Catherine played the accompaniment while Otto sat on the sofa, listening. It sounded to Eline as if she were hearing her own voice for the first time. She was singing Mozart’s ‘Evening Thoughts’ — crystalline but with a new velvety timbre, light and almost downy, from which the previous glittery, metallic quality had vanished. She sang effortlessly, without a thought for technique or art, and not for one moment did she imagine herself on stage in front of an audience, as she used to do during her duos with Paul. She had only to part her lips and all her joy seemed to well up from her soul, charging the melancholy words of her song with a new depth of emotion. On this long, light summer evening, now that the youngsters’ noisy play had ended, her music poured a melodious calmness over the happy gathering, and they loved her all the more for the poetry that she bestowed on them.
After the song there was a ripple of applause on the terrace, and Eline could be heard laughing gaily and talking to Otto and Catherine. Henrietta and Marianne ran inside to congratulate her on her performance.
‘Oh, I’ll never be as good as you, Eline!’ cried Marianne, who, like all Theodore’s offspring, addressed their future aunt familiarly by her first name. ‘I sing in a choir at my boarding school in Bonn, but our music master is old and boring, and I’m not learning a thing. Have you had singing lessons for long? And who is your teacher?’
Eline seated herself beside Otto on the old-fashioned, ample sofa while the two girls perched on the arms, and told them about Roberts and her duets. Catherine had gone outside.
‘I say, Eline, don’t you find it boring here?’ asked Henrietta.
‘Boring? Why should I be bored? On the contrary!’
Henrietta was surprised. She was rather heavy for her age, but still looked very boyish sitting on the arm of the sofa, wide-legged in her red stockings and riding boots with the laces undone. There was no trace as yet of coquetry; she had ginger hair in a thick plait down her back, fun-loving grey eyes, a generous mouth and beautiful teeth. In her mind she carried a confused picture of balls attended by men in gold-braided uniforms and ladies in décolleté gowns, and to her Eline was the personification of The Hague, where all that mattered was dancing and ball dresses.
‘Well, I would have thought The Hague was completely different!’ she exclaimed in her boyish voice. ‘So much more amusing, going to all those parties, I mean. I’m not sure it would suit me in the long run, but I’d love to take a look some day. I’ll come and stay with you, later on, when you’re married. So I thought you’d find De Horze rather boring — it’s always the same. Actually, I love it here, I’ve got my donkey cart and my donkey, and I also have a goat, and I can’t bear the idea of going away to boarding school.’
‘Just you wait!’ interjected Marianne, who was beginning to put on ladylike airs. ‘Another two years, and then it’ll be time for my coming out and for you to be packed off to Bonn!’
‘In your donkey cart, or with your goat!’ chuckled Otto.
‘How horrid! To Bonn! No thank you very much! I don’t care if I’m not clever. Miss Voermans is good enough for me.’
‘Is she your governess?’ asked Eline.
‘Yes. She’s staying with her relatives in Limburg at the moment. She’s been with us for a long time; she teaches me and the boys, but Mama says the boys are getting too old and that they must go to boarding school as well. Papa doesn’t think so, he’s much more sensible, he doesn’t care for all that learning. Miss Voermans is all right, although she’s very ugly and as thin as a rake. So you like it here, do you?’
‘I certainly do. Indeed I have no intention of leaving! We’ve decided to stay here, haven’t we, Otto?’
He smiled and took her hand.
‘Come along, Henrietta, we’re boring them with our talk!’ cried Marianne, springing to her feet and tugging at her sister’s sleeve. ‘Can’t you see? How could you ask such a silly question, anyway?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s silly to ask Eline whether she’s bored.’
‘Why do you think it silly?’ asked Eline.
‘Because people who are engaged don’t get bored!’
‘How would you know?’ said Hetty. ‘It’s not as if you’ve ever been engaged.’
Otto and Eline rose, smiling at the younger sister’s gruff remonstrations.
‘Where are you going, Uncle?’ Marianne wanted to know.
‘We are going to join the others in the garden.’
‘That’s not what you would do, is it, Marianne?’ teased Hetty. ‘You’d steal off into a dark corner with your beloved, wouldn’t you?’
Marianne looked her sister up and down for a moment and gave an aggrieved shrug, whereupon Eline cast her a smile of sympathy and took her arm.
Outside, the tea things had been cleared to make way for a large bowl of punch made with light Rhine wine flavoured with raspberries and strawberries. Animated conversation reigned over the table while Truus took a long glass ladle and filled one glass after another.
‘What is keeping Theodore and Etienne?’ asked the old lady, looking about her.
‘They’ve gone for a walk in the park,’ responded Mathilda.
‘Theodore! Etienne!’ called Frédérique.
Otto offered to go and find them, and set off towards the darkness of the wood where shadows lurked between the trunks of the lofty trees. Through a break in the canopy overhead he could see a pale moon shining in the pearl-grey evening sky. He walked on, following the winding drive. Seeing no one, he shouted their names:
‘Theodore! Etienne!’
A sonorous voice answered, at the sound of which he took a side path. Presently he came upon his two brothers, lost in the dark, sitting on a park bench. He could barely distinguish their faces.
‘You’ve been sorely missed!’ declared Otto. ‘And now punch is being served!’
He expected Etienne to leap to his feet in his usual boisterous fashion, and was most surprised to see his young brother remain huddled on the bench with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.
‘No punch for you then?’ he asked.
‘Come on Etienne, let’s go!’ said Theodore. ‘Let’s take our time getting back though, Otto, because there’s something we ought to discuss. I have been talking to Etienne, and apparently I have not been very diplomatic. At any rate, our young brother here appears to be rather upset.’
‘No I’m not,’ growled Etienne.
‘So what’s wrong?’ asked Otto.
‘Nothing. It’s just that for the past quarter of an hour Theodore has been telling me off. It turns out that I’m lazy, idle, a free-spending scamp and goodness know what else. In other words: good for nothing.’
‘Oh, come now,’ protested Theodore, ‘don’t go off in a sulk. That won’t get you anywhere. All I did was mention your future and raise the admittedly boring subject of your financial situation. No harm in that, surely. What do you say, Otto?’
‘Ah, I have spoken to Etienne on those matters myself. He was quite willing to hear me out, although I don’t believe he paid much attention, I have to say.’
‘Well, I suppose I’m not as tactful as you are. Perhaps that’s all to the good, because he seems to be paying attention now, doesn’t he?’
‘But you make it sound as if we’re as poor as church mice!’ spluttered Etienne.
‘And you, dear boy, sound as pathetic as a girl. I merely explained to you that we have to keep a tight rein on our expenses here at De Horze — and the same applies to Mama in The Hague — because if we don’t we will be obliged to economise in the most unpleasant manner afterwards. Can you imagine what it would do to Mama if she had to leave the family home she loves so much and has lived in for so many years? It doesn’t bear thinking about. And then there’s Mathilda; there doesn’t appear to be any money forthcoming from Van Rijssel, so she has no choice but to turn to Mama for support in educating the children. We all live very frugally, as you saw for yourself when you were here last winter with Van Raat, and it is no different now. The only luxury we can afford is having you all to stay with us in the summer. In the meantime you’re living it up with your student friends in Leiden, all of whom are rich or pretend to be, and you get through nearly the same amount of money over there as we do here as an entire family. So you see, old chap, this cannot continue. I don’t begrudge you your carefree student days, and I’m aware that it’s far from easy, once one is accustomed to spending freely, to start tightening one’s belt. But still, Etienne, you really must better your ways.’