Clement sighed. He began to doubt whether he had taken the wisest course with a creature so passionate.
But young as he was, he had already learned many lessons of ecclesiastical wisdom. For one thing he had been taught to pause, ie., in certain difficulties, neither to do nor to say anything, until the matter should clear itself a little.
He therefore held his peace and prayed for wisdom.
All he did was gently to withdraw his foot.
But his penitent flung her arms round it with a piteous cry, and held it convulsively, and wept over it.
And now the agony of shame, as well as penitence, she was in, showed itself by the bright red that crept over her very throat, as she lay quivering at his feet.
“My daughter,” said Clement gently, “take courage. Torment thyself no more about this Gerard, who is not. As for me, I am Brother Clement, whom Heaven hath sent to thee this day to comfort thee, and help thee save thy soul. Thou last made me thy confessor, I claim, then, thine obedience.”
“Oh, yes,” sobbed the penitent.
“Leave this pilgrimage, and instant return to Rome. Penitence abroad is little worth. There where we live lie the temptations we must defeat, or perish; not fly in search of others more showy, but less lethal. Easy to wash the feet of strangers, masked ourselves, Hard to be merely meek and charitable with those about us.”
“I'll never, never lay finger on her again.”
“Nay, I speak not of servants only, but of dependents, kinsmen, friends. This be thy penance; the last thing at night, and the first thing after matins, call to mind thy sin, and God His goodness; and so be humble and gentle to the faults of those around thee. The world it courts the rich; but seek thou the poor: not beggars; these for the most are neither honest nor truly poor. But rather find out those who blush to seek thee, yet need thee sore. Giving to them shalt lend to Heaven. Marry a good son of the Church.”
“Me? I will never marry.”
“Thou wilt marry within the year. I do entreat and command thee to marry one that feareth God. For thou art very clay. Mated ill thou shalt be naught. But wedding a worthy husband thou mayest, Dei gratia, live a pious princess; ay, and die a saint.”
“I?”
“Thou.”
He then desired her to rise and go about the good work he had set her.
She rose to her knees, and removing her mask, cast an eloquent look upon him, then lowered her eyes meekly.
“I will obey you as I would an angel. How happy I am, yet unhappy; for oh, my heart tells me I shall never look on you again. I will not go till I have dried your feet.”
“It needs not. I have excused thee this bootless penance.”
“'Tis no penance to me. Ah! you do not forgive me, if you will not let me dry your poor feet.”
“So be it then,” said Clement resignedly; and thought to himself, “Levius quid foemina.”
But these weak creatures, that gravitate towards the small, as heavenly bodies towards the great, have yet their own flashes of angelic intelligence.
When the princess had dried the friar's feet, she looked at him with tears in her beautiful eyes, and murmured with singular tenderness and goodness—
“I will have masses said for her soul. May I?” she added timidly.
This brought a faint blush into the monk's cheek, and moistened his cold blue eye. It came so suddenly from one he was just rating so low.
“It is a gracious thought,” he said. “Do as thou wilt: often such acts fall back on the doer like blessed dew. I am thy confessor, not hers; thine is the soul I must now do my all to save, or woe be to my own. My daughter, my dear daughter, I see good and ill angels fighting for thy soul this day, ay, this moment; oh, fight thou on thine own side. Dost thou remember all I bade thee?”
“Remember!” said the princess. “Sweet saint, each syllable of thine is graved in my heart.”
“But one word more, then. Pray much to Christ, and little to his saints.”
“I will.”
“And that is the best word I have light to say to thee. So part we on it. Thou to the place becomes thee best, thy father's house, I to my holy mother's work.”
“Adieu,” faltered the princess. “Adieu, thou that I have loved too well, hated too ill, known and revered too late; forgiving angel, adieu—for ever.”
The monk caught her words, though but faltered in a sigh.
“For ever?” he cried aloud, with sudden ardour. “Christians live 'for ever,' and love 'for ever,' but they never part 'for ever. They part, as part the earth and sun, to meet more brightly in a little while. You and I part here for life. And what is our life? One line in the great story of the Church, whose son and daughter we are; one handful in the sand of time, one drop in the ocean of 'For ever.' Adieu—for the little moment called 'a life!' We part in trouble, we shall meet in peace: we part creatures of clay, we shall meet immortal spirits: we part in a world of sin and sorrow, we shall meet where all is purity and love divine; where no ill passions are, but Christ is, and His saints around Him clad in white. There, in the turning of an hour-glass, in the breaking of a bubble, in the passing of a cloud, she, and thou, and I, shall meet again; and sit at the feet of angels and archangels, apostles and saints, and beam like them with joy unspeakable, in the light of the shadow of God upon His throne, FOR EVER—AND EVER—AND EVER.”
And so they parted. The monk erect, his eyes turned heavenwards and glowing with the sacred fire of zeal; the princess slowly retiring and turning more than once to cast a lingering glance of awe and tender regret on that inspired figure.
She went home subdued, and purified. Clement, in due course, reached Basle, and entered on his duties, teaching in the University, and preaching in the town and neighbourhood. He led a life that can be comprised in two words; deep study, and mortification. My reader has already a peep into his soul. At Basle he advanced in holy zeal and knowledge.
The brethren of his order began to see in him a descendant of the saints and martyrs.
When little Gerard was nearly three months old, a messenger came hot from Tergou for Catherine.
“Now just you go back,” said she, “and tell them I can't come, and I won't: they have got Kate,” So he departed, and Catherine continued her sentence; “there, child, I must go: they are all at sixes and sevens: this is the third time of asking; and to-morrow my man would come himself and take me home by the ear, with a flea in't.” She then recapitulated her experiences of infants, and instructed Margaret what to do in each coming emergency, and pressed money upon her, Margaret declined it with thanks, Catherine insisted, and turned angry. Margaret made excuses all so reasonable that Catherine rejected them with calm contempt; to her mind they lacked femininity,
“Come, out with your heart,” said she “and you and me parting; and mayhap shall never see one another's face again.”
“Oh! mother, say not so.”
“Alack, girl, I have seen it so often; 'twill come into my mind now at each parting, When I was your age, I never had such a thought, Nay, we were all to live for ever then: so out wi' it.”
“Well, then, mother—I would rather not have told you—your Cornelis must say to me, 'So you are come to share with us, eh, mistress?' those were his words, I told him I would be very sorry.
“Beshrew his ill tongue! What signifies it? He will never know,
“Most likely he would sooner or later, But whether or no, I will take no grudged bounty from any family; unless I saw my child starving, and—Heaven only knows what I might do, Nay, mother, give me but thy love—I do prize that above silver, and they grudge me not that, by all I can find—for not a stiver of money will I take out of your house.”
“You are a foolish lass, Why, were it me, I'd take it just to spite him.”
“No, you would not, You and I are apples off one tree”
Catherine yielded with a good grace; and when the actual parting came, embraces and tears burst forth on both sides.
When she was gone the child cried a good deal; and all attempts to pacify him failing, Margaret suspected a pin, and searching between his clothes and his skin, found a gold angel incommoding his backbone.
“There, now, Gerard,” said she to the babe; “I thought granny gave in rather sudden.”
She took the coin and wrapped it in a piece of linen, and laid it at the bottom of her box, bidding the infant observe she could be at times as resolute as granny herself.
Catherine told Eli of Margaret's foolish pride, and how she had baffled it. Eli said Margaret was right, and she was wrong.
Catherine tossed her head. Eli pondered.
Margaret was not without domestic anxieties. She had still two men to feed, and could not work so hard as she had done. She had enough to do to keep the house, and the child, and cook for them all. But she had a little money laid by, and she used to tell her child his father would be home to help them before it was spent. And with these bright hopes, and that treasury of bliss, her boy, she spent some happy months.
Time wore on; and no Gerard came; and stranger still, no news of him.
Then her mind was disquieted, and contrary to her nature, which was practical, she was often lost in sad reverie; and sighed in silence. And while her heart was troubled, her money was melting. And so it was, that one day she found the cupboard empty, and looked in her dependents' faces; and at the sight of them, her bosom was all pity; and she appealed to the baby whether she could let grandfather and poor old Martin want a meal; and went and took out Catherine's angel. As she unfolded the linen a tear of gentle mortification fell on it. She sent Martin out to change it. While he was gone a Frenchman came with one of the dealers in illuminated work, who had offered her so poor a price. He told her he was employed by his sovereign to collect masterpieces for her book of hours. Then she showed him the two best things she had; and he was charmed with one of them, viz., the flowers and raspberries and creeping things, which Margaret Van Eyck had shaded. He offered her an unheard-of price. “Nay, flout not my need, good stranger,” said she; “three mouths there be in this house, and none to fill them but me.”
Curious arithmetic! Left out No. 1.
“I'd out thee not, fair mistress. My princess charged me strictly, 'Seek the best craftsmen'; but I will no hard bargains; make them content with me, and me with them.'”
The next minute Margaret was on her knees kissing little Gerard in the cradle, and showering four gold pieces on him again and again, and relating the whole occurrence to him in very broken Dutch,
“And oh, what a good princess: wasn't she? We will pray for her, won't we, my lambkin; when we are old enough?”
Martin came in furious. “They will not change it. I trow they think I stole it.”
“I am beholden to thee,” said Margaret hastily, and almost snatched it from Martin, and wrapped it up again, and restored it to its hiding-place.
Ere these unexpected funds were spent, she got to her ironing and starching again. In the midst of which Martin sickened; and died after an illness of nine days.
Nearly all her money went to bury him decently.
He was gone; and there was an empty chair by her fireside, For he had preferred the hearth to the sun as soon as the Busy Body was gone.
Margaret would not allow anybody to sit in this chair now. Yet whenever she let her eye dwell too long on it vacant, it was sure to cost her a tear.
And now there was nobody to carry her linen home, To do it herself she must leave little Gerard in charge of a neighbour, But she dared not trust such a treasure to mortal; and besides she could not bear him out of her sight for hours and hours. So she set inquiries on foot for a boy to carry her basket on Saturday and Monday.
A plump, fresh-coloured youth, called Luke Peterson, who looked fifteen, but was eighteen, came in, and blushing, and twiddling his bonnet, asked her if a man would not serve her turn as well as a boy.
Before he spoke she was saying to herself, “This boy will just do.”
But she took the cue, and said, “Nay; but a man will maybe seek more than I can well pay.
“Not I,” said Luke warmly. “Why, Mistress Margaret, I am your neighbour, and I do very well at the coopering. I can carry your basket for you before or after my day's work, and welcome, You have no need to pay me anything. 'Tisn't as if we were strangers, ye know.”
“Why, Master Luke, I know your face, for that matter; but I cannot call to mind that ever a word passed between us.”
“Oh yes, you did, Mistress Margaret. What, have you forgotten? One day you were trying to carry your baby and eke your pitcher full o' water; and quo' I, 'Give me the baby to carry.' 'Nay, says you, 'I'll give you the pitcher, and keep the bairn myself;' and I carried the pitcher home, and you took it from me at this door, and you said to me, 'I am muckle obliged to you, young man,' with such a sweet voice; not like the folk in this street speak to a body.”
“I do mind now, Master Luke; and methinks it was the least I could say.”
“Well, Mistress Margaret, if you will say as much every time I carry your basket, I care not how often I bear it, nor how far.”
“Nay, nay,” said Margaret, colouring faintly. “I would not put upon good nature, You are young, Master Luke, and kindly. Say I give you your supper on Saturday night, when you bring the linen home, and your dawn-mete o' Monday; would that make us anyways even?”
“As you please; only say not I sought a couple o' diets! for such a trifle as yon.”
With chubby-faced Luke's timely assistance, and the health and strength which Heaven gave this poor young woman, to balance her many ills, the house went pretty smoothly awhile. But the heart became more and more troubled by Gerard's long, and now most mysterious silence.
And then that mental torturer, Suspense, began to tear her heavy heart with his hot pincers, till she cried often and vehemently, “Oh, that I could know the worst.”
Whilst she was in this state, one day she heard a heavy step mount the stair. She started and trembled, “That is no step that I know. Ill tidings?”
The door opened, and an unexpected visitor, Eli, came in, looking grave and kind.
Margaret eyed him in silence, and with increasing agitation,
“Girl.” said he, “the skipper is come back.”
“One word,” gasped Margaret; “is he alive?”
“Surely I hope so. No one has seen him dead.”
“Then they must have seen him alive.”
“No, girl; neither dead nor alive hath he been seen this many months in Rome. My daughter Kate thinks he is gone to some other city. She bade me tell you her thought.”
“Ay, like enough,” said Margaret gloomily; “like enough. My poor babe!”
The old man in a faintish voice asked her for a morsel to eat: he had come fasting.
The poor thing pitied him with the surface of her agitated mind, and cooked a meal for him, trembling, and scarce knowing what she was about.
Ere he went he laid his hand upon her head, and said, “Be he alive, or be he dead, I look on thee as my daughter. Can I do nought for thee this day? bethink thee now?”
“Ay, old man. Pray for him; and for me!”
Eli sighed, and went sadly and heavily down the stairs.
She listened half stupidly to his retiring footsteps till they ceased. Then she sank moaning down by the cradle, and drew little Gerard tight to her bosom. “Oh, my poor fatherless boy; my fatherless boy!”
Not long after this, as the little family at Tergou sat at dinner, Luke Peterson burst in on them, covered with dust. “Good people, Mistress Catherine is wanted instantly at Rotterdam.”
“My name is Catherine, young man. Kate, it will be Margaret.”
“Ay, dame, she said to me, 'Good Luke, hie thee to Tergou, and ask for Eli the hosier, and pray his wife Catherine to come to me, for God His love.' I didn't wait for daylight.”
“Holy saints! He has come home, Kate. Nay, she would sure have said so. What on earth can it be?” And she heaped conjecture on conjecture.
“Mayhap the young man can tell us,” hazarded Kate timidly.
“That I can,” said Luke, “Why, her babe is a-dying, And she was so wrapped up in it!”
Catherine started up: “What is his trouble?”
“Nay, I know not. But it has been peaking and pining worse and worse this while.”
A furtive glance of satisfaction passed between Cornelis and Sybrandt. Luckily for them Catherine did not see it. Her face was turned towards her husband. “Now, Eli,” cried she furiously, “if you say a word against it, you and I shall quarrel, after all these years.'
“Who gainsays thee, foolish woman? Quarrel with your own shadow, while I go borrow Peter's mule for ye.”
“Bless thee, my good man! Bless thee! Didst never yet fail me at a pinch, Now eat your dinners who can, while I go and make ready.”
She took Luke back with her in the cart, and on the way questioned and cross-questioned him severely and seductively by turns, till she had turned his mind inside out, what there was of it.
Margaret met her at the door, pale and agitated, and threw her arms round her neck, and looked imploringly in her face.
“Come, he is alive, thank God,” said Catherine, after scanning her eagerly.
She looked at the failing child, and then at the poor hollow-eyed mother, alternately, “Lucky you sent for me,” said she, “The child is poisoned.”
“Poisoned! by whom?”
“By you. You have been fretting.”
“Nay, indeed, mother. How can I help fretting?”
“Don't tell me, Margaret. A nursing mother has no business to fret. She must turn her mind away from her grief to the comfort that lies in her lap. Know you not that the child pines if the mother vexes herself? This comes of your reading and writing. Those idle crafts befit a man; but they keep all useful knowledge out of a woman. The child must be weaned.”
“Oh, you cruel woman,” cried Margaret vehemently; “I am sorry I sent for you. Would you rob me of the only bit of comfort I have in the world? A-nursing my Gerard, I forget I am the most unhappy creature beneath the sun.”
“That you do not,” was the retort, “or he would not be the way he is.”
“Mother!” said Margaret imploringly.
“'Tis hard,” replied Catherine, relenting. “But bethink thee; would it not be harder to look down and see his lovely wee face a-looking up at you out of a little coffin?”
“Oh, Jesu!”
“And how could you face your other troubles with your heart aye full, and your lap empty?”
“Oh, mother, I consent to anything. Only save my boy.”
“That is a good lass, Trust to me! I do stand by, and see clearer than thou.”
Unfortunately there was another consent to be gained—the babe's; and he was more refractory than his mother.
“There,” said Margaret, trying to affect regret at his misbehaviour; “he loves me too well.”
But Catherine was a match for them both. As she came along she had observed a healthy young woman, sitting outside her own door, with an infant, hard by. She went and told her the case; and would she nurse the pining child for the nonce, till she had matters ready to wean him?
The young woman consented with a smile, and popped her child into the cradle, and came into Margaret's house. She dropped a curtsey, and Catherine put the child into her hands. She examined, and pitied it, and purred over it, and proceeded to nurse it, just as if it had been her own.
Margaret, who had been paralyzed at her assurance, cast a rueful look at Catherine, and burst out crying.
The visitor looked up. “What is to do? Wife, ye told me not the mother was unwilling.”
“She is not: she is only a fool. Never heed her; and you, Margaret, I am ashamed of you.”
“You are a cruel, hard-hearted woman,” sobbed Margaret.
“Them as take in hand to guide the weak need be hardish. And you will excuse me; but you are not my flesh and blood; and your boy is.”
After giving this blunt speech time to sink, she added, “Come now, she is robbing her own to save yours, and you can think of nothing better than bursting out a-blubbering in the woman's face. Out fie, for shame!”
“Nay, wife,” said the nurse. “Thank Heaven, I have enough for my own and for hers to boot. And prithee wyte not on her! Maybe the troubles o' life ha' soured her own milk.”
“And her heart into the bargain,” said the remorseless Catherine.
Margaret looked her full in the face; and down went her eyes.
“I know I ought to be very grateful to you,” sobbed Margaret to the nurse: then turned her head and leaned away over the chair, not to witness the intolerable sight of another nursing her Gerard, and Gerard drawing no distinction between this new mother and her the banished one.
The nurse replied, “You are very welcome, my poor woman. And so are you, Mistress Catherine, which are my townswoman, and know it not.”
“What, are ye from Tergou? all the better, But I cannot call your face to mind.”
“Oh, you know not me: my husband and me, we are very humble folk by you. But true Eli and his wife are known of all the town; and respected, So, I am at your call, dame; and at yours, wife; and yours, my pretty poppet; night or day.”
“There's a woman of the right old sort,” said Catherine, as the door closed upon her.
“I HATE her. I HATE her. I HATE her,” said Margaret, with wonderful fervour.
Catherine only laughed at this outburst.
“That is right,” said she; “better say it, as set sly and think it. It is very natural after all, Come, here is your bundle o' comfort. Take and hate that, if ye can;” and she put the child in her lap.
“No, no,” said Margaret, turning her head half way from him; she could not for her life turn the other half. “He is not my child now; he is hers. I know not why she left him here, for my part. It was very good of her not to take him to her house, cradle and all; oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! oh oh! oh!”
“Ah! well, one comfort, he is not dead. This gives me light: some other woman has got him away from me; like father, like son; oh! oh! oh! oh! oh!”
Catherine was sorry for her, and let her cry in peace. And after that, when she wanted Joan's aid, she used to take Gerard out, to give him a little fresh air. Margaret never objected; nor expressed the least incredulity; but on their return was always in tears.
This connivance was short-lived. She was now altogether as eager to wean little Gerard. It was done; and he recovered health and vigour; and another trouble fell upon him directly teething, But here Catherine's experience was invaluable; and now, in the midst of her grief and anxiety about the father, Margaret had moments of bliss, watching the son's tiny teeth come through. “Teeth, mother? I call them not teeth, but pearls of pearls.” And each pearl that peeped and sparkled on his red gums, was to her the greatest feat Nature had ever achieved.
Her companion partook the illusion. And had we told them standing corn was equally admirable, Margaret would have changed to a reproachful gazelle, and Catherine turned us out of doors; so each pearl's arrival was announced with a shriek of triumph by whichever of them was the fortunate discoverer.
Catherine gossiped with Joan, and learned that she was the wife of Jorian Ketel of Tergou, who had been servant to Ghysbrecht Van Swieten, but fallen out of favour, and come back to Rotterdam, his native place. His friends had got him the place of sexton to the parish, and what with that and carpentering, he did pretty well.
Catherine told Joan in return whose child it was she had nursed, and all about Margaret and Gerard, and the deep anxiety his silence had plunged them in. “Ay,” said Joan, “the world is full of trouble.” One day she said to Catherine, “It's my belief my man knows more about your Gerard than anybody in these parts; but he has got to be closer than ever of late. Drop in some day just afore sunset, and set him talking. And for our Lady's sake say not I set you on. The only hiding he ever gave me was for babbling his business; and I do not want another. Gramercy! I married a man for the comfort of the thing, not to be hided.”
Catherine dropped in. Jorian was ready enough to tell her how he had befriended her son and perhaps saved his life. But this was no news to Catherine; and the moment she began to cross-question him as to whether he could guess why her lost boy neither came nor wrote, he cast a grim look at his wife, who received it with a calm air of stolid candour and innocent unconsciousness; and his answers became short and sullen.
“What should he know more than another?” and so on. He added, after a pause, “Think you the burgomaster takes such as me into his secrets?”
“Oh, then the burgomaster knows something?” said Catherine sharply.
“Likely. Who else should?”
“I'll ask him.”
“I would.”
“And tell him you say he knows.”
“That is right, dame. Go make him mine enemy. That is what a poor fellow always gets if he says a word to you women.”
And Jorian from that moment shrunk in and became impenetrable as a hedgehog, and almost as prickly.
His conduct caused both the poor women agonies of mind, alarm, and irritated curiosity. Ghysbrecht was for some cause Gerard's mortal enemy; had stopped his marriage, imprisoned him, hunted him. And here was his late servant, who when off his guard had hinted that this enemy had the clue to Gerard's silence. After sifting Jorian's every word and look, all remained dark and mysterious. Then Catherine told Margaret to go herself to him. “You are young, you are fair. You will maybe get more out of him than I could.”
The conjecture was a reasonable one.
Margaret went with her child in her arms and tapped timidly at Jorian's door just before sunset. “Come in,” said a sturdy voice. She entered, and there sat Jorian by the fireside. At sight of her he rose, snorted, and burst out of the house. “Is that for me, wife?” inquired Margaret, turning very red.
“You must excuse him,” replied Joan, rather coldly; “he lays it to your door that he is a poor man instead of a rich one. It is something about a piece of parchment, There was one amissing, and he got nought from the burgomaster all along of that one.”
“Alas! Gerard took it.”
“Likely, But my man says you should not have let him: you were pledged to him to keep them all safe. And sooth to Say, I blame not my Jorian for being wroth, 'Tis hard for a poor man to be so near fortune and lose it by those he has befriended. However, I tell him another story. Says I, 'Folk that are out o' trouble like you and me didn't ought to be too hard on folk that are in trouble; and she has plenty. Going already? What is all your hurry, mistress?”
“Oh, it is not for me to drive the goodman out of his own house.”
“Well, let me kiss the bairn afore ye go. He is not in fault anyway, poor innocent.”
Upon this cruel rebuff Margaret came to a resolution, which she did not confide even to Catherine.
After six weeks' stay that good woman returned home.
On the child's birthday, which occurred soon after, Margaret did no work; but put on her Sunday clothes, and took her boy in her arms and went to the church and prayed there long and fervently for Gerard's safe return.
That same day and hour Father Clement celebrated a mass and prayed for Margaret's departed soul in the minster church at Basle.
Some blackguard or other, I think it was Sybrandt, said, “A lie is not like a blow with a curtal axe.”
True: for we can predict in some degree the consequences of a stroke with any material weapon. But a lie has no bounds at all. The nature of the thing is to ramify beyond human calculation.
Often in the everyday world a lie has cost a life, or laid waste two or three.
And so, in this story, what tremendous consequences of that one heartless falsehood!
Yet the tellers reaped little from it.
The brothers, who invented it merely to have one claimant the less for their father's property, saw little Gerard take their brother's place in their mother's heart. Nay, more, one day Eli openly proclaimed that, Gerard being lost, and probably dead, he had provided by will for little Gerard, and also for Margaret, his poor son's widow.
At this the look that passed between the black sheep was a caution to traitors. Cornelis had it on his lips to say. Gerard was most likely alive, But he saw his mother looking at him, and checked himself in time.
Ghysbrecht Van Swieten, the other partner in that lie, was now a failing man. He saw the period fast approaching when all his wealth would drop from his body, and his misdeeds cling to his soul.
Too intelligent to deceive himself entirely, he had never been free from gusts of remorse. In taking Gerard's letter to Margaret he had compounded. “I cannot give up land and money,” said his giant Avarice. “I will cause her no unnecessary pain,” said his dwarf Conscience.
So, after first tampering with the seal, and finding there was not a syllable about the deed, he took it to her with his own hand; and made a merit of it to himself: a set-off; and on a scale not uncommon where the self-accuser is the judge.
The birth of Margaret's child surprised and shocked him, and put his treacherous act in a new light. Should his letter take effect he should cause the dishonour of her who was the daughter of one friend, the granddaughter of another, and whose land he was keeping from her too.
These thoughts preying on him at that period of life when the strength of body decays, and the memory of old friends revives, filled him with gloomy horrors. Yet he was afraid to confess. For the cure was an honest man, and would have made him disgorge. And with him Avarice was an ingrained habit, Penitence only a sentiment.
Matters were thus when, one day, returning from the town hall to his own house, he found a woman waiting for him in the vestibule, with a child in her arms. She was veiled, and so, concluding she had something to be ashamed of, he addressed her magisterially, On this she let down her veil and looked him full in the face.
It was Margaret Brandt.
Her sudden appearance and manner startled him, and he could not conceal his confusion.
“Where is my Gerard?” cried she, her bosom heaving. “Is he alive?”
“For aught I know,” stammered Ghysbrecht. “I hope so, for your sake. Prithee come into this room. The servants!”
“Not a step,” said Margaret, and she took him by the shoulder, and held him with all the energy of an excited woman. “You know the secret of that which is breaking my heart. Why does not my Gerard come, nor send a line this many months? Answer me, or all the town is like to hear me, let alone thy servants, My misery is too great to be sported with.”
In vain he persisted he knew nothing about Gerard. She told him those who had sent her to him told her another tale.
“You do know why he neither comes nor sends,” said she firmly.
At this Ghysbrecht turned paler and paler; but he summoned all his dignity, and said, “Would you believe those two knaves against a man of worship?”
“What two knaves?” said she keenly.
He stammered, “Said ye not—? There I am a poor old broken man, whose memory is shaken. And you come here, and confuse me so, I know not what I say.”
“Ay, sir, your memory is shaken, or sure you would not be my enemy. My father saved you from the plague, when none other would come anigh you; and was ever your friend. My grandfather Floris helped you in your early poverty, and loved you, man and boy. Three generations of us you have seen; and here is the fourth of us; this is your old friend Peter's grandchild, and your old friend Floris his great-grandchild. Look down on his innocent face, and think of theirs!”
“Woman, you torture me,” sighed Ghysbrecht, and sank upon a bench. But she saw her advantage, and kneeled before him, and put the boy on his knees. “This fatherless babe is poor Margaret Brandt's, that never did you ill, and comes of a race that loved you. Nay, look at his face. 'Twill melt thee more than any word of mine, Saints of heaven, what can a poor desolate girl and her babe have done to wipe out all memory of thine own young days, when thou wert guiltless as he is, that now looks up in thy face and implores thee to give him back his father?”
And with her arms under the child she held him up higher and higher, smiling under the old man's eyes.
He cast a wild look of anguish on the child, and another on the kneeling mother, and started up shrieking, “Avaunt, ye pair of adders.”
The stung soul gave the old limbs a momentary vigour, and he walked rapidly, wringing his hands and clutching at his white hair. “Forget those days? I forget all else. Oh, woman, woman, sleeping or waking I see but the faces of the dead, I hear but the voices of the dead, and I shall soon be among the dead, There, there, what is done is done. I am in hell. I am in hell.”
And unnatural force ended in prostration.
He staggered, and but for Margaret would have fallen, With her one disengaged arm she supported him as well as she could and cried for help.
A couple of servants came running, and carried him away in a state bordering on syncope, The last Margaret saw of him was his old furrowed face, white and helpless as his hair that hung down over the servant's elbow.
“Heaven forgive me,” she said. “I doubt I have killed the poor old man.”
Then this attempt to penetrate the torturing mystery left it as dark, or darker than before. For when she came to ponder every word, her suspicion was confirmed that Ghysbrecht did know something about Gerard. “And who were the two knaves he thought had done a good deed, and told me? Oh, my Gerard, my poor deserted babe, you and I are wading in deep waters.”
The visit to Tergou took more money than she could well afford; and a customer ran away in her debt. She was once more compelled to unfold Catherine's angel. But strange to say, as she came down stairs with it in her hand she found some loose silver on the table, with a written line—
For Gerard his wife.
She fell with a cry of surprise on the writing; and soon it rose into a cry of joy.
“He is alive. He sends me this by some friendly hand.”
She kissed the writing again and again, and put it in her bosom.
Time rolled on, and no news of Gerard.
And about every two months a small sum in silver found its way into the house. Sometimes it lay on the table. Once it was flung in through the bedroom window in a purse. Once it was at the bottom of Luke's basket. He had stopped at the public-house to talk to a friend. The giver or his agent was never detected. Catherine disowned it. Margaret Van Eyck swore she had no hand in it. So did Eli. And Margaret, whenever it came, used to say to little Gerard, “Oh, my poor deserted child, you and I are wading in deep waters.”
She applied at least half this modest, but useful supply, to dressing the little Gerard beyond his station in life. “If it does come from Gerard, he shall see his boy neat.” All the mothers in the street began to sneer, especially such as had brats out at elbows.
The months rolled on, and dead sickness of heart succeeded to these keener torments. She returned to her first thought: “Gerard must be dead. She should never see her boy's father again, nor her marriage lines.” This last grief, which had been somewhat allayed by Eli and Catherine recognizing her betrothal, now revived in full force; others would not look so favourably on her story. And often she moaned over her boy's illegitimacy.
“Is it not enough for us to be bereaved? Must we be dishonoured too? Oh, that we had ne'er been born.”
A change took place in Peter Brandt. His mind, clouded for nearly two years, seemed now to be clearing; he had intervals of intelligence; and then he and Margaret used to talk of Gerard, till he wandered again. But one day, returning after an absence of some hours, Margaret found him conversing with Catherine, in a way he had never done since his paralytic stroke. “Eh, girl, why must you be out?” said she. “But indeed I have told him all; and we have been a-crying together over thy troubles.”
Margaret stood silent, looking joyfully from one to the other.
Peter smiled on her, and said, “Come, let me bless thee.”
She kneeled at his feet, and he blessed her most eloquently.
He told her she had been all her life the lovingest, truest, and most obedient daughter Heaven ever sent to a poor old widowed man. “May thy son be to thee what thou hast been to me!”
After this he dozed. Then the females whispered together; and Catherine said—“All our talk e'en now was of Gerard. It lies heavy on his mind. His poor head must often have listened to us when it seemed quite dark. Margaret, he is a very understanding man; he thought of many things: 'He may be in prison, says he, 'or forced to go fighting for some king, or sent to Constantinople to copy books there, or gone into the Church after all.' He had a bent that way.”
“Ah, mother,” whispered Margaret, in reply, “he doth but deceive himself as we do.”
Ere she could finish the sentence, a strange interruption occurred.
A loud voice cried out, “I SEE HIM, I SEE HIM.”
And the old man with dilating eyes seemed to be looking right through the wall of the house.
“IN A BOAT; ON A GREAT RIVER; COMING THIS WAY. Sore disfigured; but I knew him. Gone! gone! all dark.”
And he sank back, and asked feebly where was Margaret.
“Dear father, I am by thy side, Oh, mother! mother, what is this?”
“I cannot see thee, and but a moment agone I saw all round the world, Ay, ay. Well, I am ready. Is this thy hand? Bless thee, my child, bless thee! Weep not! The tree is ripe.”
The old physician read the signs aright. These calm words were his last. The next moment he drooped his head, and gently, placidly, drifted away from earth, like an infant sinking to rest, The torch had flashed up before going out.