Chapter 24

Brederode smiled. "There were ways," he answered. "Once a rich banker of Amsterdam thought he would like to retire and have a fine house in aristocratic Gelderland. He bought a place, and wished to build a house to please his fancy; but no architect would make his plans, nobody would sell him bricks or building material of any kind, and he could get no workmen. Every one stood in too great awe of the powerful nobles. So you see, boycotting isn't confined to Ireland--or America."

"What happened in the end?" asked Nell. "I do hope the man didn't give in."

"Dutchmen don't, even to each other," said Alb. "The banker was as obstinate as his enemies. He went to enormous expense, got everything outside boycot limits, put up temporary buildings on his place for workmen from Rotterdam, fed them and himself from Rotterdam, and so in the end his house was built. But things are different in Gelderland now. People who were rich then are poor, and glad of any one's money. Arnhem is as cosmopolitan as The Hague, though it has the same curious Indian-Dutch set you find there, keeping quite to itself. A good many of the famous old places have been sold in these days to the _nouveaux riches_, but some are left unspoiled, and I'm going to show you one of them."

With that he drove his car through a wide, open gateway, a lodge-keeper saluting as we went by.

"Oh, but how do you know we may go in?" asked Phyllis.

"I'm sure we may," said Brederode.

"Are strangers allowed?" the L.C.P. questioned him.

"Harmless ones, like us."

Far away a house was in sight, a beautiful old house, built of mellowed red brick, its great tower and several minor turrets mirrored in a lily-carpeted lake which surrounded it on two sides, like an exaggerated moat. "Fifteenth century," said Brederode. "But the big tower dates from twelve hundred and fifty."

We all stared in respectful awe of age and majesty, as Alb stopped the car at a small iron gate about two hundred yards from the house. The gate, guarded by giant oaks, led through a strip of shadowy park to a glorious labyrinth of rose-gardens, and gardens entirely given up to lilies of every imaginable variety, while beyond these was a water-garden copied from that of the Generalife, which I saw last year at Granada. Nor was this all of Spanish fashion which had been imitated. Pedro the Cruel's fountain-perforated walks in the Alcazaar of Seville had been copied too, and were put in operation for our amusement by a gardener with whom Brederode had a short confab. When we passed again through the rose and lily gardens, which were in a valley or dimple between two gentle hills, all three of the ladies were presented with as many flowers as they could carry, and Alb informed them that they would find more, of other varieties, waiting for them in the car.

"What a divine place!" exclaimed Nell, as we came once more to the little gate whence we had the double picture of the house and its reflection in the lake. "I don't see how there could be any lovelier one, even in England. How I should like to live in that wonderful old house! I'd have my own room and a boudoir in the thirteenth-century tower."

"Would you care to go in?" Alb asked, looking more at Phyllis than at Nell.

Nell flushed and left Phyllis to answer. "It would be quite like a fairy tale; but of course we can't, as the people of the house are evidently occupying it."

"All the better," said Brederode. "The lady of the house will receive us and give us tea."

"No, no!" cried Nell. "It would be horried to intrude upon her."

"You'll find she won't consider it an intrusion," Alb insisted. "In fact, I called yesterday and said I was bringing you out to-day, so it is an invitation."

The hall was stone paved, with glorious oak walls and a wonderful ceiling. There were a few Persian rugs, which must have been almost priceless, a quantity of fine old portraits, and two or three curious suits of armor. Beyond was a Chinese room, done in the perfect taste of a nation which loves and understands Oriental treasures; and then we came into a white-and-gold paneled boudoir, sparsely but exquisitely furnished with inlaid satinwood which I would wager to be genuine Sheraton.

In this room sat a woman who rose to welcome us, a woman worthy of her surroundings. Her dress was nothing more elaborate than black-and-white muslin, but with the piled silver of her hair, her arched, dark brows and cameo features, her great eyes and her noble figure, she looked a princess.

"Ah, Rudolph," she exclaimed, in the English of an Englishwoman born and bred, "how glad I am that you could come, and bring the friends of whom you have written me so often."

"My mother," Brederode said; and introduced us.

I am not ashamed to confess that I was tongue-tied. _What_ had he written? How much had he told? In what way had he described--some of us?

Nell, who usually has some original little thought to put into words, apparently had no thoughts at all; or they lay too deep for utterance. The L.C.P. was taciturn too, which was prudent on her part, as this exquisite lady had probably heard her son speak of his Scotch friend Lady MacNairne. Had she ever met Aunt Fay, I knew that Alb was too wise, if not too loyal, to have brought us into her power; still I did not feel safe enough to be comfortable. And even if I had been personally at ease, I should have been too busy with my own thoughts to do credit to myself or country in conversation. As I sipped caravan tea from a flower-like cup of old Dresden, I wondered what were Nell's sensations on beholding the home and mother of the despised skipper whom it had been her delight to snub and tease.

Evidently he is adored, and looked up to as the one perfect being, by his mother, who would hardly have smiled as graciously on the beautiful Miss Van Buren, could some imp have whispered in her ear how that young lady treated her host, when he was nobody but a poor skipper on board a motor-boat. Through some careless word which gave a turn to the conversation, I discovered that Liliendaal is not the only house reigned over by Jonkheer Brederode, alias Alb. There's one at The Hague, but they "find Liliendaal pleasant in summer."

Indeed, it appears to me that "pleasant" is only a mild and modest word for the place; yet its owner can cheerfully desert it, week after week, to rub along as a mere despised Albatross on board a tuppenny ha'penny motor-boat, running about the canals of Holland.

Of course, he is in love, which covers a multitude of hardships. But it isn't as clear as it used to be, which Angel he is in love with. Perhaps the latest snubbing was the last drop in his cup, which caused the whole to overflow, and he had to fill it up again--for another. He poured scorn upon me, in our first passage of arms, for being in love with two girls at once; but how much more poetical and at the same time more generous to love two at a time than not to love one well enough to know your own mind!

In any case, it was Phyllis who shone on the occasion of our call at Liliendaal, and it was she who seemed to make the impression upon the gracious mother. Whether it was the fact that she is English, or whether it was because she could talk to her hostess--as if she knew them--about various distinguished titled beings whom the lady of Liliendaal had not seen for a long time; or whether it was because Phyllis once had a cousin who wrote a book about the Earls of Helvelyn (the lady's father was an Earl of Helvelyn) at all events the honors were for Phyllis; and if Alb really had changed his mind about the two girls, as the L.C.P. is continually saying, he ought to have been pleased.

Phyllis and my alleged aunt were both particularly gracious to him on the way back to Arnhem, as if he had risen in their esteem now that they realized what an important man he is; but afterwards when I accused the L.C.P. of this piece of snobbishness, she vowed that it was only because they both realized how much he was giving up for the sake of--somebody.

Just because I could not be sure which one the somebody was, and whether he were more likely to prevail, after this _coup d'etat_, I was uneasy in my mind, with the new knowledge of Alb's greatness. What are my dollars to his beautiful old houses, and a mother who is the daughter of an English earl? I suppose these things count with girls, even such adorable girls as Nell Van Buren and Phyllis Rivers.

A thing that happened the same evening has not relieved my anxiety.

At the Hotel Bellevue, each room on the floor where we live, has its own slip of balcony, separated from the next by a partition. I was sitting on mine, after we had all said good-night to each other, smoking a cigarette and waiting for the moon to rise, an act which she selfishly postpones at this time of the month, so as to give her admirers as much trouble and as little sleep as possible.

Suddenly I heard Phyllis's voice on the other side of the balcony partition.

"Dearest," she was saying dreamily, "isn't it strange how, on a night like this, you seem to see things clearly, which have been dark before?"

"It isn't so very strange," Nell answered practically. "The moon's coming up. And that's a sign we ought to be going to bed."

"I didn't mean that," said Phyllis. "I mean, there's a kind of _influence_ on such a beautiful night, which makes you see into your own heart."

"What do you see?" asked Nell.

I wanted to know what, as much as Nell did, and a great deal more, judging from her tone. But unfortunately I had no right to try and find out, so I got up, and scraped my chair and prepared to go indoors. But I had forgotten to shut my match-box when I lighted a cigarette a few minutes before, and now I knocked it off the table where it had been lying, scattering over the floor every match I had left in the world.

If they intended to say anything really private, I had made noise enough to prevent them from doing it; so I thought I might conscientiously remain and pick up some of the matches. The _personnel_ of the hotel had gone to its beds, therefore, if I wanted to smoke later, it must be these matches or none.

"After all, I'm not quite sure what I _do_ see, when I come to ask myself, like that, in so many words," said Phyllis. "I do wish you'd advise me. Will you, dear?"

"Of course, if I can," came the answer, a little shortly.

"Well, supposing _you_ cared more than you thought you ought, for a man it couldn't be right to care for at all, because he belonged to some one else, what would you do?"

"Try to stop caring for him," said Nell.

"That's what I think, too; only it might be hard, mightn't it? Do you suppose it would be easier if a girl did her best to learn to love another man, who was free to care for her, and did seem to care for her, so as to take her mind off the--the _forbidden_ man?"

No answer. (I realized that they could not have heard the falling match-box, and I was at my window-door now, going in. But the door is a Dutch door, which means that it is cleaned and varnished every day; and the varnish stuck.)

"You might tell me what you think, Nell. You have had so much experience, in serials."

"Oh!" exclaimed Nell. "I--I _hate_ you, Phil!"

Their door evidently did not stick, for suddenly it slammed, and I guessed that Nell had rushed in and banged it shut behind her.

* * * * * *

Now, it is the next day but one after this episode, and we are at Utrecht, after having visited an old "kastel" or two more in the neighborhood of Arnhem, and then following the Rhine where it winds among fields like a wide, twisted ribbon of silver worked into a fabric of green brocade. Its high waves, roughened by huge side-wheel steamers, spilt us into the Lek; and so, past queer little ferries and a great crowded lock or two, where Alb used his Club flag, we came straight to the fine old city of which one hears and knows more, somehow, than of any other in Holland.

I planned to do a little painting here; but, after all, I don't seem to take as much interest in composing pictures as in trying to puzzle out the meanings of several things.

I suppose a man never can hope to understand women; but even a woman sometimes fails to understand another woman. For instance, goaded by unsatisfied curiosity to know, not only my own fate, but everybody else's fate, all round, I was tempted to take advantage of nephewhood, and put the case, as I saw it, to the L.C.P.

I ventured to tell her what I overheard between the girls on their balcony.

"Now, you must know," I said, "that I'm in love with Phyllis."

"I thought it was Nell," said she.

"So did I, for a while; but I've discovered that it's Phyllis. And I shall be very much obliged to you if you can tell me something. In fact, if you _can_, your dear nephew Ronny will present his aunt with a diamond ring."

"You mean if I tell you what you want to hear."

"No. It must be what you honestly think."

"I don't want a diamond ring," said she, which surprised me extremely. It was the first time anything worth having has been mentioned which she did not want, and, usually, ask for.

"A pearl one, then," I suggested in my astonishment.

"I don't want a pearl one--or any other one, so you can save yourself the trouble of working through a long list," replied the lady who is engaged to be my obliging relative. "But go on, and ask what you were going to ask. Anything I can do for you, as an aunt, I will. I am paid for it."

This grew "curioser and curioser," as Alice had occasion to remark in her adventures. But having embarked upon my narrative, I went on----

"Whom do you think Phyllis meant when she spoke of trying to learn to love a man who seemed to love her? Was it Alb, or----"

"Mr. Robert van Buren, perhaps you were going to say," cut in the L.C.P.

"No, I don't mean him," I answered hurriedly. "Modesty forbids me to mention the name in my mind."

"But it was given to you by your sponsors in baptism. Will it make you very unhappy if I say I don't think that _was_ the name in her mind?"

"I shall have to bear it," I said. "But, of course, I shall be unhappy."

"We all seem to be unhappy lately," remarked the L.C.P.

"Except you."

"Yes, except me, of course," she responded. "Why should I be unhappy? Tibe loves me."

"You don't deserve it; but so do we all," said I.

She brightened.

"You are harmful, but necessary," I went on. "We are used to you. We have even acquired a taste for you, I don't know why, or how. But you have an uncanny, unauntlike fascination of your own, which we all feel. At times it is even akin to pain."

"Oh well, the pain will soon be over," said she. "We're at Utrecht now. Soon we'll be going to Zeeland, from Zeeland back to Rotterdam; and that's the end of the trip--and my engagement. It will be 'good-by' then."

"I feel now as if it would be good-by to everything," I sighed. "I never nursed a fond gazelle----"

"You tried to nurse two," said she. "You're like the dog who dropped the substance for the shadow."

"Which is which, please?--though to specify would perhaps be ungallant to both. Besides, I haven't dropped either of them. If Phyllis is lost to me, I may still be able to fall back on Nell, whom nobody else seems to claim at present."

"Oh, don't they?" murmured the L.C.P.

"Do they?"

"She may have left dozens of adorers at home, to pick up again when she goes back. She's a beautiful girl," said her chaperon.

"Radiantly so, and I used to think also possessed of a beautiful disposition. But since she flew out at poor little Phyllis, who was asking for advice and comfort, and cried, 'I hate you, Phil--' Now, you're a woman. What had Phyllis said to put her in a rage?"

The L.C.P. laughed. "Enough to put a saint in a rage," said she. "And Nell isn't a saint. But they've been more devoted to each other than ever, since, so she must have repented and apologized, and been forgiven, before the moon went down. Oh, you poor puzzled creature! I wouldn't be a _man_ for anything!"

And that was all the satisfaction I could get from her. I remain as much in the dark as ever. But Robert van Buren, his sisters, and his fiancee are arriving immediately, and perhaps I may get enlightenment during the visit. I ought to have some reward, since it is through me that the Viking is coming with the females of his kind, at this particular time.

In a moment of quixotic generosity at Enkhuisen, I promised Phyllis, as a newly adopted, if reluctant, brother, that I would make everything right for her. Afterwards, I was inclined to repent of the plan which had sprung, Minerva-like full-grown and helmeted, from my suffering brain. But it was too late then. I had to keep my word, for I was sure that, deep down in her mind, Phyllis was expecting me to perform some miracle.

Rather than disappoint her--and lower my self-esteem--I had a talk with Robert the day he was leaving. Not an intimate talk, for we aren't on those terms; but I managed to get out of him that he was parting from us before he had intended because of a letter from the fiancee.

"Young ladies are a little exacting when they are engaged, I suppose," said the poor fellow. "They feel they have more right than others to a man's society."

Then it was that I asked why he didn't bring Freule Menela, chaperoned by the twins, to Utrecht instead of waiting until we had got as far as Zeeland, which the fiancee might think too long a journey with such an object in view. He said that he would ask her.

"Don't seem too anxious," said I, airily. "And don't tell her you want her to be better acquainted with your cousin and step-cousin. Just remark that it will be a jolly excursion, eh? And you might add that Brederode and I--particularly I--are awfully keen on seeing her."

"Very well, I will give that message," said he. And I think he probably did give it, or something like it; for Nell had a telegram from him, while we were still doddering about in Friesland, asking if he might bring the ladies on a visit to Utrecht.

Now, it is "up to me" to carry out that plan made on the impulse of an unselfish moment.

Moral: do not have unselfish moments.

XXIX

I believe that, in the dark ages, I was rather a good little boy. I used often to tell the truth, and the whole truth, even when most inconvenient to my pastors and masters. I gave pennies to the poor, unless I very much wanted them myself; I said "Now--I--Lay--Me," every night, and also in the morning till advised that it was inappropriate; and I sang in a boy's choir, so beautifully and with such a soulful expression in my eyes, that people used to pat my curls, and fear that I was destined to die young.

In those days, or even until a few weeks ago no one who looked at me would have believed me capable of plotting against young and innocent girls, annexing aunts on the hire system, or deluding uncles-in-law with misleading statements. Yet these things I have done, and worse; for I have kept my word to Phyllis Rivers.

If I must commit a crime, my artistic sense bids me do it well; and then, of course, when one has started in a certain direction, one is often carried along a little farther than one intended to go at first.

That was what happened to me, in the affair of Robert van Buren and his fiancee.

I was pledged to Phyllis and myself to free the Viking somehow--anyhow. It was rash of me to give this pledge, also it was quixotic; and many hours did not pass after making it, before I was seized with regret, and convictions that I had been an ass.

Exactly how I was going to do the deed did not occur to me at the time, but I had an idea which fitted in with my other villainies so well, that it seemed really a pity not to add it to the richly colored pattern.

It was for this reason that I dreaded returning to the Hotel du Pays Bas from a walk about Utrecht, knowing as I did that the van Buren party would have arrived.

I stayed out, sketching, as long as there was any light, and got a few good bits of the old town; a shadowed glimpse of one of Utrecht's strange canals, unique in Holland, with its double streets, one above the other; an impression of the Cathedral spire, seen beyond a series of arched bridges; a couple of fishermen bringing up a primitive net, fastened on four branches, and sparkling as it came out of the water, like a spider-web spun of crystal.

I was careful not to appear till dinner-time; but one is obliged in self-defense to dine early in Holland, because what seems early to a foreigner seems late to a Dutchman. At seven o'clock I went to the L.C.P.'s sitting-room (it has become a regular thing for her to have a sitting-room), and behold, they were all assembled.

Nell was plainly dressed in the simplest kind of a white frock, but Phyllis had made quite a toilet. Poor child! I could guess why. She need not, however, have given herself the pains. The fiancee, compared with her, was like a withered lemon beside a delicately ripening peach.

The van Buren twins are delicious creatures; but they did not count in the little drama. Besides, they are, in any case, too young for drama. They are just beginning to rehearse for the first act of life; and I think for them it will be a pretty pastoral, never drama or tragedy, or even lively comedy.

I knew from Phyllis's description what sort of girl the fiancee would turn out to be, except that I didn't expect to find her quite so smart. Her dress, and the hat she had put on for the hotel dinner, might have come from the Rue de la Paix; which was all the more credit to her, as I have heard a dozen times if I have heard it once, that she is very poor--as poor as she is proud.

Now was my time to set the ball rolling; and valiantly I gave it the first kick. I feigned to be much taken at first sight with the young lady from The Hague. At once I flung myself into conversation with her, in which we were both so deeply absorbed, that when the L.C.P. suggested going down to dinner, nobody can have been surprised when I said, "Please, all whom it may concern, I want to sit next to Freule Menela van der Windt at the dinner table." Indeed, most of the party have long passed the stage of being surprised at anything I do; a state of mind to which I have carefully trained them. The Viking, however, has not often seen me at my best, so he stared at this audacity, but on second thoughts decided not to be displeased.

Neither was the fiancee displeased. I did not attribute her pleasure to the power of my manly charms; but the young lady is the sort of young lady to be complimented by almost any marked attention from any man, especially when other girls, prettier than herself, are present.

I continued to absorb myself in Freule Menela.

She has, I soon discovered, a veneering of intelligence, and a smattering of information on a number of subjects useful in a drawing-room. We talked about Dutch art, and French art, and so many facts was the maiden able to launch at my head, that the lovely pink-and-white twins gazed at their future sister-in-law with ingenuous admiration.

Evidently she had gleaned from Robert all he had to tell about me, as well as about the other members of the party, for she is not the sort of girl to lay herself out for strangers unless she considers them worth while.

Apparently she did consider me worth while; and during dinner she had hardly a word for the Viking, who sat on her other side; but that was all the better for him, because it gave him a chance to talk across the table to Phyllis, and to look at her when he was sitting dumb.

"There's going to be an illumination this evening," said Brederode. "You know the parks and gardens you admired so much last night, as we came through the canal into Utrecht? Well, there will be colored lights there; and a walk along the towing-path would be rather nice, if any one feels inclined for it."