CHAPTER XXIII
NEXT morning, Ottilie Steyn de Weert arrived at
the Hook of Holland. She was accompanied by a
young fellow of nearly thirty, a good-looking, well-set-up
young Englishman, clean-shaven, pink and
white under his travelling-cap, broad-shouldered in
his check jacket and knickerbockers. They took the
train to the Hague.
Ottilie Steyn was under the influence of emotion.
She could be silent when she wished and so she
had never spoken about it; but she suspected, she
knew almost for certain that Takma was her father
and she had loved him as a father.
“He was always so good to me,” she said, in
English, to Hugh Trevelley, her son. “I shall miss
him badly.”
“He was your father,” said Hugh, coolly.
“Not at all,” Ottilie protested. “You know
nothing about it, Hugh. People are always talking.”
“He gave you the money to come to England.”
Mamma Ottilie did not know why, but she was
sometimes more sincere with Hugh than she was
with Lot at home. She loved both these two sons,
but she loved Lot because he was kind to her and
she was really fonder of Hugh because he was
so good-looking and broad-shouldered and because
he reminded her of Trevelley, whom she had really
loved the best. She had never told Lot that the
old gentleman was very generous to her, but she
had sometimes said so to Hugh. She was glad to
be travelling with Hugh, to be sitting next to him;
and yet she was not pleased that Hugh had come
with her. He never came to the Hague; and it
only meant complications with Steyn, she thought,
especially now.
“Hugh,” she said, caressingly, taking his hand
and holding it between hers, “Hugh, Mummy is so
glad to be with you, my boy. I see you so seldom.
I’m very glad…. But perhaps you would have
done better not to come.”
“I daresay,” said Hugh, coolly, withdrawing his
hand.
“Because of Steyn, you know.”
“I won’t see the fellow. I sha’n’t set foot in
your house. I’ll go to an hotel. Do you think I
want to see that scoundrel? That cad … for
whom you left my father? Not I! But I’ve come
to look after my interests. I sha’n’t make any
trouble. But I want to know. You’re coming into
money from that old man. He’s your father, I
know he is. You’re sure to come into money. All
I want is to know how things stand: whether he
leaves you any money and how much. As soon as
I know that, I shall go back. For the rest, I sha’n’t
trouble any one, not even you.”
Ottilie sat looking in front of her, like a child
that has been rebuked. They were alone in the
compartment; and she said, coaxingly:
“Boy, dear boy, don’t talk like that to your
mother. I’m so glad to have you with me. I’m
so very, very fond of you. You’re so like your
father and I loved your father, oh, more than Steyn,
ever so much more than Steyn! Steyn has wrecked
my life. I ought to have stayed with your father
and all of you, with you and John and Mary. Don’t
speak so harshly, my boy. It hurts me so. Do
be nice again to your mother. She has nothing, nothing
left in her life: Lot is married; the old man is
dead. She has nothing left. No one will ever be
nice to her again, if you aren’t. And in the old days
… in the old days everybody used to be so very
nice to her; yes, in the old days …”
She began to cry. It came from her regret for
the old man, from her anger about Lot, who was
married, from her jealousy of Elly and her pity for
herself. Her fingers, like a little child’s, felt for
Hugh’s strong hand. He smiled with his handsome,
clean-shaven mouth, thought her funny for such an
old woman, but realized that she might have been
very charming once. A certain kindness showed
itself in him and, with bluff tenderness, putting his
arm round her waist, he said:
“Come, don’t start crying; come here.”
And he drew her to him. She crept up against
him like a child, nestled against his tweed jacket;
he patted her hand; and, when he kissed her on the
forehead, she was blissfully happy and lay like that,
with a deep sigh, while he, smiling and shaking his
head, looked down on his mother.
“Which hotel are you going to?” she asked.
“The Deux-Villes,” he said. “Have you any
more money for me?”
“No, Hugh,” she replied, “I gave it you all,
for the tickets and … ”
“All you had on you?”
“Yes, boy, really, I haven’t a cent in my purse.
But I don’t want it. You can keep what’s left.”
He felt in his pocket:
“It’s not much,” he said, rummaging among his
change. “You can give me some more at the
Hague. One of these days, when I’m well off, you
can come and live with me and enjoy a happy old
age.”
She laughed, pleased at his words, and stroked
his cheeks and gave him a kiss, as she never did to
Lot. She really doted on him; he was her favourite
son. For one word of rough kindness
from Hugh she would have walked miles; one kiss
from him made her happy, positively happy, for an
hour. To win him, her voice and her caress unconsciously
regained something of their former
youthful seductiveness. Hugh never saw her as a
little fury, as Lot often did, Lot whom in the past
she had sometimes struck, against whom she even
now sometimes felt an impulse to raise her quick
little hand. She never felt that impulse towards
Hugh. His manliness, a son’s manliness, mastered
her; and she did whatever he wished. Where she
loved manliness, she surrendered herself; she had
always done so and she now did so to her son.
On arriving at the Hague, she took leave of
Hugh and promised to keep him informed, imploring
him to be nice and not to do anything disagreeable.
He promised and went his way. At home,
she found her husband waiting for her.
“How did the old man die?” she asked.
He gave her a few brief details and said:
“I’m the executor.”
“You?” she asked. “Why not Lot, as Elly’s
husband?”
He shrugged his shoulders, thought it disingenuous
in her to ask:
“I don’t know,” he said, coldly. “The old man
arranged it so. Besides, I shall do everything with
Lot. He may be here in two days. The undertakers
are coming to-night; the funeral will be to-morrow.”
“Can’t it wait for Lot?”
“Dr. Thielens thought it inadvisable.”
She did not tell him that Hugh had come with
her and, after lunch, she went to the Mauritskade
and embraced Adèle Takma, who was bearing up
though the red letters still whirled before her
stupefied eyes, like faded characters written in blood.
Ottilie Steyn asked to see the old gentleman for
the last time. She saw him, white in the pale, dim
light, his old white face on the white pillow, with its
scanty little wreath of hair, his eyelids closed, the
lines on either side of his nose and mouth fallen
away in slack wrinkles of discoloured parchment.
She wrung her hands softly and wept. She had been
very fond of the old man and he had always been
exceedingly kind to her. Like a father … like
a father … she always remembered him like
that. Papa Dercksz she had never known. He,
he had been her father. He had petted her even
as a child; and afterwards he had always helped
her, when in any sort of money trouble. If
ever he reproached her, it had always been gently …
because she played with her life so:
that was his expression at the time of her first
divorce, from Pauws; of her second divorce, from
Trevelley. She remembered it all: in India and at
the Hague. He had liked Pauws very much;
Trevelley he disliked; Steyn he had ended by pronouncing
to be a good fellow after all. Yes, he
had never reproached her except gently, because
she was unable to manage herself and her love-affairs;
and he had always been so exceedingly kind
to her…. She would miss him, in the morning-room
at Mamma’s, or on the days when she used to
look him up in his study and he would give her a
couple of banknotes, with a kiss, saying:
“But don’t talk about it.”
He had never said that he was her father; she
had always called him Mr. Takma. But she had
suspected; and she now felt it, knew it for certain.
This affection, perhaps the last, was passing from
her, had passed from her….
She went again in the evening, with Steyn, and
Dr. Thielens came too, to be present when the
body was put in the coffin. Aunt Adèle said, no,
she was not afraid of being in the house with the
corpse, nor the maids either: they had slept quite
well the night before. Next day also, the day of
the funeral, Aunt Adèle was composed. She received
Dr. Roelofsz very quietly; the doctor panted
and groaned and pressed his hands to his stomach,
which hung crooked: he had intended to go to the
cemetery with the rest, but did not feel equal to
it; and so he stayed behind with Adèle. The
Derckszes came: Anton and Harold and Daan;
Steyn came; D’Herbourg came, with his son-in-law
Frits van Wely; and the women came too: Ottilie
Steyn, Aunt Stefanie, Aunt Floor, Ina and the fair-haired
little bride, Lily; they all remained with Dr.
Roelofsz and Aunt Adèle, who was quite composed.
When the funeral procession was gone, the women
said how sad it was for Grandmamma; and the old
doctor began to cry. It was a pitiful sight, to see
that old man, shapeless as a crumbling mass, huddled
in a chair; to hear him exclaim, “Well-well …
yes-yes … oh, yes!” to see him cry; but Adèle
remained composed. Ottilie Steyn was not so; she
wept bitterly; and they all saw that she was mourning
the death of a father, though not any of them
had uttered the word, not even quietly among themselves.
Next morning, Steyn had an interview with the
solicitor; and, when he came home, he said to his
wife:
“Adèle has a legacy of thirty thousand guilders;
Elly and you get something over a hundred thousand
each.”
Mamma Ottilie sobbed:
“The dear good man!” she stammered through
her sobs. “The dear good man!”
“Only we thought, Ottilie, the solicitor and I
thought, that it would be best, for Mamma’s
sake to speak of the inheritance as little as
possible.”
“Does the old gentleman acknowledge me as his
daughter?”
“There is no question of acknowledging. He
leaves you the half of his property; you and Elly
share and share alike, after deducting Adèle’s
legacy. Only we thought, the solicitor and I, that,
for Mamma’s sake, it would be better not to talk
about it to any one who needn’t know.”
“Yes,” said Ottilie, “very well.”
“You can be silent when you choose, you know.”
She looked at him:
“I shall not talk about it. But why do you say
that?”
“Because I see from the old gentleman’s books
that he often used to give you money. At least there
are entries: ‘To O. S.'”
She flushed up:
“I wasn’t obliged to tell you.”
“No, but you always used to say that you had
found some money in your cupboard and make
yourself out more careless than you were.”
“The old man himself asked me not to talk about
that money….”
“And you were quite right not to. I only say,
you can be silent when you choose. So be silent
now.”
“I don’t want your advice, thank you!” she
blazed out; but he had left the room.
She clenched her fist: oh, she hated him, she hated
him, especially for his voice! She could not stand
his cold, bass voice, his deep, measured words. She
hated him: she could have smacked his face, just to
see if he would then still speak in cool, deliberate
tones. She hated him more and more every day.
She hated him so much that she longed for his
death. She had wept beside the old man’s body; she
could have danced beside Steyn’s! Oh, she didn’t
yet realize how she hated him! She pictured him
dead, run over, or wounded to the death, with a
knife in his heart or a bullet through his temple
… and she knew that she would then rejoice
within herself. It was all because he spoke so coolly
and deliberately and never said a kind word to her
now and never caressed her!
“A hundred thousand guilders!” she thought.
“It’s a lot of money. Ah, I’d rather the dear good
man were still alive! And that now and then, in
that kind way of his, he gave me a couple of hundred
guilders. That’s what I shall miss so terribly. It’s
true, I have some money now; but I have nothing
else left!”
And she wrung her hands and sobbed again, for
she felt very lonely: the old man was dead; Hugh
at the Hague, but in his hotel; fortunately, Lot was
coming home that evening….
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