Small Souls/Chapter VI
Adolphine looked enviously around her. What a lot Constance must spend on her clothes; and it was not as if they were well off either, for all they had to live on was an allowance from Papa and Mamma van der Welcke, the money which Constance had inherited from her father and the little that Van der Welcke could scrape together at Brussels, as a wine- and insurance-agent. Nothing to speak of, all told: that Adolphine knew for a fact. She admired in particular a magnificent fur bolero and wondered what two kinds of fur it was made of; but she said nothing: she never praised anything in another, not his raiment, nor his intellect, nor his virtues. Even if she had had anything to gain by it, she could never have brought herself to say:
“Constance, what a pretty bolero that is!”
But, pale with envy, she kept looking at the fur as it hung over a chair; and the sight of it caused her almost physical pain, because it was not hers and she did not know how one like it ever could be hers.
Constance was rather tired. First, she had been unpacking trunks with Addie; then Karel and Cateau had come and she had talked copiously in the pleasure and excitement of seeing them. But that visiting-card of Karel’s had depressed her; and now she talked listlessly: “So your girl is going to be married soon, Adolphine?”
“In May.”
“I haven’t seen either of them since Sunday. A couple of days ago, I found their cards and Dijkerhof’s. How quickly a week passes! I didn’t find any of you at home either.”
“We are so busy shopping all day long, for the trousseau.”
“Is Dijkerhof a nice fellow?”
“Yes; and they are a very good family.”
As it happened, the Dijkerhofs were not in quite the same set as the Van Lowes; and Mamma van Lowe was not over-enthusiastic about the engagement.
Constance was silent: she was tired, she had a headache and she thought that Adolphine had better keep the conversation going. But Adolphine was too much distracted by the bolero to be in form. She cast about for a subject. And yet there were plenty, for she was dying of curiosity to know all sorts of things: for instance, what Constance thought of Bertha and Cateau. If only that wretched bolero were not there! At last, she began:
“So you’re looking for a house?”
Constance answered at random; and, because of her headache, her expression became stiff and haughty and her lips were tightly compressed. Adolphine thought her arrogant and reflected that Constance had always been stuck-up, after her marriage to De Staffelaer and all the smart society in Rome. Adolphine suspected Constance of looking down upon her; and Constance merely had a headache.
“And shall you call on many people?”
No, Constance thought not.
“Won’t you go to Court?”
No, Constance hadn’t given it a thought.
“Is your boy going to the high-school?”
No, he was to pass his examination for the grammar-school: Van der Welcke wanted him to go to one of the universities, later.
“What photographs are those?”
“Friends of ours, in Brussels.”
“Had you many friends there?”
“Not so many, latterly.”
Suddenly Constance’ eyes met Adolphine’s. And Constance did not see Adolphine’s hateful hostility: Constance saw only her sister, four years younger than herself, but worn out by a tiresome, difficult life, a life full of money-bothers, full of trouble with spoilt, disagreeable children, receiving no assistance from her husband, Van Saetzema, who was chief clerk at the Ministry of Justice; Constance saw her sister, thin, yellow, eaten up with worry and bitterness, in her almost shabby and yet pretentious clothes. And, notwithstanding her raging headache, she was filled with pity, because Adolphine was her sister. She rose and went to Adolphine:
“Phine,” she said, frankly, “don’t be angry if I am not very talkative, but I have such a headache. And I really do think it nice of you to look me up. Come often. Let us see a lot of each other. I only came to the Hague because of you all. I wanted you so badly. I have dragged through so many dreary years. I have no one in my life, except my boy. And he is still so young; and I tell him too much as it is. I have been very unhappy, Adolphine, Phine. Be nice to me, be a little fond of your Constance. She did not always behave as she should, she did not always behave as she should. But forgive her, forgive her the past,” she whispered, more softly, so that Addie should not hear. “Forgive her that past which is always there, which has never become the past for good and all. Forgive her . . . and love her a little!”
She burst into nervous sobs and, impulsively, knelt down by her sister and laid her head on her breast and felt how poor and thin Adolphine was in her arms. A damp smell of rain was steaming from her muddy dress.
“Dear Constance!” said Adolphine, really touched. “Certainly, I care for you. And that past was so long ago: we have all of us forgotten about it.”
But Constance sobbed and sobbed.
“Mamma!” said Addie.
She drew him to her also, held her sister and her boy in a close embrace.
“Come, Constance. . . .”
“Mamma, don’t cry. . . . You always have such a headache, Mummy, after crying like that.”
She controlled herself, stood up; and Adolphine found a few kind words. Adolphine was certainly touched, but she was cross about that bolero and, besides, she found Addie better-looking, more taking, almost, than any of her own three ugly, lubberly boys. However, she kissed Constance and arranged for Constance to come and take tea with her next evening. When Constance was a little calmer and had laughed a little through her tears, Adolphine took her leave with a warm kiss:
“And I’ll just leave Van Saetzema’s card, shall I, Constance, here, by Karel’s, for Van der Welcke? Then he’ll get it when he arrives. . . .”
She put down the card and, suddenly unable to restrain herself, went, as though in passing, to the bolero, looked at it and said, in a voice that bore no resemblance to the envious thoughts that still smouldered in her heart:
“But, Constance! . . . Do you still wear those short little jackets?”
“Oh, they’ve been the fashion so long!” answered Constance, still thinking of the visiting-cards.
“Well, I don’t know: they’d be too short for me, at my age, I think!”
Seeing that she was younger than Constance, the remark was not only unkind, but dishonest; and Adolphine, now satisfied, went away.
Constance stared at the two visiting-cards and suddenly burst out sobbing again.
Addie took her in his arms. He was already nearly as tall as she was:
“Mamma,” he said, gently, with his resolute lad’s voice, “don’t cry so; and go and lie down a little. You have to go to Grandmamma’s to-night; and you’ll be too tired if you don’t rest first.”
And he helped her to take off some of her things and settled her pillows for her.
She lay on the bed, sobbing convulsively, without really remembering why.
The boy sat down by the window, near the console-table, and took up his book, a story of the Boer war. A movement of his arm sent the two cards over. He just glanced down at them, at those two pieces of paste-board formalism, let them lie on the carpet and went on reading. . . .