of carved wood, the younger in a more elaborate one inlaid with ivory. In those days people did not take the seat they found most comfortable, but were carefully restricted to a certain fashion of chair, according to delicate gradations of rank. Frideswide, being a well-educated young person, as education went in the fifteenth century, had no difficulty in perceiving that she was in the presence of the Countess of Warwick and her daughter, the bride of the royal Clarence.

The Countess of Warwick was a rather slightly-made woman, but tall, with a long pale face, haggard features bearing traces of great former beauty, and a particularly prominent pair of blue eyes.[#] As is often the case with persons who exhibit the last-named feature, she was at no loss for language. She was the daughter, and now the only surviving child, of that Earl of Warwick who had held a conspicuous place in the burning of the Maid of Orleans, and of Isabel, heiress of Le Despenser. All the old prestige and associations of the House of Warwick centred in her, not her husband. How far her influence over him may have been for good or evil, is not an easy question. What evidence there is, is mostly negative, and tends to show that the Countess Anne exercised but little influence of any kind, and was of a type likely to be more concerned about the burning of the marchpane in her own oven, than about the burning of a city at some distance. If this be so, she is much to be pitied: for of the seed of future misery which Warwick sowed, the heaviest portion of the harvest was reaped by her and by the best and dearest of her daughters.