“No one really knows anything for certain,” she said; “no one but the home folk. The others have only been told they were to have a pleasant surprise.”
“Then you will have to invent some pleasant surprise for them,” Karl Arthur retorted. “I’m going up to my room and shall not be down to the dinner. Not that I think the Karlstaders will take my failure to heart, but I don’t want their commiseration.”
“What in the world shall I do?” wailed the Baroness.
“That’s for you to decide,” Karl Arthur rapped out. “I’m going upstairs now. The guests need not know that I am at home.”
But this was too painful! The Baroness, then, was to sit at table and play the amiable hostess with her son up in his room, unhappy and out of temper. She was not to have the pleasure of his company. It was hard on the poor Baroness.
“Dear Karl Arthur, you must come down to dinner! I’ll hit upon something.”
“What will it be, pray?”
“I don’t know. . . . Ah, I have it! You’ll be perfectly satisfied. No one will know that the party had been planned in your honour. Only promise me that you will dress and come down!”
The dinner was a great success. Of all the delightful feasts given at the Ekenstedt home, this was the most memorable.
When the roasts were brought in and the champagne was served, there came a veritable surprise. The Colonel stood up and asked those present to join him in a toast to the happiness and prosperity of his daughter Eve and Lieutenant Sten Arcker, whose engagement he was pleased to announce.
There was general rejoicing.
Lieutenant Arcker was a poor man with no prospects to speak of. They all knew that he had long been daft about Eve Ekenstedt, and because the little Ekenstedt girls so seldom had any admirers, the whole city had been interested in this affair; but everyone had thought, of course, that the Baroness would nip it in the bud.
Afterward it leaked out that the Baroness had allowed Eve and Arcker to become engaged because there had been some hitch to the surprise she had hoped to give her guests.
But nobody thought any the less of the Baroness for that. On the contrary, people said there was no one who knew so well how to handle an embarrassing and difficult situation as did Beata Ekenstedt.
* * *
The Baroness was one who expected an apology from a person who had offended against her. That little amenity discharged, she heartily forgave everything and was as friendly and trusting as before the breach.
All through the Christmas holidays, she hoped Karl Arthur would ask pardon for speaking so harshly to her the evening of the party. It was quite clear to her that he had forgotten himself in the heat of the moment, but she could not understand why he was so silent about his offence after he had had time for reflection.
But Karl Arthur let the holidays slip by without uttering a word of regret. He enjoyed himself as usual at dinner dances and sleighing parties, and was pleasant and attentive at home. Yet the few words his mother was waiting to hear remained unspoken. Only he and she noticed it, perhaps, but an invisible wall had risen between them which prevented their getting quite close to each other. There was no lack of love or tender expressions on either side, but the thing that separated them and kept them apart had not been removed.
When Karl was back at Upsala, he thought of nothing but to make up for his failure. If the Baroness expected a written apology from him, she was doomed to disappointment. He wrote only of his studies; he was reading Latin with two docents and attending Latin lectures every day. Besides, he had joined a seminar for practice in Latin disputation and oration. He was doing his level best to make good this time.
His letters home were most hopeful, and the Baroness answered them in the same spirit. Nevertheless, she felt anxious for him. He had been rude to his own mother and had made no apology. Now, for that, perhaps, he might be punished.
It was not that the Baroness wished to bring punishment upon her son; she had prayed God not to make note of the slight offence, but to let it be forgotten. She explained to our Lord that it was all her fault. “It was only my foolish vanity; I wanted to shine in the light of his success. It is I who deserve chastisement, and not he.” But she continued to search his every letter for the missing words. Not finding them, her uneasiness increased. She had the feeling that it would not go well for Karl Arthur at the examination unless he was assured of her forgiveness.
Then, one day, toward the end of the term, the Baroness announced that she was going to Upsala to visit her good friend Malla Silverstolpe. They had met the previous summer in Kavlås, at the Gyllenhaals, and formed a pleasant friendship. Dear Malla had begged her to come to Upsala in the winter and meet her literary friends.
All Karlstad was surprised that the Baroness would set out upon such a long journey in the middle of the spring thaw. The Colonel, they thought, should have said no to this; but the Colonel assented, as usual.
She had a dreadful journey, as the Karlstaders had predicted. Several times her coach stuck in the mud and had to be lifted out on poles. Once a spring broke; another time it was the tongue. But the Baroness, frail little body that she was, struggled on bravely and merrily. Innkeepers and hostlers, blacksmiths and farmers she met along the way were ready to lay down their lives for her. They all seemed to know how very necessary it was that she should get to Upsala.
The Baroness, of course, had notified Fru Malla Silverstolpe of her coming, but not Karl Arthur, and she had requested her not to let him know of it, as she wanted to give him a surprise.
At Enköping there was another delay. It was only a few miles more to Upsala, but now a wheel band had come off, and until that had been repaired she could proceed no farther. The Baroness was panic-stricken. She had been such a long time on the way, and the Latin examination might take place at any hour. Her sole object in making this journey was to afford Karl Arthur an opportunity to apologize to her before the examination. She felt in her heart that if this were left undone, no docents or lectures would profit him. He would inevitably fail again.
She could not rest in her room at the inn. Every little while she would run down the stairs and out into the yard to see whether the wheel had come back from the smithy.
On one of these restless excursions, she saw a cart turn into the yard. Beside the driver sat a youth wearing a student’s cap who suddenly jumped from the wagon. Why—she could hardly believe her eyes—it was Karl Arthur!
He rushed up to his mother, seized her hand, and pressed it to his heart, while his beautiful, dreamy child-eyes looked pleadingly into hers.
“Mother!” he cried, “forgive me for my rudeness to you last winter, when you gave that party for me.”
It seemed almost too good to be true.
The Baroness freed her hand, flung her arms around Karl Arthur’s neck, and nearly smothered him with kisses. Why he was there, she did not know, but she knew that she had got back her son, and this was the happiest moment of her life.
She drew him into the inn, and explanations followed.
No, there had been no examination as yet; it would take place on the morrow. But in spite of this he had set off for home, only to see her.
“What a madcap you are!” laughed the Baroness. “Did you think to drive to