They had almost reached J?rundgaard when Lavrans overtook them. The rest of their entourage came thundering along the road far behind.
“Say nothing to your mother,” said Simon as he set Kristin down next to the door. “We’ve heard far too much senseless talk tonight; it’s no wonder that you fainted in the end.”
Ragnfrid was lying awake when they came in and she asked how things had gone at the vigil. Simon spoke for all of them. Yes, there were many candles and many people. Yes, a priest was there—Tormod of Ulvsvold. Of Sira Eirik, he heard that he had ridden south to Hamar that very evening, so they would avoid any difficulty at the burial.
“We must have a mass said for the boy,” said Ragnfrid. “May God give Inga strength. She has been sorely tried, that good, capable woman.”
Lavrans fell in with the tone that Simon had set, and in a little while Simon said that now they must all go to bed—“For Kristin is both tired and sad.”
Some time later, when Ragnfrid had fallen asleep, Lavrans threw on some clothes and went over to sit on the edge of the bed where his daughters were sleeping. In the dark he found Kristin’s hand, and then he said gently, “Now you must tell me, child, what is true and what is a lie in all this talk that Inga is spouting.”
Sobbing, Kristin told him of everything that had happened on the evening that Arne left for Hamar. Lavrans said little. Then Kristin crawled forward on the bed and threw her arms around his neck, whimpering softly.
“I am to blame for Arne’s death—it’s true what Inga said…”
“Arne himself asked you to come and meet him,” said Lavrans, pulling the covers up around his daughter’s bare shoulders. “It was thoughtless of me to allow the two of you to spend so much time together, but I thought the boy had better sense. I won’t blame the two of you; I can see that these things are heavy for you to bear. And yet I never imagined that any of my daughters would fall into ill repute here in our village. It will be painful for your mother when she hears this news. But you went to Gunhild instead of coming to me—that was so unwise that I can’t understand how you could act so foolishly.”
“I don’t want to stay here in the village any longer,” wept Kristin. “I don’t dare look a single person in the eye. And all the sorrow I have caused those at Romundgaard and at Finsbrekken …”
“Yes,” said Lavrans, “they will have to make sure, both Gyrd and Sira Eirik, that these lies about you are put in the ground along with Arne. Otherwise it is Simon Andressen who can best defend you in this matter.” And he patted her in the dark. “Don’t you think he handled things well and with good sense?”
“Father,” Kristin begged, fearful and fervent, as she clung to him, “send me to the cloister, Father. Yes, listen to me—I’ve thought about this for a long time. Maybe Ulvhild will get well if I go in her place. Do you remember the shoes that I sewed for her this autumn, the ones with pearls on them? I pricked my fingers so badly, I bled from the sharp gold thread. I sat and sewed those shoes because I thought it was wrong that I didn’t love my sister enough to become a nun and help her. Arne asked me about that once. If I had said yes back then, none of this would have happened.”
Lavrans shook his head.
“Lie down now,” he told her. “You don’t know what you’re saying, my poor child. Now you must try to sleep.”
But Kristin lay there, feeling the pain in her burned hand; bitterness and despair over her fate raged in her heart. Things could not have gone worse for her if she had been the most sinful of women; everyone would believe … No, she couldn‘t, she couldn’t stand to stay here in the village. Horror after horror appeared before her. When her mother found out about this … And now there was blood between them and their parish priest, hostility among all those around her who had been friends her whole life. But the most extreme and oppressive fears seized her whenever she thought of Simon—the way he had picked her up and carried her off and spoken for her at home and acted as if she were his property. Her father and mother had yielded to him as if she already belonged more to him than to them.
Then she remembered Arne’s face, cold and hideous. She remembered that she had seen an open grave waiting for a body the last time she came out of church. The chopped-up lumps of earth lay on the snow, hard and cold and gray as iron—that was where she had brought Arne.
Suddenly she thought about a summer night many years before. She was standing on the loft gallery at Finsbrekken, the same loft where she had been struck down this evening. Arne was playing ball with some boys down in the courtyard, and the ball came sailing up to her on the gallery. She held it behind her back and refused to give it up when Arne came to retrieve it. Then he tried to take it from her by force, and they had fought over it on the gallery, then inside the loft among the chests. The leather sacks full of clothes that were hanging there knocked them on the head when they ran into them during the chase. They had fought and tumbled over that ball.