Absalom's Hair Part 5

CHAPTER 3

It was a bright evening in the beginning of June that they disembarked from the steamer, and at once left the town in the boat which was to take them to h.e.l.lebergene. They did not know any of the boatmen, although they were from the estate; the boat also was new.

But the islands among which they were soon rowing were the old ones, which had long awaited them and seemed to have swum out to meet them, and now to move one behind the other so that the boat might pa.s.s between them. Neither mother nor son spoke to the men, nor did they talk to each ether. In thus keeping silence they entered into each other's feelings, for they were both awestruck. It came upon them all at once. The bright evening light over sea and islands, the aromatic fragrance from the land,--the quick splash of a little coasting steamer as she pa.s.sed them--nothing could cheer them.

Their life lay there before them, bringing responsibilities both old and new. How would all that they were coming to look to them, and how far were they themselves now fitted for it?

Now they had pa.s.sed the narrow entrance of the bay, and rounded the last point beneath the crags of h.e.l.lebergene. The green expanse opened out before them, the buildings in its midst. The hillsides had once been crowned and darkly clad with luxuriant woods. Now they stood there denuded, shrunk, formless, spread over with a light green growth leaving some parts bare. The lowlands, as well as the hills which framed them, were shrunk and diminished, not in extent but in appearance. They could nut persuade themselves to look at it. They recalled it all as it had been and felt themselves despoiled.

The buildings had been newly painted, but they looked small by contrast with those which they had in their minds. No one awaited them at the landing, but a few people stood about near the gallery, looking embarra.s.sed--or were they suspicious? The travellers went into Fru Kaas's old rooms, both up stairs and down. These were just as they had left them, but how faded and wretched they looked! The table, which was laid for supper, was loaded with coa.r.s.e food like that at a farmer's wedding.

The old lime-trees were gone. Fru Kaas wept.

Suddenly she was reminded of something. "Let us go across to the other wing," she said this as if there they would find what was wanting. In the gallery she took Rafael's arm; he grew curious. His father's old rooms had been entirely renovated for him. In everything, both great and small, he recognised his mother's designs and taste. A vast amount of work, unknown to him, an endless interchange of letters and a great expenditure of money. How new and bright everything looked! The rooms differed as much from what they had been, as she had endeavoured to make Rafael's life from the one that had been led in them.

They two had a comfortable meal together after all, followed by a quiet walk along the sh.o.r.e. The wide waters of the bay gleamed softly, and the gentle ripple took up its old story again while the summer night sank gently down upon them.

Early the next morning Rafael was out rowing in the bay, the play-ground of his childhood. Notwithstanding the shorn and sunken aspect of the hills, his delight at being there again was indescribable. Indescribable because of the loneliness and stillness: no one came to disturb him. After having lived for many years in large towns, to find oneself alone in a Norwegian bay is like leaving a noisy market-place at midday and pa.s.sing into a high vaulted church where no sound penetrates from without, and where only one's own footstep breaks the silence. Holiness, purification, abstraction, devotion, but in such light and freedom as no church possesses. The lapse of time, the past were forgotten; it was as though he had never been away, as though no other place had ever known him.

Indescribable, for the intensity of his feelings surpa.s.sed anything that he had hitherto known. New sensations, impressions of beauty absolutely forgotten since childhood, or remembered but imperfectly, crowded upon him, speaking to him like welcoming spirits.

The altered contour of the hills, the dear familiar smell, the sky which seemed lower and yet farther off, the effects of light in colder tones, but paler and more delicate. Nowhere a broad plain, an endless expanse. No! all was diversified, full of contrast, broken; not lofty, still unique, fresh, he had almost said tumultuous.

Each moment he felt more in accord with his memories, his nature was in harmony with it all.

He paused between each stroke of the oars, soothed by the gentle motion; the boat glided on, he had not concerned himself whither, when he heard from behind the sound of oars which was not the echo of his own. The strokes succeeded each other at regular intervals. He turned.

At that moment Fru Kaas came out on to the terrace with her big binocular. She had had her coffee, and was ready to enjoy the view over the bay, the islands, and the open sea. Rafael, she was told, had already gone out in the boat. Yes! there he was, far out. She put up her gla.s.s at the moment that a white painted boat shot out towards his brown one. The white one was rowed by a girl in a light-coloured dress.

"Grand Dieu! are there girls here too?"

Now Rafael ceases rowing, the girl does the same, they rest on their oars and the boats glide past each other. Fru Kaas could distinguish the girl's shapely neck under her dark hair, but her wide-brimmed straw hat hid her face.

Rafael lets his oars trail along the water and resting on them looks at her, and now her oars also touch the water as she turns towards him. Do they know each other? Quickly the boats draw together; Rafael puts out his hand and draws them closer, and now he gives HER his hand. Fru Kaas can see Rafael's profile so plainly that she can detect the movement of his lips. He is laughing! The stranger's face is hidden by her hat, but she can see a full figure and a vigorous arm below the half-sleeve.

They do not loose their hands; now he is laughing till his broad shoulders shake. What is it? What is it? Can any one have followed him from Munich? Fru Kaas could remain where she was no longer. She went indoors and put down the gla.s.s; she was overcome by anxiety, filled with helpless anger. It was some time before she could prevail on herself to go out and resume her walk. The girl had turned her boat.

Now they are rowing in side by side, she as strongly as he. Whenever Fru Kaas looked at her son he was laughing and the girl's face was turned towards his. Now they head for the landing-place at the parsonage. Was it Helene? The only girl for miles round, and Rafael had hooked himself on to her the very first day that he was at home. These girls who can never see him without taking a fancy to him! Now the boats are beached, not on the shingle, where the stones would be slippery. No! on the sand, where they have run them up as high as possible. Now she jumps lightly and quickly out of her boat, and he a little more heavily out of his; they grasp each other's hands again.

Yes! there they were.

Fru Kaas turned away; she knew that for the moment she was nothing more than an old chattel pushed away into a corner.

It was Helene. She knew that they had arrived and thought that she would row past the house; and thus it was that she had encountered Rafael, who had simply gone out to amuse himself.

As they had lain on their oars and the boats glided silently past each other, he thought to himself, "That girl never grew up here, she is cast in too fine a mould for that; she is not in harmony with the place." He saw a face whose regular lines, and large grey eyes, harmonised well with each other, a quiet wise face, across which all at once there flew a roguish look. He knew it again. It had done him good before to-day. Our first thought in all recognitions, in all remembrances--that is to say, if there is occasion for it--is, has that which we recognise or recall done us good or evil?

This large mouth, those honest eyes, which have a roguish look just now, had always, done him good.

"Helene!" he cried, arresting the progress of his boat.

"Rafael!" she answered, blushing crimson and checking her boat too.

What a soft contralto voice!

When he came in to breakfast, beaming, ready to tell everything, he was confronted by two large eyes, which said as plainly as possible, "Am I put on one side already?" He became absolutely angry. During breakfast she said, in a tone of indifference, that she was going to drive to the Dean's, to thank him for the supervision which he had given to the estate during all these years. He did not answer, from which she inferred that he did not wish to go with her. It was some time before she started. The harness was new, the stable-boy raw and untrained. She saw nothing more of Rafael.

She was received at the parsonage with the greatest respect, and yet very heartily. The Dean was a fine old man and thoroughly practical.

His wife was of profounder nature. Both protested that the care of the estate had been no trouble to them, it had only been a pleasant employment; Helene had now undertaken it.

"Helene?"

Yes; it had so chanced that the first bailiff at h.e.l.lebergene had once been agronomist and forester on a large concern which was in liquidation, Helene had taken such a fancy to him, that when she was not at school, she went with him everywhere; and, indeed, he was a wonderful old man. During these rambles she had learned all that he could teach her. He had an especial gift for forestry. It was a development for her, for it gave a fresh interest to her life. Little by little she had taken over the whole care of the estate. It absorbed her.

Fru Kaas asked if she might see Helene, to thank her.

"But Helene has just gone out with Rafael, has she not?"

"Yes, to be sure," answered Fru Kaas. She would not show surprise; but she asked at once for her carriage.

Meanwhile the two young people had determined to climb the ridge. At first they followed the course of the river, Helene leading the way. It was evident that she had grown up in the woods. How strong and supple she was, and how well she acquitted herself when she had to cross a brook, climb a wooded slope, force a way through a barrier of bristly young fir-trees which opposed her pa.s.sage, or surmount a heap of clay at a quarry, of which there were a great many about there. Each difficulty was in turn overcome. The ascent from the river was the most direct and the pleasantest, which was the reason that they had come this way. Rafael would not be outdone by her, and kept close at her heels. But, great heavens! what it cost him. Partly because he was out of practice, partly--

"It is a little difficult to get over here," she said. A tree had fallen during the last rainy weather, and hung half suspended by its roots, obstructing the path. "You must not hold by it, it might give way and drag us with it."

At last there is something which she considers difficult, he thought.

She deliberated for a moment before the farthest-spreading branches which had to be crossed; then, lifting her skirts to her knees, over them she went, and over the next ones as well, and then across the trunk to the farthest side, where there were no branches in the way; then obliquely up the hillside. She stood still at the top of the height and watched him crawl up after her.

It cost him a struggle; he was out of breath and the perspiration poured off him. When he got up to her, everything swam before him; and although it was only for a fraction of a second, it left him fairly captivated by her strength.

She stood and looked at him with bright, roguish eyes. She was flushed and hot, and her bosom rose and fell quickly; but there was no doubt that she could at once have taken an equally long and steep climb. He was not able to speak a word.

"Now turn round and look at the sea," she said.

The words affected him as though great Pan had uttered them from the mountains far behind. He turned his eyes towards them. It seemed as though Nature herself had spoken to him. The words caressed him as with a hand now cold, now warm, and he became a different being. For he had lost himself--lost himself in her as she walked along the river-bank and climbed the hillside. She seemed to draw fresh power from the woods, to grow taller, more agile, more vigorous. The fervour of her eyes, the richness of her voice, the grace of her movements, the glimpses of her soul, had allured him down there in the valley, beside the rushing river, and the feeling of loss of individuality had increased with the exertion and the excitement. No ball-room or play-ground, no gymnasium or riding-school can display the physical powers, and the spirit which underlies them, the unity of mind and body, as does the scaling of steep hills and rocky slopes. At last, intoxicated by these feelings, he thought to himself--I am climbing after her, climbing to the highest pinnacle of happiness. Up there! Up there! The composure of her manner towards him, her freedom from embarra.s.sment, maddened him. Up there! Up there! And ever as they mounted she became more spirited, he more distressed. Up there! Up there! His eyes grew dim, for a few seconds he could not move, could not speak. Then she had said, "Now you must look at the sea."

He seemed to see with different eyes, to be endowed with new sensations, and these new sensations gave answer to what the distant mountains had said. They answered the sea out there before him, the island-studded sea, the open sea beyond, the wide swelling ocean, the desires and destinies of life all the world over. The sea lay steel-bright beneath the suffused sunlight, and seemed to gaze on the rugged land as on a beloved child instinct with vital power. Cling thou to the mighty one, or thy strength will be thine undoing!

And many of the inventions which he had dreamed of loomed vaguely before him. They lay outside there. It depended on him whether he should one day bring them safely into port.

"What are you thinking about?" said she, the sound of her voice put these thoughts to flight and recalled him to the present. He felt how full and rich her contralto voice was, A moment ago he could have told her this, and more besides, as an introduction to still more. Now he sat down without answering, and she did the same.

"I come up here very often," she said, "to look at the sea. From here it seems the source of life and death; down there it is a mere highway." He smiled. She continued: "The sea has this power, that whatever pre-occupation one may bring up here, it vanishes in a moment; but down below it remains with one."

He looked at her.

"Yes, it is true," said she, and coloured.

"I do not in the least doubt it," he replied.