The Pilot and his Wife: Chapter 9

Chapter 9

All these events had come upon Elizabeth with overwhelming suddenness.
It seemed to her like a confused dream. Yet the fact remained that there
she was, dressed in black, an inmate of one of those handsome houses,
the interiors of which she had so often pictured to herself out on
Torungen.

Captain Beck was married to a second wife, a woman of stern principles,
full of decision and respectability, who had brought him a considerable
fortune, and, under her lynx-eyed rule, had restored that order in
household matters which, during the period her husband was a widower,
had been far too much neglected; and though his power might still be
absolute on board the Juno, it had long since ceased to be so in his own
house. By her grown-up step-children Madam Beck was in the highest
degree respected, though not exactly loved, owing to the various
unaccustomed restraints to which they now found themselves subjected;
and as to Carl, his easy tact, notwithstanding the independent position
which he enjoyed in his home as salaried member of a coast commission,
enabled him to keep on the best of terms with his imperious stepmother.
His duties would detain him about home for another year, to be still
f�ted by the town, and idolised by his sisters, who were never tired of
speculating upon eligible matches for him.

From the very first, Elizabeth, who, in her utter ignorance how to
behave, committed one egregious blunder after another, had perceived
with her strong sense that it would require all the cleverness and
patience she possessed to enable her to maintain the situation; and she
began by following Madam Beck about untiringly like a lamb. Many a
painful scene had she to go through during the earlier period of their
connection, and she bore them with a quiet gentleness which Madam Beck
took for modest docility, but which had its real origin in a fixed
determination to succeed. Every now and then, however, she would give it
up as hopeless, and would seat herself disconsolately by the window with
her cheek upon her hand, and gaze wistfully out over the harbour. She
longed so for cold fresh air, and would end by throwing up the window
and stretching herself with her heated face as far out of it as she
possibly could, till Madam Beck would come in, and in a stern voice call
her back. Madam Beck, in her irritation, used to say that it was almost
as if they had taken a wild thing into the house.

Carl Beck understood very well what she was going through, and would
occasionally throw her an encouraging look; but Elizabeth affected
always not to understand it. On one occasion, however, when she was
corrected in his presence, she hurriedly left the room, and throwing
herself on her bed, lay there and sobbed as if her heart would break.

She had been trusted one afternoon, shortly after, to bring in the
tea-tray, on which, without thinking what she was doing, she had placed
the chafing-dish with the boiling teakettle. It fell as she was carrying
it in; but although its hot side and the boiling water burnt and scalded
her arm and hand, she carried the tray quite quietly out again without
allowing a muscle of her face to change--she was not going to be
corrected before him again.

Madam Beck herself bound up her hand in the kitchen, where she stood
white with pain; while Carl, who had been sitting on the sofa, and had
seen how the whole thing happened, forgetting his self-command, had
jumped up in great excitement, and had shown such uncommon sympathy that
his sister Mina, afterwards, when they were alone in the room together,
said, with a look that was more searching than the joking words seemed
to require, "It is not possible you are fond of the girl, Carl?"

"No fear, Mina," he answered quickly, in the same tone, chucking her
under the chin as he spoke. "There are as handsome girls as her in
Arendal; but you can see as well as I can that she is a girl in a
hundred. That business with the tea-tray is what very few others would
have been capable of; and we mustn't forget that if it had not been for
her--"

"Oh yes," rejoined Mina, with a toss of her head, a little tired of the
eternal repetition of this stock observation. "She didn't know all the
same that it was papa who was out there."

It was a game of hypocrisy, thought out with no inconsiderable subtlety,
that the handsome lieutenant was carrying on in this matter: under his
apparently so entirely frank sailor-bearing there was hidden a real
diplomatist. By trumpeting about the town the service which Elizabeth
had rendered them in saving the Juno, he had, one may say, forced his
family to take her up, though to them he made it appear that public
opinion left them no alternative. On the other hand, he was uncommonly
cautious in his attitude towards Elizabeth herself; for he knew he must
win her without attracting the attention of his stepmother and sisters.
He believed he had made a sort of impression upon her; but at the same
time he felt that he had a wild swan to deal with, that might at any
moment spread its wings and fly away--there was such a strong,
independent individuality about her.

In his home, however, she had become a different creature, scarcely to
be recognised as the same Elizabeth,--so quietly did she go about,
hardly conscious of his presence apparently--and so slavishly did she
follow the directions of the mistress of the house. This new aspect of
her had put him in doubt for a while, but it was not very long before he
satisfied himself that he understood what it meant; and that little
affair with the tea-tray, that was set down to awkwardness by the
others, had quite a different significance for him. He flattered himself
that she subjected herself to all this restraint for his sake; and
whatever the _d�nouement_ might be, the situation was, at all events, an
interesting one.

But there was, on the other hand, something in her manner that kept him
at a certain distance, and left him in uncertainty as to what line
exactly he should take. The same had been the case whenever they had
been together out on the island, and had in fact been the principal
cause of his becoming more deeply in love with her every day. He had
once out there encountered a look in her steel-grey eyes which had given
him the impression that the opinion she entertained of him could in a
moment be reversed, and that least of all dare he allow her to feel that
he was appearing in the character of a lover; and it was for this reason
he had scarcely ever talked with her grandfather, and only casually with
herself. The fact was, old Jacob had very well understood that the smart
young navy-lieutenant did not come out there for his sake; and as he
could not very well shut the door in his face, he had very sensibly
warned his granddaughter against him. He explained to her that people of
his class were not in the habit of marrying a common man's child,
although it happened far too often that they might play at love with
them. "Such a lad as Salv� Kristiansen, now," he remarked, in
conclusion, "that is the sort of stuff that will not disappoint you;"
and he thought he had played the diplomatist there with some skill.

"I didn't understand you to mean that exactly, grandfather, that time
you were going to beat him," she said.

The old man was rather nonplussed for the moment, but he growled out
something about youngsters requiring correction occasionally, and went
on, "He's a god lad, I tell you; and if he came and made up to you, he
should have you without a moment's hesitation; and then I should be easy
in my mind as to what would become of you when I'm gone."

Elizabeth made no further observation, but a certain expression about
her mouth seemed to denote that she reserved to herself the liberty to
have an opinion of her own in this matter. Salv� Kristiansen had been
very dear to her as the only friend and confidant she had ever had; but
since she had seen the lieutenant, it had been he who had exclusively
occupied her thoughts. All that had formed the ideal of her young
enthusiasm had suddenly in his person appeared upon the rock; but
whether it was his uniform, or the bravery of the fleet, or himself,
that was the object of her admiration, she had never asked herself,
until hurt and rendered thoughtful by that warning of her grandfather.
Now, it was unmistakably himself, the handsome, brilliant embodiment of
it all. But at the same time there sprang up in her nature an
unconquerable feeling of pride, in obedience to the dictates of which
she absolutely resigned him, though still retaining her enthusiastic
admiration; and it was this double attitude of mind which her eyes
expressed, and which puzzled her admirer. When she heard afterwards from
her aunt in Arendal that people had been talking about them, she felt it
deeply, and more than ever then had become sensible that there was an
invisible barrier between them.

Carl's father meanwhile had been trudging daily over to the dry-dock to
see after the Juno, which had had to have her bottom scraped, her gaping
seams caulked, and to undergo a general repair: he was hardly at home to
meals. It was a case of urgency, as the delivery of her cargo at its
destination could not be delayed beyond a certain time.

About a month after Elizabeth had come into Captain Beck's house the
Juno was ready for sea again; and Carl's sister came into the room
smiling one day then, and said--

"Elizabeth, there is a young sailor out in the porch who wants to speak
to you; he has a parcel under his arm. Perhaps it is a present."

Elizabeth, who was bringing in the tea-things at the time, turned red,
and Carl Beck, who was standing by the window, a little pale. She knew
very well that it was Salv�, and for a moment she was almost frightened
at his audacity. She had seen him a couple of times before, and had
allowed him to feel that she was not particularly anxious for his
company, in consequence of what her aunt had told her, and as she went
out to see him now she trembled.

He looked at her for a moment or two without saying a word.

"Will you take this dress, Elizabeth?" he said at last, almost harshly.

"No, that I won't, Salv�. Such things as you have been saying about me!"

"So you won't take it?" he said, slowly and dejectedly. "It is no use
saying anything more, then, I suppose."

"No, Salv�, it is no use saying anything more."

The desolate expression of his face as he stood and looked at her, while
he asked, "Am I to take it to sea with me, Elizabeth?" went to her
heart, and the tears rushed into her eyes. She shook her head
negatively, but with an almost despairing look, and disappeared into the
house.

They could see in the sitting-room that she had been crying. But Carl
Beck was a cold-blooded man, and merely lay at the window and looked out
after his rival, to see if he had the parcel under his arm as he went
out of the gate.

That night Elizabeth lay awake. She had cried in her sleep, and had
dreamed that she had seen Salv� standing down at the quay so wretchedly
clothed and so miserable, but too proud to ask assistance of any one,
and that he had given her such a bitterly reproachful look; and she lay
tossing about, unable to get the dream out of her head. Presently there
came the noise of a riotous mob outside, and she got up and went to the
window. The police were taking some one with them down the street. As
they passed, she saw by the light of the street-lamp for a moment that
it was Salv�. He was resisting with all his might, pale and infuriated,
with his blue shirt all torn open in the front, and there was an
expression in his face that--at any rate, she slept no more that night.

There had been a general _m�l�e_, she heard next morning, among the
sailors over in Mother Andersen's, on the other side of the harbour. It
was said that knives had been used, and that Salv� Kristiansen had been
the originator of the whole disturbance--without a shadow of protest,
Carl Beck said; and proceeded then to put various interpretations of his
own upon the affair. Elizabeth left the room, and for some days after
was pale and worn-looking, and more than usually reserved, Carl thought,
in her attitude towards himself.

Captain Beck had paid Salv�'s fine and procured his release, and the
afternoon before the Juno was to sail his father and younger brother
came on board to say good-bye to him. There was something strange in his
manner that struck them both; it was as if he thought he would never see
them again. He offered his father his hundred-daler note, and when the
latter would not take it, made him promise, at all events, to keep it
for him. The father attributed his unusual manner to distress of mind
and depression on account of his recent adventure with the police; but
as he was going ashore he said, in rather a husky voice--

"Remember, Salv�, that you have an old father expecting you at home!"

That evening and a great part of the night Salv� passed in the Juno's
maintop, gazing over at Beck's house as long as there was a light in the
attic window. And when that went out it seemed as if something had been
extinguished in himself with it.

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