Complete works of hall c.., p.396
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 396
When they came to the gate of Government House somebody suggested that Oscar, as a zealous Sagaman, ought to carry out the ancient custom of lifting his bride across the threshold: and then, to Thora’s delight, amid a squealing chorus of laughter, Oscar picked her up in his arms and carried her into the house, where Anna, who had gone on ahead, smuggled her upstairs while the others went into the drawing-room to drink the last toast before parting.
A bright fire was burning in the bridal chamber, the curtains were drawn, the bed was laid open, and the room looked like a white nest of eiderdown when Thora, with a fluttering heart, stepped into it.
“What a day it has been!” she said.
“Hasn’t it?” said Anna, closing the door behind them.
“Well, I can always say I had a wonderful wedding-day, can’t I?”
“Indeed you can. A woman has only two days in her life that are her own — her very own — and her wedding-day is one of them.”
“And what is the other day, Anna?”
“The other? Oh, the other day is too far away for you to think about it yet, but all the days between belong to somebody else — her children or her husband.”
“But how sweet! How beautiful! To live in your husband, to give up everything to him, your life, yourself, everything! There’s happiness in that, isn’t there, Anna?”
“Indeed there is, my dear, and pain too, perhaps. But there’s something better in this life than happiness, Thora, and that’s blessedness, you know.”
This made Thora think of Magnus, but she heard Oscar laughing in the room below, and soon forgot everything else in a delicious shuddering which suddenly came over her. Anna helped her to undress, and when the crown and the kirtle were laid aside, she moved about for some moments without speaking. Then she said softly —
“Will you go to bed now, dearest, or shall I give you your dressing-gown?”
“Give me my dressing-gown,” said Thora faintly.
Anna moved about on tiptoe a moment or two longer, turning the lamp down and fixing the shade. Then she opened the door and stood for an instant on the threshold looking back at Thora where she sat combing out her hair before the stove. All at once her middle-aged, homely face became young and beautiful by the magic of a memory of her own, and going softly back she kissed Thora without saying a word, and then crept silently out of the room.
Left alone, Thora looked timidly around her, and seeing things of Oscar’s lying among her own she felt a new and still more delicious sense of happiness. During the days preceding the wedding she had thought that as soon as the service in the cathedral had come to an end and she was Oscar’s wife a mysterious change would come over her, but that had not been so, and all day long she had felt quite the same. But now it was different, and in this room she had become another being — not herself only, but Oscar also. It was very sweet and beautiful, but it was a little frightening, too, and to ease her fast-beating heart she got into bed and covered up her face.
She could hear the company breaking up below, and a little later she heard their footsteps crunching the snow under her window, which fronted the road. They stood there and sang a bridal song. It was the song of the “Two Roses.”
The winter was cold and the ground was white, but two roses of love still grew in the garden of God. The frost could not freeze the two roses of love, for they were warmed by the air of heaven; the sun could not scorch the two roses of love, for they were watered from the well of life. Two roses of love on a single stem; two roses of love in two fond young hearts; two roses of love and joy!
When the song came to an end there was some merry giggling under the window, followed by shouts of “Good night, Thora!”— “Happy dreams!” Then as the company went off they started the bridal song again, and in her mind’s eye Thora could see them going back to the town, arm-in-arm, young girls and young men.
Thora listened to the voices dying down the street, and for a moment all life seemed to be set to the music of love; Oscar and she would be children always, never growing older, but rambling hand-in-hand through a flowery world where everybody loved them and they loved everybody, and there could be no real trouble because love was all in all.
But just then the cathedral clock struck eleven, and she remembered Magnus. She could see him crossing the desolate white heath under the shooting stream of the northern lights — a lonesome man riding one horse, while another, with an empty saddle, was running by his side. Poor Magnus! But there was no help for it!
The voices died away in the distance, and there was a moment of silence in the cosy nest — a warm, muffled, secret kind of silence, broken by nothing but the underthrob of the ceaseless sea. Thora closed her eyes and held her breath. How happy she was! She was trembling like a bird caught and held in the hand, but even her fear was full of happiness.
At the next moment there was a noiseless footstep on the floor, a sense of somebody in the room, and then — Oscar was leaning over her and kissing her on the lips.
END OF PART II
PART III
Alas, that spring should vanish with the rose!
That youth’s sweet-scented manuscript should close!
The nightingale that in the branches sang,
Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows!
I
THE wedding being over, and the wedding party gone, Anna went on a visit to Magnus in order to bear him company during the first weeks of his first winter, and to see that his house was in order.
The farm was thirty odd miles from the capital, not far from the scene of the sheep-gathering, and in the middle of the great plain of Thingvellir — an historic spot, formerly the place of the Icelandic Parliament, for the neglected Mount of Laws may still be seen there.
There were only two houses on the plain — the farm-house and the parsonage with its little church beside it. The farmhouse was the larger of the two, and being on the line of road from the capital to the chief market of the Northland it had become a resting-place for travellers.
The Inn-farm had belonged to Anna’s family for many generations, and her father had been the last to hold it. He was a worthy man, silent and serious, much like Magnus in personal character, but he left the place badly embarrassed, having fallen into the hands of a defaulting factor. After his daughter married he lost his wife, and then he died suddenly — people said of drink. Since then the estate had been twenty years in the hands of a steward, but the Governor had paid off the mortgage out of the savings of his salary, and the farm was free.
It was an endless delight to Anna to bring the place back to its former condition. She began with the sleeping accommodation, for sin comes with a laugh, she said, but goes with a cry. The shepherd and his wife she put in the upper bedroom (the Badstofa), the maids in the lower one, and the farm-boys in the loft. Each of the rooms was under its own roof, and the homestead as a whole was less like a single house than a group of houses, or like a gipsy encampment with its peaked tents going off in different directions. The principal apartment was a large square hall, with two guestrooms opening out of it. Magnus was to sleep in one of these guest - rooms, except when both were wanted for travellers, and then he was to lie on a mattress stretched on the floor.
Anna inspected the kitchen (the Elt - House) and the Skemma (the store-house) — examined the winter’s stock of potted meat and dried and salted cod and whale, and put a lock on the Bur, for seldom does the servant-maid starve in the larder, she said. Finally she turned her attention to the Hall, which was the general living-room, and furnished it afresh with a settle, an armchair, a Bornholme clock, and a big German stove. As a finishing stroke she hung two large photographs on the walls, one of the Governor, the other of herself. The Governor was gorgeous in his gold-braided uniform, but she was homely in her black hufa, and on second thoughts she would have taken her own picture down, but Magnus said something nice about it and she allowed it to remain.
Anna’s visit was a long one, but as often as she prepared to go, saying home was the best place for the stupid, Magnus answered that in that case Gudrun must unpack her trunk, for the Governor could not be expecting her. In this way she stayed at Thingvellir until the snow began to be honeycombed by the thaw and the ribs of the landscape to be revealed again.
Meantime her life at the farm was simple and primitive, and every day had its own duty. Before it was light in the morning she rang the bell in the hall which awakened the household, and sent the maids to the shippons and the boys to the beasts in their pens. And when the short day had closed in she rang the bell again for supper, and finally for prayers, when the house-father (Magnus now) gave out a hymn and read a lesson.
On Sunday she went to church, and met the fifty odd people who had ridden over from the farms that bordered the plain. She sat in the seat in front of the communion-rail, with its picture of Christ in white robes among warm Eastern foliage. Magnus sat in the choir and put up the figures on the plate that gave the numbers of the hymns. He had little voice and no music, but Anna listened and was happy.
Though the nights were long the household was never idle. While the servants had to mend and make blankets in their own quarters, Magnus would weave on a loom he set up in the hall, and his mother would spin or knit stockings. He was full of great projects again, and though his former schemes were impossible to him now, he had others of equal consequence.
What Iceland wanted was roads; roads were the landmarks of civilisation; without roads the most productive country in the world could not prosper, for what was the use of a cow that gave much milk if it kicked over the pail?
Night after night in the pauses of the loom Anna had to listen to this story and to assent to the schemes that were tied on to it. Yes, Magnus was going to be very comfortable and she could go home in content.
“After all, perhaps everything was for the best,” she said, “and if there were only a mistress in the house—”
But Magnus rattled at the loom and nothing more was heard for some moments.
“Jon and Gudrun are very well, in their way, but it’s thin blood that isn’t thicker than water, and when I go back—”
The loom rattled still louder.
“But a young man who couldn’t be satisfied with a girl like Thora isn’t likely to find many to his liking.”
And then the loom rattled louder than ever, and nothing more was said that night
II
AT intervals during Anna’s visit to the’ farm there came news of the wedding party — the letters being sent on by the weekly post from Government House and from the Factor’s. The first to come was from England, and it was a joint letter to everybody, written by all three of the wanderers. Oscar began it, with a playful review of their journey from the time of the departure of the Laura.
“As soon as we set foot on the ship we were told that Captain Zimsen had given up his own cabin to us, and from that hour to this everybody has shown us boundless hospitality, especially father’s old college friends, the professor at Oxford, and the banker here in London. Naturally we know we owe everything to the magic of the Governor’s name, and consequently I am cultivating an extraordinary reverence for it, though I doubt if I shall ever find it more beautiful than I did on the morning of our wedding at the bottom of that splendid cheque.”
“Ha, ha, the mouse knows where to come back for his cheese,” said Anna.
Helga came next, with a glowing account of the London theatres, opera-houses, and picture-galleries.
“The half had not been told me, as the big Book says, and I wonder more than ever why a poor girl should be doomed to waste her life in a wilderness when she might live in a world of so many clever and beautiful people.”
“M’m! It’s poor work pouring water on a rock,” said Anna.
Thora came last with a rather sad little note. It was all very wonderful, no doubt, but she was feeling just a wee bit home-sick. Did not care so very much for operas and picture-galleries, so Oscar had to take Helga by herself.
“I like best to sit in the window of the hotel and look at the crowds in the square. Such multitudes! Always going and coming, and hardly anybody ever speaking to anybody else! That’s what strikes you at first as most extraordinary.
It is so strange to think that the people in the streets do not even know each other by sight, and that every young woman who goes by has her own family somewhere — her own husband and perhaps her own children — and that she is hurrying away to them. I don’t know why, but it makes me feel so lonely, and then I almost want to be back in my dear, sweet, homely old Iceland.”
Magnus had to read this letter aloud — for Anna was no reader of handwriting — and when he came to Thora’s part his voice thickened and broke.
The next letter came from Paris, and Helga wrote the whole of it.
“Such sights! Such luxury! Such gaiety! And such dreams of dresses! And then the opera — Chopin, Verdi, Wagner, Grieg! We are at the opera every night — that is to say Oscar and I are, Thora not caring very much for music. Thora’s chief pleasure is to walk in the flower-market by the Madeleine and watch the children playing, and look as if she wished she were one of them.”
“Just like our Thora,” said Anna.
“Neils is here — Neils Finsen, you know. Neils has finished his course at the Musical College, and is connected in some way with Covent Garden and has come to Paris on managerial business. He seems to be getting along wonderfully, and it makes me feel almost envious. Oh to get on in life! To escape for ever from that grey sky and all those freezing surroundings! What I would give to do it! Nothing should stand between me and success in life if I only saw the chance of it And who knows — perhaps I may some day! Neils declares that my voice has improved wonderfully and I am practising constantly. But to have any real opportunity in music one ought to be here or in London or Dresden, and it is so expensive. I’m nearly penniless as it is, and I am so shockingly dowdy that if some one does not send me—”
The letter was to the Factor, and he had cut away the end of it.
“M’m! M’m!” said Anna. “What the Miss is used to the Misses keeps up.” And then they ate their supper of smoked mutton and black bread in silence and rang the bell for prayers.
The third letter from the wedding party came from Italy, and it was written by Oscar only. The post that brought it had been delayed by a snowstorm and had sheltered two nights on the Moss Fell Heath. At the Inn-farm the cattle-pens had been completely buried, and Magnus and the men had worked up to their waists from daylight to dark, digging a way out of the snow that the beasts might be fed and watered.
“The world will be white with you in Iceland, but here in Italy the roses are in bud, and the sky is blue and the air is balmy. What a time we have had of it! We came down from Venice, the city of silence and dream, through Florence, the city of sunshine, and Rome, the mother of cities, to Naples, the city of song. Italy seems to set all Europe to music! Lovely and beloved Italy! If only some one could do the same for Iceland! Rugged, gaunt, grand old Iceland! But wait — only wait — perhaps somebody will do it yet!”
“Ah, Oscar, Oscar,” said Anna, “it’s easier to count twelve mountains than to climb one.”
“Helga is enjoying the trip tremendously. Out every minute of the day and making friends on every side. Thora does not seem so well, poor child, and she hardly cares to go about. We are going on to the Riviera next week and thence back to Iceland. I must, of course, be home for the opening of Althing, but Helga is grudging every day. It is now two o’clock in the morning, and we have just returned from a Veglioni — that is to say a masque ball — this (yesterday) being the last of Lent. Flowers, streamers, confetti, and such dresses! Helga looked magnificent in a pale blue chiffon of the latest model, and was, out of all comparison, the belle of the evening. Poor Thora did not care to go, so she stayed in the hotel and went to bed early.”
Magnus and his mother also went to bed early on the night they read that letter. Anna rung the bell that hung from the ceiling of the hall, and the servants in their skin slippers and woollen stockings trooped in for prayers. The lesson was the story of the widow’s cruse and the hymn was —
“Meek and low, meek and low,
I shall soon my Jesus know.”
The last letter they received from the wanderers came on the first day of spring when the thaw had set in, and the water was running down the discoloured snow on the mountains like tears on a wrinkled face, and the sheep were beginning to lamb. It was from Nice, and was written by Thora to Anna herself.
“This place is so beautiful, Anna, yet I do not think I like it very much. The houses are all splendid palaces, but they don’t seem so comfortable as the little homes in Iceland. I dare not say this to Oscar, lest he should think me ungrateful, and certainly there is no fog or mist here, and no big white waves because the sea is always blue; and of course the trees are so wonderful and the blossoms so beautiful! Sometimes they have a carnival, and then waggon-loads of flowers are flung about everywhere; but next day it is quite pitiful to see the lovely roses that have been trampled upon being swept up in the streets.
“In the afternoon a band plays in a garden and you drive in a carriage round and round it. At night you go to a Restaurant — bigger than the Artisans’ Institute — and there another band plays while you eat your dinner — two or three hundred at once, and ladies in low dresses. After that you go to a Casino, where all is silent and rather dark, and people sit round tables and play cards for money. Everybody plays cards here, because everybody seems to be always taking a holiday.”
“Ah, but the devil never does,” said Anna.
