“You have not brought your clerk with you?” she asked Gunnar of Reyne, as indifferently as she could.
“Is it that Teit you mean? Nay, he has run from me. So now, you ask for him? They tell me he had errands hither to Berg early and late—is it true that ’twas you he was after?”
Ingunn tried to laugh. “Not that I know. He said—he said he would send suitors to ask for me—and that you were to be one of them. I counselled him against it, but—Can it be true?”
The Sheriff’s eyes twinkled. “Ay, he said something of the same to me. And he had the same counsel from me as from you!” Gunnar laughed till his stomach shook.
“What became of him, when he ran away from Reyne?” asked Ingunn, and she too laughed a little. “Do you know that, Gunnar?”
“We will ask the cantor—’twas to him he would go. Hey, Master Torgard, will you deign to come hither? Tell me, good sir—know you what became of him, that Icelander, my writer? Mistress Ingunn here asks after him—you must know he intended her such honour that he would sue for the hand of Ingunn Steinfinnsdatter.”
“Nay, say you so?” said the priest. “Ay, he had many strange devices, my good Teit. So then, you are left to mourn his absence, my child?”
“I can do naught else. For he was such a marvellous cunning man, I have heard, that you, master, would send him to the Archbishop himself, since there was none other in this land who could make use of such skill. This must be true, I ween, for he said it himself.”
“He-he, he-he. Ay, he could make up a tale. Half crazed he was, forsooth, though the boy could write better than most. Nay, he came in to see me awhile ago—but by my troth, I’ll not have him in my household again—though he is a good clerk, but a madcap. So ’twill profit you nothing to weep for him, my little Ingunn.—Nay, but is it true—was the boy so bold that he dared speak of seeking a wife at Berg? Nay, nay, nay—” the priest shook his little birdlike old head.
So she guessed it could not be altogether true, what he had said to her that last day they spoke together. But now she had added this to her other anxieties—had she done a madly foolish thing in letting these men see that she thought enough of Teit to care to ask after him?
When the guests departed after the funeral, Tora stayed behind with her two eldest children and old Ivar Toresson of Galtestad. One evening when they were sitting together—they had brought out the treasures they had inherited from Lady Aasa and were looking at them—Tora said once more that her sister ought now to take up her abode with her.
Lady Magnhild said that Ingunn must do as she would: “If you would rather go to Frettastein, Ivar and I will not hinder you.”
“Rather will I stay here at Berg,” replied Ingunn in a low voice. “If you will still grant me lodging here, now that grandmother is gone?”
Tora renewed her demand: she herself had now five children and she had charged herself with the fostering of the motherless twins left by Haakon’s sister, so she needed Ingunn’s help.
Lady Magnhild saw a look of perfect misery in Ingunn’s thin and wasted face, and she held out her hand to her. “Come hither to me, Ingunn! Shelter and food and clothing you shall have with me, as long as I live—or till Olav comes and takes you home; for I believe full surely that he will come one day, if God be willing and he is alive.—Think you,” she said scornfully to Tora, “that Haakon will show his sister-in-law such honour at Frettastein as Steinfinn’s daughter has the right to look for? Haply she is to dwell in her father’s home and be nurse to his and Helga Gautsdatter’s offspring! That Ivar and I will not consent to.—I had thought I would give you this”—she took up the great gold ring that she had inherited from her mother—“as a memorial of the faithful care with which you tended our mother all these years.”
She took hold of Ingunn’s hand and was about to put the ring on it. “But what have you done with your betrothal ring—have you taken it off? Poor thing, I believe you have worked so hard that your hands are quite swollen,” she said.
Ingunn felt that Tora gave a little start. She dared not look at her sister—yet did so for an instant. Tora’s face was unmoved, but there was an uneasy flicker in her eyes. Ingunn herself could not feel the floor under her feet—she clung fast to one thought: “If I fall into a swoon now, they will know all.” But she seemed to be listening to another’s words as she thanked her aunt for the costly gift, and when she was back in her usual place, she did not know how she had come there.
Late in the evening she stood by the courtyard gate, calling and whistling for one of the dogs. Then Tora came across to her.
There was no moon, and the black sky sparkled with stars. The two women drew their hooded cloaks tightly about them as they tramped in the loose snow and talked of the wolves, whose inroads had been very bold in the last few weeks—now and again Ingunn whistled and called in an anxious voice: “Tota—Tota—Tota!” It was so dark that they could not see each other’s faces; Tora asked in a low and strangely dejected tone: “Ingunn—you are not sick, are you—?”
“I cannot say I am well,” answered Ingunn, quite calmly and easily. “Thin and light as Aasa had grown at last, I can tell you it was a trying task to lift her and move her, day in, day out, for months. And there was little rest at night. But now it will soon be better with me—”
“You do not think it is anything else that ails you, sister?” asked Tora as before.
“Nay, I cannot think that.”
“Last summer you were so red and white—and as slender as when we were both young,” whispered Tora.
Ingunn managed to answer with a melancholy little laugh: “Some time I must begin to show, I wis, that I am on the way to thirty. Look at the great children you have, my Tora—do you remember that I am a year and a half older than you?”
In the darkness between the fences a black ball came rushing along—the dog jumped up at Ingunn, nearly sending her headlong into the snowdrifts, and licked her face. She caught it by the muzzle and forepaws, keeping it off as she laughed, and spoke to it fondly: “—And well was it the wolf did not get you tonight either, Tota, my Tota!”
The sisters wished each other good-night and separated.
But Ingunn lay sleepless in the dark, trying to bear this new anxiety—that Tora must have a suspicion. And the temptation came to her—what if she told Tora of her distress, begged her help? Or Aunt Magnhild—she thought of the lady’s marked kindness that evening and felt tempted to be weak and give herself up. Dalla—it had also flashed across her mind, when she thought she could no longer bear this secret torment alone—perhaps if she turned to Dalla—
In breathless suspense she kept her eyes on her sister during the days Tora stayed on at Berg. But she could notice nothing—neither by look nor by word did Tora betray any sign that she guessed how it was with her elder sister. Then she went away, and Ingunn was left alone with her aunt and the old house-folk.
She counted the weeks—thirty were gone already; there were but ten left. She must hold out so long. Nine weeks—eight weeks—But as yet she had never clearly acknowledged to herself what the purpose was to which she clung, as she struggled on and suffered, as though stifled in a darkness full of formless terrors, with a dull pain over her whole body and a single thought in her head: that none must have any inkling of the misfortune that had befallen her.
The end that she saw before her—when she thought of it, she was filled with a horror that was like the stiffness of death; but it appeared to her that it was the end of the road, and she must reach it, though she would try to walk the last piece with closed eyes. Even when she sought a kind of easement by playing with the thought of crying for help, speaking to someone before it was too late—she never thought in earnest that she would do so. She must go on, to what she saw before her.
So far on in the spring the ground was almost always free of snow hereabouts. They would not find her footprints.—The great birch wood north of the manor stretched from the rocks where they smoked fish almost down to th
e lake. At its lower end it narrowed to a strip between crags—where folk hardly ever came, and where they could not be seen or heard from the house. The ice did not leave the bay so early. But on the southern shore and on the screes below the birch wood lay great heaps of stones that had been cleared off the fields in former times; there the people of Berg were used to throw down carcasses of horses and other beasts that died a natural death.
6
SHE had gone up into the bower where she had kept her things since Lady Aasa’s time, one morning of early spring—it was a few days before Lady Day. She sat and shivered with fur boots on her feet and a big sheepskin cloak over her clothes; it was now colder indoors than out. Long, glistening drops kept falling from the roof past the opening, and the air quivered and steamed over the glimpse she saw of white roofs against the bright blue sky. She had taken the shutter from the little window to have more air—she could hardly get her breath, and she felt as though a heavy leaden hood lay upon her brain inside her skull; it pressed upon her so that the blood hammered in her neck behind the ears, and patches of red and black flickered before her eyes. She had taken refuge up here for fear anyone should speak to her—she had no strength to talk. But it was some small relief to be able to sit here in her prostration.
Ever afterwards she believed for certain that she had known what was coming when she heard the horsemen at the courtyard gate. She got up and looked out. That was Arnvid, the one who rode first through the gate; he had his black horse and the ring-bridle that he used when he went on a visit. The second horse she also knew to be his, a big-boned grey, which his groom rode. And the third horseman, he who was riding a high dappled roan, was Olav Audunsson—she knew that before he had come near enough for her to recognize him.
He looked up as he held in his horse, saw her at the window, and waved his hand in greeting. He was wearing a great black travelling-mantle, which lay in ample folds over the horse’s quarters and covered his legs down to the feet in the stirrups. He had thrown back the hood, and on his head he wore a black, foreign hat with a high crown and a narrow brim—his fair hair fringing it all round and falling to his eyebrows in front. He had smiled at her when he threw up his hand.
Ever afterwards it seemed to her she had been awakened from a nightmare at the instant she saw him—Olav had come home. To her misfortune, it was true—he would crush her in one way or another—she faced that at once. But it was as though the blinding gloom fell away from her on every side, and the devils who had swarmed about her like the stirring of the darkness itself, so thickly that they jostled each other with elbows and knees, while they surrounded her and led her blindly with them—they fell away from her too. She seemed to know, even as she came down the stairs of the loft, that, now Olav was come, she could do naught else than tell him all and accept her doom from him.
Olav stood there with the house-carls who had come to take the strangers’ horses—he turned toward her. With a pang of wounded pride she saw how handsome he was, and she had fallen away from him—those black clothes suited the bright fairness of the man so well. He gave her his hand. “Well met, Ingunn—” Then he had a sight of her wasted face. And, unheedful of good manners and of all the strangers who stood by, he threw his arms about her, drew her to him, and gave her a kiss full on the mouth. “ ’Twas a long time you had to wait for me, Ingunn my dear. But now it is over, now I am come to take you home!”
He released her, and she and Arnvid greeted each other with a kiss on the cheek, as became kinsfolk.
She stood by while the young men cried: “All hail!” to Lady Magnhild. They told her laughing that Ivar was with them, but they had ridden from him up by the church—for neither the Galtestad sorrel nor his master was in good trim for speedy travelling.
“Nay, you know how angry he was with the haste you made in your young days,” laughed Lady Magnhild. “But since you have put off that bad habit, Olav, I believe my brother has grown more and more fond of you!”
“Have I ever seen such a fair day?” thought Ingunn. The hard snow shone like silver in the spring sun, over the fields and out on the bay. After the mild weather earlier in the week, all the snow had vanished from the woods, and the bare ground shone with young grass, as though newly washed. Across the fields the aspen trees stood with pale green stems within the brown, leafless groves.
And she felt joy bubbling up in her heart—that the world was so full of sunshine and beauty and gladness. And she had put herself outside it, banished herself to her corner. For all that, it was a good thing that it was so good to live—for the others, for all who had not undone themselves. And when at that moment she felt a violent quickening of the child within her, her own heart seemed to stir and answer it—“No, no, I no longer wish you ill.…”
They sat at table, and Ingunn listened in silence to the men’s talk. She learned that it was intended Arnvid and Ivar should go on the very next day, northward to Haftor Kolbeinsson, and place in his hands the third quarter of the blood-money for Einar. Olav held that it was more seemly he himself should not meet Haftor until he came to pay the rest of the sum, when at the same time he would receive Ingunn and her dowry at the hands of her kinsmen.
“You have no mind to go farther with us, I guess,” chuckled Ivar Toresson. “I believe ’tis not your purpose to stir from Berg till you be driven out of the house!”
“Ay, so long as Lady Magnhild will grant me shelter, and fodder for my horse.” He laughed with the others, at the same time giving Ingunn a rapid glance out of the corner of his eye. “Sooth to say, I have most liking to stay here, make an end of this matter between Haftor and me—and take Ingunn with me, so soon as I go southward to Hestviken.”
“I doubt not that could be done,” said Arnvid.
“Ay, I guess what you mean, and I thank you for it—but nevertheless I will not ask more help of you, Arnvid, since I can make shift without it. And I must do as I told you at Galtestad—go south and see how things look at Hestviken, before I bring my wife thither; and fetch the money I am to get in Oslo. And ’twill be far easier to collect the men who ought to be witnesses to our atonement if the feast be held at the time folk are on their way homeward from the Things—whether you wish that I shall receive Ingunn here or at Galtestad. Ivar is right in saying that, since this suit has been so long drawn out and tortuous, it should be brought to an end as openly as may be.”
When folk went home from the Things—that was the middle of summer. The thought crossed Ingunn’s mind like a whisper from the devils that had had her in their power the whole winter. But now she did not even feel tempted. It was impossible that she could go the rest of that road, now she had seen Olav again. All that she had fancied of her life at Hestviken with him and their children hovered before her mind. To that she could never return—if she tried to free herself of her secret in the gloom of night and hide it among the rocks, it would avail her nothing. Never more could she come to Olav.
Ivar only held up his hands in humorous amazement as he told the others that Olav had not yet set foot in Hestviken. Had anyone ever heard of such a man!
Olav laughingly excused himself—he turned red at the old man’s teasing and it made him look very young. He looked younger, more like his former self, than when he was here last—though he now had some lines across his straight, round neck, and when he stretched, a red scar could be seen under his wristband. And his face was thinner and more weatherbeaten. For all that, he looked very young—and Ingunn guessed this was because he was so happy. Her heart sank sickeningly—would it be a great grief she was bringing upon him, when he heard that she had thrown herself away?
But he had been given grace, he had got his estate back, she understood that he was a man of some wealth. He had now sold Kaaretorp, the farm he had owned in Elvesyssel, where he had dwelt when at length he had been allowed to return to the country, last autumn. It would not be difficult for Olav to find a better match than she would have been—according to the agreement with her family he would ha
ve received no great portion with her, she understood.
Olav went out with her when she was crossing the yard to go to bed. “Do you sleep alone in Aasa’s house? Ay, then ’twould scarce be fitting if I came in when you are in bed,” he sighed, and gave a little laugh.
“Nay, we can scarce do that.”
“But tomorrow night? Can you not get one of the maids to sleep in the house with you—so that we may speak privily in the evenings?”
He clasped her to him, with awkward haste, so hard that she uttered a groan, and kissed her before he let her go.
Ingunn lay awake, trying to think of the future. But it was like trying to clear a path for herself amid a fall of rocks too heavy for her to move. She had no power to think what would become of her now. Nevertheless, she had staggered as far as this in a blinding darkness that lived and moved with unseen terrors, and now she saw the day before her—even if it was as grey and hopeless and impassable as a rainy day in midwinter. Forward she must go: from what she had brought upon herself there was no escape, unless she sought refuge in hell.
She knew that she had lost her rights. She had lost them already in giving herself to Olav without the knowledge and consent of her lawful guardians—they had let her know that plainly enough. If her kinsfolk had afterwards been willing to grant her the right of inheritance, this was for Olav’s sake—since they had changed their view of him and found out that it was more profitable to accept his offer of atonement and let him take her to wife in lawful fashion. What they would do when they heard that she had made it impossible for Olav to take her—of that she dared to think only vaguely. When it came to their ears that she was with child—and the father was a man whom it were bootless for her kinsmen to pursue. They would have to let Teit go—they could have no profit of him, and if they would seek him out and punish him, the shame would only be made worse—when it was heard that she had let herself be seduced by such a man.