Cases of Circumstantial Evidence

Nineteen

307 Nineteen That afternoon the wind began to blow a little, shifting the mist that had overhung the countryside. As Anna and her companions left Rosmos, riding on slowly past wooded knolls and gently rolling farmland, lights and shadows began to change above the trees; the oaks shone suddenly coppery bright as a patch of sunlight moved across them. The field beyond was a sudden emerald, with sprouting aftermath; and there were distances of deep, aqueous blue. But the sunlight was intermittent, and when the sun was clouded again, the oaks shone dull like copper pans through the peat smoke of a shadowy kitchen. Anna, riding her father’s big white mare, Vibeke going ahead, the other servants following, listened to the hoofbeats on the hard earth and was aware of the worn leather of the reins between her fingers, of the crisp coarse hair of the mane blowing back along the mare’s neck. She watched the light change on tree and field, and noticed with an unexpected happiness a bit of clear blue shining against the dark edge of a cloud. She was aware of these things with a clear immediate perception, but beyond them her mind seemed clouded, and dimmer than the sky, and she rode as in a waking dream. Vibeke had taken charge of affairs. She left everything to Vibeke. 308 Janet Lewis At Aalsö they paused, and Vibeke sent the others on to Vejlby. Anna she detained, with a hand on the white mare’s bridle. The girl did not wonder or protest as they turned toward the Aalsö parsonage. The hoofbeats sounded hollow upon the wooden bridge before the house of Peder Korf. The stream below was running full and clear. Anna looked down as they crossed it, and thought she saw below the silver current, the bending tufts of cresses. She dismounted without aid and stood waiting, the reins in her hand, for the parson’s boy to take charge of the horses, and while she waited she observed with a gentle pleasure, as she had observed the changing colors under the moving clouds, how the beech leaves, pale golden lozenges, floated down through the damp air and lay upon the earth thick as stars in a dim summer sky. Her pleasure was quite impersonal and removed from the sense of her own tragedy. She marveled that she should be at once so sorrowful and yet so conscious of the beauty of the day. She seemed to have arrived at a great pause in her existence. Her father had accused himself, and Tryg had accepted the accusation. All the hope and trust by which she had lived since the hour of her father’s arrest had been cut away abruptly. She had no plan now. She did not know what to do next. The beech leaves continued to fall with every little gust of wind. The new thatch of the roof gleamed softly with a golden sheen. The front wall of the parsonage had no windows , but the thatch drew down warmly about the doorway, and the door was wide. About the doorstone the grass was worn away, a sign of hospitality. A little beyond the door, the wall jogged forward where the New Room had been built, and all was freshly whitewashed. The air smelled of autumn, a compounded fragrance sweet to breathe, and she heard the 309 t h e t r i a l o f S ö r e n Q v i s t steady gurgle of the stream. The white mare turned her head, and the girl felt on the hand that held the reins the warm breath of inquiring nostrils. When the horses had been led away, she followed Vibeke into the kitchen, and thence into the New Room, where Peder Korf received them. He had not been at the trial. He had only a short time before returned from an errand in the parish, and had heard nothing of Sören Qvist’s confession. Anna let Vibeke tell the story, and let Vibeke meet the outpouring of Peder Korf’s astonishment and sympathy. She noted, as if it were fated, how simply he accepted the self-accusation. She thought that, like Tryg, he was strangely content with it. She could not yet accept it herself. Yet he had been as hopeful yesterday as herself. “So good a man,” he murmured. “He had but...