[1]Kate, Kittie.
[1]Kate, Kittie.
[2]Dora.
[2]Dora.
Next morning, Ottilie Steyn de Weert arrived at the Hook of Holland. She was accompanied by a young fellow of nearly thirty, a good-looking, well-set-up young Englishman, clean-shaven, pink and white under his travelling-cap, broad-shouldered in his check jacket and knickerbockers. They took the train to the Hague.
Ottilie Steyn was under the influence of emotion. She could be silent when she wished and so she had never spoken about it; but she suspected, she knew almost for certain that Takma was her father and she had loved him as a father.
"He was always so good to me," she said, in English, to Hugh Trevelley, her son. "I shall miss him badly."
"He was your father," said Hugh, coolly.
"Not at all," Ottilie protested. "You know nothing about it, Hugh. People are always talking."
"He gave you the money to come to England."
Mamma Ottilie did not know why, but she was sometimes more sincere with Hugh than she was with Lot at home. She loved both these two sons, but she loved Lot because he was kind to her and she was really fonder of Hugh because he was so good-looking and broad-shouldered and because he reminded her of Trevelley, whom she had really loved the best. She had never told Lot that the old gentleman was very generous to her, but she had sometimes said so to Hugh. She was glad to be travelling with Hugh, to be sitting next to him; and yet she was not pleased that Hugh had come with her. He never came to the Hague; and it only meant complications with Steyn, she thought, especially now.
"Hugh," she said, caressingly, taking his hand and holding it between hers, "Hugh, Mummy is so glad to be with you, my boy. I see you so seldom. I'm very glad.... But perhaps you would have done better not to come."
"I daresay," said Hugh, coolly, withdrawing his hand.
"Because of Steyn, you know."
"I won't see the fellow. I sha'n't set foot in your house. I'll go to an hotel. Do you think I want to see that scoundrel? That cad ... for whom you left my father? Not I! But I've come to look after my interests. I sha'n't make any trouble. But I want to know. You're coming into money from that old man. He's your father, I know he is. You're sure to come into money. All I want is to know how things stand: whether he leaves you any money and how much. As soon as I know that, I shall go back. For the rest, I sha'n't trouble any one, not even you."
Ottilie sat looking in front of her, like a child that has been rebuked. They were alone in the compartment; and she said, coaxingly:
"Boy, dear boy, don't talk like that to your mother. I'm so glad to have you with me. I'm so very, very fond of you. You're so like your father and I loved your father, oh, more than Steyn, ever so much more than Steyn! Steyn has wrecked my life. I ought to have stayed with your father and all of you, with you and John and Mary. Don't speak so harshly, my boy. It hurts me so. Do be nice again to your mother. She has nothing, nothing left in her life: Lot is married; the old man is dead. She has nothing left. No one will ever be nice to her again, if you aren't. And in the old days ... in the old days everybody used to be so very nice to her; yes, in the old days ..."
She began to cry. It came from her regret for the old man, from her anger about Lot, who was married, from her jealousy of Elly and her pity for herself. Her fingers, like a little child's, felt for Hugh's strong hand. He smiled with his handsome, clean-shaven mouth, thought her funny for such an old woman, but realized that she might have been very charming once. A certain kindness showed itself in him and, with bluff tenderness, putting his arm round her waist, he said:
"Come, don't start crying; come here."
And he drew her to him. She crept up against him like a child, nestled against his tweed jacket; he patted her hand; and, when he kissed her on the forehead, she was blissfully happy and lay like that, with a deep sigh, while he, smiling and shaking his head, looked down on his mother.
"Which hotel are you going to?" she asked.
"The Deux-Villes," he said. "Have you any more money for me?"
"No, Hugh," she replied, "I gave it you all, for the tickets and ..."
"All you had on you?"
"Yes, boy, really, I haven't a cent in my purse. But I don't want it. You can keep what's left."
He felt in his pocket:
"It's not much," he said, rummaging among his change. "You can give me some more at the Hague. One of these days, when I'm well off, you can come and live with me and enjoy a happy old age."
She laughed, pleased at his words, and stroked his cheeks and gave him a kiss, as she never did to Lot. She really doted on him; he was her favourite son. For one word of rough kindness from Hugh she would have walked miles; one kiss from him made her happy, positively happy, for an hour. To win him, her voice and her caress unconsciously regained something of their former youthful seductiveness. Hugh never saw her as a little fury, as Lot often did, Lot whom in the past she had sometimes struck, against whom she even now sometimes felt an impulse to raise her quick little hand. She never felt that impulse towards Hugh. His manliness, a son's manliness, mastered her; and she did whatever he wished. Where she loved manliness, she surrendered herself; she had always done so and she now did so to her son.
On arriving at the Hague, she took leave of Hugh and promised to keep him informed, imploring him to be nice and not to do anything disagreeable. He promised and went his way. At home, she found her husband waiting for her.
"How did the old man die?" she asked.
He gave her a few brief details and said:
"I'm the executor."
"You?" she asked. "Why not Lot, as Elly's husband?"
He shrugged his shoulders, thought it disingenuous in her to ask:
"I don't know," he said, coldly. "The old man arranged it so. Besides, I shall do everything with Lot. He may be here in two days. The undertakers are coming to-night; the funeral will be to-morrow."
"Can't it wait for Lot?"
"Dr. Thielens thought it inadvisable."
She did not tell him that Hugh had come with her and, after lunch, she went to the Mauritskade and embraced Adèle Takma, who was bearing up though the red letters still whirled before her stupefied eyes, like faded characters written in blood. Ottilie Steyn asked to see the old gentleman for the last time. She saw him, white in the pale, dim light, his old white face on the white pillow, with its scanty little wreath of hair, his eyelids closed, the lines on either side of his nose and mouth fallen away in slack wrinkles of discoloured parchment. She wrung her hands softly and wept. Shehadbeen very fond of the old man and he had always been exceedingly kind to her. Like a father ... like a father ... she always remembered him like that. Papa Dercksz she had never known.He, he had been her father. He had petted her even as a child; and afterwards he had always helped her, when in any sort of money trouble. If ever he reproached her, it had always been gently ... because she played with her life so: that was his expression at the time of her first divorce, from Pauws; of her second divorce, from Trevelley. She remembered it all: in India and at the Hague. He had liked Pauws very much; Trevelley he disliked; Steyn he had ended by pronouncing to be a good fellow after all. Yes, he had never reproached her except gently, because she was unable to manage herself and her love-affairs; and he had always been so exceedingly kind to her.... She would miss him, in the morning-room at Mamma's, or on the days when she used to look him up in his study and he would give her a couple of banknotes, with a kiss, saying:
"But don't talk about it."
He had never said that he was her father; she had always called him Mr. Takma. But she had suspected; and she now felt it, knew it for certain. This affection, perhaps the last, was passing from her, had passed from her....
She went again in the evening, with Steyn, and Dr. Thielens came too, to be present when the body was put in the coffin. Aunt Adèle said, no, she was not afraid of being in the house with the corpse, nor the maids either: they had slept quite well the night before. Next day also, the day of the funeral, Aunt Adèle was composed. She received Dr. Roelofsz very quietly; the doctor panted and groaned and pressed his hands to his stomach, which hung crooked: he had intended to go to the cemetery with the rest, but did not feel equal to it; and so he stayed behind with Adèle. The Derckszes came: Anton and Harold and Daan; Steyn came; D'Herbourg came, with his son-in-law Frits van Wely; and the women came too: Ottilie Steyn, Aunt Stefanie, Aunt Floor, Ina and the fair-haired little bride, Lily; they all remained with Dr. Roelofsz and Aunt Adèle, who was quite composed. When the funeral procession was gone, the women said how sad it was for Grandmamma; and the old doctor began to cry. It was a pitiful sight, to see that old man, shapeless as a crumbling mass, huddled in a chair; to hear him exclaim, "Well-well ... yes-yes ... oh, yes!" to see him cry; but Adèle remained composed. Ottilie Steyn was not so; she wept bitterly; and they all saw that she was mourning the death of a father, though not any of them had uttered the word, not even quietly among themselves.
Next morning, Steyn had an interview with the solicitor; and, when he came home, he said to his wife:
"Adèle has a legacy of thirty thousand guilders; Elly and you get something over a hundred thousand each."
Mamma Ottilie sobbed:
"The dear good man!" she stammered through her sobs. "The dear good man!"
"Only we thought, Ottilie, the solicitor and I thought, that it would be best, for Mamma's sake to speak of the inheritance as little as possible."
"Does the old gentleman acknowledge me as his daughter?"
"There is no question of acknowledging. He leaves you the half of his property; you and Elly share and share alike, after deducting Adèle's legacy. Only we thought, the solicitor and I, that, for Mamma's sake, it would be better not to talk about it to any one who needn't know."
"Yes," said Ottilie, "very well."
"You can be silent when you choose, you know."
She looked at him:
"I shall not talk about it. But why do you say that?"
"Because I see from the old gentleman's books that he often used to give you money. At least there are entries: 'To O. S.'"
She flushed up:
"I wasn't obliged to tell you."
"No, but you always used to say that you had found some money in your cupboard and make yourself out more careless than you were."
"The old man himself asked me not to talk about that money...."
"And you were quite right not to. I only say, you can be silent when youchoose. So be silent now."
"I don't want your advice, thank you!" she blazed out; but he had left the room.
She clenched her fist: oh, she hated him, she hated him, especially for his voice! She could not stand his cold, bass voice, his deep, measured words. She hated him: she could have smacked his face, just to see if he would then still speak in cool, deliberate tones. She hated him more and more every day. She hated him so much that she longed for his death. She had wept beside the old man's body; she could have danced beside Steyn's! Oh, she didn't yet realize how she hated him! She pictured him dead, run over, or wounded to the death, with a knife in his heart or a bullet through his temple ... and she knew that she would then rejoice within herself. It was all because he spoke so coolly and deliberately and never said a kind word to her now and never caressed her!...
"A hundred thousand guilders!" she thought. "It's a lot of money. Ah, I'd rather the dear good man were still alive! And that now and then, in that kind way of his, he gave me a couple of hundred guilders. That's what I shall miss so terribly. It's true, I have some money now; but I have nothing else left!"
And she wrung her hands and sobbed again, for she felt very lonely: the old man was dead; Hugh at the Hague, but in his hotel; fortunately, Lot was coming home that evening....
They arrived in the evening, on the day after the funeral, Lot and Elly, tired from the journey and out of harmony amid their actual sorrow. Aunt Adèle—they were to stay in the Mauritskade—did not notice it at once; for she, after bearing up for the last two days, had thrown herself sobbing in Elly's arms, sobbing as Elly had never seen her; and, when the sobs gave themselves free scope, her nerves gave out and she fell in a faint.
"The mistress has had such a busy, upsetting time," said Door; and Keetje confirmed it; and they and Elly brought Aunt Adèle round.
"I'm better, dear, it's nothing. Come, let's go to the dining-room. I expect you two will be glad of something to eat."
She was still sobbing, overwrought, but she steadied herself with an effort. When they were seated at dinner, she noticed Lot's and Elly's lack of harmony.
"Was Grandpapa buried yesterday?" asked Elly.
"Yes, dear. Dr. Thielens dared not wait any longer."
"Then it was really superfluous for us to come home," said Lot, irritably.
His lips trembled and there was a set hardness in his usually gentle, pink-and-white face.
"We telegraphed to you to come," said Aunt Adèle, still crying, softly, "because Elly will have to go into business-matters at once ..."
"Perhaps I might have come home by myself," said Elly, "for these matters of business...."
"Steyn is the executor," said Aunt Adèle, gently, "and he thought ..."
"Steyn?" asked Elly. "Why not Lot?"
"The old man had settled it so, dear.... He's the husband of Mamma ... who comes into money too ... with you ..."
"Mamma?" asked Lot.
"Yes," said Aunt Adèle, a little embarrassed.
They understood and asked no more questions, but it was obvious that they were out of harmony; their features looked both tired and hard.
"Mamma is coming this evening to see you," said Aunt Adèle.
Elly shook her head:
"I'm dead-tired," she said. "I can't see Mamma this evening. I'm going up to bed, Auntie."
"I'llsee Mamma," said Lot.
Elly rose quickly and went upstairs. Aunt Adèle followed her; and Lot went to another room to change his things. On the stairs, Elly began to cry:
"Poor old Grandpapa!" she sobbed; and her voice broke.
They reached the bedroom. Aunt Adèle helped her undress.
"Are you so tired, dear?"
Elly nodded.
"Dear, is anything the matter? You've something so hard about your face, something I've never seen there before.... Tell me, dear, you are happy, aren't you?"
Elly gave a vague smile:
"Not quite as happy perhaps as I expected, Auntie.... But, if I'm not, it's my own fault."
Aunt Adèle asked nothing more. She thought of the elated letters which had always given the old man such pleasant moments and reflected how deceptive letters could be.
Elly undressed and got into bed.
"I'll leave you to yourself, dear...."
But Elly took her hand, with a sudden tenderness for the woman who had been a mother to her:
"Stay a little longer, Auntie ... until Mamma comes."
"Dear," said Aunt Adèle, feeling her way, "you're not put out, are you, because Mamma inherits her share too. She's his daughter, you know...."
"Yes, Auntie, I know that. No, Auntie, really I'm not put out at that. I'm only tired, very tired ... because everything that we set ourselves to do ... seems useless...."
"Darling," said Aunt Adèle, only half hearing, "I also ... am tired, I am worn out. Oh, I wish I dared tell you!..."
"What?"
"No, dear, no, I daren't."
"But what is it?"
"No, dear, I daren't. Not yet, not yet, perhaps later.... Hark, there's the bell: that must be Mamma.... Yes, I hear Steyn's voice too.... I'd better go downstairs, dear...."
She left Elly, but was so much upset that downstairs she once more burst into tears....
"Elly is so tired," she said to Ottilie, "she's gone to bed: I should leave her alone to-day, if I were you...."
But she herself was quite unhinged. She felt that the terrible secret which she alone knew—so she thought—weighed too heavily on her simple soul, that she was being crushed by it, that she must tell it, that she must share it with another. And she said:
"Steyn, Steyn.... While Lot is talking to his mother, don't you know, I'd like to speak to you ... if I may...."
"Certainly," said Steyn.
They left the room.
"Upstairs?" asked Steyn.
"Yes," said Aunt Adèle, "in the old gentleman's room."
She took him there: it was cold, but she lit the gas.
"Steyn," she said, "I'm sorry for what I've done. I tidied up those papers a bit, there was such a litter. And on the ground was a ... a letter, a torn letter: the last one ... which the old gentleman meant to tear up.... I don't know how it happened, Steyn ... but, without intending to or knowing it, I ... I read that letter.... I would give all the money in the world not to have done it. Ican'tkeep it to myself, all to myself. It's driving me crazy ... and slowly making me frightened ... and nervous.... See, here's the letter. I don't know if I'm doing right. Perhaps I'd have done better just to tear the letter up.... After all, that was the old man's wish...."
She gave him the four pieces.
"But then it will be best," said Steyn, "for me to tear up the letter ... and not read it...."
And he made a movement as though to tear the letter. But she stopped him:
"And leaveme... to carry about with me ... all by myself ... something that I can't speak of! No, no, read it, in Heaven's name ... formysake, Steyn ... to share it with me.... Read it...."
Steyn read the letter.
Silence filled the room: a cold, lonely, wintry, silence, with not a sound but that of the flaring gas. From the faded characters of the frayed, yellow letter, torn in part, rose hatred, passion, mad jubilation, mad agony of love and remorse for a night of blood, an Indian mountain night, clattering with torrents of rain. With all of that these two had nothing to do; they were foreign to it; and yet the Thing that was passing brushed against their bodies, their souls, their lives. It made them start, reflect, look each other shudderingly in the eyes, strangers though they were to the Thing that was passing....
"It is terrible," said Steyn. "And no one knows it?..."
"No," said Aunt Adèle, "no one knows it except you and me...."
But Steyn was not satisfied:
"We ought not to have read that letter," he said.
"I don't know how I came to do it," said Aunt Adèle. "Something impelled me to, I don't know what. I'm not naturally inquisitive. I had the pieces in my hand to tear them up still smaller. I tore the two pieces into four...."
Mechanically, Steyn tore the four pieces into eight.
"What are you doing?" asked Aunt Adèle.
"Destroying the letter," said Steyn.
"Wouldn't you let Lot...?"
"No, no," said Steyn, "what does Lot want with it?There!..."
He tore up the letter and dropped the pieces, very small, into the paper-basket.
Before his eyes shimmered pale-red the bygone passions that were strange to him; they loomed up before him; and yet he saw the room, wintry-cold and silently abandoned by the old man, with not a sound in it save the flaring gas.
"Yes," said Aunt Adèle, "perhaps it's better that no one should know ... except ourselves.... Oh, Steyn, ithasrelieved me ... that you should know, that you should know!... Oh, how dreadful life is, for such things to happen!"
She wrung her hands, shook her head from side to side.
"Come," said Steyn; and his great frame shuddered. "Come, let's go...."
Aunt Adèle, trembling, turned out the gas.
They went downstairs.
The dark room remained wintry and silently abandoned.
The letter lay in the basket, torn up very small....
"Oh dear!" said old Anna, with a sigh. "We can't possibly keep it a secret from the mistress always!"
She moaned and groaned and, raising her two arms in the air, drove the cat back to the kitchen, because the passage was full enough as it was: Ina d'Herbourg had arrived with her daughter Lily van Wely and two perambulators; one was pushed by the little mother and the other by the nurse; and Lily and the nurse now shoved the perambulators into the morning-room, where Anna had made up a good fire, to welcome the family; and, while Lily and the nurse were busy, Ina talked to old Anna about the old gentleman's death and Anna said that her mistress had not the least idea of it, but that, after all, that couldn't go on forever....
"Oh, what darlings, what sweet little dots!" said Anna, clasping her hands together. "And how pleased the mistress will be that Mrs. Lily has come to show her the babies! Yes, I'll let the old lady know...."
"Lily," said Ina, "you go first with Stefje; I'll come up afterwards with little Netta."
Lily took the baby out of the perambulator. The child whimpered a bit and crowed a bit; and the dear, flaxen-haired little mother, with her very young little motherly laugh, carried it up the stairs. Anna was holding the door open and the old lady was looking out. She was sitting upright in her high-backed chair, which was like a throne, with the pillow straight behind her back. In the light of the early winter afternoon, which filtered through the muslin blinds past the red curtains and over the plush valance, she seemed frailer than ever; and her face, brightened with a smile of expectation, was like a piece of lined white porcelain, but so vaguely seen under the even, hard-black, just-suggested line of the wig and the little lace cap that she did not seem to belong to the world of living things. The ample black dress fell in supple lines and hid her entirely in shadow-folds with streaks of brighter light; and, now that Lily entered with the baby, the old woman lifted from her deep lap her trembling, mittened hands, with fingers like slender wands, lifted them into a stiff and difficult gesture of caress and welcome. Long cracked sounded the voice, still round and mellow with its Indian accent:
"Well, child, that's a nice idea of yours, to bring the little boy at last.... That's a nice idea.... That's a nice idea.... Yes, let me have a look at him.... Oh, what a sweet baby!"
Lily, to let Great-great-grandmother see the baby well, had knelt down on a hassock and was holding up the baby, which shrank back, a little startled at the brittle, wrinkled face that made such an uncanny patch in the crimson dusk; but its little mother was able to hush it and it did not cry, only stared.
"Yes, Greatgranny," said Lily, "this is your great-great-grandchild."
"Yes, yes," said the old woman, with her hands still trembling in the air, in a vague gesture of hesitating caress, "I'm a great-great-grandmamma.... Yes, little boy, yes.... I'm your great-great-grandmother...."
"And Netta's downstairs: I brought her too."
"Oh, your little girl!... Is she here too?"
"Yes, would you like to see her presently?"
"Yes, I want to see them both.... Both together, together...."
The little boy, hushed, looked with wondering earnestness at the wrinkled face, looked with a wavering glance of reflection and amazement, but did not cry; and, even when the slender, wand-like finger tickled him on his cheek, Lily was able to hush him and keep him from crying. It was a diversion too when Ina came upstairs with Netta on her arm: a bundle of white and a little pink patch for a face and two little drops of turquoise eyes, with a moist little munching mouth; and Lily was afraid that the little boy would start screaming and handed him to the nurse at the door: fortunately, for on the landing he opened his throat lustily, greatly perturbed in his baby brain by his first sight of great age. But the bundle of white and the little pink patch with the two little drops of turquoise munched away contentedly with the moist little mouth and was even better-behaved than Stefje had been, so well-behaved indeed that the old woman was allowed to take it for a moment in her deep lap, though Lily remained on her guard and kept her hands under it.
"That's made me very happy, dear," said the old woman, "to have seen my great-great-grandchildren. Yes, Stefje is a fine little man ... and Netta is a darling, Netta is a darling...."
It was time to say good-bye; and Lily carried off the pink-patched bundle of white, saying, in her laughing, young-motherly way, that the children must go home. Ina sat down.
"It has really made me happy," the old woman repeated, "to have seen that young life. For I have been very sad lately, Ina. It must be quite ten days since I saw Mr. Takma."
"No, Granny, it's not so long as that."
"How long has he been ill then?"
"Six days, seven perhaps."
"I thought it was quite ten days. And Dr. Roelofsz comes so seldom too.... Yes, that chair by the window ... has been empty now a whole week.... I thought it was ten days.... It's cold, raw weather, isn't it?... I don't feel it in here.... But, oh, even if that gets better ... it will take a very long time ... and Mr. Takma won't come again this winter!..."
Her dry old eyes did not weep, but her cracked voice wept. Ina could not find much more to say, but she did not want to go away yet. She had come with the children, in the hope of hearing something perhaps at Grandmamma's.... She still did not know. She still knew nothing; and there was so much to know. There was first the great Something, that which had happened sixty years ago: Grandmammamustknow about it, but she dared not broach the Something at Grandmamma's, afraid lest she should be touching upon the very Past. If itwasanything, then it might make the old woman ill, might cause her sudden death.... No, Ina looked forward in particular to seeing any one who might call that afternoon, to having talks in the morning-room downstairs, for there were more things to know: how much Elly had come into; and whether Aunt Ottilie had also come in for her share.... All this was hovering in vagueness: she could not get to the bottom of it; shemustmanage to get to the bottom of it that afternoon.... So she sat on quietly; and the old lady, who did not like being alone, thought it pleasant when she made an occasional remark. But, when it lasted too long before any one else came, Ina got up, said good-bye, went downstairs, chatted a bit with Anna and even then did not go, but sat down in the morning-room and said:
"Sit down too, Anna."
And the old servant sat down respectfully on the edge of a chair; and they talked about the old man:
"Mrs. Elly is well-off, now," said Ina. "Don'tyouknow how much the old gentleman left?"
But Anna knew nothing, merely thought—and said so with a little wink—that Mrs. Ottilie would be sure to get something too. But there was a ring at the door; and it was Stefanie de Laders, tripping along very nervously:
"Doesn't Mamma know yet?" she whispered, after Anna had returned to the kitchen.
"No," said Ina, "Grandmamma doesn't know, but she sits looking so mournfully at Mr. Takma's empty chair."
"Is there no one with her?"
"No, only the companion."
"I have a great piece of news," said Stefanie.
Ina pricked up her ears; and her whole being was thrilled.
"What, Aunt?"
"Only think, I've had a letter from Thérèse ..."
"From Aunt Thérèse in Paris?..."
"Yes, from Aunt van der Staff. She's coming to the Hague. She writes that she felt something urging her, something impelling her, while she was saying her prayers—we know those Roman Catholic prayers!—something impelling her to come to the Hague and see Mamma. She hasn't seen Mamma for years. She hasn't been to the Hague for years, which wasn't at all the thing.... What does she want to come here for now, exciting Mamma perhaps, with her popery, in her old age!"
It was a very great piece of news and Ina's usually weary, well-bred eyes glistened.
"What! Is Aunt Thérèse coming here?"
It was a most important piece of news.
"Couldsheknow anything?" asked Ina.
"What about?"
"Well, about—you know—what we were talking of the other day: what Papa has known for sixty years ... and Uncle Daan...."
Aunt Stefanie made repeated deprecatory gestures with her hand:
"I don't know ... whether Aunt Thérèse knows anything about it. But what I do know, Ina, is that I mean to keepmysoul clear of any sins and improper things that may have happened in the past. It's difficult enough to guard one's soul in the present. No, dear, no, I won't hear any more about it."
She closed her beady bird's-eyes and shook her nodding bird's-head until her little old-lady's toque jigged all askew on her scanty hair; and she almost stumbled over the cat before she hoisted herself upstairs, jolting and stamping, to go to her mother.
Ina remained irresolute. She went into the kitchen. Anna said:
"Oh, is that you, ma'am? Are you staying a little longer?"
"Yes ... Mrs. Ottilie may come presently.... I want to speak to her."
It was quite likely, thought Anna, that Mrs. Ottilie would come to-day. But, when there was a ring at the front-door, she looked out of the window and cried:
"No, it's Mr. Daan...."
Daan Dercksz stuck his parroty profile through the door of the morning-room, nervously, and, on seeing Ina, said:
"I've brought bad news!"
"Bad news!" cried Ina, pricking up her ears again. "What is it, Uncle?"
"Dr. Roelofsz is dead."
"Oh, no!"
"Yes," said Uncle Daan to Ina, staring at him in dismay, and Anna, standing with the cat among her petticoats. "Dr. Roelofsz is dead. An apoplectic stroke.... They sent round to me first, because mypensionwas nearest.... It seems he took Takma's death very much to heart."
"It's dreadful," said Ina. "How is Grandmamma to be told? It will be such a blow to her. And she doesn't even know of Mr. Takma's death...."
"Yes, it's very difficult.... I've sent word to your father and I expect him here any minute; then we can talk over what we are to do and say. Perhaps somebody else will come to-day...."
"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!" sighed Anna.
She looked at the stove, which was burning rather low, and, reflecting that perhaps there would be a good many using the morning-room that day, she shook the cinder-drawer: the fire began to glow behind the mica panes.
"Ah me!" cried Ina. "Grandmamma won't survive them long now.... Uncle, do you know that Aunt Thérèse is coming to the Hague? Aunt Stefanie has had a letter.... Oh, if only she arrives in time to see Grandmamma!... Oh, what a terrible winter!... And Papa is looking so depressed.... Uncle," she said—Anna had gone back to the kitchen, moaning and groaning and stumbling over the cat—"Uncle, tell me:whyhas Papa been so depressed ... ever since you came back to Holland?"
"Since I came back to Holland, dear?..."
"Yes, Uncle. There's something that brought you back to Holland ... something that's made Papa so terribly depressed."
"I don't know, dear, I don't know...."
"Yes, you do.... I'm not asking out of curiosity, I'm asking for Papa's sake ... to help him ... to relieve him ... if he's in trouble.... It may be business-matters...."
"No, dear, it's not business-matters...."
"Well, then, whatisit?"
"Why, dear, it's nothing, nothing at all."
"No, Uncle Daan, there'ssomething."
"But then why not ask your father?"
"Papa refuses to speak about it."
"Then why shouldIspeak about it?" cried Daan Dercksz, put on his guard by Ina's slip of the tongue. "Why shouldIspeak about it, Ina? There may be something ... business-matters, as you say ... but it'll be all right. Yes, really, Ina, don't alarm yourself: it's all right."
He took refuge in a feigned display of indignation, pretended to think her much too curious about those business-matters and scratched the back of his head.
Ina's eyes assumed their well-bred, weary expression:
"Uncle, other people's money-matters arele moindre de mes soucis.... I was only asking you for an explanation ... because of my love for my father."
"You're a good daughter to your father, we all know that, all of us.... Ah, there he is: he's ringing!"
And, before Anna had time to go to the door, he had let Harold Dercksz in.
"Do you mean to say that Dr. Roelofsz is dead?" asked Harold.
He had received Daan's note after Ina had gone out to take Lily's children to their great-great-grandmother.
"Yes," said Daan, "he's dead."
Harold Dercksz sank into a chair, his face twisted with pain.
"Papa, are you ill?" cried Ina.
"No, dear, it's only a little more pain ... than usual.... It's nothing, nothing at all.... Is Dr. Roelofsz dead?"
He saw before his eyes that fatal night of pouring rain: saw himself, a little fellow of thirteen, saw that group of three carrying the body and heard his mother crying:
"Oh, my God, no, not in the river!"
The day after, Dr. Roelofsz had held an inquest on his father's body and certified death by drowning.
"Is Dr. Roelofsz dead?" he repeated. "Does Mamma know?"
"Not yet," said Daan Dercksz. "Harold, you had better tell her."
"I?" said Harold Dercksz, with a start. "I? I can't do it.... It would mean killing my mother.... And Ican'tkill my mother...."
And he stared before him....
He saw the Thing....
It passed, spectral in trailing veils of mist, which gathered round its slowly, slowly moving form; the leaves rustled; and ghosts threatened to appear from behind the silent trees, to stop the Thing's progress.... For, once his mother was dead, the Thing would sink into the abyss....
"Ican'tkill my mother!" Harold Dercksz repeated; and his martyred face became drawn with torturing pain.
He clasped his hands convulsively....
"And yet some one willhaveto tell her," Ina muttered to Anna, who stood beside her, mumbling, speaking to herself, utterly distraught.
But there was a ring at the bell. She went to the door. It was Anton: this was the day when he came to pay his mother his weekly visit.
"Is there any one with Mamma?"
"Aunt Stefanie," said Ina.
"What's happened?" he asked, seeing her consternation.
"Dr. Roelofsz is dead."
"Dead?"
Daan Dercksz told him, in a few words.
"We've all got to die," he muttered. "But it's a blow for Mamma."
"We were just discussing, Uncle, who had better tell her," said Ina. "Wouldyoumind?"
"I'd rather not," said Anton Dercksz, sullenly.
No, they had better settle that among themselves: he was not the man to meddle in tiresome things that didn't concern him. What did it all matter to him! He called once a week, to see his mother: that was his filial duty. For the rest, he cared nothing for the whole pack of them!... As it was, Stefanie had been bothering him more than enough of late, trying to persuade him to leave his money to his godchild, the Van Welys' little Netta; and he had no mind to do anything of the sort: he would rather pitch his money into the gutter. With Harold and Daan, who did business in India together and were intimate for that reason, he had never had much to do: they were just like strangers to him. Ina he couldn't stand, especially since D'Herbourg had helped him out of a mess, in the matter of that little laundry-girl. He didn't care a hang for the whole crew. What he liked best was to sit at home smoking his pipe and reading and picturing to himself, in fantasies of sexual imagination, pleasant, exciting events which had happened in this or that remote past.... But this was something that no one knew about. Those were his secret gardens, in which he sat all alone, wreathed in the smoke that filled his room, enjoying and revelling in indescribable private luxuries. Since he had become so very old that he allowed himself to be tempted into futile imprudent acts, as with the laundry-girl, he preferred to keep quiet, in his clouds of smoke, and to evoke the lascivious gardens which he never disclosed and where no one was likely to look for him. And so he chuckled with secret contentment, brooding ever more and more in his thoughts as he grew older and older; but he merely said, repeating his words:
"No, I'd rather not.... It's very sad.... Is no one upstairs except Stefanie? Then I may as well go up too, Anna...."
He moved towards the stairs....
Could Uncle Anton know anything, Ina wondered, with fierce curiosity. He was so sullen always, so reserved; no doubt he kept what he knew to himself. Should she go and ask him? And, while her father, sitting on his chair in pain, was still discussing with Uncle Daan which of them had better tell the old lady that Dr. Roelofsz was dead, Ina hurried after her uncle in the passage—Anna had gone back to the kitchen—and whispered:
"Tell me, Uncle. What was it that happened?"
"Happened? When?" asked Anton.
"Sixty years ago.... You were a boy of fifteen then.... Something happened then ... that ..."
He looked at her in amazement:
"What are you talking about?" he asked.
"Something happened," she repeated. "Youmustremember. Something that Papa and Uncle Daan know, something that Papa has always known, something that brought Uncle Daan to Holland."
"Sixty years ago?" said Anton Dercksz.
He looked her in the eyes. The suddenness of her question had given such a shock to his self-centred, brooding brain that he suddenly saw the past of sixty years ago and clearly remembered that he had always thought that there must be something between his mother and Takma, something that they kept concealed between themselves. He had always felt this when, full of awe, almost hesitatingly, he approached his mother, once a week, and found old Takma sitting opposite her, starting nervously with that muscular jerk of his neck and seeming to listen for something.... Sixty years ago?... Something must, something must have happened. And, in his momentary clearness of vision, he almost saw the Thing, divined its presence, unveiled his father's death, sixty years ago, was wafted almost unconsciously towards the truth, with the sensitive perspicacity—lasting but a second—of an old man who, however much depraved, had in his very depravity sharpened his cerebral powers and often read the past correctly.
"Sixty years ago?" he repeated, looking at Ina with his bleared eyes. "And what sort of thing could it be?"
"Can't you remember?"
She was all agog with curiosity; her eyes flashed into his. He hardly knew her, with all her well-bred weariness of expression gone; and he couldn't endure her at any time and he hated D'Herbourg and he said:
"Can't I remember? Well, yes, if I think hard, I may remember something.... You're right: I was a lad of fifteen then...."
"Do you remember"—Ina turned and looked down the passage, looked at the open door of the morning-room, saw her father's back huddled into a despondent curve—"do you remember ... Grandmamma'sbaboe?"
"Yes, certainly," said Anton Dercksz, "I remember her."
"Ma-Boeten?"
"I daresay that was her name."
"Did she know anything?"
"Did she know anything? Very likely, very likely.... Yes, I expect she knew...."
"Whatwasit, Uncle? Papa is so depressed: I'm not asking out of curiosity...."
He grinned. He did not know; he had only guessed something, for the space of a second, and had always suspected something between his mother and Takma, something that they hid together, while they waited and waited. But he grinned with pleasure because Ina wanted to know and because she was not going to know, at least not through him, however much she might imagine that he knew. He grinned and said:
"My dear, there are things which it is better not to know. It doesn't do to know everything that happened ... sixty years ago...."
And he left her, went slowly up the stairs, reflecting that Harold and Daan knew what the hidden Something was, the Something which Mamma and Takma had kept hidden between themselves for years and years.... The doctor had also known it, probably.... The doctor was dead, Takma was dead, but Mamma did not know that yet ... and Mamma now had the hidden Thing to herself.... But Harold knew where it lay and Daan also knew where it lay ... and Ina was looking for it....
He grinned on the landing upstairs before he went in to his mother; he could hear Stefanie's grating voice inside.
"I," he said to himself, "don't care a hang for the whole crew. As long as they leavemealone, with my pipe and my books, I don't care a hang for the whole pack of them ... even though I do come and see my mother once a week.... And what she is keeping to herself and what she did with Takma, sixty years ago, I don't care a curse about either; that's her business,theirbusiness maybe ... butmybusiness it isnot."
He entered and, when he saw his mother, preternaturally old and frail in the red dusk of the curtains, he hesitated and went up to her, full of awe....
There was another ring; and Anna, profoundly moved by the death of Dr. Roelofsz and moaning, "Oh dear, oh dear!" opened the door to Ottilie Steyn de Weert and Adèle Takma. Ina came out to them in the passage. They did not know of the doctor's death; and, when they heard and saw Daan and Harold in the morning-room, there was a general outcry—subdued, because of Mamma upstairs—and cross-questioning, a melancholy dismay and confusion, a consulting one with another what had best be done: whether to tell Mamma or keep it from her....
"We can't keep it from her for ever," said Ottilie Steyn. "Mamma doesn't even know about Mr. Takma ... and now there's this on top of it! Oh, it's terrible, terrible! Adèle, are you going up?"
"No," said Adèle Takma, shrinking, in this house, now that she knew. "No, Ottilie, I must go home, Mamma will have plenty of visitors without me."
She shrank from seeing the old lady, now that she knew; and, though she had walked to the house and walked in with Ottilie Steyn, she would not go upstairs.
"Ottilie," said Daan Dercksz to his sister, "youhad better tell her ... about Dr. Roelofsz."
"I?" said Ottilie Steyn, with a start.
But, at that moment, some one appeared in the street outside and looked in through the window.
"There's Steyn," said Harold, dejectedly.
Steyn rang and was shown in. No one had ever seen him in so great a rage. He vouchsafed no greetings and marched straight up to his wife:
"I thought I should find you here," he growled at her, in his deep voice. "I've seen your son, who came over from London with you."
Ottilie drew herself up:
"Well?"
"Why need the arrival of that young gentleman be kept as a surprise for me to come across in the street?"
"Why should I tell you that Hugh came with me?"
"And what has he come for?"
"What has that to do with you? Ask him, if you want to know."
"When he makes his appearance, it's for money."
"Very well, then it's for money. Not your money, at any rate!..."
They looked each other in the eyes, but Steyn did not want to go on discussing money, because Ottilie had inherited a part of Mr. Takma's. Hugh Trevelley scented money, whenever there was any about; and it was not that Steyn looked upon his wife's money as his own, but, as old Takma's executor, he thought it a shame that his wife's son should be after it so soon.... He ceased speaking and his eyes alone betrayed his hatred; but Harold took his hand and said:
"Frans, Dr. Roelofsz is dead."
"Dead?" echoed Steyn, aghast.
Ina stared and pricked up her ears again. The afternoon had indeed been full of news. Even though she did not know about That, she was hearing other things: she had heard of the doctor's sudden death, heard that Aunt Thérèse was coming from Paris, heard that Hugh Trevelley was at the Hague. And now she had very nearly heard about the old gentleman's money. He must have left Aunt Ottilie something, but how much? Was it a big legacy?... Yes, the afternoon had really been crammed with news; and her eyes forgot to look weary and glistened like the glowing eyes of a basilisk....
But the brothers were consulting Steyn: what did he think? Tell Mamma of Dr. Roelofsz' death, or keep it from her?... They reflected in silence. Out of doors, it suddenly began to pour with rain, a numbing rain; the wind blew, the clouds lowered. Indoors, the red light of the stove, burning with a sound of gentle crackling behind the mica panes, gleamed through the falling dusk. Meanwhile the Thing passed ... and stared at Harold, stared into his eyes, which were almost closed with pain. The Thing! Harold had known it since his early boyhood; Daan had known it for a few months and had come home from India, to his brother, because of it; upstairs, because of the old woman, who knew it, Stefanie and Anton both guessed it, but both refused to know it, lest they should be disturbed in the pursuit of their own lives; but downstairs Adèle and Steyn also knew it, because of the letter torn into two, four, eight pieces, the letter which the old man had been unable to destroy. In Paris, Thérèse, who was coming to Holland, knew it; in India, themantriknew it.... But no one spoke of the Thing ... which was passing; and Harold and Daan did not know that Adèle and Steyn knew; and none of them knew that Thérèse in Paris knew; and Steyn and Adèle did not know that themantriin India knew, that Daan knew and that Harold had known so long.... But Ina knew about themantriand knew that there was something, though she knew nothing about Adèle and Steyn and never for a moment suspected that they knew.... No one spoke of the Thing and yet the shadow of the Thing was all around them, trailing its veil of mist.... But the one who knew nothing at all and guessed nothing was Ottilie Steyn, wholly and sorrowfully absorbed in the melancholy of her own passing life: a life of adulation and fond admiration and passion, the tribute of men. She had been the beautiful Lietje; now she was an old woman and hated her three husbands, but she hated Steyn most! And, perhaps because she was so much outside the Thing's sphere, Harold gently took her hand and, obeying an unconscious impulse, said:
"Yes, Ottilie, you ...youmust tell Mamma that Dr. Roelofsz is dead. It will be a great blow to her, but we cannot, we must not keep it from her.... As for Takma's death, ah, Mamma will soon understand that, without any telling!..."
His soft voice calmed the dismay and confusion; and Ottilie said:
"If you think, Harold, that I can tell her, I will go upstairs and try ... I'll try and tell her.... But, if I can't do it, in the course of conversation, then I won't ... then I simply will not tell her...."
She went upstairs, innocent as a child: she did notknow. She did not know that her mother, more than sixty years ago, had taken part in a murder, which that old deaf doctor had helped her to hush up. She knew that Takma was her father, but not thathe, together with her mother, had murdered the father of her brothers, the father of her sister Thérèse. She went upstairs; and, when she entered the drawing-room, Stefanie and Anton rose to go, so that Mamma might not have too many visitors at a time.
For that matter, it did not tire the old woman to chat—or to sit with a visitor in cosy silence for a little while—so long as the "children" did not all come at once. She was still slightly elated with the young life which she had seen, with Lily van Wely's babies. She had talked about them to Stefanie and Anton, not knowing that the babies were their godchildren: no one had told her that; and she really thought that little Netta's name was Ottilitje and spoke of little Lietje: they knew whom she meant.
Ottilie Steyn was left alone with her mother. She did not speak much, but sat beside her mother, who had taken her hand.... Ah, she herself felt touched! There, in that empty chair, at which the old woman kept staring, old Mr. Takma would never sit again.... Her father! She had loved him as a daughter loves her father! She was inheriting a hundred thousand guilders from him; but never again would he put a hundred-guilder note in her hand, in that kind way of his.
It was as though the old woman guessed some of her daughter's thoughts, for she said, with a movement of her hand towards the chair:
"Old Mr. Takma is ill."
"Yes," said Ottilie Steyn.
The old woman shook her head mournfully:
"I don't expect I shall see him again this winter."
"He will get well again...."
"But even so he will not be allowed out...."
"No," said Ottilie, feebly. "Perhaps not, Mamma...."
She was holding the brittle, slender, wand-like old fingers in hers.... Downstairs, she knew, the brothers were waiting; Stefanie probably also; Ina too.... Adèle Takma had gone.
"Mamma," she said, all of a sudden, "do you know that somebody else is ill?"
"No, who?"
"Dr. Roelofsz."
"Roelofsz? Yes, I haven't seen him ... I haven't seen him for the last two days."
"Mamma," said Ottilie Steyn, turning her sorrowful little face—it was still a pretty face, with blue, child-like eyes—to her mother, "it's very sad, but ..."
No, she simply could not say it. She tried to withdraw her sentence, not to complete it; but the old woman had at once seized the meaning of those few words:
"He's dead?" she asked, quickly.
Her voice cut through Ottilie Steyn. She had not the strength to utter a denial: with a heartrending smile on her face she nodded yes.
"A-ah!" sighed the old woman, overwhelmed.
And she stared at Takma's chair. Her old, dried-up eyes did not weep; they merely stared, intensely. She remained sitting straight up in her chair. The past heaved up before her eyes; there was a great buzzing all around her. But she remained sitting upright and staring before her.
"When did he die?" she asked, at last.
Ottilie Steyn told her, in a very few words. She was crying, not her mother. The old, old woman saw herself as she was, more than sixty years ago. It was then that she had given herself to Roelofsz, so that he should not speak.... He had not spoken.... He had remained her friend, loyally, for all those long, long years, had shared the hideous burden of the past with her and Takma.... No, he had never spoken ... and they had grown so very old, without ... without anybody knowing.... Nobody knew it, not one of her children.... People had talked sometimes, in the old days, had whispered terrible things: that was past.... Everything passed, everything passed.... Nobody knew, except Takma himself, now that poor Roelofsz was dead. He had exacted a high price ... but he had always remained loyal....
Ottilie Steyn was crying, said nothing more, held her mother's hand.... It had grown very dark: the companion came in, to light the lamp.... The wind howled dismally; the rain dashed against the window-panes; a clammy dampness gave Ottilie an unpleasant sensation, as of something chilly passing over her in that room with its scanty fire, because the old woman could no longer bear a great heat. The hanging lamp above the table in the middle of the room cast down a circle of light; the rest of the room remained in shadow: the walls, the chair, the empty chair opposite. The companion had gone, when the old woman asked, suddenly:
"And ... and Mr. Takma, Ottilie?"
"Yes, Mamma?..."
"Is ... is he ill, also?..."
The daughter was startled by the expression on her mother's face; the dark eyes stared wide....
"Mamma, Mamma, what's the matter?"
"Is he ill ... or is he ... also...."
"Ill? Yes, he's ill too, Mamma...."
She did not finish....
Her mother was staring in front of her, staring at the empty chair opposite, in the shadow against the wall. Ottilie grew frightened; for her mother, stiffly and laboriously, now lifted a trembling arm from her lap and pointed with a slender, wand-like finger....
"Mamma, Mamma, whatisit?..."
The old woman stared and pointed, stared and pointed at the empty chair.
"There ...the-there!" she stammered. "There!"
And she continued to stare and point. She said nothing, but she saw. She did not speak, but she saw. Slowly she stood up, still staring, still pointing, and shrank back, slowly, very slowly.... Ottilie rang the bell, twice; the companion rushed into the room at once; from below came sounds of confusion, faint exclamations, Anna's "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!" and whispering voices. Ina, Daan and Stefanie came upstairs. But they did not enter the room; the companion made a sign that it was not necessary....
The old woman's stiff arm fell slowly to her side, as she stood.... But she was still staring and shrinking back, slowly....
She no longer seemed to see Ottilie in her horror at what she did see. And all that she said, with unseeing eyes, though the rest of her consciousness remained, was:
"To bed!... To bed!..."
She said it as though she were very, very tired. They put her to bed, Anna and the companion. She remained silent, with her thin lips pressed together and her eyes still staring. Her heart had seen and ... she knew. She knew that he, Takma, Emile—the man whom she had loved above everything, above everybody, in the dead, dead years—that he was dead, that he was dead....
"Come," said Lot, gently, one morning, sitting with Elly in the sitting-room where he came so often to chat and have tea with her in the old days before they were married, "come, let us talk sensibly. It put both of us out to be dragged back from Italy, from our work, while—very foolishly—we never thought that this might easily happen one day. Dear old Grandpapa was so very old! We thought that he would live for ever!... But now that we are here, Elly, and Steyn has told us that all the affairs are settled, we may as well come to a sensible decision. You don't want to stay in this house; and it is, no doubt, too big, too gloomy, too old.... To live with Mamma ... well, I did hint at it the other day, but Mamma talked of it so vaguely, as though she really didn't much care about it.... Now that Hugh is with her she's quite 'off' me: it's Hugh here and Hugh there. It was always like that: it was like that in 'Mr.' Trevelley's time, when I was a boy and Hugh a child. John and Mary didn't count for much either; and it's just the same now.... So we won't talk of setting up house together.... But what shall we do, Elly? Look out for a smaller house and settle down? Or go abroad again, go back to Italy?... You enjoyed it, after all, and we were working together so pleasantly.... We were very happy there, weren't we, Elly?"
His voice sounded gentle, as it always did, but there was a note almost of entreaty in it now. His nature, his fair-haired person—was he not turning a little grey at the temples?—lacked physical vitality and concealed no passionate soul; but there was a great gentleness in him: under that touch of laughing bitterness and vanity and superficial cynicism he was kind and indulgent to others, with no violent longings for himself. Under his feminine soul lay the philosophy of an artist who contemplates everything around and within himself without bursting into vehemence and violence about anything whatever. He had asked Elly to be his wife, perhaps upon her own unspoken suggestion that she needed him in her work and in her life; and, often in jest and once in a way in earnest, he had asked himself why he was getting married, why he had got married and whether liberty and independence did not suit him better. But, since he had seen his sister's happiness with Aldo at Nice and had also felt his own, softer-tinted happiness, very fervent and very true in his wistfully-smiling, neutral-tinted soul, which withdrew itself almost in panic under his fear of old age; since he had been able to seize the moment, carefully, as he would have seized a precious butterfly: since then it had all remained like that, since then his still, soft happiness had remained with him as something very serious and very true, since then he had come to love Elly as he never thought that he could love any one. And it had been a joy to him to roam about Italy with Elly, to watch her delight in that beautiful past which lay so artistically dead and, on returning to Florence, to plunge at her instance into earnest studies of the Medici period. How they had rooted and ransacked together, taking notes as they worked; how he had written in the evenings, feeling so utterly, so fondly happy in their sitting-room at thepensionwhere they stayed! Two lamps, one beside Elly, one beside himself, shed a light over their papers and books; vases of fragrant flowers surrounded them; photographs pinned to the walls shadowed back the beauties of the museums in the gathering dusk. But, amid the beauties of that land and of that art, amid his happiness, amid the sunshine, an indolence had stolen over him; he often proposed a trip into the country, a drive, a walk to Fiesole, to Ema; he loved looking at the life of the people in the street, smiling at it with gladness: the Archives were cold and dusty; and he simply could not keep on working so regularly. And in the evening he would gaze across the Arno and sit blissfully smoking his cigarette at the window, until Elly also shut up her books and the Medicis drifted away in the changing lights of early evening outside and grew indistinct....
He had at first not noticed her disappointment. When he did, he was unwilling to pain her and he went back to his research. But he did it against the grain. That regular work did not suit him. It tired his brain; behind his forehead he plainly felt a reluctancy, a barrier that prevented something from entering ... just as he had felt when, at school, he had to do a sum and failed, twice and thrice over.... In addition, he was burning to write ephemeral essays: he had a superabundance of material, about the Medicis, about Benozzo Gozzoli's frescoes at the Palazzo Riccardi, for instance.... Oh, to write an essay like that from afar, all aglow, with azure jewels and gold! But he dared not write the article, because Elly had once said:
"Don't go cutting up into articles all that we have discovered."
As for Elly, she devoted herself earnestly and with masculine perseverance to her research and felt almost an inner inclination herself to write their book, a fine, serious historical study; but she understood that her art alone would not suffice for it. Whereas she thought that Lot had only to wish it and that they would then turn out something very good between them.... But Lot felt that indolence impairing his powers more and more, felt his reluctance, like an impeding, resisting barrier, drawn right across his forehead; and one morning he said, a little nervously, that it was impossible for him, that it was too difficult for him, that he couldn't do it. She had not insisted; but a great disappointment had come over her and yet she had remained gentle and kind and had answered lightly and not betrayed the depth of her disappointment.... The books now remained closed, the notes under the paper-weights; and there was no more question of the Medicis. It produced a void about them, but Lot nevertheless felt happy and remained true to that soft blissfulness which had come to him smilingly and which cast a soft gloss over both his worldly cynicism and the overhanging dread. But Elly's disappointment increased and became a great sorrow to her, greater even, she thought, than the sorrow which she had felt as a young girl at her broken engagement, at the loss of the man whom she had first loved. She was a woman to suffer more for another than for herself; and she suffered because she could not rouse Lot to great things. Her love for Lot, after her emotional passion for another, was very intellectual, more that of a cultured woman than of a woman all heart and senses. She did not see this so plainly herself; but her disappointment was very great that she could not lead Lot on to do great work; and the void around her widened, whereas he, in the beauty of the land that was dear to him, in his gentle happiness, just felt the void around himself shrinking into a perspective in which his eyes wandered dreamily.... Not a bitter word was spoken between them; but, when they sat together, Elly felt herself grow very aimless. She was not of a contemplative mind. That wandering through Italian cities, that pleasant rambling among the beauties of the museums did not satisfy her, to whom action was a real and positive need. Her fingers had a nervous tremor of aimlessness between the pages of her Baedeker. She could not be always admiring and musing and existing in that way. She must act. She must devote herself. And she longed for a child.... And yet a child, or perhaps several children, while not bringing unhappiness, would not bring happiness either; for she knew that, even if she had children, she would not find sufficient satisfaction for her activity in educating them and bringing them up: she would do it as a loving duty, but it would not fill her life. She felt that almost masculine call within her, to strive as far as she could. If her limit was reached, well, then she would go no farther. But to strive to that limit, to perform her task as far as her nature demanded!... And she spoke to Lot in this sense. He did not know how to answer her, did not understand her and felt that something was escaping him. It never came to bitter words, but on both sides there were little thrills and counterthrills, after the first harmonious soft billowing over them both....
This sudden journey home, though causing an abrupt distraction, had, because of its relative futility, intensified Elly's feeling that she was out of tune with things. She had loved the old man, as a father more than a grandfather, but she was too late to see him on his deathbed and the business-matters could have been arranged by power of attorney.
"Yes, but we're here now," said Lot, "and we must have a talk like sensible people.... Shall we go back to Italy, Elly?"
"No, Lot, I'm glad I saw the place, with you; why go back at once and try to repeat...?"
"Settle down here at the Hague? Go and live in the country, when the winter is over?"
She looked at him because she heard the note of entreaty in his voice: he was entreating her because he felt something escape him ... and she suddenly felt pity for him. She flung herself on his breast, threw her arms round him:
"My dear, darling boy!" she said. "I am so absolutely devoted to you."
"And I to you, Elly dearest.... I love you more than I thought I could love anybody. Oh, Elly, let us keep this feeling! Don't let us be irritable.... You see, there has never been an unkind word between us, but still I feel something in you, a dissatisfaction.... Is it because ..."
"Because what, Lot?"
"Because I can't do ... as much as you would like me to?... We were working together so pleasantly; and the work we did is not wasted ... that sort of work is never wasted.... But, you know, darling, to do it as you would have me do it ... is beyond me: I am not so thorough as that. I am a writer for the magazines, a dilettante, not an historian. Mine is an ephemeral talent and all that I create is ephemeral: it always was.... Take it like that...."
"Yes, Lot, I do take it like that. I am no longer distressed ... about our poor Medicis."
"You'll see, I shall make a series of articles out of our researches: really, something quite good. A series: they'll follow on one another...."
"Yes, do it that way."
"But then you must interest yourself in it."
"That I certainly shall."
"And now let us talk about what we shall do, where we shall live."
"We'd better not settle down.... Stay here, until the house is sold, and then ..."
"Very well, then we can see."
"Yes."
"We haven't seen Grandmamma yet. Shall we go this afternoon?"
"I don't believe that she has been up since, but we can go and ask."
She gave him an affectionate kiss. It was as an atonement after what had clashed and thrilled through them, without bitter words. She tried to recollect herself, to force herself, in the empty hunger of her soul. She loved Lot with all her heart; she would devote herself to him ... and perhaps later to his children.... That must be enough to fill a woman's life.... She would have her hobbies: she would take up her modelling again; after all, theBeggar Boywas very good.... That would certainly give completeness to her life, so long as she was happy with her husband; and that she was sure she was. She began to talk in a livelier strain than at first: something seemed to recover itself in her dejection. She would lead an ordinary life, as a happy wife, a happy mother, and cease longing for great, faraway things.... She would give up striving for horizons difficult of approach, horizons that proved to be limits, so that she had to go back after all.
She was gay at luncheon and Aunt Adèle brightened: the poor thing had been depressed lately and walked with a stoop, as though bending under a heavy load; she was sad also because she thought that Lot and Elly were not quite happy. Aunt Adèle now freshened up, glad because Elly was more cheerful and looked brighter and was once more talking with her restless volubility.