Thelma
do not understand. But I know well it is not the girl herself that
speaks--it is a demon in her,--and that demon shall be cast forth before
I die! Yea, with the help of the Lord I shall--" She stopped abruptly
and fixed her eyes, glowing with fierce wrath, on Thelma. The girl met
her evil glance with a gentle surprise. Lovisa smiled malignantly.
"You know me, I think!" said Lovisa. "You have seen me before?"
"Often," answered Thelma mildly. "I have always been sorry for you."
"Sorry for me!" almost yelled the old woman. "Why--why are you sorry for
me?"
"Do not answer her, child!" interrupted Gueldmar angrily. "She is mad as
the winds of a wild winter, and will but vex thee."
But Thelma laid her hand soothingly on her father's, and smiled
peacefully as she turned her fair face again towards Lovisa.
"Why?" she said. "Because you seem so very lonely and sad--and that must
make you cross with every one who is happy! And it is a pity, I think,
that you do not let Britta alone--you only quarrel with each other when
you meet. And would you not like her to think kindly of you when you are
dead?"
Lovisa seemed choking with anger,--her face worked into such hideous
grimaces, that all present, save Thelma, were dismayed at her repulsive
aspect.
"When I am dead!" she muttered hoarsely. "So you count upon that
already, do you? Ah! . . . but do you know which of us shall die first!"
Then raising her voice with an effort she exclaimed--
"Stand forth, Thelma Gueldmar! Let me see you closely--face to face!"
Errington said something in a low tone, and the _bonde_ would have again
interfered, but Thelma shook her head, smiled and rose from her seat at
table.
"Anything to soothe her, poor soul!" she whispered, as she left
Errington's side and advanced towards Lovisa till she was within reach
of the old woman's hand. She looked like some grand white angel, who had
stepped down from a cathedral altar, as she stood erect and stately with
a gravely pitying expression in her lovely eyes, confronting the
sable-draped, withered, leering hag, who fixed upon her a steady look of
the most cruel and pitiless hatred.
"Daughter of Satan!" said Lovisa then, in intense piercing tones that
somehow carried with them a sense of awe and horror. "Creature, in whose
veins the fire of hell burns without ceasing,--my _curse_ upon you! My
curse upon the beauty of your body--may it grow loathsome in the sight
of all men! May those who embrace you, embrace misfortune and ruin!--may
love betray you and forsake you! May your heart be broken even as mine
has been!--may your bridal bed be left deserted!--may your children
wither and pine from their hour of birth! Sorrow track you to the
grave!--may your death be lingering and horrible! God be my witness and
fulfill my words!"
And, raising her arms with wild gesture, she turned and left the house.
The spell of stupefied silence was broken with her disappearance. Old
Gueldmar prepared to rush after her and force her to retract her evil
speech,--Errington was furious, and Britta cried bitterly. The lazy
Lorimer was excited and annoyed.
"Fetch her back," he said, "and I'll dance upon her!"
But Thelma stood where the old woman had left her--she smiled faintly,
but she was very pale. Errington approached her,--she turned to him and
stretched out her hands with a little appealing gesture.
"My friend," she said softly, "do you think I deserve so many curses? Is
there something about me that is evil?"
What Errington would have answered is doubtful,--his heart beat
wildly--he longed to draw those little hands in his own, and cover them
with passionate kisses,--but he was intercepted by old Gueldmar, who
caught his daughter in his arms and hugged her closely, his silvery
beard mingling with the gold of her rippling hair.
"Never fear a wicked tongue, my bird!" said the old man fondly. "There
is naught of harm that would touch thee either on earth or in
heaven,--and a foul-mouthed curse must roll off thy soul like water from
a dove's wing! Cheer thee, my darling--cheer thee! What! Thine own creed
teaches thee that the gentle Mother of Christ, with her little white
angels round her, watches over all innocent maids,--and thinkest thou
she will let an old woman's malice and envy blight thy young days? No,
no! _Thou_ accursed?" And the _bonde_ laughed loudly to hide the tears
that moistened his keen eyes. "Thou art the sweetest blessing of my
heart, even as thy mother was before thee! Come, come! Raise thy pretty
head--here are these merry lads growing long-faced,--and Britta is
weeping enough salt water to fill a bucket! One of thy smiles will set
us all right again,--ay, there now!"--as she looked up and, meeting
Philip's eloquent eyes, blushed, and withdrew herself gently from her
father's arms,--"Let us finish our supper and think no more of yonder
villainous old hag--she is crazy, I believe, and knows not what she says
half her time. Now, Britta, cease thy grunting and sighing--'twill spoil
thy face and will not mend the hole in thy grandmother's brain!"
"Wicked, spiteful, ugly old thing!" sobbed Britta; "I'll never, never,
never forgive her!" Then, running to Thelma, she caught her hand and
kissed it affectionately. "Oh, my dear, my dear! To think she should
have cursed you, what dreadful, dreadful wickedness! Oh!" and Britta
looked volumes of wrath. "I could have beaten her black and blue!"
Her vicious eagerness was almost comic--every one laughed, including
Thelma, though she pressed the hand of her little servant very warmly.
"Oh fie!" said Lorimer seriously. "Little girls mustn't whip their
grandmothers; it's specially forbidden in the Prayer-book, isn't it,
Phil?"
"I'm sure I don't know!" replied Errington merrily. "I believe there is
something to the effect that a man may not marry his grandmother--perhaps
that is what you mean?"
"Ah, no doubt!" murmured Lorimer languidly, as, with the others, he
resumed his seat at the supper-table. "I knew there was a special
mandate respecting one's particularly venerable relations, with a view
to self-guidance in case they should prove troublesome, like Britta's
good grand-mamma. What a frightfully picturesque mouthing old lady she
is!"
"She is _la petroleuse_ of Norway!" exclaimed Duprez. "She would make an
admirable dancer in the Carmagnole!"
Macfarlane, who had preserved a discreet silence throughout the whole
scene, here looked up.
"She's just a screech-owl o' mistaken piety," he said. "She minds me o'
a glowerin' auld warlock of an aunt o' mine in Glasgie, wha sits in her
chair a' day wi' ae finger on the Bible. She says she's gaun straight to
heaven by special invitation o' the Lord, leavin' a' her blood relations
howlin' vainly after her from their roastin' fires down below. Ma
certes! she'll give ye a good rousin' curse if ye like! She's cursed me
ever since I can remember her,--cursed me in and out from sunrise to
sunset,--but I'm no the worse for't as yet,--an' it's dootful whether
she's any the better."
"And yet Lovisa Elsland used to be as merry and lissom a lass as ever
stepped," said Gueldmar musingly. "I remember her well when both she and
I were young. I was always on the sea at that time,--never happy unless
the waves tossed me and my vessel from one shore to another. I suppose
the restless spirit of my fathers was in me. I was never contented
unless I saw some new coast every six months or so. Well! . . . Lovisa
was always foremost among the girls of the village who watched me leave
the Fjord,--and however long or short a time I might be absent, she was
certain to be on the shore when my ship came sailing home again. Many a
joke I have cracked with her and her companions--and she was a bonnie
enough creature to look at then, I tell you,--though now she is like a
battered figure-head on a wreck. Her marriage, spoiled her temper,--her
husband was as dark and sour a man as could be met with in all Norway,
and when he and his fishing-boat sank in a squall off the Lofoden
Islands, I doubt if she shed many tears for his loss. Her only
daughter's husband went down in the same storm,--and he but three months
wedded,--and the girl,--Britta's mother,--pined and pined, and even when
her child was born took no sort of comfort in it. She died four years
after Britta's birth--her death was hastened, so I have heard, through
old Lovisa's harsh treatment,--anyhow the little lass she left behind
her had no very easy time of it all alone with her grandmother,--eh
Britta?"
Britta looked up and shook her head emphatically.
"Then," went on Gueldmar, "when my girl came back the last time from
France, Britta chanced to see her, and, strangely enough,"--here he
winked shrewdly--"took a fancy to her face,--odd, wasn't it? However,
nothing would suit her but that she must be Thelma's handmaiden, and
here she is. Now you know her history,--she would be happy enough if her
grandmother would let her alone; but the silly old woman thinks the girl
is under a spell, and that Thelma is the witch that works it;"--and the
old farmer laughed. "There's a grain of truth in the notion too, but not
in the way she has of looking at it."
"All women are witches!" said Duprez. "Britta is a little witch
herself!"
Britta's rosy cheeks grew rosier at this, and she tossed her chestnut
curls with an air of saucy defiance that delighted the Frenchman. He
forgot his wounded cheek and his disfiguring bandages in the
contemplation of the little plump figure, cased in its close-fitting
scarlet bodice, and the tempting rosy lips that were in such close
proximity to his touch.
"If it were not for those red hands!" he thought. "Dieu! what a charming
child she would be! One would instantly kill the grandmother and kiss
the granddaughter!"
And he watched her with admiration as she busied herself about the
supper-table, attending to every one with diligence and care, but
reserving her special services for Thelma, whom she waited on with a
mingled tenderness, and reverence, that were both touching and pretty to
see.
The conversation now became general, and nothing further occurred to
disturb the harmony and hilarity of the party--only Errington seemed
somewhat abstracted, and answered many questions that were put to him at
haphazard, without knowing, or possibly caring, whether his replies were
intelligible or incoherent. His thoughts were dreamlike and brilliant
with fairy sunshine. He understood at last what poets meant by their
melodious musings, woven into golden threads of song--he seemed to have
grasped some hitherto unguessed secret of his being--a secret that
filled him with as much strange pain as pleasure. He felt as though he
were endowed with a thousand senses,--each one keenly alive and
sensitive to the smallest touch,--and there was a pulsation in his blood
that was new and beyond his control,--a something that beat wildly in
his heart at the sound of Thelma's voice, or the passing flutter of her
white garments near him. Of what use to disguise it from himself any
longer? He loved her! The terrible, beautiful tempest of love had broken
over his life at last; there was no escape from its thunderous passion
and dazzling lightning glory.
He drew a sharp quick breath--the hum of the gay voices around him was
more meaningless to his ears than the sound of the sea breaking on the
beach below. He glanced at the girl--the fair and innocent creature who
had, in his imagination, risen to a throne of imperial height, from
whence she could bestow on him death or salvation. How calm she seemed!
She was listening with courteous patience to a long story of
Macfarlane's whose Scotch accent rendered it difficult for her to
understand. She was pale, Philip thought, and her eyes were heavy; but