Dr. Adriaan Part 9

"To feel relieved...."

"Then go to her," said Van der Welcke, very calmly.

And he remained sitting in his chair. His fingers mechanically rolled a fresh cigarette. But in his eyes, which had always remained young, there was seen a faint inflexion, of surprise, as though for the first time they had looked into the deeper life. His son kissed him, gently, went away, closed the door. And Van der Welcke's fingers continued to fumble with a newly-rolled cigarette. He forgot to light it. He stared in front of him....

Outside the house the wind blew moaning along the walls and drew its tapping fingers along every window, as along a vast keyboard....

Forgiveness, the very possibility of it, whirled before his staring eyes....

CHAPTER IV

When Addie came downstairs he met Constance. A gas-jet was burning with a small flame in the brown dusk of the oak wainscoting. She was obviously tired:

"I am going to my room," she said.

"I was looking for you, Mummy."

"Come along with me then."

"Perhaps you're tired, perhaps you want to rest ... and sleep."

"I can rest as well when you are with me as when I am alone. Come."

She put out her hand, took his and drew him gently up the stairs. She turned up the gas in her sitting-room. She changed quickly into a tea-gown; and he thought that he would not speak to her that evening, because she really seemed very weary.... While she was busy in her dressing-room, he looked round him and felt the years of his boyhood.

The room was so exact a copy of the little drawing-room in the Kerkhoflaan that the past always came back to him here. And it brought with it the strange melancholy of all things that had been and no longer were....

"Hark how it's blowing!" she said. "It reminds me...."

"Of what, Mamma?"

"Of an evening, more than ten years ago, at the Hague. It was after the death of Grandmamma van der Welcke. I had returned from here, from the room which is now Papa's bedroom. I had been to Grandmamma ... and it was stormy weather, like to-day, and, when I got home, I was fanciful and frightened: the wind seemed to me so gigantic and I ... I was so small.... Then you came home ... and I was so frightened ... I crept into your arms ... I looked into your eyes, Addie.... In those days, it was very strange, they changed colour, they turned grey.... Now they are sometimes quite dark-grey, but sometimes I see a gleam of blue in them.

I used to feel so sorry ... that they changed colour.... Do you remember? It was not long before Uncle Gerrit died.... Oh, how frightened I felt ... for days and weeks before!..."

"And why are you thinking of those days, Mammy darling?"

"I don't know why. Perhaps only because it's blowing.... How small our country is by the sea!... It's always blowing, always blowing.... One would think that everything that happens is blown to us, across the sea, and comes down upon us, in heavy showers of rain...."

He smiled.

"Oh, my boy, sometimes I feel so terribly heavy-hearted, without knowing why!..."

"Is it the house?"

"The house? No, no, it's not the house."

"Don't you like the house even now?"

"Oh, yes ... I'm pretty used to the house!"

"Is it the wind, the rain?"

"Perhaps both.... But haven't I known them for years?"

"Then what is it that makes you heavy-hearted?"

"I don't know."

"Come here, to me...."

"Where, my boy?"

"On my knees, in my arms...."

She sat down on his knees and smiled, sadly:

"It's an age...."

"What?"

"Since I sat on your knee like this.... Do you remember? Do you remember? When you were quite a boy ... and I felt frightened ... I used to creep up to your little study and creep into your arms and look into your blue eyes.... I never do that now."

He clasped his arms round her:

"Then do it again. There, you're doing it now.... My lap's bigger now.... My eyes have changed colour...."

"Everything, everything has changed!"

"Has everything changed?"

"Yes ... I've lost you!"

"Mamma!"

"I have lost you.... Hush, dear, it was bound to come!... Does a son belong to his parents?... Does a son belong to his mother?... A son belongs to everybody and everything ... but not to his parents, not to his mother.... It is a cruel law, but it is a law...."

"You're regretting the past ... and there was not so much peace and quiet in the past, Mummie.... Do you remember, do you remember ... how you used to be ... you and poor Father?... Now everything is much calmer ... everything has smoothed down so ... because life has gone on."

"Yes, life has gone on.... I had you ... and I have lost you!...."

She was sobbing on his shoulder.

"Mamma!"

"Dear, it was bound to be! Didn't I consider ... that it would be so ...