Vincent was busy packing, for the next day he would be leaving for
London. Henk tried to make him alter his mind and stay, but only
half-heartedly, for he felt well enough that when Vincent was once
away, a great obstacle to the peace of the house would be removed, and
Betsy would no longer be irritated by the presence of a cousin whom she
hated, whom she feared, and whom in her fear of him she had nurtured
and tended until she abhorred him. In the morning before his departure
Vincent had a last chat with Eline in her boudoir.
“Then you are going, really?” she asked.
“Certainly, my dear girl. You can see for yourself that Betsy can’t
bear me any longer.”
“What are you going to do in London?”
“I have to call on some acquaintances there—to arrange some money
matters before I go to America.”
“Are you going to America, then?”
“You know I am; haven’t you yourself brought me St. Clare’s letter?”
“I—I did not know that you had decided for certain. Poor Vincent!”
He looked at her with a quiet smile; not quite recovered from his
weakness, it rather soothed him to be pitied.
“Do you pity me so?”
“Yes—indeed, I pity. You are beginning your wanderings again, and who
knows if I shall ever see you again. Perhaps never, never again!”
She sighed.
“I am always happiest when I am on my wanderings.”
She felt an eager desire to ask him if she might accompany him, if she
might by his side also seek her fortune far away. But she did not know
how to shape her question, and she waited to see if perhaps he would
say something. For did he not love her? had he not wanted to go away
for her sake? Now there remained nothing more that need separate them.
“He is afraid to speak,” she thought, and she could not say whether she
was glad or sorry that he was afraid.
“Happiest on your wanderings!” she repeated musingly. “It is
possible—you are a man, you can wander. But I am a girl, I have always
lived a quiet life here. Happy am I? Heavens! No, that I am not!”
He glanced at her for a moment, as if about to ask her something; but
for a while he remained silent. Then he asked—
“And why—are you not happy?”
“Why!” she murmured.
She waited for him to proceed, until perhaps he should put to her the
question which she had awaited for days past. But no doubt it was owing
to a sense of honour and decency that he did not ask it; it was but
such a little while ago as yet that she had written to Otto. Still she
thought she could detect the presence of love beneath his soft accents,
and she looked at him. A ray of sunshine glinted along the
window-curtain into the room and fell upon him where he sat,
surrounding him with a kind of halo, and she started back in sudden
alarm when she observed by that brilliant light how he resembled her
dead father. This alarm caused her heart to pulse the quicker, and she
fancied that she loved Vincent for the sake of her father’s memory,
because in him she saw a victim of the world’s conventionality, and
thus she invested him with something ideal and romantic.
He, too, looked at her with pity in his heart, for he knew that she had
flung away her happiness. He had often done so himself, he thought; but
in his own case the fact had never disclosed itself to his eyes with
such distinctness as it did now with regard to Eline. For a moment he
wanted to tell her as much, but he could see no use in doing so, and so
he said nothing. She would never have admitted it.
“Vincent!” she faltered at last, with her nerves painfully overstrung
in the suspense of waiting, waiting for that which never came.
“Vincent, tell me—perhaps we shall never see each other again—have you
nothing—nothing to say to me?”
“I have, and a good deal, Elly dear; I have to thank you for having
tended and nursed me like a dear little girl, here in your own room, at
a time when you yourself were suffering.”
“How do you know that I suffered?”
“I have a little knowledge of human nature.”
She shook her head.
“I don’t think so. I have not suffered, I pity—Otto, but I have not
suffered myself.”
As she uttered that lie she felt it tortured her, but it was for the
sake of Vincent, who loved her, and who must not know of her own grief.
He looked at her penetratingly, asking himself why it was that she
lied, but he was at a loss to account for it, he could not understand
it at all; the only thing he did understand was that in the soul of
woman there always remained something that was strange and mysterious,
a mist that could not be penetrated. Neither did she understand him.
She could not understand why he did not ask her to love him, now that
there was nothing more to separate them, and now that he was on the
point of going away. In another hour he would be gone. Oh, perhaps he
thought it was too late. She sighed, and eagerly she said—
“Vincent, one thing you must promise me; if ever I can do anything for
you, write to me, and I assure you I shall not disappoint you. Will you
promise me this?”
“I promise you, and I thank you.”
“And something else. I know you are often in want of money. If at
anytime I can help you with any, pray write to me. Just now, for
instance, I have two hundred and fifty florins in cash lying here; are
they of any use to you? if so, they are at your disposal. May I give
you the money?”
She had already risen to open her escritoire, but he grasped her hand
with something like emotion.
“Elly—Elly—no, Elly—not that—thank you very much. It is most kind of
you indeed, but I could not return you the money for ever so long
perhaps.”
“Oh, come now, don’t—don’t refuse me. ’Tis a pleasure to me, I assure
you.”
“Once again, I don’t know how to thank you, but really—I—I cannot
accept it—really I can’t.”
She stood still, and her cheeks turned white as marble. Yes, yes,
indeed, he loved her, how could she doubt it? If he did not, would he
have refused to accept the money? Yes, she could see it, he would not
owe her money, because he loved her. But why did he not speak then?
At length he rose, the cab was to be at the door in a few minutes.
“Now I must really go,” said he. “Good-bye, Elly dear, good-bye; thank
you a thousand times for what you have done for me.”
“Good-bye, Vincent, good-bye.”
He made a movement as if he wanted to kiss her, and she threw her arms
round his neck and kissed him on both cheeks.
“Think of me sometimes, will you? I am fond of you, and I am really not
fond of many persons; I can count my affections easily enough. Well,
good-bye, Elly, good-bye, and perhaps, au revoir.”
Once more she kissed him, her eyes full of tears, and as he went she
threw herself on the sofa, and nodded her head to him for the last
time. He disappeared, closing the door behind him.
For a while she sat staring at that door. And when, after a few
moments, she heard his cab move away, she wondered that he had kissed
her so unreservedly and coolly in that final moment of parting. She
wanted to muse about him, because she did not understand him; she
wanted, too, to probe her own feelings and discover if she really loved
him, but she felt tired and her head ached, and with a weary sigh she
fell back in the cushions, covering her face with her hands.
It was the third day after Vincent’s departure, but although he had
left the house, there had been another tiff about him between Eline and
Betsy, who had spoken her mind about her “wretch of a cousin” in the
presence of visitors, and to Eline’s intense annoyance. The time had
now come, Betsy thought, when she should once for all let Eline know
that she was mistress in that house; and so, with the full intention of
doing so, she walked up-stairs in the evening into Eline’s boudoir.
“What do you want?” Eline said haughtily. “I should like to be alone.”
“May I remind you that you are in my house, and that if I feel inclined
to come here I shall do so! I have something to say to you.”
“Make haste then, for I tell you again I wish to be alone!”
“You wish! you! What right have you to wish, I should like to know? You
are in my house, and it isn’t for you to wish! Who do you think you
are, eh?” shrieked Betsy, exciting herself to a towering passion. “Do
you imagine you are a princess, and can do exactly as you like? or do
you fancy that I am going to be dictated to by you in the presence of
strangers?”
“Don’t you think I know what to say without your valuable advice? I
don’t want your advice, so there! And I assure you that in future,
whenever I hear you speak in that disgraceful way about Vincent, I
shall make you hold your tongue. Thus much I assure you.”
“Indeed, you assure me—you do, eh? But I don’t want your assurance, I
tell you. I have no intention to trouble myself in the least about your
idiotic tenderness for Vincent! Perhaps it was he from whom you learnt
the politeness to interrupt one among strangers as you dared to do to
me? I can’t understand how you can have the impertinence, I can’t
really. Why, they must have thought you were crazy. Well, if you are,
that must be your excuse! Fancy calling me vulgar; and what are you,
pray? you, who forget the very rudiments of politeness, and have——”
“Yes, I know, I have heard it before—have had the impertinence to
interrupt you, you were going to say. Do say something else for a
change. But you shall see that I dare more than that, if you attack
Vincent again. You think him false, do you? But I think you are false,
you who invite him here yourself, and then drive him out of the house,
you who for no reason whatever go on about him like a washerwoman! It
is you, you who are false!”
“Keep your beautiful epithets to yourself, please.”
“Then you just keep that wretched abuse of Vincent to yourself too,
please!” shrieked Eline, boiling with passion. “I won’t, do you hear, I
won’t hear it any longer. I have stood it long enough for the sake of
peace, but now I won’t stand it any longer! Do you understand?”
“Indeed, won’t you stand it any longer? Perhaps it was all on account
of that darling Vincent that you could not stand Otto any longer
either?”
“Hold your tongue!” screamed Eline.
“Or perhaps you are smitten with that reptile, and that is why you
treated Otto as if he had been a schoolboy with whom you were having a
little joke? You won’t bear my abuse of Vincent any longer, will you?
but I tell you that I won’t be compromised any more by you! Not bad,
I’m sure! To start with, you are silly enough to break your engagement,
and, out of pure caprice, without the slightest reason, you have made
yourself the talk of the town; then you carry on here in my house with
Vincent, as if you were in love with him, and as a wind-up you dare to
be impertinent to me before strangers! Well, I am not going to bear it
any longer, do you hear? If you have learnt that unmannerliness in your
philosophic discourses with Vincent——”
Eline could no longer control herself. Her nerves were strung to their
utmost tension, and quivered under Betsy’s insults as under the touch
of rough hands. And Betsy’s allusion to Otto, to her sympathy for
Vincent, which she fancied she had so successfully concealed, made her
furious. She grasped Betsy’s wrists in the nervous strength of her
fingers, and in a voice shrill with rage she cried—
“It is enough! Hold your tongue, I tell you. Don’t talk any more about
Otto, don’t say another word about Vincent, or I—I—I’ll do you an
injury! Don’t aggravate me any longer. Take care!”
Betsy wrenched herself free from her grasp.
“Eline, are you mad?” she cried, but Eline did not allow her to finish.
She remained standing in front of Betsy and clenching her trembling
hands.
“I tell you, you aggravate me, you aggravate me with that eternal
rubbish about your house. ‘My house! my house!’ I know I am in your
house, but I did not ask you to take me in, and I won’t be reminded
that I am in your house, as if you did me a charity. I am not dependent
on you although I am in your house, and I won’t be dictated to by you,
not in anything. I am free, quite free, to do just as I please.”
“Oh no, you are not; you are in my house, and you must behave yourself.
And if you don’t know how to behave yourself, I shall tell you, so long
as you are here!”
“And I won’t be told by you how I am to behave!” shrieked Eline. “I
tell you, I am free! I don’t want your house, about which you make so
much fuss, and I swear to you that I shall not stay another moment in
it! That I swear to you, I swear it, by all that is sacred! Enjoy your
house to yourself, or choke in it for my part!”
She was scarcely conscious of what she said. She had worked herself
into a paroxysm of rage, and with a rapid movement she picked up her
cloak from the floor and flung it round her shoulders. Then she rushed
towards the door, but Henk, who on hearing the loud voices had come
upon the scene, stopped her.
“Eline!” he began severely.
“Let me go, let me go!” she screamed like a wounded tigress, and she
pushed his big body aside with such a frantic strength as made him
stagger. Once more he attempted to stop her, but again she pushed him
aside, rushed out of the room, and down the stairs.
“Eline! In Heaven’s name, Eline! you don’t know what you are doing!” he
shouted to her from the landing, and rushed after her.
She heard no more. She had but one single thought: to fly from that
house, away from a shelter where she was reproached for her presence.
She saw nothing more; she saw neither Gerard nor the servants, who
stood looking at her in blank amazement; she hurried along the
vestibule, flung open the glass doors, and quickly drew the bolt from
the street-door. But now, now she heard behind her a rattling noise;
the door fell to with a bang, shattering the glass on the floor with a
loud crash.
Then the street-door too slammed behind her, and she found herself in
the street. The rain was falling in torrents, and the blustering wind
blew open her cloak, and beat in her face as with a damp thong. It was
impossible for her to plod on in the teeth of that boisterous
hurricane, and she turned the other way and allowed herself to be
driven along aimlessly by the force of the wind, which flew at her back
like a gigantic vampire, with big, tearing claws. Aimlessly she let
herself be carried along in that pitiful, that dismal night. In the
street she saw no one, and in her loneliness, in the lowering gloom, in
the splashing downpour, in the wild gusts of the storm, she at length
felt herself conscious of her position, and a chill, indefinable terror
overtook her. It seemed to her as though she had been suddenly wrenched
away from out of the midst of every-day life, and found herself plunged
into a sphere full of nameless, terrible anxiety and blank, dismal
despair. She nearly died with fright at the darkness that enveloped her
like a black shroud of grief, at the deluge which was pouring down upon
her bare head, utterly without protection from the wind gusts which
nearly blew her cloak from her shoulders, and numbed her with cold in
the thin black silk dress that fluttered about her in the buffeting
wind. Her little patent shoes went splashing along through mud puddles
and thick mire; her dishevelled hair hung dank and dripping down her
temples; and under her thin cloak she felt a chill moisture gliding
down her neck and down her bare bosom. She knew no longer where she
was; she started in fright at the twigs that fell about her, at the
howling of a watch-dog in a house she passed. And she saw no one, no
one.
But her condition brought her to herself. She felt conscious of having
fled from her sister’s house. She would fain have stood still for a
moment to reflect, but the strong wind thrust her forward, as though
she were one of the autumn leaves that were whirled about her head. And
she let herself be blown along, and collected her thoughts, while
tramping forward with involuntarily hurried footsteps. Despite her
pitiful condition, she felt neither remorse nor regret at the step she
had taken. And suddenly she felt astounded at her own courage. She
would never have imagined herself possessed of the pluck to run away in
such a night, without knowing whither to go. But she forced her
thoughts to take some practical shape, she could not continue wandering
about in this way, she must have an object.
All at once she noticed that she had reached the Laan Copes van
Cattenburgh. Driven forward by the wind, she hurried along the
rain-sodden, muddy path, while the storm swept in sullen fury across
the Alexanders-veld.
Continually she had to step back before the shower of loose twigs which
the wind blew from the trees, and she began to perceive that she was in
danger of being crushed by some falling trunk. A fear for her life
prevented her from thinking, but the more intensely that fear numbed
her heart, the more eagerly she nerved herself to do so. Whither in
Heaven’s name should she go? A chill tremor seized her—a vague,
undefined dread—while her wide, staring eyes were trying in vain to
peer through the dense gloom. To whom was she to go? To old Madame van
Raat? No, no, fond as she was of her, the old lady would be sure to
take the part of her son and her daughter-in-law! To the
Verstraetens—her brother-in-law’s relation? Everything began to surge
around her, and she—she felt herself lost in her black solitude, and
gradually sinking lower and lower into an abyss of grief and of mire!
Otto’s figure rose to her mind, and she would have given all that
remained her of her life could he have come to her at that moment,
could he have there and then borne her away in his arms, clinging to
his heart, to some abode of warmth, light, love, and safety. Her
courage all but failed her to go farther, she could have flung herself
down in that mire through which she plodded, and remain lying there,
letting the winds sweep over her until her last breath should have
escaped her! But no! that would be all too cowardly after the pluck she
had already shown, and now she must, she would set her mind to think of
some place of refuge. Not Madame van Raat—not the Verstraetens—in
Heaven’s name whither should she go then? And all at once, like a
lightning flash darting through the gloom of that night of blank
despair, an idea struck her, and her mind reverted to a certain suite
of humble apartments, to Jeanne, her friend of former days. Yes,
thither she must go: she knew no one else, and she could not for ever
go on wandering along in that pouring rain, in that howling storm; and,
bracing herself up to face the buffeting wind, she hurried
round—numbed, chill, and wet to the skin—by the Alexanders-veld in the
direction of the Hugo de Grootstraat. There, over on the opposite side
of the field, she could just see the backs, lit up here and there with
a faint gas glimmer, of the houses on the Nassauplein, but she could
not distinguish which of them was theirs—hers no longer. A wild,
longing remorse now filled her poor, despairing heart at the
recollection of all she had lost yonder, at the thought that she had
yet to plod on for so long through the raging storm ere she could reach
the Ferelyns. And she was tired, tired unto death, tired from her
quarrel with Betsy, tired with the rain that was unceasingly beating
down upon her face, cold and cutting as thongs of steel, tired with the
wind against which she struggled as with an immense black monster, that
was dashing her to and fro as though she had been a human battledore.
She felt more fatigued with every step she took in her little patent
shoes, which were bespattered with mud, and with every movement
threatened to slip from her feet. And oh! she could have died with
misery, with distress, with grief.
But forward, still forward she must go, and she fought and struggled on
with the monster and slowly gained upon it. In this way she reached the
Javastraat, and then she turned to the right, towards the Laan van
Meerdervoort. The hurricane shook her as though it would break her like
a reed, and a heavy branch struck her on the shoulder, and scratched
her face so that she screamed with pain. And suddenly, with despair
overmastering her body and soul, desperate with fear and grief, she
made an attempt to start running, running as if for very life, and
fly—fly to the Ferelyns. But the furious wind stopped her, it was in
vain, she could only proceed slowly, painfully, step by step.
“Oh God! What have I done?” she cried in wild despair. Those familiar
streets, along which she trod almost daily, seemed to her, in that
noisome darkness, as the unknown ways of a demon city along which she
was doomed to wander like some accursed phantom. She passed by Madame
van Raat’s house, and she had to summon forth all her courage, all the
strength of her will, not to knock at that door, that would surely open
to her, and admit her to light and warmth. But no, it was too late,
Madame would be asleep; besides, she would reproach Eline with her
flight from the Nassauplein. And she plodded on, driven forward by the
wind and by an obstinate fixed idea, towards the house of the Ferelyns.
She went on, on, although with every step she took she felt her thin
little saturated shoes growing heavier, heavier than lead. She turned
at the Spiegelstraat—how much longer should she have to suffer? She
counted the minutes—then—then she entered the Hugo de Grootstraat. And
the furious rain beat down more savagely than ever on her face, more
roughly than ever the wind tugged and tore at her cloak, when—thank
God!—she stood at their door. She could see no light anywhere, but she
did not hesitate. Here only could she find safety. And she rang the
bell violently, roughly, passionately, as with a tintinnabulating cry
for help.
The time to her seemed unendurably long before any one answered. But at
last she heard steps coming down the stairs, the bolt was drawn with a
grating sound, then the door was slowly, stealthily opened, and a face
appeared at the opening.
“In God’s name!” she cried imploringly, and pushed the door quite open
and rushed inside. “It is I, Eline.”
The door closed and she stood in the darkness before Frans Ferelyn,
who, in utter amazement, shouted out her name. At the top of the stairs
appeared Jeanne with a lamp, and in her longing for light, for warmth,
for glow, her will once more got the better of failing strength, and
she hastened up the stairs.
“Jeanne!—Jeanne!—I implore you—help me. It is I—Eline, oh, help me!
help me, do!”
“Great heavens, Eline!” Jeanne cried, as she stood paralyzed with
astonishment.
“Help me, do. I have—run away from them. Help me, do, or I shall die.”
She sank down soaking wet at Jeanne’s feet, and where she lay the
stairs were soon wet with the water that dripped from her cloak.
“Great heavens, Eline! Eline!” cried Jeanne, who could not believe her
own eyes.
Eline had burst out sobbing, and remained crouched at Jeanne’s feet.
Jeanne attempted to lift her up; and wherever her hands touched her,
she felt her icy cold and soaked through with the rain.
“In Heaven’s name, Eline, what have you done? What has happened? You
are so wet—so wet—wet and cold all over. Great heavens, Eline!” She led
Eline, who walked with tottering steps, into Frans’s little office, and
set down the lamp. Eline fell exhausted on a chair, the dirty
rain-water oozing through her clothes.
“Yes—yes,” cried Eline. “I have run away from them, I could not stop
with them any longer. And I have come to you—because I don’t know where
else to go. Oh, Jeanne, do, do help me!” she went on, in a voice broken
with sobs.
Jeanne trembled with nervousness and pity.
“Tell me about that afterwards, Eline. Let me undress you—you will be
ill in these wet things.”
“Yes, yes, undress me, do—that cloak, those shoes, oh, I am sick of
myself. I am all over mud. Great heavens! oh, that I were dead!” She
threw herself, trembling all over, backward in her chair. Frans had
come into the room.
“Oh, Frans, just look here,” said Jeanne, shaking with excitement, and
pointed to Eline. “I hope she won’t be ill.”
“Without a hat, in that thin, low-necked dress! I shall try and light
the fire down-stairs. You undress her.”
He was still as if paralyzed with Eline’s appearance, and he too
trembled with pity, quite unable to speak, as he saw her sitting in
that chair, the water dripping from her hair on her white face and down
her throat, her black evening dress clinging to her like a wet flannel.
But he went. He must be up and doing.
And outside raged the storm.
She was now in their well-lit sitting-room, lying on a couch which
Frans had placed by the side of the flaming stove, and she shivered
with fever under her woollen blankets. And yet she felt a grateful
sense of well-being in that light, in sight of those flames, intensely
grateful that she was saved from the demoniac powers of darkness.
Suddenly she raised herself up.
“Jeanne,” she shrieked in a hoarse voice to the little trembling woman,
who was preparing a steaming hot drink. “Jeanne! I implore you, forgive
me for keeping you up such a night as this. But, in Heaven’s name,
where was I to go to? Oh, that rain, that wind! It drives me mad to
think of it. I had no idea that a person could be in such distress as I
have suffered this night. But really, I could not stay with them any
longer. As for that Betsy, oh, how I hate her.”
“Eline, I entreat you, be calm now.”
“Why did she mention Otto’s name? What right has she to mention Otto’s
name? I hate her! I hate her!”
“Eline! Eline!” Jeanne cried, clasping her hands.
She flung herself before the couch.
“Eline, I beseech you, I beseech you, in Heaven’s name! Be calm! Rest
yourself now, Eline.”
Eline, with her feverish, staring eyes, looked long at Jeanne, then she
threw her arm round her neck.
“Lie down and rest yourself now, Eline; rest yourself, if you cannot
sleep.”
A hollow sob burst from Eline’s throat.
“Oh, you are an angel!” she whispered in broken tones. “I shall never
forget what you are doing for me, never. It is as if you have rescued
me from an abyss of despair. Oh, that mud! You care for me then, Jany?”
“Yes, yes, Eline, of course I do; but rest now, rest yourself now.”
“Oh! rest myself.”
That single word ‘rest’ cut Jeanne to the quick. Eline pronounced it in
a voice full of despair, as if for her there would never more be any
rest. Still she allowed Jeanne to ensconce her snugly in the pillows,
and emptied the glass that Jeanne offered her.
“Thanks, thanks, Jany,” she faltered.
Jeanne covered her up with the blankets and sat down beside her. The
windows rattled in the wind, and the bare branches beat furiously
against the glass. The clock over the chimney struck three.
It had just struck three, too, in the house of the Van Raats, when
Frans Ferelyn drew up in front of their door in a cab. The storm still
roared and shrieked like some wounded monster that was savagely
fighting for life above the housetops of the dark city. Frans sprang
from the cab and rang the bell. He noticed that the gas was lighted in
the vestibule.
The door was opened immediately by Henk, who appeared to be expecting
some one. But on seeing Frans rush inside, he stepped back in
astonishment.
“Is that you, Ferelyn?” he cried.
“Yes, don’t be alarmed,” said Frans, calming him, for he saw that Henk
was in a terrible state of excitement. “It is all right; Eline is with
us.”
He walked further inside, crushing the glass that lay scattered all
over the vestibule.
“With you, is she? Thank God!” exclaimed Henk. “I was mad, mad; I did
not know what to do! Thank God she is with you.”
“Come in, Ferelyn,” came in a trembling voice from Betsy, who appeared
at the door of the dining-room.
The servants were also in the vestibule, and their frightened faces
cleared up a little, while they retired whispering into the kitchen.
Frans entered the dining-room with Henk.
“You need not be alarmed, madam; really, for the moment it is all
right. Eline was wet through, but Jeanne has taken her under her care.
You can imagine what a fright it gave us when we heard such a loud
knocking at the door, and at such an hour, and we saw her soaked
through.”
Suddenly he noticed Henk’s face.
“But I say, what has happened to you? Your cheek is all over blood.”
“Oh, that’s nothing at all. When Eline ran away I rushed after her, and
through the wind the door in the vestibule fell to and broke the glass.
The shattered glass sprang into my eyes, and so I could not at once run
after her. Still, as soon as I could I got out into the street with
Gerard, to drag her home again if necessary. But it was so confoundedly
dark; the gas-lamps were blown out in the storm, and I could see
nothing of her. I did not know what to do. Then we went to the
police-station on the Schelpkade, and they sent out some night-watchmen
to find her. She was in such a state. I thought perhaps she might have
made an end of herself, and in this infernal weather anything might
happen to her. My eye pains me; I shall go and see an oculist
to-morrow.”
Betsy fell down with a sigh in a chair.
“Oh, ’tis terrible, terrible!” she faltered. “That girl can behave like
a maniac sometimes!”
“Of course, if you do your best to drive her mad!” cried Henk angrily,
with his hand on his eye.
“Ah, bien! Yes, blame me for it.”
“Van Raat, there is just a thing or two I want to say to you,”
interrupted Frans. “In the first place, I came round here without a
moment’s delay, because I feared you would be terribly anxious about
her.”
“Old chap, I don’t know how I can thank you.”
“Never mind about that just now. But Eline has positively declared that
she would not go back to you. Now I need not tell you that such an
affair as that soon gets wind; people begin to talk, and all that, and
that! not very pleasant. And the servants know all about it too, don’t
they?”
Betsy gave Frans a grateful look for touching that point.
“Oh, well, how can you help that?” cried Henk impatiently. “People will
always talk.”
“Yes, that’s true enough; but anyhow you come round to my house as soon
as you can to-morrow, and see if you can’t persuade Eline to return
home. That is, of course, if she is not ill; just now I thought she was
rather feverish. So you had better let her rest a bit now; but come as
early as possible to-morrow.”
“All right,” said Henk, with a dazed look.
“I believe she was delirious when I went out to fetch a cab, but still
she seemed very determined. She would not go back, and she gave me her
keys. She asked me”—and he looked at Betsy—“to arrange her things here
and pack them. But I think she said it all in her passion; I hope in
any case that by this time to-morrow we shall have come to some
amicable arrangement.”
“Look here, Ferelyn!” said Betsy uneasily; “you can well understand the
despair I am in. Good gracious, it isn’t the first tiff I have had with
Eline, but who could imagine her capable of such a mad freak as this?
And as you say, all the Hague will be talking about it. Therefore if
you can manage to persuade her to come back, I shall be for ever
grateful to you. Our house is always open to her; and as for those
keys, you had better leave them here. I am of your opinion, and think
it will all come right yet. Good heavens! what a blessing that she came
to you! But in such a night as that, alone, out in that storm! How
could she have done it? Good heavens! How could she have done it?”
Frans had still to talk about one or two matters with Henk, who asked
him to stay till the morning, as Frans had sent his cab away, and the
weather was still frightfully boisterous. Gerard conducted Frans to
Henk’s dressing-room, where he removed his wet clothes.
Early next morning Henk drove with Frans to an oculist. It was only a
vein that had burst in Henk’s eye, and after a little grain of glass
had been removed from it with a lancet, he felt greatly relieved. But
across his cheek there was a long, ugly cut.
“I look as though I had been in the war,” said he, with an attempt at a
smile to Ferelyn, as soon as they were in the carriage again, on their
way to the Hugo de Grootstraat, “and indeed, old fellow, it does seem
as if we were all at war just now. I have got enough of it already.”
Ferelyn could not help pitying him when he saw that kindly honest face
suffused with a gloomy melancholy. It was evident enough that Henk
looked forward with a deal of misgiving to the interview with Eline.
But the ordeal was spared him. Eline passionately refused to receive
him, and in the adjoining room he sat and listened anxiously to the
reproaches she levelled at Frans. Why did Frans want to bring him? Why
had she given Frans her keys? Was Frans, too, no longer to be trusted?
Eline’s voice sounded hoarse and rough, and to Henk it seemed that she
was delirious. Then he heard a soft, reproachful whispering of Jeanne,
followed by the sobbing of Eline, who accused herself of ingratitude.
Soon Frans came back, shrugging his shoulders.
“She won’t see you. You had better resign yourself to it. I believe she
is in a violent fever. Do you think Reyer is still at home? If so, I
should drive down to him if I were you.”
“All right,” said Henk dejectedly, “I will go.”
Eline was still lying on her couch covered with woollen blankets, and
she groaned softly as if in pain.
“You are so kind to me, Jany, but you see of course I can’t remain
here, and trouble you like this,” she went on, sorrowfully. “You
haven’t very much room. I must be an inconvenience to you. This
afternoon I shall go to an hotel.”
Jeanne sat down beside her and took her hands in hers.
“Eline, be sensible now, and don’t talk any more about that. Believe
me, you are ill; you remain quietly here with us. I won’t insist that
you shall return to Betsy’s, but then you must not talk about going to
an hotel.”
“Yes, but if I am ill—I don’t believe I am, but you say so—if I am ill,
it will be some time before I can leave you again. And—and—oh, forgive
me for saying it—I know you cannot afford it, Jany dear; forgive me,
forgive me for saying it.”
Jeanne looked at Eline tenderly, and her eyes filled with tears.
“If it’s that, Eline, pay us then and stay here; pay us, and don’t talk
any more about an hotel. I won’t be ashamed of it; you may pay me for
it if you want to. But stay here—stay.”
Eline started up with her wild staring eyes and her dishevelled hair,
which Jeanne brushed in vain from her temples. And she clung to Jeanne
with a sudden intensity, as if in her burning grief she plunged into
the grateful cooling waters of pity and sympathy.
“Oh, you darling! you angel!” she cried. “Forgive me, I—I did not mean
to grieve you, but—but—oh, yes, indeed, I will gladly stay, you are so
good. May I stay?”
That afternoon old Madame van Raat and Madame Verstraeten came to see
Eline, and endeavoured to persuade her to return to the Nassauplein.
Eline, however, refused to receive them. Even Betsy allowed Jeanne to
persuade her to call on Eline, and ask her pardon. Jeanne thought it
was Betsy’s duty to try and make her peace with her sick sister, and it
might have a favourable effect on her. But Betsy Eline would not see
either. And in the adjoining room Betsy, with her mother-in-law and her
aunt, heard, as Henk had heard that morning in silence and anxiety, how
Eline declared to Jeanne that she would not—would not see any one. Only
Jeanne and no one else would she see about her! Before long Eline’s
quarrel with the Van Raats and her flight to the Ferelyns became the
general topic of conversation. Of the details of the dispute they did
not know much; only, of this they were certain, that in that stormy
night Eline had been seen sitting in a carriage with a night-watchman
and a young man, and to say the least of it they thought it passing
strange! But then Eline had always been rather eccentric. In the winter
she had been in the habit of taking early morning walks alone in the
wood—what respectable young girl would think of doing such a thing as
that? Now—that affair with Erlevoort too, that was a bit mysterious;
and now there was that romance with a young man and a night-watchman!
It was a pity certainly, for she was really such a nice girl, so pretty
and graceful; but had they not always been a strange family, those
Veres?
Betsy was mad with spite at this talk, and she scarcely ventured to
show herself anywhere, seeking her refuge only at the Verstraetens’ and
with Emilie de Woude.