Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 400
“But, Magnus, you’ve been here three days, haven’t you? How have you been able to spare them?”
“I’ll make up for them when I get home, Thora.”
“But Anna says you haven’t been to bed since you came, and now the Proclamation is near and you’ll be kept busy at the Inn with that.”
“I’m strong, Thora — fearfully strong,” said Magnus.
Thora lay back in her bed, and with a blush there was none to see said —
“Magnus, I think — I really think you would do anything in the world for me.”
A gruff laugh came back to her, half smothered as in a man’s beard, and then a choking voice said, “I believe I would, Thora.”
“And if I wanted you — or baby wanted you — I think you would follow us to the ends of the earth.”
“Only say ‘Come’ and I’ll come, Thora.”
There was a moment’s silence, and then a merry laugh came rippling out to him, and he felt hot to the roots of the hair.
“But of course that cannot happen, Magnus. We have Oscar, so we can never need you.”
“No, you can never need me, Thora.”
At that moment Anna and Aunt Margret came back, heated and nervous after the conference, and bundled Magnus out of the room. Then while baby was being bathed for bed, behind closed doors, to the customary chorus of screams, Anna combed out Thora’s hair for the night, and Thora talked of Magnus.
“People think him heavy and stupid, but he’ll startle them some day,” she said.
“Is it to be plaited as usual?” asked Anna.
“Just as usual. But how your hands tremble to-night, mother! That’s nursing, you know. Poor Magnus! He hasn’t a selfish thought in his heart. Any girl might love him, and perhaps if I had never known Oscar—”
“Dr. Olsen says you are to take a powder to-night, child. It will make you sleep until morning.”
“It’s you that should take the powder — you and Aunt Margret.”
“Ah, if I could take it for you I would, dear,” said Anna. “But here it is — take it quickly or I may.”
Thora drank from the glass Anna gave her and said, “There! It’s gone! Now bring me baby.”
Aunt Margret came with the child, hushing it to sleep, and put it gently down into the mother’s arms.
“The darling! She needs no sleeping draught. My precious, precious pet! But I declare — Aunt Margret’s hands are trembling too! I’ve worn you out, both of you.”
“Nonsense! Go to sleep. I’m going to put down the light,” said Aunt Margret, and she lowered the lamp and put it to stand on a table behind the bed-curtains.
“How good you are to me! Everybody is good to me,” came in a fainter voice from the shadow of the bed.
“That is because everybody loves you, Thora,” said Anna in a husky murmur. “You must always believe that, whatever happens.”
“How sweet it is to be loved! If I could only think that it would last—”
The baby became fretful, and Thora began to sing it to sleep.
“Sleep, baby, sleep,
Angels bright thy slumbers keep,
Sleep, baby, sleep.”
Her drowsy voice ran a line and stopped; then ran another line and stopped again, and then the faint voice said —
“How sweet it would be to fall asleep like this some day — baby and I — and awake in heaven!”
“Hush!”
“I should be sorry for Oscar, but still—”
The faint voice lisped, the soft breathing lengthened, the blue eyelids closed, the pale lips parted, the white arms slackened, and then the two children, mother and babe, lay together in the lap of sleep.
There was silence for some minutes, wherein the two older women who sat in the gloom like guilty things heard nothing but the ticking of a clock. Then Aunt Margret crept over to where Anna sat with her head covered by her black silk apron and whispered —
“Oscar is waiting at the door. If it has to be done at all let it be done now.”
Anna uncovered her face and saw Oscar on the threshold in his cloak and hat. She rose on trembling limbs and felt her way to the bedside. There she stood listening for a moment to Thora’s measured breathing. Then she drew the mother’s white arms apart and lifted the baby out of them.
Aunt Margret wrapped a shawl about the sleeping child and Oscar covered it with his cloak.
“The night is warm, she will take no harm,” he faltered. At the next moment he had gone and Aunt Margret had followed him. Then Anna tottered into the outer room and sank into a chair and covered her head again. “Oh God forgive me! God forgive me! God forgive me!” she said.
XI
THE sun was shining into the bedroom when Thora awoke, with a slight flush on her pale cheeks and a look of happiness in her eyes, and saw Anna rocking herself sadly by the bedside.
“Where is baby?” asked Thora.
“Presently, dear, presently,” said Anna.
“Where is she?”
“Lie quiet, Thora. You shall hear everything by-and-by.”
“But tell me where is my little Elin, Anna?”
“Promise me not to excite yourself, Thora, and I will tell you all about her.”
Thora raised herself on her elbow and said with quickcoming breath, “You don’t mean that you have taken her away?”
“There now, you are exciting yourself already, Thora.”
“Have you stolen my child away from me?” cried Thora.
“Oh dear! Oh dear! What things you are saying, Thora.”
Thora thought a moment and then she said, “I am sorry I said that, Anna. It was very, very wrong of me. I know you wouldn’t hurt me for worlds. But why don’t you tell me where my little girl is? She’s in the nursery, isn’t she? You took her away from me in the night, and now she’s asleep in her cot — isn’t that so? Or perhaps Aunt Margret has taken her down to the door? There! Isn’t that she? that child crying in the home-field? Or was it somebody else’s baby in the road? Speak, Anna! You are only teasing me, I know. But I’m so weak, so foolish, and my heart is beating like a drum.”
Anna continued to rock herself and to moan, “Oh dear! Oh dear!”
Thora watched her for a moment with eyes that filled with fear, and then called in a shrill voice, “Aunt Margret! Aunt Margret! Aunt Margret!”
“Aunt Margret has gone, Thora,” said Anna.
“Gone! And my baby — has she gone too?”
Anna only rocked herself and moaned, “Oh dear! Oh dear!”
Thora struggled to raise herself in bed, but her cheeks whitened and her eyes rolled, and with a loud scream she fell back fainting.
The maids came running into the bedroom and opened Thora’s clenched hands, while Anna bathed her forehead.
“What have I done? Oh, those doctors! Little they know of a mother’s feelings! It will kill her in any case. My poor child! My poor child! Come, then! come, then!”
Thora recovered consciousness after a moment, and looked about her with dazed eyes.
“Oscar!” she said, “I want to see Oscar.”
“And so you shall, dear,” said Anna, and she sent one of the maids across to the Factor’s to fetch him instantly. Oscar came upstairs four steps at a stride, and entered the room like a rush of wind.
“My poor Thora!” he said with panting breath, and he leaned over the bed to kiss her.
Thora’s eyes, which had been dry and hard, now melted and grew wet. “Oscar,” she said, “your mother has sent our little Elin away — stolen her from me in the night — and I am so weak and faint I cannot get up to follow her.”
“Ah no, dear, not mother,” said Oscar. “Lie quiet and I will explain.”
“Fetch her back to me, Oscar. I love my baby. I cannot live without her.”
“I know you love her, Thora, and I promise you that you shall have her back in due time.”
“No, no, dear, now.”
“Not just yet, Thora, but I give you my word for it that baby is safe. They are taking every care of her.”
“What right have they to take care of my baby?” cried Thora. “I must have her back. I will have her back.”
In Thora’s flashing eyes, which changed the character of her countenance, and in her voice, which was husky with rage and hatred, there was something of the fierce animal which has been robbed of its young. Oscar shuddered at sight of the convulsed and livid face, but he answered quietly —
“Thora, if you give way to feelings like those you will make yourself ill again, and then baby will never come back to you. If you will only listen, I will tell you everything. You were very bad before baby came, and doctor feared you might even do some harm to her. Therefore to save you from pain and shame I took her away from you for a little while — only for a little while — until you were better and more sure of yourself, Thora.”
Then a great silence fell on Thora’s bewailing, and she said in a husky whisper —
“So it was you, Oscar?”
“Well — yes, dear, it was I — but what I did was for your own good — yours and our little Elin’s. And if you will only wait, only be patient, your baby shall be brought back to you and we shall be happy.”
Thora’s wet eyes dried of themselves, but it was a glassy and smileless light that came into them.
“Where is my baby now?” she asked.
“Not far away. In fact only at your father’s. Aunt Margret wrapped her in a shawl and I took her across myself.”
“Then you gave my child to Helga?” said Thora.
“Well — yes, I gave her to Helga. But Aunt Margret is there now. And besides, I intend to go over myself off and on all day long, so you are not to worry or be anxious about anything — not about any single thing. You understand everything now, dear, do you not?”
“Yes, I understand everything now,” said Thora.
The glassy, smileless eyes continued to look up at him, but he mistook the light that shone in them.
“That’s a dear, good girl,” he said. “Everybody will be delighted to hear you are so reasonable and resigned, because everybody thought you would be inconsolable — everybody except Helga.”
“Helga?”
“Helga said you would be yourself within an hour, and she was right. Helga knew you better than any of us.”
“Yes, Helga knew me better than any of you,” said Thora.
Then he sat on the end of the bed and chatted gaily on many subjects, while Anna, crying for joy of the change in Thora’s spirits, called for her breakfast and coaxed her to swallow some of it. He talked of his work — of the work he was going to do when he began — which would be soon, very soon now. Then of his ambitions in parliament, and finally of the Proclamation. It was fixed for the day after to-morrow, every body was going to it and the town would be empty. As for himself, he had made up his mind to stay at home with Thora, but seeing that the celebration at Thingvellir had been his idea and that he had taken such a prominent part in it, people were saying that it would be a thousand pities if he could not be present “Then there’s the hymn, you know,” said Oscar. “I’ve been rehearsing the choir and they are very shaky, but if I thought the organist could hold them together I shouldn’t go in any case.”
“What does Helga say?” asked Thora.
“Helga? Oh, Helga? Helga says I must go,” replied Oscar.
“So do I,” said Thora.
“You do? Really? What a sweet, unselfish soul it is, to be sure,” said Oscar, and kissing Thora on the forehead he ran back to see Elin.
The glassy, smileless eyes on the pillow followed him out of the room, but their light was the light of despair.
XII
GOING out of Government House Oscar came upon Magnus, who was standing at the foot of the staircase, riding-whip in hand, and with Golden-Mane at the door of the porch. By the dark cloud on Magnus’s face Oscar could see that his brother was in a sullen and rebellious mood, and to avoid further hostilities he saluted him and tried to run on.
“Wait,” said Magnus.
“Another time,” said Oscar.
“Now,” said Magnus, and laying his big hand on Oscar’s arm he drew him back into the hall.
Oscar flushed up at the indignity and said sharply, “Well, what is it?”
“Oscar,” said Magnus, “I heard what passed in the bedroom.”
“Then you were listening!”
“I was.”
“You are not ashamed to say you were listening on the stairs — on your hands and knees perhaps — to my conversation with my wife?”
“I would have listened on my belly if need be,” said Magnus, and his face darkened more and more.
“May I ask why you listened?” said Oscar.
“Because I could not do otherwise.”
“How so?”
“I had given my word to be here when wanted.”
“To my wife?”
“Yes.”
“You will excuse my saying, Magnus, that it would be much better if you attended to your own business.”
“This is my own business. Oscar, you must give the child back to Thora.”
“Really, Magnus, you are taking a most unwarrantable liberty. If you were not my brother—”
“Shah! Give the mother her child.”
“Good Lord, man,” said Oscar, breathing hard as if he had been running, “do you really think that I am going to allow an outsider, even if he is my brother, to dictate to me what I shall do with my family difficulties, and to travel all the way from Thingvellir to conduct my domestic affairs? What right have you to mix yourself in my business — the business of my wife and me?”
The cloud that contracted Magnus’s face grew darker every moment, and he said —
“You ask me what right?”
“I do.”
“I loved Thora Neilsen.”
“You think it necessary to tell me that?” said Oscar. “To remind me that she threw you up for me?”
“That’s a lie, Oscar Stephensson.”
“Strong!” said Oscar, with a laugh, but he was trembling visibly.
“I gave her up when I could have kept her to her word. I decided in favour of the girl’s happiness against my own. I gave her up to you that you might make her happy. Those were the terms on which I gave her up to you, and what is the result? What is the result, I ask you? You have allowed another woman to take her place.”
“Another woman?” said Oscar. “Is that the way you talk of her own sister — of Helga?”
“Sister or not, she has tortured Thora by every art her selfish soul could think of,” said Magnus. “That’s what she has done, and you have helped her, and the treasure I valued more than my life you have flung away.” —
Oscar made a cry of protest, but Magnus bore him down with a torrent of words such as never came from his silent lips before.
“Do you think I don’t know what kind of life you led that poor unhappy child while you were away — you and the girl together? And now that her baby comes and her husband returns to her, as he must if he is a man, you let her sister’s scheming heart rob her of her only happiness.”
Again Oscar with his whitening lips did his best to laugh. “Magnus,” he said, “it is impossible to be angry with you. Apparently you do not know that it was with the consent of the family and by the advice of the doctor that the child was taken from its mother.”
“Bah! Do you think I don’t know who suggested it?... Do you think that I don’t see her object? Do you think I don’t hear her pitiful pleas — the same as if I had listened to them! The little innocent is in danger of its life! It must come to her — she must take charge of it. Why? To bring you back to her feet — to attach you to her at any cost. And you, like a fool, fall into her plans — because you want to — because you don’t know yourself or your wife or the woman that isn’t worthy to tie her shoes.”
Oscar winced under Magnus’s words, for they cut him to the bone.
“Oscar,” said Magnus again, “you will give the child back to the mother — it will be best, I promise you!”
“I have my own opinion of what is best,” said Oscar, bridling, “and if I think that for the time being mother and child are best apart—”
“Oscar Stephensson,” interrupted Magnus, “you will give the child back to the mother.”
“And if I refuse, by what right will you command me?” said Oscar.
“By the right I acquired when I gave Thora up to you,” replied Magnus.
“And by the right I acquired when she became my wife I will do with her child as I think proper,” said Oscar.
At that Magnus lost all control of himself.
“Is she a dog that you can take her whelps?” he cried.
“The law gives me the right to dispose of her offspring as I think proper,” said Oscar.
“Then damn the law,” cried Magnus. “And if you are deaf to my entreaties I — I will—”
“Go on,” said Oscar. “It will not be the first time that you have threatened to break the law.”
“You are breaking that poor girl’s heart, yet you talk to me about breaking the law. But I’ll do more than that. If you will not give the child to its mother I will take it by force and give it back to her myself. And if any man tries to prevent me, no matter who he is or what he is, by God! I’ll break his teeth down his throat.”
Flinging down his riding-whip, Magnus had taken a step forward and lifted his clenched fist into Oscar’s quivering face, when a cry came from the head of the staircase: “Magnus! Oscar! Magnus! Magnus!”
It was Anna. She ran down and put herself between the two men — the slight, lithe figure and fair head of Oscar, and the burly form and swarthy face of Magnus, both panting hard and livid with rage and hate.
“My sons! My sons! For shame! For shame!” she cried. “Every word could be heard in the bedroom, and Thora was crying her eyes out.”
Magnus dropped his arm and fell aside a pace or two, rebuked and ashamed, but Oscar stood with an unflinching front where his mother had found him.
