quieted the splendid creature's nerves. Instantly it was calm, and
coming down from fun to business, started off at the daintest of
canters, which broke at exactly the right second into a noble bound.
Without a visible effort the adorable beast rose for each obstacle,
floating across hedges and walls as if it had been borne by the wings of
Pegasus. The last, widest water-jump was taken with one long, flying
leap; and then, doffing his hat low to the Royal Box, the conqueror rode
away in a storm of applause.
"It's always like that. Brederode never fails in anything he
undertakes," said Robert, as happy as if he, and not his friend, had
been the victor. "I'm off to congratulate him now."
Two minutes later I saw the hero among the crowd, his head towering
above most other heads; then I lost sight of him, and turned again to
watch the course, for the riding was not nearly finished yet. But with
the triumph of the great Water Beggar's descendant, the best was over.
No one else did as well as he, or had as fine a horse, and I found
myself looking for him and Robert. Maybe Robert would bring him to the
box in spite of all. It was a pity the others should be cheated of a
word with him--which even the twins seemed to hope for--just because
Robert had to punish me.
But he did not come, nor did Robert until after the Royalties had gone,
and Cousin Cornelia was ready to go too.
RUDOLPH BREDERODE'S POINT OF VIEW
VIII
I don't often do things that I have set my mind against doing, but when
Destiny lays a hand on one's steering-gear, unexpected things happen.
My idea has always been that, when my time came to fall seriously in
love, the girl would be a Dutch girl. I like and respect Dutch girls.
When you want them, there they are. There's no nonsense in them--at
least, as little as possible, considering that they are females. They
don't fuss about their temperaments, and imagine themselves Mysteries,
and Chameleons, and Anomalies, and make themselves and their lovers
miserable by trying to be inscrutable. You can generally tell pretty
well what they are going to do next, and if you don't want them to, you
can prevent them from doing it. Also they have good nerves and good
complexions, and for these reasons, and many others, make perfect wives
for men with family traditions to keep up. That is why I always intended
to fall seriously in love with a Dutch girl, although my mother was an
Englishwoman, and her father (an English earl who thought England the
only land) made an American heiress his Countess.
More than once I've come near to carrying out my intention, but the
feeling I had, never seemed the right feeling, so I let the matter drop,
and waited for next time.
A few days ago, I found out that there would never be a next time. I
knew this when Rob van Buren spoke of the two girls who were with him at
the Prinzenhof on July tenth as his "American cousin and an English
friend."
I can never fall in love with a Dutch girl now, for I have done the
thing I did not mean to do, and it can't be undone in this world. Once
and for all, that is settled, however it may go with me where the girl
is concerned. But it will go hard if I do not have her in the end, and I
shall if she is to be got; for the men of my blood soon make up their
minds when they want a thing, and they do not rest much until it's
theirs. This peculiarity has often landed them in trouble in past times,
and may land me in trouble now; but I'm ready for the risk, as they
were.
I didn't know at first which was the English girl--_my_ girl with the
chestnut hair, dark hazel eyes, and rose and white complexion; or the
other girl with brown hair, eyes of violet, and skin of cream. But when
I encountered my girl in the sea at half-past six in the morning,
unchaperoned except by a foolish runaway horse attached to a
bathing-machine, I should have guessed that she was the American, even
if there had been nothing in her pretty voice to suggest it.
I am sorry that it couldn't have been the other way round, for my
English mother's sake, since my fate isn't to be Dutch. But it can't be
helped. I have seen The One Girl, and it would be the same if she were a
Red Indian.
I was going to lead up to the subject when van Buren came to speak to me
at the Horse Show; but he began it, by thanking me, in the grave way he
has, for coming to his cousin's rescue in the morning. I shouldn't have
referred to that little business, as she might not have mentioned her
adventure; but as she had told the story, it gave me a foundation to
work on.
I said truly that what I had done was nothing, but hinted that I should
be pleased to meet the young lady again; and thereupon expected an
invitation to visit his mother's box. To my surprise, it didn't come,
and Robert's face showed that there was a reason why.
"My cousin doesn't deserve that you should take an interest in her," he
blurted out. "She is pretty, yes, and perhaps that is why she is so
spoiled, for she is vain and capricious and flippant. I wish it were
Miss Rivers who had our blood in her veins."
Queerly enough, instead of cooling me off toward the girl, Robert's
criticism of her had the opposite effect. I have liked Robert since I
took him under my wing during my last and his first year at Leiden.
Perhaps it tickles my vanity to know that he has been boyish enough to
make me into a kind of hero, little though I deserve it, and whenever I
have been able to do him a good turn I have done it; but suddenly I
found myself thinking him a young brute, and feeling that he deserved
kicking.
"I suppose Miss Van Buren hasn't paid enough attention to your High
Mightiness," said I.
"She hasn't put herself out much," said he; "but it isn't that I care
about, it's her attitude toward you. Of course you couldn't help hearing
what she said yesterday at the Prinzenhof about the portrait of William
the Silent. Because I asked her afterwards if she didn't think it looked
like you, she said not a bit; anyhow she had only been joking, and it
was an ugly portrait. Then, this morning at breakfast, when I heard what
happened on the beach, I told her that perhaps she would have the chance
this afternoon to thank you. Instead of being pleased, she answered that
she'd thanked you enough already, that you had run no risk, as what you
did was nothing much, after all, and she hoped I wouldn't bring you. I
tell you, Brederode, I could have boxed her ears."
I must confess that mine tingled, and for a moment I felt hurt and angry
with the girl, but it was only for a moment. Then I laughed.
"Served you right for forcing me upon her," said I. "Well, it's evident
she's taken a dislike to me. It must be my business to change that, for
I have exactly the opposite feelings toward her. Some day I shall _make_
her like me."
"I wonder you can think it worth while to trouble your head over my
cousin, after what I've felt it right to tell you," said Robert. "I
thought you ought to know, otherwise you would have considered it
strange I didn't ask you to our box, as I should have been proud to do;
but I was angry for your sake, and said I wouldn't bring you near her.
Now, as things are, I don't see how you can meet my cousin. The van
Buren blood is at its worst in her, and it has made her obstinate as a
pig."
"Heavens, what a simile!" said I; yet I couldn't help laughing. "I, too,
am obstinate as a pig; and being proud of my Dutch blood, I like her the
better for hers, all the more because it's obstinate blood, and it
wouldn't be true Dutch if it were not. I tell you, Robert, I'm going to
know your cousin--not through you; I don't want that now, but in some
other way, which will arrange itself sooner or later--probably sooner."
"I don't see how," Robert repeated. "I was in hopes that she and Miss
Rivers, her stepsister, could have been persuaded by my mother to pay us
a long visit, and give up an objectionable plan they have. But Cousin
Helen--Nell, as Miss Rivers calls her--has been pig-headed even with my
mother. I am sure it is not Miss Rivers's fault. She is not that kind of
girl."
"Do you mind telling me the objectionable plan?" I asked.
"I shall be glad to tell," said he, "and see if you don't agree with me
that it is monstrous, though, strange to say, now mother has talked with
the girls, _she_ does not seem to think it as bad as she was inclined to
at first. She tells me that they are determined to persist, and she
thinks they will come to no harm. My cousin has been left a motor-boat
by a friend's will. You must have seen it: Captain Noble's 'Lorelei,'
which used to lie near the Rowing Club. She and Miss Rivers have come
to take a trip through the waterways of Holland, though my mother has
learned that their financial circumstances hardly warrant such an
undertaking."
"Plucky girls!" was my comment.
"Ah, but you don't know all. A young man is going with them, a strange
American young man, whom they never saw till yesterday."
"By Jove! In what capacity--as chauffeur?"
"Not at all. As a sort of paying guest, so far as I can understand the
arrangement."
"It sounds rather an odd one."
"I should say so; but I mustn't make you think it's worse than it is.
There was a misunderstanding about the boat. The American thought he'd
hired it from the caretaker, and they were sorry for his disappointment.
He has an aunt, a Scotswoman of title, who is to be of the party."
"That makes all the difference, doesn't it?--not the title, but the
aunt."
"It makes a difference, certainly; but the man may be an adventurer.
He's an artist, it appears, named Starr----"
"What, the Starr whose Salon picture made so much talk in Paris this
spring?"
"Yes; but being a good artist doesn't constitute him a good man. He
might make love to the girls."
"Beast! So he might, aunt or no aunt. She'll probably aid and abet him.
I don't know that I blame you for objecting to such an adventure for
your cousin."
"Oh, it isn't so much for her--that is, except on principle. But I've
done all I can, and my mother has done all she can, so you can imagine
what my cousin's pig-headedness is like to resist us both. My mother
tells me she could do _nothing_ with her; and the girls are leaving us
to-morrow. They go back to Rotterdam, where they expect to find Starr's
aunt, and, they hope, a skipper for the motor-boat. Cousin Helen asked
if I could recommend a suitable man; but even if I knew one, I should
not make it easier for her to flout the wishes of the family."
"Naturally not," said I, with the sort of fellow-feeling for Robert
which makes one wondrous kind. And I was sure that if I were Miss Van
Buren's cousin, and had set myself against her doing a certain thing,
she would not have done it.
"However, they are returning to Rotterdam early in the morning, and that
being the case, as I was saying, I don't see how it will be possible for
you to meet my cousin."
"I bet that I will meet her, and be properly introduced, too, before
either of us is a week older," said I, and then was sorry I had clothed
my resolve in such crude words. But it was too late to explain or
apologize, for at that instant two or three men came up. The thought of
what I had blurted out lay heavy on my mind afterwards, and if it had
not seemed a far-fetched and even school-missish thing to do, I would
have sent a line to Robert asking him to erase that clumsy and
impertinent boast from his memory. If he is stupid enough or awkward
enough to repeat anything of our conversation, and give Miss Van Buren
the impression that I tried to make a wager concerning her, it will be
all up with me, I know.
As it is, I can only hope that my words will go out at one ear as fast
as they went in at the other.
Next morning I had made no definite plan of action, but thought that as
Miss Van Buren was going to Rotterdam, it could do no harm for me to go
to Rotterdam too, and see what would happen next. Things of some sort
were bound to happen, and one way or other my chance might come before
she started on her journey.
My mother is at Chateau Liliendaal, the place where she likes best to
spend July and August when we don't run over to England; but she didn't
expect me to join her for some days, and meanwhile I was free to do as I
chose.
I was in hopes that I might see Miss Van Buren in the train, if I took
the most popular one in the morning; but she and her stepsister were not
on board, so I fancied Robert must be driving them back in the borrowed
car, despite his objections to their proceedings.
I went straight to the Rowing Club, where I have several friends, and as
I knew from Robert that the motor-boat was 'Lorelei' I easily found out
where she was lying. The next thing was to go and have a look at her, to
see if preparations were being made for an immediate start.
I had forgotten what she was like, but I found her a handsome little
craft, with two cabins, and deck-room to accommodate four or five
passengers; also I learned from a man employed on the quay close by that
the motor was an American one of thirty horse-power. He told me as well,
by way of gossip, that a rakish barge, moored with her pert brass nose
almost on "Lorelei's" stern, had been hired, and would be towed by the
owners of the motor-boat.
I didn't know what to make of this bit of information, as Robert had not
mentioned a barge; but the skylight meant a studio, so I saw the man
Starr's hand in the arrangement, and began to hate the fellow.
By the time I had loitered in the neighborhood for half an hour or more,
it was noon, and it occurred to me that I might go and lunch at Miss Van
Buren's hotel. But this would look like dogging the girl's footsteps,
and eventually I decided upon a more subtle means of gaining my end.
Nevertheless, I strolled past the house; but, seeing nobody worth
seeing, I reluctantly turned my steps farther on to a garden
restaurant--a middle-class place, with tables under chestnuts and
beeches or in shady arbors for parties of two or four.
It was early still, but the restaurant is popular, and all the small
tables under the trees were appropriated. Fortunately, several arbors
were empty, although one or two were engaged, and I walked into the
first I came to.
For a few moments I was kept waiting, then a fluent waiter appeared to
recommend the most desirable dishes of the day. His eloquence was in
full tide, when a man paused before the entrance of my arbor, hesitated,
and went on to the next.
"That is engaged, sir," called out the waiter.
"I don't understand Dutch," answered the new-comer in American-English.
"Can you speak French?"
The waiter could, and did. The man--a good-looking fellow, with
singularly brilliant black eyes and a fetching smile--explained that it
was he who had engaged the arbor, that he was expecting a lady, and
would not order luncheon until she joined him.
He sat down with his gray flannel back to me, but I could see him
through the screen of leaves and lattice, and it was clear that he was
nervous. He kept jumping up, going to the doorway, staring out, and
returning to throw himself on the hard green bench with an impatient
sigh. Evidently She was late.
An omelet arrived for me, and still my neighbor was alone; but I had
scarcely taken up my fork when a light, tripping step sounded crisply on
the crushed sea-shells of the path outside. A shadow darkened the
doorway, and for an instant a pocket-edition of a woman, in a neat but
well-worn tailor-made dress, hung on my threshold. Rather like a trim
gray sparrow she was, expecting a crumb, then changing her mind and
hopping further on to find it.
But the change of mind came only with the springing up of the young man
in the adjoining arbor.
"_Aunt Fay_, is that you?" he inquired, in an anxious voice, speaking
the name with marked emphasis.
"Oh!" chirped the gray sparrow, flitting to the next doorway, "I must
have counted wrong. I saw a young man alone, and--Then you are my
nephew--_Ronald_."
She also threw stress upon the name and the relationship, and, though I
knew nothing of the face that lurked behind a tissue veil, I became
aware that the lady was an American.
"Funny thing," I said to myself. "They don't seem to have met before.
She must be a long-lost aunt."
My neighbor would have ushered his relative into the arbor, but she
lingered outside.
"Come, Tibe," she cried, with a shrill change of tone. "Here, Tibe,
Tibe, Tibe!"
There was a sudden stir in the garden, a pulling of chairs closer to
small tables, a jumping about of waiters, a few stifled shrieks in
feminine voices, and a powerful tan-colored bulldog, with a peculiarly
concentrated and earnest expression on his countenance, bounded through
the crowd toward his mistress, with a fine disregard of obstacles.
Evidently, if there was any dodging to be done, he had been brought up
to expect others to do it; and I thought the chances were that he would
seldom be disappointed.
[Illustration: _There was a sudden stir in the garden._]
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Nephew Ronald, as the monster cannoned against
him. "You didn't mention This."
"No; I knew you were sure to love him. I wouldn't have anything to do
with a creature who didn't. Isn't he exquisite?"
"He's a dream," said the young man; but he did not specify what kind of
dream.
"Where I go, there Tibe goes also," went on the lady. "His name is
Tiberius, but it's rather long to say when he's doing something that you
want him to stop. He'll lunch with us like a perfect gentleman. Oh, he
is more _flower_ than dog! Tibe, come away from that door _instantly_!"
The flower had paused to see whether he approved of my lunch, and from
the way he turned back a protruding black drapery of underlip from a
pair of upstanding ivory tusks, I judged that neither it nor I found
favor in his eyes. Perhaps he resented laughter in mine; yet there was
something after all in the flower simile, if not precisely what the
blossom's adoring mistress meant. Tibe's face distinctly resembled a
pansy, but an appalling pansy, the sort of pansy you would not like to
meet in the dark.
Whatever may have been his opinion of me, he had to be dragged by the
collar from my door, and later I caught the glitter of his gaze through
the lattice.
Aunt Fay slipped in between bench and table, sitting down opposite to
me, and when the nephew took his old place I had glimpses of her over
his shoulder.
She was unfastening her veil. Now it had fallen. Alas for any hopes
which the trim, youthful figure might have raised! Her thick gray hair
was plastered down over temples, cheeks, and ears, and a pair of
uncommonly large blue spectacles left her eyes to the imagination.
"I began to be afraid there might have been some mistake in the telegram
I sent, after I got your letter saying I mustn't come to your address,"
began Nephew Ronald, hastily, after a moment of silence that followed
the dropping of the veil. "What I said was, 'Buiten Oord, third arbor on
the left as you come in by main entrance, lunch quarter past twelve. Any
cabman will know the place.' Was the message all right?"
"Yes," replied Aunt Fay; "but I suffer a little with my eyes. That's why
I stopped when I came to the next arbor. I'm late, because darling Tibe
ran away just as I was hailing a cab, so I had to let that one go, and
rescue him from the crowd. Wherever he goes he has a throng round him.
People admire him so much. Down, my angel! You mustn't put your feet on
strange gentlemen's tables, when you're invited to lunch. He's hungry,
poor lamb."
"I hope you are also," said Nephew, politely; but his voice was
heavy. I wondered if he were disappointed in Aunt, or if it was only
that the Pansy had got on his nerves. "Here's my waiter. We'll have
something to eat, and talk things over as we lunch. There's a tremendous
_menu_ for a _table d'hote_ meal--thoroughly Dutch. No other people
could get through it and live. Probably you would prefer----"
"Let me see. Potage d'Artois; Caneton de Luxembourg; Soles aux fines
herbes; Pommes Natures; Fricandeau de Veau; Haricots Princesse; Poulet
roti; Compote; Homard frais; Sauce Ravigottes; Salad mele; Creme au
chocolat; Fromage; Fruit. Humph, funnily arranged, isn't it? But Tibe
and I have been living in furnished lodgings, and we--er--have eaten
rather irregularly. I dare say between us we might manage the lunch as
it is."
Nephew Ronald ordered it, and another silence fell. I think that he
drummed on the table.
"We might as well get to business," suggested the lady. "Does the aunt
engagement begin immediately?"
"I--er--there's one difficulty," faltered the young man. "Unfortunately
I injudiciously let drop that my aunt was a _fine_ woman."
"Really! You might better have waited till you made her acquaintance.
You can't pick and choose in a hurry, when you must have a ready-made
aunt, my dear sir. Myself, I _prefer_ small women. They are more
feminine."
"Please don't be angry. You see, it was like this. I said that, when I
still hoped to have a real aunt on hand for my purpose. That was the way
the scrape began. I inadvertently let out her name and a lot of
things----"
"To the young ladies I'm to chaperon?"
"Yes, to the young ladies. If they remember the description----"
"You can say you referred to your aunt's character when you remarked
that she was a fine woman."
"I suppose so" (still doubtfully). "But then there's another trouble,
you know. I advertised in _Het Nieus van den Dag_
for a _Scotch_ aunt."
I moved suddenly, for a queer thought jumped into my head. The blue
spectacles were focused on me, and there was a low murmur, to which the
man responded in his usual tone. "No danger. _Dutch._ I heard him
talking to the waiter."
Now, perhaps I should have called through the lattice and the leaves:
"Combination of Dutch and English. Half and half. As much at home in one
language as the other." But for several reasons I was silent. One was,
that it was easier to be silent than to make a fuss. Another was that,
if the suspicion which had just sprung into my head had any foundation,
it was mine or any man's duty to know the truth and act upon it. So I
sat still, and went on with my luncheon as my next door neighbors went
on with theirs; and no one remembered my existence except Tibe.
"I've no moral objection to being a Scotch aunt," said the obliging
lady.
"It's your accent, not your morals, that sticks in my throat."
"The latter, I trust were sufficiently vouched for in the letter from
our American Consul here. You can call on him if you choose. Few
ready-made aunts obtained by advertisement would have what I have to
recommend me. As for a Scotch accent, I've bought Burns, and a Crockett
in Tauchnitz, and by to-morrow I'll engage that no one--unless a
Scotsman--would know me from a Scotswoman. Hoot, awa', mon. Come ben."
"But--er--my aunt's rather by way of being a swell. She wouldn't be
found dead saying 'hoot, awa', 'or 'come ben.' There's just a little
indescribable burr-r----"
"Then I will have just a little indescribable burr-r. And you can buy me
a Tartan blouse and a Tam."
"I'm afraid a Tam wouldn't--wouldn't quite suit your style, or--or that
of any well-regulated aunt; and a well-regulated aunt is absolutely
essential to the situation. I----"
"_Do_ you mean to insinuate that I am not a well-regulated aunt?" There
was a rustling in the arbor. "Come, Tibe," the lady added in a firm
voice, "you and I will go away and leave this gentlemen to select from
all the other charming and eligible aunts who have no doubt answered his
quite conventional and much-to-be-desired advertisement."
"For heaven's sake, don't go!" cried the man, springing to his feet.
"There, your dog's got the duck. But it doesn't matter. Nobody else
worth speaking of--nobody in any way possible--has answered my
advertisement. I can't lose you. But, you see, I somehow fancied from
your letter that you were large and imposing, just what I wanted; and
you said you'd lately been in Scotland----"
"The accent was one of the few things I did _not_ wish to bring away
with me," sniffed the lady. "Under the table, Tibe; we're not going,
after all, for the moment. And as you _have_ the duck, you may as well
eat it."
"Good dog," groaned the stricken young man. If he had not, to the best
of my belief, been engaged in concocting a treacherous plot against one
whom I intended to protect, I could have pitied him.
Both sat down again. There was a pause while plates were changed, and
then the female plotter took up the running.
"I may be conceited," said she, "but my opinion is that you're very
lucky to get me. I may not be Scotch, and I may not be a 'swell,' but I
am--a lady."
"Oh--of course."
"What were the others like who answered your advertisement?"
"All Dutch, and spoke broken English, except one, who was German. She
wore a reform dress, hunched up behind with unspeakable elastic things.
You'd make allowances if you knew what I've gone through since the day
before yesterday, when I found, after telegraphing a frantic appeal to
my aunt in Scotland, that she's left home and they could give me no
address. I've had an awful time. My nerves are shattered."