... The sequel's scarce essential—Nay, more than this, I hold it stillProfoundly confidential!
... The sequel's scarce essential—Nay, more than this, I hold it stillProfoundly confidential!
Then as we sat there side by side I got thinking of the past and of the Bohemians before whom I had once burned incense. And remembering a certain visit to Box Hill with Lady Agatha's mother,years and years ago, I had to revise my verdict on authors, for one of the warmest memories in all my life is that of dear old Meredith in his wheelchair, with his bearded face still flooded with its kindly inner light and his spirit still mellow with its unquenchable love of life. And once as a child, I went on to tell Dinky-Dunk, I had met Stevenson. It was at Mentone, and I can still remember him leaning over and taking my hand. His own hand was cold and lean, like a claw, and with the quick instinct of childhood I realized, too, that he wascondescendingas he spoke to me, for all the laugh that showed the white teeth under his drooping black mustache. Wrong as it seemed, I didn't like him any more than I afterward liked the Sargent portrait of him, which was really an echo of my own first impression, though often and often I've tried to blot out that first unfair estimate of a real man of genius. There's so much in theChild's Garden of Versethat I love; there's so much in the man's life that demands admiration, that it seemswrong not to capitulate to his charm. But when one's own family are one's biographers it's hard to be kept human. "Yet there's one thing, Dinky-Dunk, that I do respect him for," I went on. "He had seen the loveliest parts of this world, and, when he had to, he could light-heartedly give it all up and rough it in this American West of ours, even as you and I!" Whereupon Dinky-Dunk argued that we ought to forgive an invalid his stridulous preaching about bravery and manliness and his over-emphasis of fortitude, since it was plainly based on an effort to react against a constitutional weakness for which he himself couldn't be blamed.
And I confessed that I could forgive him more easily than I could Sanguinary John with his literary Diabolism and that ostentatious stone-age blugginess with which he loved to give the ladies goose-flesh, pretending he was a bull in a china-shop when he's really only a white mouse in an ink-pot! And after Dinky-Dunk had knocked out his pipe and wound up his watch he looked over at me with his slow Scotch-Canadian smile. "For acouple of hay-seeds who have been harpooning thesalonidea," he solemnly announced, "I call this quite a literary evening!" But what's the use of having an idea or two in your head if you can't air 'em now and then?
Tuesday the Twenty-seventh
To-day I stumbled on the surprise of my life! It was A Man! I took Paddy and cantered over to the old Titchborne Ranch and was prowling around the corral, hoping I might find a few belated mushrooms. But nary a one was there. So I whistled on my four fingers for Paddy (I've been teaching him to come at that call) and happened to glance in the direction of the abandoned shack. Then I saw the door open, andout walked a man.
He was a young man, in puttees and knickers and Norfolk jacket, and he was smoking a cigarette. He stared at me as though I were the Missing Link. Then he said "Hello!" rather inadequately, it seemed to me.
I answered back "Hello," and wondered whether to take to my heels or not. But my courage got its second wind, and I stayed. Then we shook hands, very formally, and explained who we were. And Idiscovered that his name was Percival Benson Woodhouse (and the Lord forgive me if they ever call him Percy for short!) and that his aunt is the Countess of D—— and that he knows a number of people you and Lady Agatha have often spoken of. He's got a Japanese servant called Kino, or perhaps it's spelt Keeno, I don't know which, who's housekeeper, laundress,valet, gardener, groom andchef, all in one,—so, at least Percival Benson confessed to me. He also confessed that he'd bought the Titchborne Ranch, from photographs, from "one of those land chaps" in London. He wanted to rough it a bit, and they told him there would be jolly good game shooting. So he even brought along an elephant-gun, which his cousin had used in India. The photographs which the "land chap" had showed him turned out to be pictures of the Selkirks. And, taking it all in all, he fancied that he'd been jolly well bunked. But Percival seemed to accept it with the stoicism of the well-born Britisher. He'd have a try at the place, although there was no game.
"But thereisgame," I told him, "slathers of it, oodles of it!"
He mildly inquired where and what? I told him: Wild duck, prairie-chicken, wild geese, jack-rabbits, now and then a fox, and loads of coyotes. He explained, then, that he meant big game—and how grandly those two words, "big game," do roll off the English tongue! He has a sister in the Bahamas, who may join him next summer if he should decide to stick it out. He considered that it would be a bit rough for a girl, during the winter season up here.
Yet before I go any further I must describe Percival Benson Woodhouse to you, for he's not only "our sort," but a type as well.
In the first place, he's a Magdalen College man, the sort we've seen going up and down the High many and many a time. He's rather gaunt and rather tall, and he stoops a little. "At home" they call it the "Oxford stoop," if I'm not greatly mistaken. His hands are thin and long and bony. His eyes are nice, and he looks very good form.I mean he's the sort of man you'd never take for the "outsider" or "rotter." He's the sort who seem to have the royal privilege of doing even doubtfully polite things and yet doing them in such a way as to make them seem quite proper. I don't know whether I make that clear or not, but one thing is clear, and this is that our Percival Benson is an aristocrat. You see it in his over-sensitive, over-refined, almost womanishly delicate face, with those idealizing and quite unpractical eyes of his. You see it in the thin, high-arched, bony nose (almost as fine a beak as the one belonging to His Grace, the Duke of M——!) and you see it in the sad and somewhat elongated face, as though he had pored over big books too much, a sort of air of pathos and aloofness from things. His mouth strikes you as being rather meager, until he smiles, which is quite often, for, glory be, he has a good sense of humor. But besides that he has a neatness, a coolness, an impersonal sort of ease, which would make you think that he might have stepped out of one of Henry James's earlier novels of about the time ofthePortrait of a Lady. And I like him. I knew that at once. He'seffeteand old-worldish and probably useless, out here, but he stands for something I've been missing, and I'll be greatly mistaken if Percival Benson and Chaddie McKail are not pretty good friends before the winter's over! He's asked if he might be permitted to call, and he's coming for dinner to-morrow night, and I do hope Dinky-Dunk is nice to him—if we're to be neighbors. But Dinky-Dunk says Westerners don't ask to be permitted to call. They just stick their cayuse into the corral and walk in, the same as an Indian does. And Dinky-Dunk says that if he comes in evening dress he'll shoot him, sure pop!
Thursday the Twenty-ninth
Percy (how I hate that name!) was here for dinner last night, and all things considered, we didn't fare so badly. We had tomato bisque and scalloped potatoes and prairie-chicken (they need to be well basted) and hot biscuits and stewed dried peaches with cream. Then we had coffee and the men smoked their pipes. We talked until a quarter to one in the morning, and my poor Dinky-Dunk, who has been working so hard and seeing nobody, really enjoyed that visit and really likes Percival Benson.
Percy got talking about Oxford, and you could see that he loved the old town and that he felt more at home on the Isis than on the prairie. He said he once heard Freeman tell a story about Goldwin Smith, who used to be Regius Professor of History at the University. G. S. seemed astonished that F. couldn't tell him, at someviva voceexam, whateverthat may mean, the cause of King John's death. Then G. S. explained that poor John died of too much peaches and fresh ale, "which would give a man considerable belly-ache," the Regius Professor of History solemnly announced to Freeman.
Percy said his lungs rather troubled him in England, and he has spent over a year in Florence and Rome and can talk pictures like a Grant Allen guide-book. And he's sat through many an opera at La Scala, but considered the Canadian coyote a much better vocalist than most of the minor Italian tenors. And he knows Capri and Taormina and says he'd like to grow old and die in Sicily. He got pneumonia at Messina, and nearly died young there and after five months in Switzerland a specialist told him to try Canada.
I've noticed that one of the delusions of Americans is that an Englishman is silent. Now, my personal conviction is that Englishmen are the greatest talkers in the world, and I have Percy to back me up in it. In fact, we sat about talking so long that Percy asked if he couldn't stay all night,as he was a poor rider and wasn't sure of the trails as yet. So we made a shake-down for him in the living-room. And when Dinky-Dunk came to bed he confided to me that Percy was calmly reading and smoking himself to sleep, out of my sadly scorned copy ofThe Ring and the Book, with the lamp on the floor, on one side of him, and a saucer on the other, for an ash-tray. But he was up and out this morning, before either of us was stirring, coming back to Casa Grande, however, when he saw the smoke at the chimney-top. His thin cheeks were quite pink and he apologetically explained that he'd been trying for an hour and a half to catch his cayuse. Olie had come to his rescue. But our thin-shouldered Oxford exile said that he had never seen such a glorious sunrise, and that the ozone had made him a bit tipsy. Speaking of thin-shouldered specimens, Matilda Anne, I was once a thirty-six;now I am a perfect forty-two.
Friday the Fifth
The weather has been bad all this week, but I've had a great deal of sewing to do, and for two days Dinky-Dunk stayed in and helped me fix up the shack. I made more book-shelves out of more old biscuit-boxes and my lord made a gun-rack for our fire-arms. Percival Benson rode over once, through the storm, and it took us half an hour to thaw him out. But he brought some books, and says he has four cases, altogether, and that we're welcome to all we wish. He stayed until noon the next day, this time sleeping in the annex, which Dinky-Dunk and I have papered, so that it looks quite presentable. But as yet there is no way of heating it. Our new neighbor, I imagine, is very lonesome.
Sunday the Seventh
The weather has cleared: there's a chinook arch in the sky, and a sort of St. Martin's-Summer haze on all the prairie. But there's news to-day. Kino, our new neighbor's Jap, has decamped with a good deal of money and about all of Percival Benson's valuables. The poor boy is almost helpless, but he's not a quitter. He said he chopped his first kindling to-day, though he had to stand in a wash-tub, while he did it, to keep from cutting his feet. Dinky-Dunk's birthday is only three weeks off, and I'm making plans for a celebration.
Tuesday the Ninth
The days slip by, and scarcely leave me time to write. Dinky-Dunk is a sort of pendulum, swinging out to work, back to eat, and then out, and then back again. Olie is teaming in lumber and galvanized iron for a new building of some sort. My lord, in the evenings, sits with paper and pencil, figuring out measurements and making plans. I sit on the other side of the table, as a rule, sewing. Sometimes I go around to his side of the table, and make him put his plans away for a few minutes. We are very happy. But where the days fly to I scarcely know. We are always looking toward the future, talking about the future, "conceiting" for the future, as the Irish say. Next summer is to be our banner year. Dinky-Dunk is going to risk everything on wheat. He's like a general plotting out a future plan of campaign—for when the work comes, he says, it will come in a rush. Help will behard to get, so he'll sell his British Columbia timber rights and buy a forty-horse-power gasoline tractor. He will at least if gasoline gets cheaper, for with "gas" still at twenty-six cents a gallon horse-power is cheapest. But during the breaking season in April and May, one of these engines can haul eight gang-plows behind it. In twenty-four hours it will be able to turn over thirty-five acres of prairie soil—and the ordinary man and team counts two acres of plowing a decent day's work.
To-night I asked Dinky-Dunk why he risked everything on wheat and warned him that we might have to revise the old Kansas trekker's slogan to—
"In wheat we trusted,In wheat we busted!
"In wheat we trusted,In wheat we busted!
Dinky-Dunk explained that to keep on raising only wheat would be bad for the land, and even now meant taking a chance, but situated as he was it brought in the quickest money. And he wanted money in a hurry, for he had a nest to feather for a lady wild-bird that he'd captured—which meantme. Later on he intends to go in for flax—for fiber and not for seed—and as our land should produce two tons of the finest flax-straw to the acre and as the Belgian and Irish product is now worth over four hundred dollars a ton, he told me to sit down and figure out what four hundred acres would produce, with even a two-third crop.
The Canadian farmer of the West, he went on to explain, mostly grew flax for the seed alone, burning up over a million tons of straw every year, just to get it out of the way, the same as he does with his wheat-straw. But all that will soon be changed. Only last week Dinky-Dunk wrote to the Department of Agriculture for information aboutcourtaifiber—that's the kind used for point-lace and is worth a dollar a pound—for my lord feels convinced his soil and climatic conditions are especially suited for certain of the finer varieties. He even admitted that flax would be better on his land at the present time, as it would release certain of the natural fertilizers which sometimes leave the virgin soil too rich for wheat. But what mostimpressed me about Dinky-Dunk's talk was his absolute and unshaken faith in this West of ours, once it wakes up to its opportunities. It's a stored-up granary of wealth, he declares, and all we've done so far is to nibble along the leaks in the floor-cracks!
Saturday the Twenty-first
To-day is Dinky-Dunk's birthday. He's always thought, of course, that I'm a pauper, and never dreamed of my poor little residuary nest-egg. I'd ordered a box of Okanagan Valley apples, and a gramophone and a dozen opera records, and a brier-wood pipe and two pounds of English "Honey-Dew," and a smoking-jacket, and some new ties and socks and shirts, and a brand new Stetson, for Dinky-Dunk's old hat is almost a rag-bag. And I ordered half a dozen of the newer novels and a set of Herbert Spencer which I heard him say he wanted, and a sepia print of theMona Lisa(which my lord says I look like when I'm planning trouble) and a felt mattress and a set of bed-springs (so good-by, old sway-backed friend whose humps have bruised me in body and spirit this many a night!) and a dozen big oranges and three dozen little candles for the birthday cake. And then Iwas cleaned out—every blessed cent gone! But Percy (we have, you see, been unable to escape that name) ordered a box of cigars and a pair of quilted house-slippers, so it was a pretty formidable array.
I, accordingly, had Olie secretly team this array all the way from Buckhorn to Percy's house, where it was duly ambushed and entrenched, to await the fatal day. As luck would have it, or seemed to have it, Dinky-Dunk had to hit the trail for overnight, to see about the registration of his transfers for his new half-section, at the town of H——. So as soon as Dinky-Dunk was out of sight I hurried through my work and had Tumble-Weed and Bronk headed for the old Titchborne Ranch.
There I arrived about mid-afternoon, and what a time we had, getting those things unpacked, and looking them over, and planning and talking! But the whole thing was spoilt.
We forgot to tie the horses. So while we were having tea Bronk and Tumble-Weed hit the trail, on their own hook. They made for home, harness and all, but of course I never knew this at the time.We looked and looked, came back for supper, and then started out again. We searched until it got dark. My feet were like lead, and I couldn't have walked another mile. I was so stiff and tired I simply had to give up. Percy worried, of course, for we had no way of sending word to Dinky-Dunk. Then we sat down and talked over possibilities, like a couple of castaways on a Robinson Crusoe island. Percy offered to bunk in the stable, and let me have the shack. But I wouldn't hear of that. In the first place, I felt pretty sure Percy was what they call a "lunger" out here, and I didn't relish the idea of sleeping in a tuberculous bed. I asked for a blanket and told him that I was going to sleep out under the wagon, as I'd often done with Dinky-Dunk. Percy finally consented, but this worried him too. He even brought out his "big-game" gun, so I'd have protection, and felt the grass to see if it was damp, and declared he couldn't sleep on a mattress when he knew I was out on the hard ground. I told him that I loved it, and to go tobed, for I wanted to get out of some of my armor-plate. He went, reluctantly.
It was a beautiful night, and not so cold, with scarcely a breath of wind stirring. I lay looking out through the wheel-spokes at the Milky Way, and was just dropping off when Percy came out still again. He was in a quilted dressing-gown and had a blanket over his shoulders. It made him look for all the world like Father Time. He wanted to know if I was all right, and had brought me out a pillow—which I didn't use. Then he sat down on the prairie-floor, near the wagon, and smoked and talked. He pointed out some of the constellations to me, and said the only time he'd ever seen the stars bigger was one still night on the Indian Ocean, when he was on his way back from Singapore. He would never forget that night, he said, the stars were so wonderful, so big, so close, so soft and luminous. But the northern stars were different. They were without the orange tone that belongs to the South. They seemed remoter and more awe-inspiring,and there was always a green tone to their whiteness.
Then we got talking about "furrin parts" and Percy asked me if I'd ever seen Naples at night from San Martino, and I asked him if he'd ever seen Broadway at night from the top of the Times Building. Then he asked me if I'd ever watched Paris from Montmartre, or seen the Temple of Neptune at Pæstum bathed in Lucanian moonlight—which I very promptly told him I had, for it was on the ride home from Pæstum that a certain person had proposed to me. We talked about temples and Greek Gods and the age of the world and Indian legends until I got downright sleepy. Then Percy threw away his last cigarette and got up. He said "Good night;" I said "Good night;" and he went into the shack. He said he'd leave the door open, in case I called. There were just the two of us, between earth and sky, that night, and not another soul within a radius of seven miles of any side of us. He was very glad to have some one to talk to. He's probably a year or two older thanI am, but I am quite motherly with him. And he is shockingly incompetent, as a homesteader, from the look of his shack. But he's a gentleman, almost too "Gentle," I sometimes feel, a Laodicean, mentally over-refined until it leaves him unable to cope with real life. He's one of those men made for being a "spectator," and not an actor, in life. And there's something so absurd about his being where he is that I feel sorry for him.
I slept like a log. Once I fell asleep, I forgot about the hard ground, and the smell of the horse-blankets, and the fact that I'd lost my poor Dinky-Dunk's team. When I woke up it was the first gray of dawn. Two men were standing side by side, looking at me under the wagon. One was Percy, and the other was Dinky-Dunk himself.
He'd got home by three o'clock in the morning, by hurrying, for he was nervous about me being alone. But he found the house empty, the team standing beside the corral, and me missing. Naturally, it wasn't a very happy situation. Poor Dinky-Dunk hit the trail at once, and had beenriding all night looking for his lost wife. Then he made for Percy's, woke him up, and discovered her placidly snoring under a wagon-box. He didn't even smile at this. He was very tired and very silent. I thought, for a moment, that I saw distrust on Dinky-Dunk's face, for the first time. But he has said nothing. I hated to see him go out to work, when we got home, but he refused to take a nap at noon, as I wanted him to. So to-night, when he came in for his supper, I had the birthday cake duly decked and the presents all out.
But his enthusiasm was forced, and all during the meal he showed a tendency to be absent-minded. I had no explanations to make, so I made none. But I noticed that he put on his old slippers. I thought he had done it deliberately.
"You don't seem to mellow with age," I announced, with my eyebrows up. He flushed at that, quite plainly. Then he reached over and took hold of my hand. But he did it only with an effort, and after some tremendous inward struggle which was not altogether flattering to me.
"Please take your hand away so I can reach the dish-towel," I told him. And the hand went away like a shot. After I'd finished my work I got out my George Meredith and readModern Love. Dinky-Dunk did not come to bed until late. I was awake when he came, but I didn't let him know it.
Sunday the Twenty-ninth
I haven't felt much like writing this last week. I scarcely know why. I think it's because Dinky-Dunk is on his dignity. He's getting thin, by the way. His cheek-bones show and his Adam's apple sticks out. He's worried about his land payments, and I tell him he'd be happier with a half-section. But Dinky-Dunk wants wealth. And I can't help him much. I'm afraid I'm an encumbrance. And the stars make me lonely, and the prairie wind sometimes gives me the willies! And winter is coming.
I'm afraid I'm out of my setting, as badly out of it as Percival Benson is. It wouldn't be so bad, I suppose, if I'd never seen such lovely corners of the world, before coming out here to be a dot on the wilderness. If I'd never had that heavenly summer at Fiesole, and those months with you at Corfu, and that winter in Rome with poor dear dead Katrinka! Sometimes I think of the nights we used tolook out over Paris, from the roof above 'Tite Daneau's studio. And sometimes I think of the Pincio, with the band playing, and the carriages flashing, and the officers in uniform, and the milky white statues among the trees, and the golden mists of the late afternoon over the Immortal City. And I tell myself that it was all a dream. And then I feel thatIam all a dream, and the prairie is a dream, and Paddy and Olie and Dinky-Dunk and all this new life is nothing more than a dream. Oh, Matilda Anne, I've been homesick this week, so unhappy and homesick for something—for something, and I don't even know what it is!
Monday the Seventh
Glory be! Winter's here with a double-edged saber wind out of the north and snow on the ground. It gives a zip to things. It makes our snug little shack seem as cozy as a ship's cabin. And I've got a jumper-sleigh, and with my coon-skin coat and gauntlets and wedge-cap I can be as warm as toast in any wind. And there's so much to do. And I'm not going to be a piker. This is the land where folks make good or go loco. You've only got yourself to depend on, and yourself to blame, if things go wrong. And I'm going to make them go right. There's no use wailing out here in the West. A line or two of Laurence Hope's has been running all day through my head:
"These are my people, and this my land;I hear the pulse of her secret soul.This is the life that I understand,Savage and simple, and sane and whole."
"These are my people, and this my land;I hear the pulse of her secret soul.This is the life that I understand,Savage and simple, and sane and whole."
Friday the Eleventh
Dinky-dunk came home with an Indian girl to-day, a young half-breed about sixteen years old. She's to be both companion and parlor-maid, for Dinky-Dunk has to hurry off to British Columbia, to try to sell his timber-rights there to meet his land payments. He's off to-morrow. It makes me feel wretched, but I'm consuming my own smoke, for I don't want him to think me an encumbrance. My Indian girl speaks a little English. She also eats sugar by the handful, whenever she can steal it. I asked her what her name was and she told me "Queenie MacKenzie." That name almost took my breath away. How that untutored Northwest aborigine ever took unto herself this Broadway chorus-girl name, Heaven only knows! But I have my suspicions of Queenie. She has certain exploratory movements which convince me she is verminous. She sleeps in the annex, I'm happy to say.
At dinner to-night when I was teaching Dinky-Dunk how to make a rabbit out of his table-napkin and a sea-sick passenger out of the last of his oranges, he explained that he might not get back in time for Christmas, and asked if I'd mind. I knew his trip was important, so I kept a stiff upper lip and said of course I wouldn't mind. But the thought of a Christmas alone chilled my heart. I tried to be jolly, and gave my repertory on the mouth-organ, which promptly stopped all activities on the part of the round-eyed Queenie MacKenzie. But all that foolery was as forced as the frivolity of the French Revolution Conciergerie where the merry diners couldn't quite forget they were going to lose their heads in the morning!
Sunday the Thirteenth
Not only is Duncan gone, but Queenie has also quite unceremoniously taken her departure. It arose from the fact that I requested her to take a bath. The only disappointed member of the family is poor old Olie, who was actually making sheep's eyes at that verminous little baggage. Imagination falters at what he might have done with a dollar's worth of brown sugar. When Queenie went, I find, my mouth-organ went with her. I'd like to ling chih that Indian girl!
Wednesday the Sixteenth
It was a sparkling clear day to-day, with no wind, so I rode over to the old Titchborne Ranch with my little jumper-sleigh. There I found Percival Benson in a most pitiable condition. He had been laid up with the grip. His place was untidy, his dishes were unwashed, and his fuel was running short. His appearance, in fact, rather frightened me. So I bundled him up and got him in the jumper and brought him straight home with me. He had a chill on the way, so as soon as we got to Casa Grande I sent him to bed, gave him hot whisky, and put my hot water bottle at his feet. He tried to accept the whole thing as a joke, and vowed I was jolly well cooking him. But to-night he has a high fever and I'm afraid he's in for a serious siege of illness. I intend to send Olie over to get some of his things and have his live stock brought over with ours.
Sunday the Twentieth
Percy has had three very bad nights, but seems a little better to-day. His lung is congested, and it may be pneumonia, but I think my mustard-plaster saved the day. He tries so hard to be cheerful, and is so grateful for every little thing. But I wish Dinky-Dunk was here to tell me what to do.
I could never have survived this last week without Olie. He is as watchful and ready as a farm-collie. But I want my Dinky-Dunk! I may have spoiled my Dinky-Dunk a little, but it's only once every century or two that God makes a man like him. I want to be a good wife. I want to do my share, and keep a shoulder to the wheel, if the going's got to be heavy for the next year or two. I won't be the Dixon type. I won't—I won't! My Duncan will need me during this next year, and it will be a joy to help him. For I love that man, Matilda Anne,—I love him so much that it hurts!
Sunday the Twenty-seventh
Christmas has come and gone. It was very lonely at Casa Grande. I prefer not writing about it. Percy is improving, but is still rather weak. I think he had a narrow squeak.
Wednesday the Thirtieth
My patient is up and about, looking like a different man. He shows the effects of my forced feeding, though he declares I'm trying to make him into a Strasburg goose, for the sake of thepâté de foies graswhen I cut him up. But he's decided to go to Santa Barbara for the winter: and I think he's wise. So this afternoon I togged out in my furs, took the jumper, and went kiting over to the Titchborne Ranch. Oh, what a shack! What disorder, what untidiness, what spirit-numbing desolation! I don't blame poor Percival Benson for clearing out for California. I got what things he needed, however, and went kiting home again.
Thursday the Thirty-first
I hardly know how to begin. But it must be written or I'll suddenly go mad and start to bite the shack walls. Last night, after Percy had helped me turn the bread-mixer (for, whatever happens, we've at least got to eat) I helped him pack. Among other things, he found a copy of Housman'sShropshire Ladand after running through it announced that he'd like to read me two or three little things out of it. So I squatted down in front of the fire, idly poking at the red coals, and he sat beside the stove with his book, in slippers and dressing gown. And there he was solemnly reading out loud when the door opened and in walked Dinky-Dunk.
I say he walked in, but that isn't quite right. He stood in the open door, staring at us, with an expression that would have done credit to the Tragic Muse. I imagine Enoch Arden wore much the same look when he piped the home circle after that prolongedabsence of his. Then Dinky-Dunk did a most unpardonable thing. Instead of saying "Howdy!" like a scholar and a gentleman, he backed out of the shack and slammed the door. When I'd caught my breath I went out through that door after him. It was a bitterly cold night, but I did not stop to put anything on. I was too amazed, too indignant, too swept off my feet by the absurdity of it all. I could see Dinky-Dunk in the clear starlight, taking the blankets off his team. He'd hurried to the shack, without even unharnessing the horses. I could hear the wheel-tires whine on the crisp snow, for the poor beasts were tired and restless. I went straight to the buckboard into which Dinky-Dunk was climbing. He looked like a cinnamon-bear in his big shaggy coat. And I couldn't see his face. But I remembered how it had looked in the doorway. It was the color of a tan shoe. It was too weather-beaten and burnt with the wind and sun-glare ever to turn white, or, I suppose, it would have been the color of paper.
"Haven't you," I demanded, "haven't you anyexplanation for acting like this?" He sat in the buckboard seat, with the reins in his hands.
"I guess I've got the first right to that question," he finally said in a stifled voice.
"Then why don't you ask it?" was my answer to him. Again he waited a moment before speaking, as though he felt the need of weighing his words.
"I don't need to—now!" he said, as he tightened the reins.
"Wait," I called out to him. "There are certain things I want you to know!"
I was not going to make explanations. I would not dignify his brute-man stupidity by such things. I scarcely know what I intended to do. As I looked up at him there in his rough fur coat, for a moment, he seemed millions and millions of miles away from me. I stared at him, trying to comprehend his utter lack of comprehension. I seemed to view him across the same gulf which separates a meditative zoo visitor from some abysmally hirsute animal that eons and eons ago must have been its cave-fellow andhearth-mate. But now we seemed to have nothing in common, not even a language with which to link up those lost ages. Yet from all that mixture of feelings only one survived: I didn't want my husband to go.
It was the team, as far as I can remember, that really decided the thing. They had been restive, backing and jerking and pawing and nickering for their feed-box. And suddenly they jumped forward. But this time they kept going. Whether Dinky-Dunk tried to hold them back or not I can't say. But I came back to the shack, shivering. Percy, thank Heaven, was in his room.
"I think I'll turn in!" he called out, quite casually, through the partition.
I said "All right," and sat down in front of the fire, trying to straighten things out. My Dinky-Dunk was gone! He had glared at me, with hate in his eyes, as he sat in that buckboard. It's all over. He has no faith in me, his own wife!
I went to bed and tried to sleep. But sleep was out of the question. The whole thing seemed soabsurd, so unreasonable, so unjust. I could feel waves of anger sweep through my body at the mere thought of it. Then a wave of something else, of something between anxiety and terror, would take the place of anger. My husband was gone, and he'd never come back. I'd put all my eggs in one basket, and the basket had gone over, and made a saffron-tinted omelet of all my life.
And that's the way I watched the New Year in, I couldn't even afford the luxury of a little bawl, for I was afraid Percy would hear me. It must have been almost morning when I fell asleep.
When I woke up Percival Benson was gone, bag and baggage. At first I resented the thought of his going off that way, without a word, but on thinking it over I decided he'd done the right thing. There's nothing like the hard cold light of a winter morning to bring you back to hard cold facts. Olie had driven Percy in to the station. So I was alone in the shack all day. I did a heap of thinking during those long hours of solitude. And out of all that straw of self-examination I threshed just onelittle grain of truth.I could never live on the prairie alone.And whatever I did, or wherever I went, I could never be happy without my Dinky-Dunk....
I had just finished supper to-night, as blue as indigo and as spiritless as a wet hen, when I heard the sound of voices. It took me only ten seconds to make sure whose they were. Dinky-Dunk had come back with Olie! I made a high dive for a book from the nearest shelf, swung the armchair about with a jerk, and sank luxuriously into it, with my feet up on the warm damper and my eyes leisurely and contentedly perusing George Moore'sConfessions of a Young Man(although Ihatethe libidinous stuff like poison!) Then Dinky-Dunk came in. I could see him stare at me a little awkwardly and contritely (what woman can't read a book and study a man at the same time?) and I, could see that he was waiting for an opening. But I gave him none. Naturally, Olie had explained everything to him. But I had been humiliated, my pride had been walked over, from end to end. Myspirit had been stamped on—and I had decided on my plan of action. I simply ignored Duncan.
I read for a while, then I took a lamp, went to my room, and deliberately locked the door. My one regret was that I couldn't see Dinky-Dunk's face when that key turned. And now I must stop writing, and go to bed, for I am dog-tired. I know I'll sleep better to-night. It's nice to remember there's a man near, if he happens to be the man you care a trifle about, even though youhavecalmly turned the door-key on him.
Sunday the Third
Dinky-Dunk has at least the sensibilities to respect my privacy of life. He knows where the deadline is, and doesn't disregard it. But it's terribly hard to be tragic in a two-by-four shack. You miss the dignifying touches. And you haven't much leeway for the bulky swings of grandeur.
For one whole day I didn't speak to Dinky-Dunk, didn't even so much as recognize his existence. I ate by myself, and did my work—when the monster was around—with all the preoccupation of a sleep-walker. But something happened, and I forgot myself. Before I knew it I was asking him a question. He answered it, quite soberly, quite casually. If he had grinned, or shown one jot of triumph, I would have walked out of the shack and never spoken to him again. I think he knew he was on terribly perilous ground. He picked his way with care. He asked me a question back, quiteoffhandedly, and for the time being let the matter rest there. But the breach was in my walls, Matilda Anne, and I was quite defenseless. We were both very impersonal and very polite, when he came in at supper time, though I think I turned a visible pink when I sat down at the table, for our eyes met there, just a moment and no more. I knew he was watching me, covertly, all the time. And I knew I was making him pretty miserable. But I wasn't the least bit ashamed of it.
After supper he indifferently announced that he had nothing to do and might as well help me wash up. I went to hand him a dish-towel. Instead of taking the towel he took my hand, with the very profane ejaculation, as he did so, of "Oh, hell, Gee-Gee, what's the use?"
Then before I knew it, he had me in his arms (our butter-dish was broken in the collision) and I was weak enough to feel sorry for him and his poor tragic pleading eyes. Then I gave up. If I was silly enough to have a little cry on his shoulder, Ihad the satisfaction of feeling him give a gulp or two himself.
"You're the most wonderful woman in the world!" he solemnly told me, and then in a much less solemn way he began kissing me again. But the barriers were down. And how we talked that night! And how different everything seemed! And how nice it was to feel his arm over my shoulder and his quiet breathing on the nape of my neck as I fell asleep. It seemed as though Love were fanning me with its softest wings. I'm happy again. But I've been wondering if it's environment that makes character, or character that makes environment. Sometimes I think it's one way, and sometimes I feel it's the other. But I can't be sure of my answer—yet! It's hard for a spoiled woman to remember that her life has to be merged into somebody else's life. I've been wondering if marriage isn't like a two-panel screen, which won't stand up if both its panels are too much in line. Heaven knows, I want harmony! But a woman likes to feel thatinstead of being out of step with her whole regiment of life it's the regiment that's out of step with her. To-night I unlaced Dinky-Dunk's shoes, and put on his slippers, and sat on the floor between his knees with my head against the steadytick-tockof his watch-pocket. "Dinky-Dunk," I solemnly announced, "that gink called Pope was a poor guesser. The proper study of man should have beenwoman!"