The sad question and answer of "No change" passed, and then Ridley,
his gruff voice unnecessarily hushed, said, "Featherstone would speak
with you, lady. He would know whether it be your pleasure to keep
him in your service to hold out the Tower, or whether he is free to
depart."
"Mine!" said Grisell bewildered.
"Yea!" exclaimed Ridley. "You are Lady of Whitburn!"
"Ah! It is true," exclaimed Grisell, clasping her hands. "Woe is me
that it should be so! And oh! Cuthbert! my husband, if he lives, is
a Queen's man! What can I do?"
"If it were of any boot I would say hold out the Tower. He deserves
no better after the scurvy way he treated you," said Cuthbert grimly.
"He may be dead, too, though Harry fears he was but stunned."
"But oh!" cried Grisell, as if she saw one gleam of light, "did not I
hear something of his trying to save my brother and Lord Edmund?"
"You had best come down and hear," said Ridley. "Featherstone cannot
go till he has spoken with you, and he ought to depart betimes, lest
the Gilsland folk and all the rest of them be ravening on their way
back."
Grisell looked at her mother, who lay in the same state, entirely
past her reach. The hard, stern woman, who had seemed to have no
affection to bestow on her daughter, had been entirely broken down
and crushed by the loss of her sons and husband.
Probably neither had realised that by forcing Grisell on young
Copeland they might be giving their Tower to their enemy.
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