The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade (feel good fiction books .txt) 📗

exalted state of curiosity. She soon returned with something in a cloth, uncovered it, and there was a lovely picture of the Virgin, with all her insignia, and wearing her tiara over a wealth of beautiful hair, which flowed loose over her shoulders. Catherine, at first, was struck with awe.

“It is herself,” she cried; “it is the Queen of Heaven. I never saw one like her to my mind before.”

“And her eyes, mother: lifted to the sky, as if they belonged there, and not to a mortal creature. And her beautiful hair of burning gold.”

“And to think I have a son that can make the saints live again upon a piece of wood!”

“The reason is, he is a young saint himself, mother. He is too good for this world; he is here to portray the blessed, and then to go away and be with them for ever.”

Ere they had half done admiring it, a strange voice was heard at the door. By one of the furtive instincts of their sex they hastily hid the picture in the cloth, though there was no need, And the next moment in came, casting his eyes furtively around, a man that had not entered the house this ten years Ghysbrecht Van Swieten.

The two women were so taken by surprise, that they merely stared at him and at one another, and said, “The burgomaster!” in a tone so expressive, that Ghysbrecht felt compelled to answer it.

“Yes! I own the last time I came here was not on a friendly errand. Men love their own interest—Eli's and mine were contrary. Well, let this visit atone the last. To-day I come on your business and none of mine.” Catherine and her daughter exchanged a swift glance of contemptuous incredulity. They knew the man better than he thought.

“It is about your son Gerard.”

“Ay! ay! you want him to work for the town all for nothing. He told us.”

“I come on no such errand. It is to let you know he has fallen into bad hands.”

“Now Heaven and the saints forbid! Man, torture not a mother! Speak out, and quickly: speak ere you have time to coin falsehood: we know thee.”

Ghysbrecht turned pale at this affront, and spite mingled with the other motives that brought him here. “Thus it is, then,” said he, grinding his teeth and speaking very fast. “Your son Gerard is more like to be father of a family than a priest: he is for ever with Margaret, Peter Brandt's red-haired girl, and loves her like a cow her calf.”

Mother and daughter both burst out laughing. Ghysbrecht stared at them.

“What! you knew it?”

“Carry this tale to those who know not my son, Gerard. Women are nought to him.”

“Other women, mayhap. But this one is the apple of his eye to him, or will be, if you part them not, and soon. Come, dame, make me not waste time and friendly counsel: my servant has seen them together a score times, handed, and reading babies in one another's eyes like—you know, dame—you have been young, too.”

“Girl, I am ill at ease. Yea, I have been young, and know how blind and foolish the young are. My heart! he has turned me sick in a moment. Kate, if it should be true?”

“Nay, nay!” cried Kate eagerly. “Gerard might love a young woman: all young men do: I can't find what they see in them to love so; but if he did, he would let us know; he would not deceive us. You wicked man! No, dear mother, look not so! Gerard is too good to love a creature of earth. His love is for our Lady and the saints. Ah! I will show you the picture there: if his heart was earthly, could he paint the Queen of Heaven like that—look! look!” and she held the picture out triumphantly, and, more radiant and beautiful in this moment of enthusiasm than ever dead picture was or will be, over-powered the burgomaster with her eloquence and her feminine proof of Gerard's purity. His eyes and mouth opened, and remained open: in which state they kept turning, face and all as if on a pivot, from the picture to the women, and from the women to the picture.

“Why, it is herself,” he gasped.

“Isn't it!” cried Kate, and her hostility was softened. “You admire it? I forgive you for frightening us.”

“Am I in a mad-house?” said Ghysbrecht Van Swieten thoroughly puzzled. “You show me a picture of the girl; and you say he painted it; and that is a proof he cannot love her. Why, they all paint their sweethearts, painters do.”

“A picture of the girl?” exclaimed Kate, shocked. “Fie! this is no girl; this is our blessed Lady.”

“No, no; it is Margaret Brandt.”

“Oh blind! It is the Queen of Heaven.”

“No; only of Sevenbergen village.”

“Profane man! behold her crown!”

“Silly child! look at her red hair! Would the Virgin be seen in red hair? She who had the pick of all the colours ten thousand years before the world began.”

At this moment an anxious face was insinuated round the edge of the open door: it was their neighbour Peter Buyskens.

“What is to do?” said he in a cautious whisper. “We can hear you all across the street. What on earth is to do?”

“Oh, neighbour! What is to do? Why, here is the burgomaster blackening our Gerard.”

“Stop!” cried Van Swieten. “Peter Buyskens is come in the nick of time. He knows father and daughter both. They cast their glamour on him.”

“What! is she a witch too?”

“Else the egg takes not after the bird. Why is her father called the magician? I tell you they bewitched this very Peter here; they cast unholy spells on him, and cured him of the colic: now, Peter, look and tell me who is that? and you be silent, women, for a moment, if you can; who is it, Peter?”

“Well, to be sure!” said Peter, in reply; and his eye seemed fascinated by the picture.

“Who is it?” repeated Ghysbrecht impetuously.

Peter Buyskens smiled. “Why, you know as well as I do; but what have they put a crown on her for? I never saw her in a crown, for my part.”

“Man alive! Can't you open your great jaws, and just speak a wench's name plain out to oblige three people?”

“I'd do a great deal more to oblige one of you than that, burgomaster. If it isn't as natural as life!”

“Curse the man! he won't, he won't—curse him!”

“Why, what have I done now?”

“Oh, sir!” said little Kate, “for