The Prodigal Son

Part III

Yet ah, that spring should vanish with the rose!
That youth’s sweet-scented manuscript should close!
The nightingale that in the branches sang,
Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows?

I

The wedding being over, and the wedding party gone, Anna went on a visit to Magnus in order to bear him company during the first weeks of his first winter, and to see that his house was in order.

The farm was thirty-odd miles from the capital, not far from the scene of the sheep-gathering and in the middle of the great plain of Thingvellir—an historic spot, formerly the place of the Icelandic parliament, for the neglected Mount of Laws may still be seen there.

There were only two houses on the plain—the farmhouse and the parsonage, with its little church beside it. The farmhouse was the larger of the two, and being on the line of road from the capital to the chief market of the Northland it had become a resting place for travelers.

The Inn-farm had belonged to Anna’s family for many generations and her father had been the last to hold it. He was a worthy man, silent and serious, much like Magnus in personal character, but he left the place badly embarrassed, having fallen into the hands of a defaulting factor. After his daughter married he lost his wife and then he died suddenly—people said of drink. Since then the estate had been twenty years in the hands of a steward, but the Governor had paid off the mortgage out of the savings of his salary and the farm was free.

It was an endless delight to Anna to bring the place back to its former condition. She began with the sleeping accommodation, for sin comes with a laugh, she said, but goes with a cry. The shepherd and his wife she put in the upper bedroom (the Badstofa), the maids in the lower one, and the farm-boys in the loft. Each of the rooms was under its own roof, and the homestead as a whole was less like a single house than a group of houses, or like a gipsy encampment, with its peaked tents going off in different directions. The principal apartment was a large square hall, with two guest-rooms opening out of it. Magnus was to sleep in one of these guest rooms, except when both were wanted for travelers, and then he was to lie on a mattress stretched on the floor.

Anna inspected the kitchen (the Elt House) and the storehouse (the Skemma)—examined the winter’s stock of potted meat and dried and salted cod and whale, and put a lock on the Bur, for seldom does the servant-maid starve in the larder, she said. Finally she turned her attention to the Hall, which was the general living room, and furnished it afresh with a settle, an armchair, a Bornholme clock, and a big German stove. As a finishing stroke she hung two large photographs on the walls, one of the Governor, the other of herself. The Governor was gorgeous in his gold-braided uniform, but she was homely in her black hufa, and on second thoughts she would have taken her own picture down but Magnus said something nice about it and she allowed it to remain.

Anna’s visit was a long one, but as often as she prepared to go, saying home was the best place for the stupid, Magnus answered that in that case Gudrun must unpack her trunk, for the Governor could not be expecting her. In this way she stayed at Thingvellir until the snow began to be honeycombed by the thaw and the ribs of the landscape to be revealed again.

Meantime her life at the farm was simple and primitive and every day had its own duty. Before it was light in the morning she rang the bell in the hall which awakened the household, and sent the maids to the shippons and the boys to the beasts in their pens. And when the short day had closed in she rang the bell again for supper, and finally for prayers, when the house-father (Magnus now) gave out a hymn and read a lesson.

On Sunday she went to church, and met the fifty-odd people who had ridden over from the farms that bordered the plain. She sat in the seat in front of the communion rail, with its picture of Christ in white robes among warm eastern foliage. Magnus sat in the choir and put up the figures on the plate that gave the numbers of the hymns. He had little voice and no music, but Anna listened and was happy.

Though the nights were long the household was never idle. While the servants had to mend and make blankets in their own quarters, Magnus would weave on a loom he set up in the hall and his mother would spin or knit stockings. He was full of great projects again, and though his former schemes were impossible to him now he had others of equal consequence.

What Iceland wanted was roads; roads were the landmarks of civilization; without roads the most productive country in the world could not prosper, for what was the use of a cow that gave much milk if it kicked over the pail?

Night after night in the pauses of the loom Anna had to listen to this story and to assent to the schemes that were tied on to it. Yes, Magnus was going to be very comfortable and she could go home in content.

“After all, perhaps everything was for the best,” she said, “and if there were only a mistress in the house——”

But Magnus rattled at the loom and nothing more was heard for some moments.

“John and Gudrun are very well, in their way, but it’s thin blood that isn’t thicker than water, and when I go back——”

The loom rattled still louder.

“But a young man who couldn’t be satisfied with a girl like Thora isn’t likely to find many to his liking.”

And then the loom rattled louder than ever, and nothing more was said that night.

II

At intervals during Anna’s visit to the farm there came news of the wedding party—the letters being sent on by the weekly post from Government House and from the Factor’s. The first to come was from England, and it was a joint letter to everybody written by all three of the wanderers. Oscar began it, with a playful review of their journey from the time of the departure of the “Laura.”

“As soon as we set foot on the ship we were told that Captain Zimsen had given up his own cabin to us, and from that hour to this everybody has shown us boundless hospitality, especially father’s old college friends, the professor at Oxford and the banker here in London. Naturally we know we owe everything to the magic of the Governor’s name, and consequently I am cultivating an extraordinary reverence for it, though I doubt if I shall ever find it more beautiful than I did on the morning of our wedding at the bottom of that splendid check.”

“Ha, ha, the mouse knows where to come back for his cheese,” said Anna.

Helga came next, with a glowing account of the London theaters, opera-houses, and picture-galleries.

“The half had not been told me, as the big Book says, and I wonder more than ever why a poor girl should be doomed to waste her life in a wilderness when she might live in a world of so many clever and beautiful people.”

“M’m! It’s poor work pouring water on a rock,” said Anna.

Thora came last with a rather sad little note. It was all very wonderful, no doubt, but she was feeling just a wee bit home-sick. Did not care so very much for operas and picture-galleries, so Oscar had to take Helga by herself.

“I like best to sit in the window of the hotel and look at the crowds in the square. Such multitudes! Always going and coming and hardly anybody ever speaking to anybody else! That’s what strikes you at first as most extraordinary. It is so strange to think that the people in the streets do not even know each other by sight, and that every young woman who goes by has her own family somewhere—her own husband and perhaps her own children—and that she is hurrying away to them. I don’t know why, but it makes me feel so lonely, and then I almost want to be back in my dear, sweet, homely old Iceland.”

Magnus had to read this letter aloud—for Anna was no reader of handwriting—and when he came to Thora’s part his voice thickened and broke.

The next letter came from Paris, and Helga wrote the whole of it.

“Such sights! Such luxury! Such gaiety! And such dreams of dresses! And then the opera—Chopin, Verdi, Wagner, Greig! We are at the opera every night—that is to say, Oscar and I are, Thora not caring very much for music. Thora’s chief pleasure is to walk in the flower market by the Madeleine and watch the children playing, and look as if she wished she were one of them.”

“Just like our Thora,” said Anna.

“Neils is here—Neils Finsen you know. Neils has finished his course at the Musical College, and is connected in some way with Covent Garden and has come to Paris on managerial business. He seems to be getting along wonderfully and it makes me feel almost envious. Oh, to get on in life! To escape forever from that grey sky and all those freezing surroundings! What I would give to do it! Nothing should stand between me and success in life if I only saw the chance of it. And who knows—perhaps I may some day! Neils declares that my voice has improved wonderfully and I am practising constantly. But to have any real opportunity in music one ought to be here or in London or Dresden, and it is so expensive. I’m nearly penniless as it is, and I am so shockingly dowdy that if some one does not send me——”

The letter was to the Factor and he had cut away the end of it.

“M’m! M’m!” said Anna. “What the Miss is used to, the Misses keeps up.” And then they ate their supper of smoked mutton and black bread in silence and rang the bell for prayers.

The third letter from the wedding party came from Italy, and it was written by Oscar only. The post that brought it had been delayed by a snow-storm, and had sheltered two nights on the Moss Fell Heath. At the Inn-farm the cattle-pens had been completely buried, and Magnus and the men had worked up to their waists from daylight to dark, digging a way out of the snow that the beasts might be fed and watered.

“The world will be white with you in Iceland, but here in Italy the roses are in bud, and the sky is blue and the air is balmy. What a time we have had of it! We came down from Venice, the city of silence and dream, through Florence, the city of sunshine, and Rome, the mother of cities, to Naples, the city of song. Italy seems to set all Europe to music! Lovely and beloved Italy! If only some one could do the same for Iceland! Rugged, gaunt, grand old Iceland! But wait—only wait—perhaps somebody will do it yet!”

“Ah, Oscar, Oscar,” said Anna, “it’s easier to count twelve mountains than to climb one.”

“Helga is enjoying the trip tremendously. Out every minute of the day and making friends on every side. Thora does not seem so well, poor child, and she hardly cares to go about. We are going on to the Riviera next week and thence back to Iceland. I must, of course, be home for the opening of Althing, but Helga is grudging every day. It is now two o’clock in the morning and we have just returned from a Veglioni—that is to say a masque ball—this (yesterday) being the last of Lent. Flowers, streamers, confetti, and such dresses! Helga looked magnificent in a pale blue chiffon of the latest model and was, out of all comparison, the belle of the evening. Poor Thora did not care to go, so she stayed in the hotel and went to bed early.”

Magnus and his mother also went to bed early on the night they read that letter. Anna rung the bell that hung from the ceiling of the hall, and the servants in their skin slippers and woolen stockings trooped in for prayers. The lesson was the story of the widow’s cruise and the hymn was—

“Meek and low, meek and low,
I shall soon my Jesus know.”

The last letter they received from the wanderers came on the first day of spring, when the thaw had set in, and the water was running down the discolored snow on the mountains like tears on a wrinkled face, and the sheep were beginning to lamb. It was from Monte Carlo and was written by Thora to Anna herself.

“This place is so beautiful, Anna, yet I do not think I like it very much. The houses are all splendid palaces, but they don’t seem so comfortable as the little homes in Iceland. I dare not say this to Oscar, lest he should think me ungrateful, and certainly there is no fog or mist here, and no big white waves, because the sea is always blue; and of course the trees are so wonderful and the blossoms so beautiful! Sometimes they have a carnival, and then wagon-loads of flowers are flung about everywhere; but next day it is quite pitiful to see the lovely roses that have been trampled upon being swept up in the streets.

“In the afternoon a band plays in a garden and you drive in a carriage round and round it. At night you go to a restaurant—bigger than the Artisan’s Institute—and there another band plays while you eat your dinner—two or three hundred at once, and all the ladies in low dresses. After that you go to a Casino, where all is silent and rather dark and people sit round tables and play cards for money. Everybody plays cards here because everybody seems to be always taking a holiday.”

“Ah, but the devil never does,” said Anna.

“It is shocking to hear, though, how much is sometimes lost in a moment. Last night Oscar pointed out a pale-faced young man who had gambled away the whole of his estate—larger and more valuable than the Inn-farm itself. They say he had not intended to play at all when he went into the room, but the fever mastered him and he could not resist it.

“Ay, ay, we don’t see the ruts when the snow covers them,” said Anna.

“It made me feel ill and I couldn’t stay any longer, but Helga wished to remain, so Oscar put me in a carriage and I came back to the hotel and went to bed. I do wish Helga were not so fond of such places. She is, however, and as a consequence Oscar is compelled to go with her, although he does not want to, and sometimes he comes back very depressed. Since we came here his sleep has been much broken, and his manner very restless. I shall be glad when we leave this place.

“But we have had such a wonderful time altogether, and Oscar has been so kind to me and I have been so happy. All the same, I shall be glad to be home again, to see all the dear old faces—yours and Auntie Margret’s and father’s and the Governor’s. I suppose Magnus does not talk of me now—does he? How is Silvertop? Tell Magnus to rub his ears for me and kiss his rough old nose. What a romp we’ll have over the Heath some day! But I suppose I must not romp too much now, must I? It is so strange, Anna—there are hardly any babies about this place! Not like Italy, where you see them everywhere, with their poor little legs wrapped up like a mummy’s.

“We are to be back for the first of summer, and I’m counting the days already. Give our love to everybody and if anybody asks after me in particular say I am so well and so happy.”

The loom in the hall lay idle on the night when Magnus read this letter. Nobody spoke until Anna lit two candles and gave one of them to Magnus, saying:

“Here! You’re tired, and no wonder, being up before daybreak. How many lambs this morning, Magnus?”

“Twenty-two, but one of the best of them is dead.”

“That’s the way of it always. Good night!”

“Good night!”

At the door of his bedroom Magnus paused, candle in hand.

“Mother!”

“Well?”

“Do you think she is so very happy?”

“Our Thora? God knows, my son!” said Anna.

III

The snow was gone and the pale ground was green and golden with the raiment and the jewels of spring when the travelers returned to Iceland. Rounding the head of the fiord in the early morning, when the little capital was smoking for breakfast, Captain Zimsen had fired a cannon in honor of their home-coming, and everybody ran out-of-doors in delight, thinking the man-of-war had come from Copenhagen, but there was greater joy still when the “Laura” dropped her anchor and the little boats that had gone out to meet her came back with the news that the wedding party had returned.

Half the men of the town went down to the jetty to welcome the wanderers; among them the Governor in his gala uniform, the Factor in his best scull-cap, smoking his best German pipe, the Sheriff, the Rector, and the Bishop.

The Factor’s big white boat had been sent off instantly to fetch the three ashore, and when it was coming back there was a good deal of curiosity as to how they would look after their long journey. Oscar, who was standing in the bow, was seen to be sunburnt, and slightly older-looking, having grown a small, fair mustache, which was curled up at the ends. It was observed by somebody that he wore the latest pattern of waistcoat and carried an Italian cloak over his arm. Helga, who was standing in the middle of the boat, looked a shade more buxom, and wore a new French hat. She had a kodak swung over her shoulder and was looking at the people on the jetty through an ivory-framed field-glass. And Thora, who was sitting in the stern in the costume in which she went away, with Magnus’s white bearskin across her knees, looked a thought thinner than before, but her face was bright with smiles, though there were tears in her sparkling eyes.

When the boat came alongside the salutations were lusty and robustious. Such laughter! Such chaff! Such prolonged handshaking and slapping on the back! After the Governor and the Factor had kissed Thora they found their cheeks were wet, but Helga was as bright as the day and Oscar made everybody happy. He shook hands all round and hailed even the fishermen and boatmen by name. “He doesn’t forget an old friend, eh?” said an old fellow in bare feet.

Then away they trooped to Government House, where Anna was waiting in apron and hufa at the door of the porch. Thora cried for joy at sight of her, and had to be carried off to her bedroom. And when Aunt Margret came in her oiled ringlets and Oscar would have kissed her she beat him off with a playful pat on the cheek, and saying, “I must see what you’ve done with my child first,” ran straight upstairs.

Helga went up also to take off her hat, and the Governor and the Factor carried Oscar into the drawing-room, where the Bishop, the Sheriff and the Rector joined them. Maria brought in coffee and chocolate, and the old men charged their pipes and plied Oscar with questions. The Governor asked about English politics, the Factor about custom-house duties, the Bishop about the Vatican, and the Rector about the excavations in the Roman Forum.

Oscar answered all of them with a dash and emphasis that had the look of knowledge and the effect of wit, and then glancing off the heavy ground of fact he went tobogganing down the slippery slopes of fiction, with amusing tales of their travels and of the ridiculous things that had and had not happened to them.

All his stories told, every time he pulled the trigger his pistol fired, and the old men laughed until they cried. “What a boy he is!” “He plays with every finger.” His high spirits affected them like sunshine after dark days, like a breeze after a calm at sea, like the swing of a boat after the first dip of the oar. He was the same reckless, irresponsible, lovable prodigal as before, and it was not until afterward that anybody remembered there had been a hollow ring in his hilarity, a false note in his joy.

Helga came down to the drawing-room and the men received her with a shout.

“How plump she has grown!” said the Governor.

“She has certainly filled out on the trip,” said the Factor.

“Hasn’t she?” said Oscar. “Just what she wanted—all she wanted.”

“Nonsense! Let us talk of something serious,” said Helga.

Thora came next, with Anna and Aunt Margret buzzing and humming about her like bees. She had changed to her old Iceland dress—just for remembrance—and now that she could be seen without her veil she was undoubtedly thinner, and she had a pinched look about the nostrils and a feverish spot in the middle of her cheeks. But her face was shining with timid smiles and she was overflowing with gratitude.

“Anna has given us such beautiful rooms, Oscar, the big one overlooking the road and the long one behind it, though I don’t know what in the world we are going to do with two.”

“Oh, don’t worry yourself about that, dear—we may find a use for them by and by,” said Anna with a knowing nod of the head, and then the color flew up to Thora’s eyes like a flag of distress, and the men began to smile.

Anna was smiling also and making signals to the Governor and chuckling to him behind her hand. “Is it so?” “Yes, indeed, I asked her up-stairs and it’s just as I expected.” Then the Governor in his turn began to chuckle and to whisper to the Factor. “No? Is it a fact?” “So Anna tells me.” And then they chuckled together, until everybody laughed at them, whereupon the Factor said:

“And now, Oscar, you’ve told us all about London and Paris and Rome, but not a word about the place where they make money without working for it.”

“Monte Carlo? Haven’t I?” said Oscar. “Oh, well—a beautiful place! In fact an absolute paradise.”

“An absolute hell if half one hears is true,” said the Governor.

“Well, yes—yes, that’s so, too,” said Oscar.

“I once heard of a man who made ten pounds in a single night—think of that,” said the Factor.

“Goodness’ sake!” cried Aunt Margret.

“But what’s the good of having a chest full of gold if the devil keeps the key?” said the Governor.

Then Helga, who was sitting on the piano-stool, began to play softly, and Oscar swung round to her.

“Ah, ‘Addio Napoli!’ We must sing you some of the Neapolitan songs, father.”

This was received with a chorus of approval, and for the next half-hour Helga played and Oscar sang the gay ditties with which Naples fills the air of Italy with song. And when at one moment the Factor would have come back to the man who made ten pounds in a single night, Helga struck up the tarantella and Oscar danced it.

At length the Governor said, “Everything has a stopping place except Time. It’s late, and Thora is looking tired, so I’m going to turn out everybody who doesn’t live here.”

“Quite right, too,” said Aunt Margret, “and I’m going to carry Helga off to her own quarters.”

“I will take Helga home,” said Oscar, and with further handshaking and well-wishing the party began to break up.

“After all I suppose you are glad to be back, Thora?” said the Bishop.

“Very, very glad,” replied Thora.

“Ha, ha! It isn’t easy to hobble a home-sick pony,” laughed the Rector. “And you, Helga?”

“I’m not glad at all, Rector. Who could be glad to leave all that loveliness for a wilderness like this.”

That chilled everybody for a moment, and thinking to come to Helga’s relief, Oscar said:

“There’s something in what Helga says, certainly.”

“Then you, also, Oscar——”

“No, Rector, no—that is to say—well, I’m glad to be back and I shall be glad to go away again.”

And then everybody was as happy as before.

IV

Next day Oscar and Helga spent many hours in a round of return visits, while Thora, who was still tired, stayed at home and received some of her old schoolfellows. One of them, who had been the beauty of her day, had married a farmer fifteen miles away and borne him three children. It was all work, work, work with her now and the once-bright girl was a slave.

“Ah, Thora, how lucky you were not to marry Magnus!” she said.

“Do you think so?” said Thora.

“Why, yes, Thora. And then everybody says Oscar is going to be such a distinguished man.”

It was the spring caravan time and Magnus himself, who had brought his wool to the Factor’s, came late in the afternoon. Thora thought he looked brawnier and bigger than ever, and she could not help seeing that his hands were coarser and his nails chopped off square. But his voice was as soft as it used to be, and he was shy and even nervous.

The light was low when he came into the drawing-room, and looking closely at her face he asked three times over if she was well, until she laughed as she gave him the same answer again and again. Then he laughed, too, and after that they got on better, and exchanged all the “newses.”

Silvertop was in good condition; he had got his summer coat and looked splendid; in fact, he had been too well fed and was getting a little over himself and would have to be taken down a peg or two before Thora rode him again. Ah, well, she wouldn’t want him just yet—not just yet—and Magnus had better keep the rascal at the farm a little longer.

“But what a time you’ve been away!” said Magnus.

“Haven’t we?” said Thora. “Five months, nearly six.”

“Six months come Tuesday week,” said Magnus.

At that they both became confused, and Thora began to show some photographs taken by Helga on the journey.

“How beautiful! How wonderful!” said Magnus. “But I wonder your ship wasn’t floating on the pumps, as they say, before you got back to harbor—it must have cost a good deal of money to see all those places.”

“It must,” said Thora, “traveling is so expensive—especially when there is more than one to pay for.”

“And then there was Helga,” said Magnus.

“Yes, indeed, there was Helga. But the check which father and the Governor gave to Oscar seems to have been sufficient for all.”

“Still I can not understand how he made it pay for everything.”

“No, it isn’t easy to understand that, is it?”

“Venice! Rome! Monte Carlo! How you must have enjoyed your journey!”

“Oscar did—every day of it.”

“And you, Thora?”

“I’m not a good traveler—I soon tire of sight-seeing, and if it hadn’t been for Helga——”

“So you are not sorry you took Helga with you?”

Thora faltered a little and then said, “Helga was able to go sight-seeing with Oscar when I had to stay in the hotel.”

“But were you not lonely while they were away?”

“Perhaps—sometimes—just a little—being so much alone, and among so many strange faces.”

Magnus, who seemed to be absorbed in the photographs, said almost unconsciously, “Poor little thing!”

Then the flag of distress ran up to Thora’s eyes and she answered hurriedly, “Oh, it was my own fault. Oscar always wanted to stay with me, and if it hadn’t been for Helga——”

But a little catch came into her throat, and she had to stop. Whereupon Magnus said:

“And I hoped you were so happy!”

But then Anna brought in the lamp and the lights relieved the tension, yet being able to see the photographs plainly Magnus laid them down and Thora put them away.

He left early, having a long ride before him, and Anna followed him to the door.

“Is Thora quite well?” he asked in a whisper.

“As well as can be expected under the circumstances,” said Anna.

“And is Oscar kind to her?”

“Kind? Oscar, kind? Why should you ask that, Magnus?”

“She looks so pale, so depressed.”

“Oh, that’s often the way with young wives in her condition. Haven’t you noticed anything—anything particular? Our Thora will be a mother before long.”

“And is that all that’s the matter with her?” said Magnus.

V

The summer session of Parliament was to begin almost immediately and Oscar plunged straightway into preparations for his campaign. He was to move a resolution proposing that the Acts of Althing should henceforward be promulgated on the last day of the session, as in the old times, from the ancient Mount of Laws at Thingvellir. It was to be his maiden speech and much depended upon it. Before he wrote it he went over to the Factor’s to discuss with Helga its scheme and argument. After he had written it he went over to the Factor’s again to read it to Helga, and obtain the benefit of her suggestions. And when he had committed it to memory he went over to the Factor’s a third time to rehearse it before Helga. It was Helga first and last, all day and every day until the day of the opening sitting.

“Helga is a great politician, but you care nothing about politics, do you, Thora?” And Thora would swallow the lump in her throat and answer “No.”

Thora and Helga were both present when Oscar took his seat. They occupied the Governor’s ante-room that opened off the parliamentary chamber. The galleries were crowded with spectators, and there was much curiosity when Oscar rose to speak. Thora felt a little faint at the first sound of his voice, and she would have fled away if she could have done so, but Helga held her to her chair.

“Hush! For goodness’ sake be quiet,” she whispered. “You’ll make him still more nervous.”

The speech was a great success. It was an appeal for the preservation of the old order—for all that made Iceland what it was—the land of Saga and song. Even the party of progress who thought much of its moonshine were carried away by the fervor and enthusiasm, the poetry and passion of the young speaker. When Oscar finished there were vollies of applause; the people in the galleries clapped their hands and Helga stood up and waved her handkerchief, but Thora covered her face and cried into her gloves.

The resolution was passed unanimously, and Oscar was made chairman of a committee to carry out the necessary preparations. This work occupied all his spare time during the six weeks of the parliamentary session. It took him to the Factor’s every day, for Helga was full of schemes for the great ceremonial. Being in Parliament every morning and at the Factor’s every afternoon Oscar was nearly always from home and Thora saw little of him. Every night he returned with a mouthful of apologies and a torrent of explanations. They had been searching the Sagas for the exact course taken by the procession in the old days, or they had been selecting flags to hang over the rocks, or they had been composing a hymn to celebrate the occasion—Oscar had improvised one in a moment and Helga had written it down.

“And how has my little baby been going on all day long? Lonely? What a shame! I’m sorry—very, very sorry,” he would say.

And then Thora would answer, “Don’t think of me, Oscar. You have your work to do, and I only wish I could help you, like Helga.”

But in the long hours of loneliness, when her head was on her hands and her feet were in the fender, the poor little soul would sink and the tender heart grow bitter. Only Anna would be with her then, comforting and consoling her, and pretending to be blind to what every eye could see.

“Anna,” she said at length, “when Magnus was here he asked me such a strange question.”

“What was that, Thora?”

“He asked if I wasn’t sorry that Helga had gone with us on our journey.”

“And are you?”

“Sometimes—perhaps it is foolish—but sometimes I think I am.”

“I know. I think I know. And it isn’t foolish of you at all, dear. Oscar is doing wrong. I must speak to him—I must speak to him severely.”

“It isn’t Oscar’s fault. Helga is so selfish.”

“Yes, she takes after somebody else in that way, Thora.”

“She was always taking Oscar away from me when we were on our journey.”

“But your journey is over now, and he must mend his manners.”

“Ah, no! That part of our journey isn’t over yet, Anna. Sometimes I think it has only begun.”

“You don’t mean to say that Helga is trying to——”

“Helga has no pity. When she once gets hold of anybody she will never give him up.”

“You think she is trying to get hold of Oscar?”

“I think she has got hold of him.”

“You mustn’t say that about your husband, Thora.”

“Oh, I don’t blame Oscar. Helga is so beautiful, so clever. She has every advantage over me.”

“Now that’s just where you are wrong. There is one point in which our little Thora has an advantage over Helga and every other woman in the world.”

“You mean with Oscar——”

“Yes, with Oscar—you are going to be the mother of his child.”

“Will that make any difference?”

“Any difference? I should think it will indeed. My poor mother used to say, ‘When people are married it’s the children who keep the pot boiling.’”

“You mean that when my baby is born Oscar will come back to me?”

“Certainly I do.”

“And that he will never go away from me any more?”

“Never! Oscar has always loved children—wait till he has a child of his own and see.”

“Well, you are his mother—you know him best.”

“Trust me, Thora! It isn’t a good well if water has to be carried to it, but when the child is born Oscar will begin all over again.”

“You think that? Really? You think Oscar will love me again for my baby’s sake?”

“Any man must if he has a good heart—and Oscar’s heart is good whatever his head may be.”

“Indeed—indeed it is.”

“He must love the mother for the sake of the child, and the child for the sake of the mother.”

“How sweet! How beautiful!”

Thora’s own eyes were now like the eyes of a child—so full of wonder and love. She fell to counting the weeks that must pass before the fulness of her time.

“Nine weeks—hardly nine—eight—think, mother—only eight. How I wish it were even less! I used to look forward to that time with anxiety and dread, but there is nothing to be afraid of if so much good can come out of a little pain—nothing really—now is there?”

VI

In this sweet hope Thora comforted herself for four weeks, and then something happened which disturbed all her calculations. It was the eve of the proclamation and the committee of which Oscar was the chief decided to visit Thingvellir in order to complete their preparations for the ceremony. On this errand Helga was to go with them, and having so many things to attend to they were to sleep one night at the Inn-farm and return the following day. When Oscar announced this program a sudden change came over Thora’s patient and submissive spirit.

“Then I must go, too,” she said.

“You? You, Thora?” said Oscar. “Why, what can you be thinking of? Thirty-three miles away—in that desolate region—without a doctor or a nurse—and so near your time, too. Impossible! Quite impossible!”

“Then Helga mustn’t go either.”

“But Helga is so useful, so necessary.”

“I don’t care. If I can not go with you then Helga shall not do so, either.”

“My dear Thora, this is so unlike you. But as you please. I shall be ashamed to tell Helga, and explain to the committee, but still, if you wish it— No, no, you must not cry. You must not disturb yourself. My little woman must keep herself very quiet while I am away—very, very quiet.”

Two hours after Oscar had gone Helga came to Government House. Thora was alone, and the sisters faced each other for some instants without speaking. At length Helga said:

“Well, I trust you are satisfied. Now that you have shown your foolish jealousy and made us the talk of the town, I trust you are satisfied.”

“Oscar said I was to keep myself quiet, Helga, and you know I ought to do so.”

“Oh, you can excite yourself enough it seems, when you wish to express your paltry feelings. Because I have sympathized with Oscar and tried to help and inspire him, you who have never sympathized with him and can never help him, because you cannot understand him, and he is beyond you—you must come with your paltry spite——”

“Helga! You have never been kind to me—never since you came home a year ago—but now you are cruel.”

“Am I? Perhaps I am. And perhaps I’ve gone through enough to make me so.”

“You speak as if your disappointment of this morning in not going with Oscar were a great and grievous matter, but you don’t seem to remember how often I have been disappointed in the same way.”

“Oh, I dare say you think you are much to be pitied.”

“I don’t say I’m to be pitied, Helga, because I know it was my own fault at the beginning. But I do say I’ve never known a moment’s peace since you came home from Denmark. I persuaded father to send for you because you were my sister, and I wished you to share my happiness, but you have never shown me any sisterly feeling—never. On the contrary, you found me happy and you have made me miserable. You have done your best to render life intolerable to me.”

“I thought you said you were not to excite yourself, Thora?”

“It is you that are exciting me, Helga, because you are always inflicting the sharpest tortures upon me and hurting me where you know I can bear it least. From the first you tried to take Oscar away from me—you know you did. You tried to do it before our marriage and you have tried to do it ever since. You were not even ashamed to try during our honeymoon and you are trying now, because you have lost all sense of loyalty or justice or remorse or even shame.”

“Oh, yes,” said Helga, “you think you have been a great martyr. But would it surprise you to hear that somebody else has gone through a still greater martyrdom? You accuse me of having inflicted tortures upon you—what of the tortures you have inflicted upon me?”

“I, Helga?”

“Yes, you! You speak as if I were the sort of woman who draws a man into her net, who tears him away from the wife he loves and drags him down to his death. You would have been nearer right if you had thought of me as another kind of woman altogether—one who is herself the sufferer—who is shut out and cut off and must remain unmated because the man who loves her is married to somebody else.”

“Helga!”

“Oh, I should have had mercy on your condition, but you would not let me. And now if you wish to hear the truth I will tell you.”

“And what is the truth, Helga?”

“The truth is that Oscar does not love you at all—perhaps he has never loved you.”

“Helga, how dare you! The falseness of what you say is on the face of it. If Oscar has never loved me, why am I his wife? What advantage had he to gain by choosing me instead of you? What compulsion was put upon him? If he did not love me why did he marry me?”

“He married you out of pity—from a mistaken sense of duty—because he had contracted to marry you and thought it honorable to go on with his bargain. But he loved somebody else and so he sacrificed both of them.

“It’s false, Helga, it’s false, and it’s only your vanity that makes you say so.”

“Oh, you must not suppose that I am saying this without a certainty. I had it from himself——”

“Himself? He, himself?”

“——from his own mouth, on the very eve of your marriage.”

“On the eve of his marriage to me, he told you——”

“He told me that he loved me. And since then, if he has not said it in words he has said it in other ways again and again. He loves me still——”

“No, no, no, it is not true.”

“He will always love me.”

“It is not true, it is not true.”

“And he loves you no more than a man loves his dog or his horse, or the man of the Bible days loved the handmaiden of his wife.”

“Helga, for shame! Are you without conscience or truth that you can lie to me like that? If Oscar had never loved me do you think I should not have found it out long ago? And if he loved you do you think I should not know it—I who am bearing his child?”

“Oh, you needn’t taunt me with that, Thora. Yes, yours are the lips that kiss him, but it isn’t the lips that matter. It is the love behind the lips, and that love is mine, and every time he kisses you the kiss is meant for me.”

“You lie, Helga, you lie.”

“And the child too, it is not your child, because the love that gave it life was my love.”

“You lie, you lie.”

“What do I care if you are the bondwoman who bears his child? The child will be my child, and when he is born he will have my face——”

“No, it is not possible.”

“It is, it is—you know it is.”

Thora gasped for breath. Then an extraordinary change came over her that made her almost unrecognizable. The patient and gentle woman seemed suddenly possessed by a demon. Something strange and horrible seemed in an instant to enter into her soul. The homicidal impulse which takes hold of wild animals appeared to assail and conquer her. One moment she stood facing her sister, convulsed and livid, and then in a voice that was hoarse with rage and shame she said:

“Very well, if that is so, and if my child is not my own, if it has been conceived in the love of another woman, and I am only the bondwoman who bears it, then—then—then—it shall never be born, or if it is born I—I—I will kill it!”

With that she burst into a peal of laughter, and fell on to the floor.

The noise brought Anna into the room panting.

“What have you done to her? What have you said? Thora! Thora!”

“I will kill the child. I will kill it, I will kill it!”

The wild, shrieking laughter continued and increased until the Governor came running from his room. He listened for a moment to the mad cries and then said, “Let us lift her up and carry her to bed. Helga, go for the doctor and for Margret Neilsen. Tell them to come quickly. She’s in labor—there’s no time to lose.”

VII

All night Thora tossed about in a strong delirium, which expressed itself in the one wild, homicidal cry. Aunt Margret came and found Anna in the sick-room. The Factor followed, and sat for hours with the Governor in his bureau below.

The Doctor (Doctor Olesen) never left Thora’s side. He did not conceal the gravity of her condition. The delirium was due to premature labor. Such homicidal mania was not unknown in the cases of young mothers. It generally originated in some startling event, perhaps a great loss, or a great shock or a grievous disappointment. Doctor Olesen questioned Anna, but she knew nothing to account for Thora’s seizure. He asked Helga, but she said little.

Helga was obviously in a state of terror. Her face was deathly pale and her lips quivered. She could not be got to leave the house. When the Factor returned home at ten o’clock, being powerless to do anything, he could not tear Helga away. It was observed by all three attendants on the invalid that Helga did not ask to be admitted to Thora’s room. “A sensible girl,” thought the Doctor. “She knows better than ask me,” thought Anna. But Helga seemed anxious to help in any menial way, no matter what.

When there was nothing else to do Helga sat in the drawing-room, still wearing her cloak and hat, and listening in fear to the mad cries from the chamber overhead. In the long dark hours she was a prey to the most agonizing thoughts. She was feeling like one who had committed a murder and asking herself what would happen if Thora died.

Beyond the physical agony of hearing those wild cries from the chamber overhead, beyond the pangs of a troubled conscience and beyond the pain of the sisterly love and pity which overcame her and surprised her in these dark hours, Helga suffered from one overmastering terror—the terror of what Oscar would say to her when he came back. He had been sent for; there would be no need to tell him anything.

Oscar arrived at midnight, covered with dust and sweat. Somebody opened the hall door to him. He did not stop to look who it was—but pushing through the house came first upon Helga in the drawing-room. For a moment they stood face to face, like guilty things. She was trembling from head to foot; he was breathing heavily.

“How is she now?” he asked.

“No better,” she answered.

He heard the cries from the room above.

“Is that she?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, God!” he muttered, and began to load himself with reproaches. “I should have taken her with me when she asked me. Why didn’t I? I ought to have known what would happen.”

Helga had expected that he would fly out at her, and she could have borne any insult, but this she could not bear.

“It’s all my fault,” he said. “I have been a fool—a weak, selfish fool. Oh, Thora, my sweet, innocent, long-suffering Thora, forgive me, forgive me!”

Helga could not endure the house any longer. She felt like a criminal and wanted to escape. Leaving Oscar with his head on his arms over the cushions of the couch, she slipped out and went home through the dark and silent streets alone.

Finding Helga gone, Oscar crept up to the door of Thora’s room, but he was not permitted to enter where the mere breath of excitement might quench the glimmer of life within. His mother came out to him in the large room at the back and found him with his face down on the table. She had intended to rate him soundly the moment she set eyes on him, but the sight of his distress silenced her reproaches and she fell to comforting him instead.

“No, no,” said Anna, “you couldn’t have taken her with you. Things are bad enough as they are, but think how much worse they would have been if all this had happened there.”

“Then I should have stayed at home,” said Oscar. “I should have given up everything.”

“Thora couldn’t have wished you to do that, my son. None of us had a right to expect it.”

“But you don’t know everything, mother. I have behaved shamefully to Thora. I thought I was doing right by her, but I was doing wrong, dreadfully wrong. The poor girl has suffered terribly, and this is the result.”

As the first streaks of dawn began to fret the sky above the glaciers of the Eastern fells, the delirium abated, and there came a period of conscious pain. Anna ran in to Oscar to tell him of the change, and then down-stairs on a similar errand to where the Governor lay in his shirt-sleeves on the sofa in his bureau.

“She’s herself at last, thank the Lord, and the doctor says she’s going along as well as can be expected.”

Two hours later, when the sun rose on the little town, and the fiord and the fells were crimson with his glory, the angel of peace came down to the house of pain, hearing a babe in her arms.

With a smile and an outstretched hand, the doctor entered Oscar’s room, and said:

“I am happy to congratulate you. A girl—a beautiful child.”

“But Thora?”

“She is weak, but quite at ease, and as well as can be expected under the circumstances.”

“Thank God!”

“And now go to bed yourself, Oscar, and sleep, if you can, until this time to-morrow.”

“I will—I will. Thank you, doctor, thank you a thousand times.”

Meanwhile Anna was in the bureau telling the glad news to the Governor, and then running about the house to find some one to carry it to the Factor.

“I’ll go, mother,” said a voice from the kitchen.

“Goodness! Is that you, Magnus? When did you come?”

“About eleven o’clock last night.”

“Then you were here before Oscar?”

“Golden Mane gallops fast, mother.”

“And what have you been doing in the kitchen?”

“Carrying the wood and boiling the water for Margret Neilsen.”

“Then you must go to bed now—you’ll be sleepy.”

“Not I—I can lie awake six nights, you know, when the lambs are coming.”

“Well, a lamb has come to-night, Magnus,” said Anna.

“God bless it, and the little mother as well,” said Magnus.

VIII

Thora slept until midday under the combined effects of exhaustion and a sleeping draught, and when she awoke the evil spirit which had possessed her had gone, and she was her own sweet simple self once more. But the struggle had been a terrible one, and if the better part of her soul had conquered the frail body which had been its battlefield was a waste of weakness. She was pale and thin and her blue eyes were large and liquid.

Before opening them she heard from the back room (which had been transformed into a nursery) the sweetest, most thrilling sound that ever comes to a woman’s ears, a sound which sums up into its joys all the ecstasy that a human soul can know, a sound which no woman in the world has ever heard but once—the first cry of her first-born.

Thora opened her eyes, and saw Anna knitting by her side.

“Is that baby?” she asked.

“Ah, I thought you were awake!” said Anna. “Yes, Thora, that is baby. Margret Neilsen is bathing her.”

“Bring her to me. Tell Aunt Margret to bring her immediately.”

“By and by, dear, by and by.”

“No, now! If she doesn’t bring baby this instant, I’ll get up and go to her.”

“Hush! You are to be very quiet, and not to excite yourself. And as for getting up, the doctor says if you stir out of bed within a week goodness knows what will happen.”

“Yes, I know. I am very naughty, and you must forgive me. But I’ve not seen baby yet—not really seen her—and if you will bring her to me I shall be so good. I shall not excite myself at all—not at all. You will see how quiet I shall be.”

“Well, if you promise me, faithfully promise me,” said Anna.

“Wait! Sit down again, mother. Sit here by the window. I have something to ask you first. Does she—does baby resemble anybody?”

“Resemble anybody? I should think she does, indeed. I have never in all my life seen a child so like its mother.”

“Like me? Oh, bring her! Bring her! I can’t wait a moment longer.”

Anna went into the nursery and told Aunt Margret that Thora was awake and calling impatiently for the child.

“But she’ll want to take her,” said Aunt Margret.

“Trust her for that, if she’s a mother,” said Anna.

“But will it be safe? Is she quite herself again?”

“We’ll chance her,” said Anna.

Aunt Margret gathered up the baby in its long clothes and with its feeding-bottle at her breast, and carried it into Thora’s room, and stooping by the bed she said, “There! Look at that now!”

“Give her to me, give her to me,” cried Thora, stretching out two trembling white arms.

“Carefully then, carefully,” said Aunt Margret.

There was no need to fear: Thora gathered her child to her breast with the free and daring but gentle touch that comes to mothers of every species.

“My baby! My baby!” she whispered, and her pale face overflowed with joy. “Yes, she is like me. I can see it myself. But why doesn’t she open her eyes? Is she asleep? That can not be, because she is still sucking. Coo-coo! Isn’t she beautiful? How foolish of me to say that! And yet it’s true. Coo! My baby! My bootiful, bootiful baby!”

Through all this broken jargon—the divine foolishness of motherhood—the two older women stood by, trying to cackle and laugh behind their black silk aprons, but finding it hard to keep back their tears.

“Has Oscar seen her yet?”

“Not yet,” said Anna.

“But he has come back, hasn’t he? Didn’t you tell me he had come back?”

“Yes, but he was quite worn out with watching and I sent him off to bed.”

“Poor boy!”

“And Magnus has come, too, but I couldn’t get him to go to bed and he still is working away in the kitchen.

“What a deal of trouble I am to everybody!”

“Trouble? We don’t call that trouble.”

“You’ve got a baby for it, haven’t you?” said Thora, and she looked down at the treasure at her breast as if she had brought them the wealth of the world. All at once she cried, “Oh, oh! Look! Look!”

Aunt Margret, who was at the other side of the room, almost fainted at Thora’s sudden cry.

“What has happened?” she gasped.

“Baby has opened her eyes,” said Thora.

Aunt Margret dropped to a chair to breathe.

“They’re blue like mine. Oscar’s are brown, and Helga’s—hers are grey. But perhaps baby’s eyes will change their color! Do children’s eyes change their color, Anna?”

“Sometimes they do,” said Anna. “Blue eyes sometimes become brown——”

“Never grey?”

“Not that I know of,” said Anna.

“I’m so glad baby is like me,” said Thora, and she gazed down at the child with looks of wonder and love. Then her delicious selfishness took another turn and she said:

“Mother, do you not think Oscar has slept long enough now?”

“Doctor Olesen said he was to sleep until to-morrow,” replied Anna.

“But couldn’t you wake him up for a moment—just for a moment, to come and see us as we are now—baby and me—would it do him much harm?”

“No, but it would do you a great deal. You would over-excite yourself, and then, my gracious, I should get into trouble.”

“Oh, no, I shall be quite calm—I promise you I shall be calm. And Oscar can come in his dressing-gown and then go back to sleep. Do call him—do—please do—Anna, Aunt Margret—mother!”

They could not resist the pleading voice, and Anna went off to Oscar’s room. Oscar was awake.

“How is she now?” he asked.

“Still a little weak, but getting stronger every hour,” said Anna.

“And the child?”

“She’s got it in bed with her, and wishes you to come and see them.”

“I’ll come at once.”

“Dear Thora! She is happy at last. I have never seen anybody so happy. And nobody ever deserved happiness more. Just now when I left her she had the eyes of a child. But she is still on the brink of life and death. It wouldn’t need much to make her take flight from this world. Therefore watch over your words, Oscar, and don’t say anything that will agitate her.”

Oscar promised, and then followed his mother into Thora’s bedroom. At the threshold he heard the soft “Boo-oo—coo-coo” of motherly endearment, and then saw the shining pale face on the pillow with the tiny red one below it.

“My poor Thora,” he said, kissing her forehead, “you are not suffering now, are you? A little pale, perhaps, and a little thin, but better, are you not?”

“Look!” she whispered, uncovering the child and having no thoughts to waste on lesser matters. “Who is she like, Oscar?”

“Like? Do you ask me who she’s like, Thora? Why, she’s like—ridiculously like you!”

“Kiss me, Oscar. Put your arms around both of us, dearest. That way—so.”

But at the next moment the baby was crying and the older women were protesting loudly.

“Come away you great, clumsy creature,” said Aunt Margret.

“No, no,” cried Thora. “It wasn’t Oscar. He never hurts anybody. It was I, auntie,” but auntie, making no terms with such heroics, took the child out of bed and proceeded to rock it, face downward, across her knee.

When the baby had been hushed to sleep they fell to the discussion of its name. Oscar was for “Thora,” but Thora herself said no, that was her own name, the name Oscar knew her by, and therefore she could not share it even with her child.

“Then what do you say to ‘Elin’?” said Oscar.

“Beautiful! Anna, Aunt Margret, listen. Say it again, Oscar.”

“‘Elin.’”

“Isn’t it lovely as Oscar says it?”

So they decided straightway that “Elin” it should be, and next came the question of the godparents. Thora was for Magnus (“Poor Magnus”) and Oscar assented. But when Oscar in his turn nominated Helga the sunshine died off Thora’s face, whereupon Anna gave him a quick glance, and began to make a noise.

“Then Magnus for godfather and Aunt Margret for godmother,” said Oscar, and so it was agreed.

“And let us have the baptism to-day,” said Thora.

“To-day?” cried Anna. “Why, Thora, a child is never baptised on the day of its birth except when it is going to die.”

It was now Aunt Margret’s turn to make a noise, and this she did by wakening baby in rising suddenly, and protesting that Oscar ought to be turned out of the room and Thora left to rest.

“Yes, yes, that’s true,” said Oscar, and kissing Thora again he followed Aunt Margret and the baby into the nursery. When they were gone, and the door had closed on them, Anna leaned over the bed and whispered:

“There! Didn’t I know what o’clock it was striking? Hasn’t Oscar come back to you? When he kissed you didn’t you feel that all his heart was yours?”

“Yes, it is true,” said Thora. “But will it last, think you?”

“Certainly, it will last. Last night he was reproaching himself with all sorts of things, and to-day he is like a man who is beginning over again a new life.”

“You think so, Anna? You really think so?”

“Indeed I do. Depend upon it he’ll not lose sight of that baby for five minutes in the day. And he’ll never look at her but he’ll think of you.”

“How happy I am! I have never been so happy before—never, never!” She took a deep breath and closed her shining eyes to ease the beating of her heart. There was a moment’s silence and then in another voice she said, “Mother?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Last night—when I was so ill—didn’t I say——”

“Hush! That’s all over. We’ll not speak of it any more.”

“All the same if I could die now—now when I am so happy—and baby, too——”

And then Anna sank into a chair, trembling from head to foot.

IX

Anna was right about Oscar and the baby—he could not willingly allow it to be out of his sight for any five minutes of the day or night. When it was to be bathed he felt it necessary to superintend the operation, and when it was fed he was compelled to keep watch and ward. He had a thousand fears of accidents that might happen to it and became dizzy when it lay naked on the edge of Aunt Margret’s lap. If it cried while he was in the dining-room he rushed upstairs, and if anything fell on the floor above he turned pale and trembled. Sleeping in the room next to the nursery he kept his door open at night, and if the baby was fretful he walked Aunt Margret to and fro (being afraid to carry the child himself) as if she had taken too much laudanum.

Two days passed in this way and he was never once out-of-doors. Thora overheard him in the adjoining room, coaxing and scolding Aunt Margret, and talking or laughing to the child, and her heart overflowed with happiness. “But will it last?” she asked herself.

Meantime Helga, sitting at home, shut out from these joys, was feeling herself neglected. On the third day Oscar had a message from her, saying she wished to see him on an important matter and asking him to come round immediately. He could not resist it. The little scented envelope drew him like a magnet. Going out for a walk, to think of what he should do, every step took him in the direction of the Factor’s. Within half an hour he found himself in the little sitting-room overlooking the lake, and Helga was standing before him with head down, more meek and modest, but also more beautiful and irresistible than ever before.

“I have a confession to make to you,” she said, “and if you are angry with me I must bear it.”

She had been the cause of poor Thora’s sudden illness. Stung by the disappointment of some days ago she had gone across to Government House to reproach her sister with the humiliation she had put upon her. Perhaps she had said too much, and more than was true, and she was sorry and ashamed. She could wish to ask Thora’s forgiveness, and if Oscar would do it for her——

“With pleasure, Helga,” said Oscar. “But all’s well that ends well, and why should we say more on this subject?”

“There is another that I wished to speak of,” said Helga, and then came the real burden of her message.

Poor Thora’s delirium had been homicidal. She had threatened to take the life of her unborn child. What a frightful thing it would be if out of her weakness and hallucination she should attempt to carry out her threat!

“But that’s all over now, Helga,” said Oscar. “Since her baby came Thora had been as gentle as a lamb, and running over with tenderness and love.”

“So I thought until this morning,” said Helga. “But father tells me that your mother sees signs of dementia still.”

“Good heavens!” cried Oscar.

“Everybody appears to have heard of it except you. I thought it was wrong to keep you in the dark, and so I’ve told you.”

“Thanks, Helga, it is good of you, and if poor Thora is still suffering in that way——”

“There can’t be a doubt of it, Oscar. She told your mother she wished she could die, and baby with her.”

“She must be watched—the child, too. There must be nurses night and day.”

“Is that enough, Oscar? You know how cunning people are when they are suffering from dementia. And then a child is such a frail thing—its life might be snuffed out in an instant.”

“You mean that baby should be removed?”

“It might be safest—for a time at least. It might come here—I should take the greatest care of it. But it needn’t change its nurse—Aunt Margret must come home soon in any case.”

“It must be done, Helga. It would be too awful if anything happened to the child. I should go mad.”

“And then think of Thora. It would be ten thousand times more terrible for her.”

“Poor Thora! It will break her heart,” said Oscar. “It seems as if I am doomed to bring grief and pain and death to her.”

“We must be cruel only to be kind, Oscar. But don’t act on my advice only and for mercy’s sake don’t say I suggested anything. Ask somebody else.”

“I will.”

“Ask the Governor.”

“The Governor?”

At the mention of that name they paused and looked at each other in silence, as if a ghost had passed between them.

“Any news from Monte Car—I mean Copenhagen?” asked Helga.

“Nothing yet, but I am in daily fear of something happening.”

“Whatever happens I shall never forget that you did that for me, Oscar.”

She held out her hand to him, and he took it, kept it for a moment, then kissed it passionately and fled from the house.

Later the same day a family conference was held at Government House to consider what ought to be done. The Governor and the Factor were there, as well as Oscar and Anna. Aunt Margret came down last, having left one of the maids in charge of the child.

“Magnus is in the nursery too,” she said. “He came up with wood for the stove and Thora heard his voice, so now they are talking through the open door.”

Doctor Olesen had been called into consultation and he gave a guarded opinion. Such forms of homicidal mania were due to weakness and were usually transient. Since the night of the confinement he had seen no signs of it himself, but if Anna had seen them he would not take the responsibility of opposing the step that was suggested.

Anna rocked herself and moaned and said that after all she could not be certain. She might have mistaken what had fallen from Thora. Perhaps the poor child had been thinking of something quite different.

Aunt Margret was now of the same mind, but much more emphatic. “I don’t believe a word of it,” she said, “and I’m sorry I ever doubted her. Thora is a Neilsen, and she wouldn’t hurt a hair of the child’s head.”

“This is no time to indulge sentimental feelings,” said the Governor. “If Thora is suffering from dementia, however transient, we must protect her from the dangers of her weakness.”

“I agree, Stephen,” said the Factor. “I’m sorry—I’m sorry for my daughter—but I agree, I agree.”

“That is our duty—our plain duty,” continued the Governor, “first to the child who is the offspring—at present the only probable offspring—of two families, and next to the poor young mother herself, than whom no one would have more right to reproach us if we failed to do it and a disaster occurred.”

“No one, Stephen, no one,” said the Factor.

“It seems so cruel, so dreadfully cruel,” said Anna.

“But it’s all for Thora’s own good, mother,” said Oscar.

“I know, Oscar, I know, yet it’s cruel for all that.”

“But I should like to know who’s going to do it,” said Aunt Margret. “I’m not, I tell you flat.”

“Then Anna must do it herself,” said the Governor.

“No, no, don’t ask me,” said Anna.

“Why not? Who so proper to do such an act of mercy and love? And Oscar, too—Oscar himself if need be must carry the child over to the Factor’s.”

Oscar’s lips whitened and quivered and his heart clutched at his ribs.

It was decided that the child should be taken from the mother that night, as soon as she was asleep and the house was quiet.

“But she goes to sleep with the child at her breast and always awakes when it wants the bottle,” said Anna. “I’ll give her a draught—she’ll sleep until morning,” said the Doctor.

“Oh, dear me! Oh, dear me! I shall feel like a thief,” said Anna.

“Or like a murderer,” said Aunt Margret.

X

Meantime Magnus in the nursery was looking down at the little face in the cot, sometimes blinking at the light, sometimes digging its little fist into its face, sometimes gripping with its tiny soft hand his own coarse finger. Through the open door to the adjoining room there came the voice that he knew so well, a little weaker, a little thinner, but more joyous and silvery than before.

“Is that you, Magnus?”

“Yes, Thora.”

“Have you seen my little Elin?”

“I’m looking at her now, Thora.”

“Isn’t she beautiful? Isn’t she a darling?”

“She’s like a little angel, Thora.”

A joyous thrill came from the other room, and then the silvery voice began again: “She’s awake, isn’t she? Can’t I hear her laughing? She laughs already, the little rogue! Do you know you are to be her godfather, Magnus?”

“I am?”

“Yes, Oscar agreed to it immediately, and the baptism is to take place soon.”

“It will be the happiest moment of my life, Thora.”

“Oh, she’ll give you lots of trouble. She’s going to be such a little mischief. Can’t you see her growing up, Magnus?”

“I see her just like her mother when she was a child, Thora.”

Another joyous trill came through the open door and then the silvery voice once more: “She’ll be going to stay with you at the farm some day, and then she’ll pull up all the flowers in your garden.”

“She shall do whatever she likes, Thora.”

“But there are chasms and caves and rifts in the earth there, aren’t there?”

“I’ll keep watch on her, Thora.”

“If she should slip anywhere——”

“I’ll keep watch on her all her life, Thora.”

The joyous trill came again, but with a slightly different note: Then: “Magnus?”

“Yes, Thora?”

“Why don’t you marry and have a little Elin of your own, you know?”

“I? Oh, no.” And then a gruff laugh and something about “a poor farmer.”

“Don’t say that, Magnus.”

Then the silvery voice that came to him through the open door became serious and sweetly patronizing, hoping he would be happy and prosperous at Thingvellir. It wasn’t a great life, certainly, not a distinguished career like Oscar’s—that is to say what Oscar was to be—and it wanted hard work early and late, yet still——

“But, Magnus, you’ve been here three days, haven’t you? How have you been able to spare them?”

“I’ll make up for them when I get home, Thora.”

“But Anna says you haven’t been to bed since you came, and now the Proclamation is near and you’ll be kept busy at the Inn with that.”

“I’m strong, Thora—fearfully strong,” said Magnus.

Thora lay back in her bed and with a blush there was none to see said:

“Magnus, I think—I really think you would do anything in the world for me.”

A gruff laugh came back to her, half smothered as in a man’s beard, and then a choking voice said, “I believe I would, Thora.”

“And if I wanted you—or baby wanted you—I think you would follow us to the ends of the earth.”

“Only say ‘Come’ and I’ll come, Thora.”

There was a moment’s silence, and then a merry laugh came rippling out to him, and he felt hot to the roots of the hair.

“But of course that can not happen, Magnus. We have Oscar, so we can never need you.”

“No, you can never need me, Thora.”

At that moment Anna and Aunt Margret came back, heated and nervous after the conference, and bundled Magnus out of the room. Then while baby was being bathed for bed, behind closed doors, to the customary chorus of screams, Anna combed out Thora’s hair for the night, and Thora talked of Magnus.

“People think him heavy and stupid, but he’ll startle them some day,” she said.

“Is it to be plaited as usual?” asked Anna.

“Just as usual. But how your hands tremble to-night, mother! That’s nursing, you know. Poor Magnus! He hasn’t a selfish thought in his heart. Any girl might love him, and perhaps if I had never known Oscar——”

“Doctor Olesen says you are to take a powder to-night, child. It will make you sleep until morning.”

“It’s you that should take the powder—you and Aunt Margret.”

“Ah, if I could take it for you I would, dear,” said Anna. “But here it is—take it quickly or I may.”

Thora drank from the glass Anna gave her and said, “There! It’s gone! Now bring me baby.”

Aunt Margret came with the child, hushing it to sleep, and put it gently down into the mother’s arms.

“The darling! She needs no sleeping draught. My precious, precious pet! But I declare—Aunt Margret’s hands are trembling, too! I’ve worn you out, both of you.”

“Nonsense! Go to sleep. I’m going to put down the light,” said Aunt Margret, and she lowered the lamp and put it to stand on a table behind the bed-curtains.

“How good you are to me! Everybody is good to me,” came in a fainter voice from the shadow of the bed.

“That is because everybody loves you, Thora,” said Anna in a husky murmur. “You must always believe that, whatever happens.”

“How sweet it is to be loved! If I could only think that it would last——”

The baby became fretful, and Thora began to sing it to sleep.

“Sleep, baby, sleep,
Angels bright thy slumbers keep,
Sleep, baby, sleep.”

Her drowsy voice ran a line and stopped; then ran another line and stopped again, and then the faint voice said:

“How sweet it would be to fall asleep like this some day—baby and I—and awake in heaven!”

“Hush!”

“I should be sorry for Oscar, but still——”

The faint voice lisped, the soft breathing lengthened, the blue eyelids closed, the pale lips parted, the white arms slackened, and then the two children, mother and babe, lay together in the lap of sleep.

There was silence for some minutes, wherein the two older women who sat in the gloom like guilty things heard nothing but the ticking of a clock. Then Aunt Margret crept over to where Anna sat with her head covered by her black silk apron and whispered:

“Oscar is waiting at the door. If it has to be done at all let it be done now.”

Anna uncovered her face and saw Oscar on the threshold in his cloak and hat. She rose on trembling limbs and felt her way to the bedside. There she stood listening for a moment to Thora’s measured breathing. Then she drew the mother’s white arms apart and lifted the baby out of them.

Aunt Margret wrapped a shawl about the sleeping child and Oscar covered it with his cloak.

“The night is warm, she will take no harm,” he faltered. At the next moment he had gone and Aunt Margret had followed him. Then Anna tottered into the outer room and sank into a chair and covered her head again. “Oh, God forgive me! God forgive me! God forgive me!” she said.

XI

The sun was shining into the bedroom when Thora awoke, with a slight flush on her pale cheeks and a look of happiness in her eyes, and saw Anna rocking herself sadly by the bedside.

“Where is baby?” asked Thora.

“Presently, dear, presently,” said Anna.

“Where is she?”

“Lie quiet, Thora. You shall hear everything by and by.”

“But tell me where is my little Elin, Anna?”

“Promise me not to excite yourself, Thora, and I will tell you all about her.”

Thora raised herself on her elbow and said with quick-coming breath, “You don’t mean that you have taken her away?”

“There now, you are exciting yourself already, Thora.”

“Have you stolen my child away from me?” cried Thora.

“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What things you are saying, Thora.”

Thora thought a moment and then she said, “I am sorry I said that, Anna. It was very, very wrong of me. I know you wouldn’t hurt me for worlds. But why don’t you tell me where my little girl is? She’s in the nursery, isn’t she? You took her away from me in the night, and now she’s asleep in her cot—isn’t that so? Or perhaps Aunt Margret has taken her down to the door? There! Isn’t that she?—that child crying in the home-field? Or was it somebody else’s baby in the road? Speak, Anna! You are only teasing me, I know. But I’m so weak, so foolish, and my heart is beating like a drum.”

Anna continued to rock herself and to moan, “Oh, dear! Oh, dear!”

Thora watched her for a moment with eyes that filled with fear, and then called in a shrill voice, “Aunt Margret! Aunt Margret! Aunt Margret!”

“Aunt Margret has gone, Thora,” said Anna.

“Gone! And my baby—has she gone too?”

Anna only rocked herself and moaned, “Oh, dear! Oh, dear!”

Thora struggled to raise herself in bed, but her cheeks whitened and her eyes rolled and with a loud scream she fell back fainting.

The maids came running into the bedroom and opened Thora’s clinched hands while Anna bathed her forehead.

“What have I done? Oh, those doctors! Little they know of a mother’s feelings! It will kill her in any case. My poor child! My poor child! Come, then; come, then!”

Thora recovered consciousness after a moment, and looked about her with dazed eyes.

“Oscar!” she said, “I want to see Oscar.”

“And so you shall, dear,” said Anna, and she sent one of the maids across to the Factor’s to fetch him instantly. Oscar came up-stairs four steps at a stride and entered the room like a rush of wind.

“My poor Thora!” he said with panting breath, and he leaned over the bed to kiss her.

Thora’s eyes, which had been dry and hard, now melted and grew wet. “Oscar,” she said, “your mother has sent our little Elin away—stolen her from me in the night—and I am so weak and faint I can not get up to follow her.”

“Ah, no, dear, not mother,” said Oscar. “Lie quiet and I will explain.”

“Fetch her back to me, Oscar. I love my baby. I can not live without her.”

“I know you love her, Thora, and I promise you that you shall have her back in due time.”

“No, no, dear, now.”

“Not just yet, Thora, but I give you my word for it that baby is safe. They are taking every care of her.”

“What right have they to take care of my baby?” cried Thora. “I must have her back. I will have her back.”

In Thora’s flashing eyes, which changed the character of her countenance, and in her voice, which was husky with rage and hatred, there was something of the fierce animal which has been robbed of its young. Oscar shuddered at sight of the convulsed and livid face, but he answered quietly:

“Thora, if you give way to feelings like those you will make yourself ill again, and then baby will never come back to you. If you will only listen, I will tell you everything. You were very bad before baby came, and doctor feared you might even do some harm to her. Therefore to save you from pain and shame I took her away from you for a little while—only for a little while—until you were better and more sure of yourself, Thora.”

Then a great silence fell on Thora’s bewailing and she said in a husky whisper:

“So it was you, Oscar?”

“Well—yes, dear, it was I—but what I did was for your own good—yours and our little Elin’s. And if you will only wait, only be patient, your baby shall be brought back to you and we shall be happy.”

Thora’s wet eyes dried of themselves, but it was a glassy and smileless light that came into them.

“Where is my baby now?” she asked.

“Not far away. In fact, only at your father’s. Aunt Margret wrapped her in a shawl and I took her across myself.”

“Then you gave my child to Helga?” said Thora.

“Well—yes, I gave her to Helga. But Aunt Margret is there now. And besides, I intend to go over myself off and on all day long, so you are not to worry or be anxious about anything—not about any single thing. You understand everything now, dear, do you not?”

“Yes, I understand everything now,” said Thora.

The glassy, smileless eyes continued to look up at him, but he mistook the light that shone in them.

“That’s a dear, good girl,” he said. “Everybody will be delighted to hear you are so reasonable and resigned, because everybody thought you would be inconsolable—everybody except Helga.”

“Helga?”

“Helga said you would be yourself within an hour, and she was right. Helga knew you better than any of us.”

“Yes, Helga knew me better than any of you,” said Thora.

Then he sat on the end of the bed and chatted gaily on many subjects, while Anna, crying for joy of the change in Thora’s spirits, called for her breakfast and coaxed her to swallow some of it. He talked of his work—of the work he was going to do when he began, which would be soon, very soon now. Then of his ambitions in Parliament, and finally of the Proclamation. It was fixed for the day after to-morrow, everybody was going to it and the town would be empty. As for himself, he had made up his mind to stay at home with Thora, but seeing that the celebration at Thingvellir had been his idea and that he had taken such a prominent part in it, people were saying that it would be a thousand pities if he could not be present.

“Then there’s the hymn, you know,” said Oscar. “I’ve been rehearsing the choir and they are very shaky, but if I thought the organist could hold them together I shouldn’t go in any case.”

“What does Helga say?” asked Thora.

“Helga? Oh, Helga? Helga says I must go,” replied Oscar.

“So do I,” said Thora.

“You do? Really? What a sweet, unselfish soul it is, to be sure,” said Oscar, and kissing Thora on the forehead he ran back to see Elin.

The glassy, smileless eyes on the pillow followed him out of the room, but their light was the light of despair.

XII

Going out of Government House Oscar came upon Magnus, who was standing at the foot of the staircase, riding-whip in hand, and with Golden Mane at the door of the porch. By the dark cloud on Magnus’s face Oscar could see that his brother was in a sullen and rebellious mood, and to avoid further hostilities he saluted him and tried to run on.

“Wait,” said Magnus.

“Another time,” said Oscar.

“Now,” said Magnus, and laying his big hand on Oscar’s arm, he drew him back into the hall.

Oscar flushed up at the indignity and said sharply, “Well, what is it?”

“Oscar,” said Magnus, “I heard what passed in the bedroom.”

“Then you were listening?”

“I was.”

“You are not ashamed to say you were listening on the stairs—on your hands and knees perhaps—to my conversation with my wife?”

“I would have listened on my belly if need be,” said Magnus, and his face darkened more and more.

“May I ask why you listened?” said Oscar.

“Because I could not do otherwise.”

“How so?”

“I had given my word to be here when wanted.”

“To my wife?”

“Yes.”

“You will excuse my saying, Magnus, that it would be much better if you attended to your own business.”

“This is my own business. Oscar, you must give the child back to Thora.”

“Really, Magnus, you are taking a most unwarrantable liberty. If you were not my brother——”

“Shah! Give the mother her child.”

“Good Lord, man,” said Oscar, breathing hard as if he had been running, “do you really think that I am going to allow an outsider, even if he is my brother, to dictate to me what I shall do with my family difficulties and to travel all the way from Thingvellir to conduct my domestic affairs? What right have you to mix yourself in my business—the business of my wife and me?”

The cloud that contracted Magnus’s face grew darker every moment, and he said:

“You ask me what right?”

“I do.”

“I loved Thora Neilsen.”

“You think it necessary to tell me that?” said Oscar. “To remind me that she threw you up for me?”

“That’s a lie, Oscar Stephenson.”

“Strong!” said Oscar, with a laugh, but he was trembling visibly.

“I gave her up when I could have kept her to her word. I decided in favor of the girl’s happiness against my own. I gave her up to you that you might make her happy. Those were the terms on which I gave her up to you, and what is the result? What is the result, I ask you? You have allowed another woman to take her place.”

“Another woman?” said Oscar. “Is that the way you talk of her own sister—of Helga?”

“Sister or not, she has tortured Thora by every art her selfish soul could think of,” said Magnus. “That’s what she has done, and you have helped her, and the treasure I valued more than my life you have flung away.”

Oscar made a cry of protest, but Magnus bore him down with a torrent of words such as never came from his silent lips before.

“Do you think I don’t know what kind of life you led that poor unhappy child while you were away—you and the girl together? And now that her baby comes and her husband returns to her, as he must if he is a man, you let her sister’s scheming heart rob her of her only happiness.”

Again Oscar with his whitening lips did his best to laugh. “Magnus,” he said, “it is impossible to be angry with you. Apparently you do not know that it was with the consent of the family and by the advice of the doctor that the child was taken from its mother!”

“Bah! Do you think I don’t know who suggested it?... Do you think that I don’t see her object? Do you think I don’t hear her pitiful pleas—the same as if I had listened to them! The little innocent is in danger of its life! It must come to her—she must take charge of it. Why? To bring you back to her feet—to attach you to her at any cost. And you like a fool fall into her plans—because you want to—because you don’t know yourself or your wife or the woman that isn’t worthy to tie her shoes.”

Oscar winced under Magnus’s words, for they cut him to the bone.

“Oscar,” said Magnus again, “you will give the child back to the mother—it will be best, I promise you.”

“I have my own opinion of what is best,” said Oscar, bridling, “and if I think that for the time being mother and child are best apart——”

“Oscar Stephenson,” interrupted Magnus, “you will give the child back to the mother.”

“And if I refuse, by what right will you command me?” said Oscar.

“By the right I acquired when I gave Thora up to you,” replied Magnus.

“And by the right I acquired when she became my wife I will do with her child as I think proper,” said Oscar.

At that Magnus lost all control of himself.

“Is she a dog that you can take her whelps?” he cried.

“The law gives me the right to dispose of her offspring as I think proper,” said Oscar.

“Then damn the law,” cried Magnus. “And if you are deaf to my entreaties I—I will——”

“Go on,” said Oscar. “It will not be the first time that you have threatened to break the law.”

“You are breaking that poor girl’s heart, yet you talk to me about breaking the law. But I’ll do more than that. If you will not give the child to its mother I will take it by force and give it back to her myself. And if any man tries to prevent me, no matter who he is or what he is, by God I’ll break his teeth down his throat.”

Flinging down his riding-whip Magnus had taken a step forward and lifted his clinched fist into Oscar’s quivering face when a cry came from the head of the staircase: “Magnus! Oscar! Magnus! Magnus!”

It was Anna. She ran down and put herself between the two men—the slight, lithe, figure and fair head of Oscar, and the burly form and swarthy face of Magnus, both panting hard and livid with rage and hate.

“My sons! My sons! For shame! For shame!” she cried. “Every word could be heard in the bedroom and Thora is crying her eyes out.”

Magnus dropped his arm and fell aside a pace or two, rebuked and ashamed, but Oscar stood with an unflinching front where his mother had found him.

“Magnus—Oscar,” continued Anna, “if you both love the poor girl who is lying helpless up-stairs, isn’t that a reason why you should be friends and not enemies? And then think of me, my sons. I am your mother. Surely the sons of one mother can live at peace. I nursed you both when you were little ones and if there should be strife between you now, and blows and perhaps bloodshed, it would kill me—I could never survive it.”

Then she turned toward Magnus and said, as well as she could for the tears that choked her:

“Magnus, you mustn’t be angry with Oscar. He is your younger brother, remember. You and he slept in the same bed when you were children. And when he was a boy you used to carry him on your back and fight all his battles.”

Magnus groaned and turned again until he stood sideways to his mother, and thinking he was not to be moved, she faced about to Oscar.

“Oscar,” she said, “you must make peace with Magnus. You must, if only for Thora’s sake. Remember, you have got her, Oscar, and if it is true that Magnus gave her up to you, although he loved her himself, think of the sacrifice he must have made for both of you! Perhaps he loves her still, and has condemned himself to life-long loneliness because he has lost her. And perhaps he weeps his heart out for her the long nights through. Love that suffers like that has a great excuse, Oscar. Doesn’t it give him a right to look to Thora’s happiness? And if he thinks she is suffering for want of her little Elin——”

Oscar’s throat was hurting him, and in a husky voice he said, “She shall have the child back, mother. If the doctor says it is safe she shall have the child back immediately.”

“There!” said Anna. “That’s fair—nothing could be fairer than that, Magnus. Come, now, you must shake hands with Oscar.”

She put her hand on Magnus’s arm, but he did not move.

“Magnus,” she said, “your mother’s love may be all that is left to you now, but it will last long, my son. You need not give it up to any one, and no one can take it away. After all a mother’s love is best. It will cling to you and comfort you whatever you do and whatever the world may do to you. Magnus, you must make friends with your brother—for your mother’s sake, Magnus——”

Magnus turned about and saw Oscar before him with broken face and outstretched hand. Then his own hand swung out, drew back, swung out again, and at the next moment the big, burly fellow had flung his arms about Oscar’s neck and was sobbing over him like a child.

Two minutes later Magnus was on his way home, cracking his long whip over Golden Mane’s flying head and whooping and galloping like a madman.