Charlotte Löwensköld. Selma LagerlöfЧитать онлайн книгу.
Löwensköld had quietly stolen up to her room. In a few moments, the Dean’s wife came and asked her to join them in the salon. Ironmaster Schagerström was calling, and it was rather tiresome for him having no one to talk to but two aged persons.
The old lady looked a bit flustered, but solemn. Charlotte opened her eyes wide with surprise, but asked no questions. She untied her apron, dipped her fingers in the wash basin, smoothed back her hair, put on a fresh collar, then followed after the Dean’s wife. About to step out of the room, she turned back and put on her large apron again.
Charlotte had no sooner entered the salon and greeted Schagerström than she was requested to be seated. Whereupon the old Dean made her a little speech. He used many words, dilating upon the comfort and joy she had brought to the house. She had been as a dear daughter to him and his wife, and it would be hard for them to part with her. But now that a man like Ironmaster Gustaf Schagerström had come and asked for her hand in marriage, they must not think of themselves, but counsel her to accept an offer which was so much better than any she could have expected.
The Dean made no mention of the fact that she was already betrothed to his curate. Both he and his wife had been long opposed to this bond, and heartily wished it broken. A poor girl like Charlotte Löwensköld could not afford to tie herself up with a man who positively refused to seek a proper living.
Charlotte had listened without moving a muscle. The Dean, wishing to give her time to form a fitting reply, added a glowing eulogy of Schagerström. He spoke of his fine estates, his splendid achievements, his wonderful capabilities, his high ideals, and his kindness to his employees. He had heard so much good of Ironmaster Schagerström that, although this was his first visit to the deanery, he already regarded him as a friend into whose keeping he was glad to place the destiny of his young kinswoman.
All the while Schagerström sat regarding Charlotte, to see how she was taking his proposal. She suddenly straightened in her chair, threw back her head, her blue eyes turned almost black, and her lip curled in a scornful smile. Schagerström was struck with amazement. Charlotte Löwensköld was a beauty! And, moreover, a beauty who was neither meek nor humble.
Obviously, his offer had made a strong impression, but whether favourable or unfavourable, he hardly dared venture to guess.
However, he did not have to remain long in a state of uncertainty. The moment the Dean had finished, Charlotte Löwensköld spoke up:
“I wonder if Ironmaster Schagerström knows that I am engaged?”
“Oh, yes,” said Schagerström. Before he could utter another word, Charlotte continued:
“Then how can Ironmaster Schagerström have the audacity to come and propose to me!”
That was what she said; she used such a word as audacity when speaking to the richest man in Korskyrka. She had forgotten that she was only a poor lady’s-companion. Now she was the proud aristocrat, the Honourable Fröken Löwensköld.
The old Dean and his wife were so shocked they nearly fell off their chairs. Schagerström, too, looked somewhat surprised; but he was a man of the world and knew how to act in an embarrassing situation. He stepped up to Charlotte, took one of her small hands between his two, and pressed it warmly.
“My dear Fröken Löwensköld,” he said, “your answer only increases my respect and admiration for you as an individual.”
He bowed to the Dean and to the Dean’s wife, and indicated by a gesture that they need not speak or see him to his carriage. They, as well as Charlotte, marvelled at the dignity of the rejected suitor as he withdrew from the room.
CHAPTER III
WISHES
It is of no consequence, surely, that a person sits wishing. If she does not lift so much as a finger to attain the object of her desire, what harm can there be in her wishing?
When a body knows that she is homely and poor and insignificant, while the one whom she covets has not a thought of her, then assuredly she may revel in her wishes as much as she likes.
If, in the bargain, she is married, and a virtuous wife, and has a little leaning toward pietism, and wouldn’t for all the world do anything wrong, then what does it matter that she sits wishing?
If, moreover, she is all of thirty-two and the one she thinks of is but nine-and-twenty; if, besides, she is awkward and shy and has no social gifts, she might as well sit at home and wish from morning to night. There’s nothing sinful in that, surely? It can’t lead to anything.
Though she may regard the longings of others as light spring breezes and her own as powerful storm winds, that can move mountains and drive our planet out of its course, she knows these are but fancies which, in reality, have no effect.
She should be glad that she lives in the church town, right on the main street, where she can see him pass by her window almost every day; that she can hear him preach every Sunday; that she can come sometimes to the deanery, where she may sit in the same room with him, though her shyness prevents her from speaking.
Strangely enough, there was a slight bond between him and her. He was unaware of it, perhaps, and she had never thought to mention it. Her mother was a Malvina Spaak, sometime housekeeper at Hedeby Manor, the home of his maternal grandparents, Baron and Baroness Löwensköld. Malvina, when about thirty-five years of age, had married a poor farmer and afterward had toiled and slaved in her own home, at weaving and household tasks, as she had once done in the home of others. But she had always kept up her connection with the Löwenskölds. They had come to see her, and she had made long visits at Hedeby, giving a hand at the spring-cleaning and the autumn bakes. This had lent a little lustre to an otherwise dull existence.
She had often talked to her little daughter of the days when she was in service at Hedeby; of the dead general whose ghost had haunted the place, and of young Baron Adrian who had wanted to help his old grandfather find rest in his grave.
The daughter knew that the mother had been in love with young Adrian from the way in which she had spoken of him. How handsome he was! and how gentle! He had such a dreamy look in his eyes and such indescribable charm in his every movement. The girl had thought at the time that the mother was exaggerating. A young man such as she had pictured was not to be found on this earth.
Then one day she beheld him!
Shortly after her marriage to the organist and their removal to Korskyrka, she saw him one Sunday step into the pulpit. He was no baron, only a Pastor Ekenstedt; but he was the son of a sister to the Baron Adrian whom Malvina Spaak had loved, and was handsome and boyishly slender and lithe. She recognized the large dreamy eyes her mother had talked about, and the pleasant smile.
She thought, as she looked at him, that her wishing had brought him there. She had always longed to see a man who measured up to her mother’s description of Adrian, and now at last she saw one! To be sure, she knew that wishes have no power; but it seemed strange, all the same, that he had come.
He did not appear to notice her, however, and toward the end of the summer he became engaged to Charlotte Löwensköld. In the autumn he returned to Upsala to continue his studies, and she thought he had gone out of her life forever. Wish as hard as she might, he would never come back to her.
Then, after an absence of five years, he appeared again in the pulpit, and again she thought he had come in answer to her wishes. He had given her no reason to think so. In fact, he was hardly aware of her existence, and he was still engaged to Charlotte Löwensköld.
She had never wished Charlotte any ill; she could lay her hand on the Bible and swear to that. Sometimes, though, she had wished that Charlotte would fall in love with somebody else, or that one of her rich relatives would invite her on a long journey to distant lands, so that she might be parted from young Ekenstedt in some pleasant and fortuitous way.
As wife of