Many a night the keyhole of the door to her little room still showed a speck of light by the time the clock struck twelve, or even one. Her mother lay anxiously listening to Egholm’s snore; there was no saying what terrible thing might happen if he were to wake and find it out. But Hedvig would listen to reproaches the next morning with an unfathomable expression on her face, or smile, and shake her head. The pocket of her dress bulged with a new novel every other day.
“You should tell your mother what it says in those silly books you’re always reading,” said Fru Egholm admonishingly.
“Oh, you’d never understand a word of it,” was all Hedvig answered.
One day she had stuck up a picture over her bed, showing a man and a woman, tied together with a rope, flinging themselves into the water from a bridge. A yellow half-moon shone through the tree-tops and was reflected in the water. Hedvig stood quietly, apparently indifferent, as her mother tore it down and told in vehement words how sinful it was to look at such things. But when her mother moved to hold it over the lamp, the girl flung herself suddenly in front of her with wild screams, and would not be brought to her senses until she had the horrible picture safely put away in her workbox.
Now, who would ever believe that this was the same good little Hedvig that the baker’s people always said a good word for, and who could always manage to find a way when it was a case of helping others! Fuel, for instance—Egholm did not seem to have the instinct of acquiring fuel. But Hedvig was a little marvel in that way—though, no doubt, it was largely through the help of Marinus in the workshop, to give him his due. He always tucked away odd bits under his work-bench for her. He was a kindly sort, was Marinus. And he seemed particularly fond of Hedvig, and she of him—that is to say, at times. For it was towards Marinus that her fickleness of humour showed itself most of all. Sometimes when she had been in the workshop she would come back and fall into a fit of miserable weeping; at other times she would rush in at once the moment he tapped with his rule on the pane, whether she wanted firewood for the kitchen or no. And as to getting any explanation out of her—that, of course, was hopeless.
Otherwise, she was particularly good at telling things, and both her father and her mother were often amused at her way of relating little things that had passed.
Her father even had a speciality of his own in this respect; he loved to hear of the money Hedvig took across the counter when she was minding shop while her mistress was at dinner.
Then it would be Wassermann, the Customs officer, who came in and bought best part of a tray of mixed pastries—he was such a sweet tooth. Then perhaps there would be a message from Etatsraadens’ for sixty butter puffs for to-morrow morning.
“Sixty!” cried her father. “And what do they cost apiece?”