The Later Life/Chapter VII
Van der Welcke and Marianne went side by side.
"How deliciously fresh it is now," she almost carolled. "The wind has gone down and the air is lovely; and look, how beautiful the sky is with those last black clouds . . . Oh, I think it so ripping, that everything's all right again between you and Papa! I did feel it so. You know how fond I am of both of you, Aunt Constance and you, and of Addie; and it was all so sad . . . Tell me, does Auntie still feel bitter about it? I expect she does . . . Ah, I understand quite well now . . . that she would have liked to come to our house . . . officially, let me say! But why not first have spoken to Mamma . . . or to me, who am so fond of you? Then we could have seen: we might have thought of something. As it was, Mamma was so startled by that unexpected visit . . . Poor Aunt Constance, she isn't happy! How sad that you and she aren't happier together! Oh, I could cry about it at times: it seems such a shame! . . . A man and woman married . . . and then . . . and then what I so often see! . . . I oughtn't to have said what I did before dinner, it was stupid of me; but I may speak now, mayn't I? . . . Oh, I sha'n't marry, I won't marry! . . . To be married like Otto and Frances, like Emilie and Van Raven: I think it dreadful. Or like you and Auntie: I should think it dreadful. Can't you be happier together? Not even for Addie's sake? I wish you could; it would make me so happy. I can't bear it, when you and Auntie quarrel . . . She was sweet and gentle to-night, but so very quiet. She is so nice . . . That was a mad fit of hers, to go abroad so suddenly; but then she had had so much to vex her. Oh, those two old aunts: I could have murdered them! I can hear them now! . . . Poor Auntie! Do try and be a little nice to her . . . Has this been going on between you for years? Don't you love each other any longer? . . . No, I sha'n't marry, I sha'n't marry, I shall never marry."
"Come, Marianne: if some one comes along whom you get to love . . ."
"No, I shall never marry . . . I might expect too much of my husband. I should really want to find something beautiful, some great joy, in my love . . . and to marry for the sake of marrying, like Frances or Emilie, is a thing I couldn't, couldn't do . . . Otto is fonder of Louise than of his wife; and lately Emilie and Henri are inseparable . . . In our family there has always been that affection between brother and sister. But it is too strong, far too strong. It doesn't make them happy. I've never felt it in that way, fond as I am of my brothers . . . No, I should place the man I love above everybody, above everybody. . . . But I suppose you're laughing . . . at my bread-and-butter notions . . ."
"No, I'm not laughing, Marianne; and, just as you would like to see Aunt Constance and me happy, so I should like to see you happy . . . with a man whom you loved."
"That will never be, Uncle; no, that will never be."
"How can you tell?"
"Oh, I feel it, I feel it! . . ."
"Come, I'll have a bet on it," he said, laughingly.
"No, Uncle," she said, with a pained smile, "I won't bet on a thing like that . . ."
"I didn't mean to hurt you, Marianne . . ."
"I know that . . ."
"But you mustn't be so melancholy, at your age. You're so young . . ."
"Twenty-one. That's quite old."
"Old! Old! What about me?"
She laughed:
"Oh, you're young! A man . . ."
"Is always young?"
"Not always. But you are."
"A young uncle?"
"Yes, a young uncle . . . A woman gets old quicker . . ."
"So, when you're old and I am still young, we shall be about the same age."
She laughed:
"What a calculation! No, you're older. But age doesn't go by years."
"No. I sometimes have very young wishes. Do you know what I have been longing for since yesterday, like a baby, like a boy?"
"No."
"A motor-car."
She laughed, with a laugh like little tinkling bells:
"A motor-car?"
"Wouldn't it be delightful? To go tearing and tearing over fields and roads, through clouds of dust . . ."
"You're becoming poetic!"
"Yes, it's making me poetic . . ."
"And the smell of the petrol? . . . The mask and goggles against the dust? . . . The hideous dress? . . ."
"Oh, that's nothing! . . . To tear and fly along, faster and faster, at a mad pace . . ."
"I have never been in a motor-car . . ."[1]
"I have, in Brussels, in a friend's car. There's nothing to come up to it."
Her laugh tinkled out again:
"Yes, now you're most certainly like a boy!"
"I'm so young?"
"O young Uncle!"
"You oughtn't to call me uncle, Marianne: I'm too young for it."
The tinkling bells:
"What am I to call you then?"
"Anything you like. Not uncle."
"Nunkie?"
"No, no . . ."
"But I can't call you Henri . . . or Van der Welcke?"
"No, that's too difficult. Better say nothing."
The tinkling bells:
"Nothing. Very well. . . . But am I to say U or je?"[2]
"Say je."
"But it seems so funny . . . before people!"
"People, people! You can't always bother about people."
"But I have to: I'm a girl!"
"Oh, Marianne, people are always a nuisance!"
"A desert island would be the thing."
"Yes, a desert island . . ."
"With a motor-car . . ."
"And just you and me."
They both laughed; and her little bells tinkled through his boyish laugh.
"What a perfect night!"
"Perfect: the air is so crisp . . ."
"Marianne . . ."
"Yes, Uncle . . ."
"No, not uncle . . . You must be my little friend . . . Not a niece . . . I've never had a girl-friend."
"Your little friend? . . . But I am!"
"Well, that's all right."
"Look, how dark it is in the Wood . . . People say it's dangerous. Is it, Uncle? No, I didn't mean to say uncle . . ."
"Sometimes. Are you frightened? Take my arm."
"No, I'm not frightened."
"Come, take my arm."
"I don't mind . . ."
"We shall be home in a minute."
"If only Mamma isn't angry with me, for staying out . . . Are you coming in?"
"No . . . no . . ."
"Not because you're still angry with us?"
"No, I'm not angry."
"That's all right. Oh, I am glad! I should like to give you a motor for making me so happy!"
"Those old tin kettles cost a lot of money . . ."
"Poor Uncle! No, I don't mean uncle . . ."
"Here we are."
He rang the bell.
"Thank you for seeing me home."
"Good-night, Marianne."
The butler opened the door; she went in. He trotted back, whistling like a boy.
"Wherever have you been, Marianne?" asked Bertha.
"I stayed to dinner at Aunt Constance'."
"I was anxious about you," said Bertha.
But she was glad that Constance had been so gracious.
"Who brought you home?"
"Uncle."
She ran up to her room. She looked in the glass, as though to read her own eyes. There she read her secret:
"God help me!" she thought. "I oughtn't to have gone. I oughtn't to have gone. I was too weak, too weak . . . Oh, if only they had never made it up, Papa and . . . he! . . . Oh dear! I shall never go there again. It's the last time, the last time . . . O God, help me, help me! . . ."
She sank into a chair and sat with her face hidden in her hands, not weeping, her happiness still shedding its dying rays around her, but with a rising agony; and she remained like that for a long time, with her eyes closed, as though she were dreaming and suffering, both.