UTTER LONELINESS
I
What happened directly after that, Lenora did not know. Consciousness mercifully left her, and when she woke once more she found herself sitting in a small room which smelt of lavender and warm linen, beside a fire which burned low in a wide-open hearth.
She opened her eyes and looked enquiringly around her. The room was dark--only faintly lighted by the lamp which hung from a beam in the ceiling. A young girl was busy in a corner of the room bending over an ironing board.
"Does the noble lady feel better?" she asked kindly but with all the deference which those of the subject race were expected to show to their superiors.
She spoke in broken French--most women and men who served in the inns and taverns in the cities of the Low Countries were obliged to know some other language besides their own, seeing that the tapperijen were frequented by Spanish, French and German soldiery.
"I am quite well, I thank thee," replied Lenora gently, "but wilt thou tell me where I am and how I came to be sitting here when..."
She paused; for with a rush the recollection of the past terrible moments came sweeping back upon her, and it seemed as if consciousness would flee from her once again.
"The noble lady must have felt dizzy," said the girl quietly. "Aunt sent me in with the warm water for the noble seigneur's wound, and I saw the noble lady just running out of the tapperij to the porch and then fall--in a swoon. I was frightened, but the noble seigneur ordered me quickly to tie a towel around his wounded arm and then he carried the noble lady up here to a nice warm room, where he told me that mayhap she should deign to pass the night. Oh! the noble seigneur is grievously wounded, he..."
"Silence, girl," cried Lenora suddenly, for indeed with every word the child seemed to be touching an aching place in her heart. "No, no," she added more gently, seeing that the girl, abashed and not a little frightened, had gone back in silence to her ironing-board, "I did not mean to be unkind ... but ... as thou seest, I am not well. Come! tell me what happened after ... after the noble seigneur carried me up here."
"Aunt waited on him, noble lady," said the girl, "for the wound in his arm bled grievously ... but he was impatient and soon ordered her to leave him alone ... then I came up here, and did all I could to bring the noble lady round.... I tried vinegar and burned feathers under the noble lady's nose ... but I was not frightened ... I knew the noble lady would revive ... and the leech lives but two doors off.... We were all of us anxious about the noble seigneur ... because of his wound ... and he looked so pale and haggard ... so aunt and I soon ran down to him again.... We found him sitting by the table ... just sealing down a letter which he had been writing. 'I am going, mevrouw,' he says to aunt quite curtly. 'Take thine orders from the noble lady. She will tell thee her own wishes.' He gave her some money and a letter which he ordered her to give to the noble lady as soon as she deigned to wake. And then he took his hat and mantle and went out by the porch ... just like that ... all alone ... into the darkness ... whither he did not deign to say.... We are just poor people and we did not dare to ask, but the wind has sprung up and it hath begun to rain ... the night will be rough ... and the noble seigneur is not fit to hold a horse with his arm in such a grievous state."
"Where is the letter?" asked Lenora curtly.
From the pocket of her apron the girl produced a letter folded into four and sealed down with wax which she handed to the noble Spanish lady with a respectful curtsey.
"Aunt told me to give it to the noble lady," she said, "as soon as she deigned to wake."
"Is thine aunt the hostess of this inn?" queried Lenora. She was fingering the letter, feeling a curious hesitancy and reluctance to read its contents, and asked a few idle questions whilst she made an effort to control her nerves.
"Yes! at the noble lady's service," replied the girl.
"Art of this city, then?"
"No, so please you. I come from Ghent."
"From Ghent? What is thy name, then?"
"Grete, so please the noble lady," whispered the girl.
Then, as the noble lady said nothing more, but sat just quite still with the unopened letter in her hand, Grete went back to her ironing-board. Lenora watched her mechanical movements for awhile--a mist was before her eyes, and she could not see very clearly, but somehow she liked the look of Grete--Grete who was from Ghent--whom she would have liked to question further, only that when she tried to speak, the words seemed to get choked in her throat.
All of a sudden, she broke the seal upon the letter and swept away the mist before her eyes with an impatient movement of the hand.
"Madonna," he had written, "I would not leave You thus all alone in this ftrange place, to which an act of folly on My part did bring You, but that I read My difmifsal in Your eyes. The fight of me is hateful to You--alas! this I can underftand! By the time You read this, I fhall be far away. But anon upon the road I fhall meet the ox-wagon with Your effects and Your ferving-woman; it cannot be far from here, as the driver had orders to put up in this town for the night. I will fpeed him on as faft as He can, and then to-morrow You can continue Your journey in peace, for the driver will arrange for an efcort to accompany You as far as Brufsels. He will have His orders. In the meanwhile I have ventured to flip a sealed packet containing money into the pocket of Your gown: (it was done while you lay unconfcious in My arms.) I pray You do not fcruple to take it. The money is Yours: a part of Your dowry, an account of which My Father will render unto Yours as foon as may be. In the meanwhile You are free to come and go or ftay in this town, juft as You were in Brufsels or in Ghent. Your pafs and permit as well as Mine were in perfect order; the difpute with the Provoft at the gate, the difficulty about the permits, was but a rufe on My part fo that I might fpend a time in Your company, under the pretence that We were not allowed to continue Our journey to Brufsels. To afk Your forgivenefs for this as well as for other graver matters were ufelefs, I know. To afk You to erafe the events of the paft two weeks from Your memory were perhaps an infult. As for Me I fhall look upon it as a facred duty never to offend You with My prefence as long as I live. But I lay Mine undying homage at Your feet.
"MARK VAN RYCKE."
The letter dropped into her lap, for awhile she sat, staring straight into the fire.
The girl was putting away her ironing-board and folding away the linen, ranging it carefully in the press. Having made the room quite tidy, she asked timidly:
"Will the noble lady deign to take supper?"
But she had to repeat her question three times at intervals before Lenora gave answer.
"What?" she said vaguely, like one waking from a dream. "Yes!--No!--What didst say, girl?"
"Will the noble lady deign to take supper?"
"Bring me some milk and bread," replied Lenora, "and ... can I sleep here to-night?"
"In this bed," said the girl: and she pointed to the recess in the wall, where snow-white sheets and pillows seemed literally to invite repose, "if the noble lady will deign to be satisfied."
"I shall be glad to rest here," said Lenora with a woe-begone little sigh, "for I am very tired. Anon a wagon will be here with my effects and my serving woman. Send her to me directly she arrives."
Her voice was absolutely toneless and dull: she spoke like one who is infinitely weary, or in utter hopelessness: but the girl, whose kind heart ached for the beautiful lady, did not dare to offer comfort. She prepared to leave the room in order to fetch the frugal supper. Lenora turned her head once more toward the fire: her eyes caught sight of the letter which still lay in her lap. With a sudden fierce gesture she picked it up, crushed it between her fingers and threw it into the flames.
II
A few minutes later Grete came back carrying a tray with fine wheaten bread, a jar of milk, and some fresh cheese, her round young face beaming with benevolence and compassion.
"If the noble lady will deign to eat," she said, as she put the tray down upon the table, "the noble lady will feel less weary ... and then, as soon as the ox-wagon arrives with the serving woman, the noble lady could go to bed."
"Wait one moment," said Lenora, as the girl once more prepared to go, "I want a courier--now at once--to take an urgent message as far as Brussels. Can you find me one?"
"There are four butchers in the town, noble lady, who deliver all the messages for three or four leagues round. Uncle can go and see if one of them is inclined to go.... But the night is very rough...."
"I will give the man who will take my message to Brussels this night five golden ducats," said Lenora peremptorily.
Grete opened her eyes wide with astonishment.
"Five golden ducats!" she exclaimed ecstatically. Of a truth the poor trading folk of Dendermonde had never seen quite so much money all at once and in the same hand.
"I doubt not but that Michel Daens, the butcher, at the sign of the 'Calf's Head' in the Meerhem, will be glad to earn the money. And he hath a very strong horse."
"Then tell your uncle, child, to go at once to him: and to give him this letter, which he is to deliver without fail before ten o'clock this night." From the bosom of her gown she drew the letter which she had written during the previous night, and handed it to the young girl.
"The letter," she added slowly, "is for Messire don Juan de Vargas, chief of the Council of His Highness the Lieutenant-Governor. He lodges in Brussels at the sign of the 'Blue Firmament,' over against the Broodhuis. Let your uncle explain to Michel Daens, the butcher, that if this letter is not delivered before ten o'clock this evening, he will be made to suffer the severe penalty imposed by the law on all those who neglect to do their duty to the State. Take the letter, child!"
Indeed, this last peremptory order was necessary, for Grete, hearing to whom the letter was addressed, hardly dared to touch it. Indeed there would be no fear that Michel Daens would fail to execute the noble lady's commands with punctuality and utmost speed. The name of don Juan de Vargas was one that would make any man fly to the ends of the earth if ordered so to do. A message or letter to or from him would of a surety be delivered punctually, even if the heavens were on the point of falling or the earth about to open.
To Grete the name meant something more than that: it was the dreaded symbol of an awful reality--a reality which for her had meant the terrors of that awful night, when the Spanish officer threatened and insulted her and Katrine, when death or outrage stared them both in the face, and the awful catastrophe was only averted by the interference of the mysterious Leatherface.
So she took the letter which was addressed to one who was even greater, even more to be feared than the Spanish officer; she took it with a trembling hand as she would some sacred symbol: then she curtseyed and went out of the room.
Lenora rose and followed her into the passage, where she stood listening until she heard Grete calling to her uncle and aunt. The three of them then spoke together in Flemish which Lenora hardly understood; but she caught the names Michel Daens and Messire don Juan de Vargas, and then the words spoken very emphatically by Grete: "Before ten o'clock this night." Then she went back to her room, and closed the door softly behind her.
III
So, then, the die was cast. There was an end to all the irresolution, the heart-achings, the tearing of soul and nerves upon the rack of doubt and indecision. Hopeless misery and deathly bitterness filled Lenora's heart now.
She had been fooled and deceived! Fooled by soft words and cajoling ways, by lies and treachery: and she had very nearly succumbed to the monstrous deceit.
Fool! fool! that she was! She reiterated the word aloud over and over again, for there was a weird pleasure in lashing her pride with the searing thongs of that humiliating memory. Had not God Himself intervened and torn the mask from the traitor's face she might even now be lying in his arms, with the kiss of an assassin upon her lips! A shudder of loathing went right through her. She shivered as if stricken with ague, and all the while a blush of intense shame was scorching her cheeks.
Fool! Fool!
She had stood with her father beside the dead body of her lover--her lover and kinsman--and there she had registered an oath which a few cajoling words had well-nigh caused her to break. Surely the dull, aching misery which she was enduring at this moment was but a very mild punishment for her perjury.
She had allowed Ramon's murderer to cajole her with gentle words, to lull her into apathy in the face of her obvious duty to her King and to the State. He had played the part of indifference when all the while he--above all others--was steeped to the neck in treason and in rebellion! He! the spy of the Prince of Orange! the hired assassin! the miserable cowardly criminal! And she had listened to him, had sat close beside him by the hearth and allowed his arm to creep around her shoulders ... the arm which had struck Ramon down in the dark ... the arm--she no longer doubted it now--which would be hired to strike the Duke of Alva, or her own father with the same abominable treachery.
Oh! the shame of it! the hideous, abominable shame! He had guessed last night that she was on the watch, that she had seen and heard the odious plotting against the life of the Lieutenant-Governor: he had guessed, and then--by tortuous means and lying tongue--had sought to circumvent her--had lured her into this city--and then, by dint of lies and more lies and lies again, had hoped to subdue her to his will by false kisses and sacrilegious love.
And she had been on the point of sacrificing her country's needs and the life of the Duke of Alva to the blandishments of a traitor!
Oh! the shame of it! The terrible, burning shame!
But God had intervened! ... At least of this she could have no doubt. All day she had prayed for an indication from above--she had prayed for guidance, she had prayed for a sign, and it had come! Awesome, terrible and absolutely convincing. God, in unmasking the one traitor who had well-nigh touched her heart, had shown her plainly that her duty lay in unmasking them all! Traitors! traitors! every one of them! and God had given her an unmistakable sign that He desired to punish them all.
Did she neglect those signs now she would be the vilest traitor that ever defiled the earth.... It had all been so clear.... The mêlée in the streets ... Mark's interference--the blow from the halberd which had reopened the half-healed wound ... his momentary weakness and her sudden vision of the truth! ... Thank God it was not too late! The meeting was to be held this night at the house of Messire Deynoot the Procurator-General ... the Prince of Orange and all the other rebels would make the final arrangements for taking up arms against the King and murdering or capturing the Lieutenant-Governor.
This meeting, at any rate, she--Lenora--had frustrated. Mark of a surety had already warned the conspirators, before he started on the journey--and Laurence too after he received her letter.... The meeting of a certainty would be postponed. But even so, and despite all warnings, the band of assassins could not escape justice. Her letter would be in her father's hands this night: in a few hours he--and through him the Lieutenant-Governor--would know every phase of the infamous plot which had the murder of His Highness for its first aim--they would know the names of the two thousand traitors who were waiting to take up arms against the King--they would know of William of Orange's presence in Ghent, of his recruiting campaign there, of the places where he kept stores of arms and ammunition.
All that she had set forth clearly and succinctly--omitting nothing. Oh! her father would know how to act! He would know how to crush the conspiracy and punish the traitors!
Would he also know how to lay his powerful hand on the mysterious Leatherface ... the man of dark deeds and cruel, treacherous blows ... the murderer of Ramon de Linea--the one whom others paid to do the foul deeds which shunned the light of day...?
Lenora leaned back against the cushions of her chair. Physical nausea had overcome her at the thought of all that she had done. She had served the King and had served the State! She had undoubtedly saved the life of the Duke of Alva, and therefore rendered incalculable service to her country ... she was the means whereby a band of pestilential traitors and rebels would be unmasked ... and punished ... and among these she must reckon Mark van Rycke ... her husband.... Oh! him she hated with a real, personal hatred far stronger and more implacable than that wherewith she regarded--impersonally--all the enemies of the King. He seemed to her more cruel, more cowardly, more despicable than any man could be! ... Yes! she had done all that, and now her one hope was that she might die this night--having done her duty and kept her oath, and then been left unutterably lonely and wretched--in hopeless desolation.
IV
The night was rough, as Grete had foretold. Gusts of wind blew against the window-frames and made them rattle and creak with a weird and eerie sound. The rain beat against the panes and down the chimney making the fire sizzle and splutter, and putting out the merry little tongues of flame. Lenora drank some milk and tried to eat the bread, but every morsel seemed to choke her. She went to the window and drew aside the thick curtains and sat in the seat in the embrasure--for she felt restless and stifled. Anon she threw open one of the casements.
The rain beat in against her face and bare neck, but this she did not mind; she was glad to cool her head and face a little. The Grand' Place looked gloomy and dark; most of the lights in the Cloth Hall opposite were extinguished--only in a few windows they still glimmered feebly. Lenora caught herself counting those lights: there were two small ones in the dormer windows at the top, and one in a tall window in the floor below, and right down on a level with the street the main door stood wide open and showed a long, shallow streak of light. One! two! up above! they looked like eyes! Then one in the middle that was the nose--all awry and out of the centre!--and below the long mouth--like a huge grin! And the roof looked like a huge hat with the tower like a feather! The more Lenora looked into those lights opposite, the more like a grinning face did they seem, until the whole thing got on her nerves, and she started laughing! laughing! ... She laughed until her sides ached, and her eyes were full of tears! she laughed though her head was splitting with pain, and the nerves of her face ached with intolerable agony. She laughed until her laughter broke into a sob, and she fell forward with her hands upon the window sill, her burning forehead upon her hands, the rain and wind beating upon her head, her neck, her back; her hair was soon wet through; its heavy strands fell away from the pins and combs that confined them and streamed down like a golden cascade all about her shoulders, the while she sobbed out her heart in misery and wretchedness.
V
The clock of the Cloth-Hall tower chimed the ninth hour. Lenora raised her head and once more peered out into the night.
Nine o'clock! If Michel Daens had done his duty, he must be more than half-way to Brussels by now. It almost seemed to Lenora's supersensitive nerves at this moment that she could hear the tramp of his horse's hoofs upon the muddy road--Hammer! Hammer! Hammer! Surely, surely she could hear it, or was it her own heart-beats that she was counting?
Hammer! Hammer! Hammer! Two horses, each with a rider, were speeding along the road: one to Brussels--Michel Daens the butcher-messenger, bearing the letter for don Juan de Vargas which would raise in its trail a harvest of death for traitors ... and along the road to Ghent Mark speeding too, to warn those traitors to remain in hiding--or to flee while there was yet time--for justice Was on their track. Mark had gone to Ghent, of this Lenora was sure; she had burned his letter, but she remembered its every word. He spoke of meeting the ox-wagon which was on its way from Ghent! besides which, of course, he was bound to go back. Was he not the paid spy of the Prince of Orange--his mentor and his friend?
And mentally Lenora strained her ears to listen ... to hear which of those two riders would first reach his destination. And as she listened it seemed as if that monotonous hammer! hammer! was beating against her heart, and with every blow was crushing to death more of her life, more of her youth ... and all her hopes of happiness.
VI
Inez--tired out with the jolting of the wagon, wet to the skin, fagged and cold--found her mistress still sitting by the open window, with streaming hair and eyes glowing as with inward fever. The devoted soul very quickly forgot her own discomfort in view of her young mistress' sorry plight. She chafed the ice-cold hands and combed the dripping hair; she took off the heavy gown, and the leather shoes and silk stockings. She bathed the hot brow and little cold feet, and finally got Lenora into bed and had the satisfaction of seeing her smile.
"There now, my saint," she said cheerily, "you feel better, do you not? I tell you when I met Messire van Rycke and he told me that you were here and that we were to get to you at once, I nearly swooned with fright ... I wanted to ask him a dozen questions ... but he had ridden away out into the darkness before I could speak a single word...."
The pillow was fresh and smelt sweetly of lavender. Lenora had closed her eyes and a sense of physical well-being was--despite heart-ache and mental agony--gradually creeping into her bones.
"Where did you meet Messire van Rycke, Inez?" she asked quietly.
"Oh! a long way from here, my saint. We did not start from Ghent till four o'clock in the afternoon, and have been jogging along at foot-pace ever since. Oh! these interminable roads, and horrible, jolting wagons! It was about two hours ago that we came on Messire van Rycke riding like one possessed."
"He was riding toward Ghent?"
"Toward Ghent, my saint. And as I told you--as soon as he had given Jan his orders, he flew by like the wind. The roads were quite lonely after that. I tell you, my saint, I was passing glad that we had a good escort--two mounted men you know rode beside the wagon--or I should have been mightily afraid of malefactors."
"You gave the sealed packet to Messire Laurence van Rycke," asked Lenora, "as I had directed?"
"I gave him the packet two hours after you had started."
"And what did he say?"
"He said nothing, my saint."
With a weary sigh, Lenora turned her head away. She kept her eyes closed resolutely, and after a while Inez thought that she slept. So she tip-toed quietly out of the room, having drawn the coverlet well over her mistress' form. She left the lamp in the room, for she had enough understanding to know that Lenora was perturbed and anxious, and in times of anxiety darkness is oft an evil counsellor.