Small Souls Part 40

"I am so delighted to make your acquaintance, mevrouw...."

Yes, they asked, without saying so, they asked each other's forgiveness for the offence which their two children had committed, years and years ago, against each other and against themselves and against their lives.

They asked each other's forgiveness with the unspeakable gentleness of two very old women who still looked upon their children, whatever their age might be, as children, as their children. They asked each other's forgiveness without words, with a glance and a pressure of the hands; and Constance understood so plainly what they were asking each other that she quietly left the room, feeling suddenly like a child, a tiny child that had behaved badly towards those two mothers.... Constance felt it so intensely that she went by herself, through the dining-room, into the conservatory and wept, very quietly, swallowing her tears behind her handkerchief. And the old ladies were left together, the two mothers, so different one from the other: one, Mrs. van Lowe, a woman who perhaps had seen much more of life and understood it better than the other, Mrs. van der Welcke, who had always lived quietly, always at Driebergen, with her Bible ... until the strange book had fallen into her hands....

They were left together and the very many things which they said to each other and asked of each other, in silence, were not audible in the simple words of Constance' mother:

"May I help you take off your hat and your cloak, mevrouw?"

And, as she a.s.sisted Mrs. van der Welcke, she apologized for Constance and said:

"I think your arrival must have agitated her; you must not mind her leaving you for a moment...."

Then the old ladies sat down side by side.

"They seem to be very comfortable," said Mrs. van der Welcke and looked around her nervously.

"I am so glad to have my child back with me," said Mrs. van Lowe.

There was very much to be said between them, but they spoke only simple words, doubtless feeling all the unuttered rest. Their thoughts went back, many years back: how hostile they had then felt towards each other's children, who had disgraced each other and their two families; if they had met each other then by chance, as now, they could not possibly have looked at each other gently, as now.... But the years had toned down the pain and the cruelty; and now it was possible and even agreeable for these two, mother and mother, to press each other's hands and to exchange glances that asked for forgiveness.

"I also came to wish Henri many happy returns. He is sure to be back with Addie for lunch," said Mrs. van Lowe.

But Constance returned; and now, in her own house, in her own drawing-room, she felt shy and quite different from what she felt when, offended and slighted, she had stood before Henri's parents, at Driebergen, on that first and only visit. It was as though the combined presence of those two mothers made her like to a child that had done wrong. She felt as she had never felt before, felt small and childlike; and, when, as was often her habit, she went to sit close by Mrs. van Lowe, she took her mother's hand and laid her head upon her mother's breast and no longer controlled herself, but wept.

And Mrs. van Lowe again looked at Henri's mother, as though she wished to say:

"If it can be, do not condemn my child too severely, even as I do not judge Henri too severely."

And, because there now flowed through her soul a gentle happiness that had its source in contentment, Constance felt the poignancy of that moment of Henri's home-coming when, tired after his ride, he walked in with Addie and found his mother there, his mother, who never left her house, sitting there in his house, between Constance and Mrs. van Lowe....

Had some bond really been established at last, after long years? Had those who could find no point of union that other morning, at Driebergen, at last come closer? Was there really some sort of tie? And was it just that it took a very long time--years and years and then months after that--for things to become more or less easy and pleasant?... In this mood, Constance' voice instinctively had a softer note; and she felt at the same time a child to those two mothers and very old to herself, very old in this lulling of pa.s.sion and anger and nerves. Would it be like this with her now, would her life just go on in a succession of more and more placid years, would she just live for her son? She asked herself this, deep down in her soul, almost unconsciously; and a shadowy melancholy floated over her, because of those two old mothers, because of Henri, because of herself. Was that how old age approached, like this, with these gentler years? She was forty-two, she was not old, but, still, was old age approaching in this way, so softly? And, while she asked herself this, in a pa.s.sive, melancholy mood, devoid of anger and pa.s.sion, there hovered about her a vague feeling that she would now grow old and that she had never lived.... Never lived.... Never lived.... It hovered, that shadowy discontent, in the midst of her gentle content.... Never lived.... She did not know why, but she thought for just one moment--a ghost of a thought--of Gerrit, of Buitenzorg, how they two, the little brother and sister, used to play in the river.... It was as if it had not been she, that little girl with the red flowers, as if it had been another little girl.... Never lived.... But what ought she to have done to feel that she had lived, now that she was growing old? Vanity, b.a.l.l.s, her marriage, Rome, her love-affair, the scandal: was that living? Or was it all a mistake, mistake upon mistake, fuss and excitement about nothing?... Now, now it was over. Existence was becoming placid, less bitter, more kindly; but, still, she felt it, she had never lived....

But she did not know what she ought to have done to make her now feel that she had lived; and she let the strange feeling be lulled to rest in the soft melancholy that filled her, because of this gentle kindliness that had come now, with the years, the grey haze of years. She sighed the strange thought away and she thought that it had to happen and that it could not have been otherwise and that even so she would never have known anything different.... Never lived.... But, then, had hundreds of men and women around her ever lived?... And she now shook herself free of this strange mood; and, laughing softly, happy in spite of her melancholy, she saw that the table was laid and asked the two mothers to come in to lunch.

Was it the grey haze of years then?... Was she growing old and were things becoming easier and more pleasant?... And had she never lived?...

"I do think it so very nice," she said, "to have both the Mammas together at my table...."

CHAPTER XXVIII

In a small town like the Hague, the sudden appearance of Constance and her husband, after many years, could not but be the occasion for an interchange of gossip that was not easily silenced. The Van Lowe family had connections in various sets--the aristocratic set, the upper official world, the military set, the Indian set--and, just because of these connections in more than one set, there arose a cross-fire of criticism and condemnation, neither of which had lost any of its sharpness, even though people had not given a thought to Constance for years. On the contrary, the gossip was a sort of raking up of all that could be remembered of former days, a repet.i.tion of all the criticism and all the condemnation which these very people, for the most part, fifteen years ago, had pa.s.sed among themselves, from one to another, as so much current coin. If it had sometimes seemed to Constance as though the period of her absence contracted and was no longer twenty years, to all those people who knew her, or knew her relations, or knew relations of her relations, that interval had no existence whatever; and it was as though the scandal dated from yesterday, as though she had married her lover, Van der Welcke, yesterday. And, while she herself, in her gentle happiness and melancholy contentment at being back among her kinsfolk, in her country, for which she had longed so greatly abroad, while she noticed nothing of this cross-fire, through which she walked quietly--in the street, at the time of the two weddings, at Scheveningen and now--it continued among all those people--acquaintances, friends, relations--continued, never ceased fire. To all of them she had remained the Mrs. De Staffelaer of old, who had never returned to the Hague since her marriage and who was now back with Van der Welcke. At visits, at tea-parties, at evening-parties, at the Witte or the Plaats, at Scheveningen, everywhere, the rapid cross-fire began, as a pleasant sport for all of them:

"You know, Mrs. De Staffelaer...."

"Van Lowe that was...."

"Yes, the one who went off with Van der Welcke...."

"Yes, I remember: she married him...."

"Yes, she's back."

"Yes, so I hear."

"Yes, she was out driving yesterday with old Mrs. van Lowe."

"So she's back again?"

"Yes, she's back!"

In this way the cross-fire began, suavely and rapidly, as a conversational sport.

"And so she is received by her relations?"

"Yes. And even at Driebergen."

"Is it really twenty years ago?"

"No, it can't be as long as that."

"She has a child."

"Yes, a boy; but not by Van der Welcke."

"The father's an Italian, I hear."

"Yes, an Italian diplomatist."

In this way the fire continued, brisk, crackling, fiercer and fiercer, until it went off like a brilliant and acrid fire-work:

"Well, I don't think the family will like _that_ so very much!"

"You need only look at Van Naghel's face...."

"Or at the Van Saetzemas'."

"Why don't they keep her in the background?"

"Yes. What did she want to come back for at all?"

"I call it an impertinence."

"She was always intriguing as a young girl."

"That marriage with old De Staffelaer...."