The next day, a Sunday, Constance felt a strange longing for youth and laughter, for merry voices and sunny faces. Addie and his father had gone out early, trying the bicycles on the sodden roads; and she was so lonely, still obsessed by that unaccountable sense of depression, that she felt that she must have laughter around her, that she must watch the romping of children, or she would be perpetually bursting into tears. And she took advantage of a lull in the rain to go to Adeline's in the Bankastraat.
As she entered the house, it seemed to her that the sun was shining. Adeline was sitting downstairs in the living-room, with the children round her. Marie, the eldest girl, was just twelve. All the others followed her at regular intervals of age, like the steps of a staircase. Marie was a sort of little mother to the rest: she was a great help to Adeline with the three youngest, those with the ugly names, Jan, Piet and Klaasje. These were now six years, four and two; and they formed a little group within the big group, because Jan insisted on ruling over Klaasje and Piet, looking upon them as his vassals, imitating Papa's voice, playing at horses with Piet and Klaasje, both very docile, while Jan was the tyrant, trying to impart a roar to his shrill little cock-crow of a voice . . . until Marietje had to come in between as a supreme referee, giving her decision in all sorts of difficult questions that arose out of the merest trifle. . . . Adèletje, ten and a half, was a delicate, ailing child, mostly sitting very quietly close to Mamma, hiding in her skirts: a puny little thing, a great anxiety to her mother; and Adeline was uneasy too about Klaasje, as the child remained very backward and dull: the uncles and aunts called it an idiot. . . . But a merry little couple were Gerdy and Constant, nine and eight years old, always together, adoring each other, good little flaxen-haired kiddies that they were: very babyish for their age, blending their resemblance to Papa and Mamma into one soft mixture of pink and white and gold, almost like a coloured picture, and seeming a couple of idyllic little figures by the side of the rough, sturdy elder brothers. For, while Jan already was turbulent and tyrannical, Alex and Guy were regular "nuts," had become indifferent to Marietje's judicial decisions, no longer even submitted to Adeline's restraint and had lost all sense of awe except when the stairs creaked under Gerrit's heavy footstep or when he bellowed at them. Though even then they knew, secretly, with a knowing glance of mutual understanding, that Papa might raise his voice, but never raised his hand; that, when Mamma decreed a punishment, he would say something to her in French, so that the punishment became very slight. And this precocious worldly wisdom had turned them, in their little nursery world, into two intractable, cheeky, swanking young reprobates, putting on big boys' airs, striking terror into little Gerdy and Constant, who would run away together and hide and play at mothers and fathers behind the sofa standing aslant in the drawing-room, chuckling quietly when Mamma or Marietje looked for them and could not find them. But, however intractable, Alex and Guy were two handsome little fellows, with cheeky mouths, but gentle eyes, dark eyes, the Van Lowe eyes: not their hard, but their soft eyes; and, when they were impudent and troublesome, with lips stuck out cheekily, but with those eyes full of dark, soft gentleness, then Constance felt in love with them, spoilt them even more than Gerrit did, put up with everything from the rascals, even allowing the two great boys to hang all over her and ruffle her clothes and hair. This time too, they rushed at her the moment she came in; and Constance, glad to see them so radiant, glad that everything became bright around her, as though the sun were shining, flung open her arms; but Adeline cried:
"Alex! Guy! Take care: Auntie's good cloak! . . . Boys, do take care: Auntie's beautiful hat!"
But neither Alex nor Guy had any regard for Auntie's good cloak or Auntie's beautiful hat; and Constance was so weak in their rather rough and disrespectful embrace that she only laughed and laughed and laughed. Oh, sunshine, sunshine at last! Passionately fond as she was of her own big son, this was what she needed in these days of rain and gloomy skies and gloomy feelings: this almost over-whelming sunshine, this almost pitiless blaze of radiant youth; this rough gambolling around her of what was young and healthy and bright, as if the shock brought her out of her gloomy depression. . . .
When the boys, after behaving like young dogs jumping up to kiss her face, were at last satisfied, she and sober Marietje looked all through the house for Gerdy and Constant, who had purposely hidden themselves and who, she knew, had crept behind the slanting sofa in the drawing-room. She would not find them too quickly, wished to prolong their enjoyment, called out in the drawing-room:
"But where can they be? Wherever can they be? Constant! Gerdy! . . ."
Then at last the giggles of the little brother and sister behind the sofa made her look over the back:
"Here they are! Here they are!"
Oh, how young those children were! Excepting wise and sedate Marietje—Mamma's help—and perhaps quiet Adèletje, how young they were! Those two rascals, what children they were for their eleven and ten years! That little father-and-mother pair, Gerdy and Constant, what babies for their nine and eight! And then the nursery proper, Jan tyrannizing over Piet and Klaasje! . . . How pink and young and fresh and sunny it all was! . . . Now those were real children, even though Klaasje's laugh was very dull and silly. She had never known Addie like that. Addie had never had that sort of youth. No, his childhood had been spent amid the outbursts of temper of his father and mother, amid their jealousies, amid scenes and tears, so that the child had never been a child. And yet . . . and yet, though he had grown up early, how well he had taken care of himself and what kindly powers had watched over him, making him into their one great joy and happiness and consolation! . . .
But, though this melancholy just passed through her, still the morning, that Sunday morning, had begun sunnily for her, with all that golden hair, all those soft, pink cheeks, all that mad, radiant gaiety; and Constance forgot her gloomy depression, caused by she knew not what, in the glow of childish happiness in that living-room.
The stairs now groaned under a heavy tread.
"There's Gerrit," said Adeline.
"How late he is!" said Constance, laughing. "Gerrit, how late you are!" she cried, even before he opened the door.
And she was surprised that his step should sound so sluggish and heavy, accustomed as she was to hear him fill the whole house with the brisk noise of his movements. Sluggishly and heavily his footsteps came down the passage. Then he slowly opened the door of the dining-room, which was also the living-room.
He remained standing in the doorway:
"Ah, Constance! Good-morning."
"Good-morning, Gerrit. How late you are!" she repeated, gaily. "You're in no hurry to get up on a Sunday, I see!"
But she was startled when she looked at him:
"Gerrit, dear . . . what's the matter?"
"I'm feeling rotten," he said, gloomily. "No, children, don't worry Father."
And he pushed aside the playful-rough hands of the two cheeky rascals, Alex and Guy.
"Gerrit hasn't been at all well for a day or two," said Adeline, anxiously.
"What is it, Gerrit?" asked Constance, smiling her smile of a moment ago, when the sunny warmth of the children had made her smile through her own gloomy depression.
"I feel beastly rotten," he repeated, gloomily. "No, thanks, I don't want any breakfast."
"Haven't you been well for the last two days?" asked Constance.
He looked at her with dull, glassy eyes. He thought of telling her, with bitter irony, that all his life he had not been well; but she would not have understood, she would have believed that he was joking, that he was vexed about something; she would not have known. And, besides, he did not want to hurt her either: she was so nice, he always looked upon her as the nicest of his sisters, though they had gone years without seeing each other. What a good thing it was that she had come back! She had been back in Holland three years now, his little sister; he was fond of her, his little sister; he had an almost mystic feeling for her, the sympathy which has its origin in kinship, that sharing of the same blood, the same soul, apportioned so mysteriously in the birth of brother and sister out of one and the same mother by one and the same father; and he felt so clearly that she was his sister, that he loved her as something of himself, a part of himself, something of his own flesh and blood and soul, that he went up to her, laid his hand on her head—she had taken off her hat; and her hair was all ruffled with the boys' romping—and said to her, in a voice which he could not possibly raise to a roar and which broke faintly with emotion:
"It's good to see you, Sissy, with your dear, kind face. . . . I don't know about being unwell, child: I've had a couple of bad nights, that's all."
"But you sleep well as a rule."
"Yes, as a rule."
"And your appetite is good."
"Yes, Connie, I have a good appetite as a rule. But . . . I don't feel like breakfast this morning."
"Your face is so drawn. . . ."
"I shall be all right presently," he said, brightening up. And he struck his chest with his two hands. "My old carcase can stand some knocking about."
"Gerrit came home dripping wet two days ago," said Adeline. "He had been standing on the front of the tram, in a pelting rain, and he was wet to the skin."
"But, Gerrit, why did you do it?"
"To get the wind in my face, Sissy . . ."
"And to catch cold."
He laughed:
"There, don't worry about me. My old carcase," striking his chest, "can stand some knocking about."
"But you're looking ill."
"Oh, rot!"
"Yes, you're looking ill."
"I want some air. The weather's not so bad. It's not raining, it's only blowing fit to blow your head off. Are you afraid of the wind, or will you come for a walk with your brother?"
"Very well, Gerrit . . . but first eat a nice little egg."
He gave a roar of laughter which made the whole room ring again. The children also laughed: they always laughed when Papa laughed like that; and the laughter gave courage to Gerdy, who had looked frightened at first. She crept up on Gerrit's knees, mad on being caressed, clung on to Gerrit, kissed him with tiny little kisses; and Alex and Guy hung, one on his arm, the other on his leg, while his Homeric laughter still rang long and loud.
And his laughter never ceased. He laughed till the servant peeped round the door and disappeared again, perplexed. He laughed till all the children, the nine of them, were laughing, for his laughter had tempted the three little ones—Jan, the tyrant, and his two small vassals—from the stairs, where they were playing. He laughed till Adeline, the dear quiet little mother, also got a painful fit of giggling, which made her choke silently in herself. And he could not stop; his laughter roared out and filled the house: even a street-boy, out of doors, flattened his nose against the window in an attempt to peer in and discover who was laughing like that inside.
And at last Gerrit got up, released himself from the three children, kissed Constance; and, with a red face, tears in his eyes and a mouth still distorted with merriment, he caught her two shoulders in his great hands and said, looking deep into her eyes:
"Don't be angry, Sissy, but I c-couldn't help it, I c-couldn't help it! . . . You'll be the death of me with laughing, if you go on like that! . . . And when you put on that kind little voice and or-order me . . . to eat a n-nice little egg . . . before you consent to go for a walk with me . . . ! . . . Oh, dear, oh, dear! I shall never get over it! . . . Very well . . . all right . . . just to please you . . . but then . . . but then you must . . . b-boil the n-nice little egg for me . . . and put it before me . . . put my n-nice little egg before me! . . ."
Constance was laughing too; the children all kept on laughing, like mad, not really knowing what they were laughing at, now that they were all laughing together; and Adeline, Adeline . . .
"L-look!" said Gerrit, pointing to his wife. "L-look!"
And, while Constance took the egg out of the boiler, she looked round at Adeline. The little mother was still overcome with her fit of silent giggling; the tears rolled down her cheeks; the children around her were screaming with the fun of it.
"I n-never in all my l-life, Connie," said Gerrit, "saw Line laugh . . . as she's laughing at that n-nice little egg of yours. . . ."
And he started afresh. He roared. But she had put his plate in front of him. He now played the clown, took up his spoon, said in a pretty little voice that sounded humorously in his great roaring throat:
"Thank you kindly, Constance . . . for your n-nice little egg. . . . It's too sweet of you! . . ."
And he nipped at his nice little egg with small, careful spoonfuls, pretending to be very weak and very fragile; and the children, seeing their big, burly father nipping at the nice little egg with dainty little movements, were wild with delight, thought it great fun of Papa. . . .
He had finished and was ready for his walk with Constance.
"Papa, may we come too? Do let us come too, Papa!"
"No," he said, bluntly. "No, don't be such limpets. You're just like a pack of octopuses, winding one in their suckers. No, Father wants to go out with his sister alone, for once. . . ."
And he went out alone with Constance, after she had managed to conceal the disorder of her hair under her hat and veil.
Outside, she said to him:
"Gerrit, how bright it all is in your house, how sunny, how happy!"
"Yes," he said.
"You have every reason to be thankful, Gerrit."
"Yes."
"Do you feel better now, in the air?"
"Yes . . . especially after your nice little egg."
"No, don't be silly, Gerrit. You don't look half as well as usual."
"And I feel simply rotten . . . if you really want to know."
"Still?"
"Yes . . . but it'll pass off. . . . I . . . I always sleep very well; and just because of that a bad night upsets me. . . ."
"But that's an exception, isn't it?"
"Yes, of course, it's an exception. Don't be anxious about me, Sissy. I've a hide like a rhinoceros. I'm the pachyderm of the family. I haven't got your dainty little constitution. . . ."
"I am so glad when I come to you, Gerrit. I always brighten up in your house."
"You haven't been gloomy, surely?"
"That's just what I have been, quite lately."
"And why, Connie?"
"I don't know. Because of the weather . . ."
"Are you afraid of it? It's beginning to rain again."
"As long as it doesn't pour, we can go on walking. . . .
"It does me good, especially the wind blowing about one. Do you like wind?"
"Yes, I do . . . but . . ."
"But what?"
"Sometimes I hear too much in it."
"My little fanciful sister of old! What do you hear in it?"
"Gloomy things, melancholy things . . . but always very big things . . . whereas we ourselves are so small, so very small. . . ."
"People never change. . . . You're just the little sister that you used to be . . . in the river . . . with your fairy-tales . . ."
"But what I hear in the wind is not a fairy-tale."
"What do you hear?"
"Life: the whole of life itself. . . . Things of the past; things of the future; and all big and tremendous. . . . When I listen to the wind, the past becomes immense and the future tremendous. . . . and I remain so small, so small. . . ."
"What you remain, child, is a dreamer. . . ."
"No, I haven't remained so. . . . I may have become one again. . . ."
"Yes, you have become one again. . . . I recognize you like this absolutely, just as you were as a slim, fair-haired little girl, the same little fairy-like vision. . . . How long ago it all is, Connie! . . . How everything melts away in our lives! . . . How old we grow! . . ."
"But all your children: they keep you young. They all . . . they all belong to the future. . . ."
"Yes, if only I myself . . ."
"What?"
"Nothing."
"What were you going to say?"
"I was going to own up to something. I was going to confess to you. But why should I? It's better not. It would be very weak of me. It's better not. It's better that I shouldn't speak."
"Gerrit . . . Gerrit, dear . . . tell me . . . is there . . . is there . . .?"
"What? . . ."
"Is there anything? . . ."
"No."
"Is there anything threatening you?"
"Why, no, child!"
"Aren't you well? . . . Do you feel . . . unhappy? . . . Have you some big trouble? . . . Tell me, Gerrit, tell me! . . . I'm your sister after all!"
"Yes, you're my sister, the same flesh and blood, soul of my soul. . . . No, there's nothing, Constance, there's nothing threatening."
"And there's no secret trouble?"
"No, no secret trouble."
"Yes, I'm sure there is."
"No, old girl. It's only that I've slept badly the last night or two. And I feel rotten. That's all."
"But your health is good, isn't it?"
"Oh dear, yes!"
"There's nothing serious the matter? You're not seriously ill?"
"No, no, certainly not."
"Then what is it?"
"Nothing."
"No, no, I feel that you have a trouble of some kind. Gerrit, aren't you happy? Is there some private worry? Aren't you happy with Adeline?"
"Why, of course I am, Connie! She's awfully sweet. I'm very happy with her."
"Then what's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Yes, Gerrit, there's something wrong. Oh, do tell me about it! Don't keep it to yourself. Sorrow . . . chokes us . . . when we keep it in."
"No, it's not sorrow. . . It's . . . I don't know what it is. . . ."
"You don't know?"
"No."
"But there's something, you see. What is it?"
"Constance, it's . . . it's . . ."
"What?"
"Constance, it's an overpowering melancholy."
"An overpowering melancholy?"
"Yes."
"What about?"
"About . . . myself."
"Yourself?"
"Yes. . . . Because I'm rotten."
"Because you haven't felt well the last few days?"
"Because I'm never well."
She now thought that he was exaggerating, that he was joking, that he was pessimistical, hypochondriacal; and she said:
"Why, Gerrit! . . ."
He understood that she did not believe him, that she never would believe him. He laughed:
"Yes," he said, "I've a gay old imagination, haven't I?"
"Yes, I think you're imagining things a bit."
"It's this confounded weather, you know."
"Yes, that makes people out of sorts. It doesn't affect children, fortunately."
"No, not children."
"When you see them presently, you'll . . . But you mustn't let our walk make you gloomy. Gerrit, will you try to keep your mind off things and not to be melancholy? I had no idea that you were like this!"
"No, old girl, but what does any one of us know about the other?"
"Not much, I admit."
"Each of us is a sealed book to the other. And yet you're fond of me and I of you. And you know nothing about me . . . nor I about you."
"That's true."
"You know nothing of my secret self. And I know nothing of your secret self."
"No," she confessed softly; and she blushed and thought of the life that had blossomed late in her, blossomed into spring and summer, the life of which nobody knew.
"It has to be so. It can't be otherwise. We perceive so little of one another, in the words we exchange. I have often longed for a friend . . . with whom I could feel his secret self and I mine. I never had a friend like that."
"Gerrit, I did not know . . . that you were so . . . sensitive."
"No. I am saying things to you which I never talk about. And I say them feeling that it is no use saying them. And yet you're my sister, you know."
"Yes."
"I shall take you home now. I'm only dragging you through the mud and rain. The roads are soaked through. You'll be home in a minute or two."
He brought her home. She rang the bell. Truitje opened the door.
"Is Van der Welcke in, do you think?" Gerrit asked Constance.
"Yes, ma'am," Truitje answered, "the master's upstairs."
"I'll just go up and see him."
Gerrit ran up the stairs.
"I was forgetting, ma'am: there's a telegram come," said Truitje.
"A telegram? . . ."
She did not know what came over her, but she felt deadly afraid. The blood seemed to freeze round her heart. She took the telegram from Truitje, went into the drawing-room and closed the door before breaking it open. . . .
Gerrit had only run up to say a word to Van der Welcke: he had to go back home, for it was twelve o'clock and getting on for lunch-time. Van der Welcke saw him down the stairs.
"Well, good-bye, old chap," said Gerrit, genially, shaking hands with Van der Welcke. "Constance!" he cried. "Constance! . . ."
She did not answer.
"Constance!" Gerrit called once more.
The kitchen-door was open.
"The mistress is in the drawing-room, sir," said the servant.
"Constance . . ."
He opened the door. But the door stuck, as though pushing against a body.
"What the devil! . . ." Gerrit began, in consternation.
They rushed in through the dining-room: Van der Welcke, Gerrit, the maid. Constance was lying against the door in a dead faint, with the telegram crumpled in her clenched hand:
"Henri dead. Am in despair.