“Hot again today--puh! What was I going to say? ... yes, it doesn't look
so bad after all. No, she was right--that is, I mean, you were right
about the colour. I was looking at it from down there just now, and
it makes quite a handsome place. And anyhow, it's too late to alter it
now.”
“I thought so too,” I said. “It suits the house.”
“Yes, yes, it suits the house, as it were. And what was it she said
about the woods behind--my wife, I mean? The background, or something?”
“It's a long time ago now, but I'm almost sure....”
“Yes, yes, never mind. I must say I never thought it would turn out like
that--turn out so well. Will you have enough white, though, to finish?”
“Well ... yes, I sent back the yellow and got some white instead.”
The Captain smiled, shook his head, and walked away. So I had been right
after all!
Haymaking took up all my time now till it was done, but Nils lent me
a hand in return, painting at the summer-house in the evening. Even
Grindhusen joined in and took a brush. He wasn't much of a painter,
he said, but he reckoned he could be trusted to paint a bit of a wall.
Grindhusen was picking up fast.
At last the buildings were finished; hardly recognizable, they were, in
their new finery. And when we'd cleaned up a bit in the shrubbery and
the little park--this was our own idea--the whole place looked different
altogether. And the Captain thanked us specially for what we'd done.
We started on the rye then, and at the same time the autumn rain set in;
but we worked away all we knew, and there came a spell of sunshine
in between whiles. There were big fields of thick, heavy rye, and big
fields again of oats and barley, not yet ripe. It was a rich landscape
to work in. The clover was seeding, but the turnips were somewhat
behindhand. A good soaking would put them right, said Nils.
The Captain sent me up to the post from time to time; once he gave me a
letter for his wife. A whole bundle of letters there were, to different
people, and hers in the middle. It was addressed care of her mother in
Kristianssand. When I came back in the evening and took in the incoming
post, the Captain's first words were: “You posted the letters all
right?”
“Yes,” I said.
Time went on. On wet days, when there was little we could do out of
doors, the Captain wanted me to paint a bit here and there about the
house inside. He showed me some fine enamels he had got in, and said:
“Now here's the staircase to begin with. I want that white, and I've
ordered a dark red stair-carpet to put down. Then there'll be doors and
windows. But I want all this done as soon as possible really; it's been
left too long as it is.”
I quite agreed that this was a good idea of the Captain's. He had lived
carelessly enough for years past now, never troubling about the look of
his house; now he had begun to take an interest in it again; it was a
sort of reawakening. He took me over the place, upstairs and down, and
showed me what was to be done. I noticed the pictures and sculpture in
the rooms; there was a big marble lion, and paintings by Askevold and
the famous Dahl. Heirlooms, I supposed they would be. Fruen's room
upstairs looked just as if she were at home, with all sorts of little
trifles neatly in their places, and clothes hanging still on the pegs.
It was a fine old house, with moulded ceilings, and some of the walls
done in costly style, but the paint-work everywhere was faded or flaking
off. The staircase was broad and easy, with seats, and a mahogany
handrail.