“Gott! Gott! Can you not make confitures and cakes and salads? Confiture I must have with every meal—a nice saucer of cherries or raspberries or greengages, so good with meat. Well, well, never mind, you shall soon learn. Frau Wurm will teach you much. We no longer see company—just two or three men to dine and smoke; your aunt has dropped her English circle. The English community changes, and many of her old friends have gone away or died—and a good job, too! We live in the German quarter and are surrounded by compatriots. You speak German, of course?”
“No—only French; German is so difficult.”
“Tch! tch! tch! How lazy you English are! We all speak English. As for me, my mother was English—you could not tell that I was not born an Englishman?”
Apart from his appearance and guttural r’s, this claim was justified.
“I suppose you made lots of friends on board ship?”
“Yes, a good many.”
“Girls, I suppose—idle girls, who will come buzzing round to coax you to play with them. That is all they are good for; but you will have your work, as I have pointed out. If you are industrious, I shall lend you a horse that was your aunt’s—he is not up to my weight—and I will take you to our fine club when I can spare an afternoon. At present, I am immensely occupied, engaged in collecting wolfram. Do you know what wolfram is?”
“No, I have never heard of it,” humbly admitted Sophy.
“Well, it is ore used for hardening steel—extremely scarce and valuable; it comes from Tavoy, but business connected with it takes me up and down the river, and even as far as Calcutta and Singapore. Now, with you to look after the house and your aunt, I shall feel so free and easy in my mind. Ah, here we are; this is ‘Heidelberg,’” he said, as the car swung in between two tall gate piers.
“Heidelberg” was a good-sized residence, with spacious surroundings; palms, bamboos and crotona abounded, and a wonderful collection of gigantic cannas—red, yellow and orange—gave colour to the compound. A crowd of lazy retainers, who were hanging about, gaped in silence upon the new arrival.