The next day the wreathing mists which lightly swept the mountains had
gathered moisture enough to descend in thick rain. It fell
continuously, but was still so vapourish that there was as much white as
grey everywhere, and the sun behind the clouds suffused them with
dazzling light.
The broad fjord presented enchantingly ethereal and aerial effects. A
grey veil blurred the heights on its other side, but here and there a
mysterious gleam of whiteness shot out from their snowy summits,
radiantly piercing the gloom. Silvery lights fell across the faint grey
of the waters, which changed to opal nearer shore, and took in places a
clear transparent emerald-green. A rough ridge of stone walled in a
small harbour, and here were boats drawn up, black, green, white, sharp
points of contrast to the delicate half-tones beyond.
The covered balconies of the inn were thronged with dissatisfied
travellers, casting gloomy glances at the falling rain.
"Detestable climate," muttered Colonel Martyn, pulling up his coat
collar. He added to Wareham, "You're a lucky fellow to be getting out
of it. I wish I could."
"Don't be absurd, Tom," his wife retaliated. "The weather at home is
infinitely worse."
"I don't see it."
"You are like the ostrich. You bury your head."
The professor lifted his from a newspaper, with the sniff of a
war-horse.
"My dear Mrs Martyn, you don't credit that ridiculous fable?"
She raised her hands imploringly.
"Take it. I yield. The professor has got possession of a hundred
harmless illustrations, which he puts to the torture, and then gibbets."
"To be worth anything an illustration should be accurate."
Anne went to the rescue.
"We may struggle after truth, but accuracy--! Half-an-hour hence, and
unprepared, I defy the professor to repeat this conversation without an
error."
"Facts, facts!"
"Facts come to us thick with paint. Who will describe the view before
us? One person says `Beastly weather,' another is eloquent on the
loveliness of silver-grey. What, then?"
"The fact remains that it rains," said the professor, with a bow. He
was forbearing to Anne.
"Not a drop." Hugh turned round from contemplation, his laugh vigorous
and infectious.
"The ostrich is forfeit," confessed the professor gallantly. "To some
eyes it appears that he buries his head, others behold him running
upright. He is gone, and science with him. Am I forgiven?"
"You never asked me that question," said Mrs Martyn.
"My dear lady, you never gave me the opportunity."
While they laughed, Anne made a scarcely-perceptible sign to Wareham.
He came close.
"What takes you back in such a hurry to England?"
He hesitated.
"Is it business which I should not understand?"
"Business which I can't explain, would be nearer the truth."
She leaned forward, dropping her eyes.
"Mr Forbes says that all his endeavours to keep you have been in vain.
Are you inexorable? I believe we are going to the finest part of
Norway. But perhaps you are afraid of another _contretemps_ such as
that of Monday?"
His head whirled; he dared not look at her. In an odd, strained voice
he muttered something which sounded like "Perhaps." She took no notice,
but went on lightly--
"You need not have any fear. You will be amply protected. With Colonel
Martyn of the party, I defy any one to be late for anything."
He kept his eyes fixed on the opal waters, and stood up as stiffly as if
he had to receive the shock of a charge. Who to look at him would have
guessed that he felt as if all were lost? The ages have at least taught
man to keep his face like a mask.
"You are very good. Hugh will--will look after you. It is impossible
for me to stay."
He stammered, he did not know what he said, but he had not yielded, he
was sure he had not yielded.
The victor is too often represented as a fine fellow, marching away
self-contentedly to the sound of his own trumpets. Much more frequently
he is bruised and battered, nobody giving him so much as a cheer; while
his own discontented ideal scornfully holds up a mirror that he may not
deceive himself with vain imaginings. This a hero!--Poor
mud-bespattered figure! Just scraped through a conflict without utter
overthrow, standing upright, it may be, but in what condition! Nothing
to be proud of here. No subject for triumphal arches or laurel wreaths,
which, indeed, became ludicrous even in imagination. Fit only to creep
away, bind up his wounds as best he may, and cleanse himself from the
mud-stains, and say as little as possible of what has happened. And yet
a victor.
Wareham wandered about that day, seeing little of the others, and
especially avoiding Hugh. The misty rain continued, grey and silver
predominated everywhere about the fjord, but the mountains behind the
little village reared purple glooms into the cloud regions, and the
greens were vivid. The whole party were to go on board the steamer
which came in at seven or eight in the evening, and to separate at
Vadheim at one in the morning.
By the time they started the rain had ceased, and there were clear
lights about, though no gorgeous pomp of sunset. A chill was in the
air, suggesting wraps, and if adventurous spirits made excursions to the
upper deck, they soon retreated to the heap of luggage which offered
seats and comparative shelter. Anne had taken up a position between the
professor and the elderly lady. Hugh could not get at her, and mooned
about disconsolate. He went to Mrs Martyn, at last, in sheer despair;
she laughed at him.
"How many days has your satisfaction lasted, Mr Forbes? And do not
copy-books assure us that happiness is a shy goddess? Be indifferent.
That is your only chance of cajoling her to stay."
"As well say, be some one else. Won't you help me?"
"I would not if I could. Anne is charming as she is. Married, I don't
know which would be the most miserable--she or her husband."
"I would risk it."
"Of course. Because you have lost your head. I should not wonder if
the professor would risk it too."
Hugh began to laugh.
"You will be saying as much of Wareham in a minute."
"Do you mean that he owns to it?" asked Mrs Martyn innocently.
His laugh grew hilarious.
"No, no, no. The bare idea is too comic. I have never known him
smitten. He will not even consent to stay on with us, though Anne asked
him herself."
"And you have asked him also, no doubt?"
"In vain, though! I have never known him so stiff. If it had been any
one else, I should have suspected the attraction of Miss Ravenhill's
dimple."
Mrs Martyn gazed at him admiringly.
"How clear-sighted you men are!" she cried.
Hugh disclaimed modestly.
"Not we, for you women often puzzle us. But if I didn't know Wareham, I
don't know who should. He's been better than a brother to me, stuck by
me, and pulled me through a lot. Oh, hang that old man! If he's going
to monopolise Anne, I'll have a smoke meanwhile. You're coming down to
the feed, Mrs Martyn? May I choose your places?"
"Leave that to Mr Wareham," she called after him, with a laugh.
Wareham sat with the Ravenhills at the other table of the narrow cabin.
Anne's voice behind him sounded in his ears, so that he heard little
else, and gave himself the luxury of silence that he might listen to the
dear sounds. Mrs Ravenhill found him a dull companion, and raised her
eyebrows to Millie to indicate her opinion while she praised the salmon.
Youth had ousted age, and Hugh was at Anne's elbow, with irreverent
jests upon the professors dread of the cabin. The steamer had anchored
off a little village, to disembark a company of unkempt soldiers, and
was rolling steadily, to the discomfort of more than one.
"I looked into the ladies' cabin," said Anne. "It is not to be faced,
and I shall spend the night on deck."
"I too. But the night is not very long."
"True. I had forgotten. We land at one. Are you really coming with
us?"
"What else on earth should I do?"
"That is easily answered. Go home with your friend. Are you not his
_fidus Achates_? Don't you think it base to desert him?"
He dropped his voice into rapture.
"You don't expect me to prefer his society to yours!"
Mrs Martyn, who had quick ears, bestowed a mental smile on the
one-sidedness of friendship. Anne looked at him calmly, and remarked--
"You are an extraordinary boy."
He flushed and asked her not to call him a boy. She answered that she
thought him younger now than ever before. "It is only a boy that would
have shown so much rashness."
"How?"
"In hurling yourself upon us, as you have done. Unasked, except by your
faithful friend."
Threat lurked in her voice, and terrified him into instant humbleness.
"Forgive me."
"If I do, it is because you are what you disclaim, and not quite
responsible. The real offender should have remained to take care of
you."
"I don't need him, if you won't laugh at me too cruelly. Besides, do
you know that Dick is only three years my senior! Upon my honour,
that's all."
She made no remark on this, but changed her note to one more serious,
and therefore more alarming.
"Your coming with us is certain to revive talk--hush!--and I do not wish
that to happen. While you were here with another the fact was not so
pointed, but I did not realise that Mr Wareham proposed to leave you
altogether on our hands, and I do not like it."
"He will go," Hugh said gloomily. He began to see Wareham's departure
in a menacing light. "You know he told you so!"
"Oh, me, me!--Am I his friend? When he gave you wise advice, did he not
treat me in the light of a baleful ogress? However, there is no more to
be said, for if he will not make so small a concession for you--"
Her tones betrayed annoyance. Hugh's heart descended to his boots, and
he mentally resolved upon another and stronger argument with Wareham.
His path would not be strewn with roses, he began to see; at any rate,
if the roses were there, thorns also gave plentiful promise. And he
could not understand Wareham, on whom he would have counted for staunch
support in these prickly ways. Poor Hugh, whose lights were steady but
not brilliant, felt himself unable to comprehend either his friend or
Anne. At times she suffered his hope to sail like a kite, straining at
its cord, then with a jerk down came the poor flutterer, and dragged
helplessly on the ground. Up again, he forgot the downfall, and was as
unprepared as ever for disaster.
It was cold, sharply cold, on deck. People began to prepare for sleep.
Mrs Martyn betook herself to the ladies cabin; Mrs Ravenhill and
Millie stretched themselves on the ground in a small corner at the head
of the companion ladder. Anne barricaded herself amongst the small
luggage, and warned off Hugh, who wandered round disconsolate.
There was still clear light in the sky, though the horizontal layer of
clouds had grown dark, almost black. Black, too, were the low hills
which rose on either side of the broad Sogne; here and there a single
light gleamed out of the solitude; now and then a bubble of laughter
broke from a group on the deck. Hugh went in pursuit of Wareham, and
found him in the forepart of the vessel talking to a Norwegian gentleman
on the politics which were causing upheaval in the country. When he at
last walked away, Wareham remarked to his friend--
"Individually they are a strong nation, but our overgrown world now
requires quantity at the back of quality. Besides, they have no young
men."
"Why?"
"Emigration. The passion for their country remains, but only as a
sentiment. It does not bring them back to starve for her."
"They would be fools if it did," commented Hugh.
"True. But it requires fools to do great things. However, my Norwegian
is not quite of my opinion. He thinks the struggle with nature's
physical forces so tremendous that it exhausts the energy of the people.
In old days it flung them southward to conquer more promising lands.
This is no longer possible, and he holds that they must for the present
content themselves with crossing the seas and growing rich by the work
of their brains. The worst is that the men who return do not bring back
the fine qualities they took."
"You are interested in them?"
"They seem to me among the best people in the world."
"But you have seen so little!"
"One day I must come back."
"Look here, Dick, what a fellow you are!" Hugh exclaimed remonstrantly.
"There's nothing to take you home, and you won't stop, when you might
be of the greatest possible use to me. Anne is beginning to cut up
rough, because she thinks my staying on with them alone looks marked.
Do think better of it. You're not tied to those other people."
"I can't be uncivil to them."
"I claim you before them."
Wareham sighed wearily.
"Haven't we gone through it all? I tell you I know what I am about."
"That letter. It has something to do with that letter, I'll swear it
has! And what rubbish! As if anything you said could ever come between
us. Out with it, man; let's hear this mighty matter. Then perhaps
you'll stay and study your Norwegian in peace."
"My Norwegian must wait. The _Ceylon_ has me fast booked."
Hugh was put out.
"I never knew you so stiff!" he cried, with vexation in his tone.
"You must take my word that I have reasons."
"At any rate, you might give me one." Wareham was silent. Hugh kicked
at a rope.
"What on earth can I say to Anne?"
"You might be satisfied with your position," the other man went on,
disregarding. "A week ago you would have thought it bliss."
"So it is." Hugh rose on wings. "But if ever you'd been in love, you'd
understand that the uncertainty is awfully trying. After what happened
once, I shan't have a minute's peace until we're married. Now, when she
might have let me say something, she has sent me off."
Wareham was understood to mutter that no one could assist Hugh but Hugh
himself.
"Oh, I know, I know! Only I want to keep her pleased."
Three weeks before his friend would have flung out that if he couldn't
effect this preliminary he had better step aside and leave the lady to
please herself. Three weeks, however, had changed, if not his opinions,
at least his power of advancing them. Silence was again his refuge.
And Hugh meandered on.
"Perhaps old Martyn will say a good word for me. Suppose Anne says I am
not to go on with them!"
"Can't you take your dismissal?"
"_No_!" Hugh flung out the word with such energy that a passing sailor
looked round to see whether the quarrel was serious. Wareham recognised
and admired the tenacity.
"You've grip," he admitted. "It would take less to put me off."
The young man made no answer. They were nearing a landing-place, the
usual group stood there, only that at this hour they were dark shadows,
now and then flashed upon by a moving light; two boys in fur caps
carried great plates of wild strawberries. Hugh bought a couple, with
promise that the steamer should bring back the plates. He dashed off
with them to Anne, and was back in a moment.
"Happy hit, she likes them! But she wants you to come, too."
Wareham hesitated--went--with a shrug at his own weakness. Anne pushed
a camp stool in front of her.
"Sit there. Mr Forbes, please carry some to Mrs Ravenhill. They are
delicious."