Like all new beginners Peter had, of course, shamelessly good luck. But he did not become disagreeably smug or unpleasantly overweening. That was a great feature in his character. He tried to moderate his good luck in order to be tolerated in the company. And soon he had become quite a shrewd and skilful player.
Peter never regretted having learnt to play vira. The cards soon proved an excellent means of communication with useful people. The gatherings in the bailiff’s rooms soon had some offshoots in town. Peter accompanied the bailiff to cheery drinking and card parties with business friends, both buyers and sellers. Thus it was by the paths of rye, potatoes and bacon that Peter penetrated into the town. Here Peter recognised amongst many new faces some of the old ones from Brundin’s great crayfish party. They were all men of seventeen stone with heavy fists and well filled purses. But they no longer pressed Peter down to the ground. On the contrary, he felt a solemn exhilaration mingled with hopeful expectation as he sat among these bulging pocketbooks. And whilst he arranged his cards and watched his play he kept his eyes and ears open, learned the correct jargon, studied the market, and did not lose a thread in the skein of business names and connections. During all this time there often came over him the dreamy expression of one who stops in his walk to listen to the rush of a still invisible cataract. It was the rolling of money that Peter heard in the noise of the streets, which is so unfamiliar to country folk. The town to him meant money, the money that would one day roll into Selambshof and fall into Peter’s pockets.
But let us return to the bailiff’s rooms and see Peter’s second adversary. Old Lundbom, who was an expert in the difficult game of misère, sat muttering, with his spectacles slipping down over his nose and his extinguished cigar stuck into a gap in his front teeth. From him, too, could Peter derive much useful knowledge. As a managing clerk he knew not only the recognised forms of business and ways of money and the setting forth of it in columns with figures and names. He was also secretly a keen amateur lawyer, was this old nutcracker. The Law of Sweden, text books of civil law, reports of law cases and judgments constituted his favourite reading in his spare time. Once started on that subject he was difficult to stop. It was with a peculiar enjoyment that Peter heard him tell of long and involved lawsuits in which large sums had changed hands. To Peter’s simple understanding the law was nothing else but a collection of all the tricks that could be used to get hold of other people’s money. Old Lundbom would have been very perplexed in his unselfish complacency if he had seen how greedily Peter picked up any information that might possibly be of use to him some day.
One evening—it was as a matter of fact a fine and calm evening in the beginning of July and the hay had just been got in—the usual trio sat playing by the light of a lamp out in the porch. Then Peter suddenly heard something which made him think hard. Old Lundbom was speaking about a business that had to be sold at a great loss after the death of the owner because one of the heirs was a minor and had to receive his inheritance in trustee stock.
Here at Selambshof both Laura and Tord were minors! And their father had lain in bed for half a year past. If he died now—how could Peter become bailiff?
Peter tried in vain to lure Lundbom into a discussion of the case of Selambshof. He could not force a direct question over his lips. He was somehow afraid to give himself away, and his old lurking fear beset him again in this stupid, meaningless fashion. It would have been quite natural for him to ask questions about the future risks of the estate. But then we all have such fits. …
That night Peter lay sleepless. Selambshof was once more a besieged fortress. Even Brundin’s ghost haunted the dual silence. A sad relapse … !
As early as four o’clock he put on his trousers and stole to his father. The old man lay put away in a small room by himself far away on the ground floor towards the north. In former days the soiled linen had been kept there. Oskar Selamb had now overlived his time seventeen years. There must after all have been something in old Enoch’s toughness and vitality. But last Christmas he had been ill for some time and since then he had never troubled to get up again. He thought it more comfortable in bed. Now he lay there with his chin in the air and his long grey beard in waves over the sheet. He did not snore at all. A spider came out of a corner and ran quickly over the counterpane. Was the old man dead? Peter started and stole with trembling limbs up to the bedside. No! Oskar Selamb lay awake staring with his bleared, grey eyes at the brown damp stains on the ceiling.
“How are you, father?” Peter said anxiously.
The old man’s voice was as rusty as if it had not been used for years:
“Been running,” he muttered pointing at the damp stains.
“But I asked how you were, father.”
Hedvig occupied the room next door and it was she who nursed the old man. She insisted on doing it. Now her father pointed with his thumb to her room.
“Up?” he wondered anxiously.
“But I wanted to know how you felt, father?”
“Must not wash me,” whined Oskar Selamb. “Cold water!—don’t wash me … !”
Then Hedvig suddenly stood in the door. She was dressed in a torn old dressing gown. Her black hair was brushed tight over the temples and hung over her shoulders in a long shining plait,
