The Cloister and the Hearth

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


"How can you know? You are but a child," said Margaret, with pensive
dignity.

"Why, only look round! And then thought I had lost you for ever; and you
are by my side; and now the minstrels are going to play again. Sin and
misery? Stuff and nonsense!"

The lutes burst out. The courtyard rang again with their delicate
harmony.

"What do you admire most of all these beautiful things, Gerard?"

"You know my name? How is that?"

"White magic. I am a--witch."

"Angels are never witches. But I can't think how you--"

"Foolish boy! was it not cried at the gate loud enough to deave one?"

"So it was. Where is my head? What do I admire most? If you will sit a
little more that way, I'll tell you."

"This way?"

"Yes; so that the light may fall on you. There! I see many fair things
here, fairer than I could have conceived; but the fairest of all, to
my eye, is your lovely hair in its silver frame, and the setting sun
kissing it. It minds me of what the Vulgate praises for beauty, 'an
apple of gold in a network of silver,' and oh, what a pity I did not
know you before I sent in my poor endeavours at illuminating! I could
illuminate so much better now. I could do everything better. There, now
the sun is full on it, it is like an aureole. So our Lady looked, and
none since her until to-day."

"Oh, fie! it is wicked to talk so. Compare a poor, coarse-favoured girl
like me with the Queen of Heaven? Oh, Gerard! I thought you were a good
young man." And Margaret was shocked apparently.

Gerard tried to explain. "I am no worse than the rest; but how can I
help having eyes, and a heart Margaret!"

"Gerard!"

"Be not angry now!"

"Now, is it likely?"

"I love you."

"Oh, for shame! you must not say that to me," and Margaret coloured
furiously at this sudden assault.

"I can't help it. I love you. I love you."

"Hush, hush! for pity's sake! I must not listen to such words from a
stranger. I am ungrateful to call you a stranger. Oh! how one may be
mistaken! If I had known you were so bold--" And Margaret's bosom began
to heave, and her cheeks were covered with blushes, and she looked
towards her sleeping father, very much like a timid thing that meditates
actual flight.

Then Gerard was frightened at the alarm he caused. "Forgive me," said he
imploringly. "How could any one help loving you?"

"Well, sir, I will try and forgive you--you are so good in other
respects; but then you must promise me never to say you--to say that
again."

"Give me your hand then, or you don't forgive me."

She hesitated; but eventually put out her hand a very little way, very
slowly, and with seeming reluctance. He took it, and held it prisoner.
When he thought it had been there long enough, she tried gently to draw
it away. He held it tight: it submitted quite patiently to force.
What is the use resisting force She turned her head away, and her long
eyelashes drooped sweetly. Gerard lost nothing by his promise. Words
were not needed here; and silence was more eloquent. Nature was in that
day what she is in ours; but manners were somewhat freer. Then as now,
virgins drew back alarmed at the first words of love; but of prudery
and artificial coquetry there was little, and the young soon read one
another's hearts. Everything was on Gerard's side, his good looks, her
belief in his goodness, her gratitude; and opportunity for at the Duke's
banquet this mellow summer eve, all things disposed the female nature
to tenderness: the avenues to the heart lay open; the senses were so
soothed and subdued with lovely colours, gentle sounds, and delicate
odours; the sun gently sinking, the warm air, the green canopy, the cool
music of the now violet fountain.

Gerard and Margaret sat hand in hand in silence; and Gerard's eyes
sought hers lovingly; and hers now and then turned on him timidly and
imploringly and presently two sweet unreasonable tears rolled down her
cheeks, and she smiled while they were drying: yet they did not take
long.

And the sun declined; and the air cooled; and the fountain plashed more
gently; and the pair throbbed in unison and silence, and this weary
world looked heaven to them.

Oh, the merry days, the merry days when we were young.
Oh, the merry days, the merry days when we were young.



CHAPTER III

A grave white-haired seneschal came to their table, and inquired
courteously whether Gerard Eliassoen was of their company. Upon Gerard's
answer, he said:

"The Princess Marie would confer with you, young sir; I am to conduct
you to her presence."

Instantly all faces within hearing turned sharp round, and were bent
with curiosity and envy on the man that was to go to a princess.

Gerard rose to obey.

"I wager we shall not see you again," said Margaret calmly, but
colouring a little.

"That you will," was the reply: then he whispered in her ear: "This is
my good princess; but you are my queen." He added aloud: "Wait for me, I
pray you, I will presently return."

"Ay, ay!" said Peter, awaking and speaking at one and the same moment.

Gerard gone, the pair whose dress was so homely, yet they were with the
man whom the Princess sent for, became "the cynosure of neighbouring
eyes;" observing which, William Johnson came forward, acted surprise,
and claimed his relations.

"And to think that there was I at your backs, and you saw me not"

"Nay, cousin Johnson, I saw you long syne," said Margaret coldly.

"You saw me, and spoke not to me?"

"Cousin, it was for you to welcome us to Rotterdam, as it is for us
to welcome you at Sevenbergen. Your servant denied us a seat in your
house."

"The idiot!"

"And I had a mind to see whether it was 'like maid like master:' for
there is sooth in bywords."

William Johnson blushed purple. He saw Margaret was keen, and suspected
him. He did the wisest thing under the circumstances, trusted to deeds
not words. He insisted on their coming home with him at once, and he
would show them whether they were welcome to Rotterdam or not.

"Who doubts it, cousin? Who doubts it?" said the scholar.

Margaret thanked him graciously, but demurred to go just now: said
she wanted to hear the minstrels again. In about a quarter of an hour
Johnson renewed his proposal, and bade her observe that many of the
guests had left. Then her real reason came out.

"It were ill manners to our friend; and he will lose us. He knows not
where we lodge in Rotterdam, and the city is large, and we have parted
company once already."

"Oh!" said Johnson, "we will provide for that. My young man, ahem!
I mean my secretary, shall sit here and wait, and bring him on to my
house: he shall lodge with me and with no other."

"Cousin, we shall be too burdensome."

"Nay, nay; you shall see whether you are welcome or not, you and your
friends, and your friends' friends, if need be; and I shall hear what
the Princess would with him."

Margaret felt a thrill of joy that Gerard should be lodged under the
same roof with her; then she had a slight misgiving.

"But if your young man should be thoughtless, and go play, and Gerard
miss him?"

"He go play? He leave that spot where I put him, and bid him stay? Ho!
stand forth, Hans Cloterman."

A figure clad in black serge and dark violet hose arose, and took two
steps and stood before them without moving a muscle: a solemn, precise
young man, the very statue of gravity and starched propriety. At his
aspect Margaret, being very happy, could hardly keep her countenance.
But she whispered Johnson, "I would put my hand in the fire for him. We
are at your command, cousin, as soon as you have given him his orders."

Hans was then instructed to sit at the table and wait for Gerard, and
conduct him to Ooster-Waagen Straet. He replied, not in words, but
by calmly taking the seat indicated, and Margaret, Peter, and William
Johnson went away together.

"And, indeed, it is time you were abed, father, after all your travel,"
said Margaret. This had been in her mind all along.

Hans Cloterman sat waiting for Gerard, solemn and businesslike. The
minutes flew by, but excited no impatience in that perfect young man.
Johnson did him no more than justice when he laughed to scorn the idea
of his secretary leaving his post or neglecting his duty in pursuit of
sport or out of youthful hilarity and frivolity.

As Gerard was long in coming, the patient Hans--his employer's eye being
no longer on him improved the time by quaffing solemnly, silently, and
at short but accurately measured intervals, goblets of Corsican wine.
The wine was strong, so was Cloterman's head; and Gerard had been gone
a good hour ere the model secretary imbibed the notion that Creation
expected Cloterman to drink the health of all good fellows, and
nommement of the Duke of Burgundy there present. With this view he
filled bumper nine, and rose gingerly but solemnly and slowly. Having
reached his full height, he instantly rolled upon the grass, goblet
in hand, spilling the cold liquor on more than one ankle--whose owners
frisked--but not disturbing a muscle in his own long face, which, in
the total eclipse of reason, retained its gravity, primness, and
infallibility.

The seneschal led Gerard through several passages to the door of the
pavilion, where some young noblemen, embroidered and feathered, sat
sentinel, guarding the heir-apparent, and playing cards by the red light
of torches their servants held. A whisper from the seneschal, and one
of them rose reluctantly, stared at Gerard with haughty surprise, and
entered the pavilion. He presently returned, and, beckoning the pair,
led then, through a passage or two and landed them in an ante-chamber,
where sat three more young gentlemen, feathered, furred, and embroidered
like pieces of fancy work, and deep in that instructive and edifying
branch of learning, dice.

"You can't see the Princess--it is too late," said one.

Another followed suit:

"She passed this way but now with her nurse. She is gone to bed, doll
and all. Deuce--ace again!"

Gerard prepared to retire. The seneschal, with an incredulous smile,
replied:

"The young man is here by the Countess's orders; be so good as conduct
him to her ladies."

On this a superb Adonis rose, with an injured look, and led Gerard into
a room where sat or lolloped eleven ladies, chattering like magpies.
Two, more industrious than the rest, were playing cat's-cradle with
fingers as nimble as their tongues. At the sight of a stranger all the
tongues stopped like one piece of complicated machinery, and all the
eyes turned on Gerard, as if the same string that checked the tongues
had turned the eyes on. Gerard was ill at ease before, but this battery
of eyes discountenanced him, and down went his eyes on the ground. Then
the cowards finding, like the hare who ran by the pond and the frogs
scuttled into the water, that there was a creature they could frighten,
giggled and enjoyed their prowess. Then a duenna said severely,
"Mesdames!" and they were all abashed at once as though a modesty string
had been pulled. This same duenna took Gerard, and marched before him
in solemn silence. The young man's heart sank, and he had half a mind to
turn and run out of the place.

"What must princes be," he thought, "when their courtiers are so
freezing? Doubtless they take their breeding from him they serve." These
reflections were interrupted by the duenna suddenly introducing him into
a room where three ladies sat working, and a pretty little girl tuning
a lute. The ladies were richly but not showily dressed, and the duenna
went up to the one who was hemming a kerchief, and said a few words in
a low tone. This lady then turned towards Gerard with a smile, and
beckoned him to come near her. She did not rise, but she laid aside her
work, and her manner of turning towards him, slight as the movement was,
was full of grace and ease and courtesy. She began a conversation at
once.

"Margaret Van Eyck is an old friend of mine, sir, and I am right glad to
have a letter from her hand, and thankful to you, sir, for bringing it
to me safely. Marie, my love, this is the gentleman who brought you that
pretty miniature."

"Sir, I thank you a thousand times," said the young lady.

"I am glad you feel her debtor, sweetheart, for our friend would have us
to do him a little service in return.

"I will do anything on earth for him," replied the young lady with
ardour.

"Anything on earth is nothing in the world," said the Countess of
Charolois quietly.

"Well, then, I will--What would you have me to do, sir?"

Gerard had just found out what high society he was in. "My sovereign
demoiselle," said he, gently and a little tremulously, "where there have
been no pains, there needs no reward."

But we must obey mamma. All the world must obey

"That is true. Then, our demoiselle, reward me, if you will by letting
me hear the stave you were going to sing and I did interrupt it."

"What! you love music, sir?"

"I adore it."

The little princess looked inquiringly at her mother, and received a
smile of assent. She then took her lute and sang a romaunt of the day.
Although but twelve years old, she was a well-taught and painstaking
musician. Her little claw swept the chords with Courage and precision,
and struck out the notes of the arpeggio clear, and distinct, and
bright, like twinkling stars; but the main charm was her voice. It was
not mighty, but it was round, clear, full, and ringing like a bell. She
sang with a certain modest eloquence, though she knew none of the tricks
of feeling. She was too young to be theatrical, or even sentimental,
so nothing was forced--all gushed. Her little mouth seemed the mouth of
Nature. The ditty, too, was as pure as its utterance. As there were none
of those false divisions--those whining slurs, which are now sold so
dear by Italian songsters, though every jackal in India delivers them
gratis to his customers all night, and sometimes gets shot for them, and
always deserves it--so there were no cadences and fiorituri, the trite,
turgid, and feeble expletives of song, the skim-milk with which mindless
musicians and mindless writers quench fire, wash out colour, and drown
melody and meaning dead.

While the pure and tender strain was flowing from the pure young throat,
Gerard's eyes filled. The Countess watched him with interest, for it
was usual to applaud the Princess loudly, but not with cheek and eye.
So when the voice ceased, and the glasses left off ringing, she asked
demurely, "Was he content?"

Gerard gave a little start; the spoken voice broke a charm and brought
him back to earth.

"Oh, madam!" he cried, "surely it is thus that cherubs and seraphs sing,
and charm the saints in heaven."

"I am somewhat of your opinion, my young friend," said the Countess,
with emotion; and she bent a look of love and gentle pride upon her
girl: a heavenly look, such as, they say, is given to the eye of the
short-lived resting on the short-lived.

The Countess resumed: "My old friend request me to be serviceable to
you. It is the first favour she has done us the honour of asking us, and
the request is sacred. You are in holy orders, sir?"

Gerard bowed.

"I fear you are not a priest, you look too young."

"Oh no, madam; I am not even a sub-deacon. I am only a lector; but next
month I shall be an exorcist, and before long an acolyth."

"Well, Monsieur Gerard, with your accomplishments you can soon pass
through the inferior orders. And let me beg you to do so. For the
day after you have said your first mass I shall have the pleasure of
appointing you to a benefice."

"Oh, madam!"

"And, Marie, remember I make this promise in your name as well as my
own."

"Fear not, mamma: I will not forget. But if he will take my advice,
what he will be is Bishop of Liege. The Bishop of Liege is a beautiful
bishop. What! do you not remember him, mamma, that day we were at Liege?
he was braver than grandpapa himself. He had on a crown, a high one, and
it was cut in the middle, and it was full of oh! such beautiful jewels;
and his gown stiff with gold; and his mantle, too; and it had a broad
border, all pictures; but, above all, his gloves; you have no such
gloves, mamma. They were embroidered and covered with jewels, and
scented with such lovely scent; I smelt them all the time he was giving
me his blessing on my head with them. Dear old man! I dare say he will
die soon most old people do and then, sir, you Can be bishop you know,
and wear--

"Gently, Marie, gently: bishoprics are for old gentlemen; and this is a
young gentleman."

"Mamma! he is not so very young.

"Not compared with you, Marie, eh?"

"He is a good birth dear mamma; and I am sure he is good enough for a
bishop.

"Alas! mademoiselle, you are mistaken"

"I know not that, Monsieur Gerard; but I am a little puzzled to know on
what grounds mademoiselle there pronounces your character so boldly."

"Alas! mamma," said the Princess, "you have not looked at his face,
then;" and she raised her eyebrows at her mother's simplicity.

"I beg your pardon," said the Countess, "I have. Well, sir, if I cannot
go quite so fast as my daughter, attribute it to my age, not to a want
of interest in your welfare. A benefice will do to begin your Career
with; and I must take care it is not too far from--what call you the
place?"

"Tergou, madam

"A priest gives up much," continued the Countess; "often, I fear, he
learns too late how much;" and her woman's eye rested a moment on Gerard
with mild pity and half surprise at his resigning her sex and all the
heaven they can bestow, and the great parental joys: "at least you shall
be near your friends. Have you a mother?"

"Yes, madam, thanks be to God!"

"Good! You shall have a church near Tergou. She will thank me. And now,
sir, we must not detain you too long from those who have a better claim
on your society than we have. Duchess, oblige me by bidding one of the
pages conduct him to the hall of banquet; the way is hard to find."

Gerard bowed low to the Countess and the Princess, and backed towards
the door.

"I hope it will be a nice benefice," said the Princess to him, with a
pretty smile, as he was going out; then, shaking her head with an air of
solemn misgiving, "but you had better have been Bishop of Liege."

Gerard followed his new conductor, his heart warm with gratitude; but
ere he reached the banquet-hall a chill came over him. The mind of one
who has led a quiet, uneventful life is not apt to take in contradictory
feelings at the same moment and balance them, but rather to be
overpowered by each in turn. While Gerard was with the Countess, the
excitement of so new a situation, the unlooked-for promise the joy
and pride it would cause at home, possessed him wholly; but now it was
passion's turn to be heard again. What! give up Margaret, whose soft
hand he still felt in his, and her deep eyes in his heart? resign her
and all the world of love and joy she had opened on him to-day? The
revulsion, when it did come, was so strong that he hastily resolved
to say nothing at home about the offered benefice. "The Countess is
so good," thought he, "she has a hundred ways of aiding a young man's
fortune: she will not compel me to be a priest when she shall learn I
love one of her sex: one would almost think she does know it, for she
cast a strange look on me, and said, 'A priest gives up much, too much.'
I dare say she will give me a place about the palace." And with this
hopeful reflection his mind was eased, and, being now at the entrance
of the banqueting hall, he thanked his conductor, and ran hastily with
joyful eyes to Margaret. He came in sight of the table--she was gone.
Peter was gone too. Nobody was at the table at all; only a citizen in
sober garments had just tumbled under it dead drunk, and several persons
were raising him to carry him away. Gerard never guessed how important
this solemn drunkard was to him: he was looking for "Beauty," and
let the "Beast" lie. He ran wildly round the hall, which was now
comparatively empty. She was not there. He left the palace: outside he
found a crowd gaping at two great fan-lights just lighted over the gate.
He asked them earnestly if they had seen an old man in a gown, and a
lovely girl pass out. They laughed at the question. "They were staring
at these new lights that turn night into day. They didn't trouble their
heads about old men and young wenches, every-day sights." From another
group he learned there was a Mystery being played under canvas hard by,
and all the world gone to see it. This revived his hopes, and he went
and saw the Mystery.

In this representation divine personages, too sacred for me to name
here, came clumsily down from heaven to talk sophistry with the cardinal
Virtues, the nine Muses, and the seven deadly sins, all present in
human shape, and not unlike one another. To enliven which weary stuff
in rattled the Prince of the power of the air, and an imp that kept
molesting him and buffeting him with a bladder, at each thwack of which
the crowd were in ecstasies. When the Vices had uttered good store of
obscenity and the Virtues twaddle, the celestials, including the nine
Muses went gingerly back to heaven one by one; for there was but one
cloud; and two artisans worked it tip with its supernatural freight,
and worked it down with a winch, in full sight of the audience. These
disposed of, the bottomless pit opened and flamed in the centre of the
stage; the carpenters and Virtues shoved the Vices in, and the Virtues
and Beelzebub and his tormentor danced merrily round the place of
eternal torture to the fife and tabor.

This entertainment was writ by the Bishop of Ghent for the diffusion
of religious sentiment by the aid of the senses, and was an average
specimen of theatrical exhibitions so long as they were in the hands of
the clergy. But, in course of time, the laity conducted plays, and so
the theatre, I learn from the pulpit, has become profane.

Margaret was nowhere in the crowd, and Gerard could not enjoy the
performance; he actually went away in Act 2, in the midst of a
much-admired piece of dialogue, in which Justice out-quibbled Satan. He
walked through many streets, but could not find her he sought. At last,
fairly worn out, he went to a hostelry and slept till daybreak. All that
day, heavy and heartsick, he sought her, but could never fall in with
her or her father, nor ever obtain the slightest clue. Then he felt she
was false or had changed her mind. He was irritated now, as well as sad.
More good fortune fell on him; he almost hated it. At last, on the third
day, after he had once more been through every street, he said, "She is
not in the town, and I shall never see her again. I will go home."
He started for Tergou with royal favour promised, with fifteen golden
angels in his purse, a golden medal on his bosom, and a heart like a
lump of lead.



CHAPTER IV

It was near four o'clock in the afternoon. Eli was in the shop. His
eldest and youngest sons were abroad. Catherine and her little crippled
daughter had long been anxious about Gerard, and now they were gone a
little way down the road, to see if by good luck he might be visible
in the distance; and Giles was alone in the sitting-room, which I will
sketch, furniture and dwarf included.

The Hollanders were always an original and leading people. They claim
to have invented printing (wooden type), oil-painting, liberty,
banking, gardening, etc. Above all, years before my tale, they invented
cleanliness. So, while the English gentry, in velvet jerkins and
chicken-toed shoes, trode floors of stale rushes, foul receptacle of
bones, decomposing morsels, spittle, dogs, eggs, and all abominations,
this hosier's sitting-room at Tergou was floored with Dutch tiles, so
highly glazed and constantly washed, that you could eat off them. There
was one large window; the cross stone-work in the centre of it was
very massive, and stood in relief, looking like an actual cross to the
inmates, and was eyed as such in their devotions. The panes were very
small and lozenge-shaped, and soldered to one another with strips of
lead: the like you may see to this day in our rural cottages. The chairs
were rude and primitive, all but the arm-chair, whose back, at right
angles with its seat, was so high that the sitter's head stopped two
feet short of the top. This chair was of oak, and carved at the summit.
There was a copper pail, that went in at the waist, holding holy water,
and a little hand-besom to sprinkle it far and wide; and a long, narrow,
but massive oak table, and a dwarf sticking to its rim by his teeth, his
eyes glaring, and his claws in the air like a pouncing vampire. Nature,
it would seem, did not make Giles a dwarf out of malice prepense; she
constructed a head and torso with her usual care; but just then her
attention was distracted, and she left the rest to chance; the result
was a human wedge, an inverted cone. He might justly have taken her to
task in the terms of Horace,

"Amphora coepit
Institui; currente rota cur urceus exit?"

His centre was anything but his centre of gravity. Bisected, upper Giles
would have outweighed three lower Giles. But this very disproportion
enabled him to do feats that would have baffled Milo. His brawny arms
had no weight to draw after them; so he could go up a vertical pole like
a squirrel, and hang for hours from a bough by one hand like a cherry by
its stalk. If he could have made a vacuum with his hands, as the lizard
is said to do with its feet, he would have gone along a ceiling. Now,
this pocket-athlete was insanely fond of gripping the dinner-table with
both hands, and so swinging; and then--climax of delight! he would seize
it with his teeth, and, taking off his hands, hold on like grim death by
his huge ivories.