Eline Vere (42 page)

‘To tell you the truth, I was not sorry to see him go. I don't care for him, really; in fact I think he is rather disagreeable. Of course, since he's our cousin, we can't ignore him completely, but he is very
peculiar, and I couldn't help being afraid he might do something to compromise us.'

Eline no longer heard what Hijdrecht was saying; she was all ears to Betsy's gossipy voice, which she could fairly easily distinguish in the hubbub. So it was not enough for Betsy to be constantly running him down in the privacy of her home, with Eline trying valiantly to keep her counsel, she was actually ventilating her hatred of Vincent in this dining room, among strangers! Eline listened with mounting rage.

‘There's something creepy about him – a bit like a toad, or some reptile, don't you agree? Unnerving, too, with those pale, shifty eyes of his.'

Eline could control herself no longer. The person who was dearest to her in the whole world, who reminded her so much of her father, was being vilified in society by her own sister, in the most vulgar terms imaginable! And she was making Hovel laugh! Eyes flashing, Eline burst out in tremulous indignation, raising her voice so that it would reach across the crystal centrepiece to the other side of the table:

‘Betsy! Please mind what you're saying! You are not in your own home, and I advise you to find something else to amuse Mr Hovel with instead of saying such hateful things about Vincent!'

Her voice was so commanding that everyone stopped talking in mid-sentence. All eyes were fixed on Betsy and Eline as the fun succumbed to leaden embarrassment. And Eline, to whom making a scene in public would have been anathema before, sat bolt upright, glaring defiantly at Betsy and the rest of them, not caring a whit that her conduct went against the conventions of respectable society. Betsy, her face flushed with nervous agitation, was on the point of making some cutting reply, but mastered herself just in time. Turning to Hovel instead, she spoke with ostensible calm:

‘I do apologise, Mr Hovel, for this interruption. My sister has been suffering from her nerves lately. Do not mind her, please.'

Suppressing her anger with tact, she was soon laughing again and holding forth on another more light-hearted topic.

The hostess was rather shaken by the embarrassing episode at her dinner table, but Emilie de Woude, true to her ebullient nature,
came to the rescue with more tact than Betsy could muster. She turned to Eline, who was still casting baleful looks at her sister, and addressed her directly. Her tone was placatory at first, but very soon turned humorous.

‘Ah well, Eline, personally I don't find him nearly as objectionable as most people seem to. But you must understand, having someone to stay under one's roof for an extended period, as Betsy has experienced, is a different matter altogether; it's bound to lead to a certain amount of friction. It's only natural: young men always get under one's feet. I know what I'm talking about, because with Georges living at home – oh, you wouldn't believe how much bother and commotion he causes! Always getting in the way – why, it's enough to drive anyone to distraction!'

‘Me?' spluttered Georges, affecting outrage. ‘Me?' and he defended himself with vigour.

There was a chorus of laughter at this comical tiff between siblings, who were known to be devoted to each another. It even brought a fleeting smile to Eline's face, and Madame Hovel overflowed with gratitude to Emilie.

. . .

It had rained heavily throughout the day, with strong winds lashing the trees and making the branches groan as they littered the ground with broken twigs and autumn leaves. Come the evening, when Betsy, Eline and Henk rode homewards in their carriage at half-past ten, the wind had risen to a raging storm, causing the glass shades of the street lamps to jingle in their sockets and blowing tiles off the roofs. Betsy had meant to give Eline a piece of her mind on the way, but there was so much noise that conversation was virtually impossible, and the cold coming in through a chink in the door made her shiver.

‘Such stormy weather!' she fretted. ‘Do you think it is dangerous,

Henk? Won't the horses be frightened?' Henk shook his head. Like her, he listened to the howling wind and heard the rain drumming on the roof. Eline, too, kept silent. When they drew up at Nassauplein they were welcomed by Gerard,
who flung open the front door even before Herman had time to ring the bell, and Betsy and Eline ran inside while Henk gave some last-minute instructions to Dirk concerning the horses. Eline went straight up to her room.

‘What a stormy night, Ma'am,' said Mina as she helped Betsy out of her cape. ‘You'd think the end of the world was nigh! A fair number of trees will be knocked down before morning, you mark my words. Grete and I were ever so frightened. Oh, I'm so glad you're safely home again!'

Betsy did not answer, and started up the stairs with the full intention of confronting Eline. But the storm raging outside seemed to have deflected her anger, leaving her in some doubt as to what she would say. Her thoughts turned to the possibility of windows in the house having been left open and chimney stacks being blown off the roof.

‘Gerard! Mina!' she called from the landing.

They both came running.

‘Are you sure you have locked up properly?'

‘Oh yes, Ma'am!'

‘Well, I want you to make quite sure all the windows are securely closed. What about the attic, for instance? Go and check, you never know.'

Having dispatched the servants, Betsy regained her presence of mind. Yes, she would confront Eline in her room. Her sister was not to think she could get away with such insolence.

Betsy entered Eline's boudoir, where the gas lamp was lit. The wind rattled the window panes and made the curtains billow. Eline was taking off her cloak.

‘What is it?' she asked haughtily. ‘I should like to be alone.'

‘May I remind you that you are in my house, and that I can enter any room I please? I have something to say to you.'

‘Well, get on with it then, because, as I said, I want to be alone.'

‘“I want! I want!” What gives you the right to speak to me in that tone? You are here in my house, and it is not for you to want anything!' fumed Betsy, stamping her feet. ‘Acting like some spoilt little princess who always gets her way! Did you think I'd let you get away with being rude to me in public? Did you? How dare you tell
me what I may or may not say? I can say whatever I like to Hovel! I don't need any prompting from you, do you hear?'

‘I warn you, Betsy, that from now on, whenever I hear you speak about Vincent in that disgraceful way, even if it's in your own home, I shall put a stop to it.'

‘Ah, so you're warning me now are you? I have no intention of making any allowances whatsoever for your idiotic sensitivity regarding Vincent! Now he's gone, you'd think we'd have some peace again, but no! Was it he who taught you that it was perfectly all right to interrupt people in the middle of a conversation? I can't think what came over you! They must have thought you were mad. Yes, you must be mad, that's the only excuse I can think of for behaving the way you did! And you call me vulgar – what do you think that makes you? You, who dared to–'

‘I know, I know – I, who dared to interrupt you at a dinner party! Yes, I dared to do so! But I promise you that I shall dare a great deal more if I hear another word spoken against Vincent. You think he's spiteful, but you're the one who's spiteful – first you invite him to stay and then you throw a tantrum over some trifle and shout at him like a fishwife so that he'll leave! You're the one who's spiteful!'

‘Keep your insults to yourself, pray.'

‘And you keep your nasty remarks about Vincent to yourself in future!' raged Eline. ‘I will not hear another word spoken against him, I've put up with it long enough for the sake of peace, but now I can't stand it any longer! Do you understand?'

‘You can't stand it any longer, you say? Oh, so it's because of Vincent that you can't stand Otto anymore either, I suppose.'

‘Leave Otto out of this!' screamed Eline.

‘You don't mean to say that you've taken a fancy to that reptile? Is that why you treated Otto as if he were just another beau, someone to have a little fling with? You say you won't put up with my criticism of Vincent, but I – I won't put up with any more of your compromising behaviour! Who do you think you are? First you're stupid enough to break off your engagement, out of sheer caprice, without the slightest reason, so that now we've got all the tongues wagging, then you start making a fuss of Vincent here in my house as if you're in love with him, and to cap it all you have the nerve to
insult me in front of other people! I'm not having it, do you hear? If you've picked up your bad manners from all those idiotic philosophical discussions you had with Vincent, then–'

Eline was beside herself. Her nerves were strung to their highest tension, quivering under Betsy's vituperations. What Betsy had said about her and Otto, and especially about her sympathy for Vincent, which she thought she had kept hidden from everyone, filled her with helpless rage. She gripped Betsy's wrists and, hissing between her teeth, shrilled out:

‘Shut up! Stop it, I tell you! Don't you dare lecture me about Otto, or Vincent for that matter, or I'll slap you. You're horrible. I've had as much as I can take of your aggravation! I warn you!'

‘Eline, have you taken leave of your senses?' cried Betsy, but Eline stood where she was, shaking her fists.

‘Yes, you drive me mad with all your aggravation about “my house, my house”! I am well aware it's your house I'm living in, but I never asked to come here, and you keep harping on the fact that it's your house as if I ought to thank you for taking me in. I don't depend on you for anything, and even if I am living under your roof, that doesn't give you any say in what I do or don't do. I'm free, free to do as I please.'

‘No you are not. You are here, in my house, and you must conduct yourself accordingly. And if you cannot, then it is up to me to try to do something about it.'

Betsy had left the door open when she came in, and their shouting reverberated through the whole house, almost drowning out the rattling of the shutters in the storm. Henk appeared in the doorway, but was unable to make himself heard over the din.

‘You have nothing to say about how I should or should not behave!' shrieked Eline. ‘I'm free, I tell you! I don't need your house, and I swear to you that I shan't stay here for another second! I swear it! You can stuff your precious house!' She hardly knew what she was saying, having worked herself up into a paroxysm of fury, nor was she conscious of what she was doing when she snatched up her cloak off the floor and flung it about her shoulders. She made a dash for the door, but Henk stood in her path.

‘Eline!' he began gravely.

‘Let me go, let me go!' she raged like a wounded tigress, pushing him away with such force that he staggered back. He tried to stop her again, but she was already out of the door, flying down the stairs.

‘Eline! For God's sake, Eline! You don't know what you're doing!' he called, in hot pursuit. She was deaf to his cries, for there was only one thought in her mind: to flee from this house where she was not wanted, and she was blind to Gerard and the maids staring at her in blank amazement as she rushed through the vestibule, threw open the glass-panelled inner door and swiftly drew the bolt of the street door. A blast of wind caused the inner door to slam shut, and at her back she heard the shattered glass fall to the floor.

. . .

Then the front door, too, slammed behind her, and she found herself in the street, in the driving rain with the gale blowing open her cloak and spitting at her face and neck. It was impossible for her to battle against that raging force, so she gave up and allowed herself to be propelled by the storm lashing her back like a gigantic vampire with broad, razor-sharp claws. She saw no one in the street, and as she ran ahead all alone in the doom-laden night, in the unrelenting, splashing downpour, buffeted by the gusting wind, she was seized with panic. She felt as if she had been wrenched from her familiar existence and hurled into a nightmare of disaster and despair; the rain was beating down on her bare head and she felt terror at the darkness enfolding her with calamity. The wind almost tore her cloak from her shoulders, numbing her with cold in her fluttering black tulle. Her dainty patent leather shoes went wading and splashing through puddles and mud, her dishevelled hair clung in dripping strands to her cheeks, and under her flapping cloak she felt an icy moisture gliding down her neck and shoulders. She no longer knew where she was, but hurried on regardless, shuddering with fright at each broken twig that came skittering her way, at each menacing rumble of loose roof tiles. And she saw no one, not a soul.

She was slow in coming back to reality: she had fled from her brother-in-law's house! She wanted to stand still for a moment to reflect on this, but the blustering storm drove her forward as though
she were one of the autumn leaves flying past her head. And she let herself be blown along, trying to gather her thoughts as she went. Despite the direness of her self-inflicted plight, she felt no remorse, but rather, to her astonishment, a flickering of pride at her own temerity. Never had she imagined herself capable of taking flight like this, in the middle of the night, without even knowing where she was going! Heartened by this surprise, she forced herself to apply her mind to the urgent matter at hand: she could not wander about aimlessly all night, she had to think of somewhere to go.

Suddenly she noticed that she had reached Laan Copes van Cattenburgh. Driven by the wind, she rushed headlong onwards over the slippery, muddy footpath, flinching from the boughs sighing overhead. The tree trunks creaked ominously, and she was terrified that one of them would topple over and crush her to death. She battled on regardless, summoning all her willpower to put some order in her thoughts. Where for the love of God should she go? She felt great staring eyes fixed on her in the darkness. Whom could she turn to? To old Madame van Raat? Oh, she might have been fond of Eline once, but now she was bound to take sides with her son and daughter-in-law! To the Verstraetens, then, who were her brother-in-law's relatives? She felt herself sinking into a muddy abyss of despair. Otto loomed up in her mind, and she thought how willingly she would have traded the rest of her life just to have him appear at her side at this moment, to be drawn into his embrace, to be borne away to a safe place full of warmth, light and love. His name rose to her lips like a supplication, but her voice was drowned out by the storm. She was barely able to take another step, she was ready to let herself fall into the mud at her feet and lie there, lashed by the wind, until she died! But that would be a cowardly thing to do, while she had found the courage to follow her impulse to leave, and so she forced herself to focus on the question as to whom she could possibly turn to in her distress. Not to Madame van Raat – not to the Verstraetens, either – oh God, where should she go? Suddenly, like a bolt of lightning in that night of torment and dread, it came to her. Jeanne! In her mind's eye she saw her old school friend's sitting room in the cramped abode over the greengrocer's shop. Yes, that's where she would go! It was a last resort, but she
could not think of anything better, and besides, her strength was failing her. So she turned to face the driving wind and, with faltering steps, fought to cross the square at Alexanderveld in the direction of Hugo de Grootstraat, clutching the collar of her cloak tightly about her neck, drenched to the skin and shivering with cold. On the far side of the green she could just see the backs of the houses on Nassauplein. There were still lights in a few windows, but she was too far away to distinguish which ones were Betsy's – hers no longer – and a pang of longing and regret went through her at the realisation of what she had left behind. With a sinking feeling she calculated how much longer it would take her to reach the Ferelijns' apartment. She was exhausted, exhausted from the quarrel with Betsy, from the unrelenting, icy rain striking her in the face, from the wind buffeting her from side to side, from her sodden patent leather shoes, heavy with mud and threatening to slip off at each step. She felt she was about to die of misery, desolation, hardship.