‘It’s full tonight, we’re in luck,’ whispered Emilie. ‘I think it’s so dismal when the house is half empty.’
‘Oh, I quite agree!’ said Betsy. ‘Look, there are the Eekhofs: Ange, Léonie and their mama. They were at the Verstraetens’ yesterday, too, and they’re giving a soirée dansante next week,’ she concluded, returning the girls’ greeting.
‘Tonight we’re hearing Theo Fabrice, the new baritone from Brussels,’ De Woude said to Eline. ‘Did you know two baritones have already been dismissed? This is the third one since the debuts started.’
‘There doesn’t seem to be an end to the debuts this winter,’ breathed Eline, taking up her fan.
‘The tenor was excellent from the start, but this Fabrice is very good too, so I have heard. Look, there he is.’
The chorus of Ben-Saïd’s odalisques had come to an end, and the Moorish king himself swept into his palace, leading Xaïma by the hand. Eline was not paying attention, however. She was still scanning the audience, nodding and smiling at acquaintances, and did not direct her gaze to the stage until Ben-Saïd and his slave girl were well and duly enthroned under the canopy, signalling the start of the ballet. She always enjoyed the dancing scenes, and minutely followed the ballerinas in their shiny satin bodices and full skirts of spangled tulle as they glided on tiptoe towards the Moorish arcades, beneath which they hovered in clusters, holding aloft their veils and silver-tasselled fans.
‘A pretty ballet,’ said Emilie, yawning behind her fan as she settled back in her seat. She was feeling the effects of her lavish dinner.
Eline nodded, and while she could hear Betsy and Georges whispering behind her, she kept her eyes fixed on the prima ballerina with the glittering aigrette of diamonds in her hair, who was floating on the curved tips of her satin ballet shoes as she twirled among the other dancers and the flutter of veils and fans.
True to her dreamy and idealistic nature, Eline had a passion for the opera, not only because it gave her the opportunity to display her languorous elegance, not only because of the music and the chance to hear some celebrated chanteuse sing a particular aria, but also because of the exciting, highly romantic intrigues and melodramatic scenes of hatred and love and revenge. She did not mind the plots being predictable, nor did she aspire to find any truth in them. She had no need to forget for one moment that she was observing actors and actresses, not knights and noble ladies, or that she was in a crowded theatre gazing at a brightly lit stage with painted scenery and music from a visible orchestra, not sharing the life of the hero and heroine in some poetic medieval fantasy – she enjoyed herself anyway, as long as the singing was tolerable, the acting not too coarse and the costumes becoming.
Betsy, by contrast, went to the opera only to see and be seen, and had she known what Eline found so enjoyable, would have shrugged dismissively, saying that was childish of her. But Eline kept her enjoyment to herself, for she knew what Betsy was like and preferred to leave her sister in the belief that for her, too, the main purpose of an evening at the theatre was to see and be seen.
She now regretted having arrived so late, for she had never seen Le Tribut de Zamora and consequently did not know what had gone before. Emilie had fallen silent under the influence of her fish pastry and her truffled fowl, and like Eline kept her eyes fixed on the stage.
The ballet came to an end. Ben-Saïd and Xaïma descended from their thrones, and the king, having uttered the phrase ‘Je m’efforce en vain de te plaire!’ in recitative, launched into the romantic air:
O Xaïma, daigne m’entendre!
Mon âme est à toi sans retour!
The new baritone’s voice was deep and resonant, more like that of a basso cantante, and in his delivery he cast a pall of melancholy over the song.
However, his extravagant Moorish costume made him appear rather large and burly. Neither in his pose nor in his facial expression did he convey anything resembling the passionate devotion of a lover, and in the looks he directed at the chanteuse-légère, silver-robed and with pearl-studded blonde locks, there was more fierceness than tender devotion.
Eline was not insensitive to this shortcoming of his acting, but was nonetheless charmed by the contrast between his overbearing demeanour and the humble, beseeching tone of his voice. She followed his song note by note, and when, at an abrupt, plangent fortissimo, the actress assumed an expression of great terror, she was astonished, thinking: Why is she so frightened? What could have happened? He doesn’t look all that wicked to me.
During the applause she cast around the audience again, and lit on a party of gentlemen who had posted themselves on the steps leading to the stalls. She saw them peering up at her box, presumably discussing its occupants, and was about to look away in a show of gracious disinterest when she noticed that one of the men, hat and cane in hand, was smiling at her in a courteous yet familiar way. She stared at him a moment, wide-eyed, too startled to answer the greeting, and then abruptly turned away, put her hand on Betsy’s knee and whispered in her ear:
‘Look, Betsy, look who’s over there!’
‘Where, who do you mean?’
‘There in the stalls. It’s Vincent; can’t you see?’
‘Vincent!’ echoed Betsy, likewise startled. ‘Oh yes, so it is!’
They both nodded to Vincent in greeting. He responded by peering at them through his lorgnette, whereupon Eline hid coquettishly behind her fan.
‘Who’s he? Who’s Vincent?’ Emilie and Georges wanted to know.
‘Vincent Vere, a first cousin of ours,’ Betsy replied. ‘He’s a bit of a bounder, I’m afraid. No one ever knows where he is; he disappears for months and then turns up again when least expected. I had no idea he was in The Hague. Oh Eline, do stop fiddling with your fan.’
‘But I won’t have him staring at me!’ said Eline, readjusting her fan with a graceful turn of her arm, still hiding her face.
‘May I venture to ask how long it is since you last saw your cousin?’ enquired Georges.
‘Oh, at least a year and a half. When we last spoke I believe he was about to go to London, where he’d found some position; working on a newspaper or something of that nature. Can you imagine, they say he was with the Foreign Legion in Algiers for a time, but I don’t believe any of it. He’s supposed to have done all sorts of things, and he never has a penny.’
‘Yes, I remember him now. I think we met at some time,’ Emilie said with a yawn. ‘A curious customer.’
‘Yes, he is, but he knows he has to behave himself after a fashion when he’s in The Hague, where his relatives live, which he does, and so we put up with him.’
‘Ah well, there’s a black sheep in most families,’ Emilie remarked philosophically.
Eline gave a light laugh at the popular expression, and at long last folded her pink ostrich-feather fan.
…
The third act passed without her comprehending much of the scene with Manoël, but she did get the gist of the great duet sung by Hermosa and Xaïma: the reunion of mother and daughter after the refrain ‘Debout, enfants de l’Ibérie!’
The curtain fell to thunderous applause, and three times the two actresses were called to the front, where they were presented with bouquets and baskets of flowers.
‘Oh please, Mr de Woude, be so kind as to explain the intrigue to me. Je n’y vois pas encore clair!’ said Eline, turning to Georges.
Before he could reply, however, Betsy proposed taking a turn in the foyer, and they all stood up and left the box. Seated on the ottoman in the foyer, Georges summarised the plot for Eline, who listened with more interest than her expression revealed. Now that she knew why Xaïma was terrified of Ben-Saïd she regretted all the more having missed the drawing of lots in the first act and Xaïma’s sale into slavery in the second.
She caught sight of Vincent coming down the steps. He made his way towards them with a casual, familiar air, as if he had seen his cousins only yesterday.
‘Why, Vincent! Fancy seeing you he
re!’ exclaimed Eline.
‘Hello Eline! Hello Betsy! Delighted to see you again. Ah, and the Honourable Miss van Berg en Woude, am I right?’
They shook hands.
‘Nearly right! Your memory for names is admirable, unlike mine, because I had quite forgotten yours,’ responded Emilie.
Betsy introduced Vincent and Georges.
‘And how is everybody? Well, I hope?’
‘Rather astonished, really!’ laughed Eline. ‘I suppose you have come to say that you are off again tomorrow to St Petersburg, or Constantinople, haven’t you?’
He smiled, studying her through his lorgnette, his pale-blue eyes like faded porcelain behind the lenses. His features were regular and handsome, almost too handsome for a man, with a fine straight nose, a neat mouth which frequently twitched with something akin to mockery, and a thin blond moustache. But his looks were a little spoiled by his complexion, which was sallow and fatigued. Of slight build, he was simply dressed in a dark half-formal suit, beneath which his feet looked remarkably narrow. His hands, too, were finely shaped, with slender, pallid fingers like those of an artist, and they reminded Eline of her father.
He took a seat and, in reply to Eline’s question, told her a touch wearily that he had only arrived in The Hague yesterday, on business. He had spent some time in Malaga recently, something to do with the wine trade, and had previously been with an insurance company in Brussels; prior to that he had invested in a carpet factory in Smyrna, which had gone bankrupt. Things had not been going his way, really, and he was beginning to tire of all the travelling; he had not sat still by any means, but fate was against him, everything seemed to go wrong. There was a chance of a position with a quinine farm on Java, but first he had to obtain the proper information. He was hoping to see Van Raat on the morrow, as he had a matter he wished to discuss with him. Betsy said in that case he should come for coffee in the afternoon, because Van Raat was always out in the morning. Vincent accepted the invitation with gratitude, and began to talk about the opera.
‘Fabrice? Oh, he’s the baritone, isn’t he? Yes, a good voice, but what an unsightly, fat fellow.’
‘Do you think so? I don’t agree, I thought he looked rather well on stage!’ countered Emilie.
‘Miss de Woude, you cannot be serious!’
Emilie abided by her opinion and Eline had to laugh at their difference. Then the bell sounded for the fourth act, and Vincent took his leave, declining Georges’ kind offer of his seat in the box.
‘Oh, thank you, much obliged, but I wouldn’t wish to deprive you of your seat. Besides, I can see very well from the stalls. So we shall meet tomorrow, then? Au revoir, Betsy, Eline … au plaisir, Miss de Woude … a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr de Woude.’
He bowed, pressed Georges’ hand and sauntered off, swinging his slim bamboo cane.
‘Isn’t he odd?’ said Eline, shaking her head.
‘I’m always afraid he’ll do something to embarrass us!’ Betsy whispered in Emilie’s ear. ‘But as I said, he’s been quite well-behaved until now. I was nice to him a moment ago to be on the safe side: I wouldn’t want to rub him the wrong way. You never know …’
‘I can’t say he’s my most favourite person!’ said Emilie. They all rose to return to their box.
‘Come, come, Emmy, you’re only saying that because he didn’t like the look of Fabrice!’ teased Georges.
Emilie shrugged, and they passed into the vestibule.
‘Oh, so there is not to be a fifth act! I thought there would be five!’ said Eline, almost crestfallen, until De Woude quickly told her how the opera ended.
…
The fourth act opened with a scene in the moonlit gardens of Ben-Saïd. Eline listened intently to Manoël’s cavatina, to his duet with Xaïma, and to their subsequent trio with Hermosa, but her interest mounted when the Moorish king appeared at the palace gate, where he ordered his warriors to dispatch Manoël and then himself seized the unwilling Xaïma and dragged her away with him in a sudden burst of rage. The end of the opera, where Ben-Saïd is stabbed by the mother seeking to save her daughter, affected her more than she would have cared to admit. In his scenes with both women the new baritone acted with such fire and vehemence as to lend the melodrama a glow of romantic truth, and when, fatally wounded, he subsided on to the steps of the pavilion, Eline took up her opera glasses for a closer look at his darkened visage with the black beard and half-closed eyes.
The curtain fell, but the four actors were called back, and Eline saw him once more, taking his bows with an air of cool detachment, in great contrast to the gracious smiles of the tenor, the contralto, and the soprano.
The audience rose; the doors of the boxes swung open.
Georges assisted the ladies with their cloaks, and they proceeded along the corridor and down the steps to wait by the glass doors for their carriage. Presently the doorman cupped his hand to his mouth and announced its arrival with a long drawn-out shout:
‘Van Raa … aat!’
‘Personally, I don’t believe Le Tribut de Zamora is one of Gounod’s best operas; what about you, Eline?’ asked Emilie when they were seated in the carriage. ‘No comparison with his Faust, or his Romeo et Juliet.’
‘I believe you are right,’ murmured Eline, loath to show how moved she had been. ‘But it’s difficult to judge a piece of music the very first time you hear it. I thought some of the melodies were rather sweet. Besides, we only saw half of it.’
‘I rather like seeing only a few acts; having to sit out a whole opera bores me to tears, I don’t mind telling you,’ said Betsy, yawning.
Georges began to hum the refrain: ‘Debout, enfants de l’Ibérie!’
The De Woudes were dropped off at Noordeinde, after which Betsy and Eline rode homeward in the landau, snugly ensconced in the cushions of satin damask. They talked a little about Vincent and then both fell silent, while Eline’s thoughts floated to the joyful waltz in Mireille, to her spat with Betsy about the maids, to the tableau of the five senses, to Madame van Raat and Emily and Georges, to her pink dress … and to Ben-Saïd.
V
About a week had gone by since the tableaux vivants; it was afternoon, and Lili Verstraeten seated herself in the drawing room, where they had been staged. The room had long since reverted to its normal arrangement, and a cheerful fire burnt in the grate. Outside it was cold; a strong wind was blowing, and rain seemed imminent. Marie had gone shopping with Frédérique van Erlevoort, but Lili had chosen to stay at home, and now settled back comfortably in her favourite armchair, which was old-fashioned and ample, with a tapestry cover. She had Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris with her, but was not really in the mood for reading, so the book, bound in red calf with gilt edges, lay unopened on her lap. How pleasant it was to do nothing but muse and dream, and how silly of Marie and Freddie to go out in this horrid weather! But it was no concern of hers, she was oblivious to the wind and the rain, for indoors it was as cosy as could be, with the subdued, wintry light barely filtering through the heavy curtains. Dien had come in to tie them back, but she had sent her away. Papa was in the conservatory, reading by the window; she could just see the top of his dear grey head, and she noted how rapidly he turned the pages – he was clearly engrossed in his book, unlike her, who had brought hers along for show. She was never bored, even when she was idle. On the contrary, she would sit back and enjoy the notions drifting into her mind: rose petals wafting on a gentle breeze, soap bubbles, fragile and iridescent, which she would watch contentedly as they rose up in the air; then the petals would blow away and the bubbles would burst, but no matter, she would much rather have rose petals for thoughts than smothering tendrils of ivy, and rather a soap bubble than a balloon on the end of a string. Mama was still upstairs attending to numerous household duties. Ah well, she couldn’t be of any help: Mama always insisted on doing everything herself, although Marie did her share as well. She hoped there would be no callers this afternoon; all she wanted to do was daydre
am, what could be more delightful than that? How fascinating it was to watch the flames curling and twisting around the glowing embers! The hearth was a vision of hell in miniature, the burning peat suggesting great boulders between which yawned chasms filled with fire and brimstone – it was like Dante’s inferno, with the damned gathered together on the precipices, shuddering at the sight of the flames! Smiling at her wild imaginings, she averted her eyes, which prickled from staring into the hellish blaze. It was only last week that they had all taken their poses in this very room, before the eyes of their enthusiastic friends and relations. How different everything had looked then! Now the painted scenery, the lyres, the cross and all the other bits and pieces had been removed to the attic for storage; all the costumes had been carefully folded and put away in boxes by Dien. It had been so jolly, what with all the planning and conferring with Paul and Etienne beforehand, the choosing of the subjects for the tableaux, the costumes, and then the rehearsals, with Paul having to demonstrate each pose in turn! How many times hadn’t they collapsed with hilarity, how much effort hadn’t they put in for the sake of a few minutes of entertainment!
Papa read and read, and she counted how long it took him to turn the pages – first it was twenty-five seconds, then thirty. What a fast reader he was! And how the rain drummed on the windowpane, how it gurgled in the drainpipe! Freddie and Marie had gone out of their own free will, but here she was, feeling snug and safe like a purring kitten instead of bedraggled in the wet. She dug the points of her shoes into in the black fleece of the sheepskin hearth-rug and nestled her blonde head against the back of the old tapestried armchair.
Freddie was going to a ball that evening. How could she bear to go out night after night! Of course she, Lili, enjoyed the occasional ball or amusing soirée, but she also liked to stay at home, reading a book, or doing embroidery, or … doing nothing at all, without even getting bored. Her life seemed to flow onwards like a calm, rippling stream; she was so happy at home with her parents, whom she adored, and she wanted it always to stay the same, she didn’t even mind if she never got married and became an old maid … Quasimodo, Esmeralda, Phoebus de Châteaupers … oh, why hadn’t she brought her copy of Longfellow instead? The Court of Miracles held no appeal for her whatsoever, what she wished for now was some verse from Evangeline, or from The Golden Legend:
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