Hardly had the bustle of departure quieted down at Rowan Tree House when
a fresh anxiety arose. Herr Sivertsen, who had for some time been out of
health, was seized with a fatal illness, and for three days and nights
Frithiof was unable to leave him; on the third night the old Norseman
passed quietly away, conscious to the last minute, and with his latest
breath inveighing against the degeneracy of the age.
“Frithiof is a rare exception,” he said, turning his dim eyes toward
Sigrid, who stood by the bedside. “And to him I leave all that I have.
As for the general run of young men nowadays—I wash my hands of them—a
worthless set—a degenerate—”
His voice died away, he sighed deeply, caught Frithiof’s hand in his,
and fell back on the pillow lifeless.
When the will was read it affirmed that Herr Sivertsen, who had no
relations living, had indeed left his property to Frithiof. The will was
terse and eccentric in the extreme, and seemed like one of the old man’s
own speeches, ending with the familiar words, “for he is one of the few
honest and hard-working men in a despicable generation.”
Naturally there was only one way to which Frithiof could think of
putting his legacy. Every penny of it went straight to his debt-fund.
Mr. Horner heard of it and groaned. “What!” he exclaimed, “pay away the
principal; hand over thousands of pounds in payment of debts that are
not even his own—debts that don’t affect his name! He ought to put the
money into this business, Boniface; it would only be a fitting way of
showing you his gratitude.”
“He put into the business what I value far more,” said Mr. Boniface. “He
put into it his honest Norwegian heart, and this legacy will save him
many years of hard, weary work and anxiety.”
When summer came it was arranged that they should go to Norway, and
Frithiof went about his work with such an air of relief and contentment,
that had it not been for one hidden anxiety Sigrid’s happiness would
have been complete.
Her marriage had been so extremely happy that she was less than ever
satisfied with the prospect that seemed to lie before Cecil. The secret
which she had found out at the time of Frithiof’s disgrace weighed upon
her now a good deal; she almost wished that Roy would guess it; but no
one else seemed to have any suspicion of it at all, and Sigrid of course
could not speak, partly because she was Frithiof’s sister, partly
because she had a strong feeling that to allude to that matter would be
to betray Cecil unfairly. Had she been a matchmaker she might have done
endless harm; had she been a reckless talker she would probably have
defeated her own ends; but happily she was neither, and though at times
she longed to give Frithiof a good shaking, when she saw him entirely
absorbed in his work and blind to all else, she managed to keep her own
counsel, and to await, though somewhat impatiently, whatever time should
bring. One evening it chanced that the brother and sister were alone for
a few minutes during the intervals of an amateur concert, which Cecil
had been asked to get up at Whitechapel.
“How do you think it has gone off?” said Sigrid, as he sat down beside
her in the little inner room.
“Capitally; Cecil ought to be congratulated,” he replied. “I am glad she
has had it on hand, for it must have taken her thoughts off the
children.”
“Yes,” said Sigrid; “anything that does that is worth something.”
“Yet she seems to me to have plenty of interests,” said Frithiof. “She
is never idle; she is a great reader.”
“Do you think books would ever satisfy a woman like Cecil?” exclaimed
Sigrid, with a touch of scorn in her voice.
He looked at her quickly, struck by something unusual in her tone, and
not at all understanding the little flush of hot color that had risen in
her face.
“Oh,” he said teasingly, “you think that every one has your ideal of
happiness, and cannot manage to exist without the equivalent of Roy and
baby, to say nothing of the house and garden.”
“I don’t think anything of the sort,” she protested, relieved by his
failure to appropriate to himself her rather unguarded speech.
“Norway will be the best thing in the world for her,” he said. “It is
the true panacea for all evils. Can you believe that in less than a week
we shall actually be at Bergen once more!”
And Sigrid, looking at his eager, blue eyes, and remembering his brave
struggles and long exile, could not find it in her heart to be angry
with him any more. Besides, he had been very thoughtful for Cecil just
lately, and seemed to have set his heart on making the projected tour in
Norway as nearly perfect as might be. To Sigrid there was a serious
drawback—she was obliged to leave her baby behind in England; however,
after the first wrench of parting, she managed to enjoy herself very
well, and Mrs. Boniface, who was to spend the six weeks of their absence
in Devonshire with some of her cousins, promised to take every possible
care of her little grandson, to telegraph now and then, and to write at
every opportunity. It had been impossible for Mr. Boniface to leave
London, but the two younger members of the firm, with Sigrid, Cecil, and
little Swanhild, made a very merry party, and Frithiof, at length free
from the load of his father’s debts, seemed suddenly to grow ten years
younger. Indeed, Sigrid, who for so long had seen her hopes for Cecil
defeated by the cares and toils brought by these same debts, began to
fear that now his extreme happiness in his freedom would quite suffice
to him, and that he would desire nothing further.
Certainly, for many years he had known nothing like the happiness of
that voyage, with its bright expectation, its sense of relief. To look
back on the feverish excitement of his voyage to England five years
before was like looking back into some other life; and if the world was
a graver and sadder place to him now than it had been long ago, he had
at any rate learned that life was not limited to three-score years and
ten, and had gained a far deeper happiness of which no one could rob
him. On the Wednesday night he slept little, and very early in the
morning was up on the wet and shining deck eagerly looking at the first
glimpse of his own country. His heart bounded within him when the red
roofs and gables of Stavanger came into sight, and he was the very first
to leap off the steamer, far too impatient to touch Norwegian soil once
more to dream of waiting for the more leisurely members of the party.
The quiet little town seemed still fast asleep; he scarcely met a soul
in the primitive streets with their neat wooden houses and their
delightful look of home. In a rapture of happiness he walked on drinking
down deep breaths of the fresh morning air, until coming at length to
the cathedral he caught sight of an old woman standing at the door, key
in hand.
He stopped and had a long conversation with her for the mere pleasure of
hearing his native tongue once more; he made her happy with a _kroner_
and enjoyed her grateful shake of the hand, then, partly to please her,
entered the cathedral. In the morning light, the severe beauty of the
old Norman nave was very impressive; he knelt for a minute or two, glad
to have the uninterrupted quiet of the great place before it had been
reached by any of the tourists. It came into his mind how, long ago, his
father’s last words to him had been “A happy return to Gammle Norge,”
how for so long those words had seemed to him the bitterest mockery—an
utter impossibility—and how, at last in a very strange and different
way, they had come true. He had come back, and, spite of all that had
intervened, he was happy.
Later in the day, when they slowly steamed into Bergen harbor and saw
once more the place that he had so often longed for, with its dear
familiar houses and spires, its lovely surrounding mountains, his
happiness was not without a strong touch of pain. For after all, though
the place remained, his home had gone forever, and though Herr Grönvold
stood waiting for them on the landing quay with the heartiest of
welcomes, yet he could not but feel a terrible blank.
Cecil read his face in a moment, and understood just what he was
feeling.
“Come and let us look for the luggage,” she said to Roy, wishing to
leave the three Norwegians to themselves for a few minutes.
“Rather different to our last arrival here,” said Roy brightly. He was
so very happy that it was hardly likely he should think just then of
other people. But as Cecil gave the assent which seemed so
matter-of-fact her eyes filled with tears, for she could not help
thinking of all the brightness of that first visit, of Frithiof with his
boyish gayety and light-heartedness, of the kindness and hospitality of
his father, of the pretty villa in Kalvedalen, of poor Blanche in her
innocent girlhood.
They were all to stay for a few days with the Grönvolds, and there was
now plenty of room for them, since Karen and the eldest son were married
and settled in homes of their own. Fru Grönvold and Sigrid met with the
utmost affection, and all the petty quarrels and vexations of the past
were forgotten; indeed, the very first evening they had a hearty laugh
over the recollection of their difference of opinion about Torvald
Lundgren.
“And, my dear” said Fru Grönvold, who was as usual knitting an
interminable stocking. “You need not feel at all anxious about him, he
is very happily married, and I think, yes, certainly can not help
owning, that he manages his household with a firmer hand than would
perhaps have suited you. He has a very pretty little wife who worships
the ground he treads on.”
“Which you see I could never have done,” said Sigrid merrily. “Poor
Torvald! I am very glad he is happily settled. Frithiof must go and see
him. How do you think Swanhild is looking, Auntie?”
“Very well and very pretty,” said Fru Grönvold. “One would naturally
suppose that, at her rather awkward age, she would have lost her good
looks, but she is as graceful as ever.”
“She is a very brave, hard-working little woman,” said Sigrid. “I told
you that she had begged so hard to stay on with Madame Lechertier that
we had consented. It would indeed have been hardly fair to take her away
all at once, when Madame had been so kind and helpful to us; and
Swanhild is very independent, you know, and declares that she must have
some sort of profession, and that to be a teacher of dancing is clearly
her vocation.”
“By and by, when she is grown up, she is going to keep my house,” said
Frithiof.
“No, no,” said Sigrid; “I shall never spare her, unless it is to get
married; you two would never get on by yourselves. By the by, I am sure
Cecil is keeping away from us on purpose; she went off on the plea of
reading for her half-hour society, but she has been gone quite a long
time. Go and find her, Frithiof, and tell her we very much want her.”
He went out and found Cecil comfortably installed in the dining-room
with her book.
“Have you not read enough?” he said. “We are very dull without you in
there.”
“I thought you would have so much to talk over together,” she said,
putting down her book and lifting her soft gray eyes to his.
“Not a bit,” he replied; “we are pining for music and want you to sing,
if you are not too tired. What learned book were you reading, after such
a journey? Plato?”
“A translation of the ‘Phaedo,’” she said. “There is such a strange
little bit here about pleasure being mixed with pain always.”
“Oh, they had found that out in those days, had they?” said Frithiof.
“Read the bit to me; for, to tell you the truth, it would fit in rather
well with this return to Bergen.”
Cecil turned over the pages and read the following speech of Socrates:
“‘How singular is the thing called pleasure, and how curiously related
to pain, which might be thought to be the opposite of it; for they never
come to man together, and yet he who pursues either of them is generally
compelled to take the other. They are two, and yet they grow together
out of one head or stem; and I cannot help thinking that if Æsop had
noticed them he would have made a fable about God trying to reconcile
their strife, and when he could not, he fastened their heads together;
and this is the reason why, when one comes the other follows.’”
“It’s odd to think that all these hundreds of years people have been
racking their brains to find some explanation of the great problem,”
said Frithiof, “that generation after generation of unsatisfied people
have lived and died.”
“A poor woman from East London once answered the problem to me quite
unconsciously,” said Cecil. “She was down in the country for change of
air, and she said to me, ‘It’s just like Paradise here, miss, and if it
could always go on it would be heaven.’”
He sighed.
“Come and sing me ‘Princessen,’” he said, “if you are really not too
tired. I am very much in the mood of that restless lady in the poem.”
And, in truth, often during those days at Bergen he was haunted by the
weird ending of the song—
“‘What _do_ I then want, my God?’ she cried
Then the sun went down.”
He had a good deal of business to see to, and the clearing off of the
debts was, of course, not without a considerable pleasure; he greatly
enjoyed, too, the hearty welcome of his old friends; but there was
always something wanting. For every street, every view, every inch of
the place was associated with his father, and, dearly as he loved
Bergen, he felt that he could not have borne to live in it again. He
seemed to find his chief happiness in lionizing Cecil, and sometimes,
when with her, the pain of the return was forgotten, and he so enjoyed
her admiration of his native city that he no longer felt the terrible
craving for his father’s presence. They went to Nestun, and wandered
about in the woods; they took Cecil to see the quaint old wooden church
from Fortun; they had a merry picnic at Fjessanger, and an early
expedition to the Bergen fish market, determined that Cecil should enjoy
that picturesque scene with the weather-beaten fishermen, the bargaining
housewives with their tin pails, the boats laden with their shining
wealth of fishes. Again and again, too, they walked up the beautiful
_fjeldveien_ to gain that wonderful bird’s-eye view over the town and
the harbor and the lakes. But perhaps no one was sorry when the visit
came to an end, and they were once more on their travels, going by sea
to Molde and thence to Naes.
It was quite late one evening that they steamed down the darkening
Romsdalsfjord. The great Romsdalshorn reared its dark head solemnly into
the calm sky, and everywhere peace seemed to reign. The steamer was
almost empty; Frithiof and Cecil stood alone at the forecastle end,
silently reveling in the exquisite view before them.
A thousand thoughts were seething in Frithiof’s mind; that first glimpse
of the Romsdalshorn had taken him back to the great crisis of his life;
in strange contrast to that peaceful scene he had a vision of a crowded
London street; in yet stranger contrast to his present happiness and
relief he once more looked into the past, and thought of his hopeless
misery, of his deadly peril, of the struggle he had gone through, of the
chance which had made him pause before the picture shop, and of his
recognition of the painting of his native mountains. Then he thought of
his first approach to Rowan Tree House on that dusky November afternoon,
and he thought of his strange dream of the beasts, and the precipice,
and the steep mountain-side, and the opening door with the Madonna and
Child framed in dazzling light. Just at that moment from behind the dark
purple mountains rose the great, golden-red moon. It was a sight never
to be forgotten, and the glow and glamour cast by it over the whole
scene was indescribable. Veblungsnaes with its busy wooden pier and its
dusky houses with here and there a light twinkling from a window; the
Romsdalshorn with its lofty peak, and the beautiful valley beyond bathed
in that sort of dim brightness and misty radiance which can be given by
nothing but the rising moon.
Frithiof turned and looked at Cecil.
She had taken off her hat that she might better enjoy the soft evening
breeze which was ruffling up her fair hair; her blue dress was one of
those shades which are called “new,” but which are not unlike the old
blue in which artists have always loved to paint the Madonna; her face
was very quiet and happy; the soft evening light seemed to etherealize
her.
“You will never know how much I owe to you,” he said impetuously. “Had
it not been for all that you did for me in the past I could not possibly
have been here to-night.”
She had been looking toward Veblungsnaes, but now she turned to him with
a glance so beautiful, so rapturously happy, that it seemed to waken new
life within him. He was so amazed at the strength of the passion which
suddenly took possession of him that for a time he could hardly believe
he was in real waking existence; this magical evening light, this
exquisite fjord with its well-known mountains, might well be the scenery
of some dream; and Cecil did not speak to him, she merely gave him that
one glance and smile, and then stood beside him silently, as though
there were no need of speech between them.
He was glad she was silent, for he dreaded lest anything should rouse
him and take him back to the dull, cold past—the past in which for so
long he had lived with his heart half dead, upheld only by the intention
of redeeming his father’s honor. To go back to that state would be
terrible; moreover, the aim no longer existed. The debts were paid—his
work was over, and yet his life lay before him.
Was it to be merely a business life—a long round of duty work? or was it
possible that love might glorify the every-day round—that even for him
this intense happiness, which as yet he could hardly believe to be real,
might actually dawn?
And the steamer glided on over the calm moonlit waters, and drew nearer
to Veblungsnaes, where an eager-faced crowd waited for the great event
of the day. A sudden terror seized Frithiof that some one would come to
their end of the steamer and break the spell that bound him, and then
the very fear itself made him realize that this was no dream, but a
great reality. Cecil was beside him, and he loved her—a new era had
begun in his life. He loved her, and grudged whatever could interfere
with that strange sense of nearness to her and of bliss in the
consciousness which had suddenly changed his whole world.
But no one came near them. Still they stood there—side by side, and the
steamer moved on peacefully once more, the silvery track still marking
the calm fjord till they reached the little boat that was to land them
at Naes. He wished that they could have gone on for hours, for as yet
the mere consciousness of his own love satisfied him—he wanted nothing
but the rapture of life after death—of brightness after gloom. When it
was no longer possible to prolong that strange, weird calm, he went,
like a man half awake, to see after the luggage, and presently, with an
odd, dazzled feeling found himself on the shore, where Herr Lossius, the
landlord, stood to welcome them.
“Which is the hotel?” asked Roy.
And Herr Lossius replied in his quaint, careful English, “It is yonder,
sir—that house just under the moon.”
“Did you ever hear such a poetical direction?” said Cecil, smiling as
they walked up the road together.
“It suits the evening very well,” said Frithiof. “I am glad he did not
say, ‘First turning to your right, second to your left, and keep
straight on,’ like a Londoner.”
But the “house under the moon,” though comfortable enough, did not prove
a good sleeping-place. All the night long Frithiof lay broad awake in
his quaint room, and at length, weary of staring at the picture of the
stag painted on the window-blind, he drew it up and lay looking out at
the dark Romsdalshorn, for the bed was placed across the window, and
commanded a beautiful view.
He could think of nothing but Cecil, of the strange, new insight that
had come to him so suddenly, of the marvel that, having known her so
long and so intimately, he had only just realized the beauty of her
character, with its tender, womanly grace, its quiet strength, its
steadfastness, and repose. Then came a wave of anxious doubt that drove
sleep farther than ever from him. It was no longer enough to be
conscious of his love for her. He began to wonder whether it was in the
least probable that she could ever care for him. Knowing the whole of
his past life, knowing his faults so well, was it likely that she would
ever dream of accepting his love?
He fell into great despondency; but the recollection of that sweet,
bright glance which she had given him in reply to his impetuous burst of
gratitude, reassured him; and when, later on, he met her at breakfast
his doubts were held at bay, and his hopes raised, not by anything that
she did or said, but by her mere presence.
Whether Sigrid at all guessed at the state of affairs and arranged
accordingly, or whether it was a mere chance, it so happened that for
the greater part of that day as they traveled through the beautiful
Romsdal, Frithiof and Cecil were together.
“What will you do?” said Cecil to herself, “when all this is over? How
will you go back to ordinary life when the tour is ended!”
But though she tried in this way to take the edge off her pleasure, she
could not do it. Afterward might take care of itself. There was no
possibility of realizing it now, she would enjoy to the full just the
present that was hers, the long talks with Frithiof, the delightful
sense of fellowship with him, the mutual enjoyment of that exquisite
valley.
And so they drove on, past Aak, with its lovely trees and its rippling
river, past the lovely Romsdalshorn, past the Troltinderne, with their
weird outline looming up against the blue sky like the battlements and
pinnacles of some magic city. About the middle of the day they reached
Horgheim, where it had been arranged that they should spend the night.
Frithiof was in a mood to find everything beautiful; he even admired the
rather bare-looking posting-station, just a long, brown, wooden house
with a high flight of steps to the door and seats on either side. On the
doorstep lay a fine white and tabby cat, which he declared he could
remember years before when they had visited the Romsdal.
“And that is very possible,” said the landlady, with a pleased look.
“For we have had him these fourteen years.”
Every one crowded round to look at this antiquated cat.
“What is his name?” asked Cecil, speaking in Norse.
“His name is Mons,” said the landlady, “Mons Horgheim.”
They all laughed at the thought of a cat with a surname, and then came a
general dispersion in quest of rooms. Cecil and Swanhild chose one which
looked out across a grassy slope to the river; the Rauma just at this
part is very still, and of a deep green color; beyond were jagged, gray
mountains and the moraine of a glacier covered here and there with birch
and juniper. Half-a-dozen little houses with grass-grown roofs nestled
at the foot, and near them were sweet-smelling hayfields and patches of
golden corn.
They dined merrily on salmon, wild strawberries, and cream, and then a
walk was proposed. Cecil, however, excused herself, saying that she had
letters to write home, and so it chanced that Frithiof and Sigrid had
what did not often fall to their lot in those days, the chance of a
quiet talk.
“What is wrong with you, dear old boy?” she said; for since they had
left Horgheim she could not but notice that he had grown grave and
absorbed.
“Nothing,” he said, with rather a forced laugh. But, though he tried to
resume his usual manner and talked with her and teased her playfully,
she knew that he had something on his mind, and half-hopefully,
half-fearfully, made one more attempt to win his confidence.
“Let us rest here in the shade,” she said, settling herself comfortably
under a silver birch. “Roy and Swanhild walk at such a pace that I think
we will let them have the first view of the Mongefos.”
He threw himself down on the grass beside her, and for a time there was
silence.
“You did not sleep last night,” she said presently.
“How do you know that?” he said, his color rising a little.
“Oh, I know it by your forehead. You were worrying over something. Come,
confess.”
He sat up and began to speak abruptly.
“I want to ask you a question,” he said, looking up the valley beyond
her and avoiding her eyes. “Do you think a man has any business to offer
to a woman a love which is not his first passion?”
“At one time I thought not,” said Sigrid. “But as I grew older and
understood things more it seemed to me different. I think there would be
few marriages in the world if we made a rule of that sort. And a woman
who really loved would lose sight of all selfishness and littleness and
jealousy just because of the strength of her love.”
He turned and looked straight into her eyes.
“And if I were to tell Cecil that I loved her, do you think she would at
any rate listen to me?”
“I am not going to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to that question,” said Sigrid,
suddenly bending forward and giving him a kiss—a salute almost unknown
between a Norwegian brother and sister. “But I will say instead ‘Go and
try.’”
“You think then—”
She sprang to her feet.
“I don’t think at all,” she said laughingly. “Good-by. I am going to
meet the others at the Mongefos, and you—you are going back to Horgheim.
Adjö.”
She waved her hand to him and walked resolutely away. He watched her out
of sight, then fell back again to his former position on the grass, and
thought. She had told him nothing and yet somehow had brought to him a
most wonderful sense of rest and peace.
Presently he got up, and began to retrace his steps along the valley.