‘What did Natan say?’
‘Oh, he grabbed me by the arm and pulled me outside and told me to never speak of him in that way in front of Sigga. I said that I’d only told the truth, and hadn’t meant to embarrass him, and that Sigga only thought the best of him, as did I. This appeased him a little, but I was frightened at the way his mood changed so quickly. I learnt later that he was as changeable as the ocean, and God help you if you saw his expression shift and darken. One day he might call you friend, and the next threaten to throw you into the night if you so much as dropped a pail of water on the ground. As folks say, for every mountain there is a valley.’
‘Perhaps if you’d known that you would never have agreed to be his servant?’ Tóti suggested.
Agnes paused, and then shook her head. ‘I wanted to leave Vatnsdalur,’ she said quietly.
‘Tell me about what Sigga is like,’ Tóti suggested gently.
‘Well, that night, after Fridrik’s visit, Sigga began speaking of marriage. I asked her if she did not find Fridrik Sigurdsson a most attractive man with such inviting prospects. I was making fun, of course. Fridrik is freckled, and ginger-haired and as mottled as a sausage, and his family are so poor you might call them barrel-lickers. But when I asked Sigga this, her cheeks turned as bright as new blood, and she asked me if I thought Fridrik was engaged to that Thórunn. It was then that I knew she held some hope for him.
‘I continued teasing Sigga. “Do you know how much hard work it is to get married?” I asked her. Sigga said: “The work can’t be harder than this,” and I laughed and told her I didn’t mean farm work, but the work a maid like her had to do just for the privilege of giving her life away. I reminded her that the priest must give his permission, the District Officer must give his permission, the District Commissioner must also be on side, and then, Natan must be kept happy, for everyone looks to the master for the final word.
‘“You need more than one man to say I do,” I told her. Sigga took this news very badly. She grew pale when I mentioned that Natan must approve of any engagement, and didn’t say anything more about the subject, not even when I tried to cheer her up by telling her what Natan had told me; about his little game with Fridrik.
‘“Do you really think Fridrik is a thief?” she asked, and I said no, I was sure he was a most upstanding fellow.
‘Natan laughed heartily when I told him about Sigga’s reaction to the news that he would have to approve any wedding she had in mind. He said that it was a good thing she knew it. I told him that I thought Sigga was soft on Fridrik, and mentioned concern that Natan thought him a thief. Natan said that that is what happens when you put two creatures in a pen together, and we didn’t speak any more of it at the time.