Jan Vedder's Wife

by Amelia E. Barr

Suneva had indeed taken Thora’s place with a full determination to be just and kind to Thora’s daughter. She intended, now that fortune had placed her above her old rival, to treat her with respect and consideration. Suneva was capable of great generosities, and if Margaret had had the prudence and forbearance to accept the peace offered, she might have won whatever she desired through the influence of her child, for whom Suneva conceived a very strong attachment.

But this was just the point which Margaret defended with an almost insane jealousy. She saw that little Jan clung to Suneva, that he liked to be with her, that he often cried in the 211 solitude of her room to go down stairs, where he knew he would have sweetmeats, and petting, and company, and his own way. If ever she was cross to the boy, it was on this subject. She would not even be bribed by Suneva’s most diplomatic services in his behalf. “Let Jan come where his grandfather is, Margaret,” she pleaded. “It will be for his good; I tell thee it will. I have already persuaded him that the boy has his eyes, and his figure, and when he was in a passion the other night, and thy father was like to be cross with him, I said, ‘It is a nice thing to see Satan correcting sin, for the child has thy own quick temper, Peter,’ and thy father laughed and pulled little Jan to his side, and gave him the lump of sugar he wanted.”

“The boy is all thou hast left me. Would thou take him also?” Margaret answered with angry eyes. “His mother’s company is good enough for him.”

So all winter the hardly-admitted strife went on. Suneva pitied the child. She waylaid him and gave him sweetmeats and kisses. She imagined that he daily grew more pale and quiet. And Margaret, suspicious and watchful, discovered much, and imagined more. She was 212 determined to go away from Suneva as soon as the spring opened, but she had come to the conclusion that she must look after her house herself, for though Snorro had promised to make it habitable, evidently he had been unable to do so, or he would have contrived to let her know.

One day in the latter part of April, all nature suddenly seemed to awake. The winter was nearly over. Margaret heard the larks singing in the clear sunshine. Little Jan had fallen asleep and might remain so for a couple of hours. She put on her cloak and bonnet, and went to see how far Snorro had been able to keep his word. Things were much better than she had hoped for. Nearly all of the windows had been reglazed, the gate was hung, and the accumulated drift of two years in the yard cleared away.

With lighter spirits, and a firm determination in her heart, she walked swiftly back to her child. When she entered the door she heard his merry laugh in Suneva’s parlor. He was standing on her knee, singing after her some lines of a fisherman’s “Casting Song,” swaying backwards and forwards, first on one foot and 213 then on the other, to the melody. Suneva was so interested in the boy, that, for a moment, she did not notice the pale, angry woman approaching her. When she did, her first thought was conciliation. “I heard him crying, Margaret; and as I knew thou wert out, I went for him. He is a merry little fellow, he hath kept me laughing.”

“Come here, Jan!” In her anger, she grasped the child’s arm roughly, and he cried out, and clung to Suneva.

Then Margaret’s temper mastered her as it had never done before in her life. She struck the child over and over again, and, amid its cries of pain and fright, she said some words to Suneva full of bitterness and contempt.

“Thee love thy child!” cried Suneva in a passion, “not thou, indeed! Thou loves no earthly thing but thyself. Every day the poor baby suffers for thy bad temper—even as his father did.”

“Speak thou not of his father—thou, who first tempted him away from his home and his wife.”