“Lars won't be home again till about eleven. So you need not start for a
long time yet.”
Very good.
“And when you get back, just give the letter to Ragnhild.”
It was the first time Fru Falkenberg had spoken to me during my present
stay at Øvrebø; it was something so new, I went up afterwards to my
bedroom and sat there by myself, feeling as if something had really
happened. I thought over one or two things a little as well. It was
simply foolishness, I told myself to go on playing the stranger here
and pretending nobody knew. And a full beard was a nuisance in the hot
weather; moreover, it was grey, and made me look ever so old. So I set
to and shaved it off.
About ten o'clock I started out towards the clearing. Lars was not back.
I stayed there a while with Emma, and presently he came in. I took the
letter and went straight home. It was close on midnight.
Ragnhild was nowhere to be seen, and the other maids had gone to bed. I
glanced in at the shrubbery. There sat Captain Falkenberg and Elisabet,
talking together at the round stone table; they took no notice of me.
There was a light in Fruen's bedroom upstairs. And suddenly it
occurred to me that to-night I looked as I had done six years before,
clean-shaven as then. I took the letter out of my pocket and went in the
main entrance to give it to Fruen myself.
At the top of the stairs Ragnhild comes slipping noiselessly towards me
and takes the letter. She is evidently excited. I can feel the heat of
her breath as she points along the passage. There is a sound of voices
from the far end.
It looked as if she had taken up her post here on guard, or had been
set there by some one to watch; however, it was no business of mine. And
when she whispered: “Don't say a word; go down again quietly!” I obeyed,
and went to my room.
My window was open. I could hear the couple down among the bushes: they
were drinking wine. And there was still light upstairs in Fruen's room.
Ten minutes passed; then the light went out.
A moment later I heard some one hurrying up the stairs in the house, and
looked down involuntarily to see if it was the Captain. But the Captain
was sitting as before.
Now came the same steps down the stairs again, and, a little after,
others. I kept watch on the main entrance. First comes Ragnhild, flying
as if for her life over towards the servants' quarters; then comes Fru
Falkenberg with her hair down, and the letter in her hand showing white
in the gloom. After her comes the engineer. The pair of them move down
towards the high road.
Ragnhild comes rushing in to me and flings herself on a chair, all out
of breath and bursting with news. Such things had happened this evening,
she whispered. Shut the window! Fruen and that engineer fellow--never a
thought of being careful--'twas as near as ever could be but they'd have
done it. He was holding on to her when Ragnhild went in with the letter.
Ugh! Up in Fruen's room, with the lamp blown out.
“You're mad,” said I to Ragnhild.
But the girl had both heard and seen well enough, it seemed. She was
grown so used to playing the spy that she could not help spying on her
mistress as well. An uncommon sort, was Ragnhild.
I put on a lofty air at first and would have none of her tale-bearing,
thank you, listening at keyholes. Fie!
But how could she help it, she replied. Her orders were to bring up the
letter as soon as her mistress put out the light, and not before. But
Fruen's windows looked out to the shrubbery, where the Captain was
sitting with Elisabet from the vicarage. No place for Ragnhild there.
Better to wait upstairs in the passage, and just take a look at the
keyhole now and again, to see if the light was out.
This sounded a little more reasonable.
“But only think of it,” said Ragnhild suddenly, shaking her head in
admiration. “What a fellow he must be, that engineer, to get as near as
that with Fruen.”
As near as what! Jealousy seized me; I gave up my lofty pose, and
questioned Ragnhild searchingly about it all. What did she say they were
doing? How did it all come about?
Ragnhild could not say how it began. Fruen had given her orders about
a letter that was to be fetched from Lars Falkenberg's, and when it
arrived, she was to wait till the light went out in Fruen's room, and
then bring it up. “Very good,” said Ragnhild. “But not till I put out
the light, you understand,” said Fruen again. And Ragnhild had set
herself to wait for the letter. But the time seemed endless, and she
fell to thinking and wondering about it all; there was something strange
about it. She went up into the passage and listened. She could hear
Fruen and the engineer talking easily and without restraint; stooping
down to the keyhole, she saw her mistress loosening her hair, with the
engineer looking on and saying how lovely she was. And then--ah, that
engineer--he kissed her.
“On the lips, was it?...”
Ragnhild saw I was greatly excited, and tried to reassure me.
“Well, perhaps not quite. I won't be sure; but still ... and he's not
a pretty mouth, anyway, to my mind.... I say, though, you've shaved all
clean this evening. How nice! Let me see....”
“But what did Fruen say to that? Did she slip away?”
“Yes, I think so; yes, of course she did--and screamed.”
“Did she, though?”
“Yes; out loud. And he said '_Sh_!' And every time she raised her voice
he said '_Sh_!' again. But Fruen said let them hear, it didn't matter;
they were sitting down there making love in the shrubbery themselves.
That's what she said, and it was the Captain and Elisabet from the
vicarage she meant. 'There, you can see them,' she said, and went to the
window. 'I know, I know,' says the engineer; 'but, for Heaven's sake,
don't stand there with your hair down!' and he went over and got her
away from the window. Then they said a whole heap of things, and every
time he tried to whisper Fruen talked out loud again. 'If only you
wouldn't shout,' he said. 'We could be ever so quiet up here.' Then she
was quiet for a bit, and just sat there smiling at him without a word.
She was ever so fond of him.”
“Was she?”
“Yes, indeed, I could see that much. Only fancy, a fellow like that! He
leaned over towards her, and put his hand so--there.”
“And Fruen sat still and let him?”
“Well, yes, a little. But then she went over to the window again, and
came back, and put out her tongue like that--and went straight up to him
and kissed him. I can't think how she could. For his mouth's not a bit
nice, really. Then he said, 'Now we're all alone, and we can hear if
anybody comes.' 'What about Bror and his partner?' said she. 'Oh; they
are out somewhere, at the other end of the earth,' said he. 'We're all
alone; don't let me have to keep on asking you now!' And then he took
hold of her and picked her up--oh, he was so strong, so strong! 'No, no;
leave go!' she cried.”
“Go on!” I said breathlessly. “What next?”
“Why, it was just then you came up with the letter, and I didn't see
what happened next. And when I went back, they'd turned the key in the
lock, so I could hardly see at all. But I heard Fruen saying: 'Oh, what
are you doing? No, no, we mustn't!' She must have been in his arms then.
And then at last she said: 'Wait, then; let me get down a minute.' And
he let her go. 'Blow out the lamp,' she said. And then it was all dark
... oh!...”
“But now I was at my wits' end what to do,” Ragnhild went on. “I stood
a minute all in a flurry, and was just going to knock at the door all at
once--”
“Yes, yes; why didn't you? What on earth made you wait at all?”
“Why, if I had, then Fruen'd have known in a moment I'd been listening
outside,” answered the girl. “No, I slipped away from the door and down
the stairs, then turned back and went up again, treading hard so Fruen
could hear the way I came. The door was still fastened, but I knocked,
and Fruen came and opened it. But the engineer was just behind; he'd
got hold of her clothes, and was simply wild after her. 'Don't go! don't
go!' he kept on saying, and never taking the slightest notice of me. But
then, when I turned to go, Fruen came out with me. Oh, but only think.
It was as near as could be!...”
* * * * *
A long, restless night.
At noon, when we men came home from the fields next day, the maids were
whispering something about a scene between the Captain and his wife.
Ragnhild knew all about it. The Captain had noticed his wife with her
hair down the night before, and the lamp out upstairs, and laughed
at her hair and said wasn't it pretty! And Fruen said nothing much at
first, but waited her chance, and then she said: “Yes, I know. I like
to let my hair down now and again, and why not? It isn't yours!” She was
none so clever, poor thing, at answering back in a quarrel.
Then Elisabet had come up and put in her word. And she was
smarter--_prrr_! Fruen did manage to say: “Well, anyhow we were in the
house, but you two were sitting out among the bushes!” And Elisabet
turned sharp at that, and snapped out: “We didn't put out the light!”
“And if we did,” said Fruen, “it made no difference; we came down
directly after.”
Heavens! I thought to myself, why ever didn't she say they put the light
out _because_ they were going down?
That was the end of it for a while. But then, later on, the Captain
said something about Fruen being so much older than Elisabet. “You ought
always to wear your hair down,” he said. “On my word, it made you look
quite a girl!” “Oh yes, I dare say I need it now,” answered Fruen. But
seeing Elisabet turn away laughing, she flared up all of a sudden and
told her to take herself off. And Elisabet put her hands on her hips,
and asked the Captain to order her carriage. “Right!” says the Captain
at that; “and I'll drive you myself!”
All this Ragnhild had heard for herself standing close by.
I thought to myself they were jealous, the pair of them--she, of this
sitting out in the shrubbery, and he, of her letting her hair down and
putting out the light.
As we came out of the kitchen, and were going across for a rest, there
was the Captain busy with Elisabet's carriage. He called me up and said:
“I ought not to ask you now, when you're having your rest, but I wish
you'd go down and mend the door of the summer-house for me.”
“Right!” I said.
Now that door had been wrong ever since the engineer burst it open
several nights before. What made the Captain so anxious to have it put
right just at this moment? He'd have no use for the summerhouse while he
was driving Elisabet home. Was it because he wanted to shut the place
up so no one else should use it while he was away? It was a significant
move, if so.