CHAPTER VIII.

A JOINT COMMAND.

So the joint command of the _Hermione_ lapsed into new hands--the man's command above decks, and the woman's rule below.

In both regions the new director stepped into the vacant place quietly, unostentatiously and confidently. Old Captain Barrow was as the potter's clay in Trist's gentle yet firm hands. The young fellow's strange subtle influence soon made itself felt upon the men. The Admiral had ruled by genial heartiness, coupled with the force of past experience implied by his title; the young journalist (who did not pretend to be a sailor) enforced obedience by the magnetic attraction of his implacable will.

Mrs. Wylie uttered no complaint, sued for no sympathy--she was simply stunned--and, in her imperious little way, Brenda took over all the smaller household duties, assumed all minor responsibilities, and gave the widow no rest.

She forced her to take an interest in smaller things, and allowed no time for thought. She herself literally put her to bed by the light of the morning sun, and calmly announced her intention of sharing the state-room. The Admiral was carried below, and laid on Trist's bed, and the latter moved, next day, into the room vacated by Brenda.

For him there was no rest that night. He did not even change the clothes in which he had been swimming a few hours before, while bringing ashore the dead man. By seven o'clock in the morning the _Hermione_ was ready for sea--awning furled, stanchions stowed away, and the great sails shaken out.

About this time Brenda came on deck. She looked round for a moment in utter surprise at the changed appearance of the ship; then she walked aft, to where Trist was standing near the rail talking in a low voice to Nielsen, who, hurriedly summoned, had come on board to pilot the yacht down the Heimdalfjord.

The Englishman's back was turned towards her, and he did not hear her light tread upon the deck, but his companion raised his rough sable hat respectfully, and Trist turned round at once. Brenda saw that he noticed her black dress, and involuntarily glanced down at his own shabby tweed suit, which was discoloured and wrinkled.

'Have you had any rest?' were his first words.

'Yes; thank you. I slept for at least two hours.' She smiled a little as she looked at him, and his glance rested on her faultlessly-dressed head, her dainty form, and proud little face.

'And Mrs. Wylie?' he inquired softly.

'She is sleeping now.'

He nodded his head, and they both turned, standing side by side, looking forward to where the men were at work with the anchor. Nielsen had left them, and was talking to Captain Barrow on the forecastle.

'Captain Barrow,' he explained, in a tone which in some way implied a joint-control, 'has got all ready for sea. The tide begins to run down at half-past seven, when we will get in the anchor and go.'

She nodded her head wisely and gravely, like a field-officer receiving a brother-commander's report--receiving it, moreover, with satisfaction.

'You have been very prompt,' she murmured frankly, as she looked round and mentally noted the work that had been done.

He turned his head hastily, as if about to begin some lengthy explanation or to assign a reason for his promptitude, but seemed to change his mind, for he stood looking at her vaguely for a moment, and then turned his eyes away.

At this moment the steward came towards them with his gliding, noiseless steps. He was carrying two mugs of coffee--not the thin cups used in the cabin, but rough stout mugs intended for deck use. Moreover, he brought them in the lid of the biscuit-box, with some biscuits lying round them, as he brought early coffee every morning to whosoever might be keeping the last watch.

He stood silently in front of Brenda, and made no attempt to apologize for the seaman-like roughness of the repast, while she took her mug and biscuit.

Even when the steward had left them, Trist made no remark respecting this tacit treatment of Brenda as an officer of the ship; and she it was who broke the silence, speaking slowly and suggestively, as if waiting for him to approve or propose an amendment. It was absurdly like the report of a junior departmental commander to his senior.

'Oh, Theo,' she said, 'I have moved most of my things into the large stateroom, as I think it will be better for me to sleep with Mrs. Wylie. You can go into my cabin as soon as you like now--the steward and I have put it all right for you.'

'Thank you!' he said, sipping his coffee.

'Will you not go and change now? It cannot be good to keep on those clothes.'

'Not yet,' he answered, with a smile. 'They are quite dry now, and the sun is shining, so I am warm. Besides, there are one or two things I want to ask your opinion about, and we may not have the chance later on.'

He moved a little, and she, falling into his step, walked by his side. Thus they paced backwards and forwards slowly in the early morning splendour--she neat, trim, and lightsome; he weary, worn, untidy, but strong and restful--until they had consulted mutually upon certain points requiring immediate decision. When they had finished their coffee and biscuit, each swung the empty mug idly, one finger curled through the handle, with unconscious youthfulness of gesture.

'The nearest village,' he began in his meek way, 'is Fjaerholm; we shall be there by this time to-morrow with a fair breeze. There is a church there and a churchyard, although the village itself is a tiny place, almost surrounded by glaciers, and rarely visited. It will hardly do, perhaps, to approach the question yet, but if we can find out before we leave the Heimdalfjord what Mrs. Wylie's opinion is, it will simplify matters. Whether, I mean, we are to make for Fjaerholm, with the view of burying him there, or to go down the Sognfjord, catch a steamer to Bergen, and so home.'

There was a short pause when he had finished speaking. Brenda appeared to be lost in a reverie. At length she spoke.

'Which course do you recommend, Theo?' she asked.

'My opinion can be of little value. It is a matter of personal feeling which only Mrs. Wylie can decide.'

'Yes. But she may be in that frame of mind where a decided opinion--your opinion--might be a comfort to her.'

As she made this suggestion she turned her head and looked up to see whether he had fully grasped her meaning, and he nodded his head slightly, admitting that her argument might very well be of value.

'I am afraid, Brenda,' he said apologetically, 'that I am rather hard and practical in these matters. My opinion is that Fjaerholm churchyard is as good as any other. It would be a horrible journey home for her and ... for you.'

'I think Fjaerholm would be best.'

'I am sure of it. Of course, Mrs. Wylie may have decided feelings on the subject, and if so we must give in, and leave the _Hermione_; though I think she will be better here among her own surroundings than on board a crowded passenger steamer--an object of curiosity and ostentatious sympathy.'

'I do not think,' said the girl, after a short pause, 'that she will be influenced by any mistaken sentiment.'

'Nor I. And of course it is mere sentiment. We English have a way of leaving our dead all over the world, and no doubt there are more of us in the sea than of any other nation.'

She looked at him in a vague, wistful way. At times she failed to understand him. There were certain humours which came over him at odd times--hard practical humours of which the heartlessness seemed assumed and unnatural--and of these she could not detect the motive.

'I will try,' she said, 'to find out Mrs. Wylie's feelings on the subject.'

'Yes, Brenda, do!' he murmured, in a way which seemed to imply that the matter was safe in her hands.

They continued to walk up and down in silence--each wrapt in individual thought. There was a little frown on the girl's face, an almost imperceptible contraction of the eyelids, forming a slight perpendicular wrinkle which might deepen and grow permanent with sorrow or years. The clear, heavenly-blue eyes were wide open and somewhat restless, and in the whole face there was that intangible, indescribable presence which we call intellect, because we dare not call it soul.

Suddenly Trist stopped and looked down at her so persistently that she was forced to raise her eyes.

'Don't!' he said ambiguously, with his slow, deprecating smile.

She laughed in a short curious tone, and changed colour.

'Don't what?'

'_Don't_ think about me,' he said with sudden earnestness.

For a moment an expression of pain rested in her eyes, and she opened her lips as if about to speak; but he bade her keep silence with an admonishing shake of the head, and she stood with slightly parted lips looking up into his unreadable face.

'Don't!' he murmured again, and moved forward decisively. They continued to walk in silence for some moments.

'How did you know that I was thinking of you?' she asked quietly, at length.

'I can always tell. There is a peculiar stony silence which comes over you at times, and I always feel its presence. Very often you remain without speaking for some time, but that is a different silence, and then without looking towards you I feel suddenly that the other has come--that the other has come ... Brenda, and that you are thinking about me!'

'You ought to be highly gratified!' she observed with a lamentable attempt at playfulness.

'And,' he continued in his gently deliberate way, 'when I look at you the same expression is always there. You are always striving to say something which is difficult. Don't say it, Brenda! If it is a question, don't ask it.'

'Why not?'

'Because those things are better left unsaid--those questions are better left unasked. The answer cannot be satisfactory.'

'Then you advocate going through life without ever understanding our fellow-creatures, without ever attempting to enter into each other's joys and sorrows, without pitying, sympathizing, or admiring?'

'No, I do not go so far as that. But I have no patience with people who are constantly fishing for sympathy, constantly confiding imaginary woes to others who have their own affairs to worry them. You should never seek trouble, Brenda. It comes only too naturally of its own free will,' he said in a quick anxious way, endeavouring to keep the conversation in a safe and general channel.

'It seems to me,' she answered after a long pause, 'that stoicism is your aim and creed. To endure, and simply to endure, is your estimate of life. He who endures best, who carries the brightest face before the world, utters the fewest complaints, and deceives most successfully his fellow-creatures, has lived the best life. You never try to see a meaning in it all--you never seek an ulterior motive which is only and solely for our good.'

'My dear Brenda,' said Trist with animation, 'am I a cripple? Am I blind or dumb, or halt--that I have aught to endure?'

'You have something,' was the grave rejoinder. 'There is something, but I do not know what it is, and I would sooner see you openly miserable--cynical, heartless, _anything_ but what you are.'

He laughed aloud, and she shrugged her shoulders with a little smile.

'You should really devote your energies to novel-writing,' he said gaily. 'You see romance where none exists. For you, indigestion is nothing else than a broken heart. An unfortunate gravity of demeanour (like mine) means a cankering sorrow, and every smile is hollow.'

No answering smile came over her face, and she seemed suddenly to remember that Mrs. Wylie might be awake and requiring her presence.

She moved away a little, and stood watching the men at work forward at the windlass. Then she turned and looked past him across the sea.

'I cannot help feeling,' she said, 'that in some way you must owe me a grudge. Of course I had nothing to do with it in reality; but she was my sister, and despite your denial, despite your forbearance and wonderful charity, you must, in your inmost heart, blame Alice.'

He turned his meek eyes towards her face with a patient smile.

'My dear Brenda,' he said remonstratingly, 'what firm convictions you have! Once before--long ago--you hinted at this ... matter, and in reply I insinuated that Alice was nothing to me. Her influence has no weight on my actions; it in no way affects my coming or my going. Please don't think of me and my affairs.'

She moved away slowly, reluctantly, without replying, gliding across the deck with noiseless tread, and so the strange interview terminated with a curious questioning silence on both sides. There was something that she did not dare to ask, something he dreaded, for his eyes were dull with a great suspense as he stood watching her go away from him.

Then he pushed back from his forehead the black sou'-wester he still wore, despite the brilliant sunshine, and somewhat wearily wiped his brow.

There was about this man a strange uncanny quiet. His calm eyes were not devoid of intellect, as most calm eyes are; his mouth and chin were not those of a sensuous, self-indulgent person. In a word, his repose was unnatural. There was in his being a vague suggestion of endurance, as Brenda had discovered. Had he been a parson, one would have said, with that careless, casual judgment of our fellows which is so often terribly correct, that he was conscious of an utter unfitness for priesthood. Had he been a soldier, one would have assigned to him a nervous hatred towards bloodshed and the means of shedding blood. But he had chosen his own profession, and in it had made a decided mark. It was one of those peculiar callings for which peculiar men are specially created by Providence--men endowed with incongruous talents, and contradictory habits of thought and action. Into such callings men are never forced: they force their own way, or they drift into some other means of making a livelihood, and, possessing no peculiar gifts, make no peculiar impression upon the moral and mental sands of their time.

Theodore Trist was undoubtedly created for a special purpose, and so distinct was the destination, that he had, without the aid of circumstance or environment, drifted into the peculiar line of life for which his talents were intended. He was a war-correspondent, and nothing else (unless it were a soldier, in which profession one most important gift would have been lost--that of writing critically and brilliantly). In a few years he had climbed the unsteady ladder of fame, and was now firmly planted on its uppermost rungs. He possessed health, strength, and energy--there was war brooding in the East--he was not blind, nor dumb, nor halt, so what could man wish for more? Yet Brenda Gilholme told him to his face, in her thoughtful, convincing way, that there was something in his life that called for a stoical endurance, and he, failing to laugh scornfully, denied the accusation with visible discomfort.

After she had left the deck, he continued to pace slowly fore and aft by himself. Presently the tide turned, and the anchor came clanking up from its rocky lodging. The huge mainsail spread its broad white bosom to the breeze, and the _Hermione_ began to rise and fall almost imperceptibly. The breeze was light, but the vast expanse of sail caught every passing breath, and steerage-way was soon acquired. Silently, graciously as she had arrived, the yacht left the little forgotten corner of this Northern world, rippling through the foamless waters with stately deliberation. Trist took no part in the well-drilled hurry that attended the departure. He was no sailor: his command was not the loud-voiced autocracy of the master mariner. It was subtle, indefinite, immeasurable.

On the bosom of the receding tide the _Hermione_ left those still waters. Soon she passed the mouth of the river where Admiral Wylie had met his sportsman's fate. So close was she to the high land, that the flow of the river swung her round a little. All who were on deck instinctively ceased their occupations, and stood with idle hands gazing thoughtfully up the deserted gorge. They could hear the breeze whispering among the still pines, murmuring through the fairy silver birches; and behind, in a perspective of sound, the echoing laughter of the river in its rocky bed.

Theo Trist stood alone, apparently emotionless, but when the mouth of the gorge had been shut out of view by the brown slope of a huge hill, Captain Barrow came and stood beside him.

'And now, Mr. Trist,' said the old sailor, 'you'll need some rest. There's a time for all things--a time for tears and a time for laughter, a time for work and a time for sleep.'

Trist looked at the old man in a vague, semi-stupid way.

'And you would suggest that this is a time for sleep, Captain Barrow?'

'Yes--I would that.'

Then he took the young man's arm, and gently forced him to leave the deck.

Trist found the saloon deserted. He passed into his new state-room, and there he mechanically proceeded to make some sort of a toilet. A suit of blue serge was the darkest he possessed, and this he donned, toning it down with a black necktie. He shaved and bathed in a dull, dignified way, as a condemned criminal might do upon the morning of his execution--after a sleepless night.

Then he returned to the saloon. The steward was setting the breakfast-table in the forward part of the cabin near the mainmast, where the dining-room was tacitly understood to be. Further aft were low chairs, a sofa, a piano, and other furniture, constituting a drawing-room.

Trist sank into a low chair, and watched the man's quick, noiseless movements with perfunctory interest. The steward glanced towards him, and his movements became, if possible, more supernaturally silent than before. Then suddenly his long sallow face relaxed into a satisfied smile, and, for his own edification, he nodded his head in a pleased, told-you-so sort of manner.

Trist was asleep.