The Bridal Wreath

by Sigrid Undset

  They pitied Sira Eirik too. The priest was beloved and well respected, and the folk of the parish were proud of him; he was learned and skilled in his office, and in all the years he had had their church he had never let a holy-day or a mass or a service pass that he was in duty bound to hold. In his youth he had been man-at-arms under Count Alv of Tornberg, but he had had the misfortune to kill a man of very high birth, and so had taken refuge with the Bishop of Oslo; when the Bishop saw what a turn Eirik had for book-learning, he had him trained for a priest. And had it not been that he still had enemies by reason of that slaying of long ago, it was like Sira Eirik would not have stayed here in this little charge. True enough, he was very greedy of pence, both for his own purse and for the church, but then, was not his church richly fitted out with plate and vestments and books? and he himself had these children — and he had had naught but sorrow and trouble with his family. In these far-away country parishes folk held it was not reason that priests should live like monks, for they must at the least have women to help on their farms, and they might well need a woman to look after things for them, seeing what long and toilsome journeys they must make round the parishes, and that too in all kinds of weather; besides folk had not forgotten that it was not so very long since priests in Norway had been wedded men. Thus, no one had blamed Sira Eirik overmuch that he had had three children by the woman who tended his house, while he was yet young. But this evening they said it looked, indeed, as though ’twas God’s will to punish Eirik for his loose living, so much evil had his children and his children’s children brought upon him. And some thought there was good reason, too, that a priest should have neither wife nor children — for after this it was much to be feared that bitterness and enmity would arise between the priest and the folk on Finsbrekken, who until now had been the best of friends.

  Simon Andressön knew much of Bentein’s doings in Oslo; and he told of them. Bentein had been clerk to the Dean of the Church of the Holy Virgin, and he had the name of being a quick-witted youth. There were many women, too, who liked him well — he had roving eyes, and a glib tongue. Some held him a comely man — these were for the most part such women as thought they had a bad bargain in their husbands. And then young maids, the sort that liked well that men should be somewhat free with them. Simon laughed — ay, they understood? Well, Bentein was so sly, he never went too far with that kind of woman; he was all talk with them, and so he got a name for clean-living. But the thing was that King Haakon, as they knew, was a good and pious man himself, and fain would keep order among his men, and hold them to a seemly walk and conversation — the young ones at least; the others were apt to be too much for him. And it came about that whatever pranks the youngsters managed to slip out and take part in — drinking bouts, gambling and beer-drinking and such-like — the priest of the King’s household always got to hear of, and the madcaps had to confess and pay scot and suffer hard reproof; ay, two or three of the wildest youths of all were hunted away. But at last it came out, it was this fox, Bentein secretarius — unknown to any one he had been made free of all the beer-houses and worse places still; he confessed the serving-wenches and gave them absolution.…

  Kristin sat at her mother’s side; she tried to eat so that no one should mark how it was with her, though her hand shook so that she spilled the milk porridge at each spoonful, and her tongue felt so thick and dry in her mouth that she could not swallow the morsels of bread. But when Simon began to tell of Bentein, she had to give up making believe to eat; she held on to the bench beneath her — terror and loathing seized her, so that she felt dizzy and sick. It was he who had wanted to.… Bentein and Arne, Bentein and Arne.… Beside herself with impatience, she waited for them to be finished. She longed to see Arne, Arne’s comely face, to throw herself down beside him and mourn and forget all else.

  As her mother helped her with her outer wrappings, she kissed her daughter on the cheek. Kristin was so little used to endearments from her mother now, it comforted her much — she laid her head upon Ragnfrid’s shoulder a moment, but she could not weep.

  When they came out into the courtyard, she saw that others were going with them — Halvdan, Jon from Laugarbru, and Simon and his man. It gave her a pang, she knew not why, that the two strangers should be coming with them.

  It was a bitter cold evening, and the snow crackled underfoot; in the black sky the stars crowded thick, glittering like rime. When they had ridden a little way, they heard yells and howls and furious hoof-beats from the flats to the south — a little farther up the road a whole troop of horsemen came tearing up behind and swept past them with a ringing of metal, leaving behind a vapour of reeking, rime-covered horse-flesh, which reached them even where they stood aside in the deep snow. Halvdan hailed the wild crew — they were youths from the farms in the south of the parish; they were still keeping Yuletide and were out trying their horses. Some, who were too drunk to understand, thundered on at a gallop, roaring at the top of their voices and hammering on their shields. But a few grasped the tidings which Halvdan shouted to them; they fell out of the troop, grew silent, joined Lavrans’ company and talked in whispers to those in the rear.

  At last they came in sight of Finsbrekken, on the hillside beyond the Sil river. There were lights about the houses — in the middle of the courtyard pine-root torches had been planted in a heap of snow, and their glare lay red over the white slopes, but the black houses looked as though smeared with clotted blood. One of Arne’s little sisters stood outside and stamped her feet; she hugged her hands beneath her cloak. Kristin kissed the tear-stained, half-frozen child. Her heart was heavy as stone, and it seemed as though she had lead in her limbs, as she climbed the stairs to the loft-room where they had laid him.

  The sound of singing and the glitter of many lighted candles met them in the doorway. In the middle of the room stood the coffin he had been brought home in, covered with a sheet; boards had been laid on trestles and the coffin placed upon them. At the head of the bier a young priest stood with a book in his hands, chanting; round about knelt the mourners with their faces hidden in their heavy cloaks.

  Lavrans lit his candle at one of those already burning, set it firmly upon one of the boards of the bier and knelt down. Kristin tried to do the like, but could not get her candle to stand; so Simon took it and helped her. As long as the priest went on chanting, all stayed upon their knees and repeated his words in whispers, their breath hanging like steam about their mouths in the bitter cold air of the room.

  When the priest shut his book and the folk rose — there were many gathered in the death-chamber already — Lavrans went forward to Inga. She stared at Kristin, and seemed scarce to hear what Lavrans said; she stood holding the gifts he had handed to her, as though she knew not she had aught in her hand.

  “Are you come, too, Kristin,” she said in a strange, choking voice. “Maybe you would see my son, so as he is come back to me?”

  She pushed some of the candles aside, seized Kristin’s arm with a shaking hand, and with the other swept the napkin from the face of the dead.

  It was greyish-yellow like clay, and the lips had the hue of lead; they had parted a little, so that the small, even, bone-white teeth showed through as in a mocking smile. Under the long eyelashes there was a gleam of the glassy eyes, and there were some livid stains below the temples, either marks of blows or the death-spots.

  “Maybe you would kiss him?” asked Inga, as before; and Kristin bent forward at her bidding and pressed her lips upon the dead man’s cheek. It was clammy as with dew, and she thought she could feel the least breath of decay; the body had begun to thaw perhaps with the heat from all the tapers round.

  Kristin stayed still, lying with her hands on the bier, for she could not rise. Inga drew the shroud farther aside, so that the great gash above the collar-bone came to sight. Then she turned towards the people and said with a shaking voice:

  “They lie, I see, who say a dead man’s wounds will bleed when he is touched by him who wrough
t his death. He is colder now, my boy, and less comely, than when you met him last down there upon the road. You care not much to kiss him now, I see — but I have heard you scorned not his lips then.”

  “Inga,” said Lavrans, coming forward, “have you lost your wits — are you raving —”

  “Oh, ay, you are all so fine, down at Jörundgaard — you were far too rich a man, you Lavrans Björgulifsön, for my son to dare think of courting your daughter with honour — and Kristin, too, she thought herself too good. But she was not too good to run after him on the highway at night and play with him in the thickets the night he left — ask her yourself and we will see if she dare deny it here, with Arne lying dead — and all through her lightness —”

  Lavrans did not ask; he turned to Gyrd:

  “Curb your wife, man — you see she has clean lost her wits —”

  But Kristin lifted her white face and looked desperately about her:

  “I went and met Arne the last evening because he begged me to. But naught of wrong passed between us.” And then, as she seemed to come to herself and to understand all, she cried out: “I know not what you mean, Inga — would you slander Arne and he lying here — never did he tempt me nor lure me astray —”

  But Inga laughed aloud:

  “Nay, not Arne! but Bentein Priest — he did not let you play with him so — ask Gunhild, Lavrans, that washed the dirt off your daughter’s back; and ask each man who was in the Bishop’s henchmen’s hall on New Year’s Eve, when Bentein flouted Arne for that he had let her go, and leave him standing like a fool. She let Bentein walk homeward with her under her cloak, and would have played the same game with him —”

  Lavrans took her by the shoulder and laid his hand over her mouth:

  “Take her away, Gyrd. Shameful it is that you should speak such words by this good youth’s body — but if all your children lay here dead, I would not stand and hear you lie about mine — you, Gyrd, must answer for what this mad-woman says —”

  Gyrd took hold of his wife and tried to lead her away, but he said to Lavrans:

  “ ’Tis true, though, ’twas of Kristin they talked, Arne and Bentein, when my son lost his life. Like enough you have not heard it, but there hath been talk in the parish here, too, this autumn —”

  Simon struck a blow with his sword upon the clothes-chest beside him:

  “Nay, good folk, now must you find somewhat else to talk of in this death-chamber than my betrothed.… Priest, can you not rule these folk and keep seemly order here — ?”

  The priest — Kristin saw now he was the youngest son from Ulvsvolden, who had been at home for Yule — opened his book and stood up beside the bier. But Lavrans shouted that those who had talked about his daughter, let them be who they might, should be made to swallow their words; and Inga shrieked:

  “Ay, take my life then, Lavrans, since she has taken all my comfort and joy — and make her wedding with this knight’s son; but yet do all folk know that she was wed with Bentein upon the highway.… Here …” and she cast the sheet Lavrans had given her right across the bier to Kristin, “I need not Ragnfrid’s linen to lay my Arne in the grave — make head-cloths of it, you, or keep it to swaddle your roadside brat — and go down and help Gunhild to moan for the man that’s hanged —”

  Lavrans, Gyrd and the priest took hold of Inga. Simon tried to lift Kristin, who was lying over the bier. But she thrust his arm fiercely aside, drew herself up straight upon her knees, and cried aloud:

  “So God my Saviour help me, it is false!” and, stretching out one hand, she held it over the nearest candle on the bier.

  It seemed as if the flame bent and waved aside — Kristin felt all eyes fixed upon her — what seemed to her a long time went by. And then all at once she grew ware of a burning pain in her palm, and with a piercing cry she fell back upon the floor.

  She thought herself she had swooned — but she was aware that Simon and the priest raised her. Inga shrieked out something; she saw her father’s horror-stricken face, and heard the priest shout that no one must take account of this ordeal — not thus might one call God to witness, — and then Simon bore her from the room and down the stairs. Simon’s man ran to the stable, and soon after Kristin was sitting, still half senseless, in front of Simon on his saddle, wrapped in his cloak, and he was riding toward Jörundgaard as fast as his horse could gallop.

  They were nigh to Jörundgaard when Lavrans came up with them. The rest of their company came thundering along the road far behind.

  “Say naught to your mother,” said Simon, as he set her down at the door of the house. “We have heard all too much wild talk to-night; ’tis no wonder you lost your wits yourself at the last.”

  Ragnfrid was lying awake when they came in, and she asked how things had been in the wake-chamber. Simon took it upon himself to answer for all. Ay, there had been many candles and many folk; ay, there had been a priest — Tormod from Ulvsvolden — Sira Eirik he heard had ridden off to Hamar this very evening, so there would be no trouble about the burial.

  “We must have a mass said over the lad,” said Ragnfrid. “God strengthen Inga; the good, worthy woman is sorely tried.”

  Lavrans sang the same tune as Simon, and in a little Simon said that now they must all go to rest, “for Kristin is both weary and sorrowful.”

  After a time, when Ragnfrid slept, Lavrans threw on a few clothes, and went and seated himself on the edge of his daughters’ bed. He found Kristin’s hand in the dark, and said very gently:

  “Now must you tell me, child, what is true and what is false in all this talk Inga is spreading.”

  Sobbing, Kristin told him all that had befallen the evening Arne set out for Hamar. Lavrans said but little. Kristin crept toward him in her bed, threw her arms round his neck and wailed softly:

  “It is my fault that Arne is dead — ’tis but too true, what Inga said —”

  “ ’Twas Arne himself that begged you to go and meet him,” said Lavrans, pulling the coverlid up over his daughter’s bare shoulders. “I trow it was heedless in me to let you two go about together, but I thought the lad would have known better.… I will not blame you two — I know these things are heavy for you to bear. Yet did I never think that daughter of mine would fall into ill-fame in this parish of ours — and ’twill go hard with your mother when she hears these tidings.… But that you went to Gunhild with this and not to me, ’twas so witless a thing — I understand not how you could behave so foolishly —”

  “I cannot bear to stay here in the Dale any more,” sobbed Kristin. “Not a soul would I dare look in the face — and all I have brought upon them — the folks at Romundgaard and at Finsbrekken —”

  “Ay, they will have to see to it, both Gyrd and Sira Eirik,” said Lavrans, “that these lies about you are buried with Arne. For the rest, ’tis Simon Andressön can best defend you in this business,” said he, and patted her in the dark. “Think you not he took the matter well and wisely —”

  “Father” — and Kristin clung close to him and begged piteously and fervently — “send me to the convent, father. Ay, listen to me — I have thought of this for long; maybe Ulvhild will grow well if I go in her stead. You know the shoes with beads upon them that I sewed for her in the autumn — I pricked my fingers sorely, and my hands bled from the sharp gold-thread — yet I sat and sewed on them, for I thought it was wicked of me not to love my sister so that I would be a nun to help her — Arne once asked if I would not. Had I but said ‘Ay’ then, all this would not have befallen —”

  Lavrans shook his head:

  “Lie down now,” he bade. “You know not yourself what you say, poor child. Now you must try if you can sleep —”

  But Kristin lay and felt the smart in her burnt hand, and despair and bitterness over her fate raged in her heart. No worse could have befallen her had she been the most sinful of women; every one would believe — no, she could not, could not bear to stay on here in the Dale. Horror after horror rose before her — when her m
other came to know of this — and now there was blood between them and their parish priest, ill-will betwixt all who had been friends around her the whole of her life. But the worst, the most crushing fear of all fell upon her when she thought of Simon and of how he had taken her and carried her away and stood forth for her at home, and borne himself as though she were his own possession — her father and mother had fallen aside before him as though she belonged already more to him than to them …

  Then she thought of Arne’s face in the coffin, cold and cruel. She remembered the last time she was at church, she had seen, as she left, an open grave that stood waiting for a dead man. The upthrown clods of earth lay upon the snow, hard and cold and grey like iron — to this had she brought Arne …

  All at once the thought came to her of a summer evening many years before. She was standing on the balcony of the loft-room at Finsbrekken, the same room where she had been struck down that night. Arne was playing ball with some boys in the courtyard below, and the ball was hit up to her in the balcony. She had held it behind her back, and would not give it up when Arne came after it; then he had tried to wrest it from her by strength — and they had fought for it, in the balcony, in the room amid the chests, with the leather sacks, which hung there full of clothes, bumping their heads as they knocked against them in their frolic; they had laughed and struggled over that ball …

  And then, at last, the truth seemed to come home to her: he was dead and gone, and she should never again see his comely, fearless face nor feel the touch of his warm, living hands. And she had been so childish and so heartless as never to give a thought to what it must be for him to lose her.… She wept bitter tears, and felt she had earned all her unhappiness. But then the thought came back of all that still awaited her, and she wept anew, for, after all, it seemed to her too hard a punishment …