The Golden Tulip (70 page)

She was not entirely sure what he meant by that. “There was a lovely girl among your friends. Was she Isabella?”

“Yes. But all that is finished.”

“You won’t be able to judge for sure until you’re out into the world again.”

“Maybe that’s not such an impossibility as it once seemed to me. It’s what you’ve wanted for me from the start, isn’t it?”

She nodded, full of hope. The moment had come to tell him of the wooden legs that would enable him to stand again. But even as she would have spoken, he seized her in his arms and was kissing her passionately. She was lost to all else until she felt him tugging the silk turban from her head. Total panic seized her. She began to fight like a tigress to free herself from his embrace.

He withdrew his mouth from hers, but did not release his hold as he stared at her. Her hair was the most beautiful he had ever seen, pale as moonlight, luxuriant and yet soft as spiders’ webs. He said what he had long wanted to say. “I love you, Aletta.”

She did not hear him, for she had begun to scream as if she were being raped. Abruptly he let her go, horrified by her reaction to his amorousness. She leapt to her feet and ran from him, her hair flying like a lovely cloud behind her.

In the morning when she entered his apartment it was in many ways as if what had happened in the night had never been. She was again soberly dressed, her hair out of sight under the plainest of her caps, her expression withdrawn. He reacted with cold hostility. They spoke with excruciating politeness to each other, their relationship having reached a curious impasse.

Josephus, as instructed, examined the old double gates to see if they had been tampered with, but they were securely padlocked as they had always been. He had some difficulty in getting through to them, for heavy snow had fallen just before dawn and once again the cloak of winter lay white and silver over the land.

P
IETER HAD NOT
been in Delft that day, but on his next visit the whip maker informed him that the green cart had been found empty and abandoned in a snowdrift. The carter and his companion, if there had been another man on this second occasion, had taken the horses from the shafts and made their departure.

“The whip went with them,” the whip maker said. “So keep your eyes peeled for it.”

Pieter went to the place where the cart had been snowbound. The hard snowbank still showed traces of the cart’s removal in a need to clear the road when traffic had begun to flow again after the snowstorm. It was on the curve of a narrow lane just past the crossroads where previously he had lost sight of it. He followed the lane and discovered it ran alongside the west wall of Constantijn de Veere’s estate to peter out by a pair of wide padlocked gates. It seemed scarcely possible that the carter had driven through them, but if the man had had a key or an accomplice within the grounds, it would explain how quickly the cart had disappeared from view at the time when he had been following it. He recalled Francesca telling him of Constantijn’s consternation at seeing distant lights in the park not long after Aletta went to work there.

A tree was growing conveniently near the wall. He climbed it high enough to be able to see what lay on the other side. Woodland hid the large formal garden that Francesca had said lay to the rear of the house, which was also out of sight. No snow had fallen since the night the cart had become stuck, but there were the softened indentations made by a man, probably a gardener checking the gates had not been damaged in the storm. By the way the snow lay it was possible to discern that he had followed a narrow drive that might well lead to the stables and outbuildings.

Pieter climbed down from the tree, remounted his horse and rode to the front gates of the house, where Josephus came with the guard dogs to ask his business. At Pieter’s request Aletta soon appeared wrapped in a warm cloak and hurrying to speak to him. His first question surprised her.

“You told Francesca once that all were Orangists in this house. Does that still apply?”

“Yes, it does,” she replied.

“You have no doubt about Josephus?”

“None whatever. He is a good man, loyal to the Prince. Why?”

He took her into his confidence to the point of telling her that it was highly likely that the lights Constantijn had seen could be linked to some nefarious business being carried out in these very grounds, a suspicion increased by Aletta’s report that the most recent case of Constantijn seeing the lights had been on the night of the snowstorm. Sensibly she drew her own conclusions that something extremely important was at stake. There had been a query at the back of her mind ever since he had branched out in Delft, for it seemed foolhardy, in the light of Francesca’s vulnerability to punishment, that he should risk endangering her.

“You had better come into the house,” she said, opening the gate for him. “This is something you should discuss with Constantijn. I take full responsibility for asking you in, although I warn you it’s unlikely you’ll be allowed into his apartment. I’ll probably have to stand by the door and convey his remarks down to you.”

When she explained the matter to Constantijn he regarded her from his chair with a steely gaze, no lifting of his expression whenever she entered his quarters now. “So it appears those lights might not have been a trick of my imagination after all. They could be consistent with a single candle lamp showing through the woodlands before being extinguished. You may send Pieter van Doorne up here since the safety of my house may be at stake.”

For a second or two she stared at him in disbelief. Had she really heard aright? Then she almost scampered to the door. “I’ll send him up at once!”

Pieter and Constantijn talked on their own for a considerable time while Aletta paced the hall, exulting in Constantijn having received his first visitor other than his parents, whom he had promised to see again on Christmas Day. Then Josephus was sent for and again she waited. When eventually Pieter and Josephus reappeared they both looked extremely serious. Josephus had one of Constantijn’s pistols; Pieter had drawn his own pistol from his belt and in his other hand was Constantijn’s ring of the three cellar keys.

“Where’s Sara?” Josephus asked grimly.

“She’s sorting linen on the top floor,” Aletta replied.

“How long is she likely to be there?” Pieter wanted to know.

“Another three-quarters of an hour at least.”

“That’s as well. We want her out of the way, because we can’t risk a careless word of gossip about an investigation we’re about to make.”

“Then I’ll just check to make sure she wants nothing from down here.” Aletta dashed up the flights to where she found Sara busily engaged, her task barely begun. Satisfied, Aletta went downstairs again and found the two men in the kitchen, where Josephus lit two lamps while Pieter explained the situation briefly to her.

“There’s just a chance that the drive from the old gates beyond the woodland may have been used by intruders and there’s only one place where they could have entered these premises unseen. Apparently there is a grating at the west end of the house, which, if removed, could give access to the locked cellars.”

She remembered the grating, having passed it countless times, although she had never examined it closely. The thick bull’s-eye glass behind the bars made it impossible to see within. “But nobody could get into the house that way, or any other, without the dogs barking. They are alert to any unusual sound.”

Josephus interrupted, his voice thick with outrage at a possible intrusion under his very nose. “They’re friendly enough and quiet when they know the person concerned.”

Pieter nodded. “I showed Constantijn the sketch of a stranger that Francesca made and gave me. He identified the likeness immediately as that of one of the servants whom he dismissed the night he returned here. As you know, the dogs were kept originally to guard against poachers and I’m told they knew all the servants well.”

Josephus opened the door to the cellar steps. When Aletta would have followed, Pieter stopped her. “There may be danger. Wait here, Aletta.”

She did not obey. As soon as they were down in the cellar she moved onto the steps and watched from there as Pieter inserted the key in the lock of the long-closed door as silently as possible. Then he stood back, giving a prearranged nod to Josephus, who turned the key and flung the door wide to let Pieter dash through with his pistol cocked. Josephus rushed after him, but there was no sound of shots or voices. She almost leapt down the flight and rushed to the open door to see what was happening.

The lamps that Pieter and Josephus were holding showed the enormous length of the main cellar, which was divided into sections by walls and archways. They had opened another door into a far cellar where some daylight filtered through the bars of the grating and the bull’s-eye glass. At first she could only see some old furniture wreathed in cobwebs, but when she drew level with the men she gasped at a huge cache of arms. Pikes and muskets were ranged against the walls, and a large number of stacked kegs, which Pieter said contained gunpowder, stood to one side. He threw open the lids of some scores of boxes to reveal lead bullets that surely numbered thousands in all.

“How did all this get here?” she exclaimed in bewilderment. “Even if the dogs were silent I know I would have heard a cart on the gravel in the silence of the night! Can you explain, Pieter?”

“The cache must have been brought here in several loads and most painstakingly unloaded. The cart was driven through the old gates, to which the servant obviously had a duplicate key. Once in the woodland the cart lamps would have been extinguished and then everything you see here was carried from there. Between them, two men would have handed everything through that cellar window when the grating had been removed.”

“But why should they do such a thing?”

“To be in readiness for traitors to give support to French forces when the time comes. No doubt there are many other such secret caches of arms not far from the gates of our cities. Now I’ll report back to Constantijn.”

“Shall you not bolt the window first?”

“No. Everything must be left exactly as it is. Our hope will be to catch the gunrunners next time they come, although it’s unlikely to be until the snow goes again in the spring, because they’ll not risk leaving tracks.”

The doors were relocked and the lamps extinguished to be returned to a shelf. Pieter spent some more time with Constantijn and then left. When he had gone Aletta took the crutches and the wooden legs from the place where they had been kept until the time should be right. She had not the least doubt that it had come.

When Constantijn turned his head and saw what she had brought to him his eyes glittered with a kind of bitter mirth. “How is it that you so often read my thoughts?”

It was impossible to admit to him that being in love could give that extra empathy. “So you have made a decision to walk again?”

“From the moment I learned that an offense had been committed against my house. I intend to keep watch from now on and to defend it and my country by eliminating those traitors. Give those legs to me and tell me how long you’ve had them in the house.” While she explained everything he examined the straps and the legs. “Most ingenious. I can see that with the crutches my parents have donated I’ll be able to develop a swinging movement, but at least I’ll be able to stand upright when I’m stationary. You’d better send Josephus to me. There’s no time like the present to make a start.”

“He shall come immediately.”

“Wait a moment!”

She had reached the door and paused to look over her shoulder at him. “Yes?”

“I thank you most sincerely.” His voice was puzzled. “Why should you do so much for me?”

She met his gaze steadily. By his own will he had broken his bonds. He had renewed his contact with the outside world through Pieter and it was only a matter of time now before he left his apartment and afterward this house and then moved back to Delft in his recovered self-respect. Soon he would no longer have any need of her.

“My motive has never been entirely unselfish,” she admitted, coming back into the room. “I gave up being an artist when I left Amsterdam. In that accident by the bridge I was in the stage wagon with which your coach collided. I can’t remember exactly how my resolve began, but after seeing you injured and out of your senses that day I became convinced that my own life would never come to rights again until you were restored to yours.”

“So I have been holding you back?”

She smiled. “Not anymore. I believe we are both now on the mend.”

“Sit down and tell me what happened in Amsterdam.”

She obeyed and told him everything. When she had finished both were aware that the coldness between them had melted away again. “So now I may feel able to sketch a little sometimes.”

“There’s still something else I want to know. Since I love you with all my heart, surely you can tell me why you are dedicated to wearing a cap?”

Her breath caught in her throat at his statement. His eyes were full of love and she trembled, dipping her head to avoid his intense gaze. Haltingly she explained the fear that had been on her for so long. “Now you know everything about me,” she concluded in a whisper.

“So that night on the stairs you didn’t scream in revulsion of me personally?”

“No!” Her head shot up in dismay that he should have supposed such a thing. “That could never be! I love you!”

Her confession was out before she could stop it and sent color sweeping up into her cheeks. Such joy suffused his face that she was almost dazzled by it. He held out his arms to her.

“Then come here to me, darling Aletta, where you will always belong.”

She remained sitting quite still for a few moments and then slowly she put up her violently trembling hands and removed her cap. Deliberately she shook the pins from her hair until it tumbled down around her face and down her back. He could see the enormous effort it had cost her and he loved her all the more for it. Now at last she came to him in a sudden little rush to fling herself across his chest and throw her arms about his neck. He crushed her to him and their kissing was long and passionate. She drew away from him only once and that was to take his hand and place it at the side of her face to guide his fingers into her hair.