V.
T
THE police-chief’s handsome wife no longer kept office hours from ten to eleven. She was tired of it.
These preliminary labors dragged along interminably; when the chaplain once had the Institution organized, it seemed as if he had gained his point, and the Institution’s farther growth and progress he did not allow to lie so much upon his mind.
At the last meeting he had even, with his customary decision, proposed that the matter should temporarily rest until autumn; for the summer was now at hand, when all the Institution’s promoters were going to the baths or into the country; they could, therefore, confine themselves to working secretly—as the chaplain expressed himself—and so meet again, if God will, at autumn with renewed powers.
Working secretly was not to this lady’s taste. She desired, on the contrary, to distinguish herself in one way or another; but there was no opportunity, and at last she let the register lie unopened on the desk; but she did let it lie there; it was always a graceful object and every stranger was sure to ask what it was.
One delightful May morning, between ten and eleven, the maid came into her bed-chamber and announced that Miss Falbe was waiting to see her.
At first the lady wished to excuse herself; but when she heard that it concerned the Institution for Fallen Women, at St. Peter’s Parish, she made a becoming negligee toilet and went down. But she was a little provoked, anyhow; it was just like Miss Falbe to come at the wrong time.
It was like her, too, not to seem to hear the story of the horrible headache which the lady related; but without further ado, to go straight to the matter in hand.
“You remember, madame,” she began, “that some time since I presented a young girl for your Institution? Do you also recall what hindered her reception at that time?”
The lady nodded stiffly.
“This hindrance is now certainly removed,”—Miss Falbe’s voice sounded a little sharp as she said it—“The girl has gone astray—to a pitiable degree.”
The police-chief’s wife did not really see what answer she should make. She assumed a business-like mien and sought for excuses; she felt an instinctive longing to oppose Miss Falbe.
But all at once it occurred to her; here was the most excellent opportunity to distinguish herself; she was the Institution’ssecretary, and, although the organization was not yet complete, still she had both money and clothing at her disposal. She looked at the register; the women who received support from the Institution were to be recorded in it.
She made a bold decision and solemnly opened the register.
With a rapid and graceful hand she now at last filled the empty spaces in the first line: Name, age, by whom presented, etc.; all with a business expression as if it were the twentieth time she had done it.
When it was all filled out, Miss Falbe asked:
“Well, as to the baby——”
“The baby!” cried the lady; “Is there a baby?”
“There will be,” responded the imperturbable Miss Falbe.
For a moment the poor lady thought she should faint; but her wrath got the upper hand. Flaming red, and with anything but mild eyes, she arose:
“It’s a shame for you, Miss Falbe; but that’s always the way with you. Now, I must scratch in the register; it is spoiled—all spoiled;” and the lady burst into tears for grief and vexation.
“But what’s to be understood by that?” asked Miss Falbe.
“Oh! you know well enough,” sobbed the lady. “When there is a baby, you should go to the hospital for poor womenduring confinement and not to us. You knew it well—yes, you knew it; I am sure you did.”
Miss Falbe smiled; Miss Falbe really smiled a little contemptuously as she went down the steps. Whether she knew it or not, is as well unknown; at any rate, she did not go to the hospital for poor women during confinement.
On the contrary, she went home again to the Ark and hunted up Madam Speckbom. The two ladies were well acquainted, and mutually cherished high regard for each other. When Miss Falbe was really in a strait to procure aid for some poor creature or other she had found, she always knew that Madam Speckbom had a little to spare on a pinch.
And Madam held Miss Falbe infinitely high—mostly, perhaps, because she was the only educated person who had ever shown genuine respect for her medical skill.
Besides, she used to declare that although she had so little to give, there were none of the town’s charitable ladies who did so much good and were so well liked as she.
But then when Madam learned that it was Loppen who was to be helped, she shook her curls in disapproval:
“It will do no good with her, miss—I know the blood—so I do!”
Madame Speckbom had missed Loppen so badly that she had almost grown old in six months’ time; she had repented,too, perhaps, but she was of too stern and obstinate a composition ever to acknowledge it.
But Miss Falbe proceeded without allowing herself to be scared off by the curls, telling how it had gone with Elsie of late; she had kept an eye on her as well as she could.
Since early that year, Loppen had been living with the young boy from the brick-works—partly out there, partly in a notorious lodging-house in town.
But he was lazy, and, besides, he drank all the time when he was in town. So Elsie had suffered very much; and what was worse, she had changed so in this short time that when Miss Falbe called and tried to help and counseled her, Loppen had laughed defiantly and said that she would take care of herself.
“Yes, yes—there, you see; that’s the kind of a girl she is,” muttered Madam.
But Elsie was sick now; and that afternoon when Miss Falbe found her alone—Svend had not shown his face for several days—her defiance was all gone; she wept and was so humble and penitent.
Miss Falbe talked so long about Elsie that Madam thawed; and at evening Loppen was brought home and had her old bed in the little chamber where the morning sun shone in.
At first Elsie did not dare to look Madam in the eye. Butwhen she had again accustomed herself to the old surroundings, and especially after it was over with, and she had given birth to a miserable, little, still-born child, the old intimacy between them began to return.
“But,” said Madam Speckbom, when they had had a long talk about the past, “If, after this, you commit any follies or run away, or if you only a single time go up to Puppelena’s, then it will be all over between us—over, once for all.”
Elsie felt so certain that such a thing could never happen again; she had gone through too much for that.
And now it was so delightful.
As to Svend, Madam had promised herself that if he would be sober and work, she would help them to get married.
And it was that Elsie lay and thought about; and as her strength slowly waxed with good food and treatment, she began in her old way to dream.
But now they were quite different; her dreams from those when she lay in her virgin bed, and did not really comprehend what she was dreaming of.
Now she cast away the horse and swan’s-down and longed for a little house close by the brick-works for Svend and herself, and a big rose-bush in front like those in the bellman’s garden; oh, when she thought of the bellman’s roses!She could almost recall their fragrance so that she could smell them.
She was too young and light-hearted to grieve long because the child was still-born. And when she was up and began to walk around, she felt happier than she had felt for a long time. Her beauty came back, too; her eyes became bright again and her figure rounded.
One evening, when Madam had just gone out on professional calls, Svend came in.
Elsie was much alarmed, for Madam had forbidden her receiving him; she wanted to talk with Svend herself first.
But she could not drive him away; for that matter, he would not let himself be driven away; it was so long since they had seen each other. Loppen appeased herself by resolving that she would tell Madam when she went home, however it went with her.
But she did not do so. When it came to the point, she had not the courage; and Svend continued calling on her twice a week—especially Saturday evenings.
Whether Madam Speckbom suspected anything, Elsie could not be certain; but it troubled her; yet, she could not bring herself to confess. It was harder, too, the longer it ran on; and at last she had not the slightest desire to talk confidentially with Madam.
There was so much sunshine in July and August, and so little of it came into Madam Speckbom’s narrow streets.
Loppen sat by the window and looked up at the sky, and she thought never so long about Svend and the brick-works, and all the bright pearls which leaped from the water-wheel and off the bellman’s roses; she breathed heavily; what would she not give for such a rose!
The next Saturday Svend brought her one. There were scores of them, he said; one scented their fragrance clear out on the road, and they hung out over the hedge this year, so one did not have to climb over.
When he had to go again, at half-past eight, so that Madam should not surprise them, Elsie wanted to go to the corner with him. She held the rose in her hand; it was well-nigh ruined, and he teased her to go out with him and pluck a good many.
But she would not; and she walked on and explained to him for the twentieth time how much more sensible it was for her to stay with Madam as long as possible; and then they could better arrange to get married in the fall.
Svend listened patiently to her, and in this way they walked on from corner to corner, across the slopes behind the town. But when he had her so far, he took her about the waist and said:
“Don’t be foolish, now, Elsie! What do you want down in that black hospital? Only think how fresh and lovely it is here?”
He was browned again by the sun; the warm gypsy blood flowed up into his cheeks, and his teeth glistened in the twilight. It was impossible for her to withstand him, as bold and ready as he stood there; and happy and careless she ran away with him into the silent, beautiful summer night.
“I told you that at the start,” cried Madam Speckbom, half-bitterly and half-triumphantly, “she’ll stay here, said I, just till she is well, then she’ll run off. For I know the blood, that I do; and besides, now I hear that fellow of hers is a gypsy. If I had only known that, he would never have got permission to go with her that accursed evening.”
“It might be she would come back yet,” interrupted Miss Falbe.
“Yes, just let her try it,” cried Madam, menacingly.
“But, Madam Speckbom! You wouldn’t tear her to pieces!”
“That I would, Miss Falbe—as sure as my name is Caroline Speckbom. It would be a sin and a shame to help one who will not be helped; there are enough, in all conscience, who need it.”
“Yes, but those who will not be helped are just the ones who need help the most.”
“Pardon, Miss Falbe; but there’s no sense in that. Sometimes you are too bright and learned—just like Dr. Bentzen—that is, you are ten thousand times better—in every direction—oh, there can be no comparison!” added Madam, thoroughly abashed that she had come to compare the excellent Miss Falbe with anything so abominable as Dr. Bentzen.
It was a hard winter for the poor. It was well to cling to one of the charitable ladies who brought aid from the various institutions. And aid came to many, and did good where it came.
But there were those who were not so fortunate as to reach the aid, and many to whom the aid would not stretch down. For where vice had allied itself with poverty, help might be a curse, and it was a sin to take the bread from the worthy poor, who gave thanks with tears and blessings.
Loppen no longer got aid; all became, in time, tired of her. When she and Svend, late in the autumn, moved in from the brick-works, they lived well for a week or so, on the rest of his summer’s wages; but when it was gone, they had nothing at all.
For what Madam Speckbom had once said, that Elsie and Svend suited each other, proved only too true. They were alike light-hearted, alike happy in living well, and alike incapable of saving.
Svend, in this particular, was the better; but he drank it up immediately.
Loppen for a time set about deceiving one after another of the charitable ladies. But when it was over, she was of so bad repute the city over, that she did not know which way to turn.
So she deserted Svend and went with another, who had a few shillings left, came back to him and disappeared again; so no one really knew where she kept herself.
Even Miss Falbe lost sight of her. But at gentlemen’s dinners, the chief of police used to quote Loppen as an example of how exceedingly fast, women of the common people go to the bottom when they have once gone astray. And the gentlemen stared moodily down into their champagne glasses, and wondered that moral strength was so poor among the lower classes.
Elsie neither thought nor dreamed any more; she was neither ashamed nor penitent.
From day to day she struggled on through misery;laughed when it went merrily, with food and drink, and ran the town over when she was in want.
At last she sank into a kind of a waitress in a bar-room down by the dock, where she drank ale with foreign sailors.