The Hearth
WHEN little Gerard was nearly three months old, a messenger came hot
from Tergou for Catherine.
"Now just you go back," said she, "and tell them I can't come and I
won't: they have got Kate." So he departed, and Catherine continued her
sentence; "there, child, I _must_ go: they are all at sixes and sevens:
this is the third time of asking; and to-morrow my man would come
himself and take me home by the ear, with a flea in't." She then
recapitulated her experiences of infants, and instructed Margaret what
to do in each coming emergency, and pressed money upon her. Margaret
declined it with thanks. Catherine insisted, and turned angry. Margaret
made excuses all so reasonable that Catherine rejected them with calm
contempt; to her mind they lacked femininity. "Come, out with your
heart," said she; "and you and me parting; and mayhap shall never see
one another's face again."
"Oh! mother, say not so."
"Alack, girl, I have seen it so often; 'twill come into my mind now at
each parting. When I was your age, I never had such a thought. Nay, we
were all to live for ever then: so out wi' it."
"Well then, mother--I would rather not have told you--your Cornelis must
say to me, 'So you are come to share with us, eh, mistress?' those were
his words. I told him I would be very sorry."
"Beshrew his ill tongue! What signifies it? He will never know."
"Most likely he would sooner or later. But, whether or no, I will take
no grudge bounty from any family; unless I saw my child starving, and
then Heaven only knows what I might do. Nay, mother, give me but thy
love--I do prize that above silver, and they grudge me not that, by all
I can find--for not a stiver of money will I take out of your house."
"You are a foolish lass. Why, were it me, I'd take it just to spite
him."
"No, you would not. You and I are apples off one tree."
Catherine yielded with a good grace; and, when the actual parting came,
embraces and tears burst forth on both sides.
[Illustration: MARGARET HAD MOMENTS OF BLISS]
When she was gone the child cried a good deal; and all attempts to
pacify him failing, Margaret suspected a pin, and, searching between his
clothes and his skin, found a gold angel incommoding his backbone.
"There now, Gerard," said she to the babe; "I _thought_ granny gave in
rather _sudden_."
She took the coin and wrapped it in a piece of linen, and laid it at the
bottom of her box, bidding the infant observe she could be at times as
resolute as granny herself.
Catherine told Eli of Margaret's foolish pride, and how she had baffled
it. Eli said Margaret was right, and she was wrong. Catherine tossed her
head. Eli pondered.
Margaret was not without domestic anxieties. She had still two men to
feed, and could not work so hard as she had done. She had enough to do
to keep the house, and the child, and cook for them all. But she had a
little money laid by, and she used to tell her child his father would be
home to help them before it was spent. And with these bright hopes, and
that treasury of bliss, her boy, she spent some happy months.
Time wore on: and no Gerard came; and, stranger still, no news of him.
Then her mind was disquieted, and, contrary to her nature, which was
practical, she was often lost in sad reverie; and sighed in silence.
And, while her heart was troubled, her money was melting. And so it was,
that one day she found the cupboard empty, and looked in her dependents'
faces; and, at the sight of them, her bosom was all pity; and she
appealed to the baby whether she could let grandfather and poor old
Martin want a meal; and went and took out Catherine's angel. As she
unfolded the linen a tear of gentle mortification fell on it. She sent
Martin out to change it. While he was gone a Frenchman came with one of
the dealers in illuminated work, who had offered her so poor a price. He
told her he was employed by his sovereign to collect masterpieces for
her book of hours. Then she showed him the two best things she had; and
he was charmed with one of them, viz., the flowers and raspberries and
creeping things, which Margaret Van Eyck had shaded. He offered her
an unheard-of price. "Nay, flout not my need, good stranger," said she:
"three mouths there be in this house, and none to fill them but me."
Curious arithmetic! Left out No. 1.
"I flout thee not, fair mistress. My princess charged me strictly, 'Seek
the best craftsmen; but I will no hard bargains; make them content with
me, and me with them.'"
The next minute Margaret was on her knees kissing little Gerard in the
cradle, and showering four gold pieces on him again and again, and
relating the whole occurrence to him in very broken Dutch.
"And oh what a good princess: wasn't she? We will pray for her, won't
we, my lambkin; when we are old enough?"
Martin came in furious. "They will not change it. I trow they think I
stole it."
"I am beholden to thee," said Margaret, hastily, and almost snatched it
from Martin, and wrapped it up again, and restored it to its
hiding-place.
Ere these unexpected funds were spent, she got to her ironing and
starching again. In the midst of which Martin sickened; and died after
an illness of nine days.
Nearly all of her money went to bury him decently.
He was gone; and there was an empty chair by her fireside. For he had
preferred the hearth to the sun as soon as the Busybody was gone.
Margaret would not allow anybody to sit in this chair now. Yet whenever
she let her eye dwell too long on it, vacant, it was sure to cost her a
tear.
And now there was nobody to carry her linen home. To do it herself she
must leave little Gerard in charge of a neighbour. But she dared not
trust such a treasure to mortal; and besides she could not bear him out
of her sight for hours and hours. So she set inquiries on foot for a boy
to carry her basket on Saturday and Monday.
A plump, fresh-coloured youth, called Luke Peterson, who looked fifteen,
but was eighteen, came in, and blushing, and twiddling his bonnet, asked
her if a man would not serve her turn as well as a boy.
Before he spoke she was saying to herself, "This boy will just do."
But she took the cue, and said, "Nay; but a man will maybe seek more
than I can well pay."
"Not I," said Luke, warmly. "Why, Mistress Margaret, I am your
neighbour, and I do very well at the coopering. I can carry your basket
for you before or after my day's work, and welcome. You have no need to
pay _me_ anything. 'Tisn't as if we were strangers, ye know."
"Why, Master Luke, I know your face, for that matter; but I cannot call
to mind that ever a word passed between us."
"Oh yes, you did, Mistress Margaret. What have you forgotten? One day
you were trying to carry your baby and eke your pitcher full o' water:
and, quo' I, 'Give me the baby to carry.' 'Nay,' says you, 'I'll give
you the pitcher, and keep the bairn myself:' and I carried the pitcher
home, and you took it from me at this door, and you said to me, 'I am
muckle obliged to you, young man,' with such a sweet voice; not like the
folk in this street speak to a body."
"I do mind now, Master Luke; and methinks it was the least I could say."
"Well, Mistress Margaret, if you will say as much every time I carry
your basket, I care not how often I bear it, nor how far."
"Nay, nay," said Margaret, colouring faintly. "I would not put upon good
nature. You are young, Master Luke, and kindly. Say I give you your
supper on Saturday night, when you bring the linen home, and your
dawn-mete o' Monday; would that make us anyways even?"
"As you please; only say not I sought a couple o' diets, I, for such a
trifle as yon."
With chubby-faced Luke's timely assistance, and the health and strength
which Heaven gave this poor young woman, to balance her many ills, the
house went pretty smoothly awhile. But the heart became more and more
troubled by Gerard's long and now most mysterious silence.
And then that mental torture, Suspense, began to tear her heavy heart
with his hot pinchers, till she cried often and vehemently, "Oh, that I
could know the worst."
While she was in this state, one day she heard a heavy step mount the
stair. She started and trembled. "That is no step that I know. Ill
tidings!"
The door opened, and an unexpected visitor, Eli, came in, looking grave
and kind.
Margaret eyed him in silence, and with increasing agitation.
"Girl," said he, "the skipper is come back."
"One word," gasped Margaret, "is he alive?"
"Surely, I hope so. No one has seen him dead."
"Then they must have seen him alive."
"No girl; neither dead nor alive hath he been seen this many months in
Rome. My daughter Kate thinks he is gone to some other city. She bade me
tell you her thought."
"Ay, like enough," said Margaret, gloomily; "like enough. My poor babe!"
The old man in a faintest voice asked her for a morsel to eat: he had
come fasting.
The poor thing pitied him with the surface of her agitated mind, and
cooked a meal for him, trembling, and scarce knowing what she was about.
Ere he went he laid his hand upon her head, and said, "Be he alive, or
be he dead, I look on thee as my daughter. Can I do nought for thee this
day? bethink thee now."
"Ay, old man. Pray for him; and for me!"
Eli sighed, and went sadly and heavily down the stairs.
She listened half stupidly to his retiring footsteps till they ceased.
Then she sank moaning down by the cradle, and drew little Gerard tight
to her bosom. "Oh, my poor fatherless boy; my fatherless boy!"