The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade (most interesting books to read .TXT) 📕

a look of love and gentle pride upon her girl: a heavenly look, such as, they say, is given to the eye of the short-lived resting on the short-lived.

The Countess resumed: “My old friend request me to be serviceable to you. It is the first favour she has done us the honour of asking us, and the request is sacred. You are in holy orders, sir?”

Gerard bowed.

“I fear you are not a priest, you look too young.”

“Oh no, madam; I am not even a sub-deacon. I am only a lector; but next month I shall be an exorcist, and before long an acolyth.”

“Well, Monsieur Gerard, with your accomplishments you can soon pass through the inferior orders. And let me beg you to do so. For the day after you have said your first mass I shall have the pleasure of appointing you to a benefice.”

“Oh, madam!”

“And, Marie, remember I make this promise in your name as well as my own.”

“Fear not, mamma: I will not forget. But if he will take my advice, what he will be is Bishop of Liege. The Bishop of Liege is a beautiful bishop. What! do you not remember him, mamma, that day we were at Liege? he was braver than grandpapa himself. He had on a crown, a high one, and it was cut in the middle, and it was full of oh! such beautiful jewels; and his gown stiff with gold; and his mantle, too; and it had a broad border, all pictures; but, above all, his gloves; you have no such gloves, mamma. They were embroidered and covered with jewels, and scented with such lovely scent; I smelt them all the time he was giving me his blessing on my head with them. Dear old man! I dare say he will die soon most old people do and then, sir, you Can be bishop you know, and wear—

“Gently, Marie, gently: bishoprics are for old gentlemen; and this is a young gentleman.”

“Mamma! he is not so very young.

“Not compared with you, Marie, eh?”

“He is a good birth dear mamma; and I am sure he is good enough for a bishop.

“Alas! mademoiselle, you are mistaken”

“I know not that, Monsieur Gerard; but I am a little puzzled to know on what grounds mademoiselle there pronounces your character so boldly.”

“Alas! mamma,” said the Princess, “you have not looked at his face, then;” and she raised her eyebrows at her mother's simplicity.

“I beg your pardon,” said the Countess, “I have. Well, sir, if I cannot go quite so fast as my daughter, attribute it to my age, not to a want of interest in your welfare. A benefice will do to begin your Career with; and I must take care it is not too far from—what call you the place?”

“Tergou, madam

“A priest gives up much,” continued the Countess; “often, I fear, he learns too late how much;” and her woman's eye rested a moment on Gerard with mild pity and half surprise at his resigning her sex and all the heaven they can bestow, and the great parental joys: “at least you shall be near your friends. Have you a mother?”

“Yes, madam, thanks be to God!”

“Good! You shall have a church near Tergou. She will thank me. And now, sir, we must not detain you too long from those who have a better claim on your society than we have. Duchess, oblige me by bidding one of the pages conduct him to the hall of banquet; the way is hard to find.”

Gerard bowed low to the Countess and the Princess, and backed towards the door.

“I hope it will be a nice benefice,” said the Princess to him, with a pretty smile, as he was going out; then, shaking her head with an air of solemn misgiving, “but you had better have been Bishop of Liege.”

Gerard followed his new conductor, his heart warm with gratitude; but ere he reached the banquet-hall a chill came over him. The mind of one who has led a quiet, uneventful life is not apt to take in contradictory feelings at the same moment and balance them, but rather to be overpowered by each in turn. While Gerard was with the Countess, the excitement of so new a situation, the unlooked-for promise the joy and pride it would cause at home, possessed him wholly; but now it was passion's turn to be heard again. What! give up Margaret, whose soft hand he still felt in his, and her deep eyes in his heart? resign her and all the world of love and joy she had opened on him to-day? The revulsion, when it did come, was so strong that he hastily resolved to say nothing at home about the offered benefice. “The Countess is so good,” thought he, “she has a hundred ways of aiding a young man's fortune: she will not compel me to be a priest when she shall learn I love one of her sex: one would almost think she does know it, for she cast a strange look on me, and said, 'A priest gives up much, too much.' I dare say she will give me a place about the palace.” And with this hopeful reflection his mind was eased, and, being now at the entrance of the banqueting hall, he thanked his conductor, and ran hastily with joyful eyes to Margaret. He came in sight of the table—she was gone. Peter was gone too. Nobody was at the table at all; only a citizen in sober garments had just tumbled under it dead drunk, and several persons were raising him to carry him away. Gerard never guessed how important this solemn drunkard was to him: he was looking for “Beauty,” and let the “Beast” lie. He ran wildly round the hall, which was now comparatively empty. She was not there. He left the palace: outside he found a crowd gaping at two great fan-lights just lighted over the gate. He asked them earnestly if they had seen an old man in a gown, and a lovely girl pass out. They laughed at the question. “They were staring at these new lights that turn night into day. They didn't trouble their heads about old men and young wenches, every-day sights.” From another group he learned there was a Mystery being played under canvas hard by, and all the world gone to see it. This revived his hopes, and he went and saw the Mystery.

In this representation divine personages, too sacred for me to name here, came clumsily down from heaven to talk sophistry with the cardinal Virtues, the nine Muses, and the seven deadly sins, all present in human shape, and not unlike one another. To enliven which weary stuff in rattled the Prince of the power of the air, and an imp that kept molesting him and buffeting him with a bladder, at each thwack of which the crowd were in ecstasies. When the Vices had uttered good store of obscenity and the Virtues twaddle, the celestials, including the nine Muses went gingerly back to heaven one by one; for there was but one cloud; and two artisans worked it up with its supernatural freight, and worked it down with a winch, in full sight of the audience. These disposed of, the bottomless pit opened and flamed in the centre of the stage; the carpenters and Virtues shoved the Vices in, and the Virtues and Beelzebub and his tormentor