The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [82]
One day when Margret returned from pasturing her sheep, she saw that a small boat was pulled up on the strand, and that an old woman and a young man were sitting on the hillside in front of the farmstead. These folk were Marta Thordardottir, the sister of Osmund Thordarson, the lawspeaker, and her son, Isleif Isleifsson. Both lived in the Brattahlid district, and Isleif was one of the Greenlanders who had been made a priest by the bishop. Marta was not an old woman, but her husband had died during a coughing sickness. Now she lived in great state on the farm of Osmund at Brattahlid and her other son, Ragnleif, farmed her old farm. Now Margret approached her visitors and welcomed them to Steinstraumstead, and invited them to take some ewe’s milk as refreshment. They greeted her in a friendly fashion, and Marta said, “My Margret, you little resemble my friend Helga Ingvadottir. All the Gunnars Stead lineage has looked just the same for generation after generation, with never a soul who resembles the mother’s line.”
“It seems to me that I know your face well, too, Marta Thordardottir, though I have not seen you for many years.”
Isleif was not unhandsome, with fair hair and straight teeth, but Margret saw that his eyes were weak, for he habitually narrowed them when he looked at anything, as if to bring it into focus. He said, “And I would know you, Margret, from the warm tales that Pall Hallvardsson relates of your many virtues.”
After they had finished their milk and Marta had wiped her mouth with the hem of her sleeve and settled herself on the hillside, she asked Margret when she expected to be confined. Margret said that she had once calculated St. Mary Magdalen’s mass, but that she had since lost track of the dates, and did not now know how soon this would be. Isleif said that they had just passed the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, and so Margret’s date would be some twenty days off. Neither Marta nor Isleif spoke to her with contempt, but as they spoke of these things, Margret sat with her eyes cast down, feeling shame that she felt not a whit of when she was alone. Marta now invited Margret to come to Brattahlid, where she lived, and to stay there as she wished, and the child would be fostered by Osmund, or, if Margret preferred, by Ragnleif, or even Isleif, on behalf of the church. “Otherwise,” she said, “all of the folk of the Brattahlid district, but especially friends of Asgeir Gunnarsson and his father, will feel it to be a shame on them that Margret Asgeirsdottir is living so poorly, in danger from starvation or accident or even the skraelings, and on such a tiny steading so close by.”
Now Margret looked up, into Marta’s gaze, to see if this was a command, but Marta and Isleif were smiling at her, and she saw that it would be possible to refuse, but that if she did so, the offer would not be made again. Finally, she said, “The case lies thus, that I have brought shame enough to my brother and husband, as well as to myself and my child. Through my own wish, I left Vatna Hverfi and came to this poor steading, although it is true that my brother and husband wished nothing else than this. It seems to me that such a course as my coming to live at Brattahlid would speak ill of my folk to all of the Greenlanders, and people would say that they had left me to wander from place to place, seeking charity. Also, they must say that I had traded on my sin and gained a statelier home than I deserved.”
Seeing the direction of Margret’s response, Marta said, “But no woman can be brought to bed in solitude, without midwives, or a priest. Such a thing courts death and worse, and your folk are greatly to blame for putting you in such peril.”
Margret smiled. “Peril to me has not been our foremost concern, and, to speak the truth, things that haven’t yet happened always seem the farthest away.”
“It seems to you now that all will go well.”
“Or, that whatever will happen will be good enough.” But she could see that these words were unpleasing to Marta and Isleif, both. She dropped