Betsy and Henk had been married a twelvemonth when aunt died. It was then that, urged by her, he had looked out for some occupation, for with his eternally calm good-natured indolence he often bored her much in the same way as a faithful dog, which, ever to be found at his master’s feet, receives many a kick which a less devoted creature would have escaped. He too felt in a vague way that a young fellow, be his income ever so comfortable, ought to do something. However, although he sought, he found nothing, and in the meantime his ardour had considerably cooled down, now that Betsy herself did not longer worry him about it.
And certainly he did not trouble her very much. In the morning he was generally away, taking what exercise he could on horseback, followed by his two gray boarhounds; in the afternoon, yielding to his wife’s requests, he accompanied her on sundry calls, or when relieved of that duty, he visited his club; the evenings being generally spent by him in accompanying his butterfly wife to concerts and theatres, where he did duty much after the fashion of Becky Sharp’s faithful sheep-dog, a burdensome but indispensable adjunct. He adapted himself as well as he could to this much too excited a life; he knew his will was not strong enough to resist that of Betsy, and he found it suited his temperament much better quietly to dress and accompany his wife, than to disturb the domestic [[18]]peace by an intrusion of his own ideas. Then again the few evenings she spent at home afforded him, with his instinctive love of sociability, a certain sensuous dreamy happiness, which in the end did more to win his love than when he beheld his wife beyond his own reach, the most brilliant figure in the grandest ballroom. That only made him peevish and morose. To her, however, the few evenings she spent at home were a terrible bore. The singing of the gas-flame made her drowsy, and from her corner on the sofa she would cast many an angry glance at her husband, as he sat turning the pages of the illustrated paper or lazily sipping his tea. At such a moment she would feel an irresistible impulse to urge him on in heaven’s name to look for some occupation, to which he, astonished at being aroused in such a way from his dolce far niente, would reply in incoherent heavy sentences.
She, however, was at heart very happy. For was it not glorious to be able to spend as much as she chose on her dress? And at the end of the week she would ofttimes remember, with a smile of happiness, that she had not spent a single evening at home.
Eline meanwhile had passed the year in melancholy solitude at Aunt Vere’s. She read much, feeling especially charmed with Ouida’s luxuriant phantasmagory of an idealized life, sparkling with a wealth of colour, and bathed in the golden sunshine of Italian skies, vivid and glowing as a glittering kaleidoscope. She would read and literally devour those pages until, dog-eared and crumpled, they would flutter out of her grasp. Even at her aunt’s sick-bed, where with a certain feeling of romantic satisfaction she sat watching night after night, she would read them, again and again.
In the atmosphere of that sick room, permeated as it was with an ætherealized odour of drugs, the virtues and prowess of the noble heroes, the spotless beauties of the arch-wicked or divinely righteous heroines, became endowed with an irresistible charm of tempting unreality; and Eline often felt a passionate longing to be in one of those old English mansions, where earls and duchesses were engaged in such exquisite love-making, and had such romantic meetings under the moon-lit trees of a grand old park. Aunt died, and Henk and Betsy invited Eline to make their house her home.
At first she refused, overcome by a strange sadness at the thought of the relationship of her brother-in-law to her sister. But with an immense exercise of will power she at length conquered [[19]]those feelings. Had she not always wondered at the mysterious attraction she felt for Henk? And now that he was her sister’s husband, there suddenly arose to her mind such an insurmountable obstacle between them, an obstacle raised by the laws of decency and custom, that she could, without any risk, give herself over to sisterly sympathy, and therefore she thought it very childish to allow the memory of the past, and feelings that she never really had understood, to stand between her and the prospects of a comfortable home.
In addition to this, there was the fact that her guardian uncle, Daniel Vere, who lived in Brussels, and was a bachelor, was too young a man to offer a girl in her teens a home with him.
In the end, Eline waived her objections, and with the stipulation that she should be allowed to contribute a trifle towards her board, took up her abode at her brother-in-law’s. Henk had at first refused to agree to such a condition, but Betsy remarked that she could quite understand it; had she been in Eline’s place she too would have done the same for her own independence’ sake. From the sum settled on her by her parents Eline derived a yearly income of about £160, and by putting into practice the lessons of economy she had been taught by her aunt, she managed to dress as elegantly on that, as did Betsy who always had a well-filled purse at her disposal.
And thus three years of monotonous existence passed by.