On the following Monday afternoon, Roy Boniface, pale and worn with all
that he had been through, paced the arrival platform at King’s Cross
Station. Already the train from Hull was signaled and he longed for
Sigrid’s advent, yet dreaded unspeakably the first few moments, the
hurried questions, the sad answers that must follow. The steamer had
been hindered by a fog, and the passengers had not been landed at Hull
until that morning, so that Sigrid had only had time to telegraph the
hour of her arrival, and had been unable to wait for a reply to tell her
of Frithiof’s state. He should have to tell her all—tell her amid the
unsympathizing crowd which jarred upon him even now; for during the last
few days he had lived so entirely with his patient that the outer world
seemed strange to him. His heart beat quickly as the engine darted into
sight and one carriage after another flitted past him. For a minute he
could nowhere see her; but hastening up the platform, and closely
scanning the travelers, he at length caught sight of the golden hair and
black dress which he had been imagining to himself, and heard the clear
voice saying, with something of Frithiof’s quiet decision:
“It is a black trunk from Hull, and the name is Falck.”
Roy came quickly forward, and the instant she caught sight of him all
her calmness vanished.
“Frithiof?” she asked, as he took her hand in his.
“He is still living,” said Roy, not daring to give an evasive answer to
the blue eyes which seemed to look into his very heart. Whether she had
feared the worst, or had hoped for better news, he could hardly tell;
she turned deathly white, and her lips quivered piteously.
“I will see to your luggage,” he said; “but before you go to him you
must have something to eat; I see you are quite worn out with the long
journey, and unless you are calm, you will only agitate him.”
She did not speak a word, but passively allowed him to take her to the
refreshment-room and get her some tea; she even made a faint effort to
attack the roll and butter which had been placed before her, but felt
too completely tired out to get on with it. Roy, seeing how matters
were, quietly drew the plate away, cut the roll into thin slices, and
himself spread them for her. It was months since they had parted at
Balholm as friendly fellow-travelers, yet it seemed now to Sigrid the
most natural thing in the world to depend on him, while he, at the first
glimpse of her questioning face, at the first grasp of her hand, had
realized that he loved her. After her lonely journey, with its lack of
sympathy, it was inexpressibly comforting to her to have beside her one
who seemed instantly to perceive just what she needed. To please him she
tried hard to eat and drink, and before long they were driving to
Vauxhall, and all fear lest she should break down was over.
“Now,” she said at last, “tell me more about his illness. What brought
it on?”
“The doctor says it must have been brought on by a great shock, and it
seems that he heard very sad news that day of Lady Romiaux.”
“I knew it was that wretched girl in some way,” cried Sigrid, clenching
her hand. “I wish she were dead!”
He was startled by her extreme bitterness, for by nature she was gentle,
and he had not expected such vehemence from her.
“She is, as Frithiof incessantly says, ‘Worse than dead,’” replied Roy.
“It is a miserable story. Apparently he got hold of some newspaper, read
it all, and was almost immediately broken down by it. They say he was
hardly himself when he left the shop that night, and the next evening,
when I saw him, I found him delirious.”
“It is his brain that is affected, then?” she faltered.
“Yes; he seems to have been out of health for a long time, but he never
would give way. All the troubles of last autumn told on him, and this
was merely, as they say, the last straw. But if only we could get him
any sleep, he might even now recover.”
“How long has he been without it?”
“I came to him on Tuesday evening; it was on the Monday that he read
that paragraph, just this day week, and he has never slept since then.
When did my telegram reach you, by the by?”
“Not until Thursday. You see, though you sent it on Wednesday morning,
yet it had to be forwarded from Bergen, as we were in an out-of-the-way
place on the Dovrefield.”
“And you have been traveling ever since? You must be terribly worn out.”
“Oh, the traveling was nothing; it was the terrible anxiety and the
slowness of everything that almost maddened one. But nothing matters
now. I am at least in time to see him.”
“This is the house where he is lodging,” said Roy as the cab drew up.
“Are you fit to go to him now, or had you not better rest first?”
“No, no, I must go to him directly,” she said. And, indeed, it seemed
that the excitement had taken away all her fatigue; her cheeks were
glowing, her eyes, though so wistful, were full of eagerness. She
followed him into the gloomy little house, spoke a courteous word or two
to Miss Charlotte, stood in the passage to receive her, and then hastily
mounted the stairs, and entered the darkened room where, instead of the
excitement which she had pictured to herself, there reigned an ominous
calm. A hospital nurse, whose sweet, strong face contrasted curiously
with her funereal garments, was sitting beside the mattresses, which for
greater convenience had been placed on the floor. Frithiof lay in the
absolute stillness of exhaustion, and Sigrid, who had never seen him
ill, was for a moment almost overcome. That he, who had always been so
strong, so daring, so full of life and spirit, should have sunk to this!
It seemed hardly possible that the thin, worn, haggard face on the
pillow could be the same face which had smiled on her last from the deck
of the steamer when he had started on that fatal visit to the Morgans.
He was talking incoherently, and twice she caught the name of Blanche.
“If she were here I could kill her!” she thought to herself; but the
fierce indignation died down almost instantly, for all the tenderness of
her womanly nature was called out by Frithiof’s need.
“Try if you can get him to take this,” said the nurse, handing her a cup
of beef-tea.
He took it passively, but evidently did not in the least recognize her.
It was only after some time had gone by that the tone of her voice and
the sound of his native tongue affected him. His eyes, which for so many
days had seen only the phantoms of his imagination, fixed themselves on
her face, and by degrees a light of recognition dawned in them.
“Sigrid!” he exclaimed, in a tone of such relief that tears started to
her eyes.
She bent down and kissed him.
“I have come to take care of you. And after you have been to sleep we
will have a long talk,” she said gently. “There, let me make your
pillows comfortable.”
Her presence, instead of exciting him to wonder or to ask questions,
acted upon him like a soothing spell.
“Talk,” he said. “It is so good to hear Norse once more.”
“I will talk if you will try to sleep. I will sit here and say you some
of Björnsen’s songs.” And, with his hand still in hers, she said, in her
quieting voice, “Jeg har sogt,” and “Olaf Trygvason,” and “Prinsessen.”
This last seemed specially to please him, and while, for the sixth time,
she was repeating it, Roy, who had been watching them intently, made her
a little sign, and, glancing down, she saw that Frithiof had fallen
asleep. No one stirred, for they all knew only too well how much
depended on that sleep. The nurse, who was one of those cheerful and
buoyant characters that live always in the present—and usually in the
present of others—mused over her three companions, and settled in her
practical mind the best means of relieving Sigrid without disturbing the
patient.
Sigrid herself was living in the past, and was watching sadly enough
Frithiof’s altered face. Could he ever again be the same strong, hardy,
dauntless fellow he had once been? She remembered how in the old days he
had come back from hunting fresh and invigorated when every one else had
been tired out. She thought of his room in the old home in Kalvedalen
with its guns and fishing-tackle, its reindeer skins and bear skins, its
cases of stuffed birds, all trophies of his prowess. And then she looked
round this dreary London room, and thought how wretched it must have
felt to him when night after night he returned to it and sat working at
translations in which he could take no sort of interest.
As for Roy, having lived for so many days in that sick-room with
scarcely a thought beyond it, he had now plunged into a sudden reaction;
a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Sigrid had come, and
with one bound he had stepped into a bright future; a future in which he
could always watch the fair, womanly face now before him; a future in
which he should have the right to serve and help her, to shield her from
care and turn her poverty to wealth. But that last thought brought a
certain anxiety with it. For he fancied that Sigrid was not without a
share of Frithiof’s independent pride. If once she could love him the
question of money could, of course, make no difference, but he feared
that her pride might perhaps make out of her poverty and his riches a
barrier which should shut out even the thought of love.
Of all those who were gathered together in that room, Frithiof was the
most entirely at rest, for at last there had come to his relief the
priceless gift of dreamless and unbroken sleep. For just as the
spiritual life dies within us if we become absorbed in the things of
this world and neglect the timeless calm which is our true state, so the
body and mind sink if they cannot for brief intervals escape out of the
bonds of time into the realms of sleep. The others lived in past,
present, or future, but Frithiof lay in that blissful state of entire
repose which builds up, all unconsciously to ourselves, the very fibers
of our being. What happens to us in sleep that we wake once more like
new beings? No one can exactly explain. What happens to us when
“We kneel how weak, we rise how full of power”?
No one can precisely tell us. But the facts remain. By these means are
body and spirit renewed.
For the next day or two Frithiof realized little. To the surprise and
delight of all he slept almost incessantly, waking only to take food, to
make sure that Sigrid was with him, and to enjoy a delicious sense of
ease and relief.
“He is out of the wood now,” said Dr. Morris cheerfully. “You came just
in time, Miss Falck. But I will give you one piece of advice: if
possible stay in England and make your home with him; he ought not to be
so much alone.”
“You think that he may have such an attack again?” asked Sigrid
wistfully.
“No, I don’t say that at all. He has a wonderful constitution, and there
is no reason why he should ever break down again. But he is more likely
to get depressed if he is alone, and you will be able to prevent his
life from growing too monotonous.”
So as she lived through those quiet days in the sick-room, Sigrid racked
her brain to think of some way of making money, and searched, as so many
women have done before her, the columns of the newspapers, and made
fruitless inquiries, and wasted both time and money in the attempt. One
day Roy, coming in at his usual hour in the morning to relieve guard,
brought her a fat envelope which he had found waiting for her in the
hall. She opened it eagerly, and made a little exclamation of
disappointment and vexation.
“Anything wrong?” he asked.
She began to laugh, though he fancied he saw tears in her eyes. “Oh,”
she said, “it seems so ridiculous when I had been expecting such great
things from it. You know I have been trying to hear of work in London,
and there was an advertisement in the paper which said that two pounds a
week might easily be realized either by men or women without interfering
with their present occupations, and that all particulars would be given
on the receipt of eighteen-pence. So I sent the money, and here is a
wretched aluminium pencil in return, and I am to make this two pounds a
week by getting orders for them.”
The absurdity of the whole thing struck her more forcibly and she
laughed again more merrily; Roy laughed too.
“Have you made any other attempts?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” said Sigrid, “I began to try in Norway, and even attempted a
story and sent it to one of our best novelists to ask his opinion.”
“And what did he say?”
“Well,” she said, smiling, “he wrote back very kindly, but said that he
could not conscientiously recommend any one to write stories whose sole
idea in taking up the profession was the making of money. My conscience
pricked me there, and so I never tried writing again and never will.
Then the other day I wrote to another place which advertised, and got
back a stupid bundle of embroidery patterns. It is mere waste of money
answering these things. They say a woman can earn a guinea a time by
shaving poodles, but you see I have no experience of poodles,” and she
laughed merrily.
Roy sat musing over the perplexities of ordinary life. Here was he with
more money than he knew what to do with, and here was the woman he loved
struggling in vain to earn a few shillings. Yet, the mere fact that he
worshiped her made him chivalrously careful to avoid laying her under
any obligation. As far as possible he would serve her, but in this vital
question of money it seemed that he could only stand aside and watch her
efforts. Nor did he dare to confess the truth to her as yet, for he
perceived quite plainly that she was absorbed in Frithiof, and could not
possibly for some time to come be free even to consider her own personal
life. Clearly at present she regarded him with that frank friendliness
which he remembered well at Balholm, and in his helpfulness had
discerned nothing that need be construed as the attentions of a lover.
After all he was her brother’s sole friend in England, and it was
natural enough that he should do all that he could for them.
“My father and mother come home to-night,” he said at length, “and if
you will allow me I will ask them if they know of anything likely to
suit you. Cecil will be very anxious to meet you again. Don’t you think
you might go for a drive with her to-morrow afternoon? I would be here
with your brother.”
“Oh, I should so like to meet her again,” said Sigrid, “we all liked her
so much last summer. I don’t feel that I really know her at all yet, for
she is not very easy to know, but she interested me just because of
that.”
“I don’t think any one can know Cecil who has not lived with her,” said
Roy, “she is so very reserved.”
“Yes; at first I thought she was just gentle and quiet without very much
of character, but one day when we were out together we tried to get some
branches of willow. They were so stiff to break that I lazily gave up,
but she held on to hers with a strong look in her face which quite
startled me, and said, ‘I can’t be beaten just by a branch.’”
“That is Cecil all over,” said Roy, smiling; “she never would let
anything daunt her. May I tell her that you will see her to-morrow?”
Sigrid gladly assented, and the next day both Mrs. Boniface and Cecil
drove to the little house at Vauxhall. Roy brought Sigrid down to the
carriage, and with a very happy, satisfied feeling introduced her to his
mother, and watched the warm meeting with Cecil.
“I can’t think what would have become of Frithiof if it had not been for
all your kindness,” said Sigrid. “Your son has practically saved his
life, I am sure, by taking care of him through this illness.”
“And the worst is over now, I hope,” said Mrs. Boniface. “That is such a
comfort.”
At the first moment Sigrid had fallen in love with the sweet-natured,
motherly old lady, and now she opened all her heart to her, and they
discussed the sad cause of Frithiof’s breakdown, and talked of past days
in Norway, and of the future that lay before him, Cecil listening with
that absolute command of countenance which betokens a strong nature, and
her companions little dreaming that their words, though eagerly heard,
were like so many sword-thrusts to her. The neat brougham of the
successful tradesman might have seemed prosaic enough, and an unlikely
place in which to find any romance, but nevertheless the three occupants
with their joys and sorrows, their hopes and fears, were each living out
an absorbing life story. For every heart has its own romance, and
whether living in the fierce glare of a palace, in the whirl of society,
in a quiet London suburb, or in an East-end court, it is all the same.
The details differ, the accessories are strangely different, but the
love which is the great mainspring of life is precisely the same all the
world over.
“What makes me so miserable,” said Sigrid, “is to feel that his life is,
as it were, over, though he is so young: it has been spoiled and ruined
for him when he is but one-and-twenty.”
“But the very fact of his being so young seems to me to give hope that
brighter things are in store for him,” said Mrs. Boniface.
“I do not think so,” said Sigrid. “That girl has taken something from
him which can never come again: it does not seem to me possible that a
man can love like that twice in a lifetime.”
“Perhaps not just in that way,” said Mrs. Boniface.
“And besides,” said Sigrid, “what girl would care to take such love as
he might now be able to give? I am sure nothing would induce me to
accept any secondary love of that kind.”
She spoke as a perfectly heart-whole girl, frankly and unreservedly. And
what she said was true. She never could have been satisfied with less
than the whole; it was her nature to exact much; she could love very
devotedly, but she would jealously demand an equal devotion in return.
Now Cecil was of a wholly different type. Already love had taken
possession of her, it had stolen into her heart almost unconsciously and
had brought grave shadows into her quiet life, shadows cast by the
sorrow of another. Her notion of love was simply freedom to love and
serve; to give her this freedom there must of course be true love on the
other side, but of its kind or of its degree she would never trouble
herself to think. For already her love was so pure and deep that it
rendered her almost selfless. Sigrid’s speech troubled her for a minute
or two; if one girl could speak so, why not all girls? Was she perhaps
less truly womanly that she thought less of what was owing to herself?
“It may be so,” she admitted, yet with a latent consciousness that so
infinite a thing as love could not be bound by any hard and fast rules.
“But I cannot help it. Whether it is womanly or not, I would die to give
him the least real comfort.”
“Tell Harris to stop, Cecil,” said Mrs. Boniface. “We will get some
grapes for Mr. Falck.”
And glad to escape from the carriage for a minute, and glad, too, to be
of use even in such a far-off way, Cecil went into the fruiterer’s,
returning before long with a beautiful basket of grapes and flowers.