The Cloister and the Hearth

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


And so they came slowly down the Rhine, sometimes drifting a few miles
down the stream; but in general walking by the banks preaching, and
teaching, and confessing sinners in the towns and villages; and they
reached the town of Dusseldorf.

There was the little quay where Gerard and Denys had taken boat up the
Rhine, The friars landed on it. There were the streets, there was
"The Silver Lion." Nothing had changed but he, who walked through it
barefoot, with his heart calm and cold, his hands across his breast,
and his eyes bent meekly on the ground, a true son of Dominic and Holy
Church.



CHAPTER LXXXI

THE HEARTH

"Eli," said Catherine, "answer me one question like a man, and I'll ask
no more to-day. What is wormwood?"

Eli looked a little helpless at this sudden demand upon his faculties;
but soon recovered enough to say it was something that tasted main
bitter.

"That is a fair answer, my man, but not the one I look for."

"Then answer it yourself."

"And shall. Wormwood is--to have two in the house a-doing nought, but
waiting for thy shoes and mine," Eli groaned. The shaft struck home.

"Methinks waiting for their best friend's coffin, that and nothing to
do, are enow to make them worse than Nature meant. Why not set them up
somewhere, to give 'em a chance?"

Eli said he was willing, but afraid they would drink and gamble their
very shelves away.

"Nay," said Catherine, "Dost take me for a simpleton? Of course I mean
to watch them at starting, and drive them wi' a loose rein, as the
saying is."

"Where did you think of? Not here; to divide our own custom."

"Not likely. I say Rotterdam against the world. Then I could start
them."

Oh, self-deception! The true motive of all this was to get near little
Gerard.

After many discussions and eager promises of amendment on these terms
from Cornelis and Sybrandt, Catherine went to Rotterdam shop-hunting,
and took Kate with her; for a change, They soon found one, and in a good
street; but it was sadly out of order. However, they got it cheaper for
that, and instantly set about brushing it up, fitting proper shelves for
the business, and making the dwelling-house habitable.


Luke Peterson was always asking Margaret what he could do for her. The
answer used to be in a sad tone, "Nothing, Luke, nothing."

"What, you that are so clever, can you think of nothing for me to do for
you?"

"Nothing, Luke, nothing."

But at last she varied the reply thus: "If you could make something to
help my sweet sister Kate about."

The slave of love consented joyfully, and soon made Kate a little cart,
and cushioned it, and yoked himself into it, and at eventide drew her
out of the town, and along the pleasant boulevard, with Margaret and
Catherine walking beside. It looked a happier party than it was.

Kate, for one, enjoyed it keenly, for little Gerard was put in her
lap, and she doted on him; and it was like a cherub carried by a little
angel, or a rosebud lying in the cup of a lily.

So the vulgar jeered; and asked Luke how a thistle tasted, and if his
mistress could not afford one with four legs, etc.

Luke did not mind these jeers; but Kate minded them for him.

"Thou hast made the cart for me, good Luke," said she, "'Twas much. I
did ill to let thee draw me too; we can afford to pay some poor soul for
that. I love my rides, and to carry little Gerard; but I'd liever ride
no more than thou be mocked fort."

"Much I care for their tongues," said Luke; "if I did care I'd knock
their heads together. I shall draw you till my mistress says give over.

"Luke, if you obey Kate, you will oblige me."

"Then I will obey Kate."

An honourable exception to popular humour was Jorian Ketel's wife. "That
is strength well laid out, to draw the weak. And her prayers will be
your guerdon; she is not long for this world; she smileth in pain."
These were the words of Joan.

Single-minded Luke answered that he did not want the poor lass's prayers
he did it to please his mistress, Margaret.

After that Luke often pressed Margaret to give him something to
do--without success.

But one day, as if tired with his importuning, she turned on him, and
said with a look and accent I should in vain try to convey:

"Find me my boy's father."



CHAPTER LXXXII

"Mistress, they all say he is dead."

"Not so. They feed me still with hopes."

"Ay, to your face, but behind your back they all say he is dead."

At this revelation Margaret's tears began to flow'.

Luke whimpered for company. He had the body of a man but the heart of a
girl.

"Prithee, weep not so, sweet mistress," said he. "I'd bring him back to
life an I could, rather than see thee weed so sore."

Margaret said she thought she was weeping because they were so
double-tongued with her.

She recovered herself, and laying her hand on his shoulder, said
solemnly, "Luke, he is not dead. Dying men are known to have a strange
sight. And listen, Luke! My poor father, when he was a-dying, and I,
simple fool, was so happy, thinking he was going to get well altogether,
he said to mother and me--he was sitting in that very chair where you
are now, and mother was as might be here, and I was yonder making a
sleeve--said he, 'I see him!' I see him! Just so. Not like a failing man
at all, but all o' fire. 'Sore disfigured-on a great river-coming this
way.'

"Ah, Luke, if you were a woman, and had the feeling for me you think you
have, you would pity me, and find him for me. Take a thought! The father
of my child!"

"Alack, I would if I knew how," said Luke, "but how can I?"

"Nay, of course you cannot. I am mad to think it. But oh, if any one
really cared for me, they would; that is all I know."

Luke reflected in silence for some time.

"The old folk all say dying men can see more than living wights. Let me
think: for my mind cannot gallop like thine. On a great river Well, the
Maas is a great river." He pondered on.

"Coming this way? Then if it 'twas the Maas, he would have been here
by this time, so 'tis not the Maas. The Rhine is a great river, greater
than the Maas; and very long. I think it will be the Rhine."

"And so do I, Luke; for Denys bade him come down the Rhine. But even if
it is, he may turn off before he comes anigh his birthplace. He does not
pine for me as I for him; that is clear. Luke, do you not think he has
deserted me?" She wanted him to contradict her, but he said, "It looks
very like it; what a fool he must be!"

"What do we know?" objected Margaret imploringly.

"Let me think again," said Luke. "I cannot gallop."

The result of this meditation was this. He knew a station about sixty
miles up the Rhine, where all the public boats put in; and he would go
to that station, and try and cut the truant off. To be sure he did not
even know him by sight; but as each boat came in he would mingle with
the passengers, and ask if one Gerard was there. "And, mistress, if you
were to give me a bit of a letter to him; for, with us being strangers,
mayhap a won't believe a word I say."

"Good, kind, thoughtful Luke, I will (how I have undervalued thee!).
But give me till supper-time to get it writ." At supper she put a letter
into his hand with a blush; it was a long letter, tied round with silk
after the fashion of the day, and sealed over the knot.

Luke weighed it in his hand, with a shade of discontent, and said to her
very gravely, "Say your father was not dreaming, and say I have the luck
to fall in with this man, and say he should turn out a better bit of
stuff than I think him, and come home to you then and there--what is to
become o' me?"

Margaret coloured to her very brow. "Oh, Luke, Heaven will reward thee.
And I shall fall on my knees and bless thee; and I shall love thee all
my days, sweet Luke, as a mother does her son. I am so old by thee:
trouble ages the heart. Thou shalt not go 'tis not fair of me. Love
maketh us to be all self."

"Humph!" said Luke. "And if," resumed he, in the same grave way, "yon
scapegrace shall read thy letter, and hear me tell him how thou pinest
for him, and yet, being a traitor, or a mere idiot, will not turn to
thee what shall become of me then? Must I die a bachelor, and thou fare
lonely to thy grave, neither maid, wife, nor widow?"

Margaret panted with fear and emotion at this terrible piece of good
sense, and the plain question which followed it. But at last she
faltered out, "If, which our Lady be merciful to me, and forbid--Oh!"

"Well, mistress?"

"If he should read my letter, and hear thy words--and, sweet Luke, be
just and tell him what a lovely babe he hath, fatherless, fatherless.
Oh, Luke, can he be so cruel?"

"I trow not but if?"

"Then he will give thee up my marriage lines, and I shall be an honest
woman, and a wretched one, and my boy will not be a bastard; and of
course, then we could both go into any honest man's house that would
be troubled with us; and even for thy goodness this day, I will--I
will--ne'er be so ungrateful as go past thy door to another man's."

"Ay, but will you come in at mine? Answer me that!"

"Oh, ask me not! Some day, perhaps, when my wounds leave bleeding. Alas,
I'll try. If I don't fling myself and my child into the Maas. Do not go,
Luke! do not think of going! 'Tis all madness from first to last."

But Luke was as slow to forego an idea as to form one.

His reply showed how fast love was making a man of him. "Well," said he,
"madness is something, anyway; and I am tired of doing nothing for thee;
and I am no great talker. To-morrow, at peep of day, I start. But hold,
I have no money. My mother, she takes care of all mine; and I ne'er see
it again."

Then Margaret took out Catherine's gold angel, which had escaped so
often, and gave it to Luke; and he set out on his mad errand.

It did not, however, seem so mad to him as to us. It was a superstitious
age; and Luke acted on the dying man's dream, or vision, or illusion, or
whatever it was, much as we should act on respectable information.

But Catherine was downright angry when she heard of it, "To send the
poor lad on such a wild-goose chase! But you are like a many more
girls; and mark my words; by the time you have worn that Luke fairly
out, and made him as sick of you as a dog, you will turn as fond on him
as a cow on a calf, and 'Too late' will be the cry."


THE CLOISTER

The two friars reached Holland from the south just twelve hours after
Luke started up the Rhine.

Thus, wild-goose chase or not, the parties were nearing each other, and
rapidly too. For Jerome, unable to preach in low Dutch, now began
to push on towards the coast, anxious to get to England as soon as
possible.

And having the stream with them, the friars would in point of fact have
missed Luke by passing him in full stream below his station, but for the
incident which I am about to relate.

About twenty miles above the station Luke was making for, Clement landed
to preach in a large village; and towards the end of his sermon he
noticed a grey nun weeping.

He spoke to her kindly, and asked her what was her grief.

"Nay," said she, "'tis not for myself flow these tears; 'tis for my lost
friend. Thy words reminded me of what she was, and what she is, poor
wretch, But you are a Dominican, and I am a Franciscan nun."

"It matters little, my sister, if we are both Christians, and if I can
aid thee in aught."

The nun looked in his face, and said, "These are strange words, but
methinks they are good; and thy lips are oh, most eloquent, I will tell
thee our grief."

She then let him know that a young nun, the darling of the convent, and
her bosom friend, had been lured away from her vows, and after various
gradations of sin, was actually living in a small inn as chambermaid,
in reality as a decoy, and was known to be selling her favours to the
wealthier customers, She added, "Anywhere else we might, by kindly
violence, force her away from perdition, But this innkeeper was the
servant of the fierce baron on the height there, and hath his ear still,
and he would burn our convent to the ground, were we to take her by
force."

"Moreover, souls will not be saved by brute force," said Clement.

While they were talking Jerome came up, and Clement persuaded him to lie
at the convent that night, But when in the morning Clement told him he
had had a long talk with the abbess, and that she was very sad, and he
had promised her to try and win back her nun, Jerome objected, and said,
"It was not their business, and was a waste of time," Clement, however,
was no longer a mere pupil. He stood firm, and at last they agreed that
Jerome should go forward, and secure their passage in the next ship for
England, and Clement be allowed time to make his well-meant but idle
experiment.

About ten o'clock that day, a figure in a horseman's cloak, and great
boots to match, and a large flapping felt hat, stood like a statue near
the auberge, where was the apostate nun, Mary. The friar thus disguised
was at that moment truly wretched. These ardent natures undertake
wonders; but are dashed when they come hand to hand with the sickening
difficulties. But then, as their hearts are steel, though their nerves
are anything but iron, they turn not back, but panting and dispirited,
struggle on to the last.

Clement hesitated long at the door, prayed for help and wisdom, and at
last entered the inn and sat down faint at heart, and with his body in a
cold perspiration, But inside he was another man. He called lustily for
a cup of wine: it was brought him by the landlord, He paid for it with
money the convent had supplied him; and made a show of drinking it.

"Landlord," said he, "I hear there is a fair chambermaid in thine
house."

"Ay, stranger, the buxomest in Holland. But she gives not her company to
all comers only to good customers."

Friar Clement dangled a massive gold chain in the landlord's sight. He
laughed, and shouted, "Here, Janet, here is a lover for thee would
bind thee in chains of gold; and a tall lad into the bargain, I promise
thee."

"Then I am in double luck," said a female voice; "send him hither."

Clement rose, shuddered, and passed into the room, where Janet was
seated playing with a piece of work, and laying it down every minute, to
sing a mutilated fragment of a song. For, in her mode of life, she had
not the patience to carry anything out.

After a few words of greeting, the disguised visitor asked her if they
could not be more private somewhere.

"Why not?" said she. And she rose and smiled, and went tripping before
him, He followed, groaning inwardly, and sore perplexed.

"There," said she. "Have no fear! Nobody ever comes here, but such as
pay for the privilege."

Clement looked round the room, and prayed silently for wisdom. Then he
went softly, and closed the window-shutters carefully.

"What on earth is that for?" said Janet, in some uneasiness.

"Sweetheart," whispered the visitor, with a mysterious air, "it is that
God may not see us.

"Madman," said Janet; "think you a wooden shutter can keep out His eye?"

"Nay, I know not. Perchance He has too much on hand to notice us, But I
would not the saints and angels should see us. Would you?"

"My poor soul, hope not to escape their sight! The only way is not to
think of them; for if you do, it poisons your cup. For two pins I'd run
and leave thee. Art pleasant company in sooth."

"After all, girl, so that men see us not, what signify God and the
saints seeing us? Feel this chain! 'Tis virgin gold. I shall cut two of
these heavy links off for thee."

"Ah! now thy discourse is to the point," And she handled the chain
greedily. "Why, 'tis as massy as the chain round the virgin's neck at
the conv--" She did not finish the word.

"Whisht! whisht! whisht! 'Tis it. And thou shalt have thy share. But
betray me not."

"Monster!" cried Janet, drawing back from him with repugnance; "what,
rob the blessed Virgin of her chain, and give it to an--"

"You are none," cried Clement exultingly, "or you had not recked for
that-Mary!"

"Ah! ah! ah!"

"Thy patron saint, whose chain this is, sends me to greet thee"

She ran screaming to the window and began to undo the shutters.

Her fingers trembled, and Clement had time to debarass himself of his
boots and his hat before the light streamed in upon him, He then let his
cloak quietly fall, and stood before her, a Dominican friar, calm and
majestic as a statue, and held his crucifix towering over her with a
loving, sad, and solemn look, that somehow relieved her of the physical
part of fear, but crushed her with religious terror and remorse. She
crouched and cowered against the wall.

"Mary," said he gently; "one word! Are you happy?"

"As happy as I shall be in hell."

"And they are not happy at the convent; they weep for you."

"For me?"

"Day and night; above all, the Sister Ursula."

"Poor Ursula!" And the strayed nun began to weep herself at the thought
of her friend.

"The angels weep still more. Wilt not dry all their tears in earth and
heaven and save thyself?"

"Ay! would I could; but it is too late."

"Satan avaunt," cried the monk sternly. "'Tis thy favourite temptation;
and thou, Mary, listen not to the enemy of man, belying God, and
whispering despair. I who come to save thee have been a far greater
sinner than thou. Come, Mary, sin, thou seest, is not so sweet, e'n in
this world, as holiness; and eternity is at the door."

"How can they ever receive me again?"

"'Tis their worthiness thou doubtest now. But in truth they pine for
thee. 'Twas in pity of their tears that I, a Dominican, undertook this
task; and broke the rule of my order by entering an inn; and broke it
again by donning these lay vestments. But all is well done, and quit for
a light penance, if thou wilt let us rescue thy soul from this den of
wolves, and bring thee back to thy vows."

The nun gazed at him with tears in her eyes. "And thou, a Dominican,
hast done this for a daughter of St. Francis! Why, the Franciscans and
Dominicans hate one another."

"Ay, my daughter; but Francis and Dominic love one another."

The recreant nun seemed struck and affected by this answer

Clement now reminded her how shocked she had been that the Virgin should
be robbed of her chain. "But see now," said he, "the convent, and
the Virgin too, think ten times more of their poor nun than of golden
chains; for they freely trusted their chain to me a stranger, that
peradventure the sight of it might touch their lost Mary and remind her
of their love," Finally he showed her with such terrible simplicity the
end of her present course, and on the other hand so revived her dormant
memories and better feelings, that she kneeled sobbing at his feet, and
owned she had never known happiness nor peace since she betrayed her
vows; and said she would go back if he would go with her; but alone
she dared not, could not: even if she reached the gate she could never
enter. How could she face the abbess and the sisters? He told her he
would go with her as joyfully as the shepherd bears a strayed lamb to
the fold.

But when he urged her to go at once, up sprung a crop of those
prodigiously petty difficulties that entangle her sex, like silken nets,
liker iron cobwebs.

He quietly swept them aside.

"But how can I walk beside thee in this habit?"

"I have brought the gown and cowl of thy holy order. Hide thy bravery
with them. And leave thy shoes as I leave these" (pointing to his
horseman's boots).

She collected her jewels and ornaments.

"What are these for?" inquired Clement.

"To present to the convent, father."

"Their source is too impure."

"But," objected the penitent, "it would be a sin to leave them here.
They can be sold to feed the poor."

"Mary, fix thine eye on this crucifix, and trample those devilish
baubles beneath thy feet."

She hesitated; but soon threw them down and trampled on them.

"Now open the window and fling them out on that dunghill. 'Tis well
done. So pass the wages of sin from thy hands, its glittering yoke from
thy neck, its pollution from thy soul. Away, daughter of St. Francis, we
tarry in this vile place too long." She followed him.

But they were not clear yet.

At first the landlord was so astounded at seeing a black friar and a
grey nun pass through his kitchen from the inside, that he gaped, and
muttered, "Why, what mummery is this?" But he soon comprehended the
matter, and whipped in between the fugitives and the door. "What ho!
Reuben! Carl! Gavin! here is a false friar spiriting away our Janet."

The men came running in with threatening looks. The friar rushed at them
crucifix in hand. "Forbear," he cried, in a stentorian voice. "She is
a holy nun returning to her vows. The hand that touches her cowl or her
robe to stay her, it shall wither, his body shall lie unburied, cursed
by Rome, and his soul shall roast in eternal fire." They shrank back as
if a flame had met them. "And thou--miserable panderer!"

He did not end the sentence in words, but seized the man by the neck,
and strong as a lion in his moments of hot excitement, hurled him
furiously from the door and sent him all across the room, pitching head
foremost on to the stone floor; then tore the door open and carried the
screaming nun out into the road.

"Hush! poor trembler," he gasped; "they dare not molest thee on the
highroad. Away!"

The landlord lay terrified, half stunned, and bleeding; and Mary, though
she often looked back apprehensively, saw no more of him.

On the road he bade her observe his impetuosity.

"Hitherto," said he, "we have spoken of thy faults: now for mine. My
choler is ungovernable; furious. It is by the grace of God I am not a
murderer, I repent the next moment; but a moment too late is all too
late. Mary, had the churls laid finger on thee, I should have scattered
their brains with my crucifix, Oh, I know myself; go to; and tremble at
myself. There lurketh a wild beast beneath this black gown of mine."

"Alas, father," said Mary, "were you other than you are I had been lost.
To take me from that place needed a man wary as a fox; yet bold as a
lion."

Clement reflected. "This much is certain: God chooseth well his fleshly
instruments; and with imperfect hearts doeth His perfect work, Glory be
to God!"

When they were near the convent Mary suddenly stopped, and seized the
friar's arm, and began to cry. He looked at her kindly, and told her she
had nothing to fear. It would be the happiest day she had ever spent.
He then made her sit down and compose herself till he should return, He
entered the convent, and desired to see the abbess.

"My sister, give the glory to God: Mary is at the gate."

The astonishment and delight of the abbess were unbounded.

She yielded at once to Clement's earnest request that the road of
penitence might be smoothed at first to this unstable wanderer, and
after some opposition, she entered heartily into his views as to her
actual reception. To give time for their little preparations Clement
went slowly back, and seating himself by Mary soothed her; and heard her
confession.

"The abbess has granted me that you shall propose your own penance."

"It shall be none the lighter," said she.

"I trow not," said he; "but that is future: to-day is given to joy
alone."

He then led her round the building to the abbess's postern.

As they went they heard musical instruments and singing.

"'Tis a feastday," said Mary; "and I come to mar it."

"Hardly," said Clement, smiling; "seeing that you are the queen of the
fete."

"I, father? what mean you?"

"What, Mary, have you never heard that there is more joy in heaven over
one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety-nine just persons which need
no repentance? Now this convent is not heaven; nor the nuns angels; yet
are there among then, some angelic spirits; and these sing and exult
at thy return. But here methinks comes one of them; for I see her hand
trembles at the keyhole."

The postern was flung open, and in a moment Sister Ursula clung sobbing
and kissing round her friend's neck. The abbess followed more sedately,
but little less moved.

Clement bade them farewell. They entreated him to stay; but he told them
with much regret he could not. He had already tried his good Brother
Jerome's patience, and must hasten to the river; and perhaps sail for
England to-morrow.

So Mary returned to the fold, and Clement strode briskly on towards the
Rhine, and England.

This was the man for whom Margaret's boy lay in wait with her letter.


THE HEARTH

And that letter was one of those simple, touching appeals only her sex
can write to those who have used them cruelly, and they love them. She
began by telling him of the birth of the little boy, and the comfort he
had been to her in all the distress of mind his long and strange silence
had caused her. She described the little Gerard minutely, not forgetting
the mole on his little finger.

"Know you any one that hath the like on his? If you only saw him you
could not choose but be proud of him; all the mothers in the street do
envy me; but I the wives; for thou comest not to us. My own Gerard, some
say thou art dead. But if thou wert dead, how could I be alive? Others
say that thou, whom I love so truly, art false. But this will I believe
from no lips but thine. My father loved thee well; and as he lay a-dying
he thought he saw thee on a great river, with thy face turned towards
thy Margaret, but sore disfigured. Is't so, perchance? Have cruel men
scarred thy sweet face? or hast thou lost one of thy precious limbs?
Why, then thou hast the more need of me, and I shall love thee not
worse, alas! thinkest thou a woman's love is light as a man's? but
better, than I did when I shed those few drops from my arm, not worth
the tears, thou didst shed for them; mindest thou? 'tis not so very long
agone, dear Gerard."