CHAPTER IX

THE SILVER THALER

It might be thought that that was nothing to worry over. But in truth the Pastor’s daughter had gone about for a couple of weeks feeling quite desperate because she did not know where to get a silver thaler. If only she had asked her father for it the morning after the wedding as she had intended! But she had had a good scolding from her stepmother for what she had said to the smith when he came out of the fox-pit--and not only for what she had said, but for rushing forward as she had done. It had looked just as if she wanted to throw herself on his neck. How much longer would it be before she learnt to behave like a reasonable being and not like a twelve-year-old child?

After that, how could she ask for money? It had been impossible to get her father by himself, and to mention it before her stepmother was only to ask for more reproof and displeasure. Yet it was very tiresome that she had put it off, for next day she could not think of venturing to do it. For then it came to dear Mother’s ears that bride, bridegroom, and all the wedding procession from Lobyn had been at the Parsonage. That wounded her deeply, and how much deeper would the sore have been if she had got to know that Maia Lisa had been audacious enough to give away a whole silver thaler! But the longer the Pastor’s daughter put off mentioning the loan, the harder it grew to confess such a serious debt to her father and stepmother. And at last she had to own to herself that she would certainly never have the courage to ask them for money. It could not be helped, she must try to get it some other way.

She thought of it by day as she sat sewing the long seams of the linen sheets and thought of it by night in her bed. Of course, she must pay the smith. She could never endure the shame if she did not repay the loan of one who had so kindly come to her help. If only she could have seen Anna Brogren! But it was quite out of the question. Dear Mother would never let her go to see anyone who loved her.

But to whom else could she turn? Grandmother was as poor as she herself and had nothing but what dear Father gave her. And Ulla Moreus had probably never handled a silver thaler in all his days.

She was indeed terribly worried. It would not do to go to any chance person and say she dared not ask dear Father and Mother for a silver thaler.

When she was almost at her wit’s end she happened to remember that she had an aunt who might perhaps come to her help. But alas. She could scarcely help laughing when she thought of how her aunt would look when she came asking for money. She would be astounded no doubt, for her niece was the greatest stranger possible to her. There was a great impassable gulf fixed between her and Maia Lisa.

Not that there was any enmity between them, but her aunt had in her young days gone and married a rich peasant’s son who had been bold enough to woo her. It had by no means been a love match as far as Maia Lisa could hear. He had had a good opinion of himself, and thought it was a fine thing to get a Pastor’s daughter for his wife, whilst she had said quite plainly that she would rather be mistress of a well-to-do peasant household than go home and wait for some poor assistant parson.

Ever since her aunt had gone to her peasant home she had, of her own accord, kept away from all her family. She wanted to forget her former life altogether, and she was particularly pleased when no one from Lövdala came near her.

She lived not far away, in the parish of Bro, but she never came to the Parsonage. Instead, Father or Grandmother or Maia Lisa used to drive once a year over to Svanskog and call on her. To be sure Maia Lisa had to own that she had never much enjoyed these visits to the peasant house. What annoyed her was not that her aunt had in the course of years grown like any other peasant woman, but that she always acted so strangely when anyone came to see her from Lövdala. She never came out to the front steps to bid them welcome, and when they came into the sitting-room she always made a point of saying that they really should not trouble to come and call at a peasant’s house. Then she would at once begin to reckon up how long it was since they had last been there, and that in no spirit of friendliness, but rather in such a way that her visitors felt quite miserable, and wondered if they had done right in coming, or if it would have been better to stay at home.

How tiresome it was! One morning when Maia Lisa was sitting at breakfast with her Father and Mother she ventured to mention her aunt in Svanskog, and to say they must not forget her. The words had scarcely passed her lips than she regretted them. For what good was it for her to go to Svanskog? It would be quite useless, for her aunt was no fonder of her than her stepmother herself. Far from it; so that if Maia Lisa did drive over, she was by no means sure that she would dare to ask for help.

Father looked up at once from his porridge-plate. He had always been sorry for the Pastor’s daughter who had married a peasant, and he was very anxious she should know that she was not forgotten in her old home. So now he began to wonder when they had last been to see her, perhaps so long ago that they ought to go and call again.

His wife said not a word, as she had nothing to do with peasant relatives, so Maia Lisa had to answer that no one had been to Svanskog since last Christmas. She was bold enough to add that no doubt it would please her aunt most if her Father would drive over and take dear Mother to call.

But Maia Lisa soon saw that she was not going to get out of the matter so easily. Her Father leant back in his chair looking anything but pleased; no doubt he thought that there ought to be some limit even to family affection. At last he explained that Aunt Margreta had seen so much of him that there was no need for him to drive over to Svanskog. But Mother and Maia Lisa had better go that very day; in fact, it would fit in excellently, for neither Long-Bengt nor Blackie had anything else to do. And so it was settled before breakfast was finished.

Dear, dear, thought Maia Lisa, how she wished she had bitten off her tongue. Why need she begin talking about Svanskog? Just think of having to sit and drive twelve miles in the same sleigh with her stepmother!

But after breakfast, the Pastor’s wife followed her husband into his room, and when she came out everything had been altered again. She said now that it was quite unnecessary for anyone except Maia Lisa to go to Svanskog. It was plain enough she didn’t want to go, but it was good for young people to do what they did not like. And she could walk, not drive; for her stepmother wanted Long-Bengt to-day to help her with the tallow-boiling. But the next day he could come and fetch her.

The Pastor’s daughter did not dare to betray by look or word whether she was pleased or sorry. But to herself she thought that, since she must go to Svanskog, she would rather walk by herself than drive in her stepmother’s company.

As she was to be away so long, however, she begged that Little-Maid might look after Grandmother now and again and see if she wanted anything.

But dear Mother would most certainly never grant any request of hers, so she at once said that Little-Maid was to go with her to Svanskog. Did Maia Lisa think that her stepmother had so little sense of what was fitting as to let her walk all that way by herself? And she needn’t trouble about Grandmother, there were plenty of women about Lövdala to see to her.

As usual, the Pastor’s wife had her own way, and in less than an hour the Pastor’s daughter and Little-Maid had both started. They walked quietly and steadily down the avenue and on the road as long as they were in sight from the Parsonage windows, but soon they came to the outskirts of the great forest where no one at home could catch a glimpse of them. And although the Pastor’s daughter certainly thought the long tramp to Svanskog useless and wearisome, yet it happened to be the most glorious winter weather, and straight down in front of them stretched the long slope of a steep hill, and she was free and independent as she had not been for many a month, and felt like a bird set loose from a tiny cage. So seventeen years stretched out a hand to thirteen, and on they rushed at full speed till they landed in the great snow-drift at the foot of the slope and lay there helpless with laughter.

When they reached Svanskog it was only one o’clock. They had had the good luck to get a lift for half their journey. All the way from Broby they had driven with a man from Svanskog, who had taken a gentleman so far and brought them back in his empty sleigh.

There was an inn in Svanskog, although not nearly so big as the one in Broby, where a fair number of people were always going and coming. Here in Svanskog, in the far north of the parish, there came at the very most only one traveller in a day, and sometimes indeed a whole week would pass without anyone asking for a sleigh. It was all just as usual here. Neither her aunt nor any of her maids came to help the Pastor’s daughter and Little-Maid out of the sleigh.

Dear, dear, how cramped her heart felt, just as if her chest had been tightened up until there was no room for it to beat in! On her way she had been more hopeful, but as she got out of the sleigh she felt sure her aunt would never help her.

Svanskog was a great building, with the entrance in the middle of the longest side, and not poked away in one corner as was usually the case in peasant houses. Outside the front door there was a porch not quite so large as the porch at Lövdala, but with the same kind of roof and pillar supports.

That was really rather strange! Often as the Pastor’s daughter had been here she had never noticed the porch before. She had to stand still for a little and look at it and everything else. The dwelling-house was old, but it had been repaired and altered since her aunt came, and no doubt she must have taken her childhood’s home as a model. The windows had the same number of panes here as there, and the round garret skylights might have been moved from one house to the other without anyone noticing the difference.

In a second her heart found a little more room to work in. Perhaps it had, after all, not been such a terrible blunder to come here. Perhaps the former Pastor’s daughter had not disappeared so completely as she wanted to make herself and everyone else believe.

The hall was smaller than in Lövdala. But there were the same rounded cupboards in the corners, and the walls, too, were painted grey with an ornamental pattern of black and white dots. The staircase wall had the same rough wooden beams as at home, and the narrow garret steps were just as steep and dangerous. No doubt it was just as easy here as in Lövdala to slide down the handrail from top to bottom without once touching the ground.

Exactly opposite the entrance there was a door leading into a large room kept sacred to visitors. None of the household were ever to be found there, but the Pastor’s daughter turned the key and peeped in. She saw exactly what she expected: the very same chairs of yellow birchwood and the table with flaps as in the Lövdala drawing-room; there was even the great arum lily by the one window. Yet one thing was a little different, for although the carpet stripes were blue as at home they were not of the same pattern. But it struck Maia Lisa that this was not her aunt’s fault. She had copied in her weaving the old carpet patterns of her childhood. It was the Lövdala household who had altered the stripes.

The Pastor’s daughter closed the door and stood silently in the hall. Tears had filled her eyes, but she did not think her aunt would care for such a sign of affection, so she would go in looking calm and cheerful.

It was Maia Lisa’s usual luck again! When she opened the door to the great living-room she saw her aunt was busy washing. A great boiler was hanging over the fire, and a washing-tub full of clothes stood in the middle of the floor with a little stream of soap-suds trickling out of it. Of course, her aunt would be more vexed than ever at her visit. There was a good deal of water spilt about the room, and a long bench stood covered with the coarse newly washed clothes. Maia Lisa could quite understand that no one would care about receiving guests in such a disorderly place.

There was nothing to remind her of Lövdala in this quite ordinary peasant room. Maia Lisa had always thought of it as a great dignified place, with the high cupboards right up to the ceiling, the enormous four-poster bed, and the long benches fastened against the walls. But the wet clothes had taken away every bit of comfort and dignity now.

Her aunt was standing at a washing-tub with her back to the door, rubbing and scrubbing with all her might. Maia Lisa had often heard that her mother and all her sisters had been tall and slight like herself, but her aunt was a great strong woman, by no means slim. She had on her black homespun skirt with a red corslet and white top. Whilst she was working, she had thrown off the short white sheepskin that completed her costume.

She did not turn towards the door when they opened it, nor speak one word. Maia Lisa wished herself many miles away, and no mistake. But there was no help for it; she had to go up to her and offer to shake hands. Her aunt had both hands in the water. She drew one out, and, without troubling to dry it, put it into her niece’s outstretched fingers.

“Oh, so it’s you that have come at last,” she said. “I suppose the Pastor’s new wife is too grand to call on us peasant folk.”

She said really nothing worse than that, and did not speak more unkindly than usual, but Maia Lisa could not have been so long-suffering as she generally was, for she burst into tears. Maybe she took it so to heart because she had come a-begging, and felt now that she would never dare to utter her request.

It only needed this flow of tears to make her utterly miserable. Oh dear, dear, how could she let herself go like that before this aunt who had never cared for her! And it was not like one or two tears, that were easily wiped away. But down they came, pouring over her cheeks, whilst there was such a lump in her throat that she could not utter a word.

How bitterly ashamed she was of herself. She cried because she was crying, and when one gets to that pass there is no end indeed to the tears. She would have liked to rush away, and go home again that very moment. She did get as far as the door, but when she got there she felt so weak that her knees gave way under her, and she sank down on to a short little bench standing by.

She pictured to herself all the time what her aunt must think of her coming in crying and disturbing her in the middle of her washing. Not that she seemed particularly uneasy. She left off rubbing the clothes, but took time to empty a bucket of hot water into the wash-tub and put a couple of logs on the fire before she came to her.

“You needn’t take it so much to heart,” she said; “maybe my bark is worse than my bite.”

But if she thought that would dry her niece’s tears, she was much mistaken. They came from such a deep and overflowing source of sorrow that once they began to flow they must go on for hours.

The Pastor’s daughter could not answer a word, although she knew very well that her aunt would lose patience and need to go and look after her washing. But Fru Margreta did not seem at a loss, but turned to Little-Maid, who had stood all the time beside Mamsell Maia Lisa and was now timidly stroking her one hand.

“Perhaps you can tell me what she is crying for? She surely is not upset because I had no time to shake hands properly?”

Her voice sounded as though she wanted to laugh at the whole matter, and Little-Maid must have noticed it, for in a moment she was furious.

“No wonder she cries when you treat her like that. Here she comes to get help from her mother’s very own sister, and you have never a kind word to say to her.”

The Pastor’s daughter put her hand hastily over Little-Maid’s mouth, but it was of no use, for Little-Maid could not endure seeing Mamsell Maia Lisa cry without turning into a very determined little storm-wind indeed.

Fru Margreta was not apparently vexed with Little-Maid, but her answer came in fretful tones as she said slowly in a much broader dialect than before: Whatever could she do for Maia Lisa, who lived in such luxury at Lövdala that she could certainly need no help from a poor peasant woman?

Nothing she could say would have been more likely to set off Little-Maid. “No doubt you are cut out of the same piece as her stepmother,” she said. “If you hadn’t been I would have told you that she came here to ask you for a----”

But now the Pastor’s daughter seized her arm so sharply that she stopped. But Fru Margreta went on as though nothing had been said.

“Can it be so hard for Maia Lisa to have got a stepmother? The saying goes that whoever gets a stepmother, gets a stepfather too, but it can’t have been so with her. Is it possible that there is anything she wants to have and can’t get?”

The Pastor’s daughter was making all possible signs to Little-Maid, but what use were they when her aunt sat there egging her on like that?

“You can see for yourself how things are with her,” said Little-Maid, “if you have any eyes to see with. Her clothes are not much better than mine, and she is nothing but skin and bone. People say blood is thicker than water, but yours isn’t, I know. Not a scrap would you care if her stepmother plagued her to death.”

What a misery this all was for Mamsell Maia Lisa; it was bad enough not to be able to conquer her tears, but ten times worse to hear her aunt entice Little-Maid to talk of all kinds of things. Who knew how her aunt would take it all? Maybe she really disliked her sister’s daughter, and would be glad at what she heard.

She could bear it no longer. She got up and stumbled towards the door. But there was something wrong with the latch when she tried to lift it. She could not get it up at once, and as she pushed and pulled her strength gave way, her head swam, and she fell to the ground.

When she came to herself again she was lying in a bed in the room with the blue-striped pieces of carpet, lying too on such soft pillows and fine linen sheets as scarcely had their equal in Lövdala. By the bedside stood a table with a tray, and on the tray a dish covered with a white cloth.

She did feel a little hungry, so she hastened to take the cloth from the dish. But there was nothing to eat under it, only a great, beautiful, shining silver thaler.

At first she did not know what it all meant, but then she understood well enough. Her aunt had wormed the truth out of Little-Maid. She felt so happy and so grateful that she began to cry again, and after a few tears she fell asleep.

She slept straight on till the great clock in the living-room struck three. When she looked round, the silver thaler was gone, and in its place all kinds of good food by the bed. At first she felt frightened at the loss of the thaler, but then she consoled herself with the thought that she was in good hands now. When she had eaten the food, she was so overcome with gratitude for all the kindness shown her that once again her eyes filled with tears, and once more she cried herself to sleep.

When next she woke it was dark night. A fire was burning in the stove, and her aunt was sitting by the bed watching her.

The first thing she said was that Maia Lisa must excuse her having taken the liberty to send the silver thaler to the young man who had lent it. A post sleigh had gone over to Henriksberg that afternoon, and the driver had been told to find out which of the smiths had been at Christmas to buy hay in Lobyn. He was to give him the thaler with many thanks from the Pastor’s daughter. She thought that that was the best plan, for it was not so easy for Maia Lisa to send a messenger all the way from Svartsjö right up to Henriksberg.

Once more the Pastor’s daughter was so overcome with gratitude that she could scarcely speak. Her aunt, however, would not let the tears come again, but began to ask instead all kinds of questions about Lövdala. She did not speak about her stepmother or anything worrying, but only about things she could not mind. How was her grandmother? Did she keep her room in the brewhouse still as nicely as she used to? And how about Old Bengta and the men’s room? Was it as dirty as ever? And were there still owls in the garret? and did the thrush still perch on the top of the pine by the Resting-Stone and sing away on spring evenings? And were the lilies of the valley still growing in the birch-wood behind the orchard? Was the old barn still standing? and was the new parsonage-house that Maia Lisa’s father had put up exactly like the old one? And were the sheep still kept in the dark old sheep-house?

The Pastor’s daughter lay there listening in utter astonishment. There was nothing that her aunt forgot to ask about. As last she spoke a little about herself. “I must tell you that when I was first married I went home to Lövdala as often as ever I could. I saw that the Svanskog people did not like it, but still I went to ease my heart, for to begin with, I did not settle down very well here. You can understand that it wasn’t very easy for me. My mother-in-law disliked me as your stepmother does you. And there was someone else, too, who was very stern and hard. We were not so fond of one another as we have grown since, and that was the hardest burden of all. But then I noticed that every time I went to Lövdala, the harder it was to come back again. And at last I had to take myself in hand and ask what I really meant to do. This was the place I had chosen for my home, and here I had to live. It was really foolish of me to spoil my life by longing for what I had left behind. I made up my mind never again to go to Lövdala, nor to have anything more to do with the Lövdala people. I would cut myself quite off from my old life. And it really was best for me, for after that I grew happier myself and the others changed too towards me when they saw that I really meant to belong to them.

“You can guess that they watched me when you came to call. But they saw and understood that I did all I could not to be friendly with you.

“Yes, indeed, I had built such a strong wall between you and me that I thought nothing on earth could break it down. But I hadn’t ever thought that a Pastor’s daughter from Lövdala would one day come to me, little and weak as I was myself at her age, and ask for my help. Then, you see, all my strength gave out.

“But you must not think either that your coming will make things disagreeable for me at home. Do you know what I did just now when you were asleep? Well, I just took hold of my husband’s shirt-sleeve and brought him to the door to peep at you. And then I told him all about it, and asked if he had any objection to my helping you. And I will tell you what he said: ‘The little maid lying in there is so like what you were yourself when you first came to me, so like she is, that if there is anyone who won’t be good to her and help her, I’ll let him hear of it, that I will.’”