CHAPTER LXXX
SOME blackguard or other, I think it was Sybrandt, said, "A lie is notlike a blow with a curtal axe."
True: for we can predict in some degree the consequences of a strokewith any material weapon. But a lie has no bounds at all. The nature ofthe thing is to ramify beyond human calculation.
Often in the every-day world a lie has cost a life, or laid waste two orthree.
And so, in this story, what tremendous consequences of that oneheartless falsehood!
Yet the tillers reaped little from it.
The brothers, who invented it merely to have one claimant the less fortheir father's property, saw little Gerard take their brother's place intheir mother's heart. Nay, more, one day Eli openly proclaimed that,Gerard being lost, and probably dead, he had provided by will for littleGerard, and also for Margaret, his poor son's widow.
At this the look that passed between the black sheep was a caution totraitors. Cornelis had it on his lips to say Gerard was most likelyalive. But he saw his mother looking at him, and checked himself intime.
Ghysbrecht Van Swieten, the other partner in that lie, was now a failingman. He saw the period fast approaching when all his wealth would dropfrom his body, and his misdeeds cling to his soul.
Too intelligent to deceive himself entirely, he had never been free fromgusts of remorse. In taking Gerard's letter to Margaret he hadcompounded. "I cannot give up land and money," said his giant Avarice."I will cause her no unnecessary pain," said his dwarf Conscience.
So, after first tampering with the seal, and finding there was not asyllable about the deed, he took it to her with his own hand; and made amerit of it to himself: a set-off; and on a scale not uncommon where theself-accuser is the judge.
The birth of Margaret's child surprised and shocked him, and put histreacherous act in a new light. Should his letter take effect he shouldcause the dishonour of her, who was the daughter of one friend, thegranddaughter of another, and whose land he was keeping from her too.
These thoughts preying on him at that period of life, when the strengthof body decays, and the memory of old friends revives, filled him withgloomy horrors. Yet he was afraid to confess. For the cure was an honestman, and would have made him disgorge. And with him Avarice was aningrained habit, Penitence only a sentiment.
Matters were thus when, one day, returning from the town-hall to his ownhouse, he found a woman waiting for him in the vestibule, with a childin her arms. She was veiled, and so, concluding she had something to beashamed of, he addressed her magisterially. On this she let down herveil and looked him full in the face.
It was Margaret Brandt.
Her sudden appearance and manner startled him, and he could not concealhis confusion.
"Where is my Gerard?" cried she, her bosom heaving. "Is he alive?"
"For aught I know," stammered Ghysbrecht. "I hope so, for your sake.Prithee come into this room. The servants!"
"Not a step," said Margaret, and she took him by the shoulder, and heldhim with all the energy of an excited woman. "You know the secret ofthat which is breaking my heart. Why does not my Gerard come, nor senda line this many months? Answer me, or all the town is like to hear me;let alone thy servants. My misery is too great to be sported with."
In vain he persisted he knew nothing about Gerard. She told him thosewho had sent her to him told her another tale. "You do know why heneither comes nor sends," said she, firmly.
At this Ghysbrecht turned paler and paler; but he summoned all hisdignity, and said, "Would you believe those two knaves against a man ofworship?"
"What two knaves?" said she, keenly.
He stammered, "Said ye not--? There, I am a poor old broken man, whosememory is shaken. And you come here, and confuse me so. I know not whatI say."
"Ay, sir, your memory is shaken, or sure you would not be my enemy. Myfather saved you from the plague, when none other would come anigh you;and was ever your friend. My grandfather Floris helped you in your earlypoverty, and loved you, man and boy. Three generations of us you haveseen; and here is the fourth of us; this is your old friend Peter'sgrandchild, and your old friend Floris his great-grandchild. Look downon his innocent face, and think of theirs!"
"Woman, you torture me," sighed Ghysbrecht, and sank upon a bench. Butshe saw her advantage, and kneeled before him, and put the boy on hisknees. "This fatherless babe is poor Margaret Brandt's, that never didyou ill, and comes of a race that loved you. Nay, look at his face.'Twill melt thee more than any word of mine. Saints of heaven, what cana poor desolate girl and her babe have done to wipe out all memory ofthine own young days, when thou wert guiltless as he is, that now looksup in thy face and implores thee to give him back his father?"
And with her arms under the child she held him up higher and higher,smiling under the old man's eyes.
He cast a wild look of anguish on the child, and another on the kneelingmother, and started up shrieking, "Avaunt, ye pair of adders."
The stung soul gave the old limbs a momentary vigour, and he walkedrapidly, wringing his hands and clutching at his white hair. "Forgetthose days? I forget all else. Oh, woman, woman, sleeping or waking Isee but the faces of the dead, I hear but the voices of the dead, and Ishall soon be among the dead. There, there, what is done is done. I amin hell. I am in hell."
And unnatural force ended in prostration.
He staggered, and but for Margaret would have fallen. With her onedisengaged arm she supported him as well as she could, and cried forhelp.
A couple of servants came running, and carried him away in a statebordering on syncope. The last Margaret saw of him was his old furrowedface, white and helpless as his hair that hung down over the servant'selbow.
"Heaven forgive me," she said. "I doubt I have killed the poor old man."
Then this attempt to penetrate the torturing mystery left it as dark, ordarker than before. For when she came to ponder every word, hersuspicion was confirmed that Ghysbrecht did know something about Gerard."And who were the two knaves he thought had done a good deed, and toldme? Oh, my Gerard, my poor deserted babe, you and I are wading in deepwaters."
The visit to Tergou took more money than she could well afford: and acustomer ran away in her debt. She was once more compelled to unfoldCatherine's angel. But, strange to say, as she came down stairs with itin her hand she found some loose silver on the table, with a writtenline--
_For Gerard His Wife_
She fell with a cry of surprise on the writing: and soon it rose into acry of joy.
"He is alive. He sends me this by some friendly hand."
She kissed the writing again and again, and put it in her bosom.
Time rolled on: and no news of Gerard.
And about every two months a small sum in silver found its way into thehouse. Sometimes it lay on the table. Once it was flung in through thebedroom window in a purse. Once it was at the bottom of Luke's basket.He had stopped at the public-house to talk to a friend. The giver or hisagent was never detected. Catherine disowned it. Margaret Van Eyck sworeshe had no hand in it. So did Eli. And Margaret, whenever it came, usedto say to little Gerard, "Oh, my poor deserted child, you and I arewading in deep waters."
She applied at least half this modest, but useful supply, to dressingthe little Gerard beyond his station in life. "If it does come fromGerard, he shall see his boy neat." All the mothers in the street beganto sneer, especially such as had brats out at elbows.
The months rolled on, and dead sickness of heart succeeded to thesekeener torments. She returned to her first thought: "Gerard must bedead. She should never see her boy's father again, nor her marriagelines." This last grief, which had been somewhat allayed by Eli andCatherine recognizing her betrothal, now revived in full force; otherswould not look so favourably on her story. And often she moaned over herboy's illegitimacy. "Is it not enough for us to be bereaved? Must we bedishonoured too? Oh, that we had ne'er been born."
A change took place in Peter Brandt. His mind, clouded fo
r nearly twoyears, seemed now to be clearing; he had intervals of intelligence; andthen he and Margaret used to talk of Gerard till he wandered again. Butone day, returning after an absence of some hours, Margaret found himconversing with Catherine, in a way he had never done since hisparalytic stroke. "Eh, girl, why must you be out?" said she. "But indeedI have told him all; and we have been a-crying together over thytroubles."
Margaret stood silent, looking joyfully from one to the other.
Peter smiled on her, and said, "Come, let me bless thee."
She kneeled at his feet, and he blessed her most eloquently. He told hershe had been all her life the lovingest, truest, and most obedientdaughter Heaven ever sent to a poor old widowed man. "May thy son be tothee what thou hast been to me!"
After this he dozed. Then the females whispered together: and Catherinesaid--"All our talk e'en now was of Gerard. It lies heavy on his mind.His poor head must often have listened to us when it seemed quite dark.Margaret, he is a very understanding man; he thought of many things: 'Hemay be in prison,' says he, 'or forced to go fighting for some king, orsent to Constantinople to copy books there, or gone into the Churchafter all.' He had a bent that way."
"Ah, mother," whispered Margaret, in reply, "he doth but deceive himselfas we do."
Ere she could finish the sentence, a strange interruption occurred.
A loud voice cried out, "I SEE HIM. I SEE HIM."
And the old man with dilating eyes seemed to be looking right throughthe wall of the house.
"IN A BOAT; on a GREAT RIVER; COMING THIS WAY. Sore disfigured; but Iknew him. Gone! gone! all dark."
And he sank back, and asked feebly where was Margaret.
"Dear father, I am by thy side. Oh, mother! mother, what is this?"
"I cannot see thee, and but a moment agone I saw all round the world.Ay, ay. Well, I am ready. Is this thy hand? Bless thee, my child, blessthee! Weep not! The tree is ripe."
The old physician read the signs aright. These calm words were his last.The next moment he drooped his head, and gently, placidly, drifted awayfrom earth, like an infant sinking to rest. The torch had flashed up,before going out.