Eline Vere

They were close to each other in the dining-room, which had been turned into a dressing-room. In front of a mirror stood Frédérique van Erlevoort, with her hair hanging loose, looking very pale under a thin layer of powder, her eyebrows blackened with a single stroke of the pencil.

“Do hurry up, Paul! We shall never get ready,” she said, a little impatiently, glancing at the clock.

Paul van Raat was kneeling at her feet, and his fingers draped a long thin veil of crimson and gold in folds from her waist. The gauze hung like a cloud over the pinkness of her skirt; her neck and arms, white as snow with the powder, were left free, and sparkled with the glitter of the chains and necklaces strung across one another.

“Whew, what a draught! Do keep the door shut, Dien!” Paul shouted to an old servant who was leaving the room with her arms full of dresses. Through the open door one could see the guests—men in evening dress, ladies in light costumes: they passed along the azaleas and palms in the corridor into the large drawing-room; they smiled at the sight of the old servant, and threw surreptitious glances into the dining-room.

They all laughed at this look behind the scenes. Frédérique alone remained serious, realizing that she had the dignity of a princess of antiquity to keep up.

“Do make haste, Paul!” she pleaded. “It’s past half-past eight already!”

“Yes, yes, Freddie, don’t get nervous; you’re finished,” he answered, and adroitly pinned a few jewels among the gauze folds of her draperies.

“Ready?” asked Marie and Lili Verstraeten, coming out of the room where the stage had been fixed up, a mysterious elevation almost effaced in semi-darkness.

“Ready,” answered Paul. “And now calmly, please,” he continued, raising his voice and looking round with an air of command.

The warning was well needed. The three boys and the five girls who did duty as ladies’-maids, were rushing about the room laughing, shouting, creating the greatest disorder. In vain Lili tried to save a gilt cardboard lyre from the hands of the son of the house, a boy twelve years old, while their two rascally cousins were just on the point of climbing up a great white cross, which stood in a corner, and was already yielding under their onslaughts.

“Get away from that cross, Jan and Karel! Give up that lyre, you other!” roared Paul. “Do look after them, Marie. And now, Bet and Dien, come here; Bet with the lamp, Dien at the door; all the rest out of the road! There’s no more room; look on from the garden through the window of the big drawing-room; you’ll see everything beautifully, at a distance. Come along, Freddie, carefully, here’s your train.”

“You’ve forgotten my crown.”

“I’ll put it on when you’re posed. Come on.”

The three girls hurried to get away, the boys squatted in a corner of the room, where they could not be seen, and Paul helped Freddie to climb on to the stage.

Marie, who, like Lili, was not yet draped, talked through the closed window with the fireman, who was waiting, muffled up, in the snowy garden, to let off the Bengal light. A great reflector stared through the window like a pale, lustreless sun.

“First white, then green, then red,” Marie called out, and the fireman nodded.

The now deserted dressing-room was dark, barely lit by the lamp which Bet held in her hand, while Dien stood at the door.

“Carefully, Freddie, carefully,” said Paul.

Frédérique sank down gently into the cushions of the couch; Paul arranged her draperies, her chains, her hair, her diadem, and placed a flower here and there.

“Will that do?” she asked with tremulous voice, taking up the pose she had studied beforehand.

“You’re delicious; beautiful! Now then, Marie, Lili, come here.”

Lili threw herself on the floor, Marie leaned against the couch with her head at Frédérique’s feet. Paul draped both girls quickly in coloured shawls and veils, and twisted strings of gems round their arms and in their hair.

“Marie and Lili, look as if you were in despair. Wring your hands more than that, Lili! More despair, much more despair! Freddie, more languishing, turn your eyes up, set your mouth in a sadder expression.”

“Like that?”

Marie screamed.

“Yes, that will do! That’s better; now be quiet, Marie. Is everything ready?”

“Ready!” said Marie.

Paul arranged one or two more things, a crease, a flower, doubtful whether everything was right.

“Come, let’s start,” said Lili, who was in a very uncomfortable position.

“Bet, take away the lamps; Dien, shut that door, and then come here, both of you, one on each side of the folding doors of the big room.”

They were all in the dark, with beating hearts, while Paul tapped at the window, and joined the boys in the corner.

Slowly and doubtfully the Bengal light flamed up against the reflector, the folding doors opened solemnly, a clear white glow lit up the tableau.

Smiling and bowing, while the conversation suddenly changed into a muffled murmur, the guests pressed forward into the large drawing-room and the conservatory, blinded by a burst of light and colour. Men got out of the way of a couple of laughing girls. In the background boys climbed on the chairs.

“The death of Cleopatra!” Betsy van Raat read out to Mrs. Van Erlevoort, who had handed her the programme.

“Splendid! magnificent!” one heard on every side.

Ancient Egypt seemed to have come alive again in the white glow of the light. Between luxurious draperies something like an oasis could be perceived, a blue sky, two pyramids, some palms. On her couch, supported by sphinxes, lay Cleopatra, at the point of death, an adder curling round her arm. Two slaves were prostrate in despair at her feet. The parti-coloured vision of oriental magnificence lasted a few seconds; the poetry of antiquity revived under the eyes of a modern audience.

“That’s Freddie,” said Betsy. “How lovely!” and she pointed out the dying queen to Mrs. Van Erlevoort, who was dazzled by all this luxury. Now, however, the mother recognized her daughter in the beautiful motionless statue lying before her.

“And that’s Marie, and the other—oh, that’s Lili—irrecognizable! What beautiful costumes! how elaborate! You see that dress of Lili’s, violet and silver? I lent her that.”

“How well they do it,” murmured the old lady.

The white glow of the light began to flicker, the doors were closed.