Barbara (24 page)

“I don’t care, even if he…”

“You should be a bit more careful – the law speaker’s just over here.”

“I’m not afraid of the law speaker. He’s such a kind and gentle person to be in that position. If only they were all like him.”

Samuel Mikkelsen had stood for some time quietly amused at this conversation. Now he turned his bearded face towards Whoops and said with his kindly smile: “You seem to forget that I’m a Tórshavner as well.”

“Oh,” she said, “that makes no difference. You, Samuel, and the judge and the lot of you. A lovely family, God knows you are, and you never forget ordinary folk.”

The law speaker smiled again. He knew it all. It happened that Whoops and other poor folk turned up in the town to beg for a little wool, a little tallow or any other of the country’s products. They never left a farm belonging to him or to a member of his family without having received a little help. Good God, the people of Tórshavn had so little to live on. You had to take pity on them even if some of the things they said were occasionally a little rough.

The judge and Pastor Wenzel had with growing surprise read that Frederik the Fifth, by the Grace of God, King of Denmark and Norway, the Wends and the Goths, should via his Exchequer have recommended that the student Andreas Heyde be permitted to undertake a journey to the Faroe Islands in order to carry out research and to report on the country’s geography, its flora and fauna, its inhabitants and its economy.

Pastor Wenzel was dazzled and silent. The judge stood there gesticulating enthusiastically. But suddenly he put a dubious hand to his chin and asked, “But do you really think you can do that?”

“Can?” laughed Andreas.

“It will be difficult,” said Johan Hendrik. “But by God it’s a wonderful job. How the devil have you managed to get it?”

“Professor Oeder has worked it for me,” said Andreas. “He is my patron.”

Johan Hendrik looked around in some confusion. What he would most have liked at this moment was somewhere to sit, somewhere where he could settle down quietly and consider this amazing thing. But there were crowds of people everywhere. Andreas himself was like quicksilver. It was impossible to obtain any proper information in the midst of this confusion. That would have to wait.

Never in his later life did Pastor Poul forget this moment. The very second that Andreas Heyde stepped ashore, his heart was filled with terrible forebodings. He saw straight away that a dangerous bird had flown in, one against which he would never be able to defend himself. He knew that from now on he was at the mercy of a play of unpredictable forces.

His eyes sought Barbara. She was standing a little way away from him, up by the entrance to the Royal Store, on the spot where he had seen her for the very first time. She appeared to be engrossed in a conversation with Madame Anna Sophie Heyde. She would turn her head occasionally and glance first out across the water and then, on the way back, across the group of people standing together. Then she resumed her conversation. He could hear her voice and her laughter. Her entire being was radiant.

He felt that at that moment she was his enemy. It would be a hopeless undertaking to go up to her and seek to tempt her away from this place. He had no power over her; she did as she wanted in every single thing. She was cat-like and terrible.

Andreas Heyde came closer and closer to the entrance, still chatting and laughing. He had perhaps not noticed Barbara so far. Pastor Poul observed him at closer quarters, noticed the authoritative manner in which he was ambling along, examined his friendly and at the same time indifferent features. He was attracted by the vivacity of his character. And at the same time he was aware that this meant his own ruin.

The inevitable was approaching. Andreas Heyde looked up suddenly and adopted a vigilant expression. Barbara had the side of her face turned towards him and saw nothing. But Anna Sophie started to jest and ask Andreas if he no longer recognized the old aunt who had come down to receive him. Throughout this welcoming scene, Barbara stood there with a preoccupied but polite expression and held her head in a quite dignified manner. Then Andreas quickly turned to her with an open and slightly arrogant smile. His stance was careless, but the moment he saw her face he became serious and quickly prepared to pay her a compliment.

“Well, I suppose you know…?” said Anna Sophie.

“Oh yes,” said Andreas with a bow. “I remember you well from my time at school… Mrs Salling.”

“Mrs Aggersøe,” Anna Sophie corrected him with a smile.

“Mrs… Mrs Aggersøe?” Andreas asked in surprise and bowed again. His fair face was quite stiff with confusion.

Barbara suddenly blushed.

“I remember you well,” she hurried to say, finishing her sentence with a little laugh.

Pastor Poul heard it. This familiar sigh ending in a falsetto, oh, he knew her. The game was on now.

Both Andreas and Barbara were a little embarrassed, but it was she who was the first to find a few matter-of-fact words to say. She also came to his assistance, listening attentively to what he told them, and applauding his words with brief bursts of laughter. It was not long before he was as relaxed and cheerful as before. Yet he did not quite become himself again. In everything he said, there was now a somewhat gentle tone of gravity and courtesy.

“I suppose you will be content to stay with us, Andreas?” asked Anna Sophie. They moved off. Pastor Wenzel, the judge, Andreas Heyde, Anna Sophie and Barbara. Everyone was on their way home. A broad flow of people moved slowly between the Royal Store buildings up along the path between the churchyard and the Corps de Garde. Pastor Poul went with them and managed to walk alongside his wife. She looked at him, as though a little surprised, but she said nothing.

“We are not likely to be leaving today,” said Pastor Poul.

“No,” was her indifferent reply.

“Perhaps it is not all that important to you either?”

“What? Oh, leaving. No, of course we can’t leave now the ship’s arrived. Tomorrow, my dear. Or another day.”

She spoke to him as to a pestering child, kindly but with her mind on other things.

“You will come in, won’t you?” asked Anna Sophie. “You must come and meet our nephew, Pastor Poul.”

Pastor Poul would have liked to find an excuse, but Barbara said, “Oh, do come, Poul.”

Pastor Poul went along as the last of the guests, unhappy and plagued with misgivings. He felt completely out of it. It all reminded him too much of the evening when the French ships came to town.

Andreas Heyde was not a man to sit still on a chair in the parson’s living room. He was all over the place, talking to everyone at the same time, about economics one moment, opera the next and occasionally the slaughter of pilot whales. He had with him a new book, he said, that would interest the judge – he had it here in his chest and would dig it out straight away. Unceremoniously, he took off his morning coat, hung it over a chair and started unpacking. Meanwhile he sang in his clear voice: “La la la la la la la la!”

Then he rose and looked at Barbara with sudden courtesy.

“Oh, Mrs Aggersøe, forgive me for being so
sans façon
. I forget to put away my bad student habits. I will try to remember…”

The judge thought that Andreas looked less like a student than a
petit maître
with his exaggerated shirt sleeves and his lace. These were perhaps bagatelles that could be attributed to his youth. He was reluctant to make a hasty judgement. But he had expected his nephew to be rather different from this.

So had Pastor Wenzel, very much so. He was by now deeply upset; the red patches glowed like geraniums in his cheeks. He did not know who he was most angry with, Andreas or his wife, Anna Sophie, who was bouncing about and making a fool of herself for this empty-headed fop they had got in the house. But Johan Hendrik was here reaping the rewards for his great plan of making the lad study such a vain and worldly subject.

“La la la la la la la la,” Andreas was already singing again.

“Aye, la la la la,” thought Johan Hendrik. There was no denying that he was annoyed. “La la la – bah.”

Pastor Poul watched his wife. She was sitting straight up on a chair and saying nothing, but there was a slight smile on her lips. Andreas did not address her or even look at her. He looked at anything but her. And yet she was the pivot around which all his excitement revolved. Pastor Poul saw this with devilish clarity, and he saw that Barbara saw it. She was enjoying it all, both the economics and the opera and the dolphins and the chest and the shirt sleeves and the singing, as though it were all a comedy being performed in honour of her. What was it the judge had once said: that no dog could admire her from its corner without her noticing it and taking pleasure in it! But this was a young Apollo making himself into her monkey.

Andreas Heyde soon started digging out all kinds of things from his trunk. He was impatient and swift and spread it all around, stockings and waistcoats, books and music, buckles, pistols, small caskets with miniatures on the lid and many other manly and masculine possessions. A sweet, fiery perfume rose from the chest. Finally, he took out an instrument; it was a lute.

“Good heavens,” Pastor Wenzel exclaimed in a bitter voice. “I must say you have gathered some worldly goods.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Andreas. “But I still haven’t got one of those,” he made a circular movement, “one of those millstones, you know, uncle, that priests wear… I mean a ruff, one of those you would have liked to see me turn up in.”

He pulled a comical, innocent face and threw a hidden glance at Barbara. Pastor Poul saw that she quickly bit her lip and stifled a laugh. She suddenly flushed and looked serious. Pastor Wenzel turned around and quickly went up and down the room. Shortly afterwards, he went out.

The judge smiled to himself. He stood watching the battle.

“I actually thought you played the violin,” he said.

“So I do,” replied Andreas. “But I keep my violin separately, in a box constructed specially for the purpose. I only take this lute when I am going to sing.”

“Do you sing as well?”

“Well, just a few short ditties.”

“Hmm,” said Johan Hendrik, putting his hand up to his chin.

“Well, sing a song for us,” shouted Anna Sophie and Barbara almost as one voice.

They had suddenly become restless; they could not sit still; their eyes were shining with excitement. Andreas started thrumming and screwing on his instrument. A thoughtful wrinkle had developed between his eyes, and he sat down on the edge of his chest, one leg dangling in the air and the other supported on the ground. He stared ahead for a few more moments, and then he suddenly looked up in his eager manner, thrummed a powerful chord and sang:

Oh Columbine, oh Columbine,

Oh Columbine, sweet love of mine,

Your lovely face I long to see,

Oh, do you never long for me?

He laughed and looked at Barbara with comic despair in his great eyes. Then he continued sobbing over his lute:

In days gone by, you loved me dear

But love has left you now I fear

So dear to me you aye have been

No longer I to you, I wean.

Pastor Poul wished he were far away. He felt as though his heart was an open book, which everyone was reading and laughing at. In despair he tried to put on a merry face, but he knew he looked miserable and wretched. But suddenly, the judge slapped Andreas on the back: “All right, Harlequin, I think that’s enough. Think of your uncle; I don’t think he appreciates this sort of thing. And I thought you said you had a book for me?”

Andreas put the instrument down. It was as though he had suddenly forgotten song and music. He quickly bent down over his chest, rummaged around a little in it and extracted a book: “Here it is, uncle. I hope you will accept it as a little present. It’s quite a new book, and one that has been much discussed.”

“François Quesnay,” read Johan Hendrik.

“Yes, he is one of the new economists known as the physiocrats. They want everything in the world to go according to a quite new melody, one that is quite new and more natural. They say that agriculture and the exploitation of the earth are the true source of all wealth, and of course ought also to play first fiddle in the economy of any well run land.

The judge stood with the open book in his hand. He looked with shining eyes at his nephew, who became increasingly eager as he explained how everything in the world would work of its own accord if only the peasantry, from the sweat of whose brow everyone lived, could be enlightened, skilled and industrious.

“
Pauvre paysan
,” he said, “
pauvre royaume. Pauvre royaume, pauvre roi
! Aye, we see that here, too. If our farmers were skilled enough themselves to grow all the corn they use for their bread, the king would have no need to sell the corn here in the Royal Store at a great loss to himself, and our country would save a great deal thereby.”

The judge made several times to stroke his chin, but he forgot, and his hand stopped half way there and sank down again – this was far too interesting. Barbara was the only one not to be interested in the discussion. It was as though a shadow had descended on the area of the room in which she was sitting.

“Well, we must be going,” she said.

Andreas suddenly came to a standstill. He didn’t really know which way to turn, and it looked as though he wanted to address everyone at the same time.

“Going?” said Anna Sophie. “Surely you will stay and have something to eat? The food is almost ready. Andreas, come along and I will show you your room.”

“My room,” said Andreas. “I had thought of asking for a room that is not up in the attic. I might need to get up, you see.”

He went out together with Anna Sophie. The judge stood there deep in thought and then he joined his brother in the study.

Pastor Wenzel was walking up and down in some agitation.

“I don’t know what you say to that young show-off,” he muttered. “Now you can see what’s come of those pointless studies. He’s eaten up the whole of his inheritance, indeed he has. And my money and your money. And otherwise all he’s done is learn to sing some dubious ditties.”