CHAPTER XVII

[10]Maid, nurse.

[11]What is it?

[12]The young mistress, as who should say, the young mem-sahib.

[13]The great mistress, or great mem-sahib, used of the wives of residents and other high officials.

[14]The old great mem-sahib.

[15]The governor-general's mem-sahib. Bogor is the native name of Buitenzorg, in Java, which contains the governor-general's palace.

[16]The native skirt, or garment wound tightly round the loins, and sleeved jacket, forming a costume which is worn pretty generally as an indoor dress by European ladies in Java.

[17]The young gentleman.

[18]Broth, pap.

The furniture arrived from Brussels; and Constance found it delightful to arrange her house near the Woods. She had never expected to be so happy, just because she was back in her own country and among her family-circle. It was April, but it was still winter: a chill, damp winter, which seemed never to have done raining; above the Woods and the Kerkhoflaan, the heavy clouds were for ever gathering, sailing up as though from a mysterious cloud-realm, spreading the sorrowful tints of the lowland skies over the atmosphere, hanging everlastingly like a beautiful, leaden-hued melancholy of lilac grey, sometimes with the coppery glow of a light that always gleamed very faintly and never conquered, but just shone like copper in between the grey; and the endless rain clattered down, the endless wind howled through the bare trees, the endless clouds pushed and drove along, borne on the stormy squalls, as though there were an endless combat overhead, a cloud-life of which men below knew nothing. It was a melancholy of day after day; and yet, strangely enough, it stirred Constance gratefully: she smiled at the clouds, the clouds of lilac streaked with glowing copper as though a distant conflagration were shining through a watery mist; and very soon her house grew dear to her and she was glad that she lived in it. Addie was not going to school yet, but was working hard to pass his examination in July for the second class in the grammar-school. He was having a few private lessons and, for the rest, studied zealously in his room, which, built out, with a bow-window and a little leaden, peaked roof, he grandiloquently called his turret-room. He had helped Constance to get settled: he had helped Van der Welcke with his room; and now he worked and slept between the rooms of his parents and separated them and, whenever it became necessary, united them.... Strange, this family-life in the little house, where the parents, through grudges and grievances heaped up for years, could hardly exchange the least word, could hardly even be silent, without a tension in both their faces and in both their souls; where every detail of domestic life—a piece of furniture displaced, a door opened or shut—at once led to a discord which turned the tension into an offence. The very least thing provoked a bitter word; a reproach flashed out on the instant; resentment was constantly boiling over. And amid it all was the boy, adored by both with a mutual jealousy that made their adoration almost morbid, each hoping simultaneously that the boy would now speak to him or her and award his caress to her or him; and, if this hope were disappointed, at once an averted glance, uncontrolled envy, a nervous discomfort that was almost a physical illness.... And, by a miracle that had become a forbearing and compassionate grace, the boy, who was still the child of their love, was only a little older, for all this everlasting discord, than his actual years; had only grown a little more serious, feeling himself, at a very early age, to be the mediator; and, now that he was a couple of years older, now that he was thirteen, accepted this mediation, almost unconsciously, as an appointed task and a bounden duty, with only very deep in his childish heart the ache of it all, that things were so, because he loved both his parents. At table, at both meals, the child talked and the two parents smiled, though they avoided each other's glances, though, to each other, their words were cruel and pitilessly cold. After lunch, it was always:

"Addie, what are you doing this afternoon?"

"I have to work, Mamma."

"Aren't you going out with me?"

"Well, then, at three o'clock, Mamma."

After dinner it was:

"Addie, my boy, what are you doing this evening?"

"I have to work, Papa."

"Aren't you coming for a cycle-ride with me first?"

"For an hour, Papa, that's all."

And it was always as though the parents, almost stupidly, kept the child from working, happy as long as he sat with him or her, walked with her or cycled with him. It was so many favours that he granted; and he granted them not as a spoilt child, but as a man: he divided his precious time systematically between his work and his father and mother, conscientiously allotting what was due to each. And Constance would have a moment of faint, smiling pride, as though in a victory gained, when the boy went out with her in the afternoon.

"Addie, must you always wear that hat?"

Then, to please her, he did not wear his Boer hat, but a bowler, so as to look nice when walking with Mamma. And she relaxed, talked to him; and he laughed back; and she could just take his arm and walked with evident pride on the arm of her little son. Paul always said that she flirted with him.... Then Van der Welcke, having nothing to keep him indoors, went out, went to the Witte, looked up his old friends: young fellows of the old days, but now, for the most part, portly gentlemen, filling important posts; he no longer felt at home with them, even when they talked of the days long past: Leiden, their youthful escapades, their young years. He felt, when with these men who filled important posts, that his life was spoilt, thanks to an irrevocable fault. And disconsolately he came home, from the Witte or from the Plaats, and was a little gloomy at dinner, until Addie succeeded in cheering him up. Then, looking more brightly out of his frank, young, blue eyes, Van der Welcke asked:

"Addie, my boy, what are you doing this evening?"

He asked it as one asks a grown-up person, who makes an appointment or has an engagement; and the lad answered:

"I have to work, Papa."

"Aren't you going for a ride with me first?"

"For an hour, Papa, that's all."

Then Van der Welcke's face lighted up; and Constance reflected that she would be alone, all alone, sitting drearily at home, while the evening drew in. But the bicycles were brought out; and, like two schoolfellows, they spurted way: Van der Welcke suddenly brighter-looking, younger-looking; both, father and son, not tall, but well-built, sturdy and yet refined; their two faces, under the same sort of cap, resembling each other in that slightly heavy cast of feature: the short nose, the well-cut mouth, the square chin, the short, curly hair and the eyes of a happy blue, looking steadily along those roads in the Woods which sped under their devouring pedals; and they were like two brothers, they talked like two friends; and, just as Constance had done, that afternoon, Van der Welcke now let himself go in the evening, feeling, oh, so young and happy with his son-companion! On returning home, Addie would look in for a cup of tea with Mamma and afterwards go to his turret-room to work. And then Van der Welcke always had a pretext, just like a schoolboy, to go and sit with his son, instead of staying in his little smoking-room:

"Addie, my fire's gone out. Shall I be disturbing you if I come and sit in here?"

"No, Papa."

Or else:

"Addie, that wretched wind is blowing right against my window and there's a frightful draught in my room."

"Then come and sit in here, Papa."

The boy was never taken in, but remained very serious and went on working. And Van der Welcke settled himself quietly in the easy-chair, the only one in the room, with a book and a cigarette, and smoked and looked at his son. The boy, one-ideaed and persevering, worked on....

"He's an industrious little beggar," thought Van der Welcke; and he hardly dared move for fear of disturbing Addie. "He'll get through, this summer, though he was a bit behindhand.... One couldn't go on as we were doing at Brussels, with that outside tutor. It's just as well the boy came to Holland. He'll get through, he'll get through.... Four years at the grammar-school and then Leiden. And then he must enter the service. It's lucky that Constance doesn't object. But will he himself consent? I should like to see my son make his way in the career which I ... Oh, it was a damned business, a damned business!... However, without Constance I should not have had Addie, my boy. And Papa too would like to see him go in for diplomacy. Papa was pleased with him too: I could see that. He will have money later; Papa and Mamma are still hale and hearty, but he will have money one of these days.... Just look at the boy working! And he is so serious, poor little beggar, owing to this confounded life at home.... Still, he's fond of us.... Look at him working. I never worked like that. He gets it from his grandfather; that seriousness also. He makes straight for his object. I was always more superficial, younger too. The poor kid doesn't know what it means to be young. He will never be young, never go off his head. Perhaps, though—who knows?—later, at Leiden, perhaps he will be really lively, really go off his head. I wish it him with all my heart, my boy, my little chap.... I wonder what he thinks of his parents? He knows that his mother married before she married his father; but what does he know besides? What does he think? Does he judge us yet, that boy of mine? Will he condemn us later on? Oh, my boy, my boy, never throw up your life for a woman!... But it was a matter of honour, my father wished it.... Oh, Addie, may it never happen to you! But it shan't happen to you, my boy. There is something about him which makes me see that that sort of thing can never happen to him. He will go far: wait and see if he doesn't!... What does he get from me and what from Constance? Difficult, this question of heredity. I always think of it when I look at him like this. He takes after me, physically. That seriousness is his grandfather's. Now what does he get from the Van Lowes? Perhaps that tinge of melancholy he sometimes has. But he's a Van der Welcke, he's a regular Van der Welcke.... He's singularly well-balanced, that boy: what is harsh and rugged in Papa is ever so much softened in him. Perhaps that's from the Van Lowes.... It's enough for me to sit and look at him working. Constance doesn't know I'm here. She thinks we are sitting apart, each in his own room.... How can the boy stick it, working so long on end? What is he working at? Greek? Yes, Greek: I can see the letters. I always used to get up a hundred times: a fly was enough to put me off; and I never really studied: I just crammed, prepared for my examination in a fortnight, helped by Max Brauws.... Brauws! What's become of that chap, I wonder? Oh, one's old friends!... I simply could not study. Without Max Brauws, I should never have got there.... Yes, what's become of him?... But this beggar studies so peacefully, so industriously. He's a dear boy.... Oh, if he only had more young people about him, bright, cheerful youngsters! If only it doesn't do him harm later: this gloomy boyhood between parents who are always squabbling.... I restrain myself sometimes, for his sake. But it's no use, no use.... Heavens, how the fellow's working! I think I'll just ask him something. Or no, perhaps I'd better not: he always puckers up his forehead so solemnly, as though I were the child, disturbing him, and he the father.... Well, I'd better have another cigarette...."

And Van der Welcke, through the clouds of his fourth cigarette, watched his son's back. In the light of the lamp on the table, the boy's curly young head bent over his books and exercises as fervently as though the Greek verbs were the world's salvation; and Van der Welcke, a little irritated by all this industry, all this peace, all this quietness for two hours on end, became jealous of the Greek verbs and, rising at last, unable to restrain himself, said suddenly, with his hand on Addie's shoulder and something parental in his voice, though it was not very firm:

"Don't work too long at a time, my boy."

Or else Constance would say, after dinner:

"I'm going to Granny's: will you take me, Addie?"

But he was very just; it was Papa's turn:

"Mummy, I was out with you this afternoon."

"Well, what of that?"

"I'm going for a ride with Papa."

Then she turned pale with jealousy:

"Oh, so you dole out your favours?"

He gave her a kiss, but she pouted, said she would go alone, in the Scheveningen tram, which would take her to Granny's door. But he drew her down upon his little knees:

"Let's play at sweethearts first, then."

"No, let me go."

But he held her tight and kissed her with very short, quick kisses.

"Let me go, Addie, I insist."

But he kissed her with a rain of quick little kisses, which tickled her, till she smiled.

"Look pleasant now!"

"No, I won't!"

"Come, look pleasant!"

"No, I won't look pleasant!"

But she was laughing, saw that her jealousy was really too silly....

And Van der Welcke, after dinner, was glad that it was his turn. He had come back very gloomy from the Plaats; and Addie had cheered him up during dinner.... Sometimes, even, Addie went quite mad. Then he wanted to romp with his father; and Van der Welcke did not object, until Addie discovered a little spot between Papa's brace-buttons where he was very sensitive and tickled him, furiously, just on that little spot.

"Addie, that's enough!" Van der Welcke shouted, playing the father, trying to inspire respect.

But Addie, quite mad, caught Papa round the waist, tickled him on that sensitive spot.

"Addie, I'll give you a thrashing!"

And Van der Welcke squirmed, nervously, ran madly round the room, ran out of the room, followed by his tormentor.

"Addie, if you don't leave off, you'll get such a thrashing that you...!"

But there was no holding the boy; and Van der Welcke, because of that sensitive spot, lost all his self-respect, cringed, entreated, laughed like a madman when Addie so much as pointed at it.

"Addie, don't be so silly!" cried Constance from the drawing-room.

Then he rushed to his mother.

"Hullo, are you jealous again? Do you want to play at sweethearts?"

But his father called to him, reproachfully:

"Come, Addie, let us start."

And Addie ran from one to the other like a little dog and at last landed on his bicycle with a ridiculous jump; and Constance stealthily watched him spurting past Van der Welcke, leaning forward over his handle-bar, pedalling like mad.

Then she felt happy, because he was merry, like a child....

Emilie had been married a day or two, when Addie said, at dinner:

"I went for a walk with Henri van Naghel and his friend Kees Hijdrecht."

"But, Addie," said Constance, who was very irritable that day, "why are you always with those boys? Do they really care for going out with you? Why not go to Aunt Adolphine's boys instead? They are your own age."

"Well, I can understand that Addie prefers Henri," Van der Welcke let fall, unfortunately.

"Why?" she asked, immediately up in arms.

He wished to avoid a dispute—he was sometimes more reasonable than she—and he merely said:

"Well, they're rather rough."

"It would be a miracle," she at once began to cavil, "if you ever saw anything good in the Van Saetzemas' house."

He looked at her with wide eyes, his fine, young, blue eyes:

"But, Constance...."

"Yes, you're always crabbing Adolphine, her husband, her house, her children...."

"But, Constance, I never mention them...."

"That's not true!"

"I assure you!"

"That is not true, I tell you! Only the other day, you said the house was vulgar; two days ago, you said Van Saetzema looked like a farm-labourer."

"But you yourself said, at Emilie's wedding...."

"It's not true: I said nothing. I tell you, once and for all, I won't have you always crabbing one of my sisters and her household. This time, it is the boys who are rather rough...."

"Oh, perhaps you want to see Addie like them?"

"I think it ridiculous for Addie to be always going about with undergraduates. The Van Saetzema boys are very nice and of his own age."

"And I think them three unmannerly young black-guards."

"Henri, I forbid you from this time forward to comment on my family in my presence!"

"Look here, you give your orders to your servants, not to me!"

"I won't have it, I tell you...."

But he flung down his napkin, rose from his seat, left the room suddenly, in a passion. Addie sat quietly looking before him, playing with his fork.

"Papa has very bad manners! To go throwing down his napkin, slamming the door, like a schoolboy!" she said, fretfully, involuntarily, as though to annoy Addie. But he frowned and said nothing; and she went on, "At least, in my father's house I was never accustomed to such rudeness!"

Suddenly, he clenched his little fist and banged it on the table till the glasses rang again:

"And now you keep quiet about Papa!"

He looked at her severely, with his blue eyes suddenly grown hard and a frown on his forehead.

She started and upset her glass. Then she began to weep, softly.

He let her be, for a few minutes. She cried, sobbed, bit her handkerchief. Then he rose, walked round the table, kissed her very gently.

"You have ... a nice way ... of talking ... to your mother!" she said, between her sobs.

He made no reply.

"A pretty tone to use to your mother!" she went on.

He took her by the chin and lifted up her face:

"For shame! To lose your temper like that!" he scolded. "And to grumble! And mope! And squabble! And upset yourself! And kick up a hullabaloo! Do you call that a pleasant way of dining?"

She buried her face on his breast, in his arms. He stroked her hair:

"Come, Mummy, be sensible, now. It's nothing."

"Yes, but Papa mustn't crab Aunt Adolphine."

"And you mustn't crab Papa. What did Papa say, after all?"

"That Aunt Adolphine's boys...."

"Were rough. Do you think they're girls, then?"

"No."

"Well, then ... What else?"

"I don't approve of your going out with boys so much older than yourself."

"Then you can tell me so, quietly; but it's no reason to go quarrelling like that. I can't eat any more now."

"Oh, Addie, just when I've ordered...."

"What?"

"Apple-pudding and wine-sauce."

"Well, it'll keep till to-morrow."

"Do have a little. You know you like it."

"Yes, but I can't eat when I see you so cross. It chokes me, here."

And he pointed to his throat.

"Have just a little bit," she said, coaxingly.

"If you're very good."

"Give me a kiss."

"But mind you're very good."

They laughed together; he gently wiped away her tears:

"You ought to see yourself in the glass," he added, "with those red eyes of yours!"

He sat down. She rang the bell. The servant brought in the pudding, displayed no particular surprise at finding that meneer had gone.

"Is there any cheese, for Papa?" he asked.

The servant brought the cheese; Addie cut a piece of gruyère, put it on a plate with some butter and biscuits, poured out a glass of wine.

"Addie...."

"Wait a minute," he said.

And he went upstairs with the cheese and the wine. Van der Welcke was sitting glowering in the smoking-room.

"Here's your cheese and biscuits, Father. You don't like apple-pudding, do you?"

"Oh, I don't want anything!"

"Now, don't be disagreeable. Eat up your cheese."

"I can't eat, when Mamma...."

"She's sorry already; she's all nerves to-day. So don't talk about it any more."

"I? I'm not talking!"

"No, butsoeda,[19]now, as Aunt Ruyvenaer says. Will you eat your cheese now? Presently, we'll go for a ride."

He went away.

"Here I sit, just like a naughty child," thought Van der Welcke, "with my little plate of cheese and biscuits. That silly boy!"

And he ate up his bit of cheese and laughed....

Downstairs, Constance had put a piece of pudding on Addie's plate. He ate slowly. She looked at him contentedly, because he was enjoying it.

"If you hadn't fired up like that," he said, "I'd have told you something, about Henri."

"What about him?"

"That chap's going to be ill."

"Why?"

"He's so upset at Emilie's marriage that it's made him quite unwell. Kees Hijdrecht got angry and said, 'Are you in love with your sister?' And then Henri almost began to cry, Leiden man though he is. No, he wasn't in love, he said, but he had always been with Emilie, with Emilie and Marianne; and now she was married and would be a stranger. He was so bad that we took him home; and then he locked himself in his room and wouldn't even see Marianne."

"But, Addie, that's morbid."

"I dare say; but it's true."

"I must go round to Aunt Bertha's. Will you take me?"

"No, let me go cycling with Papa. He's sitting upstairs, eating his cheese for all he's worth. You'd better tell Truitje to take him up his coffee."

"But, Addie, what will the girl think when she sees Papa finishing his dinner upstairs?"

"She can think what she likes. It's your fault. Shall I come and fetch you at Aunt Bertha's at a quarter to ten?"

She looked at him radiantly, delighted, surprised. And she kissed him passionately:

"My boy, my darling!" she cried, pressing him to her heart.

[19]Quiet, that'll do.

In the same nervous mood in which she had been all day, Constance hurried, after dinner, to the Bezuidenhout, taking the tram along the Scheveningsche Weg and another to the Plein. When she rang at the Van Naghels', she thought it strange that there was no light in the hall, as she knew, from Addie, that they were at home that evening. The butler, who opened the door, said that he did not know whether mevrouw could see her, as mevrouw was not feeling well.

She waited in the drawing-room, where the butler hurriedly turned on the light before going to say that she was there. All round the big room were the faded and withered flower-baskets and bouquets of Emilie's wedding, the frail flowers shrivelled and brown and decayed, while the broad white ribbons still hung in silvery folds around them. The room had evidently not been touched since the wedding-breakfast: the dust lay thick on the furniture; and the chairs still stood as though the room had just been left by a multitude of guests.... Constance waited some time; then she heard footsteps. Marianne came in, looking pale and untidy:

"We are so sorry, Auntie, to have kept you waiting. Mamma is very tired and has an awful headache and is lying down in her room."

"Then I won't disturb her."

"But Mamma asked if you would come upstairs."

She followed Constance to Bertha's bedroom. Constance was astonished at the almost deathly stillness in that great house, which, on the three or four occasions that she had entered it, she had never seen other than full of movement, life, all sorts of little interests which together made up a bustling existence. There was no draught on the top floor, where Frances had her apartments; there were no doors slamming; she saw no maids, nobaboe, no children: everything was quiet, deadly quiet. And, when she entered Bertha's room, it looked to her, in the subdued light, like a sick-room.

"I have come to see how you are."

Bertha put out her hand, silently. Then she said:

"That is nice of you. I am very tired and I have a head-ache."

"I shall not stay long."

"Yes, do stay. I don't mind you."

Bertha and Constance were now alone. And it struck Constance that a disconsolate sadness distorted Bertha's features and that she looked very old, now that her hair, with its grey patches, was down.

"All this rush has been too much for you."

"Oh, I don't know," said Bertha, vaguely. "There's always plenty of rush here."

"Still, it's just as well that you're taking a rest."

"Yes."

They were silent and there was no sound save the ticking of the clock. Then Constance stooped and kissed Bertha on the forehead:

"I wanted badly to see you this evening," she said. "Addie was out with Henri and he told me that Henri was so depressed. And so I came round."

"Henri?" said Bertha, vaguely. "I don't think so; he seemed all right."

"But Addie said...."

"What?"

"That he was so depressed."

"Really? I didn't notice it."

"Well, perhaps Addie was mistaken," said Constance, gently. "Come, I've seen you now, Bertha, and perhaps it's better that I should go and let you rest."

And she stooped again to kiss Bertha good-bye. But Bertha caught her by the hand:

"Do stay with me!" she said, hesitatingly.

"I am really afraid of disturbing you."

"No, please stay!" said Bertha. "I think it's nice of you to have come. You mustn't think me indifferent; but what's the use of talking? If one doesn't talk, everything is so much simpler. Words always mean so much.... Don't think me cold, Constance. I'm like that, you see: I never talk, to anybody. I prefer to withdraw into myself, when there's anything the matter with me. But there's nothing wrong now, I'm only a little tired.... Of course, I feel rather sad at Emilie's going. But we must hope that she will be happy. Eduard is not a bad fellow; and why should Emilie have accepted him, if she didn't care for him?... Do stay and talk to me. Tell me about yourself. It is the first time that we have had a real talk...."

"For years."

"Yes, for years. And much has happened, Constance; but it all belongs to the past now."

"Yes, but the past remains so long. Properly speaking, it never goes, it is always the past."

"Constance, it is twenty years since we saw each other."

"Twenty years. Papa has been dead fourteen years. It was my fault that he died."

"No, Constance."

"Yes, it was. You needn't mind: it was my fault. I know you all think so and I feel it myself. It was my fault. I can never forget that. I can never forgive myself that."

"Hush, Constance. Really, it's such a long time, such a very long time ago."

"But it will always remain ... a murder."

"You have the future before you now. There's your son...."

"Yes, there's my son. But it has come to this, that I am not living for him, but he for me."

"That is wrong."

"Yes, it's wrong. And my whole life is wrong, everything has gone wrong in my life. Oh, Bertha, I can't tell you how I yearned for Holland and for you all, how I yearned to be no longer alone, alone with my boy! Now, perhaps it will be different: among all of you, I feel at home once more. At home: do you know what that means? If I had remained away, things would never have come right. Now perhaps I can still hope: I really don't know...."

"Alone with your boy? Why don't you speak of your husband?"

"No, not my husband."

"Why not?"

"No, no. We only endure each other, for Addie's sake."

"Constance, don't forget...."

"What?..."

"What he did for you, what his people did."

"Oh, if only I had never accepted that sacrifice! If only I had gone right away, alone, somewhere far away! And then never come back to you all.... For, as it is, it was possible, after fifteen years; but then it would have been impossible.... To be grateful, to be grateful all the time, while all the time I am full of bitterness: I can't do it. I can't be grateful when I feel so bitter."

"But, Constance, you're back now and we are all glad to have you back."

"Bertha, I don't know if you mean what you say. I do know that I am happy to be back, in Holland, among you all. But I also know that, in twenty years, people drift far apart; and perhaps I, who had become a stranger, was not wise to come back to all of you, to want to be a sister to you again."

"Perhaps we shall have to get used to one another, Constance, as sisters; but you always remained a daughter to Mamma; and I am very glad for Mamma's sake."

"Yes, I feel that, that you all tolerate me for Mamma's sake. It is nice of you, but it is not quite what I should have wished."

"But, Constance, all that will come later. I am convinced that soon you will feel no longer a stranger. But don't be impatient; and let us get used to one another again.... And there is this too, that every one has his own interests in life; and it is a pity, but there is not always time to feel for another and to think of another. That is very strange, but it's true. Just think, it is two months since you came back to Holland; and this is the first time that we have had a chance of talking to each other. I have only once been to see you at your house. And all this is not from heartlessness, but because one has no time."

"Yes, Bertha, I know; and I am not reproaching you; and you've been very busy with the wedding...."

"And, when it's not a wedding, it's something else. It is always like that, Constance. And sometimes I ask myself, why: why do we do it? Why have all this fuss, all this bustle, all this excitement?... There is a reason for it all: our children's happiness lies in that direction. We do everything for our children, that's what it comes to. Van Naghel's being in the Cabinet, my giving dinners: the reason is always, though one doesn't always realize it, for the children, for their happiness. But, then, Constance, then we ought to have our reward and see our children happy. In return for all our trouble and worry, for all this rushing about and weariness, for all the money we spend, we do want to see our children just a little happy. And then, oh, when I"—her eyes filled with tears—"when I see Otto and Frances: Otto discontented and Frances ill; Louise sad because of Otto, whom she is so fond of; Emilie married now—but how married, poor thing, and why?—and Marianne all nerves and not knowing what she wants; and Henri too so melancholy: then I say to myself, 'Why have we all these children, for whom we live and think and contrive? And wouldn't it be better not to have them? And isn't it better to have as little as possible in one's life and to make that life as small and simple and quiet as possible, once we have to live? Oh, Constance, all this aimlessness and uselessness amid which people like ourselves, women in our position, our environment, our set, turn and turn like humming-tops or fools: isn't it enough sometimes to tempt one to run away from it all and to go and sit on a mountain somewhere and look out over the sea? Women like ourselves marry as young girls, knowing nothing and having only a vague presentiment of our lives, that they will be like the lives of our mothers before us; and all that futility seems most important, until, one fine day, we find that we have grown old and tired and have lived for nothing at all: for visits, dresses, dinners, things which we thought were necessary, all sorts of interests among which we were born and brought up and grew old and which we cannot escape and which are worth nothing, nothing, nothing! And then, when we think that we have lived for our children and slaved and schemed and contrived for them, then it all comes to nothing, nothing, nothing; and not one of them is happy....' You see, Constance, I have talked to you now; but what's the good of it? Why say all that I have said? You'll go away presently and think, 'What a fit of depression Bertha had!' And that is all it was: a fit of depression. For, when I have had a couple of days' rest, why, then life will go on as before: I shall have two charwomen in at once; the whole house has to be done, after the wedding and because of the spring-cleaning. Well, then, was it really worth while to speak out? Oh, no, talking leads to so little; and it's best simply to do all the little duties that fall to one's share."

"I am very glad though, Bertha, that you have let yourself go. I did not know you thought like that; I myself have sometimes thought so, even though my life was not so busy as yours. But, in Brussels, I too sometimes thought, 'Well, yes, I am living for Addie: but, if he were not here, he would not have his own troubles in the future; and I should not need to go on living!'"

"And perhaps there are hundreds who think like that, in our class."

"Isn't it the same in every class?"

"Perhaps life is hopeless for everybody. And yet, when I am rested, to-morrow or the day after, and when my head-ache is gone, I shall start all this work over again."

They were silent, hand in hand; for a moment they had found each other again, were like two sisters. Then Bertha went on:

"When I lie here like this, with my head-aches, I always think of my children.... Yes, it was nice of you to come, Connie. Was Addie out with Henri, did you say? Isn't it morbid of Henri to be so melancholy? But my children are so dependent on one another, almost more than on their parents. Otto and Louise are always together; and then Frances is jealous. The two boys at Leiden are always together; and Henri was always with his sisters too; and Marianne misses Emilie. And still, notwithstanding that feeling for one another, notwithstanding that we do everything for them, notwithstanding that all our thoughts are for them, notwithstanding all we spend on them and for them, my children are not happy. Not one of them has received—what shall I say?—the gift of happiness. It is strange; it is as if life lay heavy upon all of them and as if they were too small, too weak to bear the burden of it. Tell me, Constance, what is your boy like?"

"I don't think he is like that."

"But then he is old for his years, isn't he?"

"Yes, but he is very sensible."

"Yes, he is a little man."

"He is strong, in mind as well as in body. I was going to say that he is just as though he were not little. He works entirely to please himself. And he is a comfort, to both of us. He is a strange child. He is not a child."

"And what is he going to be?"

"He will probably go into the diplomatic service."

She spoke the words and saw, in a flash, before her eyes, Rome, De Staffelaer, all her vain past. And, in that half-darkened room, in that hour of absolute sincerity, she asked herself whether that career would spell happiness for her son.

"Will Van der Welcke like that?..."

"Yes, but Addie must decide for himself. We shall not force him."

There was a knock at the door; and Henri put his head into the room:

"May I come in, Mamma?"

"Yes, what is it? Here's Aunt Constance."

"How are you, Aunt? I came to see how you are, Mamma."

The undergraduate was a tall boy of just twenty, with a pale, gentle face and dressed with the ultra-smartness of a youth who is "in the swim" at Leiden.

"Pretty well, my boy."

"I shall go back to Leiden to-morrow, Mamma."

"Oh?"

"Yes; and I shall probably not be home for some time. I mean to work hard...."

"That's right."

"There's really nothing else to do but work. It's so slow here, Auntie, now that Emilie's gone. Otto's all right, with Louise. She missed him badly, while he was in India. Funny brothers and sisters, aren't we? So exaggerated.... Well, Mamma, I'll say good-bye: I shall start the first thing in the morning."

He said good-bye and went away pulling himself together, putting a good face on his grief. Bertha began to weep softly.

A maid knocked at the door:

"Master van der Welcke, mevrouw."

"Addie's come to fetch me."

"Ask Master van der Welcke to come upstairs," said Bertha.

The boy came in. He remained near the door; in the half-dark room, he stood small but erect, like a little man:

"I have come to fetch you, Mamma."

The two sisters looked at him, smiling. Bertha had it on her lips to say that it was not right for Addie to go about the streets alone, but she said nothing when the boy went up to his mother. He looked capable of protecting her and himself against anything, though he was only thirteen: against the dark night and against life that bore down so heavily upon their small souls.

And a melancholy jealousy welled up in Bertha, while Constance was kissing her good-bye:

"Don't be too bitter, Constance," she whispered, "and cherish, cherish that boy of yours...."

Constance, after this talk with Bertha, for days felt easier in her mind, as though filled with an indefinable contentment that bid fair to soothe and heal. Yes, she hoped that, gradually, she would win them all back like that, all her near ones, whom she had lost for years. She saw Mamma daily; and in these regular meetings between mother and child there was the sweetness of finding each other after long years of almost uninterrupted separation, a sweetness touched with a melancholy that held no bitterness, a mingling of glad tears and smiles over the happiness of it all. Also, Constance had now found Bertha again; and, though they did not see each other until Mamma's Sunday-evening, still there was more sisterly confidence between them, while Marianne grew to like running in at the Kerkhoflaan and would stay to dinner or go cycling with Van der Welcke and Addie. In this way, light bonds were established. As for Karel and Cateau, Constance was sorry, for in Karel she still remembered the brother with whom she used to play on the boulders in the river at Buitenzorg; but she had felt at once that she must not expect much from Karel, now that he and his wife had become mutual images of placid egotism, wrapped in their well-fed, middle-class life, in the sheltered comfort of their warm, shut house. No, Karel, she felt, she had lost, though they were conventionally civil to each other. With Gerrit it was pleasanter. Gerrit and Adeline would come now and then to take tea in the evening, after the children had gone to bed. Only it was a pity that Gerrit always insisted on crabbing and poking fun at the Van Naghels and their friends. This, Constance thought, was not very tactful towards Van der Welcke, because, though he and she did not go into society, it so happened that Van der Welcke had a good many old friends, at the club, who belonged to the aristocratic set. Gerrit was a boisterous, lively fellow, fair-haired, handsome, broad-shouldered and vigorous in his hussar's uniform; but his boisterousness was sometimes, she thought, rather overdone; and she suspected that Van der Welcke did not like Gerrit, thought him a little vulgar. And so she was always on the alert to take up the cudgels for Gerrit against her husband; and Van der Welcke said nothing about Gerrit and was even amiable and talkative when Gerrit and Adeline were there. Adeline was a dear little woman, a fair-haired, little doll-mother, with her seven children, like a family of flaxen-haired dolls: the oldest a girl turned eight, the youngest a baby of a year or so; and Gerrit was always making jokes about not leaving off yet; and indeed Adeline was expecting another in the autumn. So Constance got on well with Gerrit and Adeline, but still she felt out of touch with this brother too, even though Gerrit had such a charming way of bringing back the memory of their early days, when they used to play in the river at Buitenzorg. Yes, she was an interesting child then, Gerrit always said: there was something so nice about her; she was full of imagination; and it was curious to hear this great, heavy hussar going into ecstasies over that little sister of the old days: a frail, fair-haired little girl, in her whitebaadje;she used to walk on her pretty little bare feet over the boulders and invent all sorts of fables and fairy-tales, which her elder brothers were not quite capable of understanding and yet had to play at, good-humouredly, for the two brothers were very fond of their little sister. Yes, Gerrit always said, he had not understood until afterwards how much poetry there was in Constance in the days when she dreamed those stories, those fables, in which she often played a fairy, or apoetriout of the Javanese legends: at such times, she would wreathe her hair with a garland of broad leaves; she would look like Ophelia, in the water, decked with tropical blossoms; and the brothers must needs follow the tiny bare feet and the fancies of their little sister, who looked marvellously charming as she ran over the great rocks, ran through the foaming water, ran in crystal green shadows, which quivered over the river, under the heavy awning of the foliage. Yes, that had left a great impression on Gerrit; and he often talked about it:

"Constance, do you remember? What a nice little girl you were then, though you were a little queer!..."

Until Constance would laugh and ask if she was no longer nice now that she no longer ran about barefoot in a whitebaadjewith purplekembang-spatoe[20]on her temples. Then Gerrit shook his head and said, yes, she was very nice still, but ... but.... And, diving back into his recollections, he said that, two years later, she suddenly changed, became grown-up and a prig and would dance with no one but the secretary-general.... And then Constance cried with laughter, because Gerrit could never forget that secretary-general. Yes, she would only dance with the biggest big-wigs: she was a mass of vanity, a real daughter of theToean Besar.[21]And it was as though Gerrit were bent upon getting back that little younger sister who used to make up fairy-tales in the river behind the Palace at Buitenzorg, notwithstanding that he was now a big, heavy, powerful fellow and a captain of hussars. Then Constance would look at him, handsome, broad, fair-haired, vigorous, enjoying his drink or his good cigar, and she reflected that she did not know Gerrit and did not understand Gerrit: very vaguely she felt something in him escape her, felt it so vaguely that it was hardly a thought, but merely a haze passing over her bewilderment. Adeline sat very quietly in the midst of it, smiling pleasantly at those reminiscences, at those games of the old days:

"Yes, it's extraordinary, the way children play by themselves!" she said, simply; and then she would tell prettily of the games of her own fair-haired brood.

But Gerrit would shake his head: no, that was romping, what his boys did, but the other thing was playing, real playing. Until Constance laughingly asked him to talk of something else than her bare feet. And then the conversation took a more ordinary turn; and it was as if both Gerrit and Constance felt that, although they liked each other, they had not yet found each other. And in this there was a very gentle melancholy that could hardly be formulated.

Constance did not see much of Ernst. She and Van der Welcke and Addie had once lunched with him at his rooms and he had been a most amiable host: he showed her the old family-papers, which, after Papa's death, he had asked leave to keep, because he took most interest in them and they would be in good hands. He would leave them to Gerrit's eldest son: Gerrit was the only one of the four brothers who, so far, had provided heirs. He showed her his old china and called her attention to the different marks that were signs of its value. Next, he spread out an old piece of brocade, embroidered with seed-pearls, and said very seriously that it was a stomacher from a dress of Queen Elizabeth's. When Constance laughed and ventured to express a doubt, he became rather grave and almost angry, but graciously changed the conversation, as one does, a little condescendingly, with people who have said something stupid, who have not the same culture as ourselves.

When they sat down to lunch in his room with its beautiful old colouring, the table was so carefully laid, the flowers so tastefully arranged, with all the grace of a woman's hand, and the lunch was so exquisite and dainty that Constance, amazed, had paid him a compliment. He half-filled an antique glass with champagne and drank to welcome her to Holland. There was about him, about his surroundings, about his manner, something refined and something timid, something feminine and something shy, something lovable and yet something reserved, as though he were afraid of wounding himself or another. He had obviously devised this reception in order to give pleasure to Constance. The conversation flagged: Ernst never completed his sentences; and his eyes were always wandering round the room.... After lunch, he was a little more communicative and he then asked her if she had ever thought on the grace and symbolism of a vase. She listened with interest, while she saw something in Van der Welcke's glance as though he thought that Ernst was mad; and Addie listened very seriously, full of tense and silent astonishment. A vase, Ernst said, was like a soul—and he took in his hand a slender Satsuma vase of ivory-tinted porcelain, with the elegant arabesques waving delicately as a woman's hair—it was like a soul. For Ernst there were sad and merry vases, proud and humble vases; there were lovelorn vases and vases of passion; there were vases of desire; and there were dead vases, which only came to life again when he put a flower in them. He said all this very seriously, without a smile and also without the rhapsody of an artist or a poet: he talked almost laconically about his vases, as though any other view would have been quite impossible.... Constance had not seen him since that day, because he was the only one who did not come regularly to Mamma's Sunday-evenings. And she retained an impression of that afternoon spent with her brother Ernst as of something exotic and strangely symbolical, something, it was true, which she had liked and found pleasant and refined, but which, all the same, lacked the familiar cordiality of a brother and sister meeting again after a separation of years.

As regards Adolphine and her children, Constance, after a first sense of recoil, had, almost unconsciously, laid down rules for her feelings, though perhaps she did not see those rules so very clearly outlined in her mind. But, unconsciously, she positively refused to dislike Adolphine and, on the contrary, was positively determined to think everything about Adolphine pleasant and attractive: her husband, her house, her children and her ideas. If any one, even Mamma, said the least thing about Adolphine, she at once espoused her cause, violently. Through circumstances, such as the arranging of her own house and Emilie's wedding, she had not, as yet, been often to the Van Saetzemas'; but she promised herself not to neglect this in future and, with the greatest tact, to advise Adolphine in all sorts of matters. It operated strangely in Constance: the feeling of recoil, which, after all, was there; an absolute determination to act against this feeling of recoil; and, combined with these two, a silent wish, a gentle resolve to improve Adolphine in one way and another. She insisted that Addie should ask Adolphine's boys to lunch one Sunday; and, though her nerves were racked and she driven almost mad by their rude manners and coarse voices, she had controlled herself and deliberately played the kind auntie. Addie, sacrificing himself for Mamma's sake, had gone out walking with his cousins, but had taken the first opportunity of giving the young louts the slip. Knowing his mother's idiosyncrasies, he did not say much when he returned and even declared that they were not half bad fellows. When his father, however, asked him if he understood why Mamma encouraged those unmannerly cubs, Addie stoically replied, because they were cousins: one of Mamma's ideas; family-affection. Constance, meanwhile, was so tired of the three young Van Saetzemas that she did not venture to repeat the experiment.

Constance thought Dorine uncertain. Dorine was very pleasant, sometimes, to go shopping with, or would go shopping herself for Constance—it was she who asked, not Constance—and then, at other times, Dorine would be cold and nervously irritable. This was because Dorine had a positive mania for doing all sorts of things for other people, but, at the same time, was always craving for appreciation and never thought that she was sufficiently appreciated by any member of the family for whose benefit she ran about. But the mania was too strong for her; and she went on running about, for Mamma, for Bertha, for Constance, for Adolphine, and was always grumbling to herself that she was not appreciated. Yes, she would like to see their faces if she, Dorine, said, one day, that she was tired! What would they say, she wondered, if she ventured to suggest that one sometimes gets wet in the rain? Thus she always grumbled to herself, fitful, dissatisfied, discontented and yet never able to make a comfortable corner for herself, in the boarding-house where she lived, always tearing along the streets from one sister to the other. It was as though she had a mania that drove her ever onwards. She was miserable if a day came when she had no errands to run; and she would go to Adolphine and say:

"Look here, if you'd like me to go to Iserief's and ask about those pillow cases for Floortje, you've only got to say so; I'm going that way anyhow."

And then, when she went that way, she muttered to herself:

"At it again! Of course, there's only Dorine to inquire about Floortje's pillow-cases! Why can't the girl go herself? Or why don't they send the maid?"

Paul was the one whom Constance saw most often of all the brothers and sisters. He had begun by finding in her a fairly sympathetic listener for his endless unbosomings and philosophizings; then Van der Welcke liked him best and they sometimes had a cigarette together in the smoking-room; he was the most of a brother to them of the four: just an ordinary brother. He would arrive in the morning and run straight up to Constance' room, while she was still dressing, and declare that of course he could come in, though she was in her petticoat. When not too long-winded, he had an interesting way of talking which Van der Welcke appreciated. He always looked at Addie with the eye of a philosopher; and Addie liked him, found him great fun, with his exquisite trousers and wonderful neckties. Constance was fond of him; and it was in Paul that she had really for the first time met a brother again: in Paul, who had come least within her ken in the old days, when she was a girl of twenty and he a child of thirteen.

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