Mary - Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (bookstand for reading TXT) 📗

words touched Mary. The woman mentioned one instance after the other of her father's considerateness and generosity; she was still talking of it when they arrived. At first Mary felt as if nothing so pleasant as this had happened to her for a long time. Then she felt afraid. She had actually forgotten how dearly she herself loved her father, and had left off giving expression to her affection. Why? Why did she give her time and thoughts to so much else and not to him, the best and dearest of all?

She hurried up to the house. Although her father was very much of an invalid now, she had latterly spent hardly any of her time with him.

As she approached she saw Joergen's bicycle propped against the steps; she heard him playing. But she hurried past the drawing-room, and went straight to her father, who was sitting in the office at his desk, writing. She put her arms round him and kissed him, looked into his kind eyes and kissed him again. His bewilderment was so comic that she could not help laughing.

"Yes, you may well look at me, for it is certainly not often I do this. But all the same you are dearer to me than I can tell." And she kissed him again.

"My dear child!" he said, and smiled at her assault. He was happy, that she saw. Into his eyes there gradually crept that curious brightness which none ever forgot. She thought to herself: I'll do this every day now, every day!

Joergen and she had planned a cycling excursion back into the country. They set off next day. The relation at whose house they stopped that evening, a military man, was delighted to have a visit from them. They were persuaded to stay for several days. The young people of the neighbourhood were summoned; an excursion to a saeter was arranged--again something quite new to Mary. "I know every country except my own," said she. She was determined to travel the next year in Norway; there not much chaperonage would be necessary. With this prospect in view Joergen and she rode home, enjoying themselves royally.

As they were propping their bicycles against the house, little Nanna came rushing out at the door and down the steps. She was crying and did not see them, as she was looking in the other direction. When Mary called: "What is the matter?" she stopped and burst out: "Oh, come, come! I was to go and call people." Up she rushed again to tell that they were coming, Joergen after her, Mary behind him--across the hall, up the stairs, along the passage to the last door on the right. Within, on the floor, lay Anders Krog, Mrs. Dawes on her knees beside him, weeping loudly. He was in an apoplectic fit. Joergen lifted him up, carried him to his bed, and laid him carefully down. Mary had rushed to telephone for the doctor.

The doctor was not at home; she tried place after place to find him, a voice within her all the time crying despairingly: Why had she not been beside her father when this happened? Immediately after vowing to herself that she would show him every day how much she loved him, she had left him! And this very day she had looked forward with pleasure to being able to travel without him! How had she come to be like this? What was the matter with her?

As soon as she had found the doctor, she hurried back to her father. He was now undressed and Joergen had gone. But Mrs. Dawes sat on a chair beside the pillow, with a letter in her hand, in the deepest distress. The moment she saw Mary, she handed her the letter without taking her eyes from the sick man's face.

It was from a correspondent in America of whom Mary had never heard. It told that her uncle Hans had lost their money and his own. His mind was deranged, and probably had been so for a long time. Mary knew that on the male side of the Krog family it was not uncommon for the old people to become weak-minded. But she was horrified that her father should not have exercised any control over affairs. This, too, was a suspicious sign.

He must have been on his way to Mrs. Dawes with this letter when the seizure occurred, for the door had been opened and he lay close to it.

Mary read the letter twice, then turned towards Mrs. Dawes, who sat crying.

"Well, well, Aunt Eva--it has to be borne."

"Borne? borne? What do you mean? The money loss? Who cares for that? But your father! That man of men--my best friend!"

She watched his closed eyes, weeping all the time, and heaping the best of names and the highest of praise on him--in English. The words in the foreign language seemed to belong to an earlier time; Mary knelt by her father, taking them all in. They told of the days which the two old people had spent together. Each a lament, each an expression of gratitude, they recalled his friendly words, his kind looks, his gifts, his forbearance. They flowed abundant and warm, uttered with the fearlessness of a good conscience; for Mrs. Dawes had tried, as far as it lay in her power, to be to him what he was to her. The more precious the words poured forth in her father's honour over Mary's head, the poorer did they make her feel. For she had been so little to him. Oh, how she repented! oh, how she despaired!

Joergen Thiis appeared outside the door just as she was rising to her feet. She stooped again, picked up the letter, and was about to give it to him, when Mrs. Dawes, who had also seen him, asked him to help her to her room; she must go to bed. "God only knows if I shall ever get up again! If this is the end with him, it is the end with me too."

Joergen at once raised the heavy body from the chair and staggered slowly off, supporting it. In Mrs. Dawes's room he rang for a maid; then he went back to Mary. She was standing motionless, holding the letter, which she now handed to him.

He read it carefully and turned pale; for a time he was quite overcome; Mary went a few steps towards him, but this he did not see.

"This has been the cause of the shock," she said.

"Of course," whispered Joergen, without looking at her. Presently he left the room.

Mary remained alone with her father. His sweet, gentle face called to her; she threw herself down beside him again and sobbed. For him whom she loved best she had done least. Perhaps only because he never drew attention to himself?

She did not leave him until the doctor came, and with him the nurse. Then she went to Mrs. Dawes.

Mrs. Dawes was ill and in despair. Mary tried to comfort her, but she interrupted passionately: "I have been too well off. I have felt too secure. Now misfortune is at hand."

Mary started, for the thought had been in her own heart all the time.

"You are losing us both, poor child! And the money too!"

Mary did not like her mentioning the money. Mrs. Dawes felt this and said:

"You don't understand me, my poor child! It is not your fault, it is ours. We gave in to you too much. But you behaved so badly if we did not."

Mary looked up, startled: "I behaved badly?"

"I spoke to your father, child; I spoke to him on the subject often. But he was so tender-hearted; he always found some excuse."

Joergen entered with the doctor.

"If any complication arises, Miss Krog, the worst may happen."

"Will he be paralysed?" asked Mrs. Dawes.

The doctor evaded the question; he merely said: "Quiet is all important."

Silence followed this utterance.

"Miss Krog, I cannot allow you to nurse your father. There ought to be two trained nurses."

Mary said nothing. Mrs. Dawes began to cry again. "This is a sad change of days."

The doctor took leave, and was escorted downstairs by Joergen Thiis. When Joergen returned, he asked softly: "Shall I go too--or can I be of any use?"

"Oh, do not leave us!" wailed Mrs. Dawes.

Joergen looked at Mary, who said nothing; nor did she look up. She was weeping silently.

"You know, Miss Krog," said he respectfully, "that there is no one to whom I would so willingly be of service."

"We know that, we know that!" sobbed Mrs. Dawes.

Mary had raised her head, but, Mrs. Dawes having spoken, she said nothing.

When she left the room soon afterwards, Joergen was just opening his door, which was next to Mary's. He stood for a moment with the door wide open, so that she saw the packed portmanteau behind him. She stopped.

"You are going?" she said.

"Yes," answered he.

"It will be very quiet here now."

Joergen expected more, but no more came. Then he said:

"The shooting season begins immediately. I had intended to ask your father's permission to shoot in his woods."

"If you consider mine sufficient, you have it."

"Thank you, Miss Krog! You will allow me, too, to look in upon you sometimes, I hope?" He took her hand and bowed deeply over it.

Then he went in to take leave of Mrs. Dawes. With her he stayed ten minutes at least, coming out just as Mary was crossing the passage to her father's room.

As she stood by the bed Anders began to move, and opened his eyes. She knelt down. "Father!"

He seemed to be collecting his thoughts; then he tried to speak, but could not. She said quickly: "We know, Father; we know everything. Don't trouble about it! We'll get on beautifully all the same."

Her father's eyes showed that he took in what she said, though slowly. He tried to lift his hand, and, finding that he could not, looked at her with an expression of painful surprise; she lay down close to him, kissed him and wept.

Anders improved, however, with astonishing rapidity. Was it Mary's presence and untiring attention which helped him? The nurse said that it was.

Then came a time when, though still indefatigable in her attention to the two invalids, she learned to manage both house and farm. She took the accounts and the superintendence into her own hands. It was a task she enjoyed, for she had the gift of order and management. Mrs. Dawes was astonished.

No anxiety for the future did Mary display, no regret for the pleasures of the past. To those who pitied her she said that it was indeed sad that her father and Mrs. Dawes were ill, but that except for this she was perfectly contented.

* * * * *


One unusually warm day in the middle of August she had been very busy since early morning, looking forward all the time to a plunge in the sea as soon as her work was done.

Between five and six they ran down, Mary and little Nanna. They both went into the bathing-house, for it was one of Nanna's greatest pleasures to attend to Mary's