FOOTSTEPS OF FATE
_(NOODLOT)_
BY
LOUIS COUPERUS
TRANSLATED FROM THE DUTCH
By
CLARA BELL
MELBOURNE, SYDNEY, AND ADELAIDE
E.A. PETHERICK & CO.
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
1891
INTRODUCTION.
_THE DUTCH SENSITIVISTS._
In the intellectual history of all countries we find the same phenomenon
incessantly recurring. New writers, new artists, new composers arise in
revolt against what has delighted their grandfathers and satisfied their
fathers. These young men, pressed together at first, by external
opposition, into a serried phalanx, gradually win their way, become
themselves the delight and then the satisfaction of their
contemporaries, and, falling apart as success is secured to them, come
to seem lax, effete and obsolete to a new race of youths, who effect a
fresh esthetic revolution. In small communities, these movements are
often to be observed more precisely than in larger ones. But they are
very tardily perceived by foreigners, the established authorities in
art and literature retaining their exclusive place in dictionaries and
handbooks long after the claim of their juniors to be observed with
attention has been practically conceded at home.
For this reason, partly, and partly also because the mental life of
Holland receives little attention in this country, no account has yet
been taken of the revolution in Dutch taste which has occupied the last
six or seven years. I believe that the present occasion is the first on
which it has been brought to the notice of any English-speaking public.
There exists, however, in Holland, at this moment, a group of young
writers, most of them between thirty-five and twenty-five years of age
who exhibit a violent zeal for literature, passing often into
extravagance, who repudiate, sometimes with ferocity, the rather sleepy
Dutch authorship of the last forty years, and who are held together, or
crushed together, by the weight of antiquated taste and indifference to
executive merit which they experience around them. Certain facts seem to
be undeniable; first, that every young man of letters in Holland, whose
work is really promising, has joined the camp; and secondly, that, with
all the ferment and crudity inseparable from prose and verse composed in
direct opposition to existing canons of taste, the poems and the
stories of these young Dutchmen are often full of beauty and delicacy.
They have read much in their boyhood; they have imitated Rossetti and
Keats; they have been fascinated by certain Frenchmen, by Flaubert, by
Goncourt, particularly by Huysmans, who is a far-away kinsman of their
own; they have studied the disquieting stories of Edgar Poe. But these
exotic influences are passing away, and those who know something of
current Dutch _belles-lettres_ can realise best how imperatively a
ploughing up of the phlegmatic tradition of Dutch thought was required
before a new crop of imagination could spring up.
Rejecting the conventional aspects of contemporary Dutch literature, I
will now attempt to give some sketch of the present situation as it
appears to a foreign critic observing the field without prejudice. The
latest novelist of great importance was Madame Gertrude
Bosboom-Toussaint, who was born in 1821. After having written a long
series of historical romances for nearly forty years, this intelligent
woman and careful writer broke with her own assured public, and took up
the discussion of psychological questions. She treated the problem of
Socialism in _Raymond de Schrijnwerker_ and the status of woman in
_Majoor Frans_. Madame Bosboom-Toussaint died in 1886, just too early to
welcome the new school of writers, with whom she would probably have had
more sympathy than any of her contemporaries. Her place in popular
esteem was taken for a short time by Miss Opzomer (A.S.C. Wallis), whose
long novels have been translated into English, _In dagen van strijd_
("In Troubled Times") and _Vorstengunst_ ("Royal Favour"). She had
genuine talent, but her style was heavy and tedious. After the new wind
began to blow, although she was still young, she married, went to
Hungary, and gave up writing novels.
Three authors of importance, each, by a curious coincidence, born in the
year 1826, fill up the interval between the old and new generation.
These are Dekker, Busken-Huët, and Vosmaer. Edward Douwes Dekker, whose
novel of _Max Havelaar_ dates from 1858, was a man of exceptional
genius. Bred in the interior of Java, he observed the social conditions
of life in the Dutch Indies as no one else had done, but his one great
book remained a solitary one. He died in 1887 without having justified
the very high hopes awakened by that extraordinary and revolutionary
work. The career of Konrad Busken-Huët was very different. The principal
literary critic of Holland in his generation, he aimed at being the
Sainte Beuve of the Dutch, and in his early days, as the dreaded
"Thrasybulus" of journalism, he did much to awaken thought. His volumes
of criticism are extremely numerous, and exercised a wholesome influence
during his own time. He died in Paris in April 1886. These two writers
have had a strong effect on the prose style of the younger school of
essayists and novelists. They lived long enough to observe the dawn of
the new literature, and their relations with the latest writers were
cordial if somewhat reserved.
What Douwes Dekker and Busken-Huët did in prose, was effected in poetry
by Carel Vosmaer. This estimable man, who died in 1888, was well known
throughout Europe as an art-critic and an authority on Rembrandt. In
Holland he was pre-eminent as the soul of a literary newspaper, the
_Nederlandsche Spectator_, which took an independent line in literary
criticism, and affected to lead public taste in directions less
provincial and old-fashioned than the rest of the Dutch press. Vosmaer
wrote also several volumes of more or less fantastic poetry, a
translation of Homer into alexandrines, and an antiquarian novel,
_Amazone_,1881. But Vosmaer's position was, above all, that of a
precursor. He, and he alone, saw that a new thing must be made in Dutch
poetical literature. He, and he alone, was not satisfied with the
stereotyped Batavian tradition. At the same time Vosmaer was not, it may
be admitted, strong enough himself to found a new school; perhaps even,
in his later days, the Olympian calm which he affected, and a certain
elegant indolence which overcame him, may have made him unsympathetic to
the ardent and the juvenile. At all events, this singular phenomenon has
occurred. He who of all living Dutchmen was, ten or fifteen years ago,
fretting under the poverty of thought and imagination in his fatherland
and longing for the new era to arrive, is at this moment the one man of
the last generation who is most exposed to that unseemly _ferocité des
jeunes_ which is the ugliest feature of these esthetic revolutions. I
have just been reading, with real pain, the violent attack on Vosmaer
and his influence which has been published by that very clever young
poet, Mr. Willem Kloos (_De Nieuwe Gids_, December 1890). All that
cheers me is to know that the whirligig of time will not forget its
revenges, and that, if Mr. Kloos only lives long enough, he will find
somebody, now unborn, to call _him_ a "bloodless puppet."
Of one other representative of the transitional period, Marcellus
Emants, I need say little. He wrote a poem, _Lilith_, and several short
stories. Much was expected of him, but I know not what has been the
result.
The inaugurator of the new school was Jacques Perk, a young poet of
indubitable genius, who was influenced to some degree by Shelley, and by
the _Florence_ of the Dutch Browning, Potgieter. He wrote in 1880 a
_Mathilde_, for which he could find no publisher, presently died, and
began to be famous on the posthumous issue of his poems, edited by
Vosmaer and Kloos, in 1883.
The sonnets of Perk, like those of Bowles with us a hundred years ago,
were the heralds of a whole new poetic literature. The resistance made
to the young writers who now began to express themselves, and their
experience that all the doors of periodical publication in Holland were
closed to them, led to the foundation in 1885 of _De Nieuwe Gids_, a
rival to the old Dutch quarterly, _De Gids_. In this new review, which
has steadily maintained and improved its position, most of the
principal productions of the new school have appeared. The first three
numbers contained _De Kleine Johannes_ (Little Johnny), of Dr. Frederik
van Eeden, the first considerable prose-work of the younger generation.
This is a charming romance, fantastic and refined, half symbolical, half
realistic, which deserves to be known to English readers. It has been
highly appreciated in Holland. To this followed two powerful books by L.
van Deyssel, _Een Liefde_ ("A Love") and _De Kleine Republiek_ ("The
Little Republic"). Van Deyssel has written with great force, but he has
hitherto been the _enfant terrible_ of the school, the one who has
claimed with most insolence to say precisely what has occurred to him to
say. He has been influenced, more than the rest, by the latest French
literature.
While speaking of the new school, it is difficult to restrain from
mentioning others of those whose work in _De Nieuwe Gids_ and elsewhere
has raised hopes of high performance in the future. Jacques van Looy, a
painter by profession, has published, among other things, an exquisitely
finished volume of _Proza_ (Prose Essays). Frans Netscher, who
deliberately marches in step with the French realists, is the George
Moore of Holland; he has published a variety of small sketches and one
or two novels. Ary Prins, under the pseudonym of Coopland, has written
some very good studies of life. Among the poets are Willem Kloos Albert
Verwey, and Herman Gorter, each of whom deserves a far more careful
critical consideration than can here be given to him.
Willem Kloos, indeed, may be considered as the leader of the school
since the death of Perk. It was to Kloos that, in the period from 1880
to 1885, each of the new writers went in secret for encouragement,
criticism and sympathy. He appears to be a man of very remarkable
character. Violent and passionate in his public utterances, he is adored
by his own colleagues and disciples, and one of the most gifted of them
has told me that "Kloos has never made a serious mistake in his estimate
of the force of a man or of a book." His writings, however, are very
few, and his tone in controversy is acrid and uncompromising, as I have
already indicated. He remains the least known and the least liked,
though the most powerful, of the band. The member of the new generation
whose verse and prose alike have won most acceptance is, certainly,
Frederik van Eeden. His cycle of lyrical verse, _Ellen_, 1891, is
doubtless the most exquisite product of recent Dutch literature.
For the peculiar quality which unites in one movement the varied
elements of the school which I have attempted thus briefly to describe,
the name Sensitivism has been invented by one of themselves, by Van
Deyssel. It is a development of impressionism, grafted upon naturalism,
as a frail and exotic bud may be set in the rough basis of a thorn. It
preserves the delicacy of sensation of the one and strengthens it by the
exactitude and conscientiousness of the other, yet without giving way to
the vagaries of impressionism or to the brutality of mere realism. It
selects and refines, it re-embraces fancy, that maiden so rudely turned
out of house and home by the naturalists; it aims, in fact, at retaining
the best, and nothing but the best, of the experiments of the French
during the last quarter of a century.
Van Deyssel greets _L'Argent_ with elaborate courtesy, with the respect
due to a fallen divinity. He calls his friends in Holland to attend the
gorgeous funeral of naturalism, which is dead; but urges them not to
sacrifice their own living Sensitivism to the imitation of what is
absolutely a matter of past history. It will be seen that Dutch
Sensitivism is not by _any_ means unlike French Symbolism, and we might
expect prose like Mallarmé's and verse like Moréas'! As a matter of
fact, however, the Dutch seem, in their general attitude of reserve, to
leave their mother-tongue unassailed, and to be as intelligible as their
inspiration allows them to be.
To one of these writers, however, and to one of the youngest, it is time
that I should turn. The first member of the new Dutch school to be
presented, in the following pages, to English readers, is Louis Marie
Anne Couperus. Of him, as the author of this book, I must give a fuller
biography, although he is still too young to occupy much space by the
record of his achievements. Louis Couperus was born on the 10th of June,
1863, at the Hague, where he spent the first ten years of his life. He
was then taken in company with his family to Java, and resided five
years in Batavia. Returning to the Hague, where he completed his
education, he began to make teaching his profession, but gradually
drifted into devoting himself entirely to literature. He published a
little volume of verses in 1884, and another, of more importance, called
_Orchideïen_ (Orchids), in 1887, Oriental and luscious. But he has
succeeded, as every one allows, much better in prose. His long novel of
modern life in the Hague, called _Eline Vere_, which ran through _De
Gids_, and was published in book form in 1889, is an admirable
performance. Of _Noodlot_ (literally to be translated "Fate" or
"Destiny"), 1890, our readers will now judge for themselves. Mr.
Couperus is at present engaged, as he tells me, on a novel called
_Extaze_ ("Ecstasy"). Such is the brief chronicle of a writer from whom
much is expected by the best critics of his own country.
EDMUND GOSSE.
FOOTSTEPS OF FATE
I
His hands in his pockets, and the collar of his fur coat turned up,
Frank was making his way one evening, through squalls of snow, along the
deserted length of Adelaide Road. As he approached the villa where he
lived--White-Rose Cottage, it was called--sunk, buried, wrapped in white
snow, like a nest in cotton wool, he was aware of some one coming to
meet him from Primrose Hill. He looked steadily in the man's face, since
he evidently intended to address him, doubting as to what his purpose
might be this lonely, snowy night, and he was greatly surprised when he
heard said in Dutch:
"Pardon the intrusion. Are you not Mr. Westhove?"
"Yes," replied Frank Westhove. "Who are you? What do you want?"
"I am Robert van Maeren. You may perhaps remember--"
"What! you, Bertie?" cried Frank. "How came you here in London?"
And in his amazement there rose up before him, through the driving snow,
a vision of his youth; a pleasing picture of boyish friendship, of
something young and warm.
"Not altogether by chance," said the other, whose voice had taken a
somewhat more confident tone at the sound of the familiar "Bertie." "I
knew that you lived here, and I have been to your door three times; but
you had not come in. Your maid said that you were expected at home this
evening, so I made so bold as to wait here for you." And again his voice
lost its firmness and assumed the imploring accent of a beggar.
"Is your business so urgent, then?" asked Frank in surprise.
"Yes. I want--perhaps you could help me. I know no one here--"
"Where are you living?"
"Nowhere. I only arrived here early this morning, and I have--I have no
money."
He was shivering from standing in the cold during this short dialogue,
and seemed to shrink into himself, almost fawning, like a cowed dog.
"Come in with me," said Frank, greatly astonished, but full of sympathy
and of the affectionate reminiscences of his boyhood. "Come and spend
the night with me."
"Oh, gladly!" was the reply, eager and tremulous, as if he feared that
the heaven-inspired words might be retracted.
They went together a few steps further; then Frank took a key out of his
pocket, the key of White-Rose Cottage. He opened the door; a hexagonal
Moorish lantern was burning low, and shed a soft light in the hall.
"Go in," said Frank; And he locked the door and bolted it behind them.
It was half-past twelve.
The maid had not yet gone to bed.
"That gentleman called here a little while ago, two or three times," she
murmured; with a look of suspicion at Bertie, "And I have seen him
hanging about all the evening, as if he was on the watch. I was
frightened, do you know; it is so lonely in these parts."
Frank shook his head reassuringly.
"Make the fire up as quickly as possible, Annie. Is your husband still
up?"
"The fire, sir?"
"Yes. Bertie, will you have something to eat?"
"Gladly, if it gives you no trouble," replied Bertie in English, for the
benefit of the maid, and he looked with an insinuating expression to
meet the surprised, cold blue eyes of the neat, brisk young woman. His
voice was persuasive and low; he tried to take as little room as
possible in the small hall; and to avoid her gaze, he seemed to shrink,
to efface himself in a corner where the shadow fell.
Frank led the way into a large back room, cold and dark when they
entered, but soon lighted up, and before long genially warmed by the
huge fire which blazed up in the grate. Annie laid the table.
"Supper for one, sir?"
"Lay for two; I will eat something," said Frank, thinking that Bertie
would feel more at his ease.
At his friend's invitation the visitor had seated himself in a large
armchair by the fire, and there he sat, bolt upright, without speaking,
feeling shy before the woman, who came and went. And now, in the light,
Frank could see the poverty of his appearance; his thin, shabby coat,
shining with grease and bereft of buttons; his worn, fringed trousers;
his dirty comforter, hiding a lack of underlinen; his ripped and
slipshod shoes. In his confusion and awkwardness he still held his
battered hat. This garb accorded ill with the aristocratic elegance of
his figure; the thin, pale, chiselled features, full of distinction in
spite of the unkempt light hair and unshaven stubble of beard. It was
like a masquerade of rank and culture in the rags of misery, beseeming
it as ill as an unsuitable part in a play. And the actor sat motionless,
staring into the fire, ill at ease in the atmosphere of luxury which
surrounded him in this room, evidently the home of a young man of
fortune, who had no yearnings for domestic society. The curtains and
carpets were of handsome quality, so were the furniture and ornaments,
but arranged without any reference to comfort; the chairs and tables
against the wall, stiff and orderly, and shining with polish. But it did
not make this impression on Bertie, for a sense of the blessedness of
warmth and shelter possessed him wholly; of peace and reprieve, as calm
as a lake and as delightful as an oasis--a smiling prospect after the
snow and cold of the last few hours. And when he saw that Frank was
gazing at him in visible wonder at his motionless attitude by the
glorious fire, where the dancing flames flew up like yellow dragon's
tongues, at last he smiled, and said with humble gratitude in the tone
of a beggar:
"Thank you very much--this is good--"
Annie had not much to set before them: the remains from the larder of a
young fellow who lives chiefly away from home--a bit of cold beef steak
and salad, some biscuits and jam; but it bore some resemblance to a
supper, and Bertie did it full honour, eating and drinking with
systematic deliberateness, hardly conscious of what; and imbibing hot
grog, without confessing the hunger which had nipped his very vitals. At
length Frank tried to make him speak, drew him into talk, and into
telling him what had reduced him to such misery. Bertie told his tale in
a fragmentary fashion, very abjectly, every word sounding like a
petition:
"Disputes with his father about his mother's fortune--a trifle of a few
thousand gulden quickly spent; vicissitudes in America, where he had
been by turns a farm-servant, a waiter in a hotel, and a _super_. on the
stage; his return to Europe on board a liner, working out his passage in
every variety of service; his first day in London--without a cent." He
remembered Westhove's address from letters bearing date of some years
back, and had at once made his way to White-Rose Cottage, only fearing
that meanwhile Frank might have moved half a dozen times, and left no
traces--
Oh! his anxiety, that night, waiting in the cold wind, while it grew
darker and darker; the gloom, with no relief but the ghostly whiteness
of the deathly silent snow! And now, the warmth, the shelter, and
food!--And again he thanked his friend, cowering, shrivelled, in his
threadbare clothes.
"Thank you, thank you--"
Annie, sulky over so much trouble at this hour of the night, and for
such a vagabond brought in from the street, had nevertheless prepared a
bedroom. And Frank led him upstairs, shocked by his exhausted appearance
and ashy paleness. He patted him on the shoulder, promising to help him;
but now he must go to bed--to-morrow they would see what could be done.
When Bertie found himself alone he looked about him. The room was very
comfortable; the bed ample, soft, and warm. He felt himself squalid and
dirty, amid such surroundings of luxury; and by a natural instinct of
decency and cleanliness, though his teeth were chattering with cold, he
first carefully and elaborately washed himself--lathering, rubbing,
brushing--till his whole body was rosy and glowing, and smelling of
soapsuds. He looked in the glass, and only regretted that he had no
razors; he would have shaved. At last, having slipped on a nightshirt
which lay ready for use, he crept in between the blankets. He did not
immediately fall asleep; revelling in the comfort, in his own
purification, in the whiteness of the sheets, the warmth of the quilt;
in the gleam of the nightlight even, which showed discreetly through a
green shade. A smile came into his eyes and parted his lips.--And he was
asleep; without a thought of the morrow. Happy in the respite of to-day,
and the warmth of the bed, his mind almost vacant, indeed, but for the
single recurring thought that Frank was really a good fellow!
II.
Next morning there was a hard frost; the snow glittered like crystals.
They had breakfasted, and Bertie was relating his disasters in America.
He had been trimmed and shaved by Frank's barber, and he was wearing
Frank's clothes, which were "a world too wide" for him, and a pair of
slippers in which his feet were lost. He already felt more at home and
began to bask, like a cat which has found a warm spot of sunshine. He
lounged at his ease in the armchair, smoking comfortably, and was on the
old familiar terms with Frank. His voice was soft and mellow, with a
ring of full content, like an alloy of gold. Westhove was interested,
and let him tell his story in his own way; and he did so very simply,
without making any secret of his poverty; but everything had happened
inevitably, and could not have turned out otherwise. He was no
favourite of Fortune, that was all. But he was tough; many another would
not have pulled through as he had.
Frank looked at him in astonishment; he was so frail, so pale, so
delicate, almost devoid of all manly development; he was lost in the
grotesque amplitude of Frank's coat and trousers--a mere stripling as
compared with his own stalwart, angular frame! And he had gone through
days of hunger, nights without a shelter, a depth of poverty which to
Frank--well-fed and ruddy with vigorous health--seemed unendurable; and
he spoke of it so coolly, almost jestingly; without complaining, only
looking with regretful pity at his hands, which were thin, and blue with
the biting cold, and chapped and raw about the knuckles. At the moment
the state of his hands seemed to be the only thing that troubled him. A
very happy nature, thought Frank, while he laughed at him for his
concern about his hands.
But Bertie himself was shocked at his own heedlessness, for he suddenly
exclaimed!
"But what am I to do--what am I to do?"
He gazed into vacancy, helpless and desperate, wringing his hands. Frank
laughed him out of his despair, poured him out a glass of sherry, and
told him that for the present he must stay where he was, to recover. He
himself would be heartily glad of Bertie's company for a few weeks; he
was a little sick of his wealthy bachelor life; he belonged to a circle
of idlers, who went out a great deal, and spent a great deal, and he was
tired of it all--dinners and balls in the world, and suppers and orgies
in the half-world. It was always the same thing; a life like a _Montagne
Russe_, down and then up again, down and then up again, without a moment
for thought; an existence made for you, in the position you made for
yourself. At the moment he had but one anxiety; Bertie himself. Frank
would help him, after a few weeks' rest, to find an appointment, or some
employment; but, above all, he was not to worry himself for the present.
Westhove was only glad to have his old friend under his roof. Memories
rose up before him like dissolving views, pale-hued and swift, but
appealing to his sympathy--memories of his schooldays, of boyish
mischief, zigzag excursions, picnics among the sand-hills near the
Hague--did Bertie remember? Frank could see him still, the slight,
fragile lad, bullied by louts, protected by himself--Frank--whose fists
were always ready to hit out, right and left, in defence of his friend.
And, later on, their student days in Delft; Bertie's sudden
disappearance without leaving a trace, even for Frank; then a few
letters at rare intervals, and then years of silence. Oh! he was glad
indeed to see his friend at his side once more; he had always had a
great love for Bertie, just because Bertie was so wholly unlike himself,
with something of the cat about him--loving to be petted and made much
of, but now and then irresistibly prompted to flee over roofs and
gutters, to get miry and dirty, and return at last to warm and clean
himself on the hearth. Frank loved his friend as a twin-brother quite
different from himself, imposed upon by Bertie's supercilious and
delicately egoistic fascination.--A cat-like creature altogether.
Bertie found it a great luxury to stay indoors the whole of that day,
sitting by the fire, which he kept blazing by feeding it with logs.
Frank had some capital port, and they sat after lunch sipping it,
dreaming or talking; Bertie telling a hundred tales of his adventures in
America, of his farmer master, of his hotel, and the theatre where he
had acted; and one anecdote led to another, all garnished with a touch
of singular romance. Frank presently wanted a little fresh air, and said
he would go to his club; but Bertie remained where he was; he could not
go about in rags, but he could not appear anywhere with Frank in the
clothes he had on. Frank was to return to dinner at eight o'clock. And
then suddenly, as if it had come to him like a lightning flash, Bertie
said:
"Say nothing about me, pray, to any of your friends. They need not be
told that you know such a bad lot as I am. Promise me."
Frank promised, laughing; and, holding out his hand, the "bad lot"
added:
"How can I ever repay you? What a happy thing for me that I should have
met you! You are the most generous fellow I ever knew!"
Frank escaped from this volley of gratitude, and Bertie remained alone
in front of the hearth; toasting all over in the blaze, or stretching
his legs, with his feet on the shining bars. He poured himself out
another glass of port, and made himself think of nothing, revelling in
the enjoyment of idleness, while he seriously examined his damaged
hands, wondering how best to ensure their rapid recovery.
III.
Bertie had been a month at White-Rose Cottage, and was now hardly
recognisable in the young man who sat by Frank's side in a victoria, in
an irreproachable fur-lined coat, a fashionable tall hat; both the men
wrapped about the knees in a handsome plaid. He now mixed quite at his
ease with Frank's other acquaintances, carefully dressed, agreeable, and
entertaining, and lisping English with an affected accent, which he
thought elegant. He dined with Frank every day at the club, to which he
was introduced; criticised game and wines with the most blasé air in the
world, and smoked Havanas at two shillings apiece as if they were mere
straw. Frank had in his inmost soul the greatest belief in him, and
watched him with a smile of secret satisfaction, as he calmly went his
own way chatting with men of the world, without ever for a moment
feeling shy; and Frank thought the comedy altogether so amusing that he
introduced his friend wherever he went.
Winter yielded to a foggy spring; the London season was upon them, and
Bertie seemed to find great pleasure in assisting at afternoon teas, and
evenings at home; in sitting at a grand dinner between two pairs of fine
shoulders, and flirting with each in turn, never dazzled by the glitter
of jewels, nor bewildered by the sparkle of champagne; in leaning with
languid grace in the stalls or dress circle, his chiselled features full
of distinction and lordly repose, a fragrant white flower gleaming in
his button-hole, and his opera-glass dangling between his now white
fingers, as though not one of the ladies was worthy of his inspection.
Frank, for lack of occupation, as a man who takes his pleasure where he
finds it, had pushed Bertie forward in the world, not merely to help
him, but also for the fun of it--a silly amusement, to make a fool of
society! Bertie himself had many scruples, and kept note in a
pocket-book of everything Frank spent upon him--when times were better
he would repay him all--and in a fortnight it had mounted up to a total
of some hundred pounds.
Even at home Frank found him amusing. Bertie, who had contrived, by a
few kind words, to win the good graces of Annie and her husband,
Westhove's valet and butler, turned all the furniture about in whimsical
disorder, bought statuettes, palms, and oriental stuffs, and changed the
unsociable aspect of the room into one of artistic comfort, which
invited to indolence; a subdued light, wide divans, the atmosphere of an
alcove redolent of Egyptian pastilles and fine cigarettes, in which
thought floated into dreams, and the half-closed eyes rested on the nude
figures of bronze nymphs seen through the greenery of plants. Here, in
the evening, high festivals were held; orgies with a few chosen friends,
and select fair ones; two ladies from a skating-rink, and a figurante
from a theatre, who smoked cigarettes with their vermilion lips and
drank to Bertie's health. Frank laughed to his heart's content to see
Bertie, a contemner of the fair sex, quite insensible to the three
charmers; making game of them, teasing them, setting them by the ears
till they were almost ready to claw each other, and to conclude the
matter pouring floods of champagne down their _décolletés_ throats.
No; Frank had never been so well amused during all his long residence in
London, where he had settled as an engineer in order to give--as he
said--a cosmopolitan character to his knowledge of the world.
He was thoroughly good-hearted, and too highly prosperous to be a deep
thinker. He had tasted of every pleasure, and had no high opinion of
life, which was after all but a farce, lasting, according to statistics,
on an average six-and-thirty years. He made small pretence of any
philosophical views of existence, beyond a determined avoidance of
everything that was not amusing. Now Bertie was very amusing, not only
in his fun with women, the cruel sport of a panther; but especially in
the farcical part he played in Frank's world, where he figured as a man
of fashion--he, a vagabond, who only a month since had stood shivering
in rags on the pavement. It was a constant secret delight to his
friend, who gave Bertie _carte blanche_ to enable him to keep it up; a
_carte blanche_ which was amply honoured, bringing in heavy tailors'
bills--for Bertie dressed with refined vanity, bought ties by the dozen,
adopted every fancy that came into fashion, and scented himself with all
the waters of Rimmel. It was as though he was fain to plunge into every
extravagant refinement of an exquisite, after having been a squalid
scarecrow. And although at first he kept faithful record of his outlay,
he soon forgot first one item and then another, till at last he forgot
all.
Thus weeks slipped by, and Frank never thought of troubling himself to
inquire among his influential acquaintances for employment for his
companion. Their life as wealthy idlers filled their minds entirely;
Frank's at any rate, for Bertie had brought a new charm into it.
But suddenly a strange thing happened. One day Bertie went out in the
morning alone, and did not come in to lunch. After luncheon, at the
club, no Bertie, nor yet at dinner. He did not come home in the evening;
he had left no clue. Frank, extremely uneasy, sat up half the night--no
one. Two days went by--still no one. Frank inquired right and left, and
at last gave information to the police.
At last one morning, before Frank was up, Bertie appeared at his bedside
with an apologetic smile; Frank must not be angry with him; he surely
had not been alarmed? You see such a monotonously genteel life had
suddenly been too much for him. Always these elegant ladies, with trains
and diamonds; always clubs full of lords and baronets; and
skating-rinks--the pink of finery! Always a chimney-pot hat, and every
evening full dress, with the regulation button-holer. It was
intolerable! He could endure it no longer; it had been too much for him.
"But where did you hide yourself?" asked Frank, in utter amazement.
"Oh, here and there, among old acquaintance. I have not been out of
London."
"And you did not know a soul here?"
"Oh, well, no fashionable folk, like your friends, but a scapegrace or
two. You are not vexed with me?"
Frank had sat up in bed to talk to him. He saw that he looked pale,
weary, and unkempt. His trousers were deeply bordered with mud; his hat
crushed; there was a three-cornered rent in his great-coat. And he stood
there in evident confusion, like a boy, with his doubting, coaxing
smile.
"Come, do not be cross with me; take me into favour once more."
This was too much for Frank. Provoked beyond measure, he exclaimed:
"But, Bertie, what a cad you look! And where on earth have you been?" he
asked again.
"Oh; here and there."
And he could get no more out of him. Bertie would only say that he had
wanted to disappear; and now he was tired--- he would go to bed. He
slept till three in the afternoon. Frank laughed over it all day, and
Bertie went into fits when he heard of the police. At dinner, at the
club, he related, with a melancholy face, that he had been out of town
for a few days, attending a funeral. Frank had failed to receive a note
through the carelessness of a servant.
"But where in the world have you really been?" whispered Frank for the
third time, infinitely amused and inquisitive.
"Here and there, I tell you--first in one place, and then in another,"
answered Bertie, with the most innocent face in the world; and, dapper
as ever, he delicately lifted an oyster, his little finger in the air,
and swallowed down his half-dozen without another word on the subject.
IV.
The season passed away, but Bertie remained. Sometimes, indeed, he
talked of going to Holland; he had an uncle, a stockbroker, in
Amsterdam. Possibly that uncle.... But Westhove would not hear of it;
and, when his friend's conscience pricked him for sponging on him, he
talked him down. What did it matter? If Bertie had been the rich man,
and he the pauper, Bertie would have done the same by him. They were
friends.
A true appreciation of the case began to dawn on him in the now firmly
established habits of their life. Frank's moral sense whispered drowsily
in the ease of their luxurious existence. Now and then indeed, he had
something like a vague suspicion that he was not rich enough for two;
that he had spent more in the last few months than in any former
season. But he was too heedless to dwell long on such unpleasant doubts.
He was lulled to sleep by Bertie as if by opium or morphia. Bertie had
become indispensable to him: he consulted his friend on every point, and
allowed himself to be led by him on every occasion, completely
subjugated by the ascendancy held over him by the fragile little man,
with his velvet paws, as though he had him under a yoke. Every now and
then--ere long at frequent intervals of about a fortnight--Bertie
disappeared, stayed away four or five days, and came back one fine
morning, with his insinuating smile, exhausted, pale, and tired out.
These were, perhaps, some secret excesses of dissipation--mysterious
adventure-hunting in the sordid purlieus of the lowest
neighbourhoods--of which Frank never heard nor understood the truth; a
depth of depravity into which Frank seemed too precise and dainty to be
initiated; sins in which he was to have no part, and which Bertie, in
his refinement of selfishness, kept for himself as an occasional treat.
Then Frank's hours were passed in disgust of life; he missed the
unwholesome stimulant of his existence; in his solitude he sank into
grey melancholy and sadness, verging on despair. He stayed at home all
day, incapable of any exertion, sulking in his lonely house, where
everything--the draping of the handsome curtains, the bronze nudity of
the statues, the careless disarray of the cushions on the divan--had
still, as it were, an odour of Bertie, which haunted him with regret. On
such days as these he was conscious of the futility of his existence,
the odious insignificance of his sinewless, empty life; useless,
aimless, null!
Sadly sweet memories would come over him; reminiscences of his parental
home, shining through the magic glass of retrospect, like bright, still
pools of tender domestic harmony, in which the figures of his father and
mother stood forth grand and noble, glorified by child-like affection.
He longed for some unspeakable ideal, something pure and chaste, some
high aim in life. He would shake off this torpor of the soul; he would
send away Bertie--
But Bertie came back, and Bertie held him tightly once more in his
silken bonds, and he saw more clearly every day that he could not live
without Bertie. And then, catching sight of himself in a mirror--tall
and brawny and strong, the healthy blood tinging his clear
complexion--he could not forbear smiling at the foolish visions of his
solitude, which struck him now as diseased imaginings, quite out of
keeping with his robust vigour. Life was but a farce, and the better
part was to play it out as a farce, in mere sensual enjoyment. Nothing
else was worth the pains.... And yet sometimes at night, when his big
body lay tired out after some riotous evening, a gnawing dissatisfaction
would come over him, not to be conquered by this light-hearted
philosophy, and even Bertie himself would lecture him. Why did not Frank
seek some employment--some sphere of action? Why did not he travel for a
while?
"Why not go to Norway?" asked Bertie one day, for the sake of saying
something.
London was beginning to be intolerable to Bertie; and as the notion of
travelling smiled on Frank, both for a change and for economy--since
they could live more cheaply abroad than in the whirl of fashionable
London--he thought it over, and came to a decision to leave White-Rose
Cottage for an indefinite period to the care of Annie and her husband,
and spend a few weeks in Norway. Bertie should go with him.
PART II.
I.
After luncheon at the table d'hôte of the Britannia Hotel at Dronthjem,
the friends made their way along the broad, quiet streets with their
low, wooden houses, and they had left the town, going in the direction
of the Gjeitfjeld, when they overtook, in the village of Ihlen, an
elderly gentleman with a young girl, evidently bent on the same
excursion. The pair had sat a few places off at the table d'hôte, and as
this much acquaintance justified a recognition in so lonely a spot,
Westhove and his friend lifted their hats. The old gentleman immediately
asked, in English, whether they knew the road to the Gjeitfjeld: he and
his daughter--who, during the colloquy, never looked up from her
"Baedeker"--could not agree on the subject. This difference of opinion
led to a conversation: the two young men begged to be allowed to join
them, Frank being of opinion that "Baedeker" was right.
"Papa will never believe in 'Baedeker!'" said the young lady with a
quiet smile, as she closed the red volume she had been consulting. "Nor
will he ever trust me when I tell him I will guide him safely."
"Are you always so sure of knowing your way?" said Frank, laughing.
"Always!" she saucily declared, with a gay laugh.
Bertie inquired how long a walk it was, and what was to be seen at the
end of it; Frank's everlasting walks were a weariness and a bore. During
his residence with his friend he had so spoiled himself, in order to
forget his former wretchedness, that he now knew no greater pleasure
than that of lying on a bench with a cigar, or a glass of port, and,
above all, would avoid every exertion. But now, abroad--when a man is
travelling--he cannot for ever sit dozing in his hotel. Besides, he was
quite stiff with riding in a carriole; all this useless rushing about
was really monstrous folly, and White-Rose Cottage was not such a bad
place. Frank, on the contrary, thoroughly enjoyed the clear,
invigorating air of this brilliant summer day, and he drank in the
sunshine as though it were fine wine cooled by a fresh mountain breeze;
his step was elastic and his voice had a contented ring.
"Are you an Englishman?" asked the gentleman.
Westhove explained that they were Dutch, that they lived in London; and
his tone had the frank briskness which a man instinctively adopts to
fellow-travellers, as sharing his lot for the moment, when the weather
is fine and the landscape pleasing. Their sympathy being thus aroused by
their admiration of Norwegian scenery, they walked on side by side, the
elder man stepping out bravely, the young lady very erect, with her fine
figure moulded in a simple, close-fitting blue cloth dress, to which a
cape with several folds--something like an elegant type of coach-man's
cape--lent a dash of smartness. She wore a sort of jockey-cap, with a
mannish air, on her thick twists of ruddy-gold hair.
Bertie alone could not understand how all this could be called pleasure;
but he made no complaint. He spoke little, not thinking it necessary to
make himself agreeable to people whom he might probably never set eyes
on again after the morrow. So he just kept up with them, wondering at
Frank, who had at once plunged into eager conversation with the young
lady, but perceiving on a sudden that his own politeness and tact were a
mere superficial varnish as compared with Frank's instinctive good
breeding. At that moment, for the first time, notwithstanding his better
features and natty travelling costume, he felt himself so far Frank's
inferior that a surge of fury resembling hate thrilled through him. He
could not bear this sense of inferiority, so he approached the old
gentleman, and walking by his side forced himself to a show of
respectful amiability. As they followed the windings of the upward and
diminishing path they by degrees lagged behind Frank and his companion,
and thus climbed the hill two and two.
"So you live in London. What is your name?" asked the young lady, with
calm curiosity.
"Frank Westhove."
"My name is Eva Rhodes; my father is Sir Archibald Rhodes, of Rhodes
Grove. And your friend?"
"His name is Robert van Maeren."
"I like the sound of your name best. I believe I can say it like
English. Tell it me again."
He repeated his name, and she said it after him with her English accent.
It was very funny, and they laughed over it--"Fraank, Fraank Westhoove."
And then they looked back.
"Papa, are you tired?" cried Eva. The old man was toiling up the height
with his broad shoulders bent; his face was red under his travelling
cap, which he had pushed to the back of his head, and he was blowing
like a Triton. Bertie tried to smile pleasantly, though he was inwardly
raging in high dudgeon over this senseless clamber. They had half an
hour more of it, however, before the narrow track, which zigzagged up
the hill-side like a grey arabesque, came to an end, and they sat down
to rest on a block of stone.
Eva was enchanted. Far below lay Dronthjem with its modern houses,
encircled by the steely waters of the Nid and its fjord, a magic mirror
on which floated the white mass of the fortress of Munkenholm. The
mountains rising on all sides were blue; nearest to them the bloomy,
purple blue of the grape; then the deep sheeny blue of velvet; further
off the transparent, crystalline blue of the sapphire, and in the
distance the tender sky-blue of the turquoise. The water was blue, like
blue silver; the very air was blue as pearls are or mother-of-pearls.
The equable sunlight fell on everything, without glare and without
shadow, from exactly overhead.
"It is almost like Italy!" exclaimed Eva. "And this is Norway! I had
always pictured Norway to myself as being all like Romsdal, wild and
barren, with rocky peaks like the Romsdalhorn and the Trolltinder, and
with raging cascades like the Sletta fos; but this is quite lovely, and
so softly blue! I should like to build a house here and live in it, and
I would called it Eva's Bower, and keep a whole flock of white doves;
they would look so pretty flying in the blue air."
"Dear child!" laughed Sir Archibald. "It looks very different in winter,
I suspect."
"No doubt different, but still lovely. In winter I should love the fury
of raging winds, and the roar of the waves of the fjord below my house,
and grey mists would hang over the hills! I can see it all!"
"Why, you would be frozen," argued the father, gravely.
"Oh no; and I should sit at my turret window dreaming over Dante or
Spenser. Do you love Dante and Spenser?"
The question was addressed to Frank, who had listened somewhat puzzled
to Eva's raptures, and was now a little startled; for, you see, though
he knew Dante by name, he had never even heard of the poet Spenser; only
of Herbert Spencer.
"What, do you not know the Faery Queen, Una, and the Red-cross Knight,
and Britomart? How very strange."
"Dear child, what a little fanatic you are over those silly allegories!"
said papa.
"But they are glorious, papa!" Eva insisted. "Besides, I love allegory
above all things, and admire no other kind of poetry."
"The style is so affected! You are drowned in symbolism!"
"It is the keynote of the Renaissance," Eva protested. "In the time of
Elizabeth all the Court talked in that high-flown style. And Edmund
Spenser's images are splendid; they sparkle like jewels!"
Bertie thought this discourse much too learned, but he kept his opinion
to himself, and made some remark about Dante's "Inferno." They were by
this time rested and went on again up the hill.
"My daughter is half an 'Esthetic,'" said the old gentleman, laughing.
And Eva laughed too.
"Nay. That is not the truth, papa. Do not believe him Mr.--Mr. Westhove.
Do you know what makes papa say so? A few years ago, when I had but just
left school, I and a few girls I knew were perfectly idiotic for a
while. We towzled our hair into mops, dressed in floppy garments of
damask and brocade with enormous sleeves, and held meetings among
ourselves to talk nonsense about art. We sat in attitudes, holding a
sunflower or a peacock's feather, and were perfectly ridiculous. That is
why papa still says such things. I am not so silly now. But I am still
very fond of reading; and is that so very esthetic?"
Frank looked smilingly into her honest, clear, grey eyes, and her
ringing, decided voice had an apologetic tone, as if she were asking
pardon for her little display of learning. He understood that there was
nothing of the blue-stocking in this girl, as might have seemed from her
sententious jest before, and he was quite vexed with himself for having
been compelled to confess that he knew nothing of the poet Spenser. How
stupid she must think him!
But it was a moment when the beauties of the scenery had so bewitched
them that they moved, as it were, in a magic circle of sympathy, in
which some unknown law overruled their natural impulses, something
electrically swift and ethereally subtle.
As they climbed the meandering mountain track, or made short cuts
through the low brushwood, where the leaves glistened in the sun like
polished green needles, and as he breathed that pure, intoxicating air,
Frank felt as though he had known her quite a long time, as if it were
years since he had first seen her at the table d'hôte at Dronthjem. And
Sir Archibald and Bertie, lingering behind, were far off--miles
away--mere remembered images. Eva's voice joined with his own in
harmonious union, as though their fragmentary talk of art and poetry
were a duet which they both knew how to sing, although Frank candidly
confessed that he had read but little, and that what he had read he
scarcely remembered. She playfully scolded him, and her sweet clear
tones now and then startled a bird, which flew piping out of the shrubs.
He felt within him a revival of strength--a new birth; and would fain
have spread his arms to embrace--the air!
II.
That evening, on their return from their walk, after dinner, over a cup
of coffee, they discussed their further projects.
"We are going to Molde!" said Sir Archibald.
"And so are we!" Frank exclaimed.
The old gentleman at once expressed a wish that the friends would
continue to give him and his daughter the pleasure of their society.
Frank had taken a great fancy to him, and Bertie thought him courteous,
and good company; Bertie had talked a good deal about America, but he
had not told the whole history of his farming experiences in the far
west; he had indeed idealised it a little by speaking of "My farm." And
Frank did not contradict him.
By the end of two days spent at Dronthjem they were the best of friends;
with that confidential intimacy which, on a tour, when etiquette is out
of court, sometimes arises from mere contact, without any knowledge of
character on either side, simply from sympathy in trifles and mutual
attraction, a superficial sentiment of transient admiration which
occupies the traveller's leisure. The day on the sea by steamboat to
Molde was like a party of pleasure, in spite of the rain which drove
them below; and in the cabin, over a bottle of champagne, Miss Eva and
the three men played a rubber of whist. But afterwards, in a gleam of
pale sunshine, there was an endless walk to and fro on the wet deck. The
low rocky shore glided slowly past on the larboard side; the hills,
varying in outline--now close together, and again showing a gap--covered
with brown moss down by the water, and grey above with patches of pale
rose or dull purple light. At Christiansand they were far from land, and
the waters, now rougher, were crimson in the glory of the sinking sun,
fast approaching the horizon. Every wave had a crest of flame-coloured
foam, as though the ocean were on fire. Frank and Eva, meanwhile, pacing
up and down, laughed at each other's faces, reddened like a couple of
pæonies, or like two maskers rouged by the glow of the sun to the
semblance of clowns.
They reached Molde late at night, too late to see its lovely fjord. But
next morning, there it lay before them, a long, narrow inlet, encircled
by mountains capped with snow; a poem, a song of mountains; pure, lofty,
beautiful, severe, solemn, without one jarring note. The sky above them
was calmly grey, like brooding melancholy, and the peace that reigned
sounded like a passionless _andante_.
III.
Next day, when Sir Archibald proposed a walk up Moldehoï, Bertie
declared that he was tired, and did not feel well, and begged to be left
at home. In point of fact, he thought that the weather did not look
promising; heavy clouds were gathering about the chain of hill-tops
which shut in the fjord, like a sweeping drapery of rain, threatening
ere long to fall and wrap everything in their gloomy folds. Eva,
however, would not be checked by bad weather: when people were
travelling they must not be afraid of a wetting. So the three set out;
and Bertie, in his patent slippers, remained in the drawing-room of the
Grand Hotel, with a book and a half-pint bottle.
The road was muddy, but they stepped out valiantly in their waterproofs
and stout boots. The rain which hung threateningly above their heads
did not daunt them, but gave a touch of romantic adventure to the
expedition, as though it threatened to submerge them in an impending
deluge. Once off the beaten road, and still toiling upwards, they
occasionally missed the track, which was lost in a plashy bog, or under
ferns dripping with rain, or struck across a wild growth of blue
bilberries. They crossed the morass, using the rocks as stepping-stones;
the old gentleman without help, and Eva with her hand in Frank's,
fearing lest her little feet should slide on the smooth green moss. She
laughed gaily, skipping from stone to stone with his help; sometimes
suddenly slipping and supporting herself against his shoulder, and then
again going on bravely, trying the stones with her stout stick. She felt
as though she need take no particular heed, now that he was at her side;
that he would support her if she stumbled; and they chatted eagerly as
they went, almost leaping from rock to rock.
"What sort of man is your friend, Mr. Westhove?" Eva suddenly inquired.
Frank was a little startled; it was always an unpleasant task to give
any information concerning Bertie, less on account of his past life than
of his present position; his quiet sponging on himself, Frank, who,
though enslaved by Bertie, knew full well that the situation was
strange, to say the least of it, in the eyes of the world.
"Oh, he is a man who has been very unfortunate," he said evasively, and
he presently added: "Has he not made a pleasant impression on you?"
Eva laughed so heartily that she was near falling into a pool of mud, if
Frank had not firmly thrown his arm round her waist.
"Eva, Eva!" cried her father, shaking his head, "pray be more careful!"
Eva drew herself up with a slight blush.
"What can I say?" she went on, pursuing the subject. "If I were to speak
the whole truth--"
"Of course."
"But perhaps you will be vexed; for I can see very plainly that you are
quite infatuated with your friend."
"Then you do not like him?"
"Well then--if you insist on knowing: the first day, when I made his
acquaintance, I thought him insufferable. With you we got on famously at
once, as an amusing travelling companion, but with him--but perhaps he
has not travelled much?"
"Oh yes, he has," said Frank, who could not help smiling.
"Well, then, perhaps he was shy or awkward. However, I began to think
differently of him after that; I don't think him insufferable now."
It was strange, but Frank felt no particular satisfaction on hearing of
the young lady's changed opinion; he made no reply.
"You say he has had much to trouble him. And, indeed, I can see it in
his face. There is something so gentle in him, so tender, I might almost
say; such soft, dark eyes, and such a sweet voice. At first, as I tell
you, I found it intolerable, but now it strikes me as rather poetical.
He must certainly be a poet, and have been crossed in love: he can be no
commonplace man."
"No, that he certainly is not," said Frank, vaguely, a little
ill-at-ease over Eva's raptures; and a mingling of jealousy and
regret--something like an aversion for the worldly polish, and a dull
envy of the poetic graces which Eva attributed to his friend, ran
through his veins like a chill. He glanced up, almost pathetically, at
the pretty creature, who was sometimes so shrewd and sometimes so naïve;
so learned in all that bore on her favourite studies, so ignorant of
real life. A dim compassion came over him, and on a sudden the grey
rain-clouds weighed upon him with a pall of melancholy, as though they
were ominous of some inevitable fatality which threatened to crush her.
His fingers involuntarily clasped her hand more tightly.
"Here is the path once more!" cried Sir Archibald, who was twenty steps
ahead of them.
"Oh yes! There is the path! Thank you, Mr. Westhove!" said Eva, and she
sprang from the last stepping-stone, pushing her way through the
snapping braken to the beaten track.
"And up there is the hut with the weathercock," her father went on. "I
believe we have made a long round out of our way. Instead of chattering
so much, you would do well to keep a sharp look-out for the path. My old
eyes, you know--"
"But it was great fun jumping over the stones," laughed Eva.
Far above them they could now see the hut with the tall pole of the
weathercock, and they went on at an easier pace, their feet sinking in
the violet and pink blossomed heath, crushing the bilberries, dimly
purple like tiny grapes. Eva stooped and picked some.
"Oh! so nice and sweet!" she exclaimed, with childish surprise, and she
pulled some more, dyeing her lips and fingers blue with the juice of the
berries. "Taste them, Mr. Westhove."
He took them from her soft, small hand, stained as it were with purple
blood. It was true; they were deliciously sweet, and such fine ones!
And then they went on again, following Sir Archibald, often stopping,
and triumphing like children when they came on a large patch where the
whortleberries had spread unhindered like a miniature orchard.
"Papa, papa! Do try them!" Eva cried, heedless of the fact that papa was
far ahead; but Sir Archibald was not out of sight, and they had to run
to overtake him; Eva's laughter ringing like a bell, while she lamented
that she must leave so many berries untouched--and such beauties!
"I daresay there will be plenty round the hut," said Frank, consolingly.
"Do you think so?" she said, with a merry laugh. "Oh, what a couple of
babies we are!"
The path grew wider, and they found it easy walking up to the top,
sometimes quitting the track and scrambling over the stones to shorten
the way. Presently they heard a shout, and looking up, they saw Sir
Archibald standing on the cairn in which the staff of the weathercock
was fixed, and waving his travelling-cap. They hurried on, and soon were
at his side. Eva knocked at the door of the hut.
"The hut is shut up," said her father.
"How stupid!" she exclaimed. "Why does it stand here at all if it is
shut up? Does no one live in it?"
"Why, of course not," said Sir Archibald, as if it was the most natural
thing in the world.
Frank helped Eva to climb the cairn round the pole, and they looked down
on the panorama at their feet.
"It is beautiful, but melancholy," said Eva.
The long fjord lay below them, a narrow riband of pale, motionless
water, hemmed in by the mountains, now wreathed with grey vapour,
through which they gleamed fitfully like ghosts of mountains; Lauparen
and Vengelinder, Trolltinder and Romsdalhorn, towering up through the
envious, rolling mist, which, swelled by the coming storm, hung in black
clouds from every peak and cast a gloomy reflection on the still waters.
The hills were weeping--unsubstantial, motionless phantoms, sorrowing
and tragical under some august and superhuman woe--a grief as of giants
and demigods; the fjord, with its township, a plot of gardens, and
roofs, and walls, and the white châlet of the Grand Hotel--all weeping,
all motionless under the gloomy sky. A ghostly chill rose up from the
gulf to where the trio stood, mingling with the tangible clamminess of
the mist, which seemed to weigh on their eyelids. It was not raining,
but the moisture seemed to distil on them from the black unbroken rack
of clouds; and to the westwards, between two cliffs which parted to show
a gleaming strip of ocean, a streak was visible of pale gold and faint
rose-colour--hardly more than a touch of pink, a sparkle of gold--a
stinted alms of the setting sun. They scarcely said another word,
oppressed by the superhuman sadness which enwrapped them like a shroud.
When Eva at last spoke her clear voice sounded far away--through a
curtain.
"Look, there is a glint of sunshine over the sea. Here we are pining for
the sun. Oh, I wish the sun would break through the clouds! It is so
dismal here--so dreary! How well I understand Oswald's cry in Ibsen's
'Ghosts' when he is going mad: 'The sun, the sun!' Men might pray for
sunshine here and get no more than that distant gleam. Oh, I am
perished!"
She shivered violently under the stiff, shining folds of her waterproof
cloak; her face was drawn and white, and her eyes looked large and
anxious. She suddenly felt herself so forlorn and lonely that she
instinctively took her father's arm and clung to him closely.
"Are you cold, my child; shall we go home?" he asked.
She nodded, and they both helped her down the heap of stones. Why, she
knew not, but suddenly she had thought of her mother, who was dead, and
wondered whether she had ever felt thus forlorn in spite of her father's
fondness. But when they came in sight of the hut again, she said, as if
it had just occurred to her:
"Papa, there are some names cut in the door; let us cut ours too."
"But child, you are so cold and pale--"
"Never mind; let us cut our names; I want to," she urged, like a spoilt
child.
"No, Eva--what nonsense!"
"Oh, but I do want to," she repeated coaxingly, but the old man would
not give in, grumbling still; Frank, however, pulled out his
pocket-knife.
"Oh, Mr. Westhove, do cut my name; nothing but Eva--only three letters.
Will you?" she asked softly.
Frank had it on his lips to say that he would like to cut his own name
with hers, although it was so long, but he was silent; it would have
sounded flat and commonplace in the midst of this mournful scenery. So
he carved the letters on the door, which was like a traveller's album.
Eva stood gazing out to the west, and she saw the three streaks of gold
turn pale, and the rose-tint fade away.
"The sun, the sun!" she murmured, with a shudder, and a faint smile on
her white lips and in her tearful eyes.
A few heavy drops of rain had begun to fall. Sir Archibald asked if they
were ever coming, and led the way. Eva nodded with a smile, and went up
to Frank:
"Have you done it, Mr. Westhove?"
"Yes," said Frank, hastily finishing the last letter.
She looked up, and saw that he had cut, "Eva Rhodes," and in very neat,
even letters, smoothly finished. Below he had roughly cut, "Frank," in
a great hurry.
"Why did you add 'Rhodes'?" she asked, and her voice was faint, as if
far away.
"Because it took longer," Frank replied simply.
IV.
They got back to the Grand Hotel in a torrent of rain, a deluge poured
out of all the urns of heaven; muddy to their waists, wet to the skin,
and chilled to the bone. Eva, after a hot supper, was sent off to bed by
her father, and the three men--Sir Archibald, Frank, and Bertie--sat in
the drawing-room, where a few other visitors, all very cross at the bad
weather, tried to solace themselves with illustrated papers or albums.
The old gentleman took a doze in an easy-chair. Frank gazed pensively at
the straight streaks of rain, which fell like an endless curtain of
close steel needles, thrashing the surface of the fjord. Bertie sipped a
hot grog, and looked at his shiny slippers.
"And did you not miss my company on your excursion?" he asked,
addressing Frank with a smile, just to break the silence that reigned
in the room.
Westhove turned to him in some surprise, as if roused from a dream;
then, with a frank laugh, he briefly answered:
"No."
Bertie stared at him, but his friend had already turned away, lost in
thought over the patter of the rain; so Bertie at last took up his book
again, and tried to read. But the letters danced before his eyes; his
ears and nerves still thrilled uncomfortably under the remembrance of
that one short, astounding word which Frank had fired into the silence
like a leaden bullet. It annoyed him that Frank should take no further
notice of him.
Frank stood unmoved, looking out at the mountains, scarcely visible
through the watery shroud; what he saw was their walk back from
Moldehoï; the meandering downward path through the tall, dripping
braken; the pelting rain streaming in their faces as from a
watering-pot; Eva, closely wrapped in her wet mackintosh, and clinging
to his arm as if seeking his protection; behind them her father,
carefully feeling the slippery, moss-grown stones with his
walking-stick. Frank had wanted to wrap her in his own thick waterproof
coat, but this she had positively rejected; she would not have him made
ill for her sake, she said, in that far-away voice. And then, when they
were at home again, after they had changed their clothes and dined, and
laughed over their adventure, Sir Archibald was afraid lest Eva should
have taken cold.
Frank remembered at this moment a fragment of their conversation; his
asking her, a little surprised in spite of himself, "Have you read
Ibsen's 'Ghosts'? You spoke of Oswald when we were up on Moldehoï."
As it happened, he had himself read "Ghosts", and he did not think it a
book for a young girl; she noticed his surprise, and had blushed deeply
as she replied:
"Yes, I have read it. I read a great deal, and papa has brought me up on
rather liberal lines. Do you think that I ought not to have read
'Ghosts'?"
She herself had seen no harm it, had not perhaps fully understood it, as
she candidly confessed. He had not ventured to tell her that the study
of such a drama of physiological heredity was, to say the least,
unnecessary for a young girl; he had answered vaguely, and she had
coloured yet more deeply, and said no more.
"She must have regarded me as a prig of a schoolmaster!" thought he, ill
at ease. "Why should she not read what she likes? She does not need my
permission for her reading; she is grown up enough. She must have
thought me a pedantic owl."
"Frank!" said Bertie again.
"What?" said Frank, startled.
"We leave this place to-morrow morning, I suppose?"
"Yes, that was our plan. At least if the weather improves."
"What is the name of the next outlandish spot we are going to?"
"Veblungsnaes; and from thence to Romsdal and Gudbrandsdal."
"And the Rhodes?"
"They are going to Bergen."
"To-morrow?"
"I don't know."
And he stood once more lost in thought; the grey, wet atmosphere without
cast a gloom on the scene within; and in his soul, too, reigned the
deepest gloom. What was the use of fostering warm feelings when a few
days of sympathetic companionship could only end in parting? This was
always the case with friendly travelling-acquaintance, and was it not so
throughout life, with every one--everything--we love? Was it worth while
to care for anything? Was not all love a great delusion, by which men
blinded themselves to their disgust at life?