Magnhild Dust Part 14

This "to-day" told Magnhild that Ronnaug had long been wanting to talk with her. Had the window Magnhild now stood beside been a little larger, she would certainly have jumped out of it.

But before Ronnaug managed to begin in earnest, something happened.

Noise and laughter were heard in the street, and ringing through them an infuriated man's voice. "And _you_ will prevent me from taking the sacrament, you hypocritical villain?" After this a dead silence, and then peals of laughter. Most likely the man had been seized and carried off; the shouting and laughing of boys and old women resounded through the street, and gradually sounded farther and farther away.

Neither of the two women in the chamber had stirred from her place. They had both peered out through the door toward the sitting-room window, but they had also both turned away again, Magnhild toward the garden. But Ronnaug had been reminded by this interruption of Machine Martha, who in her day had been the terror and sport of the coast town. Scarcely, therefore, had the noise died away, before she asked,--

"Do you remember Machine Martha? Do you remember something that I told you about your husband and her? I have been making inquiries concerning it and I now know more than I did before. Let me tell you it is unworthy of you to live under the same roof with such a man as Skarlie."

Very pale, Magnhild turned proudly round with:--

"That is no business of mine!"

"That is no business of yours? Why you live in his house, eat his food, wear his clothes, and bear his name,--and his conduct is no business of yours?"

But Magnhild swept past her and went into the sitting-room without vouchsafing a reply. She took her stand by one of the windows opening on the street.

"Aye, if you do not feel this to be a disgrace, Magnhild, you have sunk lower than I thought."

Magnhild had just leaned her head, against the window frame. She now drew it up sufficiently to look at Ronnaug and smile, then she bowed forward again. But this smile had sent the blood coursing up to Ronnaug's cheeks, for she had felt their joint youth compared in it.

"I know what you are thinking of,"--here Ronnaug's voice trembled,--"and I could not have believed you to be so unkind, although at our very first meeting I plainly saw that I had made a mistake in feeling such a foolish longing for you."

But in a moment she felt herself that these words were too strong, and she paused. It was, moreover, not her design to quarrel with Magnhild; quite the contrary! And so she was indignant with Magnhild for having led her so far to forget herself. But had it not been thus from the beginning? With what eager warmth had she not come, and how coldly had she not been received. And from this train of thought her words now proceeded.

"I could think of nothing more delightful in the world than to show you my child. There was, indeed, no one else to whom I could show it. And you did not even care to see it; you did not so much as want to take the trouble to dress yourself."

She strove at first to speak calmly, but before she finished what she was saying, her voice quivered, and she burst into tears.

Suddenly Magnhild darted away from the window toward the kitchen door--but that was just where Ronnaug was; then toward the bed-room door, but remembering that it would be useless to take refuge there, turned again, met Ronnaug, knew not where to go, and fled back to her old place.

But this was all lost on Ronnaug; for now she too was in a state of extreme agitation.

"You have no heart, Magnhild! It is dreadful to be obliged to say so!

You have permitted yourself to be trailed in the mire until you have lost all feeling, indeed you have. When I insisted upon your seeing my child, you did not even kiss it! You did not so much as stoop to look at it; you never said a word, no, not a single word, and you have no idea how pretty it is!"

A burst of tears again checked her flow of words.

"But that is natural," she continued, "you have never had a child of your own. And I chanced to remember this, otherwise I should have started right off again--at once! I was so disappointed. Ah! well, I wrote Charles all about it!" In another, more vigorous tone she interrupted herself with: "I do not know what you can be thinking of. Or everything must be dead within you. You might have full freedom--and you prefer Skarlie. Write for Skarlie!" She paced the floor excitedly.

Presently she said: "Alas! alas! So this is Magnhild, who was once so pure and so refined that she saved me!" She paused and looked at Magnhild. "But I shall never forget it, and you _shall_ go with me, Magnhild!" Then, with sudden emotion: "Have you not one word for me? Can you not understand how fond I am of you? Have you quite forgotten, Magnhild, how fond I have always been of you? Is it nothing to you that I came here all the way from America after you."

She failed to notice that she had thus avowed her whole errand; she stood and waited to see Magnhild rouse and turn. She was not standing near enough to see that tears were now falling on the window-sill. She only saw that Magnhild neither stirred nor betrayed the slightest emotion. This wounded her, and, hasty as she was in her resolves when her heart was full, she left. Magnhild saw her hurry, weeping, up the street, without looking in.

And Ronnaug did not cease weeping, not even when she had thrown herself down over her child and was kissing it. She clasped it again and again to her bosom, as though she wanted to make sure of her life's great gain.

She had expected Magnhild to follow her. The clock struck eight, no Magnhild appeared; nine--still no Magnhild. Ronnaug threw a shawl over her head and stole past the saddler's house. Skarlie must have come home some time since. All was still within; there was no one at the windows.

Ronnaug went back to the hotel and as she got ready for bed she kept pondering on what was now to be done, and whether she should really start on her journey without Magnhild. The last thought she promptly dismissed. No, she would remain and call for a.s.sistance. She was ready to risk a battle, and that with Mr. Skarlie himself, supported by the curate, Grong, and other worthy people. She probably viewed the matter somewhat from an American standpoint; but she was determined.

She fell asleep and dreamed that Mr. Skarlie and she were fighting. With his large hairy hands he seized her by the head, the shoulders, the hands; his repulsive face, with its toothless mouth, looked with a laugh into her eyes. She could not ward him off: once more he had her by the head; then Magnhild repeatedly called her name aloud and she awoke.

Magnhild was standing at the side of her bed.

"Ronnaug! Ronnaug!"

"Yes, yes!"

"It is I--Magnhild!"

Ronnaug started up in bed, half intoxicated with sleep. "Yes, I see--you--It is you? No, really you, Magnhild! Are you going with me?"

"Yes!"

And Magnhild flung herself on Ronnaug's bosom and burst into tears. What tears! They were like those of a child, who after long fright finds its mother again.

"Good Heavens! What has happened?"

"I cannot tell you." Another burst of pa.s.sionate weeping. Then quietly freeing herself from Ronnaug's arms, she drew back.

"But you will really come with me?"

There was heard a whispered "yes," and then renewed weeping. And Ronnaug stretched out her arms; but as Magnhild did not fly into them, she sprang out of bed and took her joy in a practical way by beginning to dress in great haste. There was joy, aye, triumph in her soul.

As she sat on the edge of the bed, drawing on her clothes, she took a closer survey of Magnhild; the summer night was quite clear and light, and Magnhild had raised a curtain, opened a window, and was now standing by the latter. It was about three o'clock. Magnhild had on a petticoat with a cloak thrown over it; a bundle lay on the chair, it perhaps contained her dress. What could have happened? Ronnaug went to her parlor to finish dressing, and when Magnhild followed her, the new traveling suit was lying spread out and was shown to her. She uttered no word of thanks, she scarcely looked at the suit; but she sat down beside it and her tears flowed anew. Ronnaug was obliged to put the clothes on her. As she was thus engaged, she whispered:--

"Did he try to use force?"

"That he has never done," said Magnhild; "no, there are other things"--and now she became so convulsed with weeping that Ronnaug said no more, but finished dressing both Magnhild and herself as quickly as possible. She hastened into the bed-chamber to awaken her American friend, then down-stairs to rouse the people of the hotel: she wanted to start within an hour.

She found Magnhild where she had left her.

"No, this will not do," said she. "Pray control yourself. Within an hour we must be away from here."

But Magnhild sat still; it was as though all her energy had been exhausted by the struggle and the resolve she had just come from.

Ronnaug let her alone; she had as much as she could do to get ready.

Everything was packed, and last of all the child was wrapped in its traveling blanket without being roused. Within an hour they and all their belongings were actually stowed away in the carriage.

The world around them slept. They drove onward in the bright, dawning morning, past the church. The sun was not visible; but the skies, above the mountains to the east, were flushed with roseate hues. The landscape lay in dark shadows, the upper slope of the mountains in the deepest of deep black-blue; the stream, not a streak of light over its struggle, cut its way along, like a procession of wild, angry mountaineers, recklessly das.h.i.+ng downward at this moment of the world's awakening, without consideration, without pausing for rest, and with shrill laughter at this mad resolve and the success which attended it.

The impressions of nature, and the feelings Magnhild might otherwise have experienced during this journey away from the griefs of many years, over the first miles, as it were, of a new career in the sumptuous traveling carriage of the friend of her childhood,--all were lulled into a weary, vapid drowsiness. Her daily life had been for years one monotonous routine, so that the emotions of a single evening had completely exhausted her strength. She longed now for nothing so much as for a bed. And Ronnaug, bent on fully carrying out the wonders of contrast, was not content with traveling in her own carriage with two horses (when the ascent began she would have four), she wanted also to sleep in one of the guest-beds at the post-station where she had once served. This wish was gratified, and three hours' sleep was taken by them all. The hostess recognized Ronnaug, but as she was a person Ronnaug had not liked, there was no conversation between them.

After they had slept, eaten, and settled their account, Ronnaug felt a desire to write something with her own hand in the traveler's register.

That was indeed too amusing. She read what was last written there, as follows: "Two persons, one horse, change for the next station," and on the margin was added,--

"Birds encountered us two, tweewhitt!

'With _us_ to tarry, think you, tweewhitt?'

"'We plan, we reason, no more, tra-ra!

Each other we adore, tra-ra!'"

"What nonsense was this?" The rest of the party must see: it was translated into English for Betsy Roland. Now they remembered that as they drove into the station they had seen a carriage, with a gentleman and lady in it, driving quickly past them up the road. The gentleman had turned his face away, as though he did not wish to be seen; the lady was closely veiled.