Ships That Pass in the Night Part 1

s.h.i.+ps That Pa.s.s In The Night.

by Beatrice Harraden.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

A NEW-COMER.

"YES, indeed," remarked one of the guests at the English table, "yes, indeed, we start life thinking that we shall build a great cathedral, a crowning glory to architecture, and we end by contriving a mud hut!"

"I am glad you think so well of human nature," said the Disagreeable Man, suddenly looking up from the newspaper which he always read during meal- time. "I should be more inclined to say that we end by being content to dig a hole, and get into it, like the earth men."

A silence followed these words; the English community at that end of the table was struck with astonishment at hearing the Disagreeable Man speak.

The few sentences he had spoken during the last four years at Petershof were on record; this was decidedly the longest of them all.

"He is going to speak again," whispered beautiful Mrs. Reffold to her neighbour.

The Disagreeable Man once more looked up from his newspaper.

"Please, pa.s.s me the Yorks.h.i.+re relish," he said in his rough way to a girl sitting next to him.

The spell was broken, and the conversation started afresh. But the girl who had pa.s.sed the Yorks.h.i.+re relish sat silent and listless, her food untouched, and her wine untasted. She was small and thin; her face looked haggard. She was a new-comer, and had, indeed, arrived at Petershof only two hours before the _table-d'hote_ bell rang. But there did not seem to be any nervous shrinking in her manner, nor any shyness at having to face the two hundred and fifty guests of the Kurhaus. She seemed rather to be unaware of their presence; or, if aware of, certainly indifferent to the scrutiny under which she was being placed.

She was recalled to reality by the voice of the Disagreeable Man. She did not hear what he said, but she mechanically stretched out her hand and pa.s.sed him the mustard-pot.

"Is that what you asked for?" she said half dreamily; "or was it the water-bottle?"

"You are rather deaf, I should think," said the Disagreeable Man placidly. "I only remarked that it was a pity you were not eating your dinner. Perhaps the scrutiny of the two hundred and fifty guests in this civilized place is a vexation to you."

"I did not know they were scrutinizing," she answered; "and even if they are, what does it matter to me? I am sure I am quite too tired to care."

"Why have you come here?" asked the Disagreeable Man suddenly.

"Probably for the same reason as yourself," she said; "to get better or well."

"You won't get better," he answered cruelly; "I know your type well; you burn yourselves out quickly. And--my G.o.d--how I envy you!"

"So you have p.r.o.nounced my doom," she said, looking at him intently.

Then she laughed but there was no merriment in the laughter.

"Listen," she said, as she bent nearer to him; "because you are hopeless, it does not follow that you should try to make others hopeless too. You have drunk deep of the cup of poison; I can see that.

To hand the cup on to others is the part of a coward."

She walked past the English table, and the Polish table, and so out of the Kurhaus dining-hall.

CHAPTER II.

CONTAINS A FEW DETAILS.

IN an old second-hand bookshop in London, an old man sat reading Gibbon's History of Rome. He did not put down his book when the postman brought him a letter. He just glanced indifferently at the letter, and impatiently at the postman. Zerviah Holme did not like to be interrupted when he was reading Gibbon; and as he was always reading Gibbon, an interruption was always regarded by him as an insult.

About two hours afterwards, he opened the letter, and learnt that his niece, Bernardine, had arrived safely in Petershof, and that she intended to get better and come home strong. He tore up the letter, and instinctively turned to the photograph on the mantelpiece. It was the picture of a face young and yet old, sad and yet with possibilities of merriment, thin and drawn and almost wrinkled, and with piercing eyes which, even in the dull lifelessness of the photograph, seemed to be burning themselves away. Not a pleasing nor a good face; yet intensely pathetic because of its undisguised hara.s.sment.

Zerviah looked at it for a moment.

"She has never been much to either of us," he said to himself. "And yet, when Malvina was alive, I used to think that she was hard on Bernardine.

I believe I said so once or twice. But Malvina had her own way of looking at things. Well, that is over now."

He then, with characteristic speed, dismissed all thoughts which did not relate to Roman History; and the remembrance of Malvina, his wife, and Bernardine, his niece, took up an accustomed position in the background of his mind.

Bernardine had suffered a cheerless childhood in which dolls and toys took no leading part. She had no affection to bestow on any doll, nor any woolly lamb, nor apparently on any human person; unless, perhaps, there was the possibility of a friendly inclination towards Uncle Zerviah, who would not have understood the value of any deeper feeling, and did not therefore call the child cold-hearted and unresponsive, as he might well have done.

This she certainly was, judged by the standard of other children; but then no softening influences had been at work during her tenderest years. Aunt Malvina knew as much about sympathy as she did about the properties of an ellipse; and even the fairies had failed to win little Bernardine. At first they tried with loving patience what they might do for her; they came out of their books, and danced and sang to her, and whispered sweet stories to her, at twilight, the fairies' own time. But she would have none of them, for all their gentle persuasion. So they gave up trying to please her, and left her as they had found her, loveless. What can be said of a childhood which even the fairies have failed to touch with the warm glow of affection?

Such a little restless spirit, striving to express itself now in this direction, now in that; yet always actuated by the same constant force, _the desire for work_. Bernardine seemed to have no special wish to be useful to others; she seemed just to have a natural tendency to work, even as others have a natural tendency to play. She was always in earnest; life for little Bernardine meant something serious.

Then the years went by. She grew up and filled her life with many interests and ambitions. She was at least a worker, if nothing else; she had always been a diligent scholar, and now she took her place as an able teacher. She was self-reliant, and, perhaps, somewhat conceited.

But, at least, Bernardine the young woman had learnt something which Bernardine the young child had not been able to learn: she learnt how to smile. It took her, about six and twenty years to learn; still, some people take longer than that; in fact, many never learn. This is a brief summary of Bernardine Holme's past.

Then, one day, when she was in the full swing of her many engrossing occupations: teaching, writing articles for newspapers, attending socialistic meetings, and taking part in political discussions--she was essentially a modern product, this Bernardine--one day she fell ill.

She lingered in London for some time, and then she went to Petershof.

CHAPTER III.

MRS. REFFOLD LEARNS A LESSON.

PETERSHOF was a winter resort for consumptive patients, though, indeed, many people simply needed the change of a bracing climate went there to spend a few months; and came, away wonderfully better for the mountain air. This was what Bernardine Holme hoped to do; she was broken down in every way, but it was thought that a prolonged stay in Petershof might help her back to a reasonable amount of health, or, at least, prevent her from slipping into further decline. She had come alone, because she had no relations except that old uncle, and no money to pay any friend who might have been willing to come with her. But she probably cared very little, and the morning after her arrival, she strolled out by herself, investigating the place where she was about to spend six months.

She was dragging herself along, when she met the Disagreeable Man. She stopped him. He was not accustomed to be stopped by any one, and he looked rather astonished.

"You were not very cheering last night," she said to him.

"I believe I am not generally considered to be lively," he answered, as he knocked the snow off his boot.

"Still, I am sorry I spoke to you as I did," she went on frankly. "It was foolish of me to mind what you said."

He made no reference to his own remark, and pa.s.sing on his way again, when he turned back and walked with her.

"I have been here nearly seven years," he said and there was a ring of sadness in his voice as he spoke, which he immediately corrected. "If you want to know anything about the place, I can tell you. If you are able to walk, I can show you some lovely spots, where you will not be bothered with people. I can take you to a snow fairy-land. If you are sad and disappointed, you will find s.h.i.+ning comfort there. It is not all sadness in Petershof. In the silent snow forests, if you dig the snow away, you will find the tiny buds nestling in their white nursery.