“Well, Stellan asked me to fetch you. We must all three go out to Peter. Fancy if he is mad enough to recognize that unfortunate boy as his son!”
On Hedvig’s face came an expression of alarmed excitement, of mean spite:
“Would Peter let us suffer for his excesses....”
“Yes, he has been angry with us ever since we took Tord’s shares from him. He has got some plan in his head. But be quick now!”
Hedvig stood hesitating:
“Will you drive me back here after?” she mumbled.
“Of course, you won’t have to spend a farthing. But be quick!”
Hedvig disappeared and returned after a good while, stuffed up in a lot of moth-eaten woollen underskirts, jerseys and shawls, amongst which you could distinguish an old ragged Spanish mantilla fastened about her ears under the hat as if she had toothache.
They were late for Stellan. He had arranged to meet them away out at the toll-house. He did not like to be seen with his sisters, neither the fat one nor the thin one. Frozen and angry he climbed up into the sledge and pulled the fur rug round him without greeting them. These three, sisters and brother, were not exactly a centre of warmth in the icy cold winter twilight. And still their meeting was really an extraordinary event, because they never met now except at the annual board meetings.
Laura sat looking at Stellan, thinking that he had grown ridiculously small. She often thought so of people nowadays. As far as Stellan was concerned it was in some measure true. Without being bent, he had as a matter of fact shrunk, sunk into himself. Time had brought to his face-mask stiff folds which would not permit a smile to peep through. The hard restless eyes seemed to have lost for ever the secret of joy. His whole person diffused solemn boredom of long echoing passages and big empty rooms of state.