Читать книгу The Swing of the Pendulum - Frances Mary Peard - Страница 5

The shallow North Sea had been fretted by a northerly gale, and the voyage from Hull even more than usually unpleasant, when the passengers on board the Eldorado struggled up to see the low-lying land which forms the entrance to Stavanger. The vessel was crowded, but hardly any one had appeared at meals, and the groups on deck had been too much occupied with their own discomforts to do more than take a languid interest in each other. Now that the worst was over, this interest quickened.

Two ladies, a mother and daughter, were standing a little apart, when a gentleman strolled up to them. They greeted him with a smile.

“I have not seen you since the night you came on board; where have you been all the time?” he began.

“Don’t ask,” said the elder lady, with a shudder. “For the first time in my life I have suffered the pangs of actual remorse, because I persuaded Millie to come. However, we are never going home again, that is quite decided.”

“Unless we walk,” said Millie firmly.

“Do you mean to land at Stavanger?”

“How can you ask? I would land anywhere, even on a desert island. Besides, we have been reading somebody’s Best Tour, and according to that it is the right way of going into Norway. Once adopt a guide-book, you become its slave.”

“Then we shall be likely to jog along together, unless you object?” said Wareham, with a smile.

Millie looked at him with frank delight, her mother gave a quick glance, in which more mingled feelings might have been read. She made haste, however, to express her pleasure.

“I am not likely to object to an unexpected piece of good fortune, but I give you fair warning that, although I can get on by myself as well as most women, if there is a man at hand, I am pretty sure to turn over exacting carriole-drivers, or anybody making himself disagreeable, to him.”

“I am not alarmed. There are no exacting carriole-drivers in Norway, and you are more likely to over-pay than be over-charged. You will like the country.”

“I am going to enjoy it immensely,” said Millie, “when once I am there. This doesn’t count, does it? because, though I believe we are staring at lovely mountains, and there are rose-red sheds standing up against them, I feel too much humiliated to be enthusiastic, and my one longing is for tea. Besides, I am dreadfully cold.”

“Come to the other side of the ship,” said her mother briskly. “We shall see the town better, and be nearer our luggage.”

Wareham followed, he hardly knew why.

He liked the Ravenhills very well, but he had not intended to attach himself to any fellow-travellers, and when he spoke of jogging along together, it was rather an allusion to the inevitable gravitation of Norwegian travel than to that deliberate companionship which their words seemed to accept. He told himself, however, that this was a natural mistake, born of inexperience. It would be easy enough to break away when he found it desirable; he would not worry his holiday with excess of caution. Mrs Ravenhill was charming, and Millie might turn out to possess the same delicate quality. As she stood before him with her mother, he was struck with the prettiness of her hazel eyes and her dimples, and with that swift rush of thought into the imaginary future which we have all experienced, and from which we often return with a flush of shame, he saw himself falling in love with Millie, and coming back to England an engaged man. The thought was so vivid, that when at this moment she turned to speak to him, he had scarcely time to call himself back to the actual condition of things, and something of his mental picture was perhaps betrayed in his face, for she glanced quickly at him a second time, and coloured slightly.

“Norway may be as delightful as you all declare,” she said, “but when I set up a delightful land it shall have no custom-house. Here we shall have to wait, I suppose, while great big men amuse themselves with rummaging among all my most nicely packed corners. Oh, it’s absurd, it’s barbarous! And mother wouldn’t bring a maid.”

Mrs Ravenhill had moved a little forward, to speak to one of the stewards who were carrying up the cabin packages. When next Wareham looked at her, she had apparently relinquished her intention, and was talking to a gentleman who up to this moment had stood aloof, and who, even now, showed no great conversational alacrity, as Wareham remarked with a little amusement.

“Who is that?” he asked Miss Ravenhill.

“That?” Millie’s eyes began to smile. “Oh, poor Colonel Martyn. It is really wicked of mother, for she knows how frightened he gets when he hasn’t Mrs Martyn to protect him. But here she comes,” and Millie stopped suddenly.

Wareham did not notice the break, for his eyes had passed Mrs Martyn, and fallen with a start of annoyed surprise upon the face of a girl who followed her. The girl was young, and unusually tall, though, owing to an extraordinary grace and ease of movement, this only became evident when you compared her with the other women who stood round. She looked neither to the right nor left, and with the sun shining brightly behind her, it was difficult to see her face distinctly, but Millie, who was watching Wareham, perceived that he recognised her, and that the recognition was, for some reason or other, unwelcome.

“You know Miss Dalrymple?” she asked curiously.

Wareham’s expression had stiffened.

“No,” he said briefly.

“No? But you have seen her? You must have seen her this season?”

“Yes, I have seen her.”

Millie’s mouth opened as if she were going to put another question, but if it were so her intention changed. She said with enthusiasm—

“She is very beautiful.”

Wareham did not answer. He had turned his back upon the group, and was looking over the water past some brilliantly red-roofed barns to a broken line of tender amethyst-coloured hills.

“Are those people going to get out here?”

“What people?”

“Miss Dalrymple and her friends.”

“No. They told us at Hull—we all dined together at the Station Hotel, you know—that they should go on to Bergen.”

“Oh, good!” said Wareham, with unmistakable relief.

Millie began to laugh.

“You don’t know her, yet you have a dislike to her!”

“Yes. I dislike her.”

Something in Wareham’s tone checked further questioning. It was grave, outspoken, and the least little bit in the world haughty. Millie flew away from the subject, though her thoughts crept back to it again and again, with, it must be owned, a secret glee.

Slowly the vessel steamed into the harbour. The sun had broken out brilliantly after the gale; clouds, blown into strange shapes, struck across the sky, and glittered whitely behind a cleft in the distant mountains; the indigo blue water was full of dancing movement, and gave everything an air of gay exhilaration which it was difficult to resist. Into Millie’s pale face colour returned, and her eyes brightened as she looked about her at the vividly-painted boats, the white houses, and the cream-coloured ponies standing on the quay. Thanks to Wareham, they were among the first to leave the vessel, and to make their way through a gently interested crowd towards the inn. Mrs Ravenhill was more enthusiastic than her daughter. She sketched, and all she saw resolved itself into a possible effect on a square of white paper, and breathed the joy of creation. She was possessed, besides, with the fancy that her coming to Norway in a spirit of warm good-will should be warmly reciprocated, so that she looked at the people smiling, ready to shake hands with them all, since she had heard that was the form of greeting they liked. Millie, who had not her mothers buoyancy, found it more difficult to forget the impressions of the voyage. She began to pity those remaining on board.

“Unfortunate people who go on to Bergen! Weren’t the Martyns very sorry for themselves, mother?”

“Oh, didn’t you hear? They have given up the idea, changed their plans, and are landing here. Mrs Martyn vowed she couldn’t stand another hour.”

Millie shot a quick glance at Wareham, and told herself that his face spoke annoyance, but at this moment Mrs Ravenhill’s alert attention to the unusual was caught by a pony standing in a little cart, hobbled by reins twisted round its fore-feet, and she broke into exclamation. Then they left the harbour by a short street, and presently found themselves at the entrance of the comfortable inn which calls itself the Grand, where the two ladies vanished up-stairs, while Wareham, who had a telegram to send, went up the hill to the post-office.

Already he repented of the rashness which had allowed Mrs Ravenhill to suppose that he was ready to join her. He had known them long, but not well, and to a mail used to self-disposal, there was horror in the bare thought that they might make undue claims upon his attentions. That was bad enough, but the Martyns lay behind—worse, and that they should be worse was annoying. The best friend in the world cannot adopt the misfortunes of his friend as though they were his own, least of all, as Wareham reflected, with a half-laugh, when they are the misfortunes of love. As Dick Wareham with Hugh Forbes opposite to him—seen through a cloud of smoke, and the mist of years—sympathy bound him to denunciation of the woman who had ruined Hugh’s happiness; but as Richard Wareham in a holiday land, old surroundings behind, only folly would allow disturbance because this same woman was under the same roof! What was she to him? He reflected impatiently that he had been a fool to tell Miss Ravenhill that he disliked her. Wareham was hot-headed, and hot-headed yet fair-minded men must often wade through deep waters of repentance. He owned that he had behaved ill, and as his opinion of himself was of more importance to him than that of the world, the judgment annoyed him, and Miss Dalrymple, the cause of annoyance, became more obnoxious. He sent his telegram, and it was to Hugh Forbes.

If he had indulged in a hope that the Martyns might have betaken themselves to another inn, that hope was promptly dispelled, for after making his way back, followed by children shyly inviting him to buy paper screws, containing each four or five strawberries, he found their names largely scrawled across the black board in the entrance-hall, where the good-humoured burly porter was still arranging rooms for white-faced arrivals. Then he jumped at another chance of escape. Had the Sand steamer gone?

It had. The Eldorado was some hours late, and the steamer left at two. No other was due for twenty-four hours. Wareham went to his room, ashamed of the impulse of retreat. A bath and increasing hunger braced him, and he came down to the meal which in Norway does duty for late dinner, caring nothing as to whom he might encounter. He was not surprised to hear that Mrs Ravenhill had already made intimate acquaintance with Stavanger, its streets, harbours, and boats, but he was appreciatively grateful for the tact which had led her to abstain from asking him to accompany her; evidently she intended him to understand that travelling with them was not going to interfere with his liberty. Millie, like the rest of the world, had been sleeping; now she was quite herself again, and announced that she meant to go out immediately after supper.

“Meanwhile I intend to try everything that is on the table. Isn’t that the properly unprejudiced spirit in which to dine in a strange country?”

“Oh, praiseworthy!” said Wareham. “Do you mind how they come, or will you follow hackneyed routine, and start with salmon?”

“Please. I don’t wish to go in too strongly for emancipation. I shall begin with salmon, and be much disappointed if you don’t provide me with reindeer collops—isn’t that the proper word?—and cloudberries and cream.”

“You are born to disappointment,” Wareham announced. “Cloudberries are not ripe much before September, and we are in July.” Millie looked at him, laughing and frowning. He admired her dimple.

“Spare my delusions,” she said. “I shall not listen to you. I know what to expect. Cloudberries and cream I shall feast upon, if not to-day, another day. Pirates will be in the fjords, at a safe distance. There will be islands, and if we look long enough, we shall see a man swimming, and flinging up his hands; while up by the saeters we shall come upon a little Lapp, carrying away a cheese as big as himself. That is my Norway,” Millie continued triumphantly, “not the miserably complicated country of Ibsen and Bjornson.” She lowered her voice to an “Ah!” and said no more, as the Martyns and Miss Dalrymple appeared.

Three empty seats opposite the Ravenhills had been reserved for the new-comers. Colonel Martyn gave a nod to Wareham, expressive of the sympathy of a fellow-sufferer, and dropped into the chair corresponding with his. Mrs Martyn came next, a large fair woman, with hardness in her face and brusqueness in her manner. Wareham passed them and looked at Miss Dalrymple, hostility in his heart, and admitted; as well as a curiosity which he would not have so readily acknowledged.

She faced the level light of many windows, a position against which Millie had rebelled, and she had just gone through a trying sea voyage; but her beauty defied what would have affected others. Her skin was warmly tinted, her hair a lovely brown, growing low on the temples, and lighter than is usual with brown beauties, some shades lighter than the beautiful eyes. Wareham, looking at her, pelted her with all the detracting epithets he could light upon; he called the poise of the small head on the slender throat arrogant, yet to most people it would have seemed as natural as the growth of a flower, and as perfect. As for the line of her lips, it was hard, hard, hard. Sitting down, she swept the table with a swift glance, half closing her eyes as she did so, to her judge a sign of sinful vanity, though really due to near-sightedness. This done, she turned and talked almost exclusively to her neighbour, a small old lady, shy, and a little prim, who had also crossed in the Eldorado. She was often, however, silent: once Wareham encountered her half-shut glance resting upon him. She showed no confusion at meeting his gaze, and he had to own, with a little mortification, that her look was as impersonal as that which she turned upon others of the unknown company.

Millie had grown silent, perhaps because her neighbour spoke less; and the link between the two sets was Mrs Ravenhill. She knew many people and could talk easily; at one moment in her conversation with Mrs Martyn, who had not yet stepped back into her usual assertive mood, she leaned across her daughter, and introduced Wareham. It was only an act of courtesy; after the interchange of a few words, his talk drifted again to Millie.

The motley meal ended, it broke up abruptly.

“Mother and I are going out,” said Millie, with careful avoidance of pressure.

“I will come, if I may.” He added heedfully, “That is, if you are to be alone?”

“Alone, of course.” The girls eyes danced. Triumph had not often come to her, and to find a man, a man of distinction, who preferred her society to that of the beautiful Miss Dalrymple, was intoxicating. She swept her mother to her room, and implored her to make haste.

“Why?”

“Why? Because it is pleasanter to be alone.”

“Shall we be alone?”

Pinning on her veil, Millie admitted that she believed Mr Wareham would come.

“Oh!” Presently Mrs Ravenhill added, with a little intention—“Millie, don’t spoil Mr Wareham.”

The girl laughed frankly.

“The bare idea makes you fierce, mother, doesn’t it? But I do think it is nicer to have a man with us than to trail along by ourselves, and if he comes, he will expect things to—to—well, to go as he likes.”

Mrs Ravenhill emitted another “Oh!” She added—“In my day a man would have thought himself honoured.”

“So he would in mine, if I had the arrangement of things,” Millie retorted. “But I haven’t, and all that can be done is to make the best of them. Perhaps you haven’t found out that Mr Wareham detests Miss Dalrymple, and evidently wishes to avoid her. We needn’t force them upon each other.”

“I thought he did not know her?”

“Nor does he.”

“Well,” said her mother, with impatience, “have it as you like, Millie, only, for pity’s sake, don’t let us plunge into a cloud of mystifications and prejudices! We didn’t come to Norway for that, and Mr Wareham isn’t worth it.”

To this the girl made no answer, and the subject dropped.

So they went out, all three, in the cool clear daylight, which had no suggestion of evening about it, except that the shop-doors were locked, and people strolled about with leisure which seemed unnatural. The streets were not beautiful, but all the boarded houses had clean white faces, red roofs, and cheerful windows crowded with flowers. Presently they came upon the old cathedral with its two low spires; on one side an ancient avenue of storm-stunted sycamores, dignified a grave little cluster of houses at its end. Millie wanted to go into the church, and professed herself injured at finding it closed.

“Mayn’t they ever shut up?” said Wareham, holding out his watch with a smile.

“It is a quarter to ten!” she exclaimed, but refused to return. A lake glimmered through the trees—they went there, and afterwards along stony ways round the harbour. Something—was it the pure light air, the kindly sensible-faced people?—set the girls heart, throbbing. She had suddenly caught her mother’s simple power of enjoyment, and Wareham owned that her quick intuition gave originality to the commonplace.

By the time the harbour was reached, lights were golden, colour ran riot in the sky. There was too much ripple on the water for reflections, but the green boats bobbed gaily up and down; while far away the mountains lay faintly blue against the eastern sky, out of which light paled. Beyond the streets are public gardens, the houses are left behind, and the wide water-mouth stretches broadly. Now there was nothing but the lap of waves, distant islands, more distant mountains, and the sunset sky above.

They lingered, and silently watched the pomp fade, found a boat, and rowed across the harbour in the last afterglow.