Eline Vere (6 page)

Eline returned through Javastraat to Laan van Meerdervoort, and found Madame van Raat alone, sitting in her high-backed chair with her hands folded on her lap. The image she presented was of such utter despondency as to unsettle her young visitor; the grand but worn furnishings were redolent of nostalgia for past conviviality, and from the hallway to the front room with its sombre green-velvet curtains the sadness and yearning were almost palpable. Eline felt her heart sinking. How miserable it all was! No, life was not worth living. Why, oh why . . .?

Then she mastered herself. Gathering together all the thoughts that had made her so cheerful that morning, she gave a smile and
adopted her habitual tone of respectful concern and affection as she enthused about Paul, about the tableaux, about that evening's dinner party and about the opera, and she promised to send Madame van Raat some books: light-hearted, entertaining literature, in which the world was viewed through rose-tinted glasses.

It pained her to keep up her lively prattle while she would have liked to have a good cry together with Henk's mother, in woeful sympathy, but she contained her emotion and even plucked up courage to broach a more serious subject. She had seen tears in the dear lady's eyes when she arrived, she said in her soothing voice, it was no use denying it; she did not wish to be inquisitive, but would love to console her if only she knew what was wrong, and besides, dear Madame had confided in her before, hadn't she?

Eline was alluding to complaints about Betsy and various other, minor preoccupations, which she thought better not to spell out.

The old lady, feeling comforted already, gave a light laugh and shook her head: truly, there was nothing wrong, it was just that she felt lonely at times, or perhaps it was merely the tedium of her years; she had so few interests nowadays, but then that was her own fault, was it not? Other old people read the newspapers and continued to keep abreast of things generally, but not she. Oh, Eline was such a dear, sweet creature; why couldn't Betsy be a bit more like her?

She perked up a little and began to talk of her girlhood, and then, gesturing toward her beloved husband's portrait, of her life with him.

It was past four o'clock when Eline took her leave and hurried away. Dusk was falling, a thaw had set in, and the darkening clouds seemed about to come down to smother her. The old lady had said that she had been happy once, very happy . . . but was that really true? And then look at her, Eline: she wasn't happy, even if she was young. How would she feel if she were the same age as old Madame van Raat, and all wrinkled and ugly? She wouldn't even have the consolation of happy memories to look back on; her entire life would be a sombre shade of grey, leaden like the clouds! Dear God, she thought, why must I live if I am not to be happy?

‘Why, oh why?' she whispered, quickening her step at the thought of having to dress for dinner.

. . .

It was to be a simple, informal dinner party. The Ferelijns arrived at half-past five, followed soon after by Emilie and Georges. Betsy received them in the salon and enquired after the Ferelijns' little girl.

‘Much better, thank you; she no longer has a fever, but she is not yet fully recovered either,' said Jeanne. ‘Dr Reijer was quite pleased with her progress. It was so kind of you to invite us; I haven't had the opportunity to go out lately, so this is a most welcome change from being cooped up at home. Only, I'm afraid I took you at your word about it being an informal affair, as you can see.'

Her eyes darted with some anxiety between her own simple black dress and Betsy's grey satin gown.

‘Oh, there won't be anyone else besides Emilie and her brother. But since you told me you'd be leaving early, I thought we'd go to the opera afterwards. Uncle Verstraeten has let us have their box. So there's nothing to upset yourself about, you were quite right to have come as you are.'

Henk came in looking blithe and affable in his smoking jacket, which Jeanne found more reassuring than Betsy's casual response. Emilie, rustling with jet beads and ebullient as ever, was a close acquaintance, leaving only Georges – in a tailcoat with a gardenia in his buttonhole – to make her feel uncomfortable in her day dress.

Frans Ferelijn, a member of the East Indian colonial service, was on leave in Holland on account of his health, and his wife was an old school-friend of Eline and Betsy.

Jeanne was an unassuming little woman, very subdued, and bowed by her domestic troubles. Of slight build and anaemic pallor, with soft brown eyes, she laboured under the task of raising three sickly children with restricted financial means, and moreover she was racked with homesickness for the East Indies, the land of her birth, where she had loved the simple way of life in their remote outpost. She suffered from the cold, and counted the months remaining until their departure from Holland. She told Emilie about their home at Temanggoeng in the Kadoe, where Frans was Comptroller First-Class, and about their menagerie of Cochin chickens, ducks,
pigeons, a Dutch cow that was milked every day, a pair of goats and a cockatoo.

‘Rather like Adam and Eve in Paradise,' commented Emilie.

Then Jeanne related how she used to go out each morning to tend her Persian roses and her lovely crotons, how she picked the vegetables for the day in her own back garden and how her youngsters had begun to cough and fall ill the moment they arrived in Holland. True, they had been pale in the Indies, too, but at least there she wasn't always worrying about draughts and keeping the doors properly closed. She also missed her
baboe
, whom she had been obliged to leave behind for reasons of economy. In the meantime the
baboe
, whose name was Saripa, was in service with other people at Semarang, but she had vowed to return as soon as they were back in the Indies, and Jeanne in turn had promised to bring her some lengths of pretty cotton from Holland for her to make into kebayas.

Emilie listened with friendly interest and plied her with questions, for she knew how talk of the East Indies could draw Jeanne out of her customary reticence. Betsy considered her unsuitable for larger receptions, so she usually invited her and her husband on their own or with just one or two other close acquaintances. The fact was that she found Jeanne boring and insignificant, lacking in dress sense and prone to whingeing, but that was no reason, she felt, not to invite her for the occasional informal gathering. Jeanne had been included out of pity, Emilie out of pleasure, and Georges out of duty.

While Frans Ferelijn held forth to Henk about his impending promotion to Assistant-Resident, and Georges listened politely to Jeanne's account of how her husband's horse had once strayed right onto their veranda in quest of its daily treat of a banana, Betsy leant back in her chair, thinking that Eline was taking a very long time coming. She was hoping to dine early, so as to arrive at the opera in time for the second half, and she prayed that the Ferelijns would not be indiscreet and stay too long. They were seldom amusing, anyway, she thought, and she rose, masking her impatience. She touched the peacock feathers in the Makart bouquet, adjusted some bibelots on a side table and with the point of her shoe straightened
a wrinkle in the tiger-skin rug before the flaming fire in the grate. She was annoyed with Eline.

At long last the door opened and Eline appeared. Jeanne was struck by how elegantly fetching she looked in her pink dress of ribbed silk, simple but beautifully made, with tiny butterfly bows dotted here and there along the low-cut bodice, in the folds of the elbow-length sleeves and at the waist. In her tawny-brown hair, dressed in the shape of a Grecian helmet, she wore an aigrette of pink plumes; her feet were daintily shod in pink, her throat was adorned with a single strand of pearls and in her hands she held her long gloves, her pink feather fan and her mother-of-pearl opera glasses.

Ferelijn and De Woude stood up to greet her, and after shaking hands with them she kissed Emilie and Jeanne lightly on the forehead. As she enquired after little Dora's health, she could not help noticing that all eyes, including those of Henk and Betsy, were fastened on her. Her toilette was clearly a success, and when Jeanne reported that Dr Reijer had pronounced the girl to be on the mend, she responded with a beaming, triumphant smile.

. . .

At table, Eline jested incessantly with her neighbour, Georges de Woude. Betsy was seated between her two male guests, Emilie between Henk and Frans, Jeanne between Eline and Henk. In the slightly sombre dining room with its antique furnishings, the snowy damask tablecloth shimmered with silverware and fine crystal, while the soft gas light flickering on the decanters and glasses made the wines of purple-red or palest yellow appear to quiver. From a bed of flowers in a silver basket rose the prickly crown of a pineapple.

De Woude began describing the soirée at the Verstraetens' to Eline, giving her a glowing account of how truly regal the Honourable Miss van Erlevoort had looked in her poses, first as Cleopatra and then as the Sense of Sight. Emilie, Frans and Betsy were discussing the Indies, with Jeanne joining in from time to time, but she was sitting too far away and was distracted by
De Woude's loquaciousness and Eline's flirtatious, high-pitched laughter. Henk ate his soup and then his fish pastry in silence, save for the occasional offer of another helping or another glass to Jeanne or Emilie. Jeanne grew increasingly withdrawn, as much from her general malaise as from having conversed at such length with Emilie after a day filled with cares. It irked her to be sitting so close to Eline, resplendent in her dinner gown, for both she and De Woude looked as if they were attending a banquet – they made her feel quite dowdy in her plain day dress. Still, she was thankful to be sitting next to Henk, and was conscious of a vague sort of sympathy with him, as he seemed to feel just as out of place as she did.

She could not help comparing herself with Eline and Betsy; there she was, struggling with her three children on a small furlough-allowance, while Eline and Betsy spent their days in a whirl of sophisticated pastimes. Where was the warm friendship that had united them when they were young and carefree, walking to school together with their satchels, when Eline had filled the hood of her raincoat with cherries and Betsy had egged them on to make mischief in the classroom? She felt estranged from her young hostess, and even repelled by her condescending manner in conversation and her domineering tone towards her husband; she felt likewise estranged from Eline, whom she found vain and frivolous in the witticisms she exchanged with the dandy at her side. She could not fathom Eline; there was something strange about her, something mysterious and contradictory. Her all-too-ready laughter grated on Jeanne's nerves, and she could not imagine how someone who by all accounts sang so wonderfully could sound so disagreeable and artificial when she laughed. Oh, if only they would pipe down! She wished she was back in the narrow upstairs apartment, with her little Dora. What was she doing here, anyway? Of course, when the physician had pronounced Dora to be out of danger, Frans had been keen to accept the invitation as a much-needed diversion, but this, this was no diversion by any means, it was only making her feel nervous and shy.

And she declined Henk's offer of the sweetbreads and asparagus, which he so warmly recommended.

‘I believe Mr de Woude is your brother, is he not?' Frans asked Emilie. He had not met her or Georges before, and was as much struck by the resemblance between them as by the difference.

‘Indeed he is,' Emilie replied in a low voice. ‘My very own brother, I'm proud to say. A dreadful fop, but a dear boy. He's at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, preparing for entry into the Diplomatic Service. So don't you go getting the wrong impression!' she laughed, wagging her finger at him as if she could read Ferelijn's thoughts.

‘I have scarcely exchanged half a dozen words with Mr de Woude, so I wouldn't presume to have any opinion!' he said, somewhat taken aback by Emilie's admonition.

‘And quite right too; most people change their opinion of Georges once they get to know him. And as you see, I am the loyal sister leaping to her brother's defence. Would you mind pouring me some more wine?'

‘You defend him even before he is attacked!' riposted Ferelijn, smiling as he complied with Emilie's request. ‘But I can tell he's a favourite of the ladies here, not only of his sister, but also of Madame van Raat and Miss Vere.'

Betsy joined in the exchange between Eline and Georges, attracted by the latter's vivacity as he chattered on, skimming all sorts of topics: a conversation with little substance to it, not even much in the way of wit, but light and airy as soap bubbles and peppered with firecrackers. She was in her element here: serious talk, be it ever so spirited, was too heavy for her, but this kind of froth and foam was like the wine pearling in her crystal glass, and it pleased her immensely. She thought Georges far more amusing this evening than he had been at the Verstraetens', where he had twice remarked that the red illumination was more flattering than the green. Today he did not repeat himself, but, having lost his habitual reserve, discoursed volubly, now interrupting the sisters with mock impudence, then offering a droll repartee on some disputed opinion, and on the whole paying little heed to his locution.

Eline made several attempts to draw Jeanne into their lively little group, but received only a faint smile in reply or at most a monosyllable,
and consequently gave up trying to amuse her. The conversation became more general; Emilie joined in with her jovial, forthright mode, and Frans, in the midst of this charmed circle, could not resist throwing in the occasional bon mot, although he frequently cast a look of concern at his quiet little wife.

. . .

To Jeanne the dinner seemed to go on for ever. Although she had no appetite, she did not wish to attract attention by declining the truffled fowl, the Henri IV gateau, the pineapple and the choice dessert, but she barely tasted her wine. Henk, beside her, ate with relish, wondering as he chewed why Jeanne took such tiny helpings. Nor did Georges de Woude eat a great deal; he was too busy holding forth. Emilie, however, ate heartily, and enjoyed her wine, too.