Part 9 (1/2)
”Certainly I have, for if he now discovered the truth he would most likely repulse you with the utmost harshness; your obstinacy is equal to his, and thus all would be lost. But at least you must approach him.
As yet you have scarcely spoken together. No voice rises in your heart, you say. But it must rise in you, in him, and it will rise when you have learnt to stand face to face together.”
”I will try!” said Frida, with a deep sigh. ”But if I fail, if I only meet with harshness and suspicion”--
”You must remember that he is a man much sinned against,” interrupted Gustave, ”so much, that he has a right to look with mistrust and suspicion on all, and to draw back where another would lovingly open wide his arms. You are innocent, you suffer for the faults of others; but all the weight, poor child, falls on you.”
The girl made no reply, but two hot tears rolled down her cheeks, while she rested her head on the speaker's shoulder. He stroked her forehead softly and soothingly.
”Poor child! Yes, it is hard, at your age, when all should be joy and suns.h.i.+ne, to be already so deeply plunged in hatred and disunion, in the whole misery of human life. It has been hard enough to me to reveal all this to you; but it entered with such force into your life that it was imperative for you to know it. And my Frida does not belong to the weak and vacillating, she has something of the energy, and, alas, something of the hardness of a certain other nature. So bravely forwards, we must conquer in the end!”
Frida dried her tears and forced a smile.
”You are right! I am so ungrateful and stubborn towards you, who have done so much for me! You are”--
”The best and n.o.blest of men”--interrupted Gustave, ”naturally I am, and it is very extraordinary that Miss Clifford will not recognise my perfections, though you have so touchingly a.s.sured her of them. But now go out in the air for a few minutes. You look flushed and tearful, and you must do away with these signs of excitement. Meanwhile, I will wait here for Jessie. We have not had one dispute to-day, and a wrangle has become one of the necessities of life to me, which I cannot do without.”
Frida obeyed. She left the drawing-room, crossed the terrace, and descended into the garden. Slowly she walked through the beautiful park-like grounds, which stretched down to the sh.o.r.e, and on which the whole skill of the landscape gardener had been spent; but the spot she sought, lay in the most distant part of the garden. It was a simple bench, shaded by two mighty trees; it afforded an unlimited view over the sea, and from the first day, had become the favourite retreat of the young stranger. The fresh sea wind cooled Frida's heated cheeks, and swept the traces of tears from her face, but the shade on her brow defied all its efforts. This shade grew only darker and deeper, while she, lost in distant dreams, watched the play of the waves which broke upon the beach.
The garden was not so deserted as it seemed, for at no great distance voices might be heard. Just by the iron railing which enclosed the domain of the villa, stood Sandow with the gardener, and inspected the addition, which in the last few days, had been made to the grounds.
The gardener directed, with ill-concealed pride, his attention to the work, which was really planned and carried out with great taste and skill, but the master of the house did not display much interest in it.
He cast a careless glance over it, with a few cool words expressed his satisfaction, and went again on his way towards the house. Thus he pa.s.sed the bench where Frida sat.
”Is that you, Miss Palm? You have chosen the most retired spot in the whole garden for your retreat.”
”But also the most beautiful! The view of the sea is so magnificent?”
”That is a matter of taste,” said Sandow. ”For me that eternal rolling up and down has a deadly monotony. I could not long endure it.”
He said this in pa.s.sing, and was on the point of leaving her. She would probably have left his remark unanswered, and the conversation would have ended there, but Gustave's warning bore fruit. She did not preserve that shy silence as usual, but replied in a tone of which the deep emotion forced a recognition.
”I love the sea so dearly--and--even if you ridicule me, Mr. Sandow,--I cannot forget that my home lies there, beyond those waves.”
Sandow did not appear disposed for ridicule. He stood still, his eyes followed involuntarily the direction she pointed out, and then rested earnestly and musingly on Frida's face, as if he sought something there.
It was a misty and rather gloomy afternoon. The clouds hung heavy with rain over the scene, and the usually unbounded view over the sunny blue waves, was to-day, confined and veiled. One could scarcely see a hundred steps away; farther out lay thick fog on the sea, and the restlessly moving flood enlightened by no ray of suns.h.i.+ne, showed a dark grey tint, which gave it an almost oppressive air of gloom.
Restlessly rolled on the waves, and burst with a hiss into white foam on the sand of the sh.o.r.e. Far out in the fog sounded the roaring of the distant ocean, and two gulls took their slow flight over the waves and vanished in the mist. Frida's eyes followed them dreamily, and she started violently when Sandow, who till now had preserved silence, suddenly asked--
”What was the name of the clergyman with whom you lived in New York?”
”Pastor Hagen.”
”And there you heard those remarks about Jenkins and Co.?”
”Yes, Mr. Sandow.”
Frida seemed about to add something, but the abruptness with which the last question was uttered closed her lips.
”I might have supposed so. These clerical gentlemen with their extravagant views of morality, are always ready with a sentence of d.a.m.nation, when a thing does not exactly fit their measure. From the pulpit it is much easier to look down on a sinful world, than it is to us who must live and struggle in the midst of it. These gentlemen should for a moment try what it is, they would soon lose some of their virtuous calm and Christian spotlessness, but they would learn to judge better of other things of which now they understand absolutely nothing.”