“What is it, Léonie?…”
“Nothing,” she said, not daring to say anything about the souls or the stone, afraid of the imminent punishment. She and Theo stood guiltily, both white as a sheet and trembling. Van Oudijck, with his mind still on his work, saw nothing.
“Nothing,” she said. “The mat is worn, and… I almost stumbled. But I wanted to mention something, Otto…”
Her voice was trembling but he didn’t hear it, blind and deaf to her as he was, still absorbed in his documents.
“What?”
“Urip suggested to me that the servants would like to have an offering, since a new well has been sunk in the grounds…”
“The well that is two months old?”
“They don’t draw water from it.”
“Why not?”
“They’re superstitious, you see; they don’t want to use the water until the offering has been made.”
“Then it should have been done immediately. Why didn’t they let me know through Kario? I can’t think of all that nonsense by myself. But I would have arranged an offering at the time. Now it’s like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. The well is two months old.”
“It would be good in any case,” said Theo. “Papa, you know yourself what the Javanese are like: they won’t use the well if they aren’t granted an offering.”
“No,” said Van Oudijck stubbornly, shaking his head. “Making an offering now would be quite senseless. I would have been happy to do it, but now, after two months, it’s absurd. They should have asked straight away.”
“Come on, Otto,” begged Léonie. “Why don’t you make the offering. As a favour to me.”
“Mama has already half-promised Urip…” said Theo with gentle insistence.
They stood before him, trembling, white as a sheet, like supplicants.
But, worn out as he was, and with his mind on his documents, he was filled with a stubborn reluctance, though he could seldom refuse his wife anything.
“No, Léonie,” he said firmly. “You must never promise anything you’re not sure of…”
He turned away, went round the screen, and sat down to continue his work.
They looked at each other, the stepmother and her stepson. Slowly, aimlessly, they moved from where they were onto the front veranda, where a damp darkness floated between the imposing pillars. They saw a white figure approaching through the sodden garden. They were alarmed, frightened of everything now, each silhouette reminding them of the strange punishment that would befall them so long as they remained in the parental home on which they had brought shame. But when they peered more closely they recognized Doddy. She said that she had been to see Eva Eldersma. In fact she had been walking with Addy de Luce, and they had sheltered from the rain in the native quarter. She was very pale and shivering, but Léonie and Theo couldn’t see it in the dark front veranda, just as she couldn’t see that her stepmother was pale, and Theo too. She was shivering so violently because she had been pelted with stones in the garden — Addy had left her at the gate. She thought of an impudent Javanese, who hated her father and his house and his family, but on the dark front veranda, where she saw her stepmother and brother sitting silently close together, as if helpless, she suddenly felt — she knew not why — that it had not been an impudent Javanese…
She sat down with them in silence. They looked out onto the dark, damp garden, over which night approached as if on giant bat’s wings. And in the wordless melancholy that filtered between the stately white pillars in the grey dusk, all three of them — Doddy alone; her stepmother and stepson together — frightened to death and crushed by the strange event that was about to happen…
2
DESPITE THEIR FEAR, Theo and Léonie sought each other out even more often, feeling drawn by what was now an unbreakable bond. In the afternoons he would slip into her room and they would embrace wildly and then remain close together.
“It must be nonsense, Léonie…” he whispered.
“All right, so what is it then?” she whispered back. “I heard the groaning, didn’t I? And the stone whizzing through the air…”
“And so…”
“What?”
“If it is something… suppose it’s something we can’t explain.”
“But I don’t believe that sort of thing!”
“Nor do I… But just…”
“What?”
“If it is something… if it’s something we can’t explain, then…”
“Then what?”
“Then it’s not because of us!” he whispered almost inaudibly. “Didn’t Urip say so herself. It’s because of Papa!”
“Oh, but it’s too silly…”
“I don’t believe in that nonsense either.”
“The groaning… must be animals.”
“And that stone must have been thrown by some wretch, one of the servants, someone with big ideas… or who has been bribed…”
“Bribed? By whom?”
“By… the… Prince…”
“Oh, Theo!”
“Urip said that the groaning came from the palace…”
“What do you mean?”
“And that they wanted to taunt Papa from there…”
“Taunt?”
“Over the Prince of Ngajiwa’s dismissal.”
“Did Urip say that?…”
“No, no, she didn’t say that. I’m saying that. Urip said that Prince Sunario has magic powers. That’s nonsense of course. The fellow is no good… He’s bribed people… to torment Papa.”
“But Papa isn’t aware of anything…”
“No… And we mustn’t say anything. That’s the best thing to do… We must ignore it.”
“And the white pilgrim, Theo, that Doddy has seen twice… And when they make the table turn at Van Helderen’s place, Ida sees him too…”
“Oh, of course he’s another of the Prince’s men.”
“Yes, I expect he is… But it’s still horrible, Theo… My Theo, I’m frightened!”
“Of that nonsense! Come now!”
“If it is something, Theo… it’s not because of us?”
He laughed.
“Of course not. Because of us! It’s foolery by the Prince…”
“We shouldn’t see each other any more…”
“Oh yes we should. I love you, I’m mad about you.”
He kissed her violently and they were both afraid, but he put a brave face on it.