Dr. Adriaan Part 45

"To talk to him too much ... while you're in your present frame of mind.

If you're feeling unhappy, dear, about one thing or another ... speak to Addie."

"I've spoken to him so often."

"Confide in him."

"I have."

"And not ... not in Johan Erzeele."

Mathilde's eyes blazed:

"Mamma ... you haven't the right!"

"Yes, dear, I _have_! I not only have the right to tell you this as Addie's mother, but above all I have the right because I understand you, because I am able to understand you, because I remember my own wretchedly unhappy years of despair, as a young married woman, unsatisfied, unhappy, desperate, though for other reasons, alas, than those between you and Addie!... Because I remember all this, Mathilde, because I can never forget, just because I remember, because I now remember how I used to talk ... to Papa while I was married to my poor old husband ... how I used to talk to Papa ... and try to find consolation in those talks ... and how we worked ourselves up with those talks until ... oh, Mathilde, oh, Mathilde, let me tell you all about it!... Let me tell you all about it, quite simply, even though you know, so that I may have the right to speak to you. I used to talk to Papa ...

and we fell in love with each other ... we _thought_ we loved each other...."

"And, if you thought so, why didn't you?"

"Because it wasn't true, dear, because it wasn't a burning fire of feeling, because it was an unreal feeling, arising from unreal words between a young woman and a young man until ... until all those talks drove them into each other's arms ... and the awful thing became irrevocable."

"Mamma!"

"I am telling you everything, dear...."

"I know everything, Mamma. But you say you used to have unreal talks with Papa."

"Yes."

"I talk _simply_ to Johan."

"My dear, my dear, it's not that. I, I myself was unreal ... in those days ... in my feelings, which came out of books which I had read. Papa used to answer ... out of those same books. You ... you are different: you _are_ simple; Erzeele, a friend of your childhood, is simple, a simple-minded fellow; your talks are bound to be different."

"Our talks are simple."

"But, when I came in, I saw that you were talking confidentially, intimately, intimately and eagerly ... and that he was holding your hand, holding your two hands."

"Yes, you saw that: he was consoling me."

"That's exactly what he mustn't do. That's exactly what he mustn't be allowed to do. Oh, Mathilde, I am an old woman and I am your mother, especially now that you have no mother of your own, and I am Addie's mother ... and I understand, I understand everything ... because I myself have suffered so much...."

"Addie's coming downstairs, Mamma."

"Promise me, dear ... to be careful."

"I ... I will be careful."

"And forgive me, forgive me for everything that I have dared to say.

Kiss me. Oh, I long so intensely ... for you and Addie to be happy again!"

She took Mathilde in her arms, pa.s.sionately, and kissed her twice, three times.

Addie entered.

"I'm ready, Mamma. The carriage is waiting."

"I'm coming, I'm coming, my boy."

CHAPTER XXV

Summer came suddenly: fine, sunny days followed one after the other, all the windows in the big house were opened and the summer seemed to enter and drive everything of winter out of the open windows. The spreading garden became closely leaved with a green and gold triumph of dense foliage which, lightly stirred by the wind, cast shadows over the pond, with a play of alternating flecks of light and shade. Van der Welcke, strolling along the paths, found pleasure in watching Klaasje, the big girl of thirteen, tearing round the water, pursued by Jack, the new terrier, who barked and barked incessantly with his sharp, throaty bark.

"She is still just like a child," thought Van der Welcke, "and she is developing like a little woman. It is strange, the influence which Addie has over her ... and the way the child is perking up now that the fine days have come. But it is not only the fine days, it is Addie above all that gives her this balance: what's it through, I wonder? Purely through his influence, through a sort of healing magic that flows from him....

It is very strange. The other day, I had a terrible headache; and, when he came and just gave me a little ma.s.sage, it was gone, quite.... And the way the fellow has succeeded in developing the child's mind, with those picture-books, with those coloured things: it's as though he wanted to affect her by means of colours and glitterings and I don't know what. In any case, it came off; she is really learning her lessons very well; and everything she says is more reasonable and sensible.

It's as though she were catching herself up.... Yes, amuse yourself, child.... Look, how wildly excited she is with that dog, like a real child; she's enjoying the fine weather; she's just like a child of nature; and she looks well too: she'll grow into a pretty girl, though she's a trifle heavily built.... She no longer has that stupid look in her eyes; and there's something kind and genuine about her ... in her behaviour towards old Mamma and Ernst, something motherly and understanding combined, as if she felt she had something in common with their clouded minds. ... It's jolly to look at the child, to see her sprouting and blossoming, exactly like a plant that is now receiving just the right light and just the right amount of water ... and yet she owes it all to Addie and will very likely never know that she owes it to him.... Yes, the fellow wields a wonderful influence.... Alex is keeping his end up now in Amsterdam and seems to be losing some of his melancholia since Addie has been talking to him so regularly: poor chap, he was ten years old when he saw his father lying dead in all that blood; and it affected him for all time!... We were right to take all those children to live with us: that sort of thing gives a man an object in life, even me, though I myself do nothing, though it's Constance and Addie who act. I feel a certain satisfaction, even though I just let them do as they please.... Who would ever have thought that it would become like this, the big, lonely house, where Father and Mother lived so very long and sadly by themselves, now so full, as a refuge for Constance' family? It turned out so strangely, so very strangely.... Oh, if my boy were only happier!... Who would have thought that he, he who has everything in his favour, should go falling in love with a woman who cannot make him happy? I am always thinking about it. I get up with it, I go to bed with it; I see the two of them in the smoke of my cigarette; and I am beginning to worry and worry about it: a proof that I'm getting old.... And I can see that Constance also worries about it, that the thought of Addie ... and that woman is always, always with her ... oh, everything might have turned out so happily!... But it was not to be, it was not to be.... A lovely summer morning like this almost makes a fellow melancholy.... Yes, it makes you melancholy because you know for certain that it won't long remain so, that calmness in the air, that beautiful clear sky, that green and gold of the trees, and that it will soon become different, soon become different, full of sadness and of gloomy things."

He suddenly spread out his arms, for Klaasje, pursued by the dog, came rushing down the path in his direction without seeing him, as it were blinded by the game which she was playing.

"Uncle Henri, Uncle Henri, let me go! Jack will catch me!"

"Mind and don't tumble into the water," Van der Welcke warned her; but she had already released herself from his arms and was running on, with the dog after her.

"She's gone wild," he thought, "wild with the joy of life. She is beginning to wake up, physically and mentally. It is as though a twilight were withdrawing from her, a twilight which is beginning to steal over me. What is the matter with me? What do I feel? Oh, I long to go bicycling, to go for a long spin ... but Addie's not here; and, even when he is, he has no time, and Guy's working!... Suppose I asked Gerdy: she's fond of a little run."

He went in, through the conservatory: the old woman was sitting there, staring quietly out of the window; Adeletje was busy with the plants.

"Well, Mummie, how are you? What do you say to this fine weather?"

"What?"

"What do you say, Mum, to this fine weather?"

The old lady nodded her head contentedly:

"Lovely, lovely," she said. "The wet monsoon is over. But tell Gertrude ... to be careful ... of the river ... behind the Palace."

Her voice sounded like a voice from the past and spoke of things of the past.

"Where is Gerdy?" Van der Welcke asked Adeletje.

"In the drawing-room. Uncle Paul's in there, playing."

He heard the piano: Paul was improvising. Van der Welcke found Gerdy leaning over the back of her chair, very pale.