CHAPTER XIX
SHE wandered round the house, greatly agitated and
uncertain what to do. She heard her son Pol, the
undergraduate, in his room downstairs, next to the
front-door. He was sitting there smoking with some
friends; and as she passed she listened to the lads’
noisy voices. There was a ring at the door: it was
her younger boy, Gus, her favourite; and, glad to
hear his merry and youthful chatter, she forgot for
a moment the feverish curiosity that consumed her
so fiercely.
She now thought of going to her father in his
study, but it was too near dinner-time, she feared,
and Papa did not like being disturbed at this hour.
She was restless, could not sit down, kept wandering
about. Just imagine, if Papa was ruined, what
should they do? Aunt Stefanie would perhaps leave
something to Gus, she was fonder of him than of
the others; but there were so many nephews and
nieces. If only Aunt didn’t fritter her little fortune
away in legacies! … Her maternal feelings,
always centring on the question of money, made her
think of the future of her three children. Well,
for Lily she was doing everything in her power,
working on the feelings of both Aunt Stefanie and
Uncle Anton. As for Pol, he must manage as best he
could: if he had a million, he would still be hard up.
The dinner-hour approached; and she waited,
with D’Herbourg and the two boys, in the dining-room,
for Papa to come down. When Harold
Dercksz entered, it seemed to her that Father’s long,
lean figure, which was always bent, was now more
bent than ever; a bilious yellow gave his hollow
cheeks a deep metallic colour. Ina loved a formal
but cheerful table; the simple meal was tastefully
served; she kept up a certain style in her home,
was a very grande dame of a housekeeper. She
had brought up her children with the utmost correctness
and could not understand that Lily had so
soon kicked over the traces, immediately after her
marriage: what a scene of slovenliness you always
found at Frits and Lily’s! She was pleased with
her boys as she thought of it, pleased with their
manners at table: Pol talked gaily and pleasantly,
though not too noisily, because of Grandpapa; Gus
made a little joke from time to time; then Ina would
laugh and stroke his head. Harold Dercksz hardly
spoke at all, listened to the boys with a smile of
pain on his lips. D’Herbourg carved. There was
usually a separate dish for Grandpapa: he had to
be very careful because of his digestion and his
liver. As a matter of fact, he was always in
pain. Sometimes his forehead puckered with
physical agony. He never spoke of what he suffered,
did what the doctor told him, was always
taciturn and gentle, quietly dignified, broken in body
through illness, broken in soul through the melancholy
that shone in the gentle glance of his old eyes
with their discoloured irises. Ina looked after her
father, began by seeing to his special dish; she was
attentive and liked to have everything quite right in
her house and at her table.
At dessert, however, her uncontrollable curiosity
arose in her once more. Questions burnt upon her
lips, but of course she would ask nothing during
dinner … and she again laughed at something
that Gus said, stroked his curly head. She looked
more motherly in her indoor dress; when she was
with Gus, her weary eyes had not the same ultra-well-bred
glance as under the waving white bird of
paradise, when she sat cheek by jowl with fat Aunt
Floor, who was so Indian. Papa got up at dessert
and said, courteously:
“Do you mind, Ina? My pain’s rather bad this
evening….”
“Poor Father!” she said, kindly.
The old man left the room: Pol had jumped up
at once to open the door for him. The parents and
the two boys sat on a little longer. Ina told the
others about Uncle Daan and Aunt Floor; they
were amused at the twenty packs of Chinese playing-cards.
Gus, who was a good mimie, imitated the
Indian accent of Aunt Floor, whom he remembered
from her last visit, a couple of years ago; and Ina
laughed merrily at her boy’s wit. Thus encouraged,
Gus mimicked Aunt Stefanie, made his face look
like an elderly bird’s, with a quivering, flexible neck,
and D’Herbourg roared with delight; but Pol, the
undergraduate, cried:
“Don’t forget, Gus, that you’ve got expectations
from Aunt. You must never let her know you mimic
her!”
“It’s not nice of you to say that,” said Ina, in a
mildly reproachful tone. “No, Pol, it’s not nice
of you. You know Mamma doesn’t like allusions to
expectations and so forth. No, Pol, it’s not very
good taste…. I can’t understand how Papa
can laugh at it.”
But the merriment continued because of Gus; and,
when he imitated Uncle Anton, with his fists clenched
on his knees, Ina allowed herself to be led on and
they all three laughed, leagued against the Derckszes
as in a family alliance of aristocratic Jonkheer
d’Herbourgs against Indian uncles, aunts, granduncles
and grandaunts.
“Yes, Grandpapa is certainly the best of them,”
said Pol. “Grandpapa is always distinguished.”
“Well, Greatgranny”—as the children called
the old lady—”Greatgranny, old as she is, is a
very distinguished woman!” said Ina.
“What tons of old people we have in the
family!” said Gus, irreverently.
Ina repressed him: no jokes about the old lady;
for that matter, they all of them stood in awe of
her, because she was so very old and remained so
majestic.
“Aunt Ottilie has turned sixty, hasn’t she?” Ina
asked, suddenly, hypnotized by the number sixty,
which loomed fatefully large before her eyes.
And the D’Herbourgs now ceased talking of
money, but discussed the family instead. With the
exception of Grandmamma and Papa—Greatgranny
and Grandpapa to the boys—they pulled all the
others to pieces and Gus mimicked them all: in addition
to Uncle Anton, Aunt Stefanie and Aunt Floor,
he mimicked Uncle Daan, mimicked the son who
held a legal office out there, mimicked “Shaan,” the
resident’s wife at Cheribon. He had seen them all
in Holland, when they came home for anything
from two to twelve months on leave; and they always
provided food for discussion and jest in the
D’Herbourg mansion. But Ina did not laugh any
more and stood up, while her curiosity burnt her
to the point of causing her physical pain.
Harold Dercksz was sitting upstairs at his big
writing-table. A lamp with a green shade made him
appear still yellower; and the wrinkles were sharply
furrowed in the old man’s worn face. He sat huddled
in his chair, screening his eyes with his hand. In
front of him lay great sheets of figures, which he had
to examine, as Daan had asked him to. He stared
before him. Sixty years ago he had seen the Thing.
It was slowly passing, but in passing it came back
again to him so closely, so very closely. The sight
of it had given his child-brain and child-nerves a
shock for all his life; and that he had grown old
quietly, very old, older than he need have, was due
to his self-restraint…. The thing of the past,
the terrible Thing, was a ghost and looked at him
with eyes while it came nearer, dragging its veil of
mist over rustling leaves, over a path lined with
sombre trees from which the leaves fell everlastingly….
The Thing was a ghost and came
nearer and nearer in passing, before it would vanish
entirely in the past; but never had a single creature
appeared from behind the trees to stretch out a forbidding
hand and hold back the ghastly Thing that
went trailing by…. Was a shadow loitering
behind the trees, was some one really appearing,
did he really see a hand motioning the thing, the
ghastly Thing, to stop in its passage through the
rustling leaves? … Oh, if it would only pass!
… How slowly, how slowly it passed! …
For sixty long years it had been passing, passing.
… And the old man and the old woman, both in
their respective houses or sitting together at the
windows, were waiting until it should have passed.
… But it would not pass, so long as they were
still alive…. Harold Dercksz felt pity for the
old man, for the old woman…. Oh, if it would
but pass! … How long the years lasted! …
How old they had grown! … Why must they
grow so old? … Was that their punishment,
their punishment, the punishment of both of them?
For he now knew what part his mother had played
in the crime, the terrible crime. Daan had told
him; Ma-Boeten had told her son; the m’antri had
told Daan. There were so many who knew it! And
the old people believed that nobody … that
nobody knew it except … except old Dr.
Roelofsz! … Oh, so many knew it, knew the
Thing that was buried and kept on raising its spectral
form, the secret that was always rising up again
in its clammy mist…. Oh, that he must needs
grow so old, so old that Daan now knew it too! If
only Daan held his tongue and did not tell Floor!
Would he hold his tongue? Would the mantri go
on holding his tongue? Money must be paid, at
least until the old, the poor old people were dead
… and until the Thing was past for them and
with them….
A gentle tap; and the door opened: he saw his
daughter on the threshold.
“Father dearest,” she said, winningly.
“What is it, dear?”
Ina came nearer.
“I’m not disturbing you, I hope? I came to see
how you were. I thought you looked so bad at
dinner….”
She tended him, like a good daughter; and he appreciated
it. His heart was sensitive and soft and
he appreciated the companionship of the home: Ina’s
care, the boys’ youth imparted a genial warmth to
his poor chilled heart; and he put out his hand to
her. She sat down beside his chair, giving a quick
glance at the papers before him, interested in the
sight of all those figures, which no doubt represented
the state of Papa’s fortune and Uncle Daan’s.
Then she asked:
“Are you ill, Father dear?”
“Yes,” he said, moaning, “I’m in pain.” And,
moved by her affection, he added, “Better if it
were over with me soon.”
“Don’t say that: we could never do without
you.”
He smiled, with a gesture of denial:
“You would have a trouble the less.”
“Why, you know you’re no trouble to me.”
It was true and she said it sincerely; the
note of sincerity rang true in his child’s motherly
voice.
“But you oughtn’t to be always working like
this,” she went on.
“I don’t do much work.”
“What are all those figures?”
She smiled invitingly. He knew her curiosity, had
known it ever since her childhood, when he had
caught her ferreting in his writing-desk. Since
that time, he had locked everything up.
“Business,” he replied, “Indian business. I have
to look into these figures for Uncle Daan, but it
doesn’t mean much work.”
“Is Uncle Daan satisfied with the business?”
“Yes, he is. We shall be rich yet, dear.”
“Do you think so?”
Her voice sounded greedy.
“Yes. Have no fear. I’ll leave you something
yet.”
His voice sounded bitter.
“Oh, Father, I really wasn’t thinking of that. I
do worry about money sometimes, because of Lily,
who married on nothing: what have Frits and Lily
to live on? And because of my boys. I don’t care
about money myself.”
It was almost true; it had become true as the
years went on. Since she had grown older, she
thought of money more for her children’s sake;
motherliness had developed in her soul, even though
that soul remained material and small.
“Yes,” said Harold Dercksz, “I know.”
“You are so depressed, Father.”
“I am just the same as usual.”
“No, Uncle Daan has made you depressed. I
can see it.”
He was silent and on his guard.
“You never speak out, Father. Is there
nothing I can do for you? What’s depressing
you?”
“Nothing, dear.”
“Yes, there is; yes, there is. Tell me what’s
depressing you.”
He shook his head.
“Won’t you tell me?”
“There’s nothing.”
“Yes, there’s something. Perhaps it’s something
terrible.”
He looked her in the eyes.
“Father, is it a secret?”
“No, dear.”
“Yes, it is; it’s a secret. It’s a secret, a secret
that’s depressing you … since I don’t know how
long.”
He turned cold in his limbs and all his soul armed
itself, as in a cuirass, and he remained like that, on
his guard.
“Child, you’re fancying things,” he said.
“No, I’m not, but you won’t speak. It hurts me
to see you so sad.”
“I am unwell.”
“But you are depressed … by that terrible
thing … that secret….”
“There’s nothing.”
“No, there must be something. Is it about
money?”
“No.”
“Is it about money which Uncle Daan….”
He looked at her.
“Ina,” he said, “Uncle Daan sometimes has
different ideas about absolute honesty in business
… from those which I have. But he always
ends by accepting my view. I am not depressed by
any secret about money.”
“About what then?”
“Nothing. There is no secret, dear. You’re
fancying things.”
“No, I’m not. I … I…”
“You know?” he asked, loudly, with his eyes
looking into hers.
She started.
“N-no,” she stammered. “I … I don’t
know anything … but … I feel …”
“What?”
“That there’s a secret that’s depressing you.”
“What about?”
“About … about something that’s happened….”
“You know,” he said.
“No, I don’t.”
“Nothing has happened, Ina,” he said, coldly.
“I am an old, sick man. You tire me. Leave me
in peace. Leave me in peace.”
He rose from his chair, nervous, agitated. She
drew up her weary eyes with her well-bred expression,
with her mother’s expression, the expression of
the IJsselmondes, who were her source of pride.
“I will noT tire you, Papa,” she said and her
voice, sharp but tuned to the correct social enunciation,
sounded affected, “I will not tire you. I will
leave you in peace. I came to you, I wanted to speak
to you … because I thought … that you
had some worry … some sorrow. I wanted to
share it. But I will not insist.”
She went on, slowly, with the offended haughtiness
of a grande dame, as Harold Dercksz remembered
seeing his mother leave the room after a
conversation. A reproachful tenderness welled up
in him; he had almost kept her back. But he restrained
his emotion and let her go. She was a
good daughter to him, but her soul, the soul of a
small-minded woman, was all consumed with money
needs, with foolish conceit about small, vain things—because
her mother was a Freule IJsselmonde—and
with a passionate curiosity. He let her go, he
let her go; and his loneliness remained around him.
He sank into his chair again, screened his eyes with
his hand; and the lamplight under the green shade
furrowed the wrinkles sharply in his worn face of
anguish. He stared out before him. What did she
know? What did she guess? What had she overheard
perhaps … in the conservatory, as she
came to them? … He tried to remember the
last words which he had exchanged with Daan. He
could not remember. He decided that Ina knew
nothing, but that she guessed, because of his increased
depression…. Oh, if the Thing would
only pass! … Oh, if the old people would only
die! … Oh, that no one might be left to know!
… It was enough, it was enough, there had
been enough years of self-reproach and silent, inward
punishment for people who were so old, so
very old….
And he stared, as though he were looking the
Thing in the eyes.
He stared all the evening long; sitting in his
chair, his face twisted with illness and pain, he fell
asleep with the light sleep of old people, quick to
come and quick to go, and he saw himself again, a
child of thirteen, in the night in the pasangrahan and
heard his mother’s voice:
“O my God, O my God, no, no, not in the
river!”
And he saw those three—but young still—his
mother, Takma, Ma-Boeten; and between them his
father’s lifeless body, in the pelting rain of that
fatal night…..
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