Chapter Twenty One.
Farewell.
There was no shutting out from Hugh’s room after that day. A silent figure stood at the door, waiting, its very shadow mighty enough to sweep away bolts and bars. Whoever Hugh cared to see, came—except his sister. He asked often for his sister, but Wareham knew that there must have been difficulty in finding her, more difficulty in her reaching them. Besides, Sir Michael’s health was very precarious, and a telegram had mentioned increased illness. Hugh listened, and apparently understood, but weakness prevented his brain from grasping it except for a few minutes. When he wandered now, it was feebly.
Spite of persuasions, Anne went no more on the yacht. More than once Wareham found her on the landing; outside Hugh’s room, her face drawn, her eyes red-lidded; she flung him imploring glances, yet he fancied that when a call drew her inside, she went reluctantly, and came out quickly.
Once she cried to Wareham—
“This is dreadful!”
“As gentle as it can be,” he answered.
“Don’t talk of gentleness—it is horrible, inexorable! To see him lying there, a grey shadow, when he used to be so splendidly living! It was that magnificent vitality of his which gave him his power. When he liked he could dominate. I am pagan, pagan, if you will. Death the friend? Not it. Death is the enemy, the hateful enemy, and we all tremble before him, like cowards!”
She flung back her head, and her red eyes looked defiantly at Wareham. He said—
“I am not a priest.”
“No, but you are a man. Say what you feel.”
“Enemy, then, yes. Conqueror, no.”
“Oh!” She flung out her hands impatiently.
“You are like the rest. What do you know?”
“You tell me that is the end.” He pointed to the door. “I see in it a beginning. ‘The power of an endless life.’ If hope were a phantom, it would fade before the face of death. Instead, it strengthens.”
A great yearning looked at him from her soul through her sad eyes. He had never before seen such a look. She turned away.
As she went down the stairs she said, hurriedly—
“Call me if I am wanted.” Then she came back a step or two. “Not unless I am wanted, mind.”
He took this as a further hint that she dreaded these visits to the sick-room, and would avoid them when possible. As it fell out, she never went again. Hugh drifted into a semi-conscious state, the presence of Wareham appearing to give him a certain satisfaction, but no desire strong enough to require expression. Doctors, nurses, chaplain, friends, watched. Wareham wrote to his father—
“He does not suffer. I do not think he wishes for anything. If I mention your name to him he smiles, but makes no attempt to speak more than an occasional disjointed word. The people here would do anything for us; his illness has confirmed my idea that the Norwegians are among the kindest people in the world, and the least mercenary. Comfort yourself with the thought that he could not have been better cared for even in his own home than here with strangers—but I know what you are feeling, ‘If only I could have seen him!’ More than once he has asked for his sister; he accepts, however, all that we tell him of the difficulties of getting here. Indeed, nothing appears to disturb him. There is an English yacht in the harbour, belonging to Lord Milborough, and he is as ready as others to be of use.
“You will want a word as to Miss Dalrymple, for whom, I know, you have no kindly feeling. You would retract if you saw her now. I am sure she suffers. Whether she ever really loved Hugh, I cannot tell. Had she—but it is impossible to theorise. I am also sure that she liked him, and he is happy in the conviction that he would have won her. This parting is quite without the bitterness of the first. She is at hand to see him if he desires it, and this, though the friend she is with is urgent to return to England.
“I am writing my letter in Hugh’s room, where there is something already of extraordinary peace. If the border-land of death were always so restful, it seems to me that half our dread would vanish.
“An hour later. I have wondered more than once whether he realised his own position, or whether weakness permitted no consciousness beyond the consciousness of the moment, but he has just asked that he might be taken home. I told him there would never have been any question of this, and it seemed to satisfy him. My letter cannot go before to-morrow, and by that time I may have more to add.”
What he added was written the next day in his own room.
“He passed away at nine this morning. The peace of which I wrote to you has not been broken, and dying seemed as natural and simple an act as living. I feel that you will long to be told about the hours before, yet there is nothing for words. It was like a hand slackening its hold in quiet sleep, and no more.
“I was with him throughout the night, and, of course, always one of the nurses; but I do not think he recognised either of us for many hours before his death. The doctors say that unconsciousness usually comes on at an earlier stage. Neither of us knew the exact moment at last; once or twice before we had thought him gone, and afterwards fancied that he breathed.
“Now you will want to know what arrangements can be made, and I must tell you hastily, lest I lose the mail. To-day is Saturday. I am ignorant as to whether there are stringent rules as to the time of burial in Norway, but I do not doubt to arrange somehow, for no steamer leaves before Tuesday, when one goes to Newcastle. I do not telegraph to you until Monday. I should not do it then, were it not for the fear that Ella might be meaning to leave Hull on Tuesday, for, unless absolutely necessary, it always appears to me cruelty to inflict that length of waiting which lies between a foreign telegram and the details of a letter.
“I wish you could see him.”
Wareham spent a good deal of the day with Dr Sivertsen, going through necessary formalities and making the necessary arrangements. He was not sorry to accept the young man’s invitation to his house for supper. They talked of Hugh. Dr Sivertsen spoke of his frank simplicity.
“Something in him,” he said, “resembled the best type among us Norwegians.”
“That is for you to say, not me,” Wareham answered. “If we have learnt nothing else from your late revelations of yourselves, we have been, at least, taught not to classify so glibly as has been our custom.”
“We have thought more than we have written,” mused Sivertsen, puffing at his cigar. “And when I was in England, some years ago, it appeared to me that English conception of the northern character was principally based upon the tales of Frederika Bremer and the stories of Hans Andersen. There they saw one side, and of the moral character, I allow, the best. But they can hardly be said to draw a complete picture. Moreover, you are a writing nation; perhaps are not without danger of writing yourselves out?”
“Perhaps,” sighed Wareham wearily.
“We have the charm you thirst for—novelty. Novelty stands with you for originality, especially when united to daring.”
“Which you have never lacked.”
“In action. Of old our habit was to send the deed before the word. We are changing. I do not say it is for the better; but I dare say we offer greater interest to the world. Your young English lady is of quite another type from Mr Forbes.”
“Miss Dalrymple?” asked Wareham, with curiosity. “I hardly knew you had seen her.”
“Yes. I was interested, understanding from Dr Scott that she was to marry him. Was that so?”
“Hardly. It might have been so in time.”
“It surprised me. She is much more modern, much more subtile. Is she greatly grieved?”
“I cannot tell you. Probably I shall know to-night.”
He rose. The young doctor walked with him as far as the head of the harbour. Lights twinkled here and there, people strolled about, and Wareham was perforce reminded of that evening in Stavanger, of Millie’s pleasure, of what now seemed like the beginning of all things; for what is the day when a man first sees the woman he loves, but, to him, the day of creation?
He walked slowly. No need to hurry back. No one was waiting, no night-watch lay before him. Dr Scott had hurriedly packed, and got off by the Hull steamer, taking the English nurse with him. Wareham felt that he must see the others, and hear from them their plans; Colonel Martyn was the only one he had spoken with, and he had said they would at any rate make no movement that day. As Wareham came near the inn, a party of gentlemen turned out and came towards them, and an instinct of avoidance thrust him into the door of a shop. There he waited until they had passed; what gratitude it was necessary to express, he had a preference for enclosing in a letter. Laughter broke out as they came near. Sir Walter spoke in a drawl—
“Clear deck for Mil at last. Worth waiting for, eh, Burnby?”
“You’re an unfeeling dog,” muttered Lord Milborough.
Wareham, within, saw that he alone was not smiling.
“Wants condolences—” was all that reached Wareham’s ears, with a retreating laugh. He felt angry that even so much had been forced upon him. There was nothing astonishing in the words. Reason might have told him that the Camilla would not have furled her white wings in Bergen harbour unless some pretty strong attraction had influenced her owner. And further, that it was unconscionable to expect regret for Hugh from men to whom he was only a stranger and a rival. But many people, perhaps unconsciously, embody abstract qualities when they present them to their mind, and Wareham, the most reasonable of men, turned reason into an old woman with a shrewish face and an uplifted finger. There were times when he hated her.
He looked into the salon at once, and would have escaped when he beheld only Mrs Martyn, but that young lady had her eye on the door.
“Ah, Mr Wareham, we were expecting you,” she cried, in an injured voice. “Tom has been to look for you more than once, for really, with so many dreadful things happening, and so much to be thought of, I am most anxious to get home.”
Wareham refused to accept the responsibility of their stay. He merely asked—
“When do you start?”
“I hope you will induce Anne to leave at once. She is quite unnerved, unstrung—I do think she might show a little more consideration. But really, this has been the most unfortunate tour I ever made! Poor Mr Forbes ought never to have come out, ill as he must have been from the first. And, of course, Anne behaved very badly to him. I don’t wish for a moment to defend her, only it seems a little hard that Tom and I should be made to suffer for it, doesn’t it? Now the only thing for us to do is to go home as quickly as possible.”
He expressed a hope that her wish would be carried out.
“If Anne is sensible—”
His heart went out to Anne. No, she was not heartless.
“But, as I said, pray tell her that you quite agree with us. I must say I think her wishing to stay here is not, not quite—well, of course, it was all broken off, and it will so attract attention again, just when it was to be hoped it was dying away. I am sure I don’t know how I shall face Lady Dalrymple, she will be so extremely annoyed!”
It appeared to him unnecessary to offer either argument or consolation, and the only remark available was—“You go in the yacht?”
She looked shrewdly at him, and withdrew her plaints.
“How else? Besides, Lord Milborough is very pressing. But as we can’t expect the poor man to stay here day after day, Tom is anxious we should be off to-morrow. They have all just been here. Didn’t you meet them?”
“They passed me in the street.”
“I forgot. Of course you have been too much occupied to see anything of them. Besides, men rarely like each other. Don’t go. Anne will be here in a moment. The comfort that it will be to get back to properly-proportioned evenings and late dinners! You really wish to go? Then I will fetch Anne.” Remembrance of Hugh made it easy for him to beg her not to do this with an earnestness which perplexed her, but she was keen to carry her point.
“You can’t refuse to see a lady, I suppose?” she said, jumping up. “I want you to tell her that she can do you no good by staying.”
“Me!”
“And herself harm. But that—”
She rustled out of the room, with an air of filling space, which belonged to her. Vexed at this special interview, Wareham walked restlessly about the room, turning over fragmentary literature. Two Germans came in, stared at him, went out again. Then, to his relief, appeared Colonel Martyn. His sympathy was unaffected, and Wareham had never liked him so well; but at this moment his merit was the merit of being a third person.
“I went to look for you a couple of hours ago,” he told Wareham, “thinking I might be of some little use, but you weren’t to be found. Sad time this, for you.”
“Thank you. It is. But Sivertsen has been most useful, and in this country the officials don’t go out of their way to be overbearing, as I have found them in Germany. I believe that everything’s arranged. Mrs Martyn talks of your leaving to-morrow?”
A gleam of unmistakable relief irradiated Colonel Martyn’s face. He hesitated over his “yes,” however, and added—
“Unless you want any one?”
Wareham hastened to repudiate such a need, looked at his watch, and yawned.
“Turn in,” Colonel Martyn suggested benevolently, and spoke of the wakeful nights the other had spent.
“Mrs Martyn asked me to wait for her.” He avoided Anne’s name.
“I’ll go and hurry her up.”
In spite of this fresh propelling force, long minutes passed before Mrs Martyn rustled back alone, but in high spirits.
“I am really so sorry, Mr Wareham! Anne is such a strange girl, one never knows how to take her, and she says she can see no one more. But, after all, she has come to her senses about leaving, and agrees to go to-morrow. Congratulate me.”
“I am only sorry my name should have been intruded on Miss Dalrymple,” said Wareham gravely. “She understood, I hope, that you imagined she had something to say to me?”
“I dare say. It really does not matter,” Mrs Martyn returned airily, and he began to discern where the intention had lain. It annoyed him both then and when he afterwards thought of it.
In the room of death, his last look at Hugh’s boyish quiet face made his promise take the form of a most willing offer. Nothing more remained that he could do to please him. Friendship and sympathy were closed for ever here. Only this was left, and it had already become sacred. The look in Hugh’s eyes, the touch of his hand, rose up before him—witnesses.
He was determined to avoid so much as a word with Anne the next day, and as it fell out, had no difficulty in keeping his resolution. The start was made early, and Colonel Martyn, his face verging on cheerfulness, ran up to wish Wareham good-bye. The word said, he asked whether he would not come down to see the others, but men were waiting, and Wareham’s excuse natural. They had quitted the house some fifteen minutes, when he followed, telling himself that to see Anne leave the shores, himself unseen, would do no one harm. For three days past the weather had been heavy, and the coast colourless; now the sun shone out, a roughish wind was blowing, the water danced and sparkled, and the yacht looked like some beautiful creature straining to be free. The launch was on its way. Wareham’s eyes held it as it slipped over the bright waves, until he lost it round the vessel. Presently, almost imperceptibly, masts, lines, sails, began to move with the moving clouds, and—a white cloud herself—the Camilla glided swiftly out towards the open, carrying Anne.
He and Hugh were left.