The Axe (34 page)

It had always been the way with her, that when she had been badly frightened, she felt giddy and had violent qualms afterwards. She had only to think of the day they drove over the rocks in the sledge, she and Olav. It was Yuletide, not long before they were grown up; they had taken it into their heads that they would go to mass in the parish church, and so they drove off in the dark winter morning, though none of the others at Frettastein would go to church that day—a strong south wind was blowing, with rain and mild weather. She remembered so clearly the long-drawn,
dizzying fear that seemed to descend on her whole body and dissolve it as she felt the sledge swerve and slide backwards over the smooth ice-bound rocks—it came across the horse’s quarters, as he struggled to keep his feet, striking sparks and splintering the ice, but was carried away and thrown down—Olav, who had jumped off to support the sledge, was flung headlong and fell on the frozen ground; and then she knew no more. But when she came to herself again, she was on her knees in the soft snowdrift, hanging over Olav’s arm and retching till she thought her whole inside would be turned out, and Olav with his free hand was pressing lumps of snow and ice to the back of her head, which she had struck against the rock. This time too it was only fear that ailed her.

On the eighth day of Yule she sat alone with her grandmother—the others had gone to a feast. She had laid plenty of fuel on the hearth, for her feet were so cold. The flickering gleam of the fire lent a semblance of life to the sleeping face of the old woman in the bed—dead-white and wrinkled as it was. By the pale light of winter days Ingunn had often thought it already as peaceful as the face of a corpse.

“Grandmother, do not die!” she wailed below her breath. Her grandmother and she had been companions so long that they had drifted into a backwater of their own, while the life of other folk ran past outside. And she had come to love her grandmother in the end, unspeakably, she thought—it was as though she herself had found support, her only support, in the old woman, as she led her faltering steps, dressed her, and fed her. And now it would soon be all over—if only she could have laid herself down beside the aged woman. Sometimes she had dared to hope that this would be the end—she would be permitted to die here in her dim corner screened by her grandmother’s protection—before anyone had guessed.

But now she would soon be dead. And then she would have to go out among the others. And she would be haunted by the terror that one day someone would see it in her.

But it was not certain, it was
not
certain even yet. It was only the fear of it that drove and forced the blood in her body: she had felt such violent shocks in her heart as almost to make her swoon. At times there was a sudden throbbing in the veins of her
throat, and her pulses seemed to race through her head behind the ears. And that feeling she had had yestereven—and in the night—and today again, time after time, deep in her right side—like a sudden blow or thrust—haply it was but the blood hammering in a vein.

For even if there had been anything, ’twas not possible it had quickened, the way she had starved and laced herself tight.

The week went by, and more than once Lady Magnhild said to Ingunn that she must spare herself somewhat—the unwonted hard work must be too much for her in the end. Ingunn made but little reply and continued to tend her grandmother; but the active fit seemed to have left her again. She had slipped back into herself, as it were.

She felt as though the soul within her had sunk to the bottom of a thick darkness, in which it fought a blind struggle with the sinister foreign being that she housed. Day and night it lay tossing and would have room for itself and burst her aching body. At times she felt she could bear no more—she was in such pain all over that she could scarcely see—for not even at night did she dare to relax the bandages that caused her such intolerable torment. But she could not give up—she must get it to stop, to move no more.

There was one memory that constantly floated before her at this time; once, when she and her sister were children, Tora’s cat had caught a bird which Olav had brought her that she might tame it. The cat had just kittened, and so she stole two of its young, ran down to the pond, and held them under water. She had expected them to die as soon as they went under. But it was incredible how long the little beasts kept on wriggling in her hands and struggling for their lives, while little air-bubbles came up all the time. At last she thought they were dead—but no, there was another jerk. Then she took them out, ran back with them, and laid them down by their mother. But by that time they were indeed lifeless.

She never thought of it as her child, this alien life which she felt growing in her and stirring ever stronger, in spite of all her efforts to strangle it. It was as though some deformed thing, wild and evil, had penetrated within her and sucked its fill of her blood and her marrow—a horror she must hide. What it would look like
when once it came out into the light, and what would happen to herself if anyone found out she had borne such a thing—of this she dared not even think.

At last, six weeks after Yule, Aasa Magnusdatter died, and her children, Ivar and Magnhild, made a great funeral feast for her.

The last seven days and nights of her grandmother’s life Ingunn had only slept in snatches, lying down in her clothes. And when the corpse was borne out, all she asked was to be allowed to rest. She crept into her bed; now she slept and now she lay staring before her, with no power to think of the future by which she was faced.

But when the feast came, she had to get up and busy herself among the guests. No one wondered at her looking like a ghost of herself in her dark-blue mourning gown, wrapped in her long, black veil. Her face was grey and yellow, her skin lay stretched and shiny over the bones, her eyes were wide and dark and tired—and the men and women, her kinsfolk, came up and said kind words of praise to her, almost all of them. Lady Magnhild had spoken of her faithfulness to the dead woman during all these years.

Both Master Torgard, the cantor, and the Sheriff of Reyne were among the funeral guests. And at once it flashed upon Ingunn—Teit! She had almost forgotten him. It was as though she could not make out the connection between him and her misfortune—even now, when she called him to mind, it was only as an acquaintance she had liked at one time, but then some ugly thing had befallen them, so that she scarce cared to think of him again.

But now the thought came to her: what had he said to his spokesmen when he withdrew his suit? If he had exposed her to them—ah, then she would indeed be lost. She must try to find out whether they knew aught. She felt like a worn-out, poor man’s jade that had toiled in harness under a grievous load till she was almost broken-winded, and now was to bear yet more.

“You have not brought your clerk with you?” she asked Gunnar of Reyne, as indifferently as she could.

“Is it that Teit you mean? Nay, he has run from me. So now, you ask for him? They tell me he had errands hither to Berg early and late—is it true that ’twas you he was after?”

Ingunn tried to laugh. “Not that I know. He said—he said he
would send suitors to ask for me—and that you were to be one of them. I counselled him against it, but—Can it be true?”

The Sheriff’s eyes twinkled. “Ay, he said something of the same to me. And he had the same counsel from me as from you!” Gunnar laughed till his stomach shook.

“What became of him, when he ran away from Reyne?” asked Ingunn, and she too laughed a little. “Do you know that, Gunnar?”

“We will ask the cantor—’twas to him he would go. Hey, Master Torgard, will you deign to come hither? Tell me, good sir—know you what became of him, that Icelander, my writer? Mistress Ingunn here asks after him—you must know he intended her such honour that he would sue for the hand of Ingunn Steinfinnsdatter.”

“Nay, say you so?” said the priest. “Ay, he had many strange devices, my good Teit. So then, you are left to mourn his absence, my child?”

“I can do naught else. For he was such a marvellous cunning man, I have heard, that you, master, would send him to the Archbishop himself, since there was none other in this land who could make use of such skill. This must be true, I ween, for he said it himself.”

“He-he, he-he. Ay, he could make up a tale. Half crazed he was, forsooth, though the boy could write better than most. Nay, he came in to see me awhile ago—but by my troth, I’ll not have him in my household again—though he is a good clerk, but a madcap. So ’twill profit you nothing to weep for him, my little Ingunn.—Nay, but is it true—was the boy so bold that he dared speak of seeking a wife at Berg? Nay, nay, nay—” the priest shook his little birdlike old head.

So she guessed it could not be altogether true, what he had said to her that last day they spoke together. But now she had added this to her other anxieties—had she done a madly foolish thing in letting these men see that she thought enough of Teit to care to ask after him?

When the guests departed after the funeral, Tora stayed behind with her two eldest children and old Ivar Toresson of Galtestad. One evening when they were sitting together—they had brought out the treasures they had inherited from Lady Aasa and were
looking at them—Tora said once more that her sister ought now to take up her abode with her.

Lady Magnhild said that Ingunn must do as she would: “If you would rather go to Frettastein, Ivar and I will not hinder you.”

“Rather will I stay here at Berg,” replied Ingunn in a low voice. “If you will still grant me lodging here, now that grandmother is gone?”

Tora renewed her demand: she herself had now five children and she had charged herself with the fostering of the motherless twins left by Haakon’s sister, so she needed Ingunn’s help.

Lady Magnhild saw a look of perfect misery in Ingunn’s thin and wasted face, and she held out her hand to her. “Come hither to me, Ingunn! Shelter and food and clothing you shall have with me, as long as I live—or till Olav comes and takes you home; for I believe full surely that he will come one day, if God be willing and he is alive.—Think you,” she said scornfully to Tora, “that Haakon will show his sister-in-law such honour at Frettastein as Steinfinn’s daughter has the right to look for? Haply she is to dwell in her father’s home and be nurse to his and Helga Gautsdatter’s offspring! That Ivar and I will not consent to.—I had thought I would give you this”—she took up the great gold ring that she had inherited from her mother—“as a memorial of the faithful care with which you tended our mother all these years.”

She took hold of Ingunn’s hand and was about to put the ring on it. “But what have you done with your betrothal ring—have you taken it off? Poor thing, I believe you have worked so hard that your hands are quite swollen,” she said.

Ingunn felt that Tora gave a little start. She dared not look at her sister—yet did so for an instant. Tora’s face was unmoved, but there was an uneasy flicker in her eyes. Ingunn herself could not feel the floor under her feet—she clung fast to one thought: “If I fall into a swoon now, they will know all.” But she seemed to be listening to another’s words as she thanked her aunt for the costly gift, and when she was back in her usual place, she did not know how she had come there.

Late in the evening she stood by the courtyard gate, calling and whistling for one of the dogs. Then Tora came across to her.

There was no moon, and the black sky sparkled with stars. The
two women drew their hooded cloaks tightly about them as they tramped in the loose snow and talked of the wolves, whose inroads had been very bold in the last few weeks—now and again Ingunn whistled and called in an anxious voice: “Tota—Tota—Tota!” It was so dark that they could not see each other’s faces; Tora asked in a low and strangely dejected tone: “Ingunn—you are not sick, are you—?”

“I cannot say I am well,” answered Ingunn, quite calmly and easily. “Thin and light as Aasa had grown at last, I can tell you it was a trying task to lift her and move her, day in, day out, for months. And there was little rest at night. But now it will soon be better with me—”

“You do not think it is anything else that ails you, sister?” asked Tora as before.

“Nay, I cannot think that.”

“Last summer you were so red and white—and as slender as when we were both young,” whispered Tora.

Ingunn managed to answer with a melancholy little laugh: “Some time I must begin to show, I wis, that I am on the way to thirty. Look at the great children you have, my Tora—do you remember that I am a year and a half older than you?”

In the darkness between the fences a black ball came rushing along—the dog jumped up at Ingunn, nearly sending her headlong into the snowdrifts, and licked her face. She caught it by the muzzle and forepaws, keeping it off as she laughed, and spoke to it fondly: “—And well was it the wolf did not get you tonight either, Tota, my Tota!”

The sisters wished each other good-night and separated.

But Ingunn lay sleepless in the dark, trying to bear this new anxiety—that Tora must have a suspicion. And the temptation came to her—what if she told Tora of her distress, begged her help? Or Aunt Magnhild—she thought of the lady’s marked kindness that evening and felt tempted to be weak and give herself up. Dalla—it had also flashed across her mind, when she thought she could no longer bear this secret torment alone—perhaps if she turned to Dalla—

In breathless suspense she kept her eyes on her sister during the days Tora stayed on at Berg. But she could notice nothing—neither by look nor by word did Tora betray any sign that she guessed
how it was with her elder sister. Then she went away, and Ingunn was left alone with her aunt and the old house-folk.

She counted the weeks—thirty were gone already; there were but ten left. She
must
hold out so long. Nine weeks—eight weeks—But as yet she had never clearly acknowledged to herself what the purpose was to which she clung, as she struggled on and suffered, as though stifled in a darkness full of formless terrors, with a dull pain over her whole body and a single thought in her head: that none must have any inkling of the misfortune that had befallen her.