‘Did you like it, Mama?’ demanded Lili.
‘Did you like it, Madame Verstraeten?’ Frédérique chimed in.
‘It was splendid! They would all have loved to see it again.’
‘Not again! I’m half dead already!’ cried Lili, sweeping a pile of garments to the floor before collapsing into an armchair, her eyes heavy with fatigue. Dien was dismayed; she would never get done at this rate.
‘Lili, you must rest!’ cried Paul from the top of his ladder in the other room ‘Your next pose will be very tiring. Aunt Verstraeten, please tell Lili she must rest!’ He dragged the colourful oriental rugs off the clothesline they had been suspended from, and Dien set about folding them up.
‘Dien, we need sheets and white tulle — over here!’ called Marie. Dien misheard her, and brought the wrong items.
Everyone spoke at once, instructing one thing and clamouring for another in mounting disorder. Paul protested vehemently from the top of the ladder, but no one was listening.
‘I’m at my wits’ end!’ he raged, going down on his haunches. ‘It’s always me doing all the work!’
Paul reiterated his admonition to Lili, and Madame Verstraeten went off to remind the servants that the young artistes required refreshments. When the trays were brought in laden with glasses of wine and lemonade, cake and sandwiches, the commotion reached a frenzied pitch. The three boys insisted on being served on their mattress, upon which one of the boys called Jan spilt a stream of orangeade. Marie bore down on them, scolding at the top of her voice, and with Dien’s help swiftly pulled the mattress out from under them and dragged it away.
‘Frédérique, I wish you’d give me a hand with the background!’ said Paul in an aggrieved tone. He had given up trying to discipline the three boys, who were now being shooed out of the room by the old biddy. Some measure of calm was restored; everyone was busy, except Lili who remained in her armchair.
‘What a to-do!’ she muttered under her breath as she brushed her wavy, ash-blonde hair, and then, taking a large powder puff, dusted her arms to a snowy sheen.
Dien returned, quite out of breath, shaking her head and smiling benignly.
‘Quick, Dien! White sheets and tulle!’ chorused Freddie, Marie and Paul. Paul had come down from his ladder to erect the unwieldy white cross on the stage, and was arranging the mattress, heaped with cushions, at the base.
‘Dien, white sheets and tulle, all the tulle and gauze you can find!’
And Dien complied, along with the other maids, coming up with armfuls of more white fabrics.
. .
Madame Verstraeten had taken a seat beside her niece, Betsy van Raat, who was married to Paul’s elder brother.
‘Such a shame Eline is not here; I was counting on her to entertain us during the long intervals with a little music. She has such a pretty voice.’
‘She is not feeling very well, Aunt. She is very sorry, you may be sure, to miss Uncle’s birthday party.’
‘What is wrong with her?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. . nerves, I believe.’
‘She shouldn’t give in so easily to those moods of hers. I dare say expending a little energy would take care of her nerves.’
‘Ah, it is the affliction of the younger generation, Aunt, as I am sure you have heard!’ said Betsy, with a smile of mock sympathy.
Madame Verstraeten sighed indulgently, shaking her head, then remarked:
‘By the way; I expect the girls will be too tired to go to the opera tomorrow. So you can have our box, if you like.’
Betsy reflected a moment.
‘I am having a small dinner party tomorrow, Aunt, but I should love to make use of the box anyway. Only the Ferelijns and Emilie and Georges are invited, but the Ferelijns said they would be leaving early as their little Dora is poorly again, so I could easily go with Emilie and Georges and catch the second half.’
‘Well, that’s settled then. I shall send someone round with the tickets,’ said Madame Verstraeten, rising.
Betsy rose too. Georges de Woude van Bergh was just about to speak to her, but she pretended not to notice. She found him exceedingly irritating tonight — both times he had spoken to her he had made exactly the same comment, some platitude about the tableaux. No, there was no conversation in him at all. And tomorrow evening she would have to put up with him yet again, so her aunt’s offer of the box at the opera was a blessing. She caught sight of her husband in the conservatory with several other gentlemen — Messrs Verstraeten and Hovel, Otto van Erlevoort, and his brother Etienne. A lively discussion was going on, in which Henk had no part; he just stood there smiling sheepishly, with his bulky form pressing against the fronds of a potted palm. He irritated her, too. He bored her to tears, and he didn’t cut a good figure in evening dress, either — not at all chic! He looked better in his greatcoat!
She found an opportunity to have a word with him, and said:
‘I do wish you would talk to someone, Henk. You have been lurking in this corner for ages. Why don’t you circulate among the guests? You look so very dull. And your necktie’s askew.’
He stammered a reply and raised his hand to his collar. She turned away, and soon found herself in an animated little gathering centred on the Honourable Miss Emilie de Woude. Even the sad-eyed Madame van Rijssel, Freddie’s sister, was in attendance. Emilie de Woude was unmarried, and wore her thirty-eight years with enviable vitality. Her pleasant, cheerful countenance endeared her to all, and while she resembled her much younger brother Georges in appearance, she had about her a certain spiritedness that was in marked contrast to his mannered reserve.
All were irresistibly drawn to the ebullient Emilie to hear her comical anecdotes, and she was now regaling her audience with an account of a recent fall she had had on a patch of frozen snow — she had landed at the feet of a gentleman, who had stood stock still instead of helping her up.
‘Can you imagine? My muff to the left, my hat to the right, me in the middle, and him standing there, staring at me open-mouthed!’
. .
A bell tinkled, at which Emilie broke off her story to hurry to the front, where the sliding doors were opening before the assembled audience.
‘I can’t see a thing!’ said Emilie, rising up on her toes.
‘You can stand on my chair, Miss Emilie!’ called a young girl in a cream-coloured frock who was taller than the rest.
‘You’re a darling, Cateau, that’s very kind. I’m coming! May I pass, Madame van der Stoor? Your daughter has just saved my day.’
Madame van der Stoor, a lady who wrote poems under a pseudonym, stepped aside with a steely smile. She was a little put out by Emilie’s lack of decorum, and herself made no attempt to gain a better view.
Emilie and Cateau van der Stoor both got up on the same chair and stood with their arms around each other’s waists.
‘Oh, isn’t it splendid!’ cried Emilie, in rapt attention. From the waves of a foaming sea of gauze rose a white cross of what appeared to be rough-hewn marble, to which clung the slender, pallid form of a maiden apparently in mortal danger, her fingers gripping the Rock of Ages, her feet lapped by wavelets of tulle.
There were murmurs of: ‘It’s Lili!’
‘How graceful she is,’ Emilie whispered to Cateau. ‘But how does she do it? How can she hold that pose for so long?’
‘She’s bolstered up with cushions, but it’s a tiring pose anyway. You can’t see the cushions, of course,’ said Cateau.
‘Of course you can’t! It’s very lovely; I have never seen anything more poetic. But aren’t you supposed to be taking part yourself, Cateau?’
‘Yes I am, but only in the final scene, together with Etienne van Erlevoort. I should be off now, to change into my costume.’