When Roy Boniface had gone Frithiof sat for a long time without
stirring. He had longed to be alone, and yet the moment he had got his
wish the most crushing sense of desolation overwhelmed him. He, too, was
keenly conscious of that change in his own nature which had been quite
apparent to Roy. It seemed to him that everything had been taken from
him in one blow—love, hope, his father, his home, his stainless name,
his occupation, his fortune, and even his old self. It was an entirely
different character with which he now had to reckon, and an entirely new
life which he had to live. Both character and surroundings had been
suddenly changed very much for the worse. He had got to put up with
them, and somehow to endure life. That was the only thing clear to him.
The little child by the Serpentine had given him so much
standing-ground, but he had not an inch more at present; all around him
was a miserable, cheerless, gray mist. Presently, becoming aware that
the cold wind from the river was no longer reviving him but chilling him
to the bone, he roused himself to close the window. Mechanically he drew
down the blind, struck a light, and noticing that on the disordered bed
there lay the crumpled pink paper which had brought him the bad news, he
picked it up, smoothed it out, and read it once more.
There was still something which he had not seen in the first horrible
shock of realizing his father’s death. With darkening brow he read the
words which Herr Grönvold had weighed so carefully and counted so often.
“I will provide for your sisters till you can. Impossible for you to
return in time for funeral. My advice is try for work in London. No
opening here for you, as feeling will be strong against family.”
It was only then that he actually took in the fact that he was
penniless—indeed, far worse than penniless—weighed down by a load of
debts which, if not legally his, were his burden none the less. There
were, as he well knew, many who failed with a light heart, who were
bankrupt one week and starting afresh with perfect unconcern the next,
but he was too much his father’s son to take the disaster that way. The
disgrace and the perception of being to blame which had killed Herr
Falck now fell upon him with crushing force; he paced the room like one
distracted, always with the picture before him of what was now going on
in Bergen, always with the thought of the suffering and misery which
would result from the failure of a firm so old and so much respected as
his father’s.
And yet it was out of this very torture of realization that his comfort
at last sprung—such comfort at least as he was at present capable of
receiving. We must all have some sort of future to look to, some sort of
aim before us, or life would be intolerable. The veriest beggar in the
street concentrates his thought on the money to be made, or the shelter
to be gained for the coming night. And there came, fortunately, to
Frithiof, jilted, ruined, bereaved as he was, one strong desire—one firm
resolve. He would pay off his father’s debts to the last farthing; he
would work, he would slave, he would deny himself all but the bare
necessities of life. The name of Falck should yet be redeemed; and a
glow of returning hope rose in his heart as he remembered his father’s
parting words, “I look to you, Frithiof, to carry out the aims in which
I myself have failed, to live the life I could wish to have lived.” Yet
how different all had been when those words had been spoken! The
recollection of them did him good—brought him, as it were, back to life
again—but at the same time they were the most cruel pain.
He saw again the harbor at Bergen, the ships, the mountains, the busy
quay; he saw his father so vividly that it seemed to him as if he must
actually be before him at that very moment, the tone of his voice rang
in his ears, the pressure of his hand seemed yet to linger with him.
What wonder that it should still be so fresh in his memory? It was only
three days ago. Only three days! Yet the time to look back on now seemed
more like three years. With amazement he dwelt on the fact, thinking, as
we mostly do in sudden trouble, how little time it takes for things to
happen. It is a perception that does not come to us in the full swing of
life, when all seems safe and full of bright promise, any more than in
yachting it troubles us to reflect that there is only a plank between
ourselves and the unfathomed depths of the sea. We expect all to go
well, we feel no fear, we enjoy life easily, and when disaster comes its
rude haste astounds us—so much is changed in one sudden, crushing blow.
He remembered how he had whistled the “Bridal Song of the Hardanger,” as
he cheerfully paced the deck full of thoughts of Blanche and of the
bright future that was opening before him. The tune rang in his ears now
with a mournful persistence. He buried his face in his hands, letting
the flood of grief sweep over him, opposing to it no thought of comfort,
no recollection of what was still left to him. If Blanche had been
faithful to him all might have been different; her father would never
have taken away the agency if she had told him the truth when she first
got home; the Iceland expedition might have failed, but his father could
have got voluntary agreement with his creditors, he himself might
perhaps have been put at the head of the branch at Stavanger, all would
have been well.
In bitter contrast he called up a picture of the desolate house in
Kalvedalen, thought of Herr Grönvold making the final arrangements, and
alternately pitying and blaming his brother-in-law; thought of Sigrid
and Swanhild in their sorrow and loneliness; thought of his father lying
cold and still. Choking sobs rose in his throat as more and more clearly
he realized that all was indeed over, that he should never see his
father again. But his eyes were dry and tearless, the iron had entered
into his soul, and all the relief that was then possible for him lay in
a prompt endeavor to carry out the resolve which he had just made.
Perhaps he perceived this, for he raised himself, banished the mind
pictures which had absorbed him so long, and began to think what his
first practical step must be. He would lose no time, he would begin that
very moment. The first thing must of course be retrenchment; he must
leave the Arundel on the morrow and must seek out the cheapest rooms to
be had. Lying on the table was that invaluable book “Dickens’ Dictionary
of London.” He had bought it at Hull on the previous day, and had
already got out of it much amusement and much information. Now, in grim
earnest, he turned over its well-arranged pages till he came to the
heading “Lodgings,” running his eye hurriedly over the paragraph, and
pausing over the following sentence: “Those who desire still cheaper
accommodation must go further afield, the lowest priced of all being in
the northeast and southeast districts, in either of which a bed and
sitting-room may be had at rents varying from ten shillings, and even
less, to thirty shillings.”
He turned to the maps at the beginning, and decided to try the
neighborhood of Vauxhall and Lambeth.
Next came the question of work. And here the vastness of the field
perplexed him, where to turn he had not the slightest idea. Possibly
Dickens might suggest something. He turned over the pages, and his eye
happened to light on the words, “Americans in distress, Society for the
relief of.” He scanned the columns closely, there seemed to be help for
every one on earth except a Norwegian. There was a home for French
strangers; a Hungarian aid society; an Italian benevolent; sixteen
charities for Jews; an association of Poles; a Hibernian society; a
Netherlands benevolent; a Portuguese and Spanish aid; and a society for
distressed Belgians. The only chance for him lay in the “Universal
Beneficence Society,” a title which called up a bitter smile to his
lips, or the “Society of Friends of Foreigners in Distress.”
He made up his mind to leave these as a last resource, and turning to
the heading of Sweden and Norway looked out the address of the
consulate. He must go there the first thing the next day, and get what
advice and help he could. There was also in Fleet Street a Scandinavian
club; he would go there and get a list of the members; it was possible
that he might meet with some familiar name, and at any rate he should
hear his own language spoken, which in itself would be a relief. This
arranged, he tried to sleep, but with little success; his brain was too
much overwrought with the terrible reversals of fortune he had met with
that day, with the sorrows that had come to him, not as
“Single spies,
But in battalions!”
Whenever he did for a few minutes sink into a doze, it was only to be
haunted by the most horrible dreams, and when morning came he was ill
and feverish, yet as determined as before to go through with the
programme he had marked out.
The Swedish minister received him very kindly, and listened to as much
of his story as would bear telling, with great patience. “It is a very
hard case,” he said. “The English firm perhaps consulted their own
pockets in making this new arrangement, but to break off an old
connection so suddenly, and as it chanced at such a trying moment, was
hard lines. What sort of people are they, these Morgans? You have met
them?”
“Oh, yes,” said Frithiof, coloring. “One of the brothers was in Norway
this summer, came to our house, dined with us, professed the greatest
friendliness, while all the time he must have known what the firm was
meditating.”
“Doubtless came to see how the land lay,” said the minister. “And what
of the other brother?”
“I saw him yesterday,” replied Frithiof. “He was very civil; told me the
telegram had been sent off that morning about the affair, as it would
not bear delay, and spoke very highly of my father. Words cost nothing,
you see.”
The consul noted the extreme bitterness of the tone, and looked
searchingly into the face of his visitor. “Poor fellow!” he reflected;
“he starts in life with a grievance, and there is nothing so bad for a
man as that. A fine, handsome boy, too. If he stays eating his heart out
in London he will go to the dogs in no time.”
“See,” he said, “these Morgans, though they may be keen business men,
yet they are after all human. When they learn at what an unlucky time
their telegram arrived, it is but natural that they should regret it.
Their impulse will be to help you. I should advise you to go to them at
once and talk the affair over with them. If they have any proper feeling
they will offer you some sort of employment in this new Stavanger
branch, or they might, perhaps, have some opening for you in their
London house.”
“I can not go to them,” said Frithiof, in a choked voice. “I would
rather die first.”
“I can understand,” said the consul, “that you feel very bitter, and
that you resent the way in which they have behaved. But still I think
you should try to get over that. After all, they knew nothing of your
father’s affairs; they did not intentionally kill him. That the two
disasters followed so closely on each other was but an accident.”
“Still I could never accept anything from them; it is out of the
question,” said Frithiof.
“Excuse me if I speak plainly,” said the consul. “You are very young,
and you know but little of the world. If you allow yourself to be
governed by pride of this sort you can not hope to get on. Now turn it
over in your mind, and if you do not feel that you can see these people,
at any rate write to them.”
“I cannot explain it all to you, sir,” said Frithiof. “But there are
private reasons which make that altogether impossible.”
The blood had mounted to his forehead, his lips had closed in a straight
line; perhaps it was because they quivered that he compressed them so.
“A woman in the question,” reflected the consul. “That complicates
matters. All the more reason that he should leave London.” Then, aloud:
“If you feel unable to apply to them, I should recommend you strongly to
try America. Every one flocks to London for work, but as a matter of
fact London streets just now are not paved with gold; everything is at a
standstill; go where you will, you will hear that trade is bad, that
employment is scarce, and that living is dear.”
“If I could hear of any opening in America, I would go at once,” said
Frithiof. “But at Bergen we have heard of late that it is no such easy
thing even over there to meet with work. I will not pay the expenses of
the voyage merely to be in my present state, and hundreds of miles
further from home.”
“What can you do?” asked the consul. “Is your English pretty good?”
“I can write and speak it easily. And, of course, German too. I
understand book-keeping.”
“Any taste for teaching?” asked the consul.
“None,” said Frithiof decidedly.
“Then the only thing that seems open to you is the work of a secretary,
or a clerkship, or perhaps you could manage translating, but that is not
easy work to get. Everything now is overcrowded, so dreadfully
overcrowded. However, of course I shall bear you in mind, and you
yourself will leave no stone unturned. Stay, I might give you a letter
of introduction to Herr Sivertsen: he might possibly find you temporary
work. He is the author of that well-known book on Norway, you know. Do
you know your way about yet?”
“Pretty well,” said Frithiof.
“Then there is his address—Museum Street. You had better take an omnibus
at the Bank. Any of the Oxford Street ones will put you down at the
corner, by Mudie’s. Let me know how you get on: I shall be interested to
hear.”
Then, with a kindly shake of the hand, Frithiof found himself dismissed;
and somewhat cheered by the interview, he made his way to the address
which had been given him.
Herr Sivertsen’s rooms were of the gloomiest: they reeked of tobacco,
they were ill-lighted, and it seemed to Frithiof that the window could
not have been opened for a week. An oblique view of Mudie’s library was
the only object of interest to be seen without, though, by craning one’s
neck, one could get just a glimpse of the traffic in Oxford Street. He
waited for some minutes, wondering to himself how a successful author
could tolerate such a den, and trying to imagine from the room what sort
of being was the inhabiter thereof. At length the door opened, and a
gray-haired man of five and fifty, with a huge forehead and somewhat
stern, square-jawed face, entered.
“I have read the consul’s letter,” he said, greeting Frithiof, and
motioning him to a chair. “You want what is very hard to get. Are you
aware that thousands of men are seeking employment and are unable to
meet with it?”
“I know it is hard,” said Frithiof. “Still I have more chance here than
in Norway, and anyhow I mean to get it.” The emphatic way in which he
uttered these last words made the author look at him more attentively.
“I am tired to death of young men coming to me and wanting help,” he
remarked frankly. “You are an altogether degenerate race, you young men
of this generation; in my opinion you don’t know what work means. It’s
money that you want, not work.”
“Yes,” said Frithiof dryly, “you are perfectly right. It is money that I
want.”
Now Herr Sivertsen had never before met with this honest avowal. In
reply to the speech which he had made to many other applicants he had
always received an eager protestation that the speaker was devoted to
work, that he was deeply interested in languages, that Herr Sivertsen’s
greatest hobbies were his hobbies too. He liked this bold avowal in his
secret heart, though he had no intention of letting this be seen. “Just
what I said!” he exclaimed. “A pleasure-seeking, money-grubbing
generation. What is the result? I give work to be done, and as long as
you can get gold you don’t care how the thing is scamped. Look here!” He
took up a manuscript from the table. “I have paid the fellow who did
this. He is not only behind time, but when at last the work is sent in
it’s a miserable performance, bungled, patched, scamped, even the
handwriting a disgrace to civilization. It’s because the man takes no
pride in the work itself, because he has not a spark of interest in his
subject. It just means to him so many shillings, that is all.”
“I can at least write a clear hand,” said Frithiof.
“That may be; but will you put any heart into your work? Do you care for
culture? for literature? Do you interest yourself in progress? do you
desire to help on your generation?”
“As far as I am concerned,” said Frithiof bitterly, “the generation will
have to take care of itself. As for literature, I know little of it and
care less; all I want is to make money.”
“Did I not tell you so?” roared Herr Sivertsen. “It is the accursed gold
which you are all seeking after. You care only for money to spend on
your own selfish indulgences. You are all alike! All! A worthless
generation!”
Frithiof rose.
“However worthless, we unluckily have to live,” he said coldly. “And as
I can’t pretend to be interested in ‘culture,’ I must waste no more time
in discussion.”
He bowed and made for the door.
“Stay,” said Herr Sivertsen: “it will do no harm if you leave your
address.”
“Thank you, but at present I have none to give,” said Frithiof.
“Good-morning.”
He felt very angry and very sore-hearted as he made his way down Museum
Street. To have met with such a rebuff from a fellow-countryman seemed
to him hard, specially in this time of his trouble. He had not enough
insight into character to understand the eccentric old author, and he
forgot that Herr Sivertsen knew nothing of his circumstances. He was too
abrupt, too independent, perhaps also too refined to push his way as an
unknown foreigner in a huge metropolis. He was utterly unable to draw a
picturesque description of the plight he was in, he could only rely on a
sort of dogged perseverance, a fixed resolve that he must and would find
work; and in spite of constant failures this never left him.
He tramped down to Vauxhall and began to search for lodgings, looked at
some half-dozen sets, and finally lighted on a clean little house in a
new-looking street a few hundred yards from Vauxhall Station. There was
a card up in the window advertising rooms to let. He rang the bell and
was a little surprised to find the door opened to him by a middle-aged
woman who was unmistakably a lady, though her deeply lined face told of
privation and care, possibly also of ill-temper. He asked the price of
the rooms.
“A sitting-room and bedroom at fifteen shillings a week,” was the reply.
“It is too much, and besides I only need one room,” he said.
“I am afraid we can not divide them.”
He looked disappointed. An idea seemed to strike the landlady.
“There is a little room at the top you might have,” she said; “but it
would not be very comfortable. It would be only five shillings a week,
including attendance.”
“Allow me to see it,” said Frithiof.
He felt so tired and ill that if she had shown him a pig-sty he would
probably have taken it merely for the sake of settling matters. As it
was, the room, though bare and comfortless, was spotlessly clean, and,
spite of her severe face, he rather took to his landlady.
“My things are at the Arundel Hotel,” he explained. “I should want to
come in at once. Does that suit you?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, scanning him closely. “Can you give us any
references?”
“You can, if you wish, refer to the Swedish consul at 24 Great
Winchester Street.”
“Oh, you are a Swede,” she said.
“No; I am a Norwegian, and have only been in London since yesterday.”
The landlady seemed satisfied, and having paid his five shillings in
advance, Frithiof went off to secure his portmanteau, and by five
o’clock was installed in his new home.
It was well that he had lost no time in leaving his hotel, for during
the next two days he was unable to quit his bed, and could only console
himself with the reflection that at any rate he had a cheap roof over
his head and that his rent would not ruin him.
Perhaps the cold night air from the river had given him a chill on the
previous night, or perhaps the strain of the excitement and suffering
had been too much for him. At any rate he lay in feverish wretchedness,
tossing through the long days and weary nights, a misery to himself and
an anxiety to the people of the house.
He discovered that his first impression had been correct. Miss Turnour,
the landlady, was well born; she and her two sisters—all of them now
middle-aged women—were the daughters of a country gentleman, who had
either wasted his substance in speculation or on the turf. He was long
since dead, and had left behind him the fruits of his selfishness, three
helpless women, with no particular aptitudes and brought up to no
particular profession. They had sunk down and down in the social scale,
till it seemed that there was nothing left them but a certain refinement
of taste, which only enabled them to suffer more keenly, and the family
pedigree, of which they were proud, clinging very much to the peculiar
spelling of their name, and struggling on in their little London house,
quarreling much among themselves, and yet firmly determined that nothing
on earth should part them. Frithiof dubbed them the three Fates. He
wondered sometimes whether, after long years of poverty, he and Sigrid
and Swanhild should come to the same miserable condition, the same
hopeless, cold, hard spirit, the same pinched, worn faces, the same
dreary, monotonous lives.
The three Fates did not take much notice of their lodger. Miss Turnour
often wished she had had the sense to see that he was ill before
admitting him. Miss Caroline, the youngest, flatly declined waiting on
him, as it was quite against her feelings of propriety. Miss Charlotte,
the middle one of the three, who had more heart than the rest, tried to
persuade him to see a doctor.
“No,” he replied, “I shall be all right in a day or two. It is nothing
but a feverish attack. I can’t afford doctor’s bills.”
She looked at him a little compassionately; his poverty touched a chord
in her own life.
“Perhaps the illness has come in order that you may have time to think,”
she said timidly.
She was a very small little woman, like a white mouse, but Frithiof had
speedily found that she was the only one of the three from whom he could
expect any help. She was the snubbed one of the family, partly because
she was timid and gentle, partly because she had lately adopted certain
religious views upon which the other two looked down with the most
supreme contempt.
Frithiof was in no mood to respond to her well-meant efforts to convert
him, and used to listen to her discourses about the last day with a
stolid indifference which altogether baffled her. It seemed as if
nothing could possibly rouse him.
“Ah,” she would say, as she left the room with a sad little shake of the
head, “_I_ shall be caught up at the second advent. I’m not at all sure
that _you_ will be.”
The eldest Miss Turnour did not trouble herself at all about his
spiritual state; she thought only of the risk they were running and the
possible loss of money.
“I hope he is not sickening with any infectious disease,” she used to
remark a dozen times a day.
And Miss Charlotte said nothing, but silently thanked Heaven that she
had not been the one to accept the new lodger.