Never before had she felt what now she felt. ’Twas of no avail to try to tell herself for comfort; it was not certain yet—she might be wrong—That which was between the vat and her—
Eighteen reindeer. Well on toward two hundred wedding guests—Folk would have a rare jest to laugh at when ’twas known that all this hubbub had but been about a breeding woman they had to see and get married before—
Oh no! She threw her spinning from her and started up as the sickness overcame her again—Oh no! it was sure enough!—
They were to be wedded the second Sunday after Michaelmas, and the bridal was to last for five days. There were more than two months still to wait; they would be sure to see it on her—her mother and the other housewives of the parish. They were ever so wise in such things—knew them months before Kristin could understand how they saw them. “Poor thing, she grows so pale”—Impatiently Kristin rubbed her hands against her cheeks; she felt that they were white and bloodless.
Before, she had so often thought: this must happen soon or late. And she had not feared it so terribly. But ’twould not have been the same then, when they could not—were forbidden to come together in lawful wise. It was counted—aye, a shame in a manner, and a sin too—but if ’twere two young things who would not let themselves be forced apart, folk remembered that ’twas so, and spoke of them with forbearance. She would not have been ashamed. But when such things happened between a betrothed pair—there was naught for them but laughter and gross jesting. She saw it herself—one could not but laugh: here was brewing and mixing of wine, slaughtering and baking and cooking for a wedding that should be noised far abroad in the land—and she, the bride, grew qualmish if she but smelt food, and crept in a cold sweat behind the outhouses to be sick.
Erlend! She set her teeth hard in anger. He should have spared her this. For she had not been willing. He should have remembered that before, when all had been so unsure for her, when she had had naught to trust to but his love, she had ever, ever gladly been his. He should have let her be now, when she tried to deny him because she thought ’twas not well of them to take aught by stealth, after her father had joined their hands together in the sight of Erlend’s kinsmen and hers. But he had taken her to him, half by force, with laughter and caresses; so that she had not had strength enough to show him she was in earnest in her denial.
She went in and saw to the beer in the vats, then came back again and stood leaning on the fence. The standing grain moved gently in shining ripples before a breath of wind. She could not remember any year when she had seen the cornfields bear such thick and abundant growth.—The river glittered far off, and she heard her father’s voice shouting—she could not catch the words, but she could hear the reapers on the island laughing.
—Should she go to her father and tell him: ’Twould be best to let be all this weary bustle and let Erlend and her come together quietly without church-wedding or splendid feasts—now that the one thing needful was that she should bear the name of wife before ’twas plain to all men that she bore Erlend’s child under her heart already?
He would be a laughingstock, Erlend too, as much as she—or even more, for he was no green boy any longer. But it was he who would have this wedding; he had set his heart on seeing her stand as his bride in silk and velvets and tall golden crown—that was his will, and it had been his will, too, to possess her in those sweet secret hours of last spring. She had yielded to him in that. And she must do his will too in this other thing.
But in the end ’twas like he would be forced to see—no one could have it both ways in such things. He had talked so much of the great Yuletide feast he would hold at Husaby the first year she sat there as mistress of his house—how he would show forth to all his kinsmen and friends and all the folks from far around the fair wife he had won. Kristin smiled scornfully. A seemly thing ’twould be this Yuletide, such a homecoming feast!
Her time would be at St. Gregory’s Mass or thereabout. Thoughts seemed to swarm and jostle in her mind when she said to herself that at Gregory’s Mass she was to bear a child. There was some fear among the thoughts—she remembered how her mother’s cries had rung all round the farm-place for two whole days, the time that Ulvhild was born. At Ulvsvold two young wives had died in childbirth, one after the other—and Sigurd of Loptsgaard’s first wives too. And her own father’s mother, whose name she bore—
But fear was not uppermost in her mind. She had often thought, when after that first time she saw no sign that she was with child—maybe this was to be their punishment—hers and Erlend’s. She would always be barren. They would wait and wait in vain for what they had feared before, would hope as vainly as of old they had feared needlessly—till at last they would know that one day they should be borne forth from the home of his fathers and be as though they had never been—for his brother was a priest, and the children he had could inherit naught from him. Dumpy Munan and his sons would come in and sit in their seats, and Erlend would be blotted out from the line of his
