"Very well, let her come in," answered Fru Rendalen, opening the door wide. "How do you do?" she said, as she stood in the doorway and held out her hand to Tora in the half-lighted hall. There was far too much of a command in her tone for Tora not to advance. Fru Rendalen then saw that she had come crying to school like a little thing of five years old. She was surprised; she showed her a place, which Tora shyly took, and asked one of the teachers to help her off with her hat and cloak, which the little donkey had kept on--thought Fru Rendalen to herself.
They sang a hymn and Karl spoke about meeting--whenever one discovers anything good in a person, one meets God--that was his subject.
At the moment Tora was only conscious of the sound of a powerful voice, she was tormented by the remembrance of her unlucky entrance and the impression it had made; first and foremost upon Fru Rendalen, but also on the others; she had seen that plainly. She could not keep quiet; she turned away when any one looked at her, turned this way and that as though she wished both to be looked at and not to be looked at. If any one spoke to her, which happened after a while, she coloured, and answered something which she at once contradicted. This went on during the first three days. She knew neither Norwegian geography nor Norwegian history--indeed, she did not know a single thing except English and French, and coloured up when this was discovered; but when it was also discovered that she spoke both these languages fluently, she coloured up just as much. She would not do gymnastics on any consideration--at last she said she had no dress. She made herself one which was a masterpiece of coquetry; but this she denied, and declared it to be purely and simply ugly. She could not go on long with the gymnastics, strongly built as she was, but gave in completely and began to cry. Miss Hall, who superintended the gymnastics and introduced special exercises for some of the girls, led her towards the window and looked at her. Miss Hall had partly forgotten her Norse, and did not remember at the moment that Tora spoke English; she tried to find a word while she examined her. Tora misunderstood this and ran away from her, put on her things and went straight home, refusing to return to school. It required no little trouble before she could be brought back, not only to school but as a boarder; she needed better food than she got at home, for she was beginning in chlorosis; this was the word that Miss Hall could not remember. Tora now shared Miss Hall's room; she was the first, though afterwards one of the pupils always did so.
Little by little the new-comer forgot herself so far as to be able to sit still, but never if any one looked at her steadily, or talked about her. She must feel it in her back, her companions said. They tried experiments, and laughed when she really did by degrees become uneasy, and at last turned round and looked at them.
Nora had been a boarder during the past year, and was often up at the school. She did not speak to Tora except just in passing, but one Sunday Tora asked her if she might do her hair for her. This made as much stir among the boarders as though she had offered Nora some new hair. Word was sent from room to room; they all collected, big ones and little ones, to see Nora with new hair. They stood there, they leaned over one another, while the great work went on.
For what was done was nothing less; laughter soon changed to astonishment, to admiration, to applause.
One day, when Nora's hair was untidy, Tora had suddenly noticed that this was becoming to her. It suited the large, wide-open eyes, by far the most striking part of her little face. She had next to no forehead, very small cheeks, a little mouth with cherry lips, and a rather large nose, a real family nose; but it only seemed to set off the eyes, so that it was the eyes all the same--nothing but eyes. Now what was wanted was some way of raising the hair, so that it should help the eyes as well. Tora had seen a great deal, and often had "inspirations," but never as yet in hair-dressing. She had one now. Naturally she began by letting it all down and combing it out, then took the front hair and made it into two large rolls, one on each side, lightly twisted; it was very little in itself, and not at all striking, but the effect in this case was amazing. When her eyes grew large, the hair looked as though it would spread its wings and fly away, sometimes almost as though it flickered--the hair was naturally a little wavy.
Up to this time Nora had never been thought pretty, there were other qualities in her which one noticed; but now Rendalen himself, who very rarely looked closely at any one, stopped short as he was reading aloud, when, chancing to raise his eyes, he caught sight of Nora; the whole class knew what he thought. The one who was least concerned was perhaps Nora herself; now she had settled about her hair, and she need not think anything more about it; but when Tora Holm, as their friendship increased, began to rave about her talents, and, with her tendency towards exaggeration, declared that Nora was "all soul," that her music "absolutely carried one away," and that her chance remarks always "hit the right nail on the head," that really was something! She longed for more with insatiable voracity, and cultivated the friendship. Tora Holm constantly made discoveries; the most important one was that Nora was always right, even if she had been capricious towards others, hasty--nay, even when she had had a slight fit of untruthfulness, Nora was right, quite right--at the bottom.
It now struck Nora that Tora Holm was the first person who had ever thoroughly understood her: to think that a stranger who looked at her with fresh impartial eyes should have discovered this at once! The more they saw of each other, the more gifted they thought each other. Tora's talent for telling stories was the "greatest" Nora had "ever known;" she gathered all her set round her to listen, and the story-telling began. Fairy tales and romances by turns--what had not Tora read, what did she not remember? The girls would listen over and over again to the "Thousand and One Nights" (not the condensed edition, but the full one) as though they were little children. As well as this, they liked pictures of real life which did not go beyond their comprehension, though they preferred that the lovers (and by inference also themselves) should be noble and unhappy. These girls of fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen (Tora herself was nearly seventeen), for various reasons had, outside their school subjects, read only by stealth, with the results which naturally follow. The books which Rendalen had read to them had greatly widened their horizon and increased their desire to know more, so that Tora was doubly welcome.
But between the story-telling times Nora wished to have her to herself, really to possess her; Nora-Tora, Tora-Nora, wove themselves together, no one else could approach them. Nora announced this openly; they two preferred being by themselves.