The Hidden Force Part 24

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Labuw.a.n.gi came to life again. It was as though people unanimously agreed not to discuss the strange affair any further with outsiders, because it was so excusable that any one should refuse to believe in the thing; and they, at Labuw.a.n.gi, believed. And the up-country town, after the mystic oppression under which it had lain cowering during those unforgettable weeks, came to life again, as though shaking off all its obsession. Party followed upon party, ball upon ball, theatricals upon concert: all threw open their doors to entertain their friends and make merry, in order to feel natural and normal after the incredible nightmare. People so accustomed to the natural and tangible life, to the s.p.a.cious and lavish material existence of India--to good cooking, cool drinks, wide beds, roomy houses, to everything that represents physical luxury to the European in the east--such people breathed again and shook off the nightmare, shook off the belief in strange happenings. If and when they discussed the thing nowadays, they commonly called it that incomprehensible conjuring--echoing the resident--the regent's conjuring-tricks. For that the regent had something to do with it was certain. That the resident had held a terrible threat over him and his mother, if the strange happenings did not cease, was certain. That, after this, order had been restored in everyday life was certain. So it was conjuring. All were now ashamed of their credulity and their fears and of having shuddered at what had looked like mysticism and was only clever conjuring. And all breathed again and made up their minds to be cheerful; and entertainment followed upon entertainment.

Leonie, amid all this dissipation, forgot her irritation at having been recalled by Van Oudijck. And she too was determined to forget the scarlet pollution of her body. But something of its terror lingered in her. She now bathed early of an afternoon, as early as half-past four, in the newly-built bathroom. Her second bath always gave her a certain shudder. And, now that Theo had a job at Surabaya, she got rid of him, also, from terror. She could not get rid of the idea that the enchantment had threatened to punish both of them, the mother and son, who were bringing shame on the home. In the romantic side of her perverse imagination, in her rosy fancy full of cherubs and cupids, this idea, inspired by her fears, struck too precious a note of tragedy for her not to cherish it, for all that Theo might say. She would go no further. And it made him furious, because he was mad with love for her, because he could not forget the shameful happiness which he had enjoyed in her arms. But she steadily refused him and told him of her dread and said that she was certain that the witchcraft would begin again if they two loved each other, he and his father's wife. Her words drove him scarlet with fury, on the one Sunday which he spent at Labuw.a.n.gi: he was furious with her non-compliance, with the motherly att.i.tude which she now adopted and with the fact, of which he was well aware, that she saw Addie often, that she often went to stay at Patjaram. Addie danced with her at parties and hung over her chair at concerts, in the improvised residential box. True, he was not faithful to her, for it was not his nature to love one woman--he loved women wholesale--but still he was as faithful to her as he was able to be. He inspired her with a more lasting pa.s.sion than she had ever felt before; and this pa.s.sion roused her from her usual pa.s.sive indifference. Often, in company, suffering and inflicting boredom, enthroned in the brilliance of her white beauty, like a smiling idol, with the langour of her years in India gradually filling her blood until her movements had acquired that lazy indifference for anything that did not spell love and caresses, until her voice had a.s.sumed a drawling accent in any word that was not a word of pa.s.sion: often the flame which Addie shed over her would transfigure into a younger woman, livelier in company, gayer, flattered by the persistent homage of this youth, on whom every girl was mad.

And she delighted in monopolizing him as much as she could, to the vexation of all the girls and of Doddie in particular. In the midst of her pa.s.sion, she also took an evil pleasure in tantalizing, merely for tantalizing's sake: it gave her an exquisite enjoyment; it made her husband jealous--perhaps for the first time, for she had always been very careful--and made Theo and Doddie jealous; she aroused the jealousy of every young married woman and every girl; and, since she stood above all of them, as the resident's wife, she had an ascendancy over all of them. When of an evening she had gone too far, she delighted in winning back, with a smile, with a gracious word, the place in their affection which she had lost through her flirtations. And, strange though it might seem, she succeeded. The moment they saw her, the moment she spoke, smiled and exerted herself to be amiable, she won back all she had lost and was forgiven everything. Even Mrs. Eldersma allowed herself to be conquered by the strange charm of this woman who was neither witty nor intelligent, who merely became just a little livelier, who roused herself a little from her boring lethargy, who triumphed only through the lines of her body, the contour of her face, the glance of her strange eyes, restful and yet full of hidden pa.s.sion, and who was conscious of all her charm because she had meditated upon it since her childhood. Together with her indifference, this charm const.i.tuted her strength. Fate seemed to have no hold upon her. For it had indeed touched her with a strange magic, until she thought that a chastis.e.m.e.nt was about to descend upon her, but it had gone its way again, drifted away. But she accepted the warning. She had done with Theo and henceforth affected a motherly att.i.tude towards him. It made him furious, especially at these parties, now that she had grown younger, livelier and more seductive.

His pa.s.sion for her began to burn to hatred. He hated her now, with all the instinct of a fair-haired native, for that was what he really was, despite his white skin. For he was his mother's son rather than his father's. Oh, he hated her now, for he had felt his fear of the punishment only for an instant and he ... he had forgotten everything by now! And his one idea was to injure her--how he did not yet know--but to injure her so that she might feel pain and suffer. The process of thinking it over imparted a Satanic gloom to his small, murky soul. Although he did not think about it, he felt unconsciously that she was as though invulnerable; he even felt that she boasted inwardly of her invulnerability and that it made her daily more brazen and indifferent. She was constantly staying at Patjaram, on any excuse that offered. The anonymous letters which Van Oudijck still often showed her no longer disturbed her; she was growing accustomed to them. She returned them to him without a word; once she even forgot them, left them lying about in the back-verandah. Once Theo read them. In a sudden flash of light, due to he knew not what, suddenly he seemed to recognize certain characters, certain strokes. He remembered, in the compound, near Patjaram, the hut, half bamboo, half packing-case-boards, where he and Addie de Luce had been to see Si-Oudijck and the papers hastily raked together by an Arab. He had a vague recollection of seeing those same characters, those strokes, on a sc.r.a.p of paper on the floor. It pa.s.sed vaguely and quick as lightning through his head. But it was no more than a lightning-flash. His small, murky soul had room for nothing but dull hatred and troubled calculation. But he had not sense enough to follow out that calculation. He hated his father by instinct and innate antipathy; his mother, because she was a half-caste; his step-mother, because she had finished with him; he hated Addie and Doddie into the bargain; he hated the world, because it made him work. He hated every berth he had ever had: he now hated his office at Surabaya. But he was too lazy and too muddle-headed to do harm. Rack his brains as he might, he could not discover how to harm his father, Addie and Leonie. Everything about him was vague, turbid, dissatisfied, indistinct. The object of his desire was money and a fine woman. Beyond this, he had nothing in him but the dull-witted gloom and discontent of the fat, fair-haired Eurasian that he was. And he continued to brood impotently over his murky thoughts.

Until now, Doddie had always been very fond of Leonie, instinctively. But she was no longer able to conceal the fact from herself: what she had first thought an accident--mamma and Addie always seeking each other with the same smile of allurement, one drawing the other the length of the great room, as though irresistibly--was not an accident at all! And she too hated mamma now, mamma with her beautiful calmness, her sovereign indifference. Her own violent pa.s.sionate nature was coming into collision with that other nature, with its milk-white, creole languor, which now for the first time, late in the day, because of the sheer kindliness of fate, was letting itself go as it pleased, without reserve. She hated mamma; and her hatred resulted in scenes, scenes of nervous, loud-voiced temper in Doddie contrasting with the irritating calmness of mamma's indifference, scenes caused by all sorts of little differences of opinion: a visit, a ride on horse-back, a dress, a spice or condiment which the one liked and the other did not. Then Doddie wanted to have her cry out on papa's breast, but Van Oudijck would not admit that she was in the right and said that she must show more respect to mamma. But once, when Doddie had come to him for consolation and he reproached her for going for walks with Addie, she screamed out that mamma herself was in love with Addie. Van Oudijck angrily ordered her out of the room. But it all agreed too closely--the anonymous letters, his wife's new-born flirtations, Doddie's accusations and what he himself had noticed at the last few parties--not to give him food for reflection and even to worry him. And, once he began to worry and reflect upon it all, memories came suddenly darting into his mind like lightning-flashes: memories of an unexpected visit; of a locked door; of a moving curtain; of a whispered word and a timidly averted glance. He pieced it all together and he quite suddenly recollected those same subtle memories in combination with others, of an earlier date. It all at once aroused his jealousy, a husband's jealousy of the wife whom he loves as his most personal possession. This jealousy burst upon him like a gust of wind, blowing its way through his concentration upon his work, confusing his thoughts as he sat writing, making him suddenly run out of his office, during the police-cases, and search Leonie's room and lift a curtain and even look under the bed.

And now he no longer consented to have Leonie staying at Patjaram, advancing as his pretext that the De Luces should not be encouraged in the hope of getting Doddie as a wife for Addie. For he dared not speak to Leonie of his jealousy.... That Addie should ever get Doddie for his wife!... True, there was native blood in his daughter too; but he wanted a full-blooded European as his son-in-law. He hated anything half-caste. He hated the De Luces and all the up-country, Indian, half-Solo traditions of that Patjaram of theirs. He hated their gambling, their hobn.o.bbing with all sorts of Indian headmen, people whom he accepted officially, allowing them their rights, but, apart from this, regarded as unavoidable instruments of the government policy. He hated all their posing as an old Indian family and he hated Addie: an idle youth, who was supposed to be employed in the factory but did nothing at all, except run after every woman, girl and maid-servant in the place. He, the older, industrious man, was unable to understand that kind of existence.

So Leonie had to do without Patjaram; but in the mornings she went quietly to Mrs. van Does and met Addie in this lady's little house while Mrs. van Does herself went out peddling, in a little cart, with two jam-pots filled with diamonds and a bundle of embroidered bedspreads. Then, in the evenings, Addie would stroll out with Doddie and listen to her pa.s.sionate reproaches. He laughed at her tempersome displays, took her in his arms till she hung panting on his breast, kissed the reproaches from her mouth till she melted away amorously on his lips. They went no further, feeling too much afraid, especially Doddie. They strolled behind the compounds, on the irrigation-dikes of the rice-fields, while swarms of fire-flies whirled about them in the dark like tiny lanterns; they strolled arm-in-arm, they walked hand-in-hand, in enervating, caressing love, which never dared to push matters any further. When she came home again, she was furious, raging at mamma, in whom she envied the calm, smiling satiety as she lay musing, in her white tea-gown, with a touch of powder on her face, in a cane chair.

And the house, newly painted and whitewashed after the strange happenings, which were now past, the house was filled with a hatred that rose on every hand, as it were the very demoniacal bloom of that strange secret; a hatred centering upon that silent woman, who was too languid to hate and only delighted in silent tantalizing; a jealous hatred of the father for the son, when he saw him too often sitting beside his step-mother, begging, in spite of his own hatred, for something, the father did not know what; a hatred of the daughter for the mother; a hatred in which all this family-life was being wrecked. How it had all gradually come about Van Oudijck did not know. He sadly regretted the time when he was blind, when he had seen his wife and children only in the light in which he wished to see them. That time was past. Like the strange happenings of not so long ago, a hatred was now rising out of life, like a miasma out of the ground. And Van Oudijck, who had never been superst.i.tious, who had worked on coolly and calmly in his lonely house, with the incomprehensible witchcraft all about him; who had read reports while the hammering went on above his head and his whisky-and-soda changed colour in his gla.s.s; Van Oudijck for the first time in his life--now that he saw the gloomy glances of Theo and Doddie; now that he suddenly discovered his wife, growing more brazen daily, sitting hand-in-hand with young De Luce, her knees almost touching his--became superst.i.tious, believing in a hidden force which lurked he knew not where, in India, in the soil of India, in a deep-seated mystery, somewhere or other, a force that wished him ill because he was a European, a ruler, a foreigner on the mystic, sacred soil. And, when he saw this superst.i.tion within himself, something so new to him, the practical man, something so strange and incredible to him, a man of single-minded, masculine simplicity, he was afraid of himself, as of a rising insanity which he began to perceive deep down within himself.

And, strong though he had proved himself to be at the time of the strange happenings, which he had been able to exorcize with a single word of threatening force, this superst.i.tion, which came as an aftermath of those events, found a weakness in him, a vulnerable spot as it were. He was so much surprised at himself that he did not understand and was afraid lest he might be going mad; and still he worried. His health was undermined by an incipient liver-complaint; and he kept on examining his jaundiced complexion. Suddenly he had an idea that he was being poisoned. The kitchen was searched, the cook subjected to a cross-examination; but nothing came to light. He realized that he had been frightened by nothing. But the doctor declared that he had an enlarged liver and prescribed the usual diet. A thing which otherwise he would have thought quite natural, a far from uncommon illness, now of a sudden struck him as strange, a mysterious event; and he worried over it. And it got on his nerves. He began to suffer from sudden weariness when working, from throbbing headaches. His jealousy upset him; he was overcome by a shuddering restlessness. He suddenly reflected that, if there were now any hammering above his head, if betel-juice were now spat at him, he would not be able to stay in the house. And he began to believe in a hatred rising slowly all around him out of the hostile soil, like a miasma. He believed in a force deep-hidden in the things of India, in the nature of Java, in the climate of Labuw.a.n.gi, in the conjuring--as he continued to call it--which sometimes makes the Javanese cleverer than the European and gives him the power, a mysterious power, not to release himself from the yoke, but to cause illness, lingering illness, to plague and hara.s.s, to play the ghost most incredibly and hideously: a hidden force, a hidden power, hostile to our temperament, our blood, our bodies, our souls, our civilization, to all that seems to us the right thing to do and be and think. It had flashed before him as in a sudden light, it was not the result of thought, it had flashed out before him as in a dreadful revelation, which was utterly in conflict with all the logic of his methodical life, his methodical mode of thought. In a vision of terror, he suddenly saw it before him, as the light of his approaching old age, as men who are growing old do sometimes suddenly perceive the truth. And yet he was young still and hale. And he felt that, if he did not divert his maddening thoughts, they might make him ill, weak and miserable, for ever and ever....

To him, above all, a simple, practical man, this change of mental att.i.tude was almost unbearable. What a morbid mind might have contemplated in quiet meditation now flashed upon him as a sudden terror. Never would he have thought that there might be somewhere, deeply hidden in life, things which were stronger than the power of the human will and intellect. Nowadays, after the nightmare which he had so courageously defeated, it seemed to him that the nightmare had sapped his strength nevertheless and inoculated him with every sort of weakness. It was incredible, but now, as he sat working late in the day, he would listen to the evening voices in the garden, or to the rat that rustled overhead. And then he would suddenly get up, go to Leonie's room and look under the bed. When he at last discovered that many of the anonymous letters by which he was persecuted came from the pen of a half-caste who described himself as his son and was even known in the compound by his own surname, he felt too doubtful to investigate the matter, because of what might come to light that he had himself forgotten, dating from his controllers.h.i.+p, from the old days, at Ngadjiwa. He was doubtful now of things of which he had once been certain and positive. Nowadays he was no longer able so positively to order his recollections of that period as to swear that he had not a son, begotten almost unconsciously in those days. He did not clearly remember the housekeeper who had looked after him before his first marriage. And he preferred to let the whole business of the anonymous letters smoulder in the dusky shadows, rather than stir it up and enquire into it. He even caused money to be sent to the native who called himself his son, so that the fellow might not abuse the name which he arrogated to himself and demand presents all over the compound: chickens and rice and clothes, things which Si-Oudijck exacted from ignorant villagers, whom he threatened with the vague anger of his father the sahib, yonder at Labuw.a.n.gi. In order that there might be no more threats of this anger, Van Oudijck sent him money. It was weak of him: he would never have done it in the old days. But now he had an inclination to hush things up, to gloss over things, to be less stern and severe and rather to mitigate anything unduly strict by half-measures. Eldersma was sometimes amazed when he saw the resident, who used to be so firm, hesitating, when he saw him yielding in matters of business, in differences with crown tenants, as he had never done before. And slack methods of work would gradually have found their way automatically into the office, if Eldersma had not taken the work out of Van Oudijck's hands and given himself even more to do than he already had. It was generally stated that the resident was ill. And, in fact, his skin was yellow; his liver was painful; the least thing set his nerves quivering. It unsettled the house, in conjunction with Doddie's tempers and outbursts and Theo's jealousy and hatred, for Theo was at home again, had already thrown up Surabaya. Leonie alone continued her triumphant career, ever beautiful, white, calm, smiling, contented, happy in the lasting pa.s.sion of Addie, whom she knew how to hold, amorous expert, love's sorceress that she was. Fate had warned her and she kept Theo at a distance; but for the rest she was happy and contented.

Then suddenly Batavia fell vacant. The names of two or three residents were mentioned, but Van Oudijck had possessed the best chance. And he worried about it, was afraid of it: he did not care for Batavia as a residency. He would not have been able to work in Batavia as he worked here, at Labuw.a.n.gi, zealously and devotedly fostering so many different interests connected with agriculture and the people. He would rather have been appointed to Surabaya, where there was plenty going on; or to one of the Vorstenlanden, where his tact in dealing with the native princes would have been turned to good purpose. But Batavia! It was the least interesting of all districts, from the official point of view, and, what with the arrogant atmosphere of the place, the least flattering to one in the position of resident, in close contact with the governor-general, surrounded by the highest officials, so that the resident, who was almost supreme anywhere else, was at Batavia no more than yet another high official among so many members of council and directors. And it was much too near Buitenzorg, with its arbitrary secretariat, whose bureaucratic and red-tape methods were always clas.h.i.+ng with the practical administrative methods of the residents themselves.

The prospect of being appointed unsettled him entirely, hara.s.sed him more than ever, with the thought of leaving Labuw.a.n.gi in a month's time, of selling up his furniture. It would break his heart to leave Labuw.a.n.gi. In spite of all that he had gone through there, he loved the town and especially his district. During all those years, he had left traces of activity throughout his district, traces of his devoted labour, of his ambition, of his affection. And now, within a month, he would probably have to transfer all this to a successor, to tear himself away from everything that he had so lovingly cherished and fostered. It filled him with a sombre melancholy. He cared not a straw for the fact that the promotion also brought him nearer to his pension. That unoccupied future, with the boredom of approaching old age, was a very nightmare to him. And his successor would perhaps make all manner of changes, would disagree at every single point.

In the end, the chance of his promotion became such a morbid obsession with him that the improbable thing happened and he wrote to the director of the B.B. and to the governor-general, begging to be left at Labuw.a.n.gi. The secret of these letters was pretty well kept: he himself concealed them entirely, both from his family and from his subordinates, so that, when a younger second-cla.s.s resident was appointed Resident of Batavia, people said that Van Oudijck had been pa.s.sed over, but not that this had happened at his own request. And, in seeking the cause, they raked up all the old gossip about the dismissal of the Regent of Ngadjiwa and the strange happenings thereafter, but without finding in either any particular reason why the government should have pa.s.sed over Van Oudijck.

He himself recovered a strange sort of peace, a peace due to weariness, to laisser-aller, to becoming rooted in his familiar Labuw.a.n.gi, to not having to be transferred, old up-country veteran that he was, to Batavia, where things were so very different. When the governor-general, at his last audience, had spoken to him about going to Europe on leave, he had felt afraid of Europe, afraid of no longer feeling at home there; and now he felt afraid even of Batavia. And yet he knew all that there was to know about the would-be western humbug of Batavia; yet he knew that the capital of Java only pretended to be exceedingly European and in reality was only half-European. In himself--and unknown to his wife, who regretted that dispelled illusion of Batavia--he chuckled silently at the thought that he had succeeded in remaining at Labuw.a.n.gi. But, while he chuckled, he nevertheless felt changed, aged, belittled, felt that he was no longer glancing at that upward path--the prospect of constantly winning a higher place among his fellow-men--which had always been his path of life. What had become of his ambition? What had happened to decrease his love of authority? He put it all down to the influence of the climate. It would certainly be a good thing to refresh his blood and his mind in Europe, to spend a couple of winters there. But the idea immediately evaporated, wiped out by his lack of resolution. No, he did not want to go to Europe; it was India that he loved. And he indulged in long meditations, lying in a long-chair, enjoying his coffee, his light clothing, the gentle relaxation of his muscles, the aimless drowsiness of his thoughts. The only obvious thing in his drowsy mood was his ever-increasing suspicion; and now and again he would suddenly wake from his languor and listen to the vague sounds, the soft, suppressed laughter which he seemed to hear in Leonie's room, even as at night, when, suspicious of ghosts, he listened to the m.u.f.fled sounds in the garden and to the rat scurrying overhead.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Addie was sitting with Mrs. van Does, in the little back-verandah, when they heard a carriage rattle up in front of the house. They smiled at each other and rose from their seats:

"I shall leave you to yourselves," said Mrs. van Does.

And she disappeared, to drive round the town in a dog-cart and do business among her friends.

Leonie entered:

"Where is Mrs. van Does?" she asked, for she always behaved as though it were the first time.

It was her great charm. He knew this and answered:

"She has just gone out. She will be sorry to have missed you."

He spoke like this because he knew that she liked it: the ceremonial opening each time, to preserve above all things the freshness of their liaison.

They now sat down in the little, shut-in middle gallery, side by side on a settee.

The settee was covered with a cretonne displaying many-coloured flowers; on the white walls were a few cheap fans and kakemonos; and on either side of a little looking-gla.s.s stood a console-table with an imitation bronze statue, two nondescript knights, each with one leg advanced and a spear in his hand. Through the gla.s.s door the musty little back-verandah showed, with its damp, yellow-green pillars, its flower-pots, also yellow-green, with a few withered rose-trees; and behind this was the damp, neglected little garden, with a couple of lean coco-palms, hanging their leaves like broken feathers.

He now took her in his arms and drew her to him, but she pushed him away gently:

"Doddie is becoming unbearable," she said. "Something must be done."

"How so?"

"She must leave the house. She is so irritable that there's no living with her."

"You tease her, you know."

She shrugged her shoulders; she had been put out by a recent scene with her step-daughter:

"I never used to tease her. She was fond of me and we got on all right together. Now she flies out at the least thing. It's your fault. Those everlasting evening walks, which lead to nothing, upset her nerves."

"Perhaps it's just as well that they lead to nothing," he murmured, with his little laugh, the laugh of the tempter. "But I can't break with her, you know: it would make her unhappy. And I can't bear to make a woman unhappy."

She laughed scornfully:

"Yes, you're so good-natured. From sheer good-nature you would scatter your favours broadcast. Anyway, she'll have to go."

"Go? Where to?"

"Don't ask such silly questions!" she exclaimed, angrily, roused out of her usual indifference. "She'll have to go, somewhere or other, I don't care where. You know, when I say a thing, it's done. And this is going to be done."

He was now clasping her in his arms:

"You're so angry. You're not a bit pretty like that."

In her temper, she at first refused to let him kiss her: but, as he did not like these tempers and was well aware of the irresistible power of his comely, Moorish virility, he mastered her with rough, smiling violence and held her so tight to him that she was unable to stir:

"You mustn't be angry any longer."

"Yes, I will. I hate Doddie."

"The poor girl has done you no harm."

"Possibly."

"On the contrary, it's you who tease her."

"Yes, because I hate her."