Part 5 (2/2)
”No, I am acquainted with her, that is all.”
”At least you are a friend of the Heer Dirk van Goorl who has left this town for Alkmaar; he who was her lover?”
”Yes, I am his cousin, but he is not the lover of any married woman.”
”No, no, of course not; love cannot look through a bridal veil, can it? Still, you are his friend, and, therefore, perhaps, her friend, and-she isn't happy.”
”Indeed? I know nothing of her present life: she must reap the field which she has sown. That door is shut.”
”Not altogether perhaps. I thought it might interest Dirk van Goorl to learn that it is still ajar.”
”I don't see why it should. Fish merchants are not interested in rotten herrings; they write off the loss and send out the smack for a fresh cargo.”
”The first fish we catch is ever the finest, Mynheer, and if we haven't quite caught it, oh! what a fine fish is that.”
”I have no time to waste in chopping riddles. What is your errand? Tell it, or leave it untold, but be quick.”
Black Meg leant forward, and the hoa.r.s.e voice sank to a cavernous whisper.
”What will you give me,” she asked, ”if I prove to you that the Captain Montalvo is not married at all to Lysbeth van Hout?”
”It does not much matter what I would give you, for I saw the thing done in the Groote Kerk yonder.”
”Things are not always done that seem to be done.”
”Look here, woman, I have had enough of this,” and Brant pointed to the door.
Black Meg did not stir, only she produced a packet from the bosom of her dress and laid it on the table.
”A man can't have two wives living at once, can he?”
”No, I suppose not-that is, legally.”
”Well, if I show you that Montalvo has two wives, how much?”
Brant became interested. He hated Montalvo; he guessed, indeed he knew something of the part which the man had played in this infamous affair, and knew also that it would be a true kindness to Lysbeth to rid her of him.
”If you proved it,” he said, ”let us say two hundred florins.”
”It is not enough, Mynheer.”
”It is all I have to offer, and, mind you, what I promise to pay.”
”Ah! yes, the other promises and doesn't pay-the rogue, the rogue,” she added, striking a bony fist upon the table. ”Well, I agree, and I ask no bond, for you merchant folk are not like cavaliers, your word is as good as your paper. Now read these,” and she opened the packet and pushed its contents towards him.
With the exception of two miniatures, which he placed upon one side, they were letters written in Spanish and in a very delicate hand. Brant knew Spanish well, and in twenty minutes he had read them all. They proved to be epistles from a lady who signed herself Juanita de Montalvo, written to the Count Juan de Montalvo, whom she addressed as her husband. Very piteous doc.u.ments they were also, telling a tale that need not be set out here of heartless desertion; pleading for the writer's sake and for the sake of certain children, that the husband and father would return to them, or at least remit them means to live, for they, his wife and family, were sunk in great poverty.
”All this is sad enough,” said Brant with a gesture of disgust as he glanced at the miniature of the lady and her children, ”but it proves nothing. How are we to know that she is the man's wife?”
Black Meg put her hand into the bosom of her dress and produced another letter dated not more than three months ago. It was, or purported to be, written by the priest of the village where the lady lived, and was addressed to the Captain the Count Juan de Montalvo at Leyden. In substance this epistle was an earnest appeal to the n.o.ble count from one who had a right to speak, as the man who had christened him, taught him, and married him to his wife, either to return to her or to forward her the means to join him. ”A dreadful rumour,” the letter ended, ”has reached us here in Spain that you have taken to wife a Dutch lady at Leyden named Van Hout, but this I do not believe, since never could you have committed such a crime before G.o.d and man. Write, write at once, my son, and disperse this black cloud of scandal which is gathering on your honoured and ancient name.”
”How did you come by these, woman?” asked Brant.
”The last I had from a priest who brought it from Spain. I met him at The Hague, and offered to deliver the letter, as he had no safe means of sending it to Leyden. The others and the pictures I stole out of Montalvo's room.”
”Indeed, most honest merchant, and what might you have been doing in his Excellency's room?”
”I will tell you,” she answered, ”for, as he never gave me my pay, my tongue is loosed. He wished for evidence that the Heer Dirk van Goorl was a heretic, and employed me to find it.”
Brant's face hardened, and he became more watchful.
”Why did he wish such evidence?”
”To use it to prevent the marriage of Jufvrouw Lysbeth with the Heer Dirk van Goorl.”
”How?”
Meg shrugged her shoulders. ”By telling his secret to her so that she might dismiss him, I suppose, or more likely by threatening that, if she did not, he would hand her lover over to the Inquisitors.”
”I see. And did you get the evidence?”
”Well, I hid in the Heer Dirk's bedroom one night, and looking through a door saw him and another young man, whom I do not know, reading the Bible, and praying together.”
”Indeed; what a terrible risk you must have run, for had those young men, or either of them, chanced to catch you, it is quite certain that you would not have left that room alive. You know these heretics think that they are justified in killing a spy at sight, and, upon my word, I do not blame them. In fact, my good woman,” and he leaned forward and looked her straight in the eyes, ”were I in the same position I would have knocked you on the head as readily as though you had been a rat.”
Black Meg shrank back, and turned a little blue about the lips.
”Of course, Mynheer, of course, it is a rough game, and the poor agents of G.o.d must take their risks. Not that the other young man had any cause to fear. I wasn't paid to watch him, and-as I have said-I neither know nor care who he is.”
”Well, who can say, that may be fortunate for you, especially if he should ever come to know or to care who you are. But it is no affair of ours, is it? Now, give me those letters. What, do you want your money first? Very well,” and, rising, Brant went to a cupboard and produced a small steel box, which he unlocked; and, having taken from it the appointed sum, locked it again. ”There you are,” he said; ”oh, you needn't stare at the cupboard; the box won't live there after to-day, or anywhere in this house. By the way, I understand that Montalvo never paid you.”
”Not a stiver,” she answered with a sudden access of rage; ”the low thief, he promised to pay me after his marriage, but instead of rewarding her who put him in that warm nest, I tell you that already he has squandered every florin of the n.o.ble lady's money in gambling and satisfying such debts as he was obliged to, so that to-day I believe that she is almost a beggar.”
”I see,” said Brant, ”and now good morning, and look you, if we should chance to meet in the town, you will understand that I do not know you.”
”I understand, Mynheer,” said Black Meg with a grin and vanished.
When she had gone Brant rose and opened the window. ”Bah!” he said, ”the air is poisoned. But I think I frightened her, I think that I have nothing to fear. Yet who can tell? My G.o.d! she saw me reading the Bible, and Montalvo knows it! Well, it is some time ago now, and I must take my chance.”
Ah! who could tell indeed?
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