Eline Vere (7 page)

It was just past eight when they rose from the table and the ladies adjourned to the drawing room. Frans joined Henk and De Woude in an after-dinner cigar, as Jeanne had agreed to stay another half hour. Betsy had pressed her not to leave just yet – it would be uncivil to dispatch her guests immediately after dinner, and there was plenty of time for the opera.

‘Is Dora often ill?' asked Eline. With a rustle of pink ribbed silk she sank down on a sofa beside Jeanne and took her hand. ‘The last time I saw her she was quite well, but even then I thought she looked rather pale and delicate.'

Jeanne discreetly withdrew her hand, feeling a touch vexed by this question being put to her after the flippancy of the table talk. She came out with a perfunctory reply. But Eline, as though wishing to make up for her earlier lack of concern, put so much warmth and commiseration in her voice that Jeanne melted. She promptly voiced her fears that Dr Reijer might not have examined her little girl with sufficient thoroughness, and Eline was all ears as she spooned sugar into her cup of mocha on the silver tray held by Gerard, the manservant. Emilie and Betsy had moved to the anteroom for a look at the latest fashion plates.

‘You poor thing, all those worries, and it's less than three months since you arrived in Holland. You came in September, didn't you?'
asked Eline, replacing the translucent Chinese coffee cup on the side table.

Jeanne made no reply, but brusquely drew herself up and, clasping Eline's slender, cool hand in hers, broke out with:

‘I say, Eline, do you remember how I always used to speak my mind? Because there is something I should like to ask you. May I?'

‘Of course!' said Eline, somewhat startled.

‘Well, it's just that I wonder why things aren't the same between us as they used to be, when your parents were still alive. It's four years since Frans and I got married and left for the Indies, and now that we are back, now that I have seen you again, it's just as if everything has changed. I don't know anybody in The Hague; we have practically no relations here either, and it would be so lovely to keep my old friends.'

‘But Jeanne . . .'

‘Oh, I know, you probably think I'm silly to talk like this, but things are so difficult sometimes that I get very miserable. Then I wish I could let off some steam to good friend, which I can't do with my husband, obviously.'

‘Why not?'

‘Well, he has enough troubles of his own. He's not at all well, you know, and he's losing his patience–'

‘But Jeanne, I can't think what could have changed between us.'

‘Perhaps I'm just imagining things. But we used to spend more time together in the old days. You move in completely different circles now, you go out a good deal, while I . . . well, we seem to have become sort of estranged.'

‘We didn't see each other for four years, after all.'

‘But we wrote letters.'

‘Three or four letters a year isn't much, you know! It's only to be expected that one's ideas change as one grows older and one's circumstances change, surely. And I've had my share of worries, too. First there was dear Papa, and then poor Aunt Vere, whom I attended during her final illness.'

‘Are you happy here, do you and Betsy get on all right?'

‘Oh yes, very well, otherwise I wouldn't have moved in with her, would I?'

Eline, with characteristic reserve, had no desire to go into detail.

‘You see! You have nothing to fret about at all,' Jeanne pursued. ‘You are free and independent, your own mistress to do as you please, whereas I – I am in a completely different situation.'

‘But that doesn't mean to say we've become estranged, does it? For one thing, estranged has a disagreeable sound to it, and for another, it's simply not true, whichever way you put it.'

‘I'm afraid it is.'

‘No, it's not, I assure you. My dear Jeanne, if I can be of service to you in any way, just tell me. I promise I'll do what I can. I wish you'd believe me.'

‘I do, and thank you for your kind promise. But Eline, I wanted to take this opportunity . . .'

‘Now?'

Jeanne was framing questions in her mind: How are you, really? Tell me more about yourself, so that I may get to know you the way you are now! But seeing the polite smile on Eline's pretty lips and the dreamy look in her almond eyes, Jeanne said nothing. Suddenly she regretted having spoken so candidly to the coquettish young creature opening and closing her feather fan. Oh, why had she spoken to her at all? They were worlds apart.

‘Now?' repeated Eline, despite her reluctance to hear what Jeanne had to say.

‘Some other time, then, when we have more privacy . . .' stammered Jeanne, and she rose to her feet. She was annoyed, mostly with herself, and on the brink of tears after the unpleasant dinner followed by this fruitless exchange with Eline. Just then Betsy and Emilie emerged from the boudoir.

Jeanne said it was time they went home. The three men soon appeared, and Henk helped Jeanne into her long overcoat. Forcing herself to smile amiably, she bade them goodbye, reiterating how kind Betsy had been to invite her and her husband to this intimate gathering, and again feeling a pang of annoyance when Eline kissed her on both cheeks.

‘That Jeanne is such a bore!' said Betsy when the Ferelijns had gone. ‘She hardly said a word all evening. What on earth were you talking to her about just now, Eline?'

‘Oh, about little Dora, and about her husband . . . nothing in particular.'

‘Poor Jeanne!' said Emilie with feeling. ‘Come, Georges, could you get me my cloak?'

But before he could do so Mina came in with the ladies' outer garments, so De Woude went off to don his Ulster greatcoat, leaving Henk to rub his large hands with pleasure at the prospect of staying in after his copious dinner. The carriage had been waiting for the past half hour in the thawing snow, with Dirk the coachman and Herman the groom on the box, huddled under their capacious fur capes.

‘Oh Frans, don't ever make me accept another invitation from the Van Raats!' Jeanne said beseechingly, shivering on her husband's arm as they splashed along the muddy street, trying with her small, icy hand to hold the sides of her oversized coat together against the gusting wind. ‘Honestly, I simply don't feel at home with them any more, Betsy and Eline have changed so much.'

His response was an impatient shrug of the shoulders, and they plodded onwards in their wet shoes, the monotony of their progress relieved only by the regularly spaced street lanterns shining tremulously in the puddles along the way.

. . .

The third act of
Le Tribut de Zamora
had just begun when Betsy, Emilie, Eline and Georges entered their box. Their arrival prompted a ripple in the stillness of the audience; there was a rustling of silks and satins, a turning of eyes and craning of necks and much whispering, wondering who they were.

Emilie and Eline seated themselves at the front, with Betsy and Georges behind them, and Eline glanced about a moment, smiling faintly as she laid down her fan and mother-of-pearl opera glasses. Then she slowly untied her short cloak of white plush with the pink-satin lining and let it slide off her shoulders as a pink-and-white cloud, whereupon De Woude draped the garment over the back of her chair. Affecting not to notice the looks of admiration, she savoured the triumph of her beauty.

‘It's full tonight, we're in luck,' whispered Emilie. ‘I think it's so dismal when the house is half empty.'

‘Oh, I quite agree!' said Betsy. ‘Look, there are the Eekhofs: Ange, Léonie and their mama. They were at the Verstraetens' yesterday, too, and they're giving a soirée dansante next week,' she concluded, returning the girls' greeting.

‘Tonight we're hearing Theo Fabrice, the new baritone from Brussels,' De Woude said to Eline. ‘Did you know two baritones have already been dismissed? This is the third one since the debuts started.'

‘There doesn't seem to be an end to the debuts this winter,' breathed Eline, taking up her fan.

‘The tenor was excellent from the start, but this Fabrice is very good too, so I have heard. Look, there he is.'

The chorus of Ben-Saïd's odalisques had come to an end, and the Moorish king himself swept into his palace, leading Xaïma by the hand. Eline was not paying attention, however. She was still scanning the audience, nodding and smiling at acquaintances, and did not direct her gaze to the stage until Ben-Saïd and his slave girl were well and duly enthroned under the canopy, signalling the start of the ballet. She always enjoyed the dancing scenes, and minutely followed the ballerinas in their shiny satin bodices and full skirts of spangled tulle as they glided on tiptoe towards the Moorish arcades, beneath which they hovered in clusters, holding aloft their veils and silver-tasselled fans.

‘A pretty ballet,' said Emilie, yawning behind her fan as she settled back in her seat. She was feeling the effects of her lavish dinner.

Eline nodded, and while she could hear Betsy and Georges whispering behind her, she kept her eyes fixed on the prima ballerina with the glittering aigrette of diamonds in her hair, who was floating on the curved tips of her satin ballet shoes as she twirled among the other dancers and the flutter of veils and fans.

True to her dreamy and idealistic nature, Eline had a passion for the opera, not only because it gave her the opportunity to display her languorous elegance, not only because of the music and the chance to hear some celebrated chanteuse sing a particular aria, but also because of the exciting, highly romantic intrigues and melodramatic
scenes of hatred and love and revenge. She did not mind the plots being predictable, nor did she aspire to find any truth in them. She had no need to forget for one moment that she was observing actors and actresses, not knights and noble ladies, or that she was in a crowded theatre gazing at a brightly lit stage with painted scenery and music from a visible orchestra, not sharing the life of the hero and heroine in some poetic medieval fantasy – she enjoyed herself anyway, as long as the singing was tolerable, the acting not too coarse and the costumes becoming.

Betsy, by contrast, went to the opera only to see and be seen, and had she known what Eline found so enjoyable, would have shrugged dismissively, saying that was childish of her. But Eline kept her enjoyment to herself, for she knew what Betsy was like and preferred to leave her sister in the belief that for her, too, the main purpose of an evening at the theatre was to see and be seen.

She now regretted having arrived so late, for she had never seen
Le Tribut de Zamora
and consequently did not know what had gone before. Emilie had fallen silent under the influence of her fish pastry and her truffled fowl, and like Eline kept her eyes fixed on the stage.

The ballet came to an end. Ben-Saïd and Xaïma descended from their thrones, and the king, having uttered the phrase ‘Je m'efforce en vain de te plaire!' in recitative, launched into the romantic air:

O Xaïma, daigne m'entendre!
Mon âme est à toi sans retour!

The new baritone's voice was deep and resonant, more like that of a basso cantante, and in his delivery he cast a pall of melancholy over the song.

However, his extravagant Moorish costume made him appear rather large and burly. Neither in his pose nor in his facial expression did he convey anything resembling the passionate devotion of a lover, and in the looks he directed at the chanteuse-légère, silver-robed and with pearl-studded blonde locks, there was more fierceness than tender devotion.

Eline was not insensitive to this shortcoming of his acting, but was nonetheless charmed by the contrast between his overbearing
demeanour and the humble, beseeching tone of his voice. She followed his song note by note, and when, at an abrupt, plangent fortissimo, the actress assumed an expression of great terror, she was astonished, thinking: Why is she so frightened? What could have happened? He doesn't look all that wicked to me.

During the applause she cast around the audience again, and lit on a party of gentlemen who had posted themselves on the steps leading to the stalls. She saw them peering up at her box, presumably discussing its occupants, and was about to look away in a show of gracious disinterest when she noticed that one of the men, hat and cane in hand, was smiling at her in a courteous yet familiar way. She stared at him a moment, wide-eyed, too startled to answer the greeting, and then abruptly turned away, put her hand on Betsy's knee and whispered in her ear:

‘Look, Betsy, look who's over there!'

‘Where, who do you mean?'

‘There in the stalls. It's Vincent; can't you see?'

‘Vincent!' echoed Betsy, likewise startled. ‘Oh yes, so it is!'

They both nodded to Vincent in greeting. He responded by peering at them through his lorgnette, whereupon Eline hid coquettishly behind her fan.

‘Who's he? Who's Vincent?' Emilie and Georges wanted to know.

‘Vincent Vere, a first cousin of ours,' Betsy replied. ‘He's a bit of a bounder, I'm afraid. No one ever knows where he is; he disappears for months and then turns up again when least expected. I had no idea he was in The Hague. Oh Eline, do stop fiddling with your fan.'

‘But I won't have him staring at me!' said Eline, readjusting her fan with a graceful turn of her arm, still hiding her face.

‘May I venture to ask how long it is since you last saw your cousin?' enquired Georges.

‘Oh, at least a year and a half. When we last spoke I believe he was about to go to London, where he'd found some position; working on a newspaper or something of that nature. Can you imagine, they say he was with the Foreign Legion in Algiers for a time, but
I don't believe any of it. He's supposed to have done all sorts of things, and he never has a penny.'

‘Yes, I remember him now. I think we met at some time,' Emilie said with a yawn. ‘A curious customer.'