“Make haste, Freddie; we dine rather earlier to-day,” said Madame van Erlevoort.
The street door was being opened; it was Otto and Etienne van Erlevoort who were coming home, and their cheerful voices mingled with the laughter and screams of the children, the chiding tones of Miss Frantzen, and the barking of Hector, Otto’s dog.
“Come, Mathilde, do just have a look at my dress,” Freddie pleaded, in coaxing tones.
Mathilde thought it best to give up all attempts at exerting her maternal influence in that Babel of confusion, and yielded to Frédérique’s coaxing.
“Really, I mean it, I have no more control over them——”
“Come, children, don’t fight any more now; be good!” said Madame van Erlevoort to Ernestine and Johan. “Come with us down-stairs, ’tis enough to freeze you here.”
Madame van Erlevoort had always been used to excitement and hubbub, and it never seemed to upset her. Herself mother of seven children, she had always been surrounded by noisy laughter, [[54]]turmoil and excitement, and she could not have understood how a large family could have existed in any atmosphere that was calmer than her own. From the first, her house had been filled with the shrill voices, the boisterous laughter, and the continual running to and fro of her children, until they grew up, in all the joyful freshness of their youthful spirits. Then with the death of her husband, Théodore Otto, Baron van Erlevoort ter Horze, member of the Second Chamber of the States General, commenced a period of unwonted calm and peacefulness, which grew even more so when her four children, one after another, left her house and got married. The first to go was Théodore, the eldest, who now managed their estates in Gelderland, and who, in the midst of his numerous family, lived at the Huis ter Horze the life of a gentleman-farmer and of a youthful patriarch combined. He was followed by her third daughter, Mathilde, whose brief married life had been very unhappy; after her, the two eldest girls, Cathérine and Suzanne, left their mother’s home, the former married to an English banker, Mr. Percy Howard, living in London, the other to Jonkheer Arnold van Stralenburg, Recorder at the Court of Justice at Zwolle.
Thus Madame van Erlevoort was left with her two sons, Otto, assistant clerk at the Ministry of the Interior, Etienne, studying for the bar at Leiden, and her youngest child, Frédérique; and without the novel charm and refreshing emotions of her grandmothership, the comparative calm by which she was surrounded would certainly have made her ill with ennui, used as she was to the tripping of light feet and the song and laughter of clear young voices.
A few years after her marriage, Mathilde with four children returned to Madame van Erlevoort, the children being assigned to her on her divorce from her husband. Since then, van Ryssel had been living abroad, and little more was heard of him.
Madame van Erlevoort sympathized deeply with her daughter, who had so long and with such dignity sustained her part of neglected and misjudged wife, and she received her with the greatest love, inwardly happy in the new, fresh-budding life which the four grandchildren had brought into her house. She spoilt them all, as she had never spoilt her own children. Try what she would to be cross with them, their wildest pranks failed to provoke her anger, whilst Mathilde they often drove to desperation, for [[55]]she feared what would become of them with so much indulgence. She begged Madame van Erlevoort not to oppose her when she meted out some well-deserved punishment; Madame van Erlevoort promised readily enough, but as quickly forgot her promise on the first opportunity; whilst Frédérique, herself a spoilt child, always thought Mathilde right in her complaints, but for the rest did little to encourage a firm discipline. It was only from Otto that Mathilde could now and then expect a little support, and accordingly it was for Uncle Ot alone that the four young rascals had any respect. With his mother’s kindliness of disposition he combined his father’s common sense and practical nature, and in the unruffled calm of his demeanour he appeared older than he really was; but over his manly features there lay such a charming geniality, there was so much that was sympathetic and trustful in his bright dark eyes, that his earnestness and his sound sense attracted rather than appeared too severe in a young man of eight-and-twenty. Etienne, on the other hand, was all gaiety and thoughtlessness, and his mother’s idol, in fact her nature seemed to bask in the glow and sunshine of his character. Frédérique loved both her brothers passionately, but Otto she was fond of nicknaming papa, whilst with Etienne she would romp about much as Lientje did with Nico, and Tina with Johan.