CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The early hours of the day were often cool, washed clean by theabundant rains; and in the young sunshine of these morning hours theearth emitted a tender haze, a blue softening of every hard lineand colour, so that the Lange Laan, with its villa-residences andfenced gardens, seemed to be surrounded with the vagueness and beautyof a dream-avenue: the dream-columns rose insubstantially, like avision of pillared tranquillity; the lines of the roofs acquireddistinction in their indefiniteness; the hues of the trees and theoutlines of their leafy tops were etherealized into tender pastelsof misty rose and even mistier blue, with a single brighter gleamof morning yellow and a distant purple streak of dawn. And over allthis matutinal world fell a cool dew, like a fountain that rose fromthat drenched ground and fell back in pearly drops in the child-likegentleness of the first sunbeams. It was as though every morning theearth and her people were newly created, as though mankind were newlyborn to a youth of innocence and paradisal unconsciousness. But theillusion of the dawn lasted but a minute, barely a few moments: thesun, rising higher in the sky, shone forth from the virginal mist;boastfully it unfurled its proud halo of piercing rays, pouring downits burning gold, full of godlike pride because it was reigning overits brief moment of the day, for the clouds were already mustering,greyly advancing, like battle-hordes of dark phantoms, pressing eerilyonwards: deep bluish-black and heavy lead-grey phantoms, overmasteringthe sun and crushing the earth under white torrents of rain. And theevening twilight, short and hurried, letting fall veil upon veil ofcrape, was like an overwhelming melancholy of earth, nature and life,in which one forgot that paradisal moment of the morning; the whiterain rustled down like a flood-tide of melancholy; the road and thegardens were dripping, drinking up the falling torrents until theyshone like marshy pools and flooded meadows in the dusky evening; achill, spectral mist rose on high with a slow movement as of ghostlydraperies, which hovered over the puddles; and the chilly houses,scantily lit with their smoking lamps, round which clouds of insectsswarmed, falling on every hand and dying with singed wings, becamefilled with a yet chillier sadness, an over-shadowing fear of themenacing world out of doors, of the all-powerful cloud-hordes, of theboundless immensity that came whispering on the gusty winds from thefar-off unknown, high as the heavens, wide as the firmament, againstwhich the open houses appeared unprotected, while the inmates weresmall and petty for all their civilization and science and soulfulfeelings, small as wriggling insects, insignificant, abandoned tothe play of the giant mysteries blowing up from the distance.
Leonie van Oudijck, in the half-lit back-verandah of the residency,was talking to Theo in a soft voice: and Oorip squatted beside her.
"It's nonsense, Oorip!" she cried, peevishly.
"Really not, mem-sahib," said the maid. "It's not nonsense. I hearthem every evening."
"Where?" asked Theo.
"In the banyan-tree behind the house, high up, in the top branches."
"It's wild cats," said Theo.
"It's not wild cats, sahib," the maid insisted. "Come, come! As ifOorip didn't know how wild cats mew! Kriow, kriow: that's how theygo. What we hear every night is the ghosts. It's the little childrencrying in the trees. The souls of the little children, crying inthe trees."
"It's the wind, Oorip."
"Come, come, mem-sahib: as if Oorip couldn't hear the wind! Boo-ooh:that's how the wind goes; and then the branches move. But this is thelittle children, moaning in the top boughs; and the branches don'tmove then. This is a bad omen, mem-sahib."
"And why should it be a bad omen?"
"Oorip knows but dares not tell. The mem-sahib is sure to be angry."
"Come, Oorip, tell me."
"It's because of the excellency, sahib, because of the residen."
"Why?"
"The other day, with the evening-market in the square and thefancy-fair for the white people in the gardens."
"Well, what about it?"
"The day wasn't well-chosen, according to the portents. It was anunlucky day.... And with the new well...."
"What about the new well?"
"There was no sacrifice. So no one uses the new well. Every one fetcheswater from the old well.... The water's not good either. For from thenew well the woman rises with the bleeding hole in her breast.... AndMiss Doddie...."
"What of her?"
"Miss Doddie has seen the white hadji going by! The white hadjiis not a good hadji. He's a ghost.... Miss Doddie saw him twice:at Patjaram and here.... Listen, mem-sahib!"
"What?"
"Don't you hear? The children's little souls are moaning in thetop boughs. There's no wind blowing at this moment. Listen, listen:that's not wild cats. The wild cats go kriow, kriow, when they'recourting! These are the little souls!"
They all three listened. Leonie mechanically pressed closer toTheo. She looked deathly pale. The roomy back-verandah, with the tablealways laid, stretched away in the dim light of a single hanginglamp. The half-swamped back-garden gleamed wet out of the darknessof the banyan-trees, full of pattering drops but motionless in theimpenetrable masses of their velvety foliage. And an inexplicable,almost imperceptible crooning, like a gentle mystery of littletormented souls, whimpered high above their heads, as though in thesky or in the topmost branches of the trees. Now it was a short cry,then a moan as of a sick child, then a soft sobbing as of littlegirls in misery.
"What sort of animal can it be?" asked Theo. "Is it birds or insects?"
The moaning and sobbing was very distinct. Leonie looked white as asheet and was trembling all over.
"Don't be so frightened," said Theo. "Of course it's animals."
But he himself was white as chalk with fear; and, when they lookedeach other in the eyes, she understood that he too was afraid. Sheclutched his arm, nestled up against him. The maid squatted low,humbly, as though accepting all fate as an impenetrable mystery. Shedid not wish to run away. But the eyes of the white man and womanheld only one idea, the idea of escaping. Suddenly, both of them,the step-mother and the step-son, who were bringing shame upon thehouse, were afraid, as with a single fear, afraid as of a threateningpunishment. They did not speak, they said nothing to each other;they leant against each other, understanding each other's trembling,two white children of this mysterious Indian soil, who from theirchildhood had breathed the mystic air of Java and had unconsciouslyheard the vague, stealthily approaching mystery, as an accustomedmusic, a music which they had not noticed, as though mystery werean accustomed thing. As they stood thus, trembling and lookingat each other, the wind rose, bearing away with it the secret ofthe tiny souls, bearing away with it the little souls themselves;the interlacing branches swayed angrily and the rain began to fallonce more. A shuddering chill came fanning up, filling the house;a sudden draught blew out the lamp. And they remained in the dark,a little longer, she, despite the openness of the verandah, almostin the arm of her step-son and lover; the maid crouching at theirfeet. But then she flung off his arm, flung off the black oppressionof darkness and fear, filled with the rustling of the rain; thewind was cold and shivery and she staggered indoors, on the vergeof fainting. Theo and Oorip followed her. The middle gallery waslighted. Van Oudijck's office was open. He was working. Leonie stoodirresolute, with Theo, not knowing what to do. The maid disappeared,muttering. It was then that she heard a whizzing sound and a smallround stone flew through the gallery, fell somewhere near at hand. Shegave a cry; and, behind the screen which divided the gallery from theoffice where Van Oudijck sat at his writing-table, she flung herselfonce more into Theo's arms, abandoning all her caution. They stoodshivering in each other's arms. Van Oudijck had heard her: he stoodup, came from behind the screen. His eyes blinked, as though tiredwith working. Leonie and Theo had recovered themselves.
"What is it, Leonie?"
"Nothing," she said, not daring to tell him of the little souls orof the stone, afraid of the threatening punishment.
She and Theo stood there like criminals, both of them white andtrembling. Van
Oudijck, his mind still on his work, did not noticeanything.
"Nothing," she repeated. "The mat is frayed and ... and I nearlystumbled. But there was something I wanted to tell you, Otto."
Her voice shook, but he did not hear it, blind to what she did,deaf to what she said, still absorbed in his papers:
"What's that?"
"Oorip has suggested that the servants would like to have a sacrifice,because a new well has been built in the grounds...."
"That well which is two months old?"
"They don't make use of the water."
"Why not?"
"They are superstitious, you know; they refuse to use the water beforethe sacrifice has been offered."
"Then it ought to have been done at once. Why didn't they tell Karioat once to ask me? I can't think of all that nonsense myself. But Iwould have given them the sacrifice then. Now it's like mustard aftermeat. The well is two months old."
"It would be a good thing all the same, Papa," said Theo. "You knowwhat the Javanese are like: they won't use the well as long as they'venot had a sacrifice."
"No," said Van Oudijck, unwillingly, shaking his head. "To give them asacrifice now would have no sense in it. I would have done so gladly;but now, after two months, it would be absurd. They ought to haveasked for it at once."
"Do, Otto," Leonie entreated. "I should give them the sacrifice. You'llplease me if you do."
"Mamma half-promised Oorip," Theo insisted gently.
They stood trembling before him, white in the face, likepetitioners. But he, weary and thinking of his papers, was seizedwith a stubborn unwillingness, though he was seldom able to refusehis wife anything.
"No, Leonie," he said, firmly. "And you must never promise things ofwhich you're not certain."
He turned away, went round the screen and sat down to his work.
They looked at each other, the mother and the step-son. Slowly,aimlessly, they moved away, to the front-verandah, where a moist,dripping darkness drifted between the stately pillars. They sawa white form coming through the swamped garden. They started, forthey were now afraid of everything, thinking at the sight of everyfigure of the chastisement that would overtake them like some strangething, if they remained in the paternal house which they had coveredwith shame. But, when they looked more closely, they saw that it wasDoddie. She had come home; she said, trembling, that she had been atEva Eldersma's. Actually she had been walking with Addie de Luce;and they had sheltered from the rain in the compound. She was verypale, she was trembling; but Leonie and Theo did not notice it in thedark verandah, even as she herself did not see that her step-motherand Theo were pale. She was trembling like that because in thegarden--Addie had brought her to the gate--stones had been thrown ather. It must have been some impudent Javanese, who hated her fatherand his house and his household; but, in the dark verandah, where shesaw her step-mother and her brother sitting side by side in silence,as though in despair, she suddenly felt, she did not know why, thatit was not an impudent Javanese....
She sat down by them, silently. They looked out at the damp, darkgarden, over which the spacious night was hovering as on the wings ofa gigantic bat. And, in the mute melancholy which drifted like a greytwilight between the tall white pillars, all three of them--Doddiesingly, but the step-mother and step-son together--felt frightenedto death and crushed by the strange thing that was about to befallthem....