Eline Vere (59 page)

She flung herself on the sofa in a nervous flood of tears, but jumped up again immediately with a wild, hunted look. Her eyes darted this way and that and her fingers were in constant motion,
touching a vase here or a flower basket there, toying with the fringe of the window-curtain, tracing arabesques on the steamed-up panes. Abruptly recovering herself, she found that she could not recall what she had just said.

‘I don't suppose you understand, do you?' she said doubtfully to Madame van Raat, whose mournful gaze had followed her every movement.

‘Yes, my dear, I believe I do,' she stammered, overcome with grief over Eline's lost chance of happiness.

Eline stared. For a moment she deeply regretted her half-remembered confession, but the sympathy beaming from Madame's eyes reassured her.

‘So you understand what I mean? You understand why I can never be happy again?' she asked, sinking down on the footstool once more.

Madame van Raat did not answer; with tears in her eyes she put her arm around Eline's neck and kissed her. They remained thus a moment, in silence.

‘And will you forgive me, just a little, for leaving you?'

‘Oh, why won't you stay with me?'

‘I'm a burden to you; my company is anything but agreeable. There is nothing I can do for you, just as there is nothing you can do for me!'

It was the truth. Madame could do nothing for her. No one could.

They found no more to say to one another. Each was painfully aware of her inability to lighten the load of the other's existence by means of mutual consolation. But Madame, pressing Eline to her bosom, was not convinced that there would be any consolation to be found in the company of Uncle Daniel and Eliza either.

Dusk fell, and as the fire was almost out it grew chilly in the room, with dark, vague shadows looming in the angles of the walls and among the furniture. Madame van Raat was shivering, but she did not rise to attend to the fire or ring for the maid, because Eline's head was resting on her lap. She had fallen asleep, and with her eyes closed it seemed to the old lady that, had it not been for the laboured breathing, she would have thought
the girl had died, so waxen and livid was the shade of her emaciated features.

Eline slept on, and the temperature in room dropped further. Madame van Raat peered at the grate: not a trace of fire to be seen. With slow deliberation she took off the woollen shawl she invariably wore around her shoulders, and carefully spread it out over Eline.

Daniel Vere and his young wife, Eliza Moulanger, occupied a spacious apartment on avenue Louise. The reception room was vast, with five windows overlooking the street; half salon, half drawing room, the space was decorated in no particular style, but rather with artistic flamboyance. Although the furniture and ornaments looked as if they had been picked up here and there at various auctions, together they constituted an attractive ensemble of muted shades and pleasing contours. The walls were lined with softly gilded leather, and from the ceiling, patterned in the Moorish manner with soft blues, pale reds and dull gold, hung a many-branched chandelier of coloured Venetian glass. A generous fire burned in the grand, old-fashioned hearth with a richly carved oak surround, and whichever way one turned there were potted palms, curios from Turkey and China, and artefacts of antique porcelain, all in artistic profusion.

The central bay window, wider than the others, formed a kind of interior balcony, where Eliza and Eline often sat together. A week had gone by since her arrival, and Eline found herself warming to the company of her uncle and her youthful aunt. The sheer lavishness of the reception room, almost like a museum, gratified her aesthetic sensibilities while exuding an atmosphere of warmth and conviviality. The modern luxury of Betsy's salon, full of gilt, plush and satin, seemed ordinary and tasteless to her now, compared to the somewhat haphazard, slightly dusty, yet cosy abundance of her present surroundings.

It was morning, and in the bay window sat Aunt Eliza, attired in a Chinese robe of grey silk with red tassels, painting at a table strewn with paints and brushes. Eline was seated by the large fire with a book on her lap, an unconscious smile playing on her pale lips as her gaze slid searchingly about the room.

‘I love the way you have decorated your apartment!' she said in French to Eliza, who was humming softly as she rinsed out her brush. ‘You can sit here quietly by the fire and conjure up the most delightful fancies, because every single thing here sparks some idea that you can embroider on. If you look around the room, you feel as if you're travelling.'

Eliza licked the tip of her brush and laughed.

‘You have such curious ideas, Eline!' she said, rising abruptly. She untied her mass of tightly-curled hair, which was ever dishevelled, shook it, and twisted it into a loose knot. ‘I've spent practically all my time in this room for the past three years, never have any of my things given me the feeling I was travelling! But all of you have such curious ideas! You and Daniel and Vincent, too. It's very amusing; I keep being taken by surprise! So curious, and so original, you know. Is your sister Betsy like that, too?'

Eline smiled at her in wonder.

‘Betsy?' she echoed pensively. ‘No, I don't believe so. Betsy has a very practical nature, very resolute. Betsy takes after our Mama, not after the Veres at all.'

Eliza smiled gaily.

‘Shall I tell you what I think? You're all a bit peculiar, I do declare, a bit peculiar, every one of you! Believe me, it's true!' She said this in such a joking, friendly fashion that Eline could not take offence. ‘But you know, I rather like a whiff of peculiarity. I can't abide ordinariness. Ordinary people – ugh! So you see, that's why I adore you: you aren't a bit ordinary, you're interesting and original!'

‘Really?' said Eline forcing a laugh. ‘Well, I can assure you that I would give half my life for the privilege of not being original or interesting, but ordinary instead, as ordinary as it is possible to be.'

‘My dear girl! What an absurd privilege to aspire to! The way I see it, one shouldn't aspire to anything, one ought to want to take
life as it comes, and be satisfied with one's lot. Voilà le secret du bonheur! You are original, Eline, so you might as well be satisfied with your interesting personality. But there you go, wanting to be different – wanting to be ordinary, no less! Shame on you!'

She seated herself beside Eline and stretched out her hands to the fire.

‘I'll tell you something else, Eline, something that has always puzzled me about you. You are a very pretty girl, you have enough money to do exactly as you please, and yet you don't enjoy life. You're always dreaming, dear girl, but dreaming is not the same as living, is it? Had I been in your shoes before I got married, I'd have made sure I enjoyed life to the full. But I didn't have a penny to my name, and I was a plain-looking girl – as I still am. Daniel fell for me anyway, and I accepted him. Of course I did! If I'd been pretty like you and if I'd had a little money of my own I would have made sure I amused myself – but it would have been without Daniel, you see. With who else? Well, I couldn't say at this stage, but I know I would have had lots of fun! As for you – o mais c'est une pitié! – you're simply bored, bored to death if you ask me. It's a crying shame! In a word, you're a mystery to me. And that's exactly what I like about you.'

Eline gave a rueful smile, remaining silent.

‘Ah well, I don't know your personal history, all I know is that you left your sister's home in the middle of the night, during a storm. Not everyone would do that, you see, and that's what appeals to me. It's intriguing, to say the least. I dare say you have some dramatic story to tell, but then who hasn't? A romantic story, perhaps? If so, I pity you, because you obviously made some foolish mistake.'

She paused in anticipation of some response from Eline, but none was forthcoming.

‘Don't misunderstand me,' she prattled on, relishing the occasion to air her views. ‘I think love is a fine thing. It is most enjoyable. But I also think it ought to remain enjoyable. Once romantic love becomes a source of heartache it's not worth pursuing, in my opinion. I don't believe there is such a thing as all-consuming love, like a big flame that won't tolerate any flamelets in its vicinity. It's an impossibility, when you think about it. Take me. I have always
lived here in Brussels. Daniel happened to be living here, too, and so we met. We fell in love, as they say, and we got married. All well and good, but what if I had been living in Lapland, and Daniel on the South Pole? Just think about it. We would never have set eyes on each other, and each of us would have met someone else – me an Eskimo, and Daniel someone from the South Pole. Stands to reason, no? Love simply happens, and people can fall in love hundreds of times. Why, Eline, you've gone all quiet. I'm not boring you am I?'

‘On the contrary!' laughed Eline. ‘I love it when you're in one of your talkative moods!'

Eliza blinked happily.

‘Well, I am rather a chatterbox, aren't I? But I meant what I said about you not enjoying life enough. You might bear that in mind, my dear; you're still young enough to change your attitude.'

Eline was certain that there was nothing she could do to change her attitude. She was simply not up to it – she had allowed herself to be driven down a steep slope, further and further until she could see the abyss gaping beneath her, and even then she had not mustered the strength to climb back up.

‘Do you know what I think your weakness is, Eline? You're too sensitive. Altogether too emotional. What you need in life's struggle is a good dose of indifference. You see, we have little choice: we happen to be among the living, and we must live our lives as best we can. So we might as well make things as agreeable as possible for ourselves. As for you, you have the means to do just that. You have no responsibilities, no dependents to provide for, you can do exactly as you please. The trouble is that you think too much, and thinking too much is depressing. Me? I don't think. I only have impulses, little ideas that occur to me; but I never think. And thank goodness for that. I may be philosophising now, but I am not thinking.'

This light-hearted chat amused Eline; she even caught herself thinking Eliza might be quite right to take such a heedless attitude. But Eline herself was different: there was no way she could cast off the melancholy that seemed to have infiltrated into the very marrow of her being, and she was sure that she would end her days without having enjoyed life – or at least not in the way Eliza meant. Nor did
she desire such enjoyment, for she had experienced happiness of a higher order – the happiness of being with him, with Otto.

. . .

Eliza thought her indolent, but she herself took pleasure in doing nothing. She gave herself up wholeheartedly to her languorous inertia. Most days she stayed at home, pleading her cough, though in reality all she wanted to do was to nestle herself among the Turkish cushions in the big armchair by the fire and while away the hours daydreaming. She made an effort to be like Eliza and not think, and to a certain extent she succeeded in this endeavour. Only, she began to have a sense of waiting for something, waiting and waiting.

Although she seldom went out, she saw plenty of people. Uncle Daniel was always bringing home friends, sometimes accompanied by their wives, and they often stayed for dinner. The social circle Eline found herself in was not entirely new to her, for she had met various of its members when she first stayed in Brussels. But she did not feel wholly at ease with them; they were unconventional in ways that both fascinated and shocked her. In The Hague she had always moved in circles limited to her own class, where everyone, despite variations in personal fortunes, held the same views when it came to morals and manners, and where everyone observed the same rules of etiquette and exchanged the same pleasantries when they visited each other's homes. No such rules seemed to apply in Brussels. People vented the most outlandish opinions, on topics unheard of in Betsy's salon or at the Eekhofs'. She found her new, free-spirited acquaintances somewhat unnerving, but at the same time interestingly exotic.

It was indeed a motley assortment of friends that Uncle Daniel had gathered around him. One evening he had invited some count or other to dinner, who, much to Eline's surprise, entered wearing evening dress with a diamond-studded dress shirt that looked decidedly the worse for wear, as well as rather oversized cameo rings on his fingers; he was handsome in a faded sort of way, with a lock of black hair tumbling over his brow, and wrote poetry; he offered Eline a volume of his poems and a booklet containing reprints of
flattering reviews of his works. He was said to be rich, and Eliza thought him witty. Eline, however, felt a twinge of dislike on shaking his hand. Another evening it would be an actor, which made Eline worry about the possibility of Fabrice turning up one day. Or it would be a well-known jeweller accompanied by an enormously stout, blonde lady wearing a lot of rouge and a red-velvet gown. But from time to time the Moulangers and the Des Luynes came over from Bordeaux, and Eline would be greatly relieved to recognise in them a modicum of respectability and distinction.

With the exception of these two families, though, visitors at avenue Louise behaved with a remarkable degree of informality. They either came to dinner unannounced or arrived at eleven o'clock at night, when Eline was feeling ready for bed, and stayed until the small hours drinking champagne and smoking. Eline would smoke along with them, and laugh very loudly. Uncle Daniel would lounge in a chair, smiling somewhat wearily, and Eline often had the impression that all these strange people were in some way useful to him. She had never quite understood how he obtained his money, since he did not seem to have had any employment. But she dismissed the thought, for she was determined not to think at all, like Eliza, and as time went on she found a certain measure of satisfaction in this society, so very different from what she had been used to in the salons of The Hague.