The Loan of a Hartjen.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIII, Issue XII, 16 September 1899, Page 472

The Loan of a Hartjen.

(By

G. B. STUART.)

PART I. Miss Santley was a clever, middle aged woman who by profession wrote and illustrated for a leading London weekly. Miss Florence Grant, her friend, was a young lady whose business in life was to amuse herself; in pursuit of their respective objects they had come to summer in Heligoland.

Miss Santley sketched diligently all day —eoast scenery, Frisian types, groups of visitors, brand new German officials. Miss Grant ran about the island chattering to everybody, to the children, the dogs, the fisher folk, the waiters at the Conversation House, the outgoing English, the incoming Germans, and when there was nobody else handy, she talked, or perhaps sang, to herself. The good Heligolanders are full of affectionate curiosity about their summer visitors (it is a characteristic of these northern people, and goes hand in hand with an absurd, childish habit of boasting), and very soon they had informed themselves that the two ladies- came from London, and that the younger one's father was a Councillor to the Queen of England (in reality an M.P.), and that she habitually went to Court when she was at home. For all that she had only brought three dresses to Heligoland, and no jewels. They had also discovered that she had no mother, and only one brother, out in India, and could play theviolin —and ten thousand other facts respecting her, more or less correct, which flattered Mist Grant's self-importance very pleasantly. f About- Miss Santley there was less to say, or at all events there was less said but then she tied her brown straw hat tightly down over her ears with a blue veil—which had the advantage ot keeping it on her head. Florence Grant's “sailor” was generally blowing about the cliffs or the shore, with half the population after it. Miss Santley buttoned her hideous ulster about her in the most uncompromising fashion, and was not without a strong suspicion of black moustache on her upper lip, which gave her irregular face a shrewd decisive expression. When the islanders had remarked on these peculiarities and had criticised her mighty boots, and trembled at her sketch book, they had done with her. as far as gossip went, though their expansive friendliness held her in high respect as “a visitor out of England.”

Miss Grant, however, was an unending interest; though she had brought but three dresses with her, a red, a white and a blue, she managed to vary them in a most bewildering and enchanting manner; her sailor hats, her dogskit. gloves, her Oxford shoes, her tweed patterned mackintosh, each in their turn constituted an “event” in Heligoland eyes. Cassandra Hendricks, the island belle, had hitherto thought nothing in the world could be more beautiful than her own holiday suit of green, with its crimson petticoat, gold braided, and dangling Hartjen; there could only l>e one step further, she used to think, when as a married woman she should don the high lace cap, and a golden Hartjen instead of the maiden’s silver one. But since she had seen the English girl spring up the steps from the strand to the Oberland in her white dress, her slim figure posing like a bird, as she turned to shade her eyes and look out over the sea, some dim dissatisfaction with the canons of beauty as expressed In Heligoland had visited Cassandra's mind. She, in common with many of her young fellow-islanders, had a pleasant face, with good, round eyes and a fresh, healthy colour; het figure, too, was comely and straight, even if it a little strangely suggested two wineglasses, the lower one inverted; but when once she had looked full at Miss Grant, the honest, humble creature said simply, “We are all week-day girls, the English 'ady is for Sundays.” It was to her cousin. Franz Wyk, that she said this, and the eager alacrity with which he

agreed, gave poor 'Sandra a strange pang, but it did not lessen her generous admiration of the stranger. As rianz had been often to Hambu.g, and to Bremerhaven, and as far as Meniei, he must have seen many beautiful ladies, and be more hard to please that the lads who had nevei been away from the island; if only she had eurly yellow hair, and grey eyes, and a little, fine mouth that smiled like Miss Grant’s.

Miss Grant was smiling one afternoon as she stood by her artist friend's eampstool and watched hetwork. Miss Santley was finishing a sketch of Pompeian red rocks and silver sand, with little tufts of emerald green grass fringing the water line, and her companion was talking about Cassandra Hendricks. “You must paint her as a Heligoland bride,” she was saying—"l asked her to sit for me the other day in the cap and all the proper ornaments, but she seemed sny of it. 1 think she imagines it wouild be unlucky—it is a pity, for not one of the other girls is nearly so presentable.” “I'll get her to do it. 1 don’t believe she would refuse me.” Miss Grant had great confidence in herself, and it was somehow generally justified.

I hey are such a superstitious people; besides the wedding ornaments are peculiar. 1 doubt if they have got them in 'Sandra's family.” "Oh! 1 could get those too; Franz Wys liaS them rroni his mother. 1 know, for he spoke of them one day when we were out sailing. It is the bridegroom's gift to the bride, and he said that his father had given his mother a very complete set of Anhangsel and she had left them to him.”

"Humph! for his wife, 1 suppose? Do you think that Cassandra Hendricks will like you to borrow them from Wyk for her?” Miss Santley put the very least accent in the world upon the two pronouns. Florence Grant did not appear to notice it. "Why not?” she asked. "Franz and Cassandra are cousins; both are ready to gratify us; the man is proud of his queer old ornaments, ami the girl is sure to enjoy being dressed up. Leave it to me to manage."

"Willingly—only have a care, Florence; these people have feelings; they are not entirely playthings for you in the holidays.” “Be easy,” said her friend, sauntering away.

The respective admirers of Miss Santley and Miss Florence Grant were wont to wonder at the affection which existed between them. The friends of the latter did not hesitate to call the former “a queer* old lump,” while a sharp-tongued barrister who knew both ladies, and liked one of them, described their friendship in an epigram, "as the highest note in the character of the one and the lowest in that of the other.” But fashion generally, in Heligoland as well as in London, is influenced by personal attractions, and Florence Grant's were of a very high order; and with such a face, with such liquid, fathomless grey eyes, and curling black lashes, such tendrils of straying gold hair, sueh a sensitive, smiling, exquisite mouth, such delicate, dimpling cheeks, just touched by the Frisian sunshine and the frolicsome sea breeze with a dainty brown shade—surely with all these charms, a verykeen' sensibility for other people’s feelings is not necessary. It is from ugly people that the world expects sympathy. help. consideration; pretty ones have neither time nor need of it.

The white sand of the Heligoland l>eaeh is so soft and deep tha't Franz Wyk. who was tinkering at one of his boats (as a man will always tinker who loves his craft), did not hear Miss Grant's footsteps till she was close beside him; then the rattle of a pebble made him look up. He was a tall, thick-set man of nearly thirty, looking thicker and sturdier for the coarse blue jersey and the huge sea ligots which he wore, and also, perhaps. for the slender proportions of the girl who held out her hand to him. Wyk was a Heligoland gentle-

man, not a common sailor, and it suited some whim of Miss Grant’s to treat him exactly as if he were one of her own special set in London. The first time she uad offered him her hand, fee hud solemnly bent down and kissed it, and though she had laughingly explained that this was an unnecessarily fervent salutation, she continued to shake hands in careless, friendly fashion. Franz Wyk was wont to respond, awkwardly enough, but something in the accustomed familiarity always made his fingers tremble and his eheeks burn. “Herr Franz, 1 want you to do me a favour.”

"I. gracious Fraulein? You are joking! You know I am your servant." stammered Wyk. “I know nothing of the kind." said Florence Grant, with her audacious little society manner, which had turned stronger heads than this Frisian sailor's. “1 know you will take me out in your boat, if you have nothing better to do. and will teach me to fish because you think 1 bring you luck in the fishing, and you will sit for Miss Santley. because you like having your picture drawn; but this is something much more important, and T am not at all sure you will grant it!” and she shook her head as if in real doubt.

"Tell me what it is: try me.” urged Wyk. with desperate earnestness, his blue eyes, generally so placid and almost sleepy, ablaze with excitement. The girl's trumpery little moods had power to move him more than even she. with her London experience, dreamt of; possibly her London experience was after all with London material.

“Don't get excited; you will probably want to refuse my request po-

Utely when you hear what it is, so you had better not protest too much. My friend. Miss Santley, is very anxious to paint a picture of a Frisian bride before she goes away. It will make her fortune at the “Institute” or the New Gallery next year, when everyone will be curious about Heligoland. Those are great picture exhibitions in London, do von see?" “Yes, but—”

“Now lam coming to it. You spoke one day of having all the ornaments for a complete Ausstattung which hud belonged to your mother. Will you trust them to me for a week or so, the Hartjen, the earrings, the chains, and all the Anhangsel. that my friend may paint a Heligoland bride with all her distinguishing details of costume? I can promise you that they shall be carefully handled, and by nobody but myself.”

There was a moment's silence; Florence, naturally much quicker tniuded than the Frisian, concluding instantly that she had asked too much, and a little nettled at his reluctance (which in spite of her pretended doubts she had never expected), began, “I beg your pardon if—” when something in his face startled her.

It was not reluctance or dissent, this strange eager expression which lighted up Wyk’s square brown features; it was not any desire to excuse himself for withholding the permission she had asked. It was rather an incredulous, over-mastering delight at some apparently bewildering prospect which made his eyes gleam and the muscles of his mouth work convulsively. Miss Grant was certain that she would have the jewels, but

she could not think why the man should take the matter so oddly. "They are yours, Fraulein, I will bring them myself to your hotel. You can keep them —” "We should only want them a few days,” she interrupted quickly. She hail been on the point of making a little joking speech about his wanting them for a bride of his own, but some instinct cheeked her—"the remainder of the dress we can manage quite well. There is nothing distinctive except the cap which 1 can easily contrive, but the ornaments are the point of the whole affair, and unless we had them exactly correct it would not be a Frisian Bride at all. I don't knowhow to thank you, Herr Wyk,” she concluded graciously. There is no need —I would do more for you than that.”

"Take care, perhaps 1 shall steal your family jewels." "You cannot steal what is freely given.” "Oh. nonsense! you know I am only borrowing them; by the bye. you haven't asked who is to sit for the bride.”

"Because I know by instinct." "Who is it. then?" "The most beautiful girl in the island.” “1 don't myself think so much of 'Sandra's beauty." said Miss Grant to herself as she wandered away across the beach. “Ten years hence she will be as weatherbeaten and shapeless as the veriest old Meer Katze at the bathing place. She has only beaute de diable of a bright, healthy sort. But I suppose Franz Wyk will marry her —when—when he recovers himself. If he thought that I was going to sit to Una Santley in Frisian bridal cap and bells he is mistaken, but I hadn't the heart to tell him so. He seemed to take the matter as a serious compliment. Now to find 'Sandra and get her consent: I fancy that Franz’s Ausstattung will tempt her. “Hi, Frau Sack, have you seen ’Sandra Hendricks on the Unterland this afternoon ?” Meanwhile. Franz Wyk, pottering over his boat on the western strand, broke into snatches of song which were carried lustily along the beach, where Frau Sack was shaking out her damp towels and bathing costumes. Green is the grass. Red is the sand. Bright is the sunshine. In Heligoland! “It is not lucky to sing like that of a Friday, Franz Wyk." muttered the old “Meer-Katze” to herself sententiously. “It is all settled, Una. Wyk is delighted to lend his jewels, and Sandra to wear them; you shall charm the British public with an original picture, which the ‘Panorama’ will reproduce in a Christmas number. In my mind’s eyes I see your ‘Frisian Bride" hanging at all the Metropolitan rail wav stations.”

"Recommending somebody's soap, I suppose, or Australian Wine, —thank you," said Miss Santley grimly. She was not in a good temper, in spite of all Florence Grant’s efforts to please her. “Una and her Lion have a good deal in common, sometimes,” her friend was fond of remarking. Nevertheless, the picture was begun, and prospered. Franz Wyk had brought the jewels in a heavy, wooden box and had left them in Miss Grant's

keeping. Cassandra. Hendricks had donned her best crimson and green and gold costumg, and the lace cap. with its flapping ears, which is the insigna of wifehood, and duly “sat" in these and Wyk’s ornaments in her stolid, placid Frisian fashion. Only, when her eyes lit on the handsome golden Hartjen. with all its solid appendages of fish and fishing tackle, curiously wrought, and some two hundred years old. or her fingers touched the long, clumsy earrings, a look of complete satisfaction and childlike content woidd steal over her face, and her mind seem to sun itself in some inward vision of future happiness, which the sight and touch of Fra.nz Wyk’s Ausfattung summoned up.

Miss Santley found her an ideal model. “She enters into the spirit of the thing." Una observed to Florence one day. “You would almost believe from the expression that she wears, that she was really a bride. There is a look of half wondering and yet dignified exaltation about her. I had no idea that she possessed so much imaginative power.”

“Are you sure that you have not idealised the satisfaction arising from certain fine feathers, and a good deal of importance?” "No, 1 haven't,” said Miss Santley, sharply; "but 1 am not quite sure whether that rapt expression is the result of the highest art or the commonest nature."

One glorious summer evening when it would have been a sin to sit indoors painting the two English ladies and Franz Wyk were becalmed in “De Moeve.” Wyk’s favourite sailing boat, beyond the Dune. A few strokes of the oars would have brought them to shore, but “there was nothing to hurry for." Florence said, and they might just as well sit there as anywhere else. The sea was like green oil. the western sky was all luminous with orange and crimson, and the air about them seemed to quiver though there was not a breath of air anywhere. The breeze which had carried them alons: so briskly when they first started had suddenly dropped. “Aheavenly evening."the ladies said. “A storm brewing.” muttered Franz. But it mattered little, for they were near home, and the oars were ready. The master of the “Moeve” and his lad Peter could land them in a few moments whenever they liked to give the word. Miss Santley had a snug seat among shawls and cushions in the bows, and was devouring the latest consignment of English, French and German periodicals in an omniverous. polyglot fashion of her own. She might have been in her own South Kensington lodgings or at a Paris Boulevard cafe, or a German readingroom, for all the attention she paid her companions. Peter was happy, too, after his fashion, asleep in the sun. with his mouth open, and dreaiying of Conger, so that to all intents and purposes Florence Grant and Franz Wyk were alone—as much alone as the former was wont to be at a London ball, or in the back of a box at the theatre, or on the box-seat ot a drag at “Lords.” For her the situation had no novelty or special interest. "Will you not sing?” she asked the young man beside her. He had not spoken for so long that the silence was getting a little tedious. “What shall I sing?” “Sing ‘Der Feseher.’ ”

Wyk leaned back against the mast and clasped his arms behind his closely cropped brown head. He did not look at Florence, which was a relief to her. His long, silent gaze was beginning to be wearisome to her, but she knew that the intimacy had been of her own seeking, and if she had now had nearly enough of it it was not Wyk’s fault. She took comfort in thinking that in a week or so now her return to England would conclude the affair, and a Christmas card four months later would be all that was needed to put an elegant finishing touch to the episode. Meanwhile the young Heligolander sang like a thrush, and while he sang he did not look at her. but far a.way out to sea as a. sailor should “Der Feseher. please,” she repeated. Fortunately it had about a dozen verses. So wessel t alles auf der Welt Wie’s Wetter im April; Den einer Tag- sind wir obenauf Der Andere todten still! The voice died softly away and the singer’s eves came back to Miss Grant’s face. (To be continued. )