OTTO’S WOOING
“Plush,” said the Baroness van Helmont, addressing her silken
favorite, “it is a terrible thing to have an incompatible child.”
Plush made no answer, but from the other end of the room came
Otto’s reply: “I can’t help it, mother. I suppose you made me what
I am.”
“I? Never in my life. I could not have produced anything so strong.
Plush and I, we are in harmony; we take the same view of existence.”
She languidly entangled her fingers in the meshes of her darling’s
soft white hair. The lapdog, on her crimson cushion, laid two
delicate little slender-wristed paws, that looked as if encased in
a perfect fit of _peau de Suède_, over a bright black button of a
nose. The pair of them, lady and lapdog, looked born to undulate.
“You are resolved, then,” continued the Baroness, “to return to
Java as soon as you again get tired of us.”
“Tired of you! Mother!” His emotion made him both unable and
unwilling to say more.
“Tired or not, in a few months you will once more leave us. Otto,
it will break your father’s heart.”
This prophecy Otto considered a decidedly doubtful one.
“I never understood why you first went,” continued the Baroness.
“Gerard stays. Everybody I know stays. Fifteen years ago you must
suddenly resolve to learn gentleman-farming in Germany. It sounds
so silly, ‘gentleman-farming.’ They call it ‘economy’ over there--I
suppose the name pleased you--and after a year or two you came back
and said it couldn’t be done without plenty of money. A charming
economy. It is as good as a farce!”
“That is true, Otto, is it not?” she added, petulantly, after a
pause.
“Quite true,” he replied, helplessly, sitting forward on a little
boudoir chair, his brown hands hanging joined between his heavy
legs.
“Well, then, after that you must hurry away to plant tea in the
Indies, as if there were not enough common people to do that! And
doing it, too. I never heard of a break-down in the tea-supply.
And now you have been busied there for a dozen years, and what’s
the profit to you or to any one? You’re no richer, and tea’s
not even cheaper. So you’ve benefited neither your neighbor nor
yourself.” The Baroness sighed. Plush sighed also, her whole little
pink-tinted body a sob of lethargic content.
“But I’ve been earning an honest living,” burst out Otto,
desperately. It was all so useless; he had said it so often before!
“At least I’ve not been droning through my whole life, spending
father’s money, and knowing all the time that in fact there was
no money to spend. Of course, I’d hoped to come back richer from
India, but you can’t understand about the crisis in the tea-trade,
mother.”
“No, indeed,” said the Baroness.
“At any rate, however, I’ve paid my way. I’ve not lived, as Gerard
does, in a constant entanglement of bills and loans. I don’t depend
for my daily bread on the mercy of the Jews.”
“Nor does Gerard, thank Heaven! though he may for his daily
champagne!” cried the Baroness, her irrepressible sprightliness
bubbling uppermost. “And the Jews, as your father always says,
are a dispensation of Providence for the survival of the fittest.
He doesn’t mean themselves. They keep the old families above water
till smoother times work round again. Look at the Van Utrechts,
for instance; the only son tried to commit suicide for want of
a friendly Jew! And four months later he married a Rotterdam
oil-merchant’s daughter. That’s what Gerard will do; only, in his
case, I do hope and pray that the man who made the money will be
a generation farther off. And on the mother’s side.” The Baroness
sank back reflectively, and, for the hundredth time, a procession
of ticketed young ladies passed before her pale blue eyes.
“Otto,” she said, “you know the desire of our hearts. It is that
you marry Helena van Trossart. Then we should say, ‘Lord, now
lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.’”
“Catch my father saying that,” cried Otto, roughly, with holy
horror in his honest eyes.
The Baroness stopped him by an imperious gesture.
“I don’t know what you mean, Otto,” she said. “Please don’t be
profane. Yes, I desire above all things to see this marriage
consummated. Gerard will do well in any case. And, after all, it is
you who will one day be Baron Helmont of the Horst. You, our first,
our eldest.” She checked herself, holding out her thin white hand,
and her eyes were full of love.
Otto took the hand in his own and kissed it.
“You might _try_, Otto,” continued the Baroness. “You don’t know
her; she was a child when you went away. There is no sense in
your refusing to find out whether you could like her or not. The
marriage would end all difficulties for good, and you could remain
with us.”
“What do you want me to do?” asked Otto, heavily.
“Supposing you were to go to Drum to-day, and see them. You might
stay over their dance, which is to-morrow night. It would be a
pretty attention. I feel sure the coast is clear, and she thinks
you interesting. She told me so herself, when they dined here; she
considers your life one long romance.”
“Romance is the word,” said Otto. “Well, mother, I’m willing to
go.” He took up the _Graphic_ from a side-table, and silence
brooded over the trio till the Baron came in.
“My dear,” said the Baron, eagerly, his eyes alight, “I must just
show you this; the carrier brought it. It’s Feuillet’s _Jeune Homme
Pauvre_, with the original drawings by Mouchot. Isn’t it charming?
I had it over from Fontaine.”
The Baroness took the volume, disturbing Plush.
“Yes,” she replied, as she turned over the pages. “It’s very nice.
But I can’t help preferring my old friend, Johannot.”
“How unkind!” said the Baron, plaintively, “Johannot couldn’t be
expected to illustrate everything, especially not the books that
were written after he died.”
He turned to his son.
“I sha’n’t show it to you, Otto, for you’d only ask how much it
cost.”
“Oh, don’t,” interposed the Baroness.
“And yet this is quite a bargain. Only 625 francs, and the binding
by David.”
“My dear, I don’t care. Besides, I have forgotten already.”
“Lucky woman,” the Baron laughed. “I, at least, must remember till
it’s paid. What’s the matter, Jan?”--this to a servant who appeared
in the open door. “You can clear away the papers on the library
floor.”
“There’s a poor woman at the kitchen entrance asking to see you,
sir,” said the man. “She says you know all about her. Her name is
Vrouw Klop, from the cottages by Horstwyk Mill.”
“I never heard of the creature in my life!” cried the Baron.
“I know her,” remarked Mevrouw, quietly. “Her husband drinks.”
“Saving your presence, Mevrouw,” said Jan, without moving a muscle,
“she says her husband’s been dead these seven years.”
“Well, if he had lived, he’d have drunk,” replied the Baroness,
indifferently. “And, besides, if she’s been a widow so long she
must have children earning something.”
Otto got up and walked towards the window.
“Send her away,” exclaimed the Baron. “It’s like her insolence,
asking for me!”
“She says she has a letter from the Burgomaster, mynheer,” gently
persisted the servant. Menials are always pamperedly insolent to
mendicants or aggressively sympathetic regarding them. They are
never indifferent.
“Then why didn’t you bring it up? Why doesn’t she go to the
relieving officer? I can’t be bothered. There, give her a twopenny
bit, and let her go.”
Otto stood at the window, looking out.
“The people are unendurable,” said the Baron, as the servant
departed. “Always wanting something, and always asking for it. As
if it were our duty to supply unlimited gin!”
“Yes,” replied the Baroness, “and the respectable poor never beg.
This illustration is charming, Theodore; I think it is the best of
all. What a sweet face the girl has!”
She held up the beautiful blue morocco volume to the light.
Otto stood at the window, looking out.
* * * * *
Helena van Trossart belonged to one of the most influential
families in Holland. Her mother had been a sister of the Baron van
Helmont; both mother and father were long since dead. She lived
with an uncle and aunt on the other side, Trossarts, like herself,
and rich, like herself, with Trossart money. The uncle and aunt
were childless, and affectionately interested in their beautiful
heiress, of whom they felt proud to think as the greatest _parti_
in the province. The Baroness was portly and comfortable; she had
never known any but comfortable people all her life. The Baron, a
fine old gentleman with silver-striped hair, was concerned in the
government of the country, which means that he occupied his time in
procuring lucrative posts for his wife’s poor relations, of whose
poverty he lived in monotonous dread.
The fine old double mansion which the Van Trossarts inhabited
stood on a green canal behind a sombre row of chestnuts. Grass
grew between the paving-stones, and iron chains swung heavily from
post to post. Not a street boy passed but pulled those chains. The
street boy of Holland is unparalleled in Europe, a pestilence that
walketh in darkness, and a destruction that wasteth at noonday,
but here you could hardly take offence at him, for he imparted an
element of liveliness to as dead a corner as dull respectability
could desire to dwell in. The outside of the house wore that aspect
of dignified dilapidation which is characteristic of hereditary
wealth. Inside nothing was new, except in Helena’s apartments, nor
was anything worn out.
“Mamma,” said the Freule Helena--she called her foster-mother
“mamma”--“I have a note from Gerard. He asks whether he may bring
Otto round to lunch in half an hour’s time. Otto, it appears, has
turned up for the day. The orderly is waiting. I suppose I had
better say yes.”
“Stop a moment while I ring and ask how many pigeons there are,”
replied the Baroness, who was eminently practical.
“You wouldn’t keep them away because of that!” cried Helena,
laughing.
“Indeed I should. Gerard detests cold meat. And there’s nothing a
man resents like getting what he doesn’t eat in a house where his
tastes are known. You’ve asked people enough unexpectedly already.”
“Only Georgetta van Troyen and her brother. That was to escape a
tête-à-tête with Mechteld van Weylert. We shall be quite a small
party.”
“I don’t mind large parties, like to-morrow’s,” replied Mevrouw
van Trossart, turning from a confabulation with her confidential
maid. “Well, tell them to come. Ann, just say to the man, ‘My
compliments, and the Jonkers[E] are welcome.’ You are terribly gay,
child; you can’t bear a moment of quiet.”
“Dear mamma, did you want me to sit all the afternoon opposite
Maggie van Weylert? Confess though she is your niece, you would not
do it yourself. With some women conversation is just contradiction.
And there are few people outside this house, except Gerard, I care
to be alone with. No guest, or a number, that is my view.”
“Gerard would feel flattered,” replied the Baroness, smiling over
her plump hands. “You had better not tell him, or he will ask you
to afford him the opportunity of being alone together for life.”
“How terrible! Mamma, you are perfectly ruthless. There is not a
creature in the world, not even myself, I am fond enough of for
that. Besides, surely one should never marry a man one likes to be
alone with; it is the most fatal way of dying to society at once.”
She laughed, and threw back the yellow curls from her blue-veined
forehead; she was all pink and gold, like a bunch of wild rose and
laburnum. “What I should like to do,” she went on, “would be to
marry Otto, and flirt with Gerard and other people. But, of course,
it would be horribly improper, and it couldn’t be done.”
“Don’t be silly,” remonstrated the Baroness van Trossart, trying
to frown. “You are getting too old, Nellie, for saying things you
ought to be ashamed of. Now go and get ready.”
“I am half Otto’s age,” replied the girl, rising.
“That may be. But an _ingénue_ should die at nineteen. We women,
my dear, are inverted butterflies, and marriage is our chrysalis,
as your future mother-in-law said the other night. I can’t
imagine where she gets her sayings from, I suppose she reads them
somewhere. But neither she nor I would like to see a Baroness van
Helmont who was _ingénue_.”
Helena paused in the doorway. “Would you like me,” she asked, “some
day, to be Baroness van Helmont?”
“My dear, you might be a worse thing. Personally, if you ask me, I
should certainly prefer Otto, little as I know of him, to Gerard.
Of Gerard I should say, ‘Pour le badinage, bon. Pour le mariage,
non.’ And then, Otto is the better match, the future Baron. You two
could restore, together, the glories of the Horst.”
Helena had stood listening, thoughtfully. Thought did not suit her
soft-featured, facile face.
“But you must do what you like, and decide for yourself,” added her
aunt, “as, with your character, you certainly will.”
“I thought I was so yielding,” protested Helena.
“You are, my dear, except when you care.”
“Then it’s you that have spoiled me,” answered Helena, tripping off.
The Baroness looked after her. “Dear girl,” she said to herself.
“It will end in her marrying Gerard, I fancy. The book-writers may
say what they like, but the woman who can, always marries for love.”
A few minutes later her husband came in. “My dear,” he said, “some
of my papers are missing. I wish you would tell Mary to mind what
she’s about.”
“Yes, my dear,” she replied, without looking up. Some of his papers
were always missing. He always grumbled. It had come with his
appointment to the high government post. For the first month or two
she had fretted; then she had understood that it was part of his
new importance, and she had returned to her old comfortable life.
“Both the Helmonts are coming to lunch,” she said, “and one or two
other people.”
“I don’t care who’s coming to lunch. I wish you minded more about
my papers. They’re of very particular moment.”
“I do mind. I shall tell some one to find them at once on your
table, for I’ve no doubt that they’re there. Mademoiselle”--this
in French to a swarthy little lady who came gliding in--“would
you mind looking for some papers Monsieur has left on his
table--official papers--a dirty yellow, you know.”
“But how on earth”--began the state functionary.
“Oh, she’ll find them. She knows what your papers are like. How do
you do, Georgette? Where is Willie?”
“On the stairs, I believe,” replied the young lady thus addressed,
“flirting with the Freule van Weylert.”
“We should all have said ‘of course,’ Freule,” declared Gerard’s
voice behind her, “had you omitted the name of the lady. Even
Willie could not teach the Freule van Weylert to flirt.”
Otto was bowing silently beside his brother, with a specially deep
bow for Mademoiselle Papotier, Helena’s quondam governess, who had
returned, bearing the lost papers, to be welcomed by their owner
with a grunt. As a rule, nobody but Helena took any notice of
Mademoiselle Papotier.
They all went in to luncheon, a medley of exceptionally noisy and
exceptionally silent elements. The old Baron took his seat at the
head of the table, and immediately fixed his keen eyes on his food.
Opposite him sat the French lady, coquettish in movements and
apparel, pouring out coffee, of which no one partook. The mistress
of the house strove vainly to converse with her niece Van Weylert,
an angular and awkward young girl, or to draw out her other
neighbor, Otto, who sat with his attention glumly concentrated
on the fair object of his visit. The rest of the company were
uproariously merry, led on by Gerard and his pink brother-officer,
young Willie van Troyen.
Otto was wondering whatever had induced him to come. Yet, at the
bottom of his heart, he knew very well. It was not so much his
mother’s affectionate expostulation as the thought, ever present
within him, never expressed: What will become of the Horst when my
father dies? What, indeed? He had never loved the old home as he
loved it since his return.
“You are coming to my dance to-morrow, I hope, Mynheer van
Helmont?” said his hostess. He awoke as from a reverie. “Oh yes,”
he said, “I hope so. I intend to stay at Drum for a day or two.” He
was still watching his cousin; the Baroness followed his gaze, and
then their eyes met.
A shout of laughter went up from the opposite side of the table.
The old Baron lifted his brows.
“In my time,” he said to the shaking mass of pink muslin beside
him, “we weren’t half as funny as you young people seem to be.”
“Weren’t you?” retorted Georgette van Troyen. “How slow you must
have been! Too bad, not even to have had a good time in your youth!
But isn’t this too amusing, this story that Willie is telling?”
The Baron returned hastily to his omelet.
“Isn’t it too amusing?” cried the young girl, appealing to Otto.
“I haven’t heard it,” said the latter; at which they all roared
again. Willie was in high spirits, though Gerard was endeavoring to
arrest his narration.
“Do shut up, Troy; we’ve had quite enough of it,” growled Gerard.
“No, indeed, I am mistress here!” cried Helena, her eyes sparkling
with merriment. “Go on, Mynheer van Troyen; you and the Captain had
agreed on the wager. And you answered the advertisements; and what
happened then? The advertisements,” she called across to Otto in
explanation, “were from young ladies in search of a husband.”
“From ladies,” corrected the little officer, who looked like
a bibulous cherub. “Well, we got replies to our letters,
and we wrote again, arranging a meeting. We convened all the
aspirants--there were four of them--at the same spot, and, of
course, the same hour, and we bade them dress up in red shawls and
white feathers. And when we drove past, taking Gerard and another
man as umpires, there they were, the whole four of them; I think
there were even more!”
Renewed shrieks of laughter greeted the final sally.
“It’s too killing!” cried Helena, the tears on her cheeks. “And
what were they doing? Tearing each other’s eyes out?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t wait to see. They were making a great
noise, screaming at each other. I had won my champagne, and I went
and drank it. I always knew these advertisements were perfectly
genuine.”
“But the letters,” interposed Georgette. “You must show Helena the
letters, Willie.”
“No, no, he mustn’t,” cried Gerard, energetically. “I’m sick of the
whole business. Do let’s talk of something else.”
“But I’m not,” protested Helena. “It’s new to me. How selfish you
are, Gerard. Don’t you think it’s awfully amusing, Otto? I’m sure
you want to hear more.”
“I only want to hear one thing,” said Otto, gravely, bending
forward, “and that is what Mynheer van Troyen is going to do with
those letters?”
“Why, keep them, of course,” replied Willie.
“It is no business of mine, Mynheer; I have not the honor, like
my brother, of being your friend. But if I were umpire, I should
insist on those letters being given up and burned.”
“I suppose you don’t approve of the whole joke?” cried Gerard,
hotly, forcing back his own better misgivings, swift in defence of
his chum.
“It is not my province to express an opinion. Certainly not here.
It is not a thing I should have done myself.”
“And the girls who advertised?” continued Gerard. “We only answered
advertisements. What of them?”
“Poor things!” said Otto, softly.
“What nonsense!” exclaimed Helena. “I think it’s great fun; and
for the girls, too. I should like to try the plan. Some day we must
do it, Georgette. It’s a capital way of getting a husband. What
freedom it leaves in the choice!”
“Surely you are not restricted, Freule,” said Willie. “You have but
to fling your handkerchief wheresoever you will.”
“Oh, but I am restricted,” she replied; “for instance, I could
never marry you.”
“Alas, I am sure of it,” he answered; “but why not?”
“Imagine what a combination! Helen of Troy![F] Who could live up to
such an appellation?”
“You could,” he replied, fatuously. But she was not listening to
him; she was looking across the table at Otto. “What a reputation!”
she said. “Who could live up to it? But why was she called Hélène
de Trois? There was Menelaus”--she counted on her fingers--“and
Paris. But I forget who the third lover was.”
* * * * *
That evening Otto appeared again in the drawing-room at the
Manor-house. His mother gave a cry of surprise. For a moment her
heart stood still.
“I don’t care for Helena Trossart,” said Otto. “Her conversation is
a perpetual dance on the tight-rope of propriety.”
“My dear boy,” replied his father, “how natural! Consider the
continuous pleasure of keeping your balance.”
“Well,” said Otto, “it seems to me she came some very positive
croppers. However, I’m no judge.”
He left the room; his mother ran after him.
“You haven’t asked her, Otto?” she gasped. “She hasn’t rejected
you?”
“Oh no,” he said, and shut the door.
FOOTNOTES:
[E] Title for unmarried sons of noblemen, pronounced “Yonker.”
[F] Literally, in the Dutch.