Now and then old Madame van Raat came to drink a cup of tea at her
son’s, in the Nassauplein; she was brought there in her brougham about
half-past six, and was taken home about half-past nine.
This time Betsy was still up-stairs, probably with Ben, as Eline
assured the old lady, although she knew that Anna the nurse usually put
the child to bed.
She took Madame van Raat into the boudoir, where the soft light of wax
candles fell from a small crystal chandelier on the violet plush of the
chairs and couches, and was reflected through the many-coloured glass
drops in the mirror opposite.
“And Henk?” asked the old lady.
“Oh, he is still dozing,” laughed Eline. “Stay, I’ll just go and call
him.”
“No, no; let him be, poor boy!” said Madame van Raat. “Let him sleep,
and have a little chat with me, child.”
She took her place on the sofa and looked smilingly at Eline, who sat
down on a low settee by her side. Eline took the old lady’s thin, dry
hand in hers.
“And how are you? All right? You are looking like a young girl to-day;
so smooth I don’t see a single furrow on your forehead.”
Madame van Raat allowed herself, as usual, to be fascinated by that
caressing voice, that sunny smile, and sympathetic expression.
“You naughty girl! to make fun of my old age! Elly, you ought to be
ashamed of yourself!” and she threw her arms round Eline’s neck and
kissed her forehead. “And how is it with Betsy? is she not very
troublesome?” she whispered.
“Oh—really, Betsy isn’t so bad; she is only a little—a little hasty,
just in her way of speaking, you know. All the Veres have hasty
tempers, I as well; only papa I never remember to have seen in a
temper; but then papa was a man without his equal. Betsy and I get
along splendidly. Of course you can’t help a little bickering now and
then, if you are always together like that; I think if I even lived
with you that could not be helped.”
“Well, I wish you would come and try it.”
“Come, I should be much too troublesome to you. Now you think me very
nice, because you don’t see me very often; but if you were to see me
every day——” and she laughed lightly.
“Did you ever see such a girl? Just as if I had a temper!”
“Oh no, I didn’t mean that; but really, au fond, Betsy is an
affectionate girl, and I assure you Henk has a charming wife in her.”
“Maybe; but—but if I had had the choice, I think I know whom I should
have chosen for my son’s wife, Betsy, or—somebody else.” She laid her
hand on Eline’s head and gave the girl a look full of meaning, a faint,
sad smile about the pinched mouth.
Eline felt a little frightened. Madame van Raat’s words called to mind
her own old thoughts; thoughts long passed and nearly forgotten, in
which she had felt that sudden longing for Henk, the vague desire to
lean on him for support. Ah, those thoughts! they seemed so far off and
hazy, as though they were but mere ghosts and shadows of thoughts. They
had lost all charm, they even assumed something grotesque, that all but
made her smile.
“Oh, my dear madam,” she murmured, with her rippling laugh, “who knows
how unhappy he would have been then, whilst now—he is a little under
the slipper, ’tis true, but Betsy has rather small feet.”
“Hush—hush!” whispered Madame van Raat, “there’s some one coming.”
It was Henk, who opened the door of the boudoir, and was surprised to
find it so late. Eline laughed at him, and asked him if he had had
sweet dreams.
“You eat too much, that’s it that makes you so lazy in the evening. You
should see what a lot he eats!”
“There, mother, do you hear how your son is talked to in his own house,
even by his little sis-in-law? Oh, you don’t know what a troublesome
child it is!”
“You had better not say any more about that; your ma won’t hear
anything against me, not even from her beloved Henk—eh? Just you dare
to say that I am wrong!”
She looked at the old lady with so much childlike freshness in her
bright eyes, and in her bearing, and such a warm glow of sympathy
seemed all at once to emanate from her whole being, that Madame van
Raat could no longer restrain herself from embracing her.
“You are a dear,” she said, happy in the genial warmth of the affection
of old age for the bright sun of youth.
Betsy, when she came down, apologized for having been detained so long,
and asked if mamma would not rather drink tea in the drawing-room—there
was more room there.
“Paul was coming too, later on,” said Madame van Raat, as Eline placed
a marble footstool under her feet. “Then you must have a little music
together, Elly, will you?”
“Yes—with pleasure.”
Madame van Raat brought out her glasses and her crochet-work, while
Betsy sat down in front of the tea-tray, glittering with silver and
china. She talked about all the doings of the day; of the ball at the
Eekhofs’ the other night, which she had enjoyed very much.
“And you as well, Elly?” asked the old lady.
“Yes, first-rate. I had a splendid dance, and the cotillon was very,
very jolly.”
“And you, Henk?”
“Oh, Henk!”
Betsy and Eline both laughed. Eline exclaimed that he was much too
stout to dance; a minuet he might perhaps do very nicely, and of course
she was aware that was coming into fashion again. Madame van Raat
joined in the laughter, and Henk, quite unconcerned, sat drinking his
tea, when there was a ring at the bell, and Paul entered.
He told them that he had just come from the Prince-gracht, from
Hovel’s; he wanted to call on him last night, but he had met Vincent
Vere in the Hoogstraat, and so he had postponed his visit to go and
drink a glass of wine in Vincent’s lodgings, with a few acquaintances.
Hovel he thought a very nice man indeed, and he had arranged to begin
his work at his office the following Monday.
Madame van Raat involuntarily heaved a sigh of gratitude that the
long-talked-about visit had at last been paid. The last time she had
seen her brother-in-law, Verstraeten, she thought she could detect
something like annoyance when he spoke of Paul, and in matters relating
to her youngest son she depended a good deal on the aid of Verstraeten,
who had been Paul’s guardian during his minority.
As she heard Paul speaking, Betsy felt as though there was something
very incongruous about the way Henk “fooled” away his time with his
horse and his dogs. But what was she to do? she had spoken to him so
repeatedly, and certainly the present moment, with Madame van Raat
there, was hardly the time to mention it.
“Come, Paul,” Eline cried, all at once, “shall we sing something?”
Paul expressed his readiness; he rose; Eline sat down at the piano.
Every Thursday they practised duos together, and she already prided
herself on her répertoire. Paul had never had a lesson, and hardly knew
how to play; but Eline gave him a hint now and then, which he followed
faithfully, and she asserted that whatever he might be able to do with
his voice, he owed to her. He opened his mouth properly and kept his
tongue down, but really he ought to take some lessons of Roberts. A
fellow couldn’t be expected to sing without some study.
“What shall we have? Une Nuit à Venise?”
“Right you are, Une Nuit à Venise.”
She opened a music portfolio, bound in red leather, with “Eline Vere”
in golden letters on the cover.
“But don’t bring out your high sol so loud here,” said she. “Take it in
your medium register, and not from the chest. It will sound much
sweeter. And begin very softly, swelling here and there; and keep in
good time with me towards the end—the refrain, you know. Now, nicely,
Paul.”
She played the prelude to Lucantoni’s duet, whilst Paul gave a little
cough to clear his voice, and both commenced together, very softly—
“Ah viens la nuit est belle!
Viens, le ciel est d’azur!”
His light tenor sounded a little shaky, but still it went very well
with the resonant ring of her pure soprano. It was a pleasure to her to
sing together like that, when Paul was in voice, and would listen to
advice. It seemed to her as though she sang with more feeling when
another voice accompanied hers, and that she felt more, especially in
the repetition of such a phrase as—
“Laisse moi dans tes yeux,
Voir le reflet des cieux!”
words into which she infused something of the glow and languor of an
Italian’s love. To her mind the duet assumed a more dramatic form. In
her imagination she saw herself, with Paul as tenor, gliding along in
the radiant moonbeams in a gondola on a Venetian canal. To her mind’s
eye she saw herself in the rich dress of a young patrician, Paul in the
garb of a poor fisherman, and they loved each other, and half-dreaming,
half-singing, they went gliding along the water—
“Devant Dieu même
Dire; Je t’aime
Dans un dernier soupir.”
There was the refrain! She feared—ah, she feared that Paul would break
down. No; Paul kept time with her. That was splendid! and their voices
died away in unison—
“Dans un dernier soupir.”
“Lovely, lovely, Eline!” cried Madame van Raat, who had been listening
attentively.
“You are in good voice,” said Betsy.
“Now you must sing by yourself, Eline,” cried Paul, pleased with his
success.
While the duet was being sung, Mina had come in with the papers, the
Vaderland and the Dagblad, and Henk was soon absorbed in them, turning
over the sheets as noiselessly as possible.
“But, Paul, don’t you want to sing any more?” asked Eline. “Something
else; or are you tired?”
“I had rather you sang alone, Eline.”
“Oh no, if you aren’t tired, I should like another duet Really, I think
it’s splendid to sing together like that. Would you venture the grand
duo in Romeo?”
“Really, Eline, I don’t know it very well yet, and it is so difficult.”
“Oh, you knew it well enough the other day; if only you will sing soft
and low, and not force your notes. There—you see, the whole of this
passage with your medium register; don’t shout, whatever you do.”
With an anxious look he asked her for a little more advice about the
piece, and she told him what to do.
“Come now, will you venture? But don’t shout; that’s frightful, and—if
we do break down, what of it?”
“Well, if you like to try, I don’t mind.”
Eline’s face glowed with pleasure, and she played the soft prelude to
the grand duo in the fourth act.
“Va! je t’ai pardonné, Tybalt voulait ta mort!”
she sang, with splendid delivery, and Paul answered with his
recitative; then together they warbled—
“Nuit d’hyménée, o, douce nuit d’amour!”
Once more the dramatic form of the duo rose before her: Juliette’s
departure; Romeo, in his brilliant dress, lying on the cushions at her
feet. And it was no longer Paul, but Fabrice, the new baritone, who was
the Romeo, and she let her head rest on his shoulder—
“Sous tes baisers de flamme
Le ciel rayonne en moi!”
Paul’s voice was growing very shaky and uncertain, but Eline scarcely
heard it. To her imagination it was Fabrice, with his deep voice, who
sang; and her song sounded full and ringing, quite forgetful as she was
that she entirely eclipsed the tenor.
There—there was the warbling of the lark at daybreak, as in alarm she
asked—
“Qu’as tu donc—Roméo?”
“Ecoute, o Juliette!”
replied Paul in firmer tones, after his rest.
But to her it was not the voice of the lark, but the soft tones of the
nightingale; not the first rays of the morning sun, but the silvery
gleam of moonlight, and still it was Fabrice, and still the orchestra
resounded in the chords she struck on her piano, as, without speaking,
they sank in each other’s arms. At times, in the brief intervals, the
stern reality dispelled Eline’s vision, and no longer was it the stage
and Fabrice she beheld, but Paul, turning the pages. But again she
revelled in the luxury of her fancies; Juliette saw the danger of
Romeo’s prolonged stay, she urged him to go, and he answered—
“Ah! reste encore, reste dans mes bras enlacés!
Un jour il sera doux, à notre amour fidèle!
De se ressouvenir de ces douleurs passés!”
This was a passage in which Paul’s lyrical weakness appeared most; and
Eline, awakening out of her reverie, heard smilingly with what
melancholy he repeated it. She felt ashamed at having eclipsed him in
her ecstasy; she would be more careful.
And she sang the finale less with overpowering despair than with soft
languor, so that Paul’s high chest-notes made better effect than at
first; but the vision was gone, the stage, the audience, Fabrice, all
had vanished.
“Adieu, ma Juliette!”
sang Paul; and she answered, with a light cry, in which he joined—
“Toujours à toi!”
“Oh, how grand to sing like that!” cried Eline in ecstasy, and she
rushed to Madame van Raat, and embraced her with sudden impetuosity.
“Doesn’t Paul sing nicely, eh? Isn’t it a shame that he will take no
lessons? You ought to make him.”
But Paul declared that Eline gave him lessons enough, and that she
would be the death of him with her difficult duos; but Eline again
assured him that he had acquitted himself splendidly.
Betsy gave a sigh of relief after the stormy parting of the Veronese
lovers, which under the low ceiling and plush draperies of her
drawing-room had sounded much too heavy and loud in her ears. To her
thinking it was a terrible hullabaloo! Why didn’t Eline rather sing
something light and jolly from one or another opéra bouffe?
Eline and Paul having sat down, the conversation grew more general
about the on dits of the day, the busy stir in the streets before St.
Nicholas’, until it struck half-past nine, when Mina came to say that
the carriage was there.
“’Tis time for me,” said Madame van Raat, slowly rising from her seat;
and Eline ran away, humming as she went, to fetch her things from the
boudoir, a fur circular, a woollen shawl, a cape. She let herself be
snugly muffled up by her young favourite, and carefully placed her
glasses and the crochet-work in her reticule. Then she kissed them all,
bending over them with the slow movements of tired old age, and Henk
and Paul assisted her into the soft satin cushions of the brougham.
The carriage rolled away; and in Madame van Raat’s ears there still
resounded the echo of singing voices; she smiled sadly as she wiped the
vapour from the window to look outside where the snow was lying, dirty
and bespattered in the light of the street lanterns, and thought of the
time when she used to go to the opera with her husband.
Paul stayed a little longer; and then, after a good glass of wine after
his duos, he hurried off. When he had gone Eline went up-stairs to put
the room in order a little, as she told Betsy. It was chilly in Eline’s
sitting-room, but the cool air was refreshing to her cheeks and hands,
heated by the faint atmosphere of the drawing-room. She threw herself
on the Persian cushions, raised her hand, and stroked the leaves of the
azalea. And she smiled, whilst her eyes grew large in a dreamy stare as
her thoughts flew back once more to Fabrice with his beard and his
splendid voice. What a pity that Betsy did not care more for the opera!
They went but very rarely, and yet she was so passionately fond of it.
Yes; she would give Madame Verstraeten to understand, in a genteel way
of course, that she would not mind being invited now and then to
accompany her; Mr. Verstraeten never went himself, and Madame generally
invited some one or another to a place in her box, sometimes Freddie,
sometimes Paul—why not her?
All at once she jumped up as a thought suddenly struck her; last night
Fabrice had appeared in William Tell. She ran out of her room and leant
over the banisters of the stairs.
“Mina, Mina!” she cried.
“Yes, miss,” answered Mina, who was just passing along the hall with a
tray full of wine-glasses.
“Just bring me the papers, if master and mistress have read them, will
you?”
“Yes, miss.”
She went back and threw herself on the sofa again. And she laughed at
herself as she felt her heart beating with suspense. The idea! what
could it matter to her, after all? There was Mina, coming up the
stairs. She brought the Vaderland and the Dagblad.
“If you please, miss.”
“Thank you, Mina,” said Eline indifferently, and languidly she took the
papers.
But scarcely had the servant closed the door behind her when she opened
the Vaderland, and with sparkling eyes began to look for the art and
literature column. Then she read:
“THE FRENCH OPERA.
“After his performances in Hamlet and Le Tribut de Zamora, no one
could doubt that Mr. Théo Fabrice would find favour in the eyes of
the subscribers to the French Opera, and we cannot but wonder that
there were even three votes recorded against the brilliant
baritone. Again, in William Tell, Mr. Fabrice gave ample proof of
his fitness to fulfil the post of baritone at the Grand Opera here,
and we sincerely rejoice in his appointment. With a powerful and
well-cultivated organ, the artist couples great histrionic ability.
In the duo with Arnold (Act I.) and in the grand trio, in the scena
with Jemmy, Fabrice gave striking evidence of a perfection rarely
to be met with on our stage.”
And Eline smiled and nodded approvingly. It was true enough—and she
read the article to the end, rejoicing in his success; and then she
turned to see what the Dagblad said about him.