Chapter III: The End of the World

“What secret can father have with Peter Sundt? Poor dad! He looked so scared and worried! What can have happened, I wonder, to bring Peter so far up here again to Vardo? It’s just seven months ago since dad went south with him.”

The sweet-faced girl of twenty, whose soft, fair hair streamed out upon the icy wind, spoke thus to herself as, resting upon a great brown boulder, she fixed her big grey, wide-open eyes straight before her upon the limitless expanse of stormy Arctic Ocean.

That wide waste of grey, tempest-tossed waters, the very edge of civilisation, were assuredly a sea of despair.

Thyra Berentsen, the bright, merry girl of sweet, almost child-like, beauty, lived amid surroundings which were the most dismal and dispiriting in all that barren, ice-bound, Arctic land of Finmarken.

The month was August, yet she wore a thick blue beret, a fur-lined coat of Astrakhan, and on her hands wool-lined mitts of leather, for there, far east of the North Cape, the thermometer was at freezing point.

Upon a small rocky islet, bare of the slightest trace of vegetation, swept constantly by the cutting blizzards, and buffeted by the long, dark, oily-looking rollers of the Polar Sea, stands a tiny town of low wooden houses, mostly roofed by turf. Such is Vardo, the last post of civilisation in the Far North, and the point of departure of many Arctic explorers who have gone to their graves, and assuredly the most wretched, lonely, and inhospitable spot of any between the high, frowning Nordykn, standing sheer from the glacial ocean, to the White Sea.

On the one side, from the rolling waters, rise the high grey cliffs of the mainland of Europe, while on the other lies the wide, open ocean, where the long breakers roll in from Nova Zembla, the ice-pack, and the unknown frozen Land of the No Return. The wind, the tearing, icy wind, swept that August afternoon straight from the unexplored regions of the Farthest North, causing the girl to button her fur coat tightly at the throat and thrust her mittened hands into her pockets.

“I wonder,” she repeated to herself, “I wonder what it all means?”

Ever and anon she glanced along the path in the direction of the wretched little log-built town, as though in expectation of someone whom she was awaiting.

Behind her, across that narrow strait, lay the great lone land, where even the stunted Arctic willow was unable to take root, and where, indeed, nothing grew save the carpet of a myriad different species of wild flowers, the red cloud-berries, and the yellow reindeer-moss; the dismal uninhabited wilderness of barren rock and sky, of river and limitless tundra, snow-covered plains in winter, but in summer a treacherous, mosquito-infested morass.

In all that wild Norrland beyond the Polar Circle no spot is more bleak or more desolate, nor is the climate with its grey fogs, its continuous blizzards and iron frosts, more terrible anywhere than here. Hammerfest, on the western coast, is the most northerly town in the world, but not the coldest, for it is sheltered by the island of Soro opposite. Vardo, on the contrary, standing out as it does in the Arctic Sea, is more open and exposed than any other inhabited point along that terrible rock-bound coast. Its community is, indeed, a hardy one of sturdy fisher-folk, who year in, year out, battle fiercely with the elements for their bare existence.

Here, it is not the land, but the sea, that is ploughed. Men do not sow and wield the scythe in summer, but reap in mid-winter without having sowed. In the months in which the long night holds its undisputed sway, when the light of the sun has given place to that of the moon, and the rosy flush of dawn and sunset to the glow of the Northern Lights, then those dwellers in the Far North gather in the rich harvest of the sea.

Yet the sky there is ever low and grey, the sea ever stormy, and the winds ever howling, while the temperature, even in August, is that of December in our own much-maligned England. The midnight sun which proves so attractive to European tourists who go in comfortable steamers, and entertained by string-bands, up as far as the North Cape, gives its continuous light in summer; yet, alas! is no compensation for those long months of the Polar night, when God’s blessed sunlight is entirely withheld from that dismal, grey, forgotten land.

In such surroundings, and amid those rough, uncultured toilers of the sea, Thyra—the only daughter of old Captain Berentsen, the harbour-master—had been born, and now lived.

The bleak monotony and stern wildness of everything was, alas! terribly gloomy. The tourist steamers never went so far as Vardo.

Notwithstanding those tempestuous winds, the very air was polluted, for every now and then a breath of the sickening effluvia of the fish-drying houses, the fish-guano works, the whale boileries or the fish offal decaying everywhere in the streets, reached the girl’s nostrils where she sat.

“I wonder why dear old dad is so troubled?” she repeated to herself, sighing as she gazed blankly around upon the cheerless scene, so colourless and so inhospitable. Across her mind at that moment flashed the recollection of Christiania, with all its brightness, its movement and its civilisation; the capital in which she had been for some years at school. But her schooldays being over, she had, three years ago, returned home—returned to an exile’s life among those rude, uncouth fisher-folk, an existence terribly galling to a girl so accomplished and so refined.

She thought of her old schoolfellows living their happy lives, possessing friends and enjoying the sunshine of the south.

And she sighed again.

Hers, alas! was a life of dreary loneliness and cramped confinement upon that narrow, treeless islet, with its eternal odour of decaying codfish. Her life was as monotonous as the scene itself. All her day-dreams down in Christiania had come to naught. Her mother had died long ago, and her father’s household consisted only of herself and Feyia, the old Lapp woman who acted as housekeeper.

In all Vardo there was no girl of similar age or similar education with whom she could associate, for the simple reason that no man would dwell with his family amid that savage sea if he could possibly avoid it.

Reflecting upon this, and still wondering why the red-faced old Peter Sundt, the wealthy fish-exporter, had come up from the south to see her father, she saw on glancing towards the town the tall figure of a young man striding towards her.

The quick flush of colour tinging her soft cheeks told its own tale. He waved his hand, and, smiling, she waved back to the man to whom she was secretly betrothed.

“I am so sorry, darling, that I’m late!” he cried in French, lifting his cap as he took her mittened hand. “I hope you have not waited very long. The mail has just landed, and I was compelled to reply to an important letter.”

“I have not been here long, Paul,” was her reply in the same language. “Have any strangers arrived by the mail boat?”

“Only two Englishmen. They’ve come up from Tromso, the captain told me. I haven’t seen them yet. Really,” he added, “one is quite out-of-the-world up here, with only a mail once a fortnight to create a little excitement and to bring us news from the land of the sunshine.”

They were standing together. He was looking into her raised beautiful countenance with his dark eyes full of passionate love, while the gaze of those blue unfathomable eyes that held him so irresistibly beneath their spell was fixed and unwavering.

Paul Grinevitch was Russian. His knowledge of Norwegian, or of Finnish, was not very extensive, therefore they talked either in French or in English, both of which languages Thyra spoke extremely well. About thirty, tall, athletic, with a handsome, refined face and a small dark moustache, its ends trained upwards in German fashion, he was extremely courteous and gentlemanly, while his bearing was undoubtedly military, though at the moment he was wearing a suit of thick, rough tweeds.

Six months before, he had landed one afternoon from the mail-steamer which had come up from Tromso, and becoming unaccountably attracted by the remoteness of the place from civilisation, had taken up his quarters in the turf-roofed house of an old fisherman, with whom he had made many excursions in the neighbourhood in search of sport.

Any stranger landing at the little place is at once known to everybody; therefore, within a few hours of his arrival, Thyra had found herself introduced to him, and it had been, on the part of both of them, a case of love at first sight.

Paul Grinevitch had pretended that the reason his visit had been so long protracted was because of the excellent fishing and shooting which the neighbourhood afforded. But truth to tell, the sole attraction was the beautiful Thyra, from whom he was unable to tear himself away.

They met—again and again. She had possessed the young Russian, body and soul.

He had told her little about himself, very little, save that he had been at college in Moscow, and that his parents lived away in the far south at Odessa. That he was a gentleman, old Jorgen Berentsen had known instinctively from the very first moment of their acquaintance and that he was comfortably off was likewise apparent. Letters came to him sometimes bearing on their envelopes a golden coronet and cipher, and it was whispered in Vardo that he was the son of a Russian Privy Councillor in the Czar’s _entourage_.

Indeed, on one occasion he had, for one of the fish merchants, scribbled a note to the captain of the port of Archangel, and the bearer of the note had returned and told everybody how all-powerful the recommendation had been, and with what respect the Russian official had treated him.

Therefore, all Vardo knew that Paul Grinevitch was a gentleman, even though they regarded the reason of his continued residence among them as something of a mystery. It was known that he was frequently in Thyra’s company—and everybody wondered.

They were, indeed, a handsome pair, as they stood together at the edge of those cold, grim waters.

He was in love with this beautiful daughter of the Arctic—in love with her honestly, deeply, completely. Paul, to whom the smartest salons of Petersburg, of Moscow, and of Paris were ever open, loved the sweet-faced daughter of the old weather-beaten sailor of the Polar seas.

He had not released her hand, but stood with it held in his own, gazing into those deep, child-like eyes that held him ever in such fascination.

“Thyra!” he exclaimed in a deep, low, earnest tone, as a sigh escaped him.

“Well?” she asked, looking up into his face as she smiled mischievously, all trace of the troubled expression upon her countenance having vanished.

“Thyra—my own darling!” he cried. “I—I—I want to tell you something, but—well, I—I can’t!” And he sighed again and drew himself up, his passionate gaze still fixed immovably upon her.

“Why not?” she asked simply. “If it is a secret, surely you can trust me? Am I not your betrothed?”

“Ah, yes!” he cried hoarsely. “It is just because of that—because we are to marry in a few weeks that I cannot tell you.”

The girl stared at her lover in blank surprise. She had never before seen him so distressed. What could he mean? Had the mail just in brought him bad news?

A serious, apprehensive look overspread her beautiful face—a face that was,—indeed, peerless in its perfection. The soft sweetness of her features, so well-cut and so regular, was such that it would assuredly have caused comment even among the women of the _haut monde_ in the Park or in the Bois. Hers was a type of rare, delicate beauty, with her unfathomable eyes, her well formed nose, her pointed chin and dimpled cheeks; a beauty that was delightfully innocent and child-like, without being insipid; a beauty the more remarkable considering the rigour of that terrible climate, and how soon, alas! the faces of the sturdy men and women of the Finmarken coast—the end of the civilised world—become hard, furrowed and weather-beaten.

The long strands of fair hair blown out upon the wind were soft as floss silk, and as she smiled she disclosed an even row of pearly teeth behind dainty lips, bearing upon them the true bow of Cupid, and made for kisses.

Yes, Thyra was lovely. The young Russian told himself that again, as indeed he had done a thousand times within those past six months. Among the girls he had met in Paris and in Petersburg, in Monte Carlo or in Rome, he had never met one so beautiful, so dainty, so full of inexpressible charm.

And she was his—his very own. She had promised, three weeks ago, to be his wife, and old Jorgen, the bluff old retired Arctic sea-captain, had given his consent upon one condition—that the strictest secrecy was to be observed regarding the engagement.

Why, they both wondered. What motive had the old fellow in withholding the news from that tiny, gossiping, rough-and-ready little world of Vardo?

“Paul,” exclaimed the girl, slowly twining her soft arm around her lover’s neck, regardless of the fact that they might be observed. “Do tell me, dearest, what is troubling you. Why does our forthcoming marriage prevent you telling the truth to me—the woman who is to be your wife?” she asked in English in a low, persuasive tone, raising her lips to his and fondly kissing him with long, clinging caress. That kiss itself was assuredly enough to make any man’s head reel.

The young man sighed. She noticed his brow contract as he bit his nether lip involuntarily.

“Because, my darling—because it is a secret which, though I long to confide it to you, I—I dare not. Indeed, I must not. You are to be my wife—my own love—” And he held her with trembling hands and kissed her with the fierce passion of affection. “But there—I was a fool to have mentioned it—to have aroused your apprehension, my own dear heart. I so long to be able to tell you, and yet—and yet—”

“Yet what, Paul?”

“I cannot. I—I dare not.”

“Not when I, Thyra, ask you to tell me? Not when I make an urgent request to you—the man who is to be my husband?” she asked in a voice of quiet, earnest reproach.

“No, no!” he cried, in quick distress, his gloved hand clenched in desperation. “No, darling; don’t put it like that. Forget, I beg of you; forget my unpardonable foolishness in mentioning a matter which, after all, does not concern you, and has naturally aroused within you some grave forebodings. We love each other, surely that is sufficient? Come, let us put all gloomy thoughts aside.”

“Then your thoughts are actually gloomy ones?” she exclaimed, in quick alarm. “Why do you try to conceal the truth from me, Paul? This is not like you.”

“Because, my darling, in this matter it is, for the present, imperative that—that I should remain silent. Silence is best for you, and for me,” answered the young man. “One day you will know; but, Thyra, though I regret deeply that I cannot explain matters, you must, for the present, remain in ignorance. I cannot bring myself to tell you. No, I will not, even though I could. You love me, my own dear heart, therefore why should I bring upon you sorrow, apprehension, perhaps a great bitterness of heart? Let us live—let us be happy, even though our bliss may be fleeting as your summer snows. You are mine, my own sweet well-beloved—my own darling wife that is to be!”