CHAPTER NINE
"I have counted on your staying to dinner," said Eva.
"Of course," replied Van Helderen, the controller, and his wife.
The reception--not a reception, as Eve always said in self-defence--wasnearly over: the Van Oudijcks had been the first to go; theregent followed. The Eldersmas were left with their little band ofintimates: Dr. Rantzow and Doorn de Bruijn, the senior engineer,with their wives, and the Van Helderens. They sat down in the frontverandah with a certain sense of relief and rocked comfortably to andfro. Whiskies-and-soda and glasses of lemonade, with great lumps ofice in them, were handed round.
"Always chock full, reception at Eva's," said Mrs. vanHelderen. "Fuller than other day at resident's...."
Ida van Helderen was the type of the white-skinned half-caste. Shealways tried to behave in a very European fashion, to talk Dutchnicely; she even pretended to speak bad Malay and not to care fornative dishes. She was short and plump all over; she was very white,a dead white, with big, black, astonished eyes. She was full of littlemysterious fads and hatreds and affections; all her actions werethe result of mysterious little impulses. Sometimes she hated Eva,sometimes she doted on her. She was absolutely unreliable; her everyaction, her every movement, her every word might be a surprise. Shewas always in love, tragically. She took all her little affairs verytragically, on a very large and serious scale, with not the leastsense of proportion, and then unbosomed herself to Eva, who laughedand comforted her.
Her husband, the controller, had never been in Holland: he had beeneducated entirely in Batavia, at the William III. College and theIndian Department. And he was very strange to see, this creole,apparently quite European, tall, fair and pale, with his fairmoustache, his blue eyes, expressing animation and interest, and hismanners, which displayed a finer courtesy than could be found in thesmartest circles of Europe, but with not a vestige of India in thought,speech or dress. He would speak of Paris and Vienna as though he hadspent years in both capitals, whereas he had never been out of Java;he was mad on music, although he found it difficult to appreciateWagner, at least as Eva played him; and his great illusion was thathe must really go to Europe on leave next year, to see the ParisExhibition. [7] There was a wonderful distinction, an innate styleabout young Van Helderen, as though he were not the offspring ofEuropean parents who had always lived in India, as though he were aforeigner from an unknown country, of a nationality which you could notplace at once. His accent barely betrayed a certain softness, resultingfrom the climate; he spoke Dutch so correctly that it would havesounded almost stiff amid the slovenly slang of the mother-country;and he spoke French, English and German with greater facility thanmost Dutchmen. Perhaps he owed to a French mother that exotic andcourtly politeness, so innate, pleasant and natural. In his wife,who was also of French extraction, springing from a creole familyin Reunion, this exoticism had become a mysterious medley which hadnever developed beyond a sort of childishness and a jumble of pettyemotions and petty passions, while she tried, with those great,sombre eyes of hers, to read tragedy into her life, though she didno more than just dip into it as into an ill-written magazine-story.
She now imagined herself to be in love with the senior engineer,the oldest of the little band, a man already turning grey, with ablack beard; and, in her tragic fashion, she pictured scenes withMrs. Doorn de Bruijn, a stout, placid, melancholy woman. Dr. Rantzowand his wife were Germans: he fat, fair-haired, vulgar, pot-bellied;she, with a serene German face, pleasant and matronly, talking Dutchvivaciously with a German accent.
This was the little clique over which Eva Eldersma reigned. Inaddition to Frans van Helderen the controller, it consisted of quiteordinary Indian and European elements, people without artistic sense,as Eva said; but she had no other choice at Labuwangi, and thereforeshe amused herself with Ida's little tragedies and made the best ofthe others.
Onno, her husband, tired as usual with his work, did not join muchin the conversation, sat and listened.
"How long was Mrs. van Oudijck at Batavia?" asked Ida.
"Two months," said the doctor's wife. "A very long visit, this time."
"I hear," said Mrs. Doorn de Bruijn, placid, melancholy and quietlyvenomous, "that this time one member of council, one head of adepartment and three young business-men kept Mrs. van Oudijck amusedat Batavia."
"And I can assure you people," said the doctor, "that, if Mrs. vanOudijck did not go to Batavia regularly, she would miss a beneficialcure, even though she takes it on her own and not ... by myprescription."
"Let us speak no evil!" Eva interrupted, almost entreatingly. "Mrs. vanOudijck is beautiful--with a tranquil Junoesque beauty and the eyesof a Venus--and I can forgive anything to beautiful people aboutme. And you, doctor," threatening him with her finger, "mustn'tbetray professional secrets. You doctors, in India, are often far toooutspoken about your patients' secrets. When I'm unwell, it's neveranything but a headache. Will you make a careful note of that, doctor?"
"The resident seems preoccupied," said Doorn de Bruijn.
"Could he know ... about his wife?" asked Ida, sombrely, her greateyes filled with black velvet tragedy.
"The resident is often like that," said Frans van Helderen. "He has hismoods. Sometimes he's pleasant, cheerful, jovial, as he was lately,on circuit. Then again he has his gloomy days, working, working andworking and grumbling that nobody does any work except himself."
"My poor, unappreciated Onno!" sighed Eva.
"I believe he's overworking himself," said Van Helderen. "Labuwangiis a tremendously busy district. And the resident takes things toomuch to heart, both in his own house and outside, in his relationswith his son and his relations with the regent."
"I should sack the regent," said the doctor.
"But, doctor," said Van Helderen, "you know enough about conditionsin Java to know that things can't be done just like that. The regentand his family are closely identified with Labuwangi and too highlyconsidered by the population...."
"Yes, I know the Dutch policy. The English in British India deal withtheir Indian princes in a more arbitrary and high-handed fashion. TheDutch treat them much too gently."
"The question might arise which of the two policies is the better inthe long run," said Van Helderen, drily, hating to hear a foreignerdisparage anything in a Dutch colony. "Fortunately, we know nothinghere of the continual poverty and famine that prevail in BritishIndia."
"I saw the resident speaking very seriously to the regent," saidDoorn de Bruijn.
"The resident is too susceptible," said Van Helderen. "He allowshimself to be greatly dejected by the gradual decline of this oldJavanese family, which is doomed to go under, though he'd like tohold it up.... The resident, cool and practical though he may be, is abit of a romantic in this, though he might refuse to admit it. But heremembers the Adiningrats' glorious past, he remembers that last finefigure, the noble old pangeran, and he compares him with his sons,the one a fanatic, the other a gambler...."
"I think our regent--not the Ngadjiwa one: he's acoolie--delightful!" said Eva. "He's a living figure out of apuppet-show. Except his eyes: they frighten me. What terribleeyes! Sometimes they're asleep and sometimes they're like amaniac's. But he is so refined, so distinguished! And the raden-ajutoo is an exquisite little doll: 'Saja ... saja!' She says nothing,but she looks very decorative. I'm always glad when they adorn myat-home day and I miss them when they're not there. And the oldraden-aju pangeran, grey-haired, dignified, a queen...."
"A gambler of the first water," said Eldersma.
"They gamble away all they possess," said Van Helderen, "she and theregent of Ngadjiwa. They're no longer rich. The old pangeran used tohave splendid insignia of rank for state occasions, magnificent lances,a jewelled betel-box, spittoons--useful objects, those!--of pricelessvalue. The old raden-aju has gambled them all away. I doubt if she hasanything left but her pension: two hundred and forty guilders a month,I believe. And how our regent manages to keep all his cousins, maleand female, in the
Kabupaten, [8] according to the Javanese custom,is beyond me."
"What custom is that?" asked the doctor.
"Every regent collects his whole family around him like parasites,clothes them, feeds them, provides them with pocket-money ... andthe natives think it dignified and smart."
"Sad ... that ruined greatness!" said Ida, gloomily.
A boy came to announce dinner and they went to the back verandah andsat down to table.
"And what have you in prospect for us, mevrouwtje?" asked the seniorengineer. "What are the plans? Labuwangi has been very quiet lately."
"It's really terrible," said Eva. "If I hadn't all of you, it would beterrible. If I weren't always planning something and having ideas, itwould be terrible, this living at Labuwangi. My husband doesn't feelit; he works, as all you men do: what else is there to do in Indiabut work, regardless of the heat? But for us women! What a life,if we didn't find our happiness purely in ourselves, in our home,in our friends ... when we have the good fortune to possess thosefriends! Nothing from the outside. Not a picture, not a statue to lookat; no music to listen to. Don't be cross, Van Helderen. You playthe 'cello charmingly, but nobody in India can keep up to date. TheItalian Opera plays Il Trovatore. The amateur companies--and they'rereally first-rate at Batavia--play ... Il Trovatore. And you, VanHelderen ... don't object. I saw you in an ecstasy when the Italiancompany from Surabaya were here lately, at the club, playing ... IlTrovatore. You were enchanted."
"There were some beautiful voices among them."
"But twenty years ago, they tell me, even then people were enchantedwith ... Il Trovatore. Oh, it's terrible! Sometimes, suddenly, itcrushes me. Sometimes, all of a sudden, I feel that I have not grownused to India and that I never shall; and I began to long for Europe,for life!"
"But Eva," Eldersma began, in alarm, dreading lest she should reallygo home one day, leaving him alone in what would then be his utterlyjoyless working-life at Labuwangi: "sometimes you do appreciate India:your house, the pleasant, spacious life...."
"Materially...."
"And don't you appreciate your own work--I mean the many things whichyou are able to do here?"
"What? Getting up parties? Arranging theatricals?"
"It's you who are the real rezidente [9]," said Ida, gushingly.
"Thank goodness, we're coming back to Mrs. van Oudijck," said Mrs. Doomde Bruijn, teasingly.
"And to professional secrecy," said Dr. Rantzow.
"No," sighed Eva, "we want something new. Dances, parties, picnics,trips into the mountains ... we've exhausted all that. I know nothingmore. The Indian depression's coming over me. I'm in one of my dejectedmoods. Those brown faces of my 'boys' around me suddenly strike meas uncanny. India frightens me at times. Do none of you feel thesame? A vague dread, a mystery in the air, something menacing.... Idon't know what it is. The evenings are sometimes so full of mysteryand there is something mysterious in the character of the native,who is so remote from us, who differs from us so...."
"Artistic feelings," said Van Helderen, chaffingly. "No, I don't feellike that. India is my country."
"You type!" said Eva, chaffing him in return. "What makes you whatyou are, so curiously European? I can't call it Dutch."
"My mother was a Frenchwoman."
"But, after all, you're a creole: born here, brought up here.... Andyou have nothing of a creole about you. I think it's wonderful tohave met you: I like you as a change.... Help me, can't you? Suggestsomething new. Not a dance, not a trip into the mountains. I wantsomething new. Else I shall get a craving for my father's paintings,for my mother's singing, for our beautiful, artistic house at theHague. If I don't have something new, I shall die. I'm not like yourwife, Van Helderen, always in love."
"Eva!" Ida entreated.
"Tragically in love, with her beautiful, sombre eyes. Always, firstwith her husband and then with somebody else. I am never in love. Noteven any longer with my husband. He is ... with me. But I have notan erotic temperament. There's a great deal of love-making in India,isn't there, doctor?... Well, we've ruled out dances, excursions intothe mountains and love-making. What then, in Heaven's name, what then?"
"I know of something," said Mrs. Doorn de Bruijn; and a sudden anxietycame over her placid melancholy.
She gave a side-glance at Mrs. Rantzow; the German woman graspedher meaning.
"What is it?" asked the others, eagerly.
"Table-turning," whispered the two ladies.
There was a general laugh.
"Oh dear!" sighed Eva, disappointed. "A trick, a joke, an evening'samusement. No, I want something that will fill my life for at leasta month."
"Table-turning," repeated Mrs. Rantzow.
"Listen to me," said Mrs. Doorn de Bruijn. "The other day, for a joke,we tried making a gipsy-table turn. We all promised not to cheat. Thetable ... moved, spelt out words, tapping them out by the alphabet."
"But was there no cheating?" asked the doctor, Eldersma and VanHelderen.
"You'll have to trust us," declared the two ladies, in self-defence.
"All right," said Eva. "We've finished dinner. Let's have sometable-turning."
"We must all promise not to cheat," said Mrs. Rantzow. "I can seethat my husband will be ... antipathetic. But Ida ... a great medium."
They rose.
"Must we have the lights out?" asked Eva.
"No," said Mrs. Doorn de Bruijn.
"An ordinary gipsy-table?"
"A three-legged wooden table."
"The eight of us?"
"No, we must begin by choosing: for instance, yourself, Eva, Ida,Van Helderen, and Mrs. Rantzow. The doctor's antipathetic; so isEldersma. De Bruijn and I will relieve you."
"Fire away, then!" said Eva. "A new diversion for Labuwangisociety. And no cheating...."
"We must give one another our word of honour, as friends, not tocheat."
"Done!" they all said.
The doctor sniggered. Eldersma shrugged his shoulders. A boy broughta gipsy-table. They sat round the little wooden table and placedtheir fingers on it lightly, looking at one another expectantly andsuspiciously. Mrs. Rantzow was solemn, Eva amused, Ida sombre, VanHelderen smilingly indifferent. Suddenly a strained expression cameover Ida's beautiful half-caste face.
The table quivered....
They exchanged frightened glances; the doctor sniggered.
Then slowly, the table tilted one of its three legs and carefullyput it down again.
"Did anybody move?" asked Eva.
They all shook their heads. Ida had turned pale.
"I feel a trembling in my fingers," she murmured.
The table once more tilted its leg, described an angry, gratingsemicircle over the marble floor and put its leg down with a violentstamp.
They looked at one another in surprise. Ida sat as though bereft oflife, staring, with fingers outspread, ecstatically.
And the table tilted its leg for the third time.
It was certainly very curious. Eva doubted for a moment whetherMrs. Rantzow was lifting the table, but, when she questioned her witha glance, the German doctor's wife shook her head and Eva saw thatshe was playing fair. They once more promised absolute honesty. And,when they were now certain of one another, in full confidence, itwas most curious how the table continued to describe angry, gratingsemicircles, tilting one leg and tapping on the marble floor.
"Is there a spirit present, revealing itself?" asked Mrs. Rantzow,with a glance at the leg of the table.
The table tapped once:
"Yes."
But, when the spirit was asked to spell its name, to tap out theletters of its name by the letters of the alphabet, all that came was:
"Z X R S A."
The manifestation was incomprehensible.
Suddenly, however, the table began spelling hurriedly, as though ithad something at its heels. The taps were counted and spelt:
"Le ... onie Ou ... dijck...."
"What about Mrs. van Oudijck?"
A coar
se word followed.
The ladies started, excepting Ida, who sat as though in a trance.
"The table has spoken.... What did it say?... What is Mrs. vanOudijck?" cried the voices, all speaking at once.
"It's incredible!" murmured Eva. "Are we all playing fair?"
They all protested their honesty.
"Let us really be honest, else there's no fun in it.... I wish Icould be certain."
They all wished that: Mrs. Rantzow, Ida, Van Helderen, Eva. Theothers looked on eagerly, believing; but the doctor did not believeand sat sniggering.
Again the table grated angrily and tapped: and the leg began to spell,"A...," and repeated the coarse word.
"Why?" asked Mrs. Rantzow.
The table began to tap.
"Write it down, Onno!" said Eva to her husband.
Eldersma fetched a pencil and paper and wrote the message down.
Three names followed: one of a member of council, one of a departmentalhead, and one of a young business-man.
"When people aren't backbiting in India, the tables begin tobackbite!" said Eva.
"The spirits," murmured Ida.
"They are generally mocking spirits," said Mrs. Rantzow, didactically.
But the table went on tapping.
"Write it down, Onno!" said Eva.
Eldersma wrote it down.
"A-d-d-i-e!" the leg tapped out.
"No!" the voices all cried together, in vehement denial. "This timethe table's mistaken!... At least, young De Luce has never yet beenmentioned in connection with Mrs. van Oudijck."
"T-h-e-o!" said the table, correcting itself.
"Her step-son!... It's terrible!... That's different!... Everybodyknows that!" cried the voices in assent.
"Yes, we know that!" said Mrs. Rantzow, with a glance at the legof the table. "Come, tell us something that we don't know. Come,table! Come, spirit! Please!..."
She addressed the table-leg in coaxing, wheedling accents. Everybodylaughed. The table grated.
"Be serious!" Mrs. Doorn de Bruijn said, in warning.
The table bounced down on Ida's lap.
"Oh my!" cried the pretty half-caste, waking out of her trance. "Rightagainst my stomach!"
They laughed and laughed. The table turned round fiercely and theyrose from their chairs, with their hands on the table, and accompaniedits angry, waltzing movements.
"Next ... year ..." the table rapped out.
Eldersma wrote it down.
"Frightful ... war."
"Between whom?"
"Europe ... and ... China."
"It sounds like a fairy-tale!" grinned the doctor.
"La-bu-wangi," tapped the table.
"What about it?" they asked.
"Is ... a ... beastly ... hole...."
"Say something serious, table, do!" Mrs. Rantzow implored, pleasantly,in her best German-matron manner.
"Dan ... ger," the table tapped out.
"Where?"
"Threat ... ens," the table continued, "La-bu-wangi."
"Danger threatens Labuwangi?"
"Yes!" said the table, with one tap, angrily.
"What danger?"
"Rebellion."
"Rebellion? Who's going to rebel?"
"In ... two months ... Sunario."
They became thoughtful.
But the table, suddenly, unexpectedly, fell over again into Ida's lap.
"Oh my! Oh dear!" cried the little woman.
The table refused to go on.
"Tired," it tapped out.
They continued to hold their hands on it.
"Leave off," said the table.
The doctor, sniggering, laid his short, broad hand on it, as thoughto compel it.
"Go to blazes!" cried the table, grating and turning. "Bounder!"
And worse words followed, aimed at the doctor, as though by astreet-boy: obscene words, senseless and incoherent.
"Who's suggesting those words?" asked Eva, indignantly.
Obviously no one was suggesting them, neither the three ladies norVan Helderen, who was always very punctilious and who was manifestlyindignant at the mocking spirit's coarseness.
"It really is a spirit," said Ida, looking very pale.
"I'm going to leave off," said Eva, nervously, lifting up herfingers. "I don't understand this nonsense. It's quite amusing,but the table's not accustomed to polite society."
"We've got a new resource for Labuwangi!" said Eldersma. "No morepicnics, no dances ... but table-turning!"
"We must practise!" said Mrs. Doorn de Bruijn.
Eva shrugged her shoulders.
"It's inexplicable," she said. "I'm bound to believe that none ofus was cheating. It's not the sort of thing Van Helderen would do,to suggest such words as those."
"Madam!" said Van Helderen, defending himself.
"We must do it again," said Ida. "Look, there's a hadji leavingthe grounds."
She pointed to the garden.
"A hadji?" asked Eva.
She looked towards the garden, expecting to see a Mecca pilgrim. Therewas nothing.
"Oh no, it's not!" said Ida. "I thought it was a hadji. It's nothing,only the moonlight."
It was late. They said good-night, laughing gaily, wondering, butfinding no explanation.
"I do hope this hasn't made you ladies nervous?" said the doctor.
No, considering all things, they were not nervous. They were moreamused, even though they did not understand.
It was two o'clock when they went home. The moonlight was streamingdown on the town, which lay deathly still, slumbering in the velvetshadows of the gardens.