The Cloister and the Hearth

C >> Charles Reade >> The Cloister and the Hearth


Whilst he was gone, there came by, on a mule with rich purple housings,
an old man redolent of wealth. The purse at his girdle was plethoric,
the fur on his tippet was ermine, broad and new.

It was Ghysbrecht Van Swieten, the burgomaster of Tergou.

He was old, and his face furrowed. He was a notorious miser, and looked
one generally. But the idea of supping with the Duke raised him just now
into manifest complacency. Yet at the sight of the faded old man and his
bright daughter sitting by a fire of sticks, the smile died out of his
face, and he wore a strange look of pain and uneasiness. He reined in
his mule.

"Why, Peter,--Margaret," said he, almost fiercely, "what mummery is
this?" Peter was going to answer, but Margaret interposed hastily, and
said: "My father was exhausted, so I am warming something to give him
strength before we go on."

"What! reduced to feed by the roadside like the Bohemians," said
Ghysbrecht, and his hand went into his purse; but it did not seem at
home there; it fumbled uncertainly, afraid too large a coin might stick
to a finger and come out.

At this moment who should come bounding up but Gerard. He had two straws
in his hand, and he threw himself down by the fire and relieved Margaret
of the cooking part: then suddenly recognizing the burgomaster, he
coloured all over. Ghysbrecht Van Swieten started and glared at him,
and took his hand out of his purse. "Oh!" said he bitterly, "I am
not wanted," and went slowly on, casting a long look of suspicion on
Margaret, and hostility on Gerard, that was not very intelligible.
However, there was something about it that Margaret could read enough
to blush at, and almost toss her head. Gerard only stared with surprise.
"By St. Bavon, I think the old miser grudges us three our quart
of soup," said he. When the young man put that interpretation on
Ghysbrecht's strange and meaning look, Margaret was greatly relieved,
and smiled gaily on the speaker.

Meanwhile Ghysbrecht plodded on, more wretched in his wealth than these
in their poverty. And the curious thing is, that the mule, the purple
housings, and one-half the coin in that plethoric purse, belonged not to
Ghysbrecht Van Swieten, but to that faded old man and that comely girl,
who sat by a roadside fire to be fed by a stranger. They did not know
this; but Ghysbrecht knew it, and carried in his heart a scorpion of
his own begetting; that scorpion is remorse--the remorse that, not
being penitence, is incurable, and ready for fresh misdeeds upon a fresh
temptation.

Twenty years ago, when Ghysbrecht Van Swieten was a hard and honest man,
the touchstone opportunity came to him, and he did an act of heartless
roguery. It seemed a safe one. It had hitherto proved a safe one, though
he had never felt safe. To-day he had seen youth, enterprise, and, above
all, knowledge, seated by fair Margaret and her father on terms that
look familiar and loving.

And the fiends are at big ear again.



CHAPTER II

"The soup is hot," said Gerard.

"But how are we to get it to our mouths?" inquired the senior,
despondingly.

"Father, the young man has brought us straws." And Margaret smiled
slily.

"Ay, ay!" said the old man; "but my poor bones are stiff, and indeed the
fire is too hot for a body to kneel over with these short straws. St.
John the Baptist, but the young man is adroit!"

For, while he stated his difficulty, Gerard removed it. He untied in a
moment the knot on his breast, took his hat off, put a stone into each
corner of it, then, wrapping his hand in the tail of his jerkin, whipped
the flask off the fire, wedged it in between the stones, and put the
hat under the old man's nose with a merry smile. The other tremulously
inserted the pipe of rye-straw and sucked. Lo and behold, his wan, drawn
face was seen to light up more and more, till it quite glowed; and as
soon as he had drawn a long breath:

"Hippocrates and Galen!" he cried, "'tis a soupe au vin--the restorative
of restoratives. Blessed be the nation that invented it, and the woman
that made it, and the young man who brings it to fainting folk. Have a
suck, my girl, while I relate to our young host the history and virtues
of this his sovereign compound. This corroborative, young sir, was
unknown to the ancients: we find it neither in their treatises of
medicine, nor in those popular narratives, which reveal many of their
remedies, both in chirurgery and medicine proper. Hector, in the Ilias,
if my memory does not play me false--

(Margaret. "Alas! he's off.")

----was invited by one of the ladies of the poem to drink a draught of
wine; but he declined, on the plea that he was just going into battle,
and must not take aught to weaken his powers. Now, if the soupe au vin
had been known in Troy, it is clear that in declining vinum merum upon
that score, he would have added in the hexameter, 'But a soupe au vin,
madam, I will degust, and gratefully.' Not only would this have been but
common civility--a virtue no perfect commander is wanting in--but not
to have done it would have proved him a shallow and improvident person,
unfit to be trusted with the conduct of a war; for men going into a
battle need sustenance and all possible support, as is proved by this,
that foolish generals, bringing hungry soldiers to blows with full ones,
have been defeated, in all ages, by inferior numbers. The Romans lost
a great battle in the north of Italy to Hannibal, the Carthaginian, by
this neglect alone. Now, this divine elixir gives in one moment force to
the limbs and ardour to the spirits; and taken into Hector's body at
the nick of time, would, by the aid of Phoebus, Venus, and the blessed
saints, have most likely procured the Greeks a defeat. For note how
faint and weary and heart-sick I was a minute ago; well, I suck this
celestial cordial, and now behold me brave as Achilles and strong as an
eagle."

"Oh, father, now? an eagle, alack!"

"Girl, I defy thee and all the world. Ready, I say, like a foaming
charger, to devour the space between this and Rotterdam, and strong
to combat the ills of life, even poverty and old age, which last
philosophers have called the summum malum. Negatur; unless the man's
life has been ill-spent--which, by the bye, it generally has. Now for
the moderns!"

"Father! dear father!"

"Fear me not, girl; I will be brief, unreasonably and unseasonably
brief. The soupe au vin occurs not in modern science; but this is only
one proof more, if proof were needed, that for the last few hundred
years physicians have been idiots, with their chicken-broth and their
decoction of gold, whereby they attribute the highest qualities to that
meat which has the least juice of any meat, and to that metal which
has less chemical qualities than all the metals; mountebanks! dunces!
homicides! Since, then, from these no light is to be gathered, go we
to the chroniclers; and first we find that Duguesclin, a French knight,
being about to join battle with the English--masters, at that time, of
half France, and sturdy strikers by sea and land--drank, not one, but
three soupes au vin in honour of the Blessed Trinity. This done, he
charged the islanders; and, as might have been foretold, killed a
multitude, and drove the rest into the sea. But he was only the first
of a long list of holy and hard-hitting ones who have, by this divine
restorative, been sustentated, fortified, corroborated, and consoled."

"Dear father, prithee add thyself to that venerable company ere the
soup cools." And Margaret held the hat imploringly in both hands till he
inserted the straw once more.

This spared them the "modern instances," and gave Gerard an opportunity
of telling Margaret how proud his mother would be her soup had profited
a man of learning.

"Ay! but," said Margaret, "it would like her ill to see her son give all
and take none himself. Why brought you but two straws?"

"Fair mistress, I hoped you would let me put my lips to your straw,
there being but two."

Margaret smiled and blushed. "Never beg that you may command," said she.
"The straw is not mine, 'tis yours: you cut it in yonder field."

"I cut it, and that made it mine; but after that, your lip touched it,
and that made it yours."

"Did it Then I will lend it you. There--now it is yours again; your lip
has touched it."

"No, it belongs to us both now. Let us divide it."

"By all means; you have a knife."

"No, I will not cut it--that would be unlucky. I'll bite it. There I
shall keep my half: you will burn yours, once you get home, I doubt.'

"You know me not. I waste nothing. It is odds but I make a hairpin of
it, or something."

This answer dashed the novice Gerard, instead of provoking him, to fresh
efforts, and he was silent. And now, the bread and soup being disposed
of, the old scholar prepared to continue his journey. Then came a
little difficulty: Gerard the adroit could not tie his ribbon again as
Catherine had tied it. Margaret, after slily eyeing his efforts for
some time, offered to help him; for at her age girls love to be coy and
tender, saucy and gentle, by turns, and she saw she had put him out of
countenance but now. Then a fair head, with its stately crown of auburn
hair, glossy and glowing through silver, bowed sweetly towards him; and,
while it ravished his eye, two white supple hands played delicately upon
the stubborn ribbon, and moulded it with soft and airy touches. Then a
heavenly thrill ran through the innocent young man, and vague glimpses
of a new world of feeling and sentiment opened on him. And these new and
exquisite sensations Margaret unwittingly prolonged: it is not natural
to her sex to hurry aught that pertains to the sacred toilet. Nay, when
the taper fingers had at last subjugated the ends of the knot, her mind
was not quite easy, till, by a manoeuvre peculiar to the female hand,
she had made her palm convex, and so applied it with a gentle pressure
to the centre of the knot--a sweet little coaxing hand-kiss, as much as
to say, "Now be a good knot, and stay so." The palm-kiss was bestowed on
the ribbon, but the wearer's heart leaped to meet it.

"There, that is how it was," said Margaret, and drew back to take one
last keen survey of her work; then, looking up for simple approval
of her skill, received full in her eyes a longing gaze of such ardent
adoration, as made her lower them quickly and colour all over. An
indescribable tremor seized her, and she retreated with downcast lashes
and tell-tale cheeks, and took her father's arm on the opposite side.
Gerard, blushing at having scared her away with his eyes, took the
other arm; and so the two young things went downcast and conscious, and
propped the eagle along in silence.

They entered Rotterdam by the Schiedamze Poort; and, as Gerard was
unacquainted with the town, Peter directed him the way to the Hooch
Straet, in which the Stadthouse was. He himself was going with Margaret
to his cousin, in the Ooster-Waagen Straet, so, almost on entering the
gate, their roads lay apart. They bade each other a friendly adieu, and
Gerard dived into the great town. A profound sense of solitude fell upon
him, yet the streets were crowded. Then he lamented too late that, out
of delicacy, he had not asked his late companions who they were and
where they lived.

"Beshrew my shamefacedness!" said he. "But their words and their
breeding were above their means, and something did whisper me they would
not be known. I shall never see her more. Oh weary world, I hate you and
your ways. To think I must meet beauty and goodness and learning--three
pearls of price--and never see them more!"

Falling into this sad reverie, and letting his body go where it would,
he lost his way; but presently meeting a crowd of persons all moving in
one direction, he mingled with them, for he argued they must be making
for the Stadthouse. Soon the noisy troop that contained the moody Gerard
emerged, not upon the Stadthouse, but upon a large meadow by the side of
the Maas; and then the attraction was revealed. Games of all sorts
were going on: wrestling, the game of palm, the quintain, legerdemain,
archery, tumbling, in which art, I blush to say, women as well as men
performed, to the great delectation of the company. There was also a
trained bear, who stood on his head, and marched upright, and bowed with
prodigious gravity to his master; and a hare that beat a drum, and a
cock that strutted on little stilts disdainfully. These things made
Gerard laugh now and then; but the gay scene could not really enliven
it, for his heart was not in tune with it. So hearing a young man say
to his fellow that the Duke had been in the meadow, but was gone to
the Stadthouse to entertain the burgomasters and aldermen and the
competitors for the prizes, and their friends, he suddenly remembered
he was hungry, and should like to sup with a prince. He left the
river-side, and this time he found the Hooch Straet, and it speedily led
him to the Stadthouse. But when he got there he was refused, first
at one door, then at another, till he came to the great gate of the
courtyard. It was kept by soldiers, and superintended by a pompous
major-domo, glittering in an embroidered collar and a gold chain of
office, and holding a white staff with a gold knob. There was a crowd of
persons at the gate endeavouring to soften this official rock. They came
up in turn like ripples, and retired as such in turn. It cost Gerard a
struggle to get near him, and when he was within four heads of the
gate, he saw something that made his heart beat; there was Peter, with
Margaret on his arm, soliciting humbly for entrance.

"My cousin the alderman is not at home; they say he is here."

"What is that to me, old man?"

"If you will not let us pass in to him, at least take this leaf from my
tablet to my cousin. See, I have written his name; he will come out to
us.

"For what do you take me? I carry no messages, I keep the gate."

He then bawled, in a stentorian voice, inexorably:

"No strangers enter here, but the competitors and their companies."

"Come, old man," cried a voice in the crowd, "you have gotten your
answer; make way."

Margaret turned half round imploringly:

"Good people, we are come from far, and my father is old; and my cousin
has a new servant that knows us not, and would not let us sit in our
cousin's house."

At this the crowd laughed hoarsely. Margaret shrank as if they had
struck her. At that moment a hand grasped hers--a magic grasp; it felt
like heart meeting heart, or magnet steel. She turned quickly round at
it, and it was Gerard. Such a little cry of joy and appeal came from her
bosom, and she began to whimper prettily.

They had hustled her and frightened her, for one thing; and her cousin's
thoughtlessness, in not even telling his servant they were coming,
was cruel; and the servant's caution, however wise and faithful to her
master, was bitterly mortifying to her father and her. And to her so
mortified, and anxious and jostled, came suddenly this kind hand and
face. "Hinc illae lacrimae."

"All is well now," remarked a coarse humourist; "she hath gotten her
sweetheart."

"Haw! haw! haw!" went the crowd.

She dropped Gerard's hand directly, and turned round, with eyes flashing
through her tears:

"I have no sweetheart, you rude men. But I am friendless in your boorish
town, and this is a friend; and one who knows, what you know not, how to
treat the aged and the weak."

The crowd was dead silent. They had only been thoughtless, and now felt
the rebuke, though severe, was just. The silence enabled Gerard to treat
with the porter.

"I am a competitor, sir."

"What is your name?" and the man eyed him suspiciously.

"Gerard, the son of Elias."

The janitor inspected a slip of parchment he held in his hand:

"Gerard Eliassoen can enter."

"With my company, these two?"

"Nay; those are not your company they came before you."

"What matter? They are my friends, and without them I go not in."

"Stay without, then."

"That will I not."

"That we shall see."

"We will, and speedily." And with this, Gerard raised a voice of
astounding volume and power, and routed so that the whole street rang:

"Ho! PHILIP, EARL OF HOLLAND!"

"Are you mad?" cried the porter.

"HERE IS ONE OF YOUR VARLETS DEFIES YOU."

"Hush, hush!"

"AND WILL NOT LET YOUR GUESTS PASS IN."

"Hush! murder! The Dukes there. I'm dead," cried the janitor, quaking.

Then suddenly trying to overpower Gerard's thunder, he shouted, with all
his lungs:

"OPEN THE GATE, YE KNAVES! WAY THERE FOR GERARD ELIASSOEN AND HIS
COMPANY! (The fiends go with him!)"

The gate swung open as by magic. Eight soldiers lowered their pikes
halfway, and made an arch, under which the victorious three marched
in triumphant. The moment they had passed, the pikes clashed together
horizontally to bar the gateway, and all but pinned an abdominal citizen
that sought to wedge in along with them.

Once past the guarded portal, a few steps brought the trio upon a scene
of Oriental luxury. The courtyard was laid out in tables loaded with
rich meats and piled with gorgeous plate. Guests in rich and various
costumes sat beneath a leafy canopy of fresh-cut branches fastened
tastefully to golden, silver, and blue silken cords that traversed the
area; and fruits of many hues, including some artificial ones of gold,
silver, and wax, hung pendant, or peeped like fair eyes among the green
leaves of plane-trees and lime-trees. The Duke's minstrels swept their
lutes at intervals, and a fountain played red Burgundy in six jets that
met and battled in the air. The evening sun darted its fires through
those bright and purple wine spouts, making them jets and cascades of
molten rubies, then passing on, tinged with the blood of the grape,
shed crimson glories here and there on fair faces, snowy beards, velvet,
satin, jewelled hilts, glowing gold, gleaming silver, and sparkling
glass. Gerard and his friends stood dazzled, spell-bound. Presently
a whisper buzzed round them, "Salute the Duke! Salute the Duke!" They
looked up, and there on high, under the dais, was their sovereign,
bidding them welcome with a kindly wave of the hand. The men bowed low,
and Margaret curtsied with a deep and graceful obeisance. The Duke's
hand being up, he gave it another turn, and pointed the new-comers out
to a knot of valets. Instantly seven of his people, with an obedient
start, went headlong at our friends, seated them at a table, and put
fifteen many-coloured soups before them, in little silver bowls, and as
many wines in crystal vases.

"Nay, father, let us not eat until we have thanked our good friend,"
said Margaret, now first recovering from all this bustle.

"Girl, he is our guardian angel."

Gerard put his face into his hands.

"Tell me when you have done," said he, "and I will reappear and have
my supper, for I am hungry. I know which of us three is the happiest at
meeting again."

"Me?" inquired Margaret.

"No: guess again."

"Father?"

"No."

"Then I have no guess which it can be;" and she gave a little crow of
happiness and gaiety. The soup was tasted, and vanished in a twirl
of fourteen hands, and fish came on the table in a dozen forms, with
patties of lobster and almonds mixed, and of almonds and cream, and an
immense variety of brouets known to us as rissoles. The next trifle was
a wild boar, which smelt divine. Why, then, did Margaret start away from
it with two shrieks of dismay, and pinch so good a friend as Gerard?
Because the Duke's cuisinier had been too clever; had made this
excellent dish too captivating to the sight as well as taste. He had
restored to the animal, by elaborate mimicry with burnt sugar and other
edible colours, the hair and bristles he had robbed him of by fire and
water. To make him still more enticing, the huge tusks were carefully
preserved in the brute's jaw, and gave his mouth the winning smile that
comes of tusk in man or beast; and two eyes of coloured sugar glowed
in his head. St. Argus! what eyes! so bright, so bloodshot, so
threatening--they followed a man and every movement of his knife and
spoon. But, indeed, I need the pencil of Granville or Tenniel to make
you see the two gilt valets on the opposite side of the table putting
the monster down before our friends, with a smiling, self-satisfied,
benevolent obsequiousness for this ghastly monster was the flower of all
comestibles--old Peter clasping both hands in pious admiration of
it; Margaret wheeling round with horror-stricken eyes and her hand on
Gerard's shoulder, squeaking and pinching; his face of unwise delight at
being pinched, the grizzly brute glaring sulkily on all, and the guests
grinning from ear to ear.

"What's to do?" shouted the Duke, hearing the signals of female
distress. Seven of his people with a zealous start went headlong and
told him. He laughed and said, "Give her of the beef-stuffing, then, and
bring me Sir Boar." Benevolent monarch! The beef-stuffing was his own
private dish. On these grand occasions an ox was roasted whole, and
reserved for the poor. But this wise as well as charitable prince had
discovered, that whatever venison, bares, lamb, poultry, etc., you
skewered into that beef cavern, got cooked to perfection, retaining
their own juices and receiving those of the reeking ox. These he called
his beef-stuffing, and took delight therein, as did now our trio;
for, at his word, seven of his people went headlong, and drove silver
tridents into the steaming cave at random, and speared a kid, a cygnet,
and a flock of wildfowl. These presently smoked before Gerard and
company; and Peter's face, sad and slightly morose at the loss of the
savage hog, expanded and shone. After this, twenty different tarts of
fruits and herbs, and last of all, confectionery on a Titanic scale;
cathedrals of sugar, all gilt painted in the interstices of the
bas-reliefs; castles with moats, and ditches imitated to the life;
elephants, camels, toads; knights on horseback jousting; kings and
princesses looking on trumpeters blowing; and all these personages
eating, and their veins filled with sweet-scented juices: works of art
made to be destroyed. The guests breached a bastion, crunched a crusader
and his horse and lance, or cracked a bishop, cope, chasuble, crosier
and all, as remorselessly as we do a caraway comfit; sipping meanwhile
hippocras and other spiced drinks, and Greek and Corsican wines, while
every now and then little Turkish boys, turbaned, spangled, jewelled,
and gilt, came offering on bended knee golden troughs of rose-water and
orange-water to keep the guests' hands cool and perfumed.

But long before our party arrived at this final stage appetite had
succumbed, and Gerard had suddenly remembered he was the bearer of a
letter to the Princess Marie, and, in an under-tone, had asked one of
the servants if he would undertake to deliver it. The man took it with
a deep obeisance: "He could not deliver it himself, but would instantly
give it one of the Princess's suite, several of whom were about."

It may be remembered that Peter and Margaret came here not to dine, but
to find their cousin. Well, the old gentleman ate heartily, and--being
much fatigued, dropped asleep, and forgot all about his cousin. Margaret
did not remind him; we shall hear why.

Meanwhile, that Cousin was seated within a few feet of them, at their
backs, and discovered them when Margaret turned round and screamed
at the boar. But he forbore to speak to them, for municipal reasons.
Margaret was very plainly dressed, and Peter inclined to threadbare. So
the alderman said to himself:

"'Twill be time to make up to them when the sun sets and the company
disperses then I will take my poor relations to my house, and none will
be the wiser."

Half the courses were lost on Gerard and Margaret. They were no great
eaters, and just now were feeding on sweet thoughts that have ever been
unfavourable to appetite. But there is a delicate kind of sensuality,
to whose influence these two were perhaps more sensitive than any other
pair in that assembly--the delights of colour, music, and perfume, all
of which blended so fascinatingly here.

Margaret leaned back and half closed her eyes, and murmured to Gerard:
"What a lovely scene! the warm sun, the green shade, the rich dresses,
the bright music of the lutes and the cool music of the fountain, and
all faces so happy and gay! and then, it is to you we owe it."

Gerard was silent all but his eyes; observing which--

"Now, speak not to me," said Margaret languidly; "let me listen to the
fountain: what are you a competitor for?"

He told her.

"Very well! You will gain one prize, at least."

"Which? which? have you seen any of my work?"

"I? no. But you will gain a prize.

"I hope so; but what makes you think so?"

"Because you were so good to my father."

Gerard smiled at the feminine logic, and hung his head at the sweet
praise, and was silent.

"Speak not," murmured Margaret. "They say this is a world of sin and
misery. Can that be? What is your opinion?"

"No! that is all a silly old song," explained Gerard. "'Tis a byword our
elders keep repeating, out of custom: it is not true."