There was a gloomy silence on the skerry about seven o'clock the next
morning, for the fishing on the shoals had been a failure on account
of the reasons stated by the commissioner. The fishermen were sitting
dejectedly in their boats and straightening out their nets, and now and
then picking out a solitary stromling, which was thrown on shore.
The traffic at the provision store had become less with the sinking
credit, and the preacher had laid aside his blue apron and with book
in hand had gathered a little group of despairing women around him in
a cottage. With an incomprehensible, but not unusual, logic among his
class he spoke of how Jesus fed five thousand men with five loaves and
two fishes. There was an approximate _à propos_ for so far as this case
was concerned there were many mouths and few fishes, but how these few
fishes could fill so many, that he could not indicate. Now that there
was no help, he must try and explain, why the miracle could not be done
again, and he found the reason in the prevailing unbelief. If they only
had faith as a grain of mustard seed, the miracle would be repeated.
And faith could only be gained by prayer.
Therefore he exhorted the community to pray.
Although none of those present believed in the miracle of the two
fishes, while the most of them had never heard of it, because they had
not read that story, they followed the example and repeated the Lord's
Prayer, which they had learned passably for the first holy communion.
But when they were half through, they were suddenly disturbed by a
noise from the harbor. Those who were sitting nearest the window now
saw a fishing boat, which had just furled its mainsail, and come up to
the pier. In the bow stood Miss Mary with fluttering hair beneath the
blue Scotch cap, and at the tiller sat the assistant waving his hat as
a sign of success. The boat was overloaded with nets, through the dark
meshes of which glittered fish upon fish.
"Come here, you shall have stromling," cried the girl with the
conqueror's munificence.
"If I am only permitted to measure them first, the people shall have
them," interposed the commissioner, who from his window had observed
the return of the boat and had therefore come down to see the result of
his labors.
"What good will that do?" said Miss Mary over-bearingly.
"It is for the statistics, my gracious lady," answered the commissioner
with no sign of discomposure, for he knew that the result of the
fishing had depended upon the information he had given, founded on
current, depth, temperature of the water and the condition of the
bottom.
"You with your statistics," joked Miss Mary with an expression of
deepest disgust.
"Take it, then, but only let me know afterwards how much there was,"
the commissioner finished the discussion with and went home.
"He is envious of us," remarked Miss Mary to the assistant.
"Perhaps jealous?" said he.
"That he surely cannot be," replied the girl half aloud as to herself,
thereby betraying that which she had hidden for several days, namely
her being provoked at her betrothed's incredible indifference towards
his rival which she had taken as an offending over-confidence in his
power to charm.
The prayer meeting had been broken up, and all the islanders gathered
around the returned fishing boat.
"Yes, see Miss Mary, you are a perfect man!" flatteringly said the
preacher, getting the chance of sowing a little seed of variance as he
believed.
"A sitting crow gets nothing," joked the custom house surveyor.
"One who lies on his sofa, he means," whispered the assistant to Miss
Mary.
The girl swelled at the praise, and distributed the fish with full
hands to those who stood on the pier, who never tired of breaking forth
in praise and blessings over the angel rescuer.
But it was not gratitude for benevolence received, which called forth
this beautiful emotion, it was a hearty desire to evade confessing
themselves wrong towards the commissioner, whose way of fishing they
had joked about. It was the reverse side of a hatred towards their real
benefactor, for whom they would not bow in gratitude.
When the fish was taken from the nets and distributed between the
poorest, there proved to be ten barrels, which were at once bought by
the provision dealer and salted down. The money was transferred at once
into coffee, sugar and beer. For they felt sure they could take their
own stromling for the winter out of the sea, since Miss Mary had given
them all the information regarding the new way of fishing with drifting
nets.
When the commissioner reached his room, he found a letter, which had
been brought by a coast guardsman returning home. It contained an
invitation for the commissioner and his betrothed to honor the ball of
the officers on board the corvette _Loke_, which would anchor beside
the skerry at eight o'clock of the same day.
He saw at once that the moment had come in which to make an end to the
engagement, for now to take the mistress of another into society and
introduce her as his future wife, naturally he would not. Therefore
he pulled off his engagement ring, and put it in a letter, which he
had composed the night before to the widow of the exchequer officer,
and in which he with the strongest expressions of despair regretted
that his engagement with Miss Mary must come to an end, because of a
former liaison, which he had recklessly entered into with a woman,
who had borne him children, and who now appeared with a lawful claim
which, if it could not compel him into a marriage with the plaintiff,
still had the power to prevent his union with another. As a gentleman,
but without intending to offend, he explained that he was prepared to
assist the innocently injured girl who was perhaps placed in distress,
both as far as the saving of her honor and her subsistence were
concerned.
This fiction he had found to be the only possible way to make a final
ending, as it protected the honor of both parties, but mostly that of
the girl, and must be irrevocable without the hope of reparation, being
an inevitable fate.
When he had sealed the letter, he whistled to his orderly, and gave
it to him telling him to carry it to the widow of the officer of the
exchequer.
Thereafter he lighted a cigarette and placed himself at the window to
see how the shot would strike. On the porch stood the old lady shaking
a mat, when the man stopped to deliver the letter. She received it
with some astonishment, which increased, when she with her left hand
squeezed the envelope to feel what it contained. Thereupon she turned
round and went into the cottage.
A moment thereafter Miss Mary's figure was seen to move to and fro
behind the lace curtains in the dining room. She seemed to walk
vehemently backwards and forwards, sometimes stopping and gesticulating
with her arms, as though she would defend herself against reproaches,
which were thrown at her.
This lasted about an hour, after which she was seen out on the porch,
throwing a revengeful glance up towards the commissioner's window.
After which she beckoned to the assistant, who was coming from the
harbor.
When they had both gone into the cottage and been invisible for half an
hour, they appeared again and went into the woodshed, from whence they
brought out a trunk and a knapsack.
So, they had considered it, and found that to tarry on the skerry
longer was impossible.
After a moment the assistant again appeared, this time carrying with
him his own trunk, which the commissioner recognized by its trimmings
of brass.
Thus he also intended to go.
Soon the owners of the cottage appeared with servants, and the whole
house seemed to be turned upside down.
Towards noon, after the commissioner had passed away the time with
reading, he saw the assistant and Miss Mary step out onto the porch,
and engage in a lively conversation, which became more so and was
followed by gestures, indicating a controversy.
"They must know each other pretty well, as they are quarreling
already," thought the commissioner.
In the afternoon the old lady and the assistant were on the pilot's
boat being taken out to an inward bound steamer. Why Miss Mary stayed,
he could not understand clearly. Perhaps with the hope of a renewal,
perhaps with a desire to show her spite or may be something else.
However, she placed herself at the window, so that she could be seen
from the custom house cottage. And there she sat most of the time,
sometimes drumming on the window pane, sometimes reading a book and now
and then raising her handkerchief to her face.
About seven o'clock in the evening the corvette was seen stealing
from Landsort's passage and going to anchor at once between Norsten
and East Skerries. When it signaled with the steam whistle for pilots,
the girl arose and came out to see what was going on; and as she now
stood on the slope, regarding the fine vessel, which was adorned for a
feast with flags on all stays and with colored awnings amidships, the
commissioner could see how she became fascinated by the alluring sight.
She stood with her hands behind her back in an unbecoming attitude,
until the wind brought to the skerry the tunes of a festival march,
when her feet began to move on the spot. Slowly the slender body bent
forwards, as if it was attracted by the tones of music, and then, at
once, the whole figure collapsed, the hands covered the face and the
girl rushed precipitately into the cottage, in despair like a child,
who had lost an expected pleasure.
The commissioner now dressed for the ball; on the black dress coat with
the doctor's insignia embroidered in black silk on the velvet collar,
he hung his six decorations of knighthood on a chain and put on his
bracelet, which he had not worn since the day of his engagement.
When he had finished his toilet and had still an hour left, before the
boat would come for him, he decided to make a farewell visit to Miss
Mary, mostly because he would not be suspected of cowardice, but also
because he was longing to test his power over his own feelings. As he
came into the hall he made a noise to give the girl time to pose in
order that he from this pose might learn the reason of her stay and
what her intentions were.
After knocking he entered and found Miss Mary sitting with sewing work,
something he had never seen in her hands before. Her face expressed
humiliation, regret and submission, although with an effort to look
indifferent and aristocratic.
"Will you see me, Miss Mary, or shall I go?" commenced the
commissioner. And he felt again the inexplicable desire to lift her
above himself as a woman, when she appeared with a woman's attributes
and leaned towards him, just as he otherwise felt an irresistible
desire to push her down, when she came with manly pretensions and
manners. At this moment she seemed more beautiful to him than he had
seen her for a long time, so that he gave way to his feelings, and
without making resistance he became approachable.
"I have caused you grief, Miss Mary...."
When she heard the softness in his voice she at once straightened up
and snapped:
"But you were too cowardly to come and tell me, yourself."
"Considerate, Miss Mary! It is not so easy for me as it is for you to
slap people's faces. And you see now, that I have the courage to show
myself, as well as you to receive me."
The last was ambiguous, with the purpose of hearing whether she
believed in his motive for breaking the engagement.
"Did you believe that I feared you?" asked she and took a stitch with
her needle.
"I did not know how you would take my explanation, although I thought I
knew that the sorrow which it might cause you would be easily consoled."
There lay something in the words "easily consoled," which seemed to
cut the girl as an allusion to the young consoler, but neither of them
seemed to have the desire to betray themselves; one feared to show
jealousy, and the other was anxious to learn, if he had seen anything.
The girl, who had sat at her work, now looked up to read the expression
in the face of her opponent and observed with a wonder which she could
not hide the many orders on the lapel of his dress coat. And with a
childish pettishness, which only hides envy, she sneered:
"How fine you are!"
"I shall be so at the ball!"
The girl's face twitched, twitched so terribly that the commissioner
felt the reflection of her pain and took hold of her hand at the same
moment that she broke out with a terrible cry. And when he leaned
towards her, she drew her head towards his chest and cried, so that she
shook as in a fever.
"Child!" the commissioner said soothingly.
"Yes, I am a child! Therefore you should have indulgence with me!"
sobbed the girl.
"Listen! How far shall one have indulgence with a child?"
"Infinitely!"
"No! I have never heard that! There is a perfectly determined limit,
where dissoluteness approaches criminal action."
"What do you mean?"
And now she jumped up.
"You know what I mean, I see that," answered the commissioner, who was
again free from the enchantment, for as soon as she became hard, at the
same moment she became ugly.
"Jealous, thus!" sneered the girl, who believed she had caught him.
"No, for jealousy is an uncalled for suspicion, sometimes a measure
of prudence, but my apprehensions have proved to be well founded.
Therefore I am not jealous!"
"And of a boy! A whelp, that you are standing so far above," continued
the girl without taking the explanation into consideration.
"So much the more ignominious for yourself!"
"Thus the whole story was a falsehood," she threw between to escape
being hit by the affront.
"From beginning to end! But I would not cause your mother sorrow and
yourself shame! Do you understand the delicacy?"
"Yes, I understand it! But I do not understand myself!"
"That I should be able to do, if you gave me a part of your past life!"
"My past life! What do you mean?"
"There exists then a past in your life! It was this I always suspected."
"You allow yourself to make insinuations...."
"As I have nothing further to do, with who you are or what you have
been, so ... Now I must say farewell!" the commissioner broke off, as
he saw a gunner out on the hill coming for him.
"Don't go away yet!" begged the girl and grasped his hand, looking into
his eyes with drowning glances. "Do not go away, for then I do not know
what I might do."
"Why torment ourselves longer, when separation is inevitable?"
"We will not torment ourselves! You shall stay with me this evening, so
that we can talk before we separate; I will narrate to you all that
you wish to know, and after that you will judge me differently."
The commissioner, who from this utterance believed he knew all and
was sure that he had escaped the misfortune of binding himself to the
mistress of one or more, now came to a decision. He went to the window,
and dismissed the gunner, saying that he would come later in his own
boat.
When this was done, he sat down on the sofa for the starting of a
conversation.
But after the girl was relieved of her uneasiness, she relaxed and
became almost speechless, so that finally there was perfect silence.
They had nothing to say to each other, and the fear of stirring up
storm birds oppressed more and more the feelings, so that tiresomeness
faced them.
The commissioner began to thumb the books, which were left on the
center table, and caught sight of one on which the assistant's name was
written.
"The story of a young woman, I believe I Have you read it?" asked he.
"No, I haven't had time yet. What is there about the book?"
"Well, it is remarkable because it was written by a woman and yet is
sincere."
"So! What is its contents then?"
"Its contents are about free love. There is a young scientist, who
becomes engaged to a girl free from prejudice; and while he is on an
expedition, she lends herself to an artist, while expecting later to
marry her betrothed."
"So? What does the authoress say about that?"
"She only laughs at that, of course."
"Fie!" said the girl and rose to go after a bottle of wine.
"Why so? No right of ownership in love! And, besides, her betrothed was
tiresome, at least in her company, to judge by the delineation in the
book."
"Now we are beginning to be tiresome, also," interrupted Miss Mary, as
she filled the glasses.
"What shall we amuse ourselves with then?" asked the lover with an
amorous smile, which could not be misunderstood. "Come now and sit down
here by me."
Instead of being offended at the coarse tone and gesture, which
accompanied the invitation, the girl seemed to look up to the man with
a certain admiration where before she had almost despised him for his
over-respectful manners.
The twilight had fallen, and the moon in its last quarter threw only a
yellow-green stripe in onto the floor, silhouetting the shadow of the
balsam.
Through the open window came the subdued tones of the first waltz,
"The Queen of the Ball," as a reproach, a greeting from the lost
Paradise, and at the same time sustained the hope that all was not
ended.
And in the hope of binding him by a memory of the highest bliss she
made the last concession after a stormy explanation of love on his
side.