We may leave for a moment the contemplation of a domestic history
lighted up at present by such few and fitful gleams of sunshine, and
glance at the married life of another pair who have figured in this
story, and who have not been without their influence upon whatever there
may have been of tragic in its development.
The young Becks, as they were called in contradistinction to the
master's family, were now among the first people in Arendal, and kept
one of the best houses in the town, which they had ample means to do,
for the shipbuilding business brought them in a considerable annual
income. Carl Beck had lost none of his attractiveness as he grew older.
His curling black hair had now an early sprinkling of grey in it, but
was always arranged to the very best effect; and there was, people said,
such a nobleness about him (his cleverness was undisputed) that when he
rose to propose or reply to a toast, there was not a lady at the table
who was not in a flutter of inward admiration. With his social
advantages he could not, of course, fail to be in a position of
considerable influence in the town, which again heightened his welcome
in society.
But if he was thus made much of, it was not altogether the same with his
wife. The estimate of her which generally prevailed, that she was so
perfectly "correct," was not intended perhaps to be complimentary, but
implied at the same time a recognition of her social power. She was, in
fact, her husband's timepiece, and without her tact he would not have
kept himself as straight as he did in the midst of the gushing welcomes
which he found on all sides.
In his relations with his wife he was a pink of chivalry, never omitted
the most trifling attention, and was always being complimented on being
a pattern husband. Some few of the intimates of the house seemed to
think, though, that there was something strange in their attitude to one
another--a sort of coolness and reserve about both--and it was whispered
that his wife did not appreciate him as she ought; it seemed as if the
two talked together best when strangers were present. Fru Beck, too,
always looked so uncommonly pale, and was so frigidly calm, that it
might have been supposed she had no feelings at all; and in comparison
with his overflowing warmth of nature she certainly did seem dreadfully
precise and cold.
When they first came to Frederiksværn as a young newly-married couple,
her colour had been fresh, and her expression showed that she was still
in love; she was then completely under the spell of his attractive
warmth of manner, and felt safe in the possession of his love. It was
true, a couple of failings, which contrasted strangely with the idea she
had formed of him from his manly bearing, had gradually disclosed
themselves--namely, an extraordinary vanity, and an almost ridiculous
dependence upon the opinion of the world. But so long as his heart was
in the right place, and she could feel that he loved her, these
disappointments were matters of but secondary consideration to her. She
felt that she even loved him all the more for these weaknesses; and she
trusted to the power which she was gaining over him more and more every
day to get them presently corrected.
The charming Lieutenant Beck became sought after everywhere, and his
success with the ladies resulted in his having very soon established
sentimental relations with nearly every member of the fair circle around
him. He nearly always had a flower in his buttonhole when he came home,
which had been jokingly given to him as a _gage d'amour_ by some one or
other of his admirers; he received presents from all sides; and they, in
fact, laid a sort of embargo upon him as an object of general
admiration.
There was nothing to say against all this--far from it; but the only
person who felt left out in the cold was his own wife, who seemed to see
this enthusiastic crowd gradually establishing, as it were, a
prescriptive right of way between herself and her husband, and treading
under foot the very flowers that should have grown only for their own
two selves in the intimacy of their home. She became gradually a less
animated, but was still, he thought, an interested listener, when he
came home after being in the society of his lady friends, and recounted
his triumphs. If this was so, she at all events began to be more
particular about her own dress and appearance, and set to work now to
systematically cultivate the social talent which she naturally
possessed. She determined to conquer her rivals, who had the advantage
of her in appearance, but were inferior to her in talent; and she
succeeded. But she became naturally an object for their criticism in
consequence.
The only one with whom she did not succeed was her husband. His
self-love was far too much taken up with the small flatteries of all
kinds, and the homage of which he was the object, to have any eyes for
the very great compliment indeed which was being paid to him by his wife
in the line which she had adopted. To her he was married, and therefore
of her he was always sure enough.
It was from that time that she dated the influence which she usually
acquired in the social circles she frequented, and which her husband's
position and circumstances made it easy for her to maintain when they
changed their residence to Arendal.
But those first years of their married life had not passed without a
serious, and to her completely decisive, _éclaircissement_. It was
occasioned by his relations with the wife of an officer of rank, which
had become really more intimate than her pride could stand, although she
knew very well that on her husband's side it was only a sort of mixture
of vanity and policy that prompted his affectation of devotion. She had
treated the lady with marked coldness at a party where they had met, and
her husband had taken her to task for it when they got home.
Entirely wrapped up in himself as he was, it had never occurred to him
that his wife could have any cause of complaint against him, and what
she had been going through had been altogether lost upon him. She did
not say much now in reply to his reproaches--she merely stood and looked
at him in a way that made him feel rather uncomfortable, and then
quietly left the room. He could hear her going with slow steps up the
stairs.
An hour or so after, she came down again into the room with a light in
her hand. Her expression was cold, and she did not look at him as she
set about putting the room to rights for the night as usual. He tried to
pacify her, begged her not to take what he had said so much to heart,
and was going to put his arm affectionately round her waist, but was
stopped on finding himself suddenly confronted by the deadly pale face
and flashing eyes of an infuriated woman.
The time had come to speak out, and she did speak out; and Lieutenant
Beck heard what he would have been very sorry to repeat to his best
friend. For he felt in his heart that it was nothing but the truth,
however soon he might forget it again.
She called him a pitiful wretch, who would sell her and everything they
jointly prized to the first comer for a little miserable flattery. He
had distributed himself to that extent among his giddy acquaintance, she
went on, with a movement as if she thrust from her something she utterly
despised, that there was nothing left of him for a woman with a vestige
of truth or honour to pick up.
When her husband threw himself upon the sofa, and exclaimed in a
sentimental tone that he was a miserable man, she repeated the last word
twice in an inexpressibly contemptuous tone--
"A man!--a man!--if you had been a man, you would still have had my
love--at all events a remnant of it; but now, like this light
here,"--and she puffed it out,--"all is extinguished between us."
With that she left the room.
Beck sat where he was, overwhelmed and stupefied at this sudden blow
which had fallen upon his domestic happiness, and with a horrible
apprehension that she might have meant what she said in real earnest.
She sat in the room with her child the whole night, and he knew that he
dared not disturb her.
Notwithstanding the struggle which it cost his pride, he was almost
humble in his manner towards her for some days after, and warmly and
cordially acknowledged that he had been in the wrong. He even tried to
show her that he was in earnest by assuming for a while an altered
attitude towards the ladies, and actually succeeded so far that she
appeared to have forgotten that anything had occurred between them, and
was just the same in her intercourse with him as before--quietly
friendly that is to say, as she had been of recent years.
It never came to any real reconciliation on her side. She had seen too
clearly that his nature was only that of a drifting cloud, glowing for
the moment just as it was played upon by popular applause; and he was
too profoundly selfish for any real earnest love to find a root in his
composition, much less to give promise of a common life-growth. With his
feeling and good-nature he would have treated any wife well, even if she
had not made herself so necessary to him as she was; her social talent,
she felt, was her great safety--it made him look up to her; and his vain
nature required that she should be something to be proud of: but she was
forced to acknowledge in her own heart with despair that she had been
blinded by her love for him, that his nature was absolutely deficient in
constancy and truth, and in every quality which she had once persuaded
herself to see in him. She knew the secret about this man, so brilliant
before the eyes of the world--that he was not a man. He lived and moved
before her now like a defaced ideal, to which she was tied--to the end
of her life. The bitterness of disappointment rankled in her mind, and
was all the more poignant that she had to keep it shut up within herself
and had no one to confide in. Her life had become a desert, and at the
very moment when her husband would be making a brilliant little speech
that called forth applause all round the table, she would seem to hear
nothing but a rattle of emptiness. She always protested to her parents,
when they could not understand why she looked so pale, that she was
perfectly happy; and they had no reason to think otherwise, for she
seemed to be well cared for in every respect. The only real interest
which she possessed now in life was her son Frederick; but she brought
him up with the utmost possible strictness, for she fancied she detected
his father's nature over again in him.
She had always retained her warm interest in Elizabeth, and the messages
which she had received from her from time to time had always given her
pleasure. She had never felt so attracted towards any one since as she
had been to that girl; and now after her great disappointment,
Elizabeth's features, so full of character and expression, were
constantly before her. She had seen her sometimes in Arendal, and
thought she knew the reason why Elizabeth always seemed to avoid meeting
her; for she had found once, by chance, among some old letters in one of
her husband's drawers, the note which Elizabeth had written to him.
It had been no shock to her. By that time she had come to know his
volatile nature, and had given up all hope of ever being more to him
than another would be.
On the occasions when she had caught a glimpse of the pilot's wife in
the street, she had looked searchingly into her face to try and satisfy
herself whether she looked happy. But she had not been able to do so;
there seemed to be something on Elizabeth's mind. And taking this
impression in connection with what she heard of the pilot, of his
hardness and uncompanionable temper, she thought that it was clear
enough that Elizabeth too, was unhappy in her married life, and longed
to have a talk with her, to know whether she herself was not the more
unhappy of the two.
Nor had Fru Beck's uncommon pallor escaped Elizabeth's notice, and she
also longed to have a talk again with her friend of former days; but
Beck's house was for many reasons impossible ground for her. As she was
standing one day with Gjert on the quay, about to start for home, Fru
Beck passed a little way off, leaning on her husband's arm, and looked
back with an expression so sad, and with eyes that seemed to linger so
longingly, as if she had something she wanted to say, or to confide,
that they nodded involuntarily to one another.
Since then they had never met, for from that time Elizabeth had scarcely
ever been in Arendal.