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The Confession of Floris Heenvliet:
Marjorie Bowen:
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Language: English
Date first posted: May 2023
Most recent update: May 2023
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The Confession of Floris Heenvliet
by
Marjorie Bowen
ILLUSTRATION BY DUDLEY HARDY
First published in The Windsor Magazine, March 1910
This e-book edition: Project Gutenberg Australia, 2023
"I want to confess."
"Floris Heenvliet did not believe in
remorse—he believed in no emotion once other men had put a
name to it—yet he had experienced most feelings, and his
cynicism had saved him very little." So, what, then, did he wish
to confess?
LORIS HEENVLIET was skating along the canal
that runs from Delft to Rotterdam. He had his back to the former
town, which was where he lived, but he had not yet come so far
that he could see the houses of Rotterdam, or even the spires of
the big churches with their lead cupolas visible as far as
Schiedam.
It was late afternoon, cold and lonely.
Floris had passed no one since he had left his uncle's house
in the Koornmarkt, and he was glad. He was skating in face of the
wind, he had his fur collar turned up, his cap pulled low, and
his hands in his pockets.
It was delightful to feel his body swing forward without
exertion or fatigue, to feel the ice spinning away from under his
feet, to see the long canal ever widening before him, and to hear
the solitary yet homely sound of the wind that blew back his coat
and seemed to be struggling to lift up his cap, that it might
whisper something in his ear.
On either side the flat, bare country was lying under a white
salt mist that became grey in the distance and mingled with the
sombre-coloured sky.
Floris skated through field after field, where the canal was
edged by spears of broken grass, and low bushes, bearing
glittering lines of snow, bent over the frozen tow-path, and
beyond this nothing but the straight line of the land merging
into the mist.
Then he passed windmills with the date painted in large
letters under the thatch, and the sails turning briskly, and in
the distance he could sometimes see another windmill—a grey
shape that did not catch the wind, but was still as a painting on
the background of the mist.
He smiled to think that he had ever been tired, and yet in the
perfect exaltation of his body, in the joy of the swift motion
and the keen air, he thought of fatigue and weariness, and even
now and then of death.
He went between scattered houses built down close to the
water, with their own little wooden landing-stages, on which
stood familiar objects—a pair of sabots, a pile of logs, or even
a cat walking cautiously.
He passed a trim villa, the red bricks mortared with lines of
white, one window open and a rich Persian cloth of glowing
colours hanging out, and on the roof a crow.
These things flew past, and he was in the bare, open country
again.
Because he was so utterly alone and untrammelled, he felt as
if he was being watched, and in the complete silence he
distinguished voices that he never heard at other times.
He knew what they said perfectly well, and that they spoke the
truth; he smiled in his collar and wondered.
He did not believe in remorse—he believed in no emotion once
other men had put a name to it—yet he had experienced most
feelings, and his cynicism had saved him very little.
He thrust his hands deeper into his pockets and hunched his
shoulders up to his ears. Was this remorse? Did the wind and the
loneliness and the white mist fill him with remorse?
It was foolish to suppose so. What had these things to do with
his inner feelings?
No, it was not remorse.
He skated past another windmill. A bird flew up out of the
grass, darted up, then down again.
Ugh, how cold it was!
A deeper shade seemed to be falling over the landscape.
Floris straightened his shoulders and raised his eyes.
Ahead of him was the sun, red and hard and sullen, hanging
above the towers of Schiedam.
The short winter day was nearly over. He made a graceful
sweeping curve on the ice, and turned towards Delft.
No, it was not remorse, he said to himself, but pride.
He wished to show that he could do without these things—
comforts, luxuries, the respect of the neighbours, the prospect
of an easy and wealthy future, the affection of his uncle, even
his good name and the love of Elizabeth Van Decken.
Yes, he was eager to show that these things, for the sake of
which he had lost his honour, were really nothing to him, and
that he could sacrifice them all.
But to whom was he eager to show it? Who would care? Everyone
would scorn him if he confessed.
Then it was a strange kind of pride, because there was no one
to admire him, or be convinced, or hold him justified.
Except, perhaps, Heaven.
He skated between the fields, the windmills, and the houses.
He would lose everything; let him consider that. People would
turn their backs on him—even Elizabeth. He would have to
leave Delft.
Perhaps his cousin, the man whom he had wronged and whose
memory he would right, if he confessed, might have said a good
word for him, but, he being dead, there was no other, Floris
reflected, with an unreasonable sneer.
Then why did he think of confessing, since he would gain
nothing, but lose everything, since he did not feel remorseful
towards the man whom he had ruined?
He asked himself, bending his head before the veering wind.
There was no answer.
It was an impulse turning into a resolution. He felt impelled
to confess as he had never felt impelled to anything in his life.
The canal broadened before him; he could see the towers of St.
Ursula and the Oude Kerk rising above the bare trees; he passed
little houses with painted shutters and the dark building of the
arsenal, where the arms of the Republic frowned from the stone.
A few flakes of snow began to fall.
An old woman going along the towpath recognised his slender,
graceful figure as it sped along, and called out a greeting.
He answered her over his shoulder and hurried on.
Now he had entered the town; either side of him was the high
brick pavement planted with bare lime trees, and beyond the plain
red houses, with the lights appearing here and there in the
windows.
Floris thought of the last time that he had skated through
Delft, one arm round Elizabeth's waist, holding, with the other
hand, hers in its fur glove on his breast, her hooded head on his
shoulder, and their feet keeping perfect time on the shining ice.
When he had almost reached the end of the Koornmarkt, he
stopped, sat down on the edge of the pavement, took off his
skates, and tied them together as he had done a hundred times
before. No one would have imagined that any deep thought or
extraordinary resolve lay under his demeanour as he passed into
his uncle's quiet house in the shadow of the Oude Kerk.
A passer-by on the other side of the canal saw just Mynheer
Floris Van Heenvliet going home; Floris himself, as he passed
under the portico, was thinking that nothing would ever be the
same again after he had said what he was going to say.
He took off his cap and shook the snowflakes from it, and got
out of his coat.
Anna, the housekeeper, came down the black-and-white tiled
hall.
"It is beginning to snow again," she said. "I am glad you have
come back. You have been gone a long time."
Floris gave her his cap, coat, and skates.
"Where is my uncle?" he asked.
"In the parlour—waiting for you, Mynheer Floris."
"Very well." He put his hand to his hair, which was damp and
clinging to his brow, then thrust his finger inside his black
cravat, as if he wished to loosen it.
"I will bring a light," said old Anna.
"No "—he lowered his dark eyes and gazed at the
black-and-white pattern of the tiles—"do not bring a
light—yet, Anna. I will ring when we need the lamp."
"But you cannot see," she protested.
"It does not matter—I want to speak to my uncle——"
He saw she was looking at him curiously, and he flushed.
"Yes, I want to speak to my uncle...and it will do as
well...better in the dark."
"Well, we will have a light in the door, or the neighbours
will wonder——"
She turned off, then paused and looked back.
"Are not Mejuffrouw Elizabeth and her mother coming to
supper?"
Floris stared.
"You told me so yourself," said old Anna, quite angrily.
"Yes, of course...they are coming."
Anna looked at him crossly; she was annoyed by his vacant ways
and his whim about the light.
"I hope you will have finished by then," she answered, "for
one cannot show people into the dark."
"I shall have finished by then," said Floris.
After Anna had gone, he stood with his hand on the parlour
door.
How difficult words were! Now he came to consider it, he could
not recall having ever put anything vital into words.
What had he said when he had asked Elizabeth to be his wife?
He had written a letter; he had spoken to her father; it had
been understood between them before his awkward, broken sentences
had won her loving consent. Well, that was no help to him now...
He had to open this door, enter the familiar parlour, and
empty his soul to the old man who would be sitting within.
He pressed his brow against the lintel of the doorpost,
shivered, and set his teeth; then he heard Anna returning with
the lamp for the hall, and, goaded by this, he turned the handle.
Softly entering, he closed the door behind him.
The room was brightly lit with firelight; in a high-backed
chair by the hearth sat his uncle, with his face half towards the
fire and half concealed by the sides of the chair. Floris was
seized with a terror lest he should look round and break the
silence with some cheerful commonplace.
For that would make everything impossible.
"Uncle," he said, in a quick, low voice, "it is I, Floris! Do
not look at me—nor speak to me...I want to say
something...it is very difficult."
He sat down at the table and hid his face in his hands, for he
knew Mynheer Heenvliet must instinctively look round, and he did
not want to see his expression of wonder and alarm.
After waiting a little, he spoke again.
"Will you sit as you are, looking into the fire...and listen
to me? How impossible it is to explain! I went skating this
afternoon, out through the Rotterdam Gate, as far as Schiedam...I
made a resolution...I want to confess."
He raised his eyes and saw his uncle leaning back in the deep
chair, motionless.
"Perhaps I can speak like this, in the dark, if you do not say
anything or—look at me...It is about your son I am going to
speak...my cousin Hendrick."
He drew a deep breath, and strove to probe the very depths of
his own meaning.
"I do not know why I am confessing...I do not know...because I
do not love my cousin any more than I ever did...I have nothing
to gain."
He drew his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow
and lips; he fixed his eyes on the dark walls, the well-known
pictures, the blue-and-white curtains, the chimney-piece, with
its dull mirror, ornaments of blue-and-white Delft, and black
marble clock.
All these things had become strange and far away; he felt
giddy, confused by the shadows that were blotting everything out.
Even the firelight, it seemed, for the logs were flaring
fitfully and sinking into ashes.
Floris clenched his hands on the table, forcing the words out
of himself.
"I was always jealous of Hendrick—because he was your
heir, and I was poor, with no claim on you...and I was cleverer
than he. I found that out when we were clerks together...in your
counting-house...in Amsterdam...He was foolish enough to be
always getting into trouble...and I was clever enough to make the
most of it..."
A sound like a sigh broke from the old man.
"Do not say anything!" cried Floris.﹃I am going to tell you
all...You began to find his accounts were wrong, and he could not
explain——﹄The speaker's voice sank lower. "I did
it...it was very easy."
The firelight seemed to be sinking rapidly; only a faint,
pulsing glow remained over the figure of Mynheer Heenvliet.
"That was the beginning," continued Floris, leaning heavily on
the table and staring at the dull patch of window, against which
the hastening snow was drifting. "Then one day he came to me and
told me that he was tired of it...I was the favourite, and he was
always in your displeasure. I knew why—I had taken pains it
should be so...yet you had trusted him with a large amount of
money to be conveyed to the bank at Utrecht...Well, he was going
away, he told me. Since then I have often wondered why he should
make a confidant of me; but he was always simple...he thought I
was honourable. Do not speak!...I am telling you that I am not
honourable."
He paused, clenching his hand tightly before him on the
smooth, shining table, where he had often arranged the ranks of
his lead soldiers when he was a child, or opened the great
black-letter Bible on Sundays and gazed at the terrible woodcut
of the Last Judgment.
He did not see anything—not even Mynheer Heenvliet. He
was utterly absorbed in getting this thing into words; he
wondered he could do it; he wondered why he was doing it. Still,
cold and sick, he went on, forcing his soul to penance.
"Hendrick gave me the money and a letter for you; he would not
be beholden for a ducat...He ran away and joined the merchant
service, as you know."
Floris shuddered, as if the snow falling softly against the
pane was drifting on to his bare heart.
"Listen! I burnt the letter and I buried the money.
"You thought he had robbed you and disgraced you...and
I thought...'He is a fool. What does it matter?'"
The logs fell together with a little empty sound.
Floris gave a groan.
"What does it matter? Oh, Heavens, I do not know, but I must
speak! Hush! hear me to the end. You disinherited him—as I
meant you should—and I was your heir...You cursed him; now
you will curse me...Listen! I am confessing. He was never to
blame...When he died...in China, I laughed to think how safe I
was. No one knew...except Heaven. We have been happy
together—you and I. I have pleased you better than he could
ever have done...Am I not a fool to confess? That is all...I did
not think that I could ever bring these words over my lips; but
it is done...
"I will go away...you must tell Elizabeth...It would be
better...if I were dead, for I love her...I do not ask you to
forgive me, even to speak to me.
"I am going now..."
His head sank lower and lower, until it rested on the edge of
the table.
The marble clock gave a little whirr and struck six.
The clear strokes fell echoing into the dark stillness. In the
distance the Stadhuis clock was chiming, then that from the Oude
Kerk sounded close, deep and earnest.
Floris dragged himself into a sitting posture.
"Elizabeth will hate me...It always seemed to me that she
would have loved...him...if he had stayed...Elizabeth..."
He rose, staggering, and flung out his hand against the wall
to support himself.
"I am going." He bit his weak lips.
A door opened and closed somewhere. His head was reeling; he
had to lean against the wall, for his limbs were trembling and
weak.
Voices, footsteps, sounded from without.
He tried to find his way to the door, when it was opened
swiftly by a girl carrying a candle.
The picture of light, life, and happiness which she made
blinded him; he stood with his hand over his eyes.
"What is the matter, Floris?"
She smiled, holding up the candle, whose beams glittered in
her fair hair.
"How cold you have let the room get! Ah, the fire is nearly
out. And why are you in the dark, Floris?"
She went lightly round to the hearth.
"Elizabeth," he said miserably, "I am going; my uncle will
speak to you."
"What do you mean?"
She was by the old man's chair, and bent over it as she spoke.
"He is asleep," she smiled. "Come, Mynheer, wake up and tell
me what Floris means."
She shook him by the shoulder, and Mynheer Heenvliet gave a
sigh and sat up, blinking his eyes.
Floris came round the table.
"Asleep?" he said.
The old man looked from one to the other, then he asked—
"Who let the fire out? I told Anna to bring in the lamp at
half-past five."
"You have been asleep?" demanded Floris, with his hand on his
heart.
"It seems so," smiled the merchant.﹃How quietly you came in!
Ugh, it is chilly!﹄He rose. "We will go into the other room and
have supper."
He took Elizabeth's arm, and she smiled at Floris.
"You look rather pale," she remarked. "There is nothing the
matter, is there?"
"Nothing; let us go in to supper."
There are some things a man can do only once.
THE END
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