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:
“_You_ may 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 her own
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 her
_cavaliere 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 it _were_ true! 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 civilization you 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 take _me_ for 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, “allow _me_ to call _you_ a
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.