The Laughing Cavalier by Baroness Orczy (best 7 inch ereader .TXT) 📕

me what your purpose is in thus defying the laws of the land and risking the gallows by laying hands upon me and upon my waiting woman in the open streets, and by taking me away by brute force from my home?”

“My purpose, mejuffrouw, is to convey you safely as far as Rotterdam, where I will hand you over into the worthy keeping of a gentleman who will relieve me of further responsibility with regard to your precious person.”

“In Rotterdam?” she exclaimed, “what should I do in Rotterdam?”

“Nothing, I imagine,” replied Diogenes dryly, “for you would not remain there longer than is necessary. I am the bearer of written orders to that same gentleman in Rotterdam that he shall himself conduct you under suitable escort⁠—of which I no doubt will still form an integral part⁠—to his private residence, which I am told is situate outside the city and on the road to Delft.”

“A likely story indeed!” she rejoined vehemently, “I’ll not believe it! Common theft and robbery are your purpose, nothing less, else you had not stolen my purse from me nor the jewels which I wore.”

“I had to take your purse and your jewels from you, mejuffrouw,” he said with perfect equanimity, “else you might have used them for the purpose of slipping through my fingers. Wenches at wayside inns are easily amenable to bribes, so are the male servants at city hostelries. But your purse and the trinkets which you wore are safely stowed away in my wallet. I shall have the honour of returning them to you when we arrive in Rotterdam.”

“Of returning them to me,” she said with a contemptuous laugh, “do knaves like you ever return stolen property?”

“Seldom, I admit,” he replied still with unruffled good-humour. “Nevertheless an exception hath often proved a rule. Your purse and trinkets are here,” he added.

And from his wallet he took out a small leather purse and some loose jewellery which he showed to her.

“And,” he added ere he once more replaced them in his wallet, “I will guard them most carefully until I can return them to you in Rotterdam, after which time ’twill be someone else’s business to see that you do not slip through his fingers.”

“And you expect me to believe such a senseless tale,” she rejoined contemptuously.

“There are many things in this world and the next, mejuffrouw,” he said lightly, “that are true though some of us believe them not.”

“Nay! but this I do believe on the evidence of mine own eyes⁠—that you stole my money and my jewels and have no intention of returning them to me.”

“Your opinion of me, mejuffrouw, is already so low that it matters little surely if you think me a common thief as well.”

“My opinion of you, sir, is based upon your actions.”

“And these I own stand in formidable array against me.”

She bit her lip in vexation and her slender fingers began to beat a tattoo on the arm of her chair. This man’s placidity and inveterate good-humour were getting on her nerves. It is hard when one means to wound, to find the surest arrows falling wide of the mark. But now she waited for a moment or two lest her irritation betrayed itself in the quiver of her voice; and it was only when she felt quite sure that it would sound as trenchant and hard as she intended that it should, that she said abruptly:

“Who is paying you, sir, for this infamy?”

“One apparently who can afford the luxury,” he replied airily.

“You will not tell me?”

“Do you think, mejuffrouw, that I could?”

“I may guess.”

“It should not be difficult,” he assented.

“And you, sir,” she continued more vehemently, “are one of the many tools which the Lord of Stoutenburg doth use to gain his own political ends.”

“The Lord of Stoutenburg?”

It was impossible for Gilda Beresteyn to gauge exactly whether the astonishment expressed in that young villain’s exclamation was real or feigned. Certainly his mobile face was a picture of puzzlement, but this may have been caused only by his wondering how she could so easily have guessed the name of his employer. For as to this she was never for a moment in doubt. It was easy enough for her to piece together the series of events which had followed her parting from her brother at the cathedral door. Stoutenburg, burning with anxiety and glowing with his ardent desire for vengeance against the Stadtholder, had feared that she⁠—Gilda⁠—would betray the secret which she held, and he had paid this knave to take her out of the way. Stoutenburg and his gang! it could be no one else! she dared not think that her own brother would have a share in so dastardly an outrage. It was Stoutenburg of course! and this smiling knave knew it well! aye! even though he murmured again and this time to the accompaniment of smothered oaths:

“Stoutenburg? Bedonderd!”

“Aye!” she said loftily, “you see that I am not deceived! ’tis the Lord of Stoutenburg who gave you money to play this trick on me. He paid you! paid you, I say, and you, a man who should be fighting for your country, were over ready to make war upon a woman. Shame on you! shame I say! ’tis a deed that should cause you to blush, if indeed you have a spark of honesty in you, which of a truth I do gravely doubt.”

She had worked herself up into an outburst of indignation and flung insult upon insult on him in the vague hope indeed of waking some slumbering remnant of shame in his heart, and mayhap ruffling that imperturbable air of contentment of his, and that impudent look of swagger most unbecoming in a menial.

But by naming Stoutenburg, she had certainly brought to light many things which Diogenes had only vaguely suspected. His mind⁠—keen and shrewd despite his follies⁠—recalled his interview with Nicolaes Beresteyn in the studio of Frans Hals; all the details