CHAPTER XXI
THE END OF STELLA'S DIARY
A month or two later in the diary came the account of the shipwreck of
the Trondhjem and of the writer's rescue from imminent death. "My
first great adventure," the pages were headed. They told how her
father, with whom ready-money was a scarce commodity, and who had a
passion for small and uncomfortable economies, suddenly determined to
save two or three pounds by taking a passage in a Norwegian tramp
steamboat named the Trondhjem. This vessel, laden with a miscellaneous
cargo, had put in at a Northumbrian port, and carried freight
consisting of ready-made windows, door-frames, and other wooden house-
fittings suited to the requirements of the builders of seaside villas,
to be delivered at the rising watering-place of Northwold, upon her
way to London. Then followed a description of the voyage, the dirt of
the ship, the surpassing nastiness of the food, and the roughness of
the crew, whose sailor-like qualities inspired the writer with no
confidence.
Next, the diary which now had been written up by Stella in the Abbey
where Morris read it, went on to tell of how she had gone to her berth
one night in the cabin next to that occupied by her father, and being
tired by a long day in the strong sea air had fallen instantly into a
heavy sleep, which was disturbed by a nightmare-like dream of shock
and noise. This imagined pandemonium, it said, was followed by a great
quiet, in the midst of which she awoke to miss the sound of the
thumping screw and of the captain shouting his orders from the bridge.
For a while, the writing told, she lay still, till a sense that
something was wrong awoke her thoroughly, when she lit the candle
which she kept by her berth, and, rising, peeped out into the saloon
to see that water was washing along its floor. Presently she made
another discovery, that she was alone, utterly alone, even her
father's cabin being untenanted.
The rest need not be repeated in detail. Throwing on some garments,
and a red cloak of North-country frieze, she made her way to the deck
to find that the ship was abandoned by every living soul, including
her own father; why, or under what circumstances, remained a mystery.
She retreated into the captain's cabin, which was on deck, being
afraid to go below again in the darkness, and sheltered there until
the light came. Then she went out, and though the dim, mist-laden dawn
crept forward to the forecastle, and staring over the side discovered
that the prow of the ship was fixed upon a rock, while her stern and
waist, which floated clear, heaved and rolled with every sea. As she
stood thus the vessel slipped back along the reef three feet or more,
throwing her to the deck, and thrilling her from head to foot with the
most sickening sensation she had ever experienced. Then the Trondhjem
caught and hung again, but Stella, so she wrote, knew that the end
must be near, as the ship would lift off with the full tide and
founder, and for the first time felt afraid.
"I did not fear what might come after death," went on the diary, "but
I did fear the act of death. I was so lonely, and the dim waters
looked so cold; the brown shoulders of the rocks which showed now and
again through the surges, so cruel. To be dashed by those cold waters
upon those iron rocks till the life was slowly ground out of my body!
And my father--the thought of him tormented my mind. Was he dead, or
had he deserted me? The last seemed quite impossible, for it would
have supposed him a coward, and I was sure that he would rather die
than leave me; therefore, as I feared, the first must be true. I was
afraid, and I was wretched, and I said my prayers and cried a little,
while the cold struck me through the red cloak, and the damp mist made
me shiver.
"Then suddenly I remembered that it had not been the custom of my
ancestors and countrywomen of the old time to die weeping, and with
the thought some of my courage came back. I rose from the deck and
stood upon the prow of the ship, supporting myself by a rope, as many
a dead woman of my race has done before me in the hour of battle and
shipwreck. As I stood thus, believing that I was about to die, there
floated into my mind a memory of the old Norse song that my mother had
taught me as she learned it from her mother. It is called the 'Song of
the Overlord,' and for generations without count on their death-beds
has been sung, or if they were too weak to sing, whispered, by the
women of my family. Even my mother murmured it upon the day she died,
although to all appearances she had become an Englishwoman; and the
first line of it,
"'Hail to thee, Sky King! Hail to thee, Earth King!'
were the last words that the gentlest creature whom I ever knew, my
sister Gudrun, muttered before she became unconscious. This song it
has always been held unlucky to sing except upon the actual approach
of death, since otherwise, so goes the old saying, 'it draws the arrow
whose flight was wide,' and Death, being invoked, comes soon. Still,
for me I believed there was no escape, for I was quite sure from her
movements that the steamer would soon come off the rocks, and I had
made my confession and said my prayers. So I began to sing, and sang
my loudest, pleasing myself with the empty, foolish thought that in
some such circumstance as this many a Danish sea-king's daughter had
sung that song before me.
"Then, as I sang, a wind began to blow, and suddenly the mist was
driven before it like puffs of smoke, and in the east behind me rose
the red ball of the sun. Its light fell upon the rocks and upon the
waters beyond them, and there to my amazement, appearing and
disappearing upon the ridges and hollows of the swell, I saw a man
alone in a sailing-boat, which rode at anchor within thirty yards of
me. At first I thought that it must be my father, then the man caught
sight of me, and I saw his face as he looked up, for the sun shone
upon his dark eyes, and knew that he was a stranger.
"He lifted his anchor and called to me to come to the companion
ladder, and his voice told me that he was a gentleman. I could not
meet him as I was, with my hair loose, and bare-footed like some Norse
Viking girl. So I took the risk, for now, although I cannot tell why,
I felt sure that no harm would come to him or me, and ran to the
cabin, where also was this volume of my diary and my mother's jewels
that I did not wish to lose. When at last I was ready after a fashion,
I came out with my bag, and there, splashing through the water of the
saloon, ran the stranger, shouting angrily to me to be quick, as the
ship was lifting off the rock, which made me think how brave it was of
him to come aboard to look for me. In an instant he caught me by the
hand, and was dragging me up the stairs and down the companion, so
that in another minute we were together in the boat, and he had told
me that my father was on shore--thank God!--though with a broken
thigh."
Then some pages of the diary were taken up with the description of the
twenty-four hours which she had spent on the open sea with himself, of
their landing, dazed and exhausted, at the Dead Church, and her
strange desire to explore it, their arrival at the Abbey, and her
meeting with her father. After these came a passage that may be
quoted:--
"He is not handsome--I call him plain--with his projecting brow, large
mouth, and untidy brown hair. But notwithstanding his stoop and his
thin hands, he looks a fine man, and, when they light up, his eyes are
beautiful. It was brave of him, too, very brave, although he thinks
nothing of it, to come out alone to look for me like that. I wonder
what brought him? I wonder if anything told his mind that I, a girl
whom he had never seen, was really on the ship and in danger? Perhaps
--at any rate, he came, and the odd thing is that from the moment I
saw him, and especially from the moment I heard his voice, I felt as
though I had known him all my life. Probably he would think me mad if
I were to say so; indeed, I am by no means sure that he does not pay
me that compliment already, with some excuse, perhaps, in view of the
'Song of the Overlord' and all my wild talk. Well, after such a night
as I had spent anyone might be excused for talking foolishly. It is
the reaction from never expecting to talk again at all. The chief
advantage of a diary is that one may indulge in the luxury of telling
the actual truth. So I will say that I feel as though I had known him
always; always--and as though I understood him as one understands a
person one has watched for years. What is more, I think that he
understands me more than most people do; not that this is wonderful,
seeing how few I know. At any rate, he guesses more or less what I am
thinking about, and can see that there is something in the ideas which
others consider foolish, as perhaps they are.
"It is very odd that I, who had made sure that I was gone, should be
still alive in this pleasant house, and saved from death by this
pleasant companion, to find my father, whom I feared was dead, also
living. And all this after I had sung the 'Song of the Overlord!' So
much for its ill-luck. But, all the same, my father was rather upset
when he heard that I had been found singing it. He is very
superstitious, my dear old father; that is one of the few Norse
characteristics which he has left in him. I told him that there was no
use in being disturbed, since, in the end, things must go as they are
fated.
"Mr. Monk is engaged to a Miss Porson. He told me that in the boat. I
asked him what he was thinking of when we nearly over-set against that
dreadful rock. He answered that he could only think of the song he had
heard me singing on the ship, which I considered a great compliment to
my voice, quite the nicest I ever had. But he ought to have been
thinking about the lady to whom he is engaged, and he understood that
I thought so, which I daresay I should not have allowed him to do.
However, when people believe that they are going to be drowned they
grow confidential, and expose their minds freely. He exposed his when
he told me that he thought I was talking egregious nonsense, and I am
afraid that I laughed at him. I don't think that he really can love
her--that is, as engaged people are supposed to love each other. If he
did he would not have grown so angry--with himself--and then turned
upon me because the recollection of my old death song had interfered
with the reflections which he ought to have offered upon her altar.
That is what struck me as odd; not his neglecting to remember her in a
moment of danger, since then we often forget everything except some
triviality of the hour. But, of course, this is all nonsense, which I
oughtn't to write here even, as most people have their own ways of
being fond of each other. Also, it is no affair of mine.
"I have seen Miss Porson's photograph, a large one of her in Court
dress, which stands in Mr. Monk's laboratory (such a lovely place, it
was an old chapel). She is a beautiful woman; large and soft and
regal-looking, a very woman; it would be difficult to imagine a better
specimen of 'the eternal feminine.' Also, they say, that is, the nurse
who is looking after my father says, that she is very rich and devoted
to 'Mr. Morris.' So Mr. Morris is a lucky man. I wonder why he didn't
save her from a shipwreck instead of me. It would have given an
appropriate touch of romance to the affair, which is now entirely
wasted upon a young person, if I may still call myself so, with whom
it has no concern.
"What interests me more than our host's matrimonial engagements,
however, are his experiments with aerophones. That is a wonderful
invention if only it can be made to work without fail upon all
occasions. I do wish that I could help him there. It would be some
return for his great kindness, for it must be a dreadful nuisance to
have an old clergyman with a broken leg and his inconvenient daughter
suddenly quartered upon you for an unlimited period of time."
The record of the following weeks was very full, but almost entirely
concerned--brief mention of other things, such as her father's health
excepted--with full and accurate notes and descriptions of the
aerophone experiments. To Morris reading them it was wonderful,
especially as Stella had received no training in the science of
electricity, that she could have grasped the subject thus thoroughly
in so short a time. Evidently she must have had a considerable
aptitude for its theory and practice, as might be seen by the study
that she gave to the literature which he lent her, including some
manuscript volumes of his own notes. Also there were other entries.
Thus:
"To-day Mr. Stephen Layard proposed to me in the Dead Church. I had
seen it coming for the last three weeks and wished to avoid it, but he
would not take a hint. I am most sorry, as I really think he cares
about me--for the while--which is very kind of him. But it is out of
the question, and I had to say no. Indeed, he repels me. I do not even
like being in the same room with him, although no doubt this is very
fastidious and wrong of me. I hope that he will get over it soon; in
fact, although he seemed distressed, I am not vain enough to suppose
that it will be otherwise. . . .
"Of course, my father is angry, for reasons which I need not set down.
This I expected, but he said some things which I wish he had left
unsaid, for they made me answer him as I ought not to have done.
Fathers and daughters look at marriage from such different
standpoints; what is excellent in their eyes may be as bad as death,
or in some cases worse to the woman who of course must pay the
price. . . .
"I sang and played my best last night, my very, very best; indeed, I
don't think I ever did so well before, and perhaps never shall again.
He was moved--more moved than I meant him to be, and I was moved
myself. I suppose that it was the surroundings; that old chapel--how
well those monks understood acoustic properties--the moonlight, the
upset to my nerves this afternoon, my fear that he believed that I had
accepted Mr. L. (imagine his believing that! I thought better of him,
and he /did/ believe it)--everything put together.
"While I was singing he told me that he was going away--to see Miss
Porson at Beaulieu, I suppose. When I had finished--oh! how tired I
was after the effort was over--he asked me straight out if I intended
to marry Mr. Layard, and I asked him if he was mad! Then I put another
question, I don't know why; I never meant to do it, but it came up
from my heart--whether he had not said that he was going away? In
answer he explained that he was thinking of so doing, but had changed
his mind. Oh! I was pleased when I heard that. I was never so pleased
in my life before. After all, the gift of music is of some use.
"But why should I have been pleased? Mr. Monk's comings or goings are
nothing to me; I have no right to interfere with them, even
indirectly, or to concern myself about them. Yet I cried when I heard
those words, but I suppose it was the music that made me cry; it has
that inconvenient effect sometimes. Well, I have no doubt that he will
see plenty of Miss Porson, and it would have been a great pity to
break off the experiments just now."
One more extract from the very last entry in the series of books. It
was written at the Rectory on Christmas Eve, just before Stella
started out to meet Morris at the Dead Church:
"He--Colonel M.--asked me and I told him the truth straight out. I
could not help myself; it burst from my lips, although the strange
thing is that until he put it into my mind with the question, I knew
/nothing/. Then of a sudden, in an instant; in a flash; I understood
and I knew that my whole being belonged to this man, his son Morris.
What is love? Once I remember hearing a clever cynic argue that
between men and women no such thing exists. He called their affection
by other names, and said that for true love to be present the
influence of sex must be absent. This he proved by declaring that this
marvellous passion of love about which people talk and write is never
heard of where its object is old or deformed, or even very ugly,
although such accidents of chance and time are no bar to the true love
of--let us say--the child and the parent, or the friend and the
friend.
"Well, the argument seemed difficult to answer, although at the time I
knew that it must be wrong, but how could I, who was utterly without
experience, talk of such a hard matter? Now I understand that love;
the real love between a man and a woman, if it be real, embraces all
the other sorts of love. More--whether the key be physical or
spiritual, it unlocks a window in our hearts through which we see a
different world from the world that we have known. Also with this new
vision come memories and foresights. This man whom I love--three
months ago I had never seen his face--and now I feel as though I had
known him not only all my life, but from the beginning of time--as
though we never could be parted any more.
"And I talk thus about one who has never said a tender word to me.
Why? Because my thought, is his thought, and my mind his mind. How am
I sure of that? Because it came upon me at the moment when I learned
the truth about myself. He and I are one, therefore I learned the
truth about him also.
"I was like Eve when she left the Tree; knowledge was mine, only I had
eaten of the fruit of Life. Yet the taste of it must be bitter in my
mouth. What have I done? I have given my spirit into the keeping of a
man who is pledged to another woman, and, as I think, have taken his
from her keeping to my own. What then? Is this other woman, who is so
good and kind, to be robbed of all that is left to her in the world?
Am I to take from her him who is almost her husband? Never. If his
heart has come to me I cannot help it--for the rest, no. So what is
left to me? His spirit and all the future when the flesh is done with;
that is heritage enough. How the philosopher who argued about the love
of men and women would laugh and mock if he could see these words.
Supposing that he could say, 'Stella Fregelius, I am in a position to
offer you a choice. Will you have this man for your husband and live
out your natural lives upon the strict stipulation that your
relationship ends absolutely and forever with your last breaths? Or
will you let him go to the other woman for their natural lives with
the prospect of that heritage which your imagination has fashioned;
that dim eternity of double joy where, hand in hand, twain and yet
one, you will fulfil the secret purpose of your destinies?'
"What should I answer then?
"Before Heaven I would answer that I would not sell myself to the
devil of the flesh and of this present world. What! Barter my
birthright of immortality for the mess of pottage of a few brief years
of union? Pay out my high hopes to their last bright coin for this
dinner of mingled herbs? Drain the well of faith dug with so many
prayers and labours, that its waters may suffice to nourish a rose
planted in the sand, whose blooms must die at the first touch of
creeping earthly frost?
"The philosopher would say that I was mad; that the linnet in the hand
is better than all the birds of paradise which ever flew in fabled
tropic seas.
"I reply that I am content to wait till upon some glorious morning my
ship breaks into the silence of those seas, and, watching from her
battered bulwarks, I behold the islands of the Blest and catch the
scent of heavenly flowers, and see the jewelled birds, whereof I dream
floating from palm to palm.
"'But if there are no such isles?' he would answer; 'If, with their
magic birds and flowers, they are indeed but the baseless fabric of a
dream? If your ship, amidst the ravings of the storm and the darkness
of the tortured night, should founder once and for ever in the dark
strait which leads to the gateways of that Dawn--those gateways
through which no traveller returns to lay his fellows' course for the
harbours of your perfect sea; what then?'
"Then I would say, let me forswear God Who has suffered me to be
deceived with false spirits, and sink to depths where no light breaks,
where no memories stir, where no hopes torment. Yes, then let me deny
Him and die, who am of all women the most miserable. But it is not so,
for to me a messenger has /come/; at my prayer once the Gates were
opened, and now I know quite surely that it was permitted to me to see
within them that I might find strength in this the bitter hour of my
trial.
"Yet how can I choke the truth and tread down the human heart within
me? Oh! the road which my naked feet must tread is full of thorns, and
heavy the cross that I must bear. I go now, in a few minutes' time, to
bid him farewell. If I can help it I shall never see him again. No,
not even after many years, since it is better not. Also, perhaps this
is weakness, but I should wish him to remember me wearing such beauty
as I have and still young, before time and grief and labour have
marked me with their ugly scars. It is the Stella whom he found
singing at the daybreak on the ship which brought her to him, for whom
I desire that he should seek in the hour of a different dawn.
"I go presently, to my marriage, as it were; a cold and pitiful feast,
many would think it--these nuptials of life-long renunciation. The
philosopher would say, Why renounce? You have some advantages, some
powers, use them. The man loves you, play upon his natural weakness.
Help yourself to the thing that chances to be desirable in your eyes.
Three years hence who will blame you, who will even remember? His
father? Well, he likes you already, and in time a man of the world
accepts accomplished facts, especially if things go well, as they will
do, for that invention must succeed. No one else? Yes; three others.
He would remember, however much he loved me, for I should have brought
him to do a shameful act. And she would remember, whom I had robbed of
her husband, coming into his life after he had promised himself to
her. Last of all--most of all, perhaps--I myself should remember, day
by day, and hour by hour, that I was nothing more than one of the
family of thieves.
"No; I will have none of such philosophy; at least I, Stella
Fregelius, will live and die among the upright. So I go to my cold
marriage, such as it is; so I bend my back to the burden, so I bow my
head to the storm; and throughout it all I thank God for what he has
been pleased to send me. I may seem poor, but how rich I am who have
been dowered with a love that I know to be eternal as my eternal soul.
I go, and my husband shall receive me, not with a lover's kiss and
tenderness, but with words few and sad, with greetings that, almost
before their echoes die, must fade into farewells. I wrap no veil
about my head, he will set no ring upon my hand, perchance we shall
plight no troth. So be it; our hour of harvest is not yet.
"Yesterday was very sharp and bleak, with scuds of sleet and snow
driven by the wind, but as I drove here with my father I saw a man and
a woman in the midst of an empty, lifeless field, planting some winter
seed. Who, looking at them, who that did not know, could foretell the
fruits of their miserable, unhopeful labour? Yet the summer will come
and the sweet smell of the flowering beans, and the song of the
nesting birds, and the plentiful reward of the year crowned with
fatness. It is a symbol of this marriage of mine. To-day we sow the
seed; next, after a space of raving rains and winds, will follow the
long, white winter of death, then some dim, sweet spring of awakening,
and beyond it the fulness of all joy.
"What is there about me that it would make me ashamed that he should
know; this husband to whom I must tell nothing? I cannot think. No
other man has been anything to me. I can remember no great sin. I have
worked, making the best of such gifts as I possess. I have tried to do
my duty, and I will do it to the end. Surely my heart is whole and my
hands are clean. Perhaps it is a sin that I should have learned to
love him; that I should look to a far future where I may be with him.
If so, am I to blame, who ask nothing here? Can I conquer destiny who
am its child? Can I read or shape the purpose of my Maker?
"And so I go. O God, I pray Thee of Thy mercy, give me strength to
bear my temptations and my trials; and to him, also, give every
strength and blessing. O Father, I pray Thee of Thy mercy, shorten
these the days of my tribulation upon earth. Accept and sanctify this
my sacrifice of denial; grant me pardon here, and hereafter through
all the abyss of time in Thy knowledge and presence, that perfect
peace which I desire with him to whom I am appointed. Amen."
