Small Souls Part 38

And Constance also delighted in this simple household, especially since Gerrit had conceived a sort of pa.s.sion for her. Gerrit and Paul were her brothers now; and Dorine sulked a bit. She did not get on with Constance, she could not tell why. Constance had spoken so very nicely to her that first evening; and Dorine had helped Mamma, with all her heart, to prepare a cordial welcome for Constance among the brothers and sisters. But their natures were not made to harmonize; and Dorine was now muttering that Constance must always have men about her, that she got on best with Gerrit and Paul, who both paid court to her after a fashion. Her brothers had never paid court to her, Dorine, after any fashion. Yes, pretty women were always at an advantage, even with their own brothers. All she, Dorine, was good for was to trot about and run errands for the brothers and sisters. And yet it was very strange, but, since Bertha and Adolphine had been out of town and Dorine went oftener to Adeline's, she would ask of her own accord, "Adelientje, I'm going into town this afternoon: is there anything I can do for you?" and, when Adeline answered, "It's very sweet of you, Dorine, but really, there's nothing I want," Dorine would reply, "Well, just think again: I have to go into town, you see;" and then, if Adeline said, "Well, Dorine, if you're going in any case, would you look in at Schroder's for some pinafores for Adeletje and at Moller and Thijs' for shoes: they all want shoes," Dorine would go off at a trot and hurry, with her wide-legged, shuffling gait, to Schroder's and to Moller and Thijs', muttering to herself:

"When it's not Bertha or Adolphine, it's Adeline who manages to make use of me!"

"I think Gerrit a most companionable brother," said Constance, one evening, while Paul sat taking tea with her.

"Yes, he's a good sort, but he's queer."

"But why queer, Paul? You're always saying that and I have never taken any notice of it. Why is Gerrit queerer than Ernst or yourself?"

"Well, Ernst isn't normal either and I ... only just."

"But Gerrit, surely, is normal!"

"Perhaps. Perhaps he is. But sometimes I fancy he's not."

"But what does he do, what is there about him that's strange?" asked Constance, indignantly, like a true Van Lowe, defending her brother as soon as that brother was attacked.

"Gerrit has been married nine years. Formerly, he was a very lugubrious gentleman."

"Gerrit lugubrious!" Constance laughed heartily. "My dear Paul, your knowledge of human nature is deserting you. Gerrit, a healthy fellow, strong as a horse, an excellent officer, a jolly brother, a first-rate father with all his fair-haired little children: Gerrit lugubrious!

Where do you get that idea from? Oh, Paul, sometimes, from sheer love of paradox, you say such very improbable things!"

"You did not know Gerrit as he was, Constance."

"I knew him as a boy of fourteen, when we used to play in the river at Buitenzorg. Gerrit is still always flying into ecstasies about that time and my little bare feet! Then I knew Gerrit as a cadet and as a young subaltern, twenty years ago; and he was always pleasant and gay."

"And I remember Gerrit, ten years ago, lugubrious and melancholy."

"Oh, every one has an occasional mood! Perhaps he had an unhappy love-affair: why not Gerrit as well as another?"

"I may be wrong, of course."

"When I see Gerrit, in his big chair, with all those children climbing over his legs and chest, he looks to me the very personification of happiness. Oh, Paul, and I too, I too feel happy: I can't tell you, Paul, how happy I am to be back here in the Hague! And now, now you do all care for me a little again: even Adolphine was very nice lately, before she went away; and I am happy, I am so happy!"

"You have a very gentle, n.o.ble, pastoral nature, with a strong atavistic tendency!" said Paul, teasing her. "Look, here are your husband and your boy back with their bicycles, just like two brothers, an elder and a younger brother. They make a good pair. Now, if you're so happy, don't be jealous and try and remain as pastoral all the evening as you are at this moment ... even if your husband should enter the room presently!..."

CHAPTER XXVI

The old woman walked with slow steps along the paths of the garden, carefully examining each separate rose with her grey eyes. Her legs seemed to move with difficulty along the narrow gravel-paths that wound through the front-garden; and her frame was bent, as though deformed. In a wicker-work chair on the verandah sat the tall, old figure of the husband, his ivory forehead bulging above the pages of the newspaper which he held in his large, shrivelled hands....

Evening fell. A nameless grey melancholy fell from the pale summer sky over the country-roads, along which the peaceful villas faded into the shadows of their gardens. The old woman looked up at the sky, looked out over the road, with her hand shading her eyes, walked on again, slowly and painfully, carefully examining each separate rose.... Then she went back to the house:

"It is getting cold, Hendrik; don't stay out too long."

"No."

But the old man remained sitting where he was. The old woman went in, wandered through the sitting-room and the dining-room. She pa.s.sed her pocket-handkerchief lightly over the furniture, looking to see if there was any dust on it; and, as the parlour-maid had cleared the table, she pulled the cloth straight, put a chair into its proper place, smoothed away a crease in the curtain. She went into the conservatory, looked into the back-garden. Her sad grey eyes gazed out into the grey melancholy of the darkling night. The wind rose, moaned softly through the topmost twigs of the trees.

The old woman looked round at the old man, but he remained sitting in the wicker chair, lost in the great pages of his newspaper:

"Don't catch cold, Hendrik," she repeated, gently.

"I'm coming."

But the old man remained sitting where he was. Now the old woman wandered down the pa.s.sage, listened at the door of the kitchen and of a small back-room: voices sounded, the voices of the maids and the butler.

Then she went up the stairs, wandered through the bedrooms, wandered through the empty spare-rooms, with a sigh, because they never came.

Everything was neatly kept, hushed and quiet, as in a house that lacks life....

The old woman, bent and tottering, sighed, was restless. She wandered again through all the bedrooms and wearily made her way downstairs again, crossed the pa.s.sage, entered the living-room. The old man was seated there now; the windows into the garden were closed. He had folded up his paper and, seated by the window, was still gazing out to where the road of villas grew darker and darker in the chill dimness of the late-summer evening, now beginning to rustle with the rising wind. Then, stifling a sigh, the old woman sat down at the other window, wearily folded her hands, placed her tired feet side by side on a stool.

The room grew dark, the windows turned grey, just outlined by the curtains. The road was more and more blurred in the dimness of the windy night. A grey melancholy reigned without and a grey melancholy reigned within, with those two old people, each sitting silent at a window, lonely and forlorn, drearily sunk in their own thoughts. They sat thus for a long time, quietly, without a word. Then the old woman said:

"It is Henri's birthday to-morrow."

"Yes," said the old man. "He will be thirty-nine."

And they said nothing more and stared before them. Then the old woman grew, restless again and rose from her chair with difficulty, hobbled through the room, holding on by the chairs as she went, and rang the bell:

"Light the gas and bring in the tea, Piet."

The butler lit the gas, drew the curtains and brought the tea. The old man sat down at the table with a book; and the light fell harshly on his ivory forehead and his blue-shaven face; his gnarled, bony hands cast large shadows over the book, turned the pages at regular intervals.

"Here's your tea, Hendrik."

The old man drank his cup of tea.

Then the old woman also took her book and read....

Slowly, in the course of years, she had read her Bible less and less, because she was wicked after all and because she had never resigned herself to the sacrifice which she had made, which it was her duty to make, before G.o.d and man. Then she chanced on a wonderful book which described what happened to people after death. And this book she read every evening.

But she was unable to read, this evening. As a rule, the old pair read, over their cup of tea, till ten o'clock, in silence, and then got up and went to bed. But the old woman could not read this evening. Her aching feet fidgeted on the stool, her bent body moved in vague discomfort. And she asked, still casually, nervously:

"Will Henri be thirty-_nine_ to-morrow, Hendrik?"

"Yes."

She knew quite well that he would be thirty-nine, but she wanted to say it again, wanted to talk of her son. For fifteen long years, she had not seen him; and his birthdays, the anniversaries of the day on which she had borne him, her only child, had pa.s.sed while he was very far away, too far for her to reach him and take him in her arms. For many years, she had hoped:

"Now it will come, now it will come nearer."

But it had not come nearer. Until suddenly it was very near, until suddenly it was there. Now it was here, after long, long years; and yet it was not here, it was far away....

She could not read, got up, went out of the room, across the hall. The old man stared after her, went on reading. And it was as though her disquiet kept increasing, as though a voice--one of those voices of which she had read in that strange book--said to her: