The House by the Fjord (34 page)

Then it was time to go to the churchyard. There everyone clustered around the two graves that lay side by side. A senior American, a descendent of Kurt of the salmon factory, spoke of the importance of family ties and then laid a wreath of flowers on Magnus's grave. He was followed by Sonja's great-granddaughter, who stood by Ingrid's grave and told how she had grown up longing to see the old house that was always part of her bedtime stories as a child, handed down through her mother and grandmother. Then she laid a wreath of roses on Ingrid's grave. Spontaneously, everybody applauded.

After a buffet lunch in Anna and Alex's garden, where each white-clothed table had been decorated with sprigs of orange rowan berries, everyone departed, all with talk of keeping in touch and hoping to meet again one day. When the last guest had gone, waving out of sight, David turned to his mother with a wide grin and gave her a hug.

‘Congratulations, Mama! Everything was perfect! Even the weather!'

Alex put his arm around Anna's waist as he walked her into the house. There she sat down thankfully into a cushioned chair and kicked off her new shoes, which had proved to be more elegant than comfortable. Outside, the caterers had removed the last of their equipment and folded away the chairs and tables into a van, which had now driven away. Nothing remained to show that nearly three hundred people had been milling about there, except for the trodden-down grass of the lawn.

Alex pulled up a chair opposite her and took her hands into his, looking at her with love. ‘I learned something important this weekend.'

‘What was that?' she asked.

‘Every one of those guests said how their forebears had at heart never lost their homesickness, no matter that they had been loyal to their new land. I believe I would be the same if I moved to Spain and then for some reason was unable to return home again.'

She looked at him, full of understanding. It was the deep-rooted love of country and mountains that seemed to run through the veins of every Norseman she had ever met or read about. ‘I would have gone with you in the end,' she admitted.

He nodded. ‘I could never have left you anyway.'

Slowly they grinned at each other. Then he drew her to her feet and they kissed each other as if they were young lovers again.

After such a gathering of Ingrid's kin, Anna decided that the time had come at last to hide away Ingrid's original journal as had been requested in one of the early pages, but first of all she herself wrote out a full account of the family reunion and then folded it and tucked it into the journal.

Alex went with her to the old house the following evening to assist her in the task of concealing it. In the house, Anna sat to read aloud the last page once more.

‘“My days are running out. Last week I am sure that I saw Magnus waiting for me by the silver birch tree. I have also heard his footstep on the stairs, and now and again there is a whiff of turpentine, such as always hung about him when he had been painting. When the time is right, he will take my hand and we shall be together for evermore.”'

Anna put the journal into a flat silver box that she had bought specially for it. Then she added the letter that Johan's mother had written long ago. It had been several years before she had felt the time had come to read the words of a much-loved woman, whose son she had married in those wartime days. It had been such a wonderful letter, full of encouragement while expressing love for Johan and wishing him a good homecoming from the war. Anna thought the letter should be preserved and included in the silver box, and she placed it in a protective envelope and sealed it.

Alex was standing by the rosemaling cupboard that two or three centuries ago had been built into the wall. There was a tiny aperture at its side and Anna stooped to insert the box, which slid through easily. There was a little thud as it came to rest. Then Alex inserted a piece of matching wood that closed the aperture securely with no danger of it shifting. It was also impossible to discern.

He returned his carpentry tools to where he kept them, while Anna waited by the door in the evening sunshine. As he reached her, he put an arm about her waist and kissed her.

They set off down the slope. It was probably only a songbird in the trees, but Anna thought she heard a whisper of farewell.