In Great Waters: Four Stories

by Thomas A. Janvier

But old Jaap had his work to do at sea, and Marretje had to make the best of many and many a weary and lonely day. Being in so poor a way she could busy herself but little with her house-work—nor was there much incentive to scour and polish since Krelis had ceased to commend her housekeeping; and, indeed, was at home so little that he was indifferent as to whether she kept her house well or ill.

And so she spent much of her time as she had spent that first lonely Sunday afternoon—sitting on the steps above her scouring-shelf, looking out sadly and dreamily across the marsh-land and the sea. Or she would walk slowly to the end of the village, where rough steps went down to a little-used canal, and there would lean against the rail while she gazed steadfastly across the marshes seaward—trying to fancy that she could see the fishing fleet, and trying to build in her breast little hope-castles in which Krelis again was all her own. They comforted her, these hope-castles: even though always, when the week ended and the fleet was back again, they came crashing down. Sometimes Krelis's boat did not return at all. Sometimes it returned without him. When he did come back in it very little of his idle Sunday was passed at home. The dark months of winter dragged on wearily. Grey chill clouds hung over Marken, and grey chill clouds rested on this poor Marretje's heart.

VIII

But one glad day in the early spring-time the sun shone again—when Krelis bent down over her bed with a look of real love in his bright eyes and kissed her; and then—in a half-fearful way that made her laugh at him with a weak little laugh in which there was great happiness—kissed also his little son. "As if his father's kiss could hurt this great strong boy!" she said in a tone of vast superiority: and held the little atom close to her breast with all the strength of her feeble arms. She loved with a double love this little Krelis: greatly for himself and for the strong thrilling joy of motherhood, but perhaps even more because his coming had brought the other Krelis back again into the deep chambers of her heart.

It was the prettiest of sights, presently, when she was up and about again, to see Marretje standing in front of her own door in the spring sunshine holding this famous little Krelis in her arms. Then, as now, young mothers were common enough in Marken; but there was a look of radiant happiness about Marretje—so the old people will tell you—that made her different from any young mother whom ever they saw. "Her face was as shining as the face of an angel!" one of the old women said to me—when I heard this story told in Marken on a summer day. And this same old woman told me that through that time of Marretje's great happiness Geert Thysen walked sullen: ready at any moment, without cause or reason, to fly out into what the old woman called a yellow rage.

But even from the first the matrons of the island, knowing in such matters, pulled long faces when they talked about the little Krelis among themselves. Krelis Kess's son, they said, should not have been so frail a child; and then they would account for this puny baby by casting back to the time when Marretje was orphaned before she was weaned, and so was started in life without the toughness and sturdiness with which the Marken folk as a rule are dowered. These worthy women had much good advice to give, and gave it freely, as to how the little Krelis should be dealt with to strengthen him; but Marretje paid scant attention to their suggestions, being satisfied in her own mind that this wonderful baby of hers really was—as she had said he was on the day when his father first kissed him—a great strong boy.

Krelis, seeing his little son only once a week, was the first to notice that he was not so strong as a healthy child should be; but when he said so to Marretje she gave him such a rating that he decided he must be all wrong. And then, one day, Geert Thysen opened both his and Marretje's eyes.

It was a bright Sunday afternoon, when the little Krelis was between two and three months old, that Marretje was sitting with him on her lap, suckling him, on the steps above her scouring-shelf; and Krelis was seated on the step above her, and she really was making a back of his big knees. What with the joy of her motherhood, and her joy because her Krelis was her own again, it seemed to Marretje as though in all the world there was only happiness. She held the little Krelis close to her, crooning a soft song sweetly over the tiny creature nestled to her heart; and as she suckled him there tingled through her breast, and thence through all her being, thrills of that strange subtle ecstasy which only mothers know. And Krelis, in his own way, shared Marretje's great happiness: as they sat there lonely, looking out over the marsh-land seaward, their hearts very near together because of the deep love that was in both of them for their child. Presently Krelis leaned a little forward, and with a touch rarely loving and tender encircled the two in his big arms and drew Marretje still closer against his knees. And they sat there for a while so—in the bright silence of that sunny afternoon, fronting that still outlook over level spaces cut only by the level sky-line far away—their two hearts throbbing gently and very full.

A little noise broke the deep silence suddenly, and an instant later Geert Thysen was almost within arm's-length of them—standing in a boat which she had poled very quietly along the canal. Krelis unclasped his arms and drew back quickly; but Marretje bent forward and grasped the little Krelis still more closely, as though to shield him from harm. For a moment there was silence. Krelis flushed and looked uneasy, almost ashamed. There was a dull burning light in Geert's black eyes and her face was pale and drawn. She was the first to speak.

"You're quite right to make the most of your sick baby," she said. "You won't have him long."