Sandy still remained lost in astonishment. “Then ye don’t believe that he made awa’ wi’ his wife?” he inquired slowly.
“Not in the least!” returned Lorimer decidedly; “neither will you, to-morrow, when you see him. He’s a great deal better up in literature than you are, my boy, I’d swear, judging from the books he has. And when he mentioned his wife, as he did once, you could see in his face he had never done her any harm. Besides, his daughter—”
“Ah! but I forgot,” interposed Duprèz again. “The daughter, Thelma, was the child the mysteriously vanished lady carried in her arms, wandering with it all about the woods and hills. After her disappearance, another thing extraordinary happens. The child also disappears, and Monsieur Güldmar lives alone, avoided carefully by every respectable person. Suddenly the child returns, grown to be nearly a woman — and they say, lovely to an almost impossible extreme. She lives with her father. She, like her strange mother, never enters a church, town, or village — nowhere, in fact, where persons are in any numbers. Three years ago, it appears, she vanished again, but came back at the end of ten months, lovelier than ever. Since then she has remained quiet — composed — but always apart, — she may disappear at any moment. Droll, is it not, Errington? and the reputation she has is natural!”
“Pray state it,” said Philip, with freezing coldness. “The reputation of a woman is nothing nowadays. Fair game — go on!”
But his face was pale, and his eyes blazed dangerously. Almost unconsciously his hand toyed with the rose Thelma had given him, that still ornamented his button-hole.
“Mon Dieu!” cried Duprèz in amazement. “But look not at me like that! It seems to displease you, to put you en fureur, what I say! It is not my story, — it is not I, — I know not Mademoiselle Güldmar. But as her beauty is considered superhuman, they say it is the devil who is her parfumeur, her coiffeur, and who sees after her complexion; in brief, she is thought to be a witch in full practice, dangerous to life and limb.”
Errington laughed loudly, he was so much relieved.
“Is that all?” he said with light contempt. “By Jove! what a pack of fools there must be about here, — ugly fools too, if they think beauty is a sign of witchcraft. I wonder Dyceworthy isn’t scared out of his skin if he positively thinks the so-called witch is setting her cap at him.”
“Ah, but he means to convairt her,” said Macfarlane seriously. “To draw the evil oot o’ her, as it were. He said he wad do’t by fair means or foul.”
Something in these latter words struck Lorimer, for, raising himself in his seat, he asked, “Surely Mr. Dyceworthy, with all his stupidity, doesn’t carry it so far as to believe in witchcraft?”
“Oh, indeed he does,” exclaimed Duprèz; “he believes in it à la lettre! He has Bible authority for his belief. He is very firm — firmest when drunk!” And he laughed gaily.
Errington muttered something not very flattering to Mr. Dyceworthy’s intelligence, which escaped the hearing of his friends; then he said —
“Come along, all of you, down into the saloon. We want something to eat. Let the Güldmars alone; I’m not a bit sorry I’ve asked them to come to-morrow. I believe you’ll all like them immensely.”
They all descended the stair-way leading to the lower part of the yacht, and Macfarlane asked as he followed his host —
“Is the lass vera bonnie did ye say?”
“Bonnie’s not the word for it this time,” said Lorimer, coolly answering instead of Errington. “Miss Güldmar is a magnificent woman. You never saw such a one, Sandy, my boy; she’ll make you sing small with one look; she’ll wither you up into a kippered herring! And as for you, Duprèz,” and he regarded the little Frenchman critically, “let me see, — you may possibly reach up to her shoulder, — certainly not beyond it.”
“Pas possible!” cried Duprèz. “Mademoiselle is a giantess.”
“She needn’t be a giantess to overtop you, mon ami,” laughed Lorimer with a lazy shrug. “By Jove, I am sleepy, Errington, old boy; are we never going to bed? It’s no good waiting till it’s dark here, you know.”
“Have something first,” said Sir Philip, seating himself at the saloon table, where his steward had laid out a tasty cold collation. “We’ve had a good deal of climbing about and rowing; it’s taken it out of us a little.”
Thus hospitably adjured, they took their places, and managed to dispose of an excellent supper. The meal concluded, Duprèz helped himself to a tiny liqueur glass of Chartreuse, as a wind-up to the exertions of the day, a mild luxury in which the others joined him, with the exception of Macfarlane, who was wont to declare that a “mon without his whusky was nae mon at a’,” and who, therefore, persisted in burning up his interior mechanism with alcohol in spite of the doctrines of hygiene, and was now absorbed in the work of mixing his lemon, sugar, hot water, and poison — his usual preparation for a night’s rest.
Lorimer, usually conversational, watched him in abstracted silence. Rallied on this morose humor, he rose, shook himself like a retriever, yawned, and sauntered to the piano that occupied a dim corner of the saloon, and began to play with that delicate, subtle touch, which, though it does not always mark the brilliant pianist, distinguishes the true lover of music, to whose ears a rough thump on the instrument, or a false note would be most exquisite agony. Lorimer had no pretense to musical talent; asked, he confessed he could “strum a little,” and he seemed to see the evident wonder and admiration he awakened in the minds of many to whom such “strumming” as his was infinitely more delightful than more practiced, finished playing. Just now he seemed undecided, — he commenced a dainty little prelude of Chopin’s, then broke suddenly off, and wandered into another strain, wild, pleading, pitiful, and passionate, — a melody so weird and dreamy that even the stolid Macfarlane paused in his toddy-sipping, and Duprèz looked round in some wonderment.
“Comme c’est beau, ça!” he murmured.
Errington said nothing; he recognized the tune as that which Thelma had sung at her spinning-wheel, and his bold bright eyes grew pensive and soft, as the picture of the fair face and form rose up again before his mind. Absorbed in a reverie, he almost started when Lorimer ceased playing, and said lightly —
“By-bye, boys! I’m off to bed! Phil, don’t wake me so abominably early as you did this morning. If you do, friendship can hold out no longer — we must part!”
“All right!” laughed Errington good-humoredly, watching his friend as he sauntered out of the saloon; then seeing Duprèz and Macfarlane rise from the table, he added courteously, “Don’t hurry away on Lorimer’s account, you two. I’m not in the least sleepy, — I’ll sit up with you to any hour.”
“It is droll to go to bed in broad daylight,” said Duprèz. “But it must be done. Cher Philippe, your eyes are heavy. ‘To bed, to bed,’ as the excellent Madame Macbeth says. Ah! quelle femme! What an exciting wife she was for a man? Come, let us follow our dear Lorimer, — his music was delicious. Good night or good morning? . . . I know not which it is in this strange land where the sun shines always! It is confusing!”
They shook hands and separated. Errington, however, unable to compose his mind to rest, went into his cabin merely to come out of it again and betake himself to the deck, where he decided to walk up and down till he felt sleepy. He wished to be alone with his own thoughts for awhile — to try and resolve the meaning of this strange new emotion that possessed him, — a feeling that was half pleasing, half painful, and that certainly moved him to a sort of shame. A man, if he be strong and healthy, is always more or less ashamed when Love, with a single effort, proves him to be weaker than a blade of grass swaying in the wind. What! all his dignity, all his resoluteness, all his authority swept down by the light touch of a mere willow wand? for the very sake of his own manhood and self-respect, he cannot help but be ashamed! It is as though a little nude, laughing child mocked at a lion’s strength, and made him a helpless prisoner with a fragile daisy chain. So the god Eros begins h
is battles, which end in perpetual victory, — first fear and shame, — then desire and passion, — then conquest and possession. And afterwards? ah! . . . afterwards the pagan deity is powerless, — a higher God, a grander force, a nobler creed must carry Love to its supreme and best fulfillment.
CHAPTER VIII.
“Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne
M’a rendu fou!”
VICTOR HUGO.
It was half an hour past midnight. Sir Philip was left in absolute solitude to enjoy his meditative stroll on deck, for the full radiance of light that streamed over the sea and land was too clear and brilliant to necessitate the attendance of any of the sailors for the purpose of guarding the Eulalie. She was safely anchored and distinctly visible to all boats or fishing craft crossing the Fjord, so that unless a sudden gale should blow, which did not seem probable in the present state of the weather, there was nothing for the men to do that need deprive them of their lawful repose. Errington paced up and down slowly, his yachting shoes making no noise, even as they left no scratch on the spotless white deck, that shone in the night sunshine like polished silver. The Fjord was very calm, — on one side it gleamed like a pool of golden oil in which the outline of the Eulalie was precisely traced, her delicate masts and spars and drooping flag being drawn in black lines on the yellow water as though with a finely pointed pencil. There was a curious light in the western sky; a thick bank of clouds, dusky brown in color, were swept together and piled one above the other in mountainous ridges, that rose up perpendicularly from the very edge of the sea-line, while over their dark summits a glimpse of the sun, like a giant’s eye, looked forth, darting dazzling descending rays through the sullen smoke-like masses, tinging them with metallic green and copper hues as brilliant and shifting as the bristling points of lifted spears. Away to the south, a solitary wreath of purple vapor floated slowly as though lost from some great mountain height; and through its faint, half disguising veil the pale moon peered sorrowfully, like a dying prisoner lamenting joy long past, but unforgotten.
A solemn silence reigned; and Errington, watching sea and sky, grew more and more absorbed and serious. The scornful words of the proud old Olaf Güldmar rankled in his mind and stung him. “An idle trifler with time — an aimless wanderer!” Bitter, but, after all, true! He looked back on his life with a feeling kin to contempt. What had he done that was at all worth doing? He had seen to the proper management of his estates, — well! any one with a grain of self-respect and love of independence would do the same. He had travelled and amused himself, — he had studied languages and literature, — he had made many friends; but after all said and done, the bonde’s cutting observations had described him correctly enough. The do-nothing, care-nothing tendency, common to the very wealthy in this age, had crept upon him unconsciously; the easy, cool, indifferent nonchalance common to men of his class and breeding was habitual with him, and he had never thought it worth while to exert his dormant abilities. Why then, should he now begin to think it was time to reform all this, — to rouse himself to an effort, — to gain for himself some honor, some distinction, some renown that should mark him out as different to other men? why was he suddenly seized with an insatiate desire to be something more than a mere “mushroom knight, a fungus of nobility” — why? if not to make himself worthy of — ah! There he had struck a suggestive key-note! Worthy of what? of whom? There was no one in all the world, excepting perhaps Lorimer, who cared what became of Sir Philip Errington, Baronet, in the future, so long as he would, for the present, entertain and feast his numerous acquaintances and give them all the advantages, social and political, his wealth could so easily obtain. Then why, in the name of well-bred indolence, should he muse with such persistent gloom, on his general unworthiness at this particular moment? Was it because this Norwegian maiden’s grand blue eyes had met his with such beautiful trust and candor?
He had known many women, queens of society, titled beauties, brilliant actresses, sirens of the world with all their witcheries in full play, and he had never lost his self-possession or his heart; with the loveliest of them he had always felt himself master of the situation, knowing that, in their opinion he was always “a catch,” “an eligible,” and, therefore, well worth winning. Now, for the first time, he became aware of his utter insignificance, — this tall, fair goddess knew none of the social slang — and her fair, pure face, the mirror of a fair, pure soul, showed that the “eligibility” of a man from a pecuniary point of view was a consideration that would never present itself to her mind. What she would look at would be the man himself, — not his pocket. And, studied from such an exceptional height, — a height seldom climbed by modern marrying women, — Philip felt himself unworthy. It was a good sign; there are great hopes of any man who is honestly dissatisfied with himself. Folding his arms, he leaned idly on the deck-rails, and looked gravely and musingly down into the motionless water where the varied lines of the sky were clearly mirrored, — when a slight creaking, cracking sound was heard, as of some obstacle grazing against or bumping the side of the yacht. He looked, and saw, to his surprise, a small rowing boat close under the gunwale, so close indeed that the slow motion of the tide heaved it every now and then into a jerky collision with the lower framework of the Eulalie — a circumstance which explained the sound which had attracted his attention. The boat was not unoccupied — there was some one in it lying straight across the seats, with face turned upwards to the sky — and, walking noiselessly to a better post of observation, Errington’s heart beat with some excitement as he recognized the long, fair, unkempt locks, and eccentric attire of the strange personage who had confronted him in the cave — the crazy little man who had called himself “Sigurd.” There he was, beyond a doubt, lying flat on his back with his eyes closed. Asleep or dead? He might have been the latter, — his thin face was so pale and drawn, — his lips were so set and colorless. Errington, astonished to see him there, called softly —
“Sigurd! Sigurd!” There was no answer; Sigurd’s form seemed inanimate — his eyes remained fast shut.
“Is he in a trance?” thought Sir Philip wonderingly; “or has he fainted from some physical exhaustion?”
He called again, but again received no reply. He now observed in the stem of the boat a large bunch of pansies, dark as velvet, and evidently freshly gathered, — proving that Sigurd had been wandering in the deep valleys and on the sloping sides of the hills, where these flowers may be frequently found in Norway during the summer. He began to feel rather uncomfortable, as he watched that straight stiff figure in the boat, and was just about to swing down the companion-ladder for the purpose of closer inspection, when a glorious burst of light streamed radiantly over the Fjord, — the sun conquered the masses of dark cloud that had striven to conceal his beauty, and now, — like a warrior clad in golden armor, surmounted and trod down his enemies, shining forth in all his splendor. With that rush of brilliant effulgence, the apparently lifeless Sigurd stirred, — he opened his eyes, and as they were turned upwards, he naturally, from his close vicinity to the side of the Eulalie, met Errington’s gaze fixed inquiringly and somewhat anxiously upon him. He sprang up with such sudden and fierce haste that his frail boat rocked dangerously and Philip involuntarily cried out —
“Take care!”
Sigurd stood upright in his swaying skiff and laughed scornfully.
“Take care!” he echoed derisively. “It is you who should take care! You, — poor miserable moth on the edge of a mad storm! It is you to fear — not I! See how the light rains over the broad sky. All for me! Yes, all the light, all the glory for me; all the darkness, all the shame for you!”
Errington listened to these ravings with an air of patience and pitying gentleness, then he said with perfect coolness —
“You are quite right, Sigurd! You are always right, I am sure. Come up here and see me; I won’t hurt you! Come along!”
The friendly tone and gentle manner appeared to soothe the unhappy dwarf, for he
stared doubtfully, then smiled, — and finally, as though acting under a spell, he took up an oar and propelled himself skillfully enough to the gangway, where Errington let down the ladder and with his own hand assisted his visitor to mount, not forgetting to fasten the boat safely to the steps as he did so. Once on deck, Sigurd gazed about him perplexedly. He had brought his bunch of pansies with him, and he fingered their soft leaves thoughtfully. Suddenly his eyes flashed.
“You are alone here?” he asked abruptly.
Fearing to scare his strange guest by the mention of his companions, Errington answered simply— “Yes, quite alone just now, Sigurd.”
Sigurd took a step closer towards him. “Are you not afraid?” he said in an awe-struck, solemn voice.
Sir Philip smiled. “I never was afraid of anything in my life!” he answered.
The dwarf eyed him keenly. “You are not afraid,” he went on, “that I shall kill you?”
“Not in the least,” returned Errington calmly. “You would not do anything so foolish, my friend.”
Sigurd laughed. “Ha ha! You call me ‘friend.’ You think that word a safeguard! I tell you, no! There are no friends now; the world is a great field of battle, — each man fights the other. There is no peace, — none anywhere! The wind fights with the forests; you can hear them slashing and slaying all night long — when it is night — the long, long night! The sun fights with the sky, the light with the dark, and life with death. It is all a bitter quarrel; none are satisfied, none shall know friendship any more; it is too late! We cannot be friends!”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 83
