Constance was much alone during those days. She was even more lonely
than she had ever been in Brussels--when Van der Welcke was away about
his wines or his insurances--because this was the first time that she
had been parted from Addie. She saw her mother almost every day,
however; but, for the rest, she mostly stayed at home, just as she had
very often stayed at home in Brussels. A gentle melancholy had come upon
her, after her fits of depression, a melancholy that impelled her to be
much at home and much by herself. She was a stay-at-home woman: her
house had the well-tended and attractive and comfortable appearance of a
house which is loved by its occupant with the unadventurous feeling that
home is the safest place. She busied herself in the mornings in a quiet
way, did her housekeeping, gave her orders quietly and methodically; and
her house always had an atmosphere of cosy, restful well-being, which
seemed to calm her and persuade her to stay in it. The two maids, with
whom she was always the calm, pleasant mistress of the house, liked her,
did their work quietly and soon learnt what was expected of them. During
these days when she was alone, she went all over the house with them,
made them give Van der Welcke's room and Addie's room a thorough
cleaning, went through every corner of her cupboards with her gentle,
mindful fingers, the fingers of a dainty woman who imparted something of
her own daintiness to everything that she touched.
She was not a great reader, did not play the piano, was not even
particularly cultured. As a child, she had been fond of fairy-tales; as
a child, she had even invented fairy-tales; but, apart from that, she
did not care much for literature; poetry she regarded as insincere; and
she did not know much about music. But there was something soft and
pretty and distinguished about her, something exquisite and feminine,
especially now that her vanity was really dead. She had an innate taste
for never doing or saying anything that was ugly or harsh or coarse; and
it was only when her nerves got the better of her that she could lose
her temper and fly into a passion. But, owing especially to her sadness
and to the grey and dismal years which she had passed, she had developed
a very sensitive, soft heart, almost hypersensitive and oversoft. A word
of sympathy at once fell upon her like kindly dew and made her love
whoever uttered it. She had become very fond of her mother, more so than
formerly, appreciating in Mamma the mother who kept her children
together. She also shared that family-affection, that strange fondness
for all her kith and kin. But she often experienced what Mamma never
felt: the disappointment and depression and discouragement of loving
with a love that was deep and inclusive those whose changing, complex
interests were for ever taking them farther and farther out of reach. At
such times, she just remained at home, in her own house, wrapped herself
in her gentle melancholy, went over the house with the maids, who liked
her, in order that everything might be very nice and neat. She had
nothing of the Dutch housewife about her; and the maids often told her
that Mrs. So-and-so used to do things this way and Mrs. What's-her-name
that way. But she had so much tact that they did as she wished and
accepted her distribution of hours and duties; and her house was always
in order, comfortable, fit to live in. She had the gentle little fads of
a woman who has no great intellect and who takes pleasure in almost
simple, childish little femininities. If she happened to have a headache
or felt out of sorts, she thought it pleasant to lie on the sofa in her
bedroom with a heap of fashion-plates around her and quietly to think
out all sorts of costumes, which she did not require and did not order,
but which she just thought out, created, with the graceful fancy of a
dainty woman who loves pretty clothes. Or she could amuse herself with
tidying up her cupboards, going through all her laces and ribbons,
folding them up neatly, smoothing them out, laying them in the different
compartments of exquisite little Empire chests-of-drawers and scenting
them with orris-root. Or she could go through her trinkets--she had not
many--polishing her jewels and trying the effect of them upon herself
with a pleased laugh at those pretty things which sparkle so brightly
and enhance a woman's beauty. She was not interested in the larger
questions, did not understand feminism, was a little afraid of
socialism, especially because the poor were so dirty and smelt so
horribly. Still, she was charitable, though she was not at all well-off,
and often gave money to the poor and dirty, hoping above all that they
would wash themselves. And yet she had a fairly logical intelligence,
even though she was not cultured, even though she did not ponder deeply
on social questions or on art. Now that her vanity was dead, she was a
woman of the world, who thought the world tedious and tiresome and felt
just a need for sympathy and soft compassion. And only sometimes did the
strings within her seem to become more tensely stretched and there
sounded through her something like a vague sadness that suddenly made
her think and say to herself:
"How small we are and how small everything that we do is! I am growing
old now; and what has there been in my existence? Could there be
anything else in life? Or is life just like that, for everybody?"
In point of fact, she herself did not know that her heart had never
spoken. She had fallen in love with Van der Welcke, at Rome, because of
his good looks, in that atmosphere of vanity and drawing-room comedy
which had made her, after reading a couple of fashionable French novels,
talk sadly about her soul-weariness, parrot-wise, neither knowing nor
feeling aught of what she said. She never even thought that there was
another sort of love than that which she had felt for Van der Welcke;
and, if she happened to read about it somewhere in one of her occasional
fits of reading, she would think:
"It's only a book; and the author is writing fine words."
But, at the same time, her gentle nature was too superlatively and
exquisitely feminine and also too motherly to look upon physical love as
the only needful thing. No, what she had felt as a duty in the case of
her first husband and as passion in the case of Van der Welcke had soon
turned to mother-love. Married, in her passion she had at once longed
for a child. And she had worshipped her child from the very first
day....