‘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 here!’ 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: