“I don’t think you need have any scruples; for she was very well acquainted with the character of Jonker van Zonshoven, and what might be expected of him in such matters. Yet you see this did not deter her from entrusting her fortune to you. Besides, she was liberal enough with regard to the views of other people. Her maid is strictly orthodox, and yet every Sunday a carriage was placed at her service to convey her to church; and she is left well provided for during the rest of her life. It is probable Lady Roselaer considered you the person likely to make good what she had left undone either from false shame or obstinacy. Had this not been her intention, she was a woman who would have taken measures to prevent her will being ignored, even after her death.”
[1] Strictly orthodox Dutch people think that a sermon in the light, airy French language cannot be so serious and solemn as in their own tongue.
Chapter VI.
With regard to the Castle de Werve, I have found out that it is situated on the borders of Gelderland and Overyssel, and is surrounded by extensive woods, moors, and arable land. It is at present occupied by General von Zwenken, and formerly was in the possession of Aunt Sophia’s parents. To its possession is attached the title of Baron, with seignorial rights—rights which in our time are little more than nominal, yet to which old Aunt Sophia seems to have attached immense value. Her father, old Baron Roselaer van de Werve, had no son (a great trial for him, as you may suppose), but three daughters, of whom Aunt Sophia was the second, and my mother’s mother the youngest. The eldest, Lady Mary Ann, became, on the death of her father, the rightful heir to the Castle de Werve and the estates attached to it. This arrangement was exceedingly offensive to Aunt Sophia, who had expected her father to leave the castle to her, and at one time she had good reasons for fostering such expectations.
Her eldest sister had been the source of much grief and sorrow to the old people. She had secretly entered into a romantic love-engagement with a young Swiss officer—then Captain von Zwenken—and considering it impossible to obtain the consent of her parents to such a marriage, she eloped with Von Zwenken, who took her to Switzerland, where they were married. This union, according to Dutch law, and in the opinion of Aunt Sophia, was illegal. The weak parents (as Sophia called them), however, at length became reconciled to their son-in-law, and when the lost child returned to her old home in reduced circumstances, her parents received her with open arms.
In this family scene of reconciliation, Aunt Sophia imitated the eldest son in the parable. She had never been on good terms with her romantic sister; she persisted in regarding her brother-in-law as an abductor and a deceiver, who had obtruded himself on the family; charged her parents with blameworthy infirmity of purpose, and, in short, declined all reconciliation.
The stay of the young people under the parental roof was brief; but even these few days were stormy, and sufficed to divide the family connexions into two parties, for and against the Von Zwenkens. Aunt Sophia’s strong point was the irregularity of the marriage, solemnized in a foreign country. Those who disagreed with her and recognized the Swiss captain as a relation, she looked upon as deadly enemies; while those who took her side in the contest were received by Baron and Baroness Roselaer with freezing coolness. In a word, it was the history of the Montagues and the Capulets re-enacted on a small scale in the eighteenth century on Dutch territory. They did not attack each other with dagger and poison, but used the tongue for weapon. They annoyed, they insulted each other, whenever and wherever they found an opportunity; there were hair-splitting disputes, and retaliation without truce or pity; and lawsuits followed which swallowed large sums of money. A good business for the lawyers, who only made “confusion worse confounded.”
When old Baroness Roselaer—who always pleaded for peace and forgiveness—shortly afterwards died, Sophia thought she would be able to exert unlimited influence over her father, as she now became the recognized mistress of the house. She even took advantage of her position, during the stay of her brother-in-law for the funeral, to make him so uncomfortable, that on leaving the house he told the old Baron he would never enter it again. Sophia was in triumph. She thought she had banished Von Zwenken from the house; but she forgot her sister’s children, and the joy and pride the old Baron was likely to take in a grandson and future heir to his title and estates. Though he never talked to Sophia on the subject, he was secretly embittered against her as being the cause of this new estrangement, and his great pleasure was to visit his grandchildren; and what is more surprising, Sophia never suspected these visits.