The Cloister and the Hearth: A Tale of the Middle Ages

by Charles Reade

  CHAPTER LXXIX

  NOT long after this, as the little family at Tergou sat at dinner, LukePeterson burst in on them, covered with dust.

  "Good people, Mistress Catherine is wanted instantly at Rotterdam."

  "My name is Catherine, young man. Kate, it will be Margaret."

  "Ay dame, she said to me, 'Good Luke, hie thee to Tergou, and ask forEli the hosier, and pray his wife Catherine to come to me, for God hislove.' I didn't wait for daylight."

  "Holy saints! He has come home, Kate. Nay, she would sure have said so.What on earth can it be?" And she heaped conjecture on conjecture.

  "Mayhap the young man can tell us," hazarded Kate, timidly.

  "That I can," said Luke. "Why, her babe is a-dying. And she was sowrapped up in it!"

  Catherine started up: "What is his trouble?"

  "Nay, I know not. But it has been peaking and pining worse and worsethis while."

  A furtive glance of satisfaction passed between Cornelis and Sybrandt.Luckily for them Catherine did not see it. Her face was turned towardsher husband. "Now, Eli," cried she, furiously, "if you say a wordagainst it, you and I shall quarrel, after all these years."

  "Who gainsays thee, foolish woman? Quarrel with your own shadow; while Igo borrow Peter's mule for ye."

  "Bless thee, my good man! Bless thee! Didst never yet fail me at apinch. Now eat your dinners who can, while I go and make ready."

  She took Luke back with her in the cart, and, on the way, questioned andcross-questioned him, severely, and seductively, by turns, till she hadturned his mind inside out, what there was of it.

  Margaret met her at the door, pale and agitated, and threw her armsround her neck, and looked imploringly in her face.

  "Come, he is alive, thank God," said Catherine, after scanning hereagerly.

  She looked at the failing child, and then at the poor hollow-eyedmother, alternately. "Lucky you sent for me," said she. "The child ispoisoned."

  "Poisoned! by whom?"

  "By you. You have been fretting."

  "Nay, indeed, mother. How can I help fretting?"

  "Don't tell me, Margaret. A nursing mother has no business to fret. Shemust turn her mind away from her grief to the comfort that lies in herlap. Know you not that the child pines if the mother vexes herself? Thiscomes of your reading and writing. Those idle crafts befit a man; butthey keep all useful knowledge out of a woman. The child must beweaned."

  "Oh, you cruel woman," cried Margaret, vehemently; "I am sorry I sentfor you. Would you rob me of the only bit of comfort I have in theworld? A-nursing my Gerard, I forget I am the most unhappy creaturebeneath the sun."

  "That you do not," was the retort, "or he would not be the way he is."

  "Mother!" said Margaret, imploringly.

  "'Tis hard," replied Catherine, relenting. "But bethink thee; would itnot be harder to look down and see his lovely wee face a-looking up atyou out of a little coffin?"

  "O, Jesu!"

  "And how could you face your other troubles with your heart aye full,and your lap empty?"

  "Oh, mother, I consent to anything. Only save my boy."

  "That is a good lass. Trust to me! I do stand by, and see clearer thanthou."

  Unfortunately there was another consent to be gained; the babe's: and hewas more refractory than his mother.

  "There," said Margaret, trying to affect regret at his misbehaviour; "heloves me too well."

  But Catherine was a match for them both. As she came along she hadobserved a healthy young woman, sitting outside her own door, with aninfant hard by. She went and told her the case; and would she nurse thepining child for the nonce, till she had matters ready to wean him?

  The young woman consented with a smile, and popped her child into thecradle and came into Margaret's house. She dropped a curtsy, andCatherine put the child into her hands. She examined, and pitied it, andpurred over it, and proceeded to nurse it, just as if it had been herown.

  Margaret, who had been paralyzed at her assurance, cast a rueful look atCatherine, and burst out crying.

  The visitor looked up. "What is to do? Wife, ye told me not the motherwas unwilling."

  "She is not: she is only a fool. Never heed her: and you, Margaret, I amashamed of you."

  "You are a cruel, hard-hearted woman," sobbed Margaret.

  "Them as take in hand to guide the weak, need be hardish. And you willexcuse me; but you are not my flesh and blood: and your boy is."

  After giving this blunt speech time to sink, she added, "Come now, sheis robbing her own to save yours, and you can think of nothing betterthan bursting out a-blubbering in the woman's face. Out fie, for shame?"

  "Nay, wife," said the nurse. "Thank Heaven, I have enough for my own andfor hers to boot. And prithee wyte not on her! Maybe the troubles o'life ha' soured her own milk."

  "And her heart into the bargain," said the remorseless Catherine.

  Margaret looked her full in the face; and down went her eyes.

  "I know I ought to be very grateful to you," sobbed Margaret to thenurse: then turned her head and leaned away over the chair, not towitness the intolerable sight of another nursing her Gerard, and Gerarddrawing no distinction between this new mother, and her the banishedone.

  The nurse replied, "You are very welcome, my poor woman. And so are you,Mistress Catherine, which are my townswoman, and know it not."

  "What, are ye from Tergou? all the better. But I cannot call your faceto mind."

  "Oh, you know not me: my husband and me, we are very humble folk by you.But true Eli and his wife are known of all the town; and respected. So Iam at your call, dame; and at yours, wife; and yours, my pretty poppet;night or day."

  "There's a woman of the right old sort," said Catherine, as the doorclosed upon her.

  "I HATE her. I HATE her. I HATE her," said Margaret, with wonderfulfervour.

  Catherine only laughed at this outburst.

  "That is right," said she, "better say it, as set sly and think it. Itis very natural after all. Come, here is your bundle o' comfort. Takeand hate that; if ye can:" and she put the child in her lap.

  "No, no;" said Margaret, turning her head half away from him: she couldnot for her life turn the other half. "He is not my child now; he ishers. I know not why she left him here, for my part. It was very good ofher not to take him to her house, cradle and all; oh! oh! oh! oh! oh!oh! oh! oh!"

  "Ah! well, one comfort, _he_ is not dead. This gives me light; someother woman has got him away from me; like father, like son; oh! oh! oh!oh! oh!"

  Catherine was sorry for her, and let her cry in peace. And after that,when she wanted Joan's aid, she used to take Gerard out, to give him alittle fresh air. Margaret never objected; nor expressed the leastincredulity; but on their return was always in tears.

  This connivance was short lived. She was now altogether as eager to weanlittle Gerard. It was done; and he recovered health and vigour: andanother trouble fell upon him directly: teething. But here Catherine'sexperience was invaluable: and now, in the midst of her grief andanxiety about the father, Margaret had moments of bliss, watching theson's tiny teeth come through. "Teeth, mother? I call them not teeth,but pearls of pearls." And each pearl that peeped and sparkled on hisred gums, was to her the greatest feat Nature had ever achieved.

  Her companion partook the illusion. And, had we told them a field ofstanding corn was equally admirable, Margaret would have changed to areproachful gazelle, and Catherine turned us out of doors; so eachpearl's arrival was announced with a shriek of triumph by whichever ofthem was the fortunate discoverer.

  * * * * *

  Catherine gossiped with Joan and learned that she was the wife of JorianKetel of Tergou, who had been servant to Ghysbrecht Van Swieten, butfallen out of favour, and come back to Rotterdam, his native place. Hisfriends had got him the place of sexton to the parish, and what withthat and carpentering, he did pretty well.

  Catherine told Joan in return whose child it was she
had nursed, and allabout Margaret and Gerard, and the deep anxiety his silence had plungedthem in. "Ay," said Joan, "the world is full of trouble." One day shesaid to Catherine, "It's my belief my man knows more about your Gerardthan anybody in these parts: but he has got to be closer than ever oflate. Drop in some day just afore sunset, and set him talking. And, forour Lady's sake, say not I set you on. The only hiding he ever gave mewas for babbling his business: and I do not want another. Gramercy! Imarried a man for the comfort of the thing: not to be hided."

  Catherine dropped in. Jorian was ready enough to tell her how he hadbefriended her son and perhaps saved his life. But this was no news toCatherine: and the moment she began to cross-question him as to whetherhe could guess why her lost boy neither came, nor wrote, he cast a grimlook at his wife, who received it with a calm air of stolid candour andinnocent unconsciousness; and his answers became short and sullen. "Whatshould he know more than another?" and so on. He added, after a pause,"Think you the burgomaster takes such as me into his secrets?"

  "Oh, then the burgomaster knows something?" said Catherine, sharply.

  "Likely. Who else should?"

  "I'll ask him."

  "I would."

  "And tell him you say he knows."

  "That is right, dame. Go make him mine enemy. That is what a poor fellowalways gets if he says a word to you women." And Jorian from that momentshrunk in and became impenetrable as a hedgehog, and almost as prickly.

  His conduct caused both the poor women agonies of mind; alarm, andirritated curiosity. Ghysbrecht was for some cause Gerard's mortalenemy; had stopped his marriage, imprisoned him, hunted him. And herewas his late servant, who when off his guard had hinted that this enemyhad the clue to Gerard's silence. After sifting Jorian's every word andlook, all remained dark and mysterious. Then Catherine told Margaret togo herself to him. "You are young; you are fair. You will, maybe, getmore out of him than I could."

  The conjecture was a reasonable one.

  Margaret went with her child in her arms and tapped timidly at Jorian'sdoor just before sunset. "Come in," said a sturdy voice. She entered,and there sat Jorian by the fireside. At sight of her he rose, snorted,and burst out of the house. "Is that for me, wife?" inquired Margaret,turning very red.

  "You must excuse him," replied Joan, rather coldly; "he lays it to yourdoor that he is a poor man instead of a rich one. It is something abouta piece of parchment. There was one missing, and he got nought from theburgomaster all along of that one."

  "Alas! Gerard took it!"

  "Likely. But my man says you should not have let him: you were pledgedto him to keep them all safe. And, sooth to say, I blame not my Jorianfor being wroth. 'Tis hard for a poor man to be so near fortune andlose it by those he has befriended. However, I tell him another story.Says I, 'Folk that are out o' trouble, like you and me, didn't ought tobe too hard on folk that are in trouble: and she has plenty.' Goingalready? What is all your hurry, mistress?"

  "Oh, it is not for me to drive the good man out of his own house."

  "Well, let me kiss the bairn afore ye go. He is not in fault any way,poor innocent."

  Upon this cruel rebuff Margaret came to a resolution, which she did notconfide even to Catherine.

  After six weeks' stay that good woman returned home.

  On the child's birthday, which occurred soon after, Margaret did nowork: but put on her Sunday clothes, and took her boy in her arms andwent to the church and prayed there long and fervently for Gerard's safereturn.

  That same day and hour Father Clement celebrated a mass and prayed forMargaret's departed soul in the minster church at Basle.