Lieutenant Lagerlöf did not have to engage a head gardener for Mårbacka; Mamselle Lovisa had inherited the old Wennervik bent, and it was she who took care of the garden. The flowers were her faithful friends; they loved her as she loved them. People wondered how she could get them to bloom and glow as in no other garden. They did not know that the flowers had caught colour and sweetness from her vanished dream of happiness.
[IV
THE ROOF TRUSSES]
WHEN Lieutenant Lagerlöf and his little daughters walked in the garden or out in the fields they often talked of what they would do if the King came to Mårbacka.
In those days the King used to drive through Värmland several times a year on his way to and from Norway, and he had to stop somewhere for refreshment and rest. Most frequently he stayed over in Karlstad, at the Governor’s house, and it was also his wont to honour with a royal visit the great manors which lay along his route, and where they could conveniently entertain him.
Of course there was not the least likelihood that the King would come to a little unknown place like Mårbacka, which, to boot, lay far from the great highway. But that did not trouble the Lieutenant and his little girls. It would not have been such fun perhaps to talk about this had there been any chance of the King’s really coming. Now it was only a pleasure to build in fancy a triumphal arch for His Majesty, and strew flowers in his way as he drove up. The little girls wondered if they should dress in white when the King came and the Lieutenant generously promised them new white frocks made by the best sempstress in East Ämtervik for the grand occasion.
The Lieutenant and the children pictured to themselves how the King, when nearing Mårbacka, would suddenly shade his eyes with his hand so as to see better.
“What is that great white building over there in the meadow?” he would ask. “Have they two churches in this parish?”
“No, your Majesty,” the Lieutenant would then reply (for of course he was to ride with the King), “that white building is not a church, it is my cow-barn.”
Then the King would look at him in wide-eyed wonder, and say: