HARRIET’S ROMANCE
“Amusing yourselves?” said Mynheer Mopius. “That’s right. That’s
what you’ve come for, Ursula. I’m glad your aunt’s been amusing
you.”
Translated, this meant that Mynheer Mopius considered his wife had
been taking a liberty. For, although Mynheer Mopius despised wit
or humor of any kind, and but rarely condescended to utter what he
considered a joke, yet he somehow believed his conversation to be a
source of constant refreshment to his family. And he felt annoyed
at their making merry without him.
“I’m sure, if Ursula’s laughing it’s no fault of mine,” said
Mevrouw. “I was merely telling Harriet--where’s Harriet?”
“Gone up to dress. You had better follow her example, Ursula.
Dinner at 6.30. We dress for it here, at least the women do. So
do I when there’s company. It’s a custom I brought with me from
Batavia. Must show the natives here what’s what.”
“I’ve nothing but this,” said Ursula, in some confusion. “My box
hasn’t come, and I haven’t got much in the way of evening frocks
anyhow.”
“I’ll give you one. I gave Harriet hers. That girl’s fallen nose
foremost into fat[B] if ever girl did. Hasn’t she, wife?”
“She doesn’t know it,” replied Mevrouw Mopius, picking at Laban’s
goggle eyes.
“Then she’s a greater fool than I take her for. She’d have been a
nurse-maid, sure as fate. And now she’s as good as a rich man’s
daughter.”
“And I’m a mother to her that was motherless,” grunted Mevrouw
complacently, “and because she’s poor and no real relation I allow
her to call me ‘aunt.’”
“Besides which, if she behaves herself, who knows what may
happen to her!” Mynheer Mopius jingled the loose cash in his
trousers-pockets and looked askance at Ursula.
Ursula looked back at him, peacefully unconscious.
“I might leave her my money,” said Mynheer Mopius.
“Oh, that would be splendid!” cried Ursula.
Her uncle looked at her again. “Sly little thing!” he thought,
but he said nothing. Only Jacóbus Mopius could have called Ursula
little. His greatness caused him to see all things small.
He was a stunted, pompous man, with a big head and yellow cheeks.
He had made his money in the Dutch Indies, as a notary.
Harriet came back in a fawn-colored frock with a pink rosebud
pattern, made of some kind of nun’s veiling, high in the throat.
Mynheer Mopius gazed at it in admiration.
“Looks well, doesn’t she?” he said to Ursula in a loud _sotto
voce_. “You shall have just such another; but Harriet’s a devilish
good-looking girl.”
The subject of this comment did not appear to hear it, but Ursula
fancied she? saw her aunt wince. Harriet was helping the faded
woman to put things together. In the hall a gong was sounding a
hideous bellow at the door.
“Late as usual,” remonstrated Mynheer Mopius. “Hurry up, my dear.
Gracious goodness, how awkward you are getting!” The frail little
creature in the stiff silk caught hold of Harriet’s arm with one
skinny hand, and Ursula, as she watched her movements, understood
something of her unwillingness to exert herself.
For his own use Mynheer Mopius never bought anything cheap, and
all the appointments of the dinner-table were excellent. Of course
he communicated prices to the new arrival, and Ursula, soon
discovering that she was expected constantly to admire, entered
into the spirit of the thing, and asked the cost of the silver
candlesticks. Her uncle ascended into regions of unusual good
humor, and ordered up a bottle of sweet Spanish wine for her, “such
as you ignorant females enjoy,” he said. He grew very angry with
his wife for refusing to have any. “But the doctor forbids it.”
“Oh, damn your doctor. Never have a doctor till you’re dead; that’s
my advice. Then he can’t do any harm.”
Mevrouw Mopius meekly swallowed a little of the liquid, her long
nose drooping over the glass. Her husband sat tyrannically watching
her. “Drink it all,” he said; “you want a tonic. You shall have
some every day.” And she drank it, although she implicitly believed
in the doctor, and the doctor, a teetotaler, had told her it meant
death.
“Doctors are all scoundrels,” said Mynheer Mopius. “Hey, Harriet?”
The girl’s dead father had been a medical man.
“Yes, I know,” she said. “Only lawyers are honest. That’s why
doctors die poor.”
Mynheer Mopius laughed heartily. “I like your cheek,” he said.
“Make hay while your sun shines, Harriet. A man can’t stand it from
an old woman.”
Mevrouw Mopius sniffed.
“We must have some fun, hey, wife, while Ursula’s here? We might
give a dinner-party, and show the grandees what’s what.”
“But the grandees don’t come to our dinner-parties,” objected
Mevrouw Mopius.
“No, they don’t, hang ’em. But they’d hear from the people who do.
Your Dominé Pock knows ’em all. We’ll have Pock to dinner. He’s
always asking for money for something or other, but he’s a good
judge of victuals. Trust a parson to be that, and a poor judge of
wine. At least the Evangelicals. And he’ll tell every one I’ve the
best venison in the city. I get my venison from Brussels, Ursula,
and it’s better, they’ll all say, than the Baron van Trossart’s,
who shoots his himself.”
“The Baron van Trossart!” said Ursula. “That is the guardian of
the Van Helmonts’ cousin, Helen, the heiress. I am to go to a party
there. Gerard promised me an invitation.”
Mynheer Mopius’s face grew very dark.
“Look here,” he said, “are you staying with me or in barracks? If
with me, you must allow me to amuse you. I won’t hear anything
about your Barons Gerard. And I won’t have nothing to say to them.”
“Gerard isn’t the Baron,” replied Ursula, hotly. “That’s his
father. Not that it matters.”
“No, I shouldn’t think it did. I won’t hear anything about them.
What did you say the father’s name was?”
“Theodore, Baron van Helmont van Horstwyk en de Horst,” rolled
forth Ursula, proudly.
“Yes, poor Roderick likes that sort of thing. Is ‘the Horst’ the
name of the house? Is it grander than this?”
Ursula laughed. “It’s quite different,” she said.
“Well, I dare say. But I won’t hear another word about them. That
kind of people are all a mistake.”
Harriet lifted her indolent eyes, and fixed them on Ursula’s face.
“Do you like your wine?” she said. “Mind you deserve it.”
For the rest of the meal Mynheer Mopius talked of the
entertainments he would organize for Ursula. He refused to let her
accompany Harriet on the theological errand concerning Leah’s eyes.
“No, no,” he said, “come into the drawing-room and amuse us. Do you
play? Do you sing? Harriet does neither. We do both.”
Ursula played well. She gave them a Concert of Liszt, and Mynheer
did not talk till Mevrouw dropped her scissors and asked him, after
a wait, to pick them up for her. As soon as he could, he got hold
of the piano himself, and called out to his wife to join him. He
had been possessed of a fine bass twenty years ago, and had enjoyed
much admiration in Batavian society. It now stopped somewhere down
in his stomach, and only a rumble came out. His wife rose wearily
to play his accompaniments, and he kept her chained to the piano
for the rest of the evening, though Ursula could not help seeing
that the playing seemed to cause her physical pain.
He sang only love-songs of the ultra-sentimental kind, all about
broken hearts and lovely death and willing sacrifice. Many of them
were of a by-gone period when everybody pretended--at least in
verse--to be absolutely ill with affection.
Harriet came back and poured out tea. When her uncle said it was
bad she shrugged her shoulders.
“It always is,” she replied.
“Yes, Harriet, it is, though I get it direct from the East,” he
rejoined. His whole attitude betokened reproof.
“The East,” interposed Mevrouw, from her tambour-frame. “Quite so.
I wonder, when Laban welcomed Jacob, do you think he gave him tea?”
“Coffee, rather, I should fancy,” replied Mopius.
“Do you really believe they drank coffee, Jacóbus?[C] I wish I was
sure”--for the fiftieth time that day (as every day) she fell to
contemplating her work with arrested needle. “I could so well fill
up this corner with a little table, and put on the rolls and cups
and things.”
“And work an ‘L’ in the napkin corner,” suggested Harriet.
Mevrouw Mopius gazed suspiciously into her niece’s face, but
Harriet’s expression was perfectly serious.
“And--work--an--‘L’--into--the--napkin--corner,” repeated Mevrouw
Mopius, very slowly. “Well, I think that might be nice.”
* * * * *
Ursula had just extinguished her light, and was dozing off into
a dream-land of Mopiuses and Jonkers, when the door opened and
Harriet entered hurriedly, candle in hand, a white wrap flung
loosely about her.
“I didn’t knock,” she said. “Knocks are heard all over a house at
night.”
She threw herself into an easy chair by the bed. “Finished
already!” she said. “_You_ don’t make much work of your beauty.”
“It’s so little, I should be afraid of killing it with over-care,”
replied Ursula, smiling.
But Harriet frowned. “Don’t tell lies,” she said. “You must know
you’re lovely. You are. Am I lovely too?”
“I think you look very nice,” replied Ursula, hesitatingly.
“Thank you. I understand.” She tossed back her black locks from her
sallow cheeks, and her sad eyes flashed. “But see here, I didn’t
come to talk about looks.” She pushed forward the candle so that
its light fell full on Ursula’s sleepy face. “Wake up for a minute,
can’t you? You and I may as well understand each other at once.”
She leaned back, and folded her bare white arms, from which the
loose sleeves fell away.
“Uncle Mopius is always telling me that you are his natural
heir,” she said. “He tells me whenever he wants to make himself
disagreeable, which is not infrequently. I dare say you know.”
Ursula sat up. “No, indeed I don’t,” she said, “and I don’t want
to. Once my Aunt Josine said something about it, a couple of years
ago, and father called me into his study and said he didn’t think I
should ever get a penny of Uncle Jacóbus’s money, and he earnestly
hoped not. I’ve never thought of it since.”
Harriet jerked up her chin. “Your father must be a peculiar sort of
man,” she said, “if sincere. Did he mean it?”
Ursula blew out the candle. “I’m going to sleep,” she said.
“Good-night. I don’t want to be rude to you.”
But Harriet quietly drew a box of matches from her pocket. “I like
that,” she said, leisurely. “I wish I had somebody to stick up
for. But I came to say this--Uncle Mopius is sure to bring up the
subject constantly in your presence. He’ll taunt me, as is his
habit, especially now you’re here, with your good-luck in being
his own sister’s child. Now, I want you fully to understand”--she
leaned forward her big dark face till Ursula struggled not to
shrink back--“that I--don’t--care. I don’t care a bit. I’m not
like men. And if you think you’re enjoying a cheap triumph, you’re
mistaken, that’s all. And if you imagine it’s bravado on my part,
because I can’t help myself, you’re mistaken too. I don’t want his
dirty money. I’m sick of it. I want something better. I’m not going
to hate you for nothing. In fact, I rather like you. So he can go
on as much as ever he chooses, and if you enjoy it you’re free to
do so.”
“But I don’t,” cried Ursula, with hot cheeks. “I don’t a bit. You
know I don’t. And, in fact, uncle talked quite differently this
afternoon. I thought you--”
The other girl stopped her with a gesture.
“Don’t,” she said, “I won’t hear it. I’m sick of the whole
business. Be sure that, whatever he said, it was a lie.” She got
up and began pacing the room, her limbs quivering under the light
folds of her gown. Suddenly she stood still, looking down at
Ursula. “Shall I tell you what will really happen? Do you care to
know? It’s easy enough.” Ursula did not answer, but Harriet went
on, unheeding, “Aunt will die, and he will marry again as soon as
he can. That’s all. There.” Ursula’s continuous silence seemed to
goad her companion. “You think he may die before aunt? He may; but
when a chimney falls down into the street, it usually manages to
hit a better man. You watch aunt. Good-night.” She was departing,
but again reflected, and came back to the bed. “You poor thing,”
she said, “I believe you really would have liked me to get the
money. Why?”
“Oh, I should indeed,” replied Ursula, earnestly, “though it looks
a long way off. You seem so lonely and--will you mind my saying
it?--so unhappy, Harriet.” To her amazement her visitor fell
forward on the bed and hugged her. A moment afterwards, however,
Harriet again sat in the big chair. “You are quite mistaken,” she
said, arranging her draperies with downcast eyes, “I am not at all
unhappy.” There followed a moment’s agitated silence, and then:
“Ursula, I like you. I want to tell you something. You’ll listen
for a moment, won’t you? I’ve nobody else to tell it to.” Without
further consideration the girl pushed one hand between the loose
folds about her throat, and from the snowy recesses of her bosom
drew forth a paper which she hurriedly thrust in front of Ursula.
“There, read that,” she said, excitedly. “It never leaves me lest
_they_ should find out.” Still sitting up, with one elbow on the
little table beside her, Ursula read a printed advertisement, a
scrap from a newspaper:
“H. V. Meet me on Thursday next at eight o’clock in the Long Walk
outside the West Gate. Wear a white feather and, if possible, a red
shawl. Carry your parasol open, _in any case_. Dearest, I am dying
to see you, but can’t come before then. Your own Romeo.”
“Well?” queried Ursula, but immediately her voice changed.
“Harriet, you don’t mean to tell me that this is an entanglement of
yours?”
“You choose a strange word,” replied Harriet, loftily. “There is
no entanglement. But I hope there is going to be. As yet there is
merely an answer to an advertisement. Yes, the advertisement was
mine. Oh, Ursula, isn’t it delightful? He says he is dying to see
me. Imagine that. And he doesn’t even know me yet.”
“That surely makes his eagerness less delightful,” replied Ursula,
dryly.
“Oh, but I gave him a very accurate description, tall, luminous
eyes, dark locks, ivory skin. I told him I was of distinctly
prepossessing appearance. Yes, in spite of your opinion, I
ventured to tell him that. Uncle informs me so frequently that I
am very good-looking, and aunt repeats so consistently that I am
exceedingly plain, I feel I have a double right to be satisfied
with my beauty. Besides, every woman’s glass declares to her that
her appearance is prepossessing; it is the one reason why I fancy,
on the whole, women’s lives must be happier than men’s.”
“Did you put all that in the advertisement?” asked Ursula, still
staring stupidly at the scrap of paper on the bed.
“I--I wrote him a letter, just one.”
“Addressed to ‘Romeo’?”
“To ‘Romeo de Lieven.’[D] Isn’t it a charming name?”
“It’s an assumed name. Imagine a Dutchman called Romeo!”
“Of course, it’s a pseudonym, like Carmen Sylva. I wasn’t clever
enough to think of one; besides, I hate subterfuges. So I just put
my own name, H. V.--Harriet Verveen.”
“Harriet, you don’t mean to say that you wrote a signed love-letter
you don’t in the least know to whom?”
“Love-letter, no. I told him who I was and what I wanted. Besides,
I shall know him to-morrow.”
“You’re not going.”
Once more Harriet assumed her almost defiant attitude.
“Yes, I’m going,” she said. “So there!”
“What do you think?” she suddenly burst out. “It’s all very well
for you comfortable, sheltered girls, at home. What’s to become of
the likes of me if we don’t look out for ourselves? Nobody’ll help
to find me a husband or a hiding-place. Nobody’ll ever do anything
for me except abuse me because I do things for myself.”
“But _I_ haven’t had a lover found for me,” interposed Ursula. “It
seems so unwomanly--”
“Womanly! There we have the word--womanly!”
Harriet’s words came stumbling and tossing; she thrust out her
limbs and the muslin fell away from them. “It’s womanly to live
on day by day in bitterness, with every womanly feeling hourly
insulted and estranged; after a year more, perhaps, of this, to go
to some fresh situation and look after other people’s children,
and when you are worn out at last, to die, soured and in want.
That’s honest independence, that’s womanly modesty. Well, then, I’m
immodest. Do you understand me?” She threw herself wildly forward.
“I’m immodest. I want love. I told you just now I didn’t want the
old scoundrel’s money. I don’t. But I want love. I want love. And
I mean to have it. A woman has a right to love and be loved. I
won’t be some lazy rich woman’s substitute, with brats I don’t care
for. I want to love children of my own. Children that love me when
I kiss them. I love my own body.” She fell back again, and her
eager voice died into a pensive murmur; while speaking, she softly
stroked her rounded arm. “I love it, and I want others to love it
also. I want it to belong to some one besides my lonely self. Great
Heaven, don’t you understand?”--her tone grew shrill again--“one’s
youth goes--goes. But you don’t understand.” She stopped abruptly,
just in time, and hid her face in her hand.
Ursula knew not how to speak or act. There was only one thing she
wanted to do; so she did it. She put an arm round Harriet’s neck
and kissed her. But the girl shook herself free, and, without
another word, hurried away.
FOOTNOTES:
[B] Vulgar Dutch idiom.
[C] To “drink coffee” is old-fashioned Dutch for “lunch.”
[D] To love.