The Great Hunger

Chapter VIII

The next morning Merle was alone in the pantry when she heard steps behind her, and turned her head. It was Klaus Brock.

“Good-morning, madam—ah! so this is what you look like in morning dress. Why, morning neglige might have been invented for you, if I may say so. You might be a Ghirlandajo. Or no, better still, Aspasia herself.”

“You are up early,” said Merle drily.

“Am I? What about Ferdinand Holm then? He has been up since sunrise, sitting over his letters and accounts. Anything I can help you with? May I move that cheese for you?—Well, well! you are strong. But there, I’m always de trop where women are concerned.”

“Always de trop?” repeated Merle, watching him through her long lashes.

“Yes—my first and only love—do you know who she was?”

“No, indeed. How should I?”

“Well, it was Louise—Peer’s little sister. I wish you could have known her.”

“And since then?” Merle let her eyes rest on this flourishing gentleman, who looked as if he could never have had a trouble in the world.

“Since then, dear lady?—since then? Let me see. Why, at this moment I really can’t remember ever having met any other woman except . . .”

“Except . . . ?”

“Except yourself, madam.” And he bowed.

“You are TOO kind!”

“And, that being so, don’t you think it’s your plain duty, as a hospitable hostess, to grant me . . .”

“Grant you—what? A piece of cheese?”

“Why, no, thanks. Something better. Something much better than that.”

“What, then?”

“A kiss. I might as well have it now.” As he took a step nearer, she looked laughingly round for a way of escape, but he was between her and the door.

“Well,” said Merle, “but you must do something to make yourself useful first. Suppose you ran up that step-ladder for me.”

“Delighted. Why, this is great fun!” The slight wooden ladder creaked under the weight of his solid form as he climbed. “How high am I to go?”

“To reach the top shelf—that’s it. Now, you see that big brown jar? Careful—it’s cranberries.”

“Splendid—I do believe we’re to have cranberry preserve at dinner.” By standing on tiptoe he managed to reach and lift the heavy jar, and stood holding it, his face flushed with his exertions.

“And now, little lady?”

“Just stay there a moment and hold it carefully; I have to fetch something.” And she hurried out.

Klaus stood at the top of the ladder, holding the heavy jar. He looked round. What was he to do with it? He waited for Merle to return—but she did not appear. Someone was playing the piano in the next room. Should he call for help? He waited on, getting redder and redder in the face. And still no Merle came.

With another mighty effort he set the jar back in its place, and then climbed down the ladder and walked into the drawing-room, very red and out of breath. In the doorway he stopped short and stared.

“What—well, I’ll—And she’s sitting here playing the piano!”

“Yes. Aren’t you fond of music, Herr Brock?”

“I’ll pay you out for this,” he said, shaking a finger at her. “Just you wait and see, little lady, if I don’t pay you out, with interest!” And he turned and went upstairs, chuckling as he went.

Peer was sitting at the writing-table in his study when Klaus came in. “I’m just sealing up the letter with the money for Martin Bruvold,” he said, setting the taper to a stick of sealing wax. “I’ve signed it: ‘From the shark fishers.’”

“Yes, it was a capital idea of Ferdinand’s. What d’you think the poor old fellow’ll say when he opens it and the big notes tumble out?”

“I’d like to see his face,” said Peer, as he wrote the address on the envelope.

Klaus dropped into a leather armchair and leaned back comfortably. “I’ve been downstairs flirting a little with your wife,” he said. “Your wife’s a wonder, Peer.”

Peer looked at him, and thought of the old days when the heavy-built, clumsy doctor’s son had run about after the servant-girls in the town. He had still something of his old lurching walk, but intercourse with the ladies of many lands had polished him and given lightness and ease to his manner.

“What was I going to say?” Klaus went on. “Oh yes—our friend Ferdinand’s a fine fellow, isn’t he?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“I felt yesterday exactly as I used to feel when we three were together in the old days. When I listen to his talk I can’t help agreeing with him—and then you begin to speak, and what you say, too, seems to be just what I’ve been thinking in my inmost soul. Do you think I’ve become shallow, Peer?”

“Well, your steam ploughs look after themselves, I suppose, and the ladies of your harem don’t trouble you overmuch. Do you read at all?”

“Best not say too much about that,” said Klaus with a sigh, and it suddenly struck Peer that his friend’s face had grown older and more worn.

“No,” said Klaus again. “Better not say much about that. But tell me, old fellow—you mustn’t mind my asking—has Ferdinand ever spoken to you as his brother . . . or . . .”

Peer flushed hotly. “No,” he said after a pause.

“No?”

“I owe more to him than to anybody in the world. But whether he regards me as a kinsman or simply as an object for his kindness to wreak itself on is a matter he’s always left quite vague.”

“It’s just like him. He’s a queer fellow. But there’s another thing. . . .”

“Well?” said Peer, looking up.

“It’s—er—again it’s rather a delicate matter to touch on. I know, of course, that you’re in the enviable position of having your fortune invested in the best joint-stock company in the world—”

“Yes; and so are you.”

“Oh, mine’s a trifle compared with yours. Have you still the whole of your money in Ferdinand’s company?”

“Yes. I’ve been thinking of selling a few shares, by the way. As you may suppose, I’ve been spending a good deal just lately—more than my income.”

“You mustn’t sell just now, Peer. They’re—I daresay you’ve seen that they’re down—below par, in fact.”

“What—below par! No, I had no idea of that.”

“Oh, only for the time being, of course. Just a temporary drop. There’s sure to be another run on them soon, and they’ll go up again. But the Khedive has the controlling interest, you know, and he’s rather a ticklish customer. Ferdinand is all for extension—wants to keep on buying up new land—new desert, that is. Irrigation there’s just a question of power—that’s how he looks at it. And of course the bigger the scale of the work the cheaper the power will work out. But the Khedive’s holding back. It may be just a temporary whim—may be all right again to-morrow. But you never know. And if you think Ferdinand’s the man to give in to a cranky Khedive, you’re much mistaken. His idea now is to raise all the capital he can lay hands on, and buy him out! What do you say to that? Buy the Khedive clean out of the company. It’s a large order. And if I were you, old man, as soon as the shares go up again a bit, I’d sell out some of my holding, and put the money into something at home here. After all, there must be plenty of quite useful things to be had here.”

Peer frowned, and sat for a while looking straight before him. “No,” he said at last. “As things stand between Ferdinand Holm and me—well, if either of us goes back on the other, it’s not going to be me.”

“Ah, in that case—I beg your pardon,” said Klaus, and he rose and departed.

The christening was a great occasion, with a houseful of guests, and a great deal of speechmaking. The host was the youngest and gayest of the party. The birth of his son should be celebrated in true Ethiopian fashion, he declared—with bonfires and boating parties.

The moon was hidden that evening behind thick dark clouds, but the boats full of guests glided over the black water to the accompaniment of music and laughter. The young madcap of a lawyer was there, again sitting on the lap of someone else’s wife, and playing a concertina, till people in the farms on shore opened their windows and put their heads out to listen.

Later on the bonfires blazed up all along the lake shore and shone like great flaming suns in the water below. The guests lay on the grass in little groups round picnic suppers, and here and there a couple wandered by themselves, talking in whispers.

Merle and Peer stood together for a moment beside one of the bonfires. Their faces and figures were lit by the red glow; they looked at each other and exchanged a smile. He took her hand and led her outside the circle of light from the fire, and pointed over to their home, with all its windows glowing against the dark.

“Suppose this should be the last party we give, Merle.”

“Peer, what makes you say that?”

“Oh, nothing—only I have a sort of feeling, as if something had just ended and something new was to begin. I feel like it, somehow. But I wanted to thank you, too, for all the happy times we’ve had.”

“But Peer—what—” She got no farther, for Peer had already left her and joined a group of guests, where he was soon as gay as the rest.

Then came the day when the two visitors were to leave. Their birthday gift to the young gentleman so lately christened Lorentz Uthoug stood in the drawing-room; it was a bust in red granite, the height of a man, of the Sun-god Re Hormachis, brought with them by the godfathers from Alexandria. And now it sat in the drawing-room between palms in pots, pressing its elbows against its sides and gazing with great dead eyes out into endless space.

Peer stood on the quay waving farewell to his old comrades as the steamer ploughed through the water, drawing after it a fan-shaped trail of little waves.

And when he came home, he walked about the place, looking at farms and woods, at Merle and the children, with eyes that seemed to her strange and new.

Next night he stayed up once more alone, pacing to and fro in the great hall, and looking out of the windows into the dark.

Was he ravelling out his life into golden threads that vanished and were forgotten?

Was he content to be fuel instead of light?

What was he seeking? Happiness? And beyond it? As a boy he had called it the anthem, the universal hymn. What was it now? God? But he would hardly find Him in idleness.

You have drawn such nourishment as you could from joy in your home, from your marriage, your fatherhood, nature, and the fellowmen around you here. There are unused faculties in you that hunger for exercise; that long to be set free to work, to strive, to act.

You should take up the barrage on the Besna, Peer. But could you get the contract? If you once buckle-to in earnest, no one is likely to beat you—you’ll get it, sure enough. But do you really want it?

Are you not working away at a mowing-machine as it is? Better own up that you can’t get on without your old craft, after all—that you must for ever be messing and meddling with steel and fire. You can’t help yourself.

All the things your eyes have been fixed on in these last years have been only golden visions in a mist. The steel has its own will. The steel is beginning to wake in you—singing—singing—bent on pressing onward. You have no choice.

The world-will goes on its way. Go with it or be cast overboard as useless.

And still Peer walked up and down, up and down.

Next morning he set off for the capital. Merle watched the carriage as it drove away, and thought to herself: “He was right. Something new is beginning.”