The Laughing Cavalier, Baroness Orczy [the beginning after the end read novel TXT] 📗

long time to tell⁠—for she had suffered more, felt more, lived more in the past five days than would fill an ordinary life⁠—nor did she disguise anything from her father, not even the conversation which she had had at Rotterdam in the dead of night with the man who had remained nameless until now, and in consequence of which he had gone at once to warn the Stadtholder and had thus averted the hideous conspiracy which would have darkened forever the destinies of many Dutch homes.

Of Nicolaes she did not speak; she knew that he had confessed his guilt to his father, who would know how to forgive in the fullness of time.

When she had finished speaking her father said somewhat roughly:

“But for that vervloekte adventurer down there, you would never have suffered, Gilda, as you did. Nicolaes⁠ ⁠…”

“Nicolaes, father dear,” she broke in quietly, “is very dear to us both. I think that his momentary weakness will endear him to us even more. But he was a tool in the hands of that unscrupulous Stoutenburg⁠—and but for that nameless and penniless soldier whose hand you were proud to grasp just now, I would not be here in your arms at this moment.”

“Ah!” said Cornelius Beresteyn dryly, “is this the way that the wind blows, my girl? Did you not know then that the rascal⁠—the day after he dared to lay hands upon you⁠—was back again in Haarlem bargaining with me to restore you to my arms in exchange for a fortune?”

“And two days later, father dear,” she retorted, “he endured insults, injuries, cruelties from Stoutenburg, rather than betray Nicolaes’ guilt before me.”

“Hm!” murmured Cornelius, and there was a humorous twinkle in his eyes as he looked down upon his daughter’s bowed head.

“And but for that same rascal, father,” she continued softly, “you would at this moment be mourning a dead daughter and Holland a hideous act of treachery.”

“Hush, my dear!” cried the old man impulsively, as he put his kind protecting arms round the child whom he loved so dearly.

“I would never have followed the Lord of Stoutenburg while I lived,” she said simply.

“Please God,” he said earnestly, “I would sooner have seen you in the crypt beside your mother.”

“Then, father, hath not the rascal you speak of deserved well of us? Can we not guess that even originally he took me away from Haarlem, only because he knew that if he refused the bargain, proposed to him by mine own brother, Stoutenburg would have found some other means of ensuring my silence.”

“You are a good advocate, my girl,” rejoined Cornelius with a sly wink which brought the colour rushing up to Gilda’s cheeks. “I think, by your leave, I’ll go and shake that vervloekte Keerl once more by the hand⁠ ⁠… And⁠ ⁠… shall I tell him that you bear him no ill-will?” he added roguishly.

“Yes, father dear, tell him that,” she said gently.

“Then will you go to bed, dear?” he asked, “you are overwrought and tired.”

“I will sit by the window quietly for a quarter of an hour,” she said, “after that I promise you that I will go peaceably to bed.”

He kissed her tenderly, for she was very dear to him, but being a man of vast understanding and profound knowledge of men and things, the humorous twinkle did not altogether fade from his eyes as he finally bade his daughter “Good night,” and then quietly went out of the room.

XLV The End

Diogenes sat beside the window in the tapperij listening with half an ear to the sounds in and about the hostelry which were dying out one by one. At first there had been a footfall in the room overhead which had seemed to him the sweetest music that man could hear. It had paced somewhat restlessly up and down and to the Laughing Cavalier, the gay and irresponsible soldier of fortune, it had seemed as if every creaking of a loose board beneath the featherweight of that footfall found its echo in his heart.

But anon Mynheer Cornelius Beresteyn was called away and then all was still in the room upstairs, and Diogenes burying his head in his hands evoked the picture of that room as he had seen it five days ago. The proud jongejuffrouw in her high-backed chair, looking on him with blue eyes which she vainly tried to render hard through their exquisite expression of appealing, childlike gentleness: and he groaned aloud with the misery of the inevitable which with stern finger bade him go and leave behind him all the illusions, all the dreams which he had dared to weave.

Had she not told him that she despised him, that his existence was as naught to her, that she looked on him as a menial and a knave, somewhat below the faithful henchmen who were in her father’s service? Ye gods! he had endured much in his life of privations, of physical and mental pain, but was there aught on earth or in the outermost pits of hell to be compared with the agony of this ending to a dream.

The serving-wench came in just then. She scarcely dared approach the mynheer with the merry voice and the laughter-filled eyes who now looked so inexpressibly sad.

Yet she had a message for him. Mynheer Cornelius Beresteyn, she said, desired to speak with him once more. The wench had murmured the words shyly, for her heart was aching for the handsome soldier and the tears were very near her eyes. But hearing the message he had jumped up with alacrity and was immediately ready to follow her.

Mynheer Beresteyn had a room on the upper floor, she explained, as she led the way upstairs. The old man was standing on the narrow landing and as soon as Diogenes appeared upon the stairs, he said simply:

“There was something I did forget to say to you downstairs; may I trouble you, sir, to come into