"I have counted on your staying to dinner," said Eva.
"Of course," replied Van Helderen, the controller, and his wife.
The reception--not a reception, as Eve always said in self-defence--was
nearly over: the Van Oudijcks had been the first to go; the
regent followed. The Eldersmas were left with their little band of
intimates: Dr. Rantzow and Doorn de Bruijn, the senior engineer,
with their wives, and the Van Helderens. They sat down in the front
verandah with a certain sense of relief and rocked comfortably to and
fro. Whiskies-and-soda and glasses of lemonade, with great lumps of
ice in them, were handed round.
"Always chock full, reception at Eva's," said Mrs. van
Helderen. "Fuller than other day at resident's...."
Ida van Helderen was the type of the white-skinned half-caste. She
always tried to behave in a very European fashion, to talk Dutch
nicely; she even pretended to speak bad Malay and not to care for
native dishes. She was short and plump all over; she was very white,
a dead white, with big, black, astonished eyes. She was full of little
mysterious fads and hatreds and affections; all her actions were
the result of mysterious little impulses. Sometimes she hated Eva,
sometimes she doted on her. She was absolutely unreliable; her every
action, her every movement, her every word might be a surprise. She
was always in love, tragically. She took all her little affairs very
tragically, on a very large and serious scale, with not the least
sense of proportion, and then unbosomed herself to Eva, who laughed
and comforted her.
Her husband, the controller, had never been in Holland: he had been
educated entirely in Batavia, at the William III. College and the
Indian Department. And he was very strange to see, this creole,
apparently quite European, tall, fair and pale, with his fair
moustache, his blue eyes, expressing animation and interest, and his
manners, which displayed a finer courtesy than could be found in the
smartest circles of Europe, but with not a vestige of India in thought,
speech or dress. He would speak of Paris and Vienna as though he had
spent years in both capitals, whereas he had never been out of Java;
he was mad on music, although he found it difficult to appreciate
Wagner, at least as Eva played him; and his great illusion was that
he must really go to Europe on leave next year, to see the Paris
Exhibition. [7] There was a wonderful distinction, an innate style
about young Van Helderen, as though he were not the offspring of
European parents who had always lived in India, as though he were a
foreigner from an unknown country, of a nationality which you could not
place at once. His accent barely betrayed a certain softness, resulting
from the climate; he spoke Dutch so correctly that it would have
sounded almost stiff amid the slovenly slang of the mother-country;
and he spoke French, English and German with greater facility than
most Dutchmen. Perhaps he owed to a French mother that exotic and
courtly politeness, so innate, pleasant and natural. In his wife,
who was also of French extraction, springing from a creole family
in Réunion, this exoticism had become a mysterious medley which had
never developed beyond a sort of childishness and a jumble of petty
emotions and petty passions, while she tried, with those great,
sombre eyes of hers, to read tragedy into her life, though she did
no more than just dip into it as into an ill-written magazine-story.
She now imagined herself to be in love with the senior engineer,
the oldest of the little band, a man already turning grey, with a
black beard; and, in her tragic fashion, she pictured scenes with
Mrs. Doorn de Bruijn, a stout, placid, melancholy woman. Dr. Rantzow
and his wife were Germans: he fat, fair-haired, vulgar, pot-bellied;
she, with a serene German face, pleasant and matronly, talking Dutch
vivaciously with a German accent.
This was the little clique over which Eva Eldersma reigned. In
addition to Frans van Helderen the controller, it consisted of quite
ordinary Indian and European elements, people without artistic sense,
as Eva said; but she had no other choice at Labuwangi, and therefore
she amused herself with Ida's little tragedies and made the best of
the others.
Onno, her husband, tired as usual with his work, did not join much
in the conversation, sat and listened.
"How long was Mrs. van Oudijck at Batavia?" asked Ida.
"Two months," said the doctor's wife. "A very long visit, this time."
"I hear," said Mrs. Doorn de Bruijn, placid, melancholy and quietly
venomous, "that this time one member of council, one head of a
department and three young business-men kept Mrs. van Oudijck amused
at Batavia."
"And I can assure you people," said the doctor, "that, if Mrs. van
Oudijck did not go to Batavia regularly, she would miss a beneficial
cure, even though she takes it on her own and not ... by my
prescription."
"Let us speak no evil!" Eva interrupted, almost entreatingly. "Mrs. van
Oudijck is beautiful--with a tranquil Junoesque beauty and the eyes
of a Venus--and I can forgive anything to beautiful people about
me. And you, doctor," threatening him with her finger, "mustn't
betray professional secrets. You doctors, in India, are often far too
outspoken about your patients' secrets. When I'm unwell, it's never
anything but a headache. Will you make a careful note of that, doctor?"
"The resident seems preoccupied," said Doorn de Bruijn.
"Could he know ... about his wife?" asked Ida, sombrely, her great
eyes filled with black velvet tragedy.
"The resident is often like that," said Frans van Helderen. "He has his
moods. Sometimes he's pleasant, cheerful, jovial, as he was lately,
on circuit. Then again he has his gloomy days, working, working and
working and grumbling that nobody does any work except himself."
"My poor, unappreciated Onno!" sighed Eva.
"I believe he's overworking himself," said Van Helderen. "Labuwangi
is a tremendously busy district. And the resident takes things too
much to heart, both in his own house and outside, in his relations
with his son and his relations with the regent."
"I should sack the regent," said the doctor.
"But, doctor," said Van Helderen, "you know enough about conditions
in Java to know that things can't be done just like that. The regent
and his family are closely identified with Labuwangi and too highly
considered by the population...."
"Yes, I know the Dutch policy. The English in British India deal with
their Indian princes in a more arbitrary and high-handed fashion. The
Dutch treat them much too gently."
"The question might arise which of the two policies is the better in
the long run," said Van Helderen, drily, hating to hear a foreigner
disparage anything in a Dutch colony. "Fortunately, we know nothing
here of the continual poverty and famine that prevail in British
India."
"I saw the resident speaking very seriously to the regent," said
Doorn de Bruijn.
"The resident is too susceptible," said Van Helderen. "He allows
himself to be greatly dejected by the gradual decline of this old
Javanese family, which is doomed to go under, though he'd like to
hold it up.... The resident, cool and practical though he may be, is a
bit of a romantic in this, though he might refuse to admit it. But he
remembers the Adiningrats' glorious past, he remembers that last fine
figure, the noble old pangéran, and he compares him with his sons,
the one a fanatic, the other a gambler...."
"I think our regent--not the Ngadjiwa one: he's a
coolie--delightful!" said Eva. "He's a living figure out of a
puppet-show. Except his eyes: they frighten me. What terrible
eyes! Sometimes they're asleep and sometimes they're like a
maniac's. But he is so refined, so distinguished! And the raden-aju
too is an exquisite little doll: 'Saja ... saja!' She says nothing,
but she looks very decorative. I'm always glad when they adorn my
at-home day and I miss them when they're not there. And the old
raden-aju pangéran, grey-haired, dignified, a queen...."
"A gambler of the first water," said Eldersma.
"They gamble away all they possess," said Van Helderen, "she and the
regent of Ngadjiwa. They're no longer rich. The old pangéran used to
have splendid insignia of rank for state occasions, magnificent lances,
a jewelled betel-box, spittoons--useful objects, those!--of priceless
value. The old raden-aju has gambled them all away. I doubt if she has
anything left but her pension: two hundred and forty guilders a month,
I believe. And how our regent manages to keep all his cousins, male
and female, in the Kabupaten, [8] according to the Javanese custom,
is beyond me."
"What custom is that?" asked the doctor.
"Every regent collects his whole family around him like parasites,
clothes them, feeds them, provides them with pocket-money ... and
the natives think it dignified and smart."
"Sad ... that ruined greatness!" said Ida, gloomily.
A boy came to announce dinner and they went to the back verandah and
sat down to table.
"And what have you in prospect for us, mevrouwtje?" asked the senior
engineer. "What are the plans? Labuwangi has been very quiet lately."
"It's really terrible," said Eva. "If I hadn't all of you, it would be
terrible. If I weren't always planning something and having ideas, it
would be terrible, this living at Labuwangi. My husband doesn't feel
it; he works, as all you men do: what else is there to do in India
but work, regardless of the heat? But for us women! What a life,
if we didn't find our happiness purely in ourselves, in our home,
in our friends ... when we have the good fortune to possess those
friends! Nothing from the outside. Not a picture, not a statue to look
at; no music to listen to. Don't be cross, Van Helderen. You play
the 'cello charmingly, but nobody in India can keep up to date. The
Italian Opera plays Il Trovatore. The amateur companies--and they're
really first-rate at Batavia--play ... Il Trovatore. And you, Van
Helderen ... don't object. I saw you in an ecstasy when the Italian
company from Surabaya were here lately, at the club, playing ... Il
Trovatore. You were enchanted."
"There were some beautiful voices among them."
"But twenty years ago, they tell me, even then people were enchanted
with ... Il Trovatore. Oh, it's terrible! Sometimes, suddenly, it
crushes me. Sometimes, all of a sudden, I feel that I have not grown
used to India and that I never shall; and I began to long for Europe,
for life!"
"But Eva," Eldersma began, in alarm, dreading lest she should really
go home one day, leaving him alone in what would then be his utterly
joyless working-life at Labuwangi: "sometimes you do appreciate India:
your house, the pleasant, spacious life...."
"Materially...."
"And don't you appreciate your own work--I mean the many things which
you are able to do here?"
"What? Getting up parties? Arranging theatricals?"
"It's you who are the real rezidente [9]," said Ida, gushingly.
"Thank goodness, we're coming back to Mrs. van Oudijck," said Mrs. Doom
de Bruijn, teasingly.
"And to professional secrecy," said Dr. Rantzow.
"No," sighed Eva, "we want something new. Dances, parties, picnics,
trips into the mountains ... we've exhausted all that. I know nothing
more. The Indian depression's coming over me. I'm in one of my dejected
moods. Those brown faces of my 'boys' around me suddenly strike me
as uncanny. India frightens me at times. Do none of you feel the
same? A vague dread, a mystery in the air, something menacing.... I
don't know what it is. The evenings are sometimes so full of mystery
and there is something mysterious in the character of the native,
who is so remote from us, who differs from us so...."
"Artistic feelings," said Van Helderen, chaffingly. "No, I don't feel
like that. India is my country."
"You type!" said Eva, chaffing him in return. "What makes you what
you are, so curiously European? I can't call it Dutch."
"My mother was a Frenchwoman."
"But, after all, you're a creole: born here, brought up here.... And
you have nothing of a creole about you. I think it's wonderful to
have met you: I like you as a change.... Help me, can't you? Suggest
something new. Not a dance, not a trip into the mountains. I want
something new. Else I shall get a craving for my father's paintings,
for my mother's singing, for our beautiful, artistic house at the
Hague. If I don't have something new, I shall die. I'm not like your
wife, Van Helderen, always in love."
"Eva!" Ida entreated.
"Tragically in love, with her beautiful, sombre eyes. Always, first
with her husband and then with somebody else. I am never in love. Not
even any longer with my husband. He is ... with me. But I have not
an erotic temperament. There's a great deal of love-making in India,
isn't there, doctor?... Well, we've ruled out dances, excursions into
the mountains and love-making. What then, in Heaven's name, what then?"
"I know of something," said Mrs. Doorn de Bruijn; and a sudden anxiety
came over her placid melancholy.
She gave a side-glance at Mrs. Rantzow; the German woman grasped
her meaning.
"What is it?" asked the others, eagerly.
"Table-turning," whispered the two ladies.
There was a general laugh.
"Oh dear!" sighed Eva, disappointed. "A trick, a joke, an evening's
amusement. No, I want something that will fill my life for at least
a month."
"Table-turning," repeated Mrs. Rantzow.
"Listen to me," said Mrs. Doorn de Bruijn. "The other day, for a joke,
we tried making a gipsy-table turn. We all promised not to cheat. The
table ... moved, spelt out words, tapping them out by the alphabet."
"But was there no cheating?" asked the doctor, Eldersma and Van
Helderen.
"You'll have to trust us," declared the two ladies, in self-defence.
"All right," said Eva. "We've finished dinner. Let's have some
table-turning."
"We must all promise not to cheat," said Mrs. Rantzow. "I can see
that my husband will be ... antipathetic. But Ida ... a great medium."
They rose.
"Must we have the lights out?" asked Eva.
"No," said Mrs. Doorn de Bruijn.
"An ordinary gipsy-table?"
"A three-legged wooden table."
"The eight of us?"
"No, we must begin by choosing: for instance, yourself, Eva, Ida,
Van Helderen, and Mrs. Rantzow. The doctor's antipathetic; so is
Eldersma. De Bruijn and I will relieve you."
"Fire away, then!" said Eva. "A new diversion for Labuwangi
society. And no cheating...."
"We must give one another our word of honour, as friends, not to
cheat."
"Done!" they all said.
The doctor sniggered. Eldersma shrugged his shoulders. A boy brought
a gipsy-table. They sat round the little wooden table and placed
their fingers on it lightly, looking at one another expectantly and
suspiciously. Mrs. Rantzow was solemn, Eva amused, Ida sombre, Van
Helderen smilingly indifferent. Suddenly a strained expression came
over Ida's beautiful half-caste face.
The table quivered....
They exchanged frightened glances; the doctor sniggered.
Then slowly, the table tilted one of its three legs and carefully
put it down again.
"Did anybody move?" asked Eva.
They all shook their heads. Ida had turned pale.
"I feel a trembling in my fingers," she murmured.
The table once more tilted its leg, described an angry, grating
semicircle over the marble floor and put its leg down with a violent
stamp.
They looked at one another in surprise. Ida sat as though bereft of
life, staring, with fingers outspread, ecstatically.
And the table tilted its leg for the third time.
It was certainly very curious. Eva doubted for a moment whether
Mrs. Rantzow was lifting the table, but, when she questioned her with
a glance, the German doctor's wife shook her head and Eva saw that
she was playing fair. They once more promised absolute honesty. And,
when they were now certain of one another, in full confidence, it
was most curious how the table continued to describe angry, grating
semicircles, tilting one leg and tapping on the marble floor.
"Is there a spirit present, revealing itself?" asked Mrs. Rantzow,
with a glance at the leg of the table.
The table tapped once:
"Yes."
But, when the spirit was asked to spell its name, to tap out the
letters of its name by the letters of the alphabet, all that came was:
"Z X R S A."
The manifestation was incomprehensible.
Suddenly, however, the table began spelling hurriedly, as though it
had something at its heels. The taps were counted and spelt:
"Lé ... onie Ou ... dijck...."
"What about Mrs. van Oudijck?"
A coarse word followed.
The ladies started, excepting Ida, who sat as though in a trance.
"The table has spoken.... What did it say?... What is Mrs. van
Oudijck?" cried the voices, all speaking at once.
"It's incredible!" murmured Eva. "Are we all playing fair?"
They all protested their honesty.
"Let us really be honest, else there's no fun in it.... I wish I
could be certain."
They all wished that: Mrs. Rantzow, Ida, Van Helderen, Eva. The
others looked on eagerly, believing; but the doctor did not believe
and sat sniggering.
Again the table grated angrily and tapped: and the leg began to spell,
"A...," and repeated the coarse word.
"Why?" asked Mrs. Rantzow.
The table began to tap.
"Write it down, Onno!" said Eva to her husband.
Eldersma fetched a pencil and paper and wrote the message down.
Three names followed: one of a member of council, one of a departmental
head, and one of a young business-man.
"When people aren't backbiting in India, the tables begin to
backbite!" said Eva.
"The spirits," murmured Ida.
"They are generally mocking spirits," said Mrs. Rantzow, didactically.
But the table went on tapping.
"Write it down, Onno!" said Eva.
Eldersma wrote it down.
"A-d-d-i-e!" the leg tapped out.
"No!" the voices all cried together, in vehement denial. "This time
the table's mistaken!... At least, young De Luce has never yet been
mentioned in connection with Mrs. van Oudijck."
"T-h-e-o!" said the table, correcting itself.
"Her step-son!... It's terrible!... That's different!... Everybody
knows that!" cried the voices in assent.
"Yes, we know that!" said Mrs. Rantzow, with a glance at the leg
of the table. "Come, tell us something that we don't know. Come,
table! Come, spirit! Please!..."
She addressed the table-leg in coaxing, wheedling accents. Everybody
laughed. The table grated.
"Be serious!" Mrs. Doorn de Bruijn said, in warning.
The table bounced down on Ida's lap.
"Oh my!" cried the pretty half-caste, waking out of her trance. "Right
against my stomach!"
They laughed and laughed. The table turned round fiercely and they
rose from their chairs, with their hands on the table, and accompanied
its angry, waltzing movements.
"Next ... year ..." the table rapped out.
Eldersma wrote it down.
"Frightful ... war."
"Between whom?"
"Europe ... and ... China."
"It sounds like a fairy-tale!" grinned the doctor.
"La-bu-wangi," tapped the table.
"What about it?" they asked.
"Is ... a ... beastly ... hole...."
"Say something serious, table, do!" Mrs. Rantzow implored, pleasantly,
in her best German-matron manner.
"Dan ... ger," the table tapped out.
"Where?"
"Threat ... ens," the table continued, "La-bu-wangi."
"Danger threatens Labuwangi?"
"Yes!" said the table, with one tap, angrily.
"What danger?"
"Rebellion."
"Rebellion? Who's going to rebel?"
"In ... two months ... Sunario."
They became thoughtful.
But the table, suddenly, unexpectedly, fell over again into Ida's lap.
"Oh my! Oh dear!" cried the little woman.
The table refused to go on.
"Tired," it tapped out.
They continued to hold their hands on it.
"Leave off," said the table.
The doctor, sniggering, laid his short, broad hand on it, as though
to compel it.
"Go to blazes!" cried the table, grating and turning. "Bounder!"
And worse words followed, aimed at the doctor, as though by a
street-boy: obscene words, senseless and incoherent.
"Who's suggesting those words?" asked Eva, indignantly.
Obviously no one was suggesting them, neither the three ladies nor
Van Helderen, who was always very punctilious and who was manifestly
indignant at the mocking spirit's coarseness.
"It really is a spirit," said Ida, looking very pale.
"I'm going to leave off," said Eva, nervously, lifting up her
fingers. "I don't understand this nonsense. It's quite amusing,
but the table's not accustomed to polite society."
"We've got a new resource for Labuwangi!" said Eldersma. "No more
picnics, no dances ... but table-turning!"
"We must practise!" said Mrs. Doorn de Bruijn.
Eva shrugged her shoulders.
"It's inexplicable," she said. "I'm bound to believe that none of
us was cheating. It's not the sort of thing Van Helderen would do,
to suggest such words as those."
"Madam!" said Van Helderen, defending himself.
"We must do it again," said Ida. "Look, there's a hadji leaving
the grounds."
She pointed to the garden.
"A hadji?" asked Eva.
She looked towards the garden, expecting to see a Mecca pilgrim. There
was nothing.
"Oh no, it's not!" said Ida. "I thought it was a hadji. It's nothing,
only the moonlight."
It was late. They said good-night, laughing gaily, wondering, but
finding no explanation.
"I do hope this hasn't made you ladies nervous?" said the doctor.
No, considering all things, they were not nervous. They were more
amused, even though they did not understand.
It was two o'clock when they went home. The moonlight was streaming
down on the town, which lay deathly still, slumbering in the velvet
shadows of the gardens.