And Mathilde's healthy mental balance was disturbed. This young and healthy woman, with her rather vulgar aspirations, had fallen in love with him because her nature expected to achieve a sympathetic satisfaction through his both in body and soul; her love had faltered when she gradually perceived that she was sharing him with so many who seemed to understand him better, when she suddenly saw, in a refinement of her inner perception, that he was really escaping her. She had enough common-sense to understand and to appreciate that he wanted her happiness above all things, that he was now devoting himself to her entirely, that he had forced their present life at the Hague into a direction which was hers, not his. Because of this, she was filled with a surprised gratitude; and yet this gratitude depressed her. The years spent at Driebergen amidst her husband's family had subdued her to a mere nervous susceptibility; and now she sought and wept again and did not know what she sought nor why she wept. Fits of temper followed on fits of weakness and fits of discouragement. In the question which she no longer put to Addie, but which nevertheless constantly arose in her heart—the question whether he really loved her—lay hidden a second question, whether she really loved him. At such times she thought that, even though her love was diminished, they would still be happy, now, at the Hague, and make her life a simple life, the after-math of physical love. But she saw him grow moodier despite himself, despite all his efforts. She passed through hours of despair; and, if she had not had her children, she would have gone away somewhere, she knew not where.
Her healthy mental balance was disturbed. She now thought that it would be a good thing to tell Addie that she did not wish to stay at the Hague like this, because he was not happy there, that she wanted to go back to Driebergen. And the idea of giving back to him what he was giving her, of sacrificing herself as he was sacrificing himself, gave her an internal glow of exhilaration, as though she had found a solution; a solution in the near future, in a week or two, a month or two. Yes, let her tell him that it would be better, after all, to go back to Driebergen. The rooms there were always ready for them. They would all be glad to see him back again. She would give him back to his family. But she ...
She pictured herself once more in the repellant life which she had led there. And she would not, she could not suggest it to him. Then days would follow when she avoided him, when she hardly saw him at meals. Sometimes, for a few moments, they would play with the children, for there was something really attractive about the fair-haired little mites, pretty children both, Constant and Jetje, healthy children, such as Addie had wanted. When they were put to bed, she would go out in the evening by herself, to take tea with relations or friends. She did not ask him to go with her: he had his work to do; and she came back in a cab.
There was a void in her life; and she tried to argue sensibly with herself, and to make light of things. Come, there were hundreds of women in her position, not so very happy with their husbands: really, happy marriages were rare; and people still managed to get on all right.... There were the children; and she was very fond of them.... Perhaps later, when they were a little older, things would be better: Addie might become reconciled to his position as one of the most fashionable doctors of the day; she also might recover her calmness, her balance.... Life was so insipid: getting up, dressing, ordering meals, paying visits, shopping. Only the children, still so small, imparted a little gaiety to it. For the rest, it was insipid; and it was the same for one and all. Nearly everybody had to pass through some sort of crisis, after a few years' marriage. She would settle down, Addie would settle down: they would go on living side by side....
But days of tears would follow, days of despair; and she felt much too young, much too full of vitality, just to drag on her life like that.....
It was spring; and Marietje van Saetzema was to go to the Hague for the day, to see her father and mother. Constance went with her.
"How well Marietje was looking!" cried Adolphine, with delight.
Marietje certainly looked well. She would always remain a little pallid, frail and thin, with narrow shoulders; but her cheeks had filled out, her eyes showed a dewy calmness and her lips, pale though they were, blossomed into a kindly smile. She was, as usual, a little subdued, but she joined in the conversation and her attitude was more natural, less painful and forced.
"But you must leave her with us for the summer as well," said Constance, "for the poor girl hasn't had much out of the country air during the winter. It is beginning to look lovely now where we are. She'll spend a summer with us first, Adolphine, won't she, before you take her back?"
"Very well," said Adolphine, gratefully.
But presently, when she was alone with her sister, she found an opportunity to say:
"At least ... if there are no objections."
"What objection could there be?"
"Because of Addie."
"What do you mean?"
"People are so spiteful sometimes, you know. They say...."
"What do they say?"
"They say that Addie is in love with Marietje and that Marietje does her best to attract him."
"I should let them talk, Phine."
"What do you believe, Constance?"
"I don't believe a word of it. Addie is in love with his wife."
"That's just it. People say...."
"What do they say now?"
"That things are not going so very well between Mathilde and Addie."
"Every young couple has a difficult time now and again. A little difference of opinion ... I assure you they are happy together."
"Is that so?"
"Yes."
"It was Mathilde's wish to come and live here?"
"It was better that she should be on her own, in her own house."
"Oh, she didn't have a scene with you then? That's what people say."
"I never had a single word with Mathilde."
"I see her once in a way. She doesnottalk nicely of you. She says that she was sacrificed to Gerrit's children, that she did not count at home. When she talks like that, I defend you, for I know how nice you and Van der Welcke are to everybody."
"She may have had a bitter moment that made her speak like that."
"She goes out a lot," said Adolphine.
"When? Whom does she go to?"
"In the evening. Friends. She is hardly ever at home of an evening. She oughtn't to do that ... without Addie, you know. It's so undomesticated."
"I know she goes out now and then of an evening to have tea ... with friends."
"Yes, exactly.... She'salwaysout.... But how well Marietje is looking, Constance! She does Addie great credit. He's making a great reputation ... with his hypnotism. Everyone wants to be hypnotized by him. I'm always hearing him praised."
"I'm so glad, Adolphine."
She went away, arranging to fetch Marietje in the afternoon and take her back to Driebergen. She had an open fly waiting: it was beautiful, mild weather; and the spring was weaving verdure in between the trees. But a heavy load lay on Constance' breast and she could have cried ... because of her boy, because of Addie. She was going to ride to him now, at the other end of the town, the Emmastraat. She meant to lunch there and, when she had seen the grandchildren, to come back to Adolphine's. It was eleven o'clock. And she felt so much weighed down with sorrow for Addie, who came home to them looking more and more gloomy every week, that she could not, could not go to him yet ... after all that Adolphine had said.... Oh, how she always loved saying things that jarred upon your nerves, things that hurt, things that grated against your soul! Did she do it purposely? Was she insincere? Or was it because she couldn't help it, because she was tactless ... or, very likely, took an unconscious pleasure in hurting other people?... Oh, perhaps she did not know how much pain she gave!... But to go straight to Addie now, to Mathilde, was impossible....
"Cabman, drive a little way through the Woods first."
The driver turned down the Javastraat, went along the Scheveningen Road and let his horse roam at will in the rides of the Woods.... Oh, the Hague was charming; she loved the Woods! Even as Addie loved Driebergen, with an innate inherited love for the house and household and the fact of living there—he was indeed his grand-parents' grand-child—so she loved the Hague greatly. She loved those green villa-lined roads, she loved the briny fragrance of the sea.... She was now riding along the Ornamental Water, now, suddenly, along the spot where she remembered meeting Brauws years ago—he sitting on that bench yonder—when, after she had turned round with a start, he caught her up; and her confession, that she had suggested a divorce to Henri.... Oh, those days, those days of life and suffering and illusion, so far, so far away in the distant past!... And now, now the man drove with his jog-trot, the jog-trot of a victoria hired by the hour, along the Kerkhoflaan; now she was riding past the old house.... Oh, that old house! It was as though the past, the illusion, the suffering and the life, the later, later life, were still hanging around it like a low-drifting cloud! It was the trees of yore and the skies of yore and the green spring life of yore. The house, the house: there was the window at which she had so often sat musing, gazing at the great skies overhead, while her soul travelled along a path of light. Up above were Addie's little turret-room and her own bedroom: oh, that night of illusion at the open window, with the noiseless flashes of hope over the sea, the distant sea yonder!... She felt almost inclined to stop, to alight, to ask leave to go over the house; but something in the curtains, in the outline of a woman sketching at the window of her former boudoir prevented her; and she rode on. Oh, how she loved her Hague; and yet ... yet she had suffered there, with what antipathy she had been surrounded!... Did that antipathy of small souls for small souls go on for ever? Must her poor boy now suffer through it, even though he made his name as a doctor?... Oh, what a heavy depression she felt upon her heart, as if her fur cloak, were much too warm for the balmy weather with its breath of spring!... Now they were going down the Bankastraat, past poor Gerrit's old house; and suddenly that terrible night of snow stood white-hideous before her mind, stained dark with her brother's blood.... Here was Dorine's boarding-house; and Constance got out and rang, but Dorine was not in.... The driver jogged on wearily. She recognized acquaintances here and there, grown older now that her memories were harking back to past years; and the cabman, doubtless to spin out the drive, instead of following the Kanaal, turned up the Alexanderstraat. Oh, the house, the old family house, so full of recollections, so full of the past! And ... she saw that it was empty, that it was to let. With a quick glance at the uncurtained windows above, she even recognized the plasterwork of the ceilings; and it was as though the past still brooded there, still stared out at her, through the white, streaked windows.... Wearily the horse now jogged along the Bezuidenhout; and she saw poor Bertha's house, with its tightly-drawn veil of chill panes stiff and repelling a swift penetrating glance.... Yes, the Hague was like a grave to her; and yet even as a grave the Hague was dear to her. A grave? And Addie lived down there, at the end of the street!... Wouldshestill care to live in the Hague? She did not know, she did not know: perhaps she was becoming used to Driebergen, becoming used to the big, sombre house there, because there was so much love around her, even though she continued to feel a stranger there.... And a stranger: that was how her boy felt here!
The carriage now pulled up outside her boy's house. Strange, the front-door was open: perhaps the maid was out on an errand and had left the door open for a minute to save herself trouble. Constance, telling the driver to come back at half-past two, went inside. Addie could hardly be home yet from visiting his patients. She knocked at the door of the drawing-room and received no answer. Mathilde was no doubt busy with the children or with her house-keeping. Constance opened the door and walked in, to look for her.
She gave a start. Through the drawing-room and the dining-room she saw Mathilde sitting in the conservatory, with Johan Erzeele beside her. He sat bending towards her; and he was holding her hand in his two. Mathilde's eyes were staring into the distance; and a feeble hesitation seemed to take away something of the usual strength of her fine, healthy, rather full lines. Constance saw it for one moment, as a strange vision in that bright, unsoftened conservatory-light, which was made the harder with many-coloured muslin curtains and coarsely vivid with the gold and motley of ugly Japanese fans. It gave Constance a fright; and in that inexorable light the fright and the vision were both inexorable.
It did not last longer than a second. Her shadow in the drawing-room made Mathilde and Johan start up; and they rose to their feet:
"Mamma!"
"Mrs. van der Welcke!"
It sounded like a greeting; but their voices were unsteady, because they understood that Constance had seen. Constance' voice trembled, but she merely said:
"Good-morning, dear. How do you do, Mr. Erzeele?" She kissed Mathilde, shook hands with Erzeele. "I came over with Marietje; I left her with her father and mother and came to look you up ... intending to lunch with you ... if it suits you."
She strove to make her words and her voice sound quite unaffected and she succeeded; and, because she succeeded, she suddenly felt that what she had seen was nothing: a moment of familiar intimacy. Were they not old friends? Had Mathilde not, as a girl, when he was still a cadet, danced with him often at their dancing-club? There was nothing, there was nothing; she was reassured by the tranquillity of her own voice.
"So you will stay to lunch," said Mathilde.
"If it suits you."
"Of course it does.... Addie is not in yet."
"Are the children upstairs?"
"Yes, I'll send for them."
Erzeele said good-bye, said that he must go, reminded Mathilde easily of her appointment to meet him the next day at the tennis-club. Constance glanced at him quickly: in his uniform, he was young, broad and short; his complexion fair but bronzed with the sun; above his powerful shoulders and thick neck his face stood fresh and strong, smart military, with a pair of glad, childlike grey eyes; a long fair moustache shaded his lips, which were laughing glad and warmly sensual; and, when he laughed, his small sharp ivory teeth flashed.... His thick fair hair curled slightly at the tips....? It was very strange, but it struck her suddenly that Erzeele's way of looking at Mathilde resembled that of her own husband, Van der Welcke, when ... when he was young, when she met him in Rome. Something in the fresh vigour of his glance and of his rather sensual laugh, something about his figure, about his teeth reminded her of Henri as a young man.
"You've known him a long time, haven't you?" asked Constance, when he was gone.
"Oh dear, yes!" said Mathilde, vaguely.
The nurse brought down Jetje and Constant for Grandmamma to see: after that, the children were to go out for a little longer.
"They look well," said Constance, huskily.
She felt a heavy pressure of inexplicable melancholy on her heart, a pressure so heavy that she could have cried, so heavy that she felt her eyes grow moist in spite of herself.
"Yes," said Mathilde, "they're very healthy. It's quite a system that Addie and I are practising with that special diet and the regular time each day in the open air. The other day it was blowing a gale ... and Addie absolutely insisted that they should go out all the same. And I must say I agree with him."
Suddenly, while Jetje was sitting on her lap and Constant tugging at her skirts, Constance took Mathilde's hand:
"Then thingsareall right between you?" she whispered, almost imploringly.
"How do you mean?"
"You are happy now, Mathilde ... here at the Hague?"
"Certainly, Mamma.... You yourself understood, didn't you, that I longed for a house of my own."
"Yes, dear, I understood."
"Only...."
"What?"
"I am sorry to have robbed you of Addie."
"But, my dear, a son does not belong to his parents."
"Still, I reproach myself.... But I could not stay with you any longer. You understood that it was not because ... because you were not kind to me. You were very kind ... you tried to be ... though I do not believe that Papa likes me, that Emilie, Aunt Adeline or any of the others like me.... I bear them no malice: I don't like them either."
Constance was silent.
"I am so different from the boy and girl cousins ... and Papa was always jealous."
"My dear!"
"And you too; but you fought against it."
"Mathilde, I always wished you to feel at home with us; I always hoped that some part of you would blend with us."
"Exactly; and that was impossible: I was too different from all of you; and at Driebergen ... in the end.... I should have become as full of nerves ... as Mary."
There was a tint of hatred in her voice.
"No, dear," said Constance, harking back, "you were not happy with us. But because I hope that you are happy now...."
She had risen nervously; the nurse had entered and was taking the children with her: they were to have one more turn in the street before lunch.
"Tell me, Mathilde, are you really happy? Do you really and truly love Addie again?"
"I have always loved him. What do you mean?"
"Then it's all right, then it's all right, dear."
"Why are you so sad? There are tears in your eyes."
"The Hague always makes me sad. The cabman took me for a little drive and I passed all the houses of the old days ... when we all used to live here."
"Did you feel a longing to come back to the Hague?"
"No, no ... I don't want to come back again."
"Will you always remain at Driebergen?"
"Yes, I think so."
"You have found happiness there, I did not. I remained a stranger."
"Tilly ... one day, perhaps ... you will live there as we do now ... when we are no longer there...."
"No, never."
"Why not?"
"I dislike the house and everything in it ... down to the very doorposts. And I can't get used to an eerie house ... as you all do."
"But Addie...."
"Exactly: he will never forget the house. What can it be to him? He was not born there!"
"He feels at home there."
"Just so. And I do not.... Oh, I ought never to have married him!"
"Tilly, Tilly, what are you saying?"
"I ought never, never to have married him!"
"And you love him, you love him!"
"I have loved him, oh, very dearly. But he is far above me! I do not reach his level! He sacrifices himself for me. And it breaks my heart to accept his sacrifice. It oppresses me! Oh, Mamma, find something, find something for us! Let him go back to you all ... and let me stay here with the children.... I shall live simply ... in a small upper part ... and practise economy. It is all my fault, not his. He is good and kind and magnanimous ... but all that oppresses me. I thought at first that we were—how shall I put it?—akin to each other, kindred natures. When we got married, I used not to think about such things ... but I thought in myself, with an unconscious certainty, that we were akin. He was so nice, so straight-forward and so manly; and that rather elderly something appealed to me: I used to look up to it, without being oppressed by it.... Gradually, gradually I began to feel that he was far above me. Things I like leave him indifferent: little luxuries, fashion, gaiety, society. That hypnotism of his: at first, I used to think, 'This is something new, a new method;' now, I don't know: I am becoming afraid of it! I am becoming afraid of him! There is something in him that frightens me.... Oh, I know, it is only because he is so good and so big and because I feel very small and ordinary, because I don't understand those fine, lofty ideals ... about doing good and about poor people and about self-sacrifice!... To him it all comes natural. He is sacrificing himself now for me: he does not care for the Hague or for his practice here, whereas I could never live at Driebergen again.... And, even if I could feel more or less at home among you all ... even then, even then Addie would oppress me!... Do you understand? Oh, you are crying! Of course you are angry with me: you see your son above everything. That is easily understood; and I ... I still have enough love left for Addie to understand it, to understand it all.... But, you see, the love I still have for him ... is an anxious love, it's a sort of self-reproach that I am as I am and not different, a sort of remorse caused by all kinds of things I don't understand and can't express, things that make me cry when I am by myself and oppress me ... oppress me, until I sometimes feel as if I were suffocating!"
"Hush, dear: here he is!"
They both ceased and listened. They heard Addie's voice: coming home, he had met the children outside the house; Constance and Mathilde heard his deep voice sound kindly, playfully, in the hall. He now opened the door, with Jetje on one arm and little Constant toddling by his side with his hand in his father's.
"Mamma!" he exclaimed, in surprise. "I had no idea that you were here!"
"No, my boy, I came up unexpectedly. I brought Marietje with me and left her with her father and mother."
"You'll stay to lunch, of course?"
"I should like to."
"Why, what's the matter with you, Mamma?"
"The matter?"
"And with you, Mathilde?"
"With me?... Nothing."
He saw that they had been talking together. He said nothing more, however, but played with the children for a while and then released himself and gave them over to the nurse, who had come in.
"The youngsters are looking first-rate, aren't they?"
"We shall have lunch in a minute, Mamma," said Mathilde, tonelessly.
Addie sat down beside his mother, took her hand, smiled. Mathilde left the room with her keys.
"Don't fret, Mamma," he said.
"My boy...."
"You're fretting. You look so sad."
"My dear, my dear ... I...."
"What?"
She gave a sob and laid her hand on his shoulder. She was so frightened, so frightened, that it was as though her great dread stifled her and prevented her from breathing. She trembled in his embrace.
"You won't fret, you won't fret, will you, dear?"
"No."
The maid came to lay the table in the dining-room. Constance controlled herself.
"Mamma," he said, jestingly, now that Mathilde also returned, "you're losing all your vanity! That's a nice old blouse to come and see your son in! Look, it's wearing out at the elbows. Do you know you haven't looked at all smart lately?"
"Oh, my dear boy. This blouse is quite good still!"
"Well, I think it's seen its best days. What do you say, Tilly?"
"Why should I get myself up, an old woman like me?" said Constance.
"You'll never be old, Mummie, and a well-turned-out woman must always remain well-turned-out.... Do you remember the old days?"
"Yes, when...."
"You brought home that fine photograph from Nice?"
She smiled through her tears:
"My boy, that is so long ago!... You thought me a bundle of vanity then."
"The photograph never leaves my writing-table.... Mamma, you mustn't let yourself go like that."
"Very well, I don't wear this blouse any more. ... But it costs so much to dress nicely ... and we have so many expenses."
"You were not rich in the old days," said Mathilde, piqued at something that she did not understand.
"And yet Mamma wore dresses that cost six hundred francs," said Addie, chaffingly.
"Yes; and now that you are well off...."
"Now I never dream of doing such a thing," said Constance, gently.
The luncheon was quiet, a little melancholy, a little constrained. Afterwards, things went a little more merrily because Jetje and Constant came downstairs again with their nurse, suddenly, in a very youthful vision of golden hair seen through the open door. Their little voices chirped like those of young birds; and Constance could not refrain from saying how much they all missed them at Driebergen. For there also they were always coming down the stairs, looking so young and so golden, like a vision of the future, to go walking out of doors. Even in the winter they brought a hint of sunshine and of spring, something refreshing of youth and beginning, a promise of future in the old house which was so gloomily full of things of the past, things that hovered about the rooms, gleamed out of the mirrors, trailed, like strange draughts, along the lightly creaking stairs....
Mathilde did not say much; she was silent and sat with her lips closed and her whole face—her eyes half-shut—closed, after that sudden irresistible betrayal of her feelings to her mother-in-law to whom nevertheless she was attracted by no sort of sympathy.
A little while later, Constance' carriage came to fetch her and Addie offered to go to the Van Saetzema's with her and see how Marietje was.
"And what are you doing, Mathilde?" asked Constance, gently.
"I don't know.... I expect I shall go out.... Or I may stay at home...."
Addie went upstairs to get ready; and Constance suddenly took Mathilde in her arms.
"My dear...."
"Mamma...."
"You did well to speak out to me just now.... However sad it made me feel, you did right."
"Oh, why did I do it? I should have done better to hold my tongue."
"No, no. Speak, oh, do speak to Addie too!"
"I have spoken to him so often!"
"Not lately?"
Mathilde shrugged her shoulders:
"No, not so often lately. What's the use? It's not his fault ... it's six of one and half a dozen of the other ... and it can't be helped."
"Very likely. Only...."
"Only what, Mamma?"
"Be careful, Mathilde, I implore you! Oh, do be careful! Everything, everything can come right again.... You are sure to come together again later ... but be careful, be careful. Don't spoil your life."
They looked deep down into each other's eyes.
"Mathilde, I may speak openly to you, mayn't I? Just because it's I, dear, your mother ... who suffered so very much ... because she spoilt her life so ... spoilt it so ... when she was young ... until life became a torture.... I was a young woman, as you are, Mathilde, and ... and I wasn't happy ... any more than you are, my poor child, at the moment ... and...."
"I know, Mamma," Mathilde replied, shortly.
"Yes, you know ... you know all about it.... Of course you know, dear, though I have not mentioned it to you.... But just ... just because of all that, I may tell you, may I not, to be careful? Oh, do be careful!"
"You are afraid of things that don't exist."
"No, dear, there is nothing.... I know there's nothing ... only...."
"What?"
"You see ... when I arrived this morning...."
"Erzeele was with me."
"Yes."
"He's an old friend."
"I know."
"He came to make an appointment ... to play tennis to-morrow."
"Yes, I heard him."
"There was nothing else."
"He was holding your hand."
"He's an old friend whom I knew as a girl, almost as a child."
"Yes, dear, I know ... but...."
"What do you mean?"
"Itisdangerous."
"What is?"
"To talk to him too much ... while you're in your present frame of mind. If you're feeling unhappy, dear, about one thing or another ... speak to Addie."
"I've spoken to him so often."
"Confide in him."
"I have."
"And not ... not in Johan Erzeele."
Mathilde's eyes blazed:
"Mamma ... you haven't the right!"
"Yes, dear, Ihave! I not only have the right to tell you this as Addie's mother, but above all I have the right because I understand you, because I am able to understand you, because I remember my own wretchedly unhappy years of despair, as a young married woman, unsatisfied, unhappy, desperate, though for other reasons, alas, than those between you and Addie!... Because I remember all this, Mathilde, because I can never forget, just because I remember, because I now remember how I used to talk ... to Papa while I was married to my poor old husband ... how I used to talk to Papa ... and try to find consolation in those talks ... and how we worked ourselves up with those talks until ... oh, Mathilde, oh, Mathilde, let me tell you all about it!... Let me tell you all about it, quite simply, even though you know, so that I may have the right to speak to you. I used to talk to Papa ... and we fell in love with each other ... wethoughtwe loved each other...."
"And, if you thought so, why didn't you?"
"Because it wasn't true, dear, because it wasn't a burning fire of feeling, because it was an unreal feeling, arising from unreal words between a young woman and a young man until ... until all those talks drove them into each other's arms ... and the awful thing became irrevocable."
"Mamma!"
"I am telling you everything, dear...."
"I know everything, Mamma. But you say you used to have unreal talks with Papa."
"Yes."
"I talksimplyto Johan."
"My dear, my dear, it's not that. I, I myself was unreal ... in those days ... in my feelings, which came out of books which I had read. Papa used to answer ... out of those same books. You ... you are different: youaresimple; Erzeele, a friend of your childhood, is simple, a simple-minded fellow; your talks are bound to be different."
"Our talks are simple."
"But, when I came in, I saw that you were talking confidentially, intimately, intimately and eagerly ... and that he was holding your hand, holding your two hands."
"Yes, you saw that: he was consoling me."
"That's exactly what he mustn't do. That's exactly what he mustn't be allowed to do. Oh, Mathilde, I am an old woman and I am your mother, especially now that you have no mother of your own, and I am Addie's mother ... and I understand, I understand everything ... because I myself have suffered so much...."
"Addie's coming downstairs, Mamma."
"Promise me, dear ... to be careful."
"I ... I will be careful."
"And forgive me, forgive me for everything that I have dared to say. Kiss me. Oh, I long so intensely ... for you and Addie to be happy again!"
She took Mathilde in her arms, passionately, and kissed her twice, three times.
Addie entered.
"I'm ready, Mamma. The carriage is waiting."
"I'm coming, I'm coming, my boy."
Summer came suddenly: fine, sunny days followed one after the other, all the windows in the big house were opened and the summer seemed to enter and drive everything of winter out of the open windows. The spreading garden became closely leaved with a green and gold triumph of dense foliage which, lightly stirred by the wind, cast shadows over the pond, with a play of alternating flecks of light and shade. Van der Welcke, strolling along the paths, found pleasure in watching Klaasje, the big girl of thirteen, tearing round the water, pursued by Jack, the new terrier, who barked and barked incessantly with his sharp, throaty bark.
"She is still just like a child," thought Van der Welcke, "and she is developing like a little woman. It is strange, the influence which Addie has over her ... and the way the child is perking up now that the fine days have come. But it is not only the fine days, it is Addie above all that gives her this balance: what's it through, I wonder? Purely through his influence, through a sort of healing magic that flows from him.... It is very strange. The other day, I had a terrible headache; and, when he came and just gave me a little massage, it was gone, quite.... And the way the fellow has succeeded in developing the child's mind, with those picture-books, with those coloured things: it's as though he wanted to affect her by means of colours and glitterings and I don't know what. In any case, it came off; she is really learning her lessons very well; and everything she says is more reasonable and sensible. It's as though she were catching herself up.... Yes, amuse yourself, child.... Look, how wildly excited she is with that dog, like a real child; she's enjoying the fine weather; she's just like a child of nature; and she looks well too: she'll grow into a pretty girl, though she's a trifle heavily built.... She no longer has that stupid look in her eyes; and there's something kind and genuine about her ... in her behaviour towards old Mamma and Ernst, something motherly and understanding combined, as if she felt she had something in common with their clouded minds. ... It's jolly to look at the child, to see her sprouting and blossoming, exactly like a plant that is now receiving just the right light and just the right amount of water ... and yet she owes it all to Addie and will very likely never know that she owes it to him.... Yes, the fellow wields a wonderful influence.... Alex is keeping his end up now in Amsterdam and seems to be losing some of his melancholia since Addie has been talking to him so regularly: poor chap, he was ten years old when he saw his father lying dead in all that blood; and it affected him for all time!... We were right to take all those children to live with us: that sort of thing gives a man an object in life, even me, though I myself do nothing, though it's Constance and Addie who act. I feel a certain satisfaction, even though I just let them do as they please.... Who would ever have thought that it would become like this, the big, lonely house, where Father and Mother lived so very long and sadly by themselves, now so full, as a refuge for Constance' family? It turned out so strangely, so very strangely.... Oh, if my boy were only happier!... Who would have thought that he, he who has everything in his favour, should go falling in love with a woman who cannot make him happy? I am always thinking about it. I get up with it, I go to bed with it; I see the two of them in the smoke of my cigarette; and I am beginning to worry and worry about it: a proof that I'm getting old.... And I can see that Constance also worries about it, that the thought of Addie ... and that woman is always, always with her ... oh, everything might have turned out so happily!... But it was not to be, it was not to be.... A lovely summer morning like this almost makes a fellow melancholy.... Yes, it makes you melancholy because you know for certain that it won't long remain so, that calmness in the air, that beautiful clear sky, that green and gold of the trees, and that it will soon become different, soon become different, full of sadness and of gloomy things."
He suddenly spread out his arms, for Klaasje, pursued by the dog, came rushing down the path in his direction without seeing him, as it were blinded by the game which she was playing.
"Uncle Henri, Uncle Henri, let me go! Jack will catch me!"
"Mind and don't tumble into the water," Van der Welcke warned her; but she had already released herself from his arms and was running on, with the dog after her.
"She's gone wild," he thought, "wild with the joy of life. She is beginning to wake up, physically and mentally. It is as though a twilight were withdrawing from her, a twilight which is beginning to steal over me. What is the matter with me? What do I feel? Oh, I long to go bicycling, to go for a long spin ... but Addie's not here; and, even when he is, he has no time, and Guy's working!... Suppose I asked Gerdy: she's fond of a little run."
He went in, through the conservatory: the old woman was sitting there, staring quietly out of the window; Adèletje was busy with the plants.
"Well, Mummie, how are you? What do you say to this fine weather?"
"What?"
"What do you say, Mum, to this fine weather?"
The old lady nodded her head contentedly:
"Lovely, lovely," she said. "The wet monsoon is over. But tell Gertrude ... to be careful ... of the river ... behind the Palace."
Her voice sounded like a voice from the past and spoke of things of the past.
"Where is Gerdy?" Van der Welcke asked Adèletje.
"In the drawing-room. Uncle Paul's in there, playing."
He heard the piano: Paul was improvising. Van der Welcke found Gerdy leaning over the back of her chair, very pale.
"I say, dear, come for a ride with me. It'll freshen you up."
She looked at him dejectedly, shook her head:
"I have a headache."
"That's just why you ought to come, dear. Come along, do ... to please me."
He stroked her hair. She took his hand and put it to her lips.
"Come."
"Really, Uncle, my head's too bad."
"Then, why don't you go and sit in the garden? It's so hot in here."
"Aunt Constance is taking me for a drive presently; and Mary's coming with us."
"Paul, can't you ride a bicycle? There's one of Addie's which you could have."
"No, my dear chap, it makes you so hot. And all that perspiring is such a dirty business."
"Well, in that case," thought Van der Welcke, "I'll go on my own, but it's not particularly cheerful. If only Guy weren't working! I can't very well take him from his work ... to come cycling! So I'll go on my own.... Lord, Lord, how boring!... How boring everything and everybody is ... without my boy! How that poor Gerdy is moping!... No. I can't endure it, I can't do it, I can't go bicycling by myself.... I'll ask Guy to come. It'll do him good: the boy is too healthy to be always sitting with a pile of books round him."
Van der Welcke went upstairs, reflecting that Addie would not approve at all if he knew that his own father was taking Guy from his work ... to go bicycling, as he had often taken Addie himself in the past.
"But Addie has so much method, he used to divide his time so splendidly between his work, his mother ... and me," thought Van der Welcke. "Still, to-day, I simply cannotgo bicycling on my own ... and so I'll just play the part of the tempter."
He had reached the first storey; and here too the windows on the passage were wide open and the summer, fragrant and radiant, entered the gloomy old house, whose brown shadows vanished in patches of sunlight. The sunlight glided along the dark walls, the oak doors, the worn stairs, along the faded carpets and curtains and through the open doors; and it was strange, but all this new summer, however much Van der Welcke had longed for it throughout the long, dreary winter, the winter of wind and rain, now failed to cheer him, on the contrary, depressed him with inexplicable sadness.
He now opened the door of Addie's study. Since Addie and Mathilde had moved to the Hague, the room had remained the same as regards furniture, but somehow dead; only in the morning Guy usually sat working at his table by the window and Van der Welcke was sure to find him there. But he was not there; and the books and maps had obviously not been opened or looked at.
"Where can the boy be?" thought Van der Welcke. "He can't still be in bed."
The room did not look as if anyone had been there that morning. There were a couple of letters on Addie's writing-table, where the maids always left any that arrived for him at the old address, so that he might find them when he came down, once or twice a week, for the brief visit to which every one at home looked forward.
Van der Welcke moodily closed the door:
"I'd better see if he is still upstairs," he thought, going up the second flight.
Since Guy had given up his bedroom to Marietje van Saetzema, he slept in a little dressing-room. The door was open; the bed was made.
"The fellow must have gone out already," thought Van der Welcke. "It's a dirty trick not to let me know. Well, I shall go by myself: I need some air."
Angrily he went downstairs, through the hall, to the outhouse where the bicycles were kept. Guy's was not there.
"There, I said so: he's gone out and never even let me know. Oh, it's always like that: those children are always selfish. We do everything for them, when they've got no claim on us; and what sort of thanks do we receive?... The boy knows that I'm fond of him, that I like cycling with him when Addie's not here, but he doesn't so much as think of looking for me and asking me to go with him.... It's all egoism, it's always thinking of your own self.... If there's any paying to be done, that's all right, that's what Uncle Henri's there for; but the least little thought for me ... not a bit of it!... That's the way it goes. I've lost Addie ... and tried to find him again in another and it's simply impossible and ridiculous."
Still young and active, he slung himself on his bicycle and for a minute or two enjoyed the motion of the handsome, glittering machine, as it glided down the summer lanes; but very soon he began to think, gloomily:
"A motor-car I should have liked to have. I'm not buying one because of those everlasting boys: life is expensive enough as it is.... And instead of Guy's thinking of me now and again.... Ah, well, if you want to do good to others, you must just do it because it is good; for to expect the least bit of gratitude is all rot!"
No, cycling alone did not console him; his handsome, glittering, nickel-plated machine glided listlessly down the summer lanes and he suddenly turned round:
"That's enough for me ... all by myself, without anybody or anything...."
And he rode back home slowly, put the machine away and looked at the empty stand where Guy usually kept his machine.
"Have you seen Guy?" asked Constance, meeting her husband in the hail.
"He's out," said Van der Welcke, curtly and angrily.
"He hasn't been working," she added. "I always look into Addie's study to see if Guy is at work: Addie asked me to."
"No, he has not been working; he's...."
"Out?"
"Yes, with his bicycle."
"They why didn't he ask you to go with him?"
"I'm sureIdon't know," said Van der Welcke, angrily, shrugging his shoulders.
Constance too did not think it friendly of Guy:
"What does it mean?" she wondered to herself. "He ought to have been working, but, if he wanted to go cycling, he might really have let his uncle know."
And her soul too became filled with melancholy, because young people were inevitably so ungrateful. But she said nothing to Van der Welcke; and they never knew that they often thought and felt alike, as in an imperceptible harmony of approaching old age that found only a negative expression: they so seldom quarrelled nowadays, at most exchanged a single irritable word, even though no deep sympathy had ever come to them....
Constance went to her room to put on a hat; the carriage was ordered; she was going for a drive with the girls. She felt worried about poor Gerdy, who no longer took pleasure in anything:
"It will pass," she thought. "We have all of us, in our time, been through a phase of melancholy.... Adeline told me that Gerdy was in love with Erzeele ... but he doesn't appear to think about her.... Oh, how I worry and worry about it all: about my poor boy, about Mathilde!... Erzeele is bound ... is bound to be attracted by her.... Come, I need air, in this fine weather; and yet this warm air oppresses me: the summer is always oppressive in our country. The weather in our country is alwaysbecomingsomething: it never has become anything, like the weather in the south; it is becoming, always becoming something.... It's sultry now, the sun is scorching; we are sure to have a storm this evening."
She now left her room, ready, and thought:
"Addie is coming to lunch to-day; it's his day: oh, how I always long for that day!... Last time, he had to answer some letters and ran for ink for his writing-table. I'll just see if everything is in order now."
She entered the room that used to be Addie's study:
"Yes, the ink's there," she told herself, with a glance at the writing-table. "How uncosy, how cold the room looks, with nothing but the old furniture, the old man's furniture!... There are letters for Addie again: the poor boy never has any rest...."
Casually she took a step towards the table and was struck by the appearance of the letters:
"What is that?" she thought.
The letters—there were three of them—were without stamps or postmarks: it was this that had struck her.
"Bills?" she wondered for a moment.
Then she shivered and began to tremble so violently that she dropped into Addie's chair. She had recognized Guy's hand.
There were three letters. One was addressed to herself and her husband: to "Uncle Henri and Aunt Constance...." The second: to "Addie...." The third: to "Mamma...."
She sat distraught, staring at the three letters vacantly, without putting out her hand. A cloud of white squares seemed to whirl about her: it was as if the envelopes were flying round in a circle before her eyes. And she felt suddenly faint.
"What is it? What does it mean?" she asked herself, aloud.
She looked at Guy's work-table: the books were there, neatly arranged on the big atlases. She got up and trembled so violently that she felt herself sinking away, into an abyss. She rang the bell. The door was open. She heard the maid on the stairs:
"Truitje!"
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Truitje, I'm here ... in Mr. Addie's study."
"What is it, ma'am?"
"Call your master ... at once."
"But how pale you look, ma'am! What is it, ma'am?"
"Nothing, Truitje. Call the master at once."
"Aren't you well?"
"Yes, yes, only call the master."
The maid went away in dismay; the stairs creaked under her hurried tread.... Constance had sunk back into the chair again and sat waiting. Downstairs the piano sounded, under Paul's fingers, and she followed the tune,Siegmund's Love-song:
"He plays well, he plays well," she thought.
She was half-fainting; the white squares still surrounded her, because of the three letters, there, on the table.
She now heard a footstep on the stairs; she followed the creaking as it came nearer. It was her husband, at last.
"What's the matter, Constance?"
Her throat would not allow a word to pass; she merely pointed to the table.
"Well, what is it? Letters? For Addie?"
She continued to point. He looked, recognized Guy's hand. He glanced at her; she said nothing. He now opened the letter to "Uncle Henri and Aunt Constance":
"Has the boy gone mad?"
Constance looked up with a question in her eyes. Every kind of thought raced through her, so rapidly that she could not follow them. And yet she seemed to see one thought flash across them slantwise: had three letters from Alex been lying there, from Alex who was always so much obsessed by the vision of terror and blood that had shocked his young imagination, she would have feared the worst.
Van der Welcke handed her the letter without a word; she read it greedily. Guy wrote briefly, wrote difficult, sincere words of gratitude. Oh, it was not want of gratitude to Uncle Henri and Aunt Constance that had made him go without taking leave of all who were dear to him! He was not ungrateful to Addie! But it was just because under all his cheerfulness he had felt himself quietly growing sad under all their kindness ... while he found it impossible to go on working. And of course he knew that, if he had said to Addie, "I can't work at books; what I want, very vaguely and I don't know how, is to make my own way," Addie would have let him go, because Addie understood everybody and everything so well. But it was just this, the conversations, the leave-takings, that he feared, because within him there was so much inert weakness, because he could never have gone, if he had had to speak, if he had had to take leave; and that was why he was going away like this, with his bicycle and his bit of pocket-money.
"But the boy's mad!" cried Van der Welcke. "To clear out like this at his age, with no money and just his bicycle! The boy's mad! I must telegraph to Addie at once."
"He will be out ... and on his way to us: this is his day for coming down."
"Which train does he come by?"
"The half-past eleven as a rule."
The girls, Gerdy and Mary, came in, with their hats on:
"Are you coming, Aunt? The carriage is there."
"The carriage?"
"When we've been for our drive, we can fetch Addie from the station," said Mary.
Constance burst into sobs.
"Auntie, Auntie, what's the matter?"
Van der Welcke left the room, taking the letter for Addie with him:
"How are we to tell her?" he thought to himself.
Constance, upstairs, had an attack of nerves. She sobbed as violently, felt as miserable in the depths of her being as if it had been her own child that had left the paternal house ... for good.
In the midst of the sunshine on that summer day a spirit of melancholy descended upon the whole of the big house and set the nerves of all the inmates tingling. Addie had been, had read Guy's letter, had left at once ... for Rotterdam. Downstairs, in the morning-room, Adeline sobbed without ceasing; and from the sunlit conservatory the old grandmother stared at her through the vista of the rooms, because she did not understand.... Adeline lay sobbing in Emilie's arms; Marie and Paul were with her too; upstairs, Adèletje and Mary remained with Constance. Brauws appeared at the door:
"What has happened?" he asked, in a whisper.
Van der Welcke seized him by the arm, took him into the garden. Klaasje lay half-asleep against the thick trunk of a beech, with Jack nestling in her little skirts, both tired with playing. The child was humming a tune, looking up at the sky, dreaming away amid all the gold that rained down upon her from between the leaves like glittering coins.
"What has happened?" Brauws asked again.
But Van der Welcke could not speak; his throat refused to let the words through.
"Good-morning, Uncle Brauws!" cried Klaasje, dreamily. "Look, Uncle Brauws, I'm very rich. It's raining golden sovereigns over me ... out of the beech-tree, out of the beech-tree!... Out of the beech-tree golden sovereigns are raining over Klaasje!" she hummed rhythmically.
"Hans," asked Brauws, "what's the matter, old fellow?"
"It's that idiot of a Guy!" said Van der Welcke, at last, hoarsely. "I was looking for him this morning, couldn't find him anywhere. His bicycle was gone.... He has cleared out. He left three letters behind him: for his mother, for Addie and for us. He writes that he can't work at books, that he wants to try his own way.... I've read all the letters.... He tells Addie ... that he feels that he must stand alone ... that he must stand alone if he's to do any good ... that ... in this house...."
Van der Welcke gave a sob.
"Well?"
"He feels himself growing flabby ... because there's too much affection, too much leniency for him.... That's the sort of thing he writes.... Who would have thought the boy was so silly?... He writes that he won't do any good ... if he stays here.... That he wants to go and face the world.... A boy of his age!... The most ridiculous idea I've ever heard of!...
"The boy may be right," said Brauws, very gently.
But Van der Welcke was not listening:
"I shall miss him," he confessed. "I miss him now. He was my favourite ... among them all. He consoled me for the loss of Addie.... I loved him as my own son; so ... so did Constance."
Brauws was silent.
"Life is a damned, rotten encumbrance!" said Van der Welcke, explosively. "We do everything for those children, we do everything for that boy; and, all of a sudden, he goes away ... instead of ... instead of staying with us, causes us sorrow breaks his poor mother's heart.... He writes about America.... Addie went straight to the station to make enquiries. He was going on to Rotterdam. Addie ... Addie never has a moment's peace.... He was looking tired as it was, tired and sad; and, instead of having a day's rest ... with us ... with all of us ... I wanted to go with him ... but he said he preferred to go alone.... Why not have told Addie ... that he would rather do something else ... than go into the Post Office?... God, we'd have been glad enough to help him! ... He—Addie—does everything ... does every blessed thing for the children.... Oh, Brauws, it's as if a son of my own had run away ... run away in a fit of madness!... Addie has gone to Rotterdam. It was Addie's idea, Rotterdam. But Guy can just as well have gone to Antwerp, to Le Havre, to God knows where!... He hadn't much money with him.... What will he do, what were his plans?..."
The sunny summer day passed gloomily: just a telegram from Addie, "Coming to-morrow," without any further explanation. Constance had found the strength to go to Adeline in her room; the girls were overcome with a silent stupefaction, at the thought that Guy, their cheerful Guy, kept so much hidden under his light-heartedness: a deeper dissatisfaction with life, vague and unclear to all of them, who were so happy to be with Uncle Henri and Aunt Constance in what had so long been their family house, since they had been quite small children; and, when Alex arrived in the evening from Amsterdam, he too could not understand why Guy had felt a need so suddenly to go away from all of them, without taking leave, with that queer idea of making his way in the world alone.... On the contrary, he—Alex—valued in the highest degree all that Uncle, Aunt and Addie did for him: without them, he would never have made any headway in the world and he was making headway at last, he thought. He was now working methodically at Amsterdam and almost methodically making his melancholy yield ground: it was as though Addie inspired him with the love of work and the love of life, wooing to life in him the strength to become a normal member of society, oh, he felt it so clearly! After every talk with Addie he felt it once more, felt strength enough to stay one week in Amsterdam, to work, to live, to see the dreaded life—which his father had escaped by suicide come daily closer and closer, nearer and nearer, like a ghostly vista, at first viewed anxiously and darkly, but later entered, walked into, inevitably, until all the ghostliness of it was close around him.... And, when he thought of his father and always saw him lying, in a pool of blood, with his mother's body flung across the corpse in all the terror of despair, then at the same time he would think of Addie and reflect that life, no doubt, would not be gay but that nevertheless it need not always hark back out of black spectral dread to his youth ... because Addie spoke of being strong and becoming a man gradually.... And Guy had gone, had evaded just that beneficial, strengthening influence of Addie!... No, Alex also could not understand it; and that evening he remained sitting gloomily between his sisters, not knowing what he could say to comfort his mother.... The next day was Sunday; and, if he did not see Addie on Sunday, he knew that the following week would not be a good one for him in Amsterdam, would be a bad, black week....
And it was only Grandmamma and Ernst and Klaasje who did not feel oppressed by the sombre, sudden, incomprehensible and unexpected event which the others were all trying to understand and explain: to them the summer day had been all sunlight and the gloom had passed unperceived by them.
Next morning Addie returned. Constance, who was quite unstrung, had been twice and three times to the station in vain. At last she saw him:
"You didn't find him?" she asked, with conviction.
"Yes, I did."
"What? You found him? How? How was it possible?"
"I had an idea that he couldn't go farther than Rotterdam: he hadn't much money on him. I hunted and hunted until I found him."
"And you haven't brought him back with you!"
"No, I let him go."
"You let him go?"
"I think it's best: he was very anxious to go. He was angry at my finding him. I talked to him for a long time. He said that he wished to be under no more obligations, fond though he was of us, grateful though he felt...."
Constance, trembling, had taken Addie's arm; they went home on foot; the road lay in a bath of summer under the trees.
"He spoke sensibly. He had a vague idea of working his passage on a steamer as a sailor or stoker. I took a ticket for him. He will write to us regularly. I told him that Mr. Brauws, if he liked, could certainly give him some introductions in New York. He said he would see. He showed a certain decision, as if he were doing violence to something in his own character. It was rather strange.... I thought that I ought not to compel him to come back. He told me that he was certain of not passing his examination and that this was what got on his mind and upset him, that he couldn't concentrate on his books, that he would now look after himself.... There was a boat going to London; I gave him some money.... It's better this way, Mamma. Let him stand on his own legs. Here, the way things were going, he might have gone drudging on...."
She wept distractedly:
"We shall miss him so.... He was the life of the house.... Papa, Papa will miss him badly.... Oh, it's terrible!... Poor, poor Adeline!"
They reached home.
"Let me speak to Aunt Adeline first."
"My dear, my dear, make everything right.... Oh, put it so that Aunt thinks it right and accepts it: you can do everything, dear!"
"No, Mamma, I can't do everything."
"You can do everything, youcan. What should we have done without you? Now that you have found him and talked to him and made things smooth for him, perhaps everything will be all right for him. If you hadn't found him ...! How did you know that he had gone to Rotterdam?"
"I felt almost sure of it, Mummie. But I didn't know anything for certain. I might have been mistaken."
"You look so tired."
"I have had a tiring day."
"Addie, to people outside, to the family we will say...."
"That he has gone to America ... a sudden idea ... with introductions from Mr. Brauws."
"My dear, how can you talk of it so calmly?"
"Mummie, perhaps it's better as it is ... for him. He was doing no good here. He wasn't working. And he was getting enervated in the midst of all his relations. He has developed a sudden energy; it would be a pity to stifle it. I ... I simply could not bring myself to do that."
"My boy, do you tell your aunt. Tell Papa, too, tell all of them, tell his sisters and Alex. I ... I can't tell them. I should only cry. I'm going upstairs, to my room. You'll tell them, won't you? You'll make it appear as if it's all right, as if it's quite natural, as if it's all for the best."
"Yes, Mummie dear, you go upstairs. I.. I'll tell it them, I'll tell all of them...."