An icy shudder swept over Constance when she arrived at Driebergen and
saw the carriage waiting outside the station, with the coachman and the
footman:
"How is mevrouw?" she asked, as she stepped in.
But she hardly heard the answer, although she grasped it. She shuddered,
icy cold. She shivered in her fur cloak. It had rained steadily for days
upon the dreary, wintry trees, out of a sky that hung low but
tremendously wide and heavy, as oppressive as a pitiless darkness.
Drearily the wintry roads shot forward as the carriage rattled along
them. Drearily, in their bare gardens, the houses rose, very sadly,
because they were deserted summer dwellings, in the ice-cold winter
rain.
The day was almost black. It was three o'clock, but it was night; and
the rain, grey over the road and grey over the houses and gardens, was
black over the misty landscapes which could be dimly descried through
the bare gardens. The dreary trees looked dead and lived only in the
despairing gestures of their branches when a wind, howling up from the
distance, blew through them and moved them.
The carriage turned into the bare front-garden, round the beds with the
straw-shrouded rose-bushes. Constance had driven in like this only a few
times before, with the careful coachman always describing the same
accurate curve round the flower-beds: the first time, when she came back
from Brussels, and two or three times since, after the old woman had
been to the Hague, on one of Henri's birthdays. And suddenly a strange
presentiment flashed through the black day right into her, a
presentiment that she was destined very often, so many times that she
could not count them, to drive with that curve round those beds....
She stepped out of the carriage; and the strange presentiment flashed
into her that she would often, very often, stand like that, waiting for
that solemn front-door of the great gloomy, solemn villa to open to
her.... Then she walked in; and the long oak entrance-hall stretched
before her like a strange indoor vista, with at the end a dark door that
led to ... she did not quite know what.... And she felt that she would
often, very often, go through that hall and stare at that dark door,
knowing full well what it led to.... And it was very strange indeed now,
but she imagined that she had, unconsciously, had this presentiment
before--really unconsciously, so vaguely that she had not felt it
yet--from the first time that she had come and waited in this hall,
sitting on the oak settle, with her hand on the shoulder of her boy, the
grandchild whom she had come to introduce to his grandparents.... Oh,
what a gloomy house it was, with that long hall and that dark door at
the end of it, with those portraits and those old engravings, only
brightened by the gleam of the Delft on the old oak cabinet! Oh, what a
gloomy house it was and how strange was the presentiment that she would
so often be coming here now, that she would have to mingle some part of
herself with this gloomy Dutch domestic atmosphere!... Shuddering,
shivering, still in her fur cloak, she was thrilled with a very swift
and fleeting home-sickness for her dear, cosy house in the Woods, at the
Hague, and she did not know when she would go back to it now.... The old
woman was ill; Henri had gone first; Addie had followed him.... Then she
had asked for Constance; and Constance had taken the first train....
She had asked Piet in the hall how mevrouw was, but she had not taken in
his answer either. She now went up the stairs, which wound in their
ascent and were quite dark; and, because the strange presentiment also
forced itself upon her on the stairs, she resisted it, put it from her.
How strange everything seemed around her and within her! Was that the
approach of death, skulking along with the wind, as it were tapping at
the windows on the staircase and knocking in the heavy oak presses in
the hall? Was that the approach of death, of the death which she already
felt around her? Or was it only because the day was black and the house
gloomy?...
And now everything seemed to make her shudder. A dark door had opened,
slowly; and she started; and yet it was simply her child, her boy,
coming out to meet her.
"How is Grandmamma?"
But again she did not take in the answer; and, as though in a shuddering
dream in which she already felt the approach of death, she entered a
room. There sat the old man; and Henri sat beside him, like a child,
with his hand in his father's large, bony hand. She herself did not hear
what she said ... to the old man. She was only conscious that her voice
sounded soft and sweet, as with a new music, in the gloomy house. She
was only conscious that she kissed the old man. But she felt herself
growing strange, frightened and shuddering, in the dark room, in the
gloomy house, with the vast, low, heavy skies outside. The black rain
rattled against the panes. The old man had taken her hand, awkwardly; he
held only two of her fingers; and they trembled, pinched in his bony
grip. He led her in this way to another room, dark with the curtains of
the window and the bed, lighted only by the reflected gleam of an
old-fashioned looking-glass wardrobe. The black rain rattled against the
panes. Oh, how she felt the approach of dread death, that great, black
death before which small people shudder, even though they do not value
their small lives! How she felt it rustling in the rain against the
window, how she felt the ghostly flapping of its cloak in the shadows
among the heavy furniture, how she felt death reflected in the reflex
light of that looking-glass! She shivered, in her fur cloak. But in the
shadow of the bed-curtains two eyes smiled at her gently from out of the
suffering old face.... The old man had gone.
"Here I am, Mamma...."
"Is that you?"
"Yes."
"I had to send for you...."
"I thought it would be too much for you.... That's why I let Henri and
Addie come without me...."
"Are we alone?"
"Yes, Mamma."
"Tell me, you didn't stay away ... because you were angry ... because
you still bore a grudge?..."
"Oh, no! I was not angry. I thought it would be too much for you."
"Is that true?"
"Quite true."
"The simple truth?"
"The simple truth."
"Yes, I can tell: you're not angry. But you were angry...."
"Hush, Mamma, hush!"
"No, no, let me speak. I sent for you to speak to you.... There was a
time when you were angry. And we could not talk together. Let us talk
now, for the first and last time."
"Mamma...."
"There were those long, long years, dear. The years which are now all
dead.... There was your suffering ... but there was also our suffering,
Father's ... and mine."
"Yes...."
"It was a day like to-day, gloomy and black; and it was raining. I was
restless, I had such a strange presentiment: I had a presentiment ...
that Henri was dead, my child, my boy, in Rome. It was a gloomy day ...
seventeen or eighteen years ago. And in the afternoon, about this
time--it was quite dark, the lights were not yet lit--a letter came: a
letter from Rome ... from Henri.... I trembled ... I could not find the
matches, to light the gas ... and, when I looked for them, the letter
dropped from my hands.... I thought, 'He's writing to me that he is very
ill. I shall hear presently that he's dead.' I lit the gas ... and read
the letter. I read not that he was ill ... but that he had to resign his
post. He wrote to me about a woman whom I did not know, he wrote to me
about you, dear. I breathed again, I thought to myself, 'He is not dead,
I have not lost my son.' But Father thought differently: he said, 'Henri
is dead, we have lost our son.' Then I knew that my presentiment was
right, that he _was_ dead.... He was dead ... and he stayed dead for
years and years.... Oh, how I longed for him to come to life again! Oh,
how I kept on thinking of my child!... But year followed upon year; and
he remained dead.... Then by degrees I began to feel that it would not
always be like that, that things would be a little brighter one day,
that he would come back out of that distant death.... He came back; I
had my boy back.... I saw you ... for the first time. Long dead years
lay between us; and, when I wished to embrace you, I felt that I could
not, that I did not reach you. My words did not reach you. They remained
lying between us, they fell between us like hard, round things.... I
knew then that you had suffered much and also that for long, long years
you had been full of grief and resentment ... grief and resentment....
You brought us your child: you brought him grudgingly.... Hush, don't
cry, don't cry: it couldn't be helped. There was bound to be that
feeling, that grudge, inside you ... oh, I knew how it rankled! People
are always like that: they never understand each other as long as there
is no love; and, when there is no love and no understanding, there is
bitterness ... oh, and often hatred!... No, it was not hatred yet, it
was bitterness: I knew it. Don't cry: the bitterness couldn't be helped.
We did not reach each other across that bitterness.... Also you were
young still, dear, and it was _I_ who had to go to _you_ on Henri's
birthday ... and yet I do not believe that there was any wrong on my
side. Tell me, was there any wrong on my side? Was it not your bitter,
implacable youth that refused the reconciliation?... Hush, don't cry:
reconciliation always comes, sooner or later; sooner or later, all
bitterness melts away ... if not here ... then _there_.... But with you
and me, dear, it is _here_. With you and me it is here. I am certain
that you gradually felt the bitter grudge melting away in you, because
you learnt to understand ... learnt to understand that old people have
different ideas from young people; you learnt to understand their ideas,
the ideas of the older people, folk before your time, old-fashioned
folk, my dear. You learnt to understand them; and your soul became more
gently disposed towards them ... and you said to yourself, 'I understand
them: they could not be any different.' You can even understand, can't
you, dear, that the old man has not yet, has not even now forgiven and
forgotten as completely as I forgave and forgot, long, long ago? I am
right about that, am I not? You must even learn to understand ... that
he will _never_ forgive and forget--hush, child, don't cry!--you must
learn to understand that; you do understand it.... We must understand
that together, however much we may regret it, but we will not tell
anybody and we will both of us forgive him, dear, for now and for the
time to come; for, if he can't do otherwise, then he is not to blame....
And, once we are _there_ ... when we meet again ... oh, what will all
the old bitterness and all the old suffering amount to? Nothing!
_There_, all the old bitterness and the old suffering are lost in love.
Then Father too will no longer be bitter.... That's why I sent for you,
you see: to tell you all this; because of the words which I could not
keep in, because I longed to say to you, 'My dear child, you have
suffered ... but we have suffered too! My dear child, I ... I want to
forgive you, now, with my last kiss. But let my forgiveness count as
two; and do you, my dear child--it is my last request--forgive the old
man also ... now and always ... always...."
The room was quite dark. The rain clattered in the darkness against the
window. Constance had dropped to her knees beside the bed; she was
sobbing quietly, her tears falling upon the old woman's hand. And there
was a long silence, interrupted by nothing but the clatter of the rain
and the soft, heaving sobs. The dark room was full of the past, full of
all the things which the old woman's words had brought to life out of
the dead years. But through that past the dying woman saw the morrow
breaking, as in a radiant dawn. She saw it breaking in radiance and she
said:
"Tell me that you forgive him ... now ... and always ... always."
"Yes, yes, Mamma ... now ... . now and always."
"For he will _never_ forgive, he will _never_ forgive."
"No, no ... but I forgive him, I forgive him."
"Even if _he_ never forgives?"
"Yes, yes ... even if he never forgives!"
"For he will _never_ forgive, he will _never_ forgive."
"No ... but I forgive him..."
"And I, dear..."
"You forgive me ... you forgive me!"
"Yes, I forgive you ... everything. From first to last. Your
bitterness...."
"Oh, I have long ceased to be bitter!"
"Yes, I know that you had learnt to understand.... We could have become
very fond of each other, if...."
"Yes, if...."
"But it was not to be. Let us become fond of each other _now_. Love me,
Constance, in your memory...."
"Yes...."
"Just as I shall continue to love you. There! Just because we suffered
through each other in this life, we shall _now_ love each other."
"Yes, oh, yes!"
"Kiss me, my dear. And ... and forgive the old man."
"Yes...."
"Even if he...."
"Yes, oh yes!..."
"Never forgives. For he will _never_, he will _never_ forgive!"
"I forgive him, I forgive him!"
"Then all is well. Let him come in now: him ... and my child, my son,
Henri ... and _him_ ... the child ... our child...."
Constance rose from her knees; she stumbled, sobbing, across the dark
room. She groped for the door, opened it: the light of the lamps
streamed in.
"Mamma is asking for you," she stammered through her tears. "For you ...
and Henri ... and Addie...."
Death entered the room with them....