The Greatest Novels of Charles Reade. Charles Reade Reade
not Margaret a Peter. Was ever my mind turned to folly and frailty? Stay, is it because you were my husband once, as these lines avouch? Think you the road to folly is beaten for you more than another? Oh! how shallow are the wise, and how little able are you to read me, who can read you so well from top to toe, Come, learn thine A B C. Were a stranger to proffer me unchaste love, I should shrink a bit, no doubt, and feel sore, but I should defend myself without making a coil; for men, I know, are so, the best of them sometimes. But if you, that have been my husband, and are my child's father, were to offer to humble me so in mine own eyes, and thine, and his, either I should spit in thy face, Gerard, or, as I am not a downright vulgar woman, I should snatch the first weapon at hand and strike thee dead.”
And Margaret's eyes flashed fire, and her nostrils expanded, that it was glorious to see; and no one that did see her could doubt her sincerity.
“I had not the sense to see that,” said Gerard quietly. And he pondered.
Margaret eyed him in silence, and soon recovered her composure.
“Let not you and I dispute,” said she gently; “speak we of other things. Ask me of thy folk.”
“My father?”
“Well, and warms to thee and me. Poor soul, a drew glaive on those twain that day, but Jorian Ketel and I we mastered him, and he drove them forth his house for ever.”
“That may not be; he must take them back.”
“That he will never do for us. You know the man; he is dour as iron; yet would he do it for one word from one that will not speak it.”
“Who?”
“The vicar of Gouda, The old man will be at the manse to-morrow, I hear.”
“How you come back to that.”
“Forgive me: I am but a woman. It is us for nagging; shouldst keep me from it wi' questioning of me.”
“My sister Kate?”
“Alas!”
“What, hath ill befallen e'en that sweet lily? Out and alas!”
“Be calm, sweetheart, no harm hath her befallen. Oh, nay, nay, far fro' that.” Then Margaret forced herself to be composed, and in a low, sweet, gentle voice she murmured to him thus:
“My poor Gerard, Kate hath left her trouble behind her. For the manner on't, 'twas like the rest. Ah, such as she saw never thirty, nor ever shall while earth shall last. She smiled in pain too. A well, then, thus 'twas: she was took wi' a languor and a loss of all her pains.”
“A loss of her pains? I understand you not.”
“Ay, you are not experienced; indeed, e'en thy mother almost blinded herself and said, ''Tis maybe a change for the better.' But Joan Ketel, which is an understanding woman, she looked at her and said, 'Down sun, down wind!' And the gossips sided and said, 'Be brave, you that are her mother, for she is half way to the saints.' And thy mother wept sore, but Kate would not let her; and one very ancient woman, she said to thy mother, 'She will die as easy as she lived hard.' And she lay painless best part of three days, a sipping of heaven afore-hand, And, my dear, when she was just parting, she asked for 'Gerard's little boy,' and I brought him and set him on the bed, and the little thing behaved as peaceably as he does now. But by this time she was past speaking; but she pointed to a drawer, and her mother knew what to look for: it was two gold angels thou hadst given her years ago. Poor soul! she had kept then, till thou shouldst come home. And she nodded towards the little boy, and looked anxious; but we understood her, and put the pieces in his two hands, and when his little fingers closed on them, she smiled content. And so she gave her little earthly treasures to her favourite's child—for you were her favourite—and her immortal jewel to God, and passed so sweetly we none of us knew justly when she left us. Well-a-day, well-a-day!”
Gerard wept.
“She hath not left her like on earth,” he sobbed. “Oh, how the affections of earth curl softly round my heart! I cannot help it; God made them after all. Speak on, sweet Margaret at thy voice the past rolls its tides back upon me; the loves and the hopes of youth come fair and gliding into my dark cell, and darker bosom, on waves of memory and music.”
“Gerard, I am loth to grieve you, but Kate cried a little when she first took ill at you not being there to close her eyes.”
Gerard sighed.
“You were within a league, but hid your face from her.”
He groaned.
“There, forgive me for nagging; I am but a woman; you would not have been so cruel to your own flesh and blood knowingly, would you?”
“Oh, no.”
“Well, then, know that thy brother Sybrandt lies in my charge with a broken back, fruit of thy curse.”
“Mea culpa! mea culpa!”
“He is very penitent; be yourself and forgive him this night.”
“I have forgiven him long ago.”
“Think you he can believe that from any mouth but yours? Come! he is but about two butts' length hence.”
“So near? Why, where?”
“At Gouda manse. I took him there yestreen. For I know you, the curse was scarce cold on your lips when you repented it” (Gerard nodded assent), “and I said to myself, Gerard will thank me for taking Sybrandt to die under his roof; he will not beat his breast and cry mea culpa, yet grudge three footsteps to quiet a withered brother on his last bed. He may have a bee in his bonnet, but he is not a hypocrite, a thing all pious words and uncharitable deeds.”
Gerard literally staggered where he sat at this tremendous thrust.
“Forgive me for nagging,” said she. “Thy mother too is waiting for thee. Is it well done to keep her on thorns so long She will not sleep this night, Bethink thee, Gerard, she is all to thee that I am to this sweet child. Ah, I think so much more of mothers since I had my little Gerard. She suffered for thee, and nursed thee, and tended thee from boy to man. Priest monk, hermit, call thyself what thou wilt, to her thou art but one thing; her child.”
“Where is she?” murmured Gerard, in a quavering voice.
“At Gouda manse, wearing the night in prayer and care.”
Then Margaret saw the time was come for that appeal to his reason she had purposely reserved till persuasion should have paved the way for conviction. So the smith first softens the iron by fire, and then brings down the sledge hammer.
She showed him, but in her own good straightforward Dutch, that his present life was only a higher kind of selfishness, spiritual egotism; whereas a priest had no more right to care only for his own soul than only for his own body. That was not his path to heaven. “But,” said she, “whoever yet lost his soul by saving the souls of others! the Almighty loves him who thinks of others; and when He shall see thee caring for the souls of the folk the duke hath put into thine hand, He will care ten times more for thy soul than He does now.”
Gerard was struck by this remark. “Art shrewd in dispute,” said he.
“Far from it,” was the reply, “only my eyes are not bandaged with conceit.(1) So long as Satan walks the whole earth, tempting men, and so long as the sons of Belial do never lock themselves in caves, but run like ants to and fro corrupting others, the good man that skulks apart plays the devil's game, or at least gives him the odds: thou a soldier of Christ? ask thy Comrade Denys, who is but a soldier of the duke, ask him if ever he skulked in a hole and shunned the battle because forsooth in battle is danger as well as glory and duty. For thy sole excuse is fear; thou makest no secret on't, Go to, no duke nor king hath such cowardly soldiers as Christ hath. What was that you said in the church at Rotterdam about the man in the parable that buried his talent in the earth, and so offended the giver? Thy wonderful gift for preaching, is it not a talent, and a gift from thy Creator?”
“Certes;