But on the day after New Year’s, Sir Andres Darre arrived unexpectedly at the convent together with his wife and all five children. They were going to spend the last part of the Christmas holidays with friends and kinsmen in town, and they came to ask Kristin to join them at the place where they were staying for several days.
“I’ve been thinking, my daughter, said Fru Angerd, “that you probably wouldn’t mind seeing some new faces by now.”
The Dyfrin people were staying in a beautiful house that was part of an estate near the bishop’s citadel. Sir Andres’s nephew owned it. There was a large room where the servants slept and a magnificent loft room with a brick fireplace and three good beds. Sir Andres and Fru Angerd slept in one of the beds, along with their youngest son, Gudmund, who was still a child. Kristin and their two daughters, Astrid and Sigrid, slept in the second bed. And in the third slept Simon and his older brother, Gyrd Andress?n.
All of Sir Andres’s children were good-looking—Simon the least so, and yet people still considered him handsome. And Kristin noticed even more than when she had been at the Dyfrin manor the year before that both his parents and his four siblings listened closely to Simon and did everything he wished. All his kinsmen loved each other heartily but agreed without rancor to place Simon foremost.
These people led a joyful and happy life, going to one of the churches each day to make their offerings, meeting to drink among friends each evening, and allowing the young to play and dance. Everyone showed Kristin the greatest kindness, and no one seemed to notice how little joy she felt.
At night, when the candles were put out in the loft and everyone had gone to bed, Simon would get up and come over to where the maidens lay. He would sit for a while on the edge of the bed, speaking mostly to his sisters, but in the dark he would sneak his hand up to Kristin’s breast and let it stay there. She would lie there, sweating with indignation.
Now that her sense for such matters was so much keener, she realized there were many things that Simon was both too proud and too shy to say to her, once he noticed that she didn’t want to go into such topics. And she felt a strange, bitter anger toward him because it seemed to her that he was trying to make himself seem a better man than the one who had taken her—even though he had no idea of the other man’s existence.
But one evening when they had been out dancing at another estate, Astrid and Sigrid stayed behind and were going to sleep with a foster sister. Late that night, when the people from Dyfrin had gone to bed in the loft, Simon came over to Kristin’s bed and climbed in; he lay on top of the furs.
Kristin pulled the covers up to her chin and crossed her arms tightly over her chest. After a moment Simon reached out his hand to touch her breasts. She felt the silk embroidery at his wrists, so she realized that he had not undressed.
“You’re just as shy in the dark as in the daylight, Kristin,” said Simon with a chuckle. “Surely you’ll let me hold your hand, won’t you?” he asked, and Kristin gave him her fingertips.
“Don’t you think we might have a few things to talk about, now that we have the chance to be alone for a little while?” he said. And Kristin thought that now she would be able to speak. So she agreed. But then she could not utter a word.
“Can I come under the furs?” he asked again. “It’s cold in the room.” And he slipped in between the furs and the woolen blanket she had over her. He crooked one arm behind her head, but in such a way that he did not touch her. And they lay there like that for a while.
“You’re not an easy person to woo, either,” said Simon after a pause, and then laughed in resignation. “I promise you I won’t so much as kiss you, if you don’t want me to. But surely you can talk to me, can’t you?”
Kristin moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, but she still remained silent.
“It seems to me that you’re lying here trembling,” Simon continued. “Is it because you have something against me, Kristin?”
She didn’t think that she could lie to Simon, so she said, “No,” but nothing more.
Simon lay there a little longer, trying to get a conversation started. But finally he laughed again and said, “I see that you think I should be satisfied with this—that you have nothing against me—for tonight, at least, and that I should even be happy. It’s strange how proud you are too. But you must give me a kiss, all the same; then I’ll go and not plague you any longer.”
He took his kiss, sat up, and set his feet on the floor. Kristin thought that now she would manage to tell him what had to be said—but he had already left her bed, and she could hear him getting undressed.