“‘I SHOULD WISH TO—PAY SEVEN FLORINS MORE PER WEEK’”
“‘I SHOULD WISH TO—PAY SEVEN FLORINS MORE PER WEEK’”
So life flowed on at the Horst, for its chatelaine, in a narrow little stream, over rocks, amid a vast splendor of scenery. The Baron, her husband, working day and night in the almost hopeless effort to make both ends meet, waxed sombre and careworn beneath the ever-increasing dislike of his numerous dependants. Towards his wife he was always affectionate, closing the door to his heart-chamber of torture and seeking relaxation as from a beautiful plaything. And Gerard, except for the briefest of visits, remained at Drum.
When the Stork, some twelve months after the old Baron’s death, tapped at Ursula’s window, her life was no longer empty. Suddenly the Baby filled it to overflowing. Every one manifested an absorbing interest in the Baby, as was his due, even the Freule Louisa, for babies, surely, are vast potentialities. Miss Mopius forgot her slumbering grievances and rubbed the Baby’s back with fluid electricity. The Dominé christened his grandchild, wearing his Legion of Honor, as he had done at Ursula’s wedding. But the Dowager Baroness very nearly refused to be present at the ceremony, for the heir of the house received the single name of Otto.
PEACE AND GOOD-WILL
“How cross he looks!” said the Dominé, benignly, dangling his grandson on one awkward knee. “I believe he disapproves of existence. Do you know, children, it has struck me from the first, I can’t understand why your son should have been born with such a look of chronic discontent. What do you mean, Ottochen?” He shook the morsel of pink-spotted apathy, and laughed innocently at its unconscious sneer.
Involuntarily the parents’ eyes met. Otto walked to the window.
“Life is good, Ottochen,” continued the Dominé, his eagle face alight with tenderness. “Life is very beautiful. People love each other, and the love falls like a rainbow across every background of cloud. Everything is beautiful, especially the storms.” The baby puckered up its face into one of those sudden, apparently causeless fretfulnesses which the masculine mind resents. “Thou wilt grow up,” said its grandfather, “into a brave soldier of the Cross”—the Baby overflowed in slobbery, but agonizing, sorrow. Ursula hastily took it from the Dominé’s clumsy deprecations.
“It is strange,” protested the Dominé, “that we weep most without a reason. When the reason comes we often forget to weep.”
This time the elder Otto’s eyes remained resolutely fixed on the snow-girt landscape.
“He was frightened,” explained the young mother, reproachfully, as she hushed her screaming charge.
“Frightened! Ah, just so!” The Dominé rose, a warm flush on his face.“That is the cause of most of our sorrow. Frightened! If men were less afraid of trouble, they would see how little there is of it. Good-bye, children, I am going back to Aunt Josine.” And the Dominé marched off, his armless sleeve swinging limp beside his elastic figure.
Otto turned round into the darkened room. It was true the whole atmosphere of the house had long been one of latent worry. He rested his hand silently on Ursula’s shoulder, and a great feeling of assuagement spread over both their hearts. The Baby’s shrieks were dying down into an exhausted gurgle. Both parents gazed deeply at the child.
“Ursula,” said the Baron, presently, “if you feel strong enough, I should like to have one or two people here for Christmas. I should like to invite the Van Helmonts who were so kind to me during my period of hard work at Bois-le-Duc. Theodore van Helmont and his mother. They are our only relations of the name. And I think they have been kept too much out of the family.”
“Are they really the only other Van Helmonts besides us?” questioned Ursula.
“Yes,” he answered, recoiling hastily, as she had done, from the proximity of his brother’s name; “but there is a brand-new Van Helmont now—the heir!” He placed a soft finger against little Otto’s bulgy cheek.
“True. How funny! Do you know, I had never thought of it.” She colored. “I never think,” she added, “of what is so far away as that.” She rose and kissed her husband, and held up the child to him.
“Otto,” she added, “supposing—if—if there had been no baby, and”—she stopped.
“The Horst would have been sold by auction,” he burst in, violently, “two months after my death. Do you think I have ever lost sight of that? All through this anxious year, Ursula, the thought has never let me rest.”
The words frightened her. Could anything have brought home more clearly the separation of their lives?
“Theodore van Helmont is a good fellow,” Otto went on,“hard-working and honest. I thoroughly respect him. I should like you to know him. But he isn’t much to look at.”
“Why have they never been here before? I don’t remember hearing of them till you went to Bois-le-Duc.”
“Well, as I tell you, young Theodore isn’t much to look at. And my father greatly objected to his cousin’s marriage at the time; he never would see him after.”
“Whom did he marry?” asked Ursula, looking down into the cradle and readjusting its coverlet. “I mean—what?”
“She was a farmer’s daughter from the other side of Drum. He picked her up when staying here, some thirty years ago. I remember it quite well. My father was furiously angry.”
“And he never forgave the son,” mused Ursula, with one finger in her little Otto’s clammy clasp. “Not even the son. I thought people always forgavethe son.”
“I assure you she is quite a nice, motherly person, and so unpretentious. That is what I like in her. It will be a pleasure to have her here, if only mamma consents to put up with her presence. Poor woman, she told me she had never even visited her own relations. I suppose she didn’t dare.”
“Her own relations,” repeated Ursula. “Isn’t that a difficulty?”
“I don’t see why, if people would only take things simply! She can go to them from here. No one believes more firmly than I do in true nobility, but it is not dependent on surroundings.”
She smiled up at him; “Ah, Otto, you say that on account of—me?”
But the suggestion annoyed him with the pain of its voluntary abasement. “The two cases have nothing in common,” he said, almost angrily. “If there is a possibility that you or any one else might draw absurd comparisons, I had better give up the idea at once.”
“No, no. I shall be glad to have them. Baby must learn to know and be good to all his relations.”
“Next year might do for that. But, Ursula, talking of Baby’s relations, we might ask your Uncle Mopius and his wife.”
“I consider Harriet has behaved disgracefully”—began Ursula.
“Just so; and your uncle enjoys the idea of our being angry about the money. That’s why I want to ask him,” he added, proudly.
“Then, Otto, if it is to be a family reunion, should we not”—her voice dropped to a whisper; she fingered a button of his waistcoat—“ask Gerard too?”
“Yes, we will ask Gerard,” he answered, hurriedly, annoyed that she should utter what he had been making up his mind to say. And then he left the room without another word.
Ursula smiled to herself, and immediately began to apostrophize the helpless infant: “And we will have a Christmas-tree, Baby,” she said, “and a lot of beautiful lights, Baby. And warm socks and shoes for the babies that haven’t got any, Baby. And you shall give blankets and coals to all the old women, Baby.”
But even this appalling prospect did not move little Otto. He lay staring steadily, and that constant frown, which his grandfather said he had been born with, wrinkled the raw beef-steak of his unfinished little face.
Meanwhile Otto had gone to tell his mother of the coming festivities. The old Baroness did not seem to pay much attention, immersed as she was in a sort of memoir which she had been recently concocting to the glorification of her departed lord.
“What did you say young Helmont’s name was?” she asked, suddenly, peering over her heavy gold eye-glasses.
“A family name, mamma—Theodore.”
“It is an insult,” said the Dowager, and her gaze once more fell on the page in front of her.
A fortnight later the various guests had all arrived; the Dominé greatly approved of their coming. “Let others less favored share your happiness,” he said to his daughter. The good Dominé, while constantly eloquent of the battles of life, rejoiced at the peace which he dreamed round about him. Yet he still had “Tante Josine.” The light of his life had flitted away to the Manor-house.
Nobody could see Theodore van Helmont and contest the accuracy of Otto’s statement that the young post-office clerkwasn’t much to look at. One thing showed very plainly, and that was his peasant blood. But he made no attempt to hide it; he had a quiet and unassuming manner, like his lumbersome mother, and would hardly have attracted attention but for his peach-like coloring, which made him almost an Albino. He was awkward in the unaccustomed vicinity of ladies, and spoke little, dropping away into the shade, unless somebody touched on his hobby. This no one ever did, except indirectly, for that hobby was “social science,” a number of “ologies” unconnected with life. His mother often wondered that so good a man could also be so clever; her own philosophy was of the simplest, all condensed into one unconscious rule: never to remember an injury, while never letting slip an opportunity of doing a kindness. Her only attitude towards the old Baroness van Helmont was one of respectful sympathy. Of Tante Louisa she felt afraid, for Tante Louisa had asked her, on the evening of her arrival, whether she believed in woman suffrage, and she had not known what “suffrage” was. The Freule Louisa, it need hardly be noted, believed in no suffrage at all. “If only we could stop the million asses’ braying,” she was wont to remark, “perhaps we should hear the lion’s voice at last.” This remark was not her own. She had got it out of theVictory.
The quiet clerk, dull, with comparative content, over a merciful volume of engravings, had pricked up his ears when he heard the Freule start “a sensible subject.” It was small talk that did for him, reducing his brain to chaos. “The principle of government by majority,” he said, “being once universally accepted, there appears to be no logical reason for leaving that majority incomplete.”
“Government by majority is a pleonasm,” said the Freule, tatting away. She meant “an anachronism,” whatever she may have meant by that. The young man hastily returned to his engravings.
“The majority is always wrong,” interposed the Dowager Baroness, very decidedly, “and, therefore, the larger it is the more wrong it must be.” She had remained in the drawing-room chiefly from disgusted curiosity, and now sat listless, her delicate face like a sea-shell among her heavy weeds.
“But, Mevrouw,” began Theodore again, from a sense of duty.
“Hush, it is certainly so, young man; besides, my husband always said it was. I am so sorry to see a Van Helmont a Radical.” Her face flushed impatiently, and, in the awkward silence, Ursula said it was a beautiful starlit night.
“The stars are so pleasant in winter-time, are they not?” remarked Theodore’s mother, whose fat hands lay foolishly in her substantial lap; but the Freule van Borck was not going to stand such sentiments as these.
“Oh yes,” she said, briskly; “Ursula always notices the weather. Some people do, and never talk of anything else. I wish you would tell me, Mynheer van Helmont—we were discussing the subject the other day—would you rather do wrong that right may ensue, or right for the sake of wrong?” The Freule was very fond of propounding these problems of the “Does-your-mother-like-cheese?” order. Some spinster ladies “affection” them just astheirspinster aunts used to proposeBouts Rimés.
“You must leave me a few moments to consider my answer,” replied Theodore, gravely.
This was quite a new experience for the Freule, and hugely delighted her.
“A very sensible young man,” she thought. “And you, Gerard?” she asked, turning to her nephew meanwhile.
Gerard had arrived at the Manor-house the day before; it was just about a year since he had last slept in the house, and his mother’s heart yearned over him.
“I should do what I liked best,” said Gerard, promptly, always pleased to exasperate his aunt.
“Gerard, you have no principle. What does your cousin conclude?”
“Right and wrong, as we refer to them, are such very vague terms, Freule,” responded the young clerk, thoughtfully. “But, supposing the words to be used in their absolute sense”—the Freule nodded—“I should do the immediate right.”
“Bravo,” said Otto’s deep voice from a distant sofa.“And now, Ursula, will you give us some music?”
“Oh yes, music,” assented Theodore’s mother. “I love music. The loveliest organ comes past our house on Fridays. I quite long for Fridays to come round.”
The last sentence was addressed to the Dowager, who smiled graciously, for she was watching Gerard.
“My daughter-in-law plays a very great deal,” said the Dowager.
But the evening was long. Every one hoped for diversion from the Mopiuses, who were expected on the morrow, and a general yawn of relief hung heavy round the bedroom candles.
“Theodore Helmont is straight right down to the bottom,” Otto said to his wife as soon as they were alone. “You see how earnest he is, and how wise. If ever you stand in need of a counsellor, Ursula, I hope you will turn to Theodore. He is one of the few men on whom I could fully rely.”
“You are my counsellor,” replied Ursula, wishing the words were more widely true.
THE SECOND MRS. MOPIUS
When the Baronial invitation reached Villa Blanda, Uncle Mopius immediately said “No.” He wanted so exceedingly to go that he revolted from himself, and then stuck to his assertion of independence. For, most of all, he wanted not to want to accept.
“We have no need of their patronage,” he said, pompously, over his morning paper. “Villa Blanda will cook its own modest Christmas dinner. Ha, ha! I have no notion of sitting down to a coroneted dish containing one skinny fowl.”
“What did you say?” asked Harriet, with an affectation of indifference. “Were you speaking to me?”
“My dear, I said we should not accept.”
Harriet, who had been trying to make up her mind, was glad of this timely assistance.
“And why not?” she questioned, sharply. “Of course we shall go. What excuse would you give?” She did not wait for his answer. “I don’t intend to have Ursula saying I’m afraid of her, or ashamed, because of the money and marrying you. No, indeed; we shall certainly go. Johan must hurry round to the dress-maker’s immediately.” She stroked her pretty morning-gown. Her dress-maker now was the one who had employed Mademoiselle Adeline.
“Dress-maker!” said Mopius, sharply. “Nonsense, Harriet; you have more dresses already than my first wife wore out in all her life.”
“I am going to have two new evening-frocks,” replied Harriet, ignoring the reference. “I have no good dinner things. They will have to sit up all night to get them ready.” She smiled pleasantly at her own importance.
“We’re not going,” said Mopius, settling his bull neck into his shiny collar.
She looked across at him quickly, and again she smiled.
“Yes, we are, because I want to,” she said, cruelly, without a shadow of playfulness. Mopius by this time had resolved that wild horses should not drag him to the Horst.
A simple Dutchwoman, however, is not a wild horse. Alas, she is more commonly a jade. Occasionally she is a mule.
Harriet sat down, watching her husband’s sullen face. Suddenly, from love of ease, she changed her tone.
“Did he want to stay at home with his own wifie?” she said, “like two turtles in a nest. Did he want to have a Christmas-tree all to themselves, and buy her a lot of lovely presents? That was good of him, and his wifie will give him a kiss for it.”
In the first months of their married life this tone had been fairly successful; it had obtained for her the numerous fineries of which Jacóbus’s soul now repented.
“Stop fooling, Harriet,” he now said, most unexpectedly. “I’m going to remain where I am because I hate dancing attendance on lords and beggarly great people. I’m a rich man, I am. And besides there’s a meeting of the Town Council on Tuesday.”
“Did you hear me suggest,” continued Harriet, sweetly, “that it was my intention to go?”
“Yes, hold your tongue and attend to your house-keeping. The beef was underdone yesterday. It never used to be in my dear departed’s time.”
“Jacóbus, that is your second allusion this morning to your dead wife. It marks a new departure, for till now you had wisely kept her in the background. But I must warn you, once for all, that I won’t stand it. Besides, it’s quite useless. Didn’t I know the poor fool? Wasn’t I present at her daily sacrifice? I am perfectly aware that she loved you in a different way from mine. She was like a faithful dog, poor creature, and you led her a dog’s life.”
A reproachful tear—not self-reproachful—stood in Mynheer Mopius’s yellow eye.
“Mine is a more natural affection. I love you in a reasonable, matrimonial way. Not only for your gray hairs”—Jacóbus winced—“but also for the comforts of our mutualentente. So we shall order two nice new dresses and depart on Tuesday morning.”
“Your aunt was a better woman than you, Harriet.”
“She was not my aunt; don’t call her so. Of course she was much better than I. Had she not been, you would have been a better man.”
“I don’t understand,” said Mynheer Mopius, helplessly, “but I am not going to the Horst.”
“Don’twant to see wheels go round,” quoted Harriet, whose course of novel-reading in all languages was very extensive, “but you will, though.”
She went over to her writing-table and carefully indited a little note. Jacóbus sat watching her nervously. She closed her envelope and got up without speaking.
“Written to Ursula?” asked her apprehensive lord.
“Oh dear, no; there’s time enough for that. It’s a note to Madame Javardy,” and she rang the bell. “Take this at once,” she said to the servant.
Mynheer Mopius rose on his spindle legs, protuberant and goggling.
“I am master of this house,” he began, “and I forbid—”
“Leave the room, Johan,” broke in Harriet, with suppressed vehemence; and, turning, as the man obeyed, “Jacóbus,” she said, “listen to me for one moment. That man knows you ill-treated your first wife. Everybody in the house knows it, but Drum society doesn’t, so you needn’t mind. Poor thing, she never told; but I shall, mind you, Mynheer the Town Councillor. If you ill-treat me, I shall cry out—cry out as far as—as Mevrouw Pock, for instance, and leave the rest to her!”
“Ill-treat you, Harriet!” spluttered Mynheer Mopius.
“Yes, ill-treat me. Do you know what they call Mevrouw Pock in Drum? ‘Sister Ann,’ because she’s always on the lookout for tidings. Mind they don’t call you ‘Bluebeard’ at the Club to-night.”
“They’ll say: What did you marry me for?” cried Jacóbus.
“Yes, they will—the women will; but the men will pity me, because I’m young and good looking, and you’re—old, Jacóbus. Oh, don’t bother,” she went on, hastily; “I’m sure I make you comfortable enough, and you can have everything you want. Only, I’m not going to put up with being teased out of pure whim, as you used to do. If you’ve a reason for stopping, I’ll stop, but as you’ve no reason, we go.”
She swept to the door.
“Harriet,” said Mopius, solemnly; “this is very wrong. You make scenes, Harriet; a thing I detest—”
She came back to him.
“Scenes,” she repeated. “No, indeed. This is merely a conversation. If we were to have a scene”—her dark eyes flashed—“I think I should beat you, and if we were to have a second, I—I should kill you. But we love each other; pray don’t let us have scenes.”
She left her consort to preen his ruffled feathers.
Said Harriet on the night of her arrival at the Manor-house:
“I want to speak to you for a moment, Ursula, where nobody can hear us. Come into my room.”
Ursula followed, wondering.
Harriet stood by her dressing-table in Madame Javardy’s wonderful white cashmere, all embroidery, with silken Edelweiss. She seemed uncertain how to begin.
“Ursula,” she said at last, “I suppose you were very angry with me, weren’t you, for marrying your Uncle Mopius?”
“I?” exclaimed Ursula, in amazement. “No, indeed; why should I—”
Then she reddened, suddenly understanding.
“Oh, of course, I remember,” continued Harriet,“you don’t care about money, and all that kind of thing. Still you married Baron van Helmont. Yes, I know; he’s not as old as Mopius. Don’t interrupt me. All I wanted to tell you was this: When I married, I looked to my marriage settlements. Your uncle has plenty of money, and I secured a handsome jointure, but, unless I should still have children, the bulk of his property goes to you and your heirs. I told him to make that arrangement and saw to his doing it.Idon’t want money for money’s sake, nor more than I’m entitled to. Good-night.”
“Good-night,” echoed Ursula, and drew hesitatingly nearer.
“Don’t,” said the bride, holding her aloof. “I’m all right, thanks. What a dear little boy you have! Good-night.”
THE BLOT ON THE SNOW
The brothers got on very well at first; they sat silent or talked about things which interested neither. They were as little as possible alone.
Gradually, however, Gerard’s persistent lightheartedness produced the opposite effect of a dead weight on the other man. His very laugh, so easy, so frequent, jarred on Otto’s hearing.
“Debt is theft,” thought Otto. “How can he find it in his heart to laugh with such debts as his?” And the Baron bent once more, with a resolute sigh, over his weary pile of accounts.
Gerard, meanwhile, was manfully making the best of his return to his old home. He rejoiced to be again among the familiar surroundings, and especially he rejoiced in his mother’s company. He spent long hours in her boudoir every morning, helping her with the Memoir, and, therefore, talking much about old times. It was a difficult diversion. He did his very best to laugh.
He also did his very best to make things pleasant with Otto. Towards Ursula he could not but feel differently; he avoided her as much as possible, and she, in her eagerness to conciliate, seemed almost to be laying herself out to please him. Their relations were strained, and everybody noticed it.
“And what do you say to the baby, Gerard?” demanded Aunt Louisa.
“Nothing, aunt. One has to say, ‘Tiddie, iddie, too-tums, then,’ to babies, or something of that kind, and I don’t feel equal to it. I never say anything to babies.”
“Ah, but this isthebaby,” retorted the old maid, annoyed.“However, I can understand your not caring much about him; he has definitely put your handsome nose out of joint.”
Gerard did not answer, in his sudden distress. And then, that none might harbor such horrible thoughts with any show of reason, he set himself to heroically admiring his little nephew, and the forlornness of his affectionate nature soon facilitated the task. Ursula was delighted at thisrapprochementon neutral ground. She initiated her brother-in-law into many shades of infant development where the careless observer would merely have seen a blank.
They were together by the cradle in the breakfast-room on the morning of Christmas Eve. There was to be a small dinner-party in the evening, the Christmas Tree for the villagers not taking place till the following day. The Van Trossarts were coming, and Helena Van Troyen with her husband. Helena had written to say that she must bring a German friend of Willie’s.
“He is beginning to take notice,” said Ursula, for the twentieth time. “Don’t you see how he opens and shuts his little fingers?”
“But he always did that,” objected Gerard.
“He did it without any reason,” exclaimed the young mother, sagely. “He does it nowwhen he knows there’s something near.”
Gerard laughed, Ursula laughed also; she was happy in the possession of her husband, of her little son, all the warmth of a woman’s home.
In another moment Gerard’s face had clouded over. “Ursula,” he said, with a violent effort, “there’s one thing Imustask you. I ought to have asked it a year ago. It’s wickedness letting these things rankle. Why did you make trouble between Helena and me?”
A flood of scarlet poured over her drooping face. She tried to speak, but, for only answer, fresh waves came sweeping up across the dusky damask of her cheeks. She sank down beside the cradle, hiding away from him.
“Can you not guess?” she whispered—into the baby clothes.
No; he could not guess. He had already sufficiently wronged Otto with regard to the Adeline business; all through the year he had striven to convince himself that Mademoiselle Papotiermust have been mistaken. Spoiled darling of many women as he undoubtedly was, he had not enough of the coxcomb in him honestly to believe that this woman had acted solely from pique. Nor could he have uttered that explanation, though it still hovered round him.
“Gerard, I knew,” said Ursula, so low that he had to bend over her half-hidden head. “Iknew. Oh, Gerard, if only you had married the other one.”
Then a long silence arose between them, for Gerard had understood. In the strange bluntness of our world-wide morality it had never entered into this honorable gentleman’s head that any one could deem Adeline’s claim on him an obstacle to his proper settlement. And now that strange “cussedness,” partly chivalric and modest, which always caused him to blow out the lights on his brighter side, checked the easy vindication that he had actually offered marriage to the foolish little dress-maker. He stood silent and ashamed. Ursula did not lift her face from the sheltering coverlet.
When at last he spoke it was to say: “In one thing I have long misjudged you, Ursula. I should like to confess that just now. I didn’t believe you about that stupid rendezvous. I have admitted to myself since then that you went, as you said, for another’s sake.” He understood that Ursula had somehow constituted herself Adeline’s protectress. “I want to confess that just now,” he repeated, contritely.
She did not thank him for telling her he no longer thought her a liar, and worse. “So you believe now,” she simply said, lifting her head at last. “You believe in my honest acceptance of Otto.” Then she rose from the floor, flushed and troubled, but with a proud curve of her neck.
“Ursula,” said the young officer, as much troubled as herself, “I thank God for the lesson you have taught me. I—if more women thought as you do, we men would be better than we are.” His young face was very solemn, he looked straight towards her. Unconsciously she laid one hand on the breast of her little sleeping child, and, with an upward flutter of her strong brave eyes, held out the other. He took it, hesitated, and then, stooping, touched it with his lips.
“SHE SANK DOWN BESIDE THE CRADLE, HIDING AWAY FROM HIM”
“SHE SANK DOWN BESIDE THE CRADLE, HIDING AWAY FROM HIM”
When he dropped it, there stood Otto, in the doorway, watching them.
He came forward into the room, pretending not to have seen.
“Well, Gerard,” he said, with forced geniality, “so here is the heir. Some day I hope this young man will sit in my seat and look after the dear old place better than I do.”
Gerard resented the palpable aim of the words.
“Who knows?” he replied, lightly. “He may never have money to keep it up. If he has brothers and sisters, the estate goes to pieces anyhow. What’s the use of your struggling and wasting your life for an idea? Why not sell a couple of farms and have done?”
“That’s what you would do,” said Otto, grimly; “sell the whole thing.”
“Yes, I should, if I really wanted the money.”
“I know you would,” shouted Otto, breaking loose, glad of the pretext. “I know you would, you spendthrift! Spendthrift and profligate, you would do anything—for pleasure.”
His eye flashed from one to the other, and Ursula read the flash.
She remained standing quite still, her hand on the baby’s coverlet. Gerard shrugged his shoulders. “My dear fellow, don’t be so angry. I shall sell nothing,” he said, and walked into the adjoining room. Otto, already ashamed of himself, went out by the passage-door.
The baby was fast asleep, breathing heavily. Ursula remained standing still.
The room was very silent. Presently a quick spasm of trembling shook her, and with a frightened glance to right and left, she hurried away down the vestibule, out into the wintry morning.
She ran swiftly along the avenue and turned into the high road, taking the longest route to the village because it had lain straight in front of her. The gaunt ice-rimmed trees in the pallid air swam round about her through a mist of her own creating; the desolate plain, stretching white and cold, seemedto mock her with its snow-bound loneliness. She shuddered as she ran.
Near the turnpike she stopped. She would meet a human being there, the turnpike man. He would touch his cap. Not that. She shrank back.
And in the pause she asked herself where she was going. To her father, of course, home to her father’s consistent love—the one thing in this world she could forever rely on. Home, to the old home, to weep out her agony upon one faithful breast.
And even as she pictured to herself for a moment what she would do when she reached the comfort of that embrace, she felt that she could not do it. There are valleys of the shadow through which a true-hearted woman must take her way alone.
She stood, a black speck in the surrounding bleakness. The turnpike man, peeping through his little window by his cosey stove, wondered lazily why she did not come on.
At last she turned, and, slowly retracing her steps, branched off into the park. Her one aspiration now was to get away from all possible contact with sympathy. She went stumbling, as fast as she could, over the uneven, snow-laden ground, deeper, only deeper into the silence of the wood. Her foot caught in invisible roots, she hurt herself without perceiving it. Her eyes were dry and hard, despite the cloud behind them.
Gasping for breath, she sank down in the snow and leaned up against a tree. All around and beyond her was the absolute desertion she had longed for, stretching away in an unending sameness of confused black pillars, whose naked tracery bore the pellucid vault of heaven. The dull glitter, all-pervading, lighted up her forest “sanctuary”; not a sound was heard, except when, once, a snapped twig came rustling to the ground.
Her husband had doubted her honor. Even supposing he had done so for the moment only, during the briefest flash of thought. What did that matter? He had doubted her. Other words and acts now came falling into their places, deepening an impression never before perceived. She brushedthem away indignantly; she wanted none of these. It was enough.
She could never go back to him. How could she see him? How speak to him? How could daily contact be possible between a husband and the wife whom, for one instant only, his thought had sullied? He who thinks thus once may at any hour pollute his thoughts anew. Priest and priestess cannot kneel again in the temple one of them has desecrated; no repentance, no forgiveness can wipe away the stain across the marble god. She hung staring in front of her, and the soaking snow crept upwards on her dress.
She had no wish to do anything tragic, to make any scene or scandal. Only she felt that shecouldnot go back to her husband’s welcoming smile. It was not the insult to herself, although that drenched her cheek with purple; it was the new horror that had arisen between them as if a toad were seated in his heart. Gerard’s wickedness of loose living was not as bad as this. Oh, men were horrible, horrible!
Something moved on the white ground in front of her, so close that she could not but notice it. A red-breast, half frozen, hopped near in a flutter of perky contemplation, wondering, perhaps, if she was alive. She pitied the poor little forsaken creature, and felt in her pocket, with a sudden movement that scared him, for some morsel of bread which she knew could not possibly be there.
And as she sat, hopelessly waiting, she could not tell for what, the distant boom of the village clock came faintly trembling towards her in one long stroke, the half-hour.
Half-past—what? Previous warnings must have reached her unheard. She looked at her watch. Half-past twelve. And at noon little Otto would have cried out for her, dependent upon his mother for the very flow of his life.
She started to her feet, and commenced running as best she could among the trees. Constantly she stumbled in her haste; once she fell prone into a yielding snowdrift. She hurried on breathlessly—a clearing showed her the house; she rejoiced to see it. How long the time still seemed till she had reached the step! In the hall her husband crossed her path. She shrankaside: the wailing of the child, above the nurse’s vain attempts at hushing, already fell upon her ear.
Otto remarked with astonishment the condition she was in, but he said nothing. Gerard’s voice could be heard in the distance, amid the clash of billiard balls. He was teaching Harriet to play.
“Go,” said Ursula, roughly, to the nurse. She flung to the door of the nursery, and, violently, locked it. Then she took the screaming child to her breast. Her teeth were firm set; her whole face was hard and rigid, but her eyes were very tender.
Half an hour later she went down to lunch. Her guests were talking and laughing. Otto came forward immediately to speak about the afternoon’s arrangements. The Van Trossarts must be fetched from the station. The Dowager beckoned her aside.
“My dear,” said the Dowager, “the butcher has forgotten the cutlets.”
CHRISTMAS EVE
That evening every one was to help Ursula in the arrangement of her Christmas entertainment; but, as usual, a couple of willing spirits did the work, and the rest lounged about and talked. A big tree had to be decorated, and plenty of useful presents were awaiting assortment and assignment. This Christmas benefaction had been a long source of tranquil enjoyment to the young wife through the expectant autumn weeks; she had made many of the presents herself in the pauses from daintier work. She still endeavored to-night to take an interest in it all.
Helena Van Troyen was among the lookers-on. She frankly confessed that she had come to enjoy herself, and as an immediate step towards the attainment of her object, she drew the gentlemen away from the tree and around her. To her husband she said:
“Youmay help,” and Willie walked away laughing. But the poor relations were Ursula’s real adjuvants, delighted to be useful while finding some occupation for their hands. The son stood on a ladder half the evening, the mother’s dumpy fingers fashioned innumerable little gold-paper chains. Willie started a conversation with Harriet Mopius, and was getting on very well till he unfortunately asked where she lived.
“Why, in Drum!” said Harriet, whereupon Willie felt annoyed.
“Yes, Gerard is my cousin,” cried Helena; “I am delighted to see him again! He is an old admirer of mine, an accepted lover before you were born, Herr Graf!”
She was all a-sparkle in palest pink and diamonds and herown pearly vivacity. The German beside her bowed solemnly. He was a very big German, five foot eleven by two, padded at the shoulders and pinched everywhere else so as to look twice his original size, like an enormous capital T. Mevrouw van Troyen called him hercavaliere serviente, and had naturally brought him to the Horst, with her maid, her King Charles, and her husband.
“You think me a child, Meine Gnädigste,” said the German. “Well, so be it. Cupid was ever a child, yet Venus played with him.”
“What nonsense,” laughed Helena; “but you Germans are all so sentimental; to us it is delightful, by way of change. My cousin is not sentimental; he is charmingly opaque. Come here, Gerard, at once; I want you to make friends with Count Frechenfels.”
There was an attempted challenge in her words and manner, as if she called upon her quondam lover to determine how completely the old wound was healed.
But Gerard had no intention of making friends with his belated rival. He disliked the man; he would have disliked him in any case, for, generally speaking, every Dutchman hates every German. The feeling is inborn, and very deeply regrettable, but it has little to do with the more recent annexation scare. Even the most ignorant Hollander must be aware that the near oppressors of his country have ever been, not Germans, but French. Racial discrepancies are at the bottom of the antipathy, accentuated by the irritating manner in which the overgrown young Teuton now often pats his dwarf of an elder brother on the head. The Count had been distributing pats all during dinner.
Gerard found it very hard work to be happy at the Horst. Even his mother had turned against him, worrying him about a subject he conscientiously avoided—his debts. And now Helena began bothering him with a sequel to Finis. He felt Ursula’s eyes upon him, as he had felt them all day; they were full of a dumb appeal, he could not tell for what. The eyes did not answer his question.
Their hunted look grew all the more alarmed if he approached.Did she already want him to leave the house? And if so, why? His thoughts of Ursula were growing more kindly, more like the old feeling of careless approval. That morning had revealed her to him in quite a new, and very beautiful, light.
“Count Frechenfels is most interesting, Gerard,” said Helena. “He was in the Franco-German war, and he has been wounded—everywhere! There was room. My cousin also is a soldier—Herr Graf.”
“Ah!” said the Count, through his eye-glass. “Is it you that the Baron was telling me of, who had served with the army of Africa?”
Gerard looked uncomfortable.
“But no, my dear Count,” said Helena, laughing; “that was my cousin Ursula’s father! Gerard has never killed anything but ladies.”
“Ah!” said the German again, in a different tone, and dropped the eye-glass. “La campagne des dames. Well, it is that in which the worst wounds are received.”
“My cousin does not think so,” murmured Helena, cruel in her coquetry. Gerard’s eyes blazed with a quick flash of resentment. His sister-in-law had drawn near, from a helpless feeling that she must amuse her guests.
“Ah, yours is a splendid army,” continued Helena, provokingly. “I don’t think I should care to be an officer unless I could be a Prussian. Victorious, irresistible, bronzed, scarred, the cross on your breast—that’s a soldier! What’s the use of a sword that you never can draw?”
“Come, come, you are too hard on your cousin,” said Count Frechenfels, with patronizing complacency. “After all, he cannot help himself. We Germans, also, we do not kill men in times of peace.”
“At least not officers!” exclaimed Gerard, breaking loose.
The big Prussian replaced his eye-glass, with silently insolent interrogation.
“You know as well as I, Herr Graf,” continued the young Dutchman, hotly, maddened by the other’s contempt,“how many privates commit suicide in German barracks, driven to despair by ill-treatment and blows. This year’s official statement”—he turned first to Ursula, then to Helena—“gives the number at nearly three thousand. Half the truth, as Von Grietz assured me, not counting those who are killed outright.”
“That is not true,” said the Count, coldly.
“What?”
“Your authorities are wrong. It is what the Liberals and Socialists say, and that kind of people. And, supposing itweretrue! Meine Gnädigste, I had not expected to find a Radical among your friends.”
“You are quarrelling,” replied Helena, brusquely. “That is very stupid, and very bad form. Of course you Prussians are brutal, Count; we all know that, but it is what we like in you—at least, we women. In our effete civilizationyou are deliciously fresh.”
“All I ask is to please,” said the Count, with an unpleasant grin. “I will appear in a wolf’s skin, at your command.”
“Hush, you will make Gerard jealous! But imagine, Ursula, in the West of Europe, an officer daring to flog his recalcitrant men! It only bears out what I was maintaining. These are warriors: what say you?”
“The Frau Baronin’s opinion has weight,” smirked the German, bowing low. “She is the daughter of a hero,” and, perhaps unconsciously; his half-closed eyes stole round to Gerard.
“I suppose if a man is a soldier, he ought to enjoy fighting,” admitted Ursula, coming forward. “It seems a strange occupation for a Christian, but my father doesn’t agree to that. You know, Gerard, he always declares if he had two arms he would be off to Acheen.”
“Ah, Acheen!” cried Helena. “Just so; that’s where you ought to be, Gerard! and every Dutch officer! That’s what I can never understand. The whole lot of you dawdle about here in cafés and ball-rooms, and the flag over yonder sustains defeat after defeat.”
“Tell Willie to go,” retorted Gerard.
“So I do. And he asks, ‘What! go and get killed?’ And I say, ‘Exactly.’”
“Meanwhile, it is we who are doing our best to defend your flag,” interposed Count Frechenfels. “Your colonial army consists very largely of Germans.”
“Then why do you not defend it better?” said Gerard.
The Count shrugged his shoulders. “What will you have? It is not our own.”
Gerard turned mutely to Ursula. Her eyes were flashing. “There are brave Dutchmen enough over yonder, Herr Graf!” she exclaimed, “and brave Dutchmen enough here at home, willing and eager to go! All cannot exchange into Indian regiments. Helena, why do you speak so of our soldiers? There is not a nation in Europe has been braver than ours!”
“Ah, bah!” said Helena. “Then why doesn’t Gerard go? You yourself said your father would, and he is a clergyman!”
Ursula looked at Gerard. Again that strange alarm came into her eyes, which still shone with indignation.
“I shall not go for your ordering, Helena,” answered Gerard, in a burst of almost ill-mannered spite. “Honestly, I attach more importance to Ursula’s opinion.”
Helena laughed.
“Quite right,” she said. “So do I. Only, unfortunately, Ursula agrees with me. Ursula, you shouldn’t be afraid to say what you think.”
“I?” asked Ursula, proudly. “Yes, I agree with you in one point. I am my father’s child. I think every Dutch soldier who can”—she looked steadily away from Gerard—“should help to blot out the disgrace in Acheen.”
They were standing in a circle; the German twirled his mustache.
“When I go,” said Gerard, softly, “you will have to be very good to the one loving heart I leave behind.” And he turned on his heel.
“Ursula,” exclaimed Helena,“your evening is decidedly dull. Your relations from Bois-le-Duc are estimable people, but your evening is dull. I think I shall go and help the estimable young man on the ladder. Make him takemefor the top device of his tree, Herr Graf. Challenge him if he says I am not enough of an angel!”
But other challenges had to be seen to first. Gerard waylaid his antagonist ten minutes later.
“Count Frechenfels,” he said, “you have twice called me a coward in the course of this evening.”
The Prussian drew himself up.
“And once a liar,” continued Gerard.
“I said nothing of the kind,” began the Count.
“And twice a liar,” amended Gerard. “And I hope you will give me an opportunity of proving that I am neither.”
“I am at your service,” said the Count, stiffly. “You are quite unintelligible to me, but I am fully at your service. I shall ask Mynheer van Troyen to act for me.”
He was passing on with another bow.
“Oh, no nonsense about seconds,” cried Gerard. “That’ll stop the whole business. I’ll arrange with you whatever you want arranged.”
The Prussian noble’s eyebrows rose in undisguised dismay.
“Mynheer,” he cried, “must I teach you the alphabet of honor? A duel without seconds? Am I speaking to an officer and a gentleman? It would be murder. Of course I refuse.”
Gerard barred his way, white to the lips.
“Count Frechenfels,” he said, gently, “allowmeto callyoua coward.”
The Prussian stopped, suddenly frozen into bronze. The Iron Cross gleamed, alive, on his breast.
“What do you want of me?” he asked, huskily. “I will shoot you with pleasure whenever and wherever you like.”
“Come out to-morrow morning at seven,” replied Gerard. “It won’t be light sooner. I shall expect you outside. What will you have? Pistols? Swords? Rapiers?”
“Swords,” said the German, walking off.
He hurriedly hunted up Willie van Troyen.
“Your younger cousin,” he said, “he is—peculiar, is he not? There is a suspicion of mental derangement?”
Willie roared with laughter.
“Gerard?” he cried.“No, indeed! Why he very nearly married my wife.”
“A—ah!” said the German, suddenly thoughtful.
Gerard went up-stairs immediately, after a specially tender good-night to “the one loving heart” that would care. He threw open his window, and stood looking out into the frosty night. The Christmas bells came pealing through the stillness. True, it was Christmas Eve.
The bells were ringing their message of peace and good-will. Gerard closed the window again. He had never fought a duel before. He had never been present at one. Duels are as rare in the Netherlands as in England. He wondered how many “encounters” the German had had.
He sat down to make a few farewell arrangements, as is best in such cases. He wrote a long letter to his mother and a short one to Otto. That was all. What did it matter? Even supposing—
He was furious with the weight of his dejection. He hoped that he would kill the Prussian.
At her dressing-room window also, late, stood Ursula, listening to the bells. They had long since ceased to ring, yet still she heard them on the starlit air. “Peace and good-will. Peace and good-will.”
Through the open door came the slow rhythm of Otto’s breathing. She quailed as it fell on her ear. Nothing could change.
“Glory to God in the Highest,” she said, tremulously. And she passed into the other room.
“WHOSOEVER SHALL SMITE THEE—”
Before the house next morning, in the dull gray dawn, the two antagonists met. It was bitterly cold and misty, with that wet frost, all shadow and shiver, that precedes the late wintry sun. Gerard drew his cloak around him as he saluted the Count. Under his arm he held a long green baize bag.
“You still wish it to be swords?” he asked.
Count Frechenfels waved his hand in haughty acknowledgment.
“Permit me to precede you,” said Gerard, gravely.
They walked away into the park with quick, ringing steps. Only once Gerard broke the silence. “Excuse me,” he began, looking round, “but I think we had better go some distance. The clash, you know.” The German repeated his gesture.
In silence, then, they reached the little clearing which Gerard had selected. Here he paused. As it happened, the place was the same where Ursula had fought her battle the day before. It was a natural halting-place for those who wandered in the wood.
The robin lay stiff and stark with upturned legs. Gerard kicked it aside.
Count Frechenfels looked to right and left. “Your doctor?” he said at last. “Where is your doctor? At least you have arranged for a medical man?”
“No, indeed; he would have warned the police,” replied Gerard. “What do we want a doctor for?”
The German hesitated. “But it is murder,” he said, half to himself.“No one does such things. Supposing one of us is badly wounded. Mynheer van Helmont, you know that not one man in ten would consent to meet you like this?”
“I don’t care about the other nine,” replied Gerard, inconsequentially. He threw down his bag. “Count Frechenfels,” he said, “you insulted the Dutch army in my person last night. There is nothing more to be said.”
The Count began to get ready. “So be it,” he answered. He took up one of the swords. “It is the Dutch army we fight on,” he said, significantly. “However this mad affair ends, that is clearly understood?”
“Of course,” replied Gerard, with some slight wonderment.
“Very well. I am ready, Mynheer. This is not a duel, but a fight!”
In another moment they were clashing at each other amid the surrounding stillness, their swords ringing in the constant concussion of the parry. The morning as yet was almost too dark for their object, especially here, under the white-rimmed trees; but as the metal shone and flashed in the haze, high over the combatants’ heads the intensity of the moment’s expectation seemed to clear away the mist. A sword duel, even when well ordered, is always disconcerting because of the noise; in this case, as the German had remarked, the combat, when it deepened, without umpire or timekeeper, was not a duel but a fight.
“I shall kill him,” thought Gerard, but at the same moment he felt that this would not be an easy thing to accomplish. It required the utmost vigilance on his part to ward off his enemy’s blows; he found but little opportunity for independent attack; he began uncomfortably to realize that the Count was the better swordsman. Also the Count was the taller of the two—a very great advantage. Gerard set his teeth hard in the continuous crash of the other’s onslaught. The whole wood seemed listening, holding its already bated breath.
Suddenly—in a flash of lightning, quicker than thought—the young Dutchman realized that his guard was gone, that his opponent’s sword was upon him, bearing straight down upon his unprotected head, with the certainty of terrible wounding, the possibility of death! With unthinkable swiftness he understood it and even found time—in that hundredth of a second—to await the inevitable end. In that hundredth of a second,also, he saw his antagonist swerve aside under the very force of sweeping downwards, swerve with a sudden slip of his footing, just enough to cause the aim to diverge, while exposing himself in his turn. In that hundredth of a second Gerard knew, as it passed, that he had the German in his power, that he, not the German, was become, by a twist of the wheel, the irresistible victor, that his sword, once more curling aloft, could descend where he chose. And hedidchoose—still in that immeasurable atom of existence—and struck his foeman, not through the skull, but, with a quick revulsion from murder, in a hideous long gash across the cheek.
It was over. The Count reeled and recovered himself as Gerard ran forward to support him. Then, his long passion grown suddenly cool, with his profusely bleeding victim beside him, Gerard felt there was nothing left but to avow himself tardily “an idiot.” He looked round desperately for the indispensable assistance he had previously scouted. He would have called out, but what was the use of calling? Even as he told himself that it would be utterly useless, he became aware that his sylvan solitude was not deserted. The figure of a woman, making towards him, became visible through the trees.
He recognized her with immense relief—only Hephzibah, his Aunt Louisa’s maid. Angular in every fold of her dark stuff gown and shawl, that cross-grained female approached the little group in the clearing.
“Help the gentleman to sit down, Jonker,” she said, without looking at Gerard. And she began deftly arranging a bandage with two spotless pocket-handkerchiefs which she produced from inner recesses. They were her Sunday handkerchiefs (ready for the morning’s devotional exercises). No cry of anguish broke from her as she calmly tore them into strips.
Count Frechenfels watched her skill with evident satisfaction. After all, why should he let himself be comfortably killed in contradiction to all the correct rules of carving? He was contented with himself: he had behaved with great magnanimity, like the “grand seigneur” he was.
“I will go fetch a carriage from the stables,” said Gerard.
The woman nodded, engrossed in her work; when she hadfinished, she stood waiting, erect by the wounded man, like a soldier on guard.
It seemed a long time before Gerard returned with the brougham which he had got ready unaided. As Hephzibah established the Count in the carriage, the Jonker turned for one last look at the scene of the combat, wondering whether he could account for that sudden slip of his adversary’s to which he felt that he owed his life. Something black in the hard snow caught his eye. He stooped quickly and took up a woman’s dark glove, half imbedded and trodden down. The Count’s foot must have slid on the soft kid. Gerard thrust the glove into his pocket. One of Hephzibah’s squint eyes, at any rate, was fixed on the Count.
A few minutes later the little brougham stopped before the doctor’s house in the village street. The village street was empty, blinded, and asleep, yet Gerard, on the box, as he sat amid the jingle of the harness, felt that the dead walls were Argus-eyed, and that his secret was become the world’s.
“Good gracious!” squeaked the doctor from his window, in a red nightcap. “Good gracious, Jonker, what has occurred?”
“Nothing of importance,” replied the Jonker’s loudest tones. “Come down, and I’ll tell you.”
Curiosity accelerated Dr. Lapperpap’s enrobing. Soon he was examining the patient by the light of hastily raised blinds.
“And how did this happen?” asked Dr. Lapperpap.
“I did it,” replied Gerard, promptly. “Sword exercise.”
The doctor cast a quick glance from his twinkly black eyes. “H’m,” he said; “an accident.Of course.”
His tone rendered further discussion superfluous. It was arranged that, for the present, the Prussian should remain where he was. Gerard drove Hephzibah back to the Manor House; the good woman despised all pomps and vanities, yet she was by no means insensible to the honors of her position. The Count had presented her with one florin.
Near the avenue she applied the carriage-whistle.
“I will get out here, Jonker, please,” she cried; and then, standing in the early snow: “On Christmas morning!” she said, while her whole figure grew heavy with reproach.
“Hephzibah, however did you come to be out in the wood?” asked the Jonker, hastily.
“In their affliction they shall seek me early,” replied Hephzibah.
The quotation was inappropriate, for her omnifulgent eyes had watched the gentlemen leave the house, but the sacredness of the words staggered Gerard. He held out a gold piece.
“No, Jonker,” said the waiting-woman. “Not from you. Not for this. It would be blood-money.” And she marched away, gaunt and grim, down the lines of grim, gaunt elms.
As Gerard came up from the stables to the house he caught sight of Ursula walking on the carriage sweep. For one moment a great impulse came over him to go and ask her why she, as well as Helena, seemed so anxious to have him out of the way. He could understand Helena’s feelings—or, at any rate, he thought he could. Well, he had spoiled the German’s fine countenance for the remainder of his stay. Count Frechenfels would carry away with him a memento of his visit to the Lowlands.
But what would be the use of worrying Ursula? Gerard hated to make a woman uncomfortable. He had done it already, yesterday—after a full year’s hesitation. And she had taught him a lesson he would never forget. How greatly he had wronged this purest among women! Generous natures always own an immense debt of gratitude to those they have wronged.
“Gerard,” cried Ursula, “I have dropped a glove. I feel sure I came out with a pair.” She held up one for him to see. Gerard had a disastrous weakness for blurting out the very thing he wanted to keep back.
“Not unless you have been in the wood already,” he said, producing the missing article, which Ursula, of course, had dropped, not now, but the day before. Then he put it back. “I want you to let me keep this,” he added.
Her eyes grew troubled. “Oh, no—no,” she protested. “Give it back to me at once!”
“But it can have no real value for you. Whereas, for me”—his voice trembled with the memory of his terrible escape—“let me keep it,” he said.