Part 2 (1/2)

”_If_ you had a boy,” Keith took her up. ”But you knew I was here?”

”Of course, I knew,” said his mother in the tone that always warned him that a change of occupation would be in order. ”Run along and play in your own corner now. I must get some work done.”

At other times, when the talk didn't drift off into dangerous by-paths, his mother would tell little anecdotes in English learned from her former mistress, and generally end up by singing a little song about a ball--probably one that had something to do with cricket. And Keith would exultantly repeat the last line, which was the only one he could remember:

”And then she _popped_, and then she died.”

It was the word _popped_ that caught his fancy, partly because it was so funny in itself, and partly because it had to be uttered with a sort of explosion on a very high note. As far as his rendering of the rest was concerned--well, it was early discovered and reluctantly admitted that, like his father, he could not even sing ”Old Man Noah,” which is the simplest melody imaginable to a musical mind in Sweden.

His failure in this respect gave his mother a slight pang every time it was brought home to her, although she made fun of it and pretended she didn't care. Music had been her young heart's dream. It was the only art for which she showed a genuine regard. And two of her pet grievances were that she didn't have a piano, and that, if she had one, she could not play on it.

But his father used to say that the only instrument he cared to hear was a drum.

V

His mother's chief grievance was her health. She was rarely quite well, and they had a family physician who would appear from time to time without being sent for. Yet her illness seemed, as a rule, not to prevent her from being about and attending to her household duties.

Once, however, while Keith was still too small to receive clear impressions, she had to keep in bed for a long time and during much of that time she seemed to have forgotten him entirely. The father was more taciturn and reserved than usual, and even the boy could see that he was worried. Friends and relatives came and went with a quite uncommon frequency, and all of them spoke to Keith in a strange manner that, although not unpleasant, had a tendency to make him choke. A hundred times a day he was told that he must keep quiet for his mother's sake, and that it was no time for boisterous playing--if he really must play at all. Most of the time he was in the kitchen, and on a few occasions he was even permitted to stay all by himself in the parlour, where there were all sorts of big books with any number of pictures on the fine oval table standing in front of an old sofa so huge that to crawl up on its seat was almost like going off into another room.

Finally he was taken to the home of Aunt Brita, his father's married sister, in another part of the town and kept there, a bewildered prisoner in a strange land, until one day his aunt told him that his mother was well and wanted him to come home, but that he would have to be a more than usually good boy for a long time yet, unless he wanted to lose his mother forever.

When, at last, he was home again, his mother pulled him up to herself in the bed, embraced him pa.s.sionately and sobbed as if it had been a farewell instead of a greeting. He wept, too, and clung to his mother as if in fright, while she told him that he must always do just what she told him and, above all, not scare her by going off so that she did not know where he was.

The father stood beside the bed watching them. And as Keith happened to look up once, he saw that his father's eyes were moist with tears. The boy could hardly believe it, and a little later he wondered whether he had been mistaken, for his father spoke just then in his sternest tone, and all he said was:

”Yes, I hope you will behave a little better after this than you have done before.”

Many more weeks went before his mother was herself again. Even then a difference remained. She was more given to worry than before and clung to husband and child with a concern that frequently became oppressive.

Then, one fine day, she was all gay and smiling again, and bustled about the home with new eagerness, and told Keith a lot of things about England, and once actually danced across the floor while he was vainly trying to keep step with her. And the father tried hard to look his grouchiest when he returned home that night, but failed. And Keith was allowed to stay up quite late, and when he was in bed at last, and almost asleep, he thought he saw his father in the big easy chair by the window, with the mother seated on his lap kissing him. And just as he was dropping off, he heard, as if in a dream, his father's voice saying:

”Look out! I think the Crown Prince is still awake!”

VI

Some persons said that Keith looked like his father, others that he was the very image of his mother.

”He has my light hair and Carl's brown eyes,” said his mother often when that topic was under discussion, and saying it seemed to make her happy.

”As a baby he was so pretty that people would stop us on the street to ask whose child he was,” Granny might put in, if she happened to be within hearing. Then she would add with a glance at Keith: ”But that is all gone now.”

Keith himself never gave much thought to his looks, but any comparison with his mother struck him as quite foolish.

He liked to look at her, especially at her hair, which was very plentiful and in colour like beaten copper with glints of gold in it.

Her skin was very fair and soft as the softest velvet. Her eyes were blue, and in bright moments they had the softness of the sky of a Swedish summer night. But when the clouds of depression closed in upon her, they grew pale and light less and disturbingly furtive, so that Keith's glance found it hard to meet them.

Her gaiety sparkled when she was herself, and she had a pa.s.sionate love of everything that was bright and pleasant. Once she had always been that way and at times she would tell Keith what a wonderful time she had as a girl, and how she used to be the centre and inspiration of every social gathering in which she took part. She had a quick mind, too, and a heart full of impulsive generosity. But from one extreme she would go to another, so that, when the dark moments came, she would even regret kindnesses conferred while the sun was still s.h.i.+ning. In such moments she would sometimes speak to the boy of her ailment as if he were in some mysterious way responsible for it.