When Frithiof found that instead of addressing a stranger at Hyde Park
Corner, he had actually spoken to Roy Boniface, his first feeling had
been of mere blank astonishment. Then he vehemently wished himself alone
once more, and cursed the fate which had first brought him into contact
with the little child by the Serpentine, and which had now actually
thrown him into the arms of a being who would talk and expect to be
talked to. Yet this feeling also passed; for as he looked down the
unfamiliar roads, and felt once more the desolateness of a foreigner in
a strange country, he was obliged to own that it was pleasant to him to
hear Roy’s well-known voice, and to feel that there was in London a
being who took some sort of interest in his affairs.
“I wish I had seen you a minute or two sooner; my mother and my sister
were in that carriage,” said Roy, “and they would have liked to meet
you. You must come and see us some day, or are you quite too busy to
spare time for such an out-of-the-way place as Brixton?”
“Thank you. My plans are very uncertain,” said Frithiof. “I shall
probably only be over here for a few days.”
“Have you come across the Morgans?” asked Roy, “or any of our other
companions at Balholm?”
In his heart he felt sure that the young Norwegian’s visit was connected
with Blanche Morgan, for their mutual liking had been common property at
Balholm, and even the semiengagement was shrewdly guessed at by many of
the other tourists.
Frithiof knew this, and the question was like a sword-thrust to him. Had
it not been so nearly dark Roy could hardly have failed to notice his
change of color and expression. But he had great self-control, and his
voice was quite steady, though a little cold and monotonous in tone, as
he replied:
“I have just been to call on the Morgans, and have only just learned
that their business relations with our firm are at an end. The
connection is of so many years’ standing that I am afraid it will be a
great blow to my father.”
Roy began to see daylight, and perceived, what had first escaped his
notice, that some great change had passed over his companion since they
parted on the Sogne Fjord; very possibly the business relations might
affect his hopes, and make the engagement no longer possible.
“That was bad news to greet you,” he said with an uneasy consciousness
that it was very difficult to know what to say. “Herr Falck would feel a
change of that sort keenly, I should think. What induced them to make
it?”
“Self-interest,” said Frithiof, still in the same tone. “No doubt they
came to spy out the land in the summer. As the head of the firm remarked
to me just now, it is impossible to sentimentalize over old
connections—business is business, and of course they are bound to look
out for themselves—what happens to us is, naturally, no affair of
theirs.”
Roy would not have thought much of the sarcasm of this speech if it had
been spoken by any one else, but from the lips of such a fellow as
Frithiof Falck, it startled him.
They were walking along Piccadilly, each of them turning over in his
mind how he could best get away from the other, yet with an uneasy
feeling that they were in some way linked together by that summer
holiday, and that if they parted now they would speedily regret it. Roy,
with the increasing consciousness of his companion’s trouble only grew
more perplexed and ill at ease. He tried to picture to himself the
workings of the Norwegian’s mind, and as they walked on in silence some
faint idea of the effect of the surroundings upon the new-comer began to
dawn upon him. What a contrast was all this to quiet Norway! The
brightly lighted shops, the busy streets, the hurry and bustle, the
ever-changing crowd of strange faces.
“Do you know many people in London?” he asked, willing to shift his
responsibility if possible.
“No,” said Frithiof, “I do not know a soul.”
He relapsed into silence. Roy’s thoughts went back to his first day at
Bergen; he seemed to live it all through once more; he remembered how
Frithiof Falck had got the Linnæa for them, how he had taken them for
shelter to his father’s house; the simplicity and the happiness of the
scene came back to him vividly, and he glanced at his companion as
though to verify his past impressions. The light from a street lamp fell
on Frithiof at that moment, and Roy started; the Norwegian had perhaps
forgotten that he was not alone, at any rate he wore an expression which
had not hitherto been visible. There was something about his pale, set
face which alarmed Roy, and scattered to the winds all his selfishness
and awkward shyness.
“Then you will of course dine with me,” he said, “since you have no
other engagement.”
And Frithiof, still wishing to be alone, and yet still dreading it,
thanked him and accepted the invitation.
The ice once broken, they got on rather better, and as they dined
together Roy carefully abstained from talking of the days at Balholm,
but asked after Sigrid and Swanhild and Herr Falck, talked of the winter
in Norway, of skating, of Norwegian politics, of everything he could
think of which could divert his friend’s mind from the Morgans.
“What next,” he said, as they found themselves once more in the street.
“Since you go back soon we ought to make the most of the time. Shall we
come to the Savoy? You must certainly hear a Gilbert and Sullivan opera
before you leave.”
“I am not in the mood for it to-night,” said Frithiof. “And it has just
struck me that possibly my father may telegraph instructions to me—he
would have got Morgan’s telegram this morning. I will go back to the
Arundel and see.”
This idea seemed to rouse him. He became much more like himself, and as
they walked down the Strand the conversation dragged much less. For the
first time he spoke of the work that awaited him on his return to
Bergen, and Roy began to think that his scheme for diverting him from
his troubles had been on the whole a success.
“We must arrange what day you will come down to us at Brixton,” he said,
as they turned down Arundel Street. “Would to-morrow suit you?”
“As far as I know, it would,” said Frithiof; “but if you will just come
into the hotel with me we will find out if there is any message from my
father. If there is nothing, why, I am perfectly free. It is possible,
though, that he will have business for me to see to.”
Accordingly they went into the hotel together, and Frithiof accosted a
waiter in the entrance hall.
“Anything come for me since I went out?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, I believe there is, sir. Herr Falck, is it not?”
He brought forward a telegram and handed it to Frithiof, who hurriedly
tore open the orange envelope and began eagerly to read. As he read,
every shade of color left his face; the telegram was in Norwegian, and
its terse, matter of-fact statement overwhelmed him. Like one in some
dreadful dream he read the words:
“Father bankrupt, owing to failure Iceland expedition, also loss
Morgan’s agency.”
There was more beyond, but this so staggered him that he looked up from
the fatal pink paper with a sort of wild hope that his surroundings
would reassure him, that he should find it all a mistake. He met the
curious eyes of the waiter, he saw two girls in evening-dress crossing
the vestibule.
“We ought to be at the Lyceum by this time!” he heard one of them say to
the other. “How annoying of father to be so late!”
The girl addressed had a sweet sunshiny face.
“Oh, he will soon be here,” she said, smiling, but as her eyes happened
to fall on Frithiof she grew suddenly grave and compassionate; she
seemed to glance from his face to the telegram in his hand, and her look
brought him a horrible perception that after all this was real waking
existence. It was a real telegram he held, it was all true, hideously
true. His father was bankrupt.
Shame, misery, bitter indignation with the Morgans, a sickening
perception that if Blanche had been true to him the worst might have
been averted, all this seethed in his mind. With a desperate effort he
steadied his hand and again bent his eye on the pink paper and the large
round-hand scrawl. Oh, yes, there was no mistake, he read the fatal
words again:
“Father bankrupt, owing to failure Iceland expedition, also loss
Morgan’s agency.”
By this time he had partly recovered, was sufficiently himself again to
feel some sort of anxiety to read the rest of the message. Possibly
there was something he might do to help his father. He read on and took
in the next sentence almost at a glance.
“Shock caused cerebral hemorrhage. He died this afternoon.”
Frithiof felt a choking sensation in his throat; if he could not get out
into the open air he felt that he should die, and by an instinct he
turned toward the door, made a step or two forward, then staggered and
caught at Roy Boniface to save himself from falling.
Roy held him up and looked at him anxiously. “You have had bad news?” he
asked.
Frithiof tried to speak, but no words would come; he gasped for breath,
felt his limbs failing, saw a wavy, confused picture of the vestibule,
the waiter, the two girls, an elderly gentleman joining them, then felt
himself guided down on to the floor, never quite losing consciousness,
yet helpless either to speak or move and with a most confused sense of
what had passed.
“It is in Norwegian,” he heard Roy say. “Bad news from his home, I am
afraid.”
“Poor fellow!” said another voice. “Open the door some one. It’s air he
wants.”
“I saw there was something wrong, father,” this was in a girl’s voice.
“He looked quite dazed with trouble as he read.”
“You’ll be late for the Lyceum,” thought Frithiof, and making an effort
to get up, he sunk for a moment into deeper depths of faintness; the
voices died away into indistinctness, then came a consciousness of hands
at his shoulders and his feet; he was lifted up and carried away
somewhere.
Struggling back to life again in a few moments, he found that he was
lying on a bed, the window was wide open, and a single candle flickered
wildly in the draught. Roy Boniface was standing by him holding a glass
of water to his lips. With an effort he drank.
“You are better, sir?” asked the waiter. “Anything I can do for you,
sir? Any answer to the telegram?”
“The telegram! What do you mean?” exclaimed Frithiof. Then as full
recollection came back to him, he turned his face from the light with a
groan.
“The gentleman had, perhaps, better see a doctor,” suggested the waiter
to Roy. But Frithiof turned upon him sharply.
“I am better. You can go away. All I want is to be alone.”
The man retired, but Roy still lingered. He could not make up his mind
to leave any one in such a plight, so he crossed the room and stood by
the open window looking out gravely at the dark river with its double
row of lights and their long shining reflections. Presently a sound in
the room made him turn. Frithiof had dragged himself up to his feet,
with an impatient gesture he blew out the flickering candle, then walked
with unsteady steps to the window and dropped into a chair.
“So you are here still?” he said, with something of relief in his tone.
“I couldn’t bear to leave till you were all right again,” said Roy.
“Wont you tell me what is the matter, Falck?”
“My father is dead,” said Frithiof, in an unnaturally calm voice.
“Dead!” exclaimed Roy, and his tone had in it much more of awe and
regret. He could hardly believe that the genial, kindly Norwegian who
had climbed Munkeggen with them only a few weeks before was actually no
longer in the world.
“He is dead,” repeated Frithiof quietly.
“But how was it?” asked Roy. “It must have been so sudden. You left him
well only three days ago. How was it?”
“His Iceland expedition had failed,” said Frithiof; “that meant a fatal
blow to his business; then, this morning, there came to him Morgan’s
telegram about the agency. It was that that killed him.”
“Good God!” exclaimed Roy, with indignation in his voice.
“Leave out the adjective,” said Frithiof bitterly. “If there’s a God at
all He is hard and merciless. Business is business, you see—one can’t
sentimentalize over old connections. God allows men like Morgan to
succeed, they always do succeed, and He lets men like my father be
dragged down into shame and dishonor and ruin.”
Roy was silent; he had no glib, conventional sentences ready to hand. In
his own mind he frankly admitted that the problem was beyond him. He
knew quite well that far too often in business life it was the pushing,
unscrupulous, selfish man who made his fortune, and the man of Herr
Falck’s type, sensitive, conscientious, altogether honorable, who had to
content himself with small means, or who, goaded at last to rashness,
staked all on a desperate last throw and failed. It was a problem that
perplexed him every day of his life, the old, old problem which Job
dashed his heart against, and for which only Job’s answer will suffice.
Vaguely he felt that there must be some other standard of success than
that of the world; he believed that it was but the first act of the
drama which we could at present see; but he honestly owned that the
first act was often perplexing enough.
Nevertheless, it was his very silence which attracted Frithiof; had he
spoken, had he argued, had he put forth the usual platitudes, the two
would have been forever separated. But he just leaned against the
window-frame, looking out at the dark river, musing over the story he
had just heard, and wondering what the meaning of it could be. The
“Why?” which had been the last broken ejaculation of the dead man echoed
in the hearts of these two who had been brought together so strangely.
Into Roy’s mind there came the line, “’Tis held that sorrow makes us
wise.” But he had a strong feeling that in Frithiof’s case sorrow would
harden and imbitter; indeed, it seemed to him already that his
companion’s whole nature was changed. It was almost difficult to believe
that he was the same high-spirited boy who had been the life of the
party at Balholm, who had done the honors of the villa in Kalvedalen so
pleasantly. And then as he contrasted that bright, homely room at Bergen
with this dark, forlorn hotel room in London, a feeling that he must get
his companion away into some less dreary atmosphere took possession of
him.
“Don’t stay all alone in this place,” he said abruptly. “Come home with
me to-night.”
“You are very good,” said Frithiof, “but I don’t think I can do that. I
am better alone, and indeed must make up my mind to-night as to the
future.”
“You will go back to Norway, I suppose?” asked Roy.
“Yes, I suppose so; as soon as possible. To-morrow I must see if there
is any possibility of getting back in fair time. Unluckily, it is too
late for the Wilson Line steamer, which must be starting at this minute
from Hull.”
“I will come in to-morrow, then, and see what you have decided on,” said
Roy. “Is there nothing I can do for you now?”
“Nothing, thank you,” said Frithiof. And Roy, feeling that he could be
of no more use, and that his presence was perhaps a strain on his
friend, wished him good-night and went out.
The next day he was detained by business and could not manage to call at
the Arundel till late in the afternoon. Noticing the same waiter in the
hall who had been present on the previous evening, he inquired if
Frithiof were in.
“Herr Falck has gone, sir,” said the man; “he went off about an hour
ago.”
“Gone!” exclaimed Roy, in some surprise. “Did he leave any message?”
“No, sir; none at all. He was looking very ill when he came down this
morning, but went out as soon as he had had breakfast, and didn’t come
back till four o’clock. Then he called for his bill and ordered his
portmanteau to be brought down and put on a hansom, and as he passed out
he gave me a trifle, and said he had spoken a bit sharp to me last
night, he was afraid, and thanked me for what I had done for him. And so
he drove off, sir.”
“You didn’t hear where he was going to?”
“No, sir; I can’t say as I did. The cab, if I remember right, turned
along the Embankment, toward Charing Cross.”
“Thank you,” said Roy. “Very possibly he may have gone back to Norway by
the Continent.”
And with a feeling of vague disappointment he turned away.