The Home; Or, Life in Sweden Part 32

When the Judge laid the affair before the family council, it occasioned a great surprise; on which a general silence ensued, and attractive visions began to swarm before the eyes of the young people, not exactly of the highest Court of Judicature, but of the seat of the same--of the Capital. Louise looked almost like a Counsellor of Justice herself. But when her father had made known his and his wife's feelings on the subject, he read in their tearful eyes grat.i.tude for the confidence he had placed in them, and the most entire acquiescence with his will.

No one spoke, however, till "the little one"--the father had not said to her, "Go out for awhile, Gabriele dear;" "Let her stop with us," he said, on the contrary, "she is a prudent little girl!"--no, none spoke till Gabriele threw her arms about her mother's neck, and exclaimed, "Ah, don't let us go away from here--here we are so happy!"

This exclamation was echoed by all.

"Well, then, here we remain, in G.o.d's name!" said the Judge, rising up and extending his arms, with tears in his eyes, towards the beloved circle. "Here we remain, children! But this shall not prevent your seeing Stockholm, and enjoying its pleasures and beauties! I thank G.o.d, my children, that you are happy here; it makes me so, too. Do you understand that?"

On this day, for the first time after a long interval, Leonore dined with the family. Everybody rejoiced on that account; and as her countenance had a brighter and more kindly expression than common, everybody thought her pretty. Eva, who had directed and a.s.sisted her toilet, rejoiced over her from the bottom of her heart.

"Don't you see, Leonore," said she, pointing up to heaven, where light blue openings were visible between clouds, which for the greater part of the day had poured down rain--"don't you see it is clearing up, Leonore?

and then we will go out together, and gather flowers and fruit." And as she said this her blue eyes beamed with kindness and the enjoyment of life.

"What, in all the world, are these doing here?" asked Henrik, as he saw his mother's shoes standing in the window in the pale sunshine; "they ought to be warmed, I fancy, and the sun has no desire to come out and do his duty. No, in this case, I shall undertake to be sun!"

"That you are to me, my summer-child!" said the mother, smiling affectionately as she saw Henrik had placed her shoes under his waistcoat, to warm them on his breast.

"My sweet Louise!" exclaimed Jacobi, "you can't think what lovely weather it is! Should we not take a little walk? You come with us? You look most charming--but, in heaven's name, not in the Court-preacher!"

FOOTNOTES:

[15] Thomas Thorild, born 1759, died 1808, an eminent Swedish poet.

PART III.

CHAPTER I.

LEONORE TO EVA.

"And so you are coming home? Coming really home soon, sweet Eva? Ah! I am so happy, so joyful on that account, and yet a little anxious: but don't mind that; come, only come, and all will be right! When I can only look into your eyes, I feel that all will be clear. Your good eyes!--Gabriele and I call them 'our blue ones'--how long it is that I have not seen you--two long years! I cannot conceive, dear Eva, how I have lived so long without you; but then it is true that we have not been in reality separated. I have accompanied you into the great world; I have been with you to b.a.l.l.s and concerts; I have enjoyed with you your pleasures and the homage which has been paid to you. Ah! what joy for me that I have learned to love you! Since then I have lived twofold, and felt myself so rich in you! And now you are coming back; and then, shall we be as happy as before?

"Forgive, forgive this note of interrogation! But sometimes a disquiet comes over me. You speak so much of the great world, of joys and enjoyments, which--it is not in home to afford you. And your grand new acquaintance--ah, Eva! let them be ever so agreeable and interesting, they would not love you as we do, as I do! And then this Major R----! I am afraid of him, Eva. It appears to me the most natural thing in the world that he should love you, but--ah, Eva! it grieves me that you should feel such affection for him. My dear, good Eva, attach yourself not too closely to him before--but I distress you, and that I will not.

Come, only come to us; we have so much to talk to you about, so much to hear from you, so much to say to you!

"I fancy you will find the house yet more agreeable than formerly; we have added many little decorations to it. You will again take breakfast with us--that comfortable meal, and my best-beloved time; and tea with us--your favourite hour, in which we were a.s.sembled for a merry evening, and were often quite wild. This morning I took out your breakfast-cup, and kissed that part of the edge on which the gold was worn off.

"We will again read books together, and think about and talk about them together. We will again go out together and enjoy all the freshness and quiet of the woods. And would it not be a blessed thing to wander thus calmly through life, endeavouring to improve ourselves, and to make all those around us happier; to admire the works of G.o.d, and humbly to thank Him for all that he has given to us and others? Should we not then have lived and flourished enough on earth? Truly I know that a life quiet as this might not satisfy every one; neither can it accord with all seasons of life. Storms will come;--even I have had my time of unrest, of suffering, and of combat. But, thank G.o.d! that is now past, and the sensibility which destroyed my peace is now become as a light to my path; it has extended my world; it has made me better: and now that I no longer covet to enjoy the greater and stronger pleasures of life, I learn now, each pa.s.sing day, to prize yet higher the treasures which surround me in this quiet every-day life. Oh, no one can be happy on earth till he has learned the worth of little things, and to attend to them! When once he has learned this, he may make each day not only happy, but find in it cause of thankfulness. But he must have peace--peace both within himself and without himself; for peace is the sun in which every dewdrop of life glitters!

"Would that I could but call back peace into a heart which--but I must prepare you for a change, for a great void in the house. You will not find Petrea here. You know the state of things which so much distressed me for some time. It would not do to let it go on any longer either for Louise or Jacobi's sake, or yet for her own, and therefore Petrea must go, otherwise they all would have become unhappy. She herself saw it; and as we had tidings of Jacobi's speedy arrival here, she opened her heart to her parents. It was n.o.ble and right of her, and they were as good and prudent as ever; and now our father has gone with her to his friend Bishop B. May G.o.d preserve her, and give her peace! I shed many tears over her; but I hope all may turn out well. Her lively heart has a fresh-flowing fountain of health in it; and certainly her residence in the country, which she likes so much, new circ.u.mstances, new interests----

"I was interrupted: Jacobi is come! It is a good thing that Petrea is now whiling away her time in the shades of Furudal; good for her poor heart, and good too for the betrothed pair, who otherwise could not have ventured to have been happy in her presence. But now they are entirely so.

"Now, after six years' long waiting, sighing, and hoping, Jacobi sees himself approaching the goal of his wishes--marriage and a parsonage!

And the person who helps him to all this, to say nothing of his own individual deserts, is his beloved patron the excellent Excellency O----. Through his influence two important landed-proprietors in the parish of Great T. have been induced to give their votes to Jacobi, who, though yet young, has been proposed; and thus he will receive one of the largest and most beautiful livings in the bishopric, and Louise will become a greatly honoured pastor's wife--'provost's wife' she herself says prophetically.

"The only _but_ in this happiness is, that it will remove Jacobi and Louise so far from us. Their highest wish had been to obtain the rural appointment near this city; and thus we might in that case have maintained our family unbroken, even though Louise had left her home; but--'but,' says our good, sensible 'eldest,' with a sigh, 'all things cannot be perfect here on earth.'

"The day of nomination falls early in the spring; and Jacobi, who must enter upon his office immediately after his appointment, wishes to celebrate his marriage at Whitsuntide, in order that he may conduct his young wife into his shepherd's hut along flower-bestrewn paths, and by the song of the lark. Mrs. Gunilla jestingly beseeches of him not to become too nomadic: however, this is certain, that no living being has more interest about cows and calves, sheep and poultry, than Louise.

"The future married couple are getting their whole household in order beforehand; and Gabriele heartily amuses herself with such fragments of their entertaining conversation as reach her ear, while they sit on the sofa in the library talking of love and economy. But it is not talking _alone_ that they do, for Jacobi's heart is full of warm human love; and our father has not the less imparted to all his children somewhat of his love for the general good, although Gabriele maintains that her portion thereof is as yet very small.

"It gives one great pleasure to see the betrothed go out to make purchases, and then to see them return so cordially well pleased with all they have bought. Louise discovers something so unsurpa.s.sably excellent in everything with which she furnishes herself, whether it be an earthen or a silver vessel. When I look at these two, like a pair of birds carrying together straws to their nest, and twittering over them, I cannot help thinking that it must be a greater piece of good fortune to come to the possession of a humbly supplied habitation which one has furnished oneself, than to that of a great and rich one for which other people have cared. One is, in the first place, so well acquainted with, so on thee-and-thou terms with one's things; and certainly n.o.body in this world can be more so than Louise with hers.

"We are all of us now working most actively for the wedding, but still our father does not look with altogether friendly eyes on an occasion which will withdraw a daughter from his beloved circle. He would so gladly keep us all with him, for which I rejoice and am grateful.

Apropos! we have a scheme for him which will make him happy in his old age, and our mother also. You remember the great piece of building-land overgrown with bushes, which the people had not understanding enough either to build upon or to give up to us, this we intend--but we will talk about it mouth to mouth. Petrea has infected us all, even 'our eldest,' with her desire for great undertakings; and then--truly it is a joy to be able to labour for the happiness of those who have laboured for us so affectionately and unweariedly.

"Now something about friends and acquaintance.

"All friends and acquaintance ask much after you. Uncle Jeremias wrangles because you do not come, all the time he breakfasts with us (generally on Wednesday and Sat.u.r.day mornings), and while he abuses our rusks, but notwithstanding devours a great quant.i.ty of them. For some time he has appeared to me to have become more amiable than formerly; his temper is milder, his heart always was mild. He is the friend and physician of all the poor. A short time ago he bought a little villa, a mile distant from the city; it is to be the comfort of his age, and is to be called 'The Old Man's Rose,'--does not that sound comfortable?

"Annette P. is very unhappy with her coa.r.s.e sister-in-law. She does not complain; but look, complexion, nay, even her whole being, indicate the deepest discontent with life; we must attract her to us, and endeavour to make her happier.

"Here comes Gabriele, and insists upon it that I should leave some room for her scrawl. A bold request! But then who says no to her? Not I, and therefore I must make a short ending.

"If a certain Baron Rutger L. be introduced to you when you return, do not imagine that he is deranged, although he sometimes seems as if he were so. He is the son of one of my father's friends; and as he is to be educated by my father for a civil post, he is boarded in our family. He is a kind of '_diamant brute_,' and requires polishing in more senses than one; in the mean time I fancy his wild temper is in a fair way of being tamed. One word from our mother makes impression upon him; and he is actually more regardful of the ungracious demeanour of our little lady, than of the moral preaching of our eldest. He is just nineteen.

Old Brigitta is quite afraid of him, and will hardly trust herself to pa.s.s him lest he should leap over her. Oh, how happy she, like everybody else, will be to see you back again! She fears lest you should get married, and stop in 'the hole,' as she calls Stockholm.

"Henrik will remain with us over Christmas, but you must come and help to enliven him; he is not so joyous as formerly. I fancy that the misunderstanding between him and Stjernhok distresses him. Ah! why would not these two understand one another! For the rest, many things are now at stake for Henrik; G.o.d grant that all may go well, both on his account and mamma's!

"We shall not see Petrea again till after Louise's marriage. When shall we all be again all together at home? Sara! ah? it is now above four years since we heard anything of her, and all inquiry and search after her has been in vain. Perhaps she lives no longer! I have wept many tears over her; oh! if she should return! I feel that we should be happier together than formerly; there was much that was good and n.o.ble in her, but she was misled--I hear my mother's light steps, and that predicts that she has something good for me----

"Ah, yes! she has! she has a letter from you, my Eva! You cannot fix the day of your return, and that is very sad--but you come soon! You love Stockholm; so do I also; I could embrace Stockholm for that reason.

"I am now at the very edge of my paper. Gabriele has bespoken the other side. I leave you now, in order to write to _her_ who left us with tears, but who, as I cordially hope, will return to us with smiles."

FROM GABRIELE.

In the Morning.

"I could not write last evening, and am now up before the sun in order to tell you that nothing can console me for Petrea's absence, excepting your return. We are all of us terribly longing after 'our Rose.' I know very well who beside your own family longs for this same thing.

"I must tell you that a little friendship has been got up between Uncle Jeremias and me. All this came about in the fields, for he is never particularly polite within doors; whilst in a walk, the beautiful side of his character always comes out. Petrea and I have taken such long excursions with him, and then he was mild and lively; then he botanised with us, told us of the natural families in the vegetable kingdom, and related the particular life and history of many plants. Do you know it is the most agreeable thing in the world to know something of all this; one feels oneself on such familiar terms with these vegetable families. Ah!

how often when I feel thus am I made aware how indescribably rich and glorious life is, and I fancy that every one must live happily on earth who has only eyes and sense awakened to all that is glorious therein, and then I can sing like a bird for pure life-enjoyment. In the mean time, Uncle Jeremias and I cultivate flowers in the house quite enthusiastically, and intend at Christmas to make presents of both red and white lilacs; but, indeed, I have almost a mind to cry that the nose of my Petrea cannot smell them.

"But I must come to an end, for you must know that occasionally I have undertaken to have a watchful eye over the breakfast-table, and therefore I go now to look after it. Bergstrom has fortunately done all this, so that I have nothing now to do; next I must go and look after my moss-rose, and see whether a new bud has yet made its appearance; then I shall go and see after mamma; one glance must I give through the window to the leaves in the garden, which nod a farewell to me before they fall from the twigs; and to the sun also, which now rises bright and beaming, must I send a glance--a beam from the sun of my eyes and out of the depth of my thankful heart; and therefore that I may be able, for the best well-being of the community, to attend to all these important matters, I must say to you, farewell! to you who are so dear to me."