Charlotte Löwensköld. Selma Lagerlöf
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had started at four o’clock and, well served as it had been by a special staff of butlers and waiters, it was over by seven. It seemed strange that the twelve courses, with the many toasts and fanfares and table songs, should have consumed but three hours! The Baroness had hoped the guests would remain seated at table till eight o’clock, and time to repair to the garden. Of course, there could be no talk of breaking up until midnight, and the guests grew restless as they thought of the long, dull hours before them.
“If only we might dance!” they sighed inwardly. (The Baroness had been thoughtful enough to let them know beforehand that there would be no dancing.) “How shall we amuse ourselves?” they wondered. “It will be dreadfully tiresome to sit and grind out small talk hour after hour.”
The young girls looked down at their sheer, light frocks and their white satin slippers. These were meant for dancing. Dressed like that, how could they think of anything else?
The young lieutenants of the Värmland Regiment were in great demand as dancing partners. During the winter season they had to attend so many balls they grew almost weary of dancing; and sometimes it was hard work to get them on to the floor. But all summer they had not been to a big dinner party; they were now thoroughly rested, and ready to dance all night and all day.
Rarely had they seen so many pretty girls as were gathered at this wedding. What kind of party was it, anyway? Fancy! inviting a lot of beaux and belles to the house and not allowing them to dance!
It was not only the young people who felt unhappy; their elders, too, thought it a pity the poor young things could not move about a bit so that they would have something to look at. Here were the best musicians in Värmland, and here, too, was the best ballroom; then, why in the world should one not take a little fling?
That Beata Ekenstedt, with all her amiability, had always been rather selfish, they thought. Because she herself was too old to dance, her young guests must sit about and adorn the walls.
The Baroness saw, heard, felt, and understood that her guests were displeased. Good hostess that she was, and accustomed to seeing everyone happy and gay at her parties, this situation was unspeakably trying. She knew that, next day and for many days thereafter, people would be talking about the Ekenstedt wedding and voting it the most tiresome affair they had ever attended.
To the older people, she made herself as agreeable as possible; she related her best anecdotes, came out with her wittiest sallies—but all in vain. They were in no mood to listen to her. The biggest old bore of a Fru at the wedding sat thinking to herself, if ever she were lucky enough to marry off a daughter of hers, she’d let the young folks dance, and the old folk, too.
To the younger ones she proposed running-games on the lawn. They simply stared at her. Running-games, forsooth, at a wedding! Had she been other than she was, they would have laughed in her face.
When the fireworks were to be touched off, the gentlemen offered an arm to the ladies for a stroll along the river bank. The young couples just dragged themselves on, hardly raising their eyes enough to follow the soaring rockets. They would accept no substitute for the pleasure they craved.
The harvest moon came rolling up, big and round and red, as if to heighten the brilliant spectacle. A wag remarked that it had swelled up with astonishment at seeing so many handsome young officers and lovely young damsels stand gazing into the river as if contemplating suicide.
Half Karlstad had gathered outside the garden wall to watch the “grand doings”; but seeing the young folk wander about, listless and indifferent, they all said it was the worst wedding they had ever beheld.
The regimental band did its utmost to lighten the gloom; but as the hostess had forbidden the playing of dance music, lest she find it impossible to hold the youths in leash, there were not many numbers on the programme. The same pieces had to be repeated again and again. It cannot be truthfully said that the hours dragged. Time stood still. The minute hand on all the clocks moved as slowly as the hour hand.
Out on the river, just beyond the Ekenstedt house, lay a couple of big barges, on one of which sat a music-loving sailor rasping out a peasant polka on a squeaky home-made fiddle.
And now all the poor souls who had suffered torment in the Ekenstedt garden brightened. This, at any rate, was dance music! They quickly stole out through the garden gate and, in a moment, were seen whirling round in a country polka on the tarry bottom of a river barge.
The Baroness soon noted the flight and the dancing. It would never do to let the best girls in Karlstad dance on a dirty freight boat. She immediately sent word to her young guests to come back to the house. Colonel’s lady though she was, even the youngest subaltern made no move to obey orders.
Then she gave it up as a lost game. She had done all that could be asked to please Karl Arthur; now she would have to save the reputation of the Ekenstedt house. She ordered the band to repair to the grand ballroom and play a contra-dance.
Shortly afterward, the dance-hungry youths came bounding up the stairs. Ah, now there was dancing! It was a ball such as rarely was seen in Karlstad. All who had been waiting and longing for this moment tried to make up for time lost. They glided and whirled, pirouetted and kicked. No one felt tired or indisposed. The plainest and least interesting girl there did not lack a partner.
Nor did the older people merely sit looking on. The joke of it was that the Baroness herself, who had given up dancing and card-playing and had relegated all her worldly books to the attic—even she was on the floor, gliding forward with ease and abandon and looking as young, aye, younger, than the daughter who had stood a bride that day.
The Karlstaders were glad to have back their merry, their charming, their adorable Baroness. The delight was extreme. The night had become enchantingly lovely. In fine, all was as it should be.
But the crowning proof of how contagious was the joy that swept through the rooms was that Karl Arthur himself caught it. All at once it struck him that there was nothing evil or sinful in moving about in time to the music with other young, light-hearted folk. It appeared only natural to him now that youth and health and happiness should take this form of expression. Had he felt as before, that to dance was a sin, he would not have danced. But to-night it all seemed such childish, such harmless amusement.
Just as Karl Arthur was doing his neatest steps in a reel, he happened to glance toward the open salon door.
There appeared a pale face, framed with black hair and black whiskers. And the large mild eyes stared at him in pained amazement.
He stopped in the middle of the dance, thinking, at first, it was an apparition. Then, in a moment, he recognized his friend Pontus Friman, who had promised to pay him a call when passing through Karlstad on his way home.
Karl Arthur instantly quit the dance and hastened to greet the unexpected guest, who without a word led him down the stairs and out of the house.
CHAPTER II
THE PROPOSAL
Schagerström had proposed!—Rich Schagerström of Stora Sjötorp!
No, but was it possible that Schagerström had proposed?
Oh, yes, it was very certain that Schagerström had proposed.
But how in the world came Schagerström to propose?
Well, it was like this: At Korskyrka Deanery there was a young girl named Charlotte Löwensköld, a distant relation of the Dean who acted as lady’s-companion to his wife, and who was betrothed to his curate.
Then what had she to do with Schagerström?
Charlotte Löwensköld, you see, was vital, blithe, and outspoken. The moment she set foot inside the deanery, it was as if a freshening breeze had swept through the old house. The Dean and his wife were elderly folk who had moved about the place as mere shadows of themselves, until she came and put new life into them.