Small Souls Part 59

"Yes, do come along!" said Auntie Lot to Ruyvenaer, "_Ajo_,[26] shall we have a game? Come on, who's going to play?... You, Saetzema? Come along ... Toetie? Come along. Cut for partners.... Come, Paul ... Do!"

"No, Aunt, I won't play, thanks."

"Oh, it's difficult this evening!" said Auntie. "Van Naghel and Bertha not yet here, eh? Come on.... _Ajo_ now, let's play! Ah, there are Karel and Cateau! Why are you so late, eh?... _Ajo_ then, cut for partners ...

let's have a rubber!"

And Auntie at once enlisted Karel and Cateau, refused to let them go, forced matters, insisted on having a nice, quiet, friendly rubber, as at all the usual "family-groups." But Cateau at once noticed the excitement infecting everybody in both the big rooms with restlessness and, catching sight of Adolphine, she managed, before cutting, to escape Auntie Lot and ask:

"Why, Adolph-ine, what are you cry-ing for? Are you up-set about any-thing?"

"The hound! The cad! And he wants to challenge my husband in addition!"

"Chal-lenge him?" cried the terrified Cateau. "A reg-u-lar du-el! No!

The bro-thers and sis-ters will nev-er consent to _that!_ There's too much been talked and _writ-ten_ about the family as it _is_!" she whispered. "Writ-ten and _print-ed_!"

And Cateau's whining words bore evidence to the tragic alarm that fluttered through her sleek, broad-bosomed respectability, while her owl's eyes opened rounder and wider than ever.

But Auntie Lot came to fetch Cateau and dragged her by the arm to the card-table. The rubber was made up: Auntie, Karel, Cateau and Toetie.

But they none of them paid attention to their cards, which fell on the table, one after the other, without the least effort of intelligence on the part of the players, as though obeying the laws of some weird and fantastic game of bridge.... Auntie was constantly trying to ruff with spades though clubs were trumps:

"Oh, what _ka.s.sian_!"[27] said Auntie.

"Ka-rel," said Cateau, excitedly, "as the eld-est bro-ther, you _must_ inter-fere and _stop_ that du-el!"

"I? Thank you: not if I know it!"

"You must, Ka-rel: You are the eld-est bro-ther.... Of course, Van Na-ghel"--and she p.r.o.nounced the name with a certain reverence--"is the hus-band of your eld-est sist-er; but if he, if Van"--reverentially--"Van Na-a-ghel refuses to inter-fere, then it's _your_ duty, Ka-rel, as the eld-est bro-ther, to stop that du-el."

"It won't come off!" said Toetie, good-humouredly.

"_Ma.s.sa_,[28] brothers-in-law don't fight!" said Auntie Lot. "But Adolphine shouldn't have behaved like that.... Very wrong of Adolphine."

"But it's sa-ad, all the same, _very_ sa-ad, for Adolph-ine, all those art-ides," whined Cateau. "They up-set her. She's cry-ing, And it's anything but plea-sant for Van Na-ghel, don't you _think_, Un-cle?"

This to Uncle Ruyvenaer, who was standing behind her.

"It's beastly, it's beastly!" said Uncle. "They ought never to have come and lived here. It was very wrong of Marie to encourage them."

"Oh, well, Herman," said Auntie, "you must remember she's the mother!"

"Just for that reason...."

"Oh, Papa!" said Toetie, wearily. "That old _perkara_!"[29]

"Nothing but _korek_ in _tempo doeloe_ in Holland," said Auntie, crossly.

"Well, Aunt-ie," said Cateau, taking offence, "they're not al-ways so mor-al in the Ea-east!"

"But there's not so much talk in Java as here," said Auntie, angrily.

"Oh, I daresay they do some talk-ing there too!"

"But not so spitefully!" said Auntie, very angrily and finding her Dutch words with great difficulty. "Not ... not so cruelly, so cruelly."

"They ought never to have come and lived here," Uncle Ruyvenaer repeated.

And he fussed off to Van Saetzema, whose eyes were still filled with terror at the possible duel.

"Look, Mamma," said Toetie, winking towards Auntie Tine and Auntie Rine, who were sitting side by side in a corner of the big drawing-room, each with her knitting in her lap. "Those two are quite happy! They don't bother about all these matters! They don't know anything."

"In Holland...." said Auntie, crossly.

"But in the Ea-east!" ... Cateau at once broke in, spitefully.

The rubber was spoilt, for Auntie, in her present state of irritation, could no longer see the cards in her hand. The old Indian lady felt that there was hostility to Constance among the relations; and, with the kindliness of a nature used to the little Indian scandals, she thought it exaggerated. Moreover, Cateau's Dutch arrogance in speaking of "the East" had put her quite out of temper; and she flung her cards on the table and said:

"_Soedah_, I won't play with you any more!"

And, without further explanation, she broke up the table and walked straight to Constance, who sat talking to Paul in a corner:

"I'm coming to sit with you a bit, Constance!"

"Do, Auntie."

"What I want to say to you is, don't mind about it! Shake it off your cold clothes![30] What does it matter? Hor-r-rible article! But I tell you: shake it off your cold clothes!"

And Auntie talked away, suddenly lighting on all sorts of queer Dutch words and expressions, told Constance of horrible articles in India which people out there had shaken off their cold clothes.

At this moment, Bertha, Van Naghel and Marianne arrived, very late.

Mamma at once went up to them. The people in the two rooms now made some attempt to adopt an att.i.tude; and their excitement cooled down. But it struck them all that Van Naghel looked exceedingly tired, Bertha pale and Marianne as though she had been crying; her eyes were specks under her swollen lids. They exchanged vague, almost doleful good-evenings, giving a hand here, a kiss there....

After all the agitation, a gloom descended upon the family. The voices sank into a whisper. And, through the whispering, suddenly, the voices of the two old aunts sounded piercingly, as they spoke to the Van Naghels:

"Yes, yes, I remember you, I know you. Good-evening, Van Naghel."

"Good-evening, Aunt."

"Good-evening, Toetie. Yes, yes, I know you: you're Toetie, Van Naghel's wife. And who's that?"

"That's my girl, Auntie: Marianne. And I'm Bertha...."

"Oh, yes, that's Emilietje!" Auntie Tine screamed in Auntie Rine's ear, in a moment of sudden and not yet perfect lucidity. "That's Toetie's daughter Emilie-etje!"

"No, Auntie, Emilie is married!"

"What d'you say? Is she dead?"

"No," screamed Auntie Tine, "Floortje, Floortje is married! This is Emilie-etje!"