Kristin turned her chair around to face the hearth—she didn’t want to look at the loathsome table. One of the maids was snoring so loudly that it was awful to hear.
That was also one of the things that she didn’t care for about Erlend. At home on his estate he ate in a manner that was so repugnant and slovenly, pawing through the dishes for good bits of food, hardly bothering to wash his hands before he came to the table. And he let the dogs jump up onto his lap and gulp down food along with him while everyone ate. So it was only to be expected that the servants had no table manners. Back home she had been constrained to eat delicately and slowly. It would not be proper, said her mother, for the master’s family to wait while the servants ate, and those who had toiled and labored should have time to eat their fill.
“Here, Gunna,” Kristin called softly to the big yellow bitch that lay with a whole cluster of pups against the draft stone by the hearth. She was such an ill-tempered animal, and that’s why Erlend had named her after the old mistress of Raasvold.
“You poor wretch,” whispered Kristin, petting the dog who had come over and put her head on Kristin’s knee. Her backbone was as sharp as a scythe, and her teats almost swept the floor. The pups were literally eating their mother up. “Oh, yes, my poor wretch.”
Kristin leaned her head against the back of the chair and looked up at the soot-covered rafters. She was tired.
No, she had not had an easy time of it these past few months that she had spent at Husaby. She had talked with Erlend a little on the evening of the day they had gone to Medalby. Then she realized that he thought she was angry with him because he had brought this upon her.
“I do remember,” he said in a low voice, “that day in the spring when we went walking in the woods north of the church. I do remember that you asked me to leave you alone. . . .”
Kristin was pleased that he had told her this. Otherwise she often wondered about all the things that Erlend seemed to have forgotten.
But then he said, “And yet I would not have believed it of you, Kristin, that you could walk around bearing such a secret rancor toward me, and still act so gentle and happy. For you must have known long ago how things stood with you. And I believed that you were as bright and honest as the rays of the sun.”
“Oh, Erlend,” she said sadly. “You of all people in the world should know best that I have followed forbidden paths and acted falsely toward those who have trusted me most.” But she wanted so much for him to understand. “I don’t know whether you recall, my dear, but in the past you have behaved toward me in a manner that some might not call proper. And God and the Virgin Mary know that I didn’t bear you any grudge, nor did I love you any less.”
Erlend’s face grew tender.
“So I thought,” he said quietly. “But you know too that I have striven all these years to rectify the harm I have done. I consoled myself that in the end I would be able to reward you, for you were so faithful and patient.”
Then she said to him, “No doubt you have heard about my grandfather’s brother and the maiden Bengta, who fled from Sweden against the wishes of her kinsmen. God punished them by refusing to give the couple a child. Haven’t you ever feared, during all these years, that He might punish us in that way too?”
She added, her voice quavering and soft, “You can understand, my Erlend, that I was not very happy this summer when I first became aware of it. And yet I thought . . . I thought that if you should die before we were married, I would rather be left behind with your child than alone. I thought that if I should die in childbirth . . . it was still better than if you had no lawful son who could take your high seat after you, when you must leave this earth.”
Erlend replied vehemently, “Then I would think my son was too dearly bought if he should cost you your life. Don’t talk like that, Kristin.” A little later he said, “Husaby is not so dear to me. Especially since I realized that Orm can never inherit my ancestral property after me.”1
“Do you care more for her son than for mine?” Kristin then asked.
“Your son . . . ,” Erlend gave a laugh. “Of him I know nothing more than that he will arrive half a year or so before he should. Orm I have loved for twelve years.”
Some time later Kristin asked, “Do you ever long for these children of yours?”
“Yes,” said her husband. “In the past I often went over to see them in ?sterdal, where they are living.”
“You could go there now, during Advent,” said Kristin quietly.
“You wouldn’t be averse to it?” asked Erlend happily.
Kristin said that she would find it reasonable. Then he asked whether she would be against it if he brought the children back home for Christmas. “You will have to see them sometime, after all.” And again she had replied that this too seemed reasonable to her.
While Erlend was away, Kristin worked hard to prepare for Christmas. It distressed her greatly to be living among these unfamiliar men and servant women now—she had to take a firm grip on herself whenever she dressed or undressed in the presence of the two maids, whom Erlend had ordered to sleep with her in the hall. She had to remind herself that she would never have dared to sleep alone in the large house—where another had slept with Erlend before her.
The serving women on the estate were no better than could be expected. Those farmers who kept close watch over their daughters did not send them to serve on an estate where the master had lived openly with a concubine and had placed such a woman in charge. The maids were lazy and not in the habit of obeying their mistress. But some of them soon came to like the fact that Kristin was putting the house in good order and personally lent a hand with their work. They grew talkative and joyful when she listened to them and answered them gently and cheerfully. And each day Kristin showed her house servants a kind and calm demeanor. She reprimanded no one, but if a maid refused her orders, then the mistress would act as if the girl did not understand what was asked of her and would quietly show her how the work was to be done. This was how Kristin had seen her father behave toward new servants who grumbled, and no man had tried twice to disobey Lavrans of J?rundgaard.
In this manner they would have to make it through the winter. Later she would see about getting rid of those women she disliked or could not bring around.
There was one type of work that Kristin didn’t dare take up unless she was free from the eyes of these strangers. But in the morning, when she was alone in the hall, she would sew the clothing for her child—swaddling clothes of soft homespun, ribbons of red and green fabric from town, and white linen for the christening garments. As she sat there with her sewing, her thoughts would tumble between fear and then faith in the holy friends of humankind, to whom she had prayed for intercession. It was true that the child lived and moved inside her so that she had no peace, night or day. But she had heard about children who were born with a pelt where they should have had a face, with their heads turned around backwards, or their toes where their heels should have been. And she pictured Svein, who was purple over half his face because his mother had inadvertently looked at a fire.2