LITMIR.BIZ

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secret—and you so young?”

      Marie blushed and smiled faintly. There was something flattering in the idea that she might be pining for a lover.

      “No, no,” she said, “but what you say is so sad. You make it seem as if there’s naught but misery and trouble.”

      “Bless me, no, there’s a little of other things too,” said Lucie, rising in answer to a summons from below, and nodding archly to Marie, as she went.

      Marie sighed and returned to the window. She looked down into the cool, green graveyard of St. Nikolaj, at the red walls of the church, over the tarnished copper roof of the castle, past the royal dockyard and ropewalk around to the slender spire of East Gate, past the gardens and wooden cottages of Hallandsaas, to the bluish Sound melting into the blue sky, where softly moulded cloud-masses were drifting to the Skaane shore.

      Three months had passed since she came to Copenhagen. When she left home she had supposed that life in the residential city must be something vastly different from what she had found. It had never occurred to her that she might be more lonely there than at Tjele Manor, where, in truth, she had been lonely enough. Her father had never been a companion to her, for he was too entirely himself to be anything to others. He never became young when he spoke to fourteen years nor feminine when he addressed a little maid. He was always on the shady side of fifty and always Erik Grubbe.

      As for his concubine, who ruled as though she were indeed mistress of the house, the mere sight of her was enough to call out all there was of pride and bitterness in Marie. This coarse, domineering peasant woman had wounded and tortured her so often that the girl could hardly hear her step without instantly and half unconsciously hardening into obstinacy and hatred. Little Anne, her half-sister, was sickly and spoiled, which did not make it easier to get along with her, and to crown all, the mother made the child her excuse for abusing Marie to Erik Grubbe.

      Who, then, were her companions?

      She knew every path and road in Bigum woods, every cow that pastured in the meadows, every fowl in the hencoop. The kindly greeting of the servants and peasants when she met them seemed to say: Our young lady suffers wrong, and we know it. We are sorry, and we hate the woman up there as much as you do.

      But in Copenhagen?

      There was Lucie, and she was very fond of her, but after all she was a servant. Marie was in Lucie’s confidence and was pleased and grateful for it, but Lucie was not in her confidence. She could not tell her troubles to the maid. Nor could she bear to have the fact of her unfortunate position put into words or hear a servant discuss her unhappy family affairs. She would not even brook a word of criticism against her aunt, though she certainly did not love her father’s kinswoman and had no reason to love her.

      Rigitze Grubbe held the theories of her time on the salutary effects of harsh discipline, and she set herself to bring up Marie accordingly. She had never had any children of her own, and she was not only a very impatient foster-mother, but also clumsy, for mother love had never taught her the useful little arts that smooth the way for teacher and pupil. Yet a severe training might have been very good for Marie. The lack of watchful care in her home had allowed one side of her nature to grow almost too luxuriantly, while the other had been maimed and stunted by capricious cruelty, and she might have felt it a relief to be guided in the way she should go by the hard and steady hand of one who in all common sense could wish her nothing but good.

      Yet she was not so guided. Mistress Rigitze had so many irons in the fire of politics and court intrigue that she was often away for days, and when at home she would be so preoccupied that Marie did with herself and her time what she pleased. When Mistress Rigitze had a moment to spare for the child, the very consciousness of her own neglect made her doubly irritable. The whole relation therefore wore to Marie an utterly unreasonable aspect, and was fitted to give her the notion that she was an outcast whom all hated and none loved.

      As she stood at the window looking out over the city, this sense of forlornness came over her again. She leaned her head against the casement and lost herself in contemplation of the slowly gliding clouds.

      She understood what Lucie had said about the pain of longing. It was like something burning inside of you, and there was nothing to do but to let it burn and burn—how well she knew it! What would come of it all?—One day just like another—nothing, nothing,—nothing to look forward to. Could it last? Yes, for a long time yet! Even when she had passed sixteen?—But things did happen to other people! At least she wouldn’t go on wearing a child’s cap after she was sixteen; sister Anne Marie hadn’t—she had been married. Marie remembered the noisy carousing at the wedding long after she had been sent to bed—and the music. Well, at least she could be married. But to whom? Perhaps to the brother of her sister’s husband. To be sure, he was frightfully ugly, but if there was nothing else for it—No, that certainly was nothing to look forward to. Was there anything? Not that she could see.

      She left the window, sat down by the table thoughtfully, and began to write:

      My loving greeting always in the name of Our Lord, dear Anne Marie, good sister and friend! God keep you always and be praised for His mercies. I have taken upon myself to write pour vous congratuler inasmuch as you have been fortunately delivered of child and are now restored to good health. Dear sister, I am well and hearty. Our Aunt, as you know, lives in much splendor, and we often have company, chiefly gentlemen of the court, and with the exception of a few old dames, none visit us but men folks. Many of them have known our blessed mother and praise her beauty and virtue. I always sit at table with the company, but no one speaks to me except Ulrik Frederik, whom I would prefer to do without, for he is ever given to bantering and raillerie rather than sensible conversation. He is yet young and is not in the best repute; ’tis said he frequents both taverns and ale-houses and the like. Now I have nothing new to tell except that to-day we have an assembly, and he is coming. Whenever I speak French he laughs very much and tells me that it is a hundred years old, which may well be, for Pastor Jens was a mere youth at the time of his travels. Yet he gives me praise because I put it together well, so that no lady of the court can do it better, he says, but this I believe to be but compliments, about which I care nothing. I have had no word from Tjele. Our Aunt cannot speak without cursing and lamenting of the enormity that our dear father should live as he does with a female of such lowly extraction. I grieve sorely, but that gives no boot for bane. You must not let Stycho see this letter, but give him greeting from my heart. September, 1657.

      Your dear sister,

      MARIE GRUBBE.

      The honorable Mistress Anne Marie Grubbe, consort of Stycho Höegh of Gjordslev, my good friend and sister, written in all loving-kindness.

      The guests had risen from the table and entered the drawing-room, where Lucie was passing the golden Dantzig brandy. Marie had taken refuge in a bay-window, half hidden by the full curtains. Ulrik Frederik went over to her, bowed with exaggerated deference, and with a very grave face expressed his disappointment at having been seated so far from mademoiselle at the table. As he spoke, he rested his small brown hand on the window-sill. Marie looked at it and blushed scarlet.

      “Pardon, Mademoiselle, I see that you are flushing with anger. Permit me to present my most humble service! Might I make so bold as to ask how I have had the misfortune to offend you?”

      “Indeed I am neither flushed nor angry.”

      “Ah, so ’tis your pleasure to call that color white? Bien! But then I would fain know by what name you designate the rose commonly known as red!”

      “Can you never say a sensible word?”

      “Hm—let me see—ay, it has happened, I own, but rarely—

      Doch Chloë, Chloë zürne nicht!

       Toll brennet deiner Augen Licht

       Mich wie das Hundsgestirn die Hunde,

       Und Worte schäumen mir vom Munde

       Dem Geifer gleich der Wasserscheu—”

      “Forsooth,

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