The Cloister and the Hearth: A Tale of the Middle Ages by Charles Reade

  CHAPTER LXXII

  ONE of the novice Gerard's self-imposed penances was to receive Ludovicokindly, feeling secretly as to a slimy serpent.

  Never was self-denial better bestowed: and, like most rational penances,it soon became no penance at all. At first the pride and complacency,with which the assassin gazed on the one life he had saved, was perhapsas ludicrous as pathetic; but it is a great thing to open a good door ina heart. One good thing follows another through the aperture. Finding itso sweet to save life, the miscreant went on to be averse to taking it;and from that to remorse; and from remorse to something very likepenitence. And here Teresa co-operated by threatening, not for the firsttime, to leave him unless he would consent to lead an honest life. Thegood fathers of the convent lent their aid, and Ludovico and Teresa weresent by sea to Leghorn, where Teresa had friends, and the assassinsettled down and became a porter.

  He found it miserably dull work at first: and said so.

  * * * * *

  But methinks this dull life of plodding labour was better for him, thanthe brief excitement of being hewn in pieces by the Princess Claelia'smyrmidons. His exile saved the unconscious penitent from that fate; andthe princess, balked of her revenge, took to brooding, and fell into aprofound melancholy; dismissed her confessor, and took a new one with agreat reputation for piety, to whom she confided what she called hergriefs. The new confessor was no other than Fra Jerome. She could nothave fallen into better hands.

  He heard her grimly out. Then took her and shook the delusions out ofher as roughly as if she had been a kitchen-maid. For, to do this hardmonk justice, on the path of duty he feared the anger of princes aslittle as he did the sea. He showed her in a few words, all thunder andlightning, that she was the criminal of criminals.

  "Thou art the devil, that with thy money hath tempted one man to slayhis fellow, and then, blinded with self-love, instead of blaming andpunishing thyself, art thirsting for more blood of guilty men, but notso guilty as thou."

  At first she resisted, and told him she was not used to be taken to taskby her confessors. But he overpowered her, and so threatened her withthe Church's curse here and hereafter, and so tore the scales off hereyes, and thundered at her, and crushed her, that she sank down andgrovelled with remorse and terror at the feet of the gigantic Boanerges.

  "Oh, holy father, have pity on a poor weak woman, and help me save myguilty soul. I was benighted for want of ghostly counsel like thine,good father. I waken as from a dream."

  "Doff thy jewels," said Fra Jerome, sternly.

  "I will. I will."

  "Doff thy silk and velvet: and, in humbler garb than wears thy meanestservant, wend thou instant to Loretto."

  "I will," said the princess, faintly.

  "No shoes: but a bare sandal."

  "No, father."

  "Wash the feet of pilgrims both going and coming; and to such of them asbe holy friars tell thy sin, and abide their admonition."

  "Oh, holy father, let me wear my mask."

  "Humph!"

  "Oh, mercy! Bethink thee! My features are known through Italy."

  "Ay. Beauty is a curse to most of ye. Well, thou mayst mask thine eyes;no more."

  On this concession she seized his hand, and was about to kiss it; but hesnatched it rudely from her.

  "What would ye do? That hand handled the eucharist but an hour agone: isit fit for such as thou to touch it?"

  "Ah, no. But oh, go not without giving your penitent daughter yourblessing."

  "Time enow to ask it when you come back from Loretto."

  * * * * *

  Thus that marvellous occurrence by Tiber's banks left its mark on allthe actors, as prodigies are said to do. The assassin, softened bysaving the life he was paid to take, turned from the stiletto to theporter's knot. The princess went barefoot to Loretto, weeping her crimeand washing the feet of base born men.

  And Gerard, carried from the Tiber into that convent a suicide, nowpassed for a young saint within its walls.

  Loving but experienced eyes were on him.

  Upon a shorter probation than usual he was admitted to priests' orders.

  And soon after took the monastic vows, and became a friar of St.Dominic.

  Dying to the world, the monk parted with the very name by which he hadlived in it, and so broke the last link of association with earthlyfeelings.

  Here Gerard ended, and Brother Clement began.