Public-domain ebook
Old People and the Things That Pass
Language: en494 downloads on Project Gutenberg
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In: Novels
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #48271.
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Ottilie smiled; and Lot stood up:
"There," he said, "give me a kiss.... Won't you? Must I give you one? You angry little Mummy!... And what was it about? About nothing. At least, I can't remember what it was all about. I should never be able to analyse it. And that's always the way.... How do I come to be so unruffled with such a little fury of a Mamma?"
"If you imagine that your father used to keep unruffled!"
Lot laughed that little laugh of his and did not reply. Mrs. Steyn de Weert went on reading more peacefully; she sat in front of her book like a child. She was a woman of sixty, but her blue eyes were like a child's, full of a soft beauty, gentle and innocent; and her voice, a little high-toned, always sounded like a child's, had just sounded like the voice of a naughty child. Sitting, small and upright, in her chair, she read on, attentively, calming herself because Lot had spoken so calmly and kissed her so comfortingly. The gas hummed and Lot drank his coffee and, looking at his boots, wondered why he was going to be married. He did not think he was a marrying man. He was young still: thirty-eight; he really looked much younger; he made enough money with his articles to risk it, frugal-fashion, with what Elly would get from Grandpapa Takma; but all the same he did not think that he was of the marrying kind. His liberty, his independence, his selfish power to amuse himself as he pleased were what he loved best; and marrying meant giving one's self over, bound hand and foot, to a woman. He was not passionately in love with Elly: he thought her an intelligent, artistic little thing; and he was really not doing it for what she would inherit from Grandpapa Takma. Then why was he doing it, he asked himself, as he had asked himself day after day, during that week which had followed on his proposal.
"Mamma, can you tell me? Why did I propose to Elly?"
Ottilie looked up. She was accustomed to queer and humorous questions from Lot and she used to answer him in the same tone, as far as she was able; but this question made her feel a prick of jealousy, a prick that hurt very much, physically, like a thorn in the flesh.
"Why you proposed to Elly? I don't know. We always do things without knowing why."
Her voice sounded soft and melancholy, a little sulky after the naughty child's voice of just now. Had she not lost everything that she had ever possessed? Would she not lose Lot, have to part with him to Elly ... as she had had to part with everything and everybody?...
"How seriously you answered, Mamma! That's not like you."
"Mayn't I be serious too, once in a way?"
"Why so sad and serious and tempersome lately? Is it because I am going to be married?"
"Perhaps."
"But you're fond of Elly ..."
"Yes, she's very nice."
"The best thing we can do is to go on living together; Elly's fond of you too. I've talked to Steyn about it."
Lot called his step-father, his second step-father, Steyn, without anything else, after having called his first, when he was still a boy, "Mr." Trevelley. Ottilie had been married three times.
"The house is too small," said Mamma, "especially if you go having a family soon."
And yet she thought:
"If we remain together, I sha'n't lose Lot entirely; but I shall never be able to get on with my daughter-in-law, especially if there are children."
"A family?" he echoed.
"Children."
"Children?"
"Well, married people have had children before now!"
"Our family has lasted long enough. I shall be in no hurry about children."
"And, when your wife hasn't you with her, what has she, if she hasn't any children? It's true, you're both so clever. I'm only a stupid woman; my children have often been a comfort to me...."
"When you were able to spoil them."
"It's not for you to reproach me with that!"
"I'm not reproaching you."
"As to living together, Lot," said Mamma, sadly, in a child's coaxing voice, casting up her blue child-eyes, "_I_ should be quite willing, if Elly is and if she promises to take things as she finds them. I shall feel very lonely without you. But, if there were any objections, I might go over to England. I have my two boys there. And Mary is coming home from India this year."
Lot knitted his brows and put his hand up to his fair hair: it was very neat, with a parting.
"Or else ... I might go and look up Ottilie at Nice."
"No, Mamma, not that!" said Lot, almost angrily.
"Why not?" exclaimed Mrs. Steyn de Weert, raising her voice. "She's my child, surely?"
"Yes," Lot admitted, quickly recovering his composure. "But ..."
"But what? Surely, my own child...?"
"But it would be very silly of you to go to Ottilie."
"Why, even if we have quarrelled at times ..."
"It would never do; you can't get on with her. If you go to Ottilie, I won't get married. Besides, Steyn has something to say in the matter."
"I'm so fond of Nice," said Mrs. Steyn de Weert; and her child-voice sounded almost plaintive. "The winters there are so delightful.... But perhaps it would be difficult for me ... to go there ... because Ottilie behaves so funnily. If it could be managed, I would rather live with you, Lot. If Elly is willing. Perhaps we could have a little larger house than this. Do you think we could afford it? Stay alone with Steyn I will not. That's settled. That's quite settled."
"Mummy darling ..."
Lot's voice sounded full of pity. After her last determined words, Mamma had big tears in her blue child-eyes, tears which did not fall but which gave a sorrowful gleam to the naughty look in her face. Then, with a sudden short sigh, she took up her book and was silent and pretended to read. There was something resigned about her attitude and, at the same time, something obstinate, the constant attitude of a naughty child, a spoilt child that persisted in doing, quietly and silently, what it wanted to. Lot, with his coffee-cup in his hand, his laugh about his mouth, studied Mamma; after his compassion, he just sat and studied her. Yes, she must have been very pretty; the uncles always said, a little doll. She was sixty now and no longer made any pretence to beauty; but she was still charming in a child-like and doll-like fashion. She had the wrinkles and the deeper furrows of an elderly woman; but the skin of her forehead and cheeks was still white and soft, without a blemish, tenderly veined at the temples. She had become very grey; but, as she had been very fair and her hair was soft and curly, it sometimes looked as if she had remained fair; and, simply though that hair appeared to be done, fastened up with one quick movement and pinned, there were still some almost childish little locks curling at the temples and in the neck. Her short, slim figure was almost that of a young woman; her hands were small and pretty; in fact, there was a prettiness about her whole person; and pretty above all were the young, blue eyes. Lot, who smiled as he looked at his mother, saw in her a woman over whom an emotional life, a life of love and hate, had passed without telling very much upon her. And yet Mamma had been through a good deal, with her three husbands, all three of whom she had loved, all three of whom, without exception, she now hated. A butterfly she had certainly been, but just an unthinking butterfly, simply because her nature was a butterfly's. She had loved much, but even a deep passion would not have made her life or her different; naturally and unconsciously she was in headstrong opposition to everything. She had never been economical; and yet her house was never comfortable, nor had she ever spent much on dress, unconsciously despising elegance and comfort and feeling that she attracted through herself and not through any artistic surroundings. Mamma's get-up was like nothing on earth, Lot thought; the only cosy room in the house was his. Mamma, mad on reading, read very modern French novels, which she did not always understand, despite a life of love and hatred, having remained innocent in many things and totally ignorant of the darker phases of passion. Then Lot would see, while she was reading, that she was surprised and did not understand; a simple, childish wonder would come into her eyes; she never dared ask Lot for an explanation....
Lot got up; he was going to Elly that evening. He kissed his mother, with his constant little laugh of silent amusement, his little laugh at Mamma.
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