It was spring; and Marietje van Saetzema was to go to the Hague for the
day, to see her father and mother. Constance went with her.
"How well Marietje was looking!" cried Adolphine, with delight.
Marietje certainly looked well. She would always remain a little pallid,
frail and thin, with narrow shoulders; but her cheeks had filled out,
her eyes showed a dewy calmness and her lips, pale though they were,
blossomed into a kindly smile. She was, as usual, a little subdued, but
she joined in the conversation and her attitude was more natural, less
painful and forced.
"But you must leave her with us for the summer as well," said Constance,
"for the poor girl hasn't had much out of the country air during the
winter. It is beginning to look lovely now where we are. She'll spend a
summer with us first, Adolphine, won't she, before you take her back?"
"Very well," said Adolphine, gratefully.
But presently, when she was alone with her sister, she found an
opportunity to say:
"At least ... if there are no objections."
"What objection could there be?"
"Because of Addie."
"What do you mean?"
"People are so spiteful sometimes, you know. They say...."
"What do they say?"
"They say that Addie is in love with Marietje and that Marietje does her
best to attract him."
"I should let them talk, Phine."
"What do you believe, Constance?"
"I don't believe a word of it. Addie is in love with his wife."
"That's just it. People say...."
"What do they say now?"
"That things are not going so very well between Mathilde and Addie."
"Every young couple has a difficult time now and again. A little
difference of opinion ... I assure you they are happy together."
"Is that so?"
"Yes."
"It was Mathilde's wish to come and live here?"
"It was better that she should be on her own, in her own house."
"Oh, she didn't have a scene with you then? That's what people say."
"I never had a single word with Mathilde."
"I see her once in a way. She does _not_ talk nicely of you. She says
that she was sacrificed to Gerrit's children, that she did not count at
home. When she talks like that, I defend you, for I know how nice you
and Van der Welcke are to everybody."
"She may have had a bitter moment that made her speak like that."
"She goes out a lot," said Adolphine.
"When? Whom does she go to?"
"In the evening. Friends. She is hardly ever at home of an evening. She
oughtn't to do that ... without Addie, you know. It's so
undomesticated."
"I know she goes out now and then of an evening to have tea ... with
friends."
"Yes, exactly.... She's _always_ out.... But how well Marietje is
looking, Constance! She does Addie great credit. He's making a great
reputation ... with his hypnotism. Everyone wants to be hypnotized by
him. I'm always hearing him praised."
"I'm so glad, Adolphine."
She went away, arranging to fetch Marietje in the afternoon and take her
back to Driebergen. She had an open fly waiting: it was beautiful, mild
weather; and the spring was weaving verdure in between the trees. But a
heavy load lay on Constance' breast and she could have cried ... because
of her boy, because of Addie. She was going to ride to him now, at the
other end of the town, the Emmastraat. She meant to lunch there and,
when she had seen the grandchildren, to come back to Adolphine's. It was
eleven o'clock. And she felt so much weighed down with sorrow for Addie,
who came home to them looking more and more gloomy every week, that she
could not, could not go to him yet ... after all that Adolphine had
said.... Oh, how she always loved saying things that jarred upon your
nerves, things that hurt, things that grated against your soul! Did she
do it purposely? Was she insincere? Or was it because she couldn't help
it, because she was tactless ... or, very likely, took an unconscious
pleasure in hurting other people?... Oh, perhaps she did not know how
much pain she gave!... But to go straight to Addie now, to Mathilde, was
impossible....
"Cabman, drive a little way through the Woods first."
The driver turned down the Javastraat, went along the Scheveningen Road
and let his horse roam at will in the rides of the Woods.... Oh, the
Hague was charming; she loved the Woods! Even as Addie loved Driebergen,
with an innate inherited love for the house and household and the fact
of living there--he was indeed his grand-parents' grand-child--so she
loved the Hague greatly. She loved those green villa-lined roads, she
loved the briny fragrance of the sea.... She was now riding along the
Ornamental Water, now, suddenly, along the spot where she remembered
meeting Brauws years ago--he sitting on that bench yonder--when, after
she had turned round with a start, he caught her up; and her confession,
that she had suggested a divorce to Henri.... Oh, those days, those days
of life and suffering and illusion, so far, so far away in the distant
past!... And now, now the man drove with his jog-trot, the jog-trot of a
victoria hired by the hour, along the Kerkhoflaan; now she was riding
past the old house.... Oh, that old house! It was as though the past,
the illusion, the suffering and the life, the later, later life, were
still hanging around it like a low-drifting cloud! It was the trees of
yore and the skies of yore and the green spring life of yore. The house,
the house: there was the window at which she had so often sat musing,
gazing at the great skies overhead, while her soul travelled along a
path of light. Up above were Addie's little turret-room and her own
bedroom: oh, that night of illusion at the open window, with the
noiseless flashes of hope over the sea, the distant sea yonder!... She
felt almost inclined to stop, to alight, to ask leave to go over the
house; but something in the curtains, in the outline of a woman
sketching at the window of her former boudoir prevented her; and she
rode on. Oh, how she loved her Hague; and yet ... yet she had suffered
there, with what antipathy she had been surrounded!... Did that
antipathy of small souls for small souls go on for ever? Must her poor
boy now suffer through it, even though he made his name as a doctor?...
Oh, what a heavy depression she felt upon her heart, as if her fur
cloak, were much too warm for the balmy weather with its breath of
spring!... Now they were going down the Bankastraat, past poor Gerrit's
old house; and suddenly that terrible night of snow stood white-hideous
before her mind, stained dark with her brother's blood.... Here was
Dorine's boarding-house; and Constance got out and rang, but Dorine was
not in.... The driver jogged on wearily. She recognized acquaintances
here and there, grown older now that her memories were harking back to
past years; and the cabman, doubtless to spin out the drive, instead of
following the Kanaal, turned up the Alexanderstraat. Oh, the house, the
old family house, so full of recollections, so full of the past! And ...
she saw that it was empty, that it was to let. With a quick glance at
the uncurtained windows above, she even recognized the plasterwork of
the ceilings; and it was as though the past still brooded there, still
stared out at her, through the white, streaked windows.... Wearily the
horse now jogged along the Bezuidenhout; and she saw poor Bertha's
house, with its tightly-drawn veil of chill panes stiff and repelling a
swift penetrating glance.... Yes, the Hague was like a grave to her; and
yet even as a grave the Hague was dear to her. A grave? And Addie lived
down there, at the end of the street!... Would _she_ still care to live
in the Hague? She did not know, she did not know: perhaps she was
becoming used to Driebergen, becoming used to the big, sombre house
there, because there was so much love around her, even though she
continued to feel a stranger there.... And a stranger: that was how her
boy felt here!
The carriage now pulled up outside her boy's house. Strange, the
front-door was open: perhaps the maid was out on an errand and had left
the door open for a minute to save herself trouble. Constance, telling
the driver to come back at half-past two, went inside. Addie could
hardly be home yet from visiting his patients. She knocked at the door
of the drawing-room and received no answer. Mathilde was no doubt busy
with the children or with her house-keeping. Constance opened the door
and walked in, to look for her.
She gave a start. Through the drawing-room and the dining-room she saw
Mathilde sitting in the conservatory, with Johan Erzeele beside her. He
sat bending towards her; and he was holding her hand in his two.
Mathilde's eyes were staring into the distance; and a feeble hesitation
seemed to take away something of the usual strength of her fine,
healthy, rather full lines. Constance saw it for one moment, as a
strange vision in that bright, unsoftened conservatory-light, which was
made the harder with many-coloured muslin curtains and coarsely vivid
with the gold and motley of ugly Japanese fans. It gave Constance a
fright; and in that inexorable light the fright and the vision were both
inexorable.
It did not last longer than a second. Her shadow in the drawing-room
made Mathilde and Johan start up; and they rose to their feet:
"Mamma!"
"Mrs. van der Welcke!"
It sounded like a greeting; but their voices were unsteady, because they
understood that Constance had seen. Constance' voice trembled, but she
merely said:
"Good-morning, dear. How do you do, Mr. Erzeele?" She kissed Mathilde,
shook hands with Erzeele. "I came over with Marietje; I left her with
her father and mother and came to look you up ... intending to lunch
with you ... if it suits you."
She strove to make her words and her voice sound quite unaffected and
she succeeded; and, because she succeeded, she suddenly felt that what
she had seen was nothing: a moment of familiar intimacy. Were they not
old friends? Had Mathilde not, as a girl, when he was still a cadet,
danced with him often at their dancing-club? There was nothing, there
was nothing; she was reassured by the tranquillity of her own voice.
"So you will stay to lunch," said Mathilde.
"If it suits you."
"Of course it does.... Addie is not in yet."
"Are the children upstairs?"
"Yes, I'll send for them."
Erzeele said good-bye, said that he must go, reminded Mathilde easily of
her appointment to meet him the next day at the tennis-club. Constance
glanced at him quickly: in his uniform, he was young, broad and short;
his complexion fair but bronzed with the sun; above his powerful
shoulders and thick neck his face stood fresh and strong, smart
military, with a pair of glad, childlike grey eyes; a long fair
moustache shaded his lips, which were laughing glad and warmly sensual;
and, when he laughed, his small sharp ivory teeth flashed.... His thick
fair hair curled slightly at the tips....? It was very strange, but it
struck her suddenly that Erzeele's way of looking at Mathilde resembled
that of her own husband, Van der Welcke, when ... when he was young,
when she met him in Rome. Something in the fresh vigour of his glance
and of his rather sensual laugh, something about his figure, about his
teeth reminded her of Henri as a young man.
"You've known him a long time, haven't you?" asked Constance, when he
was gone.
"Oh dear, yes!" said Mathilde, vaguely.
The nurse brought down Jetje and Constant for Grandmamma to see: after
that, the children were to go out for a little longer.
"They look well," said Constance, huskily.
She felt a heavy pressure of inexplicable melancholy on her heart, a
pressure so heavy that she could have cried, so heavy that she felt her
eyes grow moist in spite of herself.
"Yes," said Mathilde, "they're very healthy. It's quite a system that
Addie and I are practising with that special diet and the regular time
each day in the open air. The other day it was blowing a gale ... and
Addie absolutely insisted that they should go out all the same. And I
must say I agree with him."
Suddenly, while Jetje was sitting on her lap and Constant tugging at her
skirts, Constance took Mathilde's hand:
"Then things _are_ all right between you?" she whispered, almost
imploringly.
"How do you mean?"
"You are happy now, Mathilde ... here at the Hague?"
"Certainly, Mamma.... You yourself understood, didn't you, that I longed
for a house of my own."
"Yes, dear, I understood."
"Only...."
"What?"
"I am sorry to have robbed you of Addie."
"But, my dear, a son does not belong to his parents."
"Still, I reproach myself.... But I could not stay with you any longer.
You understood that it was not because ... because you were not kind to
me. You were very kind ... you tried to be ... though I do not believe
that Papa likes me, that Emilie, Aunt Adeline or any of the others like
me.... I bear them no malice: I don't like them either."
Constance was silent.
"I am so different from the boy and girl cousins ... and Papa was always
jealous."
"My dear!"
"And you too; but you fought against it."
"Mathilde, I always wished you to feel at home with us; I always hoped
that some part of you would blend with us."
"Exactly; and that was impossible: I was too different from all of you;
and at Driebergen ... in the end.... I should have become as full of
nerves ... as Mary."
There was a tint of hatred in her voice.
"No, dear," said Constance, harking back, "you were not happy with us.
But because I hope that you are happy now...."
She had risen nervously; the nurse had entered and was taking the
children with her: they were to have one more turn in the street before
lunch.
"Tell me, Mathilde, are you really happy? Do you really and truly love
Addie again?"
"I have always loved him. What do you mean?"
"Then it's all right, then it's all right, dear."
"Why are you so sad? There are tears in your eyes."
"The Hague always makes me sad. The cabman took me for a little drive
and I passed all the houses of the old days ... when we all used to live
here."
"Did you feel a longing to come back to the Hague?"
"No, no ... I don't want to come back again."
"Will you always remain at Driebergen?"
"Yes, I think so."
"You have found happiness there, I did not. I remained a stranger."
"Tilly ... one day, perhaps ... you will live there as we do now ...
when we are no longer there...."
"No, never."
"Why not?"
"I dislike the house and everything in it ... down to the very
doorposts. And I can't get used to an eerie house ... as you all do."
"But Addie...."
"Exactly: he will never forget the house. What can it be to him? He was
not born there!"
"He feels at home there."
"Just so. And I do not.... Oh, I ought never to have married him!"
"Tilly, Tilly, what are you saying?"
"I ought never, never to have married him!"
"And you love him, you love him!"
"I have loved him, oh, very dearly. But he is far above me! I do not
reach his level! He sacrifices himself for me. And it breaks my heart to
accept his sacrifice. It oppresses me! Oh, Mamma, find something, find
something for us! Let him go back to you all ... and let me stay here
with the children.... I shall live simply ... in a small upper part ...
and practise economy. It is all my fault, not his. He is good and kind
and magnanimous ... but all that oppresses me. I thought at first that
we were--how shall I put it?--akin to each other, kindred natures. When
we got married, I used not to think about such things ... but I thought
in myself, with an unconscious certainty, that we were akin. He was so
nice, so straight-forward and so manly; and that rather elderly
something appealed to me: I used to look up to it, without being
oppressed by it.... Gradually, gradually I began to feel that he was far
above me. Things I like leave him indifferent: little luxuries, fashion,
gaiety, society. That hypnotism of his: at first, I used to think, 'This
is something new, a new method;' now, I don't know: I am becoming afraid
of it! I am becoming afraid of him! There is something in him that
frightens me.... Oh, I know, it is only because he is so good and so big
and because I feel very small and ordinary, because I don't understand
those fine, lofty ideals ... about doing good and about poor people and
about self-sacrifice!... To him it all comes natural. He is sacrificing
himself now for me: he does not care for the Hague or for his practice
here, whereas I could never live at Driebergen again.... And, even if I
could feel more or less at home among you all ... even then, even then
Addie would oppress me!... Do you understand? Oh, you are crying! Of
course you are angry with me: you see your son above everything. That is
easily understood; and I ... I still have enough love left for Addie to
understand it, to understand it all.... But, you see, the love I still
have for him ... is an anxious love, it's a sort of self-reproach that I
am as I am and not different, a sort of remorse caused by all kinds of
things I don't understand and can't express, things that make me cry
when I am by myself and oppress me ... oppress me, until I sometimes
feel as if I were suffocating!"
"Hush, dear: here he is!"
They both ceased and listened. They heard Addie's voice: coming home, he
had met the children outside the house; Constance and Mathilde heard
his deep voice sound kindly, playfully, in the hall. He now opened the
door, with Jetje on one arm and little Constant toddling by his side
with his hand in his father's.
"Mamma!" he exclaimed, in surprise. "I had no idea that you were here!"
"No, my boy, I came up unexpectedly. I brought Marietje with me and left
her with her father and mother."
"You'll stay to lunch, of course?"
"I should like to."
"Why, what's the matter with you, Mamma?"
"The matter?"
"And with you, Mathilde?"
"With me?... Nothing."
He saw that they had been talking together. He said nothing more,
however, but played with the children for a while and then released
himself and gave them over to the nurse, who had come in.
"The youngsters are looking first-rate, aren't they?"
"We shall have lunch in a minute, Mamma," said Mathilde, tonelessly.
Addie sat down beside his mother, took her hand, smiled. Mathilde left
the room with her keys.
"Don't fret, Mamma," he said.
"My boy...."
"You're fretting. You look so sad."
"My dear, my dear ... I...."
"What?"
She gave a sob and laid her hand on his shoulder. She was so frightened,
so frightened, that it was as though her great dread stifled her and
prevented her from breathing. She trembled in his embrace.
"You won't fret, you won't fret, will you, dear?"
"No."
The maid came to lay the table in the dining-room. Constance controlled
herself.
"Mamma," he said, jestingly, now that Mathilde also returned, "you're
losing all your vanity! That's a nice old blouse to come and see your
son in! Look, it's wearing out at the elbows. Do you know you haven't
looked at all smart lately?"
"Oh, my dear boy. This blouse is quite good still!"
"Well, I think it's seen its best days. What do you say, Tilly?"
"Why should I get myself up, an old woman like me?" said Constance.
"You'll never be old, Mummie, and a well-turned-out woman must always
remain well-turned-out.... Do you remember the old days?"
"Yes, when...."
"You brought home that fine photograph from Nice?"
She smiled through her tears:
"My boy, that is so long ago!... You thought me a bundle of vanity
then."
"The photograph never leaves my writing-table.... Mamma, you mustn't let
yourself go like that."
"Very well, I don't wear this blouse any more. ... But it costs so much
to dress nicely ... and we have so many expenses."
"You were not rich in the old days," said Mathilde, piqued at something
that she did not understand.
"And yet Mamma wore dresses that cost six hundred francs," said Addie,
chaffingly.
"Yes; and now that you are well off...."
"Now I never dream of doing such a thing," said Constance, gently.
The luncheon was quiet, a little melancholy, a little constrained.
Afterwards, things went a little more merrily because Jetje and Constant
came downstairs again with their nurse, suddenly, in a very youthful
vision of golden hair seen through the open door. Their little voices
chirped like those of young birds; and Constance could not refrain from
saying how much they all missed them at Driebergen. For there also they
were always coming down the stairs, looking so young and so golden, like
a vision of the future, to go walking out of doors. Even in the winter
they brought a hint of sunshine and of spring, something refreshing of
youth and beginning, a promise of future in the old house which was so
gloomily full of things of the past, things that hovered about the
rooms, gleamed out of the mirrors, trailed, like strange draughts, along
the lightly creaking stairs....
Mathilde did not say much; she was silent and sat with her lips closed
and her whole face--her eyes half-shut--closed, after that sudden
irresistible betrayal of her feelings to her mother-in-law to whom
nevertheless she was attracted by no sort of sympathy.
A little while later, Constance' carriage came to fetch her and Addie
offered to go to the Van Saetzema's with her and see how Marietje was.
"And what are you doing, Mathilde?" asked Constance, gently.
"I don't know.... I expect I shall go out.... Or I may stay at home...."
Addie went upstairs to get ready; and Constance suddenly took Mathilde
in her arms.
"My dear...."
"Mamma...."
"You did well to speak out to me just now.... However sad it made me
feel, you did right."
"Oh, why did I do it? I should have done better to hold my tongue."
"No, no. Speak, oh, do speak to Addie too!"
"I have spoken to him so often!"
"Not lately?"
Mathilde shrugged her shoulders:
"No, not so often lately. What's the use? It's not his fault ... it's
six of one and half a dozen of the other ... and it can't be helped."
"Very likely. Only...."
"Only what, Mamma?"
"Be careful, Mathilde, I implore you! Oh, do be careful! Everything,
everything can come right again.... You are sure to come together again
later ... but be careful, be careful. Don't spoil your life."
They looked deep down into each other's eyes.
"Mathilde, I may speak openly to you, mayn't I? Just because it's I,
dear, your mother ... who suffered so very much ... because she spoilt
her life so ... spoilt it so ... when she was young ... until life
became a torture.... I was a young woman, as you are, Mathilde, and ...
and I wasn't happy ... any more than you are, my poor child, at the
moment ... and...."
"I know, Mamma," Mathilde replied, shortly.
"Yes, you know ... you know all about it.... Of course you know, dear,
though I have not mentioned it to you.... But just ... just because of
all that, I may tell you, may I not, to be careful? Oh, do be careful!"
"You are afraid of things that don't exist."
"No, dear, there is nothing.... I know there's nothing ... only...."
"What?"
"You see ... when I arrived this morning...."
"Erzeele was with me."
"Yes."
"He's an old friend."
"I know."
"He came to make an appointment ... to play tennis to-morrow."
"Yes, I heard him."
"There was nothing else."
"He was holding your hand."
"He's an old friend whom I knew as a girl, almost as a child."
"Yes, dear, I know ... but...."
"What do you mean?"
"It _is_ dangerous."
"What is?"
"To talk to him too much ... while you're in your present frame of mind.
If you're feeling unhappy, dear, about one thing or another ... speak to
Addie."
"I've spoken to him so often."
"Confide in him."
"I have."
"And not ... not in Johan Erzeele."
Mathilde's eyes blazed:
"Mamma ... you haven't the right!"
"Yes, dear, I _have_! I not only have the right to tell you this as
Addie's mother, but above all I have the right because I understand you,
because I am able to understand you, because I remember my own
wretchedly unhappy years of despair, as a young married woman,
unsatisfied, unhappy, desperate, though for other reasons, alas, than
those between you and Addie!... Because I remember all this, Mathilde,
because I can never forget, just because I remember, because I now
remember how I used to talk ... to Papa while I was married to my poor
old husband ... how I used to talk to Papa ... and try to find
consolation in those talks ... and how we worked ourselves up with those
talks until ... oh, Mathilde, oh, Mathilde, let me tell you all about
it!... Let me tell you all about it, quite simply, even though you know,
so that I may have the right to speak to you. I used to talk to Papa ...
and we fell in love with each other ... we _thought_ we loved each
other...."
"And, if you thought so, why didn't you?"
"Because it wasn't true, dear, because it wasn't a burning fire of
feeling, because it was an unreal feeling, arising from unreal words
between a young woman and a young man until ... until all those talks
drove them into each other's arms ... and the awful thing became
irrevocable."
"Mamma!"
"I am telling you everything, dear...."
"I know everything, Mamma. But you say you used to have unreal talks
with Papa."
"Yes."
"I talk _simply_ to Johan."
"My dear, my dear, it's not that. I, I myself was unreal ... in those
days ... in my feelings, which came out of books which I had read. Papa
used to answer ... out of those same books. You ... you are different:
you _are_ simple; Erzeele, a friend of your childhood, is simple, a
simple-minded fellow; your talks are bound to be different."
"Our talks are simple."
"But, when I came in, I saw that you were talking confidentially,
intimately, intimately and eagerly ... and that he was holding your
hand, holding your two hands."
"Yes, you saw that: he was consoling me."
"That's exactly what he mustn't do. That's exactly what he mustn't be
allowed to do. Oh, Mathilde, I am an old woman and I am your mother,
especially now that you have no mother of your own, and I am Addie's
mother ... and I understand, I understand everything ... because I
myself have suffered so much...."
"Addie's coming downstairs, Mamma."
"Promise me, dear ... to be careful."
"I ... I will be careful."
"And forgive me, forgive me for everything that I have dared to say.
Kiss me. Oh, I long so intensely ... for you and Addie to be happy
again!"
She took Mathilde in her arms, passionately, and kissed her twice, three
times.
Addie entered.
"I'm ready, Mamma. The carriage is waiting."
"I'm coming, I'm coming, my boy."