The silence of death rested on the Gaard, and every one went about
softly in courtyard and house. The visitors had asked Mor Inga whether
or not she wished them to leave; but her message was that they might
stay if they pleased. Nevertheless, two or three of them, who resented
the presence of death, took themselves off at once; but their places
were filled up by a party of mountaineers who had come down from the
Dovrefjelde. One of them, so Knutty told her dear ones, was a Finnish
botanist, and he had found some rare flowers which had much excited him.
Knutty had a great deal of news to give; and it was obvious that she had
not been having a dull time.
"I began by reading the Scriptures to Bedstemor out of that remarkable
book bought in exchange for a black cow," she said, with a twinkle in
her eye. "That was truly enlivening, wasn't it? Then a lone, weird man
and his dog came down from the mountains. He had been fishing. He had
been on two Polar expeditions and his dog on one. The dog had just that
superior look and manner about him which would seem to proclaim that he
had been on the way to the North Pole. He seemed to be saying the whole
time, 'Don't dare to stroke me in that familiar way. I have been on a
Polar trip!' The man was more human, and told me a great deal. Then the
old Foged (under-magistrate) from the valley came to inquire about
Bedstefar. I flirted with him, and we drank aqua-vitae in the arbour.
Also I had my musical entertainment in my usual concert-hall, the
cowhouse. Also, Mor Inga was good enough to tell the milkmaids that they
might dance for me in the fladbröd-room. And beautifully they danced,
too! Their feet scarcely touched the floor! And then, dear ones, this
morning I had a great joy--a joy of joys--an English book to translate,
but not a novel, nor a problem play--nothing about the sexes for once.
Dear heaven, what a relief!--no--a book defending and explaining the
English people, written by a just and patriotic man, and to be
translated into all the Continental languages. And I am to do it into
Danish. Ah, I am a happy old woman--kille bukken, kille bukken, sullei,
sulleima! Nã, I long to finish it at once, and throw it at the
Sorenskriver's head!"
"We must deal gently with the Sorenskriver," said Katharine. "He has
been an old dear. He has been the life and soul of the Saeter
expedition. And he has not said one word against England."
"Because the old coward is afraid of the British lioness," Knutty said,
smiling at her. "You should have seen her, my Clifford, in the early
days here, standing up to the Sorenskriver and the fur-merchant from
Tromsö and overcoming them. And as for Ejnar, she has quite quelled him
too. We don't hear anything nowadays against Kew Gardens."
They all laughed, and handled the book each by turn almost lovingly. The
author would have been touched if he could have seen that little group
in a foreign land bending over his book, and thinking of him with pride
and gratitude.
"And if we feel grateful," Katharine said, "we, merely temporary and
willing exiles in a foreign country, imagine what the feelings of
enforced and permanent British exiles will be. I always have a great
sympathy with Britishers who have burnt their boats and are obliged to
live under a foreign flag. I would like to ship them all home."
"You would ship home many broken hearts," Clifford said.
"Well, the place for broken hearts is home," Katharine answered.
"I cannot say that the Saeter expedition has exhilarated any of you,"
remarked Knutty. "And you have not told me anything about it yet."
"You have been talking so much yourself, Tante," Gerda remarked.
"Kjaere," returned Knutty; "surely thou dost not wish me to be a
prisoner of silence like my Clifford?"
Her words brought Alan's impulsive outburst to the remembrance of both
Clifford and Katharine. They looked at each other. The boy was not
there.
"Knutty," said Clifford, "we saw Mrs Stanhope up at the Saeter."
"Well," she said, "you do say astounding things when you do speak."
He smiled gravely.
"Yes," he replied, "we saw Mrs Stanhope up at the Saeter."
But at that moment Ragnhild came into the verandah and touched Knutty on
the shoulder. She had not been crying, but she had on her pretty face
that awed expression which the presence of death in a community gives to
even the most unemotional. For death is a shock, and the mystery of it
holds us under its influence whether we be willing or not.
"Fröken," she said, "Bedstemor is asking for thee. No one will do except
only thee. And they have carried Bedstefar into the other house. And Mor
is very tired. Thou wilt come, ja?"
Tante went off with Ragnhild, and she had no further chance that evening
of talking with Clifford. But Katharine told her details of that strange
encounter up at the Saeter, and ended up by saying naïvely:
"And you know, Knutty, part of what Mrs Stanhope said is true, for I
have flirted tremendously in my time. At least, my brother always says
so."
"Well, my dear," Knutty said, embracing her, "and a good thing too! A
woman is not worth her salt if she does not know how to flirt. But all
women do know, though they call it by different names--taking an
interest in--making slippers for--embroidering waistcoats for--doing
mission work for--and so on, in an ascending scale of intensity, you
know, from the slipper business onwards and upwards to the postchaise,
or, I suppose we ought to say, motor-car in these advanced days. Don't
regret your flirtations! They have made you what you are--a darling!
Believe the word of a wicked old woman."
"I don't regret them!" Katharine said, as she went off to bed, laughing
quietly.
But the next morning Clifford gave Tante an account of the meeting with
Mrs Stanhope; and in the gentlest way possible Knutty confessed to him
that she knew Alan had been suffering and grieving over certain vague
ideas which Mrs Stanhope had planted in his mind when she saw him a day
or two before they sailed for America. Knutty did not tell him what
these ideas were; and he did not ask. But she described to him how
Katharine and she had seen the boy coming down from the hills in the
middle of the night, and how they had yearned to help him back to
happiness and ease of spirit.
"Then you knew that Alan had been worked on by Mrs Stanhope, and yet you
never gave a hint to me?" Clifford said.
"Ah," Knutty answered, "I had no heart to tell you. You were happy. It
is such a long time since I have seen you happy. I had no heart to wound
you."
"Alas!" said Clifford, "I have been thinking only of myself."
And he turned away from Knutty.
"It was not so at first," he said, as he turned to her again. "At first
I thought only about my boy, whom I had hurt and alienated by my selfish
outbreak just before his mother's death. I did all in my power to woo
him again. I grieved over his growing indifference to me. I said in the
bitterness of my heart, 'Marianne is between us.' On our travels I tried
to forget and ignore it. But I longed to return; for there were no
results of happiness to him or me from our journey and our close
companionship. When we were on our way home, my heart grew suddenly
lighter. And since that moment, I have been thinking only of
myself--myself, Knutty. I have scarcely noticed that the boy did not
want to be with me. I have not wanted to be with him. I have been
forgetting him."
"But we have not been forgetting him, she and I," Knutty said gently.
"Don't grieve. Every right-minded human being ought to have a spasm of
self occasionally."
He smiled and stooped down to kiss her kind old hand.
"And you saw the little fellow wandering about in the silence of the
night?" he asked sadly.
Knutty nodded.
"That stabs me more than anything," he said. "He is like me, Knutty. I
have taken most of my own sorrows out into the stillness of the night."
"Yes, kjaere," Knutty answered. "He is like you. It is a good thing for
me that I am not going to live long enough to know his grown-up son.
Three of exactly the same pattern--ak!--I couldn't stand that in one
lifetime!"
They were sitting on Tante's verandah, where she had established herself
with her writing-materials, her English dictionary, and the book which
she was translating.
"Have I really been such a burden to you?" he said a little wistfully,
playing with her pen.
"Ja, kjaere," she said, with a charming old smile. "You have been one of
those heavy burdens which are the true joy of silly old women like
myself."
And then she added:
"But for you, my spirit would be like a piece of dried fish in the
Stabur. Things being as they are, it is much more like one of those
tender fresh mountain-trout which Jens and Alan are going to catch for
poor Bedstefar's funeral. So be of good cheer, Clifford. You have done
me only good. All the same, three of you, no thank you! But I have
always yearned over the first--and I find myself yearning over the
second--yearning over that little chap! Ak, that metallic beast of a
woman! I'd like to break up her mechanism."
Clifford rose.
"Knutty," he said, "I have not asked you what she said, because I want
Alan to tell me himself. I am going to find him now."
When he reached the door of the verandah he paused.
"At least there is one thing that she could not have put into his heart
and head," he said, "because she did not know it--no one knows it--not
even you, Knutty, although I have tried to tell you times without
number. But it didn't come; and so the weeks have worn into months."
"Kjaere," she said, in real distress, "have you still anything on your
mind about poor Marianne?"
"Yes, Knutty," he answered, and he went away.
"Ak, ak," she said to herself, "It's just like that wretched Marianne to
be immortal."
She sat there puzzled and grave, but eventually made a great effort to
throw off worrying thoughts, and to focus her mind on the
translation-task.
Meanwhile Clifford passed up to his room thinking of his boy. He saw him
wandering on the hillside in the silence of the night. The picture which
thus rose before his mind's eye, touched him to the quick.
"We must put it all right between us," he said, "once and for all."
Then his door opened, and Alan came in.
"Father," he began shyly.
"My boy," Clifford said--and he put his hand on Alan's shoulder--"I
can't bear to think of you wandering about in the night alone, unhappy
and uncomforted. What is it that you have against me? What is it that
has been rankling in your mind? What is it that has made you drift
farther and farther away from me--I, alas! doing nothing to help you
back to me? I know Mrs Stanhope says unkind and unjust things against
me; but I never cared what she said, until I knew that my boy had turned
from me. Now I care."
"Oh, father," Alan cried, with a ring of distress in his voice, "I've
been so unhappy. I've tried to tell you dozens of times. You don't know
how I've longed to come and tell you."
"Yes, I do know," Clifford answered. "For I have tried to ask you time
after time, and could not. One night, before we started for America, I
bent over your bed, heard you sobbing in your dreams, and nearly woke
you to ask you what was troubling you--but I could not. It is awfully
hard for shut-up fellows like you and me to reach each other, isn't it?
But let's try now, this very moment; let's break the ice somehow. Tell
me everything, without fear and reserve; tell me everything; nothing can
wound me so much as being without our dear chumship."
Then the boy told him everything, bit by bit, in detached fragments; now
with painful effort, now with sudden ease. Clifford listened, his heart
grey. He had not expected the story to be as bad as this. He heard that
the boy had been terribly upset by his mother's death following
immediately on their conversation that day, when Clifford told him that
he intended to separate from Marianne. He had brooded over that. It was
so sad to think that his father had wanted to get rid of his mother, and
that she had died, alone, and no one caring. He had brooded over that.
Not at first, but after he had seen and spoken with Mrs Stanhope. He had
tried to forget what Mrs Stanhope said about his father having been
unkind to his mother, about his father having been the cause of his
mother's death. He could not forget it. He did not understand exactly
what she meant; but he had thought about it hours and hours, and he
remembered he had seen in the papers that his father had said at the
inquest that mother and he had had unhappy words together that very
evening; and then--and then all sorts of dreadful thoughts had come into
his mind, and he could not drive them away, and----
He stopped and looked at his father, who had begun to walk up and down
the room.
"Go on, my boy," Clifford said gently.
And the boy went on pitilessly, with the ruthlessness of youth, which is
unconscious, involuntary. As he gathered courage and confidence, he felt
the wild relief of freeing himself from his pent-up condition. And he
told his father he had begun to wonder more and more how his mother had
died--how she had died--and then he had remembered what Mrs Stanhope had
said to him about his sonship; he couldn't forget that--his sonship--and
he did not feel he ought to go on loving his father if there was any
doubt about the manner of his mother's death--no son could stand
that--and yet he had always loved his father so awfully, so awfully, and
he could not believe that he would have done anything to hurt his
mother; and yet he did not know--everything seemed so strange and
wrong--and he was so very unhappy, and the journey did not make things
better for him, for these dreadful thoughts were at the back of
everything he saw and heard--even on the sea, on that bully steamer; and
twice he had nearly run away--he wanted to get away by himself, away
from his father--yes, away from his father, because he could not bear to
be with him and feel----
He stopped again. Clifford stood still. His face was ashen.
"Go on," he said, almost inaudibly.
And Alan went on, and told his father how he had tried to leave him and
could not, and how he had tried to come and pour out his heart to him
and entreat him to say that it was not true what Mrs Stanhope had said.
But he could not. And old Knutty had urged him to come. But he could
not. And then, he did not know why, but lately he had been feeling
happier again, happier each day, and he had not been thinking so much
about--about his mother's death. And they had all been so jolly up at
the Saeter, until that beastly woman had come and spoilt everything; she
always had spoilt everything for them, and he hated her when he saw her
again, just as much as he ever used to hate her--and he hated her for
saying those beastly things against Miss Frensham, who was such a brick,
and----
A pang of jealousy shot through the man's heart.
"Ah," he said to himself bitterly, "he is up in arms for her."
"And, oh, father," cried the boy passionately, "I hate myself for
believing what she said against you--I don't know how I could have
thought anything bad of you; but I have, nearly the whole time since she
spoke to me about--about mother's death; and, oh, I've been so unhappy."
He had been sitting on the edge of his father's bed; and now, as if he
had suddenly come to an end of his powers of telling, he flung himself
lengthwise on the bed and turned his face to the wall.
For one moment Clifford hesitated. He would have given anything on earth
to have eased his mind then and there by telling the boy all the
circumstances of poor Marianne's tragic death. The old conviction that
he was responsible for Marianne's death assailed him once more. The old
battle between common-sense and morbid sensitiveness raged within him.
Was he responsible for Marianne's death? Was he not responsible for
Marianne's death? Was it his duty to tell the boy? Was it his duty to
spare the boy? Would it not be cruel to the boy to burden him with a
knowledge which he could not understand, and cruel to himself to risk
being hated and shunned by his own son? And for what--for what?--for a
fiction woven from the fine, frail threads of morbid conscientiousness.
But in spite of everything--oh, the luxury of opening his locked-up
heart--now--this moment!
Then a vision of the boy wandering alone on the hillside in the silence
of the night rose before him.
He went and sat on the bed where the boy lay, with his face turned to
the wall. He put his hand on Alan's arm.
"Alan," he said, "be comforted. There was nothing unnatural in your
mother's death; nothing which I humanly speaking, could have prevented.
Her heart was weak--weaker than she herself knew; but I knew--that was
why----"
He paused; for the dead are despots, and must not be spoken against.
"That was why I had always tried to keep her tranquil," he said.
The boy did not stir.
"I know what you have been thinking," Clifford went on. "I understand.
It was only right for you to have turned from me if such a terrible
thought had taken possession of you. If you had not done so, you would
not have been worthy to be called a mother's son. I know well how the
thought grew in your mind. It grew imperceptibly until it reached this
terrible size, didn't it?"
The boy moved his head in silent assent.
"But now you must get rid of it," Clifford said quietly, "because it is
not true. Your mother and I were not always happy together; things were
not always easy for her, nor sometimes quite easy for me, and I made
many mistakes, and I know I must have been very trying to
her--often--often--one thinks of all those mistakes when it is too late.
But, whatever I did do, or failed to do, I swear to you solemnly, that I
never meant to be unkind to her."
Alan turned impulsively round, threw his arms round his father's neck,
and whispered:
"Oh, father, I know you never were unkind to her."