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

This was a blow, since it was impossible for Adrian to put a favourable construction upon language so painfully straightforward. His self-conceit was pierced at last and collapsed like a pricked bladder.

"None to give!" he gasped, "none to give! You don't mean to tell me that you have given it to anybody else?"

"Yes, I do," she answered, for by now Elsa was thoroughly angry.

"Indeed," he replied loftily. "Let me see; last time it was your lamented father who occupied your heart. Perhaps now it is that excellent giant, Martin, or even--no, it is too absurd"--and he laughed in his jealous rage, "even the family buffoon, my worthy brother Foy."

"Yes," she replied quietly, "it is Foy."

"Foy! Foy! Hear her, ye gods! My successful rival, mine, is the yellow-headed, muddy-brained, unlettered Foy--and they say that women have souls! Of your courtesy answer me one question. Tell me when did this strange and monstrous thing happen? When did you declare yourself vanquished by the surpassing charms of Foy?"

"Yesterday afternoon, if you want to know," she said in the same calm and ominous voice.

Adrian heard, and an inspiration took him. He dashed his hand to his brow and thought a moment; then he laughed loud and shrilly.

"I have it," he said. "It is the love charm which has worked perversely. Elsa, you are under a spell, poor woman; you do not know the truth. I gave you the philtre in your drinking water, and Foy, the traitor Foy, has reaped its fruits. Dear girl, shake yourself free from this delusion, it is I whom you really love, not that base thief of hearts, my brother Foy."

"What do you say? You gave me a philtre? You dare to doctor my drink with your heathen nastiness? Out of the way, sir! Stand off, and never venture to speak to me again. Well will it be for you if I do not tell your brother of your infamy."

What happened after this Adrian could never quite remember, but a vision remained of himself crouching to one side, and of a door flung back so violently that it threw him against the wall; a vision, too, of a lady sweeping past him with blazing eyes and lips set in scorn. That was all.

For a while he was crushed, quite crushed; the blow had gone home. Adrian was not only a fool, he was also the vainest of fools. That any young woman on whom he chose to smile should actually reject his advances was bad and unexpected, but that the other man should be Foy --oh! this was infamous and inexplicable. He was handsomer than Foy, no one would dream of denying it. He was cleverer and better read, had he not mastered the contents of every known romance--high-souled works which Foy bluntly declared were rubbish and refused even to open? Was he not a poet? But remembering a certain sonnet he did not follow this comparison. In short, how was it conceivable that a woman looking upon himself, a very type of the chivalry of Spain, silver-tongued, a follower--nay, a companion of the Muses, one to whom in every previous adventure of the heart to love had been to conquer, could still prefer that broad-faced, painfully commonplace, if worthy, young representative of the Dutch middle classes, Foy van Goorl?

It never occurred to Adrian to ask himself another question, namely, how it comes about that eight young women out of ten are endowed with an intelligence or instinct sufficiently keen to enable them to discriminate between an empty-headed popinjay of a man, intoxicated with the fumes of his own vanity, and an honest young fellow of stable character and sterling worth? Not that Adrian was altogether empty- headed, for in some ways he was clever; also beneath all this foam and froth the Dutch strain inherited from his mother had given a certain ballast and determination to his nature. Thus, when his heart was thoroughly set upon a thing, he could be very dogged and patient. Now it /was/ set upon Elsa Brant, he did truly desire to win her above any other woman, and that he had left a different impression upon her mind was owing largely to the affected air and grandiloquent style of language culled from his precious romances which he thought it right to assume when addressing a lady upon matters of the affections.

For a little while he was prostrate, his heart seemed swept clean of all hope and feeling. Then his furious temper, the failing that, above every other, was his curse and bane, came to his aid and occupied it like the seven devils of Scripture, bringing in its train his re- awakened vanity, hatred, jealousy, and other maddening passions. It could not be true, there must be an explanation, and, of course, the explanation was that Foy had been so fortunate, or so cunning as to make advances to Elsa soon after she had swallowed the love philtre. Adrian, like most people in his day, was very superstitious and credulous. It never even occurred to him to doubt the almost universally accepted power and efficacy of this witch's medicine, though even now he understood what a fool he was when, in his first outburst of rage, he told Elsa that he had trusted to such means to win her affections, instead of letting his own virtues and graces do their natural work.

Well, the mischief was done, the poison was swallowed, but--most poisons have their antidotes. Why was he lingering here? He must consult his friend, the Master, and at once.

Ten minutes later Adrian was at Black Meg's house.

The door was opened by Hague Simon, the bald-headed, great-paunched villain who lived with Black Meg. In answer to his visitor's anxious inquiries the Butcher said, searching Adrian's face with his pig-like eyes the while, that he could not tell for certain whether Meg was or was not at home. He rather thought that she was consulting the spirits with the Master, but they might have passed out without his knowing it, "for they had great gifts--great gifts," and he wagged his fat head as he showed Adrian into the accustomed room.

It was an uncomfortable kind of chamber which, in some unexplained way, always gave Adrian the impression that people, or presences, were stirring in it whom he could not see. Also in this place there happened odd and unaccountable noises; creakings, and sighings which seemed to proceed from the walls and ceiling. Of course, such things were to be expected in a house where sojourned one of the great magicians of the day. Still he was not altogether sorry when the door opened and Black Meg entered, although some might have preferred the society of almost any ghost.

"What is it, that you disturb me at such an hour?" she asked sharply.

"What is it? What isn't it?" Adrian replied, his rage rising at the thought of his injuries. "That cursed philtre of yours has worked all wrong, that's what it is. Another man has got the benefit of it, don't you understand, you old hag? And, by Heaven! I believe he means to abduct her, yes, that's the meaning of all the packing and fuss, blind fool that I was not to guess it before. The Master--I will see the Master. He must give me an antidote, another medicine----"

"You certainly look as though you want it," interrupted Black Meg drily. "Well, I doubt whether you can see him; it is not his hour for receiving visitors; moreover, I don't think he's here, so I shall have to signal for him."

"I must see him. I will see him," shouted Adrian.

"I daresay," replied Black Meg, squinting significantly at his pocket.

Enraged as he was Adrian took the hint.

"Woman, you seek gold," he said, quoting involuntarily from the last romance he had read, and presenting her with a handful of small silver, which was all he had.

Meg took the silver with a sniff, on the principle that something is better than nothing, and departed gloomily. Then followed more mysterious noises; voices whispered, doors opened and shut, furniture creaked, after which came a period of exasperating and rather disagreeable silence. Adrian turned his face to the wall, for the only window in the room was so far above his head that he was unable to look out of it; indeed, it was more of a skylight than a window. Thus he remained a while gnawing at the ends of his moustache and cursing his fortune, till presently he felt a hand upon his shoulder.

"Who the devil is that?" he exclaimed, wheeling round to find himself face to face with the draped and majestic form of the Master.

"The devil! That is an ill word upon young lips, my friend," said the sage, shaking his head in reproof.

"I daresay," replied Adrian, "but what the--I mean how did you get here? I never heard the door open."

"How did I get here? Well, now you mention it, I wonder how I did. The door--what have I to do with doors?"

"I am sure I don't know," answered Adrian shortly, "but most people find them useful."

"Enough of such material talk," interrupted the sage with sternness. "Your spirit cried to mine, and I /am/ here, let that suffice."

"I suppose that Black Meg fetched you," went on Adrian, sticking to his point, for the philtre fiasco had made him suspicious.

"Verily, friend Adrian, you can suppose what you will; and now, as I have little time to spare, be so good as to set out the matter. Nay, what need, I know all, for have I not--is this the case? You administered the philtre to the maid and neglected my instructions to offer yourself to her at once. Another saw it and took advantage of the magic draught. While the spell was on her he proposed, he was accepted--yes, your brother Foy. Oh! fool, careless fool, what else did you expect?"

"At any rate I didn't expect that," replied Adrian in a fury. "And now, if you have all the power you pretend, tell me what I am to do."

Something glinted ominously beneath the hood, it was the sage's one eye.

"Young friend," he said, "your manner is brusque, yes, even rude. But I understand and I forgive. Come, we will take counsel together. Tell me what has happened."

Adrian told him with much emphasis, and the recital of his adventures seemed to move the Master deeply, at any rate he turned away, hiding his face in his hands, while his back trembled with the intensity of his feelings.

"The matter is grave," he said solemnly, when at length the lovesick and angry swain had finished. "There is but one thing to be done. Your treacherous rival--oh! what fraud and deceit are hidden beneath that homely countenance--has been well advised, by whom I know not, though I suspect one, a certain practitioner of the Black Magic, named Arentz----"

"Ah!" ejaculated Adrian.

"I see you know the man. Beware of him. He is, indeed, a wolf in sheep's clothing, who wraps his devilish incantations in a cloak of seditious doctrine. Well, I have thwarted him before, for can Darkness stand before Light? and, by