Small Souls/Chapter XXXV
Constance was much alone during those days. She was even more lonely than she had ever been in Brussels—when Van der Welcke was away about his wines or his insurances—because this was the first time that she had been parted from Addie. She saw her mother almost every day, however; but, for the rest, she mostly stayed at home, just as she had very often stayed at home in Brussels. A gentle melancholy had come upon her, after her fits of depression, a melancholy that impelled her to be much at home and much by herself. She was a stay-at-home woman: her house had the well-tended and attractive and comfortable appearance of a house which is loved by its occupant with the unadventurous feeling that home is the safest place. She busied herself in the mornings in a quiet way, did her housekeeping, gave her orders quietly and methodically; and her house always had an atmosphere of cosy, restful well-being, which seemed to calm her and persuade her to stay in it. The two maids, with whom she was always the calm, pleasant mistress of the house, liked her, did their work quietly and soon learnt what was expected of them. During these days when she was alone, she went all over the house with them, made them give Van der Welcke’s room and Addie’s room a thorough cleaning, went through every corner of her cupboards with her gentle, mindful fingers, the fingers of a dainty woman who imparted something of her own daintiness to everything that she touched.
She was not a great reader, did not play the piano, was not even particularly cultured. As a child, she had been fond of fairy-tales; as a child, she had even invented fairy-tales; but, apart from that, she did not care much for literature; poetry she regarded as insincere; and she did not know much about music. But there was something soft and pretty and distinguished about her, something exquisite and feminine, especially now that her vanity was really dead. She had an innate taste for never doing or saying anything that was ugly or harsh or coarse; and it was only when her nerves got the better of her that she could lose her temper and fly into a passion. But, owing especially to her sadness and to the grey and dismal years which she had passed, she had developed a very sensitive, soft heart, almost hypersensitive and oversoft. A word of sympathy at once fell upon her like kindly dew and made her love whoever uttered it. She had become very fond of her mother, more so than formerly, appreciating in Mamma the mother who kept her children together. She also shared that family-affection, that strange fondness for all her kith and kin. But she often experienced what Mamma never felt: the disappointment and depression and discouragement of loving with a love that was deep and inclusive those whose changing, complex interests were for ever taking them farther and farther out of reach. At such times, she just remained at home, in her own house, wrapped herself in her gentle melancholy, went over the house with the maids, who liked her, in order that everything might be very nice and neat. She had nothing of the Dutch housewife about her; and the maids often told her that Mrs. So-and-so used to do things this way and Mrs. What’s-her-name that way. But she had so much tact that they did as she wished and accepted her distribution of hours and duties; and her house was always in order, comfortable, fit to live in. She had the gentle little fads of a woman who has no great intellect and who takes pleasure in almost simple, childish little femininities. If she happened to have a headache or felt out of sorts, she thought it pleasant to lie on the sofa in her bedroom with a heap of fashion-plates around her and quietly to think out all sorts of costumes, which she did not require and did not order, but which she just thought out, created, with the graceful fancy of a dainty woman who loves pretty clothes. Or she could amuse herself with tidying up her cupboards, going through all her laces and ribbons, folding them up neatly, smoothing them out, laying them in the different compartments of exquisite little Empire chests-of-drawers and scenting them with orris-root. Or she could go through her trinkets—she had not many—polishing her jewels and trying the effect of them upon herself with a pleased laugh at those pretty things which sparkle so brightly and enhance a woman’s beauty. She was not interested in the larger questions, did not understand feminism, was a little afraid of socialism, especially because the poor were so dirty and smelt so horribly. Still, she was charitable, though she was not at all well-off, and often gave money to the poor and dirty, hoping above all that they would wash themselves. And yet she had a fairly logical intelligence, even though she was not cultured, even though she did not ponder deeply on social questions or on art. Now that her vanity was dead, she was a woman of the world, who thought the world tedious and tiresome and felt just a need for sympathy and soft compassion. And only sometimes did the strings within her seem to become more tensely stretched and there sounded through her something like a vague sadness that suddenly made her think and say to herself:
“How small we are and how small everything that we do is! I am growing old now; and what has there been in my existence? Could there be anything else in life? Or is life just like that, for everybody?”
In point of fact, she herself did not know that her heart had never spoken. She had fallen in love with Van der Welcke, at Rome, because of his good looks, in that atmosphere of vanity and drawing-room comedy which had made her, after reading a couple of fashionable French novels, talk sadly about her soul-weariness, parrot-wise, neither knowing nor feeling aught of what she said. She never even thought that there was another sort of love than that which she had felt for Van der Welcke; and, if she happened to read about it somewhere in one of her occasional fits of reading, she would think:
“It’s only a book; and the author is writing fine words.”
But, at the same time, her gentle nature was too superlatively and exquisitely feminine and also too motherly to look upon physical love as the only needful thing. No, what she had felt as a duty in the case of her first husband and as passion in the case of Van der Welcke had soon turned to mother-love. Married, in her passion she had at once longed for a child. And she had worshipped her child from the very first day. . . .