Small Souls Part 10

"Yes; and they are a very good family."

As it happened, the Dijkerhofs were not in quite the same set as the Van Lowes; and Mamma van Lowe was not over-enthusiastic about the engagement.

Constance was silent: she was tired, she had a headache and she thought that Adolphine had better keep the conversation going. But Adolphine was too much distracted by the bolero to be in form. She cast about for a subject. And yet there were plenty, for she was dying of curiosity to know all sorts of things: for instance, what Constance thought of Bertha and Cateau. If only that wretched bolero were not there! At last, she began:

"So you're looking for a house?"

Constance answered at random; and, because of her headache, her expression became stiff and haughty and her lips were tightly compressed. Adolphine thought her arrogant and reflected that Constance had always been stuck-up, after her marriage to De Staffelaer and all the smart society in Rome. Adolphine suspected Constance of looking down upon her; and Constance merely had a headache.

"And shall you call on many people?"

No, Constance thought not.

"Won't you go to Court?"

No, Constance hadn't given it a thought.

"Is your boy going to the high-school?"

No, he was to pa.s.s his examination for the grammar-school: Van der Welcke wanted him to go to one of the universities, later.

"What photographs are those?"

"Friends of ours, in Brussels."

"Had you many friends there?"

"Not so many, latterly."

Suddenly Constance' eyes met Adolphine's. And Constance did not see Adolphine's hateful hostility: Constance saw only her sister, four years younger than herself, but worn out by a tiresome, difficult life, a life full of money-bothers, full of trouble with spoilt, disagreeable children, receiving no a.s.sistance from her husband, Van Saetzema, who was chief clerk at the Ministry of Justice; Constance saw her sister, thin, yellow, eaten up with worry and bitterness, in her almost shabby and yet pretentious clothes. And, notwithstanding her raging headache, she was filled with pity, because Adolphine was her sister. She rose and went to Adolphine:

"Phine," she said, frankly, "don't be angry if I am not very talkative, but I have such a headache. And I really do think it nice of you to look me up. Come often. Let us see a lot of each other. I only came to the Hague because of you all. I wanted you so badly. I have dragged through so many dreary years. I have no one in my life, except my boy. And he is still so young; and I tell him too much as it is. I have been very unhappy, Adolphine, Phine. Be nice to me, be a little fond of your Constance. She did not always behave as she should, she did not always behave as she should. But forgive her, forgive her the past," she whispered, more softly, so that Addie should not hear. "Forgive her that past which is always there, which has never become the past for good and all. Forgive her ... and love her a little!"

She burst into nervous sobs and, impulsively, knelt down by her sister and laid her head on her breast and felt how poor and thin Adolphine was in her arms. A damp smell of rain was steaming from her muddy dress.

"Dear Constance!" said Adolphine, really touched. "Certainly, I care for you. And that past was so long ago: we have all of us forgotten about it."

But Constance sobbed and sobbed.

"Mamma!" said Addie.

She drew him to her also, held her sister and her boy in a close embrace.

"Come, Constance...."

"Mamma, don't cry.... You always have such a headache, Mummy, after crying like that."

She controlled herself, stood up; and Adolphine found a few kind words.

Adolphine was certainly touched, but she was cross about that bolero and, besides, she found Addie better-looking, more taking, almost, than any of her own three ugly, lubberly boys. However, she kissed Constance and arranged for Constance to come and take tea with her next evening.

When Constance was a little calmer and had laughed a little through her tears, Adolphine took her leave with a warm kiss:

"And I'll just leave Van Saetzema's card, shall I, Constance, here, by Karel's, for Van der Welcke? Then he'll get it when he arrives...."

She put down the card and, suddenly unable to restrain herself, went, as though in pa.s.sing, to the bolero, looked at it and said, in a voice that bore no resemblance to the envious thoughts that still smouldered in her heart:

"But, Constance!... Do you still wear those short little jackets?"

"Oh, they've been the fas.h.i.+on so long!" answered Constance, still thinking of the visiting-cards.

"Well, I don't know: they'd be too short for me, at my age, I think!"

Seeing that she was younger than Constance, the remark was not only unkind, but dishonest; and Adolphine, now satisfied, went away.

Constance stared at the two visiting-cards and suddenly burst out sobbing again.

Addie took her in his arms. He was already nearly as tall as she was:

"Mamma," he said, gently, with his resolute lad's voice, "don't cry so; and go and lie down a little. You have to go to Grandmamma's to-night; and you'll be too tired if you don't rest first."

And he helped her to take off some of her things and settled her pillows for her.

She lay on the bed, sobbing convulsively, without really remembering why.

The boy sat down by the window, near the console-table, and took up his book, a story of the Boer war. A movement of his arm sent the two cards over. He just glanced down at them, at those two pieces of paste-board formalism, let them lie on the carpet and went on reading....

CHAPTER VII

That evening, Constance played bridge, though her head was still very bad. At Mamma van Lowe's request, she had brought Addie with her; and he had joined his boy- and girl-cousins in their round games. Constance was playing with Bertha, Gerrit and Uncle Ruyvenaer.

"Constance," said Bertha, "you mustn't think me unkind for only coming once to see you--and when you were out too--but I am so busy. I have sent you your invitation to-day for the wedding-functions. You'll come, of course, won't you?"

Bertha was the eldest daughter, Mrs. van Naghel van Voorde; her husband was secretary for the colonies; in their house, Constance had at once felt something of her father's house, in the old days: a big family; a circle which took a faint colonial tinge from the presence of the great Indian officials home from Java. Van Naghel had made his career through the protection of his father-in-law, the late viceroy; and their set also just grazed the edge of the diplomatic world and, of course, included a number of the chief officials of the home government as well.

Although Constance had been only once, as yet, to their house, in the midst of the bustle of rehearsals for the wedding-theatricals, she at once felt something congenial there, something that was familiar to her, something of her former home: an atmosphere of distinction, of importance, which she had not known for many years past, but to which she yet felt herself drawn through the innate, instinctive vanity which she imagined was dead in her.

Constance was happy, though she still had a headache. Uncle Ruyvenaer was fussy but gay, because he was winning, with Gerrit for his partner.

Bertha and Constance, their thoughts both far from the cards, went on talking, played badly. Bertha was almost entirely grey, greyer even than Mamma van Lowe. She had a rather ceremonious face and resembled her father: she had his hard, stiff features, his hard, dark eyes, his thin lips. Her eyes were always blinking, as though she had a difficulty in seeing. And in her manner of talking there was something abstracted, as though she were always thinking of something else. She was well-dressed, simply, in good taste.

"I think it so nice that your house is a sort of replica of our old house, when we were children," said Constance.

"Yes," said Bertha. "What are trumps?"

"You went diamonds yourself," said Gerrit, the cavalry-captain, tall, broad-chested and fair. "Attend to your game, Sis."

"And you have a very busy home, I suppose, Bertha?"