Dr. Adriaan.

by Louis Couperus.

CHAPTER I

The afternoon sky was full of thick, dark clouds, drifting ponderously grey over almost black violet: clouds so dark, heavy and thick that they seemed to creep laboriously upon the east wind, for all that it was blowing hard. In its breath the clouds now and again changed their watery outline, before their time came to pour down in heavy straight streaks of rain. The stiff pine-woods quivered, erect and anxious, along the road; and the tops of the trees lost themselves in a silver-grey air hardly lighter than the clouds and dissolving far and wide under all that ma.s.sive grey-violet and purple-black which seemed so close and low.

The road ran near and went winding past, lonely, deserted and sad. It was as though it came winding out of low horizons and went on towards low horizons, dipping humbly under very low skies, and only the pine-trees still stood up, pointed, proud and straight, when everything else was stooping. The modest villa-residence, the smaller poor dwellings here and there stooped under the heavy sky and the gusty wind; the shrubs dipped along the road-side; and the few people who went along--an old gentleman; a peasant-woman; two poor children carrying a basket and followed by a melancholy, big, rough-coated dog--seemed to hang their heads low under the solemn weight of the clouds and the fierce mastery of the wind, which had months ago blown the smile from the now humble, frowning, pensive landscape. The soul of that landscape appeared small and all forlorn in the watery mists of the dreary winter.

The wind came howling along, chill and cold, like an angry spite that was all mouth and breath; and Adeletje, hanging on her aunt's arm, huddled into herself, for the wind blew chill in her sleeves and on her back.

"Are you cold, dear?"

"No, Auntie," said Adeletje, softly, shivering.

Constance smiled and pressed Adeletje's arm close to her:

"Let's walk a little faster, dear. It'll warm you; and, besides, I'm afraid it's going to rain. It's quite a long way to the old lady's and back again.... I fear I've tired you."

"No, Auntie."

"You see, I didn't want to take the carriage. This way, we do the thing by ourselves; and otherwise everybody would know of it at once. And you must promise me not to talk about it."

"No, Auntie, I won't."

"Not to anybody. Otherwise there'll be all sorts of remarks; and it's no concern of other people's what we do."

"The poor old thing was very happy, Auntie. The beef-tea and the wine and chicken...."

"Poor little old woman...."

"And so well-mannered. And so discreet.... Auntie, will Addie be back soon?"

"He's sure to telegraph."

"It's _very_ nice of him to take such pains for Alex. We all of us give Addie a lot of trouble.... When do you think he'll come back?"

"I don't know; to-morrow, or the next day...."

"Auntie, you've been very fidgety lately."

"My dear, I haven't."

"Yes, you have.... Tell me, has anything happened with Mathilde? Has there?"

"No, child.... But do keep your little mouth shut now. I'm frightened, the wind's so cold."

They walked on in silence, Adeletje accommodating her step by Aunt Constance' regular pace. Constance was a good walker; and Addie always said that, leading the outdoor life she did, Mama grew no older. They had now been living for ten years at Driebergen, in the big, old, gloomy house, which seemed to be lighted only by themselves, by their affection for one another, but which Constance had never brought herself to like, hard though she tried. Ten years! How often, oh, how often she saw them speed before her in retrospect!... Ten years: was it really ten years?

How quickly they had pa.s.sed! They had been full and busy years; and Constance was satisfied with the years that had fleeted by, only she was distressed that it all went so fast and that she would be old before....

But the wind was blowing too fiercely and Adeletje was hanging heavily on her arm--poor child, she was shivering: how cold she must be!--and Constance could not follow her thoughts.... Before ... before.... Well, if she died, there would be Addie.... Only.... No, she couldn't think now; and besides they would be home presently.... They would be home....

Home! The word seemed strange to her; and she did not think that right.

And yet, struggle against the singular emotion as she would, she could not cure herself of thinking that big house gloomy and regretting the little villa in the Kerkhoflaan at the Hague, even though she had never known any great domestic happiness there.... Still ... still, one loves the thing that one has grown used to; and was it not funny that she had grown so fond of that little house, where she had lived four years, and been disconsolate when, after the old man's death, Van der Welcke and Addie too had insisted on moving to the big, sombre villa at Driebergen?... Fortunately, it was at once lighted by all of them, by their affection for one another; if she had not had the consoling brightness of mutual love, oh, it would have been impossible for her to go and live in that dark, gloomy, cavernous villa-house, among the eternally rustling trees, under the eternally louring skies! The house was dear to Van der Welcke and Addie because of a strange sympathy, a sense that their home was there and nowhere else. The father was born in the house and had played there as a child; and the son, strangely enough, cherished the exact same feeling of attraction towards it. Had they not almost forced her to move into the house: Van der Welcke crying for it like a child, first going there for a few days at a time and living there with n.o.body but the decrepit old charwoman who made his bed for him; then Addie following his father's example, fitting up a room for herself and making constant pretexts--that he must go and have a look among his papers, that he must run down for a book--seizing any excuse that offered?... Then they left her alone, in her house in the Kerkhoflaan. That had trees round it too and skies overhead. But it was strange: among those trees in the Hague Woods, under those clouds which came drifting from Scheveningen, she had felt at home, though their little villa was only a house hired on a five years' lease, taken at the time under Addie's deciding influence. He, quite a small boy then, had gone and seen the fat estate-agent.... Oh, how the years, how the years hurried past!... To think that it was all so long ago!... Strange, in that leasehold house she had felt at home, at the Hague, among her relations, under familiar skies and among familiar people and things, unyielding though both things and people had often proved. Whereas here, in this house, in this great cavernous, gloomy villa-residence--and she had lived in it since the old man's death fully ten years ago--she had always felt, though the house belonged to them as their inheritance, as their family-residence, a stranger, an intruder, one who had come there by accident ... along with her husband and her son. She could never shake off this feeling. It pursued her even to her own sitting-room, which, with its bits of furniture from the Kerkhoflaan, was almost exactly the same as her little drawing-room at the Hague.... Oh, how the wind blew and how Adeletje was shivering against her: if only the poor child did not fall ill from that long walk!... There came the first drops of rain, thick and big, like tears of despair.... She put up her umbrella and Adeletje pushed still closer, walked right up against her, under the same shelter, so as to feel safe and warm.... The lane now ran straight into the high road; and there, before you, lay the house.... It stood in its own big garden--nearly a park, with a pool at the back--like a square, melancholy block, dreary and ma.s.sive; and she could not understand why Van der Welcke and Addie clung to it so. Or rather she did understand now; but she ... no, she did not care for the house.

It never smiled to her, always frowned, as it stood there broad and severe, as though imperishable, behind the front-garden, with the dwarf rose-bushes and standard roses wound in straw, awaiting the spring days.... It looked down upon her with its front of six upper windows as with stern eyes, which suffered but never forgave her.... It was like the old man himself, who had died without forgiving.... Oh, she could never have lived there if she had not always remembered the old woman's forgiveness, that last hour of gentleness by her bedside, the reconciliation, in complete understanding and knowledge almost articulate, offered at the moment of departure for ever.... Then it seemed to her as if she heard the old woman's breaking voice speak softly to her and say:

"Forgive, even though he never forgives, for he _will_ never forgive...."

And it seemed to her as if she heard that voice, rustling with soft encouragement, in the wind, in the trees, now that she was pa.s.sing through the garden, while the implacable house looked down upon her with that everlasting cold frown. It was a strange feeling which always sent a shudder through her for just two or three seconds every time that she went past the roses in their straw wrappings to the great front door, the feeling which had sent a shudder through her the very first time when she alighted from their carriage ... after being disowned for years, as a disgrace, hidden away in a corner.... It was only for two or three seconds. The rain was now splashing down. She closed her umbrella as Truitje opened the door, with a glad laugh, that mevrouw had got home before it absolutely poured; and now she was in the long hall.... Oh, what a gloomy hall it was, with the oak doors on either side, the Delft jugs on the antique cabinet; the engravings and family-portraits; and then, at the far end, the one door gloomier than the others, that door which led ... simply to a small, inner staircase, for the servants, so that they should not constantly be using the main staircase.... But she had not known this until she moved in and, yielding to an impulse, ran to the sombre door which had always stared at her, from the far end of that typical Dutch interior, as an eternally-sealed mystery....

Pluckily, playing the mistress of the house who was looking into things, while her heart beat with terror, she had opened the door and seen the staircase, the little staircase winding up in the dark to the bedroom floor; and the old charwoman had told her that it was very handy for carrying up water, because there was no water laid on upstairs: a decided fault in the house.... Then she had shut the door again and known all about it: a little back-stair, for the maids, and nothing more.... But why had she never opened the door since, never touched the handle? No doubt because there was no need to, because she felt sure that the maids would scrub the small staircase as well as the big one on the days set aside for cleaning stairs and pa.s.sages. Why should she have opened the gloomy door?... And she had never opened it since. Once and once only she had seen it open; old Mie had forgotten to shut it; and she had grumbled, had told Truitje that it looked slovenly to leave the door open like that.... She had then seen the little staircase winding up in the dark, its steps just marked with brown stripes against the black of the shadow.... But the door, when closed, stared at her. She had never told anyone; but the door stared at her ... like the front of the house. Yes, in the garden behind, the back-windows also stared at her as with eyes, but more gently, sadly and almost laughingly, with an encouraging and more winsome look amid the livelier green of the lime-trees which, in summer, surrounded her with their heavy fragrance.... Summer!... It was November now, with its incessant wind and rain, raging all around and against the house and rattling on the window-panes until they shivered.... It was a strange feeling ever and always, though it did last for only two or three seconds, but she could not feel at home there.... And yet during those ten years her life had sped and sped and sped.... It sped on without resting.... She was always busy....

She had sent Adeletje upstairs, to change her things at once, and opened the door of the drawing-room.... It felt a little chilly, she thought; and, while she saw her mother sitting quietly in the conservatory, peering out of doors from her usual seat, she went to the stove, moved the cinder-drawer to and fro to send the ashes to the bottom and make the fire glow up behind the mica doors....

"Aren't you cold out there, Mummie?"

The old woman looked round at the sound of her voice. Constance went into the conservatory and again asked:

"Aren't you cold, Mummie?"

The old woman heard her this time; and Constance stooped over her and kissed the waxen forehead.

"It's blowing," said the old woman.

"Yes, it's blowing like anything!" said Constance. "You don't feel cold?"

The old woman smiled, with her eyes in her daughter's.

"Won't you rather come and sit inside, Mamma?"

But the old woman only smiled and said:

"The trees are waving from side to side; and just now a branch fell ...

right in front of the window."

"Yes. Harm'll have plenty of work to-morrow. There are branches lying all over the place."

"It's blowing," said the old woman.

Constance went in, took a shawl and put it over her mother's shoulders:

"You'll come in, won't you, Mamma, if you feel cold?"

And she went back to the drawing-room, intending to go upstairs.

But voices sounded from the hall and the door was opened. It was Gerdy and Guy:

"Are you in, Auntie?"

"Are you back at last?"