"Come in," said the key invitingly.
But the weary man stood motionless, paralysed by the thought that had
come to him as he reached the door.
"Come in--you've waited long enough in coming."
And the weary man grasped the key, but stood holding it helplessly,
like a child without strength to turn it.
It rattled in the lock under his trembling fingers. The noise roused
him; he opened the door and went in.
* * * * *
It was like entering a church. A solemn, expectant silence hung over
the place--it was just as it had been when, as a child, he had first
been taken to church.
And now, as then, his glance sought first of all the farthest
background of the place. What he saw was like and yet unlike what he
had seen there. Then, it had been the figure of a young man, holding
out his arms over a group of children; now, it was the figure of an
old woman, worn with sickness--but with the same great gentleness in
her face.
The woman's eyes lit up, as though she had seen a miracle; her glance
grew keen, as if wishing to be sure, and softened again, in the
certainty that the miracle had come.
The trembling head was lifted, the frail body rose up like a bent bow,
her mouth opened, and her lips began to move, but no sound came--she
could but reach out one thin, trembling hand to the figure by the
door.
He moved, and walked over to the bed. And the old woman and the weary
man took each other's hands and pressed them, looked into each other's
eyes and trembled with emotion, unable to speak a word.
Tears rose to the old woman's eyes, a gleam as of sunset over autumn
woods lit her wrinkled face; the thin lips quivered between smiling
and weeping.
"So you came after all," she said at last in a trembling voice. "I
knew you would come--some time. And good that you came just now...."
She sank back wearily on the pillow, and the man sat down on a chair
at her side, still holding her hands in his.
* * * * *
The old woman lay with her face turned towards her son, looking at him
with love in her eyes.
Then her look turned to one of questioning--there was something she
had been waiting years to ask.
"Tell me, my son...." Her voice was almost a whisper.
But he could not answer.
"Olof, look at me," she begged.
And the man beside the bed lifted his eyes, great dark eyes full of
weariness and stark fear--but bowed his head again and looked away.
The smile vanished from the old woman's face. She gazed long and
searchingly at her son's haggard chin, his sunken cheeks and loose
eyelids, the pale forehead, the furrowed temples--everything.
"Perhaps it has to be," she murmured, as if speaking to someone
else. "'_And wasted all his substance.... And he said, I will arise
and_....'"
Her voice trembled, and Olof, in a hasty glance, saw how her wrinkled
mouth quivered with emotion.
And suddenly the coldness that had almost paralysed him up to now,
seemed to melt away. He fell on his knees beside the bed, his face in
the coverlet, and knelt there sobbing.
It was as in church, at the moment when each single heart withdraws
from all the rest to offer up its own silent prayer.
* * * * *
The old woman lay resting in her bed; her face wore the same look of
sorrowful gentleness that it had done for years, despite the ravages
of sickness.
But to-day, signs of uneasiness were apparent; shadows of fear seemed
flitting ever and anon over her features.
Olof wiped his mother's forehead gently. "You are not so well to-day?"
he asked.
"'Tis not that--no. I called you, there was something I wanted to say.
But I'm not sure--perhaps it would be better not...."
He took her withered hand tenderly in his.
"Why do you think that, mother? You have never said anything but what
was good."
"'Twas meant to be so--ay, that's true. But there's times when it's
hard to say what's best to do, and it's so with me now. For years I've
been thinking to tell you before I closed my eyes the last time.
And it's been a comfort to me in many trials. But now I come to say
it...."
The sick woman's breast heaved, and drops of sweat stood out on her
forehead.
"Best not to think too much if it worries you," said Olof, wiping her
brow once more. "'Twill be all right in time."
"'Tis right enough--I know that really. 'Twould be a wrong to myself
and you, and to all I've hoped and believed, if I didn't speak--yet
it's hard to begin. Come closer, you too, Heikki--I can't speak so
loud...."
The elder brother, who had just come in from the fields with his
muddy boots on, had sat down close to the door. He moved his chair now
nearer the bed.
The sick woman lay for a while in thought, as if weighing the matter
in her mind. Then she looked long and earnestly at her two sons.
"You two will have to divide what's left," she said at last. "And I've
not said a word of it before; you're not like to quarrel over it, I
know. But there's one thing in the place that I want to keep separate
from the rest, and give it up to you now, before I go."
She sighed, and was silent for a while, as if needing rest before she
could continue. The two young men watched her expectantly.
'"Tis nothing of great value, but it's all tied up like with something
that happened once, and all the thoughts of it--and 'tis valuable to
me. I mean the cupboard there."
The sons glanced at the thing where it stood; an old cupboard in two
sections, that they knew well.
"You look surprised. Oh, if I could only tell you...."
She gazed upwards in silence, as if praying for strength. Then, with a
strange light in her eyes, she turned towards them and went on almost
in a whisper, as one who tells a tale of ghosts:
"It was long ago. In this very room, on this very bed here lay a woman
who had borne a man-child but four days before. She had always been
tender and faithful and obedient to her husband, and had tried to do
his will in everything. And she had been happy, very happy. But before
the child was born, a suspicion had begun to grow up secretly in her
mind. And now, on the fifth night, as she lay there with the newborn
child, in the pale light from a lamp on the shelf of the cupboard
there, the fear at her heart grew all of a sudden so strong that she
got up, and went into the next room, to see if what she dreaded was
true...."
The sick woman turned her face to the wall, to hide the tears that
forced themselves into her eyes.
"But the one she sought was not there, and driven by fear, she crossed
the courtyard, barefooted, and half-clad as she was, in the cold, over
to the still-room. They used to make spirits at home in those days.
She opened the door softly and looked in. There the fire was burning,
and by the flickering light she saw a woman--a young woman then--lying
on a bed, and beside her the man she herself had risen from her
childbed to seek. And at the sight of them her heart died in her. She
would have cried aloud, but only a groan came from her lips, and she
went back, dreading at every step lest her legs should fail her...."
The sick woman gasped for breath, and lay trembling; the listeners sat
as if turned to stone.
"How she got back," went on the old woman, "she did not know herself;
only there she was, sitting on the bed beside her child, pressing her
hands to her breast, that felt as if it would burst. Then she heard
footsteps outside, and a moment later the door opened, and with a roar
like a wild beast, a man strode in--furious, with bloodshot eyes.
He uttered a dreadful curse, and swung up an axe above his head. The
woman almost fainted with fright. Then behind him she saw her sister
reaching up with a cry of horror towards the axe he held. It flew from
his hand, the steel shone in the lamplight--and what happened after
she did not know...."
It was as if the axe had fallen at that moment, striking them all
three. The mother closed her eyes. Olof was trembling from head
to foot; his brother crouched in his seat, his features stiff with
horror.
"When she came to herself," went on the sick woman in a trembling
voice, "her husband was sitting beside her, with his head in his
hands, his face ashy pale, his eyes bloodshot, and his body trembling
all over as if shivering with cold. The axe had flown straight over
the place where mother and child had been, missing them by an inch,
and stuck fast in the cupboard beyond--it was standing there as it
stands now...."
The woman sighed as if in relief to find the danger past.
Olof grasped her hand eagerly, pressed it, and looked imploringly into
her eyes.
"Yes, yes," she nodded, "he begged forgiveness--and she forgave him.
And they were friends again. And that night he fetched up some putty
from the cellar and filled the hole the axe had made, and painted it
over afterwards. But--you can see where it was...."
Olof rose to his feet and walked over mechanically to the cupboard;
his elder brother sat still on his chair, looking over at the place in
silent horror.
"You can see--it struck just between the two sides, and cut deep into
the edges. It's plain to be seen, for all it's painted over now. As
for the woman...."
She broke off suddenly, her face pale and bloodless, her features
quivering with painful emotion.
"The woman--she forgave him, and never a harsh word between them
after. Folk said they lived so happily together.... But the hurt--the
hurt was there. A woman's heart's not a thing to be healed with any
putty and paint...."
* * * * *
She was silent, but her face was eloquent with feeling still.
Olof went back to his place, took her hand and kissed it again and
again, with tears, as if praying for forgiveness. For the first
time he realised the inner meaning of his mother's nature as he knew
it--the undertone of sadness in her gentle ways. And he could not
free himself from a strange, inexplicable feeling of guilt in himself,
though till that day he had known nothing of her secret.
"And for the man ... well, well, let him rest in peace! 'Twas not from
any thought to soil his memory--but you're grown men now, my sons, and
when you've wives of your own.... Ay, a good man he was in many ways,
a clever worker. And I know he suffered himself for--for the other
thing. He'll be judged, as we shall all be judged--we've all of us
enough to answer for...."
For a long time the sick woman lay as if overwhelmed by stress of
feeling, unable to speak. Olof, with tears in his eyes, sat deep in
thought; the elder son had not moved.
"And now I can leave it to you," she went on more calmly. "'Tis all
tied up, as I said, with thoughts of that time, ay, and hopes and
prayers, all the best and the hardest in my life. And I'm not the only
one that's had such things to bear through life. There's many a one
the world knows nothing of, for a woman can bear a great sorrow and
never speak of it. And I've heard since, that there was trouble of the
same sort here in the house before my day.... Heaven grant I may be
the last to suffer! And so I wanted you to take the thing between
you--half to each--the scar's between them, so you'll share that too.
Remember it, and tell your children some time. And they can pass on
the legacy to theirs--with all the hopes and prayers and tears it
brought--only let the name be forgotten!"
All three looked earnestly at the grim heirloom that stood there
reaching from floor to ceiling; it seemed to grow, as they watched,
into a monument over the grave of many generations.
* * * * *
The sick woman turned anxiously to her sons.
"Will you take it?" she asked. "Will you take it, with all that it
means...?"
Olof pressed her hand to his lips in answer. The elder brother sat
motionless, as before, his eyelids trembled as if he were on the point
of tears. His mother read his answer in his eyes.
"I'm glad it's over now," she said in relief. "And now I've no more to
give you, but--my blessing!"
Her face lit with the same great gentleness that had softened it for
years, she looked long and tenderly at her sons.
"Olof," she said at last, as if to wake him from his thoughts; "_it
happened at the time before you were born_...."
The elder son looked at his mother in astonishment--why should she
tell them what they had known all along?
But Olof looked up suddenly, as if he had heard something new and
significant. The quiver in his mother's voice told him what she meant,
the look in her eyes seemed to shed a light on what had been dark
before.
Questioningly he looked at her, as if silently asking confirmation of
his thought.
She nodded almost imperceptibly.
"I have often thought of that, these last sad years...."
Olof felt as if a mighty storm had suddenly torn away a dark,
overshadowing growth, laying bare the heart of a fearsome place--deep
clefts and stagnant pools and treacherous bogs.
"Ay, there's much that's hard to understand," she whispered in his
ear. "But go to your work, now, sons. I'm tired now, leave me to
rest...."
The young men rose and left the room. In the doorway they turned and
cast a last glance at their mother, but she seemed no longer to heed
them. She lay with her hands folded on her breast, gazing calmly at
the old cupboard where it stood by the wall, like a monument above the
grave of many generations.