Читать книгу My Lady Nobody - Maarten Maartens - Страница 6

Table of Contents

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 Dominé 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 splendor of the tropics. As they drove on, he turned right and left, with eager, misty eyes. The 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 expression.

“Yes, she is older,” said Otto.

The Baroness laughed again.

“My dear,” she said, “he is as 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 bonbonnière, 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 immediate 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.”

“Grandpa is dead,” said Otto, meditatively.

“Ah, yes, grandpapa is dead. That is very sad, but he had been childish for years. He lived up-stairs 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.”

“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 piece 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, presently, but there was not much interrogation in her voice.

“Yes, mother.” The tone excluded doubt; not that any one 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.”

“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. “You father expects 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 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 supposing 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 housekeeping with. Both, I suppose, should go on increasing; with us, only one has done that.”

“Nobody has ever missed the money,” interposed Otto, smiling pitifully down on the costly rug 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 grandpapa’s. Yet he was always so considerate to grandpapa after we took him to live with us, never reproaching him with word.”

Otto did not ask, What is a ‘Corot’? He lay 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 color 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 your 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 importance. He was now eager to show his son the acquisitions 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.

The returned exile—his heart soft with the morning’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 reputation.” 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 ceiling’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.’”

Otto stood staring at the little golden landscape. 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 didn’t 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 something 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 were discourteous, the Baron quite misunderstood it. “I hope you have got into no entanglements,” said the Baron, sharply. “Although, 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 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.”

“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.”