Wild Wind Westward Page 5

  Arne said nothing, drinking. Kristin brought to the table three steaming bowls of porridge, placed them there, and sat down with the men.

  “Father, it will be all right,” she said, quietly, cutting slabs of bread from a loaf and passing them around.

  But, in her heart, she did not know if it would be all right at all. She did not know what would happen. To be born a beauty into a rich family is to risk splendor and presumption, languid arrogance and ease. It is to risk being worshiped and patronized, never having to sharpen one’s wits, never having to grow. But to be born into a poor family as a beauty, surrounded by other poor, plain people, is to face a harsh world, having constantly to adjust not only to the demands of life but also to the natures of crude, hard people. Kristin had come early to know the darker natures of her playmates and peers—envy and jealousy, mean, bleak rage—and it did not seem a shock to her when she realized that, like children, adults also were driven by savage and apparently inexplicable furies. So she knew that nothing would be all right. If Rolfson had gone so far as to recast by forgery the original loan documents, he would not now shrink from a further sullying of the law. The judge coming from Dovre would not help the citizens of Lesja; he would be coming to aid Rolfson.

  Again, her body remembered Gustav’s eyes upon her, and there at the table, she trembled.

  “Let me get you a shawl,” offered Eric anxiously. “The night is becoming chill.” He was afraid that she might have taken cold after the long dive in the icy pool.

  In spite of her father’s presence, Kristin could not help but give Eric a secret smile, letting him know she knew what he was thinking.

  “It is the coldness of men that makes me shudder,” she said, spooning her porridge.

  “All men?” he asked, reassured, smiling.

  “Not all.”

  “What shall we do?” asked Arne, coming back from some dark, distant region of thought.

  Kristin had a suggestion. “Father, if need be, I shall go to Oslo and find work in a grand household. I shall wait upon table, and do laundry, and what money I earn I shall send back to you and the—”

  Before Kristin knew what was happening, before Eric could stop him, Arne Vendahl slapped his daughter across the face.

  She cried out in surprise and pain, and then began to cry with deeper hurt. Arne would have slapped her again, but Eric grabbed his arm, leaping to his feet, stepping between father and daughter.

  “We are not servants! We will never be servants!” Arne cried. He meant to be strong, defiant, but in the middle of the declaration his voice went beyond his control, rose into a ragged, pathetic shriek. “I will do anything to keep that from happening.” But then he realized all the more powerfully the dark degree of his imminent plight—landless, unskilled, seven children and a dying wife—and sank back down into his chair. Father was crying. Daughter, too. Eric stood helplessly over the table, a young man with his own life and new love threatened by the devil Rolfsons, who had suddenly descended, like precursors of doom, like apparitions in a bitter dream.

  “I will beat them if it’s the last thing I ever do,” he vowed to the ancient stone walls of the Starbane house that had stood among these mountains for centuries, shielding within it both the love and the love of freedom in the hearts of his forefathers. “If they move against me, they will never be able to sleep. Because always I will be outside their door!”

  Kristin was drying her eyes with the hem of her darkblue skirt, an ugly red blotch forming on her face. Arne was weeping softly, his head down on the table next to his porridge bowl. Eric was just about to sit down, too, when a heavy, peremptory knock sounded on the thick, wooden door.

  “Who is it?” called Eric, moving toward, but not grasping, the only weapon in the house, a huge Viking’s axe, long-handled, curved-bladed. It was kept in an almost ceremonial position above the hearth, but it was a real axe and could do much damage.

  “Gustav Rolfson,” came the voice outside the door. “Let me in.”

  “I have nothing to say to you,” answered Eric.

  “Nor have I to you. I want to speak to Vendahl.”

  Eric and Kristin exchanged glances. Arne lifted his head from the table, wiping his puzzled eyes.

  “I won’t let him in unless you wish it,” said Eric. “He has no right here.”

  Kristin’s father turned the matter around in his mind a time or two, then decided that he must see what Rolfson had to say. Eric swung the door open and Gustav pushed into the house as if he owned it. He wore a long black flowing cape. But instead of his contemptuous manner on the steps only an hour earlier, he was now relaxed and smiling. One would have thought he was a friend to Eric, Kristin, and her father; his charm seemed easy and genuine. Kristin was not swayed, however. She surmised that he used charm as a weapon, used it when he needed it, just as he might use cruelty, or wile, sword or notice of foreclosure. She saw that he was as ruthless and unprincipled as his father, and potentially more dangerous, because of his greater gifts as an actor.

  “You wanted to see me?” Arne managed.

  “A matter of delicacy. Alone, if you please.”

  Arne Vendahl looked scared. “Does it have to…to do with my farm?”

  “Tangentially, I believe.” Gustav flashed his widest, most ingratiating smile. He nodded toward Eric, then Kristin. “Really, it is a private matter. I assure you that it is in your best interests and those of”—he glanced again at Kristin—“your family.”

  Looking puzzled and apprehensive, Arne got up from the table. It was clear that Gustav expected Eric and Kristin to leave the house, that he might speak with Arne inside, but Eric made no move to go. Gustav, realizing he could not insist upon the point without losing whatever advantage his display of charm had gained, decided not to press the matter. Arne went out, and Gustav Rolfson followed.

  The sun was down now over the blue tops of the mountains, the twilight sky red and gorgeous, purple shadows of the peaks falling upon the Rauma Valley. The air was cool, almost cold. The bark of a shepherd’s dog sounded high in the hills, and the thin silver tinkle of bells. From the window of Eric’s house Kristin watched her father and Gustav walk over toward the well. Gustav seemed to be preparing for a long speech. He urged Arne to sit down, dropped a bucket down into the well. After he pulled it up, full of water, he filled a dipper and handed it to Arne. The older man drank.

  “What do you think it’s about?” Kristin asked, staring out the window.

  Eric came up behind her, put his arms around her, and hugged her for a long moment. “Whatever it is, it’s no good to us. I feel something about Rolfson.”

  “I, too.”

  “That this business of the foreclosures is only the beginning of his effect upon our lives.”

  “How rich do you suppose the Rolfsons are?”

  Eric frowned. “Richer already than any man needs to be, nor yet as rich as they desire to be. It is a kind of life I do not understand.”

  Kristin smiled to herself, turned within his embrace, and they kissed. But the pressure of the day’s events weighed upon them. “This house and this land,” Kristin sighed, “are all we would ever need.”

  Eric looked sad. “I fear the judge will not help us at all. A strange form of darkness is falling across Norway now. I do not know what it will bring.”

  She looked into his eyes. “If they come to take your land, what will you do?”

  It was a while before he answered. “My instinct is to fight,” he said. “Yet what good is that? Then instead of being simply unlanded and bereft of my name, I will also be a criminal, imprisoned, no good to you or myself. There is but one way I can think of to put these foreclosures aright, and that is to go beyond Judge Amundsen and make an appeal in Oslo.”

  “How does one do such a thing?”

  “Solicitor Thorsen would know. But he is serving the Rolfsons now. I think I will wait until we have the results of the local hearings, and then see a solicitor in another town, perhaps Tynset or E
agemes.”

  Arne Vendahl came back in just then, to see his daughter in Eric’s embrace. His expression had changed; whatever Gustav had said to him had had a profound effect. His attitude was altered, too. He was standing straight and tall.

  “Get away from him, girl,” he said, gesturing for Kristin to move from Eric’s arms.

  “What?” Stunned and surprised, the young lovers parted.

  “It is bad enough what you have done. Let us hope no one else finds out. Meanwhile, try not to bring further shame upon yourself.”

  “Father…”

  “You do not know how fortunate we are. Even your sin will be kept secret.” Arne tried, but was unable to meet Eric’s eyes. “Come along now,” he said to Kristin. “We are going home.”

  “Sir,” asked Eric, “what is happening? Nothing sinful or shameful has occurred, nor will it, save possibly the timorousness of our people in failing to stand up to the Rolfsons. What have you been told by Rolfson? More to the point why did you believe him? The man is a menace.”

  “No, no,” cried Arne, grabbing Kristin by the arm, as if to drag her from the house. “I was mistaken. Rolfson has our best interests at heart. And he is the only one who can save Kristin’s reputation, and the honor of the Vendahl name.”

  “What?” asked Eric. Kristin pulled herself away from her father’s grasp. Clearly Rolfson’s effect upon Arne had been sharp and bracing. But it did not seem that his effect had been charitable. Seeing their consternation, Arne shrugged, and explained.

  “I understand the Rolfsons now,” he said, speaking vigorously but still avoiding Eric’s eyes. “Young Gustav was quite direct, and he made a great deal of sense. This is how things are to be. He and his father will not foreclose upon our farm, in spite of the loan. The loan, in fact, will be canceled. I have his word—”

  “His word!” interrupted Eric scornfully.

  “—and our family, alone in this village, will be able to retain its ancestral name. And you, daughter, in spite of your sin—oh, I know all about it; Johanson told Gustav and his father—in spite of your sin, you will not have to face public ridicule. Rolfson guarantees that the subsheriff will hold his tongue.”

  “Father…” Kristin began.

  “And why,” interjected Eric, “is Rolfson willing to do such fine things for a Vendahl?”

  Arne tried to hold his ground, to retain his tone of moral superiority, but he was not quite able to carry it off. “Gustav wishes to marry Kristin,” he said. “He has never seen a woman like her. Those were his very words. He will take her to Oslo and she will live splendidly. It is all you could hope for in life,” he added, turning to his daughter. “And by marrying him you will save our family and our name.”

  “Never!” cried Kristin, her eyes wide with horror not only at the thought of Rolfson, but also upon the realization that her father was serious. He truly believed he was doing what was best.

  For his part Eric fought to restrain his own tumultuous reactions. He, too, knew that Arne Vendahl was serious. The old farmer thought in terms of Kristin’s honor, which he now believed to have been tainted by Eric. He thought in terms of a future for Kristin that he, Arne, truly believed to be splendid. And he thought, naturally, of his land and his name. It all made sense to Arne; to Eric, it all meant disaster. He recalled that moment in front of the farmhouse, when he’d seen Gustav Rolfson’s eyes rest on Kristin. Oh, yes, Rolfson had known, had seen what everyone in Lesja had known and seen for all these many years. Kristin Arnesdatter had been born out of place. Perhaps, Eric admitted to himself, I always knew it, too, but simply refused to believe. Kristin was not meant to be a farmer’s wife, milking cows, scrubbing clothes, breeding children, to grow old too soon and to come early to the knowledge that the promise of youth is but a trick, a lure, a trap to catch you until it is too late to flee.

  “Rolfson says he has never seen anyone as beautiful as you,” Arne was saying. “His father has told him he can do whatever he wants, and he wants to marry you, take you to Oslo, give you education, fine clothes—”

  “Never!” Kristin cried again, still unable to grasp the depraved enormity of her father’s words.

  “Think of your brothers and sisters,” he said, pleading. “You alone can save them. Think of your mother. Think even of me, girl.”

  “I am. I always have,” she responded, fighting back tears. Eric came over and put his arm around her. Arne didn’t seem to notice. He was growing panicky again, fearful that his daughter’s willfulness would ruin everything that had seemed so hopeful only minutes earlier.

  “What will you do, then?” he asked, attempting, from his jittery perspective, to reason with her. “What will you do when we lose our livelihood? When Eric loses his? As he surely shall?”

  “Perhaps not,” Eric told him, explaining how he planned to seek a court hearing in Oslo if Judge Amundsen ruled against the citizens of Lesja.

  “Fool! They do not listen to poor farmers in Oslo. That is a place run by people like the Rolfsons, who know how to manage high affairs.”

  Eric could not restrain his contempt, in spite of old Arne’s pitiful quest to save himself. “I hardly think what Gustav has offered you could be considered a high affair.”

  “Your brash words will be the ruin of you,” accused the older man, pointing a thick, work-blunted finger. “You are still young. What do you think life holds, anyway?”

  “Life holds everything. If the worst happens here, Kristin and I will go away.”

  “To be a man for hire? To be a bought slave? Oh, fine, fine, lad.”

  “And what will you be, father?”

  “I will have my land, my name.”

  “But not your daughter,” countered Eric.

  “It is for her own good. She will grow to love Rolfson.”

  “Oh, father…”

  “You are young, girl. You know nothing. Nor do you,” he said to Eric.

  The three of them stood there glaring at one another. Kristin was near tears, Eric white faced and taut, Arne agitated and perspiring.

  “Let us leave it until tomorrow,” Eric said finally. “Tomorrow is another day.”

  “Tomorrow may be the last day,” the older man shot back. “Kristin, come along. We’re leaving.”

  But she shook her head. “I will follow in a moment, father. But I am not coming with you just now.”

  Arne seemed to nerve himself for yet another struggle, but then his shoulders sagged, in fatigue if not in resignation. “All right,” he said, “all right. But you will do what you must when the time comes, you hear me?”

  Then he was gone, beyond the heavy slam of the old wooden door.

  Kristin fought back the tears, and succeeded. Matters were too serious for tears. “Let’s go away,” she said, looking up into his troubled, steady blue eyes.

  He gazed down at her darker eyes, which were almost violet, held her with one arm, ran his fingers through her long, lovely hair. “Go away where?”

  “There must be a place.”

  “Where?” asked Eric, not because he did not know the world and what it offered, but because the centuries-old traditions of the family Starbane were inextricably tied to the land, the independence, the very name of his narrow mountain farm. Yet both he and Kristin knew that, during recent years, emigration had begun to burgeon. Eric had always thought sadly of those people forced to flee to America. What might they find there? What could they find that was even half as good as a homeland?

  “We could go to Oslo,” suggested Kristin, without spirit.

  That possibility held small attraction: tens of thousands had recently flocked to Oslo, the streets of which were not paved with gold. There was gold on the tables, and around the fingers, and about the necks, and within the vaults of the rich, true, but outside the high walls of their palaces there was, as in the mountains, only poverty and struggle.

  “Without my land, I am no Starbane anymore,” said Eric, knowing the irony of what was happening in his country. Th
e Rolfsons themselves were upstarts. Shrewd, vicious, cunning, successful upstarts. But they were neither of old family nor mighty name. Adolphus, son of some forgotten Rolf, set upon making grand his own son’s life. Young Gustav could never have hoped to wed a daughter of the actual nobility, be she ugly or beautiful, so instead he had apparently decided to take Kristin, a mountain girl promising and lovely as a legend, and to make her a veritable princess, to outshine whatever women the aristocracy possessed. In terms of origins, history, dignity, the Rolfsons were nothing. But they did have the harsh, modern things that seemed to matter: iron will, money, and an eye for potential. Gustav had seen Kristin’s potential, and he wanted it, so that he might enter the greatest ballrooms with the most stunning woman on his arm.

  Eric’s sadness, and Kristin’s too, filled the stone house. Night had fallen. The cold moon rose above the mountain peaks. Pale light hung in the very air above the Rauma; fog drifted from the river, down among the houses of the village. Softly, Kristin left his arms, and moved toward the table, bending over the oil lamp, which she blew out. Moonlight came in through the window, casting the old farmhouse in soft glow and friendly shadow. Eric could not see her for a moment while his eyes adjusted to the new, natural light, but then he saw her approaching, felt her come into his embrace, and exulted to her nakedness within his arms, against his body. He did not even remember taking off his own clothes, and it did not matter if he remembered it or not. What had taken place between them at Sonnendahl Fjord was nothing compared to the love they now shared in his old bed in the room with the small stone fireplace and the high, wide windows that looked out upon the mountains of ancient Norway, their home, and upon the holy moon beyond. It was as if, without speaking, both sensed something strangely final about being together tonight, and the exquisite pleasure they gave each other could not, in the end, eradicate a gossamer feeling that combined both promise and sadness.

  When a great ship leaves the harbor of dreams for a voyage long envisioned, the sea stretches out before the bow, all promise and wonder, but behind lies the land upon which the dream of the voyage has been fashioned. Nothing is yet forgotten, nor is any new thing held within the hand. Time, at a delicate, lambent moment, is held suspended in the sad, bursting heart that is both wellspring and vehicle of human wish.