HARRIET’S ROMANCE

“Amusing yourselves?” said Mynheer Mopius. “That’s right. That’s what you’ve come for, Ursula. I’m glad your aunt’s been amusing you.”

Translated, this meant that Mynheer Mopius considered his wife had been taking a liberty. For, although Mynheer Mopius despised wit or humor of any kind, and but rarely condescended to utter what he considered a joke, yet he somehow believed his conversation 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 example, Ursula. Dinner at 6.30. We dress for it here, at least the women do. So do I when there’s company. It’s a custom I brought with me from Batavia. Must show the natives here what’s what.”

“I’ve nothing but this,” said Ursula, in some confusion. “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[B] if ever girl did. Hasn’t she, wife?”

“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 nurse-maid, 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 JacÓbus 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-colored 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 sotto 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 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 awkward 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 humor, 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 forbids it.” “Oh, damn 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 believed in the doctor, and the doctor, a teetotaler, had told her it meant death.

“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 DominÉ 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 every one 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 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 anything about them. What did you say the father’s name was?”

“Theodore, Baron van Helmont van Horstwyk en de Horst,” rolled forth Ursula, 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 organize for Ursula. He refused to let her accompany Harriet on the theological 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, 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 by-gone period when everybody pretended—at least in verse—to be absolutely 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, JacÓbus?[C] 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.

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 dream-land 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, hesitatingly.

“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 leaned back, and folded her bare white arms, from which the loose sleeves fell away.

“Uncle Mopius is always telling me that you are his natural heir,” she said. “He tells me whenever he wants to make himself disagreeable, which is not infrequently. 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 JacÓbus’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. “Good-night. 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 constantly in your presence. He’ll taunt me, as is his habit, especially now you’re here, 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 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 companion. “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 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 advertisement. 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, dryly.

“Oh, but I gave him a very accurate description, 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 exceedingly plain, I feel I have a double right to be satisfied 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.’[D] 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 attitude.

“Yes, I’m 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 I haven’t had a lover found for me,” interposed 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 bitterness, 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 some one besides my lonely 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.