The Snake Pit (14 page)

“Did I but know some means of helping you, Ingunn mine!”

He did not bring himself to tell his wife that he had hired a housekeeper until Torhild moved in with all her following of children and animals. Ingunn looked displeased, but all she said was:

“Ay, so it is, I ween; you must have one that can take charge of the house. I was never good for aught—and now it seems I can neither live nor die.”

Ingunn lay sick a great part of the winter, and it looked as though she had spoken truly—she could neither live nor die. But then she began to mend, and by the first days of Lent she could sit up. Spring came early on the fiord that year.

It was expected that the levies would be called up again for the summer. The franklins were now heartily sick of the war with Denmark. No man believed that either the King or the Duke would reap anything by it in the end but the loss of their mother’s inheritance, which indeed they
had
wrested from their cousin, the late King of Denmark,
⁷
before he was murdered.

That spring Sira Benedikt announced that he intended to repair to Nidaros for the Vigil of St. Olav. Many of the folk of his parish joined him for the sake of having good company on this pilgrimage, which every man and woman in Norway desired to make at least once in his life.—Olav leaped at the thought, seeing in it a hope and a remedy—Ingunn should take part in the journey. It seemed a very prodigy that she had been so well of late and ailed not at all—she must needs make use of this rare occasion.

At first Ingunn was by no means willing to go—if Olav could not go with her. But then the thought came to her that she would go home and see her sister and brothers—accompany the pilgrims only as far as Hammar. Olav was displeased with this; he wished her to make the pilgrimage, then perhaps she would be restored
to health at Saint Olav’s shrine. If she was equal to travelling so far into Heidmark, then she could surely make the whole journey: they were to move slowly, for there were many sick people in the company. But when he saw how she longed to see her own family again, he gave his consent.

He accompanied her as far as Oslo and stayed in the town a few days, buying and selling. One morning Ingunn was sitting in the inn when Olav entered hastily. He searched in their leather bags, did not find what he wanted, and opened another bag. There he came upon some little garments—they might have fitted a child of four years. Unconsciously his eyes fell upon his wife—Ingunn’s head was bent and her face was red as fire. Olav said nothing, packed the bag again, and went out.

H
AAKON
G
AUTSSON
had bought Berg after the death of Lady Magnhild Toresdatter. Now Tora Steinfinnsdatter had dwelt there as his widow for over a year. Ingunn guessed from her talk that she had had a good life with Haakon, but she lived well without him too. She was a very capable woman. Ingunn never ceased to marvel at her sister, who busied herself deftly, promptly, and shrewdly both indoors and out, although her bulk was prodigious. She still preserved her fair red and white complexion and her regularity of feature, but her cheeks and chin were grown to an immense size and her body was so unwieldy that she could scarcely sit on horseback; even her hands were so fat that the joints only showed as deep hollows—but Tora could make full use of them. Wealth and prosperity surrounded her, and her children were handsome and promising. She had had six, and all were alive and thriving.

On the third evening the sisters were sitting together in the balcony before going to rest. Ingunn sat in the doorway listening to the stillness—far away in the woods the cuckoo still called now and again, and the corncrake chirped in the fields. But she had now lived so long in a place where the very air seemed always to be full of voices, the soughing of the wind, the roar of the sea
dashing against the rocks below: under this clear and silent vault the little sounds of birds seemed only to make the stillness more audible—to Ingunn it was as though she drank deep draughts of refreshment. The bay was so small and so dear; bright and smooth it lay, with dark reflections of the wooded headlands. The last banks of cloud had settled upon the distant hills—the day had been showery with gleams of sunshine, and a sweet scent came up to them from the hay spread out below.

Her longing would not be kept back—all at once, without thinking, Ingunn declared the purpose for which she had come. She had fought with herself these two days, now to speak out, now to hold back the question:

“Do you ever see aught of my Eirik?”

“He is well,” said Tora, with some hesitation. “Hallveig says he is thriving and promises well. She comes hither every autumn, you know.”

“Is it long since you saw him?” asked her sister.

“Haakon was so much against my going there,” said Tora as before. “And since then I have put on so much flesh that I am little suited for such a journey. But you know that he is with honest folk, and Hallveig has naught but good news to tell of him. I have much upon my hands here at home—and little time to wander so far afield,” she concluded, with some heat.

“When saw you him last?” Ingunn asked again.

“I was there in the spring after you left home; but then Haakon would not have me go thither any more; ’twas only keeping the gossip alive, he said,” Tora replied impatiently. “He was a fine child,” she added, more gently.

“Then that is three years ago?”

“Ay, ay.”

The sisters were silent awhile.

Then Tora said: “Arnvid went to see him—many times—in the first years.”

“Has he too given up, Arnvid? Has he too forgotten Eirik now?”

Tora said reluctantly: “You know—folk could never find out who was the father of your child.”

Ingunn was silent, overcome. At last she whispered: “Did they believe then that Arnvid—!”

“Ay, ’twas foolish to make such a secret of the father, since the
child could not be hid,” said Tora curtly. “So they could but guess the worst—a near kinsman or a monk.”

There was a little pause. Then Ingunn said impulsively:

“I had thought of riding up their tomorrow—if the weather suits.”

“I think it unwise,” said Tora sharply. “Ingunn, remember we have all had much to suffer for your misdeeds—”

“You—
who have six. How think you it feels to have but a single one, and to be parted from him? I have longed and longed for Eirik all these years.”

“It is too late now, sister,” said Tora. “Now you must remember Olav—”

“I
do
remember Olav too. He has had four dead sons by me. He claimed his own, the child I deserted and betrayed—he claimed his mother; he has sucked at me without ceasing, he almost sucked the soul out of my body, and he sucked the life out of my children while they were yet unborn, the outcast brother. There was yet a little life in the first son I bore to Olav, they say, when he came into the world—he died before I could see him, unbaptized, nameless. You have seen all your children come living into the light of day, and grow and prosper. Three times have I felt the child quicken within me and grow still and die again. And I knew I had nothing to hope for, when the pains came upon me, but to be quit of the corpse that burdened me—”

After a long silence Tora said:

“You must do as seems good to you. If you think the sight of him will make it easier for you, then—”

She patted her sister’s cheek as they went in to bed.

It was drawing near to midday when Ingunn halted her horse at a gate in the forest. She had refused to listen to all Tora’s prayers, but had ridden off alone. No worse thing had befallen her but to mistake the road; first she had come to a little farm that lay high up the slope on the other side of a little river. The people who lived there were the nearest neighbours to Siljuaas, and two children from this croft had gone with her down the hillside to a place where she could cross the river.

She stayed awhile sitting in the saddle and looking out over the country. The forests rolled endlessly, wooded ridge behind ridge into the distant blue—toward the north-west there was a gleam
of snow under the shining fine-weather clouds. Deep down and far away she saw a small stretch of the surface of Lake Mjösen glittering beneath the foot of wooded hills, and the land on the other side lay blue in the noontide heat, with its green patches of farms and crofts.—From Hestviken one could not see a scrap of cultivation beyond the fields of the manor itself.

Homesickness and yearning for her child united in a feeling of crying hunger within her. And she knew she had but this one little hour in which to assuage it, for once only. Then she must turn back again, bow her neck, and take up her burden of unhappiness.

It seemed to her that in the south, by the fiord, the sunshine was never so clear and deep as here under the blue sky. It was glorious to be up on a high ridge once more. Below and to the right of her she had the dark, steep wooded slope, up which she had toiled on foot, leading her horse. The roar of the stream at the bottom of the ravine came up to her, now louder, now softer. Right opposite, on the other side of the secluded little valley, lay the croft that she had come to first, high up under the brow of the hill, and between her and it the air quivered in a blue haze over the hillside.

Before her was the clearing. The houses stood on a little knoll of rock-strewn, tussocky turf—they were grey and low, not more than a couple of logs high. The little patches of corn lay for the most part at the foot of the knoll, toward the fence.

Ingunn dismounted, pulled up the stakes of the gate—and a group of grey-clad little children came in view on the knoll. Ingunn was unable to move—she was trembling all over. The children kept as still as stones for a few moments, watching her; then they whisked round and were gone—not a sound had she heard from them.

As she walked up the knoll, a woman appeared at the door of one of the little houses. She seemed rather scared at sight of the stranger—perhaps she took her for something other than human, this tall woman with the snow-white coif about her heated face, and the sky-blue, hooded mantle and silver brooch, leading a great sorrel horse by the bridle. Ingunn hastened to call out, greeting the woman by name.

They sat indoors for a while, talking, and then Hallveig went out to fetch Eirik. The children could not be far away, she
thought—they were scared of the lynx; it was abroad and had been sitting on the fence that morning. But they were shy of the visitor, for lynxes were more common than strangers here.

Ingunn sat and looked about her in the tiny room. It was low under the gabled roof and darkened by smoke; tools and earthen pots lay all about, so that there was scarce room to turn. A baby was asleep in a hanging cradle, snoring soundly and regularly. And then she heard a fly buzzing somewhere with a high, sharp, piercing note, incessantly, as though caught in a cobweb.

Hallveig came back, dragging with her a very small boy who had nothing on but a grey woollen shirt. Behind them swarmed the whole flock of the woman’s own children, peeping in at the door.

Eirik struggled to be free, but Hallveig pushed him forward and held him in front of the strange woman. Then he raised his head for an instant, glanced in wonder at this splendidly clad person—crept back behind his foster-mother and tried to hide.

His eyes were a yellowish brown, the colour of bog-water when the sun shines into it, and the long, black eyelashes were curled up at the end. But his hair was fair and curled about his face and neck in great glistening ringlets.

His mother stretched out her arms and drew him onto her lap. With a voluptuous thrill she felt the hard little head on her arm, the silky hair between her fingers. Ingunn pressed his face to hers—the child’s cheek was round and soft and cool; she felt the little half-open lips against her skin. Eirik resisted with all his force, struggling to escape from his mother’s impetuous embrace, but he did not utter a sound.

“It is I who am your mother, Eirik—do you hear, Eirik?—it is I who am your real mother.” She laughed and wept at once.

Eirik looked up as if he did not understand a word of it. His foster-mother corrected him sharply, bidding him be good and sit still on his mother’s knee. Then he stayed quietly in Ingunn’s lap, but neither of the women could get him to open his mouth.

She kept her arm about him and his head against her shoulder, feeling the whole length of his body. She passed her other hand over his round, brown knees, stroked his firm calves and his dirty little feet. Once he plucked a little at his mother’s hand with his grimy little fingers, playing with her rings.

Ingunn opened her bag and took out the gifts. The clothes were
far too big for Eirik—he was very small for his age, said his foster-mother. That these fine shirts and little leather hose were for him seemed quite beyond Eirik’s comprehension. Not even when his mother tried on him the red cap with the silver clasp did he show any sign of joy—he only wondered, in silence. Then Ingunn took out the loaves and gave Eirik one that he was to have for himself—a big round wheaten cake. Eirik seized it greedily, clutched it to his chest with both arms, and then ran out—to all his foster-brothers and sisters.

Ingunn went to the door—the boy was outside with the cake held tightly in his arms; he thrust out his stomach to support it and straddled with his bare brown legs. The other children stood round in a ring staring at him.

Hallveig produced food for her guest—cured fish, oaten bannocks, and a little cup of cream. The children outside were given the pan of milk from which the cream had been skimmed. When Ingunn looked out again, they were sitting round their food; Eirik was on his knees, breaking off big pieces of the cake and passing them round.

“’Tis his free-handed way,” said the foster-mother. “Tora gives me a cake for him every year when I go down to Berg, and Eirik always shares it and nigh forgets to eat any himself. ’Tis such things, and others too, that show the boy comes of gentle kindred.”

Now that all the children were sitting in a ring in the sunshine, Ingunn saw that Eirik’s fair hair was quite different from the coarse flaxen shocks of the others; Eirik’s was curly and shining, all unkempt as it was, and it was not yellow, but more like the palest brown of a newly ripened hazelnut.