Ragna.

by Anna Miller Costantini.

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

We see her first, a tall child with wind-blown hair standing on the rocky point of a barren promontory where fjord and ocean meet, wild as the sea-birds that circle about her head--indeed at this time wildness was the keynote of her nature. The household tasks and lessons disposed of, she spent the rest of the day in rambles over the rugged country side, or in exploits that kept the older members of the family in breathless suspense. It was she who mounted bareback the unbroken horses in the pasture, she who sailed her boat down the foaming fjord in the teeth of the storm. Danger heightened her enjoyment, and true descendant of the vikings of old, she looked her best, lithe and straight, breasting the gale, the joy of the struggle gleaming in her sea-blue eyes, flushing her cheeks, her long golden hair flung out on the wind like a triumphal banner.

Her home was a long, low, timber house, sheltering amid pines and firs, under the lee of a high rocky hill, a home built for the long northern winters, the long months when the country lay snow-bound. The winter afternoons and evenings were spent in sewing or embroidery, when the father or the mother read aloud, or grandmother told tales of the Old Times, and of the family. The favourite was that of brave young Uncle Olaf, who had sailed to the frozen North in his whaler, never to return.

Grandmother always wept at the end of this tale, and father would wipe his spectacles and gaze intently into the fire, but to the children it was a splendid myth, and on clear days they would climb to the bare headland to the north of the house, and stand looking out to sea, watching for Uncle Olaf with his ship, bringing home treasure untold.

To Ragna especially, Uncle Olaf was an embodiment of the spirit of adventure and of the sea; he became in her imagination a sort of "Flying Dutchman," doomed to sail forever and ever the Northern Seas, pa.s.sing the fjord and his old home in the whirling storm, doomed never to bring his ship into port, never to rest in the haven where he fain would be.

She loved him, the tall, beautiful young sailor, with the waving fair hair and deep-set blue eyes, and she imagined him amongst his grey-bearded seamen,--they would grow old, but he, never. Some days when she took her boat out in the open water, beyond the sheltering fjord, she would imagine that far away against the dark horizon, against the gathering storm-clouds, she saw the phantom vessel, flying before the wind, all sails set, half veiled in the blowing scud. Her two sisters would talk of when Uncle Olaf should come home, of the riches he would bring, and the wonderful tales of adventure in far countries he would tell, but only Ragna knew that he would never come, that his mysterious doom was to sail on and on till the Judgment Day, longing for peace and home, family and joy, but never to find them; seeing his comrades grow old and grey, and die--but himself, always young, always stretching longing arms toward the happiness and rest he might never attain to--and so on and on for ever, till the end of the world.

Ragna, as you may see, was impulsive and visionary, and while her sisters both became capable little housewives, she took but little interest in homely duties. Eagerly she read whatever fell in her way, but especially she loved the old Sagas, with their great fierce women, and strong, terribly human men. She heard the call of the Valkyries in the wind, saw their shapes in the battling clouds; the Aurora Borealis to her, lighted the feasting of heroes in Valhalla. Naturally, she wrote verses herself, but in secret, hiding her copy-book deep in her clothes press. There her sister Lotte found it one fateful day, and produced it, in a fit of childish mischief, after supper in the family circle. Poor Ragna, all confusion and blushes, fearing the inevitable reprimand for foolish waste of time, tried to s.n.a.t.c.h her darling, but the father held up his hand.

"Give that book to me, Lotte," he said, and when she had complied, he locked it up in his desk, and nothing further was said.

A week pa.s.sed, and still Ragna trembled for the fate of her treasure, but dared not inquire. She stood in awe of her father, and would as soon have bearded a lion in his den, as question him. When he finally summoned her to his study, and bade her close the door behind her, she entered timidly, not daring to look him in the face. If he was secretly amused by her air of conscious guilt, he gave no sign.

"My daughter," he said, in calm judicial tones, "your mother and I have read the writings in the little book, the good grandmother also has seen them. It is all nonsense, of course--what could a child like you write but nonsense? But it is not such bad nonsense, after all," he added kindly. Then he bade her sit by him, and she fetched a low stool, and sat by his knee--up to now she had been standing as a dutiful child should.

He laid his hand on her shining plaits of hair, and bent her head back so that he might look into her eyes.

"True eyes," he said dreamily, half to himself, "Andersen eyes, and you have the Andersen face, child. Lotte is of your mother's race, but Ingeborg and you are Andersens through and through--and you look like your Uncle Olaf." He paused awhile, apparently immersed in thought.

Ragna burned with excitement and curiosity, what could it mean? What could he be going to say? Her head moved under his hand, and recalled to him the fact of her presence.

"Ragna, your mother and I have decided that you must go away; you must go to a school where you can learn more than is possible here. Fru Bjork, a relative of your mother's, is taking her daughter to a convent in Paris, and I have written to her asking her to take you also, and to place you in the convent with Astrid. You are sixteen--two years in Paris will do more for you than a lifetime here. The mother and I shall miss you--but an Andersen must have the best, and I believe I can trust you to make the most of this opportunity. Now, my child, I have said what I had in my mind, there is nothing more, only this: remember always that an Andersen must have the best and be worthy of it!"

Ragna had listened to him, her colour coming and going, her eyes shining. Two years in Paris! It was too wonderful almost to be believed.

She rose from her stool, and made motion to kiss her father's hand, as was her custom, but he took her into his arms, and kissed her forehead.

"You are too old now to kiss my hand," he said smiling. She flung her arms about his neck and clung to him, sobbing with excitement and joy, till her father loosed her arms and putting her copy-book into her hand, led to the door saying:

"There, there! Control yourself my dear, recollect that you are almost a woman now!" And he closed the door behind her.

CHAPTER II

The next few weeks pa.s.sed as in a dream, and at length the day of departure came. Ragna set off with her father in the stulkjarre, her modest box well corded and tied on behind. Grandmother, mother and sisters, even the old nurse, waving a tearful farewell, disappeared behind the cl.u.s.tering trees.

Travel in those days was not the easy affair it is now, and three days posting lay between the travellers and Molde. They were to meet Fru Bjork at Bergen. When, in due time they arrived, Ragna found her chaperone to be a matronly woman, arrayed in brown silk with a heavy gold chain round her neck; her crab's eyes looked good-naturedly out on the world, and her ample curves bore witness to her naturally placid temperament--relieved, however, by a surface fussiness. She at once took Ragna to her arms and heart with such pattings and caressings as made the girl feel quite uncomfortable, unused as she was to such a demonstrative show of affection.

Astrid, the daughter, fair and pretty, sprightly and capricious of character, also welcomed the newcomer with enthusiasm.

"How delightful it will be!" she carolled. "We shall be just like sisters, and tell one another all our secrets--shan't we, dear?" She linked her arm in Ragna's, and gazed soulfully into her face. Ragna could not help wondering what secrets she might ever find it possible to confide to such a little linnet. At first awkward and constrained, she soon thawed, however, in the friendly atmosphere, and in a few minutes was chattering away with a gaiety and freedom, quite surprising to her father, who had always known her timidly reserved. This was not to be wondered at, as he had never encouraged any other att.i.tude in his children.

As this is not to be a chronicle of a young lady's school-days, little need be told concerning the journey to Paris, and the years at the Sacre Coeur, suffice it to say that Ragna, under the care of the good Sisters, improved both in mind and body. As her skin lost its coating of sunburn and tan, and her body its abrupt and boyish movements, so her mind, trained in the study of the French cla.s.sics, took on polish, and she acquired a nice discrimination of taste, and a distinction of manner rarely met with in so young a girl. So much for externals, at heart she was the same old Ragna, impulsive, dreamy, and of a childlike credulity, splendidly loyal to those she loved. One instance of this will suffice.

Astrid, in whom vanity and the indulgence of her mother had developed a thirst for admiration and romance, soon found the monotonous round of convent life unbearably dull. She confided the yearnings of her lonely heart to her bosom friend Ragna, and for a time these confidences, the daily bulletins as to the state of her soul scribbled in pencil on sc.r.a.ps of paper, and pa.s.sed from one to the other as the girls met going to and from chapel, or in recreation hours, sufficed.

Shortly after their arrival, they had been sent to separate dormitories and tables, and kept apart during recreation, the Convent discipline not permitting of too close an intimacy between two young girls, and there being the added reason of the more rapid progress made in acquiring the language when neither had the occasion to use her mother tongue.

Astrid considered it suitable to the arid state of her heart that she should pine away, and to that end consumed bits of chalk from the cla.s.s-room blackboard, sc.r.a.pings of slate pencils, and all the vinegar within reach at meals. As may be imagined, she soon displayed an interesting pallor, and was accordingly dosed with iron pills and quince wine. Her heavy sighs and melancholy demeanour so impressed her fellow pupils, that it was generally rumoured she was dying of a broken heart.

The broken heart soon mended, however, when early in the second year at the convent, her discerning eye perceived the burning glances of a most romantic looking youth. "Long hair, my dear, velveteen clothes, and the most beautiful soulful eyes you ever saw," she told Ragna.

The girls were on their way, with a group of selected pupils under the guardianship of an a.s.sistant mistress, to see a picture gallery. The young man turned in behind the procession and followed. The next time it was the same, and Astrid's romantic little soul thrilled at the thought of so devoted an admirer. It was easy for the man to slip a folded note into the girl's hand one day, as the little group straggled up the stairway of the Louvre, and during the rest of the afternoon Astrid's hand strayed constantly to her pocket to a.s.sure herself of the safety of the precious paper. With eyelids lowered over shining eyes, she listened to the droning explanations of the teacher, longing to be alone, to be free to read the note.

This was the beginning of a correspondence, for Astrid answered the letter and an obliging day-scholar posted the little envelope addressed to M. Jules Gauthiez. So the two exchanged perfervid epistles, and wrote such impa.s.sioned, if confused, outpourings, that Astrid's little soul was consumed within her. The secret feeling of importance it gave her betrayed itself in the brightness of her eyes and in the self-consciousness of her voice and manner. The regimen of chalk and vinegar fell into abeyance.

Ragna, at first amused, began to be alarmed at the situation; Astrid keyed to the highest pitch of romantic sentimentality, was capable of any folly, and the immediate consequences of discovery, public reprimand and expulsion from the school, spelled unthinkable disaster to her more serious mind. She begged Astrid to give the whole thing up, but the girl would listen to no argument that her friend could put forward. "My love is my life, can you ask me to tear my heart out?" she demanded.

The most Ragna could obtain, was that Astrid should be more prudent--which meant exactly nothing.

Naturally, the Sisters could not long remain un.o.bservant of the change in Astrid's demeanour, and from awakened attention to discovery there lay but a step.

Ragna was making a water colour drawing in the a.s.sembly room, when a Sister brought her the order to go at once to the Reverend Mother. She put by her brushes with trembling hands, and the black-robed Sister observed her emotion curiously, but kindly.

"There, there, my child!" she said, "Reverend Mother will do you no harm; she wishes to ask you a question, nothing more. If your conscience is good, what do you fear?"

Ragna followed her without answering, her mind intent on the pending interview.

The Superior's sitting-room was a comfortable apartment; a table stood in the middle, and at one window a large writing desk. One of the walls was occupied by a bookcase, another by a large carved _prie-dieu_ over which hung an ivory crucifix and a silver holy-water stoup with its twig of box.

Mother Marie Sacre Coeur, sat in a large carved armchair by the table.

She was a tall, slender woman, and her face, though unlined and delicate as a piece of carved ivory, bore the imprint of long years of responsibility, and conveyed the impression of a wonderful degree of will power. It was not altogether an ascetic face, however, the grey eyes, though keen, were human, and the strong firmly modelled mouth had a humorous twist. The hands, long, slender and white with rather thick thumbs, were lightly clasped over a Book of Hours bound in velvet and silver.

By her side stood the Mere in charge of Astrid's dormitory, Mere Perpetua, a severe, sour-looking woman, yellow under her white guimpe and black veil. Astrid cowered beside her, looking like a prisoner in the grasp of a gendarme; she had been crying, but her eyes had a furtive expression and her weak, pretty mouth was set in obstinate lines. She looked like a trapped animal, badly frightened, but feebly at bay. On the table lay a little pile of crumpled papers, and the ribbon that had bound them.

They all looked eagerly at Ragna as she entered, followed by Soeur Angelique; she glanced at them each in turn, and from Astrid's eyes caught such an agonized appeal for help that her back straightened, and it was with a calm, almost defiant consciousness of definite purpose that she met the Superior's interrogating gaze.

"Ragna," said the Reverend Mother, "we have called you here to ascertain how much you know of this disgraceful affair. Mere Perpetua has found these letters," she indicated the little heap on the table, "hidden in Astrid's mattress. I have read them, they are letters such as no young girl should receive from any man, even her fiance. Our Rule has been broken by this clandestine correspondence, and our sense of propriety outraged; we are profoundly shocked and grieved."

"Such deceit! Such disgraceful effrontery! She brazenly denies they are hers!" broke in Mere Perpetua, her lean face working.

"Silence!" cried the Superior. "Mere Perpetua, you forget yourself. I had not desired you to speak." She paused a moment, then addressed Ragna.

"You will tell us, my child, all that you know about this; it is your duty to your companion, to us, and to yourself. On your frankness depends to a large extent the punishment I shall deem it necessary to impose; you may lighten it very appreciably, by telling the truth--but if you hesitate, if I understand that you are withholding anything, it will be the worse for both of you."

Mere Perpetua's interruption had been brief, but illuminating. Ragna felt that her way was made clear, it was with a steady eye and a firm, if slightly unnatural voice, that she answered:

"Reverend Mother, the letters are mine; I gave them to Astrid to keep for me."