Clemence had her place too, but she shrank from the society she could not share, and while most of the burghers’ wives spent the summer evening sitting spinning or knitting on the steps of the stoop, conversing with their gossips, she preferred to take her distaff or needle among the roses, sometimes tending them, sometimes beguiling Grisell to come and take the air in company with her, for they understood one another’s mute language; and when Lambert Groot was with his old friends they sufficed for one another—so far as Grisell’s anxious heart could find solace, and perhaps in none so much as the gentle matron who could caress but could not talk.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE CANKERED OAK GALL
That Walter was no fool, though that him list
To change his wif, for it was for the best;
For she is fairer, so they demen all,
Than his Griselde, and more tendre of age.Chaucer, The Clerke’s Tale.
It was on an early autumn evening when the belfry stood out beautiful against the sunset sky, and the storks with their young fledglings were wheeling homewards to their nest on the roof, that Leonard was lying on the deep oriel window of the guest-chamber, and Grisell sat opposite to him with a lace pillow on her lap, weaving after the pattern of Wilton for a Church vestment.
“The storks fly home,” he said. “I marvel whether we have still a home in England, or ever shall have one!”
“I heard tell that the new King of France is friendly to the Queen and her son,” said Grisell.
“He is near of kin to them, but he must keep terms with this old Duke who sheltered him so long. Still, when he is firm fixed on his throne he may yet bring home our brave young Prince and set the blessed King on his throne once more.”
“Ah! You love the King.”
“I revere him as a saint, and feel as though I drew my sword in a holy cause when I fight for him,” said Leonard, raising himself with glittering eyes.
“And the Queen?”