Complete works of hall c.., p.417
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 417
Christian Christiansson knew most of the boatmen, though some were old who had been middle-aged, and some were middle-aged who had been young, and some were bearded who had been boys. But none of them recognised Christian Christiansson, as they tipped their hats to him and pushed past to the officers of the ship.
“Good morning, mate! Good morning, Captain! What passengers this time?”
“Only one, besides Jon Oddsson, but he’s a host in himself — Christian Christiansson!”
“What! The great Christian Christiansson?”
In less than three minutes half the small boats were scurrying away to carry the news to the town, while the owners of the other half were scrambling for Christiansson’s luggage to have the honour of taking it ashore.
“Easy on, my lads,” shouted the captain. “Mr. Christiansson will go with me in the ship’s boat, and don’t you forget it.”
It was a full half-hour before this could come to pass, for Christian Christiansson had first to drink the captain’s health and the ship’s luck in the chart-room. When at length they were going ashore, with portmanteaus piled up in the bow of the boat and the captain chattering in the stern, it was almost more than Christian Christiansson could do to control himself under the memory of the dark night on which he went the other way, with no one to see him off except his mother, who sat by his side and held his hand as if she could never part with it.
When the boat drew up alongside, the jetty was packed with people, and as Christian Christiansson stepped ashore, with the air of a man trying to escape from observation but conscious of being under the full fire of it, a little fat fussy person with asthmatical breathing — Christiansson knew him instantly — bowed deeply and began to read something from a sheet of foolscap paper.
It was an effusive address, drawn up hastily by the Chairman of the Town Board, in the name of the inhabitants, beginning, “Illustrious fellow-countryman,” and going on to hail Christiansson as one who had “revived the ancient spirit and glory of a thousand years ago.”
Agitated and ashamed, hardly daring to speak lest the sound of his voice should betray him, Christian Christiansson replied with a few commonplaces, and then, amid a whispered chorus of “Modest!”
“The modesty of greatness, sir,” he tried to push his way towards the hotel.
He had not made many paces before he was confronted by a young man in the uniform, hat, and cloak of a Government Secretary, who parted the crowd and said, in the breathless gasps of one who had been running —
“The Minister’s compliments, sir, and will you do him the honour to become his guest at Government House?”
Christian Christiansson tried to excuse himself, but every eye was on him, and seeing that he could not escape without the danger of exposing himself to suspicion, he yielded and allowed himself to be led away.
The little journey to Government House was like the progress to a Calvary. Every step was sown with memories — memories of the pleasures, the passions, the darling joys, the sorrows and the tragedies of the past — but while they seemed to strike up at him out of the very stones of the street, he had to nod and smile as the Secretary, walking by his side, rattled along with explanations and descriptions of the places they passed on their way.
“This is our principal thoroughfare, Mr. Christiansson. That is our chief hotel, and this is our national bank. The large building flying the Iceland falcon is our parliament hall.
That is our old cathedral, sir, and this — this is Government House.”
Suffocated with shame, choking with a sense of duplicity, and trembling with the fear of detection, Christian Christiansson continued to say, “Yes” and “Is that so?” until he reached the porch of his old home. And then, remembering how and when he had passed out of it last — alone, at night, disgraced, and with his father’s door closed against him — it was almost as much as he could do to restrain an impulse to turn about and fly. But just at that moment his father’s door opened quickly, and there on the threshold another man, in the uniform of the Governor, stood waiting with outstretched hand to welcome him.
The palpitation of Christian Christiansson’s heart was almost choking him. What wild harlequinade of real life was this, that he who had been so nearly flung out of Iceland should be received back to it with open arms? What mad game of blind-man’s buff were the powers of destiny playing with him? It was not for nothing that he had taken the name of Christian Christiansson. What invisible wings of Fate had been over him when he did so? And were they plumed to honour or to dishonour, to reward or to punishment, to joy or to sorrow, to life or to death?
IV
THE Sheriff made Minister was the same man still. He received Christian Christiansson with suavest politeness but without a trace of recognition.
“Welcome!” he said. “Welcome to Iceland! My wife is in the drawing-room — she will be delighted to see you. We may go this way — this way through my bureau — do me the honour to follow me. Don’t knock against the stove — strangers do sometimes. A ramshackle old house, sir, for which my predecessor was responsible — I’m building a better in another part of the town. You’ve not yet dined? How fortunate! In these high latitudes we keep up primitive customs, Mr.
Christiansson. We dine in the middle of the day, and you are just in the nick of time. I was holding a meeting of my executive when the news of your arrival reached me, and I took the liberty to invite one or two of my colleagues. This is the drawing-room — have the goodness to step inside.”
Muttering monosyllables only in reply to the Minister’s explanations, Christian Christiansson followed him through the house that was as familiar as the palm of his hand until he came face to face with his hostess and the friends who had been invited to meet him.
The hostess was an acquaintance of his school-days, grown middle-aged and matronly, and the friends were the Rector of the Latin School, looking elderly and iron-grey, and the Bishop, looking white and old. They received him with the utmost cordiality, but, like the Minister, without a sign of recognition.
Christian Christiansson bowed but scarcely spoke. He was no longer in fear of discovery, for now he knew that unless he wished it otherwise he could pass through Iceland unknown; but standing there in the old home, with the traces of his boyhood about him, his heart swelled and his throat thickened, and it was as much as he could do to control himself.
After a moment a servant announced dinner, and the Minister led the way to the dining-room. It was the same old room, with the same furniture, and hardly altered in any particular. But it was full of ghosts in the eyes of him who entered it again. In one rapid glance Christian Christiansson took in everything — the chair his father used to sit in, his mother’s place, Magnus’s, and Thora’s. And remembering that all these were gone; that everything connected with his own people had faded away; that the old house was inhabited by others now, and nothing remained except himself and he had neither part nor lot in it, the palpitation of his heart nearly choked him again, and he sat at the table like a guilty thing.
But if Christian Christiansson was silent the Minister talked incessantly.
“You will find that Iceland knows all about you, Mr.
Christiansson — all about you! Speaking for myself I may say that in addition to the ordinary channels of intelligence I have had some private sources of information. My son — you know my son, I think?”
Christian Christiansson bowed.
“My son has kept me constantly informed, so you will find me abreast of all your movements. Certainly I take it amiss that he did not warn me of your coming — but perhaps he didn’t know. He didn’t? I thought as much. Not that he would have told me if you had wished it concealed. Neils is discretion itself, sir — discretion itself. For instance I could never persuade him to tell me who you were. I tempted him — I confess I tempted him. But no! ‘ Business is business, father,’ he would say, and I was forced to be content.”
“Iceland is honoured that you show yourself first in your own country, sir,” said the Rector.
“Indeed it is, Rector, and Mr. Christiansson will find that his fame is no empty bubble here.”
“There isn’t a student who doesn’t sing your songs, sir,” said the Rector.
“Nor a girl of fourteen in a farmhouse who doesn’t play your music,” said the Minister’s wife.
“Wonderful!” said the Minister himself. “ It’s perfectly wonderful! But I always say the musician is the international artist. Other artists — the poets for example — require their translators, but the musician needs no go-between. He uses the one universal language, and when he speaks the whole world may hear. What a gift! What a thing it must be to be among the great composers! Perhaps it has its penalties though. What does the poet say? They learn in suffering what they teach in song. What a thought that is! I wonder if it’s true? I wonder if every great song, every great symphony, every great opera is born of the suffering — the actual real life suffering, and perhaps in some cases the sin and sorrow — of the man who created it! What should you say, Mr. Christiansson?”
“God knows,” said Christiansson, and after that there was silence for a moment.
“Poor Stephen!” said the Bishop suddenly, and then everybody raised his face from the table.
“I was thinking,” said the Bishop, “that if sin and sorrow, added to the gift of genius, are what go to the making of great music, somebody was born in this very house who should have left immortal works behind him.”
Christian Christiansson had looked up with the rest, and now the Minister leaned across to him and said in an undertone, “A sad story, sir — a son of my predecessor who made shipwreck of his life, poor fellow.”
“You mean Oscar Stephensson?”
“Yes, indeed. But can it be possible that you knew him?”
“We talked of him on the steamer.”
“Ah, of course, certainly! And then he was a kind of humble confrere of yours, and conducted at Covent Garden. What a tragedy! What a scandal! When the dreadful news came from Nice everybody here felt ashamed. Such a well-known Iceland name, and the son of a former Governor! It was almost as if Iceland had been dishonoured in the eyes of the world, sir. So different, so entirely different, from the effects, the glorious effects of your own magnificent achievements.”
Christian Christiansson was quivering from heart to eyelids, but the same mysterious impulse that compels the lamb to confront the dog forced him to go on.
“His mother is alive, isn’t she?” he said.
“Anna? Yes! She’s alive — that’s nearly all you can say about her.”
Christian Christiansson’s voice deepened and shook. “Is she sick?” he asked.
“Sick in fortune at all events. When the old Governor died she went to live with her other son at Thingvellir, and he is in trouble again, poor creature.”
“In debt, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he is in debt to the Bank for the interest and principal of some money which his father borrowed on mortgage to keep his brother out of prison.”
“And what is the Bank going to do with him?”
“Sell him up immediately.”
Christian Christiansson sank into silent reverie again, and when the conversation at the table had taken another turn, he said unexpectedly —
“He left a child behind him, didn’t he?”
“Who, sir? Oh, Oscar Stephensson? He did — a girl.”
“She’s living too, isn’t she?”
“She is, sir — that is to say, for all I know to the contrary. Rector, Oscar’s little daughter is still alive, is she not?”
“Alive and well and hearty,” said the Rector.
Christian Christiansson’s eyes brightened visibly. “That’s good news, at all events,” he said.
The altered tone startled everybody, and nobody spoke for a little while. Then the Minister said —
“It is really very good of you to take an interest in the family of your poor dead confrere, and if I’d had the least idea you wished to hear more about them it would have been so easy — I might have invited the banker.”
“I’ll see him to-morrow,” said Christian Christiansson, and then, breaking through his reserve, he talked for the next half-hour on other subjects.
He talked well and the company were delighted, for there was no one to know that his vivacity was nervousness and his laughter something like shame. When the dinner was at an end the Bishop, who had fixed his eyes constantly on Christian Christiansson, rose and held out his hand to him.
“It has been a great happiness to have seen you, Mr. Christiansson,” he said, “and I trust we may meet again. I know nothing of music, sir, but I rejoice to see that the noble musician is only another name for the noble man, and I pray God to bless you body and soul.”
Christian Christiansson could not trust himself to reply, for the Bishop’s praise added a new bitterness to his remorse, so he stooped over the old man’s hand and kissed it.
The Bishop was pleased and touched. “How charming he is! How perfectly charming!” he said, as he put on his overcoat in the porch. “He reminds me of some one I’ve met somewhere.”
“Me, too,” said the Rector.
“Those beautiful manners, that captivating smile, and that voice that goes through and through you!”
“Does he resemble — or is it only because we have been talking at table—”
“You mean poor young—”
“Yes.”
“Ah me!” said the Bishop as he opened the door. “What brave things he might have done if Heaven had willed it!”
“He might have been another Christian Christiansson by this time,” said the Rector.
“Poor Stephen!” said the Bishop.
“Poor Anna!” said the Rector, and the two old friends went heavily down the path.
Meantime the man they were talking of, though they did not know it, was going through an agony of self-reproach. The duplicity of winning his way to the love and esteem of his people under the cover of a false name was suffocating him. It was necessary, it was inevitable, it was a part of the conduct that was forced upon him by the errand that had brought him home, but if they who welcomed him in the ignorance of their enthusiasm could know who he was, how their hearts would turn from him; how their sympathy would change to loathing and their admiration to contempt!
The evening was one of prolonged suffering to Christian Christiansson, for everything that happened in that house, every trivial object that met his eye, seemed charged with the power to torture him. As soon as he could, he excused himself, and asked to be shown to his room.
They showed him to the bedroom that had been occupied by Thora!
That was the last drop in his cup. He felt like a man who had stumbled into a hidden grave, and he wanted to say, “Give me any room in the house except this.” But he dared not speak, lest his slightest word should betray him.
When the door was closed, he flung himself in the arm-chair before the stove, and then one after one, as by flashes of lightning, he saw over again the scenes of his life with which that room was associated. He thought of his wedding night, when with a fluttering heart he came on tiptoe into the cosy nest of his bridal chamber, and heard Thora’s tremulous breathing behind the curtains of the bed. He thought of the joyous morning when her pale face shone like sunshine, and the air of the room was full of auroral radiance, because a child was born to them. He thought of the dark day when he found her lying dead, and of the heavy hour when he took his last look at her, and buried his compositions in her coffin.
Oh miserable mummery! Oh broken and senseless vow! Yet not senseless either, save to his own violated intention, for now he knew why he had taken the name of Christian Christiansson. In the blind spasm of his accusing conscience he had thought it was merely in order to deny himself the fame which his works were to win for him, but the inscrutable and ironical powers of Destiny had sterner purposes than that.
It was in order that, being dead as Oscar Stephensson, he should yet return to Iceland; in order that he should see the accumulated consequences of his conduct; in order that he should follow, as if with bare feet on the hot ground of a geyser, the footsteps and the funeral of his youth; in order that the living might torture him with gratitude, and the dead with memories; in order that God’s right hand of Justice should fall on him as it had never fallen before, and everything he had done should be paid for.
This was why he had taken the name and won the fame of Christian Christiansson. And the martyrdom of his new life was beginning.
V
As soon as the Bank opened in the morning Christian Christiansson called on the manager, and was received with Extravagant politeness.
“I must take the liberty to introduce myself,” he began.
“Quite unnecessary,” said the banker with a bow, “all the world — I say all the world, sir, has been introduced to you.”
“You would receive a letter from my banker in London—”
“We did — it came with the mail that was brought by the Laura.”
“I think it asks you to honour my signature up to two hundred thousand crowns.”
“That is the amount, sir — two hundred thousand. And if you wish to draw any of it immediately—”
“I do,” said Christian Christiansson, and taking a large pocket-book from his breast pocket he drew out a chequebook and took up a pen.
“Mr. Palsson,” he said — the banker started at the mention of his name, then bowed and smiled—” I was much touched by a case of distress which the Minister spoke of at dinner yesterday, and I could wish to be of some assistance.”
“You are very generous, Mr. Christiansson, and if I can be of the slightest use to you — I say if I can be of the slightest use, sir, pray be good enough to command me.”
“It was the case of the family of the late Governor — I understand that they are in debt to the Bank and that the Bank is in the act of distraining.”
