Small Souls Part 52

"Adolphine, don't let us talk of matters that can make us say things which we might regret."

But Adolphine was angry because Constance had refused to come to her dinner. Her invitations had all gone wrong and she wanted Constance; also, she thought that Constance did not value the invitation; also, she thought Constance a sn.o.b, with that everlasting Vreeswijck of hers, that Court man....

"Regret?" she said, coldly. "I never say anything that I have to regret.

But I can't help it if people at the Hague are saying unpleasant things about us all just now!"

And, working herself into a state of nervous excitement, she tried to cry, in order to make Constance, who was so unkind, feel, once and for all, that not only she, Adolphine, but the whole family had to suffer no end of pain because of Constance. And she managed to get the tears into her eyes and squeezed them out.

But Constance remained indifferent:

"What sort of things?" she asked.

"What sort of things?" snapped Adolphine, furiously, crying with temper, offended at the refusal, forgetting all the nice things that Constance had said about Floortje's trousseau, hating her sister at the moment.

"What sort of things? That you are not Papa's daughter!"

"That I...?"

"That you are not Papa's daughter!" shrieked the other, getting more excited at every word, deliberately s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g herself up into a frenzy of nerves. "They're slandering Mamma, they're slandering Mamma! Yes, they're saying that you're not Papa's daughter!"

Constance shrugged her shoulders.

"Well, what do you say to it?" demanded Adolphine.

"Nothing."

"Nothing? Nothing?" cried Adolphine, beside herself because Constance remained so cool at such a revelation. "Nothing? Oh, I expect you're accustomed to have people talking about you. Well, I'm not, d'you see? I have always been used to decency and respectability in my circle, among my friends. No one ever talked about us before. No one ever said that _I_ wasn't Papa's daughter...."

"You can't tell. There's time yet!" said Constance.

"Yes, you don't care!" Adolphine blubbered, furiously. "You, with your stuck-up coolness, you're so eaten up with conceit that you don't take anything to heart. I'm not like that. I'm sensitive, I'm easily affected, it hurts me when people talk about us. But then I'm not used to it as you are!"

And Adolphine kept squeezing the tears out of her eyes, wis.h.i.+ng to convey that she was misunderstood and misjudged and very sensitive; wis.h.i.+ng also to make Constance feel that it was Constance' fault and that there was plenty more that was Constance' fault. Constance, however, remained cool.

Though a single unfortunate word from her husband was enough to set her nerves on edge and her temper seething, she kept calm and cold towards her sister, because, after the fight between their boys, she had settled accounts with Adolphine, written her off as it were; and this feeling had depressed her too much to allow her now to excite herself into a quarrel. She wondered if she was overdoing it; and, to settle the matter, she said:

"I confess that I have never had such an experience of backbiting as here, at the Hague; in Brussels, at any rate, no one ever doubted the legitimacy of my child. But here--and even in your house, Adolphine--people seem to think that he is not my husband's son."

"How can I help that?" Adolphine began to blubber.

"No, you can't help it; at least I'm prepared to believe you can't. But I did hope that, if any one in your house spoke unkindly of your sister, you would have stood up for her, against your children, who perhaps did not quite realize all the mischief which their words might cause.... Let me finish, Adolphine: I am quite calm and I want to tell you this calmly.... If Addie had dared to speak of you in my presence as your children must have spoken of me, I should have been very severe with him. I was under the illusion that I might expect as much from you. I thought that there was still a family-bond, a family-affection, a family-pride among all of us; I thought that there was a mutual sympathy among us great enough, even though there was an appearance of truth in people's slanders, for that sympathy and pride to excuse and protect and defend the one who was slandered. The things that can be said about me are no secret. They are a matter of general knowledge; and I carry the punishment for my sin about with me as a burden on my life. But I have nothing more to reproach myself with than what is known as a fact. Don't think that I am making light of it. I only say that that is all there is. I should have thought that you would have known this, that you would have believed this, even if I had never told you. Addie is Van der Welcke's son as surely as I am Papa's daughter. What people like to invent besides is no concern of mine. I can't even understand why they care to invent at all, when I have already given them so much that is true to discuss. But it was a great disappointment to me, Adolphine, to find that those lies could be countenanced for a moment in your house."

Adolphine, seeing that her pumped-up tears were making no impression, had time to recover herself while Constance was speaking. Inwardly furious, but superficially calm, she now said, spitefully, in a tone of sisterly reproof:

"You must have expected some disappointment on returning to the Hague?"

"Perhaps, but not this disappointment ... if you had had any affection for me."

"Come, Constance, it's not as if I wasn't fond of you. But it might have been better if you had not come back."

"It's a little late to speak of that now, Adolphine: I'm here and I mean to stay. When I wrote to Mamma six months ago...."

"Mamma is a mother."

"I thought that you were a sister."

"I am not the only one."

"I hope that the others feel more affection for me and more indulgence than you do."

"Bertha was against your coming. So was Karel."

"I thank you for telling me; but, as I said, it is too late now."

"Gerrit and the others don't count, because they don't see people.

Bertha and Karel and I have our family, our friends."

"And I compromise you in their eyes, do I?"

"Your coming here raked up a heap of things which had been long forgotten. And I know as a fact that your father- and mother-in-law were against it."

"You seem to know a great deal; and I am glad that you are so frank."

"I am always frank."

"And so irreproachable."

"I could never have done what you did, never."

"I am so glad that you came to see me this morning, Adolphine. And that we have had this quiet talk."

"If you had written to me at the time and asked my advice, instead of writing to Mamma only, I should have told you my opinion quietly," said Adolphine, with a touch of sadness in her voice. "I should have recommended you, as a sister, for your own sake, not to come back to the Hague. You have become quite unsuited for Holland, for the Hague and for living among your family. Everything in your ideas, in your home life, in your way of bringing up your son clashes with our Dutch notions of what is right and decent and proper. I'm not saying this angrily, you know, Constance: I'm saying it calmly, very calmly. I daresay that is best. You dress yourself as no Dutchwoman of your age would think of doing. The fact that you have no one to your house except a friend of your husband's causes comment. The way in which you bring up your son is considered exceptionally lax."

"Anything more?"

"Yes, there's something more: why did you ever leave Brussels? That's what we all ask ourselves. Bertha was saying, only the other day, that you would make things impossible for her, if you thought of pus.h.i.+ng yourself and getting yourself presented. And she declared positively that she would never ask you to her official dinners."

"Anything more?"

"Anything more, anything more: what more do you want? I'm not saying it to offend you, Constance, but because I like you and want to save you from further disappointments. Do you think it pleasant for Bertha and me to have our friends talking about our family as they are doing? And that they do so is your fault entirely."

Constance' hands were shaking; and, in order to employ them, she began to fold the laces lying on the table.

"Is that real Brussels?" asked Adolphine, with apparent guilelessness.

"Yes."

"Where do you get the money, Constance, to spend on those expensive things?"

"I get it from my lovers," said Constance.