THE GREAT PEACE
The Christmas party at the Manor-house broke up not
over-pleasantly. Everybody seemed to realize the vague clouds that
hung over the dark end of the year. Some particulars regarding the
German visitor’s sudden indisposition had, of course, oozed forth
into the half-light, bewilderingly indistinct. Helena departed in
high dudgeon, frequently repeating to her husband that whatever had
happened--and she didn’t want to know--was undoubtedly Ursula’s
fault. Mynheer Mopius said that “the higher classes of this country
were hopelessly depraved.”
Count Frechenfels slipped away to his native land in silence, and
the military authorities took no cognizance of the affray. Of his
own free will, therefore, Gerard asked to be transferred to a
fighting regiment in the Indies, and very quietly and quickly he
got ready to embark. He was eager to go, to escape from duns and
the narrowness of his present hampered existence. And also to fly
from a vague new sensation which, whenever he turned to it, caused
his heart to leap up with dismay.
“I cannot understand why,” said the poor Dowager, feebly; “but,
somehow, I seem not to be able to understand anything any more.
It all used to be so different. Gerard, the whole _world_ cannot
have altered because your father died?” She gazed at him as if half
expecting to hear that it had. “And I wanted you to help me with
the Memoir,” she continued. “_You_ remember about the old, bright
days. Otto doesn’t know. And now you also are going away.”
She began to cry, looking so white and fragile, with the snoring
dog upon her lap.
“I couldn’t sell your father’s collections, Gerard, could I?” she
complained. “He wanted me not to. Still”--a long pause; her face
lighted up--“if that would keep you from going to that horrible
place, I--I think I could venture. I think he would understand if I
explained, when we meet again.”
“No, no, let me go,” said the young man, in a choked voice. “I
shall come back to you, mother, with a ‘position.’ You will be
proud of me.”
The Baroness shook her head.
“I am that already,” she said. “It is so uncomfortable here, I
do not wonder you have enough of it. Otto is always ‘busy’ with
‘business,’ like a shopkeeper, and Ursula doesn’t even love him.”
“Mother!” cried Gerard.
“Not as I understand love--not as I loved your father. But, as I
admitted, I no longer know. Sometimes I think I shall end like poor
grandpapa, my head gets so tired; only I am still so much younger
than he was, Gerard. Oh, Gerard, your father died too soon! God has
been very hard on me. I never say any clever things now, as I used
to do.”
In the hall, Gerard, still stunned and heart-sore, was waylaid by
Tante Louisa.
“I have got a little present for you,” began that lady, in her
most nervous falsetto. “It has cost me a great deal of privation,
Gerard. What with the increase of expenses everywhere--I have twice
already felt obliged to raise my ‘pension,’ although Otto pretends
to object--I really can hardly afford it. But, then, it is a
farewell gift.”
Gerard took the envelope she proffered him, gratefully, wondering
whether it contained ten florins or twenty-five.
“And I should like to say, Gerard,” subjoined the Freule in a
flutter, “that I highly approve of your conduct in going, and also
of your fighting the German. He was insufferable. Hephzibah has
told nobody but me.”
“Hephzibah,” said the Freule, in her own room. “In my youth I could
have married a Prussian. We met him at Schlangenbad. But I loved my
country.”
Gerard, opening his envelope, extracted a bank-note for one
thousand florins.
When the younger son had sailed away, with his strange new uniform,
to the land of falling cocoanuts and cannon-balls, the waves
of emotion at the Manor-house settled down into a disagreeable
ground-swell. Otto had made up his mind to “forgive and forget,”
a combination foredoomed to failure; Ursula walked straight on by
her husband’s side, with a gloved hand in his. It was useless to
talk about forgetting. She would never do that. Not as long as a
proud woman’s heart beat under her wifely bosom. With scrupulous
tenderness she smoothed the daily deepening furrows upon the
Baron’s careworn brow.
And the months passed on, exceedingly like each other, excepting
that Baron Otto made himself fresh enemies with every fresh act of
justice. He was stern, and, necessarily, stingy. It was true that
his honest impulse to discuss his suspicions with Ursula’s father
had cost him the last friend he possessed in Horstwyk. He clung the
more tenaciously to his life’s object. And he idolized his child.
On this point, at least, there could be sympathy between husband
and wife. Little Otto was querulous over his infantine troubles.
He disliked teething, and going to sleep, and cold water, and hot
water, and eczema. He did not take kindly to existence. It is that
class of children which, universally forsaken, hang on, by the
nails, to their parents’ hearts. There was no danger of Ursula’s
heart becoming atrophied. In one thing she did not obey her
husband; she slipped in and out among the poor a great deal more
than Otto knew.
But, having no money, she came with empty hands, and her visits
were rarely appreciated, except by the purely imaginary poor
person, who thought a glimpse of her bonnie face better than a
sixpence any day.
Winter was coming round again when Otto one morning received a
letter from a person who signed herself “Adeline Skiff.” The person
spoke of great wrongs she had suffered from Gerard, of present
distress, and of possible assistance. Otto had never heard of
Adeline Skiff, but with his usual thoroughness he took the next
train to Drum, and unexpectedly called upon the lady. He knew her
again when he saw her, although she was very much changed.
Adeline lived in a blind alley, among odds and ends. She was the
only inhabitant who wore a fringe, and this fact afforded her
daily satisfaction. Otherwise, her reputation was dubious, and her
slovenliness undoubted.
She received the Baron in a small front room, filled by a
sewing-machine and two children. She hastened to explain that her
husband, who was not over-kind to her, had lost his last place in
a lawyer’s office on account of his stubborn integrity; she got a
little dress-making, not much; she had hoped that Mynheer the Baron
might be moved to do something for her or her children. She pushed
forward two dirty-faced boys; Otto started, involuntarily, at sight
of the elder. Adeline smiled knowingly.
“I cannot verify your story,” said Otto.
Adeline looked up quickly. “Can’t you, really, Mynheer the Baron?”
she retorted.
“And my brother, did he not give you money?”
“Yes, he gave me three thousand florins,” replied Adeline, frankly,
“and my husband spent them.”
“I cannot help that,” said Otto.
No, he was not willing to assist her. She appealed but little to
his sympathy.
He could not believe she belonged to the “deserving poor,” and he
told her so. How had she got hold of her worthless husband?
“By advertisement,” replied Adeline, offended. “The same way your
worthy lady tried to get hers.”
“What do you mean? You are insolent,” said Otto, haughtily.
“Oh, of course, Mynheer the Baron; poor people always are when
they speak the truth. But when the Baroness was advertising for a
husband she couldn’t be sure that she’d get such a good one as you.”
“If you mean anything except insult,” said Otto, frowning, “tell me
the truth, and I will pay you.”
Whereupon Adeline told, with slight embellishment. Ursula had
answered advertisements, Gerard’s among the number. She had
“wanted” a husband. So, of course, she had accepted Otto’s
proffered hand.
“A _mésalliance_ is a mistake, after all. There is something in
blood,” thought Otto, in the train. He went home quite quietly. But
that evening, to Ursula’s wonderment, he dropped, for the first
time, his good-night kiss.
* * * * *
That year’s winter opened dully. Otto had let the shooting; it was
a sacrifice of which he could not trust himself to speak. No one
came to the house in the absence of battues. Gerard wrote home
regular letters to his mother, bright letters, but the Baroness,
bored to death, was growing somnolent and slow.
Bad accounts of Gerard--mostly false--occasionally reached the
Manor-house. People said he was exceedingly wild and devil-may-care.
Rumor told, moreover, that he had got himself entangled, on the
journey out, with the governess of an English family.
“Thank God, we have the boy,” said Otto.
One evening, late in October, the father came into the nursery,
where Ursula was trying to make “Ottochen” balance himself against
a chair.
“Ursula,” began the Baron, hurriedly, “where have you been this
afternoon?”
Ursula slowly lifted her eyes to his excited face.
“At the ‘Hemel,’” she said, firmly. “Vrouw Zaniksen was ill again.
And her baby, too. They were absolutely destitute. So I went.”
“The baby is dead,” burst out Otto. “It is a case of malignant
diphtheria. I met the doctor just now. He warned me.” The father
sprang forward, placing himself between wife and child. “Leave the
room!” he cried. “Don’t come back to-day. Leave the child to me!”
He caught the boy so violently to his breast that Ottochen began to
cry. Ursula hurried away, unresisting, with that wail in her ears.
A few hours later, when they were alone together, she said, very
meekly, “Forgive me, Otto.”
He looked up wearily.
“I forgive you this,” he answered. Then, with an effort as of one
who breaks through a hedge, “But not,” he added, “the having
married me when you did not love me.”
She was a very proud woman, yet in this moment of his misery she
knelt down by his side. “Dear husband,” she said, “if I wronged you
it was in innocence. How, except by loving, can a woman’s heart
learn love?”
Otto sighed, crushing down the accusation that she had learned the
lesson since, but from another teacher.
“Ursula,” he said, “there is a foreboding in my heart to-night of
coming trouble. God grant it prove only a foolish fancy. But, if
not, then let us at least lighten each other’s load. Ursula, look
into my eyes. Tell me, dearest, that it is not true, this story of
your hunting for a husband, of your marrying me because others had
drawn back!”
“It is not true,” she said, bitterly, still kneeling, but with
scornfully averted glance.
“Tell me it is not true that you have ever loved any one else.”
This time she faced him fully. “It is not true,” she repeated.
“Ursula, God knows I have never wronged you by a word.”
“I have never wronged you by a thought,” she answered, rising to
her feet, and he felt that, whatever time might alter, one shadow
must remain.
“I love you,” he said. “I have loved you from the first. I shall
always love you through all my weakness and all my wrong.”
She put her arm round his neck and kissed him.
* * * * *
Twice during the night Ursula slipped away from her room to listen
at the nursery door. She crept back gratefully amid the perfect
silence. The slight irritation in her own throat was what people
always feel, she told herself, at the bare mention of diphtheria.
Yet all next day she kept away from little Otto.
She was sitting at the piano, when her husband came in to her, with
a white scare on his bronzed face.
“The child is not well,” he said, hoarsely. “I have sent for the
doctor.”
Ursula started up. “Oh, Otto,” she cried, “is it the throat?” Otto
nodded. “Then I can go to him,” she said, “now,” and ran from the
room.
The white spots were there; she saw them despite the little
creature’s struggles, and her heart sank. But she also had a few
white spots. There was so much false diphtheria.
The doctor, however, looked grave, and muttered, “Angina
pellicularis.” He was angry with Ursula. “I shall stay,” he said,
and she cowered down by the little bed.
Then followed an evening of unbroken anxiety. The child grew
rapidly worse, and the parents could do nothing but watch its
gaspings. Towards midnight the doctor performed the horrible,
unavoidable operation which gave it a little more air.
In the lull of suspense Ursula’s gaze fell upon Otto. “And you!”
she said, suddenly, “you are ill! You, too! Doctor!”
Otto sank back in responsive collapse.
“It’s no use holding out any longer,” he panted. “Doctor, I’m
afraid there’s something wrong with me too.”
“Let me look at your throat,” said the Doctor, harshly. “Here’s a
pretty bit of business,” he added, turning to Ursula.
Very shortly after there were two sick-rooms opening out of each
other, and the whole household trod softly under the near terror
of Death. All through the silent morning Ursula passed from bed
to bed, her own pain gone, feeling nothing but the dull agony of
useless nursing. Hephzibah had quietly installed herself as an
assistant. The child’s usual attendant was too full of personal
alarm. Tante Louisa came to the door with persistent whisper. Miss
Mopius left a bottle of fluid electricity and ten globules of
_Sympathetico Lob_.
The doctor, who had been away for his rounds, came back in the
afternoon and inserted a tube in the father’s throat also. Ursula
did not dare to question his solemnly sullen face.
One thought seemed chiefly to occupy Otto as he lay choking. He
had written on a piece of paper--finding no rest till they gave it
to him--the following words: “I must die before the child. Tell
the doctor to _make_ him live so long. Or kill me. Never Gerard,
Ursula. Never, never. You first. For another Helmont!”
She had read the message in her deep distress, and understood it.
Dutch law no longer admits entail. If Otto died childless, his
mother and brother were his legal heirs. But Ursula would be heir
to her _fatherless_ son.
She clasped her husband’s hand in response to the hunger of his
eyes, and when the doctor came she put the question which was
straining through them.
“Doctor, he wants me to ask it. If--if this were to be fatal”--she
went on bravely--“which do you think--first?”
“How do I know?” replied Dr. Lapperpap, roughly. “Pray to God for
both. Both of them need your prayers.”
Once again Otto signified his wish to write, in the short-lived
winter day.
“Never Gerard,” he scrawled. “You will help. By every means. Only
not Gerard. Promise.”
She bowed her head, but he pressed his finger on the final word.
In his dying eyes there was a passion of eagerness she could not
resist. Promise! promise!
“I promise,” she said. And it grew slowly dark.
* * * * *
Presently Ursula came through the intervening door into the
nursery. Hephzibah looked up.
“Mevrouw,” she said, “it’s no use trying to deceive you. The baby
is dying. It can’t last many minutes. It’s the Lord’s doing.
Blessed be the terrible name of the Lord!”
Ursula knelt down and calmly kissed the little congested forehead.
What did the danger matter? Perhaps she was courting death.
Then she went back to her husband, and gazed deeply upon his
terrible struggle. She could do nothing to help him. But she felt
that this agony, also, was approaching its end.
Hephzibah knocked gently. “Mevrouw,” she whispered, “Mevrouw, it is
over. The poor little thing is at rest.”
Some moments elapsed before Ursula appeared. Then her face stood
out, in the dusk, hard and set.
“Go down-stairs,” she said. “Go away, and leave me alone with
my dead.” She pushed forth the waiting-woman, and locked the
nursery door behind her. For a moment she waited by the cot; then
she returned to the inner room. It was now quite dark. A quick
shuffling made itself heard in the passage. Somebody tried the
lock. Ursula took no notice.
Half an hour later she opened the door and passed out into the
hall. An oil-lamp was burning there. She shaded her eyes from its
glare.
On the staircase she met Aunt Louisa. “Come into the dining-room,
aunt,” she said. “There is something I must tell you.” She sank
down on the nearest chair, by the glitter of the untouched
dinner-table. “Dearest Aunt Louisa,” she said, “you mustn’t mind
too much. God has taken Otto to Himself. And--and He has taken baby
also.”
Aunt Louisa began to cry.
“Don’t cry,” said Ursula, almost impatiently; “_I_ don’t cry.”
“Otto and baby!” sobbed the Freule--“oh, Ursula, Otto and baby!”
“Yes, doesn’t it seem strange?” said Ursula, staring in front of
her.
After a moment’s pause she added, “Aunt Louisa, somebody must go at
once, I suppose, for the doctor, and also for the notary. Mustn’t
they?” She went across and rang the bell.
“Anton,” she said, “two messengers must be off instantly, one to
the doctor, one to the notary. No time must be lost. Anton, your
master is dead. And the Jonker is dead also.”
The man’s face grew white, and his eyes overflowed. Ursula turned
hastily away.
* * * * *
The notary was the first to arrive. The widow received him alone.
After the usual preliminaries of condolence he told her that Otto
had left no will.
“I am sure of it,” said the notary, “for he talked the matter over
with me. Before the child’s birth he was anxious to disinherit the
old Baroness, his mother. When I told him that this would be quite
impossible, he said there was no use in his making a will.”
“The Baroness has no claim on the property now,” said Ursula. “She
is very nearly childish, as you are aware.” The Baroness would mean
Gerard.
“If Mynheer the Baron died after your little boy,” said the
notary, as gently as he could, “then his mother and brother are his
heirs. But, Mevrouw, if the Baron died first, then your little boy
inherited the property _at that moment_, and you, being a widow,
are the only person entitled to any estate left by your child.”
“My husband died first,” said Ursula.
Notary Noks rose in his agitation. “Then, madame,” he said, “you
are the owner of the Manor-house. Henceforth you are the Lady of
Horstwyk and the Horst.”
Ursula looked into the lawyer’s face. “It is an inheritance of
debt,” she said.
PART III.--CHAPTER XXXIII
INTRIGUE
“Ursula van Helmont is better,” announced Willie, dawdling into his
wife’s boudoir; “they say she will live.”
Helena glanced up from her book, not without a slight shade of
impatience.
“Who told you?” she asked. “Will you have some tea? It’s quite
cold.”
“Much obliged. Oh, everybody told me--they were talking it over at
the Club.”
“And supposing she had died,” continued Helena, carelessly, “of
this diphtheria or brain fever, or whatever she had, then I suppose
Dominé Rovers would have reigned at the Horst?”
“I suppose so,” replied Willie, eating a great hunch of plum-cake;
“but you mustn’t ask me, because I don’t understand. However, it’s
so idiotic that I dare say it’s law.”
Helena smiled.
“Really, Willie,” she said, “you are growing quite intelligent.”
“Oh, it’s not me,” confessed honest Willie. “Everybody was saying
it.”
A tinge of disappointment stole over Helena’s mobile face.
“And doesn’t it seem utterly ridiculous and unjust that if Ursula
Rovers marries again all the Helmont property will go to that Smith
or Jones, or whatever his name may be? It’s shamefully hard on
Gerard.”
“Of course Ursula will marry again,” said Helena. “People who have
been married like that always do.”
“Like what?”
“Willie, you are insufferable. Surely, ‘le secret d’ennuyer, c’est
de tout demander.’ Like that. Neither happily nor unhappily. They
have had a glimpse of possibilities. It is like gambling without
a decisive turn of luck either way; one goes on. _I_ should marry
again.”
“If I give you a chance,” grinned Willie, who understood _that_.
“Which you are not gallant enough to do. Unless you seriously
object, Willie, I should like to go on with my book.”
He walked across and took it out of her hand.
“_La Terre!_” he said. “Really, Nellie, your tastes are catholic.”
“Have you read it?” she asked, with a faint blush.
“Yes. Somebody told me it was Zola’s dirtiest, so I looked at it
once in a way.”
“Ah, there, you see, lies the difference. You read it for the dirt.
Yes, undeniably, Zola is dirty, but he is not immoral. However, I
think he is dull. He photographs caricatures, and that is in itself
absurd. One photographs realities; caricatures should be drawn. No,
I am not speaking to you, Willie; I am speaking to somebody as an
audience: one has to sometimes. I’ll throw away this book, if you
like.” She looked up at her husband almost entreatingly.
Willie hesitated, standing in the middle of the room.
“Oh no,” he said. “After all, it’s your business, not mine.”
“All right. Don’t eat too much cake.”
Helena returned to her volume, but not to her reading. Between her
eyes and the printed page there settled, immovable, a vision of a
handsome, animated, angry face, and once more she saw a blue-paper
novel flying into a corner of the room. “No man that really loves a
woman would like to think of her as reading such a book as that.”
She turned away, on her couch, and stared hard at the
pink-embroidered rosebuds on the wall.
“What! Crying?” exclaimed Willie, in great distress, coming round
from the window. “Why, Nellie, what’s the matter? Is your toothache
bad again?”
“Yes, very bad,” she sobbed, breaking down. “Do go, Willie, and
send me Mademoiselle Papotier with the little bottle of laudanum.”
Mademoiselle Papotier had remained at the Van Trossarts’, but she
frequently came to spend a few days with Helena. She now duly
appeared, summoned by loud cries from her host.
“Papotier,” said Helena, thoughtfully, “if ever I have a daughter,
I shall not educate her as you educated me.”
“That is a reproach, my dear,” replied the French governess,
serenely, knitting on steadily with mittened hands.
“No, it is a compliment. You developed the heart. You did right.
But I should kill it.”
“My child, I could not have killed your heart; it was too large.”
The little old doll laid down her work, to gaze affectionately at
her former pupil.
“Why has God sold us to men that we must live with them?” cried
Helena, passionately. “He should have given us to angels or to
brutes. We could have been happy with either of those.”
“Fi, donc, ma chérie,” said Mademoiselle. “The good God knows his
business better than you.”
“Ah, my dear Papotier, you are an orthodox Christian. You enjoy all
the consolations of religion and neglect all its duties. It is a
very advantageous arrangement to be an orthodox Christian.”
“It is,” replied the Frenchwoman, with a quick gleam of malice.
“For we Christians, although we do wrong like other people, at
least occasionally have the grace to leave off.” She dropped her
eyelids, and her needles clicked.
“Yes, when you are tired of it,” retorted Helena, who perfectly
understood the allusion to her penchant for her cousin. “And then
your priest gives you absolution. I would not buy off the flames of
hell at the rate of a florin per fagot.” She paused, meditatively.
“And feel them burning just the same,” she added. Then she laughed.
“Papot,” she said, “you do not know that I have got a new admirer?
No, I do not mean Willie, though he certainly is more considerate
than he used to be. My admirer is old, and fat, and yellow; his
name is Mopius, and he is uncle to the Queen of the Horst. I met
him there the Christmas before last. Him and his--charming young
wife.”
“Yes?” assented Mademoiselle, listlessly. “My dear, you have many
admirers. Fortunately they are platonic”--she sighed a little
sigh--“as were mine.”
“This one is obstreperous,” persisted Helena, glancing at the
clock. “He presented me with a big bouquet last night at the Casino
ball, making a fool of me before everybody. And he asked permission
to call without his wife. Such things should be done without
asking. I am expecting him even now.”
“My dear, what will you do with him?”
“I don’t know. Be revenged on him, some time, for last night’s
_Jocrissiade_.”
Mevrouw van Troyen shut down her teapot with a vigorous snap.
“There he is,” she said, as the bell rang.
“My dear, your tea is not drinkable.”
“What does that matter? Is it not for an admirer?”
Mynheer Mopius entered, looking as smart as a blue-speckled yellow
waistcoat could make him. His thin hair was observably neat; he
bowed off the retreating Papotier with a grace which bespoke his
familiarity with the saloons of the aristocracy.
“I am come, Mevrouw,” he said to the mistress of the mansion, “to
express my condolence. I assure you I felt for you last night.”
“Really? You surprise me,” said Helena, meaningly. “Certainly,
I deserved your pity. And every one else’s. But these mixed
entertainments are always a bore.”
“I was alluding,” replied Mynheer Mopius, solemnly, “to the tragic
death of our cousin Otto.”
“Oh, were you? But that’s several weeks ago. I don’t think I can
claim much sympathy on account of the death of my cousins. Please
don’t, Mynheer Mopius. Besides, he was your nephew--wasn’t he?--so
you can condole with yourself.”
“He was.” Mynheer Mopius thoughtfully stroked his hat. “We are
a--kind of connection, Mevrouw.”
“Ursula and you? So I understood,” retorted Helena, hastily. “I
hope Mevrouw Mopius is well? It was very kind of her to send me
those flowers last night.”
“How delicate! How high-bred!” reflected Mopius. “Oh, Mevrouw,” he
stammered, “it was nothing. The merest trifle--”
“But she must never do it, or anything like it, again.”
Mynheer Mopius was doubly charmed. Whenever he made a fool of
himself, he was tempted thereto by the belief that ladies found him
irresistible. Some few men develop that fancy. Surely, in Mynheer
Mopius’s case, his first wife was more to blame than he himself.
“The unfading roses are yours,” he said, simpering and bowing.
“Have another cup of tea,” interrupted Helena, sharply.
The old Indian, as we know, was a great connoisseur; he had gulped
down two bowls of hot water already, imagining that it would not
be proper to refuse. He meekly accepted a third, but its tepid
unsavoriness aroused his native assumption.
“If I may make so free,” he said, “I should like to ask where you
get--ahem!--_this_, Mevrouw”--he tapped his cup--“and what you pay
for it?”
“Two and ninepence, I believe,” replied the lady, sweetly. “If you
wish, I’ll ring and ask the cook. I’m glad you like it. There’s
plenty more.”
“Only two and ninepence!” exclaimed Mopius, horror-stricken.
“That’s the worst of it; you Europeans fancy you can get things
without paying for them. I was in the East myself for twenty years;
_I_ know what good tea is--nobody better. I was famous for my tea
at Batavia, Mevrouw, as Mevrouw Steelenaar told me, the Viceroy’s
wife. ‘Mynheer Mopius,’ she said to me, ‘where do you get this
delicious mixture?’ But I wouldn’t tell her. However, I’ll send you
some. ’Pon my soul I shall. You shall know what tea is. I’ll send
you a pound to-morrow. I’ll send you ten pounds.”
Helena bent forward from her listless couch; a lily of the valley
dropped away among the laces of her gown, and Mynheer Mopius caught
at it with eager, fat fingers.
“Mynheer, you will send me nothing,” said Helena, gravely. “Did
I not make my meaning plain enough just now?” Then, not wishing
to go too far, “I cannot receive presents, thank you.” And,
unconsciously, the twinkle in her angry eyes wandered away to a big
portrait of her florid Willie.
“Ah!” said Mopius, and put the lily in his button-hole. He did it
fondly, lingeringly. He understood that young husbands are jealous,
however unreasonably, of experienced, intelligent men of the
world. His manner exasperated her. “I am sorry,” he said, flicking
the flower. “I should have been only too glad, had there been
_anything_ I could have done for Mevrouw van Troyen.”
Mevrouw van Troyen burst out laughing. “Really?” she cried, “even
leaving me when I must go and dress for dinner? Mynheer van
Trossart dines with us to-night; he is going to take me to the
theatre.” She rose.
Mopius rose also, but hung back. “Ah, the Baron van Trossart,” he
said. “Just so! I am very anxious to make his acquaintance. Some
day, perhaps, I hope--” He hesitated, looking wistfully at Helena.
Suddenly his manner, his tone, his expression explained the whole
thing to her. It was not her young beauty that had attracted this
poor creature. She remembered having heard some one speak of the
town-councillor’s ambition. There was a vacancy in Parliament--
“You can stay and meet him now, if you like,” she said,
ungraciously, but grasping at vengeance swift and sure. “Oh yes, he
is well enough, thanks; only rather worried about this approaching
election for Horstwyk. They can’t find, I am told, a desirable
candidate.”
She paused by the door. One look at Mopius’s face was sufficient.
“I don’t take much interest in politics,” she continued; “but, of
course, my godfather does. He has so much influence. And he tells
me that at Horstwyk they want a moderate man, one that would go
down with many of the Clericals--a Conservative, in fact. Such
people are so difficult to find nowadays. Everybody is extreme.”
“But--but--excuse me,” stammered Mopius. “One moment, I beg. I had
always understood that the Baron van Trossart was a Liberal--”
“A Liberal? Oh, dear, no. He would be a Conservative if there were
any Conservatives left. As it is, he would never espouse the cause
of an extremist. He sympathizes with the Clericals in many things.
And now I must really go up-stairs. I will send my husband in to
amuse you. Don’t talk politics to him, Mynheer Mopius. He knows no
more about them than I.”[J]
Mynheer Mopius, left alone, wiped his blotchy, perspiring forehead.
It was a master-stroke to have insinuated himself thus into the
graces of this great lady whom he had been lucky enough to meet at
the Horst. He felt very friendly towards Ursula.
“Ah, Jacóbus,” he said to himself in the glass, “you will be ‘high
and mighty’[K] yet.” And he smiled at the vanity of women.
Willie came lounging in obediently, and carried off the worshipful
town-councillor to the smoking-room.
“A fine house, Mynheer van Troyen,” said the conciliatory Mopius.
“Exceedingly tasteful.”
“Oh, it’s well enough,” assented loose-tongued Willie. “But the
money’s my wife’s, you know. And, by Jove! don’t she keep it under
lock and key!”
Having reached the tether of his conversation, the young officer
fell a-yawning, and soon suggested a little quiet _écarté_.
“There’s half an hour more, at least,” he said.
Did Mynheer Mopius know the game? Yes, Mynheer Mopius had played
it twenty years ago in India. Ah, indeed; they play for high
stakes there! Willie suggested fifty florins. He played better
than Mynheer Mopius. Twenty years is a long time. When Baron van
Trossart joined the two gentlemen, Mynheer Mopius had lost five
hundred florins, but he found himself on quite familiar terms with
Willie, and in the same room with Baron van Trossart. He bowed
pompously, patronizing the man who had just plucked him. “His
wife would have accompanied him,” he said, “but that interesting
circumstances--” and he smiled knowingly to the great noble before
him, on whose haughty features the look of chronic moroseness sat
so well.
A little preliminary awkwardness was deepened by his praising, all
astray, the amiability of the Baron’s “charming daughter,” but
presently the tide flowed swiftly into its preconcerted channel,
Helena herself having entered, resplendent with a couple of diamond
stars, to direct its course.
“No, Mynheer van Trossart,” said Mopius, nervously hurried, “I
should never feel in sympathy with extremists. What we need
nowadays, as I take it, is moderation, pacification--the old
Conservative spirit, in fact.”
“Ah, yes, ah!” said the Baron. He was rather interested in Mopius,
having heard of him as one of those men who are willing and able to
spend money in a good cause, if thereby they can further their own.
“Just the person, perhaps, for a candidate,” he said to himself.
“Only,” continued Mopius, ingenuously, “such people are so
difficult to find. Everybody is extreme, and that frightens off
the undecided voters. Now, I cannot help sympathizing with the
Clericals in many points. We have wronged them. Undoubtedly, we
have wronged them. Each man, Mynheer van Trossart, ought to be
permitted to serve God in his own way.”
“Oh, undoubtedly,” said the Baron, a little uneasily, nevertheless.
“Personally, for instance, I take a great interest in the movement
on behalf of confessional schools. I am speaking, of course, of
private initiative.” He hesitated; Helena nodded encouragement
across the Baron’s meditative study of his cigar. “I would go
even a little further. I consider that some well-proportioned
concessions--The development of Atheism, Mynheer van Trossart, is
not one that I contemplate with satisfaction.”
The Government functionary turned in dismay. “Why, Mynheer,”
he exclaimed, “I had been quite given to understand you were a
Liberal?”
Helena’s voice broke the ensuing silence. “We really must go in
to dinner, papa. We shall be late for the theatre. Good-bye, Mr.
Mopius; my compliments to Mevrouw!” She took the Baron’s arm and
drew him away. “I like a fat fool,” she said on the stairs; “your
lean fool is only half a fool. He can’t look the part.”
FOOTNOTES:
[J] There are three political parties in the Dutch Parliament--the
Roman Catholics, the permanent Liberal majority (who are
aggressively anti-religious), and a small, much-persecuted
Protestant remnant. All issues of any interest are religious. There
is no longer a Conservative party.
[K] Title of Dutch Members of Parliament.