Henri van der Welcke had been brought up, from childhood, to yield unquestioning obedience to his parents. His father and mother were both descended from those strict, religious, doughty, aristocratic Dutch families to which the Hague "set" is a thorn in the flesh; and they had judged the matter thus, with rigid and scrupulous justice, as a duty before God and man. And their heir, at this, the supreme moment of his life, once more showed himself a dutiful son. He obeyed his parents' command. He resigned his post, broke off his young career. He went to Constance, telling her that his parents had sent him; but, in their mutual misery, they still seemed to find some love for each other in what remained of their first passion. She was too desperate to indulge in long reflection or to decline the way of escape which he offered her. As they could not be married at once by Dutch law, they were married in London as soon as it was possible. Constance wrote to Henri's parents to express her gratitude; but they did not answer her letter. They refused to know her, refused to see her. They had sacrificed their son to her, because they thought it their duty before God; and they had made this heavy sacrifice, because they were religious people, honest, righteous people; but their hearts were bitter against Constance: they would never forgive her the sacrifice which their honesty, their righteousness had required of them, the parents....
Henri and Constance had lived in England, travelled in Italy and ended by settling down in Brussels. Their son was born; the years passed. Slowly, in Brussels, they made acquaintances, made friends; and, in the course of years, those acquaintances and friends dispersed. Twice, amid heavy emotion, they had seen Mamma van Lowe in Brussels for a couple of days at a time: the other members of the family never. The lonely years dragged on. They both came to look upon their lives as one great mistake. Constance' vanity, moreover, resented the dull existence which they led; Henri, who was four years younger than his wife, was for ever regretting that he had sacrificed his future to this woman at his parents' behest. They were fettered to each other in the narrow prison of marriage. Passion dead, the despairing illusion of love killed, they had never been able to accommodate themselves to each other; and without mutual accommodation there is no happiness in marriage. Whatever they said or thought or did led to discord. Their lives were never in step, but stumbled and shambled and shuffled along. Every word spoken by the one was an offence to the other: they could not endure each other's going and coming. Latterly, they could not speak but their speech caused a quarrel. Between them stood the child, still the child of their love. But the Child did not unite them, was a cause of jealousy to both. They grudged each other their offspring. He could not bear to see his son in her arms; she could not bear to see her boy on his knee. He turned pale when she kissed the boy; she cried with envy when he took him for a walk. Yet they did not think of a separation, deeming the thought ridiculous, not so much for the world as, above all, for themselves. They would continue to bear their fetters together, until their death, in hatred.
The intolerable nature of their existence was enough to give Constance a feeling of home-sickness for Holland. The last few years in Brussels, now that their acquaintances were scattered, had been so lonely, so melancholy, so forlorn, so bitter, so full of dislike, hatred, envy of Henri, that she yearned for consolation, for some sort of love that would come to her with open arms and understand and pity her. There were days when she did not utter a word, after a scene with Henri, until Adriaan threw his arms about her, while she burst out sobbing on his childish breast. The boy, in other respects a sturdy lad, had his nerves so much shaken by this open conflict between his parents that he often fell ill.
Then both Henri and Constance, greatly alarmed, would suggest parting from Adriaan, for the boy's own good, so that he might not be a witness to their inevitable disputes. But they were both too weak. In their intolerable life Adriaan was the only alleviation. And neither of them had ever been able to resolve upon this parting; both merely promised themselves to exercise restraint in future, so that the boy might not suffer....
Gradually, Constance had talked more and more about Holland, confessed that she was yearning for all those whom she had left behind. She longed for them all: her mother, her brothers, her sisters. She yearned for affection, for family-affection, for the fostering warmth and love and sympathy of a large circle of relations, who would show her the kindness which she had known of old, at Buitenzorg, at the Hague. And Van der Welcke also began to feel that strange nostalgia which urges a man towards the land of his birth, of his own tongue, of his kindred. Weary of living abroad, he fell in with Constance' view, really because of a chance word from Addie, who also often had the word Holland on his lips; the father was now thinking of his child's future.... But they must first learn how the family would receive them. Van der Welcke wrote to his parents, Constance to Mamma van Lowe. They wrote with all the humility of exiles; once more asked for forgiveness, after those fourteen years; said that they were longing to see their country again, their parents, brothers, sisters, to enjoy the sweet happiness of living where they would be at home. Both had felt the old inviolable bonds drawing them towards Holland, as though there were something which they needed before they could grow old and be a father and mother to their son.... Henri's parents had not yet written, did not at once reply to his question whether they could not forgive him now that those long, long years were past, whether they would not receive his wife, who, after all, was their daughter-in-law, who, after all, was the mother of his son, their grandchild. But Mamma van Lowe had sent Constance a sweet and loving letter, a letter which Constance had kissed, which had made her sob with happiness. Mamma had written that her child was to come to her, that all was forgiven, all forgotten, that the brothers and sisters would receive her with open arms. And she had expressed her own delight, as the old mother, who found it so difficult to get about, who disliked travelling, though it was but a two or three hours' journey to Brussels, and hated being so far from her child, for Constance was her child, in spite of all. Then Constance could restrain herself no longer and, without waiting for the letter from Henri's father and mother, had gone on ahead with Adriaan. Henri remained behind to settle a few matters of business: he was to follow in a week.
And Holland, yonder, so near and yet so long unattainable, was to them as a land of promise, a land of peace, of happiness long-deferred, where they would find, for themselves and for their son, all that of which they had been starved for years and years: parents and relations, old friends and acquaintances and, as the very essence of it all, that fragrant Dutch atmosphere, so indescribable and yet, as they now realized, craved for by their parched and famished souls. Both, as with one thought, had suddenly, for all the discord of their lives, known as a certainty, both for themselves and their son, that, to grow old and be a father and mother to their boy, they must return to their country, to which they were attached by those strange, mysterious and long-unsuspected bonds which may be denied for years, but which end by reasserting themselves, irrefragably, for ever and all time....
[7] Umbrella or parasol.
[8] The title borne by noblemen's unmarried daughters.