CHAPTER V
Alma dragged on her timeless, feelingless existence under old Kata’s care. Age had left no mark on her, though it was twenty years now since the tragic event that had deprived her of her reason. In the world about her there had been changes: those who had been in the prime of life at that time were now aged and infirm; the children of those days were grown. But Alma was to all appearances the same as on the day when she had left the church at Hof, released from suffering by the breakdown of all capacity to feel or understand. She looked a trifle healthier—less pale, that was all.
And her life now had, despite its essential monotony, a certain variation of a sort. She smiled happily when the sun shone, but wept when the clouds hid it from her sight. Her joys were those of childhood—fine weather, dumb animals, flowers, and the presence of certain chosen friends. There were some of her fellow-creatures whom she loved, without knowing why. Others she disliked no less distinctly, and contact with them would render her depressed for days. Strangers, in particular, invariably troubled her mind.
In course of time, people had come to attribute this discrimination to a strange instinct that had taken the place of the ordinary human intelligence she no longer possessed. She was still spoken of as the Danish Lady at Hof, though for years she had not set her foot outside the limits of Borg.
She spoke but little. It seemed as if she had forgotten not only her native tongue, but also the little Icelandic she had ever learnt. She picked up odd words and sentences, however, uttering them afterwards incoherently. And she had a kind of language of her own invention—a combination of curious expressions and strange gestures, which those about her learned to understand. Old Kata was an adept in this mode of intercourse, and pleased her mistress by her quickness of understanding.
The two women occupied one room, with two windows, in which they had their favourite seats. They would sit there for hours, old Kata with her knitting, and Alma gazing at the world outside, and following with childish interest anything that might be happening within view. For the most part, they were silent, but now and again passers-by might hear them exchanging words in their own unintelligible form of speech.
They had little to do with others, though Alma knew all the servants and farm hands on the place. All loved her, and towards old Kata, too, the general feeling was one of kindly regard.
On Sundays they joined the circle for Bible reading or singing, after which coffee was handed round, Alma playing the part of hostess. It was one of the small recurring pleasures in her life, and both she and Kata found an ever-new delight in the arrangement.
Sometimes the master, Ormarr Ørlygsson, if so disposed, would bring out his violin and treat his people to an entertainment. He invariably began with merry tunes, and finished with strange, heart-stirring themes; the simple listeners knew nothing of the great composers, but the music had its own effect on them, and often brought tears to the eyes of the more impressionable amongst them.
When he had played thus, Ormarr would leave the room abruptly; the rest, sitting in silence, would hear him leave the house. And then the party broke up, each to his work or play.
But Ormarr went off alone into the hills. At times he might be seen pacing to and fro; sometimes he would find some spot where he could lie and rest, but he never returned to the farm until all had retired for the night. There were always two, however, who waited his return. One was old Kata, who sat by the window till she saw or heard him back again—sat weeping, though he never dreamed of any such sympathy on her part. Not till she knew that he was safely within doors—had fought out that day’s fight with his God, as she put it to herself—would she go to rest.
The other was his wife, lying awake in bed till he came. No words were spoken when he returned; in silence he lay down at her side, drawing close to her, with one arm round her neck. Lying thus, rest would come to him and he could sleep.
The only other event in the life of Alma and her aged nurse was when visitors came to the place. All invariably came in to pay their respects to the Danish Lady however brief their stay or how pressing their errand might be. Some did so from a natural desire to show their sympathy with one afflicted by God; others from a secret fear that God would punish them if they did not. And Alma seemed able to distinguish between those who came of their own kind will and those who merely obeyed a custom they feared to break.