Small Souls Part 16

"Mind you bear up, Mummy, presently...."

And, the nearer they approached, the quieter they became: Henri in his newspaper; she staring through the window; while Addie himself found nothing more to say and sat quite still, with his hands in the pockets of his little great-coat. No, she could never forget that those two old people had taken thirteen years, not to accept her as their daughter, but to look upon her child as their grandchild. During all that time, not a letter, not an attempt at reconciliation: a complete silence, an absolute death towards their only son, towards their only grandson. She was not thinking of herself; she asked for no affection from them, only for cold civility. She felt so much resentment, so much resentment that, when she thought of it, she almost choked. And, over and above, came the crushing consciousness that she had to be grateful because those parents had sacrificed their son to her, as they had once said; because they had insisted that Henri should marry her, even though it shattered his career. And that, that was what she could never forgive, because it had always wounded, because it still wounded her vanity.

She would have been grateful, for her son's sake, if they had decided that Henri, after a retirement of some years, relying on his influential connections, should resume his career, with her by his side. De Staffelaer had left the diplomatic service, was living at his country-place near Haarlem; and they could never have met him abroad except by some extraordinary coincidence.... No, that she never would and never could forgive them, because of her wounded vanity; it was that which caused the bitterness that almost choked her: the "sacrifice,"

Henri's career shattered through her. Had she not for five years been the wife of the Netherlands minister at Rome? Had she not filled her position with tact, with grace, even with consummate knowledge of the world, until the Dutch colony praised her _salons_ above those of the other Netherlands legations abroad? Had she not taken pride in that reputation, taken pleasure in the fact that the Dutch colony and Dutch travellers found something in her dinners and receptions that reminded them of Holland and home? How often had she not been told, "Mevrouw, with you, in Rome, everything is most charming, especially when compared with this place and that;" her countrymen used often to complain to her of the dulness and stiffness and exclusiveness of so many of their legations. Would she not have been in her right place by Van der Welcke's side, even though people might talk and cavil at first, because, she, the divorced wife of a minister plenipotentiary, had afterwards married the youngest secretary in the service! But she would have shown tact, it would have been forgotten, it would have subsided into the past. She refused to believe but that all this would have been possible, not for any one else, perhaps, but certainly for her. And this was her grievance, that those two old people--and Henri with them--had never been able to see this as she did; that they had given her their son, with an allowance that meant poverty--two alms for which she was expected to be grateful!--but had left her and him and their child in Brussels, in a corner, like some unnamable disgrace! No, that was a thing which she could never forgive, never, never, never!

She was so deep in her thoughts that she did not notice that the train had stopped and that they had arrived at Zeist-Driebergen.

"Mamma!" said Addie, softly.

She started, turned pale. But she was resolved to control herself, to be dignified, to show those old people that she was not a worthless woman, even though she had committed a mistake, a false step in her life: very well, a sin, if they pleased, because she had loved. Addie helped her to alight; and her gloved fingers trembled in his firm little hand. But she was resolved not to give way: she must keep quite calm; yes, she would be calm and dignified above all....

"There's the carriage," said Henri, in a stifled voice.

He recognized the very old carriage of years ago. He even recognized the old coachman, who looked at him and touched his hat. The footman who opened the carriage-door was a youth, whom he did not know. And the coachman, as an old servant, bent over to him and, in a quavering voice, using the old t.i.tle, said:

"Morning, jonker. Good-morning, mevrouw."

"How are you, Dirk?" said Henri, in a dull voice.

They settled themselves in the carriage. And Constance saw that Henri was setting his lips, gritting his teeth and clenching his jaws, as though with a violent effort to stop himself from crying like a child.

Now and then he shivered, nervously, and stared out of the window. He recognized the villas on either side of the road, looking so melancholy in the middle of the bleak March gardens that stretched hazily in the damp mist; he noticed how much had been pulled down to make way for new houses. How changed it was! What a lot had been built lately! But yet there was something under those great cloudy skies, heavy with eternal rain, in that road, in the gardens of those villas: something of the old days, something of his childhood, something of the time when he was young. He felt like an old man coming home again: he, scarcely eight-and-thirty! It was as though he were ashamed in the presence of the familiar! And, very secretly, too weak to accuse himself, he accused her, the woman sitting beside him, the woman four years older than himself. He too was thinking of Rome now, of the rooms of the Netherlands Legation, of her, then Mrs. de Staffelaer, the wife of his chief, of their love-affair, first in jest, then in earnest, until that terrible moment in the room where they used to meet; De Staffelaer in the doorway; Constance fleeing through another door; and his interview with the injured old man, who had been good to him, in a fatherly fashion! And he blamed her for it: it was her fault! He was a young man then, with hardly any knowledge of the world; she, a woman of twenty-eight, married for over five years, had enticed him, had been the temptress! It was she, it was she: he blamed her for it! He had not loved her at first, during the first stages of the flirtation. There had been a chat, a waltz, a jest. Yes, then it had turned to pa.s.sion; but what was pa.s.sion? The flame of a moment, flaring up and then extinguished. And he knew it: from that day, when he stood as a culprit in the presence of that dignified old man, from that day the flame was extinguished. And from that day he began to see the life that lay before him: the scandal, which filled all Rome; the despair of his pious parents, far away at home, in Holland; Constance in Florence: their first interview there, himself yielding to his parents' wishes and asking her to be his wife, to marry him in England as soon as the divorce was granted. Since then, he had always seen his fate hanging before him; and it had crushed him, so weak, so small.... Amid the wretchedness, amid the ruin of his young life, beside that woman in whom he, who did not take blame to himself, never lost sight of the worldly-wise temptress four years older than he, beside that woman, the eternal obstacle, and amid that wretchedness, the only grace had been the child. That which might have increased the misery had been the mercy, from the first moment that he set eyes on it, little, red morsel that it was: the darling child; the child that was his, though the fruit of their misery; the child that, as it grew older, became his comfort; the child that felt with its little hands over his face and in his hair; the child that said "Daddy;" the child that he smothered in his arms!

The child, her child, it was true, but his child also: his child, his son, growing up and soon becoming the little moderator between them and the reason, also, why they remained together; the child, growing up to boyhood and, without understanding or knowing, still feeling the eternal struggle, the eternal misery, until its eyes became more grave and it felt that it was the moderator and the comforter. The child, there it sat, opposite him: his handsome, st.u.r.dy boy, who looked like him, with the fixed, earnest, gentle eyes; and he was now going to show him to his parents: her child, it was true, the fruit of their misery, but his child and their grandson.

The boy glanced from his father to his mother. They both sat opposite him and both silently looked out of the window, half-turning their backs upon each other. The boy would so gladly have taken their hands, the hands of both of them, and said something: a word to unite them at this moment, which he felt to be very serious; but he did not know the word, cleverly though he knew how to talk as a rule. He glanced from his father to his mother, from his mother to his father; and they, they did not look, dared not look at him, feeling his glance and filled to overflowing with their own thoughts. Then the boy felt life sinking very heavily, like a weight, upon his small breast. He drew a very deep breath, under the heavy weight, and his breath was a deep sigh.

They both now looked up, looked at their child. Henri would have liked to throw out his arms, to feel his child at his heart; but the carriage now turned through a gate and drove along a front garden of rounded lawns, in which the rose-bushes, swathed in straw, stood waiting for the spring.

CHAPTER XI

They stepped from the carriage; the hall-door opened. The curtains of the front room shook slightly, as though with the trembling touch of an old hand; but there was no one in the hall to receive them except the butler who had opened the door.

Then Constance said:

"Henri, you go in first. I'll come presently, with Addie, when you call me...."

He looked at her, hesitating to say that he himself wished to go in with Addie. But she had laid her hand on the boy's shoulder and looked at Van der Welcke so steadily that he understood that she would not consent.

And he went in, staggering like a drunken man, went into the room where the window-curtains had trembled.

The butler retired, not knowing what to do. And Constance sat down on the oak settle and drew Addie beside her. So she was meekly waiting in the hall, waiting the pleasure of her father- and mother-in-law; but it was of her own will that she waited now, after waiting nearly fourteen years for a word that would have called her to them. With a woman's delicacy, she had let Henri go in first to his parents; but she had set her mind upon taking her boy to his grand-parents herself. It was for her to do that; she insisted on her privilege, her right.... Henri's hesitation had not escaped her; but she had laid her hand upon her son's shoulder, as though taking possession of him.

She did not know how long she waited, but it seemed very long; and she had time to see every detail of the hall: the oak wainscoting; the three or four family-portraits; a couple of old engravings of city-views; the Delft jugs on an antique cabinet; the staircase leading to the floor above; the oak doors of the rooms, which remained silent and closed. She saw the pattern of the tiles in the pa.s.sage and the colours of the wide strip of Deventer carpet.... Then, at last, the door of the front room opened and an old man appeared. Constance rose. The old man had Henri's features, but more deeply furrowed, and his clean-shaven upper lip fell in; his straight nose was more prominent and his ivory forehead arched high above a scanty fringe of iron-grey hair. His eyes looked out blue and hard, as Henri's eyes looked out. He was tall, Henri was short; his shoulders were broad and bent in the long, dark coat, Henri was square and straight. His hands were long, wrinkled and bony and they trembled; and Henri's hands were short and broad.... She made her comparison in two or three seconds, standing with her hand on her son's shoulder. Then the old man said:

"Come in, Constance...."

She went, gently pushing Addie before her, and they entered the room.

She saw an old woman, with a large face that in no way reminded her of Henri. The grey hair, parted in the middle, was set severely in a silver-stiff frame; her complexion was yellow and waxen; her dark-grey eyes were full of tears, and peered painfully through that misty haze.

Her figure was bent in the dark stuff dress; her legs seemed to move with difficulty; and her stooping body was almost deformed. She was holding Henri's hand....

"Constance," the old woman began; and her trembling hands were raised as though for an embrace.

"Here is your grandson," said Constance, stiffly.

She pushed Addie a little nearer. The boy looked out of his steady eyes, which were the eyes of Henri and of the old man, and said:

"How do you do, Grandpapa and Grandmamma?"

In the large, sombre room, his voice sounded dull and yet firm. The old woman and the old man looked at the boy; and there was an oppressive silence. They looked at the boy, and they were so struck with amazement that they could not find a word to say. The old woman had taken Henri's hand again; and the tears flowed from her eyes. Henri's jaws grated and he shuddered, nervously:

"That's my boy," he said.

"So that is Adriaan," said the old woman, trembling, and her embrace, which had not reached Constance, now closed upon the child. He kissed her in his turn; and then the old man also embraced him and the child kissed him back.

"Hendrik," said the old woman. "Hendrik, how like ... how like Henri, when he was that age!"

The old man nodded gently. The past was coming back to the old people; and it was as if they saw their own son when he was thirteen. They were so much surprised at this that they could only stare at the boy, as though they did not believe their eyes, as though it were some strange dream.

Constance stood stiffly and said nothing. But the old woman now said:

"It is a great pleasure to us to see you here, Constance."

Constance tried to smile:

"You are very kind," she said, pleasantly.

"But do sit down," said the old woman, trembling, and she pointed to the chairs.

They all sat down; and Henri made an effort to talk naturally, about Driebergen. The past that lay between them was so high-heaped that it seemed as though they were never to approach one another across this obstacle. So many words that should have been spoken had remained unspoken, for the sake of an harmonious silence, that silence itself became a torture; and so many years were piled between the parents and the children that it seemed impossible for them now to reach one another with words. The words fell strangely in the sombre room, which looked out upon the March garden and upon the road paling away in the vague mists; the words fell like things, strangely, like hard, round things, material things, and struck against one another like marbles clashing together....

It was the painful talking on indifferent topics that was almost impossible. For the words constantly struck against things of the past, things painful to the touch; and there were no indifferent topics. When Henri said that Driebergen was very much changed, he was referring to his many years of absence. When Constance made a remark about Brussels, she was referring to her long residence there, during which her husband's parents had refused to see her and looked upon her as a disgrace. When they spoke of Addie's life as a small child, it was as though they two, the father and the mother, were reproaching the grandparents. There were no indifferent topics; and a despairing gloom hung between the old people and the child, because they could not reach the child across their son and their daughter-in-law.... Outside, the wind rose, howling; the heavy grey clouds descended upon them like a damp mist; and the rain clattered down. Henri had thought of asking his father to take him into the garden, to see if he still recognized it, but the pelting rain prevented him; and he saw nothing but his mother's tears. In his heart, he laid these to his wife's charge. The past was piled up as a wall between each soul and its neighbour.

The boy felt it. He felt his breathing oppressed with all that gloom; and again and again he wanted to sigh, but he kept back his sighs. He did not know what to say; and he gave his grandparents the impression of a quiet, subdued child, who was not happy. They spoke to him too as old people do to a child, with condescending kindness, pointing out the little things in the room. The boy, who was accustomed to be a man standing between his two parents, answered nothing except in shy monosyllables.

Henri and Constance avoided looking at each other; and each of them, even in the same conversation, talked as it were separately to the old people. They were to stay to lunch--the old-fashioned Dutch "coffee-drinking"--and return at five o'clock to the Hague. The butler came to say that luncheon was served and pushed back the sliding doors.

The dining-room lay on this side of the great, closed conservatory, a gloomy shadow in the pale daylight that streaked in through the rain; and the mahogany furniture gleamed with reflected lights, the table shone white and gla.s.sy. They sat down: difficult words fell now and again and sounded hard in the somewhat chilly room. The old woman with much ceremony offered a soft-boiled egg, or a tongue-sandwich which lay neatly arranged with its fellows on a tray. She herself filled the small china coffee-cups. It all lasted very long, was all very solemn and proper, with much formality about the egg and the sandwich. Addie felt as if he could easily swallow both the egg and sandwich in one gulp; and he had to restrain himself in order to eat the egg slowly and neatly in little spoonfuls and to chew the sandwich with little bites, so as not to finish too soon nor deprive the table of its excuse for being so elaborately laid. He was not sure whether he was still hungry or not when Grandmamma offered him a second sandwich; but he took it, because otherwise he would not have known what to do with his hands. He sat like a small, stiff little boy, shyly; and, when he looked up at his father, it seemed to him that he too was sitting as if he had eaten his sandwich too fast. Grandmamma herself b.u.t.tered his bread for him and offered it to him, ready cut into strips. He ate the narrow fingers with a great effort at self-control.

It lasted endlessly long; and the table remained white, bare and neat, now that the sandwiches were finished; the empty coffee-cups gave the only touch of untidiness: the broken, yellowy egg-sh.e.l.ls Grandmamma had put away on the sideboard. When they rose, Grandpapa asked Henri to come and smoke a cigar in his study; Grandmamma stayed in the sitting-room with Constance and Addie. On the road outside, the rain splashed in the puddles.

Constance felt a stranger in this house. Nevertheless, her mood became softer, because the old woman's eyes, in the stiff, silver-framed face, were still sad and constantly filled with tears. She was very sensitive to any emotion in another; and, though she fought against it, she herself felt moved. She wanted to talk to this grandmother about her grandson; and so she said how clever he was, how good to his parents.

Mrs. van der Welcke nodded good-naturedly, but continued to look upon Addie as a child, while Constance was talking of him as man. The old woman did not fully grasp the meaning of Constance' words, but the sound of them increased her emotion. She called Addie to her side, said that he must come and stay with them in the summer: it was delightful in the country then, for games. The boy had it on his lips to say that his parents could not do without him; but he felt that his words would sound strange and elderly and priggish. And he only said, very prettily:

"I should like to, Grandmamma."

He played at being a little child, because Grandmamma happened to look upon him as one. Really he was thinking of something very different, thinking of the houses which he had seen yesterday with Papa and Mamma and which his parents could not agree upon, in any particular: the neighbourhood, the division of the rooms. Because he knew that the hotel was expensive and that both Papa and Mamma would become less fidgety once they had a house, he thought of cutting the Gordian knot and going by himself to the owner of a nice house near the Woods, not so very far from Granny van Lowe's. If he didn't interfere, it would be weeks and weeks before Papa and Mamma made up their minds. He knew that to take a house was a very serious matter, but he also knew that Papa and Mamma would never agree. He must needs, therefore, risk something and he would hope for the best, hope that all would turn out well.