CHAPTER IX.

A DIVIDED RESPONSIBILITY.

'Theo! Theo! I am sorry to wake you!'

Trist was a man who threw aside the heaviest sleep at a moment's notice, and was in full possession of his faculties--probably making active use of them--while others were still rubbing their eyes. The touch of a soft, warm little hand upon his wrist had awakened him before the words imprinted themselves upon his brain. Somehow he remembered them afterwards, the syllables themselves, and the manner in which they were uttered.

He looked up with a smile, and met Brenda's eyes. She was leaning over his chair, and when he looked up she stood erect with her white hands hanging before her against the soft black dress. She had learnt something at Mrs. Wylie's school of womanliness, for everything about her was as neat and trim and dainty as if there was naught else to think of than the braiding and coiling of the bright brown hair, and the pinning of the snowy collar round her throat.

'I am sorry to disturb you, Theo,' she repeated.

'Not at all,' he said. 'Why should you be? It is ten o'clock; I have been asleep two hours. What more could I require?'

'I have kept some breakfast warm for you,' she said, turning towards the table; 'but I awakened you because of these. There are four telegrams and a number of letters for you. Hans Olsen brought them off just now. He got them yesterday from the Bergen boat. We are out of the Heimdalfjord now, and Nielsen has gone. I ... only hope ... it is not war, Theo!'

He stood up and took the telegrams and letters from her hands. Then he crossed the saloon towards the table.

'It looks rather like it,' he said coolly.

He raised the cover of the dish which the steward had just placed upon the table, and Brenda, taking the hint, poured out his coffee.

She walked away from him a little and stood quite motionless, with her back turned towards him, while he tore open the thin white telegraph envelopes. One ... two ... three ... four of them, spreading the paper out upon the tablecloth. Her quick ears caught each sound, and enabled her to picture every movement made by this indifferent man.

'Yes, Brenda, it ... is ... war!'

She turned slowly and approached the table. Bending over it, she attended to his requirements in a deftly graceful way, grouping round him the toast, butter, and marmalade. He was studying a telegram spread out before him, but his fixed eyes did not appear to be taking in the purport of words written in uneven type. Furtively he looked towards her hands, and then slowly upward, terminating in one scrutinizing glance into her face.

'Where?' she asked, sitting down rather hastily opposite to him.

'Servia and Montenegro have declared war against Turkey,' he replied, busying himself with his plate.

'And you must go?'

He stirred his coffee very deliberately, and, raising the cup to his lips, took a long critical sip.

'Yes, Brenda. I must go!'

There are few more silent places than the cabin of a sailing yacht on a calm day. In a steamer it is different, for there is the ever-beating throb of life down below, in the engine-room, which is half heard and half felt. But on a sailing yacht, when the rudder-chains are taut and the breeze steady, there is no noise whatever. In the pretty saloon of the _Hermione_ there was a singular absence of sound when Trist finished speaking. He turned again to the telegrams, neglecting his breakfast. Brenda thought that she had never experienced such an utter, breathless silence. Her ears seemed to tingle with the intensity of it, and in her brain there was a sudden vacuous sensation. She could think of nothing to say, although she strained her mind to discover some means of breaking this dreadful pause.

Furtively she raised her eyes, and at the same moment Trist looked across the table in a hurried, shifty way. Their eyes met for a brief agonizing second.

'I hope,' said Brenda sweetly, 'that your coffee is not very cold.'

'Oh no! Oh no, thank you! It is very nice,' he replied awkwardly, looking into the cup with absorbing interest.

Her question appeared to call him back from some vague, far-off dream, for he resolutely began to eat; while she hovered round, playing the hostess in a shy, constrained way. Presently he handed the open telegrams across the table to her.

'You may as well read them,' he said conversationally. 'They are very characteristic of the man who wrote them.'

She took the papers and read in a semi-tone:

'_War--Serbia, Turkey--imminent. Come._'

Number two was longer:

'_Where on earth are you? War. Look sharp. Montenegro is in it, too._'

The third was more serious:

'_Two messages without reply. Are yen coming?_'

Then number four:

'_They are at it already. It will be a bad business. Come at once._'

She returned them without a word; and he, seeing the necessity of saying something, remarked pleasantly:

'It is my misfortune to be required in two places at once, or not at all.'

She stood by the table and looked at the date of the latest telegram. The four messages had been despatched within two days.

'Are you not,' she asked innocently, 'too late? It may be all over now.'

He glanced up at her in a curious, laughing way.

'No--I am afraid not. War in these semi-barbaric countries is like an illness in a young person. It is only half healed beneath a deceptive surface, and breaks out in a fresh place.'

Again she took up the telegrams. It seemed as if there were a fascination in the flimsy papers which she could not resist.

'This man seems to look upon it as rather a good joke. He takes the matter jovially.'

'Yes! He takes most things in that way. It is a good thing for him, you see. Brings up the circulation of his paper.'

'That,' she said quietly, 'is a very practical way of looking at war.'

Trist appeared to ignore, purposely, the slight reproach conveyed by her remark.

'War is a practical thing,' he replied. 'This is a splendid chance for me, and one I should be sorry to miss. It is not a surprise, Brenda. We all knew that it might come at any time, but I did not mention it, because the knowledge would only have been unsettling, and I did not think ... then ... that my sudden departure would have made much difference.'

She looked at him calmly and thoughtfully before replying, with an indifference which was not quite complimentary:

'You must not allow this ... this calamity to make any difference. I quite understand the position you are in. Of course you are pledged to this man?...'

Trist nodded a brief acquiescence.

'Then you must go. I can manage quite well alone. Mrs. Wylie is much better this morning, though she is still dull and horribly apathetic. We will go home as quickly as we can.'

There was something in her voice, a slight catch, which he could not understand, and of course he misread it. The last few words were spoken in a peculiar monotone, with feverish haste.

'I feel horribly selfish,' he said, 'thinking of my own affairs at this time. No, Brenda. I cannot go and leave you in such a fix--alone.'

'I want you to go, Theo; I do really. It would never do for you to miss this chance. You are pledged to this man (who sits comfortably at home), and I would never forgive myself if I thought that you stayed here on my account. Besides, you are a sort of public servant; it is your duty to go.'

'Yes,' he said, catching at the phrase uneasily; 'it is certainly my duty. It is my duty ... to go.'

She stood beside him quite still. Then she moved a step nearer to him and laid her hand upon his shoulder.

'Theo,' she pleaded, 'you must go. To please me, pack up and go.'

He smiled suddenly, but did not look up into her face, which was very pale, while her lips remained red. There was a slight quiver of her chin whenever her mouth remained for a second unclenched. It needed an effort on her part to prevent his hearing the chattering of her teeth. Involuntarily he shrunk a little away from her light touch, and glanced furtively at the white fingers on his shoulder.

Thus they remained for some moments while the yacht heaved gently onwards. The lamps swayed a little, but beyond that there was no motion in the pretty cabin. At last Trist reached out his hand and took the envelope from which he had torn one of the telegrams. He bent it over and smoothed it very carefully, while she watched the movements of his fingers.

'When is there a steamer to England?' she asked suddenly.

'The day after to-morrow, from Bergen, at nine o'clock in the evening.'

His answer was laconic and concise as Bradshaw.

Brenda knew then that he had expected war all along, and war was his element; she could not forget that, despite the wild incongruity of it.

'How can you manage it?' she asked simply and practically.

It would appear that he had foreseen everything, provided for every possible contingency. While she moved away from him and sat down near a small table, he answered her without a moment's thought.

'If we have the funeral to-morrow morning, I can start immediately afterwards in a small boat, and row or sail to Gudvangen, reaching there early next morning. Drive to Vossevangen, and catch the afternoon train down to Bergen.'

'It sounds very simple, but it means thirty hours without sleep.'

'I can sleep all the way across the North Sea. Don't think of me, Brenda; I'm outside the question altogether.'

He stopped, with a worried look upon his face, but did not raise his eyes. Had he done so he would inevitably have noticed a heightened colour in her cheeks, although she turned aside and gazed at nothing in particular.

'What bothers me,' he continued, 'is you and Mrs. Wylie and the _Hermione_. What will you do?'

'I will take the _Hermione_ home,' she said with gentle confidence. 'You can safely leave Mrs. Wylie to me.'

'I know I can, but I do not want to leave you to Mrs. Wylie. It is putting too much on your shoulders.'

She shrugged the graceful members in question, and gave a little short laugh.

'They are strong,' she answered carelessly. 'Besides, there is no choice in the matter. I simply must be left in charge because there is no one else. It seems to me that the matter in question is...' she glanced towards the closed door of Trist's late state-room, where Admiral Wylie kept his silent watch--'is whether Mrs. Wylie will consent to Fjaerholm or not.'

'Can I see her?'

'No ... no, Theo. I think it is better not. She is so strange and natural that I am afraid the sight of you might have some serious effect. Even in her dreams she is constantly recalling the sight of you ... coming down the little path ... with _him_ in your arms. You remember--just beside the big rock where it was too narrow for you both to carry him.'

'Yes,' he replied in a voice that might well have been rendered purposely careless. 'Yes, I remember.'

'I have not dared,' the girl continued, 'to say anything about ... about Fjaerholm. I have never seen anyone in grief like this before, Theo, and it frightens me a little.'

He had left the table, forsaking the farce of breakfast, and was now walking noiselessly backwards and forwards. At the sound of her voice, timid and deprecating, when she spoke the last words he stopped short before her.

'Then I must see her,' he said--'I must see her before I go. I have seen a good deal of ... of grief, Brenda--in other people, I mean--and know its symptoms. Some people are stunned for a time, like a man who has been thrown from a gun-carriage, but it ought not to last very long, not more than twenty-four hours. And then they usually become nervously active. If Mrs. Wylie is like that, you must employ her somehow. Tire her out if you can. But we must take it upon ourselves, now, to have the Admiral buried at Fjaerholm. She is not taking it as I thought she would, and the voyage home, or back to Bergen even, with him on board would send her mad. When he is buried it will be different; she will recover then, under your care.'

'Yes,' replied the girl. 'Yes, we must take it upon ourselves, Theo. I thought of it before.'

'If at any time,' he murmured in his gently suggestive way, 'the matter is discussed--when I am away, I mean--you can say that the whole responsibility rests with me.'

She raised her head and looked at him with a sudden light in her blue eyes.

'I am not afraid of responsibility,' she said tersely.

'No, I think you are afraid of nothing!'

She received this statement as it was made, simply, half playfully, and quite without afterthought.

After a pause he rose, collected his letters, and went on deck, leaving her seated near the small table. She also had letters, and there was a packet of magazines and journals lying unopened near at hand. But she showed no desire to learn news from the outer world. All her interests were centred within four wooden walls just then, and she sat thinking far into the forenoon. Over her head, on the lightly-built deck, the regular tread of Theo Trist acted as an accompaniment to her thoughts. It was so light, that footstep, and yet so steady, seeming to tell of a gentle force which never swerved, never turned back, and never halted.

'I wonder,' she meditated, 'if he would have gone at all events. I wonder if I have the slightest influence upon his motives or his actions. Sometimes it seems as if anyone could lead him like a child, and then suddenly there comes a conviction that no human force can move him.'