SAILS IN SIGHT
In the autumn of the same year, a girl came home, who became the
subject of conversation in the whole town, and for two reasons.
Her name was Tomasine Rendalen, and she was the daughter of the
head-master, Rendalen. His name was derived from the mountain district
of Rendalen, from which his father had originally come.
Rendalen was a big, strong man, who quietly, if rather ponderously,
performed his scholastic duties in the town, and who, since his wife's
death, had taken interest in nothing but his school, and the town
reading society.
The management of his house he entirely left in the hands of old
Mariane and his children. Tomasine, who was his eldest child, possessed
a more than ordinary talent for languages, together with all her
mother's determination. When she was only sixteen she borrowed a little
money, entered a school in England, and, while there, thoroughly
mastered the English language. From thence she went to a school in
France, where she taught the pupils English and acquired French; and
finally to one in Germany, where she gave instruction in both English
and French, and learned German. She had been away nearly five years,
and had become a practised, and unusually clever teacher. She had no
sooner returned home than she began to give lessons both to men and
women, and thereby to pay off her debts. This aroused great admiration
in the town, and procured her a very large circle of friends. Her
figure excited an equally unanimous admiration, and it must be admitted
that it requires something special in a girl's figure before this can
happen. A beautiful face is always admired, for there can be no
delusion about it. A fine figure, on the contrary, is hardly sufficient
in itself to command attention. She was young, and well-made, and
always dressed in the latest fashion. Like other vigorous and healthy
girls, she had from her childhood longed to exercise her strength, and
had taken every opportunity of doing so. In England she had set to work
to practise gymnastics, and had continued them ever since. It had
become a passion with her; the result was, that there was not a single
girl in the town who held herself like Tomasine.
It did not in the least lessen the admiration for her figure that she
had a somewhat flat nose, and that her very light hair gave her the
appearance, at a distance, of being bald; as for her eyebrows, they
were really not worth mentioning. Her eyes were grey, and, when without
her spectacles, she screwed them up. Her mouth was much too large, but
the teeth within it were as sound and regular as though her family had
remained in Rendalen and lived upon hard bread. When any one saw her
from behind for the first time, and she then suddenly turned round, it
caused a certain disappointment. People even thought of calling her
"The Disappointment," but the name did not take. Her figure carried her
over all criticism. Being near-sighted she wore spectacles, the only
girl in the town who did so. In those days the fashion of using
_pince-nez_ had not come in, so this gave something rather unusual to
her appearance. She literally shone with strength and intelligence.
Through that winter she was the most popular partner at all the balls.
Her delight in being at home again, free from all restraint, and among
a number of merry young people of both sexes, her happiness in feeling
that every one was kind to her and liked her, were plainly visible. She
often expressed her feelings in simple and natural terms; she aroused
no jealousy, though it may be that this was a little strengthened by
the fact that she was well aware that she was not pretty. That winter
was a great dance winter, and at every dance she was present, for
dancing was the most delightful thing she knew. During that winter John
Kurt became for the first time a dancing man, and it was entirely for
her sake that he did so. She soon heard him say this, but she knew that
he could not be gauged by the rules of ordinary life, for he was always
allowed to say what he liked. She looked upon him as something quite
fresh, and very peculiar, but she acted as every one else did, and
neither ran away from him, nor fainted, because he said that he would
be d----d, pickled, boiled, and roasted if, when she danced, she were
not like a young, lively, whinnying Arabian mare, or like a flock of
birds in the woods in spring-time; her arms and her neck were just like
a dainty, warm, little Turkish pigling, one o' them with a pink skin.
She moved through the dance, Heaven help him, like a great man-of-war
through the water. When he danced with her--by his honour, life, and
salvation--it was like being up on the mountains of a clear autumn day,
with a gun in his hand, and the tykes ranging the hillside in full cry.
This, shouted in trumpet tones into her ear during every dance, only
added to her amusement. The others laughed and she laughed with them.
She did not possess the slightest knowledge of human nature. That
cannot be learnt by going from one school to another, even though they
be in foreign countries.
Kurt very soon began to visit her home; he knew the hours when she
would be free, and speedily learnt her times for walking, following her
about everywhere. She tried as much as possible not to be alone with
him; otherwise she was pleased enough that he should come. He told her
and her friends amusing stories, and touching ones sometimes. Such, for
instance, was the history of a deserted brood of ptarmigan, which he
had once picked up, one by one, out of the heather, where they were
running about, all downy and unfledged; he had brought them all home,
he said, in his cap. This story seemed to bring with it such a fresh
breath of mountain air, full of the scent of the heather, and he
related it with such genuine feeling, that it brought the tears into
their eyes. Such things as these seemed to inspire him; even in the
midst of the wildest stories, he would often throw in some delicate,
telling touch. The way in which he invariably spoke of his father
attracted the girl to him. There was a mixture of drollness and
tenderness in it, midway between laughter and tears. They got used to
his rough descriptions, his coarse language; it could not well have
been dispensed with; it gave a special colouring which charmed, while
it startled them. Tomasine and her friends did not try to have it
otherwise, so that at last there was no one who appeared to them to be
able to relate stories except himself. Tomasine more than any one else.
She felt that it was all done for her amusement.
One day, when by chance they were alone, he began to tell her about the
widow of a pilot, for whom he was just then most assiduously making a
collection. He saw that she liked him for doing so, and, without
further preface, he declared that Froeken Tomasine Holm Rendalen was to
him what a town was to a desert caravan; nay, if she laughed, it was
because she did not know what it was to trudge along through endless
sand, under a burning sun, exhausted, hungry, and thirsty. "It is
something to see a town then, I can tell you." Well, _she_ was the
minaret tower, the plane-trees, and the springs of water, the wine
which awaited them, and white tents, and dancing, the sound of the
guitars, and the smell of roasting meat. Suppose they two were to make
a match of it! If that could be, he would sell the whole garden, and
they would wander away to all the most delightful places on the face of
the earth. They would lie on their backs under the awnings, while their
servants came and put food and drink into their mouths. Or why not stay
here and carry "The Estate" gardens right up on to the mountains? What
would not grow with such shelter, on such sunny hillsides, fanned by
such warm sea breezes. There they would dig away into the hillside,
like a couple of badgers, and become rich people. But he saw what a
fright he had put her into; so, without any pause, he turned the
conversation into a wild panegyric on his father. The fact was that the
whole thing was his father's invention. He was determined to have his
son married. His father was a man who would get up of a winter's night,
when it suddenly turned cold, and go out to wrap bast mats and woollen
rags round the frozen fruit-trees, as if they were naked children. If
he wanted to cut down a bush he took the birds'-nests down first, and
carried them away to some place near, or to some other bush, and stuck
'em fast there. What wonder then if his father gave a thought for him
too; but, as for him, he could wait, he was quite happy as he was. And
he started off with a story about some cows who would not eat the grass
because it looked black, but he put them on large green spectacles, so
that the grass looked quite nice and fresh--"then they munched it up, I
can promise you."
She could gather in the meantime that John Kurt was disappointed. She
herself had felt startled, she hardly knew why, and yet, on second
thoughts, she did, for she had heard, that very day, some stories of
the terribly licentious life he led.
It so happened, strangely enough, that a friend of her late mother came
in to see her, and after a short preamble, began warmly to advocate
Kurt's cause. Only an hour afterwards another one arrived, another
after that, all bent on the same errand. He was certainly not like
other people, that must be confessed, but that he would make a famous
husband, each one was as certain as the other. As to his immoral
conduct, that was bad, it must be admitted; but it was most likely not
worse than other people's. Why, there were married men living in the
town who were by no means all that they should be. The great difference
was that he did everything openly. Each one of the three ladies spoke
as strongly on the subject as the others, and Tomasine began to be
somewhat of the same opinion.
John Kurt himself held aloof for a time, excepting so far as that
whatever walk he took to or from the town, and they were not few, he
always contrived to pass the Rendalens' house, notwithstanding that
they lived quite on one side, to the left of the market-place, up
towards the field. Every time he passed up and down, he took off his
hat, if there were only a cat to be seen at the window. Beside this, he
sent a bouquet there every morning. The dawn was not more certain to
come than it was. Old Mariane, who received it, had always some little
thing to say about Tomasine, and he, on his part, generally let fall
some special remark, such as, for instance, "God bless your throats."
A very short time after her mother's especial friends had called upon
Tomasine to advocate John's cause, her own followed their example. Some
of them had in past days taken quite an opposite view of him. They had
spoken of him almost with horror. They could not bear his mendacious
stories, or put up with his coarse language; or indeed with him,
himself. He was "disgusting." Now, however, they began to admit that
there was something interesting in him all the same: a kind of
demoniacal overwhelming power.
The fact was that he had called upon them all, choosing first the one
whom he knew was most set against him. He told her that he was well
aware of this fact, and that he respected her for it. It was quite true
that he was a wretched, contemptible fellow. But it was just for that
very reason that he had come to her, for she really was the most honest
and clear-sighted conscience in the town; there was but one opinion on
that point. She really _must_ help him. She did not know the whole
history of his life, that was the fact. She did not know how it was
from his boyhood upward he had been misunderstood, and indeed continued
to be so still. And for that very reason would always remain an oddity.
But really it was hardly necessary for him to say anything. She saw
right through every one.
He told another that her hands were so plump, so dainty, and round and
soft, that one longed to nibble them with one's coffee.
He swayed and turned them with his stream of talk, he douched them
cold, he blew them warm, he startled them, and touched them. They did
not completely lose their heads. They knew perfectly well that it was
not all honest truth, spontaneous nature, but even that very fact
worked as an apology for him; he did not think about sheltering
himself, and most people are flattering when they wish to obtain
anything.
A little time afterwards the whole town from one end to the other was
convulsed with laughter, for when, in the course of the spring, a
little sempstress declared Kurt to be the father of her child, he
acknowledged it before every one, and had it brought with great state
to church to be baptised, giving it the name of Tomasine.
The amusement was renewed when he declared, on being asked how he could
possibly have done such an extraordinary thing, that if he had any
voice in the matter, Lord help him, every child in the town should be
called either Tomas, or Tomasine. It was quite touching.
Just about that time his father died under somewhat strange
circumstances. The old man had sent a message to Tomasine, asking her
the next time she went for an evening walk, to be so kind as to come in
to see him, as he was far from well. Those two had been friends of old.
Many times, when she was a little girl, he had filled her pocket with
cherries. She always looked so fresh and healthy, and an old gardener
has an eye for such things.
When she went up there, she found him sitting in his room on the left.
It was the first time she had ever been in it. The walls were hung with
some stiff, and rather dark material, apparently leather, which had at
one time been painted and gilded. In the corner by the window stood a
large press, a splendid piece of furniture, at least two hundred years
old, and most artistically carved. Quite in front of the window was a
clumsy unpainted table, littered over with papers, samples of seeds,
newspapers, and scraps of food. The old man sat there, in an ancient
arm-chair, with a short, broad leather back. He got up, and insisted
that she should take it. He was dressed in his grey linen coat, his
long apron, and wore slippers down at heel. On his head he had his
wide-peaked cap, and a thick neckcloth wound round his neck. He was
rather hoarse, and he seemed ill as well. "The spring was so sharp this
year," he said. The tall, gaunt man began to pace up and down between
the table near the window, and the bed beside the wall next the wide
hall, which divides the house in two. Up and down he walked along the
wall, past the great stove, with the two "Oldenborgs" on it, both in
enormous wigs, his steps keeping time to the ticking of an old
eight-day clock which hung on the wall near the stove. Just then it
struck seven, with a noisy chime.
The old man's bed was of freshly polished birch, contrasting with the
old decrepid chairs set along the wall, with a new leg or two, or half
the back put in fresh. The wall itself was hung with pictures, in which
a reddish yellow arm, or a brownish red dress, showed themselves, but
which otherwise were absolutely black.
Konrad Kurt's blustering talk, as he walked up and down, somewhat
resembled the room, for it was a mixture of old and new, most of the
former; and not without a touch of boasting about his family. About
modern days he had less to say, and it was more in the humbler style of
his present circumstances. He talked without his son's oaths and
imagery, but with no little skill. He romanced at one moment, and
sneered the next, as his son often did. _Summa summarum_ was, then,
that the race was worn out, the stock could no longer spread. If it
were to be saved, it, and the last of the inheritance, it must needs
receive a graft; a strong, new tree must be found.
Tomasine sat there for nearly two hours, and listened to him. She let
her supper hour, and the time for her evening classes, go by. He would
not let her leave. A maid-servant opened a door from the inner passage
to ask if she should lay the table, but was sent away.
As Tomasine returned along the avenue, where the road was guttered by
the rain, and the storm whistled through the old trees, she felt as
though she had just come from a mausoleum. In it she had met one single
living man, wandering round and gazing on his dead. She had not the
slightest desire to join him there. She turned and looked back at the
great, dirty, plastered building, with its small windows. "No," she
said aloud.
Next morning, when she came into the parlour, John Kurt's bouquet had
not arrived. It gave her a pang, she hardly knew why, for that was
after all exactly what she wished. But was it? She was trying to make
this clear to herself, when her father came in from his morning walk.
He was very pale--he told her that old Kurt had died in the night. They
had found him in the morning, lifeless, in his chair before the table.
John Kurt came in a few minutes later; he did not speak, but flung
himself down, crying. He cried so violently that both she and her
father were frightened. Then--the self-accusation that followed!
He came again every day and poured out his heart with affecting
vehemence. He went nowhere else, spoke to no one but to them. Just to
them and his own people. With these he worked day and night to build a
temple of flowers on the great flight of steps before the house, down
which the old man would be carried. This erection of flowers was
wonderfully lovely; it was talked of far and near, and the evening
before the funeral, numbers came up to see it, Tomasine and her father
among them. The dead man's friend, Dean Green, was one of the first to
come up the avenue, and after him, half the inhabitants of the
mountain, both grown people and children, to look, to show their
gratitude, and to say "Good-bye." They had been to see the clergyman
first. Old Green stood on the steps, and spoke of him who had loved
flowers so dearly, who had gone from our spring to the eternal one.
Every one was moved, and the son was obliged to go away.
The next day John went straight from the funeral to the Rendalens'. But
he did not find Tomasine at home. He was so disappointed at this, so
honestly distressed, that he stood silent for a long time, and at last
let fall that he had no one now--no, not one single being. He only
wished with all his heart that he could be laid in his grave too. He
was nothing but a trouble even to those he cared for most. He saw that
now. And he turned away. This quite touched old Mariane, to whom it had
all been said, and when Tomasine came in at last, she related it so
feelingly that her mistress was touched as well. The fact was that
Tomasine had not wished to be at home. She feared him. She had not the
courage to face his emotion, which might perhaps lead him in a special
direction.
She repented it now. She hastily took off her spectacles and wiped
them, put them on again, and looked at herself in the glass. Was not
she big and strong enough to hazard it? She stood there and weighed the
question.
The fashion of that day was to wear a bodice drawn in at the waist with
a belt, and crinoline.
She pushed her belt down with both her strong hands; she had taken off
her loose, white sleeves, as soon as she came in. Those belonging to
her dress were wide and open, so that her wrist and the lower part of
her arm, contrasted very prettily with her black dress. She delighted
in their strength, as those do who are much given to gymnastic
exercises. But her eyes turned involuntarily to her face, her weak
point. It was incredibly ugly. That flat nose, those thick lips, and
that hair which was the colour of her forehead--you could hardly see
it--and those eyebrows, light, short bristles, so thin that they were
quite invisible. Ah! no, it would never do to make herself of
importance. John Kurt loved her so heartily, and was unhappy!....
absolutely alone, and so unhappy!.... And his father had made her sit
down in his own chair!
Shortly afterwards old Mariane walked up the avenue as fast as she
could. She halted once though, and took out of a newspaper a dainty,
ah! such a dainty letter. She must look at it.
When it was put into John Kurt's hand, he tore it hastily open, and
took out a sheet of thick English note-paper--with a dove on it--the
paper was very good, and the dove well designed. He read the following
words, hastily written in a practised hand:
"_I will do it_.
"Tomasine."
John turned to Mariane. "Now, what a man father was," he said; "if he
had not died just now, small chance if I had ever got her."
He would have married the next day. To his immense astonishment,
Tomasine would not hear of it. Nor even that the marriage should be the
next week. She now gave up her pupils to begin to prepare herself for
her new position. She was completely ignorant of domestic matters,
except so far as to be able to keep her own things in order. From a
child she had only cared for her book. John Kurt was delighted when he
heard of her deficiencies; _he_ could do everything. Did any one doubt
it? He could wash up and clean, were it parlour or kitchen, better than
any housemaid or cook in Norway. He pushed old Mariane suddenly on one
side, and showed them, bit by bit. He did everything as quickly,
nicely, and carefully as the handiest girl--that was a fact. Besides
this, he could cook all sorts of food; dishes which they did not know
by name. He could roast and boil, knit, sew, and darn: he could wash
clothes; starch and iron. He, and no one else, would teach Tomasine.
Why should they not begin at once? And so it was settled. He himself
made purchases, and invited friends to the Rendalens'. The days which
followed were the most amusing the family had ever spent. The whole
town was filled with rumours. Friends and friends' friends came to look
on. And to listen! What noise and fun! What tales of where he learnt it
all! Sometimes among the gold-diggers in Australia, in constant peril
of his life. Then on a Nile boat, with a party of English, where the
cook directed the whole expedition. Sometimes in Brazil, at an hotel
among the niggers; or in the mines in South America. Then suddenly he
was at Hayti on board a large steamer! Then deserting from her. He did
not spare local colouring, or indeed any colouring; coarseness and
vituperation rained down like fire from heaven on the different places
and people.
But the work went on. Tomasine was assistant cook, scullery maid,
ironer, and darner. Even in the last he was her superior. He worked
just as quickly as he talked, and just as eagerly. He interrupted
himself with the most perfect good temper whenever she made a mistake,
for she was really very clumsy. He captivated them all now, without
exception. But surely this teaching and fun could go on as well or
better up at "The Estate." By degrees every one agreed to this, and
Tomasine gave in.