BETROTHED
At nightfall on the morrow Adrian returned as appointed, and was
admitted into the same room, where he found Black Meg, who greeted him
openly by name and handed to him a tiny phial containing a fluid clear
as water. This, however, was scarcely to be wondered at, seeing that it
was water and nothing else.
“Will it really work upon her heart?” asked Adrian, eyeing the stuff.
“Ay,” answered the hag, “that’s a wondrous medicine, and those who
drink it go crazed with love for the giver. It is compounded according
to the Master’s own receipt, from very costly tasteless herbs that grow
only in the deserts of Arabia.”
Adrian understood, and fumbled in his pocket. Meg stretched out her
hand to receive the honorarium. It was a long, skinny hand, with long,
skinny fingers, but there was this peculiarity about it, that one of
these fingers chanced to be missing. She saw his eyes fixed upon the
gap, and rushed into an explanation.
“I have met with an accident,” Meg explained. “In cutting up a pig the
chopper caught this finger and severed it.”
“Did you wear a ring on it?” asked Adrian.
“Yes,” she replied, with sombre fury.
“How very strange!” ejaculated Adrian.
“Why?”
“Because I have seen a finger, a woman’s long finger with a gold ring
on it, that might have come off your hand. I suppose the pork-butcher
picked it up for a keepsake.”
“May be, Heer Adrian, but where is it now?”
“Oh! it is, or was, in a bottle of spirits tied by a thread to the
cork.”
Meg’s evil face contorted itself. “Get me that bottle,” she said
hoarsely. “Look you, Heer Adrian, I am doing much for you, do this for
me.”
“What do you want it for?”
“To give it Christian burial,” she replied sourly. “It is not fitting
or lucky that a person’s finger should stand about in a bottle like a
caul or a lizard. Get it, I say get it—I ask no question where—or,
young man, you will have little help in your love affairs from me.”
“Do you wish the dagger hilt also?” he asked mischievously.
She looked at him out of the corners of her black eyes. This Adrian
knew too much.
“I want the finger and the ring on it which I lost in chopping up the
pig.”
“Perhaps, mother, you would like the pig, too. Are you not making a
mistake? Weren’t you trying to cut his throat, and didn’t he bite off
the finger?”
“If I want the pig, I’ll search his stye. You bring that bottle, or——”
She did not finish her sentence, for the door opened, and through it
came the sage.
“Quarrelling,” he said in a tone of reproof. “What about? Let me
guess,” and he passed his hand over his shadowed brow. “Ah! I see,
there is a finger in it, a finger of fate? No, not that,” and, moved by
a fresh inspiration, he grasped Meg’s hand, and added, “Now I have it.
Bring it back, friend Adrian, bring it back; a dead finger is most
unlucky to all save its owner. As a favour to me.”
“Very well,” said Adrian.
“My gifts grow,” mused the master. “I have a vision of this honest hand
and of a great sword—but, there, it is not worth while, too small a
matter. Leave us, mother. It shall be returned, my word on it. Yes,
gold ring and all. And now, young friend, let us talk. You have the
philtre? Well, I can promise you that it is a good one, it would almost
bring Galatea from her marble. Pygmalion must have known that secret.
But tell me something of your life, your daily thoughts and daily
deeds, for when I give my friendship I love to live in the life of my
friends.”
Thus encouraged, Adrian told him a great deal, so much, indeed, that
the Señor Ramiro, nodding in the shadow of his hood, began to wonder
whether the spy behind the cupboard door, expert as he was, could
possibly make his pen keep pace with these outpourings. Oh! it was a
dreary task, but he kept to it, and by putting in a sentence here and
there artfully turned the conversation to matters of faith.
“No need to fence with me,” he said presently. “I know how you have
been brought up, how through no fault of your own you have wandered out
of the warm bosom of the true Church to sit at the clay feet of the
conventicle. You doubt it? Well, let me look again, let me look. Yes,
only last week you were seated in a whitewashed room overhanging the
market-place. I see it all—an ugly little man with a harsh voice is
preaching, preaching what I think blasphemy. Baskets—baskets? What have
baskets to do with him?”
“I believe he used to make them,” interrupted Adrian, taking the bait.
“That may be it, or perhaps he will be buried in one; at any rate he is
strangely mixed up with baskets. Well, there are others with you, a
middle-aged, heavy-faced man, is he not Dirk van Goorl, your
stepfather? And—wait—a young fellow with rather a pleasant face, also a
relation. I see his name, but I can’t spell it. F—F—o—i, faith in the
French tongue, odd name for a heretic.”
“F-o-y—Foy,” interrupted Adrian again.
“Indeed! Strange that I should have mistaken the last letter, but in
the spirit sight and hearing these things chance: then there is a great
man with a red beard.”
“No, Master, you’re wrong,” said Adrian with emphasis; “Martin was not
there; he stopped behind to watch the house.”
“Are you sure?” asked the seer doubtfully. “I look and I seem to see
him,” and he stared blankly at the wall.
“So you might see him often enough, but not at last week’s meeting.”
It is needless to follow the conversation further. The seer, by aid of
a ball of crystal that he produced from the folds of his cloak,
described his spirit visions, and the pupil corrected them from his
intimate knowledge of the facts, until the Señor Ramiro and his
confederates in the cupboard had enough evidence, as evidence was
understood in those days, to burn Dirk, Foy, and Martin three times
over, and, if it should suit him, Adrian also. Then for that night they
parted.
Next evening Adrian was back again with the finger in the bottle, which
Meg grabbed as a pike snatches at a frog, and further fascinating
conversation ensued. Indeed, Adrian found this well of mystic lore
tempered with shrewd advice upon love affairs and other worldly
matters, and with flattery of his own person and gifts, singularly
attractive.
Several times did he return thus, for as it chanced Elsa had been
unwell and kept her room, so that he discovered no opportunity of
administering the magic philtre that was to cause her heart to burn
with love for him.
At length, when even the patient Ramiro was almost worn out by the
young gentleman’s lengthy visits, the luck changed. Elsa appeared one
day at dinner, and with great adroitness Adrian, quite unseen of
anyone, contrived to empty the phial into her goblet of water, which,
as he rejoiced to see, she drank to the last drop.
But no opportunity such as he sought ensued, for Elsa, overcome,
doubtless, by an unwonted rush of emotion, retired to battle it in her
own chamber. Since it was impossible to follow and propose to her
there, Adrian, possessing his soul in such patience as he could
command, sat in the sitting-room to await her return, for he knew that
it was not her habit to go out until five o’clock. As it happened,
however, Elsa had other arrangements for the afternoon, since she had
promised to accompany Lysbeth upon several visits to the wives of
neighbours, and then to meet her cousin Foy at the factory and walk
with him in the meadows beyond the town.
So while Adrian, lost in dreams, waited in the sitting-room Elsa and
Lysbeth left the house by the side door.
They had paid three of their visits when their path chanced to lead
them past the old town prison which was called the Gevangenhuis. This
place formed one of the gateways of the city, for it was built in the
walls and opened on to the moat, water surrounding it on all sides. In
front of its massive door, that was guarded by two soldiers, a small
crowd had gathered on the drawbridge and in the street beyond,
apparently in expectation of somebody or something. Lysbeth looked at
the three-storied frowning building and shuddered, for it was here that
heretics were put upon their trial, and here, too, many of them were
done to death after the dreadful fashion of the day.
“Hasten,” she said to Elsa, as she pushed through the crowd, “for
doubtless some horror passes here.”
“Have no fear,” answered an elderly and good-natured woman who
overheard her, “we are only waiting to hear the new governor of the
prison read his deed of appointment.”
As she spoke the doors were thrown open and a man—he was a well-known
executioner named Baptiste—came out carrying a sword in one hand and a
bunch of keys on a salver in the other. After him followed the governor
gallantly dressed and escorted by a company of soldiers and the
officials of the prison. Drawing a scroll from beneath his cloak he
began to read it rapidly and in an almost inaudible voice.
It was his commission as governor of the prison signed by Alva himself,
and set out in full his powers, which were considerable, his
responsibilities which were small, and other matters, excepting only
the sum of money that he had paid for the office, that, given certain
conditions, was, as a matter of fact, sold to the highest bidder. As
may be guessed, this post of governor of a gaol in one of the large
Netherland cities was lucrative enough to those who did not object to
such a fashion of growing rich. So lucrative was it, indeed, that the
salary supposed to attach to the office was never paid; at least its
occupant was expected to help himself to it out of heretical pockets.
As he finished reading through the paper the new governor looked up, to
see, perhaps, what impression he had produced upon his audience. Now
Elsa saw his face for the first time and gripped Lysbeth’s arm.
“It is Ramiro,” she whispered, “Ramiro the spy, the man who dogged my
father at The Hague.”
As well might she have spoken to a statue. Indeed, of a sudden Lysbeth
seemed to be smitten into stone, for there she stood staring with a
blanched and meaningless face at the face of the man opposite to her.
Well might she stare, for she also knew him. Across the gulf of years,
one-eyed, bearded, withered, scarred as he was by suffering, passion
and evil thoughts, she knew him, for there before her stood one whom
she deemed dead, the wretch whom she had believed to be her husband,
Juan de Montalvo. Some magnetism drew his gaze to her; out of all the
faces of that crowd it was hers that leapt to his eye. He trembled and
grew white; he turned away, and swiftly was gone back into the hell of
the Gevangenhuis. Like a demon he had come out of it to survey the
human world beyond, and search for victims there; like a demon he went
back into his own place. So at least it seemed to Lysbeth.
“Come, come,” she muttered and, drawing the girl with her, passed out
of the crowd.
Elsa began to talk in a strained voice that from time to time broke
into a sob.
“That is the man,” she said. “He hounded down my father; it was his
wealth he wanted, but my father swore that he would die before he
should win it, and he is dead—dead in the Inquisition, and that man is
his murderer.”
Lysbeth made no answer, never a word she uttered, till presently they
halted at a mean and humble door. Then she spoke for the first time in
cold and constrained accents.
“I am going in here to visit the Vrouw Jansen; you have heard of her,
the wife of him whom they burned. She sent to me to say that she is
sick, I know not of what, but there is smallpox about; I have heard of
four cases of it in the city, so, cousin, it is wisest that you should
not enter here. Give me the basket with the food and wine. Look, yonder
is the factory, quite close at hand, and there you will find Foy. Oh!
never mind Ramiro. What is done is done. Go and walk with Foy, and for
a while forget—Ramiro.”
At the door of the factory Elsa found Foy awaiting her, and they walked
together through one of the gates of the city into the pleasant meadows
that lay beyond. At first they did not speak much, for each of them was
occupied with thoughts which pressed their tongues to silence. When
they were clear of the town, however, Elsa could contain herself no
more; indeed, the anguish awakened in her mind by the sight of Ramiro
working upon nerves already overstrung had made her half-hysterical.
She began to speak; the words broke from her like water from a dam
which it has breached. She told Foy that she had seen the man, and
more—much more. All the misery which she had suffered, all the love for
the father who was lost to her.
At last Elsa ceased outworn, and, standing still there upon the river
bank she wrung her hands and wept. Till now Foy had said nothing, for
his good spirits and cheerful readiness seemed to have forsaken him.
Even now he said nothing. All he did was to put his arms about this
sweet maid’s waist, and, drawing her to him, to kiss her upon brow and
eyes and lips. She did not resist; it never seemed to occur to her to
show resentment; indeed, she let her head sink upon his shoulder like
the head of a little child, and there sobbed herself to silence. At
last she lifted her face and asked very simply:
“What do you want with me, Foy van Goorl?”
“What?” he repeated; “why I want to be your husband.”
“Is this a time for marrying and giving in marriage?” she asked again,
but almost as though she were speaking to herself.
“I don’t know that it is,” he replied, “but it seems the only thing to
do, and in such days two are better than one.”
She drew away and looked at him, shaking her head sadly. “My father,”
she began——
“Yes,” he interrupted brightening, “thank you for mentioning him, that
reminds me. He wished this, so I hope now that he is gone you will take
the same view.”
“It is rather late to talk about that, isn’t it, Foy?” she stammered,
looking at his shoulder and smoothing her ruffled hair with her small
white hand. “But what do you mean?”
So word for word, as nearly as he could remember it, he told her all
that Hendrik Brant had said to him in the cellar at The Hague before
they had entered upon the desperate adventure of their flight to the
Haarlemer Meer. “He wished it, you see,” he ended.
“My thought was always his thought, and—Foy—I wish it also.”
“Priceless things are not lightly won,” said he, quoting Brant’s words
as though by some afterthought.
“There he must have been talking of the treasure, Foy,” she answered,
her face lightening to a smile.
“Ay, of the treasure, sweet, the treasure of your dear heart.”
“A poor thing, Foy, but I think that—it rings true.”
“It had need, Elsa, yet the best of coin may crack with rough usage.”
“Mine will wear till death, Foy.”
“I ask no more, Elsa. When I am dead, spend it elsewhere; I shall find
it again above where there is no marrying or giving in marriage.”
“There would be but small change left to spend, Foy, so look to your
own gold and—see that you do not alter its image and superscription,
for metal will melt in the furnace, and each queen has her stamp.”
“Enough,” he broke in impatiently. “Why do you talk of such things, and
in these riddles which puzzle me?”
“Because, because, we are not married yet, and—the words are not
mine—precious things are dearly won. Perfect love and perfect peace
cannot be bought with a few sweet words and kisses; they must be earned
in trial and tribulation.”
“Of which I have no doubt we shall find plenty,” Foy replied
cheerfully. “Meanwhile, the kisses make a good road to travel on.”
After this Elsa did not argue any more.
At length they turned and walked homeward through the quiet evening
twilight, hand clasped in hand, and were happy in their way. It was not
a very demonstrative way, for the Dutch have never been excitable, or
at least they do not show their excitement. Moreover, the conditions of
this betrothal were peculiar; it was as though their hands had been
joined from a deathbed, the deathbed of Hendrik Brant, the martyr of
The Hague, whose new-shed blood cried out to Heaven for vengeance. This
sense pressing on both of them did not tend towards rapturous outbursts
of youthful passion, and even if they could have shaken it off and let
their young blood have rein, there remained another sense—that of
dangers ahead of them.
“Two are better than one,” Foy had said, and for her own reasons she
had not wished to argue the point, still Elsa felt that to it there was
another side. If two could comfort each other, could help each other,
could love each other, could they not also suffer for each other? In
short, by doubling their lives, did they not also double their
anxieties, or if children should come, treble and quadruple them? This
is true of all marriage, but how much more was it true in such days and
in such a case as that of Foy and Elsa, both of them heretics, both of
them rich, and, therefore, both liable at a moment’s notice to be haled
to the torment and the stake? Knowing these things, and having but just
seen the hated face of Ramiro, it is not wonderful that although she
rejoiced as any woman must that the man to whom her soul turned had
declared himself her lover, Elsa could only drink of this joyful cup
with a chastened and a fearful spirit. Nor is it wonderful that even in
the hour of his triumph Foy’s buoyant and hopeful nature was chilled by
the shadow of her fears and the forebodings of his own heart.
When Lysbeth parted from Elsa that afternoon she went straight to the
chamber of the Vrouw Jansen. It was a poor place, for after the
execution of her husband his wretched widow had been robbed of all her
property and now existed upon the charity of her co-religionists.
Lysbeth found her in bed, an old woman nursing her, who said that she
thought the patient was suffering from a fever. Lysbeth leant over the
bed and kissed the sick woman, but started back when she saw that the
glands of her neck were swollen into great lumps, while the face was
flushed and the eyes so bloodshot as to be almost red. Still she knew
her visitor, for she whispered:
“What is the matter with me, Vrouw van Goorl? Is it the smallpox coming
on? Tell me, friend, the doctor would not speak.”
“I fear that it is worse; it is the plague,” said Lysbeth, startled
into candour.
The poor girl laughed hoarsely. “Oh! I hoped it,” she said. “I am glad,
I am glad, for now I shall die and go to join him. But I wish that I
had caught it before,” she rambled on to herself, “for then I would
have taken it to him in prison and they couldn’t have treated him as
they did.” Suddenly she seemed to come to herself, for she added, “Go
away, Vrouw van Goorl, go quickly or you may catch my sickness.”
“If so, I am afraid that the mischief is done, for I have kissed you,”
answered Lysbeth. “But I do not fear such things, though perhaps if I
took it, this would save me many a trouble. Still, there are others to
think of, and I will go.” So, having knelt down to pray awhile by the
patient, and given the old nurse the basket of soup and food, Lysbeth
went.
Next morning she heard that the Vrouw Jansen was dead, the pest that
struck her being of the most fatal sort.
Lysbeth knew that she had run great risk, for there is no disease more
infectious than the plague. She determined, therefore, that so soon as
she reached home she would burn her dress and other articles of
clothing and purify herself with the fumes of herbs. Then she dismissed
the matter from her mind, which was already filled with another
thought, a dominant, soul-possessing thought.
Oh God, Montalvo had returned to Leyden! Out of the blackness of the
past, out of the gloom of the galleys, had arisen this evil genius of
her life; yes, and, by a strange fatality, of the life of Elsa Brant
also, since it was he, she swore, who had dragged down her father.
Lysbeth was a brave woman, one who had passed through many dangers, but
her whole heart turned sick with terror at the sight of this man, and
sick it must remain till she, or he, were dead. She could well guess
what he had come to seek. It was that cursed treasure of Hendrik
Brant’s which had drawn him. She knew from Elsa that for a year at
least the man Ramiro had been plotting to steal this money at The
Hague. He had failed there, failed with overwhelming and shameful loss
through the bravery and resource of her son Foy and their henchman, Red
Martin. Now he had discovered their identity; he was aware that they
held the secret of the hiding-place of that accursed hoard, they and no
others, and he had established himself in Leyden to wring it out of
them. It was clear, clear as the setting orb of the red sun before her.
She knew the man—had she not lived with him?—and there could be no
doubt about it, and—he was the new governor of the Gevangenhuis.
Doubtless he has purchased that post for his own dark purposes and—to
be near them.
Sick and half blind with the intensity of her dread, Lysbeth staggered
home. She must tell Dirk, that was her one thought; but no, she had
been in contact with the plague, first she must purify herself. So she
went to her room, and although it was summer, lit a great fire on the
hearth, and in it burned her garments. Then she bathed and fumigated
her hair and body over a brazier of strong herbs, such as in those days
of frequent and virulent sickness housewives kept at hand, after which
she dressed herself afresh and went to seek her husband. She found him
at a desk in his private room reading some paper, which at her approach
he shuffled into a drawer.
“What is that, Dirk?” she asked with sudden suspicion.
He pretended not to hear, and she repeated the query.
“Well, wife, if you wish to know,” he answered in his blunt fashion,
“it is my will.”
“Why are you reading your will?” she asked again, beginning to tremble,
for her nerves were afire, and this simple accident struck her as
something awful and ominous.
“For no particular reason, wife,” he replied quietly, “only that we all
must die, early or late. There is no escape from that, and in these
times it is more often early than late, so it is as well to be sure
that everything is in order for those who come after us. Now, since we
are on the subject, which I have never cared to speak about, listen to
me.”
“What about, husband?”
“Why, about my will. Look you, Hendrik Brant and his treasure have
taught me a lesson. I am not a man of his substance, or a tenth of it,
but in some countries I should be called rich, for I have worked hard
and God has prospered me. Well, of late I have been realising where I
could, also the bulk of my savings is in cash. But the cash is not
here, not in this country at all. You know my correspondents, Munt and
Brown, of Norwich, in England, to whom we ship our goods for the
English market. They are honest folk, and Munt owes me everything,
almost to his life. Well, they have the money, it has reached them
safely, thanks be to God, and with it a counterpart of this my will
duly attested, and here is their letter of acknowledgment stating that
they have laid it out carefully at interest upon mortgage on great
estates in Norfolk where it lies to my order, or that of my heirs, and
that a duplicate acknowledgment has been filed in their English
registries in case this should go astray. Little remains here except
this house and the factory, and even on those I have raised money.
Meanwhile the business is left to live on, and beyond it the rents
which will come from England, so that whether I be living or dead you
need fear no want. But what is the matter with you, Lysbeth? You look
strange.”
“Oh! husband, husband,” she gasped, “Juan de Montalvo is here again. He
has appeared as the new governor of the gaol. I saw him this afternoon,
I cannot be mistaken, although he has lost an eye and is much changed.”
Dirk’s jaw dropped and his florid face whitened. “Juan de Montalvo!” he
said. “I heard that he was dead long ago.”
“You are mistaken, husband, a devil never dies. He is seeking Brant’s
treasure, and he knows that we have its secret. You can guess the rest.
More, now that I think of it, I have heard that a strange Spaniard is
lodging with Hague Simon, he whom they call the Butcher, and Black Meg,
of whom we have cause to know. Doubtless it is he, and—Dirk, death
overshadows us.”
“Why should he know of Brant’s treasure, wife?”
“Because _he is Ramiro_, the man who dogged him down, the man who
followed the ship _Swallow_ to the Haarlemer Meer. Elsa was with me
this afternoon, she knew him again.”
Dirk thought a while, resting his head upon his hand. Then he lifted it
and said:
“I am very glad that I sent the money to Munt and Brown, Heaven gave me
that thought. Well, wife, what is your counsel now?”
“My counsel is that we should fly from Leyden—all of us, yes, this very
night before worse happens.”
He smiled. “That cannot be; there are no means of flight, and under the
new laws we could not pass the gates; that trick has been played too
often. Still, in a day or two, when I have had time to arrange, we
might escape if you still wish to go.”
“To-night, to-night,” she urged, “or some of us stay for ever.”
“I tell you, wife, it is not possible. Am I a rat that I should be
bolted from my hole thus by this ferret of a Montalvo? I am a man of
peace and no longer young, but let him beware lest I stop here long
enough to pass a sword through him.”
“So be it, husband,” she replied, “but I think it is through my heart
that the sword will pass,” and she burst out weeping.
Supper that night was a somewhat melancholy meal. Dirk and Lysbeth sat
at the ends of the table in silence. On one side of fit were placed Foy
and Elsa, who were also silent for a very different reason, while
opposite to them was Adrian, who watched Elsa with an anxious and
inquiring eye.
That the love potion worked he was certain, for she looked confused and
a little flushed; also, as would be natural under the circumstances,
she avoided his glance and made pretence to be interested in Foy, who
seemed rather more stupid than usual. Well, so soon as he could find
his chance all this would be cleared up, but meanwhile the general
gloom and silence were affecting his nerves.
“What have you been doing this afternoon, mother?” Adrian asked
presently.
“I, son?” she replied with a start, “I have been visiting the unhappy
Vrouw Jansen, whom I found very sick.”
“What is the matter with her, mother?”
Lysbeth’s mind, which had wandered away, again returned to the subject
at hand with an effort.
“The matter? Oh! she has the plague.”
“The plague!” exclaimed Adrian, springing to his feet, “do you mean to
say you have been consorting with a woman who has the plague?”
“I fear so,” she answered with a smile, “but do not be frightened,
Adrian, I have burnt my clothes and fumigated myself.”
Still Adrian was frightened. His recent experience of sickness had been
ample, and although he was no coward he had a special dislike of
infectious diseases, which at the time were many.
“It is horrible,” he said, “horrible. I only hope that we—I mean
you—may escape. The house is unbearably close. I am going to walk in
the courtyard,” and away he went, for the moment, at any rate,
forgetting all about Elsa and the love potion.