“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?”
“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?”