His voice sounded both sad and happy. He beckoned Hedvig towards him:
“O, we both need a lot of sunshine, you and I, Hedvig,” he muttered.
And he took her hand in his uplifted hands with an expression of reverence. It was as if he also wished to touch her beautiful oval face with his fingers. Then he sank back against his cushions and breathed heavily, oppressed by his emotions. Hedvig had to lead him back to bed.
“Our Eros,” whispered Percy pointing at Saint Sebastian, “who smiles though his breast is full of arrows.”
Such was Hedvig Selamb’s engagement. She would have shrunk back frightened from complete matrimony. She dared to go half way. It really was a typical Selamb insurance against the risks both of loneliness and poverty and the demands of life. But before the dawn of the next day she had already convinced herself that she was making a great sacrifice.
The banns had been read for the second time and Percy was expected on a visit to Selambshof, in which he had not set his foot since he was a child. Hedvig had gone there at the last moment. She could of course not stay on alone in the house of her fiancé.
The Selambs were sitting in front of a fire in the hall. The main building had stood empty the whole of the winter, since Peter nowadays lived in the bailiff’s wing. The hall was like a cave. The winter cold still clung to the walls, though it was May. But that did not seem to disturb the Selambs. They whispered in eager tones and were agreeably excited as if by an interesting game of cards. Now and then they threw pitying, envious, and secretly admiring side-glances at Hedvig, who was standing by one of the windows. Hedvig was dressed in a plain black frock. She was standing there alone, silent, cold, with a severe and haughty expression on her face. She looked down the avenue by which Percy would arrive. Yes, here her fiancé was about to drive up in a great fine carriage, round the very same bend as did Brundin once upon a time in his little green dog-cart. And during dinner she would sit silent and erect by his side and scarcely taste her food. The silence would spread around her so that not even Laura would dare to begin her empty, worldly chatter. There would be a real contrast to all the shouts and hurrahs of her own unfortunate wedding. And it would be the last time Percy would appear at Selambshof. Yes, Hedvig had decided to have a quiet wedding ceremony without her relations. That would be the most dignified way. She had no further use for all these people out here. She would go abroad and leave it all behind.
Hedvig thought of all this as she stood at the window. The shadow of a smile passed now and again over her severe red lips. Wonderfully sweet contentment suffused her whole being. She trampled on her old fear, loneliness, and humiliation, and felt as if she had truly her old fear under her foot. But she could not trample it to death. One does not trample a shadow to death. It can only be killed by light....
Then Percy Hill came driving up to the steps. He remained for a moment sitting in the open carriage looking up at the high, gloomy walls of Selambshof. It was impossible for him to escape a feeling of discomfort in the presence of this sham feudal architecture, this suburban gothic which did not even take itself seriously. “Well,” he thought, “we are going away from all this.”
He entered. He moved slowly and looked very pale and thin in his black morning coat. Nobody could help seeing that he had been in the shadow of death. For a moment he seemed to shrink from the wintry air inside. But his glance brightened when he caught sight of Hedvig’s frock. He had been afraid to see her without her nurse’s uniform. Her simple black frock seemed to him an expression of tactfulness. He kissed Hedvig’s hand and greeted Laura and Stellan. Then it was Peter’s turn. Percy had had no communication with him for many years. Peter’s gross figure startled him somewhat. He offered his transparent fingers with half-closed eyes and withdrew them again quickly with a little embarrassed smile.