The Pilot and his Wife Part 6

Carl went out for a solitary walk over the island in the glorious starlight night, and didn't come in till past midnight.

He had not meant what he said quite so decidedly in earnest; but now after seeing her standing before him so wondrously beautiful, with tears in her eyes--now he meant it in real earnest. He was prepared to engage himself, if necessary, in spite of every consideration.

The next morning he left in his boat for Arendal, having whispered to her, however, in pa.s.sing, before he left, "I mean it in earnest."

The repet.i.tion of these words threw Elizabeth into dire perplexity. She had lain and thought over them the night before, and had thrust them from her with indignation, for they could mean nothing else than that he had brought himself to dare to tell her that he had conceived a pa.s.sion for her, and she had quite determined to execute her threat and leave the house.

But now, repeated in this tone!

Did he really mean to ask for her hand and heart--to ask her to be his--an officer's wife? There lay before her fancy a glittering expanse of earlier dreams that almost made her giddy; and the whole week she was absent and pale, thinking anxiously of Sunday, when he was to return.

What would he say then?

And--what should she answer?

He didn't come, however, his duties having required him to make another journey that he had not reckoned upon.

On the other hand Marie Forstberg did appear, and felt at once that some change or other must have come over Elizabeth, as she pointedly declined all a.s.sistance from her; and in the look which Marie Forstberg intercepted by chance, there was something even hard and unfriendly. She laid her hand once gently upon Elizabeth's shoulder, but it produced, apparently, absolutely no impression--she might as well have caressed a piece of wood; and when she returned to the sitting-room again, she couldn't help asking, "What has happened to Elizabeth?" But the others had not observed anything unusual.

Carl Beck, contrary to his custom, came not on the following Sat.u.r.day, but before it, in the middle of the week; and he strode with hasty steps through the rooms when he didn't see Elizabeth.

He found her at last up-stairs. She was standing gazing out of the window on the landing, out of which all that was to be seen was the wooded slope of the hill and the sky above it. She heard his step--she knew that he was coming up-stairs--and felt a sudden indefinable sense of apprehension--a sort of panic almost--as if she could have jumped out of the window. What should she answer?

When he came and put his arm round her waist, and asked in a low voice, "Elizabeth, will you be mine?" she felt, for the first time in her life, on the point of fainting. She hardly knew what she did, but pushed him involuntarily away from her.

He seized her hand afresh, and asked, "Elizabeth, will you be my wife?"

She was very pale, as she answered--"Yes!"

But when he wanted again to take her by the waist, she sprang suddenly back, and looked at him with an expression of terror.

"Elizabeth!" he said, tenderly, and tried again to approach her, "what is the matter with you? If you only knew how I have longed for this moment."

"Not now--no more now!" she pleaded, holding out her hand to him.

"Another time."

"But you say 'Yes,' Elizabeth--that you are my--?" But he felt that she wanted him to go now.

After he had gone, she sat there on a box for a long time in silence, gazing straight before her.

So it had actually come to pa.s.s! Her heart beat so that she could hear it herself, and she seemed to feel a dull pain there. Her face, little by little, acquired a fixed, cold expression: she was thinking that he was then telling his stepmother of their engagement, and fortifying himself for her reception of the announcement.

She expected to be called down. But no summons came; and at last she decided to go without being called.

In the sitting-room they were all quietly intent upon their several occupations. Carl was pretending to read a book; but he threw her a stolen, tenderly anxious look over the top of it when she entered.

Supper was brought in, and everything went on as quietly as usual, even to his customary banter. To Elizabeth it seemed as if there was a mist over them all; and when Mina once asked if there was anything the matter with her, she could only answer mechanically, 'No.' The question was repeated later on, and received the same answer. She brought the supper things in and took them out, as usual, and it seemed as if she could not feel the floor under her feet, or what she carried in her hand.

The evening pa.s.sed, and they went to bed without anything happening. But in the partial darkness of the stair-landing, he seized her hand pa.s.sionately, and said--"Good-night, my Elizabeth, _my--my_ Elizabeth!"

She was not in a condition to return the pressure of his hand, and when he approached his lips to her forehead, she hastily drew herself away.

"I came out here alone to tell you this, dear, dearest Elizabeth," he whispered, with pa.s.sion trembling in his voice, and making an effort to draw her to him. "I must be on land again to-morrow. Must I go without one sign that you care for me?"

She bent her forehead slowly towards him, and he kissed it, and she then immediately left him.

"Good-night, my beloved one!" he whispered after her.

Elizabeth lay for a long while awake. She would have given anything to have been able to cry, but the tears would not come; and she felt as if she was freezing internally. When at last she did fall asleep, it was not of him she dreamt, but of Salve--the whole time of Salve. She saw him gazing at her with that earnest face--it was so heavy with grief, and she stood like a criminal before him. He said something that she could not hear, but she understood that he condemned her, and that he had thrown the dress overboard.

She rose early, and tried to occupy her thoughts with other dreams--with her future as an officer's lady. But it was as if all that had before seemed to be pure gold was now changed to bra.s.s. She felt unhappy and restless; and it was a long time before she could make up her mind to go into the sitting-room.

Carl Beck did not leave that morning. He had perceived that there was something on Elizabeth's mind.

During the forenoon, when his sisters were out, and his stepmother was occupied, he found an opportunity to speak with her alone: she was in a fever, always waiting for him to have spoken to Madam Beck.

"Elizabeth," he said, gently smoothing her hair, for she looked dispirited, and stood with her eyes fixed upon the ground, "I couldn't leave without having spoken to you again."

She still kept her eyes upon the ground, but didn't withdraw herself from his hand.

"Do you really care for me?--will you be my wife?"

She was silent. At last she said, a shade paler, and as if with an effort--

"Yes--Herr Beck."

"Say 'du' to me--say Carl," he pleaded, with much feeling, "and--look at me."

She looked at him, but not as he had expected. It was with a fixed, cold look she said--

"Yes, if we are engaged."

"Are we not then?"

"When is your stepmother to know it?" she asked, rather dragging the words out one after the other.

"Dear Elizabeth! These people at home here must notice nothing for--for three months, when I shall be--" But he caught an expression now in her face, and something in the abrupt way in which she drew her hand from him, that made him keep back what he had originally intended to say, and he corrected it hastily.

"Next week, then, I'll write from Arendal and tell my father, and then let my stepmother know what I have written. Are you offended, Elizabeth--dear Elizabeth? or shall I do it at once?" he broke out resolutely, and seized her hand again.

"No, no--not now! next week--let it not be till next week," she cried, in sudden apprehension, returning the pressure of his hand at the same time almost entreatingly--it was the first he had had from her.

"And then you are mine, Elizabeth?"

"Yes, then"--she tried to avoid meeting his eye.

"Farewell, then, Elizabeth! But I shall come back on Sat.u.r.day. I can't live for longer without seeing you."

"Farewell!" she said, in a rather toneless voice.