Kristin Lavransdatter (154 page)

Laughing, Gaute invited Lavrans to light the way up to the loft for his bride. The boy was both embarrassed and proud. Kristin saw that Lavrans understood his brother’s unlawful wedding was a dangerous game, but he was high-spirited and giddy from these strange events; with sparkling eyes he gazed at Gaute and his beautiful betrothed.

On the stairs up to the loft the candle went out. Jofrid said to Kristin, “Gaute should not have asked you to do this, even though he was drunk. Don’t come any farther with me, mistress. Have no fear that I might forget I’m a fallen woman, cut off from the counsel of my kin.”

“I’m not too good to serve you,” said Kristin, “not until my son has atoned for his sin against you and you can rightly call me mother-in-law. Sit down and I’ll comb your hair. Your hair is beautiful beyond compare, child.”

But after the servants were asleep and Kristin was lying in bed, she once again felt a certain uneasiness. Without thinking, she had told this Jofrid more than she meant to . . . yet. But she was so young, and she showed so clearly that she didn’t expect to be regarded as any better than what she was: a child who had fled from honor and obedience.

So that’s the way it looked . . . when people let the bridal procession and homeward journey come before the wedding. Kristin sighed. Once she too had been willing to risk the same for Erlend, but she didn’t know whether she would have dared if his mother had been living at Husaby. No, no, she wouldn’t make things any worse for the child upstairs.

Sir Sigurd was still staggering around the room; he was to sleep with Lavrans. In a mawkish way, but with sincere intentions, he talked about the two young people; he would spare nothing to help them find a good outcome to this reckless venture.

 

The next day Jofrid showed Gaute’s mother what she had brought along to the manor: two leather sacks with clothes and a little chest made of walrus tusk in which she kept her jewelry. As if she had read Kristin’s thoughts, Jofrid said that these possessions belonged to her; they had been given to her for her own use, as gifts and inherited items, mostly from her mother. She had taken nothing from her father.

Full of sorrow, Kristin sat leaning her cheek on her hand. On that night, an eternity ago, when she had collected her gold in a chest to steal away from home . . . Most of what
she
had put inside were gifts from the parents she had secretly shamed and whom she was openly going to offend and distress.

But if these were Jofrid’s own possessions and if her mother’s inheritance was only jewelry, then she must come from an exceedingly wealthy home. Kristin estimated that the goods she saw before her were worth more than thirty marks in silver. The scarlet gown alone, with its white fur and silver clasps and the silk-lined hood that went with it, must have cost ten or twelve marks. It was all well and good if the maiden’s father would agree to reconcile with Gaute, but her son could never be considered an equal match for this woman. And if Helge brought such harsh charges against Gaute, as he had the right and ability to do, things looked quite bleak indeed.

“My mother always wore this ring,” said Jofrid. “If you will accept it, mistress, then I’ll know that you don’t judge me as sternly as a good and highborn woman might be expected to do.”

“Oh, but then I might be tempted to take the place of your mother,” said Kristin with a smile, putting the ring on her finger. It was a little silver ring set with a lovely white agate, and Kristin thought the child must consider it especially precious because it reminded her of her mother. “I expect I must give you a gift in return.” She brought over her chest and took out the gold ring with sapphires. “Gaute’s father put this ring in my bed after I brought his son into the world.”

Jofrid accepted the ring by kissing Kristin’s hand. “Otherwise I had thought of asking you for another gift . . . Mother. . . .” She smiled so charmingly. “Don’t be afraid that Gaute has brought home a lazy or incapable woman. But I own no proper work dress. Give me an old gown of yours and allow me to lend you a hand; perhaps then you will soon grow to like me better than it is reasonable for me to expect right now.”

And then Kristin had to show the young maiden everything she had in her chests, and Jofrid praised all of Kristin’s lovely handiwork with such rapt attention that the older woman ended up giving her one thing after another: two linen sheets with silk-knotted embroidery, a blue-trimmed towel, a coverlet woven in four panels, and finally the long tapestry with the falcon hunt woven into it. “I don’t want these things to leave this manor, but with the help of God and the Virgin Mary, this house will someday be yours.” Then they both went over to the storehouses and stayed there for many hours, enjoying each other’s company.

Kristin wanted to give Jofrid her green homespun gown with the black tufts woven into the fabric, but Jofrid thought it much too fine for a work dress. Poor thing, she was just trying to flatter her husband’s mother, thought Kristin, hiding a smile. At last they found an old brown dress Jofrid thought would be suitable if she cut it shorter and sewed patches under the arms and on the elbows. She asked to borrow a scissors and sewing things at once, and then she sat down to sew. Kristin took up some mending as well, and the two women were still sitting there together when Gaute and Sir Sigurd came in for the evening meal.

KRISTIN HAD TO admit with all her heart that Jofrid was a woman who knew how to use her hands.
If
things went well, then Gaute was certainly fortunate; he would have a wife who was as hardworking and diligent as she was rich and beautiful. Kristin herself could not have found a more capable woman to succeed her at Jørundgaard, not if she had searched through all of Norway. One day she said—and afterward she wasn’t sure what had happened to make the words spill from her lips—that on the day Jofrid Helgesdatter became Gaute’s lawful wife, she would give her keys to the young woman and move out to the old house with Lavrans.

Afterward she thought she should have considered these words more carefully before she uttered them. There were already many instances when she had spoken of something too soon when she was talking with Jofrid.

But there was the fact that Jofrid was not well. Kristin had noticed it almost at once after the young girl arrived. And Kristin remembered the first winter she had spent at Husaby;
she
at least had been married, and her husband and father were bound by kinship, no matter what might happen to their friendship after the sin came to light. All the same, she had suffered so terribly from remorse and shame, and her heart had felt bitter toward Erlend. But she was already nineteen winters old back then, while Jofrid was barely seventeen. And here she was now, abducted and without rights, far from her home and among strangers, carrying Gaute’s child under her heart. Kristin could not deny that Jofrid seemed to be stronger and braver than she herself had been.

But Jofrid hadn’t breached the sanctity of the convent; she hadn’t broken promises and betrothal vows; she hadn’t betrayed her parents or lied to them or stolen their honor behind their backs. Even though these two young people had dared sin against the laws, constraints, and moral customs of the land, they needn’t have
such
an anguished conscience. Kristin prayed fervently for a good outcome to Gaute’s foolhardy deed, and she consoled herself that God, in His fairness, couldn’t possibly deal Gaute and Jofrid any harsher circumstances than she and Erlend had been given. And
they
had been married; their child of sin had been born to share in a lawful inheritance from all his kinsmen.

Since neither Gaute nor Jofrid spoke of the matter, Kristin didn’t want to mention it either, although she longed to have a talk with the inexperienced young woman. Jofrid should spare herself and enjoy her morning rest instead of getting up before everyone else on the manor. Kristin saw that it was Jofrid’s desire to rise before her mother-in-law and to accomplish more than she did. But Jofrid was not the kind of person Kristin could offer either help or solicitude. The only thing she could do was silently take the heaviest work away from her and treat her as if she were the rightful young mistress on the estate, both when they were alone and in front of the servants.

Frida was furious at having to relinquish her place next to her mistress and give it to Gaute’s . . . She used an odious word to describe Jofrid one day when she and Kristin were together in the cookhouse. For once Kristin struck her maid.

“How splendid to hear such words from you, an old nag lusting after men as you do!”

Frida wiped the blood from her nose and mouth.

“Aren’t you supposed to be better than a poor man’s offspring, daughters of great chieftains such as yourself and this Jofrid? You know with certainty that a bridal bed with silken sheets awaits you. You’re the ones who must be shameless and lusting after men if you can’t wait but have to run off into the woods with young lads and end up with wayside bastards—for shame, I say to you!”

“Hold your tongue now. Go out and wash yourself. You’re standing there bleeding into the dough,” said her mistress quite calmly.

Frida met Jofrid in the doorway. Kristin saw from the young woman’s face that she must have heard the conversation with the maid.

“The poor thing’s chatter is as foolish as she is. I can’t send her away; she has no place to go.” Jofrid smiled scornfully. Then Kristin said, “She was the foster mother for two of my sons.”

“But she wasn’t Gaute’s foster mother,” replied Jofrid. “She reminds us both of that fact as often as she can. Can’t you marry her off?” she asked sharply.

Kristin had to laugh. “Don’t you think I’ve tried? But all it took was for the man to have a few words with his future bride. . . .”

Kristin thought she should seize the opportunity to talk with Jofrid, to let her know that here she would meet with only maternal goodwill. But Jofrid looked angry and defiant.

In the meantime it was now clearly evident that Jofrid was not walking alone. One day she was going to clean some feathers for new mattresses. Kristin advised her to tie back her hair so it wouldn’t be covered with down. Jofrid bound a linen cloth around her head.

“No doubt this is now more fitting than going bareheaded,” she said with a little laugh.

“That may well be,” said Kristin curtly.

And yet she wasn’t pleased that Jofrid should jest about such a thing.

A few days later Kristin came out of the cookhouse and saw Jofrid cutting open several black grouse; there was blood spattered all over her arms. Horror-stricken, Kristin pushed her aside.

“Child, you mustn’t do this bloody work
now.
Don’t you know better than that?”

“Oh, surely you don’t believe everything women say is true,” said Jofrid skeptically.

Then Kristin told her about the marks of fire that Naakkve had received on his chest. She purposely spoke of it in such a way that Jofrid would understand she was not yet married when she looked at the burning church.

“I suppose you hadn’t thought such a thing of me,” she said quietly.

“Oh yes, Gaute has already told me: Your father had promised you to Simon Andressøn, but you ran off with Erlend Nikulaussøn to his aunt, and then Lavrans had to give his consent.”

“It wasn’t exactly like that; we didn’t run off. Simon released me as soon as he realized that I was more fond of Erlend than of him, and then my father gave his consent—unwillingly, but he placed my hand in Erlend’s. I was betrothed for a year. Does that seem worse to you?” asked Kristin, for Jofrid had turned bright red and gave her a look of horror.

The girl used her knife to scrape off the blood from her white arms.

“Yes,” she said in a low but firm voice. “I would not have squandered my good reputation and honor needlessly. But I won’t say anything of this to Gaute,” she said quickly. “He thinks his father carried you off by force because he could not win you with entreaty.”

 

No doubt what she said was true, thought Kristin.

As time passed and Kristin continued to ponder the matter, it seemed to her that the most honorable thing to do was for Gaute to send word to Helge of Hovland, to place his case in his hands and ask to be given Jofrid as his wife on such terms as her father decided to grant them. But whenever she spoke of this to Gaute, he would look dismayed and refuse to answer. Finally he asked his mother crossly whether she could get a letter over the mountains in the wintertime. No, she told him, but Sira Dag could surely send a letter to Nes and then onward along the coast; the priests always managed to get their letters through, even during the winter. Gaute said it would be too costly.

“Then it will not be with your wife that you have a child this spring,” said his mother indignantly.

“Even so, the matter cannot be arranged so quickly,” said Gaute. Kristin could see that he was quite angry.

A terrible, dark fear seized hold of her as time went on. She couldn’t help noticing that Gaute’s first ardent joy over Jofrid had vanished completely; he went about looking sullen and ill tempered. From the very start this matter of Gaute abducting his bride had seemed as bad as it could be, but his mother thought it would be much worse if afterward the man turned cowardly. If the two young people regretted their sin, that was all well and good, but she had an ugly suspicion that there was more of an unmanly fear in Gaute toward the man he had offended than any god-fearing remorse. Gaute—all her days she had thought the most highly of this son of hers; it couldn’t be true what people said: that he was unreliable and dealt carelessly with women, that he was already tired of Jofrid, now that his bride had faded and grown heavy and the day was approaching when he would have to answer for his actions to her kinsmen.

She sought excuses for her son. If Jofrid had allowed herself to be seduced so easily . . . she who had never witnessed anything during her upbringing other than the seemly behavior of pious people . . . Kristin’s sons had known from childhood that their own mother had sinned, that their father had conceived children with another man’s wife during his youth, and that he had sinned with a married woman when they were nearly grown boys. Ulf Haldorssøn, their foster father, and Frida’s frivolous chatter . . . Oh, it wasn’t so strange that these young men should be weak in that way. Gaute would have to marry Jofrid, if he could win the consent of her kinsmen, and be grateful for it. But it would be a shame for Jofrid if she should now see that Gaute married her reluctantly and without desire.