Ida Brandt Read Online Free PDF Page B

forester’s boys went after the girls from the inn and smacked their bottoms, for they were the last in line.
    Before long they started playing postman’s knock down by the pond. Brandt had gone with them and he had great fun getting in the way of the children wherever they tried to run.
    “That’s more like it,” he said.
    “Yes,” said Schrøder, pushing up her sleeves, “but I’ve got curtains to hang at twelve windows.”
    Mrs Brandt and Sofie, both of them straight backed, carried the dishes of sandwiches through the garden and up on the Mound to set the table.
    Ida was so happy. She twice ran across to Schrøder and kissed her hand, without saying a word.

    ∞∞∞

    His Lordship’s family were to take a trip into the woods in two carriages; they had turned out of the drive, and His Lordship was in his element in the young ladies’ coach. Mrs Brandt went across to the house with the local newspaper.
    Schrøder was in the pantry, where she had been packing the picnic.
    “Ugh, I haven’t a stitch on under this,” she said, touching the front of her print dress: “And now we can start to tidy up in the guest room.”
    She hurried out through the kitchen, where three smallholders’ wives from the tied cottages were attending to the workers’ supper, and then on across the corridor to the guest rooms.
    “Oh,” said Schrøder, “this is a mess if ever there was one.”
    All the doors between the rooms were open, and no one had closed their suitcases. Dresses and shirts lay here and hung there. Schrøder talked away as she hung things up and moved things around.
    Mrs Brandt said nothing, but went around lifting the skirts as though to judge the materials they were made of.
    “Yes indeed, it’s all right for some,” she said.
    “Well,” said Schrøder, turning around; she had gone ahead: “These Copenhageners often don’t have much in the way of underclothes…You can tell that from how often they have to have them washed while they’ re here.”
    Mrs Brandt did not reply or carry on the conversation – it was never Mrs Brandt’s custom to ask anything – she merely used her grey eyes while Schrøder ran about in front of her and carried on and chatted:
    “Aye, heaven knows how it’s going to turn out for Miss With and Falkenstjerne but they’ re suited to each other, you know, tall men with short wives, that always works…”
    “And she’s a lovely girl,” said Schrøder.
    She closed a trunk and launched herself into the idea:
    “Miss Adlerberg,” she said, “has a waist, you know, such as it was nice to have at one time. When you could get Miss Jensen to pop over from Brædstrup in the middle of the day…”
    Miss Jensen was the seamstress in Brædstrup, and she sometimes did a fitting for someone in the guest rooms during the summer.
    “That’s a ‘Garibaldi’,” explained Schrøder as she entered the innermost room, where two strong trunks were closed and locked and the dresses were hanging on the hooks, wrapped in tulle.
    “Miss Schrøder, Miss Schrøder,” shouted Ida outside the window.
    “That’s Ida,” said Schrøder, reaching out and lifting the “little thing” in through the window before unrolling a long, broad black moiré train out of a length of tulle that stretched right across the floor.
    “That’s her dress, and what a train. It’s lined.”
    While Ida stood looking up at all that silk, Schrøder laughed and held the skirt over her like a cloak; but Mrs Brandt examined the lining:
    “The lining is old,” she said.
    “Yes,” said Schrøder. “But you know it really is wonderful what they can get out of it.”
    Schrøder always expressed wonderment at the Copenhageners.
    “And now we’ll go on,” she said.
    When they reached the last window, she suddenly put Ida out on the gravel path again.
    “Cause otherwise you’ll never grow up,” she said with a laugh. “And besides, we must count the washing.”
    “Well, I suppose I cannot be of any