The Pilot and his Wife Part 22

"I daresay you would have liked to have been one of the cadets yourself, Gjert?"

"Yes," said his mother, beguiled for a moment by the dazzling thought.

"If he were only to go to school in Arendal no one knows what might happen. The clerk says that nothing is any trouble to Gjert."

Something in this observation must have struck discordantly upon her husband's ear, for he changed colour and replied shortly after, somewhat sarcastically--

"It's my opinion that Gjert is not too good for his father's station, and that we are not going to make interest with anybody to hoist him up into the company of his betters, as they call themselves."

Gjert's previous animation had been very much heightened by the picture which such a glittering prospect presented to his fancy, and he cried now, without taking warning by his father's changed tone--

"Mother was saying, though, the other day, that if I were to be a cadet I should cut a better figure in the world than as an ordinary common sailor."

It was as if a match had been thrown into a gunpowder-magazine. His father's hard face flushed up wildly, and he threw over at his wife a look of inexpressible, cold scorn. Turning savagely away, he said in a cutting tone, that seemed to go through her--

"Do you also despise your father's station, my boy?"

When Gjert blundered out then in his eagerness--

"Frederick Beck is going to be a cadet," it was followed simply by--

"Come here, Gjert!"--and he received a blow that sent him staggering against the table. A second was about to follow, when his father happened to look up at his wife. She had sprung a couple of steps forward, as if to take Gjert from him, and was standing now before him with crimson face and flas.h.i.+ng eyes, and with a bearing that made him, at all events, lower his hand. She then turned away at once, and went out into the kitchen.

Salve stood for a moment uncertain how to act. Then he went to the kitchen door, and announced, shortly and sharply, that he and Gjert were going to sea that evening--they would want provisions.

The wind and rain beat wildly against the black window-panes while Elizabeth was carrying out his orders; but when she presently came in with the ale-jar and what else they were to take with them, not a trace of anxiety, or of her former emotion, was to be detected. Her face was pale, and stony-calm; and there was something almost humble in her bearing towards her husband. But when, for a moment, she and Gjert were left alone together in the house, drawing him hastily towards her, she whispered, in a voice choked with repressed emotion--

"Never let your father see that you are afraid, my boy."

She bade her husband farewell at the door; and there was foul weather both within and without the pilot as he put to sea that evening.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Elizabeth was more agitated even than usual after a scene of this kind.

When he had struck her son, her indignation had almost mastered her; and it frightened her now to think how near she had been to an explosion.

This time the so-often-repeated excuses which she had accustomed herself to make for him would not suggest themselves; and as she lay awake in the stillness of the night, and looked back through the years that were gone, it seemed as if she was struggling and labouring on for ever without any prospect of getting nearer to the goal, and that her patience was wellnigh exhausted. Had she no claim at all to consideration? or must she be for ever silent like this, till one of them should at last be laid in Tromo churchyard?

These thoughts, having been once roused, would not be repressed again.

They held possession of her during the following day too; and she could settle down to no work of any kind. She dreaded that Salve might unexpectedly return, and did not know how she should receive him,--she no longer felt sure of being able to control herself. Her own house had all of a sudden become confined and suffocating, as if it were a prison in which she had sat for years: it seemed as if she could bear this way of living no longer.

On one of the following days a neighbour came in with a message from her aunt. She was ill, and wished Elizabeth to come and see her.

Leaving word, accordingly, for Salve when he returned, where she was gone, she took Henrik with her, and set out at once for Arendal. It was almost a relief to think that she would be away this time when he came home.

That old Mother Kirstine should be laid up, was, in its way, an event in the place. Having been professed sick-nurse for so many years, she was connected by ties of grateful recollection with a number of families.

Men who were now fathers themselves remembered well her face bending over them when as children they had tossed about in measles or fever; and when any more serious illness now occurred in any of their households, she appeared upon the scene as a matter of course without waiting to be sent for. And it was a comfort in itself to see that strong, self-possessed old woman, with her quiet experienced tact and untiring faculty of keeping awake, moving about the sick-bed, and giving her directions with a confidence that brooked no contradiction. Her position, in fact, was such, that when a new doctor arrived he soon perceived that the first thing he had to do, if he was to have any reputation in the town, would be to win the confidence of old Mother Kirstine.

Young Fru Beck, amongst others, had constantly sent to inquire after her; and when she heard that Elizabeth was there, she could not resist the opportunity of going to see her.

It was one evening before dinner--Mother Kirstine had fallen into a quiet sleep, and Elizabeth was sitting by her bedside, when she saw Fru Beck pa.s.s the window. Elizabeth knew she would come in, and sat with beating heart waiting for her knock at the door.

Fru Beck must have stood a long while in the porch, for some minutes pa.s.sed before the latch was stirred. Elizabeth went softly out and opened the door.

They stood face to face. Elizabeth's eyes were full of tears, but Fru Beck's feelings were not at that moment so easily expressed. She silently pressed Elizabeth's hand, and her manner, and the expression of her pale face, showed that she was not the less moved of the two at their meeting again.

Elizabeth showed her into Mother Kirstine's comfortable little kitchen, where a saucepan of broth for her sick aunt was simmering over the fire.

She invited her visitor to take a seat. It was so quiet that they could hear the watch ticking in the next room where her aunt was sleeping.

Neither spoke for a moment or two. Then Fru Beck asked in a low voice--

"How is your aunt, Elizabeth?"

It was a natural question to ask under the circ.u.mstances, but it was felt by both to be only a preliminary breaking of the ice; she had, besides, sent a messenger that morning already to make inquiries.

"Thank you, Fru Beck, she is improving," Elizabeth replied. "She is asleep now, and that will do her good."

"It is a long time since we saw each other--nearly eighteen years," said Fru Beck, and her eyes dwelt upon Elizabeth as if to find what traces time had left upon her. "But you have kept strong, I see--stronger than I have."

"It was that morning I left for Holland," said Elizabeth, seeming to recall it with a certain pleasure.

"I have often thought of that time," whispered Fru Beck, more to herself almost than to the person she was talking to. Her lip trembled slightly, and Elizabeth read an expression of mute sorrow in her face. She was on the point of telling Elizabeth that she knew the reason of her going; but after debating for a moment within herself whether she should or not, finally let it pa.s.s.

"Ah! if we could only see into the future, Elizabeth!" she exclaimed with a sigh, and looked sadly at her, as if she thought she had given expression to a feeling that must be common to them both.

"It is better as it is, Fru Beck. Many things happen in life that would not be so easy to bear if we were cast down beforehand."

"Yes; but one could guard one's self," whispered Fru Beck, with a certain bitterness and hardness in her voice.

Elizabeth made no reply, and there was a pause, which seemed to Fru Beck to have broken the thread of the conversation. She deliberated how she should take it up again so as to get at what she wanted to say, and taking Elizabeth's hand with sudden warmth, she said--

"If there is anything your aunt wants, you know, I hope, that she has only to send to me." She would rather have made Elizabeth herself the object of her interest instead of her aunt, but felt that there was much in the relations in which they had stood to one another to make that impossible; but her meaning was just as clear.

"And for yourself, Elizabeth?" she went on, looking searchingly into her eyes, with an expression of deep sympathy. "All is not right with you: I am afraid your marriage has not been a happy one."

These last words brought a sudden flush into Elizabeth's face, and she involuntarily withdrew her hand.

She looked at Fru Beck with an expression of wounded pride, as if it was a subject she declined to discuss.

"That is not the case, Fru Beck," she replied. "I am"--she was going to say "happily," but preferred to say--"not unhappily married." She felt that that sounded rather weak, and added--

"I have never loved, never wished for, any one but him who is now my husband."

"I am overjoyed to hear it, Elizabeth, for I had heard otherwise," said Fru Beck, with some embarra.s.sment--and there was another pause. She felt from Elizabeth's manner and bearing that she had wounded her self-esteem; and this last unlucky speech, she was afraid, had made matters worse.

There was a movement in the adjoining room, and Elizabeth was glad of an occasion to break the rather painful silence, and went in to her aunt for a moment.