The Pilot and his Wife Part 25

When the boy started he stroked the child's cheek, but said a little bitterly, "Remember me to your mother now, and say that father is coming, as he promised, on Wednesday. Be careful, now, how you go. I have only given you the oars; I don't like to trust you with a sail in the boat."

He stood for some time looking after his son as he rowed st.u.r.dily away, and then went up to the look-out, where he began to walk up and down with his hands behind his back in his usual manner. His restlessness of mind, however, soon drove him back again to the house, where he remained alone nearly the whole day.

The first intensity of his anger had so far worked itself off now, that he could think clearly; and the chief feeling which possessed him was one of wonder as to what could have come over her all of a sudden like this. It could hardly be that scene which they had had when he last went to sea--it had not been the first of its kind. No--it must be something else; it must have been something which had occurred in Arendal. She had spoken of Fru Beck's unhappy married life with a certain significance, as if it bore upon their own. That was evidently it--she had been talking to Fru Beck; she must have been put up to it by her old friend.

"What grat.i.tude I do owe these Becks!" he exclaimed; "it seems as if every trouble must come from that owl's nest."

"She has gone and thought all this at home here, concealing it from me the whole time, submitting, and saying nothing. Now she has found her opportunity. And over there, in Arendal, she could, of course, count upon being able to make her own terms against her husband, the unpopular pilot--could be sure of having every one on her side, from her aunt to these same Becks."

Yes; and what was the real history of her connection with the Becks? He had never had that matter satisfactorily cleared up.

"She stipulated that I should trust her--wouldn't hear mention of a doubt. But I have never felt satisfied about that business."

"I'll not be fooled by you any longer," he cried then, flying into a sudden pa.s.sion, and striding up and down the room. "It is she who must give me an explanation; it is she who has trampled me under foot!"

He sat down at the table and pursued this train of thought.

"Elizabeth! Elizabeth! what have you done?" he whispered, presently, with emotion, and hid his forehead in his hands.

"Yes, what has she done? Nothing, I firmly believe; and that it is just you, Salve, who are mad! Ah! if I could only really believe that there was nothing to quarrel about, after all! And I can believe it, if I have only been with her for a while," he sighed; and then added with a touch of self-contempt, "the fact is, I ought never to go away from home. I am like an anchovy; I don't bear taking out of the jar!

"She was so like the old Elizabeth as she stood there and told me all this; it is years since I have seen her like that. There's not her match to be found the whole world through.

"She has told me so often that she cares for me, has always cared for me, ever since the time she was living with her grandfather out on the rock; and an untruth never came from her lips. I'd stake my life upon that.

"For truth--I believe you, Elizabeth, when you stand like that and tell me so," and he struck the table as if he was making the declaration to her face.

"But why should she care for me?" he went on. "Have her thoughts not been running always on things much beyond what I, a poor pilot, and my humble cottage can give her? Has she not always been hankering after something grand?"

During these days, while this conflict of thought was surging to and fro within him, he had the appearance of a man distraught; and if he ever left the house, he could not rest until he had returned to it again. The prolonged agitation of mind had told upon him, and he was sitting now--the day before the one when he was to go in to Arendal again--alone in his house, feeling very low and depressed; it looked so dreary and empty.

Over in the window, by the leaf-table, where she generally sat to sew, stood the polished buffalo-hoof which he had brought long ago as a curiosity from Monte Video, and had since had made into a weight for her; and by the wall, under the old print of the Naiad, was the elephant, carved out of bone, which he had also had from the time when he was roaming through the world as a sailor before the mast.

He gazed at these things for a while absently, and then went in to their bedroom.

There was the chest of drawers by the wall, on which she always placed the lacquered gla.s.s which hung in the other room, when she arranged her beautiful hair. How many a conversation they had had together as she stood there with her back to him; and what a figure she had! often answering him with merely a change of expression as she looked back at him over her shoulder. Everything in the room had some such vivid memory to suggest; and as he sat dismally on the side of their bed, adjoining which was little Henrik's, his thoughts were occupied with many a trivial recollection of the kind, which might seem almost childish in a man of his age and character, and of such a stern, black-bearded exterior; but he was anything but stern now.

Presently his eyes ceased to wander. He sat perfectly still. The conviction had seized him that he could not possibly do without her; and as he looked slowly about him a great terror seemed to be taking possession of him. He imagined that she was really gone--that in some way or another he had really lost her, and that everything in the room was standing just as she had left it, and as it would stand unmoved, undusted for ever.

"I have deserved it," he muttered; and a cold perspiration came out upon his forehead. "Have I treated her in such a way that I have any right to expect her to care for me? Is it not just my own folly that is to blame?

She was right--more than right. I have behaved shamefully to her, suspiciously, and tyrannically--invariably, unceasingly; and now I may sit here long enough and repent it, to no purpose. She would not be what she is if she tamely submitted to such treatment."

He dwelt upon this last thought until the scales seemed to drop from his eyes, and, acknowledging the truth at last, he broke out with bitter scorn against himself--

"The fact is, in my cursed pride I have never been able to bear the thought that she might have been better off--that I was not good enough for her, not fit for her; that is what has been at the bottom of it all: and as I would not acknowledge that, I have insisted always to myself that I could not trust her.

"Do I really believe this?" he asked himself then slowly, and fell into thought again, his face growing darker and darker every minute.

"What a good-natured b.o.o.by, fool, idiot, I am!" he cried, with a scornful laugh. "No, it is she who has been false and untruthful, she who must acknowledge it, she who is bound to give me, once for all, full explanation. Yes, it is she who must bend, and then she may have some claim to hear from me what I too may have to reproach myself for in my acts or bearing towards her. That is how it is, and that is how it shall be!"

A hard, inexorable look overspread his face as he said this; but for a moment he appeared almost moved again--

"I shall speak kindly to her--be so gentle--forget everything.

"But bend she shall," he added; and that decision was evidently final.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

That evening was pa.s.sed by Elizabeth in a terrible struggle with herself. When Gjert had brought her clothes she had turned very pale, and had felt as if she had undertaken what she would not have strength to carry through. And now that the decisive moment had nearly come, this feeling increased almost to despair.

They had all gone to bed in the house. It was so quiet about her; and a feeling came over her such as she had experienced that time on the Apollo, as she sat and waited whilst they approached the sandbanks.

Early next morning the crisis would inevitably come; and it was a question now of losing more than the brig--of losing all they jointly possessed on earth! She saw a long, dreary life-strand stretching away beyond.

This time it was she who was at the helm, and steering a desperate course--to save her love. A solemn look came over her face. The prayer for seamen in danger, which she had so often used when the gusts were shaking the house out there on Merdo, and she sat waiting for him in her solitary home, came into her head now--the prayer that G.o.d might save him from a sudden death.

A sudden death!

If he really had been lost on one of those many occasions when he had parted from her with bitterness and anger in his heart! Would her love then have been a blessing to him?

"No, Salve!" she cried; "you shall not have me to thank for such a life in your last hour!"

In the night she awoke with a scream. She had dreamt that Salve was going to leave her for ever, and she cried frantically after him, "Salve! Salve!"

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

His two sons were waiting for him when the pilot came up to the jetty next morning. Little Henrik had begun to shout to him gleefully while he was still some way off; but Gjert was quiet. He had seen enough to feel that there must be something serious the matter between his parents, and he was depressed.

"Good morning, boys!" said their father, kindly; "how is your--aunt?"

"Better," replied Gjert.

"She sleeps in the daytime, too," added the "bagman," triumphantly--he had discovered that this was what was required to make her well again.

He then threw his cap down on the stones with a great sailor air, and with an eager "hale-hoi--o--ohoi!" began to haul in the sh.o.r.e-rope which his father had thrown, while Gjert, paying no attention whatever to his brother's efforts, made it fast to the mooring-ring.

"That's good lads! Stay here now, both of you, by the boat, and look after her till I come back," said their father. "See, Gjert, that Henrik doesn't leave the quay."

He left them then, and went rapidly up the street.

Elizabeth was standing by the hearth expecting him; and something of a Sunday calm seemed to have come over her as she stood there. She heard him out in the pa.s.sage; and when he entered, a rapid flush pa.s.sed over her fine features, but it disappeared again immediately, and she stared at him with half-open lips, forgetting to greet him. At the same time, there was a conscious self-possession in her bearing which did not escape him. That was the Elizabeth he loved.

He came to the point at once; and looking her full in the face, began with great earnestness--"Elizabeth, I have a serious accusation to make against you. You have not been frank towards me--you have disguised your real feelings from me for many years, I am afraid during the whole time we have lived together."