-PR COLLECTION OF BRITISH AUTHORS TAUCHNITZ EDITION. vol. 3066. my lady nobody. by maarten maartens. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. TAUCHNITZ EDITION. By the same Author, THE SIN OF JOOST AVELINGH . . I vol. AN OLD MAID'S LOVE 2 vols. GOD'S FOOL 2 vols. THE GREATER GLORY 2 vols. MY LADY NOBODY A NOVEL BY MAARTEN MAARTENS,*/ 3 ^^"* °f AUTHOR OF "THE SIN OF JOOST A.VELINGH," " GOD'S FOOK'^ ETC,^- /~ , - il COPYRIGHT EDITION. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LEIPZIG BERNHARD TAUCIINITZ 1895. DEDICATION. God's Angel of Human Love sat alone in the garden of lilies. Her arms hung listless among the blooms she had gathered into her lap. For her eyes— sole mirrors of the Inapproachable Presence —were gazing steadfastly down upon the darkness, deep down where the black bar of sorrow strikes across the wide radiance of eternity, down on the sin-laden star that still hastens athwart the shadow. A single teardrop stole out upon her cheek, and, falling, crept away into a milk-white chalice. Suddenly, with a movement of ineffable pity, she flung forth all the flowers upon her lap, into the world below. Into my bosom , oh Beloved , is fallen the flower with the tear at its heart. Unto thee, oh fair among God's flowers, white among his angels, strong among his saints, unto thee, with the thorn in thy side, and the star on thy forehead, unto thee do I dedicate this ray from a life of which thou art the light. CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. PART I. Page CHAPTER I. Ursula 9 — II. The Domine 15 — III. Home 21 — IV. The van Helmonts 31 — V. Le premier Pas — qui coute 40 — VI. Unconscious Rivals 5 l — VII. Harriet's Romance 63 — VIII. The Tryst 75 — IX. Otto's Wooing 88 — X. An indelible Stain 103 — XL One Hour of Happiness 115 — XII. "An old Maid's Love" 130 — XIII. For Life or Death 145 — XIV. A satisfactory Settlement 156 8 CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. Pa^e CHAPTER XV. Donna e mobile 163 — XVI. A Fool and his Folly 173 PART II. — XVII. Brotherly Hate 185 — XVIII. The Duty of the Parent 193 — XIX. Forfeits all round 204 — XX. Mynheer Mopius's Party 215 — XXI. Baron van Helmont 229 — XXII. Gerard's Share 236 — XXIII. Topsy Rexelaer 252 — XXIV. Masks and Faces 263 MY LADY NOBODY. PART I. CHAPTER I. URSULA. It was a white-hot July morning. Long ago the im- patient earth had cast aside her thin veil of summer twilight; already she lay, a Danae, in exultant swoon beneath the golden sun. Yet the bridegroom had barely leaped forth to the conquest; his rath kisses were still drinking the pearly freshness from the dawn, while the loud birds filled the resonant heavens with the tumult of their bridal song. It was still so early, and already so immovably warm; all wide earth and deep sky agasp in the naked blaze. Ursula drew forward her broad-brimmed straw hat, where she stood picking peas among the tall lines of pale-green, blossom-speckled tangle. "Oof!" she said. Not as your burly farmer says it, but with the prettiest little high-pitched echo of the louder note. And she buried her soft brown cheeks in IO MY LADY NOBODY. the cool moisture of her half-filled basket. Then she gravely resumed her work, and a great, big, booming humble-bee, which had thought to play hide and seek with Ursula's nose, sailed away in disgust that on such a sun-soaked morning any of God's creatures should bend to toil in His sight. Ursula Rovers was not one of those who serve their Maker with dancing and a shout. Yet she sang to her- self, very sedately, as she broke off each bursting pod, amid the fiercer jubilation of the passion-drunk black- birds and finches: "Stand then with girded loins, and see your lamps be burning; What though the sun lie fair upon your paths to-day, "Who reads the evening sky? Who knows if winds be turning? The night comes surely. Watch and pray!" The prim vegetable garden, with its ranks of gay salads and pompous cabbages, lay serenely roasting, as vegetable gardens delight to do, in unabated verdure. About Ursula's corner the lattice-work of creepers put forth some faint attempt at a stunted shadow. Domine Rovers came down the walk, his coat-flaps brushing the currant-bushes. "Who reads the evening sky? Who knows if winds be turning?" "Ursula!" "Yes, Captain." "Come in and shell your peas, whilst I recite you my sermon." "But I must pick them first, father!" "True. What I love best in you, Ursula, is that you are as logical as if you were not a woman." The pastor drew nearer to the scaffolding of URSULA. I I greenery, and strove vainly to shelter his tall figure in its shade. He was a spare, soldierly-looking man, with an honest complexion and silvery hair. You knew he had a very gentle countenance until you gave him cause to turn a wrathful look upon you. "I might as well begin at once," he said, and, proud though she was of her father's preaching, the girl's soul rose in momentary protest on behalf of the birds and flowers. "I have chosen a text for to- morrow, Ursula, which has troubled my thoughts all through the week. All through the week, I couldn't understand it. And when I came to look it out, it wasn't there at all." Ursula's dutiful lips said: "I see." "I imagined the verse to be as follows: "Flee from youthful lusts that war against the soul." But I see the word used is 'Abstain.' I could not believe it of St. Peter that he would have instructed any man to run away in battle. You will find the 'flee' in Timothy, my dear, but the conviction is not the same." Domine Rovers paused and stood tenderly watch- ing his natty daughter in her cool print dress. Sud- denly he burst out quite impetuously, "Resist! Resist! That is the true Bible language. Resist the devil. Resist temptation. And so I shall tell them to-morrow morning. 'Dearly beloved,' I shall say, 'life is a '" "War," cried Ursula, facing round. A bold black- bird had alighted on one of the stakes and sang loudly of peace and goodwill. "Don't interrupt me, child" — the Domine's eyes grew vexed — "I know I have said it before; they can- not hear the truth too often. Life is a battle, dearly 12 MY LADY NOBODY. beloved. Against the city of Mansoul all the powers of evil band themselves together. But in the vanguard march ever the lusts of the flesh. You cannot escape the conflict. And therefore" — the speaker lifted an energetic arm — "remember what said the Corinthians — the grandsires of St. Paul's Corinthians — to the Spartans, their allies, 'He that, for love of pleasure, shrinks from battle, will most swiftly be deprived of those very de- lights which caused him to abstain.' My subject divides itself — Ursula, you are not attending — into seven natural parts: the enemy, the weapons, the " Nobody listened. All God's creation, busy with its individual loves and pleasures, luxuriously lapped in the sensuous sunlight and rejoicing in universal allurement, was twittering and fluttering and blushing and blooming in clouds of perfume and pollen. The great All-father smiled down upon his manifold children — and shrivelled them up. Ursula was not listening. Her father was a dear, dear man, but she had heard it all so often before! And fortune had pity upon her and upon the sleepily staring marigolds, and created a diversion ere the sermon was ten sentences old. Shrill shrieks of childish protest under punishment arose from beyond the garden-wall. The pastor of an unruly flock immediately ran to peer over the bushes. And Ursula followed more slowly, flitting into the full morning glow. Out on the gleaming high-road a peasant-woman was belabouring an eight-year-old urchin in a whirl- wind of dust. "I'll teach you to use bad words," she URSULA. 1 3 was screaming. "Damn me, I can't make out, for the life o' me, what taught the child to swear!" Ursula, leaning one round arm on the top of the garden-wall, turned spontaneously to her father, all her serious young face a swift ripple of fun, but the Domine counted not a pennyworth of humour among his many militant virtues. He pressed his thin lips tight, under his Wellington nose. He was not going to reprove a mother in the presence of her son. "Discipline first," said the Domine. "One thing I note gratefully, Ursula, that the wretched habit of swearing is now confined to the lower classes in this country. In my time even gentlemen would swear " A dog-cart had turned the sharp angle at the back, where the road breaks off to the Manor-House. In the dust and the skirmish it pulled up with a jerk, and a clear voice was heard crying: "Confound you! Get out of the way, can't you? Scuffling in the middle of the road!" The dogcart was a very smart dog-cart, and the mare was a high-stepping mare. She fretted under the sudden restraint, amid an appetising jingle, and smell, and glitter of harness. There was not so much pro- miscuous dust but that the speaker could instanta- neously perceive the two heads over the low brown wall. He lifted his cap. "Good morning, Domine! Good morning, Ursula!" he said, with nonchalance. "Awfully hot already, isn't it?" The Domine raised a flashing eye. The woman and boy had slipped away. "Gerard," said the Domine, "why do you swear at our people? How often must I remind you of our joint responsibility? We must lead 14 MY LADY NOBODY. them to what is right; I by my precept, you by your example." "Oh, Domine, I'll exchange, if you're agreeable," retorted the young man, with a quick smile. The Domine looked away. "You are going to the station to fetch your brother, Gerard?" interposed Ursula, carelessly cracking the pods in her basket. "Yes, at your service," replied the young man, as he loosened the reins. "How strange it will be for you to meet Mynheer Otto again after all these yeai-s!" Gerard turned quickly from his prancing steed. "Are you going to call Otto 'Mynheer'?" he asked. She blushed with annoyance, in an overflow of in- nocent confusion. "Oh, very well," he went on. "Only, of course, you will have to call me Mynheer Gerard." He raced off, laughing. "I knoio you," she stam- mered; but the words were lost in the dog-cart's de- parting rattle. She appealed to her father in dismay. "Why, father," she cried, "I have known Gerard all my life!" Together they stood watching the dust-enfolded vehicle disappear into the far blue sunshine. Its oc- cupant was young, light-hearted, and handsome. Evi- dently a cavalry officer: you could see that by the way in which his tweeds and he conjoined without com- bining. THE D0M1NE. I 5 CHAPTER II. THE DOM1NE. "Let us go in to breakfast," said the Domine. Father and daughter passed up between the stiff stalks of the gooseberry-bushes, among the sallow, swollen fruit. Both of them walked with a straight step, the figure erect, and a little self-reliant. The pastor fell back a few paces with meditative gaze. He was wont to rejoice tremulously in Ursula's physical health, in the easy carriage of the head, the light swing of the hips. He rejoiced in the clear brown of her complexion and the calm depth of her brave, brown eyes. No weak woman in blood or brain, this stately, strong-limbed maiden. He thanked God mourn- fully, ever reminiscent of the pervading sorrow of his life, the loss of the frail young creature who had dropped by the roadside well-nigh twenty years ago. It was that affliction which had made a cleric of Captain Roderick Rovers. By nature he was a soldier, recklessly brave and almost devil-may-care. A man who thought straight, if not far, and struck straight, in the front. He had escaped from the inertia of our long Batavian peace to the red-hot tumult of Algerian desert war, and had come back, early bronzed and silvered, plus the Legion of Honour and minus an arm. He had married a pure-white, clinging thing, like a lily, that 10 MY LADY NOBODY. twined every tendril round his sturdy support, and then dropped from the stem. She was a good woman. To him she had come as a revelation. "I have fought the good fight," she had whispered in dying. He, with the medals on his breast and the memory of not a few killed and wounded, could he have said as much face to face with death? He began to comprehend something of that battle which is not to the strong. On their wedding-day the bride had given her soldier-husband Bunyan's "Holy War" — a Dutch translation — substituting it on his table for the weather-beaten little "Thucydides" which had been his companion in all his campaigns. He had de- manded back the Greek historian. He now took up the spiritual conflict, and fought the powers of darkness, as he had ever met an enemy, at arm's length. His mutilation having incapacitated him from active service, he took orders, henceforth to do battle with his country's inmost foes in the heart of every parishioner. The old militant spirit flamed in him still, and he led his slow flock like a regiment under the banner of the great Captain. On the high days of the Church he wore his Cross of the Legion in the pulpit. His clerical superiors had objected; he dared them to object. It was gained, he said, like your reverend titles, in honour- able war. He had cherished the solitary treasure of his heart, but his care had been free from coddling; he had even combated the enervating influence of his sister-in-law, who kept house for him. "Coolness and cold water" was one of his maxims in any sudden emergency; late into the autumn you could have seen the gaunt father TIIE DOMINE. 17 and the little solemn-featured girl wending their way towards the river for a swim. The bathless villagers watched and wondered. They judged the good man to be a little daft, no doubt, but they loved his cheery helpfulness. Dozing on the battlefield, they caught, between two yawns, the stir of his reveille, and its clarion- note passed like a breeze through the foulness of their sleeping-ditch. Then they turned in the trenches and fell asleep again. Ursula learned early that life was no dream-garden. "Duty, like a stern preceptor," often pushed himself unpleasantly to the fore in her young existence and extinguished the sunlight, provoking thunderstorms. Not that these were by any means the rule; her father loved her too tenderly for that; he kissed her leisurely upon the forehead. "Be sober," he said, "be vigilant." Her aunt gave her sweets. Yet Ursula, from a two-year-old baby, loved her father best. Even when, once, he chastised her because she had told a lie. "Gerard will be late for the train," said the pastor. "Headlong, as usual. Either he will get there too late or he will drive too fast." "He will drive too fast," replied Ursula quietly. "Tell me, father, about this elder brother of his. How strange it will seem! A new son at the House whom nobody knows. I wish he were not coming." "I have told you before, Ursula, but women are so resolutely curious. A man's curiosity is impulse, a woman's is method. Besides, you remember him your- self; he was here twelve years ago." My Lady Nobody. I. 2 I 8 MY LADY NOBODY. "I don't remember much, only a quiet, kind-looking gentleman who seemed afraid of children. What had he been doing in Germany, Captain?" "Earning his daily bread, no more and no less." "And what has he been doing these twelve years in Java?" "Earning his daily bread, not less but no more." "I know," mused Ursula, with feminine incon- sistency. "It seems so ridiculous, a Van Helmont earn- ing his living." But this was a red rag to a bull. "It is never ridiculous ! " cried the pastor. " ' Give us this day our daily bread'; that means: we would accept it, Lord, from no other hands than Thine!" "As manna?" queried Ursula. "No, child, as the harvest of toil. By-the-by" — the old man stood still on the verandah-steps, his limp sleeve hung against his long black coat — "it is a strange coincidence, my preaching to-morrow's sermon, and Otto coming home to-day. The Sabbath before he first started for Germany I preached on resisting the devil." Ursula smiled, a harmless little smile, all to herself. "I remember it as if it were yesterday," continued the Domine, thoughtfully watching a wheeling swallow. "Do you know, Ursula, why Otto van Helmont went away?" "No," she responded, quickly inquisitive. "Tell me why." "I suppose you think it was some love story?" "No, she said again. "Why should I think? I don't know." THE DOMINE. I 9 "You are not like other girls, Ursula. Most women think eveiy thing is a love story. Come, let us go in." "But he is quite old now?" she persisted, with her hand on his arm. "He is what children call old. I believe he is seventeen years older than Gerard. I have always liked Otto exceedingly, little as I know of him. He is a true, simple-hearted gentleman, is Otto." "I don't doubt it," replied the girl, with a shade of petulance, "but it will be so awkward, a stranger at the House!" "I wish you would close the verandah-door, Roderigue," said a querulous voice from inside. "You are letting in all the heat." The occupant of the room came forward, a little yellow lady, with red ringlets, in a red wrapper. This was Miss Mopius, the Domine's sister-in-law, and an invalid. "I had kept down the temperature so beautifully," she complained, during the performance of the usual perfunctory pecks. "What's the use of my scolding the servant if she sees that you don't care? Look at the thermometer, Ursula; it was under 65 ." Ursula obediently reported that it was now near- ing 6 7 . "You see," said Miss Mopius. She said nothing else, but the words dragged down upon the little room a fearful weight of guilty silence, from which Ursula fled to wash her hands. As the girl was coming downstairs again, she heard the rumble of returning wheels. She could not resist a swift run to the verandah, where she had abandoned 20 MY LADY NOBODY. her basket. As she caught it up, the dog- cart came flying past. The two brothers were in it now. The elder turned sideways, started, hesitated, took off his hat. Ursula remained watching them, a symphony in yellow and brown, with the marigolds at her feet in a lake of golden orange, and the pink-tipped honeysuckle all around her, against the staring sunflowers loud and bold. HOME. 2 1 CHAPTER III. HOME. "Who is that yellow frock among the yellow flowers?" asked Otto van Helmont. "But, of course, I can guess," he added immediately. "That was the parsonage we just passed. The 'nut-brown maid' must be Ursula Rovers." "Ursula? Was she there still?" replied Gerard, flicking a fly from the horse's flank. "She seems to live in the garden. Doesn't care tuppence about her complexion." "She is very remarkably beautiful." "Do you think so? I never noticed. You see, I have known her all my life. She is just the parson's daughter. I suppose she reminds you of your own Javanese." Otto flushed, and the two drove on, side by side, in silence. They were very unlike to look at; there must have been, as Dominie Rovers had said, from fifteen to twenty years' interval between them. The young man was spruce and slender, carelessly elegant in appearance and attitude, the elder brother, the planter, sat square and stalwart, with ruddy skin and tawny beard. He was coming home for rest, weary of the jaded splendour of the tropics; as they drove on, he turned right and left, with eager, misty eyes. The 2 2 MY LADY NOBODY. salute of the passing peasants delighted him; he watched, in quiet ecstasy, their long-drawn glances of inquiry or semi-acknowledgment. This was better than the humbly crouching savages under the cocoa-trees. This was recognition: this was home. The avenue was home, the white house behind the trees was home, and the clasp of his mother's arms — no, that was home. Never mind, for one moment, the rest. "You have gray hairs here and there, Otto," said the Baroness van Helmont fondly. "I never knew I was an old woman before." Otto's father bent down quickly and kissed her slender hand. "My dear, you will never grow old," he said. "You belong to the things of beauty, and you remember what the English poet said of them." The little porcelain lady laughed among the laces of her morning-gown. "Yes, but the French poet said just the reverse, and in matters of beauty the Frenchman is the better judge." "Well, let Otto be umpire. He is best able to decide. Otto, do you find that your mother has grown a day older since you left?" The old Baron looked towards his big son with what, on his easy features, was almost an anxious ex- pression. "Yes, she is older," said Otto. The Baroness laughed again. HOME. 23 "My dear," she said; "he is impossible as ever. Leave him. He, at least, has not changed." Mynheer van Helmont dropped his eyelids with a quick movement of vexation, and walked from the room. Mother and son were left together. They went into the Baroness's little turret-chamber, a rounded bonbon- niere, all pale flowered silk and Dresden china, with a long window overlooking the park. "Sit down, child," said the Baroness. "Are you glad to be home again?" A lump in the strong man's throat prevented im- mediate reply. Presently he took his mother's jewelled fingers in his own. "And what have you been doing all this time?" he said. "Doing. But, my dear, we have been living. What else should we do? It is you who have shot the tigers. Nothing has happened here." "Grandpapa is dead," said Otto meditatively. "Ah yes, grandpapa is dead. That is very sad, but he had been childish for years. He lived upstairs in the blue-room and never came out of it. He did not know us. He used to mistake me for some horrid recollection of his youth, and call me Niniche. It was very embarrassing." They were both silent. "Your father said it was a great compliment," added the Baroness gravely. "And his pension? What has become of that? How did you manage? I have often wanted to ask." "Well, of course, his pension went. Your father had always said it would make a tremendous difference. I cannot say I find it has." 24 MY LADY NOBODY. "But it must," persisted Otto. "Of course. My dear boy, have you still your old liking for business? I beg of you, do not begin talking of it just yet." Otto smiled. "Come, lean your head on my lap as you used to do. Wait a minute; you will spoil my dress." She spread out a flimsy bit of cambric which could have protected nothing, and sat softly stroking the dark hair from his face, as he lay on the rug. "You have come back heart-whole?" she said pre- sently, but there was not much interrogation in her voice. "Yes, mother." The tone excluded doubt; not that anyone ever thought of doubting Otto. "Gerard was always prophesying that you would bring back a 'nut-brown' wife." The words seemed to strike home strangely to Otto, like an echo. "Gerard appears very lively," he said. "He always had exceedingly high spirits as a boy. But, of course, I hardly know him." "He is brightness itself," said the Baroness. "He is like a constant sunbeam. Dear boy, I hope he will make an advantageous settlement. And you too, dear Otto, I wish you would marry and" — her voice grew tremulous — "stay at home." "But, mother, I must first find a wife." He spread out his fingers contemplatively on the white plush beneath him, among the gold-embroidered lilies. "That is a woman's work, not a man's. It is a mother's, and I could easily manage it. A man should find all his loves for himself, except the one he marries in the end." HOME. 2 5 "But would you look for a consort, mother, or merely for a mule with money-bags?" "Otto, how rudely you put things! Contact with black people has not improved you. I should look for an angel, worthy of my boy — an angel with golden wings." She paused, and played shyly with the velvet at her wrist. "Indeed, I hope you will marry a little money," she added, looking away. "Your father ex- pects it. And, besides, you must." He did not answer. "Gerard is going to," she added, blushing over the pink and white tints of her delicate cheek. "He quite understands it is necessary. He is doing his best." "How commendable!" cried Otto, sitting up. "He deserves, indeed, that his gilt-feathered seraph should bear him to a matrimonial heaven." The Baroness looked placidly alarmed. "My dear," she said, "don't, I beg of you, go spoiling your brother. He takes a much simpler view of duty than you. You have always complicated existence, poor child. You were a steel-clanging knight, Otto, in search of ogres; he is a troubadour under Fortune's window. And he never plays out of tune." And then again there was silence between them while she drew down his head once more. But their thoughts were conversing still. "Marrying for money," he continued at last, and his voice was black with scorn. "Marrying money and marrying for money are two very different things," rejoined the Baroness patiently. "As you know. I should not like Gerard to marry for 26 MY LADY NOBODY. money. Nor you. You never will. But you can do as your father did." The turret-chamber was cool, yet the glowing sun from outside seemed to penetrate to the cheeks of both mother and son. "My father is a lucky man," said Otto. "But sup- posing you had not turned out to be you ? " "Then there would not have been money enough. As it is, we had a little love and a little money; that is the best blend, on the whole, to commence house- keeping with. Both, I suppose, should go on increas- ing; with us, only one has done that." "Nobody has ever missed the money," interposed Otto, smiling pitifully down on the costly rag at his feet. "Ah, you say that! But I have often regretted that mamma's fortune was not larger. Papa, you remember, had squandered his share. Your poor father might have got many things he had set his heart upon, and which now he is compelled to go without." "Yes," said Otto, "the house would have been twice as full again." "Exactly. For instance, he has always longed, passionately, to possess a 'Corot.' He has never been able to procure one. There is a very good 'Daubigny' in the small drawing-room. By-the-bye, it is new; you must go and have a look at it presently. But the poor man has never ventured to buy a 'Corot.' I cannot help feeling it is almost my fault. Certainly grand- papa's. Yet he was always so considerate to grandpapa after we took him to live with us, never reproaching him with a word." Otto did not ask: "What is a 'Corot'?" He lay HOME. 27 stroking his mother's hand. Presently he started to his feet and walked towards the window. "How beautiful it is!" he cried, "how lovely! Oh, mother, the sun-heat across the park!" The little lady came dancing after him. "Yes, is it not exquisite?" she cried, standing close beside him. "Look at the patch of yellow colour there, in the break between the beeches. Why, Otto, since when do you notice the merely beautiful? Do you see that far line of white roof with the sun full upon it? That is the gallery round the new Italian garden. Well, not exactly new, only you have been away such a very long time ! " She pressed his arm. "Now go down to yonr father," she added, softly. "Ask him to show you the 'Daubigny.' And don't talk to him of business. You know he doesn't like it." "A fortune for a picture," said Otto to himself as he closed his mother's door, "while I was out in Java growing tea!" He passed along a corridor which was hung with arms of all times and nations into the large entrance- hall, a museum of old oak and heraldry among the masses of summer flowers. There he found his father pacing impatiently to and fro. The old Baron, whose life motto had been "Tout s'arrange," was only impatient about things of no im- portance. He was now eager to show his son the ac- quisitions of the last twelve years. He knew that the display would be productive of pleasure neither to himself nor to his heir, but he remained eager all the same. 2 8 MY LADY NOBODY. The returned exile — his heart soft with the morn- ing's impressions — resolved at once to take an interest in everything. "Mother was speaking of a new picture," he began, "a daub — daub-something. She said I must be sure and ask to see it." The Baron smiled. "The Daubigny," he replied. "I suppose the name has not penetrated to India yet. With us, you know, he has made himself a little reputa- tion." He led the way into a small drawing-room, but stopped before pointing to his treasure. "Do you notice any change here?" he asked. "Anything new in the arrangement of the whole?" Otto hesitated. He was horribly ill at ease and afraid of making a fool of himself. It was the old sensation of twelve years ago. He felt like a shy man that doesn't know a cob from a charger, suddenly called upon to judge of a horse. "Oh, it's nothing," said the Baron. "Only the ceil- ing's been painted. It was done by Guicciardi, the same who decorated the last Loggia in the Prelli Palace just before the poor prince went smash. That was a magnificent finale, Otto. Poor old Prince Luigi knew that he couldn't possibly hold out much longer, not a hundred thousand francs to the good, I am told. And he gave a commission to Guicciardi to paint the place with that last hundred thousand, just finished the thing and left an immortal whole to his country, and then — pwhit!" The Baron snapped his fingers lightly. "Pooh," he said, "I know you don't care for that kind of thing. I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to give you offence. That is the 'Daubigny.'" Olto stood staring at the little golden landscape. HOME. 2Q He was seeking hard for something sensible to say. He could not talk of art as his brother Gerard did, while knowing nothing about it, trustful to Fate to make his talk no greater nonsense than that of those who do know. "It did'nt cost me very much," said the Baron, a little shamefacedly. "It is not, of course, a first-rate specimen, though I flatter myself it is by no means bad." "It is very pretty," said Otto. "The sky is some- thing like a Javanese sunrise." "Really? That reminds me, I have some beautiful ivories in the west room, if you care to see them. Japanese, but they were bought at Batavia. What wonderful opportunities you must have had, had you only known!" He looked wistfully at his son. "Dirt- cheap, I dare say." "I don't think anything's dirt-cheap anywhere," replied Otto. "And dirt seems the most expensive of all — in the end." He shrank back, with a sudden misgiving of his own meaning; but, if the speech was discourteous, the Baron quite misunderstood it. "I hope you have got into no entanglements," said the Baron, sharply. "Al- though, true, it is not the expensive ones that are the most dangerous. We expect you to marry now, Otto, and settle down. Your mother is very anxious you should marry a little money. I sincerely hope you will." "There is time still, father," said Otto; "I'm only just back." "Well, I don't know. You are nearly forty. And you have wasted a great many years after all. Here 30 MY LADY NOBODY. have you been toiling in Java, working hard the whole time, and with what result? The same as in Germany before. You might just as well have lived leisurely at home, and better. Your cheeks would have been less brown, and your manners no worse." He faced his son; he had been bracing himself for this, and he was astonished to find it came so easily. "After all, I think you must admit, Otto, that we easy-going people understand life better than you." "I have no wish to deny it, sir." "Well?" "Well? I have tried to do my duty — the nearest duty." m "Java! It seems to me your duty was a very far one. Well, well, we are heartily glad to have you back. Come into the smoking-room, and we will smoke a really good cigar." THE VAN HELMONTS. 3 I CHAPTER IV. THE VAN HELMONTS. Baron van Helmont could have dug out no better epithet to apply to himself and his race than the word which rose naturally to the top: "easy-going." He knew he was "easy-going." The Van Helmonts had always been that. "Stream with the stream." "Tout s' ar- range": he could hear his grandfather saying these things in a far-away mist of Louis XV. powder and ruffles; he remembered how he had brought home his Watteau-faced bride, and how the old gentleman, bent double over his gold-headed cane, had blessed the pair, with a sceptical grimace, at the top of the moss- grown steps. "My children," he had said, "you have launched your boat on the current. However you steer, the river flows to the sea. Take an old man's advice. Let it flow. Laissez couler." Said the young wife to her husband, as soon as they were alone: "But 'laissez couler' means Met the boat sink?'" and she laughed the prettiest protest into his face. She had plenty of brains. He stopped her mouth with a kiss. "You are too young a married woman," he replied, "to study 'equi- voques,'" He, also, had plenty of brains, but neither had the art of using them, 32 MY LADY NOBODY. The old gentleman, his grandfather, had made a tranquil ending; he had lain on his death-bed unruffled except at the wrists. His was surely a bright civilisa- tion, with its "What does it signify?" Our self-clouded century repeats the words, but with passionate inquiry. And, after all, so many things that torment us signify so exceedingly little. Yet, perhaps, none the less, we are wiser than our grandfathers, for "it," in their case, signified the French Revolution. The present Baron van Helmont could not, of course, be "pure Louis XV." None of us can, not even our clocks. You are unable — it is a stale truth — to push back the hand on the dial. The Baron, for instance, could not contemplate dissolution with the composure of his grandsire. He tried hard not to contemplate it at all. "Live and let live" was one of his favourite sayings. One day, long ago, he had used it to close the discussion with regard to a case which had recently occurred, in his village, of what he would have labelled "unavoidable distress." His hobbledehoy of a son — the only one then — had suddenly joined in the conversation. "But that means," the boy Otto had said, "Live well yourself, and let the poor live badly." It was the first symptom. The father shrugged his shoulders. Otto must have been, if we use the scien- tific jargon of our day, a reversion to an anterior type. To judge by the discrepancy of any half a dozen brothers, most families must possess a good many types to revert to. The Baron van Helmont was a good man, lovable and universally respected. In his youth he had en- joyed himself and spent freely as a young gentleman THE VAN IIELMONTS. 33 should do. He had been gay, but no irretrievable scandal had ever been mixed up with his name. He had married a charming wife who had brought him a little more money. They had spent that together, and had quietly enjoyed the spending; but their friends and connections had been permitted to enjoy it too. The Baron had one of the finest collections of curios in the Netherlands, and also some very good pictures. He was a gentleman to his finger-tips, and thoroughly cultivated. No one could possibly be a better judge of bric-a-brac. "Bric-a-brac," said the Baroness to the pastor, "is in itself a vocation; and the best judge of bric-a-brac in Holland is better than a taker of cities." She spoke under strong provocation. At intervals the Domine would make himself superfluous by speaking in the Manor House drawing-room of "righteousness, temper- ance, and judgment to come." "As if we got drunk," said the Baroness. Undeniably, the Baron was a gentleman, courteous and comely. There is a story about him which he loved to tell in the privacy of his after-dinner circle. It happened in Paris, at the court of the Citizen-King. The Baron, passing through that promiscuous capital, had received a card for a monster reception. He went, and somehow got astray in the crush at the entrance, so that when he tried to pass in at a side door he found himself stopped by a gentleman-at-arms. "Excuse me, monsieur; but this door is reserved for the members of reigning families." The Baron hesitated. To withdraw was absurd. My Lady Nobody. I. 3 34 MY LADY NOBODY. He straightened himself, in his small but serene hauteur. "And who am I, then?" he said. "Entrez, mon prince." But that was long ago. Unfortunately. Even while the Baron said "Stream," he regretted that his life could not lie stagnant in a bay, among water-lilies. And yet he hurried on each individual day to its close. He was always wanting to pick other flowers, a little farther down the bank. Two sons were left him at the close of his life, and one of these was already annoyingly old. Between the two lay a couple of hillocks in the village churchyard. The Baroness had begged to rescue the small relics therein contained from the musty family vault. "The vault is so cold," she said. Her husband proved quite willing to adopt the suggestion; he availed himself of the opportunity it gave him to put up a charming Italian marble of a cherub gathering flowers. "The Devil's Doll," the Calvinist villagers called it. Occasion- ally, when her husband was not attending, the Baroness would go and weep a few quiet tears upon the hillocks. There was a chamber in her heart which she occasion- ally liked to enter, but she never had much objection to coming out again. "I met Ursula this afternoon, Otto," said Gerard at dinner. "I told her she had aroused your en- thusiastic admiration. I fancy she was very much pleased." He laughed; the others laughed. Otto's bent face sank lower beneath a sudden THE VAN HELMONTS. 35 thunder-cloud. "That was an ungentlemanly thing to do," he said. "Ungentlemanly!" The younger brother's voice had entirely changed its key. "What on earth do you mean? How dare you say such a thing as that?" A manservant was in the room. The remarks had been made in Dutch. The man would have understood them in French, but that would not have mattered. "I mean," responded Otto, rather awkwardly, floundering into the foreign language to which his plantation life had somewhat choked the inlets, "that it is a shabby thing to do, to go and tell a lady what a man has said of her in confidence." "My dear, not if it be a compliment," interposed the Baroness, mildly ignoring, as her sex was bound to do, the all-important concluding words. "Every woman likes a harmless compliment." "Not sensible women. Sensible women despise them," edged in the Freule* van Borck. Nobody heeded her. "Confidence! Confidence!" echoed Gerard hotly. "Who talked of confidence?" He lapsed, purposely, into Dutch. "I decline to be told," he said, "whether at my father's table or anywhere else, that I behave in an 'ungentlemanly' manner." The old Baron waved a conciliatory hand. "The word was unfortunate," he admitted, "but, Gerard, you press too heavily upon it. Glissez, n'appuyez pas. Otto meant to say, you had stolen an unfair advantage. ■* Title of unmarried ladies of rank. 3* 36 MY LADY NOBODY. He had doubtless been wanting to tell Ursula himself. Fie, what an ado about nothing. To me it is most remarkable that, after so long an absence, Otto should still speak Dutch so well." The obvious retort that Dutch is spoken in Java sprang straight to Gerard's lips, but he bit it down again. "I consider Ursula Rovers distinctly plain," remarked the Freule van Borck. The Freule was the Baroness van Helmont's only sister; she had lived at the Manor House for years. She was what humdrum people call "a character," as if all of us were not that when you shift the lights. "She is common-looking," said the Baroness, "but I think she is pretty." "All women are pretty," smiled the Baron, "even those whom the pretty ones think plain." "My dear," his wife nodded across at him, "it is a fallacy, old as Adam, that Eve, in her Paradise, is jealous of all the Liliths outside." "Stuff and nonsense," cried the sharp-faced Freule van Borck, "there are women enough yet — thank Heaven — and to spare, that don't care a cent about looks." Her sister puckered up a small mouth into a most innocent expression. "If it be so," she said suavely, "it is a merciful dispensation. God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." The two brothers sat in silence, not so much sullen as gate's. Presently the father proposed the health of the one who had that day returned to them. "We celebrate," he said, with good-natured banter, "le re- tour du fils prodigue, trop prodigue — de lui-meme." THE VAN FIELMONTS. 37 After the toast had been honoured, he turned to his Benjamin. "You, sir," he said, "prefer the fruits of other people's labours. You take after your father. And, when the time comes, precious little you will find to take." They both laughed heartily enough this time, and the whole family rose from table. Otto came out to Gerard on the terrace. "I am sorry I offended you," he said, "I meant to be angry but not to be insulting." Gerard's face cleared like a pool when the sun comes out. He gave his brother's hand a hearty grasp. "Don't speak of it again," he said. "I daresay I was wrong, though Heaven knows I didn't mean to annoy you. You will find me, sometimes, a little thoughtless, I fear. You mustn't always take things quite as seri- ously as to-day, though. I wish you would come down to the stables with me, Otto; you haven't even seen my saddle-horses yet." Mynheer van Helmont, standing cigar in mouth, before the great bay window, turned and nodded to his wife. "They are friends again," he said. "Isn't it dread- ful? That is the worst thing that can happen to brothers." "What is?" queried the Freule van Borck. "Why, to be friends again." "I like Otto very much," said the Freule irrelevantly, not comprehending. Mevrouw van Helmont laid down her bit of fluffy fancy work. "Of course you like Otto very much, Louisa," she said. "I should be exceedingly vexed, did you not." 30 MY LADY NOBODY. The Baron walked out into the afterglow. "It is most irritating," he mused, "to have to say all one's good things to an audience one-half of which is deaf to all meanings, and the other half of which is one's wife." He stood looking at the white pile which lay softly embosomed in its dark-green half-circle, like a pearl set in emeralds, beneath the amber sky. He was deeply proud of its possession. "These Havannahs," he reflected, "are as excellent as if they were genuine," and he wreathed a faint blue whorl on the tranquil air. Then another thought struck a sudden chill to his heart. "To die and leave it all!" He shivered and returned to the window. "Louisa," he said, "how about our piquet?" A couple of hours later Otto stood on the same terrace, also cigar in mouth. He had come out for a last smoke before turning in. He was an inveterate and uninterrupted smoker. It was his one weakness, and he indulged it to the full. The night was perfectly still, and translucent. A soft flutter, that was not wind, but the very restlessness of dreaming nature, weighted the balmy air with wan- dering gusts of incense. All creation seemed lapped in luxury, asleep on the breast of love. Otto, alone in the dusk, looked up at the silent windows. The rest were gone to their rooms; a light glimmered here and there. The great stable-clock boomed heavily eleven long trembling strokes. "It is home," said Otto, under his breath. But he said it aloud. He rejoiced, with tumultuous delight, for a THE VAN IIELMONTS. 3Q moment, in being able to speak to that home from a spot where the bricks and mortar could hear him. His memory strayed away to the low house with the long verandahs among the spreading palms. How often had he lain back there in his wicker lounge, his cigar a deep red spot of attraction among the insect-whirl of the Indian night, while he said the word out vainly to the bats and moths and butterflies. Home. He stood and looked — looked at the mere walls till his eyes were burning with physical exhaustion. He was back again at last. He loved his mother very faithfully. He loved his father. He felt kindly towards his brother. Yet, somehow, he could not control an impression of lone- liness, as he turned to go upstairs. 40 MY LADY NOBODY. CHAPTER V. LE PREMIER PAS QUI COUTE. "Gird up your loins!" cried the Domine, striking his only hand into the pulpit-cushion. The peasant congregation, with bodies huddled awry in wondrously diversified angles of drowsiness, nodded lower under the accustomed storm. One red-faced yawner, opening misty eyes, stared vaguely through the heat-cloud, and with some far perception of the preacher's meaning, hitched up his trousers before sinking back into his seat. "For the city of Mansoul is taken, is taken while the garrison slept!" In the Manor House pew, under the glitter of armorial gaudery against sombre oak, sat their Baronial Highnesses, all except Gerard, who, com- ing down too late, had found himself compelled to elect between breakfast and church. Their Highnesses preserved an exemplary attitude of erect attention. It is even quite possible that the Freule Louisa was listen- ing. To Otto the little barn-like building, in its while unchangedness, had brought that sudden quietude of soul which comes upon us when the rush of life has briefly cast us back into a long-remembered harbour. It was good to be here. It was good to find nothing altered, neither the gaunt externals of the service, nor LE PREMIER PAS — QUI COUTE. 4 I the inharmonious music, nor even the long discourse. It was good to breathe the atmosphere of dutiful curiosity which played about the heir until at last it also sank, half-sated, beneath the all-oppressive heat. The crimson farm-wives sat perspiring under their great Sunday towers of gold-hung embroidery. There was not a cool spot in the building, except Ursula's muslin frock. As his eye rested there, Otto felt that one change at least made itself manifest. Where a little lonely child had formerly faced the Manor House pew, a maiden now sat, calm and self-possessed, her gaze neither seeking nor avoiding his own. And suddenly he realised that he was growing old. He realised it all the more when, presently, he found himself walking back by the side of the parson's daughter, through wide stretches of sun-soaked corn. The older people had passed ahead, unconsciously hurried forward by the sweeping stride of the Domine. In that opening search for words which always disturbs the meeting of long-acquainted strangers Otto's soul swelled anew with wrath against the brother whose in- discretion had doubly tied either tongue. "Yes, everything is exactly as it used to be," he replied to Ursula's perfunctory question, when it ultimately blossomed forth from the marsh of their mutual embarrassment. "That struck me more especially this morning in church. The people are pretty much the same, of course; at least, they look it. And so is the whole appearance of the place, and the odour of the fustian and the service." "And the sermon?" she laughed lamely, thinking 42 MY LADY NOBODY. also of Gerard's banter, and annoyed by her annoy- ance. But his face clouded over. She noticed this, and it put her still less at her ease. She hurriedly added something about her father's "coincidence," thereby causing her companion to write her down insincere. "Nevertheless," she continued desperately, feeling all the while that she might just as well, and far better, keep silence, "twelve years seems to me a most tre- mendous time." "That is because you are young." "Young or not, people change in twelve years." Gerard would have availed himself of this palpable opportunity to suggest something pretty; clumsy Otto merely made answer: "My grandfather is dead." The most tragic words can somehow sound funny, and Ursula, in her nervousness, very nearly laughed. "I miss him," continued Otto quite unconsciously. "He wasn't — childish, you know, when I went away. How the poor old man would have enjoyed some talks about my tiger-hunts. He was such a splendid shot." "Have you really shot tigers?" "Yes." A man always feels foolish under such a question as that. "Many?" "That depends on your ideas of proportion. Tigers must not be confounded with rabbits. I have shot enough to be able to beg your father's acceptance of a skin when my boxes come." They walked on for some minutes in silence, awk- ward silence, she nicking at the corn-ears with her LE PREMIER PAS — QUI COUTE. 43 white parasol. Then she said: "I feel sorry for the tiger." He answered drily: "The parents of his final supper did not take that view." "But," he added, "I dare say you don't quite under- stand about wild beasts, or heathen countries. I shouldn't wonder, Juffrouw Rovers, if you had never even crossed the frontier." "No, I haven't," she answered shortly, much put out by his innocent patronage. "And I am glad I haven't. I should hate to come back as people do, finding all things small at home. And, above all, I should hate to go to India, a horrible place with spiders as big as my sunshade, and a python curled up, per- haps, under one's pillow of nights. You needn't laugh; I may have forgotten the dreadful creatures' name, but I know they're there, for my Uncle Mopius told me." "Ah, yes, your Uncle Mopius. He was out in Java, wasn't he?" "Yes, he was notary there, and he tells the most awful stories." "Then don't believe them. So you would never go to India?" "Never." "Well, it's a good thing there's no necessity. I had to, you see. People even face pythons, when they must. And there's always the fun of killing them." She shuddered. "The fun of killing," she repeated, "I cannot understand at all. We are speaking different languages, Mynheer van Helmont. I hate the idea of killing anything. And do you know what I hate still 44 MY LADY NOBODY. more? It is what you call 'a splendid shot.' Gerard is a splendid shot, like his grandfather, the finest, they say, in the province. Yes, I can't help it; I've often told him" — she plunged headlong — "I dare say you're a splendid shot. But it's just my hobby. To go creep, creeping through God's creation a gun in one's hand, seeking some innocent life you may slay for the pleasure of slaying! Or still worse, to sit in a chair and have the poor fluttering wretches driven in quantities on to one's barrels! It's the one thing that spoils the country for me, and only in the autumn I long to get away from Horstwyk. There's no shooting in town." "I was thinking ot real sport," he answered with provoking meekness, "but I dare say you are right." "Oh, I know what real sport means!" she cried, and her eyes flashed. "Hallooing after some little palpitating victim with beagles or harriers, or hounds! You may think me very stupid — I dare say you do — but I wouldn't shake hands, if I could help it, with a man whom I knew to have voluntarily 'hunted' any- thing. As for women, I can't believe they do it." She broke off, in that nervous "unstrungness," which only comes to the gentler sex, hardly knowing, after her sud- den burst of eloquence, whether to laugh or to cry. "You are quite right, quite right," he said, again, but in his grave regard she only read approval of her callow softness. They had reached a little well-known wicket, and he stopped. The path went twisting away, at this spot, from the yellow fields into the deep recesses of the park. "I think we separate here?" he said, and to her amazement she caught a touch of regret in his tone. LE PREMIER PAS — QUI COUTE. 45 "Yes, as a rule. But papa has gone on — in honour of you, I suppose." "Then you cannot do better than follow." He held open the gate for her to pass. "I think you must for- give me," he said, with downcast eyes. "It was only once. In Ireland. And we didn't kill the fox." "Because you couldn't," she answered fiercely. "Or do people keep foxes, like stags, to uncart?" Her hand, in its long "Suede" glove, closed almost viciously on the filmy folds of her frock. Not another word was exchanged between them as they threaded the shady mazes of suddenly delicious green, but she felt that he was watching her all the time out of the corners of his eyes. A good man enjoys the arousing a womanly woman's righteous indignation. Her heart beat till he saw it. He liked that. "Ah, Domine, there was sense in your sermon!" cried the Freule van Borck, haranguing everybody in a group on the lawn. "What I enjoy in your preaching is the protest against latter-day flabbiness" — the Freule van Borck had read and misunderstood Carlyle — "Where are the heroes of old?" she cried, pointing her "church- book" at the imperturbable Gerard, who had come strolling out, cool in the coolest of flannels, to greet the clergyman. "Where, as you asked them, are Gideon, and Moses, and Joshua the son of Nun, that was never afraid?" "We give it up," said Gerard gravely. "Did the congregation know?" "Be silent, Gerard. Your conduct is bad enough already. Instead of remaining to scoff, you should have 46 MY LADY NOBODY. gone to pray." It was the Baron who spoke, looking up from his great St. Bernard. "I bow to your command, sir, especially on a Sun- day. But Aunt Louisa should not propound conun- drums when the answers appear to have got beyond her control." "I was not speaking to you; I was speaking seriously," replied the Freule with lofty scorn. "And I thoroughly agree with the Domine, that the age of troubadours is dead." The Domine writhed. "Yes, yes," he said — "un- doubtedly. Though I should hardly, myself, have em- ployed the names you mentioned as examples of fear- lessness " He stopped in despair. The Freule was grabbing, with her handkerchief in front of her, at a wasp which serenely buzzed behind. Mevrouw van Helmont, on a garden seat, against a great flare of MacMahons that looked, among their gold-rimmed leaves, like a mayonnaise of lobster — Mevrouw van Helmont seemed entirely engrossed by the interest of sticking her parasol into a fat bundle before her which wriggled and kicked. The Domine sighed. This was "the Family." These were the temporal lords of his spiritual domain. He turned, wistfully, to watch his daughter coming across the sward, by Otto's side, be- tween gay patches of colour. "You two have been renewing your acquaintance," he said. "Or was there none left to renew?" "Indeed, we are already old friends," replied Otto, "for Juffrouw Rovers has been scolding me vigorously, and ladies, I believe, never scold mere acquaintances?" Ursula bit her underlip. "I understand that Juffrouw LE PREMIER PAS — QUI C0U1E. 47 Rovers objects to the killing of animals — all animals?" His heavy moustache hung unmoved as he looked across. "Oh, that is a fad of Ursula's/' broke in Gerard. "You should teach her her Bible better, Domine. She admits that Nimrod may have been a mighty hunter, but never 'before the Lord.'" "Gerard," said the Domine, with a grave flash of his eyes on the prodigal, "the Bible is a holy book. Some day, perhaps, you will learn, with regard to holi- ness, 'That fools rush in where angels fear to tread.'" The rebuke was almost a fierce one, from gentle lips. In the painful silence Gerard, flushing, took it like a man. The Baron's mild voice intervened. "The daughter of a hero," said the Baron, smiling and bowing, "can afford to appear soft-hearted. Ursula preaches peace and her father preaches war. But I, were I Otto, should be most afraid of Ursula." "Mynheer van Helmont," answered that young lady, goaded almost beyond endurance, "I am going next Wednesday to my Uncle Mopius, to stay with him for a week or two." "Coming to Drum!" cried Gerard, whose regiment was quartered in the small provincial town. He checked himself. "I beg your pardon, sir," he said. "You were about to speak?" "Oh, it's nothing!" cried the Baroness across from her seat. "Your father was only going to observe something about eclipses of the sun. You know you were, Theodore. It has done duty a dozen times be- fore." 48 MY LADY NOBODY. "My dear, do I deny it?" replied the Baron, sadly. "We have lived too long together. You know all my little jokes, Cecile. You are tired of my compliments. And yet, after more than forty years of marriage, I still address ninety per cent, to yourself." "But none of the new ones," replied the Baroness, pouting before the whole circle like a girl. "The new ones are an old man's compliments, and, therefore, insincere." He went across to her, followed by the dog, and the gray couple sat laughing and flirt- ing, like any pair of lovers. "Ah, Domine, you needn't look sour," said the Freule, her own angular face like skim milk.. "Surely, by this time, you no longer expect sobriety at the Manor House of Horst." "I was only thinking," replied the Domine softly, and his eyes seemed to pierce beyond the couple on the seat. The Freule gave a smart snap — meant not unkindly — to her "Churchbook" clasp. "But your wife is in heaven," she rejoined, "and much better off, unless sermons mean nothing, than, any- body here below." The Domine started, and an old scar came out across his cheeks, as if a whiplash had struck him. "Yes, yes," he said hurriedly. "Thank God. Ursula, I think it is time we were going." But the spinster laid a detaining hand upon her pastor's arm. "Surely you must admit," she persisted, "that you Christians are strangely illogical. What, to a Christian, is the King of Terrors? We should speak, not of Mors, but of Morphia!" LE PREMIER PAS — QUI COUTE. 49 This sentence was taken from the Freule's favourite periodical, the Victory, in which, however, the conclud- ing word had been printed "Morpheus." "Yes, yes, exactly," replied the Domine, pulling away. "You remember what Thucydides said, Freule Louisa? I mean, Thucydides says it's no use discussing a subject, unless men are agreed on the meaning of the terms they employ. Ursula, we must really be going. Your aunt has such a dislike to irregular hours." "Juffrouw Mopius?" exclaimed Otto. "I didn't see her in church. I hope she is well?" Gerard burst out laughing. "Have you been away so long," he said, "that you have forgotten Miss Mopius's Sunday headache?" The Domine, who could fight men, looked as if he would have liked to answer something about Gerard's Sunday ailments, but he refrained, evidently feeling that he had already said enough. The two young men stood watching father and daughter as they swung away into the woodland shadows. "It will be rather a bore," yawned Gerard. "Ursula's coming to Drum. I shall have to show the poor creature all over the place. I don't think she ever spent a night outside Horstwyk before." He lounged away to the Baroness. "Mother, Otto is very much smitten with Ursula, in spite of her lamentable lack of style. I suppose he doesn't notice that, after India. Has he been making any terrible confessions yet about other brown damsels out there?" The Freule van Borck shot a keen glance at her elder nephew's solemn face. "Yes, Otto," she said, "it My Lady Nobody. I. 4 50 MY LADY NOBODY. can't be helped. Gerard's humour is part of your home- coming." Meanwhile the Domine went scudding through the corn, as if the very wind of panic were after him. Presently his daughter ventured to hint that the day was rather warm. "Ursula." The Domine's cowardice had put him out of temper with all around him. "Ursula, I heard you remark to the Jonkers that you were exceedingly fond of your uncle Mopius. Now, Ursula, surely that was untrue." "It was irony, father," the girl made answer rather testily, screening her tormented face. "Irony? I do not understand irony. There is no room for irony in the Christian warfare. It is a sort of unchivalric guerilla. I'm afraid you are not always quite honest and straightforward. Always, in every- thing, be quite honest and straightforward, my dear." When Ursula was safe in her own room, she sat down to cry. She had never, from her earliest recol- lections upwards, enjoyed the luxury of rational grief; an altogether causeless outpouring, such as this, could, therefore, but increase her irritation against herself. What did it matter, after all, if she made a good im- pression on people? She was self-conscious. With angry energy she dabbed her blazing cheeks and went down to luncheon. "Ursula, my dear child, your face is all blotchy," said Miss Mopius, "I make no doubt you are going to have the measles; they are very prevalent in the village. Did you sneeze during service? Roderigue, did you notice if Ursula sneezed during service? No, you are UNCONSCIOUS RIVALS. 5 I no good in Church; you only think of your sermon. Well, Ursula, I must give you some Sympathetico Lob. You may be thankful you have an aunt whose own health is so bad that she doesn't care at all about in- fection." The Domine looked up uneasily. His coffee tasted bitter, like remorse. "Or is it hay-fever," said Miss Mopius, "that begins with sneezing? I must get my little Manual and see." CHAPTER VI. UNCONSCIOUS RIVALS. Three days later Ursula started for Drum. Looking down the straight vista of her shaded past, she could not have discovered, within measurable dis- tance, an event to compare with this departure from home. Hitherto her world had been Horstwyk, and mundane greatness had been the Horst. In those three days of delicious preparation she had nevertheless seen a good deal of the new arrival. His affection for the Domine was palpable to all men, and he seemed to slip away, almost gladly, down the long road from the Manor to the Parsonage. All Mon- day evening they had sat over their tea-cups, in the green verandah, and the Domine, roused thereto by the guest's brief descriptions of daring, had leisurely re- called his own stories of Algerine lion-hunts. Ursula, looking up from her work at Otto's earnest attention, 4* 52 MY LADY NOBODY. wondered if twelve years of absence could really suffice to efface the oft-told tale. On Tuesday a great dinner at "The House" had feted the return of the first-born. The Domine had made a speech, and enjoyed himself notwithstanding. But Ursula considered the entertainment had been rather a failure, for amid the due honouring of dow- agers and heiresses, nobody but the Baron had found time to say a civil word to herself. Helena van Trossart, the Helmonts' wealthy cousin, had looked lovely, though bored, in the seat next to Otto, assigned her by the Baroness; she had brightened up visibly when the younger son joined her for an endless flirtation in the drawing-room. Ursula now stood waiting and mildly reviewing last night's disappointments, on this — to her — eventful Wednesday morning. Gerard, who was returning to his regiment, had promised to call for her on his way to the station. "Ten minutes too soon!" she said in surprise, run- ning to the door as the sound of wheels became audible. But it was Otto who called to her from the box. "Oh, I'm so sorry," she cried, halfway down the garden path. "But Gerard — I thought you would know?" "I know nothing of Gerard's arrangements," an- swered Otto with cold annoyance. "Never mind; I have brought your father's tiger skin. Is there anyone here could hold the horse?" "Why, of course," she said, springing forward. "You? I fancied you would be afraid of horses." Otto began tugging at a brown-paper parcel wedged UNCONSCIOUS RIVALS. 53 tinder the seat. As the carriage swayed forward, the animal, grown restless, plunged. "Naturally," replied Ursula, one firm hand at its mouth. She flushed. "Hatred of cruelty stands, with an average man, for cowardice." "Don't. You hurt one," cried Otto, turning, with altered voice. She calmed down immediately. "As a matter of fact," she said, "Hector knows me longer, and better, than you. Your father often lets me drive him." "This is it," replied Otto, tearing back a strip of covering. A tawny mass of fur, broken suddenly loose, poured down into the dusty road. "Oh, what a beauty!" exclaimed Josine, who had ventured out, in a wrap, beneath the laughing sky. And, "Oh, what a beauty!" echoed Ursula. "These are for you," he continued, in the eager delight of giving, as he bundled out two gorgeous Indian shawls. "I thought you would like to wear them to church on Sundays — " he stopped, before the ripple on Ursula's face. "You like them, don't you?" he asked dismayed. "You like them, don't you, Miss Mopius?" "They are exquisite," replied the latter lady, af- fectedly, with a scowl at her niece. "My dear Mynheer van Helmont, you have inherited all your father's charming taste." Ursula murmured something about "a beautiful drapery." "All modern girls are alike," thought Otto, "every- thing for ornament." He was almost relieved to see Gerard's trap come rattling up. "You here!" cried the younger brother, looking 54 MY LADY NOBODY. down from his height. "Oh, I see! What a hurry you're in to bestow your gifts!" "I came here to conduct Juffrouw Rovers to the station," answered Otto. "The message I sent appears not to have reached her." "Oh, I'm so sorry!" Ursula stood distressful, by the little green gate, in her dust-ulster, the rainbow cloth over one arm. At her feet lay the white-fanged brute with gleaming eyes and distended maw. Otto climbed slowly back into his old-fashioned waggonette. By his side the smart dog-cart jingled and creaked. "Hurry, Ursula!" cried its driver. "We haven't any time to spare!" Otto whipped up Hector almost savagely. "It's of no account," he said, "of no account at all." "Gerard, I'm afraid we shall miss the train," said Ursula, as the trees went flying past them. "Possibly," answered Gerard. "You don't mind my cigarette?" "Gerard, my uncle will never forgive me." " Oh, yes he will. Dozens of people have said they would never forgive me, but they always did. You would have missed the train with Hector, anyway." "But if I had started with your brother, you would have taken me on." "No, indeed," replied Gerard, with deep conviction. "Once with Otto, always with Otto." He looked down into her face through half-closed eyelids. "Once with Otto, always with Otto," he repeated, "and so you would have missed your train." She laughed. "Well, I'd much rather go with you," UNCONSCIOUS RIVALS. 55 she answered gaily. He made her a mock little bow of acknowledgment. "For, you see, you take me all the way to Drum." "Thank you. If. Gently, Beauty, gently; it's only a bit of paper in the middle of the road. I like you for not being nervous, Ursula. My mother wouldn't sit behind a horse that shied." "I want to catch my train," responded Ursula. "Don't be so peevish. Is this all the reward I get for allowing your box to scratch the paint off my dog- cart?" "Oh, Gerard, will it do that?" "Of course it will. But make yourself easy. I'm going to have the cart repainted, any way. The green spikes were well enough two years ago, but I've seen another shade I like better." "Gerard, you are horribly extravagant." "So my father says each time he gets himself some new plaything. By George, I believe we really are too late." With a shout to the groom he leaped from his seat and was lost in the interior of the station; as Ursula hurriedly followed, a whistle of departure pierced straight through her heart. "Quick, you stupid," she heard Gerard's voice say- ing to somebody. The train had stopped again. She was bustled in. They were off! "Now that never happened to me before," said Gerard. "The man is an ass. But, in fact, it is all your fault." Ursula sat staring at her hero in unmixed awe. Her infrequent railway journeys had always been occasions 56 MY LADY NOBODY. of flurry and alarm. Never had she realised that any son of man could influence a station-master. "Yes," she answered meekly. "Of course it is. I should just have jumped in. But they had to stop the train for you. And now they will make us pay a monstrous fine for travelling without a ticket." "Is that also my fault?" asked Ursula, more meekly still. "No, it was 'Beauty's.' I've a great mind to deduct the money from her oats. Only that would make her do it over again." He laughed once more, a jolly, self- satisfied laugh. "But, oh, what should we have done," said Ursula presently, "if the station-master hadn't listened to you?" "Stopped the train myself, of course; and Santa Claus would have forgotten to send that man cigars." "Gerard, you wouldn't have dared!" Her innocent amazement drove him on. "You have a poor idea of my desire to oblige you," he made answer. "It would have cost me a pair of gloves, I suppose, and a lot of depositions at the end, and a fine. It would have been a great bore: I do not pretend to deny that." She relapsed into silence, reflecting. She thought Gerard was youthfully overbearing. But she also saw he was in earnest. To her it had always seemed in the village of Horstwyk that the Powers in Authority — the Beadle, the Squire — were made to be implicitly obeyed. Submission, in the Dominc's system, stood forth as an article of faith. In the great world outside she felt it UNCONSCIOUS RIVALS. 57 must be the same, only still more resistlessly. Order and Law, however erroneous, were always ex officio infallible. But for great people, evidently, the world was other- wise. The Irrevocable possessed no barriers which rank and insolence could not laughingly push aside. The railways in their courses obeyed these rulers of men. For the first time in her recollection she envied — per- haps with last night's discomfiture rising uppermost — she envied "The Great." She sat furtively watching her companion behind his newspaper. He was handsome, with his light moustache and strong complexion, well-dressed, well-groomed, com- pletely at his ease. She felt that the world belonged to him. She felt exceeding small. At the little town of Drum she was able to continue her studies. Porters naturally selected Gerard to hover round; every one seemed anxious to please him. What- ever he desired was immediately "Yes, my lord"-ed. He gave double the usual number and double the necessary quantity of tips. He insisted upon personally seeing Ursula to her uncle's door and overpaying the cab- man. "I have a reputation," he said merrily, "to keep up in Drum." He turned back as she stood on the doorstep. "And your uncle has a reputation, too," he called, waving his hat. Ursula knew her uncle by more than reputation, and her courage began to ooze after Gerard's retreating figure. Immediately she pressed a resolute finger on 58 MY LADY NOBODY. the leak; she was come to enjoy herself, and Gerard had promised to help her. Villa Blanda, the residence of Mynheer Jacobus Mopius stood in a good-sized garden, some way back from the street. The garden was very brilliant, very brilliant indeed. The first impression it used to make was that of the hideous conglomeration of colours which children saw in former days through so-called kaleidoscopes; after a time you perceived that its com- plex disharmony was principally produced by a mal- assortment of flowers. These received some assistance, it must be confessed, from a glittering "Magenta" ball, two terra-cotta statuettes of fat children with baskets, and other pleasing trifles of similar origin. The whole house had manifestly cost a great deal of money: it was its single duty to proclaim this fact, and it did its duty well. A hundred flourishes of superfluous ornament showed upon the face of it that the terra-cotta man and the gilder, and the encaustic- tile people, and the modeller of stucco monstrosities, had all sent in lengthy bills. The bills had been paid. Yes, Mynheer Jacobus Mopius owed no man any- thing — not even courtesy, not even disregard. He button-holed you to inform you how much more im- portant a personage he was than yourself. If you tried to escape him you were lost. Inside, the house was, as outside, a record of wealth misspent. Money, they say, buys everything; it is certainly wonderful to consider what hideous things money will buy. UNCONSCIOUS RIVALS. 5Q Ursula was shown into the drawing-room, where her aunt came forward to greet her. "How are you, my dear? " said Mevrouw Mopius, in a tone whose in- difference precluded reply. Mevrouw Mopius was a washed-out-looking lady in a too-stiff black silk. She immediately returned to her low chair and her Berlin woolwork frame. For Mevrouw Mopius still worked on canvas. She preferred figures — Biblical scenes. She was now busy on a meeting between Jacob and Laban, in which none of the gorgeously robed figures were like anything that has ever been seen on earth. Ursula seated herself, unasked, on a purple plush settee. The room was large and copiously gilded. From the farther end of it a girl approached — a pale girl in a plain dark gown. "Oh, I forgot," said Mevrouw Mopius, pausing with uplifted needle. "My step-niece Harriet. Harriet, this is Ursula Rovers." "Will you come and take off your things?" said the dark girl. "Shall I show you your room?" Ursula rose, with a spring of relief, and began hastily to explain about the loss of her luggage as she moved towards the door. Just before she reached it, her aunt spoke again. "Harriet has come to live with us, you remember, since her father died." Mevrouw Mopius always con- versed in afterthoughts, when she troubled herself to converse at all. "You won't be able to change your clothes," said the pale girl, as the two went upstairs together. "No. Does it matter?" 60 MY LADY NOBODY. "Matter? No. What does matter? Certainly not Uncle Mopius." "What a fine house this is, is it not? I was never on the second floor before, though I've sometimes been to lunch." "Oh, yes, it is charming, charming in every way," said the pale girl, with a sneer. "This is your room, the second-best guest-chamber. I'm afraid I can't lend you much for the night. I've three nightgowns; one's in the wash and one's torn. Uncle Mopius gave me them." She went and stood at the window while Ursula hurriedly washed her hands. "Are you ready?" she asked presently. "Then come downstairs again. Better tell Uncle Mopius you admired your room. The washing-things, for instance, they are English. Cost thirty-six florins. Come along." Ursula shuddered under the continuous sneer of the girl's impassive tones. As soon as they opened the drawing-room door Mevrouw Mopius's voice was heard exclaiming, "Harriet, get me my Bible immediately, Harriet." She sat up quite awake and alert, her needle unused beside her. "I've been waiting," she continued. "What a long time you've been. Ursula, I hope you're not vain. It's a very bad thing in a pastor's daughter to be vain of her appearance." After a minute's silence she became aware of the proximity of her other niece, who stood waiting beside her, Bible in hand. "And in all other girls," she added, "for the matter of that;" but Harriet, having missed the discourse, lost the application as well. "It was on the table in the next room," said Harriet. UNCONSCIOUS RIVALS. 6l "I know. Did you expect me to get it?" The lady took the sacred volume, which immediately fell open at the story of Jacob and Rebecca, much bethumbed. In the midst of her search she paused, to cast a sharp look at Ursula. "And not much to be vain of, anyway," she said. She could not possibly have authenticated this remark; but she chose to con- sider it "judicious." "Here is the place," she continued. "You see, it says Leah had "tender eyes." Now, what, I wonder, is the colour of tender eyes?" "I always thought it meant 'watery,' " hazarded Ursula. "Do you really think so?" Mevrouw Mopius reflected, sitting critically back from her screen, and surveying her cherry-coloured Orientals. "Really, ivatery. Ursula, I wonder if that view, is correct?" "Like a perpetual cold in her head," volunteered the dark girl, listlessly. "I know such people." Mevrouw Mopius sniffed unconsciously. "In that case I should have to make them red," she said. "I had just decided on dove-colour." "You couldn't make red show against the cheeks," said Harriet. "Hadn't you better send round and ask Mevrouw Pock's opinion?" Mevrouw Mopius smiled immediate approval. "A very sensible suggestion," she said. Mevrouw Pock was the wife of her favourite parson. "You have plenty of sense if only you were always good- tempered. Get me my escritoire from the table over there. No; writing letters fatigues me" — she couldn't spell — "you must run across after dinner, and get 62 MY LADY NOBODY. Mevrouw to consult her husband as to what it says in the Greek." "But I shall have to change my dress again," pro- tested Harriet. "Well, and what of that? So much the better. There's few things a girl likes more than changing dresses. I'm sure you ought to be thankful you've dresses to change." Without further reply the girl dropped away into her corner and resumed her interrupted reading. Ursula sat with her hands in her lap. Mevrouw began sorting wools, but presently remembered the guest. "Harriet," she called, "why don't you come and amuse Ursula? You waste all your time over novels. I can't imagine what you find in them. What's this you're reading now?" A novel of course?" The girl came forward, lazily. "Yes, aunt," she said. "What is it? What's it about?" "It's a historical romance called 'Nuraa Pompilius,' translated from the German. Everybody's reading it just now." "I can't understand what you find in them. And they're all alike. It always ends in Pompilius marrying Numa." Before Ursula had stopped laughing behind Mev- rouw Mopius's back her uncle came in. Harriet did not laugh. Mynheer Mopius, though a very secondary person- age in this story of the Van Helmonts, would be mortally offended did we not give him a chapter to himself. Harriet's romance. 63 CHAPTER VII. Harriet's romance. "Amusing yourselves?" said Mynheer Mopius. "That's right. That's what you're come for, Ursula. I'm glad your aunt's been amusing you." Translated, this meant that Mynheer Mopius con- sidered his wife had been taking a liberty. For, although Mynheer Mopius despised wit or humour of any kind, and but rarely condescended to utter what he con- sidered a joke, yet he somehow believed his conver- sation to be a source of constant refreshment to his family. And he felt annoyed at their making merry without him. "I'm sure, if Ursula's laughing it's no fault of mine," said Mevrouw. "I was merely telling Harriet — where's Harriet?" "Gone up to dress. You had better follow her ex- ample, Ursula. Dinner at 6.30. We dress for it here, at least the women do. So do I when there's com- pany. It's a custom I brought with me fromBatavia. Must show the natives here what's what." "I've nothing but this," said Ursula, in some con- fusion. "My box hasn't come, and I haven't got much in the way of evening frocks anyhow." "I'll give you one. I gave Harriet hers. That girl's fallen nose foremost into fat* if ever girl did. Hasn't she, wife?" * Vulgar Dutch idiom. 64 MY LADY NOBODY. "She doesn't know it," replied Mevrouw Mopius, picking at Laban's goggle eyes. "Then she's a greater fool than I take her for. She'd have been a nursemaid, sure as fate. And now she's as good as a rich man's daughter." "And I'm a mother to her that was motherless," grunted Mevrouw complacently, " and because she's poor and no real relation I allow her to call me 'aunt.'" "Besides which, if she behaves herself, who knows what may happen to her!" Mynheer Mopius jingled the loose cash in his trousers pockets and looked askance at Ursula. Ursula looked back at him, peacefully unconscious. "I might leave her my money," said Mynheer Mopius. "Oh, that would be splendid!" cried Ursula. Her uncle looked at her again. "Sly little thing!" he thought, but he said nothing. Only Jacobus Mopius could have called Ursula little. His greatness caused him to see all things small. He was a stunted, pompous man with a big head and yellow cheeks. He had made his money in the Dutch Indies, as a notary. Harriet came back in a fawn-coloured frock with a pink rosebud pattern, made of some kind of nun's veiling, high in the throat. Mynheer Mopius gazed at it in admiration. "Looks well, doesn't she?" he said to Ursula in a loud sot to voce. "You shall have just such another, but Harriet's a devilish good-looking girl." The subject of this comment did not appear to hear it, but Ursula fancied she saw her aunt wince. Harriet's romance. 65 Harriet was helping the faded woman to put things together. In the Hall a gong was sounding, a hideous bellow at the door. "Late as usual," remonstrated Mynheer Mopius. "Hurry up, my dear. Gracious goodness, how awk- ward you are getting!" The frail little creature in the stiff silk caught hold of Harriet's arm with one skinny hand, and Ursula, as she watched her movements, understood something of her unwillingness to exert herself. For his own use Mynheer Mopius never bought anything cheap, and all the appointments of the dinner- table were excellent. Of course he communicated prices to the new arrival, and Ursula, soon discovering that she was expected constantly to admire, entered into the spirit of the thing and asked the cost of the silver candlesticks. Her uncle ascended into regions of unusual good humour and ordered up a bottle of sweet Spanish wine for her, "such as you ignorant females enjoy," he said. He grew very angry with his wife for refusing to have any. "But the doctor for- bids it." "Oh, d your doctor. Never have a doctor till you're dead; that's my advice. Then, he can't do any harm." Mevrouw Mopius meekly swallowed a little of the liquid, her long nose drooping over the glass. Her husband sat tyrannically watching her. "Drink it all," he said; "you want a tonic. You shall have some every day." And she drank it, although she implicitly be- lieved in the doctor, and the doctor, a teetotaller, had told her it meant death. My Lady Nobody. I. 5 66 MY LADY NOBODY. "Doctors are all scoundrels," said Mynheer Mopius. "Hey, Harriet?" The girl's dead father had been a medical man. "Yes, I know," she said. "Only lawyers are honest. That's why doctors die poor." Mynheer Mopius laughed heartily. "I like your cheek," he said. "Make hay while your sun shines, Harriet. A man can't stand it from an old woman." Mevrouw Mopius sniffed. "We must have some fun, hey, wife, while Ursula's here? We might give a dinner-party, and show the grandees what's what." "But the grandees don't come to our dinner-parties," objected Mevrouw Mopius. "No, they don't, hang 'em. But they'd hear from the people who do. Your Domine Pock knows 'em all. We'll have Pock to dinner. He's always asking for money for something or other, but he's a good judge of victuals. Trust a parson to be that, and a poor judge of wine. At least the Evangelicals. And he'll tell everyone I've the best venison in the city. I get my venison from Brussels, Ursula, and it's better, they'll all say, than the Baron van Trossart's, who shoots his himself." "The Baron van Trossart!" said Ursula. "That is the guardian of the van Helmonts' cousin, Helen, the heiress. I am to go to a party there. Gerard promised me an invitation." Mynheer Mopius's face grew very dark. "Look here," he said, "are you staying with me or in barracks? If with me, you must allow me to amuse Harriet's romance. 67 you. I won't hear anything about your Barons Gerard. And I won't have nothing to say to them." "Gerard isn't the Baron," replied Ursula, hotly. "That's his father. Not that it matters." "No, I shouldn't think it did. I won't hear any- thing about them. What did you say the father's name was?" "Theodore, Baron van Helmont van Horstwyk en de Horst," rolled forth, proudly. "Yes, poor Roderick likes that sort of thing. Is 'the Horst' the name of the house? Is it grander than this?" Ursula laughed. "It's quite different," she said. "Well, I dare say. But I won't hear another word about them. That kind of people are all a mistake." Harriet lifted her indolent eyes, and fixed them on Ursula's face. "Do you like your wine?" she said. "Mind you deserve it." For the rest of the meal Mynheer Mopius talked of the entertainments he would organise for Ursula. He refused to let her accompany Harriet on the theo- logical errand concerning Leah's eyes. "No, no," he said, "come into the drawing-room and amuse us. Do you play? Do you sing? Harriet does neither. We do both." Ursula played well. She gave them a Concert of Liszt, and Mynheer did not talk till Mevrouw dropped her scissors and asked him, after a wait, to pick them up for her. As soon as he could, he got hold of the piano himself and called out to his wife to join him. He had been possessed of a fine bass twenty years ago, 68 MY LADY NOBODY. and had enjoyed much admiration in Batavian society. It now stopped somewhere down in his stomach, and only a rumble came out. His wife rose wearily to play his accompaniments, and he kept her chained to the piano for the rest of the evening, though Ursula could not help seeing that the playing seemed to cause her physical pain. He sang only love-songs of the ultra-sentimental kind, all about broken hearts and lovely death and willing sacrifice. Many of them were of a bygone period when everybody pretended — at least in verse — to be ab- solutely ill with affection. Harriet came back and poured out tea. When her uncle said it was bad she shrugged her shoulders. "It always is," she replied. "Yes, Harriet, it is, though I get it direct from the East," he rejoined. His whole attitude betokened reproof. "The East," interposed Mevrouw from her tambour- frame. "Quite so. I wonder, when Laban welcomed Jacob, do you think he gave him tea?" "Coffee, rather, I should fancy," replied Mopius. "Do you really believe they drank coffee, Jacobus?* I wish I was sure" — for the fiftieth time that day (as every day) she fell to contemplating her work with arrested needle. "I could so well fill up this corner with a little table, and put on the rolls and cups and things." "And work an 'L' in the napkin corner," suggested Harriet. * To "drink coffee" is old-fashioned Dutch for "lunch." Harriet's romance. 69 Mevrouw Mopius gazed suspiciously into her niece's face, but Harriet's expression was perfectly serious. "And — work — an — 'L' — into — the — napkin — corner," repeated Mevrouw Mopius very slowly. "Well, I think that might be nice." Ursula had just extinguished her light, and was dozing off into a dreamland of Mopiuses and Jonkers, when the door opened and Harriet entered hurriedly, candle in hand, a white wrap flung loosely about her. "I didn't knock," she said. "Knocks are heard all over a house at night." She threw herself into an easy chair by the bed. "Finished already!" she said. "You don't make much work of your beauty." "It's so little, I should be afraid of killing it with over-care," replied Ursula, smiling. But Harriet frowned. "Don't tell lies," she said. "You must know you're lovely. You are. Am I lovely too?" "I think you look very nice," replied Ursula, hesitat- ingly. "Thank you. I understand," she tossed back her black locks from her sallow cheeks, and her sad eyes flashed, "but see here, I didn't come to talk about looks" — she pushed forward the candle so that its light fell full on Ursula's sleepy face. "Wake up for a minute, can't you? You and I may as well understand each other at once." She leant back, and folded her bare white arms, from which the loose sleeves fell away. "Uncle Mopius is always telling me that you are 70 MY LADY NOBODY. his natural heir," she said. "He tells me whenever he wants to make himself disagreeable, which is not in- frequently. I dare say you know." Ursula sat up. "No, indeed I don't," she said, "and I don't want to. Once my Aunt Josine said something about it, a couple of years ago, and father called me into his study and said he didn't think I should ever get a penny of Uncle Jacobus's money, and he earnestly hoped not. I've never thought of it since." Harriet jerked up her chin. "Your father must be a peculiar sort of man," she said, "if sincere. Did he mean it." Ursula blew out the candle. "I'm going to sleep," she said, "Goodnight. I don't want to be rude to you." But Harriet quietly drew a box of matches from her pocket. "I like that," she said leisurely. "I wish I had somebody to stick up for. But I came to say this — Uncle Mopius is sure to bring up the subject con- stantly in your presence. He'll taunt me, as is his habit, especially now you're there, with your good luck in being his own sister's child. Now, I want you fully to understand" — she leaned forward her big dark face, till Ursula struggled not to shrink back — "that I — don't — care. I don't care a bit. I'm not like men. And if you think you're enjoying a cheap triumph, you're mistaken, that's all. And if you imagine it's bravado on my part, because I can't help myself, you're mistaken too. I don't want his dirty money. I'm sick of it. I want something better. I'm not going to hate you for nothing. In fact, I rather like you. So he can go on Harriet's romance. 71 as much as ever he chooses, and if you enjoy it, you're free to do so." "But I don't," cried Ursula, with hot cheeks. "I don't a bit. You know I don't. And, in fact, uncle talked quite differently this afternoon. I thought you " The other girl stopped her with a gesture. "Don't," she said, "I won't hear it. I'm sick of the whole business. Be sure that, whatever he said, it was a lie." She got up and began pacing the room, her limbs quivering under the light folds of her gown. Suddenly she stood still, looking down at Ursula. "Shall I tell you what will really happen? Do you care to know? It's easy enough." Ursula did not answer, but Harriet went on, unheeding, "Aunt will die, and he will marry again, as soon as he can. That's all. There." Ursula's continuous silence seemed to goad her com- panion. "You think he may die before aunt? He may; but when a chimney falls down into the street, it usually manages to hit a better man. You watch aunt; good night." She was departing, but again reflected, and came back to the bed. "You poor thing," she said, "I believe you really would have liked me to get the money. Why?" "Oh, I should indeed," replied Ursula, earnestly, "though it looks a long way off. You seem so lonely and — will you mind my saying it? — so unhappy, Harriet." To her amazement her visitor fell forward on the bed and hugged her. A moment afterwards, however, Harriet again sat in the big chair. "You are quite mistaken," she said, arranging her draperies with •J 2 MY LADY NOBODY. downcast eyes, "I am not at all unhappy." There followed a moment's agitated silence, and then: "Ursula, I like you. I want to tell you something. You'll listen for a moment, won't you? I've nobody else to tell it to." Without further consideration the girl pushed one hand between the loose folds about her throat and from the snowy recesses of her bosom drew forth a paper which she hurriedly thrust in front of Ursula. "There, read that," she said excitedly. "It never leaves me lest they should find out." Still sitting up, with one elbow on the little table beside her, Ursula read a printed advertisement, a scrap from a newspaper: — "H. V. Meet me on Thursday next at eight o'clock in the Long Walk outside the West Gate. Wear a white feather and, if possible, a red shawl. Carry your' parasol open, in any case. Dearest, I am dying to see you, but can't come before then. Your own Romeo." "Well?" queried Ursula, but immediately her voice changed. "Harriet, you don't mean to tell me that this is an entanglement of yours?" "You choose a strange word," replied Harriet loftily. "There is no entanglement. But I hope there is going to be. As yet there is merely an answer to an ad- vertisement. Yes, the advertisement was mine. Oh, Ursula, isn't it delightful? He says he is dying to see me. Imagine that. And he doesn't even know me yet." "That, surely, makes his eagerness less delightful," replied Ursula drily. "Oh, but I gave him a very accurate description, HARRIETS ROMANCE. 73 tall, luminous eyes, dark locks, ivory skin. I told him I was of distinctly prepossessing appearance. Yes, in spite of your opinion, I ventured to tell him that. Uncle informs me so frequently that I am very good- looking, and aunt repeats so consistently that I am ex- ceedingly plain, I feel I have a double right to be satis- fied with my beauty. Besides, every woman's glass declares to her that her appearance is prepossessing; it is the one reason why I fancy, on the whole, women's lives must be happier than men's." "Did you put all that in the advertisement?" asked Ursula, still staring stupidly at the scrap of paper on the bed. "I — I wrote him a letter, just one." "Addressed to 'Romeo'?" "To 'Romeo de Lieven.'* Isn't it a charming name?" "It's an assumed name. Imagine a Dutchman called Romeo ! " "Of course, it's a pseudonym, like Carmen Sylva. I wasn't clever enough to think of one; besides, I hate subterfuges. So I just put my own name H. V., Harriet Verveen." "Harriet, you don't mean to say that you wrote a signed love-letter you don't in the least know to whom?" "Love-letter, no. I told him who I was and what I wanted. Besides, I shall know him to-morrow." "You're not going." Once more Harriet assumed her almost defiant at- titude. * To love. 74 MY LADY NOBODY. "Yes, I am going," she said. "So there!" "What do you think?" she suddenly burst out. "It's all very well for you comfortable, sheltered girls, at home! What's to become of the likes of me, if we don't look out for ourselves? Nobody'll help to find me a husband or a hiding-place. Nobody'll ever do anything for me, except abuse me because I do things for myself." "But / haven't had a lover found for me," inter- posed Ursula. "It seems so unwomanly " "Womanly! There we have the word — womanly!" Harriet's words came stumbling and tossing; she thrust out her limbs and the muslin fell away from them. "It's womanly to live on day by day in bitter- ness, with every womanly feeling hourly insulted and estranged; after a year more, perhaps, of this, to go to some fresh situation and look after other people's children, and when you are worn out at last, to die, soured and in want. That's honest independence, that's womanly modesty. Well, then, I'm immodest. Do you understand me?" She threw herself wildly forward. "I'm immodest. I want love. I told you just now I didn't want the old scoundrel's money. I don't. But I want love. I want love. And I mean to have it. A woman has a right to love and be loved. I won't be some lazy rich woman's substitute, with brats I don't care for. I want to love children of my own. Children that love me when I kiss them. I love my own body." She fell back again, and her eager voice died into a pensive murmur; while speaking, she softly stroked her rounded arm. "I love it, and I want others to love it also. I want it to belong to someone besides my lonely THE TRYST. 75 self. Great Heaven, don't you understand?" — her tone grew shrill again — "one's youth goes — goes. But you don't understand." She stopped abruptly, just in time, and hid her face in her hand. Ursula knew not how to speak or act. There was only one thing she wanted to do; so she did it. She put an arm round Harriet's neck and kissed her. But the girl shook herself free, and, without another word, hurried away. CHAPTER VIII. THE TRYST. The next day passed in an atmosphere of sombre expectation. Ursula and Harriet barely spoke to one another; the latter seemed to be holding aloof. Mynheer Mopius took his niece the round of the house amid a steady flow of self-laudation, and Ursula put in pleasing adjectives as full-stops. He showed her everything, even to the water-supply and the wine-cellar. There was but one exception, his wife's store-cupboard; Mevrouw Mopius, to his annoyance, actually held out in refusing the key. But he found a compensation in unmitigated china and glass. After a morning thus profitably spent, the afternoon brought a long drive and a visit to a flower show. The drive was merely an opportunity for parading Mynheer Mopius's equipage amongst the beauties of nature, but that gentleman was made happy, after prolonged anxiety and craning, by meeting the very people he was de- 76 MY LADY NOBODY. sirous should see it. The visit to the exhibition, how- ever, must be regarded as an act of kindness to his guest, for the committee had had the manifest stupidity to award Mynheer Mopius's double dahlias a third prize. In the gardens Ursula espied Gerard with his cousin Helen amongst a crowd of stylish-looking people, whom Jacobus described as "swells." She had received, that morning, the promised card for the Baroness van Tros- sart's party, and she would gladly have sought an oc- casion of thanking the sender, but to this proposal her uncle, in a sudden fit of shyness, opposed resolute and almost rampant refusal. "I don't want to know the people," he repeated excitedly, his eyes fixed on the distinguished group by the central lake. "I don't want to have anything to say to them. Ursula, you belong to my party. I desire you to stay where you are." "Oh, very well," replied Ursula, offended; "though, of course, I should not have gone up to him, as long as he was conversing with that violet-nosed old woman in blue." "That lady is the wife of the Governor, and I will thank you to speak of her with more respect." Ursula listened in amazement. She was not enough a student of human nature to explain her uncle's change of front. She went and sat down on the bench beside her aunt, with a few kind words about the weather. "Oh, beautiful!" gasped Mevrouw Mopius. "Jaco- bus, don't you think it is time we went home?" Jacobus assented, and in the midst of plans for to- morrow sought to impress upon Ursula the number and THE TRYST. 77 importance of his acquaintances as instanced by frequent salutes. Ursula came upon her aunt alone in the drawing- room half an hour before dinner. The vast apartment was darkened to a mellow glow behind its yellow Venetians. Mevrouw Mopius sat with closed eyes and cavernous cheeks before her unused frame. She stirred as the door opened, and beckoned her niece to her side. "My dear," she said in a faint voice, "come and sit by me for a minute. I have something to ask you." Ursula obeyed. "Your uncle was speaking of the opera for to-morrow night. I want you to tell him you don't care to go." "But I do care," objected the girl. "I think it's simply glorious. I've never been to the opera before." "My dear, I can assure you it's not worth seeing. The singers make such a noise you can't hear a word they say. Not that that matters, for they always say the same thing." "Oh, but I should like it," repeated Ursula. "Say, for my sake, that you don't care to go" — Mevrouw Mopius's manner became very nervous — "Ursula, I can't go out at night. Have you set your heart on this performance?" "Yes, aunt," said the girl frankly; "but, even if I hadn't, I shouldn't know of any valid excuse. However, I can very well go with Harriet and uncle. I'll tell him you'd rather not." Mevrouw Mopius clutched her arm. "Hold your tongue," she said, quite roughly. "I didn't want to have you here. I tell you so honestly. I knew it would be like this. It was Jacobus. Poor fellow, I suppose 70 MY LADY NOBODY. he felt how dull the house was getting." She paused meditatively. "He'd never go without me; he wouldn't enjoy himself." "I'm sure I didn't ask to come," protested Ursula, "but now I'm here, I can't begin inventing a parcel of lies. You must tell uncle yourself, aunt, please." Mevrouw Mopius tightened her grip till the nails dug into the flesh. She turned her dull eyes full on Ursula. "Girl," she gasped, "what are you, with your little pleasures or prejudices to come athwart such a sorrow as mine? I'll tell you my secret, if it must be. Swear, first, that you'll not breathe it to a living soul." Ursula was alarmed by her aunt's earnest manner. "I can't swear," she said in a flurry, "but I'll promise. I never swore in my life." "Swear," repeated the other woman under her breath; unconsciously she tightened her grasp till Ursula shrieked aloud. "Hush! Are you mad? He'll hear. Oh, is that it?" She relaxed her hold. "Fool, did you never feel pain?" "I — I don't know," gasped Ursula, now thoroughly frightened, convinced that her aunt must have mad fits of which no one had spoken. "Swear, I tell you. Say: So help me, God Almighty. Louder. Let me hear it. Now, listen. I'm ill, in- curably ill. Never mind what the doctor calls the ill- ness. Enough that he says I can't live beyond two months. Perhaps he's mistaken. They often are. Not that I want to live. Not in this agony, my God! Not except for him. Ursula, your uncle knows nothing. I don't want him to know. I'd bear twice as much— if I could — so that he shouldn't know. Poor fellow, he THE TRYST. 79 has his faults, perhaps, but he's so soft-hearted, he can't bear to see suffering, not even to hear of it. There, now, I have told you. I've never told a living soul, as I said. I can hide it from him, Ursula, if things go on as usual. But I can't go taking long drives, or to flower-shows, and oh, Ursula, dear, I can't go out at night." Ursula was dumb-struck with horror and pity. Still, she could not help feeling, even at that moment, that her visit to her uncle was becoming hopelessly per- plexed. She had expected a round of gaieties, all the delights of a debut. "I'll do whatever you wish me to," she said, help- lessly. "Oh, aunt, I'm so sorry, but I hope you'll get better. Father says doctors never know." "Not about curing, they don't," replied her aunt, grimly. "Now, Ursula, remember, not a word. It's a secret between you and me. I don't think it'll be for very long. Move away: I hear some one coming." Harriet entered the room with her novel under her arm. Presently she looked up at Mevrouw Mopius's deathly countenance lying back as if asleep, and nodded meaningly to Ursula. Mynheer Mopius came in, and his wife sat up. "Jacobus," she said, "you were laugh- ing at the blueness of my sky yesterday. I saw one in the exhibition aviary that was every bit as blue." "But did you look at the real article up above us?" questioned Jacobus. "No," admitted Mevrouw Mopius, "I didn't think of that." SO MY LADY NOBODY. Harriet rose hurriedly from dessert. "Aunt is tired," she said. "You must excuse us, uncle," and she offered Mevrouw her arm. At the door she turned. "You don't want me just now, I suppose?" she continued. "I am going out to get a breath of fresh air." "Yes," added Ursula quickly. "Harriet and I are going for a walk." A moment later the two girls met on the bedroom- landing. Both were dressed to go out. Harriet had a white feather on her hat and a red shawl over one arm. "Leave me alone, can't you?" said Harriet. She spoke fiercely, and a gesture escaped her which was almost a menace. "No, I'm going with you," replied Ursula quietly. "Indeed you shan't. What a fool I was to tell you. Women always are fools to ask sympathy from each other." "I shall not be in your way," persisted Ursula, with coaxing decision. "Let me wait with you till he comes — if he comes — and then I can step aside." "Of course he will come," said Harriet. Perhaps it was the thought of this certain triumph which in- duced her to forbear all further opposition to Ursula's accompanying her. "I bought this shawl," began Harriet, as they walked through the shadowed streets. "I had to pawn my only brooch to get it." "Does uncle allow you no pocket-money?" asked Ursula. "Ten florins a month," replied Harriet bitterly. "I spend most of it in scents and chocolate-creams. They are my one consolation. I adore chocolate-creams. Do THE TRYST. 6 I you? We might get some now. I've got a florin left from the brooch-money." "Let me buy them this time," suggested Ursula sympathetically. "Very well. I like the pink kind best." It was still light, but a veil had already fallen over the low-sinking sun. The hot, sleepy streets were wak- ing up in the red glow of the fading day. People in the town, now that the glare had died from their eyes, were telling each other that the air was cool, and trying to believe it. Outside, however, the assertion had more truth in it. A ripple of refreshment was slowly spreading up from the distant river. The shadows of the straight- lined trees lay across the brick-road in great black stripes. The fields looked as if their dusty grass was turning green again beneath the darkening sky; in the dull ditches stood the cattle, dreamily content. The girls walked on in silence till they reached a point where the road swerved off into a little thicket. This was the spot which Romeo must have had in his mind. It was very quiet and sequestered. They stood looking at each other, still in silence. Harriet's pale cheeks were flushed. Evening was now rapidly closing in; great folds of gray shadow seemed to come broadening over the land- scape; not a sound was heard but the faint whiz of some tiny gnats. Suddenly the clear chimes began to play from the slender ball-topped tower, which stood out black, like a monstrous ninepin, against the yellow western sky. The eyes of the watchers met. Eight slow strokes came My Lady Nobody. I. 6 82 MY LADY NOBODY. trembling heavily across the hush of sunset. At the other end of the long, straight road a figure appeared, as yet quite indistinct. They watched. They could hear each other's hearts beat. When it drew nearer they saw that it was a woman. Harriet gave a great gasp of relief. A moment later it had come quite close to them. And both saw simul- taneously that the woman wore a white feather and a scarlet shawl. She passed them suspiciously; she was an independ- ent-looking, weather-beaten female of some forty wintry winters — all angles and frost. After a moment she halted, and hesitatingly retraced her steps. The last glow paled away from the horizon. In the ashen grayness it even seemed to Ursula that the little breeze from the marshes blew cold. The long road lay motionless, gradually shortening into night. "A fine evening, young ladies," said the red-shawled female, stopping abruptly near them, and suddenly opening an enormous parasol; "but it's getting late." "It's not much beyond eight," replied Ursula, for want of an answer. "Nine minutes," said the female, with precision. "Nine full minutes past eight p.m. Perhaps I may remark to you, ladies, that this spot is unhealthy after sunset — very particularly unhealthy. The back-sillies, as modern science calls them, come up from the water and produce injurious smells. If I were you I should be careful — very particularly careful." She turned on one heel, but suddenly bethought herself. "I," she said, nodding her head — the white feather waved — "am compelled by the call of duty to remain. THE TRYST. 83 I am waiting for someone — an engagement." She spoke the last word with triumphant pomposity. Its double meaning evidently furnished her extreme satisfaction. She repeated it twice and jingled a small reticule de- pending from a cotton-gloved wrist. "I know of a case," she went on immediately, seeing that neither girl moved or spake, "when a young person (much of your age) spent an evening out here in this wood. Her reasons for doing so I distinctly decline to enter into. They were not laudable, you may be sure; no young girl's would be. Well, she caught the my- asthma and died. She died." All the time she was holding forth the speaker peered anxiously to right and left in the darkness. "Duty," she added, "as I told you, compels me to remain. But I do so at the risk of my health." "You lying old humbug!" said a deep voice behind her in the darkness. "Then what have you got that red shawl on for, eh?" The victim to duty spun round as if shot. "Oh, it's you, is it, Maria?" she said. "I know what you're here for: spying, spying; that's your errand, you nasty, envious thing." "Then you're wrong, that's all. I'm here on a fool's errand of my own, like yourself." A short, fat woman stepped into the faint reflection of a distant lantern, and they saw that she also wore a red shawl! Not even courtesy could describe this lady as of "uncertain age." "Seems to me," she continued, "you and I needn't have been so mighty close with each other. Nor you needn't have crowed over me as you did, Isabella. I 6* §4 MY LADY NOBODY. don't see that your lover was so much smarter than, mine." "Oh, Harriet, come away," whispered Ursula, break- ing a long silence. Harriet laughed hoarsely. "No," she said, "I'm going to see this comedy out." "And as for those young ladies there," Maria went on, "they've as much right to be here as we have — at least, the one with the red shawl over her arm has. Yes, my dear, you needn't try to smuggle it away behind your neighbour. You're here from a sense of duty, as much as ever my friend Isabella is. I wonder how many more of us have answered this advertisement?" "One more has," said a young voice, and a pretty, fair, little creature, looking like a dressmaker's assistant, stole from behind a tree into the ring. "That makes five of us," announced the fat woman, with a nod to Ursula. "It was mean of you yonder to be ashamed of your colours. Well, men were deceivers ever, and, girls, we've been once more deceived." "It was I advertised first, not he," said the pretty girl, defiantly. "So did I," Harriet admitted. "We may as well be fair." "Well, so did I, if it comes to that," declared the fat woman. "And so did you, Isabella, we needn't ask you. And so did that featherless girl, I dare say. I don't see that it makes much difference. And it was Romeo de Lieven — was it? — as told you all to come here?" "All," said the whole chorus. They had gradually drawn nearer to one of the rare street-lamps, which THE TRYST. 8 5 make a dismal haze at far intervals along the dark road. They stood in a circle, with unconsciously up-lifted parasols, and all around them was the soft night, and the little wind, and the damp smell of the water. "Then the best thing you can do is to go home again. Come along, Isabella, you can sing me the praises of your lover as we go." "I solemnly swear," said the sour spinster in sepulchral tones, "never to trust a man again. Ah, I could tell you a story " "There's no time for that now," interrupted her friend, briskly. "As for solemnly swearing, I don't object. Ladies, you see what they are, these men. Imagine what would have happened to you if this Romeo had come, and any of you'd married him. No, Romeo, we will not marry. Let us promise, each one of us, after to-night's experience, to turn our backs on them for ever." All of them, except Ursula, lifted their arms on high. In chorus they sang out, "We promise," and even as they did so a vehicle suddenly loomed through the darkness, a high trap, devoid of carriage lights, occupied by three or four officers in uniform. "Way there, please," said a voice which Ursula recognised. The women scattered on one side, all look- ing up involuntarily. The dim light of the lantern fell full on their faces, and, for one instant, Gerard saw Ursula's features quite plainly. She shrank back; how she hoped that he had not recognised her! She thought not. The dog-cart passed down the road, and presently the young men were heard laughing heartily. This 86 MY LADY NOBODY. masculine hilarity seemed to exasperate the buxom Maria. "Let us bind ourselves," she said, "to meet together next year, at this spot and this hour, and to prove to each other that each has kept her word." "We promise," said the others, in taking leave. But, when the anniversary came round — be it noted here — Maria marched to a solitary vigil. The two younger women had broken their vow, and the weather- beaten spinster much wanted them to believe that she had broken hers. Not a word was exchanged between the two girls on their homeward way. Ursula felt heartily relieved, when she found herself once more safe in the drawing- room. Harriet had a headache, and Ursula poured out tea. Mynheer Mopius took an opportunity of praising her concoction as a set off against Harriet's. "Of course it's her fault," he argued, "not that of the tea. How could it be? — best Java imported." "Uncle Jacobus," began Ursula, emboldened by this approval, "I don't care about the opera to-morrow. I'd as lief stay at home." Her hand trembled, and she blushed crimson. Mynheer Mopius set down his teacup cautiously, for it was best Japan. "Well, of all the deceiving minxes!" he said. "And to hear her go on this afternoon in the carriage! Ursula, you are insincere." Mevrouw Mopius sat quite motionless. Her niece did not venture to glance her way. "Well, of course," said Mynheer, in the silence, "you must know. I'm not such a fool as to waste my money, and no thanks for my pains. After I'd sent THE TRYST. 87 round to the stationer's, too, for the book of words you said you would like to have. I'm very much dis- appointed in you, Ursula. I can't make it out." " Operas aren't really good," piped Mevrouw Mopius's tremulous voice. "They're not a bit like real life. I never had anything happen to me like an opera." Mynheer Mopius slapped his knee. "I have it," he cried; "it's some religious nonsense of your father's. Well, if it don't rise to the surface quicker, there can't be much of it. Come along, wife, I can't bear to think of her. Come along; let's play and sing." Mevrouw Mopius staggered to her feet. Ursula remained in the half light of the front room. Husband and wife spent the rest of the evening at the piano. "Dear love, for thee I would lay down my li-i-ife, For without thee what would that life avail? If thy hand but lift the fatal kni-i-ife, I smile, I faint, and bid sweet death all hail, sang Mynheer Mopius. And Ursula listened. And Mevrouw Mopius played. 88 MY LADY NOBODY. CHAPTER IX. otto's wooing. "Plush," said the Baroness van Helmont, addressing her silken favourite, "it is a terrible thing to have an incompatible child." Plush made no answer, but, from the other end of the room, came Otto's reply: "I can't help it, mother. I suppose you made me what I am." "I? Never in my life. I could not have produced anything so strong. Plush and I, we are in harmony; we take the same view of existence." She languidly entangled her fingers in the meshes of her darling's soft white hair. The lapdog, on her crimson cushion, laid two delicate little slender-wristed paws, that looked as if encased in a perfect fit of pcau de Suede, over a bright black button of a nose. The pair of them, lady and lapdog, looked born to undulate. "You are resolved, then," continued the Baroness, "to return to Java as soon as you again get tired of us." "Tired of you! Mother!" His emotion made him both unable and unwilling to say more. "Tired or not, in a few months you will once more leave us. Otto, it will break your father's heart." This prophecy Otto considered a decidedly doubt- ful one. otto's wooing. 89 "I never understood why you first went," continued the Baroness. "Gerard stays. Everybody I know stays. Fifteen years ago you must suddenly resolve to learn gentleman-farming in Germany. It sounds so silly, 'gentleman- farming.' They call it 'economy' over there — I suppose the name pleased you — and after a year or two you came back and said it couldn't be done without plenty of money. A charming economy. It is as good as a farce!" "That is true, Otto, is it not?" she added petulantly, after a pause. "Quite true," he replied, helplessly, sitting forward on a little boudoir chair, his brown hands hanging joined between his heavy legs. "Well, then, after that you must hurry away to plant tea in the Indies, as if there were not enough common people to do that! And doing it, too. I never heard of a breakdown in the tea-supply. And now you have been busied there for a dozen years, and what's the profit to you or to any one? You're no richer, and tea's not even cheaper. So you've benefited neither your neighbour nor yourself." The Baroness sighed. Plush sighed also, her whole little pink-tinted body a sob of lethargic content. "But I've been earning an honest living," burst out Otto desperately. It was all so useless; he had said it so often before! "At least I've not been droning through my whole life, spending father's money, and knowing all the time that in fact there was no money to spend. Of course, I'd hoped to come back richer from India, but you can't understand about the crisis in the tea-trade, mother." QO MY LADY NOBODY. "No, indeed," said the Baroness. "At any rate, however, I've paid my way. I've not lived, as Gerard does, in a constant entanglement of bills and loans. I don't depend for my daily bread on the mercy of the Jews." "Nor does Gerard — thank Heaven! — though he may for his daily champagne!" cried the Baroness, her irrepressible sprightliness bubbling uppermost. "And the Jews, as your father always says, are a dispensation of Providence for the survival of the fittest. He doesn't mean themselves. They keep the old families above water till smoother times work round again. Look at the van Utrechts, for instance; the only son tried to commit suicide for want of a friendly Jew! And four months later he married a Rotterdam oil-merchant's daughter. That's what Gerard will do; only, in his case, I do hope and pray that the man who made the money will be a generation farther off. And on the mother's side." The Baroness sank back reflectively, and, for the hundredth time, a procession of ticketed young ladies passed before her pale blue eyes. "Otto," she said, "you know the desire of our hearts. It is that you marry Helena van Trossart. Then we should say: 'Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.'" "Catch my father saying that," cried Otto roughly, with holy horror in his honest eyes. The Baroness stopped him by an imperious gesture. "I don't know what you mean, Otto," she said. "Please don't be profane. Yes, I desire above all things to see this marriage consummated. Gerard will do well in any case. And, after all, it is you who will one day otto's wooing. 91 be Baron Helmont of the Horst. You, our first, our eldest." She checked herself, holding out her thin white hand, and her eyes were full of love. Otto took the hand in his own, and kissed it. "You might try, Otto," continued the Baroness. "You don't know her; she was a child when you went away. There is no sense in your refusing to find out whether you could like her or not. The marriage would end all difficulties for good, and you could remain with us." "What do you want me to do?" asked Otto heavily. "Supposing you were to go to Drum to-day, and see them. You might stay over their dance, which is to-morrow night. It would be a pretty attention. I feel sure the coast is clear, and she thinks you interesting. She told me so herself, when they dined here; she con- siders your life one long romance." "Romance is the word," said Otto. "Well, mother, I'm willing to go." He took up The Graphic from a side-table, and silence brooded over the trio till the Baron came in. "My dear," said the Baron eagerly, his eyes alight, "I must just show you this: the carrier brought it. It's Feuillet's 'Jeune Homme Pauvre,' with the original drawings by Mouchot. Isn't it charming? I had it over from Fontaine." The Baroness took the volume, disturbing Plush. "Yes," she replied, as she turned over the pages. "It's very nice. But I can't help preferring my old friend, Johannot." "How unkind!" said the Baron, plaintively, "Johannot couldn't be expected to illustrate everything, especially not the books that were written after he died." 92 MY LADY NOBODY. He turned to his son. "I shan't show it to you, Otto, for you'd only ask how much it cost." "Oh, don't," interposed the Baroness. "And yet this is quite a bargain. Only 625 francs, and the binding by David." "My dear, I don't care. Besides, I have forgotten already." "Lucky woman!" the Baron laughed. "I, at least, must remember till it's paid. What's the matter, Jan?" — this to a servant who appeared in the open door — "You can clear away the papers on the library floor." "There's a poor woman at the kitchen-entrance asking to see you, sir," said the man. "She says you know all about her. Her name is Vrouw Klop, from the cottages by Horstwyk Mill." "I never heard of the creature in my life!" cried the Baron. "I know her," remarked Mevrouw, quietly. "Her husband drinks." "Saving your presence, Mevrouw," said Jan, without moving a muscle; "she says her husband's been dead these seven years." "Well, if he had lived, he'd have drunk," replied the Baroness, indifferently. "And, besides, if she's been a widow so long, she must have children earning some- thing." Otto got up and walked towards the window. "Send her away," exclaimed the Baron. "It's like her insolence, asking for me!" "She says she has a letter from the Burgomaster, mynheer," gently persisted the servant. Menials are otto's wooing. 93 always pampercdly insolent to mendicants or aggres- sively sympathetic regarding them. They are never in- different. "Then why didn't you bring it up? Why doesn't she go to the relieving officer? I can't be bothered. There, give her a twopenny-bit, and let her go." Otto stood at the window, looking out. "The people are unendurable," said the Baron, as the servant departed. "Always wanting something, and always asking for it. As if it were our duty to supply unlimited gin!" "Yes," replied the Baroness, "and the respectable poor never beg. This illustration is charming, Theodore; I think it is the best of all. What a sweet face the girl has!" She held up the beautiful blue morocco volume to the light. Otto stood at the window looking out. Helena van Trossart belonged to one of the most influential families in Holland. Her mother had been a sister of the Baron van Helmont; both mother and father were long since dead. She lived with an uncle and aunt on the other side, Trossarts, like herself, and rich, like herself, with Trossart money. The uncle and aunt were childless, and affectionately interested in their beautiful heiress, of whom they felt proud to think as the greatest 'partie' in the province. The Baroness was portly and comfortable; she had never known any but comfortable people all her life. The Baron, a fine old gentleman with silver-striped hair, was concerned in the government of the country, which means that he occu- 94 MY LADY NOBODY. pied his time in procuring lucrative posts for his wife's poor relations, of whose poverty he lived in monotonous dread. The fine old double mansion, which the van Trossarts inhabited, stood on a green canal behind a sombre row of chestnuts. Grass grew between the paving-stones, and iron chains swung heavily from post to post. Not a street-boy passed but pulled those chains. The street- boy of Holland is unparalleled in Europe, a pestilence that walketh in darkness, and a destruction that wasteth at noonday, but here you could hardly take offence at him, for he imparted an element of liveliness to as dead a corner as dull respectability could desire to dwell in. The outside of the house wore that aspect of dignified dilapidation which is characteristic of hereditary wealth. Inside nothing was new — except in Helena's apartments — nor was anything worn out. "Mamma," said the Freule Helena — she called her foster-mother "mamma" — "I have a note from Gerard. He asks whether he may bring Otto round to lunch in half an hour's time. Otto, it appears, has turned up for the day. The orderly is waiting. I suppose I had better say yes." "Stop a moment while I ring and ask how many pigeons there are," replied the Baroness, who was eminently practical. "You wouldn't keep them away because of that!" cried Helen, laughing. "Indeed I should. Gerard detests cold meat. And there's nothing a man resents like getting what he doesn't eat in a house where his tastes are known. You've asked people enough unexpectedly already." otto's wooing. g5 "Only Georgetta van Troyen and her brother. That was to escape a tete-a-tete with Mechteld van Weylert. We shall be quite a small party." "I don't mind large parties, like to-morrow's," replied Mevrouw van Trossart, turning from a con- fabulation with her confidential maid. "Well, tell them to come. Ann, just say to the man: 'My compliments, and the Jonkers* are welcome.' You are terribly gay, child; you can't bear a moment of quiet." "Dear mamma, did you want me to sit all the afternoon opposite Maggie van Weylert? Confess though she is your niece, you would not do it yourself. With some women conversation is just contradiction. And there are few people outside this house, except Gerard, I care to be alone with. No guest or a number, that is my view." "Gerard would feel flattered," replied the Baroness, smiling over her plump hands. "You had better not tell him, or he will ask you to afford him the oppor- tunity of being alone together for life." "How terrible! Mamma, you are perfectly ruth- less. There is not a creature in the world, not even myself, I am fond enough of for that. Besides, surely one should never marry a man one likes to be alone with; it is the most fatal way of dying to society at once." She laughed, and threw back the yellow curls from her blue-veined forehead; she was all pink and gold, like a bunch of wild rose and laburnum. "What I should like to do," she went on, "would be to marry Otto, and flirt with Gerard and other people. But, of * Title for unmarried sons of noblemen, pronounced " Yonker." q6 my lady nobody. course, it would be horribly improper, and it couldn't be done." "Don't be silly," remonstrated the Baroness van Trossart, trying to frown. "You are getting too old, Nellie, for saying things you ought to be ashamed of. Now go and get ready." "I am half Otto's age," replied the girl, rising. "That may be. But an ingenue should die at nine- teen. We women, my dear, are inverted butterflies, and marriage is our chrysalis, as your future mother- in-law said the other night. I can't imagine where she gets her sayings from, I suppose she reads them some- where. But neither she nor I would like to see a Baroness van Helmont who was ingenue." Helena paused in the doorway. "Would you like me," she asked, "some day, to be Baroness van Hel- mont?" "My dear, you might be a worse thing. Personally, if you ask me, I should certainly prefer Otto, little as I know of him, to Gerard. Of Gerard I should say, 'Pour le badinage, bon. Pour le manage, non.' And then, Otto is the better match, the future Baron. You two could restore, together, the glories of the Horst." Helena had stood listening, thoughtfully. Thought did not suit her soft-featured, facile face. "But you must do what you like and decide for yourself," added her aunt, "as, with your character, you certainly will." "I thought I was so yielding," protested Helena. "You are, my dear, except when you care." "Then it's you that have spoilt me," answered Helena, tripping off. otto's wooing. 97 The Baroness looked after her. "Dear girl," she said to herself. "It will end in her marrying Gerard, 1 fancy. The book-writers may say what they like, but the woman who can, always marries for love." A few minutes later her husband came in. "My dear," he said, "some of my papers are missing. I wish you would tell Mary to mind what she's about." "Yes, my dear," she replied, without looking up. Some of his papers were always missing. He always grumbled. It had come with his appointment to the high Government post. For the first month or two she had fretted; then she had understood that it was part of his new importance, and she had returned to her old comfortable life. "Both the Helmonts are coming to lunch," she said, "and one or two other people." "I don't care who's coming to lunch. I wish you minded more about my papers. They're of very parti- cular moment." "I do mind. I shall tell someone to find them at once on your table, for I've no doubt that they're there. Mademoiselle," this in French to a swarthy little lady who came gliding in, "would you mind looking for some papers Monsieur has left on his table — official papers — a dirty yellow, you know." "But how on earth " began the State func- tionary. "Oh, she'll find them. She knows what your papers are like. How do you do, Georgette? Where is Willie?" "On the stairs, I believe," replied the young lady thus addressed, "flirting with the Freule van Weylert." "We should all have said 'of course,' Freule," declared My Lady Nobody. I. 7 08 MY LADY NOBODY. Gerard's voice behind her, "had you omitted the name of the lady. Even Willie could not teach the Freule van Weylert to .flirt." Otto was bowing silently beside his brother, with a specially deep bow for Mademoiselle Papotier, Helena's quondam governess, who had returned, bearing the lost papers, to be welcomed by their owner with a grunt. As a rule, nobody but Helena took any notice of Mademoiselle Papotier. They all went in to luncheon, a medley of excep- tionally noisy and exceptionally silent elements. The old Baron took his seat at the head of the table, and immediately fixed his keen eyes on his food. Opposite him sat the French lady, coquettish in movements and apparel, pouring out coffee, of which no one partook. The mistress of the house strove vainly to converse with her niece Van Weylert, an angular and awkward young girl, or to draw out her other neighbour, Otto, who sat with his attention glumly concentrated on the fair ob- ject of his visit. The rest of the company were up- roariously merry, led on by Gerard and his pink brother officer, young Willie van Troyen. Otto was wondering whatever had induced him to come. Yet, at the bottom of his heart, he knew very well. It was not so much his mother's affectionate ex- postulation as the thought, ever present within him yet never expressed: What will become of the Horst when my father dies? What, indeed? He had never loved the old home as he loved it since his return. "You are coming to my dance to-morrow, I hope, Mynheer van Helmont?" said his hostess. He awoke as from a reverie. "Oh yes," he said, "I hope so. I otto's wooing. 99 intend to stay at Drum for a day or two." He was still watching his cousin; the Baroness followed his gaze, and then their eyes met. A shout of laughter went up from the opposite side of the table. The old Baron lifted his brows. "In my time," he said to the shaking mass of pink muslin beside him, "we weren't half as funny as you young people seem to be." "Weren't you?" retorted Georgette van Troyen. "How slow you must have been! Too bad, not even to have had a good time in your youth! But isn't this too amusing, this story that Willie is telling?" The Baron returned hastily to his omelet. "Isn't it too amusing?" cried the young girl, appeal- ing to Otto. "I haven't heard it," said the latter, at which they all roared again. Willie was in high spirits, though Gerard was endeavouring to arrest his narration. "Do shut up, Troy; we've had quite enough of it," growled Gerard. "No, indeed, I am mistress here!" cried Helen, her eyes sparkling with merriment. "Go on, Mynheer van Troyen; you and the Captain had agreed on the wager. And you answered the advertisements; and what hap- pened then? The advertisements," she called across to Otto in explanation, "were from young ladies in search of a husband." "From ladies," corrected the little officer, who looked like a bibulous cherub. "Well, we got replies to our letters, and we wrote again, arranging a meeting. We convened all the aspirants — there were four of them — at the same spot and, of course, the same hour, and 7* IOO MY LADY NOBODY. we bade them dress up in red shawls and white feathers. And when we drove past, taking Gerard and another man as umpires, there they were, the whole four of them; I think there were even more!" Renewed shrieks of laughter greeted the final sally. "It's too killing!" cried Helen, the tears on her cheeks. "And what were they doing? Tearing each other's eyes out?" "I don't know. I didn't wait to see. They were making a great noise, screaming at each other. I had won my champagne, and I went and drank it. I always knew these advertisements were perfectly genuine." "But the letters," interposed Georgette. "You must show Helen the letters, Willie." "No, no, he mustn't," cried Gerard, energetically. "I'm sick of the whole business. Do let's talk of some- thing else." "But I'm not," protested Helen. "It's new to me. How selfish you are, Gerard. Don't you think it's awfully amusing, Otto? I'm sure you want to hear more." "I only want to hear one thing," said Otto, gravely, bending forward, "and that is what Mynheer van Troyen is going to do with those letters?" "Why, keep them, of course," replied Willie. "It is no business of mine, Mynheer; I have not the honour, like my brother, of being your friend. But if I were umpire, I should insist on those letters being given up and burned." "I suppose you don't approve of the whole joke?" cried Gerard, hotly, forcing back his own better mis- givings, swift in defence of his chum. otto's wooing. ioi "It is not my province to express an opinion. Cer- tainly not here. It is not a thing I should have done myself." "And the girls who advertised?" continued Gerard. "We only answered advertisements. What of them?" "Poor things!" said Otto, softly. "What nonsense!" exclaimed Helen. "I think it's great fun; and for the girls, too. I should like to try the plan. Some day we must do it, Georgette. It's a capital way of getting a husband. What freedom it leaves in the choice!" "Surely you are not restricted, Freule," said Willie. "You have but to fling your handkerchief wheresoever you will." "Oh, but I am restricted," she replied; "for instance, I could never marry you." "Alas, I am sure of it," he answered: "but why not?" "Imagine what a combination! Helen of Troy!* Who could live up to such an appellation?" "You could," he replied, fatuously. But she was not listening to him; she was looking across the table at Otto. "What a reputation!" she said. "Who could live up to it? But why was she called Helene de Trois? There was Menelaus" — she counted on her fingers — "and Pans. But I forget who the third lover was." That evening Otto appeared again in the drawing- room at the Manor House. His mother gave a cry of surprise. For a moment her heart stood still. * Literally, in the Dutch. 102 MY LADY NOBODY. "I don't care for Helena Trossart," said Otto. "Her conversation is a perpetual dance on the tight-rope of propriety." "My dear boy," replied his father, "how natural! Consider the continuous pleasure of keeping your balance." "Well," said Otto, "it seems to me she came some very positive croppers. However, I'm no judge." He left the room; his mother ran after him. "You haven't asked her, Otto?" she gasped. "She hasn't rejected you?" "Oh, no," he said, and shut the door. AN INDELIBLE STAIN. 103 CHAPTER X. AN INDELIBLE STAIN. The next day dawned for Ursula in unclouded brightness. Those few of us who remember a youth no longer ours, will forgive her the excess of an ex- pectancy she was unable to curb by experience. She was going to an entertainment at one of the great houses of Drum. She had never been to anything so magnificent before. And Gerard, whom she had known all her life, was to be there to make things smooth for her. A slight difficulty about a chaperon had been most pleasantly removed. The Freule van Trossart had, on the preceding afternoon, left a card for Juffrouw Rovers, with a note, saying that if she cared to come and dine before the party, she could be present at it afterwards as a house guest, under the Baroness's wing. Ursula had accepted gladly, by no means impervious to so much condescension, and, altogether, she felt very well satisfied indeed. The night before, she had written a glorious letter to her father; she had said nothing of her aunt's ill health. At 9 a.m. there was tranquil jubilation, at 10 a.m. there was sudden dismay. "I can't wear it like this," Ursula was saying to Harriet, with whom she had come to terms on a basis of mutual oblivion. She sat on the floor, a brown heap of perplexity. Her simple evening 104 MY LADY NOBODY. dress lay on the bed, with a round stain, as of grease, distressingly displayed upon its breast. It was a frock of crushed strawberry crepon, with ripe-strawberry silk ribbons. "No, you can't," asserted Harriet, full of interest and sympathy. Harriet was in her element. "You must manage to get some more of that crimson lace for the front. How can it have happened, Ursula? Something must have oozed out in your trunk." "But coloured lace is so difficult to match," wailed Ursula. "So it is. Never mind. We must try." And the two girls sallied forth on that most hopeless of errands, the only form of shopping no woman enjoys, "the matching" of colours. In every shop they entered their little scrap was held up against an incongruous variety of tints, and they were informed by the assistant that it was "exactly the shade." One especially truthful person qualified her recommendation of a moderate scarlet by the statement that "really it was as near as you could get." But all, without exception, were pertly offended, when the girls crept hopelessly, though re- solutely, away. "It's no use," said Harriet at last, as they re- traced their steps. But even while she spoke a sudden inspiration struck her. "Do you know what you'll have to do, Ursula? It's V-shaped now; well, you'll have to make it into a low-neck." "Oh, I don't like that," cried the pastor's daughter, reddening. "There's no choice left to you. How stupid of me not to think of it before. It'll look much nicer, too." AN INDELIBLE STAIN. 105 "But supposing we matched the ribbons?" sug- gested Ursula, holding out. "You never could in this primitive place. They're a very peculiar colour. Besides, if you covered up all that space with ribbon, you'd look like a prize cow. No, the top'll have to come off, and we must see about a dressmaker at once. There's no time to lose." They turned down a by-street. "Let us cross to the square," said Harriet. "It's no use taking the little woman that works for me; we must get the best help we can." A few moments later they entered — not without a feeling of awe, especially on Harriet's part — the largest establishment of its kind in Drum. "Call Miss Adeline," said the smart personage who had listened to their piteous tale. "We don't usually alter garments not made by ourselves. Still " Both of the girls gave a sudden gasp, for in the person of Miss Adeline, who came forward at this moment from far-back recesses, both simultaneously re- cognised the fair little maiden of the tryst. "Mynheer Mopius, Villa Blanda," said the black silk manager. "Very well. Perhaps, Miss Adeline had better accompany you at once. There certainly is no time to be lost." With feelings utterly indescribable the three walked off together. A few moments later, Harriet having fled, Ursula sat helping the dressmaker in the oppressive silence of the "second-best spare room." The click of the scissors was becoming insupportable. Even the occasional rustle of the pendent frock seemed a relief. 106 MY LADY NOBODY. "I think we have met before," said Ursula, at last, very gently. "Really, Juffrouw? A great many ladies come to our place," replied the girl, bending over her work. For a moment Ursula felt nonplussed, but her pity rose paramount. "You know what I mean," she said rather sternly. And then she went on to talk about the folly and wickedness of female initiative in matters matrimonial, and her little lecture broadened into its third well- rounded sentence — "And you," burst in the girl fiercely, "a rich young lady in a fine house, well looked after. You!" So Ursula had to incriminate her absent friend, lest her moral go awry. She found a politely incre- dulous listener, and began to realise that, with her, it was a case of "caught together, hung together," as the Germans say. If only Gerard had not observed her! "I can assure you," she said, continuing her homily, though rather disconcerted by the sudden change of front, "that I should never lift a finger to get married for the sake of being married. Every woman may re- joice if God sends her an honest lover and enables her to love that lover. But merely to be able to say 'I am somebody's wife!' I cannot understand any woman wauling that" — this under the stress of her own in- culpation — "I cannot understand what for?" She opened her big dark eyes and looked innocently interrogative. "Can't you, Juffrouw?" said the kneeling dress- maker, taking the pins from between her lips. "Well, I can. There's reasons would make a girl willing to be AN INDELIBLE STAIN. I07 any man's wife as long as she was only married. And one of them's mine." She spoke bitterly, and shut her lips with a snap, as she rose from fitting on the frock. Suddenly Ursula understood. She was not given to emotion, still less to showing it; perhaps her nerves had been wrought on by the previous strain; now, quite unexpectedly to herself, she burst into tears. The girl quivered, stared, and, sinking on to a cane- bottomed chair, began crying too, but in a soft, self- pitying way, while speaking all the time. "Yon think me a bad, wicked creature," she sobbed, "but I'm not, I'm not. I didn't know, and he promised to marry me. There was never any doubt of his marry- ing me. I'm not as bad as you think, and I was cer- tain he loved me. And I was desperate, and I put in the advertisement. I wish I were married or dead." She stopped crying for a moment. "When the time comes," she said earnestly, "I shall be one or the other." And then she fell to sobbing afresh. Ursula had dried her eyes. "My dear," she said, "if he promised to marry you, perhaps he will." "Oh, no, he won't. I know now, and understand things different. He's a gentleman. He'd marry me if he was not." "For I'm sure he loved me," she added, softly. Ursula was trembling from head to foot. Shielded and sheltered through all her simple girlhood, she had never come into contact — whether by actual experience or in literature — with any such vision of shame as this. 108 MY LADY NOBODY. She compared her own happy, unshadowed life with the struggle of the girl before her. And, full of com- passion, she thanked God for the difference. For, to the very backbone which held her erect, she was womanly and pure. She had forgotten all about the pressing needs of her toilet, but the dressmaker had not. Adeline caught up the frock, and began silently, sullenly sewing. "If I could but do anything for you," said Ursula, meditatively. "You can't. Only don't gibe at me. Gibe at the men of your own class. This one, they tell me, is going to be married. I dare say you'd marry him if you could." "Never! never!" said Ursula, with quiet passion. "Well, I don't care whom he marries. It won't be me. I'll tell you how I know for certain. You seem to be good, you do, and you mean well. It's not me alone he's ruined. Do you know" — she laid down her work on her lap — "I believe it was he who brought us all together the other night. I believe he is Romeo de Lieven." "But why?" asked Ursula, incredulously. "Cer- tainly, the young lady downstairs " "Oh, don't tell me, Juffrouw. We all deny. Women always do. But you remember a carriage passing along the road? There were officers in it. It flashed across me at once that they had come to see their handiwork. And he was driving." The room swam round before Ursula's eyes. She closed them hastily and leant back in her easy-chair. She could think of nothing distinctly; but she could AN INDELTDLE STAIN. IOg hear the clock ticking solemnly on. She longed for someone to stop it. As for herself, she knew that she was incapable of moving, body or soul. In a lightning flash she had realised two facts undreamed before — the first that she was very fond of Gerard van Helmont; the second that she scorned him forth from her heart for ever. When at last she opened her eyes she saw the other girl intently Avatching her. There was a quiet sneer in the dressmaker's gaze before which Ursula shrank affrighted. She understood immediately how her elaborate self-exoneration had crumbled away. This creature had perceived that Gerard was personally known to her. In the wretched girl's estimation she was doubtless one rival out of many. She shuddered. "Yes," said Mademoiselle Adeline, "we all deny. I think, Miss, if you left me to myself, I could finish this dress a great deal better." Ursula dragged herself together and crept from the room. While this uncomfortable interview was in progress the chief subject of its interest was complacently in- stalled among the thousand elegances of his cousin's sitting-room, on a low stool almost at her feet. He looked a little more extensively red than usual, and his blue eyes were restless; but otherwise he shewed no signs of trepidation. Yet he had resolved that this day should decide his fate. His mother's by-play about Otto was becoming a nuisance. That morning he had risen, after tranquil sleep, and carelessly studied himself in the glass. Of course, IIO MY LADY NOBODY. he was good-looking — very good-looking. Experience had taught him that quite as much as ocular demon- stration. It was the perfect grace of his gracelessness which made, women adore him. He had eaten a hearty breakfast as usual, but he had drunk two more cups of tea and a glass of brandy. That is a man's way of realising that the crisis has come. "My dear Gerard," said Helen, "you are dull, while the rest of the family are flurried. People talk about the day after the festival; my 'Katzenjammers' come ten hours before. I shall ring for Mademoiselle Papotier: she always amuses me." "Do," said Gerard surlily, glad of any postpone- ment. "That is charming. You could not have said that 'do,' more naturally, had we been husband and wife. 'Do I bore you? Then amuse yourself elsewhere. But don't even expect me to ring the bell.' " She jumped up lightly, as she spoke, and ran past him to the bell- pull. "I don't like Mademoiselle Papotier," said Gerard. "She has taught you a number of things you needn't have known. If you read books like that" — he pointed to "Une Vie" upon the table — "it's her doing. I wish you wouldn't, Helen. Men don't like it." She came back to her seat: "Oh, but that is still more charming," she said, "especially from your lips. You would have me restrict my reading so that I might the belter enjoy your conversation. I won't hear a word against my dear Papotier. She brightened my youth with eighteenth-century romances, and she AN INDELIBLE STAIN. I I I cheers my old age by nineteenth-century novels. She is a dear." Undeniably, the heiress's education had been a peculiar one. Her governess's tissue-paper rosette of a soul had never given forth more natural odours than patchouli. The Baroness van Trossart could have told you how, when Helen was an eight-year-old little girl, she had come upon the child slapping her ball up and down in the courtyard, and occasionally muttering the same words over and over again. "What on earth are you saying, my dear?" the Baroness had inquired. And Helen had looked up with sparkling eyes: "And his beautiful head," she had spouted, without stopping her ball-bumping, "went bounding three times across the marble, while repeating three times the sweet name of 'Zaire!' Isn't it lovely? He was dead, you know: they had just cut it off." And she had run away. The Baroness had shaken her head. "It sounds like Scudery," she had said. But she was comfortable. She was not going to object to Mademoiselle Papotier. "I shall read what I like," repeated the heiress pro- vokingly. "And when I am married, I shall go to what plays I choose. I like impropriety on paper. Paper or boards. And so do you, Gerard, et plus que (a. You, of all people! I believe you are laughing at me." "No, by thunder, I'm not," he cried violently. "I don't pretend to be a saint — far from it; but there's not a lover in the world would like to remember that the girl he's engaged to has read Maupassant." She looked at him for a moment, with that sweet 112 MY LADY NOBODY. mixture of mocking tenderness which a man's eyes can never assume; then she said to her maid, who had answered the bell: "No, thank you; I want nothing. I rang by mistake." "But you are not " she began, and checked herself. "So Otto is coming to my party to-night," she said. She enjoyed his responsive scowl. "No, Otto is not coming," he answered. "His Highness has gone off in a huff. About that hoax of Willie's, I imagine, but his huffs are not easy to classify. Mind you, I don't defend the trick. I think it was rather a low thing to do." "To van Troyen it merely represented so much champagne," she replied. "I like Otto; he is eminently estimable and — and worthy. He, at least, would never have told me not to read Maupassant." "No," sneered Gerard, "he would never have heard of him." "Just so. There is nothing more delightful than a husband who is absolutely ignorant of everything. With him, at least, one runs a chance, even in this age, of unreasoning jealousy. And unreasoning jealousy must be delightful. Like mustard. What is the use of a man who keeps saying: 'The vices are my share; the virtues are yours. And each of us has got what he ought to have'? Gerard, rather than a husband who said to me: 'Of course, I am faithless; let us talk of something else/ I would have a husband who said: 'You are faithless. I am going to kill you,' and did it." "It could only be done once," replied Gerard lan- guidly. "My dear child, you have been to Verdi's AN INDELIBLE STAIN. I I 3 Othello. Evidently you want to be worshipped not wisely but too well. I don't think Otto would tell you that you are faithless. I fancy you'd have to jog him a bit." "Otto! I wasn't thinking of Otto. I believe you are jealous of Otto." "Yes, I am. I'll tell you why, if you like, imme- diately. I have a note here from my mother, received this morning; shall I read it to you?" "If it concerns me," she said, negligently. "It concerns you very nearly. My mother tells me to ask whether you would care to come down to the house with me to-morrow, and stay for a few days. You understand what that means, Helen, as well as I do!" "Yes, I understand," she answered, and with a sudden impulse she caught up the "Maupassant" at her elbow and flung it into a corner of the room. "So that, knowing the comedy you are expected to take part in, you can foresee, and forego, the conclusion. I should say, if it is to be only farce, why act it at all?" She popped out the tips of her little feet, and looked down at them. "The best way to avoid all complications," he went on, "would be to arrive at the Manor House — engaged." She lifted her eyes from the ground and fixed them steadily on his face. "Let me telegraph to my mother that you are com- ing — engaged." His voice broke down. "But how will you know?" she asked, laughing. "Let me "knew first." He bent forward. "Oh, my darling, my beauty." He caught her two hands, and, My Lady Nobody. I. 8 I T 4 MY LADY NOBODY. like the passionate young fool he was, covered them with kisses. "My darling, how happy they will all be at home." Even at that moment the naive selfishness of this last exclamation amused her. She said nothing, how- ever, prolonging the sweetest silence a woman ever knows. "Gerard," she said, some minutes later, looking up at him as he bent over her. "You have forgotten that the girl you are engaged to has read Maupassant." "Yes," he answered, "I have forgotten. I shall never remember." He went back to his rooms to dress for dinner, highly delighted. He was very much attached to his cousin. And she was the greatest heiress in the pro- vince. ONE HOUR OF HAPPINESS. I I 5 CHAPTER XI. ONE HOUR OF HAPPINESS. Ursula descended from a cab in the full light of the early summer evening, and hurried away into the Van Trossarts' gloomy hall. Her shoulders blushed as the footman took her wrap. It felt like undressing. "Juffrouw Rovers," said the Baroness, beaming like a crimson sun, "I am glad you have come. My niece is — is occupied. Take off your gloves, my dear, and help me to arrange these flowers." Ursula had looked round, in terror, for Gerard. She must dine with him en famille, perhaps sit next to him. There was no help for it. Yet she trembled to think of him. To her simple maidenhood, familiar with ser- mons on sin in the abstract, he was a sudden incarna- tion of infamy. The Baroness buzzed and bubbled over her flower- trays, her fat arms all dimples, her fat cheeks all smiles. She chattered about this evening's party, which was Helen's party — "as if anybody in Drum would give a dance in July! — but Helen was so gay she could never sit still for an hour: a nice dance she would lead her husband if only the husband himself was addicted to pleasure. Well, old people were apt to get dull. No wonder Helen fared farther in search of diversion." And she laughed to herself, and winked to herself (a 3* 1 T 6 MY LADY NOBODY. difficult, but by no means impossible, proceeding) while talking to Ursula in the pragmatical cackle with which hens of all ages surround a new-laid matrimonial egg. Ursula, who was barely acquainted with the Freule van Trossart, could only display a perfunctory interest in that young lady's possible prospects. Harriet had told her that, according to rumour, the Freule was "as good as engaged" to a young politician. "It is a living romance," the Freule's clear voice was heard saying on the landing, "and a thousand times more amusing, ma vieille, than all your dressed-up dead ones together." She came into the room with her arm through that of her shrivelled governess, Gerard bringing up the rear. The little Frenchwoman looked depressed as she slid away into a corner. The fat Baroness rustled across to her in a perfect crackle of crimson. "My dear Pa- potier, is it not delightful?" she said, with tears in her eyes. "Mon Dieu, madame, yes," replied the governess, "it is the first chapter." And, to herself, she added: "For me it is the last." Ursula shook hands with Gerard, but a thick curtain had fallen between them; she was surprised by the aloofness of his manner, even while she herself stiffened to a cold "good-day." How contented and complacent he looked! She watched him as he sat opposite her at table, between the Baroness and the Freule. How prosperous and pleasing! Yes, truly, there was a law for the humble and a licence for the high! It was a gloriously simple thing to be born to impurity, like the old Greek gods. ONE HOUR OF HAPPINESS. 1 1 7 What nonsense her good father went preaching about "sin"! The world knew no such thing. It knew only a small hub of pleasure reserved for the rich, and a wide zone all round it of hunger and crime. She felt very bitter; she glanced down with a sensation of physical disgust on the fingers which had touched his, unwilling to break her bread with them. Her French was rusty, and out of repair; she did not feel up to much conversation with the prim little portrait of the past on her right; the master of the house, on her other side, was sufficiently, but not amply, polite. There is no human insolence such as that indifferent politeness, which barely fits — like a glove one size too small. There were only the six of them, but the fascinat- ing little heiress was a host in herself. Ursula had heard much of her vivacity; she concluded, notwith- standing, that the prospect of the evening's pleasure must be abnormally augmenting it. Lovely the girl un- deniably was, frail, and golden-haired, in a cloud of white over blue, like the sky, and a treble row of pearls. Ursula's grave brown face looked veiy quiet compared with the other's delicate, clear-veined features; you might have said a Madonna of the Annunciation, and an immature Venus Anadyomene. "Ursula," thought Gerald, "is just a nice-looking rustic." As for him, she wondered how he dared to sit beside, and speak to, this white-robed virgin. It seemed as if toads must drop from his full red lips. Well, it was no business of hers. And perhaps — perhaps she was wronging him all the time, this good-natured friend of her childhood! Perhaps he intended to marry Made- Il8 MY LADY NOBODY. moiselle Adeline, if only his parents would let him. He was waiting, perhaps, for an opportunity — who knows? — perhaps The thought gave her great comfort. Of the truth of the story she could not harbour a doubt, for the girl, before leaving, had shown her a photograph, worn by a ribbon round the neck. She noticed that the atmosphere seemed full of a ripple of merriment: asides, which courtesy only kept just above whispers, innuendos, sudden glances, mots a double entente. She felt even more awkward than she would have done under ordinary circumstances. And soon she felt exceedingly miserable. Perhaps her kind- hearted hostess noticed it. "Helen, we must drink your health," cried the Baroness, her ample bosom swelling under its laces, like a crested wave. "Yes, my dear Gerard, you needn't look at me like that; see how your neighbour is laugh- ing. As Juffrouw Rovers does us the favour of dining here to-day, she will increase that favour, I feel certain, by keeping a secret — an absolute secret — for forty-eight hours. I cannot let this meal pass as if nothing had happened. You must know, Juffrouw Rovers, that it is my dear niece's birthday — her first birthday, into a new life. In other words, she is engaged to her cousin, Gerard, who is an old friend of yours, so I need not praise him. And we are going to drink their healths, and wish them long life and prosperity." Afterwards Ursula had a faint recollection of having spilled some champagne on the tablecloth. For the moment her whole strength was concentrated in a wild prayer for outward calm. These people would imagine ONE HOUR OF HAPPINESS. I 1 0, she cared for Gerard. It was not that — my God, not that! Fortunately the others were busy lifting their glasses; all during dinner Gerard had scarcely looked her way. She stared round the table in a dazed manner. She felt sick. "The strawberries are not good this year," she heard Baron Trossart's grumpy voice saying. "I am not sur- prised Miss Rovers doesn't care to eat them." She hastily returned to her dessert. "No, I must beg of you. Joris, bring this lady a clean plate." It was the strawberries, then, that interested her? So much the better. "How I envy your father, Gerard," continued the Baron. "It is two years now since we have been at Trossartshage. The fruit cannot bear the transport: we have tried both water and rail. But the cares of State, you know, the cares of State! A man sacrifices himself for his country, and his country repays him with ingratitude." This last sentence was an allusion to a recent article in a small paper which reproached the authorities — in this case Baron Trossart — with not having cleared out a canal before the warm weather came. Nobody ever complained of the ceaseless flow of nephews and brothers-in-law. That, as we all know, is a part of the constitution. Were it not so, the "eminent politician" would be a thing of the past. "Papa," interrupted Helen, wilfully. "Please don't be gloomy. I'm engaged." "Well, there's cause enough for gloom in that," he 120 MY LADY NOBODY. replied. "I'm as jealous of Gerard as" — he looked round — "as Mademoiselle Papotier." "Ah! do not speak of it to me!" cried the French- woman. "I could slaughter Monsieur Gerard if I met him in war." "That's the last place where you'll meet me," ex- claimed Gerard, laughing. Helen had suddenly blanched. "War!" she said. "How horrible! No, we will have no fighting. Juffrouw Rovers, would you have the courage to marry a soldier?" Across Ursula's brain flashed a vision of a dogcart filled with uproarious malevolence. "No; I should not like to marry an officer," she replied. Her words — perhaps, still more, her unconscious manner — seemed to sting Gerard. He flushed. "Juffrouw Rovers is never particularly brave," he said. "She is too soft-hearted. The last time I saw her, she was shewing the ivhite feather, as now." The words were a challenge. And, unconsciously, his manner betrayed as much; it was too significant. Helen looked from one to the other: "What is it?" she asked. "What does he mean, Juffrouw Rovers? Gerard, what is the joke?" "Joke? none. Ask Juffrouw Rovers." "So I have, but she doesn't tell me." "Then you may be sure it is a little secret between Ursula and me, which / shall keep. I am not respon- sible for what she may do." She had the good taste not to press the subject, but she reverted to it as soon as she found herself alone with her lover. ONE HOUR OF HAPPINESS. 121 "Gerard, what is this silly secret between you and Miss Rovers?" "My dear child, how inquisitive you are! I thought you liked secrets." "Yes, when one is in them. I told you I should be jealous." "Of Ursula! How ridiculous! Utterly absurd. Ur- sula!" "Well, I daresay I shall often be absurd. At any rate, Gerard, you would please me by not calling her 'Ursula.' She is not a relation of yours." "But I have known her all my life. I used to drag her in a go-cart." "I know. And it seems to me you behave very strangely for people who have always been intimate. You seem suddenly afraid of each other since this afternoon." "I am afraid of — that is, bored by — every girl but one since this afternoon. I am exceedingly bored by the prospect before me to-night. Don't let's spoil the one hour of happiness left us." "The one hour! How tragic that sounds!" she laughed. "To-morrow we will go down to the Manor House, there will be more hours there in the moonlight on the terrace. Say again that you love me, Nellie." "Yes, I love you," she replied, and her voice was some soul-voice, quite different from her usual high- pitched tones. "I have loved you for a long time," she added, and then, suddenly with the old, every-day ring: "There, I had made up my mind not to tell you that before our golden wedding. Papotier says a girl should never tell it at all, because the confession is 122 MY LADY NOBODY. ill-advised; and mamma says she certainly shouldn't, because the feeling, if there, was a thing to be ashamed of." "Ashamed of love? But my dearest?" "No, I should never be ashamed of loving anyone. Not even a footman." "Thank you," sot to voce, from Gerard. "We must bear the consequences of our virtues. I can't understand anyone's being ashamed of Move.' Can you?" "I can't understand any man's keeping quiet his love for you. I want to shout out mine on the house- tops! Now that Ursula knows — I mean Juffrouw Rovers — why not proclaim the engagement to-night?" "And your mother?" So they whiled away the time on the verandah, look- ing down into the garden, where a large marquee had been put up for the dancers, with a music tent and strings of Chinese lanterns. Meanwhile, the Baroness lay back dozing in little audible gasps, and Ursula sat looking at photographs of Italy with Mademoiselle Pa- potier, who had forgotten all the names. "Yes, that is Pavia," said Mademoiselle Papotier. "Or, perhaps, it's Pisa. I think it must be Pisa, be- cause of the crooked tower." "Oh, that's only the photograph," replied Ursula, listlessly, "the angle's wrong." "Do you think so? Look at the turtle-doves billing and cooing. Isn't it sweet?" Mademoiselle nodded towards the verandah, with keen scrutiny of her companion's face. Ursula blushed again, that terrible tell-tale blush. ONE HOUR OF HAPPINESS. I 23 "And this place with all the boats," she said, "I suppose is Venice?" The guests began to arrive, and Mevrouw van Tros- sart pushed her cap across from the right to the left. It was quite a young people's entertainment, more or less impromptu, and Ursula, already so greatly dis- tressed by her toilet, noticed that many of the girls were more simply dressed than she. The acuteness of annoyance about this deadened, for a time, the sick anxiety at her heart. She went out into the garden; she had fancied the fete would mean music and refreshments and fireworks; she now suddenly saw that the marquee was prepared for dancing. There had been no intimation, that she knew, on her card. She had never learnt the art. "May I have the first valse?" asked Willie van Troyen, who had just been introduced, for that purpose, by the Baroness. "I don't dance," she said, pulling at her gloves. "I didn't know people were going to." "They often do," said Willie, "don't they? At a dance." He laughed heartily; he thought that was rather witty. And he betook himself to some one else. So Ursula sat in a corner of the tent, or out on a bench, and was a bore. The Baroness "made" talk with her from time to time in laborious sentences, and one or two other elderly people tried the same experiment. All the time, as she sat there disconsolate, one question was burning at her brain: How must I act regarding Gerard? Must I save this innocent girl or must I not? Sometimes the girl 124 MY LADY NOBODY. was Adeline, more often Helen, but the question remained the same. "And this is your first party?" said a good-natured man. "I don't think you seem to be enjoying yourself." "Oh, don't let Mevrouw hear you say that," she cried in alarm. The Baroness happened to be passing. Yes, undoubtedly, Ursula was a drag. "Come out into the garden," said Gerard, stopping before her, "it's tremendously hot here. I've kept this dance free for you; we'll sit it out." She rose and obeyed him. Helen came out of the room where her uncle and his cronies were playing whist, with closed windows. Her whole figure was a-sparkle with happiness. "Isn't it beautiful?" she asked of her own Papotier. "The weather is perfect, the garden is perfect, the music is perfect. I don't think we ever had such a pleasant party before." "It is your own joy, ma che'rie," said the governess, drawing her pupil to the dark staircase window, where she, Mademoiselle, stood watching the dancers. She pointed to a corner, half-hidden by a willow, in which Gerard and Ursula could be dimly descried. "That is the prologue, my child, to your romance," she said. "Make haste to get on to the story." "Mademoiselle!" "Hush! I watched her at dinner, when Madame the Baroness spoke. I have watched them since. It is nothing, my dear; it is even delightful — a compliment. But your lover must put a full stop to the prologue. Perhaps he is doing it now. Creep behind, if you will, and hear what they say." ONE HOUR OF HAPPINESS. 125 "No, indeed," cried the young Freule, with warmth. A little later Ursula was again alone on the garden seat. She had exchanged but a few distressful sen- tences with Gerard. He had reproached her with behaviour he hardly cared or dared to analyse, and she had answered hastily, eager to vindicate herself, but still more firmly resolved to screen Harriet's reputation. Even while she was explaining, lamely, she had under- stood the incredulous smile on his face. He had come out of the brief conflict as a champion of female modesty, leaving her helplessly, guiltily crushed. A white figure glided through the dusk, and sank down by her side. The evening was gentle as velvet, caressingly warm and soft. Over yonder shone the great yellow glare of the music and the moving shadows: on all sides gay, ghastly paper lanterns went breaking the solemn silence of the trees. This spot of Ursula's choosing was dark and willow-sheltered, alone beneath the calm blue height of heaven. "Juffrouw Rovers," said the Freule, "what is this joke between you and Gerard? You see, I am curious. You must forgive a spoilt child. What did he mean about your showing the white feather?" "Don't ask me, Freule, please," replied Ursula, shortly. "For I can't tell you." "So Gerard says. It must be a very dreadful secret!" This was said laughingly. Silence. From the tent came the strains of the "Liebchen Ade" gallop. "Great heaven, it must be a very dreadful secret!" The Freule half rose from her seat: her voice trembled. She caught Ursula's arm. 126 MY LADY NOBODY. "It can only be," she said, steadying herself, "that Gerard made love to you formerly. That is rather like him. I am sorry. I was wrong. But you have made up your mind to forget him, have you not? He is so charming; no wonder women love him. Poor child, it was cruel of us, in our ignorance, to invite you to behold our happiness." In a sudden impulse of womanly pity she put an arm round Ursula's bare neck. "It isn't that," gasped Ursula. "Don't please say I love Gerard. Oh, Freule, it's a great deal worse." She hardly knew what she was saying. She covered her face with her hands. "A great deal worse!" repeated Helen drawing away. Ursula started at the hardness which had come into the Freule's voice. "That can only mean— - — " Helen got up and stood at the further end of the seat. "I refuse to say it," she continued. "I refuse to believe it. You two are mad." The dance-music came faster from the lawn. Ursula, her head bowed low upon her lap, felt that in her cup of unmerited bitterness not a drop was left undrunk. "I want to know the truth," Helen went on after a moment. "I have a right to know it to-night. If you still feel any love for Gerard, do him a good turn now. We are girls together. No one will hear you but I. Tell me exactly what there is to tell, and I will forgive him." "I have nothing to tell," murmured Ursula. The Freule stamped her foot. "You are ruining his life," she said. "I will never marry him till I know how much you have been to each other. What happens after marriage must be settled ONE HOUR OF HAPPINESS. I 2 "] after marriage; but what happened before I will know now." "We have never been anything to each other," whis- pered Ursula. "Oh, Freule, have pity and let me alone!" But even as she spoke her mood changed. Why should she agonise to save this girl's selfish hap- piness at the cost of her own honour, of an innocent victim's peace? She lifted herself up. "Ask no con- fessions of me," she said. "Ask them of your future husband. He is nothing to me. You have no right to assume that he ever was." Even in the shade she saw Helen change colour. A long silence deepened between them. Somebody in another nook not far distant laughed shrilly. There was a clatter of glasses. "What happened before I must know," said Helen, at last. "I will never marry him until I do." "You do not mean that," said Ursula, but the other took no notice. "I understand," she continued, "it is some other woman." She tossed up her head. "I knew I wasn't marrying a saint," she said. "He warned me about that himself. But, of course, all you speak of is past." Then she broke into sudden passion. "How dare you come and talk of such things to me?" she cried, advancing on Ursula. "How dare you do it?" "But I have talked of nothing!" exclaimed the pastor's daughter. "It is you who torment me " "I know. Never mind," said the Freule, inter- rupting; "tell me one thing. This girl that you and Gerard are thinking of was — was — infamous." Ac^m the silence which is dissent. The Freule 128 MY LADY NOBODY. broke into a cry. Fortunately the music drowned it. The "Liebchen Ade" gallop was finishing up fast and furious. "Don't tell me she was good like — like you and me! Don't tell me, I don't want to hear it. I don't care. I know how the whole story runs: it's in so many novels. All men do such things. And the girl goes on the stage!" The music had stopped. The bright dancers were flowing out into the cooler grounds. "You needn't tell me anything," said the Freule, hurriedly but quietly. "I have guessed it all. This girl is good and honest, and she hoped that Gerard would marry her. She hopes so still. You hope it. Of course there is a child— there always is. It is the stalest form of pathetic feuilleton, and, therefore, it comes true in my life. Good-bye, Juffrouw Rovers." She sank down on the seat again and waved away her companion, hiding her golden head on her arms against the back. It was very still now in this forgotten corner. Ursula stole off to the house, without taking leave of anyone, and, having recovered her cloak, went out into the desolate street, alone and on foot, amid the stupefied stares of the domestics. Several minutes elapsed before Helen lifted her head. She stared from her bench into the night. "Why not?" she said, half aloud; "I love him. All women do it. There was that creature at the church gate, with her brats, when Henri van Troyen was married." She gathered her white laces about her and shivered, as she rose to walk towards the house. On the stairs, ONE HOUR OF HAPPINESS. 120, at the same post, by her dark window, like a spy, still stood the French governess. "Ma vieille," began Helen, "will you please tell mamma I have gone to my room with a very bad headache, and want nobody to disturb me — not even her or yourself." "But, my dear " "The romance is changing to a tragedy," said Helen. "Good-night." Jlfy Lady Nobody. /. I 30 MY LADY NOBODY, CHAPTER XII. "AN old maid's LOVE." "Yes, uncle, I should like to go back to Horstwyk to-day," Ursula was saying at breakfast. "I have had a letter from father, and Aunt Josine seems far from well." She had found the letter on her return from last night's dissipation. It was a long and affectionate let- ter, full of praises of Otto, who came frequently to the parsonage, enjoying the quiet strength of the minister's talk. The letter certainly stated that Miss Mopius had been laid up with a feverish cold. "Nonsense, Ursula," cried Mynheer Mopius loudly. "Of course, Josine has been ill: it's her solitary pastime. Why, your visit has hardly begun." "We want to hear all about last night," interposed Harriet in her sleepy tones. "You look quite worn out this morning; you must have enjoyed yourself im- mensely." "Oh, bother last night," said Mopius. "We don't care to know about the grandees. Were there many of them there?" "Yes, there were a good many people," replied Ursula wearily, "most of them young. I didn't enjoy myself so very much, because, you see, I don't dance." "Was the Governor there, or his wife," asked Mo- "an old maid's love." 131 pins, "or the Burgomaster? I suppose you saw the Van Troyens?" "And the Governor's daughter?" added Harriet. "The pretty girl with the hazel eyes?" "I remember a Mr. Van Troyen, an officer," said Ursula vaguely. "Uncle, may I send a telegram for this afternoon. I could always come back again on Monday, you know." "Can't you miss one of your father's discourses? I should have thought Sunday was the' one day you'd like to stay away. But I don't see what you go out into society for, Ursula. At Batavia I danced with the Governor-General's lady." "Always?" asked Harriet — her invariable question at this stage of the story. "No, not always. I remember, just as I led her up, I saw there was a huge snake coiled round her arm." "How dreadful!" said Ursula, stolidly. She had heard the denouement on former occasions, but for- gotten it. "A gold snake! Ha! — ha! — ha! Somebody snatched it off a few months afterwards. A brave man. Ha! — ha! — ha! And your aunt used to dance too. Do you remember, wife? You were really quite pretty in those days. We'll dance to-night," he added, "and teach Ursula. You dance, Harriet, don't you?" " Oh, yes, to any one's pipes," * replied Harriet. Nevertheless, it was decided, after some wrangling, that Ursula should return to Horstwyk, as she wished, for the present. Mynheer Mopius chose to be offended. * Idiom. 9* 132 MY LADY NOBODY. The girl was consumed by a feverish longing to get away out of this hothouse atmosphere into the pure re- pose of her country home. All morning she hid away in her room, afraid to look out on the little town, over which, to her excited fancy, an ominous thunder-cloud seemed to hang. What would happen next? How would Helen act? How Gerard? In her heart she hoped that justice would be done to the injured shop-girl, and yet dared not measure the result. Just before luncheon a note was brought her. She sat down before opening it. Harriet laughed. "With due preparation," said Harriet. "What is it? Another invitation to a dance?" The letter contained only these words, written by Helen: "Keep my secret: I would have kept yours." They left her no wiser. "My dear, come into my room for a moment," said Mevrouw Mopius, with timid voice. The feeble little creature sniffed nervously. "Forget what I told you, Ursula," she went on, as soon as they were alone. "And remember you are bound by oath. If Mopius ever hears, it must be through you." She peered sternly at her niece. "Yes, dear, I will remember," replied Ursula. "But you are feeling better, aunt, are you not? You are not as bad as when I came." Mevrouw Mopius smiled. "I shall be better soon," she said. Then she went to her particular old-fashioned mahogany "secretary," and, after a good deal of "AN OLD MAID'S LOVE." 1 33 fumbling and searching, extracted from one of many- receptacles a small tissue-paper parcel, which she brought back to Ursula. "This is for you," she said, thrusting it into the girl's hand. "I've made it since you came, sitting up in bed these summer mornings." Ursula opened the parcel, her aunt watching meanwhile with a certain pride. It contained a small square bit of red woolwork, with the bead-embroidered device: "No cross, no crown," the two substantives being presented pictorially. "I could have taken more time to it," pleaded Me- vrouw Mopius, "but I had to wait for the daylight: a candle wakes your uncle; and, once up, I have to work at 'Laban and Jacob.' I am exceedingly anxious to get them ready before " She stopped. "Good- bye, my dear," she said. "I hope you like my work. You might use it under a lamp, or for the fire-irons, unless you disapprove of that on account of the words. I don't think I should." So Ursula returned very quietly and humbly. There was no marshalling of porters, and she travelled second class. At the little market-town station her father met her; together they trudged the two miles, side by side, almost silently, for the girl's few answers had soon con- vinced the Domine that conversation had become for the moment, what he most detested, an ambuscade. In the half light of the calm, cool study, amid the well-known, stilly sympathetic books, she sat with her two hands in his one, on a footstool by the faded leather armchair, and, lifting those big brown eyes of hers to his steadfast response, she told him how the 134 lrv LADY NOBODY. city is full of wickedness incredible, and that Apollyon rules the world. He listened to her, very quietly, and yet he was greatly shocked. True, evil had few secrets for him; he had seen more of the world's corruption than most men, in the red glare of the Algerian night, amid the devil's dance of shrieking drunkenness and bare-breasted debauch. He had seen too much. He was one of those happy mortals who always think the world is better than it used to be. "In my day" — he would begin, and sigh cheerfully — "but we have greatly im- proved since then." It was doubly sad, therefore, to hear that Gerard, the warrior, despite the weekly bugle- call to resistance, should have surrendered at discre- tion to so pitiful a cut-throat as Lustings. The Do- mine had an ineradicable weakness for a brave soldier. Havelock and Hedley Vicars hung large against his peaceful wall, and between them a very different hero, Bugeaud. "Well, my dear," said the Domine, while Ursula, having finished, sat heavy with sorrowful wrath. "Well, my dear, the farther we go, the more we see of the battlefield. I am not sorry you should have recon- noitred a little. And I rejoice all the more now to think how mistaken I was about you and Gerard. You must know, my dear, that at one time, though I never men- tioned it to you, I fancied you might be setting your affections on the Jonker. I spoke of it unwillingly to your aunt, for I had no other woman to confide in" — the Domine's voice grew reflective — "but she said it was all stuff and nonsense, at once, and you weren't such a piece of vanity as that. Your aunt is not a "an old maid's love." 135 woman of exceptional discrimination; still, I am glad to see she was right. It would have been a great mistake on your part, Ursula, and a cause of much useless regret." "I shall never love any man but you," said Ursula vehemently. "They're all alike. No woman ought to marry." The pastor smiled, and passed his hand over her smooth head. "I hope," he said, "that you will never know a worthless love. A hopeless love, even a dead love, these may ennoble man or woman. But a love of the undeserving can only lure into an impasse." She smiled confidently. "No; the Jonker van Helmont is not for such as us, Ursula," continued the old man. "So much the better. My child, you will marry if God pleases and whom He pleases; but I hope it will be in your own station of life. Not that we must judge any class as such. There is Otto, for instance. He is not a pleasure-seeker. We have seen much of him, my dear, in your absence. He most kindly came to comfort me. He has returned from the Indies as he went, the same pure lover of all that is good. Even in our day the Almighty leads some men untainted through the furnace." And the simple-hearted pastor launched into praises of his favourite, unwittingly digging pit-falls on paths as yet untrod. "And as for most men," he said, "human nature is still much what it was in the days of Thucydides. What says Diodorus, the son of Eucrates, the Athenian? 'All men are naturally disposed to do wrong; and no I36 MY LADY NOBODY. law will ever keep them from it.' And that was the historian's own view; he repeats it some chapters later. As for women, you remember what he makes Pericles say of them. It holds true, in spite of emancipation. 'Great is the glory of her who is least talked of among the men, either for good or for evil.' You remember that, Ursula?" "Yes, indeed, Captain," said Ursula, into whose whole life this maxim had been constantly woven. "You might read the history through once more with the greatest advantage. No writer that I know will reveal to you more of the conflict of human pas- sions, excepting, of course, John Bunyan." The good pastor did not know many writers. He was not by any means a literary man. Miss Mopius sailed into the room, unannounced, and interrupted their quiet conversation. Two little peculiarities of this lady's — trifles, light as air — were a source of unending irritation to her brother-in-law. The one was her tacit refusal to prelude her invasions of his sanctum, the other was her persistent drawl of his soldierly name into a sound which was neither French nor English, nor anything but absurd. The Domine was a brave man; he was exceedingly afraid of his dead wife's sister, not so much on account of himself as on account of the use to which Diabolus put her in the great siege of the Domine's Mansoul. By sheer force of will Miss Mopius had taught her- self to admit that she was thirty-two years old, but she would never see forty again. She was endowed with a sallow complexion to which she had added auburn ringlets and rainbow-coloured raiment. To describe "an old maid's love." 137 her as an entirely imaginary invalid would have been malevolent; nature had provided her with a tendency to nervous headaches which kindly fostering had de- veloped into a vocation. She had come to the widower as a thorn in the flesh. Limp and listless, absolutely unable to "resist" anything that attracted her, she devoted herself day and night to the harassing service of her own caprices. Being not entirely destitute of means, she might easily have enjoyed her nerves to the full in some boarding-house, but she knew her duty to her motherless niece. "I should not stay with you, Roderigue," she was wont to say, "though Ursula, of course, will not marry for many years yet. When she does, I shall consider my mission is ended. I should not be wanted then." She paused, expectant. But the Domine never an- swered, for he held that, in the spiritual warfare, a false- hood is the easiest and most cowardly method of run- ning away. "Ursula, my dear," began Miss Mopius, in a flow of sugared vinegar, "I have been suffering the greatest anxiety. I thought you had not returned. I suppose, however, the train was late." Ursula, rising hastily, confessed that the train had been punctual. "Really! Well, I'm afraid I interrupted you. This conversation must have been of the greatest importance, or you would hardly have so entirely forgotten your poor old aunt." Miss Mopius constantly used that appellation; of late she had sometimes wondered whether it was becoming unwise. She spoke in almost 130 MY LADY NOBODY. continuous italics; these, however, were mostly in- dependent of sense. "I suppose your father informed you," she con- tinued, settling herself in the Domine's chair, "that I have been exceedingly unwell since you left. Day after day I have dragged myself downstairs, so as not to let him sit down to his dinner alone, but my nights were too terrible to speak of." She paused, that Ursula might speak of them. "I'm so sorry," said Ursula, without any accent at all. "Last night, for instance, I was in agony from twelve to three — in agony. I don't know what I should have done without my vegetable electricity. I took it at three, and the pain vanished immediately." "Why didn't you take it at once?" asked Ursula. "Ursula, you have not the slightest comprehension of medicines. Fortunate child, it is your lack of ex- perience. Medicines never act if taken at once." The Domine had basely deserted his own fortress. "Ursula, my dear," said Miss Mopius, sitting up with quite unusual energy. "No wonder my health has suffered. Something very important has happened since you went away." "Really?" asked Ursula, wondering what the maid- of-all-work had broken. "Yes, but it's no use speaking of it to your father. Ursula, Otto van Helmont comes here every evening. Since you left, mind you. Now, I ask, what can that mean?" "He had only four evenings before I left," replied Ursula, with some spirit, "one of them was free and he came." "an old maid's love." 139 "One doesn't count. That was a formal call," re- plied Miss Mopius, loftily. "I ask what does it mean? He sits and talks, and talks. Nominally to your father. Ursula, I have watched him; he never speaks to me." She sank back in her chair and began to count on her lanky fingers, without taking further note of her com- panion. "He never speaks to me — one. He never looks at me — two. But he brought me a nosegay — three. He said it was from his mother — four." She roused herself from her reverie. "Ursula, my child," she asked, "why does he bring me a nosegay, and say it is from his mother?" "Because it is," replied Ursula. Miss Mopius scornfully shook her curls. "Does the Baroness send me roses in midsummer?" she inquired. "Dear girl, you are too young: I should have considered that. But there are moments in a woman's existence when she craves for the sympathy of her sex. If only my dear elder sister were alive — she was so much my elder! — to help me now. Go, dear child, go; at some distant day your own turn will come, and then you will understand." "Yes, aunt," said Ursula, gladly moving towards the door. "Stay one instant," cried the spinster. "Child, are you so eager to return to your diversions? He is good-looking, Ursula. I have watched him, as I said. His face is careworn and earnest; he is no mere beard- less boy just dipping into life, but a man who has swum against the current. He has experience and judgment, and he knoivs. Ursula, I would not marry a beardless boy." I40 MY LADY NOBODY. "Aunt," said Ursula, suddenly coming back into the room, "do you mean to say you want to marry Mynheer Otto van Helmont?" "Silly child, does a woman say such things? Of course, I know, Ursula, as well as you do, that he is much older than I am. That is a matter I must seriously consider before I reply." "Do you mean to say he has actually asked you?" cried Ursula, clasping her hands in wonderment. "Not directly. Child, how raw you are, and how rawly you put things. But I have my reasons for believing that he will do so to-night. That is why I was unwillingly compelled to speak to you on the subject. Be sure that otherwise I should never have done so." "But what have I to do with it?" queried Ursula, stupefied. "Not to give your consent, you may be sure," re- torted Miss Mopius, snappishly. "When Otto comes to-night, as he certainly will, I want you, during ten minutes, to draw off your father. The poor fellow never gets a chance. He said as much yesterday, in depart- ing. 'The Domine and I have so much to say to each other,' he remarked, 'that I never seem to have an opportunity of chatting with you, Miss Mopius.' And with that he gave me a look. Ursula, I believe you take me for a fool. Do you?" "Oh, no, dear aunt," exclaimed Ursula, hastily. "One would say so, if you imagine I suck these things out of my thumb.* I assure you I have very good reason to know what I know. I am not a chit, * Idiom. "an old maid's love." 141 like you, to fancy a man is in love because he looks at me." "There, there, go away," she added. "The whole thing has greatly exhausted me. I am not strong; that is the worst. But so I shall honestly tell him." "You will accept him," cried Ursula, preparing to vanish. "That will depend upon various considerations," replied Miss Mopius. "What is it, Drika? Ursula, hold your tongue, and let the servant pass." Ursula turned hastily in the open doorway. "The Jonker Otto is in the drawing-room," said the red-cheeked maid. Miss Mopius turned pale, then red. "Go to him, child," she said, pleadingly. "Amuse him till I come. And remember " Ursula did not go in to Otto. A sudden shyness was upon her; besides she felt no desire to meet any member just now of the Van Helmont family. So the Jonker paced up and down the little parlour till the Domine was attracted in to him through the windows. Juffrouw Josine spent twenty minutes over the secrets of her toilet. Her poor old heart beat wildly. "He cannot even wait till the evening," she thought. "The densest fool would understand." When at last she descended, arrayed in her best Sunday green silk dress with the poppies, she was surrounded by odours of Ess. Bouquet and sal volatile. She had to pause before the drawing-room door and steady herself. She entered. There was Otto, a great bunch of apricot-coloured roses in one hand, bend- ing over a map of Java with the Domine. "That is my 142^ MY LADY NOBODY. part," lie was saying. "One of the healthiest, I assure you, Domine. All the men take their wives out there." "Ah!" thought Miss Mopius. She shook hands, and the Jonker rather awkwardly presented his flowers. "From my mother," he stammered, "to welcome Miss Rovers." "How kind of you to bring them," replied Miss Mopius, sitting down on the sofa and sniffing. "I hope Ursula will be grateful. I consider it most exceedingly kind." She squinted across at the Domine, who still bent over the map. There was a long wait, and Otto re- turned to the table. "Roderigue," said Miss Mopius, in desperation. "Ursula wants you. She wants you at once!" The minister lifted a countenance of mild astonish- ment. "Very well," he said, remembering his daughter's painful experiences of the last days, "I'll be back in a moment, Otto. I want to ask you about that mission station you were telling me of." Otto seated himself near to the lady. "Miss Rovers, I hear," said Otto, "has safely re- turned." The lady bowed over her flowers. "She came back earlier than she had intended," continued the Jonker. "I suppose that she felt being away from what is doubtless a most happy home." "I try to make it happy," murmured Miss Mopius. "Could you do otherwise?" said Otto, fervently. And he added, in a tone that was almost sad, "It seems cruel to disturb your trefoil even for a day." "AN OLD MAID'S LOVE." 1 43 And he looked at her meditatively. Miss Mopius gasped for breath. She muttered some- thing about "leaving and cleaving." Otto stared at her. "Yes; it's very hot," he hazarded. "Shall I open the window?" Miss Mopius somewhat recovered herself. "Oh!" she replied, "but not as hot as Java, I sup- pose? Not nearly as hot as Java. I should enjoy Java. I like heat. I'm not strong, Mynheer van Helmont, but the hot weather always does me good. I'm sure I should feel much better in Java." "Yes," he said vaguely. "Would you prefer me, then, to shut the window again?" "The window? Perhaps it would be better under the circumstances. The question you asked me just now is so momentous, Mynheer van Helmont, I do not know how to answer it. Oh, that my dear elder sister were with me still! She was very much my elder, very much so. I miss her guidance, her motherly advice." She hesitated, and her eyelids fluttered. "Juffrouw Rovers' mother?" said Otto. "I suppose she was very beautiful?" "Well, I hardly know if you would have called her beautiful. She was not at all like me." "Just so," said Otto. "I suppose Juffrouw Rovers is like her?" "Oh, no; Ursula takes after her father's family. The Mopiuses were always famous for their delicate skins." "Ah!" said Otto, shifting on his chair. "Well, I am a plain man; perhaps not of much a judge of beauty " 144 MY LADY NOBODY. "Oh, don't say that," interposed the lady, smiling. "But I know when I like a face, Miss Mopius. I think an honest face is of more importance than mere good looks." "Oh, of course," assented the lady, reddening. "I mean in a man. I trust, Miss Mopius, -that you have no aversion to my face — or me." The lady tittered, and buried her nose in her bouquet. "I wish I could natter myself you even liked me. But that's nonsense. I'm a conceited fool." "I do," whispered the spinster, with downcast eyes —"a little." Otto got up and warmly clasped her disengaged hand. "How good it is of you to say that," he cried, heartily. "Then you will, won't you? How awfully good of you." And, with another energetic shake of those skinny fingers, he walked from the room. Miss Mopius opened her eyes wide, very wide. Presently, however, she nodded her curls. "Of course," she murmured, "he has gone to speak with Rodrigue." A soft flush spread over her pale cheeks, and she waited. FOR LIFE OR DEATH. I45 CHAPTER XIII. FOR LIFE OR DEATH. Ursula sat by herself in the verandah through the sweetly falling silence of the summer Sabbath evening. She had now been back in her tranquil home for more than four-and-twenty hours. It was good for her that her return had heralded the holy calm of that long, sunlight-flooded day of rest. She had slept as young twenty sleeps when worn out, whether from work or weeping; she had risen as young twenty rises, to a world that is bright again. The peace of the familiar village-round was upon her: the drowsy morning service, the droning Sunday school, the empty afternoon "catechism." Had her father's text, she wondered, been inspired by the thought of his absent child at Drum? He had preached on "Keep yourself unspotted from the world." She desired nothing more ardently. Here was she returned in time to point the moral. Her hands lay idle in her lap, an emblem of the day's repose. The whole village had folded its hands to watch the lengthening shadows. A few conspicuous white shirt-sleeves lolled against the churchyard wall. And, somewhere, a bullfinch was carolling, breaking the Sabbath in his own divinely appointed way. "How hushed it all is," thought Ursula, looking up to the far plumes of the motionless poplars. And the My Lady Nobody. I. 10 I46 MY LADY NOBODY. lull sank around her own soul. Why break our hearts over the scuffling and splashing of one or two swimmers? The river of God's glory flows steadily on. She laid a tired head on its current; for a moment the waters were stilled. She did not even care to penetrate the mystery concerning her Aunt Josine. The confidences of the preceding afternoon had been succeeded by an extreme reserve which the lady's two companions almost provok- ingly respected. The pastor knew of nothing. At dinner, on the Saturday, he had been mildly astonished by an atmosphere of constraint, in the midst of which his sister-in-law had suddenly ejaculated: "Well, Roderigue?" with the vehemence of a bomb- shell. He had answered: "Well, Josine? It certainly is much better than the last joint, though she will over- roast it," a reply which did not seem to give full satisfaction to its recipient. "He has gone, first of all, to obtain his father's per- mission," thought Miss Mopius. "I might have known. With the aristocracy a father is a very important per- sonage." She retired early with a headache which not even the vegetable electricity could combat. It extended over the Sunday, as Miss Mopius's headaches naturally would. She lay on her sofa and sighed at intervals. People would not be surprised at her lying on the sofa. Had she not sighed at intervals, Ursula would have risen to see what was wrong. The church-clock had just struck seven; in the en- FOR LIFE OR DEATH. 1 47 suing pause of expectancy its last note was still trem- bling away into nothing, when Ursula's closed eyes became conscious that somebody was watching them. She started to her feet in confusion, a little ruffled and rumpled, before the admiring gaze of the Jonker Otto van Helmont. "I must have been dozing off," she said. "You were asleep. I am sorry I woke you," replied honest Otto, "but I came with a message from my mother. She is very anxious to speak to you. She — she wants you to come up to-night. If you would?" Ursula hesitated. She saw the dog-cart standing by the gate, a village lad erect at the horse's head. Continental Sabbaths are not like English; still, the Domine's daughter was not accustomed to Sunday- driving. "She made me come," continued Otto, apologeti- cally; "but if you'd rather stay " "I will ask papa, and be ready in five minutes," she answered, promptly. Her pulse quickened. Doubtless, there was some fresh trouble about Gerard. If so, it was her duty to "go through." Presently Otto saw her coming down the garden path with her strong brisk step, in straw hat and woolly wrap, all light and bright, among the thick gaiety of the wall- flowers and the pink flare of the hollyhocks. "Why it's Beauty!" she cried, as she drew near, recognising the mare. "Yes, none of the other horses were available, and none of the men were about, so I harnessed her myself and came away. I hope Gerard won't object, for once. It couldn't be helped." 148 MY LADY NOBODY. No one but Gerard, and Gerard's particular groom, was allowed to touch Gerard's particular mare. She was his prime favourite, and deservedly so, for neither of the saddle-horses could stand in her shadow. But most horses, unlike men, have, one or two faults, and Beauty's was nervousness. "You know we expected Gerard this morning," be- gan Otto, as the dog-cart bowled along. "He was to have brought my cousin with him, you know. But in their stead comes a telegram this afternoon to say that Helen is ill. Mother worries to know what is really the matter, and she has sent for you to give her the latest news of them all." Ursula did not answer. She had expected further embroilment. And, somehow, she was growing to feel awkward in Otto's presence despite, or perhaps partly on account of, her father's praise. That morning, dur- ing church, she had been sensible of his quiet admira- tion, and had experienced, for the first time in her existence, not the blush of being stared at, but the glow of being discreetly observed. Now, again, as she sat watching the horse's head, she perceived, without seeing them, some long-drawn side-glances. Her nostrils tingled, and she wished there had been a groom on the back-seat. "Well, and did you enjoy your uncle's Indian stories?" queried Otto, breaking a silence that was be- coming acute. "Did he tell you anything very dreadful this time? How often did he find a tiger under his pillow at Batavia?" She laughed, and they talked lightly of Uncle Jaco- bus, and of the life out yonder, in the Indies, where FOR LIFE OR DEATH. I 49 everything is gigantic compared with little Holland, even the money-making, and also the mortality. "So your mind is made up more firmly than ever," he concluded. "You would never go out to Java on any account?" "No," she answered, flushing. "And, besides, re- member my father! What would become of him if I were to leave him alone with" — she pulled up — "him- self!" she said. "True," he replied, exceedingly gravely. Both were occupied with their thoughts for a minute or two, and then they began to talk of something else. They had reached a spot along the lonely country road where it suddenly curved among a solitary cluster of cottages. On both sides it stretches away, very nar- row and smooth, and almost treeless, between parallel ditches and far-extending fields. Two landaus could not pass each other with safety, but it is largely used in summer time by over-loaded hay-wains. For those who know Holland it is unnecessary to add that a tram- line occupies two-thirds of it. This tram-line, which runs largely through desola- tion, has to twist round the curve of the cottages. Where it does so it has just emerged from a thicket; and the whole is so arranged by nature and science that the locomotive can flatten the cottage-children with- out their being alarmed by seeing its approach. On this slumbrous Sunday evening the women were enjoying a brief period of repose. The smaller children were in bed; the bigger ones had gone plum-stealing. Fathers and mothers sat stolidly by the door with slow pipe or slower speech. As the dog-cart came racing 150 MY LADY NOBODY. along, the men raised their caps. One of them, how- ever, shouted something. "The tram!" exclaimed Ursula, half-rising. Otto had already set his teeth tight: both knew it was too late. Even as the cry went up, the great engine, silent and deadly, loomed in front of them like a hideous, falling rock. There was just room enough between the rails and the cottage-walls for it to graze their lateral splash-board in rushing by. But a carelessly projecting shutter rendered this escape impossible. As the mare sprang aside, the off-wheel caught the obstacle and sent it clattering back against the wall. For an instant — the hundredth part of a second — the double crash all around seemed to stun her: then up went her ears, down went her neck; she was off. The villagers ran round the corner, emptily shout- ing. The tram sailed serenely on. "Sit still," said the Jonker between his closed teeth. The advice was superfluous, for the girl had immediately sunk back again, clutching the hand-rail beside and behind her, frozen to calm. She did not answer, and the vehicle went rushing on. Forward the naked road stretched, white and thin, between two dark lines of water; forward the horse flew, drinking, as it were, that road before it with pendent head — crashing onward in a cloud of dust and stones and sparks. There was nothing to confront or pass them as they tore through yielding infinity, except here and there a sleepy calf that tried to race them as chil- dren would a train. There was nothing but the wide lilac heaven all around, with the boundlessness of an horizon that ever recedes and a highway that ever FOR LIFE OR DEATH. I5I lengthens out. It was the very delirium and terror of motion, such as few mortals can experience, the irresisted, irresistible forward rush of the whole being — the con- centration of all thought into that one idea of a sweep through immensity. For one moment the laws of time and space were annulled; there was no distance, no limit, no measurement, nothing but an infinite impres- sion of velocity. The high carriage sailed through the summer warmth like a bird. On — on — on! For ever and ever. Why, indeed, should it stop? And then the conviction that stoppage is inevitable, is imminent, and that it may well mean — death. All that, not in a succession of impressions, but in one long-drawn lightning flash, like the flash of the flying brute, only faster. Ursula looked up once at Van Helmont. His face was carved in bronze; his arms were straining back; his feet had bent out the splash-board. In another moment it burst away from them in a wide crash of splinters, and threw him forward, silent still. He righted himself with a jerk, but it seemed as if the horse had received a new impetus from the slackening even of that illusory hold. She swept the ground from under her as the tall wheels appeared to stop revolving, in a constant blaze of starlight. Ursula fancied, from the height where she clung, that their progress carried with it a crimson glow through the swiftly receding dust. But it was all so short, though it seemed eternity, and yet she remembers, this very day, each sensation that rose and sank across her brain. Her hat was gone; her hair was flying. One minute of that wild, mad stress, and then— 152 MY LADY NOBODY. "I must save you," said Otto. "Don't mind how." Even as he spoke, she suddenly remembered that the canal lay straight athwart their course. The canal, not level with the road, not clear, but fifteen feet lower, at the bottom of a stone embankment and landing-place for barges. The blood grew cold in her veins. During the brief frenzy of her alarm, the thought of the canal had not as much as occurred to her. It had been with Otto from the first. And — even as he spoke — the violet line of the horizon deepened upon her eyes, where the white road struck dead against fields on the farther side. It turned at a right angle there, as she knew but too well, along the water. "It's as much as I can do to keep her head straight," said Otto almost in a whisper. "Another minute, and it will be too late! Ursula, can you help hold the reins, for a moment, without risk of falling out?" "Yes," she cried vehemently, angry that he had not asked her five minutes sooner. For so the time seemed to her. "It's only for a moment," he continued, "we've got beyond the side-ditches noivT She saw that he was using the one hand he had freed to draw something from his trousers pocket. Her grasp closed, near his other hand, on the reins: she thought that her arms were being drawn from their sockets, but she bit her white lips and held on. He knelt, as well as he could, on the carriage mat, bending over the broken splash- board, and she saw that he held a heavy revolver in FOR LIFE OR DEATH. 1 53 his bleeding right hand. The glove was torn to rib- bons. "The instant I fire, drop the reins," he said quietly, "and hold on to the cart for dear life. It's our only- chance. God help me; we can't — are you ready?" "Yes," she said, with staring eyes. He had spoken the last question abruptly. In the still evening the line of the embankment already stood out. They were whirling towards it. Again he bent forward, and fired. The shot missed, and as the report thundered around her and the reins fell loose on her sides, the mare seemed to rise into the air with the fierceness of her flight. Immediately a second flash followed the first; the horse leaped up with a strain that snapped the shafts like two twigs, then fell, struck behind the right ear, a dead weight in the middle of the road. Ursula, in dropping the reins as commanded, had flung her full weight on the back-rest behind her. For a moment the dog-cart, crashing forward, tossed her wildly to and fro. She saw Otto ejected, arms foremost, clean away over the dead mare's head. Another moment and she was kneeling beside him. Horse and cart lay a confused mass of harness and broken wood. She had nothing at hand to help him. She could do nothing. She looked round wildly, vainly. Not being a hysterical maiden, she did not make up her mind he must be dead. But she knew he was in- sensible, and the extent of his injuries she was quite unable to determine. She looked down at his resolute face, bronzed 154 MY LADY NOBODY. beneath its heavy moustache, and realised, quite newly, how good he was, how strong, this silent man who had seen so much of the world, this simple man, whom his noble-hearted father so greatly praised. The thought of Gerard flashed across her, Gerard, the beau-ideal of her girlhood, all glory and glitter, a Stage-Baldur with the footlights out. How she longed for Otto to open those calm, blue eyes. She prayed confusedly, with unmoved stare, looking back along the lonely road for help. Then she got up and hurried away to the side of the embankment, shudderingly realising how near it was. She could not help leaving him. She was much shaken, yet she felt quite strong. There was a barge moored by the little quay; a woman stood on its deck, startled and staring. She called to the woman, who came running up the stone steps. "Is there no man?" cried Ursula. "No, the men were gone to the nearest public-house." The girl waved off the barge -woman's inquiries. She did not want sympathy but help. "You must hurry to the Horst," she said, impatiently. "You know it? The large house behind those trees. They will pay you. You must explain that an accident has occurred, not fatal. And bring back assistance at once." She returned hastily to Otto. His eyes were open, and they smiled to welcome her. A terrible anxiety suddenly died out of them. "Are you not hurt?" he said faintly. "I'm not. I shall get up presently." FOR LIFE OR DEATH. I 55 She could not answer except by a shake of the head. A lump had risen in her throat which she was resolved to keep down. "How sorry Gerard will be!" continued Otto. She nodded again, and for a few minutes they were both quite silent. Then the Jonker raised himself on one arm. "I am only dizzy," he said. "I shall be all right in no time, I assure you. I'm sorry I frightened you. Why, there are some people coming along, are there not?" It was true; the men from the cottages could be seen running towards them. Otto hesitated, as he sank back, gazing up into Ursula's bent face. "Ursula," he said at last, calling her by her name for the second time in the course of that evening, "we very nearly went to our death together — and you wouldn't even go to Java!" There was a ripple in his voice and in his eyes. She held out her hand, and he pressed it to his lips. "You have saved my life," she said. Presently the foremost runner reached them, breath- ing heavily. Otto staggered to his feet, and, as the others came up, began giving orders about the wreck and the poor dead beast. I56 MY LADY NOBODY. CHAPTER XIV. A SATISFACTORY SETTLEMENT. "Ursula," began the Domine with shaking voice. He went back to the door and pressed his hand against it to make sure that it was properly closed. "My dear child, I have Otto van Helmont with me in the study. I am utterly amazed; I don't know what to say. You will be more astonished even than I am. The Jonker has come to ask my permission — God bless my soul, Ursula, he wants to have you for his wife!" Ursula bent over her needlework: she was sewing bnltons on her father's shirts. The Domine sat down opposite her and gasped. "It takes my breath away," he explained apologetic- ally. "He calls it love at first sight. I should think so. I should call it love at single sight, and so I told him." Ursula looked up quickly. "Oh, no," she said, "we have met quite a number of times." "Why, you hussy, do you want me to accept him?" "Oh, I did not say that, papa. Please don't say I said anything of the kind. I only meant " "I know what you meant. Why, you hussy, do you want me to refuse him?" "You know best, papa," said Ursula, demurely. "Then, of course, I shall send him about his bust- A SATISFACTORY SETTLEMENT. 157 ness. Imagine the thing. The future Baroness van Helmont, and my child Ursula!" "I am not such a child," replied Ursula, blushing and drawing herself up. "Consider, my dear, the match would be an ill- assorted one. Personally, I cannot say I look upon it — no, I won't say that, either. But, dear me, dear me; I am quite taken aback. Ursula, my dear, what is your attitude?" "Oh, I haven't got an attitude," cried Ursula, strenuously threading her needle. "Oh, don't say an- other word about it, please. Go away, dear Captain, do, and leave me in peace." "But, Ursula, this is childish. Otto " Suddenly, while he was speaking, the Domine's brow cleared; he thought he understood the situation. It turned upon his selfishness and his daughter's self- denial. "Ursula," he said, "you must forgive your poor old father. I am selfish, and of course, there are difficulties. But I see that Otto van Helmont has somehow already succeeded in gaining your heart, so I suppose I must go back and tell him so. Or would you prefer to do it yourself?" "Don't, father," cried Ursula. "Nobody has ever possessed my heart but you. I hate all men, as I said the other day. See how I liked and admired Gerard — for years, ever since I could think — and now! I could almost have cut off the fingers his touch had soiled! I don't want to marry anyone." "How beautiful," thought the Domine, not without a twinge of self-condolence, "are the unconscious work- I58 MY LADY NOBODY. ings of a maiden's heart. The dear child lays bare her love and doesn't know she possessed it! It is my duty to prevent a most fatal mistake. Poor motherless one; I must take a mother's place to-day!" Like many old- fashioned people, the Domine believed that when "a good woman" says she doesn't love a man, this always means she does. So he abstained from useless questions. "Ursula," he said, heroically, "Otto van Helmont is not one of these men you dread. Dear child, I know him well. He is a good and upright gentleman. I should be glad to think, my dear" — the Domine flung himself headlong upon the altar — "glad to think that when I am gone my daughter will have such a strong defender. The world is evil, dear, and I am old. At any moment I may leave you unprotected." She laid down her needlework, and sat looking out of the window. "I don't think I quite love him," she said, slowly. "Not like you." Something in her solemn face filled him with sudden misgiving, although the last three words were reassuring. "But, my dear," he suggested, gently, "you admire him very much — do you not? You think he is a splendid man?" "Yes," she answered, still with that far-away look, "I admire him very much. I think he is a splendid man. I — I like to see him, father, and to hear him talk." "Trust me, my dear child, you are very much in love with him," said the Domine, sententiously, "as much as any maiden ought to be. Go in, and tell him so." A SATISFACTORY SETTLEMENT. I 5 9 She was willing to believe him; still, she hesitated. Uppermost in her heart, all these days, was a passion of pure scorn. It cast over Otto's honest figure the glory of an aureole. "Father," she began again, "do you — would you really be happy to know I had accepted him?" "You could not easily find a better husband," replied the Domine, evasively. She knitted her brows, as was her wont in moments such as this. "It would not make you sad, but happy," she in- sisted. "Sad — no, no," cried the Domine, eagerly. "To think of it — sad!" "But — Java?" she said, faintly. "My dear, you will not go to Java," exclaimed the Domine, very loud. "That you must tell him at once. You will stay in Holland. I may be very selfish, but I don't care." He suddenly felt there were limits. Ursula rose. "Yes," she said, softly, "I must go to him, myself. It is a very terrible resolve." The Domine smiled, with a tear in his eye. "'It is ever from the greatest hazards,'" he quoted, '"that the greatest honours are gained.' Pericles said that. It is a good motto for this day." Ursula went straight to the study, where Otto was tramping up and down. His face brightened as he saw her enter. "Are you bringing me the answer yourself?" he asked, coming forward with outstretched hands. l6o MY LADY NOBODY. "You saved my life," she replied, simply. "It is yours." "Josine," said the Domine, "are you well enough to listen to me for a moment?" He spoke with un- mistakable impatience, eyeing the limp bundle on the sofa. "Roderigue, how can you be so unkind?" came the plaintive answer. "After the terrible escape our dear Ursula has had, my weak nerves are still naturally unstrung. I cannot bear to think of it. All night I seemed rushing through space with her and — him. What must he not have suffered?" "Well, it's over now," replied the Domine, "and he's thinking of other things. In fact, that's what I came in about. He has just been asking me to consent to his engagement." "I knew it," said Miss Mopius, and sank back on the sofa-cushion. The Domine started. "What!" he cried. "Did he speak to you first?" "Roderigue," replied the lady with spirit, "I am old enough — I mean I am not so young that his speaking to me could be considered improper." "No, indeed," began the puzzled Domine. "I gave him the answer of my heart, as I doubt not he told you. You will give us your blessing, my brother?" The Domine rose to his feet. "Hearing you talk," he said, testily, "one might conclude it was you had made the match." At this monstrous accusation the poor creature A SATISFACTORY SETTLEMENT. l6l burst into tears. "To think," she sobbed, "that my poor Mary's husband should say such a thing of me. Roderigue, I wonder that dear saint did not teach you what a woman's feelings are!" Of all means by which Josine unconsciously tormented the pastor there was none like her allusions to his de- parted wife. Moments could be produced in the widower's calm day when that brave soldier might have felt it in him to strike a woman. Only to slap her. "Well, I can't help it," he said, still in the same irritated tone. He was disappointed in his future son- in-law. "Ursula and Otto must just settle it between them." "Ursula is a child," replied the spinster. "She will be pleased to get so charming an uncle." "Hey?" said the pastor, stopping very short. Then it all dawned upon him as when a curtain is drawn away. "Otto has asked Ursula to marry him, and she has consented," he said, gruffly. For some forms of human weakness the man had not an atom of pity. Poor Miss Mopius received the blow straight in her face. She "never forgave" her brother afterwards for striking out. Striking a woman, after all. She rose to the occasion, sitting up at once, tremulous but dignified. "There is some mistake," she said. "You have misunderstood or I have been duped. In one case the man is a fool; in the other he is a villain. No gentleman makes love to two women at a time. I My Lady Nobody. I. II I 62 MY LADY NOBODY. will thank you to leave me alone for the present, Roderigue." "So be it, Josine," answered the Domine, "but, re- member, it was Will-be-Will made darkness in the town of Mansoul." Then his heart smote him for too great severity. "My dear," he said, in a kindly voice, "it is the old stoiy with us all. Still Prince Emmanuel an- swers Mr. Loth-to-Stoop : 'I will not grant your master, no, not the least corner to dwell in. I will have all to myself.' " When the last uncertainty had faded from Miss Mopius's soul, she merely said to Ursula, "He might be your father. I don't think it's nice for a young girl to marry an old man." Ursula did not reply "For an old woman to marry a young man is worse." She only thought it. We can all be magnanimous in victory. But Ursula could even have been so, if required, in defeat. Her faults were never little ones. To her confidential spinster friends Miss Mopius remarked, "She is very plain. I can't imagine what he sees in her. So brown! But, then, of course, he is past the heyday of youth, and a little use. Well, some women like to get their lovers secondhand." "I shouldn't," remarked one mittened crony. "No, indeed," replied Miss Mopius. DONNA E MOBILE. I 6. CHAPTER XV. DONNA E MOBILE. On the Saturday following the Van Trossarts' garden- party — two days, therefore, previously to the events just narrated — Gerard van Helmont called, in the early morn- ing, at the house of his betrothed. He could hardly realise, as he impatiently awaited her, that not twenty- four hours had elapsed since this new brightness had come into his life. Already he felt accustomed to the new role of a very wealthy man with a very charming wife. How happy his mother would be after the first shock of the unexpected! They must find another match for Otto. Sprightly, sportive Helen would never have married Otto, anyway. He glanced at the clock. Half-past ten. As long as clocks stood in front of mirrors Gerard never saw only the time. The door opened; a servant entered slowly. "The Freule was not ready, as yet, to receive him." Had she sent him no message? "No." The fiery lover went off to the barracks and worried everybody. In the afternoon he called again. The sounds of a piano came pouring down upon him from upstairs during his brief wait on the steps. How brilliantly she played ! A little too wildly — like a musical tornado. He was again shown into the front drawing-room. It was again empty. Again he paced restlessly to and fro, but this time he twisted his moustache. 164 MV LADY NOBODY. He heard a footfall in the adjoining apartment; the music, however, had not yet stopped. He was longing for it, now, to do so. The Baroness van Trossart came bustling in, hot and flurried. "My dear boy," she began, "my dear boy, sit down." She caught hold of his hand and drew him down on a low settee by her side. "My dear boy, you and Helen have had a quarrel. The worse quarrels always come first. Now tell me what it is all about." Gerard opened his light, innocent eyes. "There has been no quarrel that I know of, Mevrouw," he answered. "What does Helen say?" The Baroness's substantial chaps fell. "Helen says nothing at all. That is the worst of it. She has locked herself in, and she won't speak to anyone. She has been playing the piano for hours — you hear her now — and her uncle trying all the time to learn his speech for next Monday! I've been screaming to make her stop, but I can't, and I got some dust in my eye, as it is, through the keyhole." She sighed. Gerard, with heightened colour, looked down at his spurs. "Then you don't know what's wrong?" the Baroness repeated, helplessly. "No, indeed, I don't." "The excitement must have got on her nerves; but I wish, at least, she would see Papotier." They went out slowly into the hall. "Never mind, Gerard," said the Baroness, still in that ill-used tone, "it'll be all right soon. Come back this evening and settle about going to the Horst to-morrow. Oh, will that music never stop!" It followed him down the street in a reckless jingle DONNA E MOBILE. 1 65 and crash of feverish discord, as if all the notes of the instrument together were dancing a devil's saraband. He went to the club and, from sheer nervous vexa- tion, boisterously got together a game of vingt-et-un. He won nearly a thousand florins in a couple of hours. As a rule, however, gambling was not one of his weak- nesses. He had plenty of others. Then he treated the whole mess to champagne, declaring it was his birthday, and when somebody denied that, he turned almost fiercely on the caviller. "My death-day, then!" he said. "It don't make any difference in the wine." They were all surprised at his irritability, and con- cluded that the extent of his winnings was vexing him. That would be quite like Van Helmont, who was free- handed and free-hearted to a fault. He was the most popular man in the regiment. It was half-past eight when he again rang at the Van Trossarts' door. He was flushed with excitement and champagne. The piano had ceased; the whole house lay steeped in silence. Almost immediately, as he hesitated under the hall-lamp, the Freule's maid came forward with a note. He took it and glanced through it on the spot. It was veiy brief. "Yes, I have read Maupassant; all night I sat up reading him. Go back to the housemaid. Thank Heaven, Jeanne is not married yet." He went out again into the dusk immdiately. Dutch shops are open late, especially on Saturdays. He walked quickly to the High Street, which was full of movement and yellow gas. At a well-known bookseller's he stopped. "Have you Maupassant's 'Une Vie'?" he asked the 1 66 MY LADY NOBODY. shopman. Oh, yes! half a dozen copies lay on the counter. He carried off the blue paper volume, and locked himself up in his rooms. Turning the pages hurriedly, he read the painful story. Even as he read, he revolted at the thought of his cousin's having come into contact with such scenes as were there described. He flung the book on to the table. "Filth!" he said angrily. He felt that a woman's soul may pass pure, if such be her terrible fate, through fact, but not through fiction. And surely he was right. A man can judge of purity, in women. The work he admiringly despised, was like all those of its great author, though by no means equal, of course, in literary value, to his shorter master-pieces. It was a perfectly polished crystal goblet — a splendour of work- manship — full of asafcetida. Few men care for the taste, which might be healthful, but we all enjoy the useless smell. Somebody whistled outside in the street. He went to the window. Two young officers, attracted by the light of his lamp, stood in the dark with upturned faces. His heart leaped with its impulse of relief. "Is that you, Troy?" he called back. "Who's with you? Never mind, I'll come down. I say, there's a night-train to Brussels! We've just time to catch it. The chief'll never know, and we'll have such a burst- up as never was before!" On the Monday morning, in the small hours, Gerard returned from his escapade into Belgium. The others, who still valued their commissions, had refused to accompany him. He had left a telegram with Willie DONNA E MOBILE. 1 67 for the Horst, to the effect that Helen was unable to come. "The Colonel won't be any wiser," he said. And the Colonel never was. Whether the excursion had been worth its cost — in every sense — was another matter. Such questions are useless, and Gerard preferred not to decide them. He lay down on his bed for a couple of hours, and then — before breakfast, somewhere near seven o'clock — he paid a visit to a lady of his acquaintance, whom he had not seen for many months. He had a bad headache, and he felt deeply injured, but also dis- tinctly inclined to indignation and virtue. "Adeline," he said, pathetically, "I thought you still loved me." "What a fool you must be then," said Adeline. She lived in a little out-of-the-way house, with a garden and a back entrance. No one was more accurately acquainted than Gerard with her periods of business or leisure. "Better fool than knave," replied Gerard, bitterly. "But don't let's go on like this. What I wanted to tell you is that our secret's out. There." "I know," said Adeline, nodding. She sat in her neat little tight-fitting dress in her neat little (tight- fitting) room, with her breakfast in front of her. It was all dainty and attractive. He had seen her sit thus many a time, while he lounged on the little chintz sofa. "I told," -added Adeline proudly, biting a stiff crust with her pearly teeth. "You!" He sprang upright. "You lie!" "Oh, of course," she answered, "I was to sit and I 68 MY LADY NOBODY. see you enjoy yourself, while I went to my ruin. I was to let you write letters to my advertisements and then bring other men to laugh at me." Her voice grew suddenly fierce. "I hate you for that," she cried, "for that most of all. I could kill you for that. "Good heavens, was one of those unlucky advertise- ments yours? I had nothing to do with answering them, I swear to you. I was only umpire. Why, surely, you'd have recognised my hand!" "Humph," said Adeline. "Well, I told." "It was a woman's trick," retorted Gerard. "But how did you find out, you little devil, about the Freule van Trossart, or about my — my " "Your what?" she questioned, sharply. "What's this about the Freule van Trossart? You're going to make her miserable, are you, as you did me?" She started up, clapping her hands. "No, you won't," she cried. "No, you won't. I see. He's gone and told her all about it. Oh, I love him for that!" "Who? He!" exclaimed Gerard. "Do you mean to say you've gone noising our shame about to strangers?" The words stung her to sudden passion. "Our shame?" she cried. "Our shame? My shame you mean. My shame, as Christian laws go in Christian lands. And who are you, of all men, to taunt me with it? I told your brother, if you want to know. And he went and told the girl you were trying to catch, did he? Oh, I'm glad of that; I'm glad of that!" Gerard sat for some moments with bent brows and clenched fists. His still stare frightened her. She sank into her seat cowed. DONNA E MOBILE. I 69 "How did you meet my brother?" he asked at last. His voice was hoarse. "You passed the shop with him one morning," she answered humbly. "I recognised him by your descrip- tion. And when going to my dinner later on, I met him in the Park alone. I told him everything in half a dozen minutes. That day I was desperate. I asked him if he could do nothing to help me to make you marry me. I had some wild idea your family might. I had never come across any of them. I probably never should have such a chance again." "And what did my brother say?" asked Gerard. "He said he would do what he could. He didn't think he could do much. I don't think he likes you, Gerard." She spoke quite submissively, and, as she finished, her eyes stole across to the looking-glass to arrange a little bow at her neck. "Oh, no," replied Gerard furiously. "He's too good to like me. His little peccadilloes are far away, and black." "I'm sure I've always liked you, Gerard," she said coquettishly. "You've treated me very badly. You know you have." "I have," acquiesced Gerard, in a low voice. "Did you tell Otto, Adeline, of those three thousand florins I gave you?" "No," she cried, again reverting to her sudden passion. "Do you fling that fact in my face? Do you call that a compensation?" "No, no. God knows I didn't mean anything of the kind. I was only thinking — great heavens I don't know what to think." He buried his face in his hands. 17O MY LADY NOBODY. "Poor Gerard," said the girl softly, after an interval. "I didn't think you'd take on so. But you've treated me very badly, Gerard; you know you have; yet, some- how I can't help liking you still. You were very good to me, too, once. And it was very sweet." She bent forward and timidly touched his neck. "Gerard, I'm sorry," she said. But he only shook his head. "Oh, Gerard, I was so wretched, so fearfully wretched. I couldn't stand the thought of — of the disgrace. I wanted you to marry me. I would have given my life for you to marry me — only to make an honest woman of me first. Gerard, think of it, there was nothing left for me but marriage, exposure or death. I tried death once — with my fingers — but — but the water was so very cold." She began to cry softly, resting her hand on her quondam lover's knee. Then Gerard looked up quickly. His face was quite pale and drawn. "Adeline," he said wearily, "it's no use, you and I can't be angry with each other. Not seriously, only in flimsy bursts. It's like our love. We can't hate each other, either. Great love turns to hate, they say. Ours is of the kind that one can always take up again as if one had never left off. You've ruined my life, and, somehow, I can't even reproach you with doing so." "But you've ruined mine, too, or very nearly," she sobbed. "Yes, that's true; I don't want, though, to make you so wretched. You shock me with your horrible talk. Adeline, look here, I don't care; if you feel as bad as that I'll marry you. Yes, I will, so help me God. You're DONNA E MOBILE. I 7 I the only woman that ever loved me, besides my mother, and I've treated you like a brute. We men don't always quite understand, but, Adeline, I can't bear to see you wretched, and to know it's all my fault. It is all my fault; I've behaved like a cad. Adeline, I mean it; I'm awfully sorry and ashamed of myself. I'll tell my father exactly how matters stand, and I'll make him let me marry you. You poor little innocent to think that they'd make me!" Adeline, for only answer, laid her head upon his shoulder, softly crying on. "Don't cry like that, dear," he continued, in the same dreary tone. "It'll all come right soon. I dare- say we shall be fairly happy. We've made such a mess of our separate lives that the best thing we can do is to try and combine them." "Oh, Gerard," sobbed the girl, "if I'd only known a day or two sooner. It's too late now." "No, no," he said dully, stroking her hair. "I for- give you the trick you played me. I drove you to it, I suppose. Men are brutes." "Oh, Gerard," murmured Adeline again, with closed eyes, "it's not that. I'm engaged." "What?" he cried, edging back, so that her head almost slipped. She started up then, quite briskly. "Well, and what was I to do?" she said, "with every week bring- ing me nearer. Other people answered my advertise- ment besides you, Gerard. And he's a very nice young man, a lawyer's clerk. I was out in the country with him all yesterday, and we settled it coming home." 172 MY LADY NOBODY. "Indeed," said Gerard scornfully. "And he — he " She blushed crimson. "Yes, he knows," she murmured. "He thinks you treated me very badly, Gerard." "I know." And he consents, thought the young man, to accept the plaster I placed on the bruise. He got up from the little chintz sofa of many memories. "I wish you had waited to give Otto the last chapter of the story," he said, very wearily. "Poor little girl, I'm not angry with you. Don't cry. We've had enough of that. Good-bye, Adeline. I suppose we need hardly meet again." And he held out his hand. "Gerard," she said, taking it, "I'm so glad you're not angry. I like you very much, but, do you know, I fancy I should be happier with him. He isn't as good-looking as you, Gerard — not anything like — but he looks very nice." She raised the young officer's hand to her lips. "Thank you," she said, "for offering to marry me." "Oh, no thanks," he replied, taking his hat. "Gerard!" she called him back, her eyes reverted swiftly from the mirror to his face. "You never said anything about my new dress which I had to make. Don't you think it suits me?" "Oh, everything suits you," he cried, making his escape. There were tears in his eyes as he turned into the street. A FOOL AND HIS FOLLY. I 73 CHAPTER XVI. A FOOL AND HIS FOLLY. The dog gave a yelp. "Do take care, Otto," cried the Baroness, sharply. Her voice was shrill with irritation. "I wish you would sit down. You have trodden on poor Plush's tail! And there really was no reason for that. Not even if I take in earnest, as I have no intention of doing, the exceed- ingly poor joke you have just concocted." "I assure you it is no joke, mother, but very sober earnest." "I am to believe that you have this morning asked Ursula Rovers to be your wife, and that she has deigned to accept you?" "She has deigned to accept me, mother." "Then there are other things you can tread on be- sides little dogs." She was too angry to continue. An embarrassing silence had thickened between them be- fore she added, looking straight in front of her: "But I shall not afford you the satisfaction of a yelp." "Mother!" he cried, with a pathetic ring of pain in his virile voice. He held out his arms. The move- ment was an appeal. But she waved him back. "Between mothers and sons," she said, "there is a union of sympathy, of interest, not only of intercourse. 174 MY LADY NOBODY. Dogs have mothers, Otto, and love them and forget them. And when they meet again, after twelve weeks — mother and son walk side by side, but the pup doesn't know." She held out her trembling fingers to the little animal beside her. "The mother does," she said, tremulously. "The mother does." Otto stood by the Dresden gimcracks of the mantel- piece. His head was bent, but across the level eye- brows lay a bar of resolve. "If you would only let me explain " he began. "Surely I can do that for myself. You are 'in love' with the girl, to use the cant phrase. There is no more beautiful word in the world, and none more insulted. With you it simply means that you have been caught by the charms of a piquante brown face. You, who are nearly forty, whose calf period might surely be past. Faugh! you men are all the same, like dogs again! You talk of piety, affection, ambition, but when the moment comes you run after the nearest cur. Otto, I won't say any more. I have said too much already. In truth, there is nothing to say. There is only a curse to bear. Nowadays, it seems, the children curse the parents. It may be less melodramatic, but the results are far more visible to the naked eye." Then he broke down before her hard, her hopeless misery, and knelt by her side. "Mother, I love her," he said. "Never mind what the word means to me, it need mean but little to you. I will take her away to some place where you need but rarely see her." A FOOL AND HIS FOLLY. 175 "And the Horst!" she cried, looking at him for the first time. The despair in her eyes cut straight to his soul. "You have not even thought of that! And you hardly know the girl. The old house — the old home — you have not even thought of that!" "I have thought of it," he answered, sternly, return- ing to his place on the hearth. "It is not gone yet. I will work and make money. Father may still live twenty years." But she did not heed him. "Only a good-looking face!" she said. "Only half a dozen glimpses of a good-looking face and — pfst!" She snapped her fingers. "Does your father know?" she asked. "Not yet," he answered. "I came to you first. I had hoped that you " "Would join with the happy pair imploring his blessing. Did I not say rightly, Otto, that a certain amount of mutual understanding is essential to the pre- servation of natural ties! That you should succeed in making a philosopher of such a crack-brained creature as I am! I hear your father's step in the entrance-hall. The poor fellow is whistling! Never mind, it can't be helped. Call him in." Otto obeyed. "Well, what is it, my dear?" asked the Baron entering. "Are you still enjoying your new-found son?" "Yes, that is it," replied the old lady. "Exactly. My new-found son still prepares me fresh surprises. Otto, tell your father to-day's." "I have engaged myself," said Otto, steadying his voice, "to Juffrouw Ursula Rovers." The Baron's thin cheek flushed. He resumed the I76 MY LADY NOBODY. tune he had been whistling and carefully finished it. Then he said, "I suppose that is quite definite?" "Oh, yes," interposed the Baroness, "a fool's de- cisions always are." "Hush, my dear. I mean, Otto, that you have fully considered and weighed the matter, and have made up your mind to go through with it at all costs?" The Baron spoke very quietly. "Yes," said Otto, and their eyes met. "So I thought. Your decision will not be altered in any way by my pointing out that, as long as I live (which I hope to do for a quarter of a century longer), you will never receive a penny from me towards sup- porting Ursula Rovers? You probably understood that before?" "I did," replied Otto. "I don't want any money. I'm going to work." "Quite so. More tea, I suppose? Java?" Otto's face fell. "No," he said, awkwardly. "Not Java. Ursula doesn't want to go there." The Baroness, who had been beating a silent tat- too with her foot, broke into an impatient exclama- tion. "Really, Otto," said the Baron, with a thin little smile, "you must admit that you are rather provoking. When everybody wants you here, you insist upon living in the tropics, and when — well, the whole thing, there- fore, is settled, is it, and practically beyond recall? Mistakes, as your mother just now remarked, usually are. This, of course, is a huge mistake — a life mis- take. However, perhaps you are aware of that, too?" A FOOL AND HIS FOLLY. I 77 "Perhaps it is," replied Otto, "in some respects. But it seems to me worth making." "Possibly. There are no bounds to human selfish- ness. Men have thrown away an empire for a night of dalliance. And the heritage of the Helmonts is not an empire by any means. I am sure I wish you a more protracted period of enjoyment. Then, at least, one person will get satisfaction out of this miserable busi- ness. Yes, as there is no help for it, I may as well wish you joy. Wish him joy, Cecile." ' "No," said the Baroness. "Anyhow, I suppose it won't make much difference to you, Otto? Nor, alas, to us. And now that all the preliminaries are settled, and you know our mind exactly and we yours — excuse my putting you last — we had better swallow down the rest of the unpleasant- ness as soon as possible. Bring up Ursula at once, and we will give her our blessing. Bring her before dinner if you can. I'm sure I wish you had her wait- ing in the drawing-room. I will say this: she is a good-looking girl, and, I honestly believe, a good one. But what a reason for marrying her!" He threw up his hands with his familiar gesture of comical dismay, and turning his back on his son and heir, went and sat down by the Baroness. Otto walked slowly from the room, leaving the old couple together. The little turret-chamber, all flowered silk and china shepherds, looked strangely unreal, like a painting on porcelain. The light crept in through its rounded window with a curve that lent to everything a glamour as of glaze. The occupants themselves, bending near to each other, the toy-dog between them, their delicate My Lady Nobody. I. 12 I78 MY LADY NOBODY. features still touched, as it seemed, with eighteenth- century powder, had the appearance of Dresden figures seen under a shiny glass case. But their sorrow was very real, none the less so because the Baron was endeavouring, as it buzzed around them, to catch and kill it in the folds of a cambric handkerchief. "Theodore," began the Baroness, twisting her rings, "you are always right. I do not mean to doubt your judgment. But it seems to me that you almost en- couraged him to do what you disapproved. You — you told him how bad it was, how wicked, and then you wished him joy." "My dear," replied the Baron, "you cannot push over the precipice a man who has already leaped. His mind was made up, and nothing would have changed it. I know Otto. This is just the kind of idiotic thing he might be expected to do. Some men cannot keep away from any folly which has an appearance of elevation. Their souls positively itch to commit it, whether it be useful or pleasant or not. Otto has always been like that. He is a Don Quixote of foolish- ness. Had Ursula not existed, he would have been bound to invent her." "Unfortunately she exists," replied the Baroness, "but you might have argued, protested " "My dear, he is thirty-nine. And to argue with Don Quixote is to break a straw against armour. There is no strength like the conviction: 'the thing is so utterly asinine that I'm sure it must be right'; especially when the thing is also pleasant. Modern Quixotes are not above distinguishing that." •'Oh, don't reason it out in that quiet way," cried A FOOL AND HIS FOLLY. 179 the Baroness, passionately. "It's too horrible for that. I can't bear it." Her husband took her hand. "Dearest," he asked, "since when have we left off grinning over the things we could not bear?" The only answer was Plush's grating bark, which she always started as soon as the Baron grew affectionate to the Baroness. "As for quarrels they are always a discomfort, but useless quarrels are a folly as well. And a dispute with Otto would soon develop into a quarrel. He knows what we think without further telling; be sure of that. For Heaven's sake let there not be a row. I have not been present at a row since I was twenty. Gerard ran the thing close the other day. We may just as well treat Ursula civilly. I only hope he will bring her at once. The prospect makes me nervous, and I don't see why my dinner should be spoilt because my eldest son is a fool." "But Ursula should be made to feel " He interrupted her, a thing he was not in the habit of doing. "Be sure that Ursula will be made to feel," he said, "whatever we do. Trust human nature for that." "Had it only been Gerard," she moaned. "And just as I had arranged about Helen!" "Ah, had it been Gerard, I should have reasoned with him. Gerard can be made to laugh at follies, and the man who laughs can be made to abandon. Folly! Folly! You see, those are the only words I am able to think of. Answer a fool according to his folly. X2 * l80 MY LADY NOBODY. That is excellent advice. Moliere's, is it not? I tried to bring it into practice to-day." "Deeds like his," she said, "should still be prevent- able by lettrcs de cachet. They are worse than crimes. A name such as ours may be scotched by the reprobates who bear it, but it takes a fool, such as you laugh at, to kill it outright." "Whom would you lock up? Ursula? Do you know, I fancy Ursula is in no way to blame. She is really a good little girl." But the Baroness shook her head. The Baron rose. "Well, it can't be helped," he said, yawning. "That is the beginning and the end. I wonder what Louisa will say. At any rate, the house is still ours; apres nous le deluge. Otto is such an exemplary Noah; he is sure to be saved when it comes. By the by, I had written to Labary about re-hanging the west bedroom, but such experiences as this take away all one's pleasure in things of that kind. What's the use of working for such a son as Otto?" With which momentous, but unanswerable, question, he strolled out into the grounds. Louisa, when informed shortly after by her sister of what had happened, took off her spectacles, laid down the book she was reading, and said: "Otto is, at least, the only member of this family possessed of marked originality." The Freule van Borck's view of the question was not without importance, for she had some money to leave where she liked. She was exceedingly stingy, and her savings were presumed to be large, A FOOL AND HIS FOLLY. l8l "Yes," replied the Baroness, tartly, "but all his originality is original sin. However, I am glad, Louisa, if you can find extenuations, which I openly confess myself as yet unable to see." The thin Freule rested an angular elbow on her knees. "Ah, but that is because you are so entirely con- ventional," she said, gravely. "You are altogether hereditary, my dear; you cannot step out of your groove." "Je ne deraille pas," replied the Baroness. "No. Dieu merci. Must Otto, to be happy?" The Freule van Borck sighed. "My dear, it is no use," she said. "We shall never understand each other. It is of the very essence of man's making that he should not run on rails. Machines run on rails. All the misery of the world has been caused by our doing so, and generally in batches, after one locomotive. When two of our locomotives met, there was a smash, and bloodshed." "But that," said the Baroness, evidently bored, "is exactly opposed to your favourite theory of hero- worship." "So it is," replied her sister, cheerfully. "We must all be inconsistent at times, except you people on the rails. I was thinking of the hereditary leaders, not the hero-leaders of men. No hero ever •" "But, Louisa, don't you understand? I have just told you that Otto — our Otto — is going to marry Ursula Rovers." "Yes, my dear, and I reply that he makes a dis- I 82 MY LADY NOBODY. tinctly new departure. To judge of its expediency, we must know the result." "The result can only be misery to all concerned." "You think that because your heredity tells you so. Now, I shall be an interested and unprejudiced spec- tator. Everything depends upon Ursula. Is she an entity or a nonentity? That is the question. I agree with Carlyle " "Carlyle was a ploughboy!" cried the Baroness, still too impatient to be polite. "Of course, he would rejoice to hear of milkmaids marrying marquises! Nothing is more lamentable in these levelling days than that all the geniuses are born without grandfathers. The odds in the fight are unfair." "Just so," replied the Freule, grimly. "Now, who knows what a genius the son of Otto and Ursula may be! My dear, I have been reading a most interesting volume, entitled 'Le Croisement des Races.' I could give you some exceedingly curious details " "Spare me even the mention of your horrible read- ing, Louisa!" exclaimed the Baroness. "It is like passing down the streets where they hang out the Police News. Dear me, that is Gerard's voice speaking 10 his father. How excited he seems! I suppose Theodore has already told him. He must calm down a little, for the happy pair will be here in a minute. I saw the carriage turn into the avenue from the road." Gerard came rushing in, followed more leisurely by his father. "Mamma!" he gasped. "Mamma, Otto has shot Beauty! It isn't possible; I can't believe it. Shot A FOOL AND HIS FOLLY. 1 83 Beauty! Shot Beauty! Great God, what have I done to him that he should treat me like this?" He clenched his fist to his forehead. "Shot Beauty!" he cried again in a choking voice. "Oh, I hope I shan't see him! I won't see him ! I'll go back to Drum. If I see him I shall kill him!" "Gerard!" "Don't speak to me, any of you. I hate him. I hate him. I hate him!" "My dear boy, don't be so absurd," began the Baron. "It really couldn't be helped. Your aunt has most kindly offered to get you another horse." "In recognition of Otto's prompt and spirited action," said the Freule. "It was very dreadful, Gerard, but un- avoidable, and he rose to the occasion. That is what I admire. And though I am not in the habit of giving expensive presents, and haven't the means to do so " "I won't have another horse," burst out Gerard. "I mean to say, that's not what I care about. He — he — oh, you don't know what he's done to me. And now he's killed Beauty as well! I hate him! I won't, I daren't meet him at dinner!" "There's the hall-bell," cried the Baroness. "Shut the door, Theodore. Gerard, you had better go out by the ante-room. Otto is bringing home his betrothed for us to welcome as such!" "His betrothed!" stammered Gerard, looking from one to the other. "What? Helen? Already?" "Helen? No, indeed. The young lady is Ursula Rovers." 184 MY LADY NOBODY. Otto and Ursula, pausing outside the door, heard Gerard's laugh of malevolent contempt, as well as the words that immediately followed it. "Ursula Rovers!" he cried. "The future Baroness van Helmont! My Lady Nobody!" BROTHERLY HATE. I 85 PART II. CHAPTER XVII. BROTHERLY HATE. The two brothers stood face to face by the stables. Otto, running round for Ursula's carriage, after the brief interview with his parents, had almost knocked up against Gerard. He started back. "Damn you!" said Gerard. He said the hideous words with deep conviction — almost conscientiously, as if acquitting himself of a painful duty. For the last quarter of an hour, ever since he had fled from the boudoir before the approach of the betrothed pair, Gerard had been striding hither and thither, like one possessed, in the close vicinity of the stables. He was hardly aware what he said or thought. Otto had shot Beauty; Otto had estranged Helen, actuated not even by sneaking jealousy (as had first seemed probable), but by wanton ill-nature. He hated Otto. He would never look upon his hateful face again. He would hurry back to Drum. Suddenly his elder brother stood before him, almost jostling him in a hasty recoil. All Gerard's confusion of anger and sorrow cooled into one clear thunder- bolt. "Damn you!" he said. There could be no doubt 1 86 MY LADY NOBODY. in his own heart or any other of his concentrated hate of the intruder. What says Tacitus? "With more than brotherly hate." Tacitus read the inner souls of men. From the moment when he fired the fatal shot Otto had felt that he owed Gerard most humble and affec- tionate apology. Concerning the episode with Helen he was, of course, serenely ignorant. But his attitude had stiffened just now under the cruelly careless word which had fallen like a shadow across the home-bringing of his betrothed. "Silence, Gerard," he replied, haughtily. "No one com be more sorry than myself. If you will listen reasonably, I will try to explain " "No one more sorry than yourself!" burst in Gerard, his whole frame trembling with passion. "No one more sorry! You loved Beauty, I suppose? You loved Beauty better than anything else except — except" — he bit back the word "mother" — "You loved Beauty, and first drove her mad by your insane bungling, and then shot her! — shot her! Oh, my God!" The words choked him. Suddenly he grew white and calm. He advanced upon Otto. "If only you were not my brother!" he said in a whisper. Otto met his anger-troubled gaze, unflinching. "You are a first-rate shot," continued Gerard, with bitter meaning. "Oh, a first-rate shot! Ursula was right. But I, too, can shoot straight." Then he broke off short, and struck his forehead, bewildered among the madness of his own concep- tions. BROTHERLY HATE. I 87 "Leave me to myself," he gasped. "Only leave me. Go back to Helen — or Ursula — which is it? Tell Ursula also. Be sure and tell Ursula everything about me. Go and be happy, you and your charming " "Not a word more," interrupted Otto, forewarned by the other's tone. "I am very sorry, Gerard, and willing to make every allowance. But I will not hear a word against my future wife." Gerard rushed away. "Why not, after all?" he asked himself. Brothers had met before in honourable combat alone beneath the moonlight shadows of Rhenish castle walls. He laughed aloud, and when the coachman's dog ran out, barking, to greet him, he kicked the brute away. Ursula could not but notice Otto's silence — nay, more, his depression — as they drove back again to the Parsonage. She explained it by the Baroness's recep- tion of the engagement. For not even the most laborious amiability could make the two women misunderstand each other. "Otto, I hope," stammered the girl, with sudden heart-sinking, as they .paused under the little verandah, "oh, I hope you will never repent." He hesitated, and, with human inconsistency, she resented the momentary delay in his denial. "No, I shall never repent," he replied, "unless " He checked himself; he was going to say she must make up her mind to leave Horstwyk, but he realised the unfairness of too precipitate appeal. "Unless?" she repeated, looking into his eyes. "We will talk about it some other day," he an- swered, hastily. "For the moment you and I are I 88 MY LADY NOBODY. simply happy, let that suffice us. I am proud of you, my darling, and it seems too good, your caring for an old fellow like me." He kissed her, and she blushed, half unwilling, under the unwonted familiarity from a man she barely knew. Love and marriage seemed so strange to her, not unpleasant, but so strange. She watched him down the road and her eyes grew misty. "Unless?" she softly repeated to herself. Then she went and found her father in his study. "Papa," she said, "you are sure that Otto loves me?" "Why else should he ask you to marry him?" re- torted the Domine, turning abruptly in his round desk- chair. "Yes, that is true," replied Ursula, humbly. "But they cannot say the same of me." "How? What?" queried the Domine, with troubled eyebrows. She turned full to the light. "Papa," she said, impetuously. "It's not that I want to be Baroness van Helmont. I'm sure, I'm sure it's not." The Domine struck his hand on the table before him. "No, indeed," he cried in a loud voice. "Who says that? Who dares to say that?" Ursula sighed wearily. "Oh, no one does," she answered. "Never mind. Life is very complicated. I wish one always knew exactly what was right." "One always does," said the simple -thoughted BROTHERLY HATE. 1 89 Domine. "Obey marching orders. Forward. Do the nearest duty at once, and with all your might." Ursula sighed again, still more wearily, and going out into the passage, happed upon her aunt. Miss Mopius passed on her way to the store-cupboard, her joined hands overweighted with eggs. At sight of her successful rival, she started, and one of the eggs flopped down on the stones, in slimy collapse. "I can understand your exultation, Ursula," said Miss Mopius, all a-quiver, "but don't sneer at me like that. I won't stand it. Some day, perhaps, you also will know the curse of Eve." Ursula, in the cruelty of her youth and beauty, barely pitied her aunt. "What was the curse of Eve?" she inquired. "Adam," retorted Miss Mopius, and dropped an- other egg. "I'll wipe up the mess," said Ursula, sweetly. Miss Mopius beat a hasty retreat. She spent the rest of the afternoon diluting one solitary globule of a patent medicine through a series of thirteen brimming decanters of water. A tumbler from the first decanter was poured into the second, and so on through the lot. The thirteenth solution, said the advertisement, was the most "potent." Miss Mopius believed the advertise- ment. The magnificent name of the small globule had an ever-recurring charm for her. It was called " Sym- pathetic Lob." "Lob" especially struck her as so de- lightfully mysterious. And it cured dizziness, palpitation, bad taste in the mouth, liver complaint, rheumatism, St. Vitus' dance, stitch in the side, and heartburn, be- sides being highly recommended for cases of agitation, I go MY LADY NOBODY. nervous depression, sudden bereavement, and disap- pointed love. Miss Mopius found it very helpful. She sat in her darkened room, amid the falling twilight, sipping. That evening there was consternation in the big drawing-room at the Horst. It spread itself like a great mist between the occupants of the apartment, and prevented their looking into each other's eyes. The oppression had begun round Gerard's vacant chair at the dinner-table; it now deepened about the Baroness, where she sat apart from the rest, straightened among the soft silks of her causciise. In the lap of her pearl- grey evening dress lay a crumpled white scrap from Gerard: — ■ "I'm off to Drum. I sha'n't come back as long as you've got Otto. The house can't hold us both. — G." Father and elder son stood with downcast lids watching each other through inner eyes. The Freule laid down her newspaper. "He will think twice," she said, sharply. "Gerard is not the kind of man to desert the fleshpots of Egypt because Moses has come with a plague or two." The Baron's gloomy face rippled over with sudden sunshine. "That's just like you, Louisa," he cried, "to select the most unfortunate simile in a hundred thousand. The worst of all Moses's plagues was the removal of the eldest son!" He laughed, looking for the first time BROTHERLY HATE. IQI at his heir. "I am speaking from Gerard's point of view," he added. " Of course, of course, from Gerard's point of view." And he laughed again, but half-way the laugh died down into a pathetic little murmur. "It is exceedingly annoying," he said, plaintively. "And I who detest unpleasantness! We have never had any unpleasantness before." "He means it," interposed the Baroness in a dull tone. "I know he means it, because of the little hook to the 'G.' When Gerard makes that, he is in earnest. It corresponds to a jerk in his voice. None of you understand Gerard. He is so good-natured; you fancy he is all sunshine and no fire." "Deplorable!" exclaimed the Baron, stopping, help- less, in the middle of the room. "And incomprehen- sible. All about a horse. We will buy Louisa's present, the sooner the better, and send it to bring him back." "Ah! but is it all about a horse?" asked the Freule's high-pitched voice. Once more she emerged from be- hind her newspaper, her own particular newspaper, The Victory! It would be difficult to say what The Victory wanted to conquer; but you received a general impres- sion from its pages that in this world the battle was always to the strong. "Ah! but is it all about a horse?" asked the Freule, amid a darkening silence. "Or could Otto tell more if he would? You consider me none too sharp-sighted, my dear brother and sister; but it strikes me you are blind not to perceive that you would have had a daughter- in-law Ursula, any way, whether your eldest had come back or not, eh?" She shot out this last interjection at 192 MY I.ADY NOBODY. her nephew, rising, meanwhile, all in one piece, with an abrupt sweep back of her stand-up silk. Otto was horrified by the sudden condensation of the amorphous suspicions afloat in his brain. Could it be possible that he had ousted a rival? Certainly, Gerard's fury seemed in excess of the injury to which he owned. For the first time, in the elder brother's heart also, dislike and distrust joined hands. "Just so," said the Freule van Borck, across his irritable uncertainty. She nodded to the others provok- ingly, and walked out upon the terrace. Otto fol- lowed her. "Aunt Louisa," he began, "I think you are mis- taken." "Yes, Otto," she answered. "Of course you do now. But you didn't when I first spoke, you see. Let me give you a bit of advice. Eh?" "Well?" The young man's voice was not inviting. "Don't go back to Java with your wife, as I dare- say you want to do. Stop here and fight it out. Ur- sula '11 fight it out. I don't give twopence for a married woman who can't live in the same house with her former lover. Of course they were lovers. I've seen it these half a dozen years. Never mind. She was too good for Gerard — there!" She smiled a complimentary smile to her brawny nephew; she liked his brownness and bigness, and straight, square strength. Otto crept away. "To-morrow I shall speak about going away," he said to himself. "To-morrow, not to-night. The Domine must listen to reason. The shadow of Cain lies between Gerard and me." THE DUTY OF THE PARENT. 193 CHAPTER XVIII. THE DUTY OF THE PARENT. Next morning, so it happened, the Domine awoke to a moderately disagreeable task. While dressing, he grumbled over the speck in his tranquil sky, as mortals will do when unaware of the storm-cloud fringing their horizon. The Domine had a parishioner who caused him more annoyance than the rest. This sheep of the flock was, however, not a black sheep. It was serenely white. It never wandered, for it never even got up. Its name was Klomp, and its nature was unmitigated indolence. This man Klomp inhabited a little cottage of his own, lost among the woods. He shared it with two daughters, aged respectively twelve and eighteen. Like its owner, the cottage lived on, disgraceful but com- fortable. Theoretically, it ought to have been pulled down. Klornp knew better. All summer he lazed over a hedge which, mysteriously, bore his weight; all winter he dozed by the stove. If any remnant of useless ornamentation fell away from the cottage, the proprietor never winked an eye, but should a tile drop whose fall let in the rain or wind, Klomp would scramble up on the roof and replace it. He was a philosopher. He never ill-treated his daughters unless they let My Lady Nobody. I. 13 194 MY LADY NOBODY. the fire go out in winter. To keep it lighted during seven months of the year was their whole earthly duty, for housekeeping had long been reduced to an almost imperceptible minimum. The entire family lived on next to nothing very cheerfully, and was a disgrace to the neighbourhood. Vices the father had none. As has already been hinted, he was negatively virtuous. He drowsed at peace with himself and with all the world above and below him, except when the Domine came to make trouble. The Domine was making trouble just now. By a stroke of unexpected good fortune an opportunity had occurred of "doing something for those poor girls," whose one desire was that nothing should be done cither for them or by them. Freule van Borck, it must be known, occasionally took a philanthropic interest in the village at her brother's castle-gates, an interest which manifested itself in spasmodic bursts of tidying up neglected corners. She had suddenly disapproved of that long-standing eyesore, the Klomps' cottage, and had made a beginning of improvement by getting an energetic person in the north to accept of Pietje, the elder girl, as a possible servant, wages five pounds per annum, all found. This good news had been com- municated to Pietje by Hephzibah, the Freule's maid. Pietje had merely answered: "Let the Freule go her- self," but that retort got modified on its way to Louisa. So now the Domine went to try his hand. He especially disliked all intercourse with Klomp, because, during their interviews, one of the two invariably lost his temper, and that one was never the parishioner. THE DUTY OF THE PARENT. I 95 That was the worst of Klomp; he had no temper to lose. To-day, however, the parson rejoiced in notable compensations; these occupied his thoughts as he swung with large step through the woodlands. After the first shock of abandonment which every parent feels in a daughter's sudden rapture, he had settled down to com- placent contemplation of an eligible son-in-law. For the Domine, as we know, had never made a secret of his attachment to Otto. And he lacked the requisite affectation to convince himself that the secondary con- sideration of the young man's social position was alto- gether beneath the notice of a humble clergyman like himself. His darling Ursula would flit from the nest — that is true — but only to another close by, where he still could hear her singing. The Domine smiled gratefully over this linked perfection of prosperity: wife to the heir of the Horst, and wife to Otto van Helmont. "Lord God, I thank Thee," said the Domine, out aloud, among the fragrance of the solitary lane. His path wound in sandy whiteness beneath the heat-mist of the fir trees; there was a buzz on all sides of a myriad nothings, invisibly swelling the morning air. The cottage lay prone upon the ground, asleep. It had sunk as low as it could, and had pulled the ragged branches of the trees over its ears, comfortably hiding in the cool long shadows, naked and unashamed. The owner of the cottage lay prone upon the ground also; he had the advantage of the house in that he was consciously — and conscientiously — drowsing. "I sleep, but my heart waketh." Klomp knew he was not awake. 13* I96 MY LADY NOBODY. Man has few pleasures here below; has he any to equal that sensation? "Good-morning, Klomp," said the parson's bright, brisk voice at his ear. Klomp did not start; he merely half opened one eye and answered, "Domine," which was his abbreviated form of salutation. "Save your breath to spare your life," was one of his axioms. "Klomp, I've come about Pietje," continued the Domine with that loudness which, in him, was nervous- ness escaping, "I've heard about the place the Frenle has found for her. What a splendid opportunity! And so kind of the Freule ! " Klomp nodded assent. Like most country parsons, the Domine was very sensitive to disrespect. "You might get up, Klomp," he said, sharply. "Oh, if you wish it, sir, of course," replied the man, shuffling to his feet, with an air of contempt for the other's stupidity. He immediately lounged up against the wall, sinking both hands in his pockets. "Them's my sentiments to a T," he ejaculated, and jerked his head in the direction of a paper nailed against the dilapidated shutter, white on the dirty green. The parson, advancing curiously, read the following sentences in an illiterate scrawl: — "Standing is better than walking. Sitting is better than standing, Lying is better than sitting, And sleep is the best of all." I Corinthians XIX. 7 • Klomp nodded again, as the Domine turned with a jump. "How dare you put a Bible tag under such THE DUTY OF THE PARENT. I 97 nonsense as this?" cried the Domine, sniffing like a warhorse. "Yes, yes, the Bible knows," replied Klomp, imper- turbably. "It's word of Holy Scripture, Domine, so you can't say it isn't true." "Word of Holy scribbling!" cried the indignant clergyman. "It's no more in God's Bible, Klomp, than you are in God's fold. And you haven't even got it correct, for it ends 'And death is the best of all.' " Suddenly a dark cloud seemed to spread across the sunlit landscape. The surrounding larch trees shivered, with a long-drawn sigh. "I wish you would move a little on one side, Domine," said Klomp, querulously, though he had never heard of Diogenes. "Thank you. Well, a pedlar-man that came showed it me in a book, and he said it was in the Bible, and if it isn't, it ought to be. Them's my sentiments. Morning, Domine." His feet slipped forward, under the weariness of this long discourse; he recovered himself with a shuffle. Broad as the concluding hint had been, the Domine ignored it. "You never do anything, Klomp," he said angrily. "Then I never do anything wrong, Domine. I don't drink. I don't even smoke. I'm too poor." "Poverty is not disgraceful to confess," replied the Domine, quoting Pericles, "but not to escape it by exer- tion, that is disgraceful." Every child in the parish had heard the quota- tion. Klomp yawned: "'Peace and potatoes is better than a pother and a cow.' That's in the Bible, at any rate, " 1 g& MY LADY NOBODY. he replied, and suddenly he collapsed again upon the grass, before the startled parson's backward skip. "Could I see Pietje and speak to her? Perhaps she will listen to reason," hazarded the Domine, controlling his wrath. The father pointed to the cottage-door; then, suddenly remembering the vague possibility of future poor-relief, as yet not required, he faintly called his elder daughter's name. She crept out, with a half-pared potato in her hand. She was a ruddy-faced girl, not uncomely in her sloven- liness, like an apple that has fallen from the tree. "Well, Pietje," began Domine Rovers, patiently. "So you are going to Groningen to a nice home and useful work. It is very kind indeed of the good lady who is willing to teach you." "Yes, Domine," said Pietje. "Ah, that's right," cried the Domine, with pleased surprise. "I'm glad to see you've come to your senses. So you're going, like a good girl?" "No, Domine," said Pietje. "What do you mean, you impertinent creature?" exclaimed the minister, exceedingly irate. "Not going when you said you were. Not " "No, Domine," repeated Pietje, sitting down on the window-sill. Domine Rovers turned upon the recumbent father. Of course he had lost his temper; he had known all along that he would do so; the consciousness of losing hold caused him to let go all the faster: "I appeal to you," he cried — "you, the responsible guardian of this child. Her lot is in your hands to-day, for life-long weal or woe. She is incapable THE DUTY OF THE PARENT. I 99 of choosing, and unfit to do so. It is only your selfishness, Klomp, that is ruining your daughters' lives. You say you want them with you, I hear. A pretly excuse." "Yes, I love them," murmured Klomp, senti- mentally. "And what would Mietje do?" interposed Pietje, looking up from vague contemplation of the pendent potato-peel. Mietje was the child of twelve. This objection not being easy to meet, the Domine ignored it. "Fine love, indeed," he shouted to the father. "When a parent loves his child, he sacrifices any inclinations of his own to that child's real welfare. The parent who doesn't do that doesn't love. Do you understand me?" "Oh, yes," said Klomp. "Then take this to heart. If you don't send Pietje to Groningen, and make her go, you don't love her. There!" "Would the Domine send Juffrouw Ursula to Gron- ingen?" asked Pietje, askance. "Indeed I should," replied the Domine, triumphantly, thinking of the Horst. "Never should I allow my own interests to influence me. Be sensible, Klomp." But at this moment a welcome diversion occurred. Mietje, the child, came running round the cottage with pitiful cries. "Pussy!" she screamed from afar; "oh, father, pussy! The rope broke, and she's dropped into the well!" She was sobbing and shrieking; nobody scolded her for her mischief-making. Pietje started up with eager words of comfort. . 200 MY LADY NOBODY. "Father would get the ladder. Father would go down into the water. Father would fish out pussy." Klornp was already up and away. The two girls hurried after him. The Domine was left alone. "Well, I have done my duty," he mused, retracing his steps. "The best of us can do no more." He was a very good man. He had a good man's weakness for consciously doing his duty. As he turned into a little brown hollow all chequered with sunlit tracery, he saw Otto van Helmont come vaulting over a stile. "Ah Domine, I was looking for you," said Otto. Then they walked on side by side, and gradually an embarrassing silence settled down between them. The Domine broke it. "It is a very fine day," said the Domine. "Yes," replied Otto. "Domine, when Ursula and I are married, we must go back to Java." "Never," said the Domine, and with a sweep of his walking-stick he knocked down a thistle "I — I am aware that perhaps I have hardly acted quite fairly," began Otto, speaking with some agitation. "It has all come so suddenly; I have allowed myself to be overwhelmed. Apart from her general condemna- tion of India, which I have never treated quite seriously, the subject has not yet been mooted between us. I wished first to speak of it to you. I feel that I am asking " The Domine had stopped in the middle of the narrow path. "It was the condition," he interrupted, hoarsely. "She made it the condition. Never." THE DUTY OF THE PARKNT. 201 "No, indeed, we have not spoken of it," cried Otto, in distress. The Domine stamped his foot. "Women always forget everything," he said. Otto hurried on. "I want to explain," he continued eagerly. "I hope you will let me explain. It is a most painful thing for all of us. I cannot stay at the Horst, Domine; that is quite out of the question. In fact, the sooner I leave it the better." "Why?" broke in the Domine vehemently. "What nonsense! Of course you can stay at the Horst!" "I cannot bear the idea of earning my living in this country, you yourself have always discouraged it. Besides, I must earn much more than my living. That is imperative. Especially now." He checked himself; he was not going to speak to the Domine of the Baroness's shattered hopes. But Ursula's father under- stood. Involuntarily both men's eyes wandered away across the fields towards the chimneys of the Horst embedded in foliage. Then their glances met. "Never. Never. Never," repeated the Domine pas- sionately. "In a few years I shall probably want money," declared Otto decisively. I shall want a good deal of money, I expect. I must do what I can to earn it. You will say, perhaps, like my father, that till now I have tried and failed. All the more reason to try again." "No, I don't say that," responded the Domine honestly. "You know I don't. But, Otto, I can't let my Ursula go to Java." 202 MY LADY NOBODY. Otto did not immediately return to the charge. Presently he began again, in quite a low voice, almost a whisper, under the laughing blue sky: "More than fifteen years ago a young man came to you, complaining bitterly that he was sick of his empty, meaningless existence. He was tired of life, he said. And you answered, 'Go and work. The people who work have no time to get tired.' " "But I never said, 'Go and amass money,'" inter- rupted the old man, lifting a shaky arm. "You said, 'Spend your own money.' How well I remember your saying that the night I came to you! 'You are a grown man. Don't spend anyone's money but your own.' It came to me like a revelation. It was so directly opposed to what I had been taught from my youth. In my world they say, 'Only don't earn money. You may do anything except that.' " "Well, you have obeyed that precept," replied the Domine, a little bitterly. Then he repented imme- diately. "Otto, you're a good fellow. I can't let my Ursula go away to Java." "I was wrong, perhaps," said Otto, "to demand so great a sacrifice. I ought to have spoken more plainly of my intentions beforehand " "You ought indeed," interjected the Domine, glad of every vent. "You have behaved exceedingly badly." "So be it. Well, I leave the matter in your hands. Personally, of course, I consider I ought to return. I have a fresh offer — a really advantageous opening on a sugar plantation, a large distillery " The Domine looked at him. THE DUTY OF THE PARENT. 203 "That means rough work," said the Domine. "But you must decide," continued Otto, evasively. "If you distinctly prefer it, I shall look for occupation in Holland. Only in no case can I remain at the Horst." "You can," cried the Domine, quite angrily. Otto had stopped. His eyes were following a distant swallow's trackless dips. "And even if I could," he said slowly, "my wife could not — Ursula could not." The Domine's eyes sought his in long inquiry. "With Gerard," said Otto at last. "Ah!" Then the Domine cried, "Stuff and nonsense! stuff and nonsense! I don't believe a word of it. Nor do you." "I leave the decision in your hands," repeated Otto. "Some employment of some kind in some Dutch town, if you so wish." The Domine leant up against a tree; he closed his eyes; his bronzed face was quite white. The wood seemed to hold its breath under the sneering sky. "When a father loves his child," began the Domine; then his voice broke. "My Ursula," he said. "God have mercy on me! The Lord gives and the Lord takes away." He stopped. Otto, thoughtfully wending his way homewards, reached a spot where the Manor House burst into view, all at once, through the park. Unconsciously he stood still. The moments passed by; he remained without moving; a yellow butterfly came foolishly hovering among the bushes; he did not see it. Suddenly a single tear lay heavy on his cheek. 204 MY LADY NOBODY. CHAPTER XIX. FORFEITS ALL ROUND. For the next three months Otto worked in a sugar- distillery at Boxlo, a little town among the wilds of Brabant. It was rough work, indeed, as the Domine had foretold. Night after night, the Jonker stood, stripped to the waist, before the blazing furnaces; in the small hours he came home to his lodgings and strove to snatch from the daylight such sleep as he could. Fortunately he was very robust, but that, although an alleviation, can hardly be considered an excuse. Sometimes even he wondered whether such slaving, amid grime and oil-stench and sick throbs, was his natural fate, but his father had truly described him as animated by a passion of self-torture. Out-of-the- way horrors were probably one's duty. Besides, what other career was open to him at the moment? Once in India, with his friend's assistance, he would stand an excellent chance of making a fortune by sugar, as that friend had done before him, in half a dozen years. So he worked, night after night, month after month, with set lips and still eyes. Occasionally he spent a Sunday at the Manor House, as if a traveller traversing mountain solitudes had halted from time to time at a Parisian cafe. His father and mother accepted him FORFEITS ALL ROUND. 205 without comment, adverse or. otherwise; in the smooth design of their lives he was an arabesque run mad. During his stay the Baroness chiefly regretted Gerard. The only person who stuck to him through it all, staunch and true, was Roderick Rovers. Once having accepted the duty of sacrifice, the Domine delighted in its pain. He rejoiced in proving to himself how, like the old soldier he was, he could probe his own wound without wincing. "It is a great thing in Otto to go," he said. "It is a great thing in me to let him take Ursula. Great souls do great things gladly." Then he laughed at himself: "Pshaw," he said, "'Men always imagine the struggle of the moment, while they are engaged in it, to be the greatest that ever was.' You will find that in Thucydides, Ursula. Thucydides was a very wise man." Ursula acquiesced a little impatiently. She did not want to go to Java. She thought Otto should have made known his intentions in time. Placed between the two, she immediately discarded her brand-new lover for the father on whose affection her whole life had been built up. In the sudden certainty of separation from the Domine, she discovered, with alarming unex- pectedness, that she could very well have continued to exist without Otto. For several days their engagement dangled on a thread. Her irritated hesitancy filled her lover with dismay, for it strengthened all his doubts of Gerard. An honest maiden's accepted lover does not ask her if she loves another man. Indignantly Otto wiped the momentary film from the pure reflection he bore in his heart. But 206 MY LADY NOBODY. there are actions we barely commit, yet remember a lifetime. It was the Domine, after all, who married Ursula to Otto, with deep commiseration for himself. His dear child's filial loyalty, while it wakened all his pride, showed him his own path the more clearly. "A woman shall leave father and mother and shall cleave unto her husband," he said. "Never shall I allow you to desert Otto for my sake. You do not know your own heart, child. Your magnanimity leads you astray." Ultimately Ursula almost believed this. But she conditioned for a two years' absence only. "I, had such been my lofty mission, would have proved myself faithful unto death," said Miss Mopius, to whom came outer echoes of the struggle. "A great love, like blazing sunlight, hides the whole world in its own bright mist. Van Helmont has dropped a diamond to play with a pebble. So like a man." Miss Mopius, since her disappointment, had grown very romantic in her talk. According to the advertisements it was the Sympathetico Lob: according to her own account it was her mighty sorrow. "Ah, my dear, do not let us speak of it. Every woman's heart is a sanctuary with a crypt." She snorted at Ursula's heavy eyes. "Every man gets the wife he deserves," she said. "With women that is not the case, their choice being limited." Ursula was incapable of small, spiteful retorts; she made up her mind that she would prove to Aunt Josine and the world how worthily Otto had chosen. So she set to work on her trousseau, and was very affectionate to her father. There was something exceed- ingly painful in this latter-day softness between two FORFEITS ALT, ROUND. 20J hitherto undemonstrative characters. When Ursula laid down a neglected needle to look across at the Domine, the old man would jump up with swift repression, and angrily bid her go on. The days shortened: perhaps that made them seem to pass so swiftly, and the ap- pointed wedding-morn drew near. Meanwhile another wedding was also announced as imminent, and various members of the Helmont family gnashed their teeth over the prospect. The whole of Drum, however, jabbered fairly good-natured approval, which is surely saying a good deal, and more than most young couples can hope for. "Yes, Gerard, it is quite true," said Helena van Trossart, stopping, in a crowded ball-room, a white vision among the glitter and hum. "You could have assured yourself it was true without insulting me by the question." Her clear eyes flashed. "I am going to marry Willie van Troyen." Gerard was very hot — the room was hot. "No," he said, thickly, "I should never have believed it, unless I had heard it from your own lips." He drew a little aside, almost secure, yet not quite, among the restless throng. "I cannot make you out at all," he went on, in great agitation, "I — I don't want to say anything, but " He checked himself; his eyebrows twitched; his whole face grew troubled with suppressed meaning. She understood him perfectly. For a few moments — perhaps half a minute — she remained quite silent, with eyes downcast, her bosom heaving, her graceful figure a-tremble, like her lips. At last, amid the rhyth- mic flow of gaiety around, she lifted her solemn gaze 2o8 MY LADY NOEODY. to his, and spoke with slow distinctness. "I know what you would taunt me with," she said. "You think me inconsistent. But in his case it doesn't matter. I do not love him." And then the room swam round in a whirl, and she was gone. After that, they were more than ever unwilling to meet. Yet, in a little circle like theirs the thing was unavoidable, and Gerard had constantly to face what was almost more painful, the tacit misery of the fat Baroness, Helen's comfortable aunt, who understood, with a woman's insight in all such matters, that every- thing ought, somehow, to have been different from what it was. The Baroness van Trossart complained to her hus- band, but the Baron said that the Van Troyens were as good a family as the Van Helmonts, and he didn't see that it mattered. "Personally," he added, "I am unable to perceive much difference between the two young men. They are both fair-complexioned and gentlemanly, and ill- mannered, like their companions. I wonder that Nellie should have thought the exchange worth her while." The lady would have protested. "My dear, I cannot help it. Had / been consulted I should have requested Helen to marry your three nephews Van Asveld. Their mother is pestering me to find the whole three of them places with a start of two hundred a year. The thing is impossible!" He coughed testily, and before his important eyes he held a blue book upside down. FORFEITS ALL ROUND. 2O0. Equally bootless was the Bai-oness's attempt to seek refuge in the sympathy of Mademoiselle Papotier. That impenetrable Frenchwoman only replied: "Mon Dieu, Madame, le manage n'est pas l'amour!" taking the name of three holy things in vain within one short sentence, after the manner of her race. But one evening towards dusk, as Gerard was dress- ing for dinner, he heard someone enter his little front sitting-room, to whom he called out, into the heavy twi- light: "All right, old chap! Wait a minute till I get my shirt on. There's some gin on the sideboard." Alas, that gentlemen should drink gin! Presently he went forward with his fingers at his collar-stud. In the shadow stood a shawl-enfolded figure whom he thought he recognised. "Oh, it's you, is it?" he said, "I told the landlady to send you up. If you don't do the things better I must get some other woman. I believe you purposely wear holes in my underclothing." "Indeed, Monsieur," came the reply in French, "I am most anxious to wash your dirty linen, but, Mon- sieur Gerard, you give your family almost too much of it." "By Jove!" replied Gerard. "I say, mademoiselle, wait a minute till I " He disappeared. Mademoiselle Papotier smiled a supercilious smile. "Ah, que les hommes sont plaisants," she murmured. "Mauvais plaisants!" she added. But when Gerard returned a few moments later she was boldly agreeable to him, with a smirk round her slightly moustachoed lips. "To what am I indebted?" began the young officer. My Lady Nobody. I. *4 2IO MY LADY NOBODY. She waved a little deprecatory hand in the neatest of gray gloves. "A moment!" she said. "Can you not spare me a moment? I am fatigued. May I not repose myself?" Gerard, ashamed and awkward, hurriedly pushed forward an arm-chair. "Ah, but sit you down also," she expostulated. "Only the disagreeable says itself standing." Then, as he obeyed, she looked at him with an ogle. "What a handsome man you are!" she said. The words fright- ened Gerard excessively but unnecessarily; it was only part of Mademoiselle Papotier's philosophy that you could put every man on earth into a good humour by broadly praising his looks. If Red Riding Hood had said to the wolf "What fine teeth you have!" instead of "What big ones!" he. would probably have abandoned his intention of eating her. "No wonder the poor thing loved you," immediately added the little governess, casting down her eyes. She was hung round with black jet indiscriminately, and she picked at it — now here, now there. Gerard, as we know, was not a diplomatist. "Did she ask you to come and tell me that?" he cried with irritable irony. "Ah, Monsieur van Helmont," replied the French- woman, softly, and her swarthy face seemed to lose its vigour. "It is always like that; you men, you knock at a woman's heart until it opens, and then you cry out in scorn at the open door!" She hesitated for a mo- ment, still plucking at the jet. "First the beautiful Ur- sula," she said, "and then my own sweet Helen. Ay, monsieur, it is not right!" FORFEITS ALL ROUND. 2 I I "Ursula?" cried Gerard in amazement. "Yes, do you think no one knows? Oh, that is like you men again. You can always trust the woman you have wronged to keep your secret. You are safe. Not a word has the noble Helen spoken; but trust Pa- potier to see for herself." "It is not true," said Gerard, with real fervour. "I have never wronged a hair of Ursula's head." Mademoiselle Papotier blushed, actually blushed. "The word 'wrongs,'" she said, "is not easily defined; it has a masculine and a feminine gender. Ah, there you behold the former governess! One thing, however, I can tell you, Monsieur van Helmont, it is Mademoiselle Ursula and her wrongs that have lost you your bride. I repeat, Helen has told me nothing, but Mademoiselle Rovers, and she alone, has broken off your engagement." Then she went on to tell her astounded listener about the interview on the garden seat which she had watched from her staircase window. "And after that," she concluded, "there was an end of it. My Helen would not have the parson's daughter's leavings. And quite right." She shut up her mouth with a snap. But she opened it again immediately. "Nevertheless," she went on, "I consider she exag- gerates. Especially because she cared for you, and your previous belle evidently did not. It is for that I am come. The step is absurd, perhaps, but what is that to me? I am come to say: The marriage with this little rabbit-eye is a farce. It must be prevented. Go tell my Helen that there is nothing between you and the fiancee of your brother. Women are vain; who 14* ill IMY LADY NOBODY. knows what this Ursula has lied? You appear sincere. And I say one thing more, though I should not. Mark me. Helen will marry you if she can. She is proud, poor little thing, as she has a right to be, but Ah, these men, these men! Then you will bid the little comrade go away home. I do not love you, Monsieur Gerard. I do not say these things for love of you. But they are true." She had spoken with suppressed vehemence, she now smiled a thin smile, and her lips trembled. "I do not know what to say or think," replied Gerard, greatly agitated. "Towards Ursula, at least, I am innocent. What interest can she have had in ruining my chance with Helen? Mademoiselle, you — you must really excuse me. I am going out to dinner. I shall be late as it is!" He started gladly to his feet. She also rose, with a great rustle of scorn. "Good-night, Monsieur," she said. "A benevolent fairy — remember there are old fairies — has shown you the hole in the hedge: will you have the sense to creep through, unscratched? Ah, be sure that I should rather have barred your path with my body, but that love cannot bear to see the whole life of the beauty be- numbed in the wrong prince's arms. Princes forsooth!" She dropped him a curtsey and hurried away. He had not even time to sit down and think it out. His excuse had been as imperative as it was inane. He flew off to his dinner-party and laughed and flirted, wondering all the time whether Ursula could possibly have had "a weakness" for him. That seemed to be the only possible explanation. Evidently it was Made- moiselle Papotier's. Romance, exaggeration, these were FORFEITS ALL ROUND. 2 13 probable; but he could hardly believe in intentional spite or untruth. And yet — he was very much out of temper with Ursula for her capture of "that fool, Otto." His rage against his brother, softened by time and a capital new horse, melted still more at the thought that he had wronged Otto regarding Helen. Ursula, then, was at the bottom of the mischief. Ursula, the designing in- truder; the nobody who, one day, would rule at the Horst. She had always been a subject to him of kindly indifference. He was angry with himself for the violence of his new passion against her. On returning home, he found a note awaiting him. It contained only these two quotations, evidently from Papotier's favourite seventeenth century romances: — "Said Marcellino: 'Damaris, my brother is faithless. I can prove it to you. Why, then, should your heart, blinded by use- less smoke, still refuse to perceive the flame that is burning in mine — i.e., heart.' "Rodelinda replied: 'Adelgunda, I thank you for warning me. The lover that deserted you shall never have an opportunity of trampling upon Rodelinda's affections.' " "Exactly," said Gerard, sighing heavily. He was very miserable. And then he went to sleep. Meanwhile, Otto plodded on, unconscious of the sins laid to his charge, and to Ursula's. The story which Adeline had forced upon him in the public gardens at Drum he had folded away on a shelf in his memory. What else could he do? He was not the man to influence Gerard. We know it was not through him that the tale reached Ursula — or Helen. His occupations called him away from Boxlo tq 214 MY LADY NOBODY. Bois-le-Duc, the capital of Brabant. There he came into frequent contact with a cousin, of whom he had previously known very little — nothing personally — and regarding whom his parents would hardly have cared to enlighten any one. This was a young Van Helmont, who lived with a widowed mother, and supported him- self as a post-office clerk. The Helmonts of the Horst did not object to his poverty, but to his mother. To Otto's enthusiastic eulogies the Baroness listened bored. She was too polite to ask him to change the subject: besides, perhaps she felt that such a measure would have proved quite useless, for, whatever Otto might select to say, he bored her by his way of saying it. She could only love this son, not live with him. She rejoiced with exceeding joy when Gerard, whose char- acter was incapable of vindictiveness, consented once more to sit opposite to Otto at table. Still, the brothers held aloof. And the wedding-day drew near, overshadowingly near. One person delighted in that thought. Otto. MYNHEER MOPIUS'S PARTY. 21$ CHAPTER XX. MYNHEER MOPIUS'S PARTY. Mynheer Jacobus Mopius stood on the hearth-rug in his wife's bedroom. "My dear," he said, "I must admit this — since you have taken to spending the greater part, of your day upstairs, the house has become most insufferably dull." For Mevrouw Mopius this remark had long ago lost all its novelty; still, she never grew to like it, even while she meekly answered: — "Yes, my dear, yes. I know. I shall be better soon." And she added, as one of her familiar after- thoughts, "Harriet ought to amuse you." "Oh, Harriet amuses me fast enough," retorted Mynheer Mopius, with unpleasing alacrity. "But you'd soon be all right if you left off remembering you were ill." "Yes, my dear, yes," repeated Mevrouw Mopius, closing her faded eyes. Her cheeks were faded; her hair was faded; her flannel dressing-gown was faded. In the fading light, complacent Mynheer Mopius, look- ing down upon her, thought how excessively faded she was. "Only yesterday," Mynheer continued, triumphantly, "I purposely asked your doctor what was wrong with you. And what do you think his answer was? He said 2l6 MY LADY NOBODY. he really couldn't tell. There!" Mynheer Mopius stood out, defiant, protruding his portly prosperity. "He — said — he — really — couldn't — tell." It gave Mevrouw Mopius some comfort to learn how literally the physician fulfilled the promise she had ex- tracted from him. "And it's absurd to have the whole house made wretched by an illness the doctor don't even put a name to. If you're not down to breakfast to-morrow I shall send for a professor from Amsterdam." "Don't, Jacobus," gasped the lady, "I'm feeling better to-day. I really am. I don't want no professors from anywhere." "But I do. Sarah, 1 believe you enjoy being ill. Thank goodness I can afford to cure my wife." "There's another reason, besides," he added after a moment, "why I want you to hurry up. There's this wedding of Ursula's coming on. They've behaved very badly, I know; but Roderick was never a man to know about manners — never in society, poor fellow. How- ever, I'm not one to take offence. I intend to give a big party here in the 'bride-days.'"* "Jacobus!" exclaimed his wife. "Why, we don't even know the van Helmonts. She hasn't even presented him here!" "My dear, did I not say that Roderick is a boor? Josine tells me they have paid none of the customary visits, on either side. In one word, they behaved as people who don't know how to behave, and I am going to behave as a person who does know." * The fortnight preceding the ceremony. MYNHEER MOPIUS'S PARTY. 21 J "But, Jacobus " "Ursula is my own sister Mary's child. My own sainted sister Mary's. And I shouldn't even give a wedding-party to my own sister Mary's only child? Sarah, it is all your increasing indolence. You are prematurely making an old woman of yourself. Look at me. I am two years your junior, but it might be twenty. Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" As he said this, he arranged the rose in his button-hole, with a great crackle of his blue-spotted white waistcoat. An oily satisfaction played over the yellow smoothness of his cheeks. The truth of it was, of course, that the whole man burned with eagerness to leap, at one rush, into the glories of the great world. The opportunity was unique; it offered more than the boldest could have hoped for; we may well forgive his anxiety. Mevrouw Mopius lay in utter collapse, a crumpled rag, against one corner of her great chintz chair. "I want Harriet!" she said, faintly. Her husband gave a great snort of contempt as he stalked from the room. A few minutes later Harriet entered, a novel, as usual, in her dangling hand. "Harriet, I must have my drops," exclaimed the in- valid, sharply. "The doctor said I was to have them every two hours. And in freshly drawn water each time. I told him it couldn't be done. Doctor, I said, I've nobody to fetch me the water." Harriet busied herself about the side-table, mechanic- ally, and in silence. "'And your niece?' said the doctor," Mevrouw 2 I 8 MY LADY NOBODY. I Mopius continued. "So I had to tell him you were no good." "Oh, he knows that," replied Harriet. "I'm no nurse. I can't look after sick people." "There's one person you'll nurse, if ever she's sick," replied Mevrouw with a grunt, swallowing down her me- dicine. "Harriet, do you know the date for which Ur- sula's wedding is fixed?" "Thursday month," curtly answered Harriet, who just now hated the fortunate bride with unreasoning envy — an envy that wrung tears from the lonely girl at night. "What day of the month?" persisted Mevrouw, wearily. "It's the twenty-third." "Harriet, you must go across to the doctor's for me. I can't have him here again just yet; his coming vexes your uncle so. You must say to him — listen — word for word: you must say, 'Aunt bids me ask: Will uncle be able to go to the wedding-feast on the sixteenth of next month?' Just that. And you must bring back an answer — yes or no. Go along." "But the wedding is on the twenty-third," pro- tested Harriet, sulkily. "And, besides, Uncle Mopius isn't ill." "Yes he is," replied the invalid with guilty inci- siveness. "You just go and do as you're told, and come back with the answer immediate. Harriet, if you don't say a word about it downstairs — you'd only make your uncle nervous — I'll give you my Florentine brooch, the mosaic of the two doves drinking. Now hurry away." Thus incited, Harriet sulked off through the stolid MYNHEER MOPIUS'S PARTY. 2 I Q streets. If Mevrouw Mopius did not send a note to the physician, it was not only that she felt physically and autographically inadequate, but also because she confidently believed that Harriet would in any case have broken the seal. The messenger soon reached her destination. A maidservant admitted her into the young doctor's private room. He was at luncheon. "My aunt sends me to you on a fool's errand," she began, abruptly. "This is her literal message: 'There's a wedding feast on the sixteenth — which there isn't — will Uncle Mopius be able to go?' " She hung her head with affected accentuation of the indifference she was really feeling. The doctor hesitated and looked curiously at her. "I'm to bring back an answer— yes or no," she added. "Yes or no," repeated the doctor. "Would you mind saying it again, Miss Verveen?" "There's a wedding entertainment on the sixteenth," answered Harriet, with almost ill-mannered impatience. "Will Uncle Mopius be able to go?" The young doctor studied his boots for a minute. Then he said, slowly: "No; I believe, considering the circumstances, I may safely commit myself to a 'No.' As your aunt so expressly wishes it, you must tell her my opinion is 'No.'" He was much annoyed, but he could not help himself. By this time he had got some- what accustomed to Mevrouw Mopius, the strangest of patients, who treated him like a younger colleague called in for a consultation. "Very good," said Harriet. "I'll tell her. And 2 20 MY LADY NOBODY. now, please, a little questioning on my own account. What's the matter with Uncle Mopius?" "Nothing, Juffrouw Harriet," replied the young man heartily, with sudden relief. "I am glad to be able to assure you that your excellent uncle enjoys very fair health." "Don't tell me untruths, if you please," persisted the girl, greatly in earnest. "I have very particular reasons of my own for desiring to know. What's wrong with him? Why shouldn't he go to a party — if there were a party — on the sixteenth?" "Oh, he might be a little out of sorts, you know. You had better give your aunt her message. It must be rather dull for you sometimes, Juffrouw Harriet, eh?" He cast an admiring glance at her; he had quick sym- pathetic eyes, good doctor's eyes. "By no means," replied Harriet; but her attitude, grown suddenly listless again, belied her words. "So you see what a fool's errand mine was! As for Aunt Sarah, of course I know she's very ill. I wish she wasn't. It's very hard on me. I can't nurse invalids, and I hate to seem unkind." "Oh, I'm sure you couldn't be unkind to anyone," said the young man, sweetly. It struck him that his lunch-table looked very forlorn. "You couldn't be, Miss Harriet." "Oh, yes, I could," replied Harriet, quickly. "I am always unkind, for instance, to people who call me Miss Harriet, and forget that my name is Miss Verveen." The doctor laughed rather awkwardly as she turned to go. "You are quite right," he answered. "Quite right. MYNHEER MOPIUS S PARTY. 221 Either Juffrouw Verveen or — not Juffrouw at all; I envy the privileged few." "So it's 'No'?" she said, with her hand on the door knob. "So it's 'No'?" he repeated boldly, looking her straight in the face. But he read his answer there, and sobered suddenly, as the physician crushed down the lover in presence of the great tragedy so quietly en- acting. "Yes, I'm afraid it must be 'No,'" he said. "The sixteenth, you said? Tell your aunt I am awfully sony, but as far as I am able to judge she had better think 'No.' " Harriet hurried home through the autumn grayness of the sleepy little town. A peculiar smile hung fixed upon her forbidding features, a mixture of anxiety and content. She went straight up to her aunt's bedroom. "The answer is 'No,' " she said. Mevrouw Mopius made no reply. She lay back, with closed eyes and sunken jaws, almost as her niece had left her when sent forth upon this hideous errand. Harriet flung herself down on a chair, and resumed her novel. Presently she rose to slip away. Mevrouw Mopius opened her eyes. "Harriet, give me my tambour- frame," she said. Harriet obediently drew forth Laban from his cupboard, and removed the sheltering tissue paper. "I wonder could I do a stitch or two," said Mevrouw Mopius, dole- fully. She sat trying to thread a big needle with shaky fingers. Harriet waited a moment, watching her. "Let me do it," suggested Harriet at last. But Aunt Sarah resented this interference. "I wasn't attending," she said, angrily, "I was think- 222 MY LADY NOBODY. ing of something else. Surely you don't imagine I couldn't thread a needle?" And as she still continued trying, pitifully, trem- blingly, her niece turned impatiently away. "Do you know," continued Mevrouw Mopius, con- templating the gaudy flare of patriarchs and camels, "I have been thinking that I should like to give it, if I can finish it, to Ursula Rovers for a wedding present. She admired it very much when she was here. She was the only person that ever admired it." Her voice became quite sorrowful. "Domine Pock admired it," said Harriet, sooth- ingly. "Yes, after dining here!" exclaimed the invalid, with a flash of grim humour. "He said Jacob must have had just such a face as that. Now, Harriet, that was flattery. For Jacob couldn't have had exactly that sort of face." Indeed, had the countenance of the patriarch blazed in such continuous scarlet, his uncle could never have engaged him to look after cows. "Besides, Pock doesn't really know about Jacob's face," continued Mevrouw Mopius, with a sick person's insistence. "For I asked him myself if we had an authentic photograph" — she meant "portrait" — "and he said we hadn't. Though we have of Joseph, he said. It seems a very great pity. I should have liked to do it from the life." Mevrouw Mopius sank into aggrieved consideration of the father's remissness about sitting for his likeness as compared with the foresight shown by the son. "Yes, I should give it to Ursula for her wedding," she resumed, after another long pause, "unless " MYNHEER MOPIUS's PARTY. 22 3 She broke off. "Unless what?" prompted Harriet. "Unless I should like it for a cushion in my coffin. I think that might be rather nice." "Aunt!" exclaimed Harriet in real horror, and a sudden film of feeling clouded her passionate eyes. "Why, my dear, whatever is the matter?" queried the elder lady, calmly. "All of us die some day, do we not? And when my time has come, I should like to carry away with me my last bit of work." "Ah, but this is not going to be your last, you know," comforted Harriet, with the easy infatuation of the survivor. "Well, if not, then Ursula shall certainly have it," Mevrouw said, cheerfully. "I wish I were quite sure she would put it, as a firescreen, in her drawing-room. Imagine my work in the drawing-room at the Horst. I should like that." She resumed her tender contempla- tion of the immovably staring figures. "I am very tired," she whispered, "go down now to your uncle and tell him the doctor says he can have his party on the sixteenth or after. Don't say anything about my message; your uncle's got a cold, but he doesn't want people to know it. There can be no objection, however, to his asking people here." Poor woman, she prided herself on her clumsy diplomacy. "Let him get ready for his party," she reflected. "It will keep him busy — meanwhile." In the face of Mynheer Mopius's blindly staring selfishness, the stratagem was completely successful. Plunged up to the eyebrows in preparations for a 2 24 MY LADY NOBODY. gorgeous entertainment, which was, of course, to excel all similar ones, that gentleman forgot to notice his wife's condition. He would run up to her with long descriptions of his arrangements, to which she listened reposefully for hours. When he went downstairs again she smiled. He was happy, and he was letting her die in peace. Soon Mynheer Mopius was obliged to slip over to Horstwyk to consult with the relations who had so sud- denly increased in importance. He found the trio gathered in the parsonage drawing-room to receive him, and he patted their heads all round. He even con- descended to chaff Josine about "one wedding beget- ting another," as they say in Dutch, and proposed that she should be bridesmaid and make up to the best man. "I should never marry my junior. I disapprove of such matches," replied Josine, hitting out, however un- reasonably, at both Ursula and Mopius. "Well, we can't all marry our twin-sisters, like Abra- ham," said Mopius, reddening. "Can we, Roderick?" "Sarah was Abraham's half-sister," answered the Domine, wistfully gazing out at the placid sky. "Well, at any rate, my Sarah's only six years my senior, and I made it two the day we married. I've done my duty to the old girl. Ursula, I hope that, thirty years hence, you'll be able to say as much." "You married for money," retorted Josine. As her niece's wedding day approached, Miss Mopius's growing disagreeableness became a source of great agitation to herself. She smelt at her vinaigrette. "Pooh!" replied Mopius. "If so, I quadrupled the MYNHEER MOPIUS's PARTY. 22% sum. Don't be more of a nuisance than you can help, Josine, or I shan't invite you to my party." "There are the Baron and the Baroness coming down the road," interposed Ursula, watching her father's flushed face. "Where? Show me, Ursula," cried Mopius, bound- ing to the window. She laughed. "I do believe they are coming here!" she cried. "You will have to meet them now, Uncle Jacobus." "I have no objection to meeting them," replied Jacobus, red and important. "I was going to ask them, of course, to my party. I have no objection to the aristocracy as such." A moment later he was bowing and smiling — bow- ing what he considered an eighteenth-century bow. And the Baron was expressing his delight at making the ac- quaintance of Ursula's uncle, "of whom he had heard so much." Furthermore, Mynheer van Helmont spoke with admiration of Mynheer Mopius's villa, upon which Mynheer Mopius replied, in the kindest manner possible, that it was very nice but not as fine as the Horst. He also proffered his invitation on the spot, and the Baro- ness, smiling elaborately, accepted it as in duty bound. It was some time before her courteous husband con- sented to catch her eye, and then she immediately arose. In those few minutes the retired attorney had twice called Mynheer van Helmont "Baron," and several other atrocius things had occurred. "How small she is! She needn't look so bumptious ! " thought Mopius as the little lady shook hands. He was telling her how there would be dancing at his party, and he poked Josine in the ribs. "In my young days out at Batavia," he said, "I My Lady Nobody. I. 1 5 2 26 MY LADY NOBODY. used frequently to dance with the Governor-General's lady. I daresay, Baron, you remember Steelenaar, a good Viceroy in his day?" He hoped for the honour of the opening polonaise with her ladyship. "My dancing days are over, Mynheer," said the Baroness, stiffly. "I doubt whether I should be able to acquit myself properly. Things have changed so much in society since my youth." "Ah, there you are right, Mevrouw," replied Jacobus Mopius with fervour. "Now, at the Drum Casino, nowadays — I am an old member — you meet people who, in your time, would not have dared to appear at a public performance." "I do not doubt it," replied the Baroness, taking leave. Husband and wife proceeded leisurely homewards. Presently the Baron said: "My dear, I cannot understand your caring so much. Surely Mynheer Mopius is only a continuation of Juffrouw Josine." "I had said nothing," replied the Baroness quickly. "But, as you broach the subject, I must confess that I think you might have stayed half the time and showed a quarter the courtesy." The Baron laughed. "He is Ursula's single rich relation," said the Baron. "I never forget that. And, besides, I am naturally amiable, Cecile. It is a mas- culine weakness." "I hate money," cried the Baroness. "If there were no money in the world there would be no vul- garity." "How sad that would be for the non-vulgar," re- MYNHEER MOPIUS S PARTY. 227 plied her consort. "Yes, he is Ursula's single 'pros- pect.' I was aware of the fact, but, of course, he stated it. I had very good reason to be amiable." "He may live to be a hundred," said the Baroness, petulantly. "Not he. His widow might, if she were healthy, but she happens to be very ill. My dear, you put things so roughly, you love money more than I do. But I hope he will live to be a hundred. If only pour nous encourager, nous autres. We all ought to live to be a hundred; a hundred years isn't much. As a rule it's the widows who live on for ever. We men die fast enough." "No, no!" cried the Baroness, drawing her arm through his. "Don't talk like that, Theodore; I should never survive you!" "My dear, if I can I will give you but little oppor- tunity. Do not forget that, when I depart, I must leave my art treasures to Otto, not to mention the Horst." They walked on, arm in arm, each silently busy with grave thoughts. "Somehow, I have occasionally imagined of late that it wouldn't be for long." The Baron's voice suddenly changed. "But that's all nonsense," he said briskly. "It seems too cruel to die and leave it all." He swept his eyes across his fields and forests. His wife pressed his hand. "My dear," he said, "do you object to my lighting a cigar?" i5* 2 28 MY LADY NOBODY. When the sixteenth came round there was no dan- cing. Mynheer Mopius sat in a darkened room. Yes, Mevrouw Mopius had provokingly died. At the last moment she resolved to take her unfinished patriarchs down into the grave with her, but she left her collection of samples to Ursula, because Ursula had shown some appreciation of her work. BARON VAN HELMONT. CHAPTER XXI. BARON VAN HELMONT. So Otto and Ursula were married with all the customary paraphernalia of vulgar exposure — para- phernalia which cause a sensible man to resolve, as he runs the gauntlet on his way back from the pillory, that the first time in his case shall certainly be the last. Theirs was as quiet a wedding as unselfish people can get — which means that it was not a quiet wed- ding. Their honeymoon trip was but an introduction to the longer journey; at Genoa the big Java steamship would meet them; meanwhile, creeping down the Riviera, they lingered for a fortnight in that Paradise of Snob- bery, Cannes. Cannes is a beautiful garden, planted with princes; what more can be desired by the mil- lionaire, or by the numerous curs to whom the far scent of the millionaire is as sausage on the breeze? Other towns contain elements manifold, paltry and noble; ex- quisite, sun-wrapt Cannes has nothing but the worship of gold by glitter, and the worship of glitter by gold. The young couple, therefore, passed through it un- perceived. It was only natural that they should appear in the "Strangers' List" as Monsieur et Madame de Holmani. They held out their hands to nobody, and nobody held out his hands to them, a kind of negative 23O MY LADY NOBODY. Ishmaelism, which has its advantages, even outside a honeymoon. To Ursula, crossing, simultaneously, the frontiers of Holland, home and maidenhood, this fortnight never assumed the cool colours of reality. Before it could do that, it was over. She was back at Horstwyk again, like an awakened dreamer, in the dusk of a troubled morn. While the trip lasted — on the Paris Boulevards, among the orange-groves of La Croisette — the farewell peep of home hung heavy before her eyes. She seemed to see them all photographed on the steps of the Manor House: the Baroness, firm-set and still, the Baron cough- ing and sneezing, not from emotion, but from the sudden effects of a violent cold which should have kept him away from the ceremony. And her father, his one arm drawn tight across the "Legion" on his breast, his eyes fixed not on his daughter's last appeal for a fare- well benison, but on some far beyond of sunlight after storm. The thought of Otto blended with the thought of her father, and over these, which were her thoughts of love, lay ever the thought of separation. Sadness is not a good beginning for a young wife who "respects and admires." The Sabines, under similar circumstances, actually consented to live with their parents-in-law. "Yes, it is very beautiful," she said, looking across the bay to the blue-black of the sunset Esterel. They were on the terrace of their hotel at Californie. "Oh yes, it is very beautiful," she said. She spoke with that admission which is a protest. There are times when we think that nature, like some women, would be all BARON VAN HELMONT. 23 I the better for a little less flamboyant beauty, and a little more homeliness. "Java is far more beautiful still," said Otto, en- couragingly. "There is nothing in all Europe to com- pare with Batavia." And then, for the twentieth time, Ursula resolutely enjoyed these anticipated glories of the Indies, for the soreness and the separation were in her own soul, deep- down. Had Otto been more of a Mopius, he would never have guessed at their existence. Hearts like Ursula's understand that a woman weds her husband's life. Nor can it be denied that the novelty of the pros- pect, by its very terror, attracted and pleasantly excited her. Still, unfortunately, by nature she was stay-at- home and cat-like. Besides, she had not left her father to himself, but to Aunt Josine. So while she was telling herself how unearthly must be a scene that was even more beautiful than this stage- effect of palm-trees and white buildings against the blue Mediterranean flare, even while she was schooling her- self to this idea, her whole life suddenly changed with the fall of a curtain. The play stopped at the very opening, and the audience went home again. All the worry and the expectation and the screwing-up had been superfluous. How many of us discover that, even when the lights go out at the conclusion of the fifth act, instead of in the middle of the first. "Poor people are not poor in India; that is one great advantage," Otto was saying. "There is always plenty of space about one, in house and garden, and even the mendicant, if a white, drives a trap. But I 2 $2 MY LADY NOBODY. don't suppose there really are any white beggars. You will see how comfortable we shall be in the great verandah of evenings, with all the pretty things around us, while I sit telling you how sugar-prices are going up. Ursula, it will be delightful to think we are work- ing for the dear old place at home, which is yours too now, and must never belong to any one but a Helmont." His face grew square as he sat staring at the black ridge of distant mountains, and then, suddenly, with a man's embarrassment, "There's the little steamer," he said, lightly, "coining back from the Lerins." The hotel concierge was going his round on the terrace, leisurely seeking out an occasional lounger in the still, perfume-laden sunset, and distributing a bundle of letters. They watched him coming towards them, from their seat by the balustrade, between two bowls of geranium. "C'est tout," he said, holding out one letter. "It's too bad of them not to write!" exclaimed Ursula, as everybody always does on the useless, idle Riviera. Otto was looking at the envelope, holding it across his outstretched palm, between middle finger and thumb. It was addressed in his Aunt Louisa's handwriting, to "Otto, Baron van Helmont." "Well?" said Ursula, with the impatience of the non-recipient. But Otto, Baron van Helmont sat staring at the superscription. The first bell for the table d'hote broke loose, with a sudden continuous clang. Ursula rose. "I'm going upstairs for a minute," she began. "If it isn't from home, I suppose it's of no importance." Otto shook himself. BARON VAN HELMONT. 2$$ "Wait," he said, and broke the seal. The note was brief enough. "Dear Otto, — Your father died this morning at half-past five, from pneumonia. You know he was ailing when you left, but the lungs were attacked only two days ago. We are expecting you back. Your mother is very unhappy. Aunt Louise. — P.S. Your mother asked me to telegraph, but I con- sider it better to write." Even by the roadside of our selfish daily wander- ings we cannot hear the voice of death calling a stranger from his field-work without mentally crossing ourselves, suddenly shocked and sobered. What, then, if he enter the courtyard of our hearts? Although, perhaps, he pause before the inner door, every chamber, in the horror of his presence, becomes to us as the inner- most. Ursula and Otto looked at each other with solemn eyes, speaking little. The Riviera evening fell suddenly, with its wiping-out of warmth, like the transition of a Turkish bath. The whole grey seaboard lay bleak and chill in a shudder of autumnal decay. "Aunt Louisa," said Otto presently, "has a prejudice against telegrams, chiefly, I fancy, on account of the expense." Ursula was angry with the Freule van Borck. "She might have prepared you a little," said Ursula. "Oh, that is her way. 'Simple and strong,' you know. But you are mistaken. She did prepare me." He held out the envelope to his wife. Ursula blushed scarlet. There seemed to her in this brutal fact something strangely painful and insult- ing both to them and to the dead. She could not 2 34 MY LADY NOBODY. meet her husband's gaze. She shivered. "Let us go in, Otto," she said softly. As they walked across the terrace he murmured aloud, "Your mother is very unhappy." "Ursula," he added, "this alters eveiy thing. We must go back to- morrow as early as we can." "Yes," she answered unemotionally, "I understand." He did not say anything more till they had reached their own room. Then, as he struck a light in the dark, he began, with averted face, looming large against the shadows— "You will like that, at least, among all the sorrow — the going back!" She tried to answer him, not knowing what, and unexpectedly burst into tears. Well, it's a good thing that women can weep. Their feelings are often too complicated for words. The woman who knows herself incapable of tears is surely one-third inarticulate. But, alas that the act of weeping should be so positively ugly. From a purely aesthetic point of view there is nothing more regrettable in connection with the Fall of Man. No further news from home reached the young Baron and Baroness during their hurried flight north- wards. They themselves were quite incapable of fathom- ing, even from the most materialistic point of view, the magnitude of the change which had come over their prospects. Otto trembled to think in what condition he might find his father's affairs. Only, he felt certain that BARON VAN HELMONT. 235 the Indian plan would have to be definitely abandoned on account of the estates at home. The Domine met the pair at the little Horstwyk station, and as Ursula put her arm round her father's neck, she dimly realised that selfishness is man's sole virtue, as, in fact, it is his only vice. She could realise it all the more in the shuttered mansion, which seemed to lie as a waste round that one locked door of the widow's boudoir. In the dining- hall, surrounded by candles, stood the coffin, awaiting the heir. All the house and the village and their sur- roundings seemed full of a subdued eagerness to bury the past and welcome the present. The library table was covered with carefully addressed letters and cards. Gerard was absent. Only the Freule van Borck came forward, with hushed step, to greet them in the grey loneliness of the flowerless hall. "My dears," she said, sententiously, "you might have spared yourselves the shame of running away." 2.^6 MY LADY NOBODY. CHAPTER XXIL Gerard's share. So the old Baron slept in the churchyard under the shadow of the "Devil's Doll," which he himself had erected on the grave of his children. Opposite, outside the chancel- wall, shone dully the great slab which marked the entrance to the family vault, heavy with the single name "De Horst." The word suggested a "dependance" of the Manor House; hither came for more permanent residence the successive sojourners at the larger hostel. It was the widow who, waking from her lethargy, had demanded separate sepulture for her dear, dead lord, to Otto's tacitly disapprobatory regret. She had summoned her elder son into the dusk of her silenced chamber, and speaking softly from amid the solemn blankness of her loss, "I want your father to lie in the sunshine," she said, "and I wish them to make the — the — in such a manner that every possible sunbeam shall fall straight across it." Then, before Otto's unspoken demur — "He always had a horror of the vault; he never would enter it once during his whole lifetime. And, Otto, all his life long he detested cold. In the end it has killed him" — she began to cry. Her children had found her greatly changed, quite broken down and feeble. "Cecile cannot even take comfort by contemplating Gerard's share. 237 the beauties of adversity," said Freule van Borck, crossly. "Surely she might understand, in the midst of her legitimate tears, that sorrow is a great educator. She perversely persists in eluding the blessings." The Freule did not understand that her sister's soul was a plant of God's conservatory, a blossom which could only drop off before the east wind. Work had to be done, however, and some one must do it. Otto soon recognised, with anticipated acquiescence, that his father's affairs had been left in utter confusion. The confusion, however, was of the orderly kind. There had been a certain amount of method in the Baron's madness; only, unfortunately, there had been a good deal more madness in his method. He had evidently entertained to the full an honest gentleman's distrust of all commercial and industrial undertakings, and had added thereto a contempt for all usury and money- lending. To paper-investments he would have nothing to say. Every penny he possessed he had sunk in land or curios. Also he had made a will, an unwise thing for any man to do. In that entanglement of spoliation which we have glorified by the beautiful name of "juris- prudence," any personal effort towards equity is only another welcome knot to the lawyer's hand. The Baron's will disinherited his younger and favourite son so far as Dutch law permits parents to disinherit, which means that Gerard would be entitled to exactly one-third of the property as against two- thirds for Otto. Furthermore, the testator expressed a hope that his wife would allow all her claims on his 238 MY LADY NOBODY. estate to be met by an equivalent transfer of art treasures, and that she would preserve these unsold. The dead man's object was plain enough; while unable to stint himself, he yet desired to achieve the retention, after his decease, of the status quo. That is not an easy thing in Holland, where modern law, follow- ing the Napoleonic precedent, aims at the destruction of hereditary wealth. The Baron openly avowed his intentions in the last sentence of his brief testament; "I hope," he wrote, "that my children will always retain the Horst intact as I leave it. Otto must do this; I believe he has it in him. I have ultimately succeeded, after infinite pains, in restoring the whole property as it was at its largest in 1672. I trust that neither Otto nor Gerard will ever consent to part with a rood of it. They will rather suffer privation, as I have done." The Baron's way of "restoring" had been a simple one. Whenever opportunity offered, he had bought such alienated lands as fell open, often paying a fancy price, the money for which he procured by mort- gaging other property. Nominally, therefore, his landed estate was a very large one, much of it being encum- bered, more depreciated. As for "suffering privation" — he had never bought a Corot. Evidently he had distrusted Gerard, and felt con- fidence in intractable Otto. The strangest thing about it all was that he, with his fear of death, should ever have summoned up courage to make a will at all. To Otto this fact, more than anything else, revealed how intensely his seemingly shallow father must have loved the home of his race. And the discovery brought them nearer now in their Gerard's share. 239 separation, the dead lord and the new one. Baron Theodore's ambition was one such as this son could appreciate; the sudden self-reproach of undue con- temptuousness caused Otto to veer round to the other extreme of veneration. He resolved, under this first impulse, that, come what may, his father's decree should be to him a holy trust. "Of course," said the Dowager Baroness, relapsing immediately into her continuous mood of mournful in- difference. But Gerard demurred. "I must have my share in money," said Gerard, "I can't help myself. Besides, what did father mean? The property can't be said to remain intact, if one man owns two-thirds of it, and another man the remaining third. Enough of the land must be sold to give me my share in cash." "None of the land can be sold," replied Otto. He wore his dogged face. The two brothers were together by the library table. In the distant bay-window of the smoking-room Aunt Louisa had fallen asleep over a book. "Keep the land, if you like, or know how. I don't mind as long as I get my money. You are executor, Otto; pay me my share." "Do you wish," asked the young Baron, just a trifle dramatically, "to ignore our dead father's commands?" "No, indeed. No more than you," replied Gerard, with honest disdain. The tinge of melodrama irritated him. The unfairness of his treatment irritated him. But the inherent absurdity of the testamentary instructions was what tormented him most. "Father's wish was to let me have as little as 24O MY LADY NOBODY. possible," he continued. "So be it. But your wish is evidently to let me have nothing at all." Both of them waited a moment, in bitterness. "And " Gerard ground his heel energetically. "I'm not going to stand that." Then he said, in quite a different tone: "Simply, to begin with, because I can't." "Of course you have debts," said Otto, sitting down by the writing-table. "Of course," repeated Gerard, with a pardonable sneer at his immaculate brother. "But it's not that, all the same — at least, not so much." He paced half-way down the room and back again. Suddenly both brothers heard the ticking of the clock. "You wrong me, Otto, as usual," said Gerard in a broken voice. "I am as anxious as you are to do whatever's right. But I can't help myself. I may as well make a clean breast of it. I must have the money. You'll think me an unmitigated fool, but, then, you think that already." He hesitated a moment; Otto did not move. "Two years ago," Gerard went on, huskily, "I be- came surety for a chum of mine — never mind his name — he's dead, poor chap, and I've got to pay." "Surety! Surety!" stammered Otto. "How? What? What kind of surety?" "It was a debt of honour, between gentlemen. And I've got to pay." "Of course — a card debt. I understood as much," said Otto, self-righteously. "It was not my card debt," retorted Gerard, feeling his wrongs more acutely than ever, for, as we are Gerard's share. 24.1 aware, he was not a gambler. "It happened playing with strangers, and quite unexpectedly it grew into an enormous sum. For him, next morning, it meant pay or shoot yourself. He wanted it to mean 'Shoot your- self,' but I stopped that just in time and made it mean "pay — someday or other." So pay we must. The re- sponsibility is mine." He stopped, staring with solemn eyes, back through the misty past, into what had been, till now, the most dramatic occurrence of his life. He remembered his awakening, the day after the gambling-bout, to the troubled consciousness that he must hurry at once to his friend. He remembered the room as he burst into it: the table with the despondent figure sitting there, the pistol waiting, ready loaded. These things were sacred; he was not going to speak of them to Otto. "I cannot understand any human being accepting your security;" the elder brother's tone was sceptical to a degree of provocation. "But, at any rate, the other man and his people must pay." "He is dead," repeated Gerard, gently. "Had he lived, he would have been perfectly well able to do so; we both knew that, or I don't think he would ever have allowed me to incur the risk. It wasn't much of a risk, as I told him at the time. He was sole heir to a stingy old aunt; he died before her, and all her money's gone to charities. So you see I'm fully liable. It's exceed- ingly unfortunate, but it can't be helped." "Even admitting all this," began Otto, feeling his unwilling way, "you are not really liable. The law does not recognise gambling liabilities. They are not recover- able." He stumbled over his sentences, thinking aloud. My Lady Nobody. I. 1 6 242 MY LADY NOBODY. "Law!" exclaimed Gerard. "Law! I was thinking of the other extreme — honour!" "And you were a minor at the time, besides. Neither legally, nor should I say morally, responsible. It must have been an act of madness." He gazed in front of him, troubled, questioning, full of incertitude. "I thought you understood," said Gerard, haughtily, "that it was an affair between gentlemen. It has no- thing to do with moral or legal responsibility." He stood still. "I bound myself to meet this claim, if able, when called upon. The trust is a sacred one. By accept- ing it I saved my dead friend's life." Even amid the deep seriousness of his mood he smiled at the Irishism, just as his father would have done. "I am not going to desert him now." "Gerard, God knows I don't want you to do any- thing ungentlemanly," cried Otto, despairingly. "I am only thinking. Let me think. You say the sum is an enormous one. What do you call enormous?" His voice trembled with apprehension. "It's ninety thousand florins, if you want to know," replied Gerard, in a moody murmur. The sombre room grew very silent. Outside the window nearest them a sparrow was pecking, pertly, at the sill. "I thought so," said Otto, scornfully, "I thought you had ruined yourself; it seemed so natural. I under- stood it at once, and that made me look round for the tiniest loophole of possible escape. Gerard, it seems to me you have but the choice of dishonours. Against the memory of your friend I pit that of your father. You cannot possibly do justice to both." He was desperate, feeling the hopelessness of compromise. Gerard's share. 243 "The will is absurd!" burst out Gerard— "absurd! He cannot have meant it absolutely, only as far as was practicable. Do you really want to make out that he intended both of us to starve, in the midst of our acres of corn-fields? I won't believe it, and if he did, why, poor father must have been under some momentary delusion! Wills are always taken to be binding so far as circumstances will allow. Our father meant us not to sell more of the land than was absolutely necessary. He meant us — - — " Otto faced round. "I understand perfectly what our father meant," he said, and there was a roll of sup- pressed thunder through his patient words. "To me his aspirations do not seem unreasonable or absurd. They are my own." "I dare say," cried Gerard. "You are the lord of the Horst, and the larger the property is, the pleasanter for you!" "Gerard, you may accuse me of the most sordid " "I accuse you of nothing. Pray let us have no recriminations; we do not understand each other well enough for anything of that kind. All I say is this, and I shall stick to it: I must have my share in ready money. Can't you see I must? If I were to go to the other fellow — the fellow that won — and say: 'My father won't have any of the land sold,' he'd think I was shirking, after all these years. Imagine that! He'd think I was shirking! The time would have come for me to decide between 'paying or shooting.' Otto, if father were alive, he'd understand that better than you do. Oh, I wish I could explain it to him, he'd want only half a word. He'd be the first to say 'Settle the 16* 244 1IY LAr>v NOBODY. matter at once.' " The young man was violently agitated. He tried vainly to steady his features. He had loved his father with ready, easy affection. It was a cruel wound to him to bear the appearance of showing less filial piety than Otto! "Ninety thousand florins," repeated the elder brother, as if not heeding the other's passion. "You were mad. You ?iever could have raised the money till father's death. What a speculation!" "Who knows?" replied Gerard, stung to the quick. "At this moment, but for you, the sum might have seemed .to me a trifle. Do not you, of all persons, re- proach me with my poverty. I should have been a rich man at this moment but for you." "But for me?" exclaimed Otto, in blank amaze- ment. "Yes, but for you," Gerard continued wildly. "It was you who told Ursula about Adeline, as if any man ever betrayed another, even his enemy, to a woman! But your ideas about honour and dishonour, which you bring forward so frequently, are certainly not mine." Gerard stopped, eyeing his brother curiously. "Is it possible you don't know," he said, "that Ursula told Helen?" "As you allude to the disgraceful story yourself," replied Otto, in a dull voice, "I may as well assure you that I have never spoken of it to any one. Ursula knows nothing about it. Nor am / to blame if Helen does." However Gerard might misunderstand his brother, he implicitly believed him. All his anger turned against the woman who had ruined his matrimonial prospects, Gerard's share. 245 whilst herself grabbing, by any means, even including advertisement, at the first husband she could catch. "Then it was Ursula, and Ursula alone," he said, "who would not let me marry Helen." He forcibly curbed himself on the brink of accusation, true to the chivalry he had just enunciated; but his brow grew dark with meaning. And, seeing sudden relief in permissible insult, "My Lady Nobody!" he cried, with an impudent laugh. Otto rose. "Our discussion ends here," he said. "Leave the room. I will get you the money somehow." He sank back a moment later, listening to Gerard's retreating footsteps. Gerard, then, had been about to marry Helen, and Ursula had told Helen something which had prevented the match. It must have been something very serious indeed. He shook off the thought. How should he meet his brother's claim? It is easy enough to say, "I shall pay." Why not sell a large part of the land, which, after all, was Gerard's and not his? Let Gerard do what he liked with his own. Theoretically, that was plain enough. But when it came to deciding what to abandon — and a good deal would have to go — common sense began to look strangely impossible in the new Baron's eyes. He could not cut up the property. He wished his father had not made him executor. He judged his young brother not only harshly, but unfairly. He could feel nothing for the generous im- pulse which had brought down upon itself such magni- ficent ruin. Most of us imagine we recognise virtue 246 MY LADY NOBODY. when we see it; in reality we only recognise our own peculiar form. "There is no money," said Otto fiercely, and he groaned aloud. Aunt Louisa came gliding in through the open smoking-room door. Her features were sharper than ever in her smooth black dress. "That is a very bad story indeed, about Adeline," she said, speaking in a series of bites. Otto looked up interrogatively. "Oh, of course I know all about it," continued the Freule, who had known nothing up to this hour, "Adeline is an actress, or singer, or something low. Nevertheless, I think Helena von Trossart has behaved like a fool. A strong woman lives down all her hus- band's love-stories." She blinked her eyes. "Any woman can manage any man," she said. "/ never considered the game worth playing" — which was true. "But it's best to know about these things before- hand," she went on. "That's why I told you about Ursula and Gerard. Afterwards they come as an un- pleasant surprise, while, before marriage, one simply laughs at them. Helen ought to have thanked Ursula for frankly confessing to a passing flirtation with Gerard. Instead of that, she goes and breaks off her engage- ment. Inane! We can't all marry first affections, as your poor mother thinks she did. But Helena van Trossart was always a poor, weak, fanciful creature." "It is not that," thought Otto. "Women never ob- ject to a prior flirtation." He looked up again, dumbly, to see whether his aunt would continue to use her gimlet. GERARD S SHARE. 247 "However, there's no help for it now," cried the Freule Louisa, changing her tone. "The marriage would have been the best thing for all parties, and that's why it's not to take place. So don't let's talk of it. But the money must be found at once. So let's talk of that." "It can't be found," muttered Otto, wishing his aunt wouldn't interfere, and very angry with her for eaves- dropping. "'Can't' is a man's word,' replied the Freule van Borck. "Your poor father used to say it whenever he didn't want to do anything. You say it when you want to do anything very much. The symptoms are different, but the disease is the same — masculine incapacity. A woman says, 'I will.' " "Then I wish some woman would say it," retorted Otto. His aunt smiled. "You are so literal," she said. "You never can enjoy the plastic beauty of a theory. And, Otto, in one thing I entirely disagree with you. Gerard's action was a great one. However, unfortunately for us, it deserves our abstract admiration. Yes, I know what you are going to say; but you are wrong. Few natures in our little world are capable of such splendid recklessness. I, for one, applaud it — from a distance. Imagine, in this nineteenth century, a man who will sacrifice his all for a friend!" "He hasn't ruined you, Aunt Louisa," said Otto. "I am not worth ruining," she answered quickly, meekly. "But, Otto, I was coming to that. I am poor, as you know — very poor." She grew suddenly nervous and sat down, trembling, in a big leather chair. "But 248 MY LADY NOBODY. I have this advantage over you rich people, that my money is where I can get at it, in the funds. I'm not going to give it to Gerard," she said, racing off sharp and fast. Her cheeks grew pink. She was exceedingly frightened, as many women are whenever they allude to finance. "I couldn't do that and starve, now could I? But I'll lend it to you on the property, Otto, to pay him off. You'll fasten it on the property and give me a pawn ticket, won't you? And I'll let you have it on easy terms, because I admire Gerard's action and — and yours also. I'm proud of my nephews." She paused, out of breath, and aimlessly stroked her dress. "Thank you," said Otto, with his reflective reserve. But the fervour of his tone quite satisfied Aunt Louisa. "Yes," she went on, preparing to hurry away. "The estate must be kept together. I insist upon that. For I can't have other people intruding upon my Bilberry Walk, and that would be the first to go. But, Otto, you must let me have some interest, or else I shouldn't be able to pay you my 'keep.' " Thereupon the Freule departed, fluttered with the consciousness of an heroic atmosphere all round and but little discom- fort to herself. She had, indeed, behaved bravely, for scraping was the sole diversion of her life, and she imagined somehow that a mortgage at four per cent, was a very great sacrifice indeed. In common with many people who greatly admire great deeds, she liked to do her own great deeds small. At any rate, Otto felt immensely relieved for the moment by the certainty that the money would be forthcoming. He went in search of Ursula, whom he found playing on a sofa with his father's great smooth gerard's share. 249 St. Bernard. Ursula's opening days were long in this new home of which she had become the mistress. Everything was as yet in the listless uncertainty of a not-disorganised transition. The Dowager Baroness had nowise resigned the keys, while occupying herself with nothing in the privacy of her bereavement. "Dearest," said Otto, "why did you not tell me about Helen and Gerard?" Ursula blushed. "Because it was a secret," she replied, hotly. "I told nobody, Otto." "Nobody?" "Nobody but my father. Has Gerard spoken of it? I low much has he told you?" She looked at him anxiously, scarlet with the soilure of Gerard's sin. He misread her distress. "Oh, very little," he said. "Make yourself easy. I don't want to know any more." She sprang forward to him, the great dog entangled in her skirts. "Otto," she said, pleadingly, "you'll let bygones be bygones, won't you — now?" She was thinking of the reconciliation between the brothers for which her whole heart yearned. She frightened him. "Yes," he cried. "Yes, if Gerard goes away. That is all I demand. You must ask Gerard to go away." "I?" She drew herself up. "No, indeed," she said. "You are lord of the Horst. It is you who must forbid your brother the house, if you wish him to leave it." 250 MY LADY NOBODY. As he turned to go she ran after him, and laid her hand on his arm. "Only don't let it be for my sake, dear," she pleaded, recalling Gerard's initial insult, and continuous cold hostility, to herself. "Do not, I entreat you, let me be the cause of further discord between you. Gerard will forget the past, and I will ignore it. And even if he do not, I am strong now, in your love, to face the future with confidence. Otto, I implore you, do not send him away for my sake." "Oh, no, for my own," exclaimed Otto, and broke away from her. She came back to the dog, completely unconscious of all complications except the old quarrel between her husband and his brother. It weighed upon her; she regretfully felt that she, in her innocence, was chiefly to blame for it Gerard had deeply resented, and still continued to resent, the marriage of the head of the house to the parson's daughter. Compared to this, the quarrel about the horse was only a passing cloud, and even that would not have arisen but for her. Men of the world, she felt bitterly, could desert Adelines, but they could not marry Ursulas. It is true; more than that — only she did not know it — men of the world can offer to marry Adeline, and never forgive their brother for marrying Ursula. We can do all that, we men. It is our privi- lege, because we are thinking creatures. Just now, Ursula felt that her only duty in the great house was to comfort the dog. Monk was an in- stitution at the Manor; he had been that ever since the Gerard's share. 251 old Baron had brought him back from the desolate monastery which is all sunshine within, and all snow without. By this time surely he had forgotten his na- tive Alpine frosts — if dogs ever forget — among the mists of Holland. He had basked for years in the master's smile, unassuming, as no man would ever have re- mained, under the dignified repose of his assured posi- tion. All the household had honoured Monk; many with time-service only. This he had understood: he had loved his master alone. He knew that the Baroness endured him; perhaps there was a little jealousy between the two. And on the day of the old man's death he wandered about, disconsolate, gradually beginning to realise a change. Ursula found him a forsaken favourite, not mourning his fall — again, how unhuman! — but his friend. She looked into his big soft eyes, and the hunger died out of them. Immediately the two under- stood each other, for ever. "I accept of you in my empty heart," said Monk. In the old Baroness's boudoir the fat ball of white silk on its crimson cushion opened one eye with lazy discontent and scowled across at its mistress. It was disgusted with the selfish irregularity of its meals. The little old woman in the easy chair near the autumn fire did not even notice it, in spite of the oft-repeated sighs by which it strove to attract attention. Occasionally slow tears would now roll down the widow's sunken pink and white cheeks and glitter amid the jewels of her folded hands. She had reached that milder stage when we begin to feel our sorrow. Oh, God, that in this world of agony men should find cause to be thank- ful for consciousness of pain! 252 MY LADY NOBODY. "Plush" considered the state of affairs most dis* gracefully disagreeable. CHAPTER XXIII. TOPSY REXELAER. Gerard went back to Drum before his leave had expired. "Your share shall be paid to you," Otto had said, perusing the carpet-pattern. "Mother and Aunt Louisa will combine to make that possible. I think that is all, Gerard. Good-bye." So, dismissed like a footman, the young fellow turned his back on the home of his youth. He little guessed that the stern, middle-aged man, seated at his father's desk, in possession, was, even at that very moment, inwardly tossed by a passion of prayer to keep back the furious inculpations that were beating at his lips. So Gerard went back to Drum. He realised, as he drove away, taking Beauty's successor with him, that even though he might visit the Manor House again, henceforth it would be as a stranger. During all the years of his growth into manhood, ever since he could remember, he had been practically the only son, the "young squire" in the eyes of the peasantry. He felt cheated of his birthright. The packing-up had been a terrible business. No- thing had been said about retaining his rooms, and his nature was one that shrank back before the shadow of a coming hint. Quietly he had put all his things to- TOPSY REXELAER. 253 gether, turning from Ursula's silent, terrified gaze. Silence seemed to have fallen upon them all like a paralysis. The servants looked at each other. All his life had been sheltered too warmly in his father's fostering affection. The luxury of his youth hung about him, the easy generosity which had ac- counted money only a thing to spend on himself, or on others, according to requirement. It is a cruel thing, that flow of parental goodnature, while the fingers of Death are playing with the tap. And at this supreme moment even his mother's sure preference deserted him. The Baroness, whose faculties seemed to lie dulled beneath the veil of her widow- hood, had understood, clearly enough, without need of any malice on Otto's part, that Gerard objected to the terms of the will. The discovery had galvanised her into feverish activity. She had insisted upon sacrificing whatever her husband's improvidence had left her still unsacrificed. Half a dozen times in the course of one day she rang for Otto, to ascertain whether everything was settled. For the moment, Gerard had become the enemy against whom the forces of the family must unite. She was very angry with him for wishing to destroy his father's life-work. "You won't allow it, Otto," she repeated, excitedly. "You will never allow it." She clung to her strong eldest, in the weakness of abandonment. Her farewell to the traitor was full of reproach. Gerard went back into life from his father's funeral, alone. As soon as the money was in his possession he sought an interview with the creditor at the Hague and discharged his debt, or rather his departed friend's. 254 MV LADY NOBODY. But he had plenty of liabilities of his own incurring, and these now came tumbling about his ears in the crash of his father's removal. By the time he had effected a settlement there was very little left of his originally curtailed inheritance. This would hardly have disturbed his calm fruition of all things needful but for the brusque discovery that his credit was gone. One afternoon he stepped into a familiar shop to order a new saddle, and the obsequious tradesman asked pre- payment of his standing account. Gerard came away bewildered. It was the turning-point of his life. He was poor. Before all this, before the Baron's death, he had made one attempt to act on Mademoiselle Papotier's suggestion. He had written a long letter to Helen. It had been returned to him unopened, and from that moment he felt his case was utterly hopeless. For a woman hardly ever returns a letter unopened. She is quite willing to do so, only she must read it first. Some of them manage to. Gerard was in the position of many a modern spendthrift. Steal he could not, to work he was ashamed. Besides, what was he fit for, excepting parade? It is one of the saddest confusions of this muddled society of ours that only the poor can beg and only the rich can steal. Nothing was left, there- fore, to our young soldier but to return to his simplified avocations in the endeavour to make both ends meet on starvation pay. All the colour and cake went out of his existence, which became drab, like rye-bread. Adeline was married to her lawyer's clerk; Helen's wedding-dress had been ordered. Under these circum- TOPSY REXELAER. 255 stances, in his handsome forlornness, dawdling about dull Drum, Gerard found one motherly bosom on which to rest his curly head. The plump Baroness van Trossart, disgusted by her niece's perversity, but resolved not to fret over anything, immediately set herself to pay the poor boy what she considered a family debt, and, after a little preliminary reconnoitring, backed by an artillery fire of praises and pushes, she successfully manoeuvred the rejected suitor into a fresh flirtation with one of the most charming girls in Holland, Antoinette van Rexelaer. The Freule Antoinette was not an heiress, like Helena, but she had lately, and quite unexpectedly, come into a snug little fortune through her godfather, a relation of her mother's, and former Minister of State — a wind- fall, indeed, to the youngest of five children! "A dis- pensation!" mysteriously ejaculated the young lady's mother, Mevrouw Elizabeth van Rexelaer, ne'e Borck. Topsy, as her own circle called her, was a distant connection of Gerard's, but then in Holland we are all that, and it no longer counts. The two mothers were some sort of cousins. From the Hague, where the Rexelaers lived, Antoinette came to stay with the Baroness van Trossart, and, under that matchmaker's auspices, she saw a good deal of Gerard. Now, for Gerard to see a nice girl was to be charming to her; he was charming in the most natural, innocent, and infectious way. The Freule Antoinette understood this perfectly, and they lived to- gether in that happy mutual desire to please which may mean everything or nothing, according to Cupid's caprice. When the guest returned home, Mevrouw van Trossart felt convinced it meant everything, and she had easily 256 MY LADY NOBODY. persuaded Gerard to think so too, for Gerard had taken a real liking to the frank-faced, bright-witted girl. "My dear boy," said the good-natured Baroness, in- tent on further arrangement, "you are positively too dangerous; I cannot introduce you to any more young ladies. You are irresistible; you have now carried off the heart of my poor little Antoinette!" "One young lady did not find me irresistible, Mevrouw," replied Gerard, bitterly. He was angry with Helen, but he had never really cared for her. It was she who now avoided him. "Ah, dear boy, do not let us speak of that; it is too dreadful. Be thankful that you, at least, did not love your cousin. No, no." She held up a fat fore- finger. "Of course you protest; but an old woman like me sees what she sees. We all make mistakes. As for poor Helen, hers " She stopped. "This time, at any rate," she cried gaily, "there must be no blundering. Go at once and propose to Mevrouw Elizabeth. To know you prosperously settled will be a load off my heart." "Propose to Mevrouw Elizabeth!" said Gerard, with a grimace. "Don't be stupid, Gerard. Yes, considering the undoubted fact that Antoinette Rexelaer is so much richer than you — there's no use in ignoring what every- one knows — I think it would be in better taste for you to speak first to the father. Which means the mother; especially as in this case I feel sure you can safely do so." Accordingly Gerard, by no means indifferent as to TOPSY REXELAER. 257 the issue, waited upon Mynheer Frederick van Rexelaer, Topsy's papa, a Judge, and also a Fool. That gentle- man received him very affably, and immediately in- vented an excuse for withdrawing to consult with the head of the household. "No money and a very desirable connection," said Mevrouw Rexelaer, sitting up. "I wish it were Van Helmont of Horstwyk and the Horst. But he has be- haved like an idiot. This seems a very agreeable young man, and Topsy might do worse. Since her miserable failure with poor deluded Rene I am often quite anxious about what is to become of her." "Oh, she'll marry," said the Judge. "I'm not so sure, Frederick," replied Mevrouw, who was very impatient, for various reasons, to get this last daughter off her hands. "Antoinette is so- strange, so ungirlish; no man, as yet, has ever proposed to her. My cousin Herman's legacy was a merciful dispensation; but, all the same, I should consider it very unwise to let this chance escape." So Gerard was instructed to make his proposal that night at the Soiree of the Society of Arts, and Topsy was instructed to accept him. "You may thank your stars," said Mevrouw Eliza- beth, frankly, to her daughter. "Judging by the past, I should think it's your only opportunity. Money doesn't go for everything, especially if a girl has no 'charm.' I thank heaven on my bended knees when I remember what might have been!" "Yes, mamma," replied Antoinette, meekly, with flushed cheeks and downcast eyes. In her own family My Lady Nobody. I. I 7 258 MY LADY NOBODY. Mevrouw Elizabeth's will was law, the immovable in- cubus of many oppressive years. "What might have been" — what Mevrouw had once yearned and worked for, in spite of present thanks- giving — was Topsy's marriage with a cousin, who had never understood Mevrouw Elizabeth's plans. This cousin was now dead and mad and altogether forgotten and unmentionable. Hush! The evening exhibitions of the Arts Society are very brilliant social events. Some first-rate private collection or portfolio forms the welcome excuse for coming to- gether, and the people who go everywhere and see no- thing insure, by their presence, artistic success. There was such a crowd in the central room — a chattering crowd, unconcernedly self-obstructive with regard to the pictures— that it took Gerard some time to worm his way to Antoinette. His heart fluttered. How sweet she looked with her provokingly clever little face in the turquoise cloud of her evening dress! "Let's go into that little side-room, Freule," he stammered. "I should like to show you a picture there." "Oh, but I don't want to go into the little side- room, Mynheer van Helmont." Her voice was un- certain, like his. "Please don't," she said, "I'm much happier as I am." He looked at her without immediate answer, offer- ing his arm. Suddenly she seemed to grasp at some mighty resolve, and, checking further protest, she allowed him to lead her away. The little alcove was empty but for a couple of ex- pectantly staring portraits, forlorn in the gaslight. TOPSY REXELAER. 259 "How stupid they look!" exclaimed Gerard, im- patiently; then, rebelling against the still atmosphere of imminence which seemed to thicken upon this sudden solitude, "Freule, I want to say something to you," he murmured, hastily. "I don't quite know how to begin, but, perhaps " "Oh, don't," she interrupted him, releasing her arm. "Don't, please, Mynheer van Helmont. I know what you are going to say, and I want you to leave it unsaid. I am so sorry, for I know it must be all my fault. I never thought of anything of the kind. I had under- stood you — I believed your affections were placed else- where. I — I am so sorry." She faltered. "I shall never marry," she said, and plucked at her fan. He did not answer, in the silence, with the sense- less hum beyond. Opposite him, in a big gilt frame, a woman sat eternally simpering, a lay figure with black laces and Raglan roses. He hated that woman. "Shall I take you back to Mevrouw van Rexelaer?" he said. The name seemed to arouse her from her dream of unmerited self-reproach. "Just one moment," she began, hurriedly. "There is — I should like — Mynheer van Helmont, I am going to ask you an immense favour! I know I have no right, but I want you to tell my parents that it is you who have changed your mind. You haven't really asked me anything, you know. Well, say you haven't." "I don't quite understand." Gerard spoke a little haughtily. "Perhaps it isn't so much of a favour," the poor girl went on. "It'll save you the appearance of having 17* 26o MY LACY NOBODY. been refused. Forgive me, Mynheer van Helmont, I don't quite know what I'm saying. But my life will be even more miserable than it is; it will be unbearable, if my mother knows you asked me to be your wife." She looked up at him, pleadingly. He was amazed. What had become of the bright creature he knew, with her sparkle of innocent repartee? "My word is passed to your father," he said, tremu- lously. "You ask me to disgrace myself in the eyes of every decent man." "Oh, no! not that! not that!" She spoke almost wildly. "But, oh, my God! what am I to do! Mynheer van Helmont, don't think me too much of a coward. I believe I could nerve myself to one great sacrifice; it is the daily bickering and nagging which I cannot en- dure. Never mind, I am ashamed of myself." She dashed her hand across her eyes — but too late. " Good- bye, and forget me. It doesn't matter." He bent low over her hand. "It shall be as you wish," he said, very firm and soldierly. Once more she looked up at him, her eyes full of far-away tenderness. "I cannot help myself," she whispered. "I shall never love — again." Gerard found the Judge in the coffee-room. And with the best face possible— which was a bad one — he confessed that he had reconsidered his proposal of the morning, and must withdraw it. Difficulties had inter- vened. "Really?" said the little Judge, coffee-cup in hand. "This is very extraordinary. Of course, if you wish, TOPSY REXELAER. 26 I there is an end of it. But — really, Mynheer van Hel- mont, you must excuse me — for a moment." He sidled to the entrance, in wild yearning for his better half, who fortunately met him there, having gathered that something was wrong. "My dear," whispered the Judge, "Mynheer van Hel- mont has changed his mind about marrying Topsy. He isn't going to." "Nonsense, Frederick," ejaculated Mevrouw Eliza- beth. "Tell him it's all right. Tell him to go and ask her at once." The little Judge went back into the desolate re- freshment-room. His substantial consort lingered near the door. "Mynheer van Helmont," said Frederick, "it's all right. You had better go and ask her at once." "Mynheer van Rexelaer," replied Gerard, scarlet as a poppy. "I thought I had made myself understood. I abandon all further idea of proposing to your daughter." Frederick fell back to the door. In her eagerness Mevrouw put through her big heliotrope-crowned head. "My dear, he won't ask her," breathed Frederick. "What?" cried the lady, casting furious glances to- wards the young officer, erect and helpless in the middle of the bare, blazing room. "Go to him, Frederick, at once! Tell him he's a coward and no gentleman! Tell him you'll horsewhip him! No, you can't do that, you're a Judge. Tell him one of her brothers will horsewhip him! Guy ought to. I'll make him do it." She pushed forward her small husband, who reluctantly returned to the charge. "You have behaved very badly, Mynheer," he began. 262 MY LADY NOBODY. "You must permit me to say that." He looked round nervously. Mevrouw Elizabeth, distrusting the atmo- sphere of calm, had come forward into the full light, and was unconsciously straining nearer. "That your conduct is" — he raised his voice — "not such as one has a right to expect from a gentleman. And here the matter must end." He turned hastily; Mevrouw Eliza- beth stood close behind him. "Say it is blackguardly," she hissed. "I won't," replied Frederick van Rexelaer, in a funk. "It is blackguardly, Mynheer," cried the matron, pushing past. "You are a coward, Mynheer, and no gentleman." Gerard retreated towards the gas-smitten wall, look- ing, in his tight-fitting blue-black hussar-uniform, like an Apollo in utter disgrace. He wondered, for a moment, whether the woman was going to strike him. "My son shall speak to you, Mynheer, as you de- serve," shrieked Mevrouw Elizabeth. "My son! I will send you my son, sir, to settle this matter." "Oh, do, Mevrouw, do," eagerly exclaimed Gerard, in a sudden rush of relief. MASKS AND FACES. 263 CHAPTER XXIV. MASKS AND FACES. The day after his wife's funeral, Mynheer Mopius sat in the gilded drawing-room of Villa Blanda. His demeanour was properly, pleasantly chastened, for the cud of the pompous exequies lay sweet upon his tongue. Harriet, busy with her own thoughts at the evening tea-table, said, "Yes, it had all been very nice." "But the tea was cold, Harriet," grumbled Mynheer Mopius, for the dozenth weary time. "It's a very bad thing in a woman when she can't make tea." "Of course," replied Harriet, gazing down at her sable garments, and wondering how soon the cheap material would get rusty. "My mother could make excellent tea," prosed Mynheer, with a melancholy nod. "She could do every- thing excellently, could my mother." "A woman ought to," said Harriet, "and when she's done it, she ought to die." "She ought. She ought." While Mynheer Mopius spoke, his thoughts were dwelling on Domine Pock's oration by the grave. How well the reverend gentle- man had alluded to the charities of our dear brother afflicted! "The consolation which a noble heart can always find in wiping other eyes the while its own are streaming!" 264 MY LADY NOBODY. Mynheer blew his nose. "This cheap cloth won't last, uncle," said Harriet, briskly. He pretended not to hear her. She bored him. She had been all very well while his wife dragged on, but now ! And, why, after all, should he be saddled with this sharp-tongued girl? She was no relation of his, though she called him "uncle." Mevrouw Mopius's childless sister had been the first wife of Harriet's father, Dr. Verveen. "Yes," he repeated mechanically, "everything my mother produced was first-rate of its kind." "Especially her son," said Harriet, with a sneer that positively fizzled. Mynheer Mopius's yellow face grew a shade healthier in colour. He accepted his third cup in thoughtful silence; then he said, "And now, my dear young lady, what do you mean to do?" She looked at him, across the steaming urn. "Go to bed," she replied. "Quite so. And after?" "Why, sleep, of course. What do you mean, uncle?" She flushed scarlet. "My dear Harriet, I fear you are too fond of sleep- ing. Surely you understand that you can no longer remain an inmate of this house, now that — that I am a lonely widower? Much as I regret — ahem! — you will admit, I feel confident, that you cannot remain under present circumstances." "Not under present circumstances," answered Harriet. She waited for one long second, her black eyes aflame, full on his face. Then the balance in which MASKS AND FACES. 265 her fate hung snapped suddenly. She sat, self-possessed, amid the collapse of all her hopes. "I shall always take an interest in you," said Myn- heer Mopius, adjusting his neat white mourning-tie; "and I mean to act very generously, to begin with. I shall take lodgings for you for one month, paying your board. I should have added a little cash for current expenses, but your aunt's legacy has made that super- fluous." "Aunt Sarah left me a hundred florins and her Bible," said Harriet. "Dear woman, she did! She always thought of others. You are welcome to the money, Harriet, fully, frankly welcome. But the Bible! That is a memento of her I would fain have retained." "Buy it of me?" said Harriet. "How much will you give for it? Ten florins?" "Harriet, I am shocked," replied Mynheer Mopius, hastily. "The month's board will leave you ample time to look out for a situation." "To look out for another situation," said Harriet. "Quite so," exclaimed Mynheer Mopius, delighted at her good sense. Harriet threw back her arm with a jerk that rattled the tea-equipage. "And to think," she cried, "that only last week I rejected the doctor." "More fool you!" replied Mynheer Mopius, coolly. "You'll have to be more careful of the Chinese porce- lain in a strange house, Harriet, and it probably won't be anything like as good." "I rejected the doctor," continued Harriet, roughly, 266 MY LADY NOBODY. "because I didn't care for him. I couldn't live with a young man I didn't care for. Uncles are different." "Harriet, I am not really your uncle, you must re- member, though I am willing to behave as such. If your father " "Yes, I know. Well, I shall try to get something in a month's time, and if I can, I'll repay the board and lodging, dear uncle." "That is not necessary. You can place an adver- tisement, Harriet, not mentioning names of course. You don't know enough for a governess, and, besides, you are too good-looking. You had better try to become a companion. If your father " "Quite so. Yes, I shall try to become a companion — to a gentleman." "Harriet! I do not see that it is a laughing matter. To an invalid lady. Not that you have any experience of invalids. For my dear Sarah enjoyed excellent health till almost the last." "To a gentleman," persisted Harriet, coolly. "It is no laughing matter, Uncle Jacob. When I leave this house, which at least afforded me some miserable sort of protection, I shall advertise for a husband. I daresay something nice will turn up. I want a husband I can be really fond of. Somehow I have faith in his turn- ing up." She spoke to herself, but she rejoiced in scandalising the hateful humbug opposite. "Harriet, my dear," said the widower, solemnly, "all this is very much out of place. You should have more respect for the holiness of sorrow, Harriet." "Oh, dear, no, you needn't trouble about that," she MASKS AND FACES. 267 interrupted him. "I'm in deadly earnest, I assure you. I've printed an advertisement before, but it came to nothing. I mean to look out better this time." Her accent belied the outer calm of her attiiude; she began washing the cups. "Printed an advertisement from my house? From Villa Blanda? If so, I have nourished a " "No." "I am extremely agitated, Harriet. You are my cherished Sarah's step-niece. I cannot imagine that any member, any step-member, of my dear wife's family would demean herself in the manner you describe." He got up and began to walk about, enjoying his brand-new mourning. "For anyone, of however humble origin — and Sarah's sister married beneath her — to enter into relations of — of an amorous description with a stranger! Harriet, I am horrified. We are not in India, Harriet. You are not a black woman, though you may think and act like one. I appeal to you to remember that you are connected, however distantly, with an honourable family. You are not free, Harriet, as you might have been before your father's first marriage." He spoke with almost desperate energy, for there were some things he had learned to discriminate in his intercourse with Harriet Verveen. He knew when she meant what she said. "Pooh!" replied Harriet. "Good-night, dear uncle. You give me a month's board, without wages, and notice to quit. I am very grateful, dear uncle; but henceforth you must allow me to fashion my own life as I choose." They stood facing each other. There was no noise 2 68 MY LADY NOBODY. and no recrimination. Each knew it would be use- less. "I have nourished a serpent in my bosom," said Mynheer Mopius, triumphantly getting out his quota- tion after all. "I can't keep you here a day longer, Harriet, though you seem to be annoyed about going. It wouldn't be proper, and, besides, I may have other plans. I treat you generously. Whatever you may elect to do I hope you will repay me by henceforth dropping all pretended relationship to myself. That must be an understood thing. Such conduct as you propose — clandestine love affairs, anonymous love affairs — I consider most scandalous. All the world considers it scandalous. I cannot allow a breath of ill-odour to sully the unspotted name of Mopius. Harriet, I hope you fully agree to that suggestion. If not I should consider myself compelled to retract." "Oh, most willingly," again interrupted Harriet. She steadily sought her uncle's shifty glances. "I break all relation between us as completely as — I crush this cup!" The costly porcelain fell to the ground in shell-like fragments. Mynheer Mopius darted forward with a shriek. Meanwhile Harriet slipped from the room, her right hand bleeding, her mood somewhat relieved. Next morning she left the house. After the night's consideration of circumstances she was not sorry to go. She believed, with a desperate woman's pertinacity, in the ultimate success of the wide choice she had allowed herself. She would take a husband after her own heart. Already she pictured him to herself, good-look- ing, with a fair moustache. MASKS AND FACES. 26q In the great city close to Drum — a city which may as well remain nameless — a modest variety may be found of those public entertainments which constitute, to the many, a principal criterion of civilisation. In the nineteenth-century march of mind — which, after all, is but the advance of 'Arry — a town with no per- manent music-hall troupe is voted "slow." Drum was distinctly "slow." Its big sister aspired, in spasms, to be reckoned "fast." Occasionally, therefore, when the fit was upon her, the big sister clutched, gasping, at some Parisian form of diversion; a river fete with fireworks, horse-races, or in winter, a bal costume' et pare'. The latter was de- cidedly a bad spasm, for northern nations can make nothing of the "Veglione." Still, every season a couple of these picturesque gaieties were organised by inde- fatigable impresarii (in rose-coloured spectacles), the price of admission being fixed at a florin for gentlemen, ladies free. No respectable person over thirty was supposed to attend. One of the least unsuccessful costume-balls the city has ever seen came off just before Christmas, in the year we are describing. Willie van Troyen was there as Paris, with another Helen, this being a delicate joke on the part of the woman whose rule was to end next week. As she accurately pointed out, the right Helen was, after all, the wrong love. Only Gerard's deep mourning had prevented his presence. Somebody had suggested, behind his back, that he might go as a Mute. The gay band he lived amongst agreed unanimously that "it was high time 27O MY LADY NOBODY. that Gerard got over his parent's demise." He was not a success in the role of the impecunious orphan. Willie van Troyen, on this festal occasion, was drunk, and, from his place in a stage-box, between two sirens, he was roaring with laughter at the antics of a goose in the pit. The whole floor of the small theatre had been cleared for perambulation, while those who meant dancing could retire to the stage. Most of the masks, however, preferred to walk about and make believe they were funny, in a half-annoyed jostle of ungracious familiarity, under the critical con- templation of the humbler amphitheatre side-tables, and of the champagne-sodden boxes up above. Every now and then some ambitious buffoon, excited by the con- tinuous spur of the music, would suddenly leap at facile applause. There would be a sweep of the crowd in his direction and an outburst of meaningless laughter, every- one exclaiming that the joke was good, while thinking it rather tame. But even the numerous laughers who were only pre- tending to amuse themselves agreed in recognising the very real drollery of the Goose. He — it was evidently a masculine goose, as distinguished from a gander — he trotted about in the stupidest manner, a great yellow- beaked ball of white and black feathers with unreason- ably protruding quills. Just now he had got hold of a stout and solemn gentleman in red velvet, who evidently represented a potent, grave, and reverend Signor. This dignified personage looked exceedingly out of place — not to speak of a false nose through his mask — in so foolish a company of mummers. The Goose had a nasty talent for cackling with the MASKS AND FACES. 2"] I extravagant clatter of his big wooden beak, and he kept up this deafening music incessantly as he ran round and round the fat gentleman in velvet, who turned helplessly hither and thither amid volleys of merriment. Every now and then the cruel bird, as it ran, would draw the pointed quills from under its feathers and therewith prick the reverend signor in unexpected places, causing him to wriggle and twist. Just then there was a pause in the programme; the whole theatre shook with this unexpected fun. "Why can't you leave me alone?" hissed the un- fortunate senator, in streaming suspense. But the Goose made no reply. Stopping his mad race for a moment, he actually began chalking up ribaldry with one of his quills on the senator's pendent mantle, chattering all the while. In vain the proud aristocrat wrestled and protested. The Goose, holding the mantle firmly, chalked a huge note of interrogation upon it, and wrote under this sign, amid breathless interest, the question: "What does your Worship here?" A renewed outburst greeted this sally. Willie van Troyen, un- steadily prominent, pelted the witty bird with hothouse grapes. "Go along, you hypocrite, I know you," said the Goose in his victim's ear. "I've chalked up your real name behind." At this the crimson noble, breaking down, began to cry real tears of shame and spite. "You've ruined me, then," he exclaimed. "And I can't for the life of me imagine why!" "Boh," said the Goose, and resumed his clatter more heartily than ever, 272 MY LADY NOBODY. But at this juncture a goose-girl stepped unex- pectedly into the arena. She drove off the goose with some well-directed blows, and, taking the arm of the red-velvet gentleman, led him disconsolate away. "It's your own fault for coming," squeaked the goose-girl. "Let's go and talk it over in a private box." "No, indeed; private boxes are very expensive. My dear creature, for Heaven's sake, let me sit down on this settee. I — I — anxious to obliterate " he began, violently rubbing his back against the cushions of the sofa. "I am quite at a loss to understand," he said, "but, tell me, my dear, you didn't — eh?" "Yes, indeed," replied the maiden. "Your style and title, Mynheer the Councillor, were written there in full." He broke into an oath. "Not my name," he sobbed. "You — you didn't see my name?" The goose-girl sat down beside him. She used a small instrument to disguise her voice. "Why did you come here, you horrid old man?" she said. "I saw you flirting with Little Red Ridinghood. I saw you dancing with that atrocious Bacchante. ' Clandestine love-affairs,' 'Anonymous engagements.' And your wife not five weeks dead! Oh, Uncle Jacob — Uncle Jacob ! " Harriet dropped into her natural voice, letting fall both her mask and her manner. "Harriet!" exclaimed Mopius, "this exceeds " "Indeed it does," she interrupted, coolly. "Don't speak so loud, dear uncle, or the goose will be coming back." Mynheer Mopius started to his feet. MASKS AND FACES. 273 "This is some conspiracy to ruin me," he said, speaking like one dazed. "I'm ruined already. I'm going " "Wait a moment," objected his tormentor. "It isn't true that your name was written up; I prevented that in time. So, you see, you have a good deal to thank me for. But, uncle, that Goose is a writer on the staff of the Dram Independent; he is one of their leading men, and a very great friend of mine. His quills are very real quills. He is anxious to tell — when the by-election comes on next week, which is to render you Right Worshipful — an amusing little story of a highly respectable candidate who, barely a month after his dear wife's death, danced with a charming Bac- chante at a charming masked ball." "What do you want of me, Harriet?" shrieked the wretched widower. "Do you want money? I can let you have a little, if you like." "Hush. Let's talk it over quietly in this quiet corner, Uncle Jacob. I am pitiless. Understand that at once. No compounding. You must surrender ab- solutely. Better do it with a good grace." "I know you want to marry me," answered Mopius, sulkily; "and I don't mind so very much, though it's hard to have it forced on one. I'd rather have had a woman with a softer tongue; but I've been looking about me, and one has this fault and another has that; I always said you were good-looking, Harriet. I'll marry you, if you like, though I'd rather have had a lady-born." "Marry you!" she blazed out at him. "No, indeed, I'm going to marry a man whose boots you daren't lick, My Lady Nobody. I. 1 8 274 JIY LADY NOBODY. unless he let yon. A good man, beautiful as good, and clever as he is beautiful — a man who will some day be great, and I — love — him. He is poor, and the whole world is before him, and I love him. Marry you!" "Well, you wanted to a month ago," muttered Mopius. "Let me speak. If you want to hush up this dis- graceful story you must give my love" — her voice caressed the delicious word — "two thousand florins. He will be satisfied with that; then he can pay off his debts, and we can start our humble housekeeping." "Harriet, it's a mean trick. I should never have thought that you with your pride " "Silence, you!" she exclaimed under her breath, crushing down her own misgivings with reckless vehe- mence. "How dare you question his good pleasure, or I? You obey, so do I. Only two thousand florins. He is very moderate. He might have demanded ten. But I told him I didn't want your dirty money. Love can be happy in a garret. Come, let's have done with the whole horrid business. I promised to call him, and then you can go." The goose-girl put a whistle to her lips, and immediately her obedient bird came clucking up from among the motley crowd. As he came his weary din gradually assumed the shape of "Ja-cob! Ja-cob! Ja-cob!" with terrible, reiterated distinctness. "Hush, please, darling," pleaded Harriet, her voice full of soft entreaty, "uncle is willing to give the two thousand florins, as I propose." "To further his candidature," said the Goose, bow- ing low. "It is clearly understood that the money is MASKS AND FACES. 275 paid to further his candidature. I am proud, sir, to make your acquaintance." The Goose saluted, with silly flap. "And now he had better go," exclaimed Harriet. "My dear child, what are you thinking of?" pro- tested the Goose, as Mynheer Mopius hastily rose to render ready obedience. "I have only just had the pleasure of meeting your uncle. I am sure he will do us the favour of being present at a little champagne supper in one of the upstairs boxes — as host." "Oh, no," began the Goose-girl, and checked herself, meeting the Goose's eye. "I shall be willing," stammered Mopius, "if neces- sary, to pay " The Goose interposed. "My dear sir, what are you thinking of?" he said, loftily. "Is this the way such matters are managed among men of honour? Harriet, take your uncle's arm!" Together the trio ascended to the grand tier. Myn- heer Mopius's supper, as ordered by the Goose, was exquisite; the host finished by enjoying it himself, and drinking too much wine. Willie van Troyen insisted on rolling in from the adjoining box to shake the Goose by the hand. He also drank to the. health of the re- cumbent masked gentleman, in shabby red velvet, who was singing sentimental songs in an undertone, with unpremeditated shrieks. "Dear love, for thee I would lay down my li-i-fe: For, without thee, what would that life avail?" The Goose informed Willie that the Senator was a retired Indian Viceroy, who had given many such magnificent entertainments in his day. Willie put his 18* 276 MY LADY NOBODY. finger to his nose and immediately invited His Excel- lency to his wedding six days hence. Upon which His Excellency burst out crying, and said that the word reminded him of the best of departed wives. Harriet sat staring down into the now almost deserted pit. The cold December dawn had not yet achieved more than the hope of its forthcoming when the Goose took away Mynheer Mopius in a cab to a quiet hotel. Behind them still echoed the loud talk of the young officers. They passed, in the fearsome streets, a troop of roysterers from a gin-shop. "We won't go home till morning!" rang hideous on the patient night. Here and there a window shone out, fully lighted, with its message of suffering or suspense. Up above — far, far above — stood, silent, God's eternal stars, watchful, serenely waiting, in the darkness whence we come and whither we return. Three days after the ball Mynheer Mopius paid up like a man, and three days after he had paid up, Myn- heer Mopius was sitting one evening in his accustomed armchair, reflecting on his loneliness and the unexpected rarity of charming claimants for his hand. In fact, during this month, with his indecent precipitancy, he had exposed himself to a couple of very painful rebuffs. Of course, he was exceedingly angry with Harriet. But, really, all that he cared for was himself, his own com- fort, his own glory, an audience, especially for his even- ing songs. In the midst of his reflections Harriet walked in. She cast off her wrap, sans gene, upon the nearest sofa. MASKS AND FACES. 277 "I've come to marry you, after all," she said, quite collectedly. Mynheer Mopius jumped. "Harriet," he replied, "this is — go away! After your conduct of last week, go away!" "I forgive your conduct," said Harriet, unmoved. "And the — the goose you were in love with?" in- quired Mynheer Mopius, not without some satisfaction. "He was unworthy," replied Harriet, with level eye- brows. "He has thrown me over." "As soon as he had the money," said Mynheer Mopius, rubbing his palms between his knees. "Yes, as soon as he had the money," admitted the girl, quite simply. "It appears there is another woman in the business. All that is dead and gone. All my money's gone. I haven't had anything to eat since yesterday morning. Never mind that. But my de- cision's taken. I've come back to marry you. And I mean to." "You can't against my will, Harriet," said Mynheer Mopius, beaming. "Go away." "Look here, Uncle Jacob, you're going to marry me, or- — don't make me say the alternative. I'd rather think you married me without the alternative. It's not very nice, anyway, but I don't intend to starve. And, as I don't believe in men any more, it really doesn't matter much. Now ring for the servants and tell them you're going to marry me!" "Harriet, go away!" Harriet crossed to the bell-rope and pulled it. "What does your Worship here?" she said, incoherently. "You asked me a week ago, and I said no. You don't ask 278 MY LADY NOBODY. me to-day, and I say yes. Such is woman. Better than man, at his worst." The footman answered the bell. For a moment Harriet's courage failed her before his severe expectancy. "Bring some biscuits," she said. "Harriet," began Mynheer Mopius, thoroughly cowed, like the bully he was, "you must allow at least another month to intervene before the thing can be even mooted. I always admitted, Harriet, you know, that you were a very good-looking girl. But, before I say another word, I must insist on your going down on your bended knees and humbly begging my pardon for your disgraceful conduct of the other night." Harriet Verveen understood the antagonist she had vanquished. The proud girl actually knelt on the carpet and slowly repeated the humiliating words. "Very good!" said Mynheer Mopius, in high good humour, "and, Harriet, I won't marry you till you suc- ceed in matching that cup you broke." He smiled to himself in the glass, the future Town Councillor! "You are very poor, Harriet," he continued, "and of humble origin. It is a great thing for you to become Madame Mopius. I hope you feel that." "Oh, yes," replied Harriet meekly. She had got up from the floor. Meanwhile the footman had brought in a tray of biscuits. She fell on them, ravenously. "Well, Harriet, if ever I make you my wife — and I don't say I shall, mind — I hope you will be a good and obedient consort, like the faithful creature I have lost." "Oh, yes," said Harriet again. Soon after she went back to her lodgings, with a little money in her purse. She turned in the hall-door of Villa Blanda. MASKS AND FACES. 279 "Won't I pay you out for this!" she said aloud. Never till the day of her death could she look down at her knees without seeing dust upon them. Mopius had cause to remember his triumph, though she made him a good wife on the whole. That evening, far into the night, the miserable woman lay at the open window of her garret, with her forehead knocking the sill. Her neighbour, a poor, blind seam- stress, sat up in bed, trembling, awestruck by the sobs that seemed to shake the flimsy house. It was winter, bitterly, frostily cold. On the window-sill, bent, pressed back again, clammy with kisses, stuck a stupid bit of pasteboard, the smirking photograph of a man. END OF VOL. I. PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER. DATE DUE GAYLOBD PRINTED IN U.S.A. imil?imll»n l ll.!i EGI0NAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000 744 438