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

"What have you been doing this afternoon, mother?" Adrian asked presently.

"I, son?" she replied with a start, "I have been visiting the unhappy Vrouw Jansen, whom I found very sick."

"What is the matter with her, mother?"

Lysbeth's mind, which had wandered away, again returned to the subject at hand with an effort.

"The matter? Oh! she has the plague."

"The plague!" exclaimed Adrian, springing to his feet, "do you mean to say you have been consorting with a woman who has the plague?"

"I fear so," she answered with a smile, "but do not be frightened, Adrian, I have burnt my clothes and fumigated myself."

Still Adrian was frightened. His recent experience of sickness had been ample, and although he was no coward he had a special dislike of infectious diseases, which at the time were many.

"It is horrible," he said, "horrible. I only hope that we--I mean you --may escape. The house is unbearably close. I am going to walk in the courtyard," and away he went, for the moment, at any rate, forgetting all about Elsa and the love potion.

Never since that day when, many years before, she had bought the safety of the man she loved by promising herself in marriage to his rival, had Lysbeth slept so ill as she did upon this night. Montalvo was alive. Montalvo was here, here to strike down and destroy those whom she loved, and triple armed with power, authority, and desire to do the deed. Well she knew that when there was plunder to be won, he would not step aside or soften until it was in his hands. Yet there was hope in this; he was not a cruel man, as she knew also, that is to say, he had no pleasure in inflicting suffering for its own sake; such methods he used only as a means to an end. If he could get the money, all of it, she was sure that he would leave them alone. Why should he not have it? Why should all their lives be menaced because of this trust which had been thrust upon them?

Unable to endure the torments of her doubts and fears, Lysbeth woke her husband, who was sleeping peacefully at her side, and told him what was passing in her mind.

"It is a true saying," answered Dirk with a smile, "that even the best of women are never quite honest when their interest pulls the other way. What, wife, would you have us buy our own peace with Brant's fortune, and thus break faith with a dead man and bring down his curse upon us?"

"The lives of men are more than gold, and Elsa would consent," she answered sullenly; "already this pelf is stained with blood, the blood of Hendrik Brant himself, and of Hans the pilot."

"Yes, wife, and since you mention it, with the blood of a good many Spaniards also, who tried to steal the stuff. Let's see; there must have been several drowned at the mouth of the river, and quite twenty went up with the /Swallow/, so the loss has not been all on our side. Listen, Lysbeth, listen. It was my cousin, Hendrik Brant's, belief that in the end this great fortune of his would do some service to our people or our country, for he wrote as much in his will and repeated it to Foy. I know not when or in what fashion this may come about; how can I know? But first will I die before I hand it over to the Spaniard. Moreover, I cannot, since its secret was never told to me."

"Foy and Martin have it."

"Lysbeth," said Dirk sternly, "I charge you as you love me not to work upon them to betray their trust; no, not even to save my life or your own--if we must die, let us die with honour. Do you promise?"

"I promise," she answered with dry lips, "but on this condition only, that you fly from Leyden with us all, to-night if maybe."

"Good," answered Dirk, "a halfpenny for a herring; you have made your promise, and I'll give you mine; that's fair, although I am old to seek a new home in England. But it can't be to-night, wife, for I must make arrangements. There is a ship sailing to-day, and we might catch her to-morrow at the river's mouth, after she has passed the officers, for her captain is a friend of mine. How will that do?"

"I had rather it had been to-night," said Lysbeth. "While we are in Leyden with that man we are not safe from one hour to the next."

"Wife, we are never safe. It is all in the hands of God, and, therefore, we should live like soldiers awaiting the hour to march, and rejoice exceedingly when it pleases our Captain to sound the call."

"I know," she answered; "but, oh! Dirk, it would be hard--to part."

He turned his head aside for a moment, then said in a steady voice, "Yes, wife, but it will be sweet to meet again and part no more."

While it was still early that morning Dirk summoned Foy and Martin to his wife's chamber. Adrian for his own reasons he did not summon, making the excuse that he was still asleep, and it would be a pity to disturb him; nor Elsa, since as yet there was no necessity to trouble her. Then, briefly, for he was given to few words, he set out the gist of the matter, telling them that the man Ramiro whom they had beaten on the Haarlemer Meer was in Leyden, which Foy knew already, for Elsa had told him as much, and that he was no other than the Spaniard named the Count Juan de Montalvo, the villain who had deceived Lysbeth into a mock marriage by working on her fears, and who was the father of Adrian. All this time Lysbeth sat in a carved oak chair listening with a stony face to the tale of her own shame and betrayal. She made no sign at all beyond a little twitching of her fingers, till Foy, guessing what she suffered in her heart, suddenly went to his mother and kissed her. Then she wept a few silent tears, for an instant laid her hand upon his head as though in blessing, and, motioning him back to his place, became herself again--stern, unmoved, observant.

Next Dirk, taking up his tale, spoke of his wife's fears, and of her belief that there was a plot to wring out of them the secret of Hendrik Brant's treasure.

"Happily," he said, addressing Foy, "neither your mother nor I, nor Adrian, nor Elsa, know that secret; you and Martin know it alone, you and perhaps one other who is far away and cannot be caught. We do not know it, and we do not wish to know it, and whatever happens to any of us, it is our earnest hope that neither of you will betray it, even if our lives, or your lives, hang upon the words, for we hold it better that we should keep our trust with a dead man at all costs than that we should save ourselves by breaking faith. Is it not so, wife?"

"It is so," answered Lysbeth hoarsely.

"Have no fear," said Foy. "We will die before we betray."

"We will try to die before we betray," grumbled Martin in his deep voice, "but flesh is frail and God knows."

"Oh! I have no doubt of you, honest man," said Dirk with a smile, "for you have no mother and father to think of in this matter."

"Then, master, you are foolish," replied Martin, "for I repeat it-- flesh is frail, and I always hated the look of a rack. However, I have a handsome legacy charged upon this treasure, and perhaps the thought of that would support me. Alive or dead, I should not like to think of my money being spent by any Spaniard."

While Martin spoke the strangeness of the thing came home to Foy. Here were four of them, two of whom knew a secret and two who did not, while those who did not implored those who did to impart to them nothing of the knowledge which, if they had it, might serve to save them from a fearful doom. Then for the first time in his young and inexperienced life he understood how great erring men and women can be and what patient majesty dwells in the human heart, that for the sake of a trust it does not seek can yet defy the most hideous terrors of the body and the soul. Indeed, that scene stamped itself upon his mind in such fashion that throughout his long existence he never quite forgot it for a single day. His mother, clad in her frilled white cap and grey gown, seated cold-faced and resolute in the oaken chair. His father, to whom, although he knew it not, he was now speaking for the last time, standing by her, his hand resting upon her shoulder and addressing them in his quiet, honest voice. Martin standing also but a little to one side and behind, the light of the morning playing upon his great red beard; his round, pale eyes glittering as was their fashion when wrathful, and himself, Foy, leaning forward to listen, every nerve in his body strung tight with excitement, love, and fear.

Oh! he never forgot it, which is not strange, for so great was the strain upon him, so well did he know that this scene was but the prelude to terrible events, that for a moment, only for a moment, his steady reason was shaken and he saw a vision. Martin, the huge, patient, ox-like Martin, was changed into a red Vengeance; he saw him, great sword aloft, he heard the roar of his battle cry, and lo! before him men went down to death, and about him the floor seemed purple with their blood. His father and his mother, too; they were no longer human, they were saints--see the glory which shone over them, and look, too, the dead Hendrik Brant was whispering in their ears. And he, Foy, he was beside Martin playing his part in those red frays as best he might, and playing it not in vain.

Then all passed, and a wave of peace rolled over him, a great sense of duty done, of honour satisfied, of reward attained. Lo! the play was finished, and its ultimate meaning clear, but before he could read and understand--it had gone.

He gasped and shook himself, gripping his hands together.

"What have you seen, son?" asked Lysbeth, watching his face.

"Strange things, mother," Foy answered. "A vision of war for Martin and me, of glory for my father and you, and of eternal peace for us all."

"It is a good omen, Foy," she said. "Fight your fight and leave us to fight ours. 'Through much tribulation we must enter into the Kingdom of God,' where at last there is a rest remaining for us all. It is a good omen. Your father was right and I was wrong.