Chapter Nine.
Tongue-Tied.
For a time neither of the two companions spoke. The hush of the place was upon them; the extraordinary stillness, unbroken by so much as the cry of a bird, or by any sound more harsh than the soft rhythm of the rise and fall of the oars. On one side the grassy path, along which Millie and Wareham had walked to Bakke, wound, clasping the rock with a green girdle; on the other was neither path nor habitation, only the bold sweep of the mountain side, clothed with verdure running up to the snow patches, and coloured by blue shadows, or cut by the slender silver line of a fos. Whatever there was, rock or trees, snow or leaping water, its double was below, with some strange charm added to its beauty; and so narrow was the fjord, that these reflections seemed to meet and fill it.
Anne sat with her head turned away from Wareham, looking over the side of the boat into the green mystery through which they moved. He would not speak, fearing to disturb her, but he was able to watch her to his heart’s content. He was certain that she had grown younger since coming to Norway; he heaped scorn on himself for having detected hardness in her lovely face. And by what miracle were he and she together! Yet his position was cruel enough, for this day had already deepened his love, so that it was more and more difficult to keep back any outward sign which hinted at its expression; and although, placed as they now were, that would have been impossible, he told himself that if he were not bound by his duty to his friend, he might have put his fate to the test no later than to-morrow. To-morrow! That was an endurable date, but to be forced to wait, wait, wait, until the letter brought back an answer!—the letter which— He began to calculate. Saturday—this was Monday, and there was certainly no boat likely to leave Norway until the middle of the week. His letter was dawdling along, and at such a rate an answer would hardly reach him while he was in the country. And all these weeks to be tongue-tied!
Anne turned round at this moment. Apparently she was not thinking of him, and had but changed her position in order to look at the other side of the fjord; but every time her face came before him under a fresh aspect, he was conscious of a sweet surprise. Presently she looked full at him, and smiled.
“I want to say something and I can’t express it,” she said. “I suppose that is incomprehensible to you?”
It was so like his own case that Wareham dared not venture to say how like. He was forced to treat his own feelings as if they were a packet of explosives, and keep light away from them. Anne went on—
“I am perplexed with myself. This is so much more beautiful than I conceived, and it is so odd that I should think it beautiful!”
“Why?”
“Why am I, I?—I can’t explain. I only know that my friends will tell you that I am insensible to beauty of scenery.”
“Rank heresy.”
“I don’t know. It has been dinned into my ears so constantly that I have ended by accepting it. They assure me I have no eye for colour.”
“I could confute them.”
“Oh, once let me feel sure of myself, and I could manage the confuting,” said Anne coolly. “After to-day I shall not go down before them quite so easily, for I believe it is the colour which enchants me. Was ever anything so exquisite as this crater!”
“I am glad you have extracted some compensation for my stupidity,” said Wareham, greedy of assurance that she liked to be in the boat with him. She took no notice beyond saying—
“I still think they behaved rather meanly in deserting us.”
“What are they feeling now, I wonder?”
“As little as possible.”
“Do you imply that they will not be uneasy?”
“Blanche will say that it is Anne all over, and that she may be left to take care of herself. I dare say she is right.”
“Do you like the woman?” he asked abruptly.
“No catechism, Mr Wareham.”
“Miss Ravenhill described her as ‘padded glass.’”
Anne meditated, and looked amused.
“That is a clever definition, whether it is she or not. I should have thought it more likely to come from you.”
“It was all her own. Mrs Martyn seems to me rather forcedly rude than anything else.”
“She has not a bad heart,” said Anne. “Rudeness is to her mind an outward expression of honesty, but one which she does not appreciate in other people. It is astonishing what a different aspect our own virtues wear—transplanted.”
“If she is kind—” began Wareham.
“I do not say she is always kind. She can hurt. She will not be kind about me to-day.”
A thorn pricked Wareham. He said hastily—
“She will know it was not your fault.”
“She will try to keep me from knowing it. You may be sure it will be long before I hear the last of it, from her or from—others.”
“From others?”
Anne looked straight in his face.
“Mr Wareham, I imagined you to be a man of the world. If you are, you must know as well as I that people will chatter.”
“The world is not always absurd,” he retorted, with heat.
“When was it not a gossip? Now I will ask a question which I have avoided before. When shall we get to Balholm?”
“About two or three in the morning.”
“And you flatter yourself that will not give a handle for talk!”
Wareham had been surprised that she had said nothing of the sort before; he was conscious at the same time that if it had been Millie, the fear would not have struck her.
“When they know the facts, they will see there was nothing else for us to do.”
“They won’t know facts. One fact will be sufficient for them, and to that they will hold on as a dog to a bone. Never mind. I have gone through as much before.”
“When?” Wareham asked jealously.
“Oh, not with this sort of experience. This is new to me. But I have served as a bone so often that I am used to the worrying. Don’t let us talk of it now. I want to drink in my new enjoyment, to develop my new sense. Look at the drifting shadow on that hill, and the splendour of the snow. But it is the water, the water that fascinates me. I am going to watch it.”
He accepted this as a hint that he was not to speak, and the turmoil in him was not sorry for silence which left time for many voices to have their say. This hint of Anne’s that the world would make her suffer for what his carelessness had brought upon her, carried with it an almost unendurable sting. Under other circumstances he would have said to her, if not that hour, to-morrow, “I love you. Be my wife.” But his duty to Hugh? Doubly bound, as he was, by the promise of his letter to abstain from any step until the answer had come, could he fling it to the winds, and forswear himself? The letter to which he looked for deliverance was but tightening his bonds. He was swayed this way and that, now swung low by such fretting thoughts, now conscious of mounting to heights of bliss in the warm fresh air, with the mountains and the water around, and Anne sitting close to—touching him. She said presently—
“We are the only thinking creatures in sight, and the world looks very big. Does it make you feel small or great?”
“It dwarfs one, doesn’t it?”
“It seems to me as if I had seen it all before, and I have been trying to think where. I believe now that it was when I was a child, and sat solitary, reading Sinbad the Sailor. Perhaps there was some old picture, for certainly this takes me back to that.”
“Were you solitary?”
“Very,” Anne said, smiling. “I brought myself up, and very badly. Look behind. The mountains are closing; now that they have let us out, they shut their portals.”
She was silent again, and Wareham, quick to read her moods, humoured her. The boat moved slowly along, slowly it seemed, when the great surroundings filled the eye. The heavens were blue, but here and there a white cloud drifted lazily, or caught the mountain snow-beds, and curled round them, like a vaporous reminder of their fate. The lovely vivid green of the young summer crept up and down the mighty hills, softening the rude scars of centuries until they looked no more than delicate and shadowy indentations; the stern granite blossomed into tender rose and grey, and the water-world below gave back all this and more. Every now and then the men who were rowing exchanged a word: they had grave steadfast faces.
“Talk to them,” Anne said suddenly at last. “Ask them about their lives.” Wareham struggled obediently.
“My questions are obliged to be simple,” he said. “And I am even more anxious the answers should be. A universal language. Is it a dream?”
“We are pleased to infer that it is our own which will serve the purpose, but by the time the idea has developed into fact it may be Japanese.”
“To become a ruling nation they will have been forced to adopt ours.”
“Oh, British arrogance! However, I do not wish it. Uniformity is always dull, and I would rather suffer shame from my own ignorance than have all the world patted down to one dead level. There is dignity in the unknown. When I hear these men talk, I can’t help imagining that what they say would be worth hearing, if I could only understand, though probably it is about nothing more valuable than as to how many gulden they may get for their hay, if, indeed, any of them ever sell anything. Do ask them that.”
“I can’t,” Wareham confessed. “My conversation is chiefly made up of nouns and notes of interrogation.”
“Well, what have you extracted?”
“Both are married. One has four children, who walk five kilometres to school every day of their lives. The other has a son, of course in America. He is a wood-carver, and hopes by the sale of his work to lay by enough to take him to Chicago.”
Anne’s eyes sparkled.
“Tell him I will buy a great deal. As soon as I meet my money again,” she added, laughing. “Am I not to be allowed to assist?”
“I have nothing to do with your purchases,” Anne said quietly. “I dare say you want something for your friends at home. Have you a great many?”
Wareham blurted out—“I have no greater friend than Hugh Forbes.” Why he said it he could not tell. He had been forcing himself ever since they started to keep Hugh’s image in mind, and his name leapt suddenly to his lips. Anne did not look discomposed.
“He is a very good fellow,” she said, after a momentary hesitation.
“Yet you would not marry him?”
“It has puzzled you? It puzzled no one else. Blanche Martyn will tell you she knew how it must be from the first.”
“Why?” asked Wareham, leaning forward with his arms on his knees, and staring at the bottom of the boat.
“You should ask her, not me. The accused is not bound to criminate herself.”
“The accused! Good heavens, do you suppose!” he began passionately, then by a great effort stopped. Anne was looking at him through half-closed eyes.
“However,” she went on, as if he had not spoken, “I will let you hear her explanation. She thinks I am a flirt.”
“She is a detestable woman.”
“Oh, no; and I believe her to be right. I told you just now that I had no sense of colour; well, I have a worse confession to make. I have no heart.”
“One is as true as the other,” Wareham protested stoutly. She shook her head.
“Possibly it may come. But as yet I am without it.”
“You forget. You gave me another reason.”
“That I did not care for him sufficiently. It surprised you. It might be a proof that what I tell you is no more than the truth. For it would be difficult to conceive any one more lovable.”
Wareham’s own heart agreed, but refused to accept the conclusion.
“Really,” she said, “it was this charm of his which opened my eyes to my own want. I meant to marry, and so long as I did not dislike the man, would not trouble myself to think I need give him more. Suddenly I discovered I liked him too much to let him find himself in that position, and released him. It was the best act in my life, and it has alienated the friends who were most worth keeping.”
Wareham’s hopes met this dash of ice-cold water with a gallant effort for his friend. He turned pale, but muttered—
“You do not know yourself. You may love him yet.”
“Never. All that I felt was that I could not feel.”
She spoke with conviction, and the conviction roused traitors in his own heart, who repeated the sweet assurance again and again. As for her saying that she could not feel, he laughed the notion to scorn. Had he but the chance, he would teach her to feel, batter at her heart till it awoke with an ache to find itself captured. The danger was that before this happened his honour might have to hang its head, disgraced, for the frank confidence she showed seemed to bring her nearer and nearer, and made waiting harder. He hoped he had strength to be silent, for he dared not attempt to argue with her. With an abrupt movement he motioned to one of the men to cease rowing, and took his place. The strong regular play of the muscles came like a relief, but the other man, forced to a quicker stroke, presently remonstrated. Wareham asked whether it were impossible to sail, quicker movement seeming imperative. He knew what the answer must be when he put the question, for not a breath of wind stirred the glass of the fjord. After he had rowed for one man some time he relieved the other; if it had been possible he would have liked to have had it all on his shoulders. Anne said to him at last—
“You are putting such energy into your work that it tires me to look at you. Does half-an-hour more or less really mean so much?”
He laid down the oars, and came across the boat to her side.
“It means nothing, except that I felt the need of a spurt. We are close to Utne, where we should find a decent inn. Had you not better stop there and rest? You want food by this time.”
“I would rather not stop. I have been eating biscuits, and you might as well follow my example.”
“Suppose Mrs Martyn has waited?”
Anne meditated.
“Let us row near the shore. If any one belonging to us is there, they will see and make signs. But there will be no one.”
There was not. Wareham would gladly have hailed Mrs Martyn, yet was conscious of a throb of delight when the pretty little village lay behind them. They were by this time in more open water, and the depression which had fastened on him fled away.
“What are your commands about your picnic?” he asked, smiling.
“Find out from the men if there is any place where we can land and boil some water.” This took some time and a little guessing. Finally—
“I believe they say there is an island,” said Wareham.
“I am sure there is.”
“We should reach it in an hour.”
He spent the hour in blissful dreams which, having been once routed, now trooped merrily back. Anne was generally silent, but when she spoke it was with the same friendly ease she had shown throughout the day, and she made no complaints of fatigue. Indeed, he classed her as a heroine when he reflected that she had uttered nothing in the shape of a grumble. Would not most women have indulged in something of the sort? Wareham liked to believe that they would, and exalted her accordingly for her forbearance. It was evening by the hours, and they were well in the Sogne fjord, when Anne pointed out the island towards which the boat was directed.
“Do you see?”
“I see a rock.”
“And what else would you have in mid-water? If we can but find something to burn!”
“I believe there is a hut,” said Wareham, curving his hands into a telescope.
“A solitary! Only this was wanted.” Anne’s face was radiant.
“He may drive us away.”
“A man? Oh, no!” she laughed serenely.
Her confidence proved well-founded, for the Sogne fisherman, who leaped down the rocks to give the boat a helping hand, gave them a grave welcome. He was a wild figure with his scarlet jacket, brown breeches, and light hair under a broad hat. Anne looked at him appreciatively.
“I could not have dressed him better myself—for the piece,” she said. “How odious I am to say so! It is one of the snares of over-civilisation that, instead of the theatre suggesting nature, nature suggests the theatre. This is all so natural that I feel we ought to be applauding.”
She was stiff with sitting. Wareham gave her his hand to help her from the boat, and the light touch of her fingers thrilled him.
The island was no more than a rock, with scant herbage; a few goats and a dog shared it with the man; a boat was drawn up at one shelving point, and the low hut was formed of heaped pieces of rock and roofed with waving grass. There was no chimney; a hole in the roof sufficed for the smoke to pass through. Anne was as excited as a child. She unpacked her tine, and spread their meal on a rock. Wareham had to act as interpreter, and ask that a peat or two might be set ablaze to provide them with hot water; the man’s good-will did not reach the point of making him hurry, but he watched Anne’s quick deft movements with amusement. When all was ready they sat down together. Anne had brought a little tea-pot and two cups, Wareham a bottle of wine, which the men drank out of a rough mug; he could not give up the pleasure of letting Anne pour out tea for himself. It was a very frugal meal, added to, though it was, by dried fish; and when it was finished, she dispensed tobacco to the three men. It seemed she detested the smell; Wareham suggested their walking round the island until the pipes had been smoked. She hesitated, finally agreed.
They scrambled round to the western side, a filmy glory spread over the heavens, interrupted only by the swoop of a grey vapourish cloud. As it had been all along, what the waters saw they gave back again, so that the golden suffusion reached to their very feet. The near reflections were now dark.
“To live here alone! Can you conceive it?” Anne exclaimed.
“Not for one of us; but with so thin a population, solitude probably is second nature.”
“Solitude would require thought, and thought culture.”
“Work might take its place. Work here must be incessant. Relax it, and you die.”
“Why not? What makes it worth while to live? Would any one miss him?”
“Depend upon it, he has a world of his own, but, why—”
He stopped suddenly. Anne looked at him in surprise.
“Why?” she repeated.
He had caught himself on the point of rushing into more personal speech, and the jerk with which he pulled himself up made him awkward.
“Why should we not ask him? For one thing, I imagine he does not stay in winter. He is only here for the fishing.”
“Oh, winter! The very idea is terrible. Yet I should like to see this country in its own snow and ice. Warmly wrapped, I can fancy it bearable, even enjoyable.”
“Yes. Cold is the rich man’s luxury.” He answered her mechanically, his thoughts flying impatiently to Hugh, picturing him receiving the letter, answering it. Anne looked at him in surprise, reading trouble in his face.
“Never a luxury to me,” she said. “And it is growing cold now. Don’t you think we may start?”
The red-coated fisherman put aside all thought of payment. Wareham had difficulty in making him accept a very trifling sum. He stood watching them, and, for a time, as long as they looked back, they saw him blackly silhouetted against the clear sky. Anne had wrapped herself in her furs; the great open fjord gradually paled, the sound of the oars seemed to grow louder; it was like a dream to Wareham, with something of the bondage, the confusion, and the fret of a dream, yet with its strange delight as well. Once or twice he and Anne exchanged words, once or twice he took the oars again; outlines grew vague, it was not dark overhead, but they felt as though they were rowing on into the night. Suddenly Anne looked up.
“The bottom of the boat is wet. Is that right?”
Wareham bent down and uttered an exclamation, for water was certainly oozing in, and under cover of the dusk had been unnoticed, until Anne moved her foot and touched it. He called one of the men, who made an examination.
“Is it a leak?” she asked presently.
Wareham spoke quietly.
“There is a cork acting as a plug, and it appears to be rotten. But you need not be alarmed.”
“I am not alarmed. What shall you do? Try to land?”
There was a consultation.
“The men say we should gain very little. It is twelve o’clock, and Balholm is as near as any other place, so that they advise our going on. Of course one of us will keep close watch, and bale out what water comes in; also have something ready to serve as a plug. But I am afraid it adds to your discomfort.”
“Oh no, I shall be admiring your resources. Don’t leave me useless. Would you like me to act like the boy at the Dutch dyke?”
“I am sure you would,” said Wareham, in a low voice which silenced her.
It was not very easy to find materials for the plug. Anne handed him her gloves, and he abstracted one, but was afraid of discovery if he kept the other. A felt hat belonging to one of the men was rolled as tightly as possible, and held ready; at the same time the men insisted that the cork should not be removed until absolutely necessary, and one was told off to bale and watch.
“All the sensations I imagined are going to be provided for us in miniature,” said Anne, with a laugh. “A desert island, and a leaky boat in mid-ocean. Mr Wareham, you are a conjuror!”
“May the conjuring land you finally and safely at Balholm!”
“After which!” She laughed again.
Silence fell on them once more. One man was scooping up the water in the tin mug; it gurgled under his hand, and the splash of throwing it over followed. The fjord, in the clear semi-darkness, stretched into infinite distances, a wisp of cloud sailed slowly overhead, a pettish breeze blew chilly against Anne’s cheek. She called across to Wareham—“There is a little wind. Can’t we sail?”
“These fjords are treacherous. I dare not. You are not cold?”
She was, but she would not let him know it. It seemed to her that the quantity of water in the boat increased, but they laughed at her offer to assist in the baling. At the end of half-an-hour Wareham changed places with the man who was dipping. The change threw him again close to Anne, and facing her; it struck him that she looked alarmingly white.
“You are exhausted?” he asked anxiously. “You don’t know how strong I am.”
“I can’t get them to quicken stroke. They are steady, but slow.”
“Patience, patience!” He saw that she was smiling at him.
“You need not preach patience to me,” he said, in a low voice. “So far as I am concerned, I should be very well pleased to go on like this for ever.”
“There might be worse things,” said Anne dreamily, and his head swam. He was silent because he dared not speak; his thoughts leapt forward to the time when he might call her his own; meanwhile surely this was the very bliss of misery! It was she who spoke next. “It is lighter,” she said. “I verily believe the day is breaking.”
Wareham consulted his watch.
“Yes, and in an hour we reach Balholm.”
“Cork and all?”
“I think so.”
“Tell me. Have we been in danger?”
“Not since you found it out, and we have had something ready. If it had suddenly given way, matters might have been different; but as it is, we have nothing to fear beyond the discomfort of a wet boat.”
“And I suppose there will be some one about. Mr Grey calls this the Land of the Always-up.”
“I suppose so. At any rate, we will get them up at Kviknaes’. Perhaps Mrs Martyn will have thought of you sufficiently to order a room to be kept for you. You ought to see Balholm now.”
“There is too much mist.”
Gradually this light mist melted, light laughed out, a wind swept the mountains and left them clear; everything was bathed in silvery radiance, the colours were delicate, the air vigorous and keen. Anne shivered.
“It is like one’s lost youth,” she said.
Her lost youth! Wareham lifted a look of reproach, but circumstances had come to the aid of his faltering resolution, since scooping water from the bottom of a boat is fatal to the sentimental view. Anne at last began to laugh at him.
“I am sure your back aches,” she said.
“You may be sure. There is lost youth if you like,” he answered, straightening himself, and stretching.
She advised him to change with a rower, but he would not. It was something to be near her, though he suffered for it twice over. And the strong heart of the morning showed his hopes in stouter aspect. Hugh would see that his cause was desperate, and generosity would not suffer him to wreck another life with his own. Before he left, Wareham had treated his friend’s crushed heart with severity or lightness as need arose, now he allowed it to have been serious enough, but as serious as his—never! Nevertheless, he could not indulge undisturbed in the wild dreams of happiness which flitted through his head, for with them Hugh’s face intruded itself.
And—the letter!
They were near the landing-place at Balholm, and fronted by the mountain with the strange cleft in its snowy summit. Mountain, field, the few red-roofed houses, the outstanding pier, were bathed in the glory of the sun, now hastening upwards. One or two figures stood looking at the oncoming boat.
Wareham flung a glance over his shoulder.
“They are expecting us,” he said, “you see.”
A shout came to them across the water—another. A thought startled him, he looked eagerly at Anne. She had her eyes fixed on the shore, some agitation had crept into them, and for a minute she did not speak.
“Who is it?” asked Wareham hoarsely, without turning round.
“It is Mr Forbes.”
“Impossible!”
“See for yourself.”