Married Part 27

"And the kiddies?"

"Oh, yes! I daresay you'll miss them when you are away, for all your scolding when you are with them. No, no, I don't mean that you are unkind to them, but you do grumble a lot! All the same I won't be unjust, and I know that you love them."

At supper he was very tired and depressed. He didn't read the evening paper, he wanted to talk to his wife. But she was too busy to pay much attention to him; she had no time to waste; moreover, her ten years'

campaign in kitchen and nursery had taught her self-control.

He felt more sentimental than he cared to show, and the topsy-turvydom of the room made him fidgety. Sc.r.a.ps of his daily life lay scattered all over chairs and chests of drawers; his black portmanteau yawned wide-open like a coffin; his white linen was carefully laid on the top of his black suit, which showed slight traces of wear and tear at the knees and elbows. It seemed to him that he himself was lying there, wearing a white shirt with a starched front. Presently they would close the coffin and carry it away.

On the following morning--it was in August--he rose early and dressed hurriedly. His nerves were unstrung. He went into the nursery and kissed the children who stared at him with sleepy eyes. Then he kissed his wife, got into a cab, and told the driver to drive him to the station.

The journey, which he made in the company of his Board, did him good; it really was a good thing for him to get out of his groove; domesticity lay behind him like a stuffy bedroom, and on the arrival of the train at Linkoping he was in high spirits.

An excellent dinner had been ordered at the best hotel and the remainder of the day was spent in eating it. They drank the health of the Lord Lieutenant; no one thought of the prisoners on whose behalf the journey had been undertaken.

Dinner over, he had to face a lonely evening in his solitary room. A bed, two chairs, a table, a washing-stand and a wax candle, which threw its dim light on bare walls. He couldn't suppress a feeling of nervousness. He missed all his little comforts,--slippers, dressing-gown, pipe rack and writing table; all the little details which played an important part in his daily life. And the kiddies? And his wife? What were they doing? Were they all right? He became restless and depressed. When he wanted to wind up his watch, he found that he had left his watch-key at home. It was hanging on the watch-stand which his wife had given him before they were married. He went to bed and lit a cigar. Then he wanted a book out of his portmanteau and he had to get up again. Everything was packed so beautifully, it was a pity to disturb it. In looking for the book, he came across his slippers. She had forgotten nothing. Then he found the book. But he couldn't read. He lay in bed and thought of the past, of his wife, as she had been ten years ago. He saw her as she had been then; the picture of her, as she now was, disappeared in the blue-grey clouds of smoke which rose in rings and wreaths to the rain-stained ceiling. An infinite yearning came over him. Every harsh word he had ever spoken to her now grated on his ears; he thought remorsefully of every hour of anguish he had caused her. At last he fell asleep.

The following day brought much work and another banquet with a toast to the Prison-Governor--the prisoners were still unremembered. In the evening solitude, emptiness, coldness. He felt a pressing need to talk to her. He fetched some notepaper and sat down to write. But at the very outset he was confronted by a difficulty. How was he to address her? Whenever he had sent her a few lines to say that he would not be home for dinner, he had always called her "Dear Mother." But now he was not going to write to the mother, but to his fiancee, to his beloved one. At last he made up his mind and commenced his letter with "My Darling Lily," as he had done in the old days. At first he wrote slowly and with difficulty, for so many beautiful words and phrases seemed to have disappeared from the clumsy, dry language of every-day life; but as he warmed to his work, they awakened in his memory like forgotten melodies, valse tunes, fragments of poems, elder-blossoms, and swallows, sunsets on a mirror-like sea. All his memories of the springtime of life came dancing along in clouds of gossamer and enveloped her. He drew a cross at the bottom of the page, as lovers do, and by the side of it he wrote the words: "Kiss here."

When the letter was finished and he read it through, his cheeks burnt and he became self-conscious. He couldn't account for the reason.

But somehow he felt that he had shown his naked soul to a stranger.

In spite of this feeling he posted the letter.

A few days elapsed before he received a reply. While he was waiting for it, he was a prey to an almost childish bashfulness and embarra.s.sment.

At last the answer came. He had struck the right note, and from the din and clamour of the nursery, and the fumes and smell of the kitchen, a song arose, clear and beautiful, tender and pure, like first love.

Now an exchange of love-letters began. He wrote to her every night, and sometimes he sent her a postcard as well during the day. His colleagues didn't know what to think of him. He was so fastidious about his dress and personal appearance, that they suspected him of a love affair. And he was in love--in love again. He sent her his photograph, without the spectacles, and she sent him a lock of her hair.

Their language was simple like a child's, and he wrote on coloured paper ornamented with little doves. Why shouldn't they? They were a long way off forty yet, even though the struggle for an existence had made them feel that they were getting old. He had neglected her during the last twelvemonth, not so much from indifference as from respect--he always saw in her the mother of his children.

The tour of inspection was approaching its end. He was conscious of a certain feeling of apprehension when he thought of their meeting. He had corresponded with his sweetheart; should he find her in the mother and housewife? He dreaded a disappointment. He shrank at the thought of finding her with a kitchen towel in her hand, or the children clinging to her skirts. Their first meeting must be somewhere else, and they must meet alone. Should he ask her to join him at Waxholm, in the Stockholm Archipelago, at the hotel where they had spent so many happy hours during the period of their engagement? Splendid idea!

There they could, for two whole days, re-live in memory the first beautiful spring days of their lives, which had flown, never to return again.

He sat down and made the suggestion in an impa.s.sioned love-letter. She answered by return agreeing to his proposal, happy that the same idea had occurred to both of them.

Two days later he arrived at Waxholm and engaged rooms at the hotel.

It was a beautiful September day. He dined alone, in the great dining-room, drank a gla.s.s of wine and felt young again. Everything was so bright and beautiful. There was the blue sea outside; only the birch trees on the sh.o.r.e had changed their tints. In the garden the dahlias were still in full splendour, and the perfume of the mignonette rose from the borders of the flower beds. A few bees still visited the dying calyces but returned disappointed to their hives. The fishing boats sailed up the Sound before a faint breeze, and in tacking the sails fluttered and the sheets shook; the startled seagulls rose into the air screaming, and circled round the fishermen who were fishing from their boats for small herring.

He drank his coffee on the verandah, and began to look out for the steamer which was due at six o'clock.

Restlessly, apprehensively, he paced the verandah, anxiously watching fiord and Sound on the side where Stockholm lay, so as to sight the steamer as soon as she came into view.

At last a little cloud of smoke showed like a dark patch on the horizon.

His heart thumped against his ribs and he drank a liqueur. Then he went down to the sh.o.r.e.

Now he could see the funnel right in the centre of the Sound, and soon after he noticed the flag on the fore-topmast.... Was she really on the steamer, or had she been prevented from keeping the tryst? It was only necessary for one of the children to be ill, and she wouldn't be there, and he would have to spend a solitary night at the hotel. The children, who during the last few weeks had receded into the background, now stepped between her and him. They had hardly mentioned them in their last letters, just as if they had been anxious to be rid of all eyewitnesses and spoil-sports.

He stamped on the creaking landing-stage and then remained standing motionless near a bollard staring straight at the steamer which increased in size as she approached, followed in her wake by a river of molten gold that spread over the blue, faintly rippled expanse. Now he could distinguish people on the upper deck, a moving crowd, and sailors busy with the ropes, now a fluttering speck of white near the wheel-house. There was no one besides him on the landing-stage, the moving white speck could only be meant for him, and no one would wave to him but her. He pulled out his handkerchief and answered her greeting, and in doing so he noticed that his handkerchief was not a white one; he had been using coloured ones for years for the sake of economy.

The steamer whistled, signalled, the engines stopped, she came alongside, and now he recognised her. Their eyes met in greeting; the distance was still too great for words. Now he could see her being pushed slowly by the crowd across the little bridge. It was she, and yet it wasn't.

Ten years stretched between her and the picture of her which he had had in his mind. Fashion had changed, the cut of the clothes was different. Ten years ago her delicate face with its olive complexion was framed by the cap which was then worn, and which left the forehead free; now her forehead was hidden by a wicked imitation of a bowler hat. Ten years ago the beautiful lines of her figure were clearly definable under the artistic draperies of her cloak which playfully now hid, now emphasised the curve of her shoulders and the movement of her arms; now her figure was completely disguised by a long driving coat which followed the lines of her dress but completely concealed her figure. As she stepped off the landing-bridge, he caught sight of her little foot with which he had fallen in love, when it was encased in a b.u.t.toned boot, shaped on natural lines; the shoe which she was now wearing resembled a pointed Chinese slipper, and did not allow her foot to move in those dancing rhythms which had bewitched him.

It was she and yet it was not she! He embraced and kissed her. She enquired after his health and he asked after the children. Then they walked up the strand.

Words came slowly and sounded dry and forced. How strange! They were almost shy in each other's presence, and neither of them mentioned the letters.

In the end he took heart of grace and asked:

"Would you like to go for a walk before sunset?"

"I should love to," she replied, taking his arm.

They went along the high-road in the direction of the little town. The shutters of all the summer residences were closed; the gardens plundered.

Here and there an apple, hidden among the foliage, might still be found hanging on the trees, but there wasn't a single flower in the flower beds. The verandahs, stripped of their sunblinds, looked like skeletons; where there had been bright eyes and gay laughter, silence reigned.

"How autumnal!" she said.

"Yes, the forsaken villas look horrible."

They walked on.

"Let us go and look at the house where we used to live."

"Oh, yes! It will be fun."

They pa.s.sed the bathing vans.

Over there, squeezed in between the pilot's and the gardener's cottages, stood the little house with its red fence, its verandah and its little garden.

Memories of past days awoke. There was the bedroom where their first baby had been born. What rejoicing! What laughter! Oh! youth and gaiety!

The rose-tree which they had planted was still there. And the strawberry-bed which they had made--no, it existed no longer, gra.s.s had grown over it. In the little plantation traces of the swing which they had put up were still visible, but the swing itself had disappeared.

"Thank you so much for your beautiful letters," she said, gently pressing his arm.

He blushed and made no reply.

Then they returned to the hotel, and he told her anecdotes, in connection with his tour.

He had ordered dinner to be served in the large dining-room at the table where they used to sit. They sat down without saying grace.

It was a tete-a-tete dinner. He took the bread-basket and offered her the bread. She smiled. It was a long time since he had been so attentive. But dinner at a seaside hotel was a pleasant change and soon they were engaged in a lively conversation. It was a duet in which one of them extolled the days that had gone, and the other revived memories of "once upon a time." They were re-living the past.

Their eyes shone and the little lines in their faces disappeared. Oh!

golden days! Oh! time of roses which comes but once, if it comes at all, and which is denied to so many of us--so many of us.