Part 25 (1/2)
”_Allah_, Grandmamma!” cried Frances, irritably; but, when Constance gave her the same advice, she flung a wrapper over her _sarong_ and _kabaai_ and remained like that, with her bare feet in slippers.
”No wonder you're always ill!” grumbled Grandmamma, still busying herself with the child.
”Oh, Aunt Constance, I wonder if you would run down to the kitchen and tell cook that Ottelientje can't have her _boeboer_ made like that?”
”My dear Frances,” laughed Constance, ”the cook has never seen me, nor I her: and, if I went to her kitchen and talked about the _boeboer_, she would only turn me out.”
”What a country to live in, Holland!” cried Frances. ”My child is starving for food!”
”I'll go down to Mamma, if you like....”
”Yes, do, would you?”
Constance went downstairs. In the boudoir, Emilie, in her wedding-dress, was standing in front of a long gla.s.s. The heavy white satin crushed her, looked hard and cruel upon her, now that her hair was not done and she tired and pale.
”The bodice doesn't fit. It will simply have to go back to Brussels,”
said Bertha.
”It's sickening!” said Emilie; and the word sounded almost like a curse between her lips.
”Marianne, will you write the letter? I'll pin the dress up. Or no, I had better write myself. Constance, do look!”
”There's a crease here,” said Constance, ”but it's not very bad. Daren't you have it altered here?”
”Upon my word, I'm paying....” Bertha began, but she checked herself and did not say how much. ”And to have it fit badly into the bargain!”
”Bertha, Frances asked me to come and see you.”
”What about?”
”There's some trouble about Ottelientje's _boeboer_.”
”I'll go up,” said Bertha, worn-out though she was.
The maid, holding up Emilie's train, followed her into the bedroom; Marianne and Constance remained behind alone. Constance saw that Marianne was crying.
”What is it, dear?”
”Oh, Auntie!”
”What is it?”
”Is life worth all this bother and fuss? Getting married, moving your things, dancing, giving dinners and parties, ordering dresses that don't fit and cost hundreds, being ill, having babies, eating _boeboer_: Auntie, is it really all worth while?”
”Why, Marianne, I might be listening to Paul!”
”Oh, no, I'm not so eloquent as Paul! But I'm suffocating with it all, I'm stifling and I'm terribly, terribly, terribly unhappy!”
”Marianne!”