A few of the lamps had been lit. Really the lamps were burning
everywhere; but in the long, broad galleries it was only just light. In
the grounds and inside the house there were certainly no fewer than
twenty or thirty paraffin-lamps burning in chandeliers and lanterns;
but they yielded no more than a vague, yellow twilight glimmering
through the house. A flood of moonshine poured into the garden,
making the flower-pots gleam brightly and shimmering in the pond;
and the banyans were like soft velvet against the luminous sky.
The first gong had sounded for dinner. In the front verandah a young
man was swinging up and down in a rocking-chair, with his hands behind
his head. He was bored. A young girl came along the middle gallery,
humming to herself, as though in expectation. The house was furnished
in accordance with the conventional type of up-country residencies,
with commonplace splendour. The marble floor of the verandah was
white and glossy as a mirror; tall palms stood in pots between the
pillars; groups of rocking-chairs stood round the marble tables. In
the first inner gallery, which ran parallel with the verandah, chairs
were drawn up against the wall as though in readiness for an eternal
reception. The second inner gallery, which ran from front to back,
showed at the end, where it opened into a cross-gallery, a huge red
satin curtain hanging from a gilt cornice. In the white spaces between
the doors of the rooms hung either mirrors in gilt frames, resting on
marble console-tables, or lithographs--pictures as they call them in
India--of Van Dyck on horseback; Paolo Veronese received by a doge on
the steps of a Venetian palace, Shakespeare at the court of Elizabeth
and Tasso at the court of Este; but in the biggest panel, in a crowned
frame, hung a large etching, a portrait of Queen Wilhelmina in her
coronation-robes. In the middle of the central gallery was a red satin
ottoman, topped by a palm. There were also many chairs and tables,
and everywhere great chandeliers. Everything was very neatly kept and
distinguished by a commonplace pomp, an uncomfortable readiness for the
next reception, with not a single home-like corner. In the half-light
of the paraffin-lamps--one lamp was lit in each chandelier--the long,
wide, spacious galleries stretched in tedious vacancy.
The second gong sounded. In the back-verandah, the long table--too
long, as though always expecting guests--was laid for three
persons. The native butler and half-a-dozen boys stood waiting by the
servers' tables and the two sideboards. The butler at once began to
fill the soup-plates; and two of the boys placed the three plates
of soup on the table, on top of the folded napkins which lay on
the dinner-plates. Then they waited again, while the soup steamed
gently. Another boy filled the three tumblers with large lumps of ice.
The girl came in, humming a tune. She was perhaps seventeen,
and resembled her divorced mother, the resident's first wife, a
good-looking half-caste, who was now living in Batavia, where she
was said to keep a discreet gaming house. The young girl had a pale
olive complexion, sometimes just touched with a peach-like blush; she
had beautiful black hair, curling naturally at the temples and wound
round her head in a heavy coil; her black pupils and sparkling irises
swam in humid bluish-whites, over which her thick lashes flickered
up and down, and up again. Her mouth was small and a little full;
and her upper lip was just shadowed by a dark, downy line. She was
not tall and was already too fully formed, like a hasty rose that has
bloomed too soon. She wore a white piqué skirt and a white linen blouse
with lace insertions; and round her throat was a bright yellow ribbon
that accorded well with her olive pallor, which sometimes flushed up,
suddenly, as with a rush of warm blood.
The young man came sauntering in from the front verandah. He was
like his father, tall, broad and fair-haired, with a thick, fair
moustache. He was barely twenty-three, but looked quite five years
older. He wore a suit of white Russian linen, but with a shirt-collar
and tie.
Van Oudijck also came at last: his firm step approached as though
he were always busy, as though he were now coming just to have some
dinner in the midst of his work.
"When does mamma arrive to-morrow?" asked Theo.
"At half-past eleven," replied Van Oudijck; and, turning to his
body-servant behind him, "Kario, remember that the mem-sahib is to
be fetched from the station at half-past eleven to-morrow."
"Yes, excellency," murmured Kario.
The fish was served.
"Doddie," asked Van Oudijck, "who was with you at the gate just now?"
"At ... the gate?" she asked slowly, in a very soft accent.
"Yes."
"At ... the gate?... Nobody.... Theo perhaps."
"Were you at the gate with your sister?" asked Van Oudijck.
The boy knitted his thick, fair eyebrows:
"Possibly.... Don't know.... Don't remember...."
They were all three silent. They hurried through dinner: sitting at
table bored them. The five or six servants, in white cotton jackets
with red linen facings, moved softly on their flat toes, waiting
quickly and noiselessly. Steak and salad was served, and a pudding,
followed by dessert.
"Everlasting rumpsteak!" Theo muttered.
"Yes, that cook!" laughed Doddie, with her little throaty laugh,
clipping her sentences in the half-caste fashion. "She always gives
steak, when mamma not here; doesn't matter to her, when mamma not
here. She has no imagination. Too bad though!"
They had been twenty minutes over their dinner when Van Oudijck went
back to his office. Doddie and Theo sauntered towards the front of
the house.
"Tedious," Doddie yawned. "Come, we play billiards?"
In the first inner gallery, behind the satin portière, was a small
billiard-table.
"Come along," said Theo.
They played.
"Why am I supposed to have been with you at the gate?"
"Oh ... tut!" said Doddie.
"Well, why?"
"Papa needn't know."
"Who was with you? Addie?"
"Of course!" said Doddie. "Say, band playing to-night?"
"I think so."
"Come, we go, yes?"
"No, I don't care to."
"Oh, why not?"
"I don't want to."
"Come along now?"
"No."
"With mamma ... you would, yes?" said Doddie, angrily. "I know very
well. With mamma you go always to the band."
"What do you know ... you little minx!"
"What do I know?" she laughed. "What do I know? I know what I know."
"Huh!" he said, to tease her, fluking a cannon. "You and Addie, huh!"
"Well ... and you and mamma!"
He shrugged his shoulders:
"You're crazy."
"No need to hide from me. Besides, every one says."
"Let them say."
"Too bad of you though!"
"Oh, go to the devil!"
He flung his cue down in a temper and went towards the front of the
house. She followed him.
"I say, Theo ... don't be angry now. Come along to the band."
"No."
"I'll never say it again," she entreated, coaxingly.
She was afraid that he would continue to be angry and then she would
have nothing and nobody, then she would die of boredom.
"I promised Addie and I can't go by myself...."
"Well, if you won't make any more of those idiotic remarks...."
"Yes, I promise. Theo dear, yes, come then...."
She was already in the garden.
Van Oudijck appeared on the threshold of his office, which always
had the door open, but which was separated from the inner gallery by
a large screen:
"Doddie!" he called out.
"Yes, papa?"
"Will you see that there are flowers in mamma's room to-morrow?"
His voice was almost embarrassed and his eyelids blinked.
"Very well, papa ... I'll see to it."
"Where are you going to?"
"With Theo ... to the band."
Van Oudijck became red and angry:
"To the band? But you might have asked my leave first!" he exclaimed,
in a sudden temper.
Doddie pouted.
"I don't like you to go out, without my knowing where you go. You were
out this afternoon too, when I wanted you to come for a walk with me."
"Well, doesn't matter then!" said Doddie, bursting into tears.
"You can go if you want to," said Van Oudijck, "but I insist on your
asking me first."
"No, I don't care about it now," said Doddie, in tears. "Doesn't
matter! No band."
They could hear the first strains in the distance, coming from the
Concordia garden.
Van Oudijck returned to his office. Doddie and Theo flung themselves
into two rocking-chairs in the verandah and swung furiously to and fro,
skating with the chairs over the smooth marble.
"Come," said Theo, "let's go. Addie expects you."
"No," she pouted. "Don't care. I'll tell Addie to-morrow papa
so unkind. He spoils my pleasure. And ... I'll put no flowers in
mamma's room."
Theo grinned.
"Say," whispered Doddie, "that papa ... eh? So in love, always. He
blushed when he asked me about the flowers."
Theo grinned once more and hummed in unison with the band in the
distance.