The First Sir Percy, Baroness Orczy [most important books to read TXT] 📗

“Who else should it be, you loon?” Nicolaes replied irritably. “Here’s your horse,” he added, and without waiting for further commend or protest from the unfortunate landlord thus roused from his slumbers, he proceeded to tether the animal by the reins to one of the iron rings in the wall.

“It is so late, mynheer,” the man protested dolefully; “and so cold. Will you not take the horse round to the stable yourself? It is but a step to the right, and there’s the gate⁠—”

“It is late, as you say, and cold,” Nicolaes retorted curtly. “And when I paid you so liberally for the horse, I did not bargain to take service with you as ostler in the middle of the night.”

“But, mynheer⁠—” urged the landlord, still protesting.

But Nicolaes did not listen. In faith, he had ceased to hear, for already he was striding rapidly down the Korte Gracht, and the next moment was back on the quay. A few steps brought him to the door of his father’s house. Here he paused for a moment ere he mounted the stone steps that led up to the massive front door, stamped his feet so as to shake the melted snow from his boots, and with a few quick touches tried to reestablish some semblance of order in his clothes. Indeed, when presently he rapped vigorously with the iron knocker against the door, he looked no longer like a wearied and querulous traveler, but rather like a man just returned from a short and pleasant ride.

To his astonishment it was Maria, his sister Gilda’s faithful tire-woman, who opened the door for him. She anticipated his very first query by a curt:

“Everyone is abed. The jongejuffrouw alone chose to wait for you, and I could not let her wait alone.”

Nicolaes uttered an angry exclamation.

“Tell my sister to go to bed, too,” he commanded briefly. “I’ll go to my rooms at once, as it is so late.”

Maria made no audible reply. She mumbled something about “Shameful conduct!” and “Wedding-night!” But Nicolaes paid no heed, strode quickly across the hall, and ran swiftly up the stairs.

But on the landing he came abruptly to a halt. He had almost fallen against his sister Gilda, who stood there waiting for him.

Behind her, a little way down the passage, a door stood ajar, and through it there came a narrow fillet of light. At sight of him, and before he could utter a sound, she put a finger to her lip, then let the way along the passage. The door which stood ajar was the one which gave on her own room. She went in, and he followed her, his heart beating with something like shame or fear.

“Hush!” she whispered, and gently closed the door behind him. “Make no noise! Kaatje has at last sobbed herself to sleep. She hath been put to bed in her mother’s room. ’Twere a shame to disturb her.” Then, as Nicolaes muttered something that sounded very like a curse, the girl added reproachfully: “Poor Kaatje! You have shown very little ardour toward her, Klaas.”

“I lost my way in the dark,” he answered. “I had no thought it could be so late.”

Just then the tower clock of St. Maria Kerk chimed the midnight hour.

Gilda hazarded timidly: “You should not have thought of accompanying my lord. He was ready to start out alone; and your place, Klaas, was beside your wife!”

“Are you going to lecture me about my duty, Gilda?” he said irritably. “You must not think that because⁠—”

“I think nothing,” she broke in simply, “save that Kaatje wept when the evening wore on and you did not return; and that the more she wept the greater was our father’s anger against you.”

“He knew that I meant to accompany your husband a part of the way,” Nicolaes retorted. “In truth, had he done me the justice to read my thoughts, he himself would have bade me go.”

“It was kind of you,” she rejoined somewhat coolly, “to be concerned as to my lord’s safety. But I can assure you⁠—”

“ ’Twas not concern for his safety,” he broke in gruffly, “that caused me to accompany him tonight.”

“What then?”

But he gave no reply, but his lip and turned away from her, with the air of one who fears that he hath said too much and cares not to be questioned again.

“I’d best go now,” he said abruptly.

He looked around for his gloves, which he had thrown down upon the table. His manner seemed so strange that Gilda was suddenly conscious of a nameless kind of fear; the sort of premonition that comes to highly sensitive natures, at times when hitherto unsuspected danger suddenly looms upon the cloudless sky of life. She forced him to return her searching glance.

“You are hiding something from me, Klaas,” she said determinedly. “What is it?”

“I?” he riposted, feigning surprise. “Hiding something? Why should I have something to hide?”

“That I know not,” she replied. “But there was some hidden meaning in your words just now when you said that ’twas not concern for my lord’s safety that caused you to accompany him this night. What, then, was it?” she insisted, seeing that he remained silent, even though he met her gaze with a look that appeared both fearful and pitying.

She had her back to the door now, looked like some timid creature brought to bay by a cruel and hitherto unsuspected enemy.

“You must not ask me for my meaning, Gilda,” Nicolaes said at last. “There are things which concern men only, and with which women should have no part.”

His tone of ill-concealed compassion stung her like a cut from a whip across the face.

“There is nothing that concerns my lord,” she retorted proudly, “in which he would not desire me to bear my part.”

“Then let him tell you himself.”

“What?”

She threw the question at him like a challenge, stepped up to him and seized him by the wrist⁠—no longer a timid creature at bay. But a strong, determined woman,