“That is right,” said she; “better say it, as set sly and think it. It is very natural after all, Come, here is your bundle o' comfort. Take and hate that, if ye can;” and she put the child in her lap.
“No, no,” said Margaret, turning her head half way from him; she could not for her life turn the other half. “He is not my child now; he is hers. I know not why she left him here, for my part. It was very good of her not to take him to her house, cradle and all; oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! oh oh! oh!”
“Ah! well, one comfort, he is not dead. This gives me light: some other woman has got him away from me; like father, like son; oh! oh! oh! oh! oh!”
Catherine was sorry for her, and let her cry in peace. And after that, when she wanted Joan's aid, she used to take Gerard out, to give him a little fresh air. Margaret never objected; nor expressed the least incredulity; but on their return was always in tears.
This connivance was short-lived. She was now altogether as eager to wean little Gerard. It was done; and he recovered health and vigour; and another trouble fell upon him directly teething, But here Catherine's experience was invaluable; and now, in the midst of her grief and anxiety about the father, Margaret had moments of bliss, watching the son's tiny teeth come through. “Teeth, mother? I call them not teeth, but pearls of pearls.” And each pearl that peeped and sparkled on his red gums, was to her the greatest feat Nature had ever achieved.
Her companion partook the illusion. And had we told them standing corn was equally admirable, Margaret would have changed to a reproachful gazelle, and Catherine turned us out of doors; so each pearl's arrival was announced with a shriek of triumph by whichever of them was the fortunate discoverer.
Catherine gossiped with Joan, and learned that she was the wife of Jorian Ketel of Tergou, who had been servant to Ghysbrecht Van Swieten, but fallen out of favour, and come back to Rotterdam, his native place. His friends had got him the place of sexton to the parish, and what with that and carpentering, he did pretty well.
Catherine told Joan in return whose child it was she had nursed, and all about Margaret and Gerard, and the deep anxiety his silence had plunged them in. “Ay,” said Joan, “the world is full of trouble.” One day she said to Catherine, “It's my belief my man knows more about your Gerard than anybody in these parts; but he has got to be closer than ever of late. Drop in some day just afore sunset, and set him talking. And for our Lady's sake say not I set you on. The only hiding he ever gave me was for babbling his business; and I do not want another. Gramercy! I married a man for the comfort of the thing, not to be hided.”
Catherine dropped in. Jorian was ready enough to tell her how he had befriended her son and perhaps saved his life. But this was no news to Catherine; and the moment she began to cross-question him as to whether he could guess why her lost boy neither came nor wrote, he cast a grim look at his wife, who received it with a calm air of stolid candour and innocent unconsciousness; and his answers became short and sullen.
“What should he know more than another?” and so on. He added, after a pause, “Think you the burgomaster takes such as me into his secrets?”