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."