Eline Vere (38 page)

‘She can be confoundedly awkward when she gets in a tantrum,' Henk pursued, inwardly raging as he paced the salon trying to think of comforting things to say. ‘But when she's with someone she loves and respects she always sees reason in the end, and then . . . I say, shall I go and have a word with her?'

‘I think she should be left alone,' replied Otto, with difficulty. ‘She's bound to come round, given time.'

He tried to imagine himself in her place, to guess what she was feeling at this moment, but found himself too stunned to pursue any logical train of thought. Never had he heard her use that kind of language before, never had he known her to shout or scream, never had he seen her face contorted with such unsightly anger. Try as he might, he was unable to gather his reason owing to the pain lacerating his heart.

Henk could not bear to see him thus, bowed and despairing, and suddenly felt himself spurred into action. He had a high regard for Otto, and it was unforgivable of Eline to treat him with such contempt; no indeed, he would not allow her to get away with it, and with a new vigour he strode out of the salon. Halfway up the stairs he met Betsy, who was on her way down.

‘Where is Eline?' he asked.

Betsy glanced at him, taken aback by his resolute tone.

‘I don't know,' she said drily.

Henk continued up the stairs and entered Eline's boudoir. Finding no one there, he assumed that Vincent was tired after his first brief spell out of doors and had already retired to bed, oblivious to the scene that had taken place downstairs. Henk knocked on the door to Eline's bedroom.

‘Eline!' he called.

There was no answer, and he pushed the door open. In the halflight he saw Eline lying on the floor, her slight form shaking with stifled sobs, her face hidden in her hands. He paused for a moment on the threshold, but she did not move.

‘Do get up, Eline!' he said firmly, almost commandingly.

At this she drew herself up with a violent jolt.

‘What do you want?' she screamed. ‘What are you doing in my room? Go away!'

‘Get up.'

‘No I won't! Just go away, will you? Go away, leave me alone!'

He bent down, flushed with emotion, and grasped her roughly by the wrists, causing her to cry out in pain.

‘Damnation! Get up!' he hissed, almost beside himself with
anger, and grabbed her arms to pull her up by force.

Shocked into submission by hearing him swear, by his high colour, his red face, his flashing eyes and his hoarse voice, she allowed him to raise her to her feet.

‘What do you want?' she asked again, but more calmly now, and with a touch of hauteur.

‘I'll tell you what I want. I want you to go down immediately – immediately, do you hear – and ask Van Erlevoort to forgive you. You may not remember all the things you said when you lost your temper, but you offended him deeply, very deeply. Go downstairs at once!'

She stared, open-mouthed, shrinking from his commanding tone and his burly frame looming over her as he pointed her to the door.

‘You'll find him downstairs in the salon. Go!'

‘No I won't!' she cried out, shaken but still defiant.

‘If you won't I shall drag you downstairs myself and make you go down on your knees to him! I mean it!' he hissed in her face, articulating each syllable with furious emphasis.

‘Henk!' she cried, horrified by his vehemence.

‘Well then?'

‘Yes, yes, I'll go, I'll go, but – oh, Henk! Don't speak to me like that! Please don't! You're only making it worse, and heaven knows I feel bad enough already!'

‘That's your own fault, all of it is your own fault, and you have no right to make cruel accusations against people, especially not against Van Erlevoort.'

‘Yes, yes, you're right!' she said, breaking down into sobs. ‘I shall go, but please, Henk, please come with me!'

Leaning on him for support, she allowed him to conduct her out of the boudoir and down the stairs. Upon entering the salon she gave a start. The room was empty but for Otto, sitting huddled on the sofa with his head in his hands. She caught a glimpse of Betsy in the drawing room, and of Gerard bringing in the tea tray, so she kept silent, waiting for the manservant to leave. Then, under Henk's compelling gaze, she dared demur no longer, nor did she wish to when she saw Otto's manifest despair. Falling on her knees before
him, she tried to say something, but was too convulsed with sobs to speak – genuine, heartfelt sobs this time, mingling with a flood of tears. She pressed her throbbing, flushed forehead to his knees and groped for his hands in mute desperation.

He too kept silent, gazing into her eyes.

At last she uttered the words, with great effort, while Henk stood like a judge at her side:

‘Forgive me, Otto, forgive me, forgive me.'

He nodded his head slowly, as yet unconsoled by her remorse, for he knew that things would never be as he had once imagined. Nonetheless he leant forwards, drew her close and kissed her brow.

‘Forgive me, Otto, oh please forgive me, say you'll forgive me!'

He curved his arm gently about her shaking shoulders and pressed her to his chest, screwing up his eyes to stem the tears. Because he knew: this was the end.

He took his leave half an hour later, in low spirits, although Henk patted him on the back several times, urging him in jovial tones to stay a while now that all was well again. He bade Eline goodbye with a pained smile. Afterwards Eline also begged Betsy's pardon, likewise in Henk's presence. Betsy's only response was a brief nod of the head, but her eyes glittered with such apparent hatred that Eline recoiled and ran out of the room. Later, when Henk told Betsy how he had forced Eline to seek out Van Erlevoort, the look in her eye had been one of admiration. She never thought he had it in him – fancy him standing up to Eline when she was having one of her tantrums!

. . .

Some weeks went by, during which things seemed to settle down much as they had been before. Vincent was feeling reasonably well, and went for frequent drives with the sisters. Betsy, however, ever mindful of Eline's outburst, continued to harbour a sullen resentment against her. How typical: show a little kindness and the next thing you knew you were no longer mistress of your own home. Here she was, lumbered with an ailing, loathsome cousin who caused all sorts of unpleasantness, and a sister who was becoming
more insufferable by the day! The atmosphere in her lovely home was quite ruined by the pair of them – but not for much longer, she vowed. As soon as Eline was married she, Betsy, would not only go on holiday with Henk and Ben, but get rid of Vincent as well, once and for all. Never again would he set foot in her house! Not even if he lay dying on her doorstep would she let him in – yes, Eline was right there, she had to give her that!

Eline for her part felt such profound regret at having railed against Otto that she brought all her charms to bear in an effort to make amends. Since Otto was only too willing to forgive her so that he might hope once more, her efforts met with a measure of success. But the crack that had appeared in their relationship proved impossible to repair. He realised full well that everyone said things in anger which they subsequently regretted, and that Eline had simply lost her temper, only . . . the actual words she had spoken, now that he turned them over in his mind, were not what he would have expected of her. Had she loved him as he thought she did – granted, with a touch of egotism; not so much for his sake as for her own, and for the peace and happiness she found in him – she would never have used those words. However incensed she might have been, whether on Vincent's behalf or for any other reason, she would have expressed her feelings differently. He saw it clearly: she no longer even loved him for her own sake, because she no longer found his calm temperament soothing, on the contrary, she found it irritating; nor did she love him for himself, she never had: she forced herself to be kind to him, out of pity! All his pride bristled at the realisation, and for a moment he considered flinging her pity in her face just as she had flung his calmness in his face, but he could not. He could not do this to her, he loved her too much, nor could he do it to himself. So he suffered her contrition in a final bid to recover a fraction of the happiness she had once inspired in him, and yet he knew: it was over.

It was over; he could tell by the mildly detached air with which she greeted him when he visited, once the fervour of making amends had passed; he could tell by the way she allowed him to plant a kiss on her brow, by her alacrity to withdraw from his embrace, by her languishing silences, by everything in her manner. And for the first
time he noticed how often she looked at Vincent, and how she was still at his beck and call notwithstanding his full recovery. It was something he did not wish to contemplate; the thought was too distasteful.

Eline for her part was deeply despondent; she knew she could not force herself to continue loving Otto, but suffered mortal terrors of conscience whenever he turned his mournful gaze on her. She felt a sense of total defeat. One afternoon she stayed upstairs, telling Mina to say that she was not feeling well and would not be coming down. He asked if he might see her in her room, but she sent word that she was tired and needed to rest. Slowly but surely a decision was taking shape in her mind: she had to do it, she owed it to him, and to herself. She refused to see him the following day, too, despite Henk's best efforts to persuade her, to which she responded by shaking her head with slow determination: she could not see him, she was ill. Should he call Dr Reijer? No, there was no need.

And she kept to her room, while Otto dined downstairs with Betsy, Vincent and Henk, and left early.

. . .

That evening she spent a long while lying on her couch, staring into the dark. She did not wish to see Vincent either. At last she lit the gas lamp herself, drew the curtains and sat down at her writing table. It had to be done.

Calmly she began to write, pausing frequently to read what she had written:

My dear Otto!
Forgive me, I beg you, but I have no alternative. Ask yourself whether I could ever make you happy and whether I would not be a burden to you. There was a time when I believed I could make you happy, and I shall remember it as long I live, because it was the greatest happiness I have ever known. But now –

Tears welled up in her eyes as she wrote, and suddenly, breaking into violent sobs, she tore up the sheet of paper. She was not capable of inflicting such suffering on him. Oh God, she could not do it! But then what? Let the relationship continue regardless of the pain it caused her, until such time as some other devastating variance drove them apart anyway? No, no, in that case it would be better to part in friendship now, with a last, fond letter of farewell! But she had already hurt him so deeply, without wishing to; she did not wish to hurt him further, and now – oh why did she have to struggle with her emotions like this, all alone and forsaken, with no one to turn to, and without really knowing what she wanted or even what her moral duty was? She was too weak, she simply wasn't up to it!

But she took a fresh sheet of paper and started again:

My dear Otto!

The subsequent lines, being virtually identical to the note she had torn up, followed easily enough. But how to go on from there? How to tell him? Suddenly the words came, and her pen flew over the paper, her writing becoming an almost illegible scrawl of passionate, rambling sentences.

Truly, my heart is breaking as I write to you now . . . now that I must ask you . . . whether it would not . . . be better for us to cease raising hopes in one another . . . hopes of finding happiness together. It is so cruel having to ask this, because it was such a lovely time, when we
. . .

On and on she wrote, lost in the cruel remembrance of those days, her breast heaving with spasmodic sobs, and her head began to ache with mounting ferocity, as if there were a tight band of iron clamped around her brain and hammers pounding on her temples.

A lovely time, when we . . . were so deeply in love . . . I can't tell you how I suffer in the writing of this . . . more than I had thought possible for a human being to suffer,
but I believe that it is my duty, and that I would cause you even greater unhappiness by not writing to you
.

We must forget one another, we must never think of one another again . . . That will be best, for both of us, but especially for you. Oh, if I could still hope that I might become a better person, that I might become worthy of you one day, then I would tear this paper to shreds, but all my hope is gone
.

I do realise, dearest Otto, that I am causing you grief by this letter, but I beg you to forgive this final act of injury, and banish the thought of me from your mind. You are so good and kind; I am sure that one day, when you have forgotten me, you will find someone, a young girl
. . .

She dropped her pen, anguish-stricken, and lurched forwards, pressing her face to the tear-sodden handkerchief lying on the table. The sobs now convulsed her entire frame while the hammers pounded on her temples, between her eyes and at the base of her skull. She tossed her head from side to side, but the throbbing was aggravated by a thousand pin-pricks, so she raised herself and resumed writing, intermittently striking her head with the clenched fist of her free hand. Unable to tear herself away from the missive that would set a seal on her loss of Otto, she floundered on, repeating over and over how happy she had been with him, how she suffered in losing him, and that it was her moral duty to write him this letter. The notion of duty filled her with a romantic sense of purpose, and she got quite carried away, writing the word over and over again: duty, duty, duty . . . She also felt that as long as she was still putting pen to paper they would still be connected in some way; not until she had written her name at the end would it all be over, for ever after . . . she could not bring herself to place her signature, and kept adding phrases to defer the moment.