A Letter
A few days later, Lotta Hedman came in to the Pastor in his study in the middle of the day.
She had a letter in her hand, and stared straight before her; her hair was as smooth as Lotta’s hair could ever be, and her brow was clear as if Heaven had opened above her and shed over her something of its glory.
The Pastor was somewhat surprised himself to see that she came in so calmly and coolly to speak to him, for Lotta Hedman had been strange and confused in her manner ever since the night when Sigrun had gone. She was restless always, and often talked aloud to herself. It was supposed that she saw visions, and those who heard anything of what she said noticed that it was always about the great destruction and a horseman on a red horse, and the great beast, the dreadful end of the world.
She avoided everyone as far as she could, and most of all her master. He had often noticed how she would go a long way round to keep out of his way.
Her hair stood up, as a rule, all about her head, her eyes rolled about, her clothes were ill-cared-for, and her work was done as best might be.
Whenever she encountered the two young ladies, she would call to them with stern words from the Scriptures, that sounded like threats.
They had tried to persuade the Pastor to send Lotta back to her own country, but he understood that it was her sorrow for Sigrun that troubled her, and so he had protected her and retained her in his service.
To-day, noticing the change in her appearance, he said to himself: “I see, now, that her mourning is over. There is no one but myself in the home that remembers Sigrun now.”
But Lotta begged him to listen to her with patience, for she had much to say.
And to his great surprise, for she was in the highest degree solemn and earnest, she began by telling him a saga.
“There was once a homestead,” she said, “where honest peasant folk lived, but close by was a mountain, and there were trollfolk there. And the peasant’s wife had once been into the dwelling of the trollfolk, to help one of their wives in childbirth. And as she bathed the child, it splashed a drop of the water into her eye, and that drop of water gave her the gift of sight in that eye, so that ever after she could see all that the trollfolk were doing about her own place. She came on them many a time when they were stealing things, or laying traps for man and beast to their hurt.
“Then one day it chanced that the peasant’s wife was going out to the fair at harvest-time, and walking there among the booths she met the troll from her home. And she forgot herself, and passed the time of day with him. ‘Good-day to you, gaffer,’ she said, shaking hands with him; ‘that’s a fine piece of cloth you’ve bought there.’
“‘Ay,’ said the troll, ‘and cheap too. There were two peasants quarrelling about the piece, and while they fought, I took up the parcel and made off.’
“After that they stood a bit talking easily together, but then suddenly the troll said: ‘But how is this, old lady—how is it you can see me at all?’
“‘Why, it’s this way,’ said she, ‘I got a drop of water in my eye last time I came to your place, and ever since I can see you, whether you like it or not.’
“‘Well, now, to be sure. And which eye was it, then?’
“‘In the left,’” said the woman. And quick as light he raised his hand and struck out her left eye. Took the eye clean out, never leaving a bit of it. And after that she could never all her life see anything out of ordinary.
“And that was what Pastor did to me the first time we met,” said Lotta in a high, shrill voice. “Pastor struck out my eye with the gift of sight out of my face, and ever since, my life’s been all confusion. I can see, but only darkly; I can hear, but indistinctly, and I get no further, and find no one to listen to me. I’m poor and homeless, and I shall never be more than a poor working girl.”
The Pastor sat quietly listening, and when Lotta stopped a moment for breath, he said, without a trace of anger:
“Go on with what you have to say, Lotta. I am sure you did not come to me to-day only to speak of these old things.”
“No,” said Lotta, “but I want Pastor to remember that, because I have wronged you greatly afterward, in my turn. It may be well now and then to know that there are old debts owing, so one can ask for payment. And I have great need of mercy and forgiveness, as you will see.”
The Pastor shook his head.
“Now I cannot see what you are thinking of.”
But Lotta answered steadily:
“I know what it is I have to say, and it is no easy thing to confess, but before I come to that, there is one thing more I must tell you first.
“I am not one to go tale-bearing about,” she said, “and I have never said a word to Sigrun about it, but I know there is a place called Hånger. And I have heard the whole story of the priest who was murdered there, and the gatepost and the old woman at the window and the curse that lies on the men of Hånger. And it seems to me that a man who knows he is come of a strong, wild race, that has always been hard to get on with, and who knows, too, what manner of death awaits him—I think that man must have asked himself at times if he did right in taking for his wife a girl innocent and delicate as a newly opened leaf, and knowing nothing of all the dark within him.”
“Lotta Hedman!”
The Pastor’s voice was still calm enough; he was but warning Lotta not to go too far.
“Let me go on, Pastor,” she begged. “For I do not say this in any reproach, but only to remind you that there are faults on both sides, though the fault on ours, on Sigrun’s and mine, is so much the greater that it will need much mercy and forgiveness in your scale to balance it.
“And now I have only to tell you how it was Sigrun left us. And it is by her own wish that I tell you this. I have had a letter from her to-day, telling me to do it, and it has loosed me from my abasement and lifted me up out of my deceit, so that I can once more look my fellows in the face.”
The fact that it was Lotta Hedman speaking, rendered her words less surprising to the Pastor than if it had been another. He thought she was about to tell him that Sigrun had not died of the smallpox, but had taken her own life, and that Lotta fancied she had received some sort of permission to tell him about it now.
And Lotta began her story.
But as she went on, her courage faded, for she saw how the man before her grew darker in mind, as the sky darkens before the coming of a great storm. Clouds drew up from every side. A terrible cold and a terrible darkness spread abroad. And at last she could hardly utter a word.
Nevertheless, she managed to relate, without any circumspection, that she had had several messages from Sigrun, and that the latter, after her arrival at Hånger, had been ill with the smallpox. It had not been dangerous, but a long illness.
And all through her illness, and ever since, she had stayed with the good folk at Hånger. She had been out into the world on her own resources for a single day, and the things she had met with then had so terrified her that nothing could persuade her now to leave her friends and her sheltered life to go out among strange things and people.
But the eloquent words with which Lotta had intended to describe her own misery and shame, and her joy that Sigrun had changed her mind and would return to her home, all this remained for the most part unsaid.
All she did was to lay before the Pastor the letter she had that day received, dated from Hånger, the 15th of May, 1916, and with these few lines:
“Lotta, you must go to Edward and tell him everything. And ask him to come here to Hånger and fetch me, if he considers me worthy to be his wife again.”
Inside was a small envelope addressed to the Pastor himself. He tore it open, and found the one word:
“Forgive!”
When he had seen it, he broke out into a bitter, heartrending laugh. It was like the first gust of the storm bursting through the clouds and Hinging them aside to commence its fierce play.
“You can telephone to Hånger and tell Sigrun I will come and fetch her to-morrow,” said the Pastor. “To-day I have to go to an examination at the school.”
Lotta did as she was asked. And just after noon the Pastor drove off alone. He had a long journey before him to a distant school. But on coming to the cross-roads, he did not turn off along the way that led to the school. He turned eastward, up toward the Dalsland boundary, in the direction of Hånger.