That one morning was a fair sample of all the other days. Each suspected the other, neither would make allowances or concessions. As a consequence, day by day the breach widened. Even Eddie, who was more unobserving than most men, felt vaguely uncomfortable in the surcharged atmosphere. From the first Nora realized that it was an unequal contest; Gertie was too strongly intrenched in her position. But it was not in her nature to refrain from administering those little thrusts, which women know so well how to deal one another, from any motive of policy. The question of what she should do once her brother's house became intolerable she never permitted herself to ask.
In the needle-pricking mode of warfare she was, of course, far more expert than her rival. But if Gertie's hand was clumsy it was also heavy. And always in the back of her mind was the consciousness that she, so to speak, had at least one piece of heavy artillery which she could bring up once the enemy's fire became unendurable.
During the day, the men being out of the house except at meal time, there was to a certain degree, a cessation of hostilities. Nora gradually acquired some knowledge of housework. She learned to cook fairly well and always helped with the washing, rarely complaining of her aching arms and back. The only indication she had that she was making progress was that Gertie complained less. Praise, of course, was not to be expected.
At dinner the men were usually too anxious to get back to work—always with the exception of Hornby, who according to his own highly colored account, had been assigned the herculean task of splitting all the wood required by the Province of Manitoba for the ensuing winter—to linger longer than the time required for smoking a hurried pipe, so that it was only during the long evenings that hostilities were resumed. And then, more or less under cover.
There was one person upon whom Nora could openly vent her nervous irritation after a long day in Gertie's society, and that was Frank Taylor. They quarreled constantly, to the great amusement of the others. But with him, too, she felt hopelessly at a disadvantage. He was maddeningly sure of himself, and while he sometimes gave back thrust for thrust, he never lost his temper. Seemingly, nothingcould penetrate his armor of good nature, nor make him comprehend that she really meant her bitter words. Slow of movement and speech, his mind was alert enough, and Nora had to admit to herself, although she always openly denied it, that he had humor. To lose one's own temper in a wordy passage at arms and find one's opponent still smiling and serene is not a soothing experience.
Often, in the darkness of the night after she had gone to bed, she could feel her cheek burn at the recollection that this 'ignorant clod,' as she contemptuously called him to herself, had the power to make her feel a weak, undisciplined child by merely never losing his self-control.
There would have been consolation in the thought that in his stupidity he did not understand how she despised him, how infinitely beneath her she considered him, had it not been darkened by the suspicion that he understood perfectly welland didn't care.
How dared he, how dared he!
She had complained of his familiar manner to her brother a day or two after her arrival. But he had given her neither support nor consolation.
"My dear Nora," he said, "we are not back in England. The sooner you forget all the oldnotions of class and class distinctions, the happier you'll be. They won't go here. As long as a man's straight, honest and a worker—and Frank's all three—it doesn't make any odds whether he's working for himself or for someone else. We're all on the same footing. It is only due to the fact that I've had two good years in succession that I'm not somebody's 'hired man' myself."
"Don't, Eddie, don't; you don't realize how you hurt me."
"My dear girl, I'm sorry; but I'm in dead earnest."
"You, a hired man? Oh, I can't believe it."
"It's true, nevertheless. Plenty of better fellows than I have had to do it. When you're starting in, unless you have a good deal bigger capital than I had, you only need to be hailed out, frosted out, or weeded out a couple of years in succession to use up your little stake, and then where are you?"
"What do you mean by 'weeded out'?"
He was just about to explain when a halloo from the stables cut him short. "There's Frank now. I ought to be out helping him this minute; we've got a good stiff drive ahead of us. You ask Gertie about it, she'll explain it to you."
But Gertie had been deeply preoccupied withsome domestic problem and Nora had forborne to question her. She had intended returning to the subject that evening, but Eddie and Gertie were deep in one of their conferences until nearly bedtime. It would never have suggested itself to her to seek any information from the objectionable Frank, so under cover of a heated discussion between him and Trotter, she appealed to Reggie.
"What does it mean to be weeded out?"
"Oh, Lord, I don't know! Kicked out, I suppose. Isn't there something in the Bible about tares and wheat?"
"Nonsense; it doesn't mean that. I'd forgotten, by the way, how strong you were on Biblical references. Do you remember your discussion about Sarah and Benjamin with Agnes Pringle?"
"Of course I do. And I completely stumped her; don't you recollect?"
"Goose! She only wanted to make you look it up for yourself. But being 'weeded out' is something disastrous that happens to the farmers here, like having the crops frozen."
"Well, it hasn't happened since I've been here, anyway. But I'll bet you a bob it means kicked out. I tell you, I'll ask Gertie if she doesn't think that I ought to be weeded out."
"You'd better not," laughed Nora.
The first open quarrel had taken place one day at dinner.
The night before Nora had proposed making her first attempt at baking bread. Gertie had given a grudging consent. Everything had gone well until the bread, once in the oven, Nora had gone to her room to add some pages to a long letter which she had begun, some evenings before to Agnes Pringle.
Gertie had been out in one of the barns most of the morning engaged in some mysterious task which she had been reserving until the weather became milder—there had been a decided thaw, setting in the day before—and Nora intended to be gone only a short time.
Filled with a warm feeling of gratitude to Miss Pringle for her generous loan of the ten-pound note, she was writing her a long letter in the form of a diary describing her voyage across the Atlantic and the trip across the Continent, both of which she was sure would greatly interest her friend and furnish her with topics for her tête-à-tête dinners with the excellent Mrs. Hubbard for some days to come.
Of the difficulties and disappointments in her new life she was resolved to say nothing. Nora hated to confess that she had failed in anything. And, so far, she could hardly say that she hadmade a success. Later on, she might have to acknowledge that her move had been a mistake. But for the moment she would confine herself to describing all that struck her as novel and strange while the impression was still fresh, while she still had the 'seeing eye.'
"When I came to the end of my last page (and I remember that I was getting extremely sleepy at that point)," she wrote, "I had just finished describing the exterior of my brother's house to you. I am sure I can never do justice to the interior! You can never have seen, much less imagined, anything in the least like it. I have decided, upon reflection, that it is the most un-English thing I have seen yet: and I have not forgotten those strange railway carriages either.
"Try to imagine a large room, longer than it is deep, at once living-room, dining-room and kitchen; with nothing but rough brown boards for walls, on which—some framed, some unframed—are the colored supplements of the Christmas illustrated papers, both English and American. Over one of the doors is a magnificent trophy—at least that is what we would call it at home—I think it is a moose. I am not at all sure, although I have been told more than once. Over another door is a large clock, such a one as one finds in a broker's office with us.The floor is covered with what is called oilcloth—I wonder why: it certainly is not the least like cloth—very new and excessively shiny. It has a conventional pattern in black and white, and when the sun shines on it, it quite dazzles one's eyes.
"There are two windows, one to the south, the other looking west. The western view is magnificent. I feel as if I could see straight away to the setting sun! In the summer, when the prairie is one great waving green sea, it must be superb. Two days ago it was covered with snow. As I write, I can see great patches of brown every here and there, for we have had a sudden thaw. The window sills are filled with geraniums planted, my dear, in tins which once contained syrup, of which everyone here, including my brother, seems extravagantly fond. The syrup jug appears regularly at every meal and is almost the first thing put on the table. I have yet to acquire a taste for it—which they all think extremely queer.
"The furniture consists of two American rockers and a number of kitchen chairs; an unvarnished deal dresser covered with earthenware;—I don't think there are any two pieces that match!—two tables, one a dining table; a bookcase containing a few paper-backed novels and some magazines, none so recent, however,as those I saw before I left England; and last and most important, an enormous American cooking stove.
"Our principal meal, called dinner, is——"
Great heavens, her bread!
Nora dashed from her room. Gertie was standing at one of the windows in the unwonted indulgence of a moment's leisure. Nora threw open the oven door. It was empty.
"Oh, did you look after my loaf, Gertie? I'm so sorry; I quite forgot it."
"Yes, I took it out a few moments ago."
She still had her face turned toward the window, so Nora did not see the smile that curled her lip. She turned after a moment, and the two women began to set the table for dinner.
Presently the men were heard laughing outside as they cleaned their muddy boots on the scraper. Reggie had apparently achieved something new. His ignorance of everything pertaining to farming furnished the material for most of the amusement that was going. Fortunately, he was always good-natured. Gertie, with unusual good spirits, entered into the joke of the thing at once and even bantered Reggie playfully upon his latest discovery.
Nora did not even hear what it was all about.She was searching for the bread plate which always stood on the dresser.
"Why, Gertie, I——"
"It's all right," said Gertie, without looking up from pouring the tea. "I took it. I'll get it in a minute. Come, sit down."
Nora obeyed.
Hornby was just about to begin his explanation for whatever it was he had done, when Eddie interrupted him:
"Hold on a minute, Reg. I want some bread. I declare you two girls are getting to be as bad as Reggie, here. Setting a table without bread!"
"I was keeping it for a surprise," said Gertie, getting up slowly. "I want you to appreciate the fact that Nora helped me by doing the baking this morning." Nora's face flushed with pleasure as her brother patted her on the shoulder with evident approval. She looked at Gertie with eyes shining with gratitude. At that moment she came nearer liking her sister-in-law than she ever was to again.
Gertie went slowly across the room—she usually moved with nervous quickness—and picking up the missing bread plate from where it was leaning against the wall behind the stove went into the little pantry that gave off the kitchen. Slowly she returned and stood besideher husband's chair. On the plate, burned almost to a cinder, was the loaf of bread that Nora had forgotten.
"Here it is," said Gertie. Her smile was cruel.
"Oh, I say, Gertie, that's too bad of you." It was Frank who spoke.
"Too bad!" Nora sprung to her feet with flashing eyes. "Too bad. It's mean and despicable. There are no words to do it justice. But what could I expect from——"
"Nora!" said her brother sharply.
Nora rushed from the table to her room. And although Eddie knocked repeatedly at her door and begged her to let him speak with her if only for a moment that evening at supper-time, she made no sign nor did anyone see her again that night.
She made a point of not coming down to breakfast the next morning until after the time when the men would be gone. She thought it best to meet Gertie alone. It was time that they came to some sort of understanding. To her surprise and annoyance Taylor was still at the table. Gertie was nowhere to be seen.
"Come down to keep me company? That's real nice of you, I'm sure."
"I supposed, naturally, that you had gone. You usually have at this hour."
"You don't know how it flatters a fellow to have women folks study his habits like that," he said with a grin.
"I knew that my brother had left the house, since I saw him go. I took it for granted that all his employees left when he did. Let me assure you, once and for all, that your habits are of no possible interest to me."
Taylor put on his hat and went to the door. Just as he was about to open it, he changed his mind and came back to the table where Nora had seated herself and stood leaning on the back of his chair looking down at her.
"It's all right for us to row," he said, "but if I were you I'd go a little easy with Gertie. She's all right and a good sort at bottom, you can take it from me. Yesterday, I admit she was downright nasty. I guess you rile her up more than she's used to. But I want to see you two get on."
"It's my turn to feel flattered," said Nora sarcastically.
"Well, so long," he said with undiminished good humor as he went out.
Gertie appeared almost at once from the pantry.
"I heard what he said. I couldn't help it. He was right—about us both. We don't hit it off. But I'm willing to give it another try."
"I have little choice but to agree with you," said Nora bitterly.
"Well, that's hardly the way to begin," retorted Gertie angrily.
There was a certain air of restraint about them ail when they came in to dinner. Eddie looked both worried and anxious. But as he saw that the two women were going about their duties much the same as usual, he argued that the storm had blown over and brightened visibly.
The men had pushed back their chairs and were preparing to light their after-dinner pipes.
"We'll be able to start on the ironing this afternoon," said Gertie, addressing Nora for the first time since breakfast.
"Very well."
"I say," said Trotter, who rarely ventured on a remark while at the table, "it was a rare big wash you done this morning by the look of it on the line."
"When she's been out in this country a bit longer, Nora'll learn not to wear more things than she can help," said Gertie.
As a matter of fact, she had no intention of criticising Nora at the moment. She meant, merely, that she would be more economical with experience. But Nora was in the mood to take fire at once.
"Was there more than my fair share?" she asked sharply.
"You use double the number of stockings than what I do. And everything else is the same."
"I see. Clean but incompetent."
"There's many a true word spoken in jest," said Gertie with angry emphasis.
"Say, Reg," Taylor broke in hastily, "is it true that when you first came out you asked Ed where the bath-room was?"
"That's right," laughed Trotter. "Ed told 'im there was a river a mile and a 'alf from 'ere, an' that was the only bath-room 'e knowed."
"One gets used to that sort of thing, eh, Reg?" said Marsh good-naturedly.
"Ra-ther. If I saw a proper bath-roomnow, it would only make me feel nervous."
"I knew a couple of Englishmen out in British Columbia," broke in Taylor, "who were bathing, and the only other people around were Indians. The first two years they were there, they wouldn't have anything to do with the Indians because they were so dirty. After that the Indians wouldn't have anything to do with them."
He pointed this delectable anecdote by holding his nose.
"What a disgusting story!" said Nora.
"D'you think so? I rather like it."
"Youwould."
"Now don't start quarreling, you two. And on Frank's last day."
Nora gave her brother a quick glance. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask what he meant by Frank's last day, but seeing that Taylor was watching her with an amused smile, she held her tongue. Getting up, she began clearing away the table.
Hornby, ramming the tobacco into his pipe, went over to the corner by the stove, where Gertie was scalding out her large dishpan, and tried to interest her in the number of logs he had split since breakfast, without conspicuous success.
Trotter stood looking out of the window, while Marsh stretched himself lazily in one of the rocking chairs with a sigh of content. Things were beginning to shake down a little better. There had been a time yesterday when he feared that everything was off. He knew Nora's temper of old and he knew his wife's jealous fear of her criticism. It would take some rubbing to wear off the sharp corners. But things were coming out all right, after all. They'd soon be working together like a well-broken team. Gertie had been nasty about thebread. But apparently everything was patched up. And with Frank once gone, and the new chap—a man of the Trotter type, who would never obtrude himself—he foresaw that everything would run on wheels, an idea dear to his peace-loving soul.
Not that he was not sorry to lose Frank. In the first place, he liked him, and then he was a good, steady, hard-working fellow, one of the kind you didn't have to stand over. But, naturally, he wanted to get back to his own place, now that he had saved up a bit. Every man liked being his own master.
Taylor alone had remained at his place at the table. Nora had cleared away everything except the dishes at his place. She never went near him if she could avoid it.
"I guess I'm in your way," he said, rising.
"Not more than usual, thank you."
Taylor gave a little laugh.
"I guess you'll not be sorry to see the last of me."
Nora paused in her work, and leaning on the table with both hands, looked him steadily in the face.
"I can't honestly say that it makes the least difference to me whether you go or stay," she said coldly.
"When does your train go, Frank?" asked Hornby from his corner.
"Half-past three; I'll be starting from here in about an hour."
"Reg can go over with you and drive the rig back again," said Marsh.
"All right. I'll go and dress myself in a bit."
"I guess you'll be glad to get back to your own place," said Gertie warmly.
She had always liked Frank Taylor—a man who worked hard and earned his money. She did not begrudge him a cent of it, nor the pleasure he had in the thought of getting back to his own place. He was the kind of man who should set up for himself.
"Well, I guess I'll not be sorry." He sat looking out of the window with a sort of dreamy air, as if seeing far to the westward his own land.
So that was the reason for his going. He had a place of his own. He was only a hired man for the moment. Eddie had told her that a man frequently had to hire out after a succession of bad seasons. What of it? His keeping it to himself was the crowning impertinence!
"I'll do the washing, Nora, and you can dry," said Gertie in that peculiar tone which Nora had learned to recognize as the preface to something disagreeable.
"All right."
"I've noticed the things aren't half clean when I leave them to you to do."
"I'm sorry; why didn't you tell me?"
"I suppose yon never did the washing-up in England. Too grand?"
But Nora was not to be ruffled just now. Her resentment against Taylor, who was sitting watching her as if he read her thoughts—she often wondered how much of them hedidread—made anything Gertie said seem momentarily unimportant.
"I don't suppose anyone would wash up if they could help it. It's not very amusing."
"You always want to be amused?"
"No, but I want to be happy."
"Well," said Gertie sharply, "you've got a roof over your head and a comfortable bed to sleep in, three good meals a day and plenty todo. That's all anybody wants to make them happy, I guess."
"Oh, Lord!" exclaimed Reggie from his corner.
"Well," said Gertie, turning sharply on him, "if you don't like Canada, why did you come out?"
"You don't suppose," said Hornby, rising slowly to his feet, "I'd have let them send me if I'd have known what I was in for, do you? Not much. Up at five in the morning and working about the place like a navvy till your back feels as if it 'ud break, and then back again in the afternoon. And the same thing day after day. What was the good of sending me to Harrow and Oxford if that's what I've got to do all my life?"
There was a tragic dignity in his tone which for the moment held even Gertie silent. It was her husband who answered him, and Gertie's jealous ear detected a certain wistfulness in his voice.
"You'll get used to it soon enough, Reg. Itisa bit hard at first, I'll admit. But when you get your foot in, you wouldn't change it for any other life."
"This isn't a country for a man to go to sleep in and wait for something to turn up," said Gertie aggressively.
"I wouldn't go back to England now, not for nothing," said Trotter, stung to an unusual burst of eloquence. "England! Eighteen bob a week, that's what I earned. And no prospects. Out of work five months in the year."
"What did you do in England!" asked Nora curiously.
"Bricklayer, Miss."
"You needn't call her Miss," said Gertie heatedly. "You call me Gertie, don't you? Well,hername's Nora."
"What with strikes and bad times," went on Trotter unheeding, "you never knew where you was. And the foreman always bullying you. I don't know what all. I 'ad about enough of it, I can tell you. I've never been out of work since the day I landed. I've 'ad as much to eat as I wanted and I'm saving money. In this country everybody's as good as everybody else."
"If not better," said Nora dryly.
"In two years I shall be able to set up for myself. Why, there's old man Thompson, up at Pratt.Hestarted as a bricklayer, same as I. Come from Yorkshire, he did. He's got seven thousand dollars in the bank now."
"Believe me, you fellows who come out now have a much softer thing of it than I did when I first came. In those days they wouldn't havean Englishman, they'd have a Galician rather. In Winnipeg, when they advertised in the paper for labor, you'd see often as not: 'No English need apply.'"
"Well, it was their own fault," stormed Gertie. "They wouldn't work or anything. They just soaked."
"Itwastheir own fault, right enough. This was the dumping ground for all the idlers, drunkards and scallywags in England. They had the delusion over there that if a man was too big a rotter to do anything at all at home, he'd only got to be sent out here and he'd make a fortune."
"I guess things ain't as bad as that now," spoke up Taylor. "They send us a different class. It takes an Englishman two years longer than anybody else to get the hang of things, but when once he tumbles to it, he's better than any of them."
"Ah, well!" said Marsh, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, "I guess nowadays everyone's glad to see the Englishman make good. When I nearly smashed up three years ago, I had no end of offers of help."
"Howdidyou nearly smash up?" asked Hornby interestedly.
"Oh, I had a run of bad luck. One year the crop was frosted and the next year I was hailedout. It wants a good deal of capital to stand up against that."
"That's what happened to me," said Taylor. "I was hailed out and I hadn't got any capital, so I just had to hire out." He turned suddenly to Nora. "If it hadn't been for that hail storm you wouldn't have had the pleasure of makin' my acquaintance."
"How hollow and empty life would have been without that!" she said ironically.
"I wonder you didn't just quit and start out Calgary way," put in Gertie.
"Well," said Taylor slowly, "it was this way: I'd put in two years on my homestead and done a lot of clearing. It seemed kind of silly to lose my rights after all that. Then, too, when you've been hailed out once, the chances are it won't happen again, for some years that is, and by that time I ought to have a bit put by."
"What sort of house have you got?" asked Nora.
"Well, it ain't what you might call a palace, but it's large enough for two."
"Thinking of marrying, Frank?" asked Marsh.
"Well, I guess it's kind of lonesome on a farm without a woman. But it's not so easy to find a wife when you're just starting on yourown. Canadian girls think twice before taking a farmer."
"They know something, I guess," said Gertie grimly.
"You took me, Gertie," laughed her husband.
"Not because I wanted to, you can be sure of that. I don't know how you got round me."
"I wonder."
"I guess it was because you was kind of helpless, and I didn't know what you'd do without me."
"I guess it was love, and you couldn't help yourself." Gertie stopped her work long enough to make a little grimacing protest.
"I'm thinking of going to one of them employment agencies when I get to Winnipeg," said Taylor, moving his chair so that he could watch Nora's face, "and looking the girls over."
"Like sheep," said Nora scornfully.
"I don't know anything about sheep. I've never had to do with sheep."
"And may I ask, do you think that you know anything about women?"
"I guess I can tell if they're strong and willing. And so long as they ain't cock-eyed, I don't mind taking the rest on trust."
"And what inducement is there for a girl to have you?"
"That's why he wants to catch 'em young, when they're just landed and don't know much," laughed Trotter uproariously.
"I've got my quarter-section," went on the imperturbable Frank, quite undisturbed by the laughter caused by Trotter's sally, "a good hundred and sixty acres with seventy of it cleared. And I've got a shack that I built myself. That's something, ain't it?"
"You've got a home to offer and enough to eat and drink. A girl can get that anywhere. Why, I'm told they're simply begging for service."
"Y-e-e-s. But you see some girls like getting married. There's something in the word that appeals to them."
"You seem to think that a girl would jump at the chance of marrying you!" said Nora with rising temper.
"She might do worse."
"I must say I think you flatter yourself."
"Oh, I don't know. I know my job, and there ain't too many as can say that. I've got brains."
"What makes you think so?"
"Well, I can see you're no fool."
Gertie chuckled with amusement. "He certainly put one over on you then, Nora."
"Because you've got no use for me, there's no saying but what others may have."
"I forgot that there's no accounting for tastes."
"I can try, can't I?"
Wishing to escape any further conversation with the object of her detestation, and seeing her opportunity now that the dishes were washed, Nora started to empty the dishpan in the sink in the pantry. But Gertie, who divined her motive and wished the sport to continue, forestalled her.
"I'll do it," she said. "You finish wiping the dishes."
"It's very wise of you to go to an agency," said Nora in answer to his last question. "A girl's more likely to marry you when she's only seen you once than when she's seen you often."
"It seems to make you quite mad, the thought of me marrying!" with a wink at the others.
"You wouldn't talk about it like that unless you looked down upon women. Oh, how I pity the poor wretched creature who becomes your wife!"
"Oh, I guess she won't have such a bad time—when I've broken her in to my ways."
"And are you under the impression that you can do that?"
"Yep."
"You're not expecting that there'll be much love lost between you and the girl whom you—you honor with your choice?"
"What's love got to do with it?" asked Taylor in affected surprise. "It's a business undertaking."
"What!" Nora's eyes were dark with indignation and anger.
"None at all. I give her board and lodging and the charm of my society. And in return, she's got to cook and bake and wash and keep the shack clean and tidy. And if she can do that, I'll not be particular what she looks like."
"So long as she's not cock-eyed," Reggie reminded him.
"No, I draw the line at that."
"I beg your pardon," said Nora with bitter irony; "I didn't know it was a general servant you wanted. You spend a dollar and a half on a marriage license and then you don't have to pay any wages. It's a good investment."
For the first time she seemed to have pierced the enemy's armor.
"You've got a sharp tongue in your head for a girl, Nora."
"Please don't call me Nora."
"Don't be so silly, Nora," said her brother with a trace of irritation. "It's the custom of the country. Why, they all call me Ed."
"I don't care what the custom of the country is. I'm not going to be called Nora by the hired man!"
"Don't you bother, Ed," said Frank, apparently once more restored to his normal placidity; "I'll call her Miss Marsh if she likes it better."
But Nora was not to be pacified. He wouldn't have dared take such a liberty with her had he not been on the eve of going away for good, she told herself. It was a last shot from a retreating enemy. Well and good. He should hear, if for the last time, what she thought of him!
"I should like to see you married to someone who'd give you what you deserved. I'd like to see your pride humbled. You think yourself very high and mighty, don't you? I'd like to see a woman take you by the heartstrings and wring them till you screamed with pain."
"Oh, Nora, how violent you are!" said Ed.
"You're overbearing, supercilious and egotistic," went on Nora bitingly.
"I'm not sure as I know what them long words means, but I guess they ain't exactly complimentary."
"I guess they ain't," she mimicked.
"I'm sorry for that." Taylor straightenedhimself a little in his chair. His blue eyes seemed to have caught a little of the light from Nora's.
"I was thinking of offering you the position before I went to the employment agency."
"How dare you speak to me like that!"
"Don't fly into a temper, Nora," said Ed. While he didn't blame Frank, he wished he had not made that last speech. Why didn't he go and get ready for town? Here was Nora all upset again just as things had calmed down a bit!
"He's got no right to say impudent things to me!"
"Don't you see he's only having a joke with you?" he said soothingly.
"He shouldn't joke. He's got no sense of humor."
She made a furious gesture, and the cup she was in the act of wiping flew out of her hand, crashing in a thousand pieces on the floor, just as Gertie returned.
"Butter fingers!"
"I'm so sorry," said Nora in a colorless tone. She was raging inwardly at having allowed that beast of a man to put her in such a temper. Why couldn't she control herself? How undignified to bandy words with a person she so despised. It was hardly the momentfor Gertie to take her to task for carelessness. But Gertie was not the person to consider other moods than her own.
"You clumsy thing! You're always doing something wrong."
"Oh, don't worry; I'll pay for it."
"Who wants you to pay for it? Do you think I can't afford to pay for a miserable cup! You might say you're sorry: that's all I want you to do."
"I said I was sorry."
"No, you didn't."
"I heard her, Gertie," broke in Ed.
"She said she was sorry as if she was doing me a favor," said Gertie, turning furiously on the would-be peacemaker.
"You don't expect me to go down on my knees to you, do you? The cup's worth twopence."
"It isn't the value I'm thinking about, it's the carelessness."
"It's only the third thing I've broken since I've been here."
If Nora had been in a calmer mood herself she would not have been so stupid as to attempt to palliate her offense. Her offer of replacing the miserable cup only added fuel to the flame of Gertie's resentment.
"You can't do anything!" she stormed."You're more helpless than a child of six. You're all the same, all of you."
"You're not going to abuse the whole British nation because I've broken a cup worth twopence, are you?"
"And the airs you put on. Condescending isn't the word. It's enough to try the patience of a saint."
"Oh, shut up!" said Marsh. He went over to his wife and laid a hand on her shoulder. She shook him off impatiently.
"You've never done a stroke of work in your life, and you come here and think you can teach me everything."
"I don't know about that," said Nora, in a voice which by comparison with Gertie's seemed low but which was nevertheless perfectly audible to every person in the room. "I don't know about that, but I think I can teach you manners."
If she had lashed the other woman across the face with a whip, she couldn't have cut more deeply. She knew that, and was glad. Gertie's face turned gray.
"How dare you say that! How dare you! You come here, and I give you a home. You sleep in my blankets and you eat my food and then you insult me." She burst into a passion of angry tears.
"Now then, Gertie, don't cry. Don't be so silly," said her husband as he might have spoken to an angry child.
"Oh, leave me alone," she flashed back at him. "Of course you take her part. You would! It's nothing to you that I have made a slave of myself for you for three whole years. As soon asshecomes along and plays the lady——"
She rushed from the room. After a moment, Ed followed after her.
There was an awkward pause. Nora stood leaning against the table swinging the dishcloth in her hand, a smile of malicious triumph on her face. Gertie had tried it on once too often. But she had shown her that one could go too far. She would think twice before she attempted to bully her again, especially before other people. She stooped down and began to gather up the broken pieces of earthenware scattered about her feet. Her movement broke the spell which had held the three men paralyzed as men always are in the presence of quarreling women.
"I reckon I might be cleaning myself," said Taylor, rising from his chair. "Time's getting on. You're coming, Ben?"
"Yes, I'm coming. I suppose you'll take the mare?"
"Yep, that's what Ed said this morning."
They went out toward the stables without a word to Nora.
"Well, are you enjoying the land of promise as much as you said that I should?" Hornby asked with a smile.
"We've both made our beds, I suppose we must lie in them," said Nora, shaking the broken pieces out of her apron into a basket that stood in the corner.
"Do you remember that afternoon at Miss Wickham's when I came for the letter to your brother?"
"I hadn't much intention of coming to Canada then myself."
"Well, I don't mind telling you that I mean to get back to England the very first opportunity that comes," he said, pacing up and down the floor. "I'm willing to give away my share of the White Man's Burden with a package of chewing gum."
"You prefer the Effete East?" smiled Nora, putting a couple of irons on the stove.
"Ra-ther. Give me the degrading influence of a decadent civilization every time."
"Your fatherwillbe pleased to see you, won't he?"
"I don't think! Of course I was a damned fool ever to leave Winnipeg."
"I understand you didn't until you had to."
"Say," said Hornby, pausing in his walk, "I want to tell you: your brother behaved like a perfect brick. I sent him your letter and told him I was up against it—d'you know I hadn't a bob? I was jolly glad to earn half a dollar digging a pit in a man's garden. Bit thick, you know!"
"I can see you," laughed Nora.
"Your brother sent me the fare to come on here and told me I could do the chores. I didn't know what they were. I soon found it was doing all the jobs it wasn't anybody else's job to do. And they call it God's own country!"
"I think you're falling into thewaysof the country very well, however!" retorted Nora as she struggled across to the table with the heavy ironing-board.
"Do you? What makes you think that?"
"You can stand there and smoke your pipe and watch me carry the ironing-board about."
"I beg your pardon. Did you want me to help you?"
"Never mind. It would remind me of home."
"I suppose I shall have to stick it out at least a year, unless I can humbug the mater into sending me enough money to get back home with."
"She won't send you a penny—if she's wise."
"Oh, come now! Wouldn't you chuck it if you could?"
"And acknowledge myself beaten," said Nora, with a flash of spirit. "You don't know," she went on after ironing busily a moment, "what I went through before I came here. I tried to get another position as lady's companion. I hung about the agents' offices. I answered advertisements. Two people offered to take me; one without any salary, the other at ten shillings a week and my lunch. I, if you please, was to find myself in board, lodging and clothes on that magnificent sum! That settledme. I wrote Eddie and said I was coming. When I'd paid my fare, I had eight pounds in the world—after ten years with Miss Wickham. When he met me at the station at Dyer——"
"Depot; you forget."
"My whole fortune consisted of seven dollars and thirty-five cents; I think it was thirty-five."
"What about that wood you're splitting, Reg?" said a voice from the doorway.
Eddie came in fumbling nervously in his pockets. He detested scenes and had some reason to think that he was having more than his share of them in the last few days.
"Has anyone seen my tobacco! Oh, here it is," he said, taking his pouch from his pocket. "Come, Reg, you'd better be getting on with it."
"Oh, Lord, is there no rest for the wicked?" exclaimed Hornby as he lounged lazily to the door.
"Don't hurry yourself, will you?"
"Brilliant sarcasm is just flying about this house to-day," was his parting shot as he banged the door behind him.
Nora understood perfectly that her brother had been forced to take a stand as a result of this last quarrel with Gertie. Well, she was glad of it. Things certainly could not go on in this way forever. Of course he would have to make a show, at least, of taking his wife's part. But, equally of course, he would understand her position perfectly. However much his new life and his long absence from England might have changed him, at bottom their points of view were still the same. He and she, so to speak, spoke a common language; she and Gertie did not.
Gertie had probably been pouring out her accumulation of grievances to him for the last half hour. Now it was her turn. She would show that she was, as always, more than ready to meet Gertie half-way. It would be his affair to see that her advances were received in better part in future than they had been.
She went on busily with her ironing, waiting for him to begin. But Eddie seemed to experience a certain embarrassment in coming to the subject. While she took article after article from the clothes-basket at her side, he wandered about the room aimlessly, puffing at a pipe which seemed never to stay lighted.