say Grandmamma. When you see her, call her Grandmamma at once. It's less stiff: she will like it … even though you're not married to Lot yet. … "
His voice sank; he sighed, as though he were thinking of other things, of more important things; and, with the jerk in his neck, he started up and remained like that for a second, with his head on one side, as if he heard something, as if he were listening. Elly did not think Grandpapa looking well to-day. The drowsiness overcame him again; his head dropped and his eyes grew glassy. And he sat there, so frail and fragile, as if one could have blown the life out of him like a dancing feather. Elly, after a moment's hesitation, left him alone. The old gentleman gave a start, when he heard the door close gently, and recovered his full consciousness. He sat for a second or two without moving. Then he unlocked the drawer of his writing-table, with which he had been busy before, and took out the pieces of a letter that had already been torn up. He tore the pieces still smaller, as small as they possibly could be, and scattered them in his waste-paper-basket, in among other discarded papers. After that he tore up a second letter, after that a third, without reading them over. He scattered the tiny pieces in the basket and shook the basket, shook the basket. The tearing tired his stiff fingers; the shaking tired his arm.
"A few more this afternoon," he muttered. "It's getting time, it's getting time. … "
CHAPTER III
The old gentleman went out at about three o'clock, alone: he did not like to be accompanied when he went, though he was glad to be brought back home; but he would never ask for this service. Aunt Adèle looked out of the window and followed him with her eyes as he turned by the barracks and crossed the razor-back bridge. He was not going farther than just down the Nassaulaan, to Mrs. Dercksz'; and he managed the distance with a delicate, erect figure and straight legs: he did not even look so very old a man, in his overcoat buttoned up to the throat, even though each step was carefully considered and supported by his heavy, ivory-knobbed stick. In order above all not to let it be perceived that this short walk was his exercise and his relaxation, a great deal of exercise and relaxation for his now merely nervous strength, he had needs to consider every step; but he succeeded in walking as though without difficulty, stiff and upright, and he studied his reflection in the plate-glass of the ground-floor windows. In the street, he did not strike a passer-by as so very old. When he rang, old Anna hurried and the cat slipped crosswise through her petticoats, cat and maid making for the front-door at one run:
"The old gentleman, I expect."
Then she drove the cat back to the kitchen, afraid lest the old gentleman should stumble, and drew him in with little remarks about the weather and questions about his health; and to Takma it called for rare art to let his overcoat, which he took off in the hall, slip from his shoulders and arms into the maid's hands. He did it slowly and gradually, a little tired with the walk, but in the meanwhile he recovered breath sufficiently to go upstairs, one flight only, with the aid of the stick—"We may as well keep the stick, Anna," he would say—for Mrs. Dercksz nowadays never came down to the ground-floor rooms.
She was expecting him.
He came almost every day; and, when he was not coming, Aunt Adèle or Elly would call round to say so. So she sat, in her high-backed chair, waiting for him. She sat at the window, looking out at the gardens of the villas in the Sofialaan.
He murmured heartily, though his salutation was indistinct:
"Well, Ottilie? … It's blowing out of doors. … Yes, you've been coughing a bit lately. … You must take care of yourself, you know. … I'm all right, I'm all right, as you see. … "
With a few more words of genial heartiness, he sat down straight upright in the arm-chair at the other window, while Anna now for the first time relieved him of his hat, and rested his hands, still clad in the wide, creased gloves of glacé kid, on his stick.
"I haven't seen you since the great news," said Mrs. Dercksz.
"The children are coming presently to pay their visit of inspection. … "
They were both silent, their eyes looking into each other's eyes, chary of words. And quietly for a while they sat opposite each other, each at a window of the narrow drawing-room. The old, old woman sat in a twilight of crimson-rep curtains and cream-coloured lace-and-canvas blinds, in addition to a crimson-plush valance, which kept out the draught and hung with a bend along the window-frame. She had only moved just to raise her thin hand, in its black mitten, for Takma to press. Now they both sat as though waiting for something and yet pleased to be waiting together. … The old lady was ninety-seven and she knew that what she was waiting for must come before her hundredth year had dawned. … In the twilight of that curtained corner, against the sombre wall-paper, her face seemed almost like a piece of white porcelain, with wrinkles for the crackle, in that shadow into which she still withdrew, continuing a former prudent habit of not showing too much of her impaired complexion; and her wig was glossy-black, surmounted with the little black-lace cap; the loose black dress fell in easy, thin lines around her almost brittle, lean figure, but hid her so entirely in those never-varying folds of supple cashmere that she could never be really seen or known, but only suggested in that dark drapery. Besides the face, nothing else seemed alive but the frail fingers trembling in her lap, like so many tapering, luminous wands in their black mittens; the wrists were encircled in close-fitting woollen cuffs. She sat upright on her high-backed chair, as on a throne, supported by a stiff, hard cushion; another cushion was under her feet, which she never showed, as they were slightly deformed by gout. Beside her, on a little table, was some crochet-work, untouched for years, and the newspapers, which were read to her by a companion, an elderly lady who withdrew as soon as Mr. Takma arrived. The room was neat and simple, with a few framed photographs here and there as the only ornament amid the highly-polished, black, shiny furniture, the crimson sofa and chairs, with a few pieces of china gleaming in a glass cabinet. The closed folding-doors led to the bedroom: these were the only two rooms inhabited by the old woman, who took her light meal in her chair.
Golden-sunny was the late summer day; and the wind blew gaily, in a whirl of early yellow leaves, through the garden of the Sofialaan.
"A nice view, that," said Mrs. Dercksz, as she had said so often before, with her mittened hand just hinting at an angular pointing gesture.
The voice, long cracked, sounded softer than pure Dutch and was mellower, with its creole accent; and, now that she looked out of the window, the eyes also took on an eastern softness in the porcelain features and became darker. She did not clearly distinguish things outside; but yet the knowledge that there were flowers and trees over the way was dear to her dim eyes.
"Fine asters in the garden opposite," said Takma.
"Yes," Mrs. Dercksz assented, unable to see them, but now knowing about the asters.
She understood him quite well; her general deafness she concealed by never asking what was said and by replying with a smile of her thin, closed lips or a movement of her head.
After a pause, as each sat looking out of his own window, she said:
"I saw Ottilie yesterday."
The old gentleman felt bewildered for a moment:
"Ottilie?" he asked.
"Lietje … my daughter. … "
"Oh, yes! … You saw Lietje yesterday. … I thought you were speaking of yourself."
"She was crying."
"Why?"
"Because Lot is going to be married."
"She'll be very lonely, poor Lietje; yet Steyn is a decent fellow. … It's a pity. … I like Steyn. … "
"We are all of us lonely," said Mrs. Dercksz; and the cracked voice sounded sad, as though she were regretting a past full of vanished shades.
"Not all of us, Ottilie," said Takma. "You and I have each other. We have always had each other. … Our child, when Lot is married, will have no one, not even her own husband."
"Ssh!"