Part 20

In the evening I went down by the little stone steps to the shrubbery and sat there a while. The jasmines were pouring out waves of perfume after the heat of the day. After awhile Nils came down, looking for me.

“No visitors here now,” says Nils. “And no high goings-on at nights. Have you heard anything of that sort at night now, since the Captain first came back?”

“No.”

“And that's full ten weeks ago now. What d'you say if I tore off this thing now?” And he pointed to his temperance badge. “Captain's given up drinking, here's Fruen home again, and no call to be unfriendly anyway to either of them.”

He handed me a knife, and I cut the badge away.

We talked for a bit about the farm-work--Nils thought of nothing else. “We'll have most of the corn under shelter by tomorrow night,” he says. “And thank goodness for that! Then we'll sow the winter rye. Queer thing, isn't it? Here's Lars went on year after year sowing by machine, and thought it good enough. Not if I know it! We'll sow ours by hand.”

“But why?”

“On land like ours! Now just take the man over there, for instance; he sowed by machine three weeks ago and some's come up and some not. No. The machine goes too deep in the soil.”

“H'm! Don't the jasmines smell fine tonight?”

“Yes. There's been a big difference with the barley and oats these last few days. Getting on time for bed, though, now!”

He got up, but I did not move. “Looks like being fine again tomorrow,” says Nils, glancing at the sky. And then he went on about the grass in the garden; worth cutting, he said it was.

“You going to stay down here long?” he asked suddenly.

“Yes, for a bit; why not? Oh, well, perhaps I'd better go up too.”

Nils walked off a few paces, then came back again.

“Better not stay here any longer,” he said. “Come along up here with me.”

“Think so?” I said, and rose at once. Evidently Nils had something in his mind, and had come down here on purpose to fetch me.

Had he found me out? But what was there to find out?

Did I know myself what I had gone down to the shrubbery for? I remember now that I lay face downwards, chewing a stalk of grass. There was light in a certain upstairs window of the house. I was looking at that. And that was all.

“Not being inquisitive now, but what's the matter?” I asked.

“Nothing,” said Nils. “The girls said you were down here, so I just came along. Why, what else?”

So the maids had found me out, I thought to myself, and was ill pleased at the thought. Ragnhild it must be, a devil of a girl, sharp as a needle; she must have said a lot more than Nils was willing to confess. And what if Fruen herself had seen me from the window!

I resolved now to be cold and indifferent as ice henceforward all the days of my life.

* * * * *

Ragnhild is properly in clover. The thick stair carpet muffles every step; she can run upstairs whenever she pleases and slip down again in a moment without a sound.

“I can't make it out about Fruen,” says Ragnhild.

“Here she's come back, and ought to be happy and good tempered as could be, and instead she's all tears and frowning. I heard the Captain telling her today: 'Now do be a little reasonable, Lovise,' he said. 'I'm sorry, I won't do it any more,' says Fruen; and then she cried because she'd been unreasonable. But that about never doing it any more--she's said that now every day since she came back, but she's done it again, all the same. Poor dear, she'd a toothache today; she was simply crying out with the pain....”

“Go and get on with the potatoes, Ragnhild,” said Nils quickly. “We've no time for gossiping now.”

We'd all of us our field-work now; there was much to be done. Nils was afraid the corn would spoil if he left it too long at the poles; better to get it in as it was. Well and good; but that meant threshing the worst of it at once, and spreading the grain over the floor of every shed and outhouse. Even in our own big living-room there was a large layer of corn drying on the floor. Any more irons in the fire? Ay, indeed, and all the while hot and waiting. Bad weather has set in, and all the work ought to be done at once. When we've finished threshing, there's the fresh straw to be cut up and salted down in bins to keep it from rotting. That all? Not by a long way: irons enough still glowing hot. Grindhusen and the maids are pulling potatoes. Nils snatches the precious time after a couple of dry days to sow a patch of rye and send the lad over it with the harrow. Lars Falkenberg is still ploughing; he has given way altogether and turned out a fine ploughman since the Captain and Fruen came back. When the corn-land's too soft he ploughs the meadows; then, when sun and wind have dried things a bit, he goes on to the corn-land again.

The work goes on steadily and well; in the afternoon the Captain himself comes out to lend a hand. The last load of corn in being brought in.

Captain Falkenberg is no child at the work, big and strong he is, and with the right knack of it. See him loading up oats from the drying-frames: his second load now.

Just then Fruen comes along down the road, and crosses over to where we are at work. Her eyes are bright. She seems pleased to watch her husband loading up corn.

“_Signe Arbejdet!_” [Footnote: “A blessing on the work.”] she says.

“Thanks,” says the Captain.

“That's what we used to say in Nordland.”

“What?”

“That's what we used to say in Nordland.”

“Oh yes.”

The Captain is busy with his work, and in the rustle of the straw he does not always hear what she says, but has to look up and ask again, and this annoys them both.

“Are the oats ripe?” she asks.

“Yes, thank goodness!”

“But not dry, I suppose?”

“Eh? I can't hear what you say.”

“Oh, I didn't say anything.”

A long, uncomfortable silence after that. The Captain tries once or twice with a good-humoured word, but gets no answer.

“So you're out on a round of inspection,” he says jestingly. “Have you seen how the potatoes are getting on?”

“No,” she answers. “But I'll go over there, by all means, if you can't bear the sight of me here.”

It was too dreadful to hear them going on like this. I must have frowned unconsciously--shown some such feeling. Then, suddenly remembering that for certain reasons I was to be cold as ice, I frowned the more.

Freun looked straight at me and said:

“What are you scowling at?”

“Scowling, eh?” says the Captain, joining in, with a forced laugh.

Fruen takes him up on the instant.

“Ah! you managed to hear that time!”

“Really, Lovise....”

Fruen's eyes dimmed suddenly; she stood a moment then ran, stooping forward, round behind the frames, and sobbed.

The Captain went over to her. “What is it, Lovise, tell me?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing! Go away.”

She was sick; we could hear it. And moaning and saying: “Heaven help me!”

“My wife's not very well just now,” says the Captain to me. “We can't make out what it is.”

“There's sickness in the neighbourhood,” I suggested, for something to say. “Sort of autumn fever. I heard about it up at the post office.”

“Is there, though? Why, there you are, Lovise,” he calls out. “There's some sort of fever about, it seems. That's all it is.”

Fruen made no answer.

We went on loading up, and Fruen moved farther and farther away as we came up. At last the frames were cleared, and she stood there guiltily, very pale after her trouble.

“Shall I see you back to the house?” asked the Captain.

“No, thank you, I'd rather not,” she answered, walking away.

The Captain stayed out and worked with us till evening.

* * * * *

So here was everything gone wrong again. Oh, but it was hard for them both!

And it was not just a little matter that could be got over by a little give and take on either side, as folk say; no, it was a thing insuperable, a trouble rooted deep. And now it had come to mutiny, no less: Fruen had taken to locking her door at night. Ragnhild had heard the Captain, highly offended, talking to her through the wall.

But that evening the Captain had demanded to speak with her in her room before she went to bed. Fruen agreed, and there was a further scene. Each was willing and anxious, no doubt, to set matters right, but it was hopeless now; it was too late. We sat in the kitchen, Nils and I, listening to Ragnhild's story. I had never seen Nils look so miserable before.

“If things go wrong again now, it's all over,” he said. “I thought to myself last summer that perhaps a good, sound thrashing would do her good. But that was just foolishness, I can see now. Did she talk about running away again?”

“She said something about it,” answered Ragnhild. And then she went on something like this: “It began with the Captain asking if she didn't think it was this local sickness she had got. Fruen answered it could hardly be any local sickness that had turned her against him so. 'Turned you against me?' 'Yes. Oh, I could scream sometimes. At table, for instance, the way you eat and eat....' 'Do I?' says the Captain. 'Well, I can't see there's anything very wrong in that; it's just natural. There's no rule for how much one ought to eat at a meal.' 'But to have to sit and look at you--it makes me sick. It's that that makes me ill.' 'Well, anyhow, you can't say I drink too much now,' said he. 'So it's better than it was.' 'No, indeed, it's worse!' Then says the Captain: 'Well, really, I do think you might make allowances for me a little, after I've--I mean, considering what you did yourself this summer.' 'Yes, you're right,' says Fruen, beginning to cry. 'If you knew how it hurts and plagues me night and day, thinking of that.... But I've never said a word.' 'No, I know,' says she, crying all the more. 'And I asked you myself to come back,' he said. But at that she seemed to think he was taking too much credit to himself; she stopped crying, and answered, with a toss of her head: 'Yes, and it would have been better if you'd never asked me back, if it was only to go on like this.' 'Like what?' says he. 'You've your own way in everything now. The same as before, only you don't care for anything at all. You never touch the piano, even; only go about cross and irritable all the time; there's no pleasing you with anything. And you shut your door at night and lock me out. Well and good; lock me out if you like!' 'It's you that are hard to please, if you ask me,' she said. 'There's never a night and never a morning but I'm worried out of my life lest you shall be thinking of--this summer. You've never said a word about it, you say. Oh, don't you, though! I'm never left long in peace without you throwing it in my teeth. I happened to say “Hugo” one day, by a slip of the tongue, and what did you do? You might have been nice and comforted me to help me over it, but you only scowled and said you were not Hugo. No. I knew well enough, and I was ever so sorry to have said it.' 'That's just the point,' said the Captain. 'Were you really sorry?' 'Yes, indeed,' said Fruen; 'it hurt me ever so.' 'Well, I shouldn't have thought it; you don't seem very upset about it.' 'Ah, but what about you? Haven't you anything to be sorry for?' 'You've got photos of Hugo on your piano still; I haven't seen you move them away yet, though I've shown you not once but fifty times I wished you to--yes, and begged you to do it.' 'Oh, what a fuss you make about those photos!' said she. 'Oh, don't make any mistake! I'm not asking you now. If you went and shifted them now, it would make no difference. I've begged and prayed of you fifty times before. Only, I think it would have been a little more decent if you'd burned them the day you came home. But, instead of that, you've books here lying about in your room with his name in. And there's a handkerchief with his initials on, I see.' 'Oh, it's all your jealousy,' answered Fruen. 'I can't see what difference it makes. I can't kill him, as you'd like me to, and Papa and Mama say the same. After all, I've lived with him and been married to him.' 'Married to him?' 'Yes, that's what I say. It isn't every one that looks at Hugo and me the way you do.' The Captain sat a while, shaking his head. 'And it's all your own fault, really,' Fruen went on, 'the way you drove off with Elisabet that time, though I came and asked you not to go. It was then it happened. And we'd been drinking that evening. I didn't quite know what I was doing.' Still, the Captain said nothing for a while; then at last he said: 'Yes, I ought not to have gone off like that.' 'No, but you did,' said Fruen, and started crying again. 'You wouldn't hear a word. And you're always throwing it in my teeth about Hugo, but you never think of what you've done yourself.' 'There's just this difference,' says the Captain, 'that I've never lived with the lady you mention, never been married to her, as you call it.' Fruen gave a little scornful laugh. 'Never!' said the Captain, striking the table with his hand. Fruen gave a start, and sat staring at him. 'Then--I don't understand why you were always running after her and sitting out in the summer-house and lurking in corners,' said she. 'It was you that sat out in the summer-house,' he answered. 'Oh yes, it's always me,' said she. 'Never you by any chance!' 'As for my running after Elisabet,' said the Captain, 'it was solely and simply in the hopes of getting you back. You'd drifted away from me, and I wanted you.' Fruen sat thinking over that for a minute, then she sprang up and threw her arms around him and said: 'Oh, then you cared for me all the time! And I thought it was all over. You'd drifted away from me, too; it was years since. And it all seemed so hopeless. I never thought--I never knew.... And then it was me you cared for all the time! Oh, my dear, then it's all come right again.' 'Sit down,' said he. 'You seem to forget that something else has happened since.' 'Something else?' 'There you are, you've forgotten all about it. May I ask you, are you sorry enough for what's happened since?' At that Fruen turned hard again and said: 'Oh, you mean about Hugo? That's done and can't be altered.' 'That doesn't answer the question.' 'If I'm sorry enough? What about you; are you so innocent yourself?' At this the Captain got up and began walking up and down. 'The trouble is that we've no children,' said Fruen. 'I haven't a daughter that I could teach and bring up to be better than I am,' 'I've thought of that,' said the Captain, 'perhaps you're right.' Then he turned straight towards her and said: 'It's a nasty crash that's come over us, Lovise--like a landslide. But don't you think now we might set to work and shift away all the wreckage that's been burying us for years, and get clear and breathe again? You might have a daughter yet!' At that Fruen got up and made as if to say something, but couldn't. 'Yes,' was all she said, and 'Yes,' she said again. 'You're tired and nervous, I know,' he said. 'But think a little over what I've said. Another time.' 'Good-night,' said she.”

XI

The Captain spoke to Nils about the timber; he thought of disposing of the whole lot, or selling it standing. Nils took this to mean that he didn't like the idea of having more new folk about the place. “It looks like things are as bad as ever with him and Fruen,” said Nils.

We are getting in the potatoes now, and since we are thus far there is less hurry and anxiety about the work. But there is still much to be done. The ploughing is behindhand, and Lars Falkenberg and I are both at it, field and meadow land.

Nils, queer creature that he was, began to find things intolerable at Øvrebø again, and talked of throwing up his place and going off altogether. But he couldn't bear the disgrace of leaving his service like that. Nils had his own clear notions of honour, handed down through many generations. A young man from a big farm could not behave like a lad from a cottar's holding. And then he hadn't been here long enough yet; Øvrebø had been sadly ill-managed before he came: it would take some years to bring it round again. It was only this year, when he'd had more help with the work, that he'd been able to do anything properly. But from now onward he might begin to look for some result of his work; look at this year's harvest, the fine heavy grain! The Captain, too, had looked at the crops with wonder and thankfulness--the first time for many years. There would be plenty to sell.

All things considered, then, it was senseless for Nils to think of leaving Øvrebø. But he must go home for a couple of days to his people--they lived a little way north of us. So he gave himself two days' leave as soon as the potatoes were all out of the ground. No doubt he'd good reason for going--perhaps to see his sweetheart, we thought--and when he came back he was bright and full of energy as ever, and took up work again at once.

We were sitting at dinner in the kitchen one day when out comes Fruen from the front door of the house, and goes tearing down the road, all wild and excited. Then the Captain came out, calling after her: “Lovise, what is it, Lovise? Where are you going?” But Fruen only called back: “Leave me alone!”

We looked at one another. Ragnhild rose from the table; she must go after her mistress, she said.

“That's right,” said Nils, calm as ever. “But go indoors first and see if she's moved those photographs.”

“They're still there,” said Ragnhild as she went out.

Outside, we heard the Captain telling her to go and look after her mistress.

There was no one but took thought for Fruen in her distress.

We went out to the fields again. Said Nils to me:

“She ought to take away those photos; it's not right of her to leave them there. I don't know what she can be thinking of to do it.”

What do you know about it? I thought to myself. Oh, I was so clever with my knowledge of the world, and all I'd learned on my wanderings, I thought I would try him now; perhaps he was only showing off.

“I can't understand why the Captain hasn't taken and burnt them long ago,” said I.

“No, that's all wrong,” said Nils. “I wouldn't have done that either.”

“Oh, indeed!”

“It wouldn't be for me to do it, but for her.”

We walked on a little. And then Nils said a thing that showed his sound and right instinct.

“Poor lady!” he said. “She's not got over that slip of hers this summer; it's troubling her still. From all I can see, there's some people pick up again all right after a fall, and go on through life with no more than the mark of a bruise. But there's some that never get over it.”

“Fruen seems to be taking it easy enough,” said I, still trying him.

“How can we tell? She's been unlike herself, to my mind, ever since she's been back,” he answered. “She's got to live, of course, but she's lost all harmony, perhaps. I don't know much about it, but harmony, that's what I mean. Oh yes, she can eat and laugh and sleep, no doubt, but ... I followed one such to the grave, but now....”

And at that I was no longer cold and wise, but foolish and ashamed, and only said:

“So it was that? She died, then?”

“Yes. She wished it so,” said Nils. And then suddenly: “Well, you and Lars get on with the ploughing. We ought soon to be through with things now.”

And we went each our separate way.

I thought to myself: a sister of his, perhaps, that had gone wrong, and he'd been home and followed her to the grave. _Herregud!_ there are some that never get over it; it shakes them to their foundations; a revolution. All depends on whether they're coarse enough. Only the mark of a bruise, said Nils. A sudden thought came to me, and I stopped: perhaps it was not his sister, but his sweetheart.

Some association of ideas led me to think of my washing. I decided to send the lad up for it.

* * * * *

It was evening.

Ragnhild came to me and begged me to keep awake again; there was dreadful trouble up at the house. Ragnhild herself was greatly upset, and dared not sit anywhere now in the half-dark but upon my knees. It was always so with her; emotion made her frightened and tender--frightened and tender, yes.

“But can you be away like this? Is there any one in your place in the kitchen?” I asked.

“Yes. Cook's going to listen for the bell. You know, I side with the Captain,” she declared. “I've sided with him all along.”

“Oh, that's only because he's a man.”

“No, it's not.”

“You'd much better side with Fruen.”

“You only say that because she's a woman,” answered Ragnhild in her turn. “But you don't know all I do. Fruen's so unreasonable. We didn't care a bit about her, she said, and left her all to herself, whatever might happen. Did you ever hear such a thing, when I'd just gone after her. And then there's another dreadful thing....”

“I don't want to hear any more,” I said.

“But I haven't been listening outside--what are you thinking of? I was there in the same room, and heard them.”

“Did you? Well, well, stay here till you've calmed down a little; then we'll go and find Nils.”

And so frightened and tender was Ragnhild that she threw her arms round me because I was kind to her. A strange girl!

Then we went down to Nils.

“Ragnhild thinks that somebody ought to keep awake for a bit,” I said.