THE CUPBOARD
"Come in," said the key invitingly.
But the weary man stood motionless, paralysed by the thought that had come to him as he reached the door.
"Come in—you've waited long enough in coming."
And the weary man grasped the key, but stood holding it helplessly, like a child without strength to turn it.
It rattled in the lock under his trembling fingers. The noise roused him; he opened the door and went in.
* * * * *
It was like entering a church. A solemn, expectant silence hung over the place—it was just as it had been when, as a child, he had first been taken to church.
And now, as then, his glance sought first of all the farthest background of the place. What he saw was like and yet unlike what he had seen there. Then, it had been the figure of a young man, holding out his arms over a group of children; now, it was the figure of an old woman, worn with sickness—but with the same great gentleness in her face.
The woman's eyes lit up, as though she had seen a miracle; her glance grew keen, as if wishing to be sure, and softened again, in the certainty that the miracle had come.
The trembling head was lifted, the frail body rose up like a bent bow, her mouth opened, and her lips began to move, but no sound came—she could but reach out one thin, trembling hand to the figure by the door.
He moved, and walked over to the bed. And the old woman and the weary man took each other's hands and pressed them, looked into each other's eyes and trembled with emotion, unable to speak a word.
Tears rose to the old woman's eyes, a gleam as of sunset over autumn woods lit her wrinkled face; the thin lips quivered between smiling and weeping.
"So you came after all," she said at last in a trembling voice. "I knew you would come—some time. And good that you came just now…."
She sank back wearily on the pillow, and the man sat down on a chair at her side, still holding her hands in his.
* * * * *
The old woman lay with her face turned towards her son, looking at him with love in her eyes.
Then her look turned to one of questioning—there was something she had been waiting years to ask.
"Tell me, my son…." Her voice was almost a whisper.
But he could not answer.
"Olof, look at me," she begged.
And the man beside the bed lifted his eyes, great dark eyes full of weariness and stark fear—but bowed his head again and looked away.
The smile vanished from the old woman's face. She gazed long and searchingly at her son's haggard chin, his sunken cheeks and loose eyelids, the pale forehead, the furrowed temples—everything.
"Perhaps it has to be," she murmured, as if speaking to someone else. "'And wasted all his substance…. And he said, I will arise and….'"
Her voice trembled, and Olof, in a hasty glance, saw how her wrinkled mouth quivered with emotion.
And suddenly the coldness that had almost paralysed him up to now, seemed to melt away. He fell on his knees beside the bed, his face in the coverlet, and knelt there sobbing.
It was as in church, at the moment when each single heart withdraws from all the rest to offer up its own silent prayer.
* * * * *
The old woman lay resting in her bed; her face wore the same look of sorrowful gentleness that it had done for years, despite the ravages of sickness.
But to-day, signs of uneasiness were apparent; shadows of fear seemed flitting ever and anon over her features.
Olof wiped his mother's forehead gently. "You are not so well to-day?" he asked.
"'Tis not that—no. I called you, there was something I wanted to say.
But I'm not sure—perhaps it would be better not…."
He took her withered hand tenderly in his.
"Why do you think that, mother? You have never said anything but what was good."
"'Twas meant to be so—ay, that's true. But there's times when it's hard to say what's best to do, and it's so with me now. For years I've been thinking to tell you before I closed my eyes the last time. And it's been a comfort to me in many trials. But now I come to say it…."
The sick woman's breast heaved, and drops of sweat stood out on her forehead.
"Best not to think too much if it worries you," said Olof, wiping her brow once more. "'Twill be all right in time."
"'Tis right enough—I know that really. 'Twould be a wrong to myself and you, and to all I've hoped and believed, if I didn't speak—yet it's hard to begin. Come closer, you too, Heikki—I can't speak so loud…."
The elder brother, who had just come in from the fields with his muddy boots on, had sat down close to the door. He moved his chair now nearer the bed.
The sick woman lay for a while in thought, as if weighing the matter in her mind. Then she looked long and earnestly at her two sons.
"You two will have to divide what's left," she said at last. "And I've not said a word of it before; you're not like to quarrel over it, I know. But there's one thing in the place that I want to keep separate from the rest, and give it up to you now, before I go."
She sighed, and was silent for a while, as if needing rest before she could continue. The two young men watched her expectantly.
'"Tis nothing of great value, but it's all tied up like with something that happened once, and all the thoughts of it—and 'tis valuable to me. I mean the cupboard there."
The sons glanced at the thing where it stood; an old cupboard in two sections, that they knew well.
"You look surprised. Oh, if I could only tell you…."
She gazed upwards in silence, as if praying for strength. Then, with a strange light in her eyes, she turned towards them and went on almost in a whisper, as one who tells a tale of ghosts:
"It was long ago. In this very room, on this very bed here lay a woman who had borne a man-child but four days before. She had always been tender and faithful and obedient to her husband, and had tried to do his will in everything. And she had been happy, very happy. But before the child was born, a suspicion had begun to grow up secretly in her mind. And now, on the fifth night, as she lay there with the newborn child, in the pale light from a lamp on the shelf of the cupboard there, the fear at her heart grew all of a sudden so strong that she got up, and went into the next room, to see if what she dreaded was true…."
The sick woman turned her face to the wall, to hide the tears that forced themselves into her eyes.
"But the one she sought was not there, and driven by fear, she crossed the courtyard, barefooted, and half-clad as she was, in the cold, over to the still-room. They used to make spirits at home in those days. She opened the door softly and looked in. There the fire was burning, and by the flickering light she saw a woman—a young woman then—lying on a bed, and beside her the man she herself had risen from her childbed to seek. And at the sight of them her heart died in her. She would have cried aloud, but only a groan came from her lips, and she went back, dreading at every step lest her legs should fail her…."
The sick woman gasped for breath, and lay trembling; the listeners sat as if turned to stone.
"How she got back," went on the old woman, "she did not know herself; only there she was, sitting on the bed beside her child, pressing her hands to her breast, that felt as if it would burst. Then she heard footsteps outside, and a moment later the door opened, and with a roar like a wild beast, a man strode in—furious, with bloodshot eyes. He uttered a dreadful curse, and swung up an axe above his head. The woman almost fainted with fright. Then behind him she saw her sister reaching up with a cry of horror towards the axe he held. It flew from his hand, the steel shone in the lamplight—and what happened after she did not know…."
It was as if the axe had fallen at that moment, striking them all three. The mother closed her eyes. Olof was trembling from head to foot; his brother crouched in his seat, his features stiff with horror.
"When she came to herself," went on the sick woman in a trembling voice, "her husband was sitting beside her, with his head in his hands, his face ashy pale, his eyes bloodshot, and his body trembling all over as if shivering with cold. The axe had flown straight over the place where mother and child had been, missing them by an inch, and stuck fast in the cupboard beyond—it was standing there as it stands now…."
The woman sighed as if in relief to find the danger past.
Olof grasped her hand eagerly, pressed it, and looked imploringly into her eyes.
"Yes, yes," she nodded, "he begged forgiveness—and she forgave him. And they were friends again. And that night he fetched up some putty from the cellar and filled the hole the axe had made, and painted it over afterwards. But—you can see where it was…."
Olof rose to his feet and walked over mechanically to the cupboard; his elder brother sat still on his chair, looking over at the place in silent horror.
"You can see—it struck just between the two sides, and cut deep into the edges. It's plain to be seen, for all it's painted over now. As for the woman…."
She broke off suddenly, her face pale and bloodless, her features quivering with painful emotion.
"The woman—she forgave him, and never a harsh word between them after. Folk said they lived so happily together…. But the hurt—the hurt was there. A woman's heart's not a thing to be healed with any putty and paint…."
* * * * *
She was silent, but her face was eloquent with feeling still.
Olof went back to his place, took her hand and kissed it again and again, with tears, as if praying for forgiveness. For the first time he realised the inner meaning of his mother's nature as he knew it—the undertone of sadness in her gentle ways. And he could not free himself from a strange, inexplicable feeling of guilt in himself, though till that day he had known nothing of her secret.
"And for the man … well, well, let him rest in peace! 'Twas not from any thought to soil his memory—but you're grown men now, my sons, and when you've wives of your own…. Ay, a good man he was in many ways, a clever worker. And I know he suffered himself for—for the other thing. He'll be judged, as we shall all be judged—we've all of us enough to answer for…."
For a long time the sick woman lay as if overwhelmed by stress of feeling, unable to speak. Olof, with tears in his eyes, sat deep in thought; the elder son had not moved.
"And now I can leave it to you," she went on more calmly. "'Tis all tied up, as I said, with thoughts of that time, ay, and hopes and prayers, all the best and the hardest in my life. And I'm not the only one that's had such things to bear through life. There's many a one the world knows nothing of, for a woman can bear a great sorrow and never speak of it. And I've heard since, that there was trouble of the same sort here in the house before my day…. Heaven grant I may be the last to suffer! And so I wanted you to take the thing between you—half to each—the scar's between them, so you'll share that too. Remember it, and tell your children some time. And they can pass on the legacy to theirs—with all the hopes and prayers and tears it brought—only let the name be forgotten!"
All three looked earnestly at the grim heirloom that stood there reaching from floor to ceiling; it seemed to grow, as they watched, into a monument over the grave of many generations.
* * * * *
The sick woman turned anxiously to her sons.
"Will you take it?" she asked. "Will you take it, with all that it means…?"
Olof pressed her hand to his lips in answer. The elder brother sat motionless, as before, his eyelids trembled as if he were on the point of tears. His mother read his answer in his eyes.
"I'm glad it's over now," she said in relief. "And now I've no more to give you, but—my blessing!"
Her face lit with the same great gentleness that had softened it for years, she looked long and tenderly at her sons.
"Olof," she said at last, as if to wake him from his thoughts; "it happened at the time before you were born…."
The elder son looked at his mother in astonishment—why should she tell them what they had known all along?
But Olof looked up suddenly, as if he had heard something new and significant. The quiver in his mother's voice told him what she meant, the look in her eyes seemed to shed a light on what had been dark before.
Questioningly he looked at her, as if silently asking confirmation of his thought.
She nodded almost imperceptibly.
"I have often thought of that, these last sad years…."
Olof felt as if a mighty storm had suddenly torn away a dark, overshadowing growth, laying bare the heart of a fearsome place—deep clefts and stagnant pools and treacherous bogs.
"Ay, there's much that's hard to understand," she whispered in his ear. "But go to your work, now, sons. I'm tired now, leave me to rest…."
The young men rose and left the room. In the doorway they turned and cast a last glance at their mother, but she seemed no longer to heed them. She lay with her hands folded on her breast, gazing calmly at the old cupboard where it stood by the wall, like a monument above the grave of many generations.