LE PREMIER PAS—QUI COÛTE

“Gird up your loins!” cried the DominÉ, 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, coming 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 listening.

To Otto the little barn-like building, in its white 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 harbor. It was good to be here. It was good to find nothing altered, neither the gaunt externals of the service, nor 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 realized that he was growing old.

He realized 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 DominÉ. 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 indiscretion 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 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 odor of the fustian and the service.”

“And the sermon?” she laughed, lamely, thinking also of Gerard’s banter, and annoyed by her annoyance.

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 tremendous 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, awkward silence, she flicking at the corn ears with her white parasol. Then she said, “I feel sorry for the tiger.”

He answered, dryly, “The parents of his final supper did not take that view.”

“But,” he added, “I dare say you don’t quite understand 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, perhaps, under one’s pillow of nights. You needn’t laugh; I may have forgotten the dreadful creatures’ names, 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 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 towns.”

“I was thinking of 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’ anything. 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 sudden 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.

“Yes, as a rule. But papa has gone on—in honor of you, I suppose.”

“Then you cannot do better than follow.” He held open the gate for her to pass. “I think you must forgive 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 “SuÈde” 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, DominÉ, 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 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 Sunday. But Aunt Louisa should not propound conundrums 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 DominÉ, that the age of troubadours is dead.”

The DominÉ writhed. “Yes, yes,” he said—“undoubtedly. Though I should hardly, myself, have employed the names you mentioned as examples of fearlessness”—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 DominÉ 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, between gay patches of color.

“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 under-lip. “I understand that Juffrouw Rovers objects to the killing of animals—all animals?” His heavy mustache hung unmoved as he looked across.

“Oh, that is a fad of Ursula’s,” broke in Gerard. “You should teach her her Bible better, DominÉ. She admits that Nimrod may have been a mighty hunter, but never ‘before the Lord.’”

“Gerard,” said the DominÉ, 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 holiness, 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 before.”

“My dear, do I deny it?” replied the Baron, sadly. “We have lived too long together. You know all my little jokes, CÉcile. 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 flirting, like any pair of lovers.

“Ah, DominÉ, 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 DominÉ, softly, and his eyes seemed to pierce beyond the couple on the seat.

The Freule gave a smart snap—meant not unkindly—to her “church-book” clasp.

“But your wife is in heaven,” she rejoined, “and much better off, unless sermons mean nothing, than anybody here below.”

The DominÉ started, and an old scar came out across his cheeks, as if a whip-lash 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!”

This sentence was taken from the Freule’s favorite periodical, the Victory, in which, however, the concluding word had been printed “Morpheus.”

“Yes, yes, exactly,” replied the DominÉ, 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 DominÉ, 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 can’t be helped. Gerard’s humor is part of your home-coming.”

Meanwhile the DominÉ 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 DominÉ’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 everything, 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 recollections upward, 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 impression 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 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 infection.”

The DominÉ 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.”