Part 9
There was to be an evening concert at the Assembly Rooms. The local papers for the previous day had leading articles about "Hans Martinsen, the boy musician who has been studying in Christiania, and is now appearing for the first time in public in his native town. Critics from all quarters are unanimously agreed as to his remarkable talent, and already prophesy a brilliant future, though his powers, at this early stage, have naturally not yet attained their full development. It is to be hoped that the music-loving section of our community will be numerously represented, that the promising young artist may receive the support and encouragement he deserves."
The fine hall was splendidly illuminated. The great windows fronting the street shed a glow of light over the crowd of staring idlers outside.
Malla Trap crossed the road, making towards the entrance, but meeting a group of young girls who were admiring the illuminations, she stopped to speak to them.
"Well, children, going to the concert?"
"No--o," answered one or two regretfully, curtsying as they spoke. They knew Miss Trap as a sister at the poor school, which most of them had attended.
"Well, come along, and I'll get you in."
The girls followed delightedly, and Malla Trap took tickets for them all.
Across the bridge came Hans Martinsen, with his mother. On reaching the entrance he had to stop and look round, everyone was nodding and waving to him in kindly greeting.
"Good-day, Hans!" came in a fresh young voice behind him. He turned, and saw a girl smiling and nodding. "I'm coming in to hear you play." And she waved a big yellow ticket.
"Why, surely--is it you, Amanda? How are you getting on?"
"Splendid, thanks. This is Carljohan; he's just come back from a voyage."
"And your father and mother? Give them my love, won't you?"
"Thanks, I will. Oh, but Hans"--she came close to him and whispered--"Dear Hans, _do_ play 'The Little Fisher-Maid' to please me--will you?"
"I'm not sure if I can, Amanda."
"Oh, of course you can. Why, you played it hundreds of times at old Clemmetsen's."
"Well, I'll see.... But I must go in now. Good-bye."
The great hall was filled to overflowing. All the musical element was present as a matter of course, and in addition a number of those who never went to concerts as a rule, as for instance the Mayor and Broker Vindt, who took seats at the back. Up in the gallery were a number of Hans' old schoolfellows, all greatly excited at the event.
Suddenly the buzz of talk was hushed, and all eyes were turned towards a group coming up the centre of the hall.
It was Banker Hermansen, still and solemn, with Mrs. Rantzau, fresh and smiling, at his side. Behind them walked William Holm and Miss Rantzau, evidently somewhat embarrassed by the general scrutiny.
Holm senior, who was also one of the party, lagged behind a little, stopping to exchange a word with the Mayor and his friend.
Mrs. Rantzau found her place in one of the upper rows, and stood looking down for Holm, beckoning with a smile when she caught his eye. She let her gaze wander over the assembly, and something like a murmur of applause went up. Mrs. Rantzau was undeniably a splendid woman, and was at her best that evening.
"Get along up to the front with you, old fossil," said Vindt, with a friendly nudge, and Holm walked up, nodding genially to acquaintances all round.
"Fine figure of a woman, what?" whispered the Mayor, glancing towards Mrs. Rantzau.
"H'm," said Vindt. "Handsome enough to look at, but a bit of a handful to look after, if you ask me. Like the cakes in a cookshop window--I like 'em, but they don't agree with me!"
* * * * *
There was silence in the hall as the first notes rang out. All were watching the young performer; a little anxiously perhaps, as if in fear lest he should break down. And all felt that in some degree the honour of the town was here at stake, for the boy was one of their own.
But the little figure at the piano sat calm and free from nervousness; he was in another world, where he felt himself at home. The watching eyes and listening ears did not trouble him; he seemed gazing inwardly at a starry sky far above them all.
The music swelled and sank, now wild and furious as the north-east wind raging over the rocky coast in autumn, then gentle as the evening breeze of a summer's day.
Eyes glistened now with fervour, hearts beat proudly. All present seemed to share in his happiness, to have some part in the triumph of his genius.
The applause was hearty and unanimous.
"Bravo, Hans!" came a deep voice from the gallery. All turned to see who had spoken. Ah, there--it was Bramsen, standing up with both hands outstretched and clapping thunderously.
Amanda flushed with embarrassment, and nudged her father to make him stop. But he snapped out impatiently, "You leave me alone!" and went on clapping.
Among the numerous extras was a "Ballad theme with variations," which the more exacting critics considered somewhat out of place. One there was, however, who thought otherwise, and that was Amanda. The soft, swaying rhythm of "The Little Fisher-Maid" filled her with delight, and she clapped as enthusiastically as her father had done.
* * * * *
"Father, I think I've learned something from that concert this evening," said William, as they walked home.
"Well, my boy, and what was that?"
"Why, that genius is like pure gold; if Nature hasn't put it there it's no use trying to make it."
"You're right, my son. And sensible people don't try. It's no good setting up to do the work of your Creator. What do you say, Banker?"
"Eh, what's that?" Hermansen was walking arm in arm with Mrs. Rantzau, and the pair of them were evidently oblivious of all but each other.
"I say, the best thing we can do in this life's to live like sensible people."
"_Errors and omissions excepted_," answered the banker, and he pressed his fiancee's hand long and tenderly.
XII
OLD NICK
"This where Petter Nekkelsen lives?"
The speaker was an awkward-looking lad, acting as postman in Strandvik for the first time.
"No, you muddlehead." Old Lawyer Nickelsen held out his hand for the letters. "This is where Peder, comma, N. Nickelsen, full stop, lives. And a nice lot of louts they've got going around, that can't learn to call folk by their proper names!"
Thor Smith, the magistrate's clerk, was of the same opinion, but liked a touch of honest dialect occasionally; he was not unwilling on occasion to contradict Old Nick.
"Honest dialect, indeed! Rank impertinence, I call it! But wait a bit, young fellow; in a few years' time you'll be wishing these understrappers at the North Pole, or some other cool place."
The two men filled their pipes, and took up their position on the veranda of Lawyer Nickelsen's house, continuing their discussion as to the merits of natural simplicity, concerning which they held diametrically opposite views.
The lawyer was a bachelor of sixty-seven, and kept what he called a home for young men of decent behaviour and tolerable manners. In particular he had, ever since he first came to the place forty-three years earlier, kept open house for the magistrate's clerks successively, taking them under his paternal care and protection from their first entering on their duties in the town.
Smith and Nickelsen sat on the veranda, but somehow the discussion fell curiously flat. Smith was unusually absent and uncommunicative, to such a degree that Nickelsen at last asked him point blank what was the matter.
"Oh, nothing. H'm. I say, Nickelsen, that fellow Prois--he's an intolerable old curmudgeon."
"Oho, so that's the trouble! Won't have you for a son-in-law, what?"
"Oh, don't talk nonsense."
Smith stepped aside, and scraped out the tobacco from the pipe he had just filled, but Old Nick's searching glance perceived that he had flushed up to the roots of his hair.
"My dear Smith, I agree with you that Tulla Prois is a charming girl. A pity, though, they couldn't find another name to give her. They were making songs about it last winter."
"Oh, don't drag in that silly stuff, Nickelsen, for Heaven's sake. I can't see anything funny in it myself."
Old Nick laid down his pipe and put on his glasses, and sat watching the other with an expression only half serious. He found himself hard put to it not to laugh. At last, finding nothing more suitable to say, he ventured in a tone of unnatural innocence: "Smith, what do you say to a drink?"
Old Nick was irresistible. Smith could not help laughing himself. "Oh, you incorrigible old joker," he said, giving the other a dig in the ribs.
The ice once broken, and under the influence of a glass of good Madeira--Old Nick invariably had "something special" in that line--Smith opened his heart, and revealed Tulla Prois in the leading role of Angel, etcetera, Papa Prois being cast for the part of hard-hearted father, or "intolerable old curmudgeon"--which amounted to much the same thing.
"I met him yesterday, just come back from Christiania, with a whole armful of parcels he could hardly carry. I went up as politely as could be, and offered to lend a hand, and what d'you think he said?"
Old Nick shook his head and tried to look interested.
"Shouted out at the top of his voice so all the street could hear him, 'No, I'm damned if you do!' Nice sort of father-in-law that, eh?"
"There's a dance on at the Seamen's Union to-morrow, Smith. You're going, I suppose?"
Smith brightened up at once. "Yes, of course, we must go; you must come along too, Nickelsen. But--but--isn't old Prois chairman of the committee?"
"Quite so--and for that very reason all the more chance of your meeting your--young lady, I was going to say."
"Then you'll come?"
"Me? Go to a dance, with my gout and all? Well, I don't know, perhaps I might. Get myself up spick and span, and have my corns cut specially for the occasion--I might pass in a crowd, what?"
The dance took place, and on the following day Old Nick sat pondering and trying to remember what had happened after twelve o'clock, his memory being somewhat defective.
No--it was no good. He could not remember a thing. He had a vague recollection of talking to Tulla Prois, and saying a whole lot of extravagantly affectionate things, but beyond that all was confusion.
"Only hope I didn't make a scene, that's all. H'm--Puh--weakness of mine--infernal nuisance. And I don't seem to get any better--oh, well, what's the odds after all!"
The final note of resignation in his monologue revived his inexhaustible natural good spirits, and with a contented smile he sat down to indite the following letter to Smith, who was, he knew, in court that day:
"DEAR SMITH,--For various reasons I find myself unable to recollect anything of last night's happenings. And being in consequence much troubled in mind lest something scandalous may have taken place, and my position of unimpeachable respectability in the town undermined, you are hereby invited to dine with me to-day, in order that we can discuss the matter and, if necessary, find some means of meeting the situation.--Yours,
"OLD NICK."
Old Martha, Nickelsen's housekeeper, shuffled along to the court-house, with strict injunctions to bring back an answer, and returned half an hour later with a scrap of paper from Smith, on which were scribbled the following lines in pencil:
"MY DEAR OLD FRIEND,--Ten minutes ago I said to a man convicted of illicit dealing in spirits, 'You are _in culpa_, my good man, and you may as well confess it first as last.' But at the same moment it struck me fairly to the heart that I might say the very same thing to myself.
"Yes, I am _in culpa_---- To think that dance should have proved the occasion of my downfall! So beautiful she was--and so gracious towards me, that my heart beat in quiet delight--until that old shark--that bottle-nosed shark, her father.... Ugh!
"He got me on to talking politics, and I, fool that I was, I took the bait, declared myself a Republican, Jacobin, Anarchist, showed myself a thousand times worse than I am, simply because the sight of his bottle-nosed caricature of a face turned me sour. Fool, fool that I was! I forgot he was her father, and now my hopes are simply done for. The old man was furious, said he couldn't forget me, and so on. So altogether I am utterly miserable, not to say desperate. For I know if I'm to lose Tulla Prois, then----
"I shall come round to dinner. Thanks.--Yours,
"SMITH."
Old Nick sat quietly for a moment, then burst out laughing, and went out into the garden to hoist the flag, by way of celebrating--well, had anyone asked him, he would probably have answered "the morning after the night before."
It was nothing unusual, however, for Old Nick to hoist his flag, especially of late, since Schoolmaster Pedersen opposite had taken to hoisting "clean colours."[1] The first time Old Nick saw this, he at once ordered a huge white sheet with the Union mark in one corner. And every time the "clean colours" were hoisted, up went Old Nick's as well, and his flag being of uncommon dimensions, hid from the seaward side not only the opposition flag, but a good deal of the schoolmaster's house as well.
[1] "Clean Colours"--the Norwegian flag without the Union mark, _i.e._ as repudiating the Union with Sweden.
At dinner that evening Old Nick did his utmost to make things cheerful, but in vain; Smith was miserable, and miserable he remained.
"You don't know what feeling is, Nickelsen--or else you've forgotten."
"Oh, my dear fellow, I only wish I had a mark for every time I've been in love."
"In love, you! You don't know what it is."
"Yes, my boy, and seriously, too. I'll tell you what happened to me one time at Kongsberg that way. I was clerk to old Lawyer Albrektsen, and lived a gay bachelor life up there. The local chemist was a man named Walter, and had four daughters, one prettier than the others; but the eldest but one was a perfect picture of a girl, bright and cheery, and with a pink-and-white complexion, you never saw. Enough to turn the head of any son of Adam, I assure you. We went for walks and danced together, and were really fond of each other; in a word, the double barrel of our hearts was just on the point of going off--when an event occurred which severed once and for all the tender bonds that were about to unite Petrea Walter and yours truly.
"It was my birthday, the twentieth November, as you know, and I had a few friends coming round in the evening, as usual, to celebrate the occasion. The punch was made in the old style, with Armagnac and acid. Well, we got more and more lively as the evening went on, and one bowl after another was emptied. And then came the disaster; we ran out of acid. Punch without acid was not to be thought of--and there were no such things as lemons in those days. Well, the fellows all voted for going round to the chemist's and ringing him up for more. I tried all I knew to keep them from it, but they couldn't hear a word, and at last off we all went to Master Walter's.
"We lowered down all the oil lamps in the street on our way--this incidentally, as illustrating the distressingly low degree of civilisation in Kongsberg in those days.
"When we got to the place, the first floor was all in darkness. There she lay asleep, up there, my beloved Petrea! All dark and silent everywhere, only a faint gleam from the lamp in the shop below shone out into the street. I begged my friends to keep quiet, while I tried as softly as could be to wake up the man in charge. But alas, fate willed it otherwise. Carl Henrik, my old friend, was by way of being a poet, and never lost a chance of improvising something. He stood up on the steps 'to make a speech,' but just as he was going to begin, the door opened, and there was old Walter himself in dressing-gown and slippers, with a candle in his hand. Carl Henrik made an elegant bow, and reeled off at once:
'Good Master Walter, we confess It's wrong to wake you up like this, But hear our plea, we pray you, first; We're simply perishing with thirst, And since you're there, and know the stuff, Pray let us have it--_quantum suff_!'
"Old Walter was furious. 'What the devil!' he cried out. 'Is the fellow mad?'
"I dragged Carl Henrik down from the steps, and went myself, hat in hand, and begged his pardon; said we were awfully sorry, we thought it was the assistant on duty. 'Well, and what then--is anyone ill?' 'Why, no, sir, I'm glad to say, but it's my birthday to-day, that's all.'--'Yesterday, you mean,' roars out Carl Henrik from below.--'It's my birthday, and I only wanted to ask if you'd let us have a little acid for the punch.'
"'I'll give you punch,' said the old man, and landed out at me, sending me headlong down the steps into the arms of the poet; Carl Henrik urging me to bear up bravely against what he called the blows of fate.
"I met Petrea out next day, but the moment she caught sight of me she slipped across the street into the flower shop opposite. I waited outside a full hour, but no sight of Petrea--she must have gone out the back way so as not to meet me. Well, that was the end of the first Punic war, my dear Smith, and I left Kongsberg with a wounded heart--though I'm bound to say it healed up again all right pretty soon."
Smith had brightened up considerably by now, but, try as he would, he could not admit that Old Nick's experience as related was analogous to the present situation.
"I tell you, Nickelsen, this is a serious affair; as a matter of fact, we're--we're secretly engaged, Tulla and I."
"Uf!" said Old Nick; he had nearly broken the neck of a bottle of old Pontet Canet he was opening. Old Nick drank a glass, sniffed at the wine, put on a serious air and said solemnly:
"It's getting cloudy."
Smith hung his head; he found the situation cloudy.
"What do you think I ought to do? Go up and beg old Prois's pardon?" asked Smith.
Old Nick sat for quite a while thinking deeply, holding the Pontet Canet up to the light. "H'm--h'm." Then suddenly he jumped up, and slapped Smith on the back with a serviette.
"We can save the situation. I've got an idea. We'll get up a public banquet for old Prois. Yes, that's what I say. And we'll send out the invitations ourselves--you and I."
"But, my dear man, you can't give a public banquet without some sort of pretext, and what are we to tell people it's for? Old Prois he's warden of the Pilot's Guild, but he hasn't done anything notable in the town, that I'm aware of, up to now."
"Oh, we must find something or other. Let me see--he's on the Health Committee--no, that won't do."
"He lent a flag to the committee for the Constitution Day festivities," said Smith sarcastically.
"No, that's not enough. But wait a bit. He must have been on the Rates Committee twenty-five years now--yes, of course. That's the very thing. I'll be chairman, you can be secretary. Dinner at Naes's Hotel on Saturday next--make it a Saturday, so folk can have Sunday to sleep it off after."
Smith was very doubtful still.
"But suppose he thinks it's a hoax--then we'd be worse off than before."
"A hoax!" said Old Nick. "Well, so it is in a way, but nobody'll know except you and me. All the others will take it up as easy as winking. Only give them a decent dinner, man, and they'll be ready enough, all the lot of them; there's always room for a bit of a spread of that sort, and we've had nothing now for quite a while. No, all we've got to do now is to get out the invitations first of all. Hand me the pen and ink over there."
And the pair of them sat down and drew up the following in due form:
"INVITATION
"A Public Banquet will be given on Saturday, the 17th October 1887, at 4 p.m., at Naes's Hotel, to celebrate the occasion of our esteemed fellow-citizen, Warden Prois, completing his twenty-fifth year of service on the Rates Committee. Menu will comprise three courses, plus dessert and one half-bottle of wine, coffee and liqueur, at 4s. per head.
"THE COMMITTEE. "NICKELSEN, SMITH, "Chairman. Secretary."
As soon as Old Nick had finished the draft, a heated discussion took place as to the price to be fixed per head. Smith was of opinion that four shillings and three courses was too little, and would appear mean to the guest of honour. To this Old Nick retorted that they could not well go higher than four shillings if they were to get the "rank and file" to come at all--this category including such personages as Pettersen the watch-maker, Blomberg the tailor, and other esteemed fellow-citizens, who would gladly share in the honour, but were forced to consider the limitations of their purse.
Smith also objected to the word "committee" under the invitations. "We're not a committee," he urged.
"Aren't we, though," said Old Nick. "You and I--that's committee enough for anything. And besides, it's the proper thing on these occasions, makes it look more official like." And so it was agreed.
Old Nick then set out on a round to gather in recruits for the banquet. First of all the parson and the doctor must be got hold of; these two agreed at once without any difficulty, being comparatively new arrivals in the place, and taking Lawyer Nickelsen's recommendation as sufficient.
Next came Halvor Berg, the biggest shipowner in the town, and known to all as a cautious and particular man, much sought after by the natives in all matters requiring assistance and advice. He was thus an influential man, and it was important to get him to subscribe, for the first thing people would ask was sure to be, whether Halvor Berg was coming.
Old Nick and Halvor Berg were good friends, so the reception in this case was good enough. They chatted comfortably for a while, more especially about Berg's boats, the _Seaflower_, _Ceres_, and so on, until Old Nick suddenly produced his list. "Oh, by the way, I want your name to this, Halvor. I ought by right to have taken it round to the old magistrate first, he's waiting for it, but it won't matter if you sign now while I'm here."
"Sign?" said Halvor Berg, and proceeded to study the document with great earnestness. Old Nick occupied himself meantime in surreptitiously setting the pointer of Halvor Berg's barometer down to hurricane level.
At last, having ploughed his way conscientiously through the invitation, Berg looked up, with a searching glance at Old Nick, who faced him without moving a muscle.
"H'm. H'mmm--look here, you know, Nickelsen, don't you think we could find some one else to give a banquet for instead of Prois?"
"Well, no, I can't see that we could. I don't know anyone else that's been on the Rates Committee for twenty-five years."
"He'd have been more use to the place if he hadn't been on it at all," grumbled the other.
"Oh, well, if you don't feel inclined to join with the leading people in the town on such an occasion, why...." Old Nick began folding up the list, but very slowly.
"Of course I'll come in--only I can't see what he's done to deserve it, hang me if I can."
"Look here, Halvor Berg, you can surely understand that when the parson, the doctor and myself go in for a thing like this, we've some reason for it."
"All right, all right! Hand me the list, then."
And he wrote with big, sprawling letters "H. Berg," at the same time inquiring whether an after-dinner toddy was included in the four shillings.
On leaving Halvor Berg's, Old Nick regarded the matter as settled; when this cautious old card had put his name, the rest of them would soon follow after.
Sukkestad, the dealer, was inclined to hesitate, and could not make out what Prois had really done either, but since Halvor Berg was in it, why, he might as well put down his four shillings too.