CHAPTER TWO
A few of the lamps had been lit. Really the lamps were burningeverywhere; but in the long, broad galleries it was only just light. Inthe grounds and inside the house there were certainly no fewer thantwenty or thirty paraffin-lamps burning in chandeliers and lanterns;but they yielded no more than a vague, yellow twilight glimmeringthrough the house. A flood of moonshine poured into the garden,making the flower-pots gleam brightly and shimmering in the pond;and the banyans were like soft velvet against the luminous sky.
The first gong had sounded for dinner. In the front verandah a youngman was swinging up and down in a rocking-chair, with his hands behindhis head. He was bored. A young girl came along the middle gallery,humming to herself, as though in expectation. The house was furnishedin accordance with the conventional type of up-country residencies,with commonplace splendour. The marble floor of the verandah waswhite and glossy as a mirror; tall palms stood in pots between thepillars; groups of rocking-chairs stood round the marble tables. Inthe first inner gallery, which ran parallel with the verandah, chairswere drawn up against the wall as though in readiness for an eternalreception. The second inner gallery, which ran from front to back,showed at the end, where it opened into a cross-gallery, a huge redsatin curtain hanging from a gilt cornice. In the white spaces betweenthe doors of the rooms hung either mirrors in gilt frames, resting onmarble console-tables, or lithographs--pictures as they call them inIndia--of Van Dyck on horseback; Paolo Veronese received by a doge onthe steps of a Venetian palace, Shakespeare at the court of Elizabethand Tasso at the court of Este; but in the biggest panel, in a crownedframe, hung a large etching, a portrait of Queen Wilhelmina in hercoronation-robes. In the middle of the central gallery was a red satinottoman, topped by a palm. There were also many chairs and tables,and everywhere great chandeliers. Everything was very neatly kept anddistinguished by a commonplace pomp, an uncomfortable readiness for thenext reception, with not a single home-like corner. In the half-lightof the paraffin-lamps--one lamp was lit in each chandelier--the long,wide, spacious galleries stretched in tedious vacancy.
The second gong sounded. In the back-verandah, the long table--toolong, as though always expecting guests--was laid for threepersons. The native butler and half-a-dozen boys stood waiting by theservers' tables and the two sideboards. The butler at once began tofill the soup-plates; and two of the boys placed the three platesof soup on the table, on top of the folded napkins which lay onthe dinner-plates. Then they waited again, while the soup steamedgently. Another boy filled the three tumblers with large lumps of ice.
The girl came in, humming a tune. She was perhaps seventeen,and resembled her divorced mother, the resident's first wife, agood-looking half-caste, who was now living in Batavia, where shewas said to keep a discreet gaming house. The young girl had a paleolive complexion, sometimes just touched with a peach-like blush; shehad beautiful black hair, curling naturally at the temples and woundround her head in a heavy coil; her black pupils and sparkling irisesswam in humid bluish-whites, over which her thick lashes flickeredup and down, and up again. Her mouth was small and a little full;and her upper lip was just shadowed by a dark, downy line. She wasnot tall and was already too fully formed, like a hasty rose that hasbloomed too soon. She wore a white pique skirt and a white linen blousewith lace insertions; and round her throat was a bright yellow ribbonthat accorded well with her olive pallor, which sometimes flushed up,suddenly, as with a rush of warm blood.
The young man came sauntering in from the front verandah. He waslike his father, tall, broad and fair-haired, with a thick, fairmoustache. He was barely twenty-three, but looked quite five yearsolder. He wore a suit of white Russian linen, but with a shirt-collarand tie.
Van Oudijck also came at last: his firm step approached as thoughhe were always busy, as though he were now coming just to have somedinner in the midst of his work.
"When does mamma arrive to-morrow?" asked Theo.
"At half-past eleven," replied Van Oudijck; and, turning to hisbody-servant behind him, "Kario, remember that the mem-sahib is tobe fetched from the station at half-past eleven to-morrow."
"Yes, excellency," murmured Kario.
The fish was served.
"Doddie," asked Van Oudijck, "who was with you at the gate just now?"
"At ... the gate?" she asked slowly, in a very soft accent.
"Yes."
"At ... the gate?... Nobody.... Theo perhaps."
"Were you at the gate with your sister?" asked Van Oudijck.
The boy knitted his thick, fair eyebrows:
"Possibly.... Don't know.... Don't remember...."
They were all three silent. They hurried through dinner: sitting attable bored them. The five or six servants, in white cotton jacketswith red linen facings, moved softly on their flat toes, waitingquickly and noiselessly. Steak and salad was served, and a pudding,followed by dessert.
"Everlasting rumpsteak!" Theo muttered.
"Yes, that cook!" laughed Doddie, with her little throaty laugh,clipping her sentences in the half-caste fashion. "She always givessteak, when mamma not here; doesn't matter to her, when mamma nothere. She has no imagination. Too bad though!"
They had been twenty minutes over their dinner when Van Oudijck wentback to his office. Doddie and Theo sauntered towards the front ofthe house.
"Tedious," Doddie yawned. "Come, we play billiards?"
In the first inner gallery, behind the satin portiere, was a smallbilliard-table.
"Come along," said Theo.
They played.
"Why am I supposed to have been with you at the gate?"
"Oh ... tut!" said Doddie.
"Well, why?"
"Papa needn't know."
"Who was with you? Addie?"
"Of course!" said Doddie. "Say, band playing to-night?"
"I think so."
"Come, we go, yes?"
"No, I don't care to."
"Oh, why not?"
"I don't want to."
"Come along now?"
"No."
"With mamma ... you would, yes?" said Doddie, angrily. "I know verywell. With mamma you go always to the band."
"What do you know ... you little minx!"
"What do I know?" she laughed. "What do I know? I know what I know."
"Huh!" he said, to tease her, fluking a cannon. "You and Addie, huh!"
"Well ... and you and mamma!"
He shrugged his shoulders:
"You're crazy."
"No need to hide from me. Besides, every one says."
"Let them say."
"Too bad of you though!"
"Oh, go to the devil!"
He flung his cue down in a temper and went towards the front of thehouse. She followed him.
"I say, Theo ... don't be angry now. Come along to the band."
"No."
"I'll never say it again," she entreated, coaxingly.
She was afraid that he would continue to be angry and then she wouldhave nothing and nobody, then she would die of boredom.
"I promised Addie and I can't go by myself...."
"Well, if you won't make any more of those idiotic remarks...."
"Yes, I promise. Theo dear, yes, come then...."
She was already in the garden.
Van Oudijck appeared on the threshold of his office, which alwayshad the door open, but which was separated from the inner gallery bya large screen:
"Doddie!" he called out.
"Yes, papa?"
"Will you see that there are flowers in mamma's room to-morrow?"
His voice was almost embarrassed and his eyelids blinked.
"Very well, papa ... I'll see to it."
"Where are you going to?"
"With Theo ... to the band."
Van Oudijck became red and angry:
"To the band? But you might have asked my leave first!" he exclaimed,in a sudden temper.
Doddie pouted.
"I don't like you to go out, without my
knowing where you go. You wereout this afternoon too, when I wanted you to come for a walk with me."
"Well, doesn't matter then!" said Doddie, bursting into tears.
"You can go if you want to," said Van Oudijck, "but I insist on yourasking me first."
"No, I don't care about it now," said Doddie, in tears. "Doesn'tmatter! No band."
They could hear the first strains in the distance, coming from theConcordia garden.
Van Oudijck returned to his office. Doddie and Theo flung themselvesinto two rocking-chairs in the verandah and swung furiously to and fro,skating with the chairs over the smooth marble.
"Come," said Theo, "let's go. Addie expects you."
"No," she pouted. "Don't care. I'll tell Addie to-morrow papaso unkind. He spoils my pleasure. And ... I'll put no flowers inmamma's room."
Theo grinned.
"Say," whispered Doddie, "that papa ... eh? So in love, always. Heblushed when he asked me about the flowers."
Theo grinned once more and hummed in unison with the band in thedistance.