Chapter XI
Everythingwas white now in the very heart of winter, white from the window-panes in the sitting-room to the garden, the fields, and the mountain slopes, white as the eye glided over the mountain-tops up to the sky, which lay like a semi-transparent, thickly frosted window-pane and shut it all in.
It was cold here, the warm-blooded captain maintained. He began to amuse himself with feeling and tracing out where there was a draught, and then with pasting long strips of paper with cloth and oakum under it. And then he used to go out from his work, with only his wig, without his hat, and chat with the people in the stable or at the barn, where they were threshing.
They were lonely there now with only Ma, Thea, and himself; no one understood what Thinka had been for him!
At last he ended in pondering on laying out fox-traps and traps and spring-guns for wolves and lynx in the hill pastures.
Ma was obliged a hundred times a day to answer what she thought, even if she had just as much idea about it as about pulling down the moon.
"Yes, yes, do it, dear Jäger."
"Yes, but do you believe it will pay—that is whatI am asking about—to go to the expense of fox-traps?"
"If you can catch any, then—"
"Yes, if—"
"A fox skin is certainly worth something."
"Hadn't I better try to put out bait for lynx and wolf?"
"I should think that would be dearer."
"Yes, but the skin—if I get any; it depends on that, you see."
Then he would saunter thoughtfully out of the door, to come back an hour later and again and again fill her ears with the same thing.
Ma's instinct told her that the object of his first catch was really she; if she allowed herself to be fooled into giving positive advice, he would not forget to let her feel the responsibility for the result, if it should be a loss.
To-day he had again been pondering and going over the affair with her, when they were surprised by the sheriff's double sleigh driving up to the steps.
The hall door, creaking with the frost, flew open under the captain's eager hand.
"In with you into the sitting-room, Sheriff."
Behind his wolf-skin coat Thinka emerged, stately and wrapped up in furs.
"Your most obedient servant, kinsman, and friend."
The sheriff was on a business trip farther up, and asked for hospitality for Thinka for two or three days, till he came back; he would not omit to claim her again promptly. And, in the next place, he must ask of his father-in-law the loan of a small sleigh for his further journey; he should be way up in Nordal's annex this evening.
Thinka already had Torbjörg and Thea competing each for one of her snow-stockings to get them off, and Marit was not free from eagerly peeping in at the door.
"You shall, in any event, have a little something to eat and some tea-punch, while the horse gets its breath, and they make the sleigh ready."
The sheriff did not have much time to waste, but the sun of family life shone too mildly here for him not to give a half hour, exactly by the clock.
He made one or two attempts to get his things off, but then went to Thinka.
"You have tied the knot in my silk handkerchief so well that you will have to undo it yourself. Thanks, thanks, my dear Thinka.—She spoils me completely. Nay, you know her, Captain."
"You see what she has already begun to be for me," he said later, appealing with a pleasant smile to his father-in-law and mother-in-law at the hastily served collation—he must have his tea-punch poured out by Thinka's hand.
When the sheriff, carefully wrapped up by hisyoung wife, was followed out to the sleigh, Thinka's tea stood there almost untouched and cold; but Ma came now with a freshly filled hot cup, and they could sit down to enjoy the return home in peace.
He is certainly very good, Ma thought—he had guessed that Thinka was homesick.
"The sheriff is really very considerate of you, Thinka, to let you come home so soon," she said.
"Fine man! Would have to hunt a long time for his like!" exclaimed the captain with a full, strong bass. "Treats you like a doll, Thinka."
"He is as good as he can be. Next week Miss Brun is coming to make over a satin dress for me; it has only been worn once. Gülcke will have me so fine," said Thinka, by way of illustration. The tone was so quiet that it was not easy for Ma to tell what she meant.
"The fellow stands on his head for you; don't know what he will hit upon."
Besides his wish to meet his wife's longing for home, the sheriff may possibly also have determined to take her with him from a little regard for the younger powers in the principal parish—Buchholtz and Horn. They had begun to visit at his house somewhat often and evidently to feel at home there, after a young, engaging hostess had come to the house.
Towards evening the captain had a quiet game of picquet.
It seemed as if comfort accompanied Thinka. Her mediatorial and soothing nature had come to the house again; it was felt both in parlor and kitchen.
Father came again in the forenoon for a little portion of oat cake and whey cheese when they were cooking salt meat and peas in the kitchen, and Ma found first one thing and then another done for her and was anticipated in many handy trifles, notwithstanding that Thinka also had to finish a pair of embroidered slippers that Gülcke had expressed a wish for. But there was plenty of time for that. She got well along on the pattern while her father was taking his noonday nap, and she sat up there and read him to sleep.
The captain found it so comfortable when he saw the needle and worsted flying in Thinka's hand—it was so peacefully quiet—it was impossible not to go to sleep.
And then he was going to have her for only three days.
While her fingers were moving over the canvas, Kathinka sat having a solitary meditation—
Aas had sent her a letter when he heard of her marriage. He had believed in her so that he could have staked his life on her constancy, and even if many years were to have passed, he would have worked, scrimped, and scraped in order at last to have been able to reach her again, even if they shouldthen both have left their youth behind them. It had been his joyful hope that she would keep firm and wait for him even through straits and poor circumstances. But now that she had sold herself for goods and gold, he did not believe in any one any more. He had only one heart, not two; but the misfortune was, he saw it more plainly, that she also had—
"Huf! I thought I heard you sighing deeply," said the captain, waking up; "that comes from lying and struggling on one's back. Now we shall have some coffee."
Even if Thinka could not answer Aas, still she would try to relieve her heart a little to Inger-Johanna. She had brought her last letter with her to answer in this period of calm at home, and was sitting up in her room with it before her, in the evening.
"Inger-Johanna is fortunate, as she has nothing else to think of," she said to herself, sighing and reading:
And you, Thinka, you also ought to have your eye on your part of the country, and make something out of the place into which you have now come; it is indeed needed up there, for there is no doubt that society has its great mission in the refinement of customs and the contest against the crude, as aunt expresses it.
I am not writing this for nothing, nor whollyin the air; I stand, indeed, too near to many conditions to be able to avoid thinking of the possibility of sometime being placed in such a position. If I said anything else, I should not be sincere.
And I must tell you, I see a great many things I should like to help in. It must be that a place can be found for a good many ideas which now, as it were, are excommunicated.
Society ought to be tolerant, aunt says; why, then, cannot such views as Grip's be discussed peacefully? The first thing I would do would be to go in for being extravagant and defending them. In a woman, nevertheless, this is never anything more than piquancy. But ideas also must fight their way into good society.
I ponder and think more than you can imagine; I feel that I ought to put something right, you see.
And I am not any longer so struck with the wisdom of men altogether. A woman like aunt keeps silent and pulls the strings; but you can never imagine how many are led by her strings. She is, between ourselves, a little diplomatic, in an old-fashioned way, and full of flourishes, so that she almost makes it a pleasure to have it go unobserved and by a roundabout way. Straight out would many times be better, I believe; at any rate, that is my nature.
And still a little warning with it, Thinka (oh, how I feel I speak as if I were in aunt's skin!) Rememberthat no one ever rules a room except from a place on the sofa; I know you are so modest that they are always getting you off on the chairs. You are not at all so stupid as you imagine; only you ought not to try to hide what you think.
If I should sometime meet Grip again, I should convince him that there may be other ways to Rome than just going head foremost at it! I have got a little notion of my own since he last domineered me, with his contempt for society, and was always so superior. But I have not had more than one or two glimpses of him on the street the whole winter. He is so taken up by his own affairs; and it isn't proper, uncle says, to invite him tosoirées, since he has pledged himself to certain strong ideas, which one does not dare to hint at without provoking a very serious dispute. In one or two gentlemen parties he has been entirely too grandiloquent—drank too much, uncle thought. But I know so well why. He must hit upon something, he used to say, when he gets tired and bored too much, and at the Dürings there is a dreadful vacuum.
Thinka had read the letter through; there might be much to think of, but she was so taken up by Aas—she was never done with rolling that millstone.
*****
During the monotony of winter, in the middle of February, a letter was received, which the captain at first weighed in his hand and examined two or three times—white, glossy vellum paper, C. R. in the seal—and he tore it open.
Yes, to be sure, it was from Rönnow!—his brilliant, running hand with the peculiar swing, which brought him to mind, as his elegant form, with a jaunty tread, moved up and down.
Captain Peter Jäger,—Highly esteemed, dear old comrade and friend:
I shall not preface this with any long preludes about position in life, prospects, etc., but go straight on with my prayer and request.
As you have seen that my cards are lucky—really more as they have been dealt than as I have played them—you will certainly understand that in the last two or three years I have found it proper to look about for a wife and a partner for life who would be suitable for my condition. But during the whole of my seeking there was hidden in the most secret corner of my heart a black-haired, dark-eyed girl, whom I first saw by the card-table one winter evening up at Gilje, and whom I have since seen again and again with ever more fascination during her development into the proud woman and lady whose superior nature was incontestable.
Now, with my round six-and-forty years, I shallnot hold forth with any long tale of my love for her, although, perhaps, there might be a good deal to say on that point also. That I am not old inwardly I have at all events fully found out on this occasion.
It goes without saying that I do not address my prayer to you without having first satisfied myself by a close and long acquaintance that your daughter also could cherish some feelings responsive to mine.
That the result has not been to my disadvantage is apparent from her precious reply to me, received yesterday, in which I have her yes and consent.
In the hope that a sincere conduct and intention will not be misconstrued, I herewith address the prayer and the question to you and your dear wife—whether you will trust to me the future of your precious Inger-Johanna?
What a man can do to smooth and make easy her path of life, that I dare promise, on myparole d'honneur, she shall never lack.
I will also add that when the court, towards the end of May or the early part of June, goes to Christiania, I shall be on duty and go too. I shall then be able again to see her on whom all my hope and longing are placed.
In anxious expectation of your honored answer,
Most respectfully,Your always faithful friend,Carsten Rönnow
Here was something better to think about than to talk with Ma about fox-traps and spring-guns.
There would not be any after-dinner nap to-day.
He rushed out into the yard with great force: another man must thresh in the barn; the manure must be drawn out; they must hurry!
He came in and seated himself on the sofa and lighted a lamplighter, but jumped up again while he held it to his pipe. He remembered that a message must be sent to the smith to mend the harrows and tools for spring.
There was no help for it, he must go down and tell the news to the sheriff himself.