“My dear, she is charming, your little Swanhild! She is a born dancer
and catches up everything with the greatest ease,” said Madame
Lechertier one autumn afternoon, when Sigrid at the usual time entered
the big, bare room where the classes were held. She was dressed at
madame’s request in her pretty peasant costume, and Swanhild, also, had
for the first time donned hers, which, unlike Sigrid’s, was made with
the shortest of skirts, and, as Madame Lechertier said, would prove an
admirable dress for a pupil teacher.
“You think she will really be of use to you, Madame?” asked Sigrid,
glancing to the far end of the big room, where the child was, for her
own amusement, practicing a step which she had just learnt. “If she is
no good we should not of course like her to take any money.”
“Yes, yes,” said Madame Lechertier, patting her on the shoulder
caressingly. “You are independent and proud, I know it well enough. But
I assure you, Swanhild will be a first-rate little teacher, and I am
delighted to have her. There is no longer any need for her to come to me
every morning, for I have taught her all that she will at present need,
and no doubt you are in a hurry for her to go on with her ordinary
schooling.”
“I have arranged for her to go to a high school, in the mornings, after
Christmas,” said Sigrid, “and she must, till then, work well at her
English or she will not take a good place. It will be a very busy life
for her, but then we are all of us strong and able to get through a good
deal.”
“And her work with me is purely physical and will not overtask her,”
said Madame, glancing with approving eyes at the pretty little figure at
the end of the room. “Dear little soul! she has the most perfect manners
I ever saw in a child! Her charm to me is that she is so bright and
unaffected. What is it, I wonder, that makes you Norwegians so
spontaneous? so perfectly simple and courteous?”
“In England,” said Sigrid, “people seem to me to have two sides, a rough
home side, and a polite society side. The Bonifaces reverse the order
and keep their beautiful side for home and a rather shy side for
society, but still they, like all the English people I have met, have
distinctly two manners. In Norway there is nothing of that. I think
perhaps we think less about the impression we are making; and I think
Norwegians more naturally respect each other.”
She was quite right; it was this beautiful respect, this reverence for
the rights and liberties of each other, that made the little home in the
model lodgings so happy; while her own sunny brightness and sweetness of
temper made the atmosphere wholesome. Frithiof, once more amid congenial
surroundings, seemed to regain his native courtesy, and though Mr.
Horner still disliked him, most of those with whom he daily came in
contact learnt at any rate to respect him, and readily forgave him his
past pride and haughtiness when they learnt how ill he had been and saw
what a change complete recovery had wrought in him.
Swanhild prospered well on that first Saturday afternoon, and Madame
Lechertier was quite satisfied with her little idea as to the Norwegian
costumes; the pretty foreigner at the piano, and the dainty little Norse
girl who danced so bewitchingly, caused quite a sensation in the class,
and the two sisters went home in high spirits, delighted to have pleased
their kind-hearted employer. They had only just returned and taken off
their walking things when there came a loud knock at the door. Swanhild
still in her Hardanger dress ran to see what was wanted, and could
hardly help laughing at the funny-looking old man who inquired whether
Frithiof were in.
“Still out, you say,” he panted; “very provoking. I specially wanted to
see him on a matter of urgency.”
“Will you not come in and wait?” said the child. “Frithiof will soon be
home.”
“Thank you,” said old Herr Sivertsen. “These stairs are terrible work. I
shall be glad not to have to climb them again. But houses are all alike
in London—all alike! Story after story, till they’re no better than the
Tower of Babel.”
Sigrid came forward with her pretty, bright greeting and made the old
man sit down by the fire.
“Frithiof has gone for a walk with a friend of his,” she explained. “But
he will be home in a few minutes. I always persuade him to take a good
walk on Saturday if possible.”
“In consequence of which he doesn’t get through half as much work for
me,” said Herr Sivertsen. “However, you are quite right. He needed more
exercise. Is he quite well again?”
“Quite well, thank you; though I suppose he will never be so strong as
he once was,” she said a little sadly. “You see, overwork and trouble
and poor living must in the long run injure even a strong man.”
“There are no strong men nowadays, it seems to me,” said the old author
gruffly. “They all knock up sooner or later—a degenerate race—a
worthless generation.”
“Well, the doctor says he must have had a very fine constitution to have
recovered so fast,” said Sigrid. “Still, I feel rather afraid sometimes
of his doing too much again. Were you going to suggest some more work
for him?”
“Yes, I was; but perhaps it is work in which you could help him,” said
Herr Sivertsen, and he explained to her his project.
“If only I could make time for it,” she cried. “But you see we all have
very busy lives. I have to see to the house almost entirely, and there
is always either mending or making in hand. And Swanhild and I are out
every afternoon at Madame Lechertier’s academy. By the by, that is why
we have on these peasant costumes, which must have surprised you.”
“It is a pretty dress, and takes me back to my old days at home,” said
Herr Sivertsen. “As to the work, do what you can of it, there is no
immediate hurry. Here comes your brother!” and the old man at once
button-holed Frithiof, while Roy, who had returned with him, was ready
enough to talk with Sigrid as she stood by the fire making toast, little
Swanhild in the mean time setting the table for afternoon tea, lighting
the lamp, and drawing the curtains.
Herr Sivertsen found himself drinking tea before he knew what he was
about, and the novelty of the little household quite shook him out of
his gruff surliness. Strange bygone memories came floating back to him
as he listened to the two girls’ merry talk, watched them as suddenly
they broke into an impromptu dance, and begged them to sing to him the
old tunes which for so many years he had not heard.
“I am sorry to say,” observed Sigrid, laughing, “that our next-door
neighbor, Mrs. Hallifield, tells me the general belief in the house is
that we belong to the Christy Minstrels. English people don’t seem to
understand that one can dance and sing at home for pure pleasure and not
professionally.”
After that the old author often paid them a visit, and they learned to
like him very much and to enjoy his tirades against the degenerate
modern race. And thus with hard work, enlivened now and then by a visit
to Rowan Tree House, or by a call from the Bonifaces, the winter slipped
by, and the trees grew green once more, and they were obliged to own
that even this smoky London had a beauty all its own.
“Did you ever see anything so lovely as all this pink may and yellow
laburnum?” cried Sigrid, as one spring evening she and Frithiof walked
westward to fulfill one of the evening engagements to which they had now
become pretty well accustomed.
“No; we had nothing equal to this at Bergen,” he admitted, and in very
good spirits they walked on, past the great wealthy houses; he with his
violin-case, and she with a big roll of music, well content with the
success they had worked hard to win, and not at all disposed to envy the
West End people. It was indeed a great treat to Sigrid to have a glimpse
of so different a life. She had toiled so often up the long stone
stairs, that to be shown up a wide, carpeted staircase, into which one’s
feet seemed to sink as into moss, was a delightful change, and snugly
ensconced in her little corner behind the piano, she liked to watch the
prettily decorated rooms and the arrival of the gayly dressed people.
Frithiof, who had at first greatly disliked this sort of work, had
become entirely accustomed to it: it no longer hurt his pride, for
Sigrid had nearly succeeded in converting him to her doctrine, that a
noble motive ennobles any work; and if ever things annoyed him or chafed
his independence, he thought of the debts at Bergen, and was once more
ready to endure anything. This evening he happened to be particularly
cheerful; things had gone well lately at the shop; his health was
increasing every day, and the home atmosphere had done a great deal to
banish the haunting thoughts of the past which in solitude had so preyed
on his mind. They discussed the people in Norwegian during the
intervals, and in a quiet way were contriving to get a good deal of fun
out of the evening, when suddenly their peace was invaded by the
unexpected sight of the very face which Frithiof had so strenuously
tried to exile from his thoughts. They had just finished a waltz. Sigrid
looked up from her music and saw, only a few yards distant from her, the
pretty willowy figure, the glowing face and dark eyes and siren-like
smile of Lady Romiaux. For a moment her heart seemed to stop beating,
then with a wild hope that possibly Frithiof might not have noticed her,
she turned to him with intense anxiety. But his profile looked as though
it were carved in white stone, and she saw only too plainly that the
hope was utterly vain.
“Frithiof,” she said in Norwegian, “you are faint. Go out into the cool
and get some water before the next dance.”
He seemed to hear her voice, but not to take in her words; there was a
dazed look in his face, and such despair in his eyes that her heart
failed her. All the terrible dread for his health again returned to her.
It seemed as if nothing could free him from the fatal influence which
Blanche had gained over him.
How she longed to get up and rush from the house! How she loathed that
woman who stood flirting with the empty-headed man standing at her side!
If it had not been for her perfidy how different all might now be!
“I can’t help hating her!” thought poor Sigrid. “She has ruined
Frithiof’s life, and now in one moment has undone the work of months.
She brought about my father’s failure; if she had been true we should
not now be toiling to pay off these terrible debts—hundreds of homes in
Bergen would have been saved from a cruel loss—and he—my father—he might
have been alive and well! How can I help hating her?”
At that moment Blanche happened to catch sight of them. The color
deepened in her cheeks.
“Have they come to that?” she thought. “Oh, poor things! How sorry I am
for them! Papa told me Herr Falck had failed; but to have sunk so low!
Well, since they lost all their money it was a mercy that all was over
between us. And yet, if I had been true to him—”
Her companion wondered what made her so silent all at once. But in truth
poor Blanche might well be silent, for into her mind there flashed a
dreadful vision of past sins; standing there in the ball-room in her gay
satin dress and glittering diamonds, there had come to her, almost for
the first time, a sense of responsibility for the evil she had wrought.
It was not Frithiof’s life alone that she had rendered miserable. She
had sinned far more deeply against her husband, and though in a sort of
bravado she tried to persuade herself that she cared for nothing, and
accepted the invitations sent her by the people who would still receive
her at their houses, she was all the time most wretched. So strangely
had good and evil tendencies been mingled in her nature that she caught
herself wondering sometimes whether she really was one woman; she had
her refined side and her vulgar side; she could be one day
tender-hearted and penitent, and the next day a hard woman of the world;
she could at one time be the Blanche of that light-hearted Norwegian
holiday, and at another the Lady Romiaux of notoriety.
“How extraordinary that I should chance to meet my Viking here!” she
thought to herself. “How very much older he looks! How very much his
face has altered! One would have thought that to come down in the world
would have cowed him a little; but it seems somehow to have given him
dignity. I positively feel afraid of him. I, who could once turn him
round my finger—I, for whom he would have died! How ridiculous of me to
be afraid! After all, I could soon get my old power over him if I chose
to try. I will go and speak to them; it would be rude not to notice them
in their new position, poor things.”
With a word of explanation to her partner she hastily crossed over to
the piano. But when she met Frithiof’s eyes her heart began to beat
painfully, and once more the feeling of fear returned to her. He looked
very grave, very sad, very determined. The greeting which she had
intended to speak died away on her lips; instead, she said, rather
falteringly:
“Will you tell me the name of the last waltz?”
He bowed, and began to turn over the pile of music to find the piece.
“Frithiof,” she whispered, “have you forgotten me? Have you nothing to
say to me?”
But he made as though he did not hear her, gravely handed her the music,
then, turning away, took up his violin and signed to Sigrid to begin the
next dance.
Poor Blanche was eagerly claimed by her next partner, and with burning
cheeks and eyes bright with unshed tears, was whirled off though her
feet seemed weighted and almost refused to keep time with that violin
whose tones seemed to tear her heart. “I have no longer any power over
him,” she thought. “I have so shocked and disgusted him that he will not
even recognize me—will not answer me when I speak to him! How much
nobler he is than these little toads with whom I have to dance, these
wretches who flatter me, yet all the time despise me in their hearts!
Oh, what a fool I have been to throw away a heart like that, to be
dazzled by a mere name, and, worst of all, to lose not only his love but
his respect! I shall see his face in a moment as we go past that corner.
There he is! How sad and stern he looks, and how resolutely he goes on
playing! I shall hate this tune all my life long. I have nothing left
but the power to give him pain—I who long to help him, who am tortured
by this regret!”
All this time she was answering the foolish words of her partner at
random. And the evening wore on, and she laughed mechanically and talked
by rote, and danced, oh, how wearily! thinking often of a description of
the Inferno she had lately seen in one of the magazines, in which the
people were obliged to go on pretending to amuse themselves, and
dancing, as she now danced, when they only longed to lie down and die.
“But, after all, I can stop,” she reflected. “I am not in the Inferno
yet—at least I suppose not, though I doubt if it can be much worse than
this. How pretty and innocent that little fair-haired girl looks—white
net and lilies of the valley; I should think it must be her first dance.
Will she ever grow like me, I wonder? Perhaps some one will say to her,
‘That is the celebrated Lady Romiaux.’ Perhaps she will read the
newspapers when the case comes on, as it must come soon. They may do her
terrible harm. Oh, if only I could undo the past! I never thought of all
this at the time. I never thought till now of any one but myself.”
That thought of the possibility of stopping the dismal mockery of
enjoyment came to her again, and she eagerly seized the first
opportunity of departure; but when once the strain of the excitement was
over her strength all at once evaporated. Feeling sick and faint, she
lay back in a cushioned chair in the cloak-room; her gold plush mantle
and the lace mantilla which she wore on her head made her look ghastly
pale, and the maid came up to her with anxious inquiries.
“It is nothing but neuralgia,” she replied wearily. “Let them call my
carriage.”
And then came a confused sound of wheels outside in the street and
shouts echoing through the night, while from above came the sound of the
dancers, and that resolute, indefatigable violin still going on with the
monotonous air of “Sir Roger de Coverley,” as though it were played by a
machine rather than by a man with a weary head and a heavy heart.
Blanche wandered back to recollections of Balholm; she saw that merry
throng in the inn parlor, she saw Ole Kvikne with his kindly smile, and
Herr Falck with his look of content, and she flew down the long lines of
merry dancers once more to meet Frithiof—the boyish, happy-looking
Frithiof with whom she had danced “Sir Roger” two years ago.
“Lady Romiaux’s carriage is at the door,” said a voice, and she hastily
got up, made her way through the brightly lighted hall, and with a sense
of relief stepped into her brougham. Still the violin played on, its gay
tune ringing out with that strange sadness which dance music at a
distance often suggests. Blanche could bear it no longer; she drew up
the carriage window, sank back into the corner, and broke into a
passionate fit of weeping.
It was quite possible for Lady Romiaux to go, but the dance was not yet
over, and Frithiof and Sigrid had, of course, to stay to the bitter end.
Sigrid, tired as she was herself, had hardly a thought for anything
except her twin. As that long, long evening wore on it seemed to her
that if possible she loved him better than she had ever done before; his
quiet endurance appealed to her very strongly, but for his sake she
eagerly wished for the end, for she saw by the look of his forehead that
one of his worst headaches had come on.
And at length the programme had been toiled through. She hurried
downstairs to put on her cloak and hat, rejoining Frithiof in a few
minutes in the crowded hall, where he stood looking, to her fond fancy,
a thousand times nobler and grander than any of the other men about him.
He gave a sigh of relief as they passed from the heated atmosphere of
the house into the cool darkness without. The stars were still visible,
but faint tokens of the coming dawn were already to be seen in the
eastern sky. The stillness was delightful after the noise of the music
and dancing, which had so jarred upon him; but he realized now how great
the strain had been, and even out here in the quiet night it seemed to
him that shadowy figures were being whirled past him, and that Blanche’s
eyes were still seeking him out.
“You are very tired?” asked Sigrid, slipping her arm into his.
“Yes, tired to death,” he said. “It is humiliating for a fellow to be
knocked up by so little.”
“I do not call it ‘little,’” she said eagerly. “You know quite well it
was neither the heat nor the work which tired you. Oh, Frithiof, how
could that woman dare to speak to you!”
“Hush!” he said sadly. “Talking only makes it worse. I wish you would
drive the thought out of my head with something else. Say me some
poetry—anything.”
“I hardly know what I can say unless it is an old poem that Cecil gave
me when we were at Rowan Tree House, but I don’t think it is in your
style quite.”
“Anything will do,” he said.
“Well, you shall have it then; it is an old fourteenth-century hymn.”
And in her clear voice she repeated the following lines as they walked
home through the deserted streets:
“Fighting the battle of life,
With a weary heart and head;
For in the midst of the strife
The banners of joy are fled!
Fled, and gone out of sight,
When I thought they were so near,
And the murmur of hope this night
Is dying away on my ear.
Fighting alone to-night,
With not even a stander-by
To cheer me on in the fight,
Or to hear me when I cry;
Only the Lord can hear,
Only the Lord can see,
The struggle within, how dark and drear,
Though quiet the outside be.
Lord, I would fain be still
And quiet behind my shield,
But make me to know Thy will,
For fear I should ever yield;
Even as now my hands,
So doth my folded will,
Lie waiting Thy commands,
Without one anxious thrill.
But as with sudden pain
My hands unfold and clasp,
So doth my will stand up again
And take its old firm grasp;
Nothing but perfect trust,
And love of Thy perfect will,
Can raise me out of the dust,
And bid my fears be still.
Oh, Lord, Thou hidest Thy face,
And the battle-clouds prevail;
Oh, grant me Thy sweet grace,
That I may not utterly fail.
Fighting alone to-night,
With what a beating heart!
Lord Jesus in the fight,
Oh! stand not Thou apart!”
He made no comment at all when she had ended the poem, but in truth it
had filled his mind with other thoughts. And the dim, dreary streets
through which they walked, and the gradually increasing light in the
east, seemed like a picture of his own life, for there dawned for him in
his sadness a clearer revelation of the Unseen than had ever before been
granted him.