Small Souls Part 26

[13] The great mistress, or great mem-sahib, used of the wives of residents and other high officials.

[14] The old great mem-sahib.

[15] The governor-general's mem-sahib. Bogor is the native name of Buitenzorg, in Java, which contains the governor-general's palace.

[16] The native skirt, or garment wound tightly round the loins, and sleeved jacket, forming a costume which is worn pretty generally as an indoor dress by European ladies in Java.

[17] The young gentleman.

[18] Broth, pap.

CHAPTER XVII

The furniture arrived from Brussels; and Constance found it delightful to arrange her house near the Woods. She had never expected to be so happy, just because she was back in her own country and among her family-circle. It was April, but it was still winter: a chill, damp winter, which seemed never to have done raining; above the Woods and the Kerkhoflaan, the heavy clouds were for ever gathering, sailing up as though from a mysterious cloud-realm, spreading the sorrowful tints of the lowland skies over the atmosphere, hanging everlastingly like a beautiful, leaden-hued melancholy of lilac grey, sometimes with the coppery glow of a light that always gleamed very faintly and never conquered, but just shone like copper in between the grey; and the endless rain clattered down, the endless wind howled through the bare trees, the endless clouds pushed and drove along, borne on the stormy squalls, as though there were an endless combat overhead, a cloud-life of which men below knew nothing. It was a melancholy of day after day; and yet, strangely enough, it stirred Constance gratefully: she smiled at the clouds, the clouds of lilac streaked with glowing copper as though a distant conflagration were s.h.i.+ning through a watery mist; and very soon her house grew dear to her and she was glad that she lived in it. Addie was not going to school yet, but was working hard to pa.s.s his examination in July for the second cla.s.s in the grammar-school. He was having a few private lessons and, for the rest, studied zealously in his room, which, built out, with a bow-window and a little leaden, peaked roof, he grandiloquently called his turret-room. He had helped Constance to get settled: he had helped Van der Welcke with his room; and now he worked and slept between the rooms of his parents and separated them and, whenever it became necessary, united them.... Strange, this family-life in the little house, where the parents, through grudges and grievances heaped up for years, could hardly exchange the least word, could hardly even be silent, without a tension in both their faces and in both their souls; where every detail of domestic life--a piece of furniture displaced, a door opened or shut--at once led to a discord which turned the tension into an offence. The very least thing provoked a bitter word; a reproach flashed out on the instant; resentment was constantly boiling over. And amid it all was the boy, adored by both with a mutual jealousy that made their adoration almost morbid, each hoping simultaneously that the boy would now speak to him or her and award his caress to her or him; and, if this hope were disappointed, at once an averted glance, uncontrolled envy, a nervous discomfort that was almost a physical illness.... And, by a miracle that had become a forbearing and compa.s.sionate grace, the boy, who was still the child of their love, was only a little older, for all this everlasting discord, than his actual years; had only grown a little more serious, feeling himself, at a very early age, to be the mediator; and, now that he was a couple of years older, now that he was thirteen, accepted this mediation, almost unconsciously, as an appointed task and a bounden duty, with only very deep in his childish heart the ache of it all, that things were so, because he loved both his parents. At table, at both meals, the child talked and the two parents smiled, though they avoided each other's glances, though, to each other, their words were cruel and pitilessly cold. After lunch, it was always:

"Addie, what are you doing this afternoon?"

"I have to work, Mamma."

"Aren't you going out with me?"

"Well, then, at three o'clock, Mamma."

After dinner it was:

"Addie, my boy, what are you doing this evening?"

"I have to work, Papa."

"Aren't you coming for a cycle-ride with me first?"

"For an hour, Papa, that's all."

And it was always as though the parents, almost stupidly, kept the child from working, happy as long as he sat with him or her, walked with her or cycled with him. It was so many favours that he granted; and he granted them not as a spoilt child, but as a man: he divided his precious time systematically between his work and his father and mother, conscientiously allotting what was due to each. And Constance would have a moment of faint, smiling pride, as though in a victory gained, when the boy went out with her in the afternoon.

"Addie, must you always wear that hat?"

Then, to please her, he did not wear his Boer hat, but a bowler, so as to look nice when walking with Mamma. And she relaxed, talked to him; and he laughed back; and she could just take his arm and walked with evident pride on the arm of her little son. Paul always said that she flirted with him.... Then Van der Welcke, having nothing to keep him indoors, went out, went to the Witte, looked up his old friends: young fellows of the old days, but now, for the most part, portly gentlemen, filling important posts; he no longer felt at home with them, even when they talked of the days long past: Leiden, their youthful escapades, their young years. He felt, when with these men who filled important posts, that his life was spoilt, thanks to an irrevocable fault. And disconsolately he came home, from the Witte or from the Plaats, and was a little gloomy at dinner, until Addie succeeded in cheering him up.

Then, looking more brightly out of his frank, young, blue eyes, Van der Welcke asked:

"Addie, my boy, what are you doing this evening?"

He asked it as one asks a grown-up person, who makes an appointment or has an engagement; and the lad answered:

"I have to work, Papa."

"Aren't you going for a ride with me first?"

"For an hour, Papa, that's all."

Then Van der Welcke's face lighted up; and Constance reflected that she would be alone, all alone, sitting drearily at home, while the evening drew in. But the bicycles were brought out; and, like two schoolfellows, they spurted way: Van der Welcke suddenly brighter-looking, younger-looking; both, father and son, not tall, but well-built, st.u.r.dy and yet refined; their two faces, under the same sort of cap, resembling each other in that slightly heavy cast of feature: the short nose, the well-cut mouth, the square chin, the short, curly hair and the eyes of a happy blue, looking steadily along those roads in the Woods which sped under their devouring pedals; and they were like two brothers, they talked like two friends; and, just as Constance had done, that afternoon, Van der Welcke now let himself go in the evening, feeling, oh, so young and happy with his son-companion! On returning home, Addie would look in for a cup of tea with Mamma and afterwards go to his turret-room to work. And then Van der Welcke always had a pretext, just like a schoolboy, to go and sit with his son, instead of staying in his little smoking-room:

"Addie, my fire's gone out. Shall I be disturbing you if I come and sit in here?"

"No, Papa."

Or else:

"Addie, that wretched wind is blowing right against my window and there's a frightful draught in my room."

"Then come and sit in here, Papa."

The boy was never taken in, but remained very serious and went on working. And Van der Welcke settled himself quietly in the easy-chair, the only one in the room, with a book and a cigarette, and smoked and looked at his son. The boy, one-ideaed and persevering, worked on....

"He's an industrious little beggar," thought Van der Welcke; and he hardly dared move for fear of disturbing Addie. "He'll get through, this summer, though he was a bit behindhand.... One couldn't go on as we were doing at Brussels, with that outside tutor. It's just as well the boy came to Holland. He'll get through, he'll get through.... Four years at the grammar-school and then Leiden. And then he must enter the service.

It's lucky that Constance doesn't object. But will he himself consent? I should like to see my son make his way in the career which I ... Oh, it was a d.a.m.ned business, a d.a.m.ned business!... However, without Constance I should not have had Addie, my boy. And Papa too would like to see him go in for diplomacy. Papa was pleased with him too: I could see that. He will have money later; Papa and Mamma are still hale and hearty, but he will have money one of these days.... Just look at the boy working! And he is so serious, poor little beggar, owing to this confounded life at home.... Still, he's fond of us.... Look at him working. I never worked like that. He gets it from his grandfather; that seriousness also. He makes straight for his object. I was always more superficial, younger too. The poor kid doesn't know what it means to be young. He will never be young, never go off his head. Perhaps, though--who knows?--later, at Leiden, perhaps he will be really lively, really go off his head. I wish it him with all my heart, my boy, my little chap.... I wonder what he thinks of his parents? He knows that his mother married before she married his father; but what does he know besides? What does he think?

Does he judge us yet, that boy of mine? Will he condemn us later on? Oh, my boy, my boy, never throw up your life for a woman!... But it was a matter of honour, my father wished it.... Oh, Addie, may it never happen to you! But it shan't happen to you, my boy. There is something about him which makes me see that that sort of thing can never happen to him.

He will go far: wait and see if he doesn't!... What does he get from me and what from Constance? Difficult, this question of heredity. I always think of it when I look at him like this. He takes after me, physically.

That seriousness is his grandfather's. Now what does he get from the Van Lowes? Perhaps that tinge of melancholy he sometimes has. But he's a Van der Welcke, he's a regular Van der Welcke.... He's singularly well-balanced, that boy: what is harsh and rugged in Papa is ever so much softened in him. Perhaps that's from the Van Lowes.... It's enough for me to sit and look at him working. Constance doesn't know I'm here.

She thinks we are sitting apart, each in his own room.... How can the boy stick it, working so long on end? What is he working at? Greek? Yes, Greek: I can see the letters. I always used to get up a hundred times: a fly was enough to put me off; and I never really studied: I just crammed, prepared for my examination in a fortnight, helped by Max Brauws.... Brauws! What's become of that chap, I wonder? Oh, one's old friends!... I simply could not study. Without Max Brauws, I should never have got there.... Yes, what's become of him?... But this beggar studies so peacefully, so industriously. He's a dear boy.... Oh, if he only had more young people about him, bright, cheerful youngsters! If only it doesn't do him harm later: this gloomy boyhood between parents who are always squabbling.... I restrain myself sometimes, for his sake. But it's no use, no use.... Heavens, how the fellow's working! I think I'll just ask him something. Or no, perhaps I'd better not: he always puckers up his forehead so solemnly, as though I were the child, disturbing him, and he the father.... Well, I'd better have another cigarette...."

And Van der Welcke, through the clouds of his fourth cigarette, watched his son's back. In the light of the lamp on the table, the boy's curly young head bent over his books and exercises as fervently as though the Greek verbs were the world's salvation; and Van der Welcke, a little irritated by all this industry, all this peace, all this quietness for two hours on end, became jealous of the Greek verbs and, rising at last, unable to restrain himself, said suddenly, with his hand on Addie's shoulder and something parental in his voice, though it was not very firm:

"Don't work too long at a time, my boy."

CHAPTER XVIII

Or else Constance would say, after dinner:

"I'm going to Granny's: will you take me, Addie?"

But he was very just; it was Papa's turn:

"Mummy, I was out with you this afternoon."

"Well, what of that?"

"I'm going for a ride with Papa."

Then she turned pale with jealousy: