Small Souls Part 48

"No, Daddy: what should I be angry for?"

"Then be as you used to be, Addie. When you're not cheerful, everything in the house is so sad."

The boy smiled.

"I'll try, Daddy."

"But why try? Just be it, be it!"

No, Van der Welcke would not, could not tell him.

"I'll try, Daddy."

And he moved to go back to his books.

"Addie!"

"What is it, Papa?"

"Come here, come to me."

"I have my work to do."

"Come along, I want you."

The boy came.

"Come to me, here, on my lap. Perhaps it is the last time, Addie, that I shall take you on my knee. You are my little boy still; and presently, presently perhaps you will be a big son to me, with whom I shall discuss things ... and who will no longer sit on my lap."

He sat down on his father's knee:

"What is it?" he asked, quietly, sensibly.

"I am going to tell you, Addie."

The child understood:

"No, don't tell me," he said. "I am not inquisitive. And I am too young, perhaps, to know. It doesn't matter. I dare say I shall know, later on.

For the present, I'm just your little boy."

He nestled against his father, in his arm:

"It's so jolly, sitting with you like this. Uncle Paul always says, when he sees us bicycling, that we are just like chums, but he has never seen us like this."

Should he tell him? thought Van der Welcke. Should he not tell him? If he told him, this would be the last time that he would take his son on his knees.

"I had made up my mind to tell you, Addie."

"No, don't."

He did not tell him that evening. And the boy tried to be as he used to, especially at meals, but he was not very successful; his cheerfulness sounded forced. Then, two evenings later, Van der Welcke said:

"Come here, Addie. Come and sit on my lap."

And that was the last time.

"Listen, I want to tell you all about it. When you know, perhaps you will feel a little older than you do now; but, when you know, you will be my child again, my son, won't you? My son, yes, who is becoming a man, but still my son, my friend as always. I'll tell you now. It's better that I should tell you...."

Then he told him, very simply....

And it was very easy, very simple to tell Addie, in quiet words. He told his boy that he had fallen in love with Mamma when she was the wife of another and that he had stolen Mamma's love, stolen it from that other man. He told the story so humbly, so quietly and simply as though it meant nothing, making this confession to his child, and as though he were pouring out all his sufferings of the old days into the heart of a friend. They sat talking for a long time; and it did them both good.

Then said Van der Welcke:

"Addie, go to Mamma now. She herself asked me to tell you everything. Go to her now and give her a kiss."

The boy kissed him first, embraced him with throttling arms, with the grip of a friend's embrace. Then he went out; and Van der Welcke, quietly smoking, listened to his footsteps on the stairs. But then Van der Welcke started, with a shock, reflected:

"What have I done? O my G.o.d, no, no, no I ought not to have told him...."

But the house remained very quiet. Constance was sitting alone, in her boudoir. Her head was bent under the light of the lamp, over her needle-work, and her hair, changing so gently to its cloudy grey, curled tenderly about the delicate oval of her still youthful face. There was a sort of gentle, resigned peace in her att.i.tude, with much pensiveness and sadness. When Addie opened the door, he stood still and she did not look up, thinking that it was Van der Welcke. Then he went to his mother....

She looked up, startled:

"Is that you?"

"Yes, Mamma."

She looked up at him; and suddenly it flashed across her that he knew....

"Papa has been speaking to me, Mamma...."

She gave a violent start, as though she had had an electric shock; her eyes closed, her head fell back, her hands fell slackly in her lap:

"O G.o.d!" she thought. "No, oh, no, he ought not to have told him!..."

He knelt before his mother and pa.s.sed his fingers softly over her face and gently opened her eyes. She looked at him, with a pale, terrified, shocked face and staring eyes and distorted mouth. She saw his own fresh, soft child's face, smiling friendly....

"I know the truth now, Mamma," he said, "and, if people slander me now, I can bear it...."

She threw her arms around him, dropped her head upon his breast. She felt him in that embrace grown older, bigger, stronger, now quite a man.

She now felt a protector in him. But she was ashamed and again closed her eyes:

"My boy!" she murmured. "Do you love your mother?..."

"Yes, Mamma."

Her face grew calmer, but her eyes remained shut.