The Cloister and the Hearth

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


Margaret assented warmly, and a happy thing it was for the little
district assigned to her; it was as if an angel had descended on them.
Her fingers were never tired of knitting or cutting for them, her
heart of sympathizing with them. And that heart expanded and waved its
drooping wings; and the glow of good and gentle deed began to spread
over it; and she was rewarded in another way by being brought into more
contact with Gerard, and also with his spirit. All this time malicious
tongues had not been idle. "If there is nought between them more than
meets the eye, why doth she not marry?" etc. And I am sorry to say our
old friend Joan Ketel was one of these coarse sceptics. And now one
winter evening she got on a hot scent. She saw Margaret and Gerard
talking earnestly together on the Boulevard. She whipped behind a tree.
"Now I'll hear something," said she; and so she did. It was winter;
there had been one of those tremendous floods followed by a sharp
frost, and Gerard in despair as to where he should lodge forty or fifty
houseless folk out of the piercing cold. And now it was, "Oh, dear, dear
Margaret, what shall I do? The manse is full of them, and a sharp frost
coming on this night."

Margaret reflected, and Joan listened.

"You must lodge them in the church," said Margaret quietly.

"In the church? Profanation."

"No; charity profanes nothing, not even a church; soils nought, not even
a church. To-day is but Tuesday. Go save their lives, for a bitter night
is coming. Take thy stove into the church, and there house them. We will
dispose of them here and there ere the lord's day."

"And I could not think of that; bless thee, sweet Margaret, thy mind is
stronger than mine, and readier."

"Nay, nay, a woman looks but a little way, therefore she sees clear.
I'll come over myself to-morrow."

And on this they parted with mutual blessings.

Joan glided home remorseful.

And after that she used to check all surmises to their discredit.
"Beware," she would say, "lest some angel should blister thy tongue.
Gerard and Margaret paramours? I tell ye they are two saints which meet
in secret to plot charity to the poor."

In the summer of 1481 Gerard determined to provide against similar
disasters recurring to his poor. Accordingly he made a great hole in his
income, and bled his friends (zealous parsons always do that) to build a
large Xenodochium to receive the victims of flood or fire. Giles and all
his friends were kind, but all was not enough; when lo! the Dominican
monks of Gouda to whom his parlour and heart had been open for years,
came out nobly, and put down a handsome sum to aid the charitable vicar.

"The dear good souls," said Margaret; "who would have thought it?"

"Any one who knows them," said Gerard, "Who more charitable than monks?"

"Go to! They do but give the laity back a pig of their own sow."

"And what more do I? What more doth the duke?"

Then the ambitious vicar must build almshouses for decayed true men in
their old age close to the manse, that he might keep and feed them, as
well as lodge them. And his money being gone, he asked Margaret for a
few thousand bricks and just took off his coat and turned builder; and
as he had a good head, and the strength of a Hercules, with the zeal of
an artist, up rose a couple of almshouses parson built.

And at this work Margaret would sometimes bring him his dinner, and
add a good bottle of Rhenish. And once seeing him run up a plank with a
wheelbarrow full of bricks which really most bricklayers would have
gone staggering under, she said, "Times are changed since I had to carry
little Gerard for thee."

"Ay, dear one, thanks to thee."

When the first home was finished, the question was who they should put
into it; and being fastidious over it like a new toy, there was much
hesitation. But an old friend arrived in time to settle this question.

As Gerard was passing a public-house in Rotterdam one day, he heard a
well-known voice, He looked up, and there was Denys of Burgundy, but
sadly changed; his beard stained with grey, and his clothes worn and
ragged; he had a cuirass still, and gauntlets, but a staff instead of an
arbalest, To the company he appeared to be bragging and boasting, but in
reality he was giving a true relation of Edward the Fourth's invasion of
an armed kingdom with 2000 men, and his march through the country with
armies capable of swallowing him looking on, his battles at Tewkesbury
and Barnet, and reoccupation of his capital and kingdom in three months
after landing at the Humber with a mixed handful of Dutch, English, and
Burgundians.

In this, the greatest feat of arms the century had seen, Denys had
shone; and whilst sneering at the warlike pretensions of Charles the
Bold, a duke with an itch but no talent for fighting, and proclaiming
the English king the first captain of the age, did not forget to exalt
himself.

Gerard listened with eyes glittering affection and fun. "And now," said
Denys, "after all these feats, patted on the back by the gallant young
Prince of Gloucester, and smiled on by the great captain himself, here
I am lamed for life; by what? by the kick of a horse, and this night I
know not where I shall lay my tired bones. I had a comrade once in these
parts that would not have let me lie far from him; but he turned priest
and deserted his sweetheart, so 'tis not likely he would remember his
comrade. And ten years play sad havoc with our hearts, and limbs, and
all." Poor Denys sighed, and Gerard's bowels yearned over him.

"What words are these?" he said, with a great gulp in his throat. "Who
grudges a brave soldier supper and bed? Come home with me!"

"Much obliged, but I am no lover of priests."

"Nor I of soldiers; but what is supper and bed between two true men?"

"Not much to you, but something to me. I will come."

"In one hour," said Gerard, and went in high spirits to Margaret, and
told her the treat in store, and she must come and share it. She must
drive his mother in his little carriage up to the manse with all speed,
and make ready an excellent supper. Then he himself borrowed a cart, and
drove Denys up rather slowly, to give the women time.

On the road Denys found out this priest was a kind soul, so told him his
trouble, and confessed his heart was pretty near broken. "The great use
our stout hearts, and arms, and lives till we are worn out, and then
fling us away like broken tools." He sighed deeply, and it cost Gerard
a great struggle not to hug him then and there, and tell him. But he
wanted to do it all like a story book. Who has not had this fancy once
in his life? Why Joseph had it; all the better for us.

They landed at the little house. It was as clean as a penny, the hearth
blazing, and supper set.

Denys brightened up. "Is this your house, reverend sir?"

"Well, 'tis my work, and with these hands, but 'tis your house."

"Ah, no such luck," said Denys, with a sigh.

"But I say ay," shouted Gerard. "And what is more I--" (gulp) "say--"
(gulp) "COURAGE, CAMARADE, LE DIABLE EST MORT!"

Denys started, and almost staggered. "Why, what?" he stammered,
"w-wh-who art thou, that bringest me back the merry words and merry days
of my youth?" and he was greatly agitated.

"My poor Denys, I am one whose face is changed, but nought else; to my
heart, dear, trusty comrade, to my heart," And he opened his arms, with
the tears in his eyes. But Denys came close to him, and peered in his
face, and devoured every feature; and when he was sure it was really
Gerard, he uttered a cry so vehement it brought the women running from
the house, and fell upon Gerard's neck, and kissed him again and again,
and sank on his knees, and laughed and sobbed with joy so terribly,
that Gerard mourned his folly in doing dramas. But the women with their
gentle soothing ways soon composed the brave fellow, and he sat smiling,
and holding Margaret's hand and Gerard's, And they all supped together,
and went to their beds with hearts warm as a toast; and the broken
soldier was at peace, and in his own house, and under his comrade's
wing.

His natural gaiety returned, and he resumed his consigne after eight
years' disuse, and hobbled about the place enlivening it; but offended
the parish mortally by calling the adored vicar comrade, and nothing but
comrade.

When they made a fuss about this to Gerard, he just looked in their
faces and said, "What does it matter? Break him of swearing, and you
shall have my thanks."

This year Margaret went to a lawyer to make her will, for without this,
she was told, her boy might have trouble some day to get his own, not
being born in lawful wedlock. The lawyer, however, in conversation,
expressed a different opinion.

"This is the babble of churchmen," said he, "Yours is a perfect
marriage, though an irregular one."

He then informed her that throughout Europe, excepting only the southern
part of Britain, there were three irregular marriages, the highest of
which was hers, viz., a betrothal before witnesses, "This," said he, "if
not followed by matrimonial intercourse, is a marriage complete in form,
but incomplete in substance. A person so betrothed can forbid any other
banns to all eternity. It has, however, been set aside where a party
so betrothed contrived to get married regularly, and children were born
thereafter. But such a decision was for the sake of the offspring,
and of doubtful justice. However, in your case the birth of your
child closes that door, and your marriage is complete both in form and
substance. Your course, therefore, is to sue for your conjugal rights;
it will be the prettiest case of the century. The law is all on our
side, the Church all on theirs. If you come to that, the old Batavian
law, which compelled the clergy to marry, hath fallen into disuse, but
was never formally repealed."

Margaret was quite puzzled. "What are you driving at, sir? Who am I to
go to law with?"

"Who is the defendant? Why, the vicar of Gouda."

"Alas, poor soul! And for what shall I law him?"

"Why, to make him take you into his house, and share bed and board with
you, to be sure."

Margaret turned red as fire, "Gramercy for your rede," said she, "What,
is yon a woman's part? Constrain a man to be hers by force? That is
men's way of wooing, not ours. Say I were so ill a woman as ye think me,
I should set myself to beguile him, not to law him;" and she departed,
crimson with shame and indignation.

"There is an impracticable fool for you," said the man of art.

Margaret had her will drawn elsewhere, and made her boy safe from
poverty, marriage or no marriage.

These are the principal incidents that in ten whole years befell two
peaceful lives, which in a much shorter period had been so thronged with
adventures and emotions.

Their general tenor was now peace, piety, the mild content that lasts,
not the fierce bliss ever on tiptoe to depart, and above all, Christian
charity.

On this sacred ground these two true lovers met with an uniformity and
a kindness of sentiment which went far to soothe the wound in their own
hearts, To pity the same bereaved; to hunt in couples all the ills
in Gouda, and contrive and scheme together to remedy all that were
remediable; to use the rare insight into troubled hearts which their
own troubles had given them, and use it to make others happier than
themselves--this was their daily practice. And in this blessed cause
their passions for one another cooled a little, but their affection
increased.

From this time Margaret entered heart and soul into Gerard's pious
charities, that affection purged itself of all mortal dross. And as
it had now long out-lived scandal and misapprehension, one would have
thought that so bright an example of pure self-denying affection was to
remain long before the world, to show men how nearly religious faith,
even when not quite reasonable, and religious charity, which is always
reasonable, could raise two true lovers' hearts to the loving hearts
of the angels of heaven. But the great Disposer of events ordered
otherwise.

Little Gerard rejoiced both his parents' hearts by the extraordinary
progress he made at Alexander Haaghe's famous school at Deventer.

The last time Margaret returned from visiting him, she came to Gerard
flushed with pride. "Oh, Gerard, he will be a great man one day, thanks
to thy wisdom in taking him from us silly women. A great scholar, one
Zinthius, came to see the school and judge the scholars, and didn't our
Gerard stand up, and not a line in Horace or Terence could Zinthius cite
but the boy would follow him with the rest. 'Why, 'tis a prodigy,' says
that great scholar; and there was his poor mother stood by and heard it.
And he took our Gerard in his arms, and kissed him; and what think you
he said?"

"Nay, I know not."

"'Holland will hear of thee one day; and not Holland only, but all the
world,' Why what a sad brow!"

"Sweet one, I am as glad as thou, yet am I uneasy to hear the child is
wise before his time, I love him dear; but he is thine idol, and Heaven
doth often break our idols."

"Make thy mind easy," said Margaret. "Heaven will never rob me of my
child. What I was to suffer in this world I have suffered, For if any
ill happened my child or thee, I should not live a week. The Lord He
knows this, and He will leave me my boy."

A month had elapsed after this; but Margaret's words were yet ringing in
his ears, when, going on his daily round of visits to his poor, he was
told quite incidentally, and as mere gossip, that the plague was at
Deventer, carried thither by two sailors from Hamburgh.

His heart turned cold within him. News did not gallop in those days. The
fatal disease must have been there a long time before the tidings would
reach Gouda. He sent a line by a messenger to Margaret, telling her that
he was gone to fetch little Gerard to stay at the manse a little while,
and would she see a bed prepared, for he should be back next day. And so
he hoped she would not hear a word of the danger till it was all happily
over. He borrowed a good horse, and scarce drew rein till he reached
Deventer, quite late in the afternoon. He went at once to the school.
The boy had been taken away.

As he left the school he caught sight of Margaret's face at the window
of a neighbouring house she always lodged at when she came to Deventer.

He ran hastily to scold her and pack both her and the boy out of the
place.

To his surprise the servant told him with some hesitation that Margaret
had been there, but was gone.

"Gone, woman?" said Gerard indignantly, "art not ashamed to say so? Why,
I saw her but now at the window."

"Oh, if you saw her--"

A sweet voice above said, "Stay him not, let him enter." It was
Margaret.

Gerard ran up the stairs to her, and went to take her hand, She drew
back hastily.

He looked astounded.

"I am displeased," she said coldly. "What makes you here? Know you not
the plague is in the town?"

"Ay, dear Margaret; and came straightway to take our boy away."

"What, had he no mother?"

"How you speak to me! I hoped you knew not."

"What, think you I leave my boy unwatched? I pay a trusty woman that
notes every change in his cheek when I am not here, and lets me know, I
am his mother."

"Where is he?"

"In Rotterdam, I hope, ere this."

"Thank Heaven! And why are you not there?"

"I am not fit for the journey; never heed me; go you home on the
instant; I'll follow. For shame of you to come here risking your
precious life."

"It is not so precious as thine," said Gerard. "But let that pass; we
will go home together, and on the instant."

"Nay, I have some matters to do in the town. Go thou at once, and I will
follow forthwith."

"Leave thee alone in a plague-stricken town? To whom speak you, dear
Margaret?"

"Nay, then, we shall quarrel, Gerard."

"Methinks I see Margaret and Gerard quarrelling! Why, it takes two to
quarrel, and we are but one."

With this Gerard smiled on her sweetly. But there was no kind responsive
glance. She looked cold, gloomy, and troubled.

He sighed, and sat patiently down opposite her with his face all puzzled
and saddened. He said nothing, for he felt sure she would explain her
capricious conduct, or it would explain itself.

Presently she rose hastily, and tried to reach her bedroom, but on the
way she staggered and put out her hand. He ran to her with a cry of
alarm. She swooned in his arms. He laid her gently on the ground, and
beat her cold hands, and ran to her bedroom, and fetched water, and
sprinkled her pale face. His own was scarce less pale, for in a basin he
had seen water stained with blood; it alarmed him, he knew not why.
She was a long time ere she revived, and when she did she found Gerard
holding her hand, and bending over her with a look of infinite concern
and tenderness. She seemed at first as if she responded to it, but the
next moment her eyes dilated, and she cried--"Ah, wretch, leave my hand;
how dare you touch me?"

"Heaven help her!" said Gerard. "She is not herself."

"You will not leave me, then, Gerard?" said she faintly. "Alas! why do I
ask? Would I leave thee if thou wert--At least touch me not, and then I
will let thee bide, and see the last of poor Margaret. She ne'er spoke
harsh to thee before, sweetheart, and she never will again."

"Alas! what mean these dark words, these wild and troubled looks?" said
Gerard, clasping his hands.

"My poor Gerard," said Margaret, "forgive me that I spoke so to thee. I
am but a woman, and would have spared thee a sight will make thee weep."
She burst into tears. "Ah, me!" she cried, weeping, "that I cannot keep
grief from thee; there is a great sorrow before my darling, and this
time I shall not be able to come and dry his eyes."

"Let it come, Margaret, so it touch not thee," said Gerard, trembling.

"Dearest," said Margaret solemnly, "call now religion to thine aid and
mine. I must have died before thee one day, or else outlived thee and so
died of grief."

"Died? thou die? I will never let thee die. Where is thy pain? What is
thy trouble?"

"The plague," she said calmly. Gerard uttered a cry of horror, and
started to his feet; she read his thought. "Useless," said she quietly.
"My nose hath bled; none ever yet survived to whom that came along with
the plague. Bring no fools hither to babble over the body they cannot
save. I am but a woman; I love not to be stared at; let none see me die
but thee."

And even with this a convulsion seized her, and she remained sensible
but speechless a long time.

And now for the first time Gerard began to realize the frightful truth,
and he ran wildly to and fro, and cried to Heaven for help, as drowning
men cry to their fellow-creatures. She raised herself on her arm, and
set herself to quiet him.

She told him she had known the torture of hopes and fears, and was
resolved to spare him that agony. "I let my mind dwell too much on the
danger," said she, "and so opened my brain to it, through which door
when this subtle venom enters it makes short work. I shall not be
spotted or loathsome, my poor darling; God is good, and spares thee
that; but in twelve hours I shall be a dead woman. Ah, look not so, but
be a man; be a priest! Waste not one precious minute over my body! it is
doomed; but comfort my parting soul."

Gerard, sick and cold at heart, kneeled down, and prayed for help from
Heaven to do his duty.

When he rose from his knees his face was pale and old, but deadly calm
and patient. He went softly and brought her bed into the room, and laid
her gently down and supported her head with pillows. Then he prayed by
her side the prayers for the dying, and she said Amen to each prayer.
Then for some hours she wandered, but when the fell disease had quite
made sure of its prey, her mind cleared, and she begged Gerard to shrive
her. "For oh, my conscience it is laden," she said sadly.

"Confess thy sins to me, my daughter: let there be no reserve."

"My father," said she sadly, "I have one great sin on my breast this
many years. E'en now that death is at my heart I can scarce own it. But
the Lord is debonair; if thou wilt pray to Him, perchance He may forgive
me."

"Confess it first, my daughter."

"I--alas!"

"Confess it!"

"I deceived thee. This many years I have deceived thee."

Here tears interrupted her speech.

"Courage, my daughter, courage," said Gerard kindly, overpowering the
lover in the priest.

She hid her face in her hands, and with many sighs told him it was she
who had broken down the hermit's cave with the help of Jorian Ketel, "I,
shallow, did it but to hinder thy return thither; but when thou sawest
therein the finger of God, I played the traitress, and said, 'While he
thinks so, he will ne'er leave Gouda manse;' and I held my tongue. Oh,
false heart."

"Courage, my daughter; thou dost exaggerate a trivial fault."

"Ah, but 'tis not all, The birds."

"Well?"

"They followed thee not to Gouda by miracle, but by my treason. I said,
he will ne'er be quite happy without his birds that visited him in his
cell; and I was jealous of them, and cried, and said, these foul little
things, they are my child's rivals. And I bought loaves of bread, and
Jorian and me we put crumbs at the cave door, and thence went sprinkling
them all the way to the manse, and there a heap. And my wiles succeeded,
and they came, and thou wast glad, and I was pleased to see thee
glad; and when thou sawest in my guile the finger of Heaven, wicked,
deceitful, I did hold my tongue. But die deceiving thee? ah, no, I could
not. Forgive me if thou canst; I was but a woman; I knew no better at
the time. 'Twas writ in my bosom with a very sunbeam. ''Tis good for him
to bide at Gouda manse.'"

"Forgive thee, sweet innocent?" sobbed Gerard; "what have I to forgive?
Thou hadst a foolish froward child to guide to his own weal, and
didst all this for the best, I thank thee and bless thee. But as thy
confessor, all deceit is ill in Heaven's pure eyes. Therefore thou
hast done well to confess and report it; and even on thy confession
and penitence the Church through me absolves thee. Pass to thy graver
faults."

"My graver faults? Alas! alas! Why, what have I done to compare? I am
not an ill woman, not a very ill one. If He can forgive me deceiving
thee, He can well forgive me all the rest ever I did."

Being gently pressed, she said she was to blame not to have done more
good in the world. "I have just begun to do a little," she said, "and
now I must go. But I repine not, since 'tis Heaven's will, only I am so
afeard thou wilt miss me." And at this she could not restrain her tears,
though she tried hard.

Gerard struggled with his as well as he could; and knowing her life of
piety, purity, and charity, and seeing that she could not in her
present state realise any sin but her having deceived him, gave her
full absolution, Then he put the crucifix in her hand, and while he
consecrated the oil, bade her fix her mind neither on her merits nor her
demerits, but on Him who died for her on the tree.

She obeyed him with a look of confiding love and submission.

And he touched her eyes with the consecrated oil, and prayed aloud
beside her.

Soon after she dosed.

He watched beside her, more dead than alive himself.

When the day broke she awoke, and seemed to acquire some energy. She
begged him to look in her box for her marriage lines and for a picture,
and bring them both to her. He did so. She then entreated him by all
they had suffered for each other, to ease her mind by making a solemn
vow to execute her dying requests.

He vowed to obey them to the letter.

"Then, Gerard, let no creature come here to lay me out. I could not bear
to be stared at; my very corpse would blush. Also I would not be made
a monster of for the worms to sneer at as well as feed on. Also my very
clothes are tainted, and shall to earth with me. I am a physician's
daughter; and ill becomes me kill folk, being dead, which did so little
good to men in the days of health; wherefore lap me in lead, the way I
am, and bury me deep! yet not so deep but what one day thou mayst find
the way, and lay thy bones by mine.

"Whiles I lived I went to Gouda but once or twice a week. It cost me not
to go each day. Let me gain this by dying, to be always at dear Gouda,
in the green kirkyard.

"Also they do say the spirit hovers where the body lies; I would have my
spirit hover near thee, and the kirkyard is not far from the manse. I am
so afeard some ill will happen thee, Margaret being gone.

"And see, with mine own hands I place my marriage lines in my bosom. Let
no living hand move them, on pain of thy curse and mine. Then when the
angel comes for me at the last day, he shall say, this is an honest
woman, she hath her marriage lines (for you know I am your lawful wife,
though Holy Church hath come between us), and he will set me where the
honest women be. I will not sit among ill women, no, not in heaven
for their mind is not my mind, nor their soul my soul. I have stood,
unbeknown, at my window, and heard their talk."

For some time she was unable to say any more, but made signs to him that
she had not done.