The Great Hunger Part 6

"Is that you, Peer?"

They stood for a moment, smiling and measuring each other with their eyes, and then shook hands.

Together they carried the box up through the town, and Peer was so much of a townsman already that he felt a little ashamed to find himself walking through the streets, holding one end of a trunk, with a peasant-girl at the other. And what a clatter her thick shoes made on the pavement! But all the time he was ashamed to feel ashamed. Those blue arch eyes of hers, constantly glancing up at him, what were they saying? "Yes, I have come," they said--"and I've no one but you in all the world--and here I am," they kept on saying.

"Can you play that?" he asked, with a glance at her violin-case.

"Oh well; my playing's only nonsense," she laughed. And she told how the old s.e.xton she had been living with last had not been able to afford a new dress for her confirmation, and had given her the violin instead.

"Then didn't you have a new dress to be confirmed in?"

"No."

"But wasn't it--didn't you feel horrible, with the other girls standing by you all dressed up fine?"

She shut her eyes for a moment. "Oh, yes--it WAS horrid," she said.

A little farther on she asked: "Were you boarded out at a lot of places?"

"Five, I think."

"Pooh--why, that's nothing. I was at nine, I was." The girl was smiling again.

When they came up to his room she stood for a moment looking round the place. It was hardly what she had expected to find. And she had not been in town lodgings before, and her nose wrinkled up a little as she smelt the close air. It seemed so stuffy, and so dark.

"We'll light the lamp," he said.

Presently she laughed a little shyly, and asked where she was to sleep.

"Lord bless us, you may well ask!" Peer scratched his head. "There's only one bed, you see." At that they both burst out laughing.

"The one of us'll have to sleep on the floor," suggested the girl.

"Right. The very thing," said he, delighted. "I've two pillows; you can have one. And two rugs--anyway, you won't be cold."

"And then I can put on my other dress over," she said. "And maybe you'll have an old overcoat--"

"Splendid! So we needn't bother any more about that."

"But where do you get your food from?" She evidently meant to have everything cleared up at once.

Peer felt rather ashamed that he hadn't money enough to invite her to a meal at an eating-house then and there. But he had to pay his teacher's fees the next day; and his store-box wanted refilling too.

"I boil the coffee on the stove there overnight," he said, "so that it's all ready in the morning. And the dry food I keep in that box there.

We'll see about some supper now." He opened the box, fished out a loaf and some b.u.t.ter, and put the kettle on the stove. She helped him to clear the papers off the table, and spread the feast on it. There was only one knife, but it was really much better fun that way than if he had had two. And soon they were seated on their chairs--they had a chair each--having their first meal in their own home, he and she together.

It was settled that Louise should sleep on the floor, and they both laughed a great deal as he tucked her in carefully so that she shouldn't feel cold. It was not till afterwards, when the lamp was out, that they noticed that the autumn gales had set in, and there was a loud north-wester howling over the housetops. And there they lay, chatting to each other in the dark, before falling asleep.

It seemed a strange and new thing to Peer, this really having a relation of his own--and a girl, too--a young woman. There she lay on the floor near by him, and from now on he was responsible for what was to become of her in the world. How should he put that job through?

He could hear her turning over. The floor was hard, very likely.

"Louise?"

"Yes."

"Did you ever see mother?"

"No."

"Or your father?"

"My father?" She gave a little laugh.

"Yes, haven't you ever seen him either?"

"Why, how should I, silly? Who says that mother knew herself who it was?"

There was a pause. Then Peer brought out, rather awkwardly: "We're all alone, then--you and I."

"Yes--we are that."

"Louise! What are you thinking of taking to now?"

"What are you?"

So Peer told her all his plans. She said nothing for a little while--no doubt she was lying thinking of the grand things he had before him.

At last she spoke. "Do you think--does it cost very much to learn to be a midwife?"

"A midwife--is that what you want to be, girl?" Peer couldn't help laughing. So this was what she had been planning in these days--since he had offered to help her on in the world.

"Do you think my hands are too big?" she ventured presently--he could just hear the whisper.

Peer felt a pang of pity. He had noticed already how ill the red swollen hands matched her pale clear-cut face, and he knew that in the country, when any one has small, fine hands, people call them "midwife's hands."

"We'll manage it somehow, I daresay," said Peer, turning round to the wall. He had heard that it cost several hundred crowns to go through the course at the midwifery school. It would be years before he could get together anything like that sum. Poor girl, it looked as if she would have a long time to wait.

After that they fell silent. The north-wester roared over the housetops, and presently brother and sister were asleep.

When Peer awoke the next morning, Louise was about already, making coffee over the little stove. Then she opened her box, took out a yellow petticoat and hung it on a nail, placed a pair of new shoes against the wall, lifted out some under-linen and woollen stockings, looked at them, and put them back again. The little box held all her worldly goods.

As Peer was getting up: "Gracious mercy!" she cried suddenly, "what is that awful noise down in the yard?"

"Oh, that's nothing to worry about," said Peer. "It's only the job-master and his wife. They carry on like that every blessed morning; you'll soon get used to it."

Soon they were seated once more at the little table, drinking coffee and laughing and looking at each other. Louise had found time to do her hair--the two fair plaits hung down over her shoulders.