Thelma Part 74

"You are very good!" responded Beau gravely.

Either his tone, which was one chill indifference, or some thing in his look, irritated her suddenly--for a rash of hot color crimsoned her face, and she bit her lips vexedly as she descended the office-stairs.

"He's one of your high-and-mighty sort," she thought disdainfully, as she entered her cosy brougham and was driven away. "Quite too awfully moral!" She pulled a large, elaborately cut gla.s.s scent-bottle out of the pocket of her cloak, and, uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the gold top, applied it, not to her nose but her mouth. It contained neat Cognac--and she drank a goodly gulp of it with evident relish, swallowing a scented bon-bon immediately afterwards to take away the suspicious odor. "Yes--quite too awfully moral!" she repeated with a grin. "Not in my line at all! Lord!

It's lucky there are not many such fellows about, or what would become of _me_? A precious poor business I should make of it!"

Meanwhile, Lovelace, left alone again with Mr. Grubbs, reiterated his demand for an apology. Grubbs made a rush for the door, as soon as Miss Vere had gone, with the full intention of summoning the police, but Beau coolly placed his back against it with resolute firmness, and flourished his whip defiantly.

"Come, sir, none of this nonsense!" he said sternly. "I don't mean to leave this spot till I have satisfaction. If Sir Francis Lennox wrote that scandalous paragraph the greater rascal he,--and the more shame to you for inserting it.--You, who make it your business to know all the dirty alleys and dark corners of life, must have known _his_ character pretty thoroughly. There's not the slightest excuse for you. Will you apologize?--and retract every word of that paragraph, in your next issue?"

Grubbs, breathless with rage and fear, glared at him, but made no answer.

"If you refuse to comply," went on Beau deliberately, balancing the horsewhip lightly on his hand, "I'll just tell you what the consequences will be. I've thrashed you once--and I'll thrash you again. I have only to give the cue to several worthy fellows of my acquaintance, who don't care how much they pay for their fun, and each of them in turn will thrash you. As for an action for libel, don't expect it--but I swear there shan't be a safe corner in London for you. If, however, you publish next week a full retraction of your printed lie--why, then I--shall be only too happy to forget that such an individual as yourself burdens this planet. There are the two alternatives--choose!"

Grubbs hesitated, but coward fear made him quail the prospect of unlimited thrashings.

"Very well," he said sullenly. "Write what you want put in--I'll attend to it--I don't mind obliging Miss Vere. But all the same, I'll have _you_ arrested!"

Beau laughed. "Do so by all means!" he said gaily. "I'll leave my address with you!" He wrote rapidly a few lines on a piece of paper to the following effect--

"We have to entirely contradict a statement we made last week respecting a supposed forthcoming divorce case in which Sir Philip Bruce-Errington was seriously implicated. There was no truth whatever in the statement, and we herewith apologize most humbly and heartily for having inadvertently given credence to a rumor which is now proved to be utterly false and without the slightest shadow of a foundation."

He handed this to Grubbs.

"Insert that word for word, at the head of your paragraphs," he said, "and you'll hear no more of me, unless you give me fresh provocation.

And I advise you to think twice before you have me arrested--for I'll defend my own case, and--ruin you! I'm rather a dangerous customer to have much to do with! However, you've got my card--you know where to find me if you want me. Only you'd better send after me to-night if you do--to-morrow I may be absent."

He smiled, and drew on his gloves leisurely, eyeing meanwhile the discomfited editor, who was furtively rubbing his shoulder where the lash had stung it somewhat severely.

"I'm exceedingly glad I've hurt you, Mr. Grubbs," he said blandly. "And the next time you want to call me your brother in literature, pray reflect on the manner in which my fraternal affection displayed itself!

_good_ morning!"

And he took his departure with a quiet step and serene manner, leaving Snawley-Grubbs to his own meditations, which were far from agreeable. He was not ignorant of the influence Beau Lovelace possessed, both on the press and in society--he was a general favorite,--a man whose opinions were quoted, and whose authority was accepted everywhere. If he appeared to answer a charge of a.s.sault against Grubbs, and defended his own case, he certainly would have the best of it. He might--he would have to pay a fine, but what did he care for that? He would hold up the _Snake_ and its proprietor to the utmost ridicule and opprobrium--his brilliant satire and humor would carry all before it--and he, Snawley-Grubbs, would be still more utterly routed and humiliated. Weighing all these considerations carefully in his mind, the shrinking editor decided to sit down under his horsewhipping in silence and resignation.

It was not a very lofty mode of action--still, it was the safest. Of course Violet Vere would spread the story all through _her_ particular "set"--it made him furious to think of this yet there was no help for it. He would play the martyr, he thought--the martyr to the cause of truth,--the injured innocent entrapped by false information--he might possibly gain new supporters and sympathizers in this way if he played his cards carefully. He turned to the daily paper, and saw there chronicled the death of Sir Francis Lennox. It was true, then. Well! he was not at all affected by it--he merely committed the dead man in the briefest and strongest language to the very lowest of those low and sulphurous regions over which Satan is supposed to have full sway. Not a soul regretted Sir Francis--not even the Vere, whom he had kept and surrounded with every luxury for five years. Only one person, a fair, weary faced woman away in Germany shed a few tears over the lawyer's black-bordered letter that announced his death to her--and this was the deserted wife,--who had once loved him. Lady Winsleigh had heard the news,--she shuddered and turned very pale when her husband gently and almost pityingly told her of the sudden and unprepared end that had overtaken her quondam admirer--but she said nothing. She was presiding at the breakfast-table for the first time in many years--she looked somewhat sad and listless, yet lovelier so than in all the usual pride and a.s.sertive arrogance of her beauty. Lord Winsleigh read aloud the brief account of the accident in the paper--she listened dreamily, still mute. He watched her with yearning eyes.

"An awful death for such a man, Clara!" he said at last in a low tone.

She dared not look up--she was trembling nervously. How dreadful it was, she thought, to be thankful that a man was dead!--to feel a relief at his being no longer in this world! Presently her husband spoke again more reservedly. "No doubt you are greatly shocked and grieved," he said. "I should not have told you so suddenly--pardon me!"

"I am not grieved," she murmured unsteadily. "It sounds horrible to say so--but I--I am afraid I am _glad_!"

"Clara!"

She rose and came tremblingly towards him. She knelt at his feet, though he strove to prevent her,--she raised her large, dark eyes, full of dull agony, to his.

"I've been a wicked woman, Harry," she said, with a strange, imploring thrill of pa.s.sion in her voice, "I am down--down in the dust before you!

Look at me--don't forgive me--I won't ask that--you _can't_ forgive me,--but _pity_ me!"

He took her hands and laid them round his neck,--he drew her gently, soothingly,--closer, closer, till he pressed her to his heart.

"Down in the dust are you?" he whispered brokenly. "My poor wife! G.o.d forbid that I should keep you there!"

BOOK III.

THE LAND OF THE LONG SHADOW

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

"They have the night, who had, like us, the day-- We, whom day binds, shall have the night as they-- We, from the fetters of the light unbound, Healed of our wound of living, shall sleep sound!"

SWINBURNE.

Night on the Altenfjord,--the long, long, changeless night of winter.

The sharp snow-covered crests of the mountains rose in white appeal against the darkness of the sky,--the wild north wind tore through the leafless branches of the pine-forests, bringing with it driving pellets of stinging hail. Joyless and songless, the whole landscape lay as though frozen into sculptured stone. The Sun slept,--and the Fjord, black with brooding shadows, seemed silently to ask--where? Where was the great king of Light?--the glorious G.o.d of the golden hair and ruddy countenance?--the glittering warrior with the flaming shield and spear invincible? Where had he found his rest? By what strange enchantment had he fallen into so deep and long a drowsiness. The wind that had rioted across the mountains, rooting up great trees in its shrieking career northwards, grew hushed as it approached the Altenfjord--there a weird stillness reigned, broken only by the sullen and monotonous plash of the invisible waves upon the scarcely visible sh.o.r.e.

A few tiny, twinkling lights showed the irregular outline of Bosekop, and now and then one or two fishing-boats with sable sails and small colored lamps at mast and prow would flit across the inky water like dark messengers from another world bound on some mournful errand. Human figures, more shadowy than real, were to be seen occasionally moving on the pier, and to the left of the little town, as the eye grew accustomed to the moveless gloom, a group of persons, like ghosts in a dream, could be dimly perceived, working busily at the mending of nets.

Suddenly a strange, unearthly glow flashed over the sombre scene,--a rosy radiance deepening to brilliant streaks of fire. The dark heavens were torn asunder, and through them streamed flaring pennons of light,--waving, trembling, dancing, luminous ribbons of red, blue, green, and a delicious amber, like the flowing of golden wine,--wider, higher, more dazzlingly l.u.s.trous, the wondrous glory shone aloft, rising upward from the horizon--thrusting long spears of lambent flame among the murky retreating clouds, till in one magnificent coruscation of resplendent beams a blazing arch of gold leaped from east to west, spanning the visible breath of the Fjord, and casting towards the white peaks above, vivid sparkles and reflections of jewel-like brightness and color. Here was surely the Rainbow Bridge of Odin--the glittering pathway leading to Valhalla! Long filmy threads of emerald and azure trailed downwards from it, like ropes of fairy flowers, binding it to the earth--above it hung a fleece-like nebulous whiteness,--a canopy through which palpitated sudden flashes of amethyst. Then, as though the arch were a bent bow for the hand of some heavenly hunter, crimson beams darted across it in swift succession, like arrows shot at the dark target of the world. Round and round swept the varying circles of color--now advancing--now retreating--now turning the sullen waters beneath into a quivering ma.s.s of steely green--now beating against the snow-covered hills till they seemed pinnacles of heaped-up pearls and diamonds. The whole landscape was transformed,--and the shadowy cl.u.s.ter of men and women on the sh.o.r.e paused in their toil, and turned their pale faces towards the rippling splendor,--the heavy fishing-nets drooping from their hands like dark webs woven by giant spiders.

"'Tis the first time we have seen the Arch of Death this year," said one in awed accents.

"Ay, ay!" returned another, with a sigh. "And some one is bound to cross it, whether he will or no. 'Tis a sure sign!"

"Sure!" they all agreed, in hushed voices as faint and far-off as the breaking of the tide against the rocks on the opposite coast.

As they spoke, the fairy-like bridge in the sky parted asunder and vanished! The brilliant aurora borealis faded by swift degrees--a few moments, and the land was again enveloped in gloom.

It might have been midnight--yet by the clock it was but four in the afternoon. Dreary indeed was the Altenfjord,--yet the neighboring village of Talvag was even drearier. There, desolation reigned supreme--it was a frozen region of bitter, shelterless cold, where the poverty-stricken inhabitants, smitten by the physical torpor and mental stupefaction engendered by the long, dark season, scarcely stirred out of their miserable homes, save to gather extra fuel. This is a time in Norway, when beyond the Arctic Circle, the old G.o.ds yet have sway--when in spite of their persistent, sometimes fanatical, adherence to the strictest forms of Christianity, the people almost unconsciously revert to the superst.i.tions of their ancestors. Gathering round the blazing pine-logs, they recount to one another in low voices the ancient legends of dead and gone heroes,--and listening to the yell of the storm-wind round their huts, they still fancy they hear the wild war-cries of the Valkyries rushing past air full gallop on their coal-black steeds, with their long hair floating behind them.

On this particular afternoon the appearance of the "Death-Arch," as they called that special form of the aurora, had impressed the Talvig folk greatly. Some of them were at the doors, and, regardless of the piercing cold, occupied themselves in staring languidly at a reindeer sledge which stood outside one of the more distant huts, evidently waiting for some person within. The hoofs of the animals made no impression on the hardened snow--now and again they gently shook the tinkling bells on their harness, but otherwise were very patient. The sledge was in charge of a youthful Laplander--a hideous, stunted specimen of humanity, who appeared to be literally sewed up from head to foot in skins.

This cortege was evidently an object of curiosity,--the on-lookers eyed it askance, and with a sort of fear. For did it not belong to the terrible _bonde_, Olaf Guldmar?--and would not the Laplander,--a useful boy, well known in Talvig,--come to some fatal harm by watching, even for a few minutes, the property of an acknowledged pagan? Who could tell? The very reindeer might be possessed by evil spirits,--they were certainly much sleeker and finer than the ordinary run of such animals.

There was something uncanny in the very look of them! Thus the stupefied, unreasoning Talvig folk muttered, one to another, leaning drowsily out of their half-open doors.

"'Tis a strange thing," said one man, "that woman as strong in the fear of the Lord as Lovisa Elsland should call for one of the wicked to visit her on her death-bed."

"Strange enough!" answered his neighbor, blinking over his pipe, and knocking down some of the icicles pendent from his roof. "But maybe it is to curse him with the undying curse of the G.o.dly."

"She's done that all her life," said the first speaker.

"That's true! She's been a faithful servant of the Gospel. All's right with her in the next world--she'll die easily."