All the ladies looked at each other, and nodded sympathetically. The Freule’s news was quite in keeping with the ancient order of things. “Out yonder” was very far away, and people always died there. When they died you had a vague conception that you were getting your money’s worth. Juffrouw Pink, the very fat wife of a church-warden, and a recent member, sat helplessly entangling the fateful disease, in her woolly mind, with the crime of Non-conformity. Mevrouw Noks, the notary’s angular consort, laid down the little garment she had been engaged on.
“So that will no longer be necessary,” she said, deliberately. Josine, who liked to be noticeably sentimental, murmured, “Fie!”
Meanwhile, Hephzibah, in the kitchen, was overawing the little Parsonage maid. But the thing was easy, soon effected, oft repeated, and she yearned for bolder game. Presently the drawing-room bell rang, and Hephzibah rose, aware that her weekly deliverance was come.
Every Wednesday afternoon the Freule Louisa would check the Secretary’s report-droning to remark, “My dear secretary, I am sure you will excuse me, but might I ring just one moment for my maid?” Somebody would, of course, hasten to comply with the noble President’s request—the interruption was far from unwelcome to the gossip-loving community—and the Freule Louisa would compliment herself on again having invented a pretext to make sure of Hephzibah’s obedience to orders. Practically, the pretexts were but three: a handkerchief from the winter mantle, a forgotten letter for the post, and the drying of the Freule’s boots. And Hephzibah, having made her cross-grained appearance, immediately sallied out on errands of her own. For the Freule never rang twice—lest she should make the discovery she dreaded.
Hephzibah was not afraid of dirt or disease. Both she knew to be the outcome of human wickedness, and with human wickedness Hephzibah Botster had little to do. She feared only one thing in this world, or the other world, the Intangible—consolidated and incorporated for her in a great overshadowing conception—the Devil. Hephzibah believed overwhelmingly in the Devil. Her existence was full of him. And therefore, strong-minded saint though she was, she did not like to find herself alone in the dark.
As a rule, she spent her Wednesday afternoons with Klomp, the lazy proprietor of the tumble-down cottage in Horstwyk wood. Klomp was what she chose to call “a sort of a distant connection of hers,” he being disreputable, and a cousin-german. This disreputable man she had, however, made up her mind to marry, for her chances were infinitesimal, and she felt that the tidying him up would be a glory and a joy.
As she now went zigzagging along the road, crooked in feature and movement, through the sloppy haze of dull-brown bareness, she came across a shy urchin who was gathering forbidden firewood. Him she immediately accosted, like the Bumble she was.
“Do you know, you boy, who comes for children that steal?”
“Jesus,” stammered the frightened culprit, giving the invariable answer of all Dutch children to any question that savors of the Sunday-school.
“The Devil! The Devil! The Devil!” reiterated Hephzibah, with impressive vociferation. “Do you understand me? The Devil.” She attempted, ignoring physical impossibilities, to fix both her eyes in one soul-searching stare. But the little boy lifted his own pale-blue orbs in saucer-sized reproach.