Читать книгу Red and White: A Tale of the Wars of the Roses онлайн | страница 17

[#] All the members of the Warwick family, and also those of the royal family, are described so far as is practicable from contemporary portraits.

The young Duchess of Clarence, who was in her nineteenth year, was a woman cast in another mould. She resembled her father in character, and her mother in features: but she was more beautiful than the Countess had ever been, and was accounted "the finest young lady in England." She was fair, with blue eyes and shining light hair, over which she wore the new head-dress, which consisted of a most elaborate erection of wire-work, surmounted by a veil of transparent gauze, so that the hair, for many years concealed, was left fully visible.

Head-dresses were now, and for a long time had been, the most important portion of the female costume. The variety was nearly as astounding as the size. Hearts, horns, crowns, and steeples, were all represented: and a full-dressed lady, in all her paraphernalia, was a formidable object both as to cost and dimensions.

Frideswide found herself put through a lively fire of interrogatories by the Countess, who might have been projecting the writing of memoirs of the whole Marnell family, to judge from the minute and numerous details into which she descended. The Duchess sat generally a silent listener, but occasionally interjected a query. At last the Countess looked across the room, and summoned Avice.

"There, take the new maid to you, and show her what shall be her duty," said she. "See that she wants for nought, and say to Bonham 'tis my desire she be set a-work."

Frideswide followed Avice to the further end of the room, where she was introduced to her remaining fellow-chamberers as Theobalda Salvin and Eleanor Farley. Beyond them, and hitherto concealed by a chair, she suddenly perceived a fourth person, in the shape of a little old lady, so very little as to be almost a dwarf, with the cheeriest and brightest of faces.

"Mother Bonham," said Avice, "'tis my Lady's good pleasure you set Mistress Frideswide a-work."