“No; but when the children come home, and find me out——”
“Really, Jeanne, that is spoiling them; surely they can manage to do without you for a moment. I should get my hat and jacket, if I were you, and come out with me like a sensible girl. What! sewing, are you? That’s work for a rainy day.”
Jeanne felt a gentle delight at having the law laid her by that soft voice, which even in its banter was pervaded with a tone of sadness. And she yielded, feeling so happy, and ascended the stairs to dress, almost humming the while.
She was soon ready, and after numberless admonitions to Mietje, left the house with Mathilde. The cool wind seemed to lift a mist from her mind, while her pale checks became cold and almost got a colour. She listened to her friend, who told her that she had just taken Tina and Jo to the van Raats’; Betsy and Eline had asked them to go for a walk with them and Ben.
“And the others?”
“Oh! Lientje and Nico had absolutely to go out with mamma; [[153]]mamma was already in despair that she could not have the other two. I should not have dared to take them with me,” she said laughing. “Dear, kind mamma!”
They had passed through the Laan van Meerdervoort and reached the Schevening road, which they followed. There were but few people about. Mathilde let herself be carried away by her feelings, and revived by the clear, fresh air, little talkative though she might be generally in her reserve, and her silent grief.
“You don’t know how—how good mamma is,” she said. “She lives only for her dear ones—for her children and her grandchildren. She never has the slightest want of her own; whatever she thinks or does, ’tis all for us. And I believe if you asked her which of us she liked best, she could not tell you. Yes; she is mad with Etienne; Etienne is always jolly, like a child, and because she too is cheerful and likes a good laugh, his jokes do her good; but that she cares equally for Frédérique or Otto, or for my children, I have no doubt. When mamma writes to London, or Zwolle, or to the Horze, it is one long complaint that she never sees those stray sheep. You can understand how unhappy she was when Cathérine and Suzanne married and left her. I believe she would like to build a sort of hotel, where she could stow the lot of us—Théodore and Howard and Stralenburg, and all the rest. Dear, dear mamma!”
They both were silent for a time. The Schevening road twisted itself like a long gray ribbon before them, with a distant perspective of tree stems under a network of budding twigs. The sunshine glistened on the fresh young foliage waving bright under the clear blue sky, and on the old stems there appeared a new layer of fresh green moss, soft as velvet. The chirping of birds vibrated through the clear atmosphere in tones of crystal.
“How glorious it is here!” said Mathilde; “one lives anew. But let us get into this little lane. The people tire me; I dare say we tire them too; we are out of harmony with nature’s surroundings. I always think people so ugly amid green foliage, especially in the early spring. You see, I am beginning to philosophize.”