Small Souls Part 24

Bertha came upstairs:

"Unpack it at once, Emilie, or the things will crease."

"Do you think it's my wedding-dress?"

"I expect so."

"Then it can go on the bed."

"No, it had better be hung in the wardrobe."

The servants opened the packing-case and produced cardboard boxes. A third maid entered:

"A bill from Van der Laan's, mevrouw."

"Marianne, here's my key-basket; just pay it, will you? It's sixty-six guilders."

The two Leiden boys came upstairs:

"Jolly beastly, I call it," said Frans. "You never find any one in the drawing-room, when you come home. Either it's a party, or else everything's upside down."

"Bless my soul, girls," said Henri, "look at the state your room's in!"

"I say, shall I help you unpack?"

"Mevrouw, I can't understand what the young mevrouw's _baboe_[10]

says...."

"_Mau apa_,[11] Alima?"

"_Njonja moeda_[12] asks if _njonja besar_[13] would mind coming upstairs," said the _baboe_, in Malay.

"Yes, I'll come at once."

"What are you all doing here?" asked Marietje, at the door. "Mamma, has Emilie's dress come? May I see?"

"If you please, mevrouw, the old mevrouw and Mrs. van der Welcke are downstairs.... Shall I ask them to wait in the drawing-room?"

"Granny!" shouted Frans over the bal.u.s.ters.

"Half a moment!" said Henri, rushing down the stairs. "I'll fetch Granny and Auntie."

Marianne began sobbing again:

"My dear child, what's the matter now?" exclaimed Bertha.

"I'm going mad!" cried Marianne.

Emilie kissed her.

Old Mrs. van Lowe came slowly up the stairs, gallantly escorted by her grandson, and was met on the landing by her other grandson.

"Granny, Emilie's wedding-dress has come and she's going to try it on!"

cried Marietje, excitedly.

"Am I in the way?" asked Constance.

"No, of course not, Constance," said Bertha.

"Come in."

All the doors of the boudoir and bedroom were open. Louise came in--she usually kept out of the way at busy times--and, together with Bertha and the lady's maid, shook out the white dress, which straightway filled the whole room with a snowy whiteness....

"What is it, _baboe_?" asked Mrs. van Lowe. "_Njonja moeda_ asks if _njonja besar_ would come upstairs," repeated the _baboe_. "But perhaps if the _kandjeng njonja besar_[14] could come...." she added, piling on the t.i.tles out of respect for the old lady, who had once been the _njonja besar Bogor_.[15]

"Then I'll go up," said the old lady. "Constance, will you come too?..."

Very slowly, a little tired after the stairs, the old lady climbed up, with her hand on the bal.u.s.ter-rail. Constance followed her. On the top floor, there was a sudden draught; doors slammed.

"_Baboe_.... Is there a window open?"

The _baboe_ ran about stupidly, unfamiliar as yet with Dutch doors and windows.

In a sitting-room, they found Frances, Otto's wife, with the two children.

"But, Frances, you've got a window open!"

"Oh, Grandmamma, I was suffocating!"

"_Baboe_, shut the window at once! Frances, how could you!"

"I can't, _kandjeng_!" sighed the _baboe_, pressing with the strength of a gnat on the bars of the solid Dutch window.

Constance helped her, pushed down the window.

"This is Aunt Constance, who has come to make your acquaintance, Frances. But Frances, you're still in your _sarong_ and _kabaai_!"[16]

"Isn't that allowed, Granny? How d'ye do, Aunt?"

"Child, how Indian you've become in these few years!" cried the old lady, angrier than Constance remembered ever seeing her. "How is it possible, how is it possible! Have you forgotten Holland? In March, with the window open, in a tearing draught, with both the children, you in _sarong_ and _kabaai_ and Huig in a little shirt! Do you want to kill yourself and the children? _Baboe_, put a _baadje_ on _sinjo_![17]

Frances, Frances, I spent years and years in India, but even in India I was nearly always dressed; and, when I came back to Holland, I had not forgotten Holland in the way in which you, a purely Dutch girl, have forgotten it in these few years!"

The old woman had taken the child on her own lap and was dressing it more warmly.

"Grandmamma, how you're grumbling.... It'd be better if you told cook to make Ottelientje's _boeboer_[18] properly: the child can't eat that starch they give her. And she told _baboe_ that she had no time to cook it differently. The whole house has gone mad because Emilie is getting married. We really can't stay here, on the top floor at Papa and Mamma's."

"Frances, dress yourself first, or I shall get really angry."