LYSBETH by H. RIDER HAGGARD (best book club books for discussion txt) 📕

She ceased. Montalvo looked at her and tried to speak. Again he looked and again he tried to speak, but no words would come.

Then the fear of Lysbeth van Hout fell upon him, that fear which was to haunt him all his life. He turned and crept from the room, and his face was like the face of an old man, nor, notwithstanding the height of his immediate success, could his heart have been more heavy if Lysbeth had been an angel sent straight from Heaven to proclaim to him the unalterable doom of God.

Nine months had gone by, and for more then eight of them Lysbeth had been known as the Countess Juan de Montalvo. Indeed of this there could be no doubt, since she was married with some ceremony by the Bishop in the Groote Kerk before the eyes of all men. Folk had wondered much at these hurried nuptials, though some of the more ill- natured shrugged their shoulders and said that when a young woman had compromised herself by long and lonely drives with a Spanish cavalier, and was in consequence dropped by her own admirer, why the best thing she could do was to marry as soon as possible.

So the pair, who looked handsome enough before the altar, were wed, and went to taste of such nuptial bliss as was reserved for them in Lysbeth's comfortable house in the Bree Straat. Here they lived almost alone, for Lysbeth's countrymen and women showed their disapproval of her conduct by avoiding her company, and, for reasons of his own, Montalvo did not encourage the visiting of Spaniards at his house. Moreover, the servants were changed, while Tante Clara and the girl Greta had also disappeared. Indeed, Lysbeth, finding out the false part which they had played towards her, dismissed them both before her marriage.

It will be guessed that after the events that led to their union Lysbeth took little pleasure in her husband's society. She was not one of those women who can acquiesce in marriage by fraud or capture, and even learn to love the hand which snared them. So it came about that to Montalvo she spoke very seldom; indeed after the first week of marriage she only saw him on rare occasions. Very soon he found out that his presence was hateful to her, and turned her detestation to account with his usual cleverness. In other words, Lysbeth bought freedom by parting with her property--in fact, a regular tariff was established, so many guilders for a week's liberty, so many for a month's.

This was an arrangement that suited Montalvo well enough, for in his heart he was terrified of this woman, whose beautiful face had frozen into a perpetual mask of watchful hatred. He could not forget that frightful curse which had taken deep root in his superstitious mind, and already seemed to flourish there, for it was true that since she spoke it he had never known a quiet hour. How could he when he was haunted night and day by the fear lest his wife should murder him?

Surely, if ever Death looked out of a woman's eyes it looked out of hers, and it seemed to him that such a deed might trouble her conscience little; that she might consider it in the light of an execution, and not as a murder. Bah! he could not bear to think of it. What would it be to drink his wine one day and then feel a hand of fire gripping at his vitals because poison had been set within the cup; or, worse still, if anything could be worse, to wake at night and find a stiletto point grating against his backbone? Little wonder that Montalvo slept alone and was always careful to lock his door.

He need not have taken such precautions; whatever her eyes might say, Lysbeth had no intention of killing this man. In that prayer of hers she had, as it were, placed the matter in the hand of a higher Power, and there she meant to leave it, feeling quite convinced that although vengeance might tarry it would fall at last. As for her money, he could have it. From the beginning her instinct told her that her husband's object was not amorous, but purely monetary, a fact of which she soon had plentiful proof, and her great, indeed her only hope was that when the wealth was gone he would go too. An otter, says the Dutch proverb, does not nest in a dry dyke.

But oh! what months those were, what dreadful months! From time to time she saw her husband--when he wanted cash--and every night she heard him returning home, often with unsteady steps. Twice or thrice a week also she was commanded to prepare a luxurious meal for himself and some six or eight companions, to be followed by a gambling party at which the stakes ruled high. Then in the morning, before he was up, strange people would arrive, Jews some of them, and wait till they could see him, or catch him as he slipped from the house by a back way. These men, Lysbeth discovered, were duns seeking payment of old debts. Under such constant calls her fortune, which if substantial was not great, melted rapidly. Soon the ready money was gone, then the shares in certain ships were sold, then the land and the house itself were mortgaged.

So the time went on.

Almost immediately after his refusal by Lysbeth, Dirk van Goorl had left Leyden, and returned to Alkmaar, where his father lived. His cousin and friend, however, Hendrik Brant, remained there studying the jeweller's art under the great master of filigree work, who was known as Petrus. One morning, as Hendrik was sitting at breakfast in his lodging, it was announced that a woman who would not give her name, wished to see him. Moved more by curiosity than by any other reason, he ordered her to be admitted. When she entered he was sorry, for in the gaunt person and dark-eyed face he recognised one against whom he had been warned by the elders of his church as a spy, a creature who was employed by the papal inquisitors to get up cases against heretics, and who was known as Black Meg.

"What is your business with me?" Brant asked sternly.

"Nothing to your hurt, worthy Heer, believe me, nothing to your hurt. Oh! yes, I know that tales are told against me, who only earn an honest living in an honest way, to keep my poor husband, who is an imbecile. Once alas! he followed that mad Anabaptist fool, John of Leyden, the fellow who set up as a king, and said that men might have as many wives as they wished. That was what sent my husband silly, but, thanks be to the Saints, he has repented of his errors and is reconciled to the Church and Christian marriage, and now, I, who have a forgiving nature, am obliged to support him."

"Your business?" said Brant.

"Mynheer," she answered, dropping her husky voice, "you are a friend of the Countess Montalvo, she who was Lysbeth van Hout?"

"No, I am acquainted with her, that is all."

"At least you are a friend of the Heer Dirk van Goorl who has left this town for Alkmaar; he who was her lover?"

"Yes, I am his cousin, but he is not the lover of any married woman."

"No, no, of course not; love cannot look through a bridal veil, can it? Still, you are his friend, and, therefore, perhaps, her friend, and--she isn't happy."

"Indeed? I know nothing of her present life: she must reap the field which she has sown. That door is shut."

"Not altogether perhaps. I thought it might interest Dirk van Goorl to learn that it is still ajar."

"I don't see why it should. Fish merchants are not interested in rotten herrings; they write off the loss and send out the smack for a fresh cargo."

"The first fish we catch is ever the finest, Mynheer, and if we haven't quite caught it, oh! what a fine fish is that."

"I have no time to waste in chopping riddles. What is your errand? Tell it, or leave it untold, but be quick."

Black Meg leant forward, and the hoarse voice sank to a cavernous whisper.

"What will you give me," she asked, "if I prove to you that the Captain Montalvo is not married at all to Lysbeth van Hout?"

"It does not much matter what I would give you, for I saw the thing done in the Groote Kerk yonder."

"Things are not always done that seem to be done."

"Look here, woman, I have had enough of this," and Brant pointed to the door.

Black Meg did not stir, only she produced a packet from the bosom of her dress and laid it on the table.

"A man can't have two wives living at once, can he?"

"No, I suppose not--that is, legally."

"Well, if I show you that Montalvo has two wives, how much?"

Brant became interested. He hated Montalvo; he guessed, indeed he knew something of the part which the man had played in this infamous affair, and knew also that it would be a true kindness to Lysbeth to rid her of him.

"If you /proved/ it," he said, "let us say two hundred florins."

"It is not enough, Mynheer."

"It is all I have to offer, and, mind you, what I promise to pay."

"Ah! yes, the other promises and doesn't pay--the rogue, the rogue," she added, striking a bony fist upon the table. "Well, I agree, and I ask no bond, for you merchant folk are not like cavaliers, your word is as good as your paper. Now read these," and she opened the packet and pushed its contents towards him.

With the exception of two miniatures, which he placed upon one side, they were letters written in Spanish and in a very delicate hand. Brant knew Spanish well, and in twenty minutes he had read them all. They proved to be epistles from a lady who signed herself Juanita de Montalvo, written to the Count Juan de Montalvo, whom she addressed as her husband. Very piteous documents they were also, telling a tale that need not be set out here of heartless desertion; pleading for the writer's sake and for the sake of certain children, that the husband and father would return to them, or at least remit them means to live, for they, his wife and family, were sunk in great poverty.

"All this is sad enough," said Brant with a gesture of disgust as he glanced at the miniature of the lady and her children, "but it proves nothing. How are we to know that she is the man's wife?"

Black Meg put her hand into the bosom of her