Book: The Emperor of Portugalia

S >> Selma Lagerlof >> The Emperor of Portugalia




"I wish for a hundred things!" sighed Katrina, "and if I could
have them all I'd still be unsatisfied."

"But I only wish the seine-maker, or somebody else who can read,
would drop in and read us Glory Goldie's letter."

"You've had that letter read to you so many times since you got it
that you ought to know it by heart."

"That may be true enough," returned Jan, "but still it always does
me good to hear it read, for then I feel as though the little girl
herself were standing and talking to me, and I seem to see her eyes
beam on me as I listen to her words."

"I wouldn't mind hearing it again, myself," said Katrina, glancing
out through the open window. "But on a fine light evening like this
we can't expect folks to come to our hut."

"It would be better to me than the taste of white bread with coffee
to hear Glory Goldie's letter read while I'm sitting here smoking,"
declared Jan, "but I'm sure every one in the Ashdales has grown
tired of being asked to read the letter over and over, and now I
don't know who to turn to."

The words were hardly out of his mouth, when the door opened, and
in walked August Daer Nol. Jan started in surprise.

"Bless me! Here you come, my dear August, just when wanted." After
Jan had shaken hands with the caller and pulled up a chair for him
he said: "I've got a letter I'd like you to read to us. It's from
an old schoolmate of yours. Maybe you'd be interested to hear how
she's getting on?"

August Daer Nol took the letter and read it aloud, lingering over
each word as if drinking it in. When he had finished, Jan remarked:

"How wonderfully well you read, my dear August! I've never heard
Goldie's words sound as beautiful as from your lips. Would you do
me the favour to read the letter once more?"

Then the boy read the letter for the second time, with the same
deep feeling. It was as if he had come with a thirst-parched throat
to a spring of pure water. When he had read to the end he carefully
folded the letter and smoothed it over with his hand. As he was
about to return it to Jan, it occurred to him the letter had not
been properly folded and he must do it over. That done, he sat very
silent. Jan tried to start a conversation, but failed. Finally the
boy rose to go.

"It's so nice to get a little help sometimes," said Jan. "Now I
have another favour to ask of you. We don't know just what to do
with Glory Goldie's kitten. It will have to be put out of the way,
I suppose, as we can't afford to keep it; but I can't bear the
thought of that, nor has Katrina the heart to drown it. We've
talked of asking some stranger to take it."

August Daer Nol stammered a few words, which could scarcely be
heard.

"You can put the kitten in a basket, Katrina," Jan said to his
wife, "then August will take it along, so that we'll not have to
see it again."

Katrina then picked up a little kitten that lay asleep on the bed,
placed it in an old basket around which she wrapped a cloth, and
then turned it over to the boy.

"I'm glad to be rid of this kitten," said Jan. "It's wee happy and
Playful--too much like Glory Goldie herself. It's best to have it
out of the way."

Young Daer Nol, without a word, went toward the door; but suddenly
he turned back, took Jan's hand, and pressed it.

"Thanks!" he said in a choked voice. "You have given me more than
you yourself know."

"Don't imagine it, my dear August Daer Nol!" Jan said to himself
when the boy had gone. "This is something I understand about. I
know what I've given you, and I know who has taught me to know."


OCTOBER THE FIRST

The first day of October Jan lay on the bed the whole afternoon,
fully dressed, his face turned to the wall, and nobody could get a
word out of him.

In the forenoon he and Katrina had been down to the pier to meet
the little girl. Not that Glory Goldie had written them to say she
was coming, for indeed she had not! It was only that Jan had
figured out that it could not be otherwise. This was the first of
October, the day the money must be paid to Lars Gunnarson, so of
course Glory Goldie would come. He had not expected her home
earlier. He knew she would have to remain in Stockholm as long as
she could in order to lay by all that money; but that she should be
away any longer he never supposed. Even if she had not succeeded in
scraping together the money, that was no reason why she should be
away after the first of October.

That morning while Jan had stood on the pier waiting, he had said
to himself: "When the little girl sees us from the boat she'll put
on a sad face, and the moment she lands she'll tell us she has not
been able to raise the money. When she says that Katrina and I will
pretend to take her at her word and I'll say that can't understand
how she dared come home when she knew that all Katrina and I cared
about was the money." He was sure that before they were away from
the pier she would go down in her pocket, bring up a well-filled
purse, and turn it over to them. Then, while Katrina counted the
bank notes, he would only stand and look at Glory Goldie. The
little girl would then see that all in the world he cared about was
to have her back, and she would tell him he was just as big a
simpleton now as when she went away.

Thus had Jan pictured to himself Glory Goldie's homecoming. But his
dream did not come true.

That day he and Katrina did not have a long wait at the pier. The
boat arrived on time, but it was so overladen with passengers and
freight bound for the Broby Fair that at first glance they were
unable to tell whether or not the little girl was on board. Jan had
expected that she would be the first to come tripping down the
gangplank; but only a couple of men came ashore. Then Jan attempted
to look for her on the boat; but he could get nowhere for the
crush. All the same he felt so positive she was there that when the
deck hands began to draw in the gangplank he shouted to the captain
not to let the boat leave as there was another person to come
ashore here. The captain questioned the purser, who assured him
there were no more passengers for Svartsjoe.

Then the boat pulled out and Katrina and Jan had to go home by
themselves, and the moment they were inside the hut Jan cast
himself down on the bed--so weary and disheartened that he did not
know how he would ever be able to get up again.

The Ashdales folk who had seen the father and mother return from
the pier without Glory Goldie were greatly concerned. One after the
other, the neighbours dropped in at Ruffluck to find out how matters
stood with them.

Was it true that Glory Goldie had not come on the boat? They
inquired. And was it true that they had received no letter or
message from her during the whole month of September?

Jan answered not a word to all their queries. It mattered not who
came in--he lay still. Katrina had to enlighten the neighbours as
best she could. They thought Jan lay on the bed because he was in
despair of losing the hut. They could think what they liked for all
of him.

Katrina wept and wailed, and once inside the friends felt they must
remain, if only out of pity for her, and to give what little
comfort they could.

It was not likely that Lars Gunnarson would take the house from
them, they said. The old mistress of Falla would never let that
happen. She had always shown herself to be a just and upright
person. Besides, the day was not over yet, and Glory Goldie might
still be heard from. To be sure it would be nothing short of
marvellous if she had succeeded in earning 200 rix-dollars in less
than three months' time: but then, that girl always had such good
luck.

They discussed the chances for and against. Katrina informed them
that Glory Goldie had earned nothing whatever the first weeks, that
she had taken lodgings with a family from Svartsjoe, now living in
Stockholm, where she had been obliged to pay for her keep. And then
one day she had had the good fortune to meet in the street the
merchant who had given her the red dress, and he had found a place
for her.

Would it not be reasonable to suppose that the merchant had also
raised the money for her? That was not altogether impossible.

"No, it was not impossible," said Katrina, "but since the girl has
neither come herself nor written it's plain she has failed."

Every one in the hut grew more anxious and apprehensive for every
moment that passed. They all felt that some dire misfortune would
soon fall upon those who lived there. When the tension was becoming
unbearable the door opened once more and a man who was seldom seen
in the Ashdales came in.

The instant this man entered it became as still in the hut as on a
winter night in the forest, and every one's eyes save Jan's alone
turned toward him. Jan did not stir, although Katrina whispered to
him that Senator Carl Carlson of Storvik had just come in.

The senator held in his hand a roll of papers and every one took
for granted that he had been sent here by the new owner of Falla,
to notify the Ruffluck folk of what must befall them, now that they
could not meet Lars Gunnarson's claim.

Carl Carlson wore his usual magisterial mien and no one could guess
how heavily the blow he had come to deal would fall. He went up and
shook hands, first with Katrina, then with the others, and each one
in turn rose as he came to them; the only one who did not rise was
Jan.

"I am not very well acquainted in this district," said the senator,
"but I gather that this must be the place in the Ashdales that is
called Ruffluck Croft."

It was of course. Every one nodded in the affirmative, but no one
was able to utter an audible word. They wondered that Katrina had
the presence of mind to nudge Boerje, and make him get up and give
his chair to the senator.

After drawing the chair up to the table the senator laid the roll
of papers down, then he took out his snuff box and placed it beside
the papers, whereupon he removed his spectacles from their case and
wiped them with his big blue-and-white checkered handkerchief.
After these preliminaries he glanced round the room, looking from
one person to the other. Those who sat there were persons of such
little importance he did not even know them by name.

"I wish to speak with Jan Anderson of Ruffluck," he said.

"That's him over there," volunteered the seine-maker, pointing at
the bed.

"Is he sick?" inquired the senator.

"Oh, no! Oh, no!" replied half a dozen at the same time.

"And he isn't drunk, either," added Boerje.

"Nor is he asleep," said the seine-maker.

"He has walked so far to-day he's all tired out," said Katrina,
thinking it best to explain the matter in that way. At the same
time she bent down over her husband and tried to persuade him to
rise.

But Jan lay still.

"Does he understand what I'm saying?" asked the senator.

"Yes indeed," they all assured him.

"Perhaps he's not expecting any glad tidings, seeing it's Senator
Carl Carlson who is paying him a call." This from the seine-maker.

The senator turned his head and stared at the seine-maker. "Ol'
Bengtsa of Lusterby has not always been so afraid of meeting Carl
Carlson of Storvik," he observed in a mild voice. Turning toward
the table again, he took up a letter.

Every one was dumbfounded. The senator had actually spoken in a
friendly tone. He could almost be said to have smiled.

"The fact is," he began, "a couple of days ago I received a
communication from a person who calls herself Glory Goldie
Sunnycastle, daughter of Jan of Ruffluck, in which she says she
left home some months ago to try to earn two-hundred rix-dollars,
which sum her parents have to pay to Lars Gunnarson of Falla on the
first day of October in order to obtain full rights of ownership to
the land on which their hut stands."

Here the senator paused a moment so that his hearers would be able
to follow him.

"And now she sends the money to me," he continued, "with the
request that I come down to the Ashdales and see that this matter
is properly settled with the new owner of Falla; so that he won't
be able to play any new trick later on."

"That girl has got some sense in her head," the senator remarked as
he folded the letter. "She turns to me from the start. If all did
as she has done there would be less cheating and injustice in this
parish."

Before the close of that remark Jan was sitting on the edge of the
bed. "But the girl? Where is she?" he asked.

"And now I'd like to know," the senator proceeded, taking no notice
of Jan's question, "whether the parents are in accord with the
daughter and authorize me to close--"

"But the girl, the girl?" Jan struck in. "Where is she?"

"Where she is?" said the senator, looking in the letter to see.
"She says it was impossible for her to earn all this money in just
two or three months, but she has found a place with a kind lady,
who advanced her the money, and now she will have to stay with the
lady until she has made it good."

"Then she's not coming home?" Jan asked.

"No, not for the present, as I understand it," replied the senator.

Again Jan lay down on the bed and turned his face to the wall.

What did he care for the hut and all that? What was the good of his
going on living, when his little girl was not coming back?


THE DREAM BEGINS

The first few weeks after the senator's call Jan was unable to do a
stroke of work: he just lay abed and grieved. Every morning he rose
and put on his clothes, intending to go to his work; but before he
was outside the door he felt so weak and weary that all he could do
was to go back to bed.

Katrina tried to be patient with Jan, for she understood that
pining, like any other sickness, had to run its course. Yet she
could not help wondering how long it would be before Jan's intense
yearning for Glory Goldie subsided. "Perhaps he'll be lying round
like this till Christmas!" she thought. "Or possibly the whole
winter?"

And this might have been the case, too, had not the old seine-maker
dropped in at Ruffluck one evening and been asked to stay for
coffee.

The seine-maker, like most persons whose thoughts are far away and
who do not keep in touch with what happens immediately about them,
was always taciturn. But when his coffee had been poured and he had
emptied it into his saucer, to let it cool, it struck him that he
ought to say something.

"To-day there's bound to be a letter from Glory Goldie," he said.
"I feel it in my bones."

"We had greetings from her only a fortnight ago in her letter to
the senator," Katrina reminded him.

The seine-maker blew into his saucer a couple of times before
saying anything more. Whereupon he again found it expedient to
bridge a long silence with a word or so.

"Maybe some blessing has come to the girl, and it has given her
something to write about."

"What kind of blessing might that be?" scouted Katrina. "When
you've got to drudge as a servant, one day is as humdrum as
another."

The seine-maker bit off a corner of a sugar-lump and gulped his
coffee. When he had finished an appalling stillness fell upon the
room.

"It might be that Glory Goldie met some person in the street," he
blurted out, his half-dead eyes vacantly staring at space. He
seemed not to know what he was saying.

Katrina did not think it necessary to respond; so replenished his
cup without speaking.

"Maybe the person she met was an old lady who had difficulty in
walking," the seine-maker went on in the same offhand manner, "and
maybe she stumbled and fell when Glory Goldie came along."

"Would that be anything to write about?" asked Katrina, weary of
this senseless talk.

"But suppose Glory Goldie stopped and helped the old lady up?"
pursued the seine-maker, "and she was so thankful to the girl for
helping her that she opened her purse and gave her all of ten
rix-dollars--wouldn't that be worth telling?"

"Why certainly," said Katrina, "if it were true. But this is just
something you're making up."

"It is well, sometimes, to be able to indulge in little thought
feasts," contended the seine-maker, "they are often more satisfying
than the real ones."

"You've tried both kinds," returned Katrina, "so you ought to know."

The seine-maker went his way directly, and Katrina gave no further
thought to his story.

As for Jan, he took it at first as idle chatter. But lying abed,
with nothing to take up his mind, presently he began to wonder if
there was not some hidden meaning back of the seine-maker's words.
The old man's tone sounded a bit peculiar when he spoke of the
letter. Would he have sat there and made up such a long story only
for talk's sake? Perhaps he had heard something. Perhaps Glory
Goldie had written to him? It was quite possible that something so
great had come to the little girl that she dared not send direct
word to her parents, and wrote instead to the seine-maker, asking
him to prepare them.

"He'll come again to-morrow," thought Jan, "and then we'll hear all
about it."

But for some reason the seine-maker did not come back the next day,
nor the day after. By the third day Jan had become so impatient to
see his old friend that he got up and went over to his cabin, to
find out whether there was anything in what he had said.

The old man was sitting alone mending a drag-net when Jan came in.
He was so crippled from rheumatism, he said, he had been unable to
leave the house for several days.

Jan did not want to ask him outright if he had received a letter
from Glory Goldie. He thought he would attain his object more
easily by approaching it in the indirect way the other had taken.
So he said:

"I've been thinking of what you told us about Glory Goldie the last
time you were at our place."

The seine-maker looked up from his work, puzzled. It was some
little time before he comprehended what Jan alluded to. "Why, that
was just a little whimsey of mine," he returned presently.

Then Jan went very close to the old man. "Anyhow it was something
pleasant to listen to," he said. "You might have told us more,
perhaps, if Katrina hadn't been so mistrustful?"

"Oh, yes," replied the seine-maker. "This is the sort of amusement
one can afford to indulge in down here, in the Ashdales."

"I have thought," continued Jan, emboldened by the encouragement,
"that maybe the story didn't end with the old lady giving Glory
Goldie the ten rix-dollars. Perhaps she also invited the girl to
come to see her?"

"Maybe she did," said the seine-maker.

"Maybe she's so rich that she owns a whole stone house?"

"That was a happy thought, friend Jan!"

"And maybe the rich old lady will pay Glory Goldie's debt?" Jan
began, but stopped short, because the old man's daughter-in-law had
just come in, and of course he did not care to let her into the
secret.

"So you're out to-day, Jan," observed the daughter-in-law. "I'm
glad you're feeling better."

"For that I have to thank my good friend Ol' Bengtsa!" said Jan,
with an air of mystery. "He's the one who has cured me."

Jan said good-bye, and left at once. For a long while the seine-maker
sat gazing out after him.

"I don't know what he can have meant by saying that I have cured
him," the old man remarked to his daughter-in-law. "It can't be
that he's--? No, no!"


HEIRLOOMS

One evening, toward the close of autumn, Jan was on his way home
from Falla, where he had been threshing all day. After his talk
with the seine-maker his desire for work had come back to him. He
felt now that he must do what he could to keep up so that the
little girl on her return would not be subjected to the humiliation
of finding her parents reduced to the condition of paupers.

When Jan was far enough away from the house not to be seen from the
windows he noticed a woman in the road coming toward him. Dusk had
already fallen, but he soon saw it was the mistress herself--not
the new one, but the old and rightful mistress of Falla. She had on
a big shawl that came down to the hem of her skirt. Jan had never
seen her so wrapped up, and wondered if she was ill. She had looked
poorly of late. In the spring, when her husband died, she had not a
gray hair on her head, and now, half a year afterward, she had not
a dark hair left.

The old mistress stopped and greeted Jan, after which the two stood
and talked. She said nothing that would indicate that she had come
out expressly to see him, but he felt it to be so. It flashed into
his head that she wanted to speak with him about Glory Goldie, and
he was rather miffed when she began to talk about something quite
different.

"I wonder, Jan, if you remember the old owner of Falla, my father,
who was master there before Eric came?"

"Why shouldn't I remember him, when I was all of twelve at the time
of his death?"

"He had a good son-in-law," said the old mistress.

"He had that," agreed Jan.

The old mistress was silent a moment, and sighed once or twice
before she continued: "I want to ask your advice about something,
Jan. You are not the sort that would go about tittle-tattling what
I say."

"No, I can hold my tongue."

"Yes, I've noticed that this year."

New hopes arose in Jan. It would not be surprising, thought he, if
Glory Goldie had turned to the old mistress of Falla and asked her
to tell him and Katrina of the great thing that had come to her.
For the old seine-maker had been taken down with rheumatic fever
shortly after their interrupted conversation, and for weeks he had
been too ill to see him. Now he was up and about again, but very
feeble. The worst of it was that after his illness his memory
seemed to be gone. He had waited for him to say something more
about Glory Goldie's letter, but as he had failed to do so, and
could not even take a hint, he had asked him straight out. And the
old man had declared he had not received any letter. To convince
Jan he had pulled out the table drawer and thrown back the lid of
his clothes-chest, to let him see for himself that there was no
such letter.

Of course he had forgotten what he did with it, Jan concluded. So,
no wonder the little girl had turned to the mistress of Falla. Pity
she hadn't done it in the first place! Now that the old mistress
was hesitating so long he felt certain in his own mind that he was
right. But when she again returned to the subject of her father, he
was so surprised he could hardly follow her. She said:

"When father was nearing the end he summoned Eric of Falla to his
bedside and thanked him for his loving care of a helpless old man
in his declining years. 'Don't think about that, Father,' said
Eric. 'We're glad to have you with us just as long as you care to
stay.' That's what Eric said. And he meant it, too!"

"He did that," confirmed Jan. "There were no fox-tricks about him!"

"Wait, Jan!" said the mistress, "we'll just speak of the old people
for the present. Do you remember the long silver-mounted stick
father used to carry?"

"Yes; both the stick and the high leather cap he always wore when
he went to church."

"So you remember the cap, too? Do you know what father did at the
last? He told me to fetch him his stick and cap, and then he gave
them to Eric. 'I could have given you something that was worth more
money,' he told Eric, 'but I am giving you these instead, for I
know you would rather have something I have used.'"

"That was an honour well earned." When Jan said that he noticed
that the old mistress drew her shawl closer together. He was sure
now she was hiding something under it--maybe a present from Glory
Goldie! "She'll get round to that in time," he thought. "All this
talk about her father is only a makeshift."

"I have often spoken of this to my children," the old mistress went
on, "and also to Lars Gunnarson. Last spring, when Eric lay sick, I
think both Lars and Anna expected that Lars would be called to the
bedside, as Eric had once been called. I had brought him in the
stick and cap so they'd be handy in case Eric wished to give them
to Lars; but he had no such thought."

The old mistress's voice shook as she said that, and when she spoke
again her tone sounded anxious and uncertain.

"Once, when we were alone, I asked Eric what his wishes were, and
he said if I wanted to I could give the things to Lars when he was
gone as he had not the strength to make speeches."

Whereupon the mistress of Falla threw back her big shawl, and then
Jan saw that she held under it a long, silver-mounted ebony stick
and a stiff, high-crowned leather cap.

"Some words are too heavy for utterance," she said with great
gravity. "Answer me with just a nod, Jan, if you will. Can I give
these to Lars Gunnarson?"

Jan drew back a step. This was a matter he had entirely dismissed
from his mind. It seemed such a long time since Eric of Falla died
he hardly remembered how it happened.

"You understand, Jan, that all I want to know is whether Lars can
accept the stick and cap with the same right as Eric. You must
know, as you were with him that time in the forest. It would be
well for me," she added, as Jan did not speak, "if I could give
them to Lars. I believe there would be less friction afterward
between the young folks and me."

Her voice failed her again, and Jan began to perceive why she had
aged so much the past few months; but now his mind was so taken up
with other things that he no longer cherished the old resentment
against his new employer.

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