One of Life's Slaves Part 18

At last she came out, tightly laced, and with a strip of crochet in the neck of her dress. What sort of oil or fatty substance she had plastered down her hair with may be left unsaid; but Silla in her brown straw hat and a plain white collar, felt for a moment insignificant beside her.

But she quickly took her friend's arm; now they were off to amuse themselves!

Down to the town they went, Silla impatiently champing the bit in her desire to get there in time to take part in the day's pleasures.

In the streets and the park at this respectable time in the afternoon, crowds of people clad in their best were strolling up and down looking at one another, and for a long time Silla and Georgina had enough to do in directing one another's attention to the finest and most fas.h.i.+onable dresses, and especially the long white flowing scarfs wound under the chin and thrown over the shoulder. These, and white straw hats with light blue or pink ribbons and roses, were the objects of their vehement admiration.

They went up and down, lost sight of and met again the same dresses, and the same stiff quiet Sunday faces.

This was repeated until it became wearisome, and Silla proposed that they should go somewhere else, which, under Georgina's guidance, led to a walk round the fortress.

Nature was not their object; and they only met one or two tired, bored individuals who evidently did not know what to do with themselves on Sunday afternoon: now and then they stopped and looked up at the trees.

A sentry called his long-drawn "Relieve guard!" It sounded like a mighty yawn in the afternoon. Out on the calm, s.h.i.+ning fjord lay boats and vessels drifting in the breathless heat.

There was nothing here, so they made their way down to the harbour.

Here, too, was emptiness and Sunday desolation, the vessels seemed to have died out.

Another cruise up the street.

On the market-place stood some unemployed forces, who had found a Sunday amus.e.m.e.nt in exchanging watches,[5] while the bells of the church behind them were ringing in the congregation to evening service.

[Footnote 5: In Norway this is a pastime often resorted to by men on holidays, when time hangs heavy on their hands. I have seen even old men deeply absorbed in the examination of each other's watches, with a view to their exchange.--_Trans_.]

Tired, wearied, and thirsty, they continued their walk up the street until they came into the motley stream of people who were wending their way down to the piers, where the steamers were constantly coming in and going out with pa.s.sengers from and to the islands.

Here a difference of opinion arose.

Georgina thought there were so many people, and perhaps it was not proper to go by the steamer, as it was beginning to grow late.

But Silla thought that they had swallowed dust in the streets long enough, and that they must make use of the little time they had. Was Georgina going home satisfied with the pleasure she had already had?

It was cool and airy sitting in the wind in the front of the boat and resting themselves after the fruitless roaming in the heat.

They went on sh.o.r.e from the crowded steamboat to the island, where the people gradually dispersed along the various shady walks.

Close to the way up from the pier, and commanding a view of the bay, stood the great place of amus.e.m.e.nt, with all its gates invitingly open, and the sound of dance-music floating out. Within was life and merriment.

Silla stopped to look in and listen to the music, but Georgina, highly scandalised, pulled her on.

Was that the place for a respectable girl to stop?

Silla followed slowly; there was inspiriting dance-music brightening all the path within the wooden paling, and she drank it in with both ears, while the rhythm rocked in her veins.

A little higher up, where the path turned off, she stopped again; she could not leave the music, and scandalised Georgina by going right up to the paling and trying to see in.

Georgina would leave her that very minute! She ought to have so much respect for herself as not to stand there! _She_ had, at any rate, and cared too much for her good name even to want to listen to such a noise, and would go a long way round to avoid it.

She was extremely indignant.

Silla could really not comprehend how it could take the gloss off either of them if they stood there a little and listened; nor yet what they had come out for. Just where there was a little life and gaiety they were to shut their eyes and put their fingers in their ears. But where it was so "nice and proper" it had not been particularly amusing; and she would give her a new sixpence if Georgina could tell her of a "proper"

amus.e.m.e.nt when they had a holiday: they had been searching for one now both long and carefully.

She sauntered on.

According to Georgina, there was still nice time before the evening traffic to the place of amus.e.m.e.nt began, and they spent it in diverse walks in the roads, though never so far that they could not keep an eye on the steamers and be standing in good time among the crowd that was thronging the pier.

Tired, cross and footsore, they at last reached home late in the evening, where Silla, in the middle of the account she was giving her mother of all the places they had been to, fell asleep in her chair.

The music was running in her head, and she dreamt she was at a ball.

There was a pleasant crackling in the stove at Barbara's in the chilly autumn days, when people who could not afford it so well were loth to begin fires.

It was, therefore, very comfortable to stand about at her counter talking, and still more so for the chosen few who were fortunate enough to be invited to partake of a cup of coffee.

But of late Barbara had not been nearly so even-tempered as formerly.

She suffered from changeableness of spirits, was sometimes unnaturally stingy, so that it looked as if she wanted to count the groats or the coffee-beans, at other times in a different mood, open-handed and liberal to both guests and customers.

Whatever the reason might be, it was certain that now and then in quiet moments she would fall into a brown study. The bill for sugar, meal, flour and coffee had come in again.

The till was anything but prepared for such an achievement; it groaned and rattled whatever time in the day she pulled it out or pushed it in.

Time, however, went on inexorably, notwithstanding that the stove roared so cheerfully as if nothing were the matter.

And it had now gone so far that the day after to-morrow was the day for payment.

Barbara was in a--for her--most unnatural state of excitement. In the hope of obtaining a very last, further postponement, she had this afternoon carried out her long contemplated attack on the salesman down in his office, but had met with a decided refusal. If she did not pay now, after all she had promised, then--well, then, after the answer she received, it looked as if the wheel would suddenly come to a standstill.

It was this that Barbara, going feverishly in and out, with her best bonnet still loosely tied upon her head, was explaining to Nikolai, who was sitting in the kitchen.

Nikolai's face did not look as if he saw any help for it. On the contrary, he sat bending forward with compressed lips, looking down at the floor and twirling his thumbs. His hair as well as the position of his shoulders and his whole expression looked combative.

Barbara sat down by the cooking-stove; she drew a heavy breath, and sighed out of an oppressed breast.

It would come to an execution as sure as she lived--and it was for thirty-eight dollars!

Nikolai knew well what she was coming to, and that she was only waiting for him to give her a word that she could hang on to; but this money that he had sc.r.a.ped together was held much faster. He knew what he wanted, and this trade was only going farther and farther backwards, in any case.

Barbara groaned. She might as well go into the black ground at once.

Nikolai only snapped his fingers and looked down, doubly decided, at the crack in the floor.

When the pause had become unbearable any longer, and she saw clearly that no answer was coming, she began to cry softly.

She _had_ thought, she sobbed, that when she had a son who was a smith's foreman, she would not stand quite helpless in the world.

"You know, mother, how badly I am in want of money myself."