She now deliberately rustled the silk of her skirt, pretended to have just come through the conservatory, threw open the doors, stood on the threshold:
"Uncle Daan! Uncle Daan!"
She saw the two old men sitting, her father and his brother. They were seventy-three and seventy. They had not yet been able to recover their ordinary expression and relax the tense dismay of their old faces, which had gazed with blinded eyes into the distant past. Ina thought them both looking ghastly. What had they been talking about? What was it that they were hiding? What had Papa known for sixty years? What had Uncle Daan only known for such a short time?... And she felt a shiver going along her, as of something clammy that went trailing by.
"I've come to look for you, Uncle Daan!" she exclaimed, with an affectation of cordiality. "Welcome to Holland, Uncle, welcome! You're not lucky with the weather: it's bleak and cold. You must have been very cold in the train. Poor Aunt Floor is as stiff as a board.... Uncle Anton is there too and Aunt Stefanie; and my Lily came along with us. I'm not interrupting you ... in your business?"
Uncle Daan kissed her, answered her in bluff, genial words. He was short, lean, bent, tanned, Indian in his clothes; a thin grey tuft of hair and the cut of his profile gave him a look of a parrot; and, thanks to this bird-like aspect, he resembled his sister Stefanie. Like her, he had quick, beady eyes, which still trembled with consternation, because of what he had been discussing with his brother Harold. He clawed a few papers together, crammed them into a portfolio, to give the impression that he and Harold had been talking business, and said that they were coming. They went back with Ina to the sitting-room and greetings were exchanged between Uncle Daan and those who had come to welcome him.
"Aunt Floor knows nothing," thought Ina, remembering how Aunt had just spoken about her coming to Holland.
Why had they come? What was the matter? What was it that Papa had known for sixty years and Uncle Daan for only such a short time? Was that why he had come to Holland? Had it anything to do with money: a legacy to which they were entitled?... Yes, that was it, a legacy: perhaps they would still become very rich. Did Aunt Stefanie know about it? Uncle Anton? Aunt Ottilie? Grandmamma? Mr. Takma?... What was it? And, if it was a legacy, how much?... She was burning with curiosity, while she remained correct, even more correct than she was by nature, in contrast with the Indian unconstraint of Uncle Daan—in his slippers—and the Chinese tepèkong that was Aunt Floor, with her bosom billowing down upon her round stomach. She was burning with curiosity, while her eyes glanced wearily, while she made well-bred efforts to conceal her eager longing to find out. And stories were told that did not interest her. Uncle Daan and Aunt Floor talked about their children: Marinus, who was manager of a big sugar-factory and lived near Tegal, with a large family of his own; Jeanne—"Shaan," as Aunt called her—the wife of the resident of Cheribon; Dolf unmarried, a magistrate. She, Ina d'Herbourg, did not care a jot about the cousins, male or female, would rather never see them: they were such an Indian crew; and she just made herself pleasant, condescendingly, but not too much so, pretending to be interested in the stories of Clara, Marinus' daughter, who was lately married, and Emile, "Shaan's" son, who was so troublesome.
"Yes," said Aunt Floor, "and here we are, in Gholland, in this r-r-rotten pension ... for bissiness, nothing but bissiness ... and yes, kassian,[7] we're still as poor as r-r-rats! What am I to do here for five months? I shall never stand it, if this weather keeps on. Luckily, I've got Tien Deysselman and Door Perelkamp"—these were two old Indian ladies—"and they'll soon look me up. They wr-r-rote to me to bring them some Chinese cards and I've brought twenty packs with me: that'll help me get through the five months...."
And Aunt Floor glared out of her angry old mandarin-face at her husband, "Dhaan."
No, thought Ina, Aunt Floor did not know about the legacy. Perhaps it wasn't a legacy. But then what was it?...