CHAPTER XXIV.
Vincent was busy packing, for the next day he would be leaving for London. Henk tried to make him alter his mind and stay, but only half-heartedly, for he felt well enough that when Vincent was once away, a great obstacle to the peace of the house would be removed, and Betsy would no longer be irritated by the presence of a cousin whom she hated, whom she feared, and whom in her fear of him she had nurtured and tended until she abhorred him. In the morning before his departure Vincent had a last chat with Eline in her boudoir.
“Then you are going, really?” she asked.
“Certainly, my dear girl. You can see for yourself that Betsy can’t bear me any longer.”
“What are you going to do in London?”
“I have to call on some acquaintances there—to arrange some money matters before I go to America.”
“Are you going to America, then?”
“You know I am; haven’t you yourself brought me St. Clare’s letter?”
“I—I did not know that you had decided for certain. Poor Vincent!”
He looked at her with a quiet smile; not quite recovered from his weakness, it rather soothed him to be pitied.
“Do you pity me so?”
“Yes—indeed, I pity. You are beginning your wanderings again, and who knows if I shall ever see you again. Perhaps never, never again!”
She sighed.
“I am always happiest when I am on my wanderings.”
She felt an eager desire to ask him if she might accompany him, if she might by his side also seek her fortune far away. But she did not know how to shape her question, and she waited to see if perhaps he would say something. For did he not love her? had he not wanted to go away for her sake? Now there remained nothing more that need separate them.
“He is afraid to speak,” she thought, and she could not say whether she was glad or sorry that he was afraid.
“Happiest on your wanderings!” she repeated musingly. “It is possible—you are a man, you can wander. But I am a girl, I have always lived a quiet life here. Happy am I? Heavens! No, that I am not!”
He glanced at her for a moment, as if about to ask her something; but for a while he remained silent. Then he asked—
“And why—are you not happy?”
“Why!” she murmured.
She waited for him to proceed, until perhaps he should put to her the question which she had awaited for days past. But no doubt it was owing to a sense of honour and decency that he did not ask it; it was but such a little while ago as yet that she had written to Otto. Still she thought she could detect the presence of love beneath his soft accents, and she looked at him. A ray of sunshine glinted along the window-curtain into the room and fell upon him where he sat, surrounding him with a kind of halo, and she started back in sudden alarm when she observed by that brilliant light how he resembled her dead father. This alarm caused her heart to pulse the quicker, and she fancied that she loved Vincent for the sake of her father’s memory, because in him she saw a victim of the world’s conventionality, and thus she invested him with something ideal and romantic.
He, too, looked at her with pity in his heart, for he knew that she had flung away her happiness. He had often done so himself, he thought; but in his own case the fact had never disclosed itself to his eyes with such distinctness as it did now with regard to Eline. For a moment he wanted to tell her as much, but he could see no use in doing so, and so he said nothing. She would never have admitted it.
“Vincent!” she faltered at last, with her nerves painfully overstrung in the suspense of waiting, waiting for that which never came. “Vincent, tell me—perhaps we shall never see each other again—have you nothing—nothing to say to me?”
“I have, and a good deal, Elly dear; I have to thank you for having tended and nursed me like a dear little girl, here in your own room, at a time when you yourself were suffering.”
“How do you know that I suffered?”
“I have a little knowledge of human nature.”
She shook her head.
“I don’t think so. I have not suffered, I pity—Otto, but I have not suffered myself.”
As she uttered that lie she felt it tortured her, but it was for the sake of Vincent, who loved her, and who must not know of her own grief. He looked at her penetratingly, asking himself why it was that she lied, but he was at a loss to account for it, he could not understand it at all; the only thing he did understand was that in the soul of woman there always remained something that was strange and mysterious, a mist that could not be penetrated. Neither did she understand him. She could not understand why he did not ask her to love him, now that there was nothing more to separate them, and now that he was on the point of going away. In another hour he would be gone. Oh, perhaps he thought it was too late. She sighed, and eagerly she said—
“Vincent, one thing you must promise me; if ever I can do anything for you, write to me, and I assure you I shall not disappoint you. Will you promise me this?”
“I promise you, and I thank you.”
“And something else. I know you are often in want of money. If at anytime I can help you with any, pray write to me. Just now, for instance, I have two hundred and fifty florins in cash lying here; are they of any use to you? if so, they are at your disposal. May I give you the money?”
She had already risen to open her escritoire, but he grasped her hand with something like emotion.
“Elly—Elly—no, Elly—not that—thank you very much. It is most kind of you indeed, but I could not return you the money for ever so long perhaps.”
“Oh, come now, don’t—don’t refuse me. ’Tis a pleasure to me, I assure you.”
“Once again, I don’t know how to thank you, but really—I—I cannot accept it—really I can’t.”
She stood still, and her cheeks turned white as marble. Yes, yes, indeed, he loved her, how could she doubt it? If he did not, would he have refused to accept the money? Yes, she could see it, he would not owe her money, because he loved her. But why did he not speak then?
At length he rose, the cab was to be at the door in a few minutes.
“Now I must really go,” said he. “Good-bye, Elly dear, good-bye; thank you a thousand times for what you have done for me.”
“Good-bye, Vincent, good-bye.”
He made a movement as if he wanted to kiss her, and she threw her arms round his neck and kissed him on both cheeks.
“Think of me sometimes, will you? I am fond of you, and I am really not fond of many persons; I can count my affections easily enough. Well, good-bye, Elly, good-bye, and perhaps, au revoir.”
Once more she kissed him, her eyes full of tears, and as he went she threw herself on the sofa, and nodded her head to him for the last time. He disappeared, closing the door behind him.
For a while she sat staring at that door. And when, after a few moments, she heard his cab move away, she wondered that he had kissed her so unreservedly and coolly in that final moment of parting. She wanted to muse about him, because she did not understand him; she wanted, too, to probe her own feelings and discover if she really loved him, but she felt tired and her head ached, and with a weary sigh she fell back in the cushions, covering her face with her hands.
It was the third day after Vincent’s departure, but although he had left the house, there had been another tiff about him between Eline and Betsy, who had spoken her mind about her “wretch of a cousin” in the presence of visitors, and to Eline’s intense annoyance. The time had now come, Betsy thought, when she should once for all let Eline know that she was mistress in that house; and so, with the full intention of doing so, she walked up-stairs in the evening into Eline’s boudoir.
“What do you want?” Eline said haughtily. “I should like to be alone.”
“May I remind you that you are in my house, and that if I feel inclined to come here I shall do so! I have something to say to you.”
“Make haste then, for I tell you again I wish to be alone!”
“You wish! you! What right have you to wish, I should like to know? You are in my house, and it isn’t for you to wish! Who do you think you are, eh?” shrieked Betsy, exciting herself to a towering passion. “Do you imagine you are a princess, and can do exactly as you like? or do you fancy that I am going to be dictated to by you in the presence of strangers?”
“Don’t you think I know what to say without your valuable advice? I don’t want your advice, so there! And I assure you that in future, whenever I hear you speak in that disgraceful way about Vincent, I shall make you hold your tongue. Thus much I assure you.”
“Indeed, you assure me—you do, eh? But I don’t want your assurance, I tell you. I have no intention to trouble myself in the least about your idiotic tenderness for Vincent! Perhaps it was he from whom you learnt the politeness to interrupt one among strangers as you dared to do to me? I can’t understand how you can have the impertinence, I can’t really. Why, they must have thought you were crazy. Well, if you are, that must be your excuse! Fancy calling me vulgar; and what are you, pray? you, who forget the very rudiments of politeness, and have——”
“Yes, I know, I have heard it before—have had the impertinence to interrupt you, you were going to say. Do say something else for a change. But you shall see that I dare more than that, if you attack Vincent again. You think him false, do you? But I think you are false, you who invite him here yourself, and then drive him out of the house, you who for no reason whatever go on about him like a washerwoman! It is you, you who are false!”
“Keep your beautiful epithets to yourself, please.”
“Then you just keep that wretched abuse of Vincent to yourself too, please!” shrieked Eline, boiling with passion. “I won’t, do you hear, I won’t hear it any longer. I have stood it long enough for the sake of peace, but now I won’t stand it any longer! Do you understand?”
“Indeed, won’t you stand it any longer? Perhaps it was all on account of that darling Vincent that you could not stand Otto any longer either?”
“Hold your tongue!” screamed Eline.
“Or perhaps you are smitten with that reptile, and that is why you treated Otto as if he had been a schoolboy with whom you were having a little joke? You won’t bear my abuse of Vincent any longer, will you? but I tell you that I won’t be compromised any more by you! Not bad, I’m sure! To start with, you are silly enough to break your engagement, and, out of pure caprice, without the slightest reason, you have made yourself the talk of the town; then you carry on here in my house with Vincent, as if you were in love with him, and as a wind-up you dare to be impertinent to me before strangers! Well, I am not going to bear it any longer, do you hear? If you have learnt that unmannerliness in your philosophic discourses with Vincent——”
Eline could no longer control herself. Her nerves were strung to their utmost tension, and quivered under Betsy’s insults as under the touch of rough hands. And Betsy’s allusion to Otto, to her sympathy for Vincent, which she fancied she had so successfully concealed, made her furious. She grasped Betsy’s wrists in the nervous strength of her fingers, and in a voice shrill with rage she cried—
“It is enough! Hold your tongue, I tell you. Don’t talk any more about Otto, don’t say another word about Vincent, or I—I—I’ll do you an injury! Don’t aggravate me any longer. Take care!”
Betsy wrenched herself free from her grasp.
“Eline, are you mad?” she cried, but Eline did not allow her to finish. She remained standing in front of Betsy and clenching her trembling hands.
“I tell you, you aggravate me, you aggravate me with that eternal rubbish about your house. ‘My house! my house!’ I know I am in your house, but I did not ask you to take me in, and I won’t be reminded that I am in your house, as if you did me a charity. I am not dependent on you although I am in your house, and I won’t be dictated to by you, not in anything. I am free, quite free, to do just as I please.”
“Oh no, you are not; you are in my house, and you must behave yourself. And if you don’t know how to behave yourself, I shall tell you, so long as you are here!”
“And I won’t be told by you how I am to behave!” shrieked Eline. “I tell you, I am free! I don’t want your house, about which you make so much fuss, and I swear to you that I shall not stay another moment in it! That I swear to you, I swear it, by all that is sacred! Enjoy your house to yourself, or choke in it for my part!”
She was scarcely conscious of what she said. She had worked herself into a paroxysm of rage, and with a rapid movement she picked up her cloak from the floor and flung it round her shoulders. Then she rushed towards the door, but Henk, who on hearing the loud voices had come upon the scene, stopped her.
“Eline!” he began severely.
“Let me go, let me go!” she screamed like a wounded tigress, and she pushed his big body aside with such a frantic strength as made him stagger. Once more he attempted to stop her, but again she pushed him aside, rushed out of the room, and down the stairs.
“Eline! In Heaven’s name, Eline! you don’t know what you are doing!” he shouted to her from the landing, and rushed after her.
She heard no more. She had but one single thought: to fly from that house, away from a shelter where she was reproached for her presence. She saw nothing more; she saw neither Gerard nor the servants, who stood looking at her in blank amazement; she hurried along the vestibule, flung open the glass doors, and quickly drew the bolt from the street-door. But now, now she heard behind her a rattling noise; the door fell to with a bang, shattering the glass on the floor with a loud crash.
Then the street-door too slammed behind her, and she found herself in the street. The rain was falling in torrents, and the blustering wind blew open her cloak, and beat in her face as with a damp thong. It was impossible for her to plod on in the teeth of that boisterous hurricane, and she turned the other way and allowed herself to be driven along aimlessly by the force of the wind, which flew at her back like a gigantic vampire, with big, tearing claws. Aimlessly she let herself be carried along in that pitiful, that dismal night. In the street she saw no one, and in her loneliness, in the lowering gloom, in the splashing downpour, in the wild gusts of the storm, she at length felt herself conscious of her position, and a chill, indefinable terror overtook her. It seemed to her as though she had been suddenly wrenched away from out of the midst of every-day life, and found herself plunged into a sphere full of nameless, terrible anxiety and blank, dismal despair. She nearly died with fright at the darkness that enveloped her like a black shroud of grief, at the deluge which was pouring down upon her bare head, utterly without protection from the wind gusts which nearly blew her cloak from her shoulders, and numbed her with cold in the thin black silk dress that fluttered about her in the buffeting wind. Her little patent shoes went splashing along through mud puddles and thick mire; her dishevelled hair hung dank and dripping down her temples; and under her thin cloak she felt a chill moisture gliding down her neck and down her bare bosom. She knew no longer where she was; she started in fright at the twigs that fell about her, at the howling of a watch-dog in a house she passed. And she saw no one, no one.
But her condition brought her to herself. She felt conscious of having fled from her sister’s house. She would fain have stood still for a moment to reflect, but the strong wind thrust her forward, as though she were one of the autumn leaves that were whirled about her head. And she let herself be blown along, and collected her thoughts, while tramping forward with involuntarily hurried footsteps. Despite her pitiful condition, she felt neither remorse nor regret at the step she had taken. And suddenly she felt astounded at her own courage. She would never have imagined herself possessed of the pluck to run away in such a night, without knowing whither to go. But she forced her thoughts to take some practical shape, she could not continue wandering about in this way, she must have an object.
All at once she noticed that she had reached the Laan Copes van Cattenburgh. Driven forward by the wind, she hurried along the rain-sodden, muddy path, while the storm swept in sullen fury across the Alexanders-veld.
Continually she had to step back before the shower of loose twigs which the wind blew from the trees, and she began to perceive that she was in danger of being crushed by some falling trunk. A fear for her life prevented her from thinking, but the more intensely that fear numbed her heart, the more eagerly she nerved herself to do so. Whither in Heaven’s name should she go? A chill tremor seized her—a vague, undefined dread—while her wide, staring eyes were trying in vain to peer through the dense gloom. To whom was she to go? To old Madame van Raat? No, no, fond as she was of her, the old lady would be sure to take the part of her son and her daughter-in-law! To the Verstraetens—her brother-in-law’s relation? Everything began to surge around her, and she—she felt herself lost in her black solitude, and gradually sinking lower and lower into an abyss of grief and of mire! Otto’s figure rose to her mind, and she would have given all that remained her of her life could he have come to her at that moment, could he have there and then borne her away in his arms, clinging to his heart, to some abode of warmth, light, love, and safety. Her courage all but failed her to go farther, she could have flung herself down in that mire through which she plodded, and remain lying there, letting the winds sweep over her until her last breath should have escaped her! But no! that would be all too cowardly after the pluck she had already shown, and now she must, she would set her mind to think of some place of refuge. Not Madame van Raat—not the Verstraetens—in Heaven’s name whither should she go then? And all at once, like a lightning flash darting through the gloom of that night of blank despair, an idea struck her, and her mind reverted to a certain suite of humble apartments, to Jeanne, her friend of former days. Yes, thither she must go: she knew no one else, and she could not for ever go on wandering along in that pouring rain, in that howling storm; and, bracing herself up to face the buffeting wind, she hurried round—numbed, chill, and wet to the skin—by the Alexanders-veld in the direction of the Hugo de Grootstraat. There, over on the opposite side of the field, she could just see the backs, lit up here and there with a faint gas glimmer, of the houses on the Nassauplein, but she could not distinguish which of them was theirs—hers no longer. A wild, longing remorse now filled her poor, despairing heart at the recollection of all she had lost yonder, at the thought that she had yet to plod on for so long through the raging storm ere she could reach the Ferelyns. And she was tired, tired unto death, tired from her quarrel with Betsy, tired with the rain that was unceasingly beating down upon her face, cold and cutting as thongs of steel, tired with the wind against which she struggled as with an immense black monster, that was dashing her to and fro as though she had been a human battledore. She felt more fatigued with every step she took in her little patent shoes, which were bespattered with mud, and with every movement threatened to slip from her feet. And oh! she could have died with misery, with distress, with grief.
But forward, still forward she must go, and she fought and struggled on with the monster and slowly gained upon it. In this way she reached the Javastraat, and then she turned to the right, towards the Laan van Meerdervoort. The hurricane shook her as though it would break her like a reed, and a heavy branch struck her on the shoulder, and scratched her face so that she screamed with pain. And suddenly, with despair overmastering her body and soul, desperate with fear and grief, she made an attempt to start running, running as if for very life, and fly—fly to the Ferelyns. But the furious wind stopped her, it was in vain, she could only proceed slowly, painfully, step by step.
“Oh God! What have I done?” she cried in wild despair. Those familiar streets, along which she trod almost daily, seemed to her, in that noisome darkness, as the unknown ways of a demon city along which she was doomed to wander like some accursed phantom. She passed by Madame van Raat’s house, and she had to summon forth all her courage, all the strength of her will, not to knock at that door, that would surely open to her, and admit her to light and warmth. But no, it was too late, Madame would be asleep; besides, she would reproach Eline with her flight from the Nassauplein. And she plodded on, driven forward by the wind and by an obstinate fixed idea, towards the house of the Ferelyns. She went on, on, although with every step she took she felt her thin little saturated shoes growing heavier, heavier than lead. She turned at the Spiegelstraat—how much longer should she have to suffer? She counted the minutes—then—then she entered the Hugo de Grootstraat. And the furious rain beat down more savagely than ever on her face, more roughly than ever the wind tugged and tore at her cloak, when—thank God!—she stood at their door. She could see no light anywhere, but she did not hesitate. Here only could she find safety. And she rang the bell violently, roughly, passionately, as with a tintinnabulating cry for help.
The time to her seemed unendurably long before any one answered. But at last she heard steps coming down the stairs, the bolt was drawn with a grating sound, then the door was slowly, stealthily opened, and a face appeared at the opening.
“In God’s name!” she cried imploringly, and pushed the door quite open and rushed inside. “It is I, Eline.”
The door closed and she stood in the darkness before Frans Ferelyn, who, in utter amazement, shouted out her name. At the top of the stairs appeared Jeanne with a lamp, and in her longing for light, for warmth, for glow, her will once more got the better of failing strength, and she hastened up the stairs.
“Jeanne!—Jeanne!—I implore you—help me. It is I—Eline, oh, help me! help me, do!”
“Great heavens, Eline!” Jeanne cried, as she stood paralyzed with astonishment.
“Help me, do. I have—run away from them. Help me, do, or I shall die.”
She sank down soaking wet at Jeanne’s feet, and where she lay the stairs were soon wet with the water that dripped from her cloak.
“Great heavens, Eline! Eline!” cried Jeanne, who could not believe her own eyes.
Eline had burst out sobbing, and remained crouched at Jeanne’s feet. Jeanne attempted to lift her up; and wherever her hands touched her, she felt her icy cold and soaked through with the rain.
“In Heaven’s name, Eline, what have you done? What has happened? You are so wet—so wet—wet and cold all over. Great heavens, Eline!” She led Eline, who walked with tottering steps, into Frans’s little office, and set down the lamp. Eline fell exhausted on a chair, the dirty rain-water oozing through her clothes.
“Yes—yes,” cried Eline. “I have run away from them, I could not stop with them any longer. And I have come to you—because I don’t know where else to go. Oh, Jeanne, do, do help me!” she went on, in a voice broken with sobs.
Jeanne trembled with nervousness and pity.
“Tell me about that afterwards, Eline. Let me undress you—you will be ill in these wet things.”
“Yes, yes, undress me, do—that cloak, those shoes, oh, I am sick of myself. I am all over mud. Great heavens! oh, that I were dead!” She threw herself, trembling all over, backward in her chair. Frans had come into the room.
“Oh, Frans, just look here,” said Jeanne, shaking with excitement, and pointed to Eline. “I hope she won’t be ill.”
“Without a hat, in that thin, low-necked dress! I shall try and light the fire down-stairs. You undress her.”
He was still as if paralyzed with Eline’s appearance, and he too trembled with pity, quite unable to speak, as he saw her sitting in that chair, the water dripping from her hair on her white face and down her throat, her black evening dress clinging to her like a wet flannel. But he went. He must be up and doing.
And outside raged the storm.
She was now in their well-lit sitting-room, lying on a couch which Frans had placed by the side of the flaming stove, and she shivered with fever under her woollen blankets. And yet she felt a grateful sense of well-being in that light, in sight of those flames, intensely grateful that she was saved from the demoniac powers of darkness. Suddenly she raised herself up.
“Jeanne,” she shrieked in a hoarse voice to the little trembling woman, who was preparing a steaming hot drink. “Jeanne! I implore you, forgive me for keeping you up such a night as this. But, in Heaven’s name, where was I to go to? Oh, that rain, that wind! It drives me mad to think of it. I had no idea that a person could be in such distress as I have suffered this night. But really, I could not stay with them any longer. As for that Betsy, oh, how I hate her.”
“Eline, I entreat you, be calm now.”
“Why did she mention Otto’s name? What right has she to mention Otto’s name? I hate her! I hate her!”
“Eline! Eline!” Jeanne cried, clasping her hands.
She flung herself before the couch.
“Eline, I beseech you, I beseech you, in Heaven’s name! Be calm! Rest yourself now, Eline.”
Eline, with her feverish, staring eyes, looked long at Jeanne, then she threw her arm round her neck.
“Lie down and rest yourself now, Eline; rest yourself, if you cannot sleep.”
A hollow sob burst from Eline’s throat.
“Oh, you are an angel!” she whispered in broken tones. “I shall never forget what you are doing for me, never. It is as if you have rescued me from an abyss of despair. Oh, that mud! You care for me then, Jany?”
“Yes, yes, Eline, of course I do; but rest now, rest yourself now.”
“Oh! rest myself.”
That single word ‘rest’ cut Jeanne to the quick. Eline pronounced it in a voice full of despair, as if for her there would never more be any rest. Still she allowed Jeanne to ensconce her snugly in the pillows, and emptied the glass that Jeanne offered her.
“Thanks, thanks, Jany,” she faltered.
Jeanne covered her up with the blankets and sat down beside her. The windows rattled in the wind, and the bare branches beat furiously against the glass. The clock over the chimney struck three.
It had just struck three, too, in the house of the Van Raats, when Frans Ferelyn drew up in front of their door in a cab. The storm still roared and shrieked like some wounded monster that was savagely fighting for life above the housetops of the dark city. Frans sprang from the cab and rang the bell. He noticed that the gas was lighted in the vestibule.
The door was opened immediately by Henk, who appeared to be expecting some one. But on seeing Frans rush inside, he stepped back in astonishment.
“Is that you, Ferelyn?” he cried.
“Yes, don’t be alarmed,” said Frans, calming him, for he saw that Henk was in a terrible state of excitement. “It is all right; Eline is with us.”
He walked further inside, crushing the glass that lay scattered all over the vestibule.
“With you, is she? Thank God!” exclaimed Henk. “I was mad, mad; I did not know what to do! Thank God she is with you.”
“Come in, Ferelyn,” came in a trembling voice from Betsy, who appeared at the door of the dining-room.
The servants were also in the vestibule, and their frightened faces cleared up a little, while they retired whispering into the kitchen. Frans entered the dining-room with Henk.
“You need not be alarmed, madam; really, for the moment it is all right. Eline was wet through, but Jeanne has taken her under her care. You can imagine what a fright it gave us when we heard such a loud knocking at the door, and at such an hour, and we saw her soaked through.”
Suddenly he noticed Henk’s face.
“But I say, what has happened to you? Your cheek is all over blood.”
“Oh, that’s nothing at all. When Eline ran away I rushed after her, and through the wind the door in the vestibule fell to and broke the glass. The shattered glass sprang into my eyes, and so I could not at once run after her. Still, as soon as I could I got out into the street with Gerard, to drag her home again if necessary. But it was so confoundedly dark; the gas-lamps were blown out in the storm, and I could see nothing of her. I did not know what to do. Then we went to the police-station on the Schelpkade, and they sent out some night-watchmen to find her. She was in such a state. I thought perhaps she might have made an end of herself, and in this infernal weather anything might happen to her. My eye pains me; I shall go and see an oculist to-morrow.”
Betsy fell down with a sigh in a chair.
“Oh, ’tis terrible, terrible!” she faltered. “That girl can behave like a maniac sometimes!”
“Of course, if you do your best to drive her mad!” cried Henk angrily, with his hand on his eye.
“Ah, bien! Yes, blame me for it.”
“Van Raat, there is just a thing or two I want to say to you,” interrupted Frans. “In the first place, I came round here without a moment’s delay, because I fear