Skipper Worse

by Alexander Lange Kielland

She had never given much heed to these words. Of what good was it all to her? Could anything recompense her for her marred life?

It was the sight of her mother busying herself in her room that roused her, and henceforth she became alive to her position.

Before long the system of joint purchasing for the two households, which Madame Torvestad had at first managed, was brought to an end. Sarah undertook to manage her own affairs. Gently, but inexorably, the mother's rule was restricted to her own apartments.

Sarah was intelligent and well trained; she inherited all her mother's aptitude for rule and order. Hitherto she had never had an opportunity of manifesting it at home, her mother being always over her, and she had toiled like a servant girl, faithful and upright, yet with no other interest for the things under her charge than that they should not be injured.

Now, however, she had her own household, was her own mistress, and had, moreover, ampler means at her command than her mother had.

The rich Madame Worse, as people began to term her in the shops, was, in fact, a very different person, and much more important than the widow Torvestad. It was a consciousness of this that first gave Sarah a new interest in life, and tended to thaw some of that frigidity which had begun to settle upon her. When the first and the worst period was over, she buried her hopes and her youth as well as she could, giving herself up to prayer and study, whilst, at the same time, the management of her household affairs prevented her from sinking into melancholy.

This change was much to the advantage of Jacob Worse. The icy coldness with which she had treated him from the first had been occasionally apparent to him in the midst of his happiness; but now her behaviour was different—never indeed affectionate, scarcely even friendly, but she reconciled herself to him, made his home comfortable, and interested herself in his business affairs.

Jacob Worse explained them to her, and was never weary of expressing his surprise that women could show so much intelligence. It was not long before she was able to give him good advice, and it ended by his consulting her about everything.

In this way the year passed on, and the winter began. Sarah was as regular as formerly at the meetings, and, when at her mother's, she often sat in her old place by the Bible. Her comeliness increased, and her manner became more self-possessed, her dress also was improved; not that it was too conspicuous, for the most austere of the Haugians would not have been able to find fault with it; but the woman-folk, who understood such things, noticed that her linen was of the finest that could be procured, that the woollen stuffs she used were almost as costly as silk, and that when she wore a white collar round her neck, it was of real lace, worth a couple of dollars an ell.

The men, too, noticed something unusual about the young wife, and would say to their spouses: "Look at Sarah; you should dress like her; you should manage the house as she does." The mother also received her meed of praise for having brought up her daughter so well.