Small Souls/Chapter XXXVI
Constance was in her bedroom one morning, arranging all sorts of things, when the servant came and said:
“Mrs. van Saetzema is here, ma’am.”
Constance’ eyelashes trembled and her lips contracted. She would have liked to make an excuse, to say that she was not at home; but she refrained because of the maid:
“Very well, Truitje; ask her to come up.”
Adolphine came upstairs noisily, with elaborate gaiety:
“Good-morning, Constance, how are you? We hardly ever see you now. I say, have you been ill?”
“No.”
“You are not looking well. Why is it so dark in here?”
“Dark?”
“Yes, I should feel stifled in a light like this. Oh, of course, it’s the trees opposite! They take away all the light. My goodness, this is a gloomy house of yours! Aren’t your husband and boy back yet?”
“No.”
“I say, why didn’t you go with them?”
“For no special reason.”
“They’re a very particular old couple, aren’t they, that father and mother of your husband’s? Whatever are you doing?”
“I’m tidying up my cupboard.”
“You’d do better to go for a walk: you’re looking so pale.”
“But I’m perfectly well.”
“I’ve come to ask if you’ll come to dinner at my house the day after to-morrow. But you must make yourself smart. We shall be fourteen. My first dinner-party. It’s a summer dinner. But we know such an awful lot of people; and I always begin my dinners very early. You see, it’s quite plain, at my place, but jolly. Bertha doesn’t begin till January; but she works everything out so closely. I like doing things handsomely. So it’s settled, isn’t it: you’ll come?”
“I’m sorry, Adolphine. It’s very nice of you to ask me, but I can’t come.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know your friends. And I don’t care about going out.”
“Oh!” said Adolphine, nettled. “I suppose my friends are not smart enough for you? I can tell you, I have the Hijdrechts coming and the Erkenbouts and the . . .”
“I’m not saying anything about your friends, but I don’t care for dinner-parties.”
“And you give them yourself!”
“I?”
“Yes, as I saw for myself not so long ago.” “I don’t give dinner-parties. I have Van Vreeswijck to dinner now and again.”
“To dinner . . . with pink candles on the table?”
“Yes, with pink candles.”
“Well, if you don’t want to come . . . this is a free country. . . .”
“Fortunately!”
“You’re rather upset this morning, aren’t you?”
“Not at all.”
“Is it just because our boys had a fight? You’ve adopted quite a different tone to me since: I’ve noticed. I can’t help it if boys choose to fight.”
“Adolphine, don’t let us talk of matters that can make us say things which we might regret.”
But Adolphine was angry because Constance had refused to come to her dinner. Her invitations had all gone wrong and she wanted Constance; also, she thought that Constance did not value the invitation; also, she thought Constance a snob, with that everlasting Vreeswijck of hers, that Court man. . . .
“Regret?” she said, coldly. “I never say anything that I have to regret. But I can’t help it if people at the Hague are saying unpleasant things about us all just now!”
And, working herself into a state of nervous excitement, she tried to cry, in order to make Constance, who was so unkind, feel, once and for all, that not only she, Adolphine, but the whole family had to suffer no end of pain because of Constance. And she managed to get the tears into her eyes and squeezed them out.
But Constance remained indifferent:
“What sort of things?” she asked.
“What sort of things?” snapped Adolphine, furiously, crying with temper, offended at the refusal, forgetting all the nice things that Constance had said about Floortje’s trousseau, hating her sister at the moment. “What sort of things? That you are not Papa’s daughter!”
“That I . . .?”
“That you are not Papa’s daughter!” shrieked the other, getting more excited at every word, deliberately screwing herself up into a frenzy of nerves. “They’re slandering Mamma, they’re slandering Mamma! Yes, they’re saying that you’re not Papa’s daughter!”
Constance shrugged her shoulders.
“Well, what do you say to it?” demanded Adolphine.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? Nothing?” cried Adolphine, beside herself because Constance remained so cool at such a revelation. “Nothing? Oh, I expect you’re accustomed to have people talking about you. Well, I’m not, d’you see? I have always been used to decency and respectability in my circle, among my friends. No one ever talked about us before. No one ever said that I wasn’t Papa’s daughter. . . .”
“You can’t tell. There’s time yet!” said Constance. “Yes, you don’t care!” Adolphine blubbered, furiously. “You, with your stuck-up coolness, you’re so eaten up with conceit that you don’t take anything to heart. I’m not like that. I’m sensitive, I’m easily affected, it hurts me when people talk about us. But then I’m not used to it as you are!”
And Adolphine kept squeezing the tears out of her eyes, wishing to convey that she was misunderstood and misjudged and very sensitive; wishing also to make Constance feel that it was Constance’ fault and that there was plenty more that was Constance’ fault. Constance, however, remained cool.
Though a single unfortunate word from her husband was enough to set her nerves on edge and her temper seething, she kept calm and cold towards her sister, because, after the fight between their boys, she had settled accounts with Adolphine, written her off as it were; and this feeling had depressed her too much to allow her now to excite herself into a quarrel. She wondered if she was overdoing it; and, to settle the matter, she said:
“I confess that I have never had such an experience of backbiting as here, at the Hague; in Brussels, at any rate, no one ever doubted the legitimacy of my child. But here—and even in your house, Adolphine—people seem to think that he is not my husband’s son.”
“How can I help that?” Adolphine began to blubber.
“No, you can’t help it; at least I’m prepared to believe you can’t. But I did hope that, if any one in your house spoke unkindly of your sister, you would have stood up for her, against your children, who perhaps did not quite realize all the mischief which their words might cause. . . . Let me finish, Adolphine: I am quite calm and I want to tell you this calmly. . . . If Addie had dared to speak of you in my presence as your children must have spoken of me, I should have been very severe with him. I was under the illusion that I might expect as much from you. I thought that there was still a family-bond, a family-affection, a family-pride among all of us; I thought that there was a mutual sympathy among us great enough, even though there was an appearance of truth in people’s slanders, for that sympathy and pride to excuse and protect and defend the one who was slandered. The things that can be said about me are no secret. They are a matter of general knowledge; and I carry the punishment for my sin about with me as a burden on my life. But I have nothing more to reproach myself with than what is known as a fact. Don’t think that I am making light of it. I only say that that is all there is. I should have thought that you would have known this, that you would have believed this, even if I had never told you. Addie is Van der Welcke’s son as surely as I am Papa’s daughter. What people like to invent besides is no concern of mine. I can’t even understand why they care to invent at all, when I have already given them so much that is true to discuss. But it was a great disappointment to me, Adolphine, to find that those lies could be countenanced for a moment in your house.”
Adolphine, seeing that her pumped-up tears were making no impression, had time to recover herself while Constance was speaking. Inwardly furious, but superficially calm, she now said, spitefully, in a tone of sisterly reproof:
“You must have expected some disappointment on returning to the Hague?”
“Perhaps, but not this disappointment . . . if you had had any affection for me.”
“Come, Constance, it’s not as if I wasn’t fond of you. But it might have been better if you had not come back.”
“It’s a little late to speak of that now, Adolphine: I’m here and I mean to stay. When I wrote to Mamma six months ago . . .”
“Mamma is a mother.”
“I thought that you were a sister.”
“I am not the only one.”
“I hope that the others feel more affection for me and more indulgence than you do.”
“Bertha was against your coming. So was Karel.”
“I thank you for telling me; but, as I said, it is too late now.”
“Gerrit and the others don’t count, because they don’t see people. Bertha and Karel and I have our family, our friends.”
“And I compromise you in their eyes, do I?”
“Your coming here raked up a heap of things which had been long forgotten. And I know as a fact that your father- and mother-in-law were against it.”
“You seem to know a great deal; and I am glad that you are so frank.”
“I am always frank.”
“And so irreproachable.”
“I could never have done what you did, never.”
“I am so glad that you came to see me this morning, Adolphine. And that we have had this quiet talk.”
“If you had written to me at the time and asked my advice, instead of writing to Mamma only, I should have told you my opinion quietly,” said Adolphine, with a touch of sadness in her voice. “I should have recommended you, as a sister, for your own sake, not to come back to the Hague. You have become quite unsuited for Holland, for the Hague and for living among your family. Everything in your ideas, in your home life, in your way of bringing up your son clashes with our Dutch notions of what is right and decent and proper. I’m not saying this angrily, you know, Constance: I’m saying it calmly, very calmly. I daresay that is best. You dress yourself as no Dutchwoman of your age would think of doing. The fact that you have no one to your house except a friend of your husband’s causes comment. The way in which you bring up your son is considered exceptionally lax.”
“Anything more?”
“Yes, there’s something more: why did you ever leave Brussels? That’s what we all ask ourselves. Bertha was saying, only the other day, that you would make things impossible for her, if you thought of pushing yourself and getting yourself presented. And she declared positively that she would never ask you to her official dinners.”
“Anything more?”
“Anything more, anything more: what more do you want? I’m not saying it to offend you, Constance, but because I like you and want to save you from further disappointments. Do you think it pleasant for Bertha and me to have our friends talking about our family as they are doing? And that they do so is your fault entirely.”
Constance’ hands were shaking; and, in order to employ them, she began to fold the laces lying on the table.
“Is that real Brussels?” asked Adolphine, with apparent guilelessness.
“Yes.”
“Where do you get the money, Constance, to spend on those expensive things?”
“I get it from my lovers,” said Constance.
“Wha-at?” cried Adolphine, in a terrified voice.
Constance gave a nervous laugh:
“I tell you, from all my lovers.”
“Oh, don’t say things like that, even in fun! I thought it was imitation lace.”
“Yes, but you don’t know much about lace, do you?” said Constance, very calmly. “Or about diamonds? And you have not the least notion how to dress yourself, have you? I sometimes think you look very dowdy, Adolphine. It may be Dutch and substantial, but I consider it dowdy. And, on the other hand, you oughtn’t to buy such rubbishy, shabby-genteel things as you do. And you haven’t much notion of arranging your house, either, have you? If you were capable of understanding my taste, I wouldn’t mind helping you to alter your drawing-room. But you would have to begin by getting rid of those horrible antimacassars and those china monkeys and dogs. Do; I wish you would. And choose a quieter carpet. . . . Don’t you find those dinners very trying, Adolphine? I should say that Bertha is more at home in that sort of thing, isn’t she? . . . And so the Erkenbouts go to your dinners, do they? I should have thought that Bruis, of the Phonograaf, was more in your set. But I was forgetting: you haven’t a set, really; you have a bit of everything, an omnium gatherum. . . . Curious, isn’t it, that none of our friends of the old days—our little Court set, let me call it—ever come to you nowadays? What’s the reason? . . . Of course, you have to make your house attractive, if you want to keep your acquaintances. . . . I suppose you don’t care really about seeing people. It’s such hard work for you. . . . You’re more the good mother of your children, though I consider your girls, at least Floortje and Caroline, rather loud; and, as for your boys, you seem quite unable to teach them any sort of manners. . . . Well, if I can be of any use to you, if you want to alter that drawing-room of yours, you have only to say so and we will fix a day. . . .”
Adolphine had listened gasping, unable to believe her ears. Had Constance gone mad? She stood up, shaking all over, while Constance, with apparent composure, continued to fold her laces:
“You’re a deceitful creature!” she hissed, furious, so deeply wounded in every detail of her vanity that she could no longer control herself.
“Why?” asked Constance, calmly. “Perhaps I was, for months, with a view to winning your affection; and that was why I spent myself in praises admiring Floortje’s trousseau. But now that I know that you love me so well, now that we have had a good, sisterly talk, now that we have given each other our advice and our opinion, I see no further need for being deceitful and I too prefer to express my sisterly feelings with the frankest sincerity.”
“Do you mean to say you didn’t like Floortje’s trousseau?” asked Adolphine, raging.
But Constance mastered her quivering nerves:
“Adolphine,” she said, coldly, “please let us end this conversation. It can’t matter to you in the least whether I, your despised sister, like or dislike anything in or about you. Spiteful, hateful words have been spoken between us; and we have seen into each other’s souls. You never had any affection for me, nor any indulgence nor mercy, whereas I believed that you had and tried to find a sister in you. I failed; and that is all. There is nothing more. We will end this conversation, if you please; and, if you don’t mind, when we meet at Mamma’s or elsewhere, let us act as though there had been nothing said between us. That is all I ask of you.”
She rang. The parlour-maid appeared. Adolphine stood staring at Constance; and her lips began to swell with the venom of the words which she felt rising to her lips.
“It’s to let Mrs. van Saetzema out, Truitje,” said Constance, quietly.