"Yes, we must re-ally pay her a vis-it, to-day. … "
"Well, come along then!" growled Karel, who was irritable without knowing why.
And they drove to the Hôtel des Indes. The porter left them in the hall for a moment, then showed them up.
"How nice of you to come!" said Constance. She was genuinely pleased. "And in this awful weather! But, as you see, you have to come up to my bedroom. I have no sitting-room; and the drawing-room is such a bore. Really, it's very nice of you to come," she repeated, "and in this rain, too! Adriaan!"
"Yes, Mamma!"
"Here are Uncle Karel and Aunt Cateau."
She beckoned to the boy to come from his room. She was smiling with happiness, glad to see the faces of her brother and her sister-in-law, longing for the sympathy of family-affection, though she had not known Cateau in the old days.
"Ah, is that your boy, Con-stance? … Well, he is a big boy!"
"How d'ye do, Aunt? How d'ye do, Uncle?" said the lad, a little coldly and haughtily.
"Is he like his father?" asked Karel.
"Yes," said Constance, grudgingly.
Karel and Cateau looked at Adriaan. The boy stood bolt upright before them, a strikingly handsome lad: he certainly resembled his father; he had Van der Welcke's regular features, his round head, his short, soft, curly hair. At thirteen, an age when other boys are overgrown, gawky and clumsy in their ways, he was not tall, but well-proportioned and rather broadly built, with a pair of square shoulders in his blue serge jacket, with something about his gestures and movements that denoted a certain manliness and self-possession, uncommon in so young a boy. He tried to be polite, but could not conceal a certain mistrust of this unknown uncle and aunt. His small mouth was firmly closed; his eyes stared fixedly, dark-blue, serious and cold.
Constance made her sister-in-law and brother sit down:
"Forgive all this muddle," she said with a laugh. "I was taking advantage of the rainy day to arrange my trunks a bit."
Cateau gave a sharp glance round: there were dresses hanging over the chairs and from the pegs; a couple of hats lay on a table.
"Oh, Con-stance!" said Cateau; and she felt a little impertinent at saying, "Constance," just like that—she had married Karel after Constance' marriage to De Staffelaer and this was only the second time that she had seen her sister-in-law—and had it on her lips to say, "Mevrouw," instead. "Oh, Con-stance, what a lot of clothes you have!"
"Do you think so? Things get so spoilt in one's trunks."
"I haven't as many dress-es as that, have I, Ka-rel? But what I have is re-ally good. But yours are good, too, Con-stance. I like re-ally good clothes. … Only, such a lot of lace would fid-get me. … Bertha dresses well, too. … But Adolph-ine. … Oh, what a sight she al-ways looks!"
"Does she?" asked Constance. "But she has to consider the cost of things, hasn't she?"
"I have only two dress-es every year; but those are re-ally good."
"And will Van der Welcke be here soon?" asked Karel.
"On Tuesday. Then we shall look round for a house. I do think it so delightful to be back at the Hague, among all of you. I see Mamma every day. Yesterday, I was at Bertha's: a busy household, isn't it? I came plump into the middle of all sorts of rehearsals, for the wedding. And I was at Gerrit's: Adeline is a dear; and oh, how I laughed, how I laughed! What a lot of children! I can't tell them one from the other yet. But how charming and delightful, that fair-haired little woman, with that fair-haired little troop; and she's expecting another baby this summer! And Dorine is nice too. … Oh, you don't know, you don't know how glad I am to see you all! We are a big family and life at the Hague is so busy. … Look at Bertha. … And Gerrit and Adeline too are busy with their little troop. … But I do hope to take my place among you all again. It is so long since I saw you all! Ah, I didn't want to force things! Mamma did come to see me twice in Brussels. But my brothers and sisters … No, it wasn't kind of you! But I daresay it had to be! Things were as they were! You couldn't very well respect me, you had to disown me, it couldn't be helped! … I suffered tortures, all those years! I never had any one to talk to, except him, my little son! It wasn't right of Mamma, was it, Addie, to be always talking to you? But I couldn't speak out to Henri, to Van der Welcke. Oh, we are very good friends, quite good friends! … I can't tell you how, all of a sudden, I longed for the Hague, for my family, for the people I used to know, for all of you, for everything! I always wrote to Mamma regularly; and Mamma gave me all the news, sent me the photographs of my little nephews and nieces. And yet my brain's whirling, now that I am seeing you all. There are such a lot of us: I don't think there can be many families as big as ours. Bertha's alone is a big household. … Fancy Bertha a grandmother! … It's dreadful, how old we're growing! I am forty-two! Oh, I couldn't have gone on living in Brussels! We had no one left there: our friends were scattered, gone away. Van der Welcke, too, was beginning to long for Holland, for Addie's sake as well as his own. Addie speaks very good Dutch, though: I always made him keep it up. He has a bit of a Flemish accent, perhaps: what do you think, Addie? … We had a Flemish servant. … Oh, what a lot I have to tell you!" she laughed, happily. "Nothing interesting, you know, but I feel as if I must tell you everything, talk and talk and talk to you, to all of you, my brothers, my sisters!" She suddenly got up. "Karel, do you remember, in India, how we used to play in the river, behind the Palace; how we walked on those great stone boulders, you and I and Gerrit? We three always played together. Yes, Bertha had been married a year or two, while we were still children. Is Bertha fifty yet? She's quite grey! I'm going grey myself! … Dear Bertha! … And Louis and Gertrude, who died at Buitenzorg. … Do you remember, Karel? It was we three who were always together. You used to carry me over the water on your back. How naughty we were! I was quite thirteen or fourteen, at that time. … And things are so funny, in India: next year, I was in long frocks and going to the balls. … I thought it delightful, all that grandeur: the aides-de-camp; the national anthem wherever we went: I used to imagine that they played it for me, the viceroy's little daughter! … Yes, Van Naghel was at the bar then, at Semarang; Bertha didn't come in for any of it. … Oh, it's past now, my vanity! That shows you how a person changes. You are changed, too, Karel: you have become so sedate, so dignified. What a pity you are no longer a burgomaster: you're cut out for it, Karel!"
She tried to speak lightly, suddenly feeling that she was talking too much about herself, letting herself go, while Karel and Cateau sat staring at her. And yet she cared for them: was not Karel her brother, who had always been bracketed with Gerrit in her childhood memories, and was not Cateau his wife, though she had not a sympathetic face, with those great round eyes of hers? Were they not members of the family, for which she had longed so? She tried to speak playfully, after her all-too-spontaneous outpouring; but she suddenly felt that this was out of tune too. She felt that, after all, she had not seen her brother for twenty years, not since the day of her marriage to De Staffelaer, and that they had become as utter strangers to each other. She felt that she did not know Cateau at all. And so, though Karel and Cateau were her brother and sister, they were also strangers. But that was just what she did not want: she wanted to win them all, the whole family; to feel that they were all warm-hearted and indulgent towards her. … And she spoke of Mamma, of the Sunday evenings, of Mamma's mania for the family, which she herself now felt so strongly, intensified as it had been in those lonely, joyless Brussels years. She asked their advice about taking a house at the Hague.
"The best thing you can do is to consult an estate-agent," said Karel. "There's one close by; he'll know about all the houses to let."
"It will be difficult to find the right thing," said Constance. "We had a pretty flat at Brussels; and I really prefer a flat to a house. But there aren't any in Holland."
"Oh, Con-stance!" said Cateau, round-eyed. "Don't you find a flat ve-ry stuff-y?"
"Not at all; and I love to have everything on one floor.