by Jonas Lie
The heels of his boots made it evident both to sight and feeling that he meant it: he was utterly beside himself.
Only let Holman get him inside the door, and the strap should dance! Holman had worked himself up into a state of excitement.
Mrs. Holman was waiting in the doorway with a candle. By its light she saw an ashy pale face, with eyes staring at her, and at the same time heard the words: “You won’t get me in! If I was born in the street, I can live in the street!” She caught a glance from the sharp, defiant grey eyes—then out of the blockmaker’s hands, out of the gate, and he was gone!
The blows on Ludvig’s nose had gone to Barbara’s heart. But when she heard that Nikolai had run away from the Holmans’ and that there was some talk of getting him into an institute for morally depraved children, there was crying and weeping. She had had shame enough with the boy, and this she could not survive! Her mistress must prevent it. She was conscious of having done her duty and more than her duty all these years that she had been Ludvig and Lizzie’s nurse, but she could not put up with this! Her mistress must prevent it, or she did not know what she might do, or what might happen: she felt quite capable of leaving them.
Barbara sat sighing and weeping in the nursery, until the children were almost afraid to go in.
Such attacks generally lasted, at the most, one day; but this one had now been going on for three, and was disturbing the comfort of the house. Then Mrs. Veyergang got one of her headaches, and was going to have an afternoon nap, her accustomed cure, during which everything must be kept perfectly quiet around her.
It was Barbara who generally guarded her slumbers by going hushing and quieting right out into the kitchen, and keeping watch at the door into the passage. But now she only sat in her room sobbing.
It did surprise her a little that her mistress lay so quiet all the time without calling her. On the other hand, she rather enjoyed the sentence she was carrying out. Her mistress should know what opposing her meant, even if it were to last the whole week.
It grew dark, and still her mistress lay there. She lay until the Consul came driving home towards evening; and she did not even ring for lights when she got up.
It was with a shawl about her head and a face red with weeping, that Mrs. Veyergang received her husband that evening; she was in a violently excited state of mind, and her voice quite trembled.
She wanted nothing less than that he should give Barbara warning.
A tyranny existed in the house that was quite unparalleled—had existed for several years—and if she had put up with it without complaining—her husband knew that she had never complained—it was for the children’s sake. But it was really unnecessary now, and “it may be just as well to seize the opportunity; she has become far, far too overbearing in the house!”
It was a matter of course that the warning was given in the most appreciative and considerate, although firmly decisive manner. The whole circle of Mrs. Veyergang’s acquaintance agreed that they had all expected that the Veyergangs would really one day part with that pampered creature!
The only person who was thoroughly astonished and quite stunned, as if by a thunder-clap, was Barbara herself; and for a long time she could not understand that she, the Veyergangs’ Barbara, had actually received warning to leave Ludvig and Lizzie and the house where she had been so indispensable.
She went about with a solemn, injured air, and expected that a change of decision would some day take place. Then she became humble to her mistress, and wept before the children.
But there was always only the same kindness, which ever clenched the dismissal more firmly.
And now her mistress began to talk about a substantial acknowledgement of her services with which the Consul would present her on her departure.
In indignation Barbara tied the strings of her best bonnet beneath her chin, and with offended dignity requested permission to go into town.
Her mistress was to know the meaning of this when she returned later in the day. It was nothing less than that it was her fixed, resolute purpose to offer herself to others who would appreciate her better than the Veyergangs did.
She directed her wrathful steps straight to Scheele, the magistrate’s house: they had four children, and were looking for a nurse. They were the Consul’s most intimate friends, where she would only need to present herself, and they would jump at the opportunity. How often the magistrate’s wife had praised her management, and talked condescendingly to her, when they had dined at the Veyergangs on Sundays! She had more than once thought Mrs. Veyergang fortunate in having such a treasure in the house, and sighed over her own inability to find just such another.
But—how unfortunate it was—Mrs. Scheele was extremely sorry—they had just engaged another nurse!
“Fancy!” exclaimed Mrs. Scheele, when her husband came down from his office, “there is a revolution at the Veyergangs’, and that high and mighty Nurse Barbara has got her dismissal. She has been here and offered herself to us. I wouldn’t have that pampered creature at any price!”
Barbara walked a long way that day and to the best houses. On a large sheet of paper, folded in three, she had the Consul-General’s long and excellent testimonial to exhibit; moreover she was fully conscious of the extent to which she was known. But though she stood so large and erect and smart at the door, and comported herself so well, there was no one who could make any use of her!
And late in the evening, later than was needful, as she did not wish to show herself, she came home again, disappointed and weary.
It really seemed as if all the celebrity she had acquired during all these years, all her fidelity, all her prestige as nurse at the Veyergangs, was to vanish at one stroke into thin air!
Deeply hurt as she was after her unlucky expedition, it was remarkable that no one in the house asked her how she had got on—though there were plenty of mischievous glances from her fellow-servants, whose standing with their mistress had depended for so many years upon her. And whenever she tried to broach the subject with Mrs. Veyergang, the latter always turned the conversation—indeed, once she even dismissed the subject, saying that Barbara must know that she never meddled with such things.
But the kindness increased as the day of her departure approached. Barbara began to perceive how this screw of kindness, that turned so gently, was screwing her farther and farther out of the house. The Consul had Nikolai placed on trial as apprentice in a smithy down by the crane, and from Mrs. Veyergang she received one thing after another, as remembrances. But when, one day, the Consul—very thoughtfully—made her a present of one of his old travelling trunks, she let her large, heavy person sink down upon its lid, completely overwhelmed. She could not bring herself to think, had never believed, that the day would come when she must part from her mistress and Ludvig and Lizzie—it would kill her!
This was a direct appeal to the Consul himself, but the answer was not exactly as Barbara wished. He patted her on the shoulder, saying:
“I’m glad, my dear Barbara, that you feel that you have been well off.”
When she went into the Consul’s office for a settlement and to receive her savings-bank book—the amount it contained was a hundred and fourteen specie-dollars, a result, the Consul said, with which she ought to be thoroughly satisfied, when she considered the great expense she had been put to with Nikolai—she declared her intention of resting for a time before she went out to service again, and had made arrangements to lodge with a farmer out in the country: she had now been toiling for others for fourteen years!
The last evening, which she had dreaded so, went more easily than she had expected. The Consul and his wife were invited to the Willocks’ country-house in the afternoon with the children, so the farewell could only be a short one, before they got into the carriage.
She was left standing with the feeling of Lizzie’
s soft fur, which she had stroked, in her fingers.
CHAPTER IV
A STOLEN INTERVIEW
Holman made his usual turn into Selvig’s public-house every evening to brace himself for his return home. When the ale-bottle had been emptied, and a proper number of drams consumed, his at first hurried, restless look was stiffened into a dull, staring, fixed mask. It was the crust about his heart, far within the unconscious, degraded man, who enjoyed his daily hour of oblivion to that life-struggle which he had taken upon himself when he chose to unite his lot inseparably with that of his duty-breathing wife, that life-struggle in which he continually declared “pass,” and turned aside. When he sat there silently staring over his glass, it was felt that he was brooding over something, possibly only the number of drams he had drunk, possibly his bill, possibly, too, a remote world of thought, where, like a philosopher, he gazed silently down into unfathomable depths. Or possibly he was musing in silent resignation upon the problem of matrimony, and the strange law of consequence which had set him down here in the public-house.
But regularity in all things, said Holman, and when the clock struck eight, with his tools in his hand and his head bent, he turned his faltering steps homewards.
On Saturday evenings, when work was over at the workshop, a tall, active young girl, with large wrists, thin arms and a stooping figure, would often come down to fetch him. She had a basket, and a piece of paper on which was written what she was to buy with the week’s wages.
The two would then go up the street together, walking slower and slower as they went. Time after time he would stop, and look thoughtfully about him with one hand in his pocket, and an occasionally ejaculated “H’m, h’m!”—until they arrived at Mrs. Selvig’s steps and green door, when he would suddenly declare that he had some “things” lying in there: he would be out again directly.
Silla knew by experience what “directly” meant, and meanwhile went her own way over the yards.
Through the lovely August evening, one troop of workmen after another came over the bridge near the mouth of the river, several of them with the same sort of escort as her father, of wife or child. It was so usual and its meaning so self-evident, that no one ever gave it a thought.
While the different gates and yards were emitting their streams of workmen, Silla had approached one of the narrow passages with which the loading places are furrowed. On each side was a wooden hoarding, and there were stacks of timber within. The irregularly cut up, black muddy roadway led into a forge and implement yard.
Just at the corner lay a heap of rubbish, full of broken bottles and pottery. She stood there with her basket, every now and then taking a step backwards, up the heap, to make room for passers-by. In this way she gained the top of the heap, and could see over the hoarding into the yard.
They were still busy receiving wages in there in a crowd round a little shed which did duty as an office.
With outstretched neck, and her two shining dark eyes turned almost like a bird’s, she stood and looked eagerly in. There was no mistake about her object.
“Well, lass! are you looking for your sweetheart?” said a voice below.
But, as she at that moment caught sight of Nikolai, and he signalled to her, she took no notice of the voice, and waved her basket vigorously.
He came out down the passage, unwashed and sooty, straight from his work.
“He’s gone now!”
“Who?”
“He had red hair, and had on blue braces and a sailmaker’s cap. I think it was the man from Grönlien they call Ottersnake; and he accused me of standing here and looking for my sweetheart!”
“I’ll sweetheart him! If I only get hold of him, I’ll hammer him into nails! And then I’ll pull his red hair to oakum, so that his father will only need to put it into the pitch-kettle!”
He looked about; but as the Ottersnake, who was doomed to so cruel and terrible a fate, was nowhere to be seen, his wrath suddenly subsided, and with an upward movement of the head, he proposed:
“Baker Ring’s, Silla?”
He had his week’s wages in his pocket, so they made a short cut through two or three muddy back yards, which had planks laid down across the worst places, up to the baker’s shop.
Oh, how they bought, and how they did eat!
There were some specially delicious expensive cakes with jam inside. And it was the two collars, that he had thought of buying for himself next week, that they ate up!
With a great feeling of his own importance Nikolai related how he had now forged six large iron hooks with links to them; and she must not imagine that they wanted nothing but hammering—no, they had to be hammered out and beaten and bent at the right time! Down there they only made stakes and picks and tires; but he meant to be either a locksmith or a brazier.
This did not interest Silla very much; she wanted to hear about the picnic on Sunday, when he had gone to the woods with the journeymen. It must have been awfully jolly! And didn’t they dance too?
“I should just think they did. Anders Berg is a capital fellow; he’s going to set up for himself in Svelvig soon, and get married.”
“And were the others engaged, too?”
“Pshaw!”
“Well?”
“Pooh!”
“What’s the matter with you? Can’t you tell me?”
“Why, it’s nothing—only nonsense! There’s not one of them that’ll make a smith’s wife—creatures that have larks now with one fellow and now with another?”
“And did you dance?”
“Oh, the ’prentices have only to run after beer; but when I’m a journeyman—but, Silla, the time—we must hurry!” he broke off suddenly.
“Oh, it’s not late yet. One more nice one with jam—do go in and buy it! Oh, do, Nikolai!” she begged, and as he ran in to get what she wanted, she called after him:
“And some sweets to eat on the way home—some of those at four for a halfpenny.”
“Can’t you eat it as you go along, Silla?” he urged, when he came out again; “you must make haste! Just think if she heard at home that you had been with me.”
“Pooh, there’s no hurry,” and she leaned against the wall, and regaled herself—“for you see,” she mumbled, “father won’t be out of Mrs. Selvig’s yet a-while, and I’ll say first of all that that has kept me: I can reckon at least half an hour for that. And then to mother I have the excuse that it’s Saturday evening, and there were so many people in the shop that I could hardly get to the counter. And when I won’t have any supper, you know, I’ll only say I’ve got such a headache with standing and waiting in the shop: it was so stifling in there. I think mother’s nose would be very fine, if she could guess that I had met you. Well, what are you looking so solemn about?”
“She at home”—he never named her mother in any other fashion—“forces you into lies every single day; no one has a right to speak the truth but her!”
“Oh!” she tossed her head impatiently; she had heard this so often.
“She eats up all the honesty in the room by herself, you know, for it’s quite impossible to act honestly by her, for very terror. She keeps discipline, and much or little, it’s all the same. Any one who wants to speak the truth without using his fists to back it up will get thrashed as I did! It doesn’t matter for me; but when I think of you going home and making up all those lies again, and that you are so frightened, and haven’t the strength to stand against them, Silla!”
She tried to laugh and make light of it; but her face fell sadly. She could not bear this unpleasant subject, for she was obliged to tell lies, however angry he might be.
And then she suddenly began to hurry.
“No, no, we must go home, Nikolai. I daren’t stand here any longer.”
Nikolai was starting off, but stopped su
ddenly at sight of Silla’s dismayed countenance. She had turned her pocket inside out, and stood holding it while she gazed and searched on the ground round her. Then, in feverish haste, she unfastened her bodice, and searched there.
“The money! Oh, the money, Nikolai!” she cried anxiously, and went on shaking her skirt and looking about her, almost beside herself. “The silver was wrapped up in the two dollar notes, just as father gave them to me, and I put them into my pocket at once.”
“What shall I do, Nikolai?” She began to cry, but all at once, with a sudden thought, she flew to the basket. But it was not there.
They searched and searched.
Of course it must be at the corner by the rubbish-heap, for she had stood there and waved her basket. It would be lying among the broken bottles.
The pale, thin rim of the autumn moon had risen over the yards while they were searching there step by step, Silla every now and then uttering a despondent, monotonous “Suppose I don’t find it!” and Nikolai plunging his arm up to the elbow into puddles in which the roll of money might have fallen.
They had been by the bridge, they had searched the rubbish-heap, they had looked up and down and everywhere; it was not to be found.
It was beginning to be late, and Mrs. Holman was waiting at home. She would be really waiting now.
Silla began to cry.
Nikolai had only asked her once or twice to be quiet, and he would find the money. Now he suddenly said:
“I should like to give you another good feed of cakes today, and then throw myself into the sea with you, Silla. It would be no lie that we lay there.”
Whether his proposition was meant seriously or not, it did not gain a hearing with her. She sat hopeless and despairing on a log while the big tears ran down her cheeks.