Small Souls Part 42

Constance, in her quiet happiness, noticed none of it; and Van der Welcke, who, at the club, was within nearer range of the cross-fire, did indeed sometimes observe a look and gesture, sometimes overheard a word, but thought it of no consequence, even when it caused him a moment's irritation.

CHAPTER XXIX

After the summer holidays, Addie, who was now in the third cla.s.s at the Grammar School, sometimes went to his Van Saetzema cousins on a Sunday afternoon, rather against the grain, for there was not much love lost between them. But, as he had not failed to notice that the three boys tired his mother greatly when they came to the little house, however much she liked to keep up the relationship, he made it a sort of duty to go to them once a fortnight, or so, either for a walk or for a bicycle-ride. It was more natural to him to go about with boys who were his seniors; he had made a couple of older friends at the Grammar School; and even Frans and Henri van Naghel, who were young fellows of twenty-three and twenty-four, said that it might sound very funny, but they always thought it jolly when Addie looked in. But, to please his mother, who disapproved of this tendency to spend his time with his elders, he would go and walk or bicycle with the three Van Saetzemas, while despising them in his heart for unmannerly young louts, stupid as well as ill-bred and, in addition, having their mouths ever full of coa.r.s.e talk and suggestive jokes. They were not fond of Addie, but they looked up to him a little, just because they knew that the older cousins, the Van Naghels, the undergraduates, thought Addie a nice boy, though he was as young as the Van Saetzemas, while looking upon the Van Saetzemas themselves as mere brats not worth noticing. But, for this very reason, they did not see how Addie could care to go to Uncle Gerrit's and play with all those babies there. They thought him a queer boy, they did not really like him; but his intimacy with Frans and Henri van Naghel gave Addie a sort of manly, grown-up air which they secretly envied. And so, in order, in their turn, to appear manly and grown-up before Addie, they could never, walking or bicycling, pa.s.s a woman without exchanging a coa.r.s.e word or phrase or disapproval, like young men-about-town who know all about everything.

Then Addie chuckled inside himself, for he could never laugh outright, even though he wanted to:

"You fellows sometimes call me an old fogey," he said, "but, whenever you pa.s.s a woman, you talk like old fogeys of things you know nothing about."

"Oh, do you know more than we do?"

"I don't say that, but I haven't my mouth always full of it."

Then they were angry, because their a.s.sumption of rakishness made no impression, and they did not understand how Addie could flatly admit his innocence and ignorance. They, on the contrary, were ashamed of their innocence and ignorance, were burning to lose both as quickly as possible, had not the courage to do so yet, though they sometimes did go down the Spuistraat of an evening. And Addie thought to himself:

"Mamma ought just to hear them, or to see them lounging along the streets; then she wouldn't ask me every Sunday if I have been out with Jaap and Piet and Chris!"

And, though they did not like Addie, they were flattered when he came and asked:

"Are you fellows coming for a ride this afternoon?"

They did not like him and they gave him all sorts of nicknames among themselves: Old Fogey, the Baron, the Italian....

Then Marietje would ask, gently:

"Why do you always talk so unkindly of Addie?"

And then the three boys laughed and teased Marietje with being in love with "the Baron."

But Marietje, who was sixteen, shrugged her shoulders, feeling grown-up already: in a year's time, she was going to boarding-school, near Cleves. No, she, who was sixteen, was not in love with a little cousin of thirteen, with a child; but she thought him a nice boy all the same.

The three brothers and their friends had never danced, or talked, or bicycled with her, or paid her any attention, whereas Addie behaved like a gallant young cavalier. In that noisy, fussy, bawling household, the girl had always been a little fragile, a little pale, a little quiet, like a small, gentle alien that could not cope with the hard voices of Mamma and the sisters and the rough horseplay of the brothers; and Addie talked so nicely, so pleasantly, so politely, so gallantly, so very differently from Chris and Piet and Jaap.

"The Italian wasn't here last Sunday."

"Then he's sure to come to-day."

"He always comes once a fortnight."

"That's the Italian fashion."

"Why do you boys always call Addie the Italian?" asked Marietje.

Now the three burst with laughing:

"That's nothing to do with you."

"Little girls shouldn't ask questions."

"I think it a silly nickname," said Marietje, "and it means nothing."

They burst out laughing again, full of importance and worldly wisdom.

"That's because you don't know."

"If you knew, you'd think it witty enough."

"It's a d.a.m.ned witty nickname."

"Chris, what language!"

"So you want to know why Addie is an Italian?"

She shrugged her shoulders, played the grown-up sister:

"I think you're silly, just like children. That nickname means nothing."

They burst with laughter once more:

"Don't you know what they do in Italy?"

"In Rome?"

She looked at them, her louts of brothers; she vaguely remembered incautiously-whispered remarks about Aunt Constance, about the time when she was still the wife of the Netherlands minister at Rome, of that old uncle De Staffelaer whom she had never known.

"Well, look here: what do you think the name means?..."

She grew uncomfortable, fearing that they were suggesting something improper which she did not understand:

"I don't know," she said, "and I don't care."

"Then you shouldn't call it a silly name."

But now Marietje was really interested and so she asked Caroline, a little later:

"Do you know why the boys call Addie the Italian?"

"Because they're silly," said Caroline.

"No, there must be some reason, but they wouldn't tell me."

Now Carolientje was puzzled in her turn and she asked her mother, later:

"Why are the boys always calling Addie the Italian, Mamma?"