The door opened and Bertha, Louise and Marianne entered. And
they stepped so suddenly right across Constance' thoughts that
she was startled at their appearance: mother and daughters in deep
mourning. She had not seen Bertha except on that first hurried visit
immediately after Van Naghel's death and on the day of the funeral,
six weeks ago; and she knew very little of what was happening; she had
seen Marianne only once. And now that they both stepped right across
her thoughts, into that narrow circle--which she condemned, though
she herself was unable to move out of it--a great compassion suddenly
surged through her, like a torrent. Bertha looked very pale, tired,
wasted, grown all at once into an old woman, hopeless and resigned,
as though broken under much silent sorrow. Louise's face wore a
rather more tranquil expression; but Marianne beside her, delicate
and white, still more delicate and white in her black dress, also
diffused an almost tearful melancholy. Mamma rose and went towards
them. It was the first time since her husband's death that Bertha
had come to Mamma's Sunday-evening; and the gesture with which the
old woman rose, approached her daughter, embraced her and led her to
the sofa where she had been sitting showed the same open-armed and
open-hearted motherly affection with which, as Constance remembered,
Mamma had received her, Constance, at the door, on the landing,
on the first evening of her own return. Dear Mamma!
It touched her so much that she herself rose, went to Bertha, kissed
her tenderly, kissed Louise and Marianne. Her voice, for the first
time for many a day, had a sisterly note in it that took Bertha by
surprise. She pressed Constance' hand and, after the others had spoken
to her, sat down quietly near Mamma, Aunt Lot and Constance. How pale,
dejected and resigned she was! She seemed to be looking helplessly
around her, to be looking for some one to assist her, to be wishing to
say something, to somebody, that would have relieved her. She sighed:
"I have come, Mamma ... but I cannot stay long," she said. "I am very
tired. There are all those business matters; and, though Adolph is very
kind and sympathetic and is a great help, it is terribly complicated
and I sometimes feel half-dead with it all.... It's lucky that I have
Otto and Frances; I don't know what I should do without them.... You
know we are going to live in the country?..."
"You were thinking about it the other day, dear," said Mamma,
anxiously, "but it wasn't decided yet ... Bertha, must I lose you?"
"Dear Mamma, it's better in the country. Adolph wanted us to look
round in Overijssel, but I would rather be at Baarn, for instance:
it's nearer to the Hague and you...."
"Why, Baarn, my child? There's nobody there but Amsterdam people,
business-people: such a very different set from ours!..."
"We sha'n't expect to make friends, Mamma, at first. I shall be alone
with the girls. Otto and Frances have found a little house at the
Hague: it's lucky that Otto is provided for at the Foreign Office. The
minister spoke very nicely about him the other day.... Frans and
Henri must finish their university-course quickly now," she said,
in a hesitating tone. "Karel is going to a boarding-school, for
I can't manage him. And Marietje too: she was going soon, in any
case. So there will be just the three of us: Louise, Marianne and
I.... Things have changed very much, all at once, Aunt Lot. We want to
live quietly. In the first place, we shall just have to live quietly;
and the girls are quite content to do so...."
It again seemed to Constance as if Bertha were looking for somebody
in the room, were hushing something up. Constance had Emilie's name
on her lips, but she did not like to ask. Mamma knew nothing more
than that Emilie and Van Raven sometimes had differences.
"I shall have a lot of trouble and worry before me," said Bertha. "But,
when it is all settled and we have our little villa...."
She sank back in her chair and stared before her with dim eyes.
Constance took her hand compassionately, held it tight. It looked as
though Bertha, after that busy life which had suddenly snapped with
Van Naghel's death, an hour after their last dinner-party, no longer
knew what to do or say, felt derelict and helpless....
Though there was so much business to attend to, she seemed stunned all
at once, in the grip of a strange lethargy, as though everything was
now finished, as though there was nothing left now that there would
soon be no more visits to pay, no receptions to hold, no dinners to
give; now that Van Naghel no longer came home from the Chamber, tired
and irritable from an afternoon's heckling; now that there would be no
more calculating how they could manage to spend a thousand guilders
less a month; now that she would simply have to live quietly on what
she and the girls possessed. And it seemed as if she no longer knew
how or why she should go on living, now that she would no longer
have to give her dinners and pay her visits ... for her children,
particularly her girls. Louise and Marianne had said to her so calmly
that they wanted very soon to begin living quietly that Bertha now
began to wonder:
"Why did I always make so much fuss, if the girls cared for it so
little? Why did I go on till I was old and worn out?"
It was true, that had been Van Naghel's ambition: he had wanted to
see his house a political salon. What he wished had happened. Now it
was all over. Now there was nothing to be done but to live quietly,
in the little villa at Baarn; to make no debts; to let the boys finish
their college-course as quickly as possible; and then to educate Karel
and Marietje and let theirs be a different life from the others':
how she did not know....
Bertha remained sitting wearily, staring vaguely before her,
half-listening to the sympathetic words, uttered with an emphatic
Indian accent, of Aunt Lot, who kept saying:
"Kassian!..." [12]
But suddenly an access of nervousness seemed to startle her out of
her depression. She looked round again, as though seeking for somebody
... somebody to say something to. Her glance fastened for a moment on
Aunt Lot and then on Constance. Suddenly she rose, with a little laugh,
as though she wanted to speak to Louise, farther away. But the nervous
pressure of her hand seemed to be urging Constance also to get up,
to go with her, somewhere, anywhere.... They went through the other
drawing-room, past the card-table at which Uncle, Adolphine, Karel
and Dotje were sitting, past the other with Cateau, Van Saetzema,
Dijkerhof and Pop; and the conversation at both tables at once
flagged; the cards fell hurriedly one after the other.... They were
talking about Bertha, thought Constance, as Bertha drew her gently to
the little boudoir, the room where the wine and cakes were set out,
where Papa van Lowe's portrait hung, stern and inexorable; the little
room where they all of them went when they had anything confidential
to say to one another, when there was a scene, or a difference, or a
private discussion. And Constance at once remembered how, five months
ago, she had appealed to Van Naghel and Bertha in this very room;
how they had refused to receive her "officially" at their house;
how Van der Welcke had lost his temper, flown into a rage, made a
rush for Van Naghel.... She was now here with Bertha once more; and
Papa's portrait stared down coldly and severely upon the two sisters.
They looked at each other in silence. Bertha glanced round timidly: she
felt that, in the big drawing-room, at the card-tables, the brothers
and sisters had at once begun to talk again, criticizing her, because
she had retired for a moment with Constance ... with Constance. And,
lowering her voice to a hardly audible whisper, she murmured:
"Constance ... Constance ..."
"What is it, Bertha?"
"Help me ... help me ... be kind to me."
"But what's the matter?"
"Oh dear, nobody knows about it yet, but I can't keep it all ... here
... to myself!"
"Tell me what it is and what I can do."
"I don't know what you can do. But, Constance, I felt I had to ... had
to ... tell you...."
"Tell me then."
"Nobody, nobody knows yet ... except Louise and Marianne."
"What is it?"
"Emilie ... Emilie has...."
"Has what?"
"She has gone away ... with Henri...."
"Gone away?"
"Run away perhaps ... with Henri.... I don't know where. Van Raven
doesn't know where. Nobody knows. Adolph van Naghel, my brother-in-law
the commissary, has made enquiries ... and has found out nothing.... We
dissuaded her from seeking a divorce; so did Adolph. Then, no doubt
because of that, she ran away with Henri, with her brother. She
absolutely refuses to live with Eduard. She has run away.... Constance,
where has she gone to? I don't know! Constance, it's a terrible
thing! But keep it to yourself, don't tell anybody. Mamma doesn't
know. I want to pretend, if there's nothing else for it, if they don't
come back, that she has gone on a little journey, a trip somewhere,
alone with her brother. We must pretend that, Constance. I don't
think they intend to come back. Henri has been very excited lately: he
fought Eduard, came to blows with him, for ill-treating his sister. You
know how fond they are of each other, Emilie and Henri. It's almost
unnatural, in a brother and sister. Now they've run away.... Oh dear,
Constance, I am so terribly unhappy!"
She threw herself into Constance' arms, sobbed, with her arms round
Constance' neck:
"Constance, Constance, help me!... I have no one to turn to, no one
I can talk to. Adolph is helping me with the business-matters; Otto
too. Louise is very kind; but she and Otto think that Emilie ought to
divorce her husband, on the ground of cruelty. But, Constance, in our
class, men don't beat their wives! It never happens. It's an awful
thing. It only happens with the lower orders!... Oh dear, Constance,
I am so unhappy!... The business-matters will be settled.... But
there are debts. I thought that we were living within our income,
but I don't know: there appear to be debts. Bills mount up so.... I
did so hope that the boys would finish their course. Frans will; but
now Henri ... that mad idea ... going away with Emilie ... running
away ... nobody knows where.... Oh dear, Constance, I am so unhappy:
help me, do help me!"
She lay back limply in Constance' arms and the tears flowed incessantly
down her pale face, which in those few weeks had fallen away till
it was the face of an old woman. She lay there feeble and ill;
and it seemed as if Van Naghel's death, coming suddenly as an
additional catastrophe on that evening of misfortunes--her guests
in the drawing-room, Emilie hiding upstairs, Van Raven waiting
below--had so terribly shaken her composure, the composure of
a prudent, resourceful woman of the world, that she was simply
compelled to speak of private matters which she would never have
mentioned before.... An instinct drove her into Constance' arms,
drove her to unbosom herself to Constance as the only one who could
understand her. Her near-sighted, blinking eyes sought anxiously,
through her tears, to read the expression on Constance' face. And she
was so broken, so shattered that Constance had to make an effort to
realize that it was really Bertha whom she held in her arms.
The ill-feeling which she had cherished for months past was gone. None
of it remained in her soul, in her heart, as though she had passed out
of the depths of that atmosphere to purer heights of understanding
and feeling. Only for a moment did she still remember that evening
when she herself, in this same room, had implored Bertha and Van
Naghel to help her "rehabilitate" herself in the eyes of their
friends and of the Hague. It seemed long ago, years ago. She could
hardly understand herself: that she could have begged so earnestly for
something that was so small, of such little importance to her soul, to
the world. She could not have done it now.... She did not understand
how she could so long have cherished a grudge against Van Naghel,
against Bertha ... because they did not ask her to their official
dinners, when the invitation would have given her the rehabilitation
which she sought. At the present moment, she did not even desire that
rehabilitation, did not care about it, treated it as something that
had become of no value: an idea which had withered and shrivelled
within her and which blew away like a dead leaf to far-off spacious
skies.... Addie? He did not need his mother's rehabilitation in the
eyes of the Hague. The boy would make his own way in life.... Oh, how
small she had been, to beg for it; to go on bearing a grudge, months
on end, for something so little, so infinitesimal ... so absolutely
non-existent!... She felt that something had grown up inside her and
was looking down upon all that earlier business.... No, there was no
bitterness left. She felt a deep pity and a sisterly affection for
this poor, old woman, Bertha, who now lay feebly and impotently in her
arms, begging ... for what? She collected her thoughts: what could she
do, how could she help Bertha? Her thoughts crowded upon one another
rapidly; she thought vaguely of Van der Welcke, of Addie: what could
they do, how could they help Bertha, how get upon the track of Emilie
and Henri? And in the end she could think of nothing to say but:
"Yes, Bertha, the best thing will be to pretend that Emilie has
gone for a trip with her brother. We will put it like that, if
necessary. What does Van Raven want to do?"
"He won't consent to a divorce.... And it would be an awful thing,
you know.... Oh, Constance, they have not been married ten months!"
A weariness suddenly came over her, like the abrupt extinction of
all the little mundane interests that had always meant so much to her.
"But," she murmured, "if he beats her ... perhaps it is better that
they should be divorced.... I don't know.... We are going to Baarn:
there is a small villa to let there. I should prefer to take it at once
and go down there with Louise and Marianne.... Karel gives me a lot
of trouble: he doesn't behave well, no, he doesn't behave well. And
he is still so young. Perhaps he will go to live with Adolph, his
guardian, who will be very strict with him. I don't know what to do,
I can do nothing.... I used to do everything with Van Naghel, he and
I together. He was really good and kind. We were always thinking of
the children, both of us. He was tired ... of being in the Cabinet;
but he went on, for the children's sake...."
Her unconscious simplicity, in implying that Van Naghel was in
the Cabinet for the sake of his children and not of his country,
seemed to strike Constance for the first time: she almost smiled,
held Bertha closer to her.
"He couldn't very well resign ... and he didn't want to," Bertha
continued, feebly. "And now I don't know what to do. I feel so
very much alone; and yet I was once a capable woman, wasn't I,
Constance? Now I no longer feel capable. Perhaps that life was too
crowded. And, Constance, what was the use of it all? My children,
our children, for whom we lived, are none of them happy. I have
grown weary and old ... for nothing. I wish that we were at Baarn
now. I want to live there quietly, with the two girls. Louise is
nice, so is Marianne. They neither of them want to go about any
more. They're not happy, no, they are not happy. Oh, my poor, poor
children!... You must never tell Mamma, Constance. Mamma doesn't know:
dear Mamma! There is no need for her to know, poor dear! Better leave
her under the impression that all is well with us, even though Van
Naghel is gone...."
And she sobbed at the thought that she was alone. Then, suddenly,
she drew herself up a little, made Constance take a chair, sat
down beside her and asked, peering anxiously through her tears into
Constance' face:
"Constance, tell me ... Marianne?"
"Yes, Bertha?"
"Are you fond of Marianne?"
"Yes, very."
"Still?"
"Yes, still."
"Constance...."
"Yes, Bertha?"
"It is just as well ... that we are going to Baarn.... Tell me,
Constance: Van der Welcke...."
"Well?"
"What sort of a man is he?"
"What do you mean, Bertha?" asked Constance, gently.
"Is ... is it his fault?... Is he a gentleman?"
Constance defended her husband calmly, but not without astonishment
that Bertha could speak so frankly about that ... as if they both
knew all about it:
"No, Bertha, I don't think that Henri ... that it is Henri's fault. I
don't think it's Marianne's fault either. Bertha, I don't believe
they can help it. They have an attraction for each other, a very
great attraction...."
A tenderness came over her soul, like a glow, like a glowing
compassion.
"Constance, they must not let themselves go. They must struggle
against it."
"Who can tell what they are doing, Bertha? Who can tell what goes on
inside them?"
"No, they are not struggling."
"Who can tell?"
"No, no.... Constance, it is just as well that we are going to Baarn."
They heard voices in the drawing-room, loud voices, with an Indian
accent. The Ruyvenaers were going:
"Good-bye, Ber-r-rtha," said Aunt Lot, looking through the door. "We're
going, Ber-r-rtha."
Constance and Bertha went back to the drawing-room. Bertha forgot to
wipe the tears from her eyes, kissed Aunt Lot. Adolphine and Cateau
came up to Bertha:
"Ber-tha," whined Cateau; and this time she whined with a
vengeance. "We just want-ed to say a word to you. Emilie-tje must
not get a di-vorce."
"No," said Adolphine, "if she goes and gets a divorce, the family
will become impossible. It'll create a scandal, if they are divorced."
"Ye-es," Cateau droned aloud, "it would be a scan-dal, Ber-tha. Don't
you think so too, Constance?"
"There's no question of it ... for the moment," said Constance. "Emilie
has gone abroad for a bit with Henri; and the change is sure to do
her good and make her a little calmer."
"Oh?... Has she gone a-broad?"
"Where to?" asked Adolphine, all agog.
"They were to go to Paris," said Constance, without hesitating.
"O-oh?... Has Emilie-tje gone to ... Pa-ris?"
"Yes, with her brother," Constance repeated.
A minute later, she found an opportunity of saying quietly to Bertha:
"It's better like that, Bertha; better to say it as if it was quite
natural... If you don't say it yourself ... and they come to hear...."
"Thank you, Constance ... thank you."
"Oh, Bertha.... I wish I could do something for you!"
"You have helped me as it is.... Thank you.... That's all that I
can say...."
She lay back helplessly in her chair, staring dimly before
her. Constance followed her glance. She saw that Van der Welcke had
come, very late. He was sitting in the conservatory--where the boys had
cleared away the cards after their game, as Grandmamma always expected
them to do--sitting a little in the shadow, but still visible. He was
bending over towards Marianne, who sat beside him, her face a white
patch in the darkness: a frail little black figure making a faint
blur in the dim conservatory, where the gas was now turned out. She
seemed to be weeping silently, sat crushing her handkerchief. He
appeared to be saying something, anxiously and tenderly, while he
bent still nearer to her. Then, suddenly, he took her hand, pressed
it impulsively. Marianne looked up in alarm. Her eyes met, at the far
end of the long drawing-room, the eyes of Aunt Constance, the dull,
staring eyes of her mother. She drew away her hand ... and her pale
face flushed with a glow of shame....
Grandmamma stood in the middle of the drawing-room, a little sad
at the gloom which the recent mourning had cast over her rooms. The
children took their leave.