Eline Vere (68 page)

She was the subject of much talk, and Betsy frequently remarked with a worried frown that she feared Eline was ill; she was acting so strangely these days, and Reijer was not at all satisfied either. And everyone felt sorry for her: poor, poor Eline, who used to be so elegant and alluring, so gay! Now she was like a shadow of her former self on the rare occasions that she was seen venturing out in the street with nervous, unsteady gait, her muff pressed to her lips, and there was something almost timid in the way she tilted her head in greeting the Van Larens, the Hijdrechts, the Oudendijks. No indeed, she was not at all well; it was evident for all to see.

. . .

It was raining: a cold, driving March rain, and Betsy was at home, sitting in the violet anteroom by the conservatory with her armchair pushed into the light so that she could read her book,
Pêcheur d'Islande
by Pierre Loti. But the story bored her: she could not imagine fishermen being quite so sentimental. Beyond the potted palms in the conservatory she could see into the garden, where the bare trees glistened starkly in the downpour. Ben sat on the floor by
his mother, his head lolling against her skirts, his eyes fixed on the leafless branch of an elm tree tossing madly in the wind and rain. He heaved a sigh.

‘What's the matter Ben, is anything wrong?' asked Betsy.

‘No, Ma,' he said in his slurred voice, looking up at her in wonder.

‘Then why did you sigh, darling?'

‘Don't know, Ma.'

She looked at him intently a moment, then laid aside her book.

‘Come here, Ben.'

‘Where, Mama?'

‘Here, on my knee.'

Smiling, he clambered onto her lap. Her tone, formerly sharp when addressing her only child, had softened of late.

‘Do you love your mama?' she asked fondly.

‘Yes.'

‘Give me a hug, then.'

He threw his short arms about her neck.

‘And now give me a kiss.'

Beaming doltishly, he kissed her.

‘Mama is never bad, is she?' asked Betsy.

‘No.'

‘Do you like sitting on Mama's lap?'

‘Yes.'

The overgrown seven-year-old snuggled up against her bosom.

‘Tell me, Ben, is there anything you'd like to have? Shall Mama give you something nice?'

‘No, thank you.'

‘Not even a cart, for instance, with a pony, a proper pony? Then Herman could teach you to drive.'

‘No, thank you,' he said blankly.

She grew impatient, and was on the point of scolding him for being so witless, but stopped herself just in time. She held him close and kissed him.

‘Well, if there's anything else you want to have, you must tell me, do you hear?' she resumed, almost in tears. ‘You'll tell me, won't you, Ben? What do you say, little man? Promise you'll tell Mama?'

‘Yes,' he replied in a tone of blissful contentment.

And she shut her eyes, shuddering at the thought that she had an idiot son. What had she ever done to deserve such a punishment?

She sat there holding her child on her lap for some time, when she heard someone approaching through the salon. It was Eline.

‘Well hello, Elly.'

‘Hello, Betsy. Hello, Ben.'

‘So you went out in spite of the rain?'

‘I took a cab; I couldn't stay indoors a moment longer. This weather makes me so dreary, and I thought . . . I thought I was going mad with boredom. Oh, God!'

With a strangled cry she dropped into a chair and tore off her short veil, as if she needed air.

‘Just imagine: the same four walls of your room day in day out, all by yourself, with nothing to distract you – surely that would drive anyone mad? Anyway, I can't stand it any more; if it goes on much longer I'll go insane . . .'

‘Eline, prends garde: l'enfant t'écoute.'

‘Oh, him . . . he doesn't understand, and I don't think he ever will!' she ranted hoarsely. ‘Come over here, Ben, and listen to me. Shall I tell you what to do when you grow up? Never think about anything, poppet! Don't think at all! Just eat, drink and have fun for as long as you can, and then . . . then you must marry! But don't start thinking, whatever you do!'

‘Eline, vraiment tu es folle! Mind what you're saying!' Betsy burst out, more concerned for her child than for her sister.

Eline laughed out loud; the shrill, crazed edge to her voice frightened Ben, who gazed up at her round-eyed, his mouth gaping. But she went on laughing.

‘Oh, he has no idea, does he, the little mite! No, you don't know what Auntie's raving about, do you? But it feels so good to rant and rave for once! I wish I could do something outrageous, something quite mad, but there's nothing I can think of. I'm so dull nowadays that I can't even think at all. If only Eliza were here, she'd know what to do. Do you know what Eliza and I did once, that first time I was staying in Brussels? I never dared to tell anyone before, but now I don't care, I can say whatever I like. Just imagine, one evening
we went out, just the two us, for a walk; we were feeling adventurous, you know. Mind you don't breathe a word of this to anyone. Then we met two gentlemen, two very nice gentlemen, whom we'd never met before. And we went for a drive with them . . . in an open landau, and then we . . . we went to a café.'

Her whole speech had been punctuated by nervous, shrill giggles, and by the end of it she was laughing hysterically, with frenzied tears running down her contorted features. Not a word of it was true, but to her it was all real.

‘Just fancy! We were in café! A café! And then–'

‘Eline, please! Stop being so silly,' Betsy said quietly.

‘Oh, you think it's terribly shocking, don't you? Well, you can put your mind at rest; it wasn't that bad.'

She gave another wild, forced laugh and then broke down into sobs.

‘Oh, that wretched Reijer! I have this constant pain here, in my head, and he doesn't even care, all he goes on about is my cough. I know I cough, I don't need him to tell me. Oh, God! And that boarding house is so awful.'

‘Then why don't you come back to live with us?'

‘We'd only be at each other's throats again after the first three days!' Eline laughed hollowly. ‘Now that we don't see very much of each other we seem to get on rather better than before, I find.'

‘Honestly, I'd do my best to make you feel at home!' pleaded Betsy, feeling increasingly concerned about the state of Eline's nerves. ‘We could take care of you properly! I'd accommodate myself to your wishes.'

‘But I wouldn't accommodate myself to yours! No, thank you very much! Freedom above all. You talk such nonsense. We'd start bickering in no time – I mean, just look at us, we're bickering already.'

‘Why do you say that? I am not bickering, not by any means. All I want is for you to come back to us as soon as possible – tonight, preferably.'

‘Betsy, if you don't shut up about that I shall leave now and never come back. I have no desire to live in your house, do you hear? I will not live with you, and that's final.'

She hummed a little.

‘Will you stay for supper, at least?' asked Betsy.

‘Yes please! But I'm exhausted, so I won't have much conversation. What are your plans for later this evening?'

‘We're going to the Oudendijks'. Haven't you been invited?'

‘No, I've stopped going out.'

‘Why?'

‘Drat the Oudendijks! Oh, my poor head! I'm half dead . . . do you mind if I go and lie down for a while?'

‘Please do.'

‘Then I'll go to Henk's room; there's a comfy couch there.'

‘The fire isn't lit, though.'

‘Oh, I don't mind.'

. . .

She went upstairs to Henk's sitting room. Henk was out. She removed her coat and hat. Then she took a cigar from a cigar box, bit the tip off and lit it, but the bitter taste disgusted her and she stubbed it out. She lay down on the couch. Her wandering eyes lit on a weapon rack, a trophy of swords, daggers and pistols. What if she wanted to kill herself, how would she do it? A dagger through her heart? A bullet in her mouth? Oh no, no, she would never have the courage, and anyway she wouldn't know how to handle a dagger or a pistol. She might just wound herself, mutilate herself, and . . . go on living. Besides, death was even worse than life. Death was something she never dared to think about, something infinitely, unspeakably vast and empty. Would there be life after death, would there be a God? She remembered having sweet visions of azure landscapes bathed in a luminous glow, with singing angels flitting about on silvery wings, and far away in the hazy distance a throne of clouds occupied by an ethereal being of majestic allure. The vision came back to her now, and she felt herself being borne aloft on the soft strains of heavenly song. But then she had a sense of falling down to earth at dizzying speed with the room wheeling all around her, until her eyes came to rest on the weapon rack again. No, no, not a pistol, not a dagger! Not poison, either, because she would turn blue and green and they'd find her with her face twisted and
swollen and everybody would be appalled by her ugliness. What if she drowned? Then, too, she would be ugly, with her body all bloated by the time they fished her out of the lake. But drowning was supposed to be a gentle death; you saw the water closing over your head in a gorgeous swirl of lovely colours and then you gradually dropped off to sleep, sinking deeper and deeper into a billowing, downy softness, and in death you were like Ophelia, adorned with water lilies and reeds. But she couldn't think of any lake with lilies and reeds in The Hague, there were only canals with foulsmelling, green water . . . oh no, not that! The lake in the woods, then? Or the sea at Scheveningen? No, no, she would be too terrified, and anyway she was too weak; she wouldn't even have the strength now to run away in the middle of the night during a storm as she had done so long ago, all alone, battling against the wind and the driving rain. And she came to the conclusion that she would never find the courage to hang herself, or to suffocate herself; the fact was that she was too cowardly to kill herself at all. She began to quake as in a fever, so horrified was she by her thoughts.

Why did she have to be like this? Why couldn't she have been happy with Otto? Why hadn't she met St Clare when she was eighteen? What had she done to deserve such wretchedness? Who had she ever harmed? Hadn't she taken good care of Aunt Vere in her final illness, hadn't she sacrificed her own good fortune for Vincent? Oh, if only she had been capable of happiness, then she would have shared it with everyone around her. St Clare – or was it Otto? – had once told her there were treasures slumbering in her soul. Well, she would have shared out those treasures, she would have bestowed the jewels of her joy wherever she went. But it had not come to pass, she had been crushed by the sheer weight of her existence, and now she was so tired from the struggle that her only wish was that it should end. Oh, if only she were dead . . .

The rain had stopped; it grew dark. Exhausted from her sombre ruminations, she lay back, numb, her mind a blank, and at length dozed off. She was roused by a heavy footfall in the hallway, and before she was fully awake, Henk entered.

‘My dear Sis! What are you doing here in the dark? My, how cold it is in here!'

‘Cold?' she echoed with the dazed look of a sleepwalker. ‘Yes, so it is, I can feel it now – I'm shivering. I must have been asleep.'

‘Why don't you come downstairs with me? Dinner will soon be served. Betsy said you were staying, is that right?'

‘Yes. Oh, Henk, how awful that I fell asleep.'

‘Awful? Why?'

‘Now I won't sleep a wink tonight!' she sobbed, burying her head in his shoulder.

‘Why won't you come back to live with us, Elly?' he asked softly. ‘It would be so much better all round.'

‘No, no, I don't want that.'

‘Why not?'

‘It wouldn't do, Henk. I am certain of that. It's very sweet of you to ask, but it simply wouldn't do. I have these sudden moods when I feel like smacking Betsy, for instance, especially when she's being nice to me. I very nearly hit her this afternoon.'

He sighed with a hopeless expression. She was ever a mystery to him.

‘Let's go down,' he said, and as they descended the stairs together she leant heavily on his arm, shivering from the cold that had now truly overtaken her.

. . .

Winter came to an end and Eline's condition remained unchanged. It was May, and although the weather had been wintry only the previous week, the summer season had burst forth with soaring temperatures. Eline lay on her couch, felled by the heat.

‘Don't you think it would do you good to spend some time in the country this summer?' suggested Reijer. ‘I don't mean travelling from one place to another, that would be too tiring. I am thinking along the lines of a holiday in some cool, shady retreat, a place where you would find a caring environment.'

She thought of De Horze. Oh, if only she had married Otto! Then she would have had all the cool shade and loving care she needed!

‘I wouldn't know where to go,' she answered dully.

‘I might be able to help you there. I know some people in Gelderland, a most agreeable couple who run a small country estate with a fine wood of pine trees nearby.'

‘Not pine trees, for Heaven's sake!' cried Eline with passion.

‘The country air would agree with you.'

‘Nothing will agree with me. I do wish you'd stop nagging, Dr Reijer.'

‘Have you been sleeping well lately?'

‘Oh yes, very well.'

It was not true; she did not sleep at all at night, only dozed off from time to time during the day. The drops no longer sent her to sleep; instead, they left her in a permanent state of hazy exaltation, a crazed semi-consciousness veering between extreme lassitude and mortal fear, during which she had spells of becoming an actress moaning and writhing in agony on the floor.