Doddie was rapt into the seventh heaven of delight when Van
Oudijck told her that Addie had asked her hand in marriage; and,
when she heard that mamma had been her advocate, she embraced Léonie
boisterously, with the emotional spontaneity of her temperament, once
more surrendering to the attraction which Léonie had exercised upon
her for years. Doddie now at once forgot everything that had annoyed
her in the excessive intimacy between mamma and Addie, when he used to
hang over her chair and whisper to her. She had never believed what
now and again she had heard, because Addie had always assured her
that it was not true. And she was ever so happy that she was going to
live with Addie, he and she together, at Patjaram. For Patjaram was
her ideal of what a home should be. The big house, full of sons and
daughters and children and animals, on all of whom the same kindness
and cordiality and boredom were lavished, while behind those sons and
daughters shone the halo of their Solo descent: the big house built on
to the sugar factory was to her the ideal residence; and she felt akin
with all its little traditions: the spices, crushed and ground by a
babu squatting behind her chair, while she sat at lunch, represented
to her the supreme indulgence of the palate; the races at Ngadjiwa,
attended by the leisurely dawdling procession of all those women, with
the babus behind them, carrying the handkerchief, the scent-bottle,
the opera-glasses, were her non plus ultra of elegance; she loved the
old dowager raden-aju; and she had given herself to Addie, entirely,
without reserve, from the first moment of seeing him, when she was a
little girl of thirteen and he a boy of eighteen. It was because of
him that she had resisted with all her energy whenever papa proposed
to send her to Europe, to boarding-school in Brussels; because of
him she had never cared for any place except Labuwangi, Ngadjiwa or
Patjaram; because of him she was prepared to live and die at Patjaram.
It was because of him that she had felt all her little jealousies, when
her girl-friends told her that he was in love with this one or carrying
on with that one; because of him she would always know those jealousies
great and small, her whole life long. He would be her life, Patjaram
her world, sugar her interest, because it was Addie's interest. Because
of him she would long for many children, very many children, who would
be really brown: not white, like papa and mamma and Theo, but brown,
because her own mother was brown; and she herself was a delicate brown,
while Addie was a beautiful bronze colour, a Moorish brown; and, after
the example set at Patjaram, her children, her numerous children,
would be brought up in the shadow of the factory, in an atmosphere of
sugar, with a view to their planting the fields, when they grew up,
and milling the sugar-cane and restoring the fortunes of the family
to their former brilliancy. And she was as happy as a girl in love
could imagine herself to be, seeing her ideal, Addie and Patjaram,
so closely attainable and not for a second realizing how her happiness
had come about, through the word which Léonie, almost unconsciously,
had uttered, as though by autosuggestion, at the supreme moment. Oh,
now she need no longer seek the dark corners, the dark rice-fields
with Addie; now she was constantly kissing him in broad daylight,
leaning radiantly against him, feeling his warm, virile body, which
was hers and would soon be hers entirely; now her eyes yearned up
to him, for all to see, for she no longer had the maidenly power of
hiding her feelings from others; now he was hers, hers, hers!
And he, with the good-natured surrender of a young sultan, suffered
her to caress his shoulders and knees, suffered her to kiss him and
stroke his hair, suffered her arm around his neck, accepting it all as
a tribute due to him, accustomed as he was to that feminine tribute of
love, he who had been fondled and caressed from the time when he was a
little, chubby boy, from the time when he was carried by Tidjem, his
babu, who was in love with him, from the time when he used to romp,
in his little pyjamas, with little sisters and cousins, all of whom
were in love with him. All this tribute he accepted good-naturedly,
though secretly surprised and shocked by what Léonie had done.... And
yet, he argued, it would perhaps anyhow have happened of itself,
some day, because Doddie was so fond of him. He would rather have
remained unmarried: though unmarried, he nevertheless had all the home
life at Patjaram that he wanted and retained his liberty to bestow
abundant love upon women, in his good-natured way. And he was already
ingenuously reflecting that it would not do, that it would never do to
remain faithful to Doddie long, because he was really too good-natured
and the women were all so crazy. Doddie must get used to it later
on, must learn to accept it; and, he reflected, after all, in Solo,
in the palace, it was the same thing, with his uncles and cousins....
Had Van Oudijck believed what Léonie said? He himself did not know
whether he did or not. Doddie had accused Léonie of being in love with
Addie; Theo, that morning, when Van Oudijck asked him where Léonie was,
had answered, curtly:
"At Mrs. van Does' ... with Addie."
He had glared at his son, but asked no further questions; he had
merely driven straight to Mrs. van Does' house. And he had actually
found his wife with young de Luce, found him on his knees before her;
but she had said so quietly:
"Adrian de Luce is asking me for your daughter's hand."
No, he himself did not know whether he believed her or not. His wife
had answered so quietly; and now, during the first few days of the
engagement, she was so calm, smiling just as usual.... He now for
the first time saw that strange side of her, that invulnerability,
as though nothing could harm her. Did he suspect, behind this wall
of invulnerability, the ironical feminine secrecy of her silently
smouldering inner life? It was as though, with his recent nervous
suspicion, with his restless mood, in the rankness of superstition that
led him to pry and listen to the haunting silence, he had learnt to
see around him things to which he had been blind in his burly strength
as a ruler and high and mighty chief official. And his longing to make
certain of the mysteries at which he was guessing became so violent,
in his morbid irritability, that he grew more pleasant and kinder to
his son, though this time it arose not from the spontaneous paternal
affection which, when all was said, he had always felt for Theo, but
from curiosity, to hear all that he had to say, to make Theo speak
out. And Theo, who hated Léonie, who hated his father, who hated Addie,
who hated Doddie, in his general hatred of all those about him, who
hated life with the stubborn ideas of a fair-haired Eurasian, longing
for money and beautiful women, angry because the world, life, riches,
happiness--as he pictured it to himself in his petty fashion--did
not come rushing to him, falling into his arms, falling on his neck:
Theo was willing enough to squeeze out his words drop by drop, like
gall and wormwood, silently revelling in the sight of his father's
suffering. And he allowed Van Oudijck to divine, very gradually,
that it was true, after all, about mamma and Addie.
In the intimacy that sprang up between the father and son out of
suspicion and hatred, Theo spoke of his brother in the compound, said
that he knew papa sent him money and therefore acknowledged that the
thing was true. And Van Oudijck, no longer certain, no longer knowing
the truth, admitted that it might be so, admitted that it was so. Then,
remembering the anonymous letters--which had only lately ceased, since
he had been sending money to that half-caste who ventured to assume
his name--he also remembered the libels which he had often read in
them and which, at the time, he had always cast from him as so much
filth; he remembered the two names, those of his wife and of Theo
himself, which had so constantly been coupled in them. His distrust
and suspicion blazed up like flames, like a now inextinguishable fire,
which scorched every other thought or feeling ... until at last he was
no longer able to restrain himself and spoke roundly to Theo on the
subject. He did not trust Theo's indignation and denial. And he now
trusted nothing and nobody, he distrusted his wife and his children
and his officials; he distrusted his cook....