The gloomy little lodging-house felt desolate enough to him as he
unlocked the door with his latch-key and climbed the creaking stairs to
his sparsely furnished room. Evidently the three Miss Turnours were
having a very animated quarrel, for their voices were pitched in that
high key which indicates a stormy atmosphere, and even their words
reached him distinctly as he passed by the bedroom which was the arena
of strife.
“But, my dear Caroline—”
“Don’t talk nonsense, my dear, you know perfectly well—”
“Do you mean to say, my dear—”
“I wonder,” thought Frithiof, “whether they ever allow each other to
finish a sentence. It’s like the catch that they used to sing at
Balholm, about ‘Celia’s Charms.’ If any one ever writes a catch called
‘The Quarrel,’ he must take care to stick in plenty of ‘my dears!’”
Strict economy in gas was practiced by the Miss Turnours, and Frithiof
had to grope about for matches. “Attendance,” too, did not apparently
include drawing down the blind, or turning down the bed. The room looked
most bare and comfortless, and the dismal gray paper, with its oblong
slabs, supposed by courtesy to represent granite, was as depressing as
the dungeon of Giant Despair’s castle.
To stay here with nothing to do—to fag through weary days of
disappointing search after work, and then to return to this night after
night, was but a sorry prospect. Would it not indeed be well for him if
he swallowed his pride and accepted this offer of perfectly honorable
work which had been made to him? The idea was in many ways distasteful
to him, and yet dared he reject it?
Looking honestly into his own mind he detected there something that
urged him to snatch at this first chance of work, lest, with fresh
failure and disappointment, the very desire for work should die within
him, and he should sink into a state which his better nature abhorred.
The clatter of tongues still ascended from below. He took off his boots,
dropping first one and then the other with a resounding thud upon the
floor, after the manner of men. Then wondering whether consciousness of
his being within earshot would allay the storm, he threw down both boots
at once with a portentous noise outside his room and shut and locked the
door with emphasis. Still the female battle continued. He threw himself
down on the bed, wondering what it was that made families so different.
It was not money which gave the tone to the Bonifaces’ house. The
Morgans were infinitely richer. It was not a great profession of
religion. The Miss Turnours were all ardently and disputatiously
religious. What was it?
He fell asleep before he had solved the problem, and had an odd,
confused dream. He dreamed that he was climbing the Romsdalshorn, and
that darkness had overtaken him. Below him was a sheer precipice, and he
could hear the roar of wild beasts as they wandered to and fro thirsting
for his blood.
“They are bound to get me sooner or later,” he thought, “for I can never
hold out till daylight. I may as well let myself go.”
And the thought of the horror of that fall was so great that he almost
woke with it. But something seemed to him to quiet him again. It was
partly curiosity to understand the meaning of a light which had dawned
in the sky, and which deepened and spread every moment. At last he saw
that it had been caused by the opening of a door, and in the doorway,
with a glory of light all about them, he saw the Madonna and the Holy
Child. A path of light traced itself from them on the mountain-side to
the place where he stood, and he struggled up, no longer afraid to go
forward, and without a thought of the beasts or the precipice. And thus
struggling on, all details were lost in a flood of light, and warmth,
and perfect content, and a welcome that left nothing wanting.
A pushing back of chairs in the room below suddenly roused him. With a
sense of bewilderment, he found himself lying on the hard lodging-house
bed, and heard the quarrelsome voices rising through the floor.
“Still at it,” he thought to himself with a bitter smile. And then he
thought of the picture of the Romsdalshorn he had seen that afternoon—he
remembered a horrible temptation that had seized him—remembered Cecil
standing in the open door with the child in her arms, remembered the
perfect welcome he had received from the whole house. Should he in his
foolish pride drift into the miserable state of these poor Turnours, and
drag through life in poverty, because he was too well-born to take the
work he could get?
“These poor ladies would be happier even in service than they are here,
in what they call independence,” he reflected. “I shall take this
situation; it’s the first step up.”
The next morning he went to the Swedish Embassy to ask advice once more.
“I am glad to see you,” said the consul. “I was hoping you would look in
again, for I met old Sivertsen the other day, and he was most anxious to
have your address. He said you went off in a hurry, and never gave him
time to finish what he was saying.”
Frithiof smiled.
“He did nothing but inveigh against the rising generation, and I didn’t
care to waste the whole morning over that.”
“You have too little diplomacy about you,” said the consul. “You do not
make the best of your own case. However, Sivertsen seems to have taken a
fancy to you, and I advise you to go to him again; he will most likely
offer you work. If I were you, I would make up my mind to take whatever
honest work turns up, and throw pride to the winds. Leave your address
here with me, and if I hear of anything I’ll let you know.”
Frithiof, somewhat unwillingly, made his way to Museum Street, and was
ushered into the stuffy little den where Herr Sivertsen sat smoking and
writing serenely. He bowed stiffly, but was startled to see the sudden
change which came over the face of the old Norwegian at sight of him.
“So! You have come back, then!” he exclaimed, shaking him warmly by the
hand, just as though they had parted the best of friends. “I am glad of
it. Why didn’t you tell me the real state of the case? Why didn’t you
tell me you were one of the victims of the accursed thirst for gold? Why
didn’t you tell me of the hardness and rapacity of the English firm? But
you are all alike—all! Young men nowadays can’t put a decent sentence
together; they clip their words as close as if they were worth a mint of
money. A worthless generation! Sit down, now, sit down, and tell me what
you can do.”
Frithiof, perceiving that what had first seemed like boorishness was
really eccentricity, took the proffered chair, and tried to shake off
the mantle of cold reserve which had of late fallen upon him.
“I could do translating,” he replied. “English, German, or Norwegian. I
am willing to do copying; but there, I suppose, the typewriters would
cut me out. Any way, I have four hours to spare in the evening, and I
want them filled.”
“You have found some sort of work, then, already?”
“Yes, I have got work which will bring me in twenty-five shillings a
week, but it leaves me free from eight o’clock, and I want evening
employment.”
Herr Sivertsen gave a grunt which expressed encouragement and approval.
He began shuffling about masses of foolscap and proofs which were strewn
in wild confusion about the writing-table. “These are the revised proofs
of Scanbury’s new book; take this page and let me see how you can render
it into Norwegian. Here are pen and paper. Sit down and try your hand.”
Frithiof obeyed. Herr Sivertsen seemed satisfied with the result.
“Put the same page into German,” he said.
Frithiof worked away in silence, and the old author paced to and fro
with his pipe, giving a furtive glance now and then at the down-bent
head with its fair, obstinate hair brushed erect in Norwegian fashion,
and the fine Grecian profile upon which the dark look of trouble sat
strangely. In spite of the sarcasm and bitterness which disappointment
had roused in Frithiof’s nature the old author saw that such traits were
foreign to his real character—that they were but a thin veneer, and that
beneath them lay the brave and noble nature of the hardy Norseman. The
consul’s account of his young countryman’s story had moved him greatly,
and he was determined now to do what he could for him. He rang the bell
and ordered the Norwegian maid-servant to bring lunch for two, adding an
emphatic “Strax!” (immediately), which made Frithiof look up from his
writing.
“You have finished?” asked Herr Sivertsen.
“Not quite. I can’t get this last bit quite to my mind. I don’t believe
there is an equivalent in German for that expression.”
“You are quite right. There isn’t. I couldn’t get anything for it
myself. What have you put? Good! very good. It is an improvement on what
I had thought of. The sentence runs better.”
He took the paper from the table and mumbled through it in an approving
tone.
“Good! you will do,” he said, at the end. “Now while we lunch together
we can discuss terms. Ha! what has she brought us? Something that
pretends to be German sausage! Good heavens! The depravity of the age!
_This_ German sausage indeed! I must apologize to you for having it on
the table, but servants are all alike nowadays—all alike! Not one of
them can understand how to do the marketing properly. A worthless
generation!”
Frithiof began to be faintly amused by the old man, and as he walked
away from Museum Street with a week’s work under his arm he felt in
better spirits than he had done for some time.
With not a little curiosity he sought out the Bonifaces’ shop in Regent
Street. It had a well-ordered, prosperous look about it: double doors
kept the draught from those within, the place was well warmed
throughout; on each side of the door was a counter with a desk and
stool, Mr. Boniface being one of those who consider that sitting is as
cheap as standing, and the monotony of the long shelves full of
holland-covered portfolios was broken by busts of Beethoven, Mozart,
Wagner, and other great musicians. The inner shop was consecrated to
instruments of all kinds, and through this Frithiof was taken to Mr.
Boniface’s private room.
“Well,” said the shop-owner, greeting him kindly. “And have you made
your decision!”
“Yes, sir, I have decided to accept the situation,” said Frithiof. And
something in his face and bearing showed plainly that he was all the
better for his choice.
“I forget whether I told you about the hours,” said Mr. Boniface.
“Half-past eight in the morning till half-past seven at night, an hour
out of that for dinner, and half an hour for tea. You will have of
course the usual bank holidays, and we also arrange that each of our men
shall have a fortnight some time during the summer.”
“You are very thoughtful for your hands,” said Frithiof. “It is few, I
should fancy, who would allow so much.”
“I don’t know that,” said Mr. Boniface. “A good many, I fancy, try
something of the sort, and I am quite sure that it invariably answers.
It is not in human nature to go on forever at one thing—every one needs
variety. Business becomes a tread-mill if you never get a thorough
change, and I like my people to put their heart into the work. If you
try to do that you will be of real value, and are bound to rise.”
“Look,” said Roy, showing him a neatly drawn-out plan of names and
dates. “This is the holiday chart which we worked out this summer. It
takes my father quite a long time to arrange it all and make each
dovetail properly with the others.”
They lingered for a few minutes talking over the details of the
business, then Roy took Frithiof down into the shop again, and in the
uninterrupted quiet of the Saturday afternoon showed him exactly what
his future work would be. He was to preside at the song-counter, and Roy
initiated him into the arrangement of the brown-holland portfolios with
their black lettering, showed him his desk with account-books,
order-book, and cash-box, even made him practice rolling up music in the
neat white wrappers that lay ready to hand—a feat which at first he did
not manage very quickly.
“I am afraid all this must be very uncongenial to you,” said Roy.
“Perhaps,” said Frithiof. “But it will do as well as anything else. And
indeed,” he added warmly, “one would put up with a great deal for the
sake of being under such a man as Mr. Boniface.”
“The real secret of the success of the business is that he personally
looks after every detail,” said Roy. “All the men he employs are fond of
him; he expects them to do their best for him, and he does his best for
them. I think you may really be happy enough here, though of course it
is not at all the sort of life you were brought up to expect.”
Each thought involuntarily of the first time they had met, and of
Blanche Morgan’s ill-timed speech: “Only a shopkeeper!” Roy understood
perfectly well what it was that brought the bitter look into his
companion’s face, and, thinking that they had stayed long enough for
Frithiof to get a pretty clear idea of the work which lay before him on
Monday morning, he proposed that they should go home together. He had
long ago got over the selfish desire to be quit of the responsibility of
being with the Norwegian; his first awkward shyness had been, after all,
natural enough, for those whose lives have been very uneventful seldom
understand how to deal with people in trouble, and are apt to shrink
away in unsympathetic silence because they have not learned from their
own sore need what it is that human nature craves for in sorrow. But
each time he met Frithiof now he felt that the terrible evening at the
Arundel had broken down the barriers which hitherto had kept him from
friendship with any one out of his own family. Mere humanity had forced
him to stay as the solitary witness of an overwhelming grief, and he had
gained in this way a knowledge of life and a sympathy with Frithiof, of
which he had been quite incapable before.
He began to know intuitively how things would strike Frithiof, and as
they went down to Brixton he prepared him for what he shrewdly surmised
would be the chief disagreeable in his business life.
“I don’t think you heard,” he began “that there is another partner in
our firm—a cousin of my father’s—James Horner. I dare say you will not
come across him very much, but he is fond of interfering now and then,
and sometimes if my father is away he gets fussy and annoying. He is not
at all popular in the shop, and I thought I would just warn you
beforehand, though of course you are not exactly expecting a bed of
roses.”
It would have been hard to say exactly what Frithiof was expecting; his
whole life had been unstrung, and this new beginning represented to him
merely a certain amount of monotonous work to the tune of
five-and-twenty shillings a week.
When they reached Rowan Tree House they found a carriage waiting at the
door.
“Talk of the angel and its wings appear,” said Roy. “The Horners are
calling here. What a nuisance!”
Frithiof felt inclined to echo this sentiment when he found himself in
the pretty drawing-room once more and became conscious of the presence
of an overdressed woman and a bumptious little man with mutton-chop
whiskers and inquisitive eyes, whose air of patronage would have been
comical had it not been galling to his Norwegian independence. Roy had
done well to prepare him, for nothing could have been so irritating to
his sensitive refinement as the bland self-satisfaction, the innate
vulgarity of James Horner. Mrs. Boniface and Cecil greeted him
pleasantly, and Mrs. Horner bowed her lofty bonnet with dignity when he
was introduced to her, and uttered a platitude about the weather in an
encouraging tone, which speedily changed, however, when she discovered
that he was actually “one of the hands.”
“The Bonifaces have no sense of what is fitting,” she said afterward to
her husband. “The idea of introducing one of the shopmen to me! I never
go into Loveday’s drawing-room without longing to leave behind me a book
on etiquette.”
“She’s a well-meaning soul,” said James Horner condescendingly. “But
countrified still, and unpolished. It’s strange after so many years of
London life.”
“Not strange at all,” retorted Mrs. Horner snappishly. “She never tries
to copy correct models, so how’s it likely her manners should improve.
I’m not at all partial to Cecil either. They’ll never make a stylish
girl of her with their ridiculous ideas about stays and all that. I’ll
be bound her waist’s a good five-and-twenty inches.”
“Oh, well, my dear, I really don’t see much to find fault with in
Cecil.”
“But I do,” said Mrs. Horner emphatically. “For all her quietness
there’s a deal of obstinacy about the girl. I should like to know what
she means to do with that criminal’s children that she has foisted on
the family! I detest people who are always doing _outré_ things like
that; it’s all of a piece with their fads about no stays and Jaeger’s
woolen clothes. The old customs are good enough for me, and I’m sure
rather than let myself grow as stout as Loveday I’d tight-lace night as
well as day.”
“She’s not much of a figure, it’s true.”
“Figure, indeed!” echoed his wife. “A feather-bed tied around with a
string, that’s what she is.”
“But she makes the house very comfortable, and always has a good table,”
said Mr. Horner reflectively.
His wife tossed her head and flushed angrily, for she knew quite well
that while the Bonifaces spent no more on housekeeping than she did,
their meals were always more tempting, more daintily arranged. She was
somehow destitute of the gift of devising nice little dinners, and could
by no means compass a pretty-looking supper.
“It seems to me, you know,” said James Horner, “that we go on year after
year in a dull round of beef and mutton, mutton and beef.”
“Well, really, Mr. H.,” she replied sharply, “if you want me to feed you
on game and all the delicacies of the season, you must give me a little
more cash, that’s all.”
“I never said that I wanted you to launch out into all the delicacies of
the season. Loveday doesn’t go in for anything extravagant; but somehow
one wearies of eternal beef and mutton. I wish they’d invent another
animal!”
“And till they do, I’ll thank you not to grumble, Mr. H. If there’s one
thing that seems to me downright unchristian it is to grumble at things.
Why, where’s that idiot of a coachman driving us to? It’s half a mile
further that way. He really must leave us; I can’t stand having a
servant one can’t depend on. He has no brains at all.”
She threw down the window and shouted a correction to the coachman, but
unluckily, in drawing in her head again, the lofty bonnet came violently
into contact with the roof of the carriage. “Dear! what a bother!” she
exclaimed. “There’s my osprey crushed all to nothing!”
“Well, Cecil would say it was a judgment on you,” said James Horner,
smiling. “Didn’t you hear what she was telling us just now? they kill
the parent birds by scores and leave the young ones to die of
starvation. It’s only in the breeding season that they can get those
feathers at all.”
“Pshaw! what do I care for a lot of silly little birds!” said Mrs.
Horner, passing her hand tenderly and anxiously over the crushed bonnet.
“I shall buy a fresh one on Monday, if it’s only to spite that girl;
she’s forever talking up some craze about people or animals being hurt.
It’s no affair of mine; my motto is ‘Live and let live’; and don’t be
forever ferreting up grievances.”
Frithiof breathed more freely when the Horners had left Rowan Tree
House, and indeed every one seemed to feel that a weight had been
removed, and a delightful sense of ease took possession of all.
“Cousin Georgina will wear ospreys to the bitter end, I prophesy,” said
Roy. “You’ll never convince her that anything she likes is really hard
on others.”
“Of course, many people have worn them before they knew of the cruelty,”
said Cecil, “but afterward I can’t think how they can.”
“You see, people as a rule don’t really care about pain at a distance,”
said Frithiof. “Torture thousands of these herons and egrets by a
lingering death, and though people know it is so they wont care; but
take one person within hearing of their cries, and that person will
wonder how any human being can be such a barbarian as to wear these
so-called ospreys.”
“I suppose it is that we are so very slow to realize pain that we don’t
actually see.”
“People don’t really want to stop pain till it makes them personally
uncomfortable,” replied Frithiof.
“That sounds horribly selfish.”
“Most things come round to selfishness when you trace them out.”
“Do you really quite think that? I don’t think it can be true, because
it is not of one’s self that one thinks in trying to do away with the
sufferings of the world; reformers always know that they will have to
endure a great deal of pain themselves, and it is the thought of
lessening it for others that makes them brave enough to go on.”
“But you must allow,” said Frithiof, “that to get up a big subscription
you must have a harrowing account of a catastrophe. You must stir
people’s hearts so that they wont be comfortable again till they have
given a guinea; it is their own pain that prompts them to act—their own
personal discomfort.”
“That may be, perhaps; but it is not altogether selfishness if they
really do give help; it must be a God-like thing that makes them want to
cure pain—a devil would gloat over it. Why should you call it
selfishness because the good pleases them? ‘_Le bien me plaît_’ was a
good enough motto for the Steadfast Prince, why not for the rest of us?”
“But is it orthodox, surely, to do what you dislike doing?”
“Yes,” struck in Roy, “like the nursery rhyme about
‘The twelve Miss Pellicoes they say were always taught
To do the thing they didn’t like, which means the thing they ought.’”
“But that seems to me exactly what is false,” said Cecil. “Surely we
have to grow into liking the right and the unselfish, and hating the
thing that only pleases the lower part of us?”
“But the growth is slow with most of us,” said Mr. Boniface. “There’s a
specimen for you,” and he glanced toward the door, where an altercation
was going on between Master Lance and the nurse who had come to fetch
him to bed.
“Oh, come, Lance, don’t make such a noise,” cried Cecil, crossing the
room and putting a stop to the sort of war-dance of rage and passion
which the little fellow was executing. “Why, what do you think would
happen to you if you were to sit up late?”
“What?” asked Lance, curiosity gaining the upper hand and checking the
frenzy of impatience which had possessed him.
“You would be a wretched little cross white child, and would never grow
up into a strong man. Don’t you want to grow big and strong so that you
can take care of Gwen?”
“And I’ll take care of you, too,” he said benevolently. “I’ll take you
all the way to Norway, and row you in a boat, and shoot the bears.”
Frithiof smiled.
“The trouble generally is to find bears to shoot.”
“Yes, but Cecil did see where a bear had made its bed up on Munkeggen,
didn’t you, Cecil?”
“Yes, yes, and you shall go with me some day,” she said, hurrying the
little fellow off because she thought the allusion to Munkeggen would
perhaps hurt Frithiof.
Roy was on the point of taking up the thread of conversation again about
Norway, but she promptly intervened.
“I don’t know how we shall cure Lance of dancing with rage like that; we
have the same scene every night.”
“You went the right way to work just now,” said Mr. Boniface. “You made
him understand why his own wishes must be thwarted; and you see he was
quite willing to believe what you said. You had a living proof of what
you were arguing—he did what he had once disliked because he saw that it
was the road to something higher, and better, and more really desirable
than his play down here. In time he will have a sort of respectful
liking for the road which once he hated.”
“The only drawback is,” said Frithiof, rather bitterly, “that he may
follow the road, and it may not lead him to what he expects; he may go
to bed like an angel, and yet, in spite of that, lose his health, or
grow up without a chance of taking you to Norway or shooting bears.”
“Well, what then?” said Cecil quietly. “It will have led him on in the
right direction, and if he is disappointed of just those particular
things, why, he must look further and higher.”
Frithiof thought of his dream and was silent.
“I’m going to make tea, Roy,” said Mrs. Boniface, laying down her
netting, “and you had better show Herr Falck his room. I hope you’ll
often come and spend Sunday with us,” she added, with a kindly glance at
the Norwegian.
In the evening they had music. Roy and Cecil both sung well; their
voices were not at all out of the common, but no pains had been spared
on their training, and Frithiof liked the comfortable, informal way in
which they sung one thing after another, treating him entirely as one of
the family.
“And now it is your turn,” said Cecil, after awhile. “Father, where is
that Amati that somebody sent you on approval? Perhaps Herr Falck would
try it?”
“Oh, do you play the violin?” said Mr. Boniface; “that is capital.
You’ll find it in my study cupboard, Cecil; stay, here’s the key.”
Frithiof protested that he was utterly out of practice, that it was
weeks since he had touched his violin, which had been left behind in
Norway; but when he actually saw the Amati he couldn’t resist it, and it
ended in his playing to Cecil’s accompaniment for the rest of the
evening.
To Cecil the hours seemed to fly, and Mrs. Boniface, after a preliminary
round of tidying up the room, came and stood by her, watching her bright
face with motherly contentment.
“Prayer time, darling,” she said, as the sonata came to an end; “and
since it’s Saturday night we mustn’t be late.”
“Ten o’clock already?” she exclaimed; “I had no idea it was so late!
What hymn will you have, father?”
“The Evening Hymn,” said Mr. Boniface; and Frithiof, wondering a little
what was going to happen, obediently took the place assigned him, saw
with some astonishment that four white-capped maid-servants had come
into the drawing-room and were sitting near the piano, and that Mr.
Boniface was turning over the leaves of a big Bible. He had a dim
recollection of having read something in an English poem about a similar
custom, and racked his brain to remember what it could be until the
words of a familiar psalm broke the stillness of the room, and recalled
him to the present.
“I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help,”
read Mr. Boniface. And as he went on, the beautiful old poem with its
tender, reassuring cadences somehow touched Frithiof, so that when they
stood up to sing “Glory to Thee, my God, this night,” he did not cavil
at each line as he would have done a little while before, but stood
listening reverently, conscious of a vague desire for something in which
he felt himself to be lacking. After all, the old beliefs which he had
dismissed so lightly from his mind were not without a power and a beauty
of their own.
“I wish I could be like these people,” he thought to himself, kneeling
for the first time for years.
And though he did not hear a word of the prayer, and could not honestly
have joined in it if he had heard, his mind was full of a longing which
he could not explain. The fact was that in the past he had troubled
himself very little about the matter, he had allowed the “Zeitgeist” to
drive him as it would, and following the fashion of his companions, with
a comfortable consciousness of having plenty to keep him in countenance,
he had thrown off the old faiths.
He owned as much to Cecil the next day when, after breakfast, they
chanced to be alone together for a few minutes.
“Have you found any Norwegian service in London, or will you come with
us?” she asked unconsciously.
“Oh,” he replied, “I gave up that sort of thing long ago, and while you
are out I will get on with some translation I have in hand.”
“I beg your pardon,” she said, coloring crimson; “I had no idea, or I
should not have asked.”
But there was not the faintest shade of annoyance in Frithiof’s face; he
seemed puzzled at her confusion.
“The services bored me so,” he explained. He did not add as he had done
to Blanche that in his opinion religion was only fit for women, perhaps
because it would have been difficult to make such a speech to Cecil, or
perhaps because the recollection of the previous evening still lingered
with him.
“Oh,” said Cecil, smiling as she recognized the boyishness of his
remark; “I suppose every one goes through a stage of being bored. Roy
used to hate Sunday when he was little; he used to have a Sunday pain
which came on quite regularly when we were starting to chapel, so that
he could stay at home.”
“I know you will all think me a shocking sinner to stay at home
translating this book,” said Frithiof.
“No, we shant,” said Cecil quietly. “If you thought it was right to go
to church of course you would go. You look at things differently.”
He was a little startled by her liberality.
“You assume by that that I always do what I know to be right,” he said,
smiling. “What makes you suppose any such thing?”
“I can’t tell you exactly; but don’t you think one has a sort of
instinct as to people? without really having heard anything about them,
one can often know that they are good or bad.”
“I think one is often horribly mistaken in people,” said Frithiof
moodily.
“Yes; sometimes one gets unfairly prejudiced, perhaps, by a mere
likeness to another person whom one dislikes. Oh, I quite allow that
this sort of instinct is not infallible.”
“You are much more liable to think too well of people than not well
enough,” said Frithiof. “You are a woman and have seen but little of the
world. Wait till you have been utterly deceived in some one, and then
your eyes will be opened, and you will see that most people are at heart
mean and selfish and contemptible.”
“But there is one thing that opens one’s eyes to see what is good in
people,” said Cecil. “You can’t love all humanity and yet think them
mean and contemptible, you soon see that they are worth a great deal.”
“It is as you said just now,” said Frithiof, after a minute’s silence,
“we look at things differently. You look at the world out of charitable
eyes. I look at it seeing its baseness and despising it. Some day you
will see that my view is correct; you will find that your kindly
judgments are wrong. Perhaps I shall be the first to undeceive you, for
you are utterly wrong about me. You think me good, but it is ten to one
that I go to the bad altogether; after all, it would be the easiest way
and the most amusing.”
He had gone on speaking recklessly, but Cecil felt much too keenly to be
checked by any conventionality as to the duty of talking only of surface
matters.
“You are unjust to the world, yourself included!” she exclaimed. “I
believe that you have too much of the hardy Norseman about you ever to
hanker after a life of ease and pleasure which must really ruin you.”
“That speech only shows that you have formed too high an estimate of our
national character,” said Frithiof. “Perhaps you don’t know that the
Norwegians are often drunkards?”
“Possibly; and so are the English; but, in spite of that, is not the
real national character true and noble and full of a sense of duty? What
I meant about you was that I think you do try to do the things you see
to be right. I never thought you were perfect.”
“Then if I do the things that I see to be right I can only see a very
little, that’s certain,” he said lightly.
“Exactly so,” she replied, unable to help laughing a little at his tone.
“And I think that you have been too lazy to take the trouble to try and
see more. However, that brings us round again to the things that bore
you. Would you like to write at this table in the window? You will be
quite quiet in here till dinner-time.”
She found him pens and ink, tore a soiled sheet off the blotting-pad,
drew up the blind so as to let in just enough sunshine, and then left
him to his translating.
“What a strange girl she is,” he thought to himself. “As frank and
outspoken as a boy, and yet with all sorts of little tender touches
about her. Sigrid would like her; they did take to one another at
Balholm, I remember.”
Then, with a bitter recollection of one who had eclipsed all others
during that happy week on the Sogne Fjord, the hard look came back to
his face, and taking up his pen he began to work doggedly at Herr
Sivertsen’s manuscript.
The next morning his new life began: he turned his back on the past and
deliberately made his downward step on the social ladder, which
nevertheless meant an upward step on the ladder of honesty and success.
Still there was no denying that the loss of position chafed him sorely;
he detested having to treat such a man as James Horner as his master and
employer; he resented the free-and-easy tone of the other men employed
on the premises. Mr. Horner, who was the sort of man who would have
patronized an archangel for the sake of showing off his own superior
affability, unluckily chanced to be in the shop a good deal during that
first week, and the new hand received a large share of his notice.
Frithiof’s native courtesy bore him up through a good deal, but at last
his pride got the better of him, and he made it so perfectly apparent to
the bumptious little man that he desired to have as little to do with
him as possible, that James Horner’s bland patronage speedily changed to
active dislike.
“What induced you to choose that Falck in Smith’s place?” he said to Mr.
Boniface, in a grumbling tone. He persisted in dropping the broad “a” in
Frithiof’s name, and pronouncing it as if it rhymed with “talc”—a sound
peculiarly offensive to Norwegian ears.
“He is a friend of Roy’s,” was the reply. “What is it that you dislike
about him? He seems to me likely to prove very efficient.”
“Oh, yes; he has his wits about him, perhaps rather too much so, but I
can’t stand the ridiculous airs the fellow gives himself. Order him to
do anything, and he’ll do it as haughtily as though he were master and I
servant; and as for treating him in a friendly way it’s impossible; he’s
as stand-offish as if he were a Crœsus instead of a poor beggar without
a penny to bless himself with.”
“He is a very reserved fellow,” said Mr. Boniface; “and you must
remember that this work is probably distasteful to him. You see he has
been accustomed to a very different position.”
“Why, his father was nothing but a fish merchant who went bankrupt.”
“But out in Norway merchants rank much more highly than with us.
Besides, the Falcks are of a very old family.”
“Well, really I never expected to hear such a radical as you speak up
for old family and all that nonsense,” said James Horner. “But I see you
are determined to befriend this fellow, so it’s no good my saying
anything against it. I hope you may find him all you expect. For my part
I consider him a most unpromising young man; there’s an aggressiveness
about his face and bearing that I don’t like at all. A dangerous,
headstrong sort of character, and not in the least fit for the position
you have given him.”
With which sweeping condemnation Mr. Horner left the room, and Roy, who
had kept a politic silence throughout the scene, threw down his pen and
went into a subdued fit of laughter.
“You should see them together, father, it’s as good as a play,” he
exclaimed. “Falck puts on his grand air and is crushingly polite the
moment Cousin James puts in an appearance, and that nettles him and he
becomes more and more vulgar and fussy, and so they go poking each other
up worse and worse every minute.”
“It’s very foolish of Falck,” said Mr. Boniface. “If he means to get on
in life, he will have to learn the art of rising above such paltry
annoyances as airs of patronage and manners that jar on him.”
Meanwhile, down below in the shop, Frithiof had forgotten his last
encounter with James Horner, and as he set things in order for the
Saturday afternoon closing, his thoughts were far away. He sorted music
and took down one portfolio after another mechanically, while all the
time it seemed to him that he was wandering with Blanche through the
sweet-scented pine woods, hearing her fresh, clear voice, looking into
the lovely eyes which had stolen his heart. The instant two o’clock
sounded the hour of his release, he snatched up his hat and hurried
away; his dreams of the past had taken so strong a hold upon him that he
felt he must try for at least one more sight of the face that haunted
him so persistently.
He had touched no food since early morning, but he could no more have
eaten at that moment than have turned aside in some other direction.
Feeling as though some power outside himself were drawing him onward, he
followed with scarcely a thought of the actual way, until he found
himself within sight of the Lancaster Gate House. A striped red and
white awning had been erected over the steps, he caught sight of it
through the trees, and his heart seemed to stand still. Hastily crossing
the wide road leading to the church, he gained a better view of the
pavement in front of Mr. Morgan’s house; dirty little street children
with eager faces were clustered about the railings, and nurse-maids with
perambulators flanked the red felt which made a pathway to the carriage
standing before the door. He turned sick and giddy.
“Fine doings there, sir,” remarked the crossing-sweeper, who was still
sweeping up the autumn leaves just as he had been doing when Frithiof
had passed him after his interview with Blanche. “They say the bride’s
an heiress and a beauty too. Well, well, it’s an unequal world!” and the
old man stopped to indulge in a paroxysm of coughing, then held out a
trembling hand.
“Got a copper about you, sir?” he asked.
Frithiof, just because the old man made that remark about an unequal
world, dropped a sixpence into the outstretched palm.
“God bless you, sir!” said the crossing-sweeper, beginning to sweep up
the fallen leaves with more spirit than ever.
“Violets, sir, sweet violets?” cried a girl, whose eye had caught the
gleam of the silver coin.
She held the basket toward him, but he shook his head and walked
hurriedly away toward the church. Yet the incident never left his
memory, and to the end of his life the scent of violets was hateful to
him. Like one in a nightmare, he reached the church door. The organ was
crashing out a jubilant march; there was a sort of subdued hum of eager
anticipation from the crowd of spectators.
“Are you a friend of the bride, sir?” asked an official.
“No,” he said icily.
“Then the side aisle, if you please, sir. The middle aisle is reserved
for friends only.”
He quietly took the place assigned him and waited. It did not seem real
to him, the crowded church, the whispering people; all that seemed real
was the horrible sense of expectation.
“Oh, it will be well worth seeing,” remarked a woman, who sat beside
him, to her companion. “They always manages things well in this place.
The last time I come it was to see Lady Graham’s funeral. Lor’! it was
jest beautiful! After all, there aint nothing that comes up to a real
good funeral. It’s so movin’ to the feelin’s, aint it?”
An icy numbness crept over him, a most appalling feeling of isolation.
“This is like dying,” he thought to himself. And then, because the
congregation stood up, he too dragged himself to his feet. The march had
changed to a hymn. White-robed choristers walked slowly up the middle
aisle; their words reached him distinctly:
“Still in the pure espousal,
Of Christian man and maid.”
Then suddenly he caught sight of the face which had more than once been
pressed to his, of the eyes which had lured him on so cruelly. It was
only for a moment. She passed by with her attendant bride-maids, and
black darkness seemed to fall upon him, though he stood there outwardly
calm, just like an indifferent spectator.
“Did you see her?” exclaimed his neighbor. “My! aint she jest pretty!
Satin dress, aint it?”
“No, bless your heart! not satin,” replied the other. “’Twas brocade,
and a guinea a yard, I shouldn’t wonder.”
Yet through all the whispering and the subdued noise of the great
congregation he could hear Blanche’s clear voice. “I will always trust
you,” she had said to him on Munkeggen. Now he heard her answer “I will”
to another question.
After that, prayers and hymns seemed all mixed up in a wild confusion.
Now and then, between the heads of the crowd, he caught a vision of a
slim, white-robed figure, and presently Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March”
was struck up, and he knew that she would pass down the aisle once more.
Would her face be turned in his direction? Yes; for a little child
scattered flowers before her, and she glanced round at it with a happy,
satisfied smile. As for Frithiof, he just stood there passively, and no
one watching him could have known of the fierce anguish that wrung his
heart. As a matter of fact, nobody observed him at all; he was a mere
unit in the crowd; and with human beings all round him, yet in absolute
loneliness, he passed out of the church into the chill autumnal air, to
“Take up his burden of life again,
Saying only, ‘It might have been.’”