“Good, don’t let us talk any more about it. I am not a member of any smart clubs. I don’t entertain. I like my whiskey and soda with Tord even though he does shoot at me occasionally.”
“Don’t talk nonsense,” Stellan cut in. “What conditions have you thought of?”
“A moment ago I was really prepared to buy some of Tord’s shares,” Peter said reproachfully.
“At what price?” asked Laura with a sneer.
“At par,” grunted Peter. And it was as if he had torn this offer out of his bleeding heart.
His sister and brother laughed ironically, pitilessly. It would be very nice indeed to be able to buy the shares at that price. No, at least double. They were consumed by a noble indignation. They were full of fight in the cause of poor Tord. Peter was laid on the rack and was mercilessly compelled to offer more and more. He pulled faces, puffed, swore, writhed, but it was all of no use. Selamb against Selamb, diamond cut diamond. Finally they set to work coolly and keenly without the aid of lies. Things went so far that there were threats of dismissing the manager from his post. They all thought they had been cheated by Peter. Now was the opportunity for revenge. He was forced to give a binding guarantee of one hundred thousand crowns for half of Tord’s shares and not to take any commission on the purchase of Järnö.
Thus unconsciously Tord did a good stroke of business whilst he sat there feeding his Japanese mice—thanks to the envy of his brothers and sisters.
As things turned out there was no need to handle Tord delicately. He agreed at once when he heard of an island full of living creatures. And the sea! That would be something for his poetic bent. And when Peter, who had done all he possibly could in the matter, came and put the sixty thousand crowns that were left after the purchase of Järnö into his hands, he was so astounded that he forgot his suspicions for a whole week. Then for the first time he began to tell Dagmar that that cursed Peter had of course cheated him, though he could not say exactly how.
He was, as a matter of fact, right. Peter had at the last moment got Järnö five thousand crowns cheaper than his sisters and brothers were told. So he earned a little on the business all the same.
Thus Tord moved out to Järnö with a lot of cages. He had a whole menagerie. And Dagmar looked rather like a tamer of wild animals.
The old dilapidated dwelling house lay in a little garden among the small patches of cultivated ground below the rocks in the southern part of the island. Tord could not live there. It was too tame—too close to his tenant’s little red cottage. No, they must build a log hut of coarse timber on the highest cliff, a real eagle’s eyrie with a view over his estate of stones and water!
Here we shall find him later on, just as before in the old Rookery by the muddy bay of Lake Mälare—but all the same as if grown greater by the sea and the winter loneliness.
Part II
I
Laura Entertains
Laura cast a glance down the esplanade before she pulled the blind. She had moved to Narvavägen now. It was the most fashionable quarter.
The September evening was clear and cool. The prosperous-looking windows in the house opposite threw back discreet golden reflections. The little church at the corner looked like a luxurious bigoted needlework box. The recently planted trees of the esplanade were as like each other as soldiers in a row marching in column order out towards the fields.
Laura sighed faintly and contentedly. Everybody was back in town. The season was beginning.
She switched on the light. The cream coloured blind completed the circle of coquettish intimacy. She sat down at her dressing table. In the mirror she saw a face which still retained the seaside sunburn. It suited her well, made her hair still fairer and her teeth whiter. Laura was now a woman of thirty. There was something of the fair renaissance type in her plumpness, something at one and the same time crude and refined. Her quick smile was full of health and light impudence.
But just now Laura was not smiling. On the whole women are never so serious as when they are occupied with their personal appearance. During the siege of the Legations during the Boxers’ rising in China it is told that a lady stole yolks of eggs, whilst people died of starvation all round her, in order to preserve the colour of her hair. That is serious. …
Laura always had a long tête-à-tête with her face before she paraded it in public.
She became very impatient as somebody hesitatingly fingered the door handle and little Georg at last stepped in.
Georg was very like his father. He had his long face and fair eyes. In this case the weaker had been the stronger. It looked like nature’s revenge. She had always the image of the wronged father before her.
Georg smiled the hesitating smile of the neglected child. There was a certain shyness about him as he crept up to the mother.
Laura’s face hardened as she turned from the mirror:
“Don’t touch me! You soil my clothes.”
Georg humbly drew back:
“Mummie darling, may I stay up a little longer?”
“No, you must obey Sofi!”
“But mummie, why must I always go to bed when people come?”
“That’s enough. Run away now. I’m in a hurry!”
He went slowly, looking troubled, but he stopped at the door:
“May I sit and play in bed a little at least?”
“All right, but run away now!”
Then Georg went to bed. And in bed he sat and drew a picture of his mummie as a hobgoblin.
