Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 383
As the clock struck four in the tower of the cathedral, Thora Neilsen, the daughter of Factor Neilsen, awoke with a start, and leapt out of bed. She had drawn up her blinds the night before so that the daylight might waken her in the morning, but before she realised that it was the moonlight that had been playing upon her eyelids she was standing in the middle of the floor and crying in the ringing voice of youth and happiness —
“Aunt Margret! Auntie! I’ve overslept myself! I’ll be late! Auntie! Auntie!”
Then the measured and sonorous breathing which had been coming through an open door from the adjoining room was interrupted by an elder voice, a good-natured voice trying to be angry, and saying drowsily —
“Drat the girl, she’ll waken the whole house.”
This was followed by the creaking of a bed and the thud of bare feet on the floor, accompanied by a running fire of grumbling, in which the speaker reminded herself that she was not a cat, capable of sleeping in the daytime, and if she had to be called up in the dead of night she might at least be permitted to wash her face.
The girl listened for a moment and laughed — the light and joyous laugh of the soul that has never known sorrow. She was young and unusually fair. Her height was under rather than over the average height of woman, and if her face was not beautiful it produced the effect of beauty, being one of those soft-featured faces which have a smile always playing upon them, even when the owner does not know it to be there.
She lit her candles, dropped her Venetians, and began to dress herself, humming a tune to show she was not concerned. By this time the rumbling artillery from the next apartment entered the room in the person of an elderly lady, who looked more than usually grotesque (if it is fair to take her at such a moment) in abbreviated underwear and small calico nightcap, with bobs of hair in papers about her forehead like barnacles on the figurehead of a ship that is fresh from a long service in foreign waters.
This was Aunt Margret, with goodness written on every line of her old face, but with a tongue that fell like a fountain on sharp stones and knew nothing of dry weather. The moment she set eyes on Thora in the preliminary stages of her toilet she cried —
“Silk? At this time in the morning? And who is to see them under your big boots, if you please?”
The girl laughed at this, as she laughed at everything, and said, “Very well, give me the woollen ones then. But what a cross old thing you are, Auntie. You knew I had to get up early, having a six hours’ ride before me.”
“But who wants you to have a six hours’ ride, I wonder?” said Aunt Margret, bustling about breathlessly to get the girl ready.
“You know quite well who wants me, Auntie — Magnus wants me. When they elected him mountain-king for the year I promised him faithfully that I would go to the sheep gathering, and of course—”
“Don’t try to fool an old fox, my dear, and come and wash in this water. It isn’t because Magnus wants you at the sheep-gathering, but because somebody else is going to take you there.”
“Auntie!” cried Thora, lifting a dripping face from the washbasin.
“Oh, you needn’t colour up like fire, my precious — I know it’s the truth without that.”
“How absurd you are, Aunt Margret! You know as well as I do that Magnus himself asked Oscar to take me. He wrote expressly from the farm, not having seen Oscar since he came from college, and wanting to kill two birds with one stone.”
“The more fool he!” said Aunt Margret. “The man who expects to marry a girl and asks another man to look after her while he is away is a fool, and his friends ought to take care of him. It’s only the simpleton who shuts the door with a bang behind him like that.”
“What a nonsensical woman you are, Auntie!” said Thora. “Oscar is Magnus’s brother.”
“Brother, indeed! So was Jacob the brother of Esau, and Cain was the brother of Abel, and those ten big beauties were the brothers of Joseph and Benjamin.”
“Good gracious me, Aunt Margret, what a bad disposition you’ve got! That’s the worst of you — you have got such a bad disposition. You talk of Oscar Stephensson as if he were a regular reprobate instead of the son of the Governor, and the idol of everybody.”
“It’s easy to defend some one whom nobody wants to strike. I don’t say anything against Oscar.”
“Of course you don’t, you cross old creature. You’re fonder of him than anybody else, and I believe you want him for yourself, you jealous thing, because you think he is the brightest and cleverest and best-looking young man in Iceland.”
“Many things glitter in the goldsmith’s shop, but a sensible woman doesn’t want to grab the whole of them.”
“And do I, you silly?”
“It looks as if you do, my dear; but sit down here before the glass and let me brush your hair. You are to be married to Magnus, and your public betrothal is to take place the day after to-morrow in the presence of both the families, yet you’ve had Oscar here every day, and all day, since he came home from England a week ago, and now you are going to ride with him to Thingvellir. You’ll make mischief, I promise you. Two dogs at the same bone seldom agree.”
At that the girl was taken with a violent fit of laughing. “Auntie, what names you are calling us!”
“Better I should do so than somebody else! The people here are all ears, and Oscar is all mouth — he is always talking about you.”
“Not always, Auntie.” Thora’s pretty face was reddening in the glass in front of her.
“Always! Only yesterday he said, ‘My future sister-inlaw—’”
“Not ‘future sister-in-law,’ Auntie.”
“Did I speak, or did I not speak, Thora?— ‘My future sister-in-law is perfectly charming,’ he said—”
“Now, I’m sure it wasn’t ‘charming,’ Auntie darling.”
“Yes, it was, and hold your silly head quiet, miss— ‘perfectly charming’ he said, ‘and I’m half jealous of old Magnus already.’”
The blue eyes in the glass were gleaming with delight, but the mouth said, “Well, of course, I should have been dreadfully vexed if I had heard him say that, but still it isn’t my fault—”
“Fiddlesticks!” said Aunt Margret with a sniff of contempt. “Just take a cranky old woman’s advice, my precious, and don’t make trouble between two brothers.”
Then the shining face in the glass became serious and thoughtful, and Thora said— “How can you say such uncomfortable things, Aunt Margret? Merely because I am going to ride with Oscar to the sheep-gathering—”
“Oh, a little brook can start a big river. But what’s the use of talking — a beast can be broken, but not a wilful woman.”
Then seeing that the tears were in Thora’s eyes, Aunt Margret gave the girl’s hair a softer smoothing and said —
“Magnus may not be as clever as his brother, Thora, but he is twenty times as solid and steady, and he is just as able to take care of a girl, and quite as likely to make her happy. Besides, dear, it’s all settled and done, and the made road is easiest to travel, you know. Your marriage with Magnus has been arranged between your father and the Governor; they have set their hearts on it, the contract is ready, and if anything should happen now—”
But Thora, who had been listening with head aslant to sounds outside the house, suddenly leapt to her feet saying, “I do believe that’s Silvertop’s step.”
There was a clatter of hoofs on the cobbles of the street, and at the next moment a silvery male voice under the window was crying —
“Helloa! Helloa! Helloa!”
Thora ran to the Venetians, parted two blades of them, and said, with an air of surprise, “It’s Oscar!” Then she tapped the window-pane, and cried “Presently” to the person outside, and stood for a moment to look down at him.
A young man of four-and-twenty sat on one pony and held another by its bridle. He was tall and slim, almost as fair as Thora herself, and he had a cluster of short curls under the Alpine hat which he raised to the moving blind. The moon had gone by this time; a greyish-pink light — the pioneer of the sun — was filtering through a vaporous atmosphere; the ships and fishing-boats in the bay were breaking through a veil of mist, and vague shadows of men and women, muffled up to the throats, but chattering and laughing like children, were coming and going in the gloom of the streets.
“Quick, Auntie, quick!” cried Thora, lowering her voice, and while the women in the bedroom bustled about and talked in whispers, the young man waiting outside slapped his leggings with his riding-whip, and whistled and sang alternate lines of a love-song —
“Drink to me on-ly wi-th thine eyes,
And I will pledge, with mine.”
“Must I wear these ugly — ?”
“Certainly you must. They’re warm and comfortable, and it’s not as if anybody could see—”
“Auntie, don’t speak so loud, or people will hear.”
“Oh, leave a ki-ss but in the cu-p,
And I-’ll not look for wine.”
“What a voice he has! I’m certain he’ll make a success some day.”
“Maybe so, but people don’t feed on voices — not in Iceland, anyway — here’s your over-skirt.”
“For goodness’ sake, Aunt Margaret!”
“The thir-st that from the so-ul doth rise
Doth ask a drink di-vi-ne.”
“Now for my hat! If I have to wear this old black riding-habit I must have something sweet on my head, at all events. That one with the feather — no, this one and a veil. There! Do I look nice?”
“Shockingly nice, if you ask me.”
The girl laughed gaily, and said in a louder voice, “Then let us go downstairs — the poor boy must be tired of waiting, and anxious to be off.”
“Not half so anxious as the poor girl, I’m thinking.”
Then the smiling face became serious again, and Thora said, “Don’t say those dreadful things any more, there’s a dear soul!”
“Then don’t forget my warning, and watch over your feelings, my precious.”
The door to the street was being opened by this time, and a rich baritone voice, mingled with the soft murmur of the sea, came floating into the hall —
“But might I of Jove’s ne-ec-tar su-p
I wou-ld not change—”
“Helloa? Good morning, Thora! Is that Aunt Margret?” From behind the bulwark of the door ajar, with one eye and two curl-papers visible in three inches of opening, Aunt Margret answered that it was, and told Oscar, as he lifted Thora to the saddle, to take care of her child and deliver her safely to Magnus.
Oscar laughed a little jauntily, and answered — not, she thought, with too much conviction —
“That’ll be all right, Auntie. Good-bye!”
“Good-bye!”
“Good-bye, Aunt Margret!”
“Good-bye, Thora! And remember!”
At the next moment the two young people had disappeared in the mists of morning, amid a cavalcade of similar shadows dying off in the same direction. Half-an-hour afterwards the sun had risen and the little capital was going merrily.
II
THE father of Oscar Stephensson was Stephen Magnusson (according to his Icelandic patronymic), and he had been Governor-General of Iceland for more than twenty years. He was a man of the highest integrity and of the firmest mind. In his public character he was zealous and incorruptible, and his private life was without stain. His chief characteristics were dignity and pride.
The father of Thora was Oscar Neilsen, commonly called Factor Neilsen (of Icelandic birth, but Danish descent), and he was the chief merchant and one of the richest citizens of the capital. His business methods had often been a subject for discussion, and his domestic history a cause of gossip. He was a man of untiring industry and great frugality, amounting almost to greed.
These two men had been lifelong friends. Their friendship had not been founded on any hollow commercial league, but nevertheless it had been cemented by community of interest, and it was a common saying that the man who could break it could break the constitution. It was one of those friendships that are young after fifty years, and are constantly growing younger because they are always growing older — a peculiarity of all friendships that are true and constant, and the reason why new friendships can never take the place of old ones. Half a word explained a meaning, half a look provoked a laugh. Their friendship was the unwritten history of their past, a living obituary of memories and ideas that were dead. It began in boyhood, and notwithstanding varying fortunes, and some family differences, it had never been darkened by so much as the shadow of a cloud. But people said that if Stephen Magnusson and Oscar Neilsen ever ceased to be friends they would become the bitterest of enemies.
They went through the Latin School together as boys, and were two of four Icelandic students who were sent with stipends to the University at Copenhagen. That was in the days when student life was not so regular as it might have been, but three of them got through without serious damage, while the fourth made a slip which was perhaps the first cause of the present story.
When the time came to separate, one of the four went to Oxford as an assistant in the library, and became a University lecturer, and another went to London to be clerk in a bank, and rose to be manager. The other two remained faithful to their nationalities, and Stephen Magnusson returned to Iceland to practise law, while Oscar Neilsen stayed in Denmark to follow commerce.
Within ten years the friends had made rapid progress. Stephen had risen from advocate to assessor, from assessor to deputy-governor, and from deputy-governor to governor-general, while Neilsen had re-established himself in Iceland first as factor for a firm in Copenhagen, and afterwards as a merchant on his own responsibility.
In the meantime both men had married. The Governor married the daughter and only child of Grim, owner of the farm at Thingvellir, one of the largest farms in Iceland. The Factor, to everybody’s surprise, married before he returned home, and nobody knew anything of his wife except that she came from Copenhagen. But scandal seldom loses its way in the dark, and it was whispered that the Factor’s wife had been a little actress of the lighter sort, whom he had picked up in his student days and had been compelled to marry.
The wife of the Governor had borne him two sons. He christened the first of them Magnus, after his father, but the second he called Oscar, after his friend, who had arrived in time to stand godfather at the baptism. In like manner the wife of the Factor had borne two daughters. She brought the eldest in her arms when she arrived in Iceland, and the Factor called her Thora, after his mother. The second, born soon afterwards, he would have called Anna, after his friend’s wife, but his own wife objected, and it was christened Helga, after herself. There were not many years between the births of the children, but Magnus was the eldest and Helga the youngest, while Oscar and Thora were almost of one age.
The wives of the two friends could hardly have been more unlike each other. Anna was homely in looks, dress, and habits. In practical matters she was a typical Iceland housewife, thrifty and economical. Although the position of Governor-General was one of considerable dignity it was far from a fat living, and Anna set her sail according to the draught of her husband’s ship. She was shrewd, but not well educated, and wise, but not enlightened, and she governed the Governor by obeying him. Stephen found his wife his safest steward and most faithful counsellor. He had a profound respect for her instinct, but not too much reverence for her intellect. When in doubt he always consulted her, and while she told him what he ought to do he sat and listened attentively, but as soon as she began to explain her reasons he got up and fled.
The Factor’s wife was distinctly comely, volatile, and vain, and her conduct on coming to Iceland might have been calculated to justify the scandal that was coupled with her name. She was extravagant in her dress, unthrifty in her home, restless in her habits, and romantic in her tastes, and after a while she began to gird at the monotony and dreariness of the life about her. A light wife makes a heavy husband, and the Factor, who was not then rich, was made to realise that in marrying his Danish beauty he had bought a commodity which he could neither exchange nor return — a housekeeper who neglected his house, and a mother who cared little for his children.
The children were the first to feel their mother’s loss of interest in Iceland, for while Government House was for ever warm and joyous with some noisy festival — Magnus’s first holiday or Oscar’s last birthday — there were no holidays or birthdays in their own home, which was always quiet and generally cold. But the mother’s ear is thin, and across the gap that opened between the houses of the Governor and the Factor, Anna heard the hearts of the little girls and concocted schemes to get at them. The Factor’s wife was nothing loth to be rid of her tiresome charges while she devoured dramatic newspapers and French novels, and thus it came to pass that Thora and Helga spent half of their early days with Anna, and that as long as they lived thereafter hers was the mother’s form that stood up in their memory when they looked back to the blue mountains of childhood and youth.
Gathered together under Anna’s wing, what times the four children had of it! As long as they were little Government House was like a nest of song-birds, and if at some moments it resembled more nearly a menagerie of monkeys, it was always alive and always happy. Except the Governor’s bureau, they took possession of the whole place, including the kitchen, for there was only one servant in those days, and she was as fond of them as her mistress. In summer time they ran wild over the home-field, and in winter they romped through every room in the house. Anna spoiled the whole of them, for she never knew how to be cross with children, and at Christmas and New Year she helped them to keep up their noisy customs — boiling the toffy which they pulled into twisted sticks amid shrieks of delighted laughter, and lighting the candles with which they marched in awesome procession from chimney to coal-hole to find the hidden folk from the hills — the bad fairies who came to steal good children.
