THE PAINTER OF PICTURES
After this episode Chance had little to do with the further events of
this veracious chronicle.
Men took their destiny in their own hands and laughed at Fate and at the
links of the chain which she had been forging so carefully and so
patiently ever since she began the business on the steps of the Stadhuis
a few short hours ago.
Beresteyn and Stoutenburg walking home together in the small hours of
New Year's morning spoke very little together at first. They strode
along side by side, each buried in his own thoughts, and only a few curt
remarks passed at intervals between them.
But something lay on the minds of both--something of which each desired
to speak to the other, yet neither of them seemed willing to be the
first to broach the absorbing topic.
It was Stoutenburg who at last broke the silence.
"A curious personality, that knave," he said carelessly after awhile,
"an unscrupulous devil as daring as he is reckless of consequences I
should say ... yet trustworthy withal ... what think you?"
"A curious personality as you say," replied Beresteyn vaguely.
"He might have been useful to us had we cared to pay for
his services ... but now 'tis too late to think of further
accomplices ... new men won or bought for our cause only mean more
victims for the gallows."
"You take a gloomy view of the situation," said Beresteyn sombrely.
"No! only a fatalistic one. With our secret in a woman's keeping ... and
that woman free and even anxious to impart it to one of my most bitter
enemies ... I can see nought that can ward off the inevitable."
"Except...."
"Yes, of course," rejoined Stoutenburg earnestly, "if you, Nicolaes, are
ready to make the sacrifice which alone could save us all."
"It is a sacrifice which will involve my honour, my sister's love for
me, my father's trust...."
"If you act wisely and circumspectly, my friend," retorted Stoutenburg
dryly, "neither your father nor Gilda herself need ever know that you
had a share in ... in what you propose to do."
Beresteyn made no reply and he and his friend walked on in silence until
they reached the small house close to the "Lame Cow" where Stoutenburg
had his lodgings. Here they shook hands before parting and Stoutenburg
held his friend's hand in his tightly grasped for a moment or two while
he said earnestly:
"It is only for a few days, Nicolaes, a few days during which I swear to
you that--though absent and engaged in the greatest task that any man
can undertake on this earth--I swear to you that I will keep watch over
Gilda and defend her honour with my life. If you will make the sacrifice
for me and for our cause, Heaven and your country will reward you beyond
your dreams. With the death of the Stadtholder my power in the
Netherlands will be supreme, and herewith, with my hand in yours, I
solemnly plight my troth to Gilda. She was the first woman I ever loved,
and I have never ceased to love her. Now she fills my heart and soul
even--at times--to the exclusion of my most ambitious hopes.
Nicolaes--my friend--it is in your power to save my life as well as your
own: an you will do it, there will be no bounds to my gratitude."
And Beresteyn replied calmly:
"The sacrifice which you ask of me I will make: I will take the risk for
the sake of my country and of my faith. To-morrow at noon I will come to
your lodgings and tell you in detail all the arrangements which I shall
have made by then. I have no fear for Gilda. I believe that Heaven has
guided my thoughts and footsteps to-night for the furtherance of our
cause."
After which the two men took final leave of one another: Stoutenburg's
tall lean form quickly disappeared under the doorway of the house,
whilst Beresteyn walked rapidly away up the street.
* * * * *
Now it was close on ten o'clock of New Year's morning. Nicolaes
Beresteyn had spent several hours in tossing restlessly under the warm
eiderdown and between the fine linen sheets embroidered by his sister's
deft hands. During these hours of sleeplessness a plan had matured in
his mind which though it had finally issued from his own consciousness
had really found its origin in the reckless brain of Willem van
Stoutenburg.
Beresteyn now saw himself as the saviour of his friends and of their
patriotic cause. He felt that in order to carry out the plan which he
firmly believed that he himself had conceived, he was making a noble
sacrifice for his country and for his faith, and he was proud to think
that it lay in his power to offer the sacrifice. That this same
sacrifice would have his own sister for victim, he cared seemingly very
little. He was one of those men in whose hearts political aims outweigh
every tender emotion, and he firmly believed that Gilda would be richly
rewarded by the fulfilment of that solemn promise made by Stoutenburg.
Exquisite visions of satisfied ambition, of triumph and of glory chased
away sleep: he saw his friend as supreme ruler of the State, with powers
greater than the Princes of Orange had ever wielded: he saw Gilda--his
sister--grateful to him for the part which he had played in re-uniting
her to the man whom she had always loved, she too supreme in power as
the proud wife of the new Stadtholder. And he saw himself as the Lord
High Advocate of the Netherlands standing in the very shoes of that same
John of Barneveld whose death he would have helped to avenge.
These and other thoughts had stirred Nicolaes Beresteyn's fancy while he
lay awake during these the first hours of the New Year, and it was
during those self-same hours that a nameless stranger whom his compeers
called Diogenes had tramped up and down the snow-covered streets of
Haarlem trying to keep himself warm.
I am very sorry to have to put it on record that during that time he
swore more than once at his own softheartedness which had caused him to
give up his hard but sheltered paillasse to a pair of Papists who were
nothing to him and whom probably he would never see again.
"I begin to agree with that bloated puff-ball Pythagoras," he mused
dejectedly once, when an icy wind, blowing straight from the North Sea,
drove the falling snow into his boots, and under his collar, and up his
sleeves, and nearly froze the marrow in his bones, "it is but sorry
pleasure to play at being a gentleman. And I had not many hours of it
either," he added ruefully.
Even the most leaden-footed hours do come to an end however. At one half
after six Diogenes turned his steps toward the Peuselaarsteeg where
dwelt his friend Frans Hals, the painter of pictures. Fortunately
Mevrouw Hals was in a fairly good temper, the last portrait group of the
officers of St. Joris' Shooting Guild had just been paid for, and there
was practically a new commission to paint yet another group of these
gentlemen.
And Mynheer van Zeller the deputy bailiff had bought the fancy picture
too, for which that knave Diogenes had sat last year, so Mevrouw Hals
was willing to provide the young man with a savoury and hot breakfast if
he were willing once again to allow Frans to make a picture of his
pleasant face.
Mevrouw Hals being in rare good humour, the breakfast was both
substantial and savoury. Diogenes, who was starved with cold as well as
with hunger, did great honour to all that was laid before him: he ate
heartily while recounting his adventures of the past night to his
friend.
"All that trouble for a Papist wench," said the painter as
contemptuously as Pythagoras himself would have done, "and maybe a
Spaniard too."
"Good-looking girl," quoth Diogenes dryly, "and would make you a good
model, Frans. For a few kreutzers she'd be glad enough to do it."
"I'll have none of these vixens inside my house," interposed Mevrouw
Hals decisively, "and don't you teach Frans any of your loose ways, my
man."
Diogenes made no reply, he only winked at his friend. No doubt he
thought that Hals no longer needed teaching.
The two men repaired to the studio, a huge bare room littered with
canvases, but void of furniture, save for an earthenware stove in which
fortunately a cheerful fire was blazing, a big easel roughly fashioned
of deal, a platform for the model to stand on, and two or three
rush-bottomed chairs: there was also a ramshackle dowry chest, black
with age, which mayhap had once held the piles of homemade linen brought
as a dowry by the first Mevrouw Hals: now it seemed to contain a
heterogeneous collection of gaudy rags, together with a few fine
articles of attire, richly embroidered relics of more prosperous days.
The artist went straight up to the chest and from out the litter he
selected a bundle of clothes which he handed over to his friend.
"Slip into them as quickly as you can, old compeer," he said, "my
fingers are itching to get to work."
And while he fixed the commenced picture on the easel and set out his
palette, Diogenes threw off his shabby clothes and donned the gorgeous
doublet and sash which the painter had given him.