PART TWO
There was a wait of several minutes at Frederikshald—time for a cup of coffee. Jenny hurried along the platform; then suddenly she stopped to listen. Somewhere, near by, a lark was singing overhead. Once back in her compartment she leaned back in her corner and closed her eyes, her heart heavy with longing for the south.
The train rushed past small rocks of red granite, torn as it were from the mountain range, and between them dazzling glimpses of deep-blue fjords met the eye. Spruce trees clung to the mountain-side, with the afternoon sun on their reddish trunks and dark green, shiny needles. Everything in nature seemed conspicuously clear and clean after its bath of melting snow. The naked branches of foliferous trees stood out distinctly against the thin air, and little streamlets gurgled alongside the line.
It was all so different from the southern spring, with its slow, sound breathing and softly blended colours—she missed it so much. The sharp colouring now before her eyes reminded her of other springs, when she had been filled with longing for a joy far different from her present restful happiness.
Oh! for the spring out there, with the sprouting vegetation on the immense plain and the firm, severe lines of the encircling mountains, which man has robbed of their woods, to build stone-grey cities on the spurs and plant olive groves on the slopes. For thousands of years life has been teeming on the sides of the mountain, borne by it in patience, yet it raises its crown in eternal solitude and quiet towards heaven. Its proud outlines and subdued green and silvery grey colouring, the ancient cities and the slowly advancing spring—in spite of all that can be said of the tumultuous life of the south—make one's own life run with a calmer, healthier beat, that meets the coming of spring with greater equanimity than here, where it comes in such mighty waves.
Oh, Helge! She longed to be out there with him. It was so far away, and so long since it all happened. Not quite a week, yet it seemed almost a dream, as if she had never been away at all. But she had been there—not here to see and feel how the white, frosty, peaceful winter yielded and the dry, strong, light blue air, drenched with mist in the middle of the day, hung quivering over the ground. Every outline was blurred or broken, but the colours were vivid and sharp—naked, as it were—until evening came, when everything froze under a sky of pale green, everlasting light.
—You dear boy of mine—what are you doing now? I miss you so, and I want to be with you. I can scarcely believe that you are mine, and I can't bear to be alone, longing for you, all this bright, long spring.—
As the train proceeded on its way the scenery changed. Strips of snow showed among the trees and along the fences; the soft, shaded brown of the faded meadows and the ploughed fields met the eye, and the intense blue of the sky toned down near the horizon. The undulating line of the forest-clad mountain slopes lay far away; the branches of detached groups of trees in the fields gave the effect of lattice-work against the sky. The old grey houses of the farms shone like silver, and the new barns were glowing red. The pine needles formed an olive green background for the purple buds of the beeches and the light green of the aspens.
Such is spring: glowing colours that last a little while, then everything turns a golden green, swelling with the sap of life, and ripens in a few weeks into full summer—spring, when no joy is great enough. Evening fell, the last long red sunrays vanished behind a ridge, and the golden light in the cloudless sky faded slowly.
When the train left Moss, the mountain ridge stood dark against the clear sky, and the reflection of it in the green fjord was black and transparent. One single large, bright star rose behind the range; its light was mirrored in a filmy golden thread on the water.
It reminded her of Francesca's nocturnes; she was fond of reproducing the colourings after sunset. Jenny wondered how things were going with Cesca, and she felt a pang of conscience when she realized that she had seen very little of her in the two last months. Cesca was working hard and was perhaps in difficulties, but all Jenny's intentions to have a good long talk with her had come to nothing.
It was dark when she arrived at her destination; her mother, Bodil, and Nils were at the station to meet her.
It was as if she had seen her mother a week ago, but Mrs. Berner cried when she kissed her daughter: "Welcome home, my darling child—God bless you!" Bodil had grown, and looked very smart in a long coat and skirt. Kalfatrus greeted her shyly.
As she came out of the station she smelt the odour peculiar to the railway square of Christiania—a mixture of sea-water, coal smoke, and dried herring.
The cab drove along Carl Johan, past the old familiar houses. Mrs. Berner asked about the journey, and where she had spent the night. It seemed all so commonplace to Jenny, as if she had never been away from it. The two young people on the back seat said never a word.
Outside a garden gate in Wergelandsveien a young couple stood kissing each other good-night. A few stars twinkled in the clear deep blue sky above the naked trees in the Castle gardens. A smell of mouldering leaves came through the carriage window, reminding her of melancholy springs of old.
The cab stopped at the house where they lived. There was light still in the dairy on the ground floor; the woman came out on the doorstep, when she heard the cab, and said: "Good evening; welcome back," to Jenny. Ingeborg came rushing down the stairs to embrace her, and hurried up again, carrying her sister's bag. Supper was laid in the sitting-room, and Jenny saw her napkin with her father's silver ring in her old place beside Kalfatrus. Ingeborg hurried into the kitchen, and Bodil went with Jenny to her old room at the back, which had been Ingeborg's during her absence, and still harboured some of her belongings. On the walls were some picture cards of actors; Napoleon and Madame Récamier in mahogany frames hung on either side of Jenny's old empire mirror above the antique chest of drawers.
Jenny washed and did her hair; she felt an irritation in her skin from the journey, and passed the powder-puff a couple of times over her face. Bodil sniffed the powder to see if it was scented. They went to supper. Ingeborg had a nice hot meal ready; she had been to a cookery school that winter. In the light of the lamp Jenny saw that her young sisters had their thick curly hair tied up with silk bows. Ingeborg's small, dark face was thinner, but she did not cough any longer. She saw, too, that mamma had grown older—or had she perhaps not noticed, when she was at home and saw her every day, that the small wrinkles in her mother's pretty face increased, that the tall, girlish figure stooped a little, and that the shoulders lost their roundness? Since she grew up she had always been told that her mother looked like an elder and prettier sister of hers.
They spoke about everything that had happened at home during the year.
"Why didn't we take a taxi?" said Nils suddenly. "How stupid of us to ride home in an old four-wheeler!"
"Well, it's too late now; no good crying over spilt milk," laughed Jenny.
The luggage arrived; her mother and sisters watched the unpacking with interest. Ingeborg and Bodil carried the things into Jenny's room and put them in the drawers; the embroidered underlinen, which Jenny told them she had bought in Paris, was handled almost with reverence. There was great joy over the gifts to themselves: shantung for summer dresses and Italian bead necklaces. They draped themselves in the stuff before the glass, and tried the effect of the beads in their hair. Kalfatrus alone showed some interest in her pictures, trying to lift the box that contained her canvases.
"How many have you brought?"
"Twenty-six, but they are mostly small ones."
"Are you going to have a private exhibition—all by yourself?"
"I don't know yet—I may, some day."
While the girls were washing up and Nils was making his bed on the sofa, Mrs. Berner and Jenny had a chat in Jenny's room over a cup of tea and a cigarette.
"What do you think of Ingeborg?" asked Mrs. Berner anxiously.
"She looks well and bright, but, of course, she will need looking after. We must send her to live in the country till she gets quite strong again."
"She is so sweet and good always—bright and full of fun, and so useful in the house. I am so anxious about her; I think she has been out too much last winter, dancing too much, and keeping late hours, but I had not the heart to refuse her anything. You had such a sad childhood, Jenny—I know you missed the company of other children, and I was sure you and papa would think it right to let the child have all the pleasure she could." She sighed. "My poor little girls, they have nothing to look forward to but work and privations. What am I to do if they get ill besides? I can do so little."
Jenny bent over her mother and kissed the tears from her pretty, childish eyes. The longing to give and to receive tenderness, the remembrance of her early childhood, and the consciousness that her mother did not know her life—its sorrows before and its happiness now—melted into a feeling of protecting love, and she gathered her mother into her arms.
"Don't cry, mother dear. Everything will come all right. I am going to stay at home for the present, and we have still something left of Aunt Katherine's money."
"No, Jenny, you must keep that for yourself. I understand now that you must not be hampered in any way in your work. It was such a joy to us all when your picture at the exhibition was sold last autumn."
Jenny smiled. The fact that she had sold a picture and had two or three lines in the papers about it made her people look upon her work in quite a different light.
"Don't worry about me, mother. It is all right. I may be able to earn something while I am here. I must have a studio, though," she said, after a pause, adding as an explanation: "I must finish my pictures in a studio, you see."
"But you will live at home, won't you?" asked the mother anxiously.
Jenny did not answer.
"It won't do, my dear child, for a young girl to live alone in a studio."
"Very well," said Jenny; "I shall live at home."
When she was alone she took out Helge's photo and sat down to write to him. She had been home only a couple of hours, and yet everything she had lived through out there, where he was, seemed so far away and altogether apart from her life here, before or now. The letter was one single cry of yearning.