The Hidden Force Part 11

"No," he replied. "You are what you are. And I can't help it: I love you.... I am always stretching out my poor antennae. That is my fate...."

"I shall help you to forget me," said she, with affectionate conviction.

He gave a little laugh, bowed and went away. She saw him cross the road to the grounds of the resident's house, where a messenger met him.

"Really life, when all is said, is one long self-deception, a wandering amid illusions," she thought, sadly, drearily. "A great aim, an universal aim ... or even a modest aim for one's self, for one's own body and soul: O G.o.d, how little it all is! And how we roam about, knowing nothing! And each of us seeks his own little aim, his illusion. The only happy people are merely exceptions, like Leonie van Oudijck, who lives no more than a beautiful flower does, or a beautiful animal."

Her child came toddling up to her, a pretty, fair-haired, plump little boy.

"Sonny," she thought, "how will it be with you? What will be your portion? Oh, perhaps nothing new! Perhaps a repet.i.tion of what has so often been before. Life is a story which is always being repeated.... Oh, when we feel like this, how oppressive India can be!..."

She kissed her boy; her tears trickled over his fair curls.

"Van Oudijck has his residency; I my little circle of ... admirers and subjects; Frans his love ... for me: we all have our playthings, just like my little Onno playing with his little horse. How small we are, how small!... All our lives we make believe, pretending, imagining all sorts of things, thinking that we are giving a path or a direction to our poor, aimless little lives. Oh, why am I like this, sonny? Sonny, sonny, how will it be with you?"

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Patjaram sugar-factory was fourteen miles from Labuw.a.n.gi and twelve from Ngadjiwa and belonged to the half-Eurasian, half-Solo family of De Luce, a family who had once been millionaires, but were no longer so very well off, owing to the recent sugar-crisis, though they still supported a numerous household. This family, which always kept together--the old mother and grandmother, a Solo princess; the eldest son, the manager; three married daughters and their husbands, clerks in the factory, all living in its shadow; three younger sons employed in the factory; the many grandchildren, playing round and about the factory; the great-grandchildren springing up round and about the factory--this family maintained the old Indian traditions which, at one time universal, are now becoming rarer, thanks to the more frequent intercourse with Europeans. The mother and grandmother was the daughter of a Solo prince and had married a young and enterprising bohemian adventurer, Ferdinand de Luce, a member of a French t.i.tled family of Mauritius, who, after wandering about for many years in search of his place in the sun, had sailed to India as a s.h.i.+p's steward, and, after all sorts of vicissitudes, had found himself stranded in Solo, where he achieved fame by means of a dish prepared with tomatoes and another consisting of stuffed chilies. Thanks to these recipes, Ferdinand de Luce won the favour of the Solo princess, whose hand he afterwards obtained, and even that of the old Susuhunan. After his marriage he became a landowner, and, according to the national usage, a va.s.sal of the Susuhunan of Solo, whom he supplied daily with rice and fruits for the household of the palace. Then he had launched out into sugar, divining the millions which a lucky fate held in store for him. He had died before the crisis, laden with wealth and honours.

The old grandmother, in whom there was not a trace left of the young princess whom Ferdinand de Luce had wedded to promote his fortunes, was never approached by the servants or the Javanese staff save with a cringing reverence; and everybody gave her the t.i.tle of Raden-aju pangeran. She did not speak a word of Dutch. Wrinkled like a shrivelled fruit, with her clouded eyes and her withered, betel-stained mouth, she was peacefully living her last years, always dressed in a dark silk kabaai, the neck and the light sleeves of which were fastened with precious stones. Before her sun-bitten gaze there hovered the vision of her former palace grandeur, which she had abandoned for love of that French n.o.bleman-cook who had pandered to her father's taste with his dainty recipes; in her ears buzzed the constant murmur of the centrifugal separators, like the thras.h.i.+ng of screw propellers, throughout the milling-season, which lasted for months on end; around her were her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren: the sons and daughters addressed as raden and raden-adjeng by the servants; all of them still surrounded by the pale halo of their Solo descent. The eldest daughter was married to a full-blooded, fair-haired Dutchman; the son who followed her to an Armenian girl; the two others were married to Eurasians, both brown; and their brown children--who were also married and also had children--mingled with the fair-haired family of the eldest daughter; and the pride of the whole family was the youngest son and brother, Adrien, or Addie, who made love to Doddie van Oudijck and who was constantly at Labuw.a.n.gi, the busy milling-season notwithstanding.

In this family, traditions were still maintained, now quite obsolete, such as people remembered in the Indian families of long ago. Here you still saw, in the grounds, in the back verandah, the numberless babus, [11] one grinding rice into a fine face-powder, another preparing incense, another pounding diverse condiments, all with dreamy eyes, all with slender, nimbly-moving fingers. Here the habit still prevailed of an endless array of dishes at lunch, with a long row of servants, one after the other, solemnly handing round one more vegetable, one more sauce, one more dish of chicken, while, squatting behind the ladies, the babus pounded each a different condiment in an earthenware mortar, according to the several tastes and requirements of the sated palates. Here it was still the custom, when the family attended the races at Ngadjiwa, for each of the ladies to appear followed by a babu, moving slowly, lithely, solemnly; one babu carrying a betel-pot, another a bonbonniere filled with peppermints, or a pair of race-gla.s.ses, or a fan, or a scent-bottle; the whole resembling a ceremonial procession bearing the insignia of state. Here, too, you still found the old-fas.h.i.+oned hospitality: the row of spare-rooms open to any one who cared to knock; here all could stay as long as they pleased; no one was asked the object of his journey or the date of his departure. A great simplicity of mind, an all-embracing, spontaneous, innate cordiality prevailed, together with an unbounded weariness and tedium, a life of no ideas and but few words, the ready, gentle smile making good the lack of both; a material life, full and sated: a life of cool drinks and native pastry and fruit-salad handed round all day, three babus being specially appointed to make fruit-salad and pastry. Any number of animals were scattered over the estate: there was a cage full of monkeys; a few lories; dogs, cats, some tame squirrels and an exquisite little dwarf deer, which ran about loose. The house, built on to the factory, quaking all through the milling-season with the noise of machinery--like the throbs of screw propellers--was s.p.a.cious and furnished with the old, old-fas.h.i.+oned furniture: the low wooden bedsteads with four carved bed-posts hung with curtains; the heavy-legged tables; the rocking-chairs with peculiarly round backs: all things which are now no longer obtainable; nothing that betrayed the least touch of modernity, except--and this only during the milling-season--the electric light in the front verandah! The occupants were always in indoor dress: the men in white or blue-and-white striped pyjamas; the ladies in sarong and kabaai, toying with a monkey or a lory or a doe, in simplicity of mind, with ever the same pleasant jest, drawling and drowsy, and the same gentle little laugh. The pa.s.sions, which were certainly there, slumbered in that gentle smile. Then, when the milling-season was over; when all the bustle was over; when the files of sugar-carts, drawn by the superb oxen, with glossy brown hides, had brought an ever-increasing store of canes over the fibre-covered road, which was cut to pieces by the broad cart-ruts; when the seed had been bought for next year and the machines were stopped: then came the sudden relaxation after the incessant labour, the long, long holiday, the many months' rest, the craving for festivity and enjoyment; the big dinner given by the lady of the house, followed by a ball and tableaux-vivants; the whole house full of visitors, who stayed on and on, known and unknown; the old, wrinkled grandmamma, the landowner, the raden-aju, Mrs. de Luce, whatever you liked to call her, always amiable, with her dull eyes and her betel-stained mouth, amiable to one and all, with always an anak-mas, a "golden child," a poor little adopted princess at her heels, carrying a gold betel-box behind the great princess from Solo: a slender little woman of eight years old, her front hair cut into a fringe, her forehead whitened with moist rice-powder, her already rounded little b.r.e.a.s.t.s confined in the little pink silk kabaai, with the miniature gold sarong round the slender hips; a doll, a toy for the raden-aju, for Mrs. de Luce, for the Dowager de Luce. And for the compounds there were the popular rejoicings, a time-honoured lavishness, in which all Patjaram shared, according to the age-old tradition which was always observed, despite any crisis or unrest.

The milling-season and the rejoicings were now over. There was comparative peace indoors; and a languorous Indian calm had set in. But Mrs. van Oudijck, Theo and Doddie had come over for the festivities and were staying on a few days longer at Patjaram. A great circle of people sat round the marble table covered with gla.s.ses of syrup, lemonade and whisky-and-soda; they did not speak much, but rocked luxuriously, exchanging an occasional word. Mrs. de Luce and Mrs. van Oudijck spoke Malay, but were not talkative. A gentle, good-humoured boredom drifted down on all these rocking people. It was strange to see the different types: the pretty, milk-white Leonie beside the yellow, wrinkled raden-aju-dowager; Theo, pale and fair as a Dutchman, with his full, sensual lips, which he inherited from his half-caste mother; Doddie, already looking like a ripe rose, with the sparkling irises and black pupils of her black eyes; the manager's son, Achille de Luce, brown, tall and stout, whose thoughts ran only on his machinery and his seed; the second son, Roger, brown, short and thin, the book-keeper, whose thoughts ran only on the year's profits, with his little Armenian wife; the eldest daughter, old already, brown, stupidly ugly, with her full-blooded Dutch husband, who looked like a peasant; the other sons and daughters, in every shade of brown, not easily to be distinguished one from the other; around them the children, the grandchildren, the little, golden-skinned adopted children, the babus, the lories and the dwarf deer; and over all these people and children and animals, as though shaken down upon them, lay a good-hearted solidarity; and over all these people there also lay a common pride in their Solo ancestors, crowning all their heads with a pale halo of Javanese aristocracy; and the Armenian daughter-in-law and the bucolic Dutch son-in-law were not least proud of this descent.

The liveliest of all these elements, which were melting into one another, as it were, through long communal life under the patriarchal roofs, was the youngest son, Adrien de Luce, Addie, in whom the blood of the Solo princess and that of the French adventurer had blended harmoniously. The admixture, it is true, had given him no brains, but it had given him the physical beauty of a young Eurasian, with something of the Moor about it, something southern and seductive, something Spanish, as though in this last child the two alien racial elements had for the first time mingled harmoniously, for the first time been wedded in absolute mutual sympathy; as though in him, this last child after so many children, adventurer and princess had for the first time met in harmony. Addie seemed to possess not a jot of intellect or imagination; he was unable to unite two ideas into one composite thought; he merely felt, with the vague good-nature which had descended upon the whole family. For the rest, he was like a beautiful animal, degenerating in soul and brain, but degenerating into nothing, to a great nullity, to one great emptiness, while his body was like a renewal of his race, full of strength and beauty, while his marrow and his blood and his flesh and his muscles were all one harmony of physical seductiveness, so purely, stupidly, beautifully sensual that its harmony had for a woman an immediate appeal. The lad had but to appear, like a beautiful, southern G.o.d, for all the women to look at him and take him into the depths of their imagination, to recall him to their minds again and again; the lad had but to go to a race-ball at Ngadjiwa for all the girls to fall in love with him. He plucked love where he found it, in plenty, in the Patjaram compounds. And everything feminine was in love with him, from his mother to his little nieces. Doddie van Oudijck was infatuated with him. From a child of seven she had been in love, a hundred times and more, with every one who pa.s.sed before the glance of her flas.h.i.+ng pupils, but never yet as with Addie. Her love shone so strongly from her whole being that it was like a flame, that everybody saw it and smiled. The milling-feast had been to her one long delight ... when she danced with him; one long martyrdom ... when he danced with others. He had not asked her to marry him, but she thought of asking him and was prepared to die if he refused. She knew that the resident, her father, would object: he did not like those De Luces, that Solo-French crew, as he called them; but, if Addie was willing, her father would consent, rather than see her die. To this child of love that lovable lad was the world, the universe, life itself. He made love to her, he kissed her on the lips, but this was no more than he did to others, unthinkingly; he kissed other girls as well. And, if he could, he went further, like a devastating young G.o.d, an unthinking G.o.d. But he still stood more or less in awe of the resident's daughter. He possessed neither pluck nor effrontery; his pa.s.sions were not markedly selective; he looked on a woman as a woman and was so much sated with conquest that obstacles did not stimulate him. His garden was full of flowers which all lifted themselves up to him; he stretched out his hand, almost without looking; he merely plucked.

As they sat rocking about the table they saw him come through the garden; and the eyes of all these women turned to him as to a young tempter, arriving in the suns.h.i.+ne, which touched him as with a halo. The raden-aju dowager smiled and gazed at him, enamoured of her son, her favourite; squatting on the ground behind her, the little golden adopted child stared with wide-open eyes; the sisters looked out, the little nieces looked out, and Doddie turned pale and Leonie van Oudijck's milky whiteness became tinged with a rosy shade which mingled with the glamour of her smile. She glanced at Theo mechanically; their eyes met. And these souls of sheer love, love of the eyes, of the lips, love of the glowing flesh, understood each other; and Theo's jealousy of Leonie blazed so fiercely that the rosy shade died away and she became pale and fearful, with a sudden, unreasoning fear which shuddered through her usual indifference, while the tempter, in his halo of suns.h.i.+ne, came nearer and nearer....

CHAPTER TWELVE

Mrs. van Oudijck had promised to stay at Patjaram a few days longer; and she disliked the prospect, really not feeling quite at home in these old-fas.h.i.+oned Indian surroundings. But when Addie appeared she thought better of it. In the deepest secrecy of her heart this woman wors.h.i.+pped her sensuality, as in the temple of her egoism: here the milk-white creole offered up all the most intimate dreams of her rosy imagination and unquenchable longing; and in this cult she had achieved as it were an art, a knowledge, a science, that of deciding, for herself, at a glance, what it was that attracted her in the man who approached her, in the man who pa.s.sed her by. In one it was his bearing, his voice; in another it was the set of his neck on his shoulders; in a third it was the way his hand rested on his knee; but, whatever it was, she saw it directly, at a glance; she knew it immediately, in an instant; she had judged the pa.s.ser-by in an indivisible moment; and she at once knew those whom she rejected--they were the majority--and those whom she approved--they were many. And the few whom she rejected in that indivisible moment of her supreme judgement, with that single glance, in that single instant, need cherish no hope: she, the priestess, did not admit them to the temple. To the others, the temple was open, but only behind the curtain of her conventionality. However shameless, she was always correct, her love was always secret; to the world, she was nothing but the charming, smiling wife of the resident, a little indolent in her ways, but winning everybody with her smile. When people did not see her, they spoke ill of her; when they saw her, she conquered them at once. Among all of those with whom she shared the secret of her love there reigned a certain freemasonry, a mystery of wors.h.i.+p; scarcely, when two of them met, would they whisper a word or two, at a similar recollection. And Leonie could sit smiling, milk-white, tranquil, in the great circle, around the marble table, with at least two or three men who knew her secret. It did not disturb her tranquillity nor mar her smile. She smiled to the pitch of boredom. Scarcely would her glance glide from one to the other, while she judged them once again, with her infallible knack of judgement. Scarcely would the memories of past hours rise hazily within her, scarcely would she think of the a.s.signation for the following day. The secret lay wholly in the mystery of the meeting and indeed was never uttered before the profane world. If a foot in the circle sought to touch her foot, she drew hers away. She never flirted; she was even sometimes a little tedious, stiff, correct, smiling. In the freemasonry between herself and the initiated she disclosed the mystery; but, before the world, in the circles about the marble tables, she vouchsafed not a glance, not a pressure of the hand or knee.

She had been bored during these days at Patjaram, for which she had accepted the invitation to the milling-feast because she had refused it in past years; but now that she saw Addie approaching she was bored no longer. Of course she had known him for years; and she had seen him grow from a child into a boy, into a man; and she had kissed him even as a boy. She had long ago judged him, the tempter. But now, as he came forward with his halo of suns.h.i.+ne, she judged him once more: his comely, slender animalism and the glow of his tempter's eyes in the dusky brown of his young Moorish face; the pouting curves of his lips, formed for kissing, with the young down of his moustache; the tigerish strength and litheness of limbs which Don Juan might have envied: it all dazzled her, made her blink her eyes. As he greeted his mother's visitors and sat down, a volley of wordy gaiety ran round that circle of languid conversation and drowsy thoughts, as though he were casting a handful of his suns.h.i.+ne, of the gold-dust of his temptation over them all, over all those women, mother and sisters and nieces and Doddie and Leonie van Oudijck. Leonie looked at him, as they all looked at him, and her glance fell upon his hands. She could have kissed those hands of his; she suddenly became smitten with the shape of his fingers, with the brown, tigerish strength of the hands themselves: she suddenly became smitten with all the young wild-animal vigour which breathed like a fragrance of manhood from the whole of his boyish frame. She felt her blood throbbing, almost uncontrollably, despite her great art of remaining cool and correct in the circles around the marble tables. But she was no longer bored. She had found an object to fill the next few days. Only ... her blood throbbed so violently that Theo had noticed her blush and the quivering of her eyelids. Enamoured of her as he was, his eyes had penetrated her soul. And, when they rose to go to lunch in the back verandah, where the babus had been squatting, grinding everybody's different admixture of spices with pestles, in little stone mortars, he whispered two words between his teeth:

"Take care!"

She started; she felt that he was threatening her. This had never happened before: all who had shared in the mystery had always respected her. She started so violently, she was so indignant at this wrenching away of the temple-curtain, in a verandah full of people, that her tranquil indifference seethed with anger and she was roused to rebellion in her ever-serene self-mastery. But she looked at him and she saw him broad and tall and fair, a younger edition of her husband, his Indian blood showing only in his sensuous mouth; and she did not want to lose him: she wanted to preserve his type beside the type of the Moorish tempter. She wanted them both; she wanted to taste the different charm of their respective types, that white-skinned Dutch type, so very slightly Indian, and Addie's wild-animal type. Her soul quivered, her blood thrilled, while the long array of dishes was solemnly handed round. She was in a revolt such as she had never experienced before. The awakening from her placid indifference was like a rebirth, like an unknown emotion. She was surprised to remember that she, at thirty, was feeling for the first time. A feverish depravity blossomed up within her, as though bursting into heady crimson flowers. She looked at Doddie, sitting beside Addie: the poor child, glowing with love, was hardly able to eat.... Oh, the tempter, who had only to appear!... And Leonie, in this fever of depravity, rejoiced at being the rival of a step-daughter so many years younger than herself. She would look after her; she would even warn Van Oudijck. Would it ever come to a match? What did she care: what harm could marriage do to her, Leonie? Oh, the tempter! Never had she dreamt of him thus, the supreme lover, in her rosy hours of siesta! This was no charm of little cherubs; this was the stark radiance of tigerish enchantment: the golden glitter of his eyes, the sinewy litheness of his stealthy paw.... And she smiled at Theo, with just one glance of self-surrender, a very exceptional thing at the luncheon-table. As a rule she gave nothing of herself in public. Now she surrendered herself, for a moment, pleased by his jealousy. She was madly fond of him too. She thought it delightful, that he should look pale and angry with jealousy. And round about her the afternoon was one blaze of sunlight and the hot spices stung her dry palate. Faint beads of perspiration stood on her forehead and trickled down her bosom under the lace of her kabaai. And she would fain have clasped them both, Theo and Addie, in one embrace, in one blending of different l.u.s.ts, pressing them both to her amorous woman's body....

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The night was like a veil of softest velvet dropping slowly from the heavens. The moon, in its first quarter, displayed a very narrow, horizontal sickle, like a Turkish crescent, between whose points the unlit portion of the disk was faintly washed in against the sky. A long avenue of tjemara-trees stretched in front of the house, their trunks straight, their leaf.a.ge like drawn plush or ravelled velvet, showing like blots of cotton-wool against the clouds, which, drifting low, announced the approaching rainy monsoon fully a month beforehand. Wood-pigeons cooed at intervals and a gecko was calling, first with two rattling, preliminary notes, as though tuning up, then with his call of "Tokke! Tokke!" four or five times repeated: first loudly, then submissively and more faintly.

A night watchman, in his hut in front of the house, on the high-road, where the sleeping market-place now showed its empty stalls, struck eleven blows on his hollow block of wood; and as yet one more belated cart drove past, he cried, in a hoa.r.s.e voice:

"Who goes there?"

The night was like softest velvet dropping slowly from the heavens, like a whirling mystery, like an oppressive menace of the future. But, in that mystery, under the frayed black blots, the ravelled plush of the tjemaras, there was an inexorable incitement to love, in the windless night, like a whisper that this hour should not be wasted.... True, the gecko was gibing like a mocking imp, with a sort of dry humour; and the watchman, with his "Who goes there?" startled the hearer; but the wood-pigeons cooed softly and the whole night was like a world of softest velvet, like a great alcove curtained by the plush of the tjemaras, while the distant, sultry rain-clouds, hanging all that month on the horizon, ringed the skies with an oppressive spell. Mystery and enchantment hovered through the velvety night, drifting down in the twilit alcove; and at their touch all thought was dissolved; the very soul dissolved, leaving only a warm, sensuous vision....

The gecko fell silent, the watchman dropped asleep; the velvety night reigned like an enchantress crowned with the sickle of the moon. They came walking slowly, two youthful figures, their arms about each other's waists, lips seeking lips under the tyranny of the enchantment. They were as shadows under the drawn velvet of the tjemaras; and softly, in their white garments, they dawned on the beholder like an eternal pair of lovers who are forever and everywhere repeating themselves. And here above all were lovers inevitable, in this enchanted night, were one with the night, conjured up by the all-powerful spell; here they were inevitable, unfolding like a twin flower of predestined love, in the velvet mystery of the compelling heavens.

And the tempter seemed to be the son of that night, the son of that inexorable queen of the night, bearing with him the yielding girl. In her ears the night seemed to sing with his voice; and her small soul melted in tender compliance, under these magic powers. She walked on against his side, feeling the warmth of his body sinking into her yearning maidenhood; and she lifted her br.i.m.m.i.n.g gaze to him, with the languid light of her sparkling pupils glittering like diamonds in her eyes. He, drunk with the power of the night, the enchantress, who was as his mother, thought first of leading her still farther, no longer conscious of reality, no longer feeling any awe of her or of any one whatever; thought of leading her still farther, past the slumbering watchman, across the high road, into the compound, which lay hidden yonder between the stately plumes of the coco-palms that would form a canopy to their love; of leading her to a hiding-place, a house which he knew, a bamboo hut the door of which would be opened to him ... when suddenly she stopped ... and started ... and gripped his arm and pressed herself still more tightly against him and implored him to go no farther. She was frightened.

"Why not?" he asked, gently, in his soft voice, which was as deep and velvety as the night. "Why not to-night, to-night at last?... There is no danger."

But she shuddered and shook and entreated:

"Addie, Addie, no ... no.... I daren't go any farther.... I'm frightened that the watchman will see us ... and then ... there's a hadji walking over there ... in a white turban...."

He looked out at the road: on the farther side the kampong lay waiting, under the canopy of the coco-palms, with the bamboo hut whose door would be opened to him.

"A hadji?... Where, Doddie? I don't see any one...."

"He crossed the road; he looked back at us; he saw us: I saw his eyes gleaming; and he went into the compound, behind those trees."

"Darling, I saw nothing, there's no one there."

"Yes, there is! Yes, there is! Addie, I daren't go: oh, do let us go back!"

His handsome Moorish face became overcast; he already saw the door of the little hut opened by the old woman whom he knew, who wors.h.i.+pped him as every woman wors.h.i.+pped him, from his mother to his little nieces.

And he again tried to persuade her, but she refused, stood still, and clung to the ground with her little feet. Then they turned back and the clouds were sultrier, low on the horizon, and the velvety darkness fell more thickly, like warm snow, and the ravelled tjemaras were fuller and blacker than before. The house loomed up before them, sunk in sleep, with not a light showing. And he entreated her, he implored her not to leave him that night, saying that he would die, that night, without her.... Already she was yielding, promising, with her arms around his neck ... when again she started and again cried:

"Addie! Addie!... There he is again!... That white figure!..."

"But you seem to see hadjis everywhere!" he said, banteringly.

"Look for yourself then ... over there!"

He looked, and now really saw a white figure approaching them in the front-verandah. But it was a woman.