[CHAPTER XVIII]
Ina d'Herbourg was waiting for them in the little house of her son-in-law and daughter, Frits and Lily van Wely: Frits, a callow little officer; Lily, a laughing, fair-haired little mother, up again pluckily after her confinement. There were the two children, Stefanus a year and Antoinetje a fortnight old; the monthly nurse, fat and pompous; the maid-of-all-work busy with the little boy; the twelve-o'clock lunch not cleaned away yet; a bustle of youth and young life: one child crowing, the other screaming, the nurse hushing it and filling the whole house with her swelling figure. The maid let the milk catch, opened a window; there was a draught; and Ina cried:
"Jansje, what a draught you're making! Shut the window, shut the window, here are Uncle and Aunt!..."
And Jansje, who knew that Uncle Anton and Aunt Stefanie were godfather and godmother, flew to the door, leaving the milk to boil over, forgetting to close the window, with the result that the old people were received amidst a cold hurricane which made Aunt Stefanie, whose throat was already irritated by Anton's smoke, cough still more and mumble:
"It's not the thing, a draught like this; such a draught!"
The fire which Jansje had lighted in the little drawing-room had gone out again; and Lily and Frits, wishing above all to make things pleasant for the old people, now brought them back again to the dining-room, where Jansje, in her eagerness to clear the table, dropped and broke a plate, whereupon exclamations from Jansje and reproaches from Lily and despairing glances of Ina at her son-in-law Frits. No, Lily did not get that slovenliness from her, for she took after the IJsselmondes and they were correct; Lily got it from the Derckszes. But Frits now understood that he must be very civil to Uncle Anton, whom he detested, while Lily, whom Uncle Anton always kissed at very great length, loathed him, felt sick at the sight of him, for Lily also had to make up to Uncle Anton, that being Mamma's orders. She had married Frits without any money; but the young couple had very soon perceived that money was not to be despised; and the only two from whom there was a trifle to be expected were Aunt Stefanie and Uncle Anton.
The old man, after being dragged there by his sister against his will, had recovered his good temper thanks to the lingering kiss which he had given Lily and, with his fists like clods upon his knees, sat chuckling and nodding in admiration when Nurse held up the yelling brat to him. And, though he was jealous of young, vigorous people, he found an emotion in his jealousy, found young, vigorous people pleasant to look at and considered that that virile little Frits, that callow, stiff little officer, might well make a good husband to his wife. He nodded at Lily and then at Frits, to convey that he understood them, and Lily and Frits smiled back vacuously. They did not understand him, but that didn't matter: he guessed that they were still very much in love, even though they had two brats; and he also guessed that they were keen on his bit of money. Well, they were quite right from their point of view; only he couldn't stand Ina, because, ever since D'Herbourg had helped him in his trouble with the little laundry-girl, she treated him with a kindly condescension, as the influential niece who had saved her imprudent uncle from that soesah.[1] He grinned, seeing through all that coaxing pretence and chuckling to himself that it was all wasted, because he had no intention of leaving them his bit of money. But he knew better than to let this out to Stefanie or any of them; on the contrary, amid all the pretty things that were said to him, he gloated over the gin-and-bitters which Frits so attentively set before him, after helping him off—he wasn't feeling cold now, was he?—with his great-coat. He thought the whole farce most diverting and laughed pleasantly and benevolently, with the air of a good, kind uncle who was so fond of the children, while he thought to himself:
"They sha'n't get one cent!"
And he chuckled so deliciously at the thought that he was quite pleased to give the fat monthly nurse a couple of guilders. They were all taken in—Aunt Stefanie, Ina and the young couple—when they saw Uncle behaving so good-naturedly and so generously; they looked upon him as hooked; and he left them in the illusion, which he so cleverly saw through. What the devil, he thought, in a dull, gathering rage, did he care about those young people? Hadn't they enough with their youth and their two vigorous bodies, that they must go coveting his few thousand guilders? And what did he care about that brat which they had christened Antoinette after him? He had a horror of new-born children, though he had sometimes thought children very nice when they were just a few years older. Things misted before his eyes, but he mastered himself in his dull rage and in his slimy thoughts and behaved benevolently and genially as the well-off uncle and godfather who was going to leave all his money to the brat.
"And Uncle Daan and Aunt Floor arrived yesterday," said Ina d'Herbourg, with a suppressed sigh, for she looked upon the Indian relations as unpresentable. "We said we'd call on them together to-day, didn't we, Aunt Stefanie?"