Eline Vere

XIV

‘Goodnight, Betsy! ’Night, Henk! I’m off to bed; I’m quite worn out,’ Eline said in a rush of words as they entered the front hall.

‘Won’t you have a bite to eat first?’ asked Betsy.

‘Thank you all the same, but no.’

Eline started up the stairs. Betsy shrugged; she could tell from the peremptory tone that her sister was in one of her nervous, irritable moods and would brook no interference.

‘What’s the matter with Eline?’ asked Henk in the dining room, fearing another spate of strained relations.

‘Oh, how should I know?’ cried Betsy. ‘It started at the concert, and you saw how she ignored me in the carriage going home. I pretended not to notice, but I can’t stand it when she goes into one of her sulks.’

Eline ascended the stairs in her swan’s-down and plush evening cape with an air of offended majesty, and entered her sitting room. Mina had had the foresight to turn on the gas light, and there was even a log burning in the grate. She glanced about her a moment, then tore the white-lace fichu from her head and flung away her cape, and stood there with her head bowed, staring blankly at the floor in an attitude of utter disillusionment.

Raising her eyes to the Venetian pier glass with its pretty red cords above her porcelain Amor and Psyche, whose charming idyll was in such loathsome contrast to her present emotion, she saw her reflection: shimmering in her pink rep silk and with the aigrette of pink plumes in her upswept hair, the very ensemble she had worn when she first set eyes on Fabrice, three whole months ago.

And now. .

She almost laughed out loud at the sheer absurdity of it all, then cringed in self-disgust, as though she had defiled herself.

There had been a concert of the Diligentia Society at the Hall of Arts and Sciences, to which she had persuaded Henk and Betsy to accompany her. Fabrice was to perform: ‘The popular baritone of the French opera has been invited to gather fresh laurels from a new audience,’ the newspaper had reported. Eline had not rested until she was certain to be attending: first she had approached the Verstraetens, but Madame was not thus inclined and Lili was still ill; then she had turned to Emilie, but Emilie had a prior engagement. As a last resort she had appealed to Henk and Betsy, who, although neither enthusiastic concert-goers, had consented to go. Eline was very excited: not only would she be seeing Fabrice perform in new surroundings, but also in a new role, that of a concert-singer. Thankfully, their seats were on the balcony, close to the stage, and oh, he was bound to recognise her from the opera, he would make some sign to her, he was in love with her. . the Bucchi fan. .! She conjured illusions without end as her passion ran rampant in her soul, filling it with a second, fabulous existence, with Fabrice and her as the hero and heroine of a sublimely romantic idyll.

He was enchanted by her beauty, he worshipped her, they would run away together, they would sing on stage, suffer hardship, become rich and famous. . The dizzying prospect of seeing him again had infused the translucent pallor of her cheeks with a faint bloom like that of a velvety peach, and the ardour in her lambent gaze belied her languishing demeanour as she took her seat, radiating beauty, while every lorgnette in the audience was trained on her — a fact that had not gone unheeded by Henk, nor indeed by Betsy. The concert had commenced with a lilting symphony, which had sounded to her as a hymn of love and happiness.

Then. . then he had made his entrance, to a resounding burst of applause.

While Eline stared dazedly into the glass, reliving the moment, the image came back to her in glaring detail.

Awkward, like a burly carpenter in a dress coat that was too tight, his coarse, frizzy hair plastered down with pomade, his face flushed crimson in contrast to his snowy shirtfront, he looked common and overweight, with a disagreeable, sullen expression about the bearded mouth and in the eyes glowering from under bushy eyebrows. She had felt as if she were seeing him for the first time. Without the grand theatrical gestures and lavish stage costumes that displayed his figure to uppermost advantage, the spell he had cast on her was suddenly broken, and while his voice resounded with the same clarion flourish that had filled her with rapture at the opera, she no longer registered it, so horrified was she by the enormity of her mistake.

How could she have been so blind? How could that common carpenter have been the ideal of her wildest imaginings? She could have wept with rage and disappointment, but her face remained impassive as she sat, straight-backed, almost stiffly, merely drawing the sides of her white plush cape together with a scarcely perceptible shudder. Constricted by emotion, her breathing became fast and shallow as she continued to fix him for as long as he sang, surveying him from head to toe, as though not wishing to spare her feelings. Could this be the same figure she had seen in the Wood, with his woollen scarf and the soft felt hat that gave him the dashing look of an Italian highwayman? What had come over her?

With a tremor of panic, she cast an eye about the audience. No one was paying attention to her, no one suspected her inner turmoil, for all ears and eyes were focused on Fabrice. No one knew, thank goodness, and no one ever would.

But she found no comfort in having escaped censure in the eyes of the world. At her feet lay the shattered remains of the glass palace she had conjured up in her lovesick imaginings, the airy, frangible edifice of her fantasy that she had erected column by column, towering ever higher in sparkling crystal splendour to an apotheosis in the clouds.

And now everything was ruined, all her visions and daydreams pulverised, blown away by a single gust of wind that did not even wreak havoc, for all that was left to her was a huge, aching void — and the spectacle of that tradesman type with the red face above the white shirtfront, the too-tight frock coat and the plastered-down hair.

She could not recall ever having felt so humiliated.

For three whole months the phantom of love and romance had made her heart beat faster each time she heard mention of him or happened to see his name on a poster, and yet now it had taken just one look at that unsightly, fat fellow — Vincent’s words echoed mockingly in her ears — to rip every shred of romantic feeling from her being. It was gone, all gone.

Afterwards, in the foyer, she said very little. When Betsy remarked on her pallor and asked if she was all right, Eline replied coolly that she was indeed feeling a little under the weather. The Oudendijks and the Van Larens were present, too; pleasantries were exchanged and Fabrice’s name was mentioned, but Eline remained seated on a banquette like a wounded dove, almost swooning with grief, yet forcing herself to smile as she mimed attentiveness to the Hijdrecht boy.

After the intermission Fabrice came on again, to the same enthusiastic applause as the first time, and Eline felt crazed in her mind, as though the audience, mad with adulation, were about to dance a satanic jig around the baritone, who stood there looking as sullen, red-faced and ungainly as before. Her forehead was beaded with perspiration, her hands were ice-cold and clammy in the tight-fitting suede gloves, and her bosom heaved from the exertion of breathing with a lump in her throat. Thank goodness, the concert was over.

. .

Alone at last, she allowed herself to surrender to the storm of emotion raging in her heart, and with an anguished cry fell to her knees beside the Persian sofa. She pressed her throbbing forehead to the soft cushions embroidered with gold, trying to stifle her racking sobs with her hands, and in so doing her hair came loose and tumbled about her slight, shaking frame in a mass of glossy waves.

The initial pain of disillusionment had ceded to a feeling of bitterness, as if she, even if only in her own eyes, had brought ridicule upon herself and disgrace, the stain of which would cling to her for ever, haunting her like a spectre of mockery.

For a long while she remained thus, immersed in her sorrow. She heard Henk and Betsy retire to their rooms, then Gerard bolting the street door for the night, the sound of which echoed hollowly in the silent house.

After that nothing stirred, and Eline felt very alone, drowning in an ocean of wretchedness.

All at once, a thought made her start. She scrambled to her feet, tossed back her tousled locks, and with a look of wounded pride on her tear-stained features strode to her writing table, her hand shaking as she slipped the key into the lock of the once so beloved compartment. She took out the album, whose red-velvet cover seemed to scorch her fingers like fire. She drew up a chair by the fire, where the log was still glowing amid the ashes, and opened the book. This, then, had been the shrine of her love, the temple of her passion, the secret place where she had worshipped her idol. . And as she turned the pages the portraits filed past in procession: Ben-Saïd, Hamlet, Tell, Luna, Nélusco, Alphonse, De Nevers. . This would be the last time. . Grappling with the gilt-edged album sheets, she pulled out the photographs one by one, and without the least hesitation tore each one in half and then in half again, crumpling the stiff cardboard with vengeful fingers. She threw the pieces in the grate one by one, waiting for each successive snippet to catch fire before throwing in the next, on and on, until she finally took the poker to stir up the embers in a final act of destruction. . That was that; over and done with.

She drew herself up, in some relief.

But she was still holding the ravaged album, its velvet cover scorching her fingers, and with a stifled cry of revulsion she hurled the offending object as far away as possible, breaking a fingernail in the process. The album struck the piano, eliciting a dull groan from the vibrating cords.

She stooped to retrieve her cape and lace fichu from the floor, smoothed the rumpled silk of her dress and stepped into her bedroom, where a small night light with a milky shade diffused a pallid, cheerless glow.

She felt herself sinking once more into that ocean of misery, that abyss of disillusionment from whose depths loomed only the black spectre of her melancholy, and suddenly her latest clash with Betsy darted into her mind. It had happened a few days before, when she made a remark about Roberts, her singing master; that he was getting on in years and not very good, really, and that she was thinking of taking lessons from a proper artiste instead — Fabrice, for instance — and Betsy had said she must be mad; it was a preposterous idea, and there was no way she would put up with such silly nonsense as long as Eline was living under her roof.

Well, there would be no need for her to put up with it now.