Chapter Twelve.
An Air with Variations.
The day had passed with little to mark it to Wareham, to whom events meant a word from Anne. They met at early dinner as they had met at breakfast, and again he had to content himself with indirect speeches. In the afternoon the Ceylon came in and anchored; Wareham went off and secured three berths. He felt himself a model friend, but this did not prevent his looking forward eagerly to the evening. Colonel Martyn was the next to arrive.
At six o’clock came the Gudvangen steamer, which was to take them to Fjaerland. Anne and Colonel Martyn were the last to come on board, Hugh fuming impatiently until they appeared. He surrounded her with solicitude.
“I almost gave you up. I thought you had changed your mind.”
“If I had?”
She tossed the words at him as she passed.
“We might have taken a boat and repeated yesterday,” said Hugh daringly.
“I hate repetitions.”
Wareham heard and chuckled. But where is your woman’s consistency? The next moment she had given her young lover a smile which put the other man’s blood into a fever. Hugh looked round at him radiantly. Mrs Martyn eyed him with an experienced glance expressive to Wareham of “You see!” He walked away.
When he came back the group had been enlarged by several of the other people from the inn, who were making the same little voyage. An elderly man, with a keen clever face, held forth to Mrs Martyn, and Wareham was not ill-pleased to note that the lady showed signs of discomfiture. He interrogated her closely, would have chapter and verse with her statements, and ruthlessly fastened on the futility of certain vague expressions in which she took refuge. Wareham stood for a minute receiving broken sentences from the group, except when Anne spoke, upon which the other voices faded into indistinctness.
“Nothing in Norway to compare with Scotland.”
“Well, I don’t know. There’s good—”
“Didn’t you hear? She is expected to-morrow, and great preparations—”
“Horrible food!”
Then a voice like a bell.
“I half wish we were going home in her, she looks so big and so roomy.”
Only the foolishness of love could make music out of this every-day remark, but to his ear it sounded in sweet relief to the clatter of the others. So sad is the eclipse of friendship before the greater light, that he was conscious of a wish to swing Hugh out of his place by her side, and stand there himself. Had not he had his chance and failed? To be swaggering round, and playing dog in the manger, was an unworthy solace. To be compelled to hover near with a heart full of yesterday, was to munch ashes. For let philosophers say what they will, the past is at best unsatisfying food, but a past which has no more substance than hope unfulfilled, chokes you with its dusty remembrances. Wareham went restlessly about the vessel, talking to the red-faced burly captain of the Kommodoren, to any one: wherever he went he saw Hugh’s spirited figure, Anne’s pale clear-cut profile, and these two only. At last, as he was speaking to an elderly lady with a sweet kind face, he surprised her by quitting her suddenly. Opportunity had come, and he flew to Anne’s side.
“At last!” he cried, and had to check his exultation. “I thought I should never be allowed to speak to you alone!”
“After yesterday you could scarcely complain of that difficulty.” Anne was smiling, her eyes were half-shut.
“Yesterday!” He made an impatient gesture.
She asked whether it was so long ago?
“Half a lifetime,” he answered boldly, and had a wild fancy that a tremulous colour just crept into her cheek. But she hastened to inquire whether he did not find the scenery very fine?
“I have not seen it.”
“Where have your eyes been?”
“On my heart,” would have been a true answer. He pressed it back and muttered, “I have been wanting to say a word, but Hugh monopolised you.”
“Your friend. You should have been satisfied. But tell me what you wanted so much to say?”
“You heard his greeting. Did you imagine that I had told him to come out?”
“It surprised me.”
“Pray let me hear that you thought better of me than to believe it.”
“Better? Do you not present yourself as a symbol of friendship? And friendship is held to condone blunders.” She spoke teasingly.
“No, no. I telegraphed—” Suddenly he found it hard to explain why he had telegraphed. “He had a right to an explanation.” The words came out apologetically.
“And you were the deus ex machinâ. I told you you were a symbol of friendship.”
Coldness was in her voice, and Wareham, reader of hearts, believed he understood why she was dissatisfied.
“I have offended you. I read it in your eyes when you saw Hugh,” he said dismally.
“Oh, Hugh, Hugh!” She made the exclamation with impatience, and frowned.
He would have given worlds to ask why, if she were displeased, she did not dismiss her young lover, but dared not. Then she slowly let drop four words which set his blood leaping in wild bounds. “You might help me.”
Heavens, what did the words, the look she turned on him, mean? Reproach, encouragement, were both there. He stood stupidly, stunned by the delicious shock; conscience faltered, passion rushed to the attack. This appealing to him, this, as it were, holding out her hand—bliss!—ecstasy! Conscience panted out desperately, “And Honour?” and, once having thrust in her word, stood firm.
Wareham felt as if in that minute he had lived a year. When he spoke his voice was hoarse, his face white.
“I cannot,” he said. “It rests with yourself.”
She was looking at him, and her face did not change, nor did she speak. They stood silent, fronting the mountains, and presently Hugh’s voice sounded cheerfully behind them.
“I can’t find your parasol, Miss Dalrymple. Mrs Martyn thinks you must have left it behind.”
“Ask her whether it is not her umbrella she wants,” had been Mrs Martyn’s exact words, for neither sun nor rain was likely to trouble them. These he did not repeat. He was sharp enough to guess that he had been disposed of for a motive, but hugged the thought that it was merely caprice which had served this purpose. For caprice he was prepared, resolved that it should not put him out of countenance. An indefinite presentiment kept Wareham on the watch. It was a nothing, yet it had fallen on a crucial moment. How would she behave to Hugh? The next moment, Anne turned, smiling carelessly.
“I am ashamed to have troubled you, and for what seemed an absurdity. Who wants a parasol at such an hour? It is that I am a baby, and like something in my hand.” Hugh was for starting off again. “No, no, no more errands. You may sit here and tell me about the Standishs’. When did you see them? Have they gone abroad? Mary wrote a line to me before we left England, but she told me nothing of their plans.”
“And they knew nothing of yours,” stammered Hugh the happy, afraid of uttering anything which carried the ghost of a reproach. Mary Standish was to have been their bridesmaid.
Wareham would hear no more. He wheeled round and departed, with not a word of thanks to cast at conscience, though she had saved him from a scrape. Going forward, he stood moodily watching the pallor creep over the vast snowfield which runs along the western side of the fjord, and from which glaciers like pale ghosts crawl down to the water. At Fjaerland itself there was a short stoppage, people came on board who had tramped to the Suphelle glacier, and were enthusiastic over its beauties to those who had not seen it.
And now, in going back, the glories of the sunset touched each opening fjord with strange variety of effect and contrast. One had wild and menacing clouds sweeping on with threat of storm; in another the mountains lay in indescribable calm against a clear daffodil sky; a third again was radiant with light, and crowned with floating rosy clouds. Voices hushed themselves, the ripple of the water grew more insistent, lovely reflections trembled downwards. By and by a green promontory was passed, and Balholm stood hospitably alight.
“Nine o’clock,” sighed Colonel Martyn, with disconsolate acceptance of his fate, the high tea which he hated. Meantime the professor had asked Mrs Martyn—who piqued herself upon her facts—if she knew the number of square miles covered by the snow-area at which they had been gazing.
She had an impression it was five hundred.
“An impression!” He was scornful. Women’s knowledge invariably consisted of impressions. Mrs Martyn, who liked to be rude herself, was always crushed by retaliation in the same coin. She escaped, and clung to Mrs Ravenhill.
“My dear, protect me! That man is a bear. He can never have been used to any society at all. Everything that I say to him he contradicts flatly, and comes out with the most disagreeable speeches! I daren’t say a word. He frightens me. And why does he choose me—poor, inoffensive me?”
Anne, as she walked up from the landing-place, got hold of Millie.
“You are really going to break away to-morrow? I envy you.”
“I am sorry,” Millie said simply. “There is so much more which I want to see.”
Anne answered her abruptly—
“It is like everything else. Life is just an air with variations, and you get sick of the air. I am tired of mountains and fjords. More tired of hearing people cry, ‘How beautiful!’”
“When they say it of yourself?”
“Most of all. Yet when it doesn’t come, I miss it.” She laughed.
“Ah, I can’t help you,” Millie returned.
“What is it you want?”
“To be what I am not—what I never shall be.”
They were at the door. Anne ran up-stairs, Millie dropped her defensive armour with a sigh. She had somehow expected, and dreaded, that when Anne spoke of their leaving, she would allude to Wareham. Now that she had not done so, she was disappointed.
Wareham was caught by Hugh Forbes as he went out of the saal.
“Come for a turn, old fellow,” he besought. “There are a hundred things I want to say to you.”
“Hadn’t you better go after Miss Dalrymple?” said Wareham sharply.
“She won’t let me. Says she’s had enough of me for to-day.”
Hugh laughed, and Wareham hesitated. Self-flattery murmured that possibly she had intended this half-hour for him, and the thought fell sweet as honey drops. But away from her charm, her beauty, conscience was not to be beguiled. Avaunt, tempter! Step forth, honour! Dull paths are safest, and the dullest of all dull paths appeared this walk with Hugh, Anne left behind in a balcony overlooking shining waters.
They were out, with Hugh anxiously asking why he must go to-morrow?
“Its an awful nuisance,” he burst out, “and I do think it’s hard on a fellow to be left unsupported just at this ticklish point. You could be of untold good—you have been already, of that I’m certain. Anne likes you, and likes to talk of you. Now a great blundering fellow might have done a lot of mischief. Crammed me down her throat, or tried to cut me out. I vow I wouldn’t have trusted any one but you yesterday in the boat. When I heard that she was coming along with some man, I was awfully cut up, I can tell you; and Mrs Martyn never let out who it was. Just like the woman! It was Miss—what’s she called?—Ravenstone who cleared me up. Why don’t you take to that little girl? A good soul, with a heart of gold, and a dimple. I’ve heard you say you loved dimples, and, upon my soul, I never saw a prettier.”
Wareham’s irritated exclamation was restrained by the recollection that here was the very suggestion which he had intended for Hugh himself, presented topsy-turvily. He was forced to laugh.
“Arrange matters for yourself, only leave me out of the pattern, for I don’t harmonise.”
Hugh rushed into farther confidences, but owned that he was in a funk.
“If I could but imagine what upset the coach last time,” he complained, “I’d take good care to avoid it again; but I give you my word you know as much as I do. She won’t speak of it, won’t listen, won’t so much as drop me a hint; and to think of her bolting again puts me in such a devil of a fright that I daren’t hold on to the subject. Now, Dick, if you’d stay and sound her a bit, I should be awfully obliged to you.”
That or any other subject. His heart jumped like a hungry dog, grateful for a bone. He had to recall himself to his resolve.
“Can’t.”
“Don’t tell me you’re not your own master.”
“No man is his own master that has set his shoulder to the wheel.”
“Well”—Hugh walked on, revolving—“there are twenty-four hours yet; you may get a chance in that time.”
Wareham was stung into exclamation.
“You don’t know what you’re asking!”
“I know exactly; and it isn’t much for a clever fellow like you. You can understand that when I go pottering round, she sees exactly what’s coming, and shies. As likely as not, she doesn’t want to hurt my feelings—”
“Oh, your feelings! She didn’t show much regard for your feelings when she flung you over!” cried Wareham savagely.
“No, but look here, old fellow, you mustn’t be so prejudiced. It was natural enough when you didn’t know her, and I shan’t forget what you did for me in those black days, but I did think that once you were thrown with her you would have your eyes opened, and appreciate her.”
Wareham looked queerly at him.
“How do you know I don’t?”
“Because then you wouldn’t blame her. And I believe you’d stick to me now. At first I could think of nothing but that I was near her again, and could look at her; but finding out how gingerly I’ve got to move, makes me uneasy. If you were here you’d give me a wrinkle or two. Come, Dick, think better of it.” Hugh decapitated an inoffensive ox-daisy as he spoke. “You needn’t expect to put me off with talk of business. Don’t I know most of your affairs?”
“Not all.” Wareham’s voice had grown gentler. “Hugh, do you remember my telling you that I had written a letter?”
“To me?”
“Yes.”
“I recollect. It had slipped my memory.”
“I wish I could prevent its ever reaching you.”
Hugh burst into his cheery laugh.
“That’s what I feel sometimes when I’ve sent off an epistle to the pater. But you don’t suppose anything you said to me would make me cut up rough?”
“When you’ve got it you’ll understand why I go,” the other went on, unheeding.
“Mysteries, mysteries!”
It must be owned that Wareham thought his speech would have thrown a little light. He breathed hard, and his face flushed. Hugh went on—
“I know you’ve thought hard things of Anne. But, old fellow, you’ve never failed me yet; and that’s why I want you now. You could say what I can’t say myself.”
“What one can’t say oneself had better remain unsaid.” Something in the tone penetrated, and gave the young man a tinge of uneasiness.
“You don’t mean that you think—” He stopped aghast.
Wareham answered with a hand on the valve. If his words were to fly, it should not be on a wrong tack.
“What?”
“That, after all, I’ve no chance?”
“Heavens, man, how should I think such a thing! I know nothing of what you have said to her, or she to you. You’ve got your opportunity—what more do you want? Go in, and win.”
“All right, old fellow,” Hugh said good-humouredly. “May you be a true prophet. Anyway, don’t be put out about your letter. I’ve a thick skin, as you’ve proved before now. And if it bores you to stop, go. Only if you do get the chance before leaving, and if you can get her to give you a bit of explanation, it may make matters smoother. Isn’t there some old Viking or other buried about here? Well, we’ll go back.”
As they returned they found signs of festivity about the rival inn; Balholm sat round the walls of the saal, and in the centre a picturesque musician played the Hardanger fiddle; the wild piercing sounds, half savage, half plaintive, penetrated the night. Wareham stood at the door after Hugh had left him, held by some spell for which he could not account. The music conjured up strange imaginings—the silence of the mountains encompassed lonely fjords; pallid snowflakes chased each other into clefts, where they lay shrouding the rock; winds whistled through cowering trees, and in a moment the cruel howl of a wolf rose menacingly above the other sounds. The tragedies of the country had found a voice in the wild, almost discordant, instrument. Wareham stood absorbed, staring at the ground. When the music stopped, he looked up uncertainly. Hay sweetened the air, golden light still lingered in the sky, yet he shivered. The landlord came out. Wareham gave him a gulden for the musician, and walked slowly back to his own quarters.