CHAPTER XXVI.
Her head languidly resting against the red velvet cushions, Eline was seated alone in the ladies’ coupé. She listened mechanically to the rattling of the wheels along the rail, and it seemed to her as if she heard a nervous tattoo in that monotonous hard melody of steel and iron. Once or twice she took her handkerchief and wiped the glass to have a glance outside, where the gray evening shades were falling, and an opaque mist was rising over the meadows. In a few minutes she would be in the Hague, in the Hague, where now she had not been for eighteen months, and after her continuous wanderings the place seemed dear to her now, a place where yet she might find something of a home.
For eighteen months she had been travelling, and in all that time she had lived with strangers without the smallest spot that she could call her own. The changeful life she had led made the time pass rapidly; change, ceaseless change had been hers. New cities, new scenes, new people, wherever she went, until she was tired, dead tired of all this variety. Now she longed for rest and calmness, for a long dull period of slumbering repose, free from dreams and free from sorrows.
Something of a home! Should she indeed find that, with that sad, aged woman who loved her, but who did not understand her as she was now—quiet, sadly quiet, and tired, utterly tired of her young life? For henceforth she would be sad and quiet and tired of it all, she would not again excite herself to an artificial glitter of gaiety, as she had been forced to do among the strangers with whom she had sojourned.
She heard the shrill whistle of the engine, and the lights that glimmered through the mist grew in number at every moment. She was approaching the Hague slowly. She rose, arranged her hat and her veil, placed her book and her scent-bottle in her leather satchel, and sat waiting, looking somewhat thin and worn, her face sallow and emaciated, her eyes dull and sunk deep within their sockets. She sat waiting until the train glided into the station and came to a stop.
Her heart beat and the tears glistened on her lashes. Through the steam-covered glass, in the dull glow of the gas-lights, she could see the busy turmoil of the station, and she heard the loud voices of the guard calling out—
“Hague, Hague!”
The carriage-door was opened; she rose, her portmanteau, her rug and sunshades in her hand. Amid the rushing to and fro of the travellers her eyes sought Paul; she knew that he was coming to fetch her, and she gave a sudden start when she saw a familiar burly form make his way through the crowd and approach her.
“Henk!” she cried.
He helped her out and she nearly fell into his arms, while Paul, who followed him, relieved her of her luggage.
“Elly—my child! Elly, dearest!” said Henk in a choking voice, and gently he kissed her, while she lay her sobbing head on his shoulder. She scarcely heard Paul’s greeting, and quite mechanically she held out her hand to him. A wild sob escaped her. But Henk still spoke on, he took her arm and led her to the front of the station where his carriage was waiting. She let him lead her, full of undefined thoughts, full of a vague sadness, and she leant on his hand and stepped into the carriage.
“We shall wait for Paul a moment,” said Henk, who took his place beside her.
She did not answer, but lay back in the cushions and covered her head with her hand.
“I did not expect to see you, Henk; it’s very kind of you, very kind indeed,” she at last was able to say. He gently pressed her hand, and leaned his head out of the window. Paul was approaching.
“All the luggage is right,” he said, and sprang into the carriage. “Well, Elly dear, I am glad to see you again.”
The footman closed the door and the carriage rolled away. Paul said nothing more, neither did Eline or Henk. By the light of every gas-lamp they passed, Paul saw Eline lying back in the cushions motionless, her hands covering her face, her bosom heaving with sobs, and they remained silent.
It was past ten when the carriage drew up in front of the house in the Laan van Meerdervoort. The footman rang the bell, the door was opened, they stepped out. In the hall stood Madame van Raat, trembling with emotion, and Eline rushed towards her and flung her arms round her neck.
“Dear, dear little madam! dear little mother!” she sobbed, “you will have me stay with you, won’t you?”
The old lady wept like a child, and took Eline’s arm and led her into the dining-room; the table was laid, and supper was waiting.
“Oh, what a dear old darling you are!” cried Eline. “I am so glad, so glad that I may come and stay with you.” She clasped the weeping old lady in her arms, and Madame van Raat made her sit down on the sofa, and sat down beside her with her arm round her waist. What a time it was since she had seen Eline, and how was she looking now? All right? “Oh yes, yes, I am quite well,” cried Eline, and kissed her again and again.
But the old lady undid Eline’s veil, and helped her to remove her hat and her cloak. And oh, very soon she saw—that emaciated frame, those hollow cheeks, those dull eyes.
“My child,” she cried, unable to contain herself, “my child, oh, how changed you are, how bad you look!”
Eline embraced her passionately, and hid her glowing little head in the old lady’s bosom.
“Oh, you must not take any notice of that, I am a little tired of travelling—perhaps I look a little pale, eh? Really you shall see, when I’ve been with you a little time again, I shall look as fresh as a daisy.” She smiled at the old lady through her tears, and kissed her repeatedly, now her cheeks, then her old shrivelled hand.
Henk and Paul entered, and they too were touched by Eline’s altered appearance, but although it alarmed them, they said nothing. The old lady could not keep her eyes from Eline; she wiped her eyes, and asked Eline whether she would not like to wash her hands.
“No, never mind,” cried Eline; “I feel a little dusty, but it does not matter. Oh, Henk, my dear old Henk.”
She motioned Henk towards her, made him sit down by her side, and clasped his big head in her little hands.
“Aren’t you—aren’t you angry with me any more, Henk?” she murmured close to his ear.
He bit his lips with emotion. “I never was—angry with you,” he stammered with a choking voice. She kissed him, then released her hold of him, gave a sigh of relief, and cast a long glance around her. Yes, she had found something of a home.
They sat down at table, but Eline had no appetite; she just touched her soup, but eat she could not at all. But she asked Paul to fill and refill her glass, for she was thirsty. The wine and her emotion brought a blush to her sallow cheeks, and when the old lady asked her why Uncle Daniel had not brought her home, she laughed, a loud and nervous laugh. Oh, she could very well journey from Brussels to the Hague by herself; uncle wanted to take her, but she refused his escort, she was so used to travelling now. Nothing was easier than travelling, she need only pack her trunks, ask a few questions here and there, and take her seat in the carriage. Why, it was nothing.
Quickly and nervously she spoke on, her glass, which she repeatedly put to her lips, clasped in her hands. She spoke about her life in Paris, in Bordeaux, and in Spain. Ah! Spain, there she lived again. Spain! the land of romance, the land of ancient Moorish chivalry and elegance. As for Granada and the Alhambra it was grand, magnificent; to the bull-fights she would never go, although Elise had laughed at her, but she could not stand it, such a dirty thing to see those dead, mangled, bleeding beasts.
Paul laughed, and she laughed too, and pitied the poor bulls, and still she spoke on; the old lady continually urged her to eat something, but she refused.
“Really not, little madam, really not, thank you. I can only drink a little, I’m so thirsty. May I have another glass?”
“Can you take so much wine, child?”
“Oh yes, it makes me sleep beautifully. If I don’t take wine I lie awake all night, and that is so wretched. Cordova is a beautiful city too, there is such a grand mosque there.”
And she allowed herself to be driven forward along the nervous stream of her travelling impressions. Why did not Paul travel more than he did? if she were a young man and had money, she would always travel, always. Long journeys would she make, from New York to San Francisco, and then by sea to Japan, all over the world. How beautiful! It was splendid, splendid in a railway carriage, she could pass her life in a train! The old lady shook her head, gently smiling at her enthusiasm.
“But nicer still than all it is to come and live with you here, my dear little madam, my little dot,” she cried; and with sudden impetuosity she embraced the gray-haired old lady.
After supper Madame van Raat suggested that Eline should go and take a little rest in her room. Eline agreed, but little madam was to stay with her—would she? Paul had an appointment with some friends, and took his leave, and Henk too rose.
“May Betsy come and see you to-morrow?” he whispered a little anxiously. She smiled and looked at him questioningly, pressing his hand.
“Certainly,” she replied; “kiss her for me, will you? And how is Ben, has he grown much?”
“Oh yes, he is an immense boy. You shall see him to-morrow. Well, good-bye, Elly, good-night.”
“Good-bye, Henk, till to-morrow.”
Henk left, and Madame took Eline up-stairs to her room.
“For the present I cannot give you a sitting-room, Elly,” she said on the staircase, “at least so long as Paul is with me.”
“Where does he think of going to then?”
“He wants to live by himself; that is best too for a young man, is it not? But your bedroom is a very large one, you know that room next to mine?”
“Oh yes, I remember, ’tis a splendid room.”
In her room the gas was lit, and the French windows were open, so that the cool evening air blew inside. Eline coughed a little when she entered.
“’Tis rather cool, I shall close the window,” said the old lady.
Eline looked about her in astonishment, and her eyes grew moist.
“But, little madam, little madam, what have you done?” she exclaimed with emotion.
For wherever her eye went she saw some souvenir of her rooms on the Nassauplein. There was her Psyche yonder, her toilet dishes; in this corner her writing-desk, her letter-rack; there hung her Venetian mirror; round about her in tasteful profusion her statuettes were arranged; while almost the only thing that was new in the room was the big bedstead, on which the dark blue curtains were suspended like a baldaquin from the wall.
“Does it suit you?” asked Madame van Raat. “I thought you would like your own things best; but, child, what is the matter now, what are you crying about?”
She allowed Eline’s arms to encircle her, and Eline wept on her shoulder and kissed her again and again. The old lady made her sit down on the couch, and sat down beside her, and Eline still leaned against her as a weeping child leans against her mother.
“Oh, now, now at last I begin to feel the luxury of rest,” she said wearily, “for I am so tired, so tired.”
“Shall I leave you alone then, if you want to sleep?”
“No, no, stay, do stay here; it is not the five hours in the train that has made me tired. I am tired, tired of everything, and that sleep will not cure; but still now I feel that I am resting, not because I am sitting down, but because it is on you that I am leaning, and because I know that you care for me. You see I needed it so much—in all this travelling, among all those strange people—I needed somebody upon whom I could lean, somebody who would give me a little, a very little love and affection, but it was all so cold, so deadly cold around me, with all the kindliness and courtesy. Uncle Daniel too is just like all the rest, very friendly, very kind, very polite, but so cold. With Elise I was always having some joke or another, all about her is light and airy as foam, but she too is cold, cold and cynical, and with all those strangers I was always obliged to be on my friendliest behaviour, and always smiling, for who would have cared to be bothered with a guest who was not jolly? And where was I to go to, if I did not lodge somewhere or was on my journey?”
“But, child, you could always have come to me, and I should have written to you before this if I had thought you were so unhappy, but I always imagined that you were very happy indeed.”
“Happy!” groaned Eline, “yes, happy as a horse that cannot go further, and is driven along by blows and kicks;” and she laughed, a laugh of bitter sadness.
Her laugh cut into Madame van Raat’s soul like a knife. The tears sparkled in her dulled eyes and she could not speak, she could only clasp Eline closer to her breast.
“Yes, that’s right, hold me close to you,” murmured Eline softly. “This is rest, rest indeed—my dear, dear old pet.”
Thus they remained seated for a long time, and neither of them spoke another word until the old lady insisted that Eline should try and sleep. She would stay close to her, Eline need but open a door, and she would be with her.
“If you want anything say so, or you will ring, won’t you, child? Do exactly as if you were at home. Ask for whatever you want.”
Eline promised she would, and the old lady left her. But Eline’s heart was still too full for her to retire to bed at once. She glanced around her, and in every nook, in every corner, she recognized her own vases, her plates, and her photos. Then her glance fell upon a Japanese box on the table. Her little bunch of keys was lying beside it, she took it up, found the right key, and opened the box. In it there were a number of letters discoloured with age—letters from old schoolmates, letters from Aunt Vere, written at a time when she was at boarding-school. The former she would tear up, for she felt no longer an attachment for the gushing professions of girls whom she never saw, and whom she had forgotten as they had forgotten her. A letter or two she found also from her father—her father who had been so dear to her—and she kissed the paper with veneration as though it had been sacred. But all at once, while she was arranging her papers, there fell from those discoloured pages a small piece of cardboard. She stooped, picked it up from the floor—and she turned white as a sheet, while her eyes stared wildly in front of her.
“Oh!” she groaned, as if an old wound had suddenly been opened. “Oh, oh heavens!”
It was a small portrait of Otto’s. How did it come there, among all those old letters? Ah, yes, she remembered, it was the proof of a photograph which once he had had taken for her. The portrait itself, which during her engagement she had constantly carried about her, she had returned him, together with his other presents, with the Bucchi fan. This little proof had got lost among her letters, and she had never given it another thought.
“Oh!” she groaned again. “Oh!”
She wept, she sobbed, she pressed the portrait to her lips. That little proof was now her greatest treasure, and for ever—yes, for ever—she would carry it about her, it was the only thing that was left to her out of her great happiness, that happiness that had slipped from between her fingers like a precious bird. And this was the only little feather it had left behind.
“Otto—Otto,” she murmured. And her tears and kisses covered the little piece of cardboard.
In her own room Madame van Raat still sat meditating. Sadly, her eyes full of tears, she shook her head. How was it possible, while she had been so long happy with her husband, that her dear little Elly had known so little of real pleasure? and in her piety—the piety and childlike faith of a simple heart, a heart full of gratitude for that which once had been granted it—she folded her shrivelled hands and prayed, prayed for her dear little Elly, prayed that she might be happy.
Next morning, at the breakfast-table, a sudden impulse moved Eline.
“Little madam,” she began in soft, trembling tones, and she laid her hands on that of the old lady. “Little madam, I wanted to ask you something. Do you see anything of Erlevoort now?”
The old lady looked at her as though she would fain have guessed Eline’s thoughts, but she could not gather anything from those feverish eyes, from those nervously-moving fingers.
“What makes you ask that, Elly?”
It was the first time that she had spoken to Eline about Otto since the breaking of her engagement.
“Oh, I should so like to know if it affected him much, and if he’s happy now. Do you never meet him?”
“I have met him once or twice at my brother-in-law’s on the Princessegracht.”
“How does he look?”
“He is not much changed, he may have aged a little perhaps, but it is not very noticeable. He is certainly a little quiet and rather gloomy, but then he was never very boisterous, was he?”
“No,” murmured Eline, brimful of past memories.
“He is not in the Hague now; he is at the Horze, I believe.”
“Have I driven him away, I wonder?” thought Eline, and with an effort to make it appear as though the interest she took in him was for his own sake, not for hers, she softly said, “Then I suppose he has got over it; there is nothing I should like better than to know him to be happy, he deserves it. He is a very good fellow.”
The old lady said nothing, and Eline could with difficulty keep herself from crying. Oh, was it not terrible that even before her dear old little pet she was obliged to do violence to herself and be a hypocrite? Oh, what a hollow sham it all was! She, she had always shammed, to her own self as well as to others, and she still shammed now. So inured had she grown to her shamming and hypocrisy, that now she could not do otherwise.
“And now there is something that I want to show you, which I hope you will like,” said the old lady, who guessed something of Eline’s sadness; “follow me.” She led her down-stairs, and opened the door of the drawing-room.
“You know I used to have such an old cripple of a piano, because, you see, it was only for Paul, who jingled a little on it to study his singing, but now just look here.”
They walked inside, and in the place of the old cripple they found a brand-new Bechstein; her music-books in their red and gilt bindings lay on the top.
“It will suit your voice splendidly, the tone is so clear.”
Eline’s lips trembled and twitched nervously.
“But, madam,” she stammered, “why did you do this—oh why, why did you do it? I—I don’t sing any more.”
“Why, why not?” asked the old lady, quite alarmed.
Eline with a sigh threw herself in a chair.
“I may not sing any more,” she exclaimed almost bitterly, for the new piano most cruelly awoke the memory of her splendid voice of former days. “The doctors whom I consulted in Paris have forbidden me; you see I have been coughing all the winter, and it is only lately that my cough has been less. During the last two winters I have coughed continually, and had such a pain here on my chest. In the summer-time I am quite well.”
“But, child,” said the old lady anxiously, “didn’t you take good care of yourself then, while you were abroad?”
“Oh yes, the Des Luynes recommended me to some specialists in Paris, and they sounded and tapped me and knocked me about until I was tired of it; besides that, I was constantly under treatment of two regular doctors, but in the end I had enough of it. They did not cure me, while they told me I should always have to reside in a warm climate. But I could not remain vegetating all by myself in Algiers, or Heaven knows where, and Uncle Daniel had to return to Brussels; so you see,” she concluded with a little nervous laugh, “I am a hopeless wreck in every way.”
The old lady pressed Eline’s head to her bosom, with the tears glistening in her eyes.
“’Tis a pity, because of the nice piano,” said Eline, releasing herself from the old lady’s embrace and seating herself nervously at the piano. “What a full clear tone, how rich and beautiful!”
Her fingers glided quickly along the notes, the tones seemed to sob with grief at that voice that was lost. The old lady looked on sadly, she had nursed herself in the belief and hope that Eline would sing with Paul; that Paul, attracted and charmed by the music, would stay much at home in the evening; that a melodious sweet sociability would once more fill her lonely, silent rooms; but all she heard was the loud sob-like notes as they came from under Eline’s fingers, the weeping dew of a chromatic bravura, and the great running tears of painful staccatos.
“Yes, I shall practise my piano playing. I never was a great pianist, but I shall do what I can; you shall hear some music, dearie. What a tone, what a beautiful clear tone!”
And the clear, liquid notes followed one another as in a flowing torrent of grief.
In honour of Eline, Paul took care to be home for coffee. In the afternoon Madame Verstraeten came with Marie, and they were followed by Emilie de Woude. Eline received them cordially, and showed herself pleased to see them. A strange feeling came over Marie now that she heard and saw Eline once more; something of a fear it was, a misgiving, whether Eline would also discover any change in her; but Eline did not seem to notice anything, and talked on; she talked about her travels, about the cities she had visited, about the people she had seen, talked on continuously with nervous rapidity, the thoughts rushing closely one after another. She could not help it, it was the nervous state in which she existed just now, a nervousness that overmastered her wherever she might be, and ever kept her fingers in motion either crumpling up her handkerchief, plucking at the fringe of the tablecloth, or swaying the tassels of her fauteuil backwards and forwards. Her elegant languor, her graceful calm of former days was completely gone.
About four o’clock the drawing-room door was opened, and Betsy entered, leading Ben by her hand. Eline rose and hurried towards her to hide her confusion under a show of cordiality. She embraced her sister impetuously, and fortunately Betsy found some appropriate words to say. Then Eline overwhelmed Ben with her kisses. He was a big boy for his five years, but in his eyes there was that undefinable, sleepy expression common to a backward child. Still a happy memory seemed to steal over him, for his little lips opened into a glad smile, and round Eline’s neck he flung his little chubby arms and kissed her. After that neither of the sisters seemed to desire any very confidential conversation, and Betsy left, together with the Verstraetens and Emilie, and Eline did not press her to stay. Both of them felt that no closer tie than one of mere conventionality bound them together. During the last eighteen months they had not seen each other, and now that they did meet it seemed to them as though they were strangers, who made a show of politeness and cordiality, saying all kinds of nice things, while a chill indifference filled their hearts.