I noted that the latter was said with more conviction than the former, and that what she told me now was pretty well in accordance with what was written in the case file from the treason trials. So I moved swiftly on and asked her to tell me about her broken engagement.
This prompted an unexpected change of mood. A shadow of a smile played on Magdalena Schelderup’s lips when she replied by asking: ‘Which one?’
I knew nothing about either of them and so said that I would like to hear about both.
‘The second one, the one to which you are perhaps alluding, was no great loss at the time. He changed his mind only days before we were due to walk down the aisle, because of all this nonsense with the war and my NS membership. I didn’t shed too many tears. I had realized some time before that he was not the great love of my life, and he was neither charming nor particularly good-looking. But he was a decent, presentable man with sound finances, who would no doubt be a good father and husband. I was thirty-eight years old when he broke off the engagement. It somehow felt too late and too complicated to start looking for a new husband afterwards. So perhaps in retrospect the loss was greater, now that I know he was my chance not to end up alone, a childless spinster.’
‘And the first one?’
She nodded, and straightened up in her chair.
‘That was a great loss. It was my first, greatest and only young love. A short and intense romance that lasted the summer and autumn of 1925, but which left its mark on my life for another decade. He was irresistibly handsome and charming, in my eyes and everyone else’s. It was as though everything stopped the moment we met by a cafe table, one day when I was staying with a friend in Bergen. It would be safe to say that I did not see very much of my friend for the rest of the summer holiday, but all the more of him.’
A smile slid over Magdalena Schelderup’s face, but soon froze to a bitter grimace.
‘Apparently I later said of that trip to Bergen in 1925 that I was so comfortable on the bed, I might as well lie in it. When I came home from Bergen to Bærum wearing an engagement ring, I was left standing. I had not expected it to be easy. He was from the working class and, as if that were not enough, he was not working and did not have a family fortune. But I had not expected it to be so utterly hopeless either. They had never really bothered much before at home about what I did. Mother and Father were not too opposed to it at first. Magdalon, on the other hand, was adamant that this was nothing more than a youthful romance and that my fiancé was after the money. Back then, my older brother was the strongest in the family and has been so ever since. Within a matter of days, there was a united family front against my fiancé, without any of them, other than me, having met him.’
A sad expression flooded Magdalena Schelderup’s face as she stubbed out her cigarette in silence and immediately lit another. She had definitely lost any appetite for her piece of cake, but her cup of coffee was empty. She suddenly looked far older than her sixty-seven years.
‘We have time to do so many stupid things over the course of a lifetime. Every day I have regretted becoming a member of the NS during the war, but still, it is peanuts in comparison to how much I regret allowing myself to be persuaded to break off the engagement and return the ring by post. I knew that I would not be able to go through with it if I met him and perhaps not if I even heard his voice. So I asked him never to contact me again. He was an honourable man and respected that. But then we did meet again all the same, in an almost bizarre way, in a hotel reception here in Oslo. There were sparks for a few minutes, just as there had been ten years earlier, until his wife appeared. And the worst thing was that I had been right, that he would have made a wonderful husband. He was now a successful businessman of his own making and was on the local board of the Liberal Left Party. When we met again in 1935, my family would no doubt have thought he would make the perfect husband. But by then he had married someone else and they had three children. It was a terrible feeling to go home alone that night, having met her and seen her beaming happily between him and their children.’
Magdalena blew out the cigarette smoke in a violent blast. The tears I had not seen when her brother died were filling her eyes.
‘And I have never forgiven myself. It was the greatest mistake of my life, to betray him, not to dare to fight for my one great love when he was there, holding me in his arms.’
Without warning, she raised her right hand and pulled the odd pewter ring from her ring finger.
‘I sent back the engagement ring in 1925. But I have always kept this. It was the first ring he bought for me. I think he got it for one krone. But it was as good as the only krone he had, and it was the first ring a man had ever given me. And as it turned out, I got it from the love of my life. So I am going to wear it until my dying day, to remind me of what was and what could have been.’
‘And your brother – did you ever forgive him?’
Her sigh was heavy.
‘I’m afraid I cannot say yes to that, even on the day after Magdalon’s death. It has lain between us for all these years, without us ever speaking about it. After I met my beloved again in 1935, I told him about the episode when I came home. But asking for forgiveness was not in Magdalon’s nature. Having heard what I had just been through, he did nothing, just sat there. He shook his head pensively, but said absolutely nothing. Then he turned back to his work and carried on in silence until I left. And I have waited and waited for him to ask me for forgiveness. He never did.’
Magdalena stubbed out her cigarette and finished her story in a determined voice.
‘People want to believe that the reason why we have spoken so little to each other in recent years is the war. But my old love story from 1925 left a deeper cleft between us. And it started to come to the fore again as I got older and was left sitting my own, alongside my brother’s steadily growing family. He thought he had the right to dismiss his only sister’s great love, but he could take whoever he wanted whenever it suited him. That did not make it any easier to forgive, not even for a sister who only had one brother left.’
I expressed my understanding. At the same time, I concluded that Magdalon Schelderup had been very sharp and astute in his telephone conversation with me. His closest circle was almost exclusively made up of people who might have wished him dead. And it was clear that even the deceased’s older sister had burnt with a deep passion.
I stayed in the cafe for some minutes after she had left and pondered the case. Then I got up, more thoughtful than ever, and went to my car, so I could drive up to the reading of the will at Schelderup Hall. This time I knew the content of the will to be read by Rønning Junior, but I was all the more anxious to see what reactions it caused.
VIII
When Schelderup Hall loomed into view at ten to three, I was the last of those invited to arrive at the reading. Synnøve Jensen arrived just ahead of me; she had rounded the hill and disappeared in through the gate. The other cars were, as far as I could remember, parked in precisely the same places as last time. And when I came into the dining room, the ten supper guests were all sitting in their usual places. Magdalon Schelderup’s chair stood empty, but his rule was still evident in the house.
The bourgeois etiquette for receiving guests had been followed to the letter. Coffee, cakes and sherry had been put out on the table, but no one made any move to help themselves and no one said a word. It seemed to me that the silence was almost as oppressive as when I came into this room for the first time. I went over and stood by the window. It was almost a relief when I saw Edvard Rønning Junior park his car at four minutes to three, and then walk up towards the front door with his rolling gait, a file tucked under his arm. I had to hold back my laughter when the dogs’ furious barking made him jump a couple of feet into the air. But he managed nonetheless and quite impressively to keep a tight grip on the file. In the tense and somewhat false atmosphere that prevailed in the room, the pedantic young lawyer was absolutely himself and someone I could depend on – which could not be said for many of the others present.