The larder had two stories. The upper story being better finished than the lower, it was probably there the peasants stored their valuables.
In Lieutenant Lagerlöf’s time the building was as in olden days. It may have had a new roof, perhaps, but the steps were never changed. They were so narrow and close together one could scarcely get a foothold. Nor was there ever a pane of glass in the old building.
In the autumn the larder was something to behold. On the lower floor there were great bins of newly milled flour, next which stood two huge vats packed to the brim with beef and pork in brine, then came cowls and buckets of beef sausage, pork sausage, and potato sausage—in fact, all sorts of things that had been made up during the autumn slaughter. In one corner stood a barrel of salted herring, a keg of salted whitefish and one of sickling, and generally a firkin of salmon. Besides, there were tins of salted beans, salted spinach, and firkins of green and yellow peas.
On the upper floor there were tubs of butter of the summer’s churning stored for winter use. Long rows of cheeses were arranged on shelves above the openings, and from the ceiling hung year-old hams. The home-raised hops were preserved in a sack the size of a bolster, and the malted grain in a similar one. Here were provisions for a whole year.
It was the housekeeper who ruled over the larder. That was her domain, and the key to it seldom got into another’s hands. Mamselle Lovisa might potter in the pantry or milk-room, but she would hardly have ventured into the larder. The housekeeper was also supreme in the kitchen. Making small cakes or putting up preserves and fruit juices might well be left to Mamselle Lovisa, but when it came to roasting a fowl, making a cheese, or baking knäckebröd, it was the old housekeeper who took charge.
The little Lagerlöf children were very fond of her, and looked up to her as the most important member of the household. They had noticed that whenever relatives came to visit, the first thing they did was to go out to the kitchen and pay their respects to the housekeeper. If anything unusual happened in the family Lieutenant Lagerlöf would always call her in and tell her about it, and when Daniel and Johan were returning to school after the Christmas and summer holidays, they were told to say good-bye to the housekeeper. They had also heard outsiders say that Fru Lagerlöf was in great luck to have such a treasure in her kitchen, that nothing was ever wasted under her watchful eye. They said, moreover, that nowhere else could one get such Christmas ale, such knäckebröd, and such tasty dishes as were set before you at Mårbacka. And it was all due to the old housekeeper, they declared. So it was not strange the children regarded her as the main prop of the home, and firmly believed that were she not there Mårbacka would collapse.
Then, one day, little Anna found out a great secret, which gave her an awful fright, and she confided it to her sister Selma. She had overheard two of the maids talking about the housekeeper; they had said she was married and had a husband.
The distress of the two little girls was indescribable. If the housekeeper were actually married and had a husband they could not be sure of keeping her at Mårbacka. What would their mother do without her? And what would they themselves do who got such nice titbits from her whenever they went into the kitchen? And what would happen to the whole place, they wondered?
It was most imperative, therefore, that they should know how the matter stood; so they asked Nurse Maja if it were true that the housekeeper was married and had a husband.
Oh, yes. Nurse Maja knew the whole story. She had heard it from her mother, who was in service at Mårbacka at the time it all happened.