OTTO’S WOOING

“Plush,” said the Baroness van Helmont, addressing her silken favorite, “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 peau de SuÈde, 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 doubtful one.

“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 break-down 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 neighbor 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.”

“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 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 considers 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.”

He turned to his son.

“I sha’n’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 something.”

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 always pamperedly insolent to mendicants or aggressively sympathetic regarding them. They are never indifferent.

“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 parti 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 occupied 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 Helena, 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.”

“Only Georgetta van Troyen and her brother. That was to escape a tÊte-À-tÊte 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 confabulation with her confidential maid. “Well, tell them to come. Ann, just say to the man, ‘My compliments, and the Jonkers[E] 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 opportunity of being alone together for life.”

“How terrible! Mamma, you are perfectly ruthless. 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 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 ingÉnue should die at nineteen. 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 somewhere. But neither she nor I would like to see a Baroness van Helmont who was ingÉnue.”

Helena paused in the doorway. “Would you like me,” she asked, “some day, to be Baroness van Helmont?”

“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 mariage, 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 spoiled me,” answered Helena, tripping off.

The Baroness looked after her. “Dear girl,” she said to herself. “It will end in her marrying Gerard, I 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 particular moment.”

“I do mind. I shall tell some one 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 functionary.

“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 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 exceptionally 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 neighbor, Otto, who sat with his attention glumly concentrated on the fair object of his visit. The rest of the company were uproariously 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 expostulation as the thought, ever present within him, 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 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, appealing to Otto.

“I haven’t heard it,” said the latter; at which they all roared again. Willie was in high spirits, though Gerard was endeavoring to arrest his narration.

“Do shut up, Troy; we’ve had quite enough of it,” growled Gerard.

“No, indeed, I am mistress here!” cried Helena, 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 happened 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 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 Helena, 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 Helena the letters, Willie.”

“No, no, he mustn’t,” cried Gerard, energetically. “I’m sick of the whole business. Do let’s talk of something else.”

“But I’m not,” protested Helena. “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 honor, 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 misgivings, swift in defence of his chum.

“It is not my province to express an opinion. Certainly 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 Helena. “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![F] 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 HÉlÈne de Trois? There was Menelaus”—she counted on her fingers—“and Paris. 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.

“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.