ith a tinge of
modernity superadded: the children very much up-to-date, but the
parents, nevertheless, sensible people of weight and distinction, quite
aware how far they themselves could go and how far they could let the
children go. The real position was not even suspected by a soul. Bertha
never spoke to anybody, not even to her mother, of anything that had the
faintest connection with money. To their relations and friends, the
house in the Bezuidenhout spread its broad front with such an air of
solid dignity, the staircases, the drawing-rooms and dining-room with
their stately, handsome furniture, the children's rooms--more modern in
style, but still with no flimsy affectation of tawdry elegance--all made
so great an impression of imperishable prosperity that no one could ever
have suspected that the two parents sometimes sat reckoning up for hours
at a time to see whether they could reduce their expenses by as much as
a thousand guilders that month. In this house of theirs, notwithstanding
all the bustle, the dinners, the approaching wedding, the approaching
home-coming of the eldest son, for whom a set of rooms was being
prepared on the top floor, everything seemed to go so methodically,
without any trouble--busily, it is true, but quite harmoniously--that no
one would ever have suspected the least difficulty. Mamma van Lowe was
constantly at Bertha's during these days and even neglected Constance a
little; but she loved this bustle: the alterations on the top floor; the
fuss about the trousseau; the rehearsals of the wedding-theatricals; the
long tables to be laid, the flowers to be arranged, the visits to be
discussed; dresses brought home; the undergraduates constantly at the
Hague, noisy, merry and young: the old woman loved all this; it reminded
her of her own house in the old days; it was like a repetition of her
young life: only, she thought, she herself had often worried about
money, even though Van Lowe had been able to save during his term as
governor-general, and Bertha was so entirely without financial cares!
How delightful that was! And she, as the grandmother, also interested
herself in Emilie's trousseau; she gave her advice and never thought
about money; she slowly climbed the stairs to the top floor, to see the
nursery which had been got ready for her two great-grandchildren on the
way home from India, proud of that fourth generation, delighting in that
large family, that busy household, all that mo