Small Souls Part 56

"I am sorry ... that you should just have happened to meet her."

Constance once more shrugged her shoulders:

"Why?"

And she looked Bertha full in the face:

"Why?" she repeated. "There are things, Bertha, which I intend to treat as the past. I don't know if others will always look upon them as the present. If you wish to be a sister for me, in deed as well as in name, help me. Do you understand what I mean? I am determined to treat what happened years ago as the past. I've made up my mind to it, in spite of the fact that our friends, I believe, take pleasure in still looking upon the past as the present. It's a great compliment to me, no doubt, but, alas, I can't accept it: I am fully fifteen years older now; and I am determined to make those fifteen years count. Do you understand me?"

"I think I understand you, Constance."

"And you don't approve. You also want me never to grow old and never to bring my fifteen years into account."

"Ssh, Constance! There's some one coming in at the door...."

"Don't be afraid: I've finished. Good-bye, Bertha; and help me, if you can...."

She pressed her hand. Bertha was on thorns.

As she went out, Constance heard the butler announcing:

"Mr. and Mrs. van den Heuvel Steyn."

She gave a start; she knew the name: friends of De Staffelaer's; Van den Heuvel Steyn had a post at Court. Suddenly, she saw herself, years ago, as a young girl, calling on those people with De Staffelaer. She had not seen them for years, had not heard of them for years.

She pa.s.sed them and saw that they had become old, very old, those friends of De Staffelaer's, two very old people. They looked at her too; and there was fury in their eyes, as though they were both surprised--that old lady and that old gentleman--to find Mrs. van der Welcke in any drawing-room which they entered, even though she were a hundred times the sister of the colonial secretary's wife. Their eyes crossed like swords; and Constance pa.s.sed them very haughtily, looking over their heads and pretending not to recognize them. She s.h.i.+vered in the hall. It was pouring with rain. The butler called her carriage.

"It will be difficult," she thought, tired out with this one quarter-of-an-hour's visit. "But it is for my son. I must go through with it...."

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

A few mornings later, when Constance woke, she remembered that it was Sat.u.r.day; and, with the apprehension which had kept her nerves on the rack all the week long, she said to herself, as she rose:

"This is the day ... this is the day...."

She went to the letter-box again and again, almost hoping to find the last issue of the scurrilous paper there. She was afraid also lest Addie, before going to school or on coming home, should see it in the box and look at it, to see what it was. She knew that Van der Welcke was thinking of it too and that this was why he did not go out and also kept coming down the stairs, as though accidentally, and pa.s.sing through the hall, with a glance at the gla.s.s pane of the letter-box. She went and sat in the drawing-room, looking out for the postman or for an errand-boy who might strike her as suspicious.... The morning pa.s.sed, Addie came home and her nervous apprehension never left her. The afternoon pa.s.sed and she remained indoors, wandering through the hall and always, always gazing at that letter-box. Nothing appeared through the little gla.s.s pane. And the whole day was one long apprehension, one incessant oppression.

The next morning, Sunday, Constance again looked out of the window, but she had now made up her mind that nothing would come and that there was nothing in the _Dwarskijker_. She stayed at home that day too, as it was raining hard, and she saw n.o.body. At half-past eight in the evening, she went to Mamma van Lowe's in a cab, with Van der Welcke and Addie. And Constance, the moment she entered, saw that there was a certain excitement among the members of the family, all of whom were present.

Even Mamma seemed uneasy about something; and she at once said to Constance:

"You were at Bertha's on Tuesday, child...."

"Yes...."

"Why didn't you ask me first, Connie?"

"Is a visit to Bertha such a very important matter, Mamma?"

"No, no," said the old woman, deprecatingly, "not that...."

But the old aunts arrived:

"How are you, Marie?"

"How are you, Dorine and Christine? So nice of you to come."

"What d'you say?" asked Auntie Rine.

"Marie says ... it's so nice of you to co-o-ome!" screamed Auntie Tine.

"Oh, ah! Did she say so? Yes, yes.... And who's that?..."

"That's Constance," said the old lady.

"Who?"

"That's Marie's daughter!" screamed Auntie Tine. "Marie's daugh-ter!"

"Whose daughter?"

"Marie's?"

"Bertha?"

"No, not Bertha, Gertrude: Ger-tru-ude!" yelled Auntie Tine.

"Oh, Gertrude?" said Auntie Rine, nodding her head.

"Oh dear!" said Mrs. van Lowe, upset by the thought of the little daughter who had died at Buitenzorg.

"Never mind, Mamma," said Constance. "They'll never remember who I am."

"They're so obstinate!"

"But they're so old."

"It makes me so sad to hear them always taking you for Gertrude. Poor Gertrude!"

"Come, Mamma, you mustn't mind."

"No, child. But, oh, why did you go to Bertha's on Tuesday?"

"What harm did I do, Mamma?"

"No harm, child. But oh dear!... Good-evening, Herman; good-evening, Lotje."