After four o’clock the Verstraetens were generally at home, and to-day
about that time the house happened to be stormed with visitors. Betsy
and Eline had just looked in, and met the Eekhofs, and the Hydrechts,
Emilie de Woude, and Frédérique; later on came Madame van der Stoor and
little Cateau.
Eline, with her hand on Cateau’s shoulder, bent over the photograph at
which the latter was looking.
She felt conscious of a strong impression on Cateau by her grace and
geniality, and as, in her need for affection, she was always glad to
create sympathy, she nurtured Cateau’s love as a precious flower. But
that longing for affection was not unmingled with a touch of proud
triumph towards Frédérique, in whom, ever since St. Nicholas’ Eve, she
suspected, she knew not why, a secret aversion towards herself.
While Cateau was speaking to her, in her pleasant little voice, Eline
just glanced round at Frédérique in order to see if she noticed the
sympathetic admiration of her little friend. But Frédérique was too
much engaged joking with the young Eekhofs.
“You often sing with Mr. van Raat; has he a nice voice?” asked Cateau.
“A little weak, but very pretty.”
“Oh! I should so much like to hear you together.”
“Well, I dare say you will some day.”
“You have such a splendid voice; oh! I think it so delightful to hear
you sing.”
Eline gave a little laugh, flattered by Cateau’s ecstasy.
“Really? But, Toos, don’t go on calling me Miss Vere, ’tis so formal;
call me Eline in future, will you?”
Cateau blushed with pleasure, and stroked the fur of Eline’s muff. She
gave herself completely over to the charm of that melodious voice, to
the fascinating influence of that soft, gazelle-like glance.
Eline felt more than usually in need of much affection and tenderness.
In her innermost heart, her admiration for Fabrice had blazed forth in
a passion that filled her whole being, and to which she felt
constrained to give vent, without betraying herself. The wealth of love
which she felt was in her, and which she durst not proclaim, she
attempted to share amongst those who were worthy of it, like a costly
bouquet of which she threw a flower to those around her. Those chosen
ones she beamed upon with her captivating glance, and was enraptured
when she saw that others felt themselves drawn towards her; but on the
other hand it gave her pain when she was met with coldness in return.
Thus it was with Frédérique’s inexplicable surliness; and although at
first with a certain haughtiness she would take no notice of it, she
now did her best to win her affection, and on meeting her she had
addressed her with all the charm of her manner. But Frédérique’s
answers were given in a curt, careless tone, and with averted head; she
suspected that Eline had remarked her coolness, but she was of too
frank a nature to be able to hide her feelings: she had no tact to
feign what she did not feel.
The conversation turned on portraits, and Madame Verstraeten passed by
Eline and Cateau to take from a table an album which she wanted to show
Madame van der Stoor and Madame Eekhof.
Musingly, and half listening to Toos, Eline thought of Fabrice, and saw
the album in Madame Verstraeten’s hands. And suddenly an idea rose to
her mind, like a twig of her vivid fantasy, with which her passion was
overgrown. Yes; she would procure an album for herself, with various
portraits of him; it would be as a little shrine of her love, in which
she could worship the image of her god, unbeknown to any one but
herself. A secret joy stole over her features at that resolve, and at
the thought that she had so much to conceal from the eyes of others she
began to consider herself very important in her own eyes, and to feel
herself more and more absorbed by the treasures of her passion. She was
happy, and her happiness was mingled with an arch playfulness and
secret exultation at the thought that she concealed within herself
something that her circle of friends would naturally have considered
very foolish and very reprehensible, had they known of it. A girl like
her, to be in love with an actor! What would Madame Verstraeten and
Betsy and Emilie and Cateau and Frédérique, Henk and Paul and Vincent,
what would they all think and say could they suspect that?
And with a half-mocking glance she looked round at her relatives and
friends; she thought herself plucky, secretly to defy the
conventionalities to such an extent as to dare to be smitten with
Fabrice! A jocular remark of Emilie’s made her laugh more immoderately
than it called for; at the same time she laughed at all who were there,
in haughty arrogance at her illicit passion.
“And Mr. van Raat—Mr. Paul, I mean—will be a lawyer, I suppose?” asked
Cateau.
What a lot that child had to say about Paul! thought Eline. There was
no end of Paul—Paul’s nice voice, and Paul a lawyer——
“I think you rather like Paul, don’t you?” asked Eline.
“Oh, yes; I like him very much,” said Cateau, without hesitation. “Only
sometimes, you know, he gets so angry. Fancy, the other day—when we had
the tableaux——”
And Eline had to listen to the story of Paul’s anger when they had the
tableaux, and of Paul’s cleverness in the grouping.
“She’s not afraid to speak her mind, at all events,” thought Eline;
“but then, she need not be exactly smitten, although she talks a great
deal about him; if she were she would probably do as I do, and—say
nothing.”
It was nearly half-past five; the guests were leaving.
“Then I shall hear you sing together one day?” insisted Cateau.
“Come round one Thursday afternoon; we always practise then.”
“Oh! then I am in school.”
“Well, one evening then, nous verrons.”
“Yes, with pleasure—Eline.”
She pronounced that name for the first time since Eline’s request, and
she let it fall from her lips, much flattered at the familiarity. Then
she took leave, urged thereto by her mother.
Eline stood still for a moment, by accident, beside Frédérique. She had
already said good-bye, and was waiting for Betsy, who en passant was
talking to Mr. Verstraeten, and she was on the point of saying
something to Freddie. But she waited, until Freddie spoke first—and
both remained silent.
On her way home, Cateau in ecstasy poured all kinds of nice things
about Eline and Paul into Madame van der Stoor’s ears.
New Year’s Day had come and gone. On New Year’s Eve Betsy invited the
Verstraetens and Erlevoorts, as well as Madame Van Raat and Paul, to an
oyster supper, and a happy evening was spent in the warm comfort of her
drawing-room. Now the winter days followed each other in unbroken
monotony, whilst the evenings glided on for Betsy and Eline in one long
string of dinner-parties and soirées. The van Raats had a large circle
of acquaintances, and Betsy was famous for her choice little dinners,
never with more than twelve persons at the utmost, and always served
with the most unstinted and refined luxury. They lived in a coterie,
the various members of which saw one another often and intimately, and
they were very pleased with the circle in which they moved.
Eline, meanwhile, in the midst of that light glamour of worldliness
continued to feed the flame of her secret love in silent happiness, and
thought it all very romantic. One morning she had been shopping, and as
she was returning along the Princessegracht, she saw Fabrice slowly
coming from the Bosch, close by the Bridge. She felt her heart beating,
and scarcely dared look up. Still, at last, with apparent indifference
she just ventured to glance at him. He wore a short frieze overcoat; a
woollen muffler was thrown carelessly about his throat, and he walked,
his hands in his pockets, with a somewhat surly expression on his dark
face, shaded by the broad brim of his soft felt hat. He gave her the
impression of haughty reserve, and this made her idealize. No doubt he
was of a good family, for she thought there was something very
distingué in his powerful frame; his parents had been against his
devoting himself to his art, but he had felt a calling within him that
was irresistible; he had received his musical training at a
conservatoire, and he had made his début. And now a bitter
disappointment filled his soul; he discovered that the surroundings of
actors in which he had to move was too rude and uncultured for him; he
felt himself different from them, and he withdrew himself within the
coldness of his pride. He thought of his youth, of his childhood, and
again he saw his mother before him, entreating him with clasped hands
to bid farewell to his determination and think no more of the stage.
From that day Eline was seized with the caprice, as Betsy called it, to
take long walks in the morning. She thought the Bosch so beautiful in
winter, she said; it was grand to see those lofty upright stems, like
pillars of marble, after the snow; it was like a cathedral. Henk
accompanied her once or twice with Leo and Faust, the two boarhounds,
but he preferred his usual morning ride, and she went alone, after she
had fetched the two dogs out of the stable. They sprang up at her with
their big paws, and like two rough pages waited near her protectingly
in their wild playfulness.
It was good for her health, she declared, when people spoke to her
wonderingly about those walks; she walked much too little, and feared
she would be growing as stout as Betsy, if she always rode. Doctor
Reyer thought those morning promenades an excellent idea.
In the Bosch she met occasional promenaders, mostly the same people—an
old gentleman in a fur cloak, who was always coughing. But Fabrice she
met but rarely. He was at rehearsal probably, she thought, whenever she
did not see the baritone, and then she would return home in a
disappointment that made her feel very fatigued, longing for her
boudoir, her cosy fire, her piano. But still she continued her walks,
and made the discovery that Fabrice took his constitutionals regularly
on Fridays; other days seemed to be very uncertain. She might and she
might not see him. And in order to meet him she did not mind rising
early, sometimes still quite exhausted after a soirée that had not been
over till three o’clock; or tired out with dancing, and sleepy, with
blue circles under her weary eyes. ’Twas true she saw Fabrice very
often now at the opera, from a box, or the stalls, when she went with
the Verstraetens, or with Emilie de Woude and Georges; once she had
invited the Ferelyns. But yet, now she saw him quite differently, not
separated from her by the footlights and the ideal conditions of the
stage; now she saw him right before her, not three paces removed from
her, like an ordinary person.
On the days that she met Fabrice, the roomy vault of the besnowed trees
seemed too small to contain her happiness. She saw him approach with
his manly, elastic step, the hat slightly on one side, the muffler
fluttering from his shoulder, and he passed by, just glancing at her or
the dogs, who sniffed at him, with careless eyes. When, after that, she
turned back and returned home along the Maliebaan, she was filled with
a joy that made her bosom heave, that brought a flush to her cold
cheeks, and made her forgetful of all fatigue; and on arriving home she
would give vent to that wealth of happiness with a jubilant outburst of
song. The whole day she remained in a bright, happy humour, and a
charming vivacity took the place of her usual languid grace. Her eyes
sparkled, she joked and laughed continually, felt irritated at Henk’s
lazy good-nature and Ben’s sleepy quietness, and teased both father and
son, making the hall re-echo with her ringing laughter, and the stairs
creak under her, as she almost bounded down them.
One Friday morning, when she saw Fabrice approaching her, she formed a
resolution. She thought it very childish of her that she never had the
courage to look him straight in the face. He was an actor, after all,
and no doubt he was used to being looked at by ladies who met him in
the street. He came nearer, and with something haughtily audacious, and
almost defiantly, she threw her little head backwards, and looked him
straight in the face. He returned that glance, as usual, with one of
complete indifference, and walked on. Then, in an excess of courage,
she looked back. Would he? No, he walked on, with his hands in his
pockets, and she only saw his broad back gradually disappearing.
That morning she hurried home, humming to herself between her closed
lips, about which there hovered an expression of roguish playfulness.
She had no thought for anything or any one but him, Fabrice, and she
rang the bell at the Nassauplein. Grete answered the door; Leo and
Faust rushed inside. Oh, how she burst out laughing! she had forgotten
to take the dogs back to the stables. Loudly resounded their barking
through the hall, like a duo of basses.
Out rushed Betsy from the dining-room, bursting with rage.
“Heavens above, Eline, are you mad, bringing those wretched dogs in
here? You know I can’t bear them. I can’t understand what makes you do
such a thing, if I don’t like it! Or am I no longer mistress in my own
house? Take them away, please, and at once.”
Her voice sounded hard and rough, as one who is giving orders to an
inferior.
“They are thirsty, and I want to let them drink,” said Eline, with calm
hauteur.
“And I will not have them drink here, I tell you! Look at that hall,
look at the carpet, dirty marks everywhere!”
“Grete can clean all that in a minute.”
“That isn’t your business! You lead the life of a princess here, and do
nothing but what displeases me. I tell you, take those dirty dogs
away!”
“First they must drink.”
“Great heavens, I will not have them drink here,” cried Betsy, beside
herself with passion.
“They shall drink, in the garden,” answered Eline, quietly.
“I should like to see that!” shrieked her sister. “If I——”
“Leo, Faust,” cried Eline, still with an irritating composure, as she
motioned the dogs towards her.
Betsy fumed with rage; her lips quivered, her hands shook, her breath
seemed to choke her. She could not say another word, she felt she could
have struck Eline; but Eline, followed by the leaping dogs, slowly went
her way through the passage into the garden, and filled a pail full of
water at the tap. She thought it an exquisite delight to enrage Betsy
that day. The dogs drank their fill, and she led them back into the
hall.
Betsy still stood there, and her angry eyes flamed with rage at her own
impotency. She would have liked to run after Eline and snatch the pail
out of her hands, but her nerves were too excited.
“I tell you, Eline, in the name of all that’s holy, that I shall tell
Henk,” she began, with a trembling voice, and a face flushed as red as
fire.
“Oh, rave as much as you like!” cried Eline, in a suddenly rising
passion, and went out of the house with the dogs, banging the door
after her.
In about a quarter of an hour she returned, singing, still full of
happiness at meeting Fabrice. She went up-stairs, and burst out in a
brilliant shake, as if to tease Betsy, who, nearly crying, was sitting
in the dining-room.
When Henk came home, Betsy told him the tale of Eline’s impudence in
their own house; but Henk grew impatient, would not come to any
decision, and she reproached her husband with his timidity, and a
violent scene followed.
For a whole week the sisters did not speak, to the despair of Henk, who
found all his domestic comfort spoilt by their sulking, especially at
table, where the meals were hurried through, although Eline kept up an
incessant chatter with himself and Ben.