When Jenny got tired she lay down by the fence, looking up at the sky and out over the bay; she could not stand for long at a time, but it made her only more eager. Two small pictures painted from the fence were finished, and she was pleased with them; a third one she painted in the village, where the low whitewashed houses with thatched roofs almost covering the windows, and climbing roses and dahlias in the gardens, stood along a velvety green ditch, and a red brick church stretched its gabled tower above the foliage of the vicarage garden. But it made her nervous when people came to look at her, and flaxen-haired youngsters clustered round her when she was painting. When the picture was finished she moved with her easel again to the stone fence.
In October the rain came, pouring down for a week or two. Now and again the skies cleared a little, letting out a sickly yellow ray of light between the clouds over the hill with the pitiable willows, and the puddles in the road lay shining a little while before the rain troubled their surface again.
Jenny borrowed Mrs. Rasmussen’s books and learnt to knit the kind of lace that bordered her curtains, but neither reading nor knitting came to much. She sat in the rocking-chair by the window all day long, not even caring to dress properly, only wearing her old faded kimono. As her condition became more and more apparent she suffered agonies.
Gert Gram had written to say he was coming to see her, and two days later he arrived, driving up in the early morning in pouring rain. He stayed a week, putting up at the railway hotel two miles from the village, but spending all his time with her. When he left he promised to come again soon—possibly in six weeks.
Jenny lay awake all night with her lamp burning. She knew she could not bear it again; it had been too awful. Everything was unbearable from the moment he arrived—his first worried, compassionate glance when he saw her—dressed in a new navy blue straight frock made by the village dressmaker. “How lovely you are,” he said, and declared she was like a madonna. Madonna, indeed! His arm placed cautiously round her waist, his long, guarded kiss on her forehead, made her feel as if she could die of shame. And how he had worried her with his concern about her health and his advice about taking enough exercise. One day when the rain stopped he dragged her for a long walk, insisting that she should hang on his arm for support. One evening he had looked at her needlework—stealthily—expecting probably that she would be hemming baby linen. He meant it all so kindly, and there was no hope of a change for the better when he would come again—more likely the reverse; she simply could not endure it.
One day she had a letter from him in which, among other things, he said she ought to see a doctor, and the same night she wrote to Gunnar Heggen telling him that she was expecting a child in February, and would he let her have the address of a quiet place where she could stay until it was over. Heggen answered by return:
“Dear Jenny—I have advertised in a couple of papers and will send you the answers when they come, so you can see for yourself. If you would like me to go and look at some of the places before you decide, I will do so with pleasure—you know that. I am at your disposal in every way. Let me know when you leave, what way you are coming, and if you want me to meet you, or if I can help you in any other way. I am sorry about it, of course, but I know you are comparatively well equipped to face trouble. Please write and say if there is anything else I can do for you; you know I am only too pleased to be of any service. I hear you have a good picture at the State exhibition—congratulations.
“Kind regards from your sincere friend,
A few days later came a whole bundle of letters. Jenny waded through some of the writing, printed in an awful gothic scrawl, and then wrote to a Mrs. Schlessinger in the vicinity of Warnemünde, renting a room from the fifteenth of November. She gave Mrs. Rasmussen notice, and told Gunnar by letter of her decision.
On the eve of her departure she wrote to Gram:
“Dear Friend—I have formed a decision which I am afraid will hurt you, but you must not be angry with me. I am tired and unnerved; I know I was tiresome and disagreeable to you when you were here, and I don’t want it to happen again, so have decided not to see you until all is over and I am normal again. I am leaving here tomorrow early, going abroad. I am not giving you my address at present, but you can send your letters via Mrs. Ahlin, Varberg, Sweden, and I will write you through her. Do not be anxious about me. I am quite well and everything is all right, but I beg of you, dear, not to try to get into communication with me in any other way than the one I have suggested. Do not be vexed with me, for I believe this arrangement to be the best for both of us, and please try not to worry about me more than you can help.—Yours affectionately,
