The Cloister and the Hearth Part 76

"So you have been hearkening all the time, eh?"

"What are my ears for, mistress?"

"True. Well throw us the light of thy wisdom on this dark matter."

"There is no darkness that I see," said Reicht. "And the clue, why an'

ye call't a two-plye twine, and the ends on't in this room e'en now, ye'll not be far out. Oh, mistress, I wonder at you sitting there pretending."

"Marry, come up!" and the mistress's cheek was now nearly as red as the servant's. "So 'twas I drove the foolish girl away."

"You did your share, mistress. What sort of greeting gave you her last time she came? Think you she could miss to notice it, and she all friendless? And you said, 'I have altered my mind about painting of you,' says you, a turning up your nose at her."

"I did not turn up my nose. It is not shaped like yours for looking heavenward."

"Oh, all our nosen can follow our heartys bent, for that matter. Poor soul. She did come into the kitchen to me. 'I am not to be painted now,'

said she, and the tears in her eyes. She said no more. But I knew well what she did mean. I had seen ye."

"Well," said Margaret Van Eyck, "I do confess so much, and I make you the judge, madam. Know that these young girls can do nothing of their own heads, but are most apt at mimicking aught their sweethearts do. Now your Gerard is reasonably handy at many things, and among the rest at the illuminator's craft. And Margaret she is his pupil, and a patient one: what marvel? having a woman's eye for colour, and eke a lover to ape. 'Tis a trick I despise at heart: for by it the great art of colour, which should be royal, aspiring, and free, becomes a poor slave to the petty crafts of writing and printing, and is fettered, imprisoned, and made little, body and soul, to match the littleness of books, and go to church in a rich fool's pocket. Natheless affection rules us all, and, when the poor wench would bring me her thorn leaves, and lilies, and ivy, and dewberries, and ladybirds, and b.u.t.terfly grubs, and all the sc.u.m of nature--stuck fast in gold-leaf like wasps in a honey-pot, and, withal her diurnal book, showing she had pored an hundred, or an hundred and fifty, or two hundred, hours over each singular page, certes I was wroth that an immortal soul and many hours of labour, and much manual skill, should be flung away on Nature's trash, leaves, insects, grubs, and on barren letters: but, having bowels, I did perforce restrain, and, as it were, dam my better feelings, and looked kindly at the work to see how it might be bettered: and said I, 'Sith Heaven for our sins hath doomed us to spend time, and soul, and colour, on great letters and little beetles, omitting such small fry as saints and heroes, their acts and pa.s.sions, why not present the sc.u.m naturally?' I told her 'the grapes I saw, walking abroad, did hang i' the air, not stick in a wall: and even these insects,' quo' I, 'and Nature her slime in general, pa.s.s not their noxious lives wedged miserably in metal prisons like flies in honey-pots and glue-pots, but do crawl or hover at large, infesting air.' 'Ah! my dear friend,' says she, 'I see now whither you drive: but this ground is gold; whereon we may not shade.' 'Who says so?' quoth I.

'All teachers of this craft,' says she: and (to make an end o' me at once, I trow) 'Gerard himself!' 'That for Gerard himself,' quoth I, 'and all the gang; gi'e me a brus.h.!.+'

"Then chose I, to shade her fruit and reptiles, a colour false in nature, but true relatively to that monstrous ground of glaring gold; and in five minutes out came a bunch of raspberries, stalk and all, and a'most flew in your mouth: likewise a b.u.t.terfly grub she had so truly presented as might turn the stoutest stomach. My lady she flings her arms round my neck, and says she, 'Oh!'"

"Did she now?"

"The little love!" observed Denys, succeeding at last in wedging in a word.

Margaret Van Eyck stared at him; and then smiled. She went on to tell them how from step to step she had been led on to promise to resume the art she had laid aside with a sigh when her brothers died, and to paint the Madonna once more--with Margaret for model. Incidentally she even revealed how girls are turned into saints. "'Thy hair is adorable,' said I. 'Why, 'tis red,' quo' she. 'Ay,' quoth I, 'but what a red! how brown!

how glossy! most hair is not worth a straw to us painters: thine the artist's very hue. But thy violet eyes, which smack of earth, being now languid for lack of one Gerard, now full of fire in hopes of the same Gerard, these will I lift to heaven in fixed and holy meditation, and thy nose, which doth already somewhat aspire that way (though not so piously as Reicht's), will I debase a trifle, and somewhat enfeeble thy chin.'"

"Enfeeble her chin? Alack! what may that mean? Ye go beyond me, mistress."

"'Tis a resolute chin. Not a jot too resolute for this wicked world: but, when ye come to a Madonna? No thank you."

"Well I never. A resolute chin."

_Denys._] "The darling!"

"And now comes the rub. When you told me she was--the way she is, it gave me a shock: I dropped my brushes. Was I going to turn a girl, that couldn't keep her lover at a distance, into the Virgin Mary, at my time of life? I love the poor ninny still. But I adore our blessed Lady. Say you, 'a painter must not be peevish in such matters.' Well, most painters are men: and men are fine fellows. They can do aught. Their saints and virgins are neither more nor less than their lemans, saving your presence. But know that for this very reason half their craft is lost on me, which find beneath their angels' white wings the very trollops I have seen flaunting it on the streets, bejewelled like Paynim idols, and put on like the queens in a pack o' cards. And I am not a fine fellow, but only a woman, and my painting is but one half craft, and t'other half devotion. So now you may read me. 'Twas foolish, maybe, but I could not help it: yet am I sorry." And the old lady ended despondently a discourse which she had commenced in a mighty defiant tone.

"Well, you know, dame," observed Catherine, "you must think it would go to the poor girl's heart, and she so fond of ye?"

Margaret Van Eyck only sighed.

The Frisian girl, after biting her lips impatiently a little while, turned upon Catherine. "Why, dame, think you 'twas for that alone Margaret and Peter hath left Sevenberg? Nay."

"For what else, then?"

"What else? Why because Gerard's people slight her so cruel. Who would bide among hard-hearted folk that ha' driven her lad t'Italy, and, now he is gone, relent not, but face it out, and ne'er come anigh her that is left?"

"Reicht, I was going."

"Oh, ay, going, and going, and going. Ye should ha' said less or else done more. But with your words you did uplift her heart and let it down wi' your deeds. 'They have never been,' said the poor thing to me, with such a sigh. Ay, here is _one_ can feel for her: for I too am far from my friends, and often, when first I came to Holland, I did use to take a hearty cry all to myself. But ten times liever would I be Reicht Heynes with nought but the leagues atween me and all my kith, than be as she is i' the midst of them that ought to warm to her, and yet to fare as lonesome as I."

"Alack, Reicht, I did go but yestreen, and had gone before, but one plaguy thing or t'other did still come and hinder me."

"Mistress, did aught hinder ye to eat your dinner any one of those days?

I trow not. And had your heart been as good towards your own flesh and blood, as 'twas towards your flesher's meat, nought had prevailed to keep you from her that sat lonely, a watching the road for you and comfort, wi' your child's child a beating 'neath her bosom."

Here this rude young woman was interrupted by an incident not uncommon in a domestic's bright existence. The Van Eyck had been nettled by the attack on her, but with due tact had gone into ambush. She now sprang out of it. "Since you disrespect my guests, seek another place!"

"With all my heart," said Reicht stoutly.

"Nay, mistress," put in the good-natured Catherine. "True folk will still speak out. Her tongue is a stinger." Here the water came into the speaker's eyes by way of confirmation. "But better she said it than thought it. So now 'twon't rankle in her. And, part with her for me, that shall ye not. Beshrew the wench, she kens she is a good servant, and takes advantage. We poor wretches which keep house must still pay 'em tax for value. I had a good servant once, when I was a young 'oman.

Eh dear, how she did grind me down into the dust. In the end, by Heaven's mercy, she married the baker, and I was my own woman again.

'So,' said I, 'no more good servants shall come hither, a hectoring o'

me.' I just get a fool and learn her: and whenever she knoweth her right hand from her left, she sauceth me: then out I bundle her neck and crop, and take another dunce in her place. Dear heart, 'tis wearisome, teaching a string of fools by ones; but there--I am mistress:" here she forgot that she was defending Reicht, and turning rather spitefully upon her, added, "and you be mistress here, I trow."

"No more than that stool," said the Van Eyck, loftily. "She is neither mistress nor servant: but Gone. She is dismissed the house, and there's an end of _her_. What did ye not hear me turn the saucy baggage off?"

"Ay, ay. We all heard ye," said Reicht, with vast indifference.

"Then hear me!" said Denys, solemnly.

They all went round like things on wheels, and fastened their eyes on him.

"Ay, let us hear what the man says," urged the hostess. "Men are fine fellows; with their great hoa.r.s.e voices."

"Mistress Reicht," said Denys, with great dignity and ceremony, indeed so great as to verge on the absurd, "you are turned off. If on a slight acquaintance I might advise, I'd say, since you are a servant no more, be a mistress, a queen."

"Easier said than done," replied Reicht bluntly.

"Not a jot. You see here one who is a man, though but half an arbalestrier, owing to that devilish Englishman's arrow, in whose carca.s.s I have, however, left a like token, which is a comfort. I have twenty gold pieces" (he showed them) "and a stout arm. In another week or so I shall have twain. Marriage is not a habit of mine: but I capitulate to so many virtues. You are beautiful, good hearted, and outspoken, and above all, you take the part of my she-comrade. Be then an arbalestriesse!"

"And what the d.i.c.kens is that?" inquired Reicht.

"I mean, be the wife, mistress, and queen, of Denys of Burgundy here present!"

A dead silence fell on all.

It did not last long though: and was followed by a burst of unreasonable indignation.

_Catherine._] "Well, did you ever?"

_Margaret._] "Never in all my born days."

_Catherine._] "Before our very faces."

_Margaret._] "Of all the absurdity, and insolence of this ridiculous s.e.x----"