Summer came suddenly: fine, sunny days followed one after the other, all
the windows in the big house were opened and the summer seemed to enter
and drive everything of winter out of the open windows. The spreading
garden became closely leaved with a green and gold triumph of dense
foliage which, lightly stirred by the wind, cast shadows over the pond,
with a play of alternating flecks of light and shade. Van der Welcke,
strolling along the paths, found pleasure in watching Klaasje, the big
girl of thirteen, tearing round the water, pursued by Jack, the new
terrier, who barked and barked incessantly with his sharp, throaty bark.
"She is still just like a child," thought Van der Welcke, "and she is
developing like a little woman. It is strange, the influence which Addie
has over her ... and the way the child is perking up now that the fine
days have come. But it is not only the fine days, it is Addie above all
that gives her this balance: what's it through, I wonder? Purely through
his influence, through a sort of healing magic that flows from him....
It is very strange. The other day, I had a terrible headache; and, when
he came and just gave me a little massage, it was gone, quite.... And
the way the fellow has succeeded in developing the child's mind, with
those picture-books, with those coloured things: it's as though he
wanted to affect her by means of colours and glitterings and I don't
know what. In any case, it came off; she is really learning her lessons
very well; and everything she says is more reasonable and sensible.
It's as though she were catching herself up.... Yes, amuse yourself,
child.... Look, how wildly excited she is with that dog, like a real
child; she's enjoying the fine weather; she's just like a child of
nature; and she looks well too: she'll grow into a pretty girl, though
she's a trifle heavily built.... She no longer has that stupid look in
her eyes; and there's something kind and genuine about her ... in her
behaviour towards old Mamma and Ernst, something motherly and
understanding combined, as if she felt she had something in common with
their clouded minds. ... It's jolly to look at the child, to see her
sprouting and blossoming, exactly like a plant that is now receiving
just the right light and just the right amount of water ... and yet she
owes it all to Addie and will very likely never know that she owes it to
him.... Yes, the fellow wields a wonderful influence.... Alex is keeping
his end up now in Amsterdam and seems to be losing some of his
melancholia since Addie has been talking to him so regularly: poor chap,
he was ten years old when he saw his father lying dead in all that
blood; and it affected him for all time!... We were right to take all
those children to live with us: that sort of thing gives a man an object
in life, even me, though I myself do nothing, though it's Constance and
Addie who act. I feel a certain satisfaction, even though I just let
them do as they please.... Who would ever have thought that it would
become like this, the big, lonely house, where Father and Mother lived
so very long and sadly by themselves, now so full, as a refuge for
Constance' family? It turned out so strangely, so very strangely.... Oh,
if my boy were only happier!... Who would have thought that he, he who
has everything in his favour, should go falling in love with a woman
who cannot make him happy? I am always thinking about it. I get up with
it, I go to bed with it; I see the two of them in the smoke of my
cigarette; and I am beginning to worry and worry about it: a proof that
I'm getting old.... And I can see that Constance also worries about it,
that the thought of Addie ... and that woman is always, always with her
... oh, everything might have turned out so happily!... But it was not
to be, it was not to be.... A lovely summer morning like this almost
makes a fellow melancholy.... Yes, it makes you melancholy because you
know for certain that it won't long remain so, that calmness in the air,
that beautiful clear sky, that green and gold of the trees, and that it
will soon become different, soon become different, full of sadness and
of gloomy things."
He suddenly spread out his arms, for Klaasje, pursued by the dog, came
rushing down the path in his direction without seeing him, as it were
blinded by the game which she was playing.
"Uncle Henri, Uncle Henri, let me go! Jack will catch me!"
"Mind and don't tumble into the water," Van der Welcke warned her; but
she had already released herself from his arms and was running on, with
the dog after her.
"She's gone wild," he thought, "wild with the joy of life. She is
beginning to wake up, physically and mentally. It is as though a
twilight were withdrawing from her, a twilight which is beginning to
steal over me. What is the matter with me? What do I feel? Oh, I long to
go bicycling, to go for a long spin ... but Addie's not here; and, even
when he is, he has no time, and Guy's working!... Suppose I asked Gerdy:
she's fond of a little run."
He went in, through the conservatory: the old woman was sitting there,
staring quietly out of the window; Adèletje was busy with the plants.
"Well, Mummie, how are you? What do you say to this fine weather?"
"What?"
"What do you say, Mum, to this fine weather?"
The old lady nodded her head contentedly:
"Lovely, lovely," she said. "The wet monsoon is over. But tell Gertrude
... to be careful ... of the river ... behind the Palace."
Her voice sounded like a voice from the past and spoke of things of the
past.
"Where is Gerdy?" Van der Welcke asked Adèletje.
"In the drawing-room. Uncle Paul's in there, playing."
He heard the piano: Paul was improvising. Van der Welcke found Gerdy
leaning over the back of her chair, very pale.
"I say, dear, come for a ride with me. It'll freshen you up."
She looked at him dejectedly, shook her head:
"I have a headache."
"That's just why you ought to come, dear. Come along, do ... to please
me."
He stroked her hair. She took his hand and put it to her lips.
"Come."
"Really, Uncle, my head's too bad."
"Then, why don't you go and sit in the garden? It's so hot in here."
"Aunt Constance is taking me for a drive presently; and Mary's coming
with us."
"Paul, can't you ride a bicycle? There's one of Addie's which you could
have."
"No, my dear chap, it makes you so hot. And all that perspiring is such
a dirty business."
"Well, in that case," thought Van der Welcke, "I'll go on my own, but
it's not particularly cheerful. If only Guy weren't working! I can't
very well take him from his work ... to come cycling! So I'll go on my
own.... Lord, Lord, how boring!... How boring everything and everybody
is ... without my boy! How that poor Gerdy is moping!... No. I can't
endure it, I can't do it, I can't go bicycling by myself.... I'll ask
Guy to come. It'll do him good: the boy is too healthy to be always
sitting with a pile of books round him."
Van der Welcke went upstairs, reflecting that Addie would not approve at
all if he knew that his own father was taking Guy from his work ... to
go bicycling, as he had often taken Addie himself in the past.
"But Addie has so much method, he used to divide his time so splendidly
between his work, his mother ... and me," thought Van der Welcke.
"Still, to-day, I simply can _not_ go bicycling on my own ... and so
I'll just play the part of the tempter."
He had reached the first storey; and here too the windows on the passage
were wide open and the summer, fragrant and radiant, entered the gloomy
old house, whose brown shadows vanished in patches of sunlight. The
sunlight glided along the dark walls, the oak doors, the worn stairs,
along the faded carpets and curtains and through the open doors; and it
was strange, but all this new summer, however much Van der Welcke had
longed for it throughout the long, dreary winter, the winter of wind and
rain, now failed to cheer him, on the contrary, depressed him with
inexplicable sadness.
He now opened the door of Addie's study. Since Addie and Mathilde had
moved to the Hague, the room had remained the same as regards furniture,
but somehow dead; only in the morning Guy usually sat working at his
table by the window and Van der Welcke was sure to find him there. But
he was not there; and the books and maps had obviously not been opened
or looked at.
"Where can the boy be?" thought Van der Welcke. "He can't still be in
bed."
The room did not look as if anyone had been there that morning. There
were a couple of letters on Addie's writing-table, where the maids
always left any that arrived for him at the old address, so that he
might find them when he came down, once or twice a week, for the brief
visit to which every one at home looked forward.
Van der Welcke moodily closed the door:
"I'd better see if he is still upstairs," he thought, going up the
second flight.
Since Guy had given up his bedroom to Marietje van Saetzema, he slept in
a little dressing-room. The door was open; the bed was made.
"The fellow must have gone out already," thought Van der Welcke. "It's a
dirty trick not to let me know. Well, I shall go by myself: I need some
air."
Angrily he went downstairs, through the hall, to the outhouse where the
bicycles were kept. Guy's was not there.
"There, I said so: he's gone out and never even let me know. Oh, it's
always like that: those children are always selfish. We do everything
for them, when they've got no claim on us; and what sort of thanks do we
receive?... The boy knows that I'm fond of him, that I like cycling with
him when Addie's not here, but he doesn't so much as think of looking
for me and asking me to go with him.... It's all egoism, it's always
thinking of your own self.... If there's any paying to be done, that's
all right, that's what Uncle Henri's there for; but the least little
thought for me ... not a bit of it!... That's the way it goes. I've lost
Addie ... and tried to find him again in another and it's simply
impossible and ridiculous."
Still young and active, he slung himself on his bicycle and for a minute
or two enjoyed the motion of the handsome, glittering machine, as it
glided down the summer lanes; but very soon he began to think, gloomily:
"A motor-car I should have liked to have. I'm not buying one because of
those everlasting boys: life is expensive enough as it is.... And
instead of Guy's thinking of me now and again.... Ah, well, if you want
to do good to others, you must just do it because it is good; for to
expect the least bit of gratitude is all rot!"
No, cycling alone did not console him; his handsome, glittering,
nickel-plated machine glided listlessly down the summer lanes and he
suddenly turned round:
"That's enough for me ... all by myself, without anybody or
anything...."
And he rode back home slowly, put the machine away and looked at the
empty stand where Guy usually kept his machine.
"Have you seen Guy?" asked Constance, meeting her husband in the hail.
"He's out," said Van der Welcke, curtly and angrily.
"He hasn't been working," she added. "I always look into Addie's study
to see if Guy is at work: Addie asked me to."
"No, he has not been working; he's...."
"Out?"
"Yes, with his bicycle."
"They why didn't he ask you to go with him?"
"I'm sure _I_ don't know," said Van der Welcke, angrily, shrugging his
shoulders.
Constance too did not think it friendly of Guy:
"What does it mean?" she wondered to herself. "He ought to have been
working, but, if he wanted to go cycling, he might really have let his
uncle know."
And her soul too became filled with melancholy, because young people
were inevitably so ungrateful. But she said nothing to Van der Welcke;
and they never knew that they often thought and felt alike, as in an
imperceptible harmony of approaching old age that found only a negative
expression: they so seldom quarrelled nowadays, at most exchanged a
single irritable word, even though no deep sympathy had ever come to
them....
Constance went to her room to put on a hat; the carriage was ordered;
she was going for a drive with the girls. She felt worried about poor
Gerdy, who no longer took pleasure in anything:
"It will pass," she thought. "We have all of us, in our time, been
through a phase of melancholy.... Adeline told me that Gerdy was in love
with Erzeele ... but he doesn't appear to think about her.... Oh, how I
worry and worry about it all: about my poor boy, about Mathilde!...
Erzeele is bound ... is bound to be attracted by her.... Come, I need
air, in this fine weather; and yet this warm air oppresses me: the
summer is always oppressive in our country. The weather in our country
is always _becoming_ something: it never has become anything, like the
weather in the south; it is becoming, always becoming something....
It's sultry now, the sun is scorching; we are sure to have a storm this
evening."
She now left her room, ready, and thought:
"Addie is coming to lunch to-day; it's his day: oh, how I always long
for that day!... Last time, he had to answer some letters and ran for
ink for his writing-table. I'll just see if everything is in order now."
She entered the room that used to be Addie's study:
"Yes, the ink's there," she told herself, with a glance at the
writing-table. "How uncosy, how cold the room looks, with nothing but
the old furniture, the old man's furniture!... There are letters for
Addie again: the poor boy never has any rest...."
Casually she took a step towards the table and was struck by the
appearance of the letters:
"What is that?" she thought.
The letters--there were three of them--were without stamps or postmarks:
it was this that had struck her.
"Bills?" she wondered for a moment.
Then she shivered and began to tremble so violently that she dropped
into Addie's chair. She had recognized Guy's hand.
There were three letters. One was addressed to herself and her husband:
to "Uncle Henri and Aunt Constance...." The second: to "Addie...." The
third: to "Mamma...."
She sat distraught, staring at the three letters vacantly, without
putting out her hand. A cloud of white squares seemed to whirl about
her: it was as if the envelopes were flying round in a circle before her
eyes. And she felt suddenly faint.
"What is it? What does it mean?" she asked herself, aloud.
She looked at Guy's work-table: the books were there, neatly arranged on
the big atlases. She got up and trembled so violently that she felt
herself sinking away, into an abyss. She rang the bell. The door was
open. She heard the maid on the stairs:
"Truitje!"
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Truitje, I'm here ... in Mr. Addie's study."
"What is it, ma'am?"
"Call your master ... at once."
"But how pale you look, ma'am! What is it, ma'am?"
"Nothing, Truitje. Call the master at once."
"Aren't you well?"
"Yes, yes, only call the master."
The maid went away in dismay; the stairs creaked under her hurried
tread.... Constance had sunk back into the chair again and sat waiting.
Downstairs the piano sounded, under Paul's fingers, and she followed the
tune, _Siegmund's Love-song_:
"He plays well, he plays well," she thought.
She was half-fainting; the white squares still surrounded her, because
of the three letters, there, on the table.
She now heard a footstep on the stairs; she followed the creaking as it
came nearer. It was her husband, at last.
"What's the matter, Constance?"
Her throat would not allow a word to pass; she merely pointed to the
table.
"Well, what is it? Letters? For Addie?"
She continued to point. He looked, recognized Guy's hand. He glanced at
her; she said nothing. He now opened the letter to "Uncle Henri and Aunt
Constance":
"Has the boy gone mad?"
Constance looked up with a question in her eyes. Every kind of thought
raced through her, so rapidly that she could not follow them. And yet
she seemed to see one thought flash across them slantwise: had three
letters from Alex been lying there, from Alex who was always so much
obsessed by the vision of terror and blood that had shocked his young
imagination, she would have feared the worst.
Van der Welcke handed her the letter without a word; she read it
greedily. Guy wrote briefly, wrote difficult, sincere words of
gratitude. Oh, it was not want of gratitude to Uncle Henri and Aunt
Constance that had made him go without taking leave of all who were dear
to him! He was not ungrateful to Addie! But it was just because under
all his cheerfulness he had felt himself quietly growing sad under all
their kindness ... while he found it impossible to go on working. And of
course he knew that, if he had said to Addie, "I can't work at books;
what I want, very vaguely and I don't know how, is to make my own way,"
Addie would have let him go, because Addie understood everybody and
everything so well. But it was just this, the conversations, the
leave-takings, that he feared, because within him there was so much
inert weakness, because he could never have gone, if he had had to
speak, if he had had to take leave; and that was why he was going away
like this, with his bicycle and his bit of pocket-money.
"But the boy's mad!" cried Van der Welcke. "To clear out like this at
his age, with no money and just his bicycle! The boy's mad! I must
telegraph to Addie at once."
"He will be out ... and on his way to us: this is his day for coming
down."
"Which train does he come by?"
"The half-past eleven as a rule."
The girls, Gerdy and Mary, came in, with their hats on:
"Are you coming, Aunt? The carriage is there."
"The carriage?"
"When we've been for our drive, we can fetch Addie from the station,"
said Mary.
Constance burst into sobs.
"Auntie, Auntie, what's the matter?"
Van der Welcke left the room, taking the letter for Addie with him:
"How are we to tell her?" he thought to himself.
Constance, upstairs, had an attack of nerves. She sobbed as violently,
felt as miserable in the depths of her being as if it had been her own
child that had left the paternal house ... for good.