Katharine Frensham: A Novel

"What was it she said about father?" the boy asked with painful eagerness.

"I think you know," Katharine replied gently.

And just then Clifford came towards them. Alan got up and ran to meet him.

"Father," he cried, "I want to tell you everything she said to me. I've tried dozens of times, but – "

"I know, Alan," Clifford said tenderly. "You are even as I have been all my life – a prisoner of silence. We will have a long talk when we get home."

It was a glorious day: with bright warm sunshine, cold, crisp air, and a sky of unbroken blue. And all around stretched the great and wonderful distances, less mysterious in the frankness of the morning, but always possessed of mystic influence and eloquent bidding. But the harmony of the day was gone for Clifford, Katharine, and Alan; the gladness of the expedition was over for them. Still, they took their part with the others, and did their best to hide their own sad feelings. The returning pilgrims passed over the wild heathland, through the low and luxuriant growth of brush, juniper, and stunted willow, through the birch-woods and pine-forests, and so downwards, downwards, their faces set towards the Rondane mountains and their backs to the great Jutenheim range. Gerda sang, Ejnar was rescued from swamps, the French artist sketched, and the little Swedish lady flirted with him, for a "changeling," so she told Katharine! The Mathematiker sulked, Katharine comforted him, and Alan kept close to her, whilst Clifford strolled along, sometimes with them, sometimes alone, and sometimes with Gerda, who loved to get him to herself. The Sorenskriver had left his geniality behind at the Saeter. He became quieter and quieter, until he reached his normal condition of surliness. Jens, however, remained in a state of mountain-exhilaration all the way home, and, encouraged by sympathetic listeners, told stories of frightful Trolds living in the mountains, and of the occasions when he himself had seen apparitions of men, women, and horses fading into nothing on near approach.

"Ja, vel," he said, "at this very water-trough where Svarten is now drinking, I have seen half a dozen horses standing and barring the road; but when I came near, they have disappeared. Ja, ja, I've even heard them being whipped, and heard the noise of their hoofs striking the ground."

He told a story of a man he knew who had once seen several men, all black and all wearing top-hats, "just like church-people," standing on a stone-heap down in the valley. He shouted to them, but they did not answer, and then he was foolish enough to ask them to show him their backs.

"Now," said Jens, "you know they have not any backs, and he had scarcely pronounced the words when he fell in a dead faint. This was about six o'clock in the evening; and two hours later he regained consciousness and found himself lying near his own home. As it was in the valley that he met these people, they must have carried him up home. He is very grave and quiet now, and you will never hear him making fun of the Huldre-folk."

It was late in the afternoon when the travellers reached the Gaard. The flag had been hoisted and was flying at half-mast. Knutty came out to meet them, and said, "Velkommen tilbage" (Welcome back).

And then she added:

"Jens, Bedstefar is dead."

CHAPTER XI

The silence of death rested on the Gaard, and every one went about softly in courtyard and house. The visitors had asked Mor Inga whether or not she wished them to leave; but her message was that they might stay if they pleased. Nevertheless, two or three of them, who resented the presence of death, took themselves off at once; but their places were filled up by a party of mountaineers who had come down from the Dovrefjelde. One of them, so Knutty told her dear ones, was a Finnish botanist, and he had found some rare flowers which had much excited him. Knutty had a great deal of news to give; and it was obvious that she had not been having a dull time.

"I began by reading the Scriptures to Bedstemor out of that remarkable book bought in exchange for a black cow," she said, with a twinkle in her eye. "That was truly enlivening, wasn't it? Then a lone, weird man and his dog came down from the mountains. He had been fishing. He had been on two Polar expeditions and his dog on one. The dog had just that superior look and manner about him which would seem to proclaim that he had been on the way to the North Pole. He seemed to be saying the whole time, 'Don't dare to stroke me in that familiar way. I have been on a Polar trip!' The man was more human, and told me a great deal. Then the old Foged (under-magistrate) from the valley came to inquire about Bedstefar. I flirted with him, and we drank aqua-vitæ in the arbour. Also I had my musical entertainment in my usual concert-hall, the cowhouse. Also, Mor Inga was good enough to tell the milkmaids that they might dance for me in the fladbröd-room. And beautifully they danced, too! Their feet scarcely touched the floor! And then, dear ones, this morning I had a great joy – a joy of joys – an English book to translate, but not a novel, nor a problem play – nothing about the sexes for once. Dear heaven, what a relief! – no – a book defending and explaining the English people, written by a just and patriotic man, and to be translated into all the Continental languages. And I am to do it into Danish. Ah, I am a happy old woman – kille bukken, kille bukken, sullei, sulleima! Nå, I long to finish it at once, and throw it at the Sorenskriver's head!"

"We must deal gently with the Sorenskriver," said Katharine. "He has been an old dear. He has been the life and soul of the Saeter expedition. And he has not said one word against England."

"Because the old coward is afraid of the British lioness," Knutty said, smiling at her. "You should have seen her, my Clifford, in the early days here, standing up to the Sorenskriver and the fur-merchant from Tromsö and overcoming them. And as for Ejnar, she has quite quelled him too. We don't hear anything nowadays against Kew Gardens."

They all laughed, and handled the book each by turn almost lovingly. The author would have been touched if he could have seen that little group in a foreign land bending over his book, and thinking of him with pride and gratitude.

"And if we feel grateful," Katharine said, "we, merely temporary and willing exiles in a foreign country, imagine what the feelings of enforced and permanent British exiles will be. I always have a great sympathy with Britishers who have burnt their boats and are obliged to live under a foreign flag. I would like to ship them all home."

"You would ship home many broken hearts," Clifford said.

"Well, the place for broken hearts is home," Katharine answered.

"I cannot say that the Saeter expedition has exhilarated any of you," remarked Knutty. "And you have not told me anything about it yet."

"You have been talking so much yourself, Tante," Gerda remarked.

"Kjaere," returned Knutty; "surely thou dost not wish me to be a prisoner of silence like my Clifford?"

Her words brought Alan's impulsive outburst to the remembrance of both Clifford and Katharine. They looked at each other. The boy was not there.

"Knutty," said Clifford, "we saw Mrs Stanhope up at the Saeter."

"Well," she said, "you do say astounding things when you do speak."

He smiled gravely.

"Yes," he replied, "we saw Mrs Stanhope up at the Saeter."

But at that moment Ragnhild came into the verandah and touched Knutty on the shoulder. She had not been crying, but she had on her pretty face that awed expression which the presence of death in a community gives to even the most unemotional. For death is a shock, and the mystery of it holds us under its influence whether we be willing or not.

"Fröken," she said, "Bedstemor is asking for thee. No one will do except only thee. And they have carried Bedstefar into the other house. And Mor is very tired. Thou wilt come, ja?"

Tante went off with Ragnhild, and she had no further chance that evening of talking with Clifford. But Katharine told her details of that strange encounter up at the Saeter, and ended up by saying naïvely:

"And you know, Knutty, part of what Mrs Stanhope said is true, for I have flirted tremendously in my time. At least, my brother always says so."

"Well, my dear," Knutty said, embracing her, "and a good thing too! A woman is not worth her salt if she does not know how to flirt. But all women do know, though they call it by different names – taking an interest in – making slippers for – embroidering waistcoats for – doing mission work for – and so on, in an ascending scale of intensity, you know, from the slipper business onwards and upwards to the postchaise, or, I suppose we ought to say, motor-car in these advanced days. Don't regret your flirtations! They have made you what you are – a darling! Believe the word of a wicked old woman."

"I don't regret them!" Katharine said, as she went off to bed, laughing quietly.

But the next morning Clifford gave Tante an account of the meeting with Mrs Stanhope; and in the gentlest way possible Knutty confessed to him that she knew Alan had been suffering and grieving over certain vague ideas which Mrs Stanhope had planted in his mind when she saw him a day or two before they sailed for America. Knutty did not tell him what these ideas were; and he did not ask. But she described to him how Katharine and she had seen the boy coming down from the hills in the middle of the night, and how they had yearned to help him back to happiness and ease of spirit.

"Then you knew that Alan had been worked on by Mrs Stanhope, and yet you never gave a hint to me?" Clifford said.

"Ah," Knutty answered, "I had no heart to tell you. You were happy. It is such a long time since I have seen you happy. I had no heart to wound you."

"Alas!" said Clifford, "I have been thinking only of myself."

And he turned away from Knutty.

"It was not so at first," he said, as he turned to her again. "At first I thought only about my boy, whom I had hurt and alienated by my selfish outbreak just before his mother's death. I did all in my power to woo him again. I grieved over his growing indifference to me. I said in the bitterness of my heart, 'Marianne is between us.' On our travels I tried to forget and ignore it. But I longed to return; for there were no results of happiness to him or me from our journey and our close companionship. When we were on our way home, my heart grew suddenly lighter. And since that moment, I have been thinking only of myself – myself, Knutty. I have scarcely noticed that the boy did not want to be with me. I have not wanted to be with him. I have been forgetting him."

"But we have not been forgetting him, she and I," Knutty said gently. "Don't grieve. Every right-minded human being ought to have a spasm of self occasionally."

He smiled and stooped down to kiss her kind old hand.

"And you saw the little fellow wandering about in the silence of the night?" he asked sadly.

Knutty nodded.

"That stabs me more than anything," he said. "He is like me, Knutty. I have taken most of my own sorrows out into the stillness of the night."

"Yes, kjaere," Knutty answered. "He is like you. It is a good thing for me that I am not going to live long enough to know his grown-up son. Three of exactly the same pattern – ak! – I couldn't stand that in one lifetime!"

They were sitting on Tante's verandah, where she had established herself with her writing-materials, her English dictionary, and the book which she was translating.

"Have I really been such a burden to you?" he said a little wistfully, playing with her pen.

"Ja, kjaere," she said, with a charming old smile. "You have been one of those heavy burdens which are the true joy of silly old women like myself."

And then she added:

"But for you, my spirit would be like a piece of dried fish in the Stabur. Things being as they are, it is much more like one of those tender fresh mountain-trout which Jens and Alan are going to catch for poor Bedstefar's funeral. So be of good cheer, Clifford. You have done me only good. All the same, three of you, no thank you! But I have always yearned over the first – and I find myself yearning over the second – yearning over that little chap! Ak, that metallic beast of a woman! I'd like to break up her mechanism."

Clifford rose.

"Knutty," he said, "I have not asked you what she said, because I want Alan to tell me himself. I am going to find him now."

When he reached the door of the verandah he paused.

"At least there is one thing that she could not have put into his heart and head," he said, "because she did not know it – no one knows it – not even you, Knutty, although I have tried to tell you times without number. But it didn't come; and so the weeks have worn into months."

"Kjaere," she said, in real distress, "have you still anything on your mind about poor Marianne?"

"Yes, Knutty," he answered, and he went away.

"Ak, ak," she said to herself, "It's just like that wretched Marianne to be immortal."

She sat there puzzled and grave, but eventually made a great effort to throw off worrying thoughts, and to focus her mind on the translation-task.

Meanwhile Clifford passed up to his room thinking of his boy. He saw him wandering on the hillside in the silence of the night. The picture which thus rose before his mind's eye, touched him to the quick.

"We must put it all right between us," he said, "once and for all."

Then his door opened, and Alan came in.

"Father," he began shyly.

"My boy," Clifford said – and he put his hand on Alan's shoulder – "I can't bear to think of you wandering about in the night alone, unhappy and uncomforted. What is it that you have against me? What is it that has been rankling in your mind? What is it that has made you drift farther and farther away from me – I, alas! doing nothing to help you back to me? I know Mrs Stanhope says unkind and unjust things against me; but I never cared what she said, until I knew that my boy had turned from me. Now I care."

"Oh, father," Alan cried, with a ring of distress in his voice, "I've been so unhappy. I've tried to tell you dozens of times. You don't know how I've longed to come and tell you."

"Yes, I do know," Clifford answered. "For I have tried to ask you time after time, and could not. One night, before we started for America, I bent over your bed, heard you sobbing in your dreams, and nearly woke you to ask you what was troubling you – but I could not. It is awfully hard for shut-up fellows like you and me to reach each other, isn't it? But let's try now, this very moment; let's break the ice somehow. Tell me everything, without fear and reserve; tell me everything; nothing can wound me so much as being without our dear chumship."

Then the boy told him everything, bit by bit, in detached fragments; now with painful effort, now with sudden ease. Clifford listened, his heart grey. He had not expected the story to be as bad as this. He heard that the boy had been terribly upset by his mother's death following immediately on their conversation that day, when Clifford told him that he intended to separate from Marianne. He had brooded over that. It was so sad to think that his father had wanted to get rid of his mother, and that she had died, alone, and no one caring. He had brooded over that. Not at first, but after he had seen and spoken with Mrs Stanhope. He had tried to forget what Mrs Stanhope said about his father having been unkind to his mother, about his father having been the cause of his mother's death. He could not forget it. He did not understand exactly what she meant; but he had thought about it hours and hours, and he remembered he had seen in the papers that his father had said at the inquest that mother and he had had unhappy words together that very evening; and then – and then all sorts of dreadful thoughts had come into his mind, and he could not drive them away, and —

He stopped and looked at his father, who had begun to walk up and down the room.

"Go on, my boy," Clifford said gently.

And the boy went on pitilessly, with the ruthlessness of youth, which is unconscious, involuntary. As he gathered courage and confidence, he felt the wild relief of freeing himself from his pent-up condition. And he told his father he had begun to wonder more and more how his mother had died – how she had died – and then he had remembered what Mrs Stanhope had said to him about his sonship; he couldn't forget that – his sonship – and he did not feel he ought to go on loving his father if there was any doubt about the manner of his mother's death – no son could stand that – and yet he had always loved his father so awfully, so awfully, and he could not believe that he would have done anything to hurt his mother; and yet he did not know – everything seemed so strange and wrong – and he was so very unhappy, and the journey did not make things better for him, for these dreadful thoughts were at the back of everything he saw and heard – even on the sea, on that bully steamer; and twice he had nearly run away – he wanted to get away by himself, away from his father – yes, away from his father, because he could not bear to be with him and feel —

He stopped again. Clifford stood still. His face was ashen.

"Go on," he said, almost inaudibly.

And Alan went on, and told his father how he had tried to leave him and could not, and how he had tried to come and pour out his heart to him and entreat him to say that it was not true what Mrs Stanhope had said. But he could not. And old Knutty had urged him to come. But he could not. And then, he did not know why, but lately he had been feeling happier again, happier each day, and he had not been thinking so much about – about his mother's death. And they had all been so jolly up at the Saeter, until that beastly woman had come and spoilt everything; she always had spoilt everything for them, and he hated her when he saw her again, just as much as he ever used to hate her – and he hated her for saying those beastly things against Miss Frensham, who was such a brick, and —

A pang of jealousy shot through the man's heart.

"Ah," he said to himself bitterly, "he is up in arms for her."

"And, oh, father," cried the boy passionately, "I hate myself for believing what she said against you – I don't know how I could have thought anything bad of you; but I have, nearly the whole time since she spoke to me about – about mother's death; and, oh, I've been so unhappy."

He had been sitting on the edge of his father's bed; and now, as if he had suddenly come to an end of his powers of telling, he flung himself lengthwise on the bed and turned his face to the wall.

For one moment Clifford hesitated. He would have given anything on earth to have eased his mind then and there by telling the boy all the circumstances of poor Marianne's tragic death. The old conviction that he was responsible for Marianne's death assailed him once more. The old battle between common-sense and morbid sensitiveness raged within him. Was he responsible for Marianne's death? Was he not responsible for Marianne's death? Was it his duty to tell the boy? Was it his duty to spare the boy? Would it not be cruel to the boy to burden him with a knowledge which he could not understand, and cruel to himself to risk being hated and shunned by his own son? And for what – for what? – for a fiction woven from the fine, frail threads of morbid conscientiousness. But in spite of everything – oh, the luxury of opening his locked-up heart – now – this moment!

Then a vision of the boy wandering alone on the hill-side in the silence of the night rose before him.

He went and sat on the bed where the boy lay, with his face turned to the wall. He put his hand on Alan's arm.

"Alan," he said, "be comforted. There was nothing unnatural in your mother's death; nothing which I humanly speaking, could have prevented. Her heart was weak – weaker than she herself knew; but I knew – that was why – "

He paused; for the dead are despots, and must not be spoken against.

"That was why I had always tried to keep her tranquil," he said.

The boy did not stir.

"I know what you have been thinking," Clifford went on. "I understand. It was only right for you to have turned from me if such a terrible thought had taken possession of you. If you had not done so, you would not have been worthy to be called a mother's son. I know well how the thought grew in your mind. It grew imperceptibly until it reached this terrible size, didn't it?"

The boy moved his head in silent assent.

"But now you must get rid of it," Clifford said quietly, "because it is not true. Your mother and I were not always happy together; things were not always easy for her, nor sometimes quite easy for me, and I made many mistakes, and I know I must have been very trying to her – often – often – one thinks of all those mistakes when it is too late. But, whatever I did do, or failed to do, I swear to you solemnly, that I never meant to be unkind to her."

Alan turned impulsively round, threw his arms round his father's neck, and whispered:

"Oh, father, I know you never were unkind to her."

CHAPTER XII

Clifford was deeply wounded. It was all so much worse than he had expected. The injury to the boy, the injury to himself wrought by Mrs Stanhope, surpassed in reality his own vague anticipations of ill. But, as usual, he hid his feelings under his impenetrable manner, and to Knutty he only said:

"Knutty, Alan has been able to open his heart to me. And I have been able to tell him that – that I did not kill his mother."

"Oh, my dear one," she cried, "you have suffered, both of you."

"It will be all right now for him," Clifford answered.

"And for you?" she asked anxiously.

"It will be all right for me later," he said. "I am going for a long walk to think things over and pull myself together. And, Knutty, I want you to tell Miss Frensham that I thank her with my whole heart for urging the boy to come to me this morning. I cannot speak of it myself just now. But you will tell her."

Knutty watched him climb up the steep hillside, pass the different barns, and disappear into the birch-woods.

"Nå," she said, "it is the best plan for him to go and have it out by himself with Nature, which he loves, to help and sustain him."

Later on she found Katharine, and gave Clifford's last message.

"Those were his last words, kjaere," she said. "I don't grudge them to you one little bit. If you had not bewitched that boy, we should not be one single step forrader. It was all too much for me. Seventeen stone cannot bewitch any one. I know my limitations as well as my weight."

"Seventeen stone can stand solidly by like a fine old fortress," said Katharine, giving her a hug.

"That metallic beast! – that metallic beast!" Knutty exclaimed. "She is fifty times worse than poor Marianne. Marianne was merely an explosive substance. She was a pretty bad explosive substance, I will own. But she had some kind of a heart. Mrs Stanhope has only some sort of artificial clockwork contrivance. But I'd like to tear even that out. Ak, ak, how hot it is! Fat people will go to heaven when they die, I feel sure; for they've had all their roasting on earth!"

"There is thunder in the air," Katharine said, as she fanned Tante with an English newspaper. "I am sure we are in for a storm. I hope Professor Thornton will not go far. Alan is out, too. He went off with Jens a few minutes ago, down to the valley, to the Landhandleri. He has been talking to me about his mother, Knutty. We had a stroll together before breakfast, and then it was I told him that – "

Katharine paused.

"That he would never forgive himself if he were to lose his father before he had told him what his trouble had been."

Knutty put down her knitting.

"Why did you say that?" she asked.

"I don't know," Katharine answered. "It came into my head, and I felt something had to be done to help the boy through the barrier of silence at once."

"Before it was too late, you meant?" Knutty said, looking distressed.

"Yes," replied Katharine simply.

"Well," said Knutty, in her own generous way, "I am glad he knew you did it."

But they were not to be allowed to have further private conversation that afternoon; for Bedstemor, now recovered from the first shock of Bedstefar's death, came across from her own house to the Gaard. Ragnhild hurried out to the porch, and begged Fröken Knudsgaard to keep Bedstemor by her side and prevent her from making a descent on the kitchen, where already great preparations were going on for the funeral feast.