Ragna's letter announcing her marriage reached Fru Boyesen as that lady
and Ingeborg were eating their substantial early breakfast. Ingeborg, at
her aunt's request, had come to spend some months with her, and though
not as dear to the old lady's heart as Ragna, perhaps because the
element of pride in an unquestioned intellectual supremacy was lacking,
had won a place for herself by her quiet unassuming manners and gentle
dependence of spirit.
Fru Boyesen eagerly tore open the envelope with its foreign stamp and
post mark, but as she mastered the meaning of the first sentences her
hands dropped and she gave a cry of astonishment.
"What is it, Auntie?" asked Ingeborg who had recognised her sister's
handwriting.
Fru Boyesen speechlessly waved a hand; she resettled the glasses on her
nose and continued her perusal of the letter, growing red in the face as
she proceeded. Ingeborg sat watching her with round anxious eyes
exercising all her self-control in silencing the queries that crowded to
her lips. The thin foreign paper crackled and creased as the pages were
turned, and Ingeborg followed the close fine lines of writing, though
too far away to distinguish a word. Crushing the letter in her hand Fru
Boyesen rose to her feet, upsetting her cup of coffee; Ingeborg sprang
forward, but the expression of her aunt's face was such as to drive from
her mind the minor importance of the slight mishap, and the creamy
liquid streamed unheeded to the floor.
"What is it, Aunt? Oh, do tell me!"
"Your sister," said Fru Boyesen, "has disgraced herself. She has married
a foreigner that nobody ever heard of, without her family's
permission--without mine. My consent! She never even asked it, she knew
well enough what I would say! Oh, I knew there was something in the wind
when that fool, Else Bjork, came back without her! You knew, Ingeborg, I
wanted to go down to her, and you all persuaded me not to. God knows, if
I had, I might have stopped this folly--but now listen to what the
shameless idiot says!"
She smoothed out the crumpled sheets and glancing through them read out
a paragraph here and there at random.
"'Dear Auntie:
"'I hope you are not going to be very angry when you hear my news. I
know you won't approve, but perhaps by and by--I am sorry that I could
not consult you, but it has all been so sudden. It would be difficult
for me to explain to you so that you would understand, how it was I came
to take this step'--I should think so indeed--'and knowing how little
use it would be to try and make you, who are so far away, understand it
all I thought it better not to attempt it--Fru Bjork knew nothing of
this, and indeed there was nothing definite to know at the time she
left, so you must not hold her in any way responsible. I know you will
think me very foolish, but perhaps time will prove even to you--Signor
Valentini is a young man of whom great things are predicted; he is very
kind to me and we have many interests in common--'"
The reading was interrupted by the opening of the dining-room door and
the appearance of Astrid rosy and smiling on the threshold. She glanced
in amazement from Fru Boyesen's flushed face to Ingeborg's strained
white one, noting the overturned coffee-cup and the letter in Fru
Boyesen's trembling fingers.
"My dear Fru Boyesen!" she exclaimed, stepping forward, "what is the
matter? Have you bad news?" Then recognising the handwriting of the
letter--"Has Ragna--?"
"Come here, Astrid," said Fru Boyesen, "tell me what you know of this
disgraceful business."
"Disgraceful business!" echoed Astrid, in consternation.
"Yes, this marriage--"
"Marriage!" repeated Astrid almost dazed, "what marriage?"
"Ragna's marriage. What do you know of this Valentini person, this,
this--"
"Valentini!" exclaimed Astrid, still amazed, but with a note of
comprehension in her voice. "Ragna has married Valentini?"
"You knew him then?"
"Why, yes," said Astrid seating herself on the chair Ingeborg set for
her. "We both knew him, he was our drawing master in Florence."
"A drawing master! My niece marry a drawing master! My niece!"
"But Fru Boyesen, he is not just a drawing master, he is an artist."
Now this conveyed absolutely nothing to the elder woman's mind. She
considered artists a sort of licensed and decorative charlatans, a
long-haired and casual fraternity, the froth rising to the surface of
the solid and respectable mass of society, all very well in their
place, no doubt, but to be kept at a discreet distance; beings as much
outside the orbit of ordinary existence as the Milky Way or a handful of
wandering meteors. To her mind Ragna might as well have married a
peddler or an acrobat.
"An artist!" she repeated scornfully, flicking the letter with outraged
fingers. "And she wastes six sheets of good paper in explanations that
explain nothing!"
Astrid, glad to turn the point of the conversation, said,
"Ragna must surely have good reasons for what she has done."
"Reasons! She gives me no reasons. In the end this is what it amounts
to: 'Dear Aunt, I have taken my own way; it is too late for you to
change anything, so pray don't make a fuss, but make the best of it!'"
The bitterness in the good woman's voice was unmistakable.
"Oh, yes, she was afraid of our interference, of our disapproval--but
disapproval counts for nothing with Madame, now. Well, she has made her
bed, let her lie in it--nor look to me to feather her nest, I'm done
with her!"
"Oh, Auntie," interposed Ingeborg's gentle voice, "she is fond of you, I
know it; don't be so hard on her! Ragna would never do anything that
wasn't right. I know, and she would never intentionally grieve you, who
have been so good to her."
"Good to her, yes, I have been good to her and this is my reward; have
ingratitude and an insolent disregard of me and my opinion! Ingeborg,
and you too, Astrid, remember that from this day forth I wash my hands
of Ragna Andersen--no I forgot, of Ragna Valentini; she is no longer my
niece. She has chosen to flout me, well, she shall find out what it is
to do without me, and I forbid you, both of you, ever to mention her
name in my presence again. She is dead to me, as dead as if she lay in
her coffin--do you understand?"
She crossed the room unsteadily and tearing the letter across, thrust it
into the fireplace of the large porcelain stove, then swept from the
room, leaving Ingeborg and Astrid gazing horror-stricken into each
other's faces.
If Ragna could have brought her news in person, her presence, her
affectionate manner would have had a very different effect. Aunt Gitta
might have raged and stormed but the mere presence of her favourite
niece, once the first shock was over, would have influenced her
insensibly and outweighed her prejudice. If the letter had even been a
tender pleading one--but poor Ragna, sore from her disillusionment,
filled with hatred and disgust for herself and her surroundings, yet
obliged to justify those same surroundings, and give some explanation of
her reasons for her hurried marriage, had not been able to break through
the false crust of formality. So much had, of necessity, to be
concealed, so much left unexplained, that try as she would, her letter
lacked the compelling note of genuine feeling, and seemed hard, cynical,
almost insolent, in fact. If she had frankly opened her heart to her
aunt, and had thrown herself on the good woman's mercy, the appeal would
have had its effect after Fru Boyesen's horror and indignation had had
time to cool, but poor Ragna, half from shame and despair, half from the
desire to spare her family the inevitable sorrow entailed by a
disclosure, had not been able to bring herself to a frank confession.
Even if Fru Boyesen had had insight enough to enable her to read
between the lines of that poor inadequate letter,--but to her a word was
a word, a sentence, a sentence, meaning just so much and no more, and
all that she saw, was a high-handed disregard of her feelings and an
impervious ingratitude for all the benefits she had conferred. It
wounded her vanity not to have had her consent considered essential or
even desirable. Her feelings were wounded, but they would have
recovered--what are wounded feelings compared to a hurt sense of
self-importance? So she hardened her heart.
Left together, Astrid and Ingeborg sat silent, neither wishing to be the
first to speak, though Astrid was curious to learn all that she could of
Ragna's extraordinary marriage. She reviewed in her mind the months
spent in Italy, she remembered Ragna's long absences in Rome, and the
half-formed suspicions they had aroused in her, then she called to mind
her friend's changed demeanour in Florence, in Venice, her pallor, her
lack of spirits. She remembered Ragna's feverish interest in her work,
but not in her teacher, and the more she thought the more mystified did
she become.
"She does not love Valentini," Astrid reflected, "at least she did not
at that time, and it is not in the least like her to rush into a piece
of folly like this. No, there must be something behind it all."
Ingeborg had fallen forward, her arms crossed on the table, her face
hidden, weeping silently; Astrid went round the table to her, and laid a
caressing hand on her shoulder.
"Don't cry, Ingeborg dear."
The girl raised her tear-stained countenance.
"Oh, Astrid, we shall never see her any more."
"What foolishness!"
"No, it is not foolishness, I feel it here," she said laying her hand on
her heart; "she has gone from us for ever,--and Auntie has cast her
off."
"Oh, don't let that worry you," said Astrid, "she will come round in
time; I have seen Fru Boyesen in a temper before."
"But this is different, Ragna was the apple of her eye, and now--"
"All the more reason, little goose; it is only a question of time. She
is sure to come round, especially with you here to put in a good word
for Ragna now and then."
"I'm afraid it won't be much use, but I shall do my best," sighed
Ingeborg, then in another tone, "tell me, Astrid, what is your candid
opinion of this Signor Valentini?"
Astrid was rather taken aback by this sudden volte-face.
"I don't know that I have an opinion, I never thought much about him at
all. He is a clever man, but curious; there seemed to be two of him, one
very plausible and the other quite rude and rough. He is rather handsome
in a way, and his family, I believe, is quite good. I could see when we
were in Florence that he had his eye on Ragna--"
"Did she seem to like him then?" asked Ingeborg eagerly.
"I can't say she did, more than as a friend, but then it is hard to
tell, Ragna is such a self-contained sort of girl. It struck me
though,--but this is just between you and me,--that she had something on
her mind, something that was worrying her, and that she took up the
drawing and Valentini as a sort of distraction. It began in Rome, from
the Carnival on she was not the same."
Ingeborg wrinkled her forehead thoughtfully, and nodded her head.
"Yes, now I think of it, there was a change in her letters too--but from
there to marrying this man! Do you know, Astrid, in her letter to Aunt
Gitta, never once did she say that she was in love with him and that is
the only thing that would explain."
Astrid was standing before the mirror, fluffing her hair; she turned at
Ingeborg's last words, and set her hands on her hips.
"Ingeborg, if I were you, I'd get to the bottom of this, there's
something mysterious about it."
"No," said Ingeborg, "I won't pry; if Ragna had wished me to know, she
would have told me. As long as she doesn't, I wouldn't spy on her for
all the world. She must have some good reason, it's not like her to fly
off at a tangent!"
"If you knew more, you might be able to help her, to explain things to
your Aunt."
"Yes," said Ingeborg, "that is true; I might--"
"I have an idea," said Astrid suddenly, "I shall write to the Signora
Ferrati, she may be able to tell us something; you know Ragna went back
to Florence with her so she must know all about it."
"Wouldn't that seem like going behind Ragna's back?" objected Ingeborg.
"Oh, I shall be careful about that. I shall just write in a friendly way
and say how surprised we all were at the announcement of the marriage.
And it will be only natural for her to tell how it came about, in her
reply. We may find out a good deal that way, and I don't know how else.
Besides she is very fond of Ragna, and wouldn't do or say anything to
hurt her feelings."
"Very well," agreed Ingeborg grudgingly, "write to the Signora Ferrati,
and show me her answer, when it comes. But, Astrid, you won't say
anything to anybody, except just that Ragna is married, will you?"
"Of course not, dear."
Then they kissed each other on the cheek, and Ingeborg accompanied
Astrid to the door and went to her own room, the one that had been
Ragna's formerly, and sat down to compose a letter to her sister.
Fru Boyesen was writing also, a letter which she was to bitterly regret,
the more so that her pride would not let her recall it or abandon the
position she had taken. She felt a savage joy in wounding as she had
been wounded, and re-read the finished note with the pride of an artist
in his masterpiece, yet with a pang at heart.
"My dear niece," it ran, "I am much obliged to you for your letter,
showing, as it does, so nice a consideration for my feelings and so
just an appreciation of your duty towards me. I rejoice in your
independence of spirit, and since you have shown yourself quite
able to dispense with my counsel or assistance I shall not trouble
you in future with either.
"(Signed) YOUR AUNT GITTA.
"P. S.--You need not bother about answering this letter, as I think
you must understand that any correspondence between us has become
unnecessary."
She stamped the letter, frowning as she wrote the address, and affixed a
large seal of black wax. Allowing herself no time for reflection, she
rang for a maid and gave orders that the letter should be immediately
posted. Then, determined that the shock which had broken the whole
current of her life should leave no trace on her everyday existence, she
brought out her account-books, it being her accustomed Saturday
morning's task, and proceeded to carefully check the tradesmen's bills
for the week.