The Poor Clare Page 7

  Probably he recollected my name in connection with that of his daughter Lucy. Anyhow, it was clear enough that I had no chance of making his acquaintance. Father Bernard confirmed me in my suspicions of the hidden fermentation, for some coming evil, working among the “blouses” of Antwerp, and he would fain have had me depart from out the city; but I rather craved the excitement of danger, and stubbornly refused to leave.

  One day, when I was walking with him in the Place Verte, he bowed to an Austrian officer, who was crossing towards the cathedral.

  “That is Mr. Gisborne,” said he, as soon as the gentleman was past.

  I turned to look at the tall, slight figure of the officer. He carried himself in a stately manner, although he was past middle age, and from his years might have had some excuse for a slight stoop. As I looked at the man, he turned round, his eyes met mine, and I saw his face. Deeply lined, sallow, and scathed was that countenance; scarred by passion as well as by the fortunes of war. ’Twas but a moment our eyes met. We each turned round, and went on our separate way.

  But his whole appearance was not one to be easily forgotten; the thorough appointment of the dress, and evident thought bestowed on it, made but an incongruous whole with the dark, gloomy expression of his countenance. Because he was Lucy’s father, I sought instinctively to meet him everywhere. At last he must have become aware of my pertinacity, for he gave me a haughty scowl whenever I passed him. In one of these encounters, however, I chanced to be of some service to him. He was turning the corner of a street, and came suddenly on one of the groups of discontented Flemings of whom I have spoken. Some words were exchanged, when my gentleman out with his sword, and with a slight but skilful cut drew blood from one of those who had insulted him, as he fancied, though I was too far off to hear the words. They would all have fallen upon him had I not rushed forwards and raised the cry, then well known in Antwerp, of rally, to the Austrian soldiers who were perpetually patrolling the streets, and who came in numbers to the rescue. I think that neither Mr. Gisborne nor the mutinous group of plebeians owed me much gratitude for my interference. He had planted himself against a wall, in a skilful attitude of fence, ready with his bright glancing rapier to do battle with all the heavy, fierce, unarmed men, some six or seven in number. But when his own soldiers came up, he sheathed his sword; and, giving some careless word of command, sent them away again, and continued his saunter all alone down the street, the workmen snarling in his rear, and more than half-inclined to fall on me for my cry for rescue. I cared not if they did, my life seemed so dreary a burden just then; and, perhaps, it was this daring loitering among them that prevented their attacking me. Instead, they suffered me to fall into conversation with them; and I heard some of their grievances. Sore and heavy to be borne were they, and no wonder the sufferers were savage and desperate.

  The man whom Gisborne had wounded across his face would fain have got out of me the name of his aggressor, but I refused to tell it. Another of the group heard his inquiry, and made answer—

  “I know the man. He is one Gisborne, aide-de-camp to the General-Commandant. I know him well.”

  He began to tell some story in connection with Gisborne in a low and muttering voice; and while he was relating a tale, which I saw excited their evil blood, and which they evidently wished me not to hear, I sauntered away and back to my lodgings.

  That night Antwerp was in open revolt. The inhabitants rose in rebellion against their Austrian masters. The Austrians, holding the gates of the city, remained at first pretty quiet in the citadel; only, from time to time, the boom of the great cannon swept sullenly over the town. But if they expected the disturbance to die away, and spend itself in a few hours’ fury, they were mistaken. In a day or two, the rioters held possession of the principal municipal buildings. Then the Austrians poured forth in bright flaming array, calm and smiling, as they marched to the posts assigned, as if the fierce mob were no more to them than the swarms of buzzing summer flies. Their practised manoeuvres, their well-aimed shot, told with terrible effect; but in the place of one slain rioter, three sprang up of his blood to avenge his loss. But a deadly foe, a ghastly ally of the Austrians, was at work. Food, scarce and dear for months, was now hardly to be obtained at any price. Desperate efforts were being made to bring provisions into the city, for the rioters had friends without. Close to the city port, nearest to the Scheldt, a great struggle took place. I was there, helping the rioters, whose cause I had adopted. We had a savage encounter with the Austrians. Numbers fell on both sides: I saw them lie bleeding for a moment; then a volley of smoke obscured them; and when it cleared away, they were dead—trampled upon or smothered, pressed down and hidden by the freshly-wounded whom those last guns had brought low. And then a gray-robed and gray-veiled figure came right across the flashing guns and stooped over some one, whose life-blood was ebbing away; sometimes it was to give him drink from cans which they carried slung at their sides; sometimes I saw the cross held above a dying man, and rapid prayers were being uttered, unheard by men in that hellish din and clangour, but listened to by One above. I saw all this as in a dream: the reality of that stern time was battle and carnage. But I knew that these gray figures, their bare feet all wet with blood, and their faces hidden by their veils, were the Poor Clares—sent forth now because dire agony was abroad and imminent danger at hand. Therefore, they left their cloistered shelter, and came into that thick and evil melee.

  Close to me—driven past me by the struggle of many fighters—came the Antwerp burgess with the scarce-healed scar upon his face; and in an instant more, he was thrown by the press upon the Austrian officer Gisborne, and ere either had recovered the shock, the burgess had recognized his opponent.

  “Ha! the Englishman Gisborne!” he cried, and threw himself upon him with redoubled fury. He had struck him hard—the Englishman was down; when out of the smoke came a dark-gray figure, and threw herself right under the uplifted flashing sword. The burgess’s arm stood arrested. Neither Austrians nor Anversois willingly harmed the Poor Clares.

  “Leave him to me!” said a low stern voice. “He is mine enemy—mine for many years.”

  Those words were the last I heard. I myself was struck down by a bullet. I remember nothing more for days. When I came to myself, I was at the extremity of weakness, and was craving for food to recruit my strength. My landlord sat watching me. He, too, looked pinched and shrunken; he had heard of my wounded state, and sought me out. Yes! the struggle still continued, but the famine was sore: and some, he had heard, had died for lack of food. The tears stood in his eyes as he spoke. But soon he shook off his weakness, and his natural cheerfulness returned. Father Bernard had been to see me—no one else. (Who should, indeed?) Father Bernard would come back that afternoon—he had promised. But Father Bernard never came, although I was up and dressed, and looking eagerly for him.

  My landlord brought me a meal which he had cooked himself: of what it was composed he would not say, but it was most excellent, and with every mouthful I seemed to gain strength. The good man sat looking at my evident enjoyment with a happy smile of sympathy; but, as my appetite became satisfied, I began to detect a certain wistfulness in his eyes, as if craving for the food I had so nearly devoured—for, indeed, at that time I was hardly aware of the extent of the famine. Suddenly, there was a sound of many rushing feet past our window. My landlord opened one of the sides of it, the better to learn what was going on. Then we heard a faint, cracked, tinkling bell, coming shrill upon the air, clear and distinct from all other sounds. “Holy Mother!” exclaimed my landlord, “the Poor Clares!”

  He snatched up the fragments of my meal, and crammed them into my hands, bidding me follow. Down stairs he ran, clutching at more food, as the women of his house eagerly held it out to him; and in a moment we were in the street, moving along with the great current, all tending towards the Convent of the Poor Clares. And still, as if piercing our ears with its inarticulate cry, came the shrill tinkle of the bell. In that strange crowd we
re old men trembling and sobbing, as they carried their little pittance of food; women with tears running down their cheeks, who had snatched up what provisions they had in the vessels in which they stood, so that the burden of these was in many cases much greater than that which they contained; children, with flushed faces, grasping tight the morsel of bitten cake or bread, in their eagerness to carry it safe to the help of the Poor Clares; strong men—yea, both Anversois and Austrians—pressing onward with set teeth, and no word spoken; and over all, and through all, came that sharp tinkle—that cry for help in extremity.

  We met the first torrent of people returning with blanched and piteous faces: they were issuing out of the convent to make way for the offerings of others. “Haste, haste!” said they. “A Poor Clare is dying! A Poor Clare is dead for hunger! God forgive us and our city!”

  We pressed on. The stream bore us along where it would. We were carried through refectories, bare and crumbless; into cells over whose doors the conventual name of the occupant was written. Thus it was that I, with others, was forced into Sister Magdalen’s cell. On her couch lay Gisborne, pale unto death, but not dead. By his side was a cup of water, and a small morsel of mouldy bread, which he had pushed out of his reach, and could not move to obtain. Over against his bed were these words, copied in the English version: “Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink.”

  Some of us gave him of our food, and left him eating greedily, like some famished wild animal. For now it was no longer the sharp tinkle, but that one solemn toll, which in all Christian countries tells of the passing of the spirit out of earthly life into eternity; and again a murmur gathered and grew, as of many people speaking with awed breath, “A Poor Clare is dying! a Poor Clare is dead!”

  Borne along once more by the motion of the crowd, we were carried into the chapel belonging to the Poor Clares. On a bier before the high altar, lay a woman—lay Sister Magdalen—lay Bridget Fitzgerald. By her side stood Father Bernard, in his robes of office, and holding the crucifix on high while he pronounced the solemn absolution of the Church, as to one who had newly confessed herself of deadly sin. I pushed on with passionate force, till I stood close to the dying woman, as she received extreme unction amid the breathless and awed hush of the multitude around. Her eyes were glazing, her limbs were stiffening; but when the rite was over and finished, she raised her gaunt figure slowly up, and her eyes brightened to a strange intensity of joy, as, with the gesture of her finger and the trance-like gleam of her eye, she seemed like one who watched the disappearance of some loathed and fearful creature.

  “She is freed from the curse!” said she, as she fell back dead.

  OTHER TITLES IN THE ART OF THE NOVELLA SERIES

  BARTLEBY THE SCRIVENER

  HERMAN MELVILLE

  THE LESSON OF THE MASTER

  HENRY JAMES

  MY LIFE

  ANTON CHEKHOV

  THE DEVIL

  LEO TOLSTOY

  THE TOUCHSTONE

  EDITH WHARTON

  THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES

  ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

  THE DEAD

  JAMES JOYCE

  FIRST LOVE

  IVAN TURGENEV

  A SIMPLE HEART

  GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

  THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING

  RUDYARD KIPLING

  MICHAEL KOHLHAAS

  HEINRICH VON KLEIST

  THE BEACH OF FALESÁ

  ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

  THE HORLA

  GUY DE MAUPASSANT

  THE ETERNAL HUSBAND

  FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY

  THE MAN THAT CORRUPTED HADLEYBURG

  MARK TWAIN

  THE LIFTED VEIL

  GEORGE ELIOT

  THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN EYES

  HONORÉ DE BALZAC

  A SLEEP AND A FORGETTING

  WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS

  BENITO CERENO

  HERMAN MELVILLE

  MATHILDA

  MARY SHELLEY

  STEMPENYU: A JEWISH ROMANCE

  SHOLEM ALEICHEM

  FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES

  JOSEPH CONRAD

  HOW THE TWO IVANS QUARRELLED

  NIKOLAI GOGOL

  MAY DAY

  F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

  RASSELAS, PRINCE ABYSSINIA

  SAMUEL JOHNSON

  THE DIALOGUE OF THE DOGS

  MIGUEL DE CERVANTES

  THE LEMOINE AFFAIR

  MARCEL PROUST

  THE COXON FUND

  HENRY JAMES

  THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYCH

  LEO TOLSTOY

  TALES OF BELKIN

  ALEXANDER PUSHKIN

  THE AWAKENING

  KATE CHOPIN

  ADOLPHE

  BENJAMIN CONSTANT

  THE COUNTRY OF THE POINTED FIRS

  SARAH ORNE JEWETT

  PARNASSUS ON WHEELS

  CHRISTOPHER MORLEY

  THE NICE OLD MAN AND THE PRETTY GIRL

  ITALO SVEVO

  LADY SUSAN

  JANE AUSTEN

  JACOB’S ROOM

  VIRGINIA WOOLF

  THE DUEL

  GIACOMO CASANOVA

  THE DUEL

  ANTON CHEKHOV

  THE DUEL

  JOSEPH CONRAD

  THE DUEL

  HEINRICH VON KLEIST

  THE DUEL

  ALEXANDER KUPRIN

  THE ALIENIST

  MACHADO DE ASSIS

  ALEXANDER’S BRIDGE

  WILLA CATHER

  FANFARLO

  CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

  THE DISTRACTED PREACHER

  THOMAS HARDY

  THE ENCHANTED WANDERER

  NIKOLAI LESKOV

  THE NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM OF NANTUCKET

  EDGAR ALLAN POE

  CARMEN

  PROSPER MÉRIMÉE

  THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ

  F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

  THE HAUNTED BOOKSHOP

  CHRISTOPHER MORLEY

  THE POOR CLARE

  ELIZABETH GASKELL

  ILLUMINATIONS FOR

  THE POOR CLARE

  BY

  ELIZABETH GASKELL

  MELVILLE HOUSE

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1. Publication History

  Illustration: Title page of Round the Sofa by Elizabeth Gaskell (1859).

  Charles Dickens as Editor—Selection from Annette B. Hopkins’s “Dickens and Mrs. Gaskell.”

  2. The Great Hunger

  Illustration: Ireland during the famine (nineteenth century).

  Illustration: Anonymous editorial in The Guardian (1821).

  Illustration: Announcement in The Gardeners’ Chronicle (1845).

  3. Lancashire

  Illustration: Gawthorpe Hall, Lancashire (fourteenth century).

  Starkey Manor-house—Excerpt from The Poor Clare.

  Illustration: Barnoldswick to Weets Hill, Lancashire (present day).

  4. Elizabeth Gaskell’s Family Life

  Illustration: “Elizabeth Gaskell” by George Richmond (1851).

  On Visiting the Grave of My Stillborn Little Girl—Poem by Elizabeth Gaskell.

  “Refuge in invention”—Excerpt from Elizabeth Gaskell’s preface to Mary Barton.

  Illustration: The interior of 42 Plymouth Grove.

  “And we’ve got a house”—Letter to Eliza Fox, April 1850.

  Illustration: The drawing room at 42 Plymouth Grove.

  Illustration: “Elizabeth Gaskell,” photographer unknown (1864).

  5. Gaskell’s Literary Friendships

  Illustration: Newspaper review of Mary Barton (1848).

  Illustration: Envelope from Thomas Carlyle’s letter to Elizabeth Gaskell (1848).

  Illustration: “Charles Eliot Norton” by J. E. Purdy (1903).

  We Reached Rome—Letter by Gaskell’s daughter.

  Ache of Yearning—Letter to Charles Eliot Norton.

  What I Did Belie
ve—Letter to Charles Eliot Norton.

  A Relationship with George Eliot—Selected correspondence.

  Wordsworth Walked—From a letter to John Forster.

  Elizabeth Gaskell’s Friendship with Charlotte Brontë—Selected correspondence.

  Illustration: Letter from Brontë to Constantin Heger (1844).

  Reading I: “The Heart of John Middleton” by Elizabeth Gaskell, under the pen name Cotton Mather.

  Reading II: “An Accursed Race” by Elizabeth Gaskell.

  6. The Poor Clares

  A Picture of the Virgin—Excerpt from The Poor Clare.

  Illustration: “The Seven Sorrows of the Virgin” by Niklas Stoer (ca. 1500).

  Illustration: “The Seven Sorrows of the Virgin,” attributed to Master of the Passion (sixteenth century).

  Illustration: The Virgin, with writing in Nahuatl (sixteenth century).

  Illustration: “Madonna and Child with the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin” by an anonymous member of the Flemish School (sixteenth century).

  Illustration: “Madonna of Misercordia” by Boccati, Giovanni di Permatteo de Camerino (fifteenth century).

  Order of the Poor Clares—Selection from the 1911 Encyclopedia Brittanica.

  The Order of Poor Ladies—Selections from Father Marianus Fiege’s The Princess of Poverty: Saint Clare of Assisi and the Order of Poor Ladies.

  Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–1865) Miniature by William John Thomson, 1832

  1. PUBLICATION HISTORY

  The title page for Round the Sofa, a collection of Gaskell’s short works (including The Poor Clare) published in 1859. The novella was originally published in December of 1856 in Charles Dickens’s weekly magazine Household Words.

  Charles Dickens as Editor

  There is no living English writer whose aid I would desire to enlist, in preference to the authoress of Mary Barton (a book that most profoundly affected and impressed me).

  —A letter from Charles Dickens to Gaskell from January, 1950, which invited her to write for his new magazine, Household Words. He invited her to dinner shortly after the publication of her first novel, Mary Barton. He expressed a strong desire to serialize her work, fondly referring to her as “my dear Scheherazade” (the legendary storyteller of Arabian Nights). Dickens and Gaskell frequently quarreled over her words.