“Dear Nephew Tom,“I am sorry that I could not wait to see you on the day a little while ago when I called at your house. I should doubtless have made time to come if your wife had held out to me any reasonable hope that you would be able to lend me money. I will admit that she offered for me to share your home if my funds would not keep me in food and shelter. But happily I am not quite penniless yet, though there is no saying how soon I may be, unless my luck soon turns. My greatest trouble has been that I have been openly robbed of some extremely valuable property that, in view of some recent losses, I had determined to raise money upon. For months I was unable to track the thief, but, to my amazement, I came face to face with him a few days ago, and although he promptly disappeared, I have every hope of running him down before very long. If I succeed in recovering my property, I may come to see you some time during the winter or the spring, for I rather like your wife, although she must be a very heavy burden to you in your struggle to get on.—Your affec. uncle,J. Ellis.”
“Dear Nephew Tom,
“I am sorry that I could not wait to see you on the day a little while ago when I called at your house. I should doubtless have made time to come if your wife had held out to me any reasonable hope that you would be able to lend me money. I will admit that she offered for me to share your home if my funds would not keep me in food and shelter. But happily I am not quite penniless yet, though there is no saying how soon I may be, unless my luck soon turns. My greatest trouble has been that I have been openly robbed of some extremely valuable property that, in view of some recent losses, I had determined to raise money upon. For months I was unable to track the thief, but, to my amazement, I came face to face with him a few days ago, and although he promptly disappeared, I have every hope of running him down before very long. If I succeed in recovering my property, I may come to see you some time during the winter or the spring, for I rather like your wife, although she must be a very heavy burden to you in your struggle to get on.
—Your affec. uncle,
J. Ellis.”
“What a horrid letter!” cried Bertha, a wrathful light coming into her eyes, when she thought how it must have cut Grace.
“Do you think so?” said the invalid, and again there was a twinkle in her eyes. “Now, I have been lying here pluming myself on the conquest that I have made; for, just reflect, the poor old fellow says that he rather likes me, and think what an admission that is, seeing that I am plainly not a good investment from a money point of view.”
“Is he poor?” asked Bertha, whose lip curled at the thought of the pity and the care she had lavished on the frail old man who had seemed so lonely and so friendless. But if he were lonely he had only himself to thank for it, and a man who would have friends must himself show a friendly spirit.
“Tom thinks not, although of course he cannot be sure. He says that perhaps this great loss which seems to be preying on the old man’s mind may be nothing after all, while, on the other hand, he may have flung away almost everything that he has got in foolish speculation,” replied Grace.
“What is he, or what was he? I mean, what was his trade when he was in business?” asked Bertha.
“Nothing very dignified, I am sorry to say,” answered Grace, smiling broadly. “He bought old clothes, old furniture, or anything else that seemed to offer a fair chance of being turned into money again very quickly. One of his grievances against Tom was that my poor dear refused to wear secondhand garments just as soon as he could earn the money to buy something brand new. Have you not noticed how fond Tom is of things that are quite new?”
“That is not wonderful under the circumstances,” said Bertha, with a laugh, and then she put the letter back into the fingers of Grace and hurried out to the kitchen, where Eunice was doing valiant battle with a great rush of work.
Bowls of peas and beans, great dishes of carrots, turnips, marrows stood cooling on a side table, while a second lot were steaming away on the stove, and outside on the veranda the table was already being laid for the first lot of hungry men to come in and feed.
“I feel so much better, that work is quite a pleasure now,” said Bertha, as she darted to and fro, filling jugs with lemonade and mint tea, cutting bread into chunks and piling into little baskets which were handy to pass about, and seeing that plates and knives and forks were all in readiness.
“That is good hearing, especially seeing that the work has got to be done somehow,” said Eunice, who was cutting pies into neat sections, so that the busy workers should not be delayed by any work of carving the food. Then she said quietly, “Have you noticed the change in Mrs. Ellis?”
“What change?” Bertha dropped a whole handful of knives in her alarm and agitation.
“Nothing to be frightened at, but rather something to rejoice in. She is going to get better, Bertha, I am sure of it; and if she does, it will be largely your doing. And oh, my dear, I think that you are to be envied!” said Eunice, in a moved tone.
“What do you mean? I have done nothing, not for Grace, I mean,” said Bertha, in a bewildered manner. She was thinking of massage and all the elaborate rubbings and poundings which Dr. Benson had said would be done to Grace if she were in hospital, but which the specialist had said were of no use at the present time.
“My dear, you have done everything for her, for you have given her hope. She sees you taking hold of things and running the house as well as she could do it herself, so she gets rest of mind, and nature has a chance, don’t you see,” said Eunice.
“But what makes you think that she is getting better?” asked Bertha, who had seen no improvement.
“Her hands are not quite so helpless as they were, and she can move her head a little. Oh, there is a decided improvement, and though it may take a couple of years for the paralysis to wear off, just think how the knowledge that she is getting better will help her.”
Bertha drew a long breath. “It seems too good to be true. Why, to see Grace getting better would be like—like——”
“Like seeing the prison door come open at the end of a long term of imprisonment, I think you mean,” said Eunice, with that rare sympathy which seemed to divine the thoughts without any necessity for words.
“I am afraid that it has been dreadfully wicked to feel like that,” said Bertha ruefully.
“I think it is very human. After all, we are human at the bottom, you know, and what is in us will show out under stress of circumstances,” Eunice answered, with a little laugh, and then the first batch of men came trooping in for a meal, and for the next two hours there seemed to be work enough for four people.
The men were desperately hungry, and they fed with the same zest of endeavour with which they did their work, while Eunice and Bertha flitted to and fro waiting upon them, filling jugs, dishing vegetables, and bringing fresh provisions from the pantry, until they could eat no more. Then in came another batch, the same process was repeated, and so the long day went on.
The next day brought almost as great a rush, but with no Eunice to help with the heavy end of the burden. Bertha, however, had got a tiny germ of hope in her heart now, and it proved a plant of vigorous growth too. If there was any likelihood of Grace recovering, why, immediately there was a time limit to her bondage, and she could cheer her heart with looking forward.
The third day brought Eunice over again, to the great relief of all concerned; for there was another thresher at work, which meant another set of hungry men to feed. Then Mrs. Smith, with real neighbourly kindness, drove over from Blow End and carried off the five children, a huge relief to Bertha, as with two threshing machines at work it was extraordinarily difficult to keep the children out of danger.
While Mrs. Smith was loading up the children into her little one-horse wagon, Bertha put the question which had been on her mind ever since the day when the standing corn fired and they had to work so hard to put it out.
“Who was that man you brought over to help fight the fire, Mrs. Smith?”
“Oh, that traveller from Brown & Smedley’s place? I don’t know his name, but I understood him to say that he was leaving them next day. Nice fellow, wasn’t he? I liked the way he took hold and did things; there was no nonsense about him,” replied Mrs. Smith; then, having wedged the last child in so that it could not possibly fall out, she clambered up to the driving seat and started with her load, leaving Bertha standing looking after the wagon.
“Whatever can I do?” she muttered. “How I wish that I had never seen those horrible stones!”
CHAPTER XVTemptation
Therush of harvest work was over. The threshing machines had gone, and all the men were busy on some other farmer’s holding. Even Tom was away most days helping his neighbours, as they had helped him. When all the corn in that neighbourhood was threshed out, then would begin the task of carrying it to Rownton for storage in the grain elevator there, until the cars could distribute it to the markets of the world.
At first Bertha was so thankful for the cessation from driving toil and release from the constant preparation of meals, that she just sat still and enjoyed the quiet. Then, alas! it began to pall, and she would have given a great deal just for the privilege of driving off in the mornings to help some sorely pressed housewife, as Eunice had come to help her. But this was not possible, because someone must be at home to take care of poor helpless Grace, and all that Bertha could do in the way of returning or passing on the kindness which had been shown to her was to send for the Smith babies from Blow End, and keep them for the whole four days that the engines were at the Smiths’ place, which was a very real help indeed; for little children not old enough to know where danger lies are apt to be a considerable care at threshing times, when no one has a moment to spare for keeping them out of danger.
Even the babies had gone home now, and there were only their own five small people to look after, and with no machinery about to excite their curiosity, they required so little taking care of, that Bertha had no worries on their account. She sat out on the veranda every day when her housework was done, professedly sewing, but half the time with her hands at rest, whilst her hungry gaze roamed the wide stretches of dun-coloured stubble in search of something, anything, which would break the monotony of those level sweeps of land, reaching on every side to the horizon, from which the wheat had been harvested.
“Oh, what would it be to see a grove of trees, a hill, and a waterfall!” she murmured, with such a wave of homesickness for the dear old life at Mestlebury, that her eyes grew blurred with tears, and she had to sit winking her eyes very hard to keep them from falling. Grace could see through the open door to the place where Bertha was sitting, and it would have been cruel exceedingly to let the poor thing even guess the riot of misery which was going on in the heart of Bertha at that moment. Suddenly she stood up and shaded her eyes with her hands, flicking away the tears with her fingers as she did so.
“What can you see?” enquired Grace from her couch.
“There is a man riding along the trail from Pentland Broads. I wonder who he can be?” Bertha answered.
“It would not be likely to be Tom, because he has gone in the other direction,” replied Grace. “It may be someone coming this way on business, or perhaps it is a visitor. Don’t worry about it, Bertha; the creature shall not disturb your peace. Just plant him, or her—if it is a woman—on a chair within reach of my tongue, and I will exert my conversational powers to the utmost until I tire the visitor into going away or until it is supper-time, just whichever comes first.”
“It is not a woman, that is certain, unless indeed it is a woman in rational dress and riding astride,” said Bertha, laughing. “So you will have to hold forth to a man until Tom comes home to relieve you. I never can talk to men—I do not know what to say; and as they never by any chance know what to say either, the result is decidedly embarrassing.”
“You may get over that some day, if you ever chance upon a congenial spirit, that is,” replied Grace, and then she dropped into silence, while Bertha got up and moved about in a restless fashion as the horseman came nearer and nearer.
She felt that she could not sit still and watch him coming nearer and nearer, for some strange instinct was telling her that he was a messenger of fate, but whether of good or bad she could not tell. She stirred up the embers in the stove and made the kettle boil. The arrival might like a cup of tea, and certainly Grace would be glad of one, for the hot weather wore her so much.
“Why, it is Mr. Long!” said Bertha, in surprise, as the horseman rode up the paddock. “I wonder what he can have come for?”
“Have patience and you shall know,” replied Grace, with a smile, and then a minute later the brother of Eunice Long drew rein before the house and greeted them with western heartiness.
“I had to ride through to Sussex Gap with a telegram that was paid right through to Jim Ford’s door, and as there were letters for you, I thought it would just be neighbourly to ride round this way and deliver them,” he said, with so much meaning in his manner as he looked at Bertha as to make her blush an uncomfortable red, for Mr. Long’s intentions were always quite painfully obvious.
But Grace came to the rescue with ready tact, calling out from her sofa, “Oh, Mr. Long, how nice of you to come! Why, it is ages since we have had a visitor, and now that Tom is away so much helping other people, it is downright lonesome. Come right in and sit down; you can talk to me while Bertha makes us a cup of tea. There are heaps of things I want to ask about.”
Mr. Long went in as he was invited, although, truth to tell, he would much rather have stayed outside talking to Bertha; but pity for poor Mrs. Ellis would not allow him even to seem to neglect her. And Grace displayed such an amazing thirst for information, that the poor man had no chance to talk to Bertha at all, which was just what Bertha wanted; for Mr. Long’s attempts at love-making were to the last degree embarrassing, while no amount of civil snubbing had the least effect upon him. He had brought two letters for Bertha, for which she was bound to feel grateful, as otherwise she would have had to wait until the next day or even the day after before getting them. One was from Hilda, and the other, a thick one, from Anne.
As she had not heard by the last two mails she was very eager to open them and read, so it was rather trying to be obliged to stay and make tea for Mr. Long and Grace, when she was aching to shut herself up in her room and tear open the envelopes. But there are limits to most things, and Mr. Long had to bring his visit to a close much sooner than he had intended, because that stupid Jim Ford had chosen to send a reply telegram, which he had to put on the wires without too much loss of time. However, he could come again soon, for now that harvest was almost at an end, it would be possible to think of something besides the eternal wheat theme, which, of course, had been the staple of thought and conversation for the last five months or so.
“Oh, I thought that he would never be done drinking tea!” sighed Bertha, when at last the visitor had mounted his horse and was riding away across the paddock. “Grace, do you want me to read any of your letters to you?” said Bertha, holding them one by one before her, so that she could see the addresses.
“No, thanks, they will all keep until Tom comes back; meanwhile, I will just lie and imagine what is in them, which is very good fun when one has nothing better to do. Run along, dearie, and enjoy yourself.”
Bertha needed no second bidding. Hurrying into her room, she shut her door and sat down by the window. She would be sure to cry—she always did when letters came from the girls—and it did not seem right to let Grace see the tears.
Hilda’s letter was not very long, and it was so packed with glowing accounts of her own doings, of the lovely time she was having, and how her music was improving under German teaching, that there was no room at all for enquiries as to how Bertha was getting on, or how the burden of work and responsibility was being carried.
“Anyone would think that she had not had my letter telling her about poor Grace,” said Bertha, with a little sigh of dissatisfaction, as she turned the sheet over, thinking that she had read it all. Then a short sentence crammed into a corner of one of the margins caught her eye, and she twisted the sheet round so that she could read it.
“Very sorry that Grace has had such a nasty accident. I hope that she is quite well by this time. What a good thing that you are with her to be a little help. I dare say that you cannot do much, but every little counts, especially when there is sickness in a house.”
“Very sorry that Grace has had such a nasty accident. I hope that she is quite well by this time. What a good thing that you are with her to be a little help. I dare say that you cannot do much, but every little counts, especially when there is sickness in a house.”
Bertha laughed aloud, only the merriment had a hollow ring. She wondered what Hilda would think if she could see her wrestling with the work of every day—washing, cooking, mending, nursing, and, not least by any means, mothering the five little ones whose mother could no longer do it herself.
“I think that I will show it to Grace, and yet—no, I don’t think that I will. If I were Grace I should want more fuss than that to be made over my bad accident,” murmured Bertha, shaking her head in a dubious fashion, and then, laying it on one side, she reached for the envelope from Anne. When her sisters’ letters came together she always read the one from Anne last, because it had always more affection in it, and surely no one ever hungered for love more than Bertha.
Anne’s letter was long, and very serious in its tone. After commenting at length on the disaster which had overtaken poor Grace, she went on—
“Now comes the question of what to do about you. My husband and I are both of one mind in the matter, and we want you to come out to us here. This is a sparsely settled district, and you may find it very dull, but it will be better for you than staying with the Ellises now that poor Grace is so helpless. They may even be glad not to have you, as you say the house is so small. I suppose that Tom has had to get a housekeeper. I hope, for all your sakes, that she is a capable body. Of course, dear, I know that you would do anything you could for Grace and Tom, but it is not as if you were able to take hold of work and do it. I know how our little housekeeping at Mestlebury used to bother you, and I am afraid that you must be very uncomfortable indeed in such a muddled life as you must be living now. I am afraid that I was sometimes not very patient with you, but oh, I have regretted it so sorely since, and I fear that I must often have judged you hardly in my ignorance and rude strength. But I will do my best to atone when I get you here, and you shall have the very easiest life that we can make for you. Ask Tom to advance you the money for your journey, which we will at once repay when we know how much it is, or if it is not convenient to him to do this, cable to us and we will get the money sent to you as quickly as possible. Poor little Bertha! It seemed to me at the time that I was doing my very best for you, but if I had known what was going to happen to Grace, of course I should never have dreamed of sending you West. I suppose that what I really ought to have done was to bring you out here with me. But I have always so stoutly maintained that it is not fair to a man that he should have to be hampered with his wife’s relations, and I tried to live up to my theory. Although if I had known my husband then as well as I know him now, I should have understood how little difference it would have made. He is so good and kind, that he would welcome not merely you, but Hilda also. Therefore, little sister, have no doubts about your welcome, but come to us as soon as you can.”
“Now comes the question of what to do about you. My husband and I are both of one mind in the matter, and we want you to come out to us here. This is a sparsely settled district, and you may find it very dull, but it will be better for you than staying with the Ellises now that poor Grace is so helpless. They may even be glad not to have you, as you say the house is so small. I suppose that Tom has had to get a housekeeper. I hope, for all your sakes, that she is a capable body. Of course, dear, I know that you would do anything you could for Grace and Tom, but it is not as if you were able to take hold of work and do it. I know how our little housekeeping at Mestlebury used to bother you, and I am afraid that you must be very uncomfortable indeed in such a muddled life as you must be living now. I am afraid that I was sometimes not very patient with you, but oh, I have regretted it so sorely since, and I fear that I must often have judged you hardly in my ignorance and rude strength. But I will do my best to atone when I get you here, and you shall have the very easiest life that we can make for you. Ask Tom to advance you the money for your journey, which we will at once repay when we know how much it is, or if it is not convenient to him to do this, cable to us and we will get the money sent to you as quickly as possible. Poor little Bertha! It seemed to me at the time that I was doing my very best for you, but if I had known what was going to happen to Grace, of course I should never have dreamed of sending you West. I suppose that what I really ought to have done was to bring you out here with me. But I have always so stoutly maintained that it is not fair to a man that he should have to be hampered with his wife’s relations, and I tried to live up to my theory. Although if I had known my husband then as well as I know him now, I should have understood how little difference it would have made. He is so good and kind, that he would welcome not merely you, but Hilda also. Therefore, little sister, have no doubts about your welcome, but come to us as soon as you can.”
There was more of the same sort, and when she had read it a wave of the most terrible homesickness swept over Bertha. It seemed to her that she simply could not bear the hard life that she was living for another day. She must get out of it somehow, oh, she must, she must! Grace and Tom had no right to expect so much of her; it was not fair. Her sisters never expected her to be capable and efficient, and why should other people put such heavy burdens upon her?
It was true that Tom had generously increased her salary, and would have given her still more, only, knowing the struggle he was having, she would not accept it. But if he could pay her, of course he could pay someone else instead, and then she might slip the burden of this distressful family from her shoulders. Then she would go out to Australia and settle down to the old life of irresponsible ease, with nothing to do but to dream dreams and think noble thoughts. She might even attain to fame as a story-writer, although she was a little dubious about this, as a farm in the back-blocks of Australia did not seem exactly the place for acquiring knowledge.
“And it is knowledge that I need most of all,” murmured Bertha to herself, as she sat with the letter tightly clasped in her hand.
It was her only bit of wisdom to know that before she could write with any sort of power she must have knowledge, far more knowledge than at present she possessed. But her one idea of knowledge was that it must be gained from books, whereas by far the most valuable knowledge is gained at first hand by experience and observation.
“They must find a housekeeper and let me go; oh, they must let me go!” she muttered, standing up and stretching out her arms towards that point of the compass where she imagined Australia to be. “Oh, Anne, Anne, why didn’t you take me with you at the first?”
But she had inadvertently spoken aloud, and it was the sound of her own voice which aroused her to an understanding of her own selfishness. It was then that she realized it was more a desire for her own ease than from such a sick desire to see her sister that she was so anxious to go to Australia.
“Oh, what a horrible, low-down sort of nature mine must be, for it is only my own ease that I am thinking about!” she exclaimed, with an impatient shrug, and, springing to her feet, she bustled about her room for a few moments, just to get rid of those telltale marks of tears on her face, the sight of which would be sure to make poor Grace uncomfortable. Then presently she went out to the other room, to find Grace with an open letter in her hand.
“Why, why, however did you manage that?” demanded Bertha, for none of the children were in the house, and the letter had not been opened when she went to her room.
“I did it myself,” said Grace, with a sob of pure happiness. “Oh, Bertha, darling Bertha, I do believe that I am going to get better, for see, I can hold that finger and thumb quite close together, and I managed to scratch the envelope across that spike in the wall. I reached out to it, do you understand?”
“Hush, hush, you must not excite yourself so much or you may do yourself an injury,” said Bertha soothingly, for she was fairly frightened by the blaze in the eyes of Grace; then she said quietly, “I have noticed that you were getting more power. Eunice Long pointed it out to me when she was here helping at harvest time. But we did not say anything, because we did not know whether the improvement would go on, and it seemed so cruel to raise hopes that were not going to be realized.”
“But they are going to be realized now, oh, I am sure of it! Oh, to think that there is a ray of hope for me after all these weeks and weeks of black despair! Bertha, Bertha, do you know what it will mean to me and to my poor dear Tom?” and she burst into a fit of sobbing, her brave self-control breaking down at this tiny ray of hope, as it had never broken down since her hard fate overtook her.
Bertha dropped on her knees beside the couch, soothing Grace as she would have soothed one of the children. Such stormy emotion must surely be bad for the invalid, and it would shake the feeble spark of life in the helpless body, might indeed even shake it out, or so in her ignorance she feared. But Grace was soon quiet again, only there was a deep glow of happiness in her eyes, and the radiance of hope on the face which had grown so wan from the weeks of hopeless helplessness.
“Often and often I would have prayed to die, if it had not been for Tom,” said Grace, after a while, when she had grown calm enough to speak of this wonderful hope which had come to her. “But he said to me, on that first day when I realized that I was as helpless as a log, that he would rather have me like that than not have me at all, and that I should be ten times more his inspiration than I had been. So for his sake I had to keep hold of life for a little while, at least, until he and the children could do without me. But I don’t think that my courage for the effort would have held out if it had not been for you, dear. If I had seen the children neglected, or Tom bowed down with more worries than he could stagger under, I should have turned coward, and asked the good, kind Father in Heaven to take me out of this evil world, and spare me the sight of misery that I had no power to relieve. If I get better I shall owe it to you, for you have kept the hope alive in my heart.”
Bertha got on to her feet in a scrambling, unsteady fashion and rushed out on to the veranda. She was afraid that Grace would be able to read all the miserable selfish thoughts and desires that were in her heart, and she did not want to be despised at this the very sweetest moment in all her life.
No, she would not go to Australia, she could not. Anne and Hilda must think what they liked about her incapacity and general helplessness. She must be of some use in the world, for she had given Grace the courage to keep alive. It was a joy that more than repaid her for the hard toil, the monotony, and the unloveliness of her life. But the trouble was that the temptation would keep coming back, and for weeks afterwards, while the shortening days crept down to winter, and the sting of bitter cold came into the little house on the prairie, Bertha was fighting her longings for a life of leisured ease.
CHAPTER XVIA Blow of Fate
Itwas summer again, and for more than a year Bertha had borne the burden of the household on her shoulders. They were stronger shoulders from the strain, which had not broken her down, but in some mysterious manner had seemed to build her up and bring out the very best that was in her.
It had been a hard winter. The weather had been so fearfully cold, that it had been almost impossible to keep Grace warm at all. Then the children had all sickened with measles at once, and followed this with a bout of whooping cough. But that was happily all over now, and five stronger or more mischievous children it would surely have been hard to find. Grace had not improved so fast as Bertha had hoped or expected; indeed, to a casual observer it would seem as if she hardly improved at all. She could certainly use her hands a little, but her other limbs were as helpless as ever.
“It will take me ten years before I am able to stand on my feet at this rate, and I expect that you will want to be married before then,” Grace would say to Bertha, with a rueful pucker on her face.
And Bertha would always reply with a merry shake of her head and a laugh that matched, “Oh, don’t worry on that score, all my instincts are towards single blessedness; but if I did happen to want to get married, I am quite sure that Molly will be able to keep house by the time she is twelve years old.”
They always laughed together at this statement, for it would surely have been difficult to find a more irresponsible, feckless bit of goods than Miss Molly aged five. The twins were marvels of usefulness compared with her, and even Noll was more to be trusted in the matter of shutting the gate or looking for eggs than his eldest sister. But it was good for Grace and Bertha to have something to laugh over when the days were extra dreary, and nerves were strained almost to the point of breakdown.
There had been one of those times in the dead of winter when Anne had written straight to Tom, and had said that the life was too hard for Bertha, and she must be sent to Australia forthwith. As the letter had been accompanied by a banker’s draft containing money to cover her passage out, it really seemed as if Bertha would have to go. But the old yearning for a life of ease seemed to die then, and it was Bertha who decided what the others would not venture to decide for her.
“I shall not go,” she had said quietly, as she stood confronting Tom, who looked almost wild with anxiety. “You and Grace are kind enough to consider that I earn my living, and so I am independent. If I went to Anne and her husband, they would probably not let me do this, and so I should be dependent on the charity of my brother-in-law, and that I should not care for at all, now I have once tasted the sweets of independence.”
“Are you sure that you won’t repent?” asked Tom hoarsely, for he knew very well that if Bertha did go, it would be almost impossible to fill her place.
“I went through all that back in the fall, just after harvest was over, when the first letter came,” Bertha answered steadily, though her lips trembled a little as she thought of the many times when the strangled temptation had come to life again to torment her with fresh vigour, for, after all, she was very human, and her present life was harder than most.
“But you did not say anything about it; at least, I never heard of it,” said Tom.
“No, and you would not have heard now if Anne had not written to you,” replied Bertha. “You see, the trouble is that neither Anne nor Hilda think that I am good for much in the matter of work. I used to be most fearfully lazy in the old days, and they both had to suffer a great deal in consequence, so it is not wonderful that they do not think that I am fit to run this house alone, and I expect that both of them pity you and Grace from the bottom of their hearts.”
“They need not, at least not on the score of your housekeeping,” interposed Tom hastily, and then he said in a worried tone, “But what am I to say to this letter? Or will you take it and answer it yourself?”
“No, I think that you will have to do it, because you have to send that money back, you see,” answered Bertha, who felt that she would not be easy until that banker’s draft was on its way back to Australia. “You can tell Anne, if you like, that I am a paid employee, and it would not be fair to ask me to resign unless I misbehave myself; and as I have not given you notice, and do not intend to, yours is rather a delicate position.”
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Tom, in sheer relief and joy. “But I am afraid that she will see through that; anyhow, she will be downright mad with me.”
“Never mind, you are far enough away to be secure from bodily apprehension, and the other thing will not matter,” said Bertha, and then she went on with a laugh that was meant as a cloak for a good deal of feeling which was under the surface and must be kept there. “Are we not a widely separated family, just three sisters, and we each live in a different continent?”
“Some people get on better the wider apart they are; anyhow, I am glad that Anne does not live within visiting distance of us at this present time,” said Tom, and again he heaved a great sigh of relief to think that Bertha would not leave them in their present difficult circumstances.
But Bertha was secretly uneasy until that banker’s draft had been sent back to Anne. She had a miserable distrust of herself, and it seemed to her that at any moment her courage might give way, and she would take the chance of escape which lay ready to her hand. There had been no weak looking back, however, for she was stronger in purpose than she believed herself to be, and she was gaining in power every day; so that what had tried her so sorely at the first was now only a very bearable sort of activity.
It was even possible to enjoy life a little this summer, and, as she had learned to drive, she took turns with Tom in driving to meeting on Sundays. One Sunday she went with all the children packed into the wagon beside her, and the other Sunday she took care of Grace while he went. There were weekdays also when it was possible to get away from work this year, even though the outing might only be to the house of a neighbour, where there was about the same amount of work to be done as she had left behind her; yet it was a change of a sort, and she had come to that happy frame of mind when she could be satisfied with a very little. Of course the talk was all of wheat, just as it had been last year, only perhaps it was a little more so, for last year had been a very successful time, and the farmers had done extremely well in that district.
At last came the Sunday immediately before the starting of cutting. A lovely, peaceful day it was, although so intensely hot that it made Bertha feel as if she were passing through a furnace when she drove the children to meeting in the morning. It was not her turn to go, really, but Tom was going to Rownton the next day, and he might even have to go as far as Gilbert Plains if he did not find his new binder waiting for him at the depot, and so, as he was very tired, he had decided in favour of staying with his wife, while Bertha took the children to Pentland Broads to church. Just outside the door of the meeting-house she encountered Eunice, who looked ghastly pale.
“You are not well; what is the matter?” asked Bertha, with quick sympathy, for of all the acquaintances and friends that she had made in the West she loved Eunice Long the best.
“I feel rather bad,” said Eunice, speaking slowly and with a very apparent effort; then she asked abruptly, “Do you believe in visions or dreams?”
“I might if I had them, but I sleep so soundly now that I can’t get in time for anything of the sort,” Bertha answered, with a laugh, as her mind went back to the old days when sleep was often a terror of weird dreams.
“Neither do I, as a rule, and that is why I am disposed to think that it was a warning from Heaven that was sent to me last night,” said Eunice, with a little gasping breath. “Oh, Bertha, I dreamed that the wheat was all destroyed!”
A cold chill of apprehension crept over Bertha. Had they not, all of them, been living at a terrible rate of tension for the last six weeks or so? She thought of Grace, and the wistful looks the invalid cast out over the plains of waving grain, and of the tension on the face of Tom, which grew more strained with every day that passed; and again the old impatience seized her. Why did these men sow all their ground with wheat and nothing but wheat? Suppose something dreadful happened to the crop before it could be harvested. There had very nearly been disaster last year, and this year it was hotter still; there had been no rain for weeks, and oh, what an awful thing it would be if something happened now when harvest was so near! But, after all, there was no sense in being frightened out of one’s senses by a dream, so she rallied her courage and said cheerfully, “You are out of sorts this morning, dear, or you would not be so scared by a simple dream. Have a sleep this afternoon, if you can, and then you will feel better.”
Eunice shook her head, and her lips took a straighter curve, betraying the emotion she was so carefully keeping down. “It was midnight when my dream woke me, and so sure am I that it was sent as a warning, that I have not slept since—no, nor have I tasted food.”
“But surely that was a mistake, dear,” said Bertha, her tone reproachful now; for how could a person who had taken no breakfast keep an evenly balanced mind?
“I could not sleep nor eat for thinking how they would suffer, all these poor people here,” and the little postmistress moved her hand towards the groups of people who were passing into the church. “Do you realize it, Bertha? If the crop failed now, every one of these comfortable men and women would be ruined, just ruined!” and Eunice began to sob with hysterical violence.
Bertha acted promptly then. Asking Mrs. Smith to look after the children until she herself could get back, she bundled Eunice back home with more haste than ceremony, and insisted on putting her to bed.
“You are ill and worn out,” she said, with kindly severity. “To-morrow you will feel better, and then you will say that you were wrong to be so faithless. Can you not believe that if God permitted a disaster like the ruin of the wheat crop to fall on the district, He would give men strength to bear the trial—yes, and the women too?”
“He might do, and yet, why should He?” said Eunice, looking at Bertha with a strange intensity of expression. “Have you ever reflected that if the Almighty gives brains and judgment to the sons of men, He expects them to use these things?”
“Of course, or why should they be given?” queried Bertha.
“Very well. Then, to apply the theory to practice, every man who farms in this township knows that while wheat is by far the most paying crop, it is also more liable to disaster than many others, and yet in ten thousand acres of land in this district there is only of about a bare three hundred acres, that are not sown with wheat. So if disaster comes, men must know that they have only their own unwisdom to thank for their ruin.”
“Go to sleep now and leave it,” said Bertha soothingly. “After all, there is no sense in meeting trouble halfway, and if we get through safely this time, you shall go round the country next winter preaching a crusade in favour of mixed farming.”
“I don’t think that I can sleep, but it is good to lie still,” replied Eunice, who looked fearfully exhausted as if from severe mental struggle. Then she lay back on her pillow and closed her eyes. Bertha watched by her for a little while, then finding that she was quiet, she stole away and hurried off to church; for she was not at all sure that the twins and Molly would behave with any sort of propriety if left to their own devices.
But she was haunted by a dread and apprehension which effectually banished her Sunday peace, and she was more thankful than she could express when the service came to an end and the congregation poured out into the sunshine once more.
It was hotter than ever. The sun, like a ball of fire, scorched down from a sky that was like brass. There was something in the day now that was overpowering. People spoke of the likelihood of a storm, and Bertha hurried to start on the long drive back to Duck Flats; for what could she do with her wagon load of little ones if a storm were to come up suddenly?
The journey home was a painful drag. The horse streamed with sweat, and could hardly make a pace that was better than a walk, while she and the children were bathed in perspiration. Noll lay at the bottom of the wagon crying in a dreary fashion for the most of the journey, while the twins sat beside him fanning him vigorously with the broad-leaved weeds that grew at the soft spot, which was just halfway between Pentland Broads and Duck Flats. But Dicky and Molly took turns at holding an umbrella over the head of Bertha, which would keep wobbling into her face or catching in the trimmings of her hat. Tom was at the paddock gate, anxiously on the lookout for them.
“I am more glad than I can say to see you safe home again, Bertha. I’ve been downright worried about you, for there is weather coming,” he said, and there was a sound of endurance in his tone which made that ominous chill come over her again.
“They said when we came out of church that it looked like a storm, and so I got away as quickly as I could; but it has been so hot that we could hardly get along at all,” she replied.
“It will be a storm of the very worst description, I am afraid. Look out there,” said Tom, pointing back by the way she had come.
Bertha turned to look, and saw the clouds gathering in billows of blackness.
“How fast it is coming!” she exclaimed, thankful indeed that her journey was over.
“Yes, and when they come up from that quarter, we mostly find that they are about as bad as they can be,” he said briefly.
When the house was reached, the children were taken out of the wagon and hurried indoors, but Bertha stood watching in a fascination of fear the gathering blackness which was spreading so rapidly over the sky. There was no thunder yet, the heat seemed to grow more intense every minute, and from the unclouded part of the sky the sun poured down with a lurid glow which made one think of fire.
“Here it comes; get indoors, Bertha!” cried Tom sharply. But he was not quite quick enough, for before Bertha could turn and run, a blast of wind took her, which whirled her round and round, taking her breath and battering the sense out of her.
She was conscious that Tom seized her by the arm and dragged her inside the house; but if it had not been for his timely grip of her, she must have been whirled away on that terrible blast, for she had no strength to stand against it.
Bruised and battered to an incredible soreness from that moment of conflict with the tempest wind, Bertha crept across the floor to the side of Grace, and, gathering the terrified children in her arms, cowered there in shrinking dread. Doors and windows were rattling and banging. She was aghast at the riot all around her. Then there was a sudden crash as a whirling something dashed against the window and stove it inwards, the glass flying in a shower over the heads of the children and herself. Even Grace was struck on the face by a flying fragment, which cut her cheek, making it bleed.
“Come and help, Bertha, come quick!” shouted Tom, who was trying vainly to barricade the broken window.
She sprang up to his assistance, and then was suddenly beaten back by what seemed a solid blast of icy cold. At first she was almost choked, for it had come full in her face, taking her breath and her strength too. But the next moment she had rallied her forces, and was struggling across the room to help him turn the big table up against the window, which had been blown in as if driven with a battering ram.
“Is it rain?” she gasped, marvelling that drops of water could be so cold and cut like knives.
“No, it is hail,” he answered, in the wrung tone of one who realizes that the very worst has happened that by any possibility could happen.
Then the full force of the disaster made itself clear to Bertha, as she stood beside Tom, helping to keep the table steady against the broken window. Speech was not possible now, for no shouting could have pierced the noise of the tempest. Even the crashing of the thunder came to their ears only as a distant, far-away sound, for the roar of the hail filled all space, and it was the most terrible sound that she had ever heard. The lightning flashed in and out, but no one heeded it, for a greater force than the swift darting flashes was abroad, and the terror of it was too dreadful to be borne.
The children gathered closer and closer to their mother, and if they cried with fear, neither Tom nor Bertha could hear, nor could they leave their post for a single moment; for if once the tornado wind got into the room, the whole house might be wrecked. So they stuck at their post, and it seemed to Bertha that she had been holding on with her whole force to that table, pressing it against the aperture of the broken window, when the voice of Tom reached her as from a great distance:
“You can leave it now, Bertha; I think the hail is over.”
How quiet he was! Bertha drew a sharp breath, and was tempted for a moment to think that it had all been a horrible nightmare. But it was only for a moment, and then the table was lifted down and all the hideous ruin was revealed. The sun was shining again beyond the storm, and where the waving stretches of golden wheat had been, was now a seared and twisted desolation.
“ ‘The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away!’ ” said Tom hoarsely.
And the voice of Grace added softly: “ ‘Blessed be the name of the Lord!’ ”