The Twilight of the Souls Part 12

CHAPTER V

Marietje sat in Marianne's room staring out at the road. The road, white with dust and sunlight, gleamed through the green of the trees, described a curve and wound round the creeper-clad station, which stood in the shade close by. A train came thundering in, making all the walls of the little villa shake. Each time that a train rumbled past, whether it stopped or steamed through almost without slackening speed, it shook the little villa....

Marietje was bored. She was home for the holidays from her Brussels boarding-school, spending a few weeks at Baarn with Mamma and Marianne, and she was bored. She would rather have stayed at school. Of course _madame_ was a beast, but Brussels at any rate was better fun than Baarn, even for a schoolgirl.... She wondered how she would be able to stand a month of it. She had reckoned on an invitation from Uncle and Aunt van Naghel to their beautiful country-place in Overijssel, where she would have cycled and played tennis with her boy cousins; but Uncle had not said a word about it: Uncle wanted her to put in her month with Mamma, at Baarn. Lord, how _could_ Mamma go and live here, in such a house! It would come tumbling down on her head one day, with that everlasting rumble of the trains. She simply could not get away from the rumble of the trains.... Marianne said that Mamma did not mind it and that she herself had become so used to the noise that once, when there was an accident at Hilversum and the something p.m. train did not arrive at Baarn, she had woke up because of the unwonted silence! Well, that was a bit stiff, thought Marietje. Still, perhaps the rumble of the trains did keep Mamma and Marianne from going to sleep. For what a life it was, in this little villa at Baarn! Neither Mamma nor Marianne knew anybody; and they saw n.o.body. They had no carriage; and how _can_ one live in the country without keeping a carriage? Even if it was only a dog-cart, or a governess-car, with a pony; but you must have _something_.... It was a rotten way of living. A brilliant idea of Uncle Adolf's, wasn't it, to insist that she should come and bury herself here for a whole mortal month and bore herself to death with Mamma and Marianne!... Karel hadn't come, the brute! Oh no, he had gone to Uncle's. Marietje knew why: because Uncle wanted to keep an eye on him!

So she didn't even see her brother.... Oh, how dull it all was!... Silly little walks to the Beukenkom, to Soestdijk: once in a way, there'd be the excitement of seeing the Queen drive past. But that was over in a flash--whoos.h.!.+--and then there was nothing more to see. Well, if she had been the Queen, she would never have come and spent the summer at Soestdijk!... A month! She would never live through it. She counted the days. She simply longed to go back to Brussels. _Madame_ had a young nephew who used to make love to her in great secrecy, even leaving notes under her napkin. It was risky, but it was great fun. He wrote so thrillingly.... Ah, when you compared the life that awaited her, when she came home for good in eighteen months, with what Emilie and Marianne had had: parties at Court; dances at the Casino, with all the smartest people in the Hague; the grand dinners at home: her sisters had had all that.... Pretty frocks too.... And she, what would she have? Nothing at all. She'd just go to Baarn, for you might be sure that Uncle and Aunt would never, never ask her to stay with them! And at the Hague ... who was going to invite her to the Hague? The whole winter at Baarn ... good Heavens! No, she must absolutely get herself invited to the Hague, once she had left school! Granny had a big house ... but Granny didn't like people staying with her; Aunt Adolphine: bah, such a crew, she wouldn't go there if she could; Uncle Gerrit: no, he had too many children, she wouldn't care about that and they hadn't a spare-room either; Uncle Karel was no use thinking about.... No, there was only Aunt Constance, who never saw anybody, and Uncle and Aunt Ruyvenaer, who had no smart friends, nothing but East-Indian people.... Yes, it was an awful nuisance, but she saw no prospect of an invitation. But one thing she did promise herself, to get married as soon as she could ... and to make a good match while she was about it, some one with lots of money! A nice thing she called it: Papa and Mamma brought you up in luxury and, the moment you began to grow up, they let you eat your heart out at Baarn!

She was decent-looking, thank goodness, and her figure was going to be all right ... and then she would marry a lot of money! You had to be practical: that was the great thing. There _were_ a few rich men left.

But she ... she would show some sense and not behave like Emilie, who had got married by mistake or by accident, so it seemed, and accepted Eduard just as you accept a partner for a waltz.... Nor like Marianne either, who had fallen in love with her uncle! No, mark her words, she promised herself that much: since she had been brought up in luxury, now that the luxury was gone, she would see that she married money ... for money was everything. She wasn't going to trouble about a t.i.tle or a name: if a rich bounder came and proposed, he'd do. But a fine house, fine clothes ... and a carriage ... and jewellery: all that she must have and all that she meant to have; for, without it, life wasn't worth living. To go on vegetating at Baarn, with that incessant rumbling of the trains, which made the walls of the villa shake as if the whole house were going to tumble down on her head: never! She had made up her mind to that: never!

Marianne came into the room, which was her own boudoir, with a conservatory leading into the garden: it was the pleasantest room in the house; the only others on the ground-floor were a small drawing-room and a gloomy dining-room. Marietje, lost in thought, was staring out at the sunny, dusty white road.

"Shall we go for a walk, Marietje?" asked Marianne.

"Beukenkom?" asked Marietje, languidly.

"No, farther than that...."

"Soestdijk?"

"No, farther still, through the Overbosch and across the moor, if you like."

"No, thank you: it's too hot and there's too much dust and glare. Can't we hire the pony-cart? Then I'll drive you."

"That mounts up, you know, Marietje; we can't take it every morning."

"Every morning!" growled Marietje. "Listen to you: every morning!...

Well, then let's stay and look out of the window."

"Why don't you play the piano or do some painting?"

"Thank you for nothing. I can do that at school. I have no accomplishments."

"Then take a book and read."

"Oh, rot! The books that amuse me I'm not allowed to read; and the books I'm allowed to read don't amuse me. It's one of the drawbacks of my awkward age! Why haven't you joined a tennis-club?"

"Yes, I'm sorry I didn't. I'll see that I do next year."

"Next year ... that's a long way off. You ought to have thought of it before: you knew that you were expecting your sister and that there wouldn't be much for her to do here. But you can't think of anything here, you can't take your eyes off that horrible white road. It hurts your eyes too.... My poor child, how can you stand this place ... after the Hague! Don't you long for the Hague?"

"Not a bit."

"But what do you do here all the winter?"

"Nothing, Marietje."

"Oh, I know! You've grown pi. You go in for good works. Sewing for the poor."

"There are two poor families for whom I make things sometimes."

"There, what did I tell you? I knew it! Well, give us some nighties, in Heaven's name!"

"Oh no, Marietje, never mind about that!"

"Yes, yes, yes, hand over your nighties and let's sew them!"

Marianne had sat down at her work basket and Marietje, out of sheer boredom, also took up a "nightie." But she did no sewing:

"Just imagine if we wore this sort of thing, Marianne! It would tear my skin.... Oh Lord, there's another train! What a row, what an awful row!

Aren't you afraid the house will fall in?"

"No."

"Do you like that noise?"

"Yes, one gets used to it."

"You could sleep to it, eh?"

"Yes, it lulls one."

Marietje shrieked with laughter:

"Oh, Marianne, how sentimental ... you ... have ... be-come, as Aunt Cateau would say...."

And, to herself, she thought:

"No, I'm not like that, you know. You won't catch me falling in love with my uncle for nothing. I mean to marry money, lots of money...."

But she said nothing, just stared out at the sunny, dusty road. A few people came along from the station.

"There's the rank and fas.h.i.+on of Baarn!" sneered Marietje. "The great sight of the day: three tradesmen and a hunch-backed shop-girl. Uncle Paul would say, three and a half atoms of human wretchedness.... Another tradesman and another shop-girl.... Two ladies.... Look, as I live, two ladies!... Goodness me, it's Aunt Constance and ... and Emilie!"

"Nonsense!"

"Yes, yes, it's Aunt Constance and Emilie! Hurrah!"

And Marietje, in sheer wild ecstasy at the unexpected distraction, threw the "nightie" right up to the ceiling, where it caught in the chandelier, and rushed through the garden down the road. She flung one leg up in the air with delight.

"Auntie! Emilie!" Marianne heard her yelling, quite beside herself.

Marietje embraced her aunt and her sister madly at the gate of the villa, conducted them indoors, thanked them personally for the surprise which they were giving her, for the welcome distraction which their arrival provided....

"And Uncle Ernst?" asked Marianne. "Poor Uncle Ernst! We had a letter from Frances...."

Constance told her how he was getting on at Nunspeet, that he was still rather restless, because he would look all over the house for fettered souls that moaned and implored him to help them.

"Will the delusion never leave him?" asked Marianne, with tears in her eyes. "Auntie, will he never get better?"