The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [260]
Later in the summer it happened that Kollgrim was hunting with some men, and they began to twit him with the failure of Helga’s marriage offer, and Kollgrim said, “A maiden is unlucky to marry out of a good steading and into a poor one,” but in fact he knew nothing of this offer. The others laughed, and one of them said, “Now that is the first time Ketils Stead has been called a poor steading that I’ve heard.” Kollgrim said nothing in answer to this, and soon the men divvied up the game they had gotten, and went back to their steadings. When he got to Gunnars Stead, Kollgrim was silent and gloomy, and did not greet Helga with his usual affection. Helga set before him for his meat a bowl of rich broth, but after a few bites, he pushed it from him, spilling some on the eating board. Now Helga sat down beside him on the bench and put her fingers lightly into his hair. She said, “It seems to me that you are downcast, my brother, but things have gone especially well for us this summer. Our father can have no complaints about how we get on here.”
“I am not thinking of our father.”
“Perhaps you are thinking of our mother. She—”
“Nay, I am not thinking of our mother.” Now Kollgrim got up and walked out of the steading, and when Helga went after him a little while later, she saw that he was standing out by the homefield fence, gazing off into the distance. She began to be afraid that they must prepare for one of his spells of confusion and grief, and she made such prayers as she always did during these spells, that he would return to himself, that he would hurt no one, and especially not himself, in his grief, that she would have the strength to endure if things went on for a long time. Now she went to the dairy, and called for Elisabet Thorolfsdottir, and said, “It seems to me that our Kollgrim is discontented by this trip he has come back from. We must not be afraid, but must deal with him strongly if we have to. You should go to your bedcloset and shake out the clothes, and carry some soothing herbs in there, and also comb your hair and put on a bit of decoration. Perhaps such things will distract him.”
Now Elisabet did what Helga had asked her to do, and she looked very pretty, Helga thought, so Helga gave her a trencher with some pieces of dried meat on it, and sent her out to where Kollgrim was standing, but he declined the food, and seemed not to see the loveliness of the girl, and Helga grew more fearful. Sometime after this, Helga and Elisabet and the servingmen went to the bedclosets, and Helga lay awake for a long time, but she never heard Kollgrim come into the steading, and so she dropped off to sleep. Now this state went on for two more days, but did not change to such weeping as Helga expected, and on the third day, at his morning meat, Kollgrim looked up at Helga from where he was sitting at the table, and said, “The farmer at Ketils Stead has made an offer of marriage for you to our father.” And he looked at her closely, and Helga dropped the spoon she was holding. Kollgrim went on, “It seems to me that you will allow yourself to be stolen away by him, although things at that steading can’t be better for you than things here. But women are deceptive and weak, and we are mistaken to place our trust in them.”
Helga replied, “This offer means nothing to me, and this is the first time I have heard of it. If our father turned it down, then you have little to concern yourself with, it seems to me.”
“Then you have not been holding conversations with the fellow when I am gone off on hunting trips?”
“When you are off on hunting trips, there is little time for conversation even with the servants.”
“But you think of the fellow enough.”
“Nay, Kollgrim, you misjudge me severely.”
“You would like to be married, I’m sure, tupping and rutting, as the mares do.”
Helga fell silent, astonished, for Kollgrim had never made such a speech to her before, and she had no breath to speak. He said, “You see, I have spoken what is in