FullReads

Mildrid knew her parents, and knew that these preparations meant that they expected something unusual. She had had little courage before, but now it grew less. Her father took his raised seat close to the farthest away window, the one that looked down the valley. Her mother sat on the same bench, but nearer the kitchen. Mildrid seated herself on the opposite one, in front of the table. Hans could see her there; and he could see her father, right in the face, but her mother he could hardly see.

Her mother asked, as her father had done before, about things at the soeter; got the same information and a little more; for she asked more particularly. It was evident that both sides were making this subject last as long as possible, but it was soon exhausted. In the pause that came, both parents looked at Mildrid. She avoided the look, and asked what news there was of the neighbours. This subject was also drawn out as long as possible, but it came to an end too. The same silence, the same expectant eyes turned on the daughter. There was nothing left for her to ask about, and she began to rub her hand back and forwards on the bench.

“Have you been in at grandmother’s?” asked her mother, who was beginning to get frightened.

No, she had not been there. This meant then that their daughter had something particular to say to them, and it could not with any seemliness be put off longer.

“There is something that I must tell you,” she got out at last, with changing colour and downcast eyes.

Her father and mother exchanged troubled looks. Mildrid raised her head and looked at them with great imploring eyes.

“What is it, my child?” asked her mother anxiously.

“I am betrothed,” said Mildrid; hung her head again, and burst into tears.

No more stunning blow could have fallen on the quiet circle. The parents sat looking at each other, pale and silent. The steady, gentle Mildrid, for whose careful ways and whose obedience they had so often thanked God, had, without asking their advice, without their knowledge, taken life’s most important step, a step that was also decisive for their past and future. Mildrid felt each thought along with them, and fear stopped her crying.

Her father asked gently and slowly: “To whom, my child?”

After a silence came the whispered answer: “To Hans Haugen.”

No name or event connected with Haugen had been mentioned in that room for more than twenty years. In her parents’ opinion nothing but evil had come to Tingvold from there. Mildrid again knew their thoughts: she sat motionless, awaiting her sentence.

Her father spoke again mildly and slowly: “We don’t know the man, neither I nor your mother–and we didn’t know that you knew him.”

“And I didn’t know him either,” said Mildrid.

The astonished parents looked at each other. “How did it happen then?” It was her mother who asked this.

“That is what I don’t know myself,” said Mildrid.

“But, my child, surely you’re mistress of your own actions?”

Mildrid did not answer.

“We thought,” added her father gently, “that we could be quite sure of you.”

Mildrid did not answer.

“But how did it happen?” repeated her mother more impatiently; “you must know that!”

“No, I don’t know it–I only know that I could not help it–no, I couldn’t!” She was sitting holding on to the bench with both hands.

“God forgive and help you! Whatever came over you?”

Mildrid gave no answer.

Her father calmed their rising excitement by saying in a gentle, friendly voice: “Why did you not speak to one of us, my child?”

And her mother controlled herself, and said quietly: “You know how much we think of our children, we who have lived such a lonely life; and–yes, we may say it, especially of you, Mildrid; for you have been so much to us.”

Mildrid felt as if she did not know where she was.

“Yes, we did not think you would desert us like this.”