The Later Life Part 30

"Don't you all want your dinner?" asked Karel, at the door. "We're starving."

They went to the nursery, as it had been called for years, and sat down to table.

"I'm not hungry now," said Emilie.

"I don't want anything either," said Henri. "I'm calmer now ... and I'm going downstairs."

They held him back again. And the time dragged on. Ottelientje and Huig were put to bed; Karel went to do his home-work; Marietje hung round her elder sisters, inquisitively. And they listened, with the doors open, to the sounds below.

"They've finished dinner...."

"Yes, I can hear them in the drawing-room...."

Marianne suddenly came running upstairs, appeared in the doorway, looking very white and sweet:

"I couldn't bear it any longer!" she exclaimed. "The dinner's over. I escaped for a moment. Emilie! Sissy!"

"He's here!" said Emilie. "Eduard: he's waiting downstairs. He wants to take me home with him. You must all help me. He struck me!"

"My sissy, my sissy!" cried Marianne, excitedly, wringing her arms and her hands, kissing Emilie. "Is he downstairs? I'll tell Papa. I daren't stay any longer. Oh, those tiresome people down there! It's nearly nine. They'll be gone in an hour. Now I must go."

And she started to hurry away.

"Marianne!" said Henri.

"What is it?"

"I want to speak to you presently."

"Very well, presently."

And she flitted down the stairs.

"How pretty she's growing!" said Henri.

"And I," said Emilie, "so ugly!"

She leant against Louise. They heard a rustle on the stairs. It was Bertha herself:

"My child!"

"Mamma!"

"I managed to slip away, just for a moment. My dear child!"

"Eduard is here, Mamma. He's downstairs. He wants to take me away with him. He is waiting till the people are gone. He was shouting so...."

"I heard him."

"We told him to be quiet. I won't go with him, Mamma. I'll stay with you, I'll stay with you. He struck me!"

"The cad!" cried Henri, pale in the face.

"The dirty blackguard!" said the old nurse.

Bertha, very pale, shut her eyes, heaved a deep sigh:

"My child, my dear child ... be sensible, make it up."

"But he is brutal to me, Mamma!"

She flung herself, sobbing, into Bertha's arms.

"My darling!" Bertha wept. "I can't stay away any longer."

She released herself, went away; her dress rustled down the stairs. Her guests were sitting in the drawing-room; one or two looked at her strangely, because she had absented herself. In a moment she was once more the tactful, charming hostess.

Marianne, with a smile on her face, had gone to Van Naghel's study, where the men were having their coffee, smoking:

"Papa...."

"What is it, dear?"

"Eduard is downstairs!" she whispered. "I only came to tell you. He wants to take Emilie with him. He has struck her."

"Tell him I'll speak to him ... as soon as our visitors have gone."

And, as the host, he turned to his guests again.

Marianne went downstairs, found Eduard in the boys' sitting-room. He was quietly smoking.

"Papa will speak to you as soon as they're all gone. The carriages will be here in three-quarters of an hour."

"Very well," he said laconically.

Her blood seethed up:

"You're a cowardly wretch!" she cried. "You've struck Emilie!"

He flared up, losing all his stiff German society-manners:

"And I'm her husband!" he roared. "But you ... you ..."

"What about me?"

"You've no decency! You're in love with your uncle! With a married man!"

"O-o-oh!" screamed Marianne.