The Hidden Force Part 27

They now all three stood facing one another, in the narrow middle gallery; breathing with difficulty, oppressed by their acc.u.mulated emotions. Then Addie said:

"Resident, I ask you ... for your daughter's hand."

A dog-cart pulled up at the front of the house.

"That's Mrs. van Does," said Leonie, hurriedly. "Otto, say something before she comes...."

"I consent," said Van Oudijck, gloomily.

He made off at the back before Mrs. van Does had entered and did not see the hand which Addie held out to him. Mrs. van Does came in trembling, following by a babu carrying her bundle, her merchandise. She saw Leonie and Addie standing stiff and hypnotized:

"That was the residen's chariot!" stammered the Indian lady, pale in the face. "Was it the residen?"

"Yes," said Leonie, calmly.

"Oh dear! And what happened?"

"Nothing," said Leonie, laughing.

"Nothing?"

"Or rather, something did happen."

"What?"

"Addie and Doddie are ..."

"What?"

"Engaged!"

And she shrieked the words with a shrill outburst of uncontrollable mirth at the comedy of life and took Mrs. van Does, who stood with the eyes starting out of her head, and spun her round and kicked the bundle out of the babu's hands, so that a parcel of embroidered bedspreads and table-slips fell to the ground and a little jam-pot full of glittering crystals rolled away and broke.

"Oh dear!... My brilliants!"

One more kick of frolicsome wantonness; and the table-slips flew to left and right and the diamonds lay glittering scattered among the legs of the tables and chairs. Addie, his eyes still filled with terror, crawled about on his hands and feet, raking them together.

Mrs. van Does repeated:

"Engaged!"

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Doddie was rapt into the seventh heaven of delight when Van Oudijck told her that Addie had asked her hand in marriage; and, when she heard that mamma had been her advocate, she embraced Leonie boisterously, with the emotional spontaneity of her temperament, once more surrendering to the attraction which Leonie had exercised upon her for years. Doddie now at once forgot everything that had annoyed her in the excessive intimacy between mamma and Addie, when he used to hang over her chair and whisper to her. She had never believed what now and again she had heard, because Addie had always a.s.sured her that it was not true. And she was ever so happy that she was going to live with Addie, he and she together, at Patjaram. For Patjaram was her ideal of what a home should be. The big house, full of sons and daughters and children and animals, on all of whom the same kindness and cordiality and boredom were lavished, while behind those sons and daughters shone the halo of their Solo descent: the big house built on to the sugar factory was to her the ideal residence; and she felt akin with all its little traditions: the spices, crushed and ground by a babu squatting behind her chair, while she sat at lunch, represented to her the supreme indulgence of the palate; the races at Ngadjiwa, attended by the leisurely dawdling procession of all those women, with the babus behind them, carrying the handkerchief, the scent-bottle, the opera-gla.s.ses, were her non plus ultra of elegance; she loved the old dowager raden-aju; and she had given herself to Addie, entirely, without reserve, from the first moment of seeing him, when she was a little girl of thirteen and he a boy of eighteen. It was because of him that she had resisted with all her energy whenever papa proposed to send her to Europe, to boarding-school in Brussels; because of him she had never cared for any place except Labuw.a.n.gi, Ngadjiwa or Patjaram; because of him she was prepared to live and die at Patjaram.

It was because of him that she had felt all her little jealousies, when her girl-friends told her that he was in love with this one or carrying on with that one; because of him she would always know those jealousies great and small, her whole life long. He would be her life, Patjaram her world, sugar her interest, because it was Addie's interest. Because of him she would long for many children, very many children, who would be really brown: not white, like papa and mamma and Theo, but brown, because her own mother was brown; and she herself was a delicate brown, while Addie was a beautiful bronze colour, a Moorish brown; and, after the example set at Patjaram, her children, her numerous children, would be brought up in the shadow of the factory, in an atmosphere of sugar, with a view to their planting the fields, when they grew up, and milling the sugar-cane and restoring the fortunes of the family to their former brilliancy. And she was as happy as a girl in love could imagine herself to be, seeing her ideal, Addie and Patjaram, so closely attainable and not for a second realizing how her happiness had come about, through the word which Leonie, almost unconsciously, had uttered, as though by autosuggestion, at the supreme moment. Oh, now she need no longer seek the dark corners, the dark rice-fields with Addie; now she was constantly kissing him in broad daylight, leaning radiantly against him, feeling his warm, virile body, which was hers and would soon be hers entirely; now her eyes yearned up to him, for all to see, for she no longer had the maidenly power of hiding her feelings from others; now he was hers, hers, hers!

And he, with the good-natured surrender of a young sultan, suffered her to caress his shoulders and knees, suffered her to kiss him and stroke his hair, suffered her arm around his neck, accepting it all as a tribute due to him, accustomed as he was to that feminine tribute of love, he who had been fondled and caressed from the time when he was a little, chubby boy, from the time when he was carried by Tidjem, his babu, who was in love with him, from the time when he used to romp, in his little pyjamas, with little sisters and cousins, all of whom were in love with him. All this tribute he accepted good-naturedly, though secretly surprised and shocked by what Leonie had done.... And yet, he argued, it would perhaps anyhow have happened of itself, some day, because Doddie was so fond of him. He would rather have remained unmarried: though unmarried, he nevertheless had all the home life at Patjaram that he wanted and retained his liberty to bestow abundant love upon women, in his good-natured way. And he was already ingenuously reflecting that it would not do, that it would never do to remain faithful to Doddie long, because he was really too good-natured and the women were all so crazy. Doddie must get used to it later on, must learn to accept it; and, he reflected, after all, in Solo, in the palace, it was the same thing, with his uncles and cousins....

Had Van Oudijck believed what Leonie said? He himself did not know whether he did or not. Doddie had accused Leonie of being in love with Addie; Theo, that morning, when Van Oudijck asked him where Leonie was, had answered, curtly:

"At Mrs. van Does' ... with Addie."

He had glared at his son, but asked no further questions; he had merely driven straight to Mrs. van Does' house. And he had actually found his wife with young de Luce, found him on his knees before her; but she had said so quietly:

"Adrian de Luce is asking me for your daughter's hand."

No, he himself did not know whether he believed her or not. His wife had answered so quietly; and now, during the first few days of the engagement, she was so calm, smiling just as usual.... He now for the first time saw that strange side of her, that invulnerability, as though nothing could harm her. Did he suspect, behind this wall of invulnerability, the ironical feminine secrecy of her silently smouldering inner life? It was as though, with his recent nervous suspicion, with his restless mood, in the rankness of superst.i.tion that led him to pry and listen to the haunting silence, he had learnt to see around him things to which he had been blind in his burly strength as a ruler and high and mighty chief official. And his longing to make certain of the mysteries at which he was guessing became so violent, in his morbid irritability, that he grew more pleasant and kinder to his son, though this time it arose not from the spontaneous paternal affection which, when all was said, he had always felt for Theo, but from curiosity, to hear all that he had to say, to make Theo speak out. And Theo, who hated Leonie, who hated his father, who hated Addie, who hated Doddie, in his general hatred of all those about him, who hated life with the stubborn ideas of a fair-haired Eurasian, longing for money and beautiful women, angry because the world, life, riches, happiness--as he pictured it to himself in his petty fas.h.i.+on--did not come rus.h.i.+ng to him, falling into his arms, falling on his neck: Theo was willing enough to squeeze out his words drop by drop, like gall and wormwood, silently revelling in the sight of his father's suffering. And he allowed Van Oudijck to divine, very gradually, that it was true, after all, about mamma and Addie.

In the intimacy that sprang up between the father and son out of suspicion and hatred, Theo spoke of his brother in the compound, said that he knew papa sent him money and therefore acknowledged that the thing was true. And Van Oudijck, no longer certain, no longer knowing the truth, admitted that it might be so, admitted that it was so. Then, remembering the anonymous letters--which had only lately ceased, since he had been sending money to that half-caste who ventured to a.s.sume his name--he also remembered the libels which he had often read in them and which, at the time, he had always cast from him as so much filth; he remembered the two names, those of his wife and of Theo himself, which had so constantly been coupled in them. His distrust and suspicion blazed up like flames, like a now inextinguishable fire, which scorched every other thought or feeling ... until at last he was no longer able to restrain himself and spoke roundly to Theo on the subject. He did not trust Theo's indignation and denial. And he now trusted nothing and n.o.body, he distrusted his wife and his children and his officials; he distrusted his cook....

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Then, like a clap of thunder, the rumour ran through Labuw.a.n.gi that Van Oudijck and his wife were going to be divorced. Leonie went to Europe, very suddenly, really without any one's knowing why and without taking leave of anybody. And it caused a great scandal in the little town: people talked of nothing else and talked of it even as far away as Surabaya, as far away as Batavia. Van Oudijck alone was silent; and, with his back a little more bowed, went his way, working on, leading his ordinary life. He had abandoned his principles and a.s.sisted Theo to obtain a job, in order to be rid of him. He preferred to have Doddie staying at Patjaram, where the De Luce women would help her with her trousseau. He preferred Doddie to get married quickly and to get married at Patjaram. In his great, empty house he now longed for nothing but solitude, a s.p.a.cious, cheerless solitude. He would no longer have the table laid for him: they brought him a plateful of rice and a cup of coffee in his office. And he felt ill, his zeal lessened; a dull indifference gnawed at his vitals. He delegated all the work, all the district to Eldersma; and, when Eldersma, after not sleeping for weeks, half-crazy with nervous strain, told the resident that the doctor wanted to send him to Europe with a certificate of urgency, Van Oudijck lost all his courage. He said that he too felt ill and done for. And he applied to the governor-general for leave and went to Batavia. He said nothing about it, but he felt certain that he would never return to Labuw.a.n.gi. And he went away, quietly, with not a glance at what he was leaving behind him, at his great field of activity, which he had so lovingly organized. The administration remained in the hands of the a.s.sistant-resident at Ngadjiwa. It was generally believed that Van Oudijck wished to see the governor-general about certain questions of importance, but suddenly the news arrived that he was proposing to retire. It was not credited at first, but the report was confirmed. Van Oudijck did not return.

He had gone, without casting a glance behind him, in a strange indifference, an indifference which had gradually corroded the very marrow of this once so robust and practical man, who had always remained young in his capacity for work. He felt this indifference for Labuw.a.n.gi, which, when there was a question of his promotion to resident of the first cla.s.s, he had thought himself incapable of leaving except with the greatest regret; he felt this indifference for his domestic circle, which no longer existed. His soul was filled with a gradual blight; it was withering, dying. It seemed to him that all his powers were melting away in the tepid stagnation of this indifference. At Batavia he vegetated for a while in his hotel; and it was generally a.s.sumed that he would go to Europe.

Eldersma had already gone, sick almost unto death; and Eva had been unable to accompany him, with the little boy, because she was down with a bad attack of malarial fever. When she was more or less convalescent, she sold up her house, with a view to going to Batavia and staying there for three weeks with friends before her boat sailed. She left Labuw.a.n.gi with mixed feelings. She had suffered much there, but had also reflected much; and she had cherished a deep feeling for Van Helderen, a pure, radiant feeling such as could, she was sure, s.h.i.+ne forth only once in a lifetime. She took leave of him as of an ordinary friend, in the presence of others, and gave him no more than a pressure of the hand. But she felt so profoundly sad because of that pressure of the hand, that commonplace farewell, that the sobs rose in her throat. That evening, left to herself, she did not weep, but sat in her room at the hotel, staring for hours silently before her. Her husband was gone, was ill: she did not know how he would be when she saw him, whether indeed she would ever see him again. Europe, it was true, after her years in India, stretched its sh.o.r.es smilingly before her, held forth the vision of its cities, its culture, its art; but she was afraid of Europe. An unspoken fear lest she should have lost ground intellectually made her almost dread the circle in her parents' house, to which she would have returned in a month's time. She trembled at the thought that people would consider her colonial in her manners and ideas, in her speech and dress, in the education of her child; and this made her feel shy in antic.i.p.ation, despite all her pose as a smart, artistic woman. Certainly she no longer played the piano as well as she did; she would not dare to play at the Hague. And she thought that it might be a good thing to stay in Paris for a fortnight and brush off her cobwebs a little, before showing herself in the Hague....

But Eldersma was too ill.... And how would she find him, her husband, so much changed, her once robust Frisian husband, now tired out, worn out, yellow as parchment, careless of his appearance, muttering gloomily when he spoke?... But a gentle vision of a refres.h.i.+ng German landscape, of Swiss snows, of music at Bayreuth, of art in Italy dawned before her staring gaze; and she was herself reunited to her sick husband. No longer united in life, but united under the yoke of life, the yoke which they had shouldered together, once and for all.... Then there was the education of her child! Oh, to save her child, to get him away from India! And yet he, Van Helderen, had never been out of India. But then he was himself, he was an exception....

She had bidden him good-bye.... She must make up her mind to forget him.... Europe was waiting for her ... with her husband ... and her child....

Two days later she was at Batavia. She hardly knew the city; she had been there once or twice, years ago, when she first came out. At Labuw.a.n.gi, in that little, outlying district, Batavia had gradually become glorified in her imagination into an essentially Eurasian capital, a centre of Eurasian civilization, a dim vision of stately avenues and squares, surrounded by great, wealthy, porticoed villas, thronged with smart carriages and horses. She had always heard so much about Batavia....

She was now staying with friends. The husband was at the head of a big commercial firm; their house was one of the handsomest villas on the Koningsplein. And she had at once been very strangely impressed by the funereal character, by the deadly melancholy of this great town of villas, where thousands of varied lives are waging a silent, feverish battle for a future of moneyed repose. It was as though all those houses, gloomy despite their white pillars and their grand fronts, were frowning like faces careworn with troubles that sought to hide themselves behind a pretentious display of broad leaves and cl.u.s.tering palms. The houses, however much exposed, amidst their pillars, however seemingly open, remained closed; the occupants were never seen. Only in the mornings, as she went on her errands along the shops in Rijswijk and Molenvliet, which, with a few French names among them, tried to give the impression of a southern shopping-centre, of European luxury, Eva would see the exodus to the Old Town of the white men, white-faced, dressed in white; and even their eyes seemed pale with brooding anxieties, fixed upon a future which they all calculated in so many decades or l.u.s.tres: so much made, in this year or that; and then away, away home from India to Europe. It was as though it were not malaria that was undermining them, but another fever; and she felt clearly that it was undermining their unacclimatized const.i.tutions, their souls, as though they were trying to skip that day and reach the to-morrow, or the day after, days which brought them a little nearer to their goal, because they secretly feared to die before that goal was attained. The exodus filled the trams with its white burden of mortality. Many, already well off, but not yet rich enough for their purpose, drove in their victorias or buggies to the Harmonie Club and there took the tram, to spare their horses.

And in the Old Town, in the old, aristocratic houses of the first Dutch merchants, still built in the Dutch style, with oak staircases leading to upper floors which now, during the eastern monsoon, were stagnant with a dense, oppressive heat, like a tangible element, which stifled the breath, the white men bent over their work, constantly beholding between their thirsty glance and the white desert of their papers the dawning mirage of the future, the refres.h.i.+ng oasis of their materialistic illusion: within such and such a time, money and then off ... off ... to Europe.... And, in the city of villas, around the Koningsplein, along the green avenues, the women hid themselves, the women remained unseen, the whole livelong day. The hot day pa.s.sed, the time of beneficent coolness came, the time from half-past five to seven. The men returned home dog-tired and sat down to rest; and the women, tired with their housekeeping, with their children and with nothing at all, with a life of doing nothing, a life without any interest, tired with the deadliness of their existence, rested beside the men. That hour of beneficent coolness meant rest, rest after the bath, in undress, around the tea-table, a short, momentary rest, for the fearsome hour of seven was at hand, when it was already dark, when one had to go to a reception. A reception implied dressing in stuffy European clothes, implied a brief but dreadful display of European drawing-room manners and social graces, but it also implied meeting this person and that and striving to achieve yet one advance towards the mirage of the future: money and ultimate rest in Europe. And, after the town of villas had lain in the sun all day, gloomy and wan, like a dead city--with the men away in the Old Town and the women hidden in their houses--a few carriages now pa.s.sed one another in the dark, round the Koningsplein and along the green avenues, a few European-looking people, going to a reception. While, around the Koningsplein and in the green avenues, all the other villas persisted in this funereal desolation and remained filled with gloomy darkness, the house where the party was given shone with lamps among the palm-trees. And for the rest the deadliness lingered on every hand, the sombre brooding lay over the houses wherein the tired people were hiding, the men exhausted with work, the women exhausted with doing nothing....

"Wouldn't you like a drive, Eva?" asked her hostess, Mrs. De Harteman, a little Dutchwoman, white as wax and always tired out by her children. "But I'd rather not come with you, if you don't mind: I'd rather wait for Harteman. Else he'd find n.o.body at home. So you go, with your little boy."

So Eva, with her little man, went driving in the De Hartemans'

"chariot." It was the cool hour of the day, before darkness set in. She met two or three carriages: Mrs. This and Mrs. That, who were known to drive in the afternoon. In the Koningsplein she saw a lady and gentleman walking: the So-and-Sos; they always walked, as all Batavia knew. She met no one else. No one. At that beneficent hour, the villa-town remained desolate as a city of the dead, as a vast mausoleum amid green trees. And yet it was a boon, after the overwhelming heat, to see the Koningsplein stretching like a gigantic meadow, where the parched gra.s.s was turning green with the first rains, while the houses showed so far away, so very far away, in their hedged-in gardens, that it was like being in the country, amid wood and fields and pastures, with the wide sky overhead, from which the lungs now breathed in air, as though for the first time that day, breathed in oxygen and life: that wide sky, displaying every day as it were a varying wealth of colours, an excess of sunset fires, a glorious death of the scorching day, as though the sun itself were bursting into torrents of gold between the lilac-hued and threatening rain-clouds. And it was so s.p.a.cious and so delightful, it was such an immense boon that it actually made up for the day.

But there was no one to see it except the two or three people who were known in Batavia to go driving or walking. A violet twilight rose; then the night fell with one deep shadow; and the town, which had been deathlike all day, with its frown of brooding gloom, dropped wearily asleep, like a city of care....