"Well?"
"They followed thee not to Gouda by miracle but by my treason. I said, he will ne"er be quite happy without his birds that visited him in his cell; and I was jealous of them, and cried, and said, these foul little things, they are my child"s rivals. And I bought loaves of bread, and Jorian and me we put crumbs at the cave door, and thence went sprinkling them all the way to the manse, and there a heap. And my wiles succeeded, and they came, and thou wast glad, and I was pleased to see thee glad; and when thou sawest in my guile the finger of Heaven, wicked, deceitful I did hold my tongue. But _die_ deceiving thee? ah, no, I could not.
Forgive me if thou canst; I was but a woman; I knew no better at the time. "Twas writ in my bosom with a very sunbeam, "Tis good for him to bide at Gouda manse.""
"Forgive thee, sweet innocent!" sobbed Gerard, "what have _I_ to forgive? Thou hadst a foolish froward child to guide to his own weal, and didst all this for the best. I thank thee and bless thee. But as thy confessor, all deceit is ill in Heaven"s pure eye. Therefore thou hast done well to confess and report it; and even on thy confession and penitence the Church through me absolves thee. Pa.s.s to thy graver faults."
"My graver faults? Alas! alas! Why, what have I done to compare? I am not an ill woman, not a very ill one. If He can forgive me deceiving thee, He can well forgive me all the rest ever I did."
Being gently pressed, she said she was to blame not to have done more good in the world. "I had just begun to do a little," she said; "and now I must go. But I repine not, since "tis Heaven"s will. Only I am so afeard thou wilt miss me." And at this she could not restrain her tears, though she tried hard.
Gerard struggled with his as well as he could; and knowing her life of piety, purity, and charity, and seeing that she could not in her present state realize any sin but her having deceived _him_, gave her full absolution. Then he put the crucifix in her hand, and, while he concentrated the oil, bade her fix her mind neither on her merits nor her demerits, but on Him who died for her on the tree.
She obeyed him, with a look of confiding love and submission.
And he touched her eye with the consecrated oil, and prayed aloud beside her.
Soon after she dozed.
He watched beside her, more dead than alive himself.
When the day broke she awoke, and seemed to acquire some energy. She begged him to look in her box for her marriage lines, and for a picture, and bring them both to her. He did so. She then entreated him by all they had suffered for each other, to ease her mind by making a solemn vow to execute her dying requests.
He vowed to obey them to the letter.
"Then, Gerard, let no creature come here to lay me out. I could not bear to be stared at; my very corpse would blush. Also I would not be made a monster of for the worms to sneer at as well as feed on. Also my very clothes are tainted, and shall to earth with me. I am a physician"s daughter: and ill becomes me kill folk, being dead, which did so little good to men in the days of health; wherefore lap me in lead, the way I am; and bury me deep! yet not so deep but what one day thou mayest find the way, and lay thy bones by mine.
"Whiles I lived I went to Gouda but once or twice a week. It cost me not to go each day. Let me gain this by dying, to be always at dear Gouda--in the green kirkyard.
"Also they do say the spirit hovers where the body lies: I would have my spirit hover near thee, and the kirkyard is not far from the manse. I am so afeard some ill will happen thee, Margaret being gone.
"And see, with mine own hands I place my marriage lines in my bosom. Let no living hand move them, on pain of thy curse and mine. Then, when the angel comes for me at the last day, he shall say, this is an honest woman, she hath her marriage lines (for you know I am your lawful wife though holy Church hath come between us), and he will set me where the honest women be. I will not sit among ill women, no, not in heaven; for their mind is not my mind, nor their soul my soul. I have stood, unbeknown, at my window, and heard their talk."
For some time she was unable to say any more, but made signs to him that she had not done.
At last she recovered her breath, and bade him look at the picture.
It was the portrait he had made of her when they were young together, and little thought to part so soon. He held it in his hands and looked at it, but could scarce see it. He had left it in fragments, but now it was whole.
"They cut it to pieces, Gerard. But see, Love mocked at their knives.
"I implore thee with my dying breath, let this picture hang ever in thine eye.
"I have heard that such as die of the plague, unspotted, yet after death spots have been known to come out; and, oh, I could not bear thy last memory of me to be so. Therefore, as soon as the breath is out of my body, cover my face with this handkerchief, and look at me no more till we meet again, "twill not be so very long. O promise."
"I promise," said Gerard, sobbing.
"But look on this picture instead. Forgive me; I am but a woman. I could not bear my face to lie a foul thing in thy memory. Nay, I must have thee still think me as fair as I was true. Hast called me an angel once or twice; but be just! did I not still tell thee I was no angel, but only a poor simple woman, that whiles saw clearer than thou because she looked but a little way, and that loves thee dearly, and never loved but thee, and now with her dying breath prays thee indulge her in this, thou that art a man."
"I will. I will. Each word, each wish is sacred."
"Bless thee! Bless thee! So then the eyes that now can scarce see thee, they are so troubled by the pest, and the lips that shall not touch thee to taint thee, will still be before thee, as they were when we were young and thou didst love me."
"When I did love thee, Margaret! Oh, never loved I thee as now."
"Hast not told me so of late."
"Alas! hath love no voice but words? I was a priest; I had charge of thy soul; the sweet offices of a pure love were lawful; words of love imprudent at the least. But now the good fight is won, ah me! Oh my love, if thou hast lived doubting of thy Gerard"s heart, die not so: for never was woman loved so tenderly as thou this ten years past."
"Calm thyself, dear one," said the dying woman, with a heavenly smile.
"I know it: only being but a woman, I could not die happy till I had heard thee say so. Ah, I have pined ten years for those sweet words.
Hast said them; and this is the happiest hour of my life. I had to die to get them; well, I grudge not the price."
From this moment a gentle complacency rested on her fading features. But she did not speak.
Then Gerard, who had loved her soul so many years, feared lest she should expire with a mind too fixed on earthly affection. "Oh my daughter," he cried, "my dear daughter, if indeed thou lovest me as I love thee, give me not the pain of seeing thee die with thy pious soul fixed on mortal things.
"Dearest lamb of all my fold, for whose soul I must answer, oh think not now of mortal love, but of His who died for thee on the tree. Oh let thy last look be heavenwards, thy last word a word of prayer."
She turned a look of grat.i.tude and obedience on him. "What saint?" she murmured: meaning, doubtless, "what saint should she invoke as an intercessor."
"He to whom the saints themselves do pray."
She turned on him one more sweet look of love and submission, and put her pretty hands together in prayer like a child.
"Jesu!"
This blessed word was her last. She lay with her eyes heavenwards, and her hands put together.
Gerard prayed fervently for her pa.s.sing spirit. And when he had prayed a long time with his head averted, not to see her last breath, all seemed unnaturally still. He turned his head fearfully. It was so.
She was gone.
Nothing left him now, but the earthly sh.e.l.l of as constant, pure, and loving a spirit, as ever adorned the earth.
FOOTNOTE:
[M] Let me not be understood to apply this to the bare outline of the relation. Many bishops and priests, and not a few popes had wives and children as laymen; and entering orders were parted from the wives and not from the children. But in the case before the reader are the additional features of a strong surviving attachment on both sides, and of neighbourhood, besides that here the man had been led into holy orders by a false statement of the woman"s death. On a summary of all the essential features, the situation was, to the best of my belief, unique.
CHAPTER XCIX
A PRIEST is never more thoroughly a priest than in the chamber of death.
Gerard did the last offices of the Church for the departed, just as he should have done them for his smallest parishioner. He did this mechanically, then sat down stupefied by the sudden and tremendous blow; and not yet realizing the pangs of bereavement. Then in a transport of religious enthusiasm he kneeled and thanked Heaven for her Christian end.
And then all his thought was to take her away from strangers, and lay her in his own churchyard. That very evening a covered cart with one horse started for Gouda, and in it was a coffin, and a broken-hearted man lying with his arms and chin resting on it.