Thelma Part 15

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 pa.s.sionate admiration. The day pa.s.sed 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 gla.s.s 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 Guldmar'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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 sh.o.r.e, when we both caught sight of something b.u.mping 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 G.o.ds 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 hours to catch the sound of her footstep; he would actually deck the threshold with flowers in the morning that she might tread on them as she pa.s.sed by." The old bonds sighed and rubbed his hand across his eyes with a gesture half of pain, half of impatience--"And now he is Thelma's slave,--a regular servant to her. She can manage him best of us all,--he is as docile as a lamb, and will do anything she tells him."

"I am not surprised at that," said the gallant Duprez; "there is reason in such obedience!"

Thelma looked at him inquiringly, ignoring the implied compliment.

"You think so?" she said simply "I am glad! I always hope that he will one day be well in mind,--and every little sign of reason in him is pleasant to me."

Duprez was silent. It was evidently no use making even an attempt at flattering this strange girl; surely she must be dense not to understand compliments that most other women compel from the lips of men as their right? He was confused--his Paris breeding was no use to him--in fact he had been at a loss all day, and his conversation had, even to himself, seemed particularly shallow and frothy. This Mademoiselle Guldmar, as he called her, was by no means stupid--she was not a mere moving statue of lovely flesh and perfect color whose outward beauty was her only recommendation,--she was, on the contrary, of a most superior intelligence,--she had read much and thought more,--and the dignified elegance of her manner, and bearing would have done honor to a queen.

After all, thought Duprez musingly, the social creeds of Paris _might_ be wrong--it was just possible! There might be women who were womanly,--there might be beautiful girls who were neither vain nor frivolous,--there might even be creatures of the feminine s.e.x, besides whom a trained Parisian coquette would seem nothing more than a painted fiend of the neuter gender. These were new and startling considerations to the feather-light mind of the Frenchman,--and unconsciously his fancy began to busy itself with the old romantic histories of the ancient French chivalry, when faith, and love, and loyalty, kept white the lilies of France, and the stately courtesy and unflinching pride of the _ancien regime_ made its name honored throughout the world. An odd direction indeed for Pierre Duprez's reflection to wander in--he, who never reflected on either past or future, but was content to fritter away the present as pleasantly as might be--and the only reason to which his unusually serious reverie could be attributed was the presence of Thelma. She certainly had a strange influence on them all, though she herself was not aware of it,--and not only Errington, but each one of his companions had been deeply considering during the day, that notwithstanding the unheroic tendency of modern living, life itself might be turned to good and even n.o.ble account, if only an effort were made in the right direction.

Such was the compelling effect of Thelma's stainless mind reflected in her pure face, on the different dispositions of all the young men; and she, perfectly unconscious of it, smiled at them, and conversed gaily,--little knowing as she talked, in her own sweet and unaffected way, that the most profound resolutions were being formed, and the most n.o.ble and unselfish deeds, were being planned in the souls of her listeners,--all forsooth! because one fair, innocent woman had, in the clear, grave glances of her wondrous sea-blue eyes, suddenly made them aware of their own utter unworthiness. Macfarlane, meditatively watching the girl from under his pale eyelashes, thought of Mr. Dyceworthy's matrimonial pretensions, with a humorous smile hovering on his thin lips.

"Ma certes! the fellow has an unco' gude opeenion o' himself," he mused.

"He might as well offer his hand in marriage to the Queen while he's aboot it,--he wad hae just as muckle chance o' acceptance."

Meanwhile, Errington, having learned all he wished to know concerning Sigurd, was skillfully drawing out old Olaf Guldmar, and getting him to give his ideas on things in general, a task in which Lorimer joined.

"So you don't think we're making any progress nowadays?" inquired the latter with an appearance of interest, and a lazy amus.e.m.e.nt in his blue eyes as he put the question.

"Progress!" exclaimed Guldmar. "Not a bit of it! It is all a going backward; it may not seem apparent, but it is so. England, for instance, is losing the great place she once held in the world's history,--and these things always happen to all nations when money becomes more precious to the souls of the people than honesty and honor. I take the universal wide-spread greed of gain to be one of the worst signs of the times,--the forewarning of some great upheaval and disaster, the effects of which no human mind can calculate. I am told that America is destined to be the dominating power of the future,--but I doubt it! Its politics are too corrupt,--its people live too fast, and burn their candle at both ends, which is unnatural and most unwholesome; moreover, it is almost dest.i.tute of Art in its highest forms,--and is not its confessed watchward 'the almighty Dollar?' And such a country as that expects to arrogate to itself the absolute sway of the world? I tell you, _no_--ten thousand times _no_! It is dest.i.tute of nearly everything that has made nations great and all-powerful in historic annals,--and my belief is that what, has been, will be again,--and that what has never been, will never be."

"You mean by that, I suppose, that there is no possibility of doing anything new,--no way of branching out in some, better and untried direction?" asked Errington.

Olaf Guldmar shook his head emphatically. "You can't do it," he said decisively. "Everything in every way has been begun and completed and then forgotten over and over in this world,--to be begun and completed and forgotten again, and so on to the end of the chapter. No one nation is better than another in this respect,--there is,--there can be nothing new. Norway, for example, has had its day; whether it will ever have another I know not,--at any rate, I shall not live to see it. And yet, what a past!--" He broke off and his eyes grew meditative.

Lorimer looked at him. "You would have been a Viking, Mr. Guldmar, had you lived in the old days," he said with a smile.

"I should, indeed!" returned the old man, with an unconsciously haughty gesture of his head; "and no better fate could have befallen me! To sail the seas in hot pursuit of one's enemies, or in search of further conquest,--to feel the very wind and sun beating up the blood in one's veins,--to live the life of a _man_--a true man! . . . in all the pride and worth of strength, and invincible vigor!--how much better than the puling, feeble, sickly existence, led by the majority of men to-day! I dwell apart from them as much as I can,--I steep my mind and body in the joys of Nature, and the free fresh air,--but often I feel that the old days of the heroes must have been best,--when Gorm the Bold and the fierce Siegfried seized Paris, and stabled their horses in the chapel where Charlemagne lay buried!"

Pierre Duprez looked up with a faint smile. "Ah, _pardon_! But that was surely a very long time ago!"

"True!" said Guldmar quietly. "And no doubt you will not believe the story at this distance of years. But the day is coming when people will look back on the little chronicle of your Empire,--your commune,--your republic, all your little affairs, and will say, 'Surely these things are myths; they occurred--if they occurred at all,--a very long time ago!"

"Monsieur is a philosopher!" said Duprez, with a good-humored gesture; "I would not presume to contradict him."

"You see, my lad," went on Guldmar more gently, "there is much in our ancient Norwegian history that is forgotten or ignored by students of to-day. The travellers that come hither come to see the glories of our glaciers and fjords,--but they think little or nothing of the vanished tribe of heroes who once possessed the land. If you know your Greek history, you must have heard of Pythias, who lived three hundred and fifty-six years before Christ, and who was taken captive by a band of Norseman and carried away to see 'the place where the sun slept in winter.' Most probably he came to this very spot, the Altenfjord,--at any rate the ancient Greeks had good words to say for the 'Outside Northwinders,' as they called us Norwegians, for they reported us to be 'persons living in peace with their G.o.ds and themselves.' Again, one of the oldest tribes in the world came among us in times past,--the Phoenicians,--there are traces among us still of their customs and manners. Yes! we have a great deal to look back upon with pride as well as sorrow,--and much as I hear of the wonders of the New World, the marvels and the go-ahead speed of American manners and civilization,--I would rather be a Norseman than a Yankee." And he laughed.

"There's more dignity in the name, at any rate," said Lorimer. "But I say, Mr. Guldmar, you are 'up' in history much better than I am. The annals of my country were grounded into my tender soul early in life, but I have a very hazy recollection of them. I know Henry VIII. got rid of his wives expeditiously and conveniently,--and I distinctly remember that Queen Elizabeth wore the first pair of silk stockings, and danced a kind of jig in them with the Earl of Leicester; these things interested me at the time,--and they now seen firmly impressed on my memory to the exclusion of everything else that might possibly be more important."

Old Guldmar smiled, but Thelma laughed outright and her eyes danced mirthfully.

"Ah, I do know you now!" she said, nodding her fair head at him wisely.

"You are not anything that is to be believed! So I shall well understand you,--that is, you are a very great scholar,--but that it pleases you to pretend you are a dunce!"

Lorimer's face brightened into a very gentle and winning softness as he looked at her.

"I a.s.sure you, Miss Guldmar, I am not pretending in the least. I'm no scholar. Errington is, if you like! If it hadn't been for him, I should never have learned anything at Oxford at all. He used to leap over a difficulty while I was looking at it. Phil, don't interrupt me,--you know you did! I tell you he's up to everything: Greek, Latin, and all the rest of it,--and, what's more, he writes well,--I believe,--though he'll never forgive me for mentioning it,--that he has even published some poems."

"Be quiet, George!" exclaimed Errington, with a vexed laugh. "You are boring Miss Guldmar to death!"

"What is _boring_?" asked Thelma gently, and then turning her eyes full on the young Baronet, she added, "I like to hear that you will pa.s.s your days sometimes without shooting the birds and killing the fish; it can hurt n.o.body for you to write." And she smiled that dreamy pensive smile, of hers that was so infinitely bewitching. "You must show me all your sweet poems!"

Errington colored hotly. "They are all nonsense, Miss Guldmar," he said quickly. "There's nothing 'sweet' about them, I tell you frankly! All rubbish, every line of them!"

"Then you should not write them," said Thelma quietly. "It is only a pity and a disappointment."

"I wish every one were of your opinion," laughed Lorimer, "it would spare us a lot of indifferent verse."

"Ah! you have the chief Skald of all the world in your land!" cried Guldmar, bringing his fist down with a jovial thump on the table. "He can teach you all that you need to know."

"_Skald_?" queried Lorimer dubiously. "Oh, you mean bard. I suppose you allude to Shakespeare?"

"I do," said the old _bonde_ enthusiastically, "he is the only glory of your country I envy! I would give anything to prove him a Norwegian. By Valhalla! had he but been one of the Bards of Odin, the world might have followed the grand old creed still! If anything could ever persuade me to be a Christian, it would be the fact that Shakespeare was one. If England's name is rendered imperishable, it will be through the fame of Shakespeare alone,--just as we have a kind of tenderness for degraded modern Greece, because of Homer. Ay, ay! countries and nations are worthless enough; it is only the great names of heroes that endure, to teach the lesson that is never learned sufficiently,--namely, that man and man alone is fitted to grasp the prize of immortality."

"Ye believe in immortality?" inquired Macfarlane seriously.

Guldmar's keen eyes lighted on him with fiery impetuousness.

"Believe in it? I possess it! How can it be taken from me? As well make a bird without wings, a tree without sap, an ocean without depths, as expect to find a man without an immortal soul! What a question to ask?

Do _you_ not possess heaven's gift? and why should not I?"

"No offense," said Macfarlane, secretly astonished at the old _bonde's_ fervor,--for had not he, though himself intending to become a devout minister of the Word,--had not he now and then felt a creeping doubt as to whether, after all, there was any truth in the doctrine of another life than this one. "I only thocht ye might have perhaps questioned the probabeelity o't, in your own mind?"

"I never question Divine authority," replied Olaf Guldmar, "I pity those that do!"

"And this Divine authority?" said Duprez suddenly with a delicate sarcastic smile, "how and where do you perceive it?"

"In the very Law that compels me to exist, young sir," said Guldmar,--"in the mysteries of the universe about me,--the glory of the heavens,--the wonders of the sea! You have perhaps lived in cities all your life, and your mind is cramped a bit. No wonder, . . . you can hardly see the stars above the roofs of a wilderness of houses. Cities are men's work,--the G.o.ds have never had a finger in the building of them. Dwelling in them, I suppose you cannot help forgetting Divine authority altogether; but here,--here among the mountains, you would soon remember it! You should live here,--it would make a man of you!"

"And you do not consider me a man?" inquired Duprez with imperturbable good-humor.