Thelma
moments. At last she murmured as though to herself--
"Mr. Dyceworthy could do much--if--"
"Ask him, then," said Lovisa imperatively. "Tell him the village is in
fear of her. Tell him that if he will do nothing _we_ will. And if all
fails, come to me again; and remember! . . . I shall not only act,--I
shall _speak_!"
And emphasizing the last word as a sort of threat, she turned and strode
out of the hut.
Ulrika followed more slowly, taking a different direction to that in
which her late companion was seen rapidly disappearing. On returning to
the minister's dwelling, she found that Mr. Dyceworthy had not yet come
back from his boating excursion. She gave no explanation of her absence
to her two fellow-servants, but went straight up to her own room--a bare
attic in the roof--where she deliberately took off her dress and bared
her shoulders and breast. Then she knelt down on the rough boards, and
clasping her hands, began to writhe and wrestle as though she were
seized with a sudden convulsion. She groaned and tortured the tears from
her eyes; she pinched her own flesh till it was black and blue, and
scratched it with her nails till it bled,--and she prayed inaudibly, but
with evident desperation. Sometimes her gestures were frantic, sometimes
appealing; but she made no noise that was loud enough to attract
attention from any of the dwellers in the house. Her stolid features
were contorted with anguish,--and had she been an erring nun of the
creed she held in such bitter abhorrence, who, for some untold crime,
endured a self-imposed penance, she could not have punished her own
flesh much more severely.
She remained some quarter of an hour or twenty minutes thus; then rising
from her knees, she wiped the tears from her eyes and re-clothed
herself,--and with her usual calm, immovable aspect--though smarting
from the injuries she had inflicted on herself--she descended to the
kitchen, there to prepare Mr. Dyceworthy's tea with all the punctilious
care and nicety befitting the meal of so good a man and so perfect a
saint.
CHAPTER X.
"She believed that by dealing nobly with all, all would show
themselves noble; so that whatsoever she did became her."
HAFIZ.
As the afternoon lengthened, and the sun lowered his glittering shield
towards that part of the horizon where he rested a brief while without
setting, the _Eulalie_,--her white sails spread to the cool, refreshing
breeze,--swept gracefully and swiftly back to her old place on the
Fjord, and her anchor dropped with musical clank and splash, just as Mr.
Dyceworthy entered his house, fatigued, perspiring, and ill-tempered at
the non-success of his day. All on board the yacht were at dinner--a
dinner of the most tasteful and elegant description, such as Sir Philip
Errington well knew how to order and superintend, and Thelma, leaning
against the violet velvet cushions that were piled behind her for her
greater ease, looked,--as she indeed was,--the veritable queen of the
feast. Macfarlane and Duprez had been rendered astonished and bashful by
her excessive beauty. From the moment she came on board with her father,
clad in her simple white gown, with a deep crimson hood drawn over her
fair hair, and tied under her rounded chin, she had taken them all
captive--they were her abject slaves in heart, though they put on very
creditable airs of manly independence and nonchalance. Each man in his
different way strove to amuse or interest her, except, strange to say,
Errington himself, who, though deeply courteous to her, kept somewhat in
the background and appeared more anxious to render himself agreeable to
old Olaf Gueldmar, than to win the good graces of his lovely daughter.
The girl was delighted with everything on board the yacht,--she admired
its elegance and luxury with child-like enthusiasm; she gloried in the
speed with which its glittering prow cleaved the waters; she clapped her
hands at the hiss of the white foam as it split into a creaming pathway
for the rushing vessel; and she was so unaffected and graceful in all
her actions and attitudes, that the slow blood of the cautious
Macfarlane began to warm up by degrees to a most unwonted heat of
admiration. When she had first arrived, Errington, in receiving her, had
seriously apologized for not having some lady to meet her, but she
seemed not to understand his meaning. Her naive smile and frankly
uplifted eyes put all his suddenly conceived notions of social stiffness
to flight.
"Why should a lady come?" she asked sweetly. "It is not necessary? . . ."
"Of course it isn't!" said Lorimer promptly and delightedly. "I am sure
we shall be able to amuse you, Miss Gueldmar."
"Oh,--for that!" she replied, with a little shrug that had something
French about it, "I amuse myself always! I am amused now,--you must not
trouble yourselves!"
As she was introduced to Duprez and Macfarlane, she gave them each a
quaint, sweeping curtsy, which had the effect of making them feel the
most ungainly lumbersome fellows on the face of the earth. Macfarlane
grew secretly enraged at the length of his legs,--while Pierre Duprez,
though his bow was entirely Parisian, decided in his own mind that it
was jerky, and not good style. She was perfectly unembarrassed with all
the young men; she laughed at their jokes, and turned her glorious eyes
full on them with the unabashed sweetness of innocence; she listened to
the accounts they gave her of their fishing and climbing excursions with
the most eager interest,--and in her turn, she told them of fresh nooks
and streams and waterfalls, of which they had never even heard the
names. Not only were they enchanted with her, but they were thoroughly
delighted with her father, Olaf Gueldmar. The sturdy old pagan was in the
best of humors,--and seemed determined to be pleased with
everything,--he told good stories,--and laughed that rollicking, jovial
laugh of his with such unforced heartiness that it was impossible to be
dull in his company,--and not one of Errington's companions gave a
thought to the reports concerning him and his daughter, which had been
so gratuitously related by Mr. Dyceworthy.
They had had a glorious day's sail, piloted by Valdemar Svensen, whose
astonishment at seeing the Gueldmars on board the _Eulalie_ was depicted
in his face, but who prudently forebore from making any remarks thereon.
The _bonde_ hailed him good-humoredly as an old acquaintance,--much in
the tone of a master addressing a servant,--and Thelma smiled kindly at
him,--but the boundary line between superior and inferior was in this
case very strongly marked, and neither side showed any intention of
overstepping it. In the course of the day, Duprez had accidentally
lapsed into French, whereupon to his surprise Thelma had answered him in
the same tongue,--though with a different and much softer pronunciation.
Her "_bien zoli_!" had the mellifluous sweetness of the Provencal
dialect, and on his eagerly questioning her, he learned that she had
received her education in a large convent at Arles, where she had
learned French from the nuns. Her father overheard her talking of her
school-days, and he added--
"Yes, I sent my girl away for her education, though I know the teaching
is good in Christiania. Yet it did not seem good enough for her.
Besides, your modern 'higher education' is not the thing for a
woman,--it is too heavy and commonplace. Thelma knows nothing about
mathematics or algebra. She can sing and read and write,--and, what is
more, she can spin and sew; but even these things were not the first
consideration with me. I wanted her disposition trained, and her bodily
health attended to. I said to those good women at Arles--'Look
here,--here's a child for you! I don't care how much or how little she
knows about accomplishments. I want her to be sound and sweet from head
to heel--a clean mind in a wholesome body. Teach her self-respect, and
make her prefer death to a lie. Show her the curse of a shrewish temper,
and the blessing of cheerfulness. That will satisfy me!' I dare say, now
I come to think of it, those nuns thought me an odd customer; but, at
any rate, they seemed to understand me. Thelma was very happy with them,
and considering all things"--the old man's eyes twinkled fondly--"she
hasn't turned out so badly!"
They laughed,--and Thelma blushed as Errington's dreamy eyes rested on
her with a look, which, though he was unconscious of it, spoke
passionate admiration. The day passed too quickly with them all,--and
now, as they sat at dinner in the richly ornamented saloon, there was
not one among them who could contemplate without reluctance the
approaching break-up of so pleasant a party. Dessert was served, and as
Thelma toyed with the fruit on her plate and sipped her glass of
champagne, her face grew serious and absorbed,--even sad,--and she
scarcely seemed to hear the merry chatter of tongues around her, till
Errington's voice asking a question of her father roused her into swift
attention.
"Do you know any one of the name of Sigurd?" he was saying, "a poor
fellow whose wits are in heaven let us hope,--for they certainly are not
on earth."
Olaf Gueldmar's fine face softened with pity, and he replied--
"Sigurd? Have you met him then? Ah, poor boy, his is a sad fate! He has
wit enough, but it works wrongly; the brain is there, but 'tis twisted.
Yes, we know Sigurd well enough--his home is with us in default of a
better. Ay, ay! we snatched him from death--perhaps unwisely,--yet he
has a good heart, and finds pleasure in his life."
"He is a kind of poet in his own way," went on Errington, watching
Thelma as she listened intently to their conversation. "Do you know he
actually visited me on board here last night and begged me to go away
from the Altenfjord altogether? He seemed afraid of me, as if he thought
I meant to do him some harm."
"How strange!" murmured Thelma. "Sigurd never speaks to visitors,--he is
too shy. I cannot understand his motive!"
"Ah, my dear!" sighed her father. "Has he any motive at all? . . . and
does he ever understand himself? His fancies change with every shifting
breeze! I will tell you," he continued, addressing himself to Errington,
"how he came to be, as it were, a bit of our home. Just before Thelma
was born, I was walking with my wife one day on the shore, when we both
caught sight of something bumping against our little pier, like a large
box or basket. I managed to get hold of it with a boat-hook and drag it
in; it was a sort of creel such as is used to pack fish in, and in it
was the naked body of a half-drowned child. It was an ugly little
creature--a newly born infant deformity--and on its chest there was a
horrible scar in the shape of a cross, as though it had been gashed
deeply with a pen-knife. I thought it was dead, and was for throwing it
back into the Fjord, but my wife,--a tender-hearted angel--took the poor
wretched little wet body in her arms, and found that it breathed. She
warmed it, dried it, and wrapped it in her shawl,--and after awhile the
tiny monster opened its eyes and stared at her. Well! . . . somehow,
neither of us could forget the look it gave us,--such a solemn, warning,
pitiful, appealing sort of expression! There was no resisting it,--so we
took the foundling and did the best we could for him. We gave him the
name of Sigurd,--and when Thelma was born, the two babies used to play
together all day, and we never noticed anything wrong with the boy,
except his natural deformity, till he was about ten or twelve years old.
Then we saw to our sorrow that the gods had chosen to play havoc with
his wits. However, we humored him tenderly, and he was always
manageable. Poor Sigurd! He adored my wife; I have known him listen for