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Title: Thelma
Author: Marie Corelli
Release Date: March, 2003 [Etext #3823]
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THELMA
BY MARIE CORELLI
THELMA.
BOOK I.
THE LAND OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN.
CHAPTER I.
"Dream by dream shot through her eyes, and each
Outshone the last that lighted."--Swinburne.
Midnight,--without darkness, without stars! Midnight--and the
unwearied sun stood, yet visible in the heavens, like a victorious
king throned on a dais of royal purple bordered with gold. The sky
above him,--his canopy,--gleamed with a cold yet lustrous blue,
while across it slowly flitted a few wandering clouds of palest
amber, deepening, as they sailed along, to a tawny orange. A broad
stream of light falling, as it were, from the centre of the
magnificent orb, shot lengthwise across the Altenfjord, turning its
waters to a mass of quivering and shifting color that alternated
from bronze to copper,--from copper to silver and azure. The
surrounding hills glowed with a warm, deep violet tint, flecked here
and there with touches of bright red, as though fairies were
lighting tiny bonfires on their summits. Away in the distance a huge
mass of rock stood out to view, its rugged lines transfigured into
ethereal loveliness by a misty veil of tender rose pink,--a hue
curiously suggestive of some other and smaller sun that might have
just set. Absolute silence prevailed. Not even the cry of a sea-mew
or kittiwake broke the almost deathlike stillness,--no breath of
wind stirred a ripple on the glassy water. The whole scene might
well have been the fantastic dream of some imaginative painter,
whose ambition soared beyond the limits of human skill. Yet it was
only one of those million wonderful effects of sky and sea which are
common in Norway, especially on the Altenfjord, where, though beyond
the Arctic circle, the climate in summer is that of another Italy,
and the landscape a living poem fairer than the visions of Endymion.
There was one solitary watcher of the splendid spectacle. This was a
man of refined features and aristocratic appearance, who, reclining
on a large rug of skins which he had thrown down on the shore for
that purpose, was gazing at the pageant of the midnight sun and all
its stately surroundings, with an earnest and rapt expression in his
clear hazel eyes.
"Glorious! beyond all expectation, glorious!" he murmured half
aloud, as he consulted his watch and saw that the hands marked
exactly twelve on the dial. "I believe I'm having the best of it,
after all. Even if those fellows get the Eulalie into good position
they will see nothing finer than this."
As he spoke he raised his field-glass and swept the horizon in
search of a vessel, his own pleasure yacht,--which had taken three
of his friends, at their special desire, to the opposite island of
Seiland,--Seiland, rising in weird majesty three thousand feet above
the sea, and boasting as its chief glory the great peak of Jedke,
the most northern glacier in all the wild Norwegian land. There was
no sign of a returning sail, and he resumed his study of the
sumptuous sky, the colors of which were now deepening and burning
with increasing lustre, while an array of clouds of the deepest
purple hue, swept gorgeously together beneath the sun as though to
form his footstool.
"One might imagine that the trump of the Resurrection had sounded,
and that all this aerial pomp,--this strange silence,--was just the
pause, the supreme moment before the angels descended," he mused,
with a half-smile at his own fancy, for though something of a poet
at heart, he was much more of a cynic. He was too deeply imbued with
modern fashionable atheism to think seriously about angels or
Resurrection trumps, but there was a certain love of mysticism and
romance in his nature, which not even his Oxford experiences and the
chilly dullness of English materialism had been able to eradicate.
And there was something impressive in the sight of the majestic orb
holding such imperial revel at midnight,--something almost unearthly
in the light and life of the heavens, as compared with the
referential and seemingly worshipping silence of the earth,--that,
for a few moments, awed him into a sense of the spiritual and
unseen. Mythical passages from the poets he loved came into his
memory, and stray fragments of old songs and ballads he had known in
his childhood returned to him with haunting persistence. It was, for
him, one of those sudden halts in life which we all experience,--an
instant,--when time and the world seem to stand still, as though to
permit us easy breathing; a brief space,--in which we are allowed to
stop and wonder awhile at the strange unaccountable force within us,
that enables us to stand with such calm, smiling audacity, on our
small pin's point of the present, between the wide dark gaps of past
and future; a small hush,--in which the gigantic engines of the
universe appear to revolve no more, and the immortal Soul of man
itself is subjected and over-ruled by supreme and eternal Thought.
Drifting away on those delicate imperceptible lines that lie between
reality and dreamland, the watcher of the midnight sun gave himself
up to the half painful, half delicious sense of being drawn in,
absorbed, and lost in infinite imaginings, when the intense
stillness around him was broken by the sound of a voice singing, a
full, rich contralto, that rang through the air with the clearness
of a golden bell. The sweet liquid notes were those of an old
Norwegian mountain melody, one of those wildly pathetic FOLK-SONGS
that seem to hold all the sorrow, wonder, wistfulness, and
indescribable yearning of a heart too full for other speech than
music. He started to his feet and looked around him for the singer.
There was no one visible. The amber streaks in the sky were leaping
into crimson flame; the Fjord glowed like the burning lake of
Dante's vision; one solitary sea-gull winged its graceful, noiseless
flight far above, its white pinions shimmering like jewels as it
crossed the radiance of the heavens. Other sign of animal life there
was none. Still the hidden voice rippled on in a stream of melody,
and the listener stood amazed and enchanted at the roundness and
distinctness of every note that fell from the lips of the unseen
vocalist.
"A woman's voice," he thought; "but where is the woman?"
Puzzled, he looked to the right and left, then out to the shining
Fjord, half expecting to see some fisher-maiden rowing along, and
singing as she rowed, but there was no sign of any living creature.
While he waited, the voice suddenly ceased, and the song was
replaced by the sharp grating of a keel on the beach. Turning in the
direction of this sound, he perceived a boat being pushed out by
invisible hands towards the water's edge from a rocky cave, that
jutted upon the Fjord, and, full of curiosity, he stepped towards
the arched entrance, when,--all suddenly and unexpectedly,--a girl
sprang out from the dark interior, and standing erect in her boat,
faced the intruder. A girl of about nineteen, she seemed, taller
than most women,--with a magnificent uncovered mass of hair, the
color of the midnight sunshine, tumbled over her shoulders, and
flashing against her flushed cheeks and dazzlingly fair skin. Her
deep blue eyes had an astonished and certainly indignant expression
in them, while he, utterly unprepared for such a vision of
loveliness at such a time and in such a place, was for a moment
taken aback and at a loss for words. Recovering his habitual self-
possession quickly, however, he raised his hat, and, pointing to the
boat, which was more than half way out of the cavern, said simply--
"May I assist you?"
She was silent, eyeing him with a keen glance which had something in
it of disfavor and suspicion.
"I suppose she doesn't understand English," he thought, "and I can't
speak a word of Norwegian. I must talk by signs."
And forthwith he went through a labored pantomime of gesture,
sufficiently ludicrous in itself, yet at the same time expressive of
his meaning. The girl broke into a laugh--a laugh of sweet amusement
which brought a thousand new sparkles of light into her lovely eyes.
"That is very well done," she observed graciously, speaking English
with something of a foreign accent. "Even the Lapps would understand
you, and they are very stupid, poor things!"
Half vexed by her laughter, and feeling that he was somehow an
object of ridicule to this tall, bright-haired maiden, he ceased his
pantomimic gestures abruptly and stood looking at her with a slight
flush of embarrassment on his features.
"I know your language," she resumed quietly, after a brief pause, in
which she had apparently considered the stranger's appearance and
general bearing. "It was rude of me not to have answered you at
once. You can help me if you will. The keel has caught among the
pebbles, but we can easily move it between us." And, jumping lightly
out of her boat, she grasped its edge firmly with her strong white
hands, exclaiming gaily, as she did so, "Push!"
Thus adjured, he lost no time in complying with her request, and,
using his great strength and muscular force to good purpose, the
light little craft was soon well in the water, swaying to and fro as
though with impatience to be gone. The girl sprang to her seat,
discarding his eagerly proffered assistance, and, taking both oars,
laid them in their respective rowlocks, and seemed about to start,
when she paused and asked abruptly--
"Are you a sailor?"
He smiled. "Not I! Do I remind you of one?"
"You are strong, and you manage a boat as though you were accustomed
to the work. Also you look as if you had been at sea."
"Rightly guessed!" he replied, still smiling; "I certainly HAVE been
at sea; I have been coasting all about your lovely land. My yacht
went across to Seiland this afternoon."
She regarded him more intently, and observed, with the critical eye
of a woman, the refined taste displayed in his dress, from the very
cut of his loose travelling coat, to the luxurious rug of fine fox-
shins, that lay so carelessly cast on the shore at a little distance
from him. Then she gave a gesture of hauteur and half-contempt.
"You have a yacht? Oh! then you are a gentleman. You do nothing for
your living?"
"Nothing, indeed!" and he shrugged his shoulders with a mingled air
of weariness and self-pity, "except one thing--I live!"
"Is that hard work?" she inquired wonderingly.
"Very."
They were silent then, and the girl's face grew serious as she
rested on her oars, and still surveyed him with a straight, candid
gaze, that, though earnest and penetrating, had nothing of boldness
in it. It was the look of one in whose past there were no secrets--
the look of a child who is satisfied with the present and takes no
thought for the future. Few women look so after they have entered
their teens. Social artifice, affectation, and the insatiate vanity
that modern life encourages in the feminine nature--all these things
soon do away with the pellucid clearness and steadfastness of the
eye--the beautiful, true, untamed expression, which, though so rare,
is, when seen infinitely more bewitching than all the bright arrows
of coquetry and sparkling invitation that flash from the glances of
well-bred society dames, who have taken care to educate their eyes
if not their hearts. This girl was evidently not trained properly;
had she been so, she would have dropped a curtain over those wide,
bright windows of her soul; she would have remembered that she was
alone with a strange man at midnight--at midnight, though the sun
shone; she would have simpered and feigned embarrassment, even if
she could not feel it. As it happened, she did nothing of the kind,
only her expression softened and became more wistful and earnest,
and when she spoke again her voice was mellow with a suave
gentleness, that had something in it of compassion.
"If you do not love life itself," she said, "you love the beautiful
things of life, do you not? See yonder! There is what we call the
meeting of night and morning. One is glad to be alive at such a
moment. Look quickly! The light soon fades."
She pointed towards the east. Her companion gazed in that direction,
and uttered an exclamation,--almost a shout,--of wonder and
admiration. Within the space of the past few minutes the aspect of
the heavens had completely changed. The burning scarlet and violet
hues had all melted into a transparent yet brilliant shade of pale
mauve,--as delicate as the inner tint of a lilac blossom,--and
across this stretched two wing-shaped gossamer clouds of watery
green, fringed with soft primrose. Between these cloud-wings, as
opaline in lustre as those of a dragon-fly, the face of the sun
shone like a shield of polished gold, while his rays, piercing
spear-like through the varied tints of emerald, brought an unearthly
radiance over the landscape--a lustre as though the moon were, in
some strange way, battling with the sun for mastery over the visible
universe though, looking southward, she could dimly be perceived,
the ghost of herself--a poor, fainting, pallid goddess,--a perishing
Diana.
Bringing his glance down from the skies, the young man turned it to
the face of the maiden near him, and was startled at her marvellous
beauty--beauty now heightened by the effect of the changeful colors
that played around her. The very boat in which she sat glittered
with a bronze-like, metallic brightness as it heaved gently to and
fro on the silvery green water; the midnight sunshine bathed the
falling glory of her long hair, till each thick tress, each
clustering curl, appeared to emit an amber spark of light. The
strange, weird effect of the sky seemed to have stolen into her
eyes, making them shine with witch-like brilliancy,--the varied
radiance flashing about her brought into strong relief the pureness
of her profile, drawing as with a fine pencil the outlines of her
noble forehead, sweet mouth, and rounded chin. It touched the
scarlet of her bodice, and brightened the quaint old silver clasps
she wore at her waist and throat, till she seemed no longer an
earthly being, but more like some fair wondering sprite from the
legendary Norse kingdom of Alfheim, the "abode of the Luminous
Genii."
She was gazing upwards,--heavenwards,--and her expression was one of
rapt and almost devotional intensity. Thus she remained for some
moments, motionless as the picture of an expectant angel painted by
Raffaele or Correggio; then reluctantly and with a deep sigh she
turned her eyes towards earth again. In so doing she met the fixed
and too visibly admiring gaze of her companion. She started, and a
wave of vivid color flushed her cheeks. Quickly recovering her
serenity, however, she saluted him slightly, and, moving her oars in
unison, was on the point of departure.
Stirred by an impulse he could not resist, he laid one hand
detainingly on the rim of her boat.
"Are you going now?" he asked.
She raised her eyebrows in some little surprise and smiled.
"Going?" she repeated. "Why, yes. I shall be late in getting home as
it is."
"Stop a moment," he said eagerly, feeling that he could not let this
beautiful creature leave him as utterly as a midsummer night's dream
without some clue as to her origin and destination. "Will you not
tell me your name?"
She drew herself erect with a look of indignation.
"Sir, I do not know you. The maidens of Norway do not give their
names to strangers."
"Pardon me," he replied, somewhat abashed. "I mean no offense. We
have watched the midnight sun together, and--and--I thought--"
He paused, feeling very foolish, and unable to conclude his
sentence.
She looked at him demurely from under her long, curling lashes.
"You will often find a peasant girl on the shores of the Altenfjord
watching the midnight sun at the same time as yourself," she said,
and there was a suspicion of laughter in her voice. "It is not
unusual. It is not even necessary that you should remember so little
a thing."
"Necessary or not, I shall never forget it," he said with sudden
impetuosity. "You are no peasant! Come; if I give you my name will
you still deny me yours?"
Her delicate brows drew together in a frown of haughty and decided
refusal. "No names please my ears save those that are familiar," she
said, with intense coldness. "We shall not meet again. Farewell!"
And without further word or look, she leaned gracefully to the oars,
and pulling with a long, steady, resolute stroke, the little boat
darted away as lightly and swiftly as a skimming swallow out on the
shimmering water, he stood gazing after it till it became a distant
speck sparkling like a diamond in the light of sky and wave, and
when he could no more watch it with unassisted eyes, he took up his
field glass and followed its course attentively. He saw it cutting
along as straightly as an arrow, then suddenly it dipped round to
the westward, apparently making straight for some shelving rocks,
that projected far into the Fjord. It reached them; it grew less and
less--it disappeared. At the same time the lustre of the heavens
gave way to a pale pearl-like uniform grey tint, that stretched far
and wide, folding up as in a mantle all the regal luxury of the Sun-
king's palace. The subtle odor and delicate chill of the coming dawn
stole freshly across the water. A light haze rose and obscured the
opposite islands. Something of the tender melancholy of autumn,
though it was late June, toned down the aspect of the before
brilliant landscape. A lark rose swiftly from its nest in an
adjacent meadow, and, soaring higher and higher, poured from its
tiny throat a cascade of delicious melody. The midnight sun no
longer shone at midnight; his face smiled with a sobered serenity
through the faint early mists of approaching morning.
CHAPTER II.
"Viens donc--je te chanterai des chansons que les esprits des
cimetieres m'ont apprises!"
MATURIN
"Baffled!" he exclaimed, with a slight vexed laugh, as the boat
vanished from his sight. "By a woman, too! Who would have thought
it?"
Who would have thought it, indeed! Sir Philip Bruce-Errington,
Baronet, the wealthy and desirable parti for whom many match-making
mothers had stood knee-deep in the chilly though sparkling waters of
society, ardently plying rod and line with patient persistence,
vainly hoping to secure him as a husband for one of their highly
proper and passionless daughters,--he, the admired, long-sought-
after "eligible," was suddenly rebuffed, flouted--by whom? A stray
princess, or a peasant. He vaguely wondered, as he lit a cigar and
strolled up and down on the shore, meditating, with a puzzled,
almost annoyed expression on his handsome features. He was not
accustomed to slights of any kind, however trifling; his position
being commanding and enviable enough to attract flattery and
friendship from most people. He was the only son of a baronet as
renowned for eccentricity as for wealth. He had been the spoilt
darling of his mother; and now, both his parents being dead, he was
alone in the world, heir to his father's revenues, and entire master
of his own actions. And as part of the penalty he had to pay for
being rich and good-looking to boot, he was so much run after by
women that he found it hard to understand the haughty indifference
with which he had just been treated by one of the most fair, if not
the fairest of her sex. He was piqued, and his amour propre was
wounded.
"I'm sure my question was harmless enough," he mused, half crossly,
"She might have answered it."
He glanced out impatiently over the Fjord. There was no sign of his
returning yacht as yet.
"What a time those fellows are!" he said to himself. "If the pilot
were not on board, I should begin to think they had run the Eulalie
aground."
He finished his cigar and threw the end of it into the water; then
he stood moodily watching the ripples as they rolled softly up and
caressed the shining brown shore at his feet, thinking all the while
of that strange girl, so wonderfully lovely in face and form, so
graceful and proud of bearing, with her great blue eyes and masses
of dusky gold hair.
His meeting with her was a sort of adventure in its way--the first
of the kind he had had for some time. He was subject to fits of
weariness or caprice, and it was in one of these that he had
suddenly left London in the height of the season, and had started
for Norway on a yachting cruise with three chosen companions, one of
whom, George Lorimer, once an Oxford fellow-student, was now his
"chum"--the Pythias to his Damon, the fidus Achates of his closest
confidence. Through the unexpected wakening up of energy in the
latter young gentleman, who was usually of a most sleepy and
indolent disposition, he happened to be quite alone on this
particular occasion, though, as a general rule, he was accompanied
in his rambles by one if not all three of his friends. Utter
solitude was with him a rare occurrence, and his present experience
of it had chanced in this wise. Lorimer the languid, Lorimer the
lazy, Lorimer who had remained blandly unmoved and drowsy through
all the magnificent panorama of the Norwegian coast, including the
Sogne Fjord and the toppling peaks of the Justedal glaciers; Lorimer
who had slept peacefully in a hammock on deck, even while the yacht
was passing under the looming splendors of Melsnipa; Lorimer, now
that he had arrived at the Alton Fjord, then at its loveliest in the
full glory of the continuous sunshine, developed a new turn of mind,
and began to show sudden and abnormal interest in the scenery. In
this humor he expressed his desire to "take a sight" of the midnight
sun from the island of Seiland, and also declared his resolve to try
the nearly impossible ascent of the great Jedke glacier.
Errington laughed at the idea. "Don't tell me," he said, "that you
are going in for climbing. And do you suppose I believe that you are
interested--you of all people--in the heavenly bodies?"
"Why not?" asked Lorimer, with a candid smile. "I'm not in the least
interested in earthly bodies, except my own. The sun's a jolly
fellow. I sympathize with him in his present condition. He's in his
cups--that's what's the matter--and he can't be persuaded to go to
bed. I know his feelings perfectly; and I want to survey his
gloriously inebriated face from another point of view. Don't laugh,
Phil; I'm in earnest! And I really have quite a curiosity to try my
skill in amateur mountaineering. Jedke's the very place for a first
effort. It offers difficulties, and"--this with a slight yawn--"I
like to surmount difficulties; it's rather amusing."
His mind was so evidently set upon the excursion, that Sir Philip
made no attempt to dissuade him from it, but excused himself from
accompanying the party on the plea that he wanted to finish a sketch
he had recently begun. So that when the Eulalie got up her steam,
weighed anchor, and swept gracefully away towards the coast of the
adjacent islands, her owner was left, at his desire, to the
seclusion of a quiet nook on the shore of the Altenfjord, where he
succeeded in making a bold and vivid picture of the scene before
him. The colors of the sky had, however, defied his palette, and
after one or two futile attempts to transfer to his canvas a few of
the gorgeous tints that illumed the landscape, he gave up the task
in despair, and resigned himself to the dolce far niente of absolute
enjoyment. From his half pleasing, half melancholy reverie the voice
of the unknown maiden had startled him, and now,--now she had left
him to resume it if he chose,--left him, in chill displeasure, with
a cold yet brilliant flash of something like scorn in her wonderful
eyes.
Since her departure the scenery, in some unaccountable way, seemed
less attractive to him, the songs of the birds, who were all awake,
fell on inattentive ears; he was haunted by her face and voice, and
he was, moreover, a little out of humor with himself for having been
such a blunderer as to give her offense and thus leave an
unfavorable impression on her mind.
"I suppose I WAS rude," he considered after a while. "She seemed to
think so, at any rate. By Jove! what a crushing look she gave me! A
peasant? Not she! If she had said she was an empress I shouldn't
have been much surprised. But a mere common peasant, with that regal
figure and those white hands! I don't believe it. Perhaps our pilot,
Valdemar, knows who she is; I must ask him."
All at once he bethought himself of the cave whence she had emerged.
It was close at hand--a natural grotto, arched and apparently lofty.
He resolved to explore it. Glancing at his watch he saw it was not
yet one o'clock in the morning, yet the voice of the cuckoo called
shrilly from the neighboring hills, and a circling group of swallows
flitted around him, their lovely wings glistening like jewels in the
warm light of the ever-wakeful sun. Going to the entrance of the
cave, he looked in. It was formed of rough rock, hewn out by the
silent work of the water, and its floor was strewn thick with loose
pebbles and polished stones. Entering it, he was able to walk
upright for some few paces, then suddenly it seemed to shrink in
size and to become darker. The light from the opening gradually
narrowed into a slender stream too small for him to see clearly
where he was going, thereupon he struck a fusee. At first he could
observe no sign of human habitation, not even a rope, or chain, or
hook, to intimate that it was a customary shelter for a boat. The
fusee went out quickly, and he lit another. Looking more carefully
and closely about him, he perceived on a projecting shelf of rock, a
small antique lamp, Etruscan in shape, made of iron and wrought with
curious letters. There was oil in it, and a half-burnt wick; it had
evidently been recently used. He availed himself at once of this
useful adjunct to his explorations, and lighting it, was able by the
clear and steady flame it emitted, to see everything very
distinctly. Right before him was an uneven flight of steps leading
down to a closed door.
He paused and listened attentively. There was no sound but the slow
lapping of the water near the entrance; within, the thickness of the
cavern walls shut out the gay carolling of the birds, and all the
cheerful noises of awakening nature. Silence, chillness, and partial
obscurity are depressing influences, and the warm blood flowing
through his veins, ran a trifle more slowly and coldly as he felt
the sort of uncomfortable eerie sensation which is experienced by
the jolliest and most careless traveller, when he first goes down to
the catacombs in Rome. A sort of damp, earthy shudder creeps through
the system, and a dreary feeling of general hopelessness benumbs the
faculties; a morbid state of body and mind which is only to be
remedied by a speedy return to the warm sunlight, and a draught of
generous wine.
Sir Philip, however, held the antique lamp aloft, and descended the
clumsy steps cautiously, counting twenty steps in all, at the bottom
of which he found himself face to face with the closed door. It was
made of hard wood, so hard as to be almost like iron. It was black
with age, and covered with quaint carvings and inscriptions; but in
the middle, standing out in bold relief among the numberless Runic
figures and devices, was written in large well-cut letters the
word--
THELMA
"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "I have it! The girl's name, of course!
This is some private retreat of hers, I suppose,--a kind of boudoir
like my Lady Winsleigh's, only with rather a difference."
And he laughed aloud, thinking of the dainty gold-satin hangings of
a certain room in a certain great mansion in Park Lane, where an
aristocratic and handsome lady-leader of fashion had as nearly made
love to him as it was possible for her to do without losing her
social dignity. His laugh was echoed back with a weird and hollow
sound, as though a hidden demon of the cave were mocking him, a
demon whose merriment was intense but also horrible. He heard the
unpleasant jeering repetition with a kind of careless admiration.
"That echo would make a fortune in Faust, if it could be persuaded
to back up Mephistopheles with that truly fiendish, 'HA HA!'" he
said, resuming his examination of the name on the door. Then an odd
fancy seized him, and he called loudly--
"Thelma!"
"Thelma!" shouted the echo.
"Is that her name?"
"Her name!" replied the echo.
"I thought so!" And Philip laughed again, while the echo laughed
wildly in answer. "Just the sort of name to suit a Norwegian nymph
or goddess. THELMA is quaint and appropriate, and as far as I can
remember there's no rhyme to it in the English language. THELMA!"
And he lingered on the pronunciation of the strange word with a
curious sensation of pleasure. "There is something mysteriously
suggestive about the sound of it; like a chord of music played
softly in the distance. Now, can I get through this door, I wonder?"
He pushed it gently. It yielded very slightly, and he tried again
and yet again. Finally, he put down the lamp and set his shoulder
against the wooden barrier with all his force. A dull creaking sound
rewarded his efforts, and inch by inch the huge door opened into
what at first appeared immeasurable darkness. Holding up the light
he looked in, and uttered a smothered exclamation. A sudden gust of
wind rushed from the sea through the passage and extinguished the
lamp, leaving him in profound gloom. Nothing daunted he sought his
fusee case; there was just one left in it. This he hastily struck,
and shielding the glow carefully with one hand, relit his lamp, and
stepped boldly into the mysterious grotto.
The murmur of the wind and waves, like spirit-voices in unison,
followed him as he entered. He found himself in a spacious winding
corridor, that had evidently been hollowed out in the rocks and
fashioned by human hands. Its construction was after the ancient
Gothic method; but the wonder of the place consisted in the walls,
which were entirely covered with shells,--shells of every shape and
hue,--some delicate as rose-leaves, some rough and prickly, others
polished as ivory, some gleaming with a thousand irridescent colors,
others pure white as the foam on high billows. Many of them were
turned artistically in such a position as to show their inner sides
glistening with soft tints like the shades of fine silk or satin,--
others glittered with the opaline sheen of mother-o'-pearl. All were
arranged in exquisite patterns, evidently copied from fixed
mathematical designs,--there were stars, crescents, roses,
sunflowers, hearts, crossed daggers, ships and implements of war,
all faithfully depicted with extraordinary neatness and care, as
though each particular emblem had served some special purpose.
Sir Philip walked along very slowly, delighted with his discovery,
and,--pausing to examine each panel as he passed,--amused himself
with speculations as to the meaning of this beautiful cavern, so
fancifully yet skillfully decorated.
"Some old place of worship, I suppose," he thought. "There must be
many such hidden in different parts of Norway. It has nothing to do
with the Christian faith, for among all these devices I don't
perceive a single cross."
He was right. There were no crosses; but there were many designs of
the sun--the sun rising, the sun setting, the sun in full glory,
with all his rays embroidered round him in tiny shells, some of them
no bigger than a pin's head. "What a waste of time and labor," he
mused. "Who would undertake such a thing nowadays? Fancy the
patience and delicacy of finger required to fit all these shells in
their places! and they are embedded in strong mortar too, as if the
work were meant to be indestructible."
Pull of pleased interest, he pursued his way, winding in and out
through different arches, all more or less richly ornamented, till
he came to a tall, round column, which seemingly supported the whole
gallery, for all the arches converged towards it. It was garlanded
from top to bottom with their roses and their leaves, all worked in
pink and lilac shells, interspersed with small pieces of shining
amber and polished malachite. The flicker of the lamp he carried,
made it glisten like a mass of jewel-work, and, absorbed in his
close examination of this unique specimen of ancient art, Sir Philip
did not at once perceive that another light beside his own glimmered
from out the furthest archway a little beyond him,--an opening that
led into some recess he had not as yet explored. A peculiar lustre
sparkling on one side of the shell-work however, at last attracted
his attention, and, glancing up quickly, he saw, to his surprise,
the reflection of a strange radiance, rosily tinted and brilliant.
Turning in its direction, he paused, irresolute. Could there be some
one living in that furthest chamber to which the long passage he had
followed evidently led? some one who would perhaps resent his
intrusion as an impertinence? some eccentric artist or hermit who
had made the cave his home? Or was it perhaps a refuge for
smugglers? He listened anxiously. There was no sound. He waited a
minute or two, then boldly advanced, determined to solve the
mystery.
This last archway was lower than any of those he had passed through,
and he was forced to take off his hat and stoop as he went under it.
When he raised his head he remained uncovered, for he saw at a
glance that the place was sacred. He was in the presence, not of
Life, but Death. The chamber in which he stood was square in form,
and more richly ornamented with shell-designs than any other portion
of the grotto he had seen, and facing the east was an altar hewn out
of the solid rock and studded thickly with amber, malachite and
mother-o'-pearl. It was covered With the incomprehensible emblems of
a bygone creed worked in most exquisite shell-patterns, but on it,--
as though in solemn protest against the past,--stood a crucifix of
ebony and carved ivory, before which burned steadily a red lamp.
The meaning of the mysterious light was thus explained, but what
chiefly interested Errington was the central object of the place,--a
coffin,--of rather a plain granite sarcophagus which was placed on
the floor lying from north to south. Upon it,--in strange contrast
to the sombre coldness of the stone,--reposed a large wreath of
poppies freshly gathered. The vivid scarlet of the flowers, the
gleam of the shining shells on the walls, the mournful figure of the
ivory Christ stretched on the cross among all those pagan emblems,--
the intense silence broken only by the slow drip, drip of water
trickling somewhere behind the cavern,--and more than these outward
things,--his own impressive conviction that he was with the imperial
Dead--imperial because past the sway of empire--all made a powerful
impression on his mind. Overcoming by degrees his first sensations
of awe, he approached the sarcophagus and examined it. It was
solidly closed and mortared all round, so that it might have been
one compact coffin-shaped block of stone so far as its outward
appearance testified. Stooping more closely, however, to look at the
brilliant poppy-wreath, he started back with a slight exclamation.
Cut deeply in the hard granite he read for the second time that odd
name--
THELMA
It belonged to some one dead, then--not to the lovely living woman
who had so lately confronted him in the burning glow of the midnight
sun? He felt dismayed at his unthinking precipitation,--he had, in
his fancy, actually associated HER, so full of radiant health and
beauty, with what was probably a mouldering corpse in that
hermetically sealed tenement of stone! This idea was unpleasant, and
jarred upon his feelings. Surely she, that golden-haired nymph of
the Fjord, had nothing to do with death! He had evidently found his
way into some ancient tomb. "Thelma" might be the name or title of
some long-departed queen or princess of Norway, yet, if so, how came
the crucifix there,--the red lamp, the flowers?
He lingered, looking curiously about him, as if he fancied the
shell-embroidered walls might whisper some answer to his thoughts.
The silence offered no suggestions. The plaintive figure of the
tortured Christ suspended on the cross maintained an immovable watch
over all things, and there was a subtle, faint odor floating about
as of crushed spices or herbs. While he still stood there absorbed
in perplexed conjectures, he became oppressed by want of air. The
red hue of the poppy-wreath mingled with the softer glow of the lamp
on the altar,--the moist glitter of the shells and polished pebbles,
seemed to dazzle and confuse his eyes. He felt dizzy and faint--and
hastily made his way out of that close death-chamber into the
passage, where he leaned for a few minutes against the great central
column to recover himself. A brisk breath of wind from the Fjord
came careering through the gallery, and blew coldly upon his
forehead. Refreshed by it, he rapidly overcame the sensation of
giddiness, and began to retrace his steps through the winding
arches, thinking with some satisfaction as he went, what a romantic
incident he would have to relate to Lorimer and his other friends,
when a sudden glare of light illumined the passage, and he was
brought to an abrupt standstill by the sound of a wild "Halloo!" The
light vanished; it reappeared. It vanished again, and again
appeared, flinging a strong flare upon the shell-worked walls as it
approached. Again the fierce "Halloo!" resounded through the hollow
cavities of the subterranean temple, and he remained motionless,
waiting for an explanation of this unlooked-for turn to the events
of the morning.
He had plenty of physical courage, and the idea of any addition to
his adventure rather pleased him than otherwise. Still, with all his
bravery, he recoiled a little when he first caught sight of the
extraordinary being that emerged from the darkness--a wild,
distorted figure that ran towards him with its head downwards,
bearing aloft in one skinny hand a smoking pine-torch, from which
the sparks flew like so many fireflies. This uncanny personage,
wearing the semblance of man, came within two paces of Errington
before perceiving him; then, stopping short in his headlong career,
the creature flourished his torch and uttered a defiant yell.
Philip surveyed him coolly and without alarm, though so weird an
object might well have aroused a pardonable distrust, and even
timidity. He saw a misshapen dwarf, not quite four feet high, with
large, ungainly limbs out of all proportion to his head, which was
small and compact. His features were of almost feminine fineness,
and from under his shaggy brows gleamed a restless pair of large,
full, wild blue eyes. His thick, rough flaxen hair was long and
curly, and hung in disordered profusion over his deformed shoulders.
His dress was of reindeer skin, very fancifully cut, and ornamented
with beads of different colors,--and twisted about him as though in
an effort to be artistic, was a long strip of bright scarlet woollen
material, which showed up the extreme pallor and ill-health of the
meagre countenance, and the brilliancy of the eyes that now sparkled
with rage as they met those of Errington. He, from his superior
height, glanced down with pity on the unfortunate creature, whom he
at once took to be the actual owner of the cave he had explored.
Uncertain what to do, whether to speak or remain silent, he moved
slightly as though to pass on; but the shock-headed dwarf leaped
lightly in his way, and, planting himself firmly before him,
shrieked some unintelligible threat, of which Errington could only
make out the last words, "Nifleheim" and "Nastrond"
"I believe he is commending me to the old Norwegian inferno,"
thought the young baronet with a smile, amused at the little man's
evident excitement. "Very polite of him, I'm sure! But, after all, I
had no business here. I'd better apologize." And forthwith he began
to speak in the simplest English words he could choose, taking care
to pronounce them very slowly and distinctly.
"I cannot understand you, my good sir; but I see you are angry. I
came here by accident. I am going away now at once."
His explanation had a strange effect. The dwarf drew nearer, twirled
himself rapidly round three times as though waltzing; then, holding
his torch a little to one side, turned up his thin, pale
countenance, and, fixing his gaze on Sir Philip, studied every
feature of his face with absorbing interest. Then he burst into a
violent fit of laughter.
"At last--at last?" he cried in fluent English. "Going now? Going,
you say? Never! never! You will never go away any more. No, not
without something stolen! The dead have summoned you here! Their
white bony fingers have dragged you across the deep! Did you not
hear their voices, cold and hollow as the winter wind, calling,
calling you, and saying, 'Come, come, proud robber, from over the
far seas; come and gather the beautiful rose of the northern
forest'? Yes, Yes! You have obeyed the dead--the dead who feign
sleep, but are ever wakeful;--you have come as a thief in the golden
midnight, and the thing you seek is the life of Sigurd! Yes--yes! it
is true. The spirit cannot lie. You must kill, you must steal! See
how the blood drips, drop by drop, from the heart of Sigurd! And the
jewel you steal--ah, what a jewel!--you shall not find such another
in Norway!"
His excited voice sank by degrees to a plaintive and forlorn
whisper, and dropping his torch with a gesture of despair on the
ground, he looked at it burning, with an air of mournful and utter
desolation. Profoundly touched, as he immediately understood the
condition of his companion's wandering wits, Errington spoke to him
soothingly.
"You mistake me," he said in gentle accents; "I would not steal
anything from you, nor have I come to kill you. See," and he held
out his hand, "I wouldn't harm you for the world. I didn't know this
cave belonged to you. Forgive me for having entered it. I am going
to rejoin my friends. Good-bye!"
The strange, half-crazy creature touched his outstretched hand
timidly, and with a sort of appeal.
"Good-bye, good-bye!" he muttered. "That is what they all say,--even
the dead,--good-bye; but they never go--never, never! You cannot be
different to the rest. And you do not wish to hurt poor Sigurd?"
"Certainly not, if YOU are Sigurd," said Philip, half laughing; "I
should be very sorry to hurt you."
"You are SURE?" he persisted, with a sort of obstinate eagerness.
"You have eyes which tell truths; but there are other things which
are truer than eyes--things in the air, in the grass, in the waves,
and they talk very strangely of you. I know you, of course! I knew
you ages ago--long before I saw you dead on the field of battle, and
the black-haired Valkyrie galloped with you to Valhalla! Yes; I knew
you long before that, and you knew me; for I was your King, and you
were my vassal, wild and rebellious--not the proud, rich Englishman
you are to-day."
Errington startled. How could this Sigurd, as he called himself, be
aware of either his wealth or nationality?
The dwarf observed his movement of surprise with a cunning smile.
"Sigurd is wise,--Sigurd is brave! Who shall deceive him? He knows
you well; he will always know you. The old gods teach Sigurd all his
wisdom--the gods of the sea and the wind--the sleepy gods that lie
in the hearts of the flowers--the small spirits that sit in shells
and sing all day and all night." He paused, and his eyes filled with
a wistful look of attention. He drew closer.
"Come," he said earnestly, "come, you must listen to my music;
perhaps you can tell me what it means."
He picked up his smouldering torch and held it aloft again; then,
beckoning Errington to follow him, he led the way to a small grotto,
cut deeply into the wall of the cavern. Here there were no shell
patterns. Little green ferns grew thickly out of the stone crevices,
and a minute runlet of water trickled slowly down from above,
freshening the delicate frondage as it fell. With quick, agile
fingers he removed a loose stone from this aperture, and as he did
so, a low shuddering wail resounded through the arches--a melancholy
moan that rose and sank, and rose again in weird, sorrowful minor
echoes.
"Hear her," murmured Sigurd plaintively. "She is always complaining;
it is a pity she cannot rest! She is a spirit, you know. I have
often asked her what troubles her, but she will not tell me; she
only weeps!"
His companion looked at him compassionately. The sound that so
affected his disordered imagination was nothing but the wind blowing
through the narrow hole formed by the removal of the stone; but it
was useless to explain this simple fact to one in his condition.
"Tell me," and Sir Philip spoke very gently, "is this your home?"
The dwarf surveyed him almost scornfully. "MY home!" he echoed. "My
home is everywhere--on the mountains, in the forests, on the black
rocks and barren shores! My soul lives between the sun and the sea;
my heart is with Thelma!"
Thelma! Here was perhaps a clue to the mystery.
"Who is Thelma?" asked Errington somewhat hurriedly.
Sigurd broke into violent and derisive laughter. "Do you think I
will tell YOU?" he cried loudly. "YOU,--one of that strong, cruel
race who must conquer all they see; who covet everything fair under
heaven, and will buy it, even at the cost of blood and tears! Do you
think I will unlock the door of my treasure to YOU? No, no;
besides," and his voice sank lower, "what should you do with Thelma?
She is dead!"
And, as if possessed by a sudden access of frenzy, he brandished his
pine-torch wildly above his head till it showered a rain of bright
sparks above him, and exclaimed furiously--"Away, away, and trouble
me not! The days are not yet fulfilled,--the time is not yet ripe.
Why seek to hasten my end? Away, away, I tell you! Leave me in
peace! I will die when Thelma bids me; but not till then!"
And he rushed down the long gallery and disappeared in the furthest
chamber, where he gave vent to a sort of long, sobbing cry, which
rang dolefully through the cavern and then subsided into utter
silence.
Feeling as if he were in a chaotic dream, Errington pursued his
interrupted course through the winding passages with a bewildered
and wondering mind. What strange place had he inadvertently lighted
on? and who were the still stranger beings in connection with it?
First the beautiful girl herself; next the mysterious coffin, hidden
in its fanciful shell temple; and now this deformed madman, with the
pale face and fine eyes; whose utterances, though incoherent,
savored somewhat of poesy and prophecy. And what spell was attached
to that name of Thelma? The more he thought of his morning's
adventure, the more puzzled he became. As a rule, he believed more
in the commonplace than in the romantic--most people do. But truth
to tell, romance is far more common than the commonplace. There are
few who have not, at one time or other of their lives, had some
strange or tragic episode woven into the tissue of their every-day
existence; and it would be difficult to find one person even among
humdrum individuals, who, from birth to death, has experienced
nothing out of the common.
Errington generally dismissed all tales of adventure as mere
exaggerations of heated fancy; and, had he read in some book, of a
respectable nineteenth-century yachtsman having such an interview
with a madman in a sea-cavern, he would have laughed at the affair
as an utter improbability, though he could not have explained why he
considered it improbable. But now it had occurred to himself, he was
both surprised and amused at the whole circumstance; moreover, he
was sufficiently interested and carious to be desirous of sifting
the matter to its foundation.
It was, however, somewhat of a relief to him when he again readied
the outer cavern. He replaced the lamp on the shelf where he had
found it, and stepped once more into the brilliant light of the very
early dawn, which then had all the splendor of full morning. There
was a deliciously balmy wind, the blue sky was musical with a chorus
of larks, and every breath of air that waved aside the long grass
sent forth a thousand odors from hidden beds of wild thyme and bog-
myrtle.
He perceived the Eulalie at anchor in her old place on the Fjord;
she had returned while he was absent on his explorations. Gathering
together his rug and painting materials, he blew a whistle sharply
three times; he was answered from the yacht, and presently a boat,
manned by a couple of sailors, came skimming over the water towards
him. It soon reached the shore, and, entering it, he was speedily
rowed away from the scene of his morning's experience back to his
floating palace, where, as yet, none of his friends were stirring.
"How about Jedke?" he inquired of one of his men. "Did they climb
it?"
A slow grin overspread the sailor's brown face.
"Lord bless you, no, sir! Mr. Lorimer, he just looked at it and sat
down in the shade; the other gentleman played pitch-and-toss with
pebbles. They was main hungry too, and ate a mighty sight of 'am and
pickles. Then they came on board and all turned in at once."
Errington laughed. He was amused at the utter failure of Lorimer's
recent sudden energy, but not surprised. His thoughts were, however,
busied with something else, and he next asked--"Where's our pilot?"
"Valdemar Svensen, sir? He went down to his bunk as soon as we
anchored, for a snooze, he said."
"All right. If he comes on deck before I do, just tell him not to go
ashore for anything till I see him. I want to speak to him after
breakfast."
"Ay, ay, sir."
Whereupon Sir Philip descended to his private cabin. He drew the
blind at the port-hole to shut out the dazzling sunlight, for it was
nearly three o'clock in the morning, and quickly undressing, he
flung himself into his berth with a slight, not altogether
unpleasant, feeling of exhaustion. To the last, as his eyes closed
drowsily, he seemed to hear the slow drip, drip of the water behind
the rocky cavern, and the desolate cry of the incomprehensible
Sigurd, while through these sounds that mingled with the gurgle of
little waves lapping against the sides of the Eulalie, the name of
"Thelma" murmured itself in his ears till slumber drowned his senses
in oblivion.
CHAPTER III.
"Hast any mortal name,
Fit appellation for this dazzling frame,
Or friends or kinsfolk on the citied earth?"
KEATS.
"This is positively absurd," murmured Lorimer, in mildly injured
tones, seven hours later, as he sat on the edge of his berth,
surveying Errington, who, fully dressed, and in the highest spirits,
had burst in to upbraid him for his laziness while he was yet but
scantily attired. "I tell you, my good fellow, there are some things
which the utmost stretch of friendship will NOT stand. Here am I in
shirt and trousers with only one sock on, and you dare to say you
have had an adventure! Why, if you had cut a piece out of the sun,
you ought to wait till a man is shaved before mentioning it."
"Don't be snappish, old boy!" laughed Errington gaily. "Put on that
other sock and listen. I don't want to tell those other fellows just
yet, they might go making inquiries about her--"
"Oh, there is a 'her' in the case, is there?" said Lorimer, opening
his eyes rather widely. "Well, Phil! I thought you had had enough,
and something too much, of women."
"This is not a woman!" declared Philip with heat and eagerness, "at
least not the sort of woman _I_ have ever known! This is a forest-
empress, sea-goddess, or sun-angel! I don't know WHAT she is, upon
my life!"
Lorimer regarded him with an air of reproachful offense.
"Don't go on--please don't!" he implored. "I can't stand it--I
really can't! Incipient verse-mania is too much for me. Forest-
empress, sea-goddess, sun-angel--by Jove! what next? You are
evidently in a very bad way. If I remember rightly, you had a flask
of that old green Chartreuse with you. Ah! that accounts for it!
Nice stuff, but a little too strong."
Errington laughed, and, unabashed by his friend's raillery,
proceeded to relate with much vivacity and graphic fervor the
occurrences of the morning. Lorimer listened patiently with a
forbearing smile on his open, ruddy countenance. When he had heard
everything he looked up and inquired calmly--
"This is not a yarn, is it?"
"A yarn!" exclaimed Philip. "Do you think I would invent such a
thing?"
"Can't say," returned Lorimer imperturbably. "You are quite capable
of it. It's a very creditable crammer, due to Chartreuse. Might have
been designed by Victor Hugo; it's in his style. Scene, Norway--
midnight. Mysterious maiden steals out of a cave and glides away in
a boat over the water; man, the hero, goes into cave, finds a stone
coffin, says--'Qu'est-ce que c'est? Dieu! C'est la mort!' Spectacle
affreux! Staggers back perspiring; meets mad dwarf with torch; mad
dwarf talks a good deal--mad people always do,--then yells and runs
away. Man comes out of cave and--and--goes home to astonish his
friends; one of them won't be astonished,--that's me!"
"I don't care," said Errington. "It's a true story for all that.
Only, I say, don't talk of it before the others; let's keep our own
counsel--"
"No poachers allowed on the Sun-Angel Manor!" interrupted Lorimer
gravely. Philip went on without heeding him.
"I'll question Valdemar Svensen after breakfast. He knows everybody
about here. Come and have a smoke on deck when I give you the sign,
and we'll cross-examine him."
Lorimer still looked incredulous. "What's the good of it?" he
inquired languidly. "Even if it's all true you had much better leave
this goddess, or whatever you call her, alone, especially if she has
any mad connections. What do YOU want with her?"
"Nothing!" declared Errington, though hiss color heightened.
"Nothing, I assure you! It's just a matter of curiosity with me. I
should like to know who she is--that's all! The affair won't go any
further."
"How do you know?" and Lorimer began to brush his stiff curly hair
with a sort of vicious vigor. "How can you tell? I'm not a
spiritualist, nor any sort of a humbug at all, I hope, but I
sometimes indulge in presentiments. Before we started on this
cruise, I was haunted by that dismal old ballad of Sir Patrick
Spens--"
'The King's daughter of Norroway
Tis thou maun bring her hame!'
"And here you have found her, or so it appears. What's to come of
it, I wonder?"
"Nothing's to come of it; nothing WILL come of it!" laughed Philip.
"As I told you, she said she was a peasant. There's the breakfast-
bell! Make haste, old boy, I'm as hungry as a hunter!"
And he left his friend to finish dressing, and entered the saloon,
where he greeted his two other companions, Alec, or, as he was
oftener called, Sandy Macfarlane, and Pierre Duprez; the former an
Oxford student,--the latter a young fellow whose acquaintance he had
made in Paris, and with whom he had kept up a constant and friendly
intercourse. A greater contrast than these two presented could
scarcely be imagined. Macfarlane was tall and ungainly, with large
loose joints that seemed to protrude angularly out of him in every
direction,--Duprez was short, slight and wiry, with a dapper and by
no means ungraceful figure. The one had formal gauche manners, a
never-to-be-eradicated Glasgow accent, and a slow, infinitely
tedious method of expressing himself,--the other was full of
restless movement and pantomimic gesture, and being proud of his
English, plunged into that language recklessly, making it curiously
light and flippant, though picturesque, as he went. Macfarlane was
destined to become a shining light of the established Church of
Scotland, and therefore took life very seriously,--Duprez was the
spoilt only child of an eminent French banker, and had very little
to do but enjoy himself, and that he did most thoroughly, without
any calculation or care for the future. On all points of taste and
opinion they differed widely; but there was no doubt about their
both being good-hearted fellows, without any affectation of abnormal
vice or virtue.
"So you did not climb Jedke after all!" remarked Errington
laughingly, as they seated themselves at the breakfast table.
"My friend, what would you!" cried Duprez. "I have not said that I
will climb it; no! I never say that I will do anything, because I'm
not sure of myself. How can I be? It is that cher enfant, Lorimer,
that said such brave words! See!. . . we arrive; we behold the
shore--all black, great, vast!. . . rocks like needles, and, higher
than all, this most fierce Jedke--bah! what a name!--straight as the
spire of a cathedral. One must be a fly to crawl up it, and we, we
are not flies--ma foi! no! Lorimer, he laugh, he yawn--so! He say,
'not for me to-day; I very much thank you!' And then, we watch the
sun. Ah! that was grand, glorious, beautiful!" And Duprez kissed the
tips of his fingers in ecstacy.
"What did YOU think about it, Sandy?" asked Sir Philip.
"I didna think much," responded Macfarlane, shortly. "It's no sae
grand a sight as a sunset in Skye. And it's an uncanny business to
see the sun losin' a' his poonctooality, and remainin' stock still,
as it were, when it's his plain duty to set below the horizon.
Mysel', I think it's been fair over-rated. It's unnatural an' oot o'
the common, say what ye like."
"Of course it is," agreed Lorimer, who just then sauntered in from
his cabin. "Nature IS most unnatural. I always thought so. Tea for
me, Phil, please; coffee wakes me up too suddenly. I say, what's the
programme to-day?"
"Fishing in the Alten," answered Errington promptly.
"That suits me perfectly," said Lorimer, as he leisurely sipped his
tea. "I'm an excellent fisher. I hold the line and generally forget
to bait it. Then,--while it trails harmlessly in the water, I doze;
thus both the fish and I are happy."
"And this evening," went on Errington, "we must return the
minister's call. He's been to the yacht twice. We're bound to go out
of common politeness."
"Spare us, good Lord!" groaned Lorimer.
"What a delightfully fat man is that good religious!" cried Duprez.
"A living proof of the healthiness of Norway!"
"He's not a native," put in Macfarlane; "he's frae Yorkshire. He's
only been a matter of three months here, filling the place o' the
settled meenister who's awa' for a change of air."
"He's a precious specimen of a humbug, anyhow," sighed Lorimer
drearily. "However, I'll be civil to him as long as he doesn't ask
me to hear him preach. At that suggestion I'll fight him. He's soft
enough to bruise easily."
"Ye're just too lazy to fight onybody," declared Macfarlane.
Lorimer smiled sweetly. "Thanks, awfully! I dare say you're right.
I've never found it worth while as yet to exert myself in any
particular direction. No one has asked me to exert myself; no one
wants me to exert myself; therefore, why should I?"
"Don't ye want to get on in the world?" asked Macfarlane, almost
brusquely.
"Dear me, no! What an exhausting idea! Get on in the world--what
for? I have five hundred a year, and when my mother goes over to the
majority (long distant be that day, for I'm very fond of the dear
old lady), I shall have five thousand--more than enough to satisfy
any sane man who doesn't want to speculate on the Stock Exchange.
YOUR case, my good Mac, is different. You will be a celebrated
Scotch divine. You will preach to a crowd of pious numskulls about
predestination, and so forth. You will be stump-orator for the
securing of seats in paradise. Now, now, keep calm!--don't mind me.
It's only a figure of speech! And the numskulls will call you a
'rare powerful rousin' preacher'--isn't that the way they go on? and
when you die--for die you must, most unfortunately--they will give
you a three-cornered block of granite (if they can make up their
minds to part with the necessary bawbees) with your name prettily
engraved thereon. That's all very nice; it suits some people. It
wouldn't suit me."
"What WOULD suit you?" queried Errington. "You find everything more
or less of a bore."
"Ah, my good little boy!" broke in Duprez. "Paris is the place for
you. You should live in Paris. Of that you would never fatigue
yourself."
"Too much absinthe, secret murder and suicidal mania," returned
Lorimer, meditatively. "That was a neat idea about the coffins
though. I never hoped to dine off a coffin."
"Ah! you mean the Taverne de l'Enfer?" exclaimed Duprez. "Yes; the
divine waitresses wore winding sheets, and the wine was served in
imitation skulls. Excellent! I remember; the tables were shaped like
coffins."
"Gude Lord Almighty!" piously murmured Macfarlane. "What a fearsome
sicht!"
As he pronounced these words with an unusually marked accent, Duprez
looked inquiring.
"What does our Macfarlane say?"
"He says it must have been a 'fearsome sicht,'" repeated Lorimer,
with even a stronger accent than Sanby's own, "which, mon cher
Pierre, means all the horrors in your language; affreux,
epouvantable, navrant--anything you like, that is sufficiently
terrible."
"Mais, point du tout!" cried Duprez energetically. "It was charming!
It made us laugh at death--so much better than to cry! And there was
a delicious child in a winding-sheet; brown curls, laughing eyes and
little mouth; ha ha! but she was well worth kissing!"
"I'd rather follow ma own funeral, than kiss a lass in a winding-
sheet," said Sandy, in solemn and horrified tones. "It's just awfu'
to think on."
"But, see, my friend," persisted Duprez, "you would not be permitted
to follow your own funeral, not possible,--voila! Your ARE permitted
to kiss the pretty one in the winding-sheet. It IS possible. Behold
the difference!"
"Never mind the Taverne de l'Enfer just now," said Errington, who
had finished his breakfast hurriedly." It's time for you fellows to
get your fishing toggery on. I'm off to speak to the pilot."
And away he went, followed more slowly by Lorimer, who, though he
pretended indifference, was rather curious to know more, if
possible, concerning his friend's adventure of the morning. They
found the pilot, Valdemar Svensen, leaning at his ease against the
idle wheel, with his face turned towards the eastern sky. He was a
stalwart specimen of Norse manhood, tall and strongly built, with
thoughtful, dignified features, and keen, clear hazel eyes. His
chestnut hair, plentifully sprinkled with gray, clustered thickly
over a broad brow, that was deeply furrowed with many a line of
anxious and speculative thought, and the forcible brown hand that
rested lightly on the spokes of the wheel, told its own tale of hard
and honest labor. Neither wife nor child, nor living relative had
Valdemar; the one passion of his heart was the sea. Sir Philip
Errington had engaged him at Christiansund, hearing of him there as
a man to whom the intricacies of the Fjords, and the dangers of
rock-bound coasts, were more familiar than a straight road on dry
lake, and since then the management of the Eulalie had been entirely
entrusted to him. Though an eminently practical sailor, he was half
a mystic, and believed in the wildest legends of his land with more
implicit faith than many so-called Christians believe in their
sacred doctrines. He doffed his red cap respectfully now as
Errington and Lorimer approached, smilingly wishing them "a fair
day." Sir Philip offered him a cigar, and, coming to the point at
once, asked abruptly--
"I say, Svensen, are there any pretty girls in Bosekop?"
The pilot drew the newly lit cigar from his mouth, and passed his
rough hand across his forehead in a sort of grave perplexity.
"It is a matter in which I am foolish," he said at last, "for my
ways have always gone far from the ways of women. Girls there are
plenty, I suppose, but--" he mused with pondering patience for
awhile. Then a broad smile broke like sunshine over his embrowned
countenance, as he continued, "Now, gentlemen, I do remember well;
it is said that at Bosekop yonder, are to be found some of the
homeliest wenches in all Norway."
Errington's face fell at this reply. Lorimer turned away to hide the
mischievous smile that came on his lips at his friend's
discomfiture.
"I KNOW it was that Chartreuse," he thought to himself. "That and
the midnight sun-effects. Nothing else!"
"What!" went on Philip. "No good-looking girls at all about here,
eh?"
Svensen shook his head, still smilingly.
"Not at Bosekop, sir, that I ever heard of."
"I say!" broke in Lorimer, "are there any old tombs or sea-caves, or
places of that sort close by, worth exploring?"
Valdemar Svensen answered this question readily, almost eagerly.
"No, sir! There are no antiquities of any sort; and as for eaves,
there are plenty, but only the natural formations of the sea, and
none of these are curious or beautiful on this side of the Fjord."
Lorimer poked his friend secretly in the ribs.
"You've been dreaming, old fellow!" he whispered slyly. "I knew it
was a crammer!"
Errington shook him off good-humoredly,
"Can you tell me," he said, addressing Valdemar again in distinct
accents, "whether there is any place, person, or thing near here
called THELMA?"
The pilot started; a look of astonishment and fear came into his
eyes; his hand went instinctively to his red cap, as though in
deference to the name.
"The Froken Thelma!" he exclaimed, in low tones. "Is it possible
that you have seen her?"
"Ah, George, what do you say now?" cried Errington delightedly.
"Yes, yes, Valdemar; the Froken Thelma, as you call her. Who is she?
. . . What is she?--and how can there be no pretty girls in Bosekop
if such a beautiful creature as she lives there?"
Valdemar looked troubled and vexed.
"Truly, I thought not of the maiden," he said gravely. "'Tis not for
me to speak of the daughter of Olaf," here his voice sank a little,
and his face grew more and more sombre. "Pardon me, sir, but how did
you meet her?"
"By accident," replied Errington promptly, not caring to relate his
morning's adventure for the pilot's benefit. "Is she some great
personage here?"
Svensen sighed, and smiled somewhat dubiously.
"Great? Oh, no; not what you would call great. Her father, Olaf
Guldmar, is a bonde,--that is, a farmer in his own right. He has a
goodly house, and a few fair acres well planted and tilled,--also he
pays his men freely,--but those that work for him are all he sees,--
neither he nor his daughter ever visit the town. They dwell apart,
and have nothing in common with their neighbors."
"And where do they live?" asked Lorimer, becoming as interested as
he had formerly been incredulous.
The pilot leaned lightly over the rail of the deck and pointed
towards the west.
"You see that great rock shaped like a giant's helmet, and behind it
a high green knoll, clustered thick with birch and pine?"
They nodded assent.
"At the side of the knoll is the bonde's house, a good eight-mile
walk from the outskirts of Bosekop. Should you ever seek to rest
there, gentlemen," and Svensen spoke with quiet resolution, "I doubt
whether you will receive a pleasant welcome."
And he looked at them both with an inquisitive air, as though
seeking to discover their intentions.
"Is that so?" drawled Lorimer lazily, giving his friend an
expressive nudge. "Ah! WE shant trouble them! Thanks for your
information, Valdemar! We don't intend to hunt up the--what d'ye
call him?--the bonde, if he's at all surly. Hospitality that gives
you greeting and a dinner for nothing,--that's what suits ME."
"Our people are not without hospitality," said the pilot, with a
touch of wistful and appealing dignity. "All along your journey,
gentlemen, you have been welcomed gladly, as you know. But Olaf
Guldmar is not like the rest of us; he has the pride and fierceness
of olden days; his manners and customs are different; and few like
him. He is much feared."
"You know him then?" inquired Errington carelessly.
"I know him," returned Valdemar quietly. "And his daughter is fair
as the sun and the sea. But it is not my place to speak of them--."
He broke off, and after a slightly embarrassed pause, asked, "Will
the Herren wish to sail to-day?"
"No Valdemar," answered Errington indifferently. "Not till to-
morrow, when we'll visit the Kaa Fjord if the weather keeps fair."
"Very good, sir," and the pilot, tacitly avoiding any further
converse with his employer respecting the mysterious Thelma and her
equally mysterious father, turned to examine the wheel and compass
as though something there needed his earnest attention. Errington
and Lorimer strolled up and down the polished white deck arm-in-arm,
talking in low tones.
"You didn't ask him about the coffin and the dwarf," said Lorimer.
"No; because I believe he knows nothing of either, and it would be
news to him which I'm not bound to give. If I can manage to see the
girl again the mystery of the cave may explain itself."
"Well, what are you going to do?"
Errington looked meditative. "Nothing at present We'll go fishing
with the others. But, I tell you what, if you're up to it, we'll
leave Duprez and Macfarlane at the minister's house this evening and
tell them to wait for us there,--once they all begin to chatter they
never know how time goes. Meanwhile you and I will take the boat and
row over in search of this farmer's abode. I believe there's a short
cut to it by water; at any rate I know the way SHE went."
"'I know the way she went home with her maiden posy!'" quoted
Lorimer, with a laugh. "You are hit Phil, 'a very palpable hit'! Who
would have thought it! Clara Winsleigh needn't poison her husband
after all in-order to marry you, for nothing but a sun-empress will
suit you now."
"Don't be a fool, George," said Errington, half vexedly, as the hot
color mounted to his face in spite of himself. "It is all idle
curiosity, nothing else. After what Svensen told us, I'm quite as
anxious to see this gruff old bonde as his daughter."
Lorimer held up a reproachful finger. "Now, Phil, don't stoop to
duplicity--not with me, at any rate. Why disguise your feelings?
Why, as the tragedians say, endeavor to crush the noblest and best
emotions that ever warm the BOO-ZUM of man? Chivalrous sentiment and
admiration for beauty,--chivalrous desire to pursue it and catch it
and call it your own,--I understand it all, my dear boy! But my
prophetic soul tells me you will have to strangle the excellent Olaf
Guldmar--heavens! what a name!--before you will be allowed to make
love to his fair CHEE-ILD. Then don't forget the madman with the
torch,--he may turn up in the most unexpected fashion and give you
no end of trouble. But, by Jove, it IS a romantic affair, positively
quite stagey! Something will come of it, serious or comic. I wonder
which?"
Errington laughed, but said nothing in reply, as their two
companions ascended from the cabin at that moment, in full attire
for the fishing expedition, followed by the steward bearing a large
basket of provisions for luncheon,--and all private conversation
came to an end. Hastening the rest of their preparations, within
twenty minutes they were skimming across the Fjord in a long boat
manned by four sailors, who rowed with a will and sent the light
craft scudding through the water with the swiftness of an arrow.
Landing, they climbed the dewy hills spangled thick with forget-me-
nots and late violets, till they reached a shady and secluded part
of the river, where, surrounded by the songs of hundreds of sweet-
throated birds, they commenced their sport, which kept them, well
employed till a late hour in the afternoon.
CHAPTER IV.
"Thou art violently carried away from grace; there is a devil haunts
thee in the likeness of a fat old man,--a ton of man is thy
companion."
SHAKESPEARE
The Reverend Charles Dyceworthy sat alone in the small dining-room
of his house at Bosekop, finishing a late tea, and disposing of
round after round of hot buttered toast with that suave alacrity he
always displayed in the consumption of succulent eatables. He was a
largely made man, very much on the wrong side of fifty, with
accumulations of unwholesome fat on every available portion of his
body. His round face was cleanly shaven and shiny, as though its
flabby surface were frequently polished with some sort of luminous
grease instead of the customary soap. His mouth was absurdly small
and pursy for so broad a countenance,--his nose seemed endeavoring
to retreat behind his puffy cheeks as though painfully aware of its
own insignificance,--and he had little, sharp, ferret-like eyes of a
dull mahogany brown, which were utterly destitute of even the
faintest attempt at any actual expression. They were more like glass
beads than eyes, and glittered under their scanty fringe of pale-
colored lashes with a sort of shallow cunning which might mean
malice or good-humor,--no one looking at them could precisely
determine which. His hair was of an indefinite shade, neither light
nor dark, somewhat of the tinge of a dusty potato before it is
washed clean. It was neatly brushed and parted in the middle with
mathematical precision, while from the back of his head it was
brought forward in two projections, one on each side, like budding
wings behind his ears. It was impossible for the most fastidious
critic to find fault with the Reverend Mr. Dyceworthy's hands. He
had beautiful hands, white, soft, plump and well-shaped,--his
delicate filbert nails were trimmed with punctilious care, and shone
with a pink lustre that was positively charming. He was evidently an
amiable man, for he smiled to himself over his tea,--he had a trick
of smiling,--ill-natured people said he did it on purpose, in order
to widen his mouth and make it more in pro-portion to the size of
his face. Such remarks, however, emanated only from the spiteful and
envious who could not succeed in winning the social popularity that
everywhere attended Mr. Dyceworthy's movements. For he was
undoubtedly popular,--no one could deny that. In the small Yorkshire
town where he usually had his abode, he came little short of being
adored by the women of his own particular sect, who crowded to
listen to his fervent discourses, and came away from them on the
verge of hysteria, so profoundly moved were their sensitive souls by
his damnatory doctrines. The men were more reluctant in their
admiration, yet even they were always ready to admit "that he was an
excellent fellow, with his heart in the right place."
He had a convenient way of getting ill at the proper seasons, and of
requiring immediate change of air, whereupon his grateful flock were
ready and willing to subscribe the money necessary for their beloved
preacher to take repose and relaxation in any part of the world he
chose. This year, however, they had not been asked to furnish the
usual funds for travelling expenses, for the resident minister of
Bosekop, a frail, gentle old man, had been seriously prostrated
during the past winter with an affection of the lungs, which
necessitated his going to a different climate for change and rest.
Knowing Dyceworthy as a zealous member of the Lutheran persuasion,
and, moreover, as one who had in his youth lived for some years in
Christiania,--thereby gaining a knowledge of the Norwegian tongue,--
he invited him to take his place for his enforced time of absence,
offering him his house, his servants, his pony-carriage and an
agreeable pecuniary douceur in exchange for his services,--proposals
which the Reverend Charles eagerly accepted. Though Norway was not
exactly new to him, the region of the Alton Fjord was, and he at
once felt, though he knew not why, that the air there would be the
very thing to benefit his delicate constitution. Besides, it looked
well for at least ONE occasion, to go away for the summer without
asking his congregation to pay for his trip. It was generous on his
part, almost noble.
The ladies of his flock wept at his departure and made him socks,
comforters, slippers, and other consoling gear of the like
description to recall their sweet memories to his saintly mind
during his absence from their society. But, truth to tell, Mr.
Dyceworthy gave little thought to these fond and regretful fair
ones; he was much too comfortable at Bosekop to look back with any
emotional yearning to the ugly, precise little provincial town he
had left behind him. The minister's quaint, pretty house suited him
perfectly; the minister's servants were most punctual in their
services: the minister's phaeton conveniently held his cumbrous
person, and the minister's pony was a quiet beast, that trotted
good-temperedly wherever it was guided, and shied at nothing. Yes,
he was thoroughly comfortable,--as comfortable as a truly pious fat
man deserves to be, and all the work he had to do was to preach
twice on Sundays, to a quiet, primitive, decently ordered
congregation, who listened to his words respectfully though without
displaying any emotional rapture. Their stolidity, however, did not
affect him,--he preached to please himself,--loving above all things
to hear the sound of his own voice, and never so happy as when
thundering fierce denunciations against the Church of Rome. His
thoughts seemed tending in that direction now, as he poured himself
out his third cup of tea and smilingly shook his head over it, while
he stirred the cream and sugar in,--for he took from his waistcoat
pocket a small glittering object and laid it before him on the
table, still shaking his head and smiling with a patient, yet
reproachful air of superior wisdom. It was a crucifix of mother-o'-
pearl and silver, the symbol of the Christian faith. But it seemed
to carry no sacred suggestions to the soul of Mr. Dyceworthy. On the
contrary, he looked at it with an expression of meek ridicule,--
ridicule that bordered on contempt.
"A Roman," he murmured placidly to himself, between two large bites
of toast. "The girl is a Roman, and thereby hopelessly damned."
And he smiled again,--more sweetly than before, as though the idea
of hopeless damnation suggested some peculiarly agreeable
reflections. Unfolding his fine cologne-scented cambric
handkerchief, he carefully wiped his fat white fingers free from the
greasy marks of the toast, and, taking up the objectionable cross
gingerly, as though it were red-hot, he examined it closely on all
sides. There were some words engraved on the back of it, and after
some trouble Mr. Dyceworthy spelt them out. They were "Passio
Christi, conforta me. Thelma."
He shook his head with a sort of resigned cheerfulness.
"Hopelessly damned," he murmured again gently, "unless--"
What alternative suggested itself to his mind was not precisely
apparent, for his thoughts suddenly turned in a more frivolous
direction. Rising from the now exhausted tea-table, he drew out a
small pocket-mirror and surveyed himself therein with a mild
approval. With the extreme end of his handkerchief he tenderly
removed two sacrilegious crumbs that presumed to linger in the
corners of his piously pursed mouth. In the same way he detached a
morsel of congealed butter that clung pertinaciously to the end of
his bashfully retreating nose. This done, he again looked at himself
with increased satisfaction, and, putting by his pocket-mirror, rang
the bell. It was answered at once by a tall, strongly built woman,
with a colorless, stolid countenance,--that might have been carved
out of wood for any expression it had in it.
"Ulrika," said Mr. Dyceworthy blandly, "you can clear the table."
Ulrika, without answering, began to pack the tea-things together in
a methodical way, without clattering so much as a plate or spoon,
and, piling them compactly on a tray, was about to leave the room,
when Mr. Dyceworthy called to her, "Ulrika!"
"Sir?"
"Did you ever see a thing like this before?" and he held up the
crucifix to her gaze.
The woman shuddered, and her dull eyes lit up with a sudden terror.
"It is the witch's charm!" she muttered thickly, while her pale face
grew yet paler. "Burn it, sir!--burn it, and the power will leave
her."
Mr. Dyceworthy laughed indulgently. "My good woman, you mistake," he
said suavely. "Your zeal for the true gospel leads you into error.
There are thousands of misguided persons who worship such a thing as
this. It is often all of our dear Lord they know. Sad, very sad! But
still, though they, alas! are not of the elect, and are plainly
doomed to perdition,--they are not precisely what are termed
witches, Ulrika."
"SHE is," replied the woman with a sort of ferocity;
"and, if I had my way, I would tell her so to her face, and see what
would happen to her then!"
"Tut, tut!" remarked Mr. Dyceworthy amiably. "The days of witchcraft
are past. You show some little ignorance, Ulrika. You are not
acquainted with the great advancement of recent learning."
"Maybe, maybe," and Ulrika turned to go; but she muttered sullenly
as she went, "There be them that know and could tell, and them that
will have her yet."
She shut the door behind her with a sharp clang, and, left to
himself, Mr. Dyceworthy again smiled--such a benignant, fatherly
smile! He then walked to the window and looked out. It was past
seven o'clock, an hour that elsewhere would have been considered
evening, but in Bosekop at that season it still seemed afternoon.
The sun was shining brilliantly, and in the minister's front garden
the roses were all wide awake. A soft moisture glittered on every
tiny leaf and blade of grass. The penetrating and delicious odor of
sweet violets scented each puff of wind, and now and then the call
of the cuckoo pierced the air with a subdued, far-off shrillness.
Prom his position Mr. Dyceworthy could catch a glimpse through the
trees of the principal thoroughfare of Bosekop--a small, primitive
street enough, of little low houses, which, though unpretending from
without, were roomy and comfortable within. The distant, cool
sparkle of the waters of the Fjord, the refreshing breeze, the
perfume of the flowers, and the satisfied impression left on his
mind by recent tea and toast--all these things combined had a
soothing effect on Mr. Dyceworthy, and with a sigh of absolute
comfort he settled his large person in a deep easy chair and
composed himself for pious meditation.
He meditated long,--with fast-closed eyes and open mouth, while the
earnestness of his inward thoughts was clearly demonstrated now and
then by an irrepressible,--almost triumphant,--cornet-blast from
that trifling elevation of his countenance called by courtesy a
nose, when his blissful reverie was suddenly broken in upon by the
sound of several footsteps crunching slowly along the garden path,
and, starting up from his chair, he perceived four individuals clad
in white flannel costumes and wearing light straw hats trimmed with
fluttering blue ribbons, who were leisurely sauntering up to his
door, and stopping occasionally to admire the flowers on their way.
Mr. Dyceworthy's face reddened visibly with excitement.
"The gentlemen from the yacht," he murmured to himself, hastily
settling his collar and cravat, and pushing up his cherubic wings of
hair more prominently behind his ears. "I never thought they would
come. Dear me! Sir Philip Errington himself, too! I must have
refreshments instantly."
And he hurried from the room, calling his orders to Ulrika as he
went, and before the visitors had time to ring, he had thrown open
the door to them himself, and stood smiling urbanely on the
threshold, welcoming them with enthusiasm,--and assuring Sir Philip
especially how much honored he felt, by his thus visiting,
familiarly and unannounced, his humble dwelling. Errington waved his
many compliments good-humoredly aside, and allowed himself and his
friends to be marshalled into the best parlor, the drawing-room of
the house, a pretty little apartment whose window looked out upon a
tangled yet graceful wilderness of flowers.
"Nice, cosy place this," remarked Lorimer, as he seated himself
negligently on the arm of the sofa. "You must be pretty comfortable
here?"
Their perspiring and affable host rubbed his soft white hands
together gently.
"I thank Heaven it suits my simple needs," he answered meekly.
"Luxuries do not become a poor servant of God."
"Ah, then you are different to many others who profess to serve the
same Master," said Duprez with a sourire fin that had the devil's
own mockery in it. "Monsieur le bon Dieu is very impartial! Some
serve Him by constant over-feeding, others by constant over-
starving; it is all one to Him apparently! How do you know which
among His servants He likes best, the fat or the lean?"
Sandy Macfarlane, though slightly a bigot for his own form of
doctrine, broke into a low chuckle of irrepressible laughter at
Duprez's levity, but Mr. Dyceworthy's flabby face betokened the
utmost horror.
"Sir," he said gravely, "there are subjects concerning which it is
not seemly to speak without due reverence. He knoweth His own elect.
He hath chosen them out from the beginning. He summoned forth from
the million, the glorious apostle of reform, Martin Luther--"
"Le bon gaillard!" laughed Duprez. "Tempted by a pretty nun! What
man could resist! Myself, I would try to upset all the creeds of
this world if I saw a pretty nun worth my trouble. Yes, truly! A
pity though, that the poor Luther died of over-eating; his exit from
life so undignified!"
"Shut up, Duprez," said Errington severely. "You displease Mr.
Dyceworthy by your fooling."
"Oh, pray do not mention it, Sir Philip," murmured the reverend
gentleman with a mild patience. "We must accustom ourselves to hear
with forbearance the opinions of all men, howsoever contradictory,
otherwise our vocation is of no avail. Yet is it sorely grievous to
me to consider that there should be any person or persons existent
who lack the necessary faith requisite for the performance of God's
promises."
"Ye must understand, Mr. Dyceworthy," said Macfarlane in his slow,
deliberate manner, "that ye have before ye a young Frenchman who
doesna believe in onything except himsel'--and even as to whether he
himsel' is a mon or a myth, he has his doots--vera grave doots."
Duprez nodded delightedly. "That is so!" he exclaimed. "Our dear
Sandy puts it so charmingly! To be a myth seems original,--to be a
mere man, quite ordinary. I believe it is possible to find some good
scientific professor who would prove me to be a myth--the moving
shadow of a dream--imagine!--how perfectly poetical!"
"You talk too much to be a dream, my boy," laughed Errington, and
turning to Mr. Dyceworthy, he added, "I'm afraid you must think us a
shocking set. We are really none of us very religious, I fear,
though," and he tried to look serious; "if it had not been for Mr.
Lorimer, we should have come to church last Sunday. Mr. Lorimer was,
unfortunately, rather indisposed."
"Ya-as!" drawled that gentleman, turning from the little window
where he had been gathering a rose for his button-hole. "I was
knocked up; had fits, and all that sort of thing; took these three
fellows all their time on Sunday to hold me down!"
"Dear me!" and Mr. Dyceworthy was about to make further inquiries
concerning Mr. Lorimer's present state of health, when the door
opened, and Ulrika entered, bearing a large tray laden with wine and
other refreshments. As she set it down, she gave a keen, covert
glance round the room, as though rapidly taking note of the
appearance and faces of all the young men, then, with a sort of
stiff curtsey, she departed as noiselessly as she had come,--not,
however, without leaving a disagreeable impression on Errington's
mind.
"Rather a stern Phyllis, that waiting-maid of yours," he remarked,
watching his host, who was carefully drawing the cork from one of
the bottles of wine.
Mr. Dyceworthy smiled. "Oh, no, no! not stern at all," he answered
sweetly. "On the contrary, most affable and kind-hearted. Her only
fault is that she is a little zealous,--over-zealous for the purity
of the faith; and she has suffered much; but she is an excellent
woman, really excellent! Sir Philip, will you try this Lacrima
Christi?"
"Lacrima Christi!" exclaimed Duprez. "You do not surely get that in
Norway?"
"It seems strange, certainly," replied Mr. Dyceworthy, "but it is a
fact that the Italian or Papist wines are often used here. The
minister whose place I humbly endeavor to fill has his cellar
stocked with them. The matter is easy of comprehension when once
explained. The benighted inhabitants of Italy, a land, lost in the
darkness of error, still persist in their fasts, notwithstanding the
evident folly of their ways--and the Norwegian sailors provide them
with large quantities of fish for their idolatrous customs, bringing
back their wines in exchange."
"A very good idea," said Lorimer, sipping the Lacrima with evident
approval--"Phil, I doubt if your brands on board the Eulalie are
better than this."
"Hardly so good," replied Errington with some surprise, as he tasted
the wine and noted its delicious flavor. "The minister must be a
fine connoisseur. Are there many other families about here, Mr.
Dyceworthy, who know how to choose their wines so well?"
Mr. Dyceworthy smiled with a dubious air.
"There is one other household that in the matter of choice liquids
is almost profanely particular," he said. "But they are people who
are ejected with good reason from respectable society, and,--it
behooves me not to speak of their names."
"Oh, indeed!" said Errington, while a sudden and inexplicable thrill
of indignation fired his blood and sent it in a wave of color up to
his forehead--"May I ask--"
But he was interrupted by Lorimer, who, nudging him slyly on one
side, muttered, "Keep cool, old fellow! You can't tell whether he's
talking about the Guldmar folk! Be quiet--you don't want every one
to know your little game."
Thus adjured, Philip swallowed a large gulp of wine, to keep down
his feelings, and strove to appear interested in the habits and
caprices of bees, a subject into which Mr. Dyceworthy had just
inveigled Duprez and Macfarlane.
"Come and see my bees," said the Reverend Charles almost
pathetically. "They are emblems of ever-working and patient
industry,--storing up honey for others to partake thereof."
"They wudna store it up at a', perhaps, if they knew that," observed
Sandy significantly.
Mr. Dyceworthy positively shone all over with beneficence.
"They WOULD store it up, sir; yes, they would, even if they knew! It
is God's will that they should store it up; it is God's will that
they should show an example of unselfishness, that they should flit
from flower to flower sucking therefrom the sweetness to impart into
strange palates unlike their own. It is a beautiful lesson; it
teaches us who are the ministers of the Lord to likewise suck the
sweetness from the flowers of the living gospel, and impart it
gladly to the unbelievers who shall find it sweeter than the
sweetest honey!"
And he shook his head piously several times, while the pores of his
fat visage exuded holy oil. Duprez sniggered secretly. Macfarlane
looked preternaturally solemn.
"Come," repeated the reverend gentleman, with an inviting smile.
"Come and see my bees,--also my strawberries! I shall be delighted
to send a basket of the fruit to the yacht, if Sir Philip will
permit me?"
Errington expressed his thanks with due courtesy, and hastened to
seize the opportunity that presented itself for breaking away from
the party.
"If you will excuse us for twenty minutes or so, Mr. Dyceworthy," he
said, "Lorimer and I want to consult a fellow here in Bosekop about
some new fishing tackle. We shan't be gone long. Mac, you and Duprez
wait for us here. Don't commit too many depredations on Mr.
Dyceworthy's strawberries."
The reason for their departure was so simply and naturally given,
that it was accepted without any opposing remarks. Duprez was
delighted to have the chance of amusing himself by harassing the
Reverend Charles with open professions of utter atheism, and
Macfarlane, who loved an argument more than he loved whiskey, looked
forward to a sharp discussion presently concerning the superiority
of John Knox, morally and physically, over Martin Luther. So that
when the others went their way, their departure excited no suspicion
in the minds of their friends, and most unsuspecting of all was the
placid Mr. Dyceworthy, who, had he imagined for an instant the
direction which they were going, would certainly not have discoursed
on the pleasures of bee-keeping with the calmness and placid
conviction, that always distinguished him when holding forth on any
subject that was attractive to his mind. Leading the way through his
dewy, rose-grown garden, and conversing amicably as he went, he
escorted Macfarlane and Duprez to what he called with a gentle humor
his "Bee-Metropolis," while Errington and Lorimer returned to the
shore of the Fjord, where they had left their boat moored to a
small, clumsily constructed pier,--and entering it, they set
themselves to the oars and pulled away together with the long,
steady, sweeping stroke rendered famous by the exploits of the
Oxford and Cambridge men. After some twenty minutes' rowing, Lorimer
looked up and spoke as he drew his blade swiftly through the bright
green water.
"I feel as though I were aiding and abetting you in some crime,
Phil. You know, my first impression of this business remains the
same. You had much better leave it alone."
"Why?" asked Errington coolly.
"Well, 'pon my life I don't know why. Except that, from long
experience, I have proved that it's always dangerous and troublesome
to run after a woman. Leave her to run after you--she'll do it last
enough."
"Wait till you see her. Besides, I'm not running after any woman,"
averred Philip with some heat.
"Oh, I beg your pardon--I forgot. She's not a woman; she's a Sun-
angel. You are rowing, not running, after a Sun-angel. Is that
correct? I say, don't drive through the water like that; you'll pull
the boat round."
Errington slackened his speed and laughed. "It's only curiosity," he
said, lifting his hat, and pushing back the clustering dark-brown
curls from his brow. "I bet you that sleek Dyceworthy fellow meant
the old bonde and his daughter, when he spoke of persons who were
'ejected' from the social circles of Bosekop. Fancy Bosekop society
presuming to be particular--what an absurd idea!"
"My good fellow, don't pretend to be so deplorably ignorant! Surely
you know that a trumpery village or a two-penny town is much more
choice and exclusive in its 'sets' than a great city? I wouldn't
live in a small place for the world. Every inhabitant would know the
cut of my clothes by heart, and the number of buttons on my
waistcoat. The grocer would copy the pattern of my trousers,--the
butcher would carry a cane like mine. It would be simply
insufferable. To change the subject, may I ask you if you know which
way you are going, for it seems to me we're bound straight for a
smash on that uncomfortable-looking rock, where there is certainly
no landing-place."
Errington stopped pulling, and, standing up in the boat, began to
examine the surroundings with keen interest. They were close to the
great crag "shaped like a giant's helmet," as Valdemar Svensen had
said. It rose sheer out of the water, and its sides were almost
perpendicular. Some beautiful star-shaped sea anemones clung to it
in a varicolored cluster on one projection, and the running ripple
of the small waves broke on its jagged corners with a musical
splash, and sparkle of white foam. Below them, in the emerald mirror
of the Fjord, it was so clear that they could see the fine white
sand lying at the bottom, sprinkled thick with shells and lithe
moving creatures of all shapes, while every now and then, there
streamed past them, brilliantly tinted specimens of the Medusae,
with their long feelers or tendrils, looking like torn skins of
crimson and azure floss silk.
The place was very silent; only the sea-gulls circled round and
round the summit of the great rock, some of them occasionally
swooping down on the unwary fishes, their keen eyes perceived in the
waters beneath, then up again they soared, swaying their graceful
wings and uttering at intervals that peculiar wild cry that in
solitary haunts sounds so intensely mournful. Errington gazed about
him in doubt for some minutes, then suddenly his face brightened. He
sat down again in the boat and resumed his oar.
"Row quietly, George," he said in a subdued tone "Quietly--round to
the left."
The oars dipped noiselessly, and the boat shot forward,--then
swerved sharply round in the direction,--and there before them lay a
small sandy creek, white and shining as though sprinkled with
powdered silver. From this, a small but strongly-built wooden pier
ran out into the sea. It was carved all over with fantastic figures,
and in it at equal distances, were fastened iron rings, such as are
used for the safe mooring of boats. One boat was there already, and
Errington recognized it with delight. It was that in which he had
seen the mysterious maiden disappear. High and dry on the sand, out
of reach of the tides, was a neat sailing-vessel; its name was
painted round the stern--The Valkyrie.
As the two friends ran their boat on shore, and fastened it to the
furthest ring of the convenient pier, they caught the distant sound
of the plaintiff "coo-cooing" of turtle doves.
"You've done it this time, old boy," said Lorimer, speaking in a
whisper, though he knew not why. "This is the old bonde's own
private landing-place evidently, and here's a footpath leading
somewhere. Shall we follow it?"
Philip emphatically assented, and, treading softly, like the
trespassers they felt themselves to be, they climbed the ascending
narrow way that guided them up from the seashore, round through a
close thicket of pines, where their footsteps fell noiselessly on a
thick carpet of velvety green moss, dotted prettily here and there
with the red gleam of ripening wild strawberries. Everything was
intensely still, and as yet there seemed no sign of human
habitation. Suddenly a low whirring sound broke upon their ears, and
Errington, who was a little in advance of his companion, paused
abruptly with a smothered exclamation, and drew back on tip-toe,
catching Lorimer by the arm.
"By Jove!" he whispered excitedly, "we've come right up to the very
windows of the house. Look!"
Lorimer obeyed, and for once, the light jest died upon his tips.
Surprise and admiration held him absolutely silent.
CHAPTER V.
"Elle filait et souriait--et je crois qn'elle enveloppa mon coeur
avec son fil."--Heine
Before them, close enough for their outstretched hands to have
touched it, was what appeared to be a framed picture, exquisitely
painted,--a picture perfect in outline matchless in color, faultless
in detail,--but which was in reality nothing but a large latticed
window thrown wide open to admit the air. They could now see
distinctly through the shadows cast by the stately pines, a long,
low, rambling house, built roughly, but strongly, of wooden rafters,
all overgrown with green and blossoming creepers; but they scarcely
glanced at the actual building, so strongly was their attention
riveted on the one window before them. It was surrounded by an
unusually broad framework, curiously and elaborately carved, and
black as polished ebony. Flowers grew all about it,--sweet peas,
mignonette, and large purple pansies--while red and white climbing
roses rioted in untrained profusion over its wide sill. Above it was
a quaintly built dovecote, where some of the strutting fan-tailed
inhabitants were perched, swelling out their snowy breasts, and
discoursing of their domestic trials in notes of dulcet melancholy;
while lower down, three or four ring-doves nestled on the roof in a
patch of sunlight, spreading up their pinions like miniature sails,
to catch the warmth and lustre.
Within the deep, shadowy embrasure, like a jewel placed on dark
velvet, was seated a girl spinning,--no other than the mysterious
maiden of the shell cavern. She was attired in a plain, straight
gown, of some soft white woolen stuff, cut squarely at her throat;
her round, graceful arms were partially bare, and as the wheel
turned swiftly, and her slender hands busied themselves with the
flax, she smiled, as though some pleasing thought had touched her
mind. Her smile had the effect of sudden sunshine in the dark room
where she sat and span,--it was radiant and mirthful as the smile of
a happy child. Yet her dark blue eyes remained pensive and earnest,
and the smile soon faded, leaving her fair face absorbed and almost
dreamy. The whirr-whirring of the wheel grew less and less rapid,--
it slackened,--it stopped altogether,--and, as though startled by
some unexpected sound, the girl paused and listened, pushing away
the clustering masses of her rich hair from her brow. Then rising
slowly from her seat, she advanced to the window, put aside the
roses with one hand, and looked out,--thus forming another picture
as beautiful, if not more beautiful, than the first.
Lorimer drew his breath hard. "I say, old fellow," he whispered; but
Errington pressed his arm with vice-like firmness, as a warning to
him to be silent, while they both stepped farther back into the
dusky gloom of the pine boughs.
The girl, meanwhile, stood motionless, in a half-expectant attitude,
and, seeing her there, some of the doves on the roof flew down and
strutted on the ground before her, coo-cooing proudly, as though
desirous of attracting her attention. One of them boldly perched on
the window-sill; she glanced at the bird musingly, and softly
stroked its opaline wings and shining head without terrifying it. It
seemed delighted to be noticed, and almost lay down under her hand
in order to be more conveniently caressed. Still gently smoothing
its feathers, she leaned further out among the clambering wealth of
blossoms, and called in a low, penetrating tone, "Father! father! is
that you?"
There was no answer; and, after waited a minute or two, she moved
and resumed her former seat, the stray doves flew back to their
customary promenade on the roof, and the drowsy whirr-whirr of the
spinning-wheel murmured again its monotonous hum upon the air.
"Come on, Phil," whispered Lorimer, determined not to be checked
this time; "I feel perfectly wretched! It's mean of us to be
skulking about here, as if we were a couple of low thieves waiting
to trap some of those birds for a pigeon-pie. Come away,--you've
seen her; that's enough."
Errington did not move. Holding back a branch of pine, he watched
the movements of the girl at her wheel with absorbed fascination.
Suddenly her sweet lips parted, and she sang a weird, wild melody,
that seemed, like a running torrent, to have fallen from the crests
of the mountains, bringing with it echoes from the furthest summits,
mingled with soft wailings of a mournful wind.
Her voice was pure as the ring of fine crystal--deep, liquid, and
tender, with a restrained passion in it that stirred Errington's
heart and filled it with a strange unrest and feverish yearning,--
emotions which were new to him, and which, while he realized their
existence, moved him to a sort of ashamed impatience. He would have
willingly left his post of observation now, if only for the sake of
shaking off his unwonted sensations; and he took a step or two
backwards for that purpose, when Lorimer, in his turn, laid a
detaining hand on his shoulder.
"For Heaven's sake, let us hear the song through!" he said in
subdued tones. "What a voice! A positive golden flute!"
His rapt face betokened his enjoyment, and Errington, nothing loth,
still lingered, his eyes fixed on the white-robed slim figure framed
in the dark old rose-wreathed window--the figure that swayed softly
with the motion of the wheel and the rhythm of the song,--while
flickering sunbeams sparkled now and then on the maiden's dusky gold
hair, or touched up a warmer tint on her tenderly flushed cheeks,
and fair neck, more snowy than the gown she wore. Music poured from
her lips as from the throat of a nightingale. The words she sang
were Norwegian, and her listeners understood nothing of them; but
the melody,--the pathetic appealing melody,--soul-moving as all true
melody must be, touched the very core of their hearts, and entangled
them in a web of delicious reveries.
"Talk of Ary Scheffer's Gretchen!" murmured Lorimer with a sigh.
"What a miserable, pasty, milk-and-watery young person she is beside
that magnificent, unconscious beauty! I give in, Phil! I admit your
taste. I'm willing to swear that she's a Sun-Angel if you like. Her
voice has convinced me of that."
At that instant the song ceased. Errington turned and regarded him
steadfastly.
"Are YOU hit, George?" he said softly, with a forced smile.
Lorimer's face flushed, but he met his friend's eyes frankly.
"I am no poacher, old fellow," he answered in the same quiet
accents; "I think you know that. If that girl's mind is as lovely as
her face, I say, go in and win!"
Sir Philip smiled. His brow cleared and an expression of relief
settled there. The look of gladness was unconscious; but Lorimer saw
it at once and noted it.
"Nonsense!" he said in a mirthful undertone. "How can I go in and
win, as you say? What am I to do? I can't go up to that window and
speak to her,--she might take me for a thief."
"You look like a thief," replied Lorimer, surveying his friend's
athletic figure, clad in its loose but well-cut yachting suit of
white flannel, ornamented with silver anchor buttons, and taking a
comprehensive glance from the easy pose of the fine head and
handsome face, down to the trim foot with the high and well-arched
instep, "very much like a thief? I wonder I haven't noticed it
before. Any London policeman would arrest you on the mere fact of
your suspicious appearance."
Errington laughed. "Well, my boy, whatever my looks may testify, I
am at this moment an undoubted trespasser on private property,--and
so are you for that matter. What shall we do?"
"Find the front door and ring the bell," suggested George promptly.
"Say we are benighted travellers and have lost our way. The bonde
can but flay us. The operation, I believe, is painful, but it cannot
last long."
"George, you are incorrigible! Suppose we go back and try the other
side of this pine-wood? That might lead us to the front of the
house."
"I don't see why we shouldn't walk coolly past that window," said
Lorimer. "If any observation is made by the fair 'Marguerite'
yonder, we can boldly say we have come to see the bonde."
Unconsciously they had both raised their voices a little during the
latter part of their hasty dialogue, and at the instant when Lorimer
uttered the last words, a heavy hand was laid on each of their
shoulders,--a hand that turned them round forcibly away from the
window they had been gazing at, and a deep, resonant voice addressed
them.
"The bonde? Truly, young men, you need seek no further,--I am Olaf
Guldmar!"
Had he said, "I am an Emperor!" he could not have spoken with more
pride.
Errington and his friend were for a moment speechless,--partly from
displeasure at the summary manner in which they had been seized and
twisted round like young uprooted saplings, and partly from surprise
and involuntary admiration for the personage who had treated them
with such scant courtesy. They saw before them a man somewhat above
the middle height, who might have served an aspiring sculptor as a
perfect model for a chieftain of old Gaul, or a dauntless Viking.
His frame was firmly and powerfully built, and seemed to be
exceptionally strong and muscular; yet an air of almost courtly
grace pervaded his movements, making each attitude he assumed more
or less picturesque. He was broad-shouldered and deep-chested; his
face was full and healthily colored, while his head was truly
magnificent. Well-poised and shapely, it indicated power, will, and
wisdom; and was furthermore adorned by a rough, thick mass of snow-
white hair that shone in the sunlight like spun silver. His beard
was short and curly, trimmed after the fashion of the warriors of
old Rome; and, from under his fierce, fuzzy, grey eyebrows, a pair
of sentinel eyes, that were keen, clear, and bold as an eagle's,
looked out with a watchful steadiness--steadiness that like the
sharp edge of a diamond, seemed warranted to cut through the brittle
glass of a lie. Judging by his outward appearance, his age might
have been guessed at as between fifty-eight and sixty, but he was,
in truth, seventy-two, and more strong, active, and daring than many
another man whose years are not counted past the thirties. He was
curiously attired, after something of the fashion of the Highlander,
and something yet more of the ancient Greek, in a tunic, vest, and
loose jacket all made of reindeer skin, thickly embroidered with
curious designs worked in coarse thread and colored beads; while
thrown carelessly over his shoulders and knotted at his waist, was a
broad scarf of white woollen stuff, or wadmel, very soft-looking and
warm. In his belt he carried a formidable hunting-knife, and as he
faced the two intruders on his ground, he rested one hand lightly
yet suggestively on a weighty staff of pine, which was notched all
over with quaint letters and figures, and terminated in a curved
handle at the top. He waited for the young man to speak, and finding
they remained silent, he glanced at them half angrily and again
repeated his words--
"I am the bonde,--Olaf Guldmar. Speak your business and take your
departure; my time is brief!"
Lorimer looked up with his usual nonchalance,--a faint smile playing
about his lips. He saw at once that the old farmer was not a man to
be trifled with, and he raised his cap with a ready grace as he
spoke.
"Fact is," he said frankly, "we've no business here at all--not the
least in the world. We are perfectly aware of it! We are
trespassers, and we know it. Pray don't be hard on us, Mr.--Mr.
Guldmar!"
The bonde glanced him over with a quick lightening of the eyes, and
the suspicion of a smile in the depths of his curly beard. He turned
to Errington.
"Is this true? You came here on purpose, knowing the ground was
private property?"
Errington, in his turn, lifted his cap from his clustering brown
curls with that serene and stately court manner which was to him
second nature.
"We did," he confessed, quietly following Lorimer's cue, and seeing
also that it was best to be straightforward. "We heard you spoken of
in Bosekop, and we came to see if you would permit us the honor of
your acquaintance."
The old man struck his pine-staff violently into the ground, and his
face flushed wrathfully.
"Bosekop!" he exclaimed. "Talk to me of a wasp's nest! Bosekop! You
shall hear of me there enough to satisfy your appetite for news.
Bosekop! In the days when my race ruled the land, such people as
they that dwell there would have been put to sharpen my sword on the
grindstone, or to wait, hungry and humble, for the refuse of the
food left from my table!"
He spoke with extraordinary heat and passion,--it was evidently
necessary to soothe him. Lorimer took a covert glance backward over
his shoulder towards the lattice window, and saw that the white
figure at the spinning-wheel had disappeared.
"My dear Mr. Guldmar," he then said with polite fervor, "I assure
you I think the Bosekop folk by no means deserve to sharpen your
sword on the grindstone, or to enjoy the remains of your dinner!
Myself, I despise them! My friend here, Sir Philip Errington,
despises them--don't you, Phil?"
Errington nodded demurely.
"What my friend said just now is perfectly true," continued Lorimer.
"We desire the honor of your acquaintance,--it will charm and
delight us above all things!"
And his face beamed with a candid, winning, boyish smile, which was
very captivating in its own way, and which certainly had its effect
on the old bonde, for his tone softened, though he said gravely--
"My acquaintance, young men, is never sought by any. Those who are
wise, keep away from me. I love not strangers, it is best you should
know it. I freely pardon your trespass; take your leave, and go in
peace."
The two friends exchanged disconsolate looks. There really seemed
nothing for it, but to obey this unpleasing command. Errington made
one more venture.
"May I hope, Mr. Guldmar," he said with persuasive courtesy, "that
you will break through your apparent rule of seclusion for once and
visit me on board my yacht? You have no doubt seen her--the Eulalie-
-she lies at anchor in the Fjord."
The bonde looked him straight in the eyes. "I have seen her. A fair
toy vessel to amuse an idle young man's leisure! You are he that in
that fool's hole of a Bosekop, is known as the 'rich Englishman,'--
an idle trifler with time,--an aimless wanderer from those dull
shores where they eat gold till they die of surfeit! I have heard of
you,--a mushroom knight, a fungus of nobility,--an ephemeral growth
on a grand decaying old tree, whose roots lie buried in the annals
of a far forgotten past."
The rich, deep voice of the old man quivered as he spoke, and a
shadow of melancholy flitted across his brow. Errington listened
with unruffled patience. He heard himself, his pleasures, his
wealth, his rank, thus made light of, without the least offense. He
met the steady gaze of the bonde quietly, and slightly bent his head
as though in deference to his remarks.
"You are quite right," he said simply. "We modern men are but
pigmies compared with the giants of old time. Royal blood itself is
tainted nowadays. But, for myself, I attach no importance to the
mere appurtenances of life,--the baggage that accompanies one on
that brief journey. Life itself is quite enough for me."
"And for me too," averred Lorimer, delighted that his friend had
taken the old former's scornful observations so good-naturedly.
"But, do you know, Mr. Guldmar, you are making life unpleasant for
us just now, by turning us out? The conversation is becoming
interesting! Why not prolong it? We have no friends in Bosekop, and
we are to anchor here for some days. Surely you will allow us to
come and see you again?"
Olaf Guldmar was silent. He advanced a step nearer, and studied them
both with such earnest and searching scrutiny, that as they
remembered the real attraction that had drawn them thither, the
conscious blood mounted to their faces, flushing Errington's
forehead to the very roots of his curly brown hair. Still the old
man gazed as though he sought to read their very souls. He muttered
something to himself in Norwegian, and, finally, to their utter
astonishment, he drew his hunting-knife from its sheath, and with a
rapid, wild gesture, threw it on the ground and placed his foot upon
it.
"Be it so!" he said briefly. "I cover the blade! You are men; like
men you speak truth. As such, I receive you! Had you told me a lie
concerning your coming here,--had you made pretense of having lost
your way, or other such shifty evasion, your path would never have
again crossed mine. As it is,--welcome!"
And he held out his hand with a sort of royal dignity, still resting
one foot on the fallen weapon. The young men, struck by his action
and gratified by his change of manner and the genial expression that
now softened his rugged features, were quick to respond to his
friendly greeting, and the bonde, picking up and re-sheathing his
hunting-knife as if he had done nothing at all out of the common,
motioned them towards the very window on which their eyes had been
so long and so ardently fixed.
"Come!" he said. "You must drain a cup of wine with me before you
leave. Your unguided footsteps led you by the wrong path,--I saw
your boat moored to my pier, and wondered who had been venturesome
enough to trample through my woodland. I might have guessed that
only a couple of idle boys like yourselves, knowing no better, would
have pushed their way to a spot that all worthy dwellers in Bosekop,
and all true followers of the Lutheran devilry, avoid as though the
plague were settled in it."
And the old man laughed, a splendid, mellow laugh, with the ring of
true jollity in it,--a laugh that was infectious, for Errington and
Lorimer joined in it heartily without precisely knowing why.
Lorimer, however, thought it seemly to protest against the
appellation "idle boys."
"What do you take us for, sir?" he said with lazy good-nature. "I
carry upon my shoulders the sorrowful burden of twenty-six years,--
Philip, there, is painfully conscious of being thirty,--may we not
therefore dispute the word 'boys' as being derogatory to our
dignity? You called us 'men' a while ago,--remember that!"
Olaf Guldmar laughed again. His suspicious gravity had entirely
disappeared, leaving his face a beaming mirror of beneficence and
good-humor.
"So you ARE men," he said cheerily, "men in the bud, like leaves on
a tree. But you seem boys to a tough old stump of humanity such as I
am. That is my way,--my child Thelma, though they tell me she is a
woman grown, is always a babe to me. 'Tis one of the many privileges
of the old, to see the world about them always young and full of
children."
And he led the way past the wide-open lattice, where they could
dimly perceive the spinning-wheel standing alone, as though thinking
deeply of the fair hands that had lately left it idle, and so round
to the actual front of the house, which was exceedingly picturesque,
and literally overgrown with roses from ground to roof. The entrance
door stood open;--it was surrounded by a wide, deep porch richly
carved and grotesquely ornamented, having two comfortable seats
within it, one on each side. Through this they went, involuntarily
brushing down as they passed, a shower of pink and white rose-
leaves, and stepped into a wide passage, where upon walls of dark,
polished pine, hung a large collection of curiously shaped weapons,
all of primitive manufacture, such as stone darts and rough axes,
together with bows and arrows and two-handled swords, huge as the
fabled weapon of William Wallace.
Opening a door to the right the bonde stood courteously aside and
bade them enter, and they found themselves in the very apartment
where they had seen the maiden spinning.
"Sit down, sit down!" said their host hospitably. "We will have wine
directly, and Thelma shall come hither. Thelma! Thelma! Where is the
child? She wanders hither and thither like a mountain sprite. Wait
here, my lads, I shall return directly."
And he strode away, leaving Errington and Lorimer delighted at the
success of their plans, yet somewhat abashed too. There was a peace
and gentle simplicity about the little room in which they were, that
touched the chivalrous sentiment in their natures and kept them
silent. On one side of it, half a dozen broad shelves supported a
goodly row of well-bound volumes, among which the time-honored
golden names of Shakespeare and Scott glittered invitingly, together
with such works as Chapman's Homer, Byron's "Childe Harold," the
Poems of John Keats, Gibbon's Rome, and Plutarch; while mingled with
these were the devotional works in French of Alphonse de Liguori,
the "Imitation," also in French,--and a number of books with titles
in Norwegian,--altogether an heterogenous collection of literature,
yet not without interest as displaying taste and culture on the part
of those to whom it belonged. Errington, himself learned in books,
was surprised to see so many standard works in the library of one
who professed to be nothing but a Norwegian farmer, and his respect
for the sturdy old bonde increased. There were no pictures in the
room,--the wide lattice window on one hand, looking out on the roses
and pine-wood, and the other smaller one, close to the entrance
door, from which the Fjord was distinctly visible, were sufficient
pictures in themselves, to need no others. The furniture was roughly
made of pine, and seemed to have been carved by hand,--some of the
chairs were very quaint and pretty and would have sold in a bric-a-
brac shop for more than a sovereign apiece. On the wide mantle-shelf
was a quantity of curious old china that seemed to have been picked
up from all parts of the world,--most of it was undoubtedly
valuable. In one dark corner stood an ancient harp; then there was
the spinning-wheel,--itself a curiosity fit for a museum,--
testifying dumbly of the mistress of all these surroundings, and on
the floor there was something else,--something that both the young
men were strongly inclined to take possession of. It was only a bunch
of tiny meadow daisies, fastened together with a bit of blue silk.
It had fallen,--they guessed by whom it had been worn,--but neither
made any remark, and both, by some strange instinct, avoided looking
at it, as though the innocent little blossoms carried within them
some terrible temptation. They were conscious of a certain
embarrassment, and making an effort to break through it, Lorimer
remarked softly--
"By Jove, Phil, if this old Guldmar really knew what you are up to,
I believe he would bundle you out of this place like a tramp! Didn't
you feel a sneak when he said we had told the truth like men?"
Philip smiled dreamily. He was seated in one of the quaintly carved
chairs, half absorbed in what was evidently a pleasing reverie.
"No; not exactly," he replied. "Because we DID tell him the truth;
we did want to know him, and he's worth knowing too! He is a
magnificent-looking fellow; don't you think so?"
"Rather!" assented Lorimer, with emphasis. "I wish there were any
hope of my becoming such a fine old buffer in my DECADENCE,--it
would be worth living for if only to look at myself in the glass now
and then. He rather startled me when he threw down that knife,
though. I suppose it is some old Norwegian custom?"
"I suppose so," Errington answered, and then was silent, for at that
moment the door opened and the old farmer returned, followed by a
girl bearing a tray glittering with flasks of Italian wine, and long
graceful glasses shaped like round goblets, set on particularly
slender stems. The sight of the girl disappointed the eager
visitors, for though she was undeniably pretty, she was not Thelma.
She was short and plump, with rebellious nut-brown locks, that
rippled about her face and from under her close white cap with
persistent untidiness. Her cheeks were as round and red as lore-
apples, and she had dancing blue eyes that appeared for ever engaged
in good-natured efforts to outsparkle each other. She wore a
spotless apron, lavishly trimmed with coquettish little starched
frills,--her hands were, unfortunately, rather large and coarse,--
but her smile, as she set down the tray and curtsied respectfully to
the young men, was charming, disclosing as it did, tiny teeth as
even and white as a double row of small pearls.
"That is well, Britta," said Guldmar, speaking in English, and
assisting her to place the glasses. "Now, quick! . . . run after thy
mistress to the shore,--her boat cannot yet have left the creek,--
bid her return and come to me,--tell her there are friends here who
will be glad of her presence."
Britta hurried away at once, but Errington's heart sank. Thelma had
gone!--gone, most probably, for one of those erratic journeys across
the Fjord to the cave where he had first seen her. She would not
come back, he felt certain; not even at her father's request would
that beautiful, proud maiden consent to alter her plans. What an
unlucky destiny was his! Absorbed in disappointed reflections, he
scarcely heard the enthusiastic praises Lorimer was diplomatically
bestowing on the bonde's wine. He hardly felt its mellow flavor on
his own palate, though it was in truth delicious, and fit for the
table of a monarch. Guldmar noticed the young baronet's abstraction,
and addressed him with genial kindness.
"Are you thinking, Sir Philip, of my rough speeches to you yonder?
No offense was meant, no offense!. . ." the old fellow paused, and
laughed over his wine-glass. "Yet I may as well be honest about it!
Offense WAS meant; but when I found that none was taken, my humor
changed."
A slight, half-weary smile played on Errington's lips. "I assure
you, sir," he said, "I agreed with you then and agree with you now
in every word you uttered. You took my measure very correctly, and
allow me to add that no one can be more conscious of my own
insignificance that I am myself. The days we live in are
insignificant; the chronicle of our paltry doings will be skipped by
future readers of the country's history. Among a society of
particularly useless men, I feel myself to be one of the most
useless. If you could show me any way to make my life valuable--"
He paused abruptly, and his heart beat with inexplicable rapidity. A
light step and the rustle of a dress was heard coming through the
porch; another perfumed shower of rose-leaves fell softly on the
garden path; the door of the room opened, and a tall, fair, white-
robed figure shone forth from the dark background of the outer
passage; a figure that hesitated on the threshold, and then advanced
noiselessly and with a reluctant shyness. The old bonde turned round
in his chair with a smile.
"Ah, here she is!" he said fondly. "Where hast thou been, my
Thelma?"
CHAPTER VI.
"And Sigurd the Bishop said,
'The old gods are not dead,
For the great Thor still reigns,
And among the Jarls and Thanes
The old witchcraft is spread.'"
LONGFELLOW'S Saga of King Olaf
The girl stood silent, and a faint blush crimsoned her cheeks. The
young men had risen at her entrance, and in one fleeting glance she
recognized Errington, though she gave no sign to that effect.
"See, my darling," continued her father, "here are English visitors
to Norway. This is Sir Philip Errington, who travels through our
wild waters in the great steam yacht now at anchor in the Fjord; and
this is his friend, Mr.--Mr.--Lorimer,--have I caught your name
rightly, my lad?" he continued, turning to George Lorimer with a
kindly smile.
"You have, sir," answered that gentleman promptly, and then he was
mute, feeling curiously abashed in the presence of this royal-
looking young lady, who, encircled by her father's arm, raised her
deep, dazzling blue eyes, and serenely bent her stately head to him
as his name was mentioned.
The old farmer went on, "Welcome them, Thelma mine!--friends are
scarce in these days, and we must not be ungrateful for good
company. What! what! I know honest lads when I see them! Smile on
them, my Thelma!--and then we will warm their hearts with another
cup of wine."
As he spoke, the maiden advanced with a graceful, even noble air,
and extending both her hands to each of the visitors in turn, she
said--
"I am your servant, friends; in entering this house you do possess
it. Peace and heart's greeting!"
The words were a literal translation of a salutation perfectly
common in many parts of Norway--a mere ordinary expression of
politeness; but, uttered in the tender, penetrating tones, of the
most musical voice they had ever heard, and accompanied by the warm,
frank, double handclasp of those soft, small, daintily shaped hands,
the effect on the minds of the generally self-possessed, fashionably
bred young men of the world, was to confuse and bewilder them to the
last degree. What could they answer to this poetical, quaint formula
of welcome? The usual latitudes, such as "Delighted, I'm sure;" or,
"Most happy--am charmed to meet you?" No; these remarks, deemed
intelligent by the lady rulers of London drawing-rooms, would, they
felt, never do here. As well put a gentleman in modern evening dress
en face with a half-nude scornfully beautiful statue of Apollo, as
trot out threadbare, insincere commonplaces in the hearing of this
clear-eyed child of nature, whose pure, perfect face seemed to
silently repel the very passing shadow of a falsehood.
Philip's brain whirled round and about in search of some suitable
reply, but could find none; and Lorimer felt himself blushing like a
schoolboy, as he stammered out something incoherent and eminently
foolish, though he had sense enough left to appreciate the pressure
of those lovely hands as long as it lasted.
Thelma, however, appeared not to notice their deep embarrassment--
she had not yet done with them. Taking the largest goblet on the
table, she filled it to the brim with wine, and touched it with her
lips,--then with a smile in which a thousand radiating sunbeams
seemed to quiver and sparkle, she lifted it towards Errington. The
grace of her attitude and action wakened him out of his state of
dreamy bewilderment--in his soul he devoutly blessed these ancient
family customs, and arose to the occasion like a man. Clasping with
a tender reverence the hands that upheld the goblet, he bent his
handsome head and drank a deep draught, while his dark curls almost
touched her fair ones,--and then an insane jealousy possessed him
for a moment, as he watched her go through the same ceremony with
Lorimer.
She next carried the now more than half-emptied cup to the bonde,
and said as she held it, laughing softly--
"Drink it all, father!--if you leave a drop, you know these
gentlemen will quarrel with us, or you with them."
"That is true!" said Olaf Guldmar with great gravity; "but it will
not be my fault, child, nor the fault of wasted wine."
And he drained the glass to its dregs and set it upside down on the
table with a deep sigh of satisfaction and refreshment. The ceremony
concluded, it was evident the ice of reserve was considered broken,
for Thelma seated herself like a young queen, and motioned her
visitors to do the same with a gesture of gracious condescension.
"How did you find your way here?" she asked with sweet, yet direct
abruptness, giving Sir Philip a quick glance, in which there was a
sparkle of mirth, though her long lashes veiled it almost instantly.
Her entire lack of stiffness and reserve set the young men at their
ease, and they fell into conversation freely, though Errington
allowed Lorimer to tell the story of their trespass in his own
fashion without interference. He instinctively felt that the young
lady who listened with so demure a smile to that plausible
narrative, knew well enough the real motive that had brought them
thither though she apparently had her own reasons for keeping
silence on the point, as whatever she may have thought, she said
nothing.
Lorimer skillfully avoided betraying the fact that they had watched
her through the window, and had listened to her singing. And Thelma
heard all the explanations patiently till Bosekop was mentioned, and
then her fair face grew cold and stern.
"From whom did you hear of us there?" she inquired. "We do not mix
with the people,--why should they speak of us?"
"The truth is," interposed Errington, resting his eyes with a sense
of deep delight on the beautiful rounded figure and lovely features
that were turned towards him, "I heard of you first through my
pilot--one Valdemar Svensen."
"Ha, ha!" cried old Guldmar with some excitement, "there is a fellow
who cannot hold his tongue! What have I said to thee, child? A
bachelor is no better than a gossiping old woman. He that is always
alone must talk, if it be only to woods and waves. It is the married
men who know best how excellent it is to keep silence!"
They all laughed, though Thelma's eyes had a way of looking pensive
even when she smiled.
"You would not blame poor Svensen because he is alone, father?" she
said. "Is he not to be pitied? Surely it is a cruel fate to have
none to love in all the wide world. Nothing can be more cruel!"
Guldmar surveyed her humorously. "Hear her!" he said. "She talks as
if she knew all about such things; and if ever a child was ignorant
of sorrow, surely it is my Thelma! Every flower and bird in the
place loves her. Yes; I have thought sometimes the very sea loves
her. It must; she is so much upon it. And as for her old father"--he
laughed a little, though a suspicious moisture softened his keen
eyes--"why, he doesn't love her at all. Ask her! She knows it."
Thelma rose quickly and kissed him. How deliciously those sweet lips
pouted, thought Errington, and what an unreasonable and
extraordinary grudge he seemed to bear towards the venerable bonde
for accepting that kiss with so little apparent emotion!
"Hush, father!" she said. "These friends can see too plainly how
much you spoil me. Tell me,"--and she turned with a sudden pretty
imperiousness to Lorimer, who started at her voice as a racehorse
starts at its rider's touch,--"what person in Bosekop spoke of us?"
Lorimer was rather at a loss, inasmuch as no one in the small town
had actually spoken of them, and Mr. Dyceworthy's remarks concerning
those who were "ejected with good reason from respectable society,"
might not, after all, have applied to the Guldmar family. Indeed, it
now seemed an absurd and improbable supposition. Therefore he
replied cautiously--
"The Reverend Mr. Dyceworthy, I think, has some knowledge of you. Is
he not a friend of yours?"
These simple words had a most unexpected effect. Olaf Guldmar sprang
up from his seat flaming with wrath. It was in vain that his
daughter laid a restraining hand upon his arm. The name of the
Lutheran divine had sufficed to put him in a towering passion, and
he turned furiously upon the astonished Errington.
"Had I known you came from the devil, sir, you should have returned
to him speedily, with hot words to hasten your departure! I would
have split that glass to atoms before I would have drained it after
you! The friends of a false heart are no friends for me,--the
followers of a pretended sanctity find no welcome under my roof! Why
not have told me at once that you came as spies, hounded on by the
liar Dyceworthy? Why not have confessed it openly? .. . . and not
have played the thief's trick on an old fool, who, for once, misled
by your manly and upright bearing, consented to lay aside the
rightful suspicions he at first entertained of your purpose? Shame
on you, young men! shame!"
The words coursed impetuously from his lips; his face burned with
indignation. He had broken away from his daughter's hold, while she,
pale and very still, stood leaning one hand upon the table. His
white hair was tossed back from his brow; his eyes flashed; his
attitude though vengeful and threatening, was at the same time so
bold and commanding that Lorimer caught himself lazily admiring the
contour of his figure, and wondering how he would look in marble as
an infuriated Viking.
One excellent thing in the dispositions of both Errington and
Lorimer was that they never lost temper. Either they were too lazy
or too well-bred. Undoubtedly they both considered it "bad form."
This indifference stood them in good stead now. They showed no sign
whatever of offense, though the old farmer's outbreak of wrath was
so sudden and unlooked for, that they remained for a moment silent
out of sheer surprise. Then rising with unruffled serenity, they
took up their caps preparatory to departure. Errington's gentle,
refined voice broke the silence.
"You are in error, Mr. Guldmar," he said in chilly but perfectly
polite tones. "I regret you should be so hasty in your judgment of
us. If you accepted us as 'men' when you first met us, I cannot
imagine why you should now take us for spies. The two terms are by
no means synonymous. I know nothing of Mr. Dyceworthy beyond that he
called upon me, and that I, as in duty bound, returned his call. I
am ignorant of his character and disposition. I may add that I have
no desire to be enlightened respecting them. I do not often take a
dislike to anybody, but it so happens that I have done so in the
case of Mr. Dyceworthy. I know Lorimer doesn't care for him, and I
don't think my other two friends are particularly attached to him. I
have nothing more to say, except that I fear we have outstayed our
welcome. Permit us now to wish you good evening. And you,"--he
hesitated, and turned with a low bow to Thelma, who had listened to
his words with a gradually dawning brightness on her face--"you
will, I trust, exonerate us from any intentional offense towards
your father or yourself? Our visit has proved unlucky, but--"
Thelma interrupted him by laying her fair little hand on his arm
with a wistful, detaining gesture, which, though seemingly familiar,
was yet perfectly sweet and natural. The light touch thrilled his
blood, and sent it coursing through his veins at more than customary
speed.
"Ah, then, you also will be foolish!" she said, with a naive
protecting air of superior dignity. "Do you not see my father is
sorry? Have we all kissed the cup for nothing, or was the wine
wasted? Not a drop was spilt; how then, if we are friends should we
part in coldness? Father, it is you to be ashamed,--not these
gentleman, who are strangers to the Altenfjord, and know nothing of
Mr. Dyceworthy, or an other person dwelling here. And when their
vessel sails away again over the wide seas to their own shores, how
will you have them think of you? As one whose heart was all
kindness, and who helped to make their days pass pleasantly? or as
one who, in unreasonable anger, forgot the duties of sworn
hospitality?"
The bonde listened to her full, sweet, reproachful voice as a tough
old lion might listen to the voice of its tamer, uncertain whether
to yield or spring. He wiped his heated brow and stared around him
shamefacedly. Finally, as though swallowing his pride with a gulp,
he drew a long breath, took a couple of determined strides forward,
and held out his hands, one to Errington and the other to Lorimer,
by whom they were warmly grasped.
"There, my lads," he said rapidly. "I'm sorry I spoke! Forgive and
forget! That is the worst of me--my blood is up in a minute, and old
though I am, I'm not old enough yet to be patient. And when I hear
the name of that sneak Dyceworthy--by the gates of Valhalla, I feel
as if my own house would not hold me! No, no; don't go yet! Nearly
ten? Well, no matter, the night is like the day here, you see--it
doesn't matter when one goes to bed. Come and sit in the porch
awhile; I shall get cool out there. Ah, Thelma, child! I see thee
laughing at thy old father's temper! Never mind, never mind; is it
not for thy sake after all?"
And, holding Errington by the arm, he led the way into the fine old
porch, Lorimer following with rather a flushed face, for he, as he
passed out of the room, had managed to pick up and secrete the
neglected little bunch of daisies, before noticed as having fallen
on the floor. He put them quickly in his breast pocket with a
curious sense of satisfaction, though he had no intention of keeping
them, and leaned idly against the clambering roses, watching Thelma,
as she drew a low stool to her father's feet and sat there. A balmy
wind blew in from the Fjord, and rustled mysteriously among the
pines; the sky was flecked here and there with fleecy clouds, and a
number of birds were singing in full chorus. Old Guldmar heaved a
sigh of relief, as though his recent outburst of passion had done
him good.
"I will tell you, Sir Philip," he said, ruffling his daughter's
curls as he spoke,--"I will tell you why I detest the villian
Dyceworthy. It is but fair you should know it. Now, Thelma!--why
that push to my knee? You fear I may offend our friends again? Nay,
I will take good care. And so, first of all, I ask you, what is your
religion? Though I know you cannot be Lutherans."
Errington was somewhat taken aback by the question. He smiled.
"My dear sir," he replied at last; "to be frank with you, I really
do not think I have any religion. If I had, I suppose I should call
myself a Christian, though, judging from the behavior of Christians
in general, I cannot be one of them after all,--for I belong to no
sect, I go to no church, and I have never read a tract in my life. I
have a profound reverence and admiration for the character and
doctrine of Christ, and I believe if I had had the privilege of
knowing and conversing with Him, I should not have deserted Him in
extremity as his timorous disciples did. I believe in an all-wise
Creator; so you see I am not an atheist. My mother was an Austrian
and a Catholic, and I have a notion that, as a small child, I was
brought up in that creed; but I'm afraid I don't know much about it
now."
The bonde nodded gravely. "Thelma, here," he said, "is a Catholic,
as her mother was--" he stopped abruptly, and a deep shadow of pain
darkened his features. Thelma looked up,--her large blue eyes filled
with sudden tears, and she pressed her father's hand between her
own, as though in sympathy with some undeclared grief; then she
looked at Errington with a sort of wistful appeal. Philip's heart
leaped as he met that soft beseeching glance, which seemed to
entreat his patience with the old man for her sake--he felt himself
drawn into a bond of union with her thoughts, and in his innermost
soul he swore as knightly a vow of chivalry and reverence for the
fair maiden, who thus took him into her silent confidence, as though
he were some gallant Crusader of old time, pledged to defend his
lady's honor unto death. Olaf Guldmar, after a long and apparently
sorrowful pause, resumed his conversation.
"Yes," he said, "Thelma is a Catholic, though here she has scarcely
any opportunity for performing the duties of her religion. It is a
pretty and a graceful creed,--well fitted for women. As for me, I am
made of sterner stuff, and the maxims of that gentle creature,
Christ, find no echo in my soul. But you, young sir," he added,
turning suddenly on Lorimer, who was engaged in meditatively
smoothing out on his palm one of the fallen rose-petals--"you have
not spoken. What faith do you profess? It is no curiosity that
prompts me to ask,--I only seek not to offend."
Lorimer laughed languidly. "Upon my life, Mr. Guldmar, you really
ask too much of me. I haven't any faith at all; not a shred! It's
been all knocked out of me. I tried to hold on to a last remaining
bit of Christian rope in the universal ship-wreck, but that was torn
out of my hands by a scientific professor, who ought to know what he
is about, and--and--now I drift along anyhow!"
Guldmar smiled dubiously; but Thelma looked at the speaker with
astonished, regretful eyes.
"I am sorry," she said simply. "You must be often unhappy."
Lorimer was not disconcerted, though her evident pity caused an
unwanted flush on his face.
"Oh no," he said in answer to her, "I am not a miserable sort of
fellow by any means. For instance, I'm not afraid of death,--lots of
very religious people are horribly afraid of it, though they all the
time declare it's the only path to heaven. They're not consistent at
all. You see I believe in nothing,--I came from nothing,--I am
nothing,--I shall be nothing. That being plain, I am all right."
Guldmar laughed. "You are an odd lad," he said good-humoredly. "You
are in the morning of life; there are always mists in the morning as
there are in the evening. In the light of your full manhood you will
see these things differently. Your creed of Nothing provides no
moral law,--no hold on the conscience, no restraint on the
passions,--don't you see that?"
Lorimer smiled with a very winning and boyish candor. "You are
exceedingly good, sir, to credit me with a conscience! I don't think
I have one,--I'm sure I have no passions. I have always been too
lazy to encourage them, and as for moral law,--I adhere to morality
with the greatest strictness, because if a fellow is immoral, he
ceases to be a gentleman. Now, as there are very few gentlemen
nowadays, I fancy I'd like to be one as long as I can."
Errington here interposed. "You mustn't take him seriously. Mr.
Guldmar," he said; "he's never serious himself, I'll give you his
character in a few words. He belongs to no religious party, it's
true,--but he's a first-rate fellow,--the best fellow I know!"
Lorimer glanced at him quietly with a gratified expression on his
face. But he said nothing, for Thelma was regarding him with a most
bewitching smile.
"Ah!" she said, shaking a reproachful finger at him, "you do love
all nonsense, that I can see! You would make every person laugh, if
you could,--is it not so?"
"Well, yes," admitted George, "I think I would! But it's a herculean
task sometimes. If you had ever been to London, Miss Guldmar, you
would understand how difficult it is to make people even smile,--and
when they do, the smile is not a very natural one."
"Why?" she exclaimed. "Are they all so miserable?"
"They pretend to be, if they're not," said Lorimer; "it is the
fashion there to find fault with everything and everybody."
"That is so," said Guldmar thoughtfully. "I visited London once and
thought I was in hell. Nothing but rows of hard, hideously built
houses, long streets, and dirty alleys, and the people had weary
faces all, as though Nature had refused to bless them. A pitiful
city,--doubly pitiful to the eyes of a man like myself, whose life
has been passed among fjords and mountains such as these. Well, now,
as neither of you are Lutherans,--in fact, as neither of you seem to
know what you are," and he laughed, "I can be frank, and speak out
as to my own belief. I am proud to say I have never deserted the
faith of my fathers, the faith that makes a man's soul strong and
fearless, and defiant of evil,--the faith that is supposed to be
crushed out among us, but that is still alive and rooted in the
hearts of many who can trace back their lineage to the ancient
Vikings as I can,--yes!--rooted firm and fast,--and however much
some of the more timorous feign to conceal it, in the tacit
acceptance of another creed, there are those who can never shake it
off, and who never desire to forsake it. I am one of these few.
Shame must fall on the man who willfully deserts the faith of his
warrior-ancestry! Sacred to me for ever be the names of Odin and
Thor!"
He raised his hand aloft with a proud gesture, and his eyes flashed.
Errington was interested, but not surprised: the old bonde's
declaration of his creed seemed eminently fitted to his character.
Lorimer's face brightened,--here was a novelty--a man, who in all
the conflicting storms of modern opinion, sturdily clung to the
traditions of his forefathers.
"By Jove!" he exclaimed eagerly, "I think the worship of Odin would
suit me perfectly! It's a rousing, fighting sort of religion,--I'm
positive it would make a man of me. Will you initiate me into the
mysteries, Mr. Guldmar? There's a fellow in London who writes poetry
on Indian subjects, and who, it is said, thinks Buddhism might
satisfy his pious yearnings,--but I think Odin would be a personage
to command more respect than Buddha,--at any rate, I should like to
try him. Will you give me a chance?"
Olaf Guldmar smiled gravely, and rising from his seat, pointed to
the western sky.
"See yonder threads of filmy white," he said, "that stretch across
the wide expanse of blue! They are the lingering, fading marks of
light clouds,--and even while we watch them, they shall pass and be
no more. Such is the emblem of your life, young man--you that would,
for an idle jest or pastime, presume to search into the mysteries of
Odin! For you they are not,--your spirit is not of the stern mould
that waits for death as gladly as the bridegroom waits for the
bride! The Christian heaven is an abode for girls and babes,--
Valhalla is the place for men! I tell you, my creed is as divine in
its origin as any that ever existed on the earth! The Rainbow Bridge
is a fairer pathway from death to life than the doleful Cross,--and
better far the dark summoning eyes of a beauteous Valkyrie, than the
grinning skull and cross-bones, the Christian emblem of mortality.
Thelma thinks,--and her mother before her thought also,--that
different as my way of belief is to the accepted new creeds of to-
day, it will be all right with me in the next world--that I shall
have as good a place in heaven as any Christian. It may be so,--I
care not! But see you,--the key-note of all the civilization of
to-day is discontent, while I,--thanks to the gods of my fathers,
am happy, and desire nothing that I have not."
He paused and seemed absorbed. The young men watched his fine
inspired features with lively interest. Thelma's head was turned
away from them so that her face was hidden. By-and-by he resumed in
quieter tones--
"Now, my lads, you know what we are--both of us accursed in the
opinion of the Lutheran community. My child belongs to the so-called
idolatrous Church of Rome. I am one of the very last of the 'heathen
barbarians,'"--and the old fellow smiled sarcastically, "though,
truth to tell, for a barbarian, I am not such a fool as some folks
would have you think. If the snuffling Dyceworthy and I competed at
a spelling examination, I'm pretty sure 'tis I would have the prize!
But, as I said,--you know us,--and if our ways are likely to offend
you, then let us part good friends before the swords are fairly
drawn."
"No sword will be drawn on my side, I assure you, sir," said
Errington, advancing and laying one hand on the bonde's shoulder. "I
hope you will believe me when I say I shall esteem it an honor and a
privilege to know more of you."
"And though you won't accept me as a servant of Odin," added
Lorimer, "you really cannot prevent me from trying to make myself
agreeable to you. I warn you, Mr. Guldmar, I shall visit you pretty
frequently! Such men as you are not often met with."
Olaf Guldmar looked surprised. "You really mean it?" he said.
"Nothing that I have told you affects you? You still seek our
friendship?"
They both earnestly assured him that they did, and as they spoke
Thelma rose from her low seat and faced them with a bright smile.
"Do you know," she said, "that you are the first people who, on
visiting us once, have ever cared to come again? Ah, you look
surprised, but it is so, is it not, father?"
Guldmar nodded a grave assent.
"Yes," she continued demurely, counting on her little white fingers,
"we are three things--first, we are accursed; secondly, we have the
evil eye; thirdly, we are not respectable!"
And she broke into a peal of laughter, ringing and sweet as a chime
of bells. The young men joined her in it; and, still with an amused
expression on her lovely face, leaning her head back against a
cluster of pale roses, she went on--
"My father dislikes Mr. Dyceworthy so much, because he wants to--to--
oh, what is it they do to savages, father? Yes, I know,--to convert
us,--to make us Lutherans. And when he finds it all no use, he is
angry; and, though he is so religious, if he hears any one telling
some untruth about us in Bosekop, he will add another thing equally
untrue, and so it grows and grows, and--why! what is the matter with
you?" she exclaimed in surprise as Errington scowled and clenched
his fist in a peculiarly threatening manner.
"I should like to knock him down!" he said briefly under his breath.
Old Guldmar laughed and looked at the young baronet approvingly.
"Who knows, who knows!" he said cheerfully. "You may do it some day!
It will be a good deed! I will do it myself if he troubles me much
more. And now let us make some arrangement with you. When will you
come and see, us again?"
"You must visit me first," said Sir Philip quickly. "If you and your
daughter will honor me with your company to-morrow, I shall be proud
and pleased. Consider the yacht at your service."
Thelma, resting among the roses, looked across at him with serious,
questioning eyes--eyes that seemed to be asking his intentions
towards both her and her father.
Guldmar accepted the invitation at once, and, the hour for their
visit next day being fixed and agreed upon, the young men began to
take their leave. As Errington clasped Thelma's hand in farewell, he
made a bold venture. He touched a rose that hung just above her head
almost dropping on her hair.
"May I have it?" he asked in a low tone.
Their eyes met. The girl flushed deeply, and then grew pale. She
broke off the flower and gave it to him,--then turned to Lorimer to
say good-bye. They left her then, standing under the porch, shading
her brow with one hand from the glittering sunlight, as she watched
them descending the winding path to the shore, accompanied by her
lather, who hospitably insisted on seeing them into their boat. They
looked back once or twice, always to see the slender, tall white
figure standing there like an angel resting in a bower of roses,
with the sunshine flashing on a golden crown of hair. At the last in
the pathway Philip raised his hat and waved it, but whether she
condescended to wave her hand in answer he could not see.
Left alone, she sighed, and went slowly into the house to resume her
spinning. Hearing the whirr of the wheel, the servant Britta
entered.
"You are not going in the boat, Froken?" she asked in a tone of
mingled deference and affection.
Thelma looked up, smiled faintly, and shook her head in the
negative.
"It is late, Britta, and I am tired."
And the deep blue eyes had an intense dreamy light within them as
they wandered from the wheel to the wide-open window, and rested on
the majestic darkness of the overshadowing, solemn pines.
CHAPTER VII.
"In mezzo del mio core c' e una spina;
Non c' e barbier che la possa levare,--
Solo il mio amore colla sua manina"
Rime Popolari
Errington and Lorimer pulled away across the Fjord in a silence that
lasted for many minutes. Old Guldmar stood on the edge of his little
pier to watch them out of sight. So, till their boat turned the
sharp corner of the protecting rock, that hid the landing-place from
view, they saw his picturesque figure and gleaming silvery hair
outlined clearly against the background of the sky--a sky now
tenderly flushed with pink like the inside of a delicate shell. When
they could no longer perceive him they still rowed on speaking no
word,--the measured, musical plash of the oars through the smooth,
dark olive-green water alone breaking the stillness around them.
There was a curious sort of hushed breathlessness in the air;
fantastic, dream-like lights and shadows played on the little
wrinkling waves; sudden flushes of crimson came and went in the
western horizon, and over the high summits of the surrounding
mountains mysterious shapes, formed of purple and grey mist, rose up
and crept softly downwards, winding in and out deep valleys and dark
ravines, like wandering spirits sent on some secret and sorrowful
errand. After a while Errington said almost vexedly--
"Are you struck dumb, George? Haven't you a word to say to a
fellow?"
"Just what I was about to ask YOU," replied Lorimer carelessly; "and
I was also going to remark that we hadn't seen your mad friend up at
the Guldmar residence."
"No. Yet I can't help thinking he has something to do with them, all
the same," returned Errington meditatively. "I tell you, he swore at
me by some old Norwegian infernal place or other. I dare say he's an
Odin worshipper, too. But never mind him. What do you think of HER?"
Lorimer turned lazily round in the boat, so that he faced his
companion.
"Well, old fellow, if you ask me frankly, I think she is the most
beautiful woman I ever saw, or, for that matter, ever heard of. And
I am an impartial critic--perfectly impartial."
And, resting on his oar, he dipped the blade musingly in and out of
the water, watching the bright drops fall with an oil-like
smoothness as they trickled from the polished wood and glittered in
the late sunshine like vari-colored jewels. Then he glanced
curiously at Philip, who sat silent, but whose face was very grave
and earnest,--even noble, with that shade of profound thought upon
it. He looked like one who had suddenly accepted a high trust, in
which there was not only pride, but tenderness. Lorimer shook
himself together, as he himself would have expressed it, and touched
his friend's arm half-playfully.
"You've met the king's daughter of Norroway after all, Phil;" and
his light accents had a touch of sadness in them; "and you'll have
to bring her home, as the old song says. I believe the 'eligible' is
caught at last. The 'woman' of the piece has turned up, and your
chum must play second fiddle--eh, old boy?"
Errington flushed hotly, but caught Lorimer's hand and pressed it
with tremendous fervor.
"By Jove, I'll wring it off your wrist if you talk in that fashion,
George!" he said, with a laugh. "You'll always be the same to me,
and you know it. I tell you," and he pulled his moustache
doubtfully, "I don't know quite what's the matter with me. That girl
fascinates me! I feel a fool in her presence. Is that a sign of
being in love I wonder?"
"Certainly not!" returned George promptly; "for _I_ feel a fool in
her presence, and I'm not in love."
"How do you know that?" And Errington glanced at him keenly and
inquiringly.
"How do I know? Come, I like that! Have I studied myself all these
years for nothing? Look here,"--and he carefully drew out the little
withering bunch of daisies he had purloined--"these are for you. I
knew you wanted them, though you hadn't the impudence to pick them
up, and I had. I thought you might like to put them under your
pillow, and all that sort of thing, because if one is resolved to
become love-lunatic, one may as well do the thing properly out and
out,--I hate all half-measures. Now, if the remotest thrill of
sentiment were in me, you can understand, I hope, that wild horses
would not have torn this adorable posy from my possession! I should
have kept it, and you would never have known of it," and he laughed
softly. "Take it, old fellow! You're rich now, with the rose she
gave you besides. What is all your wealth compared with the sacred
preciousness of such blossoms! There, don't look so awfully
estactic, or I shall be called upon to ridicule you in the interests
of common sense. So you're in love with the girl at once, and have
done with it. Don't beat about the bush!"
"I'm not sure about it," said Philip, taking the daisies gratefully,
however, and pressing them in his pocket-book. "I don't believe in
love at first sight!"
"I do," returned Lorimer decidedly. "Love is electricity. Two
telegrams are enough to settle the business,--one from the eyes of
the man, the other from those of the woman. You and Miss Guldmar
must have exchanged a dozen such messages at least."
"And you?" inquired Errington persistently. "You had the same chance
as myself."
George shrugged his shoulders. "My dear boy, there are no wires of
communication between the Sun-angel and myself; nothing but a blank,
innocent landscape, over which perhaps some day, the mild lustre of
friendship may beam. The girl is beautiful--extraordinarily so; but
I'm not a 'man o' wax,' as Juliet's gabbling old nurse says--not in
the least impressionable."
And forthwith he resumed his oar, saying briskly as he did so--
"Phil, do you know those other fellows must be swearing at us pretty
forcibly for leaving them so long with Dyceworthy. We've been away
two hours!"
"Not possible!" cried Errington, amazed, and wielding his oar
vigorously. "They'll think me horribly rude. By Jove, they must be
bored to death!"
And, stimulated by the thought of the penance their friends were
enduring, they sent the boat spinning swiftly through the water, and
rowed as though they were trying for a race, when they were suddenly
pulled up by a loud "Halloo!" and the sight of another boat coming
slowly out from Bosekop, wherein two individuals were standing up,
gesticulating violently.
"There they are!" exclaimed Lorimer. "I say, Phil, they've hired a
special tub, and are coming out to us."
So it proved. Duprez and Macfarlane had grown tired of waiting for
their truant companions, and had taken the first clumsy wherry that
presented itself, rowed by an even clumsier Norwegian boatman, whom
they had been compelled to engage also, as he would not let his ugly
punt out of his sight, for fear some harm might chance to befall it.
Thus attended, they were on their way back to the yacht. With a few
long, elegant strokes, Errington and Lorimer soon brought their boat
alongside, and their friends gladly jumped into it, delighted to be
free of the company of the wooden-faced mariner they had so
reluctantly hired, and who now, on receiving his fee, paddled
awkwardly away in his ill-constructed craft, without either a word
of thanks or salutation. Errington began to apologize at once for
his long absence, giving as a reason for it, the necessity he found
himself under of making a call on some persons of importance in the
neighborhood, whom he had, till now, forgotten.
"My good Phil-eep!" cried Duprez, in his cheery sing song accent,
"why apologize? We have amused ourselves! Our dear Sandy has a vein
of humor that is astonishing! We have not wasted our time. No! We
have made Mr. Dyceworthy our slave; we have conquered him; we have
abased him! He is what we please,--he is for all gods or for no
god,--just as we pull the string! In plain words, mon cher, that
amiable religious is drunk!"
"Drunk!" cried Errington and Lorimer together. "Jove! you don't mean
it?"
Macfarlane looked up with a twinkle of satirical humor in his deep-
set grey eyes.
"Ye see," he said seriously, "the Lacrima, or Papist wine as he
calls it, was strong--we got him to take a good dose o't--a vera
feir dose indeed. Then, doun he sat, an' fell to convairsing vera
pheelosophically o'mony things,--it wad hae done ye gude to hear
him,--he was fair lost in the mazes o' his metapheesics, for twa
flies took a bit saunter through the pleasant dewy lanes o' his
forehead, an' he never raised a finger to send them awa' aboot their
beeziness. Then I thoet I wad try him wi' the whusky--I had ma
pocket flask wi' me--an' O mon! he was sairly glad and gratefu' for
the first snack o't! He said it was deevilish fine stuff, an' so he
took ane drappikie, an' anither drappikie, and yet anither
drappikie,"--Sandy's accent got more and more pronounced as he went
on--"an' after a bit, his heed dropt doun, an' he took a wee snoozle
of a minute or twa,--then he woke up in a' his strength an' just
grappit the flask in his twa hands an' took the hale o't off at a
grand, rousin' gulp! Ma certes! after it ye shuld ha' seen him
laughin' like a feckless fule, an' rubbin' an' rubbin' his heed,
till his hair was like the straw kicked roond by a mad coo!"
Lorimer lay back in the stern of the boat and laughed uproariously
at this extraordinary picture, as did the others.
"But that is not all," said Duprez, with delighted mischief
sparkling in his wicked little dark eyes; "the dear religious opened
his heart to us. He spoke thickly, but we could understand him. He
was very impressive! He is quite of my opinion. He says all religion
is nonsense, fable, imposture,--Man is the only god, Woman his
creature and subject. Again,--man and woman conjoined, make up
divinity, necessity, law. He was quite clear on that point. Why did
he preach what he did not believe, we asked? He almost wept! He
replied that the children of this world liked fairy-stories and he
was paid to tell them. It was his bread and butter,--would we wish
him to have no bread and butter? We assured him so cruel a thought
had no place in our hearts! Then he is amorous--yes! the good fat
man is amorous! He would have become a priest, but on close
examination of the confessionals he saw there was no possibility of
seeing, much less kissing a lady penitent through the grating. So he
gave up that idea! In his form of faith he CAN kiss, he says,--he
DOES kiss!--always a holy kiss, of course! He is so ingenuous,--so
delightfully frank, it is quite charming!"
They laughed again. Sir Philip looked somewhat disgusted.
"What an old brute he must be!" he said. "Somebody ought to kick
him--a holy kick, of course, and therefore more intense and forcible
than other kicks."
"You begin, Phil," laughed Lorimer, "and we'll all follow suit.
He'll be like that Indian in 'Vathek' who rolled himself into a
ball; no one could resist kicking as long as the ball bounded before
them,--we, similarly, shall not be able to resist, if Dyceworthy's
fat person is once left at our mercy."
"That was a grand bit he told us, Errington," resumed Macfarlane.
"Ye should ha' heard him talk aboot his love-affair!. . . the saft
jelly of a man that he is, to be making up to ony woman."
At that moment they ran alongside of the Eulalie and threw up their
oars.
"Stop a bit," said Errington. "Tell us the rest on board."
The ladder was lowered; they mounted it, and their boat was hauled
up to its place.
"Go on!" said Lorimer, throwing himself lazily into a deck arm-chair
and lighting a cigar, while the others leaned against the yacht
rails and followed his example. "Go on, Sandy--this is fun!
Dyceworthy's amours must be amusing. I suppose he's after that ugly
wooden block of a woman we saw at his house who is so zealous for
the 'true gospel'?"
"Not a bit of it," replied Sandy, with immense gravity. "The auld
Silenus has better taste. He says there's a young lass running after
him, fit to break her heart aboot him,--puir thing, she must have
vera little choice o' men! He hasna quite made up his mind, though
he admeets she's as fine a lass as ony man need require. He's sorely
afraid she has set herself to catch him, as he says she's an eye
like a warlock for a really strong good-looking fellow like
himself," and Macfarlane chuckled audibly. "Maybe he'll take pity on
her, maybe he wont; the misguided lassie will be sairly teazed by
him from a' he tauld us in his cups. He gave us her name,--the
oddest in a'the warld for sure,--I canna just remember it."
"I can," said Duprez glibly. "It struck me as quaint and pretty--
Thelma Guldmar."
Errington started so violently, and flushed so deeply, that Lorimer
was afraid of some rash outbreak of wrath on his part. But he
restrained himself by a strong effort. He merely took his cigar from
his mouth and puffed a light cloud of smoke into the air before
replying, then he said coldly--
"I should say Mr. Dyceworthy, besides being a drunkard, is a most
consummate liar. It so happens that the Guldmars are the very people
I have just visited,--highly superior in every way to anybody we
have yet met in Norway. In fact, Mr. and Miss Guldmar will come on
board to-morrow. I have invited them to dine with us; you will then
be able to judge for yourselves whether the young lady is at all of
the description Mr. Dyceworthy gives of her."
Duprez and Macfarlane exchanged astonished looks.
"Are ye quite sure," the latter ventured to remark cautiously, "that
ye're prudent in what ye have done? Remember ye have asked no
pairson at a' to dine with ye as yet,--it's a vera sudden an'
exceptional freak o' hospitality."
Errington smoked on peacefully and made no answer. Duprez hummed a
verse of a French chansonnette under his breath and smiled. Lorimer
glanced at him with a lazy amusement.
"Unburden yourself, Pierre, for heaven's sake!" he said. "Your mind
is as uncomfortable as a loaded camel. Let it lie down, while you
take off its packages, one by one, and reveal their contents. In
short, what's up?"
Duprez made a rapid, expressive gesture with his hands.
"Mon cher, I fear to displease Phil-eep! He has invited these
people; they are coming,--bien! there is no more to say."
"I disagree with ye," interposed Macfarlane "I think Errington
should hear what WE ha' heard; it's fair an' just to a mon that he
should understand what sort o' folk are gaun to pairtake wi' him at
his table. Ye see, Errington, ye should ha' thought a wee, before
inviting pairsons o' unsettled an' dootful chairacter--"
"Who says they are?" demanded Errington half-angrily. "The drunken
Dyceworthy?"
"He was no sae drunk at the time he tauld us." persisted Macfarlane
in his most obstinate, most dictatorial manner. "Ye see, it's just
this way--"
"Ah, pardon!" interrupted Duprez briskly. "Our dear Sandy is an
excellent talker, hut he is a little slow. Thus it is, mon cher
Errington. This gentleman named Guldmar had a most lovely wife--a
mysterious lady, with an evident secret. The beautiful one was never
seen in the church or in any town or village; she was met sometimes
on hills, by rivers, in valleys, carrying her child in her arms. The
people grew afraid of her; but, now, see what happens! Suddenly, she
appears no more; some one ventures to ask this Monsieur Guldmar,
'What has become of Madame?' His answer is brief. 'She is dead!'
Satisfactory so far, yet not quite; for, Madame being dead, then
what has become of the corpse of Madame? It was never seen,--no
coffin was ever ordered,--and apparently it was never buried! Bien!
What follows? The good people of Bosekop draw the only conclusion
possible--Monsieur Guldmar, who is said to have a terrific temper,
killed Madame and made away with her body. Voila!"
And Duprez waved his hand with an air of entire satisfaction.
Errington's brow grew sombre. "This is the story, is it?" he asked
at last.
"It is enough, is it not?" laughed Duprez. "But, after all, what
matter? It will be novel to dine with a mur--"
"Stop!" said Philip fiercely, with so much authority that the
sparkling Pierre was startled. "Call no man by such a name till you
know he deserves it. If Guldmar was suspected, as you say, why
didn't somebody arrest him on the charge?"
"Because, ye see," replied Macfarlane, "there was not sufficient
proof to warrant such a proceeding. Moreover, the actual meenister
of the parish declared it was a' richt, an' said this Guldmar was a
mon o' vera queer notions, an' maybe, had buried his wife wi'
certain ceremonies peculiar to himself--What's wrong wi' ye now?"
For a light had flashed on Errington's mind, and with the quick
comprehension it gave him, his countenance cleared. He laughed.
"That's very likely," he said; "Mr. Guldmar is a character. He
follows the faith of Odin, and not even Dyceworthy can convert him
to Christianity."
Macfarlane stared with a sort of stupefied solemnity.
"Mon!" he exclaimed, "ye never mean to say there's an actual puir
human creature that in this blessed, enlightened nineteenth century
of ours, is so far misguidit as to worship the fearfu' gods o' the
Scandinavian meethology?"
"Ah!" yawned Lorimer, "you may wonder away, Sandy, but it's true
enough! Old Guldmar is an Odinite. In this blessed, enlightened
nineteenth century of ours, when Christians amuse themselves by
despising and condemning each other, and thus upsetting all the
precepts of the Master they profess to follow, there is actually a
man who sticks to the traditions of his ancestors. Odd, isn't it? In
this delightful, intellectual age, when more than half of us are
discontented with life and yet don't want to die, there is a fine
old gentleman, living beyond the Arctic circle, who is perfectly
satisfied with his existence--not only that, he thinks death the
greatest glory that can befall him. Comfortable state of things
altogether! I'm half inclined to be an Odinite too."
Sandy still remained lost in astonishment. "Then ye don't believe
that he made awa' wi' his wife?" he inquired slowly.
"Not in the least!" returned Lorimer decidedly; "neither will you,
to-morrow, when you see him. He's a great deal better up in
literature than you are, my boy, I'd swear, judging from the books
he has. And when he mentioned his wife, as he did once, you could
see in his face he had never done HER any harm. Besides, his
daughter--"
"Ah! but I forgot," interposed Duprez again. "The daughter, Thelma,
was the child the mysteriously vanished lady carried in her arms,
wandering with it all about the woods and hills. After her
disappearance, another thing extraordinary happens. The child also
disappears, and Monsieur Guldmar lives alone, avoided carefully by
every respectable person. Suddenly the child returns, grown to be
nearly a woman--and they say, lovely to an almost impossible
extreme. She lives with her father. She, like her strange mother,
never enters a church, town, or village--nowhere, in fact, where
persons are in any numbers. Three years ago, it appears, she
vanished again, but came back at the end of ten months, lovelier
than ever. Since then she has remained quiet--composed--but always
apart,--she may disappear at any moment. Droll, is it not,
Errington? and the reputation she has is natural!"
"Pray state it," said Philip, with freezing coldness. "The
reputation of a woman is nothing nowadays. Fair game--go on!"
But his face was pale, and his eyes blazed dangerously. Almost
unconsciously his hand toyed with the rose Thelma had given him,
that still ornamented his button-hole.
"Mon Dieu!" cried Duprez in amazement. "But look not at me like
that! It seems to displease you, to put you en fureur, what I say!
It is not my story,--it is not I,--I know not Mademoiselle Guldmar.
But as her beauty is considered superhuman, they say it is the devil
who is her parfumeur, her coiffeur, and who sees after her
complexion; in brief, she is thought to be a witch in full practice,
dangerous to life and limb."
Errington laughed loudly, he was so much relieved.
"Is that all?" he said with light contempt. "By Jove! what a pack of
fools there must be about here,--ugly fools too, if they think
beauty is a sign of witchcraft. I wonder Dyceworthy isn't scared out
of his skin if he positively thinks the so-called witch is setting
her cap at him."
"Ah, but he means to convairt her," said Macfarlane seriously. "To
draw the evil oot o' her, as it were. He said he wad do't by fair
means or foul."
Something in these latter words struck Lorimer, for, raising himself
in his seat, he asked, "Surely Mr. Dyceworthy, with all his
stupidity, doesn't carry it so far as to believe in witchcraft?"
"Oh, indeed he does," exclaimed Duprez; "he believes in it a la
lettre! He has Bible authority for his belief. He is very firm--
firmest when drunk!" And he laughed gaily.
Errington muttered something not very flattering to Mr. Dyceworthy's
intelligence, which escaped the hearing of his friends; then he
said--
"Come along, all of you, down into the saloon. We want something to
eat. Let the Guldmars alone; I'm not a bit sorry I've asked them to
come to-morrow. I believe you'll all like them immensely."
They all descended the stair-way leading to the lower part of the
yacht, and Macfarlane asked as he followed his host--
"Is the lass vera bonnie did ye say?"
"Bonnie's not the word for it this time," said Lorimer, coolly
answering instead of Errington. "Miss Guldmar is a magnificent
woman. You never saw such a one, Sandy, my boy; she'll make you sing
small with one look; she'll wither you up into a kippered herring!
And as for you, Duprez," and he regarded the little Frenchman
critically, "let me see,--you may possibly reach up to her
shoulder,--certainly not beyond it."
"Pas possible!" cried Duprez. "Mademoiselle is a giantess."
"She needn't be a giantess to overtop you, mon ami," laughed Lorimer
with a lazy shrug. "By Jove, I AM sleepy, Errington, old boy; are we
never going to bed? It's no good waiting till it's dark here, you
know."
"Have something first," said Sir Philip, seating himself at the
saloon table, where his steward had laid out a tasty cold collation.
"We've had a good deal of climbing about and rowing; it's taken it
out of us a little."
Thus hospitably adjured, they took their places, and managed to
dispose of an excellent supper. The meal concluded, Duprez helped
himself to a tiny liqueur glass of Chartreuse, as a wind-up to the
exertions of the day, a mild luxury in which the others joined him,
with the exception of Macfarlane, who was wont to declare that a
"mon without his whusky was nae mon at a'," and who, therefore,
persisted in burning up his interior mechanism with alcohol in spite
of the doctrines of hygiene, and was now absorbed in the work of
mixing his lemon, sugar, hot water, and poison--his usual
preparation for a night's rest.
Lorimer, usually conversational, watched him in abstracted silence.
Rallied on this morose humor, he rose, shook himself like a
retriever, yawned, and sauntered to the piano that occupied a dim
corner of the saloon, and began to play with that delicate, subtle
touch, which, though it does not always mark the brilliant pianist,
distinguishes the true lover of music, to whose ears a rough thump
on the instrument, or a false note would be most exquisite agony.
Lorimer had no pretense to musical talent; asked, he confessed he
could "strum a little," and he seemed to see the evident wonder and
admiration he awakened in the minds of many to whom such "strumming"
as his was infinitely more delightful than more practiced, finished
playing. Just now he seemed undecided,--he commenced a dainty little
prelude of Chopin's, then broke suddenly off, and wandered into
another strain, wild, pleading, pitiful, and passionate,--a melody
so weird and dreamy that even the stolid Macfarlane paused in his
toddy-sipping, and Duprez looked round in some wonderment.
"Comme c'est beau, ca!" he murmured.
Errington said nothing; he recognized the tune as that which Thelma
had sung at her spinning-wheel, and his bold bright eyes grew
pensive and soft, as the picture of the fair face and form rose up
again before his mind. Absorbed in a reverie, he almost started when
Lorimer ceased playing, and said lightly--
"By-bye, boys! I'm off to bed! Phil, don't wake me so abominably
early as you did this morning. If you do, friendship can hold out no
longer--we must part!"
"All right!" laughed Errington good-humoredly, watching his friend
as he sauntered out of the saloon; then seeing Duprez and Macfarlane
rise from the table, he added courteously, "Don't hurry away on
Lorimer's account, you two. I'm not in the least sleepy,--I'll sit
up with you to any hour."
"It is droll to go to bed in broad daylight," said Duprez. "But it
must be done. Cher Philippe, your eyes are heavy. 'To bed, to bed,'
as the excellent Madame Macbeth says. Ah! quelle femme! What an
exciting wife she was for a man? Gome, let us follow our dear
Lorimer,--his music was delicious. Good night or good morning?. . .
I know not which it is in this strange land where the sun shines
always! It is confusing!"
They shook hands and separated. Errington, however, unable to
compose his mind to rest, went into his cabin merely to come out of
it again and betake himself to the deck, where he decided to walk up
and down till he felt sleepy. He wished to be alone with his own
thoughts for awhile--to try and resolve the meaning of this strange
new emotion that possessed him,--a feeling that was half pleasing,
half painful, and that certainly moved him to a sort of shame. A
man, if he be strong and healthy, is always more or less ashamed
when Love, with a single effort, proves him to be weaker than a
blade of grass swaying in the wind, What! all his dignity, all his
resoluteness, all his authority swept down by the light touch of a
mere willow wand? for the very sake of his own manhood and self-
respect, he cannot help but be ashamed! It is as though a little
nude, laughing child mocked at a lion's strength, and made him a
helpless prisoner with a fragile daisy chain. So the god Eros begins
his battles, which end in perpetual victory,--first fear and shame,-
-then desire and passion,--then conquest and possession. And
afterwards? ah!. . . afterwards the pagan deity is powerless,--a
higher God, a grander force, a nobler creed must carry Love to its
supreme and best fulfillment.
CHAPTER VIII.
"Le vent qui vient a travers la montagne
M'a rendu fou!"
VICTOR HUGO.
It was half an hour past midnight. Sir Philip was left in absolute
solitude to enjoy his meditative stroll on deck, for the full
radiance of light that streamed over the sea and land was too clear
and brilliant to necessitate the attendance of any of the sailors
for the purpose of guarding the Eulalie. She was safely anchored and
distinctly visible to all boats or fishing craft crossing the Fjord,
so that unless a sudden gale should blow, which did not seem
probable in the present state of the weather, there was nothing for
the men to do that need deprive them of their lawful repose.
Errington paced up and down slowly, his yachting shoes making no
noise, even as they left no scratch on the spotless white deck, that
shone in the night sunshine like polished silver. The Fjord was very
calm,--on one side it gleamed like a pool of golden oil in which the
outline of the Eulalie was precisely traced, her delicate masts and
spars and drooping flag being drawn in black lines on the yellow
water as though with a finely pointed pencil. There was a curious
light in the western sky; a thick bank of clouds, dusky brown in
color, were swept together and piled one above the other in
mountainous ridges, that rose up perpendicularly from the very edge
of the sea-line, while over their dark summits a glimpse of the sun,
like a giant's eye, looked forth, darting dazzling descending rays
through the sullen smoke-like masses, tinging them with metallic
green and copper hues as brilliant and shifting as the bristling
points of lifted spears. Away to the south, a solitary wreath of
purple vapor floated slowly as though lost from some great mountain
height; and through its faint, half disguising veil the pale moon
peered sorrowfully, like a dying prisoner lamenting joy long past,
but unforgotten.
A solemn silence reigned; and Errington, watching sea and sky, grew
more and more absorbed and serious. The scornful words of the proud
old Olaf Guldmar rankled in his mind and stung him. "An idle trifler
with time--an aimless wanderer!" Bitter, but, after all, true! He
looked back on his life with a feeling kin to contempt. What had he
done that was at all worth doing? He had seen to the proper
management of his estates,--well! any one with a grain of self-
respect and love of independence would do the same. He had travelled
and amused himself,--he had studied languages and literature,--he
had made many friends; but after all said and done, the bonde's
cutting observations had described him correctly enough. The do-
nothing, care-nothing tendency, common to the very wealthy in this
age, had crept upon him unconsciously; the easy, cool, indifferent
nonchalance common to men of his class and breeding was habitual
with him, and he had never thought it worth while to exert his
dormant abilities. Why then, should he now begin to think it was
time to reform all this,--to rouse himself to an effort,--to gain
for himself some honor, some distinction, some renown that should
mark him out as different to other men? why was he suddenly seized
with an insatiate desire to be something more than a mere "mushroom
knight, a fungus of nobility"--why? if not to make himself worthy
of--ah! There he had struck a suggestive key-note! Worthy of what?
of whom? There was no one in all the world, excepting perhaps
Lorimer, who cared what became of Sir Philip Errington, Baronet, in
the future, so long as he would, for the present, entertain and
feast his numerous acquaintances and give them all the advantages,
social and political, his wealth could so easily obtain. Then why,
in the name of well-bred indolence, should he muse with such
persistent gloom, on his general unworthiness at this particular
moment? Was it because this Norwegian maiden's grand blue eyes had
met his with such beautiful trust and candor?
He had known many women, queens of society, titled beauties,
brilliant actresses, sirens of the world with all their witcheries
in full play, and he had never lost his self-possession or his
heart; with the loveliest of them he had always felt himself master
of the situation, knowing that, in their opinion he was always "a
catch," "an eligible," and, therefore, well worth winning. Now, for
the first time, he became aware of his utter insignificance,--this
tall, fair goddess knew none of the social slang--and her fair, pure
face, the mirror of a fair, pure soul, showed that the "eligibility"
of a man from a pecuniary point of view was a consideration that
would never present itself to her mind. What she would look at would
be the man himself,--not his pocket. And, studied from such an
exceptional height,--a height seldom climbed by modern marrying
women,--Philip felt himself unworthy. It was a good sign; there are
great hopes of any man who is honestly dissatisfied with himself.
Folding his arms, he leaned idly on the deck-rails, and looked
gravely and musingly down into the motionless water where the varied
lines of the sky were clearly mirrored,--when a slight creaking,
cracking sound was heard, as of some obstacle grazing against or
bumping the side of the yacht. He looked, and saw, to his surprise,
a small rowing boat close under the gunwale, so close indeed that
the slow motion of the tide heaved it every now and then into a
jerky collision with the lower framework of the Eulalie--a
circumstance which explained the sound which had attracted his
attention. The boat was not unoccupied--there was some one in it
lying straight across the seats, with face turned upwards to the
sky--and, walking noiselessly to a better post of observation,
Errington's heart beat with some excitement as he recognized the
long, fair, unkempt locks, and eccentric attire of the strange
personage who had confronted him in the cave--the crazy little man
who had called himself "Sigurd." There he was, beyond a doubt, lying
flat on his back with his eyes closed. Asleep or dead? He might have
been the latter,--his thin face was so pale and drawn,--his lips
were so set and colorless. Errington, astonished to see him there,
called softly--
"Sigurd! Sigurd!" There was no answer; Sigurd's form seemed
inanimate--his eyes remained fast shut.
"Is he in a trance?" thought Sir Philip wonderingly; "or has he
fainted from some physical exhaustion?"
He called again, but again received no reply. He now observed in the
stem of the boat a large bunch of pansies, dark as velvet, and
evidently freshly gathered,--proving that Sigurd had been wandering
in the deep valleys and on the sloping sides of the hills, where
these flowers may be frequently found in Norway during the summer.
He began to feel rather uncomfortable, as he watched that straight
stiff figure in the boat, and was just about to swing down the
companion-ladder for the purpose of closer inspection, when a
glorious burst of light streamed radiantly over the Fjord,--the sun
conquered the masses of dark cloud that had striven to conceal his
beauty, and now,--like a warrior clad in golden armor, surmounted
and trod down his enemies, shining forth in all his splendor. With
that rush of brilliant effulgence, the apparently lifeless Sigurd
stirred,--he opened his eyes, and as they were turned upwards, he
naturally, from his close vicinity to the side of the Eulalie, met
Errington's gaze fixed inquiringly and somewhat anxiously upon him.
He sprang up with such sudden and fierce haste that his frail boat
rocked dangerously and Philip involuntarily cried out--
"Take care!"
Sigurd stood upright in his swaying skiff and laughed scornfully.
"Take care!" he echoed derisively. "It is you who should take care!
You,--poor miserable moth on the edge of a mad storm! It is you to
fear--not I! See how the light rains over the broad sky. All for me!
Yes, all the light, all the glory for me; all the darkness, all the
shame for you!"
Errington listened to these ravings with an air of patience and
pitying gentleness, then he said with perfect coolness--
"You are quite right, Sigurd! You are always right, I am sure. Come
up here and see me; I won't hurt you! Come along!"
The friendly tone and gentle manner appeared to soothe the unhappy
dwarf, for he stared doubtfully, then smiled,--and finally, as
though acting under a spell, he took up an oar and propelled himself
skillfully enough to the gangway, where Errington let down the
ladder and with his own hand assisted his visitor to mount, not
forgetting to fasten the boat safely to the steps as he did so. Once
on deck, Sigurd gazed about him perplexedly. He had brought his
bunch of pansies with him, and he fingered their soft leaves
thoughtfully. Suddenly his eyes flashed.
"You are alone here?" he asked abruptly.
Fearing to scare his strange guest by the mention of his companions,
Errington answered simply--"Yes, quite alone just now, Sigurd."
Sigurd took a step closer towards him. "Are you not afraid?" he said
in an awe-struck, solemn voice.
Sir Philip smiled. "I never was afraid of anything in my life!" he
answered.
The dwarf eyed him keenly. "You are not afraid," he went on, "that I
shall kill you?"
"Not in the least," returned Errington calmly. "You would not do
anything so foolish, my friend."
Sigurd laughed. "Ha ha! You call me 'friend.' You think that word a
safeguard! I tell you, no! There are no friends now; the world is a
great field of battle,--each man fights the other. There is no
peace,--none anywhere! The wind fights with the forests; you can
hear them slashing and slaying all night long--when it IS night--the
long, long night! The sun fights with the sky, the light with the
dark, and life with death. It is all a bitter quarrel; none are
satisfied, none shall know friendship any more; it is too late! We
cannot be friends!"
"Well, have it your own way," said Philip good-naturedly, wishing
that Lorimer were awake to interview this strange specimen of human
wit gone astray; "we'll fight if you like. Anything to please you!"
"We ARE fighting," said Sigurd with intense passion in his voice.
"You may not know it; but I know it! I have felt the thrust of your
sword; it has crossed mine. Stay!" and his eyes grew vague and
dreamy. "Why was I sent to seek you out--let me think--let me
think!"
And he seated himself forlornly on one of the deck chairs and seemed
painfully endeavoring to put his scattered ideas in order. Errington
studied him with a gentle forbearance; inwardly he was very curious
to know whether this Sigurd had any connection with the Guldmars,
but he refrained from asking too many questions. He simply said in a
cheery tone--
"Yes, Sigurd,--why did you come to see me? I'm glad you did; it's
very kind of you, but I don't think you even know my name."
To his surprise, Sigurd looked up with a more settled and resolved
expression of face, and answered almost as connectedly as any sane
man could have done.
"I know your name very well," he said in a low composed manner. "You
are Sir Philip Errington, a rich English nobleman. Fate led you to
HER grave--a grave that no strange feet have ever passed, save
yours--and so I know you are the man for whom her spirit has
waited,--she has brought you hither. How foolish to think she sleeps
under the stone, when she is always awake and busy,--always at work
opposing me! Yes, though I pray her to lie still, she will not!"
His voice grew wild again, and Philip asked quietly--
"Of whom are you speaking, Sigurd?"
His steady tone seemed to have some compelling influence on the
confused mind of the half-witted creature, who answered readily and
at once--
"Of whom should I speak but Thelma? Thelma, the beautiful rose of
the northern forest--Thelma--"
He broke off abruptly with a long shuddering sigh, and rocking
himself drearily to and fro, gazed wistfully out to the sea.
Errington hazarded a guess as to the purpose of that coffin hidden
in the shell cavern.
"Do you mean Thelma living?. . . or Thelma dead?"
"Both," answered Sigurd promptly. "They are one and the same,--you
cannot part them. Mother and child,--rose and rosebud! One walks the
earth with the step of a queen, the other floats in the air like a
silvery cloud; but I see them join and embrace and melt into each
other's arms till they unite in one form, fairer than the beauty of
angels! And you--you know this as well as I do--you have seen
Thelma, you have kissed the cup of friendship with her; but
remember!--not with me--not with me!"
He started from his seat, and, running close up to Errington, laid
one meagre hand on his chest.
"How strong you are, how broad and brave," he exclaimed with a sort
of childish admiration. "And can you not be generous too?"
Errington looked down upon him compassionately. He had learned
enough from his incoherent talk to clear up what had seemed a
mystery. The scandalous reports concerning Olaf Guldmar were
incorrect,--he had evidently laid the remains of his wife in the
shell-cavern, for some reason connected with his religious belief,
and Thelma's visits to the sacred spot were now easy of
comprehension. No doubt it was she who placed fresh flowers there
every day, and kept the little lamp burning before the crucifix as a
sign of the faith her departed mother had professed, and which she
herself followed. But who was Sigurd, and what was he to the
Guldmars? Thinking this, he replied to the dwarf's question by a
counter-inquiry.
"How shall I be generous, Sigurd? Tell me! What can I do to please
you?"
Sigurd's wild blue eyes sparkled with pleasure.
"Do!" he cried. "You can go away, swiftly, swiftly, over the seas,
and the Altenfjord need know you no more! Spread your white sails!"
and he pointed excitedly up to the tall tapering masts of the
Eulalie. "You are king here. Command and you are obeyed! Go from us,
go! What is there here to delay you? Our mountains are dark and
gloomy,--the fields are wild and desolate,--there are rocks,
glaciers and shrieking torrents that hiss like serpents gliding into
the sea! Oh, there must be fairer lands than this one,--lands where
oceans and sky are like twin jewels set in one ring,--where there
are sweet flowers and fruits and bright eyes to smile on you all
day--yes! for you are as a god in your strength and beauty--no woman
will be cruel to YOU! Ah! say you will go away!" and Sigurd's face
was transfigured into a sort of pained beauty as he made his appeal.
"That is what I came to seek you for,--to ask you to set sail
quickly and go, for why should you wish to destroy me? I have done
you no harm as yet. Go!--and Odin himself shall follow your path
with blessings!"
He paused, almost breathless with his own earnest pleading.
Errington was silent. He considered the request a mere proof of the
poor creature's disorder. The very idea that Sigurd seemed to
entertain of his doing him any harm, showed a reasonless terror and
foreboding that was simply to be set down as caused by his
unfortunate mental condition. To such an appeal there could be no
satisfactory reply. To sail away from the Altenfjord and its now
most fascinating attractions, because a madman asked him to do so,
was a proposition impossible of acceptance, so Sir Philip said
nothing. Sigurd, however, watching his face intently, saw, or
thought he saw, a look of resolution in the Englishman's clear, deep
grey eyes,--and with the startling quickness common to many whose
brains, like musical instruments, are jarred, yet not quite
unstrung, he grasped the meaning of that expression instantly.
"Ah! cruel and traitorous!" he exclaimed fiercely. "You will not go;
you are resolved to tear my heart out for your sport! I have pleaded
with you as one pleads with a king and all in vain--all in vain! You
will not go? Listen, see what you will do," and he held up the bunch
of purple pansies, while his voice sank to an almost feeble
faintness. "Look!" and he fingered the flowers, "look!. . . they are
dark and soft as a purple sky,--cool and dewy and fresh;--they are
the thoughts of Thelma; such thoughts! So wise and earnest, so pure
and full of tender shadows!--no hand has grasped them rudely, no
rough touch has spoiled their smoothness! They open full-faced to
the sky, they never droop or languish; they have no secrets, save
the marvel of their beauty. Now you have come, you will have no
pity,--one by one you will gather and play with her thoughts as
though they were these blossoms,--your burning hand will mar their
color,--they will wither and furl up and die, all of them,--and
you,--what will you care? Nothing! no man ever cares for a flower
that is withered,--not even though his own hand slew it."
The intense melancholy that vibrated through Sigurd's voice touched
his listener profoundly. Dimly he guessed that the stricken soul
before him had formed the erroneous idea that he, Errington, had
come to do some great wrong to Thelma or her belongings, and he
pitied the poor creature for his foolish self-torture.
"Listen to me, Sigurd," he said, with a certain imperativeness; "I
cannot promise you to go away, but I can promise that I will do no
harm to you or to--to--Thelma. Will that content you?"
Sigurd smiled vacantly and shook his head. He looked at the pansies
wistfully and laid them down very gently on one of the deck benches.
"I must go," he said in a faint voice:--"She is calling me."
"Who is calling you?" demanded Errington astonished.
"She is," persisted Sigurd, walking steadily to the gangway. "I can
hear her! There are the roses to water, and the doves to feed, and
many other things." He looked steadily at Sir Philip, who, seeing he
was bent on departure, assisted him to descend the companion ladder
into his little boat. "You are sure you will not sail away?"
Errington balanced himself lightly on the ladder and smiled.
"I am sure, Sigurd! I have no wish to sail away. Are you all right
there?"
He spoke cheerily, feeling in his own mind that it was scarcely safe
for a madman to be quite alone in a cockle-shell of a boat on a deep
Fjord, the shores of which were indented with dangerous rocks as
sharp as the bristling teeth of fabled sea-monsters, but Sigurd
answered him almost contemptuously.
"All right!" he echoed. "That is what the English say always. All
right! As if it were ever wrong with me, and the sea! We know each
other,--we do each other no harm. YOU may die on the sea, but _I_
shall not! No, there is another way to Valhalla!"
"Oh, I dare say there are no end of ways," said Errington good-
temperedly, still poising himself on the ladder, and holding on to
the side of his yacht, as he watched his late visitor take the oars
and move off. "Good-bye, Sigurd! Take care of yourself! Hope I shall
see you again soon."
But Sigurd replied not. Bending to the oars, he rowed swiftly and
strongly, and Sir Philip, pulling up the ladder and closing the
gangway, saw the little skiff flying over the water like a bird in
the direction of the Guldmar's landing-place. He wondered again and
again what relationship, if any, this half-crazed being bore to the
bonde and his daughter. That he knew all about them was pretty
evident; but how? Catching sight of the pansies left on the deck
bench, Errington took them, and, descending to the saloon, set them
on the table in a tumbler of water.
"Thelma's thoughts, the poor little fellow called them," he mused,
with a smile. "A pretty fancy of his, and linked with the crazy
imaginings of Ophelia too. 'There's pansies, that's for thoughts,'
SHE said, but Sigurd's idea is different; he believes they are
Thelma's own thoughts in flower. 'No rough touch has spoiled their
smoothness,' he declared; he's right there, I'm sure. And shall I
ruffle the sweet leaves; shall I crush the tender petals? or shall I
simply transform them, from pansies into roses,--from the dream of
love,--into love itself?"
His eyes softened as he glanced at the drooping rose he wore, which
Thelma herself had given him, and as he went to his sleeping cabin,
he carefully detached it from his button-hole, and taking down a
book,--one which he greatly prized, because it had belonged to his
mother,--he prepared to press the flower within its leaves. It was
the "Imitation of Christ," bound quaintly and fastened with silver
clasps, and as he was about to lay his fragrant trophy on the first
page that opened naturally of itself, he glanced at the words that
there presented themselves to his eyes.
"Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, nothing higher,
nothing wider, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller or better in
heaven or in earth!" And with a smile and a warmer flush of color
than usual on his handsome face, he touched the rose lightly yet
tenderly with his lips and shut it reverently within its sacred
resting-place.
CHAPTER IX.
"Our manners are infinitely corrupted, and wonderfully incline to
the worse; of our customs there are many barbarous and monstrous."
MONTAIGNE.
The next day was very warm and bright, and that pious Lutheran
divine, the Reverend Charles Dyceworthy, was seriously encumbered by
his own surplus flesh material as he wearily rowed himself across
the Fjord towards Olaf Guldmar's private pier. As the perspiration
bedewed his brow, he felt that Heaven had dealt with him somewhat
too liberally in the way of fat--he was provided too amply with it
ever to excel as an oarsman. The sun was burning hot, the water was
smooth as oil, and very weighty--it seemed to resist every stroke of
his clumsily wielded blades. Altogether it was hard, uncongenial
work,--and, being rendered somewhat flabby and nerveless by his
previous evening's carouse with Macfarlane's whisky, Mr. Dyceworthy
was in a plaintive and injured frame of mind, he was bound on a
mission--a holy and edifying errand, which would have elevated any
minister of his particular sect. He had found a crucifix with the
name of Thelma engraved thereon,--he was now about to return it to
the evident rightful owner, and in returning it, he purposed
denouncing it as an emblem of the "Scarlet Woman, that sitteth on
the Seven Hills," and threatening all those who dared to hold it
sacred, as doomed to eternal torture, "where the worm dieth not." He
had thought over all he meant to say; he had planned several
eloquent and rounded sentences, some of which he murmured placidly
to himself as he propelled his slow boat along.
"Yea!" he observed in a mild sotto-voce--"ye shall be cut off root
and branch! Ye shall be scorched even as stubble,--and utterly
destroyed." Here he paused and mopped his streaming forehead with
his clean perfumed handkerchief. "Yea!" he resumed peacefully, "the
worshippers of idolatrous images are accursed; they shall have ashes
for food and gall for drink! Let them turn and repent themselves,
lest the wrath of God consume them as straw whirled on the wind.
Repent!. . . or ye shall be cast into everlasting fire. Beauty shall
avail not, learning shall avail not, meekness shall avail not; for
the fire of hell is a searching, endless, destroying--" here Mr.
Dyceworthy, by plunging one oar with too much determination into the
watery depths, caught a crab, as the saying is, and fell violently
backward in a somewhat undignified posture. Recovering himself
slowly, he looked about him in a bewildered way, and for the first
time noticed the vacant, solitary appearance of the Fjord. Some
object was missing; he realized what it was immediately--the English
yacht Eulalie was gone from her point of anchorage.
"Dear me!" said Mr. Dyceworthy, half aloud, "what a very sudden
departure! I wonder, now, if those young men have gone for good, or
whether they are coming back again? Pleasant fellows, very pleasant!
flippant, perhaps, but pleasant."
And he smiled benevolently. He had no remembrance of what had
occurred, after he had emptied young Macfarlane's flask of
Glenlivet; he had no idea that he had been almost carried from his
garden into his parlor, and there flung on the sofa and left to
sleep off the effects of his strong tipple; least of all did he
dream that he had betrayed any of his intentions towards Thelma
Guldmar, or given his religious opinions with such free and
undisguised candor. Blissfully ignorant on these points, he resumed
his refractory oars, and after nearly an hour of laborious effort,
succeeded at last in reaching his destination. Arrived at the little
pier, he fastened up his boat, and with the lofty air of a
thoroughly moral man, he walked deliberately up to the door of the
bonde's house. Contrary to custom, it was closed, and the place
seemed strangely silent and deserted. The afternoon heat was so
great that the song-birds were hushed, and in hiding under the cool
green leaves,--the clambering roses round the porch hung down their
bright heads for sheer faintness,--and the only sounds to be heard
were the subdued coo-cooing of the doves on the roof and the soft
trickling rush of a little mountain stream that flowed through the
grounds. Some what surprised, though not abashed, at the evident
"not-at-home" look of the farm-house, Mr. Dyceworthy rapped loudly
at the rough oaken door with his knuckles, there being no such
modern convenience as a bell or a knocker. He waited sometime before
he was answered, repeating his summons violently at frequent
intervals, and swearing irreligiously under his breath as he did so.
But at last the door was flung sharply open, and the tangle-haired,
rosy-cheeked Britta confronted him with an aspect which was by no
means encouraging or polite. Her round blue eyes sparkled saucily,
and she placed her bare, plump, red arms, wet with recent soapsuds,
akimbo on her sturdy little hips, with an air that was decidedly
impertinent.
"Well, what do you want?" she demanded with rude abruptness.
Mr. Dyceworthy regarded her in speechless dignity. Vouchsafing no
reply, he attempted to pass her and enter the house. But Britta
settled her arms more defiantly than ever, and her voice had a
sharper ring as she said--
"It's no use your coming in! There's no one here but me. The master
has gone out for the day."
"Young woman," returned Mr. Dyceworthy with polite severity, "I
regret to see that your manners stand in sore need of improvement.
Your master's absence is of no importance to me. It is with the
Froken Thelma I desire to speak."
Britta laughed and tossed her rough brown curls back from her
forehead. Mischievous dimples came and went at the corners of her
mouth--indications of suppressed fun.
"The Froken is out too," she said demurely. "It's time she had a
little amusement; and the gentlemen treat her as if she were a
queen!"
Mr. Dyceworthy started, and his red visage became a trifle paler.
"Gentlemen? What gentlemen?" he demanded with some impatience.
Britta's inward delight evidently increased.
"The gentlemen from the yacht, of course," she said. "What other
GENTLEMEN are there?" This with a contemptuous up-and-down sort of
look at the Lutheran minister's portly form. "Sir Philip Errington
was here with his friend yesterday evening and stayed a long time--
and today a fine boat with four oars came to fetch the master and
Froken Thelma, and they are all gone for a sail to the Kaa Fjord or
some other place near here--I cannot remember the name. And I am SO
glad!" went on Britta, clasping her plump hands in ecstasy. "They
are the grandest, handsomest Herren I have ever seen, and one can
tell they think wonders of the Froken--nothing is too good for her!"
Mr. Dyceworthy's face was the picture of dismay. This was a new turn
to the course of events, and one, more over, that he had never once
contemplated. Britta watched him amusedly.
"Will you leave any message for them when they return?" she asked.
"No," said the minister dubiously. "Yet, stay; yes! I will! Tell the
Froken that I have found something which belongs to her, and that
when she wishes to have it, I will myself bring it."
Britta looked cross. "If it is hers you have no business to keep
it," she said brusquely. "Why not leave it,--whatever it is,--with
me?"
Mr. Dyceworthy regarded her with a bland and lofty air.
"I trust no concerns of mine or hers to the keeping of a paid
domestic," he said. "A domestic, moreover, who deserts the ways of
her own people,--who hath dealings with the dwellers in darkness,--
who even bringeth herself to forget much of her own native tongue,
and who devoteth herself to--"
What he would have said was uncertain, as at that moment he was
nearly thrown down by a something that slipped agilely between his
legs, pinching each fat calf as it passed--a something that looked
like a ball, but proved to be a human creature--no other than the
crazy Sigurd, who, after accomplishing his uncouth gambol
successfully, stood up, shaking back his streaming fair locks and
laughing wildly.
"Ha, ha!" he exclaimed. "That was good; that was clever! If I had
upset you now, you would have said your prayers backward! What are
you here for? This is no place for you! They are all gone out of it.
SHE has gone--all the world is empty! There is nothing any where but
air, air, air!--no birds, no flowers, no trees, no sunshine! All
gone with her on the sparkling, singing water!" and he swung his
arms round violently, and snapped his fingers in the minister's
face. "What an ugly man your are!" he exclaimed with refreshing
candor. "I think you are uglier than I am! You are straight,--but
you are like a load of peat--heavy and barren and fit to burn. Now,
I--I am the crooked bough of a tree, but I have bright leaves where
a bird hides and sings all day! You--you have no song, no foliage;
only ugly and barren and fit to burn!" He laughed heartily, and,
catching sight of Britta, where she stood in the doorway entirely
unconcerned at his eccentric behavior, he went up to her and took
hold of the corner of her apron. "Take me in, Britta dear--pretty
Britta!" he said coaxingly. "Sigurd is hungry! Britta, sweet little
Britta,--come and talk to me and sing! Good-bye, fat man!" he added
suddenly, turning round once more on Dyceworthy. "You will never
overtake the big ship that has gone away with Thelma over the water.
Thelma will come back,--yes!. . . .but one day she will go never to
come back." He dropped his voice to a mysterious whisper. "Last
night I saw a little spirit come out of a rose,--he carried a tiny
golden hammer and nail, and a ball of cord like a rolled-up sunbeam.
He flew away so quickly I could not follow him; but I know where he
went! He fastened the nail in the heart of Thelma, deeply, so that
the little drops of blood flowed,--but she felt no pain; and then he
tied the golden cord to the nail and left her, carrying the other
end of the string with him--to whom? Some other heart must be
pierced! Whose heart?" Sigurd looked infinitely cunning as well as
melancholy, and sighed deeply.
The Reverend Mr. Dyceworthy was impatient and disgusted.
"It is a pity," he said with an air of solemn patience, "that this
hapless creature, accursed of God and man, is not placed in some
proper abode suitable to the treatment of his affliction. You,
Britta, as the favored servant of a--a--well, let us say, of a
peculiar mistress, should persuade her to send this--this--person
away, lest his vagaries become harmful."
Britta glanced very kindly at Sigurd, who still held her apron with
the air of a trustful child.
"He's no more harmful than you are," she said promptly, in answer to
the minister's remark. "He's a good fellow and if he talks strangely
he can make himself useful,--which is more than can be said of
certain people. He can saw and chop the wood, make hay, feed the
cattle, pull a strong oar, and sweep and keep the garden,--can't
you, Sigurd?" She laid her hand on Sigurd's shoulder, and he nodded
his head emphatically, as she enumerated his different talents. "And
as for climbing,--he can guide you anywhere over the hills, or up
the streams to the big waterfalls--no one better. And if you mean by
peculiar,--that my mistress is different to other people, why, I
know she is, and am glad of it,--at any rate, she's a great deal too
kind-hearted to shut this poor boy up in a house for madmen! He'd
die if he couldn't have the fresh air." She paused, out of breath
with her rapid utterance, and Mr. Dyceworthy held up his hands in
dignified astonishment.
"You talk too glibly, young woman," he said. "It is necessary that I
should instruct you without loss of time, as to how you should be
sparing of your words in the presence of your superiors and
betters--"
Bang! The door was closed with a decision that sent a sharp echo
through the silent, heated air, and Mr. Dyceworthy was left to
contemplate it at his leisure. Full of wrath, he was about to knock
peremptorily and insist that it should be re-opened; but on second
thoughts he decided that it was beneath his dignity to argue with a
servant, much less with a declared lunatic like Sigurd,--so he made
the best of his way back to his boat, thinking gloomily of the hard
labor awaiting him in the long pull back to Bosekop.
Other thoughts, too, tortured and harrassed his brain, and as he
again took the oars and plied them wearily through the water, he was
in an exceedingly unchristian humor. Though a specious hypocrite, he
was no fool. He knew the ways of men and women, and he thoroughly
realized the present position of affairs. He was quite aware of
Thelma Guldmar's exceptional beauty,--and he felt pretty certain
that no man could look upon her without admiration. But up to this
time, she had been, as it were, secluded from all eyes,--a few
haymakers and fishermen were the only persons of the male sex who
had ever been within the precincts of Olaf Guldmar's dwelling, with
the exception of himself, Dyceworthy,--who, being armed with a
letter of introduction from the actual minister of Bosekop, whose
place, he, for the present, filled, had intruded his company
frequently and persistently on the bonde and his daughter, though he
knew himself to be entirely unwelcome. He had gathered together as
much as he could, all the scraps of information concerning them; how
Olaf Guldmar was credited with having made away with his wife by
foul means; how nobody even knew where his wife had come from; how
Thelma had been mysteriously educated, and had learned strange
things concerning foreign lands, which no one else in the place
understood anything about; how she was reputed to be a witch, and
was believed to have cast her spells on the unhappy Sigurd, to the
destruction of his reason,--and how nobody could tell where Sigurd
himself had come from.
All this Mr. Dyceworthy had heard with much interest, and as the
sensual part of his nature was always more or less predominant, ho
had resolved in his own mind that here was a field of action
suitable to his abilities. To tame and break the evil spirit in the
reputed witch; to convert her to the holy and edifying Lutheran
faith; to save her soul for the Lord, and take her beautiful body
for himself; these were Mr. Dyceworthy's laudable ambitions. There
was no rival to oppose him, and he had plenty of time to mature his
plans. So he had thought. He had not bargained for the appearance of
Sir Philip Bruce Errington on the scene,--a man, young, handsome,
and well-bred, with vast wealth to back up his pretensions, should
he make any.
"How did he find her out?" thought the Reverend Charles, as he
dolefully pulled his craft along. "And that brutal pagan Guldmar,
too, who pretends he cannot endure strangers!"
And as he meditated, a flush of righteous indignation crimsoned his
flabby features.
"Let her take care," he half muttered, with a smile that was not
pleasant; "let her take care! There are more ways than one to bring
down her pride! Sir Philip Errington must be too rich and popular in
his own country to think of wishing to marry a girl who is only a
farmer's daughter after all. He may trifle with her; yes!. . . and
he will help me by so doing. The more mud on her name, the better
for me; the more disgrace, the more need of rescue, and the more
grateful she will have to be. Just a word to Ulrika,--and the
scandal will spread. Patience, patience!"
And somewhat cheered by his own reflections, though still wearing an
air of offended dignity, he rowed on, glancing up every now and then
to see if the Eulalie had returned, but her place was still empty.
Meanwhile, as he thought and planned, other thoughts and plans were
being discussed at a meeting which was held in a little ruined stone
hut, situated behind some trees on a dreary hill just outside
Bosekop. It was a miserable place, barren of foliage,--the ground
was dry and yellow, and the hut itself looked as if it had been
struck by lightning. The friends, whose taste had led them to select
this dilapidated dwelling as a place of conference, were two in
number, both women,--one of them no other than the minister's
servant, the drear-faced Ulrika. She was crouched on the earth-floor
in an attitude of utter abasement, at the feet of her companion,--an
aged dame of tall and imposing appearance, who, standing erect,
looked down upon her with an air of mingled contempt and
malevolence. The hut was rather dark, for the roof was not
sufficiently destroyed to have the advantage of being open to the
sky. The sunlight fell through holes of different shapes and sizes,-
-one specially bright patch of radiance illumining the stately form,
and strongly marked, though withered features of the elder woman,
whose eyes, deeply sunken in her head, glittered with a hawk-like
and evil lustre, as they rested on the prostrate figure before her.
When she spoke, her accents were harsh and commanding.
"How long?" she said, "how long must I wait? How long must I watch
the work of Satan in the land? The fields are barren and will not
bring forth; the curse of bitter poverty is upon us all: and only
he, the pagan Guldmar, prospers and gathers in harvest, while all
around him starve! Do I not know the devil's work when I see it,--I,
the chosen servant of the Lord?" And she struck a tall staff she
held violently into the ground to emphasize her words. "Am I not
left deserted in my age? The child Britta,--sole daughter of my sole
daughter,--is she not stolen, and kept from me? Has not her heart
been utterly turned away from mine? All through that vile witch,--
accursed of God and man! She it is who casts the blight on our land;
she it is who makes the hands and hearts of our men heavy and
careless, so that even luck has left the fishing; and yet you
hesitate,--you delay, you will not fulfill your promise! I tell you,
there are those in Bosekop who, at my bidding, would cast her naked
into the Fjord, leave her there, to sink or swim according to her
nature!"
"I know," murmured Ulrika humbly, raising herself slightly from her
kneeling posture; "I know it well!. . . . but, good Lovisa, be
patient! I work for the best! Mr. Dyceworthy will do more for us
than we can do for ourselves; he is wise and cautious--"
Lovisa interrupted her with a fierce gesture. "Fool!" she cried.
"What need of caution? A witch is a witch, burn her, drown her!
There is no other remedy! But two days since, the child of my
neighbor Engla passed her on the Fjord; and now the boy has sickened
of some strange disease, and 'tis said he will die. Again, the drove
of cattle owned by Hildmar Bjorn were herded home when she passed
by. Now they are seized by the murrain plague! Tell your good saint
Dyceworthy these things; if he can find no cure, _I_ can,--and
WILL!"
Ulrika shuddered slightly as she rose from the ground and stood
erect, drawing her shawl closely about her.
"You hate her so much, Lovisa?" she asked, almost timidly.
Lovisa's face darkened, and her yellow, claw-like hand closed round
her strong staff in a cruel and threatening manner.
"Hate her!" she muttered, "I have hated her ever since she was born!
I hated her mother before her! A nest of devils, every one of them;
and the curse will always be upon us while they dwell here."
She paused and looked at Ulrika steadily.
"Remember!" she said, with an evil leer on her lips, "I hold a
secret of yours that is worth the keeping! I give you two weeks
more; within that time you must act! Destroy the witch,--bring back
to me my grandchild Britta, or else--it will be MY turn!"
And she laughed silently. Ulrika's face grew paler, and the hand
that grasped the folds of her shawl trembled violently. She made an
effort, however, to appear composed, as she answered--"I have sworn
to obey you, Lovisa,--and I will. But tell me one thing--how do you
know that Thelma Guldmar is indeed a witch?"
"How do I know?" almost yelled Lovisa. "Have I lived all these years
for nothing? Look at her! Am _I_ like her? Are YOU like her? Are any
of the honest women of the neighborhood like her? Meet her on the
hills with knives and pins,--prick her, and see if the blood will
flow! I swear it will not--not one drop! Her skin is too white;
there is no blood in those veins--only fire! Look at the pink in her
cheeks,--the transparency of her flesh,--the glittering light in her
eyes, the gold of her hair, it is all devil's work, it is not human,
it is not natural! I have watched her,--I used to watch her mother,
and curse her every time I saw her--ay! curse her till I was
breathless with cursing--"
She stopped abruptly. Ulrika gazed at her with as much wonder as her
plain, heavy face was capable of expressing. Lovisa saw the look and
smiled darkly.
"One would think YOU had never known what love is!" she said, with a
sort of grim satire in her tone. "Yet even your dull soul was on
fire once! But I--when I was young, I had beauty such as you never
had, and I loved--Olaf Guldmar."
Ulrika uttered an exclamation of astonishment. "You! and yet you
hate him now?"
Lovisa raised her hand with an imperious gesture.
"I have grown hate like a flower in my breast," she said, with a
sort of stern impressiveness. "I have fostered it year after year,
and now,--it has grown too strong for me! When Olaf Guldmar was
young he told me I was fair; once he kissed my cheek at parting! For
those words,--for that kiss,--I loved him then--for the same things
I hate him now! When I know he had married, I cursed him; on the day
of my own marriage with a man I despised, I cursed him! I have
followed him and all his surroundings with more curses than there
are hours in the day! I have had some little revenge--yes!"--and she
laughed grimly--"but I want more! For Britta has been caught by his
daughter's evil spell. Britta is mine, and I must have her back.
Understand me well!--do what you have to do without delay! Surely it
is an easy thing to ruin a woman!"
Ulrika stood as though absorbed in meditation, and said nothing for
some moments. At last she murmured as though to herself--
"Mr. Dyceworthy could do much--if--"
"Ask him, then," said Lovisa imperatively. "Tell him the village is
in fear of her. Tell him that if he will do nothing WE will. And if
all fails, come to me again; and remember!. . . I shall not only
act,--I shall SPEAK!"
And emphasizing the last word as a sort of threat, she turned and
strode out of the hut.
Ulrika followed more slowly, taking a different direction to that in
which her late companion was seen rapidly disappearing. On returning
to the minister's dwelling, she found that Mr. Dyceworthy had not
yet come back from his boating excursion. She gave no explanation of
her absence to her two fellow-servants, but went straight up to her
own room--a bare attic in the roof--where she deliberately took off
her dress and bared her shoulders and breast. Then she knelt down on
the rough boards, and clasping her hands, began to writhe and
wrestle as though she were seized with a sudden convulsion. She
groaned and tortured the tears from her eyes; she pinched her own
flesh till it was black and blue, and scratched it with her nails
till it bled,--and she prayed inaudibly, but with evident
desperation. Sometimes her gestures were frantic, sometimes
appealing; but she made no noise that was loud enough to attract
attention from any of the dwellers in the house. Her stolid features
were contorted with anguish,--and had she been an erring nun of the
creed she held in such bitter abhorrence, who, for some untold
crime, endured a self-imposed penance, she could not have punished
her own flesh much more severely.
She remained some quarter of an hour or twenty minutes thus; then
rising from her knees, she wiped the tears from her eyes and re-
clothed herself,--and with her usual calm, immovable aspect--though
smarting from the injuries she had inflicted on herself--she
descended to the kitchen, there to prepare Mr. Dyceworthy's tea with
all the punctilious care and nicety befitting the meal of so good a
man and so perfect a saint.
CHAPTER X.
"She believed that by dealing nobly with all, all would show
themselves noble; so that whatsoever she did became her."
HAFIZ.
As the afternoon lengthened, and the sun lowered his glittering
shield towards that part of the horizon where he rested a brief
while without setting, the Eulalie,--her white sails spread to the
cool, refreshing breeze,--swept gracefully and swiftly back to her
old place on the Fjord, and her anchor dropped with musical clank
and splash, just as Mr. Dyceworthy entered his house, fatigued,
perspiring, and ill-tempered at the non-success of his day. All on
board the yacht were at dinner--a dinner of the most tasteful and
elegant description, such as Sir Philip Errington well knew how to
order and superintend, and Thelma, leaning against the violet velvet
cushions that were piled behind her for her greater ease, looked,--
as she indeed was,--the veritable queen of the feast. Macfarlane and
Duprez had been rendered astonished and bashful by her excessive
beauty. From the moment she came on board with her father, clad in
her simple white gown, with a deep crimson hood drawn over her fair
hair, and tied under her rounded chin, she had taken them all
captive--they were her abject slaves in heart, though they put on
very creditable airs of manly independence and nonchalance. Each man
in his different way strove to amuse or interest her, except,
strange to say, Errington himself, who, though deeply courteous to
her, kept somewhat in the background and appeared more anxious to
render himself agreeable to old Olaf Guldmar, than to win the good
graces of his lovely daughter. The girl was delighted with
everything on board the yacht,--she admired its elegance and luxury
with child-like enthusiasm; she gloried in the speed with which its
glittering prow cleaved the waters; she clapped her hands at the
hiss of the white foam as it split into a creaming pathway for the
rushing vessel; and she was so unaffected and graceful in all her
actions and attitudes, that the slow blood of the cautious
Macfarlane began to warm up by degrees to a most unwonted heat of
admiration. When she had first arrived, Errington, in receiving her,
had seriously apologized for not having some lady to meet her, but
she seemed not to understand his meaning. Her naive smile and
frankly uplifted eyes put all his suddenly conceived notions of
social stiffness to flight.
"Why should a lady come?" she asked sweetly. "It is not necessary?.
. . ."
"Of course it isn't!" said Lorimer promptly and delightedly. "I am
sure we shall be able to amuse you, Miss Guldmar."
"Oh,--for that!" she replied, with a little shrug that had something
French about it, "I amuse myself always! I am amused now,--you must
not trouble yourselves!"
As she was introduced to Duprez and Macfarlane, she gave them each a
quaint, sweeping curtsy, which had the effect of making them feel
the most ungainly lumbersome fellows on the face of the earth.
Macfarlane grew secretly enraged at the length of his legs,--while
Pierre Duprez, though his bow was entirely Parisian, decided in his
own mind that it was jerky, and not good style. She was perfectly
unembarrassed with all the young men; she laughed at their jokes,
and turned her glorious eyes full on them with the unabashed
sweetness of innocence; she listened to the accounts they gave her
of their fishing and climbing excursions with the most eager
interest,--and in her turn, she told them of fresh nooks and streams
and waterfalls, of which they had never even heard the names. Not
only were they enchanted with her, but they were thoroughly
delighted with her father, Olaf Guldmar. The sturdy old pagan was in
the best of humors,--and seemed determined to be pleased with
everything,--he told good stories,--and laughed that rollicking,
jovial laugh of his with such unforced heartiness that it was
impossible to be dull in his company,--and not one of Errington's
companions gave a thought to the reports concerning him and his
daughter, which had been so gratuitously related by Mr. Dyceworthy.
They had had a glorious day's sail, piloted by Valdemar Svensen,
whose astonishment at seeing the Guldmars on board the Eulalie was
depicted in his face, but who prudently forebore from making any
remarks thereon. The bonde hailed him good-humoredly as an old
acquaintance,--much in the tone of a master addressing a servant,--
and Thelma smiled kindly at him,--but the boundary line between
superior and inferior was in this case very strongly marked, and
neither side showed any intention of overstepping it. In the course
of the day, Duprez had accidentally lapsed into French, whereupon to
his surprise Thelma had answered him in the same tongue,--though
with a different and much softer pronunciation. Her "bien zoli!" had
the mellifluous sweetness of the Provencal dialect, and on his
eagerly questioning her, he learned that she had received her
education in a large convent at Aries, where she had learned French
from the nuns. Her father overheard her talking of her school-days,
and he added--
"Yes, I sent my girl away for her education, though I know the
teaching is good in Christiania. Yet it did not seem good enough for
her. Besides, your modern 'higher education' is not the thing for a
woman,--it is too heavy and commonplace. Thelma knows nothing about
mathematics or algebra. She can sing and read and write,--and, what
is more, she can spin and sew; but even these things were not the
first consideration with me. I wanted her disposition trained, and
her bodily health attended to. I said to those good women at Arles--
'Look here,--here's a child for you! I don't care how much or how
little she knows about accomplishments. I want her to be sound and
sweet from head to heel--a clean mind in a wholesome body. Teach her
self-respect, and make her prefer death to a lie. Show her the curse
of a shrewish temper, and the blessing of cheerfulness. That will
satisfy me!' I dare say, now I come to think of it, those nuns
thought me an odd customer; but, at any rate, they seemed to
understand me. Thelma was very happy with them, and considering all
things"--the old man's eyes twinkled fondly--"she hasn't turned out
so badly!"
They laughed,--and Thelma blushed as Errington's dreamy eyes rested
on her with a look, which, though he was unconscious of it, spoke
passionate admiration. The day passed too quickly with them all,--
and now, as they sat at dinner in the richly ornamented saloon,
there was not one among them who could contemplate without
reluctance the approaching break-up of so pleasant a party. Dessert
was served, and as Thelma toyed with the fruit on her plate and
sipped her glass of champagne, her face grew serious and absorbed,--
even sad,--and she scarcely seemed to hear the merry chatter of
tongues around her, till Errington's voice asking a question of her
father roused her into swift attention.
"Do yon know any one of the name of Sigurd?" he was saying, "a poor
fellow whose wits are in heaven let us hope,--for they certainly are
not on earth."
Olaf Guldmar's fine face softened with pity, and he replied--
"Sigurd? Have you met him then? Ah, poor boy. his is a sad fate! He
has wit enough, but it works wrongly; the brain is there, but 'tis
twisted. Yes, we know Sigurd well enough--his home is with us in
default of a better. Ay, ay! we snatched him from death--perhaps
unwisely,--yet he has a good heart, and finds pleasure in his life."
"He is a kind of poet in his own way," went on Errington, watching
Thelma as she listened intently to their conversation. "Do you know
he actually visited me on board here last night and begged me to go
away from the Altenfjord altogether? He seemed afraid of me, as if
he thought I meant to do him some harm."
"How strange!" murmured Thelma. "Sigurd never speaks to visitors,--
he is too shy. I cannot understand his motive!"
"Ah, my dear!" sighed her father. "Has he any motive at all?. . .
and does he ever understand himself? His fancies change with every
shifting breeze! I will tell you," he continued, addressing himself
to Errington, "how he came to be, as it were, a bit of our home.
Just before Thelma was born, I was walking with my wife one day on
the shore, when we both caught sight of something bumping against
our little pier, like a large box or basket. I managed to get hold
of it with a boat-hook and drag it in; it was a sort of creel such
as is used to pack fish in, and in it was the naked body of a half-
drowned child. It was an ugly little creature--a newly born infant
deformity--and on its chest there was a horrible scar in the shape
of a cross, as though it had been gashed deeply with a pen-knife. I
thought it was dead, and was for throwing it back into the Fjord,
but my wife,--a tender-hearted angel--took the poor wretched little
wet body in her arms, and found that it breathed. She warmed it,
dried it, and wrapped it in her shawl,--and after awhile the tiny
monster opened its eyes and stared at her. Well!. . . somehow,
neither of us could forget the look it gave us,--such a solemn,
warning, pitiful, appealing sort of expression! There was no
resisting it,--so we took the foundling and did the best we could
for him. We gave him the name of Sigurd,--and when Thelma was born,
the two babies used to play together all day, and we never noticed
anything wrong with the boy, except his natural deformity, till he
was about ten or twelve years old. Then we saw to our sorrow that
the gods had chosen to play havoc with his wits. However, we humored
him tenderly, and he was always manageable. Poor Sigurd! He adored
my wife; I have known him listen for hours to catch the sound of her
footstep; he would actually deck the threshold with flowers in the
morning that she might tread on them as she passed by." The old
bonds sighed and rubbed his hand across his eyes with a gesture half
of pain, half of impatience--"And now he is Thelma's slave,--a
regular servant to her. She can manage him best of us all,--he is as
docile as a lamb, and will do anything she tells him."
"I am not surprised at that," said the gallant Duprez; "there is
reason in such obedience!"
Thelma looked at him inquiringly, ignoring the implied compliment.
"You think so?" she said simply "I am glad! I always hope that he
will one day be well in mind,--and every little sign of reason in
him is pleasant to me."
Duprez was silent. It was evidently no use making even an attempt at
flattering this strange girl; surely she must be dense not to
understand compliments that most other women compel from the lips of
men as their right? He was confused--his Paris breeding was no use
to him--in fact he had been at a loss all day, and his conversation
had, even to himself, seemed particularly shallow and frothy. This
Mademoiselle Guldmar, as he called her, was by no means stupid--she
was not a mere moving statue of lovely flesh and perfect color whose
outward beauty was her only recommendation,--she was, on the
contrary, of a most superior intelligence,--she had read much and
thought more,--and the dignified elegance of her manner, and bearing
would have done honor to a queen. After all, thought Duprez
musingly, the social creeds of Paris MIGHT be wrong--it was just
possible! There might be women who were womanly,--there might be
beautiful girls who were neither vain nor frivolous,--there might
even be creatures of the feminine sex, besides whom a trained
Parisian coquette would seem nothing more than a painted fiend of
the neuter gender. These were new and startling considerations to
the feather-light mind of the Frenchman,--and unconsciously his
fancy began to busy itself with the old romantic histories of the
ancient French chivalry, when faith, and love, and loyalty, kept
white the lilies of France, and the stately courtesy and unflinching
pride of the ancient regime made its name honored throughout the
world. An odd direction indeed for Pierre Duprez's reflection to
wander in--he, who never reflected on either past or future, but was
content to fritter away the present as pleasantly as might be--and
the only reason to which his unusually serious reverie could be
attributed was the presence of Thelma. She certainly had a strange
influence on them all, though she herself was not aware of it,--and
not only Errington, but each one of his companions had been deeply
considering during the day, that notwithstanding the unheroic
tendency of modern living, life itself might be turned to good and
even noble account, if only an effort were made in the right
direction.
Such was the compelling effect of Thelma's stainless mind reflected
in her pure face, on the different dispositions of all the young
men; and she, perfectly unconscious of it, smiled at them, and
conversed gaily,--little knowing as she talked, in her own sweet and
unaffected way, that the most profound resolutions were being
formed, and the most noble and unselfish deeds, were being planned
in the souls of her listeners,--all forsooth! because one fair,
innocent woman had, in the clear, grave glances of her wondrous sea-
blue eyes, suddenly made them aware of their own utter unworthiness.
Macfarlane, meditatively watching the girl from under his pale
eyelashes, thought of Mr. Dyceworthy's matrimonial pretensions, with
a humorous smile hovering on his thin lips.
"Ma certes! the fellow has an unco' gude opeenion o' himself," he
mused. "He might as well offer his hand in marriage to the Queen
while he's aboot it,--he wad hae just as muckle chance o'
acceptance."
Meanwhile, Errington, having learned all he wished to know
concerning Sigurd, was skillfully drawing out old Olaf Guldmar, and
getting him to give his ideas on things in general, a task in which
Lorimer joined.
"So you don't think we're making any progress nowadays?" inquired
the latter with an appearance of interest, and a lazy amusement in
his blue eyes as he put the question.
"Progress!" exclaimed Guldmar. "Not a bit of it! It is all a going
backward; it may not seem apparent, but it is so. England, for
instance, is losing the great place she once held in the world's
history,--and these things always happen to all nations when money
becomes more precious to the souls of the people than honesty and
honor. I take the universal wide-spread greed of gain to be one of
the worst signs of the times,--the forewarning of some great
upheaval and disaster, the effects of which no human mind can
calculate. I am told that America is destined to be the dominating
power of the future,--but I doubt it! Its politics are too corrupt,-
-its people live too fast, and burn their candle at both ends, which
is unnatural and most unwholesome; moreover, it is almost destitute
of Art in its highest forms,--and is not its confessed watchward
'the almighty Dollar?' And such a country as that expects to
arrogate to itself the absolute sway of the world? I tell you, NO--
ten thousand times NO! It is destitute of nearly everything that has
made nations great and all-powerful in historic annals,--and my
belief is that what, has been, will be again,--and that what has
never been, will never be."
"You mean by that, I suppose, that there is no possibility of doing
anything new,--no way of branching out in some, better and untried
direction?" asked Errington.
Olaf Guldmar shook his head emphatically. "You can't do it," he said
decisively. "Everything in every way has been begun and completed
and then forgotten over and over in this world,--to be begun and
completed and forgotten again, and so on to the end of the chapter.
No one nation is better than another in this respect,--there is,--
there can be nothing new. Norway, for example, has had its day;
whether it will ever have another I know not,--at any rate, I shall
not live to see it. And yet, what a past!--" He broke off and his
eyes grew meditative.
Lorimer looked at him. "You would have been a Viking, Mr. Guldmar,
had you lived in the old days," he said with a smile.
"I should, indeed!" returned the old man, with an unconsciously
haughty gesture of his head; "and no better fate could have befallen
me! To sail the seas in hot pursuit of one's enemies, or in search
of further conquest,--to feel the very wind and sun beating up the
blood in one's veins,--to live the life of a MAN--a true man!. . .
in all the pride and worth of strength, and invincible vigor!--how
much better than the puling, feeble, sickly existence, led by the
majority of men to-day! I dwell apart from them as much as I can,--I
steep my mind and body in the joys of Nature, and the free fresh
air,--but often I feel that the old days of the heroes must have
been best,--when Gorm the Bold and the fierce Siegfried seized
Paris, and stabled their horses in the chapel where Charlemagne lay
buried!"
Pierre Duprez looked up with a faint smile. "Ah, pardon! But that
was surely a very long time ago!"
"True!" said Guldmar quietly. "And no doubt you will not believe the
story at this distance of years. But the day is coming when people
will look back on the little chronicle of your Empire,--your
commune,--your republic, all your little affairs, and will say,
'Surely these things are myths; they occurred--if they occurred at
all,--a very long time ago!"
"Monsieur is a philosopher!" said Duprez, with a good-humored
gesture; "I would not presume to contradict him."
"You see, my lad," went on Guldmar more gently, "there is much in
our ancient Norwegian history that is forgotten or ignored by
students of to-day. The travellers that come hither come to see the
glories of our glaciers and fjords,--but they think little or
nothing of the vanished tribe of heroes who once possessed the land.
If you know your Greek history, you must have heard of Pythias, who
lived three hundred and fifty-six years before Christ, and who was
taken captive by a band of Norseman and carried away to see 'the
place where the sun slept in winter.' Most probably he came to this
very spot, the Altenfjord,--at any rate the ancient Greeks had good
words to say for the 'Outside Northwinders,' as they called us
Norwegians, for they reported us to be 'persons living in peace with
their gods and themselves.' Again, one of the oldest tribes in the
world came among us in times past,--the Phoenicians,--there are
traces among us still of their customs and manners. Yes! we have a
great deal to look back upon with pride as well as sorrow,--and much
as I hear of the wonders of the New World, the marvels and the go-
ahead speed of American manners and civilization,--I would rather be
a Norseman than a Yankee." And he laughed.
"There's more dignity in the name, at any rate," said Lorimer. "But
I say, Mr. Guldmar, you are 'up' in history much better than I am.
The annals of my country were grounded into my tender soul early in
life, but I have a very hazy recollection of them. I know Henry
VIII. got rid of his wives expeditiously and conveniently,--and I
distinctly remember that Queen Elizabeth wore the first pair of silk
stockings, and danced a kind of jig in them with the Earl of
Leicester; these things interested me at the time,--and they now
seen firmly impressed on my memory to the exclusion of everything
else that might possibly be more important."
Old Guldmar smiled, but Thelma laughed outright and her eyes danced
mirthfully.
"Ah, I do know you now!" she said, nodding her fair head at him
wisely. "You are not anything that is to be believed! So I shall
well understand you,--that is, you are a very great scholar,--but
that it pleases you to pretend you are a dunce!"
Lorimer's face brightened into a very gentle and winning softness as
he looked at her.
"I assure you, Miss Guldmar, I am not pretending in the least. I'm
no scholar. Errington is, if you like! If it hadn't been for him, I
should never have learned anything at Oxford at all. He used to leap
over a difficulty while I was looking at it. Phil, don't interrupt
me,--you know you did! I tell you he's up to everything: Greek,
Latin, and all the rest of it,--and, what's more, he writes well,--I
believe,--though he'll never forgive me for mentioning it,--that he
has even published some poems."
"Be quiet, George!" exclaimed Errington, with a vexed laugh. "You
are boring Miss Guldmar to death!"
"What is BORING?" asked Thelma gently, and then turning her eyes
full on the young Baronet, she added, "I like to hear that you will
pass your days sometimes without shooting the birds and killing the
fish; it can hurt nobody for you to write." And she smiled that
dreamy pensive smile, of hers that was so infinitely bewitching.
"You must show me all your sweet poems!"
Errington colored hotly. "They are all nonsense, Miss Guldmar," he
said quickly. "There's nothing 'sweet' about them, I tell you
frankly! All rubbish, every line of them!"
"Then you should not write them," said Thelma quietly. "It is only a
pity and a disappointment."
"I wish every one were of your opinion," laughed Lorimer, "it would
spare us a lot of indifferent verse."
"Ah! you have the chief Skald of all the world in your land!" cried
Guldmar, bringing his fist down with a jovial thump on the table.
"He can teach you all that you need to know."
"SKALD?" queried Lorimer dubiously. "Oh, you mean bard. I suppose
you allude to Shakespeare?"
"I do," said the old bonde enthusiastically, "he is the only glory
of your country I envy! I would give anything to prove him a
Norwegian. By Valhalla! had he but been one of the Bards of Odin,
the world might have followed the grand old creed still! If anything
could ever persuade me to be a Christian, it would be the fact that
Shakespeare was one. If England's name is rendered imperishable, it
will be through the fame of Shakespeare alone,--just as we have a
kind of tenderness for degraded modern Greece, because of Homer. Ay,
ay! countries and nations are worthless enough; it is only the great
names of heroes that endure, to teach the lesson that is never
learned sufficiently,--namely, that man and man alone is fitted to
grasp the prize of immortality."
"Ye believe in immortality?" inquired Macfarlane seriously.
Guldmar's keen eyes lighted on him with fiery impetuousness.
"Believe in it? I possess it! How can it be taken from me? As well
make a bird without wings, a tree without sap, an ocean without
depths, as expect to find a man without an immortal soul! What a
question to ask? Do YOU not possess heaven's gift? and why should
not I?"
"No offense," said Macfarlane, secretly astonished at the old
bonde's fervor,--for had not he, though himself intending to become
a devout minister of the Word,--had not he now and then felt a
creeping doubt as to whether, after all, there was any truth in the
doctrine of another life than this one. "I only thocht ye might have
perhaps questioned the probabeelity o't, in your own mind?"
"I never question Divine authority," replied Olaf Guldmar, "I pity
those that do!"
"And this Divine authority?" said Duprez suddenly with a delicate
sarcastic smile, "how and where do you perceive it?"
"In the very Law that compels me to exist, young sir," said
Guldmar,--"in the mysteries of the universe about me,--the glory of
the heavens,--the wonders of the sea! You have perhaps lived in
cities all your life, and your mind is cramped a bit. No wonder,
. . . you can hardly see the stars above the roofs of a wilderness
of houses. Cities are men's work,--the gods have never had a finger
in the building of them. Dwelling in them, I suppose you cannot help
forgetting Divine authority altogether; but here,--here among the
mountains, you would soon remember it! You should live here,--it
would make a man of you!"
"And you do not consider me a man?" inquired Duprez with
imperturbable good-humor.
Guldmar laughed. "Well, not quite!" he admitted candidly, "there's
not enough muscle about you. I confess I like to see strong fellows-
-fellows fit to rule the planet on which they are placed. That's my
whim!--but you're a neat little chap enough, and I dare say you can
hold your own!"
And his eyes twinkled good-temperedly as he filled himself another
glass of his host's fine Burgundy, and drank it off, while Duprez,
with a half-plaintive, half-comical shrug of resignation to
Guldmar's verdict on his personal appearance, asked Thelma if she
would favor them with a song. She rose from her seat instantly,
without any affected hesitation, and went to the piano. She had a
delicate touch, and accompanied herself with great taste,--but her
voice, full, penetrating, rich and true,--was one of the purest and
most sympathetic ever possessed by woman, and its freshness was
unspoilt by any of the varied "systems" of torture invented by
singing-masters for the ingenious destruction of the delicate vocal
organ. She sang a Norwegian love-song in the original tongue, which
might be roughly translated as follows:--
"Lovest thou me for my beauty's sake?
Love me not then!
Love the victorious, glittering Sun,
The fadeless, deathless, marvellous One!"
"Lovest thou me for my youth's sake?
Love me not then!
Love the triumphant, unperishing Spring,
Who every year new charms doth bring!"
"Lovest thou me for treasure's sake?
Oh, love me not then!
Love the deep, the wonderful Sea,
Its jewels are worthier love than me!"
"Lovest thou me for Love's own sake?
Ah sweet, then love me!
More than the Sun and the Spring and the Sea,
Is the faithful heart I will yield to thee!"
A silence greeted the close of her song. Though the young men were
ignorant of the meaning of the words still old Guldmar translated
them for their benefit, they could feel the intensity of the passion
vibrating through her ringing tones,--and Errington sighed
involuntarily. She heard the sigh, and turned round on the music-
stool laughing.
"Are you so tired, or sad, or what is it?" she asked merrily. "It is
too melancholy a tune? And I was foolish to sing it,--because you
cannot understand the meaning of it. It is all about love,--and of
course love is always sorrowful."
"Always?" asked Lorimer, with a half-smile.
"I do not know," she said frankly, with a pretty deprecatory gesture
of her hands,--"but all books say so! It must be a great pain, and
also a great happiness. Let me think what I can sing to you now,--
but perhaps you will yourself sing?"
"Not one of us have a voice, Miss Guldmar," said Errington. "I used
to think I had, but Lorimer discouraged my efforts."
"Men shouldn't sing," observed Lorimer; "if they only knew how
awfully ridiculous they look, standing up in dress-coats and white
ties, pouring forth inane love-ditties that nobody wants to hear,
they wouldn't do it. Only a woman looks pretty while singing."
"Ah, that is very nice!" said Thelma, with a demure smile. "Then I
am agreeable to you when I sing?"
Agreeable? This was far too tame a word--they all rose from the
table and came towards her, with many assurances of their delight
and admiration; but she put all their compliments aside with a
little gesture that was both incredulous and peremptory.
"You must not say so many things in praise of me," she said, with a
swift upward glance at Errington, where he leaned on the piano
regarding her. "It is nothing to be able to sing. It is only like
the birds, but we cannot understand the words they say, just as you
cannot understand Norwegian. Listen,--here is a little ballad you
will all know," and she played a soft prelude, while her voice,
subdued to a plaintive murmur, rippled out in the dainty verses of
Sainte-Beuve--
"Sur ma lyre, l'autre fois
Dans un bois,
Ma main preludait a peine;
Une colombe descend
En passant,
Blanche sur le luth d'ebene"
"Mais au lieu d'accords touchants,
De doux chants,
La colombe gemissante
Me demande par pitie
Sa moitie Sa moitie lein d'elle absente!"
She sang this seriously and sweetly till she came to the last three
lines, when, catching Errington's earnest gaze, her voice quivered
and her cheeks flushed. She rose from the piano as soon as she had
finished, and said to the bonde, who had been watching her with
proud and gratified looks--
"It is growing late, father. We must say good-bye to our friends and
return home."
"Not yet!" eagerly implored Sir Philip. "Come up on deck,--we will
have coffee there, and afterwards you shall leave us when you will."
Guldmar acquiesced in this arrangement, before his daughter had time
to raise any objection, and they all went on deck, where a
comfortable lounging chair was placed for Thelma, facing the most
gorgeous portion of the glowing sky, which on this evening was like
a moving mass of molten gold, split asunder here and there by angry
ragged-looking rifts of crimson. The young men grouped themselves
together at the prow of the vessel in order to smoke their cigars
without annoyance to Thelma. Old Guldmar did not smoke, but he
talked,--and Errington after seeing them all fairly absorbed in an
argument on the best methods of spearing salmon, moved quietly away
to where the girl was sitting, her great pensive eyes fixed on the
burning splendors of the heavens.
"Are you warm enough there?" he asked, and there was an unconscious
tenderness in his voice as he asked the question, "or shall I fetch
you a wrap?"
She smiled. "I have my hood," she said. "It is the warmest thing I
ever wear, except, of course, in winter."
Philip looked at the hood as she drew it more closely over her head,
and thought that surely no more becoming article of apparel ever was
designed for woman's wear. He had never seen anything like it either
in color or texture,--it was of a peculiarly warm, rich crimson,
like the heart of a red damask rose, and it suited the bright hair
and tender, thoughtful eyes of its owner to perfection.
"Tell me," he said, drawing a little nearer and speaking in a lower
tone, "have you forgiven me for my rudeness the first time I saw
you?"
She looked a little troubled.
"Perhaps also I was rude," she said gently. "I did not know you. I
thought--"
"You were quite right," he eagerly interrupted her. "It was very
impertinent of me to ask you for your name. I should have found it
out for myself, as I HAVE done."
And he smiled at her as he said the last words with marked emphasis.
She raised her eyes wistfully.
"And you are glad?" she asked softly and with a sort of wonder in
her accents.
"Glad to know your name? glad to know YOU! Of course! Can you ask
such a question?"
"But why?" persisted Thelma. "It is not as if you were lonely,--you
have friends already. We are nothing to you. Soon you will go away,
and you will think of the Altenfjord as a dream,--and our names will
be forgotten. That is natural!"
What a foolish rush of passion filled his heart as she spoke in
those mellow, almost plaintive accents,--what wild words leaped to
his lips and what an effort it cost him to keep them hack. The heat
and impetuosity of Romeo,--whom up to the present he had been
inclined to consider a particularly stupid youth,--was now quite
comprehensible to his mind, and he, the cool, self-possessed
Englishman, was ready at that moment to outrival Juliet's lover, in
his utmost excesses of amorous folly. In spite of his self-
restraint, his voice quivered a little as he answered her--
"I shall never forget the Altenfjord or you, Miss Guldmar. Don't you
know there are some things that cannot be forgotten? such as a
sudden glimpse of fine scenery,--a beautiful song, or a pathetic
poem?" She bent her head in assent. "And here there is so much to
remember--the light of the midnight sun,--the glorious mountains,
the loveliness of the whole land!"
"Is it better than other countries you have seen?" asked the girl
with some interest.
"Much better!" returned Sir Philip fervently. "In fact, there is no
place like it in my opinion." He paused at the sound of her pretty
laughter.
"You are--what is it?--ecstatic!" she said mirthfully. "Tell me,
have you been to the south of France and the Pyrenees?"
"Of course I have," he replied. "I have been all over the
Continent,--travelled about it till I'm tired of it. Do you like the
south of France better than Norway?"
"No,--not so very much better," she said dubiously. "And yet a
little. It is so warm and bright there, and the people are gay. Here
they are stern and sullen. My father loves to sail the seas, and
when I first went to school at Arles, he took me a long and
beautiful voyage. We went from Christiansund to Holland, and saw all
those pretty Dutch cities with their canals and quaint bridges. Then
we went through the English Channel to Brest,--then by the Bay of
Biscay to Bayonne. Bayonne seemed to me very lovely, but we left it
soon, and travelled a long way by land, seeing all sorts of
wonderful things, till we came to Arles. And though it is such a
long route, and not one for many persons to take, I have travelled
to Arles and back twice that way, so all there is familiar to me,--
and in some things I do think it better than Norway."
"What induced your father to send you so far away from him?" asked
Philip rather curiously.
The girl's eyes softened tenderly. "Ah, that is easy to understand!"
she said. "My mother came from Arles."
"She was French, then?" he exclaimed with some surprise.
"No," she answered gravely. "She was Norwegian, because her father
and mother both were of this land. She was what they call 'born
sadly.' You must not ask me any more about her, please!"
Errington apologized at once with some embarrassment, and a deeper
color than usual on his face. She looked up at him quite frankly.
"It is possible I will tell you her history some day," she said,
"when we shall know each other better. I do like to talk to you very
much! I suppose there are many Englishmen like you?"
Philip laughed. "I don't think I am at all exceptional! why do you
ask?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "I have seen some of them," she said
slowly," and they are stupid. They shoot, shoot,--fish, fish, all
day, and eat a great deal. . . ."
"My dear Miss Guldmar, I also do all these things!" declared
Errington amusedly. "These are only our surface faults. Englishmen
are the best fellows to be found anywhere. You mustn't judge them by
their athletic sports, or their vulgar appetites. You must appeal to
their hearts when you want to know them."
"Or to their pockets, and you will know them still better!" said
Thelma almost mischievously, as she raised herself in her chair to
take a cup of coffee from the tray that was then being handed to her
by the respectful steward "Ah, how good this is! It reminds me of
our coffee luncheon at Arles!"
Errington watched her with a half-smile, but said no more, as the
others now came up to claim their share of her company.
"I say!" said Lorimer, lazily throwing himself full length on the
deck and looking up at her, "come and see us spear a salmon to-
morrow, Miss Guldmar. Your father is going to show us how to do it
in the proper Norse style."
"That is for men," said Thelma loftily. "Women must know nothing
about such things."
"By Jove!" and Lorimer looked profoundly astonished. "Why, Miss
Guldmar, women are going in for everything nowadays! Hunting,
shooting, bull-fighting, duelling, horse-whipping, lecturing,--
heaven knows what! They stop at nothing--salmon-spearing is a mere
trifle in the list of modern feminine accomplishments."
Thelma smiled down upon him benignly. "You will always be the same,"
she said with a sort of indulgent air. "It is your delight to say
things upside down? But you shall not make me believe that women do
all these dreadful things. Because, how is it possible? The men
would not allow them!"
Errington laughed, and Lorimer appeared stupefied with surprise.
"The men--would--not--allow them?" he repeated slowly. "Oh, Miss
Guldmar, little do you realize the state of things at the present
day! The glamor of Viking memories clings about you still! Don't you
know the power of man has passed away, and that ladies do exactly as
they like? It is easier to control the thunderbolt than to prevent a
woman having her own way."
"All that is nonsense!" said Thelma decidedly. "Where there is a man
to rule, he MUST rule, that is certain."
"Is that positively your opinion?" and Lorimer looked more
astonished than ever.
"It is everybody's opinion, of course!" averred Thelma. "How foolish
it would be if women did not obey men! The world would be all
confusion! Ah, you see you cannot make me think your funny thoughts;
it is no use!" And she laughed and rose from her chair, adding with
a gentle persuasive air, "Father dear, is it not time to say good-
bye?"
"Truly I think it is!" returned Guldmar, giving himself a shake like
an old lion, as he broke off a rather tedious conversation he had
been having with Macfarlane. "We shall have Sigurd coming to look
for us, and poor Britta will think we have left her too long alone.
Thank you, my lad!" this to Sir Philip, who instantly gave orders
for the boat to be lowered. "You have given us a day of thorough,
wholesome enjoyment. I hope I shall be able to return it in some
way. You must let me see as much of you as possible."
They shook hands cordially, and Errington proposed to escort them
back as far as their own pier, but this offer Guldmar refused.
"Nonsense!" he exclaimed cheerily. "With four oarsmen to row us
along, why should we take you away from your friends? I won't hear
of such a thing! And now, regarding the great fall of Njedegorze;
Mr. Macfarlane here says you have not visited it yet. Well the best
guide you can have there is Sigurd. We'll make up a party and go
when it is agreeable to you; it is a grand sight,--well worth
seeing. To-morrow we shall meet again for the salmon-spearing,--I
warrant I shall be able to make the time pass quickly for you! How
long do you think of staying here?"
"As long as possible!" answered Errington absently, his eyes
wandering to Thelma, who was just then shaking hands with his
friends and bidding them farewell.
Guldmar laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. "That means till
you are tired of the place," he said good-humoredly." Well you shall
not be dull if I can prevent it! Good-bye, and thanks for your
hospitality."
"Ah, yes!" added Thelma gently, coming up at that moment and laying
her soft hand in his. "I have been so happy all day, and it is all
your kindness! I am very grateful!"
"It is I who have cause to be grateful," said Errington hurriedly,
clasping her hand warmly, "for your company and that of your father.
I trust we shall have many more pleasant days together."
"I hope so too!" she answered simply, and then, the boat being
ready, they departed. Errington and Lorimer leaned on the deck-
rails, waving their hats and watching them disappear over the
gleaming water, till the very last glimpse of Thelma's crimson hood
had vanished, and then they turned to rejoin their companions, who
were strolling up and down smoking.
"Belle comme un angel!" said Duprez briefly. "In short, I doubt if
the angels are so good-looking!"
"The auld pagan's a fine scholar," added Macfarlane meditatively.
"He corrected me in a bit o' Latin."
"Did he, indeed?" And Lorimer laughed indolently. "I suppose you
think better of him now, Sandy?"
Sandy made no reply, and as Errington persisted in turning the
conversation away from the merits or demerits of their recent
guests, they soon entered on other topics. But that night, before
retiring to rest, Lorimer laid a hand on his friend's shoulder, and
said quietly, with a keen look--
"Well, old man, have you made up your mind? Have I seen the future
Lady Bruce-Errington?"
Sir Philip smiled,--then, after a brief pause, answered steadily--
"Yes, George, you have! That is,--if I can win her!"
Lorimer laughed a little and sighed. "There's no doubt about that,
Phil." And eyeing Errington's fine figure and noble features
musingly, he repeated again thoughtfully--"No doubt about that, my
boy!" Then after a pause he said, somewhat abruptly, "Time to turn
in--good night!"
"Good night, old fellow!" And Errington wrung his hand warmly, and
left him to repose.
But Lorimer had rather a bad night,--he tossed and tumbled a good
deal, and had dreams,--unusual visitors with him,--and once or twice
he muttered in his sleep,--"No doubt about it--not the least in the
world--and if there were--"
But the conclusion of this sentence was inaudible.
CHAPTER XI.
"Tu vas faire un beau reve,
Et t'enivrer d'un plaisir dangereux.
Sur ton chemin l'etoile qui se leve
Longtemps encore eblouira les yeux!"
De Musset.
A fortnight passed. The first excursion in the Eulalie had been
followed by others of a similar kind, and Errington's acquaintance
with the Guldmars was fast ripening into a pleasant intimacy. It had
grown customary for the young men to spend that part of the day
which, in spite of persistent sunshine, they still called evening,
in the comfortable, quaint parlor of the old farmhouse,--looking at
the view through the rose-wreathed windows,--listening to the
fantastic legends of Norway as told by Olaf Guldmar,--or watching
Thelma's picturesque figure, as she sat pensively apart in her
shadowed corner spinning. They had fraternized with Sigurd too--that
is, as far as he would permit them--for the unhappy dwarf was
uncertain of temper, and if at one hour he were docile and yielding
as a child, the next he would be found excited and furious at some
imaginary slight that he fancied had been inflicted upon him.
Sometimes, if good-humored, he would talk almost rationally,--only
allowing his fancy to play with poetical ideas concerning the sea,
the flowers, or the sunlight,--but he was far more often sullen and
silent. He would draw a low chair to Thelma's side, and sit there
with half-closed eyes and compressed lips, and none could tell
whether he listened to the conversation around him, or was utterly
indifferent to it. He had taken a notable fancy to Lorimer, but he
avoided Errington in the most marked and persistent manner. The
latter did his best to overcome this unreasonable dislike, but his
efforts were useless,--and deciding in his own mind that it was best
to humor Sigurd's vagaries, he soon let him alone, and devoted his
attention more entirely to Thelma.
One evening, after supper at the farmhouse, Lorimer, who for some
time had been watching Philip and Thelma conversing together in low
tones near the open window, rose from his seat quietly, without
disturbing the hilarity of the bonde, who was in the middle of a
rollicking sea-story, told for Macfarlane's entertainment,--and
slipped out into the garden, where he strolled along rather absently
till he found himself in the little close thicket of pines,--the
very same spot where he and Philip had stood on the first day of
their visit thither. He threw himself down on the soft emerald moss
and lit a cigar, sighing rather drearily as he did so.
"Upon my life," he mused, with a half-smile, "I am very nearly being
a hero,--a regular stage-martyr,--the noble creature of the piece!
By Jove, I wish I were a soldier! I'm certain I could stand the
enemy's fire better than this! Self-denial? Well, no wonder the
preachers make such a fuss about it, It's a tough, uncomfortable
duty. But am I self-denying? Not a bit of it! Look here, George
Lorimer"--here he tapped himself very vigorously on his broad chest-
-"don't you imagine yourself to be either virtuous or magnanimous!
If you were anything of a man at all you would never let your
feelings get the better of you,--you would be sublimely indifferent,
stoically calm,--and, as it is,--you know what a sneaking, hang-dog
state of envy you were in just now when you came out of that room!
Aren't you ashamed of yourself,--rascal?"
The inner self he thus addressed was most probably abashed by this
adjuration, for his countenance cleared a little, as though he had
received an apology from his own conscience. He puffed lazily at his
cigar, and felt somewhat soothed. Light steps below him attracted
his attention, and, looking down from the little knoll on which he
lay, he saw Thelma and Philip pass. They were walking slowly along a
little winding path that led to the orchard, which was situated at
some little distance from the house. The girl's head was bent, and
Philip was talking to her with evident eagerness. Lorimer looked
after them earnestly, and his honest eyes were full of trouble.
"God bless them both!" he murmured half aloud. "There's no harm in
saying that, any how! Dear old Phil! I wonder whether--"
What he would have said was uncertain, for at that moment he was
considerably startled by the sight of a meagre, pale face peering
through the parted pine boughs,--a face in which two wild eyes shone
with a blue-green glitter, like that of newly sharpened steel.
"Hello, Sigurd!" said Lorimer good-naturedly, as he recognized his
visitor. "What are you up to? Going to climb a tree?"
Sigurd pushed aside the branches cautiously and approached. He sat
down by Lorimer, and, taking his hand, kissed it deferentially.
"I followed you. I saw you go away to grieve alone. I came to grieve
also!" he said with a patient gentleness.
Lorimer laughed languidly. "By Jove, Sigurd, you're too clever for
your age! Think I came away to grieve, eh? Not so, my boy--came away
to smoke! There's a come-down for you! I never grieve--don't know
how to do it. What IS grief?"
"To love!" answered Sigurd promptly. "To see a beautiful elf with
golden wings come fluttering, fluttering gently down from the sky,--
you open your arms to catch her--so!. . . and just as you think you
have her, she leans only a little bit on one side, and falls, not
into your heart--no!--into the heart of some one else! That is
grief, because, when she has gone, no more elves come down from the
sky,--for you, at any rate,--good things may come for others,--but
for YOU the heavens are empty!"
Lorimer was silent, looking at the speaker curiously.
"How do you get all this nonsense into your head, eh?" he inquired
kindly.
"I do not know," replied Sigurd with a sigh. "It comes! But, tell
me,"--and he smiled wistfully--"it is true, dear friend--good
friend--it is all true, is it not? For you the heavens are empty?
You know it!"
Lorimer flushed hotly, and then grew strangely pale. After a pause,
he said in his usual indolent way--
"Look here, Sigurd; you're romantic! I'm not. I know nothing about
elves or empty heavens. I'm all right! Don't you bother yourself
about me."
The dwarf studied his face attentively, and a smile of almost
fiendish cunning suddenly illumined his thin features. He laid his
weak-looking white hand on the young man's arm and said in a lower
tone--
"I will tell you what to do. Kill him!"
The last two words were uttered with such intensity of meaning that
Lorimer positively recoiled from the accents, and the terrible look
which accompanied them.
"I say, Sigurd, this won't do," he remonstrated gravely. "You
mustn't talk about killing, you know! It's not good for you. People
don't kill each other nowadays so easily as you seem to think. It
can't be done, Sigurd! Nobody wants to do it."
"It CAN be done!" reiterated the dwarf imperatively. "It MUST be
done, and either you or I will do it! He shall not rob us,--he shall
not steal the treasure of the golden midnight. He shall not gather
the rose of all roses--"
"Stop!" said Lorimer suddenly. "Who are you talking about?"
"Who!" cried Sigurd excitedly. "Surely you know. Of him--that tall,
proud, grey-eyed Englishman,--your foe, your rival; the rich, cruel
Errington. . . ."
Lorimer's hand fell heavily on his shoulder, and his voice was very
stern.
"What nonsense, Sigurd! You don't know what you are talking about
to-day. Errington my foe! Good heavens! Why, he's my best friend! Do
you hear?"
Sigurd stared up at him in vacant surprise, but nodded feebly.
"Well, mind you remember it! The spirits tell lies, my boy, if they
say that he is my enemy. I would give my life to save his!"
He spoke quietly, and rose from his seat on the moss as he finished
his words, and his face had an expression that was both noble and
resolute.
Sigurd still gazed upon him. "And you,--you do not love Thelma?" he
murmured.
Lorimer started, but controlled himself instantly. His frank English
eyes met the feverishly brilliant ones fixed so appealingly upon
him.
"Certainly not!" he said calmly, with a serene smile. "What makes
you think of such a thing? Quite wrong, Sigurd,--the spirits have
made a mistake again! Come along,--let us join the others."
But Sigurd would not accompany him. He sprang away like a frightened
animal, in haste, and abruptly plunging into the depths of a wood
that bordered on Olaf Guldmar's grounds, was soon lost to sight.
Lorimer looked after him in a little perplexity.
"I wonder if he ever gets dangerous?" he thought. "A fellow with
such queer notions might do some serious harm without meaning it.
I'll keep an eye on him!"
And once or twice during that same evening, he felt inclined to
speak to Errington on the subject, but no suitable opportunity
presented itself--and after a while, with his habitual indolence, he
partly forgot the circumstance.
On the following Sunday afternoon Thelma sat alone under the wide
blossom-covered porch, reading. Her father and Sigurd,--accompanied
by Errington and his friends,--had all gone for a mountain ramble,
promising to return for supper, a substantial meal which Britta was
already busy preparing. The afternoon was very warm,--one of those
long, lazy stretches of heat and brilliancy in which Nature seems to
have lain down to rest like a child tired of play, sleeping in the
sunshine with drooping flowers in her hands. The very ripple of the
stream seemed hushed, and Thelma, though her eyes were bent
seriously on the book she held, sighed once or twice heavily as
though she were tired. There was a change in the girl,--an
undefinable something seemed to have passed over her and toned down
the redundant brightness of her beauty. She was paler,--and there
were darker shadows than usual under the splendor of her eyes. Her
very attitude, as she leaned her head against the dark, fantastic
carving of the porch, had a touch of listlessness and indifference
in it; her sweetly arched lips drooped with a plaintive little line
at the corners, and her whole air was indicative of fatigue, mingled
with sadness. She looked up now and then from the printed page, and
her gaze wandered over the stretch of the scented, flower-filled
garden, to the little silvery glimmer of the Fjord from whence
arose, like delicate black streaks against the sky, the slender
masts of the Eulalie,--and then she would resume her reading with a
slight movement of impatience.
The volume she held was Victor Hugo's "Orientales," and though her
sensitive imagination delighted in poetry as much as in sunshine,
she found it for once hard to rivet her attention as closely as she
wished to do, on the exquisite wealth of language, and glow of
color, that distinguishes the writings of the Shakespears of France.
Within the house Britta was singing cheerily at her work, and the
sound of her song alone disturbed the silence. Two or three pale-
blue butterflies danced drowsily in and out a cluster of honeysuckle
that trailed downwards, nearly touching Thelma's shoulder, and a
diminutive black kitten, with a pink ribbon round its neck, sat
gravely on the garden path, washing its face with its tiny velvety
paws, in that deliberate and precise fashion, common to the spoiled
and petted members of its class. Everything was still and peaceful
as became a Sunday afternoon,--so that when the sound of a heavy
advancing footstep disturbed the intense calm, the girl was almost
nervously startled, and rose from her seat with so much
precipitation, that the butterflies, who had possibly been
considering whether her hair might not be some new sort of
sunflower, took fright and flew far upwards, and the demure kitten
scared out of its absurd self-consciousness, scrambled hastily up
the nearest little tree. The intruder on the quietude of Guldmar's
domain was the Rev. Mr. Dyceworthy,--and as Thelma, standing erect
in the porch, beheld him coming, her face grew stern and resolute,
and her eyes flashed disdainfully.
Ignoring the repellant, almost defiant dignity of the girl's
attitude, Mr. Dyceworthy advanced, rather out of breath and somewhat
heated,--and smiling benevolently, nodded his head by way of
greeting, without removing his hat.
"Ah, Froken Thelma!" he observed condescendingly. "And how are you
to-day? You look remarkably well--remarkably so, indeed!" And he
eyed her with mild approval.
"I am well, I thank you," she returned quietly. "My father is not
in, Mr. Dyceworthy."
The Reverend Charles wiped his hot face, and his smile grew wider.
"What matter?" he inquired blandly. "We shall, no doubt, entertain
ourselves excellently without him! It is with you alone, Froken,
that I am desirous to hold converse."
And, without waiting for her permission, he entered the porch, and
settled himself comfortably on the bench opposite to her, heaving a
sigh of relief as he did so. Thelma remained standing--and the
Lutheran minister's covetous eye glanced greedily over the sweeping
curves of her queenly figure, the dazzling whiteness of her slim
arched throat, and the glitter of her rich hair. She was silent--and
there was something in her manner as she confronted him that made it
difficult for Mr. Dyceworthy to speak. He hummed and hawed several
times, and settled his stiff collar once or twice as though it hurt
him; finally he said with an evident effort--
"I have found a--a--trinket of yours--a trifling toy--which,
perhaps, you would be glad to have again." And he drew carefully out
of his waistcoat pocket, a small parcel wrapped up in tissue paper,
which he undid with his fat fingers, thus displaying the little
crucifix he had kept so long in his possession. "Concerning this,"
he went on, holding it up before her, "I am grievously troubled,--
and would fain say a few necessary words--"
She interrupted him, reaching out her hand for the cross as she
spoke.
"That was my mother's crucifix," she said in solemn, infinitely
tender accents, with a mist as of unshed tears in her sweet blue
eyes. "It was round her neck when she died. I knew I had lost it,
and was very unhappy about it. I do thank you with all my heart for
bringing it back to me!"
And the hauteur of her face relaxed, and her smile--that sudden
sweet smile of hers,--shone forth like a gleam of sunshine athwart a
cloud.
Mr. Dyceworthy's breath came and went with curious rapidity. His
visage grew pale, and a clammy dew broke out upon his forehead. He
took the hand she held out,--a fair, soft hand with a pink palm like
an upcurled shell,--and laid the little cross within it, and still
retaining his hold of her, he stammeringly observed--
"Then we are friends, Froken Thelma!.. . . good friends, I hope?"
She withdrew her fingers quickly from his hot, moist clasp, and her
bright smile vanished.
"I do not see that at all!" she replied frigidly. "Friendship is
very rare. To be friends, one must have similar tastes and
sympathies,--many things which we have not,--and which we shall
never have. I am slow to call any person my friend."
Mr. Dyceworthy's small pursy mouth drew itself into a tight thin
line.
"Except," he said, with a suave sneer, "except when 'any person'
happens to be a rich Englishman with a handsome face and easy
manners!. . . then you are not slow to make friends, Froken,--on the
contrary, you are remarkably quick!"
The cold haughty stare with which the girl favored him might have
frozen a less conceited man to a pillar of ice.
"What do you mean?" she asks abruptly, and with an air of surprise.
The minister's little ferret-like eyes, drooped under their puny
lids, and he fidgeted on the seat with uncomfortable embarrassment.
He answered her in the mildest of mild voices.
"You are unlike yourself, my dear Froken!" he said, with a soothing
gesture of one of his well-trimmed white hands. "You are generally
frank and open, but to-day I find you just a little,--well!--what
shall I say--secretive! Yes, we will call it secretive! Oh, fie!"
and Mr. Dyceworthy laughed a gentle little laugh; "you must not
pretend ignorance of what I mean! All the neighborhood is talking of
you and the gentleman you are so often seen with. Notably concerning
Sir Philip Errington,--the vile tongue of rumor is busy,--for,
according to his first plans when his yacht arrived here, he was
bound for the North Cape,--and should have gone there days ago.
Truly, I think,--and there are others who think also in the same
spirit of interest for you,--that the sooner this young man leaves
our peaceful Fjord the better,--and the less he has to do with the
maidens of the district, the safer we shall be from the risk of
scandal." And he heaved a pious sigh.
Thelma turned her eyes upon him in wonderment.
"I do not understand you," she said coldly. "Why do you speak of
OTHERS? No others are interested in what I do? Why should they be?
Why should YOU be? There is no need!"
Mr. Dyceworthy grew slightly excited. He felt like a runner nearing
the winning-post.
"Oh, you wrong yourself, my dear Froken," he murmured softly, with a
sickly attempt at tenderness in his tone. "You really wrong
yourself! It is impossible,--for me at least, not to be interested
in you,--even for our dear Lord's sake. It troubles me to the inmost
depths of my soul to behold in you one of the foolish virgins whose
light hath been extinguished for lack of the saving oil,--to see you
wandering as a lost sheep in the paths of darkness and error,
without a hand to rescue your steps from the near and dreadful
precipice! Ay, truly!. . . my spirit yearneth for you as a mother
for an own babe--fain would I save you from the devices of the evil
one,--fain would I--" here the minister drew out his handkerchief
and pressed it lightly to his eyes,--then, as if with an effort
overcoming his emotion, he added, with the gravity of a butcher
presenting an extortionate bill," but first,--before my own humble
desires for your salvation--first, ere I go further in converse, it
behoveth me to enter on the Lord's business!"
Thelma bent her head slightly, with an air as though she said:
"Indeed; pray do not be long about it!" And, leaning back against
the porch, she waited somewhat impatiently.
"The image I have just restored to you," went on Mr. Dyceworthy in
his most pompous and ponderous manner, "you say belonged to your
unhappy--"
"She was not unhappy," interposed the girl, calmly.
"Ay, ay!" and the minister nodded with a superior air of wisdom. "So
you imagine, so you think,--you must have been too young to judge of
these things. She died--"
"I saw her die," again she interrupted, with a musing tenderness in
her voice. "She smiled and kissed me,--then she laid her thin, white
hand on this crucifix, and, closing her eyes, she went to sleep.
They told me it was death, since then I have known that death is
beautiful!"
Mr. Dyceworthy coughed,--a little cough of quiet incredulity. He was
not fond of sentiment in any form, and the girl's dreamily pensive
manner annoyed him. Death "beautiful?" Faugh! it was the one thing
of all others that he dreaded; it was an unpleasant necessity,
concerning which he thought as little as possible. Though he
preached frequently on the peace of the grave and the joys of
heaven,--he was far from believing in either,--he was nervously
terrified of illness, and fled like a frightened hare from the very
rumor of any infectious disorder, and he had never been known to
attend a death-bed. And now, in answer to Thelma, he nodded piously
and rubbed his hands, and said--
"Yes, yes; no doubt, no doubt! All very proper on your part, I am
sure! But concerning this same image of which I came to speak,--it
is most imperative that you should be brought to recognize it as a
purely carnal object, unfitting a maiden's eyes to rest upon. The
true followers of the Gospel are those who strive to forget the
sufferings of our dear Lord as much as possible,--or to think of
them only in spirit. The minds of sinners, alas! are easily
influenced,--and it is both unseemly and dangerous to gaze freely
upon the carven semblance of the Lord's limbs! Yea, truly, it hath
oft been considered as damnatory to the soul,--more especially in
the cases of women immured as nuns, who encourage themselves in an
undue familiarity with our Lord, by gazing long and earnestly upon
his body nailed to the accursed tree."
Here Mr. Dyceworthy paused for breath. Thelma was silent, but a
faint smile gleamed on her face.
"Wherefore," he went on, "I do adjure you, as you desire grace and
redemption, to utterly cast from you the vile trinket, I have,--
Heaven knows how reluctantly!. . . returned to your keeping,--to
trample upon it, and renounce it as a device of Satan. . ." He
stopped, surprised and indignant, as she raised the much-abused
emblem to her lips and kissed it reverently.
"It is the sign of peace and salvation," she said steadily, "to me,
at least. You waste your words, Mr. Dyceworthy; I am a Catholic."
"Oh, say not so!" exclaimed the minister, now thoroughly roused to a
pitch of unctuous enthusiasm. "Say not so. Poor child! who knowest
not the meaning of the word used. Catholic signifies universal. God
forbid a universal Papacy! You are not a Catholic--no! You are a
Roman--by which name we understand all that is most loathsome and
unpleasing unto God! But I will wrestle for your soul,--yea, night
and day will I bend my spiritual sinews to the task,--I will obtain
the victory,--I will exorcise the fiend! Alas, alas! you are on the
brink of hell--think of it!" and Mr. Dyceworthy stretched out his
hand with his favorite pulpit gesture. "Think of the roasting and
burning,--the scorching and withering of souls! Imagine, if you can,
the hopeless, bitter, eternal damnation," and here he smacked his
lips as though he were tasting something excellent,--"from which
there is no escape!. . . for which there shall be no remedy!"
"It is a gloomy picture," said Thelma, with a quiet sparkle in her
eye. "I am sorry,--for YOU. But I am happier,--my faith teaches of
purgatory--there is always a little hope!"
"There is none! there is none!" exclaimed the minister rising in
excitement from his seat, and swaying ponderously to and fro as he
gesticulated with hands and head. "You are doomed,--doomed! There is
no middle course between hell and heaven. It must be one thing or
the other; God deals not in half-measures! Pause, oh pause, ere you
decide to fall! Even at the latest hour the Lord desires to save
your soul,--the Lord yearns for your redemption, and maketh me to
yearn also. Froken Thelma!" and Mr. Dyceworthy's voice deepened in
solemnity, "there is a way which the Lord hath whispered in mine
ears,--a way that pointeth to the white robe and the crown of
glory,--a way by which you shall possess the inner peace of the
heart with bliss on earth as the forerunner of bliss in heaven!"
She looked at him steadfastly. "And that way is--what?" she
inquired.
Mr. Dyceworthy hesitated, and wished with all his heart that this
girl was not so thoroughly self-possessed. Any sign of timidity in
her would have given him an increase of hardihood. But her eyes were
coldly brilliant, and glanced him over without the smallest
embarrassment. He took refuge in his never-failing remedy, his
benevolent smile--a smile that covered a multitude of hypocrisies.
"You ask a plain question, Froken," he said sweetly, "and I should
be loth not to give you a plain answer. That way-that glorious way
of salvation for you is--through ME!"
And his countenance shone with smug self-satisfaction as he spoke,
and he repeated softly, "Yes, yes; that way is through me!"
She moved with a slight gesture of impatience. "It is a pity to talk
any more," she said rather wearily. "It is all no use! Why do you
wish to change me in my religion? I do not wish to change YOU. I do
not see why we should speak of such things at all."
"Of course!" replied Mr. Dyceworthy blandly. "Of course you do not
see. And why? Because you are blind." Here he drew a little nearer
to her, and looked covetously at the curve of her full, firm waist.
"Oh, why!" he resumed in a sort of rapture--"why should we say it is
a pity to talk any more? Why should we say it is all no use? It IS
of use,--it is noble, it is edifying to converse of the Lord's good
pleasure! And what is His good pleasure at this moment? To unite two
souls in His service! Yea, He hath turned my desire towards you,
Froken Thelma,--even as Jacob's desire was towards Rachel! Let me
see this hand." He made a furtive grab at the white taper fingers
that played listlessly with the jessamine leaves on the porch, but
the girl dexterously withdrew them from his clutch and moved a
little further back, her face flushing proudly. "Oh, will it not
come to me? Cruel hand!" and he rolled his little eyes with an
absurdly sentimental air of reproach. "It is shy--it will not clasp
the hand of its protector! Do not be afraid, Froken!. . . I, Charles
Dyceworthy, am not the man to trifle with your young affections! Let
them rest where they have flown! I accept them! Yea!. . . in spite
of wrath and error and moral destitution,--my spirit inclineth
towards you,--in the language of carnal men, I love you! More than
this, I am willing to take you as my lawful wife--"
He broke off abruptly, somewhat startled at the bitter scorn of the
flashing eyes that, like two quivering stars, were blazing upon him.
Her voice, clear as a bell ringing in frosty air, cut through the
silence like a sweep of a sword-blade.
"How dare you!" she said, with a wrathful thrill in her low, intense
tones. "How dare you come here to insult me!"
Insult her! He,--the Reverend Charles Dyceworthy,--considered guilty
of insult in offering honorable marriage to a mere farmer's
daughter! He could not believe his own ears,--and in his
astonishment he looked up at her. Looking, he recoiled and shrank
into himself, like a convicted knave before some queenly accuser.
The whole form of the girl seemed to dilate with indignation. From
her proud mouth, arched like a bow, sprang barbed arrows of scorn
that flew straightly and struck home.
"Always I have guessed what you wanted," she went on in that deep,
vibrating tone which had such a rich quiver of anger within it; "but
I never thought yon would--" She paused, and a little disdainful
laugh broke from her lips. "You would make ME your wife--ME? You
think ME likely to accept such an offer?" And she drew herself up
with a superb gesture, and regarded him fixedly.
"Oh, pride, pride!" murmured the unabashed Dyceworthy, recovering
from the momentary abasement into which he had been thrown by her
look and manner. "How it overcometh our natures and mastereth our
spirits! My dear, my dearest Froken,--I fear you do not understand
me! Yet it is natural that you should not; you were not prepared for
the offer of my--my affections,"--and he beamed all over with
benevolence,--"and I can appreciate a maidenly and becoming coyness,
even though it assume the form of a repellant and unreasonable
anger. But take courage, my--my dear girl!--our Lord forbid that I
should wantonly play with the delicate emotions of your heart! Poor
little heart! does it flutter?" and Mr. Dyceworthy leered sweetly.
"I will give it time to recover itself! Yes, yes! a little time! and
then you will put that pretty hand in mine"--here he drew nearer to
her, "and with one kiss we will seal the compact!"
And he attempted to steal his arm round her waist, but the girl
sprang back indignantly, and pulling down a thick branch of the
clambering prickly roses from the porch, held it in front of her by
way of protection. Mr. Dyceworthy laughed indulgently.
"Very pretty--very pretty indeed!" he mildly observed, eyeing her as
she stood at bay barricaded by the roses. "Quite a picture! There,
there! do not be frightened,--such shyness is very natural! We will
embrace in the Lord another day! In the meantime one little word--
THE word--will suffice me,--yea, even one little smile,--to show me
that you understand my words,--that you love me"--here he clasped
his plump hands together in flabby ecstasy--"even as you are loved!"
His absurd attitude,--the weak, knock-kneed manner in which his
clumsy legs seemed, from the force of sheer sentiment, to bend under
his weighty body, and the inanely amatory expression of his puffy
countenance, would have excited most women to laughter,--and Thelma
was perfectly conscious of his utterly ridiculous appearance, but
she was too thoroughly indignant to take the matter in a humorous
light.
"Love you!" she exclaimed, with a movement of irrepressible
loathing. "You must be mad! I would rather die than marry you!"
Mr. Dyceworthy's face grew livid and his little eyes sparkled
vindictively,--but he restrained his inward rage, and merely smiled,
rubbing his hands softly one against the other.
"Let us be calm!" he said soothingly. "Whatever we do, let us be
calm! Let us not provoke one another to wrath! Above all things, let
us, in a spirit of charity and patience, reason out this matter
without undue excitement. My ears have most painfully heard your
last words, which, taken literally, might mean that you reject my
honorable offer. The question is, DO they mean this? I cannot,--I
will not believe that you would foolishly stand in the way of your
own salvation,"--and he shook his head with doleful gentleness.
"Moreover, Froken Thelma, though it sorely distresses me to speak of
it,--it is my duty, as a minister of the Lord, to remind you that an
honest marriage,--a marriage of virtue and respectability such as I
propose, is the only way to restore your reputation,--which, alas!
is sorely damaged, and--"
Mr. Dyceworthy stopped abruptly, a little alarmed, as she suddenly
cast aside the barrier of roses and advanced toward him, her blue
eyes blazing.
"My reputation!" she said haughtily. "Who speaks of it?"
"Oh dear, dear me!" moaned the minister pathetically. "Sad!. . .
very sad to see so ungovernable a temper, so wild and untrained a
disposition! Alas, alas! how frail we are without the Lord's
support,--without the strong staff of the Lord's mercy to lean upon!
Not I, my poor child, not I, but the whole village speaks of you; to
you the ignorant people attribute all the sundry evils that of late
have fallen sorely upon them,--bad harvests, ill-luck with the
fishing, poverty, sickness,"--here Mr. Dyceworthy pressed the tips
of his fingers delicately together, and looked at her with a
benevolent compassion,--"and they call it witchcraft,--yes! strange,
very strange! But so it is,--ignorant as they are, such ignorance is
not easily enlightened,--and though I," he sighed, "have done my
poor best to disabuse their minds of the suspicions against you, I
find it is a matter in which I, though a humble mouthpiece of the
Gospel, am powerless--quite powerless!"
She relaxed her defiant attitude, and moved away from him; the
shadow of a smile was on her lips.
"It is not my fault if the people are foolish," she said coldly; "I
have never done harm to any one that I know of." And turning
abruptly, she seemed about to enter the house, but the minister
dexterously placed himself in her way, and barred her passage.
"Stay, oh, stay!" he exclaimed with unctuous fervor. "Pause,
unfortunate girl, ere you reject the strong shield and buckler that
the Lord has, in His great mercy, offered you, in my person! For I
must warn you,--Froken Thelma, I must warn you seriously of the
danger you run! I will not pain you by referring to the grave
charges brought against your father, who is, alas! in spite of my
spiritual wrestling with the Lord for his sake, still no better than
a heathen savage; no! I will say nothing of this. But what,--what
shall I say,"--here he lowered his voice to a tone of mysterious and
weighty reproach,--"what shall I say of your most unseemly and
indiscreet companionship with these worldly young men who are
visiting the Fjord for their idle pastime? Ah dear, dear! This is
indeed a heavy scandal and a sore burden to my soul,--for up to this
time I have, in spite of many faults in your disposition, considered
you were at least of a most maidenly and decorous deportment,--but
now--now! to think that you should, of your own free will and
choice, consent to be the plaything of this idle stroller from the
wicked haunts of fashion,--the hour's toy of this Sir Philip
Errington! Froken Thelma, I would never have believed it of you!"
And he drew himself up with ponderous and sorrowful dignity.
A burning blush had covered Thelma's face at the mention of
Errington's name, but it soon faded, leaving her very pale. She
changed her position so that she confronted Mr. Dyceworthy,--her
clear blue eyes regarded him steadfastly.
"Is this what is said of me?" she asked calmly.
"It is,--it is, most unfortunately!" returned the minister, shaking
his bullet-like head a great many times; then, with a sort of
elephantine cheerfulness, he added, "but what matter? There is time
to remedy these things. I am willing to set myself as a strong
barrier against the evil noises of rumor! Am I selfish or
ungenerous? The Lord forbid it! No matter how _I_ am compromised, no
matter how _I_ am misjudged,--I am still willing to take you as my
lawful wife Froken Thelma,--but," and here he shook his forefinger
at her with a pretended playfulness, "I will permit no more converse
with Sir Philip Errington; no, no! I cannot allow it!. . . I cannot,
indeed!"
She still looked straight at him,--her bosom rose and fell rapidly
with her passionate breath, and there was such an eloquent breath of
scorn in her face that he winced under it as though struck by a
sharp scourge.
"You are not worth my anger!" she said slowly, this time without a
tremor in her rich voice. "One must have something to be angry with,
and you--you are nothing! Neither man nor beast,--for men are brave,
and beasts tell no lies! Your wife! I! "and she laughed aloud,--then
with a gesture of command, "Go!" she exclaimed, "and never let me
see your face again!"
The clear scornful laughter,--the air of absolute authority with
which she spoke,--would have stung the most self-opinionated of men,
even though his conscience were enveloped in a moral leather casing
of hypocrisy and arrogance. And, notwithstanding his invariable air
of mildness, Mr. Dyceworthy had a temper. That temper rose to a
white heat just now,--every drop of blood receded from his
countenance,--and his soft hands clenched themselves in a
particularly ugly and threatening manner. Yet he managed to preserve
his suave composure.
"Alas, alas!" he murmured. "How sorely my soul is afflicted to see
you thus, Froken! I am amazed--I am distressed! Such language from
your lips! oh fie, fie! And has it come to this! And must I resign
the hope I had of saving your poor soul? and must I withdraw my
spiritual protection from you?" This he asked with a suggestive
sneer of his prim mouth,--and then continued, "I must--alas, I must!
My conscience will not permit me to do more than pray for you! And
as is my duty, I shall, in a spirit of forbearance and charity,
speak warningly to Sir Philip concerning--"
But Thelma did not permit him to finish his sentence. She sprang
forward like a young leopardess, and with a magnificent outward
sweep of her arm motioned him down the garden path.
"Out of my sight,--COWARD!" she cried, and then stood waiting for
him to obey her, her whole frame vibrating with indignation like a
harp struck too roughly. She looked so terribly beautiful, and there
was such a suggestive power in that extended bare white arm of hers,
that the minister, though quaking from head to heel with
disappointment and resentment, judged it prudent to leave her.
"Certainly, I will take my departure, Froken!" he said meekly, while
his teeth glimmered wolfishly through his pale lips, in a snarl more
than a smile. "It is best you should be alone to recover yourself--
from this--this undue excitement! I shall not repeat my--my--offer;
but I am sure your good sense will--in time--show you how very
unjust and hasty you have been in this matter--and--and you will be
sorry! Yes, indeed! I am quite sure you will be sorry! I wish you
good day, Froken Thelma!"
She made him no reply, and he turned from the house and left her,
strolling down the flower-bordered path as though he were in the
best of all possible moods with himself and the universe. But, in
truth, he muttered a heavy oath under his breath--an oath that was
by no means in keeping with his godly and peaceful disposition.
Once, as he walked, he looked back,--and saw the woman he coveted
now more than ever, standing erect in the porch, tall, fair and
loyal in her attitude, looking like some proud empress who had just
dismissed an unworthy vassal. A farmer's daughter! and she had
refused Mr. Dyceworthy with disdain! He had much ado to prevent
himself shaking his fist at her!
"The lofty shall be laid low, and the stiff-necked shall be
humbled," he thought, as with a vicious switch of his stick he
struck off a fragrant head of purple clover. "Conceited fool of a
girl! Hopes to be 'my lady' does she? She had better take care!"
Here he stopped abruptly in his walk as if a thought had struck
him,--a malignant joy sparkled in his eyes, and he flourished his
stick triumphantly in the air. "I'll have her yet!" he exclaimed
half-aloud. "I'll set Lovisa on her!" And his countenance cleared;
he quickened his pace like a man having some pressing business to
fulfill, and was soon in his boat, rowing towards Bosekop with
unaccustomed speed and energy.
Meanwhile Thelma stood motionless where he had left her,--she
watched the retreating form of her portly suitor till he had
altogether disappeared,--then she pressed one hand on her bosom,
sighed, and laughed a little. Glancing at the crucifix so lately
restored to her, she touched it with her lips and fastened it to a
small silver chain she wore, and then a shadow swept over her fair
face that made it strangely sad and weary. Her lips quivered
pathetically; she shaded her eyes with her curved fingers as though
the sunlight hurt her,--then with faltering steps she turned away
from the warm stretch of garden, brilliant with blossom, and entered
the house. There was a sense of outrage and insult upon her, and
though in her soul she treated Mr. Dyceworthy's observations with
the contempt they deserved, his coarse allusion to Sir Philip
Errington had wounded her more than she cared to admit to herself.
Once in the quiet sitting-room, she threw herself on her knees by
her father's arm-chair, and laying her proud little golden head down
on her folded arms, she broke into a passion of silent tears.
Who shall unravel the mystery of a woman's weeping? Who shall
declare whether it is a pain or a relief to the overcharged heart?
The dignity of a crowned queen is capable of utterly dissolving and
disappearing in a shower of tears, when Love's burning finger
touches the pulse and marks its slow or rapid beatings. And Thelma
wept as many of her sex weep, without knowing why, save that all
suddenly she felt herself most lonely and forlorn like Sainte
Beuve's-
"Colombo gemissante,
Qui demande par pitie
Sa moitie, Sa moitie
loin d'elle absente!"
CHAPTER XII.
"A wicked will,
A woman's will; a cankered grandame's will!"
King John.
"By Jove!"
And Lorimer, after uttering this unmeaning exclamation, was silent
out of sheer dismay. He stood hesitating and looking in at the door
of the Guldmar's sitting-room, and the alarming spectacle he saw was
the queenly Thelma down on the floor in an attitude of grief,--
Thelma giving way to little smothered sobs of distress,--Thelma
actually crying! He drew a long breath and stared, utterly
bewildered. It was a sight for which he was unprepared,--he was not
accustomed to women's tears. What should he do? Should he cough
gently to attract her attention, or should he retire on tip-toe and
leave her to indulge her grief as long as she would, without making
any attempt to console her? The latter course seemed almost brutal,
yet he was nearly deciding upon it, when a slight creak of the door
against which he leaned, caused her to look up suddenly. Seeing him,
she rose quickly from her desponding position and faced him, her
cheeks somewhat deeply flushed and her eyes glittering feverishly.
"Mr. Lorimer!" she exclaimed, forcing a faint smile to her quivering
lips. "You here? Why, where are the others?"
"They are coming on after me," replied Lorimer, advancing into the
room, and diplomatically ignoring the girl's efforts to hide the
tears that still threatened to have their way. "But I was sent in
advance to tell you not to be frightened. There has been a slight
accident--"
She grew very pale. "Is it my rather?" she asked tremblingly. "Sir
Philip--"
"No, no!" answered Lorimer reassuringly. "It is nothing serious,
really, upon my honor! Your father's all right,--so is Phil,--our
lively friend Pierre is the victim. The fact is, we've had some
trouble with Sigurd. I can't think what has come to the boy! He was
as amiable as possible when we started, but after we had climbed
about half-way up the mountain, he took it into his head to throw
stones about rather recklessly. It was only fun, he said. Your
father tried to make him leave off, but he was obstinate. At last,
in a particularly bright access of playfulness, he got hold of a
large flint, and nearly put Phil's eye out with it,--Phil dodged it,
and it flew straight at Duprez, splitting open his cheek in rather
an unbecoming fashion--Don't look so horrified, Miss Guldmar,--it is
really nothing!"
"Oh, but indeed it is something!" she said, with true womanly
anxiety in her voice. "Poor fellow! I am so sorry! Is he much hurt?
Does he suffer?"
"Pierre? Oh, no, not a bit of it! He's as jolly as possible! We
bandaged him up in a very artistic fashion; he looks quite
interesting, I assure you. His beauty's spoilt for a time, that's
all. Phil thought you might be alarmed when you saw us bringing home
the wounded,--that is why I came on to tell you all about it."
"But what can be the matter with Sigurd?" asked the girl, raising
her hand furtively to dash off a few teardrops that still hung on
her long lashes. "And where is he?"
"Ah, that I can't tell you!" answered Lorimer. "He is perfectly
incomprehensible to-day. As soon as he saw the blood flowing from
Duprez's cheek, he tittered a howl as if some one had shot him, and
away he rushed into the woods as fast as he could go. We called him,
and shouted his name till we were hoarse,--all no use! He wouldn't
come back. I suppose he'll find his way home by himself?"
"Oh, yes," said Thelma gravely. "But when he comes I will scold him
very much! It is not like him to be so wild and cruel. He will
understand me when I tell him how wrong he has been."
"Oh, don't break his heart, poor little chap!" said Lorimer easily.
"Your father has given him a terrible scolding already. He hasn't
got his wits about him you know,--he can't help being queer
sometimes. But what have YOU been doing with yourself during our
absence?" And he regarded her with friendly scrutiny. "You were
crying when I came in. Now, weren't you? "
She met his gaze quite frankly. "Yes!" she replied, with a
plaintive thrill in her voice. "I could not help it! My heart ached
and the tears came. Somehow I felt that everything was wrong,--and
that it was all my fault--"
"Your fault!" murmured Lorimer, astonished. "My dear Miss Guldmar,
what do you mean? What IS your fault?"
"Everything!" she answered sadly, with a deep sigh. "I am very
foolish; and I am sure I often do wrong without meaning it. Mr.
Dyceworthy has been here and--" she stopped abruptly, and a wave of
color flushed her face.
Lorimer laughed lightly. "Dyceworthy!" he exclaimed. "The mystery is
explained! You have been bored by 'the good religious,' as Pierre
calls him. You know what BORING means now, Miss Guldmar, don't you?"
She smiled slightly, and nodded." The first time you visited the
Eulalie, you didn't understand the word, I remember,--ah!" and he
shook his head--"if you were in London society, you'd find that
expression very convenient,--it would come to your lips pretty
frequently, I can tell you!"
"I shall never see London," she said, with a sort of resigned air.
"You will all go away very soon, and I--I shall be lonely--"
She bit her lips in quick vexation, as her blue eyes filled again
with tears in spite of herself.
Lorimer turned away and pulled a chair to the open window.
"Come and sit down here," he said invitingly. "We shall be able to
see the others coming down the hill. Nothing like fresh air for
blowing away the blues." Then, as she obeyed him, he added, "What
has Dyceworthy been saying to you?"
"He told me I was wicked," she murmured; "and that all the people
here think very badly of me. But that was not the worst"--and a
little shudder passed over her--"there was something else--something
that made me very angry--so angry!"--and here she raised her eyes
with a gravely penitent air--" Mr. Lorimer, I do not think I have
ever had so bad and fierce a temper before!"
"Good gracious!" exclaimed Lorimer, with a broad smile. "You alarm
me, Miss Guldmar! I had no idea you were a 'bad, fierce' person,--I
shall get afraid of you--I shall, really!"
"Ah, you laugh!" and she spoke half-reproachfully. "You will not be
serious for one little moment!"
"Yes I will! Now look at me," and he assumed a solemn expression,
and drew himself up with an air of dignity. "I am all attention!
Consider me your father-confessor. Miss Guldmar, and explain the
reason of this 'bad, fierce' temper of yours."
She peeped at him shyly from under her silken lashes.
"It is more dreadful than you think," she answered in a low tone.
"Mr. Dyceworthy asked me to marry him."
Lorimer's keen eyes flashed with indignation. This was beyond a
jest,--and he clenched his fist as he exclaimed--
"Impudent donkey! What a jolly good thrashing he deserves!. . . and
I shouldn't be surprised if he got it one of these days! And so,
Miss Guldmar,"--and he studied her face with some solicitude--"you
were very angry with him?"
"Oh yes!" she replied, "but when I told him he was a coward, and
that he must go away, he said some very cruel things--" she stopped,
and blushed deeply; then, as if seized by some sudden impulse, she
laid her small hand on Lorimer's and said in the tone of an
appealing child, "you are very good and kind to me, and you are
clever,--you know so much more than I do! You must help me,--you
will tell me, will you not?. . . if it is wrong of me to like you
all,--it is as if we had known each other a long time and I have
been very happy with you and your friends. But you must teach me to
behave like the girls you have seen in London,--for I could not bear
that Sir Philip should think me wicked!"
"Wicked!" and Lorimer drew a long breath. "Good heavens! If you knew
what Phil's ideas about you are, Miss Guldmar--"
"I do not wish to know," interrupted Thelma steadily. "You must
quite understand me,--I am not clever to hide my thoughts, and--and-
-, YOU are glad when you talk sometimes to Sir Philip, are you not?"
He nodded, gravely studying every light and shadow on the fair,
upturned, innocent face.
"Yes!" she continued with some eagerness, "I see you are! Well, it
is the same with me,--I do love to hear him speak! You know how his
voice is like music, and how his kind ways warm the heart,--it is
pleasant to be in his company--I am sure you also find it so! But
for me,--it seems it is wrong,--it is not wise for me to show when I
am happy. I do not care what other people say,--but I would not have
HIM think ill of me for all the world!"
Lorimer took her hand and held it in his with a most tender loyalty
and respect. Her naive, simple words had, all unconsciously to
herself, laid bare the secret of her soul to his eyes,--and though
his heart beat with a strange sickening sense of unrest that
flavored of despair, a gentle reverence filled him, such as a man
might feel if some little snow-white shrine, sacred to purity and
peace, should be suddenly unveiled before him.
"My dear Miss Guldmar," he said earnestly, "I assure you, you have
no cause to be uneasy! You must not believe a word Dyceworthy says--
every one with a grain of common sense can see what a liar and
hypocrite he is! And as for you, you never do anything wrong,--don't
imagine such nonsense! I wish there were more women like you!"
"Ah, that is very kind of you!" half laughed the girl, still
allowing her hand to rest in his. "But I do not think everybody
would have such a good opinion." They both started, and their hands
fell asunder as a shadow darkened the room, and Sir Philip stood
before them.
"Excuse me!" he said stiffly, lifting his hat with ceremonious
politeness. "I ought to have knocked at the door--I--"
"Why?" asked Thelma, raising her eyebrows in surprise.
"Yes--why indeed?" echoed Lorimer, with a frank look at his friend.
"I am afraid,"--and for once the generally good-humored Errington
looked positively petulant--"I am afraid I interrupted a pleasant
conversation!" And he gave a little forced laugh of feigned
amusement, but evident vexation.
"And if it was pleasant, shall you not make it still more so?" asked
Thelma, with timid and bewitching sweetness, though her heart beat
very fast,--she was anxious. Why was Sir Philip so cold and distant?
He looked at her, and his pent-up passion leaped to his eyes and
filled them with a glowing and fiery tenderness,--her head drooped
suddenly, and she turned quickly, to avoid that searching, longing
gaze. Lorimer glanced from one to the other with, a slight feeling
of amusement.
"Well Phil," he inquired lazily, "how did you get here so soon? You
must have glided into the garden like a ghost, for I never heard you
coming."
"So I imagine!" retorted Errington, with, an effort to be sarcastic,
in which he utterly failed as he met his friend's eyes,--then after
a slight and somewhat embarrassed pause he added more mildly!
"Duprez cannot get on very fast,--his wound still bleeds, and he
feels rather faint now and then. I don't think we bandaged him up
properly, and I came on to see if Britta could prepare something for
him."
"But you will not need to ask Britta," said Thelma quietly, with a
pretty air of authority, "for I shall myself do all for Mr. Duprez.
I understand well how to cure his wound, and I do think he will like
me as well as Britta." And, hearing footsteps approaching, she
looked out at the window. "Here they come!" she exclaimed. "Ah, poor
Monsieur Pierre! he does look very pale! I will go and meet them."
And she hurried from the room, leaving the two young men together.
Errington threw himself into Olaf Guldmar's great arm-chair, with a
slight sigh.
"Well?" said Lorimer inquiringly.
"Well!" he returned somewhat gruffly.
Lorimer laughed, and crossing the room, approached him and clapped a
hand on his shoulder.
"Look here, old man!" he said earnestly, "don't be a fool! I know
that 'love maketh men mad,' but I never supposed the lunacy would
lead you to the undesirable point of distrusting your friend,--your
true friend, Phil,--by all the Gods of the past and present!"
And he laughed again,--a little huskily this time, for there was a
sudden unaccountable and unwished-for lump in his throat, and a
moisture in his eyes which he had not bargained for. Philip looked
up,--and silently held out his hand, which Lorimer as silently
clasped. There was a moment's hesitation, and then the young baronet
spoke out manfully.
"I'm ashamed of myself, George! I really am! But I tell you, when I
came in and saw you two standing there,--you've no idea what a
picture you made!. . . by Jove!. . . I was furious!" And he smiled.
"I suppose I was jealous!"
"I suppose you were!" returned Lorimer amusedly.
"Novel sensation, isn't it? A sort of hot, prickly, 'have-at-thee-
villain' sort of thing; must be frightfully exhausting! But why you
should indulge this emotion at MY expense is what I cannot, for the
life of me, understand!"
"Well," murmured Errington, rather abashed," you see, her hands were
in yours--"
"As they will be again, and yet again, I trust!" said Lorimer with
cheery fervor. "Surely you'll allow me to shake hands with your
wife?"
"I say, George, be quiet!" exclaimed Philip warningly, as at that
moment Thelma passed the window with Pierre Duprez leaning on her
arm, and her father and Macfarlane following.
She entered the room with the stately step of a young queen,--her
tall, beautiful figure forming a strong contrast to that of the
narrow-shouldered little Frenchman, upon whom she smiled down with
an air of almost maternal protection.
"You will sit here, Monsieur Duprez," she said, leading him to the
bonde's arm-chair which Errington instantly vacated, "and father
will bring you a good glass of wine. And the pain will be nothing
when I have attended to that cruel wound. But I am so sorry,--so
very sorry, to see you suffer!"
Pierre did indeed present rather a dismal spectacle. There was a
severe cut on his forehead as well as his cheek; his lace was pale
and streaked with blood, while the hastily-improvised bandages which
were tied under his chin, by no means improved his personal
appearance. His head ached with the pain, and his eyes smarted with
the strong sunlight to which he had been exposed all the day, but
his natural gaiety was undiminished, and he laughed as he answered--
"Chere Mademoiselle, you are too good to me! It is a piece of good
fortune that Sigurd threw that stone--yes! since it brings me your
pity! But do not trouble; a little cold water and a fresh
handkerchief is all I need."
But Thelma was already practicing her own simple surgery for his
benefit. With deft, soft fingers she laid bare the throbbing wound,-
-washed and dressed it carefully and skillfully,--and used with all
such exceeding gentleness, that Duprez closed his eyes in a sort of
rapture during the operation, and wished it could last longer. Then
taking the glass of wine her father brought in obedience to her
order, she said in a tone of mild authority--
"Now, you will drink this Monsieur Pierre, and you will rest quite
still till it is time to go back to the yacht; and tomorrow you will
not feel any pain, I am sure. And I do think it will not be an ugly
scar for long."
"If it is," answered Pierre, "I shall say I received it in a duel!
Then I shall be great--glorious! and all the pretty ladies will love
me!"
She laughed,--but looked grave a moment afterwards.
"You must never say what is not true," she said. "It is wrong to
deceive any one,--even in a small matter."
Duprez gazed up at her wonderingly, feeling very much like a chidden
child.
"Never say what is not true!" he thought. "Mon Dieu! what would
become of my life?"
It was a new suggestion, and he reflected upon it with astonishment.
It opened such a wide vista of impossibilities to his mind.
Meanwhile old Guldmar was engaged in pouring out wine for the other
young men, talking all the time.
"I tell thee, Thelma mine," he said seriously, "something must be
very wrong with our Sigurd. The poor lad has always been gentle and
tractable, but to-day he was like some wild animal for mischief and
hardihood. I grieve to see it! I fear the time may come when he may
no longer be a safe servant for thee, child!"
"Oh, father!"--and the girl's voice was full of tender anxiety--
"surely not! He is too fond of us to do us any harm--he is so docile
and affectionate!"
"Maybe, maybe!" and the old farmer shook his head doubtfully. "But
when the wits are away the brain is like a ship without ballast--
there is no safe sailing possible. He would not mean any harm,
perhaps,--and yet in his wild moods he might do it, and be sorry for
it directly afterwards. 'Tis little use to cry when the mischief is
done,--and I confess I do not like his present humor."
"By-the-by," observed Lorimer, "that reminds me! Sigurd has taken an
uncommonly strong aversion to Phil. It's curious but it's a fact.
Perhaps it is that which upsets his nerves?"
"I have noticed it myself," said Errington, "and I'm sorry for it,
for I've done him no harm that I can remember. He certainly asked me
to go away from the Altenfjord, and I refused,--I'd no idea he had
any serious meaning in his request. But it's evident he can't endure
my company."
"Ah, then!" said Thelma simply and sorrowfully, "he must be very
ill,--because it is natural for every one to like you."
She spoke in perfect good faith and innocence of heart; but
Errington's eyes flashed and he smiled--one of those rare, tender
smiles of his which brightened his whole visage.
"You are very kind to say so, Miss Guldmar!"
"It is not kindness; it is the truth!" she replied frankly.
At that moment a very rosy face and two sparkling eyes peered in at
the door.
"Yes, Britta!" Thelma smiled; "we are quite ready!"
Whereupon the face disappeared, and Olaf Guldmar led the way into
the kitchen, which was at the same time the dining-room, and where a
substantial supper was spread on the polished pine table.
The farmer's great arm-chair was brought in for Duprez, who, though
he declared he was being spoilt by too much attention, seemed to
enjoy it immensely,--and they were all, including Britta, soon
clustered round the hospitable board whereon antique silver and
quaint glasses of foreign make sparkled bravely, their effect
enhanced by the snowy whiteness of the homespun table-linen.
A few minutes set them all talking gaily. Macfarlane vied with the
ever-gallant Duprez in making a few compliments to Britta, who was
pretty and engaging enough to merit attention, and who, after all,
was something more than a mere servant, possessing, as she did, a
great deal of her young mistress's affection and confidence, and
being always treated by Guldmar himself as one of the family.
There was no reserve or coldness in the party, and the hum of their
merry voices echoed up to the cross-rafters of the stout wooden
ceiling and through the open door and window, from whence a patch of
the gorgeous afternoon sky could be seen, glimmering redly, like a
distant lake of fire. They were in the full enjoyment of their
repast, and the old farmer's rollicking "Ha, ha, ha!" in response to
a joke of Lorimer's, had just echoed jovially through the room, when
a strong, harsh voice called aloud--"Olaf Guldmar!"
There was a sudden silence. Each one looked at the other in
surprise. Again the voice called--"Olaf Guldmar!"
"Well!" roared the bonde testily, turning sharply round in his
chair, "who calls me?"
"I do!" and the tall, emaciated figure of a woman advanced and stood
on the threshold, without actually entering the room. She dropped
the black shawl that enveloped her, and, in so doing, disordered her
hair, which fell in white, straggling locks about her withered
features, and her dark eyes gleamed maliciously as she fixed them on
the assembled party. Britta, on perceiving her, uttered a faint
shriek, and without considering the propriety of her action, buried
her nut-brown curls and sparkling eyes in Duprez's coat-sleeve,
which, to do the Frenchman justice, was exceedingly prompt to
receive and shelter its fair burden. The bonde rose from his chair,
and his face grew stern.
"What do you here, Lovisa Elsland? Have you walked her eyes, she
went to sleep. They told me it was death, since then I have known
that death is beautiful!"
Mr. Dyceworthy coughed,--a little cough of quiet incredulity. He was
not fond of sentiment in any form, and the girl's dreamily pensive
manner annoyed him. Death "beautiful?" Faugh! it was the one thing
of all others that he dreaded; it was an unpleasant necessity,
concerning which he thought as little as possible. Though he
preached frequently on the peace of the grave and the joys of
heaven,--he was far from believing in either,--he was nervously
terrified of illness, and fled like a frightened hare from the very
rumor of any infectious disorder, and he had never been known to
attend a death-bed. And now, in answer to Thelma, he nodded piously
and rubbed his hands, and said--
"Yes, yes; no doubt, no doubt! All very proper on your part, I am
sure. But concerning this same image of which I came to speak,--it
is most imperative that you should be brought to recognize it as a
purely carnal object, unfitting a maiden's eyes to rest upon. The
true followers of the Gospel are those who strive to forget the
sufferings of our dear Lord as much as possible,--or to think of
them only in spirit. The minds of sinners, alas! are easily
influenced,--and it is both unseemly and dangerous to gaze freely
upon the carven semblance of the Lord's limbs! Yea, truly, it hath
oft been considered as damnatory to the soul,--more especially in
the cases of women immured as nuns, who encourage themselves in an
undue familiarity with our Lord, by gazing long and earnestly upon
his body nailed to the accursed tree."
Here Mr. Dyceworthy paused for breath. Thelma was silent, but a
faint smile gleamed on her face.
"Wherefore," he went on, "I do adjure you, as you desire grace and
redemption, to utterly cast from you the vile trinket, I have,--
Heaven knows how reluctantly!. . . returned to your keeping,--to
trample upon it, and renounce it as a device of Satan. . ." He
stopped, surprised and indignant, as she raised the much-abused
emblem to her lips and kissed it reverently.
"It is the sign of peace and salvation," she said steadily, "to me,
at least. You waste your words, Mr. Dyceworthy; I am a Catholic."
"Oh, say not so!" exclaimed the minister, now thoroughly roused to a
pitch of unctuous enthusiasm. "Say beat me and starve me? You wicked
old woman! How dare you come here? I'm ashamed of you! You
frightened my mother to death--you know you did! .. . . and now you
want to do the same to me! But you won't--I can tell you! I'm old
enough to do as I like, and I'd rather die than live with you!"
Then, overcome by excitement and temper, she burst out crying,
heedless of Pierre Duprez's smiling nods of approval, and the
admiring remarks he was making under his breath, such as--"Brava, ma
petite! C'est bien fait! c'est joliment bien dit! Mais je crois
bien!"
Lovisa seemed unmoved; she raised her head and looked, at Guldmar.
"Is this your answer?" she demanded.
"By the sword of Odin!" cried the bonde, "the woman must be mad! MY
answer? The girl has spoken for herself,--and plainly enough too!
Art thou deaf, Lovisa Elsland? or are thy wits astray?"
"My hearing is very good," replied Lovisa calmly, "and my mind, Olaf
Guldmar, is as clear as yours. And, thanks to your teaching in mine
early days,"--she paused and looked keenly at him, but he appeared
to see no meaning in her allusion,--"I know the English tongue, of
which we hear far too much,--too often! There is nothing Britta has
said that I do not understand. But I know well it is not the girl
herself that speaks--it is a demon in her,--and that demon shall be
cast forth before I die! Yea, with the help of the Lord I shall--"
She stopped abruptly and fixed her eyes, glowing with fierce wrath,
on Thelma. The girl met her evil glance with a gentle surprise.
Lovisa smiled malignantly.
"You know me, I think!" said Lovisa. "You have seen me before?"
"Often," answered Thelma mildly. "I have always been sorry for you."
"Sorry for me!" almost yelled the old woman. "Why--why are you sorry
for me?"
"Do not answer her, child!" interrupted Guldmar angrily. "She is mad
as the winds of a wild winter, and will but vex thee."
But Thelma laid her hand soothingly on her father's, and smiled
peacefully as she turned her fair face again towards Lovisa.
"Why?" she said. "Because you seem so very lonely and sad--and that
must make you cross with every one who is happy! And it is a pity, I
think, that you do not let Britta alone--you only quarrel with each
other when you meet. And would you not like her to think kindly of
you when you are dead?"
Lovisa seemed choking with anger,--her face worked into such hideous
grimaces, that all present, save Thelma, were dismayed at her
repulsive aspect.
"When I am dead!" she muttered hoarsely. "So you count upon that
already, do you? Ah!. . . but do you know which of us shall die
first!" Then raising her voice with an effort she exclaimed--
"Stand forth, Thelma Guldmar! Let me see you closely--face to face!"
Errington said something in a low tone, and the bonde would have
again interfered, but Thelma shook her head, smiled and rose from
her seat at table.
"Anything to soothe her, poor soul!" she whispered, as she left
Errington's side and advanced towards Lovisa till she was within
reach of the old woman's hand. She looked like some grand white
angel, who had stepped down from a cathedral altar, as she stood
erect and stately with a gravely pitying expression in her lovely
eyes, confronting the sable-draped, withered, leering hag, who fixed
upon her a steady look of the most cruel and pitiless hatred.
"Daughter of Satan!" said Lovisa then, in intense piercing tones
that somehow carried with them a sense of awe and horror. "Creature,
in whose veins the fire of hell burns without ceasing,--my CURSE
upon you! My curse upon the beauty of your body--may it grow
loathsome in the sight of all men! May those who embrace you,
embrace misfortune and ruin!--may love betray you and forsake you!
May your heart be broken even as mine has been!--may your bridal bed
be left deserted!--may your children wither and pine from their hour
of birth! Sorrow track you to the grave!--may your death be
lingering and horrible! God be my witness and fulfill my words!"
And, raising her arms with wild gesture, she turned and left the
house. The spell of stupefied silence was broken with her
disappearance. Old Guldmar prepared to rush after her and force her
to retract her evil speech,--Errington was furious, and Britta cried
bitterly. The lazy Lorimer was excited and annoyed.
"Fetch her back," he said, "and I'll dance upon her!"
But Thelma stood where the old woman had left her--she smiled
faintly, but she was very pale. Errington approached her,--she
turned to him and stretched out her hands with a little appealing
gesture.
"My friend," she said softly, "do you think I deserve so many
curses? Is there something about me that is evil?"
What Errington would have answered is doubtful,--his heart beat
wildly--he longed to draw those little hands in his own, and cover
them with passionate kisses,--but he was intercepted by old Guldmar,
who caught his daughter in his arms and hugged her closely, his
silvery beard mingling with the gold of her rippling hair.
"Never fear a wicked tongue, my bird!" said the old man fondly.
"There is naught of harm that would touch thee either on earth or in
heaven,--and a foul-mouthed curse must roll off thy soul like water
from a dove's wing! Cheer thee, my darling--cheer thee! What! Thine
own creed teaches thee that the gentle Mother of Christ, with her
little white angels round her, watches over all innocent maids,--and
thinkest thou she will let an old woman's malice and envy blight thy
young days? No, no! THOU accursed?" And the bonde laughed loudly to
hide the tears that moistened his keen eyes. "Thou art the sweetest
blessing of my heart, even as thy mother was before thee! Come,
come! Raise thy pretty head--here are these merry lads growing long-
faced,--and Britta is weeping enough salt water to fill a bucket!
One of thy smiles will set us all right again,--ay, there now!"--as
she looked up and, meeting Philip's eloquent eyes, blushed, and
withdrew herself gently from her father's arms,--"Let us finish our
supper and think no more of yonder villainous old hag--she is crazy,
I believe, and knows not what she says half her time. Now, Britta,
cease thy grunting and sighing--'twill spoil thy face and will not
mend the hole in thy grandmother's brain!"
"Wicked, spiteful, ugly old thing!" sobbed Britta; "I'll never,
never, never forgive her!" Then, running to Thelma, she caught her
hand and kissed it affectionately. "Oh, my dear, my dear! To think
she should have cursed you, what dreadful, dreadful wickedness! Oh!"
and Britta looked volumes of wrath. "I could have beaten her black
and blue!"
Her vicious eagerness was almost comic--every one laughed, including
Thelma, though she pressed the hand of her little servant very
warmly.
"Oh fie!" said Lorimer seriously. "Little girls mustn't whip their
grandmothers; it's specially forbidden in the Prayer-book, isn't it,
Phil?"
"I'm sure I don't know!" replied Errington merrily. "I believe there
is something to the effect that a man may not marry his grandmother-
-perhaps that is what you mean?"
"Ah, no doubt!" murmured Lorimer languidly, as, with the others, he
resumed his seat at the supper-table. "I knew there was a special
mandate respecting one's particularly venerable relations, with a
view to self-guidance in case they should prove troublesome, like
Britta's good grand-mamma. What a frightfully picturesque mouthing
old lady she is!"
"She is la petroleuse of Norway!" exclaimed Duprez. "She would make
an admirable dancer in the Carmagnole!"
Macfarlane, who had preserved a discreet silence throughout the
whole scene, here looked up.
"She's just a screech-owl o' mistaken piety," he said. "She minds me
o' a glowerin' auld warlock of an aunt o' mine in Glasgie, wha sits
in her chair a' day wi' ae finger on the Bible. She says she's gaun
straight to heaven by special invitation o' the Lord, leavin' a' her
blood relations howlin' vainly after her from their roastin' fires
down below. Ma certes! she'll give ye a good rousin' curse if ye
like! She's cursed me ever since I can remember her,--cursed me in
and out from sunrise to sunset,--but I'm no the worse for't as yet,-
-an' it's dootful whether she's any the better."
"And yet Lovisa Elsland used to be as merry and lissom a lass as
ever stepped," said Guldmar musingly. "I remember her well when both
she and I were young. I was always on the sea at that time,--never
happy unless the waves tossed me and my vessel from one shore to
another. I suppose the restless spirit of my fathers was in me. I
was never contented unless I saw some new coast every six months or
so. Well! . . . Lovisa was always foremost among the girls of the
village who watched me leave the Fjord,--and however long or short a
time I might be absent, she was certain to be on the shore when my
ship came sailing home again. Many a joke I have cracked with her
and her companions--and she was a bonnie enough creature to look at
then, I tell you,--though now she is like a battered figure-head on
a wreck. Her marriage, spoiled her temper,--her husband was as dark
and sour a man as could be met with in all Norway, and when he and
his fishing-boat sank in a squall off the Lofoden Islands, I doubt
if she shed many tears for his loss. Her only daughter's husband
went down in the same storm,--and he but three months wedded,--and
the girl,--Britta's mother,--pined and pined, and even when her
child was born took no sort of comfort in it. She died four years
after Britta's birth--her death was hastened, so I have heard,
through old Lovisa's harsh treatment,--anyhow the little lass she
left behind her had no very easy time of it all alone with her
grandmother,--eh Britta?"
Britta looked up and shook her head emphatically.
"Then," went on Guldmar, "when my girl came back the last time from
France, Britta chanced to see her, and, strangely enough,"--here he
winked shrewdly--"took a fancy to her face,--odd, wasn't it?
However, nothing would suit her but that she must be Thelma's
handmaiden, and here she is. Now you know her history,--she would be
happy enough if her grandmother would let her alone; but the silly
old woman thinks the girl is under a spell, and that Thelma is the
witch that works it;"--and the old farmer laughed. "There's a grain
of truth in the notion too, but not in the way she has of looking at
it."
"All women are witches!" said Duprez. "Britta is a little witch
herself!"
Britta's rosy cheeks grew rosier at this, and she tossed her
chestnut curls with an air of saucy defiance that delighted the
Frenchman. He forgot his wounded cheek and his disfiguring bandages
in the contemplation of the little plump figure, cased in its close-
fitting scarlet bodice, and the tempting rosy lips that were in such
close proximity to his touch.
"If it were not for those red hands!" he thought. "Dieu! what a
charming child she would be! One would instantly kill the
grandmother and kiss the granddaughter!"
And he watched her with admiration as she busied herself about the
supper-table, attending to every one with diligence and care, but
reserving her special services for Thelma, whom she waited on with a
mingled tenderness, and reverence, that were both touching and
pretty to see.
The conversation now became general, and nothing further occurred to
disturb the harmony and hilarity of the party--only Errington seemed
somewhat abstracted, and answered many questions that were put to
him at haphazard, without knowing, or possibly caring, whether his
replies were intelligible or incoherent. His thoughts were dreamlike
and brilliant with fairy sunshine. He understood at last what poets
meant by their melodious musings, woven into golden threads of song-
-he seemed to have grasped some hitherto unguessed secret of his
being--a secret that filled him with as much strange pain as
pleasure. He felt as though he were endowed with a thousand senses,-
-each one keenly alive and sensitive to the smallest touch,--and
there was a pulsation in his blood that was new and beyond his
control,--a something that beat wildly in his heart at the sound of
Thelma's voice, or the passing flutter of her white garments near
him. Of what use to disguise it from himself any longer? He loved
her! The terrible, beautiful tempest of love had broken over his
life at last; there was no escape from its thunderous passion and
dazzling lightning glory.
He drew a sharp quick breath--the hum of the gay voices around him
was more meaningless to his ears than the sound of the sea breaking
on the beach below. He glanced at the girl--the fair and innocent
creature who had, in his imagination, risen to a throne of imperial
height, from whence she could bestow on him death or salvation. How
calm she seemed! She was listening with courteous patience to a long
story of Macfarlane's whose Scotch accent rendered it difficult for
her to understand. She was pale, Philip thought, and her eyes were
heavy; but she smiled now and then,--such a smile! Even so sweetly
might the "kiss-worthy" lips of the Greek Aphrodite part, could that
eloquent and matchless marble for once breathe into life. He looked
at her with a sort of fear. Her hands held his fate. What if she
could not love him? What if he must lose her utterly? This idea
overpowered him; his brain whirled, and he suddenly pushed away his
untasted glass of wine, and rose abruptly from the table, heedless
of the surprise his action excited.
"Hullo, Phil, where are you off to?" cried Lorimer. "Wait for me!"
"Tired of our company, my lad?" said Guldmar kindly, "You've had a
long day of it,--and what with the climbing and the strong air, no
doubt you'll be glad to turn in."
"Upon my life, sir," answered Errington, with some confusion, "I
don't know why I got up just now! I was thinking,--I'm rather a
dreamy sort of fellow sometimes, and--"
"He was asleep, and doesn't want to own it!" interrupted Lorimer
sententiously. "You will excuse him; he means well! He looks rather
seedy. I think, Mr. Guldmar, we'll be off to the yacht. By the way,
you're coming with us to-morrow, aren't you?"
"Oh yes," said Thelma. "We will sail with you round by Soroe,--it is
weird and dark and grand; but I think it is beautiful. And there are
many stories of the elves and berg-folk, who are said to dwell there
among the deep ravines. Have you heard about the berg-folk?" she
continued, addressing herself to Errington, unaware of the effort he
was making to appear cool and composed in her presence. "No? Then I
must tell you to-morrow."
They all walked out of the house into the porch, and while her
father was interchanging farewells with the others, she looked at
Sir Philip's grave face with some solicitude.
"I am afraid you are very tired, my friend?" she asked softly, "or
your head aches,--and you suffer?"
He caught her hands swiftly and raised them to his lips.
"Would you care much,--would you care at all, if I suffered?" he
murmured in a low tone.
Then before she could speak or move, he let go her hands again, and
turned with his usual easy courtesy to Guldmar. "Then we may expect
you without fail to-morrow, sir! Good night!"
"Good night, my lad!"
And with many hearty salutations the young men took their departure,
raising their hats to Thelma as they turned down the winding path to
the shore. She remained standing near her father,--and, when the
sound of their footsteps had died away, she drew closer still and
laid her head against his breast.
"Cold, my bird?" queried the old man. "Why, thou art shivering,
child!--and yet the sunshine is as warm as wine. What ails thee?"
"Nothing, father!" And she raised her eyes, glowing and brilliant as
stars. "Tell me,--do you think often of my mother now!"
"Often!" And Guldmar's fine resolute face grew sad and tender. "She
is never absent from my mind! I see her night and day, ay! I can
feel her soft arms clinging round my neck,--why dost thou ask so
strange a question, little one? Is it possible to forget what has
been once loved?"
Thelma was silent for many minutes. Then she kissed her father and
said "good night." He held her by the hand and looked at her with a
sort of vague anxiety.
"Art thou well, my child?" he asked. "This little hand burns like
fire,--and thine eyes are too bright, surely, for sleep to visit
them? Art sure that nothing ails thee?"
"Sure, quite sure," answered the girl with a strange, dreamy smile.
"I am quite well,--and happy!"
And she turned to enter the house.
"Stay!" called the father. "Promise me thou wilt think no more of
Lovisa!"
"I had nearly forgotten her," she responded. "Poor thing! She cursed
me because she is so miserable, I suppose--all alone and unloved; it
must be hard! Curses sometimes turn to blessings, father! Good
night!"
And she ascended the one flight of wooden stairs in the house to her
own bedroom--a little three-cornered place as clean and white as the
interior of a shell. Never once glancing at the small mirror that
seemed to invite her charms to reflect themselves therein, she went
to the quaint latticed window and knelt down by it, folding her arms
on the sill while she looked far out to the Fjord. She could see the
English flag fluttering from the masts of the Eulalie; she could
almost hear the steady plash of the oars wielded by Errington and
his friends as they rowed themselves back to the yacht. Bright tears
filled her eyes, and brimmed over, falling warmly on her folded
hands.
"Would I care if you suffered?" she whispered. "Oh, my love!. . . my
love!"
Then, as if afraid lest the very winds should have heard her half-
breathed exclamation, she shut her window in haste, and a hot blush
crimsoned her cheeks.
Undressing quickly, she slipped into her little white bed and,
closing her eyes, fancied she slept, though her sleep was but a
waking dream of love in which all bright hopes reached their utmost
fulfillment, and yet were in some strange way crossed with shadows
which she had no power to disperse. And later on, when old Guldmar
slumbered soundly, and the golden mid-night sunshine lit up every
nook and gable of the farmhouse with its lustrous glory, making
Thelma's closed lattice sparkle like a carven jewel,--a desolate
figure lay prone on the grass beneath her window, with meagre pale
face, and wide-open wild blue eyes upturned to the fiery brilliancy
of the heavens. Sigurd had come home;--Sigurd was repentant,
sorrowful, ashamed,--and broken-hearted.
CHAPTER XIII.
"O Love! O Love! O Gateway of Delight!
Thou porch of peace, thou pageant of the prime
Of all God's creatures! I am here to climb
Thine upward steps, and daily and by night
To gaze beyond them and to search aright
The far-off splendor of thy track sublime."
ERIC MACKAY'S Love-letters of a Violinist.
On the following morning the heat was intense,--no breath of wind
stirred a ripple on the Fjord, and there was a heaviness in the
atmosphere which made the very brightness of the sky oppressive.
Such hot weather was unusual for that part of Norway, and according
to Valdemar Svensen, betokened some change. On board the Eulalie
everything was ready for the trip to Soroe,--steam was getting up
prior to departure,--and a group of red-capped sailors stood
prepared to weigh the anchor as soon as the signal was given.
Breakfast was over,--Macfarlane was in the saloon writing his
journal, which he kept with great exactitude, and Duprez, who, on
account of his wound, was considered something of an invalid, was
seated in a lounge chair on deck, delightedly turning over a bundle
of inflammatory French political journals received that morning.
Errington and Lorimer were pacing the deck arm in arm, keeping a
sharp look-out for the first glimpse of the returning boat which had
been sent off to fetch Thelma and her father. Errington looked vexed
and excited,--Lorimer bland and convincing.
"I can't help it, Phil!" he said. "It's no use fretting and fuming
at me. It was like Dyceworthy's impudence, of course,--but there's
no doubt he proposed to her,--and it's equally certain that she
rejected him. I thought I'd tell you you had a rival,--not in me, as
you seemed to think yesterday,--but in our holy fat friend."
"Rival! pshaw!" returned Errington, with an angry laugh. "He is not
worth kicking!"
"Possibly not! Still I have a presentiment that he's the sort of
fellow that won't take 'no' for an answer. He'll dodge that poor
girl and make her life miserable if he can, unless--"
"Unless what?" asked Philip quickly.
Lorimer stopped in his walk, and, leaning against the deck-railings,
looked his friend straight in the eyes.
"Unless you settle the matter," he said with a slight effort. "You
love her,--tell her so!"
Errington laid one hand earnestly on his shoulder.
"Ah, George, you don't understand!" he said in a low tone, while his
face was grave and full of trouble. "I used to think I was fairly
brave, but I find I am a positive coward. I dare not tell her! She--
Thelma--is not like other women. You may think me a fool,--I dare
say you do,--but I swear to you I am afraid to speak, because--
because, old boy,--if she were to refuse me,--if I knew there was no
hope--well, I don't want to be sentimental,--but my life would be
utterly empty and worthless,--so useless, that I doubt if I should
care to live it out to the bitter end!"
Lorimer heard him in silence,--a silence maintained partly out of
sympathy, and partly that he might keep his own feelings well under
control.
"But why persist in looking at the gloomy side of the picture?" he
said at last. "Suppose she loves you?"
"Suppose an angel flew down from Heaven!" replied Philip, with
rather a sad smile. "My dear fellow, who am I that I should flatter
myself so far? If she were one of those ordinary women to whom
marriage is the be-all and end-all of existence, it would be
different--but she is not. Her thoughts are like those of a child or
a poet,--why should I trouble them by the selfishness of my passion?
for all passion IS selfish, even at its best. Why should I venture
to break the calm friendship she may have for me, by telling her of
a love which might prove unwelcome!"
Lorimer looked at him with gentle amusement depicted in his face.
"Phil, you are less conceited than I thought you were," he said,
with a light laugh, "or else you are blind--blind as a bat, old man!
Take my advice,--don't lose any more time about it. Make the 'king's
daughter of Norroway' happy,. . . "and a brief sigh escaped him.
"You are the man to do it. I am surprised at your density; Sigurd,
the lunatic, has more perception. He sees which way the wind blows,-
-and that's why he's so desperately unhappy. He thinks--and thinks
rightly too--that he will lose his 'beautiful rose of the northern
forest,' as he calls her,--and that you are to be the robber. Hence
his dislike to you. Dear me!" and Lorimer lit a cigarette and puffed
at it complacently. "It seems to me that my wits are becoming
sharper as I grow older, and that yours, my dear boy,--pardon me!. .
. are getting somewhat blunted, otherwise you would certainly have
perceived--" he broke off abruptly.
"Well, go on!" exclaimed Philip eagerly, with flashing eyes.
"Perceived what?"
Lorimer laughed. "That the boat containing your Sun-empress is
coming along very rapidly, old fellow, and that you'd better make
haste to receive her!"
This was the fact, and Duprez had risen from his chair and was
waving his French newspaper energetically to the approaching
visitors. Errington hastened to the gangway with a brighter flush
than usual on his handsome face, and his heart beating with a new
sense of exhilaration and excitement. If Lorimer's hints had any
foundation of truth--if Thelma loved him ever so little--how wild a
dream it seemed!. . . why not risk his fate? He resolved to speak to
her that very day if opportunity favored him,--and, having thus
decided, felt quite masterful and heroic about it.
This feeling of proud and tender elation increased when Thelma
stepped on deck that morning and laid her hands in his. For, as he
greeted her and her father, he saw at a glance that she was slightly
changed. Some restless dream must have haunted her--or his hurried
words beneath the porch, when he parted from her the previous
evening, had startled her and troubled her mind. Her blue eyes were
no longer raised to his in absolute candor,--her voice was timid,
and she had lost something of her usual buoyant and graceful self-
possession. But she looked lovelier than ever with that air of shy
hesitation and appealing sweetness. Love had thrown his network of
light about her soul and body till, like Keats's "Madeleine,"
"She seemed a splendid angel newly drest
Save wings, for heaven!"
As soon as the Guldmars were on board, the anchor was weighed with
many a cheery and musical cry from the sailors; the wheel revolved
rapidly under Valdemar Svensen's firm hand,--and with a grand
outward sweeping curtsy to the majestic Fjord she left behind her,
the Eulalie steamed away, cutting a glittering line of white foam
through the smooth water as she went, and threading her way swiftly
among the clustering picturesque islands,--while the inhabitants of
every little farm and hamlet on the shores, stopped for a while in
their occupations to stare at the superb vessel, and to dreamily
envy the wealth of the English Herren who could afford to pass the
summer months in such luxury and idleness. Thelma seated herself at
once by Duprez, and seemed glad to divert attention from herself to
him.
"You are better, Monsieur Duprez, are you not?" she asked gently.
"We saw Sigurd this morning; he came home last night. He is very,
very sorry to have hurt you!"
"He need not apologize," said Duprez cheerfully. "I am delighted he
gave me this scar, otherwise I am confident he would have put out
the eye of Phil-eep. And that would have been a misfortune! For what
would the ladies in London say if le beau Errington returned to them
with one eye! Mon Dieu! they would all be en desespoir!"
Thelma looked up. Philip was standing at some little distance with
Olaf Guldmar and Lorimer, talking and laughing gaily. His cap was
slightly pushed off his forehead, and the sun shone on his thick
dark-chestnut curls; his features, warmly colored by the wind and
sea, were lit up with mirth, and his even white teeth sparkled in an
irresistible smile of fascinating good-humor. He was the beau-ideal
of the best type of Englishman, in the full tide of youth, health
and good spirits.
"I suppose he is a great favorite with all those beautiful ladies?"
she asked very quietly.
Something of gentle resignation in her tone struck the Frenchman's
sense of chivalry; had she been like any ordinary woman, bent on
conquest, he would have taken a mischievous delight in inventing a
long list of fair ones supposed to be deeply enamored of Errington's
good looks,--but this girl's innocent inquiring face inspired him
with quite a different sentiment.
"Mais certainement!" he said frankly and emphatically. "Phil-eep is
a favorite everywhere! Yet not more so with women than with men. I
love him extremely--he is a charming boy! Then you see, chere
Mademoiselle, he is rich,--very rich,--and there are so many pretty
girls who are very poor,--naturally they are enchanted with our
Errington--voyez-vous?"
"I do not understand," she said, with a puzzled brow. "It is not
possible that they should like him better because he is rich. He
would be the same man without money as with it--it makes no
difference!"
"Perhaps not to you," returned Duprez, with a smile; "but to many it
would make an immense difference! Chere Mademoiselle, it is a grand
thing to have plenty of money,--believe me!"
Thelma shrugged her shoulders. "Perhaps," she answered
indifferently. "But one cannot spend much on one's self, after all.
The nuns at Arles used to tell me that poverty was a virtue, and
that to be very rich was to be very miserable. They were poor,--all
those good women,--and they were always cheerful."
"The nuns! ah, mon Dieu!" cried Duprez. "The darlings know not the
taste of joy--they speak of what they cannot understand! How should
they know what it is to be happy or unhappy, when they bar their
great convent doors against the very name of love!"
She looked at him, and her color rose.
"You always talk of love" she said, half reproachfully, "as if it
were so common a thing! You know it is sacred--why will you speak as
if it were all a jest?"
A strange emotion of admiring tenderness stirred Pierre's heart--he
was very impulsive and impressionable.
"Forgive me!" he murmured penitently. Then he added suddenly, "You
should have lived ages ago, ma belle,--the world of to-day will not
suit you! You will be made very sorrowful in it, I assure you,--it
is not a place for good women!"
She laughed. "You are morose," she said. "That is not like you! No
one is good,--we all live to try and make ourselves better."
"What highly moral converse is going on here?" inquired Lorimer,
strolling leisurely up to them. "Are you giving Duprez a lecture,
Miss Guldmar? He needs it,--so do I. Please give me a scolding!"
And he folded his hands with an air of demure appeal.
A sunny smile danced in the girl's blue eyes. "Always you will be
foolish! "she said. "One can never know you because I am sure you
never show your real self to anybody. No,--I will not scold you, but
I should like to find you out!"
"To find me out!" echoed Lorimer. "Why, what do you mean?"
She nodded her bright head with much sagacity.
"Ah, I do observe you often! There is something you hide; it is like
when my father has tears in his eyes; he pretends to laugh, but the
tears are there all the time. Now I see in you--" she paused, and
her questioning eyes rested on his, seriously.
"This is interesting!" said Lorimer, lazily drawing a camp-stool
opposite to her, and seating himself thereon. "I had no idea I was a
human riddle. Can you read me, Miss Guldmar?"
"Yes," she answered slowly and meditatively. "Just a little. But I
will not say anything; no--except this--that you are not altogether
what you seem."
"Here, Phil!" called Lorimer, as he saw Errington approaching, arm
in arm with Olaf Guldmar, "come and admire this young lady's power
of perception. She declares I am not such a fool as I look!"
"Now," said Thelma, shaking her forefinger at him, "you know very
well that I did not put it in that way. But is it not true, Sir
Philip--" and she looked up for a moment, though her eyes drooped
again swiftly under his ardent gaze, "is it not true that many
people do hide their feelings, and pretend to be quite different to
what they are?"
"I should say it was a very common fault," replied Errington. "It is
a means of self-defense against the impertinent curiosity of
outsiders. But Lorimer is free from it,--he has nothing to hide. At
any rate, he has no secrets from me,--I'm sure of that!" And he
clapped his hand heartily on his friend's shoulder.
Lorimer flushed slightly, but made no remark, and at that moment
Macfarlane emerged from the saloon, where the writing of his journal
had till now detained him. In the general handshaking and
salutations which followed, the conversation took a different turn,
for which Lorimer was devoutly thankful. His face was a tell-tale
one,--and he was rather afraid of Philip's keen eyes. "I hope to
Heaven he'll speak to her to-day," he thought, vexedly. "I hate
being in suspense! My mind will be easier when I once know that he
has gained his point,--and that there's not the ghost of a chance
for any other fellow!"
Meanwhile the yacht skimmed along by the barren and rocky coast of
Seiland; the sun was dazzling; yet there was a mist in the air as
though the heavens were full of unshed tears. A bank of nearly
motionless clouds hung behind the dark, sharp peaks of the
Altenguard mountains, which now lay to the southward, as the vessel
pursued her course. There was no wind; the flag on the mast flapped
idly now and then with the motion of the yacht; and Thelma found
herself too warm with her pretty crimson hood,--she therefore
unfastened it and let the sunshine play on the uncovered gold of her
hair. They had a superb view of the jagged glacier of Jedke,--black
in some parts, and in others white with unmelted snow,--and seeming,
as it rose straight up against the sky, to be the majestic monument
of some giant Viking. Presently, at her earnest request, Errington
brought his portfolio of Norwegian sketches for Thelma to look at;
most of them were excellently well done, and elicited much
admiration from the bonde.
"It is what I have wondered at all my life," said he, "that skill of
the brush dipped in color. Pictures surprise me as much as poems.
Ah, men are marvellous creatures, when they are once brought to
understand that they ARE men,--not beasts! One will take a few words
and harmonize them into a song or a verse that clings to the world
for ever; another will mix a few paints and dab a brush in them, and
give you a picture that generation after generation shall flock to
see. It is what is called genius,--and genius is a sort of miracle.
Yet I think it is fostered by climate a good deal,--the further
north, the less inspiration. Warmth, color, and the lightness of
heart that a generally bright sky brings, enlarges the brain and
makes it capable of creative power."
"My dear sir," said Lorimer, "England does not possess these
climatic advantages, and yet Shakespeare was an Englishman."
"He must have travelled," returned Guldmar positively. "No one will
make me believe that the man never visited Italy. His Italian scenes
prove it,--they are full of the place and the people. The whole of
his works, full of such wonderful learning, and containing so many
types of different nations, show,--to MY mind, at least,--that
countries were his books of study. Why I, who am only a farmer and
proprietor of a bit of Norwegian land,--I have learned many a thing
from simply taking a glance at a new shore each year. That's the way
I used to amuse myself when I was young,--now I am old, the sea
tempts me less, and I am fonder of my arm-chair; yet I've seen a
good deal in my time--enough to provide me with memories for my
declining days. And it's a droll thing, too," he added, with a
laugh, "the further south you go, the more immoral and merry are the
people; the further north, the more virtuous and miserable. There's
a wrong balance somewhere,--but where, 'tis not easy to find out."
"Weel," said Macfarlane, "I can give ye a direct contradeection to
your theory. Scotland lies to the north, and ye'll not find a
grander harvest o' sinfu' souls anywhere between this an' the day o'
judgment. I'm a Scotchman, an' I'm just proud o' my country--I'd
back its men against a' the human race,--but I wadna say much for
the stabeelity o' its women. I wad just tak to my heels and run if I
saw a real, thumpin', red-cheeked, big-boned Scotch lassie makin' up
to me. There's nae bashfulness in they sort, and nae safety."
"I will go to Scotland!" said Duprez enthusiastically. "I feel that
those--what do you call them, lassies?--will charm, me!"
"Scotland I never saw," said Guldmar. "From all I have heard, it
seems to me 'twould be too much like Norway. After one's eyes have
rested long on these dark mountains and glaciers, one likes now and
then to see a fertile sunshiny stretch of country such as France, or
the plains of Lombardy. Of course there may be exceptions, but I
tell you climatic influences have a great deal to do with the state
of mind and morals. Now, take the example of that miserable old
Lovisa Elsland. She is the victim of religious mania--and religious
mania, together with superstition of the most foolish kind, is
common in Norway. It happens often during the long winters; the
people have not sufficient to occupy their minds; no clergyman--not
even Dyceworthy--can satisfy the height of their fanaticism. They
preach and pray and shriek and groan in their huts; some swear that
they have the spirit of prophecy,--others that they are possessed of
devils,--others imagine witchcraft, like Lovisa--and altogether
there is such a howling on the name of Christ, that I am glad to be
out of it,--for 'tis a sight to awaken the laughter and contempt of
a pagan such as I am!"
Thelma listened with a slight shadow of pain on her features.
"Father is not a pagan," she declared, turning to Lorimer. "How can
one be pagan if one believes that there is good in everything,--and
that nothing happens except for the best?"
"It sounds to me more Christian than pagan," averred Lorimer, with a
smile. "But it's no use appealing to ME on such matters, Miss
Guldmar. I am an advocate of the Law of Nothing. I remember a worthy
philosopher who,--when he was in his cups,--earnestly assured me it
was all right--'everything was nothing, and nothing was everything.'
'You are sure that is so?' I would say to him. 'My dear young
friend--HIC--I am positive! I have--HIC--worked out the problem
with--HIC--care!' And he would shake me by the hand warmly, with a
mild and moist smile, and would retire to bed walking sideways in
the most amiable manner. I'm certain his ideas were correct as well
as luminous."
They laughed, and then looking up saw that they were passing a
portion of the coast of Seiland which was more than usually
picturesque. Facing them was a great cavernous cleft in the rocks,
tinted with a curious violet hue intermingled with bronze,--and in
the strong sunlight these colors flashed with the brillancy of
jewels, reflecting themselves in the pale slate-colored sea. By
Errington's orders the yacht slackened speed, and glided along with
an almost noiseless motion,--and they were silent, listening to the
dash and drip of water that fell invisibly from the toppling crags
that frowned above, while the breathless heat and stillness of the
air added to the weird solemnity of the scene. They all rose from
their chairs and leaned on the deck-rails, looking, but uttering no
word.
"In one of these islands," said Thelma at last, very softly--"it was
either Seiland or Soroe--they once found the tomb of a great chief.
There was an inscription outside that warned all men to respect it,
but they laughed at the warning and opened the tomb. And they saw,
seated in a stone chair, a skeleton with a gold crown on its head
and a great carved seal in its hand, and at its feet there was a
stone casket. The casket was broken open, and it was full of gold
and jewels. Well, they took all the gold and jewels, and buried the
skeleton--and now,--do you know what happens? At midnight a number
of strange persons are seen searching on the shore and among the
rocks for the lost treasure, and it is said they often utter cries
of anger and despair. And those who robbed the tomb all died
suddenly."
"Served them right!" said Lorimer. "And now they are dead, I suppose
the wronged ghosts don't appear any more?"
"Oh yes, they do," said Guldmar very seriously. "If any sailor
passes at midnight, and sees them or hears their cries, he is
doomed."
"But DOES he see or hear them?" asked Errington, with a smile.
"Well, I don't know," returned Guldmar, with a grave shake of his
head. "I'm not superstitious myself, but I should be sorry to say
anything against the berg-folk. You see they MAY exist, and it's no
use offending them."
"And what do ye mean by the berg-folk?" inquired Macfarlane.
"They are supposed to be the souls of persons who died impenitent,"
said Thelma, "and they are doomed to wander, on the hills till the
day of judgment. It is a sort of purgatory."
Duprez shook his fingers emphatically in the air.
"Ah, bah!" he said; "what droll things remain still in the world!
Yes, in spite of liberty, equality, fraternity! You do not believe
in foolish legends, Mademoiselle? For example,--do you think you
will suffer purgatory?"
"Indeed yes!" she replied. "No one can be good enough to go straight
to heaven. There must be some little stop on the way in which to be
sorry for all the bad things one has done."
"'Tis the same idea as ours," said Guldmar. "We have two places of
punishment in the Norse faith; one, Nifleheim, which is a temporary
thing like the Catholic purgatory; the other Nastrond, which is the
counterpart of the Christian hell. Know you not the description of
Nifleheim in the Edda?--'tis terrible enough to satisfy all tastes.
'Hela, or Death rules over the Nine Worlds of Nifleheim. Her hall is
called Grief. Famine is her table, and her only servant is Delay.
Her gate is a precipice, her porch Faintness, her bed Leanness,--
Cursing and Howling are her tent. Her glance is dreadful and
terrifying,--and her lips are blue with the venom of Hatred.' These
words," he added," sound finer in Norwegian, but I have given the
meaning fairly."
"Ma certes!" said Macfarlane chuckling. "I'll tell my aunt in
Glasgie aboot it. This Nifleheim wad suit her pairfectly,--she wad
send a' her relations there wi' tourist tickets, not available for
the return journey!"
"It seems to me," observed Errington, "that the Nine Worlds of
Nifleheim have a resemblance to the different circles of Dante's
Purgatory."
"Exactly so," said Lorimer. "All religions seem to me to be more or
less the same,--the question I can never settle is,--which is the
right one?"
"Would you follow it if you knew?" asked Thelma, with a slight
smile. Lorimer laughed.
"Well, upon my life, I don't know!" he answered frankly, "I never
was a praying sort of fellow,--I don't seem to grasp the idea of it
somehow. But there's one thing I'm certain of,--I can't endure a
bird without song,--a flower without scent, or a WOMAN without
religion--she seems to me no woman at all."
"But ARE there any such women?" inquired the girl surprised.
"Yes, there are undoubtedly! Free-thinking, stump-orator, have-your-
rights sort of creatures. YOU don't know anything about them, Miss
Guldmar--be thankful! Now, Phil, how long is this vessel of yours
going to linger here?"
Thus reminded, Errington called to the pilot, and in a few minutes
the Eulalie resumed her usual speed, and bore swiftly on towards
Soroe. This island, dreary and dark in the distance, grew somewhat
more inviting in aspect on a nearer approach. Now and then a shaft
of sunlight fell on some glittering point of felspar or green patch
of verdure.--and Valdemar Svensen stated that he knew of a sandy
creek where, if the party chose, they could land and see a small
cave of exquisite beauty, literally hung all over with stalactites.
"I never heard of this cave," said Guldmar, fixing a keen eye on the
pilot. "Art thou a traveller's guide to all such places in Norway?"
Somewhat to Errington's surprise, Svensen changed color and appeared
confused; moreover, he removed his red cap altogether when he
answered the bonde, to whom he spoke deferentially in rapid
Norwegian. The old man laughed as he listened, and seemed satisfied;
then, turning away, he linked his arm through Philip's, and said,
"You must pardon him, my lad, that he spoke in your presence a
tongue unfamiliar to you. No offense was meant. He is of my creed,
but fears to make it known, lest he should lose all employment--
which is likely enough, seeing that so many of the people are
fanatics. Moreover, he is bound to me by an oath,--which in olden
days would have made him my serf,--but which leaves him free enough
just now,--with one exception."
"And that exception?" asked Errington with some interest.
"Is, that should I ever demand a certain service at his hands, he
dare not refuse it. Odd, isn't it? or so it seems to you," and
Guldmar pressed the young man's arm lightly and kindly; "but our
Norse oaths, are taken with great solemnity, and are as binding as
the obligation of death itself. However, I have not commanded
Valdemar's obedience yet, nor do I think I am likely to do so for
some time. He is a fine, faithful fellow,--though too much given to
dreams."
A gay chorus of laughter here broke from the little group seated on
deck, of which Thelma was the centre,--and Guldmar stopped in his
walk, with an attentive smile on his open, ruddy countenance.
"'Tis good for the heart to hear the merriment of young folks," he
said. "Think you not my girl's laugh is like the ripple of a lark's
song? just so clear and joyous?"
"Her voice is music itself!" declared Philip quickly and warmly.
"There is nothing she says, or does, or looks,--that is not
absolutely beautiful!"
Then, suddenly aware of his precipitation, he stopped abruptly. His
face flushed as Guldmar regarded him fixedly, with a musing and
doubtful air. But whatever the old man thought, he said nothing. He
merely held the young baronet's arm a little closer, and together
they joined the others,--though it was noticeable that during the
rest of the day the bonde was rather abstracted and serious,--and
that every now and then his eyes rested on his daughter's face with
an expression of tender yearning and melancholy.
It was about two hours after luncheon that the Eulalie approached
the creek spoken of by the pilot, and they were all fascinated by
the loveliness as well as by the fierce grandeur of the scene. The
rocks on that portion of Soroe appeared to have split violently
asunder to admit some great in-rushing passage of the sea, and were
piled up in toppling terraces to the height of more than two
thousand feet above the level of the water. Beneath these wild and
craggy fortresses of nature a shining stretch of beach had formed
itself, on which the fine white sand, mixed with crushed felspar,
sparkled like powdered silver. On the left-hand side of this beach
could be distinctly seen the round opening of the cavern to which
Valdemar Svensen directed their attention. They decided to visit it-
-the yacht was brought to a standstill, and the long-boat lowered.
They took no sailors with them, Errington and his companions rowing
four oars, while Thelma and her father occupied the stern. A landing
was easily effected, and they walked toward the cavern, treading on
thousands of beautiful little shells which strewed the sand beneath
their feet. There was a deep stillness everywhere--the island was so
desolate that it seemed as though the very seabirds refused to make
their homes in the black clefts of such steep and barren rocks.
At the entrance of the little cave Guldmar looked back to the sea.
"There's a storm coming!" he announced. "Those clouds we saw this
morning have sailed thither almost as quickly as ourselves!"
The sky had indeed grown darker, and little wrinkling waves
disturbed the surface of the water. But the sun as yet retained his
sovereignty, and there was no wind. By the pilot's advice, Errington
and his friends had provided themselves each with a pine torch, in
order to light up the cavern as soon as they found themselves within
it. The smoky crimson flare illuminated what seemed at a first
glance to be a miniature fairy palace studded thickly with clusters
of diamonds. Long pointed stalactites hung from the roof at almost
mathematically even distances from one another,--the walls glistened
with varying shades of pink and green and violet,--and in the very
midst of the cave was a still pool of water in which all the
fantastic forms and hues of the place mirrored themselves in
miniature. In one corner the stalactites had clustered into the
shape of a large chair overhung by a canopy, and Duprez perceiving
it, exclaimed--he listened, and seemed satisfied; then, turning
away, he linked his arm through Philip's, and said,
"You must pardon him, my lad, that he spoke in your presence a
tongue unfamiliar to you. No offense was meant. He is of my creed,
but fears to make it known, lest he should lose all employment--
which is likely enough, seeing that so many of the people are
fanatics. Moreover, he is bound to me by an oath,--which in olden
days would have made him my serf,--but which leaves him free enough
just now,--with one exception."
"And that exception?" asked Errington with some interest.
"Is, that should I ever demand a certain service at his hands, he
dare not refuse it. Odd, isn't it? or so it seems to you," and
Guldmar pressed the young man's arm lightly and kindly; "but our
Norse oaths, are taken with great solemnity, and are as binding as
the obligation of death it self. However, I have not commanded
Valdemar's obedience yet, nor do I think I am likely to do so for
some time. He is a fine, faithful fellow,--though too much given to
dreams."
A gay chorus of laughter here broke from the little group seated on
deck, of which Thelma was the centre,--and Guldmar stopped in his
walk, with an attentive smile on his open, ruddy countenance.
"'Tis good for the heart to hear the merriment of young folks," he
said. "Think you not my girl's laugh is like the ripple of a lark's
song? just so clear and joyous?"
"Her voice is music itself!" declared Philip quickly and warmly.
"There is nothing she says, or does, or looks,--that is not
absolutely beautiful!"
Then, suddenly aware of his precipitation, he stopped abruptly. His
face flushed as Guldmar regarded him fixedly, with a musing and
doubtful air. But whatever the old man thought, he said nothing. He
merely held the young baronet's arm a little closer, and together
they joined the others,--though it was noticeable that during the
rest of the day the bonde was rather abstracted and serious,--and
that every now and then his eyes rested on his daughter's face with
an expression of tender yearning and melancholy.
It was about two hours after luncheon that the Eulalie approached
the creek spoken of by the pilot, and they were all fascinated by
the loveliness as well as by the fierce out to the blessed sunshine
again--"maybe we can climb one of yon wild rocks and get a view
worth seeing."
"All right, sir!" said Lorimer, chivalrously resolving that now
Errington should have a chance. "Come on, Mac! Allons, marchons,--
Pierre! Mr. Guldmar exacts our obedience! Phil, you take care of the
queen!"
And skillfully pushing on Duprez and Macfarlane before him, he
followed Guldmar, who preceded them all,--thus leaving his friend in
a momentary comparative solitude with Thelma. The girl was a little
startled as she saw them thus taking their departure, and sprang up
from her stalactite throne in haste. Sir Philip had laid aside his
torch in order to assist her with both hands to descend the sloping
rocks; but her embarrassment at being left almost alone with him
made her nervous and uncertain of foot,--she was hurried and
agitated and anxious to overtake the others, and in trying to walk
quickly she slipped and nearly fell. In one second she was caught in
his arms and clasped passionately to his heart.
"Thelma! Thelma!" he whispered, "I love you, my darling--I love
you!"
She trembled in his strong embrace, and strove to release herself,
but he pressed her more closely to him, scarcely knowing that he did
so, but feeling that he held the world, life, time, happiness, and
salvation in this one fair creature. His brain was in a wild whirl--
the glitter of the stalactite cave turned to a gyrating wheel of
jewel-work, there was nothing any more--no universe, no existence--
nothing but love, love, love, beating strong hammer-strokes through
every fibre of his frame. He glanced up, and saw that the slowly
retreating forms of his friends had nearly reached the outer opening
of the cavern. Once there, they would look back and--
"Quick, Thelma!" and his warm breath touched her cheek. "My darling!
my love! if you are not angry,--kiss me! I shall understand."
She hesitated. To Philip that instant of hesitation seemed a cycle
of slow revolving years. Timidly she lifted her head. She was very
pale, and her breath came and went quickly. He gazed at her in
speechless suspense,--and saw as in a vision the pure radiance of
her face and star-like eyes shining more and more closely upon him.
Then came a touch,--soft and sweet as a roseleaf pressed against his
lips,--and for one mad moment he remembered nothing,--he was caught
up like Homer's Paris in a cloud of gold, and knew not which was
earth or heaven.
"You love me, Thelma?" he murmured in a sort of wondering rapture.
"I cannot believe it, sweet! Tell me--you love me?"
She looked up. A new, unspeakable glory flushed her face, and her
eyes glowed with the mute eloquence of awakening passion.
"Love you?" she said in a voice so low and sweet that it might have
been the whisper of a passing fairy. "Ah, yes! more than my life!"
CHAPTER XIV.
"Sweet hands, sweet hair, sweet cheeks, sweet eyes, sweet mouth;
Each singly wooed and won!"
Dante Rosetti.
"Hillo, ho!" shouted Guldmar vociferously, peering back into the
shadows of the cavern from whence the figures of his daughter and
Errington were seen presently emerging. "Why, what kept you so long,
my lad? We thought you were close behind us. Where's your torch?"
"It went out," replied Philip promptly, as he assisted Thelma with
grave and ceremonious politeness to cross over some rough stones at
the entrance, "and we had some trouble to find our way."
"Ye might hae called to us i' the way o' friendship," observed
Macfarlane somewhat suspiciously, "and we wad hae lighted ye
through."
"Oh, it was no matter!" said Thelma, with a charming smile. "Sir
Philip seemed well to know the way, and it was not so very dark!"
Lorimer glanced at her and read plainly all that was written in her
happy face. His heart sank a little; but, noticing that the old
bonde was studying his daughter with a slight air of vexation and
surprise, he loyally determined to divert the general attention from
her bright blushes and too brilliantly sparkling eyes.
"Well!. . . here you both are, at any rate," he said lightly, "and I
should strongly advise that we attempt no more exploration of the
island of Soroe to-day. Look at the sky; and just now there was a
clap of thunder."
"Thunder?" exclaimed Errington. "I never heard it!"
"I dare say not!" said Lorimer, with a quiet smile. "Still WE heard
it pretty distinctly, and I think we'd better make for the yacht."
"All right!" and Sir Philip sprang gaily into the longboat to
arrange the cushions in the stern for Thelma. Never had he looked
handsomer or more high-spirited, and his elation was noticed by all
his companions.
"Something joyous has happened to our Phil-eep," said Duprez in a
half-whisper. "He is in the air!"
"And something in the ither way has happened vera suddenly to Mr.
Guldmar," returned Macfarlane. "Th' auld man is in the dumps."
The bonde's face in truth looked sad and somewhat stern. He scarcely
spoke at all as he took his place in the boat beside his daughter,--
once he raised her little hand, looked at it, and kissed it fondly.
They were all soon on their way back to the Eulalie over a sea that
had grown rough and white-crested during their visit to the
stalactite cave. Clouds had gathered thickly over the sky, and
though a few shafts of sunlight still forced a passage through them,
the threatening darkness spread with steady persistency, especially
to the northern side of the horizon, where Storm hovered in the
shape of a black wing edged with coppery crimson. As they reached
the yacht a silver glare of lightning sprang forth from beneath this
sable pinion, and a few large drops of rain began to fall. Errington
hurried Thelma on deck and down into the saloon. His friends, with
Guldmar, followed,--and the vessel was soon plunging through waves
of no small height on her way back to the Altenfjord. A loud peal of
thunder like a salvo of artillery accompanied their departure from
Soroe, and Thelma shivered a little as she heard it.
"You are nervous, Mademoiselle Guldmar?" asked Duprez, noticing her
tremor.
"Oh no," she answered brightly. "Nervous? That is to be afraid,--I
am not afraid of a storm, but I do not like it. It is a cruel,
fierce thing; and I should have wished to-day to be all sunshine--
all gladness!" She paused, and her eyes grew soft and humid.
"Then you have been happy to-day?" said Lorimer in a low and very
gentle voice.
She smiled up at him from the depths of the velvet lounge in which
Errington had placed her.
"Happy? I do not think I have ever been so happy before!" She
paused, and a bright blush crimsoned her cheeks; then, seeing the
piano open, she said suddenly "Shall I sing to you? or perhaps you
are all tired, and would rather rest?"
"Music IS rest," said Lorimer rather dreamily, watching her as she
rose from her seat,--a tall, supple, lithe figure,--and moved
towards the instrument. "And YOUR voice. Miss Guldmar, would soothe
the most weary soul that ever dwelt in clay."
She glanced round at him, surprised at his sad tone.
"Ah, you are very, very tired, Mr. Lorimer, I am sure! I will sing
you a Norse cradle-song to make you go to sleep. You will not
understand the words though--will that matter?"
"Not in the least!" answered Lorimer, with a smile. "The London
girls sing in German, Italian, Spanish, and English. Nobody knows
what they are saying: they scarcely know themselves--but it's all
right, and quite fashionable."
Thelma laughed gaily. "How funny!" she exclaimed. "It is to amuse
people, I suppose! Well,--now listen." And, playing a soft prelude,
her rich contralto rippled forth in a tender, passionate, melancholy
melody,--so sweet and heart-penetrating that the practical
Macfarlane sat as one in a dream,--Duprez forgot to finish making
the cigarette he was daintily manipulating between his fingers, and
Lorimer had much ado to keep tears from his eyes. From one song she
glided to another and yet another; her soul seemed possessed by the
very spirit of music. Meanwhile Errington, in obedience to an
imperative sign from old Guldmar, left the saloon, with him,--once
outside the doors the bonde said in a somewhat agitated voice--
"I desire to speak to you, Sir Philip, alone and undisturbed, if
such a thing be possible."
"By all means!" answered Philip. "Come to my 'den' on deck. We shall
be quite solitary there."
He led the way, and Olaf Guldmar followed him in silence.
It was raining fiercely, and the waves, green towers of strength,
broke every now and then over the sides of the yacht with a hissing
shower of salt white spray. The thunder rolled along the sky in
angry reverberating echoes,--frequent flashes of lightning leaped
out like swords drawn from dark scabbards,--yet towards the south
the sky was clearing, and arrowy beams of pale gold fell from the
hidden sun, with a soothing and soft lustre on the breast of the
troubled water.
Guldmar looked about him, and heaved a deep sigh of refreshment. His
eyes rested lovingly on the tumbling billows,--he bared his white
head to the wind and rain.
"This is the life, the blood, the heart of a man!" he said, while a
sort of fierce delight shone in his keen eyes. "To battle with the
tempest,--to laugh at the wrath of waters,--to set one's face
against the wild wind,--to sport with the elements as though they
were children or serfs,--this is the joy of manhood! A joy," he
added slowly, "that few so-called men of to-day can ever feel."
Errington smiled gravely. "Perhaps you are right, sir," he said;
"but perhaps, at the same time, you forget that life has grown very
bitter to all of us during the last hundred years or so. Maybe the
world is getting old and used up, maybe the fault is in ourselves,--
but it is certain that none of us nowadays are particularly happy,
except at rare intervals when--"
At that moment, in a lull of the storm, Thelma's voice pealed
upwards from the saloon. She was singing a French song, and the
refrain rang out clearly--
"Ah! le doux son d'un baiser tendre!"
Errington paused abruptly in his speech, and turning towards a
little closed and covered place on deck which was half cabin, half
smoking-room, and which he kept as his own private sanctum, he
unlocked it, saying--
"Will you come in here, sir? It's not very spacious, but I think
it's just the place for a chat,--especially a private one."
Guldmar entered, but did not sit down,--Errington shut the door
against the rain and beating spray and also remained standing. After
a pause, during which the bonde seemed struggling with some inward
emotion, he said resolutely--
"Sir Philip, you are a young man, and I am an old one. I would not
willingly offend you--for I like you--yes!" And the old man looked
up frankly: "I like you enough to respect you--which is more than I
can say to many men I have known! But I have a weight on my heart
that must be lifted. You and my child have been much together for
many days,--and I was an old fool not to have foreseen the influence
your companionship might have upon her. I may be mistaken in the
idea that has taken hold of me--some wild words let fall by the poor
boy Sigurd this morning, when he entreated my pardon for his
misconduct of yesterday, have perhaps misled my judgment,--but--by
the gods! I cannot put it into suitable words! I--"
"You think I love your daughter?" said Sir Philip quietly. "You are
not mistaken, Sir! I love her with my whole heart and soul! I want
you to give her to me as my wife."
A change passed over the old farmer's face. He grew deathly pale,
and put out one hand feebly as though to seek some support.
Errington caught it in his own and pressed it hard.
"Surely you are not surprised, Sir?" he added with eagerness. "How
can I help loving her! She is the best and loveliest girl I have
ever seen! Believe me,--I would make her happy!"
"And have you thought, young man," returned Guldmar slowly, "that
you would make me desolate?--or, thinking it, have you cared?"
There was an infinite pathos in his voice, and Errington was touched
and silent. He found no answer to this reproach. Guldmar sat down,
leaning his head on his hand.
"Let me think a little," he said. "My mind is confused a bit. I was
not prepared for--"
He paused and seemed lost in sorrowful meditation. By-and-by he
looked up, and meeting Errington's anxious gaze, he broke into a
short laugh.
"Don't mind me, my lad!" he said sturdily. "'Tis a blow, you see! I
had not thought so far as this. I'll tell you the plain truth, and
you must forgive me for wronging you. I know what young blood is,
all the world over. A fair face fires it--and impulse makes it
gallop beyond control. 'Twas so with me when I was your age,--though
no woman, I hope, was ever the worse for my harmless lovemaking. But
Thelma is different from most women,--she has a strange nature,--
moreover, she has a heart and a memory,--if she once learns the
meaning of love, she will never unlearn the lesson. Now, I thought,
that like most young men of your type, you might, without meaning
any actual evil, trifle with her--play with her feelings--"
"I understand, Sir," said Philip coolly, without displaying any
offense. "To put it plainly, in spite of your liking for me, you
thought me a snob."
This time the old man laughed heartily and unforcedly.
"Dear, dear!" he exclaimed. "You are what is termed in your own
land, a peppery customer! Never mind--I like it. Why, my lad, the
men of to-day think it fair sport to trifle with a pretty woman now
and then--"
"Pardon!" interrupted Philip curtly. "I must defend my sex. We MAY
occasionally trifle with those women who show us that they wish to
be trifled with--but never with those who, like your daughter, win
every man's respect and reverence."
Guldmar rose and grasped his hand fervently.
"By all the gods, I believe you are a true gentleman!" he said. "I
ask your pardon if I have offended you by so much as a thought. But
now"--and his face grew very serious--"we must talk this matter
over. I will not speak of the suddenness of your love for my child,
because I know, from my own past experience, that love is a rapid
impulse--a flame ignited in a moment. Yes, I know that well!" He
paused, and his voice trembled a little, but he soon steadied it and
went on--"I think, however, my lad, that you have been a little
hasty,--for instance, have you thought what your English friends and
relatives will say to your marrying a farmer's daughter who,--though
she has the blood of kings in her veins,--is, nevertheless, as this
present world would judge, beneath you in social standing? I say,
have you thought of this?"
Philip smiled proudly. "Certainly, sir, I have NOT thought of any
such trifle as the opinion of society,--if that is what you mean. I
have no relatives to please or displease--no friends in the truest
sense of the world except Lorimer. I have a long list of
acquaintances undoubtedly,--infinite bores, most of them,--and
whether they approve or disapprove of my actions is to me a matter
of profound indifference."
"See you!" said the bonde firmly and earnestly. "It would be an ill
day for me if I gave my little one to a husband who might--mind! I
only say MIGHT,--in the course of years, regret having married her."
"Regret!" cried Philip excitedly, then quieting down, he said
gently. "My good friend, I do not think you understand me. You talk
as if Thelma were beneath ME. Good God! It is _I_ who am infinitely
beneath HER! I am utterly unworthy of her in every way, I assure
you--and I tell you so frankly. I have led a useless life, and a
more or less selfish one. I have principally sought to amuse and
interest myself all through it. I've had my vices to, and have them
still. Beside Thelma's innocent white soul, mine looks villainous!
But I can honestly say I never knew what love was till I saw her,--
and now--well! I would give my life away gladly to save her from
even a small sorrow."
"I believe you--I thoroughly believe you!" said Guldmar. "I see you
love the child. The gods forbid that I should stand in the way of
her happiness! I am getting old, and 'twas often a sore point with
me to know what would become of my darling when I was gone,--for she
is fair to look upon, and there are many human wolves ready to
devour such lambs. Still, my lad, you must learn all. Do you know
what is said of me in Bosekop?"
Errington smiled and nodded in the affirmative.
"You do?" exclaimed the old man, somewhat surprised. "You know they
say I killed my wife--my wife! the creature before whom my soul
knelt in worship night and day--whose bright head was the sunlight
of life! Let me tell you of her, Sir Philip--'tis a simple story.
She was the child of my dearest friend, and many years younger than
myself. This friend of mine, Erik Erlandsen, was the captain of a
stout Norwegian barque, running constantly between these wild waters
and the coast of France. He fell in love with, and married a blue-
eyed beauty from the Sogne Fjord, he carried her secretly away from
her parents, who would not consent to the marriage. She was a timid
creature, in spite of her queenly ways, and, for fear of her
parents, she would never land again on the shores of Norway. She
grew to love France,--and Erik often left her there in some safe
shelter when he was was bound on some extra long and stormy passage.
She took to the Catholic creed, too, in France, and learned to speak
the French tongue, so Erik said, as though it were her own. At the
time of the expected birth of her child, her husband had taken her
far inland to Arles, and there business compelled him to leave her
for some days. When he returned she was dead!--laid out for burial,
with flowers and tapers round her. He fell prone on her body
insensible,--and not for many hours did the people of the place dare
to tell him that he was the father of a living child--a girl, with
the great blue eyes and white skin of her mother. He would scarce
look at it--but at last, when roused a bit, he carried the little
thing in his arms to the great Convent at Arles, and, giving the
nuns money, he bade them take it and bring it up as they would, only
giving it the name of Thelma. Then poor Erlandsen came home--he
sought me out:--he said, 'Olaf, I feel that I am going on my last
voyage. Promise you will see to my child--guard her, if you can,
from an evil fate! For me there is no future!' I promised, and
strove to cheer him--but he spoke truly--his ship went down in a
storm on the Bay of Biscay, and all on board were lost. Then it was
that I commenced my journeyings to and fro, to see the little maiden
that was growing up in the Convent at Arles. I watched her for
sixteen years--and when she reached her seventeenth birthday, I
married her and brought her to Norway."
"And she was Thelma's mother?" said Errington with interest.
"She was Thelma's mother," returned the bonde, "and she was more
beautiful than even Thelma is now. Her education had been almost
entirely French, but, as a child, she had learnt that I generally
spoke English, and as there happened to be an English nun in the
Convent, she studied that language and mastered it for the love of
me--yes!" he repeated with musing tenderness, "all for the love of
me,--for she loved me, Sir Philip--ay! as passionately as I loved
her, and that is saying a great deal! We lived a solitary happy
life,--but we did not mix with our neighbors--our creeds were
different,--our ways apart from theirs. We had some time of perfect
happiness together. Three years passed before our child was born,
and then"--the bonde paused awhile, and again continued,--"then my
wife's health grew frail and uncertain. She liked to be in the fresh
air, and was fond of wandering about the hills with her little one
in her arms. One day--shall I ever forget it! when Thelma was about
two and a half years old, I missed them both, and went out to search
for them, fearing my wife had lost her way, and knowing that our
child could not toddle far without fatigue. I found them"--the bonde
shuddered-" but how? My wife had slipped and fallen through a chasm
in the rocks,--high enough, indeed, to have killed her,--she was
alive, but injured for life. She lay there white and motionless--
little Thelma meanwhile sat smilingly on the edge of the rock,
assuring me that her mother had gone to sleep 'down there.' Well!"
and Guldmar brushed the back of his hand across his eyes, "to make a
long story short, I carried my darling home in my arms a wreck--she
lingered for ten years of patient suffering, ten long years! She
could only move about on crutches,--the beauty of her figure was
gone--but the beauty of her face grew more perfect every day! Never
again was she seen on the hills,--and so to the silly folks of
Bosekop she seemed to have disappeared. Indeed, I kept her very
existence a secret,--I could not endure that others should hear of
the destruction of all that marvellous grace and queenly loveliness!
She lived long enough to see her daughter blossom into girlhood,--
then,--she died. I could not bear to have her laid in the damp,
wormy earth--you know in our creed earth-burial is not practiced,--
so I laid her tenderly away in a king's tomb of antiquity,--a tomb
known only to myself and one who assisted me to lay her in her last
resting-place. There she sleeps right royally,--and now is your mind
relieved, my lad? For the reports of the Bosekop folk must certainly
have awakened some suspicions in your mind?"
"Your story has interested me deeply, sir," said Errington; "but I
assure you I never had any suspicions of you at all. I always
disregard gossip--it is generally scandalous, and seldom true.
Besides, I took your face on trust, as you took mine."
"Then," declared Guldmar, with a smile, "I have nothing more to
say,--except"--and he stretched out both hands--"may the great gods
prosper your wooing! You offer a fairer fate to Thelma than I had
dreamed of for her--but I know not what the child herself may say--"
Philip interrupted him. His eyes flashed, and he smiled.
"She loves me!" he said simply. Guldmar looked at him, laughed a
little, and sighed.
"She loves thee?" he said, relapsing into the THEE and THOU he was
wont to use with his daughter. "Thou hast lost no time, my lad? When
didst thou find that out?"
"To-day!" returned Philip, with that same triumphant smile playing
about his lips. "She told me so--yet even now I cannot believe it!"
"Ah, well, thou mayest believe it truly," said Guldmar, "for Thelma
says nothing that she does not mean! The child has never stooped to
even the smallest falsehood."
Errington seemed lost in a happy dream. Suddenly he roused himself
and took Guldmar by the arm.
"Come," he said, "let us go to her! She will wonder why we are so
long absent. See! the storm has cleared--the sun is shining. It is
understood? You will give her to me?"
"Foolish lad!" said Guldmar gently. "What have I to do with it? She
has given herself to thee! Love has overwhelmed both of your hearts,
and before the strong sweep of such an ocean what can an old man's
life avail? Nothing--less than nothing! Besides, I SHOULD be happy--
if I have regrets,--if I feel the tooth of sorrow biting at my
heart--'tis naught but selfishness. 'Tis my own dread of parting
with her"--his voice trembled, and his fine face quivered with
suppressed emotion.
Errington pressed his arm. "Our house shall be yours, sir!" he said
eagerly. "Why not leave this place and come with us?"
Guldmar shook his head. "Leave Norway!" he said--"leave the land of
my fathers--turn my back on these mountains and fjords and glaziers?
Never! No, no, my lad, you're kind-hearted and generous as becomes
you, and I thank you from my heart. But 'twould be impossible! I
should be like a caged eagle, breaking my wings against the bars of
English conventionalities. Besides, young birds must make their nest
without interference from the old ones."
He stepped out on deck as Errington opened the little cabin door,
and his features kindled with enthusiasm as he looked on the stretch
of dark mountain scenery around him, illumined by the brilliant
beams of the sun that shone out now in full splendor, as though in
glorious defiance of the retreating storm, which had gradually
rolled away in clouds that were tumbling one over the other at the
extreme edge of the northern horizon, like vanquished armies taking
to hasty flight.
"Could I stand the orderly tameness of your green England, think
you, after this?" he exclaimed, with a comprehensive gesture of his
hand. "No, no! When death comes--and 'twill not be long coming--let
it find me with my face turned to the mountains, and nothing but
their kingly crests between me and the blessed sky! Come, my lad!"
and he relapsed into his ordinary tone. "If thou art like me when I
was thy age, every minute passed away from thy love seems an
eternity! Let us go to her--we had best wait till the decks are dry
before we assemble up here again."
They descended at once into the saloon, where they found Thelma
being initiated into the mysteries of chess by Duprez, while
Macfarlane and Lorimer looked idly on. She glanced up from the board
as her father and Errington entered, and smiled at them both with a
slightly heightened color.
"This is such a wonderful game, father!" she said. "And I am so
stupid, I cannot understand it! So Monsieur Pierre is trying to make
me remember the moves."
"Nothing is easier!" declared Duprez. "I was showing you how the
bishop goes, so--cross-ways," and he illustrated his lesson. "He is
a dignitary of the Church, you perceive Bien! it follows that he
cannot go in a straight line,--if you observe them well, you will
see that all the religious gentlemen play at cross purposes. You are
very quick, Mademoiselle Guldmar,--you have perfectly comprehended
the move of the Castle, and the pretty plunge of the knight. Now, as
I told you, the queen can do anything--all the pieces shiver in
their shoes before her!"
"Why?" she asked, feeling a little embarrassed, as Sir Philip came
and sat beside her, looking at her with an undoubtedly composed air
of absolute proprietorship.
"Why? Enfin, the reason is simple!" answered Pierre. "The queen is a
woman,--everything must give way to her wish!"
"And the king?" she inquired.
"Ah! Le pauvre Roi! He can do very little--almost nothing! He can
only move one step at a time, and that with much labor and
hesitation--he is the wooden image of Louis XVI!"
"Then," said the girl quickly, "the object of the game is to protect
a king who is not worth protecting!"
Duprez laughed. "Exactly! And thus, in this charming game, you have
the history of many nations! Mademoiselle Guldmar has put the matter
excellently! Chess is for those who intend to form republics. All
the worry and calculation--all the moves of pawns, bishops, knights,
castles, and queens,--all to shelter the throne which is not worth
protecting! Excellent! Mademoiselle, you are not in favor of
monarchies!"
"I do not know," said Thelma; "I have never thought of such things.
But kings should be great men,--wise and powerful, better and braver
than all their subjects, should they not?"
"Undoubtedly!" remarked Lorimer; "but, it's a curious thing, they
seldom are. Now, our queen, God bless her--"
"Hear, hear!" interrupted Errington, laughing good-humoredly. "I
won't have have a word said against the dear old lady, Lorimer!
Granted that she hates London, and sees no fun in being stared at by
vulgar crowds, I think she's quite right,--and I sympathize heartily
with her liking for a cup of tea in peace and quiet with some old
Scotch body who doesn't care whether she's a queen or a
washerwoman."
"I think," said Macfarlane slowly, "that royalty has its duties, ye
see, an' though I canna say I object to Her Majesty's homely way o'
behavin', still there are a few matters that wad be the better for
her pairsonal attention."
"Oh bother!" said Errington gaily. "Look at that victim of the
nation, the Prince of Wales! The poor fellow hasn't a moment's peace
of his life,--what with laying foundation stones, opening museums,
inspecting this and visiting that, he is like a costermonger's
donkey, that must gee-up or gee-wo as his master, the people bid. If
he smiles at a woman, it is instantly reported that he's in love
with her,--if he frankly says he considers her pretty, there's no
end to the scandal. Poor royal wretch! I pity him from my heart! The
unwashed, beer-drinking, gin-swilling classes, who clamor for
shortened hours of labor, and want work to be expressly invented for
their benefit, don't suffer a bit more than Albert Edward, who is
supposed to be rolling idly in the very lap of luxury, and who can
hardly call his soul his own. Why, the man can't eat a mutton-chop
without there being a paragraph in the papers headed, 'Diet of the
Prince of Wales.' His life is made an infinite bore to him, I'm
positive!"
Guldmar looked thoughtful. "I know little about kings or princes,"
he said, "but it seems to me, from what I DO know, that they have
but small power. They are mere puppets. In olden times they
possessed supremacy, but now--"
"I will tell you," interrupted Duprez excitedly, "who it is that
rules the people in these times,--it is the PEN--MADAME LA PLUME. A
little black, sharp, scratching devil she is,--empress of all
nations! No crown but a point,--no royal robe save ink! It is
certain that as long as Madame la Plume gambols freely over her
realms of paper, so long must kings and autocrats shake in their
shoes and be uncertain of their thrones. Mon Dieu! if I had but the
gift of writing, I would conquer the world!"
"There are an immense number of people writing just now, Pierre,"
remarked Lorimer, with a smile, "yet they don't do much in the
conquering line."
"Because they are afraid!" said Duprez. "Because they have not the
courage of their opinions! Because they dare not tell the truth!"
"Upon my life, I believe you are right!" said Errington. "If there
were a man bold enough to declare truths and denounce lies, I should
imagine it quite possible that he might conquer the world,--or, at
any rate, make it afraid of him."
"But is the world so full of lies?" asked Thelma timidly.
Lorimer looked at her gravely. "I fear so, Miss Guldmar! I think it
has a tolerable harvest of them every year,--a harvest, too, that
never fails! But I say, Phil! Look at the sun shining! Let us go up
on deck,--we shall soon be getting back to the Altenfjord."
They all rose, threw on their caps, and left the saloon with the
exception of Errington, who lingered behind, watching his
opportunity, and as Thelma followed her father he called her back
softly--
"Thelma!"
She hesitated, and then turned towards him,--her father saw her
movement, smiled at her, and nodded kindly, as he passed through the
saloon doors and disappeared. With a beating heart, she sprang
quickly to her lover's side, and as he caught her in his arms, she
whispered--
"You have told him?"
"Your father? Yes, my darling!" murmured Philip, as he kissed her
sweet, upturned lips. "Be quite happy--he knows everything. Come,
Thelma! tell me again you love me--I have not heard you say it
properly yet!"
She smiled dreamily as she leaned against his breast and looked up
into his eyes.
"I cannot say it properly!" she said. "There is no language for my
heart! If I could tell you all I feel, you would think it foolish, I
am sure, because it is all so wild and strange,"--she stopped, and
her face grew pale,--"oh!" she murmured with a slight tremor; "it is
terrible!"
"What is terrible, my sweet one?" asked Errington drawing her more
closely, and folding her more tightly in his arms.
She sighed deeply. "To have no more life of my own!" she answered,
while her low voice quivered with intense feeling." It has all gone-
-to you! And yours has come to me!--is it not strange and almost
sad? How your heart beats, poor boy!--I can hear it throb, throb--so
fast!--here, where I am resting my head. "She looked up, and her
little white hand caressed his cheek. "Philip," she said very
softly, "what are you thinking about? Your eyes shine so brightly--
do you know you have beautiful eyes?"
"Have I?" he murmured abstractedly, looking down on that exquisite,
innocent, glowing face, and trembling with the force of the
restrained passion that kindled through him. "I don't know about
that!--yours seem to me like two stars fallen from heaven! Oh,
Thelma, my darling!--God make me worthy of you."
He spoke with intense fervor,--kissing her with a tenderness, in
which there was something of reverence as well as fear. The whole
soul of the man was startled and roused to inexpressible devotion,
by the absolute simplicity and purity of her nature--the direct
frankness with which she had said her life was his--his!--and in
what way was HE fitted to be the guardian and possessor of this
white lily from the garden of God? She was so utterly different to
all women as he had known them--as different as a bird of paradise
to a common house-sparrow. Meanwhile, as these thoughts flitted
through his brain, she moved gently from his embrace and smiled
proudly, yet sweetly.
"Worthy of me?" she said softly and wonderingly. "It is I that will
pray to be made worthy of YOU! You must not put it wrongly, Philip!"
He made no answer, but looked at her as she stood before him,
majestic as a young empress in her straight, unadorned white gown.
"Thelma!" he said suddenly, "do you know how lovely you are?"
"Yes!" she answered simply; "I know it, because I am like my mother.
But it is not anything to be beautiful,--unless one is loved,--and
then it is different! I feel much more beautiful now, since you
think me pleasant to look at!"
Philip laughed and caught her hand. "What a child you are!" he said.
"Now let me see this little finger." And he loosened from his watch-
chain a half-hoop ring of brilliants. "This belonged to my mother,
Thelma," he continued gently, "and since her death I have always
carried it about with me. I resolved never to part with it, except
to--" He paused and slipped it on the third finger of her left hand,
where it sparkled bravely.
She gazed at it in surprise. "You part with it now?" she asked, with
wonder in her accents. "I do not understand!"
He kissed her. "No? I will explain again, Thelma!--and you shall not
laugh at me as you did the very first time I saw you! I resolved
never to part with this ring, I say, except to--my promised wife.
NOW do you understand?"
She blushed deeply, and her eyes dropped before his ardent gaze.
"I do thank you very much, Philip,"--she faltered timidly,--she was
about to say something further when suddenly Lorimer entered the
saloon. He glanced from Errington to Thelma, and from Thelma back
again to Errington,--and smiled. So have certain brave soldiers been
known to smile in face of a death-shot. He advanced with his usual
languid step and nonchalant air, and removing his cap, bowed gravely
and courteously.
"Let me be the first to offer my congratulations to the future Lady
Errington! Phil, old man!. . . I wish you joy!"
CHAPTER XV.
"Why, sir, in the universal game of double-dealing, shall not the
cleverest tricksters play each other false by haphazard, and so
betray their closest secrets, to their own and their friends'
infinite amazement?"-Congreve
When Olaf Guldmar and his daughter left the yacht that evening,
Errington accompanied them, in order to have the satisfaction of
escorting his beautiful betrothed as far as her own door. They were
all three very silent--the bonde was pensive, Thelma shy, and
Errington himself was too happy for speech. Arriving at the
farmhouse, they saw Sigurd curled up under the porch, playing idly
with the trailing rose-branches, but, on hearing their footsteps, he
looked up, uttered a wild exclamation, and fled. Guldmar tapped his
own forehead significantly.
"He grows worse and worse, the poor lad!" he said somewhat
sorrowfully. "And yet there is a strange mingling of foresight and
wit with his wild fancies. Wouldst thou believe it, Thelma, child,"
and here he turned to his daughter and encircled her waist with his
arm--"he seemed to know how matters were with thee and Philip, when
I was yet in the dark concerning them!"
This was the first allusion her father had made to her engagement,
and her head drooped with a sort of sweet shame.
"Nay, now, why hide thy face?" went on the old man cheerily. "Didst
thou think I would grudge my bird her summer-time? Not I! And little
did I hope for thee, my darling, that thou wouldst find a shelter
worthy of thee in this wild world!" He paused a moment, looking
tenderly down upon her, as she nestled in mute affection against his
breast,--then addressing himself to Errington, he went on--
"We have a story in our Norse religion, my lad, of two lovers who
declared their passion to each other, on one stormy night in the
depth of winter. They were together in a desolate hut on the
mountains, and around them lay unbroken tracts of frozen snow. They
were descended from the gods, and therefore the gods protected them-
-and it happened that after they had sworn their troth, the doors of
the snow-bound hut flew suddenly open, and lo! the landscape had
changed--the hills were gay with grass and flowers,--the sky was
blue and brilliant, the birds sang, and everywhere was heard the
ripple of waters let loose from their icy fetters, and gamboling
down the rocks in the joyous sun. This was the work of the goddess
Friga,--the first kiss exchanged by the lovers she watched over,
banished Winter from the land, and Spring came instead. 'Tis a
pretty story, and true all the world over--true for all men and
women of all creeds! It must be an ice-bound heart indeed that will
not warm to the touch of love--and mine, though aged, grows young
again in the joy of my children." He put his daughter gently from
him to-wards Philip, saying with more gravity, "Go to him, child!--
go--with thy old father's blessing! And take with thee the three
best virtues of a wife,--truth, humility, and obedience. Good night,
my son!" and he wrung Errington's hand with fervor. "You'll take
longer to say good night to Thelma," and he laughed, "so I'll go in
and leave you to it!"
And with a good-natured nod, he entered the house whistling a tune
as he went, that they might not think he imagined himself lonely or
neglected,--and the two lovers paced slowly up and down the garden-
path together, exchanging those first confidences which to outsiders
seem so eminently foolish, but which to those immediately concerned
are most wonderful, delightful, strange, and enchanting beyond all
description. Where, from a practical point of view, is the sense of
such questions as these--"When did you love me first?" "What did you
feel when I said so-and-so?" "Have you dreamt of me often?" "Will
you love me always, always, always?" and so on ad infinitum.
"Ridiculous rubbish!" exclaims the would-be strong-minded, but
secretly savage old maid,--and the selfishly matter-of-fact, but
privately fidgety and lonely old bachelor. Ah! but there are those
who could tell you that at one time or another of their lives this
"ridiculous rubbish" seemed far more important than the decline and
fall of empires,--more necessary to existence than light and air,--
more fraught with hope, fear, suspense, comfort, despair, and
anxiety than anything that could be invented or imagined! Philip and
Thelma,--man and woman in the full flush of youth, health, beauty,
and happiness,--had just entered their Paradise,--their fairy-
garden,--and every little flower and leaf on the way had special,
sweet interest for them. Love's indefinable glories,--Love's proud
possibilities,--Love's long ecstasies,--these, like so many spirit-
figures, seemed to smile and beckon them on, on, on, through golden
seas of sunlight,--through flower-filled fields of drowsy
entrancement,--through winding ways of rose-strewn and lily-scented
leafage,--on, on, with eyes and hearts absorbed in one another,--
unseeing any end to the dreamlike wonders that, like some heavenly
picture-scroll, unrolled slowly and radiantly before them. And so
they murmured those unwise, tender things which no wisdom in the
world has ever surpassed, and when Philip at last said "Good night!"
with more reluctance than Romeo, and pressed his parting kiss on his
love's sweet, fresh mouth,--the riddle with which he had puzzled
himself so often was resolved at last,--life WAS worth living, worth
cherishing, worth ennobling. The reason of all things seemed clear
to him,--Love, and Love only, supported, controlled, and grandly
completed the universe! He accepted this answer to all
perplexities,--his heart expanded with a sense of large content--his
soul was satisfied.
Meanwhile, during his friend's absence from the yacht, Lorimer took
it upon himself to break the news to Duprez and Macfarlane. These
latter young gentlemen had had their suspicions already, but they
were not quite prepared to hear them so soon confirmed. Lorimer told
the matter in his own way.
"I say, you fellows!" he remarked carelessly, as he sat smoking in
their company on deck, "you'd better look out! If you stare at Miss
Guldmar too much, you'll have Phil down upon you!"
"Ha, ha!" exclaimed Duprez slyly, "the dear Phil-eep is in love?"
"Something more than that," said Lorimer, looking absently at the
cigarette he held between his fingers,--"he's an engaged man."
"Engaged!" cried Macfarlane excitedly. "Ma certes! He has the
deevil's own luck! He's just secured for himself the grandest woman
in the warld!"
"Je le crois bien!" said Duprez gravely, nodding his head several
times. "Phil-eep is a wise boy! He is the fortunate one! I am not
for marriage at all--no! not for myself,--it is to tie one's hands,
to become a prisoner,--and that would not suit me; but if I were
inclined to captivity, I should like Mademoiselle Guldmar for my
beautiful gaoler. And beautiful she is, mon Dieu! . . . beyond all
comparison!"
Lorimer was silent, so was Macfarlane. After a pause Duprez spoke
again.
"And do you know, cher Lorimer, when our Phil-eep will marry?"
"I haven't the slightest idea," returned Lorimer. "I know he's
engaged, that's all."
Suddenly Macfarlane broke into a chuckling laugh.
"I say, Lorimer," he said, with his deep-set, small grey eyes
sparkling with mischief. "'Twould be grand fun to see auld
Dyceworthy's face when he hears o't. By the Lord! He'll fall to
cursin' an' swearin' like ma pious aunt in Glasgie, or that auld
witch that cursed Miss Thelma yestreen!"
"An eminently unpleasant old woman SHE was!" said Lorimer musingly.
"I wonder what she meant by it!"
"She meant, mon cher," said Duprdz airily, "that she knew herself to
be ugly and venerable, while Mademoiselle was youthful and
ravishing,--it is a sufficient reason to excite profanity in the
mind of a lady!"
"Here comes Errington!" said Macfarlane, pointing to the approaching
boat that was coming swiftly back from the Guldmars' pier. "Lorimer,
are we to congratulate him?"
"If you like!" returned Lorimer. "I dare say he won't object."
So that as soon as Sir Philip set foot on the yacht, his hands were
cordially grasped, and his friends out-vied each other in good
wishes for his happiness. He thanked them simply and with a manly
straightforwardness, entirely free from the usual affected
embarrassment that some modern young men think it seemly to adopt
under similar circumstances.
"The fact is," he said frankly, "I congratulate myself,--I'm more
lucky than I deserve, I know!"
"What a sensation she will make in London, Phil!" said Lorimer
suddenly. "I've just thought of it! Good Heavens! Lady Winsleigh
will cry for sheer spite and vexation!"
Philip laughed. "I hope not," he said. "I should think it would need
immense force to draw a tear from her ladyship's cold bright eyes."
"She used to like you awfully, Phil!" said Lorimer. "You were a
great favorite of hers."
"All men are her favorites with the exception of one--her husband!"
observed Errington gaily. "Come along, let's have some champagne to
celebrate the day! We'll propose toasts and drink healths--we've got
a fair excuse for jollity this evening."
They all descended into the saloon, and had a merry time of it,
singing songs and telling good stories, Lorimer being the gayest of
the party, and it was long past midnight when they retired to their
cabins, without even looking at the wonders of, perhaps, the most
gorgeous sky that had yet shone on their travels--a sky of complete
rose-color, varying from the deepest shade up to the palest, in
which the sun glowed with a subdued radiance like an enormous
burning ruby.
Thelma saw it, standing under her house-porch, where her father had
joined her,--Sigurd saw it,--he had come out from some thicket where
he had been hiding, and he now sat, in a humble, crouching posture
at Thelma's feet. All three were silent, reverently watching the
spreading splendor of the heavens. Once Guldmar addressed his
daughter in a soft tone.
"Thou are happy, my bird?"
She smiled--the expression of her face was almost divine in its
rapture.
"Perfectly happy, my father!"
At the sound of her dulcet voice, Sigurd looked up. His large blue
eyes were full of tears, he took her hand and held it in his meagre
and wasted one.
"Mistress!" he said suddenly, "do you think I shall soon die?"
She turned her pitying eyes down upon him, startled by the vibrating
melancholy of his tone.
"Thou wilt die, Sigurd," answered Guldmar gently, "when the gods
please,--not one second sooner or later. Art thou eager to see
Valhalla?"
Sigurd nodded dreamily. "They will understand me there!" he
murmured. "And I shall grow straight and strong and brave! Mistress,
if you meet me in Valhalla, you will love me!"
She stroked his wild fair locks. "I love you now, Sigurd," she said
tenderly. "But perhaps we shall all love each other better in
heaven."
"Yes, yes!" exclaimed Sigurd, patting her hand caressingly. "When we
are all dead, dead! When our bodies crumble away and turn to flowers
and birds and butterflies,--and our souls come out like white and
red flames,--yes! . . . then we shall love each other and talk of
such strange, strange things!" He paused and laughed wildly. Then
his voice sank again into melancholy monotony--and he added:
"Mistress, you are killing poor Sigurd!"
Thelma's face grow very earnest and anxious. "Are you vexed with me,
dear?" she asked soothingly. "Tell me what it is that troubles you?"
Sigurd met her eyes with a look of speechless despair and shook his
head.
"I cannot tell you!" he muttered. "All my thoughts have gone to
drown themselves one by one in the cold sea! My heart was buried
yesterday, and I saw it sealed down into its coffin. There is
something of me left,--something that dances before me like a
flame,--but it will not rest, it does not obey me. I call it, but it
will not come! And I am getting tired, mistress--very, very tired!"
His voice broke, and a low sob escaped him,--he hid his face in the
folds of her dress. Guldmar looked at the poor fellow
compassionately.
"The wits wander further and further away!" he said to his daughter
in a low tone. "'Tis a mind like a broken rainbow, split through by
storm--'twill soon vanish. Be patient with him, child,--it cannot be
for long!"
"No, not for long!" cried Sigurd, raising his head brightly. "That
is true--not for long! Mistress, will you come to-morrow with me and
gather flowers? You used to love to wander with your poor boy in the
fields,--but you have forgotten,--and I cannot find any blossoms
without you! They will not show themselves unless you come! Will
you? dear, beautiful mistress! will you come?"
She smiled, pleased to see him a little more cheerful. "Yes,
Sigurd," she said; "I will come. We will go together early to-morrow
morning and gather all the flowers we can find. Will that make you
happy?"
"Yes!" he said, softly kissing the hem of her dress. "It will make
me happy--for the last time."
Then he rose in an attitude of attention, as though he had been
called by some one at a distance,--and with a grave, preoccupied air
he moved away, walking on tip-toe as though he feared to interrupt
the sound of some soft invisible music. Guldmar sighed as he watched
him disappear.
"May the gods make us thankful for a clear brain when we have it!"
he said devoutly; and then turning to his daughter, he bade her good
night, and laid his hands on her golden head in silent but fervent
blessing. "Child," he said tremulously, "in the new joys that await
thee, never forget how thy old father loves thee!"
Then, not trusting himself to say more, he strode into the house and
betook himself to slumber. Thelma followed his example, and the old
farmhouse was soon wrapped in the peace and stillness of the strange
night--a night of glittering sunshine. Sigurd alone was wakeful,--he
lay at the foot of one of the tallest pine-trees, and stared
persistently at the radiant sky through the network of dark
branches. Now and then he smiled as though he saw some beatific
vision--sometimes he plucked fitfully at the soft long moss on which
he had made his couch, and sometimes he broke into a low, crooning
song. God alone knew the broken ideas, the dim fancies, the half
born desires, that glimmered like pale ghosts in the desert of his
brain,--God alone, in the great Hereafter, could solve the problem
of his sorrows and throw light on his soul's darkness.
It was past six in the morning when he arose, and smoothing back his
tangled locks, went to Thelma's window and sat down beneath it, in
mute expectancy. He had not long to wait,--at the expiration of ten
or fifteen minutes, the little lattice was thrown wide open, and the
girl's face, fresh as a rose, framed in a shower of amber locks,
smiled down upon him.
"I am coming, Sigurd!" she cried softly and joyously. "How lovely
the morning is! Stay for me there! I shall not be long."
And she disappeared, leaving her window open. Sigurd heard her
singing little scraps of song to herself, as she moved about in the
interior of her room. He listened, as though his soul were drawn out
of him by her voice,--but presently the rich notes ceased, and there
was a sudden silence. Sigurd knew or guessed the reason of that
hush,--Thelma was at her prayers. Instinctively the poor forlorn lad
folded his wasted hands--most piteously and most imploringly he
raised his bewildered eyes to the blue and golden glory of the sky.
His conception of God was indefinable; his dreams of heaven, chaotic
minglings of fairy-land with Valhalla,--but he somehow felt that
wherever Thelma's holy aspirations turned, there the angels must be
listening.
Presently she came out of the house, looking radiant as the morning
itself,--her luxuriant hair was thrown back over her shoulders, and
fell loosely about her in thick curls, simply confined by a knot of
blue ribbon. She carried a large osier basket, capacious, and
gracefully shaped.
"Now, Sigurd," she called sweetly, "I am ready! Where shall we go?"
Sigurd hastened to her side, happy and smiling.
"Across there," he said, pointing toward the direction of Bosekop.
"There is a stream under the trees that laughs to itself all day--
you know it, mistress? And the poppies are in the field as you go--
and by the banks there are the heart's-ease flowers--we cannot have
too many of THEM! Shall we go?"
"Wherever you like, dear," answered Thelma tenderly, looking down
from her stately height on the poor stunted creature at her side,
who held her dress as though he were a child clinging to her as his
sole means of guidance. "All the land is pleasant to-day."
They left the farm and its boundaries. A few men were at work on one
of Guldmar's fields, and these looked up,--half in awe, half in
fear,--as Thelma and her fantastic servitor passed along.
"'Tis a fine wench!" said one man, resting on his spade, and
following with his eyes the erect, graceful figure of his employer's
daughter.
"Maybe, maybe!" said another gruffly; "but a fine wench is a snare
of the devil! Do ye mind what Lovisa Elsland told us?"
"Ay, ay," answered the first speaker, "Lovisa knows,--Lovisa is the
wisest woman we have in these parts--that's true! The girl's a
witch, for sure!"
And they resumed their work in gloomy silence. Not one of them would
have willingly labored on Olaf Guldmar's land, had not the wages he
offered been above the usual rate of hire,--and times were bad in
Norway. But otherwise, the superstitious fear of him was so great
that his fields might have gone untilled and his crops ungathered,--
however, as matters stood, none of them could deny that he was a
good paymaster, and just in his dealings with those whom he
employed.
Thelma and Sigurd took their way in silence across a perfumed
stretch of meadow-land,--the one naturally fertile spot in that
somewhat barren district. Plenty of flowers blossomed at their feet,
but they did not pause to gather these, for Sigurd was anxious to
get to the stream where the purple pansies grew. They soon reached
it--it was a silvery clear ribbon of water that unrolled itself in
bright folds, through green, transparent tunnels of fern and waving
grass--leaping now and then with a swift dash over a smooth block of
stone or jagged rock--but for the most part gliding softly, with a
happy, self-satisfied murmur, as though it were some drowsy spirit
dreaming joyous dreams. Here nodded the grave, purple-leaved
pansies,--legendary consolers of the heart,--their little, quaint,
expressive physiognomies turned in every direction; up to the sky,
as though absorbing the sunlight,--down to the ground, with an
almost severe air of meditation, or curled sideways on their stems
in a sort of sly reflectiveness.
Sigurd was among them at once--they were his friends,--his
playmates, his favorites,--and he gathered them quickly, yet
tenderly, murmuring as he did so, "Yes, you must all die; but death
does not hurt; no! life hurts, but not death! See! as I pluck you,
you all grow wings and fly away--away to other meadows, and bloom
again." He paused, and a puzzled look came into his eyes. He turned
toward Thelma, who had seated herself on a little knoll just above
the stream, "Tell me, mistress," he said, "do the flowers go to
heaven?"
She smiled. "I think so, dear Sigurd," she said; "I hope so! I am
almost sure they do."
Sigurd nodded with an air of satisfaction.
"That is right," he observed. "It would never do to leave them
behind, you know! They would be missed, and we should have to come
down again and fetch them--" A crackling among the branches of some
trees startled him,--he looked round, and uttered a peculiar cry
like the cry of a wild animal, and exclaimed, "Spies, spies! ha! ha!
secret, wicked faces that are afraid to show themselves! Come out!
Mistress, mistress! make them come out!"
Thelma rose, surprised as his gesticulations, and came towards him;
to her utter astonishment she found herself confronted by old Lovisa
Elsland, and the Reverend Mr. Dyceworthy's servant, Ulrika. On both
women's faces there was a curious expression of mingled fear,
triumph, and malevolence. Lovisa was the first to break silence.
"At last!" she croaked, in a sort of slow, monotonous tone "At last,
Thelma Guldmar, the Lord has delivered you into my hands!"
Thelma drew Sigurd close to her, and slipped one arm around him.
"Poor soul!" she said softly, with sweet pitying eyes fixed
fearlessly on the old hag's withered, evil visage. "You must be
tired, wandering about on the hills as you do! If you are her
friend," she added, addressing Ulrika, "why do you not make her rest
at home and keep warm? She is so old and feeble!"
"Feeble!" shrieked Lovisa; "feeble!" And she seemed choking with
passion. "If I had my fingers at your throat, you should then see if
I am feeble! I--" Ulrika pulled her by the arm, and whispered
something which had the effect of calming her a little. "Well," she
said, "you speak then! I can wait!"
Ulrika cleared her husky voice, and fixed her dull eyes on the
girl's radiant countenance.
"You must go away," she said coldly and briefly; "You and your
father, and this creature," and she pointed contemptuously to the
staring Sigurd. "Do you understand? You must leave the Alten Fjord.
The people are tired of you--tired of bad harvests, ill-luck,
sickness, and continued poverty. You are the cause of all our
miseries,--and we have resolved you shall not stay among us. Go
quickly,--take the blight and pestilence of your presence elsewhere!
Go! or if you will not--"
"We shall burn, burn, burn, and utterly destroy!" interrupted
Lovisa, with a sort of eldritch shriek. "The strong pine rafters of
Olaf Guldmar's dwelling shall be kindled into flame to light the
hills with crimson, far and near! Not a plank shall be spared!--not
a vestige of his pride be left--"
"Stop!" said Thelma quietly. "What do you mean? You must both be
very mad or very wicked! You want us to go away--you threaten to set
fire to our home--why? We have done you no harm. Tell me, poor
soul!" and she turned with queenly forbearance to Lovisa, "is it for
Britta's sake that you would burn the house she lives in? That is
not wise! You cursed me the other day,--and why? What have I done
that you should hate me?"
The old woman regarded her with steadfast, cruel eyes.
"You are your mother's child!" she said. "I hated her--I hate you!
You are a witch!--the village knows it--Mr. Dyceworthy knows it! Mr.
Dyceworthy says we shall be justified in the Lord's sight for
wreaking evil upon you! Evil, evil be on those of evil deeds! "
"Then shall the evil fall on Mr. Dyceworthy," said the girl calmly.
"He is wicked in himself,--and doubly wicked to encourage YOU in
wickedness. He is ignorant and false--why do you believe in such a
man? "
"He is a saint--a saint!" cried Lovisa wildly. "And shall the
daughter of Satan withstand his power?" And she clapped her hands in
a sort of fierce ecstasy.
Thelma glanced at her pityingly and smiled. "A saint! Poor thing,
how little you know him!" she said. "And it is a pity you should
hate me, for I have done you no wrong. I would do good to all if I
knew how,--tell me can I comfort you, or make your life more
cheerful? It must be hard to be so old and all alone!"
"Your death would comfort me!" returned Lovisa grimly. "Why do you
keep Britta from me?"
"I do not keep her," Thelma answered. "She stays with me because she
is happy. Why do you grudge her, her happiness? And as for burning
my father's house, surely you would not do so wicked and foolish a
thing!--but still, you must do as you choose, for it is not possible
that we shall leave the Altenfjord to please you."
Here Ulrika started forward angrily. "You defy us!" she cried. "You
will not go?" And in her excitement she seized Thelma's arm roughly.
This action was too much for Sigurd; he considered it an attack on
the person of his beloved mistress and he resented it at once in his
own fashion. Throwing himself on Ulrika with sudden ferocity, he
pushed and beat her back as though he were a wolf-hound struggling
with refractory prey; and though the ancient Lovisa rushed to the
rescue, and Thelma imploringly called upon her zealous champion to
desist,--all remonstrances were unavailing, till Sigurd had reduced
his enemy to the most abject and whimpering terror.
"A demon--a demon!" she sobbed and moaned, as the valiant dwarf at
last released her from his clutches; and, tossing his long, fair
locks over his misshapen shoulders, laughed loudly and triumphantly
with delight at his victory. "Lovisa! Lovisa Elsland! this is your
doing; you brought this upon me! I may die how, and you will not
care! O Lord, Lord, have mercy--"
Suddenly she stopped; her eyes dilated,--her face grew grey with the
sickening pallor of fear. Slowly she raised her hand and pointed to
Sigurd--his fantastic dress had become disordered in the affray, and
his jacket was torn open,--and on his bare chest a long red scar in
the shape of a cross was distinctly visible. "That scar!" she
muttered. "How did he get that scar?"
Lovisa stared at her in impatient derision. Thelma was too surprised
to answer immediately, and Sigurd took it upon himself to furnish
what he considered a crushing reply.
"Odin's mark!" he said, patting the scar with much elation. "No
wonder you are afraid of it! Everybody knows it--birds, flowers,
trees, and stars! Even you--you are afraid!"
And he laughed again, and snapped his fingers in her face. The woman
shuddered violently. Step by step she drew near to the wondering
Thelma, and spoke in low and trembling accents, without a trace of
her former anger.
"They say you are wicked," she said slowly, "and that the devil has
your soul ready, before you are dead! But I am not afraid of you.
No; I will forgive you, and pray for you, if you will tell me,
. . ." She paused, and then continued, as with a strong effort.
"Yes--tell me WHO is this Sigurd?"
"Sigurd is a foundling," answered Thelma simply. "He was floating
about in the Fjord in a basket, and my father saved him. He was
quite a baby. He had this scar on his chest then. He has lived with
us ever since."
Ulrika looked at her searchingly,--then bent her head,--whether in
gratitude or despair it was difficult to say.
"Lovisa Elsland," she said monotonously, "I am going home. I cannot
help you any longer! I am tired--ill." Here she suddenly broke down,
and, throwing up her arms with a wild gesture, she cried, "O God,
God! O God!" and burst into a stormy passion of sobs and tears.
Thelma, touched by her utter misery, would have offered consolation,
but Lovisa repelled her with a fierce gesture.
"Go!" said the old woman harshly. "You have cast your spells upon
her--I am witness of your work! And shall you escape just
punishment? No; not while there is a God in heaven, and I, Lovisa
Elsland, live to perform His bidding! Go,--white devil that you
are!--go and carry misfortune upon misfortune to your fine
gentleman-lover! Ah!" and she chuckled maliciously as the girl
recoiled from her, her proud face growing suddenly paler, "have I
touched you there? Lie in his breast, and it shall be as though a
serpent stung him,--kiss his lips, and your touch shall be poison,--
live in doubt, and die in misery! Go! and may all evil follow you!"
She raised her staff and waved it majestically, as though she drew a
circle in the air,--Thelma smiled pityingly, but deigned no answer
to her wild ravings.
"Come, Sigurd!" she said simply, "let us return home. It is growing
late--father will wonder where we are."
"Yes, yes," agreed Sigurd, seizing the basket full of the pansies he
had plucked. "The sunshine is slipping away, and we cannot live with
shadows! These are not real women, mistress; they are dreams--black
dreams,--I have often fought with dreams, and I know how to make
them afraid! See how the one weeps because she knows me,--and the
other is just going to fall into a grave. I can hear the clods
thrown on her head--thump--thump! It does not take long to bury a
dream! Come, mistress, let us follow the sunshine!"
And, taking the hand she extended towards him, he turned away,
looking back once, however, to call out loudly--
"Good-bye, bad dreams!"
As they disappeared behind the trees, Lovisa turned angrily to the
still-sobbing Ulrika.
"What is this folly?" she exclaimed, striking her staff fiercely
into the ground. "Art mad or bewitched?"
Ulrika looked up,--her plain face swollen and stained with weeping.
"O Lord, have mercy upon me! O Lord, forgive me!" she moaned. "I did
not know it--how COULD I know?"
Lovisa grew so impatient that she seized her by the shoulder and
shook her violently.
"Know what?" she cried; "know what?"
"Sigurd is my son!" said Ulrika, with a sort of solemn resignation,-
-then, with a sudden gesture, she threw her hands above her head,
crying, "My son, my son! The child I thought I had killed! The Lord
be praised I did not murder him!"
Lovisa Elsland seemed stupefied with surprise. "Is this the truth?"
she asked at last, slowly and incredulously.
"The truth, the truth!" cried Ulrika passionately. "It is always the
truth that comes to light! He is my child, I tell you!. . . I gave
him that scar!" She paused, shuddering, and continued in a lower
tone, "I tried to kill him with a knife, but when the blood flowed,
it sickened me, and I could not! He was an infant abortion--the evil
fruit of an evil deed--and I threw him out to the waves,--as I told
you, long ago. You have had good use of my confession, Lovisa
Elsland; you have held me in your power by means of my secret, but
now--"
The old woman interrupted her with a low laugh of contempt and
malice.
"As the parents are, so are the children!" she said scornfully.
"Your lover must have been a fine man, Ulrika, if the son is like
his father!"
Ulrika glared at her vengefully, then drew herself up with an air of
defiance.
"I care nothing for your taunts, Lovisa Elsland!" she said. "You can
do me no harm! All is over between us! I will help in no mischief
against the Guldmars. Whatever their faults, they saved--my child!"
"Is that so great a blessing?" asked Lovisa ironically.
"It makes your threats useless," answered Ulrika. "You cannot call
me MURDERESS again!"
"Coward and fool!" shrieked Lovisa. "Was it YOUR intent that the
child should live? Were you not glad to think it dead? And cannot I
spread the story of your infamy through all the villages where you
are known? Is not the wretched boy himself a living witness of the
attempt you made to kill him? Does not that scar speak against you?
Would not Olaf Guldmar relate the story of the child's rescue to any
one that asked him? Would you like all Bosekop to know of your
intrigue with an escaped criminal, who was afterwards caught and
hung! The virtuous Ulrika--the zealous servant of the Gospel--the
pious, praying Ulrika!" and the old woman trembled with rage and
excitement. "Out of my power? Never, never! As long as there is
breath in my body I will hold you down! NOT a murderess, you say--?"
"No," said Ulrika very calmly, with a keen look, "I am NOT--but you
ARE!"
CHAPTER XVI.
"Il n'y a personne qui ait eu autant a souffrir a votre sujet que
moi depuis ma naissance! aussi je vous supplie a deux genoux et an
nom de Dien, d'avoir pitie de moi!"--Old Breton Ballad.
In a few more days Thelma's engagement to Sir Philip Bruce-Errington
was the talk of the neighborhood. The news spread gradually, having
been, in the first place, started by Britta, whose triumph in her
mistress's happiness was charming to witness. It reached the
astonished and reluctant ears of the Reverend Mr. Dyceworthy, whose
rage was so great that it destroyed his appetite for twenty-four
hours. But the general impression in the neighborhood, where
superstition maintained so strong a hold on the primitive and
prejudiced minds of the people, was that the reckless young
Englishman would rue the day on which he wedded "the white witch of
the Altenfjord."
Guldmar was regarded with more suspicion than ever, as having used
some secret and diabolical influence to promote the match; and the
whole party were, as it seemed, tabooed, and looked upon as given up
to the most unholy practices.
Needless to say, the opinions of the villagers had no effect
whatever on the good spirits of those who were thus unfavorably
criticised, and it would have been difficult to find a merrier group
than that assembled one fine morning in front of Guldmar's house,
all equipped from top to toe for some evidently unusually lengthy
and arduous mountain excursion. Each man carried a long, stout
stick, portable flask, knapsack, and rug--the latter two articles
strapped together and slung across the shoulder--and they all
presented an eminently picturesque appearance, particularly Sigurd,
who stood at a little distance from the others, leaning on his tall
staff and gazing at Thelma with an air of peculiar pensiveness and
abstraction.
She was at that moment busied in adjusting Errington's knapsack more
comfortably, her fair, laughing face turned up to his, and her
bright eyes alight with love and tender solicitude.
"I've a good mind not to go at all," he whispered in her ear. "I'll
come back and stay with you all day."
"You foolish boy!" she answered merrily. "You would miss seeing the
grand fall--all for what? To sit with me and watch me spinning, and
you would grow so very sleepy! Now, if I were a man, I would go with
you."
"I'm very glad you're not a man!" said Errington, pressing the
little hand that had just buckled his shoulderstrap. "Though I wish
you WERE going with us. But I say, Thelma, darling, won't you be
lonely?"
She laughed gaily. "Lonely? I? Why, Britta is with me--besides, I am
never lonely NOW." She uttered the last word softly, with a shy,
upward glance. "I have so much to think about--" She paused and drew
her hand away from her lover's close clasp. "Ah," she resumed, with
a mischievous smile, "you are a conceited boy! You want to be
missed! You wish me to say that I shall feel most miserable all the
time you are away! If I do, I shall not tell you!"
"Thelma, child?" called Olaf Guldmar, at this juncture "keep the
gates bolted and doors barred while we are absent. Remember, thou
and Britta must pass the night alone here,--we cannot be at home
till late in the evening of to-morrow. Let no one inside the garden,
and deny thyself to all comers. Dost thou hear"
"Yes, father," she responded meekly.
"And let Britta keep good guard that her crazy hag of a grandam come
not hither to disturb or fright thee with her croaking,--for thou
hast not even Sigurd to protect thee."
"Not even Sigurd!" said that personage, with a meditative smile.
"No, mistress; not even poor Sigurd!"
"One of us might remain behind," suggested Lorimer, with a side-look
at his friend.
"Oh no, no!" exclaimed Thelma anxiously. "It would vex me so much!
Britta and I have often been alone before. We are quite safe, are we
not, father?"
"Safe enough!" said the old man, with a laugh. "I know of no one
save Lovisa Elsland who has the courage to face thee, child! Still,
pretty witch as thou art, 'twill not harm thee to put the iron bar
across the house door, and to lock fast the outer gate when we have
gone. This done, I have no fear of thy safety. Now," and he kissed
his daughter heartily, "now lads, 'tis time we were on the march!
Sigurd, my boy, lead on!"
"Wait!" cried Sigurd, springing to Thelma's side. "I must say good-
bye!" And he caught the girl's hand and kissed it,--then plucking a
rose, he left it between her fingers. "That will remind you of
Sigurd, mistress! Think of him once to-day!--once again when the
midnight glory shines. Good-bye, mistress! that is what the dead
say,. . . Good-bye!"
And with a passionate gesture of farewell, he ran and placed himself
at the head of the little group that waited for him, saying
exultingly--
"Now follow me! Sigurd knows the way! Sigurd is the friend of all
the wild waterfall! Up the hills,--across the leaping stream,--
through the sparkling foam!" And he began chanting to himself a sort
of wild mountain song.
Macfarlane looked at him dubiously. "Are ye sure?" he said to
Guldmar. "Are ye sure that wee chap kens whaur he's gaun? He'll no
lead us into a ditch an' leave us there, mistakin' it for the Fall?"
Guldmar laughed heartily. "Never fear! Sigurd's the best guide you
can have, in spite of his fancies. He knows all the safest and
surest paths; and Njedegorze is no easy place to reach, I can tell
you!"
"Pardon! How is it called?" asked Duprez eagerly.
"Njedegorze."
The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders. "I give it up!" he said
smilingly. "Mademoiselle Guldmar, if anything happens to me at this
cascade with the name unpronounceable, you will again be my doctor,
will you not?"
Thelma laughed as she shook hands with him. "Nothing will happen,"
she rejoined; "unless, indeed, you catch cold by sleeping in a hut
all night. Father, you must see that they do not catch cold!"
The bonde nodded, and motioned the party forward, Sigurd leading the
way,--Errington, however, lingered behind on pretense of having
forgotten something, and, drawing his betrothed in his arms, kissed
her fondly.
"Take care of yourself, darling!" he murmured,--and then hurrying
away he rejoined his friends, who had discreetly refrained from
looking back, and therefore had not seen the lovers embrace.
Sigurd, however, had seen it, and the sight apparently gave fresh
impetus to his movements, for he sprang up the adjacent hill with so
much velocity that those who followed had some difficulty to keep up
with him,--and it was not till they were out of sight of the
farmhouse that he resumed anything like a reasonable pace.
As soon as they had disappeared, Thelma turned into the house and
seated herself at her spinning-wheel. Britta soon entered the room,
carrying the same graceful implement of industry, and the two
maidens sat together for some time in a silence unbroken, save by
the low melodious whirring of the two wheels, and the mellow
complaints of the strutting doves on the window-sill.
"Froken Thelma!" said Britta at last, timidly.
"Yes, Britta?" And her mistress looked up inquiringly.
"Of what use is it for you to spin now?" queried the little
handmaid. "You will be a great lady, and great ladies do not work at
all!"
Thelma's wheel revolved more and more slowly, till at last it
stopped altogether.
"Do they not?" she said half inquiringly and musingly. "I think you
must be wrong, Britta. It is impossible that there should be people
who are always idle. I do not know what great ladies are like."
"I do!" And Britta nodded her curly head sagaciously. "There was a
girl from Hammerfest who went to Christiania to seek service--she
was handy at her needle, and a fine spinner, and a great lady took
her right away from Norway to London. And the lady bought her
spinning-wheel for a curiosity she said,--and put it in the corner
of a large parlor, and used to show it to her friends, and they
would all laugh and say, 'How pretty!' And Jansena,--that was the
girl--never span again--she wore linen that she got from the shops,-
-and it was always falling into holes, and Jansena was always
mending, mending, and it was no good!"
Thelma laughed. "Then it is better to spin, after all, Britta--is it
not?"
Britta looked dubious. "I do not know," she answered; "but I am sure
great ladies do not spin. Because, as I said to you, Froken, this
Jansena's mistress was a great lady, and she never did anything,--
no! nothing at all,--but she put on wonderful dresses, and sat in
her room, or was driven about in a carriage. And that is what you
will do also, Froken!"
"Oh no, Britta," said Thelma decisively. "I could not be so idle. Is
it not fortunate I have so much linen ready? I have quite enough for
marriage."
The little maid looked wistful. "Yes, dear Froken," she murmured
hesitatingly; "but I was thinking if it is right for you to wear
what you have spun. Because, you see, Jansena's mistress had
wonderful things all trimmed with lace,--and they would all come
back from the washing torn and hanging in threads, and Jansena had
to mend those as well as her own clothes. You see, they do not last
at all--and they cost a large sum of money; but it is proper for
great ladies to wear them."
"I am not sure of that, Britta," said Thelma, still musingly. "But
still, it may be--my bridal things may not please Philip. If you
know anything about it, you must tell me what is right."
Britta was in a little perplexity. She had gathered some idea from
her friend Jansena concerning life in London,--she had even a misty
notion of what was meant by a "trousseau" with all its dainty,
expensive, and often useless fripperies; but she did not know how to
explain her-self to her young mistress, whose simple, almost severe
tastes would, she instinctively felt, recoil from anything like
ostentation in dress, so she was discreetly silent.
"You know, Britta," continued Thelma gently, "I shall be Philip's
wife, and I must not vex him in any little thing. But I do not quite
understand. I have always dressed in the same way,--and he has never
said that he thought me wrongly clothed."
And she looked down with quite a touching pathos at her straight,
white woolen gown, and smoothed its folds doubtfully. The impulsive
Britta sprang to her side and kissed her with girlish and unaffected
enthusiasm.
"My dear, my dear! You are more lovely and sweet than anybody in the
world!" she cried. "And I am sure Sir Philip thinks so too!"
A beautiful roseate flush suffused Thelma's cheeks, and she smiled.
"Yes, I know he does!" she replied softly. "And, after all, it does
not matter what one wears."
Britta was meditating,--she looked lovingly at her mistress's
rippling wealth of hair.
"Diamonds!" she murmured to herself in a sort of satisfied
soliloquy. "Diamonds, like those you have on your finger, Froken,--
diamonds all scattered among your curls like dew-drops! And white
satin, all shining, shining!--people would take you for an angel!"
Thelma laughed merrily. "Britta, Britta! You are talking such
nonsense! Nobody dresses so grandly except queens in fairy-tales."
"Do they not?" and the wise Britta looked more profound than ever.
"Well, we shall see, dear Froken--we shall see!"
"WE?" queried Thelma with surprised emphasis.
Her little maid blushed vividly, and looked down demurely, twisting
and untwisting the string of her apron.
"Yes, Froken," she said in a low tone. "I have asked Sir Philip to
let me go with you when you leave Norway."
"Britta!" Thelma's astonishment was too great for more than this
exclamation.
"Oh, my dear! don't be angry with me!" implored Britta, with
sparkling eyes, rosy cheeks, and excited tongue all pleading
eloquently together, "I should die here without you! I told the
bonde so; I did, indeed I And then I went to Sir Philip--he is such
a grand gentleman,--so proud and yet so kind,--and I asked him to
let me still be your servant. I said I knew all great ladies had a
maid, and if I was not clever enough I could learn, and--and--" here
Britta began to sob, "I said I did not want any wages--only to live
in a little corner of the same house where you were,--to sew for
you, and see you, and hear your voice sometimes--" Here the poor
little maiden broke down altogether and hid her face in her apron
crying bitterly.
The tears were in Thelma's eyes too, and she hastened to put her arm
round Britta's waist, and tried to soothe her by every loving word
she could think of.
"Hush, Britta dear! you must not cry," she said tenderly. "What did
Philip say?"
"He said," jerked out Britta convulsively, "that I was a g-good
little g-girl, and that he was g-glad I wanted to g-go!" Here her
two sparkling wet eyes peeped out of the apron inquiringly, and
seeing nothing but the sweetest affection on Thelma's attentive
face, she went on more steadily. "He p-pinched my cheek, and he
laughed--and he said he would rather have me for your maid than
anybody--there!"
And this last exclamation was uttered with so much defiance that she
dashed away the apron altogether, and stood erect in self-
congratulatory glory, with a particularly red little nose and very
trembling lips. Thelma smiled, and caressed the tumbled brown curls.
"I am very glad, Britta!" she said earnestly. "Nothing could have
pleased me more! I must thank Philip. But it is of father I am
thinking--what will father and Sigurd do?"
"Oh, that is all settled, Froken," said Britta, recovering herself
rapidly from her outburst. "The bonde means to go for one of his
long voyages in the Valkyrie--it is time she was used again, I'm
sure,--and Sigurd will go with him. It will do them both good--and
the tongues of Bosekop can waggle as much as they please, none of us
will be here to mind them!"
"And you will escape your grandmother!" said Thelma amusedly, as she
once more set her spinning-wheel in motion.
Britta laughed delightedly. "Yes! she will not find her way to
England without some trouble!" she exclaimed. "Oh, how happy I shall
be! And you"--she looked pleadingly at her mistress--"you do not
dislike me for your servant?"
"Dislike!" and Thelma gave her a glance of mingled reproach and
tenderness. "You know how fond I am of you, Britta! It will be like
having a little bit of my old home always with me."
Silently Britta kissed her hand, and then resumed her work. The
monotonous murmur of the two wheels recommenced,--this time
pleasantly accompanied by the rippling chatter of the two girls,
who, after the fashion of girls all the world over, indulged in many
speculations as to the new and strange life that lay before them.
Their ideas were of the most primitive character,--Britta had never
been out of Norway, and Thelma's experiences, apart from her home
life, extended merely to the narrow and restricted bounds of simple
and severe convent discipline, where she had been taught that the
pomps and vanities of the world were foolish and transient shows,
and that nothing could please God more than purity and rectitude of
soul. Her character was formed, and set upon a firm basis--firmer
than she herself was conscious of. The nuns who had been entrusted
with her education had fulfilled their task with more than their
customary zeal--they were interested in the beautiful Norwegian
child for the sake of her mother, who had also been their charge.
One venerable nun in particular had bestowed a deep and lasting
benefit on her, for, seeing her extraordinary beauty, and
forestalling the dangers and temptations into which the possession
of such exceptional charms might lead her, she adopted a wise
preventive course, that cased her as it were in armor, proof against
all the assailments of flattery. She told the girl quite plainly
that she was beautiful,--but at the same time made her aware that
beauty was common,--that she shared it alike with birds, flowers,
trees, and all the wonderful objects of nature--moreover, that it
was nothing to boast of, being so perishable.
"Suppose a rose foolish enough to boast of its pretty leaves," said
the gentle religieuse on one occasion. "They all fall to the ground
in a short time, and become decayed and yellow--it is only the
fragrance, or the SOUL of the rose that lasts." Such precepts, that
might have been wasted on a less sensitive and thoughtful nature,
sank deeply into Thelma's mind--she accepted them not only in theory
but in practice, and the result was that she accepted her beauty as
she accepted her health,--as a mere natural occurrence--no more. She
was taught that the three principal virtues of a woman were
chastity, humility, and obedience,--these were the laws of God,
fixed and immutable, which no one dared break without committing
grievous and unpardonable sin. So she thought, and according to her
thoughts she lived. What a strange world, then, lay before her in
the contemplated change that was about to take place in the even
tenor of her existence! A world of intrigue and folly--a world of
infidelity and falsehood!--how would she meet it? It was a question
she never asked herself--she thought London a sort of magnified
Christiania, or at best, the Provencal town of Arles on a larger
scale. She had heard her father speak of it, but only in a vague
way, and she had been able to form no just idea even to herself of
the enormous metropolis crowded to excess with its glad and
sorrowful, busy and idle, rich and poor millions. England itself
floated before her fancy as a green, fertile, embowered island where
Shakespeare had lived--and it delighted her to know that her future
home, Errington Manor, was situated in Warwickshire, Shakespeare's
county. Of the society that awaited her she had no notion,--she was
prepared to "keep house" for her husband in a very simple way--to
spin his household linen, to spare him all trouble and expense, and
to devote herself body and soul to his service. As may be well
imagined, the pictures she drew of her future married life, as she
sat and span with Britta on that peaceful afternoon, were widely
different to the destined reality that every day approached her more
nearly.
Meantime, while the two girls were at home and undisturbed in the
quiet farm house, the mountaineering party, headed by Sigurd, were
well on their way towards the great Fall of Njedegorze. They had
made a toilsome ascent of the hills by the side of the Alten river--
they had climbed over craggy boulders and slippery rocks, sometimes
wading knee-deep in the stream, or pausing to rest and watch the
salmon leap and turn glittering somersaults in the air close above
the diamond-clear water,--and they had beguiled their fatigue with
songs and laughter, and the telling of fantastic legends and stories
in which Sigurd had shone at his best--indeed, this unhappy being
was in a singularly clear and rational frame of mind, disposed, too,
to be agreeable even towards Errington. Lorimer, who for reasons of
his own, had kept a close watch on Sigurd ever since his friend's
engagement to Thelma, was surprised and gratified at this change in
his former behavior, and encouraged him in it, while Errington
himself responded to the dwarf's proffered friendship, and walked
beside him, chatting cheerfully, during the most part of the
excursion to the Fall. It was a long and exceedingly difficult
journey--and in some parts dangerous--but Sigurd proved himself
worthy of the commendations bestowed on him by the bonde, and guided
them by the easiest and most secure paths, till at last, about seven
o'clock in the evening, they heard the rush and roar of the rapids
below the Fall, and with half an hour's more exertion, came in sight
of them, though not as yet of the Fall itself. Yet the rapids were
grand enough to merit attention--and the whole party stopped to gaze
on the whirling wonders of water that, hissing furiously, circled
round and round giddily in wheels of white foam, and then, as though
enraged, leaped high over obstructing stones and branches, and
rushed onward and downward to the smoother length of the river.
The noise was deafening,--they could not hear each other speak
unless by shouting at the top of their voices, and even then the
sounds were rendered almost indistinct by the riotous uproar.
Sigurd, however, who knew all the ins and outs of the place, sprang
lightly on a jutting crag, and, putting both hands to his mouth,
uttered a peculiar, shrill, and far-reaching cry. Clear above the
turmoil of the restless waters, that cry was echoed back eight
distinct times from the surrounding rocks and hills. Sigurd laughed
triumphantly.
"You see!" he exclaimed, as he resumed his leadership of the party,
"they all know me! They are obliged to answer me when I call--they
dare not disobey!" And his blue eyes flashed with that sudden wild
fire that generally foretold some access of his particular mania.
Errington saw this and said soothingly, "Of course not, Sigurd! No
one would dream of disobeying you! See how we follow you to-day--we
all do exactly what you tell us."
"We are sheep, Sigurd," added Lorimer lazily; "and you are the
shepherd!"
Sigurd looked from one to the other half doubtingly, half cunningly.
He smiled.
"Yes!" he said. "You will follow me, will you not? Up to the very
top of the Fall?"
"By all means!" answered Sir Philip gaily. "Anywhere you choose to
go!"
Sigurd seemed satisfied, and lapsing into the calm, composed manner
which had distinguished him all day, he led the way as before, and
they resumed their march, this time in silence, for conversation was
well-nigh impossible. The nearer they came to the yet invisible
Fall, the more thunderous grew the din--it was as though they
approached some vast battle-field, where opposing armies were in
full action, with all the tumult of cannonade and musketry. The
ascent grew steeper and more difficult--at times the high barriers
of rocks seemed almost impassable,--often they were compelled to
climb over confused heaps of huge stones, through which the eddying
water pushed its way with speed and fury,--but Sigurd's precision
was never at fault,--he leaped crag after crag swiftly and
skillfully, always lighting on a sure foothold, and guiding the
others to do the same. At last, at a sharp turn of one of these
rocky eminences, they perceived an enormous cloud of white vapor
rising up like smoke from the earth, and twisting itself as it rose,
in swaying, serpentine folds, as though some giant spirit-hand were
shaking it to and fro like a long flowing veil in the air. Sigurd
paused and pointed forward.
"Njedegorze!" he cried.
They all pressed on with some excitement. The ground vibrated
beneath their feet with the shock of the falling torrent, and the
clash and uproar of the disputing waters rolled in their ears like
the grand, sustained bass of some huge cathedral organ. Almost
blinded by the spray that dashed its disdainful drops in their
faces, deafened by the majestic, loud, and ceaseless eloquence that
poured its persuasive force into the splitting hearts of the rocks
around them,--breathless with climbing, and well-nigh tread out,
they struggled on, and broke into one unanimous shout of delight and
triumph when they at last reached the small hut that had been
erected for the convenience of travellers who might choose that way
to journey to the Altenfjord,--and stood face to face with the
magnificent cascade, one of the grandest in Norway. What a sublime
spectacle it was!--that tempest of water sweeping sheer down the
towering rocks in one straight, broad, unbroken sheet of foam! A
myriad rainbows flashed in the torrent and vanished, to reappear
again instantly with redoubled lustre,--while the glory of the
evening sunlight glittering on one side of the fall made it gleam
like a sparkling shower of molten gold.
"Njedegorze!" cried Sigurd again, giving a singularly musical
pronunciation to the apparently uncouth name. "Come! still a little
further,--to the top of the Fall!"
Olaf Guldmar, however, paid no attention to this invitation. He was
already beginning to busy himself with preparations for passing the
night comfortably in the hut before mentioned. Stout old Norseman as
he was, there were limits to his endurance, and the arduous
exertions of the long day had brought fatigue to him as well as to
the rest of the party.
Macfarlane was particularly exhausted. His frequent pulls at the
whiskey flask had been of little or no avail as a support to his
aching limbs, and, now he bad reached his destination, he threw
himself full length on the turf in front of the hut and groaned most
dismally.
Lorimer surveyed him amusedly, and stood beside him, the very
picture of a cool young Briton whom nothing could possibly
discompose.
"Done up--eh, Sandy?" he inquired.
"Done up!" growled Macfarlane. "D'ye think I'm a Norseman or a
jumping Frenchy?" This with a look of positive indignation at the
lively Duprez, who, if tired, was probably too vain to admit it, for
he was strutting about, giving vent to his genuine admiration of the
scene before him with the utmost freshness and enthusiasm. "I'm just
a plain Scotchman, an' no such a fule at climbin' either! Why, man,
I've been up Goatfell in Arran, an' Ben Lomond an' Ben Nevis--
there's a mountain for ye, if ye like! But a brae like this, wi' a'
the stanes lyin' helter-skelter, an' crags that ye can barely hold
on to--and a mad chap guidin' ye on at the speed o' a leapin' goat--
I tell ye, I havena been used to't." Here he drew out his flask and
took another extensive pull at it. Then he added suddenly, "Just
look at Errington! He'll be in a fair way to break his neck if he
follows yon wee crazy loon any further."
At these words Lorimer turned sharply round, and perceived his
friend following Sigurd step by step up a narrow footing in the
steep ascent of some rough, irregular crags that ran out and formed
a narrow ledge, ending in a sharp point, jutting directly over the
full fury of the waterfall. He watched the two climbing figures for
an instant without any anxiety,--then he suddenly remembered that
Philip had promised to go with Sigurd "to the top of the Fall."
Acting on a rapid impulse which he did not stop to explain to
himself, Lorimer at once started off after them,--but the ascent was
difficult; they were some distance ahead, and though he shouted
vociferously, the roar of the cascade rendered his voice inaudible.
Gaining on them, however, by slow degrees, he was startled when all
at once they disappeared at the summit--and, breathless with his
rapid climb, he paused, bewildered. By-and-by he saw Sigurd creeping
cautiously out along the rocky shelf that overhung the tumbling
torrent--his gaze grew riveted with a sort of deadly fascination on
the spot.
"Good God!" he muttered under his breath. "Surely Phil will not
follow him THERE!"
He watched with strained eyes,--and a smothered cry escaped him as
Errington's tall figure, erect and bold, appeared on that narrow and
dangerous platform! He never knew how he clambered up the rest of
the slippery ascent. A double energy seemed given to his active
limbs. He never paused again for one second till he also stood on
the platform, without being heard or perceived by either Sigurd or
Philip. Their backs were turned to him, and he feared to move or
speak, lest a sudden surprised movement on their parts should have
the fatal result of precipitating one or both into the fall. He
remained, therefore, behind them, silent and motionless,--looking,
as they looked, at the terrific scene below. From that point,
Njedegorze was as a huge boiling caldron, from which arose twisted
wreaths and coiling lengths of white vapor, faintly colored with
gold and silvery blue. Dispersing in air, these mists took all
manner of fantastic forms,--ghostly arms seemed to wave and beckon,
ghostly hands to unite in prayer,--and fluttering creatures in
gossamer draperies of green and crimson, appeared to rise and float,
and retire and shrink, to nothingness again in the rainbow drift and
sweep of whirling foam. Errington gazed unconcernedly down on the
seething abyss. He pushed back his cap from his brow, and let the
fresh wind play among his dark, clustering curls. His nerves were
steady, and he surveyed the giddily twisting wheels of shining
water, without any corresponding giddiness in his own brain. He had
that sincere delight in a sublime natural spectacle, which is the
heritage of all who possess a poetic and artistic temperament; and
though he stood on a frail ledge of rock, from which one false or
unwary step might send him to certain destruction, he had not the
slightest sense of possible danger in his position. Withdrawing his
eyes from the Fall, he looked kindly down at Sigurd, who in turn was
staring up at him with a wild fixity of regard.
"Well, old boy," he said cheerfully, "this is a fine sight! Have you
had enough of it? Shall we go back?"
Sigurd drew imperceptibly nearer. Lorimer, from his point of vantage
behind a huge bowlder, drew nearer also.
"Go back?" echoed Sigurd. "Why should we go back?"
"Why, indeed!" laughed Errington, lightly balancing himself on the
trembling rocks beneath him. "Except that I should scarcely think
this is the best place on which to pass the night! Not enough room,
and too much noise! What say you?"
"Oh, brave, brave, fool!" cried the dwarf in sudden excitement. "Are
you not AFRAID?"
The young baronet's keen eyes glanced him over with amused wonder.
"What of?" he demanded coolly. Still nearer came Sigurd--nearer also
came the watchful, though almost invisible Lorimer.
"Look down there!" continued Sigurd in shrill tones, pointing to the
foaming gulf. "Look at the Elf-danz--see the beautiful spirits with
the long pale green hair and glittering wings! See how they beckon,
beckon, beckon! They want some one to join them--look how their
white arms wave,--they throw back their golden veils and smile at
us! They call to YOU--you with the strong figure and the proud eyes-
-why do you not go to them? They will kiss and caress you--they have
sweet lips and snow-white bosoms,--they will love you and take care
of you--they are as fair as Thelma!"
"Are they? I doubt it!" and Errington smiled dreamily as he turned
his head again towards the fleecy whirl of white water, arid saw at
once with an artist's quick eye what his sick-brained companion
meant by the Elf-danz, in the fantastic twisting, gliding shapes
tossed up in the vaporous mist of the Fall. "But I'll take your
word, Sigurd, without making the elves' personal acquaintance! Come
along--this place is bad for you--we'll dance with the green-haired
nymphs another time."
And with a light laugh he was about to turn away, when he was
surprised by a sudden, strange convulsion of Sigurd's countenance--
his blue eyes flashed with an almost phosphorescent lustre,--his
pale skin flushed deeply red, and the veins in his forehead started
into swelled and knotted prominence.
"Another time!" he screamed loudly; "no, no! Now--now! Die, robber
of Thelma's love! Die--die--DIE!"
Repeating these words like quick gasps of fury, he twisted his
meager arms tightly round Errington, and thrust him fiercely with
all his might towards the edge of the Fall. For one second Philip
strove against him--the next, he closed his eyes--Thelma's face
smiled on his mind in that darkness as though in white farewell--the
surging blood roared in his ears with more thunder than the terrific
tumble of the torrent--"God!" he muttered, and THEN--then he stood
safe on the upper part of the rocky platform with Lorimer's strong
hand holding him in a vice-like grasp, and Lorimer's face, pale, but
looking cheerfully into his. For a moment he was too bewildered to
speak. His friend loosened him and laughed rather forcedly--a slight
tremble of his lips was observable under his fair moustache.
"By Jove, Phil," he remarked in his usual nonchalant manner, "that
was rather a narrow shave! Fortunate I happened to be there!"
Errington gazed about him confusedly. "Where's Sigurd?" he asked.
"Gone! Ran off like a 'leapin' goat,' as Sandy elegantly describes
him. I thought at first he meant to jump over the Fall, in which
case I should have been compelled to let him have his own way, as my
hands were full. But he's taken a safe landward direction."
"Didn't he try to push me over?"
"Exactly! He was quite convinced that the mermaids wanted you. But I
considered that Miss Thelma's wishes had a prior claim on my
regard."
"Look here, old man," said Errington suddenly, "don't jest about it!
You saved my life!"
"Well!" and Lorimer laughed. "Quite by accident, I assure you."
"NOT by accident!" and Philip flushed up, looking very handsome and
earnest. "I believe you followed us up here thinking something might
happen. Now didn't you?"
"Suppose I did," began Lorimer, but he was interrupted by his
friend, who seized his hand, and pressed it with a warm, close,
affectionate fervor. Their eyes met--and Lorimer blushed as though
he had performed some action meriting blame rather than gratitude.
"That'll do, old fellow," he said almost nervously. "As we say in
polite society when some one crushes our favorite corn under his
heel--don't mention it! You see Sigurd IS cracked,--there's not the
slightest doubt about that,--and he's hardly accountable for his
vagaries. Then I know something about him that perhaps you don't. He
loves your Thelma!"
They were making the descent of the rocks together, and Errington
stopped short in surprise.
"Loves Thelma! You mean as a brother--"
"Oh no, I don't! I mean that he loves her as brothers often love
other people's sisters--his affection is by no means fraternal--if
it were only THAT--"
"I see!" and Philip's eyes filled with a look of grave compassion.
"Poor fellow! I understand his hatred of me now. Good Heavens! how
he must suffer! I forgive him with all my heart. But--I say, Thelma
has no idea of this!"
"Of course not. And you'd better not tell her. What's the good of
making her unhappy?"
"But how did YOU learn it?" inquired Philip, with a look of some
curiosity at his friend.
"Oh, I!" and Lorimer laughed carelessly; "I was always an observing
sort of fellow--fond of putting two and two together and making four
of them, when I wasn't too exhausted and the weather wasn't too hot
for the process. Sigurd's rather attached to me--indulges me with
some specially private ravings now and then--I soon found out his
secret, though I believe the poor little chap doesn't understand his
own feelings himself."
"Well," said Errington thoughtfully, "under the circumstances you'd
better not mention this affair of the Fall to Guldmar. It will only
vex him. Sigurd won't try such a prank again."
"I'm not so sure of that," replied Lorimer; "but you know enough now
to be on your guard with him." He paused and looked up with a misty
softness in his frank blue eyes--then went on in a subdued tone--
"When I saw you on the edge of that frightful chasm, Phil--" He
broke off as if the recollection were too painful, and exclaimed
suddenly--"Good God! if I had lost you!"
Errington clapped one hand on his shoulder.
"Well! What if you had?" he asked almost mirthfully, though there
was a suspicious tremble in his ringing voice.
"I should have said with Horatio, 'I am more an antique Roman than a
Dane,'--and gone after you," laughed Lorimer. "And who knows what a
jolly banquet we might not have been enjoying in the next world by
this time? If I believe in anything at all, I believe in a really
agreeable heaven--nectar and ambrosia, and all that sort of thing,
and Hebes to wait upon you."
As he spoke they reached the sheltering hut, where Guldmar, Duprez,
and Macfarlane were waiting rather impatiently for them.
"Where's Sigurd?" cried the bonde.
"Gone for a ramble on his own account," answered Errington readily.
"You know his fancies!"
"I wish his fancies would leave him," grumbled Guldmar. "He promised
to light a fire and spread the meal--and now, who knows whither he
has wandered?"
"Never mind, sir," said Lorimer. "Engage me as a kitchen-boy. I can
light a fire, and can also sit beside it when it is properly
kindled. More I cannot promise. As the housemaids say when they
object to assist the cook,--it would be BENEATH me."
"Cook!" cried Duprez, catching at this word. "I can cook! Give me
anything to broil. I will broil it! You have coffee--I will make
it!" And in the twinkling of an eye he had divested himself of his
coat, turned up his cuffs, and manufactured the cap of a chef out of
a newspaper which he stuck jauntily on his head. "Behold me,
messieurs, a votre service!"
His liveliness was infectious; they all set to work with a will, and
in a few moments a crackling wood-fire blazed cheerily on the
ground, and the gipsy preparations for the al fresco supper went on
apace amid peals of laughter. Soon the fragrance of steaming coffee
arose and mingled itself with the resinous odors of the surrounding
pine-trees,--while Macfarlane distinguished himself by catching a
fine salmon trout in a quiet nook of the rushing river, and this
Duprez cooked in a style that would have done honor to a cordon
bleu. They made an excellent meal, and sang songs in turn and told
stories,--Olaf Guldmar, in particular, related eerie legends of the
Dovre-fjelde, and many a striking history of ancient origin, full of
terror and superstition,--concerning witches, devils, and spirits
both good and evil, who are still believed to have their abode on
the Norwegian hills,--for, as the bonde remarked with a smile, "when
civilization has driven these unearthly beings from every other
refuge in the world, they will always be sure of a welcome in
Norway."
It was eleven o'clock when they at last retired within the hut to
rest for the night, and the errant Sigurd had not returned. The sun
shone brilliantly, but there was no window to the small shed, and
light and air came only through the door, which was left wide open.
The tired travellers lay down on their spread-out rugs and blankets,
and wishing each other a cheerful "good night," were soon fast
asleep. Errington was rather restless, and lay awake for some little
time, listening to the stormy discourse of the Fall; but at last his
eyelids yielded to the heaviness that oppressed them, and he sank
into a light slumber.
Meanwhile the imperial sun rode majestically downwards to the edge
of the horizon,--and the sky blushed into the pale tint of a wild
rose, that deepened softly and steadily with an ever-increasing
fiery brillance as the minutes glided noiselessly on to the
enchanted midnight hour. A wind began to rustle mysteriously among
the pines--then gradually growing wrathful, strove to whistle a loud
defiance to the roar of the tumbling waters. Through the little
nooks and crannies of the roughly constructed cabin, where the
travellers slept, it uttered small wild shrieks of warning or
dismay--and, suddenly, as though touched by an invisible hand, Sir
Philip awoke. A crimson glare streaming through the open door
dazzled his drowsy eyes--was it a forest on fire? He started up in
dreamy alarm,--then remembered where he was. Realizing that there
must be an exceptionally fine sky to cast so ruddy a reflection on
the ground, he threw on his cloak and went outside.
What a wondrous, almost unearthly scene greeted him! His first
impulse was to shout aloud in sheer ecstasy--his next to stand
silent in reverential awe. The great Fall was no longer a sweeping
flow of white foam--it had changed to a sparkling shower of rubies,
as though some great genie, tired of his treasures, were flinging
them away by giant handfuls, in the most reckless haste and lavish
abundance. From the bottom of the cascade a crimson vapor arose,
like smoke from flame, and the whirling rapids, deeply red for the
most part, darkened here and there into an olive-green flecked with
gold, while the spray, tossed high over interrupting rocks and
boulders, glittered as it fell like, small fragments of broken opal.
The sky was of one dense uniform rose-color from west to east,--soft
and shimmering as a broad satin pavilion freshly unrolled,--the sun
was invisible, hidden behind the adjacent mountains, but his rays
touched some peaks in the distance, on which white wreaths of snow
lay, bringing them into near and sparkling prominence.
The whole landscape was transformed--the tall trees, rustling and
swaying in the now boisterous wind, took all flickering tints of
color on their trunks and leaves,--the grey stones and pebbles
turned to lumps of gold and heaps of diamonds, and on the other side
of the rapids, a large tuft of heather in a cleft of the rocks
glowed with extraordinary vividness and warmth, like a suddenly
kindled fire. A troop of witches dancing wildly on the sward,--a
ring of fairies,--kelpies tripping from crag to crag,--a sudden
chorus of sweet-voiced water-nymphs--nothing unreal or fantastical
would have surprised Errington at that moment. Indeed, he almost
expected something of the kind--the scene was so eminently fitted
for it.
"Positively, I must wake Lorimer," he thought to himself. "He
oughtn't to miss such a gorgeous spectacle as this."
He moved a little more in position to view the Fall. What was that
small dark object running swiftly yet steadily along on the highest
summit of those jutting crags? He rubbed his eyes amazedly--was it--
could it be SIGURD? He watched it for a moment,--then uttered a loud
cry as he saw it pause on the very ledge of rock from which but a
short while since, he himself had been so nearly precipitated. The
figure was now distinctly visible, outlined in black against the
flaming crimson of the sky,--it stood upright and waved its arms
with a frantic gesture. There was no mistaking it--it WAS Sigurd!
Without another second's hesitation Errington rushed back to the hut
and awoke, with clamorous alarm, the rest of the party. His brief
explanation sufficed--they all hurried forth in startled excitement.
Sigurd still occupied his hazardous position, and as they looked at
him he seemed to dance wildly nearer the extreme edge of the rocky
platform. Old Guldmar turned pale. "The gods preserve him!" he
muttered in his beard--then turning he began resolutely to make the
ascent of the rocks with long, rapid strides--the young men followed
him eager and almost breathless, each and all bent upon saving
Sigurd from the danger in which he stood, and trying by different
ways to get more quickly near the unfortunate lad and call, or draw
him back by force from his point of imminent deadly peril. They were
more than half-way up, when a piercing cry rang clearly above the
thunderous din of the fall--a cry that made them pause for a moment.
Sigurd had caught sight of the figures advancing to his rescue, and
was waving them back with eloquent gesture of anger and defiance.
His small misshapen body was alive with wrath,--it seemed as though
he were some dwarf king ruling over the glittering crimson torrent,
and grimly forbidding strangers to enter on the boundaries of his
magic territory. They, however, pressed on with renewed haste,--and
they had nearly reached the summit when another shrill cry echoed
over the sunset-colored foam.
Once more they paused they were in full view of the distraught
Sigurd, and he turned his head towards them, shaking back his long
fair hair with his old favorite gesture and laughing in apparent
glee. Then he suddenly raised his arms, and, clasping his hands
together, poised himself as though he were some winged thing about
to fly.
"Sigurd! Sigurd!" shouted Guldmar, his strong voice tremulous with
anguish. "Come back! come back to Thelma!"
At the sound of that beloved name, the unhappy creature seemed to
hesitate, and, profiting by that instant of irresolution, Errington
and Lorimer rushed forward--Too late! Sigurd saw them coming, and
glided with stealthy caution to the very brink of the torrent, where
there was scarcely any foothold--there he looked back at his would-
be rescuers with an air of mystery and cunning, and broke into a
loud derisive laugh.
Then--still with clasped hands and smiling face--unheeding the shout
of horror that broke from those who beheld him--he leaped, and fell!
Down, down into the roaring abyss! For one half-second--one
lightning flash--his twisted figure, like a slight black speck was
seen against the wide roseate glory of the tumbling cascade--then it
disappeared, engulfed and lost for ever! Gone,--with all his wild
poet fancies and wandering dreams--gone, with his unspoken love and
unguessed sorrows--gone where dark things shall be made light,--and
where the broken or tangled chain of the soul's intelligence shall
be mended and made perfect by the tender hands of the All-Wise and
the All-Loving One, whose ways are too gloriously vast for our
finite comprehension.
"Gone, mistress!" as he would have said to the innocent cause of his
heart's anguish. "Gone where I shall grow straight and strong and
brave! Mistress, if you meet me in Valhalla, you will love me!"
CHAPTER XVII.
"Do not, I pray you, think evilly of so holy a man! He has a sore
combat against the flesh and the devil!"--The Maid of Honor.
The horror-stricken spectators of the catastrophe stood for a minute
inert and speechless,--stupefied by its suddenness and awful
rapidity. Then with one accord they hurried down to the level shore
of the torrent, moved by the unanimous idea that they might possibly
succeed in rescuing Sigurd's frail corpse from the sharp teeth of
the jagged rocks, that, piercing upwards through the foam of the
roaring rapids, were certain to bruise, tear, and disfigure it
beyond all recognition. But even this small satisfaction was denied
them. There was no sign of a floating or struggling body anywhere
visible. And while they kept an eager look-out, the light in the
heavens slowly changed. From burning crimson it softened to a tender
amethyst hue, as smooth and delicate as the glossy pale tint of the
purple clematis,--and with it the rosy foam of the Fall graduated to
varying tints of pink, from pink to tender green, and lastly, it
became as a shower of amber wine. Guldmar spoke first in a voice
broken by deep emotion.
"'Tis all over with him, poor lad!" he said, and tears glittered
thickly in his keen old eyes. "And--though the gods, of a surety,
know best--this is an end I looked not for! A mournful home-
returning shall we have--for how to break the news to Thelma is more
than I can tell!"
And he shook his head sorrowfully while returning the warm and
sympathizing pressure of Errington's hand.
"You see," he went on, with a wistful look at the grave and
compassionate face of his accepted son-in-law--"the boy was no boy
of mine, 'tis true--and the winds had more than their share of his
wits--yet--we knew him from a baby--and my wife loved him for his
sad estate, which he was not to blame for. Thelma, too--he was her
first playmate--"
The bonde could trust himself to say no more, but turned abruptly
away, brushing one hand across his eyes, and was silent for many
minutes. The young men, too, were silent,--Sigurd's determined
suicide had chilled and sickened them. Slowly they returned to the
hut to pass the remaining hours of the night--though sleep was, of
course, after what they had witnessed, impossible. They remained
awake, therefore, talking in low tones of the fatal event, and
listening to the solemn sough of the wind through the pines, that
sounded to Errington's ears like a monotonous forest dirge. He
thought of the first time he had ever seen the unhappy creature
whose wandering days had just ended,--of that scene in the
mysterious shell cavern,--of the wild words he had then uttered--how
strangely they came back to Philip's memory now!
"You have come as a thief in the golden midnight, and the thing you
seek is the life of Sigurd! Yes--yes! it is true--the spirit cannot
lie! You must kill, you must steal--see how the blood drips, drop by
drop, from the heart of Sigurd! and the jewel you steal,--ah! what a
jewel! You shall not find such another in Norway!" Was not the
hidden meaning of these incoherent phrases rendered somewhat clear
now? though how the poor lad's disordered imagination had been able
thus promptly to conjure up with such correctness, an idea of
Errington's future relations with Thelma, was a riddle impossible of
explanation. He thought, too, with a sort of generous remorse, of
that occasion when Sigurd had visited him on board the yacht to
implore him to leave the Altenfjord. He realized everything,--the
inchoate desires of the desolate being, who, though intensely
capable of loving, felt himself in a dim, sad way, unworthy of
love,--the struggling passions in him that clamored for utterance--
the instinctive dread and jealousy of a rival, while knowing that he
was both physically and mentally unfitted to compete with one,--all
these things passed through Philip's mind, and filled him with a
most profound pity for the hidden sufferings, the tortures and
inexplicable emotions which had racked Sigurd's darkened soul. And,
still busy with these reflections, he turned on his arm as he lay,
and whispered softly to his friend who was close by him--"I say,
Lorimer,--I feel as if I had been to blame somehow in this affair!
If I had never come on the scene, Sigurd would still have been happy
in his own way."
Lorimer was silent. After a pause, Errington went on still in the
same low tone.
"Poor little fellow! Do you know, I can't imagine anything more
utterly distracting than having to see such a woman as Thelma day
after day,--loving her all the time, and knowing such love to be
absolutely hopeless! Why, it was enough to make him crazier than
ever!"
Lorimer moved restlessly. "Yes, it must have been hard on him!" he
answered at last, in a gentle, somewhat sad tone. "Perhaps it's as
well he's out of it all. Life is infinitely perplexing to many of
us. By this time he's no doubt wiser than you or I, Phil,--he could
tell us the reason why love is such a blessing to some men, and such
a curse to others!"
Errington made no answer, and they relapsed into silence--silence
which was almost unbroken save by an occasional deep sigh from Olaf
Guldmar and a smothered exclamation such as, "Poor lad, poor lad!
Who would have thought it?"
With the early dawn they were all up and ready for the homeward
journey,--though with very different feelings to those with which
they had started on their expedition. The morning was dazzlingly
bright and clear,--and the cataract of Njedegorze rolled down in
glittering folds of creamy white and green, uttering its ceaseless
psalm of praise to the Creator in a jubilant roar of musical
thunder. They paused and looked at it for the last time before
leaving,--it had assumed for them a new and solemn aspect--it was
Sigurd's grave. The bonde raised his cap from his rough white hair,-
-instinctively the others followed his example.
"May the gods grant him good rest!" said the old man reverently. "In
the wildest waters they say there is a calm underflow,--maybe the
lad has found it and is glad to sleep." He paused and stretched his
hands forth with an eloquent and touching gesture. "Peace be with
him!"
Then, without more words, and as though disdaining his own emotion,
he turned abruptly away, and began to descend the stony and
precipitous hill, up which Sigurd had so skillfully guided them the
day before. Macfarlane and Duprez followed him close,--Macfarlane
casting more than once a keen look over the rapids.
"'Tis a pity we couldna find his body," he said in a low tone.
Duprez shrugged his shoulders. Sigurd's death had shocked him
considerably by its suddenness, but he was too much of a volatile
Frenchman to be morbidly anxious about securing the corpse.
"I think not so at all," he said. "Of what use would it be? To
grieve mademoiselle? to make her cry? That would be cruel,--I would
not assist in it! A dead body is not a sight for ladies,--believe
me, things are best as they are."
They went on, while Errington and Lorimer lingered yet a moment
longer.
"A magnificent sepulchre!" said Lorimer, dreamily eyeing for the
last time the sweeping flow of the glittering torrent. "Better than
all the monuments ever erected! Upon my life, I would not mind
having such a grave myself! Say what you like, Phil, there was
something grand in Sigurd's choice of a death. We all of us have to
get out of life somehow one day--that's certain--but few of us have
the chance of making such a triumphant exit!"
Errington looked at him with a grave smile. "How you talk, George!"
he said half-reproachfully. "One would think you envied the end of
that unfortunate, half-witted fellow! You've no reason to be tired
of your life, I'm sure,--all your bright days are before you."
"Are they?" And Lorimer's blue eyes looked slightly melancholy.
"Well, I dare say they are! Let's hope so at all events. There need
be something before me,--there isn't much behind except wasted
opportunities. Come on, Phil!"
They resumed their walk, and soon rejoined the others. The journey
back to the Altenfjord was continued all day with but one or two
interruptions for rest and refreshment. It was decided that on
reaching home, old Guldmar should proceed a little in advance, in
order to see his daughter alone first, and break to her the news of
the tragic event that had occurred,--so that when, after a long and
toilsome journey, they caught sight, at about eight in the evening,
of the familiar farmhouse through the branches of the trees that
surrounded and sheltered it, they all came to a halt.
The young men seated themselves on a pleasant knoll under some tall
pines, there to wait a quarter of an hour or so, while the bonde
went forward to prepare Thelma. On second thoughts, the old man
asked Errington to accompany him,--a request to which he very
readily acceded, and these two, leaving the others to follow at
their leisure, went on their way rapidly. They arrived at, and
entered the garden,--their footsteps made a crunching noise on the
pebbly path,--but no welcoming face looked forth from any of the
windows of the house. The entrance door stood wide open,--there was
not a living soul to be seen but the kitten asleep in a corner of
the porch, and the doves drowsing on the roof in the sunshine. The
deserted air of the place was unmistakable, and Guldmar and
Errington exchanged looks of wonder not unmixed with alarm.
"Thelma! Thelma!" called the bonde anxiously. There was no response.
He entered the house and threw open the kitchen door. There was no
fire,--and not the slightest sign of any of the usual preparations
for supper.
"Britta!" shouted Guldmar. Still no answer. "By the gods!" he
exclaimed, turning to the astonished Philip, "this is a strange
thing! Where can the girls be? I have never known both of them to be
absent from the house at the same time. Go down to the shore, my
lad, and see if Thelma's boat is missing, while I search the
garden."
Errington obeyed--hurrying off on his errand with a heart beating
fast from sudden fear and anxiety. For he knew Thelma was was not
likely to have gone out of her own accord, at the very time she
would have naturally expected her father and his friends back, and
the absence of Britta too, was, to say the least of it,
extraordinary. He reached the pier very speedily, and saw at a
glance that the boat was gone. He hastened back to report this to
Guldmar, who was making the whole place resound with his shouts of
"Thelma!" and "Britta!" though he shouted altogether in vain.
"Maybe," he said dubiously, on hearing of the missing boat--"Maybe
the child has gone on the Fjord--'tis often her custom,--but, then,
where is Britta? Besides, they must have expected us--they would
have prepared supper--they would have been watching for our return.
No, no! there is something wrong about this--'tis altogether
unusual."
And he looked about him in a bewildered way, while Sir Philip,
noting his uneasiness, grew more and more uneasy himself.
"Let me go and search for them, sir," he said, eagerly. "They may be
in the woods, or up towards the orchard."
Guldmar shook his head and drew his fuzzy white brows together in
puzzled meditation--suddenly he started and struck his staff
forcibly on the ground.
"I have it!" he exclaimed. "That old hag Lovisa is at the bottom of
this!"
"By Jove!" cried Errington. "I believe you're right! What shall we
do?"
At that moment, Lorimer, Duprez, and Macfarlane came on the scene,
thinking they had kept aloft long enough,--and the strange
disappearance of the two girls was rapidly explained to them. They
listened astonished and almost incredulous, but agreed with the
bonde as to Lovisa's probable share in the matter.
"Look here!" said Lorimer excitedly. "I'm not in the least tired,--
show me the way to Talvig, where that old screech-owl lives, and
I'll go there straight as a gun! Shouldn't wonder if she has not
forced away her grandchild, in which case Miss Thelma may have gone
after her."
"I'll come with you!" said Errington. "Let's lose no time about it."
But Guldmar shook his head. "'Tis a long way, my lads,--and you do
not know the road. No--'twill be better we should take the boat and
pull over to Bosekop; there we can get a carriole to take two of us
at least to Talvig--"
He stopped, interrupted by Macfarlane, who looked particularly
shrewd.
"I should certainly advise ye to try Bosekop first," he remarked
cautiously. "Mr. Dyceworthy might be able to provide ye with
valuable information."
"Dyceworthy!" roared the bonde, becoming inflammable at once. "He
knows little of me or mine, thank the gods! and I would not by
choice step within a mile of his dwelling. What makes you think of
him, sir?"
Lorimer laid a hand soothingly on his arm.
"Now, my dear Mr. Guldmar, don't get excited! Mac is right. I dare
say Dyceworthy knows as much in his way as the ancient Lovisa. At
any rate, it isn't his fault if he does not. Because you see--
"Lorimer hesitated and turned to Errington. "You tell him, Phil! you
know all about it."
"The fact is," said Errington, while Guldmar gazed from one to the
other in speechless amazement, "Thelma hasn't told you because she
knew how angry you'd be--but Dyceworthy asked her to marry him. Of
course she refused him, and I doubt if he's taken his rejection very
resignedly."
The face of the old farmer as he heard these words was a study.
Wonder, contempt, pride, and indignation struggled for the mastery
on his rugged features.
"Asked--her--to--marry--him!" he repeated slowly. "By the sword of
Odin! Had I known it I would have throttled him!" His eyes blazed
and he clenched his hand. "Throttled him, lads! I would! Give me the
chance and I'll do it now! I tell you, the mere look of such a man
as that is a desecration to my child,--liar and hypocrite as he is!
may the gods confound him!" He paused--then suddenly bracing himself
up, added. "I'll away to Bosekop at once--they've been afraid of me
there for no reason--I'll teach them to be afraid of me in earnest!
Who'll come with me?"
All eagerly expressed their desire to accompany him with the
exception of one,--Pierre Duprez,--he had disappeared.
"Why, where has he gone?" demanded Lorimer in some surprise.
"I canna tell," replied Macfarlane. "He just slipped awa' while ye
were haverin' about Dyceworthy--he'll maybe join us at the shore."
To the shore they at once betook themselves, and were soon busied in
unmooring Guldmar's own rowing-boat, which. as it had not been used
for some time, was rather a tedious business,--moreover they noted
with concern that the tide was dead against them.
Duprez did not appear,--the truth is, that he had taken into his
head to start off for Talvig on foot without waiting for the others.
He was fond of an adventure and here was one that suited him
precisely--to rescue distressed damsels from the grasp of
persecutors. He was tired, but he managed to find the road,--and he
trudged on determinedly, humming a song of Beranger's as he walked
to keep him cheerful. But he had not gone much more than a mile when
he discerned in the distance a carriole approaching him,--and
approaching so swiftly that it appeared to swing from side to side
of the road at imminent risk of upsetting altogether. There seemed
to be one person in it--an excited person too, who lashed the stout
little pony and urged it on to fresh exertions with gesticulations
and cries. That plump buxom figure--that tumbled brown hair
streaming wildly on, the breeze,--that round rosy face--why! it was
Britta! Britta, driving all alone, with the reckless daring of a
Norwegian peasant girl accustomed to the swaying, jolting movement
of the carriole as well as the rough roads and sharp turnings.
Nearer she came and nearer--and Duprez hailed her with a shout of
welcome. She saw him, answered his call, and drove still faster,--
soon she came up beside him, and without answering his amazed
questions, she cried breathlessly--
"Jump in--jump in! We must go on as quickly as possible to Bosekop!
Quick--quick! Oh my poor Froken! The old villain! Wait till I get at
him!"
"But, my leet-le child!" expostulated Pierre, climbing up into the
queer vehicle--"What is all this? I am in astonishment--I understand
not at all! How comes it that you are run away from home, and
Mademoiselle also?"
Britta only waited till he was safely seated, and then lashed the
pony with redoubled force. Away they clattered at a break-neck pace,
the Frenchman having much ado to prevent himself from being jolted
out again on the road.
"It is a wicked plot!" she then exclaimed, panting with excitement--
"a wicked, wicked plot! This afternoon Mr. Dyceworthy's servant came
and brought Sir Philip's card. It said that he had met with an
accident and had been brought back to Bosekop, and that he wished
the Froken to come to him at once. Of course, the darling believed
it all--and she grew so pale, so pale! And she went straight away in
her boat all by herself! Oh my dear--my dear!"
Britta gasped for breath, and Duprez soothingly placed an arm round
her waist, an action which the little maiden seemed not to be aware
of. She resumed her story--"Then the Froken had not been gone so
very long, and I was watching for her in the garden, when a woman
passed by--a friend of my grandmother's. She called out--'Hey,
Britta! Do you know they have got your mistress down at Talvig, and
they'll burn her for a witch before they sleep!' 'She has gone to
Bosekop,' I answered, 'so I know you tell a lie.' 'It is no lie,'
said the old woman, 'old Lovisa has her this time for sure.' And she
laughed and went away. Well, I did not stop to think twice about it-
-I started off for Talvig at once--I ran nearly all the way. I found
my grandmother alone--I asked her if she had seen the Froken? She
screamed and clapped her hands like a mad woman! she said that the
Froken was with Mr. Dyceworthy--Mr. Dyceworthy would know what to do
with her!"
"Sapristi!" ejaculated Duprez. "This is serious!"
Britta glanced anxiously at him, and went on. "Then she tried to
shut the doors upon me and beat me--but I escaped. Outside I saw a
man I knew with his carriole, and I borrowed it of him and came back
as fast as I could--but oh! I am so afraid--my grandmother said such
dreadful things!"
"The others have taken a boat to Bosekop," said Duprez, to re-assure
her. "They may be there by now."
Britta shook her head. "The tide is against them--no! we shall be
there first. But," and she looked wistfully at Pierre, "my
grandmother said Mr. Dyceworthy had sworn to ruin the Froken. What
did she mean, do you think?"
Duprez did not answer,--he made a strange grimace and shrugged his
shoulders. Then he seized the whip and lashed the pony.
"Faster, faster, mon chere!" he cried to that much-astonished, well-
intentioned animal. "It is not a time to sleep, ma foi!" Then to
Britta--"My little one, you shall see! We shall disturb the good
clergyman at his peaceful supper--yes indeed! Be not afraid!"
And with such reassuring remarks he beguiled the rest of the way,
which to both of them seemed unusually long, though it was not much
past nine when they rattled into the little village called by
courtesy a town, and came to a halt within a few paces of the
minister's residence. Everything was very quiet--the inhabitants of
the place retired to rest early--and the one principal street was
absolutely deserted. Duprez alighted.
"Stay you here, Britta," he said, lightly kissing the hand that held
the pony's reins. "I will make an examination of the windows of the
house. Yes--before knocking at the door! You wait with patience. I
will let you know everything!"
And with a sense of pleasurable excitement in his mind, he stole
softly along on tip-toe--entered the minister's garden, fragrant
with roses and mignonette, and then, attracted by the sound of
voices, went straight up to the parlor window. The blind was down
and he could see nothing, but he heard Mr. Dyceworthy's bland
persuasive tones, echoing out with a soft sonorousness, as though he
were preaching to some refractory parishioner. He listened
attentively.
"Oh strange, strange!" said Mr. Dyceworthy. "Strange that you will
not see how graciously the Lord hath delivered you into my hands!
Yea,--and no escape is possible! For lo, you yourself, Froken
Thelma," Dyceworthy started, "you yourself came hither unto my
dwelling, a woman all unprotected, to a man equally unprotected,--
and who, though a humble minister of saving grace, is not proof
against the offered surrender of your charms! Make the best of it,
my sweet girl!--make the best of it! You can never undo what you
have done to-night."
"Coward!. . . coward!" and Thelma's rich low voice caused Pierre to
almost leap forward from the place where he stood concealed. "You,--
YOU made me come here--YOU sent me that card--YOU dared to use the
name of my betrothed husband, to gain your vile purpose! YOU have
kept me locked in this room all these hours--and do you think you
will not be punished? I will let the whole village know of your
treachery and falsehood!"
Mr. Dyceworthy laughed gently. "Dear me, dear me!" he remarked
sweetly. "How pretty we look in a passion, to be sure! And we talk
of our 'betrothed husband' do we? Tut-tut! Put that dream out of
your mind, my dear girl--Sir Philip Bruce-Errington will have
nothing to do with you after your little escapade of to-night! Your
honor is touched!--yes, yes! and honor is everything to such a man
as he. As for the 'card' you talk about, I never sent a card--not
I!" Mr. Dyceworthy made this assertion in a tone of injured honesty.
"Why should I! No--no! You came here of your own accord,--that is
certain and--" here he spoke more slowly and with a certain
malicious glee, "I shall have no difficulty in proving it to be so,
should the young man Errington ask me for an explanation! Now you
had better give me a kiss and make the peace! There's not a soul in
the place who will believe anything you say against me; YOU, a
reputed witch, and I, a minister of the Gospel. For your father I
care nothing, a poor sinful pagan can never injure a servant of the
Lord. Come now, let me have that kiss! I have been very patient--I
am sure I deserve it!"
There was a sudden rushing movement in the room, and a slight cry.
"If you touch me!" cried Thelma, "I will kill you! I will! God will
help me!"
Again Mr. Dyceworthy laughed sneeringly. "God will help you!" he
exclaimed as though in wonder. "As if God ever helped a ROMAN!
Froken Thelma, be sensible. By your strange visit to me to-night you
have ruined your already damaged character--I say you have ruined
it,--and if anything remains to be said against you, I can say it--
moreover, I WILL!"
A crash of breaking window-glass followed these words, and before
Mr. Dyceworthy could realize what had happened, he was pinioned
against his own wall by an active, wiry, excited individual, whose
black eyes sparkled with gratified rage, whose clenched fist was
dealing him severe thumps all over his fat body.
"Ha, ha! You will, will you!" cried Duprez, literally dancing up
against him and squeezing him as though he were a jelly. "You will
tell lies in the service of le Bon Dieu? No--not quite, not yet!"
And still pinioning him with one hand, he dragged at his collar with
the other till he succeeded, in spite of the minister's unwieldly
efforts to defend himself, in rolling him down upon the floor, where
he knelt upon him in triumph. "Voila! Je sais faire la boxe, moi!"
Then turning to Thelma, who stood an amazed spectator of the scene,
her flushed cheeks and tear-swollen eyes testifying to the misery of
the hours she had passed, he said, "Run, Mademoiselle, run! The
little Britta is outside, she has a pony-car--she will drive you
home. I will stay here till Phil-eep comes. I shall enjoy myself! I
will begin--Phil-eep with finish! Then we will return to you."
Thelma needed no more words, she rushed to the door, threw it open,
and vanished like a bird in air. Britta's joy at seeing her was too
great for more than an exclamation of welcome,--and the carriole,
with the two girls safely in it, was soon on its rapid way back to
the farm. Meanwhile, Olaf Guldmar, with Errington and the others,
had just landed at Bosekop after a heavy pull across the Fjord, and
they made straight for Mr. Dyceworthy's house, the bonde working
himself up as he walked into a positive volcano of wrath. Finding
the street-door open as it had just been left by the escaped Thelma,
they entered, and on the threshold of the parlor, stopped abruptly,
in amazement at the sight that presented itself. Two figures were
rolling about on the floor, apparently in a close embrace,--one
large and cumbrous, the other small and slight. Sometimes they shook
each other,--sometimes they lay still,--sometimes they recommenced
rolling. Both were perfectly silent, save that the larger personage
seemed to breathe somewhat heavily. Lorimer stepped into the room to
secure a better view--then he broke into an irrepressible laugh.
"It's Duprez," he cried, for the benefit of the others that stood at
the door. "By Jove! How did he get here, I wonder?"
Hearing his name, Duprez looked up from that portion of My.
Dyceworthy's form in which he had been burrowing, and smiled
radiantly.
"Ah, cher Lorimer! Put your knee here, will you? So! that is well--I
will rest myself!" And he rose, smoothing his roughened hair with
both hands, while Lorimer in obedience to his request, kept one knee
artistically pressed on the recumbent figure of the minister. "Ah!
and there is our Phil-eep, and Sandy, and Monsieur Guldmar! But I do
not think," here he beamed all over, "there is much more to be done!
He is one bruise, I assure you! He will not preach for many
Sundays;--it is bad to be so fat--he will be so exceedingly
suffering!"
Errington could not forbear smiling at Pierre's equanimity. "But
what has happened?" he asked. "Is Thelma here?"
"She WAS here," answered Duprez. "The religious had decoyed her here
by means of some false writing,--supposed to be from you. He kept
her locked up here the whole afternoon. When I came he was making
love and frightening her,--I am pleased I was in time. But"--and he
smiled again--"he is well beaten!"
Sir Philip strode up to the fallen Dyceworthy, his face darkening
with wrath.
"Let him go, Lorimer," he said sternly. Then, as the reverend
gentleman slowly struggled to his feet, moaning with pain, he
demanded, "What have you to say for yourself, sir? Be thankful if I
do not give you the horse-whipping you deserve, you scoundrel!"
"Let me get at him!" vociferated Guldmar at this juncture,
struggling to free himself from the close grasp of the prudent
Macfarlane. "I have longed for such a chance! Let me get at him!"
But Lorimer assisted to restrain him from springing forward,--and
the old man chafed and swore by his gods in vain.
Mr. Dyceworthy meanwhile meekly raised his eyes, and folded his
hands with a sort of pious resignation.
"I have been set upon and cruelly abused," he said mournfully, "and
there is no part of me without ache and soreness!" He sighed deeply.
"But I am punished rightly for yielding unto carnal temptation, put
before me in the form of the maiden who came hither unto me with
delusive entrancements--"
He stopped, shrinking back in alarm from the suddenly raised fist of
the young baronet.
"You'd better be careful!" remarked Philip coolly, with dangerously
flashing eyes; "there are four of us here, remember!"
Mr. Dyceworthy coughed, and resumed an air of outraged dignity.
"Truly, I am aware of it!" he said; "and it surpriseth me not at all
that the number of the ungodly outweigheth that of the righteous!
Alas! 'why do the heathen rage so furiously together?' Why, indeed!
Except that 'in their hearts they imagine a vain thing!' I pardon
you, Sir Philip, I freely pardon you! And you also, sir," turning
gravely to Duprez, who received his forgiveness with a cheerful and
delighted bow. "You can indeed injure--and you HAVE injured this
poor body of mine--but you cannot touch the SOUL! No, nor can you
hinder that freedom of speech"--here his malignant smile was truly
diabolical--"which is my glory, and which shall forever be uplifted
against all manner of evil-doers, whether they be fair women and
witches, or misguided pagans--"
Again he paused, rather astonished at Errington's scornful laugh.
"You low fellow!" said the baronet. "From Yorkshire, are you? Well,
I happen to know a good many people in that part of the world--and I
have some influence there, too. Now, understand me--I'll have you
hounded out of the place! You shall find it too hot to hold you--
that I swear! Remember! I'm a man of my word! And if you dare to
mention the name of Miss Guldmar disrespectfully, I'll thrash you
within an inch of your life!"
Mr. Dyceworthy blinked feebly, and drew out his handkerchief.
"I trust, Sir Philip," he said mildly, "you will reconsider your
words! It would ill beseem you to strive to do me harm in the parish
were my ministrations are welcome, as appealing to that portion of
the people who follow the godly Luther. Oh yes,"--and he smiled
cheerfully--"you will reconsider your words. In the meantime--I--I"-
-he stammered slightly--"I apologize! I meant naught but good to the
maiden--but I have been misunderstood, as is ever the case with the
servants of the Lord. Let us say no more about it! I forgive!--let
us all forgive! I will even extend my pardon to the pagan yonder--"
But the "pagan" at that moment broke loose from the friendly grasp
in which he had been hitherto held, and strode up to the minister,
who recoiled like a beaten cur from the look of that fine old face
flushed with just indignation, and those clear blue eyes fiery as
the flash of steel.
"Pagan, you call me!" he cried. "I thank the gods for it--I am proud
of the title! I would rather be the veriest savage that ever knelt
in untutored worship to the great forces of Nature, than such a
THING as you--a slinking, unclean animal, crawling coward-like
between earth and sky, and daring to call itself a CHRISTIAN! Faugh!
Were I the Christ, I should sicken at sight of you!"
Dyceworthy made no reply, but his little eyes glittered evilly.
Errington, not desiring any further prolongation of the scene,
managed to draw the irate bonde away, saying in a low tone--
"We've had enough of this, sir! Let us get home to Thelma."
"I was about to suggest a move," added Lorimer. "We are only wasting
time here."
"Ah!" exclaimed Duprez radiantly--"and Monsieur Dyceworthy will be
glad to be in bed! He will be very stiff to-morrow, I am sure! Here
is a lady who will attend him."
This with a courteous salute to the wooden-faced Ulrika, who
suddenly confronted them in the little passage. She seemed surprised
to see them, and spoke in a monotonous dreamy tone, as though she
walked in her sleep.
"The girl has gone?" she added slowly.
Duprez nodded briskly. "She has gone! And let me tell you, madame,
that if it had not been for you, she would not have come here at
all. You took that card to her?"
Ulrika frowned. "I was compelled," she said. "SHE made me take it. I
promised." She turned her dull eyes slowly on Guldmar. "It was
Lovisa's fault. Ask Lovisa about it." She paused, and moistened her
dry lips with her tongue. "Where is your crazy lad?" she asked,
almost anxiously. "Did he come with you?"
"He is dead!" answered Guldmar, with grave coldness.
"Dead!" And to their utter amazement, she threw up her arms and
burst into a fit of wild laughter. "Dead! Thank God! Thank God!
Dead! And through no fault of mine! The Lord be praised! He was only
fit for death--never mind how he died--it is enough that he is dead-
-dead! I shall see him no more--he cannot curse me again!--the Lord
be thankful for all His mercies!"
And her laughter ceased--she threw her apron over her head and broke
into a passion of weeping.
"The woman must be crazy!" exclaimed the bonde, thoroughly
mystified,--then placing his arm through Errington's, he said
impatiently, "You're right, my lad! We've had enough of this. Let us
shake the dust of this accursed place off our feet and get home. I'm
tired out!"
They left the minister's dwelling and made straight for the shore,
and were soon well on their journey back to the farm across the
Fjord. This time the tide was with them--the evening was
magnificent, and the coolness of the breeze, the fresh lapping of
the water against the boat, and the brilliant tranquility of the
landscape, soon calmed their over-excited feelings. Thelma was
waiting for them under the porch as usual, looking a trifle paler
than her wont, after all the worry and fright and suspense she had
undergone,--but the caresses of her father and lover soon brought
back the rosy warmth on her fair face, and restored the lustre to
her eyes. Nothing was said about Sigurd's fate just then,--when she
asked for her faithful servitor, she was told he had "gone wandering
as usual," and it was not till Errington and his friends returned to
their yacht that old Guldmar, left alone with his daughter, broke
the sad news to her very gently. But the shock, so unexpected and
terrible, was almost too much for her already overwrought nerves,--
and such tears were shed for Sigurd as Sigurd himself might have
noted with gratitude. Sigurd--the loving, devoted Sigurd--gone for
ever! Sigurd,--her playmate,--her servant,--her worshiper,--dead!
Ah, how tenderly she mourned him!--how regretfully she thought of
his wild words! "Mistress, you are killing poor Sigurd!" Wistfully
she wondered if, in her absorbing love for Philip, she had neglected
the poor crazed lad,--his face, in all its pale, piteous appeal,
haunted her, and her grief for his loss was the greatest she had
ever known since the day on which she had seen her mother sink into
the last long sleep. Britta, too, wept and would not be comforted--
she had been fond of Sigurd in her own impetuous little way,--and it
was some time before either she or her mistress, could calm
themselves sufficiently to retire to rest. And long after Thelma was
sleeping, with tears still wet on her cheeks, her father sat alone
under his porch, lost in melancholy meditation. Now and then he
ruffled his white hair impatiently with his hand,--his daughter's
adventure in Mr. Dyceworthy's house had vexed his proud spirit. He
knew well enough that the minister's apology meant nothing--that the
whole village would be set talking against Thelma more, even than
before,--that there was no possibility of preventing scandal so long
as Dyceworthy was there to start it. He thought and thought and
puzzled himself with probabilities--till at last, when he finally
rose to enter his dwelling for the night, he muttered half-aloud.
"If it must be, it must! And the sooner the better now, I think, for
the child's sake."
The next morning Sir Philip arrived unusually early,--and remained
shut up with the bonde, in private conversation for more than an
hour. At the expiration of that time, Thelma was called, and taken
into their confidence. The result of their mysterious discussion was
not immediately evident,--though for the next few days, the farm-
house lost its former tranquility and became a scene of bustle and
excitement. Moreover, to the astonishment of the Bosekop folk, the
sailing-brig known as the Valkyrie, belonging to Olaf Guldmar, which
had been hauled up high and dry on the shore for many months, was
suddenly seen afloat on the Fjord, and Valdemar Svensen, Errington's
pilot, appeared to be busily engaged upon her decks, putting
everything in ship-shape order. It was no use asking HIM any
questions--he was not the man to gratify impertinent curiosity. By-
and-by a rumor got about in the village--Lovisa had gained her point
in one particular,--the Guldmars were going away--going to leave the
Altenfjord!
At first, the report was received with incredulity--but gained
ground, as people began to notice that several packages were being
taken in boats from the farm-house to both the Eulalie and the
Valkyrie. These preparations excited a great deal of interest and
inquisitiveness,--but no one dared ask for information as to what
was about to happen. The Reverend Mr. Dyceworthy was confined to his
bed "from a severe cold"--as he said, and therefore was unable to
perform his favorite mission of spy;--so that when, one brilliant
morning, Bosekop was startled by the steam-whistle of the Eulalie
blowing furiously, and echoing far and wide across the surrounding
rocky islands, several of the lounging inhabitants paused on the
shore, or sauntered down to the rickety pier, to see what was the
cause of the clamor. Even the long-suffering minister crawled out of
bed and applied his fat, meek visage to his window, from whence he
could command an almost uninterrupted view of the glittering water.
Great was his amazement, and discomfiture to see the magnificent
yacht moving majestically out of the Fjord, with Guldmar's brig in
tow behind her, and the English flag fluttering gaily from her
middle-mast, as she curtsied her farewell to the dark mountains, and
glided swiftly over the little hissing waves. Had Mr. Dyceworthy
been possessed of a field-glass, he might have been able to discern
on her deck, the figure of a tall, fair girl, who, drawing her
crimson hood over her rich hair, stood gazing with wistful, dreamy
blue eyes, at the last receding shores of the Altenfjord--eyes that
smiled and yet were tearful.
"Are you sorry, Thelma?" asked Errington gently, as he passed one
arm tenderly round her. "Sorry to trust your life to me?"
She laid her little hand in playful reproach against his lips.
"Sorry! you foolish boy! I am glad and grateful! But it is saying
good-bye to one's old life, is it not? The dear old home!--and poor
Sigurd!"
Her voice trembled, and bright tears fell.
"Sigurd is happy,"--said Errington gravely, taking the hand that
caressed him, and reverently kissing it. "Believe me, love,--if he
had lived some cruel misery might have befallen him--it is better as
it is!"
Thelma did not answer for a minute or two-then she said suddenly--
"Philip,--do you remember where I saw you first?"
"Perfectly!" he answered, looking fondly into the sweet upturned
face. "Outside a wonderful cavern, which I afterwards explored."
She started and seemed surprised. "You went inside?--you saw--?"
"Everything!"--and Philip related his adventure of that morning, and
his first interview with Sigurd. She listened attentively--then she
whispered softly--
"My mother sleeps there, you know,--yesterday I went to take her
some flowers for the last time. Father came with me--we asked her
blessing. And I think she will give it, Philip--she must know how
good you are and how happy I am."
He stroked her silky hair tenderly and was silent. The Eulalie had
reached the outward bend of the Altenfjord, and the station of
Bosekop was rapidly disappearing. Olaf Guldmar and the others came
on deck to take their last look of it.
"I shall see the old place again, I doubt not, long before you do,
Thelma, child," said the stout old bonde, viewing, with a keen, fond
glance, the stretch of the vanishing scenery. "Though when once you
are safe married at Christiania, Valdemar Svensen and I will have a
fine toss on the seas in the Valkyrie,--and I shall grow young again
in the storm and drift of the foam and the dark wild waves! Yes--a
wandering life suits me--and I am not sorry to have a taste of it
once more. There's nothing like it--nothing like a broad ocean and a
sweeping wind!"
And he lifted his cap and drew himself erect, inhaling the air like
an old warrior scenting battle. The others listened, amused at his
enthusiasm,--and, meanwhile, the Altenfjord altogether disappeared,
and the Eulalie was soon plunging in a rougher sea. They were bound
for Christiania, where it was decided Thelma's marriage should at
once take place--after which Sir Philip would leave his yacht at the
disposal of his friends, for them to return in it to England. He
himself intended to start directly for Germany with his bride, a
trip in which Britta was to accompany them as Thelma's maid. Olaf
Guldmar, as he had just stated, purposed making a voyage in the
Valkyrie, as soon as he should get her properly manned and fitted,
which he meant to do at Christiania.
Such were their plans,--and, meanwhile, they were all together on
the Eulalie,--a happy and sociable party,--Errington having resigned
his cabin to the use of his fair betrothed, and her little maid,
whose delight at the novel change in her life, and her escape from
the persecution of her grandmother, was extreme. Onward they
sailed,--past the grand Lofoden Islands and all the magnificent
scenery extending thence to Christiansund, while the inhabitants of
Bosekop looked in vain for their return to the Altenfjord.
The short summer there was beginning to draw to a close,--some of
the birds took their departure from the coast,--the dull routine of
the place went on as usual, rendered even duller by the absence of
the "witch" element of discord,--a circumstance that had kept the
superstitious villagers, more or less on a lively tension of
religious and resentful excitement--and by-and-by, the rightful
minister of Bosekop came back to his duties and released the
Reverend Charles Dyceworthy, who straightway returned to his loving
flock in Yorkshire. It was difficult to ascertain whether the aged
Lovisa was satisfied or wrathful, at the departure of the Guldmars
with her granddaughter Britta in their company--she kept herself
almost buried in her hut at Talvig, and saw no one but Ulrika, who
seemed to grow more respectably staid than ever, and who, as a
prominent member of the Lutheran congregation, distinguished herself
greatly by her godly bearing and uncompromising gloom.
Little by little, the gossips ceased to talk about the disappearance
of the "white witch" and her father--little by little they ceased to
speculate as to whether the rich Englishman, Sir Philip Errington,
really meant to marry her--a consummation of things which none of
them seemed to think likely--the absence of their hated neighbors,
was felt by them as a relief, while the rumored fate of the crazy
Sigurd was of course looked upon as evidence of fresh crime on the
part of the "pagan," who was accused of having, in some way or
other, caused the unfortunate lad's death. And the old farm-house on
the pine-covered knoll was shut up and silent,--its doors and
windows safely barred against wind and rain,--and only the doves,
left to forage for themselves, crooned upon its roof, all day, or
strutting on the deserted paths, ruffled their plumage in melancholy
meditation, as though wondering at the absence of the fair ruling
spirit of the place, whose smile had been brighter than the
sunshine. The villagers avoided it as though it were haunted--the
roses drooped and died untended,--and by degrees the old homestead
grew to look like a quaint little picture of forgotten joys, with
its deserted porch and fading flowers.
Meanwhile, a thrill of amazement, incredulity, disappointment,
indignation, and horror, rushed like a violent electric shock
through the upper circles of London society, arousing the deepest
disgust in the breasts of match-making matrons, and seriously
ruffling the pretty feathers of certain bird-like beauties who had
just began to try their wings, and who "had expectations." The cause
of the sensation was very simple. It was an announcement in the
Times--under the head of "Marriages"--and ran as follows:
"At the English Consulate, Christiania, Sir Philip Bruce-Errington,
Bart., to Thelma, only daughter of Olaf Guldmar, Bonde, of the
Altenfjord, Norway. No cards."
BOOK II.
THE LAND OF MOCKERY
CHAPTER XVIII.
"There's nothing serious in mortality: All is but toys."
MACBETH.
"I think," said Mrs. Rush-Marvelle deliberately, laying down the
Morning Post beside her breakfast-cup, "I think his conduct is
perfectly disgraceful!"
Mr. Rush-Marvelle, a lean gentleman with a sallow, clean-shaven face
and an apologetic, almost frightened manner, looked up hastily.
"Of whom are you speaking, my dear?" he inquired.
"Why, of that wretched young man Bruce-Errington! He ought to be
ashamed of himself!"
And Mrs. Marvelle fixed her glasses more firmly on her small nose,
and regarded her husband almost reproachfully. "Don't tell me,
Montague, that you've forgotten that scandal about him! He went off
last year, in the middle of the season, to Norway, in his yacht,
with three of the very fastest fellows he could pick out from his
acquaintance--regular reprobates, so I'm told--and after leading the
most awful life out there, making love to all the peasant girls in
the place, he married one of them,--a common farmer's daughter.
Don't you remember? We saw the announcement of his marriage in the
Times"
"Ah yes, yes!" And Mr. Rush-Marvelle smiled a propitiatory smile,
intended to soothe the evidently irritated feelings of his better-
half, of whom he stood always in awe. "Of course, of course! A very
sad mesalliance. Yes, yes! Poor fellow! And is there fresh news of
him?"
"Read THAT,"--and the lady handed the Morning Post across the table,
indicating by a dent of her polished finger-nail, the paragraph that
had offended her sense of social dignity. Mr. Marvelle read it with
almost laborious care--though it was remarkably short and easy of
comprehension.
"Sir Philip and Lady Bruce-Errington have arrived at their house in
Prince's Gate from Errington Manor."
"Well, my dear?" he inquired, with a furtive and anxious glance at
his wife. "I suppose--er--it--er--it was to be expected?"
"No, it was NOT to be expected," said Mrs. Rush-Marvelle, rearing
her head, and heaving her ample bosom to and fro in rather a
tumultuous manner. "Of course it was to be expected that Bruce-
Errington would behave like a fool--his father was a fool before
him. But I say it was not to be expected that he would outrage
society by bringing that common wife of his to London, and expecting
US to receive her! The thing is perfectly scandalous! He has had the
decency to keep away from town ever since his marriage--part of the
time he has staid abroad, and since January he has been at his place
in Warwickshire,--and this time--observe this!" and Mrs. Marvelle
looked most impressive--"not a soul has been invited to the Manor--
not a living soul! The house used to be full of people during the
winter season--of course, now, he dare not ask anybody lest they
should be shocked at his wife's ignorance. That's as clear as
daylight! And now he has the impudence to actually bring her here,--
into SOCIETY! Good Heavens! He must be mad! He will be laughed at
wherever he goes!"
Mr. Rush-Marvelle scratched his bony chin perplexedly.
"It makes it a little awkward for--for you," he remarked feelingly.
"Awkward! It is abominable!" And Mrs. Marvelle rose from her chair,
and shook out the voluminous train of her silken breakfast-gown, an
elaborate combination of crimson with grey chinchilla fur. "I shall
have to call on the creature--just imagine it! It is most
unfortunate for me that I happen to be one of Bruce-Errington's
oldest friends--otherwise I might have passed him over in some way--
as it is I can't. But fancy having to meet a great coarse peasant
woman, who, I'm certain, will only be able to talk about fish and
whale-oil! It is really QUITE dreadful!"
Mr. Rush-Marvelle permitted himself to smile faintly.
"Let us hope she will not turn out so badly," he said soothingly,--"
but, you know, if she proves to be--er--a common person of,--er--a
very uneducated type--you can always let her drop gently--quite
gently!"
And he waved his skinny hand with an explanatory flourish.
But Mrs. Marvelle did not accept his suggestion in good part.
"You know nothing about it," she said somewhat testily. "Keep to
your own business, Montague, such as it is. The law suits your
particular form of brain--society does not. You would never be in
society at all if it were not for me--now you know you wouldn't!"
"My love," said Mr. Marvelle, with a look of meek admiration at his
wife's majestic proportions. "I am aware of it! I always do you
justice. You are a remarkable woman!"
Mrs. Marvelle smiled, somewhat mollified. "You see," she then
condescended to explain--"the whole thing is so extremely
disappointing to me. I wanted Marcia Van Clupp to go in for the
Errington stakes,--it would have been such an excellent match,--
money on both sides. And Marcia would have been just the girl to
look after that place down in Warwickshire--the house is going to
rack and ruin, in MY opinion."
"Ah, yes!" agreed her husband mildly. "Van Clupp is a fine girl--a
very fine girl! No end of 'go' in her. And so Errington Manor needs
a good deal of repairing, perhaps?" This query was put by Mr.
Marvelle, with his head very much on one side, and his bilious eyes
blinking drowsily.
"I don't know about repairs," replied Mrs. Marvelle. "It is a
magnificent place, and certainly the grounds are ravishing. But one
of the best rooms in the house, is the former Lady Errington's
boudoir--it is full of old-fashioned dirty furniture, and Bruce-
Errington won't have it touched,--he will insist on keeping it as
his mother left it. Now that is ridiculous--perfectly morbid! It's
just the same thing with his father's library--he won't have that
touched either--and the ceiling wants fresh paint, and the windows
want new curtains--and all sorts of things ought to be done. Marcia
would have managed all that splendidly--she'd have had everything
new throughout--Americans are so quick, and there's no nonsensical
antiquated sentiment about Marcia."
"She might even have had new pictures and done away with the old
ones," observed Mr. Marvelle, with a feeble attempt at satire. His
wife darted a keen look at him, but smiled a little too. She was not
without a sense of humor.
"Nonsense, Montague! She knows the value of works of art better than
many a so-called connoisseur. I won't have you make fun of her. Poor
girl! She DID speculate on Bruce-Errington,--you know he was very
attentive to her, at that ball I gave just before he went off to
Norway."
"He certainly seemed rather amused by her," said Mr. Marvelle. "Did
she take it to heart when she heard he was married?"
"I should think not," replied Mrs. Marvelle loftily. "She has too
much sense. She merely said, 'All right! I must stick to
Masherville!'"
Mr. Marvelle nodded blandly. "Admirable,--admirable!" he murmured,
with a soft little laugh, "A very clever girl--a very bright
creature! And really there are worse fellows than Masherville! The
title is old."
"Yes, the title is all very well," retorted his wife--"but there's
no money--or at least very little."
"Marcia has sufficient to cover any deficit?" suggested Mr.
Marvelle, in a tone of meek inquiry.
"An American woman never has sufficient," declared Mrs. Marvelle.
"You know that as well as I do. And poor dear Mrs. Van Clupp has so
set her heart on a really brilliant match for her girl--and I had
positively promised she should have Bruce-Errington. It is really
too bad!" And Mrs. Marvelle paced the room with a stately, sweeping
movement, pausing every now and then to glance at herself
approvingly in the mirror above the chimney-piece, while her husband
resumed his perusal of the Times. By-and-by she said abruptly--
"Montague!"
Mr. Marvelle dropped his paper with an alarmed air.
"My dear!"
"I shall go to Clara Winsleigh this morning--and see what she means
to do in the matter. Poor Clara! She must be disgusted at the whole
affair!"
"She had rather a liking for Errington, hadn't she?" inquired Mr.
Marvelle, folding up the Times in a neat parcel, preparatory to
taking it with him in order to read it in peace on his way to the
Law Courts.
"Liking? Well!" And Mrs. Marvelle, looking at herself once more in
the glass, carefully arranged the ruffle of Honiton lace about her
massive throat,--"It was a little more than liking--though, of
course, her feelings were perfectly proper, and all that sort of
thing,--at least, I suppose they were! She had a great friendship
for him,--one of those emotional, perfectly spiritual and innocent
attachments, I believe, which are so rare in this wicked world."
Mrs. Marvelle sighed, then suddenly becoming practical again, she
continued. "Yes, I shall go there and stop to luncheon, and talk
this thing over. Then I'll drive on to the Van Clupps, and bring
Marcia home to dinner. I suppose you don't object?"
"Object!" Mr. Marvelle made a deprecatory gesture, and raised his
eyes in wonder. As if he dared object to anything whatsoever that
his wife desired!
She smiled graciously as he approached, and respectfully kissed her
smooth cool cheek, before taking his departure for his daily work as
a lawyer in the city, and when he was gone, she betook herself to
her own small boudoir, where she busied herself for more than an
hour in writing letters, and answering invitations.
She was, in her own line, a person of importance. She made it her
business to know everything and everybody--she was fond of meddling
with other people's domestic concerns, and she had a finger in every
family pie. She was, moreover, a regular match-maker,--fond of
taking young ladies under her maternal wing, and "introducing" them
to the proper quarters, and when, as was often the case, a
distinguished American of many dollars but no influence offered her
three or four hundred guineas for chaperoning his daughter into
English society and marrying her well, Mrs. Rush-Marvelle pocketed
the douceur quite gracefully, and did her best for the girl. She was
a good-looking woman, tall, portly, and with an air of distinction
about her, though her features were by no means striking, and the
smallness of her nose was out of all proportion to the majesty of
her form--but she had a very charming smile, and a pleasant, taking
manner, and she was universally admired in that particular "set"
wherein she moved. Girls adored her, and wrote her gushing letters,
full of the most dulcet flatteries--married ladies on the verge of a
scandal came to her to help them out of their difficulties--old
dowagers, troubled with rheumatism or refractory daughters, poured
their troubles into her sympathizing ears--in short, her hands were
full of other people's business to such an extent that she had
scarcely any leisure to attend to her own. Mr. Rush-Marvelle,--but
why describe this gentleman at all? He was a mere nonentity--known
simply as the husband of Mrs. Rush-Marvelle. He knew he was nobody--
and, unlike many men placed in a similar position, he was satisfied
with his lot. He admired his wife intensely, and never failed to
flatter her vanity to the utmost excess, so that, on the whole, they
were excellent friends, and agreed much better than most married
people.
It was about twelve o'clock in the day, when Mrs. Rush-Marvelle's
neat little brougham and pair stopped at Lord Winsleigh's great
house in Park Lane. A gorgeous flunkey threw open the door with a
virtuously severe expression on his breakfast-flushed countenance,--
an expression which relaxed into a smile of condescension on seeing
who the visitor was.
"I suppose Lady Winsleigh is at home, Briggs?" inquired Mrs.
Marvelle, with the air of one familiar with the ways of the
household.
"Yes'm," replied Briggs slowly, taking in the "style" of Mrs. Rush-
Marvelle's bonnet, and mentally calculating its cost. "Her ladyship
is in the boo-dwar."
"I'll go there," said Mrs. Marvelle, stepping into the hall, and
beginning to walk across it, in her own important and self-assertive
manner. "You needn't announce me."
Briggs closed the street-door, settled his powdered wig, and looked
after her meditatively. Then he shut up one eye in a sufficiently
laborious manner and grinned. After this he retired slowly to a
small ante-room, where he found the World with its leaves uncut.
Taking up his master's ivory paper-knife, he proceeded to remedy
this slight inconvenience,--and, yawning heavily, he seated himself
in a velvet arm-chair, and was soon absorbed in perusing the pages
of the journal in question.
Meanwhile Mrs. Marvelle, in her way across the great hall to the
"boo-dwar," had been interrupted and nearly knocked down by the
playful embrace of a handsome boy, who sprang out upon her suddenly
with a shout of laughter,--a boy of about twelve years old, with
frank, bright blue eyes and clustering dark curls.
"Hullo, Mimsey!" cried this young gentleman-"here you are again! Do
you want to see papa? Papa's in there!"--pointing to the door from
which he had emerged--"he's correcting my Latin exercise. Five good
marks to-day, and I'm going to the circus this afternoon! Isn't it
jolly?"
"Dear me, Ernest!" exclaimed Mrs. Marvelle half crossly, yet with an
indulgent smile,--"I wish you would not be so boisterous! You've
nearly knocked my bonnet off."
"No, I haven't," laughed Ernest; "it's as straight as--wait a bit!"
And waving a lead pencil in the air, he drew an imaginary stroke
with it. "The middle feather is bobbing up and down just on a line
with your nose--it couldn't be better!"
"There, go along, you silly boy!" said Mrs. Marvelle, amused in
spite of herself. "Get back to your lessons. There'll be no circus
for you if you don't behave properly! I'm going to see your mother."
"Mamma's reading," announced Ernest. "Mudie's cart has just been and
brought a lot of new novels. Mamma wants to finish them all before
night. I say, are you going to stop to lunch?"
"Ernest, why are you making such a noise in the passage?" said a
gentle, grave voice at this juncture. "I am waiting for you, you
know. You haven't finished your work yet. Ah, Mrs. Marvelle! How do
you do?"
And Lord Winsleigh came forward and shook hands. "You will find her
ladyship in, I believe. She will be delighted to see you. This young
scapegrace," here he caressed his son's clustering curls tenderly--
"has not yet done with his lessons--the idea of the circus to-day
seems to have turned his head."
"Papa, you promised you'd let me off Virgil this morning!" cried
Ernest, slipping his arm coaxingly through his father's. Lord
Winsleigh smiled. Mrs. Rush-Marvelle shook her head with a sort of
mild reproachfulness.
"He really ought to go to school," she said, feigning severity. "You
will find him too much for you, Winsleigh, in a little while."
"I think not," replied Lord Winsleigh, though an anxious look
troubled for an instant the calm of his deep-set grey eyes. "We get
on very well together, don't we, Ernest?" The boy glanced up fondly
at his father's face and nodded emphatically. "At a public-school,
you see, the boys are educated on hard and fast lines--all ground
down to one pattern,--there's no chance of any originality possible.
But don't let me detain you, Mrs. Marvelle--you have no doubt much
to say to Lady Winsleigh. Come, Ernest! If I let you off Virgil, you
must do the rest of your work thoroughly."
And with a courteous salute, the grave, kindly-faced nobleman re-
entered his library, his young son clinging to his arm and pouring
forth boyish confidences, which seemingly received instant attention
and sympathy,--while Mrs. Rush-Marvelle looked after their
retreating figures with something of doubt and wonder on her placid
features. But whatever her thoughts, they were not made manifest
just then. Arriving at a door draped richly with old-gold plush and
satin, she knocked.
"Come in!" cried a voice that, though sweet in tone, was also
somewhat petulant.
Mrs. Marvelle at once entered, and the occupant of the room sprang
up in haste from her luxurious reading-chair, where she was having
her long tresses brushed out by a prim-looking maid, and uttered an
exclamation of delight.
"My dearest Mimsey!" she cried, "this is quite too sweet of you!
You're just the very person I wanted to see!" And she drew an easy
fauteuil to the sparkling fire,--for the weather was cold, with that
particularly cruel coldness common to an English May,--and dismissed
her attendant. "Now sit down, you dear old darling," she continued,
"and let me have all the news!"
Throwing herself back on her lounge, she laughed, and tossed her
waving hair loose over her shoulders, as the maid had left it,--then
she arranged, with a coquettish touch here and there, the folds of
her pale pink dressing-gown, showered with delicate Valenciennes.
She was undeniably a lovely woman. Tall and elegantly formed, with
an almost regal grace of manner, Clara, Lady Winsleigh, deserved to
be considered, as she was, one of the reigning beauties of the day.
Her full dark eyes were of a bewitching and dangerous softness,--her
complexion was pale, but of such a creamy, transparent pallor as to
be almost brilliant,--her mouth was small and exquisitely shaped.
True,--her long eyelashes were not altogether innocent of "kohl,"--
true, there was a faint odor about her as of rare perfumes and
cosmetics,--true, there was something not altogether sincere or
natural even in her ravishing smile and fascinating ways--but few,
save cynics, could reasonably dispute her physical perfections, or
question the right she had to tempt and arouse the passions of men,
or to trample underfoot? with an air of insolent superiority, the
feelings of women less fair and fortunate. Most of her sex envied
her,--but Mrs. Rush-Marvelle, who was past the prime of life, and,
who, moreover, gained her social successes through intelligence and
tact alone, was far too sensible to grudge any woman her beauty. On
the contrary, she was a frank admirer of handsome persons, and she
surveyed Lady Winsleigh now through her glasses with a smile of
bland approval.
"You are looking very well, Clara," she said. "Let me see--you went
to Kissingen in the summer, didn't you?"
"Of course I did," laughed her ladyship. "It was delicious! I
suppose you know Lennie came after me there! Wasn't it ridiculous!"
Mrs. Marvelle coughed dubiously. "Didn't Winsleigh put in an
appearance at all?" she asked.
Lady Clara's brow clouded. "Oh yes! For a couple of weeks or so.
Ernest came with him, of course, and they rambled about together all
the time. The boy enjoyed it."
"I remember now," said Mrs. Marvelle. "But I've not seen anything of
you since you came back, Clara, except once in the park and once at
the theatre. You've been all the time at Winsleigh Court--by-the-by,
was Sir Francis Lennox there too?"
"Why, naturally!" replied the beauty, with a cool smile. "He follows
me everywhere like a dog! Poor Lennie!"
Again the elder lady coughed significantly.
Clara Winsleigh broke into a ringing peal of laughter, and rising
from her lounge, knelt beside her visitor in a very pretty coaxing
attitude.
"Come, Mimsey!" she said, "you are not going to be proper at this
time of day! That would be a joke! Darling, indulgent, good old
Mimsey!--you don't mean to turn into a prim, prosy, cross Mrs.
Grundy! I won't believe it! And you mustn't be severe on poor
Lennie--he's such a docile, good boy, and really not bad-looking!"
Mrs. Marvelle fidgeted a little on her chair. "I don't want to talk
about LENNIE, as you call him," she said, rather testily--"Only I
think you'd better be careful how far you go with him. I came to
consult you on something quite different. What are you going to do
about the Bruce-Errington business? You know it was in the Post to-
day that they've arrived in town. The idea of Sir Philip bringing
his common wife into society!--It's too ridiculous!"
Lady Winsleigh sprang to her feet, and her eyes flashed
disdainfully.
"What am I going to do?" she repeated, in accents of bitter
contempt. "Why, receive them, of course! It will be the greatest
punishment Bruce-Errington can have! I'll get all the best people
here that I know--and he shall bring his peasant woman among them,
and blush for her! It will be the greatest fun out! Fancy a
Norwegian farmer's girl lumbering along with her great feet and red
hands!. . . and, perhaps, not knowing whether to eat an ice with a
spoon or with her fingers! I tell you Bruce-Errington will be ready
to die for shame--and serve him right too!"
Mrs. Marvelle was rather startled at the harsh, derisive laughter
with which her ladyship concluded her excited observations, but she
merely observed mildly--
"Well, then, you will leave cards?"
"Certainly?"
"Very good--so shall I," and Mrs. Marvelle sighed resignedly. "What
must be, must be! But it's really dreadful to think of it all--I
would never have believed Philip Errington could have so disgraced
himself!"
"He is no gentleman!" said Lady Winsleigh freezingly. "He has low
tastes and low desires. He and his friend Lorimer are two CADS, in
my opinion!"
"Clara!" exclaimed Mrs. Marvelle warningly. "You were fond of him
once!--now, don't deny it!"
"Why should I deny it?" and her ladyship's dark eyes blazed with
concentrated fury. "I loved him! There! I would have done anything
for him! He might have trodden me down under his feet! He knew it
well enough--cold, cruel, heartless cynic as he was and is! Yes, I
loved him!--but I HATE him now!"
And she stamped her foot to give emphasis to her wild words. Mrs.
Marvelle raised her hands and eyes in utter amazement.
"Clara, Clara! Pray, pray be careful! Suppose any one else heard you
going on in this manner! Your reputation would suffer, I assure you!
Really, you're horribly reckless! Just think of your husband--"
"My husband!" and a cold gleam of satire played round Lady
Winsleigh's proud mouth. She paused and laughed a little. Then she
resumed in her old careless way--"You must be getting very goody-
goody, Mimsey, to talk to me about my husband! Why don't you read me
a lecture on the duties of wives and the education of children? I am
sure you know how profoundly it would interest me!"
She paced up and down the room slowly while Mrs. Marvelle remained
discreetly silent. Presently there came a tap at the door, and the
gorgeous Briggs entered. He held himself like an automaton, and
spoke as though repeating a lesson.
"His lordship's compliments, and will her la'ship lunch in the
dining-room to-day?"
"No," said Lady Winsleigh curtly. "Luncheon for myself and Mrs.
Marvelle can be sent up here."
Briggs still remained immovable. "His lordship wished to know if
Master Hernest was to come to your la'ship before goin' out?"
"Certainly not!" and Lady Winsleigh's brows drew together in a
frown. "The boy is a perfect nuisance!"
Briggs bowed and vanished. Mrs. Rush-Marvelle grew more and more
restless. She was a good-hearted woman, and there was something in
the nature of Clara Winsleigh that, in spite of her easy-going
conscience, she could not altogether approve of.
"Do you never lunch with your husband, Clara?" she asked at last.
Lady Winsleigh looked surprised. "Very seldom. Only when there is
company, and I am compelled to be present. A domestic meal would be
too ennuyant! I wonder you can think of such a thing! And we
generally dine out."
Mrs. Marvelle was silent again, and, when she did speak, it was on a
less delicate matter.
"When is your great 'crush,' Clara?" she inquired, "You sent me a
card, but I forget the date."
"On the twenty-fifth," replied Lady Winsleigh." This is the
fifteenth. I shall call on Lady Bruce-Errington"--here she smiled
scornfully--"this afternoon--and to-morrow I shall send them their
invitations. My only fear is whether they mayn't refuse to come. I
would not miss the chance for the world! I want my house to be the
first in which her peasant-ladyship distinguishes herself by her
blunders!"
"I'm afraid it'll be quite a scandal!" sighed Mrs. Rush-Marvelle.
"Quite! Such a pity! Bruce-Errington was such a promising, handsome
young man!"
At that moment Briggs appeared again with an elegantly set luncheon-
tray, which he placed on the table with a flourish.
"Order the carriage at half-past three," commanded Lady Winsleigh.
"And tell Mrs. Marvelle's coachman that he needn't wait,--I'll drive
her home myself."
"But, my dear Clara," remonstrated Mrs. Marvelle, "I must call at
the Van Clupps'--"
"I'll call there with you. I owe them a visit. Has Marcia caught
young Masherville yet?"
"Well," hesitated Mrs. Marvelle, "he is rather slippery, you know--
so undecided and wavering!"
Lady Winsleigh laughed. "Never mind that! Marcia's a match for him!
Rather a taking girl--only WHAT an accent! My nerves are on edge
whenever I hear her speak."
"It's a pity she can't conquer that defect," agreed Mrs. Marvelle.
"I know she has tried. But, after all, they're not the best sort of
Americans--"
"The BEST sort! I should think not! But they're of the RICHEST sort,
and that's something, Mimsey! Besides, though everybody knows what
Van Clupp's father was, they make a good pretense at being well-
born,--they don't cram their low connections down your throat, as
Bruce-Errington wants to do with his common wife. They ignore all
their vulgar belongings delightfully! They've been cruelly 'cut' by
Mrs. Rippington--she's American--but, then, she's perfect style. Do
you remember that big 'at home' at the Van Clupp's when they had a
band to play in the back-yard, and everybody was deafened by the
noise? Wasn't it quite too ridiculous!"
Lady Winsleigh laughed over this reminiscence, and then betook
herself to the consideration of lunch,--a tasty meal which both she
and Mrs. Marvelle evidently enjoyed, flavored as it was with the
high spice of scandal concerning their most immediate and mutual
friends, who were, after much interesting discussion, one by one
condemned as of "questionable" repute, and uncertain position. Then
Lady Winsleigh summoned her maid, and was arrayed cap-a-pie in
"carriage-toilette," while Mrs. Marvelle amused herself by searching
the columns of Truth for some new tit-bit of immorality connected
with the royalty or nobility of England. And at half-past three
precisely, the two ladies drove off together in an elegant victoria
drawn by a dashing pair of greys, with a respectably apoplectic
coachman on the box, supported by the stately Briggs, in all the
glory of the olive-green and gold liveries which distinguished the
Winsleigh equipage. By her ladyship's desire, they were driven
straight to Prince's Gate.
"We may as well leave our cards together," said Clara, with a
malicious little smile, "though I hope to goodness the creature
won't be at home."
Bruce-Errington's town-house was a very noble-looking mansion--
refined and simple in outer adornment, with a broad entrance, deep
portico, and lofty windows--windows which fortunately were not
spoilt by gaudy hangings of silk or satin in "aesthetic" colors. The
blinds were white--and, what could be seen of the curtains from the
outside, suggested the richness of falling velvets, and gold-woven
tapestries. The drawing-room balconies were full of brilliant
flowers, shaded by quaint awnings of Oriental pattern, thus giving
the place an air of pleasant occupation and tasteful elegance.
Lady Winsleigh's carriage drew up at the door, and Briggs descended.
"Inquire if Lady Bruce-Errington is at home," said his mistress.
"And if not, leave these cards."
Briggs received the scented glossy bits of pasteboard in his yellow-
gloved hand with due gravity, and rang the bell marked "Visitors" in
his usual ponderous manner, with a force that sent it clanging
loudly through the corridors of the stately mansion. The door was
instantly opened by a respectable man with grey hair and a gentle,
kindly face, who was dressed plainly in black, and who eyed the
gorgeous Briggs with the faintest suspicion of a smile. He was
Errington's butler, and had served the family for twenty-five years.
"Her ladyship is driving in the Park," he said in response to the
condescending inquiries of Briggs. "She left the house about half an
hour ago."
Briggs thereupon handed in the cards, and forthwith reported the
result of his interview to Lady Winsleigh, who said with some
excitement--
"Turn into the Park and drive up and down till I give further
orders."
Briggs mutely touched his hat, mounted the box, and the carriage
rapidly bowled in the required direction, while Lady Winsleigh
remarked laughingly to Mrs. Marvelle--
"Philip is sure to be with his treasure! If we can catch a glimpse
of her, sitting, staring open-mouthed at everything, it will be
amusing! We shall then know what to expect."
Mrs. Marvelle said nothing, though she too was more or less curious
to see the "peasant" addition to the circle of fashionable society,-
-and when they entered the Park, both she and Lady Winsleigh kept a
sharp look-out for the first glimpse of the quiet grey and silver of
the Bruce-Errington liveries. They watched, however, in vain--it was
not yet the hour for the crowding of the Row--and there was not a
sign of the particular equipage they were so desirous to meet.
Presently Lady Winsleigh's face flushed--she laughed, and bade her
coachman come to a halt.
"It is only Lennie," she said in answer to Mrs. Marvelle's look of
inquiry. "I MUST speak to him a moment!"
And she beckoned coquettishly to a slight, slim young man with a
dark moustache and rather handsome features, who was idling along on
the footpath, apparently absorbed in a reverie, though it was not of
so deep a character that he failed to be aware of her ladyship's
presence--in fact he had seen her as soon as she appeared in the
Park. He saw everything apparently without looking--he had lazily
drooping eyes, but a swift under-glance which missed no detail of
whatever was going on. He approached now with an excessively languid
air, raising his hat slowly, as though the action bored him.
"How do, Mrs. Marvelle!" he drawled lazily, addressing himself first
to the elder lady, who responded somewhat curtly,--then leaning his
arms on the carriage door, he fixed Lady Winsleigh with a sleepy
stare of admiration. "And how is our Clara? Looking charming, as
usual! By Jove! Why weren't you here ten minutes ago? You never saw
such a sight in your life! Thought the whole Row was going crazy,
'pon my soul!"
"Why, what happened?" asked Lady Winsleigh, smiling graciously upon
him. "Anything extraordinary?"
"Well, I don't know what you'd call extraordinary;" and Sir Francis
Lennox yawned and examined the handle of his cane attentively. "I
suppose if Helen of Troy came driving full pelt down the Row all of
a sudden, there'd be some slight sensation!"
"Dear me!" said Clara Winsleigh pettishly. "You talk in enigmas to-
day. What on earth do you mean?"
Sir Francis condescended to smile. "Don't be waxy, Clara!" he urged-
-"I mean what I say--a new Helen appeared here to-day, and instead
of 'tall Troy' being on fire, as Dante Rossetti puts it, the Row was
in a burning condition of excitement--fellows on horseback galloped
the whole length of the Park to take a last glimpse of her--her
carriage dashed off to Richmond after taking only four turns. She is
simply magnificent!"
"Who is she?" and in spite of herself, Lady Winsleigh's smile
vanished and her lips quivered.
"Lady Bruce-Errington," answered Sir Francis readily. "The loveliest
woman in the world, I should say! Phil was beside her--he looks in
splendid condition--and that meek old secretary fellow sat opposite-
-Neville--isn't that his name? Anyhow they seemed as jolly as
pipers,--as for that woman, she'll drive everybody out of their wits
about her before half the season's over."
"But she's a mere peasant!" said Mrs. Marvelle loftily. "Entirely
uneducated--a low, common creature!"
"Ah, indeed!" and Sir Francis again yawned extensively. "Well, I
don't know anything about that! She was exquisitely dressed, and she
held herself like a queen. As for her hair--I never saw such
wonderful hair,--there's every shade of gold in it."
"Dyed!" said Lady Winsleigh, with a sarcastic little laugh. "She's
been in Paris,--I dare say a good coiffeur has done it for her there
artistically!"
This time Sir Francis's smile was a thoroughly amused one.
"Commend me to a woman for spite!" he said carelessly. "But I'll not
presume to contradict you, Clara! You know best, I dare say! Ta-ta!
I'll come for you to-night,--you know we're bound for the theatre
together. By-bye, Mrs. Marvelle! You look younger than ever!"
And Sir Francis Lennox sauntered easily away, leaving the ladies to
resume their journey through the Park. Lady Winsleigh looked vexed--
Mrs. Marvelle bewildered.
"Do you think," inquired this latter, "she can really be so
wonderfully lovely?"
"No, I don't!" answered Clara snappishly. "I dare say she's a plump
creature with a high color--men like fat women with brick-tinted
complexions--they think it's healthy. Helen of Troy indeed! Pooh!
Lennie must be crazy."
The rest of their drive was very silent,-they were both absorbed in
their own reflections. On arriving at the Van Clupps', they found no
one at home--not even Marcia--so Lady Winsleigh drove her "dearest
Mimsey" back to her own house in Kensington, and there left her with
many expressions of tender endearment--then, returning home,
proceeded to make an elaborate and brilliant toilette for the
enchantment and edification of Sir Francis Lennox that evening. She
dined alone, and was ready for her admirer when he called for her in
his private hansom, and drove away with him to the theatre, where
she was the cynosure of many eyes; meanwhile her husband, Lord
Winsleigh, was pressing a good-night kiss on the heated forehead of
an excited boy, who, plunging about in his little bed and laughing
heartily, was evidently desirous of emulating the gambols of the
clown who had delighted him that afternoon at Hengler's.
"Papa! could you stand on your head and shake hands with your foot?"
demanded this young rogue, confronting his father with towzled curls
and flushed cheeks.
Lord Winsleigh laughed. "Really, Ernest, I don't think I could!" he
answered good-naturedly. "Haven't you talked enough about the circus
by this time? I thought you were ready for sleep, otherwise I should
not have come up to say good-night."
Ernest studied the patient, kind features of his father for a
moment, and then slipped penitently under the bedclothes, settling
his restless young head determinedly on the pillow.
"I'm all right now!" he murmured, with a demure, dimpling smile.
Then, with a tender upward twinkle of his merry blue eyes, he added,
"Good-night, papa dear! God bless you!"
A sort of wistful pathos softened the grave lines of Lord
Winsleigh's countenance as he bent once more over the little bed,
and pressed his bearded lips lightly on the boy's fresh cheek, as
cool and soft as a rose-leaf.
"God bless you, little man!" he answered softly, and there was a
slight quiver in his calm voice. Then he put out the light and left
the room, closing the door after him with careful noiselessness.
Descending the broad stairs slowly, his face changed from its late
look of tenderness to one of stern and patient coldness, which was
evidently its habitual expression. He addressed himself to Briggs,
who was lounging aimlessly in the hall.
"Her ladyship is out?"
"Yes, my lord! Gone to the theayter with Sir Francis Lennox."
Lord Winsleigh turned upon him sharply. "I did not ask you, Briggs,
WHERE she had gone, or WHO accompanied her. Have the goodness to
answer my questions simply, without adding useless and unnecessary
details."
Briggs's mouth opened a little in amazement at his master's
peremptory tone, but he answered promptly--
"Very good, my lord!"
Lord Winsleigh paused a moment, and seemed to consider. Then he
said--
"See that her ladyship's supper is prepared in the dining-room. She
will most probably return rather late. Should she inquire for me,
say I am at the Carlton."
Again Briggs responded, "Very good, my lord!" And, like an exemplary
servant as he was, he lingered about the passage while Lord
Winsleigh entered his library, and, after remaining there some ten
minutes or so, came out again in hat and great coat. The officious
Briggs handed him his cane, and inquired--
"'Ansom, my lord?"
"Thanks, no. I will walk."
It was a fine moonlight night, and Briggs stood for some minutes on
the steps, airing his shapely calves and watching the tall,
dignified figure of his master walking, with the upright, stately
bearing which always distinguished him, in the direction of Pall
Mall. Park Lane was full of crowding carriages with twinkling
lights, all bound to the different sources of so-called "pleasure"
by which the opening of the season is distinguished. Briggs surveyed
the scene with lofty indifference, sniffed the cool breeze, and,
finding it somewhat chilly, re-entered the house and descended to
the servant's hall. Here all the domestics of the Winsleigh
household were seated at a large table loaded with hot and savory
viands,--a table presided over by a robust and perspiring lady, with
a very red face and sturdy arms bare to the elbow.
"Lor', Mr. Briggs!" cried this personage, rising respectfully as he
approached, "'ow late you are! Wot 'ave you been a-doin' on? 'Ere
I've been a-keepin' your lamb-chops and truffles 'ot all this time,
and if they's dried up 'taint my fault, nor that of the hoven, which
is as good a hoven as you can wish to bake in. . . ."
She paused breathless, and Briggs smiled blandly.
"Now, Flopsie!" he said in a tone of gentle severity. "Excited
again--as usual! It's bad for your 'elth--very bad! HIF the chops is
dried, your course is plain--cook some more! Not that I am enny ways
particular--but chippy meat is bad for a delicate digestion. And you
would not make me hill, my Flopsie, would you?"
Whereupon he seated himself, and looked condescendingly round the
table. He was too great a personage to be familiar with such
inferior creatures as housemaids, scullery-girls, and menials of
that class,--he was only on intimate terms with the cook, Mrs.
Flopper, or, as he called her, "Flopsie,"--the coachman, and Lady
Winsleigh's own maid, Louise Renaud, a prim, sallow-faced
Frenchwoman, who, by reason of her nationality, was called by all
the inhabitants of the kitchen, "mamzelle," as being a name both
short, appropriate, and convenient.
On careful examination, the lamb-chops turned out satisfactorily--
"chippiness" was an epithet that could not justly be applied to
them,--and Mr. Briggs began to eat them leisurely, flavoring them
with a glass or two of fine port out of a decanter which he had
taken the precaution to bring down from the dining-room sideboard.
"I HAM, late," he then graciously explained--"not that I was
detained in enny way by the people upstairs. The gay Clara went out
early, but I was absorbed in the evenin' papers--Winsleigh forgot to
ask me for them. But he'll see them at his club. He's gone there now
on foot-poor fellah!"
"I suppose SHE'S with the same party?" grinned the fat Flopsie, as
she held a large piece of bacon dipped in vinegar on her fork,
preparatory to swallowing it with a gulp.
Briggs nodded gravely, "The same! Not a fine man at all, you know--
no leg to speak of, and therefore no form. Legs--GOOD legs--are
beauty. Now, Winsleigh's not bad in that particular,--and I dare say
Clara can hold her own,--but I wouldn't bet on little Francis."
Flopsie shrieked with laughter till she had a "stitch in her side,"
and was compelled to restrain her mirth.
"Lor', Mr. Briggs!" she gasped, wiping the moisture from her eyes,
"you are a regular one, aren't you! Mussy on us, you ought to put
all wot you say in the papers--you'd make your fortin!"
"Maybe, maybe, Flopsie," returned Briggs with due dignity. "I will
not deny that there may be wot is called 'sparkle' in my natur. And
'sparkle' is wot is rekwired in polite literatoor. Look at 'Hedmund'
and ''Enery!' Sparkle again,--read their magnificent productions,
the World and Truth,--all sparkle, every line! It is the secret of
success, Flospie--be a sparkler and you've got everything before
you."
Louise Renaud looked across at him half-defiantly. Her prim, cruel
mouth hardened into a tight line.
"To spark-el?" she said--"that is what we call etinceler--eclater.
Yes, I comprehend! Miladi is one spark-el! But one must be a very
good jewel to spark-el always--yes--yes--not a sham!"
And she nodded a great many times, and ate her salad very fast.
Briggs surveyed her with much complacency.
"You are a talented woman, Mamzelle," he said, "very talented! I
admire your ways--I really do!"
Mamzelle smiled with a gratified air, and Briggs settled his wig,
eyeing her anew with fresh interest.
"WOT a witness you would be in a divorce case!" he continued
enthusiastically. "You'd be in your helement!"
"I should--I should indeed!" exclaimed Mamzelle, with sudden
excitement,--then as suddenly growing calm, she made a rapid gesture
with her hands--"But there will be no divorce. Milord Winsleigh is a
fool!"
Briggs appeared doubtful about this, and meditated for a long time
over his third glass of port with the profound gravity of a
philosopher.
"No, Mamzelle," he said at last, when he rose from the table to
return to his duties upstairs--"No! there I must differ from you. I
am a close observer. Wotever Winsleigh's faults,--and I do not deny
that they are many,--he is a gentleman-that I MUST admit--and with
HEVERY respect for you, Mamzelle--I can assure you he's no fool!"
And with these words Briggs betook himself to the library to arrange
the reading-lamp and put the room in order for his master's return,
and as he did so, he paused to look at a fine photograph of Lady
Winsleigh that stood on the oak escritoire, opposite her husband's
arm-chair.
"No," he muttered to himself. "Wotever he thinks of some goings-on,
he ain't blind nor deaf--that's certain. And I'd stake my character
and purfessional reputation on it--wotever he is, he's no fool!"
For once in his life, Briggs was right. He was generally wrong in
his estimate of both persons and things--but it so happened on this
particular occasion that he had formed a perfectly correct judgment.
CHAPTER XIX.
"Could you not drink her gaze like wine?
Yet in its splendor swoon
Into the silence languidly,
As a tune into a tune?"
Dante Rossetti
On the morning of the twenty-fifth of May, Thelma, Lady Bruce-
Errington, sat at breakfast with her husband in their sun-shiny
morning-room, fragrant with flowers and melodious with the low
piping of a tame thrush in a wild gilded cage, who had the sweet
habit of warbling his strophes to himself very softly now and then,
before venturing to give them full-voiced utterance. A bright-eyed,
feathered poet he was, and an exceeding favorite with his fair
mistress, who occasionally leaned back in her low chair to look at
him and murmur an encouraging "Sweet, sweet!" which caused the
speckled plumage on his plump breast to ruffle up with suppressed
emotion and gratitude.
Philip was pretending to read the Times, but the huge, self-
important printed sheet had not the faintest interest for him,--his
eyes wandered over the top of its columns to the golden gleam of his
wife's hair, brightened just then by the sunlight streaming through
the window,--and finally he threw it down beside him with a laugh.
"There's no news," he declared. "There never IS any news!"
Thelma smiled, and her deep-blue eyes sparkled.
"No?" she half inquired--then taking her husband's cup from his hand
to re-fill it with coffee, she added, "but I think you do not give
yourself time to find the news, Philip. You will never read the
papers more than five minutes."
"My dear girl," said Philip gaily, "I am more conscientious than you
are, at any rate, for you never read them at all!"
"Ah, but you must remember," she returned gravely, "that is because
I do not understand them! I am not clever. They seem to me to be all
about such dull things--unless there is some horrible murder or
cruelty or accident--and I would rather not hear of these. I do
prefer books always--because the books last, and news is never
certain--it may not even be true."
Her husband looked at her fondly; his thoughts were evidently very
far away from newspapers and their contents.
As she met his gaze, the rich color flushed her soft cheeks and her
eyes drooped shyly under their long lashes. Love, with her, had not
yet proved an illusion,--a bright toy to be snatched hastily and
played with for a brief while, and then thrown aside as broken and
worthless. It seemed to her a most marvellous and splendid gift of
God, increasing each day in worth and beauty,--widening upon her
soul and dazzling her life in ever new and expanding circles of
glory. She felt as if she could never sufficiently understand it,--
the passionate adoration Philip lavished upon her, filled her with a
sort of innocent wonder and gratitude, while her own overpowering
love and worship of him, sometimes startled her by its force into a
sweet shame and hesitating fear. To her mind he was all that was
great, strong, noble, and beautiful--he was her master, her king,--
and she loved to pay him homage by her exquisite humility, clinging
tenderness, and complete, contented submission. She was neither weak
nor timid,--her character, moulded on grand and simple lines of
duty, saw the laws of Nature in their true light, and accepted them
without question. It seemed to her quite clear that man was the
superior,--woman the inferior, creature--and she could not
understand the possibility of any wife not rendering instant and
implicit obedience to her husband, even in trifles.
Since her wedding-day no dark cloud had crossed her heaven of
happiness, though she had been a little confused and bewildered at
first by the wealth and dainty luxury with which Sir Philip had
delighted to surround her. She had been married quietly at
Christiania, arrayed in one of her own simple white gowns, with no
ornament save a cluster of pale blush-roses, the gift of Lorimer.
The ceremony was witnessed by her father and Errington's friends,--
and when it was concluded they had all gone on their several ways,--
old Guldmar for a "toss" on the Bay of Biscay,--the yacht Eulalie,
with Lorimer, Macfarlane, and Duprez on board, back to England,
where these gentlemen had separated to their respective homes,--
while Errington, with his beautiful bride, and Britta in demure and
delighted attendance on her, went straight to Copenhagen. From there
they travelled to Hamburg, and through Germany to the Schwarzwald,
where they spent their honeymoon at a quiet little hotel in the very
heart of the deep-green Forest.
Days of delicious dreaming were these,--days of roaming on the
emerald green turf under the stately and odorous pines, listening to
the dash of the waterfalls, or watching the crimson sunset burning
redly through the darkness of the branches,--and in the moonlit
evenings sitting under the trees to hear the entrancing music of a
Hungarian string-band, which played divine and voluptuous melodies
of the land,--"lieder" and "walzer" that swung the heart away on a
golden thread of sound to a paradise too sweet to name! Days of high
ecstacy, and painfully passionate joy!--when "love, love!"
palpitated in the air, and struggled for utterance in the jubilant
throats of birds, and whispered wild suggestions in the rustling of
the leaves! There were times when Thelma,--lost and amazed and
overcome by the strength and sweetness of the nectar held to her
innocent lips by a smiling and flame-winged Eros,--would wonder
vaguely whether she lived indeed, or whether she were not dreaming
some gorgeous dream, too brilliant to last? And even when her
husband's arms most surely embraced her, and her husband's kiss met
hers in all the rapture of victorious tenderness, she would often
question herself as to whether she were worthy of such perfect
happiness, and she would pray in the depths of her pure heart to be
made more deserving of this great and wonderful gift of love--this
supreme joy, almost too vast for her comprehension.
On the other hand, Errington's passion for his wife was equally
absorbing--she had become the very moving-spring of his existence.
His eyes delighted in her beauty,--but more than this, he revelled
in and reverenced the crystal-clear parity and exquisite refinement
of her soul. Life assumed for him a new form,--studied by the light
of Thelma's straightforward simplicity and intelligence, it was no
longer, as he had once been inclined to think, a mere empty
routine,--it was a treasure of inestimable value fraught with divine
meanings. Gradually, the touch of modern cynicism that had at one
time threatened to spoil his nature, dropped away from him like the
husk from an ear of corn,--the world arrayed itself in bright and
varying colors--there was good--nay, there was glory--in everything.
With these ideas, and the healthy satisfaction they engendered, his
heart grew light and joyous,--his eyes more lustrous,--his step gay
and elastic,--and his whole appearance was that of man at his best,-
-man, as God most surely meant him to be--not a rebellious, feebly-
repining, sneering wretch, ready to scoff at the very sunlight,--but
a being both brave and intelligent, strong and equally balanced in
temperament, and not only contented, but absolutely glad to be
alive,--glad to feel the blood flowing through the veins,--glad and
grateful for the gifts of breathing and sight.
As each day passed, the more close and perfect grew the sympathies
of husband and wife,--they were like two notes of a perfect chord,
sounding together in sweetest harmony. Naturally, much of this easy
and mutual blending of character and disposition arose from Thelma's
own gracious and graceful submissiveness,--submissiveness which, far
from humiliating her, actually placed her (though she knew it not)
on a throne of almost royal power, before which Sir Philip was
content to kneel--an ardent worshipper of her womanly sweetness.
Always without question or demur, she obeyed his wishes implicitly,-
-though, as has been before mentioned, she was at first a little
overpowered and startled by the evidences of his wealth, and did not
quite know what to do with all the luxuries and gifts he heaped upon
her. Britta's worldly prognostications had come true,--the simple
gowns her mistress had worn at the Altenfjord were soon discarded
for more costly apparel,--though Sir Philip had an affection for his
wife's Norwegian costumes, and in his heart thought they were as
pretty, if not prettier, than the most perfect triumphs of a
Parisian modiste.
But is the social world, Fashion, the capricious deity, must be
followed, if not wholly, yet in part; and so Thelma's straight,
plain garments were laid carefully by as souvenirs of the old days,
and were replaced by toilettes of the most exquisite description,--
some simple,--some costly,--and it was difficult to say in which of
them the lovely wearer looked her best. She herself was indifferent
in the matter--she dressed to please Philip,--if he was satisfied,
she was happy--she sought nothing further. It was Britta whose merry
eyes sparkled with pride and admiration when she saw her "Froken"
arrayed in gleaming silk or sweeping velvets, with the shine of rare
jewels in her rippling hair,--it was Britta who took care of all the
dainty trifles that gradually accumulated on Thelma's dressing
table,--in fact, Britta had become a very important personage in her
own opinion. Dressed neatly in black, with a coquettish muslin apron
and cap becomingly frilled, she was a very taking little maid, with
her demure rosy face and rebellious curls, though very different to
the usual trained spy whose officious ministrations are deemed so
necessary by ladies of position, whose lofty station in life
precludes them from the luxury of brushing their own hair. Britta's
duties were slight--she invented most of them--yet she was always
busy sewing, dusting, packing, or polishing. She was a very wide-
awake little person, too,--no hint was lost upon her,--and she held
her own wherever she went with her bright eyes and sharp tongue.
Though secretly in an unbounded state of astonishment at everything
new she saw, she was too wise to allow this to be noticed, and
feigned the utmost coolness and indifference, even when they went
from Germany to Paris, where the brilliancy and luxury of the shops
almost took away her breath for sheer wonderment.
In Paris, Thelma's wardrobe was completed--a certain Madame Rosine,
famous for "artistic arrangements," was called into requisition, and
viewing with a professional eye the superb figure and majestic
carriage of her new customer, rose to the occasion in all her glory,
and resolved that Miladi Bruce-Errington's dresses should be the
wonder and envy of all who beheld them.
"For," said Madame, with a grand air, "it is to do me justice. That
form so magnificent is worth draping,--it will support my work to
the best advantage. And persons without figures will hasten to me
and entreat me for costumes, and will think that if I dress them I
can make them look as well as Miladi. And they will pay!"--Madame
shook her head with much shrewdness--"Mon Dieu! they will pay!--and
that they still look frightful will not be my fault."
And undoubtedly Madame surpassed her usual skill in all she did for
Thelma,--she took such pains, and was so successful in all her
designs, that "Miladi," who did not as a rule show more than a very
ordinary interest in her toilette, found it impossible not to admire
the artistic taste, harmonious coloring, and exquisite fit of the
few choice gowns supplied to her from the "Maison Rosine"--and only
on one occasion had she any discussion with the celebrated modiste.
This was when Madame herself, with much pride, brought home an
evening dress of the very palest and tenderest sea-green silk,
showered with pearls and embroidered in silver, a perfect chef-
d'oeuvre of the dress-maker's art. The skirt, with its billowy train
and peeping folds of delicate lace, pleased Thelma,--but she could
not understand the bodice, and she held that very small portion of
the costume in her hand with an air of doubt and wonderment. At last
she turned her grave blue eyes inquiringly on Madame.
"It is not finished?" she asked. "Where is the upper part of it and
the sleeves?"
Madame Rosine gesticulated with her hands and smiled.
"Miladi, there is no more!" she declared. "Miladi will perceive it
is for the evening wear--it is decolletee--it is to show to
everybody Miladi's most beautiful white neck and arms. The effect
will be ravishing!"
Thelma's face grew suddenly grave--almost stern.
"You must be very wicked!" she said severely, to the infinite
amazement of the vivacious Rosine. "You think I would show myself to
people half clothed? How is it possible! I would not so disgrace
myself! It would bring shame to my husband!"
Madame was almost speechless with surprise. What strange lady was
this who was so dazzlingly beautiful and graceful, and yet so
ignorant of the world's ways? She stared,--but was soon on the
defensive.
"Miladi is in a little error!" she said rapidly and with soft
persuasiveness. "It is la mode. Miladi has perhaps lived in a
country where the fashions are different. But if she will ask the
most amiable Sieur Bruce-Errington, she will find that her dress is
quite in keeping with les convenances."
A pained blush crimsoned Thelma's fair cheek. "I do not like to ask
my husband such a thing," she said slowly, "but I must. For I could
not wear this dress without shame. I cannot think he would wish me
to appear in it as you have made it--but--" She paused, and taking
up the objectionable bodice, she added gently--"You will kindly wait
here, madame, and I will see what Sir Philip says."
And she retired, leaving the modiste in a state of much
astonishment, approaching resentment. The idea was outrageous,--a
woman with such divinely fair skin,--a woman with the bosom of a
Venus, and arms of a shape to make sculptors rave,--and yet she
actually wished to hide these beauties from the public gaze! It was
ridiculous--utterly ridiculous,--and Madame sat fuming impatiently,
and sniffing the air in wonder and scorn. Meanwhile Thelma, with
flushing cheeks and lowered eyes, confided her difficulty to Philip,
who surveyed the shocking little bodice she brought for his
inspection with a gravely amused, but very tender smile.
"There certainly doesn't seem much of it, does there, darling?" he
said. "And so you don't like it?"
"No," she confessed frankly--"I think I should feel quite undressed
in it. I often wear just a little opening at the throat--but this--!
Still, Philip, I must not displease you--and I will always wear what
you wish, even if it is uncomfortable to myself."
"Look here, my pet," and he encircled her waist fondly with his arm,
"Rosine is quite right. The thing's perfectly fashionable,--and
there isn't a woman in society who wouldn't be perfectly charmed
with it. But your ideas are better than Rosine's and all society's
put together. Obey your own womanly instinct, Thelma!"
"But what do YOU wish?" she asked earnestly. "You must tell me. It
is to please you that I live."
He kissed her. "You want me to issue a command about the affair?" he
said half laughingly.
She smiled up into his eyes. "Yes!--and I will obey!"
"Very well! Now listen!" and he held her by both hands, and looked
with sudden gravity into her sweet face--"Thelma, my wife, thus
sayeth your lord and master,--despise the vulgar indecencies of
fashion, and you will gratify me more than words can say;--keep your
pure and beautiful self sacred from the profaning gaze of the
multitude,--sacred to me and my love for you, and I shall be the
proudest man living! Finally,"--and he smiled again--"give Rosine
back this effort at a bodice, and tell her to make something more in
keeping with the laws of health and modesty. And Thelma--one more
kiss! You are a darling!"
She laughed softly and left him, returning at once to the irate
dressmaker who waited for her.
"I am sorry," she said very sweetly, "to have called you wicked! You
see, I did not understand! But though this style of dress is
fashionable, I do not wish to wear it--so you will please make me
another bodice, with a small open square at the throat, and elbow-
sleeves,--and you will lose nothing at all--for I shall pay you for
this one just the same. And you must quite pardon me for my mistake
and hasty words!"
Maladi's manner was so gracious and winning, that Madame Rosine
found it impossible not to smile in a soothed and mollified way,--
and though she deeply regretted that so beautiful a neck and arms
were not to be exposed to public criticism, she resigned herself to
the inevitable, and took away the offending bodice, replacing it in
a couple of days by one much prettier and more becoming by reason of
its perfect modesty.
On leaving Paris, Sir Philip had taken his wife straight home to his
fine old Manor in Warwickshire. Thelma's delight in her new abode
was unbounded--the stately oaks that surrounded it,--the rose-
gardens, the conservatories,--the grand rooms, with their fine
tapestries, oak furniture, and rare pictures,--the splendid library,
the long, lofty drawing-rooms, furnished and decorated after the
style of Louis Quinze,--all filled her with a tender pride and
wistful admiration. This was Philip's home! and she was here to make
it bright and glad for him!--she could imagine no fairer fate. The
old servants of the place welcomed their new mistress with marked
respect and evident astonishment at her beauty, though, when they
knew her better, they marvelled still more at her exceeding
gentleness and courtesy. The housekeeper, a stately white-haired
dame, who had served the former Lady Errington, declared she was "an
angel"--while the butler swore profoundly that "he knew what a queen
was like at last!"
The whole household was pervaded with an affectionate eagerness to
please her, though, perhaps, the one most dazzled by her entrancing
smile and sweet consideration for his comfort was Edward Neville,
Sir Philip's private secretary and librarian,--a meek, mild-featured
man of some five and forty years old, whose stooping shoulders,
grizzled hair, and weak eyes gave him an appearance of much greater
age. Thelma was particularly kind to Neville, having heard his
history from her husband. It was brief and sad. He had married a
pretty young girl whom he had found earning a bare subsistence as a
singer in provincial music-halls,--loving her, he had pitied her
unprotected state, and had rescued her from the life she led--but
after six months of comparative happiness, she had suddenly deserted
him, leaving no clue as to where or why she had gone. His grief for
her loss, weighed heavily upon his mind--he brooded incessantly upon
it--and though his profession was that of a music master and
organist, he grew so abstracted and inattentive to the claims of the
few pupils he had, that they fell away from him one by one--and,
after a bit, he lost his post as organist to the village church as
well. This smote him deeply, for he was passionately fond of music,
and was, moreover, a fine player,--and it was at this stage of his
misfortunes that he met by chance Bruce-Errington. Philip, just
then, was almost broken-hearted--his father and mother had died
suddenly within a week of one another,--and he, finding the blank
desolation of his home unbearable, was anxious to travel abroad for
a time, so soon as he could find some responsible person in whose
hands to leave the charge of the Manor, with its invaluable books
and pictures, during his absence.
Hearing Neville's history through a mutual friend, he decided, with
his usual characteristic impulse, that here was the very man for
him--a gentleman by birth, rumored to be an excellent scholar,--and
he at once offered him the post he had in view,--that of private
secretary at a salary of 200 pounds per annum. The astonished
Neville could not at first believe in his good fortune, and began to
stammer forth his gratitude with trembling lips and moistening
eyes,--but Errington cut him short by declaring the whole thing
settled, and desiring him to enter on his duties at once. He was
forthwith installed in his position,--a highly enviable one for a
man of his dreamy and meditative turn of mind. To him, literature
and music were precious as air and light, he handled the rare
volumes on the Errington book-shelves with lingering tenderness, and
often pored over some difficult manuscript, or dusty folio till long
past midnight, almost forgetful of his griefs in the enchantment
thus engendered. Nor did he lack his supreme comforter, music,--
there was a fine organ at the lower end of the long library, and
seated at his beloved instrument, he wiled away many an hour,--
steeping his soul in the divine and solemn meloflies of Palestrina
and Pergolesi, till the cruel sorrow that had darkened his life
seemed nothing but a bad dream, and the face of his wife as he had
first known it, fair, trustful, and plaintive, floated before his
eyes unchanged, and arousing in him the old foolish throbbing
emotions of rapture and passion that had gladdened the bygone days.
He never lost the hope of meeting her again, and from time to time
he renewed his search for her, though all uselessly--he studied the
daily papers with an almost morbid anxiety lest he should see the
notice of her death--and he would even await each post with a heart
beating more rapidly than usual, in case there should be some letter
from her, imploring forgiveness, explaining everything, and
summoning him once more to her side. He found a true and keenly
sympathizing friend in Sir Philip, to whom he became profoundly
attached,--to satisfy his wishes, to forward his interests, to
attend to his affairs with punctilious exactitude--all this gave
Neville the supremest happiness. He felt some slight doubt and
anxiety, when he first received the sudden announcement of his
patron's marriage,--but all forebodings as to the character and
disposition of the new Lady Bruce-Errington fled like mist before
sunshine, when he saw Thelma's fair face and felt her friendly hand-
clasp.
Every morning on her way to the breakfast-room, she would look in at
the door of his little study, which adjoined the library, and he
learned to watch for the first glimmer of her dress, and to listen
for her bright "Good morning, Mr. Neville!" with a sensation of the
keenest pleasure. It was a sort of benediction on the whole day. A
proud man was he when she asked him to give her lessons on the
organ,--and never did he forget the first time he heard her sing. He
was playing an exquisite "Ave Maria," by Stradella, and she,
standing by her husband's side was listening, when she suddenly
exclaimed--
"Why, we used to sing that at Arles!"--and her rich, round voice
pealed forth clear, solemn, and sweet, following with pure
steadiness the sustained notes of the organ. Neville's heart
thrilled,--he heard her with a sort of breathless wonder and
rapture, and when she ceased, it seemed as though heaven had closed
upon him.
"One cannot praise such a voice as that!" he said. "It would be a
kind of sacrilege. It is divine!"
After this, many were the pleasant musical evenings they all passed
together in the grand old library, and,--as Mrs. Rush-Marvelle had
so indignantly told her husband,--no visitors were invited to the
Manor during that winter. Errington was perfectly happy--he wanted
no one but his wife, and the idea of entertaining a party of guests
who would most certainly interfere with his domestic enjoyment,
seemed almost abhorrent to him. The county-people called,--but
missed seeing Thelma, for during the daytime she was always out with
her husband taking long walks and rambling excursions to the
different places hallowed by Shakespeare's presence,--and when she,
instructed by Sir Philip, called on the county-people, they also
seemed to be never at home.
And so, as yet, she had made no acquaintances, and now that she had
been married eight months and had come to London, the same old story
repeated itself. People called on her in the afternoon just at the
time when she went out driving,--when she returned their visits,
she, in her turn, found them absent. She did not as yet understand
the mystery of having "a day" on which to receive visitors in
shoals--a day on which to drink unlimited tea, talk platitudes, and
utterly bored and exhausted at the end thereof--in fact, she did not
see the necessity of knowing many people,--her husband was all-
sufficient for her,--to be in his society was all she cared for. She
left her card at different houses because he told her to do so, but
this social duty amused her immensely.
"It is like a game!" she declared, laughing, "some one comes and
leaves these little cards which explain who THEY are, on ME,--then I
go and leave MY little cards and yours, explaining who WE are on
that some one--and we keep on doing this, yet we never see each
other by any chance! It is so droll!"
Errington did not feel called upon to explain what was really the
fact,--namely, that none of the ladies who had left cards on his
wife had given her the option of their "at home" day on which to
call,--he did not think it necessary to tell her what he knew very
well, that his "set," both in county and town, had resolved to
"snub" her in every petty fashion they could devise,--that he had
already received several invitations which, as they did not include
her, he had left unanswered,--and that the only house to which she
had as yet been really asked in proper form was that of Lady
Winsleigh. He was more amused than vexed at the resolute stand made
by the so-called "leaders" of society against her, knowing as he
did, most thoroughly, how she must conquer them all in the end. She
had been seen nowhere as yet but in the Park, and Philip had good
reason to be contented with the excitement her presence had created
there,--but he was a little astonished at Lady Winsleigh's being the
first to extend a formal welcome to his unknown bride. Her behavior
seemed to him a little suspicious,--for he certainly could not
disguise from himself that she had at one time been most violently
and recklessly in love with him. He recollected one or two most
painful scenes he had had with her, in which he had endeavored to
recall her to a sense of the duty she owed to her husband,--and his
face often flushed with vexation when he thought of her wild and
wicked abandonment of despair, her tears, her passion, and
distracted, dishonoring words. Yet she was the very woman who now
came forward in the very front of society to receive his wife!--he
could not quite understand it. After all, he was a man,--and the
sundry artful tricks and wiles of fashionable ladies were,
naturally, beyond him. Thelma had never met Lady Winsleigh--not even
for a passing glance in the Park,--and when she received the
invitation for the grand reception at Winsleigh House, she accepted
it, because her husband wished her so to do, not that she herself
anticipated any particular pleasure from it. When the day came round
at last she scarcely thought of it, till at the close of their
pleasant breakfast tete-a-tete described at the commencement of this
chapter, Philip suddenly said,--"By-the-by, Thelma, I have sent to
the bank for the Errington diamonds. They'll be here presently. I
want you to wear them to-night."
Thelma looked puzzled and inquiring. "To-night? What is it that we
do? I forget! Oh! now I know--it is to go to Lady Winsleigh. What
will it be like, Philip?"
"Well, there'll be heaps of people all cramming and crowding up the
stairs and down them again,--you'll see all those women who have
called on you, and you'll be introduced to them,--I dare say
there'll be some bad music and an indigestible supper--and--and--
that's all!"
She laughed and shook her head reproachfully. "I cannot believe you,
my naughty boy!" she said, rising from her seat, and kneeling beside
him with arms round his neck, and soft eyes gazing lovingly into
his. "You are nearly as bad as that very bad Mr. Lorimer, who will
always see strange vexations in everything! I am quite sure Lady
Winsleigh will not have crowds up and down her stairs,--that would
be bad taste. And if she has music, it will be good--and she would
not give her friends a supper to make them ill."
Philip did not answer. He was studying every delicate tint in his
wife's dazzling complexion and seemed absorbed.
"Wear that one gown you got from Worth," he said abruptly. "I like
it--it suits you."
"Of course I will wear it if you wish," she answered, laughing
still. "But why? What does it matter? You want me to be something
very splendid in dress to-night?"
Philip drew a deep breath. "I want you to eclipse every woman in the
room!" he said with remarkable emphasis.
She grew rather pensive. "I do not think that would be pleasant,"
she said gravely. "Besides, it is impossible. And it would be wrong
to wish me to make every one else dissatisfied with themselves. That
is not like you, my Philip!"
He touched with tender fingers the great glistening coil of hair
that was twisted up at the top of her graceful head.
"Ah, darling! You don't know what a world it is, and what very queer
people there are in it! Never mind! . . . don't bother yourself
about it. You'll have a good bird's-eye view of society tonight, and
you shall tell me afterwards how you like it. I shall be curious to
know what you think of Lady Winsleigh."
"She is beautiful, is she not?"
"Well, she is considered so by most of her acquaintances, and by
herself," he returned with a smile.
"I do like to see very pretty faces," said Thelma warmly; "it is as
if one looked at pictures. Since I have been in London I have seen
so many of them--it is quite pleasant. Yet none of these lovely
ladies seem to me as if they were really happy or strong in health."
"Half of them have got nervous diseases and all sorts of things
wrong with them from over-much tea and tight lacing," replied
Errington, "and the few who ARE tolerably healthy are too bouncing
by half, going in for hunting and such-like amusements till they
grow blowsy and fat, and coarse as tom-boys or grooms. They can
never hit the juste milieu. Well!" and he rose from the breakfast-
table. "I'll go and see Neville and attend to business. We'll drive
out this afternoon for some fresh air, and afterwards you must rest,
my pet--for you'll find an 'at home' more tiring than climbing a
mountain in Norway."
He kissed, and left her to her usual occupations, of which she had
many, for she had taken great pains to learn all the details of the
work in the Errington Establishment,--in fact, she went every
morning to the little room where Mistress Parton, the housekeeper,
received her with much respect and affection, and duly instructed
her on every point of the domestic management and daily expenditure,
so that she was thoroughly acquainted with everything that went on.
She had very orderly quiet ways of her own, and though thoughtful
for the comfort and well-being of the lowest servant in her
household she very firmly checked all extravagance and waste, yet in
such a gentle, unobtrusive manner that her control was scarcely
felt--though her husband at once recognized it in the gradually
decreasing weekly expenses, while to all appearance, things were the
same as ever. She had plenty of clear, good common sense,--she saw
no reason why she should waste her husband's wealth simply because
it was abundant,--so that under her mild sway, Sir Philip found
himself getting richer without any trouble on his own part. His
house assumed an air of lighter and more tasteful elegance,--
flowers, always arranged by Thelma herself, adorned the rooms,--
birds filled the great conservatory with their delicious warblings,
and gradually that strange fairy sweet fabric known as "Home" rose
smilingly around him. Formerly he had much disliked his stately town
mansion--he had thought it dull and cold--almost gloomy,--but now he
considered it charming, and wondered he had missed so many of its
good points before.
And when the evening for Lady Winsleigh's "crush" came,--he looked
regretfully round the lovely luxurious drawing-room with its bright
fire, deep easy chairs, books, and grand piano, and wished he and
his wife could remain at home in peace. He glanced at his watch--it
was ten o'clock. There was no hurry--he had not the least intention
of arriving at Winsleigh House too early. He knew what the effect of
Thelma's entrance would be--and he smiled as he thought of it. He
was waiting for her now,--he himself was ready in full evening
dress--and remarkably handsome he looked. He walked up and down
restlessly for a minute or so,--then taking up a volume of Keats, he
threw himself into an easy chair and soon became absorbed. His eyes
were still on the printed page, when a light touch on his shoulder
startled him,--a soft, half-laughing voice inquired--"Philip! Do I
please you?"
He sprang up and faced her,--but for a moment could not speak. The
perfection of her beauty had never ceased to arouse his wonder and
passionate admiration,--but on this night, as she stood before him,
arrayed in a simple, trailing robe of ivory-tinted velvet, with his
family diamonds flashing in a tiara of light on her hair, glistening
against the whiteness of her throat and rounded arms, she looked
angelically lovely--so radiant, so royal, and withal so innocently
happy, that, wistfully gazing at her, and thinking of the social
clique into which she was about to make her entry, he wondered
vaguely whether he was not wrong to take so pure and fair a creature
among the false glitter and reckless hypocrisy of modern fashion and
folly. And so he stood silent, till Thelma grew anxious.
"Ah, you are not satisfied!" she said plaintively. "I am not as you
wish! There is something wrong."
He drew her closely into his arms, kissing her with an almost
pathetic tenderness.
"Thelma, my love, my sweet one!" and his strong voice trembled. "You
do not know--how should you? what I think of you! Satisfied?
Pleased? Good Heavens--what little words those are to express my
feelings! I can tell you how you look, for nothing can ever make YOU
vain. You are beautiful!. . . you are the most beautiful woman I
have ever seen, and you look your very best tonight. But you are
more than beautiful--you are good and pure and true, while society
is--But why should I destroy your illusions? Only, my wife,--we have
been all in all to each other,--and now I have a foolish feeling as
if things were going to be different--as if we should not be so much
together--and I wish--I wish to God I could keep you all to myself
without anybody's interference!"
She looked at him in wonder, though she smiled.
"But you have changed, my boy, since the morning," she said." Then
you did wish me to be particular in dress,--and to wear your jewels,
for this Lady Winsleigh. Now your eyes are sad, and you seem as if
you would rather not go at all. Well, is it not easy to remain at
home? I will take off these fine things, and we will sit together
and read. Shall it be so?"
He laughed. "I believe you would do it if I asked you!" he said.
"But, of course! I am quite happy alone with you. I care nothing for
this party,--what is it to me if you do not wish to go?"
He kissed her again. "Thelma, don't spoil me too much! If you let me
have my own way to such an extent, who knows what an awful domestic
tyrant I may become! No, dear--we must go tonight--there's no help
for it. You see we've accepted the invitation, and it's no use being
churlish. Besides, after all"--he gazed at her admiringly--"I want
them to see my Norwegian rose! Come along! The carriage is waiting."
They passed out into the hall, where Britta was in attendance with a
long cloak of pale-blue plush lined with white fur, in which she
tenderly enveloped her beloved "Froken," her rosy face beaming with
affectionate adoration as she glanced from the fair diamond-crowned
head down to the point of a small pearl-embroidered shoe that peeped
beneath the edge of the rich, sheeny white robe, and saw that
nothing was lacking to the most perfect toilette that ever woman
wore.
"Good-night, Britta!" said Thelma kindly. "You must not sit up for
me. You will be tired."
Britta smiled--it was evident she meant to outwatch the stars, if
necessary, rather than allow her mistress to be unattended on her
return. But she said nothing--she waited at the door while Philip
assisted his wife into the carriage--and still stood musingly under
the wide portico, after they had driven away.
"Hadn't you better come in, Miss Britta?" said the butler
respectfully,--he had a great regard for her ladyship's little maid.
Britta, recalled to herself, started, turned, and re-entered the
hall.
"There will be many fine folks there to-night, I suppose?" she
asked.
The butler rubbed his nose perplexedly. "Fine folks at Winsleigh
House? Well, as far as clothes go, I dare say there will. But
there'll be no one like her ladyship--no one!" And he shook his grey
head emphatically.
"Of course not!" said Britta, with a sort of triumphant defiance.
"We know that very well, Morris! There's no one like her ladyship
anywhere in the wide world! But I tell you what--I think a great
many people will be jealous of her."
Morris smiled. "You may take your oath of that, Miss Britta," he
said with placid conviction. "Jealous! Jealous isn't the word for
it! Why," and he surveyed Britta's youthful countenance with
fatherly interest, "you're only a child as it were, and you don't
know the world much. Now, I've been five and twenty years in this
family, and I knew Sir Philip's mother, the Lady Eulalie--he named
his yacht after her. Ah! she was a sweet creature--she came from
Austria, and she was as dark as her present ladyship is fair.
Wherever she went, I tell you, the women were ready to cry for spite
and envy of her good looks--and they would say anything against her
they could invent. That's the way they go on sometimes in society,
you know."
"As bad as in Bosekop," murmured Britta, more to herself than to
him, "only London is a larger place." Then raising her voice again,
she said, "Perhaps there will be some people wicked enough to hate
her ladyship, Morris?"
"I shouldn't wonder," said Morris philosophically. "I shouldn't
wonder at all! There's a deal of hate about one way or another,--and
if a lady is as beautiful as an angel, and cuts out everybody
wherever she goes, why you can't expect the other ladies to be very
fond of her. 'Tisn't in human nature--at least not in feminine human
nature. Men don't care much about their looks, one way or the other,
unless they're young chaps--then one has a little patience with them
and they come all right."
But Britta had become meditative again. She went slowly up into her
mistress's room and began arranging the few trifles that had been
left in disorder.
"Just fancy!"--she said to herself--"some one may hate the Froken
even in London just as they hated her in Bosekop, because she is so
unlike everybody else. _I_ shall keep my eyes open,--and _I_ shall
soon find out any wickedness against her! My beautiful, dear
darling! I believe the world is a cruel place after all,--but SHE
shan't be made unhappy in it, if I can help it!"
And with this emphatic declaration, she kissed a little shoe of
Thelma's that she was just putting by--and, smoothing her curls,
went down to her supper.
CHAPTER XX.
"Such people there are living and flourishing in the world,--
Faithless, Hopeless, Charityless,--let us have at them, dear
friends, with might and main!"--THACKERAY.
Who can adequately describe the thrilling excitement attending an
aristocratic "crush,"--an extensive, sweeping-off-of-old-cores "at
home,"--that scene of bewildering confusion which might be
appropriately set forth to the minds of the vulgar in the once-
popular ditty, "Such a getting-up-stairs I never did see!" Who can
paint in sufficiently brilliant colors the mere OUTSIDE of a house
thus distinguished by this strange festivity, in which there is no
actual pleasure,--this crowding of carriages--this shouting of small
boys and policemen?--who can, in words, delineate the various phases
of lofty indignation and offense on the countenances of pompous
coachmen, forced into contention with vulgar but good-natured
"cabbys"--for right of way?. . . who can sufficiently set forth the
splendors of a striped awning avenue, lined on both sides with a
collection of tropical verdure, hired for the occasion at so much
per dozen pots, and illuminated with Chinese lanterns! Talk of
orange groves in Italy and the languid light of a southern moon!
What are they compared to the marvels of striped awning? Mere trees-
-mere moonlight--(poor products of Mature!) do not excite either
wonder or envy--but, strange to say, an awning avenue invariably
does! As soon as it is erected in all its bland suggestiveness, no
matter at what house, a small crowd of street-arabs and nursemaids
collect to stare at it,--and when tired of staring, pass and repass
under it with peculiar satisfaction; the beggar, starving for a
crust, lingers doubtfully near it, and ventures to inquire of the
influenza-smitten crossing-sweeper whether it is a wedding or a
party? And if Awning Avenue means matrimony, the beggar waits to see
the guests come out; if, on the contrary, it stands for some evening
festivity, he goes, resolving to return at the appointed hour, and
try if he cannot persuade one "swell" at least to throw him a penny
for his night's supper. Yes--a great many people endure sharp
twinges of discontent at the sight of Awning Avenue,--people who
can't afford to give parties, and who wish they could,--pretty,
sweet girls who never go to a dance in their lives, and long with
all their innocent hearts for a glimpse,--just one glimpse!--of what
seems to them inexhaustible, fairy-like delight,--lonely folks, who
imagine in their simplicity that all who are privileged to pass
between the lines of hired tropical foliage aforementioned, must
perforce be the best and most united of friends--hungry men and
women who picture, with watering mouths, the supper-table that lies
BEYOND the awning, laden with good things, of the very names of
which they are hopelessly ignorant,--while now and then a stern,
dark-browed Thinker or two may stalk by and metaphorically shake his
fist at all the waste, extravagance, useless luxury, humbug, and
hypocrisy Awning Avenue usually symbolizes, and may mutter in his
beard, like an old-fashioned tragedian, "A time WILL come!" Yes, Sir
Thinker!--it will most undoubtedly--it MUST--but not through you--
not through any mere human agency. Modern society contains within
itself the seed of its own destruction,--the most utter Nihilist
that ever swore deadly oath need but contain his soul in patience
and allow the seed to ripen. For God's justice is as a circle that
slowly surrounds an evil and as slowly closes on it with crushing
and resistless force,--and feverish, fretting humanity, however
nobly inspired, can do nothing either to hasten or retard the round,
perfect, absolute and Divine Law. So let the babes of the world play
on, and let us not frighten them with stories of earthquakes; they
are miserable enough as it is, believe it!--their toys are so
brittle, and snap in their feeble hands so easily, that one is
inclined to pity them! And Awning Avenue, with its borrowed verdure
and artificial light, is frequently erected for the use of some of
the most wretched among the children of the earth,--children who
have trifled with and lost everything,--love, honor, hope, and
faith, and who are travelling rapidly to the grave with no
consolation save a few handfuls, of base coin, which they must,
perforce, leave behind them at the last.
So it may be that the crippled crossing-sweeper outside Winsleigh
House is a very great deal happier than the master of that stately
mansion. He has a new broom,--and Master Ernest Winsleigh has given
him two oranges, and a rather bulky stick of sugar candy. He is a
protege of Ernest's--that bright handsome boy considers it a "jolly
shame"--to have only one leg,--and has said so with much emphasis,--
and though the little sweeper himself has never regarded his
affliction quite in that light, he is exceedingly grateful for the
young gentleman's patronage and sympathy thus frankly expressed. And
on this particular night of the grand reception he stands, leaning
on his broom and munching his candy, a delighted spectator of the
scene in Park Lane,--the splendid equipages, the prancing horses,
the glittering liveries, the excited cabmen, the magnificent
toilettes of the ladies, the solemn and resigned deportment of the
gentlemen,--and he envies none of them--not he! Why should he? His
oranges are in his pocket--untouched as yet--and it is doubtful
whether the crowding guests at the Winsleigh supper-table shall find
anything there to yield them such entire enjoyment as he will
presently take in his humble yet refreshing desert. And he is
pleased as a child at a pantomime--the Winsleigh "at home" is a show
that amuses him,--and he makes sundry remarks on "'im" and "'er" in
a meditative sotto voce. He peeps up Awning Avenue heedless of the
severe eye of the policeman on guard,--he sweeps the edge of the
crimson felt foot-cloth tenderly with his broom,--and if he has a
desire ungratified, it is that he might take a peep just for a
minute inside the front door, and see how "they're all a'goin' it!"
And how ARE they a'goin' it! Well, not very hilariously, if one may
judge by the aspect of the gentlemen in the hall and on the stairs,-
-gentlemen of serious demeanor, who are leaning, as though
exhausted, against the banisters, with a universal air of profound
weariness and dissatisfaction. Some of these are young fledglings of
manhood,--callow birds who, though by no means innocent,--are more
or less inexperienced,--and who have fluttered hither to the snare
of Lady Winsleigh's "at home," half expecting to be allowed to make
love to their hostess, and so have something to boast of
afterwards,--others are of the middle-aged complacent type, who,
though infinitely bored, have condescended to "look in" for ten
minutes or so, to see if there are any pretty women worth the honor
of their criticism--others again (and these are the most
unfortunate) are the "nobodies"--or husbands, fathers, and brothers
of "beauties," whom they have dutifully escorted to the scene of
triumph, in which they, unlucky wights! are certainly not expected
to share. A little desultory conversation goes on among these stair-
loungers,--conversation mingled with much dreary yawning,--a trained
opera-singer is shaking forth chromatic roulades and trills in the
great drawing-room above,--there is an incessant stream of people
coming and going,--there is the rustle of silk and satin,--perfume,
shaken out of lace kerchiefs, and bouquets oppresses the warm air,--
the heat is excessive,--and there is a never-ending monotonous hum
of voices, only broken at rare intervals by the "society laugh"--
that unmeaning giggle on the part of the women,--that strained "ha,
ha, ha!" on the part of the men, which is but the faint ghostly echo
of the farewell voice of true mirth.
Presently, out of the ladies' cloak-room come two fascinating
figures--the one plump and matronly, with grey hair and a capacious
neck glittering with diamonds,--the other a slim girl in pale pink,
with dark eyes and a ravishing complexion, for whom the lazy
gentlemen on the stairs make immediate and respectful room.
"How d'ye do, Mrs. Van Clupp?" says one of the loungers.
"Glad to see you, Miss Marcia!" says another, a sandy-haired young
man, with a large gardenia in his button-hole, and a glass in his
eye.
At the sound of his voice Miss Marcia stops and regards him with a
surprised smile. She is very pretty, is Marcia,--bewitchingly
pretty,--and she has an air of demure grace and modesty about her
that is perfectly charming. Why? oh, why does she not remain in that
sylph-like, attitude of questioning silence? But she speaks--and the
charm is broken.
"Waal now! Dew tell!" she exclaims. "I thought yew were in Pa-ar--
is! Ma, would yew have concluded to find Lord Algy here? This is TOO
lovely! If I'd known YEW were coming I'd have stopped at home--yes,
I would--that's so!"
And she nods her little head, crowned with its glossy braids of
chestnut hair, in a very coquettish manner, while her mother,
persistently beaming a stereotyped company smile on all around her,
begins to ascend the stairs, beckoning her daughter to follow.
Marcia does so, and Lord Algernon Masherville escorts her.
"You--you didn't mean that!" he stammers rather feebly--"You--you
don't mind my being here, do you? I'm--I'm AWFULLY glad to see you
again, you know--and--er--all that sort of thing!"
Marcia darts a keen glance at him,--the glance of an observant,
clear-headed magpie.
"Oh yes! I dare say!" she remarks with airy scorn. "S'pect ME to
believe YEW! Waal! Did yew have a good time in Pa-ar--is?"
"Fairly so," answers Lord Masherville indifferently. "I only came
back two days ago. Lady Winsleigh met me by chance at the theatre,
and asked me to look in to-night for 'some fun' she said. Have you
any idea what she meant?"
"Of course!" says the fair New Yorker, with a little nasal laugh,--
"don't YEW know? We're all here to see the fisherwoman from the
wilds of Norway,--the creature Sir Philip Errington married last
year. I conclude she'll give us fits all round, don't yew?"
Lord Masherville, at this, appears to hesitate. His eye-glass
troubles him, and he fidgets with its black string. He is not
intellectual--he is the most vacillating, most meek and timid of
mortals--but he is a gentleman in his own poor fashion, and has a
sort of fluttering chivalry about him, which, though feeble, is
better than none.
"I really cannot tell you, Miss Marcia," he replies almost
nervously. "I hear--at the Club,--that--that Lady Bruce-Errington is
a great beauty."
"Dew tell!" shrieks Marcia, with a burst of laughter. "Is she really
though! But I guess her looks won't mend her grammar any way!"
He makes no reply, as by this time they have reached the crowded
drawing-room, where Lady Winsleigh, radiant in ruby velvet and rose-
brilliants, stands receiving her guests, with a cool smile and nod
for mere acquaintances,--and a meaning flash of her dark eyes for
her intimates, and a general air of haughty insolence and perfect
self-satisfaction pervading her from head to foot. Close to her is
her husband, grave, courtly, and kind to all comers, and fulfilling
his duty as host to perfection,--still closer is Sir Francis Lennox,
who in the pauses of the incoming tide of guests finds occasion to
whisper trifling nothings in her tiny white ear, and even once
ventures to arrange more taste-fully a falling cluster of pale roses
that rests lightly on the brief shoulder-strap (called by courtesy a
sleeve) which, keeps her ladyship's bodice in place.
Mrs. Rush-Marvelle is here too, in all her glory,--her good-humored
countenance and small nose together beam with satisfaction,--her
voluminous train of black satin showered with jet gets in
everybody's way,--her ample bosom heaves like the billowy sea,
somewhat above the boundary line of transparent lace that would fain
restrain it--but in this particular she is prudence itself compared
with her hostess, whose charms are exhibited with the unblushing
frankness of a ballet-girl,--and whose example is followed, it must
be confessed, by most of the women in the room. Is Mr. Rush-Marvelle
here? Oh yes--after some little trouble we discover him,--squeezed
against the wall and barricaded by the grand piano,--in company with
a large album, over which he pores, feigning an almost morbid
interest in the portraits of persons he has never seen, and never
will see. Beside him is a melancholy short man with long hair and
pimples, who surveys the increasing crowd in the room with an aspect
that is almost tragic. Once or twice he eyes Mr. Marvelle dubiously
as though he would speak--and, finally, he DOES speak, tapping that
album-entranced gentleman on the arm with an energy that is somewhat
startling.
"It is to blay I am here!" he announces. "To blay ze biano! I am
great artist!" He rolls his eyes wildly and with a sort of forced
calmness proceeds to enumerate on his fingers--"Baris, Vienna, Rome,
Berlin, St. Betersburg--all know me! All resbect me! See!" And he
holds out his button-hole in which there is a miniature red ribbon.
"From ze Emberor! Kaiser Wilhelm!" He exhibits a ring on his little
finger. "From ze Tsar!" Another rapid movement and a pompous gold
watch is thrust before the bewildered gaze of his listener. "From my
bubils in Baris! I am bianist--I am here to blay!"
And raking his fingers through his long locks, he stares defiantly
around him. Mr. Rush-Marvelle is a little frightened. This is an
eccentric personage--he must be soothed. Evidently he must be
soothed!
"Yes, yes, I quite understand!" he says, nodding persuasively at the
excited genius. "You are here to play. Exactly! Yes, yes! We shall
all have the pleasure of hearing you presently. Delightful, I'm
sure! You are the celebrated Herr--?"
"Machtenklinken," adds the pianist haughtily. "Ze celebrated
Machtenklinken!"
"Yes--oh--er,--yes!" And Mr. Marvelle grapples desperately with this
terrible name. "Oh--er--yes! I--er know you by reputation Herr--er--
Machten--. Oh, er--yes! Pray excuse me for a moment!"
And thankfully catching the commanding eye of his wife, he scrambles
hastily away from the piano and joins her. She is talking to the Van
Clupps, and she wants him to take away Mr. Van Clupp, a white-
headed, cunning-looking old man, for a little conversation, in order
that she may be free to talk over certain naughty bits of scandal
with Mrs. Van Clupp and Marcia.
To-night there is no place to sit down in all the grand extent of
the Winsleigh drawing-rooms,--puffy old dowagers occupy the sofas,
ottomans, and chairs, and the largest and most brilliant portion of
the assemblage are standing, grinning into each other's faces with
praiseworthy and polite pertinacity, and talking as rapidly as
though their lives depended on how many words they could utter
within the space of two minutes. Mrs. Rush-Marvelle, Mrs. Van Clupp
and Marcia make their way slowly through the gabbling, pushing,
smirking crowd till they form a part of the little coterie
immediately round Lady Winsleigh, to whom, at the first opportunity,
Mrs. Marvelle whispers--
"Have they come?"
"The modern Paris and the new Helen?" laughs Lady Clara, with a
shrug of her snowy shoulders. "No, not yet. Perhaps they won't turn
up at all! Marcia dear, you look QUITE charming! Where is Lord
Algy?"
"I guess he's not a thousand miles away!" returns Marcia, with a
knowing twinkle of her dark eyes. "He'll hang round here presently!
Why,--there's Mr. Lorimer worrying in at the doorway!"
"Worrying in" is scarcely the term to apply to the polite but
determined manner in which George Lorimer coolly elbows a passage
among the heaving bare shoulders, backs, fat arms, and long trains
that seriously obstruct his passage, but after some trouble he
succeeds in his efforts to reach his fair hostess, who receives him
with rather a supercilious uplifting of her delicate eyebrows.
"Dear me, Mr. Lorimer, you are quite a stranger!" she observes
somewhat satirically. "We thought you had made up your mind to
settle in Norway!"
"Did you really, though!" and Lorimer smiles languidly. "I wonder at
that,--for you knew I came back from that region in the August of
last year."
"And since then I suppose you have played the hermit?" inquires her
ladyship indifferently, unfurling her fan of ostrich feathers and
waving it slowly to and fro.
"By no means! I went off to Scotland with a friend, Alec Macfarlane,
and had some excellent shooting. Then, as I never permit my
venerable mamma to pass the winter in London, I took her to Nice,
from which delightful spot we returned three weeks ago."
Lady Winsleigh laughs. "I did not ask you for a categorical
explanation of your movements, Mr. Lorimer," she says lightly--"I'm
sure I hope you enjoyed yourself?"
He bows gravely. "Thanks! Yes,--strange to say, I DID manage to
extract a little pleasure here and there out of the universal
dryness of things."
"Have you seen your friend, Sir Philip, since he came to town?" asks
Mrs. Rush-Marvelle in her stately way.
"Several times. I have dined with him and Lady Errington frequently.
I understand they are to be here to-night?"
Lady Winsleigh fans herself a little more rapidly, and her full
crimson lips tighten into a thin, malicious line.
"Well, I asked them, of course,--as a matter of form," she says
carelessly,--"but I shall, on the whole, be rather relieved if they
don't come."
A curious, amused look comes over Lorimer's face.
"Indeed! May I ask why?"
"I should think the reason ought to be perfectly apparent to you"--
and her ladyship's eyes flash angrily. "Sir Philip is all very well-
-he is by birth a gentleman,--but the person he has married is not a
lady, and it is an exceedingly unpleasant duty for me to have to
receive her."
A feint tinge of color flushes Lorimer's brow. "I think," he says
slowly, "I think you will find yourself mistaken, Lady Winsleigh. I
believe--" Here he pauses, and Mrs. Rush-Marvelle fixes him with a
stony stare.
"Are we to understand that she is educated?" she inquires
freezingly. "Positively well-educated?"
Lorimer laughs. "Not according to the standard of modern fashionable
requirements!" he replies.
Mrs. Marvelle sniffs the air portentously,--Lady Clara curls her
lip. At that moment everybody makes respectful way for one of the
most important guests of the evening--a broad-shouldered man of
careless attire, rough hair, fine features, and keen, mischievous
eyes--a man of whom many stand in wholesome awe,--Beaufort Lovelace,
or as he is commonly called. "Beau" Lovelace, a brilliant novelist,
critic, and pitiless satirist. For him society is a game,--a gay
humming-top which he spins on the palm of his hand for his own
private amusement. Once a scribbler in an attic, subsisting bravely
on bread and cheese and hope, he now lords it more than half the
year in a palace of fairy-like beauty on the Lago di Como,--and he
is precisely the same person who was formerly disdained and flouted
by fair ladies because his clothes were poor and shabby, yet for
whom they now practise all the arts known to their sex, in fruitless
endeavors to charm and conciliate him. For he laughs at them and
their pretty ways,--and his laughter is merciless. His arrowy glance
discovers the "poudre de riz" on their blooming cheeks,--the carmine
on their lips, and the "kohl" on their eyelashes. He knows purchased
hair from the natural growth--and he has a cruel eye for discerning
the artificial contour of a "made-up" figure. And like a merry satyr
dancing in a legendary forest, he capers and gambols in the vast
fields of Humbug--all forms of it are attacked and ridiculed by his
powerful and pungent pen,--he is a sort of English Heine, gathering
in rich and daily harvests from the never-perishing incessantly-
growing crop of fools. And as he,--in all the wickedness of daring
and superior intellect,--approaches, Lady Winsleigh draws herself up
with the conscious air of a beauty who knows she is nearly perfect,-
-Mrs. Rush-Marvelle makes a faint endeavor to settle the lace more
modestly over her rebellious bosom,--Marcia smiles coquettishly, and
Mrs. Van Clupp brings her diamond pendant (value, a thousand
guineas) more prominently forward,--for as she thinks, poor ignorant
soul! "wealth always impresses these literary men more than
anything!" In one swift glance Beau Lovelace observes all these
different movements,--and the inner fountain of his mirth begins to
bubble. "What fun those Van Clupps are!" he thinks. "The old woman's
got a diamond plaster on her neck! Horrible taste! She's anxious to
show how much she's worth, I suppose! Mrs. Marvelle wants a shawl,
and Lady Clara a bodice. By Jove! What sights the women do make of
themselves!"
But his face betrays none of these reflections,--its expression is
one of polite gravity, though a sudden sweetness smooths it as he
shakes hands with Lord Winsleigh and Lorimer,--a sweetness that
shows how remarkably handsome Beau can look if he chooses. He rests
one hand on Lorimer's shoulder.
"Why, George, old boy, I thought you were playing the dutiful son at
Nice? Don't tell me you've deserted the dear old lady! Where is she?
You know I've got to finish that argument with her about her beloved
Byron."
Lorimer laughs. "Go and finish it when you like, Beau," he answers.
"My mother's all right. She's at home. You know she's always charmed
to see you. She's delighted with that new book of yours."
"Is she? She finds pleasure in trifles then--"
"Oh no, Mr. Lovelace!" interrupts Lady Clara, with a winning glance.
"You must not run yourself down! The book is exquisite! I got it at
once from the library, and read every line of it!"
"I am exceedingly flattered!" says Lovelace, with a grave bow,
though there is a little twinkling mockery in his glance. "When a
lady so bewitching condescends to read what I have written, how can
I express my emotion!"
"The press is unanimous in its praise of you," remarks Lord
Winsleigh cordially. "You are quite the lion of the day!"
"Oh quite!" agrees Beau laughing. "And do I not roar 'as sweet as
any nightingale'? But I say, where's the new beauty?"
"I really do not know to whom you allude, Mr. Lovelace," replies
Lady Winsleigh coldly. Lorimer smiles and is silent. Beau looks from
one to the other amusedly.
"Perhaps I've made a mistake," he says, "but the Duke of Roxwell is
responsible. He told me that if I came here to-night I should see
one of the loveliest women living,--Lady Bruce-Errington. He saw her
in the park. I think THIS gentleman"--indicating Sir Francis Lennox,
who bites his moustache vexedly--"said quite openly at the Club last
night that she WAS the new beauty,--and that she would be here this
evening."
Lady Winsleigh darts a side glance at her "Lennie" that is far from
pleasant.
"Really it's perfectly absurd!" she says, with a scornful toss of
her head. "We shall have housemaids and bar-girls accepted as 'quite
the rage' next. I do not know Sir Philip's wife in the least,--I
hear she was a common farmer's daughter. I certainly invited her to-
night out of charity and kindness in order that she might get a
little accustomed to society--for, of course, poor creature!
entirely ignorant and uneducated as she is, everything will seem
strange to her. But she has not come--"
"SIR PHILIP AND LADY BRUCE-ERRINGTON!" announces Briggs at this
juncture.
There is a sudden hush--a movement of excitement,--and the groups
near the door fall apart staring, and struck momentarily dumb with
surprise, as a tall, radiant figure in dazzling white, with diamonds
flashing on a glittering coil of gold hair, and wondrous sea-blue
earnest eyes, passes through their midst with that royal free step
and composed grace of bearing that might distinguish an Empress of
many nations.
"Good heavens! What a magnificent woman!" mutters Beau Lovelace--
"Venus realized!"
Lady Winsleigh turns very pale,--she trembles and can scarcely
regain her usual composure as Sir Philip, with a proud tenderness
lighting up the depths of his hazel eyes, leads this vision of youth
and perfect loveliness up to her, saying simply--
"Lady Winsleigh, allow me to introduce to you--my wife! Thelma, this
is Lady Winsleigh."
There is a strange sensation in Lady Winsleigh's throat as though a
very tight string were suddenly drawn round it to almost strangling
point--and it is certain that she feels as though she must scream,
hit somebody with her fan, and rush from the room in an undignified
rage. But she chokes back these purely feminine emotions--she smiles
and extends her jewelled hand.
"So good of you to come to-night!" she says sweetly. "I have been
longing to see you, Lady Errington! I dare say you know your husband
is quite an old acquaintance of mine!"
And a langourous glance, like fire seen through smoke, leaps from
beneath her silky eyelashes at Sir Philip--but he sees it not--he is
chatting and laughing gaily with Lorimer and Beau Lovelace.
"Indeed, yes!" answers Thelma, in that soft low voice of hers, which
had such a thrilling richness within it--"and it is for that reason
I am very glad to meet you. It is always pleasant for me to know my
husband's friends."
Here she raises those marvellous, innocent eyes of hers and smiles;-
-why does Lady Winsleigh shrink from that frank and childlike
openness of regard? Why does she, for one brief moment, hate
herself?--why does she so suddenly feel herself to be vile and
beneath contempt? God only knows!--but the first genuine blush that
has tinged her ladyship's cheek for many a long day, suddenly
spreads a hot and embarrassing tide of crimson over the polished
pallor of her satiny skin, and she says hurriedly--
"I must find you some people to talk to. This is my dear friend,
Mrs. Rush-Marvelle--I am sure you will like each other. Let me
introduce Mrs. Van Clupp to you--Mrs. Van Clupp, and Miss Van
Clupp!"
The ladies bow stiffly while Thelma responds to their prim
salutation with easy grace.
"Sir Francis Lennox"--continues Lady Winsleigh, and there is
something like a sneer in her smile, as that gentleman makes a deep
and courtly reverence, with an unmistakable look of admiration in
his sleepy tiger-brown eyes,--then she turns to Lord Winsleigh and
adds in a casual way, "My husband!" Lord Winsleigh advances rather
eagerly--there is a charm in the exquisite nobility of Thelma's face
that touches his heart and appeals to the chivalrous and poetical
part of his nature.
"Sir Philip and I have known each other for some years," he says,
pressing her little fair hand cordially. "It is a great pleasure for
me to see you to-night, Lady Errington--I realize how very much my
friend deserves to be congratulated on his marriage!"
Thelma smiles. This little speech pleases her, but she does not
accept the compliment implied to herself.
"You are very kind, Lord Winsleigh"--she answers; "I am glad indeed
that you like Philip. I do think with you that he deserves every
one's good wishes. It is my great desire to make him always happy."
A brief shadow crosses Lord Winsleigh's thoughtful brow, and he
studies her sweet eyes attentively. Is she sincere? Does she mean
what she says? Or is she, like others of her sex, merely playing a
graceful part? A slight sigh escapes him,--absolute truth, innocent
love, and stainless purity are written in such fair, clear lines on
that perfect countenance that the mere idea of questioning her
sincerity seems a sacrilege.
"Your desire is gratified, I am sure," he returns, and his voice is
somewhat sad. "I never saw him looking so well. He seems in
excellent spirits."
"Oh, for that!" and she laughs. "He is a very light-hearted boy! But
once he would tell me very dreadful things about the world--how it
was not at all worth living in--but I do think he must have been
lonely. For he is very pleased with everything now, and finds no
fault at all!"
"I can quite understand that!" and Lord Winsleigh smiles, though
that shadow of pain still rests on his brow.
Mrs. Rush-Marvelle and the Van Clupps are listening to the
conversation with straining ears. What strange person is this? She
does not talk bad grammar, though her manner of expressing herself
is somewhat quaint and foreign. But she is babyish--perfectly
babyish! The idea of any well-bred woman condescending to sing the
praises of her own husband in public! Absurd! "Deserves every-one's
good wishes!"--pooh! her "great desire is to make him always
happy!"--what utter rubbish!--and he is a "light-hearted boy!" Good
gracious!--what next? Marcia Van Clupp is strongly inclined to
giggle, and Mrs. Van Clupp is indignantly conscious that the
Errington diamonds far surpass her own, both for size and lustre.
At that moment Sir Philip approaches his wife, with George Lorimer
and Beau Lovelace. Thelma's smile at Lorimer is the greeting of an
old friend--a sun-bright glance that makes his heart beat a little
quicker than usual. He watches her as she turns to be introduced to
Lovelace,--while Miss Van Clupp, thinking of the relentless gift of
satire with which that brilliant writer is endowed, looks out for
"some fun"--for, as she confides in a low tone to Mrs. Marvelle--
"she'll never know how to talk to that man!"
"Thelma," says Sir Philip, "this is the celebrated author, Beaufort
Lovelace,--you have often heard me speak of him."
She extends both her hands, and her eyes deepen and flash.
"Ah! you are one of those great men whom we all love and admire!"
she says, with direct frankness,--and the cynical Beau, who has
never yet received so sincere a compliment, feels himself coloring
like a school-girl. "I am so very proud to meet you! I have read
your wonderful book, 'Azaziel,' and it made me glad and sorry
together. For why do you draw a noble example and yet say at the
same time that it is impossible to follow it? Because im one breath
you inspire us to be good, and yet you tell us we shall never become
so! That is not right,--is it?"
Beau meets her questioning glance with a grave smile.
"It is most likely entirely wrong from YOUR point of view, Lady
Errington," he said. "Some day we will talk over the matter. You
shall show me the error of my ways. Perhaps you will put life, and
the troublesome business of living, in quite a new light for me! You
see, we novelists have an unfortunate trick of looking at the worst
or most ludicrous side of everything--we can't help it! So many
apparently lofty and pathetic tragedies turn out, on close
examination, to be the meanest and most miserable of farces,--it's
no good making them out to be grand Greek poems when they are only
base doggerel rhymes. Besides, it's the fashion nowadays to be
chiffonniers in literature--to pick up the rags of life and sort
them in all their uncomeliness before the morbid eyes of the public.
What's the use of spending thought and care on the manufacture of a
jewelled diadem, and offering it to the people on a velvet cushion,
when they prefer an olla-podrida of cast-off clothing, dried bones
and candle-ends? In brief, what would it avail to write as grandly
as Shakespeare or Scott, when society clamors for Zola and others of
his school?"
There was a little group round them by this time,--men generally
collected wherever Beau Lovelace aired his opinions,--and a double
attraction drew them together now in the person of the lovely woman
to whom he was holding forth.
Marcia Van Clupp stared mightily--surely the Norwegian peasant would
not understand Beau's similes,--for they were certainly
incomprehensible to Marcia. As for his last remark--why! she had
read all Zola's novels in the secrecy of her own room, and had
gloated over them;--no words could describe her intense admiration
of books that were so indelicately realistic! "He is jealous of
other writers, I suppose," she thought; "these literary people hate
each other like poison."
Meanwhile Thelma's blue eyes looked puzzled. "I do not know that
name," she said. "Zola!--what is he? He cannot be great. Shakespeare
I know,--he is the glory of the world, of course; I think him as
noble as Homer. Then for Walter Scott--I love all his beautiful
stories--I have read them many, many times, nearly as often as I
have read Homer and the Norse Sagas. And the world must surely love
such writings--or how should they last so long?" She laughed and
shook her bright head archly. "Chiffonnier! Point du tout! Monsieur,
les divines pensets que vous avez donne au monde ne sont pas des
chiffons."
Beau smiled again, and offered her his arm. "Let me find you a
chair!" he said. "It will be rather a difficult matter,--still I can
but try. You will be fatigued if you stand too long." And he moved
through the swaying crowd, with her little gloved hand resting
lightly on his coat-sleeve,--while Marcia Van Clupp and her mother
exchanged looks of wonder and dismay. The "fisherwoman" could speak
French,--moreover, she could speak it with a wonderfully soft and
perfect accent,--the "person" had studied Homer and Shakespeare, and
was conversant with the best literature,--and, bitterest sting of
all, the "peasant" could give every woman in the room a lesson in
deportment, grace, and perfect taste in dress. Every costume looked
tawdy beside her richly flowing velvet draperies--every low bodice
became indecent compared with the modesty of that small square
opening at Thelma's white throat--an opening just sufficient to
display her collar of diamonds--and every figure seemed either dumpy
and awkward, too big or too fat, or too lean and too lanky--when
brought into contrast with her statuesque outlines.
The die was cast,--the authority of Beau Lovelace was nearly supreme
in fashionable and artistic circles, and from the moment he was seen
devoting his attention to the "new beauty," excited whispers began
to flit from mouth to mouth,--"She will be the rage this season!"--
"We must ask her to come to us!"--"DO ask Lady Winsleigh to
introduce us!"--"She MUST come to OUR house!" and so on. And Lady
Winsleigh was neither blind nor deaf--she saw and heard plainly
enough that her reign was over, and in her secret soul she was
furious. The "common farmer's daughter" was neither vulgar nor
uneducated--and she was surpassingly lovely--even Lady Winsleigh
could not deny so plain and absolute a fact. But her ladyship was a
woman of the world, and she perceived at once that Thelma was not.
Philip had married a creature with the bodily loveliness of a
goddess and the innocent soul of a child--and it was just that
child-like, pure soul looking serenely out of Thelma's eyes that had
brought the long-forgotten blush of shame to Clara Winsleigh's
cheek. But that feeling of self-contempt soon passed--she was no
better and no worse than other women of her set, she thought--after
all, what had she to be ashamed of? Nothing, except--except--
perhaps, her "little affair" with "Lennie." A new emotion now
stirred her blood--one of malice and hatred, mingled with a sense of
outraged love and ungratified passion--for she still admired Philip
to a foolish excess. Her dark eyes flashed scornfully as she noted
the attitude of Sir Francis Lennox,--he was leaning against the
marble mantel-piece, stroking his moustache with one hand, absorbed
in watching Thelma, who, seated in an easy chair which Beau Lovelace
had found for her, was talking and laughing gaily with those
immediately around her, a group which increased in size every
moment, and in which the men were most predominant.
"Fool!" muttered Lady Winsleigh to herself, apostrophizing "Lennie"
in this uncomplimentary manner. "Fool! I wonder if he thinks I care!
He may play hired lacquey to all the women in London if he likes! He
looks a prig compared to Philip!"
And her gaze wandered,--Philip was standing by his wife, engaged in
an animated conversation with Lord Winsleigh. They were all near the
grand piano--and Lady Clara, smoothing her vexed brow, swept her
ruby velvets gracefully up to that quarter of the room. Before she
could speak, the celebrated Herr Machtenklinken confronted her with
some sternness.
"Your ladyshib vill do me ze kindness to remember," he said,
loftily, "zat I am here to blay! Zere has been no obbortunity--ze
biano could not make itself to be heard in zis fery moch noise. It
is bossible your ladyshib shall require not ze music zis efening? In
zat case I shall take my fery goot leave."
Lady Winsleigh raised her eyes with much superciliousness.
"As you please," she said coolly. "If YOU are so indifferent to your
advantages--then all I can say is, so am I! You are, perhaps, known
on the Continent, Herr Machten-klinken,--but not here--and I think
you ought to be more grateful for my influence."
So saying, she passed on, leaving the luckless pianist in a state of
the greatest indignation.
"Gott in Himmel!" he gasped, in a sort of infuriated sotto voce. "Ze
Emberor himself would not have speak to me so! I come here as a
favor--her ladyshib do not offer me one pfenning,--ach! ze music is
not for such beoble! I shall brefer to blay to bigs! Zere is no art
in zis country!--"
And he began to make his way out of the room, when he was overtaken
by Beau Lovelace, who had followed him in haste.
"Where are you off to, Hermann?" he asked good-naturedly. "We want
you to play. There is a lady here who heard you in Paris quite
recently--she admires you immensely. Won't you come and be
introduced to her?"
Herr Machtenklinken paused, and a smile softened his hitherto angry
countenance.
"You are fery goot, Mr. Lofelace," he remarked--"and I would do moch
for YOU--but her ladyshib understands me not--she has offend me--it
is better I should take my leave."
"Oh, bother her ladyship!" said Beau lightly. "Come along, and give
us something in your best style."
So saying, he led the half-reluctant artist back to the piano, where
he was introduced to Thelma, who gave him so sweet a smile that he
was fairly dazzled.
"It is you who play Schumann so beautifully," she said. "My husband
and I heard you at one of Lamoureux's concerts in Paris. I fear,"
and she looked wistfully at him, "that you would think it very rude
and selfish of me if I asked you to play just one little piece?
Because, of course, you are here to enjoy yourself, and talk to your
friends, and it seems unkind to take you away from them!"
A strange moisture dimmed the poor German's eyes. This was the first
time in England that the "celebrate" had been treated as a friend
and a gentleman. Up to this moment, at all the "at homes" and
"assemblies," he had not been considered as a guest at all,--he was
an "artist," "a good pianist,"--"a man who had played before the
Emperor of Germany"--and he was expected to perform for nothing, and
be grateful for the "influence" exercised on his behalf--influence
which as yet had not put one single extra guinea in his pocket. Now,
here was a great lady almost apologizing for asking him to play,
lest it should take him away from his "friends"! His heart swelled
with emotion and gratitude--the poor fellow had no "friends" in
London, except Beau Lovelace, who was kind to him, but who had no
power in the musical world,--and, as Thelma's gentle voice addressed
him, he could have knelt and kissed her little shoe for her sweet
courtesy and kindness.
"Miladi," he said, with a profound reverence, "I will blay for you
with bleasure,--it will be a joy for ze music to make itself
beautiful for you!"
And with this fantastic attempt at a compliment, he seated himself
at the instrument and struck a crashing chord to command silence.
The hum of conversation grew louder than ever--and to Thelma's
surprise Lady Winsleigh seated herself by her and began to converse.
Herr Machtenklinken struck another chord,--in vain! The deafening
clamor of tongues continued, and Lady Winsleigh asked Thelma with
much seeming interest if the scenery was very romantic in Norway?
The girl colored deeply, and after a little hesitation, said--
"Excuse me,--I would rather not speak till the music is over. It is
impossible for a great musician to think his thoughts out properly
unless there is silence. Would it not be better to ask every one to
leave off talking while this gentleman plays?"
Clara Winsleigh looked amused. "My dear, you don't know them," she
said carelessly. "They would think me mad to propose such a thing!
There are always a few who listen."
Once more the pianist poised his hands over the keys of the
instrument,--Thelma looked a little troubled and grieved. Beau
Lovelace saw it, and acting on a sudden impulse, turned towards the
chattering crowds, and, holding up his hand, called, "Silence,
please!"
There was an astonished hush. Beau laughed. "We want to hear some
music," he said, with the utmost coolness. "Conversation can be
continued afterwards." He then nodded cheerfully towards Herr
Machtenklinken, who, inspired by this open encouragement, started
off like a race-horse into one of the exquisite rambling preludes of
Chopin. Gradually, as he played, his plain face took upon itself a
noble, thoughtful, rapt expression,--his wild eyes softened,--his
furrowed, frowning brow smoothed,--and, meeting the grave, rare blue
eyes of Thelma, he smiled. His touch grew more and more delicate and
tender--from the prelude he wandered into a nocturne of plaintive
and exceeding melancholy, which he played with thrilling and
exquisite pathos--anon, he glided into one of those dreamily joyous
yet sorrowful mazurkas, that remind one of bright flowers growing in
wild luxuriance over lonely and forsaken graves. The "celebrate" had
reason to boast of himself--he was a perfect master of the
instrument,--and as his fingers closed on the final chord, a hearty
burst of applause rewarded his efforts, led by Lovelace and Lorimer.
He responded by the usual bow,--but his real gratitude was all for
Thelma. For her he had played his best--and he had seen tears in her
lovely eyes. He felt as proud of her appreciation as of the ring he
had received from the Tsar,--and bent low over the fair hand she
extended to him.
"You must be very happy," she said, "to feel all those lovely sounds
in your heart! I hope I shall see and hear you again some day,--I
thank you so very much for the pleasure you have given me!"
Lady Winsleigh said nothing--and she listened to Thelma's words with
a sort of contempt.
"Is the girl half-witted?" she thought. "She must be, or she would
not be so absurdly enthusiastic! The man plays well,--but it is his
profession to play well--it's no good praising these sort of
people,--they are never grateful, and they always impose upon you."
Aloud she asked Sir Philip--
"Does Lady Errington play?"
"A little," he answered. "She sings."
At once there was a chorus of inanely polite voices round the piano,
"Oh, DO sing, Lady Errington! Please, give us one song!" and Sir
Francis Lennox, sauntering up, fixed his languorous gaze on Thelma's
face, murmuring, "You will not be so cruel as to refuse us such
delight?"
"But, of course not!" answered the girl, greatly surprised at all
these unnecessary entreaties. "I am always pleased to sing." And she
drew off her long loose gloves and seated herself at the piano
without the least affectation of reluctance. Then, glancing at her
husband with a bright smile, she asked, "What song do you think will
be best, Philip?"
"One of those old Norse mountain-songs," he answered.
She played a soft minor prelude--there was not a sound in the room
now--everybody pressed towards the piano, staring with a curious
fascination at her beautiful face and diamond-crowned hair. One
moment--and her voice, in all its passionate, glorious fullness,
rang out with a fresh vibrating tone that thrilled to the very
heart--and the foolish crowd that gaped and listened was speechless,
motionless, astonished, and bewildered.
A Norse mountain-song was it? How strange, and grand, and wild!
George Lorimer stood apart--his eyes ached with restrained tears. He
knew the melody well--and up before him rose the dear solemnity of
the Altenguard hills, the glittering expanse of the Fjord, the dear
old farmhouse behind its cluster of pines. Again he saw Thelma as he
had seen her first--clad in her plain white gown, spinning in the
dark embrasure of the rose-wreathed window--again the words of the
self-destroyed Sigurd came back to his recollection, "Good things
may come for others--but for you the heavens are empty!" He looked
at her now,--Philip's wife--in all the splendor of her rich attire;-
-she was lovelier than ever, and her sweet nature was as yet
unspoilt by all the wealth and luxury around her.
"Good God! what an inferno she has come into!" he thought vaguely.
"How will she stand these people when she gets to know them? The Van
Clupps, the Rush-Marvelles, and others like them,--and as for Clara
Winsleigh--" He turned to study her ladyship attentively. She was
sitting quite close to the piano--her eyes were cast down, but the
rubies on her bosom heaved quickly and restlessly, and she furled
and unfurled her fan impatiently. "I shouldn't wonder," he went on
meditating gravely, "if she doesn't try and make some mischief
somehow. She looks it."
At that moment Thelma ceased singing, and the room rang with
applause. Herr Machtenklinken was overcome with admiration.
"It is a voice of heaven!" he said in a rapture.
The fair singer was surrounded with people.
"I hope," said Mrs. Van Clupp, with her usual ill-bred eagerness to
ingratiate herself with the titled and wealthy, "I hope you will
come and see me, Lady Errington? I am at home every Friday evening
to my friends."
"Oh yes," said Thelma, simply. "But I am not your friend yet! When
we do know each other better I will come. We shall meet each other
many times first,--and then you will see if you like me to be your
friend. Is it not so?"
A scarcely concealed smile reflected itself on the faces of all who
heard this naive, but indefinite acceptance of Mrs. Van Clupp's
invitation, while Mrs. Van Clupp herself was somewhat mortified, and
knew not what to answer. This Norwegian girl was evidently quite
ignorant of the usages of polite society, or she would at once have
recognized the fact that an "at home" had nothing whatsoever to do
with the obligations of friendship--besides, as far as friendship
was concerned, had not Mrs. Van Clupp tabooed several of her own
blood-relations and former intimate acquaintances?. . . for the very
sensible reason that while she had grown richer, they had grown
poorer. But now Mrs. Rush-Marvelle sailed up in all her glory, with
her good-natured smile and matronly air. She was a privileged
person, and she put her arm round Thelma's waist.
"You must come to me, my dear," she said with real kindness--her
motherly heart had warmed to the girl's beauty and innocence,--" I
knew Philip when he was quite a boy. He will tell you what a
dreadfully old woman I am! You must try to like me for his sake."
Thelma smiled radiantly. "I always wish to like Philip's friends,"
she said frankly. "I do hope I shall please you!"
A pang of remorse smote Mrs. Rush-Marvelle's heart as she remembered
how loth she had been to meet Philip's "peasant" wife,--she
hesitated,--then, yielding to her warm impulse, drew the girl closer
and kissed her fair rose-tinted cheek.
"You please everybody, my child," she said honestly. "Philip is a
lucky man! Now I'll say good night, for it is getting late,--I'll
write to you to-morrow and fix a day for you to come and lunch with
me."
"But you must also come and see Philip," returned Thelma, pressing
her hand.
"So I will--so I will!" and Mrs. Rush-Marvelle nodded beamingly, and
made her way up to Lady Winsleigh, saying, "Bye-bye, Clara! Thanks
for a most charming evening!"
Clara pouted. "Going already, Mimsey?" she queried,--then, in a
lower tone, she said, "Well! what do you think of her?"
"A beautiful child--no more!" answered Mrs. Marvelle,--then,
studying with some gravity the brilliant brunette face before her,
she added in a whisper, "Leave her alone, Clara,--don't make her
miserable! You know what I mean! It wouldn't take much to break her
heart."
Clara laughed harshly and played with her fan.
"Dear me, Mimsey!. . . you are perfectly outrageous! Do you think
I'm an ogress ready to eat her up? On the contrary, I mean to be a
friend to her."
Mrs. Marvelle still looked grave.
"I'm glad to hear it," she said; "only some friends are worse than
declared enemies."
Lady Winsleigh shrugged her shoulders.
"Go along, Mimsey,--go home to bed!" she exclaimed impatiently. "You
are INTENSE! I hate sentimental philosophy and copy-book
platitudes!" She laughed again and folded her hands with an air of
mock penitence, "There! I didn't mean to be rude! Good-night, dear
old darling!"
"Good-night, Clara!" and Mrs. Marvelle, summoning her timid husband
from some far corner, where he had remained in hiding, took her
departure with much stateliness.
A great many people were going down to supper by this time, but Sir
Philip was tired of the heat and glare and noise, and whispered as
much to Thelma, who at once advanced to bid her hostess farewell.
"Won't you have some supper?" inquired her ladyship. "Don't go yet!"
But Thelma was determined not to detain her husband a moment longer
than he wished--so Lady Winsleigh, seeing remonstrances were of no
avail, bade them both an effusive good-night.
"We must see a great deal of each other!" she said, pressing
Thelma's hands warmly in her own: "I hope we shall be quite dear
friends!"
"Thank you!" said Thelma, "I do hope so too, if you wish it so much.
Good-night, Lord Winsleigh!"
"Let me escort you to your carriage," said her noble host, at once
offering her his arm.
"And allow me to follow," added Beau Lovelace, slipping his arm
through Errington's, to whom he whispered, "How dare you, sir! How
dare you be such a provokingly happy man in this miserable old
world?" Errington laughed--and the little group had just reached the
door of the drawing-room when Thelma suddenly turned with a look of
inquiry in her eyes.
"Where is Mr. Lorimer?" she said. "I have forgotten to say good-
night to him, Philip."
"Here I am, Lady Errington," and Lorimer sauntered forward with
rather a forced smile,--a smile which altogether vanished, leaving
his face strangely pale, as she stretched out her hand to him, and
said laughingly--
"You bad Mr. Lorimer! Where were you? You know it would make me
quite unhappy not to wish you goodnight. Ah, you are a very naughty
brother!"
"Come home with us, George," said Sir Philip eagerly. "Do, there's a
good fellow!"
"I can't, Phil!" answered Lorimer, almost pathetically. "I can't to-
night--indeed, I can't! Don't ask me!" And he wrung his friend's
hand hard,--and then bravely met Thelma's bright glance.
"Forgive me!" he said to her. "I know I ought to have presented
myself before--I'm a dreadfully lazy fellow, you know! Good-night!"
Thelma regarded him steadfastly.
"You look,--what is it you call yourself sometimes--SEEDY?" she
observed. "Not well at all. Mind you come to us to-morrow!"
He promised--and then accompanied them down to their carriage--he
and Beau Lovelace assisting to cover Thelma with her fur cloak, and
being the last to shake hands with Sir Philip as he sprang in beside
his wife, and called to the coachman "Home!" The magic word seemed
to effect the horses, for they started at a brisk trot, and within a
couple of minutes the carriage was out of sight. It was a warm star-
lit evening,--and as Lorimer and Lovelace re-entered Winsleigh
House, Beau stole a side-glance at his silent companion.
"A plucky fellow!" he mused; "I should say he'd die game. Tortures
won't wring his secret out of him." Aloud he said, "I say, haven't
we had enough of this? Don't let us sup here--nothing but
unsubstantial pastry and claretcup--the latter abominable mixture
would kill me. Come on to the Club, will you?"
Lorimer gladly assented--they got their over-coats from the
officious Briggs, tipped him handsomely, and departed arm in arm.
The last glimpse they caught of the Winsleigh festivities was Marcia
Van Clupp sitting on the stairs, polishing off with much gusto the
wing and half-breast of a capon,--while the mild Lord Masherville
stood on the step just above her, consoling his appetite with a
spoonful of tepid yellow jelly. He had not been able to secure any
capon for himself--he had been frightened away by the warning cry of
"Ladies first!" shouted forth by a fat gentleman, who was on guard
at the head of the supper-table, and who had already secreted five
plates of different edibles for his own consumption, in a neat
corner behind the window-curtains. Meanwhile, Sir Philip Bruce-
Errington, proud, happy, and triumphant, drew his wife into a close
embrace as they drove home together, and said, "You were the queen
of the evening, my Thelma! Have you enjoyed yourself?"
"Oh, I do not call that enjoyment!" she declared. "How is it
possible to enjoy anything among so many strangers?"
"Well, what is it?" he asked laughingly.
She laughed also. "I do not know indeed what it is!" she said. "I
have never been to anything like it before. It did seem to me as if
all the people were on show for some reason or other. And the
gentlemen did look very tired--there was nothing for them to do.
Even you, my boy! You made several very big yawns! Did you know
that?"
Philip laughed more than ever. "I didn't know it, my pet!" he
answered; "but I'm not surprised. Big yawns are the invariable
result of an 'at home.' Do you like Beau Lovelace?"
"Very much," she answered readily. "But, Philip, I should not like
to have so many friends as Lady Winsleigh. I thought friends were
rare?"
"So they are! She doesn't care for these people a bit. They are mere
acquaintances."
"Whom does she care for then?" asked Thelma suddenly. "Of course I
mean after her husband. Naturally she loves him best."
"Naturally," and Philip paused, adding, "she has her son--Ernest--
he's a fine bright boy--he was not there to-night. You must see him
some day. Then I think her favorite friend is Mrs. Rush-Marvelle."
"I do like that lady too," said Thelma. "She spoke very kindly to me
and kissed me."
"Did she really!" and Philip smiled. "I think she was more to be
congratulated on taking the kiss than you in receiving it! But she's
not a bad old soul,--only a little too fond of money. But, Thelma,
whom do YOU care for most? You did tell me once, but I forget!"
She turned her lovely face and star-like eyes upon him, and, meeting
his laughing look, she smiled.
"How often must I tell you!" she murmured softly. "I do think you
will never tire of hearing! You know that it is you for whom I care
most, and that all the world would be empty to me without you! Oh,
my husband--my darling! do not make me try to tell you how much I
love you! I cannot--my heart is too full!"
The rest of their drive homeward was very quiet--there are times
when silence is more eloquent than speech.
CHAPTER XXI.
"A small cloud, so slight as to be a mere speck on the fair blue
sky, was all the warning we received."--PLINY.
After that evening great changes came into Thelma's before peaceful
life. She had conquered her enemies, or so it seemed,--society threw
down all its barricades and rushed to meet her with open arms.
Invitations crowded upon her,--often she grew tired and bewildered
in the multiplicity of them all. London life wearied her,--she
preferred the embowered seclusion of Errington Manor, the dear old
house in green-wooded Warwickshire. But the "season" claimed her,--
its frothy gaieties were deemed incomplete without her--no "at home"
was considered quite "the" thing unless she was present. She became
the centre of a large and ever-widening social circle,--painters,
poets, novelists, wits savants, and celebrities of high distinction
crowded her rooms, striving to entertain her as well as themselves
with that inane small talk and gossip too often practiced by the
wisest among us,--and thus surrounded, she began to learn many
puzzling and painful things of which in her old Norwegian life, she
had been happily ignorant.
For instance, she had once imagined that all the men and women of
culture who followed the higher professions must perforce be a sort
of "Joyous Fraternity," superior to other mortals not so gifted,--
and, under this erroneous impression, she was at first eager to know
some of the so-called "great" people who had distinguished
themselves in literature or the fine arts. She had fancied that they
must of necessity be all refined, sympathetic, large-hearted, and
noble-minded--alas! how grievously was she disappointed! She found,
to her sorrow, that the tree of modern Art bore but few wholesome
roses and many cankered buds--that the "Joyous Fraternity" were not
joyous at all--but, on the contrary, inclined to dyspepsia and
discontentment. She found that even poets, whom she had fondly
deemed were the angel-guides among the children of this earth,--were
most of them painfully conceited, selfish in aim and limited in
thought,--moreover, that they were often so empty of all true
inspiration, that they were actually able to hate and envy one
another with a sort of womanish spite and temper,--that novelists,
professing to be in sympathy with the heart of humanity, were no
sooner brought into contact one with another, than they plainly
showed by look, voice, and manner, the contempt they entertained for
each other's work,--that men of science were never so happy as when
trying to upset each other's theories;--that men of religious
combativeness were always on the alert to destroy each other's
creeds,--and that, in short, there was a very general tendency to
mean jealousies, miserable heart-burnings and utter weariness all
round.
On one occasion, she, in the sweetest simplicity, invited two lady
authoresses of note to meet at one of her "at homes,". . . she
welcomed both the masculine-looking ladies with a radiant smile, and
introduced them, saying gently,--"You will be so pleased to know
each other!" But the stony stare, stiff nod, portentous sniff, and
scornful smile with which these two eminent females exchanged cold
greetings, were enough to daunt the most sympathetic hostess that
ever lived--and when they at once retired to different corners of
the room and sat apart with their backs turned to one another for
the remainder of the evening, their attitude was so uncompromising
that it was no wonder the gentle Thelma felt quite dismayed and
wretched at the utter failure of the rencontre.
"They would NOT be sociable!" she afterwards complained to Lady
Winsleigh. "They TRIED to be as rude to each other as they could!"
Lady Winsleigh laughed. "Of course!" she said. "What else DID you
expect! But if you want some fun, ask a young, pretty, and brilliant
authoress (there are a few such) to meet an old, ugly and dowdy one
(and there are many such), and watch the dowdy one's face! It will
be a delicious study of expression, I assure you!"
But Thelma would not try this delicate experiment,--in fact, she
began rather to avoid literary people, with the exception of Beau
Lovelace. His was a genial, sympathetic nature, and, moreover, he
had a winning charm of manner which few could resist. He was not a
bookworm,--he was not, strictly speaking, a literary man,--and he
was entirely indifferent to public praise or blame. He was, as he
himself expressed it, "a servant and worshipper of literature," and
there is a wide gulf of difference between one who serves literature
for its own sake and one who uses it basely as a tool to serve
himself.
But in all her new and varied experiences, perhaps Thelma was most
completely bewildered by the women she met. Her simple Norse beliefs
in the purity and gentleness of womanhood were startled and
outraged,--she could not understand London ladies at all. Some of
them seemed to have no idea beyond dress and show,--others looked
upon their husbands, the lawful protectors of their name and fame,
with easy indifference, as though they were mere bits of household
furniture,--others, having nothing better to do, "went in" for
spiritualism,--the low spiritualism that manifests itself in the
turning of tables and moving of side-boards--not the higher
spiritualism of an improved, perfected, and saint-like way of life--
and these argued wildly on the theory of matter passing through
matter, to the extent of declaring themselves able to send a letter
or box through the wall without making a hole in it,--and this with
such obstinate gravity as made Thelma fear for their reason. Then
there were the women-atheists,--creatures who had voluntarily
crushed all the sweetness of the sex within them--foolish human
flowers without fragrance, that persistently turned away their faces
from the sunlight and denied its existence, preferring to wither,
profitless, on the dry stalk of their own theory;--there were the
"platform-women," unnatural products of an unnatural age,--there
were the great ladies of the aristocracy who turned with scorn from
a case of real necessity, and yet spent hundreds of pounds on
private theatricals wherein they might have the chance of displaying
themselves in extravagant costumes,--and there were the
"professional" beauties, who, if suddenly deprived of elegant attire
and face-cosmetics, turned out to be no beauties at all, but very
ordinary, unintelligent persons.
"What is the exact meaning of the term, 'professional beauty'?"
Thelma had asked Beau Lovelace on one occasion. "I suppose it is
some very poor beautiful woman, who takes money for showing herself
to the public, and having her portraits sold in the shops? And who
is it that pays her?"
Lovelace broke into a laugh. "Upon my word, Lady Errington,--you
have put the matter in a most original but indubitably correct
light! Who pays the 'professional beauty,' you ask? Well, in the
case of Mrs. Smith-Gresham, whom you met the other day, it is a
certain Duke who pays her to the tune of several thousands a year.
When he gets tired of her, or she of him, she'll find somebody else-
-or perhaps she'll go on the stage and swell the list of bad
amateurs. She'll get on somehow, as long as she can find a fool
ready to settle her dressmaker's bill."
"I do not understand!" said Thelma,--and her fair brows drew
together in that pained grave look that was becoming rather frequent
with her now.
And she began to ask fewer questions concerning the various strange
phases of social life that puzzled her,--why, for instance,
religious theorists made so little practical use of their theories,-
-why there were cloudy-eyed eccentrics who admired the faulty
drawing of Watts, and the common-place sentence-writing of Walt
Whitman,--why members of Parliament talked so much and did so
little,--why new poets, however nobly inspired, were never accepted
unless they had influential friends on the press,--why painters
always married their models or their cooks, and got heartily ashamed
of them afterwards,--and why people all round said so many things
they did not mean. And confused by the general insincerity, she
clung,--poor child!--to Lady Winsleigh, who had the tact to seem
what she was not,--and the cleverness to probe into Thelma's nature
and find out how translucently clear and pure it was--a perfect well
of sweet water, into which one drop of poison, or better still,
several drops, gradually and insidiously instilled, might in time
taint its flavor and darken its brightness. For if a woman have an
innocent, unsuspecting soul as delicate as the curled cup of a Nile
lily, the more easily will it droop and wither in the heated grasp
of a careless, cruel hand. And to this flower-crushing task Lady
Winsleigh set herself,--partly for malice pretense against
Errington, whose coldness to herself in past days had wounded her
vanity, and partly for private jealousy of Thelma's beauty and
attractiveness.
Within a short time she had completely won the girl's confidence and
affection,--Sir Philip, forgetting his former suspicions of her, was
touched and disarmed by the attachment and admiration she openly
displayed towards his young wife,--she and Thelma were constantly
seen together, and Mrs. Rush-Marvelle, far-sighted as she generally
was, often sighed doubtfully and rubbed her nose in perplexity as
she confessed she "couldn't quite understand Clara." But Mrs. Rush-
Marvelle had her hands full of other matters,--she was aiding and
abetting Marcia Van Clupp to set traps for that mild mouse Lord
Masherville,--and she was too much absorbed in this difficult and
delicate business to attend to anything else just then. Otherwise,
it is possible she might have scented danger for Thelma's peace of
mind, and being good-natured, might have warded it off before it
approached too closely,--but, like policeman who are never within
call when wanted, so friends are seldom at hand when their influence
might be of real benefit.
The Van Clupps were people Thelma could not get on with at all--she
tried to do so because Mrs. Rush-Marvelle had assured her they were
"charming"-and she liked Mrs. Marvelle sufficiently well to be
willing to please her. But, in truth, these rich and vulgar Yankees
seemed to her mind less to be esteemed than the peasants of the
Altenfjord, who in many instances possessed finer tact and breeding
than old Van Clupp, the man of many dollars, whose father had been
nothing but a low navvy, but of whom he spoke now with smirking
pride as a real descendant of the Pilgrim Fathers. An odd thing it
is, by the way, how fond some Americans are of tracing back their
ancestry to these virtuous old gentlemen! The Van Clupps were of
course not the best types of their country--they were of that class
who, because they have money, measure everything by the money-
standard, and hold even a noble poverty in utter contempt. Poor Van
Clupp! It was sometimes pitiable to see him trying to be a
gentleman--"going in" for "style"--to an excess that was ludicrous,-
-cramming his house with expensive furniture like an upholsterer's
show-room,--drinking his tea out of pure Sevres, with a lofty
ignorance of its beauty and value,--dressing his wife and daughter
like shilling fashion-plates, and having his portrait taken in
precisely the same attitude as that assumed by the Duke of
Wrigglesbury when his Grace sat to the same photographer! It was
delicious to hear him bragging of his pilgrim ancestor,--while in
the same breath he would blandly sneer at certain "poor gentry" who
could trace back their lineage to Coeur de Lion! But because the
Erringtons were rich as well as titled persons, Van Clupp and his
belongings bent the servile knee before them, flattering Thelma with
that ill-judged eagerness and zealous persistency which distinguish
inborn vulgarity, and which, far from pleasing her, annoyed and
embarrassed her because she could not respond sincerely to such
attentions.
There were many others too, not dollar-crusted Americans, whose
excessive adulation and ceaseless compliment vexed the sincere,
frank spirit of the girl,--a spirit fresh and pure as the wind
blowing over her own Norse mountains. One of these was Sir Francis
Lennox, that fashionable young man of leisure,--and she had for him
an instinctive, though quite unreasonable aversion. He was courtesy
itself--he spared no pains to please her. Yet she felt as if his
basilisk brown eyes were always upon her,--he seemed to be ever at
hand, ready to watch over her in trifles, such as the passing of a
cup of tea, the offering of her wrap,--the finding of a chair,--the
holding of a fan,-he was always on the alert, like a remarkably
well-trained upper servant. She could not, without rudeness, reject
such unobtrusive, humble services,--and yet--they rendered her
uncomfortable, though she did not quite know why. She ventured to
mention her feeling concerning him to her friend Lady Winsleigh, who
heard her timid remarks with a look on her face that was not quite
pleasant.
"Poor Sir Francis!" her ladyship said with a slight, mocking laugh.
"He's never happy unless he plays puppy-dog! Don't mind him, Thelma!
He won't bite, I assure you,--he means no harm. It's only his little
way of making himself agreeable!"
George Lorimer, during this particular "London season," fled the
field of action, and went to Paris to stay with Pierre Duprez. He
felt that it was dangerous to confront the fair enemy too often, for
he knew in his own honest heart that his passion for Thelma
increased each time he saw her--so, he avoided her. She missed him
very much from her circle of intimates, and often went to see his
mother, Mrs. Lorimer, one of the sweetest old ladies in the world,--
who had at once guessed her son's secret, but, like a prudent dame,
kept it to herself. There were few young women as pretty and
charming as old Mrs. Lorimer, with her snow-white parted hair and
mild blue eyes, and voice as cheery as the note of a thrush in
spring-time. After Lady Winsleigh, Thelma liked her best of all her
new friends, and was fond of visiting her quiet little house in
Kensington,--for it was very quiet, and seemed like a sheltered
haven of rest from the great rush of frivolity and folly in which
the fashionable world delighted.
And Thelma was often now in need of rest. As the season drew towards
its close, she found herself strangely tired and dispirited. The
life she was compelled to lead was all unsuited to her nature--it
was artificial and constrained,--and she was often unhappy. Why?
Why, indeed! She did her best,--but she made enemies everywhere.
Again, why? Because she had a most pernicious,--most unpleasant
habit of telling the truth. Like Socrates, she seemed to say--"If
any man should appear to me not to possess virtue, but to pretend
that he does, I shall reproach him." This she expressed silently in
face, voice, and manner,--and, like Socrates, she might have added
that she went about "perceiving, indeed, and grieving and alarmed
that she was making herself odious." For she discovered, by degrees,
that many people looked strangely upon her--that others seemed
afraid of her--and she continually heard that she was considered
"eccentric." So she became more reserved--even cold,--she was
content to let others argue about trifles, and air their whims and
follies without offering an opinion on any side.
And by-and-by the first shadow began to sweep over the fairness of
her married life. It happened at a time when she and her husband
were not quite so much together,--society and its various claims had
naturally separated them a little, but now a question of political
ambition separated them still more. Some well-intentioned friends
had persuaded Sir Philip to stand for Parliament--and this idea no
sooner entered his head, than he decided with impulsive ardor that
he had been too long without a "career,"--and a "career" he must
have in order to win distinction for his wife's sake. Therefore,
summoning his secretary, Neville to his aid, he plunged headlong
into the seething, turgid waters of English politics, and shut
himself up in his library day after day, studying blue-books,
writing and answering letters, and drawing up addresses,--and with
the general proneness of the masculine mind to attend to one thing
only at a time, he grew so absorbed in his work that his love for
Thelma, though all unchanged and deep as ever, fell slightly into
the background of his thoughts. Not that he neglected her,--he
simply concerned himself more with other things. So it happened that
a certain indefinable sense of loss weighed upon her,--a vague,
uncomprehended solitude began to encompass her,--a solitude even
more keenly felt when she was surrounded by friends than when she
was quite alone,--and as the sweet English June drew to its end, she
grew languid and listless, and her blue eyes often filled with
sudden tears. Her little watch-dog, Britta, began to notice this,
and to wonder concerning the reason of her mistress's altered looks.
"It is this dreadful London," thought Britta. "So hot and stifling--
there's no fresh air for her. And all this going about to balls and
parties and shows--no wonder she is tired out!"
But it was something more than mere fatigue that made Thelma's eyes
look sometimes so anxious, so gravely meditative and earnest. One
day she seemed so much abstracted and lost in painful musings that
Britta's loving heart ached, and she watched her for some moments
without venturing to say a word. At last she spoke out bravely--
"Froken!"--she paused,--Thelma seemed not to hear her. "Froken!--has
anything vexed or grieved you today?"
Thelma started nervously. "Vexed me--grieved me?" she repeated. "No,
Britta--why do you ask?"
"You look very tired, dear Froken," continued Britta gently. "You
are not as bright as you were when we first came to London."
Thelma's lips quivered. "I--I am not well, Britta," she murmured,
and suddenly her self-control gave way, and she broke into tears. In
an instant Britta was kneeling by her, coaxing and caressing her,
and calling her by every endearing name she could think of, while
she wisely forbore from asking any more questions. Presently her
sobs grew calmer,--she rested her fair head against Britta's
shoulder and smiled faintly. At that moment a light tap was heard
outside, and a voice called--
"Thelma! Are you there?"
Britta opened the door, and Sir Philip entered hurriedly and
smiling--but stopped short to survey his wife in dismay.
"Why, my darling!" he exclaimed distressfully. "Have you been
crying?"
Here the discreet Britta retired.
Thelma sprang to her husband and nestled in his arms.
"Philip, do not mind it," she murmured. "I felt a little sad--it is
nothing! But tell me--you DO love me? You will never tire of me? You
have always loved me, I am sure?"
He raised her face gently with one hand, and looked at her in
surprise.
"Thelma--what strange questions from YOU! Love you? Is not every
beat of my heart for you? Are you not my life, my joy--my everything
in this world?" And he pressed her passionately in his arms and
kissed her.
"You have never loved any one else so much?" she whispered, half
abashed.
"Never!" he answered readily. "What makes you ask such a thing?"
She was silent. He looked down at her flushing cheeks and tear-wet
lashes attentively.
"You are fanciful to-day, my pet," he said at last. "You've been
tiring yourself too much. You must rest. You'd better not go to the
Brilliant Theatre to-night--it's only a burlesque, and is sure to be
vulgar and noisy. We'll stop at home and spend a quiet evening
together-shall we?"
She raised her eyes half wistfully and smiled. "I should like that
very, very much, Philip!" she murmured; "but you know we did promise
Clara to go with her to-night. And as we are so soon to leave London
and return to Warwickshire, I should not like to disappoint her."
"You are very fond of Clara?" he asked suddenly.
"Very!" She paused and sighed slightly. "She is so kind and clever--
much more clever than I can ever be--and she knows many things about
the world which I do not. And she admires you so much, Philip!"
"Does she indeed?" Philip laughed and colored a little. "Very good
of her, I'm sure! And so you'd really like to go to the Brilliant
to-night? "
"I think so," she said hesitatingly. "Clara says it will be very
amusing. And you must remember how much I enjoyed 'Faust' and
'Hamlet.'"
Errington smiled. "You'll find the Brilliant performance very
different to either," he said amusedly. "You don't know what a
burlesque is like!"
"Then I must be instructed," replied Thelma, smiling also, "I need
to learn many things. I am very ignorant!"
"Ignorant!" and he swept aside with a caressing touch the clustering
hair from her broad, noble brow. "My darling, you possess the
greatest wisdom--the wisdom of innocence. I would not change it for
all the learning of the sagest philosphers!"
"You really mean that?" she asked half timidly.
"I really mean that!" he answered fondly. "Little sceptic! As if I
would ever say anything to you that I did NOT mean! I shall be glad
when we're out of London and back at the Manor--then I shall have
you all to myself again--for a time, at least."
She raised her eyes full of sudden joy,--all traces of her former
depression had disappeared.
"And I shall have YOU!" she said gladly. "And we shall not
disappoint Lady Winsleigh to-night, Philip--I am not tired--and I
shall be pleased to go to the theatre."
"All right!" responded Philip cheerfully. "So let it be! Only I
don't believe you'll like the piece,--though it certainly won't make
you cry. Yet I doubt if it will make you laugh, either. However, it
will be a new experience for you."
And a new experience it decidedly was,--an experience, too, which
brought some strange and perplexing results to Thelma of which she
never dreamed.
She went to the Brilliant, accompanied by Lady Winsleigh and her
husband,--Neville, the secretary, making the fourth in their box;
and during the first and second scene of the performance the stage
effects were so pretty and the dancing so graceful that she nearly
forgot the bewildered astonishment she had at first felt at the
extreme scantiness of apparel worn by the ladies of the ballet. They
represented birds, bees, butterflies, and the other winged denizens
of the forest-world,--and the tout-ensemble was so fairy-like and
brilliant with swift movement, light, and color that the eye was too
dazzled and confused to note objectionable details. But in the third
scene, when a plump, athletic young woman leaped on the stage in the
guise of a humming-bird, with a feather tunic so short that it was a
mere waist-belt of extra width,--a flesh-colored bodice about three
inches high, and a pair of blue wings attached to her fat shoulders,
Thelma started and half rose from her seat in dismay, while a hot
tide of color crimsoned her cheeks, She looked nervously at her
husband.
"I do not think this is pleasant to see," she said in a low tone.
"Would it not be best to go away? I--I think I would rather be at
home."
Lady Winsleigh heard and smiled,--a little mocking smile.
"Don't be silly, child!" she said. "If you leave the theatre just
now you'll have every one staring at you. That woman's an immense
favorite--she is the success of the piece. She's got more diamonds
than either you or I."
Thelma regarded her friend with a sort of grave wonder,--but said
nothing in reply. If Lady Winsleigh liked the performance and wished
to remain, why--then politeness demanded that Thelma should not
interfere with her pleasure by taking an abrupt leave. So she
resumed her seat, but withdrew herself far behind the curtain of the
box, in a corner where the stage was almost invisible to her eyes,
Her husband bent over her and whispered--
"I'll take you home if you wish it, dear! only say the word."
She shook her head.
"Clara enjoys it!" she answered somewhat plaintively. "We must
stay."
Philip was about to address Lady Winsleigh on the subject, when
suddenly Neville touched him on the arm.
"Can I speak to you alone for a moment, Sir Philip?" he said in a
strange, hoarse whisper. "Outside the box--away from the ladies--a
matter of importance!"
He looked as if he were about to faint. He gasped rather than spoke
these words; his face was white as death, and his eyes had a
confused and bewildered stare.
"Certainly!" answered Philip promptly, though not without an accent
of surprise,--and, excusing their absence briefly to his wife and
Lady Winsleigh, they left the box together. Meanwhile the well-fed
"Humming-Bird" was capering extravagantly before the footlights,
pointing her toe in the delighted face of the stalls and singing in
a in a loud, coarse voice the following refined ditty--
"Oh my ducky, oh my darling, oh my duck, duck, duck!
If you love me you must have a little pluck, pluck, pluck!
Come and put your arms around me, kiss me once, twice, thrice,
For kissing may be naughty, but, by Jingo! it is nice!
Once, twice, thrice!
Nice, nice, nice!
Bliss, bliss, bliss'
Kiss, kiss, kiss!
Kissing may be naughty, but it's nice!"
There were several verses in this graceful poem, and each one was
hailed with enthusiastic applause. The "Humming-Bird" was
triumphant, and when her song was concluded she executed a startling
pas-seul full of quaint and astonishing surprises, reaching her
superbest climax, when she backed off the stage on one portly leg,--
kicking the other in regular time to the orchestra. Lady Winsleigh
laughed, and leaning towards Thelma, who still sat in her retired
corner, said with a show of kindness--
"You dear little goose! You must get accustomed to this kind of
thing--it takes with the men immensely. Why, even your wonderful
Philip has gone down behind the scenes with Neville--you may be sure
of that!"
The startled, pitiful astonishment in the girl's face might have
touched a less callous heart than Lady Winsleigh's,--but her
ladyship was prepared for it and only smiled.
"Gone behind the scenes! To see that dreadful woman!" exclaimed
Thelma in a low pained tone. "Oh no, Clara! He would not do such a
thing. Impossible!"
"Well, my dear, then where is he? He has been gone quite ten
minutes. Look at the stalls--all the men are out of them! I tell you
Violet Vere draws everybody--of the male sex after her! At the end
of all her 'scenes' she has a regular reception--for men only--of
course! Ladies not admitted!" And Clara Winsleigh laughed. "Don't
look so shocked for heaven's sake, Thelma,--you don't want your
husband to be a regular nincompoop! He must have his amusements as
well as other people. I believe you want him to be like a baby, tied
to your apron-string! You'll find that an awful mistake,--he'll get
tired to death of you, sweet little Griselda though you are!"
Thelma's face grew very pale, and her hand closed more tightly on
the fan she held.
"You have said that so very, very often lately, Clara!" she
murmured. "You seem so sure that he will get tired--that all men get
tired. I do not think you know Philip--he is not like any other
person I have ever met. And why should he go behind the scenes to
such a person as Violet Vere--"
At that moment the box-door opened with a sharp click, and Errington
entered alone. He looked disturbed and anxious.
"Neville is not well," he said abruptly, addressing his wife. "I've
sent him home. He wouldn't have been able to sit this thing out."
And he glanced half angrily towards the stage--the curtain had just
gone up again and displayed the wondrous Violet Vere still in her
"humming-bird" character, swinging on the branch of a tree and
(after the example of all humming-birds) smoking a cigar with
brazen-faced tranquillity.
"I am sorry he is ill," said Thelma gently. "That is why you were so
long away?"
"Was I long?" returned Philip somewhat absently. "I didn't know it.
I went to ask a question behind the scenes."
Lady Winsleigh coughed and glanced at Thelma, whose eyes dropped
instantly.
"I suppose you saw Violet Vere?" asked Clara.
"Yes, I saw her," he replied briefly. He seemed irritable and vexed-
-moreover, decidedly impatient. Presently be said--
"Lady Winsleigh, would you mind very much if we left this place and
went home? I'm rather anxious about Neville--he's had a shock.
Thelma doesn't care a bit about this piece, I know, and if you are
not very much absorbed--"
Lady Winsleigh rose instantly, with her usual ready grace.
"My dear Sir Philip!" she said sweetly. "As if I would not, do
anything to oblige you! Let us go by all means! These burlesques ARE
extremely fatiguing!"
He seamed relieved by her acquiescence--and smiled that rare sweet
smile of his, which had once played such havoc with her ladyship's
sensitive feelings. They left the theatre, and were soon on their
way home, though Thelma was rather silent during the drive. They
dropped Lady Winsleigh at her own door, and after they had bidden
her a cordial good night, and were going on again towards home,
Philip, turning towards his wife, and catching sight of her face by
the light of a street-lamp, was struck by her extreme paleness and
weary look.
"You are very tired, my darling, I fear?" he inquired, tenderly
encircling her with one arm. "Lean your head on my shoulder--so!"
She obeyed, and her hand trembled a little as he took and held it in
his own warm, strong clasp.
"We shall soon be home!" he added cheerily. "And I think we must
have no more theatre-going this season. The heat and noise and glare
are too much for you."
"Philip," said Thelma suddenly. "Did you really go behind the scenes
to-night?"
"Yes, I did," he answered readily. "I was obliged to go on a matter
of business--a very disagreeable and unpleasant matter too."
"And what was it?" she asked timidly, yet hopefully.
"My pet, I can't tell you! I wish I could! It's a secret I'm bound
not to betray--a secret which involves the name of another person
who'd be wretched if I were to mention it to you. There,--don't let
us talk about it any more!"
"Very well, Philip," said Thelma resignedly,--but though she smiled,
a sudden presentiment of evil depressed her. The figure of the
vulgar, half-clothed, painted creature known as Violet Vere rose up
mockingly before her eyes,--and the half-scornful, half-jesting
words of Lady Winsleigh rang persistently in her ears.
On reaching home, Philip went straight to Neville's little study and
remained with him in earnest conversation for a long time--while
Thelma went to bed, and lay restless among her pillows, puzzling her
brain with strange forebodings and new and perplexing ideas, till
fatigue overpowered her, and she fell asleep with a few tear-drops
wet on her lashes. And that night Philip wondered why his sweet wife
talked so plaintively in her sleep,--though he smiled as he listened
to the drift of those dove-like murmurings.
"No one knows how my boy loves me," sighed the dreaming voice. "No
one in all the world! How should he tire? Love can never tire!"
Meanwhile, Lady Winsleigh, in the seclusion of her own boudoir,
penned a brief note to Sir Francis Lennox as follows--
"DEAR OLD LENNIE,"
"I saw you in the stalls at the theatre this evening, though you
pretended not to see me. What a fickle creature you are! not that I
mind in the very least. The virtuous Bruce-Errington left his
saintly wife and me to talk little platitudes together, while he,
decorously accompanied by his secretary, went down to pay court to
Violet Vere. How stout she is getting! Why don't you men advise her
to diet herself? I know you also went behind the scenes--of course,
you ARE an ami intime--promising boy you are, to be sure! Come and
lunch with me to-morrow, if you're not too lazy."
"Yours ever, CLARA."
She gave this missive to her maid, Louise Renaud, to post,--that
faithful attendant took it first to her own apartment where she
ungummed the envelope neatly by the aid of hot water, and read every
word of it. This was not an exceptional action of hers,--all the
letters received and sent by her mistress were subjected to the same
process,--even those that were sealed with wax she had a means of
opening in such a manner that it was impossible to detect that they
had been tampered with.
She was a very clever French maid was Louise,--one of the cleverest
of her class. Fond of mischief, ever suspicious, always on the alert
for evil, utterly unscrupulous and malicious, she was an altogether
admirable attendant for a lady of rank and fashion, her skill as a
coiffeur and needle-woman always obtaining for her the wages she so
justly deserved. When will wealthy women reared in idleness and
luxury learn the folly of keeping a trained spy attached to their
persons?--a spy whose pretended calling is merely to arrange dresses
and fripperies (half of which she invariably steals), but whose real
delight is to take note of all her mistress's incomings and
outgoings, tempers and tears--to watch her looks, her smiles and
frowns,--and to start scandalous gossip concerning her in the
servants' hall, from whence it gradually spreads to the society
newspapers--for do you think these estimable and popular journals
are never indebted for their "reliable" information to the "honest"
statements of discharged footman or valet? Briggs, for instance, had
tried his hand at a paragraph or two concerning the "Upper Ten," and
with the aid of a dictionary, had succeeded in expressing himself
quite smartly, though in ordinary conversation his h's were often
lacking or superfluous, and his grammar doubtful. Whether he
persuaded any editor to accept his literary efforts is quite another
matter--a question to which the answer must remain for ever
enveloped in mystery,--but if he DID appear in print (it is only an
if!) he must have been immensely gratified to consider that his
statements were received with gusto by at least half aristocratic
London, and implicitly believed as having emanated from the "best
authorities." And Louise Renaud having posted her mistress's letter
at last, went down to visit Briggs in his private pantry, and to ask
him a question.
"Tell me," she said rapidly, with her tight, prim smile. "You read
the papers--you will know. What lady is that of the theatres--Violet
Vere?"
Briggs laid down the paper he was perusing and surveyed her with a
superior air.
"What, Vi?" he exclaimed with a toy wink. "Vi, of the Hopperer-Bull?
You've 'erd of 'er surely, Mamzelle? No? There's not a man (as is
worth calling a man) about town, as don't know 'ER! Dukes, Lords,
an' Royal 'Ighnesses--she's the style for 'em! Mag-ni-ficent
creetur! all legs and arms! I won't deny but wot I 'ave an
admiration for 'er myself--I bought a 'arf-crown portrait of 'er
quite recently." And Briggs rose slowly and searched in a mysterious
drawer winch he invariably kept locked.
"'Ere she is, as large as life, Mamzelle," he continued, exhibiting
a "promenade" photograph of the actress in question. "There's a neck
for you! There's form! Vi, my dear, I saloot you!" and he pressed a
sounding kiss on the picture--"you're one in a million! Smokes and
drinks like a trooper, Mamzelle!" he added admiringly, as Louise
Renaud studied the portrait attentively. "But with all 'er
advantages, you would not call 'er a lady. No--that term would be
out of the question. She is wot we men would call an enchantin'
female!" And Briggs kissed the tips of his fingers and waved them in
the air as he had seen certain foreign gentlemen do when
enthusiastic.
"I comprehend," said the French maid, nodding emphatically. "Then,
if she is so, what makes that proud Seigneur Bruce-Errington visit
her?" Here she shook her finger at Briggs. "And leave his beautiful
lady wife, to go and see her?" Another shake. "And that MISERABLE
Sieur Lennox to go also? Tell me that!" She folded her arms, like
Napoleon at St. Helena, and smiled again that smile which was
nothing but a sneer. Briggs rubbed his nose contemplatively.
"Little Francis can go ennywheres," he said at last. "He's laid out
a good deal of tin on Vi and others of 'er purfession. You cannot
make enny-think of that young feller but a cad. I would not accept
'im for my pussonal attendant. No! But Sir Philip Bruce-Errington--"
He paused, then continued, "Air you sure of your facts, Mamzelle?"
Mamzelle was so sure, that the bow on her cap threatened to come off
with the determined wagging of her head.
"Well," resumed Briggs, "Sir Philip may, like hothers, consider it
'the thing' you know, to 'ang on as it were to Vi. But I HAD thought
'im superior to it. Ah! poor 'uman natur, as 'Uxley says!" and
Briggs sighed." Lady Errington is a sweet creetur, Mamzelle--a VERY
sweet creetur! HAS a rule I find the merest nod of my 'ed a
sufficient saloot to a woman of the aristocracy--but for 'ER,
Mamzelle, I never fail to show 'er up with a court bow!" And
involuntarily Briggs bowed then and there in his most elegant
manner. Mamzelle tightened her thin lips a little and waved her hand
expressively.
"She is an angel of beauty!" she said, "and Miladi Winsleigh is
jealous--ah, Dieu! jealous to death of her! She is innocent too--
like a baby--and she worships her husband. That is an error! To
worship a man is a great mistake--she will find it so. Men are not
to be too much loved--no, no!"
Briggs smiled in superb self-consciousness. "Well, well! I will not
deny, Mamzelle, that it spoils us," he said complacently. "It
certainly spoils us! 'When lovely woman stoops to folly,'--the hold,
hold story!"
"You will r-r-r-emember," said Mamzelle, suddenly stepping up very
close to him and speaking with a strong accent, "what I have said
to-night! Monsieur Briggs, you will r-remember! There will be mees-
cheef! Yes--there will be mees-cheef to Sieur Bruce-Errington, and
when there is,--I--I, Louise Renaud--I know who ees at the bottom of
eet!"
So saying, with a whirl of her black silk dress and a flash of her
white muslin apron, she disappeared. Briggs, left alone, sauntered
to a looking-glass hanging on the wall and studied with some
solicitude a pimple that had recently appeared on his clean-shaven
face.
"Mischief!" he soliloquized. "I des-say! Whenever a lot of women
gets together, there's sure to be mischief. Dear creeturs! They love
it like the best Clicquot. Sprightly young pusson is Mamzelle. Knows
who's at the bottom of 'eet,' does she! Well--she's not the only one
as knows the same thing. As long as doors 'as cracks and key'oles,
it ain't in the least difficult to find out wot goes on inside boo-
dwars and drorin'-rooms. And 'ighly interestin' things one 'ears now
and then--'ighly interestin'!"
And Briggs leered suavely at his own reflection, and then resumed
the perusal of his paper. He was absorbed in the piquant, highly
flavored details of a particularly disgraceful divorce case, and he
was by no means likely to disturb himself from his refined enjoyment
for any less important reason than the summons of Lord Winsleigh's
bell, which rang so seldom that, when it did, he made it a point of
honor to answer it immediately, for, as he said--
"His lordship knows wot is due to me, and I knows wot is due to 'im-
-therefore it 'appens we are able to ekally respect each other!"
CHAPTER XXII.
"If thou wert honorable,
Thou would'st have told this tale for virtue, not
For such an end thou seek'st; as base, as strange.
Thou wrong'st a gentleman who is as far
From thy report, as thou from honor."
Cymbeline.
Summer in Shakespeare Land! Summer in the heart of England--summer
in wooded Warwickshire,--a summer brilliant, warm, radiant with
flowers, melodious with the songs of the heaven--aspiring larks, and
the sweet, low trill of the forest-hidden nightingales. Wonderful
and divine it is to hear the wild chorus of nightingales that sing
beside Como in the hot languorous nights of an Italian July--
wonderful to hear them maddening themselves with love and music, and
almost splitting their slender throats with the bursting bubbles of
burning song,--but there is something, perhaps, more dreamily
enchanting still,--to hear them warbling less passionately but more
plaintively, beneath the drooping leafage of those grand old trees,
some of which may have stretched their branches in shadowy
benediction over the sacred head of the grandest poet in the world.
Why travel to Athens,--why wander among the Ionian Isles for love of
the classic ground? Surely, though the clear-brained old Greeks were
the founders of all noble literature, they have reached their
fulminating point in the English Shakespeare,--and the Warwickshire
lanes, decked simply with hawthorn and sweet-briar roses, through
which Mary Arden walked leading her boy-angel by the hand, are
sacred as any portion of that earth once trodden by the feet of
Homer and Plato.
So, at least, Thelma thought, when, released from the bondage of
London social life, she found herself once more at Errington Manor,
then looking its loveliest, surrounded with a green girdle of oak
and beech, and set off by the beauty of velvety lawns and terraces,
and rose-gardens in full bloom. The depression from which she had
suffered fell away from her completely--she grew light-hearted as a
child, and flitted from room to room, singing to herself for pure
gladness. Philip was with her all day now, save for a couple of
hours in the forenoon which he devoted to letter-writing in
connection with his Parliamentary aspirations,--and Philip was
tender, adoring and passionate as lovers may be, but as husbands
seldom are. They took long walks together through the woods,--they
often rambled across the fragrant fields to Anne Hathaway's cottage,
which was not very far away, and sitting down in some sequestered
nook, Philip would pull from his pocket a volume of the immortal
Plays, and read passages aloud in his fine mellow voice, while
Thelma, making posies of the meadow flowers, listened entranced.
Sometimes, when he was in a more business-like humor, he would bring
out Cicero's Orations, and after pondering over them for a while
would talk very grandly about the way in which he meant to speak in
Parliament.
"They want dash and fire there," he said, "and these qualities must
be united with good common sense. In addressing the House, you see,
Thelma, one must rouse and interest the men--not bore them. You
can't expect fellows to pass a Bill if you've made them long for
their beds all the time you've been talking about it."
Thelma smiled and glanced over his shoulder at "Cicero's Orations."
"And do you wish to speak to them like Cicero, my boy?" she said
gently. "But I do not think you will find that possible. Because
when Cicero spoke it was in a different, age and to very different
people--people who were glad to learn how to be wise and brave. But
if you were Cicero himself, do you think you would be able to
impress the English Parliament?"
"Why not, dear?" asked Errington with some fervor. "I believe that
men, taken as men, pur et simple, are the same in all ages, and are
open to the same impressions. Why should not modern Englishmen be
capable of receiving the same lofty ideas as the antique Romans, and
acting upon them?"
"Ah, do not ask ME why," said Thelma, with a plaintive little shake
of her head--"for _I_ cannot tell you! But remember how many members
of Parliament we did meet in London--and where were their lofty
ideas? Philip, had they any ideas at all, do you think? There was
that very fat gentleman who is a brewer,--well, to hear him talk,
would you not think all England was for the making of beer? And he
does not care for the country unless it continues to consume his
beer! It was to that very man I said something about HAMLET, and he
told me he had no interest for such nonsense as Shakespeare and
play-going--his time was taken up at the 'OUSE.' You see, he is a
member of Parliament--yet it is evident he neither knows the
language nor the literature of his country! And there must be many
like him, otherwise so ignorant a person would not hold such a
position--and for such men, what would be the use of a Cicero?"
Philip leaned back against the trunk of the tree under which they
were sitting, and laughed.
"You may be right, Thelma,--I dare say you are. There's certainly
too much beer represented in the House--I admit that. But, after
all, trade is the great moving-spring of national prosperity,--and
it would hardly be fair to refuse seats to the very men who help to
keep the country going."
"I do not see that," said Thelma gravely,--"if those men are
ignorant, why should they have a share in so important a thing as
Government? They may know all about beer, and wool, and iron,--but
perhaps they can only judge what is good for themselves, not what is
best for the whole country, with all its rich and poor. I do think
that only the wisest scholars and most intelligent persons should be
allowed to help in the ruling of a great nation."
"But the people choose their own rulers," remarked Errington
reflectively.
"Ah, the poor people!" sighed Thelma. "They know so very little,--
and they are taught so badly! I think they never do quite understand
what they do want,--they are the same in all histories,--like little
children, they get bewildered and frightened in any trouble, and the
wisest heads are needed to think for them. It is, indeed, most cruel
to make them puzzle out all difficulty for themselves!"
"What a little sage you are, my pet!" laughed Philip, taking her
hand on which the marriage-ring and its accompanying diamond
circlet, glistened brilliantly in the warm sunlight. "Do you mean to
go in for politics?"
She shook her head. "No, indeed! That is not woman's work at all.
The only way in which I think about such things, is that I feel the
people cannot all be wise,--and that it seems a pity the wisest and
greatest in the land should not be chosen to lead them rightly."
"And so under the circumstances, you think it's no use my trying to
POSE as a Cicero?" asked her husband amusedly. She laughed--with a
very tender cadence in her laughter.
"It would not be worth your while, my boy," she said "You know I
have often told you that I do not see any great distinction in being
a member of Parliament at all. What will you do? You will talk to
the fat brewer perhaps, and he will contradict you--then other
people will get up and talk and contradict each other,--and so it
will go on for days and days--meanwhile the country remains exactly
as it was, neither better nor worse,--and all the talking does no
good! It is better to be out of it,--here together, as we are to-
day."
And she raised her dreamy blue eyes to the sheltering canopy of
green leaves that overhung them--leaves thick-clustered and dewy,
through which the dazzling sky peeped in radiant patches. Philip
looked at her,--the rapt expression of her upward gaze,--the calm,
untroubled sweetness of her fair face,--were such as might well have
suited one of Raffaelle's divinest angels. His heart beat quickly--
he drew closer to her, and put his arm round her.
"Your eyes are looking at the sky, Thelma," he whispered. "Do you
know what that is? Heaven looking into heaven! And do you know which
of the two heavens I prefer?" She smiled, and turning, met his
ardent gaze with one of equal passion and tenderness.
"Ah, you DO know!" he went on, softly kissing the side of her slim
white throat. "I thought you couldn't possibly make a mistake!" He
rested his head against her shoulder, and after a minute or two of
lazy comfort, he resumed. "You are not ambitious, my Thelma! You
don't seem to care whether your husband distinguishes himself in the
'Ouse,' as our friend the brewer calls it, or not. In fact, I don't
believe you care for anything save--love! Am I not right, my wife?"
A wave of rosy color flushed her transparent skin, and her eyes
filled with an earnest, almost pathetic languor.
"Surely of all things in the world," she said in a low tone,--"Love
is best?"
To this he made prompt answer, though not in words--his lips
conversed with hers, in that strange, sweet language which, though
unwritten, is everywhere comprehensible,--and then they left their
shady resting-place and sauntered homeward hand in hand through the
warm fields fragrant with wild thyme and clover.
Many happy days passed thus with these lovers--for lovers they still
were. Marriage had for once fulfilled its real and sacred meaning--
it had set Love free from restraint, and had opened all the gateways
of the only earthly paradise human hearts shall ever know,--the
paradise of perfect union and absolute sympathy with the one thing
beloved on this side eternity.
The golden hours fled by all too rapidly,--and towards the close of
August there came an interruption to their felicity. Courtesy had
compelled Bruce-Errington and his wife to invite a few friends down
to visit them at the Manor before the glory of the summer-time was
past,--and first among the guests came Lord and Lady Winsleigh and
their bright boy, Ernest. Her ladyship's maid, Louise Renaud, of
course, accompanied her ladyship,--and Briggs was also to the fore
in the capacity of Lord Winsleigh's personal attendant. After these,
George Lorimer arrived--he had avoided the Erringtons all the
season,--but he could not very well refuse the pressing invitation
now given him without seeming churlish,--then came Beau Lovelace,
for a few days only, as with the commencement of September he would
be off as usual to his villa on the Lago di Como. Sir Francis
Lennox, too, made his appearance frequently in a casual sort of way-
-he "ran down," to use his own expression, now and then, and made
himself very agreeable, especially to men, by whom he was well liked
for his invariable good-humor and extraordinary proficiency in all
sports and games of skill. Another welcome visitor was Pierre
Duprez, lively and sparkling as ever,--he came from Paris to pass a
fortnight with his "cher Phil-eep," and make merriment for the whole
party. His old admiration for Britta had by no means decreased,--he
was fond of waylaying that demure little maiden on her various
household errands, and giving her small posies of jessamine and
other sweet-scented blossoms to wear just above the left-hand corner
of her apron-bib, close to the place where the heart is supposed to
be. Olaf Guldmar had been invited to the Manor at this period,--
Errington wrote many urgent letters, and so did Thelma, entreating
him to come,--for nothing would have pleased Sir Philip more than to
have introduced the fine old Odin worshipper among his fashionable
friends, and to have heard him bluntly and forcibly holding his own
among them, putting their feint and languid ways of life to shame by
his manly, honest, and vigorous utterance. But Guldmar had only just
returned to the Altenfjord after nearly a year's absence, and his
hands were too full of work for him to accept his son-in-law's
invitation.
"The farm lands have a waste and dreary look," he wrote, "though I
let them to a man who should verily have known how to till the soil
trodden by his fathers--and as for the farmhouse, 'twas like a
hollow shell that has lain long on the shore and become brown and
brittle--for thou knowest no human creature has entered there since
we departed. However, Valdemar Svensen and I, for sake of company,
have resolved to dwell together in it, and truly we have nearly
settled down to the peaceful contemplation of our past days,--so
Philip, and thou, my child Thelma, trouble not concerning me. I am
hale and hearty, the gods be thanked,--and may live on in hope to
see you both next spring or summer-tide. Your happiness keeps this
old man young--so grudge me not the news of your delights wherein I
am myself delighted."
One familiar figure was missing from the Manor household,--that of
Edward Neville, Since the night at the Brilliant, when he had left
the theatre so suddenly, and gone home on the plea of illness, he
had never been quite the same man. He looked years older--he was
strangely nervous and timid--and he shrank away from Thelma as
though he were some guilty or tainted creature. Surprised at this,
she spoke to her husband about it,--but he, hurriedly, and with some
embarrassment, advised her to "let him alone"--his "nerves were
shaken"--his "health was feeble"--and that it would be kind on her
part to refrain from noticing him or asking him questions. So she
refrained--but Neville's behavior puzzled her all the same. When
they left town, he implored, almost piteously, to be allowed to
remain behind,--he could attend to Sir Philip's business so much
better in London, he declared, and he had his way. Errington,
usually fond of Neville's society, made no attempt whatever to
persuade him against his will,--so he stayed in the half-shut-up
house in Prince's Gate through all the summer heat, poring over
parliamentary documents and pamphlets,--and Philip came up from the
country once a fortnight to visit him, and transact any business
that might require his personal attention.
On one of the last and hottest days in August, a grand garden-party
was given at the Manor. All the county people were invited, and they
came eagerly, though, before Thelma's social successes in London,
they had been reluctant to meet her. Now, they put on their best
clothes, and precipitated themselves into the Manor grounds like a
flock of sheep seeking land on which to graze,--all wearing their
sweetest propitiatory smirk--all gushing forth their admiration of
"that DARLING Lady Errington"--all behaving themselves in the
exceptionally funny manner that county people affect,--people who
are considered somebodies in the small villages their big houses
dominate,--but who, when brought to reside in London, become less
than the minnows in a vast ocean. These good folks were not only
anxious to SEE Lady Errington-they wanted to SAY they had seen her,-
-and that she had spoken to THEM, so that they might, in talking to
their neighbors, mention it in quite an easy, casual way, such as--
"Oh, I was at Errington Manor the other day, and Lady Errington said
to me--." Or--"Sir Philip is SUCH a charming man! I was talking to
his lovely wife, and he asked me--" etc., etc. Or--"You've no idea
what large strawberries they grow at the Manor! Lady Errington
showed me some that were just ripening--magnificent!" And so on. For
in truth this IS "a mad world, my masters,"--and there is no
accounting for the inexpressibly small follies and mean toadyisms of
the people in it.
Moreover, all the London guests who were visiting Thelma came in for
a share of the county magnates' servile admiration. They found the
Winsleighs "so distingue"--Master Ernest instantly became "that DEAR
boy!"--Beau Lovelace was "so dreadfully clever, you know!"--and
Pierre Duprez "quite TOO delightfull"
The grounds looked very brilliant--pink-and-white marquees were
dotted here and there on the smooth velvet lawns--bright flags waved
from different quarters of the gardens, signals of tennis, archery,
and dancing,--and the voluptuous waltz-music of a fine Hungarian
band rose up and swayed in the air with the downward floating songs
of the birds and the dash of fountains in full play. Girls in pretty
light summer costumes made picturesque groups under the stately oaks
and beeches,--gay laughter echoed from the leafy shrubberies, and
stray couples were seen sauntering meditatively through the rose-
gardens, treading on the fallen scented petals, and apparently too
much absorbed in each other to notice anything that was going on
around them. Most of these were lovers, of course--intending lovers,
if not declared ones,--in fact, Eros was very busy that day among
the roses, and shot forth a great many arrows, aptly aimed, out of
his exhaustless quiver.
Two persons there were, however,--man and woman,--who, walking in
that same rose-avenue, did not seem, from their manner, to have much
to do with the fair Greek god,--they were Lady Winsleigh and Sir
Francis Lennox. Her ladyship looked exceedingly beautiful in her
clinging dress of Madras lace, with a bunch of scarlet poppies at
her breast. and a wreath of the same vivid flowers in her
picturesque Leghorn hat. She held a scarlet-lined parasol over her
head, and from under the protecting shadow of this silken pavilion,
her dark, lustrous eyes flashed disdainfully as she regarded her
companion. He was biting an end of his brown moustache, and looked
annoyed, yet lazily amused too.
"Upon my life, Clara," he observed, "you are really awfully down on
a fellow, you know! One would think you never cared two-pence about
me!"
"Too high a figure!" retorted Lady Winsleigh, with a hard little
laugh. "I never cared a brass farthing!"
He stopped short in his walk and stared at her.
"By Jove! you ARE cool!" he ejaculated. "Then what did you mean all
the time?"
"What did YOU mean?" she asked defiantly.
He was silent. After a slight, uncomfortable pause, he shrugged his
shoulders and smiled.
"Don't let us have a scene!" he observed in a bantering tone.
"Anything but that!"
"Scene!" she exclaimed indignantly. "Pray when have you had to
complain of me on that score?"
"Well, don't let me have to complain now," he said coolly.
She surveyed him in silent scorn for a moment, and her full, crimson
lips curled contemptuously.
"What a brute you are!" she muttered suddenly between her set pearly
teeth.
"Thanks, awfully!" he answered, taking out a cigarette and lighting
it leisurely. "You are really charmingly candid, Clara! Almost as
frank as Lady Errington, only less polite!"
"I shall not learn politeness from YOU, at any rate," she said,--
then altering her tone to one of studied indifference, she continued
coldly, "What do you want of me? We've done with each other, as you
know. I believe you wish to become gentleman-lacquey to Bruce-
Errington's wife, and that you find it difficult to obtain the
situation. Shall I give you a character?"
He flushed darkly, and his eyes glittered with an evil lustre.
"Gently, Clara! Draw it mild!" he said languidly. "Don't irritate
me, or I MAY turn crusty! You know, if I chose, I could open Bruce-
Errington's eyes rather more widely than you'd like with respect to
the DEVOTED AFFECTION you entertain for his beautiful wife." She
winced a little at this observation--he saw it and laughed,--then
resumed: "At present I'm really in the best of humors. The reason I
wanted to speak to you alone for a minute or two was, that I'd
something to say which might possibly please you. But perhaps you'd
rather not hear it? "
She was silent. So was he. He watched her closely for a little--
noting with complacency the indignant heaving of her breast and the
flush on her cheeks,--signs of the strong repression she was putting
upon her rising temper.
"Come, Clara, you may as well be amiable," he said. "I'm sure you'll
be glad to know that the virtuous Philip is not immaculate after
all. Won't it comfort you to think that he's nothing but a mortal
man like the rest of us?. . . and that with a little patience your
charms will most probably prevail with him as easily as they once
did with me? Isn't that worth hearing?"
"I don't understand you," she replied curtly.
"Then you are very dense, my dear girl," he remarked smilingly.
"Pardon me for saying so! But I'll put it plainly and in as few
words as possible. The moral Bruce-Errington, like a great many
other 'moral' men I know, has gone in for Violet Vere,--and I dare
say you understand what THAT means. In the simplest language, it
means that he's tired of his domestic bliss and wants a change."
Lady Winsleigh stopped in her slow pacing along the gravel-walk, and
raised her eyes steadily to her companion's face.
"Are you sure of this?" she asked.
"Positive!" replied Sir Francis, flicking the light ash off his
cigarette delicately with his little finger. "When you wrote me that
note about the Vere, I confess I had my suspicions. Since then
they've been confirmed. I know for a fact that Errington has had
several private interviews with Vi, and has also written her a good
many letters. Some of the fellows in the green-room tease her about
her new conquest, and she grins and admits it. Oh, the whole thing's
plain enough! Only last week, when he went up to town to see his man
Neville on business he called on Vi at her own apartments in Arundel
Street, Strand. She told me so herself--we're rather intimate, you
know,--though of course she refused to mention the object of his
visit. Honor among thieves!" and he smiled half mockingly.
Lady Winsleigh seemed absorbed, and walked on like one in a dream.
Just then, a bend in the avenue brought them in full view of the
broad terrace in front of the Manor, where Thelma's graceful figure,
in a close-fitting robe of white silk crepe, was outlined clearly
against the dazzling blue of the sky. Several people were grouped
near her,--she seemed to be in animated conversation with some of
them, and her face was radiant with smiles. Lady Winsleigh looked at
her,--then said suddenly in a low voice--
"It will break her heart!"
Sir Francis assumed an air of polite surprise. "Pardon! Whose
heart?"
She pointed slightly to the white figure on the terrace.
"Hers! Surely you must know that?"
He smiled. "Well--isn't that precisely what you desire Clara?
Though, for my part, I don't believe in the brittleness of hearts--
they seem to me to be made of exceptionally tough material. However,
if the fair Thelma's heart cracks ever so widely, I think I can
undertake to mend it!"
Clara shrugged her shoulders. "You!" she exclaimed contemptuously.
He stroked his moustache with feline care and nicety.
"Yes--I! If not, I've studied women all my life for nothing!"
She broke into a low peal of mocking laughter--turned, and was about
to leave him, when he detained her by a slight touch on her arm.
"Stop a bit!" he said in an impressive sotto-voce. "A bargain's a
bargain all the world over. If I undertake to keep you cognizant of
Bruce-Errington's little goings-on in London,--information which, I
dare say, you can turn to good account,--you must do something for
me. I ask very little. Speak of me to Lady Errington--make her think
well of me,--flatter me as much as you used to do when we fancied
ourselves terrifically in love with each other--(a good joke, wasn't
it!)--and, above all, make her TRUST me! Do you understand?"
"As Red Riding-Hood trusted the Wolf and was eaten up for her
innocence," observed Lady Winsleigh. "Very well! I'll do my best. As
I said before, you want a character. I'm sure I hope you'll obtain
the situation you so much desire! I can state that yon made yourself
fairly useful in your last place, and that you left because your
wages were not high enough!"
And with another sarcastic laugh, she moved forward towards the
terrace where Thelma stood. Sir Francis followed at some little
distance with no very pleasant expression on his features. A
stealthy step approaching him front behind made him start nervously-
-it was Louise Renaud, who, carrying a silver tray on which soda-
water bottles and glasses made an agreeable clinking, tripped
demurely past him without raising her eyes. She came directly out of
the rose-garden,--and, as she overtook her mistress on the lawn,
that lady seemed surprised, and asked--
"Where have you been, Louise?"
"Miladi was willing that I should assist in the attendance to-day,"
replied Louise discreetly. "I have waited upon Milord Winsleigh, and
other gentlemen in the summer-house at the end of the rose-garden."
And with one furtive glance of her black, bead-like eyes at Lady
Winsleigh's face, she made a respectful sort of half-curtsy and went
her way.
Later on in the afternoon, when it was nearing sunset, and all other
amusements had given way to the delight of dancing on the springy
green turf to the swinging music of the band,--Briggs, released for
a time from the duties of assisting the waiters at the splendid
refreshment-table (duties which were pleasantly lightened by the
drinking of a bottle of champagne which he was careful to reserve
for his own consumption), sauntered leisurely through the winding
alleys and fragrant shrubberies which led to the most unromantic
portion of the Manor grounds,--namely, the vegetable-garden. Here
none of the butterflies of fashion found their way,--the suggestions
offered by growing cabbages, turnips, beans, and plump, yellow-
skinned marrows were too prosaic for society bantams who require
refined surroundings in which to crow their assertive platitudes.
Yet it was a peaceful nook--and there were household odors of mint
and thyme and sweet marjoram, which were pleasant to the soul of
Briggs, and reminded him of roast goose on Christmas Day, with all
its attendant succulent delicacies. He paced the path slowly,--the
light of the sinking sun blazing gloriously on his plush breeches,
silver cordons and tassels,--for he was in full-dress livery in
honor of the fete, and looked exceedingly imposing. Now and then he
glanced down at his calves with mild approval,--his silk stockings
fitted them well, and they had a very neat and shapely appearance.
"I 'AVE developed," he murmured to himself. "There ain't a doubt
about it! One week of Country air, and I'm a different man;--the
effecks of overwork 'ave disappeared. Flopsie won't know these legs
of mine when I get back,--they've improved surprisingly." He stopped
to survey a bed of carrots. "Plenty of Cressy there," he mused.
"Cressy's a noble soup, and Flopsie makes it well,--a man might do
wuss than marry Flopsie. She's a widder, and a LEETLE old--just a
leetle old for me--but--" Here he sniffed delicately at a sprig of
thyme he had gathered, and smiled consciously. Presently he
perceived a small, plump, pretty figure approaching him, no other
than Britta, looking particularly charming in a very smart cap,
adorned with pink-ribbon bows, and a very elaborately frilled muslin
apron. Briggs at once assumed his most elegant and conquering air,
straightened himself to his full height and kissed his hand to her
with much condescension. She laughed as she came up to him, and the
dimples in her round cheeks appeared in full force.
"Well, Mr. Briggs," she said, "are you enjoying yourself?"
Briggs smiled down upon her benevolently. "I am!" he responded
graciously. "I find the hair refreshing. And you, Miss Britta?"
"Oh, I'm very comfortable, thank you!" responded Britta demurely,
edging a little away from his arm, which showed an unmistakable
tendency to encircle her waist,--then glancing at a basket she held
full of grapes, just cut from the hot house, she continued, "These
are for the supper-table. I must be quick, and take them to Mrs.
Parton."
"Must you?" and Briggs asked this question with quite an unnecessary
amount of tenderness, then resuming his dignity, he observed, "Mrs.
Parton is a very worthy woman--an excellent 'ousekeeper. But she'll
no doubt excuse you for lingering a little, Miss Britta--especially
in MY company."
Britta laughed again, showing her pretty little white teeth to the
best advantage. "Do you think she will?" she said merrily. "Then
I'll stop a minute, and if she scolds me I'll put the blame on you!"
Briggs played with his silver tassels and, leaning gracefully
against a plum-tree, surveyed her with a critical eye.
"I was not able," he observed, "to see much of you in town. Our
people were always a' visitin' each other, and yet our meetings
were, as the poet says, 'few and far between.'"
Britta nodded indifferently, and perceiving a particularly ripe
gooseberry on one of the bushes close to her, gathered it quickly
and popped it between her rosy lips. Seeing another equally ripe,
she offered it to Briggs, who accepted it and ate it slowly, though
he had a misgiving that by so doing he was seriously compromising
his dignity. He resumed his conversation.
"Since I've been down 'ere, I've 'ad more opportunity to observe
you. I 'ope you will allow me to say I think very highly of you." He
waved his hand with the elegance of a Sir Charles Grandison. "Very
'ighly indeed! Your youth is most becoming to you! If you only 'ad a
little more CHICK, there'd be nothing left to desire!"
"A little more--WHAT?" asked Britta, opening her blue eyes very wide
in puzzled amusement.
"CHICK!" replied Briggs, with persistent persuasiveness. "CHICK,
Miss Britta, is a French word much used by the aristocracy. Coming
from Norway, an 'avin' perhaps a very limited experience, you mayn't
'ave 'erd it--but eddicated people 'ere find it very convenient and
expressive. CHICK means style,--THE thing, THE go, THE fashion. For
example, everything your lady wears is CHICK!"
"Really!" said Britta, with a wandering and innocent air. "How
funny! It doesn't sound like French, at all, Mr. Briggs,--it's more
like English."
"Perhaps the Paris accent isn't familiar to you yet," remarked
Briggs majestically. "Your stay in the gay metropolis was probably
short. Now, I 'ave been there many times--ah, Paris, Paris!" he
paused in a sort of ecstacy, then, with a side leer, continued--
"You'd 'ardly believe 'ow wicked I am in Paris, Miss Britta! I am,
indeed! It is something in the hair of the Bollyvards, I suppose!
And the caffy life excites my nerves."
"Then you shouldn't go there," said Britta gravely, though her eyes
twinkled with repressed fun. "It can't be good for you. And, oh! I'm
so sorry, Mr. Briggs, to think that YOU are ever wicked!" And she
laughed.
"It's not for long," explained Briggs, with a comically satisfied,
yet penitent, look. "It is only a sort of breaking out,--a fit of
'igh spirits. Hall men are so at times! It's CHICK to run a little
wild in Paris. But Miss Britta, if YOU were with me I should never
run wild!" Here his arm made another attempt to get round her waist-
-and again she skillfully, and with some show of anger, avoided it.
"Ah, you're very 'ard upon me," he then observed, "Very, very, 'ard!
But I won't complain, my--my dear gal--one day you'll know me
better!" He stopped and looked at her very intently. "Miss Britta,"
he said abruptly, "you've a great affection for your lady, 'aven't
you?"
Instantly Britta's face flushed, and she was all attention.
"Yes, indeed!" she answered quickly. "Why do you ask, Mr. Briggs?"
Briggs rubbed his nose perplexedly. "It is not easy to explain," he
said. "To run down my own employers wouldn't be in my line. But I've
an idea that Clara--by which name I allude to my Lord Winsleigh's
lady,--is up to mischief. She 'ates YOUR lady, Miss Britta--'ates
'er like poison!"
"Hates her!" cried Britta in astonishment. "Oh, you must be
mistaken, Mr. Briggs! She is as fond of her as she can be--almost
like a sister to her!"
"Clara's a fine actress," murmured Briggs, more to himself than to
his companion. "She'd beat Violet Vere on 'er own ground." Raising
his voice a little, he turned gallantly to Britta and relieved her
of the basket she held.
"Hallow me!" he said. "We'll walk to the 'ouse together. On the way
I'll explain--and you'll judge for yourself. The words of the
immortal bard, whose county we are in, occur to me as aprerpo,--
'There are more things in 'evin and 'erth, 'Oratio,--than even the
most devoted domestic can sometimes be aweer of.'"
And gently sauntering by Britta's side, Briggs began to converse in
low and confidential tones,--she listened with strained and eager
attention,--and she was soon receiving information that startled her
and set her on the alert.
Talk of private detectives and secret service! Do private detectives
ever discover so much as the servants of a man's own household?--
servants who are aware of the smallest trifles,--who know the name
and position of every visitor that comes and goes,--who easily learn
to recognize the handwriting on every letter that arrives--who laugh
and talk in their kitchens over things that their credulous masters
and mistresses imagine are unknown to all the world save
themselves,--who will judge the morals of a Duke, and tear the
reputation of a Duchess to shreds, for the least, the most trifling
error of conduct! If you can stand well with your servants, you can
stand well with the whole world--if not--carry yourself as haughtily
as you may--your pride will not last long, depend upon it!
Meanwhile, as Briggs and Britta strolled in the side paths of the
shrubbery, the gay guests of the Manor were dancing on the lawn.
Thelma did not dance,--she reclined in a low basket-chair, fanning
herself. George Lorimer lay stretched in lazy length at her feet,
and near her stood her husband, together with Beau Lovelace and Lord
Winsleigh. At a little distance, under the shadow of a noble beech,
sat Mrs. Rush-Marvelle and Mrs. Van Clupp in earnest conversation.
It was to Mrs. Marvelle that the Van Clupps owed their invitation
for this one day down to Errington Manor,--for Thelma herself was
not partial to them. But she did not like to refuse Mrs. Marvelle's
earnest entreaty that they should be asked,--and that good-natured,
scheming lady having gained her point, straightway said to Marcia
Van Clupp somewhat severely--
"Now, Marcia, this is your last chance. If you don't hook
Masherville at the Carringten fete, you'll lose him! You mark my
words!"
Marcia had dutifully promised to do her best, and she was not having
what she herself called "a good hard time of it." Lord Algy was in
one of his most provokingly vacillating moods--moreover, he had a
headache, and felt bilious. Therefore he would not dance--he would
not play tennis--he did not understand archery--he was disinclined
to sit in romantic shrubberies or summer-houses, as he had a nervous
dread of spiders--so he rambled aimlessly about the grounds with his
hands in his pockets, and perforce Marcia was compelled to ramble
too. Once she tried what effect an opposite flirtation would have on
his mind, so she coquetted desperately with a young country squire,
whose breed of pigs was considered the finest in England--but
Masherville did not seem to mind it in the least. Nay, he looked
rather relieved than otherwise, and Marcia, seeing this, grew more
resolute than ever.
"I guess I'll pay him out for this!" she thought as she watched him
feebly drinking soda-water for his headache. "He's a man that wants
ruling, and ruled he shall be!"
And Mrs. Rush-Marvelle and Mrs. Van Clupp observed her manoeuvres
with maternal interest, while the cunning-faced, white-headed Van
Clupp conversed condescendingly with Mr. Rush-Marvelle, as being a
nonentity of a man whom he could safely patronize.
As the glory of the sunset paled, and the delicate, warm hues of the
summer twilight softened the landscape, the merriment of the
brilliant assembly seemed to increase. As soon as it was dark, the
grounds were to be illuminated by electricity, and dancing was to be
continued indoors--the fine old picture-gallery being the place
chosen for the purpose. Nothing that could add to the utmost
entertainment of the guests had been forgotten, and Thelma, the fair
mistress of these pleasant revels, noting with quiet eyes the
evident enjoyment of all present, felt very happy and tranquil. She
had exerted herself a good deal, and was now a little tired. Her
eyes had a dreamy, far-off look, and she found her thoughts
wandering, now and then, away to the Altenfjord--she almost fancied
she could hear the sigh of the pines and the dash of the waves
mingling in unison as they used to do when she sat at the old farm-
house window and span, little dreaming then how her life would
change--how all those familiar things would be swept away as though
they had never been. She roused herself from this momentary reverie,
and glancing down at the recumbent gentleman at her feet, touched
his shoulder lightly with the edge of her fan.
"Why do you not dance, you very lazy Mr. Lorimer?" she asked, with a
smile.
He turned up his fair, half-boyish face to hers and laughed.
"Dance! I! Good gracious! Such an exertion would kill me, Lady
Errington--don't you know that? I am of a Sultan-like disposition--I
shouldn't mind having slaves to dance for me if they did it well--
but I should look on from the throne whereon I sat cross-legged,--
and smoke my pipe in peace."
"Always the same!" she said lightly. "Are you never serious?"
His eyes darkened suddenly. "Sometimes. Awfully so! And in that
condition I become a burden to myself and my friends."
"Never be serious!" interposed Beau Lovelace, "it really isn't worth
while! Cultivate the humor of a Socrates, and reduce everything by
means of close argument to its smallest standpoint, and the world,
life, and time are no more than a pinch of snuff for some great
Titantic god to please his giant nose withal!"
"Your fame isn't worth much then, Beau, if we're to go by that line
of argument," remarked Errington, with a laugh.
"Fame! By Jove! You don't suppose I'm such an arrant donkey as to
set any store by fame!" cried Lovelace, a broad smile lighting up
his face and eyes." Why, because a few people read my books and are
amused thereby,--and because the Press pats me graciously on the
back, and says metaphorically, 'Well done, little 'un!' or words to
that effect, am I to go crowing about the world as if I were the
only literary chanticleer? My dear friend, have you read 'Esdras'?
You will find there that a certain king of Persia wrote to one
'Rathumus, a story-writer.' No doubt he was famous in his day, but,-
-to travesty HAMLET, 'where be his stories now?' Learn, from the
deep oblivion into which poor Rathumus's literary efforts have
fallen, the utter mockery and uselessness of so-called FAME!"
"But there must be a certain pleasure in it while you're alive to
enjoy it," said Lord Winsleigh. "Surely you derive some little
satisfaction from your celebrity, Mr. Lovelace?"
Beau broke into a laugh, mellow, musical, and hearty.
"A satisfaction shared with murderers, thieves, divorced women,
dynamiters, and other notorious people in general," he said.
"They're all talked about--so am I. They all get written about--so
do I. My biography is always being carefully compiled by newspaper
authorities, to the delight of the reading public. Only the other
day I learned for the first time that my father was a greengrocer,
who went in for selling coals by the half-hundred and thereby made
his fortune--my mother was an unsuccessful oyster-woman who failed
ignominiously at Margate--moreover, I've a great many brothers and
sisters of tender age whom I absolutely refuse to assist. I've got a
wife somewhere, whom my literary success causes me to despise--and I
have deserted children. I'm charmed with, the accuracy of the
newspapers--and I wouldn't contradict them for the world,--I find my
biographies so original! They are the result of that celebrity which
Winsleigh thinks enjoyable."
"But assertions of that kind are libels," said Errington, "You could
prosecute."
"Too much trouble!" declared Beau. "Besides, five journals have
disclosed the name of the town where I was born, and as they all
contradict each other, and none of them are right, any contradiction
on MY part would be superfluous!"
They laughed,--and at that moment Lady Winsleigh joined them.
"Are you not catching cold, Thelma?" she inquired sweetly. "Sir
Philip, you ought to make her put on something warm,--I find the air
growing chilly."
At that moment the ever-ready Sir Francis Lennox approached with a
light woolen wrap he had found in the hall.
"Permit me!" he said gently, at the same time adroitly throwing it
over Thelma's shoulders.
She colored a little,--she did not care for his attention, but she
could not very well ignore it without seeming to be discourteous. So
she murmured, "Thank you!" and, rising from her chair, addressed
Lady Winsleigh.
"If you feel cold, Clara, you will like some tea," she said. "Shall
we go indoors, where it is ready?"
Lady Winsleigh assented with some eagerness,--and the two, beautiful
women--the one dark, the other fair--walked side by side across the
lawn into the house, their arms round each other's waists as they
went.
"Two queens--and yet not rivals?" half queried Lovelace, as he
watched them disappearing.
"Their thrones are secure!" returned Sir Philip gaily.
The others were silent. Lord Winsleigh's thoughts, whatever they
were, deepened the lines of gravity on his face; and George Lorimer,
as he got up from his couch on the grass, caught a fleeting
expression in the brown eyes of Sir Francis Lennox that struck him
with a sense of unpleasantness. But he quickly dismissed the
impression from his mind, and went to have a quiet smoke in the
shrubbery.
CHAPTER XXIII.
"La rose du jardin, comme tu sais, dure peu, et la saison des roses
est bien vite ecoulee!"--SAADI.
Thelma took her friend Lady Winsleigh to her own boudoir, a room
which had been the particular pride of Sir Philip's mother. The
walls were decorated with panels of blue silk in which were woven
flowers of gold and silver thread,--and the furniture, bought from
an old palace in Milan, was of elaborately carved wood inlaid with
ivory and silver. Here a tete-a-tete tea was served for the two
ladies, both of whom were somewhat fatigued by the pleasures of the
day. Lady Winsleigh declared she must have some rest, or she would
be quite unequal to the gaieties of the approaching evening, and
Thelma herself was not sorry to escape for a little from her duties
as hostess,--so the two remained together for some time in earnest
conversations and Lady Winsleigh then and there confided to Thelma
what she had heard reported concerning Sir Philip's intimate
acquaintance with the burlesque actress, Violet Vere. And they were
both so long absent that, after a while, Errington began to miss his
wife, and, growing impatient, went in search of her. He entered the
boudoir, and, to his surprise, found Lady Winsleigh there quite
alone.
"Where is Thelma?" he demanded.
"She seems not very well--a slight headache or something of that
sort--and has gone to lie down," replied Lady Winsleigh, with a
faint trace of embarrassment in her manner. "I think the heat has
been too much for her."
"I'll go and see after her,"--and he turned promptly to leave the
room.
"Sir Philip!" called Lady Winsleigh. He paused and looked back.
"Stay one moment," continued her ladyship softly. "I have been for a
long time so very anxious to say something to you in private. Please
let me speak now. You--you know"--here she cast down her lustrous
eyes--"before you went to Norway I--I was very foolish--"
"Pray do not recall it," he said with kindly gravity "_I_ have
forgotten it."
"That is so good of you!" and a flush of color warmed her delicate
cheeks. "For if you have forgotten, you have also forgiven?"
"Entirely!" answered Errington,--and touched by her plaintive, self-
reproachful manner and trembling voice, he went up to her and took
her hands in his own. "Don't think of the past, Clara! Perhaps I
also was to blame a little--I'm quite willing to think I was.
Flirtation's a dangerous amusement at best." He paused as he saw two
bright tears on her long, silky lashes, and in his heart felt a sort
of remorse that he had ever permitted himself to think badly of her.
"We are the best of friends now, Clara," he continued cheerfully,
"and I hope we may always remain so. You can't imagine how glad I am
that you love my Thelma!"
"Who would not love her!" sighed Lady Winsleigh gently, as Sir
Philip released her hands from his warm clasp,--then raising her
tearful eyes to his she added wistfully," You must take great care
of her, Philip--she is so sensitive,--I always fancy an unkind word
would kill her."
"She'll never hear one from me!" he returned, with so tender and
earnest a look on his face, that Lady Winsleigh's heart ached for
jealousy. "I must really go and see how she is. She's been exerting
herself too much to-day. Excuse me!" and with a courteous smile and
bow he left the room with a hurried and eager step.
Alone, Lady Winsleigh smiled bitterly. "Men are all alike!" she said
half aloud. "Who would think he was such a hypocrite? Fancy his
dividing his affection between two such contrasts as Thelma and
Violet Vere! However, there's no accounting for tastes. As for man's
fidelity, I wouldn't give a straw for it--and for his morality--!"
She finished the sentence with a scornful laugh, and left the
boudoir to return to the rest of the company.
Errington, meanwhile, knocked softly at the door of his wife's
bedroom--and receiving no answer, turned the handle noiselessly and
went in. Thelma lay on the bed, dressed as she was, her cheek
resting on her hand, and her face partially hidden. Her husband
approached on tiptoe, and lightly kissed her forehead. She did not
stir,--she appeared to sleep profoundly.
"Poor girl!" he thought, "she's tired out, and no wonder, with all
the bustle and racket of these people! A good thing if she can rest
a little before the evening closes in."
And he stole quietly out of the room, and meeting Britta on the
stairs told her on no account to let her mistress be disturbed till
it was time for the illumination of the grounds. Britta promised,--
Britta's eyes were red--one would almost have fancied she had been
crying. But Thelma was not asleep--she had felt her husband's kiss,-
-her heart had beat as quickly as the wing of a caged wild bird at
his warm touch,--and now he had gone she turned and pressed her lips
passionately on the pillow where his hand had leaned. Then she rose
languidly from the bed, and, walking slowly to the door, locked it
against all comers. Presently she began to pace the room up and
down,--up and down,--her face was very white and weary, and every
now and then a shuddering sigh broke from her lips.
"Can I believe it? Oh no!--I cannot--I will not!" she murmured."
There must be some mistake--Clara has heard wrongly." She sighed
again. "Yet--if it is so,--he is not to blame--it is I--I who have
failed to please him. Where--how have I failed?"
A pained, puzzled look filled her grave blue eyes, and she stopped
in her walk to and fro.
"It cannot be true!" she said half aloud,--"it is altogether unlike
him. Though Clara says--and she has known him so long!--Clara says
he loved HER once--long before he saw me--my poor Philip!--he must
have suffered by that love!--perhaps that is why he thought life so
wearisome when he first came to the Altenfjord--ah! the Altenfjord!"
A choking sob rose in her throat--but she repressed it. "I must try
not to weary him," she continued softly--"I must have done so in
some way, or he would not be tired. But as for what I have heard,--
it is not for me to ask him questions. I would not have him think
that I mistrust him. No--there is some fault in me--something he
does not like, or he would never go to--" She broke off and
stretched out her hands with a sort of wild appeal. "Oh, Philip! my
darling!" she exclaimed in a sobbing whisper. "I always knew I was
not worthy of you--but I thought,--I hoped my love would make amends
for all my shortcomings!"
Tears rushed into her eyes, and she turned to a little arched
recess, shaded by velvet curtains--her oratory--where stood an
exquisite white marble statuette of the Virgin and Child. There she
knelt for some minutes, her face hidden in her hands, and when she
rose she was quite calm, though very pale. She freshened her face
with cold water, rearranged her disordered hair,--and then went
downstairs, thereby running into the arms of her husband who was
coming up again to look, as he said, at his "Sleeping Beauty."
"And here she is!" he exclaimed joyously. "Have you rested enough,
my pet?"
"Indeed, yes!" she answered gently. "I am ashamed so be so lazy.
Have you wanted me, Philip?"
"I always want you," he declared. "I am never happy without you."
She smiled and sighed. "You say that to please me," she said half
wistfully.
"I say it because it is true!" he asserted proudly, putting his arm
round her waist and escorting her in this manner down the great
staircase. "And you know it, you sweet witch! You're just in time to
see the lighting up of the grounds. There'll be a good view from the
picture-gallery--lots of the people have gone in there--you'd better
come too, for it's chilly outside."
She followed him obediently, and her reappearance among her guests
was hailed with enthusiasm,--Lady Winsleigh being particular
effusive, almost too much so.
"Your headache has quite gone, dearest, hasn't it?" she inquired
sweetly.
Thelma eyed her gravely. "I did not suffer from the headache,
Clara," she said. "I was a little tired, but I am quite rested now."
Lady Winsleigh bit her lips rather vexedly, but said no more, and at
that moment exclamations of delight broke from all assembled at the
brilliant scene that suddenly flashed upon their eyes. Electricity,
that radiant sprite whose magic wand has lately been bent to the
service of man, had in less than a minute played such dazzling
pranks in the gardens that they resembled the fabled treasure-houses
discovered by Aladdin. Every tree glittered with sparkling clusters
of red, blue, and green light--every flower-bed was bordered with
lines and circles of harmless flame, and the fountains tossed up
tall columns of amber rose, and amethyst spray against the soft blue
darkness of the sky, in which a lustrous golden moon had just risen.
The brilliancy of the illuminations showed up several dark figures
strolling in couples about the grounds--romantic persons evidently,
who were not to be persuaded to come indoors, even for the music of
the band, which just then burst forth invitingly through the open
windows of the picture-gallery.
Two of these pensive wanderers were Marcia Van Clupp and Lord
Algernon Masherville,--and Lord Algy was in a curiously sentimental
frame of mind, and weak withal, "comme une petite queue d'agneau
afflige." He had taken a good deal of soda and brandy for his
bilious headache, and, physically, he was much better,--but mentally
he was not quite his ordinary self. By this it must not be
understood that he was at all unsteadied by the potency of his
medicinal tipple--he was simply in a bland humor--that peculiar sort
of humor which finds strange and mystic beauty in everything, and
contemplates the meanest trifles with emotions of large benevolence.
He was conversational too, and inclined to quote poetry--this sort
of susceptibleness often affects gentlemen after they have had an
excellent dinner flavored with the finest Burgundy. Lord Algy was as
mild, as tame, and as flabby as a sleeping jelly-fish,--and in this
inoffensive, almost tender mood of his, Marcia pounced upon him. She
looked ravishingly pretty in the moonlight, with a white wrap thrown
carelessly round her head and shoulders, and her bold, bird-like
eyes sparkling with excitement (for who that knows the pleasure of
sports, is not excited when the fox is nearly run to earth?), and
she stood with him beside one of the smaller illuminated fountains,
raising her small white band every now and then to catch some of the
rainbow drops, and then with a laugh she would shake them off her
little pearly nails into the air again. Poor Masherville could not
help gazing at her with a lack-lustre admiration in his pale eyes,--
and Marcia, calculating every move in her own shrewd mind, saw it.
She turned her head away with a petulant yet coquettish movement.
"My patience!" she exclaimed; "yew KIN stare! Yew'll know me again
when yew see me,--say?"
"I should know you anywhere," declared Masherville, nervously
fumbling with the string of his eye-glass. "It's impossible to
forget YOUR face, Miss Marcia!"
She was silent,--and kept that face turned from him so long that the
gentle little lord was surprised. He approached her more closely and
took her hand--the hand that had played with the drops in the
fountain. It was such an astonishingly small hand.--so very fragile-
looking and tiny, that he was almost for putting up his eye-glass to
survey it, as if it were a separate object in a museum. But the
faintest pressure of the delicate fingers he held startled him, and
sent the most curious thrill through his body--and when he spoke he
was in such a flutter that he scarcely knew what he was saying.
"Miss--Miss Marcia!" he stammered, "have--have I said--anything to--
to offend you?"
Very slowly, and with seeming reluctance, she turned her head
towards him, and--oh, thou mischievous Puck, that sometimes takest
upon thee the semblance of Eros, what skill is thine!. . . there
were tears in her eyes--real tears--bright, large tears that welled
up and fell through her long lashes in the most beautiful, touching,
and becoming manner! "And," thought Marcia to herself, "if I don't
fetch him now, I never will!" Lord Algy was quite frightened--his
poor brain grew more and more bewildered.
"Why--Miss Marcia! I say! Look here!" he mumbled in his extremity,
squeezing her little hand tighter and tighter. "What--what HAVE I
done! Good gracious! You--you really mustn't cry, you know--I say--
look here! Marcia! I wouldn't vex you for the world!"
"Yew bet yew wouldn't!" said Marcia, with slow and nasal
plaintiveness. "I like that! That's the way yew English talk. But
yew kin hang round a girl a whole season and make all her folks
think badly of her--and--and--break her heart--yes--that's so! "Here
she dried her eyes with a filmy lace handkerchief." But don't YEW
mind me! I kin bear it. I kin worry through!" And she drew herself
up with dignified resignation--while Lord Algy stared wildly at her,
his feeble mind in a whirl. Presently she smiled most seductively,
and looked up with her dark, tear-wet eyes to the moon.
"I guess it's a good night for lovers!" she said, sinking her
ordinary tone to an almost sweet cadence. "But we're not of that
sort, are we?"
The die was cast! She looked so charming--so irresistible, that
Masherville lost all hold over his wits. Scarcely knowing what he
did, he put his arm round her waist. Oh, what a warm, yielding
waist! He drew her close to his breast, at the risk of breaking his
most valuable eyeglass,--and felt his poor weak soul in a quiver of
excitement at this novel and delicious sensation.
"We are--we are of that sort!" he declared courageously. "Why should
you doubt it, Marcia?"
"I believe YEW if YEW say so," responded Marcia. "But I guess yew're
only fooling me!"
"Fooling you!" Lord Algy was so surprised that he released her quite
suddenly from his embrace--so suddenly that she was a little
frightened. Was she to lose him, after all?
"Marcia." he continued mildly, yet with a certain manliness that did
not ill become him. "I--I hope I am too much of--of a gentleman to--
to 'FOOL' any woman, least of all you. after I have, as you say,
compromised you in society by my--my attentions. I--I have very
little to offer you--but such as it is, is yours. In--in short,
Marcia, I--I will try to make you happy if you can--can care for me
enough to--to--marry me!"
Eureka! The game was won! A vision of Masherville Park, Yorkshire,
that "well-timbered and highly desirable residence," as the
auctioneers would describe it, flitted before Marcia's eyes,--and,
filled with triumph, she went straight into her lordly wooer's arms,
and kissed him with thorough transatlantic frankness. She was really
grateful to him. Ever since she had come to England, she had plotted
and schemed to become "my lady" with all the vigor of a purely
republican soul,--and now at last, after hard fighting, she had won
the prize for which her soul had yearned. She would in future belong
to the English aristocracy--that aristocracy which her relatives in
New York pretended to despise, yet openly flattered,--and with her
arms round the trapped Masherville's neck, she foresaw the delight
she would have in being toadied by them as far as toadyism could be
made to go.
She is by no means presented to the reader as a favorable type of
her nation--for, of course, every one knows there are plenty of
sweet, unselfish, guileless American girls, who are absolutely
incapable of such unblushing marriage-scheming as hers,--but what
else could be expected from Marcia? Her grandfather, the navvy, had
but recently become endowed with Pilgrim-Father Ancestry,--and her
maternal uncle was a boastful pork-dealer in Cincinnati. It Was her
bounden duty to ennoble the family somehow,--surely, if any one had
a right to be ambitious, she was that one! And wild proud dreams of
her future passed through her brain, little Lord Algy quivered
meekly under her kiss, and returned it with all the enthusiasm of
which he was capable. One or two faint misgivings troubled him as to
whether he had not been just a little too hasty in making a serious
bona fide offer of marriage to the young lady by whose Pilgrim
progenitors he was not deceived. He knew well enough what her
antecedents were, and a faint shudder crossed him as he thought of
the pork-dealing uncle, who would, by marriage, become HIS uncle
also. He had long been proud of the fact that the house of
Masherville had never, through the course of centuries, been
associated, even in the remotest manner with trade--and now!--
"Yet, after all," he mused, "the Marquis of Londonderry openly
advertises himself as a coal-merchant, and the brothers-in-law of
the Princess Louise are in the wine trade and stock-broking
business,--and all the old knightly blood of England is mingling
itself by choice with that of the lowest commoners--what's the use
of my remaining aloof, and refusing to go with the spirit of the
age? Besides, Marcia loves me, and it's pleasant to be loved!"
Poor Lord Algy. He certainly thought there could be no question
about Marcia's affection for him. He little dreamed that it was to
his title and position she had become so deeply attached,--he could
not guess that after he had married her there would be no more Lord
Masherville worth mentioning--that that individual, once
independent, would be entirely swallowed up and lost in the dashing
personality of Lady Masherville, who would rule her husband as with
a rod of iron.
He was happily ignorant of his future, and he walked in the gardens
for some time with his arm round Marcia's waist, in a very placid
and romantic frame of mind. By-and-by he escorted her into the
house, where the dancing was in full swing--and she, with a sweet
smile, bidding him wait for her in the refreshment-room, sought for
and found her mother, who as usual, was seated in a quiet corner
with Mrs. Rush-Marvelle, talking scandal.
"Well?" exclaimed these two ladies, simultaneously and breathlessly.
Marcia's eyes twinkled. "Guess he came in as gently as a lamb!" she
said.
They understood her. Mrs. Rush-Marvelle rose from her chair in her
usual stately and expensive manner.
"I congratulate you, my dear!" kissing Marcia affectionately on both
cheeks. "Bruce Errington would have been a better match,--but, under
the circumstances, Masherville is really about the best thing you
could do. You'll find him quite easy to manage!" This with an air as
though she were recommending a quiet pony.
"That's so!" said Marcia carelessly, "I guess we'll pull together
somehow. Mar-ma," to her mother--"yew kin turn on the news to all
the folks yew meet--the more talk the better! I'm not partial to
secrets!" And with a laugh, she turned away.
Then Mrs. Van Clupp laid her plump, diamond-ringed hand on that of
her dear friend, Mrs. Marvelle.
"You have managed the whole thing beautifully," she said, with a
grateful heave of her ample bosom. "Such a clever creature as you
are!" She dropped her voice to a mysterious whisper. "You shall have
that cheque to-morrow, my love!"
Mrs. Rush-Marvelle pressed her fingers cordially.
"Den't hurry yourself about it!"--she returned in the same
confidential tone. "I dare say you'll want me to arrange the wedding
and the 'crush' afterwards. I can wait till then."
"No, no! that's a separate affair," declared Mrs. Van Clupp. "I must
insist on your taking the promised two hundred. You've been really
so VERY energetic!"
"Well, I HAVE worked rather hard," said Mrs. Marvelle, with modest
self-consciousness. "You see nowadays it's so difficult to secure
suitable husbands for the girls who ought to have them. Men ARE such
slippery creatures!"
She sighed--and Mrs. Van Clupp echoed the sigh,--and then these two
ladies,--the nature of whose intimacy may now be understood by the
discriminating reader,--went together to search out those of their
friends and acquaintances who were among the guests that night, and
to announce to them (in the strictest confidence, of course!) the
delightful news of "dear Marcia's engagement." Thelma heard of it,
and went at once to proffer her congratulations to Marcia in person.
"I hope you will be very, very happy!" she said simply, yet with
such grave earnestness in her look and voice that the "Yankee gel"
was touched to a certain softness and seriousness not at all usual
with her, and became so winning and gentle to Lord Algy that he felt
in the seventh heaven of delight with his new position as affianced
lover to so charming a creature.
Meanwhile George Lorimer and Pierre Duprez were chatting together in
the library. It was very quiet there,--the goodly rows of books, the
busts of poets and philosophers,--the large, placid features of the
Pallas Athene crowning an antique pedestal,--the golden pipes of the
organ gleaming through the shadows,--all these gave a solemn, almost
sacred aspect to the room. The noise of the dancing and festivity in
the distant picture-gallery did not penetrate here, and Lorimer sat
at the organ, drawing out a few plaintive strains from its keys as
he talked.
"It's your fancy, Pierre," he said slowly. "Thelma may be a little
tired to-day, perhaps--but I know she's perfectly happy."
"I think not so," returned Duprez. "She has not the brightness--the
angel look--les yeux d' enfant,--that we beheld in her at that far
Norwegian Fjord. Britta is anxious for her."
Lorimer looked up, and smiled a little.
"Britta? It's always Britta with you, mon cher! One would think--"
he paused and laughed.
"Think what you please!" exclaimed Duprez, with a defiant snap of
his fingers. "I would not give that little person for all the
grandes dames here to-day! She is charming--and she is TRUE!-Ma foi!
to be true to any one is a virtue in this age! I tell you, my good
boy, there is something sorrowful--heavy--on la belle Thelma's mind-
-and Britta, who sees her always, feels it--but she cannot speak.
One thing I will tell you--it is a pity she is so fond of Miladi
Winsleigh."
"Why?" asked Lorimer, with some eagerness.
"Because--" he stopped abruptly as a white figure suddenly appeared
at the doorway, and a musical voice addressed them--
"Why, what are you both doing here, away from everybody?" and Thelma
smiled as she approached. "You are hermits, or you are lazy! People
are going in to supper. Will you not come also?"
"Ma foi!" exclaimed Duprez; "I had forgotten! I have promised your
most charming mother, cher Lorimer, to take her in to this same
supper. I must fly upon the wings of chivalry!"
And with a laugh, he hurried off, leaving Thelma and Lorimer alone
together. She sank rather wearily into a chair near the organ, and
looked at him.
"Play me something!" she said softly.
A strange thrill quivered through him as he met her eyes--the sweet,
deep, earnest eyes of the woman he loved. For it was no use
attempting to disguise it from himself--he loved her passionately,
wildly, hopelessly; as he had loved her from the first.
Obedient to her wish, his fingers wandered over the organ-keys in a
strain of solemn, weird, yet tender melancholy--the grand, rich
notes pealed forth sobbingly--and she listened, her hands clasped
idly in her lap. Presently he changed the theme to one of more
heart-appealing passion--and a strange wild minor air, like the
rushing of the wind across the mountains, began to make itself heard
through the subdued rippling murmur of his improvised accompaniment.
To his surprise and fear, she started up, pressing her hands against
her ears.
"Not that--not that song, my friend!" she cried, almost imploringly.
"Oh, it will break my heart! Oh, the Altenfjord!" And she gave way
to a passion of weeping.
"Thelma! Thelma!" and poor Lorimer, rising from the organ, stood
gazing at her in piteous dismay,--every nerve in his body wrung to
anguish by the sound of her sobbing. A mad longing seized him to
catch her in his arms,--to gather her and her sorrows, whatever they
were, to his heart!--and he had much ado to restrain himself.
"Thelma," he presently said, in a gentle voice that trembled just a
little, "Thelma, what is troubling you? You call me your brother--
give me a brother's right to your confidence." He bent over her and
took her hand. "I--I can't bear to see you cry like this! Tell me--
what's the matter? Let me fetch Philip."
She looked up with wild wet eyes and quivering lips.
"Oh no--no!" she murmured, in a tone of entreaty and alarm. "Do
not,--Philip must not know--I do wish him always to see me bright
and cheerful--and--it is nothing! It is that I heard something which
grieved me--"
"What was it?" asked Lorimer, remembering Duprez's recent remarks.
"Oh, I would not tell you!" she said eagerly, drying her eyes and
endeavoring to smile, "because I am sure it was a mistake, and all
wrong--and I was foolish to fancy that such a thing could be, even
for a moment. But when one does not know the world, it seems cruel--
"
"Thelma, what do you mean?" and George surveyed her in some
perplexity. "If any one's been bothering or vexing you, just you
tell Phil all about it. Don't have any secrets from him,--he'll soon
put everything straight, whatever it is."
She shook her head slightly. "Ah, you do not understand!" she said
pathetically, "how should you? Because you have not given your life
away to any one, and it is all different with you. But when you do
love--if you are at all like me,--you will be so anxious to always
seem worthy of love--and you will hide all your griefs away from
your beloved,--so that your constant presence shall not seem
tiresome. And I would not for all the world trouble Philip with my
silly fancies--because then he might grow more weary still--"
"WEARY!" interrupted Lorimer, in an accent of emphatic surprise.
"Why, you don't suppose Phil's tired of you, Thelma? That IS
nonsense indeed! He worships you! Who's been putting such notions
into your head?"
She rose from her chair quite calm and very pale, and laid her two
trembling hands in his.
"Ah, you also will mistake me," she said, with touching sweetness,
"like so many others who think me strange in my speech and manner. I
am sorry I am not like other women,--but I cannot help it. What I do
wish you to understand is that I never suppose anything against my
Philip--he is the noblest and best of men! And you must promise not
to tell him that I was so foolish as to cry just now because you
played that old song I sang to you both so often in Norway--it was
because I felt a little sad--but it was only a fancy,--and I would
not have him troubled with such things. Will you promise? "
"But what has made you sad?" persisted Lorimer, still puzzled.
"Nothing--nothing indeed," she answered, with almost feverish
earnestness. "You yourself are sometimes sad, and can you tell why?"
Lorimer certainly could have told why,--but he remained silent, and
gently kissed the little hands he held.
"Then I mustn't tell Philip of your sadness?" he asked softly, at
last. "But will you tell him yourself, Thelma? Depend upon it, it's
much better to have no secrets from him. The least grief of yours
would affect him more than the downfall of a kingdom. You know how
dearly he loves you!"
"Yes--I know!" she answered, and her eyes brightened slowly. "And
that is why I wish him always to see me happy!" She paused, and then
added in a lower tone, "I would rather die, my friend, than vex him
for one hour!"
George still held her hands and looked wistfully in her face. He was
about to speak again, when a cold, courteous voice interrupted them.
"Lady Errington, may I have the honor of taking you in to supper?"
It was Sir Francis Lennox. He had entered quite noiselessly--his
footsteps making no sound on the thick velvet-pile carpet, and he
stood quite close to Lorimer, who dropped Thelma's hands hastily and
darted a suspicious glance at the intruder. But Sir Francis was the
very picture of unconcerned and bland politeness, and offered Thelma
his arm with the graceful ease of an accomplished courtier. She was,
perforce, compelled to accept it--and she was slightly confused,
though she could not have told why.
"Sir Philip has been looking everywhere for you," continued Sir
Francis amicably. "And for you also," he added, turning slightly to
Lorimer. "I trust I've not abruptly broken off a pleasant tete-a-
tete?"
Lorimer colored hotly. "Not at all," he said rather brusquely. "I've
been strumming on the organ, and Lady Errington has been good enough
to listen to me."
"You do not STRUM" said Thelma, with gentle reproach. "You play very
beautifully."
"Ah! a charming accomplishment!" observed Sir Francis, with his
under-glance and covert smile, as they all three wended their way
out of the library. "I regret I have never had time to devote myself
to acquiring some knowledge of the arts. In music I am a positive
ignoramus! I can hold my own best in the field."
"Yes, you're a great adept at hunting, Lennox," remarked Lorimer
suddenly, with something sarcastic in his tone. "I suppose the
quarry never escapes you?"
"Seldom!" returned Sir Francis coolly. "Indeed, I think I may say,
never!"
And with that, he passed into the supper-room, elbowing a way for
Thelma, till he succeeded in placing her near the head of the table,
where she was soon busily occupied in entertaining her guests and
listening to their chatter; and Lorimer, looking at her once or
twice, saw, to his great relief, that all traces of her former
agitation had disappeared, leaving her face fair and radiant as a
spring morning.
CHAPTER XXIV.
"A generous fierceness dwells with innocence,
And conscious virtue is allowed some pride."
DEYDEN
The melancholy days of autumn came on apace, and by-and-by the Manor
was deserted. The Bruce-Errington establishment removed again to
town, where business, connected with his intending membership for
Parliament, occupied Sir Philip from morning till night. The old
insidious feeling of depression returned and hovered over Thelma's
mind like a black bird of ill omen, and though she did her best to
shake it off she could not succeed. People began to notice her
deepening seriousness and the wistful melancholy of her blue eyes,
and made their remarks thereon when they saw her at Marcia Van
Clupp's wedding, an event which came off brilliantly at the
commencement of November, and which was almost entirely presided
over by Mrs. Rush-Marvelle. That far-seeing matron had indeed urged
on the wedding by every delicate expedient possible.
"Long engagements are a great mistake," she told Marcia,--then, in a
warning undertone she added, "Men are capricious nowadays,--they're
all so much in demand,--better take Masherville while he's in the
humor."
Marcia accepted this hint and took him,--and Mrs. Rush-Marvelle
heaved a sigh of relief when she saw the twain safely married, and
off to the Continent on their honeymoon-trip,--Marcia all sparkling
and triumphant,--Lord Algy tremulous and feebly ecstatic.
"Thank Heaven THAT's over!" she said to her polite and servile
husband. "I never had such a troublesome business in my life! That
girl's been nearly two seasons on my hands, and I think five hundred
guineas not a bit too much for all I've done."
"Not a bit--not a bit!" agreed Mr. Marvelle warmly. "Have they--have
they--" here he put on a most benevolent side-look--"quite settled
with you, my dear?"
"Every penny," replied Mrs. Marvelle calmly. "Old Van Clupp paid me
the last hundred this morning. And poor Mrs. Van Clupp is so VERY
grateful!" She sighed placidly, and appeared to meditate. Then she
smiled sweetly and, approaching Mr. Marvelle, patted his shoulder
caressingly. "I think we'll do the Italian lakes, dear--what do you
say?"
"Charming--charming!" declared, not her lord and master, but her
slave and vassal. "Nothing could be more delightful!"
And to the Italian lakes accordingly they went. A great many people
were out of town,--all who had leisure and money enough to liberate
themselves from the approaching evils of an English winter, had
departed or were departing,--Beau Lovelace had gone to Como,--George
Lorimer had returned with Duprez to Paris, and Thelma had very few
visitors except Lady Winsleigh, who was more often with her now than
ever. In fact, her ladyship was more like one of the Errington
household than anything else,--she came so frequently and stayed so
long. She seemed sincerely attached to Thelma,--and Thelma herself,
too single-hearted and simple to imagine that such affection could
be feigned, gave her in return, what Lady Winsleigh had never
succeeded in winning from any woman,--a pure, trusting, and utterly
unsuspecting love, such as she would have lavished on a twin-born
sister. But there was one person who was not deceived by Lady
Winsleigh's charm of manner, and grace of speech. This was Britta.
Her keen eyes flashed a sort of unuttered defiance into her
ladyship's beautiful, dark languishing ones--she distrusted her, and
viewed the intimacy between her and the "Froken" with entire
disfavor. Once she ventured to express something of her feeling on
the matter to Thelma--but Thelma had looked so gently wondering and
reproachful that Britta had not courage to go on.
"I am so sorry, Britta," said her mistress, "that you do not like
Lady Winsleigh--because I am very fond of her. You must try to like
her for my sake."
But Britta pursed her lips and shook her head obstinately. However,
she said no more at the time, and decided within herself to wait and
watch the course of events. And in the meantime she became very
intimate with Lady Winsleigh's maid, Louise Renaud, and Briggs, and
learned from these two domestic authorities many things which
greatly tormented and puzzled her little brain,--things over which
she pondered deeply without arriving at any satisfactory conclusion.
On her return to town, Thelma had been inexpressibly shocked at the
changed appearance of her husband's secretary, Edward Seville. At
first she scarcely knew him, he had altered so greatly. Always
inclined to stoop, his shoulders were now bent as by the added
weight of twenty years--his hair, once only grizzled, was now quite
grey--his face was deeply sunken and pale, and his eyes by contrast
looked large and wild, as though some haunting thought were driving
him to madness. He shrank so nervously from her gaze, that she began
to fancy he must have taken some dislike to her,--and though she
delicately refrained from pressing questions upon him personally,
she spoke to her husband about him, with real solicitude. "Is Mr.
Neville working too hard?" she asked one day. "He looks very ill."
Her remark seemed to embarrass Philip,--he colored and seemed
confused.
"Does he? Oh, I suppose he sleeps badly. Yes, I remember, he told me
so. You see, the loss of his wife has always preyed on his mind--he
never loses hope of--of--that is--he is always trying to--you know!-
-to get her back again."
"But do you think he will ever find her?" asked Thelma. "I thought
you said it was a hopeless case?"
"Well--I think so, certainly--but, you see, it's no good dashing his
hopes--one never knows--she might turn up any day--it's a sort of
chance!"
"I wish I could help him to search for her," she said
compassionately. "His eyes do look so full of sorrow," she paused
and added musingly, "almost like Sigurd's eyes sometimes."
"Oh, he's not losing his wits," said Philip hastily, "he's quite
patient, and--and all that sort of thing. Don't bother about him,
Thelma, he's all right!"
And he fumbled hastily with some papers, and began to talk of
something else. His embarrassed manner caused her to wonder a little
at the time as to the reason of it,--but she had many other things
to think about, and she soon forgot a conversation that might have
proved a small guiding-link in the chain of events that were soon
about to follow quickly one upon another, shaking her life to its
very foundation. Lady Winsleigh found it almost impossible to get
her on the subject of the burlesque actress, Violet Vere, and Sir
Philip's supposed admiration for that notorious stage-siren.
"I do not believe it," she said firmly, "and you--you must not
believe it either, Clara. For wherever you heard it, it is wrong. We
should dishonor Philip by such a thought--you are his friend, and I
am his wife--we are not the ones to believe anything against him,
even if it could be proved--and there are no proofs."
"My dear," responded her ladyship easily. "You can get proofs for
yourself if you like. For instance, ask Sir Philip how often he has
seen Miss Vere lately,--and hear what he says."
Thelma colored deeply. "I would not question my husband on such a
subject," she said proudly.
"Oh well! if you are so fastidious!" And Lady Winsleigh shrugged her
shoulders.
"I am not fastidious," returned Thelma, "only I do wish to be worthy
of his love,--and I should not be so if I doubted him. No, Clara, I
will trust him to the end."
Clara Winsleigh drew nearer to her, and took her hand.
"Even if he were unfaithful to you?" she asked in a low, impressive
tone.
"Unfaithful!" Thelma uttered the word with a little cry. "Clara,
dear Clara, you must not say such a word! Unfaithful! That means
that my husband would love some one more than me!--ah! that is
impossible!"
"Suppose it were possible?" persisted Lady Winsleigh, with a cruel
light in her dark eyes. "Such things have been!"
Thelma stood motionless, a deeply mournful expression on her fair,
pale face. She seemed to think for a moment, then she spoke.
"I would never believe it!" she said solemnly. "Never, unless I
heard it from his own lips, or saw it in his own writing, that he
was weary of me, and wanted me no more."
"And then?"
"Then"--she drew a quick breath--"I should know what to do. But,
Clara, you must understand me well, even if this were so, I should
never blame him--no--not once!"
"Not blame him?" cried Lady Winsleigh impatiently. "Not blame him
for infidelity?"
A deep blush swept over her face at the hated word "infidelity," but
she answered steadily--
"No. Because, you see, it would be my fault, not his. When you hold
a flower in your hand for a long time, till all its fragrance has
gone, and you drop it because it no longer smells sweetly--you are
not to blame--it is natural you should wish to have something fresh
and fragrant,--it is the flower's fault because it could not keep
its scent long enough to please you. Now, if Philip were to love me
no longer, I should be like that flower, and how would HE be to
blame? He would be good as ever, but I--I should have ceased to seem
pleasant to him--that is all!"
She put this strange view of the case quite calmly, as if it were
the only solution to the question. Lady Winsleigh heard her, half in
contemptuous amusement, half in dismay. "What can I do with such a
woman as this," she thought. "And fancy Lennie imagining for a
moment that HE could have any power over her!" Aloud, she said--
"Thelma, you're the oddest creature going--a regular heathen child
from Norway! You've set up your husband as an idol, and you're
always on your knees before him. It's awfully sweet of you, but it's
quite absurd, all the same. Angelic wives always get the worst of
it, and so you'll see! Haven't you heard that?"
"Yes, I have heard it," she answered, smiling a little. "But only
since I came to London. In Norway, it is taught to women that to be
patient and obedient is best for every one. It is not so here. But I
am not an angelic wife, Clara, and so the 'worst of it' will not
apply to me. Indeed, I do not know of any 'worst' that I would not
bear for Philip's sake."
Lady Winsleigh studied the lovely face, eloquent with love and
truth, for some moments in silence;--a kind of compunction pricked
her conscience. Why destroy all that beautiful faith? Why wound that
grandly trusting nature? The feeling was but momentary.
"Philip DOES run after the Vere," she said to herself--"it's true,
there's no mistake about it, and she ought to know of it. But she
won't believe without proofs--what proofs can I get, I wonder?" And
her scheming brain set to work to solve this problem.
In justice to her, it must be admitted, she had a good deal of
seeming truth on her side. Sir Philip's name HAD somehow got
connected with that of the leading actress at the Brilliant, and
more people than Lady Winsleigh began to make jocose whispering
comments on his stage "amour"--comments behind his back, which he
was totally unaware of. Nobody knew quite how the rumor had first
been started. Sir Francis Lennox seemed to know a good deal about
it, and he was an "intimate" of the "Vere" magic circle of
attraction. And though they talked, no one ventured to say anything
to Sir Philip himself;--the only two among his friends who would
have spoken out honestly were Beau Lovelace and Lorimer, and these
were absent.
One evening, contrary to his usual custom, Sir Philip went out after
the late dinner. Before leaving, he kissed his wife tenderly, and
told her on no account to sit up for him--he and Neville were going
to attend to a little matter of business which might detain them
longer than they could calculate. After they had gone, Thelma
resigned herself to a lonely evening, and, stirring the fire in the
drawing-room to a cheerful blaze, she sat down beside it. First, she
amused herself by reading over some letters recently received from
her father,--and then, yielding to a sudden fancy, she drew her
spinning-wheel from the corner where it always stood, and set it in
motion. She had little time for spinning now, but she never quite
gave it up, and as the low, familiar whirring sound hummed
pleasantly on her ears, she smiled, thinking how quaint and almost
incongruous her simple implement of industry looked among all the
luxurious furniture, and costly nick-nacks by which she was
surrounded.
"I ought to have one of my old gowns on," she half murmured,
glancing down at the pale-blue silk robe she wore, "I am too fine to
spin!"
And she almost laughed as the wheel flew round swiftly under her
graceful manipulations. Listening to its whirr, whirr, whirr, she
scarcely heard a sudden knock at the street-door, and was quite
startled when the servant, Morris, announced--"Sir Francis Lennox!"
Surprised, she rose from her seat at the spinning-wheel with a
slight air of hauteur. Sir Francis, who had never in his life seen a
lady of title and fashion in London engaged in the primitive
occupation of spinning, was entirely delighted with the picture
before him,--the tall, lovely woman with her gold hair and
shimmering blue draperies, standing with such stateliness beside the
simple wooden wheel, the antique emblem of household industry.
Instinctively he thought of Marguerite;--but Marguerite as a crowned
queen, superior to all temptations of either man or fiend.
"Sir Philip is out," she said, as she suffered him to take her hand.
"So I was aware!" returned Lennox easily. "I saw him a little while
ago at the door of the Brilliant Theatre."
She turned very pale,--then controlling the rapid beating of her
heart by a strong effort, she forced a careless smile, and said
bravely--
"Did you? I am very glad--for he will have some amusement there,
perhaps, and that will do him good. He has been working so hard!"
She paused. He said nothing, and she went on more cheerfully still--
"Is it not a very dismal, wet evening! Yes!--and you must be cold.
Will you have some tea?"
"Tha-anks!" drawled Sir Francis, staring at her admiringly. "If it's
not too much trouble--"
"Oh no!" said Thelma. "Why should it be?" And she rang the bell and
gave the order. Sir Francis sank lazily back in an easy chair, and
stroked his moustache slowly. He knew that his random hit about the
theatre had struck home,--but she allowed the arrow to pierce and
possibly wound her heart without showing any outward sign of
discomposure. "A plucky woman!" he considered, and wondered how he
should make his next move. She, meanwhile, smiled at him frankly,
and gave a light twirl to her spinning-wheel.
"You see!" she said, "I was amusing myself this evening by imagining
that I was once more at home in Norway."
"Pray don't let me interrupt the amusement," he responded, with a
sleepy look of satisfaction shooting from beneath his eyelids. "Go
on spinning, Lady Errington! . . . I've never seen any one spin
before."
At that moment Morris appeared with the tea, and handed it to Sir
Francis,--Thelma took none, and as the servant retired, she quietly
resumed her occupation. There was a short silence, only broken by
the hum of the wheel. Sir Francis sipped his tea with a meditative
air, and studied the fair woman before him as critically as he would
have studied a picture.
"I hope I'm not in your way?" he asked suddenly. She looked up
surprised.
"Oh no--only I am sorry Philip is not here to talk to you. It would
be so much pleasanter."
"Would it?" he murmured rather dubiously and smiling. "Well--I shall
be quite contented if you will talk to me, Lady Errington!"
"Ah, but I am not at all clever in conversation," responded Thelma
quite seriously. "I am sure you, as well as many others, must have
noticed that. I never do seem to say exactly the right thing to
please everybody. Is it not very unfortunate?"
He laughed a little. "I have yet to learn in what way you do not
please everybody," he said, dropping his voice to a low, caressing
cadence. "Who, that sees you, does not admire--and--and love you?"
She met his languorous gaze without embarrassment,--while the
childlike openness of her regard confused and slightly shamed him.
"Admire me? Oh yes!" she said somewhat plaintively. "It is that of
which I am so weary! Because God has made one pleasant in form and
face,--to be stared at and whispered about, and have all one's
dresses copied!--all that is so small and common and mean, and does
vex me so much!"
"It is the penalty you pay for being beautiful," said Sir Francis
slowly, wondering within himself at the extraordinary incongruity of
a feminine creature who was actually tired of admiration.
She made no reply--the wheel went round faster than before.
Presently Lennox set aside his emptied cup, and drawing his chair a
little closer to hers, asked--
"When does Errington return?"
"I cannot tell you," she answered. "He said that he might be late.
Mr. Neville is with him."
There was another silence. "Lady Errington," said Sir Francis
abruptly--"pray excuse me--I speak as a friend, and in your
interests,--how long is this to last?"
The wheel stopped. She raised her eyes,--they were grave and steady.
"I do not understand you," she returned quietly. "What is it that
you mean?"
He hesitated--then went on, with lowered eyelids and a half-smile.
"I mean--what all our set's talking about--Errington's queer fancy
for that actress at the Brilliant."
Thelma still gazed at him fixedly. "It is a mistake," she said
resolutely, "altogether a mistake. And as you are his friend, Sir
Francis, you will please contradict this report--which is wrong, and
may do Philip harm. It has no truth in it at all--"
"No truth!" exclaimed Lennox. "It's true as Gospel! Lady Errington,
I'm sorry for it--but your husband is deceiving you most
shamefully!"
"How dare you say such a thing!" she cried, springing upright and
facing him,--then she stopped and grew very pale--but she kept her
eyes upon him. How bright they were! What a chilling pride glittered
in their sea-blue depths!
"You are in error," she said coldly. "If it is wrong to visit this
theatre you speak of, why are you so often seen there--and why is
not some harm said of YOU? It is not your place to speak against my
husband. It is shameful and treacherous! You do forget yourself most
wickedly!"
And she moved to leave the room. But Sir Francis interposed.
"Lady Errington," he said very gently, "don't be hard upon me--pray
forgive me! Of course I've no business to speak--but how can I help
it? When I hear every one at the clubs discussing you, and pitying
you, it's impossible to listen quite unmoved! I'm the least among
your friends, I know,--but I can't bear this sort of thing to go
on,--the whole affair will be dished up in the society papers next!"
And he paced the room half impatiently,--a very well-feigned
expression of friendly concern and sympathy on his features. Thelma
stood motionless, a little bewildered--her head throbbed achingly,
and there was a sick sensation of numbness creeping about her.
"I tell you it is all wrong!" she repeated with an effort. "I do not
understand why these people at the clubs should talk of me, or pity
me. I do not need any pity! My husband is all goodness and truth,"--
she stopped and gathered courage as she went on." Yes! he is better,
braver, nobler than all other men in the world, it seems to me! He
gives me all the joy of my life--each day and night I thank God for
the blessing of his love!"
She paused again. Sir Francis turned and looked at her steadily. A
sudden thought seemed to strike her, for she advanced eagerly, a
sweet color flushing the pallor of her skin.
"You can do so much for me if you will!" she said, laying her hand
on his arm. "You can tell all these people who talk so foolishly
that they are wrong,--tell them how happy I am! And that my Philip
has never deceived me in any matter, great or small!"
"Never?" he asked with a slight sneer. "You are sure?"
"Sure!" she answered bravely. "He would keep nothing from me that it
was necessary or good for me to know. And I--oh! I might pass all my
life in striving to please him, and yet I should never, never be
worthy of all his tenderness and goodness! And that he goes many
times to a theatre without me-what is it? A mere nothing--a trifle
to laugh at! It is not needful to tell me of such a small
circumstance!"
As she spoke she smiled--her form seemed to dilate with a sort of
inner confidence and rapture.
Sir Francis stared at her half shamed,--half savage. The beautiful,
appealing face, bright with simple trust, roused him to no sort of
manly respect or forbearance,--the very touch of the blossom-white
hand she had laid so innocently on his arm, stung his passion as
with a lash--as he had said, he was fond of hunting--he had chased
the unconscious deer all through the summer, and now that it had
turned to bay with such pitiful mildness and sweet pleading, why not
draw the knife across its slim throat without mercy?
"Really, Lady Errington!" he said at last sarcastically, "your
wifely enthusiasm and confidence are indeed charming! But,
unfortunately, the proofs are all against you. Truth is truth,
however much you may wish to blind your eyes to its manifestations.
I sincerely wish Sir Philip were present to hear your eloquent
praises of him, instead of being where he most undoubtedly is,--in
the arms of Violet Vere!"
As he said these words she started away from him and put her hands
to her ears as though to shut out some discordant sound--her eyes
glowed feverishly. A cold shiver shook her from head to foot.
"That is false--false!" she muttered in a low, choked voice. "How
can you--how dare you?"
She ceased, and with a swaying, bewildered movement, as though she
were blind, she fell senseless at his feet.
In one second he was kneeling beside her. He raised her head on his
arm,--he gazed eagerly on her fair, still features. A dark
contraction of his brows showed that his thoughts were not
altogether righteous ones. Suddenly he laid her down again gently,
and, springing to the door, locked it. Returning, he once more
lifted her in a half-reclining position, and encircling her with his
arms, drew her close to his breast and kissed her. He was in no
hurry for her to recover--she looked very beautiful--she was
helpless--she was in his power. The silvery ting-ling of the clock
on the mantel-piece striking eleven startled him a little--he
listened painfully--he thought he heard some one trying the handle
of the door he had locked. Again--again he kissed those pale,
unconscious lips! Presently, a slight shiver ran through her frame--
she sighed, and a little moan escaped her. Gradually, as warmth and
sensation returned to her, she felt the pressure of his embrace, and
murmured--
"Philip! Darling,--you have come back earlier,--I thought--"
Here she opened her eyes and met those of Sir Francis, who was
eagerly bending over her. She uttered an exclamation of alarm, and
strove to rise. He held her still more closely.
"Thelma--dear, dearest Thelma! Let me comfort you,--let me tell you
how much I love you!"
And before she could divine his intent, he pressed his lips
passionately on her pale cheek. With a cry she tore herself
violently from his arms and sprang to her feet, trembling in every
limb,
"What--what is this?" she exclaimed wrathfully. "Are you mad?"
And still weak and confused from her recent attack of faintness, she
pushed back her hair from her brows and regarded him with a sort of
puzzled horror.
He flushed deeply, and set his lips hard.
"I dare say I am," he answered, with a bitter laugh; "in fact, I
know I am! You see, I've betrayed my miserable secret. Will you
forgive me, Lady Errington--Thelma?" He drew nearer to her, and his
eyes darkened with restrained passion. "Matchless beauty!--adorable
woman, as you are!--will you not pardon my crime, if crime it be--
the crime of loving you? For I do love you!--Heaven only knows how
utterly and desperately!"
She stood mute, white, almost rigid, with that strange look of
horror frozen, as it were, upon her features. Emboldened by her
silence, he approached and caught her hand,--she wrenched it from
his grasp and motioned him from her with a gesture of such royal
contempt that he quailed before her. All suddenly the flood-gates of
her speech were loosened,--the rising tide of burning indignation
that in its very force had held her dumb and motionless, now broke
forth unrestrainedly.
"O God!" she cried impetuously, a magnificent glory of disdain
flashing in her jewel-like eyes, "what THING is this that calls
itself a man?--this thief of honor,--this pretended friend? What
have I done, sir, that you should put such deep disgrace as your so-
called LOVE upon me?--what have I SEEMED, that you thus dare to
outrage me by the pollution of your touch? I,--the wife of the
noblest gentleman in the land! Ah!" and she drew a long breath--"and
it is you who speak against my husband--YOU!" She smiled
scornfully,--then with more calmness continued--"You will leave my
house, sir, at once! . . . and never presume to enter it again!"
And she stepped towards the bell. He looked at her with an evil
leer.
"Stop a moment!" he said coolly. "Just one moment before you ring.
Pray consider! The servant cannot possibly enter, as the door is
locked."
"You DARED to lock the door!" she exclaimed, a sudden fear chilling
her heart as she remembered similar manoeuvres on the part of the
Reverend Mr. Dyceworthy--then another thought crossed her mind, and
she began to retreat towards a large painted panel of "Venus"
disporting among cupids and dolphins in the sea. Sir Francis sprang
to her side, and caught her arm in an iron grip--his face was aflame
with baffled spite and vindictiveness.
"Yes, I DARED!" he muttered with triumphant malice. "And I dared do
more than that! You lay unconscious in my arms,--you beautiful,
bewitching Thelma, and I kissed you--ay! fifty times! You can never
undo those kisses! You can never forget that my lips, as well as
your husband's, have rested on yours--I have had that much joy that
shall never be taken away from me! And if I choose, even now,"--and
he gripped her more closely--"yes, even now I will kiss you, in
spite of you!--who is to prevent me? I will force you to love me,
Thelma--"
Driven to bay, she struck him with all her force in the face, across
the eyes.
"Traitor!--liar!--coward!" she gasped breathlessly. "Let me go!"
Smarting with the pain of the blow, he unconsciously loosened his
grasp--she rushed to the "Venus" panel, and to his utter
discomfiture and amazement he saw it open and close behind her. She
disappeared suddenly and noiselessly as if by magic. With a fierce
exclamation, he threw his whole weight against that secret sliding
door--it resisted all his efforts. He searched for the spring by
which it must have opened,--the whole panel was perfectly smooth and
apparently solid, and the painted "Venus" reclining on her dolphin's
back seemed as though she smiled mockingly at his rage and
disappointment.
While he was examining it, he heard the sudden, sharp, and
continuous ringing of an electric bell somewhere in the house, and
with a guilty flush on his face he sprang to the drawing-room door
and unlocked it. He was just in time, for scarcely had he turned the
key, when Morris made his appearance. That venerable servitor looked
round the room in evident surprise.
"Did her ladyship ring?" he inquired, his eyes roving everywhere in
search of his mistress. Sir Francis collected his wits, and forced
himself to seem composed.
"No," he said coolly. "_I_ rang." He adopted this falsehood as a
means of exit. "Call a hansom, will you?"
And he sauntered easily into the hall, and got on his hat and great-
coat. Morris was rather bewildered,--but, obedient to the command,
blew the summoning cab-whistle, which was promptly answered. Sir
Francis tossed him half a crown, and entered the vehicle, which
clattered away with him in the direction of Cromwell Road. Stopping
at a particular house in a side street leading from thence, he bade
the cabman wait,--and, ascending the steps, busied himself for some
moments in scribbling something rapidly in pencil on a leaf of his
note-book by the light of the hanging-lamp in the doorway. He then
gave a loud knock, and inquired of the servant who answered it--
"Is Mr. Snawley-Grubbs in?"
"Yes, sir,"--the reply came rather hesitatingly--"but he's having a
party to-night."
And, in fact, the scraping of violins and the shuffle of dancing
feet were distinctly audible overhead.
"Oh, well, just mention my name--Sir Francis Lennox. Say I will not
detain him more than five minutes."
He entered, and was ushered into a small ante-room while the maid
went to deliver her message. He caught sight of his own reflection
in a round mirror over the mantel-piece, and his face darkened as he
saw a dull red ridge across his forehead--the mark of Thelma's well-
directed blow,--the sign-manual of her scorn. A few minutes passed,
and then there came in to him a large man in an expensive dress-
suit,--a man with a puffy, red, Silenus-like countenance--no other
than Mr. Snawley-Grubbs, who hailed him with effusive cordiality.
"My dear, Sir Francis!" he said in a rich, thick, uncomfortable
voice. "This is an unexpected pleasure! Won't you come upstairs? My
girls are having a little informal dance--just among themselves and
their own young friends--quite simple,--in fact an unpretentious
little affair!" And he rubbed his fat hands, on which twinkled two
or three large diamond rings." But we shall be charmed if you will
join us!"
"Thanks, not this evening," returned Sir Francis. "It's rather too
late. I should not have intruded upon you at this hour--but I
thought you might possibly like this paragraph for the Snake."
And he held out with a careless air the paper on which he had
scribbled but a few minutes previously. Mr. Snawley-Grubbs smiled,--
and fixed a pair of elegant gold-rimmed eye-glasses on his inflamed
crimson nose.
"I must tell you, though," he observed, before reading, "that it is
too late for this week, at any rate. We've gone to press already."
"Never mind!" returned Sir Francis indifferently. "Next week will do
as well."
And he furtively watched Mr. Snawley-Grubbs while he perused the
pencilled scrawl. That gentleman, however, as Editor and Proprietor
of the Snake--a new, but highly successful weekly "society" journal,
was far too dignified and self-important to allow his countenance to
betray his feelings. He merely remarked, as he folded up the little
slip very carefully.
"Very smart! very smart, indeed! Authentic, of course?"
Sir Francis drew himself up haughtily. "You doubt my word?"
"Oh dear, no!" declared Mr. Snawley-Grubbs hastily, venturing to lay
a soothing hand on Sir Francis's shoulder. "Your position, and all
that sort of thing--Naturally you MUST be able to secure correct
information. You can't help it! I assure you the Snake is infinitely
obliged to you for a great many well-written and socially exciting
paragraphs. Only, you see, I myself should never have thought that
so extreme a follower of the exploded old doctrine of noblesse
oblige, as Sir Philip Bruce-Errington, would have started on such a
new line of action at all. But, of course, we are all mortal!" And
he shook his round thick head with leering sagacity. "Well!" he
continued after a pause. "This shall go in without fail next week, I
promise you."
"You can send me a hundred copies of the issue," said Sir Francis,
taking up his hat to go. "I suppose you're not afraid of an action
for libel?"
Mr. Snawley-Grubbs laughed--nay, he roared,--the idea seemed so
exquisitely suited to his sense of humor.
"Afraid? My dear fellow, there's nothing I should like better! It
would establish the Snake, and make my fortune! I would even go to
prison with pleasure. Prison, for a first-class misdemeanant, as I
should most probably be termed, is perfectly endurable." He laughed
again, and escorted Sir Francis to the street-door, where he shook
hands heartily. "You are sure you won't come upstairs and join us?
No? Ah, I see you have a cab waiting. Good-night, good-night!"
And the Snawley-Grubbs door being closed upon him, Sir Francis re-
entered his cab, and was driven straight to his bachelor lodgings in
Piccadilly. He was in a better humor with himself now,--though he
was still angrily conscious of a smart throbbing across the eyes,
where Thelma's ringed hand had struck him. He found a brief note
from Lady Winsleigh awaiting him. It ran as follows:--
"You're playing a losing game this time,--she will believe nothing
without proofs--and even then it will be difficult. You had better
drop the pursuit, I fancy. For once a woman's reputation will escape
you!"
He smiled bitterly as he read these last words.
"Not while a society paper exists!" he said to himself. "As long as
there are editors willing to accept the word of a responsible man of
position, for any report, the chastest Diana that ever lived shall
not escape calumny! She wants proofs, does she? She shall have them-
-by Jove! she shall!"
And instead of going to bed, he went off to a bijou villa in St.
John's Wood,--an elegantly appointed little place, which he rented
and maintained,--and where the popular personage known as Violet
Vere, basked in the very lap of luxury.
Meanwhile, Thelma paced up and down her own boudoir, into which she
had escaped through the sliding panel which had baffled her admirer.
Her whole frame trembled as she thought of the indignity to which
she had been subjected during her brief unconsciousness,--her face
burned with bitter shame,--she felt as if she were somehow
poisonously infected by those hateful kisses of Lennox,--all her
womanly and wifely instincts were outraged. Her first impulse was to
tell her husband everything the instant he returned. It was she who
had rung the bell which had startled Sir Francis, and she was
surprised that her summons was not answered. She rang again, and
Britta appeared.
"I wanted Morris," said Thelma quickly.
"He thought it was the drawing-room bell," responded Britta meekly,
for her "Froken" looked very angry. "I saw him in the hall just now,
letting out Sir Francis Lennox."
"Has he gone?" demanded Thelma eagerly.
Britta's wonder increased. "Yes, Froken!"
Thelma caught her arm. "Tell Morris never, never to let him inside
the house again--NEVER!" and her blue eyes flashed wrathfully. "He
is a wicked man, Britta! You do not know how wicked he is!"
"Oh yes, I do!" and Britta regarded her mistress very steadfastly.
"I know quite well! But, then, I must not speak! If I dared, I could
tell you some strange things, dear Froken--but you will not hear me.
You know you do not wish me to talk about your grand new friends,
Froken, but--" she paused timidly.
"Oh, Britta, dear!" said Thelma affectionately taking her hand. "You
know they are not so much my friends as the friends of Sir Philip,--
and for this reason I must never listen to anything against them. Do
you not see? Of course their ways seem strange to us--but, then,
life in London is so different to life in Norway,--and we cannot all
at once understand--" she broke off, sighing a little. Then she
resumed--"Now you will give Morris my message, Britta--and then come
to me in my bedroom--I am tired, and Philip said I was not to wait
up for him."
Britta departed, and Thelma went rather slowly up-stairs. It was now
nearly midnight, and she felt languid and weary. Her reflections
began to take a new turn. Suppose she told her husband all that had
occurred, he would most certainly go to Sir Francis and punish him
in some way--there might then be a quarrel in which Philip might
suffer--and all sorts of evil consequences would perhaps result from
her want of reticence. If, on the other hand, she said nothing, and
simply refused to receive Lennox, would not her husband think such
conduct on her part strange? She puzzled over these questions till
her head ached--and finally resolved to keep her own counsel for the
present,--after what had happened. Sir Francis would most probably
not intrude himself again into her presence. "I will ask Mrs.
Lorimer what is best to do," she thought. "She is old and wise, and
she will know."
That night, as she laid her head on her pillow, and Britta threw the
warm eidredon over her, she shivered a little and asked--
"Is it not very cold, Britta?"
"Very!" responded her little maid. "And it is beginning to snow."
Thelma looked wistful. "It is all snow and darkness now at the
Altenfjord," she said.
Britta smiled. "Yes, indeed, Froken! We are better off here than
there."
"Perhaps!" replied Thelma a little musingly, and then she settled
herself as though to sleep.
Britta kissed her hand, and retired noiselessly. When she had gone,
Thelma opened her eyes and lay broad awake looking at the flicker of
rosy light flung on the ceiling from the little suspended lamp in
her oratory. All snow and darkness at the Altenfjord! How strange
the picture seemed! She thought of her mother's sepulchre,--how cold
and dreary it must be,--she could see in fancy the long pendent
icicles fringing the entrance to the sea-king's tomb,--the spot
where she and Philip had first met,--she could almost hear the slow,
sullen plash of the black Fjord against the shore. Her maiden life
in Norway--her school days at Arles,--these were now like dreams,--
dreams that had passed away long, long ago. The whole tenor of her
existence had changed,--she was a wife,--she was soon to be a
mother,--and with this near future of new and sacred joy before her,
why did she to-night so persistently look backward to the past?
As she lay quiet, watching the glimmering light upon the wall, it
seemed as though her room were suddenly filled with shadowy forms,--
she saw her mother's sweet, sad, suffering face,--then her father's
sturdy figure and fine, frank features,--then came the flitting
shape of the hapless Sigurd, whose plaintive voice she almost
imagined she could hear,--and feeling that she was growing foolishly
nervous, she closed her eyes, and tried to sleep. In vain,--her mind
began to work on a far more unpleasing train of thought. Why did not
Philip return? Where was he? As though some mocking devil had
answered her, the words, "In the arms of Violet Vere!" as uttered by
Sir Francis Lennox, recurred to her. Overcome by her restlessness,
she started up,--she determined to get out of bed, and put on her
dressing-gown and read,--when her quick ears caught the sound of
steps coming up the stair-case. She recognized her husband's firm
tread, and understood that he was followed by Neville, whose
sleeping-apartment was on the floor above. She listened attentively-
-they were talking together in low tones on the landing outside her
door.
"I think it would be much better to make a clean breast of it," said
Sir Philip. "She will have to know some day."
"Your wife? For God's sake, don't tell her!" Neville's voice
replied. "Such a disgraceful--" Here his words sank to a whisper,
and Thelma could not distinguish them. Another minute, and her
husband entered with soft precaution, fearing to awake her--she
stretched out her arms to welcome him, and he hastened to her with
an exclamation of tenderness and pleasure.
"My darling! Not asleep yet?"
She smiled,--but there was something very piteous in her smile, had
the dim light enabled him to perceive it.
"No, not yet, Philip! And yet I think I have been dreaming of--the
Altenfjord."
"Ah! it must be cold there now," he answered lightly. "It's cold
enough here, in all conscience. To-night there is a bitter east
wind, and snow is falling."
She heard this account of the weather with almost morbid interest.
Her thoughts instantly betook themselves again to Norway, and dwelt
there. To the last,--before her aching eyes closed in the slumber
she so sorely needed,--she seemed to be carried away in fancy to a
weird stretch of gloom-enveloped landscape where she stood entirely
alone, vaguely wondering at the dreary scene. "How strange it
seems!" she murmured almost aloud. "All snow and darkness at the
Altenfjord!"
CHAPTER XXV.
"Le temps ou nous nous sommes aimes n'a guere dure, jeune fille; il
a passe comme un coup de vent!"
Old Breton Ballad.
The next morning dawned, cold and dismal. A dense yellow fog hung
over the metropolis like a pall--the street lamps were lighted, but
their flare scarcely illumined the thoroughfares, and the chill of
the snow-burdened air penetrated into the warmest rooms, and made
itself felt even by the side of the brightest fires. Sir Philip woke
with an uncomfortable sense of headache and depression, and
grumbled,--as surely every Englishman has a right to grumble, at the
uncompromising wretchedness of his country's winter climate. His
humor was not improved when a telegram arrived before breakfast,
summoning him in haste to a dull town in one of the Midland
counties, on pressing business connected with his candidature for
Parliament.
"What a bore!" he exclaimed, showing the missive to his wife. "I
MUST go,--and I shan't be able to get back tonight. You'll be all
alone, Thelma. I wish you'd go to the Winsleighs!"
"Why?" said Thelma quietly. "I shall much prefer to be here. I do
not mind, Philip. I am accustomed to be alone."
Something in her tone struck him as particularly sad, and he looked
at her intently.
"Now, my darling," he said suddenly, "if this Parliamentary bother
is making you feel worried or vexed in any way, I'll throw it all
up--by Jove, I will!" And he drew her into his warm embrace. "After
all" he added, with a laugh, "what does it matter! The country can
get on without me!"
Thelma smiled a little.
"You must not talk so foolishly, Philip," she said tenderly. "It is
wrong to begin a thing of importance, and not go through with it.
And I am not worried or vexed at all. What would people say of me if
I, your wife, were, for my own selfish comfort and pleasure of
having you always with me, to prevent you from taking a good place
among the men of your nation? Indeed, I should deserve much blame!
And so, though it is a gloomy day for you, poor boy,--you must go to
this place where you are wanted, and I shall think of you all the
time you are gone, and shall be so happy to welcome you home to-
morrow!"
And she kissed and clung to him for a moment in silence. All that
day Philip was haunted by the remembrance of the lingering
tenderness of her farewell embrace. By ten o'clock he was gone,
taking Neville with him; and after her household duties were over,
Thelma prepared herself to go and lunch with old Mrs. Lorimer, and
see what she would advise concerning the affair of Sir Francis
Lennox. But, at the same time, she resolved that nothing should make
her speak of the reports that were afloat about her husband and
Violet Vere.
"I know it is all false," she said to herself over and over again.
"And the people here are as silly as the peasants in Bosekop, ready
to believe any untruth so long as it gives them something to talk
about. But they may chatter as they please--I shall not say one
word, not even to Philip--for it would seem as if I mistrusted him."
Thus she put away all the morbid fancies that threatened to oppress
her, and became almost cheerful.
And while she made her simple plans for pleasantly passing the long,
dull day of her husband's enforced absence, her friend, Lady
Winsleigh, was making arrangements of a very different nature. Her
ladyship had received a telegram from Sir Francis Lennox that
morning. The pink missive had apparently put her in an excellent
humor, though, after reading it, she crumpled it up and threw it in
the waste-paper basket, from which receptacle, Louise Renaud, her
astute attendant, half an hour later extracted it, secreting it in
her own pocket for private perusal at leisure. She ordered her
brougham, saying she was going out on business,--and before
departing, she took from her dressing-case certain bank-notes and
crammed them hastily into her purse--a purse which, in all good
faith, she handed to her maid to put in her sealskin muff-bag. Of
course, Louise managed to make herself aware of its contents,--but
when her ladyship at last entered her carriage her unexpected order,
"To the Brilliant Theatre, Strand," was sufficient to startle
Briggs, and cause him to exchange surprise signals with "Mamzelle,"
who merely smiled a prim, incomprehensible smile.
"WHERE did your la'ship say?" asked Briggs dubiously.
"Are you getting deaf, Briggs?" responded his mistress pleasantly.
"To the Brilliant Theatre!" She raised her voice, and spoke with
distinct emphasis. There was no mistaking her. Briggs touched his
hat,--in the same instant he winked at Lousie, and then the carriage
rolled away.
At night, the Brilliant Theatre is a pretty little place,--
comfortable, cosy, bright, and deserving of its name;--in broad day,
it is none of these things. A squalid dreariness seems to have
settled upon it--it has a peculiar atmosphere of its own--an
atmosphere dark, heavy, and strangely flavored with odors of
escaping gas and crushed orange-peel. Behind the scenes, these odors
mingle with a chronic, all-pervading smell of beer--beer, which the
stranger's sensitive nose detects directly, in spite of the choking
clouds of dust which arise from the boards at the smallest movement
of any part of the painted scenery. The Brilliant had gone through
much ill-fortune--its proprietors never realized any financial
profit till they secured Violet Vere. With her came prosperity. Her
utter absence of all reserve--the frankness with which she threw
modesty to the winds,--the vigor with which she danced a regular
"break-down,"--roaring a comic song of the lowest type, by way of
accompaniment,--the energetic manner in which, metaphorically
speaking, she kicked at the public with her shapely legs,--all this
overflow of genius on her part drew crowds to the Brilliant nightly,
and the grateful and happy managers paid her a handsome salary,
humored all her caprices, and stinted and snubbed for her sake, all
the rest of the company. She was immensely popular--the "golden
youth" of London raved about her dyed hair, painted eyes, and
carmined lips--even her voice, as coarse as that of a dustman, was
applauded to the echo, and her dancing excited the wildest
enthusiasm. Dukes sent her presents of diamond ornaments--gifts of
value which they would have possibly refused to their own wives and
daughters,--Royal Highnesses thought it no shame to be seen lounging
near her stage dressing-room door,--in short, she was in the zenith
of her career, and, being thoroughly unprincipled, audaciously
insolent, and wholly without a conscience,--she enjoyed herself
immensely.
At the very time when Lady Winsleigh's carriage was nearing the
Strand, the grand morning rehearsal of a new burlesque was "on" at
the Brilliant--and Violet's harsh tones, raised to a sort of rough
masculine roar, were heard all over the theatre, as she issued
commands or made complaints according to her changeful humors. She
sat in an elevated position above the stage on a jutting beam of
wood painted to resemble the gnarled branch of a tree,--swinging her
legs to and fro and clinking the heels of her shoes together in time
to the mild scraping of a violin, the player whereof was "trying
over" the first few bars of the new "jig" in which she was ere long
to distinguish herself. She was a handsome woman, with a fine, fair
skin, and large, full, dark eyes--she had a wide mouth, which,
nearly always on the grin, displayed to the full her strong white
teeth,--her figure was inclined to excessive embonpoint, but this
rather endeared her to her admirers than otherwise,--many of these
gentlemen being prone to describe her fleshly charms by the epithet
"Prime!" as though she were a fatting pig or other animal getting
ready for killing.
"Tommy! Tommy!" she screeched presently. "Are you going to sleep? Do
you expect me to dance to a dirge, you lazy devil!"
Tommy, the player of the violin, paused in his efforts, and looked
up drearily. He was an old man, with a lean, long body and pinched
features--his lips had a curious way, too, of trembling when he
spoke, as if he were ready to cry.
"I can't help it," he said slowly. "I don't know it yet. I must
practice it a bit at home. My sight's not so good as it used to be--"
"Such a pair of optics, love, you've never, never seen--
One my mother blacked last night, the tother it is green!"
sang Violet, to the infinite delight of all the unwashed-looking
supernumeraries and ballet-girls, who were scattered about the
stage, talking and laughing.
"Shut up, Tommy!" she continued. "You're always talking about your
eyesight. I warn you, if you say too much about it you'll lose your
place. We don't want blind fiddlers in the Brilliant. Put down you
catgut screamer, and fetch me a pint. Ask for the Vere's own tipple-
-they'll twig!"
Tommy obeyed, and shuffled off on his errand. As he departed,--a
little man with a very red face, wearing a stove-pipe hat very much
on one side, bounced on the stage as if some one had thrown him
there like a ball.
"Now, ladies, ladies!" he shouted warningly. "Attention! Once again,
please! The last figure once again!" The straggling groups scrambled
hastily into something like order, and the little man continued--
"One, two, three! Advance--retreat--left, right! Very well, indeed!
Arms up a little more, Miss Jenkins--so! toes well pointed--curtsy--
retire! One, two, three! swift slide to the left wing--forward!
Round--take hands--all smile, please!" This general smile was
apparently not quite satisfactory, for he repeated persuasively--
"All smile, please! So! Round again--more quickly--now break the
circle in a centre--enter Miss Vere--"he paused, growing still
redder in the face, and demanded, "Where is Miss Vere?"
He was standing just beneath the painted bough of the sham tree, and
in one second his hat was dexterously kicked off, and two heels met
with a click round his neck.
"Here I am, pickaninny!" retorted Miss Vere holding him fast in this
novel embrace, amid the laughter of the supers. "You're getting as
blind as Tommy! Steady, steady now, donkey!--steady--woa!" And in a
thrice she stood upright, one foot planted firmly on each of his
shoulders.
"No weight, am I, darling?" she went on jeeringly, and with an
inimitably derisive air she put up an eye-glass and surveyed the top
of his head. "You want a wig, my dear--you do, indeed! Come with me
to-morrow, and I'll buy you one to suit your complexion. Your wife
won't know you!"
And with a vigorous jump she sprang down from her position, managing
to give him a smart hit on the nose as she did so--and leaping to
the centre of the stage, she posed herself to commence her dance--
when Tommy came creeping back in his slow and dismal fashion,
bearing something in a pewter pot.
"That's the ticket!" she cried as she perceived him. "I'm as dry as
a whole desert! Give it here!" And she snatched the mug from the
feeble hand of her messenger and began drinking eagerly.
The little red-faced man interposed. "Now, Miss Vi," he said, "is
that brandy?"
"Rather so!" returned the Vere, with a knowing wink, "and a good
many things besides. It's a mixture. The 'Vere's Own!' Ha, ha! Might
be the name of a regiment!"
And she buried her mouth and nose again in the tankard.
"Look here," said the little man again. "Why not wait till after the
dance? It's bad for you before."
"Oh, is it, indeed!" screamed Violet, raising her face, which became
suddenly and violently flushed. "O good Lord! Are you a temperance
preacher? Teach your granny! Bad for me? Say another word, and I'll
box your ears for you! You braying jackass!--you snivelling idiot!
Who makes the Brilliant draw? You or I? Tell me that, you staring
old--"
Here Tommy, who had for some minutes been vainly endeavoring to
attract her attention, raised his weak voice to a feeble shout.
"I say, Miss Vere! I've been trying to tell you, but you won't
listen! There's a lady waiting to see you!"
"A what?" she asked.
"A lady!" continued Tommy, in loud tones. "A lady of title! Wants to
see you in private! Won't detain you long!"
Violet Vere raised her pewter mug once more, and drained off its
contents.
"Lord, ain't I honored!" she said, smacking her lips with a grin. "A
lady of title to see me! Let her wait! Now then!" and snapping her
fingers, she began her dance, and went through it to the end, with
her usual vigor and frankness. When she had finished, she turned to
the red-faced man who had watched her evolutions with much delight
in spite of the abuse she had heaped upon him, and said with an
affected, smirking drawl--
"Show the lady of title into my dressing-room! I shall be ready for
her in ten minutes. Be sure to mention that I am very shy,--and
unaccustomed to company!"
And, giggling gently like an awkward school-girl, she held down her
head with feigned bashfulness, and stepped mincingly across the
stage with such a ludicrous air of prim propriety, that all her
associates burst out laughing, and applauded her vociferously. She
turned and curtsied to them demurely--then suddenly raising one leg
in a horizontal position, she twirled it rapidly in their faces,--
then she gave a little shocked cough behind her hand, grinned, and
vanished.
When, in the stipulated ten minutes, she was ready to receive her
unknown visitor, she was quite transformed. She had arrayed herself
in a trailing gown of rich black velvet, fastened at the side with
jet clasps--a cluster of natural, innocent, white violets nestled in
the fall of Spanish lace at her throat--her face was pale with
pearl-powder,--and she had eaten a couple of scented bon-bons to
drown the smell of her recent brandy-tipple. She reclined gracefully
in an easy chair, pretending to read, and she rose with an admirably
acted air of startled surprise, as one of the errand boys belonging
to the Brilliant tapped at her door, and in answer to her "Come in!"
announced, "Lady Winsleigh!"
A faint, sweet, questioning smile played on the Vere's wide mouth.
"I am not aware that I have the honor of--" she began, modulating
her voice to the requirements of fashionable society, and wondering
within herself "what the d--l" this woman in the silk and sable-fur
costume wanted.
Lady Winsleigh in the meantime stared at her with cold, critical
eyes.
"She is positively rather handsome," she thought. "I can quite
imagine a certain class of men losing their heads about her." Aloud
she said--
"I must apologize for this intrusion, Miss Vere! I dare say you have
never heard my name--I am not fortunate enough to be famous,--as YOU
are." This with a killing satire in her smile. "May I sit down?
Thanks! I have called upon you in the hope that you may perhaps be
able to give me a little information in a private matter--a matter
concerning the happiness of a very dear friend of mine." She paused-
-Violet Vere sat silent. After a minute or two, her ladyship
continued in a somewhat embarrassed manner--
"I believe you know a gentleman with whom I am also acquainted--Sir
Philip Bruce-Errington."
Miss Vere raised her eyes with charming languor and a slow smile.
"Oh yes!"
"He visits you, doesn't he?"
"Frequently!".
"I'm afraid you'll think me rude and inquisitive," continued Lady
Winsleigh, with a coaxing air, "but--but may I ask--"
"Anything in the world," interrupted Violet coolly. "Ask away! But
I'm not bound to answer."
Lady Winsleigh reddened with indignation. "What an insulting
creature!" she thought. But, after all, she had put herself in her
present position, and she could not very well complain if she met
with a rebuff. She made another effort.
"Sir Francis Lennox told me--" she began.
The Vere interrupted her with a cheerful laugh.
"Oh, you come from him, do you? Now, why didn't you tell me that at
first? It's all right! You're a great friend of Lennie's, aren't
you?"
Lady Winsleigh sat erect and haughty, a deadly chill of disgust and
fear at her heart. This creature called her quondam lover, "Lennie"-
-even as she herself had done,--and she, the proud, vain woman of
society and fashion shuddered at the idea that there should be even
this similarity between herself and the "thing" called Violet Vere.
She replied stiffly--
"I have known him a long time."
"He's a nice fellow," went on Miss Yere easily--"a LEETLE stingy
sometimes, but never mind that! You want to know about Sir Philip
Errington, and I'll tell you. He's chosen to mix himself up with
some affairs of mine--"
"What affairs?" asked Lady Winsleigh rather eagerly.
"They don't concern you," returned Miss Vere calmly, "and we needn't
talk about them! But they concern Sir Philip,--or he thinks they do,
and insists on seeing me about them, and holding long conversations,
which bore me excessively!"
She yawned slightly, smothering her yawn in a dainty lace
handkerchief, and then went on--
"He's a moral young man, don't you know--and I never could endure
moral men! I can't get on with them at all!"
"Then you don't like him?" questioned Lady Winsleigh in rather a
disappointed tone.
"No, I don't!" said the Vere candidly. "He's not my sort. But, Lord
bless you! I know how he's getting talked about because he comes
here--and serve him right too! He shouldn't meddle with my
business." She paused suddenly and drew a letter from her pocket,--
laughed and tossed it across the table.
"You can read that, if you like," she said indifferently. "He wrote
it, and sent it round to me last night."
Lady Winsleigh's eyes glistened eagerly,--she recognized Errington's
bold, clear hand at once,--and as she read, an expression of triumph
played on her features. She looked up presently and said--
"Have you any further use for this letter, Miss Vere? Or--will you
allow me to keep it?"
The Vere seemed slightly suspicious of this proposal, but looked
amused too.
"Why, what do you want it for?" she inquired bluntly. "To tease him
about me?"
Lady Winsleigh forced a smile. "Well--perhaps!" she admitted, then
with an air of gentleness and simplicity she continued, "I think,
Miss Vere, with you, that it is very wrong of Sir Philip,--very
absurd of him, in fact--to interfere with your affairs, whatever
they may be,--and as it is very likely annoying to you--"
"It IS," interrupted Violet decidedly.
"Then, with the help of this letter--which, really--really--excuse
me for saying it!--quite compromises him," and her ladyship looked
amiably concerned about it, "I might perhaps persuade him not to--
to--intrude upon you--you understand? But if you object to part with
the letter, never mind! If I did not fear to offend you, I should
ask you to exchange it for--for something more--well! let us say,
something more substantial--"
"Don't beat about the bush!" said Violet, with a sudden oblivion of
her company manners. "You mean money?"
Lady Winsleigh smiled. "As you put it so frankly, Miss Vere--" she
began.
"Of course! I'm always frank," returned the Vere, with a loud laugh.
"Besides, what's the good of pretending? Money's the only thing
worth having--it pays your butcher, baker, and dressmaker--and how
are you to get along if you CAN'T pay them, I'd like to know! Lord!
if all the letters I've got from fools were paying stock instead of
waste-paper, I'd shut up shop, and leave the Brilliant to look out
for itself!"
Lady Winsleigh felt she had gained her object, and she could now
afford to be gracious.
"That would be a great loss to the world," she remarked sweetly. "An
immense loss! London could scarcely get on without Violet Vere!"
Here she opened her purse and took out some bank-notes, which she
folded and slipped inside an envelope. "Then I may have the letter?"
she continued.
"You may and welcome!" returned Violet.
Lady Winsleigh instantly held out the envelope, which she as
instantly clutched. "Especially if you'll tell Sir Philip Errington
to mind his own business!" She paused, and a dark flush mounted to
her brow--one of those sudden flushes that purpled rather than
crimsoned her face. "Yes," she repeated, "as he's a friend of yours,
just tell him I said he was to mind his own business! Lord! what
does he want to come here and preach at me for! I don't want his
sermons! Moral!" here she laughed rather hoarsely, "I'm as moral as
any one on the stage! Who says I'm not! Take 'em all round--there's
not a soul behind the footlights more open and above-board than I
am!"
And her eyes flashed defiantly.
"She's been drinking?" thought Lady Winsleigh disgustedly. In fact,
the "Vere's Own" tipple had begun to take its usual effect, which
was to make the Vere herself both blatant and boisterous.
"I'm sure," said her ladyship with frigid politeness, "that you are
everything that is quite charming, Miss Vere! I have a great respect
for the--the ornaments of the English stage. Society has quite
thrown down its former barriers, you know!--the members of your
profession are received in the very best circles--"
"I ain't!" said Violet, with ungrammatical candor. "Your Irvings and
your Terrys, your Mary Andersons and your Langtrys,--they're good
enough for your fine drawing-rooms, and get more invitations out
than they can accept. And none of them have got half my talent, I
tell you! Lord bless my soul! if they're respectable enough for
you,--so am I!"
And she struck her hand emphatically on the table, Lady Winsleigh
looked at her with a slight smile.
"I must really say good-bye!" she said, rising and gathering her
furs about her. "I could talk with you all the morning, Miss Vere,
but I have so many engagements! Besides I mustn't detain YOU! I'm so
much obliged to you for your kind reception of me!"
"Don't mention, it!" and Violet glanced her over with a kind of
sullen sarcasm. "I'm bound to please Lennie when I can, you know!"
Again Lady Winsleigh shivered a little, but forced herself to shake
hands with the notorious stage-Jezebel.
"I shall come and see you in the new piece," she said graciously. "I
always take a box on first nights? And your dancing is so exquisite!
The very poetry of motion! So pleased to have met you! Good-bye!"
And with a few more vague compliments and remarks about the weather,
Lady Winsleigh took her departure. Left alone, the actress threw
herself back in her chair and laughed.
"That woman's up to some mischief," she exclaimed sotto voce, "and
so is Lennie! I wonder what's their little game? _I_ don't care, as
long as they'll keep the high-and-mighty Errington in his place. I'm
tired of him! Why does he meddle with MY affairs?" Her brows knitted
into a frown. "As if he or anybody else could persuade me to go back
to--," she paused, and bit her lips angrily. Then she opened the
envelope Lady Winsleigh had left with her, and pulled out the bank-
notes inside. "Let me see--five, ten, fifteen, twenty! Not bad pay,
on the whole! It'll just cover the bill for my plush mantle. Hullo!
Who's there?"
Some one knocked at her door.
"Come in!" she cried.
The feeble Tommy presented himself. His weak mouth trembled more
than ever, and he was apparently conscious of this, for he passed
his hand nervously across it two or three times.
"Well, what's up?" inquired the "star" of the Brilliant, fingering
her bank-notes as she spoke.
"Miss Vere," stammered Tommy, "I venture to ask you a favor,--could
you kindly, very kindly lend me ten shillings till to-morrow night?
I am so pressed just now--and my wife is ill in bed--and--"he
stopped, and his eyes sought her face hopefully, yet timidly.
"You shouldn't have a wife, Tommy!" averred Violet with blunt
frankness. "Wives are expensive articles. Besides, I never lend. I
never give--except to public charities where one's name gets
mentioned in the papers. I'm obliged to do that, you know, by way of
advertisement. Ten shillings! Why, I can't afford ten pence! My
bills would frighten you, Tommy! There go along, and don't cry, for
goodness sake! Let your fiddle cry for you!"
"Oh, Miss Vere," once more pleaded Tommy, "if you knew how my wife
suffers--"
The actress rose and stamped her foot impatiently.
"Bother your wife!" she cried angrily, "and you too! Look out! or I
tell the manager we've got a beggar at the Brilliant. Don't stare at
me like that! Go to the d--l with you!"
Tommy slunk off abashed and trembling, and the Vere began to sing,
or rather croak, a low comic song, while she threw over her
shoulders a rich mantle glittering with embroidered trimmings, and
poised a coquettish Paris model hat on her thick untwisted coils of
hair. Thus attired, she passed out of her dressing-room, locking the
door behind her, and after a brief conversation with the jocose
acting manager, whom she met on her way out, she left the theatre,
and took a cab to the Criterion, where the young Duke of Moorlands,
her latest conquest, had invited her to a sumptuous luncheon with
himself and friends, all men of fashion, who were running through
what money they had as fast as they could go.
Lady Winsleigh, on her way home, was tormented by sundry
uncomfortable thoughts and sharp pricks of conscience. Her interview
with Violet Vere had instinctively convinced her that Sir Philip was
innocent of the intrigue imputed to him, and yet,--the letter she
had now in her possession seemed to prove him guilty. And though she
felt herself to be playing a vile part, she could not resist the
temptation of trying what the effect would be of this compromising
document on Thelma's trusting mind. It was undoubtedly a very
incriminating epistle--any lawyer would have said as much, while
blandly pocketing his fee for saying it. It was written off in
evident haste, and ran as follows:--
"Let me see you once more on the subject you know of. Why will you
not accept the honorable position offered to you? There shall be no
stint of money--all the promises I have made I am quite ready to
fulfill--you shall lose nothing by being gentle. Surely you cannot
continue to seem so destitute of all womanly feeling and pity? I
will not believe that you would so deliberately condemn to death a
man who has loved, and who loves you still so faithfully, and who,
without you, is utterly weary of life and broken-hearted! Think once
more--and let my words carry more weight with you!"
"BRUCE-ERRINGTON."
This was all, but more than enough!
"I wonder what he means," thought Lady Winsleigh. "It looks as if he
were in love with the Vere and she refused to reciprocate. It MUST
be that. And yet that doesn't accord with what the creature herself
said about his 'preaching at her.' He wouldn't do that if he were in
love."
She studied every word of the letter again and again, and finally
folded it up carefully and placed it in her pocket-book.
"Innocent or guilty, Thelma must see it," she decided. "I wonder how
she'll take it! If she wants a proof--it's one she'll scarcely deny.
Some women would fret themselves to death over it--but I shouldn't
wonder if she sat down under it quite calmly without a word of
complaint." She frowned a little. "Why must SHE always be superior
to others of her sex! How I detest that still solemn smile of hers
and those big baby-blue eyes! I think if Philip had married any
other woman than she--a woman more like the rest of us who'd have
gone with her time,--I could have forgiven him more easily. But to
pick up a Norwegian peasant and set her up as a sort of moral
finger-post to society--and then to go and compromise himself with
Violet Vere--that's a kind of thing I CAN'T stand! I'd rather be
anything in the world than a humbug!"
Many people desire to be something they are not, and her ladyship
quite unconsciously echoed this rather general sentiment. She was,
without knowing it, such an adept in society humbug, that she even
humbugged herself. She betrayed herself as she betrayed others, and
told little soothing lies to her own conscience as she told them to
her friends. There are plenty of women like her,--women of pleasant
courtesy and fashion, to whom truth is mere coarseness,--and with
whom polite lying passes for perfect breeding. She was not aware, as
she was driven along Park Lane to her own residence, that she
carried with her on the box of her brougham a private detective in
the person of Briggs. Perched stiffly on his seat, with arms tightly
folded, this respectable retainer was quite absorbed in meditation,
so much so that he exchanged not a word with his friend, the
coachman, beside him. He had his own notions of propriety,--he
considered that his mistress had no business whatever to call on an
actress of Violet Vere's repute,--and he resolved that whether he
were reproved for over-officiousness or not, nothing should prevent
him from casually mentioning to Lord Winsleigh the object of her
ladyship's drive that morning.
"For," mused Briggs gravely, "a lady 'as responsibilities, and
'owever she forgets 'erself, appearances 'as to be kep' up."
With the afternoon, the fog which had hung over the city all day,
deepened and darkened. Thelma had lunched with Mrs. Lorimer, and had
enjoyed much pleasant chat with that kindly, cheerful old lady. She
had confided to her, part of the story of Sir Francis Lennox's
conduct, carefully avoiding every mention of the circumstance which
had given rise to it,--namely, the discussion about Violet Vere. She
merely explained that she had suddenly fainted, in which condition
Sir Francis had taken advantage of her helplessness to insult her.
Mrs. Lorimer was highly indignant. "Tell your husband all about it,
my dear!" she advised. "He's big enough, and strong enough, to give
that little snob a good trouncing! My patience! I wish George were
in London--he'd lend a hand and welcome!"
And the old lady nodded her head violently over the sock she was
knitting,--the making of socks for her beloved son was her principal
occupation and amusement.
"But I hear," said Thelma, "that it is against the law to strike any
one, no matter how you have been insulted. If so,--then Philip would
be punished for attacking Sir Francis, and that would not be fair."
"You didn't think of that, child, when you struck Lennox yourself,"
returned Mrs. Lorimer, laughing. "And I guarantee you gave him a
good hard blow,--and serve him right! Never mind what comes of it,
my dearie--just tell your husband as soon as ever he comes home, and
let him take the matter into his own hands. He's a fine man--he'll
know how to defend the pretty wife he loves so well!" And she
smiled, while her shining knitting-needles clicked faster than ever.
Thelma's face saddened a little. "I think I am not worthy of his
love," she said sorrowfully.
Mrs. Lorimer looked at her with some inquisitiveness.
"What makes you say that, my dear?"
"Because I feel it so much," she replied. "Dear Mrs. Lorimer, you
cannot, perhaps, understand--but when he married me, it seemed as if
the old story of the king and the beggar-maid were being repeated
over again. I sought nothing but his love--his love was, and is my
life! These riches--these jewels and beautiful things he surrounds
me with--I do not care for them at all, except for the reason that
he wishes me to have them. I scarcely understand their value, for I
have been poor all my life, and yet I have wanted nothing. I do not
think wealth is needful to make one happy. But love--ah! I could not
live without it--and now--now--" She paused, and her eyes filled
with sudden tears.
"Now what?" asked Mrs. Lorimer gently.
"Now," continued the girl in a low voice, "my heart is always
afraid! Yes! I am afraid of losing my husband's love. Ah, do not
laugh at me, dear Mrs. Lorimer! You know people who are much
together sometimes get tired,--tired of seeing the same face
always,--the same form--"
"Are YOU tired, dearie?" asked the old lady meaningly.
"I? Tired of Philip? I am only happy when he is with me!" And her
eyes deepened with passionate tenderness. "I would wish to live and
die beside him, and I should not care if I never saw another human
face than his!"
"Well, and don't you think he has the same feelings for you?"
"Men are different, I think," returned Thelma musingly. "Now, love
is everything to me--but it may not be everything to Philip. I do
believe that love is only part of a man's life, while it is ALL a
woman's. Clara told me once that most husbands wearied of their
wives, though they would not always confess it--"
"Clara Winsleigh's modern social doctrines are false, my dear!"
interrupted Mrs. Lorimer quickly. "She isn't satisfied with her own
marriage, and she thinks everybody must be as discontented as
herself. Now, my husband and I lived always together for five and
twenty years,--and we were lovers to the last day, when my darling
died with his hand in mine--and--and--if it hadn't been for my boy,-
-I should have died too!"
And two bright tears fell glittering on the old lady's knitting.
Thelma took her hand and kissed it fondly. "I can understand that,"
she said softly; "but still,--still I do believe it is difficult to
keep love when you have won it! It is, perhaps, easy to win--but I
am sure it is hard to keep!"
Mrs. Lorimer looked at her earnestly.
"My dear child, don't let that frivolous Winsleigh woman put
nonsense into your pretty head. You are too sensible to take such a
morbid view of things,--and you mustn't allow your wholesome fresh
nature to be contaminated by the petulant, wrong-headed notions that
cloud the brains of idle, fashionable, useless women. Believe me,
good men don't tire of their wives--and Sir Philip is a good man.
Good wives never weary their husbands--and you are a good wife--and
you will be a good, sweet mother. Think of that new delight so soon
coming for you,--and leave all the modern, crazy, one-sided notions
of human life to the French and Russian novelists. Tut-tut!"
continued the old lady tenderly. "A nice little ladyship you are,--
worrying yourself about nothing! Send Philip to me when he comes
home--I'll scold him for leaving his bird to mope in her London
cage!"
"I do not mope," declared Thelma. "And you must not scold him,
please! Poor boy! he is working so very hard, and has so much to
attend to. He wants to distinguish himself for--for my sake!"
"That looks very much as if he were tired of you!" laughed Mrs.
Lorimer. "Though I dare say you'd like him to stay at home and make
love to you all day! Silly girl! You want the world to be a sort of
Arcadia, with you as Phyllis, and Sir Philip as Corydon! My dear,
we're living in the nineteenth century, and the days of fond
shepherds and languishing shepherdesses are past!"
Thelma laughed too, and felt soon ashamed of her depression. The
figure of Violet Vere now and then danced before her like a mocking
will-o'-the-wisp--but her pride forbade her to mention this,--the
actual source of all her vague troubles.
She left Mrs. Lorimer's house, which was near Holland Park, about
four o'clock, and as she was passing Church Street, Kensington, she
bade her coachman drive up to the Carmelite Church there, familiarly
known as the "Carms." She entered the sacred edifice, where the
service of Benediction was in progress; and, kneeling down, she
listened to the exquisite strains of the solemn music that pealed
through those dim and shadowy aisles, and a sense of the most
perfect peace settled soothingly on her soul. Clasping her gentle
hands, she prayed with innocent and heart-felt earnestness--not for
herself,--never for herself,--but always, always for that dear, most
dear one, for whom every beat of her true heart was a fresh vow of
undying and devoted affection.
"Dear God!" she whispered, "if I love him too much, forgive me! Thou
who art all Love, wilt pardon me this excess of love! Bless my
darling always, and teach me how to be more worthy of Thy goodness
and his tenderness!"
And when she left the church, she was happier and more light-hearted
than she had been for many a long day. She drove home, heedless of
the fog and cold, dismal aspect of the weather, and resolved to go
and visit Lady Winsleigh in the evening, so that when Philip came
back on the morrow, she might be able to tell him that she had
amused herself, and had not been lonely.
But when she arrived at her own door, Morris, who opened it,
informed her that Lady Winsleigh was waiting in the drawing-room to
see her, and had been waiting some time. Thelma hastened thither
immediately, and held out her hands joyously to her friend.
"I am so sorry you have had to wait, Clara!" she began. "Why did you
not send word and say you were coming? Philip is away and will not
be back to-night, and I have been lunching with Mrs. Lorimer, and--
why, what makes you look so grave?"
Lady Winsleigh regarded her fixedly. How radiantly lovely the young
wife looked!--her cheeks had never been more delicately rosy, or her
eyes more brilliant. The dark fur cloak she wore with its rich sable
trimmings, and the little black velvet toque that rested on her fair
curls, set off the beauty of her clear skin to perfection, and her
rival, who stood gazing at her with such close scrutiny, envied her
more than ever as she was once again reluctantly forced to admit to
herself the matchless loveliness of the innocent creature whose
happiness she now sought to destroy.
"Do I look grave, Thelma?" she said with a slight smile. "Well,
perhaps I've a reason for my gravity. And so your husband is away?"
"Yes. He went quite early this morning,--a telegram summoned him and
he was obliged to go." Here she drew up a chair to the fire, and
began to loosen her wraps. "Sit down, Clara! I will ring for tea."
"No, don't ring," said Lady Winsleigh. "Not yet! I want to talk to
you privately." She sank languidly on a velvet lounge and looked
Thelma straight in the eyes.
"Dear Thelma," she continued in a sweetly tremulous, compassionate
voice. "Can you bear to hear something very painful and shocking,
something that I'm afraid will grieve you very much?"
The color fled from the girl's fair face--her eyes grew startled.
"What do you mean, Clara? Is it anything about--about Philip?"
Lady Winsleigh bent her head in assent, but remained silent.
"If," continued Thelma, with a little return of the rosy hue to her
cheeks. "If it is something else about that--that person at the
theatre, Clara, I would rather not hear it! I think I have been
wrong in listening to any such stories--it is so seldom that gossip
of any kind is true. It is not a wife's duty to receive scandals
about her husband. And suppose he does see Miss Vere, how do I know
that it may not be on business for some friend of his?--because I do
know that on that night when he went behind the scenes at the
Brilliant, he said it was on business. Mr. Lovelace used often to go
and see Miss Mary Anderson, all to persuade her to take a play
written by a friend of his--and Philip, who is always kind-hearted,
may perhaps be doing something of the same sort. I feel I have been
wicked to have even a small doubt of my husband's love,--so, Clara,
do not let us talk any more on a subject which only displeases me."
"You must choose your own way of life, of course," said Lady
Winsleigh coldly. "But you draw rather foolish comparisons, Thelma.
There is a wide difference between Mary Anderson and Violet Vere.
Besides, Mr. Lovelace is a bachelor,--he can do as he likes and go
where he likes without exciting comment. However, whether you are
angry with me or not, I feel I should not be your true friend if I
did not show you--THIS. You know your husband's writing!"
And she drew out the fatal letter, and continued, watching her
victim as she spoke, "This was sent by Sir Philip to Violet Vere
last night,--she gave it to me herself this morning."
Thelma's hand trembled as she took the paper.
"Why should I read it?" she faltered mechanically.
Lady Winsleigh raised her eyebrows and frowned impatiently.
"Why--why? Because it is your duty to do so! Have you no pride? Will
you allow your husband to write such a letter as that to another
woman,--and SUCH a woman too! without one word of remonstrance? You
owe it to yourself--to your own sense of honor--to resent and resist
such treatment on his part! Surely the deepest love cannot pardon
deliberate injury and insult."
"My love can pardon anything," answered the girl in a low voice, and
then slowly, very slowly, she opened the folded sheet--slowly she
read every word it contained,--words that stamped themselves one by
one on her bewildered brain and sent it reeling into darkness and
vacancy. She felt sick and cold--she stared fixedly at her husband's
familiar handwriting. "A man who has loved and who loves you still,
and who without you is utterly weary and broken-hearted!"
Thus he wrote of himself to--to Violet Vere! It seemed incredible--
yet it was true! She heard a rushing sound in her ears--the room
swung round dizzily before her eyes--yet she sat, still, calm and
cold, holding the letter and speaking no word.
Lady Winsleigh watched her, irritated at her passionless demeanor.
"Well!" she exclaimed at last. "Have you nothing to say?"
Thelma looked up, her eyes burning with an intense feverish light.
"Nothing!" she replied.
"NOTHING?" repeated her ladyship with emphatic astonishment.
"Nothing against Philip," continued the girl steadily. "For the
blame is not his, but mine! That he is weary and broken-hearted must
be my fault--though I cannot yet understand what I have done. But it
must be something, because if I were all that he wished he would not
have grown so tired." She paused and her pale lips quivered. "I am
sorry," she went on with dreamy pathos, "sorrier for him than for
myself, because now I see I am in the way of his happiness." A
quiver of agony passed over her face,--she fixed her large bright
eyes on Lady Winsleigh, who instinctively shrank from the solemn
speechless despair of that penetrating gaze.
"Who gave you this letter, Clara?" she asked calmly.
"I told you before,--Miss Vere herself."
"Why did she give it to you?" continued Thelma in a dull, sad voice.
Lady Winsleigh hesitated and stammered a little. "Well, because--
because I asked her if the stories about Sir Philip were true. And
she begged me to ask him not to visit her so often." Then, with an
additional thought of malice, she said softly. "She doesn't wish to
wrong you, Thelma,--of course, she's not a very good woman, but I
think she feels sorry for you!"
The girl uttered a smothered cry of anguish, as though she had been
stabbed to the heart. She!--to be actually PITIED by Violet Vere,
because she had been unable to keep her husband's love! This idea
tortured her very soul,--but she was silent.
"I thought you were my friend, Clara?" she said suddenly, with a
strange wistfulness.
"So I am, Thelma," murmured Lady Winsleigh, a guilty flush coloring
her cheeks.
"You have made me very miserable," went on Thelma gravely, and with
pathetic simplicity, "and I am sorry indeed that we ever met. I was
so happy till I knew you!--and yet I was very fond of you! I am sure
you mean everything for the best, but I cannot think it is so. And
it is all so dark and desolate now--why have you taken such pains to
make me sad? Why have you so often tried to make me doubt my
husband's love?--why have you come to-day so quickly to tell me I
have lost it? But for you, I might never have known this sorrow,--I
might have died soon, in happy ignorance, believing in my darling's
truth as I believe in God!"
Her voice broke, and a hard sob choked her utterance. For once Lady
Winsleigh's conscience smote her--for once she felt ashamed, and
dared not offer consolation to the innocent soul she had so wantonly
stricken. For a minute or two there was silence--broken only by the
monotonous ticking of the clock and the crackling of the fire.
Presently Thelma spoke again. "I will ask you to go away now and
leave me, Clara," she said simply. "When the heart is sorrowful, it
is best to be alone. Good-bye!" And she gently held out her hand.
"Poor Thelma!" said Lady Winsleigh, taking it with an affectation of
tenderness. "What will you do?"
Thelma did not answer; she sat mute and rigid.
"You are thinking unkindly of me just now," continued Clara softly;
"but I felt it was my duty to tell you the worst at once. It's no
good living in a delusion! I'm very, very sorry for you, Thelma!"
Thelma remained perfectly silent. Lady Winsleigh moved towards the
door, and as she opened it looked back at her. The girl might have
been a lifeless figure for any movement that could be perceived
about her. Her face was white as marble--her eyes were fixed on the
sparkling fire--her very hands looked stiff and pallid as wax, as
they lay clasped in her lap--the letter--the cruel letter,--had
fallen at her feet. She seemed as one in a trance of misery--and so
Lady Winsleigh left her.
CHAPTER XXVI.
"O my lord, O Love,
I have laid my life at thy feet;
Have thy will thereof
For what shall please thee is sweet!"
SWINBURNE.
She roused herself at last. Unclasping her hands, she pushed back
her hair from her brows and sighed heavily. Shivering as with
intense cold, she rose from the chair she had so long occupied, and
stood upright, mechanically gathering around her the long fur mantle
that she had not as yet taken off. Catching sight of the letter
where it lay, a gleaming speck of white on the rich dark hues of the
carpet, she picked it up and read it through again calmly and
comprehensively,--then folded it up carefully as though it were
something of inestimable value. Her thoughts were a little
confused,--she could only realize clearly two distinct things,--
first, that Philip was unhappy,--secondly, that she was in the way
of his happiness. She did not pause to consider how this change in
him had been effected,--moreover, she never imagined that the letter
he had written could refer to any one but himself. Hers was a nature
that accepted facts as they appeared--she never sought for ulterior
motives or disguised meanings. True, she could not understand her
husband's admiration for Violet Vere, "But then"--she thought--"many
other men admire her too. And so it is certain there must be
something about her that wins love,--something I cannot see!"
And presently she put aside all other considerations, and only
pondered on one thing,--how should she remove herself from the path
of her husband's pleasure? For she had no doubt but that she was an
obstacle to his enjoyment. He had made promises to Violet Vere which
he was "ready to fulfill,"--he offered her "an honorable position,"-
-he desired her "not to condemn him to death,"--he besought her to
let his words "carry more weight with her."
"It is because I am here," thought Thelma wearily. "She would listen
to him if I were gone!" She had the strangest notions of wifely
duty--odd minglings of the stern Norse customs with the gentler
teachings of Christianity,--yet in both cases the lines of woman's
life were clearly defined in one word--obedience. Most women,
receiving an apparent proof of a husband's infidelity, would have
made what is termed a "scene,"--would have confronted him with rage
and tears, and personal abuse,--but Thelma was too gentle for this,-
-too gentle to resist what seemed to be Philip's wish and will, and
far too proud to stay where it appeared evident she was not wanted.
Moreover she could not bear the idea of speaking to him on, such a
subject as his connection with Violet Vere,--the hot color flushed
her cheeks with a sort of shame as she thought of it.
Of course, she was weak--of course, she was foolish,--we will grant
that she was anything the reader chooses to call her. It is much
better for a woman nowadays to be defiant rather than yielding,--
aggressive, not submissive,--violent, not meek. We all know that! To
abuse a husband well all round, is the modern method of managing
him! But poor, foolish, loving, sensitive Thelma had nothing of the
magnificent strength of mind possessed by most wives of to-day,--she
could only realize that Philip--her Philip--was "utterly weary and
broken-hearted"--for the sake of another woman--and that other woman
actually pitied HER! She pitied herself too, a little vaguely--her
brows ached and throbbed violently--there was a choking sensation in
her throat, but she could not weep. Tears would have relieved her
tired brain, but no tears fell. She strove to decide on some
immediate plan of action,--Philip would be home to-morrow,--she
recoiled at the thought of meeting him, knowing what she knew.
Glancing dreamily at her own figure, reflected by the lamplight in
the long mirror opposite, she recognized that she was fully attired
in outdoor costume--all save her hat, which she had taken off after
her first greeting of Lady Winsleigh, and which was still on the
table at her side. She looked at the clock,--it was five minutes to
seven. Eight o'clock was her dinner-hour, and thinking of this, she
suddenly rang the bell. Morris immediately answered it.
"I shall not dine at home," she said in her usual gentle voice; "I
am going to see some friend this evening. I may not be back till--
till late."
"Very well, my lady," and Morris retired without seeing anything
remarkable in his mistress's announcement. Thelma drew a long breath
of relief as he disappeared, and, steadying her nerves by a strong
effort, passed into her own boudoir,--the little sanctum specially
endeared to her by Philip's frequent presence there. How cosy and
comfortable a home-nest it looked!--a small fire glowed warmly in
the grate, and Britta, whose duty it was to keep this particular
room in order, had lit the lamp,--a rosy globe supported by a
laughing cupid,--and had drawn the velvet curtains close at the
window to keep out the fog and chilly air--there were fragrant
flowers on the table,--Thelma's own favorite lounge was drawn up to
the fender in readiness for her,--opposite to it stood the deep,
old-fashioned easy chair in which Philip always sat. She looked
round upon all these familiar things with a dreary sense of
strangeness and desolation, and the curves of her sweet mouth
trembled a little and drooped piteously. But her resolve was taken,
and she did not hesitate or weep. She sat down to her desk and wrote
a few brief lines to her father--this letter she addressed and
stamped ready for posting.
Then for a while she remained apparently lost in painful musings,
playing with the pen she held, and uncertain what to do. Presently
she drew a sheet of note-paper toward her, and began, "My darling
boy." As these words appeared under her hand on the white page, her
forced calm nearly gave way,--a low cry of intense agony escaped
from her lips, and, dropping the pen, she rose and paced the room
restlessly, one hand pressed against her heart as though that action
could still its rapid beatings. Once more she essayed the hard task
she had set herself to fulfill--the task of bidding farewell to the
husband in whom her life was centred. Piteous, passionate words came
quickly from her over-charged and almost breaking heart--words,
tender, touching,--full of love, and absolutely free from all
reproach. Little did she guess as she wrote that parting letter,
what desperate misery it would cause to the receiver!--
When she had finished it, she felt quieted--even more composed than
before. She folded and sealed it--then put it out of sight and rang
for Britta. That little maiden soon appeared, and seemed surprised
to see her mistress still in walking costume.
"Have you only just come in, Froken?" she ventured to inquire.
"No, I came home some time ago," returned Thelma gently. "But I was
talking to Lady Winsleigh in the drawing-room,--and as I am going
out again this evening I shall not require to change my dress. I
want you to post this letter for me, Britta."
And she held out the one addressed to her father, Olaf Guldmar.
Britta took it, but her mind still revolved the question of her
mistress's attire.
"If you are going to spend the evening with friends," she suggested,
"would it not be better to change?"
"I have on a velvet gown," said Thelma, with a rather wearied
patience. "It is quite dressy enough for where I am going." She
paused abruptly, and Britta looked at her inquiringly.
"Are you tired, Froken Thelma?" she asked. "You are so pale!"
"I have a slight headache," Thelma answered. "It is nothing,--it
will soon pass. I wish you to post that letter at once, Britta."
"Very well, Froken." Britta still hesitated. "Will you be out all
the evening?" was her next query.
"Yes."
"Then perhaps you will not mind if I go and see Louise, and take
supper with her? She has asked me, and Mr. Briggs"--here Britta
laughed--"is coming to see if I can go. He will escort me, he says!"
And she laughed again.
Thelma forced herself to smile. "You can go, by all means, Britta!
But I thought you did not like Lady Winsleigh's French maid?"
"I don't like her much," Britta admitted--"still, she means to be
kind and agreeable, I think. And"--here she eyed Thelma with a
mysterious and important air--"I want to ask her a question about
something very particular."
"Then, go and stay as long as you like, dear," said Thelma, a sudden
impulse of affection causing her to caress softly her little maid's
ruffled brown curls, "I shall not be back till--till quite late. And
when you return from the post, I shall be gone--so--good-bye!"
"Good-bye!" exclaimed Britta wonderingly. "Why, where are you going?
One would think you were starting on a long journey. You speak so
strangely, Froken!"
"Do I?" and Thelma smiled kindly. "It is because my head aches, I
suppose. But it is not strange to say good-bye, Britta!"
Britta caught her hand. "Where are you going?" she persisted.
"To see some friends," responded Thelma quietly. "Now do not ask any
more questions, Britta, but go and post my letter. I want father to
get it as soon as possible, and you will lose the post if you are
not very quick."
Thus reminded, Britta hastened off, determining to run all the way,
in order to get back before her mistress left the house. Thelma,
however, was too quick for her. As soon as Britta had gone, she took
the letter she had written to Philip, and slipped it within the
pages of a small volume of poems he had lately been reading. It was
a new book entitled "Gladys the Singer," and its leading metif was
the old, never-exhausted subject of a woman's too faithful love,
betrayal, and despair. As she opened it, her eyes fell by chance on
a few lines of hopeless yet musical melancholy, which, like a sad
song heard suddenly, made her throat swell with rising yet
restrained tears. They ran thus:--
"Oh! I can drown, or, like a broken lyre,
Be thrown to earth, or cast upon a fire,--
I can be made to feel the pangs of death,
And yet be constant to the quest of breath,--
Our poor pale trick of living through the lies
We name Existence when that 'something' dies
Which we call Honor. Many and many a way
Can I be struck or fretted night or day
In some new fashion,--or condemn'd the while
To take for food the semblance of a smile,--
The left-off rapture of a slain caress,--"
Ah!--she caught her breath sobbingly, "The left-off rapture of a
slain caress!" Yes,--that would be her portion now if--if she stayed
to receive it. But she would not stay! She turned over the volume
abstractedly, scarcely conscious of the action,--and suddenly, as if
the poet-writer of it had been present to probe her soul and make
her inmost thoughts public, she read:--
"Because I am unlov'd of thee to-day,
And undesired as sea-weeds in the sea!"
Yes!--that was the "because" of everything that swayed her sorrowful
spirit,--"because" she was "unlov'd and undesired."
She hesitated no longer, but shut the book with her farewell letter
inside it, and put it back in its former place on the little table
beside Philip's arm-chair. Then she considered how she should
distinguish it by some mark that should attract her husband's
attention toward it,--and loosening from her neck a thin gold chain
on which was suspended a small diamond cross with the names "Philip"
and "Thelma" engraved at the back, she twisted it round the little
book, and left it so that the sparkle of the jewels should be seen
distinctly on the cover. Now was there anything more to be done? She
divested herself of all her valuable ornaments, keeping only her
wedding-ring and its companion circlet of brilliants,--she emptied
her purse of all money save that which was absolutely necessary for
her journey--then she put on her hat, and began to fasten her long
cloak slowly, for her fingers were icy cold and trembled very
strangely. Stay,--there was her husband's portrait,--she might take
that, she thought, with a sort of touching timidity. It was a
miniature on ivory--and had been painted expressly for her,--she
placed it inside her dress, against her bosom.
"He has been too good to me," she murmured; "and I have been too
happy,--happier than I deserved to be. Excess of happiness must
always end in sorrow."
She looked dreamily at Philip's empty chair--in fancy she could see
his familiar figure seated there, and she sighed as she thought of
the face she loved so well,--the passion of his eyes,--the
tenderness of his smile. Softly she kissed the place where his head
had rested,--then turned resolutely away.
She was giving up everything, she thought, to another woman,--but
then--that other woman, however incredible it seemed, was the one
Philip loved best,--his own written words were a proof of this.
There was no choice therefore,--his pleasure was her first
consideration,--everything must yield to that, so she imagined,--her
own life was nothing, in her estimation, compared to his desire.
Such devotion as hers was of course absurd--it amounted to weak
self-immolation, and would certainly be accounted as supremely
foolish by most women who have husbands, and who, when they swear to
"obey," mean to break the vow at every convenient opportunity--but
Thelma could not alter her strange nature, and, with her, obedience
meant the extreme letter of the law of utter submission. Leaving the
room she had so lately called her own, she passed into the entrance-
hall. Morris was not there, and she did not summon him,--she opened
the street-door for herself, and shutting it quietly behind her, she
stood alone in the cold street, where the fog had now grown so dense
that the lamp-posts were scarcely visible. She walked on for a few
paces rather bewildered and chilled by the piercing bitterness of
the air,--then, rallying her forces, she hailed a passing cab, and
told the man to take her to Charing Cross Station. She was not
familiar with London--and Charing Cross was the only great railway
terminus she could just then think of.
Arrived there, the glare of the electric light, the jostling
passengers rushing to and from the trains, the shouts and wrangling
of porters and cabmen, confused her not a little,--and the bold
looks of admiration bestowed on her freely by the male loungers
sauntering near the doors of the restaurant and hotel, made her
shrink and tremble for shame. She had never travelled entirely alone
before--and she began to be frightened at the pandemonium of sights
and noises that surged around her. Yet she never once thought of
returning,--she never dreamed of going to any of her London friends,
lest on hearing of her trouble they might reproach Philip--and this
Thelma would not have endured. For the same reason, she had said
nothing to Britta.
In her then condition, it seemed to her that only one course lay
open for her to follow,--and that was to go quietly home,--home to
the Altenfjord. No one would be to blame for her departure but
herself, she thought,--and Philip would be free. Thus she reasoned,-
-if, indeed, she reasoned at all. But there was such a frozen
stillness in her soul--her senses were so numbed with pain, that as
yet she scarcely realized either what had happened or what she
herself was doing. She was as one walking in sleep--the awakening,
bitter as death, was still to come.
Presently a great rush of people began to stream towards her from
one of the platforms, and trucks of luggage, heralded by shouts of,
"Out of the way, there!" and "By'r leave!" came trundling rapidly
along--the tidal train from the Continent had just arrived.
Dismayed at the increasing confusion and uproar, Thelma addressed
herself to an official with a gold band round his hat.
"Can you tell me," she asked timidly, "where I shall take a ticket
for Hull?"
The man glanced at the fair, anxious face, and smiled good-
humoredly.
"You've come to the wrong station, miss," he said. "You want the
Midland line."
"The Midland?" Thelma felt more bewildered than ever.
"Yes,--the MIDLAND," he repeated rather testily. "It's a good way
from here--you'd better take a cab."
She moved away,--but started and drew herself back into a shadowed
corner, coloring deeply as the sound of a rich, mellifluous voice,
which she instantly recognized, smote suddenly on her ears.
"And as I before remarked, my good fellow," the voice was saying, "I
am not a disciple of the semi-obscure. If a man has a thought which
is worth declaring, let him. declare it with a free and noble
utterance--don't let him wrap it up in multifarious parcels of
dreary verbosity! There's too much of that kind of thing going on
nowadays--in England, at least. There's a kind of imitation of art
which isn't art at all,--a morbid, bilious, bad imitation. You only
get close to the real goddess in Italy. I wish I could persuade you
to come and pass the winter with me there?"
It was Beau Lovelace who spoke, and he was talking to George
Lorimer. The two had met in Paris,--Lovelace was on his way to
London, where a matter of business summoned him for a few days, and
Lorimer, somewhat tired of the French capital, decided to return
with him. And here they were,--just arrived at Charing Cross,--and
they walked across the station arm in arm, little imagining who
watched them from behind the shelter of one of the waiting-room
doors, with a yearning sorrow in her grave blue eyes. They stopped
almost opposite to her to light their cigars,--she saw Lorimer's
face quite distinctly, and heard his answer to Lovelace.
"Well, I'll see what I can do about it, Beau! You know my mother
always likes to get away from London in winter--but whether we ought
to inflict ourselves upon you,--you being a literary man too--"
"Nonsense, you won't interfere in the least with the flow of inky
inspiration," laughed Beau. "And as for your mother, I'm in love
with her, as you are aware! I admire her almost as much as I do Lady
Bruce-Errington--and that's saying a great deal! By-the-by, if Phil
can get through his share of this country's business, he might do
worse than bring his beautiful Thelma to the Lake of Como for a
while. I'll ask him!"
And having lit their Havannas successfully, they walked on and soon
disappeared. For one instant Thelma felt strongly inclined to run
after them, like a little forlorn child that had lost its way,--and,
unburdening herself of all her miseries to the sympathetic George,
entreat, with tears, to be taken back to that husband who did not
want her any more. But she soon overcame this emotion,--and calling
to mind the instructions of the official personage whose advice she
had sought, she hurried out of the huge, brilliantly lit station,
and taking a hansom, was driven, as she requested, to the Midland.
Here the rather gloomy aspect of the place oppressed her as much as
the garish bustle of Charing Cross had bewildered her,--but she was
somewhat relieved when she learned that a train for Hull would start
in ten minutes. Hurrying to the ticket-office she found there before
her a kindly faced woman with a baby in her arms, who was just
taking a third-class ticket to Hull, and as she felt lonely and
timid, Thelma at once decided to travel third-class also, and if
possible in the same compartment with this cheerful matron, who, as
soon as she had secured her ticket, walked away to the train,
hushing her infant in her arms as she went. Thelma followed her at a
little distance--and as soon as she saw her enter a third-class
carriage, she hastened her steps and entered also, quite thankful to
have secured some companionship for the long cold journey. The woman
glanced at her a little curiously--it was strange to see so lovely
and young a creature travelling all alone at night,--and she asked
kindly--
"Be you goin' fur, miss?"
Thelma smiled--it was pleasant to be spoken to, she thought.
"Yes," she answered. "All the way to Hull."
"Tis a cold night for a journey," continued her companion.
"Yes, indeed," answered Thelma. "It must be cold for your little
baby."
And unconsciously her voice softened and her eyes grew sad as she
looked across at the sleeping infant.
"Oh, he's as warm as toast!" laughed the mother cheerily. "He gets
the best of everything, he do. It's yourself that's looking cold, my
dear in spite of your warm cloak. Will ye have this shawl?"
And she offered Thelma a homely gray woollen wrap with much kindly
earnestness of manner.
"I am quite warm, thank you," said Thelma gently, accepting the
shawl, however, to please her fellow-traveller. "It is a headache I
have which makes me look pale. And, I am very, very tired!"
Her voice trembled a little,--she sighed and closed her eyes. She
felt strangely weak and giddy,--she seemed to be slipping away from
herself and from all the comprehension of life,--she wondered
vaguely who and what she was. Had her marriage with Philip been all
a dream?--perhaps she had never left the Altenfjord after all!
Perhaps she would wake up presently and see the old farm-house quite
unchanged, with the doves flying about the roof, and Sigurd
wandering under the pines as was his custom. Ah, dear Sigurd! Poor
Sigurd! he had loved her, she thought--nay, he loved her still,--he
could not be dead! Oh, yes,--she must have been dreaming,--she felt
certain she was lying on her own little white bed at home, asleep;--
she would by-and-by open her eyes and get up and look through her
little latticed window, and see the sun sparkling on the water, and
the Eulalie at the anchor in the Fjord--and her father would ask Sir
Philip and his friends to spend the afternoon at the farm-house--and
Philip would come and stroll with her through the garden and down to
the shore, and would talk to her in that low, caressing voice of
his,--and though she loved him dearly, she must never, never let him
know of it, because she was not worthy!. . . She woke from these
musings with a violent start and a sick shiver running through all
her frame,--and looking wildly about her, saw that she was reclining
on some one's shoulder,--some one was dabbing a wet handkerchief on
her forehead--her hat was off and her cloak was loosened.
"There, my dear, you're better now!" said a kindly voice in her ear.
"Lor! I thought you was dead--that I did! 'Twas a bad faint indeed.
And with the train jolting along like this too! It was lucky I had a
flask of cold water with me. Raise your head a little--that's it!
Poor thing,--you're as white as a sheet! You're not fit to travel,
my dear--you're not indeed."
Thelma raised herself slowly, and with a sudden impulse kissed the
good woman's honest, rosy face, to her intense astonishment and
pleasure.
"You are very kind to me!" she said tremulously. "I am so sorry to
have troubled you. I do feel ill--but it will soon pass."
And she smoothed her ruffled hair, and sitting up erect, endeavored
to smile. Her companion eyed her pale face compassionately, and
taking up her sleeping baby from the shawl on which she had laid it
while ministering to Thelma's needs, began to rock it slowly to and
fro. Thelma, meanwhile, became sensible of the rapid movement of the
train.
"We have left London?" she asked with an air of surprise.
"Nearly half an hour ago, my dear." Then, after a pause, during
which she had watched Thelma very closely, she said--
"I think you're married, aren't you, dearie?"
"Yes." Thelma answered, a slight tinge of color warming her fair
pale cheeks.
"Your husband, maybe, will meet you at Hull?"
"No,--he is in London," said Thelma simply. "I am going to see my
father."
This answer satisfied her humble friend, who, noticing her extreme
fatigue and the effort it cost her to speak, forbore to ask any more
questions, but good-naturedly recommended her to try and sleep. She
slept soundly herself for the greater part of the journey; but
Thelma was now feverishly wide awake, and her eyeballs ached and
burned as though there were fire behind them.
Gradually her nerves began to be wound up to an extreme tension of
excitement--she forgot all her troubles in listening with painful
intentness to the rush and roar of the train through the darkness.
The lights of passing stations and signal-posts gleamed like
scattered and flying stars--there was the frequent shriek of the
engine-whistle,--the serpent-hiss of escaping steam. She peered
through the window--all was blackness; there seemed to be no earth,
no sky,--only a sable chaos, through which the train flew like a
flame-mouthed demon. Always that rush and roar! She began to feel as
if she could stand it no longer. She must escape from that
continuous, confusing sound--it maddened her brain. Nothing was
easier; she would open the carriage-door and get out! Surely she
could manage to jump off the step, even though the train was in
motion!
Danger! She smiled at that idea,--there was no danger; and, if there
was, it did not much matter. Nothing mattered now,--now that she had
lost her husband's love. She glanced at the woman opposite, who
slept profoundly--the baby had slipped a little from its mother's
arms, and lay with its tiny face turned towards Thelma. It was a
pretty creature, with soft cheeks and a sweet little mouth,--she
looked at it with a vague, wild smile. Again, again that rush and
roar surged like a storm in her ears and distracted her mind! She
rose suddenly and seized the handle of the carriage door. Another
instant, and she would have sprang to certain death,--when suddenly
the sleeping baby woke, and, opening its mild blue eyes, gazed at
her.
She met its glance as one fascinated,--almost unconsciously her
fingers dropped from the door-handle,--the little baby still looked
at her in dreamlike, meditative fashion,--its mother slept
profoundly. She bent lower and lower over the child. With a beating
heart she ventured to touch the small, pink hand that lay outside
its wrappings like a softly curved rose-leaf. With a sort of elf-
like confidence and contentment the feeble, wee fingers closed and
curled round hers,--and held her fast! Weak as a silken thread, yet
stronger in its persuasive force than a grasp of iron, that soft,
light pressure controlled and restrained her,. . . very gradually
the mists of her mind cleared,--the rattling, thunderous dash of the
train grew less dreadful, less monotonous, less painful to her sense
of hearing,--her bosom heaved convulsively, and all suddenly her
eyes filled with tears--merciful tears, which at first welled up
slowly, and were hot as fire, but which soon began to fall faster
and faster in large, bright drops down her pale cheeks. Seeing that
its mother still slept, she took the baby gently into her own fair
arms,--and rocked it to and fro with many a sobbing murmur of
tenderness;--the little thing smiled drowsily and soon fell asleep
again, all unconscious that its timely look and innocent touch had
saved poor Thelma's life and reason.
She, meanwhile, wept on softly, till her tired brain and heart were
somewhat relieved of their heavy burden,--the entanglement of her
thoughts became unravelled,--and, though keenly aware of the blank
desolation of her life, she was able to raise herself in spirit to
the Giver of all Love and Consolation, and to pray humbly for that
patience and resignation which now alone could serve her needs. And
she communed with herself and God in silence, as the train rushed on
northwards. Her fellow-traveller woke up as they were nearing their
destination, and, seeing her holding the baby, was profuse in her
thanks for this kindness. And when they at last reached Hull, about
half an hour after midnight, the good woman was exceedingly anxious
to know if she could be of any service,--but Thelma gently, yet
firmly, refused all her offers of assistance.
They parted in the most friendly manner,--Thelma kissing the child,
through whose unconscious means, as she now owned to herself, she
had escaped a terrible death,--and then she went directly to a quiet
hotel she knew of, which was kept by a native of Christiania, a man
who had formerly been acquainted with her father. At first, when
this worthy individual saw a lady arrive, alone, young, richly
dressed, and without luggage, he was inclined to be suspicious,--but
as soon as she addressed him in Norwegian, and told him who she was,
he greeted her with the utmost deference and humility.
"The daughter of Jarl Guldmar," he said, continuing to speak in his
own tongue, "honors my house by entering it!"
Thelma smiled a little. "The days of the great Jarls are past,
Friedhof," she replied somewhat sadly, "and my father is content to
be what he is,--a simple bonde."
Friedhof shook his head quite obstinately. "A Jarl is always a
Jarl," he declared. "Nothing can alter a man's birth and nature. And
the last time I saw Valdemar Svensen,--he who lives with your father
now,--he was careful always to speak of the Jarl, and seldom or
never did he mention him in any other fashion. And now, noble
Froken, in what manner can I serve you?"
Thelma told him briefly that she was going to see her father on
business, and that she was desirous of starting for Norway the next
day as early as possible.
Friedhof held up his hands in amazement. "Ah! most surely you
forget," he exclaimed, using the picturesque expressions of his
native speech, "that this is the sleeping time of the sun! Even at
the Hardanger Fjord it is dark and silent,--the falling streams
freeze with cold on their way; and if it is so at the Hardanger,
what will it be at the Alten? And there is no passenger ship going
to Christiania or Bergen for a fortnight!"
Thelma clasped her hands in dismay. "But I MUST go!" she cried
impatiently; "I must, indeed, good Friedhof! I cannot stay here!
Surely, surely there is some vessel that would take me,--some
fishing boat,--what does it matter how I travel, so long as I get
away?"
The landlord looked at her rather wonderingly. "Nay, if it is indeed
so urgent, noble Froken," he replied, "do not trouble, for there is
a means of making the journey. But for YOU, and in such bitter
weather, it seems a cruelty to speak of it. A steam cargo-boat
leaves here for Hammerfest and the North Cape to-morrow--it will
pass the Altenfjord. No doubt you could go with that, if you so
choose,--but there will be no warmth or comfort, and there are heavy
storms on the North Sea. I know the captain; and 'tis true he takes
his wife with him, so there would be a woman on board,--yet--"
Thelma interrupted him. She pressed two sovereigns into his hand.
"Say no more, Friedhof," she said eagerly. "You will take me to see
this captain--you will tell him I must go with him. My father will
thank you for this kindness to me, even better than I can."
"It does not seem to me a kindness at all," returned Friedhof with
frank bluntness. "I would be loth to sail the seas myself in such
weather. And I thought you were so grandly married, Froken Guldmar,-
-though I forget your wedded name,--how comes it that your husband
is not with you?"
"He is very busy in London," answered Thelma. "He knows where I am
going. Do not be at all anxious, Friedhof,--I shall make the journey
very well and I am not afraid of storm or wild seas."
Friedhof still looked dubious, but finally yielded to her entreaties
and agreed to arrange her passage for her in the morning.
She stayed at his hotel that night, and with the very early dawn
accompanied him on board the ship he had mentioned. It was a small,
awkwardly built craft, with an ugly crooked black funnel out of
which the steam was hissing and spitting with quite an unnecessary
degree of violence--the decks were wet and dirty, and the whole
vessel was pervaded with a sickening smell of whale-oil. The
captain, a gruff red-faced fellow, looked rather surlily at his
unexpected passenger--but was soon mollified by her gentle manner,
and the readiness with which she paid the money he demanded for
taking her.
"You won't be very warm," he said, eyeing her from head to foot--
"but I can lend you a rug to sleep in."
Thelma smiled and thanked him. He called to his wife, a thin,
overworked-looking creature, who put up her head from a window in
the cabin, at his summons.
"Here's a lady going with us," he announced. "Look after her, will
you?" The woman nodded. Then, once more addressing himself to
Thelma, he said, "We shall have nasty weather and a wicked sea!"
"I do not mind!" she answered quietly, and turning to Friedhof who
had come to see her off, she shook hands with him warmly and thanked
him for the trouble he had taken in her behalf. The good landlord
bade her farewell somewhat reluctantly,--he had a presentiment that
there was something wrong with the beautiful, golden-haired daughter
of the Jarl--and that perhaps he ought to have prevented her making
this uncomfortable and possibly perilous voyage. But it was too late
now,--and at a little before seven o'clock, the vessel,--which
rejoiced in the name of the Black Polly,--left the harbor, and
steamed fussily down the Humber in the teeth of a sudden storm of
sleet and snow.
Her departure had no interest for any one save Friedhof, who stood
watching her till she was no more than a speck on the turbid water.
He kept his post, regardless of the piercing cold of the gusty,
early morning air, till she had entirely disappeared, and then
returned to his own house and his daily business in a rather
depressed frame of mind. He was haunted by the pale face and serious
eyes of Thelma--she looked very ill, he thought. He began to
reproach himself,--why had he been such a fool as to let her go?--
why had he not detained her?--or at any rate, persuaded her to rest
a few days in Hull? He looked at the threatening sky and the falling
flakes of snow with a shiver.
"What weather!" he muttered, "and there must be a darkness as of
death at the Altenfjord!"
Meanwhile the Black Polly--unhandsome as she was in appearance,
struggled gallantly with and overcame an army of furious waves that
rose to greet her as she rounded Spurn Head, and long ere Thelma
closed her weary eyes in an effort to sleep, was plunging,
shivering, and fighting her slow way through shattering mountainous
billows and a tempest of sleet, snow, and tossing foam across the
wild North Sea.
CHAPTER XXVII.
"What of her glass without her? The blank grey
There, where the pool is blind of the moon's face--
Her dress without her? The tossed empty space
Of cloud-rack whence the moon has passed away!"
DANTE G. ROSSETTI.
"Good God!" cried Errington impatiently "What's the matter? Speak
out!"
He had just arrived home. He had barely set foot within his own
door, and full of lover-like ardor and eagerness was about to hasten
to his wife's room,--when his old servant Morris stood in his way
trembling and pale-faced,--looking helplessly from him to Neville,--
who was as much astonished as Sir Philip, at the man's woe-begone
appearance.
"Something has happened," he stammered faintly at last. "Her
ladyship--"
Philip started--his heart beat quickly and then seemed to grow still
with a horrible sensation of fear.
"What of her?" he demanded in low hoarse tones. "Is she ill?"
Morris threw up his hands with a gesture of despair.
"Sir Philip, my dear master!" cried the poor old man. "I do not know
whether she is ill or well--I cannot guess! My lady went out last
night at a little before eight o'clock,--and--and she has never come
home at all! We cannot tell what has become of her! She has gone!"
And tears of distress and anxiety filled his eyes. Philip stood
mute. He could not understand it. All color fled from his face--he
seemed as though he had received a sudden blow on the head which had
stunned him.
"Gone!" he said mechanically. "Thelma--my wife gone! Why should she
go?"
And he stared fixedly at Neville, who laid one hand soothingly on
his arm.
"Perhaps she is with friends," he suggested. "She may be at Lady
Winsleigh's or Mrs. Lorimer's."
"No, no!" interrupted Morris. "Britta, who stayed up all night for
her, has since been to every house that my lady visits and no one
has seen or heard of her!"
"Where is Britta?" demanded Philip suddenly.
"She has gone again to Lady Winsleigh's," answered Morris, "she says
it is there that mischief has been done,--I don't know what she
means!"
Philip shook off his secretary's sympathetic touch, and strode
through the rooms to Thelma's boudoir. He put aside the velvet
curtains of the portiere with a noiseless hand--somehow he felt as
if, in spite of all he had just heard, she MUST be there as usual to
welcome him with that serene sweet smile which was the sunshine of
his life. The empty desolate air of the room smote him with a sense
of bitter pain,--only the plaintive warble of her pet thrush, who
was singing to himself most mournfully in his gilded cage, broke the
heavy silence. He looked about him vacantly. All sorts of dark
forebodings crowded on his mind,--she must have met with some
accident, he thought with a shudder,--for that she would depart from
him in this sudden way of her own accord for no reason whatsoever
seemed to him incredible--impossible.
"What have I done that she should leave me?" he asked half aloud and
wonderingly. Everything that had seemed to him of worth a few hours
ago became valueless in this moment of time. What cared he now for
the business of Parliament--for distinction or honors among men?
Nothing--less than nothing! Without her, the world was empty--its
ambitions, its pride, its good, its evil, seemed but the dreariest
and most foolish trifles!
"Not even a message?" he thought. "No hint of where she meant to go-
-no word of explanation for me? Surely I must be dreaming--my Thelma
would never have deserted me!"
A sort of sob rose in his throat, and he pressed his hand strongly
over his eyes to keep down the womanish drops that threatened to
overflow them. After a minute or two, he went to her desk and opened
it, thinking that there perhaps she might have left a note of
farewell. There was nothing--nothing save a little heap of money and
jewels. These Thelma had herself placed, before her sorrowful,
silent departure, in the corner where he now found them.
More puzzled than ever, he glanced searchingly round the room--and
his eyes were at once attracted by the sparkle of the diamond cross
that lay uppermost on the cover of "Gladys the Singer," the book of
poems which was in its usual place on his own reading table. In
another second he seized it--he unwound the slight gold chain--he
opened the little volume tremblingly. Yes!--there was a letter
within its pages addressed to himself,--now, now he should know all!
He tore it open with feverish haste--two folded sheets of paper fell
out,--one was his own epistle to Violet Vere, and this, to his
consternation, he perceived first. Full of a sudden misgiving he
laid it aside, and began to read Thelma's parting words.
"My darling boy," she wrote--
"A friend of yours and mine brought me the enclosed letter and
though, perhaps, it was wrong of me to read it, I hope you will
forgive me for having done so. I do not quite understand it, and I
cannot bear to think about it--but it seems that you are tired of
your poor Thelma! I do not blame you, dearest, for I am sure that in
some way or other the fault is mine, and it does grieve me so much
to think you are unhappy! I know that I am very ignorant of many
things, and that I am not suited to this London life--and I fear I
shall never understand its ways. But one thing I can do, and that is
to let you be free, my Philip--quite free! And so I am going back to
the Altenfjord, where I will stay till you want me again, if you
ever do. My heart is yours and I shall always love you till I die,--
and though it seems to me just now better that we should part, to
give you greater ease and pleasure, still you must always remember
that I have no reproaches to make to you. I am only sorry to think
my love has wearied you,--for you have been all goodness and
tenderness to me. And so that people shall not talk about me or you,
you will simply say to them that I have gone to see my father, and
they will think nothing strange in that. Be kind to Britta,--I have
told her nothing, as it would only make her miserable. Do not be
angry that I go away--I cannot bear to stay here, knowing all. And
so, good-bye, my love, my dearest one!--if you were to love many
women more than me, I still should love you best--I still would
gladly die to serve you. Remember this always,--that, however long
we may be parted, and though all the world should come between us, I
am, and ever shall be your faithful wife,"
"THELMA."
The ejaculation that broke from Errington's lips as he finished
reading this letter was more powerful than reverent. Stinging tears
darted to his eyes--he pressed his lips passionately on the fair
writing.
"My darling--my darling!" he murmured. "What a miserable
misunderstanding!"
Then without another moment's delay he rushed into Neville's study
and cried abruptly--
"Look here! It's all your fault."
"MY fault!" gasped the amazed secretary.
"Yes--your fault!" shouted Errington almost beside himself with
grief and rage. "Your fault, and that of your accursed WIFE, Violet
Vere!"
And he dashed the letter, the cause of all the mischief, furiously
down on the table. Neville shrank and shivered,--his grey head
drooped, he stretched out his hands appealingly.
"For God's sake, Sir Philip, tell me what I've done?" he exclaimed
piteously.
Errington strode up and down the room in a perfect fever of
impatience.
"By Heaven, it's enough to drive me mad!" he burst forth.
"Your wife!--your wife!--confound her! When you first discovered her
in that shameless actress, didn't I want to tell Thelma all about
it--that very night?--and didn't you beg me not to do so? Your silly
scruples stood in the way of everything! I was a fool to listen to
you--a fool to meddle in your affairs--and--and I wish to God I'd
never seen or heard of you!"
Neville turned very white, but remained speechless.
"Read that letter!" went on Philip impetuously. "You've seen it
before! It's the last one I wrote to your wife imploring her to see
you and speak with you. Here it comes, the devil knows how, into
Thelma's hands. She's quite in the dark about YOUR secret, and
fancies I wrote it on my own behalf! It looks like it too--looks
exactly as if I were pleading for myself and breaking my heart over
that detestible stage-fiend--by Jove! it's too horrible!" And he
gave a gesture of loathing and contempt.
Neville heard him in utter bewilderment. "Not possible!" he
muttered. "Not possible--it can't be!"
"Can't be? It IS!" shouted Philip. "And if you'd let me tell Thelma
everything from the first, all this wouldn't have happened. And you
ask me what you've done! DONE! You've parted me from the sweetest,
dearest girl in the world!"
And throwing himself into a chair, he covered his face with his hand
and a great uncontrollable sob broke from his lips.
Neville was in despair. Of course, it was his fault--he saw it all
clearly. He painfully recalled all that had happened since that
night at the Brilliant Theatre when with a sickening horror he had
discovered Violet Vere to be no other than Violet Neville,--his own
little violet!. . . as he had once called her--his wife that he had
lost and mourned as though she were some pure dead woman lying
sweetly at rest in a quiet grave. He remembered Thelma's shuddering
repugnance at the sight of her,--a repugnance which he himself had
shared--and which made him shrink with fastidious aversion, from the
idea of confiding to any one but Sir Philip, the miserable secret of
his connection with her. Sir Philip had humored him in this fancy,
little imagining that any mischief would come of it--and the reward
of his kindly sympathy was this,--his name was compromised, his home
desolate, and his wife enstranged from him!
In the first pangs of the remorse and sorrow that filled his heart,
Neville could gladly have gone out and drowned himself. Presently he
began to think,--was there not some one else beside himself who
might possibly be to blame for all this misery? For instance, who
could have brought or sent that letter to Lady Errington? In her
high station, she, so lofty, so pure, so far above the rest of her
sex, would have been the last person to make any inquiries about
such a woman as Violet Vere. How had it all happened? He looked
imploringly for some minutes at the dejected figure in the chair
without daring to offer a word of consolation. Presently he ventured
a remark--
"Sir Philip!" he stammered. "It will soon be all right,--her
ladyship will come back immediately. I myself will explain--it's--
it's only a misunderstanding.."
Errington moved in his chair impatiently, but said nothing. Only a
misunderstanding! How many there are who can trace back broken
friendships and severed loves to that one thing--"only a
misunderstanding!" The tenderest relations are often the most
delicate and subtle, and "trifles light as air" may scatter and
utterly destroy the sensitive gossamer threads extending between one
heart and another, as easily as a child's passing foot destroys the
spider's web woven on the dewy grass in the early mornings of
spring.
Presently Sir Philip started up--his lashes were wet and his face
was flushed.
"It's no good sitting here," he said, rapidly buttoning on his
overcoat. "I must go after her. Let all the business go to the
devil! Write and say I won't stand for Middleborough--I resign in
favor of the Liberal candidate. I'm off to Norway to-night."
"To Norway!" cried Neville. "Has she gone THERE? At this season--"
He broke off, for at that moment Britta entered, looking the picture
of misery. Her face was pale and drawn--her eyelids red and swollen,
and when she saw Sir Philip, she gave him a glance of the most
despairing reproach and indignation. He sprang up to her.
"Any news?" he demanded.
Britta shook her head mournfully, the tears beginning to roll again
down her cheeks.
"Oh, if I'd only thought!" she sobbed, "if I'd only known what the
dear Froken meant to do when she said good-bye to me last night, I
could have prevented her going--I could--I would have told her all I
know--and she would have stayed to see you! Oh, Sir Philip, if you
had only been here, that wicked, wicked Lady Winsleigh COULDN'T have
driven her away!"
At this name such a fury filled Philip's heart that he could barely
control himself. He breathed quickly and heavily.
"What of her?" he demanded in a low, suffocated voice. "What has
Lady Winsleigh to do with it, Britta?"
"Everything!" cried Britta, though, as she glanced at his set, stern
face and paling lips, she began to feel a little frightened. "She
has always hated the Froken, and been jealous of her--always! Her
own maid, Louise, will tell you so--Lord Winsleigh's man, Briggs,
will tell you so! They've listened at the doors, and they know all
about it!" Britta made this statement with the most childlike
candor. "And they've heard all sorts of wicked things--Lady
Winsleigh was always talking to Sir Francis Lennox about the
Froken,--and now they've made her believe you do not care for her
any more--they've been trying to make her believe everything bad of
you for ever so many months--" she paused, terrified at Sir Philip's
increasing pallor.
"Go on, Britta," he said quietly, though his voice sounded strange
to himself. Britta gathered up all her remaining stock of courage.
"Oh dear, oh dear!" she continued desperately, "I DON'T understand
London people at all, and I never shall understand them. Everybody
seems to want to be wicked! Briggs says that Lady Winsleigh was fond
of YOU, Sir Philip,--then, that she was fond of Sir Francis Lennox,-
-and yet she has a husband of her own all the time! It is so very
strange!" And the little maiden's perplexity appeared to border on
distraction. "They would think such a woman quite mad in Norway! But
what is worse than anything is that you--you, Sir Philip,--oh! I
WON'T believe it," and she stamped her foot passionately, "I CAN'T
believe it!. . . and yet everybody says that you go to see a
dreadful, painted dancing woman at the theatre, and that you like
her better than the Froken,--it ISN'T true, is it?" Here she peered
anxiously at her master--but he was absolutely silent. Neville made
as though he would speak, but a gesture from Sir Philip's hand
restrained him. Britta went on rather dispiritedly, "Anyhow, Briggs
has just told me that only yesterday Lady Winsleigh went all by
herself to see this actress, and that she got some letter there
which she brought to the Froken--" she recoiled suddenly with a
little scream. "Oh, Sir Philip!--where are you going?"
Errington's hand came down on her shoulder, as he twisted her
lightly out of his path and strode to the door.
"Sir Philip--Sir Philip!" cried Neville anxiously, hastening after
him. "Think for a moment; don't do anything rash!" Philip wrung his
hand convulsively. "Rash! My good fellow, it's a WOMAN who has
slandered me--what CAN I do? Her sex protects her!" He gave a short,
furious laugh. "But--by God!--were she a man I'd shoot her dead!"
And with these words, and his eyes blazing with wrath, he left the
room. Neville and Britta confronted each other in vague alarm.
"Where will he go?" half whispered Britta.
"To Winsleigh House, I suppose," answered Neville in the same low
tone.
Just then the hall door shut with a loud bang, that echoed through
the silent house.
"He's gone!" and as Neville said this he sighed and looked dubiously
at his companion. "How do you know all this about Lady Winsleigh,
Britta? It may not be true--it's only servants' gossip."
"Only servants' gossip!" exclaimed Britta. "And is that nothing?
Why, in these grand houses like Lord Winsleigh's, the servants know
everything! Briggs makes it his business to listen at the doors--he
says it's a part of his duty. And Louise opens all her mistress's
letters--she says she owes it to her own respectability to know what
sort of a lady it is she serves. And she's going to leave. because
she says her ladyship ISN'T respectable! There! what do you think of
that! And Sir Philip will find out a great deal more than even _I_
have told him--but oh! I CAN'T understand about that actress!" And
she shook her head despairingly.
"Britta," said Neville suddenly, "That actress is my wife!"
Britta started,--and her round eyes opened wide.
"Your wife, Mr. Neville?" she exclaimed.
Neville took off his spectacles and polished them nervously.
"Yes, Britta--my wife!"
She looked at him in amazed silence. Neville went on rubbing his
glasses, and continued in rather dreamy, tremulous accents--
"Yes--I lost her years ago--I thought she was dead. But I found her-
-on the stage of the Brilliant Theatre. I--I never expected--THAT! I
would rather she had died!" He paused and went on softly, "When I
married her, Britta, she was such a dear little girl,--so bright and
pretty!--and I--I fancied she was fond of me! Yes, I did,--of
course, I was foolish--I've always been foolish, I think. And when--
when I saw her on that stage I felt as if some one had struck me a
hard blow--it seems as if I'd been stunned ever since. And though
she knows I'm in London, she won't see me, Britta,--she won't let me
speak to her even for a moment! It's very hard! Sir Philip has tried
his best to persuade her to see me--he has talked to her and written
to her about me; and that's not all,--he has even tried to make her
come back to me--but it's all no use--and--and that's how all the
mischief has arisen--do you see?"
Britta gazed at him still, with sympathy written on every line of
her face,--but a great load had been lifted from her mind by his
words--she began to understand everything.
"I'm so sorry for you, Mr. Neville!" she said. "But why didn't you
tell all this to the Froken?"
"I COULDN'T!" murmured Neville desperately. "She was there that
night at the Brilliant,--and if you had seen how she looked when she
saw--my wife--appeared on the stage! So pained, so sorry, so
ashamed! and she wanted to leave the theatre at once. Of course, I
ought to have told her,--I wish I had--but--somehow, I never could."
He paused again. "It's all my stupidity, of course, Sir Philip is
quite blameless--he has been the kindest, the best of friends to me-
-" his voice trembled more and more, and he could not go on. There
was a silence of some minutes, during which Britta appeared absorbed
in meditation, and Neville furtively wiped his eyes.
Presently he spoke again more cheerfully. "It'll soon be all right
again, Britta!" and he nodded encouragingly. "Sir Philip says her
ladyship has gone home to Norway, and he means to follow her to-
night."
Britta nodded gravely, but heaved a deep sigh.
"And I posted her letter to her father!" she half murmured. "Oh, if
I had only thought or guessed why it was written!"
"Isn't it rather a bad time of the year for Norway?" pursued
Neville. "Why, there must be snow and darkness--"
"Snow and darkness at the Altenfjord!" suddenly cried Britta,
catching at his words. "That's exactly what she said to me the other
evening! Oh dear! I never thought of it--I never remembered it was
the dark season!" She clasped her hands in dismay. "There is no sun
at the Altenfjord now--it is like night--and the cold is bitter. And
she is not strong--not strong enough to travel--and there's the
North Sea to cross--oh, Mr. Neville," and she broke out sobbing
afresh. "The journey will kill her,--I know it will! my poor, poor
darling! I must go after her--I'll go with Sir Philip--I WON'T be
left behind!"
"Hush, hush, Britta!" said Neville kindly, patting her shoulder.
"Don't cry--don't cry!"
But he was very near crying himself, poor man, so shaken was he by
the events of the morning. And he could not help admitting to
himself the possibility that so long and trying a journey for Thelma
in her present condition of health meant little else than serious
illness--perhaps death. The only comfort he could suggest to the
disconsolate Britta was, that at that time of year it was very
probable there would be no steamer running to Christiansund sand or
Bergen, and in that case Thelma would be unable to leave England,
and would, therefore, be overtaken by Sir Philip at Hull.
Meanwhile, Sir Philip himself, in a white heat of restrained anger,
arrived at Winsleigh House, and asked to see Lord Winsleigh
immediately. Briggs, who opened the door to him, was a little
startled at his haggard face and blazing eyes, even though he knew,
through Britta, all about the sorrow that had befallen him. Briggs
was not surprised at Lady Errington's departure,--that portion of
his "duty" which consisted in listening at doors, had greatly
enlightened him on many points,--all, save one--the reported
connection between Sir Philip and Violet Vere. This seemed to be
really true according to all appearances.
"Which it puzzles me," soliloquized the owner of the shapely calves.
"It do, indeed. Yet I feels very much for Sir Philip,--I said to
Flopsie this morning--'Flopsie, I feels for 'im!' Yes,--I used them
very words. Only, of course, he shouldn't 'ave gone with Vi. She's a
fine woman certainly--but skittish--d--d skittish! I've allus made
it a rule myself to avoid 'er on principle. Lor! if I'd kep' company
with 'er and the likes of 'er I shouldn't be the man I am!" And he
smiled complacently.
Lord Winsleigh, who was in his library as usual, occupied with his
duties as tutor to his son Ernest, rose to receive Sir Philip with
an air of more than his usual gravity.
"I was about to write to you, Errington," he began, and then stopped
short, touched by the utter misery expressed in Philip's face. He
addressed Ernest with a sort of nervous haste.
"Run away, my boy, to your own room. I'll send for you again
presently."
Ernest obeyed. "Now," said Lord Winsleigh, as soon as the lad
disappeared, "tell me everything, Errington. Is it true that your
wife has left you?"
"Left me!" and Philip's eyes flashed with passionate anger. "No
Winsleigh!--she's been driven away from me by the vilest and most
heartless cruelty. She's been made to believe a scandalous and
abominable lie against me--and she's gone! I--I--by Jove! I hardly
like to say it to your face--but--"
"I understand!" a curious flicker of a smile shadowed rather than
brightened Lord Winsleigh's stern features. "Pray speak quite
plainly! Lady Winsleigh is to blame? I am not at all surprised!"
Errington gave him a rapid glance of wonder. He had always fancied
Winsleigh to be a studious, rather dull sort of man, absorbed in
books and the education of his son,--a man, more than half blind to
everything that went on around him--and, moreover, one who
deliberately shut his eyes to the frivolous coquetry of his wife,--
and though he liked him fairly well, there had been a sort of vague
contempt mingled with his liking. Now a new light was suddenly
thrown on his character--there was something in his look, his
manner, his very tone of voice,--which proved to Errington that
there was a deep and forcible side to his nature of which his
closest friends had never dreamed--and he was somewhat taken aback
by the discovery. Seeing that he still hesitated, Winsleigh laid a
hand encouragingly on his shoulder and said--
"I repeat--I'm not at all surprised! Nothing that Lady Winsleigh
might do would cause me the slightest astonishment. She has long
ceased to be my wife, except in name,--that she still bears that
name and holds the position she has in the world is simply--for my
son's sake! I do not wish,"--his voice quivered slightly--"I do not
wish the boy to despise his mother. It's always a bad beginning for
a young man's life. I want to avoid it for Ernest, if possible,--
regardless of any personal sacrifice." He paused a moment--then
resumed. "Now, speak out, Errington, and plainly,--for if mischief
has been done and I can repair it in any way, you may be sure I
will."
Thus persuaded, Sir Philip briefly related the whole story of the
misunderstanding that had arisen concerning Neville's wife, Violet
Vere--and concluded by saying--
"It is, of course, only through Britta that I've just heard about
Lady Winsleigh's having anything to do with it. Her information may
not be correct--I hope it isn't,--but--"
Lord Winsleigh interrupted him. "Come with me," he said composedly.
"We'll resolve this difficulty AT once."
He led the way out of the library across the hall. Errington
followed him in silence. He knocked at the door of his wife's room,-
-in response to her "Come in!" they both entered. She was alone,
reclining on a sofa, reading,--she started up with a pettish
exclamation at sight of her husband, but observing who it was that
came with him, she stood mute, the color rushing to her cheeks with
surprise and something of fear. Yet she endeavored to smile, and
returned with her usual grace their somewhat formal salutations.
"Clara," then said Lord Winsleigh gravely, "I have to ask you a
question on behalf of Sir Philip Errington here,--a question to
which it is necessary for you to give the plain answer. Did you or
did you not procure this letter from Violet Vere, of the Brilliant
Theatre--and did you or did you not, give it yourself yesterday into
the hands of Lady Bruce-Errington?" And he laid the letter in
question, which Philip had handed to him, down upon the table before
her.
She looked at it--then at him--then from him to Sir Philip. who
uttered no word--and lightly shrugged her shoulders.
"I don't know what you are talking about," she said, carelessly.
Sir Philip turned upon her indignantly.
"Lady Winsleigh, you DO know--"
She interrupted him with a stately gesture.
"Excuse me, Sir Philip! I am not accustomed to be spoken to in this
extraordinary manner. You forget yourself--my husband, I think, also
forgets himself! I know nothing whatever about Violet Vere--I am not
fond of the society of actresses. Of course, I've heard about your
admiration for her--that is common town-talk,--though my informant
on this point was Sir Francis Lennox."
"Sir Francis Lennox!" cried Philip furiously. "Thank God! there's a
man to deal with! By Heaven, I'll choke him with his own lie!"
Lady Winsleigh raised her eyebrows in well-bred surprise.
"Dear me! It is a lie, then? Now, I should have thought from all
accounts that it was so very likely to be true!"
Philip turned white with passion. Her sarcastic smile,--her mocking
glance,--irritated him almost beyond endurance.
"Permit me to ask you, Clara," continued Lord Winsleigh calmly, "if
you,--as you say, know nothing about Violet Vere, why did you go to
the Brilliant Theatre yesterday morning?"
She flashed an angry glance at him.
"Why? To secure a box for the new performance. Is there anything
wonderful in that?"
Her husband remained unmoved. "May I see the voucher for this box?"
he inquired.
"I've sent it to some friends," replied her ladyship haughtily.
"Since when have you decided to become an inquisitor, my lord?"
"Lady Winsleigh," said Philip suddenly and eagerly, "will you swear
to me that you have said or done nothing to make my Thelma leave
me?"
"Oh, she HAS left you, has she?" and Lady Clara smiled maliciously.
"I thought she would! Why don't you ask your dear friend, George
Lorimer, about her? He is madly in love with her, as everybody
knows,--she is probably the same with him!"
"Clara, Clara!" exclaimed Lord Winsleigh in accents of deep
reproach. "Shame on you! Shame!"
Her ladyship laughed amusedly. "Please don't be tragic!" she said;
"it's too ridiculous! Sir Philip has only himself to blame. Of
course, Thelma knows about his frequent visits to the Brilliant
Theatre. I told her all that Sir Francis said. Why should she be
kept in the dark? I dare say she doesn't mind--she's very fond of
Mr. Lorimer!"
Errington felt as though he must choke with fury. He forgot the
presence of Lord Winsleigh--he forgot everything but his just
indignation.
"My God!" he cried passionately. "You DARE to speak so!--YOU!"
"Yes I!" she returned coolly, measuring him with a glance. "I dare!
What have you to say against ME?" She drew herself up imperiously.
Then turning to her husband, she said, "Have the goodness to take
your excited friend away, my lord! I am going out--I have a great
many engagements this morning--and I really cannot stop to discuss
this absurd affair any longer! It isn't my fault that Sir Philip's
excessive admiration for Miss Vere has become the subject of gossip-
-_I_ don't blame him for it! He seems extremely ill-tempered about
it; after all, 'ce n'est que la verite qui blesse!'"
And she smiled maliciously.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
"For my mother's sake,
For thine and hers, O Love! I pity take
On all poor women. Jesu's will be done,
Honor for all, and infamy for none,
This side the borders of the burning lake."
ERIC MACKAY'S Love-Letters of a Violinist.
Lord Winsleigh did not move. Sir Philip fixed his eyes upon her in
silence. Some occult fascination forced her to meet his glance, and
the utter scorn of it stung her proud heart to its centre. Not that
she felt much compunction--her whole soul was up in arms against
him, and had been so from the very day she was first told of his
unexpected marriage. His evident contempt now irritated her--she was
angrier with him than ever, and yet--she had a sort of strange
triumph in the petty vengeance she had designed--she had destroyed
his happiness for a time, at least. If she could but shake his
belief in his wife! she thought, vindictively. To that end she had
thrown out her evil hint respecting Thelma's affection for George
Lorimer, but the shaft had been aimed uselessly. Errington knew too
well the stainless purity of Thelma to wrong her by the smallest
doubt, and he would have staked his life on the loyalty of his
friend. Presently he controlled his anger sufficiently to be able to
speak, and still eyeing her with that straight, keen look of
immeasurable disdain, he said in cold, deliberate accents--
"Your ladyship is in error,--the actress in question is the wife of
my secretary, Mr. Neville. For years they have been estranged--my
visits to her were entirely on Neville's behalf--my letters to her
were all on the same subject. Sir Francis Lennox must have known the
truth all along,--Violet Vere has been his mistress for the past
five years!"
He uttered the concluding words with intense bitterness. A strange,
bewildered horror passed over Lady Winsleigh's face.
"I don't believe it," she said rather faintly.
"Believe it or not, it is true!" he replied curtly. "Ask the manager
of the Brilliant, if you doubt me. Winsleigh, it's no use my
stopping here any longer. As her ladyship refuses to give any
explanation--"
"Wait a moment, Errington," interposed Lord Winsleigh in his coldest
and most methodical manner. "Her ladyship refuses--but _I_ do not
refuse! Her ladyship will not speak--she allows her husband to speak
for her. Therefore," and he smiled at his astonished wife somewhat
sardonically, "I may tell you at once, that her ladyship admits to
having purchased from Violet Vere for the sum of 20 pounds, the
letter which she afterwards took with her own hands to your wife."
Lady Winsleigh uttered an angry exclamation.
"Don't interrupt me, Clara, if you please," he said, with an icy
smile. "We have so many sympathies in common that I'm sure I shall
be able to explain your unspoken meanings quite clearly." He went
on, addressing himself to Errington, who stood utterly amazed.
"Her ladyship desires me to assure you that her only excuse for her
action in this matter is, that she fully believed the reports her
friend, Sir Francis Lennox, gave her concerning your supposed
intimacy with the actress in question,--and that, believing it, she
made use of it as much as possible for the purpose of destroying
your wife's peace of mind and confidence in you. Her object was most
purely feminine--love of mischief, and the gratification of private
spite! There's nothing like frankness!" and Lord Winsleigh's face
was a positive study as he spoke. "You see,"--he made a slight
gesture towards his wife, who stood speechless, and so pale that her
very lips were colorless--"her ladyship is not in a position to deny
what I have said. Excuse her silence!"
And again he smiled--that smile as glitteringly chilled as a gleam
of light on the edge of a sword. Lady Winsleigh raised her head, and
her eyes met his with a dark expression of the uttermost anger.
"Spy!" she hissed between her teeth,--then without further word or
gesture, she swept haughtily away into her dressing-room, which
adjoined the boudoir, and closed the door of communication, thus
leaving the two men alone together.
Errington felt himself to be in a most painful and awkward position.
If there was anything he more than disliked, it was a SCENE--
particularly of a domestic nature. And he had just had a glimpse
into Lord and Lady Winsleigh's married life, which, to him, was
decidedly unpleasant. He could not understand how Lord Winsleigh had
become cognizant of all he had so frankly stated--and then, why had
he not told him everything at first, without waiting to declare it
in his wife's presence? Unless, indeed, he wished to shame her?
There was evidently something in the man's disposition and character
that he, Philip, could not as yet comprehend,--something that
certainly puzzled him, and filled him with vague uneasiness.
"Winsleigh, I'm awfully sorry this has happened," he began
hurriedly, holding out his hand.
Lord Winsleigh grasped it cordially. "My dear fellow, so am I!
Heartily sorry! I have to be sorry for a good many things rather
often. But I'm specially grieved to think that your beautiful and
innocent young wife is the victim in this case. Unfortunately I was
told nothing till this morning, otherwise I might possibly have
prevented all your unhappiness. But I trust it won't be of long
duration. Here's this letter," he returned it as he spoke, "which in
more than one way has cost so large a price. Possibly her ladyship
may now regret her ill-gotten purchase."
"Pardon me," said Errington curiously, "but how did you know--"
"The information was pressed upon me very much," replied Lord
Winsleigh evasively, "and from such a source that up to the last
moment I almost refused to believe it." He paused, and then went on
with a forced smile, "Suppose we don't talk any more about it,
Errington? The subject's rather painful to me. Only allow me to ask
your pardon for my wife's share in the mischief!"
Something in his manner of speaking affected Sir Philip.
"Upon my soul, Winsleigh," he exclaimed with sudden fervor, "I fancy
you're a man greatly wronged!"
Lord Winsleigh smiled slightly. "You only FANCY?" he said quietly.
"Well,--my good friend, we all have our troubles--I dare say mine
are no greater than those of many better men." He stopped short,
then asked abruptly, "I suppose you'll see Lennox?"
Errington set his teeth hard. "I shall,--at once!" he replied. "And
I shall probably thrash him within an inch of his life!"
"That's right! I shan't be sorry!" and Lord Winsleigh's hand
clenched almost unconsciously. "I hope you understand, Errington,
that if it hadn't been for my son, I should have shot that fellow
long ago. I dare say you wonder,--and some others too,--why I
haven't done it. But Ernest--poor little chap!.. . . he would have
heard of it,--and the reason of it,--his young life is involved in
mine--why should I bequeath him a dishonored mother's name? There--
for heaven's sake, don't let me make a fool of myself!" and he
fiercely dashed his hand across his eyes. "A duel or a divorce--or a
horsewhipping--they all come to pretty much the same thing--all
involve public scandal for the name of the woman who may be
unhappily concerned--and scandal clings, like the stain on Lady
Macbeth's hand. In your case you can act--YOUR wife is above a
shadow of suspicion--but I--oh, my God! how much women have to
answer for in the miseries of this world!"
Errington said nothing. Pity and respect for the man before him held
him silent. Here was one of the martyrs of modern social life--a man
who evidently knew himself to be dishonored by his wife,--and who
yet, for the sake of his son, submitted to be daily broken on the
wheel of private torture rather than let the boy grow up to despise
and slight his mother. Whether he were judged as wise or weak in his
behavior there was surely something noble about him--something
unselfish and heroic that deserved recognition. Presently Lord
Winsleigh continued in calmer tones--
"I've been talking too much about myself, Errington, I fear--forgive
it! Sometimes I've thought you misunderstood me--"
"I never shall again!" declared Philip earnestly.
Lord Winsleigh met his look of sympathy with one of gratitude.
"Thanks!" he said briefly,--and with this they shook hands again
heartily, and parted. Lord Winsleigh saw his visitor to the door--
and then at once returned to his wife's apartments. She was still
absent from the boudoir--he therefore entered her dressing-room
without ceremony.
There he found her,--alone, kneeling on the floor, her head buried
in an arm-chair,--and her whole frame shaken with convulsive sobs.
He looked down upon her with a strange wistful pain in his eyes,--
pain mingled with compassion.
"Clara!" he said gently. She started and sprang up--confronting him
with flushed cheeks and wet eyes.
"YOU here?" she exclaimed angrily. "I wonder you dare to--" she
broke off, confused by his keen, direct glance.
"It IS a matter for wonder," he said quietly. "It's the strangest
thing in the world that I--your husband--should venture to intrude
myself into your presence! Nothing could be more out of the common.
But I have something to say to you--something which must be said
sooner or later--and I may as well speak now."
He paused,--she was silent, looking at him in a sort of sudden fear.
"Sit down," he continued in the same even tones. "You must have a
little patience with me--I'll endeavor to be as brief as possible."
Mechanically she obeyed him and sank into a low fauteuil. She began
playing with the trinkets on her silver chatelaine, and endeavored
to feign the most absolute unconcern, but her heart beat quickly--
she could not imagine what was coming next--her husband's manner and
tone were quite new to her.
"You accused me just now," he went on, "of being a spy. I have never
condescended to act such a part toward you, Clara. When I first
married you I trusted you with my life, my honor, and my name, and
though you have betrayed all three"--she moved restlessly as his
calm gaze remained fixed on her--"I repeat,--though you have
betrayed all three,--I have deliberately shut my eyes to the ruin of
my hopes, in a loyal endeavor to shield you from the world's
calumny. Regarding the unhappiness you have caused the Erringtons,--
your own maid Louise Renaud (who has given you notice of her
intention to leave you) told me all she knew of your share in what I
may call positive cruelty, towards a happy and innocent woman who
has never injured you, and whose friend you declared yourself to
be--"
"You believe the lies of a servant?" suddenly cried Lady Winsleigh
wrathfully.
"Have not YOU believed the lies of Sir Francis Lennox, who is less
honest than a servant?" asked her husband, his grave voice deepening
with a thrill of passion. "And haven't you reported them everywhere
as truths? But as regards your maid--I doubted her story altogether.
She assured me she knew what money you took out with you yesterday,
and what you returned with--and as the only place you visited in the
morning was the Brilliant Theatre,--after having received a telegram
from Lennox, which she saw,--it was easy for her to put two and two
together, especially as she noticed you reading the letter you had
purchased--moreover"--he paused--"she has heard certain
conversations between you and Sir Francis, notably one that took
place at the garden-party in the summer at Errington Manor. Spy? you
say? your detective has been paid by you,--fed and kept about your
own person,--to minister to your vanity and to flatter your pride--
that she has turned informer against you is not surprising. Be
thankful that her information has fallen into no more malignant
hands than mine!"
Again he paused--she was still silent--but her lips trembled
nervously.
"And yet I was loth to believe everything"--he resumed half sadly--
"till Errington came and showed me that letter and told me the whole
story of his misery. Even then I thought I would give you one more
chance--that's why I brought him to you and asked you the question
before him. One look at your face told me you were guilty, though
you denied it. I should have been better pleased had you confessed
it! But why talk about it any longer?--the mischief is done--I trust
it is not irreparable. I certainly consider that before troubling
that poor girl's happiness,--you should have taken the precaution to
inquire a little further into the truth of the reports you heard
from Sir Francis Lennox,--he is not a reliable authority on any
question whatsoever. You may have thought him so--" he stopped short
and regarded her with sorrowful sternness--"I say, Clara, you may
have thought him so, once--but NOW? Are you proud to have shared his
affections with--Violet Vere?"
She uttered a sharp cry and covered her face with her hands,--an
action which appeared to smite her husband to the heart,--for his
voice trembled with deep feeling when he next spoke.
"Ah, best hide it, Clara!" he said passionately. "Hide that fair
face I loved so well--hide those eyes in which I dreamed of finding
my life's sunshine! Clara, Clara! What can I say to you, fallen rose
of womanhood? How can I--" he suddenly bent over her as though to
caress her, then drew back with a quick agonized sigh. "You thought
me blind, Clara!. . . ." he went on in low tones, "blind to my own
dishonor--blind to your faithlessness,--I tell you if you had taken
my heart between your hands and wrung the blood out of it drop by
drop, I could not have suffered more than I have done! Why have I
been silent so long?--no matter why,--but NOW, now Clara,--this life
of ours must end!"
She shuddered away from him.
"End it then!" she muttered in a choked voice. "You can do as you
like,--you can divorce me."
"Yes," said Lord Winsleigh musingly. "I can divorce you! There will
be no defense possible,--as you know. If witnesses are needed, they
are to be had in the persons of our own domestics. The co-respondent
in the case will not refute the charge against him,--and I, the
plaintiff, MUST win my just cause. Do you realize it all, Clara?
You, the well-known leader of a large social circle--you, the proud
beauty and envied lady of rank and fashion,--you will be made a
subject for the coarse jests of lawyers,--the very judge on the
bench will probably play off his stale witticism at your expense,--
your dearest friends will tear your name to shreds,--the newspapers
will reek of your doings,--and honest housemaids reading of your
fall from your high estate, will thank God that their souls and
bodies are more chaste than yours! And last,--not least,--think when
old age creeps on, and your beauty withers,--think of your son grown
to manhood,--the sole heir to my name,--think of him as having but
one thing to blush for--the memory of his dishonored mother!"
"Cruel--cruel!" she cried, endeavoring to check her sobs, and
withdrawing her hands from her face. "Why do you say such things to
me? Why did you marry me?"
He caught her hands and held them in a fast grip.
"Why? Because I loved you, Clara--loved you with all the tenderness
of a strong man's heart! When I first saw you, you seemed to me the
very incarnation of maiden purity and loveliness! The days of our
courtship--the first few months of our marriage--what they were to
you, I know not,--to me they were supreme happiness. When our boy
was born, my adoration, my reverence for you increased--you were so
sacred in my eyes, that I could have knelt and asked a benediction
from these little hands"--here he gently loosened them from his
clasp. "Then came the change--WHAT changed you, I cannot imagine--it
has always seemed to me unnatural, monstrous, incredible! There was
no falling away in MY affection, that I can swear! My curse upon the
man who turned your heart from mine! So rightful and deep a curse is
it that I feel it must some day strike home."
He paused and seemed to reflect. "Who is there more vile, more
traitorous than he?" he went on. "Has he not tried to influence
Errington's wife against her husband? For what base purpose? But
Clara,--he is powerless against HER purity and innocence;--what, in
the name of God, gave him power over YOU?"
She drooped her head, and the hot blood rushed to her face.
"You've said enough!" she murmured sullenly. "If you have decided on
a divorce, pray carry out your intention with the least possible
delay. I cannot talk any more! I--I am tired!"
"Clara," said her husband solemnly, with a strange light in his
eyes, "I would rather kill you than divorce you!"
There was something so terribly earnest in his tone that her heart
beat fast with fear.
"Kill me?--kill me?" she gasped, with white lips.
"Yes!" he repeated, "kill you,--as a Frenchman or an Italian would,-
-and take the consequences. Yes--though an Englishman, I would
rather do this than drag your frail poor womanhood through the mire
of public scandal! I have, perhaps, a strange nature, but such as I
am, I am. There are too many of our high-born families already,
flaunting their immorality and low licentiousness in the face of the
mocking, grinning populace,--I for one could never make up my mind
to fling the honor of my son's mother to them, as though it were a
bone for dogs to fight over. No--I have another proposition to make
to you--"
He stopped short. She stared at him wonderingly. He resumed in
methodical, unmoved, business-like tones.
"I propose, Clara, simply,--to leave you! I'll take the boy and
absent myself from this country, so as to give you perfect freedom
and save you all trouble. There'll be no possibility of scandal, for
I will keep you cognizant of my movements,--and should you require
my presence at any time for the sake of appearances,--or--to shield
you from calumny,--you may rely on my returning to you at once,--
without delay. Ernest will gain many advantages by travel,--his
education is quite a sufficient motive for my departure, my interest
in his young life being well known to all our circle. Moreover, with
me--under my surveillance--he need never know anything against--
against you. I have always taught him to honor and obey you in his
heart."
Lord Winsleigh paused a moment--then went on, somewhat musingly;--
"When he was quite little, he used to wonder why you didn't love
him,--it was hard for me to hear him say that, sometimes. But I
always told him that you did love him--but that you had so many
visits to makes and so many friends to entertain, that you had no
time to play with him. I don't think he quite understood,--but
still--I did my best!"
He was silent. She had hidden her face again in her hands, and he
heard a sound of smothered sobbing.
"I think," he continued calmly, "that he has a great reverence for
you in his young heart--a feeling which partakes, perhaps, more of
fear than love--still it is better than--disdain--or--or disrespect.
I shall always teach him to esteem you highly,--but I think, as
matters stand--if I relieve you of all your responsibilities to
husband and son--you--Clara!--pray don't distress yourself--there's
no occasion for this--Clara--"
For on a sudden impulse she had flung herself at his feet in an
irrepressible storm of passionate weeping.
"Kill me, Harry!" she sobbed wildly, clinging to him. "Kill me!
don't speak to me like this!--don't leave me! Oh, my God! don't,
don't despise me so utterly! Hate me--curse me--strike me--do
anything, but don't leave me as if I were some low thing, unfit for
your touch,--I know I am, but oh, Harry!. . ." She clung to him more
closely. "If you leave me I will not live,--I cannot! Have you no
pity? Why would you throw me back alone--all, all alone, to die of
your contempt and my shame!"
And she bowed her head in an agony of tears.
He looked down upon her a moment in silence.
"Your shame!" he murmured. "My wife--"
Then he raised her in his arms and drew her with a strange
hesitation of touch, to his breast, as though she were some sick or
wounded child, and watched her as she lay there weeping, her face
hidden, her whole frame trembling in his embrace.
"Poor soul!" he whispered, more to himself than to her. "Poor frail
woman! Hush, hush, Clara! The past is past! I'll make you no more
reproaches. I--I CAN'T hurt you, because I once so loved you--but
now--now,--what IS there left for me to do, but to leave you? You'll
be happier so--you'll have perfect liberty--you needn't even think
of me--unless, perhaps, as one dead and buried long ago--"
She raised herself in his arms and looked at him piteously.
"Won't you give me a chance?" she sobbed. "Not one? If I had but
known you better--if I had understood oh, I've been vile, wicked,
deceitful--but I'm not happy, Harry--I've never been happy since I
wronged you! Won't you give me one little hope that I may win your
love again,--no, not your love, but your pity? Oh, Harry, have I
lost all--all--"
Her voice broke--she could say no more.
He stroked her hair gently. "You speak on impulse just now, Clara,"
he said gravely yet tenderly. "You can't know your own strength or
weakness. God forbid that _I_ should judge you harshly! As you wish
it, I will not leave you yet. I'll wait. Whether we part or remain
together, shall be decided by your own actions, your own looks, your
own words. You understand, Clara? You know my feelings. I'm content
for the present to place my fate in your hands." He smiled rather
sadly. "But for love, Clara--I fear nothing can be done to warm to
life this poor perished love of ours. We can, perhaps, take hands
and watch its corpse patiently together and say how sorry we are it
is dead--such penitence comes always too late!"
He sighed, and put her gently away from him.
She turned up her flushed, tear-stained face to his.
"Will you kiss me, Harry?" she asked tremblingly. He met her eyes,
and an exclamation that was almost a groan broke from his lips. A
shudder passed through his frame.
"I can't, Clara! I can't--God forgive me!--Not yet!" And with that
he bowed his head and left her.
She listened to the echo of his firm footsteps dying away, and
creeping guiltily to a side-door she opened it, and watched
yearningly his retreating figure till it had disappeared.
"Why did I never love him till now?" she murmured sobbingly. "Now,
when he despises me--when he will not even kiss me?--" She leaned
against the half-open door in an attitude of utter dejection, not
caring to move, listening intently with a vague hope of hearing her
husband's returning tread. A lighter step than his, however, came
suddenly along from the other side of the passage and startled her a
little--it was Ernest, looking the picture of boyish health and
beauty. He was just going out for his usual ride--he lifted his cap
with a pretty courtesy as he saw her, and said--
"Good-morning, mother!"
She looked at him with new interest,--how handsome the lad was!--how
fresh his face!--how joyously clear those bright blue eyes of his!
He, on his part, was moved by a novel sensation too--his mother,--
his proud, beautiful, careless mother had been crying--he saw that
at a glance, and his young heart beat faster when she laid her white
hand, sparkling all over with rings, on his arm and drew him closer
to her.
"Are you going to the Park?" she asked gently.
"Yes." Then recollecting his training in politeness and obedience he
added instantly--"Unless you want me."
She smiled faintly. "I never do want you--do I, Ernest?" she asked
half sadly. "I never want my boy at all." Her voice quivered,--and
Ernest grew more and more astonished.
"If you do, I'll stay," he said stoutly, filled with a chivalrous
desire to console his so suddenly tender mother of his, whatever her
griefs might be. Her eyes filled again, but she tried to laugh.
"No dear--not now,--run along and enjoy yourself. Come to me when
you return. I shall be at home all day. And,--stop Ernest--won't you
kiss me? "
The boy opened his eyes wide in respectful wonderment, and his
cheeks flushed with surprise and pleasure.
"Why, mother--of course!" And his fresh, sweet lips closed on hers
with frank and unaffected heartiness. She held him fast for a moment
and looked at him earnestly.
"Tell your father you kissed me--will you?" she said. "Don't
forget!"
And with that she waved her hand to him, and retreated again into
her own apartment. The boy went on his way somewhat puzzled and
bewildered--did his mother love him, after all? If so, he thought--
how glad he was!--how very glad! and what a pity he had not known it
before!
CHAPTER XXIX.
"I heed not custom, creed, nor law;
I care for nothing that ever I saw--
I terribly laugh with an oath and sneer,
When I think that the hour of Death draws near!"
W. WINTER.
Errington's first idea, on leaving Winsleigh House, was to seek an
interview with Sir Francis Lennox, and demand an explanation. He
could not understand the man's motive for such detestable treachery
and falsehood. His anger rose to a white heat as he thought of it,
and he determined to "have it out" with him whatever the
consequences might be. "No apology will serve his turn," he
muttered. "The scoundrel! He has lied deliberately--and, by Jove, he
shall pay for it!"
And he started off rapidly in the direction of Piccadilly, but on
the way he suddenly remembered that he had no weapon with him, not
even a cane wherewith to carry out his intention of thrashing Sir
Francis, and calling to mind a certain heavy horsewhip, that hung
over the mantel-piece in his own room, he hailed a hansom, and was
driven back to his house in order to provide himself with that
implement of castigation before proceeding further. On arriving at
the door, to his surprise he found Lorimer who was just about to
ring the bell.
"Why, I thought you were in Paris?" he exclaimed.
"I came back last night," George began, when Morris opened the door,
and Errington, taking his friend by the arm hurried him into the
house. In five minutes he had unburdened himself of all his
troubles--and had explained the misunderstanding about Violet Vere
and Thelma's consequent flight. Lorimer listened with a look of
genuine pain and distress on his honest face.
"Phil, you HAVE been a fool!" he said candidly. "A positive fool, if
you'll pardon me for saying so. You ought to have told Thelma
everything at first,--she's the very last woman in the world who
ought to be kept in the dark about anything. Neville's feelings?
Bother Neville's feelings! Depend upon it the poor girl has heard
all manner of stories. She's been miserable for some time--Duprez
noticed it." And he related in a few words the little scene that had
taken place at Errington Manor on the night of the garden-party,
when his playing on the organ had moved her to such unwonted
emotion.
Philip heard him in moody silence,--how had it happened, he
wondered, that others,--comparative strangers,--had observed that
Thelma looked unhappy, while he, her husband, had been blind to it?
He could not make this out,--and yet it is a thing that very
commonly happens. Our nearest and dearest are often those who are
most in the dark respecting our private and personal sufferings,--we
do not wish to trouble them,--and they prefer to think that
everything is right with us, even though the rest of the world can
plainly perceive that everything is wrong. To the last moment they
will refuse to see death in our faces, though the veriest stranger
meeting us casually, clearly beholds the shadow of the dark Angel's
hand.
"Apropos of Lennox," went on Lorimer, sympathetically watching his
friend, "I came on purpose to speak to you about him. I've got some
news for you. He's a regular sneak and scoundrel. You can thrash him
to your heart's content for he has grossly insulted your wife."
"INSULTED her?" cried Errington furiously. "How,--What--"
"Give me time to speak!" And George laid a restraining hand on his
arm. "Thelma visited my mother yesterday and told her that on the
night before, when you had gone out, Lennox took advantage of your
absence to come here and make love to her,--and she actually had to
struggle with him, and even to strike him, in order to release
herself from his advances. My mother advised her to tell you about
it--and she evidently then had no intention of flight, for she said
she would inform you of everything as soon as you returned from the
country. And if Lady Winsleigh hadn't interfered, it's very probable
that--I say, where are you going?" This as Philip made a bound for
the door.
"To get my horsewhip!" he answered.
"All right--I approve!" cried Lorimer. "But wait one instant, and
see how clear the plot becomes. Thelma's beauty had maddened
Lennox,--to gain her good opinion, as he thinks, he throws his
mistress, Violet Vere, on YOUR shoulders--(your ingenuous visits to
the Brilliant Theatre gave him a capital pretext for this) and as
for Lady Winsleigh's share in the mischief, it's nothing but mere
feminine spite against you for marrying at all, and hatred of the
woman whose life is such a contrast to her own, and who absorbs all
your affection. Lennox has used her as his tool and the Vere also,
I've no doubt. The thing's as clear as crystal. It's a sort of
general misunderstanding all round--one of those eminently
unpleasant trifles that very frequently upset the peace and comfort
of the most quiet and inoffensive persons. But the fault lies with
YOU, dear old boy!"
"With ME!" exclaimed Philip.
"Certainly! Thelma's soul is as open as daylight--you shouldn't have
had any secret from her, however trifling. She's not a woman 'on
guard,'--she can't take life as the most of us do, in military
fashion, with ears pricked for the approach of a spy, and prepared
to expect betrayal from her most familiar friends. She accepts
things as they appear, without any suspicion of mean ulterior
designs. It's a pity, of course!--it's a pity she can't be worldly-
wise, and scheme and plot and plan and lie like the rest of us!
However, YOUR course is plain--first interview Lennox and then
follow Thelma. She can't have left Hull yet,--there are scarcely any
boats running to Norway at this season. You'll overtake her I'm
certain."
"By Jove, Lorimer!" said Errington suddenly. "Clara Winsleigh sticks
at nothing--do you know she actually had the impudence to suggest
that YOU,--you, of all people,--were in love with Thelma!"
Lorimer flushed up, but laughed lightly. "How awfully sweet of her!
Much obliged to her, I'm sure! And how did you take it Phil?"
"Take it? I didn't take it at all," responded Philip warmly. "Of
course, I knew it was only her spite--she'd say anything in one of
her tempers."
Lorimer looked at him with a sudden tenderness in his blue eyes.
Then he laughed again, a little forcedly, and said--
"Be off, old man, and get that whip of yours! We'll run Lennox to
earth. Hullo! here's Britta!"
The little maid entered hurriedly at that moment,--she came to ask
with quivering lips, whether she might accompany Sir Philip in his
intended journey to Norway.
"For if you do not find the Froken at Hull, you will want to reach
the Altenfjord," said Britta, folding hands resolutely in front of
her apron, "and you will not get on without me. You do not know what
the country is like in the depth of winter when the sun is asleep.
You must have the reindeer to help you--and no Englishman knows how
to drive reindeer. And--and--"here Britta's eyes filled--"you have
not thought, perhaps, that the journey may make the Froken very ill-
-and that when we find her--she may be dying--" and Britta's
strength gave way in a big sob that broke from the depths of her
honest, affectionate heart.
"Don't--DON'T talk like that, Britta!" cried Philip passionately. "I
can't bear it! Of course, you shall go with me! I wouldn't leave you
behind for the world! Get everything ready--" and in a fever of heat
and impatience he began rumaging among some books on a side-shelf,
till he found the time-tables he sought. "Yes,--here we are,--
there's a train leaving for Hull at five--we'll take that. Tell
Morris to pack my portmanteau, and you bring it along with you to
the Midland railway-station this afternoon. Do you understand?"
Britta nodded emphatically, and hurried off at once to busy herself
with these preparations, while Philip, all excitement, dashed off to
give a few parting injunctions to Neville, and to get his horsewhip.
Lorimer, left alone for a few minutes, seated himself in an easy
chair and began absently turning over the newspapers on the table.
But his thoughts were far away, and presently he covered his eyes
with one hand as though the light hurt them. When he removed it, his
lashes were wet.
"What a fool I am!" he muttered impatiently. "Oh Thelma, Thelma! my
darling!--how I wish I could follow and find you and console you!--
you poor, tender, resigned soul, going away like this because you
thought you were not wanted--not wanted!--my God!--if you only knew
how one man at least has wanted and yearned for you ever since he
saw your sweet face!--Why can't I tear you out of my heart--why
can't I love some one else? Ah Phil!--good, generous, kind old
Phil!--he little guesses," he rose and paced the room up and down
restlessly. "The fact is I oughtn't to be here at all--I ought to
leave England altogether for a long time--till--till I get over it.
The question is, SHALL I ever get over it? Sigurd was a wise boy--he
found a short way out of all his troubles,--suppose I imitate his
example? No,--for a man in his senses that would be rather cowardly-
-though it might be pleasant!" He stopped in his walk with a
pondering expression on his face. "At any rate, I won't stop here to
see her come back--I couldn't trust myself,--I should say something
foolish--I know I should! I'll take my mother to Italy--she wants to
go; and we'll stay with Lovelace. It'll be a change--and I'll have a
good stand-up fight with myself, and see if I can't come off the
conqueror somehow! It's all very well to kill an opponent in battle
but the question is, can a man kill his inner, grumbling,
discontented, selfish Self? If he can't, what's the good of him?"
As he was about to consider this point reflectively, Errington
entered, equipped for travelling, and whip in hand. His imagination
had been at work during the past few minutes, exaggerating all the
horrors and difficulties of Thelma's journey to the Altenfjord, till
he was in a perfect fever of irritable excitement.
"Come on Lorimer!" he cried. "There's no time to lose! Britta knows
what to do--she'll meet me at the station. I can't breathe in this
wretched house a moment longer--let's be off!"
Plunging out into the hall, he bade Morris summon a hansom,--and
with a few last instructions to that faithful servitor, and an
encouraging kind word and shake of the hand to Neville, who with a
face of remorseful misery, stood at the door to watch his
departure,--he was gone. The hansom containing him and Lorimer
rattled rapidly towards the abode of Sir Francis Lennox, but on
entering Piccadilly, the vehicle was compelled to go so slowly on
account of the traffic, that Errington, who every moment grew more
and more impatient, could not stand it.
"By Jove! this is like a walking funeral!" he muttered. "I say
Lorimer, let's get out! We can do the rest on foot."
They stopped the cabman and paid him his fare--then hurried along
rapidly, Errington every now and then giving a fiercer clench to the
formidable horsewhip which was twisted together with his ordinary
walking-stick in such a manner as not to attract special attention.
"Coward and liar!" he muttered, as he thought of the man he was
about to punish. "He shall pay for his dastardly falsehood--by Jove
he shall! It'll be a precious long time before he shows himself in
society any more!"
Then he addressed Lorimer. "You may depend upon it he'll shout
'police! police!' and make for the door," he observed. "You keep
your back against it, Lorimer! I don't care how many fines I've got
to pay as long as I can thrash him soundly!"
"All right!" Lorimer answered, and they quickened their pace. As
they neared the chambers which Sir Francis Lennox rented over a
fashionable jeweller's shop, they became aware of a small procession
coming straight towards them from the opposite direction. SOMETHING
was being carried between four men who appeared to move with extreme
care and gentleness,--this something was surrounded by a crowd of
boys and men whose faces were full of morbid and frightened
interest--the whole cortege was headed by a couple of solemn
policemen. "You spoke of a walking funeral just now," said Lorimer
suddenly. "This looks uncommonly like one."
Errington made no reply--he had only one idea in his mind,--the
determination to chastise and thoroughly disgrace Sir Francis. "I'll
hound him out of the clubs!" he thought indignantly. "His own set
shall know what a liar he is--and if I can help it he shall never
hold up his head again!"
Entirely occupied as he was with these reflections, he paid no heed
to anything that was going on in the street, and he scarcely heard
Lorimer's last observation. So that he was utterly surprised and
taken aback, when he, with Lorimer, was compelled to come to a halt
before the very door of the jeweller, Lennox's landlord, while the
two policemen cleared a passage through the crowd, saying in low
tones, "Stand aside, gentlemen, please!--stand aside," thus making
gradual way for four bearers, who, as was now plainly to be seen,
carried a common wooden stretcher covered with a cloth, under which
lay what seemed, from its outline, to be a human figure.
"What's the matter here?" asked Lorimer, with a curious cold thrill
running through him as he put the simple question.
One of the policemen answered readily enough.
"An accident, sir. Gentleman badly hurt. Down at Charing Cross
Station--tried to jump into a train when it had started,--foot
caught,--was thrown under the wheels and dragged along some
distance--doctor says he can't live, sir."
"Who is he,--what's his name?"
"Lennox, sir--leastways, that's the name on his card--and this is
the address. Sir Francis Lennox, I believe it is."
Errington uttered a sharp exclamation of horror,--at that moment the
jeweller came out of the recesses of his shop with uplifted hands
and bewildered countenance.
"An accident? Good Heavens!--Sir Francis! Up-stairs!--take him up-
stairs!" Here he addressed the bearers. "You should have gone round
to the private entrance--he mustn't be seen in the shop--frightening
away all my customers--here, pass through!--pass through, as quick
as you can!"
And they did pass through,--carrying their crushed burden tenderly
along by the shining glass cases and polished counters, where
glimmered and flashed jewels of every size and lustre for the
adorning of the children of this world,--slowly and carefully, step
by step, they reached the upper floor,--and there, in a luxurious
apartment furnished with almost feminine elegance, they lifted the
inanimate form from the stretcher and laid it down, still shrouded,
on a velvet sofa, removing the last number of Truth, and two of
Zola's novels, to make room for the heavy, unconscious head.
Errington and Lorimer stood at the doorway, completely overcome by
the suddenness of the event--they had followed the bearers up-stairs
almost mechanically,--exchanging no word or glance by the way,--and
now they watched in almost breathless suspense while a surgeon who
was present, gently turned back the cover that hid the injured man's
features and exposed them to full view. Was THAT Sir Francis? that
blood-smeared, mangled creature?--THAT the lascivious dandy,--the
disciple of no-creed and self-worship? Errington shuddered and
averted his gaze from that hideous face,--so horribly contorted,--
yet otherwise deathlike in its rigid stillness. There was a grave
hush. The surgeon still bent over him--touching here, probing there,
with tenderness and skill,--but finally he drew back with a hopeless
shake of his head.
"Nothing can be done," he whispered. "Absolutely nothing!"
At that moment Sir Francis stirred,--he groaned and opened his
eyes;--what terrible eyes they were, filled with that look of
intense anguish, and something worse than anguish,--fear--frantic
fear--coward fear--fear that was almost more overpowering than his
bodily suffering.
He stared wildly at the little group assembled--strange faces, so
far as he could make them out, that regarded him with evident
compassion,--what--what was all this--what did it mean? Death? No,
no! he thought madly, while his brain reeled with the idea--death?
What WAS death?--darkness, annihilation, blackness--all that was
horrible--unimaginable! God! he would NOT die! God!--who WAS God? No
matter--he would live;--he would struggle against this heaviness,--
this coldness--this pillar of ice in which he was being slowly
frozen--frozen--frozen!--inch by--inch! He made a furious effort to
move, and uttered a scream of agony, stabbed through and through by
torturing pain.
"Keep still!" said the surgeon pityingly.
Sir Francis heard him not. He wrestled with his bodily anguish till
the perspiration stood in large drops on his forehead. He raised
himself, gasping for breath, and glared about him like a trapped
beast of prey.
"Give me brandy!" he muttered chokingly. "Quick--quick! Are you
going to let me die like a dog?--damn you all!"
The effort to move,--to speak,--exhausted his sinking strength--his
throat rattled,--he clenched his fists and made as though he would
spring off his couch--when a fearful contortion convulsed his whole
body,--his eyes rolled up and became fixed--he fell heavily back,--
DEAD!
Quietly the surgeon covered again what was now nothing,--nothing but
a mutilated corpse.
"It's all over!" he announce briefly.
Errington heard these words in sickened silence. All over! Was it
possible? So soon? All over!--and he had come too late to punish the
would-be ravisher of his wife's honor,--too late! He still held the
whip in his hand with which he had meant to chastise that--that
distorted, mangled lump of clay yonder, . . . pah! he could not bear
to think of it, and he turned away, faint and dizzy. He felt,--
rather than saw the staircase,--down which he dreamily went,
followed by Lorimer.
The two policemen were in the hall scribbling the cut-and-dry
particulars of the accident in their note-books, which having done,
they marched off, attended by a wandering, bilious-looking penny-a-
liner who was anxious to write a successful account of the "Shocking
Fatality," as it was called in the next day's newspapers. Then the
bearers departed cheerfully, carrying with them the empty stretcher.
Then the jeweller, who seemed quite unmoved respecting the sudden
death of his lodger, chatted amicably with the surgeon about the
reputation and various demerits of the deceased,--and Errington and
Lorimer, as they passed through the shop, heard him speaking of a
person hitherto unheard of, namely, Lady Francis Lennox, who had
been deserted by her husband for the past six years, and who was
living uncomplainingly the life of an art-student in Germany with
her married sister, maintaining, by the work of her own hands, her
one little child, a boy of five.
"He never allowed her a farthing," said the conversational jeweller.
"And she never asked him for one. Mr. Wiggins, his lawyer--firm of
Wiggins & Whizzer, Furnival's Inn,--told me all about his affairs.
Oh yes--he was a regular "masher"--tip-top! Not worth much, I should
say. He must have spent over a thousand a year in keeping up that
little place at St. John's Wood for Violet Vere. He owes me five
hundred. However, Mr. Wiggins will see everything fair, I've no
doubt. I've just wired to him, announcing the death. I don't suppose
any one will regret him--except, perhaps, the woman at St. John's
Wood. But I believe she's playing for a bigger stake just now." And,
stimulated by this thought, he drew out from a handsome morocco case
a superb pendant of emeralds and diamonds--a work of art, that
glittered as he displayed it, like a star on a frosty night.
"Pretty thing, isn't it?" he said proudly. "Eight hundred pounds,
and cheap, too! It was ordered for Miss Vere, two months ago, by the
Duke of Moorlands. I see he sold his collection of pictures the
other day. Luckily they fetched a tidy sum, so I'm pretty sure of
the money for this. He'll sell everything he's got to please her.
Queer? Oh, not at all! She's the rage just now,--I can't see
anything in her myself,--but I'm not a duke, you see--I'm obliged to
be respectable!"
He laughed as he returned the pendant to its nest of padded amber
satin, and Errington,--sick at heart to hear such frivolous converse
going on while that crushed and lifeless form lay in the very room
above,--unwatched, uncared-for,--put his arm through Lorimer's and
left the shop.
Once in the open street, with the keen, cold air blowing against
their faces, they looked at each other blankly. Piccadilly was
crowded; the hurrying people passed and re-passed,--there were the
shouts of omnibus conductors and newsboys--the laughter of young men
coming out of the St. James's Hall Restaurant; all was as usual,--
as, indeed, why should it not? What matters the death of one man in
a million? unless, indeed, it be a man whose life, like a torch,
uplifted in darkness, has enlightened and cheered the world,--but
the death of a mere fashionable "swell" whose chief talent has been
a trick of lying gracefully--who cares for such a one? Society is
instinctively relieved to hear that his place is empty, and shall
know him more. But Errington could not immediately forget the scene
he had witnessed. He was overcome by sensations of horror,--even of
pity,--and he walked by his friend's side for some time in silence.
"I wish I could get rid of this thing!" he said suddenly, looking
down at the horsewhip in his hand.
Lorimer made no answer. He understood his feeling, and realized the
situation as sufficiently grim. To be armed with a weapon meant for
the chastisement of a man whom Death had so suddenly claimed was, to
say the least of it, unpleasant. Yet the horsewhip could scarcely be
thrown away in Piccadilly--such an action might attract notice and
comment. Presently Philip spoke again.
"He was actually married all the time!"
"So it seems;" and Lorimer's face expressed something very like
contempt. "By Jove, Phil! he must have been an awful scoundrel!"
"Don't let's say any more about him--he's dead!" and Philip
quickened his steps. "And what a horrible death!"
"Horrible enough, indeed!"
Again they were both silent. Mechanically they turned down towards
Pall Mall.
"George," said Errington, with a strange awe in his tones, "it seems
to me to-day as if there were death in the air. I don't believe in
presentiments, but yet--yet I can-not help thinking--what if I
should find my Thelma--DEAD?"
Lorimer turned very pale--a cold shiver ran through him, but he
endeavored to smile.
"For God's sake, old fellow, don't think of anything so terrible!
Look here, you're hipped--no wonder! and you've got a long journey
before you. Come and have lunch. It's just two o'clock. Afterwards
we'll go to the Garrick and have a chat with Beau Lovelace--he's a
first-rate fellow for looking on the bright side of everything. Then
I'll see you off this afternoon at the Midland--what do you say?"
Errington assented to this arrangement, and tried to shake off the
depression that had settled upon him, though dark forebodings passed
one after the other like clouds across his mind. He seemed to see
the Altenguard hills stretching drearily, white with frozen snow,
around the black Fjord; he pictured Thelma, broken-hearted, fancying
herself deserted, returning through the cold and darkness to the
lonely farm-house behind the now withered pines. Then he began to
think of the shell-cave where that other Thelma lay hidden in her
last deep sleep,--the wailing words of Sigurd came freshly back to
his ears, when the poor crazed lad had likened Thelma's thoughts to
his favorite flowers, the pansies--"One by one you will gather and
play with her thoughts as though they were these blossoms; your
burning hand will mar their color--they will wither and furl up and
die,--and you--what will you care? Nothing! No man ever cares for a
flower that is withered,--not even though his own hand slew it!"
Had he been to blame? he mused, with a sorrowful weight at his
heart. Unintentionally, had he,--yes, he would put it plainly,--had
he neglected her, just a little? Had he not, with all his true and
passionate love for her, taken her beauty, her devotion, her
obedience too much for granted--too much as his right? And in these
latter months, when her health had made her weaker and more in need
of his tenderness, had he not, in a sudden desire for political fame
and worldly honor, left her too much alone, a prey to solitude and
the often morbid musings which solitude engenders?
He began to blame himself heartily for the misunderstanding that had
arisen out of his share in Neville's unhappy secret. Neville had
been weak and timid,--he had shrunk nervously from avowing that the
notorious Violet Vere was actually the woman he had so faithfully
loved and mourned,--but he, Philip, ought not to have humored him in
these fastidious scruples--he ought to have confided everything to
Thelma. He remembered now that he had once or twice been uneasy lest
rumors of his frequent visits to Miss Vere might possibly reach his
wife's ears,--but, then, as his purpose was absolutely disinterested
and harmless, he did not dwell on this idea, but dismissed it, and
held his peace for Neville's sake, contenting himself with the
thought that, "If Thelma DID hear anything, she would never believe
a word against me."
He could not quite see where his fault had been,--though a fault
there was somewhere, as he uneasily felt--and he would no doubt have
started indignantly had a small elf whispered in his ear the word
"CONCEIT." Yet that was the name of his failing--that and no other.
How many men, otherwise noble-hearted, are seriously, though often
unconsciously, burdened with this large parcel of blown-out Nothing!
Sir Philip did not appear to be conceited--he would have repelled
the accusation with astonishment,--not knowing that in his very
denial of the fault, the fault existed. He had never been truly
humbled but twice in his life,--once as he knelt to receive his
mother's dying benediction,--and again when he first loved Thelma,
and was uncertain whether his love could be returned by so fair and
pure a creature. With these two exceptions, all his experience had
tended to give him an excellent opinion of himself,--and that he
should possess one of the best and loveliest wives in the world,
seemed to him quite in keeping with the usual course of things. The
feeling that it was a sheer impossibility for her to ever believe a
word against him, rose out of this inward self-satisfaction--this
one flaw in his otherwise bright, honest, and lovable character--a
flaw of which he himself was not aware. Now, when for the third time
his fairy castle of perfect peace and pleasure seemed shaken to its
foundations,--when he again realized the uncertainty of life or
death, he felt bewildered and wretched. His chiefest pride was
centred in Thelma, and she--was gone! Again he reverted to the
miserable idea that, like a melancholy refrain, haunted him--"What
if I should find her DEAD!"
Absorbed in painful reflections, he was a very silent companion for
Lorimer during the luncheon which they took at a quiet little
restaurant well known to the habitues of Pall Mall and Regent
Street. Lorimer himself had his own reasons for being equally
depressed and anxious,--for did he not love Thelma as much as even
her husband could?--nay, perhaps more, knowing his love was
hopeless. Not always does possession of the adored object strengthen
the adoration,--the rapturous dreams of an ideal passion have often
been known to surpass reality a thousandfold. So the two friends
exchanged but few words,--though they tried to converse cheerfully
on indifferent subjects, and failed in the attempt. They had nearly
finished their light repast, when a familiar voice saluted them.
"It IS Errington,--I thocht I couldna be mistaken! How are ye both?"
Sandy Macfarlane stood before them, unaltered, save that his scanty
beard had grown somewhat longer. They had seen nothing of him since
their trip to Norway, and they greeted him now with unaffected
heartiness, glad of the distraction his appearance afforded them.
"Where do you hail from, Mac?" asked Lorimer, as he made the new-
comer sit down at their table. "We haven't heard of you for an age."
"It IS a goodish bit of time," assented Macfarlane, "but better late
than never. I came up to London a week ago from Glasgie,--and my
heed has been in a whirl ever since. Eh, mon! but it's an awful
place!--maybe I'll get used to't after a wee whilie."
"Are you going to settle here, then?" inquired Errington, "I thought
you intended to be a minister somewhere in Scotland?"
Macfarlane smiled, and his eyes twinkled.
"I hae altered ma opee-nions a bit," he said. "Ye see, ma aunt in
Glasgie's deed--"
"I understand," laughed Lorimer. "You've come in for the old lady's
money?"
"Puir body!" and Sandy shook his head gravely. "A few hours before
she died she tore up her will in a screamin' fury o' Christian
charity and forethought,--meanin' to mak anither in favor o' leavin'
a' her warld's trash to the Fund for Distributin' Bible Knowledge
among the Heathen--but she never had time to fulfill her intention.
She went off like a lamb,--and there being no will, her money fell
to me, as the nearest survivin' relative-eh! the puir thing!--if her
dees-imbodied spirit is anywhere aboot, she must be in a sair plight
to think I've got it, after a' her curses!"
"How much?" asked Lorimer amused.
"Oh, just a fair seventy thousand or so," answered Macfarlane
carelessly.
"Well done, Mac!" said Errington, with a smile, endeavoring to
appear interested. "You're quite rich, then? I congratulate you!"
"Riches are a snare," observed Macfarlane, sententiously, "a snare
and a decoy to both soul and body!" He laughed and rubbed his
hands,--then added with some eagerness, "I say, how is Lady
Errington?"
"She's very well," answered Sir Philip hurriedly, exchanging a quick
look with Lorimer, which the latter at once understood. "She's away
on a visit just now. I'm going to join her this afternoon."
"I'm sorry she's away," said Sandy, and he looked very disappointed;
"but I'll see her when she comes back. Will she be long absent?"
"No, not long--a few days only"--and as Errington said this an
involuntary sigh escaped him.
A few days only!--God grant it! But what--what if he should find her
DEAD?
Macfarlane noticed the sadness of his expression, but prudently
forbore to make any remark upon it. He contented himself with
saying--
"Weel, ye've got a wife worth having--as I dare say ye know. I shall
be glad to pay my respects to her as soon as she returns. I've got
your address, Errington--will ye take mine?"
And he handed him a small card on which was written in pencil the
number of a house in one of the lowest streets in the East-end of
London. Philip glanced at it with some surprise.
"Is THIS where you live?" he asked with emphatic amazement.
"Yes. It's just the cleanest tenement I could find in that
neighborhood. And the woman that keeps it is fairly respectable."
"But with your money," remonstrated Lorimer, who also looked at the
card, "I rather wonder at your choice of abode. Why, my dear fellow,
do you KNOW what sort of a place it is?"
A steadfast, earnest, THINKING look came into Macfarlane's deep-set,
grey eyes.
"Yes, I do know, pairfectly," he said in answer to the question.
"It's a place where there's misery, starvation, and crime of all
sorts,--and there I am in the very midst of it--just where I want to
be. Ye see, I was meant to be a meenister--one of those douce,
cannie, comfortable bodies that drone in the pulpit about
predestination and original sin, and so forth a--sort, of palaver
that does no good to ony resonable creature--an' if I had followed
out this profession, I make nae doot that, with my aunt's seventy
thousand, I should be a vera comfortable, respectable, selfish type
of a man, who was decently embarked in an apparently important but
really useless career--"
"Useless?" interrupted Lorimer archly. "I say, Mac, take care! A
minister of the Lord, USELESS!"
"I'm thinkin' there are unco few meen-isters o' the Lord in this
warld," said Macfarlane musingly. "Maist o' them meen-ister to
themselves, an' care na a wheen mair for Christ than Buddha. I tell
ye, I was an altered man after we'd been to Norway--the auld pagan
set me thinkin' mony an' mony a time--for, ma certes! he's better
worthy respect than mony a so-called Christian. And as for his
daughter--the twa great blue eyes o'that lassie made me fair ashamed
o' mysel'. Why? Because I felt that as a meen-ister o' the
Established Kirk, I was bound to be a sort o' heep-ocrite,--ony
thinkin', reasonable man wi' a conscience canna be otherwise wi'
they folk,--and ye ken, Errington, there's something in your wife's
look that maks a body hesitate before tellin' a lee. Weel--what wi'
her face an' the auld bonde's talk, I reflectit that I couldna be a
meen-ister as meen-isters go,--an' that I must e'en follow oot the
Testament's teachings according to ma own way of thinkin'. First, I
fancied I'd rough it abroad as a meesionary--then I remembered the
savages at hame, an' decided to attend to them before onything else.
Then my aunt's siller came in handy--in short, I'm just gaun to live
on as wee a handfu' o' the filthy lucre as I can, an' lay oot the
rest on the heathens o' London. An' it's as well to do't while I'm
alive to see to't mysel'--for I've often observed that if ye leave
your warld's gear to the poor when ye're deed, just for the gude
reason that ye canna tak it to the grave wi' ye,--it'll melt in a
wonderfu' way through the hands o' the 'secretaries' an'
'distributors' o' the fund, till there's naething left for those ye
meant to benefit. Ye maunna think I'm gaun to do ony preachin'
business down at East-end,--there's too much o' that an' tract-
givin' already. The puir soul whose wee hoosie I've rented hadna
tasted bit nor sup for three days--till I came an' startled her into
a greetin' fit by takin'her rooms an' payin' her in advance--eh!
mon, ye'd have thought I was a saint frae heaven if ye'd heard her
blessin' me,--an' a gude curate had called on her just before and
had given her a tract to dine on. Ye see, I maun mak mysel' a FRIEND
to the folk first, before I can do them gude--I maun get to the
heart o' their troubles--an' troubles are plentiful in that
quarter,--I maun live among them, an' be ane o' them. I wad mind ye
that Christ Himsel' gave sympathy to begin with,--he did the
preachin' afterwards."
"What a good fellow you are, Mac!" said Errington, suddenly seeing
his raw Scotch friend with the perverse accent, in quite a new and
heroic light.
Macfarlane actually blushed. "Nonsense, not a bit o't!" he declared
quite nervously. "It's just pure selfishness, after a'--for I'm
simply enjoyin' mysel' the hale day long. Last nicht, I found a wee
cripple o' a laddie sittin' by himsel' in the gutter, munchin a
potato skin. I just took him,--he starin' an' blinkin' like an owl
at me,--and carried him into my room. There I gave him a plate o'
barley broth, an' finished him up wi' a hunk o' gingerbread. Ma
certes! Ye should ha' seen the rascal laugh. 'Twas better than
lookin' at a play from a ten-guinea box on the grand tier!"
"By Jove, Sandy, you're a brick!" cried Lorimer, laughing to hide a
very different emotion--"I had no idea you were that sort of chap."
"Nor had I," said Macfarlane quite simply--"I never fashed mysel'
wi' thinkin' o' ither folks troubles at a'--I never even took into
conseederation the meanin' o' the Testament teachings till--I saw
your leddy wife, Errington." He paused a moment, then added gravely-
-"Yes--and I've aften fancied she maun be a real live angel,--an'
I've sought always to turn my hand to something useful and worth the
doin',--ever since I met her."
"I'll tell her so," said poor Philip, his heart aching for his lost
love as he spoke, though he smiled. "It will give her pleasure to
hear it."
Macfarlane blushed again like any awkward schoolboy.
"Oh, I dinna ken aboot that!" he said hurriedly. "She's just a grand
woman anyway." Then, bethinking himself of another subject, he
asked, "Have you heard o' the Reverend Mr. Dyceworthy lately?"
Errington and Lorimer replied in the negative.
Macfarlane laughed--his eyes twinkled. "It's evident ye never read
police reports," he said--"Talk o' misters,--he's a pretty specimen!
He's been hunted out o' his place in Yorkshire for carryin' on love-
affairs wi' the women o' his congregation. One day he locked himsel'
in the vestry wi' the new-married wife o' one o' his preencipal
supporters--an' he had a grand time of it--till the husband came an'
dragged him oot an' thrashed him soundly. Then he left the
neighborhood--an' just th' ither day--he turned up in Glasgie."
Macfarlane paused and laughed again.
"Well?" said Lorimer, with some interest--"Did you meet him there?"
"That did I--but no to speak to him--he was for too weel lookit
after to need my services," and Macfarlane rubbed his great hands
together with an irrepressible chuckle. "There was a crowd o'
hootin' laddies round him, an' he was callin' on the heavens to bear
witness to his purity. His hat was off--an' he had a black eye--an'
a' his coat was covered wi' mud, an' a policeman was embracin' him
vera affectionately by th' arm. He was in charge for drunken,
disorderly, an' indecent conduct--an' the magistrate cam' down
pretty hard on him. The case proved to be exceptionally outrageous--
so he's sentenced to a month's imprisonment an' hard labor. Hard
labor! Eh, mon! but that's fine! Fancy him at work--at real work for
the first time in a' his days! Gude Lord! I can see him at it!"
"So he's come to that!" and Errington shrugged his shoulders with
weary contempt. "I thought he would. His career as a minister is
ended, that's one comfort!"
"Don't be too sure o' that!" said Sandy cautiously. "There's always
America, ye ken. He can mak' a holy martyr o' himsel' there! He may
gain as muckle a reputation as Henry Ward Beecher--ye cann ever tell
what may happen--'tis a queer warld!"
"Queer, indeed!" assented Lorimer as they all rose and left the
restaurant together. "If our present existence is the result of a
fortuitous conglomeration of atoms,--I think the atoms ought to have
been more careful what they were about, that's all I can say!"
They reached the open street, where Macfarlane shook hands and went
his way, promising to call on Errington as soon as Thelma should be
again at home.
"He's turned out quite a fine fellow," said Lorimer, when be had
gone. "I should never have thought he had so much in him. He has
become a philanthropist."
"I fancy he's better than an ordinary philanthropist," replied
Philip. "Philanthropists often talk a great deal and do nothing."
"Like members of Parliament," suggested Lorimer, with a smile.
"Exactly so. By-the-by--I've resigned my candidateship."
"Resigned? Why?"
"Oh, I'm sick of the thing! One has to be such a humbug to secure
one's votes. I had a wretched time yesterday,--speechifying and
trying to rouse up clodhoppers to the interests of their country,--
and all the time my darling at home was alone, and breaking her
heart about me! By Jove I if I'd only known! When I came back this
morning to all this misery--I told Neville to send in my
resignation. I repeated the same thing to him the last thing before
I left the house."
"But you might have waited a day or two," said Lorimer wonderingly.
"You're such a fellow of impulse, Phil--"
"Well, I can't help it. I'm tired of politics. I began with a will,
fancying that every member of the house had his country's interests
at heart,--not a bit of it! They're all for themselves--most of
them, at any rate--they're not even sincere in their efforts to do
good to the population. And it's all very well to stick up for the
aristocracy; but why, in Heaven's name, can't some of the wealthiest
among them do as much as our old Mac is doing, for the outcast and
miserable poor? I see some real usefulness and good in HIS work, and
I'll help him in it with a will--when--when Thelma comes back."
Thus talking, the two friends reached the Garrick Club, where they
found Beau Lovelace in the reading-room, turning over some new books
with the curious smiling air of one who believes there can be
nothing original under the sun, and that all literature is mere
repetition. He greeted them cheerfully.
"Come out of here," he said. "Come into a place where we can talk.
There's an old fellow over there who's ready to murder any member
who even whispers. We won't excite his angry passions. You know
we're all literature-mongers here,--we've each got our own little
particular stall where we sort our goods--our mouldy oranges, sour
apples, and indigestible nuts,--and we polish them up to look
tempting to the public. It's a great business, and we can't bear to
be looked at while we're turning our apples with the best side
outwards, and boiling our oranges to make them swell and seem big!
We like to do our humbug in silence and alone."
He led the way into the smoking-room--and there heard with much
surprise and a great deal of concern the story of Thelma's flight.
"Ingenuous boy!" he said kindly, clapping Philip on the shoulder.
"How could you be such a fool as to think that repeated visits to
Violet Vere, no matter on what business, would not bring the dogs of
scandal yelping about your heels! I wonder you didn't see how you
were compromising yourself!"
"He never told ME a word about it," interposed Lorimer, "or else I
should have given him a bit of my mind on the subject."
"Of course!" agreed Lovelace. "And--excuse me--why the devil didn't
you let your secretary manage his domestic squabbles by himself?"
"He's very much broken down," said Errington. "A hopeless, frail,
disappointed man. I thought I could serve him--"
"I see!" and Beau's eyes were bent on him with a very friendly look.
"You're a first-rate fellow, Errington,--but you shouldn't fly off
so readily on the rapid wings of impulse. Now I suppose you want to
shoot Lennox--that can't be done--not in England at any rate."
"It can't be done at all, anywhere," said Lorimer gravely. "He's
dead."
Beau Lovelace started back in amazement. "Dead! You don't say so!
Why, he was dining last night at the Criterion--I saw him there."
Briefly they related the sudden accident that had occurred, and
described its fatal result.
"He died horribly!" said Philip in a low voice. "I haven't got over
it yet. That evil, tortured face of his haunts me."
Lovelace was only slightly shocked. He had known Lennox's life too
well, and had despised it too thoroughly, to feel much regret now it
was thus abruptly ended.
"Rather an unpleasant exit for such a fellow," he remarked. "Not
aesthetic at all. And so you were going to castigate him?"
"Look!" and Philip showed him the horsewhip; "I've been carrying
this thing about all day,--I wish I could drop it in the streets;
but if I did, some one would be sure to pick it up and return it to
me."
"If it were a purse containing bank-notes you could drop it with the
positive certainty of never seeing it again," laughed Beau. "Here,
hand it over!" and he possessed himself of it. "I'll keep it till
you come back. You leave for Norway to-night, then?"
"Yes. If I can. But it's the winter season--and there'll be all
manner of difficulties. I'm afraid it's no easy matter to reach the
Altenfjord at this time of year."
"Why not use your yacht, and be independent of obstacles?" suggested
Lovelace.
"She's under repairs, worse luck!" sighed Philip despondingly. "She
won't be in sailing condition for another month. No--I must take my
chance--that's all. It's possible I may overtake Thelma at Hull--
that's my great hope."
"Well, don't be down in the mouth about it, my boy!" said Beau
sympathetically. "It'll all come right, depend upon it! Your wife's
a sweet, gentle, noble creature,--and when once she knows all about
the miserable mistake that has arisen, I don't know which will be
greatest, her happiness or her penitence, for having misunderstood
the position. Now let's have some coffee."
He ordered this refreshment from a passing waiter, and as he did so,
a gentleman, with hands clasped behind his back, and a suave smile
on his countenance, bowed to him with marked and peculiar courtesy
as he sauntered on his way through the room. Beau returned the
salute with equal politeness.
"That's Whipper," he explained with a smile, when the gentleman was
out of earshot. "The best and most generous of men! He's a critic--
all critics are large-minded and generous, we know,--but he happens
to be remarkably so. He did me the kindest turn I ever had in my
life. When my first book came out, he fell upon it tooth and claw,
mangled it, tore it to ribbons, metaphorically speaking,--and waved
the fragments mockingly in the eyes of the public. From that day my
name was made--my writings sold off with delightful rapidity, and
words can never tell how I blessed, and how I still bless, Whipper!
He always pitches into me--that's what's so good of him! We're
awfully polite to each other, as you observe--and what is so
perfectly charming is that he's quite unconscious how much he's
helped me along! He's really a first-rate fellow. But I haven't yet
attained the summit of my ambition,"--and here Lovelace broke off
with a sparkle of fun in his clear steel-grey eyes.
"Why, what else do you want?" asked Lorimer laughing.
"I want," returned Beau solemnly, "I want to be jeered at by Punch!
I want Punch to make mouths at me, and give me the benefit of his
inimitable squeak and gibber. No author's fame is quite secure till
dear old Punch has abused him. Abuse is the thing nowadays, you
know. Heaven forbid that I should be praised by Punch. That would be
frightfully unfortunate!"
Here the coffee arrived, and Lovelace dispensed it to his friends,
talking gaily the while in an effort to distract Errington from his
gloomy thoughts.
"I've just been informed on respectable authority, that Walt Whitman
is the new Socrates," he said laughingly. "I felt rather stunned at
the moment but I've got over it now. Oh, this deliciously mad
London! what a gigantic Colney Hatch it is for the crazed folk of
the world to air their follies in! That any reasonable Englishmen
with such names as Shakespeare, Byron, Keats, and Shelley, to keep
the glory of their country warm, should for one moment consider Walt
Whitman a POET! Ye gods! Where are your thunderbolts!"
"He's an American, isn't he?" asked Errington.
"He is, my dear boy! An American whom the sensible portion of
America rejects. We, therefore,--out of opposition,--take him up.
His chief recommendation is that he writes blatantly concerning
commonplaces,--regardless of music or rhythm. Here's a bit of him
concerning the taming of oxen. He says the tamer lives in a"
"'Placid pastoral region.
There they bring him the three-year-olds and the four-year-olds
to break them,--
Some are such beautiful animals, so lofty looking,--some are
buff-colored, some mottled, one has a white line running
along his back, some are brindled,
Some have wide flaring horns (a good sign!) look you! the bright
hides
See the two with stars on their foreheads--see the round bodies
and broad backs
How straight and square they stand on their legs--'"
"Stop, stop!" cried Lorimer, putting his hands to his ears. "This is
a practical joke, Beau! No one would call that jargon poetry!"
"Oh! wouldn't they though!" exclaimed Lovelace. "Let some critic of
reputation once start the idea, and you'll have the good London folk
who won't bother to read him for themselves, declaring him as fine
as Shakespeare. The dear English muttons! fine Southdowns! fleecy
baa-lambs! once let the Press-bell tinkle loudly enough across the
fields of literature, and they'll follow, bleating sweetly in any
direction! The sharpest heads in our big metropolis are those who
know this, and who act accordingly."
"Then why don't YOU act accordingly?" asked Errington, with a faint
smile.
"Oh, I? I can't! I never asked a favor from the Press in my life--
but its little bell has tinkled for me all the same, and a few of
the muttons follow, but not all. Are you off?" this, as they rose to
take their leave. "Well, Errington, old fellow," and he shook hands
warmly, "a pleasant journey to you, and a happy return home! My best
regards to your wife. Lorimer, have you settled whether you'll go
with me to Italy? I start the day after to-morrow."
Lorimer hesitated--then said, "All right! My mother's delighted at
the idea,--yes, Beau! we'll come. Only I hope we shan't bore you."
"Bore me! you know me better than that," and he accompanied them out
of the smoking-room into the hall, while Errington, a little
surprised at this sudden arrangement, observed--
"Why, George--I thought you'd be here when we came back from Norway--
to--to welcome Thelma, you know!"
George laughed. "My dear boy, I shan't be wanted! Just let me know
how everything goes on. You--you see, I'm in duty bound to take my
mother out of London in winter."
"Just so!" agreed Lovelace, who had watched him narrowly while he
spoke. "Don't grudge the old lady her southern sunshine. Errington!
Lorimer wants brushing up a bit too--he looks seedy. Then I shall
consider it settled--the day after to-morrow, we meet at Charing
Cross--morning tidal express, of course,--never go by night service
across the Channel if you can help it."
Again they shook hands and parted.
"Best thing that young fellow can do!" thought Lovelace as he
returned to the Club reading-room. "The sooner he gets out of this,
into new scenes the better,--he's breaking his heart over the
beautiful Thelma. By Jove! the boy's eyes looked like those of a
shot animal whenever her name was mentioned. He's rather badly hit!"
He sat down and began to meditate. "What can I do for him, I
wonder?" he thought. "Nothing, I suppose. A love of that sort can't
be remedied. It's a pity--a great pity! And I don't know any woman
likely to make a counter-impression on him. He'd never put up with
an Italian beauty"--he paused in his reflections, and the color
flushed his broad, handsome brow, as the dazzling vision of a sweet,
piquant face with liquid dark eyes and rippling masses of rich brown
hair came flitting before him--"unless he saw Angela," he murmured
to himself softly,--"and he will not see her,--besides, Angela loves
ME!"
And after this, his meditations seemed to be particularly pleasant,
to judge from the expression of his features. Beau was by no means
ignorant of the tender passion--he had his own little romance, as
beautiful and bright as a summer day--but he had resolved that
London, with its love of gossip, its scandal, and society papers,--
London, that on account of his popularity as a writer, watched his
movements and chronicled his doings in the most authoritative and
incorrect manner,--London should have no chance of penetrating into
the secret of his private life. And so far he had succeeded--and was
likely still to succeed.
Meanwhile, as he still sat in blissful reverie, pretending to read a
newspaper, though his thoughts were far away from it, Errington and
Lorimer arrived at the Midland Station. Britta was already there
with the luggage,--she was excited and pleased--her spirits had
risen at the prospect of seeing her mistress soon again,--possibly,
she thought gladly, they might find her at Hull,--they might not
have to go to Norway at all. The train came up to the platform--the
tickets were taken,--and Sir Philip, with Britta, entered--a first-
class compartment, while Lorimer stood outside leaning with folded
arms on the carriage-window, talking cheerfully.
"You'll find her all right, Phil, I'm positive!" he said. "I think
it's very probable she has been compelled to remain at Hull,--and
even at the worst, Britta can guide you all over Norway, if
necessary. Nothing will daunt HER!"
And he nodded kindly to the little maid who had regained her rosy
color and the sparkle of her eyes in the eagerness she felt to
rejoin her beloved "Froken." The engine-whistle gave a warning
shriek--Philip leaned out and pressed his friend's hand warmly.
"Good-bye, old fellow! I'll write to you in Italy."
"All right--mind you do! And I say--give my love to Thelma!"
Philip smiled and promised. The train began to move,--slowly at
first, then more quickly, till with clattering uproar and puffing
clouds of white steam, it rushed forth from the station, winding
through the arches like a black snake, till it had twisted itself
rapidly out of sight. Lorimer, left alone, looked after it
wistfully, with a heavy weight of unuttered love and sorrow at his
heart, and as he at last turned away, those haunting words that he
had heard under the pines at the Altenfjord recurred again and again
to his memory--the words uttered by the distraught Sigurd--and how
true they were, he thought! how desperately, cruelly true!
"Good things may come for others--but for YOU, the heavens are
empty!"
CHAPTER XXX.
"Honor is an old-world thing, but it smells sweet to those in whose
hand it is strong."--OUIDA.
Disappointment upon disappointment awaited Errington at Hull.
Unfortunately, neither he nor Britta knew of the existence of the
good Norwegian innkeeper, Friedhof, who had assisted Thelma in her
flight--and all their persistent and anxious inquiries elicited no
news of her. Moreover, there was no boat of any kind leaving
immediately for Norway--not even a whaler or fishing-smack. In a
week's time,--possibly later,--there would be a steamer starting for
Christiansund, and for this, Errington, though almost mad with
impatience, was forced to wait. And in the meantime, he roamed about
the streets of Hull, looking eagerly at every fair-haired woman who
passed him, and always hoping that Thelma herself would suddenly
meet him face to face, and put her hands in his. He wrote to Neville
and told him to send on any letters that might arrive for him, and
by every post he waited anxiously for one from Thelma but none came.
To relieve his mind a little, he scribbled a long letter to her,
explaining everything, telling her how ardently he loved and
worshipped her--how he was on his way to join her at the
Altenfjord,--and ending by the most passionate vows of unchanging
love and fidelity. He was somewhat soothed when he had done this--
though he did not realize the fact that in all probability he
himself might arrive before the letter. The slow, miserable days
went on--the week was completed--the steamer for Christiansund
started at last,--and, after a terribly stormy passage, he and the
faithful Britta were landed there.
On arrival, he learned that a vessel bound for the North Cape had
left on the previous day--there would not be another for a
fortnight. Cursing his ill-luck, he resolved to reach the Altenfjord
by land, and began to make arrangements accordingly. Those who knew
the country well endeavored to dissuade him from this desperate
project--the further north, the greater danger, they told him,--
moreover, the weather was, even for Norway, exceptionally trying.
Snow lay heavily over all the country he would have to traverse--the
only means of conveyance was by carriole or pulkha--the latter a
sort of sledge used by the Laplanders, made in the form of a boat,
and generally drawn by reindeer. The capabilities of the carriole
would be exhausted as soon as the snow-covered regions were reached-
-and to manage a pulkha successfully, required special skill of no
ordinary kind. But the courageous little Britta made short work of
all these difficulties--she could drive a pulkha,--she knew how to
manage reindeer,--she entertained not the slightest doubt of being
able to overcome all the obstacles on the way. At the same time, she
frankly told Sir Philip that the journey would be a long one,
perhaps occupying several days--that they would have to rest at
different farms or stations on the road, and put up with hard fare--
that the cold would be intense,--that often they would find it
difficult to get relays of the required reindeer,--and that it might
perhaps be wiser to wait for the next boat going to the North Cape.
But Errington would hear of no more delays--each hour that passed
filled him with fresh anxieties--and once in Norway he could not
rest. The idea that Thelma might be ill--dying--or dead--gained on
him with redoubled force,--and his fears easily communicating
themselves to Britta, who was to the full as impatient as he, the
two made up their minds, and providing every necessary for the
journey they could think of, they started for the far sunless North,
through a white, frozen land, which grew whiter and more silent the
further they went,--even as the brooding sky above them grew darker
and darker. The aurora borealis flashed its brilliant shafts of
color against the sable breast of heaven,--the tall pines, stripped
bare, every branch thick with snow and dropping icicles, stood,--
pale ghosts of the forest,--shedding frozen tears--the moon, more
like steel than silver, shone frostily cold, her light seeming to
deepen rather than soften the dreariness of the land--and on--on--
on--they went, Britta enveloped to the chin in furs, steadily
driving the strange elfin-looking steeds with their horned heads
casting long distorted shadows on the white ground,--and Philip
beside her, urging her on with feverish impatience, while he
listened to the smooth trot of the reindeer,--the tinkle of the
bells on their harness, and the hiss of the sledge across the
sparkling snow.
Meanwhile, as he thus pursued his long and difficult journey, rumor
was very busy with his name in London. Everybody--that is, everybody
worth consideration in the circle of the "Upper Ten"--was talking
about him,--shrugging their shoulders, lifting their eyebrows and
smiling knowingly, whenever he was mentioned. He became more known
in one day than if he had served his country's interests in
Parliament for years.
On the very morning after he had left the metropolis en route for
Norway, that admirably conducted society journal, the Snake,
appeared,--and of course, had its usual amount of eager purchasers,
anxious to see the latest bit of aristocratic scandal. Often these
good folks were severely disappointed--the Snake was sometimes so
frightfully dull, that it had actually nothing to say against
anybody--then, naturally, it was not worth buying. But this time it
was really interesting--it knocked down--or tried to knock down--at
one blow, a formerly spotless reputation--and "really--really!" said
the Upper Ten, "it was dreadful, but of course it was to be
expected! Those quiet, seemingly virtuous persons are always the
worst when you come to know them, yet who would have thought it!"
And society read the assailing paragraph, and rolled it in its rank
mouth, like a bon-bon, enjoying its flavor. It ran as follows:--
"We hear on excellent authority that the Norwegian 'beauty,' Lady
Bruce-Errington, wife of Sir Philip Bruce-Errington, is about to sue
for a divorce on the ground of infidelity. The offending dama in the
question is an admired actress, well-known to the frequenters of the
Brilliant Theatre. But there are always two sides to these affairs,
and it is rumored that the fair Norwegian (who before her marriage,
we understand, was a great adept in the art of milking reindeer on
the shores of her native Fjord) has private reasons of her own for
desiring the divorce, not altogether in keeping with her stated
reasons or her apparent reserve. We are, however, always on the side
of the fair sex, and, as the faithless husband has made no secret of
his new liaison, we do not hesitate to at once pronounce in the
lady's favor. The case is likely to prove interesting to believers
in wedded happiness, combined with the strictest moral and religious
sentiments."
Quite by accident this piece of would-be "smartness" was seen by
Beau Lovelace. He had a wholesome contempt for the Snake--and all
its class,--he would never have looked at it, or known of the
paragraph, had not a friend of his at the Garrick pointed it out to
him with half a smile and half a sneer.
"It's a damned lie!" said Beau briefly.
"That remains to be proved!" answered his friend, and went away
laughing.
Beau read it over and over again, his blood firing with honest
indignation. Thelma! Thelma--that pure white lily of womanhood,--was
she to have her stainless life blurred by the trail of such a thing
as the Snake?--and was Errington's honor to be attainted in his
absence, and he condemned without a word uttered in his defence?
"Detestable blackguard!" muttered Lovelace, reverting in his mind to
the editor of the journal in question. "What's his name I wonder?"
He searched and found it at the top of a column-"Sole Editor and
Proprietor, C. Snawley-Grubbs, to whom all checks and post-office
orders should be made payable. The Editor cannot be responsible for
the return of rejected MSS."
Beau noted the name, and wrote the address of the office in his
pocket-book, smiling curiously to himself the while.
"I'm almost glad Errington's out of the way," he said half aloud.
"He shan't see this thing if I can help it, though I dare say some
particularly affectionate friend will send it to him, carefully
marked. At any rate, he needn't know it just yet--and as for
Lorimer--shall I tell him! No, I won't. I'll have the game all to
myself--and--by Jove! how I SHALL enjoy it!"
An hour later he stood in the office of the Snake, courteously
inquiring for Mr. Snawley-Grubbs. Apparently he had come on
horseback, for he held a riding-whip in his hand,--the very whip
Errington had left with him the previous day. The inky, dirty,
towzle-headed boy who presided in solitary grandeur over the Snake's
dingy premises, stared at him inquiringly,--visitors of his
distinguished appearance and manner being rather uncommon. Those who
usually had business with the great Grubbs were of a different type
altogether,--some of them discarded valets or footmen, who came to
gain half a crown or five shillings by offering information as to
the doings of their late masters and mistresses,--shabby "supers"
from the theatres, who had secured the last bit of scandal
concerning some celebrated stage or professional "beauty"--sporting
men and turf gamblers of the lowest class,--unsuccessful dramatists
and small verse writers--these, with now and then a few "ladies"--
ladies of the bar-room, ballet, and demi-monde, were the sort, of
persons who daily sought private converse with Grubbs--and Beau
Lovelace, with his massive head, fine muscular figure, keen eyes,
and self-assertive mien, was quite a novel specimen of manhood for
the wondering observation of the office-boy, who scrambled off his
high chair with haste and something of respect as he said--
"What name, sir, please?"
"Beaufort Lovelace," said the gentleman, with a bland smile. "Here
is my card. Ask Mr. Grubbs whether he can see me for a few minutes.
If he is engaged--editors generally are engaged--tell him I'll
wait."
The boy went off in a greater hurry than ever. The name of Lovelace
was quite familiar to him--he knew him, not as a distinguished
novelist, but as "'im who makes such a precious lot of money." And
he was breathless with excitement; when he reached the small
editorial chamber at the top of a dark, narrow flight of stairs,
wherein sat the autocratic Snawley, smiling suavely over a heap of
letters and disordered MSS. He glanced at the card which his ink-
smeared attendant presented him.
"Ah, indeed!" he said condescendingly. "Lovelace--Lovelace? Oh yes--
I suppose it must be the novelist of that name--yes!--show him up."
Shown up he was accordingly. He entered the room with a firm tread,
and closed the door behind him!
"How do you do, my dear sir!" exclaimed Grubbs warmly. "You are well
known to me by reputation! I am charmed--delighted to make the
personal acquaintance of one who is--yes--let me say, who is a
brother in literature! Sit down, I beg of you!"
And he waved his hand towards a chair, thereby displaying the great
rings that glittered on his podgy fingers.
Beau, however, did not seat himself--he only smiled very coldly and
contemptuously.
"We can discuss the fraternal nature of our relationship
afterwards," he said satirically, "Business first. Pray, sir,"--here
he drew from his pocket the last number of the Snake--"are you the
writer of this paragraph?"
He pointed to it, as he flattened the journal and laid it in front
of the editor on the desk. Mr. Snawley-Grubbs glanced at it and
smiled unconcernedly.
"No I am not. But I happen to know it is perfectly correct. I
received the information on the highest--the very highest and most
credible authority."
"Indeed!" and Beau's lip curled haughtily, while his hand clenched
the riding-whip more firmly. "Then allow me to tell you, sir, that
it is utterly false in every particular--moreover--that it is a
gross libel,--published with deliberate intent to injure those whom
it presumes to mention,--and that, whoever wrote it,--you, sir, you
alone are responsible for a most mischievous, scandalous, and
damnable lie!"
Mr. Grubbs was in no wise disconcerted. Honest indignation honestly
expressed, always amused him--he was amused now.
"You're unduly excited, Mr. Lovelace," he said with a little laugh.
"Permit me to remark that your language is rather extraordinary--
quite too strong under the circumstances! However, you're a
privileged person--genius is always a little mad, or shall we say,--
eccentric?--I suppose you are a friend of Sir Philip Errington, and
you naturally feel hurt--yes--yes, I quite understand! But the
scourge of the press--the wholesome, purifying scourge, cannot be
withheld out of consideration for private or personal feelings. No--
no! There's a higher duty--the duty we owe to the public!"
"I tell you again," repeated Lovelace firmly--"the whole thing is a
lie. Will you apologize?"
Mr. Grubbs threw himself back in his chair and laughed aloud.
"Apologize? My dear sir, you must be dreaming! Apologize? Certainly
not! I cannot retract the statements I have made--and I firmly
believe them to be true. And though there is a saying, 'the greater
the truth the greater the libel,' I'm ready, sir, and, always have
been ready, to sacrifice myself to the cause of truth. Truth, truth
for ever! Tell the truth and shame the devil! You are at liberty to
inform Sir Philip Errington from me, that as it is my object--a
laudable and praiseworthy one, too, I think--to show up the awful
immorality now reigning in our upper classes, I do not regret in the
least the insertion of the paragraph in question. If it only makes
him ashamed of his vices, I shall have done a good deed, and served
the interests of society at large. At the same time, if he wishes to
bring an action for libel--"
"You dog!" exclaimed Lovelace fiercely, approaching him with such a
sudden rapid stride that the astonished editor sprang up and
barricaded himself behind his own chair. "You hope for that, do you?
An action for libel! nothing would please you better! To bring your
scandalous printed trash into notoriety,--to hear your name shouted
by dirty hawkers and newsboys--to be sentenced as a first-class
misdemenent; ah, no such luck for you! I know the tricks of your
vile trade! There are other ways of dealing with a vulgar bully and
coward!"
And before the startled Grubbs could realize his position, Lovelace
closed with him, beat him under, and struck the horsewhip smartly
cross his back and shoulders. He uttered a yell of pain and fury,
and strove vigorously to defend himself, but, owing to his obesity,
his muscles were weak and flabby, and he was powerless against the
activity and strength of his opponent. Lash after lash descended
regularly and mercilessly--his cries, which gradually became like
the roarings of a bull of Basban, were unheard, as the office-boy
below, profiting by a few idle moments, had run across the street to
buy some chestnuts at a stall he particularly patronized. Beau
thrashed on with increasing enjoyment--Grubbs resisted him less and
less, till finally he slipped feebly down on the floor and grovelled
there, gasping and groaning. Beau gave him one or two more artistic
cuts, and stood above him, with the serene, triumphant smile of a
successful athlete. Suddenly a loud peal of laughter echoed from the
doorway,--a woman stood there, richly dressed in silk and fur, with
diamonds sparkling in her ears and diamonds clasping the long boa at
her throat. It was Violet Vere.
"Why, Snawley!" she cried with cheerful familiarity. "How are you?
All broken, and no one to pick up the pieces! Serve you right! Got
it at last, eh? Don't get up! You look so comfortable!"
"Bodily assault," gasped Grubbs. "I'll summons--call the police--
call," his voice died away in inarticulate gurglings, and raising
himself, he sat up on the floor in a sufficiently abject and
ludicrous posture, wiping the tears of pain from his eyes. Beau
looked at the female intruder and recognized her at once. He saluted
her with cold courtesy, and turned again to Grubbs.
"WILL you apologize?"
"No--I--I WON'T!"
Beau made another threatening movement--Miss Vere interposed.
"Stop a bit," she said, regarding him with her insolent eyes, in
which lurked, however, an approving smile. "I don't know who you
are, but you seem a fighting man! Don't go at him again till I've
had a word. I say, Grubbs! you've been hitting at me in your trashy
paper."
Grubbs still sat on the floor groaning.
"You must eat those words," went on the Vere calmly. "Eat 'em up
with sauce for dinner. The 'admired actress well known at the
Brilliant,' has nothing to do with the Bruce-Errington man,--not
she! He's a duffer, a regular stiff one--no go about him anyhow. And
what the deuce do you mean by calling me an offending dama. Keep
your oaths to yourself, will you?"
Beau Lovelace was amused. Grubbs turned his watering eye from one to
the other in wretched perplexity. He made an effort to stand up and
succeeded.
"I'll have you arrested, sir!" he exclaimed shaking his fists at
Beau, and quivering with passion, "on a charge of bodily assault--
shameful bodily assault, sir!"
"All right!" returned Beau coolly. "If I were fined a hundred pounds
for it, I should think it cheap for the luxury of thrashing such a
hound!"
Grubbs quaked at the determined attitude and threatening eye of his
assailant, and turned for relief to Miss Vere whose smile, however,
was not sympathetic.
"You'd better cave in!" she remarked airily. "You've got the worst
of it, you know!"
She had long been on confidential terms with the Snake proprietor,
and she spoke to him now with the candor of an old friend.
"Dear me, what do you expect of me!" he almost whimpered. "I'm not
to blame! The paragraph was inserted without my knowledge by my sub-
editor--he's away just now, and--there! why?" he cried with sudden
defiance, "why don't you ask Sir Francis Lennox about it? He wrote
the whole thing."
"Well, he's dead," said Miss Vere with the utmost coolness. "So it
wouldn't be much use asking HIM. HE can't answer,--you'll have to
answer for him."
"I don't believe it!" exclaimed Mr. Grubbs. "He can't be dead!"
"Oh, yes, he can, and he IS," retorted Violet. "And a good job too!
He was knocked over by a train at Charing Cross. You'll see it in
to-day's paper, if you take the trouble to look. And mind you
contradict all that stuff about me in your next number--do you hear?
I'm going to America with a Duke next month, and I can't afford to
have my reputation injured. And I won't be called a 'dama' for any
penny-a-liner living." She paused, and again broke out laughing,
"Poor old Snawley! You do look so sore! Ta-ta!" And she moved
towards the door. Lovelace, always courteous, opened it for her. She
raised her hard, bright eyes, and smiled.
"Thanks! Hope I shall see you again some day!"
"You are very good!" responded Beau gravely.
Either his tone, which was one chill indifference, or some thing in
his look, irritated her suddenly--for a rash of hot color crimsoned
her face, and she bit her lips vexedly as she descended the office-
stairs.
"He's one of your high-and-mighty sort," she thought disdainfully,
as she entered her cosy brougham and was driven away. "Quite too
awfully moral!" She pulled a large, elaborately cut glass scent-
bottle out of the pocket of her cloak, and, unscrewing the gold top,
applied it, not to her nose but her mouth. It contained neat Cognac-
-and she drank a goodly gulp of it with evident relish, swallowing a
scented bon-bon immediately afterwards to take away the suspicious
odor. "Yes--quite too awfully moral!" she repeated with a grin. "Not
in my line at all! Lord! It's lucky there are not many such fellows
about, or what would become of ME? A precious poor business I should
make of it!"
Meanwhile, Lovelace, left alone again with Mr. Grubbs, reiterated
his demand for an apology. Grubbs made a rush for the door, as soon
as Miss Vere had gone, with the full intention of summoning the
police, but Beau coolly placed his back against it with resolute
firmness, and flourished his whip defiantly.
"Come, sir, none of this nonsense!" he said sternly. "I don't mean
to leave this spot till I have satisfaction. If Sir Francis Lennox
wrote that scandalous paragraph the greater rascal he,--and the more
shame to you for inserting it.--You, who make it your business to
know all the dirty alleys and dark corners of life, must have known
HIS character pretty thoroughly. There's not the slightest excuse
for you. Will you apologize?--and retract every word of that
paragraph, in your next issue?"
Grubbs, breathless with rage and fear, glared at him, but made no
answer.
"If you refuse to comply," went on Beau deliberately, balancing the
horsewhip lightly on his hand, "I'll just tell you what the
consequences will be. I've thrashed you once--and I'll thrash you
again. I have only to give the cue to several worthy fellows of my
acquaintance, who don't care how much they pay for their fun, and
each of them in turn will thrash you. As for an action for libel,
don't expect it--but I swear there shan't be a safe corner in London
for you. If, however, you publish next week a full retraction of
your printed lie--why, then I--shall be only too happy to forget
that such an individual as yourself burdens this planet. There are
the two alternatives--choose!"
Grubbs hesitated, but coward fear made him quail the prospect of
unlimited thrashings.
"Very well," he said sullenly. "Write what you want put in--I'll
attend to it--I don't mind obliging Miss Vere. But all the same,
I'll have YOU arrested!"
Beau laughed. "Do so by all means!" he said gaily. "I'll leave my
address with you!" He wrote rapidly a few lines on a piece of paper
to the following effect--
"We have to entirely contradict a statement we made last week
respecting a supposed forthcoming divorce case in which Sir Philip
Bruce-Errington was seriously implicated. There was no truth
whatever in the statement, and we herewith apologize most humbly and
heartily for having inadvertently given credence to a rumor which is
now proved to be utterly false and without the slightest shadow of a
foundation."
He handed this to Grubbs.
"Insert that word for word, at the head of your paragraphs," he
said, "and you'll hear no more of me, unless you give me fresh
provocation. And I advise you to think twice before you have me
arrested--for I'll defend my own case, and--ruin you! I'm rather a
dangerous customer to have much to do with! However, you've got my
card--you know where to find me if you want me. Only you'd better
send after me to-night if you do--to-morrow I may be absent."
He smiled, and drew on his gloves leisurely, eyeing meanwhile the
discomfited editor, who was furtively rubbing his shoulder where the
lash had stung it somewhat severely.
"I'm exceedingly glad I've hurt you, Mr. Grubbs," he said blandly.
"And the next time you want to call me your brother in literature,
pray reflect on the manner in which my fraternal affection displayed
itself! GOOD morning!"
And he took his departure with a quiet step and serene manner,
leaving Snawley-Grubbs to his own meditations, which were far from
agreeable. He was not ignorant of the influence Beau Lovelace
possessed, both on the press and in society--he was a general
favorite,--a man whose opinions were quoted, and whose authority was
accepted everywhere. If he appeared to answer a charge of assault
against Grubbs, and defended his own case, he certainly would have
the best of it. He might--he would have to pay a fine, but what did
he care for that? He would hold up the Snake and its proprietor to
the utmost ridicule and opprobrium--his brilliant satire and humor
would carry all before it--and he, Snawley-Grubbs, would be still
more utterly routed and humiliated. Weighing all these
considerations carefully in his mind, the shrinking editor decided
to sit down under his horsewhipping in silence and resignation.
It was not a very lofty mode of action--still, it was the safest. Of
course Violet Vere would spread the story all through HER particular
"set"--it made him furious to think of this yet there was no help
for it. He would play the martyr, he thought--the martyr to the
cause of truth,--the injured innocent entrapped by false
information--he might possibly gain new supporters and sympathizers
in this way if he played his cards carefully. He turned to the daily
paper, and saw there chronicled the death of Sir Francis Lennox. It
was true, then. Well! he was not at all affected by it--he merely
committed the dead man in the briefest and strongest language to the
very lowest of those low and sulphurous regions over which Satan is
supposed to have full sway. Not a soul regretted Sir Francis--not
even the Vere, whom he had kept and surrounded with every luxury for
five years. Only one person, a fair, weary faced woman away in
Germany shed a few tears over the lawyer's black-boardered letter
that announced his death to her--and this was the deserted wife,--
who had once loved him. Lady Winsleigh had heard the news,--she
shuddered and turned very pale when her husband gently and almost
pityingly told her of the sudden and unprepared end that had
overtaken her quondam admirer--but she said nothing. She was
presiding at the breakfast-table for the first time in many years--
she looked somewhat sad and listless, yet lovelier so than in all
the usual pride and assertive arrogance of her beauty. Lord
Winsleigh read aloud the brief account of the accident in the paper-
-she listened dreamily, still mute. He watched her with yearning
eyes.
"An awful death for such a man, Clara!" he said at last in a low
tone.
She dared not look up--she was trembling nervously. How dreadful it
was, she thought, to be thankful that a man was dead!--to feel a
relief at his being no longer in this world! Presently her husband
spoke again more reservedly. "No doubt you are greatly shocked and
grieved," he said. "I should not have told you so suddenly--pardon
me!"
"I am not grieved," she murmured unsteadily. "It sounds horrible to
say so--but I--I am afraid I am GLAD!"
"Clara!"
She rose and came tremblingly towards him. She knelt at his feet,
though he strove to prevent her,--she raised her large, dark eyes,
full of dull agony, to his.
"I've been a wicked woman, Harry," she said, with a strange,
imploring thrill of passion in her voice, "I am down--down in the
dust before you! Look at me--don't forgive me--I won't ask that--you
CAN'T forgive me,--but PITY me!"
He took her hands and laid them round his neck,--he drew her gently,
soothingly,--closer, closer, till he pressed her to his heart.
"Down in the dust are you?" he whispered brokenly. "My poor wife!
God forbid that I should keep you there!"
BOOK III.
THE LAND OF THE LONG SHADOW
CHAPTER XXXI.
"They have the night, who had, like us, the day--
We, whom day binds, shall have the night as they--
We, from the fetters of the light unbound,
Healed of our wound of living, shall sleep sound!"
SWINBURNE.
Night on the Altenfjord,--the long, long, changeless night of
winter. The sharp snow-covered crests of the mountains rose in white
appeal against the darkness of the sky,--the wild north wind tore
through the leafless branches of the pine-forests, bringing with it
driving pellets of stinging hail. Joyless and songless, the whole
landscape lay as though frozen into sculptured stone. The Sun
slept,--and the Fjord, black with brooding shadows, seemed silently
to ask--where? Where was the great king of Light?--the glorious god
of the golden hair and ruddy countenance?--the glittering warrior
with the flaming shield and spear invincible? Where had he found his
rest? By what strange enchantment had he fallen into so deep and
long a drowsiness. The wind that had rioted across the mountains,
rooting up great trees in its shrieking career northwards, grew
hushed as it approached the Altenfjord--there a weird stillness
reigned, broken only by the sullen and monotonous plash of the
invisible waves upon the scarcely visible shore.
A few tiny, twinkling lights showed the irregular outline of
Bosekop, and now and then one or two fishing-boats with sable sails
and small colored lamps at mast and prow would flit across the inky
water like dark messengers from another world bound on some mournful
errand. Human figures, more shadowy than real, were to be seen
occasionally moving on the pier, and to the left of the little town,
as the eye grew accustomed to the moveless gloom, a group of
persons, like ghosts in a dream, could be dimly perceived, working
busily at the mending of nets.
Suddenly a strange, unearthly glow flashed over the sombre scene,--a
rosy radiance deepening to brilliant streaks of fire. The dark
heavens were torn asunder, and through them streamed flaring pennons
of light,--waving, trembling, dancing, luminous ribbons of red,
blue, green, and a delicious amber, like the flowing of golden
wine,--wider, higher, more dazzlingly lustrous, the wondrous glory
shone aloft, rising upward from the horizon--thrusting long spears
of lambent flame among the murky retreating clouds, till in one
magnificent coruscation of resplendent beams a blazing arch of gold
leaped from east to west, spanning the visible breath of the Fjord,
and casting towards the white peaks above, vivid sparkles and
reflections of jewel-like brightness and color. Here was surely the
Rainbow Bridge of Odin--the glittering pathway leading to Valhalla!
Long filmy threads of emerald and azure trailed downwards from it,
like ropes of fairy flowers, binding it to the earth--above it hung
a fleece-like nebulous whiteness,--a canopy through which palpitated
sudden flashes of amethyst. Then, as though the arch were a bent bow
for the hand of some heavenly hunter, crimson beams darted across it
in swift succession, like arrows shot at the dark target of the
world. Round and round swept the varying circles of color--now
advancing--now retreating--now turning the sullen waters beneath
into a quivering mass of steely green--now beating against the snow-
covered hills till they seemed pinnacles of heaped-up pearls and
diamonds. The whole landscape was transformed,--and the shadowy
cluster of men and women on the shore paused in their toil, and
turned their pale faces towards the rippling splendor,--the heavy
fishing-nets drooping from their hands like dark webs woven by giant
spiders.
"'Tis the first time we have seen the Arch of Death this year," said
one in awed accents.
"Ay, ay!" returned another, with a sigh. "And some one is bound to
cross it, whether he will or no. 'Tis a sure sign!"
"Sure!" they all agreed, in hushed voices as faint and far-off as
the breaking of the tide against the rocks on the opposite coast.
As they spoke, the fairy-like bridge in the sky parted asunder and
vanished! The brilliant aurora borealis faded by swift degrees--a
few moments, and the land was again enveloped in gloom.
It might have been midnight--yet by the clock it was but four in the
afternoon. Dreary indeed was the Altenfjord,--yet the neighboring
village of Talvag was even drearier. There, desolation reigned
supreme--it was a frozen region of bitter, shelterless cold, where
the poverty-stricken inhabitants, smitten by the physical torpor and
mental stupefaction engendered by the long, dark season, scarcely
stirred out of their miserable homes, save to gather extra fuel.
This is a time in Norway, when beyond the Arctic Circle, the old
gods yet have sway--when in spite of their persistent, sometimes
fanatical, adherence to the strictest forms of Christianity, the
people almost unconsciously revert to the superstitions of their
ancestors. Gathering round the blazing pine-logs, they recount to
one another in low voices the ancient legends of dead and gone
heroes,--and listening to the yell of the storm-wind round their
huts, they still fancy they hear the wild war-cries of the Valkyries
rushing past air full gallop on their coal-black steeds, with their
long hair floating behind them.
On this particular afternoon the appearance of the "Death-Arch," as
they called that special form of the aurora, had impressed the
Talvig folk greatly. Some of them were at the doors, and, regardless
of the piercing cold, occupied themselves in staring languidly at a
reindeer sledge which stood outside one of the more distant huts,
evidently waiting for some person within. The hoofs of the animals
made no impression on the hardened snow--now and again they gently
shook the tinkling bells on their harness, but otherwise were very
patient. The sledge was in charge of a youthful Laplander--a
hideous, stunted specimen of humanity, who appeared to be literally
sewed up from head to foot in skins.
This cortege was evidently an object of curiosity,--the on-lookers
eyed it askance, and with a sort of fear. For did it not belong to
the terrible bonde, Olaf Guldmar?--and would not the Laplander,--a
useful boy, well known in Talvig,--come to some fatal harm by
watching, even for a few minutes, the property of an acknowledged
pagan? Who could tell? The very reindeer might be possessed by evil
spirits,--they were certainly much sleeker and finer than the
ordinary run of such animals. There was something un-canny in the
very look of them! Thus the stuperfied, unreasoning Talvig folk
muttered, one to another, leaning drowsily out of their half-open
doors.
"'Tis a strange thing," said one man, "that woman as strong in the
fear of the Lord as Lovisa Elsland should call for one of the wicked
to visit her on her death-bed."
"Strange enough!" answered his neighbor, blinking over his pipe, and
knocking down some of the icicles pendent from his roof. "But maybe
it is to curse him with the undying curse of the godly."
"She's done that all her life," said the first speaker.
"That's true! She's been a faithful servant of the Gospel. All's
right with her in the next world--she'll die easily."
"Was it for her the Death-Arch shone?" asked an old woman, suddenly
thrusting her head, wrapped in a red woollen hood, out of a low
doorway, through which the light of a fire sparkled from the
background, sending vivid flashes across the snow.
The man who had spoken last shook his head solemnly.
"The Death-Arch never shone for a Christian yet," he said gravely.
"No! There's something else in the wind. We can't see it--but it
will come--it must come! That sign never fails."
And presently, tired of watching the waiting sledge and the passive
Laplander, he retreated within his house, shutting his door against
the darkness and the bitter wind. His neighbors followed his
example,--and, save for two or three red glimmers of light here and
there, the little village looked as though it had been deserted long
ago--a picture of frost-bound silence and solitude.
Meanwhile, in Lovisa Elsland's close and comfortless dwelling, stood
Olaf Guldmar. His strong, stately figure, wrapped in furs, seemed
almost to fill the little place--he had thrown aside the thick scarf
of wadmel in which he had been wrapped to the eyes while driving in
the teeth of the wind,--and he now lifted his fur cap, thus
displaying his silvery hair, ruddy features, and open, massive brow.
At that moment a woman who was busying herself in putting fresh
pine-logs on the smouldering fire, turned and regarded him intently.
"Lord, Lord!" she muttered--"'tis a man of men,--he rejoiceth in his
strength, even as the lion,--and of what avail shall the curse of
the wicked avail against the soul that is firmly established!"
Guldmar heard her not--he was looking towards a low pallet bed, on
which lay, extended at full length, an apparently insensible form.
"Has she been long thus?" he asked, in a low voice.
"Since last night," replied the woman--no other than Mr.
Dyceworthy's former servant, Ulrika. "She wakened suddenly, and bade
me send for you. To-day she has not spoken."
The bonde sighed somewhat impatiently. He approached the now blazing
pine-logs, and as he drew off his thick fur driving-gloves, and
warmed his hands at the cheerful blaze, Ulrika again fixed her dull
eyes upon him with something of wonder and reluctant admiration.
Presently she trimmed an oil-lamp, and set it, burning dimly, on the
table. Then she went to the bed and bent over it,--after a pause of
several minutes, she turned and made a beckoning sign with her
finger. Guldmar advanced a little,--when a sudden eldritch shriek
startled him back, almost curdling the blood in his veins. Out of
the deep obscurity, like some gaunt spectre rising from the tomb,
started a face, wrinkled, cadaverous, and distorted by suffering,--a
face in which the fierce, fevered eyes glittered with a strange and
dreadful brilliancy--the face of Lovisa Elsland, stern, forbidding,
and already dark with the shadows of approaching death. She stared
vacantly at Guldmar, whose picturesque head was illumined by the
ruddy glow of the fire--and feebly shaded her eyes as though she saw
something that hurt them. Ulrika raised her on her tumbled pillow,
and saying, in cold, unmoved tones--"Speak now, for the time is
short," she once more beckoned the bonde imperatively.
He approached slowly.
"Lovisia Elsland," he began in distinct tones, addressing himself to
that ghastly countenance still partly shaded by one hand. "I am
here--Olaf Guldmar. Dost thou know me?"
At the sound of his voice, a strange spasm contorted the withered
features of the dying woman. She bent her head as though to listen
to some far-off echo, and held up her skinny finger as though
enjoining silence.
"Know thee!" she babbled whisperingly. "How should I not know the
brown-haired Olaf! Olaf of the merry eye--Olaf, the pride of the
Norse maiden?" She lifted herself in a more erect attitude, and
stretching out her lean arms, went on as though chanting a
monotonous recitative. "Olaf, the wanderer over wild seas,--he comes
and goes in his ship that sails like a white bird on the sparkling
waters--long and silent are the days of his absence--mournful are
the Fjelds and Fjords without the smile of Olaf--Olaf the King!"
She paused, and Guldmar regarded her in pitying wonder. Her face
changed to a new expression--one of wrath and fear.
"Stay, stay!" she cried in penetrating accents. "Who comes from the
South with Olaf? The clouds drive fast before the wind--clouds rest
on the edge of the dark Fjord--sails red as blood flash against the
sky--who comes with Olaf? Fair hair ripples against his breast like
streaming sunbeams; eyes blue as the glitter of the northern lights,
are looking upon him--lips crimson and heavy with kisses for Olaf--
ah!" She broke off with a cry, and beat the air with her hands as
though to keep some threatening thing away from her. "Back, back!
Dead bride of Olaf, torment me no more--back, I say! See,"--and she
pointed into the darkness before her--"The pale, pale face--the long
glittering hair twisted like a snake of gold,--she glides along the
path across the mountains,--the child follows!--the child! Why not
kill the child as well--why not?"
She stopped suddenly with a wild laugh. The bonde had listened to
her ravings with something of horror, his ruddy cheeks growing
paler.
"By the gods, this is strange!" he muttered. "She seems to speak of
my wife,--yet what can she know of her?"
For some moments there was silence. Lovisa seemed to have exhausted
her strength. Presently, however, she put aside her straggling white
hairs from her forehead, and demanded fiercely--
"Where is my grandchild? Where is Britta?"
Neither Guldmar nor Ulrika made any reply. But Britta's name
recalled the old woman to herself, and when she spoke again it was
quite collectedly, and in her usual harsh voice. She seemed to
forget all that she had just uttered, for she turned her eyes upon
the bonde, as though she had but then perceived him.
"So you are come, Olaf Guldmar!" she said. "It is well--for the hand
of Death is upon me."
"It is well, indeed, if I can be of service, Lovisa Elsland,"
responded Guldmar, "though I am but a sorry consoler, holding as I
do, that death is the chief blessing, and in no way to be regretted
at any time. Moreover, when the body grows too weak to support the
soul, 'tis as well to escape from it with what speed we may."
"Escape--escape? Where?" asked Lovisa. "From the worm that dieth
not? From the devouring fame that is never quenched? From the
torturing thirst and heat and darkness of hell, who shall escape?"
"Nay, if that is all the comfort thy creed can give thee," said the
bonde, with a half-smile, "'tis but a poor staff to lean on!"
Lovisa looked at him mockingly. "And is thine so strong a prop to
thy pride?" she asked disdainfully. "Has Odin so endowed thee that
thou shouldst boast of him? Listen to me, Olaf Guldmar--I have but
little strength remaining, and I must speak briefly. Thy wife--"
"What of her?" said the bonde hastily. "Thou knewst her not."
"I knew her," said Lovisa steadily, "as the lightning knows the tree
it withers--as the sea knows the frail boat it wrecks for sport on a
windy day. Thou haughty Olaf! I knew her well even as the broken
heart knows its destroyer!"
Guldmar looked perplexedly at Ulrika. "Surely she raves again?" he
said. Ulrika was silent.
"Rave? Tell him I do not rave!" cried Lovisa rising in her bed to
utter her words with more strength and emphasis. "May be I have
raved, but that is past! The Lord, who will judge and condemn my
soul, bear witness that I speak the truth! Olaf Guldmar, rememberest
thou the days when we were young?"
"'Tis long ago, Lovisa!" replied the bonde with brief gentleness.
"Long ago? It seems but yesterday! But yesterday I saw the world all
radiant with hope and joy and love--love that to you was a mere
pastime--but with ME--" She shuddered and seemed to lose herself in
a maze of dreary recollections. "Love!" she presently muttered--
"'love is strong as death,--jealousy is cruel as the grave--the
coals thereof are coals of fire which hath a most vehement flame!'
Even so! You, Olaf Guldmar, have forgotten what I remember,--that
once in that yesterday of youth, you called me fair,--once your lips
branded mine! Could I forget that kiss? Think you a Norse woman,
bred in a shadow of the constant mountains, forgets the first thrill
of passion waked in her soul? Light women of those lands where the
sun ever shines on fresh follies, may count their loves by the
score,--but with us of the North, ONE love suffices to fill a
lifetime. And was not my life filled? Filled to overflowing with
bitterness and misery! For I loved you, proud Olaf!--I loved you--"
The bonde uttered an exclamation of incredulous astonishment. Lovisa
fixed her eyes on him with a dark scorn. "Yes, I loved you,--scoffer
and unbeliever as you were and are!--accursed of God and man! I
loved you in spite of all that was said against you--nay, I would
have forsaken my creed for yours, and condemned my soul to the
everlasting burning for your sake! I loved you as SHE--that pale,
fair, witch-like thing you wedded, could never love--" Her voice
died away in a sort of despairing wail, and she paused.
"By my soul!" said the bonde, astounded, and stroking his white
beard in some embarrassment. "I never knew of this! It is true that
in the hot days of youth, mischief is often done unwittingly. But
why trouble yourself with these memories, Lovisa? If it be any
comfort,--believe me, I am sorry harm ever came to you through my
thoughtless jesting--"
"It matters not!" and Lovisa regarded him with a strange and awful
smile. "I have had my revenge!" She stopped abruptly,--then went on-
-"Twas a fair bride you chose, Olaf Guldmar--child of an alien from
these shores,--Thelma, with the treacherous laughter and light of
the South in her eyes and smile! And I, who had known love, made
friends with hate--" She checked herself, and looked full at the
bonde with a fiendish joy sparkling in her eyes. "She whom you
wedded--she whom you loved so well,--how soon she died!"
There was something so suggestive and dreadful in the expression of
her face as she said this, that the stout heart of the old bonde,
pulsated more quickly with a sudden vague distrust and dread. She
gave him no time to speak, but laying one yellow, claw-like hand on
his arm, and raising her voice to a sort of yell, exclaimed
triumphantly--
"Yes, yes! how soon she died! Bravely, bravely done! And no one ever
guessed the truth--no one ever knew I KILLED her!"
Guldmar uttered a sharp cry, and shook himself free from her touch.
In the same instant his hand flew to the hilt of the hunting-knife
in his girdle.
"KILLED her! By the gods--"
Ulrika sprang before him. "Shame!" she cried sternly. "She is
dying!"
"Too slowly for me!" exclaimed the bonde furiously.
"Peace--peace!" implored Ulrika. "Let her speak!"
"Strike, Olaf Guldmar!" said Lovisa, in a deep voice, harsh, but all
untremulous--"Strike, pagan, with whom the law of blood is supreme--
strike to the very center of my heart--I do not fear you! I killed
her, I say--and therein I, the servant of the Lord, was justified!
Think you that the Most High hath not commanded His elect to utterly
destroy and trample underfoot their enemies?--and is not vengeance
mine as well as thine, accursed slave of Odin?"
A spasm of pain here interrupted her--she struggled violently for
breath--and Ulrika supported her. Guldmar stood motionless, white
with restrained fury, his eyes blazing. Recovering by slow degrees,
Lovisa once more spoke--her voice was weaker, and sounded a long way
off.
"Yea, the Lord hath been on my side!" she said, and the hideous
blasphemy rattled in her throat as it was uttered. "Listen--and hear
how He delivered mine enemy into my hands. I watched her always--I
followed her many and many a time, though she never saw me. I knew
her favorite path across the mountains,--it led past a rocky chasm.
On the edge of that chasm there was a broad, flat stone, and there
she would sit often, reading, or watching the fishing-boats on the
Fjord, and listening to the prattle of her child. I used to dream of
that stone, and wonder if I could loosen it! It was strongly
imbedded in the earth--but each day I went to it--each day I moved
it! Little by little I worked--till a mere touch would have set it
hurling downwards,--yet it looked as firm as ever." Guldmar uttered
a fierce ejaculation of anguish--he put one hand to his throat as
though he were stifling. Lovisa, watching him, smiled vindictively,
and continued--
"When I had done all I could do, I lay in wait for her, hoping and
praying--my hour came at last! It was a bright sunny morning--a
little bird had been twittering above the very place--as it flew
away, SHE approached--a book was in her hand,--her child followed
her at some little distance off. Fortune favored me--a cluster of
pansies had opened their blossoms a few inches below the stone,--she
saw them,--and, light as a bird, sprang on it and reached forward to
gather them--ah!"--and the wretched woman clapped her hands and
broke into malignant laughter--"I can hear her quick shriek now--the
crash of the stones and the crackle of branches as she fell down,--
down to her death! Presently the child came running,--it was too
young to understand--it sat down patiently waiting for its mother.
How I longed to kill it! but it sang to itself like the bird that
had flown away, and I could not! But SHE was gone--SHE was silent
for ever--the Lord be praised for all His mercies! Was she smiling,
Olaf Guldmar, when you found her--DEAD?"
A strange solemnity shadowed the bonde's features. He turned his
eyes upon her steadily.
"Blessing and honor be to the gods of my fathers!" he said--"I found
her--LIVING!"
The change that came over Lovisa's face at these words was
inexpressibly awful--she grew livid and her lips twitched
convulsively.
"Living--living!" she gasped.
"Living!" repeated Guldmar sternly. "Vile hag! Your purpose was
frustrated! Your crime destroyed her beauty and shortened her days--
but she lived--lived for ten sweet, bitter years, hidden away from
all eyes save mine,--mine that never grew tired of looking in her
patient, heavenly face! Ten years I held her as one holds a jewel--
and, when she died, her death was but falling asleep in these fond
arms--"
Lovisa raised herself with a sharp cry, and wrung her hands
together--
"Ten years--ten years!" she moaned. "I thought her dead--and she
lived on,--beloved and loving all the while. Oh God, God, why hast
thou made a mockery of Thy servant!" She rocked herself to and fro--
then looked up with an evil smile. "Nay, but she SUFFERED! That was
best. It is worse to suffer than to die. Thank God, she SUFFERED!"
"Ay, she suffered!" said Guldmar fiercely, scarce able to restrain
himself from seizing upon the miserable old woman and shaking the
sinking life out of her--"And had I but guessed who caused her
sufferings, by the sword of Odin, I would have--"
Ulrika laid her hand on his suddenly upraised arm.
"Listen!" she whispered. A low wailing, like the cry of a distressed
child, swept round and round the house, followed by a gust of wind
and a clattering shower of hailstones. A strange blue light leaped
up from the sparkling log fire, and cast an unearthly glow through
the room. A deep stillness ensued.
Then--steady and clear and resonant--a single sound echoed through
the air, like a long note played on an exceedingly sweet silver
trumpet. It began softly--swelled to a crescendo--then died
delicately away. Guldmar raised his head--his face was full of rapt
and expectant gravity,--his action, too, was somewhat singular, for
he drew the knife from his girdle and kissed the hilt solemnly,
returning it immediately to its sheath. At the same moment Lovisa
uttered a loud cry, and flinging the coverings from her, strove to
rise from her bed. Ulrika held her firmly,--she struggled feebly yet
determinedly, gazing the while with straining, eager, glassy eyes
into the gloom of the opposite corner.
"Darkness--darkness!" she muttered hoarsely,--"and the white faces
of dead things! There--there they lie!--all still, at the foot of
the black chasm--their mouths move without sound--what--what are
they saying? I cannot hear--ask them to speak louder--louder! Ah!"
and she uttered a terrified scream that made the rafters ring." They
move!--they stretch out their hands--cold, cold hands!--they are
drawing me down to them--down--down--to that darkness! Hold me--hold
me! don't let me go to them--Lord, Lord be merciful to me--let me
live--live--" Suddenly she drew back in deadly horror, gesticulating
with her tremulous lean hands as though it shut away the sight of
some loathsome thing unveiled to her view. "Who is it"--she asked in
an awful, shuddering whisper--"who is it that says there is no hell?
_I_ SEE IT!" Still retreating backwards, backwards--the clammy dew
of death darkening her affrighted countenance,--she turned her
glazing eyes for the last time on Guldmar. Her lips twitched into a
smile of dreadful mockery.
"May--thy gods--reward thee--Olaf Guldmar--even--as mine--are--
rewarding--ME!"
And with these words, her head dropped heavily on her breast. Ulrika
laid her back on her pillow, a corpse. The stern, cruel smile froze
slowly on her dead features--gradually she became, as it were, a
sort of ancient cenotaph, carved to resemble old age combined with
unrepenting evil--the straggling white hair that rested on her
wrinkled forehead looking merely like snow fallen on sculptured
stone.
"Good Lord, have mercy on her soul!" murmured Ulrika piously, as she
closed the upward staring eyes, and crossed the withered hands.
"Good devil, claim thine own!" said Guldmar, with proudly lifted arm
and quivering, disdainful lips. "Thou foolish woman! Thinkest thou
thy Lord makes place for murderers in His heaven? If so, 'tis well I
am not bound there! Only the just can tread the pathway to
Valhalla,--'tis a better creed!"
Ulrika looked at his superb, erect figure and lofty head, and a
strangely anxious expression flitted across her dull countenance.
"Nay, bonde, we do not believe that the Lord accepteth murderers,
without they repent themselves of their backslidings,--but if with
penitence they turn to Him even at the eleventh hour, haply they may
be numbered among the elect."
Guldmar's eyes flashed. "I know not thy creed, woman, nor care to
learn it! But, all the same, thou art deceived in thy vain
imaginings. The Eternal Justice cannot err--call that justice Christ
or Odin as thou wilt. I tell you, the soul of the innocent bird that
perishes in the drifting snow is near and dear to its Creator--but
the tainted soul that had yonder vile body for its tenement, was but
a flame of the evil one, and accursed from the beginning,--it must
return to him from whom it came. A heaven for such as she? Nay--
rather the lowest circle of the furthest and fiercest everlasting
fires--and thither do I commend her! Farewell!"
Rapidly muffling himself up in his wraps, he strode out of the
house. He sprang into his sledge, throwing a generous gratuity to
the small Laplander who had taken charge of it, and who now ventured
to inquire--
"Has the good Lovisa left us?"
Guldmar burst into a hard laugh. "GOOD! By my soul! The folks of
Talvig take up murderers for saints and criminals for guides! 'Tis a
wild world! Yes--she has gone--where all such blessed ones go--to--
heaven!" He shook his clenched fist in the air--then hastily
gathering up the reins, prepared to start.
The Lapp, after the manner of his race, was easily frightened, and
cowered back, terrified at the bonde's menacing gesture and fierce
tone,--but quickly bethinking himself of the liberal fee he clutched
in his palm, he volunteered a warning to this kingly old man with
the streaming white hair and beard, and his keen eyes that were
already fixed on the dark sweep of the rough, uneven road winding
towards the Altenfjord.
"There is a storm coming, Jarl Guldmar!" he stammered.
Guldmar turned his head. "Why call me Jarl?" he demanded half
angrily. "'Tis a name I wear not."
He touched the reindeer lightly with his long whip--the sensitive
beast started and sprang forward.
Once more the Lapp exclaimed, with increased excitement and uncouth
gestures--
"Storm is coming!--wide--dark, deep! See how the sky stoops with the
hidden snow!"
He pointed to the north, and there, low on the horizon, was a lurid
red gleam like a smouldering fire, while just above it a greenish
blackness of cloud hung heavy and motionless. Towards the central
part of the heaven two or three stars shone with frosty brightness,
and through a few fleecy ribbons of greyish mist limmered the
uncertain promise of a faint moon.
Guldmar smiled slightly. "Storm coming?" he answered almost gaily.
"That is well! Storm and I are old friends, my lad! Good night!"
Once more he touched his horned steeds, and with a jingle-jangle of
musical bells and a scudding, slippery hissing across the hard snow,
the sledge sped off with fairy-like rapidity, and in a few moments
its one little guiding lantern disappeared in the darkness like a
suddenly extinguished candle.
The Lapp stood pondering and gazing after it, with the bonde's money
in his palm, till the cold began to penetrate even his thick skin-
clothing and his fat little body, well anointed with whale-oil
though it was,--and becoming speedily conscious of this, he
scampered with extraordinary agility, considering the dimensions of
his snow-shoes, into the hut where he had his dwelling, relating to
all who choose to hear, the news of old Lovisa Elsland's death, and
the account of his brief interview with the dreaded but generous
pagan.
Ulrika, watching by the corpse of her aged friend, was soon joined
by others bent on sharing her vigil, and the house was presently
filled with woman's religious wailings and prayers for the departed.
To all the curious inquiries that were made concerning the cause of
Lovisa's desire to see the bonde before she died, Ulrika vouchsafed
no reply,--and the villagers, who stood somewhat in awe of her as a
woman of singular godliness and discreet reputation, soon refrained
from asking any more questions. An ambitious young Lutheran preacher
came, and, addressing himself to all assembled, loudly extolled the
superhuman virtues of the dead "Mother of the village," as Lovisa
had been called,--amid the hysterical weeping and moaning of the
mourners, he begged them to look upon her "venerated face" and
observe "the smile of God's own peace engraven there,"--and amid all
his eloquence, and the shrieking excitement of his fanatical
hearers, Ulrika alone was silent.
She sat stern and absorbed, with set lips and lowered eyelids at the
head of the bed whereon the corpse was now laid out, grimly rigid,--
with bound-up jaws, and clasped fingers like stiff, dried bones. Her
thoughts dwelt gloomily and intently on Guldmar's words--"The
Eternal Justice cannot err." Eternal Justice! What sentence would
Eternal Justice pass upon the crime of murder?--or attempt to
murder? "I am guilty," the unhappy woman reflected, with a strong
shudder chilling her veins, "guilty even as Lovisa! I tried to kill
my child--I thought, I hoped it was dead! It was not my meaning that
it should live. And this Eternal Justice, may be, will judge the
intention more than the crime. O Lord, Lord! save my soul! Teach me
how to escape from the condemning fires of Thine anger!" Thus she
prayed and wrestled with, her accusing self in secret--despair and
fear raging in her heart, though not a flicker of her inward
agitation betrayed itself outwardly on her stolid, expressionless
features.
Meanwhile the wind rose to a tearing, thunderous gale, and the
night, already so dark, darkened yet more visibly. Olaf Guldmar,
driving swiftly homewards, caught the first furious gust of the
storm that came rushing onward from the North Cape, and as it
swooped sideways against his light sledge, he was nearly hurled from
his seat by the sudden violence of the shock. He settled himself
more firmly, encouraging with a cheery word the startled reindeer,
who stopped short,--stretching out their necks and sniffing the air,
their hairy sides heaving with the strain of trotting against the
blast, and the smoke of their breath steaming upwards in the frosty
air like white vapor. The way lay now through a narrow defile
bordered with tall pines,--and as the terrified animals, recovering,
shook the tinkling bells on their harness, and once more resumed
their journey, the road was comparatively sheltered, and the wind
seemed to sink as suddenly as it rose. There was a hush--an almost
ominous silence.
The sledge glided more slowly between the even lines of upright
giant trees, crowned with icicles and draped in snow,--the bonde
involuntarily loosened the reins of his elfin steeds, and again
returned to those painful and solemn musings, from which the
stinging blow of the tempest had for a moment roused him. The proud
heart of the old man ached bitterly. What! All these years had
passed, and he, the descendant of a hundred Vikings, had been
cheated of justice! He had seen his wife,--the treasured darling of
his days, suffering,--dying, inch by inch, year by year, with all
her radiant beauty withered,--and he had never known her destroyer!
Her fall from the edge of the chasm had been deemed by them both an
accident, and yet--this wretched Lovisa Elsland--mad with misplaced,
disappointed passion, jealousy, and revenge,--had lived on to the
extreme of life, triumphant and unsuspected.
"I swear the gods have played me false in this!" he muttered,
lifting his eyes in a sort of fierce appeal to the motionless
pinetops stiff with frost. The mystery of the old hag's hatred of
his daughter was now made clear--she resembled her mother too
closely to escape Lovisa's malice. He remembered the curse she had
called down upon the innocent girl,--how it was she who had
untiringly spread abroad the report among the superstitious people
of the place, that Thelma was a witch whose presence was a blight
upon the land,--how she had decoyed her into the power of Mr.
Dyceworthy--all was plain--and, notwithstanding her deliberate
wickedness, she had lived her life without punishment! This was what
made Guldmar's blood burn, and pulses thrill. He could not
understand why the Higher Powers had permitted this error of
justice, and, like many of his daring ancestors, he was ready to
fling defiance in the very face of Odin, and demand--"Why,--O thou
drowsy god, nodding over thy wine-cups,--why didst thou do this
thing?"
Utter fearlessness,--bodily and spiritual,--fearlessness of past,
present, or future, life or death,--was Guldmar's creed. The true
Norse warrior spirit was in him--had he been told, on heavenly
authority, that the lowest range of the "Nastrond" or Scandinavian
Hell, awaited him, he would have accepted his fate with unflinching
firmness. The indestructibility of the soul, and the certainty that
it must outlive even centuries of torture, and triumph gloriously in
the end, was the core of the faith he professed. As he glanced
upwards, the frozen tree-tops, till then rigidly erect, swayed
slightly from side to side with a crackling sound--but he paid no
heed to this slight warning of a fresh attack from the combative
storm that was gathering together and renewing its scattered forces.
He began to think of his daughter, and the grave lines on his face
relaxed and softened.
"'Tis all fair sailing for the child," he mused. "For that I should
be grateful! The world has been made a soft nest for my bird,--I
should not complain,--my own time is short." His former anger calmed
a little--the brooding irritation of his mind became gradually
soothed.
"Rose of my heart!" he whispered, tenderly apostrophizing the memory
of his wife,--that lost jewel of love, whose fair body lay enshrined
in the king's tomb by the Fjord. "Wrongfully done to death as thou
wert, and brief time as we had for loving;--in spite of thy
differing creed, I feel that I shall meet thee soon! Yes--in the
world beyond the stars, they will bring thee to me in Valhalla,--
wheresoever thou art, thou wilt not refuse to come! The gods
themselves cannot unfasten the ties of love between us!"
As he half thought, half uttered, these words, the reindeer again
stopped abruptly, rearing their antlered heads and panting heavily.
Hark! what was that? A clear, far-reaching note of music seemingly
wakened from the waters of the Fjord and rising upwards, upwards,
with bell-like distinctness! Guldmar leaned from his motionless
sledge and listened in awe--it was the same sound he had before
heard as he stood by Lovisa Elsland's death-bed--and was in truth
nothing but a strong current of wind blowing through the arched and
honeycombed rocks by the sea, towards the higher land,--creating the
same effect as though one should breathe forcibly through a pipe-
like instrument of dried and hollow reeds,--and being rendered more
resonant by the intense cold, it bore a striking similarity to the
full blast of a war-trumpet. For the worshipper of Odin, it had a
significant and supernatural meaning,--and he repeated his former
action--that of drawing the knife from his girdle and kissing the
hilt. "If Death is near me," he said in a loud voice, "I bid it
welcome! The gods know that I am ready!"
He waited as though expecting some answer--but there was a brief,
absolute silence. Then, with a wild shriek and riotous uproar, the
circling tempest,--before uncertain and vacillating in its wrath,--
pounced, eagle-like, downward and grasped the mountains in its
talons,--the strong pines rocked backwards and forwards as though
bent by Herculean hands, crashing their frosted branches madly
together:--the massive clouds in the sky opened and let fall their
burden of snow. Down came the large fleecy flakes, twisting dizzily
round and round in a white waltz to the whirl of the wind--faster--
faster--heavier and thicker, till there seemed no clear space in the
air. Guldmar urged on the reindeer, more anxious for their safety
than his own--the poor beasts were fatigued, and the blinding snow
confused them, but they struggled on patiently, encouraged by their
master's voice and the consciousness that they were nearing home.
The storm increased in fury--and a fierce gust of frozen sleet
struck the sledge like a strong hammer-stroke as it advanced through
the rapidly deepening snow-drifts--its guiding lantern was
extinguished. Guldmar did not stop to relight it--he knew he was
approaching his farm, and he trusted to the instinct and sagacity of
his steeds.
There was indeed but a short distance to go,--the narrow wooded
defile opened out on two roads, one leading direct to Bosekop--the
other, steep and tortuous, winding down to the shore of the Fjord--
this latter passed the bonders gate. Once out of the shadow of the
pines, the way would be more distinctly seen,--the very reindeer
seemed to be conscious of this, for they trotted more steadily,
shaking their bells in even and rhythmical measure. As they neared
the end of the long dark vista, a sudden bright blue glare quivered
and sprang wave-like across the snow--a fantastic storm-aurora that
flashed and played among the feathery falling flakes of white till
they looked like knots and closters of sparkling jewels. The extreme
point of the close defile was reached at last, and here the
landscape opened up wide, rocky and desolate--a weird picture,--with
the heavy clouds above repeatedly stabbed through and through by the
needle-pointed beams of the aurora borealis,--and the blank
whiteness of the ground below. Just as the heads of the reindeer
were turned into the homeward road, half of the aurora suddenly
faded, leaving the other half still beating out its azure brilliance
against the horizon. At the same instant, with abrupt swiftness, a
dark shadow,--so dark as to seem almost palpable,--descended and
fell directly in front of the advancing sledge--a sort of mist that
appeared to block the way.
Guldmar leaned forward and gazed with eager, straining eyes into
that drooping gloom--a shadow?--a mere vapor, with the Northern
Lights glimmering through its murky folds? Ah no--no! For him it was
something very different,--a heavenly phantasm, beautiful and grand,
with solemn meaning! He saw a Maiden, majestically tall, of earnest
visage and imperial mien,--her long black hair streamed loose upon
the wind--in one hand she held a shining shield--in the other a
lifted spear! On her white brow rested a glittering helmet,--her
bosom heaved beneath a corslet of pale gold--she fixed her divine,
dark eyes full upon his face and smiled! With a cry of wonder and
ecstacy the old man fell back in his sledge,--the reins dropped from
his hands,--"The Valkyrie! the Valkyrie!" he exclaimed.
A mere breathing space, and the shadow vanished,--the aurora came
out again in unbroken splendor--and the reindeer, feeling no
restraint upon them, and terrified by something in the air, or the
ceaseless glitter, of the lights in the sky, started off
precipitately at full gallop. The long reins trailed loosely over
their backs, lashing their sides as they ran--Guldmar, recovering
from his momentary awe and bewilderment, strove to seize them, but
in vain. He called, he shouted,--the frightened animals were utterly
beyond control, and dashed madly down the steep road, swinging the
sledge from side to side, and entangling themselves more and more
with the loose reins, till, irritated beyond endurance, confused and
blinded by the flash of the aurora and the dizzy whirl of the
swiftly falling snow, they made straight for a steep bank,--and
before the bonde had time to realize the situation and jump from the
sledge--crash! down they went with a discordant jangle of bells,
their hoofs splitting a thin, sharp shelf of ice as they leaped
forward,--dragging the light vehicle after them, and twisting it
over and over till it was a mere wreck,--and throwing out its
occupant head foremost against a jagged stone.
Then more scared than ever, they strove to clamber out of the gully
into which they had recklessly sprung, but, foiled in these
attempts, they kicked, plunged, and reared,--trampling heedlessly
over the human form lying helpless among the shattered fragments of
the sledge,--till tired out at last, they stood motionless, panting
with terror. Their antlered heads cast fantastic patterns on the
snow in the varying rose and azure radiance that rippled from the
waving ribbons of the aurora,--and close to them, his slowly
trickling life-blood staining the white ground,--his hair and beard
glittering in the light like frosted silver,--his eyes fast closed
as though he slept,--lay Olaf Guldmar unconscious--dying. The spear
of the Valkyrie had fallen!
CHAPTER XXXII.
"Bury me not when I am dead--
Lay me not down in a dusty bed;
I could not bear the life down there,
With the wet worms crawling about my hair!"
ERIC MACKAY.
Long hours passed, and the next day dawned, if the dim twilight that
glimmered faintly across the Altenfjord could be called a dawn. The
snow-fall had ceased,--the wind had sunk--there was a frost-bound,
monotonous calm. The picturesque dwelling of the bonde was white in
every part, and fringed with long icicles,--icicles drooped from its
sheltering porch and gabled windows--the deserted dove-cote on the
roof was a miniature ice-palace, curiously festooned with thin
threads and crested pinnacles of frozen snow. Within the house there
was silence,--the silence of approaching desolation. In the room
where Thelma used to sit and spin, a blazing fire of pine sparkled
on the walls, casting ruddy outward flashes through the frost-
covered lattice-windows,--and here, towards the obscure noon, Olaf
Guldmar awoke from his long trance of insensibility. He found
himself at home, stretched on his own bed, and looked about him
vacantly. In the earnest and watchful countenance that bent above
his pillow, he slowly recognized his friend, companion, and servant,
Valdemar Svensen, and though returning consciousness brought with it
throbs of agonizing pain, he strove to smile, and feebly stretched
out his hand. Valdemar grasped it--kissed it--and in spite of his
efforts to restrain his emotion, a sigh, that was almost a groan,
escaped him. The bonde smiled again,--then lay quiet for a few
moments as though endeavoring to collect his thought. Presently he
spoke--his voice was faint yet distinct.
"What has happened, Valdemar?" he asked. "How is it that the
strength has departed from me?"
Svensen dropped on his knees by the bedside. "An accident, my Lord
Olaf," he began falteringly.
Guldmar's eyes suddenly lightened. "Ah, I remember!" he said. "The
rush down the valley--I remember all!" He paused, then added gently,
"And so the end has come, Valdemar!"
Svensen uttered a passionate exclamation of distress.
"Let not my lord say so!" he murmured appealingly, with the air of a
subject entreating favor from a king. "Or, if it must be, let me
also travel with thee wherever thou goest!"
Olaf Guldmar's gaze rested on him with a musing tenderness.
"'Tis a far journey," he said simply. "And thou art not summoned."
He raised his arm to test its force--for one second it was
uplifted,--then it fell powerless at his side. "I am conquered!" he
went on with a cheerful air. "The fight is over, Valdemar! Surely I
have had a long battle, and the time for rest and reward is
welcome." He was silent for a little, then continued, "Tell me--how
--where didst thou find me? It seems I had a dream, strange, and
glorious--then came a rushing sound of wheels and clanging bells,--
and after that, a long deep silence."
Speaking in low tones, Valdemar briefly related the events of the
past night. How he had heard the reindeer's gallop down the road,
and the quick jangling of the bells on their harness, and had
concluded that the bonde was returning home at extraordinary speed--
how these sounds had suddenly and unaccountably ceased,--how, after
waiting for some time, and hearing nothing more, he had become
greatly alarmed, and, taking a pine-torch, had gone out to see what
had occurred,--how he had found the reindeer standing by the broken
sledge in the gully, and how, after some search, he had finally
discovered his master, lying half-covered by the snow, and
grievously injured. How he had lifted him and carried him into the
house, . . .
"By my soul!" interrupted the bonde cheerfully, "thou must have
found me no light weight, Valdemar! See what a good thing it is to
be a man--with iron muscles, and strong limbs, and hardy nerve! By
the Hammer of Thor! the glorious gift of strong manhood is never
half appreciated! As for me--I am a man no longer!"
He sighed a little, and, passing his sinewy hand across his brow,
lay back exhausted. He was racked by bodily torture, but,--
unflinching old hero as he was,--gave no sign of the agonizing pain
he suffered. Valdemar Svensen had risen from his knees, and now
stood gazing at him with yearning, miserable eyes, his brown,
weather-beaten visage heavily marked with lines of grief and
despair. He knew that he was utterly powerless--that nothing could
save the noble life that was ebbing slowly away before him. His long
and varied experience as a sailor, pilot, and traveller in many
countries had given him some useful knowledge of medicine and
surgery, and if anything was possible to be done, he could do it.
But in this case no medical skill would have been availing--the old
man's ribs wore crushed in and his spine injured,--his death was a
question of but a few hours at the utmost, if so long.
"Olaf the King!" muttered the bonde presently, "True! They make no
mistakes yonder,--they know each warrior by name and rank--'tis only
in this world we are subject to error. This world! By the gods!
. . . 'tis but a puff of thistle-down--or a light mist floating from
the sunset to the sea!"
He made a vigorous attempt to raise himself from his pillow--though
the excruciating anguish caused by his movement, made him wince a
little and grow paler.
"Wine, Valdemar! Fill the horn cup to the brim and bring it to me--I
must have strength to speak--before I depart--on the last great
journey."
Obediently and in haste, Svensen filled the cup he asked for with
old Lacrima Christi, of which there was always a supply in this far
Northern abode, and gave it to him, watching him with a sort of
superstitious reverence as he drained off its contents and returned
it empty.
"Ah! That warms this freezing blood of mine," he said, the lustre
flashing back into his eyes. "'Twill find fresh force to flow a
brief while longer. Valdemar--I have little time to spend with thee-
-I feel death HERE"--and he slightly touched his chest--"cold--cold
and heavy. 'Tis nothing--a passing, chilly touch that sweeps away
the world! But the warmth of a new, strong life awaits me--a life of
never-ending triumph! The doors of Valhalla stand wide open--I heard
the trumpet-call last night--I saw the dark-haired Valkyrie! All is
well--and my soul is full of rejoicing. Valdemar--there is but one
thing now thou hast to do for me,--the one great service thou hast
sworn to render. FULFILL THINE OATH!"
Valdemar's brown cheek blanched,--his lips quivered,--he flung up
his hands in wild appeal. The picturesque flow of his native speech
gained new fervor and eloquence as he spoke.
"Not yet--not yet, my lord!" he cried passionately. "Wait but a
little--there is time. Think for one moment--think! Would it not be
well for my lord to sleep the last sleep by the side of his beloved
Thelma--the star of the dark mountains--the moonbeam of the night of
his life? Would not peace enwrap him there as with a soft garment,
and would not his rest be lulled by the placid murmur of the sea?
For the days of old time and storm and victory are past--and the
dead slumber as stones in the silent pathways--why would my lord
depart in haste as though he were wrathful, from the land he has
loved?--from the vassal who implores his pardon for pleading against
a deed he dares not do!"
"Dares not--dares not!" cried the bonde, springing up half-erect
from his couch, in spite of pain, and looking like some enraged old
lion with his tossed, streaming hair and glittering eyes. "Serf as
thou art and coward! Thinkest thou an oath such as thine is but a
thread of hair, to be snapped at thy pleasure? Wilt thou brave the
wrath of the gods and the teeth of the Wolf of Nastrond? As surely
as the seven stars shine on the white brow of Thor, evil shall be
upon thee if thou refusest to perform the vow thou hast sworn! And
shall a slave have strength to resist the dying curse of a King?"
The pride, the supreme authority,--the magnified strength of command
that flushed the old man's features, were extraordinary and almost
terrible in their impressive grandeur. If he indeed believed himself
by blood a king and a descendant of kings,--he could not have shown
a more forcible display of personal sovereignty. The effect of his
manner on Valdemar was instantaneous,--the superstitious fears of
that bronzed sea-wanderer were easily aroused. His head drooped--he
stretched out his hands imploringly.
"Let not my lord curse his servant," he faltered. "It was but a
tremor of the heart that caused my tongue to speak foolishly. I am
ready--I have sworn--the oath shall be kept to its utmost end!"
Olaf Guldmar's threatening countenance relaxed, and he fell back on
his pillows.
"It is well!" he said feebly and somewhat indistinctly. "Thy want of
will maddened me--I spoke and lived in times that are no more--days
of battle--and--glory--that are gone--from men--for ever. More wine,
Valdemar!--I must keep a grip on this slippery life--and yet--I
wander--wander into the--night--"
His voice ceased, and he sank into a swoon--a swoon that was like
death. His breathing was scarcely perceptible, and Svensen, alarmed
at his appearance, forced some drops of wine between his set lips,
and chafed his cold hands with anxious solicitude. Slowly and very
gradually he recovered consciousness and intelligence, and presently
asked for a pencil and paper to write a few farewell words to his
daughter. In the grief and bewilderment of the time, Valdemar
entirely forgot to tell him that a letter from Thelma had arrived
for him on the previous afternoon while he was away at Talvig,--and
was even now on the shelf above the chimney, awaiting perusal.
Guldmar, ignorant of this, began to write slowly and with firmness,
disregarding his rapidly sinking strength. Scarcely had he begun the
letter, however, than he looked up meaningly at Svensen, who stood
waiting beside him.
"The time grows very short," he said imperatively. "Prepare
everything quickly--go! Fear not--I shall live to see thee return--
and to bless thee for thy faithful service."
As he uttered these words he smiled;--and with one wistful, yearning
look at him, Valdemar obediently and instantly departed. He left the
house, carrying with him a huge pile of dry brushwood, and with the
air of a man strung up to prompt action, rapidly descended the
sloping path, thick with hardened snow, that led downwards to the
Fjord. On reaching the shore, he looked anxiously about him. There
was nothing in sight but the distant, twinkling lights of Bosekop--
the Fjord itself was like a black pool,--so still that even the
faintest murmur of its rippling against the bonde's own private pier
could be heard,--the tide was full up.
Out of the reach of the encroaching waters, high and dry on the
beach, was Guldmar's brig, the Valkyrie, transformed by the fingers
of the frost into a white ship, fantastically draped with threads of
frozen snow and pendent icicles. She was placed on a descending
plank, to which she was attached by a chain and rope pulley,--so
that at any time of the weather or tide she could be moved glidingly
downwards into deep water--and this was what Valdemar occupied
himself in doing. It was a hard task. The chains were stiff with the
frost,--but, after some patient and arduous striving, they yielded
to his efforts, and, with slow clank and much creaking complaint,
the vessel slid reluctantly down and plunged forward, afloat at
last. Holding her ropes, Valdemar sprang to the extreme edge of the
pier and fastened her there, and then getting on board, he untied
and began to hoist the sails. This was a matter of the greatest
difficulty, but it was gradually and successfully accomplished; and
a strange sight the Valkyrie then presented, resting nearly
motionless on the black Fjord,--her stretched and frosted canvas
looking like sheeted pearl fringed with silver,--her masts white
with encrusted snow, and topped with pointed icicles. Leaving her
for a moment, Valdemar quickly returned, carrying the pile of dry
brushwood he had brought,--he descended with this into the hold of
the ship, and returned without it. Glancing once more nervously
about him, he jumped from the deck to the pier--thence to the shore-
-and as he did so a long dark wave rolled up and broke at his feet.
The capricious wind had suddenly arisen,--and a moaning whisper
coming from the adjacent hills gave warning of another storm.
Valdemar hurriedly retraced his steps back to the house,--his work
with the Valkyrie had occupied him more than an hour--the bonde, his
friend and master, might have died during his absence! There was a
cold sickness at his heart--his feet seemed heavy as lead, and
scarcely able to carry him along quickly enough--to his credulous
and visionary mind, the hovering shadow of death seemed everywhere,-
-in every crackling twig he brushed against,--in every sough of the
wakening gale that rustled among the bare pines. To his intense
relief he found Guldmar lying calmly back among his pillows,--his
eyes well open and clear, and an expression of perfect peace upon
his features. He smiled as he saw his servant enter.
"All is in readiness?" he asked.
Valdemar bent his head in silent assent.
The bonde's face lightened with extraordinary rapture.
"I thank thee, old friend!" he said in low but glad accents. "Thou
knowest I could not be at peace in any other grave. I have suffered
in thine absence,--the sufferings of the body that, being yet strong
in spite of age, is reluctant to take leave of life. But it is past!
I am as one numbed with everlasting frost,--and now I feel no pain.
And my mind is like a bird that poises for a while over past and
present, ere soaring into the far future. There are things I must
yet say to thee, Valdemar,--give me thy close hearing, for my voice
is weak."
Svensen drew closer, and stood in the humble attitude of one who
waits a command from some supreme chief.
"This letter," went on the old man, giving him a folded paper, "is
to the child of my heart, my Thelma. Send it to her--when--I am
gone. It will not grieve her, I hope--for, as far as I could find
words, I have expressed therein nothing but joy--the joy of a
prisoner set free. Tell her, that with all the strength of my
perishing body and escaping soul, I blessed her! . . . her and the
husband in whose arms she rests in safety." He raised his trembling
hands solemnly--"The gods of my fathers and their attendant spirits
have her young life in their glorious keeping!--the joy of love and
purity and peace be on her innocent head for ever!"
He paused,--the wind wailed mournfully round the house and shook the
lattice with a sort of stealthy clatter, like a forlorn wanderer
striving to creep in to warmth and shelter.
"Here, Valdemar," continued the bonde presently, in fainter accents,
at the same time handing him another paper. "Here are some scrawled
lines--they are plainly set forth and signed--which make thee master
of this poor place and all that it contains."
A low, choked sob broke from Valdemar's broad breast--he covered his
face with his hands.
"Of what avail?" he murmured brokenly. "When my lord departs, I am
alone and friendless!"
The bonde regarded him with kindly pity.
"Tears from the stout heart?" he inquired with a sort of grave
wonder. "Weep for life, Valdemar--not for death! Alone and
friendless? Not while the gods are in heaven! Cheer thee--thou art
strong and in vigorous pride of manhood--why should not bright days
come for thee--" He broke off with a gasp--a sudden access of pain
convulsed him and rendered his breathing difficult. By sheer force
of will he mastered the cruel agony, though great drops of sweat
stood on his brow when he at last found voice to continue--
"I thought all suffering was past," he said with a heroic smile.
"This foolish flesh and blood of mine dies hard! But, as I was
saying to thee, Valdemar--the farm is thine, and all it holds--save
some few trifles I have set down to be given to my child. There is
little worth in what I leave thee--the soil--is hard and ungrateful-
-the harvest uncertain, and the cattle few. Even the reindeer--didst
thou say they were injured by their fall last night?--I--I forget,.
. . ."
"No harm has come to them," said Svensen hastily, seeing that the
very effort of thinking was becoming too much for the old man. "They
are safe and unhurt. Trouble not about these things!"
A strange, unearthly radiance transfigured Guldmar's visage.
"Trouble is departing swiftly from me," he murmured.
"Trouble and I shall know each other no more!" His voice died away
inarticulately, and he was silent a little space. Suddenly, and with
a rush of vigor--that seemed superhuman, he raised himself nearly
erect, and pointed outwards with a commanding gesture.
"Bear me hence!" he cried in ringing tones. "Hence to the mountains
and the sea!"
With a sort of mechanical, swift obedience, Valdemar threw open the
door--the wind rushed coldly into the house, bringing with it large
feathery flakes of snow. A hand sledge stood outside the porch,--it
was always there during the winter, being much used for visiting the
outlying grounds of the farm,--and to this, Valdemar prepared to
carry the bonde in his herculean arms. But, on being lifted from his
couch, the old man, filled with strange, almost delirious force,
declared himself able to stand,--and, though suffering deadly
anguish at every step, did in truth manage to reach and enter the
sledge, strongly supported by Valdemar. There, however, he fainted--
and his faithful servant, covering his insensible form with, furs,
thought he was dead. But there was now no time for hesitation,--dead
or living, Olaf Guldmar's will was law to his vassal,--an oath had
been made and must be kept. To propel the sledge down to the Fjord
was an easy matter--how the rest of his duty was accomplished he
never knew.
He was conscious of staggering blindly onward, weighted with a
heavy, helpless burden,--he felt the slippery pier beneath his feet-
-the driving snow and the icy wind on his face,--but he was as one
in a dream, realizing nothing plainly, till with a wild start, he
seemed to awake--and lo! he stood on the glassy deck of the Valkyrie
with the body of his "King" stretched senseless before him! Had he
brought him there? He could not remember what he had done during the
past few mad minutes,--the earth and sky whirled dizzily around
him,--he could grasp nothing tangible in thought or memory. But
there, most certainly, Olaf Guldmar lay,--his pallid face upturned,
his hair and beard as white as the snow that clung to the masts of
his vessel--his hand clenched on the fur garment that enwrapped him
as with a robe of royalty.
Dropping on his knees beside him, Valdemar felt his heart--it still
throbbed fitfully and feebly. Watching the intense calm of the
grand, rugged face, this stern, weather-worn sailor--this man of
superstitious and heathen imaginations--gave way to womanish tears--
tears that were the outcome of sincere and passionate grief. His
love was of an exceptional type,--something like that of a faithful
dog that refuses to leave the grave of its master,--he could
contemplate death for himself with absolute indifference,--but not
for the bonde, whose sturdy strength and splendid physique had
seemed to defy all danger.
As he knelt and wept unrestrainedly, a soft change, a delicate
transparency, swept over the dark bosom of the sky. Pale pink
streaks glittered on the dusky horizon--darts of light began to
climb upward into the clouds, and to plunge downward into the
water,--the radiance spread, and gradually formed into a broad band
of deep crimson, which burned with a fixed and intense glow--topaz-
like rays flickered and streamed about it, as though uncertain what
fantastic shape they should take to best display their brilliancy.
This tremulous hesitation of varying color did not last long; the
whole jewel-like mass swept together, expanding and contracting with
extraordinary swiftness for a few seconds--then, suddenly and
clearly defined in the sky, a Kingly Crown blazed forth--a Crown of
perfect shape, its five points distinctly and separately outlined
and flashing as with a million rubies and diamonds. The red lustre
warmly tinged the pale features of the dying man, and startled
Valdemar, who sprang to his feet and gazed at that mystic aureola
with a cry of wonder. At the same moment Olaf Guldmar stirred, and
began to speak drowsily without opening his eyes.
"Dawn on the sea!" he murmured--"The white waves gleam and sparkle
beneath the prow, and the ship makes swift way through the water! It
is dawn in my heart--the dawn of love for thee and me, my Thelma--
fear not! The rose of passion is a hardy flower that can bloom in
the north as well as in the south, believe me! Thelma--Thelma!"
He suddenly opened his eyes, and realizing his surroundings, raised
himself half-erect.
"Set sail!" he cried, pointing with a majestic motion of his arm to
the diadem glittering in the sky. "Why do we linger? The wind favors
us, and the tide sweeps forward--forward! See how the lights beckon
from the harbor!"
He bent his brows and looked almost angrily at Svensen. "Do what
thou hast to do!" and his tones were sharp and imperious. "I must
press on!"
An expression of terror, pain, and pity passed over the sailor's
countenance--for one instant he hesitated--the next, he descended
into the hold of the vessel. He was absent for a very little space,-
-but when he returned his eyes were wild as though he had been
engaged in some dark and criminal deed. Olaf Guldmar was still
gazing at the brilliancy in the heavens, which seemed to increase in
size and lustre as the wind rose higher. Svensen took his hand--it
was icy cold, and damp with the dew of death.
"Let me go with thee!" he implored, in broken accent. "I fear
nothing! Why should I not venture also on the last voyage?"
Guldmar made a faint but decided sign of rejection.
"The Viking sails alone to the grave of his fathers!" he with a
serene and proud smile. "Alone--alone! Neither wife, nor child, nor
vassal may have place with him in his ship--even so have the gods
willed it. Farewell, Valdemar! Loosen the ropes and let me go!--thou
servest me ill--hasten--hasten--I am weary of waiting--"
His head fell back,--that mysterious shadow which darkens the face
of the dying a moment before dissolution, was on him now.
Just then a strange, suffocating odor began to permeate the air--
little wreaths of pale smoke made their slow way through the boards
of the deck--and a fierce gust of wind, blowing seawards from the
mountains, swayed the Valkyrie uneasily to and fro. Slowly, and with
evident reluctance, Svensen commenced the work of detaching her from
the pier--feeling instinctively all the while that his master's
dying eyes were fixed upon him. When but one slender rope remained
to be cast off, he knelt by the old man's side said whispered
tremblingly that all waft done. At the same moment a small, stealthy
tongue of red flame curled up through the deck from the hold,--and
Guldmar, observing this, smiled.
"I see thou hast redeemed thine oath," he said, gratefully pressing
Svensen's hand. "'Tis the last act of thine allegiance,--may the
gods reward thy faithfulness! Peace be with thee!--we shall meet
hereafter. Already the light shines from the Rainbow Bridge,--
there,--there are the golden peaks of the hills and the stretch of
the wide sea! Go, Valdemar!--delay no longer, for my soul is
impatient--it burns, it struggles to be free! Go!--and--farewell!"
Stricken to the heart, and full Of anguish,--yet serf-like in his
submission and resignation to the inevitable,--Svensen kissed his
master's hand for the last time. Then, with a sort of fierce sobbing
groan, wrung from the very depths of his despairing grief, he turned
resolutely away, and sprang off the vessel. Standing at the extreme
edge of the pier, he let slip the last rope that bound her,--her
sails filled and bulged outward,--her cordage creaked, she shuddered
on the water--lurched a little--then paused.
In that brief moment a loud triumphant cry rang through the air.
Olaf Guldmar leaped upright on the deck as though lifted by some
invisible hand, and confronted his terrified servants, who gazed at
him in fascinated amazement and awe. His white hair gleamed like
spun silver--his face was transfigured, and wore a strange, rapt
look of pale yet splendid majesty--the dark furs that clung about
him trailed in regal folds to his feet.
"Hark!" he cried, and his voice vibrated with deep and mellow
clearness. "Hark to the thunder of the galloping hoofs!--see--see
the glitter of the shield and spear! She comes-ah! Thelma! Thelma!"
He raised his arms as though in ecstacy. "Glory!--joy!--Victory!"
And, like a noble tree struck down by lightning, he fell--dead!
Even as he fell, the Valkyrie plunged forward, driven forcibly by a
swooping gust of wind, and scudded out to the Fjord like a wild bird
flying before a tempest,--and, while she thus fled, a sheet of flame
burst through her sides and blazed upwards, mingling a lurid, smoky
glow with the clear crimson radiance of the still brilliant and
crown-like aurora. Following the current, she made swift way across
the dark water in the direction of the island of Seiland, and
presently became a wondrous Ship of Fire! Fire flashed from her
masts--fire folded up her spars and sails in a devouring embrace,--
fire, that leaped and played and sent forth a million showering
sparks hissingly into the waves beneath.
With beating heart and straining eyes, Valdemar Svensen crouched on
the pier-head, watching, in mute agony, the burning vessel. He had
fulfilled his oath!--that strange vow that had so sternly bound
him,--a vow that was the outcome of his peculiar traditions and
pagan creed.
Long ago, in the days of his youth,--full of enthusiasm for the
worship of Odin and the past splendors of the race of the great
Norse warriors,--he had chosen to recognize in Olaf Guldmar a true
descendant of kings, who was by blood and birth, though not in
power, himself a king,--and tracing his legendary history back to
old and half-forgotten sources, he had proved, satisfactorily, to
his own mind, that he, Svensen, must lawfully, and according to old
feudal system, be this king's serf or vassal. And, growing more and
more convinced of this in his dreamy and imaginative mind,--he had
sworn a sort of mystic friendship and allegiance, which Guldmar had
accepted, imposing on him, however, only one absolute command. This
was that he should be given the "crimson shroud" and sea-tomb of his
war-like ancestors,--for the idea that his body might be touched by
strange hands, shut in a close coffin, and laid in the earth to
moulder away to wormy corruption,--had been the one fantastic dread
of the sturdy old pagan's life. And he had taken advantage of
Svensen's devotion and obedience to impress on him the paramount
importance of his solitary behest.
"Let no hypocritical prayers be chanted over my dumb corpse," he had
said. "My blood would ooze from me at every pore were I touched by
the fingers of a Lutheran! Save this goodly body that has served me
so well from the inferior dust,--let the bright fire wither it, and
the glad sea drown it,--and my soul, beholding its end afar off,
shall rejoice and be satisfied. Swear by the wrath and thunder of
the gods!--swear by the unflinching Hammer of Thor,--swear by the
gates of Valhalla, and in the name of Odin!--and having sworn, the
curse of all these be upon thee if thou fail to keep thy vow!"
And Valdemar had sworn. Now that the oath was kept--now that his
promised obedience had been carried out to the extremest letter, he
was as one stupefied. Shivering, yet regardless of the snow that
began to fall thickly, he kept his post, staring, staring in drear
fascination across the Fjord, where the Valkyrie drifted, now a mass
of flame blown fiercely by the wind, and gleaming red through the
flaky snow-storm.
The aurora borealis faded by gradual degrees, and the flaming ship
was more than ever distinctly visible. She was seen from the shore
of Bosekop, by a group of the inhabitants, who, rubbing their dull
eyes, could not decide Whether what they beheld was fire, or a new
phase of the capricious, ever-changing Northern Lights,--the rapidly
descending snow rendering their vision bewildered and uncertain. Any
way, they thought very little about it,--they had had excitement of
another kind in the arrival of Ulrika from Talvig, bringing accounts
of the godly Lovisa Elsland's death.
Moreover, an English steam cargo-boat, bound for the North Cape,
had, just an hour previously, touched at their harbor, to land a
passenger,--a mysterious woman closely veiled, who immediately on
arrival had hired a sledge, and had bidden the driver to take her to
the house of Olaf Guldmar, an eight miles journey through the
drifted snow. All this was intensely interesting to the good,
stupid, gossiping fisher-folks of Bosekop,--so much so, indeed, that
they scarcely paid any heed to the spectacle of the fiery ship
swaying suggestively on the heaving water, and drifting rapidly
away--away towards the frosted peaks of Seiland.
Further and further she receded,--the flames around her waving like
banners in a battle--further and further still--till Valdemar
Svensen, from his station on the pier, began to lose sight of her
blazing timbers,--and, starting from his reverie, he ran rapidly
from the shore, up through the garden paths to the farm-house, in
order to gain the summit, and from that point of vantage, watch the
last glimmering spark of the Viking's burial. As he reached the
house, he stopped short and uttered a wild exclamation. There,--
under the porch hung with sparkling icicles,--stood Thelma!. . .
Thelma,--her face pale and weary, yet smiling faintly,--Thelma with
the glint of her wondrous gold hair escaping from under her hat, and
glittering on the folds of her dark fur mantle.
"I have come home, Valdemar!" said the sweet, rich, penetrating
voice. "Where is my father?"
As a man distraught, or in some dreadful dream, Valdemar approached
her--the strangeness of his look and manner filled her with sudden
fear,--he caught her hand and pointed to the dark Fjord--to the spot
where gleamed a lurid waving wreath of flames.
"Froken Thelma--he is THERE!" he gasped in choked, hoarse tones.
"THERE--where the gods have called him!"
With a faint shriek of terror, Thelma's blue eyes turned toward the
shadowy water,--as she looked, a long up-twisting snake of fire
appeared to leap from the perishing Valkyrie,--a snake that twined
its glittering coils rapidly round and round on the wind, and as
rapidly sank--down--down--to one glimmering spark which glowed redly
like a floating lamp for a brief space,--and was then quenched for
ever! The ship had vanished! Thelma needed no explanation,--she knew
her father's creed--she understood all. Breaking loose from
Valdemar's grasp, she rushed a few steps forward with arms
outstretched on the bitter, snowy air.
"Father! father!" she cried aloud and sobbingly. "Wait for me!--it
is I Thelma!--I am coming--Father!"
The white world around her grew black--and, shuddering like a shot
bird, she fell senseless.
Instantly Valdemar raised her from the ground, and holding her
tenderly and reverently in his strong arms, carried her, as though
she were a child, into the house. . . clouds darkened--the snow-
storm thickened--the mountain-peaks, stern giants, frowned through
their sleety veils at the arctic desolation of the land below them,-
-and over the charred and sunken corpse of the departed servant of
Odin, sounded the solemn De Profundis of the sea.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
"The body is the storm;
The soul the star beyond it, in the deep
Of Nature's calm. And, yonder, on the steep,
The Sun of Faith, quiescent, round, and warm!"
Late on that same night, the pious Ulrika was engaged in prayer.
Prayer with her was a sort of fanatical wrestling of the body as
well as of the soul,--she was never contented unless by means of
groans and contortions she could manage to work up by degrees into a
condition of hysteria resembling a mild epileptic attack, in which
state alone she considered herself worthy to approach the Deity. On
this Occasion she had some difficulty to attain the desired result--
her soul, as she herself expressed it, was "dry"--and her thoughts
wandered,--though she pinched her neck and arms with the hard
resoluteness of a sworn flagellant, and groaned, "Lord, have mercy
on me a sinner!" with indefatigable earnestness. She was
considerably startled in the midst of these energetic devotions by a
sudden jangling of sledge--bells, and aloud knocking--a knocking
which threatened to break down the door of the small and humble
house she inhabited. Hastily donning the coarse gown and bodice she
had recently taken off in order to administer chastisement to her
own flesh more thoroughly, she unfastened her bolts and bars, and,
lifting the latch, was confronted by Valdemar Svensen, who, nearly
breathless with swift driving through the snow-storm, cried out in
quick gasps--
"Come with me--come! She is dying!"
"God help the man!" exclaimed Ulrika startled. "Who is dying?"
"She--the Froken Thelma--Lady Errington--she is all alone up there,"
and he pointed distractedly in the direction from whence he had
come. "I can get no one in Bosekop,--the women are cowards all,--all
afraid to go near her," and he wrung his hands in passionate
distress.
Ulrika pulled a thick shawl from the nail where it hung and wrapped
it round her.
"I am ready," she said, and without more delay, stepped into the
waiting sledge, while Valdemar, with an exclamation of gratitude and
relief, took his place beside her. "But how is it?" she asked, as
the reindeer started off at full speed, "how is it that the bonde's
daughter is again at the Altenfjord?"
"I know not!" answered Svensen despairingly. "I would have given my
life not to have told her of her father's death."
"Death!" cried Ulrika. "Olaf Guldmar DEAD! Impossible! Only last
night I saw him in the pride of his strength,--and thought I never
had beheld so goodly a man. Lord, Lord! That he should be DEAD!"
In a few words Svensen related all that had happened, with the
exception of the fire-burial in the Fjord.
But Ulrika immediately asked, "Is his body still in the house?"
Svensen looked at her darkly. "Hast thou never heard Ulrika," he
said solemnly, "that the bodies of men who follow Olaf Guldmar's
creed, disappear as soon as the life departs from them? It is a
mystery--strange and terrible! But this is true--my master's
sailing-ship has gone, and his body with it--and I know not where!"
Ulrika surveyed him steadily with a slow, incredulous smile. After a
pause, she said--
"Fidelity in a servant is good, Valdemar Svensen! I know you well--I
also know that a pagan shrinks from Christian burial. Enough said--I
will ask no more--but if Olaf Guldmar's ship's has gone, and he with
it,--I warn you, the village will wonder."
"I cannot help it," said Svensen with cold brevity. "I have spoken
truth--he has gone! I saw him die--and then vanish. Believe it or
not as you will, I care not!"
And he drove on in silence. Ulrika was silent too.
She had known Valdemar Svensen for many years--he was a man
universally liked and respected at all the harbors and different
fishing-stations of Norway, and his life was an open book to
everybody, with the exception of one page, which was turned down and
sealed,--this was the question of his religious belief. No one knew
what form of faith he followed,--it was only when he went to live
with the bonde, after Thelma's marriage,--that the nature of his
creed was dimly suspected. But Ulrika had no dislike for him on this
account,--her opinions had changed very much during the past few
months. As devout a Lutheran as ever, she began to entertain a
little more of the true spirit of Christianity--that spirit of
gentle and patient tolerance which, full of forbearance towards all
humanity, is willing to admit the possibility of a little good in
everything, even in the blind tenets of a heathen creed. Part of
this alteration in her was due to the gratitude she secretly felt
towards the Guldmar family, for having saved from destruction,--
albeit unconscious of his parentage,--Sigurd, the child she had
attempted to murder. The hideous malevolence of Lovisa Elsland's
nature had shown her that there MAY be bad Lutherans,--the
invariable tenderness displayed by the Guldmars for her
unrecognized, helpless and distraught son,--had proved to her that
there MAY be good heathens. Hearing thus suddenly of the bonde's
death, she was strangely affected--she could almost have wept. She
felt perfectly convinced that Svensen had made away with his
master's body by some mysterious rite connected with pagan belief,--
she knew that Guldmar himself, according to rumor, had buried his
own wife in some unknown spot, with strange and weird ceremonials,
but she was inclined to be tolerant,--and glancing at Svensen's
grave, pained face from time to time as she sat beside him in the
sledge, she resolved to ask him no more questions on the subject,
but to accept and support, if necessary, the theory he had so
emphatically set forth,--namely, the mystical evanishment of the
corpse by some supernatural agency.
As they neared their destination, she began to think of Thelma, the
beautiful, proud girl whom she remembered best as standing on a
little green-tufted hillock with a cluster of pansies in her hand,
and Sigurd--Sigurd clinging fondly to her white skirts, with a
wealth of passionate devotion in his upturned, melancholy, blue
eyes. Ulrika had seen her but once since then,--and that was on the
occasion when, at the threat of Lovisa Elsland, and the command of
the Reverend Mr. Dyceworthy, she had given her Sir Philip
Errington's card, with the false message written on it that had
decoyed her for a time into the wily minister's power. She felt a
thrill of shame as she remembered the part she had played in that
cruel trick,--and reverting once more to the memory of Sigurd, whose
tragic end at the Fall of Njedegorze she had learned through
Valdemar, she resolved to make amends now that she had the chance,
and to do her best for Thelma in her suffering and trouble.
"For who knows," mused Ulrika, "Whether it is not the Lord's hand
that is extended towards me,--and that in the ministering to the
wants of her whom I wronged, and whom my son so greatly loved, I may
not thereby cancel the past sin, and work out my own redemption!"
And her dull eyes brightened with hope, and her heart warmed,--she
began to feel almost humane and sympathetic,--and was so eager to
commence her office of nurse and consoler to Thelma that she jumped
out of the sledge almost before it had stopped at the farm gate.
Disregarding Valdemar's assistance, she clambered sturdily over the
drifted heaps of slippery snow that blocked the deserted pathways,
and made for the house,--Valdemar following her as soon as he had
safely fastened up the sledge, which was not his own, he having in
emergency borrowed it from a neighbor. As they approached, a sound
came floating to meet them--a sound which made them pause and look
at each other in surprise and anxiety. Some one was singing,--a
voice full and clear, though with a strange, uncertain quiver in it,
rippled out in wild strains of minor melody on the snow-laden air.
For one moment Ulrika listened doubtedly, and then without more
delay ran hastily forward and entered the house. Thelma was there,--
sitting at the lattice window which she had thrown wide open to the
icy blast,--she had taken off her cloak and hat, and her hair,
unbound, fell about her in a great, glittering tangle of gold,--her
hands were busy manipulating an imaginary spinning-wheel--her eyes
were brilliant as jewels, but full of pain, terror, and pathos. She
smiled a piteous smile as she became hazily conscious that there
were others in the room--but she went on with her song--a mournful,
Norwegian ditty,--till a sudden break in her voice caused her to put
her hand to her throat and look up perplexedly.
"That song pleases you?" she asked softly, "I am very glad! Has
Sigurd come home? He wanders so much, poor boy! Father, dear, you
must tell him how wrong it is not to love Philip. Every one loves
Philip--and I--I love him too, but he must never know that." She
paused and sighed. "That is my secret,--the only one I have!" And
she drooped her fair head forlornly.
Moved by intense pity, such as she had never felt in all her life
before, Ulrika went up and tried to draw her gently from the window.
"Poor thing, poor thing!" she said kindly. "Come away with me, and
lie down! You mustn't sit here,--let me shut the lattice,--it's
quite late at night, and too cold for you, my dear."
"Too cold?" and Thelma eyed her wonderingly. "Why, it is summer-
time, and the sun never sets! The roses are all about the walls--I
gave one to Philip yesterday--a little pale rose with a crimson
heart. He wore it, and seemed glad!"
She passed her hand across her forehead with a troubled air, and
watched Ulrika, who quietly closed the window against the darkness
and desolation of the night. "Are you a friend?" she asked presently
in anxious tones. "I know so many that say they are my friends--but
I am afraid of them all--and I have left them. Do you know why?" and
she laid her hand on Ulrika's rough arm. "Because they tell me my
Philip does not love me any more. They are very cruel to say so, and
I think it cannot be true. I want to tell my father what they say--
because he will know--and if it is true, then I wish to die,--I
could not live! Will you take me to my father?"
The plaintive, pleading gentleness of her voice and look brought
more tears into Ulrika's eyes than had ever been forced there by her
devotional exercises,--and the miserable Valdemar, already broken-
hearted by his master's death, turned away and sobbingly cursed his
gods for this new and undeserved affliction. As the Italian
peasantry fall to abusing their saints in time of trouble, even so
will the few remaining believers in Norse legendary lore, upbraid
their fierce divinities with the most reckless hardihood when things
go wrong. There were times when Valdemar Svensen secretly quailed at
the mere thought of the wrath of Odin,--there were others when he
was ready to pluck the great god by the beard and beat him with the
flat of his own drawn Sword, This was his humor at the present
moment, as he averted his gaze from the pitiful sight of his
"King's" fair daughter all desolate and woe-begone, her lovely face
pale with anguish,--her sweet wits wandering, and her whole demeanor
that of one who is lost in some dark forest, and is weary unto
death. She studied Ulrika's rough visage attentively, and presently
noticed the tears on her cheeks.
"You are crying!" she said in a tone of grave surprise. "Why? It is
foolish to cry even when the heart aches. I have found that,--no one
in the world ever pities you! But perhaps you do not know the
world,--ah! it is very hard and cold;--all the people hide their
feelings, and pretend to be what they are not. It is difficult to
live so,--and I am tired!"
She rose from her chair, and stood up unsteadily, stretching out her
little cold white hands to Ulrika, who folded them in her own strong
coarse palms. "Yes--I am very tired!" she went on dreamily. "There
seems to be nothing that is true--all is false and unreal--I cannot
understand! But you seem kind,"--here her swaying figure tottered,
and Ulrika drew her more closely to herself--"I think I know you--
you came with me in the train, did you not? Yes--and the little baby
smiled and slept in my arms nearly all the way." A violent
shuddering seized her, and a quiver of agony passed over her face.
"Forgive me," she murmured, "I feel ill--very ill--and cold--but do
not mind--I think--I am--dying!" She could scarcely articulate these
last words--she sank forward, fainting, on Ulrika's breast, and that
devout disciple of Luther, forgetting all her former dread of the
"white witch of the Altenfjord"--only remembered that she held in
her arms a helpless woman with all the sorrows and pangs of
womanhood thick upon her,--and in this act of warm heart-expansion
and timely tenderness, it may be that she cleansed her soiled soul
in the sight of the God she worshipped, and won a look of pardon
from the ever-watchful eyes of Christ.
As far as mundane matters were concerned, she showed herself a woman
of prompt energy and decision. Laying Thelma gently down upon the
very couch her dead father had so lately occupied, she sent the
distracted Valdemar out to gather fresh pine-logs for the fire, and
then busied herself in bringing down Thelma's own little bed from
the upper floor, airing it with methodical care, and making it as
warm and cosy as a bird's-nest. While she was engaged in these
preparations, Thelma regained her consciousness, and began to toss
and tumble and talk deliriously; but with it all she retained the
innate gentleness and patience, and submitted to be undressed,
though she began to sob pleadingly when Ulrika would have removed
her husband's miniature from where it lay pressed against her
bosom,--and taking it in her own hand she kissed and held it fast.
One by one, the dainty articles of delicate apparel she wore were
loosened and laid aside, Ulrika wondering at the embroidered linen
and costly lace, the like of which was never seen in that part of
Norway,--but wondering still more at the dazzling skin she thus
unveiled, a skin as exquisitely soft and pure as the satiny cup of a
Nile lily.
Poor Thelma sat resignedly watching her own attire taken from her,
and allowing herself to be wrapped in a comfortable loose garment of
white wadmel, as warm as eider-down, which Ulrika had found in a
cupboard upstairs, and which, indeed, had once belonged to Thelma,
she and Britta having made it together. She examined its texture now
with some faint interest--then she asked plaintively--
"Are you going to bury me? You must put me to sleep with my mother--
her name was Thelma, too. I think it is an unlucky name."
"Why, my dear?" asked Ulrika kindly, as she swept the rich tumbled
hair from the girl's eyes, and began to braid it in one long loose
plait, in order to give her greater ease.
Thelma sighed. "There is an old song that says--" She broke off.
"Shall I sing it to you?" she asked with a wild look.
"No, no," said Ulrika. "Not now. By-and-by!" And she nodded her head
encouragingly. "By-and-by! There'll be plenty of time for singing
presently," and she laid her in bed, tucking her up warmly as though
she were a very little child, and feeling strongly inclined to kiss
her.
"Ah, but I should like to tell you, even if I must not sing--" and
Thelma gazed up anxiously from her pillow--"only my head is so
heavy, and full of strange noises--I do not know whether I can
remember it."
"Don't try to remember it," and Ulrika stroked the soft cheek, with
a curious yearning sensation of love tugging at her tough
heartstrings. "Try to sleep--that will be better for you!" And she
took from the fire a warm, nourishing drink she had prepared, and
gave it to her. She was surprised at the eagerness with which the
poor girl seized it.
"Lord help us, I believe she is light-headed for want of food!" she
thought.
Such indeed was the fact,--Thelma had been several days on her
journey from Hull, and during that time had eaten so little that her
strength had entirely given way. The provisions on board the Black
Polly were extremely limited, and consisted of nothing but dried
fish, hard bread, and weak tea, without milk or sugar,--and in her
condition of health, her system had rebelled against this daily
untempting bill of fare. Ulrika's simple but sustaining beverage
seemed more than delicious to her palate,--she drained it to the
last drop, and, as she returned the cup, a feint color came back to
her cheeks and lips.
"Thank you," she said feebly. "You are very good to me! And now I do
quite know what I wished to say. It was long ago--there was a queen,
named Thelma, and some one--a great warrior, loved her and found her
fair. But presently he grew tired of her face--and raised an army
against her, and took her throne by force, and crowned himself king
of all her land. And the song says that Queen Thelma wandered on the
mountains all alone till she died--it was a sad song--but I forget--
the end."
And her voice trailed off into broken murmurs, her eyes closed, and
she slept. Ulrika watched her musingly and tenderly--wondering what
secret trouble weighed on the girl's mind. When Valdemar Svensen
presently looked in, she made him a warning sign--and, hushing his
footsteps, he went away again. She followed him out into the
kitchen, where he had deposited his load of pine-wood, and began to
talk to him in low tones. He listened,--the expression of grief and
fear deepened on his countenance as he heard.
"Will she die?" he asked anxiously.
"Let us hope not," returned Ulrika, "But there is no doubt she is
very ill, and will be worse. What has brought her here, I wonder? Do
you know?"
Valdemar shook his head.
"Where is her husband?" went on Ulrika. "He ought to be here. How
could he have let her make such a journey at such a time! Why did he
not come with her? There must be something wrong!"
Svensen looked, as he felt, completely perplexed and despairing. He
could think of no reason for Thelma's unexpected appearance at the
Altenfjord--he had forgotten all about the letter that had come from
her to her father,--the letter which was still in the house,
unopened.
"Well, well! It is very strange!" Ulrika sighed resignedly. "But it
is the Lord's will--and we must do our best for her, that's all."
And she began to enumerate a list of things she wanted from Bosekop
for her patient's sustenance and comfort. "You must fetch all
these," she said, "as soon as the day is fairly advanced." She
glanced at the clock--it was just four in the morning. "And at the
same time, you had better call at the doctor's house."
"He's away," interrupted Valdemar. "Gone to Christiania."
"Very well," said Ulrika composedly. "Then we must do without him.
Doctors are never much use, any way,--maybe the Lord will help me
instead."
And she returned to Thelma, who still slept, though her face was now
feverishly flushed and her breathing hurried and irregular.
The hours of the new day,--day, though seeming night, passed on and
it was verging towards ten o'clock when she woke, raving
deliriously. Her father, Sigurd, Philip, the events of her life in,
London, the fatigues of her journey, were all jumbled fantastically
together in her brain--she talked and sang incessantly, and, like
some wild bird suddenly caged, refused to be quieted. Ulrika was all
alone with her,--Valdemar having gone to execute his commissions in
Bosekop,--and she had enough to do to make her remain in bed. For
she became suddenly possessed by a strong desire to go sailing on
the Fjord--and occasionally it took all Ulrika's strength to hold
and keep her from springing to the window, whose white frosted panes
seemed to have some fatal attraction for her wandering eyes.
She spoke of things strange and new to her attendant's ears--
frequently she pronounced the names of Violet Vere and Lady
Winsleigh with an accent of horror,--then she would talk of George
Lorimer and Pierre Duprez,--and she would call for Britta often,
sometimes endearingly--sometimes impatiently.
The picture of her home in Warwickshire seemed to haunt her,--she
spoke of its great green trees, its roses, its smooth sloping lawns-
-then she would begin to smile and sing again in such a weak,
pitiful fashion that Ulrika,--her stern nature utterly melted at the
sight of such innocent helpless distraction and sorrow,--could do
nothing but fold the suffering creature in her arms, and rock her to
and fro soothingly on her breast, the tears running down her cheeks
the while.
And after long hours of bewilderment and anguish, Errington's child,
a boy, was born--dead. With a regretful heart, Ulrika laid out the
tiny corpse,--the withered blossom of a promised new delight, a
minature form so fair and perfect that it seemed sheer cruelty on
the part of nature to deny it breath and motion. Thelma's mind still
wandered--she was hardly conscious of anything--and Ulrika was
almost glad that this was so. Her anxiety was very great--she could
not disguise from herself that Thelma's life was in danger,--and
both she and Valdemar wrote to Sir Philip Errington, preparing him
for the worst, and urging him to come at once,--little aware that
the very night the lifeless child was born, was the same on which he
had started from Hull for Christiansund, after his enforced waiting
for the required steamer. There was nothing more to be done now,
thought Ulrika piously, but to trust in the Lord and hope for the
best. And Valdemar Svensen made with his own hands a tiny coffin for
the body of the little dead boy who was to have brought such pride
and satisfaction to his parents, and one day rowed it across the
Fjord to that secret cave where Thelma's mother lay enshrined in
stone. There he left it, feeling sure he had done well.
Ulrika asked him no questions--she was entirely absorbed in the
duties that devolved upon her, and with an ungrudging devotion
strange to see in her, watched and tended Thelma incessantly,
scarcely allowing herself a minute's space for rest or food. The
idea that her present ministration was to save her soul in the sight
of the Lord, had grown upon her, and was now rooted firmly in her
mind--she never gave way to fatigue or inattention,--every moan,
every restless movement of the suffering girl, obtained her instant
and tender solicitude, and when she prayed now, it was not for
herself but for Thelma.
"Spare her, good Lord!" she would implore in the hyperbolical
language she had drawn from her study of the Scriptures--"As the
lily among thorns, so is she among the daughters! Cut her not off
root and branch from the land of the living, for her countenance is
comely, and as a bunch of myrrh which hath a powerful sweetness,
even so must she surely be to the heart of her husband! Stretch
forth Thy right hand, O Lord, and scatter healing, for the gates of
death shall not prevail against Thy power!"
Day after day she poured out petitions such as these, and with the
dogged persistency of a soldier serving Cromwell, believed that they
would be granted,--though day after day Thelma seemed to grow weaker
and weaker. She was still light-headed--her face grew thin and
shadowy,--her hands were almost transparent in their whiteness and
delicacy, and her voice was so faint as to be nearly in-audible.
Sometimes Ulrika got frightened at her appearance, and heartily
wished for medical assistance but this was not to be had. Therefore
she was compelled to rely on the efficacy of one simple remedy,--a
herbal drink to allay fever,--the virtues of which she had been
taught in her youth,--this, and the healing mercies of mother Nature
together with the reserved strength of her own constitution, were
the threads on which Thelma's life hung.
Time passed on--and yet there was no news from Sir Philip. One
night, sitting beside her exhausted patient, Ulrika fancied she saw
a change on the wan face--a softer, more, peaceful look than had
been there for many days. Half in fear, half in hope, she watched,--
Thelma seemed to sleep,--but presently her large blue eyes opened
with a calm yet wondering expression in their clear depths. She
turned slightly on her pillows, and smiled faintly.
"Have I been ill?" she asked.
"Yes, my dear," returned Ulrika softly, overjoyed, yet afraid at the
girl's returning intelligence. "Very ill. But you feel better now,
don't you?"
Thelma sighed, and raising her little wasted hand, examined it
curiously. Her wedding and betrothal rings were so loose on her
finger that they would have fallen off had they been held downwards.
She seemed surprised at this, but made no remark. For some time she
remained quiet, steadfastly gazing at Ulrika, and evidently trying
to make out who she was. Presently she spoke again.
"I remember everything now," she said, slowly. "I am at home, at the
Altenfjord--and I know how I came--and also WHY I came." Here her
lips quivered. "And I shall see my father no more, for he has gone--
and I am all--all alone in the world!" She paused--then added, "Do
you think I am dying? If so, I am very glad!"
"Hush my dear!" said Ulrika. "You mustn't talk in that way. Your
husband is coming presently--" she broke off suddenly, startled at
the look of utter despair in Thelma's eyes.
"You are wrong," she replied wearily. "He will not come--he cannot!
He does not want me any more!"
And two large tears rolled slowly down her pale cheeks. Ulrika
wondered, but forebore to pursue the subject further, fearing to
excite or distress her,--and contented herself for the present with
attending to her patient's bodily needs. She went to the fire, and
began to pour out some nourishing soup, which she always had there
in readiness,--and while she was thus engaged, Thelma's brain
cleared more and more,--till with touching directness, and a new
hope flushing her face, she asked softly and beseechingly for her
child. "I forgot!" she said simply and sweetly. "Of course I am not
alone any more. Do give me my baby--I am much better--nearly well--
and I should like to kiss it."
Ulrika stood mute, taken aback by this demand. She dared not tell
her the truth--she feared its effect on the sensitive mind that had
so lately regained its balance. But while she hesitated, Thelma
instinctively guessed all she strove to hide.
"It is dead!" she cried. "Dead!--and I never knew!"
And, burying her golden head in her pillows, she broke into a
passion of convulsive sobbing. Ulrika grew positively desperate at
the sound,--what WAS she to do? Everything seemed to go against her-
-she was inclined to cry herself. She embraced the broken-hearted
girl, and tried to soothe her, but in vain. The long delirium and
subsequent weakness,--combined with the secret trouble on her mind,-
-had deprived poor Thelma of all resisting power, and she wept on
and on in Ulrika's arms till nature was exhausted, and she could
weep no longer. Then she lay motionless, with closed eyes, utterly
drained in body and spirit, scarcely breathing, and, save for a
shivering moan that now and then escaped her, she seemed almost
insensible. Ulrika watched her with darkening, meditative brows,--
she listened to the rush of the storm-wind without,--it was past
eleven o'clock at night. She began to count on her fingers--it was
the sixteenth day since the birth of the child,--sixteen days
exactly since she had written to Sir Philip Errington, informing him
of his wife's danger--and the danger was not yet past. Thinking over
all that had happened, and the apparent hopelessness of the case,
she suddenly took a strange idea into her head. Retiring to a
distant corner, she dropped on her knees.
"O Lord, God Almighty!" she said in a fierce whisper, "Behold, I
have been Thy servant until now! I have wrestled with Thee in prayer
till I am past all patience! If Thou wilt not hear my petition, why
callest Thou Thyself good? Is it good to crush the already fallen?
Is it good to have no mercy on the sorrowful? Wilt Thou condemn the
innocent without reason? If so, thou art not the Holy One I
imagined! Send forth Thy power now--now, while there is time! Rescue
her that is lying under the shadow of death--for how has she
offended Thee that she should die? Delay no longer, or how shall I
put my trust in Thee? Send help speedily from Thine everlasting
habitations--or, behold! I do forsake Thee--and my soul shall seek
elsewhere for Eternal Justice!"
As she finished this extraordinary, half-threatening, and entirely
blasphemous petition, the boisterous gale roared wildly round the
house joining in chorus with the stormy dash of waves upon the
coast--a chorus that seemed to Ulrika's ears like the sound of
fiendish and derisive laughter.
She stood listening,--a trifle scared--yet with a sort of fanatical
defiance written on her face, and she waited in sullen patience
evidently expecting an immediate answer to her outrageous prayer.
She felt somewhat like a demagogue of the people, who boldly menaces
an all-powerful sovereign, even while in dread of instant execution.
There was a sharp patter of sleet on the window,--she glanced
nervously at Thelma, who, perfectly still on her couch, looked more
like a white, recumbent statue than a living woman. The wind shook
the doors, and whistled shrilly through the crevices,--then, as
though tired of its own wrath, surged away in hoarse murmurs over
the tops of the creaking pines towards the Fjord, and there was a
short, impressive silence.
Ulrika still waited--almost holding her breath in expectation of
some divine manifestation. The brief stillness grew unbearable.. . .
Hush! What was that! Jingle--jangle--jingle--jangle!--Bells! Sledge
bells tinkling musically and merrily--and approaching swiftly,
nearer--nearer! Now the sharp trotting roofs on the hard snow--then
a sudden slackening of speed--the little metallic chimes rang slower
and yet more slowly, till with a decisive and melodious clash they
stopped!
Ulrika's heart beat thickly--her face flushed--she advanced to
Thelma's bedside, hoping, fearing,--she knew not what. There was a
tread of firm, yet hurried, footsteps without--a murmur of subdued
voices--a half-suppressed exclamation of surprise and relief from
Valdemar,--and then the door of the room was hastily thrown open,
and a man's tall figure, draped in what seemed to be a garment of
frozen snowflakes, stood on the threshold. The noise startled
Thelma--she opened her beautiful, tired, blue eyes. Ah! what a
divine rapture,--what a dazzling wonder and joy flashed into them,
giving them back their old lustre of sunlight sparkling on azure
sea! She sprang up in her bed and stretched out her arms.
"Philip!" she cried sobbingly. "Philip! oh my darling! Try--try to
love me again!. . . just a little!--before I die!"
As she spoke she was clasped to his breast,--folded to his heart in
that strong, jealous, passionate embrace with which we who love,
would fain shield our nearest and dearest from even the shadow of
evil--his lips closed on hers,--and in the sacred stillness that
followed, Ulrika slipped from the room, leaving husband and wife
alone together.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
"I have led her home, my love, my only friend;
There is none like her, none!
And never yet so warmly ran my blood,
And sweetly on and on,
Calming itself to the long-wished-for end,
Full to the banks, close on the promised good."
TENNYSON.
Britta was in the kitchen, dragging off her snow-wet cloak and fur
mufflers, and crying heartily all the while. The stalwart Svensen
stood looking at her in perplexity, now and then uttering a word of
vague sympathy and consolation, to which she paid not the slightest
heed. The poor girl was tired out, and half-numb with the piercing
cold,--the excitement which had kept her up for days and days, had
yielded to the nervous exhaustion, which was its natural result,--
and she kept on weeping without exactly knowing why she wept.
Throughout the long and fatiguing journey she had maintained
unflinching energy and perseverance,--undaunted by storm, sleet, and
darkness, she had driven steadily over long miles of trackless snow-
-her instinct had guided her by the shortest and quickest routes--
she seemed to know every station and village on the way,--she always
managed to obtain relays of reindeer just when they were needed,--in
short, Errington would hardly have been able to reach the Altenfjord
without her.
He had never realized to its full extent her strong, indomitable,
devoted character, till he saw her hour after hour seated beside him
in the pulkha, her hands tightly gripping the reins of the horned
animals, whose ways she understood and perfectly controlled,--her
bright, bird-like eyes fixed with watchful eagerness on the
bewildering white landscape that opened out incessantly before her.
Her common sense was never at fault--she forgot nothing--and with
gentle but respectful firmness she would insist on Sir Philip's
taking proper intervals of rest and refreshment at the different
farms they passed on their road, though he, eager to press on,
chafed and fretted at every little delay. They were welcomed all
along their route with true Norse hospitality, though the good
country-folk who entertained them could not refrain from
astonishment at the idea of their having undertaken such a journey
at such a season, and appeared to doubt the possibility of their
reaching their destination at all. And now that they had reached it
in safety, Britta's strength gave way. Valdemar Svensen had hastily
blurted out the news of the bonde's death even while she and Sir
Philip were alighting from their sledge--and in the same breath had
told them of Thelma's dangerous illness. What wonder, then, that
Britta sobbed hysterically, and refused to be comforted,--what
wonder that she turned upon Ulrika as that personage approached, in
a burst of unreasonable anger.
"Oh dear, oh dear!" she cried, "to think that the Froken should be
so ill--almost dying! and have nobody but YOU to attend to her!"
This, with a vindictive toss of the brown curls. Ulrika winced at
her words--she was hurt, but she answered gently--
"I have done my best," she said with a sort of grave pathos, "I have
been with her night and day--had she been a daughter of my own
blood, I know not how I could have served her with more tenderness.
And, surely, it has been a sore and anxious time with me also--for
I, too, have learned to love her!"
Her set mouth quivered,--and Britta, seeing her emotion, was ashamed
of her first hasty speech. She made an act of contrition at once by
putting her arms round Ulrika's neck and kissing her--a proceeding
which so much astonished that devout servant of Luther, that her
dull eyes filled with tears.
"Forgive me!" said the impetuous little maiden. "I was very rude and
very unkind! But if you love the Froken, you will understand how I
feel--how I wish I could have helped to take care of her. And oh!
the bonde!"--here she gave way to a fresh burst of tears--"the dear,
good, kind, brave bonde! That he should be dead!--oh! it is too
cruel--too dreadful--I can hardly believe it!"
Ulrika patted her consolingly on the shoulder, but said nothing--and
Valdemar sighed. Britta sought for her handkerchief, and dried her
eyes--but, after a minute, began to cry again as recklessly as ever.
"And now"--she gasped--"if the Froken--dies--I will die too. I will-
-you see if I don't! I W-W-WON'T live--without her!"
And such a big sob broke from her heaving bosom that it threatened
to burst her trimly laced little bodice.
"She will not die," said Ulrika decisively. "I have had my fears--
but the crisis is passed. Do not fret, Britta--there is no longer
any danger. Her husband's love will lift the trouble from her heart-
-and strength will return more speedily than it left her."
And turning a little aside on the pretence of throwing more wood on
the fire, she muttered inaudibly, "O Lord, verily thou hast done
well to grant my just demand! Even for this will I remain Thy
servant for ever!" After this parenthesis, she resumed the
conversation,--Valdemar Svensen sitting silently apart,--and related
all that had happened since Thelma's arrival at the Altenfjord. She
also gave an account of Lovisa Elsland's death,--though Britta was
not much affected by the loss of her grandmother.
"Dreadful old thing!" she said with a shudder. "I'm glad I wasn't
with her! I remember how she cursed the Froken,--perhaps her curse
has brought all the trouble--if so, it's a good thing she's dead,
for now everything will come right again. I used to fancy she had
some crime to confess,--did she say anything wicked when she was
dying?"
Ulrika avoided a direct reply to this question. What was the good of
horrifying the girl by telling her that her deceased relative was to
all intents and purposes a murderess? She resolved to let the secret
of old Lovisa's life remain buried with her. Therefore she simply
answered--
"Her mind wandered greatly,--it was difficult to hear her last
words. But it should satisfy you, Britta, to know that she passed
away in the fear of the Lord."
Britta gave a little half-dubious, half-scornful smile. She had not
the slightest belief in the sincerity of her late grandmother's
religious principles.
"I don't understand people who are so much AFRAID of the Lord," she
said. "They must have done something wrong. If you always do your
best, and try to be good, you needn't fear anything. At least,
that's my opinion."
"There is the everlasting burning," began Ulrika solemnly.
"Oh, nonsense!" exclaimed Britta quite impatiently. "I don't believe
it!"
Ulrika started back in wonder and dismay. "You don't believe it!"
she said in awed accents. "Are you also a heathen?"
"I don't know what you mean by a heathen," replied Britta almost
gaily. "But I can't believe that God, who is so good, is going to
everlastingly burn anybody. He couldn't, you know! It would hurt Him
so much to see poor creatures writhing about in flames for ever--we
would not be able to bear it, and I'm quite sure it would make Him
miserable even in heaven. Because He is all Love--He says so,--He
couldn't be cruel!"
This frank statement of Britta's views presented such a new form of
doctrine to Ulrika's heavy mind that she was almost appalled by it.
God COULDN'T burn anybody for ever--He was too good! What a daring
idea! And yet so consoling--so wonderful in the infinite prospect of
hope it offered, that she smiled,--even while she trembled to
contemplate it. Poor soul! She talked of heathens--being herself the
worst type of heathen--namely, a Christian heathen. This sounds
incongruous--yet it may be taken for granted that those who profess
to follow Christianity, and yet make of God, a being malicious,
revengeful, and of more evil attributes than they possess
themselves,--are as barbarous, as unenlightened, as hopelessly
sunken in slavish ignorance as the lowest savage who adores his
idols of mud and stone. Britta was quite unconscious of having said
anything out of the common--she was addressing herself to Svensen.
"Where is the bonde buried, Valdemar?" she asked in a low tone.
He looked at her with a strange, mysterious smile.
"Buried? Do you suppose his body could mix itself with common earth?
No!--he sailed away, Britta--away--yonder!"
And he pointed out through the window to the Fjord now, invisible in
the deep darkness.
Britta stared at him with roundly opened, frightened eyes--her face
paled.
"Sailed away? You must be dreaming! Sailed away! How could he--if he
was dead?"
Valdemar grew suddenly excited. "I tell you, he sailed away!" he
repeated in a low, hoarse whisper. "Where is his ship, the Valkyrie?
Try if you can find it anywhere--on sea or land! It has gone, and he
has gone with it--like a king and warrior--to glory, joy, and
victory! Glory--joy--victory!--those were his last words!"
Britta retreated, and caught Ulrika by the arm. "Is he mad?" she
asked fearfully.
Valdemar heard her, and rose from his chair, a pained smile on his
face.
"I am not mad, Britta," he said gently. "Do not be afraid! If grief
for my master could have turned my brain, I had been mad ere this,--
but I have all my wits about me, and I have told you the truth." He
paused--then added, in a more ordinary tone, "You will need fresh
logs of pine--I will go and bring them in."
And he went out. Britta gazed after him in speechless wonder.
"What does he mean?" she asked.
"What he says," returned Ulrika composedly. "You, like others, must
have known that Olaf Guldmar's creed was a strange one--his burial
has been strange--that is all!"
And she skillfully turned the conversation, and began to talk of
Thelma, her sorrows and sufferings. Britta was most impatient to see
her beloved "Froken," and quite grudged Sir Philip the long time he
remained alone with his wife.
"He MIGHT call me, if only for a moment," Britta thought
plaintively. "I do so want to look at her dear face again! But men
are all alike--as long as they've got what THEY want, they never
think of anybody else. Dear me! I wonder how long I shall have to
wait!" So she fumed and fretted, and sat by the kitchen-fire,
drinking hot tea and talking to Ulrika--all the while straining her
ears for the least sound or movement from the adjoining room. But
none came--there was the most perfect silence. At last she could
endure it no longer--and, regardless of Ulrika's remonstrances, she
stole on tip-toe to the closed door that barred her from the sight
of her heart's idol, and turning the handle softly, opened it and
looked in. Sir Philip saw her, and made a little warning sign,
though he smiled.
He was sitting by the bedside, and in his arms, nestled against his
shoulder, Thelma rested. She was fast asleep. The lines of pain had
disappeared from her sweet face--a smile was on her lips--her breath
came and went with peaceful regularity,--and the delicate hue of a
pale rose flushed her cheeks. Britta stood gazing on this fair sight
till her affectionate little heart overflowed, and the ready tears
dropped like diamonds from her curly lashes.
"Oh, my dear--my dear!" she whispered in a sort of rapture when
there was a gentle movement,--and two starlike eyes opened like blue
flowers outspreading to the sun.
"Is that you, Britta?" asked a tender, wondering voice--and with a
smothered cry of ecstacy, Britta sprang to seize the outstretched
hand of her beloved Froken, and cover it with kisses. And while
Thelma laughed with pleasure to see her, and stroked her hair. Sir
Philip described their long drive through the snow, and so warmly
praised Britta's patience, endurance, and constant cheerfulness,
that his voice trembled with its own earnestness, while Britta grew
rosily red in her deep shyness and embarrassment, vehemently
protesting that she had done nothing,--nothing at all to deserve so
much commendation. Then, after much glad converse, Ulrika was
called, and Sir Philip seizing her hand, shook it with such force
and fervor that she was quite overcome.
"I don't know how to thank you!" he said, his eyes sparkling with
gratitude. "It's impossible to repay such goodness as yours! My wife
tells me how tender and patient and devoted you have been--that even
when she knew nothing else, she was aware of your kindness. God
bless you for it! You have saved her life--"
"Ah, yes, indeed!" interrupted Thelma gently. "And life has grown so
glad for me again! I do owe you so much."
"You owe me nothing," said Ulrika in those harsh, monotonous tones
which she had of late learned to modulate. "Nothing. The debt is all
on my side." She stopped abruptly--a dull red color flushed her
face--her eyes dwelt on Thelma with a musing tenderness.
Sir Philip looked at her in some surprise.
"Yes," she went on. "The debt is all on my side. Hear me out, Sir
Philip--and you too,--you 'rose of the northern forest', as Sigurd
used to call you! You have not forgotten Sigurd?"
"Forgotten him?" said Thelma softly. "Never!. . . I loved him too
well!"
Ulrika's head dropped. "He was my son!" she said.
There was a silence of complete astonishment. Ulrika paused--then,
as no one uttered a word, she looked up boldly, and spoke with a
sort of desperate determination.
"You see you have nothing to thank me for," she went on, addressing
herself to Sir Philip, while Thelma, leaning back on her pillows,
and holding Britta's hand, regarded her with a new and amazed
interest. "Perhaps, if you had known what sort of a woman I am, you
might not have liked me to come near--HER." And she motioned towards
Thelma. "When I was young--long ago--I loved--" she laughed
bitterly. "It seems a strange thing to say, does it not? Let it
pass--the story of my love, my sin and shame, need not be told here!
But Sigurd was my child--born in an evil hour--and I--I strove to
kill him at his birth."
Thelma uttered a faint cry of horror. Ulrika turned an imploring
gaze upon her.
"Don't hate me!" she said, her voice trembling. "Don't, for God's
sake, hate me! You don't know what I have suffered! I was mad, I
think, at the time--I flung the child in the Fjord to drown;--your
father, Olaf Guldmar, rescued him. I never knew that till long
after;--for years the crime I had committed weighed upon my soul,--I
prayed and strove with the Lord for pardon, but always, always felt
that for me there, was no forgiveness. Lovisa Elsland used to call
me "murderess;" she was right--I was one, or so I thought--till--
till that day I met you, Froken Thelma, on the hills with Sigurd,--
and the lad fought with me." She shuddered,--and her eyes looked
wild. "I recognized him--no matter how!. . . he bore my mark upon
him--he was my son,--MINE!--the deformed, crazy creature who yet had
wit enough to love YOU--you, whom then I hated--but now--"
She stopped and advanced a little closer to Thelma's bedside.
"Now, there is nothing I would not do for you, my dear!" she said
very gently. "But you will not need me any more. You understand what
you have done for me,--you and your father? You have saved me by
saving Sigurd,--saved ME from being weighed down to hell with the
crime of murder! And you made the boy happy while he lived. All the
rest of my days spent in your service could not pay back the worth
of that good deed. And most heartily do I thank the Lord that he has
mercifully permitted me to tend and comfort you in the hour of
trouble--and, moreover, that He has given me strength to speak and
confess my sin and unworthiness before you ere I depart. For now the
trouble is past, I must remove my shadow from your joy. God bless
you!--and--try to think as kindly as you can of me for--for Sigurd's
sake!"
Stooping, she kissed Thelma's hand,--and, before any one had time to
speak a word, she left the room abruptly.
When, in a few minutes, Britta went to look after her, she was gone.
She had departed to her own house in Bosekop, where she obstinately
remained. Nothing would induce her to present herself again before
Sir Philip or Thelma, and it was not till many days after they had
left the Altenfjord that she was once more seen about the village.
And then she was a changed being. No longer harsh or forbidding in
manner, she became humble and gentle,--she ministered to the sick,
and consoled the afflicted--but she was especially famous for her
love of children. All the little ones of the place knew her, and
were attracted by her,--and the time came when Ulrika, white-haired,
and of peaceful countenance, could be seen knitting at her door in
the long summer afternoons surrounded by a whole army of laughing,
chattering, dimpled youngsters, who would play at hide-and-seek
behind her chair, and clamber up to kiss her wrinkled cheeks,
putting their chubby arms round her neck with that guileless
confidence children show only to those whom they feel can appreciate
such flattering attentions. Some of her acquaintance were wont to
say that she was no longer the "godly" Ulrika--but however this
might be, it is certain she had drifted a little nearer to the
Author of all godliness, which--after all,--is the most we dare to
strive for in all our differing creeds.
It was not long before Thelma began to recover. The day after her
husband arrived, and Ulrika departed, she rose from her bed with
Britta's assistance, and sat by the blazing fire, wrapped in her
white gown and looking very fragile, though very lovely, Philip had
been talking to her for some time, and now he sat at her feet,
holding her hand in his, and, watching her face, on which there was
an expression of the most plaintive and serious penitence.
"I have been very wicked!" she said, with such a quaint horror of
herself that her husband laughed. "Now I look back upon it all, I
think I have behaved so very badly! because I ought never to have
doubted you, my boy--no--not for all the Lady Winsleighs in the
world. And poor Mr. Neville! he must be so unhappy! But it was that
letter--that letter in your own writing, Philip!"
"Of course!" he answered soothingly. "No wonder you thought me a
dreadful fellow! But you won't do so again, will you, Thelma? You
will believe that you are the crown and centre of my life--the joy
of all the world to me?"
"Yes, I will!" she said softly and proudly. "Though it is always the
same, I never do think myself worthy! But I must try to grow very
conceited, and assure myself that I am very valuable! so that then I
shall understand everything better, and be wiser."
Philip laughed. "Talking of letters," he said suddenly, "here's one
I wrote to you from Hull--it only got here today. Where it has been
delayed is a mystery. You needn't read it--you know everything in it
already. Then there's a letter on the shelf up there addressed in
your writing--it seems never to have been opened."
He reached it down, and gave it to her. As she took it, her face
grew very sad.
"It is the one I wrote to my father before I left London," she said.
And her eyes filled with tears. "It came too late!"
"Thelma," said Sir Philip then, very gently and gravely, "would you
like--can you bear--to read your father's last words to you? He
wrote to you on his death-bed, and gave the letter to Valdemar--"
"Oh, let me see it!" she murmured half-sobbingly. "Father,--dear
father! I knew he would not leave me without a word!"
Sir Philip reverently opened the folded paper which Svensen had
committed to his care that morning, and together they read the
bonde's farewell. It ran as follows;--
"THELMA, MY BELOVED,"
"The summons I have waited for has come at last, and the doors of
Valhalla are set open to receive my soul. Wonder not that I depart
with joy! Old as I am, I long for youth--the everlasting youth of
which the strength and savor fails not. I have lived long enough to
know the sameness of this world--though there is much therein to
please the heart and eye of a man--but with that roving restlessness
that was born within me, I desire to sail new seas and gaze on new
lands, where a perpetual light shines that knows no fading. Grieve
not for me--thou wilt remember that, unlike a Christian, I see in
death the chiefest glory of life--and thou must not regret that I am
eager to drain this cup of world-oblivion offered by the gods. I
leave thee,--not sorrowfully,--for thou art in shelter and safety--
the strong protection of thy husband's love defends thee and the
safeguard of thine own innocence. My blessing upon him and thee!
Serve him, Thelma mine, with full devotion and obedience-even as I
have taught thee,--thus drawing from thy womanlife its best measure
of sweetness,--keep the bright shield of thy truth untarnished--and
live so that at the hour of thine own death-ecstasy thou mayest
depart as easily as a song-bird soaring to the sun! I pass hence in
happiness--if thou dost shed a tear thou wrongest my memory,--there
is naught to weep for. Valdemar will give me the crimson shroud and
ocean grave of my ancestors--but question him not concerning this
fiery pomp of my last voyage--he is but a serf, and his soul is
shaken to its very depths by sorrow. Let him be--he will have his
reward hereafter. And now farewell, child of my heart--darling of
mine age--clear mirror in which my later life has brightened to
content! All partings are brief--we shall meet again--thou and I and
Philip--and all who have loved or who love each other,--the journey
heavenwards may be made by different roads, but the end--the glory--
the immortality is the same! Peace be upon thee and on thy children
and on thy children's children!"
"Thy father, OLAF GULDMAR."
In spite of the brave old pagan's declaration that tears would wrong
his memory, they dropped bright and fast from his daughter's eyes as
she kissed again and again the words his dying hand had pencilled,--
while Errington knew not which feeling gained the greater mastery
over him,--grief for a good man's loss, or admiration for the
strong, heroic spirit in which that good man had welcomed Death with
rejoicing. He could not help comparing the bonde's departure from
this life with that of Sir Francis Lennox, the man of false fashion,
who had let slip his withered soul with an oath into the land of
Nowhere. Presently Thelma grew calmer, and began to speak in hushed,
soft tones--
"Poor Valdemar!" she said meditatively. "His heart must ache very
much, Philip!"
Philip looked up inquiringly.
"You see, my father speaks of the 'crimson shroud,'" she went on.
"That means that he was buried like many of the ancient Norwegian
sea kings;--he was taken from his bed while dying and placed on
board his own ship to breathe his last; then the ship was set on
fire and sent out to sea. I always knew he wished it so. Valdemar
must have done it all--for I,--I saw the last glimpse of the flames
on the Fjord the night I came home! Oh, Philip!" and her beautiful
eyes rested tenderly upon him, "it was all so dreadful--so desolate!
I wanted--I prayed to die also! The world was so empty--it seemed as
if there was nothing left!"
Philip, still sitting at her feet, encircled her with both arms, and
drew her down to him.
"My Thelma!" he whispered, "there IS nothing left--nothing at all
worth living for,--save Love!"
"Ah! but that," she answered softly, "is everything!"
* * * * * *
Is it so, indeed? Is Love alone worth living for--worth dying for?
Is it the only satisfying good we can grasp at among the shifting
shadows of our brief existence? In its various phases and different
workings, is it, after all, the brightest radiance known in the
struggling darkness of our lives?
Sigurd had thought so,--he had died to prove it. Philip thought so,-
-when once more at home in England with his recovered "treasure of
the golden midnight" he saw her, like a rose refreshed by rain,
raise her bright head in renewed strength and beauty, with the old
joyous lustre dancing in her eyes, and the smile of a perfect
happiness like summer sunshine on her fair face. Lord Winsleigh
thought so;--he was spending the winter in Rome with his wife and
son,--and there among the shadows of the Caesars, his long, social
martyrdom ended, and he regained what he had once believed lost for
ever--his wife's affection. Clara gentle, wistful, with the
softening shadow of a great sorrow and a great repentance in her
once too-brilliant eyes, was a very different Clara to the dashing
"beauty" who had figured so conspicuously in London society. She
clung to her husband with an almost timid eagerness as though she
dreaded losing him--and when he was not with her, she seemed to rely
entirely on her son, whom she watched with a fond, almost melancholy
pride, and who responded to her tenderness though proffered so late,
with the full-hearted frankness of his impulsive, ardent nature. She
wrote to Thelma asking her pardon, and in return received such a
sweet, forgiving, generous letter as caused her to weep for an hour
or more. But she felt she could never again meet the clear regard of
those beautiful, earnest, truthful eyes--never again could she stand
in Thelma's presence, or call her friend--that was all over. Still
Love remained,--a Love, chastened and sad, with drooping wings and a
somewhat doubting smile,--yet it was Love--
"Love, that keeps all the choir of lives in chime--
Love, that is blood--within the veins of time."
And Love, no matter how abused and maltreated, is a very patient
god, and even while suffering from undeserved wounds, still works
on, doing magical things. So that poor Edward Neville, the forsaken
husband of Violet Vere, when he heard that that popular actress had
died suddenly in America from a fit of delirium tremens brought on
by excessive drinking, was able, by some gentle method known only to
Love and himself, to forget all her frailties--to obliterate from
his memory the fact that he ever saw her on the boards of the
Brilliant Theatre,--and to think of her henceforth only as the wife
he had once adored, and who, he decided in vague, dreamy fashion,
must have died young. Love also laid a firm hand on the vivacious
Pierre Duprez--he who had long scoffed at the jeu d'amour, played it
at last in grave earnest,--and one bright season he introduced his
bride into Parisian society,--a charming little woman, with very
sparkling eyes and white teeth, who spoke French perfectly, though
not with the ''haccent' recommended by Briggs. It was difficult to
recognize Britta in the petite elegante who laughed and danced and
chattered her way through some of the best salons in Paris,
captivating everybody as she went,--but there she was, all the same,
holding her own as usual. Her husband was extremely proud of her--he
was fond of pointing her out to people as something excessively
precious and unique--and saying--"See her! That is my wife! From
Norway! Yes--from the very utmost north of Norway! I love my
country--certainly!--but I will tell you this much--if I had been
obliged to choose a wife among French women--ma foi! I should never
have married!"
And what of George Lorimer?--the idle, somewhat careless man of
"modern" type, in whose heart, notwithstanding the supposed
deterioration of the age, all the best and bravest codes of old-
world chivalry were written? Had Love no fair thing to offer HIM?
Was he destined to live out his life in the silent heroism of
faithful, unuttered, unrequited, unselfish devotion? Were the
heavens, as Sigurd had said, always to be empty? Apparently not,--
for when he was verging towards middle age, a young lady besieged
him with her affections, and boldly offered to be his wife any day
he chose to name. She was a small person, not quite five years old,
with great blue eyes and a glittering tangle of golden curls. She
made her proposal one summer afternoon on the lawn at Errington
Manor, in the presence of Beau Lovelace, on whose knee sat her
little brother Olaf, a fine boy a year younger than herself. She had
placed her dimpled arms round Lorimer's neck,--and when she so
confidingly suggested marriage to her "Zordie," as she called him,
she was rubbing her rosy, velvety cheek against his moustache with
much sweet consideration and tenderness. Lovelace, hearing her,
laughed aloud, whereat the little lady was extremely offended.
"I don't tare!" she said, with pretty defiance. "I do love oo,
Zordie, and I will marry oo!"
George held her fondly to his breast as though she were some
precious fragile flower of which not a petal must be injured.
"All right!" he answered gaily, though his voice trembled somewhat,
"I accept! You shall be my little wife, Thelma. Consider it
settled!"
Apparently she did so consider it, for from that day, whenever she
was asked her name, she announced herself proudly as "Zordie's
'ittle wife, Thelma"--to the great amusement of her father, Sir
Philip, and that other Thelma, on whom the glory of motherhood had
fallen like a new charm, investing both face and form with superior
beauty and an almost divine serenity. But "Zordie's wife" took her
sobriquet very seriously,--so much so, indeed, that by-and-by
"Zordie" began to take it rather seriously himself--and to wonder
whether, after all, marriages, unequal in point of age, might not
occasionally turn out well. He condemned himself severely for the
romanticism of thinking such thoughts, even while he indulged in
them, and called himself "an old fool," though he was in the actual
prime of manhood, and an exceedingly handsome fellow withal.
But when the younger Thelma came back at the age of sixteen from her
convent school at Arles,--the same school where her mother had been
before her,--she looked so like her mother, so very like, that his
heart began to ache with the old, wistful, passionate longing he
fancied he had stilled for ever. He struggled against this feeling
for a while, till at last it became too strong for him,--and then,
though he told himself it was absurd,--that a man past forty had no
right to expect to win a girl's first love, he grew so reckless that
he determined to risk his fate with her. One day, therefore, he
spoke out, scarcely knowing what he said, and only conscious that
his pulses were beating with abnormal rapidity. She listened to his
tremulous, rather hesitating proposal with exceeding gravity, and
appeared more surprised than displeased. Raising her glorious blue
eyes--eyes in which her mother's noble, fearless look was faithfully
reflected, she said simply, just in her mother's own quaint way--
"I do not know why you talk about this at all. I thought it was all
settled long ago!"
"Settled!" faltered Lorimer astonished,--he was generally self-
possessed, but this fair young lady's perfect equanimity far
surpassed his at that moment--"Settled! My darling! my child--I am
so much older than you are--"
"I don't like BOYS!" she declared, with stately disdain. "I was your
wife when I was little--and I thought it was to be the same thing
now I am big! I told mother so, and she was quite pleased. But of
course, if you don't want me--"
She was not allowed to finish her sentence, for Lorimer, with a
sudden rush of joy that almost overpowered him, caught her in his
arms and pressed the first lover's kiss on her pure, innocently
smiling lips.
"Want you!" he murmured passionately, with a strange sweet mingling
of the past and present in his words. "I have always wanted--
Thelma!"
End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of Thelma, by Marie Corelli