It was a clear, starry evening, and the boat on the lake beckoned. Paul and Arnold van Stralenburg took the oars, Marianne and Etienne teased one another, and Freddie, holding the tiller, hummed a song which carried softly over the water in the violet dusk. Suddenly Paul broke in with a snatch of the duet he used to sing with Eline.
Ah! Viens, la nuit est belle!
Viens, le ciel est d’azur!
Freddie was delighted to hear him sing. The scene was so simple and so delightfully familiar: Paul’s song, the lake they were drifting on, the illuminated veranda with Mama, Mathilda, Suzanne and Theodore sitting together, the looming dark-green mass of the trees and the twinkling stars above. How extraordinary that she had never realised how poetic it all was! Paul concluded his barcarole with a soft, drawn-out high C in falsetto, and she fancied she heard nightingales in the jasmine-scented air, like a silvery vibration in her heart.
. .
How would he comport himself with Marianne, she wondered. Marianne had a pretty face with soulful eyes, and a pert, slightly coquettish demeanour. But he showed no inclination to flirt with her, by which Frédérique was both surprised and gratified.
Since that first day, however, she had recovered herself. She had been too forgiving, she believed; she had seen him the way she wished to see him — which might even have been the way he temporarily happened to be by some extraordinary coincidence. But had she then forgotten what he had been like in The Hague, dancing attendance on all those girls, inconsiderate to his mother, hanging around with those so-called friends of his who were nothing but spongers? By what stroke of magic could he have ceased to be frivolous and vain, egotistic and weak?
Whatever the case, now that he was away from all the girls, away from his mother and from his friends, he made a decidedly better impression. She vowed not to voice any criticism she might have, in case he took a permanent dislike to her. Nor would it be hard to keep her vow, for Paul was making things remarkably easy: for the moment he gave no cause for criticism of any kind.
It had rained for several days, and the morning was clear, with a well-rinsed brightness to the sky. Klaas had saddled the two riding horses, one of which was a sorrel; the other, fitted with a side saddle, had a blaze down its forehead. Paul was checking the horses’ tackles when Freddie emerged from the veranda with the train of her riding costume over her arm and a small top hat with a white veil on her head. She buttoned her gloves and smiled.
‘All set!’ said Paul, turning to face her.
He gave Freddie a leg up to her blazed horse; once seated, she leant forward to pat its gleaming neck. Paul mounted the sorrel and together they ambled off under the watchful eye of Klaas, who thought them a fine-looking pair, both of them healthy and strong, bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked. He noted that Freddie sat ramrod-straight on her side saddle, and deemed her companion to be a full-bodied young fellow. He approved of full-bodied men.
Paul and Freddie rode to the front of the big house, chatting happily.
‘Hullo there! Where are you off to?’ a voice called from above.
Looking up, they saw Etienne leaning out of his upstairs window, looking rather unkempt in his shirtsleeves and with tousled hair, which made Freddie laugh.
‘Well, you two! Where are you off to?’ demanded Etienne, with a hint of envy in his tone.
‘We haven’t decided yet!’
‘Why isn’t Marianne with you?’
‘Marianne said she was quite happy reading Carmen Sylva’s Ein Gebet all over again! Don’t you trust us?’
‘Well, yes, but did you have to pass under my window? Couldn’t you have taken another route?’
‘You’re the last person we were thinking of!’ Paul cried mercilessly.
‘I’m not surprised!’ spluttered Etienne. ‘You think of no one but yourselves, going off for a nice ride while I’m stuck indoors with my books. Well, bad luck to both of you, you heartless creatures!’
‘Merci bien, my charitable brother!’ exclaimed Freddie, waving her whip in his direction. ‘Here’s hoping you’ll be more favourably disposed when we return. Au revoir!’
‘Enjoy your books! Au revoir!’ rejoined Paul, and with that they rode off at a leisurely pace, down the long oak-lined avenue. Reaching the country lane, where the blazing sunshine swathed the oats and barley on either side with gold, they urged their horses to a canter.
‘Why don’t we go to the White Hollow? We could take the long way round and ride through the pine wood,’ suggested Freddie.
‘Yes, let’s do that,’ said Paul.
They reined in their horses as they approached the farmstead, which stood in the shade of some chestnut trees. The farmer’s dogs, recognising them, sprang up and ran to the ends of their chains, barking enthusiastically, at which the farmer’s wife appeared at the door to wave. Then they entered the wood beyond, relieved to exchange the scorching sun for cooling, deep-green shade, where the horses’ hooves sounded muffled on the carpet of pine needles.
It was the first time since Paul’s arrival at De Horze that Freddie found herself alone with him, and she felt strangely nervous, as if this was the first time ever, yet she had often gone riding with him in previous summers, and there had also been plenty of occasions in the past when they had been alone together, talking quite confidentially. So why did she barely dare to look at him, if she were afraid of what his appearance might reveal?
She mustered her courage and looked him in the eye as he chatted on. She would not allow herself to be swayed by sentimental emotions; she would show him that she was the same girl she had always been, someone who had no qualms about speaking her mind. She would not say anything against him if she could help it, but neither would she flinch from his blue-grey gaze — that would be too much!
A challenging glint came into her eyes at that thought, but what was there to challenge? He was being neither sarcastic nor flippant, nor was he being pompous, indeed he was conversing with marked indulgence about all sorts of people she had known him to disparage on previous occasions.
‘Take Georges and Lili,’ he said, and she was astonished by the genial tone of his voice as he uttered those two names. ‘It’s so amusing to see them together! They’re so wrapped up in each other that they’re quite blind to what goes on in the world. They think everything revolves around them! And it’s not that they are arrogant, they are just naive! Try telling them they aren’t the only two people in the world to be madly in love with each other and they’ll shake their heads in disbelief. They’re Adam and Eve all over again — everything starts from them.’
Frédérique smiled, curiously moved by his words.
‘I think they are quite delightful together,’ continued Paul, ‘but you must admit that they’re rather superficial souls, when it comes down to it. Neither of them has much depth, really. Yes, Georges is a good, sensible young man, but apart from that—’
‘Good and sensible; well, that’s a start anyway!’ she said musingly.
‘Yes it is, but I don’t believe Georges has ever found himself confronted by any kind of mental struggle. Until now his life has been a smooth path, which is how it will always be for him.’