ADMIRED and courted though she was, Marie Grubbe soon found that, while she had escaped from the nursery, she was not fully admitted to the circles of the grown up. For all the flatteries lavished on them, such young maidens were kept in their own place in society. They were made to feel it by a hundred trifles that in themselves meant nothing, but when taken together meant a great deal. First of all, the children were insufferably familiar, quite like their equals. And then the servants—there was a well-defined difference in the manner of the old footman when he took the cloak of a maid or a matron, and the faintest shade in the obliging smile of the chambermaid showed her sense of whether she was waiting on a married or an unmarried woman. The free-and-easy tone which the half-grown younkers permitted themselves was most unpleasant, and the way in which snubbings and icy looks simply slid off from them was enough to make one despair.
She liked best the society of the younger men, for even when they were not in love with her, they would show her the most delicate attention and say the prettiest things with a courtly deference that quite raised her in her own estimation,—though to be sure it was tiresome when she found that they did it chiefly to keep in practice. Some of the older gentlemen were simply intolerable with their fulsome compliments and their mock gallantry, but the married women were worst of all, especially the brides. The encouraging, though a bit preoccupied glance, the slight condescending nod with head to one side, and the smile—half pitying, half jeering—with which they would listen to her—it was insulting! Moreover, the conduct of the - 99 - girls themselves was not of a kind to raise their position. They would never stand together, but if one could humiliate another, she was only too glad to do so. They had no idea of surrounding themselves with an air of dignity by attending to the forms of polite society the way the young married women did.
Her position was not enviable, and when Mistress Rigitze let fall a few words to the effect that she and other members of the family had been considering a match between Marie and Ulrik Frederik, she received the news with joy. Though Ulrik Frederik had not taken her fancy captive, a marriage with him opened a wide vista of pleasant possibilities. When all the honors and advantages had been described to her—how she would be admitted into the inner court circle, the splendor in which she would live, the beaten track to fame and high position that lay before Ulrik Frederik as the natural son and even more as the especial favorite of the King,—while she made a mental note of how handsome he was, how courtly, and how much in love,—it seemed that such happiness was almost too great to be possible, and her heart sank at the thought that, after all, it was nothing but loose talk, schemes, and hopes.
Yet Mistress Rigitze was building on firm ground, for not only had Ulrik Frederik confided in her and begged her to be his spokesman with Marie, but he had induced her to sound the gracious pleasure of the King and Queen, and they had both received the idea very kindly and had given their consent, although the King had felt some hesitation to begin with. The match had, in fact, been settled long since by the Queen and her trusted friend and chief gentlewoman, Mistress Rigitze, but the King was not moved only by the persuasions of his consort. He knew - 100 - that Marie Grubbe would bring her husband a considerable fortune, and although Ulrik Frederik held Vordingborg in fief, his love of pomp and luxury made constant demands upon the King, who was always hard pressed for money. Upon her marriage Marie would come into possession of her inheritance from her dead mother, Mistress Marie Juul, while her father, Erik Grubbe, was at that time owner of the manors of Tjele, Vinge, Gammelgaard, Bigum, Trinderup, and N?rb?k, besides various scattered holdings. He was known as a shrewd manager who wasted nothing, and would no doubt leave his daughter a large fortune. So all was well. Ulrik Frederik could go courting without more ado, and a week after midsummer their betrothal was solemnized.
Ulrik Frederik was very much in love, but not with the stormy infatuation he had felt when Sofie Urne ruled his heart. It was a pensive, amorous, almost wistful sentiment, rather than a fresh, ruddy passion. Marie had told him the story of her dreary childhood, and he liked to picture to himself her sufferings with something of the voluptuous pity that thrills a young monk when he fancies the beautiful white body of the female martyr bleeding on the sharp spikes of the torture-wheel. Sometimes he would be troubled with dark forebodings that an early death might tear her from his arms. Then he would vow to himself with great oaths that he would bear her in his hands and keep every poisonous breath from her, that he would lead the light of every gold-shining mood into her young heart and never, never grieve her.
Yet there were other times when he exulted at the thought that all this rich beauty, this strange, wonderful soul were given into his power as the soul of a dead man - 101 - into the hands of God, to grind in the dust if he liked, to raise up when he pleased, to crush down, to bend.
It was partly Marie’s own fault that such thoughts could rise in him, for her love, if she did love, was of a strangely proud, almost insolent nature. It would be but a halting image to say that her love for the late Ulrik Christian had been like a lake whipped and tumbled by a storm, while her love for Ulrik Frederik was the same water in the evening, becalmed, cold, and glassy, stirred but by the breaking of frothy bubbles among the dark reeds of the shore. Yet the simile would have some truth, for not only was she cold and calm toward her lover, but the bright myriad dreams of life that thronged in the wake of her first passion had paled and dissolved in the drowsy calm of her present feeling.
She loved Ulrik Frederik after a fashion, but might it not be chiefly as the magic wand opening the portals to the magnificent pageant of life, and might it not be the pageant that she really loved? Sometimes it would seem otherwise. When she sat on his knee in the twilight and sang little airs about Daphne and Amaryllis to her own accompaniment, the song would die away, and while her fingers played with the strings of the cithern, she would whisper in his waiting ear words so sweet and warm that no true love owns them sweeter, and there were tender tears in her eyes that could be only the dew of love’s timid unrest. And yet—might it not be that her longing was conjuring up a mere mood, rooted in the memories of her past feeling, sheltered by the brooding darkness, fed by hot blood and soft music,—a mood that deceived herself and made him happy? Or was it nothing but maidenly shyness that made her chary of endearments by the light of day, and was it nothing but - 102 - girlish fear of showing a girl’s weakness that made her eyes mock and her lips jeer many a time when he asked for a kiss or, vowing love, would draw from her the words all lovers long to hear? Why was it, then, that when she was alone, and her imagination had wearied of picturing for the thousandth time the glories of the future, she would often sit gazing straight before her hopelessly, and feel unutterably lonely and forsaken?
In the early afternoon of an August day Marie and Ulrik Frederik were riding, as often before, along the sandy road that skirted the Sound beyond East Gate. The air was fresh after a morning shower, the sun stood mirrored in the water, and blue thunder-clouds were rolling away in the distance.
They cantered as quickly as the road would allow them, a lackey in a long crimson coat following closely. They rode past the gardens where green apples shone under dark leaves, past fish-nets hung to dry with the raindrops still glistening in their meshes, past the King’s fisheries with red-tiled roof, and past the glue-boiler’s house, where the smoke rose straight as a column out of a chimney. They jested and laughed, smiled and laughed, and galloped on.
At the sign of the Golden Grove they turned and rode through the woods toward Overdrup, then walked their horses through the underbrush down to the bright surface of the lake. Tall beeches leaned to mirror their green vault in the clear water. Succulent marsh-grass and pale pink feather-foil made a wide motley border where the slope, brown with autumn leaves, met the water. High in the shelter of the foliage, in a ray of light that pierced the cool shadow, mosquitoes whirled in a noiseless swarm. A red butterfly gleamed there for a second, then flew out into the - 103 - sunlight over the lake. Steel-blue dragon-flies made bright streaks through the air, and the darting pike drew swift wavy lines over the surface of the water. Hens were cackling in the farm-yard beyond the brushwood, and from the other side of the lake came a note of wood-doves cooing under the domes of the beech-trees in Dyrehaven.
They slackened their speed and rode out into the water to let their horses dabble their dusty hoofs and quench their thirst. Marie had stopped a little farther out than Ulrik Frederik, and sat with reins hanging in order to let her mare lower its head freely. She was tearing the leaves from a long branch in her hand, and sent them fluttering down over the water, which was beginning to stir in soft ripples.
“I think we may get a thunder-storm,” she said, her eyes following the course of a light wind that went whirling over the lake............