THE HOUR OF VICTORY
I
To the women and children shut up in the different churches and in the houses throughout the city, during those terrible hours whilst their husbands, brothers, sons were making their last desperate stand, it was indeed hell let loose; for while the men were doing, they could only wait and pray. It was impossible for them even to wander out to try and help the wounded or to seek amongst the dead for the one dear face, the mirror of all joy and happiness. They all sat or knelt huddled up together, their children closely held in their arms, murmuring those vague words of comfort, of surmise, of hope and of fear which come mechanically to the lips when every sense is lulled into a kind of torpor with the terrible imminence of the danger and the overwhelming power of grief.
The danger in the houses was greater than in the churches, for everywhere the horrible concussion of artillery and the crash of falling masonry broke the windows and shook the floors. But many women have that same instinct which causes the beasts of the forests to hide within their lair; they feel that they would rather see their home fall in about their heads, than watch its destruction from a safer distance. Clémence van Rycke refused to leave her house when first Laurence received Lenora's warning of the impending catastrophe; she refused to leave it now when her sons were face to face with death and any moment a stray cannon ball might bring the walls down with a crash.
She sat in the high-backed chair in the small withdrawing-room where, less than a week ago, the first card was played in that desperate game for human lives which was finding its climax at this hour; she sat quite still--staring into the empty hearth with that stolidity peculiar to these women of the North--and which is only another, calmer, form of courage. The High-Bailiff, sullen and silent, sat close to the table with his head buried in his hands. Since his return from his humiliating errand this afternoon he had not spoken a word to anyone--he believed that the Orangist cause was doomed, and both his sons certain of death. What happened to him after that he really did not care.
Pierre and Jeanne sat in the hall together, quietly telling their beads. The din outside was deafening, and the evening hour was slowly creeping on--day yielded to twilight; a brilliant sunset lit up for a while the desolation of an entire city, then sank into a blood-hued horizon, adding its own lurid light to the crimson glow of burning buildings.
And as the veils of night fell more heavily over the city, gradually the dismal sounds of cannon and musketry were stilled. Pierre came in after a while carrying a lamp.
"Firing has ceased," he said, "men are running down the streets shouting that the Kasteel is in our hands and that the Duke of Alva has surrendered to Leatherface!"
He put the lamp down and prepared to go, for Clémence and the High-Bailiff have made no comment on the joyful news--perhaps it has failed to reach their dulled senses, perhaps they do not believe it. At any rate, what is victory to them if two brave sons have fallen for its sake?
But already the cries through the streets become more insistent and more sure; men and women run hither and thither up and down the Nieuwe Straat, and as Pierre stands by the open door, peering curiously out into the gloom, people shout to him as they rush by:
"Van Rycke has seized the Kasteel! The Duke of Alva is a prisoner in our hands."
Clémence hears the cries. She can no longer doubt her ears. "Mark? Laurence?" she calls out. "Where are they?"
The High-Bailiff rouses himself from his apathy. "I will go to the Town House," he says, "and will be back with news."
"News of Mark--and of Laurence," cries the mother.
The High-Bailiff goes, and she remains alone in the narrow room, with just the feeble light of the lamp upon her pale face and trembling hands. Now and then still, right through the night, a terrific crash shakes the house to its foundations, or a sudden lurid light flares upwards to the sky--roofs are still falling in, crumbling ruins still burst into flames, but firing and clash of steel have ceased, and from the various churches the peals of bells send their triumphant call through the night.
The hours go by. It is nigh on ten o'clock now. The High-Bailiff has not yet returned, but Laurence has just come back--wounded and exhausted but full of the glorious victory.
"Where is Mark?" queries the mother.
"Mark is hurt ... but he will be here anon," says the boy, "the men have made a stretcher for him--he would not be tended at the Kasteel--he begged to be brought home--oh! mother dear, how we must love him after this!"
Clémence hastily gives orders that Messire Mark's room be made ready for him at once. Jeanne, buxom and capable, is rendered supremely happy by this task.
"Mother dear," whispers Laurence, "next to Mark himself, we all owe our salvation to Lenora."
He has no time to say more, even though Clémence's face has hardened at mention of that name which she abhors; for Pierre has just come running in breathless and trembling with excitement.
"Mevrouw," he stammers, "it is the noble lady ... the Spanish lady ... it is..."
Before Laurence could further question him, he has uttered a cry of surprise, which is echoed by one of horror from Clémence. Lenora was standing under the lintel of the door. Clémence rose from her chair as if moved by a spring and stood up, rigid, and with arm raised, pointing straight to the door:
"Go!" she commanded sternly.
But Lenora advanced slowly into the room. She was whiter than the ruff at her throat, her black mantle hung round her in heavy folds, but the hood had fallen back from her head, and her golden hair with the yellow light of the lamp falling full upon it looked like a gleaming aureole which made her eyes appear wonderfully dark by contrast and her beauty more ethereal than it had been before. Laurence gazed on her in speechless wonder, but Clémence, full of hatred for the woman whom she believed to be the author of all the misery of the past few days, still pointed to the door, and sternly, relentlessly, in a voice which quivered with the passion of intense hatred, she reiterated her command:
"Go!"
"They are bringing Mark home," said Lenora quietly; "he is wounded ... perhaps to death ... I could not get to hear ... but when he opens his eyes he will ask for me. I cannot go unless he sends me away."
"They are bringing Mark home," assented the mother, "and 'tis I who will tend him. Never shall thy treacherous hand touch my son..."
"Mother," broke in Laurence firmly, "she is Mark's wife and she has saved us all."
Clémence gave a loud sob and fell back in her chair. Laurence tried in vain to comfort her. But Lenora waited quietly until the worst of Clémence's paroxysm of tears had passed away, then she said with the same patience and gentleness:
"I know, mevrouw, that from the first I was an intruder in your house. I, too, have oft in the last few miserable days longed in vain that Mark and I had never met. But do you not think, mevrouw, that our destinies are beyond our ken? that God ordains our Fate, and merely chooses His tools where He desires?"
"And Satan, too, chooses his tools," murmured Clémence through her tears. "Oh go! go! I beg of you to go," she added with sudden passionate appeal; "cannot you see that the sight of you must be torture to us all?"
"Will you let me stay until I have seen Mark?" said Lenora calmly, "and then I will go."
"I will not let you see him," protested Clémence with the obstinacy of the weak. "I would not allow a spy like you to come near him ... aye! a spy ... an assassin mayhap ... how do I know that you are not an emissary of our tyrants? how do I know that beneath your cloak you do not hold a dagger?..."
Laurence was trying his best to pacify his mother and throwing pathetic looks of appeal to Lenora the while, whilst the girl herself was bravely trying to hold herself in check. But at this last cruel taunt she uttered a cry of pain, like a poor wild creature that has been hurt to death. In a moment she was across the room, down on her knees beside the old woman and holding Clémence's trembling hands imprisoned in her own.
"Hush! Hush!" she implored wildly, "you must not say that ... you must not ... Heavens above, have you not realised that when I acted as I did, I did so because I believed God Himself had shown me the way? You call me base and vile ... I swear to you by all that I hold most sacred that I would gladly die a thousand deaths to undo the work of the past few days ... you speak of an assassin's dagger ... I believed that my cousin Ramon was murdered ... foully and in the dark ... by the man who was known as Leatherface ... my father made me swear that I would avenge Ramon's death ... what could I do? what could I do? I believed that God was guiding me ... I spied upon you, I know ... I found out your secrets and gave them to my father ... but he had commanded me and I had no one else in the world ... no one ... only my father ... and I believed in him as I believe in God...."
Her voice broke in a sob, her head fell forward upon her hands and those of the older woman, and a pitiable moan of pain came from her overburdened heart. Laurence, with his head buried in his hands, would have given his life to spare her all this misery. But Clémence said nothing--she did not repulse the girl nor did she draw her to her heart; whether she still mistrusted her or not it were impossible to say, certain it is that she listened, and that words of hatred no longer rose to her lips.
"You will not let me see Mark," continued Lenora, trying to speak more calmly, "you are afraid that I would go to him as an enemy ... a spy ... an assassin.... Ah! you have chosen the weapon well wherewith to punish me! An enemy, ye gods!--I who would give the last drop of blood in my veins to help him at this hour, I who love him with every fibre of my heart, with every aspiration of my soul! ... Don't you understand? cannot you understand that he has forced his way right into my very being, that I have left my people, my father, to come to him ... to warn him, to help him ... to be with him in the hour of danger.... Let me stay.... Let me be with him! ... Cannot you see that Love for him is all that I live for now?..."
She had ceased speaking, and over the high, oak-panelled room there fell a silence which soon became oppressive. A few moments ago while Lenora was pouring out her heart in wild words of passionate longing, Clémence and Laurence had suddenly uttered a cry--half of horror and half of joy--a cry which was quickly suppressed and which the girl did not hear. Now the tension on her nerves was suddenly relaxed and she broke down utterly--physically and mentally she felt like one who has received a blow with a pole-axe and is only just alive--no longer sentient, hardly suffering. She was crouching on the ground with her head on the older woman's knee, a pathetic picture of hopelessness. She felt indeed as if this earth could hold no greater suffering than what she endured now--to have dreamed for one brief while that she had helped the man she loved in the hour of his greatest danger, and then to be made to feel that she was still an enemy in the sight of all his people.
She lost count of time, it might have been but a few seconds that she knelt there broken-hearted; it might have been a cycle of years; the din from the streets outside, the bustle inside the house only reached her ears like sounds that come in a dream. A kind of torpor had fallen over the broken-hearted girl's senses and mercifully saved her from further pain. She closed her eyes and semi-consciousness wrapped her in a kindly embrace. Semi-consciousness or a happy dream. She could not tell. All that she knew was that suddenly all misery and all suffering fell away from her; that an invisible presence was in the room which was like that of the angel of peace, and that strong, kind arms held her closely, so that she no longer felt that an awful chasm yawned before her and that she was falling into a hideous abyss where there was neither hope nor pardon. Of course it must have been a dream--such dreams as come to the dying who have suffered much and see the end of all their woe in a prescient glimpse of heaven--for it seemed to her that the kind grey eyes which she loved were looking on her now, that they smiled on her with infinite tenderness and infinite understanding, and that the lips which she had longed to kiss whispered gentle, endearing words in her ear.
"It is your love, Madonna, which led me to victory. Did I not say that with it as my shield I could conquer the universe?"
"Mark," she murmured, "you are hurt?"
"Not much, dear heart," he replied with that quaint laugh of his which suddenly turned this delicious dream into exquisite reality, "kind hands have tended me and gave me some clean clothing. I would have had you in my arms ere now, but was too dirty an object to appear before you."
Then the laughter died out from his eyes, they became intent, searching, desperately anxious.
"Madonna," he whispered--and he who for three days had faced every kind of danger, trembled now with apprehension--"what you said to my mother--a moment ago--did you mean it?"
"Your love, Mark," she murmured in reply, "is all that I live for now."
Then he folded her in his arms once more.
"Mother, dear," he said, "you must love her too. My whole happiness hangs upon her kiss."