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 distance, 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 DominÉ was palpable to all men, and he seemed to slip away, almost gladly, down the long road from the Manor to the Parsonage. All Monday evening they had sat over their teacups in the green veranda, and the DominÉ, roused thereto by the guest’s brief descriptions of daring, had leisurely recalled his own stories of Algerine lion-hunts. Ursula, looking up from her work at Otto’s earnest attention, wondered if twelve years of absence could really suffice to efface the ofttold tale.

On Tuesday a great dinner at “The House” had fÊted the return of the first-born. The DominÉ had made a speech, and enjoyed himself notwithstanding. But Ursula considered the entertainment had been rather a failure, for amid the due honoring of dowagers 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, running 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, half-way down the garden path. “But Gerard—I thought you would know?”

“I know nothing of Gerard’s arrangements,” answered Otto with cold annoyance. “Never mind; I have brought your father’s tiger-skin. Is there any one 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 under 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, affectedly, 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, “everything for ornament.” He was almost relieved to see Gerard’s trap come rattling up.

“You here!” cried the younger brother, looking 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 wagonette. 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 damned 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,” she answered, gayly. 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, anyway. 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 saying 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 of flurry and alarm. Never had she realized 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 DominÉ’s system, stood forth as an article of faith. In the great world outside she felt it 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 otherwise. 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—perhaps 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 mustache and strong complexion, well-dressed, well-groomed, completely 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. Whatever 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 cabman. “I have a reputation,” he said, merrily, “to keep up in Drum.” He turned back as she stood on the door-step.

“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 the leak; she was come to enjoy herself, and Gerard had promised to help her.

Villa Blanda, the residence of Mynheer JacÓbus 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 colors which children saw in former days through so-called kaleidoscopes; after a time you perceived that its complex 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 JacÓbus Mopius owed no man anything—not even courtesy, not even disregard. He button-holed you to inform you how much more important 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.

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 indifference 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 conversed in after-thoughts, 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 up-stairs together.

“No. Does it matter?”

“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 night-gowns; 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 down-stairs 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 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.

“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 consider it “judicious.”

“Here is the place,” she continued. “You see, it says Leah had ‘tender eyes.’ Now, what, I wonder, is the color 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-colored Orientals. “Really, watery. 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 color.”

“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 favorite 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 Mevrouw to consult her husband as to what it says in the Greek.”

“But I shall have to change my dress again,” protested 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 Numa 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 Mevrouw Mopius’s back her uncle came in. Harriet did not laugh.

Mynheer Mopius, though a very secondary personage in this story of the Van Helmonts, would be mortally offended did we not give him a chapter to himself.