“It's harvest-time, I know, but this indoor work's important too. My
wife will be back soon. I don't know what we're to do, really! I'd like
to have the place thoroughly cleaned up.”
So that letter was asking her to come back! I thought to myself. But
then, again, it was some days since he had written, and I had been to
the post several times myself, after, but no answer had come. I knew
Fruen's writing. I had seen it six years before. But the Captain thought
perhaps that he had only to say “Come,” and she would obey. Well, well,
he might be right; she was taking a little time to get ready, that was
all.... How was I to know?
The painting had grown so important now, that the Captain went up
himself to the clearing and got Lars to come down and help with the
field-work in my place. Nils was by no means pleased with the exchange,
for Lars was not over willing under orders on the place where he had
been in charge himself in days gone by.
But there was no such need of hurry about the painting, as it turned
out. The Captain sent the lad up twice to the post, but I watched for
him on the way back both times, and found he had no letter from Fruen.
Perhaps she was not coming after all! Ay, it might be as bad as that.
Or she felt herself in a false position, and was too proud to say yes
because her husband called. It might be that.
But the paint was on and had time to dry; the red stair-carpet came and
was laid down with brass rods; the staircase looked wonderfully fine;
wonderfully fine, too, were the doors and windows in the rooms upstairs.
But Fruen did not come--no.
We got through with the rye, and set to work in good time on the barley;
but Fruen did not come. The Captain went out and gazed down the road,
whistling to himself; he was looking thinner now. Often and often he
would come out to where we were at work, and keep with us, looking on
all the time without a word. But if Nils happened to ask him anything,
he did not start as if his thoughts had been elsewhere, but was quick
and ready as could be. He did not seem dejected, and as for looking
thin, that was perhaps because he had got Nils to cut his hair.
Then I was sent up to the post again, and this time there was a letter.
Fruen's hand, and postmarked Kristianssand. I hurried back, laid the
letter in among the rest of the post, and handed the whole bundle to the
Captain outside the house. He took it with a careless word of thanks,
showing no eagerness to see what there was; he was used to being
disappointed.
“Corn coming in everywhere, I suppose?” he asked casually, glancing
at the letters one after another. “What was the road like? All right?”
While I was telling him, he came upon Fruen's letter, and at once
packing up the whole bundle together, he turned to me with a sudden
intensified interest in other people's crops and the state of the roads.
Keeping himself well in hand; he was not going to show feeling openly.
He nodded as he walked off, and said “Thank you” once more.
Next day the Captain came out and washed and greased the carriage
himself. But it was two days more before he used it. We were sitting at
supper one evening when the Captain came into the kitchen and said he
wanted some one to drive him to the station tomorrow. He could have
driven himself, but he was going to fetch his wife, who was coming home
from abroad, and he would have to take the landau in case it rained.
Nils decided, then, that Grindhusen had better drive, he being the one
who could best be spared.
The rest of us went on with our field-work while they were away. There
was plenty to do; besides the rye and barley not yet in, there were
still potatoes to hoe and turnips to see to. But Ragnhild and the
dairymaid both lent a hand; all youth and energy they were.
It might have been pleasant enough to work side by side with my old mate
Lars Falkenberg once more, but he and Nils could not get on together,
and instead of cheerful comradeship, a gloomy silence hung over the
fields. Lars seemed to have got over his late ill-will towards me in
some degree, but he was short and sullen with us all on account of Nils.
At last Nils decided that Lars should take the pair of chestnuts and get
to work on the autumn ploughing. Lars was offended, and said crossly:
No. He'd never heard of doing things that way before, he said, starting
to plough your land before you'd got the harvest off it. “That may be,”
said Nils, “but I'll find you land that has been reaped enough to keep
you going.”
There were more words over that. Lars found everything all wrong somehow
at Øvrebø. In the old days he used to do his work and sing songs after
for the company at the house; now, it was all a mess and a muddle, and
no sense in any way of doing things. Ploughing, indeed! Not if he knew
it.
“You don't know what you're talking about,” said Nils. “Nowadays you'll
see folk ploughing between the corn-poles and the hay-frames.”
“I've not seen it yet,” said Lars. “But it seems you've seen a lot. Of
all the silly goats....”
But the end of it was that Lars gave way, Nils being head man there, and
went on ploughing till the Captain came home.
It crossed my mind that I had left some washing behind with Emma when
I went away, before. But I judged it best not to go up to the clearing
after it now, while Lars was in his present mood.
X
The Captain and his wife came next day. Nils and I had talked over
whether to hoist the flag; I dared not myself, but Nils was less
cautious, and said we must. So there it was, flapping broad and free
from its white staff.
I was close at hand when the carriage drove up and they got out. Fruen
walked out far across the courtyard, looked at the house, and clapped
her hands. I heard her, too, loud in wonder as she entered the hall--at
sight of the stairs, no doubt, and the new red carpet.
Grindhusen had no sooner got the horses in than he came up to me, all
agape with astonishment over something, and drew me aside to talk.
“There must be something wrong,” he said. “That's not Fru Falkenberg,
surely? Is she married to him--the Captain, I mean?”
“Why, yes, Grindhusen, the Captain's wife is married to the Captain.
What makes you ask?”
“But it's that cousin girl! I'll stake my life on it if it's not the
very same one. The Inspector's cousin that was there.”
“Not a bit of it, Grindhusen. But it might be her sister.”
“But I'll stake my life on it. I saw her with him myself I don't know
how many times.”
“Well, well, she may be his cousin as far as that goes, but what's it to
do with us?”
“I saw it the moment she got out of the train. And she looked at me,
too, and gave a start. I could see her breathing quickly after. Don't
come telling me.... But I can't make out.... Is she from here?”
“Was Fruen pleased, or did she look unhappy?” I asked.
“Nay, I don't know. Yes, I think she was.” Grindhusen shook his head,
still marvelling how this could be the Captain's wife. “You must have
seen her with the Inspector yourself,” he said. “Didn't you recognize
her again?”
“Was she pleased, did you say?”
“Pleased? Why, yes, I suppose so. I don't know. They talked such a lot
of queer stuff the pair of them, driving home--began at the station, the
minute she got out. There was a whole lot I couldn't make out at all.
'I don't know what to say,' said she, 'but I beg you so earnestly to
forgive me for it all.' 'And so do I,' says he. Now did you ever hear
such a thing? And they were both of them crying, I believe, in the
carriage after. 'I've had the place painted and done up a bit,' said the
Captain. 'Have you?' says she. And then he went on talking about all her
things, and how they were still there and never been touched. I don't
know what things he meant, but he thought she'd find everything still
in its place, he said. Did you ever hear the like? 'All your things,'
he said. And then he went on about somebody Elisabet, and said he never
gave her a thought, and never had, I think he said. And she cried like
anything at that, and was all upset. But she didn't say a word about
being abroad, as the Captain said. No, I'll stake my life she'd come
from the Inspector.”
I began to fear I had made a grave mistake in bringing Grindhusen to
Øvrebø. It was done now, but I wished it undone. And I told Grindhusen
himself as much, and that pretty plainly.
“Fruen here's the mistress of the place, and good and kind as could be
to every one, and the Captain as well, remember that. But you'll find
yourself whipped out of here, and at once, if you go gossiping and
telling tales. Take my advice and be careful. You've got a good job
here, with good pay and decent food. Think of that, and keep quiet while
you're here.”
“Yes, yes, you're right,” said Grindhusen meekly enough. “I don't say a
word; only, that she's the very image of that cousin down there. And did
I ever say more than that? I don't know what you've got to make such a
fuss about, and as for that, maybe she's a bit fairer than the cousin. I
won't swear it's the same sort of hair. And I never said it was. But
if you want to know what I thought, I'll tell you straight out. I was
thinking she was too good to be that cousin girl. That was my very
thought. 'Twould be a shame for her to be cousin to a fellow like that,
and I can't think how anybody ever could. I'm not thinking about the
money now; you know as well as I do I'm not the man to make a fuss over
losing a two-Kroner piece, no more than you yourself, but it was a mean
thing to do, all the same, giving me the money one day and taking it
back the next. Ay, that it was. I say no more than that. But I don't
know what's the matter with you lately, flying out the least word a man
says. And what have I said, anyway? A mean lot, that he was; paid me two
Kroner a day and find my own food, and always niggling and haggling over
every little thing. I've had enough of your talk anyhow, but I'll tell
you what was my very thought, if you want to know....”
But all his flow of talk did not avail to hide the fact that he had
recognized Fruen at once, and was still convinced that he was right.
* * * * *
All things in order now, the Captain and Fruen at home, bright days and
a rich harvest. What more could any wish for?
Fruen greets me with a kindly glance, and says:
“The place looks different altogether after the way you've painted it so
nicely. The Captain's ever so pleased.”
She seemed calmer now than when I had seen her last, on the stairs of
the hotel in the town. She did not start and breathe quickly at sight
of me as she had with Grindhusen, and that could only mean she was not
displeased at seeing me again! So I thought to myself, and was glad
to think so. But why had she not left off that unsteady glance, that
flutter of the eyes, she had fallen into of late? If I were the Captain,
now, I would speak to her about it. And her complexion, too, was
not what it had been. There were some curious little spots about the
temples. But what matter? She was no less pretty for that.
“I'm afraid, though,” she went on, “it wasn't my idea at all with the
lovely grey for the house. You must have made a mistake in thinking I
said so.”
“Well, then, I can't make it out. But, anyhow, it's no matter; the
Captain himself decided to have it.”
“The staircase is simply splendid, and so are the rooms upstairs. It's
twice as bright as before....”
'Twas Fruen herself was trying to be twice as bright and
“Why, yes, Grindhusen, the Captain's wife is married twice as good as
before.” I knew that well enough. And she fancied she owed me these
little marks of kindliness, for something or other. Well and good, but
now it was enough. Best let it be.
Autumn drawing on, the scent of the jasmine all importunate down in the
shrubbery, and red and yellow showing up long since on the wooded hills.
Not a soul in the place but is glad to have Fruen at home again; the
flag, too, does its part. 'Tis like a Sunday; the maids have put clean
aprons on, fresh from the ironing.
In the evening I went down by the little stone steps to the shrubbery
and sat there a while. The jasmines were pouring out waves of perfume
after the heat of the day. After awhile Nils came down, looking for me.
“No visitors here now,” says Nils. “And no high goings-on at nights.
Have you heard anything of that sort at night now, since the Captain
first came back?”
“No.”
“And that's full ten weeks ago now. What d'you say if I tore off this
thing now?” And he pointed to his temperance badge. “Captain's given up
drinking, here's Fruen home again, and no call to be unfriendly anyway
to either of them.”
He handed me a knife, and I cut the badge away.
We talked for a bit about the farm-work--Nils thought of nothing else.
“We'll have most of the corn under shelter by tomorrow night,” he says.
“And thank goodness for that! Then we'll sow the winter rye. Queer
thing, isn't it? Here's Lars went on year after year sowing by machine,
and thought it good enough. Not if I know it! We'll sow ours by hand.”
“But why?”
“On land like ours! Now just take the man over there, for instance; he
sowed by machine three weeks ago and some's come up and some not. No.
The machine goes too deep in the soil.”
“H'm! Don't the jasmines smell fine tonight?”
“Yes. There's been a big difference with the barley and oats these last
few days. Getting on time for bed, though, now!”
He got up, but I did not move. “Looks like being fine again tomorrow,”
says Nils, glancing at the sky. And then he went on about the grass in
the garden; worth cutting, he said it was.
“You going to stay down here long?” he asked suddenly.
“Yes, for a bit; why not? Oh, well, perhaps I'd better go up too.”
Nils walked off a few paces, then came back again.
“Better not stay here any longer,” he said. “Come along up here with
me.”
“Think so?” I said, and rose at once. Evidently Nils had something in
his mind, and had come down here on purpose to fetch me.
Had he found me out? But what was there to find out?
Did I know myself what I had gone down to the shrubbery for? I remember
now that I lay face downwards, chewing a stalk of grass. There was light
in a certain upstairs window of the house. I was looking at that. And
that was all.
“Not being inquisitive now, but what's the matter?” I asked.
“Nothing,” said Nils. “The girls said you were down here, so I just came
along. Why, what else?”
So the maids had found me out, I thought to myself, and was ill pleased
at the thought. Ragnhild it must be, a devil of a girl, sharp as a
needle; she must have said a lot more than Nils was willing to confess.
And what if Fruen herself had seen me from the window!
I resolved now to be cold and indifferent as ice henceforward all the
days of my life.
* * * * *
Ragnhild is properly in clover. The thick stair carpet muffles every
step; she can run upstairs whenever she pleases and slip down again in a
moment without a sound.
“I can't make it out about Fruen,” says Ragnhild.
“Here she's come back, and ought to be happy and good tempered as
could be, and instead she's all tears and frowning. I heard the Captain
telling her today: 'Now do be a little reasonable, Lovise,' he said.
'I'm sorry, I won't do it any more,' says Fruen; and then she cried
because she'd been unreasonable. But that about never doing it any
more--she's said that now every day since she came back, but she's done
it again, all the same. Poor dear, she'd a toothache today; she was
simply crying out with the pain....”
“Go and get on with the potatoes, Ragnhild,” said Nils quickly. “We've
no time for gossiping now.”
We'd all of us our field-work now; there was much to be done. Nils was
afraid the corn would spoil if he left it too long at the poles; better
to get it in as it was. Well and good; but that meant threshing the
worst of it at once, and spreading the grain over the floor of every
shed and outhouse. Even in our own big living-room there was a large
layer of corn drying on the floor. Any more irons in the fire? Ay,
indeed, and all the while hot and waiting. Bad weather has set in, and
all the work ought to be done at once. When we've finished threshing,
there's the fresh straw to be cut up and salted down in bins to keep it
from rotting. That all? Not by a long way: irons enough still glowing
hot. Grindhusen and the maids are pulling potatoes. Nils snatches the
precious time after a couple of dry days to sow a patch of rye and send
the lad over it with the harrow. Lars Falkenberg is still ploughing;
he has given way altogether and turned out a fine ploughman since the
Captain and Fruen came back. When the corn-land's too soft he ploughs
the meadows; then, when sun and wind have dried things a bit, he goes on
to the corn-land again.
The work goes on steadily and well; in the afternoon the Captain himself
comes out to lend a hand. The last load of corn in being brought in.
Captain Falkenberg is no child at the work, big and strong he is,
and with the right knack of it. See him loading up oats from the
drying-frames: his second load now.
Just then Fruen comes along down the road, and crosses over to where we
are at work. Her eyes are bright. She seems pleased to watch her husband
loading up corn.
“_Signe Arbejdet!_” [Footnote: “A blessing on the work.”] she says.
“Thanks,” says the Captain.
“That's what we used to say in Nordland.”
“What?”
“That's what we used to say in Nordland.”
“Oh yes.”
The Captain is busy with his work, and in the rustle of the straw he
does not always hear what she says, but has to look up and ask again,
and this annoys them both.
“Are the oats ripe?” she asks.
“Yes, thank goodness!”
“But not dry, I suppose?”
“Eh? I can't hear what you say.”
“Oh, I didn't say anything.”
A long, uncomfortable silence after that. The Captain tries once or
twice with a good-humoured word, but gets no answer.
“So you're out on a round of inspection,” he says jestingly. “Have you
seen how the potatoes are getting on?”
“No,” she answers. “But I'll go over there, by all means, if you can't
bear the sight of me here.”
It was too dreadful to hear them going on like this. I must have frowned
unconsciously--shown some such feeling. Then, suddenly remembering that
for certain reasons I was to be cold as ice, I frowned the more.
Freun looked straight at me and said:
“What are you scowling at?”
“Scowling, eh?” says the Captain, joining in, with a forced laugh.
Fruen takes him up on the instant.
“Ah! you managed to hear that time!”
“Really, Lovise....”
Fruen's eyes dimmed suddenly; she stood a moment then ran, stooping
forward, round behind the frames, and sobbed.
The Captain went over to her. “What is it, Lovise, tell me?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing! Go away.”
She was sick; we could hear it. And moaning and saying: “Heaven help
me!”
“My wife's not very well just now,” says the Captain to me. “We can't
make out what it is.”
“There's sickness in the neighbourhood,” I suggested, for something to
say. “Sort of autumn fever. I heard about it up at the post office.”
“Is there, though? Why, there you are, Lovise,” he calls out. “There's
some sort of fever about, it seems. That's all it is.”
Fruen made no answer.
We went on loading up, and Fruen moved farther and farther away as we
came up. At last the frames were cleared, and she stood there guiltily,
very pale after her trouble.
“Shall I see you back to the house?” asked the Captain.
“No, thank you, I'd rather not,” she answered, walking away.
The Captain stayed out and worked with us till evening.
* * * * *
So here was everything gone wrong again. Oh, but it was hard for them
both!
And it was not just a little matter that could be got over by a
little give and take on either side, as folk say; no, it was a thing
insuperable, a trouble rooted deep. And now it had come to mutiny, no
less: Fruen had taken to locking her door at night. Ragnhild had heard
the Captain, highly offended, talking to her through the wall.
But that evening the Captain had demanded to speak with her in her room
before she went to bed. Fruen agreed, and there was a further scene.
Each was willing and anxious, no doubt, to set matters right, but it
was hopeless now; it was too late. We sat in the kitchen, Nils and I,
listening to Ragnhild's story. I had never seen Nils look so miserable
before.
“If things go wrong again now, it's all over,” he said. “I thought to
myself last summer that perhaps a good, sound thrashing would do her
good. But that was just foolishness, I can see now. Did she talk about
running away again?”
“She said something about it,” answered Ragnhild. And then she went on
something like this: “It began with the Captain asking if she didn't
think it was this local sickness she had got. Fruen answered it could
hardly be any local sickness that had turned her against him so. 'Turned
you against me?' 'Yes. Oh, I could scream sometimes. At table, for
instance, the way you eat and eat....' 'Do I?' says the Captain. 'Well,
I can't see there's anything very wrong in that; it's just natural.
There's no rule for how much one ought to eat at a meal.' 'But to have
to sit and look at you--it makes me sick. It's that that makes me ill.'
'Well, anyhow, you can't say I drink too much now,' said he. 'So it's
better than it was.' 'No, indeed, it's worse!' Then says the Captain:
'Well, really, I do think you might make allowances for me a little,
after I've--I mean, considering what you did yourself this summer.'
'Yes, you're right,' says Fruen, beginning to cry. 'If you knew how it
hurts and plagues me night and day, thinking of that.... But I've never
said a word.' 'No, I know,' says she, crying all the more. 'And I asked
you myself to come back,' he said. But at that she seemed to think he
was taking too much credit to himself; she stopped crying, and answered,
with a toss of her head: 'Yes, and it would have been better if you'd
never asked me back, if it was only to go on like this.' 'Like what?'
says he. 'You've your own way in everything now. The same as before,
only you don't care for anything at all. You never touch the piano,
even; only go about cross and irritable all the time; there's no
pleasing you with anything. And you shut your door at night and lock me
out. Well and good; lock me out if you like!' 'It's you that are hard
to please, if you ask me,' she said. 'There's never a night and never
a morning but I'm worried out of my life lest you shall be thinking
of--this summer. You've never said a word about it, you say. Oh, don't
you, though! I'm never left long in peace without you throwing it in my
teeth. I happened to say “Hugo” one day, by a slip of the tongue, and
what did you do? You might have been nice and comforted me to help me
over it, but you only scowled and said you were not Hugo. No. I knew
well enough, and I was ever so sorry to have said it.' 'That's just the
point,' said the Captain. 'Were you really sorry?' 'Yes, indeed,' said
Fruen; 'it hurt me ever so.' 'Well, I shouldn't have thought it; you
don't seem very upset about it.' 'Ah, but what about you? Haven't you
anything to be sorry for?' 'You've got photos of Hugo on your piano
still; I haven't seen you move them away yet, though I've shown you not
once but fifty times I wished you to--yes, and begged you to do it.'
'Oh, what a fuss you make about those photos!' said she. 'Oh, don't make
any mistake! I'm not asking you now. If you went and shifted them now,
it would make no difference. I've begged and prayed of you fifty times
before. Only, I think it would have been a little more decent if you'd
burned them the day you came home. But, instead of that, you've
books here lying about in your room with his name in. And there's a
handkerchief with his initials on, I see.' 'Oh, it's all your jealousy,'
answered Fruen. 'I can't see what difference it makes. I can't kill him,
as you'd like me to, and Papa and Mama say the same. After all, I've
lived with him and been married to him.' 'Married to him?' 'Yes, that's
what I say. It isn't every one that looks at Hugo and me the way you
do.' The Captain sat a while, shaking his head. 'And it's all your own
fault, really,' Fruen went on, 'the way you drove off with Elisabet that
time, though I came and asked you not to go. It was then it happened.
And we'd been drinking that evening. I didn't quite know what I was
doing.' Still, the Captain said nothing for a while; then at last he
said: 'Yes, I ought not to have gone off like that.' 'No, but you did,'
said Fruen, and started crying again. 'You wouldn't hear a word. And
you're always throwing it in my teeth about Hugo, but you never think
of what you've done yourself.' 'There's just this difference,' says the
Captain, 'that I've never lived with the lady you mention, never been
married to her, as you call it.' Fruen gave a little scornful laugh.
'Never!' said the Captain, striking the table with his hand. Fruen gave
a start, and sat staring at him. 'Then--I don't understand why you were
always running after her and sitting out in the summer-house and lurking
in corners,' said she. 'It was you that sat out in the summer-house,' he
answered. 'Oh yes, it's always me,' said she. 'Never you by any chance!'
'As for my running after Elisabet,' said the Captain, 'it was solely and
simply in the hopes of getting you back. You'd drifted away from me,
and I wanted you.' Fruen sat thinking over that for a minute, then she
sprang up and threw her arms around him and said: 'Oh, then you cared
for me all the time! And I thought it was all over. You'd drifted away
from me, too; it was years since. And it all seemed so hopeless. I never
thought--I never knew.... And then it was me you cared for all the time!
Oh, my dear, then it's all come right again.' 'Sit down,' said he.
'You seem to forget that something else has happened since.' 'Something
else?' 'There you are, you've forgotten all about it. May I ask you, are
you sorry enough for what's happened since?' At that Fruen turned hard
again and said: 'Oh, you mean about Hugo? That's done and can't be
altered.' 'That doesn't answer the question.' 'If I'm sorry enough? What
about you; are you so innocent yourself?' At this the Captain got up and
began walking up and down. 'The trouble is that we've no children,'
said Fruen. 'I haven't a daughter that I could teach and bring up to be
better than I am,' 'I've thought of that,' said the Captain, 'perhaps
you're right.' Then he turned straight towards her and said: 'It's a
nasty crash that's come over us, Lovise--like a landslide. But don't you
think now we might set to work and shift away all the wreckage that's
been burying us for years, and get clear and breathe again? You might
have a daughter yet!' At that Fruen got up and made as if to say
something, but couldn't. 'Yes,' was all she said, and 'Yes,' she said
again. 'You're tired and nervous, I know,' he said. 'But think a little
over what I've said. Another time.' 'Good-night,' said she.”