Now he sat down beside her at the edge of the bed and placed his large hand over her warm, glowing breast, caressing it. The delicate nipple stirred, and Gustav felt exultant.
Perhaps now…? He would have to undress, after such long and careful preparation. But it would be worth it. Kristin was looking at him coolly, levelly, as if totally unaware of his hand on her, of her own nakedness beneath the bedsheets, of anything in the world but the prospect of a dinner party, which she also regarded with exquisite neutrality.
Gustav decided to be tender. “What are your thoughts, my darling?” he asked, still petting her breast, bending to whisper closely in her ear.
“I was wondering about Lord Anthony Soames. I never heard you mention his name.”
Gustav was disappointed. He had hoped she would respond to the overture he was making. “Soames is unimportant just now. Let us make love as we did last night.”
“If you wish,” said Kristin, without inflection, without eagerness or reluctance.
Disappointed at her casual air, yet thoroughly excited once again by her naked beauty, Gustav pressed on. “Kristin, darling, answer me something.”
“Yes, husband.”
“Why are you not with child? We have made love at every time, and I have worn no device. The Rolfson name must be carried on. And, I feel, a child will draw us even more closely together.”
Kristin had to make a considerable effort not to show aversion to his words. A child would bind her closely to Rolfson, too closely, forever. She had to avoid having his child at all costs, and had, thus far, relied secretly and with success on an old Greek method known but unused by her pious God-fearing mother. Each night, before bed, she would insert a piece of cheesecloth treated with olive oil, oil of cedar, frankincense, and hope. The procedure had not failed yet, except that the lack of pregnancy was beginning to disquiet Gustav. Kristin knew from bitter experience that a Rolfson unable immediately to have what he wanted would bend himself even more forcefully to get whatever the desired object was.
“I am quite sure I will conceive someday,” she told him, quite beyond desire, “or you may rid yourself of me.”
He leaned back, and drew his hand away.
“Oh, so that is it, eh? You think I will no longer wish to have your beauty simply because you are not yet with child? You have much still to learn.”
Kristin watched resignedly as Gustav stood, divesting himself almost frantically of his elegant morning clothes. During a normal business day he often dressed four times—morning coat for the office; riding attire prior to the noon meal; a casual suit for the afternoon appearance at his club; and formal clothes for the evening meal. The Rolfsons dressed always like the nobility because they were not yet secure enough to flout by jot or tittle any part of the societal code, written or unwritten.
But now, having ripped off his expensive outfit, he ripped away also the sheets by which Kristin was covered. He was hard and throbbing above her, and then he was upon her, and then he was in her. Gustav had a certain vague contempt for his weakness, his overwhelming desire to have her, when Kristin herself so obviously did not seem to care if she had him, now or ever. And yet it was her soulless and dispassionate yielding that goaded him, time and again, to try to ignite her, inflame her, sorcer her to writhing, thrusting, unfettered passion.
He had never succeeded, and as he felt the moment of his pleasure approaching, felt it down along the base of his spine, and deep within himself, and all along the rending rod of lust and ecstasy, he knew that he was failing again.
“It’s the mountain farmer, isn’t it?” he said, thrusting, thrusting, battering into her. “It’s that—” But then he could say no more, think no more, possessed by the gorgeous sweetness of the flesh, the pulsing rushes of luminous enchantment. And then he was there, and then gone down from it, shaking along the spent, gray landscape of aftermath, doomed and sorrowful.
“It’s that farmer, isn’t it? You can’t get him out of your mind.”
“Is that it? What are you talking about, husband?” Gustav would have groaned with disappointment, but he would not give her the satisfaction. What was wrong? In the world of affairs, in business, everything was progressing so well. Soon, after they charmed Lord Soames, gained liquidity from his vast bank, Gustav and his father would move on to exploit the riches of the New World. Nothing would stand in their way. They would gain everything, everything: power, fame, money beyond belief. Gustav was sure he would have those things, and yet he could not truly, completely, have the spirit or soul of this beautiful young woman in his bed. It was unfair. Any other mountain girl would have given her eye teeth, an arm, a leg, to enjoy what Kristin Arnesdatter had now at her beck and call.
“Are you finished with me, husband?” she was asking him. “I must wash, dress, and begin preparations for the banquet you wish.”
Conscious that he was still lying, spent and limp, upon her, Gustav withdrew from her, and a hollow, popping sound marked his leaving, empty and sad. He slid off and lay there beside her, panting. Everything was turned around. He was married to a beauty, and yet she was remote and unknown to him. Other men envied him, and yet had wives and lovers, or both, to give them happy pleasure. He had pleasure that seemed to melt beneath him, seemed to turn into futility and loneliness and chagrin even as he possessed it, even at the precise moment of his spending within the lovely body he had chosen, both as the receptacle of his pleasure and the wellspring of the generation of titans he dreamed to create.
“For how many guests shall I plan?” Kristin was asking, as she crossed the thickly carpeted bedroom and began brushing her hair at her dressing table.
“What?” Gustav asked, in a daze. He collected his clothing and began, again, to dress. He would be late to the Rolfson offices now, and, depending upon his mood, old Adolphus would either rage or snicker. “What? Oh, yes, the dinner. I would expect about forty or fifty. There are many who will thank us merely for giving them a moment of Lord Soames’s time.”
“I am sure that is true, husband.”
Then Gustav could not take it, could not take one more moment, just then, of Kristin’s infernal remoteness, her studied calm. It mocked him, goaded him, maddened him, though he was captive of it, servant to it.
“You’ll be sorry one day!” he raged at her, before departing the bedroom amid the stomping of boots and the slamming of doors. “You’ll be sorry!”
Kristin went on brushing her hair until he was gone. She heard him clomping down the great circular staircase of the mansion, built with other people’s tears, with other people’s blood and toil.
“I’m already sorry,” she said to her reflection in the mirror.
Eric was ever on Kristin’s mind, and she sought him whenever she could. At first, in her early days in Oslo, looking for him had been an impossibility. She was too closely watched at the mansion, and she had too many lessons to attend. But gradually, as time went on, she enjoyed more and more free time, and suffered less suspicion. True, she did not trust any of the servants—they had been long and loyally in the Rolfsons’ employ, and one of them, quick, nervy Giselda, who was head of housekeeping, seemed to resent Kristin in some particular way the girl from Lesja did not understand. But then, she did not know Gustav Rolfson had often petted and bedded Giselda prior to his unexpected marriage, a marriage especially unexpected by Giselda, who had been given vague promises of permanent union, during passionate moments of sexual union, by Gustav himself.
Kristin breakfasted on bread and butter, coffee and cream, in the morning room. Her tray was silver, her cup and saucer of delicate china. Her butter plate and knife were of gold. None of it meant anything to Kristin. She would much rather have been in a rude stone house with Eric, eating dried apples and drinking mountain-flower tea. Having eaten, she summoned the head of housekeeping.
“Yes, madame?” Giselda inquired. She had dark, straight hair, striking, gelid-blue eyes, and a slender, full-breasted body. There was about her an air of barely
controlled recklessness. Kristin admired her spirit and competence, but, try as she might, could not seem to enlist the young woman’s trust.
“Giselda,” she said, “we will be having an English banker to dinner, Saturday fortnight. Forty guests, perhaps more. We shall dine in the great hall. Have the table prepared, the gold plate polished, as usual. The English are said to prefer beef or lamb. Let us give Lord Soames roast beef as the main meat course. Also caviar, salmon, turtle soup, herring in cream, potato souffle, mince pie, and the usual fruits and cheeses. I myself shall see to the orchestra.”
“Oh, madame?” asked Giselda, as if convinced Kristin would not properly handle such an arrangement.
“Yes, Giselda. Now, set about this business, and there’ll be something extra in your pay if all goes well.”
“Why, thank you so much, madame!”
“And tell Ellison I wish to see him. I must go out and I’ll want my carriage.”
“Go out again, madame?”
Kristin looked at the other woman. Giselda was getting suspicious. She ought not to have mentioned going out, even casually. She had gone out often of late, explaining her absences in terms of shopping for dresses, or furniture, or antiques in the quaint shops along the harbor. And, indeed, she did visit such shops, and she did buy items that pleased her, but her purpose was quite different.
“Yes, Giselda,” she told the servant. “Now, go about your duties.”
The head housekeeper went out, her fine body moving gracefully, slyly, like a cat’s. Presently, Ellison, the butler, came in. Kristin ordered her carriage. His eyebrows lifted but he bowed and went out. Half an hour later Kristin was in the coach, riding out the gate of the Rolfson manor. She was mistress of that manor, and it meant less to her than a crystal of sugar dissolving in sweet tea.
“Down to the waterfront,” she told Fensterwald, the dribbly, fawning driver.
He looked at her oddly, as if wondering: The waterfront again?
Kristin realized she would have to be more careful. Yet where else but on the waterfront did she have even half a chance to learn of Eric’s whereabouts? A man on the run, with a murder charge against him and almost no hope in the courts, would almost certainly seek to get out of the country. In many a shop along the quay, she had made purchases, made herself known, and finally asked her question:
“It would have been last June, possibly early July? A blond man, tall and strong? He would have had a pack on his back?”
“Sorry, madam. Norway is filled these days with tall, strong blonds, with but one pack to take them to the ends of the world.”
“He was a man of extraordinary comeliness.”
“Aren’t they all, madam? Aren’t they all? You know him well?” The shopkeepers studied the huge diamond, the ruby-encrusted wedding band on her finger.
“My brother,” she lied.
But, shop after shop, no news of Eric. She grew desperate. She grew reckless. Sooner or later, she was certain, she must get a lead, win a clue. Eric could not simply have disappeared into the whirl and abyss of life.
Once she had thought of going to detectives, but had eschewed the idea. She could not trust them. They might go to Gustav with news of her clandestine activities. She did not want that. Gustav himself might get the idea to have Eric traced.
The day was bright and cold, with white scudding clouds, and the waters of the winter harbor were thick with floes of ice. Fensterwald eased the horses to a walk. Horses and carriage, driver and rider, moved slowly along the waterfront. Kristin had a premonition that something was going to happen today. She was sure it was going to be something good. “Tell me when you wish to stop?” blubbered Fensterwald, the drool freezing on his chin.
Kristin unwrapped the rich bearskins in which she was esconced, and climbed down from the buggy. “Right here is just fine,” she said.
“Here?” blithered Fensterwald, shocked in spite of his hazy dim-wittedness. “Here?”
Before them, alongside the narrow waterfront street, was a grogshop of decrepit and sinister appearance. It had one window, now grease-blackened and totally opaque, and it had once possessed a door, too, but that had long ago been torn off in some trackless, incalculable brawl. Now a heavy blanket hung in the doorway, keeping out what cold it could, and holding in more cheap tobacco smoke than any man would have believed possible.
“You oughtn’t to go in there, madam,” Fensterwald bleated, even as he helped her down to the street “Somebody might be seeing you and telling tales.”
“If you don’t, and I don’t, who will?” She smiled at him.
Fensterwald licked and enjoyed some dribble, and looked pained. He threw up his hands, said nothing.
Kristin went into the bar. It was small, dark, and narrow, not a table, not a chair, not even stools for its itinerants and habitués, but just a rude counter all along one side behind which a slutty barmaid sloshed liquor into dirty glasses and collected soiled coins in payment. The place smelled of urine, vomit, and cheap liquor. Four sailors stood along the bar as Kristin entered, drinking over their fates, lost opportunities, and lost loves. Their backs were toward the door, but when they saw the look of surprise in the barmaid’s eyes, they turned, ready either to fight or flee.
“Don’t think you ought to be in a place like this here, honey,” warned the barmaid.
“Ursula, shut your mouth,” contradicted one of the sailors. “She had a date to meet me here.”
Everybody laughed, even Ursula the barmaid.
Kristin knew she would have to take control quickly, or leave before her mission was accomplished.
“I’m seeking information,” she said, “about a man.”
Everybody laughed and hooted.
“I’m willing to pay for the information.”
There was attentive silence now.
“Ursula, here, knows a lot about men,” snickered one of the sailors, which evoked a few raspy chuckles.
“Go ahead,” demanded the most physically imposing of the sailors, a deep-chested, dirty-blond brawler with the bright red nose of a hard drinker. “We’re waiting.”
“I’m looking for my…brother.”
A few wicked laughs.
“He may have been here sometime last June. I have reason to believe he might have shipped out from this harbor. Eric,” she said risking his name. “He was known as Eric Starbane, or Gunnarson. Tall and very blond. He would have been wearing mountaineer’s clothing. If any of you remember him, I—”
“Hey!” cried the big sailor. “I think I recall something like that!”
Kristin was on guard. They would want the money, would invent information in order to get it.
“And who might you be?”
“Ingersoll. Lars Ingersoll. Seagoing boilerman. Former seagoing boilerman. The captain of an American ship threw me off her just before she was to sail, and I recollect a man fitting your description getting called on board.”
Kristin’s heart quickened. This Ingersoll might be lying, but he seemed too deeply in his cups to fabricate a story very readily.
“How’s your coin?” Ingersoll demanded, taking a step toward her.
“It is reliable. But tell me, what ship was it?”
“American. The Anandale. A tub. Captain name of Dubin. Like to kill the bastard, he ever sails back into this port again. Now, give.” He stood before her, reeking of whiskey, and held out his hand.
Keeping her part of the bargain since she now had at least some information to pursue further, Kristin opened her purse and reached inside to select a couple of half-krone pieces. But, like a flash, Ingersoll’s big hand grabbed her wrist, twisted, trying to tear the purse away from her.
“Lars!” cried the barmaid, alarmed. “I don’t want no trouble!”
“Help!” cried Kristin, trying to wrench away from him and make it to the blanket-shrouded doorway. She would gladly have relinquished the purse, but Ingersoll’s half-drunken exertions had succeeded in wrapping its leather shoulder straps ar
ound her wrists and forearms. “Help!” she cried again.
“If you’ll just let go of the goddam thing…” grunted the sailor, still struggling with her.
“Lars! For God sakes, stop it. Do you want the King’s police down here after us?” yelled one of the sailors, coming forward not so much to rescue Kristin as to extricate Ingersoll from the mess he had created.
Then the blanket across the doorway was thrown aside, and everyone in the bar turned to see who was about to come in. Kristin, for an instant before she grasped what was happening, wished for the police. But it was not. There, standing in the doorway against the bright cold winter light, was Giselda, the head housekeeper, and behind her, equally aghast though not as diabolically pleased as Giselda, was Fensterwald the driver, dribbling onto his chin.
“I’m gettin’ out of here,” growled Ingersoll, and, followed hastily by his mates, they all but pushed Giselda aside as they raced from the dive.
Giselda did not mind. “So, madam, you have been out shopping, have you?” She glanced around the pitiful barroom. “Shopping for the men who like this place?”
Kristin was humiliated, and furious, too. Giselda had actually followed her down here, had perhaps arranged it with Fensterwald. The circumstances were terrible. No lady of wealth and breeding would be caught dead down here by the docks in a filthy grogshop like this one.
Wild Wind Westward Page 12
