Footsteps of Fate Part 3

And Eva laughed too.

"Nay. That is not the truth, papa. Do not believe him Mr.--Mr. Westhove.

Do you know what makes papa say so? A few years ago, when I had but just left school, I and a few girls I knew were perfectly idiotic for a while. We towzled our hair into mops, dressed in floppy garments of damask and brocade with enormous sleeves, and held meetings among ourselves to talk nonsense about art. We sat in att.i.tudes, holding a sunflower or a peac.o.c.k's feather, and were perfectly ridiculous. That is why papa still says such things. I am not so silly now. But I am still very fond of reading; and is that so very esthetic?"

Frank looked smilingly into her honest, clear, grey eyes, and her ringing, decided voice had an apologetic tone, as if she were asking pardon for her little display of learning. He understood that there was nothing of the blue-stocking in this girl, as might have seemed from her sententious jest before, and he was quite vexed with himself for having been compelled to confess that he knew nothing of the poet Spenser. How stupid she must think him!

But it was a moment when the beauties of the scenery had so bewitched them that they moved, as it were, in a magic circle of sympathy, in which some unknown law overruled their natural impulses, something electrically swift and ethereally subtle.

As they climbed the meandering mountain track, or made short cuts through the low brushwood, where the leaves glistened in the sun like polished green needles, and as he breathed that pure, intoxicating air, Frank felt as though he had known her quite a long time, as if it were years since he had first seen her at the table d'hote at Dronthjem. And Sir Archibald and Bertie, lingering behind, were far off--miles away--mere remembered images. Eva's voice joined with his own in harmonious union, as though their fragmentary talk of art and poetry were a duet which they both knew how to sing, although Frank candidly confessed that he had read but little, and that what he had read he scarcely remembered. She playfully scolded him, and her sweet clear tones now and then startled a bird, which flew piping out of the shrubs.

He felt within him a revival of strength--a new birth; and would fain have spread his arms to embrace--the air!

II.

That evening, on their return from their walk, after dinner, over a cup of coffee, they discussed their further projects.

"We are going to Molde!" said Sir Archibald.

"And so are we!" Frank exclaimed.

The old gentleman at once expressed a wish that the friends would continue to give him and his daughter the pleasure of their society.

Frank had taken a great fancy to him, and Bertie thought him courteous, and good company; Bertie had talked a good deal about America, but he had not told the whole history of his farming experiences in the far west; he had indeed idealised it a little by speaking of "My farm." And Frank did not contradict him.

By the end of two days spent at Dronthjem they were the best of friends; with that confidential intimacy which, on a tour, when etiquette is out of court, sometimes arises from mere contact, without any knowledge of character on either side, simply from sympathy in trifles and mutual attraction, a superficial sentiment of transient admiration which occupies the traveller's leisure. The day on the sea by steamboat to Molde was like a party of pleasure, in spite of the rain which drove them below; and in the cabin, over a bottle of champagne, Miss Eva and the three men played a rubber of whist. But afterwards, in a gleam of pale suns.h.i.+ne, there was an endless walk to and fro on the wet deck. The low rocky sh.o.r.e glided slowly past on the larboard side; the hills, varying in outline--now close together, and again showing a gap--covered with brown moss down by the water, and grey above with patches of pale rose or dull purple light. At Christiansand they were far from land, and the waters, now rougher, were crimson in the glory of the sinking sun, fast approaching the horizon. Every wave had a crest of flame-coloured foam, as though the ocean were on fire. Frank and Eva, meanwhile, pacing up and down, laughed at each other's faces, reddened like a couple of paeonies, or like two maskers rouged by the glow of the sun to the semblance of clowns.

They reached Molde late at night, too late to see its lovely fjord. But next morning, there it lay before them, a long, narrow inlet, encircled by mountains capped with snow; a poem, a song of mountains; pure, lofty, beautiful, severe, solemn, without one jarring note. The sky above them was calmly grey, like brooding melancholy, and the peace that reigned sounded like a pa.s.sionless _andante_.

III.

Next day, when Sir Archibald proposed a walk up Moldeho, Bertie declared that he was tired, and did not feel well, and begged to be left at home. In point of fact, he thought that the weather did not look promising; heavy clouds were gathering about the chain of hill-tops which shut in the fjord, like a sweeping drapery of rain, threatening ere long to fall and wrap everything in their gloomy folds. Eva, however, would not be checked by bad weather: when people were travelling they must not be afraid of a wetting. So the three set out; and Bertie, in his patent slippers, remained in the drawing-room of the Grand Hotel, with a book and a half-pint bottle.

The road was muddy, but they stepped out valiantly in their waterproofs and stout boots. The rain which hung threateningly above their heads did not daunt them, but gave a touch of romantic adventure to the expedition, as though it threatened to submerge them in an impending deluge. Once off the beaten road, and still toiling upwards, they occasionally missed the track, which was lost in a plashy bog, or under ferns dripping with rain, or struck across a wild growth of blue bilberries. They crossed the mora.s.s, using the rocks as stepping-stones; the old gentleman without help, and Eva with her hand in Frank's, fearing lest her little feet should slide on the smooth green moss. She laughed gaily, skipping from stone to stone with his help; sometimes suddenly slipping and supporting herself against his shoulder, and then again going on bravely, trying the stones with her stout stick. She felt as though she need take no particular heed, now that he was at her side; that he would support her if she stumbled; and they chatted eagerly as they went, almost leaping from rock to rock.

"What sort of man is your friend, Mr. Westhove?" Eva suddenly inquired.

Frank was a little startled; it was always an unpleasant task to give any information concerning Bertie, less on account of his past life than of his present position; his quiet sponging on himself, Frank, who, though enslaved by Bertie, knew full well that the situation was strange, to say the least of it, in the eyes of the world.

"Oh, he is a man who has been very unfortunate," he said evasively, and he presently added: "Has he not made a pleasant impression on you?"

Eva laughed so heartily that she was near falling into a pool of mud, if Frank had not firmly thrown his arm round her waist.

"Eva, Eva!" cried her father, shaking his head, "pray be more careful!"

Eva drew herself up with a slight blush.

"What can I say?" she went on, pursuing the subject. "If I were to speak the whole truth--"

"Of course."

"But perhaps you will be vexed; for I can see very plainly that you are quite infatuated with your friend."

"Then you do not like him?"

"Well then--if you insist on knowing: the first day, when I made his acquaintance, I thought him insufferable. With you we got on famously at once, as an amusing travelling companion, but with him--but perhaps he has not travelled much?"

"Oh yes, he has," said Frank, who could not help smiling.

"Well, then, perhaps he was shy or awkward. However, I began to think differently of him after that; I don't think him insufferable now."

It was strange, but Frank felt no particular satisfaction on hearing of the young lady's changed opinion; he made no reply.

"You say he has had much to trouble him. And, indeed, I can see it in his face. There is something so gentle in him, so tender, I might almost say; such soft, dark eyes, and such a sweet voice. At first, as I tell you, I found it intolerable, but now it strikes me as rather poetical.

He must certainly be a poet, and have been crossed in love: he can be no commonplace man."

"No, that he certainly is not," said Frank, vaguely, a little ill-at-ease over Eva's raptures; and a mingling of jealousy and regret--something like an aversion for the worldly polish, and a dull envy of the poetic graces which Eva attributed to his friend, ran through his veins like a chill. He glanced up, almost pathetically, at the pretty creature, who was sometimes so shrewd and sometimes so nave; so learned in all that bore on her favourite studies, so ignorant of real life. A dim compa.s.sion came over him, and on a sudden the grey rain-clouds weighed upon him with a pall of melancholy, as though they were ominous of some inevitable fatality which threatened to crush her.

His fingers involuntarily clasped her hand more tightly.

"Here is the path once more!" cried Sir Archibald, who was twenty steps ahead of them.

"Oh yes! There is the path! Thank you, Mr. Westhove!" said Eva, and she sprang from the last stepping-stone, pus.h.i.+ng her way through the snapping braken to the beaten track.

"And up there is the hut with the weatherc.o.c.k," her father went on. "I believe we have made a long round out of our way. Instead of chattering so much, you would do well to keep a sharp look-out for the path. My old eyes, you know--"

"But it was great fun jumping over the stones," laughed Eva.

Far above them they could now see the hut with the tall pole of the weatherc.o.c.k, and they went on at an easier pace, their feet sinking in the violet and pink blossomed heath, crus.h.i.+ng the bilberries, dimly purple like tiny grapes. Eva stooped and picked some.

"Oh! so nice and sweet!" she exclaimed, with childish surprise, and she pulled some more, dyeing her lips and fingers blue with the juice of the berries. "Taste them, Mr. Westhove."

He took them from her soft, small hand, stained as it were with purple blood. It was true; they were deliciously sweet, and such fine ones!

And then they went on again, following Sir Archibald, often stopping, and triumphing like children when they came on a large patch where the whortleberries had spread unhindered like a miniature orchard.

"Papa, papa! Do try them!" Eva cried, heedless of the fact that papa was far ahead; but Sir Archibald was not out of sight, and they had to run to overtake him; Eva's laughter ringing like a bell, while she lamented that she must leave so many berries untouched--and such beauties!

"I daresay there will be plenty round the hut," said Frank, consolingly.

"Do you think so?" she said, with a merry laugh. "Oh, what a couple of babies we are!"

The path grew wider, and they found it easy walking up to the top, sometimes quitting the track and scrambling over the stones to shorten the way. Presently they heard a shout, and looking up, they saw Sir Archibald standing on the cairn in which the staff of the weatherc.o.c.k was fixed, and waving his travelling-cap. They hurried on, and soon were at his side. Eva knocked at the door of the hut.

"The hut is shut up," said her father.