MUSIC HATH CHARMS.
Just as Mr. Meidema was leaving the Residence in his brougham, another
carriage drove up and Mr. van Nerekool walked up the steps which gave
access to the gallery in which the company was assembled.
It may have struck the reader as somewhat strange that so young, so
well-educated and so refined a girl as Anna van Gulpendam assuredly
was, should have ventured to write to the young lawyer, and strange
also that the latter should so speedily have answered her summons in
person. But, in the first place, it is well to remember that, when she
wrote that letter Anna, completely carried away by the sore distress
of Dalima, and, in the kindness of her heart, most anxious to do what
she could for her favourite servant, acted purely upon impulse; and
had not stopped to consider that perhaps her action might be looked
upon as somewhat forward and indelicate. Further it must be said,
that although never a word of love had passed between them, yet they
were united in the very strongest bond of sympathy--such sympathy as
always will draw together true and noble natures whenever they happen
to meet. As they were themselves perfectly honest and guileless; no
paltry suspicions could possibly arise on either side. That this strong
bond of sympathy did exist between Anna van Gulpendam and young Mr. van
Nerekool, cannot be denied; but for the present at least, there was no
more than this. Whether or not that bond would ever be drawn closer and
give place to more intimate and tender relations the sequel will show.
"Good evening, madam," said van Nerekool as he made his bow to the
hostess, "I hope I have the pleasure of finding you well."
"There's that fool again! What has that booby come on board for I
wonder?" grumbled van Gulpendam, while fair Laurentia answered the
young man's greeting as amiably as possible.
"Well, Mr. van Nerekool, this is indeed kind of you," said she. "We
are glad to see you! You do not wear out your welcome. We only too
seldom have the pleasure of seeing you!"
"Very good indeed of you to say so, Mrs. van Gulpendam; but, you
know, I don't much care for cards and, in the presence of such an
adept as you are, I cannot help feeling myself, to say the least,
somewhat of a fâcheux troisième." As he was speaking his eye at a
glance took in the whole company but failed to light on her whom it
sought. So turning to the gentlemen he said: "Well, Resident, I need
not enquire after you, nor after your health, colonel, nor yours,
my dear doctor; anyone can see there is not much the matter with
you. How are the cards serving you this evening? I hope you are in
luck," continued he to the secretary seated at the other table.
"Not over well," muttered van Nes. "I was getting on pretty fairly
just at first but--"
"Ah, Mr. van Nerekool," cried Mrs. van Gulpendam in the best of
spirits; "you should have come a few minutes earlier, you should have
seen my last hand. Why I held--"
"Will Mr. van Nerekool take tea or coffee?" said a silvery voice
interrupting the threatened explanation.
The young man turned at once. "Good evening, Miss Anna," said he
most heartily. "How are you? But I need not ask, you look like a
fresh-blown Devonshire rose, so charming, so--"
"Will you take tea or coffee?" said Anna, demurely, with an arch
smile at the young man's compliments.
"Did you make the coffee yourself, Miss Anna?"
"Oh, no," replied the still smiling girl, "our cook always makes it."
"And the tea?" asked van Nerekool also with a smile.
"Yes, that is my department, Mr. van Nerekool."
"I will take a cup of tea if you please."
"Our cook makes most excellent coffee, I assure you," cried Mrs. van
Gulpendam.
"I don't doubt it," replied the young man, with a slight bow. "I do
not for a moment question her talent, madam; but, if you will allow
me, I prefer a cup of tea. It reminds one of home, you know. If you
please, Miss Anna, may I ask you for a cup of tea?"
"On one condition," said the young girl, playfully.
"It is granted at once," replied the young man. "Now, what is it?"
"That you will presently accompany me in 'Fleurs d'oranger.' You know
Ludovic's charming duet, do you not?"
Van Nerekool made a wry face and slightly raised his hands in a
deprecating manner.
"Oh," continued the young girl, laughing. "You may look as solemn as
a judge on the bench; but I won't let you off. The 'Fleurs d'oranger'
or no tea--there you have my ultimatum. My ultimatum, that is what they
call the last word before a declaration of war, don't they, colonel?"
"Quite right, Miss Anna," said the old soldier, who, wholly engrossed
in his cards, had heard nothing but the last words of the question.
"An ultimatum," cried van Nerekool, "a declaration of war? Who would be
so mad as to declare war against you? No, no; sooner than be suspected
of that I would play 'Fleurs d'oranger' the whole evening!"
"There you go to the other extreme," laughed Anna, "that is always the
way with you lawyers, at least papa says so; you are always finding
paragons of perfection or else monsters of iniquity."
"No, no, we are not so bad as all that, Miss Anna!" said van
Nerekool. "But will you allow me for a few moments to watch your
mother's play and take a lesson from her?"
"Do so, by all means," said Anna, "meanwhile I must go and pour out
the tea and see to the other refreshments, and when I have done I
mean to play a sonata of Beethoven."
"Beethoven!" cried van Nerekool, "most delightful, Miss Anna, do let
me beg of you to give us the second sonata in D dur Op. 36."
"What tyrants you gentlemen are," replied the young girl. "Very
well, you shall have your sonata, but, after that, remember, 'Fleurs
d'oranger.' Now go and take your lesson."
The young lawyer went and took a seat behind Mrs. van Gulpendam's
chair, and, although he did not pretend to any great knowledge of
cards, yet he could not help admiring that lady's fine and close play,
while Anna did the honours of the tea-table, and was busily tripping
about to see that the servants did not neglect their duties, and that
the guests were properly attended to.
As he was seated there behind fair Laurentia, and was attentively
studying her cards, the glow of light which numerous splendid
chandeliers shed over the entire gallery, finely brought out his
clearly cut profile.
Charles van Nerekool was a man of five or six and twenty years
of age. After he had most honourably completed his studies at the
university of Leyden, he had been appointed junior member of the
Court of Justice at Santjoemeh when, a few months back, he had arrived
from Holland.
He was a tall, fair-haired man, scrupulously neat in his attire, and
most careful of his personal appearance. His fine, sharply chiselled
features had not yet lost their European freshness and bloom, and
were well set off by a thick curly beard and moustache, some shades
lighter than his hair. His winning manners, which were those of a
courteous and highly-bred gentleman, perfectly harmonized with his
handsome countenance, and he was universally esteemed an accomplished
and most agreeable companion. But, though society had justly formed a
high opinion of him, there was one point in his character which would
not allow him ever to become a popular man. He was a lawyer in the
truest and noblest sense of the word. A man who, deeply versed in
the law, yet would tolerate nothing that was not strictly just and
upright. Quibbling and casuistry had no attractions for him; he was,
in fact, honest as gold and true as a diamond.
Hence his manner of speech was always frank and
straightforward--oftentimes he was too plain spoken, for he would
not and could not condescend to wrap up his real sentiments in fine
words or ambiguous phrases. Anyone therefore, who has the slightest
knowledge of the present state of society, may readily understand
why the number of his real friends was but small. A strict sense of
justice, a noble frankness of expression, and an intense love of truth,
for truth's sake, are, unfortunately, not the qualities which serve
to push a man forward most quickly in the official world--at least
not in the official world of India. Van Gulpendam, especially--though
he could not close his doors to a man in van Nerekool's position,
heartily detested him, and had repeatedly expressed his dislike to
the old judge who presided over the Council at Santjoemeh.
"Ah well!" this latter had, on one occasion, said to him, "you
are rather too hard upon our young colleague. Remember this Mr. van
Nerekool is but a newly fledged chicken. You will see when he has been
here a year or two he will turn out a very useful fellow indeed. Why,
every one of us had, at his age, just those fine idealistic views of
life which he now holds."
This answer made our worthy friend, van Gulpendam, look rather
queer. His conscience, at any rate, did not accuse him of fine
principles and idealistic views,--not such views, at least, as those
for which he found fault with van Nerekool.
The young man was still seated behind Laurentia's chair, attentively
keeping his eye on her cards.
"I cannot say," said the lady with a forced smile, "that you improve
my luck. Since you have been sitting there I have scarcely picked up
a card worth looking at. I wish you would go and have a look at the
Resident's hand.--"
"Thank you," cried her husband, "much obliged, you want to give me
a spell of bad fortune."
There are no more superstitious people in the world than your veteran
card-players.
At Mrs. van Gulpendam's not very reasonable or very courteous remark,
van Nerekool had of course risen, and the Resident's exclamation made
him feel rather awkward; he did not, in fact, very well know what to
do, when the young lady of the house came to the rescue.
"Now Mr. van Nerekool," said she, "my 'Fleurs d'oranger!' what has
become of them? It is time to begin, I think."
"And my sonata in D dur," replied the young man, "what has become of
it? I have not heard a single note of it yet."
"True," she said, "I had quite forgotten it; come and turn over the
music for me."
"Yes, that's right," said fair Laurentia, "you go and turn over the
music," and for an instant she looked at the young people as they
retired together and then fixed her eyes once again upon her cards.
"Now, you see," continued she, "what did I tell you, no sooner has
he turned his back than I get quite different cards!"
"Oh," muttered van Gulpendam from his table, "I can't bear to have
a fellow prying into my hand. If he does not wish to play what does
the booby want to come here for at all, I wonder?"
"H'm," said the old colonel, "perhaps he is anxious to learn."
"To learn," contemptuously echoed van Gulpendam, "he will never be
any good at cards, he is not practical enough for that!"
"I quite agree with you, Resident," said the judge somewhat drily,
"a man who is not of a practical turn of mind will never make much
of a hand at cards."
"No, nor at anything else either," grumbled van Gulpendam; "come,
let us go on with the game. It is my lead. Hearts, I say."
The two young people had entered the inner gallery and were no sooner
out of sight of the company, before van Nerekool began:
"I have received your note, Miss Anna, and, as you see, I have hastened
to obey your summons."
"For goodness sake speak lower," whispered she. And then in her usual
tone of voice she continued: "Just help me, please, to find the music."
Whilst they were engaged in taking the pieces one by one out of a
curiously carved étagère which stood by the piano and examining them,
the young girl said in a whisper: "Yesterday our baboe Dalima was
forcibly carried away out of the garden--Hush! do not interrupt me or
I shall not have time to tell you all. The author of the outrage is
Lim Ho. She has, however, been most providentially rescued by Ardjan,
the man to whom she is engaged to be married. Thereupon Lim Ho has
had him most fearfully tortured with Kamadoog leaves--so dreadfully
that he is now in the hospital--"
"Look here, Miss Anna, I have found your 'Fleurs d'oranger,'" said
van Nerekool aloud as he heard some one moving outside.
"Yes, thank you," replied Anna. "But what can have become of that
sonata? Here it is," she continued in the same tone of voice, "I
have it; but pray, Mr. van Nerekool, put that heavy pile of music on
the piano."
"Oh," said he, "you intend to give us the sonata before the waltz?"
"Yes," said Anna, "that is best I think;" and then she continued
softly, "I know that sonata so perfectly that I can go on talking
while I am playing it by heart."
She sat down to the instrument, van Nerekool standing close by her
side ready to turn over the leaves for her.
Anna struck the first notes of Beethoven's magnificent work while
she continued: "As I was telling you, Ardjan had to be taken to the
hospital in consequence of the brutal treatment he had received. But
that is not what made me write to you."
"What was it then?" whispered van Nerekool eagerly. "I am all ears,
Miss Anna."
"Well then," said she, "pay attention to me."
And while the nimble fingers of the talented girl ran over the keys,
while she rendered in most masterly style the lovely reveries of
the inspired musician--strains which full of sweetness yet here
and there seem clouded by the great gloom which was impending over
the author's future life--she told the young man the whole story of
Dalima's abduction, of her rescue by Ardjan, in what wretched plight
the poor Javanese had been found, and she told him also that close by
the place where they found him a considerable quantity of smuggled
opium had been discovered, and had been delivered into the custody
of the chief inspector of police.
Van Nerekool had not for a single instant turned his eye from the
music, he had never once made a mistake in turning over the pages;
but yet he had been listening so attentively that not a single word
had escaped his ears. At the ill-omened word opium his countenance
fell. The young girl noticed the change of expression though she did
not allow her emotion to influence her play. Indeed she executed the
final movement of the sonata--that brilliant movement in which a very
flood of fancies all seem to unite in conveying the idea of perfect
bliss--in so faultless and spirited a manner, that the card-players in
the outer gallery, pausing for a few moments in their game to listen,
broke out in a loud chorus of applause.
"But do you know for certain, Miss Anna," said van Nerekool, under
cover of the noise, "that it was opium?"
"How should I know?" replied she before the clamour had subsided.
"But was that opium brought ashore by Ardjan and Dalima?"
"Most certainly not," said she in a whisper, "there was nothing of
the kind in the djoekoeng in which they came to land."
"How then did the stuff get there?" asked van Nerekool.
"Dalima could tell me nothing about it," continued the young girl. "And
now," she went on in her usual tone of voice, "now for the 'Fleurs
d'oranger!'"
"But," insisted van Nerekool in a scarcely audible whisper, "what
makes you fear that Ardjan will be suspected? As far as I can see
there is not a shadow of a suspicion against him, unless--"
"Hush!" said Anna, "presently--"
And then, as a pleasant sequel to Beethoven's sublime melody, the
sparkling notes of the delightful waltz were heard filling both
galleries with gay and pleasant music.
While the last chords were still re-echoing, the young girl answered
van Nerekool's question: "Just now," said she, "Mr. Meidema was with
my father and--" dear little Anna paused and hesitated.
"And?" said van Nerekool. "Come, Miss Anna, you must tell me all."
"I overheard part of their conversation--"
"Oh," said he, "you listened just a little bit?"
The poor girl blushed deeply, face, neck and ears were covered with
the glow. "Well yes," said she resolutely, "I did listen. I had heard
my father ordering the Oppas to go and fetch Mr. Meidema and somehow
I could not get rid of the suspicion that it had something to do with
Ardjan. When the inspector called I got behind the screen which masks
the door and--"
"Well, yes, Miss Anna, go on, you must tell me all."
"And then I heard all they said," continued she.
"What did you hear?" asked the young man, eagerly.
"All they said," she replied.
"Yes; but," continued he, "what did they talk about?"
"Oh! Mr. van Nerekool," said Anna, "I really cannot tell you all
that passed."
"Perhaps not; but yet you can remember the gist of their words. Do try,
Miss Anna."
"Mr. van Nerekool," said she; "I am not at all sure that I have a
right to--"
"But my dear Miss Anna, why then did you send for me? Just ask yourself
that question?"
"Oh!" sighed Anna, "I was so over-anxious to save Dalima's lover."
"Just so," replied he; "I can quite understand that; but in what way
can I possibly serve you unless you will trust me with all that took
place? As far as I can see at present, there seems not the remotest
reason why Ardjan should be accused of this smuggling business. Do
pray trust me, Miss Anna!"
"Oh! how I wish I could!" sighed the poor girl again. "How I wish I
could; but it is so very hard."
"What is your difficulty?" insisted the young man.
"That conversation between my father and Mr. Meidema," replied she.
"But come," she continued; "you are right; you must know everything
or nothing. I will tell you all."
Thereupon, burning with shame, the young girl repeated just what
had passed between the two officials. She concealed nothing--neither
the supposed value of the smuggled wares, nor Meidema's suspicions
as to their source, nor the examination of the chief servant. But
when she came to reveal the fact that her father had, in a manner,
forced the policeman to accuse Ardjan, the poor girl almost broke down.
Van Nerekool understood her confusion but too well, he knew enough and
felt too deeply how humiliating was her position to wish to prolong
the conversation. But before dismissing the subject he said:
"Just now you told me that Mr. Meidema had mentioned the name of the
ship from whence he suspected the opium to have been brought. Do you
happen to remember it?"
"Yes," said Anna; "I believe it was Hing Kim Lin, or Lin King Him,
or something of that kind."
"Was it perhaps Kiem Ping Hin?" asked the lawyer, in a very grave
voice. "Now think well before you answer."
"Yes, Mr. van Nerekool," she cried still in the same subdued tones,
"that was the name."
The young man could not suppress a sigh as he looked down sadly at
the fair girl beside him.
"Why do you look so strangely at me?" asked Anna in some alarm.
"Do you know to whom this Kiem Ping Hin belongs?" he asked.
"No," said she; "how should I?"
"Well, then, the Kiem Ping Hin belongs to Lim Ho."
"To Lim Ho? what, to the son of the opium farmer?" cried the girl,
covering her face with her hands as if she were trying to hide herself.
"That is the man," replied van Nerekool, as he looked down anxiously
at her.
Then Anna remembered the infamous dialogue between her parents at
which that morning she had been present. The hot tears of shame came
rushing into her eyes, forced their way through her closed fingers
and went trickling down her shapely hands as she sobbed out:
"Oh, my God! my God!"
"Miss Anna, dear Miss Anna," said van Nerekool, deeply moved at
the sight of her grief; "do be calm; pray, do not despair. I will
do all I possibly can to save that unfortunate man. I promise you
that solemnly."
"But, my father," cried Anna, as she hurriedly with her handkerchief
tried to wipe away the tears which were still flowing fast. "But,
my father?"
"Not a word of all this to him."
"Oh! no; Mr. van Nerekool," said she, "I do not mean that; but will
this wretched business compromise him in any way?"
"Not if I can help it," replied he; "I shall do my best to arrange
matters so as to leave him out of the question altogether. Trust me."
"Thank you, thank you," said Anna. "Now let us say no more. I will
go in and try to hide my feelings; you had better remain at the piano
for awhile."
"Yes," said he, "I shall go on playing something or other and then
I will take my leave."
In a quarter of an hour or so, van Nerekool was again standing behind
the card-players. The game was nearly over, they were just having
the last round and soon the company began to break up.
"Really, Mrs. van Gulpendam has too much luck," said the old colonel,
as he sat ruefully looking at the few scattered counters he had
before him.
Presently all had taken their leave and the Resident was standing
looking out at the departing guests when he heard a subdued voice
saying behind him:
"May I be allowed to say something, Kandjeng toean?"
Van Gulpendam turned and saw his chief servant seated cross-legged
beside him.
"What have you got to tell me?" asked he, abruptly.
"I made a mistake just now, Kandjeng toean," was the man's reply.
"A mistake," said the Resident; "what do you mean?"
"When I told the inspector toean that the opium was found on Ardjan."
"Brute!" roared van Gulpendam. "If you dare to retract your words
I give you the sack--I shall have you clapped into prison. Do you
hear me?"
"Engèh, Kandjeng toean," said the poor native with his usual drawl,
and placing his folded hands upon his forehead he respectfully and
submissively made his "sembah" (salaam).