Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli

by Marie Corelli

  “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.

  Güldmar’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 Güldmar, “I pity those that do!”

  “And this Divine authority?” said Duprèz 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 Güldmar,— “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 gods 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 Duprèz with imperturbable good-humor.

  Güldmar laughed. “Well, not quite!” he admitted candidly, “there’s not enough muscle about you. I confess I like to see strong fellows — fellows fit to rule the planet on which they are placed. That’s my whim! — but you’re a neat little chap enough, and I dare say you can hold your own!”

  And his eyes twinkled good-temperedly as he filled himself another glass of his host’s fine Burgundy, and drank it off, while Duprèz, with a half-plaintive, half-comical shrug of resignation to Güldmar’s verdict on his personal appearance, asked Thelma if she would favor them with a song. She rose from her seat instantly, without any affected hesitation, and went to the piano. She had a delicate touch, and accompanied herself with great taste, — but her voice, full, penetrating, rich and true, — was one of the purest and most sympathetic ever possessed by woman, and its freshness was unspoilt by any of the varied “systems” of torture invented by singing-masters for the ingenious destruction of the delicate vocal organ. She sang a Norwegian love-song in the original tongue, which might be roughly translated as follows: —

  “Lovest thou me for my beauty’s sake?

  Love me not then!

  Love the victorious, glittering Sun,

  The fadeless, deathless, marvellous One!”

  “Lovest thou me for my youth’s sake?

  Love me not then!

  Love the triumphant, unperishing Spring,

  Who every year new charms doth bring!”

  “Lovest thou me for treasure’s sake?

  Oh, love me not then!

  Love the deep, the wonderful Sea,

  Its jewels are worthier love than me!”

  “Lovest thou me for Love’s own sake?

  Ah sweet, then love me!

  More than the Sun and the Spring and the Sea,

  Is the faithful heart I will yield to thee!”

  A silence greeted the close of her song. Though the young men were ignorant of the meaning of the words still old Güldmar translated them for their benefit, they could feel the intensity of the passion vibrating through her ringing tones, — and Errington sighed involuntarily. She heard the sigh, and turned round on the music-stool laughing.

  “Are you so tired, or sad, or what is it?” she asked merrily. “It is too melancholy a tune? And I was foolish to sing it, — because you cannot understand the meaning of it. It is all about love, — and of course love is always sorrowful.”

  “Always?” asked Lorimer, with a half-smile.

  “I do not know,” she said frankly, with a pretty deprecatory gesture of her hands,— “but all books say so! It must be a great pain, and also a great happiness. Let me think what I can sing to you now, — but perhaps you will yourself sing?”

  “Not one of us have a voice, Miss Güldmar,” said Errington. “I used to think I had, but Lorimer discouraged my efforts.”

  “Men shouldn’t sing,” observed Lorimer; “if they only knew how awfully ridiculous they look, standing up in dress-coats and white ties, pouring forth inane love-ditties that nobody wants to hear, they wouldn’t do it. Only a woman looks pretty while singing.”

  “Ah, that is very nice!” said Thelma, with a demure smile. “Then I am agreeable to you when I sing?”

  Agreeable? This was far too tame a word — they all rose from the table and came towards her, with many assurances of their delight and admiration; but she put all their compliments aside with a little gesture that was both incredulous and peremptory.

  “You must not say so many things in praise of me,” she said, with a swift upward glance at Errington, where he leaned on the piano regarding her. “It is nothing to be able to sing. It is only like the birds, but we cannot understand the words they say, just as you cannot understand Norwegian. Listen, — here is a little ballad you will all know,” and she played a soft prelude, while her voice, subdued to a plaintive murmur, rippled out in the dainty verses of Sainte-Beuve —

  “Sur ma lyre, l’autre fois

  Dans un bois,

  Ma main préludait à peine;

  Une colombe descend

  En passant,

  Blanche sur le luth d’ébène”

  “Mais au lieu d’accords touchants,

  De doux chants,

  La colombe gemissante

  Me demande par pitié

  Sa moitié

  Sa moitié loin d’elle absente!”

  She sang this seriously and sweetly till she came to the last three lines, when, catching Errington’s earnest gaze, her voice quivered and her cheeks flushed. She rose from the piano as soon as she had finished, and said to the bonde, who had been watching her with proud and gratified looks —

  “It is growing late, father. We must say good-bye to our friends and return home.”

  “Not yet!” eagerly implored Sir Philip. “Come up on deck, — we will have coffee there, and afterwards you shall leave us when you will.”

  Güldmar acquiesced in this arrangement, before his daughter had time to raise any objection, and they all went on deck, where a comfortable lounging chair was placed for Thelma, facing the most gorgeous portion of the glowing sky, which on this evening was like a moving mass of molten gold, split asunder here and there by angry ragged-looking rifts of crimson. The young men grouped themselves together at the prow of the vessel in order to smoke their cigars without annoyance to Thelma. Old Güldmar did not smoke, but he talked, — and Errington after seeing them all fairly absorbed in an argument on the best methods of spearing s
almon, moved quietly away to where the girl was sitting, her great pensive eyes fixed on the burning splendors of the heavens.

  “Are you warm enough there?” he asked, and there was an unconscious tenderness in his voice as he asked the question, “or shall I fetch you a wrap?”

  She smiled. “I have my hood,” she said. “It is the warmest thing I ever wear, except, of course, in winter.”

  Philip looked at the hood as she drew it more closely over her head, and thought that surely no more becoming article of apparel ever was designed for woman’s wear. He had never seen anything like it either in color or texture, — it was of a peculiarly warm, rich crimson, like the heart of a red damask rose, and it suited the bright hair and tender, thoughtful eyes of its owner to perfection.

  “Tell me,” he said, drawing a little nearer and speaking in a lower tone, “have you forgiven me for my rudeness the first time I saw you?”

  She looked a little troubled.

  “Perhaps also I was rude,” she said gently. “I did not know you. I thought—”

  “You were quite right,” he eagerly interrupted her. “It was very impertinent of me to ask you for your name. I should have found it out for myself, as I have done.”

  And he smiled at her as he said the last words with marked emphasis. She raised her eyes wistfully.

  “And you are glad?” she asked softly and with a sort of wonder in her accents.

  “Glad to know your name? glad to know you! Of course! Can you ask such a question?”

  “But why?” persisted Thelma. “It is not as if you were lonely, — you have friends already. We are nothing to you. Soon you will go away, and you will think of the Altenfjord as a dream, — and our names will be forgotten. That is natural!”

  What a foolish rush of passion filled his heart as she spoke in those mellow, almost plaintive accents, — what wild words leaped to his lips and what an effort it cost him to keep them hack. The heat and impetuosity of Romeo, — whom up to the present he had been inclined to consider a particularly stupid youth, — was now quite comprehensible to his mind, and he, the cool, self-possessed Englishman, was ready at that moment to outrival Juliet’s lover, in his utmost excesses of amorous folly. In spite of his self-restraint, his voice quivered a little as he answered her —

  “I shall never forget the Altenfjord or you, Miss Güldmar. Don’t you know there are some things that cannot be forgotten? such as a sudden glimpse of fine scenery, — a beautiful song, or a pathetic poem?” She bent her head in assent. “And here there is so much to remember — the light of the midnight sun, — the glorious mountains, the loveliness of the whole land!”

  “Is it better than other countries you have seen?” asked the girl with some interest.

  “Much better!” returned Sir Philip fervently. “In fact, there is no place like it in my opinion.” He paused at the sound of her pretty laughter.

  “You are — what is it? — ecstatic!” she said mirthfully. “Tell me, have you been to the south of France and the Pyrenees?”

  “Of course I have,” he replied. “I have been all over the Continent, — travelled about it till I’m tired of it. Do you like the south of France better than Norway?”

  “No, — not so very much better,” she said dubiously. “And yet a little. It is so warm and bright there, and the people are gay. Here they are stern and sullen. My father loves to sail the seas, and when I first went to school at Arles, he took me a long and beautiful voyage. We went from Christiansund to Holland, and saw all those pretty Dutch cities with their canals and quaint bridges. Then we went through the English Channel to Brest, — then by the Bay of Biscay to Bayonne. Bayonne seemed to me very lovely, but we left it soon, and travelled a long way by land, seeing all sorts of wonderful things, till we came to Arles. And though it is such a long route, and not one for many persons to take, I have travelled to Arles and back twice that way, so all there is familiar to me, — and in some things I do think it better than Norway.”

  “What induced your father to send you so far away from him?” asked Philip rather curiously.

  The girl’s eyes softened tenderly. “Ah, that is easy to understand!” she said. “My mother came from Arles.”

  “She was French, then?” he exclaimed with some surprise.

  “No,” she answered gravely. “She was Norwegian, because her father and mother both were of this land. She was what they call ‘born sadly.’ You must not ask me any more about her, please!”

  Errington apologized at once with some embarrassment, and a deeper color than usual on his face. She looked up at him quite frankly.

  “It is possible I will tell you her history some day,” she said, “when we shall know each other better. I do like to talk to you very much! I suppose there are many Englishmen like you?”

  Philip laughed. “I don’t think I am at all exceptional! why do you ask?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “I have seen some of them,” she said slowly, “and they are stupid. They shoot, shoot, — fish, fish, all day, and eat a great deal. . . .”

  “My dear Miss Güldmar, I also do all these things!” declared Errington amusedly. “These are only our surface faults. Englishmen are the best fellows to be found anywhere. You mustn’t judge them by their athletic sports, or their vulgar appetites. You must appeal to their hearts when you want to know them.”

  “Or to their pockets, and you will know them still better!” said Thelma almost mischievously, as she raised herself in her chair to take a cup of coffee from the tray that was then being handed to her by the respectful steward. “Ah, how good this is! It reminds me of our coffee luncheon at Arles!”

  Errington watched her with a half-smile, but said no more, as the others now came up to claim their share of her company.

  “I say!” said Lorimer, lazily throwing himself full length on the deck and looking up at her, “come and see us spear a salmon to-morrow, Miss Güldmar. Your father is going to show us how to do it in the proper Norse style.”

  “That is for men,” said Thelma loftily. “Women must know nothing about such things.”

  “By Jove!” and Lorimer looked profoundly astonished. “Why, Miss Güldmar, women are going in for everything nowadays! Hunting, shooting, bull-fighting, duelling, horse-whipping, lecturing, — heaven knows what! They stop at nothing — salmon-spearing is a mere trifle in the list of modern feminine accomplishments.”

  Thelma smiled down upon him benignly. “You will always be the same,” she said with a sort of indulgent air. “It is your delight to say things upside down? But you shall not make me believe that women do all these dreadful things. Because, how is it possible? The men would not allow them!”

  Errington laughed, and Lorimer appeared stupefied with surprise.

  “The men — would — not — allow them?” he repeated slowly. “Oh, Miss Güldmar, little do you realize the state of things at the present day! The glamor of Viking memories clings about you still! Don’t you know the power of man has passed away, and that ladies do exactly as they like? It is easier to control the thunderbolt than to prevent a woman having her own way.”

  “All that is nonsense!” said Thelma decidedly. “Where there is a man to rule, he must rule, that is certain.”

  “Is that positively your opinion?” and Lorimer looked more astonished than ever.

  “It is everybody’s opinion, of course!” averred Thelma. “How foolish it would be if women did not obey men! The world would be all confusion! Ah, you see you cannot make me think your funny thoughts; it is no use!” And she laughed and rose from her chair, adding with a gentle persuasive air, “Father dear, is it not time to say good-bye?”

  “Truly I think it is!” returned Güldmar, giving himself a shake like an old lion, as he broke off a rather tedious conversation he had been having with Macfarlane. “We shall have Sigurd coming to look for us, and poor Britta will think we have left her too long alone. Thank you, my lad!” this to Sir Philip, who instantly gave orders for th
e boat to be lowered. “You have given us a day of thorough, wholesome enjoyment. I hope I shall be able to return it in some way. You must let me see as much of you as possible.”

  They shook hands cordially, and Errington proposed to escort them back as far as their own pier, but this offer Güldmar refused.

  “Nonsense!” he exclaimed cheerily. “With four oarsmen to row us along, why should we take you away from your friends? I won’t hear of such a thing! And now, regarding the great fall of Njedegorze; Mr. Macfarlane here says you have not visited it yet. Well the best guide you can have there is Sigurd. We’ll make up a party and go when it is agreeable to you; it is a grand sight, — well worth seeing. To-morrow we shall meet again for the salmon-spearing, — I warrant I shall be able to make the time pass quickly for you! How long do you think of staying here?”

  “As long as possible!” answered Errington absently, his eyes wandering to Thelma, who was just then shaking hands with his friends and bidding them farewell.

  Güldmar laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “That means till you are tired of the place,” he said good-humoredly. “Well you shall not be dull if I can prevent it! Good-bye, and thanks for your hospitality.”

  “Ah, yes!” added Thelma gently, coming up at that moment and laying her soft hand in his. “I have been so happy all day, and it is all your kindness! I am very grateful!”

  “It is I who have cause to be grateful,” said Errington hurriedly, clasping her hand warmly, “for your company and that of your father. I trust we shall have many more pleasant days together.”

  “I hope so too!” she answered simply, and then, the boat being ready, they departed. Errington and Lorimer leaned on the deck-rails, waving their hats and watching them disappear over the gleaming water, till the very last glimpse of Thelma’s crimson hood had vanished, and then they turned to rejoin their companions, who were strolling up and down smoking.

  “Belle comme un ange!” said Duprèz briefly. “In short, I doubt if the angels are so good-looking!”

  “The auld pagan’s a fine scholar,” added Macfarlane meditatively. “He corrected me in a bit o’ Latin.”