The Snake Pit (30 page)

In the brief days of sunshine after Cecilia had come into the world—before it became clear that her birth had cost the mother the last remnant of her health—the folk of the country round had met Olav with goodwill. Now that this strange curse had been lifted that denied them living children at Hestviken, his equals had rejoiced with him, and they had thought that now perhaps the man would be more sociable, not such a kill-joy as he had been—he extinguished life and merriment around him simply by the way he sat in silence, glaring with unseeing eyes in good company.—But Olav seemed so little able to meet them halfway—he remained the most arrant cross-stick, with whom nobody could get on.

Then there came to light this matter, which was as ugly as need be. While his wife lay palsied and full of torment, broken by one childbirth after another, each harder than the last, the man had been whoring with his housekeeper under his own roof. They had known it for years, folk called to mind now—this man and that knew that Olav had often brought his servant gifts from the town, far too costly for her position. He had helped her to provide for Björn’s and Gudrid’s children. And all the time he had worked the land for her up at Rundmyr, whither she had now betaken herself again. It was no long way between Rundmyr and Hestviken—so they showed no great shame: folk had seen Torhild swaying about in broad daylight, broad as she was now below the belt—she carried pails between her cot and the byre, far abroad she went along the edge of the wood, chipping bark and cutting twigs.—While they were about it, folk dug up again all the talk there had been at Björn Egilsson and Gudrid.

Olav’s nearest kinsfolk in the neighbourhood, Signe of Skikkjustad and Una of Rynjul, had taken his part all through and done their best to excuse their cousin. But now even they were silent and looked ill at ease if anyone did but name Olav of Hestviken.

Olav knew most of what was said of him and Torhild. When he had made his confession, Sira Hallbjörn asked if that was
all.
And then he discovered what kind of rumours were afloat about him—that this affair between him and Torhild had been going on for years, and that some folk hinted that maybe he was also father to the child Liv Torbjörnsdatter had had a year or two ago out at Hestviken.

One of the first Sundays when he was not permitted to ride to church with other people, the weather was mild. Olav was walking about the yard. A great washtub stood there; it had thawed so much that there was water on the top of the ice. Olav chanced to bend over it and saw his own reflection in the water. The face that looked up at him from the dark depth of the vessel, blurred and somewhat indistinct, was like the face of a leper—his pallor showed like patches of rime-frost against the weatherbeaten skin, and the whites of his eyes were red with blood—Olav was frightened at the sight of himself.

He had almost expected it to come as a relief in a way when he was forbidden to enter the church this year. In the end he had felt he could no longer endure to go to mass with his unshriven sin. But, for all that, it was worse to be shut out. He had thought that the heavy penance for his adultery would at the same time heal some of his old wound. But it only caused him to reflect that this last sin was but a consummation of the old sin.

But this was the last thing in which he had ventured to put trust in himself—that nothing on earth would be able to break down his fidelity to Ingunn.

Not a word had been spoken between them of his faithlessness. But he knew that she knew of it.

The beginning of it all was that he felt all at once that he could no longer bear the burden of Ingunn. After that day in the previous spring when he had told her that he could live no longer with a deadly sin stirring in his mind, begetting fresh sins from day to day—and she had begged him to go on enduring it, for the boy’s sake and hers. And in her sick and tortured state she had the advantage—no man worth calling a man could have opposed such a living bundle of pain.

He could not humiliate himself so far as to broach the subject again. He made as though nothing had been said, helped her through the long nights as before. But now, when at last his heart had run dry of love and patience, it was far more trying. Now
not a day passed but he felt how tired and worn he was from the endless watching in the air of the sick-room. And the great bitterness in his heart received constant accessions of petty bitterness every time he found himself growing sluggish and forgetful in his work, heavy and inactive of body.

One night before midsummer he had gone out toward morning. Ingunn had fallen asleep at last, and he wished for a breath of the cool night air before lying down. Olav paused before the door of the house—it was light, calm, and grey outside. The boat’s crew were not expected home for some hours yet; all on the manor were asleep. Then he noticed a thin column of smoke above the roof of the cook-house. At that moment Torhild Björnsdatter appeared at its door and emptied a cooking-pot—her wet hair hung about her, dark and straggling.

Olav had always been strangely touched to see how Torhild strove to keep herself clean and tidy in spite of all she had to do. She was always first up and last in bed, and thus she found time to wash and plait her hair even in the middle of the week, and mend her clothes. Ingunn had given up all such things before they had been married four years.

Olav went across to Torhild and they spoke together for a while—instinctively whispering, as it was so still—not a sound but that of the birds beginning to wake. He had dozed a little at times, he said in answer to her questions. But now he would go in and lie down.

“Could you not come over to us and lie down in my bed?” asked the girl. “Then you would have more peace.” She herself and the children lay in one of the lofts now that it was summer.

Torhild lived in the house that Olav’s parents had had when they were first married. It was a little old house which stood a little way apart, in a line with the cattle-sheds, under the Horse Crag, on the east of the yard toward the valley. Olav had had it set in order, so that it was now good and weather-tight, but it was very cramped inside.

Torhild accompanied him to the house and drew out the cudgel with which she had bolted the door. The air from within smote him like a sweet breath: the floor was strewn with juniper. The room was so narrow that the bed at its end filled it from wall to wall: in the dim light its sheepskin covers shone white as snow; around it were hung wreaths of flowers to keep off flies and
vermin. Torhild had made it all trim before she moved out for the summer.

She bade him sit on the edge of the bed while she pulled off his shoes. Olav felt sleep well up from this clean, fresh couch, rising about him like sweet, tepid water. He was already half off as he rolled over into the bed—was just aware that Torhild lifted his feet in and spread the coverlet over him.

When he came to himself again, he saw the evening sun shining yellow on the meadow outside the open door. Torhild stood over him with a bowl in her hands—it was fresh, warm milk. He drank and drank.

“You got some sleep?” asked Torhild; she took the empty bowl and went out.

His shoes stood before the bed; they were soft, well smeared with tallow. And a clean everyday jerkin was laid out for him—still damp across the chest where she had washed away the stains, and the tear was mended that had been there when he wore it last.

During the summer it happened more and more often that he went and lay down in Torhild’s house to get a night’s sleep. But each time he rested thus made it harder to go back to the nights of watching; he was fairly hungry for sleep and again sleep—he could not have had his fill of sleep for many years, he thought.

Torhild brought him his morning bread when she came to wake him. If his clothes were wet the night before, he found dry ones ready when he woke, holes and tears were mended. Olav asked her not to do this—it was Liv’s work, though she seldom did it. Torhild had enough to do as it was. The girl gave a little smile and shook her head.

And then there arose in him a desire for her—to know for once in his life what it was like to hold a sound and healthy woman in his arms, one he need not be afraid of touching. But, for all that, it was as though he had never
willed
it—even that morning when he reached out and took hold of her, he had expected her to thrust him back, perhaps in anger.—But she yielded to him, without a sigh.

All through that autumn and winter he seemed to be walking at the bottom of a thick sea of mist. He could not bear himself, and sometimes he could not bear her either; but he had no force
to pull himself out of the mire. When she moved back into the house with the children, it must surely come to an end, he comforted himself; but it did not.

He stayed indoors with Ingunn from early in the morning till late in the evening. He had not been away from home a night except for a week in the seal-hunting. Now that he had betrayed his wife, he remembered his bitterness toward her as a temptation of the Devil to which he had yielded. “Ingunn, my Ingunn—how could I treat you thus, while you lie here, patient and kind, helpless as a maimed animal? Was that to be the end of our friendship, that I turned traitor to you?”

Night after night Olav carried her wrapped in skins and blankets, as one carries a child, so that she might have some relief from the stress of lying in bed. The more weary and cold and sleepless it made him, the greater was the relief he got from it.

He and Torhild had scarcely exchanged a word since that fatal morning. In all these years Torhild had been almost the only person with whom Olav had much talk—as with a grown-up equal. He remembered that—remembered what he owed this Torhild, whom he had rewarded thus. He could find nothing to excuse his misdeed. She had known no man before him—all she had known was hard work for other folk’s welfare—and to make no complaint if life was too hard for her. And now he durst not speak to her, checked her when she would speak—in his heart he knew full well what she had long treasured up, and why this upright and scrupulous woman who was no longer young had allowed him to possess her without resistance. He was aware of it in her silent caresses. But if she
once
forgot herself and put it into words, his shame would stifle him.—

Of Björn, her father, he also thought. Ay, had he been alive now, he would have cut him down straight.

He guessed that it would not remain hidden either. It was in the darkest days before Yule that his fear changed to certainty. And in his despair temptation came to him. It was as though the Devil, who had led him for all these years into an ever increasing slough, going before him cloaked and half disguised—had now turned about, thrown off his hood of concealment, and shown him his true face:

He knew that Torhild would do whatever he asked of her. In former years it had often happened that they had been out together in a boat alone. She would go with him again—even if she guessed what was in his mind, she would follow him, he felt that. Then something might easily happen.

And Ingunn would be spared the knowledge of this. And he would be spared the shame of being exposed to every mother’s son around the fiord as the worst of wretches. If he was already in the Devil’s power neck and crop—he could no longer have a soul to lose.

But no, for all that. It was Satan who held out all this to him, but he himself said no. “This crime I will not be guilty of—no matter whether you have my chair ready for me in hell. I have nothing to lose, I can well believe that—honour and hope of salvation and my happiness with Ingunn, which I had saved so far—all this I have sold. But nevertheless you will not get me to do this. I will not do Torhild more harm than I have done already. Not even for Ingunn’s sake—

“Lord, have mercy! Holy Mary, pray for us! Not for me, I beg nothing for myself—but, Lord, have mercy—upon the others.”

“Ay, now it is too late,” he said scornfully to the Devil. “They have guessed it, my whole household has guessed it; now you may cease to mutter about it. Be quiet! You will get me, when the time comes.”

An ugly silence had fallen about him. The house-folk ceased speaking when the master came near. Scarcely a whispered word was spoken at mealtimes. Olav sat in the high seat; the housekeeper brought in the food and served it out. No one could mark the slightest change in her bearing; she was about from dawn to late in the evening, industrious as ever, her back was as straight and her foot as nimble, though it was plain to all that she no longer went alone.

Ingunn turned her face to the wall when Torhild came into the room.

So much had already gone by of the new year that Lent was at hand, and yet not a word had been said between Olav and Torhild of that which awaited them. But one day he saw her go up to the
storehouse loft after the morning meal. He followed. She was taking pieces of bacon out of the salt-barrel and scraping off the worst of the scum that had formed on them.

“I have been thinking. Torhild”—Olav went straight to the point—“that it is not much I can do for you; I cannot help you much. But I will do what is in my power. And therefore I thought—that farm of Auken that I bought over on the Hudrheim side five years ago—that I give you a deed of it and make it over to you. Rundmyr I can continue to work for you and your brothers and sisters, as we have done in these last years.”

Torhild reflected for a moment. “Nay, it may well be better that I do not stay up there at Rundmyr—”

“It will surely be better for you if you do not have to live hereabouts. After the trouble I have brought upon you,” said the man in a low voice.

“Auken—” Torhild looked at him. “That is no small gift to make to a woman of my condition, Olav.”

“It was reckoned to be a three-cows’ croft, and there were some good cornfields on the south side of the knoll the houses stand on. But you know that no folk have lived there for a score of years, and they who rented the land of me have not kept it in good tilth.”

Torhild turned round to him and held out her hand. “Then I say thanks, Olav. I see that you wish to make good provision for me.”

Olav squeezed her fingers. “I have behaved worst to you of all people,” he whispered. “You had the right to expect a different reward of me—”