A YELLOW ENVELOPE.
There is a peculiarity about Baden-Baden which no other watering-place
seems to share--it has the aroma of a pretty woman. In August it is
warm, crowded, enervating, tiresome as are all warm and crowded places,
but the air is delicately freighted and a pervasive fragrance is
discerned even by the indifferent.
In the summer that succeeded Maida’s marriage Baden was the same tame,
perfumed _zwei und funfzig_ that it has ever been since the war. The
ladies and gentlemen who were to regard it as a sort of continuation of
the Bois de Boulogne had departed never to return. Gone was Benazet,
gone, too, the click of the roulette ball. The echoes and uproars of
the Second Empire had died away, as echoes and uproars ever must, and
in place of the paint and cleverness of the _dames du-lac_ had come the
stupid loveliness of the _schwärmerisch Mädchen_.
But though Paris had turned her wicked back, the attitude of that
decadent capital in no wise affected other cities. On the particular
August to which allusion is made, interminable dinners were consumed
by contingents from the politest lands, and also from some that were
semi-barbaric.
In the Lichenthal Allée and on the promenade in front of the Kursaal
one could hear six languages in as many minutes, and given a
polyglottic ear the number could have been increased to ten. Among
those who added their little quota to this summer Babel were Mr. and
Mrs. Incoul.
The wedding had been very simple. Mrs. Barhyte had wished the ceremony
performed in Grace Church, and to the ceremony she had also wished that
all New York should be bidden. To her it represented a glory which in
the absence of envious witnesses would be lustreless indeed. But in
this respect her wishes were disregarded. On a melting morning in early
June, a handful of people, thirty at most, assembled in Mrs. Hildred’s
drawing-room. The grave service that is in usage among Episcopalians
was mumbled by a diligent bishop, there was a hurried and heavy
breakfast, and two hours later the bride and groom were on the deck of
the “Umbria.”
The entire affair had been conducted with the utmost dispatch. The
_Sunday Sun_ chronicled the engagement in one issue, and gave the date
of the wedding in the next. It was not so much that Harmon Incoul was
ardent in his wooing or that Miss Barhyte was anxious to assume the
rank and privileges that belong to the wedded state. The incentives
were other if equally prosaic. The ceremony if undergone needed to be
undergone at once. Summer was almost upon them, and in the code which
society has made for itself, summer weddings are reproved. There was
indeed some question of postponing the rites until autumn. But on that
Mrs. Barhyte put her foot. She was far from sure of her daughter,
and as for the other contracting party, who could tell but that he
might change his mind. Such changes had been, and instances of such
misconduct presented themselves unsummoned to the woman’s mind. The
fish had been landed almost without effort, a fish more desirable than
any other, a very prize among fishes, and the possibility that he might
slip away and without so much as a gill awry float off into clearer
and less troubled seas, nerved her to her task anew.
In the interview which she enjoyed with her prospective son-in-law
she was careful, however, to display no eagerness. She was sedate
when sedateness seemed necessary, but her usual attitude was one of
conciliatory disinterestedness. Her daughter’s choice she told him
had met with her fullest approval, and it was to her a matter of deep
regret that neither her husband nor her father--the late Chief Justice
Hildred, with whose name Mr. Incoul was of course familiar--that
neither of them had been spared to join in the expression of her
satisfaction. Of Maida it was unnecessary to speak, yet this at least
should be said, she was young and she was impressionable, as young
people are apt to be, but she had never given her mother cause for
the slightest vexation, not the slightest. “She is a sweet girl,”
Mrs. Barhyte went on to say, “and one with an admirable disposition;
she takes after her father in that, but she has her grandfather’s
intellect.”
“Her beauty, madam, comes from you.”
To this Mrs. Barhyte assented. “She is pretty,” she said, and then in
the voice of an actress who feels her rôle, “Do be good to her,” she
pleaded, “she is all I have.”
Mr. Incoul assured her that on that score she need give herself no
uneasiness, and a few days before the wedding, begged as a particular
favor to himself that after the ceremony she would take up her
residence in his house. The servants, he explained, had been instructed
in that respect, and a checkbook of the Chemical Bank would be handed
her in defrayment of all expenses. “And to think,” Mrs. Barhyte
muttered to herself, “to think that I might have died in Connecticut!”
The voyage over was precisely like any other. There were six days of
discomfort in the open, and between Queenstown and Liverpool unnumbered
hours of gloomy and irritating delay. Mrs. Incoul grew weary of the
captain’s cabin and her husband was not enthusiastic on the subject of
the quarters which the first officer had relinquished to him. But in
dear old London, as all good Americans are wont to call that delightful
city, Mrs. Incoul’s spirits revived. The difference between Claridge’s
and Rodick’s would have interested one far more apathetic than she,
and as she had never before set her foot on Piccadilly, and as Rotten
Row and Regent Circus were as unfamiliar to her as the banks of the
Yang-tse-Kiang, she had none of that satiated feeling of the _dejà-vu_
which besets the majority of us on our travels.
The notice of their arrival in the _Morning Post_ had been followed by
cards without limit and invitations without stint. An evening gazette
published an editorial a column in length, in which after an historical
review of wealth from Plutus to the Duke of Westminster, the reader
learned that the world had probably never seen a man so rich and yet
seemingly so unconscious of the power which riches give as was Harmon
Incoul, esq., of New York, U. S. A.
During the few weeks that were passed in London the bride and groom
were bidden to more crushes, dinners and garden parties than Maida
had attended during the entire course of her bud-hood. There was the
inevitable presentation and as the girl’s face was noticeably fair she
and her husband were made welcome at Marlborough House. Afterwards, yet
before the season drooped, there was a trip to Paris, a city, which,
after the splendors of London, seemed cheap and tawdry indeed, and then
as already noted came the villegiatura at Babel-Baden.
Meanwhile Maida had come and gone, eaten and fasted, danced and driven
in a constant chase after excitement. To her husband she had acted
as she might have done to some middle-aged cousin with whom she was
not precisely on that which is termed a familiar footing, one on whom
chance not choice had made her dependent, and to whom in consequence
much consideration was due. But her relations will be perhaps better
understood when it is related that she had not found herself physically
capable of calling him by his given name, or in fact anything else than
You. It was not that she disliked him, on the contrary, in many ways he
was highly sympathetic, but the well-springs of her affection had been
dried, and the season of their refreshment was yet obscure.
In the face of this half-hearted platonism Mr. Incoul had displayed a
wisdom which was peculiar to himself; he exacted none of those little
tributes which are conceded to be a husband’s due, and he allowed
himself none of the familiarities which are reported to be an appanage
of the married state. From the beginning he had determined to win his
wife by the exercise of that force which, given time and opportunity, a
strong nature invariably exerts over a weaker one. He was indulgent but
he was also austere. The ordering of one gown or of five hundred was
a matter of which he left her sole mistress. Had she so desired she
might have bought a jewelry shop one day and given it back as a free
gift on the morrow. But on a question of ethics he allowed no appeal.
The Countess of Ex, a lady of dishonor at a popular court, had, during
the London season, issued cards for a ball. On the evening on which it
was to take place the bride and groom had dined at one house, and gone
to a musicale at another. When leaving the latter entertainment Maida
told her husband to tell the man “Park Lane.” Mr. Incoul, however,
ordered the carriage to be driven to the hotel.
“Did you not understand me?” she asked. “I am going to the Countess of
Ex’s.”
“She is not a woman whom I care to have you know,” he replied.
“But the Prince is to be there!”
To this he assented. “Perhaps.” And then he added in a voice that
admitted of no further argument, “But not my wife.”
Maida sank back in the carriage startled by an unexperienced emotion.
For the first time since the wedding she could have kissed the man
whose name she bore. It was in this way that matters shaped themselves.
Soon after reaching Paris, Mr. Blydenburg called. He had brought his
daughter abroad because he did not know what else to do with her,
and now that he was on the Continent he did not know what to do with
himself. He explained these pre-occupations and Mr. Incoul suggested
that in the general exodus they should all go to Germany. To this
suggestion Blydenburg gave a ready assent and that very day purchased
a translation of Tacitus, a copy of Mr. Baring-Gould’s Germany, a
Baedeker, and a remote edition of Murray.
At the appointed date the little party started for Cologne, where,
after viewing a bone of the fabulous virgin Undecemilla, they drifted
to Frankfort and from there reached the Oos. In Baden, Blydenburg and
his daughter elected domicile at the Englischerhof, while through the
foresight of a courier, good-looking, polyglottic, idle and useful, the
Incouls found a spacious apartment in the Villa Wilhelmina, a belonging
of the Mesmer House.
In the drawer of the table which Maida selected as a suitable place for
superfluous rings was a yellow envelope addressed to the Gräfin von
Adelsburg. On the back was an attempt at addition, a double column of
figures which evidently represented the hotel expenses of the lady to
whom the envelope was addressed. The figures were marked carefully that
no mistake should be possible, but the sum total had been jotted down
in hurried numerals, as though the mathematician had been irritated at
the amount, while under all, in an indignant scrawl, was the legend “S.
T.”
Maida was the least inquisitive of mortals, but one evening, a week
or ten days after her arrival, when she happened to be sitting in
company with the Blydenburgs and her husband on the broad terrace that
fronts the Kursaal, she alluded, for the mere sake of conversation,
to the envelope which she had found. The Gräfin von Adelsburg it then
appeared was the name with which the Empress of a neighboring realm
was accustomed to veil her rank, and the legend it was suggested could
only stand for _schrechlich theuer_, frightfully dear. The Empress had
vacated the Villa Wilhelmina but a short time before and it seemed not
improbable that the figures and conclusion were in her own imperial
hand.
While this subject was under discussion the Prince of Albion sauntered
down the walk. He was a handsome man, with blue projecting eyes,
somewhat stout, perhaps, but not obese. In his train were two ladies
and a few men. As he was about to pass Mrs. Incoul he stopped and
raised his hat. It was of soft felt, she noticed, and his coat was
tailless. He uttered a few amiable commonplaces and then moved on.
The terrace had become very crowded. The little party had found seats
near the musicians, and from either side came a hum of voices. A Saxon
halted before them, designating with pointing finger the retreating
back of the Prince, his companion, a pinguid woman who looked as though
she lived on fish, shouted, “_Herr Jesus! ist es ja möglich_,” and
hurried on for a closer view. Near by was a group of Brazilians and
among them a pretty girl in a fantastic gown, whose voice was like the
murmur of birds. To the left were some Russians conversing in a hard,
cruel French. The girl seemed to have interested them. “But why,” asked
one, “but why is it that she wears such loud colors?” To which another,
presumably the wit of the party, answered idly, “Who knows, she may be
deaf.” And immediately behind Mrs. Incoul were two young Americans,
wonderfully well dressed, who were exchanging chaste anecdotes and
recalling recent adventures with an accompaniment of smothered
laughter that was fathomless in its good-fellowship.
Maida paid no attention to the conversation about her. She was thinking
of the yellow envelope, and for the first time she began to form some
conception of her husband’s wealth. Apparently he thought nothing
of prices that seemed exorbitant to one whose coffers notoriously
overflowed. She had never spoken to him about money, nor he to her;
she knew merely that his purse was open; yet, as is usual with one who
has been obliged to count the pennies, she had in her recent shopping
often hesitated and refused to buy. In Paris she had chaffered over
handkerchiefs and been alarmed at Doucet’s bill. Indeed at Virot’s when
she told that poetic milliner what she wished to pay for a bonnet,
Virot, smiling almost with condescension, had said to her, “The
_chapeau_ that madame wants is surely a _chapeau en Espagne_.”
And now for the first time she began to understand. She saw how much
was hers, how ungrudgingly it was given, how easy her path was made,
how pleasant it might be for the rest of her days, and she half-turned
and looked at her husband. If she could only forget, she thought, only
forget and begin anew. If she could but tell him all! She moaned to
herself. The moon was shining behind the Kursaal and in the air was
the usual caress. The musicians, who had just attacked and subdued the
Meistersänger, began a sob of Weber’s that had been strangled into a
waltz, and as the measures flowed they brought her that pacification
which music alone can bring.
The past was over and done, ill-done, she knew, but above it might
grow such weeds of forgetfulness as would hide it even from herself.
In a semi-unconsciousness of her surroundings she stared like a pretty
sphinx into the future. The waltz swooned in its ultimate accords, but
she had ceased to hear; it had lulled and left her; her thoughts roamed
far off into distant possibilities; she was dreaming with eyes wide
open.
Abruptly the orchestra attacked a score that was seasoned with red
pepper--the can-can of an opéra-bouffe: the notes exploded like fire
crackers, and in the explosion brought vistas of silk stockings,
whirlwinds of disordered skirts, the heat and frenzy of an orgy. And
then, as the riot mounted like a flame, suddenly in a clash and shudder
of brass the uproar ceased.
Maida, aroused from her revery by the indecency of the music, looked
idly about her. The Russians were drinking beer that was as saffron as
their own faces. The Brazilians had departed. The young Americans were
smoking Bond street cigarettes which they believed to be Egyptian, and
discussing the relative merits of Hills and Poole.
“While I was getting measured for that top coat you liked so much,”
said one, “Leigh came in.”
“Lee? What Lee? Sumpter?”
“No; Lenox Leigh.”
“Did he, though? How was he?”
“Finest form. Said he would take in Paris and Baden. He may be here now
for all I know. Let’s ask the waiter for a Fremden-List.”
Maida had heard, and with the hearing there had come to her an
enveloping dread. She felt that, did she see him, the love which she
had tried to banish would return unfettered from its exile. Strength
was not yet hers; with time, she knew, she could have sworn it would
come; but, for the moment, she was helpless, and into the dread a
longing mingled. At once, as though in search of a protection that
should guard her against herself, she turned to her husband. To him,
the Russians, Brazilians, and other gentry had been part of the
landscape. He had little taste for music, and Blydenburg had bored him
as that amiable gentleman was accustomed to bore every one with whom he
conversed, yet, nevertheless, through that spirit of paradox which is
common to us all, Mr. Incoul liked the man, and for old association’s
sake took to the boredom in a kindlier fashion than had it come from a
newer and more vivacious acquaintance. Blydenburg had been explaining
the value of recent excavations in Tirynth, a subject which Mr. Incoul
understood better than the informist, but he noticed Maida’s movement
and stopped short.
“Come, Milly,” he said to his daughter, “let’s be going.”
Milly had sat by his side the entire evening, in stealthy enjoyment
of secular music, performed for the first time in her hearing on the
Lord’s day. She was a pale, freckled girl, with hair of the shade of
Bavarian beer. She was not beautiful, but then she was good--a sort of
angel bound in calf.
When Milly and her father had disappeared, Maida turned to her husband
again. “Do you mind leaving Baden?” she asked.
Mr. Incoul eyed her a moment. “Why?” he asked. He had a trick of
answering one question with another, yet for the moment she wondered
whether he too had heard the conversation behind them, and then
comforted by the thought that in any case the name of Lenox Leigh could
convey but little to him, she shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, I don’t
know,” she said; “I don’t like it; it’s hot and crowded. I think I
would like the seashore better.”
“Very good,” he answered; “whatever you prefer. I will speak to Karl
to-night.” (Karl was the courier.) “I don’t suppose,” he added,
reflectively, “that you would care for Trouville--I know I should not.”
He had risen, and Maida, who had risen with him, was looking down at
the gravel, which she toyed nervously with her foot. The opera that
had been given that evening was evidently over. A stream of people
were coming from the direction of the theatre, and among them was the
Prince. He was chatting with his companions, but his trained eye had
marked Mrs. Incoul, and when he reached the place where she stood he
stopped again.
“You didn’t go in to-night,” he said, collectively. “It was rather
good, too.” And then, without waiting for an answer, he continued:
“Won’t you both dine with us to-morrow?”
“Oh, we can’t,” Maida answered. She was tormented with the thought that
at any moment Lenox might appear. “We can’t; we are going away.”
The Prince smiled in his brown beard. Americans were popular with him.
He liked their freedom. There was, he knew, barely one woman in Baden,
not utterly bedridden, who would have taken his invitation so lightly.
“I am sorry,” he said, and he spoke sincerely. Like any other sensible
man, he liked beauty and he liked it near him. He knew that Mrs. Incoul
had been recently married, and in his own sagacious way, _il posait des
jalons_. “You are to be at Ballaster in the autumn, I hear.” Ballaster
was a commodious shooting-box in Scotland, the possession of an
hospitable peer.
“Yes, I believe we are,” Maida answered.
“I hope to see you there,” and with these historic words, Prince
Charming departed.