The Laughing Cavalier · Chapter 30 (2/3)

“Madonna,” he said as with a quick movement he came forward and bent the knee before her, “I entreat you to believe that whatever lies in my power to do in your service, that will I gladly do. How can I refuse,” he added whilst that immutable smile, gentle, humorous, faintly ironical, once more lit up his face as he looked straight into hers, “how can I refuse to obey since you deign to plead to me with those lips? how can I withstand your appeal when it speaks to me through your eyes?”

“You will let me do what I ask?” she exclaimed with a little cry of joy, for his attitude was very humble and his voice yielding and kind; he was kneeling at some little distance from her, which was quite becoming in a mercenary knave.

“If it be in my power, Madonna!” he said simply.

“Then will I pay you well,” she continued eagerly. “I have thought it all out. I am rich you know, and my bond is as good as that of any man. Do you but bring me inkhorn and paper, I will give you a bond for 4,000 guilders on Mynheer Ben Isaje himself, he hath monies of mine own in trust and at interest. But if 4,000 guilders are not enough, I pray you name your price; it shall be what you ask.”

“What do you desire me to do, Madonna?”

“I desire you to escort me to Delft so that I may speak with the Prince of Orange.”

“The Prince of Orange is well guarded. No stranger is allowed to enter his presence.”

“I am not a stranger to him. My father is his friend; a word from me to him, a ring of mine sent in with a request for an audience and he will not refuse.”

“And having entered the presence of the Stadtholder, mejuffrouw, what do you propose to say to him?”

“That, sir, is naught to you,” she retorted coldly.

“I pray you forgive me,” he said, still humbly kneeling, “but you have deigned to ask my help, and I’ll not give it unless you will tell me what your purpose is.”

“You would not dare.⁠ ⁠…”

“To make conditions for my services?” he said speaking always with utmost deference, “this do I dare, mejuffrouw, and my condition is for your acceptance or refusal⁠—as you command.”

“I did not ask for your help, sir,” she said curtly. “I offered to pay you for certain services which I desire you to render me.”

Already her look of pleading had gone. She had straightened herself up, prouder and more disdainful than before. He dared to make conditions! he! the mercenary creature whom anyone could buy body and soul for money, who took payment for doing such work as would soil an honest man’s hands! It was monstrous! impossible, unthinkable. She thought that her ears had deceived her or that mayhap he had misunderstood.

In a moment at her words, at the scornful glance which accompanied them, he had risen to his feet. The subtle moment had gone by; the air was no longer oppressive, and the ground felt quite steady under him. Calm, smiling, good-tempered, he straightened out his massive figure as if to prepare himself for those shafts which her cruel little tongue knew so well how to deal.

And inwardly he offered up a thanksgiving to St. Bavon for this cold douche upon his flaming temper.

“I did not misunderstand you, mejuffrouw,” he said lightly, “and I am ready to do you service⁠—under a certain condition.”

She bit her lip with vexation. The miserable wretch was obviously not satisfied with the amount which she had named as payment for his services, and he played some weak part of chivalry and of honour in order to make his work appear more difficult, and to extract a more substantial reward from her. She tried to put into the glance which she now threw on him all the contempt which she felt and which truly nauseated her at this moment. Unfortunately she had need of him, she could not start for Delft alone, marauders and footpads would stop her ever reaching that city. Could she have gone alone she were not here now craving the help of a man whom she despised.

“Meseems,” she said coldly after a slight pause, “that you do wilfully misunderstand our mutual positions. I am not asking you to do anything which could offend your strangely susceptible honour, whose vagaries, I own, I am unable to follow. Will 10,000 guilders satisfy your erratic conscience? or did you receive more than that for laying hands on two helpless women and dragging one⁠—who has never done you any wrong⁠—to a depth of shame and sorrow which you cannot possibly fathom?”

“My conscience, mejuffrouw,” he replied, seemingly quite unperturbed at her contemptuous glance and insulting speech, “is, as you say, somewhat erratic. For the moment it refuses to consider the possibility of escorting you to Delft unless I know what it is that you desire to say to the Prince of Orange.”

“If it is a question of price.⁠ ⁠…”

“It is not a question of price, mejuffrouw,” he broke in firmly, “let us, an you will allow it, call it a question of mine erratic conscience.”

“I am rich, sir⁠ ⁠… my private fortune.⁠ ⁠…”

“Do not name it, mejuffrouw,” he said jovially, “the sound of it would stagger a poor man who has to scrape up a living as best he can.”

“Forty thousand guilders, sir,” she said pleading once more eagerly, “an you will take me to Delft tomorrow.”

“Were it ten hundred thousand, mejuffrouw, I would not do it unless I knew what you wished to say to the Stadtholder.”

“Sir, can I not move you,” she implored, “this means more to me than I can hope to tell you.” Once again her pride had given way before this new and awful fear that her errand would be in vain, that she had come here as a suppliant before this rogue, that she had humbled her dignity, entreated him, almost knelt to him, and that he, for some base reason which she could not understand, meant to give himself the satisfaction of refusing the fortune which she did promise him.

“Can I not move you,” she reiterated, appealing yet more earnestly, for, womanlike, she could not forget that moment awhile ago, when he had knelt instinctively before her, when the irony had gone from his smile, and the laughter in his mocking eyes had yielded to an inward glow.

He shook his head, but remained unmoved.

“I cannot tell you, sir,” she urged plaintively, “what I would say to the Prince.”

“Is it so deadly a secret then?” he asked.

“Call it that, an you will.”

“A secret that concerns his life?”

“That I did not say.”

“No. It was a guess. A right one methinks.”

“Then if you think so, sir, why not let me go to him?”

“So that you may warn him?”

“You were merely guessing, sir.⁠ ⁠…”

“That you may tell him not to continue his journey,” he insisted, speaking less restrainedly now, as he leaned forward closer to her, her fair curls almost brushing against his cheek as they fluttered in the draught.

“I did not say so,” she murmured.

“Because there is a trap laid for him⁠ ⁠… a trap of which you know.⁠ ⁠…”

“No, no!” she cried involuntarily.

“A trap into which he may fall⁠ ⁠… unknowingly⁠ ⁠… on his way to the north.”

“You say so, sir,” she moaned, “not I.⁠ ⁠…”

“Assassins are on his track⁠ ⁠… an attempt will be made against his life⁠ ⁠… the murderers lie in wait for him⁠ ⁠… even now⁠ ⁠… and you, mejuffrouw, who know who those murderers are⁠ ⁠…”

A cry of anguish rose to her lips.

“No, no, no,” she cried, “it is false⁠ ⁠… you are only guessing⁠ ⁠… remember that I have told you nothing.”

But already the tense expression on his face had gone. He drew himself up to his full height once more and heaved a deep breath which sounded like a sigh of satisfaction.

“Yet in your candour, mejuffrouw, you have told me much,” he said quietly, “confirmed much that I only vaguely guessed. The Stadtholder’s life is in peril and you hold in your feeble little hands the threads of the conspiracy which threatens him⁠ ⁠… is that not why you are here, mejuffrouw⁠ ⁠… a prisoner, as you say, at the goodwill of my employer? I am only guessing, remember, but on your face, meseems that I can read that I do guess aright.”

“Then you will do what I ask?” she exclaimed with a happy little gasp of renewed hope.

“That, mejuffrouw, is I fear me impossible,” he said quietly.

“Impossible? But⁠—just now⁠ ⁠…”

“Just now,” he rejoined with affected carelessness, “I said, mejuffrouw, that I would on no account escort you to Delft without knowing what your purpose is with the Prince of Orange. Even now I do not know, I merely guessed.”

“But,” she entreated, “if I do own that you have guessed aright⁠—partly at any rate⁠—if I do tell you that the Stadtholder’s life might be imperilled if I did not give him a timely word of warning, if⁠ ⁠…”

“Even if you told me all that, mejuffrouw,” he broke in lightly, “if you did bring your pride down so far as to trust a miserable knave with a secret which he might sell for money on the morrow⁠—even then, I fear me, I could not do what you ask.”

“But why not?” she insisted, her voice choking in her throat in the agony of terrible doubt and fear.

“Because the man of whom you spoke just now, the man whom you love, mejuffrouw, has been more farseeing, more prudent than you or I. He hath put it out of my power to render you this service.”

“How?”

“By warning Mynheer Ben Isaje against any attempt at escape on your part, against any attempt at betrayal on mine. Mynheer Ben Isaje is prepared: he hath a guard of ten picked men on the watch, and two more men outside his door. If you tried to leave this house with me without his consent he would prevent you, and I am no match alas! for twelve men.”

“Why should he guard me so?”

“Because he will not be paid if he keep not watch over you.”

“But I’ll swear to return straightway from Delft. I’ll only speak with the Prince and return immediately.⁠ ⁠… Money! always money!” she cried with sudden vehemence, “a great man’s life, the honour of a house, the salvation of the land, are these all to be sacrificed because of the greed and cupidity of men?”

“Shall I call Mynheer Ben Isaje?” asked Diogenes placidly, “mayhap, mejuffrouw, that you could persuade him more easily than me!”

But at this she rose to her feet as suddenly as if she had been stung: the colour in her cheeks deepened, the tears were dry in her eyes.

“You,” she exclaimed, and there was a world of bitter contempt in the tone of her voice, “persuade you who have tricked and fooled me, even while I began to believe in you? You, who for the past half hour have tried to filch a secret from me bit by bit! with lying words you led me into telling you even more than I should! and I, poor fool I thought that I had touched your heart, or that at least there was some spark of loyalty in you which mayhap prompted you to guess that the Prince was in danger. Fool that I was! miserable, wretched fool! to think for a moment that you would lend a hand in aught that was noble and chivalrous! I would I had the power to raise the blush of shame in your cheeks, but alas! the shame is only for me, who trusting in your false promises and your lies have allowed my tongue to speak words which I would give my life now to unsay⁠—for me who thought that there was in you one feeble spark of pity or of honour. Fool! fool that I was! when I forgot for one brief moment that it was your greed and cupidity that were the props without which this whole edifice of infamy had tottered long ago; persuade you to do a selfish deed! you the abductor of women, the paid varlet and mercenary rogue who will thieve and outrage and murder for money!”

She sank back in her chair and, resting her arms upon the table, she buried her face in them, for she had given way at last to a passionate fit of weeping. The disappointment was greater than she could bear after the load of sorrow which had been laid on her these past few days.

When she heard through the chatterings of a servant that the Stadtholder was at Delft this very night, the memory of every word which she had heard in the cathedral on New Year’s Eve came back to her with renewed vividness. Delft! she remembered that name so well and Ryswyk close by, the only possible way for a northward journey! Then the molens which Stoutenburg had said were his headquarters, where he stored arms and ammunition and enough gunpowder to blow up the wooden bridge which spans the Schie and over which the Stadtholder and his bodyguard must pass.

Every word that Stoutenburg and her brother and the others had spoken that night, rang now in her ears like a knell: Delft, Ryswyk, the molens, the wooden bridge! Delft, Ryswyk, the molens, the wooden bridge! Delft.⁠ ⁠…

Delft was quite near, less than four leagues away⁠ ⁠… the Stadtholder was there now⁠ ⁠… he could be warned before it was too late⁠ ⁠… and she could warn him without compromising her brother and his friends.⁠ ⁠… Then it was that she remembered that in the room below there slept a knave who would do anything for gold.

Thus she had run down to him full of eagerness and full of hope. And now he had refused to help her, and worse still had guessed at a secret which, if he bartered or sold it, meant death to her brother and his friends.

Contempt and hate had broken down her spirit. Smothering both, she was even now ready to fall on her knees, to plead with him, to pray, to implore⁠ ⁠… if only that could have moved him⁠ ⁠… if only it meant safety for the Stadtholder, and not merely a useless loss of pride and of dignity.

Anger and misery and utter hopelessness! they were causing her tears, and she hated this man who had her in his power and mocked her in her misery: and there was the awful thought that the Stadtholder was so near⁠—less than four leagues away! Why! had she been free she could have run all the way to him⁠—that hideous crime, that appalling tragedy in which her brother would bear a hand, could be averted even now if she were free! Oh! the misery of it! the awful, wretched helplessness! in a few days⁠—hours mayhap⁠—the Stadtholder would be walking straight into the trap which his murderers had set for him⁠ ⁠… the broken bridge! the explosion! the assassin at the carriage door! She saw it all as in a vision of the future, and her brother in the midst of it all with hands deeply stained in blood.

And she could avert it all⁠—the crime, the sorrow, the awful, hideous shame if only she were free.

She looked up at last, ashamed of her tears, ashamed that a rogue should have seen how keenly she suffered.

She looked up and turned to him once more. The flickering light of the candles fell full upon his splendid figure and upon his face: it was the colour of ashes, and there was no trace of his wonted smile around his lips: the eyes too looked sunken and their light was hid beneath the drooping lids. Her shafts which she had aimed with such deadly precision had gone home at last: in the bitterness of her heart she apparently had found words which had cut him like a lash.

Satisfied at least in this she rose to go.

“There is nothing more to say,” she said as calmly as she could, trying to still the quivering of her lips: “as you say, Mynheer Ben Isaje has carefully taken the measure of your valour and it cannot come up to a dozen picked men, even though life and honour, country and faith might demand at least an effort on their behalf. I pray you open the door. I would⁠—for mine own sake as well as your own⁠—that I had not thought of breaking in on your rest.”

Without a word he went to the door, and had his hand on the latch ready to obey her, when something in his placid attitude irritated her beyond endurance. Womanlike she was not yet satisfied: perhaps a thought of remorse at her cruelty fretted her, perhaps she pitied him in that he was so base.

Be that as it may, she spoke to him again:

“Have you nothing then to say?” she asked.

“What can I say, mejuffrouw?” he queried in reply, as the ghost of his wonted smile crept swiftly back into his pale face.

“Methought no man would care to be called a coward by a woman, and remain silent under the taunt.”