Sons of the Viking

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7930, 13 October 1911, Page 5

Sons of the Viking

By ELIZABETH PUTNAM BINGHAM

“\Y/ HY ' J ' as^ Miss Winston abruptW ly of her hostess, "why, when 1 tomo to dinner, do you have three extra men ?" "For much the same reason that when Delia Xhxncan is coining I have one short. She, with a certain effort, can amuse the half of a man. while you without, can manage four,'" was tho reply. , “Tho underlying principle being that in both cases you and Jack can have a chance at each other/’ Miss Winston came over for her coffee, giving Mrs Fisk a little tap on the shoulder, as sho took the cun from her hand, "iou and Jack hit it off pretty well together don't you, dear?” Marian Fisk laughed happily. The low, confused murmur from tho i room beyond died away, and one clear, strong voice went on alone in tho husn. Janet Winston stood for a moment in tho centre of tho room; then suddenly she put her cup back on the table, untouched. “Marian, to-day is ray birthday. 1 am thirty. This afternoon 1 sat a while with tho pros and cons of my life, and for the livst time in all these years r folt cheated, mul-ovelopcd and lonely. To-night I conic here—and meet a No/to god.” Mrs Fisk smiled into the lovely Hush-* ed face above her. “Dr Von Nclting is superb/ she agreed, though her sentence ended iu th© questioning Southern lilt. MS SS Winston answered the intonation; "Tos." Then she added, after a inoment’h pause: “Tell me about him/' • "Why, Janie, this is spelndid! lon liko him?" Mrs Fisk leaned forward eagerly. "Like him!" echoed the other, adding in a different tone: "Toll me about him."

"Dr Von Netting, through his profession, holds an important government position in Paris, lie is a widower with ono son. Ho must have married very voting —these foreigners do. you know—for Karl is nearly twenty-live. JWo met thom'abroad two years ago, Karl is a splendid young chap, and is rjuite as tall and hno locking as his father. He's studying in Berlin, now. Dr Von Netting is here on an important commission. .Tack put him up at the club: wo asked yon to dinner; and that’s all/’ Shouts of laughter from the adjoining room, and the scraping of chairs ns they were pushed back, interrupted their conversation. Miss Winston moved nniotly to a seat near the fireplace, as tlio same clear voice she had heard be- ; fore grew more distinct. Dr Von Netting was the first to enter tho room, and some emotion—fear, perhaps, or a strange exultation-—gripped the woman like a hand at her throat, as ho came over to her, directly and without hesitation, ".Mrs Fisk tells rao that you are going abroad in June, Miss Winston. Ton have chosen Quite the best season for it, though the world is beautiful everywhere in Juno." "I have decided not to go, after all" she returned, speaking frankly, and as

If sure of being understood. "One's ‘first-’ of Durope is a big thing; and I find I am unwilling to share mine with anyone ■who would not comprehend just what it moans to me."

"You aro young to have discovered that a thing ono cares much about is best left unexplored, undone, unless tho way of doing it is tho right one/' As she drew her gown aside to make rcora for him on the high backed divan, he glanced at tho clock. "I have an important engagement, a very important one, or I should not go. ; I shaJl see you again, at your own

home, if I may." "Certainly. I want you to know my ‘brother.*’ Her words were conventional, her tone strangely colourless; but she felt that this was her supreme moment, the instant in which a new door of life was being thrown open to her, a now spirit born. stood in silence looking at her. A Korso god, perhaps: but. better than that, - a man. His heavy hair was iron grey; -his face was white, the features stern and clearly cut. The broad* shoulders. the strong frame, and the superb head belonged to the Viking; but*the! manner, the unconscious bearing, to the gentleman.

“Thank you, good night/' lie was gone without touching her hand. A few moments later, having taken leave of his hostess. Dr Von Netting paused at the drawing-room door and glanced hack at the young woman, who now stood in the centre, of the room. Janet, "Winston's beauty was indisputable. It was not dependent upon light or shadow, colour or mood; her proud little head with its heavy braided coil, her clear, dark eyes and straight-lipped mouth, belonged to the suggestion of tense self-control, which vibrated through one's impression of her. Inside and out Janet Winston was balanced and consistent. To the man watching her so closely, she did not seem elusive, fascinating or adorable. She seemed simply to have stepped into life, straight out of his dreams.

t In . h . e , r - omi room that night, Janet Winston sat nuiet and apparently at rest, while great waves of pain, relief, and an almost stinging sense of unrest, swept over her. Sho was 1 not a sentimental woman, nor, as a rule, emotional; but behind that buoyant personality, which seemed to sing through lito as a sea breeze sings through the sunlight there was a space unfilled. She had lived her years normally, naturally; but her heart was strangely virgin. She had kept it unhurt; unsearrecl, for the one nglit man. But when a woman has waited long, without impatience, there .are moments when she is tempted to deceive herself, to choose a mate whom the inner voice does not call by name, but who is fittest among those near her. Janet recalled that'such a crisis had come to her only a month ago. Since passing through it, sho had looked deeper a ? d ,„" lore nakedly into the apparent non-fulfilment of her life. .

.The courtship was so brief that even airman Fisk, who had recognised their immediate interest in each other, was amazed. Dr Von Netting was irreproachati.o, uncxceptionablo as a man; but ho Was older, more experienced in life than the man she would have chosen hm her friend. Janet had much to give* her beauty, her youth, her joy of" life’ her faith in it, too. But there were no doubts in Janet's heart, as there had been no hesitation when Jnn-_Von Ncltmg had asked her to be his wife. The complete joy of surrender can come only to a woman intelligent mature and temperamentally independent., She was his; there could have boon no other man. One day, during the first week of their engagement, she had looked up snddenlr into fc l .? , p^s ’ and half-laughed, ns at a childish memory. And X thought I was a woman, a full-grown woman. Life seemed so simple so under ray control to do with as I liked. I was so young, so sure" she said, a note of wonder creeping into her happy voice. "But. yon know just before you came, I had suddenly jmiwn afraid. *

"Of Jife, dear?” he asked. "One does get frightened sometimes." /'No; I was not so afraid of life as ot going on into it"—she hesitated, and drawing away from him, looked up into his face—"of going on alone." Ho bent his head and kissed her. The first real step toward the fulfilment of an individual existence comes when one has found a place for the cor-ner-stone. Janet Winston lived through the short weeks of her engagement fully conscious of her happiness. Each hornspent with her lover was a revelation fn her. She retied upon his judgment and strength with the instinctive trust of a

child; but her woman’s brain saw, and perhaps wondered at, the sweetness underneath, the marvellous tenderness with which he surrounded her. Near ni;n she rested and was at peace. Thov were to be married very quietly. The wedding trip was to ho a continuation of the tour Dr Von Netting had planned before he came to America. Janet was glad of this decision. ane wished to become a part of Jan’s life and ■ work as soon as possible. She did not ask to dream in a garden apart, alone ? with him; but to walk straight down the Invader thoroughfare, among tho world of men. So the days slipped by until a month before tho wedding day. It was a clear, bright morning in early October, when tho air is like wine; and Janet find thrown up her window to let it all in. The suu, die touch of frost in the wind, : f he yellow and red loaves—each was a . .-■•dl to arms, an individual bugle note. Alien Kail Von .Melting's card was h ought to her. Miss Winston’s murmur: Mu a few moments/’ was almost unconsciously given. She stood motionless for a long time, looking out across in© sunlit world with unseeing eyes. She knew that Jan had a sou and that he was coming; but his actual arrival was a shock to her. Why? She could not answer the question, and sho went down to him almost reluctantly. As she entered, a young man who had been pacing tho floor restlessly, turned toward her, and Dr Von Nelting’s son and his betrothed stood face to face. She had expected a boy; Karl von Nclting, in spite of his youth, was a man. ife was big ami blonde liko his father, with the same proud head, the same dignity and ease of bearing. Sho had conio down to welcome her son, and this was not, could never be—her son! "Von arc Miss Winston’s sister?" he lasked, in the little dull pause which followed her entrance. The sound of his voice seemed to steady her. "No; X am Miss ‘Winston herself. I am very glad to soo you." Sho held outlier hand to him; and at once, in her giacious way, found other conventional things to say.

When the long busy day was at an end, Janet sat before tho cheerful little lire in her sitting room, so numb that even tho raising of her hands, the lifting of her eyelids, seemed impersonal. They wore so alike, the father and son, so pitilessly alike. I Karl was not Jan’s son, but his younger self, his own untried, unclaimed youth. She had seemed to road in Karl's oyes the same message, the same summons, to which sho had responded just a few weeks before; but tho eyes of the older man held something which was not written in the other’s, steady and clear though they were. Suddenly, tho difference was plain to her; it was not new to Jan, this miracle which love. weaves into tho meaning of life. He knew the happiness which the* close companionship of marriage brings; ho was even a father. She could give him nothing that had not been his' before. Surely and unconsciously, she would be fitted into tho mould of his experience—that other woman, Jan's wife and Karl's mother. Sho who had waited so long, all her life, for something which would be her own, given by a man who had waited for her as she bad waited for him, she would merely fill the place of another. Until this mo-

ment, sho had never realised that Jan had not waited. And Karl, his son I Karl, who was his father's younger self, had to give just what had been given to that other woman. Janet crushed tho bare thought, oven, as it was born; but thero were white lines of suffering about her mouth as the remembrance of it lingered, j /-idie days followed each other swiftly, differing so little that each seemed like tho one before. Janot found herself grateful for the mere conventions of social intercourse, the careless light current which carried her impersonally above tho deeper .water into which she • dared not look. She was surprised at tho interest* sho took in the casual j nothings of the most formal man who took her in to dinner, although she re- ! a Used that they were mere straws at ’ which she clutched to prevent herself < from being swept below, to face that < thought she had stifled as surely as if she had held it in her hands. i

Tho strain told upon her gradually. Meeting her own ©yes in the mirror one morning, sho was shocked at the change that had come into them. She wondered if her unrest was written there nakedly, for the whole world to see. But on the evening of Mrs Fisk’s dinner in her honour, she was her radiant self. What the effort cost her was not in the least apparent, ! and only her woman’s heart knew that she had suffered. It was but a short week now before her wedding to Jan Von Uniting, and she had neither said nor done anything to delay or prevent it. John Fisk, at whose side she sat, exchanged one short glance of conviction with his wife, as the women rose from the table. That Janet was not herself was dimly perceived only by these two friends who loved her, and they were powerless to help. Marian Fisk could only stare back at her husband with vague comprehension. II er own love affair had been so simple. There was only Jack. How could any woman bo in doubt about such a thing! But later, seeing tho tvvo men together and always near the woman who would soon be the wife of tho older man, she began to realise tho strange power that each held over her friend. Sho saw, as Janet had seen, that they wore pitilessly alike!

At the foot of tho staircase father and sen waited, for Janet. Jan went forward to , meet her.

Karl will drive homo with you, dear," ho said, and explained-tho importance of an official engagement. "It seems strange to mo that I came over nere to represent my country, not solely to find you, he whispered low. Then, (hairing her hand through his arm, ho led her away, tossing a laughing goodmght to the others. Karl followed, and the door closed on the three. Janet leaned back in a corner of tho carnage, unwilling to bo silent, but too proud to shield herself behind an obvious attempt at conversation. They drove to her door almost without a word. She did rot ask Karl to coma in; but he followed her into tho hall with a definite purpose which she half divined Good-night!" Janet held out her hand.

The boy released it after a brief moment, and stepped back, holding her eyes wit a the intensity of his own. J lovo yon." bo said in a low tone. Tho words struck Janet like a lash. She drew herself to her full height, subconsciously and curiously resenting the expression of what she knew to bo true. But there was no need to dismiss him. Be was gone. As she Stumbled up tho stairs, her soul as blind as her tearless eyes, one thought only was distinct and clear above tho chaos, the wreckage of all in which she had believed a week ago She was five years older than Karl Vo.n Ncltoho had realised this because ho hart spoken. Ho was younger oven than the five years; for she. in his place, would not have said tho words, ilis father would never have said them. She paced the floor back and forth until the sound ot her own footsteps made her nerves tingle, while tho disloyal confession rang in her ears. The rest, the utter peace she had found with Jan would never como to her through this younger man; yet was it not better that they two, untried, unfettered by tho memories o. past loves, should struggle on hand in hand, loving, learning together? She was young. This bov's love was hers clone, and beyond all things in tho world, completely hers. And Jan with his clear, steady eyes and the place above his heart where her head had so often rested; the protection of his arms, and his absolute comprehension of her every thought and reeling. Ho would understand oven this

disloyalty. Tho word stung her. bho was disloyal. Karl had spoken, and though she had not listened to nim, she had heard. Karl's claiming the right to speak! Was it brave or cowardly? No, not cowardly. So any of his Viking ancestors would have claimed the woman he loved, would have fought for her ami held hor close, against the world, ignoring any prior claim upon her or any chain which might bind his own arms; and the Viking women had loved their warriors, had nose content to bo so won. In her proud misery, alone and utterly exhausted, sho sobbed in the darkness, while iho little firo flickered and Hared, and at last died out.

“Dr Von Nelting and Mr Karl \on Ncltiag/’ Together! Tut that was impossible; she could not meet them together! rthe turned to the maid who stood waiting; "In a few moments I will go down." It was the next day; but tho intervening hours had brought no relief. Janet did not move for some time; then abruptly, because each instant made it harder to face them, sho left tho room and swiftly descended the broad staircase. A clear, strong voice arrested Her on the landing. It was Jan’s. “You should have told me this before wo came. Karl. I understand; 1 am not angry • but " The boy’s voice interrupted; he spoke for some moments, in a low, passionate murmur; but Janet did not hear tho words. She came down the stairs and crossed tho hail as if uncertain of her way. Tho answering voice rang out clearly:

"Yes, that I understand, too. you had the right, as a man, to speak, \vhni. you urge is true—and cruel—but that is because you are young, Karl. 1 Have lived my life; but"—lie hesitated, and as she swayed there, listening, trembling, she knew tho words which followed were hard to say—“l have never loved any woman but Janet Winston. Before I mot hor, I did not know. You have a right to bo hoard, somo claim, perhaps; but I have a stronger right to hold what X have won. She told mo with her own lips that she loved mo. As 3’ou have already spoken to her, she must decide; but I will not offer her any freedom. I shall not insult her by admitting, oven for an instant, that her words to me and our life together fur these short weeks have been a lie/’ There was a pause, theu again the boy spoke. This time the words were indistinct, and although Janet knew they rang out in defence, in explanation, she could not follow them. Karl was defending her to Jan! Sha waited breathless, yet with a curious sense of anger, resentment surging through hor. ‘W ould he never stop ? She had ceased to catch the meaning of his words; for suddenly nothing seemed to matter in life, but j the older, clearer voice.

"You aro mistaken, Karl. I have won the woman I love, and I shall hold tier against the world. Neither you nor any other man can tako her from me. When she asks rao to release her, I will do so—but she, will not ask mo." T.hero was defiance in the tone, courage to fight, and belief in her. Her thoughts of the night before passed again through her mind like faint echoes; so the liking would fight for tho woman he loved; so would he hold her close and defy tho world. And was it by seme psychic divination that the Viking ki ew his mate, knew which woman so tu hold and to make his own?"

Without another conscious thought she made tier way toward Jan, blindly seeking the shelter of his arras. This was her haven; here she was at rest, at peace.