Chapter XVII: A Question Is Asked

Thyra’s nature was a complex one. She was the embodiment of youth and health. She was essentially an outdoor girl. She was very good to look upon, and every man who saw her wished to see her oftener.

In her soul she possessed that beautiful sense of reserve and personal isolation which is innate in the best type of woman, an isolation which she was not only prepared to surrender lavishly—when the time came—but to surrender once and for all. She had the gold to give, but she would not fritter away her treasure in the small change of passing flirtations. A woman’s consciousness of isolation is her only protection. No man dared to look into the big grey eyes of Thyra and think for an instant of familiarity. The respect that women of her character earn of men is their great reward. Man is a savage barbarian, and has no “bloom” to knock off, but his homage is unbounded to the beautiful woman who has many admirers, but who, without effort, stands apart as something almost sacred. That homage is given to the woman who keeps herself isolated and alone in the hidden chambers of her soul until she meets the one man who holds for her “the key of darkness and of morn.”

Such a woman—sweet, lovable, and yet isolated—was Jorgen Berentsen’s daughter.

In the elegant little fumoir aft, a cabin hung with dark green silk, with parquet flooring, and with a real fireplace where coal could be burnt in winter, and cosy corners as though one were on land, Peter Sundt and his guest were smoking.

Jorgen Berentsen’s host had apparently been asking a serious question, for he was seated in silence, his cigar between his teeth, his eyes fixed upon the silk-panelled wall opposite, his big, hard hand stroking his grey beard.

“Whatever you may say, Jorgen,” exclaimed the red-faced man at last, his gaze fixed upon the harbour-master of Vardo, “I shall go to her to-night—now—to make one last appeal.”

“My girl has views of her own upon marriage—especially so soon after Paul’s death,” responded his friend. “Suppose she again refuses?”

Old Sundt’s manner changed in an instant.

“Refuses! She will not refuse this time. She will consent to marry me—for her father’s sake,” he said meaningly.

“You—you would tell her!” gasped the other, starting from his chair.

“Jorgen,” said the other very quietly, “I love your daughter—and I intend to marry her.”

“You have said that before,” exclaimed the captain in a low tone of distress.

“You have never pleaded my cause!” snapped the ruler of the Arctic fisheries.

“I allow my daughter to act exactly as her heart dictates,” was his slow but determined response.

“Heart? Rubbish! Marriage is a mere matter of convenience. Would it not be better for her to be my wife, and wealthy, than to live with you up in that out-of-the-world corner, where she sees nobody except sailors and fishermen? You—too—would be better off in the south, in a nice house with a garden. There’s a little villa just outside Ragusa which belongs to me, and in which you might live, so as to be close to us.”

“Peter!” exclaimed the bluff old fellow, looking straight into his face, “why tempt me like this? I have told you and I repeat my words, that I will not attempt to use any influence with Thyra. She married the man she loved—and tragedy was the result. Let her act now as she thinks best. What affection can a girl in her present pitiable circumstances have in her heart?”

“I don’t want her affection now,” he declared; “that will come in due course. You will remain here and give me permission to go and speak to her.”

“She will refuse. Why trouble her?” queried her father, who, be it said, had no great love for this man who had risen from a common fisherman to the position he now held. He knew, alas! the hundreds of lives that had been sacrificed in those boiling seas in the gathering of the harvest which had made old Peter Sundt the wealthy man he was. He knew well, too, the hardness of the man’s heart, and how, times without number, he had refused succour to the poor widows and little children of the men who had been swallowed up by the sea in his service. He was a callous man, whose one thought was money, and from whose heart every spark of human sympathy had long ago been crushed in his desperate fight for fortune. Sitting there at his ease, the splendid diamond glistening upon his coarse, red hand, and his yachting cap pulled over his eyes as he lay back smoking, he presented the picture of the typical parvenu.

“Why are you so certain of her refusal, Jorgen?” he asked, removing the cigar from his hard mouth. “Her love match brought her only sorrow. I can’t think what possessed you to allow her to marry that man. Recollect what our inquiries have revealed!”

“Yes,” sighed the captain; “but she loved him—therefore I gave my consent.”

“And brought about her unhappiness,” he added grimly.

“I was not to know. It was not my fault.”

“No; you were not to know that Paul Grinevitch had been met at Vardo by a man who was his worst enemy, and that he would be followed by him to Christiania,” he said bitterly.

“Then you still maintain your theory?” asked Berentsen. “You still think that the hand that struck down Grinevitch was the Englishman’s?”

“There seems no doubt. The result of our inquiries all point to it unmistakably.”

“I confess I am not yet convinced.”

“Recollect what his friend the doctor told me when I called upon him. He was full of suspicion at the time. There is no doubt that on that fatal afternoon Thyra met the Englishman, and—well, we may easily guess the rest.”

“Then you believe that Jervoise went in secret to the hotel and killed his enemy?”

“Yes, of that I feel confident,” exclaimed Peter Sundt. “He had a double motive—first revenge, and secondly, by killing Thyra’s husband, he removed the object of his jealousy. He was deeply in love with her—he admitted that to Doctor Odd.”

After a few moments’ silence, Jorgen said:

“I don’t think we need discuss that painful affair any further, Peter. The police have made every inquiry, but have failed to establish any clue to the assassin.”

“Because they are ignorant of many of the true facts—facts which we ourselves have discovered. The police of Christiania are utterly incompetent—a set of fools!”

“If you are so confident that your theory is the correct one, why did you not go to Scotland Yard when in London, and place your evidence before them?”

“And cause the arrest of Richard Jervoise?”

“Yes.”

“Because, my dear Jorgen, I wished to save you and Thyra from disgrace,” was the man’s answer. “Cannot you see that by such a course Thyra’s secret meeting with Jervoise would have been exposed—that her conspiracy with the Englishman would have been revealed?”

“What!” cried the captain; “do you actually accuse my daughter of conniving at her husband’s death?”

“Of course not, my dear friend. You quite misunderstand me. I only point out what the world would naturally conclude from the facts,” he answered. “But, as you wish, let’s drop the painful subject. Let us commence afresh. I will go to her, and hear her decision.”

“It will be as before,” declared the captain. “I spoke to her only this afternoon before we came aboard.”

“Well, what did she say?”

“That her decision was irrevocable.”

Peter Sundt slowly knocked the ash from his cigar, and then drained his small glass of Benedictine.

“A very foolish declaration, Jorgen—as far as you are concerned.”

“Ah! Then you still throw the onus upon me, eh?”

“Have I not told you a dozen times? Have you not had sufficient opportunity? Remember, you tried once to evade me. I do not forget that!”

“You are as inexorable to-night as you ever were, then?” remarked Berentsen in a deep, earnest voice.

“Quite. I am not a man to depart from my word. You know me well enough,” was the answer of the other.

“Very well, go to her,” exclaimed the bluff old whaler. “Go and speak to her if you wish. I am prepared to abide by my girl’s decision!” And he set his teeth, and gazed out through the porthole upon the moonlit sea.

“But you say she will refuse,” the elder man exclaimed. “What then?”

“Then act as you have already threatened,” he cried with a sudden boldness. “Surely you cannot think that I will be a party to compelling my child to marry you in order to save myself! No! I will never do that, Peter, never! My girl shall choose her own husband.”

“She chose before—and a pretty mess she made of it!” sneered the other. “If she will marry me I’ll give her all the freedom and the means she desires. She shall have a life of happiness and pleasure in whatever circle of society she desires. Birth counts for nothing in these days, when barons of ancient lineage have to earn their bread as waiters and counts become hairdressers. No; it is men like myself who rule society, and rule the world. The only thing that tells nowadays is hard cash. I, who began life as a fisherboy, have entertained royalty on board this very yacht, and more than one royal highness has dined at my table.” He laughed. “And why? Merely because even those of royal blood bow down before the golden calf and turn their backs upon the penniless portion of their own aristocracy. Oh, life is an amusing game with men like myself, I can assure you,” he added.

“Amusing, because you hold men’s destinies in the hollow of your hand—just as you hold mine!” Jorgen remarked in a hoarse voice of bitter reproach.

“Mine is a fair bargain, surely?”

“In which either my child or myself pays the penalty!”

“When a man commits a folly he must expect to bear the punishment,” was Sundt’s abrupt reply, as he put down his cigar-end and rose, adding: “I am going to her. If you wish to precede me, and to speak to her on my behalf, you are at liberty to do so.”

“I shall not,” Jorgen blurted forth. “I have already told you that she will refuse, and that I am ready to accept the burden of responsibility.”

“Remember that there will be no drawing back,” said Peter in earnest warning. “I gave you full opportunity.”

“And I have not, and will not, avail myself of it. If you have marked me out for ruin, as you seem to have done—well, so be it. My child shall never be forced into marriage with you in order to effect my escape.”

“Good!” exclaimed the red-faced man, straightening his cravat before the mirror. “Remember, Jorgen, that upon Thyra’s decision to-night rests your own future.”

And, with an expression of dark determination, he strode out upon the deck, forward to where sat the girl-widow in the long chair, the brilliant moonlight falling upon her, bright almost as day.

At her side he halted, bent over her, and uttered a word.

But she turned her white face from him, without response.

So he straightened himself and stood in silence, his hand resting upon the back of her chair.

That moment was the crucial one of Thyra’s life. Her decision meant either her own unhappiness or to her beloved father—even though she were ignorant of it—disaster worse than death itself.