THE NEW BAILIFF
As ill-luck would have it, Helena wrote to announce her visit for
the last evening of Theodore’s stay at the Manor-house. She arrived
before dinner, bringing the unwilling Willie along with her.
An almost oppressive quiet had reigned in the mansion, only
rarely disturbed by the deep voice of Monk. The guest had spent
most of his time out-of-doors, returning occasionally to closet
himself with great memoranda and account books. Tante Louisa
complained bitterly that she got next to nothing of his interesting
conversation; Ursula anxiously fought shy of him; the Dowager,
unexpectedly meeting him in the hall, asked her _confidante_, the
cook, who he was.
“I shall stir them all up a bit,” said Helena to her husband in the
carriage. “I have seen them already once or twice since the event,
and you can’t go on looking lugubrious forever. Besides, I don’t
believe Ursula is inconsolable. I shall ask her.”
“No, you won’t,” said Willie.
“Willie, don’t put my back up, or you’ll make me do an unlady-like
thing.”
“You won’t ask her, because you can’t. I’d bet you a gold piece
that you wouldn’t dare.”
“You wouldn’t like me to dare.” Helena’s eyes strayed away through
the carriage window.
“Indeed I should. I like pluck of any kind. In a horse, or a woman,
or a dog.”
“Only not in a man!” exclaimed Helena, a little bitterly.
“In a man it goes without saying. By-the-bye, what atrocious brutes
these horses of Ursula’s are. I’ve an idea, Nellie, that she’s very
badly off.”
“All the more reason for her to console herself. A poor widow
remarries much sooner than a rich one, and with far less
opportunity.”
“’Tisn’t said that she’d better herself. If she marries she ought
to marry Gerard. It would be her bounden duty.”
“Thank you, for Gerard’s sake,” retorted Helena, now very bitterly
indeed. And they lapsed into silence. Was there really any prospect
of Ursula’s marrying Gerard? It was this question which had long
held Nellie van Troyen’s heart as in a vise, pinching it and
torturing it, and refusing to let it rest. It was this question
which now hunted her to the Horst. She was determined to see with
her own eyes how matters stood. “I shall find out,” she told
herself. “I must, even if I have to _ask_ her. To think of Willie’s
trumpery gold piece! It is horrible, all the suffering. But my life
is a beautiful romance.” She smiled, and reflectively arranged her
dress. “You like me, you know, Willie,” she said, “in pink.”
“Yes,” he replied, “though I don’t know why. Blue suits your fair
complexion better. But, somehow, I can’t bear to see you in blue.”
“I know why. Shall I tell you? It is because you have some
delightful memories connected with a creature in blue.”
“You are wrong,” he said, quite coolly. “It is because I have some
detestable memories connected with a creature in blue.”
“Oh, ‘delightful,’ ‘detestable,’ that is all one in such cases. So
you see, I was right. Here we are.”
“Well, shall we wager?” he asked, as he helped her to alight.
“If you like. But you are pretty sure of your gold piece, for I
certainly shall not trouble her unless she drives me to it.”
“So much the better. Don’t dare, and pay me.”
“Willie, I believe you would sell your soul for money,” she cried.
He laughed.
“No, no, not his soul,” she said to herself, half aloud, as she
climbed the great stone steps. “Only his body--only all he’s got to
sell!”
* * * * *
The Dowager came forward to meet her niece, who had always been a
favorite with the old lady, and the only possible successor she
could consider with equanimity. “My dear, I am so glad you are
come,” she said, with a return of her vanished sprightliness. “Your
visits are like those of the angels. And the house is so dull.
Though certainly, at this moment, we have a guest.”
“A guest?”
“Oh, he is Ursula’s guest. One of the--the other Helmonts, that
nobody ever used to see. But these are the days of the bend
sinister. We have fallen on evil times.”
Helena stood taking off her wraps, the little old lady helping her.
“My dear,” began the latter, somewhat tremulously, “I wish you
would do me a kindness. I want you to come and stay with us for a
few days, and I will read you what I have written about the good
old past. I read it to Ursula, but she does not know what it is all
about. She is not one of us; it will interest _you_. There is a
great deal in it about your mother.”
“Yes?” said Helena. “Is it ready, aunt?”
“Ready, my dear? Oh dear no; how could it be ready? But I can show
you what I have done. Do you know, I begin to fear it will never be
ready!”--the Dowager’s voice nearly failed her. “To give me plenty
of time to write the memoir, your uncle ought to have died a great
many years ago.” Then, vaguely realizing that she had incorrectly
expressed her meaning, she began to cry with unmistakable
persistence.
“Hush, hush!” exclaimed Helena, in her most impulsive tones.
“Auntie, I shall be delighted to come; we will talk over the old
days, as you say, and all the fun I used to have with Gerard. But
would you not rather pay us a visit?” She drew the little lady’s
arm through her own. “I am so sorry. This is very hard for you--and
for Gerard--this about Ursula.”
“My dear, I thank you, but I cannot.”
The Dowager nestled confidentially against the silver-pink sleeve
of the fair creature beside her. They cooed over each other like a
pair of high-bred doves. “I dare not leave the house for a single
night. I have an idea that something would happen if I did. I am
the last of us all, and I am set here to watch. When Gerard comes
back--Helena, you do not think, do you, that they will really leave
it to her forever?”
“Poor auntie!” said Helena, softly stroking the transparent cheek.
“Poor auntie!”
“What I cannot understand is that _he_ doesn’t come and take it
away from her!” cried the Dowager, with sudden energy. “I wrote to
him to do so. Gerard never was a coward. But I fear that Louisa’s
explanation is correct.”
“What is Freule Louisa’s explanation?” questioned Helena, quickly.
“She says that Gerard is in love with Ursula, and always has been.
She says that _that_ is why he went to India. If what she says is
true, then Ursula has robbed me of both my sons.” And again the
poor, forlorn old woman began gently to whimper.
“Perhaps it is not true,” replied Helena, pensively. “Come, auntie,
let us sit in the window-seat and talk of Gerard. I suppose he will
be coming back before long.”
“I don’t know. I forget. Oh, Nellie, you don’t know how dreadful it
is to grow old and forget. I can’t find my words sometimes, though
I take care that nobody notices it. I feel that it would never do
for Ursula to discover that I have not all my wits about me. Who
knows what she might not do? _Sell the place, perhaps!_”--her voice
dropped to a whisper. “Imagine that! Or sell some of your uncle’s
dear art treasures that he bade me keep. She doesn’t care for them,
I know, for she never seems to see them even. I’ve watched her
constantly. Oh, Nellie, I’m set here as sentinel, and--my strength
is failing.”
Helena felt that, irrational as she knew the feeling to be, she
_could_ not but think ill of Ursula.
“I forgot one of the poor children’s birthdays last week,” wailed
the Baroness--she alluded to her dead infants that slept beneath
“The Devil’s Doll”--“and Ursula didn’t remind me to take any
flowers. I have never forgotten before.”
Ursula entered at the moment, tall and straight in her heavy gown.
To both the gracefully drooping women, whose soft clothes and
figures intermingled against the darkening window, her presence at
that moment seemed more than ever an insult.
“Shall we have lights?” she said, in her clear voice.
“Oh, in the drawing-room, pray,” replied her mother-in-law,
pettishly. “Mynheer van Helmont is gone in there. He was looking
for you.”
Ursula withdrew into an adjoining apartment. It was very large and
lofty, and the figures on its tapestried walls, half hidden under
the great masses of shadow now clouding around them, peered forth
in vaguely distorted gloom. Theodore was pacing the parqueted floor
with moody tramp. He came forward at once.
“I want you,” he said, hurriedly. “I must leave to-night. So we may
as well have our talk at once.”
“I am quite ready,” she answered. “I did not wish to press you.
Will half an hour suffice?”
“Ten minutes. Everything worth saying in this world by one human
being to another can be said in ten minutes. But I should like you
to sit down.”
“Very well,” she said. “No, not an easy-chair. Thanks.”
“I have looked into everything, superficially,” he began, resuming
his march in the dusk. “I must, in the first place, beg your pardon
for misjudging you all. I came here with false impressions. When
a man grows up, as I have done, in the bourgeois daily fight with
poverty, he is apt to form erroneous impressions of the life which
his ‘grand’ relations lead, especially when his impressions are
gained by hearsay. I beg your pardon.”
He paused for a moment; then, as she did not answer, he continued:
“In the second place I want to express my--my admi--my
_recognition_ of the way in which you have carried on your
husband’s work. Few women, I imagine, would have taken up such a
load or borne it so bravely. I didn’t like your sudden telegram. I
thought of the people who jump into the water and then call out to
strangers to save them. There! that’s off my mind. I am not good
at compliments or excuses. I’ve no manners, as Freule Louisa says.
Now to business.” His tone, which had been agitated, immediately
dropped to the habitual growl that masked his shyness.
“He reminds you,” Helena had said, when they met by the
Christmas-tree, “of a peach with a wasp inside.”
“The truth is as you stated,” he resumed; “nothing but hard work
can keep the whole thing going. A forced sale would mean ruin.
On the other hand, barring such extra expenses as death duties,
you ought, with rigid economy, to pay your way.” He paused for a
moment. “With rigid economy,” he repeated.
“I know,” said Ursula, softly.
“There is nothing so hopeless as farming without capital--you
know that better than I do. But the cherry orchards pay, and so,
especially, do the osier plantations. Without these latter you
could hardly get on. You have good tenants, on the whole. One of
them, however, will have to go.”
“I know,” said Ursula again, in the same tone, through the
darkness; “but he can’t.”
“He must. I see we understand each other--the home-farm man--your
sort of agent. I don’t say he is dishonest. Otto seems pretty well
to have stopped that--but he is expensive--you can’t afford him.”
“I cannot make cheese myself,” pleaded Ursula, a little helplessly,
for her. “I tried once, and nobody could eat it. It--it didn’t
stiffen.”
But her stern adviser vouchsafed no responsive smile.
“It’s a matter of life or death,” he said; “the work that fellow
does must be done by another man.”
“But where would you find a better?”
“I can’t find a better, but I can find a cheaper.”
“Have you got him?”
“Yes; I mean myself. Stop a minute--let me explain. I told you I
had always wanted to be a farmer”--his voice grew nervous again.
“I’m sick of being a genteel sort of manikin in a pot-hat. I’m
especially sick of the post-office. I’m going to take that farm and
work it.”
“But, Mynheer Helmont, this sudden decision--”
“It isn’t a sudden decision. It took twenty-four hours to come to,
and its twenty-four hours old already. I’ve announced it to my
mother.” He again made a pause, away at the farther, darkest end.
“Oh, I dare say you don’t like it,” he burst out; “I didn’t expect
you would. But it’s going to happen, all the same. To have as my
lady Baroness’s close neighbor a farmer bearing her name--”
“I was not thinking of that,” she interrupted him. “For, of course,
a gentleman-farmer--”
But he would not allow her to proceed.
“A gentleman-gammon!” he cried, still out of the distant darkness;
“a common, common farmer. Nothing in all the world--not even
drink--costs half as much as gentility. But, remember, if it isn’t
pleasant for you people, it’s a hundred times worse for my mother
and--” He broke off. “But she’ll do it,” he lamely concluded the
sentence.
Ursula rose and came up the big room to look for him.
“Sit down, please,” he said, hastily; “I haven’t done. Please sit
down till I’ve done. Women are such bad listeners!” She obeyed,
knocking the chair against something which crashed to the floor. “I
hope that isn’t anything expensive!” exclaimed Theodore, emerging
from his corner. His tone chid her as if she had been an awkward
child.
“It didn’t sound broken,” replied Ursula, meekly; “but I suppose
you object to my getting a light?”
For only answer he struck a match, revealing a cloisonné vase which
lay in a pool of water and a tangle of white anemones upon an
Oriental rug. The match flickered out.
“That’ll keep,” said Theodore, coolly. “I only want half a minute
more. There is still one point, the most important. The three
thousand florins we require next week will be found.”
“But how?” Ursula’s voice betrayed her.
“Oh, not picked up on the high-road. When I say ‘found,’ of course
I mean provided and paid for. _I_ shall provide them. You can
imagine that, poor as we are, we do not live on my salary only. As
a matter of fact, I possess about twenty-seven thousand florins;
I have looked so much into your private affairs that I suppose
you have a right, if you care, to know something of mine. Three
thousand, therefore, I will advance, if you can give me sufficient
security.”
“That is just what I cannot do.”
“That remains to be seen. Freule Louisa mentioned that you still
had a valuable diamond brooch.”
Ursula was thankful he could not see the hot flare of her
resentment.
“And do you think,” she said, scornfully, “that I would not have
sold _that_? But it isn’t mine to sell. It is an heirloom. I must
keep it, like the rest.”
“It is legally yours,” he replied, “and therefore you must _not_
keep it. Besides, I trust that you will be able to redeem it in the
slow course of the years. All ladies like diamonds. I promise to
take good care of yours. Bring the thing down before the carriage
starts. And now perhaps I had better ring for somebody with a
cloth.”
“Stop!” she cried; he had lighted another match and was looking for
the bell-rope. “Before you do that I want to say--”
“Don’t. I really do not think there is anything more to be said
just now.” He had found the bell and pulled it.
“But I do not want to do this. I do not want--”
“I know you don’t. Did not I tell you so? However, permit me to say
that I have as good a right to interfere in this matter as you. I
am quite as much of a Helmont--even a good deal more.” His voice
rolled out like the threat of a recoiling dog.
A female servant knocked and entered, letting in a flood of
light from the hall. She gazed with decorous astonishment at the
occupants of the room.
* * * * *
“Ursula,” said Willie, coming in with the others, “is it true that
you have let the shooting?”
“No; that was not one of my crimes,” replied Ursula, with a
petulant laugh. “Otto did it immediately after Gerard’s departure.”
Then her voice softened. “I believe it was the greatest sacrifice
he ever made. You know, he was such a splendid shot.”
“He was,” assented Willie, with that solemn admiration which no man
can suppress.
“But, Ursula, I remember you used to say you hated ‘splendid
shots’?” suggested Helena, looking back over the arm which still
supported the Dowager. They were passing in to dinner. Willie,
glancing up, saw mischief in his wife’s blue eye.
“They are better than stabs,” answered Ursula; and from that moment
it might be evident to any one that these two women meant war. It
would not, however, be the feminine skirmishing of intrigue and
innuendo, for Helena, as we know, was reckless, and Ursula blunt.
“I want to sit next to poor dear auntie,” said Helena, as they took
their places. “Mynheer van Helmont, I suppose _your_ habitual seat
is next to the lady of the house? Are you going to stay here long?”
“I have no habitual seat,” replied Theodore, awkwardly. “I leave
to-night. I am only a three days’ guest.”
“Yes; no one of your name could be anything else at the Horst now.
Not even the head of the house, away in Acheen.” She smiled sweetly
and turned to the Dowager.
Theodore was mortally afraid of this fine lady, all soft texture
and vague perfume, like a rose. But he found conversation
hardly easier with Ursula, in spite of the sullen admiration he
unwillingly accorded her.
“Your mother will be glad to have you back,” said Ursula.
“Yes, indeed,” he replied, fervently. “And I to go--back,” he
added, blushing.
“You know, it was impossible,” Helena’s voice rang out again.
“We are speaking of your uncle Mopius, Ursula. They have had to
withdraw his candidature. He is a very good sort of man--oh,
very good--but he is not what Freule Louisa calls ‘strong.’ Papa
tells me it is quite impossible, though I’m sure I worked hard
for him--didn’t I, Willie? Your uncle says it’s all _your_ doing,
Ursula. He was very rude about you to papa. I had to stop him, and
remind him you were become my cousin by marriage.”
“Indeed,” replied Ursula.
“Would you like to hear what he said?”
“I cannot say I care.”
“Well, as we are quite among ourselves, perhaps it is better you
should know. He said that your elevation had turned your head. You
know, Ursula, he is rather, rather--pardon me the word--vulgar!”
She had spoken French. The servant, by the sideboard, rattled his
plates.
“And he said your political opinions were deplorable. What are your
political opinions, Mynheer van Helmont?”
“Deplorable,” replied Theodore, with a ready championship which
astonished himself.
“Ah, you two are in close sympathy, I see. So much the better.” She
dropped her voice. “But is it not a strange thought to you, Mynheer
van Helmont, that this old place is now certain to pass, in due
time, to Ursula’s children, whatever their name may happen to be?”
“No,” replied Theodore; “it’s no business of mine.”
“Ah!” she exclaimed, angrily. “The Baron van Helmont thinks
differently, no doubt. Why, if Ursula has some seizure to-night, I
suppose we shall soon see a Lord Mopius of Horstwyk! Fie, Mynheer
van Helmont, this poor creature at my side has more spirit than
you.”
Ursula could not avoid hearing enough of this aside to understand
its meaning. She felt that everybody had heard it. Passionate
as she was, she fixed her eyes on the table-cloth. She remained
conscious that Helena, that everybody, even while the talk went on,
was watching her. At last she lifted them--those steadfast brown
eyes.
“It is six months to-day,” she said, “exactly six months. Only six
months since Otto and Baby died.” And she rose from the table.
“Ursula, you have forgotten the dessert,” cried Aunt Louisa,
lingering.
Ursula turned back.
“True,” she said. “I beg everybody’s pardon. Won’t you try some of
mamma’s preserved orange-leaves, Helena? You will find them as good
as ever.”
In the hall, just as the carriage had driven up which was to convey
the three visitors to the station, Ursula appeared with a small
parcel in her hand; she gave it to Theodore, who buttoned it out of
sight, without even saying “Thanks.”
“There is one thing still,” she began, hurriedly. “You heard about
the election. I had a letter yesterday from the Opposition Caucus,
asking me if I wished to put forward a candidate, or would accept
one from them. I have none. I have one. I mean, I had thought,
hearing what you said at dinner, that, if your political opinions
were theirs--”
“I have no political opinions,” he answered, moving away from the
sheltering pillar to the light where the others stood grouped.
She put out one hand. “I am sorry,” she stammered, trembling from
head to foot. “I had thought--it is the one only thing I could have
done to thank you--to express my gratitude--”
“I want no thanks,” he replied, literally shaking off her hand.
“Gratitude, pshaw! I told you a couple of hours ago that I have as
much right to do this as you have. I am not _all_ peasant, Mevrouw.
You remind me too frequently of that side.” And he went and took
up his own valise. “The servants forget these things,” he said to
Helena.
When they were all gone, Ursula crossed the cold emptiness of the
hall and encountered Hephzibah. The maid shrank away. “Hephzibah,
I want you to do me a favor,” said the young Baroness. “Would you
take this letter, when you go to the Parsonage to-morrow with the
Freule, and give it to a person who is staying at Klomp’s? Please
give it into her own hands. There is money in it.”
“H’m,” reflected Hephzibah, watching the tall figure in its slow
ascent. “Money in it. Is there? And why? Throw a barking dog a
bone.” She shook her head. “If I hear that noise up-stairs again,”
she muttered, “I’ll write to the Jonker, wife or not. But I’ve
said that so often before! And if the Jonker’s got a wife already,
what business had he wearing Mevrouw’s glove in his bosom and
duelling? I saw him pick it up. It’s a bad world, a bad world. But
I’m a blessed body to feel how bad it is. I told cook about the
groanings, though I didn’t explain their reason, so she only said I
ought to take medicine.”
* * * * *
“Well, Willie, I’ve lost my wager,” declared Helena, as soon as
they were rid of the “post-boy.”
“I don’t know about that, but pay up anyhow. You deserve to,
Nellie, for your treatment of Ursula. Poor thing, she behaved very
well, I thought. She’s quite lost that magnificent rich complexion
of hers. She looks sallow.”
“Oh, that will come right when she marries little Theodore,”
replied Helena, with tranquil satisfaction. “The person I am sorry
for is auntie. I’m sure I cried with her for nearly an hour.”