The Cloister and the Hearth Part 72

"No, madam."

"I wouldn't let her go back to Sevenbergen to-night, then."

"That is as she pleases. She still refuses to bide the night."

"Ay, but you are older than she is; you can make her. There, she is beginning to notice." Catherine then put her mouth to Margaret Van Eyck's ear for half a moment; it did not seem time enough to whisper a word, far less a sentence. But on some topics females can flash communication to female like lightning, or thought itself.

The old lady started, and whispered back.

"It's false! it is a calumny! it is monstrous! Look at her face. It is blasphemy to accuse such a face."

"Tut! tut! tut!" said the other, "you might as well say this is not my hand. I ought to know; and I tell ye it is _so_."

Then much to Margaret Van Eyck's surprise she went up to the girl, and, taking her round the neck, kissed her warmly. "I suffered for Gerard, and you shed your blood for him I do hear: his own words show me I have been to blame, the very words you have read to me. Ay, Gerard, my child, I have held aloof from her. But I'll make it up to her, once I begin.

You are my daughter from this hour."

Another warm embrace sealed this hasty compact, and the woman of impulse was gone.

Margaret lay back in her chair, and a feeble smile stole over her face.

Gerard's mother had kissed her and called her daughter; but the next moment she saw her old friend looking at her with a vexed air.

"I wonder you let that woman kiss you."

"His mother!" murmured Margaret, half reproachfully.

"Mother, or no mother, you would not let her touch you if you knew what she whispered in my ear about you."

"About me?" said Margaret, faintly.

"Ay, about you whom she never saw till to-night." The old lady was proceeding, with some hesitation and choice of language, to make Margaret share her indignation, when an unlooked-for interruption closed her lips.

The young woman slid from her chair to her knees, and began to pray piteously to her for pardon. From the words and the manner of her penitence a bystander would have gathered she had inflicted some cruel wrong, some intolerable insult, upon her venerable friend.

CHAPTER XLVI

THE little party at the hosier's house sat at table discussing the recent event, when their mother returned, and, casting a piercing glance all round the little circle, laid the letter flat on the table. She repeated every word of it by memory, following the lines with her finger, to cheat herself and hearers into the notion that she could read the words or nearly. Then, suddenly lifting her head, she cast another keen look on Cornelis and Sybrandt: their eyes fell.

On this the storm that had long been brewing burst on their heads.

Catherine seemed to swell like an angry hen ruffling her feathers, and out of her mouth came a Rhone and Saone of wisdom and twaddle, of great and mean invective, such as no male that ever was born could utter in one current; and not many women.

The following is a fair though a small sample of her words: only they were uttered all in one breath:--

"I have long had my doubts that you blew the flame betwixt Gerard and your father, and set that old rogue, Ghysbrecht, on. And now here are Gerard's own written words to prove it. You have driven your own flesh and blood into a far land, and robbed the mother that bore you of her darling, the pride of her eye, the joy of her heart. But you are all of a piece from end to end. When you were all boys together, my others were a comfort; but you were a curse: mischievous and sly; and took a woman half a day to keep your clothes whole: for why? work wears cloth, but play cuts it. With the beard comes prudence: but none came to you: still the last to go to bed, and the last to leave it; and why? because honesty goes to bed early, and industry rises betimes; where there are two lie-abeds in a house there are a pair of ne'er-do-weels. Often I've sat and looked at your ways, and wondered where ye came from: ye don't take after your father, and ye are no more like me than a wasp is to an ant; sure ye were changed in the cradle, or the cuckoo dropped ye on my floor: for ye have not our hands, nor our hearts: of all my blood none but you ever jeered them that G.o.d afflicted; but often when my back was turned I've heard you mock at Giles, because he is not so big as some; and at my lily Kate, because she is not so strong as a Flanders mare.

After that rob a church an you will! for you can be no worse in His eyes that made both Kate and Giles, and in mine that suffered for them, poor darlings, as I did for you, you paltry, unfeeling, treasonable curs! No, I will not hush, my daughter; they have filled the cup too full. It takes a deal to turn a mother's heart against the sons she has nursed upon her knees; and many is the time I have winked and wouldn't see too much, and bitten my tongue, lest their father should know them as I do; he would have put them to the door that moment. But now they have filled the cup too full. And where got ye all this money? For this last month you have been rolling in it. You never wrought for it. I wish I may never hear from other mouths how ye got it. It is since that night you were out so late, and _your_ head came back so swelled, Cornelis. Sloth and greed are ill mated, my masters. Lovers of money must sweat or steal. Well, if you robbed any poor soul of it, it was some woman, I'll go bail; for a man would drive you with his naked hand. No matter; it is good for one thing. It has shown me how you will guide our gear if ever it comes to be yourn. I have watched you, my lads, this while. You have spent a groat to-day between you. And I spend scarce a groat a week, and keep you all, good _and_ bad. No! give up waiting for the shoes that will maybe walk behind your coffin; for this shop and this house shall never be yourn. Gerard is our heir: poor Gerard whom you have banished and done your best to kill; after that never call me mother again! But you have made him tenfold dearer to me. My poor lost boy! I shall soon see him again; shall hold him in my arms, and set him on my knees. Ay, you may stare! You are too crafty, and yet not crafty enow. You cut the stalk away; but you left the seed--the seed that shall outgrow you, and outlive you. Margaret Brandt is quick, and it is Gerard's, and what is Gerard's is mine; and I have prayed the saints it may be a boy: and it will--it must. Kate, when I found it was so, my bowels yearned over her child unborn as if it had been my own. He is our heir. He will outlive us. You will not: for a bad heart in a carca.s.s is like the worm in a nut, soon brings the body to dust. So, Kate, take down Gerard's bib and tucker that are in the drawer you wot of, and one of these days we will carry them to Sevenbergen. We will borrow Peter Buyskens' cart, and go comfort Gerard's wife under her burden. She is his wife. Who is Ghysbrecht Van Swieten? Can he come between a couple and the altar, and sunder those that G.o.d and the priest make one? She is my daughter, and I am as proud of her as I am of you, Kate, almost; and as for _you_, keep out of my way awhile: for you are like the black dog in my eyes."

Cornelis and Sybrandt took the hint and slunk out, aching with remorse, and impenitence, and hate. They avoided her eye as much as ever they could: and for many days she never spoke a word good, bad, or indifferent, to either of them. Liberaverat animum suum.

CHAPTER XLVII

CATHERINE was a good housewife who seldom left home for a day, and then one thing or another always went amiss. She was keenly conscious of this, and, watching for a slack tide in things domestic, put off her visit to Sevenbergen from day to day, and one afternoon that it really could have been managed Peter Buyskens' mule was out of the way.

At last, one day Eli asked her before all the family, whether it was true she had thought of visiting Margaret Brandt.

"Ay, my man."

"Then I do forbid you."

"Oh, do you?"

"I do."

"Then there is no more to be said, I suppose," said she, colouring.

"Not a word," replied Eli, sternly.

When she was alone with her daughter she was very severe, not upon Eli, but upon herself.

"Behoved me rather go thither like a cat at a robin. But this was me all over. I am like a silly hen that can lay no egg without cackling, and convening all the house to rob her on't. Next time you and I are after aught the least amiss, let's do't in Heaven's name then and there, and not take time to think about it, far less talk; so then, if they take us to task we can say, alack we knew nought; we thought no ill; now, who'd ever? and so forth. For two pins I'd go thither in all their teeth."

Defiance so wild and picturesque staggered Kate. "Nay, mother; with patience father will come round."

"And so will Michaelmas; but when? and I was so bent on you seeing the girl. Then we could have put our heads together about her. Say what they will, there is no judging body or beast but by the eye. And were I to have fifty more sons I'd ne'er thwart one of them's fancy, till such time as I had clapped my eyes upon her and seen Quicksands: say you, I should have thought of that before condemning Gerard his fancy: but there, life is a school, and the lesson ne'er done; we put down one fault and take up t'other, and so go blundering here, and blundering there, till we blunder into our graves, and there's an end of us."

"Mother," said Kate, timidly.

"Well, what is a-coming now? no good news though, by the look of you.

What on earth can make the poor wench so scared?"

"An avowal she hath to make," faltered Kate, faintly.

"Now, there is a n.o.ble word for ye," said Catherine, proudly. "Our Gerard taught thee that, I'll go bail. Come then, out with thy vowel."

"Well then, sooth to say, I have seen her."

"Anan?"

"And spoken with her to boot."

"And never told me? After this marvels are dirt."