When I arrived at the filthy old farm where she lived, I knocked on the door and introduced myself to the old man who opened it. At first, I was not sure if he would let me in at all. He kept standing there, staring at me through the crack. Finally, he relented and swung the door open.
“Come in, then,” he said, and shuffled inside while another man, just as old as the first, emerged from the bowels of the building.
“I have come to take Swanhild home with me,” I said when they served thin coffee at the stained kitchen table. “Peter would have wanted her to come home now, to her family. With her in the house, at least a part of him remains.”
The two old men across from me exchanged looks. “Peter wanted her to stay here with us. He was very clear on that,” said the one who had opened the door. I believed his name was Gunnar.
“Don’t you think it’s better for her to grow up with a mother and sisters who love her? You are not young, if I might say so, and raising a girl can be hard.”
Another look then. “He seemed to think it best that we took her,” said the other man, another Peter. His beard was so filthy and wild I could barely see his teeth when he spoke.
I gave them both a good, long stare. “And how long do you expect to live? You might just die on her around the next bend.”
Gunnar opened his mouth again. “We are both healthy and sound in mind, Mrs. Gunness. No need to worry about that. There is also the question of her uncle, Gust, and what he would say if we let her leave—”
“What would he be complaining about? That you were foolish to let the girl go back home to a clean house and a caring family?”
“Gust has some strong opinions.” Of course he did. Brothers always did. Brothers always came meddling. “He said that he would take her.” The cards finally landed on the table. “He would see to it that she got her inheritance too.”
“What inheritance?” I could not help but show my disdain. “Peter was no wealthy man. All he had was mine. It’s my land and my farm, my livestock—”
“He is aware there was an insurance policy—two, in fact.”
“Of which the girl will have all, I assure you—”
“Assurances don’t mean much, Mrs. Gunness, not when there are no ties of blood. With Gust she would be with her true family.” Gunnar still spoke for the both of them while Peter chewed his tobacco.
“Well, I don’t care about that. Peter was my husband and so she is my daughter. I’m taking her home and that’s the end of it.” I was so angered by their insolence that my voice shook when I spoke.
The men before me looked away; the set of their jaws told me they were angry too.
“He won’t stand for it.” Peter spat tobacco on the floor. “Gust will not stand for this!”
I shrugged. “Let him try to take her. She is mine by right of law.”
Gunnar gave me a dark stare. “There were questions after Peter died—”
“People always talk.”
“Gust doesn’t think she’s safe with you—”
“Not safe with me, the mother who feeds and clothes her? Who can give her everything she needs, and then some . . .”
“Money isn’t all, Mrs. Gunness,” Peter said. His gaze was on the cup he cradled in his wizened hands.
“I assure you, hungry children beg to differ!”
There was nothing those old men could do to stop me, though. They would never manhandle a woman and a child, and even if they did, I was both younger and stronger. In the end, we simply walked out the door, Swanhild and I. The girl cried beside me in the buggy when we left that filthy farm behind. Not even caramels could cheer her.
“It will be better when we get home,” I told her. “You’ll see Jennie, Myrtle, and Lucy again, and go back to school—”
“My papa is dead!”
“Yes, he is; now dry your tears. Many children lose their papas. Nothing to do for it but straighten up and move on.”
“I want to go back to my uncles,” the girl howled.
“Well, you will never go back to them, so there’s that. Now, dry your tears and be a good girl—have another caramel. I’m your mama and will look after you.”
I have never been as exhausted by a journey as when I transported that little girl from Janesville to La Porte. When she did not cry she sulked, and she looked at me as if I were the devil himself. They had clearly been telling her stories, Peter’s uncles.
I thought it was all settled then, when I had the girl back under my roof. Gust Gunness sent me letters, of course. He threatened me even—but what could he do? I was Peter’s legal wife and as such the best choice as his daughter’s guardian. I did not care that Gust threatened to go to the sheriff—the whole inquest had come to nothing. There were no witnesses, after all, and I suppose the lawmen in La Porte had better things to do than bothering a poor widow.
Swanhild settled back in, and after a few days she seemed much her old self: a not-too-bright but happy enough child who joined her sisters in play. I had bought the children a brown Shetland pony and a small cart to console them after Peter’s death, and Swanhild was just as much in love with the little animal as the others. She often took turns in the stable feeding and caring for it. She even came crawling into my bed with the rest when it was time to calm down at night. It was a good bed, of brass tubes and knots, heaped with mattresses, quilts, and pillows. Above it hung a cross and some scripture I had embroidered onto cloth myself. It was spacious too, now that Peter was gone, though small bodies often occupied the vacant spot all through the night. Lucy, in particular, was quick to fill it, wanting to be close to her mama.
On the first night Swanhild came to join us, lingering a little on the edge of the bed before crawling up close to Myrtle’s back, I told them about my childhood in Selbu. Myrtle always asked me about it. Selbu seemed such a strange land to her, a fairy-tale kingdom across the sea. I found it endearing and indulged her, although my childhood years had been anything but pleasant. It was different, though, to see it through my children’s eyes; what had been sorry for me could become a gilded story for them. They knew nothing of hunger and strife; all they ever knew was butter and sweets—and I would not have it any other way.
“They used to call me Twist-twig-Paula,” I told them, lying beneath a crocheted spread with a child in each arm. The girls all giggled around me.
“Why is that?” asked Lucy in her sweet, light voice.
“Because I was always out picking twigs for fuel. We used to twist them around each other like this.” I freed my hands to demonstrate in the air. “And they called me Paula because my father’s name was Paul.”
“Why did you have to burn twigs?” Jennie asked.
“Because my father was too lazy to chop logs,” I told her candidly.
“Was it the other children who called you that? In school?” Swanhild asked.
“It sure was.” I chuckled at the memory. “Especially some boys called me that, and it was not to be nice.” Everybody knew that my father loved his drink and did not properly care for his family. Everybody knew that we owned nothing more than the mended clothes we lived and slept in.
“What did you do?” Jennie asked breathlessly. She knew me too well to think I would just stand idly by.
“Oh, I packed some river stones into snowballs and threw them at their heads. I had very good aim in those days.” That revenge had been long in planning, devised while I lay next to Olina in the loft at Størsetgjerdet, envisioning their pain and suffering at my hands.
“What happened?” Myrtle squirmed beside me; her dark curls tickled my nose.
“They bled some,” I said, content. “One of them nearly lost an eye.”
“Did they stop calling you Twist-twig-Paula?” Jennie had wound her arms around Lucy, who was already sleeping by then, her pink lips slightly parted.
“No . . . I guess th
at name had come to stay . . . but after that, they always called out from a distance. It’s important to strike back in life,” I told them. “No one else will do it for you—besides me, of course. I would strike back at anyone who harmed you.”
“Were all the children in Selbu mean?” Swanhild wanted to know.
“Well, yes, but that’s why I came here to America.”
“Tell me about the goat!” Myrtle had had enough talk of mean children for one night.
“Oh yes, the goat . . . We had three sheep, two cows, and one goat at Størsetgjerdet when I was a child. The sheep were called Berit after my mother, and Hildur and Ullina after my sister and me. The cows were called Staslin and Dokka; the latter was old and gave very little milk, but we still kept her on since it was something. Then there was the goat; she was called Perla, because she was as white as a pearl.”
“Was she pretty as a pearl too?” Myrtle asked.
“Oh yes. Perla was always my favorite. Olina and I spent hours outside with her, combing through her fur with our fingers. She had the loveliest little horns and her milk gave the best brown cheese you could imagine . . . Sometimes in winter, when Perla was in the barn, I used to go out there and press my head to her side while telling her everything that bothered me. If my father had been angry with me, or if someone had been cruel to me, Perla always knew all about it.” I paused and looked around at the girls, at their wide eyes and parted lips, completely lost in the story.
“Sometimes I thought maybe Perla spoke to me as well,” I continued, “and I made up a language between us: if she cocked her head to the right, it meant yes; to the left, it meant no. If she ate while I spoke, it meant it didn’t matter as much as I thought. If she came with her head to be petted, she felt sorry for me.”
“What happened to her?” Myrtle asked.
“She fell down a cliff and broke her legs. It was over for her then—my father came out with the knife.”
Myrtle did not reply, but I could feel her shaking as she suppressed her tears. She was always softhearted, that one.
“We ate good meat for days after.” I tried to cheer her up. “Perla was useful for a long while.”
“I wish we could go there some day,” said Myrtle, her tears all forgotten.
“Where?” I asked. “To Størsetgjerdet?”
“Yes,” she whispered, and closed her small soft hand around mine.
“Oh, it’s not the same anymore. My mother and father are gone now, and Olina—my sister with the bad foot—she lives there alone with her son. He doesn’t have a father either.” I looked around at my mostly fatherless brood. I did not mention that no one even knew who my nephew’s father was. Olina did well enough at Størsetgjerdet, though, making herself useful as a midwife. I sometimes got a letter, filled with gossip and complaints about the weather. “So, you see, it’s not only you who have lost a parent.” I fixed my gaze on Swanhild and saw Peter’s eyes look back. “It’s not so unusual at all to be an orphan.”
33.
One day Swanhild did not come home from school with Jennie. The latter came bursting through the back door and into the kitchen; she was panting with exertion and her eyes were wild. “They took her!” She stood in the middle of the floor. “They took Swanhild just up the road—!”
“Who did?” I nearly dropped the milk I was handling. Prince was disturbed by the sudden distress in the room and yapped around my legs.
“Some men! I swear I never saw them before.”
“Did they go for only her, or did they try to take you too?” I held the dog in a firm grip to calm him.
“Only her—she seemed to know them. She wasn’t afraid at all.”
My surprise gave way to anger. “Did they say anything that you heard?”
“They said they were going to take her home, and apologized for taking so long.”
“And then they drove off in a carriage?”
“Yes.”
Fury is a seething thing; it writhes and it snaps but is mostly just there, boiling under your skin. Gust Gunness set it aflame. “I better see the sheriff, then.”
“Who do you think it was?”
“I have no idea.” But of course I did. I knew very well who it was. They were trying to defy me and cheat me of what was mine.
I had Jennie finish dinner and drove into town.
* * *
—
Sheriff Smutzer’s office smelled of unwashed men and leather. His desk was surprisingly tidy, but I doubted he saw to that himself. He toyed with his mustache while talking to me and jotted down notes with a stub of a pencil.
“I have heard from Gust Gunness,” he told me. “He has been sending several letters of late. He says that the circumstances of his brother’s death make it unwise to leave the girl in your care.”
“What circumstances?”
He shrugged. “The inquest for one, the uncertainty of what happened—Mrs. Gunness, if I may offer some advice, I would let them have the child. There’s no need for your good name to be sullied further. I know she’s like a daughter to you, but they are her family and will take good care of her.” I could tell from his expression that he would prefer to have this dealt with quickly, that he found such domestic disputes tiresome at best. I could also tell that he did not fear me but thought of me as nothing more than a quarrelsome widow whom he nevertheless sought to charm, in the way that men who think highly of themselves are wont to do. He aimed to be popular, Sheriff Smutzer, especially among those of us with land and money to our names. He was also the sort of man who thought women incapable of bloody violence, something that had served me well after Peter died.
“The Gunness family is only after the money,” I told him.
“Well”—he kept twisting his mustache—“that’s what they say about you.”
“How can they even think that?” I lifted my handkerchief to dab at my eyes.
“People can be cruel sometimes.” He all but shrugged before me.
“But I was Peter’s wife, and ought to take care of his daughter.” I shifted my gaze to the window.
“You could find a lawyer willing to pursue the matter, but as things stand I would strongly advise against it. The circumstances of your husband’s death were—”
“Yes, I know.” I put the handkerchief away. “But if I got her back?”
He shrugged. “It would be up to them, then.”
Get her back, then, somehow. If Swanhild were in my home, lavished with good food and nice clothes, and I got myself a lawyer after that, no one could take the girl from me then.
* * *
—
I asked James Lee to come and visit me at the farm. He arrived on the train with his friend Joe. Joe was a simple man but could be trusted as long as he was paid. He had helped James set the Alma Street fire. I brought the men home and plied them with drink, fed them roast and waffles. We had quite a feast that first night.
I had missed my friend James Lee.
Late at night, after Joe had fallen asleep from the whiskey, James and I lay in my bed.
“I knew it wouldn’t last.” He sat up and rested his back against the headboard. “As if you could ever have that ‘wholesome life’ you talk about.”
“I might have, if Peter had been a better man.” I reached up and trailed a finger down his face; I had dearly longed for the sight of it through those awful days with Peter.
“He was not what you thought, then?” James’s eyes twinkled with mirth.
“No, he was a drunkard for one, and he blamed me for his daughter’s death even if children are prone to all kinds of sickness, and she was a very ill child.” I rolled my eyes, just a little.
James lit a cigar and turned up the light on the bed stand. “You couldn’t appease him, then?”
“No, he kept bringing it up—”
“But
the sausage grinder, Bella—”
“It wasn’t really, it was the cleaver.” I could not help but add a tiny smile.
He chuckled softly beside me. “It made for a damn fine story, though. All the newspapers wrote about it.”
“I rather wish they hadn’t.” I sighed.
“Yes. It puts you in a sticky position.” He puffed on the cigar.
“I can’t pursue legal action, not under the circumstances. If I had Swanhild, though . . .” I turned over on my side and caressed his naked chest while he smoked. “I was careless, I know, and I’m paying the price.”
“You just have to be more clever about it.” His eyes narrowed to slits.
“I know.” But how clever can you be when you have just beaten your husband to death with a cleaver? “I got away with it, though.”
“Barely.”
“No one hangs a grieving widow.” I said it as if it were a fact.
“You keep taking comfort in that thought, but I’m not entirely convinced. Next time, you must have a hole ready out back. You should always have one ready and keep some quicklime around too, just in case.” He put out his cigar and lay back down, rolling over so he faced me. “A wholesome life is not for the likes of us; we have crossed too many bridges for that.”
“Had he only been—”
“Hush.” He placed a finger on my lips. “It doesn’t matter how he was or not; no husband could survive with you. You are far too lethal, Bella, my dear. It’s running in your blood.”
In the Garden of Spite Page 29