Part 23

But Grindhusen has turned cautious with me; these two days past he has said never a word, and now he only answers vaguely:

“Ay, that would be it, no doubt. Ay, surely, yes. Why, you might reckon that out yourself, she would. Her own husband and all....”

“I thought perhaps she might have been going up to her own people at Kristianssand.”

“Why, that might be,” says Grindhusen, thinking this a better way. “Lord, yes, that would be it, of course Just for a visit, like. Well, well, she'll be home again soon, for sure.”

“Did she tell you so?”

“Why, 'twas so I made out. And the Captain's not home himself yet, anyway. Eh, but she's a rare openhanded one, she is. 'Here's something for food and drink for yourself and the horses,' she says. 'And here's a little extra,' she says again. Eh, but there's never her like!”

But to the maids, with whom he felt less fear, Grindhusen had said it didn't look as if they'd be seeing Fruen back again at all. She had been asking him all the way, he said, about Engineer Lassen; she must have gone off to him after all. And, surely, she'd be well enough with him, a man with any amount of money and grand style and all.

Then came another card for Fruen from the Captain, this time only to say would she please send Nils to meet him at the station on Friday, and be sure to bring his fur coat. The post card had been delayed--it was Thursday already. And this time it was fortunate, really, that Ragnhild happened to look at the post card and see what it said.

We stayed sitting in Nils's room, talking about the Captain--what he would say when he got back, and what we should say, or if we ought to say anything at all. All three of the maids were present at this council. Fruen would have had plenty of time to get to Kristiania herself by the day the Captain had written his card; she had not, it seemed--she had gone somewhere else. It was more than pitiful altogether.

Said Nils:

“Didn't she leave a note or anything when she went?”

But no, there was nothing. Ragnhild, however, had done a thing on her own responsibility which perhaps she ought not to have done--she had taken the photos from the piano and thrown them in the stove. “Was it wrong, now?”

“No, no, Ragnhild! No!”

She told us, also, that she had been through Fruen's wardrobe and sorted out all handkerchiefs that were not hers. Oh, she had found lots of things up in her room--a bag with Engineer Lassen's initials worked on, a book with his full name in, some sweets in an envelope with his writing--and she had burnt it all.

A strange girl, Ragnhild--yes! Was there ever such an instinct as hers? It was like the devil turned monk. Ragnhild, who made such use herself of the thick red stair-carpet and the keyholes everywhere!

It suited me and my work well enough that the Captain had not ordered the carriage before; we had got the trench finished now all the way up, and I could manage without Nils for laying the pipes. I should want all hands, though, when it came to filling in again. It was rain again now, by the way; mild weather, many degrees of warmth.

It was well for me, no doubt, these days that I had this work of mine to occupy my thoughts as keenly as it did; it kept away many a fancy that would surely otherwise have plagued me. Now and again I would clench my fists as a spasm of pain came over me; and when I was all alone up at the reservoir I could sometimes cry aloud up at the woods. But there was no possibility of my getting away. And where should I go if I did?

* * * * *

The Captain arrived.

He went all through the house at once--into the parlour, out into the kitchen, then to the rooms upstairs--in his fur coat and overboots.

“Where's Fruen?” he asked.

“Fruen went to meet Captain,” answered Ragnhild. “We thought she'd be coming back now as well.”

The Captain's head bowed forward a little. Then cautiously he began questioning.

“You mean she drove with Nils to the station? Stupid of me not to have looked about while I was there!”

“No,” said Ragnhild; “it was Sunday Fruen went.”

At this the Captain pulled himself together. “Sunday?” he said. “Then she must have been going to meet me in Kristiania. H'm! We've managed to miss each other somehow. I had to make another little journey yesterday, out to Drammen--no, Frederikstad, I mean. Get me something to eat, will you?”

_“Værsaagod,_ it's already laid.”

“It was the day before yesterday, by the way, I went out there. Well, well, she'll have had a little outing, anyhow. And how's everything going on? Are the men at work on the trench?”

“They've finished it, I think.”

The Captain went in, and Ragnhild came running at once to tell us what he had said, that we might know what to go by now, and not make things worse.

Later in the day he came out to where we were at work, greeted us cheerily, in military fashion, and was surprised to find the pipes already laid; we had begun filling in now.

“Splendid!” he said. “You fellows are quicker at your work than I am.”

He went off by himself up to the reservoir. When he came back his eyes were not so keen; he looked a little weary. Maybe he had been sitting there alone and thinking of many things. He stood watching us now with one hand to his chin. After a little he said to Nils:

“I've sold the timber now.”

“Captain's got a good price for it, maybe?”

“Yes, a good price. But I've been all this time about it. You've been quicker here.”

“There are more of us here,” I said. “Four of us some times.”

And at that he tried to jest. “Yes,” he said; “I know you're an expensive man to have about the place!”

But there was no jest in his face; his smile was hardly a smile at all. The weakness had gripped him now in earnest. After a little, he sat down on a stone we had just got out, all over fresh clay as it was, and watched us.

I took up my spade and went up, thinking of his clothes.

“Hadn't I better scrape the stone a bit clean?”

“No, it doesn't matter,” he said.

But he got up all the same, and let me clean it a little.

It was then that Ragnhild came running up to us, following the line of the trench. She had something in her hand--a paper. And she was running, running. The Captain sat watching her.

“It's only a telegram!” she said breathlessly. “It came on by messenger.”

The Captain got up and strode quickly a few paces forward toward this telegram that had come. Then he tore it open and read.

We could see at once it must be something important. The Captain gave a great gasp. Then he began walking down, running down, towards the house. A little way off he turned round and called to Nils:

“The carriage at once! I must go to the station!”

Then he ran on again.

* * * * *

So the Captain went away again. He had only been home a few hours.

Ragnhild told us of his terrible haste and worry, poor man; he was getting into the carriage without his fur coat, and would have left the food behind him that was packed all ready. And the telegram that had come was lying all open on the stairs.

“Accident,” it said. “Your wife.--Chief of Police.” What was all this?

“I thought as much,” said Ragnhild, “when they sent it on by messenger.” Her voice was strange, and she turned away. “Something serious, I dare say,” she said.

“No, no!” said I, reading and reading again. “Look, it's not so very bad! Hear what it says. 'Request you come at once--accident to your wife.'”

It was an express telegram from the little town, the little dead town. Yes, that was it--a town with a roar of sound through it, and a long bridge, and foaming waters; all cries there died as they were uttered--none could hear. And there were no birds.

But all the maids spoke now in changed voices; 'twas nothing but misery amongst us now; I had to appear steady and confident myself, to reassure them. Fruen might have had a fall, perhaps, she was not as active of late. But she could, perhaps, have got up again and walked on almost as well as ever--just a little bleeding.... Oh, they were so quick with their telegrams, these police folk!

“No, no!” said Ragnhild. “You know well enough that when the Chief of Police sends a telegram it's pretty sure to mean Fruen's been found dead somewhere! Oh, I can't--I can't--can't bear it!”

Miserable days! I worked away, harder than ever, but as a man in his sleep, without interest or pleasure. Would the Captain never come?

Three days later he came--quietly and alone. The body had been sent to Kristianssand; he had only come back to fetch some clothes, then he was going on there himself, to the funeral.

He was home this time for an hour at most, then off again to catch the early train. I did not even see him myself, being out at work.

Ragnhild asked if he had seen Fruen alive.

He looked at her and frowned.

But the girl would not give up; she begged him, for Heaven's sake, to say. And the two other maids stood just behind, as desperate as she.

Then the Captain answered, but in a low voice as if to himself:

“She had been dead some days when I got there. It was an accident; she had tried to cross the river and the ice would not bear. No, no, there was no ice, but the stones were slippery. There was ice as well, though.”

Then the maids began moaning and crying; but this was more than he could stand. He got up from the chair where he was sitting, cleared his throat hard, and said:

“There, there, it's all right, girls, go along now. Ragnhild, a minute.” And then to Ragnhild, when the others had gone: “What was I going to say, now? You haven't moved some photos, have you, that were on the piano here? I can't make out what's happened to them.”

Then Ragnhild spoke up well and with spirit--and may Heaven bless her for the lie!

“I? No, indeed, 'twas Fruen herself one day.”

“Oh? Well, well. I only wondered how it was they had gone.”

Relieved--relieved the Captain was to hear it.

As he was leaving he told Ragnhild to say I was not to go away from Øvrebø till he returned.

XIV

No, I didn't go away.

I worked on, tramped through the weariest days of my life to their end, and finished laying the pipes. It was a bit of a change for us all on the place the first time we could draw water from a tap, and we were none the worse for something new to talk about for a while.

Lars Falkenberg had left us. He and I had got rid of all disagreement between us at the last, and were as we had been in the old days when we were mates and tramped the roads together.

He was better off than many another, was Lars; light of heart and empty of head; and thereto unconscionably sound and strong. True, there would be no more singing up at the house for him now or ever after, but he seemed to have grown a trifle doubtful of his voice himself the last few years, and contented himself now for the most part with the things he had sung--once upon a time--at dances and gentlefolk's parties. No, Lars Falkenberg was none so badly off. He'd his own little holding, with keep for two cows and a pig; and a wife and children he had as well.

But what were Grindhusen and I to turn our hands to now? I could go off wandering anywhere, but Grindhusen, good soul, was no wanderer. All he could do was to stay on at one place and work till he was dismissed. And when the stern decision came, he was so upset that he could not take it easily, but felt he was being specially hardly used. Then after a while he grew confident again, and full of a childlike trust--not in himself, but in Fate, in Providence--sat down resignedly, and said: “Ay, well, 'twill be all right, let's hope, with God's help.”

But he was happy enough. He settled down with marvellous ease at whatever place he came to, and could stay there till he died if it rested with himself. Home he need not go; the children were grown up now, and his wife never troubled him. No, this red-haired old sinner of former days--all he needed now was a place, and work.

“Where are you going after this?” he asked me.

“A long way, up in the hills, to Trovatn, to a forest.”

He did not believe me in the least, but he answered quickly and evasively:

“Ay, I dare say, yes.”

After we had finished the pipes, Nils sent Grindhusen and myself up cutting wood till the Captain returned. We cut up and stacked the top-ends the woodmen had left; neat and steady work it was.

“We'll be turned off, both of us,” said Grindhusen. “When Captain comes, eh?”

“You might get work here for the winter,” I said. “A thousand dozen battens means a lot of small stuff left over that you could saw up for a reasonable wage.”

“Well, talk to the Captain about it,” he said.

And the hope of regular work for the winter made this man a contented soul. He could manage well enough. No, Grindhusen had nothing much to trouble about.

But then there was myself. And I felt but little worth or use to myself now, Heaven help me!

* * * * *

That Sunday I wandered restlessly about. I was waiting for the Captain; he was to be back today. To make sure of things as far as I could, I went for a long walk up along the stream that fed our reservoir. I wanted to have another look at the two little waters up the hillside--“the sources of the Nile.”

Coming down on the way back, I met Lars Falkenberg; he was going home. The full moon was just coming up, red and huge, and turned things light all round. A touch of snow and frost there was, too; it was easy breathing. Lars was in a friendly mood: he had been drinking _Brændevin_ somewhere, and talked a great deal. But I was not altogether pleased at meeting him.

I had stood there long up on the wooded hillside, listening to the soughing of earth and sky, and there was nothing else to hear. Then there might come a faint little rustling, a curled and shrunken leaf rolling and rustling down over the frozen branches. It was like the sound of a little spring. Then the soughing of earth and sky again. A gentleness came over me; a mute was set on all my strings.

Lars Falkenberg wanted to know where I had been and where I was going. Reservoir? A senseless business that reservoir thing. As if people couldn't carry water for themselves. The Captain went in too much for these new-fangled inventions and ploughing over standing crops and such-like; he'd find himself landed one day. A rich harvest, they said. Ho, yes, but they never troubled to think what it must cost, with machines for this and that, and a pack of men to every machine again. What mustn't it have cost, now, for Grindhusen and me that summer! And then himself this autumn. In the old days it had been music and plenty at Øvrebø, and some of us had been asked into the parlour to sing. “I'll say no more,” said Lars. “And now there's hardly a sizeable stick of timber left in the woods.”

“A few years' time and it'll be as thick as ever.”

“A few years! A many years, you mean. No, it's not enough to go about being Captain and commanding--brrrr! and there it is! And he's not even spokesman for the neighbours now, and you never see folk coming up now to ask him what he'd say was best to do in this or that....”

“Did you see the Captain down below? Had he come back yet?” I broke in.

“He's just come back. Looked like a skeleton, he did. What was I going to say?... When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow,” I said.

“So soon?” Lars was all friendliness, and wishing me good luck now; he had not thought I should be going off at once.

“It's all a chance if I see you again this time,” he said. “But I'll tell you this much, now: you'd do well to stop frittering your life away any more, and never staying on a place for good. And I say as much here and now, so mark my words. I dare say I haven't got on so grandly myself, but I don't know many of our likes have done better, and anyway not you. I've a roof over my head at the least, and a wife and children, and two cows--one bears autumn and one spring--and then a pig, and that's all I can say I own. So better not boast about that. But if you reckon it up, it amounts to a bit of a holding after all.”

“It's all very well for you, the way you've got on,” said I.

Lars is friendlier than ever after this appreciation; he wishes me no end of good, and goes on:

“There's none could get on better than yourself, for that matter. With the knack you've got for all kinds of work, and writing and figuring into the bargain. But it's your own fault. You might have done as I told you these six, seven years ago, and taken one of the other girls on the place, like I did with Emma, and settled down here for good. Then you wouldn't be going about now from place to place. But I say the same again now.”

“It's too late,” I answered.

“Ay, you're terribly grey. I don't know who you could reckon to get now about here. How old are you now?”

“Don't ask me!”

“Not exactly a young one, perhaps, but still--What was I going to say? Come up with me a little, and maybe I'll remember.”

I walked up, and Lars went on talking all the way. He offered to put in a word for me with the Captain, so I could get a clearing like he had.

“Funny to go and forget a thing like that,” he said. “It's gone clean out of my head. But come up home now. I'll be sure to hit on it again.”

All friendliness he was now. But I had one or two things to do myself, and would not go farther.

“You won't see the Captain tonight, anyway.”

No, but it was late. Emma would be in bed, and would only be a trouble.

“Not a bit of it,” said Lars. “And if she has gone to bed, what of it? I shouldn't wonder, now, if there was a shirt of yours up there, too. Better come up and take it with you, and save Emma going all the way down herself.”

But I would not go up. I ventured, however, to send a greeting to Emma this time.

“Ay, surely,” said Lars. “And if so be as you haven't time to come up to my bit of a place now, why, there it is. You'll be going off first thing tomorrow, I suppose?”

It slipped my mind for the moment that I should not be able to see the Captain that evening, and I answered now that I should be leaving as early as could be.

“Well, then, I'll send Emma down with that shirt of yours at once,” said Lars. “And good luck to you. And don't forget what I said.”

And that was farewell to Lars.

A little farther down I slackened my pace. After all, there was no real hurry about the few things I had to pack and finish off. I turned back and walked up again a little, whistling in the moonlight. It was a fine evening, not cold at all, only a soft, obedient calm all over the woods. Half an hour passed, and then to my surprise came Emma, bringing my shirt.

* * * * *

Next morning neither Grindhusen nor I went to the woods. Grindhusen was uneasy.

“Did you speak to the Captain about me?” he asked.

“I haven't spoken to him.”

“Oh, I know he'll turn me off now, you see! If he had any sense, he'd let me stay on to cut up all that cord-wood. But what's he know about things? It's as much as he can manage to keep a man at all.”

“Why, what's this, Grindhusen? You seemed to like the Captain well enough before.”

“Oh yes, you know! Yes, of course. He's good enough, I dare say. H'm! I wonder, now, if the Inspector down on the river mightn't have some little scrap of a job in my line. He's a man with plenty of money, is the Inspector.”

I saw the Captain at eight o'clock, and talked with him a while; then a couple of neighbours came to call--offering sympathy in his bereavement, no doubt. The Captain looked fatigued, but he was not a broken man by any means; his manner was firm and steady enough. He spoke to me a little about a plan he had in mind for a big drying-house for hay and corn.

No more of things awry now, Øvrebø, no more emotion, no soul gone off the rails. I thought of it almost with sadness. No one to stick up impertinent photographs on the piano, but no one to play on that piano, either; dumb now, it stands, since the last note sounded. No, for Fru Falkenberg is not here now; she can do no more hurt to herself or any other. Nothing of all that used to be here now. Remains, then, to be seen if all will be flowers and joy at Øvrebø hereafter.

“If only he doesn't take to drinking again,” I said to Nils.

“No, surely,” he said. “And I don't believe he ever did. It was just a bit of foolery, if you ask me, his going on like that just for the time. But talking of something else--will you be coming back here in the spring?”

“No,” I answered. “I shall not come again now.”

Then Nils and I took leave of each other. Well I remember that man's calm and fairness of mind; I stood looking after him as he walked away across the yard. Then he turned round and said:

“Were you up in the woods yesterday? Is there snow enough for me to take a sledge up for wood?”

“Yes,” I answered.

And he went off, relieved, to the stables, to harness up.