The Great Hunger Part 15

"This is Herr Holm, engineer and Egyptian," said Merle, "and this is father."

"I hear we are neighbours," said Uthoug. "We're just going to have tea, so if you have nothing better to do, perhaps you will join us."

Outside the cottage stood a grey-haired lady with a pale face, wearing spectacles. She had a thick white woollen shawl over her shoulders, but even so she seemed to feel cold. "Welcome," she said, and Peer thought there was a tremor in her voice.

There were two small low rooms with an open fireplace in the one, and in it there stood a table ready laid. But from the moment Merle entered the house, she took command of everything, and whisked in and out. Soon there was the sound of fish cooking in the kitchen, and a moment later she came in with a plate full of lettuce, and said: "Mr. Egyptian--you can make us an Arabian salad, can't you?"

Peer was delighted. "I should think so," he said.

"You'll find salt and pepper and vinegar and oil on the table there, and that's all we possess in the way of condiments. But it must be a real Arabian salad all the same, if you please!" And out she went again, while Peer busied himself with the salad.

"I hope you will excuse my daughter," said Fru Uthoug, turning her pale face towards him and looking through her spectacles. "She is not really so wild as she seems."

Uthoug himself walked up and down the room, chatting to Peer and asking a great many questions about conditions in Egypt. He knew something about the Mahdi, and General Gordon, and Khartoum, and the strained relations between the Khedive and the Sultan. He was evidently a diligent reader of the newspapers, and Peer gathered that he was a Radical, and a man of some weight in his party. And he looked as if there was plenty of fire smouldering under his reddish eyelids: "A bad man to fall out with," thought Peer.

They sat down to supper, and Peer noticed that Fru Uthoug grew less pale and anxious as her daughter laughed and joked and chattered. There even came a slight glow at last into the faded cheeks; the eyes behind the spectacles seemed to shine with a light borrowed from her daughter's.

But her husband seemed not to notice anything, and tried all the time to go on talking about the Mahdi and the Khedive and the Sultan.

So for the first time for many years Peer sat down to table in a Norwegian home--and how good it was! Would he ever have a home of his own, he wondered.

After the meal, a mandolin was brought out, and they sat round the fire in the great fireplace and had some music. Until at last Merle rose and said: "Now, mother, it's time you went to bed."

"Yes, dear," came the answer submissively, and Fru Uthoug said good-night, and Merle led her off.

Peer had risen to take leave, when Merle came in again. "Why," she said, "you're surely not going off before you've rowed Thea home?"

"Oh, Merle, please . . ." put in the other.

But when the two had taken their places in the boat and were just about to start up the lake, Merle came running down and said she might just as well come too.

Half an hour later, having seen the young girl safely ash.o.r.e at her father's place, Merle and Peer were alone, rowing back through the still night over the waters of the lake, golden in the light and dark blue in the shadows. Merle leaned back in the stern, silent, trailing a small branch along the surface of the water behind. After a while Peer laid in his oars and let the boat drift.

"How beautiful it is!" he said.

The girl lifted her head and looked round. "Yes," she answered, and Peer fancied her voice had taken a new tone.

It was past midnight. Heights and woods and saeters lay lifeless in the soft suffused reddish light. The lake-trout were not rising any more, but now and again the screech of a c.o.c.k-ptarmigan could be heard among the withies.

"What made you come just here for your holiday, I wonder," she asked suddenly.

"I leave everything to chance, Froken Uthoug. It just happened so. It's all so homelike here, wherever one goes. And it is so wonderful to be home in Norway again."

"But haven't you been to see your people--your father and mother--since you came home?"

"I--! Do you suppose I have a father and mother?"

"But near relations--surely you must have a brother or sister somewhere in the world?"

"Ah, if one only had! Though, after all, one can get on without."

She looked at him searchingly, as if trying to see whether he spoke in earnest. Then she said:

"Do you know that mother dreamed of you before you came?"

"Of me?" Peer's eyes opened wide. "What did she dream about me?"

A sudden flush came to the girl's face, and she shook her head. "It's foolish of me to sit here and tell you all this. But you see that was why we wanted so much to find out about you when you came. And it gives me a sort of feeling of our having known each other a long time."

"You appear to have a very constant flow of high spirits, Froken Uthoug!"

"I? Why do you think--? Oh, well, yes. One can come by most things, you know, if one has to have them."

"Even high spirits?"

She turned her head and looked towards the sh.o.r.e. "Some day perhaps--if we should come to be friends--I'll tell you more about it."

Peer bent to his oars and rowed on. The stillness of the night drew them nearer and nearer together, and made them silent; only now and then they would look at each other and smile.

"What mysterious creature is this I have come upon?" thought Peer. She might be about one-or two-and-twenty. She sat there with bowed head, and in this soft glow the oval face had a strange light of dreams upon it.

But suddenly her glance came back and rested on him again, and then she smiled, and he saw that her mouth was large and her lips full and red.

"I wish I had been all over the world, like you," she said.

"Have you never been abroad, Froken Uthoug?" he asked.

"I spent a winter in Berlin, once, and a few months in South Germany. I played the violin a little, you see; and I hoped to take it up seriously abroad and make something of it--but--"

"Well, why shouldn't you?"

She was silent for a little, then at last she said: "I suppose you are sure to know about it some day, so I may just as well tell you now.

Mother has been out of her mind."

"My dear Froken--"

"And when she's at home my--high spirits are needed to help her to be more or less herself."

He felt an impulse to rise and go to the girl, and take her head between his hands. But she looked up, with a melancholy smile; their eyes met in a long look, and she forgot to withdraw her glance.

"I must go ash.o.r.e now," she said at last.

"Oh, so soon! Why, we have hardly begun our talk!"

"I must go ash.o.r.e now," she repeated; and her voice, though still gentle, was not to be gainsaid.

At last Peer was alone, rowing back to his saeter. As he rowed he watched the girl going slowly up towards the cottage. When she reached the door she turned for the first time and waved to him. Then she stood for a moment looking after him, and then opened the door and disappeared. He gazed at the door some time longer, as if expecting to see it open again, but no sign of life was to be seen.

The sun's rim was showing now above the distant ranges in the east, and the white peaks in the north and west kindled in the morning glow. Peer laid in his oars again, and rested, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. What could this thing be that had befallen him today?

How could those peaks stand round so aloof and indifferent, and leave him here disconsolate and alone?