Part 5 (1/2)

Another instant and there came a knock upon the door. She opened it.

”The Heer van Goorl stands below,” said the voice of Greta, ”wis.h.i.+ng to see you, madam.”

”Admit him,” answered Lysbeth, and going to a chair almost in the centre of the room, she seated herself.

Presently Dirk's step sounded on the stair, that known, beloved step for which so often she had listened eagerly. Again the door opened and Greta announced the Heer van Goorl. That she could not see the Captain Montalvo evidently surprised the woman, for her eyes roamed round the room wonderingly, but she was too well trained, or too well bribed, to show her astonishment. Gentlemen of this kidney, as Greta had from time to time remarked, have a faculty for vanis.h.i.+ng upon occasion.

So Dirk walked into the fateful chamber as some innocent and unsuspecting creature walks into a bitter snare, little knowing that the lady whom he loved and whom he came to win was set as a bait to ruin him.

”Be seated, cousin,” said Lysbeth, in a voice so forced and strained that it caused him to look up. But he saw nothing, for her head was turned away from him, and for the rest his mind was too preoccupied to be observant. By nature simple and open, it would have taken much to wake Dirk into suspicion in the home and presence of his love and cousin, Lysbeth.

”Good day to you, Lysbeth,” he said awkwardly; ”why, how cold your hand is! I have been trying to find you for some time, but you have always been out or away, leaving no address.”

”I have been to the sea with my Aunt Clara,” she answered.

Then for a while-five minutes or more-there followed a strained and stilted conversation.

”Will the b.o.o.by never come to the point?” reflected Montalvo, surveying him through a join in the tapestry. ”By the Saints, what a fool he looks!”

”Lysbeth,” said Dirk at last, ”I want to speak to you.”

”Speak on, cousin,” she answered.

”Lysbeth, I-I-have loved you for a long while, and I-have come to ask you to marry me. I have put it off for a year or more for reasons which I hope to tell you some day, but I can keep silent no longer, especially now when I see that a much finer gentleman is trying to win you-I mean the Spanish Count, Montalvo,” he added with a jerk.

She said nothing in reply. So Dirk went on pouring out all his honest pa.s.sion in words that momentarily gathered weight and strength, till at length they were eloquent enough. He told her how since first they met he had loved her and only her, and how his one desire in life was to make her happy and be happy with her. Pausing at length he began to speak of his prospects-then she stopped him.

”Your pardon, Dirk,” she said, ”but I have a question to ask of you,” and her voice died away in a kind of sob. ”I have heard rumours about you,” she went on presently, ”which must be cleared up. I have heard, Dirk, that by faith you are what is called a heretic. Is it true?”

He hesitated before answering, feeling that much depended on that answer. But it was only for an instant, since Dirk was far too honest a man to lie.

”Lysbeth,” he said, ”I will tell to you what I would not tell to any other living creature, not being one of my own brotherhood, for whether you accept me or reject me, I know well that I am as safe in speaking to you as when upon my knees I speak to the G.o.d I serve. I am what you call a heretic. I am a member of that true faith to which I hope to draw you, but which if you do not wish it I should never press upon you. It is chiefly because I am what I am that for so long I have hung back from speaking to you, since I did not know whether it would be right-things being thus-to ask you to mix your lot with mine, or whether I ought to marry you, if you would marry me, keeping this secret from you. Only the other night I sought counsel of-well, never mind of whom-and we prayed together, and together searched the Word of G.o.d. And there, Lysbeth, by some wonderful mercy, I found my prayer answered and my doubts solved, for the great St. Paul had foreseen this case, as in that Book all cases are foreseen, and I read how the unbelieving wife may be sanctified by the husband, and the unbelieving husband by the wife. Then everything grew clear to me, and I determined to speak. And now, dear, I have spoken, and it is for you to answer.”

”Dirk, dear Dirk,” she replied almost with a cry, ”alas! for the answer which I must give you. Renounce the error of your ways, make confession, and be reconciled to the Church and-I will marry you. Otherwise I cannot, no, and although I love you, you and no other man”-here she put an energy into her voice that was almost dreadful-”with all my heart and soul and body; I cannot, I cannot, I cannot!”

Dirk heard, and his ruddy face turned ashen grey.

”Cousin,” he replied, ”you seek of me the one thing which I must not give. Even for your sake I may not renounce my vows and my G.o.d as I behold Him. Though it break my heart to bid you farewell and live without you, here I pay you back in your own words-I cannot, I cannot, I cannot!”

Lysbeth looked at him, and lo! his short, ma.s.sive form and his square-cut, honest countenance in that ardour of renunciation had suffered a change to things almost divine. At that moment-to her sight at least-this homely Hollander wore the aspect of an angel. She ground her teeth and pressed her hands upon her heart. ”For his sake-to save him,” she muttered to herself-then she spoke.

”I respect you for it, I love you for it more than ever; but, Dirk, it is over between us. One day, here or hereafter, you will understand and you will forgive.”

”So be it,” said Dirk hastily, stretching out his hand to find his hat, for he was too blind to see. ”It is a strange answer to my prayer, a very strange answer; but doubtless you are right to follow your lights as I am sure that I am right to follow mine. We must carry our cross, dear Lysbeth, each of us; you see that we must carry our cross. Only I beg of you-I don't speak as a jealous man, because the thing has gone further than jealousy-I speak as a friend, and come what may while I live you will always find me that-I beg of you, beware of the Spaniard, Montalvo. I know that he followed you to the coast; I have heard too he boasts that he will marry you. The man is wicked, although he took me in at first. I feel it-his presence seems to poison the air, yes, this very air I breathe. But oh! and I should like him to hear me say it, because I am sure that he is at the bottom of all this, his hour will come. For whatever he does he will be paid back; he will be paid back here and hereafter. And now, good-bye. G.o.d bless you and protect you, dear Lysbeth. If you think it wrong you are quite right not to marry me, and I know that you will keep my secret. Good-bye, again,” and lifting her hand Dirk kissed it. Then he stumbled from the room.

As for Lysbeth she cast herself at full length, and in the bitterness of her heart beat her brow upon the boards.

When the front door had shut behind Dirk, but not before, Montalvo emerged from his hiding place and stood over the prostrate Lysbeth. He tried to adopt his airy and sarcastic manner, but he was shaken by the scene which he had overheard, shaken and somewhat frightened also, for he felt that he had called into being pa.s.sions of which the force and fruits could not be calculated.

”Bravo! my little actress,” he began, then gave it up and added in his natural voice, ”you had best rise and see me burn this paper.”

Lysbeth struggled to her knees and watched him thrust the doc.u.ment between two glowing peats.

”I have fulfilled my promise,” he said, ”and that evidence is done with, but in case you should think of playing any tricks and not fulfilling yours, please remember that I have fresh evidence infinitely more valuable and convincing, to gain which, indeed, I condescended to a stratagem not quite in keeping with my traditions. With my own ears I heard this worthy gentleman, who is pleased to think so poorly of me, admit that he is a heretic. That is enough to burn him any day, and I swear that if within three weeks we are not man and wife, burn he shall.”

While he was speaking Lysbeth had risen slowly to her feet. Now she confronted him, no longer the Lysbeth whom he had known, but a new being filled like a cup with fury that was the more awful because it was so quiet.

”Juan de Montalvo,” she said in a low voice, ”your wickedness has won and for Dirk's sake my person and my goods must pay its price. So be it since so it must be, but listen. I make no prophecies about you; I do not say that this or that shall happen to you, but I call down upon you the curse of G.o.d and the execration of men.”

Then she threw up her hands and began to pray. ”G.o.d, Whom it has pleased that I should be given to a fate far worse than death; O G.o.d, blast the mind and the soul of this monster. Let him henceforth never know a peaceful hour; let misfortune come upon him through me and mine; let fears haunt his sleep. Let him live in heavy labour and die in blood and misery, and through me; and if I bear children to him, let the evil be upon them also.”

She ceased. Montalvo looked at her and tried to speak. Again he looked and again he tried to speak, but no words would come.

Then the fear of Lysbeth van Hout fell upon him, that fear which was to haunt him all his life. He turned and crept from the room, and his face was like the face of an old man, nor, notwithstanding the height of his immediate success, could his heart have been more heavy if Lysbeth had been an angel sent straight from Heaven to proclaim to him the unalterable doom of G.o.d.

CHAPTER VII

HENDRIK BRANT HAS A VISITOR

Nine months had gone by, and for more then eight of them Lysbeth had been known as the Countess Juan de Montalvo. Indeed of this there could be no doubt, since she was married with some ceremony by the Bishop in the Groote Kerk before the eyes of all men. Folk had wondered much at these hurried nuptials, though some of the more ill-natured shrugged their shoulders and said that when a young woman had compromised herself by long and lonely drives with a Spanish cavalier, and was in consequence dropped by her own admirer, why the best thing she could do was to marry as soon as possible.

So the pair, who looked handsome enough before the altar, were wed, and went to taste of such nuptial bliss as was reserved for them in Lysbeth's comfortable house in the Bree Straat. Here they lived almost alone, for Lysbeth's countrymen and women showed their disapproval of her conduct by avoiding her company, and, for reasons of his own, Montalvo did not encourage the visiting of Spaniards at his house. Moreover, the servants were changed, while Tante Clara and the girl Greta had also disappeared. Indeed, Lysbeth, finding out the false part which they had played towards her, dismissed them both before her marriage.

It will be guessed that after the events that led to their union Lysbeth took little pleasure in her husband's society. She was not one of those women who can acquiesce in marriage by fraud or capture, and even learn to love the hand which snared them. So it came about that to Montalvo she spoke very seldom; indeed after the first week of marriage she only saw him on rare occasions. Very soon he found out that his presence was hateful to her, and turned her detestation to account with his usual cleverness. In other words, Lysbeth bought freedom by parting with her property-in fact, a regular tariff was established, so many guilders for a week's liberty, so many for a month's.

This was an arrangement that suited Montalvo well enough, for in his heart he was terrified of this woman, whose beautiful face had frozen into a perpetual mask of watchful hatred. He could not forget that frightful curse which had taken deep root in his superst.i.tious mind, and already seemed to flourish there, for it was true that since she spoke it he had never known a quiet hour. How could he when he was haunted night and day by the fear lest his wife should murder him?

Surely, if ever Death looked out of a woman's eyes it looked out of hers, and it seemed to him that such a deed might trouble her conscience little; that she might consider it in the light of an execution, and not as a murder. Bah! he could not bear to think of it. What would it be to drink his wine one day and then feel a hand of fire gripping at his vitals because poison had been set within the cup; or, worse still, if anything could be worse, to wake at night and find a stiletto point grating against his backbone? Little wonder that Montalvo slept alone and was always careful to lock his door.

He need not have taken such precautions; whatever her eyes might say, Lysbeth had no intention of killing this man. In that prayer of hers she had, as it were, placed the matter in the hand of a higher Power, and there she meant to leave it, feeling quite convinced that although vengeance might tarry it would fall at last. As for her money, he could have it. From the beginning her instinct told her that her husband's object was not amorous, but purely monetary, a fact of which she soon had plentiful proof, and her great, indeed her only hope was that when the wealth was gone he would go too. An otter, says the Dutch proverb, does not nest in a dry d.y.k.e.

But oh! what months those were, what dreadful months! From time to time she saw her husband-when he wanted cash-and every night she heard him returning home, often with unsteady steps. Twice or thrice a week also she was commanded to prepare a luxurious meal for himself and some six or eight companions, to be followed by a gambling party at which the stakes ruled high. Then in the morning, before he was up, strange people would arrive, Jews some of them, and wait till they could see him, or catch him as he slipped from the house by a back way. These men, Lysbeth discovered, were duns seeking payment of old debts. Under such constant calls her fortune, which if substantial was not great, melted rapidly. Soon the ready money was gone, then the shares in certain s.h.i.+ps were sold, then the land and the house itself were mortgaged.

So the time went on.

Almost immediately after his refusal by Lysbeth, Dirk van Goorl had left Leyden, and returned to Alkmaar, where his father lived. His cousin and friend, however, Hendrik Brant, remained there studying the jeweller's art under the great master of filigree work, who was known as Petrus. One morning, as Hendrik was sitting at breakfast in his lodging, it was announced that a woman who would not give her name, wished to see him. Moved more by curiosity than by any other reason, he ordered her to be admitted. When she entered he was sorry, for in the gaunt person and dark-eyed face he recognised one against whom he had been warned by the elders of his church as a spy, a creature who was employed by the papal inquisitors to get up cases against heretics, and who was known as Black Meg.

”What is your business with me?” Brant asked sternly.

”Nothing to your hurt, worthy Heer, believe me, nothing to your hurt. Oh! yes, I know that tales are told against me, who only earn an honest living in an honest way, to keep my poor husband, who is an imbecile. Once alas! he followed that mad Anabaptist fool, John of Leyden, the fellow who set up as a king, and said that men might have as many wives as they wished. That was what sent my husband silly, but, thanks be to the Saints, he has repented of his errors and is reconciled to the Church and Christian marriage, and now, I, who have a forgiving nature, am obliged to support him.”

”Your business?” said Brant.

”Mynheer,” she answered, dropping her husky voice, ”you are a friend of the Countess Montalvo, she who was Lysbeth van Hout?”