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

love. Nobles courted me. I ne'er thought one of humble birth could reject me. I showed him my heart oh, shame of my sex! He drew back; yet he admired me; but innocently, He loved another; and he was constant. I resorted to a woman's wiles, They availed not. I borrowed the wickedness of men, and threatened his life, and to tell his true lover he died false to her, Ah! you shrink your foot trembles. Am I not a monster? Then he wept and prayed to me for mercy; then my good angel helped me; I bade him leave Rome. Gerard, Gerard, why did you not obey me? I thought he was gone. But two months after this I met him, Never shall I forget it. I was descending the Tiber in my galley, when he came up it with a gay company, and at his side a woman beautiful as an angel, but bold and bad. That woman claimed me aloud for her rival. Traitor and hypocrite, he had exposed me to her, and to all the loose tongues in Rome. In terror and revenge I hired-a bravo. When he was gone on his bloody errand, I wavered too late. The dagger I had hired struck, He never came back to his lodgings. He was dead. Alas! perhaps he was not so much to blame: none have ever cast his name in my teeth. His poor body is not found: or I should kiss its wounds; and slay myself upon it. All around his very name seems silent as the grave, to which this murderous hand hath sent him.” (Clement's eye was drawn by her movement. He recognized her shapely arm, and soft white hand.) “And oh! he was so young to die. A poor thoughtless boy, that had fallen a victim to that bad woman's arts, and she had made him tell her everything. Monster of cruelty, what penance can avail me? Oh, holy father, what shall I do?”

Clement's lips moved in prayer, but he was silent. He could not see his duty clear.

Then she took his feet and began to dry them. She rested his foot upon her soft arm, and pressed it with the towel so gently she seemed incapable of hurting a fly. Yet her lips had just told another story, and a true one.

While Clement was still praying for wisdom, a tear fell upon his foot. It decided him. “My daughter,” said he, “I myself have been a great sinner.”

“You, father?”

“I; quite as great a sinner as thou; though not in the same way. The devil has gins and snares, as well as traps. But penitence softened my impious heart, and then gratitude remoulded it. Therefore, seeing you penitent, I hope you can be grateful to Him, who has been more merciful to you than you have to your fellow-creature. Daughter, the Church sends you comfort.”

“Comfort to me? ah! never! unless it can raise my victim from the dead.”

“Take this crucifix in thy hand, fix thine eyes on it, and listen to me,” was all the reply.

“Yes, father; but let me thoroughly dry your feet first; 'tis ill sitting in wet feet; and you are the holiest man of all whose feet I have washed. I know it by your voice.”

“Woman, I am not. As for my feet, they can wait their turn. Obey thou me.

“Yes, father,” said the lady humbly. But with a woman's evasive pertinacity she wreathed one towel swiftly round the foot she was drying, and placed his other foot on the dry napkin; then obeyed his command.

And as she bowed over the crucifix, the low, solemn tones of the friar fell upon her ear, and his words soon made her whole body quiver with various emotion, in quick succession.

“My daughter, he you murdered—in intent—was one Gerard, a Hollander. He loved a creature, as men should love none but their Redeemer and His Church. Heaven chastised him. A letter came to Rome. She was dead.”

“Poor Gerard! Poor Margaret!” moaned the penitent.

Clement's voice faltered at this a moment. But soon, by a strong effort, he recovered all his calmness.

“His feeble nature yielded, body and soul, to the blow, He was stricken down with fever. He revived only to rebel against Heaven. He said, 'There is no God.'”

“Poor, poor Gerard!”

“Poor Gerard? thou feeble, foolish woman! Nay, wicked, impious Gerard. He plunged into vice, and soiled his eternal jewel: those you met him with were his daily companions; but know, rash creature, that the seeming woman you took to be his leman was but a boy, dressed in woman's habits to flout the others, a fair boy called Andrea. What that Andrea said to thee I know not; but be sure neither he, nor any layman, knows thy folly, This Gerard, rebel against Heaven, was no traitor to thee, unworthy.”

The lady moaned like one in bodily agony, and the crucifix began to tremble in her trembling hands.

“Courage!” said Clement. “Comfort is at hand.”

“From crime he fell into despair, and bent on destroying his soul, he stood one night by Tiber, resolved on suicide. He saw one watching him. It was a bravo.”

“Holy saints!”

“He begged the bravo to despatch him; he offered him all his money, to slay him body and soul. The bravo would not. Then this desperate sinner, not softened even by that refusal, flung himself into Tiber.”

“Ah!”

“And the assassin saved his life. Thou hadst chosen for the task Lodovico, husband of Teresa, whom this Gerard had saved at sea, her and her infant child.”

“He lives! he lives! he lives! I am faint.”

The friar took the crucifix from her hands, fearing it might fall, A shower of tears relieved her. The friar gave her time; then continued calmly, “Ay, he lives; thanks to thee and thy wickedness, guided to his eternal good by an almighty and all-merciful hand. Thou art his greatest earthly benefactor.”

“Where is he? where? where?”

“What is that to thee?”

“Only to see him alive. To beg him on my knees forgive me. I swear to you I will never presume again to—How could I? He knows all. Oh, shame! Father, does he know?”

“All.”

“Then never will I meet his eye; I should sink into the earth. But I would repair my crime. I would watch his life unseen. He shall rise in the world, whence I so nearly thrust him, poor soul; the Caesare, my family, are all-powerful in Rome; and I am near their head.”

“My daughter,” said Clement coldly, “he you call Gerard needs nothing man can do for him. Saved by a miracle from double death, he has left the world, and taken refuge from sin and folly in the bosom of the Church.”

“A priest?”

“A priest, and a friar.”

“A friar? Then you are not his confessor? Yet you know all. That gentle voice!”