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

“The land is too full of cut-throats for me,” said he; “and 'tis lovely fair weather for the sea. Our Dutch skippers are not shipwrecked like these bungling Italians.”

When he returned home there sat his old landlady with her eyes sparkling.

“You are in luck, my young master,” said she. “All the fish run to your net this day methinks. See what a lackey hath brought to our house! This bill and this bag.”

Gerard broke the seals, and found it full of silver crowns. The letter contained a mere slip of paper with this line, cut out of some MS.:—“La lingua non ha osso, ma fa rompere il dosso.”

“Fear me not!” said Gerard aloud. “I'll keep mine between my teeth.”

“What is that?”

“Oh, nothing. Am I not happy, dame? I am going back to my sweetheart with money in one pocket, and land in the other.” And he fell to dancing round her.

“Well,” said she, “I trow nothing could make you happier.”

“Nothing, except to be there.”

“Well, that is a pity, for I thought to make you a little happier with a letter from Holland.”

“A letter? for me? where? how? who brought it?—Oh, dame!”

“A stranger; a painter, with a reddish face and an outlandish name; Anselmin, I trow.”

“Hans Memling! a friend of mine. God bless him!”

“Ay, that is it: Anselmin. He could scarce speak a word, but a had the wit to name thee; and a puts the letter down, and a nods and smiles, and I nods and smiles, and gives him a pint o' wine, and it went down him like a spoonful.”

“That is Hans, honest Hans. Oh, dame, I am in luck to-day; but I deserve it. For, I care not if I tell you, I have just overcome a great temptation for dear Margaret's sake.”

“Who is she?”

“Nay, I'd have my tongue cut out sooner than betray her, but oh, it was a temptation. Gratitude pushing me wrong, Beauty almost divine pulling me wrong: curses, reproaches, and hardest of all to resist, gentle tears from eyes used to command. Sure some saint helped me Anthony belike. But my reward is come.”

“Ay, is it, lad; and no farther off than my pocket. Come out, Gerard's reward,” and she brought a letter out of her capacious pocket.

Gerard threw his arm round her neck and hugged her.

“My best friend,” said he, “my second mother, I'll read it to you.

“Ay, do, do.”

“Alas! it is not from Margaret. This is not her hand.” And he turned it about.

“Alack; but maybe her bill is within. The lasses are aye for gliding in their bills under cover of another hand.”

“True. Whose hand is this? sure I have seen it. I trow 'tis my dear friend the demoiselle Van Eyck. Oh, then Margaret's bill will be inside.” He tore it open. “Nay, 'tis all in one writing. 'Gerard, my well beloved son' (she never called me that before that I mind), 'this letter brings thee heavy news from one would liever send thee joyful tidings. Know that Margaret Brandt died in these arms on Thursday sennight last.' (What does the doting old woman mean by that?) 'The last word on her lips was “Gerard:” she said, “Tell him I prayed for him at my last hour; and bid him pray for me.” She died very comfortable, and I saw her laid in the earth, for her father was useless, as you shall know. So no more at present from her that is with sorrowing heart thy loving friend and servant,

“MARGARET VAN EYCK.'”

“Ay, that is her signature sure enough. Now what d'ye think of that, dame?” cried Gerard, with a grating laugh. “There is a pretty letter to send to a poor fellow so far from home. But it is Reicht Heynes I blame for humouring the old woman and letting her do it; as for the old woman herself, she dotes, she has lost her head, she is fourscore. Oh, my heart, I'm choking. For all that she ought to be locked up, or her hands tied. Say this had come to a fool; say I was idiot enough to believe this; know ye what I should do? run to the top of the highest church tower in Rome and fling myself off it, cursing Heaven. Woman! woman! what are you doing?” And he seized her rudely by the shoulder. “What are ye weeping for?” he cried, in a voice all unlike his own, and loud and hoarse as a raven. “Would ye scald me to death with your tears? She believes it. She believes it. Ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah!—Then there is no God.”

The poor woman sighed and rocked herself.

“And must be the one to bring it thee all smiling and smirking? I could kill myself for't. Death spares none,” she sobbed. “Death spares none.”

Gerard staggered against the window sill. “But He is master of death,” he groaned. “Or they have taught me a lie. I begin to fear there is no God, and the saints are but dead bones, and hell is master of the world. My pretty Margaret; my sweet, my loving Margaret. The best daughter! the truest lover! the pride of Holland! the darling of the world! It is a lie. Where is this caitiff Hans? I'll hunt him round the town. I'll cram his murdering falsehood down his throat.”

And he seized his hat and ran furiously about the streets for hours.

Towards sunset he came back white as a ghost. He had not found Memling; but his poor mind had had time to realise the woman's simple words, that Death spares none.

He crept into the house bent, and feeble as an old man, and refused all food. Nor would he speak, but sat, white, with great staring eyes, muttering at intervals, “There is no God.” Alarmed both on his account and on her own (for he looked a desperate maniac), his landlady ran for her aunt.

The good dame came, and the two women, braver together, sat one on each side of him, and tried to soothe him with kind and consoling voices. But he heeded them no more than the chairs they sat on. Then the younger held a crucifix out before him, to aid her. “Maria, mother of heaven, comfort him,” they sighed. But he sat glaring, deaf to all external sounds.

Presently, without any warning, he jumped up, struck the crucifix rudely out of his way with a curse, and made a headlong dash at the door. The poor women shrieked. But ere he reached the door, something seemed to them to draw him up straight by his hair, and twirl him round like a top. He whirled twice round with arms extended; then fell like a dead log upon the floor, with blood trickling from his nostrils and ears.