Part 30 (1/2)

She stepped out of the carriage; and the strange presentiment flashed into her that she would often, very often, stand like that, waiting for that solemn front-door of the great gloomy, solemn villa to open to her.... Then she walked in; and the long oak entrance-hall stretched before her like a strange indoor vista, with at the end a dark door that led to ... she did not quite know what.... And she felt that she would often, very often, go through that hall and stare at that dark door, knowing full well what it led to.... And it was very strange indeed now, but she imagined that she had, unconsciously, had this presentiment before--really unconsciously, so vaguely that she had not felt it yet--from the first time that she had come and waited in this hall, sitting on the oak settle, with her hand on the shoulder of her boy, the grandchild whom she had come to introduce to his grandparents.... Oh, what a gloomy house it was, with that long hall and that dark door at the end of it, with those portraits and those old engravings, only brightened by the gleam of the Delft on the old oak cabinet! Oh, what a gloomy house it was and how strange was the presentiment that she would so often be coming here now, that she would have to mingle some part of herself with this gloomy Dutch domestic atmosphere!... Shuddering, s.h.i.+vering, still in her fur cloak, she was thrilled with a very swift and fleeting home-sickness for her dear, cosy house in the Woods, at the Hague, and she did not know when she would go back to it now.... The old woman was ill; Henri had gone first; Addie had followed him.... Then she had asked for Constance; and Constance had taken the first train....

She had asked Piet in the hall how mevrouw was, but she had not taken in his answer either. She now went up the stairs, which wound in their ascent and were quite dark; and, because the strange presentiment also forced itself upon her on the stairs, she resisted it, put it from her.

How strange everything seemed around her and within her! Was that the approach of death, skulking along with the wind, as it were tapping at the windows on the staircase and knocking in the heavy oak presses in the hall? Was that the approach of death, of the death which she already felt around her? Or was it only because the day was black and the house gloomy?...

And now everything seemed to make her shudder. A dark door had opened, slowly; and she started; and yet it was simply her child, her boy, coming out to meet her.

”How is Grandmamma?”

But again she did not take in the answer; and, as though in a shuddering dream in which she already felt the approach of death, she entered a room. There sat the old man; and Henri sat beside him, like a child, with his hand in his father's large, bony hand. She herself did not hear what she said ... to the old man. She was only conscious that her voice sounded soft and sweet, as with a new music, in the gloomy house. She was only conscious that she kissed the old man. But she felt herself growing strange, frightened and shuddering, in the dark room, in the gloomy house, with the vast, low, heavy skies outside. The black rain rattled against the panes. The old man had taken her hand, awkwardly; he held only two of her fingers; and they trembled, pinched in his bony grip. He led her in this way to another room, dark with the curtains of the window and the bed, lighted only by the reflected gleam of an old-fas.h.i.+oned looking-gla.s.s wardrobe. The black rain rattled against the panes. Oh, how she felt the approach of dread death, that great, black death before which small people shudder, even though they do not value their small lives! How she felt it rustling in the rain against the window, how she felt the ghostly flapping of its cloak in the shadows among the heavy furniture, how she felt death reflected in the reflex light of that looking-gla.s.s! She s.h.i.+vered, in her fur cloak. But in the shadow of the bed-curtains two eyes smiled at her gently from out of the suffering old face.... The old man had gone.

”Here I am, Mamma....”

”Is that you?”

”Yes.”

”I had to send for you....”

”I thought it would be too much for you.... That's why I let Henri and Addie come without me....”

”Are we alone?”

”Yes, Mamma.”

”Tell me, you didn't stay away ... because you were angry ... because you still bore a grudge?...”

”Oh, no! I was not angry. I thought it would be too much for you.”

”Is that true?”

”Quite true.”

”The simple truth?”

”The simple truth.”

”Yes, I can tell: you're not angry. But you were angry....”

”Hush, Mamma, hus.h.!.+”

”No, no, let me speak. I sent for you to speak to you.... There was a time when you were angry. And we could not talk together. Let us talk now, for the first and last time.”

”Mamma....”

”There were those long, long years, dear. The years which are now all dead.... There was your suffering ... but there was also our suffering, Father's ... and mine.”

”Yes....”

”It was a day like to-day, gloomy and black; and it was raining. I was restless, I had such a strange presentiment: I had a presentiment ...

that Henri was dead, my child, my boy, in Rome. It was a gloomy day ...

seventeen or eighteen years ago. And in the afternoon, about this time--it was quite dark, the lights were not yet lit--a letter came: a letter from Rome ... from Henri.... I trembled ... I could not find the matches, to light the gas ... and, when I looked for them, the letter dropped from my hands.... I thought, 'He's writing to me that he is very ill. I shall hear presently that he's dead.' I lit the gas ... and read the letter. I read not that he was ill ... but that he had to resign his post. He wrote to me about a woman whom I did not know, he wrote to me about you, dear. I breathed again, I thought to myself, 'He is not dead, I have not lost my son.' But Father thought differently: he said, 'Henri is dead, we have lost our son.' Then I knew that my presentiment was right, that he _was_ dead.... He was dead ... and he stayed dead for years and years.... Oh, how I longed for him to come to life again! Oh, how I kept on thinking of my child!... But year followed upon year; and he remained dead.... Then by degrees I began to feel that it would not always be like that, that things would be a little brighter one day, that he would come back out of that distant death.... He came back; I had my boy back.... I saw you ... for the first time. Long dead years lay between us; and, when I wished to embrace you, I felt that I could not, that I did not reach you. My words did not reach you. They remained lying between us, they fell between us like hard, round things.... I knew then that you had suffered much and also that for long, long years you had been full of grief and resentment ... grief and resentment....