"We shared. I claim the suggestion of dinner at Gudvangen. Mr Wareham
was too much overwhelmed by the misadventure to preserve his presence of
mind."
"But that was before starting. I can't conceive how you survived so
many hours!" Wareham perceived that the incident of the island had not
been offered to Mrs Martyn's consideration. His heart congratulated
itself. Hugh's indignation rushed in pointedly.
"It's true enough that Miss Dalrymple wanted something by the time she
got here." He muttered to Anne--"Much she had ready for you!"
"I think you were to be envied," Mrs Ravenhill said. "The fjord was so
beautiful that I hated being carried through it at a rush. And night
here is little more than a quiet day."
"Only too short," agreed Anne. "The sun was upon us before it seemed
possible."
Wareham's prescribed attitude of bystander did not preclude his sucking
in these little, sweets of comfort with delight. But Mrs Martyn had
not done with him.
"What were the charms of Gudvangen, Mr Wareham, which made you so
oblivious?"
"Poor Gudvangen! If you speak of it in that tone, I shall believe it
was you who bribed, the captain to start an hour earlier than his right
time."
Millie put in a fluttering word.
"It was a delightful place."
"To Mr Wareham's companions." Malice lurked in Mrs Martyn's
sentences. Millie coloured, Anne sat indifferent, Hugh it was who
answered.
"No wonder. But I get so called over the coals for want of punctuality
that I vow I can't help being tickled that Wareham should be the sinner.
How was it? Had a brown study got over him, Miss Dalrymple: Or did
anybody fall asleep?"
"I think we were all to blame," said Mrs Ravenhill kindly. "We should
have made sure that every one was on board. To tell the truth, I did
not for a moment believe that we had really started."
Anne spoke again, languidly.
"Is not the subject threadbare? You will force Mr Wareham or me into
invention of adventures, since there is nothing real to relate that we
can flatter ourselves would interest you."
The we and ourselves fell delightfully on Wareham's ears.
"My dear Anne, you don't do yourselves justice. Mr Forbes is dying to
know how you were occupied when you should have been at the steamer."
Anne lifted her eyebrows.
"Mr Forbes?" she said questioningly.
He hurried to disclaim.
"Not I. I am only glad you had Wareham to look after you." Under his
breath he grumbled, "Confound her!"
Why might he not be left alone? His own resources would carry him like
the trustiest steed through the tilting which he foresaw ahead, but to
be forced into a position he had no mind for, to be treated as though he
were a jealous ass, and so thrust against Anne's susceptibilities, was
sure to irritate her. If a wish could have swept Mrs Martyn out of
Norway, she would have found herself at this moment in England again.
Wareham, equally irritated, knew that it was for him to speak.
"It was simple enough," he said. "We had strolled out of sight or
hearing of the steamer, believing that she would not start for an hour
and a half. At the end of an hour we found you had all flown. We
wanted Colonel Martyn to look us up."
"Yes. Tom is always ready to undertake other people's business," said
Mrs Martyn, helping herself to marmalade.
"Do you expect him to-day?" Mrs Ravenhill put in, conscious that her
neighbour would prefer a change of subject.
"To-night at latest. Unless missing steamers should be in the air."
She looked meaningly at Wareham. He turned to Millie.
"Have you thought out any plans for to-day?"
"We meant to explore the place a little this morning, and go to
Fjaerland by the evening steamer. It is a pity we can't sleep there and
see the glaciers, but as it is we must just go up the fjord and down
again. Mother was out early this morning."
"Sketching?"
"Yes. She likes it immensely here."
"And you?"
"Not so well as Gudvangen. But it _is_ very nice, and"--
regretfully--"it is so near the end!"
"How?"
Millie sighed. That he should have forgotten that they were to start
for England on Friday, and this was Tuesday! But no ill-humour crept
into her voice.
"You know we go to Bergen to-morrow night, then home."
"I had forgotten," said Wareham, staring at his plate. "Isn't it a very
short stay?"
"Only a fortnight. But that I can hardly believe."
"Nor I."
"I suppose you will go further north, with the Martyns?" hazarded
Millie.
He said abruptly, "I know nothing," and checked her.
Their opposite neighbours rose and departed, Hugh flinging an ecstatic
look at Wareham as he went. Wareham's spirits sank to mute misery.
Anne's side allusions had been kindly, but she had not dropped one
direct word for him to live upon, and fear of letting honour slip must
prevent his seeking it. He writhed under the thought that she yet
believed him to have summoned Hugh, and a hundred voices within him
seeming to clamour for the right to put this one thing straight, he
found it hard to silence them.
Breakfast over, Mrs Ravenhill and Millie vanished, giving him to
understand that the sketch had to be finished.
"But I dare say we shall soon meet again," Mrs Ravenhill said, "for
here again there is not much choice of roads, and I am sitting humbly by
the roadside."
Wareham went off like a moth to get close to what hurt him.
She was not to be seen, however, nor Hugh either, so that though he was
not scorched, he suffered from another kind of smart, and it did not
soothe him to drop upon Mrs Martyn seated in one of the many balconies.
He would have escaped, but she saw and captured him.
"I want to speak to you, Mr Wareham; pray come and sit down. We shall
all be starting out in an hour's time. Meanwhile, here we may have a
few minutes' peace."
He could not excuse himself, and sat down reluctantly.
"I am not going to scold you about yesterday," she said, "although I
think you will allow I might."
"You do not accuse me, I hope, of premeditation?"
She professed not to be certain, but glancing at Wareham's face, dropped
her attempt at jocularity.
"I dare say it was Anne's fault. She is astonishingly wilful."
"I thought I had made it clear that the mistake was all my own. You
must be well aware that Miss Dalrymple had the right to be excessively
annoyed."
Mrs Martyn smiled.
"Anne would not trouble herself about talk, if that is what you mean.
She has proved herself absolutely indifferent. She will do the same
here."
Spite of himself, he looked up eagerly.
"Yes. Of course I speak of young Forbes. Her friends will not thank me
when they hear that I have allowed him to tack himself on to us."
The traitor in Wareham mentally blessed these friends, though his better
instincts forced him to say--
"Why? Hugh is an only son, his father a baronet, and he what the world
calls a good match."
Mrs Martyn turned her large fair face towards him, and raised her
eyebrows.
"Middling. No objection was made when Anne said she would marry him.
But she let matters go too far, even for her, this time, and naturally
they won't be pleased to have it all over again. Mr Forbes says you
telegraphed to him. I wish you had left it alone."
"Pray don't think I telegraphed to him to come. It was the last thing I
desired."
"I should have imagined so," said Mrs Martyn dryly.
Wareham bit his lip.
"One must keep a promise."
"Must one?"
"You will allow that the manner in which Miss Dalrymple broke off her
engagement was maddening for my friend? Not an interview, not a word,
only complete annihilation of all that had passed. Of course, from her
own point of view, she may have been justified. I say nothing of
blame."
Mrs Martyn smiled. Wareham had seldom found his own temper so tried as
in this interview. He felt as if her great hat had an irritating
personality, and crushed him.
"You may know, or you may not know, that the blow to him was so serious
that it brought me back from India."
"Isn't there such a thing as a ricochet?" asked Mrs Blanche innocently,
so innocently that the innocence tickled him.
"I am afraid there is," he admitted with candour. "Shall I go on?"
"Oh, by all means. You had just landed from India?"
"Miss Dalrymple allowed Hugh no communication. He could not even find
out where she went when she left London. It seemed to me that he had a
right to learn her reasons for dismissal, and I assured him when I
quitted him that he should hear from me if I had any news of her
whereabouts."
"I could not have believed that Lady Dalrymple's servants were so above
suspicion." Mrs Martyn heaved a sigh at recollection of her own.
He went on to say that finding Miss Dalrymple had crossed in the same
boat with himself, he telegraphed to Hugh from Stavanger. He knew of no
other course he could have taken. And he descanted on it, intending all
to be told to Anne. He finished up by repeating that no idea of Hugh's
coming had crossed his mind.
"I dare say not. Magnanimity has limits," she murmured.
Thinking it well to turn a deaf ear, he added that he had written a
letter of some importance to Mr Forbes from Stalheim.
"From Stalheim?" She appeared to meditate, looking at her own hands,
which were very small. Then her question flashed out.
"Was it to say you were in love with Anne?"
Wareham had got himself in hand by this time. He bowed.
"That or anything else you please, Mrs Martyn."
She asked whether the letter had reached Hugh.
"How should it? He left England immediately after my telegram, and
there has been no time."
Mrs Martyn looked out at the fjord, but Wareham saw her shoulders
shaking. Tragedy was uppermost with him, and at this proof of
heartlessness he thought appreciatively of Millie's padded glass. She
turned round, however, demurely composed.
"Won't it be a little inconvenient, by and by?"
He gazed loftily over her head.
"I don't know that we are immediately concerned with my letter. That,
at any rate, cannot be accused of bringing Hugh."
"I wish something would take him away again. I had not the smallest
intention of being mixed up with one of Anne's complicated affairs,"
cried Mrs Martyn.
The speech jarred.
"If his presence is disagreeable to Miss Dalrymple, she can certainly
send him off. He will have had his explanation. Perhaps it will prove
the shortest way out of the difficulty."
This laid him open to an embarrassing question, "What difficulty?"
Fortunately for Wareham, she did not wait for an answer before putting
another. "Are you a writer of books?"
"I can't deny it?"
"Yet read a woman's nature no better! Anne will not send him off."
"Accept him, then."
"Nor accept him."
"Paddles!"
"If you had studied the genus as you should for your profession, Mr
Wareham, you would not find the riddle hard to solve. Anne likes Mr
Forbes enough to like to have him about her, but she would not marry
him, because she could not endure fetters. Now she salves her
conscience by thinking that she has done her best to give him time to
recover; you and fate have baffled her, and she--will enjoy herself."