The two dogs that had been with Erlend in the forest had slept in the loft-room over-night — she called them to go with her now. She stole out round the houses and took the same path as the day before up through the hill-pastures.
The field amid the forest lay lonely and silent in the burning midday sun; the pine woods that shut it in on all sides gave out a hot, strong scent. The sun stung, and the blue sky seemed strangely near and close down upon the tree-tops.
Kristin sat down in the shade in the borders of the wood. She was not vexed that Erlend was not there; she was sure he would come, and it gave her an odd gladness to sit there alone a little and to be the first.
She listened to the low hum of tiny life above the yellow, scorched grass, pulled a few dry, spicy-scented flowers that she could reach without moving more than her hand, and rolled them between her fingers and smelt them — she sat with wide-open eyes sunk in a kind of drowse.
She did not move when she heard a horse in the woods. The dogs growled, and the hair on their necks bristled — then they bounded up over the meadow, barking and wagging their tails. Erlend sprang from his horse at the edge of the forest, let it go with a clap on its flank, and ran down towards her with the dogs jumping about him. He caught their muzzles in his hands and came to her leading the two elk-grey, wolf-like beasts. Kristin smiled and held out her hand without getting up.
Once, while she was looking at the dark head that lay in her lap, between her hands, something bygone flashed on her mind. It stood out, clear yet distant, as a homestead far away on a mountain slope may start to sight of a sudden, from out dark clouds, when a sunbeam strikes it on a stormy day. And it was as though there welled up in her heart all the tenderness Arne Gyrdsön had once begged for, while, as yet, she did not understand his words. With timid passion, she drew the man up to her and laid his head upon her breast, kissing him as if afraid he should be taken from her. And when she saw his head upon her arm, she felt as though she clasped a child — she hid his eyes with one of her hands, and showered little kisses upon his mouth and cheek.
The sunshine had gone from the meadow — the leaden colour above the tree-tops had thickened to dark-blue, and spread over the whole sky; little, coppery flashes like fire-tinged smoke flickered within the clouds. Bayard came down to them, neighed loudly once, and then stood stock-still, staring before him. Soon after came the first flash of lightning, and the thunder followed close, not far away.
Erlend got up and took hold of the horse. An old barn stood at the lowest end of the meadow; they went thither, and he tied Bayard to some woodwork just inside the door. At the back of the barn lay some hay; Erlend spread his cloak out, and they seated themselves with the dogs at their feet.
And now the rain came down like a sheet before the doorway. It hissed in the trees and lashed the ground — soon they had to move farther in, away from the drips from the roof. Each time it lightened and thundered, Erlend whispered:
“Are you not afraid, Kristin — ?”
“A little —” she whispered back, and drew closer to him.
They knew not how long they had sat — the storm had soon passed over — it thundered far away, but the sun shone on the wet grass outside the door, and the sparkling drops fell more and more rarely from the roof. The sweet smell of the hay in the barn grew stronger.
“Now must I go,” said Kristin; and Erlend answered: “Ay, ’tis like you must.” He took her foot in his hand: “You will be wet — you must ride and I must walk — out of the woods …” and he looked at her so strangely.
Kristin shook — it must be because her heart beat so, she thought — her hands were cold and clammy. As he kissed her vehemently she weakly tried to push him from her. Erlend lifted his face a moment — she thought of a man who had been given food at the convent one day — he had kissed the bread they gave him. She sank back upon the hay.…
She sat upright when Erlend lifted his head from her arms. He raised himself suddenly upon his elbow:
“Look not so — Kristin!”
His voice sent a new, wild pang into Kristin’s soul — he was not glad — he was unhappy too — !
“Kristin, Kristin! Think you I lured you out here to me in the woods meaning this — to make you mine by force — ?” he asked in a little.
She stroked his hair and did not look at him.
“ ’Twas not force, I trow — you had let me go as I came, had I begged you —” said she, in a low voice.
“I know not,” he answered, and hid his face in her lap.…
“Think you that I would betray you?” asked he vehemently. “Kristin — I swear to you by my Christian faith — may God forsake me in my last hour, if I keep not faith with you till the day of my death —”
She could say naught, she only stroked his hair again and again.
“ ’Tis time I went home, is it not?” she asked at length, and she seemed to wait in deadly terror for his answer.
“Maybe so,” he answered dully. He got up quickly, went to the horse, and began to loosen the reins.
Then she, too, got up. Slowly, wearily, and with crushing pain it came home to her — she knew not what she had hoped he might do — set her upon his horse, maybe, and carry her off with him so she might be spared from going back amongst other people. It was as though her whole body ached with wonder — that this ill thing was what was sung in all the songs. And since Erlend had wrought her this, she felt herself grown so wholly his, she knew not how she should live away from him any more. She was to go from him now, but she could not understand that it should be so.
Down through the woods he went on foot, leading the horse. He held her hand in his, but they found no words to say.
When they were come so far that they could see the houses at Skog, he bade her farewell.
“Kristin — be not so sorrowful — the day will come or ever you know it, when you will be my wedded wife —”
But her heart sank as he spoke.
“Must you go away, then?” she asked, dismayed.
“As soon as you are gone from Skog,” said he, and his voice already rang more bright. “If there be no war, I will speak to Munan — he has long urged me that I should wed — he will go with me and speak for me to your father.”
Kristin bent her head — at each word he said, she felt the time that lay before grow longer and more hard to think of — the convent, Jörundgaard — she seemed to float upon a stream which bore her far from it all.
“Sleep you alone in the loft-room, now your kinsfolk are gone?” asked Erlend. “Then will I come and speak with you tonight — will you let me in?”
“Ay,” said Kristin low. And so they parted.
The rest of the day she sat with her father’s mother, and after supper she took the old lady to her bed. Then she went up to the loft-room, where she was to lie. There was a little window in the room; Kristin sate herself down on the chest that stood below it — she had no mind to go to bed.
She had long to wait. It was quite dark without when she heard the soft steps upon the balcony. He knocked upon the door with his cloak about his knuckles, and Kristin got up, drew the bolt, and let Erlend in.
She marked how glad he was, when she flung her arms about his neck and clung to him.
“I have been fearing you would be angry with me,” he said.
“You must not grieve for our sin,” he said, sometime after. “ ’Tis not a deadly sin. God’s law is not like to the law of the land in this.… Gunnulv, my brother, once made this matter plain to me — if two vow to have and hold each other fast for all time, and thereafter lie together, then they are wedded before God and may not break their troths without great sin. I can give you the words in Latin when they come to my mind — I knew them once.…”
Kristin wondered a little why Erlend’s brother should have said this — but she thrust from her the hateful fear that it might have been said of Erlend and another — and sought to find comfort in his words.
They sat together o
n the chest, he with his arm about her, and now Kristin felt that ’twas well with her once more and she was safe — beside him was the only spot now where she could feel safe and sheltered.
At times Erlend spoke much and cheerfully — then he would be silent for long, while he sat caressing her. Without knowing it, Kristin gathered up out of all he said each little thing that could make him fairer and dearer to her, and lessen his blame in all she knew of him that was not good.
Erlend’s father, Sir Nikulaus, had been so old before he had children, he had not patience enough nor strength enough left to rear them up himself; both the sons had grown up in the house of Sir Baard Petersön at Hestnæs. Erlend had no sisters and no brother save Gunnulv; he was one year younger and was a priest at Christ’s Church in Nidaros. “He is dearest to me of all mankind, save only you.”
Kristin asked if Gunnulv were like him, but Erlend laughed and said they were much unlike, both in mind and body. Now Gunnulv was in foreign lands studying — he had been away these three years, but had sent letters home twice, the last a year ago, when he thought to go from St. Geneviève’s in Paris and make his way to Rome. “He will be glad, Gunnulv, when he comes home and finds me wed,” said Erlend.
Then he spoke of the great heritage he had had from his father and mother — Kristin saw he scarce knew himself how things stood with him now. She knew somewhat of her father’s dealings in lands.… Erlend had dealt in his the other way about, sold and scattered and wasted and pawned, worst of all in the last years, when he had been striving to free him of his paramour, thinking that, this done, his sinful life might in time be forgotten and his kin stand by him once more; he had thought he might some day come to be Warden* of half the Orkdöla country, as his father had been before him.
“But now do I scarce know what the end will be,” said he. “Maybe I shall sit at last on a mountain croft like Björn Gunnar-sön, and bear out, the dung on my back as did the thralls of old, because I have no horse.”
“God help you,” said Kristin, laughing. “Then I must come to you for sure — I trow I know more of farm-work and country ways than you.”
“I can scarce think you have borne out the dung-basket,” said he, laughing too.
“No; but I have seen how they spread the dung out — and sown corn have I, well-nigh every year at home. ’Twas my father’s wont to plough himself the fields nearest the farm, and he let me sow the first piece that I might bring good fortune.” The thought sent a pang through her heart, so she said quickly: “And a woman you must have to bake, and brew the small beer, and wash your one shirt, and milk — and you must hire a cow or two from the rich farmer near by —”
“Oh, God be thanked that I hear you laugh a little once more!” said Erlend and caught her up so that she lay on his arms like a child.
Each of the six nights which passed ere Aasmund Björgulfsön came home, Erlend was in the loft-room with Kristin.
The last night he seemed as unhappy as she; he said many times they must not be parted from one another a day longer than needful. At last he said very low:
“Now should things go so ill that I cannot come back hither to Oslo before winter — and if it so falls out you need help of friends — fear not to turn to Sira Jon here at Gerdarud; we are friends from childhood up; and Munan Baardsön, too, you may safely trust.”
Kristin could only nod. She knew he spoke of what she had thought on each single day; but Erlend said no more of it. So she, too, said naught, and would not show how heavy of heart she was.
On the other nights he had gone from her when the night grew late, but this last evening he begged hard that he might lie and sleep by her an hour. Kristin was fearful, but Erlend said haughtily, “Be sure that were I found here in your bower, I am well able to answer for myself.” She herself, too, was fain to keep him by her yet a little while, and she had not strength enough to deny him aught.
But she feared that they might sleep too long. So most of the night she sat leaning against the head of the bed, dozing a little at times, and scarce knowing herself when he caressed her and when she only dreamed it. Her one hand she held upon his breast, where she could feel the beating of his heart beneath, and her face was turned to the window that she might see the dawn without.
At length she had to wake him. She threw on some clothes and went out with him upon the balcony. He clambered over the railing on the side that faced on to another house near by. Now he was gone from her sight — the corner hid him. Kristin went in again and crept into her bed; and now she quite gave way and fell to weeping for the first time since Erlend had made her all his own.
5
AT Nonneseter the days went by as before. Kristin’s time was passed between the dormitory and the church, the weaving-room, the book-hall and the refectory. The nuns and the convent-folk gathered in the pot-herbs and the fruits from the herb-garden and the orchard; Holycross Day came in the autumn with its procession, then there was the fast before Michaelmas. Kristin wondered — none seemed to mark any change in her. But she had ever been quiet when amongst strangers, and Ingebjörg Filippusdatter, who was by her night and day, was well able to chatter for them both.
Thus no one marked that her thoughts were far away from all around her. Erlend’s paramour — she said to herself, she was Erlend’s paramour now. It seemed now as though she had dreamed it all — the eve of St. Margaret’s Mass, that hour in the barn, the nights in her bower at Skog — either she had dreamed it, or else all about her now was a dream. But one day she must waken, one day it must all come out. Not for a moment did she think aught else than that she bore Erlend’s child within her.
But what would happen to her when this came to light, she could not well think. Would she be put into the black hole, or be sent home? She saw dim pictures of her father and mother far away. Then she shut her eyes, dizzy and sick, bowed in fancy beneath the coming storm and tried to harden herself to bear it, since she thought it must end by sweeping her for ever into Erlend’s arms — the only place where now she felt she had a home.
Thus was there in this strained waiting as much of hope as terror, as much of sweetness as of torment. She was unhappy — but she felt her love for Erlend as it were a flower planted within her — and, spite of her unhappiness, it put forth fresher and richer blooms each day. That last night when he had slept by her side she had felt, as a faint and fleeting bliss, that there awaited her a joy and happiness in his arms such as she had not yet known — she thrilled now at the thought of it; it came to her like warm, spicy breaths from sun-heated gardens. Wayside brat — Inga had flung the word at her — she opened her arms to it and pressed it to her bosom. Wayside brat was the name they gave to the child begotten in secret in woods or fields. She felt the sunshine, and the smell of the pines in the forest pasture. Each new, creeping tremor, each sudden pulse-beat in her body she took as a reminder from the unborn babe that now she was come out into new paths — and were they never so hard to follow to the end, she was sure they must lead to Erlend at the last.
She sat betwixt Ingebjörg and Sister Astrid and sewed at the great tapestry of knights and birds amidst leafy tendrils. And as she sewed she thought of how she should fly when the time was come, and it could no longer be hidden. She saw herself walking along the highways, clothed like a poor woman; all she owned of gold and silver she bore within a bundle in her hand. She bought herself shelter on a farm somewhere in a far-away countryside — she went as a serving-wench, bore the water-carrier’s yoke upon her neck, worked in the byres, baked and washed, and was cursed because she would not tell who was the child’s father. Then Erlend came and found her.
Sometimes she dreamed that he came too late. She lay snow-white and fair in the poor peasant’s bed. Erlend stooped as he came in at the door; he had on the long black cloak he had used to wear when he came to her by night at Skog. The woman led him forward to where she lay, he sank down and took her cold hands, his eyes were sad as death — Dost thou lie here, my one delight …? Bent w
ith sorrow he went out with his tender son clasped to his breast, in the folds of his cloak — nay, she thought not in good sooth that it would so fall out; she had no mind to die, Erlend should have no such sorrow.… But her heart was so heavy it did her good to dream these dreams.…
Then for a moment it stood out cold and clear as ice before her — the child, that was no dream, that must be faced; she must answer one day for what she had done — and it seemed as if her heart stood still with terror.
But after a little time had gone by, she came to think ’twas not so sure after all she was with child. She understood not herself why she was not glad — it was as though she had lain and wept beneath a warm covering, and now must get up in the cold. A month went by — then two; now she was sure that she had been spared this ill-hap — and, empty and chill of soul, she felt yet unhappier than before. In her heart there dawned a little bitterness toward Erlend. Advent drew near, and she had heard neither from or of him; she knew not where he was.
And now she felt she could not bear this fear and doubt — it was as though a bond betwixt them had snapped; now she was afraid indeed — might it not so befall that she should never see him more? All she had been safely linked to once, she was parted from now — and the new tie that bound her to her lover was such a frail one. She never thought that he would mean to play her false — but there was so much that might happen.… She knew not how she could go on any longer day after day, suffering the tormenting doubt of this time of waiting.
Now and then she thought of her father and mother and sisters — she longed for them, but as for something she had lost for ever.
And sometimes in church, and elsewhere too, she would feel a great yearning to take part in all that this meant, the communion of mankind with God. It had ever been a part of her life; now she stood outside with her unconfessed sin.
She told herself that this cutting adrift from home and kin and Church was but for a time. Erlend must take her by the hand and lead her back into it all. When her father had given consent to their love, she could go to him as of yore; when she and Erlend were wed, they could confess and do penance for their transgression.
The Bridal Wreath Page 16